Author: Andrei Soldatov
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1586489232
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Book Description
In The New Nobility, two courageous Russian investigative journalists open up the closed and murky world of the Russian Federal Security Service. While Vladimir Putin has been president and prime minister of Russia, the Kremlin has deployed the security services to intimidate the political opposition, reassert the power of the state, and carry out assassinations overseas. At the same time, its agents and spies were put beyond public accountability and blessed with the prestige, benefits, and legitimacy lost since the Soviet collapse. The security services have played a central -- and often mysterious -- role at key turning points in Russia during these tumultuous years: from the Moscow apartment house bombings and theater siege, to the war in Chechnya and the Beslan massacre. The security services are not all-powerful; they have made clumsy and sometimes catastrophic blunders. But what is clear is that after the chaotic 1990s, when they were sidelined, they have made a remarkable return to power, abetted by their most famous alumnus, Putin.
The New Nobility
Author: Andrei Soldatov
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1586489232
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Book Description
In The New Nobility, two courageous Russian investigative journalists open up the closed and murky world of the Russian Federal Security Service. While Vladimir Putin has been president and prime minister of Russia, the Kremlin has deployed the security services to intimidate the political opposition, reassert the power of the state, and carry out assassinations overseas. At the same time, its agents and spies were put beyond public accountability and blessed with the prestige, benefits, and legitimacy lost since the Soviet collapse. The security services have played a central -- and often mysterious -- role at key turning points in Russia during these tumultuous years: from the Moscow apartment house bombings and theater siege, to the war in Chechnya and the Beslan massacre. The security services are not all-powerful; they have made clumsy and sometimes catastrophic blunders. But what is clear is that after the chaotic 1990s, when they were sidelined, they have made a remarkable return to power, abetted by their most famous alumnus, Putin.
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1586489232
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Book Description
In The New Nobility, two courageous Russian investigative journalists open up the closed and murky world of the Russian Federal Security Service. While Vladimir Putin has been president and prime minister of Russia, the Kremlin has deployed the security services to intimidate the political opposition, reassert the power of the state, and carry out assassinations overseas. At the same time, its agents and spies were put beyond public accountability and blessed with the prestige, benefits, and legitimacy lost since the Soviet collapse. The security services have played a central -- and often mysterious -- role at key turning points in Russia during these tumultuous years: from the Moscow apartment house bombings and theater siege, to the war in Chechnya and the Beslan massacre. The security services are not all-powerful; they have made clumsy and sometimes catastrophic blunders. But what is clear is that after the chaotic 1990s, when they were sidelined, they have made a remarkable return to power, abetted by their most famous alumnus, Putin.
Nobility Lost
Author: Christian Ayne Crouch
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801470390
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Book Description
Nobility Lost is a cultural history of the Seven Years' War in French-claimed North America, focused on the meanings of wartime violence and the profound impact of the encounter between Canadian, Indian, and French cultures of war and diplomacy. This narrative highlights the relationship between events in France and events in America and frames them dialogically, as the actors themselves experienced them at the time. Christian Ayne Crouch examines how codes of martial valor were enacted and challenged by metropolitan and colonial leaders to consider how those acts affected French-Indian relations, the culture of French military elites, ideas of male valor, and the trajectory of French colonial enterprises afterwards, in the second half of the eighteenth century. At Versailles, the conflict pertaining to the means used to prosecute war in New France would result in political and cultural crises over what constituted legitimate violence in defense of the empire. These arguments helped frame the basis for the formal French cession of its North American claims to the British in the Treaty of Paris of 1763. While the French regular army, the troupes de terre (a late-arriving contingent to the conflict), framed warfare within highly ritualized contexts and performances of royal and personal honor that had evolved in Europe, the troupes de la marine (colonial forces with economic stakes in New France) fought to maintain colonial land and trade. A demographic disadvantage forced marines and Canadian colonial officials to accommodate Indian practices of gift giving and feasting in preparation for battle, adopt irregular methods of violence, and often work in cooperation with allied indigenous peoples, such as Abenakis, Hurons, and Nipissings. Drawing on Native and European perspectives, Crouch shows the period of the Seven Years’ War to be one of decisive transformation for all American communities. Ultimately the augmented strife between metropolitan and colonial elites over the aims and means of warfare, Crouch argues, raised questions about the meaning and cost of empire not just in North America but in the French Atlantic and, later, resonated in France’s approach to empire-building around the globe. The French government examined the cause of the colonial debacle in New France at a corruption trial in Paris (known as l’affaire du Canada), and assigned blame. Only colonial officers were tried, and even those who were acquitted found themselves shut out of participation in new imperial projects in the Caribbean and in the Pacific. By tracing the subsequent global circumnavigation of Louis Antoine de Bougainville, a decorated veteran of the French regulars, 1766–1769, Crouch shows how the lessons of New France were assimilated and new colonial enterprises were constructed based on a heightened jealousy of French honor and a corresponding fear of its loss in engagement with Native enemies and allies.
