On Civilization, Power, and Knowledge

On Civilization, Power, and Knowledge PDF Author: Norbert Elias
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226204314
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
Norbert Elias has been described as among the great sociologists of the 20th century. A collection of his most important writings, this book sets out Elias' thinking during the course of his long career, with a discussion of how his work relates to that of other sociologists.

On Civilization, Power, and Knowledge

On Civilization, Power, and Knowledge PDF Author: Norbert Elias
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226204314
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
Norbert Elias has been described as among the great sociologists of the 20th century. A collection of his most important writings, this book sets out Elias' thinking during the course of his long career, with a discussion of how his work relates to that of other sociologists.

Power/Knowledge

Power/Knowledge PDF Author: Michel Foucault
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 039473954X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
Michel Foucault has become famous for a series of books that have permanently altered our understanding of many institutions of Western society. He analyzed mental institutions in the remarkable Madness and Civilization; hospitals in The Birth of the Clinic; prisons in Discipline and Punish; and schools and families in The History of Sexuality. But the general reader as well as the specialist is apt to miss the consistent purposes that lay behind these difficult individual studies, thus losing sight of the broad social vision and political aims that unified them. Now, in this superb set of essays and interviews, Foucault has provided a much-needed guide to Foucault. These pieces, ranging over the entire spectrum of his concerns, enabled Foucault, in his most intimate and accessible voice, to interpret the conclusions of his research in each area and to demonstrate the contribution of each to the magnificent -- and terrifying -- portrait of society that he was patiently compiling. For, as Foucault shows, what he was always describing was the nature of power in society; not the conventional treatment of power that concentrates on powerful individuals and repressive institutions, but the much more pervasive and insidious mechanisms by which power "reaches into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes and everyday lives" Foucault's investigations of prisons, schools, barracks, hospitals, factories, cities, lodgings, families, and other organized forms of social life are each a segment of one of the most astonishing intellectual enterprises of all time -- and, as this book proves, one which possesses profound implications for understanding the social control of our bodies and our minds.

The Knowledge

The Knowledge PDF Author: Lewis Dartnell
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143127047
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
How would you go about rebuilding a technological society from scratch? If our technological society collapsed tomorrow what would be the one book you would want to press into the hands of the postapocalyptic survivors? What crucial knowledge would they need to survive in the immediate aftermath and to rebuild civilization as quickly as possible? Human knowledge is collective, distributed across the population. It has built on itself for centuries, becoming vast and increasingly specialized. Most of us are ignorant about the fundamental principles of the civilization that supports us, happily utilizing the latest—or even the most basic—technology without having the slightest idea of why it works or how it came to be. If you had to go back to absolute basics, like some sort of postcataclysmic Robinson Crusoe, would you know how to re-create an internal combustion engine, put together a microscope, get metals out of rock, or even how to produce food for yourself? Lewis Dartnell proposes that the key to preserving civilization in an apocalyptic scenario is to provide a quickstart guide, adapted to cataclysmic circumstances. The Knowledge describes many of the modern technologies we employ, but first it explains the fundamentals upon which they are built. Every piece of technology rests on an enormous support network of other technologies, all interlinked and mutually dependent. You can’t hope to build a radio, for example, without understanding how to acquire the raw materials it requires, as well as generate the electricity needed to run it. But Dartnell doesn’t just provide specific information for starting over; he also reveals the greatest invention of them all—the phenomenal knowledge-generating machine that is the scientific method itself. The Knowledge is a brilliantly original guide to the fundamentals of science and how it built our modern world.

Knowledge and Power

Knowledge and Power PDF Author: George Gilder
Publisher: Regnery Publishing
ISBN: 1621570274
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
Ronald Reagan’s most-quoted living author—George Gilder—is back with an all-new paradigm-shifting theory of capitalism that will upturn conventional wisdom, just when our economy desperately needs a new direction. America’s struggling economy needs a better philosophy than the college student's lament: "I can't be out of money, I still have checks in my checkbook!" We’ve tried a government spending spree, and we’ve learned it doesn’t work. Now is the time to rededicate our country to the pursuit of free market capitalism, before we’re buried under a mound of debt and unfunded entitlements. But how do we navigate between government spending that's too big to sustain and financial institutions that are "too big to fail?" In Knowledge and Power, George Gilder proposes a bold new theory on how capitalism produces wealth and how our economy can regain its vitality and its growth. Gilder breaks away from the supply-side model of economics to present a new economic paradigm: the epic conflict between the knowledge of entrepreneurs on one side, and the blunt power of government on the other. The knowledge of entrepreneurs, and their freedom to share and use that knowledge, are the sparks that light up the economy and set its gears in motion. The power of government to regulate, stifle, manipulate, subsidize or suppress knowledge and ideas is the inertia that slows those gears down, or keeps them from turning at all. One of the twentieth century’s defining economic minds has returned with a new philosophy to carry us into the twenty-first. Knowledge and Power is a must-read for fiscal conservatives, business owners, CEOs, investors, and anyone interested in propelling America’s economy to future success.