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801470390
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Book Description
Nobility Lost is a cultural history of the Seven Years' War in French-claimed North America, focused on the meanings of wartime violence and the profound impact of the encounter between Canadian, Indian, and French cultures of war and diplomacy. This narrative highlights the relationship between events in France and events in America and frames them dialogically, as the actors themselves experienced them at the time. Christian Ayne Crouch examines how codes of martial valor were enacted and challenged by metropolitan and colonial leaders to consider how those acts affected French-Indian relations, the culture of French military elites, ideas of male valor, and the trajectory of French colonial enterprises afterwards, in the second half of the eighteenth century. At Versailles, the conflict pertaining to the means used to prosecute war in New France would result in political and cultural crises over what constituted legitimate violence in defense of the empire. These arguments helped frame the basis for the formal French cession of its North American claims to the British in the Treaty of Paris of 1763. While the French regular army, the troupes de terre (a late-arriving contingent to the conflict), framed warfare within highly ritualized contexts and performances of royal and personal honor that had evolved in Europe, the troupes de la marine (colonial forces with economic stakes in New France) fought to maintain colonial land and trade. A demographic disadvantage forced marines and Canadian colonial officials to accommodate Indian practices of gift giving and feasting in preparation for battle, adopt irregular methods of violence, and often work in cooperation with allied indigenous peoples, such as Abenakis, Hurons, and Nipissings. Drawing on Native and European perspectives, Crouch shows the period of the Seven Years’ War to be one of decisive transformation for all American communities. Ultimately the augmented strife between metropolitan and colonial elites over the aims and means of warfare, Crouch argues, raised questions about the meaning and cost of empire not just in North America but in the French Atlantic and, later, resonated in France’s approach to empire-building around the globe. The French government examined the cause of the colonial debacle in New France at a corruption trial in Paris (known as l’affaire du Canada), and assigned blame. Only colonial officers were tried, and even those who were acquitted found themselves shut out of participation in new imperial projects in the Caribbean and in the Pacific. By tracing the subsequent global circumnavigation of Louis Antoine de Bougainville, a decorated veteran of the French regulars, 1766–1769, Crouch shows how the lessons of New France were assimilated and new colonial enterprises were constructed based on a heightened jealousy of French honor and a corresponding fear of its loss in engagement with Native enemies and allies.
Nobility of Spirit
Author: Rob Riemen
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300136900
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 160
Book Description
"Riemen insists that if we hope to move beyond the war on terror and create a life-affirming culture, we must address timeless but neglected questions: What is a good society? Why art? Why culture? What is the responsibility of intellectuals? Why anti-Americanism? Why nihilism? Why the cult of death of fundamentalists? In a series of three essays, the author identifies nobility of spirit in the life and work of Baruch Spinoza and of Thomas Mann; explores the quest for the good society in our own time; and addresses the pursuit of truth and freedom that engaged figures as disparate as Socrates and Leone Ginzburg, a Jewish Italian intellectual murdered by Nazis."--BOOK JACKET.
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300136900
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 160
Book Description
"Riemen insists that if we hope to move beyond the war on terror and create a life-affirming culture, we must address timeless but neglected questions: What is a good society? Why art? Why culture? What is the responsibility of intellectuals? Why anti-Americanism? Why nihilism? Why the cult of death of fundamentalists? In a series of three essays, the author identifies nobility of spirit in the life and work of Baruch Spinoza and of Thomas Mann; explores the quest for the good society in our own time; and addresses the pursuit of truth and freedom that engaged figures as disparate as Socrates and Leone Ginzburg, a Jewish Italian intellectual murdered by Nazis."--BOOK JACKET.
RESTORED
Author: Marilyn Willis, LPCC, NCC
Publisher: Marilyn C F Willis
ISBN: 194981307X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
Restore Your Body, Mind, and Spirit with this Award-Winning Workbook Are you suffering from a heartbreaking loss? In your grief are you experiencing yearning, longing, disbelief, extreme sadness, confusion, numbness, overwhelm, exhaustion, insomnia, anger, inability to focus, agitation, or anxiety? Do you feel you have lost a part of yourself? After working with hundreds of grieving clients over the course of twenty years, Licensed Counselor, Marilyn Willis developed this proven step by step process to help you navigate through a heartbreaking loss to the restoration of your life. This workbook is beneficial for survivors of loss, and those who desire to provide comfort. Discover how to: -Understand what leads to healing through examining resilient survivors -Reestablish order in your heart, mind, and days -Develop resilient building self-care techniques -Clarify and release difficult feelings through guided journaling -Overcome your unique challenges to healing with simple exercises -Smile again at sweet memories as you find space to share about your loved one -Cultivate peace as you apply grief healing rituals -Reflect and gently engage with your new beginning -Create a plan and prepare for grief triggers such as holidays and anniversaries -Discover how to gain meaning from your loss -Rebuild purpose for the days ahead Find restoration for your physical functioning, mental clarity, emotional stability, interest in people and activities, and purpose for your future. Every grief journey starts with a first step. Marilyn Willis took her first step at fifteen years old after her mother died from cancer. Are you ready to take your first step toward restoration? Order your copy today. Available in Kindle and paperback. 🥇GOLD MEDAL WINNER Grief / Hardship Category by Readers Favorite 🥉BRONZE MEDAL WINNER Grieving / Death Dying Category by LivingNow Book Awards ENDORSED by Grief Experts and Community Leaders: ★★★★★ "An excellent resource to rely on over and over as one moves through grief...offers a brilliant framework to assist the mourner in a step by step process to the restoration of body, mind, and spirit." -Susie Kuszmar, LMFT, Creator and Director of nationally awarded FOOTSTEPS Hospital Bereavement program ★★★★★ "Being a mother who lost her son to cancer, and has been through grief counseling and grief groups, this particular grief workbook goes deeper into the pit of emotional and spiritual pain and shines a bright light on the path-way out of that dark place."- Lacene Downing, former Manager of international funeral services company and grief group facilitator ★★★★★ "It brings the grief group experience, that so many in our hospice and community have benefited from, directly to your home and heart." - Mary Wall, RNC, the President of the Board for Kauai Hospice ★★★★★ "I have been touched and educated by this #1 new release on Amazon. I highly recommend this workbook to anyone who has experienced a loss."- Mark Whitacre, Ph.D., Executive Director Coca-Cola Consolidated, Inc. ★★★★★ "What a masterpiece... thorough, practical, tender, and personal! There is so much honoring of the deceased in the healing process. This could be used privately, but also it would be powerful to walk through with either a counselor or small group."- Leah Green, Navigators Marriage Getaway Co-Director
Publisher: Marilyn C F Willis
ISBN: 194981307X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