PROGRESSION OF KNOWLEDGE IN WESTERN CIVILIZATION

PROGRESSION OF KNOWLEDGE IN WESTERN CIVILIZATION PDF Author: Mirza Iqbal Ashraf
Publisher: Archway Publishing
ISBN: 1665749598
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
The word civilization, which is a relatively recent application from eighteenth-century, when came into currency, is generally invoked more with a rhetorical flourish than argued in philosophical perspective. But history of knowledge considers its true object is the study of human mind, to know what his mind has believed, thought, and felt in diverse periods of its progression in the history of a civilization. Mirza Iqbal Ashraf, as a research scholar of Islamic and Western philosophies identifying the “Four Explosions of Knowledge” from ancient to modern time of history of knowledge, offers the readers in Progression of Knowledge in the Western Civilization uniquely within philosophical perspective that the Western world is a civilization of knowledge. This also means, whereas it is important to understand today’s world so that we can deal with our contemporary period’s civilizational challenges, it will be incomplete if we do not assess that modernity is born from the progress made by the knowledge of the past thinkers. But knowledge does not arrive fully formed; it requires many minds, specifically those minds which are free from the civilization’s religious, cultural, and geophysical trappings. In the Progression of Knowledge in Western Civilization, Ashraf has expounded that even in modern time, no knowledge is complete without visiting the knowledge of the past, especially of the great thinkers of Classical Greek period, the scholars at the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, and the famous centers of knowledge at Cairo, and Cordova of Arab Spain. In this book, the author has discussed when some other regions of the world might be familiar with philosophy and science, in one way or another, why such a treasure of knowledge emerged particularly in Greece that became a foundation of voluminous work of literature in almost every field of knowledge, and how it amazingly became the foundation of the history of progression of knowledge in the Western civilization, which is timelessly flourishing until today.

Knowledge and Power

Knowledge and Power PDF Author: William E. Burns
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781315203294
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Knowledge and Power presents and explores science not as something specifically for scientists, but as an integral part of human civilization, and traces the development of science through different historical settings from the Middle Ages through to the Cold War. Five case studies are examined within this book: the creation of modern science by Muslims, Christians and Jews in the medieval Mediterranean; the global science of the Jesuit order in the early modern world; the relationship between "modernization" and "westernization" in Russia and Japan from the late seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century; the role of science in the European colonization of Africa; and the rivalry in "big science" between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Each chapter includes original documents to further the reader's understanding, and this second edition has been enhanced with a selection of new images and a new chapter on Big Science and the Superpowers during the Cold War. Since the Middle Ages, people have been working in many civilizations and cultures to advance knowledge of, and power over, the natural world. Through a combination of narrative and primary sources, Knowledge and Power provides students with an understanding of how different cultures throughout time and across the globe approached science. It is ideal for students of world history and the history of science.

The Science of Empire

The Science of Empire PDF Author: Zaheer Baber
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791429204
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
Investigates the complex social processes involved in the introduction and institutionalization of Western science in colonial India.

The Culture and Power of Knowledge

The Culture and Power of Knowledge PDF Author: Nico Stehr
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110847760
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
The Culture and Power of Knowledg.

Energy and Civilization

Energy and Civilization PDF Author: Vaclav Smil
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262536161
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 564

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Book Description
A comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society throughout history, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel–driven civilization. "I wait for new Smil books the way some people wait for the next 'Star Wars' movie. In his latest book, Energy and Civilization: A History, he goes deep and broad to explain how innovations in humans' ability to turn energy into heat, light, and motion have been a driving force behind our cultural and economic progress over the past 10,000 years. —Bill Gates, Gates Notes, Best Books of the Year Energy is the only universal currency; it is necessary for getting anything done. The conversion of energy on Earth ranges from terra-forming forces of plate tectonics to cumulative erosive effects of raindrops. Life on Earth depends on the photosynthetic conversion of solar energy into plant biomass. Humans have come to rely on many more energy flows—ranging from fossil fuels to photovoltaic generation of electricity—for their civilized existence. In this monumental history, Vaclav Smil provides a comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel–driven civilization. Humans are the only species that can systematically harness energies outside their bodies, using the power of their intellect and an enormous variety of artifacts—from the simplest tools to internal combustion engines and nuclear reactors. The epochal transition to fossil fuels affected everything: agriculture, industry, transportation, weapons, communication, economics, urbanization, quality of life, politics, and the environment. Smil describes humanity's energy eras in panoramic and interdisciplinary fashion, offering readers a magisterial overview. This book is an extensively updated and expanded version of Smil's Energy in World History (1994). Smil has incorporated an enormous amount of new material, reflecting the dramatic developments in energy studies over the last two decades and his own research over that time.

Knowledge and Power

Knowledge and Power PDF Author: William Burns
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315508710
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
Knowledge and Power shows how science has developed in different historical settings by focusing on four episodes in the history of world science from the Middle Ages to the mid-twentieth century. The title of this book comes from a famous saying by the English Renaissance philosopher Francis Bacon: "Knowledge is Power." Through a combination of narrative and primary sources, author William Burns explores the following topics in order to provide students with an understanding of how different cultures throughout time and across the globe approached science: Science in the Medieval Mediterranean, The Jesuits and World Science ca. 1540-1773, Science in Russia and Japan ca. 1684-1860s, and Africa in the Age of Imperialism and Nationalism ca. 1860-1960.