Restore Your Body, Mind, and Spirit with this Award-Winning Workbook Are you suffering from a heartbreaking loss? In your grief are you experiencing yearning, longing, disbelief, extreme sadness, confusion, numbness, overwhelm, exhaustion, insomnia, anger, inability to focus, agitation, or anxiety? Do you feel you have lost a part of yourself? After working with hundreds of grieving clients over the course of twenty years, Licensed Counselor, Marilyn Willis developed this proven step by step process to help you navigate through a heartbreaking loss to the restoration of your life. This workbook is beneficial for survivors of loss, and those who desire to provide comfort. Discover how to: -Understand what leads to healing through examining resilient survivors -Reestablish order in your heart, mind, and days -Develop resilient building self-care techniques -Clarify and release difficult feelings through guided journaling -Overcome your unique challenges to healing with simple exercises -Smile again at sweet memories as you find space to share about your loved one -Cultivate peace as you apply grief healing rituals -Reflect and gently engage with your new beginning -Create a plan and prepare for grief triggers such as holidays and anniversaries -Discover how to gain meaning from your loss -Rebuild purpose for the days ahead Find restoration for your physical functioning, mental clarity, emotional stability, interest in people and activities, and purpose for your future. Every grief journey starts with a first step. Marilyn Willis took her first step at fifteen years old after her mother died from cancer. Are you ready to take your first step toward restoration? Order your copy today. Available in Kindle and paperback. 🥇GOLD MEDAL WINNER Grief / Hardship Category by Readers Favorite 🥉BRONZE MEDAL WINNER Grieving / Death Dying Category by LivingNow Book Awards ENDORSED by Grief Experts and Community Leaders: ★★★★★ "An excellent resource to rely on over and over as one moves through grief...offers a brilliant framework to assist the mourner in a step by step process to the restoration of body, mind, and spirit." -Susie Kuszmar, LMFT, Creator and Director of nationally awarded FOOTSTEPS Hospital Bereavement program ★★★★★ "Being a mother who lost her son to cancer, and has been through grief counseling and grief groups, this particular grief workbook goes deeper into the pit of emotional and spiritual pain and shines a bright light on the path-way out of that dark place."- Lacene Downing, former Manager of international funeral services company and grief group facilitator ★★★★★ "It brings the grief group experience, that so many in our hospice and community have benefited from, directly to your home and heart." - Mary Wall, RNC, the President of the Board for Kauai Hospice ★★★★★ "I have been touched and educated by this #1 new release on Amazon. I highly recommend this workbook to anyone who has experienced a loss."- Mark Whitacre, Ph.D., Executive Director Coca-Cola Consolidated, Inc. ★★★★★ "What a masterpiece... thorough, practical, tender, and personal! There is so much honoring of the deceased in the healing process. This could be used privately, but also it would be powerful to walk through with either a counselor or small group."- Leah Green, Navigators Marriage Getaway Co-Director
Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites in the Allocutions of Pius XII
Author: Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 588
Book Description
Explores the role of the nobility and analogous traditional elites in contemporary society.
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 588
Book Description
Explores the role of the nobility and analogous traditional elites in contemporary society.
The Noble Renaissance
Author: Carrie Lloyd
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
ISBN: 0785231757
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 208
Book Description
Discover the Seven Virtues of Nobility Do you ever wonder who you are, why you are here, and what really makes life worth living? Or perhaps something is holding you back from believing you could be a person who can make a real difference in the world. In The Noble Renaissance, author and life coach Carrie Lloyd challenges you to be done with pretending, be done with striving, be done with religion—and develop a noble character that truly reflects the person of Christ. She unpacks seven virtues that will inspire you to come back to basic truths and embrace their power to change culture, promote justice, and steward revival. With humor-filled personal stories and in-depth research, Carrie helps readers to more effectively reflect the abundance, the authority, and the grace of the gospel.
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
ISBN: 0785231757
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 208
Book Description
Discover the Seven Virtues of Nobility Do you ever wonder who you are, why you are here, and what really makes life worth living? Or perhaps something is holding you back from believing you could be a person who can make a real difference in the world. In The Noble Renaissance, author and life coach Carrie Lloyd challenges you to be done with pretending, be done with striving, be done with religion—and develop a noble character that truly reflects the person of Christ. She unpacks seven virtues that will inspire you to come back to basic truths and embrace their power to change culture, promote justice, and steward revival. With humor-filled personal stories and in-depth research, Carrie helps readers to more effectively reflect the abundance, the authority, and the grace of the gospel.
Ecological Restoration
Author: Andre F. Clewell
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1610910648
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 230
Book Description
The field of ecological restoration is a rapidly growing discipline that encompasses a wide range of activities and brings together practitioners and theoreticians from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives, ranging from volunteer backyard restorationists to highly trained academic scientists and professional consultants. Ecological Restoration offers for the first time a unified vision of ecological restoration as a field of study, one that clearly states the discipline’s precepts and emphasizes issues of importance to those involved at all levels. In a lively, personal fashion, the authors discuss scientific and practical aspects of the field as well as the human needs and values that motivate practitioners. The book: -identifies fundamental concepts upon which restoration is based -considers the principles of restoration practice -explores the diverse values that are fulfilled with the restoration of ecosystems -reviews the structure of restoration practice, including the various contexts for restoration work, the professional development of its practitioners, and the relationships of restoration with allied fields and activities A unique feature of the book is the inclusion of eight “virtual field trips,” short photo essays of project sites around the world that illustrate various points made in the book and are “led” by those who were intimately involved with the project described. Throughout, ecological restoration is conceived as a holistic endeavor, one that addresses issues of ecological degradation, biodiversity loss, and sustainability science simultaneously, and draws upon cultural resources and local skills and knowledge in restoration work.
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1610910648
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 230
Book Description
The field of ecological restoration is a rapidly growing discipline that encompasses a wide range of activities and brings together practitioners and theoreticians from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives, ranging from volunteer backyard restorationists to highly trained academic scientists and professional consultants. Ecological Restoration offers for the first time a unified vision of ecological restoration as a field of study, one that clearly states the discipline’s precepts and emphasizes issues of importance to those involved at all levels. In a lively, personal fashion, the authors discuss scientific and practical aspects of the field as well as the human needs and values that motivate practitioners. The book: -identifies fundamental concepts upon which restoration is based -considers the principles of restoration practice -explores the diverse values that are fulfilled with the restoration of ecosystems -reviews the structure of restoration practice, including the various contexts for restoration work, the professional development of its practitioners, and the relationships of restoration with allied fields and activities A unique feature of the book is the inclusion of eight “virtual field trips,” short photo essays of project sites around the world that illustrate various points made in the book and are “led” by those who were intimately involved with the project described. Throughout, ecological restoration is conceived as a holistic endeavor, one that addresses issues of ecological degradation, biodiversity loss, and sustainability science simultaneously, and draws upon cultural resources and local skills and knowledge in restoration work.
The Tudor Nobility
Author: G. W. Bernard
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719036255
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328
Book Description
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719036255
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328
Book Description
Nobility and Business in History
Author: Silvia A. Conca Messina
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000858626
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 372
Book Description
This book reconsiders the role of nobility as influential economic players and provides new insights into the business activities of noblemen in Europe and Asia during the nineteenth century thus offering up opportunities for comparison in an age of economic expansion and globalisation. What was the contribution of the nobility to the economy? Can we consider noblemen to have been endowed with an entrepreneurial spirit? Research shows that far from being passive, throughout the century the European nobility were widely involved in business, carried on innovations, refined management strategies, and diversified their investments from agriculture to transport, industry and finance. Both in Europe and Asia businesses were embedded in social networks and personal relationships. In modern Japan after the Meiji Restoration - the unique case in Asia where a Western-style nobility was created - business, trust, personal connections and aristocratic marriages were intertwined and Japanese noblemen, especially the richer ones, acted as promoters of industrialisation, even though their role was certainly limited in time and space. This volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers in the fields of economics, management, political science, sociology, public management and history. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Business History.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000858626
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 372
Book Description
This book reconsiders the role of nobility as influential economic players and provides new insights into the business activities of noblemen in Europe and Asia during the nineteenth century thus offering up opportunities for comparison in an age of economic expansion and globalisation. What was the contribution of the nobility to the economy? Can we consider noblemen to have been endowed with an entrepreneurial spirit? Research shows that far from being passive, throughout the century the European nobility were widely involved in business, carried on innovations, refined management strategies, and diversified their investments from agriculture to transport, industry and finance. Both in Europe and Asia businesses were embedded in social networks and personal relationships. In modern Japan after the Meiji Restoration - the unique case in Asia where a Western-style nobility was created - business, trust, personal connections and aristocratic marriages were intertwined and Japanese noblemen, especially the richer ones, acted as promoters of industrialisation, even though their role was certainly limited in time and space. This volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers in the fields of economics, management, political science, sociology, public management and history. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Business History.
The Religion of Technology
Author: David F. Noble
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0307828530
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 341
Book Description
Arguing against the widely held belief that technology and religion are at war with each other, David F. Noble's groundbreaking book reveals the religious roots and spirit of Western technology. It links the technological enthusiasms of the present day with the ancient and enduring Christian expectation of recovering humankind's lost divinity. Covering a period of a thousand years, Noble traces the evolution of the Western idea of technological development from the ninth century, when the useful arts became connected to the concept of redemption, up to the twentieth, when humans began to exercise God-like knowledge and powers. Noble describes how technological advance accelerated at the very point when it was invested with spiritual significance. By examining the imaginings of monks, explorers, magi, scientists, Freemasons, and engineers, this historical account brings to light an other-worldly inspiration behind the apparently worldly endeavors by which we habitually define Western civilization. Thus we see that Isaac Newton devoted his lifetime to the interpretation of prophecy. Joseph Priestley was the discoverer of oxygen and a founder of Unitarianism. Freemasons were early advocates of industrialization and the fathers of the engineering profession. Wernher von Braun saw spaceflight as a millenarian new beginning for humankind. The narrative moves into our own time through the technological enterprises of the last half of the twentieth century: nuclear weapons, manned space exploration, Artificial Intelligence, and genetic engineering. Here the book suggests that the convergence of technology and religion has outlived its usefulness, that though it once contributed to human well-being, it has now become a threat to our survival. Viewed at the dawn of the new millennium, the technological means upon which we have come to rely for the preservation and enlargement of our lives betray an increasing impatience with life and a disdainful disregard for mortal needs. David F. Noble thus contends that we must collectively strive to disabuse ourselves of the inherited religion of technology and begin rigorously to re-examine our enchantment with unregulated technological advance.
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0307828530
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 341
Book Description
Arguing against the widely held belief that technology and religion are at war with each other, David F. Noble's groundbreaking book reveals the religious roots and spirit of Western technology. It links the technological enthusiasms of the present day with the ancient and enduring Christian expectation of recovering humankind's lost divinity. Covering a period of a thousand years, Noble traces the evolution of the Western idea of technological development from the ninth century, when the useful arts became connected to the concept of redemption, up to the twentieth, when humans began to exercise God-like knowledge and powers. Noble describes how technological advance accelerated at the very point when it was invested with spiritual significance. By examining the imaginings of monks, explorers, magi, scientists, Freemasons, and engineers, this historical account brings to light an other-worldly inspiration behind the apparently worldly endeavors by which we habitually define Western civilization. Thus we see that Isaac Newton devoted his lifetime to the interpretation of prophecy. Joseph Priestley was the discoverer of oxygen and a founder of Unitarianism. Freemasons were early advocates of industrialization and the fathers of the engineering profession. Wernher von Braun saw spaceflight as a millenarian new beginning for humankind. The narrative moves into our own time through the technological enterprises of the last half of the twentieth century: nuclear weapons, manned space exploration, Artificial Intelligence, and genetic engineering. Here the book suggests that the convergence of technology and religion has outlived its usefulness, that though it once contributed to human well-being, it has now become a threat to our survival. Viewed at the dawn of the new millennium, the technological means upon which we have come to rely for the preservation and enlargement of our lives betray an increasing impatience with life and a disdainful disregard for mortal needs. David F. Noble thus contends that we must collectively strive to disabuse ourselves of the inherited religion of technology and begin rigorously to re-examine our enchantment with unregulated technological advance.