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Author: Mackenzie Cooley
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226822281
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 370
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Book Description
"The Renaissance is celebrated for the belief that individuals could fashion themselves to greatness, but, as Mackenzie Cooley uncovers in this timely book, there is a dark parallel to this fãeted era. Those same men and women who were offering profound advancements in our understanding of the human condition-and laying the foundations of the Scientific Revolution-were also obsessed with controlling that condition and the wider natural world. Cooley traces how the Renaissance world, from the Mediterranean to Mexico City to the high mountains of the Andes, was marked by a lingering fascination with breeding. While one strand of the Renaissance celebrated a liberal view of human potential, another limited it by biology, reducing man to beast and prince to stud. 'Race,' Cooley explains, first referred to animal stock honed through breeding. And, to those who invented the concept, race was not inflexible but the fragile result of reproductive work. She follows these early modern breeders' work with Italian horses, Mesoamerican dogs, Andean camelids, and other creatures, discussing it in tandem with natural philosophers' efforts to make sense of inheritance, modification, and the new concept of race. In doing so, she shows how, as the Spanish empire expanded, the concept of race moved from nonhuman to human animals"
Author: Mackenzie Cooley
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226822281
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 370
Get Book Here
Book Description
"The Renaissance is celebrated for the belief that individuals could fashion themselves to greatness, but, as Mackenzie Cooley uncovers in this timely book, there is a dark parallel to this fãeted era. Those same men and women who were offering profound advancements in our understanding of the human condition-and laying the foundations of the Scientific Revolution-were also obsessed with controlling that condition and the wider natural world. Cooley traces how the Renaissance world, from the Mediterranean to Mexico City to the high mountains of the Andes, was marked by a lingering fascination with breeding. While one strand of the Renaissance celebrated a liberal view of human potential, another limited it by biology, reducing man to beast and prince to stud. 'Race,' Cooley explains, first referred to animal stock honed through breeding. And, to those who invented the concept, race was not inflexible but the fragile result of reproductive work. She follows these early modern breeders' work with Italian horses, Mesoamerican dogs, Andean camelids, and other creatures, discussing it in tandem with natural philosophers' efforts to make sense of inheritance, modification, and the new concept of race. In doing so, she shows how, as the Spanish empire expanded, the concept of race moved from nonhuman to human animals"
Author: Sheila Rothman
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307767132
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 322
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Book Description
What does it mean to live in a time when medical science can not only cure the human body but also reshape it? How should we as individuals and as a society respond to new drugs and genetic technologies? Sheila and David Rothman address these questions with a singular blend of history and analysis, taking us behind the scenes to explain how scientific research, medical practice, drug company policies, and a quest for peak performance combine to exaggerate potential benefits and minimize risks. They present a fascinating and factual story from the rise of estrogen and testosterone use in the 1920s and 1930s to the frenzy around liposuction and growth hormone to the latest research into the genetics of aging. The Rothmans reveal what happens when physicians view patients’ unhappiness and dissatisfaction with their bodies—short stature, thunder thighs, aging—as though they were diseases to be treated. The Pursuit of Perfection takes us from the early days of endocrinology (the belief that you are your hormones) to today’s frontier of genetic enhancements (the idea that you are your genes). It lays bare the always complicated and sometimes compromised positions of science, medicine, and commerce. This is the book to read before signing on for the latest medical fix.
Author: Philip C. Almond
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521090841
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 252
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Book Description
This book offers a fascinating account of the central myth of Western culture - the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Philip Almond examines the way in which the gaps, hints and illusions within this biblical story were filled out in seventeenth-century English thought. At this time, the Bible formed a fundamental basis for studies in all subjects, and influenced greatly the way that people understood the world. Drawing extensively on primary sources he covers subjects as diverse as theology, history, philosophy, botany, language, anthropology, geology, vegetarianism, and women. He demonstrates the way in which the story of Adam and Eve was the fulcrum around which moved lively discussions on topics such as the place and nature of Paradise, the date of creation, the nature of Adamic language, the origins of the American Indians, agrarian communism, and the necessity and meaning of love, labour and marriage.
Author: Michael J Sandel
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674043065
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 177
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Book Description
Breakthroughs in genetics present us with a promise and a predicament. The promise is that we will soon be able to treat and prevent a host of debilitating diseases. The predicament is that our newfound genetic knowledge may enable us to manipulate our nature—to enhance our genetic traits and those of our children. Although most people find at least some forms of genetic engineering disquieting, it is not easy to articulate why. What is wrong with re-engineering our nature? The Case against Perfection explores these and other moral quandaries connected with the quest to perfect ourselves and our children. Michael Sandel argues that the pursuit of perfection is flawed for reasons that go beyond safety and fairness. The drive to enhance human nature through genetic technologies is objectionable because it represents a bid for mastery and dominion that fails to appreciate the gifted character of human powers and achievements. Carrying us beyond familiar terms of political discourse, this book contends that the genetic revolution will change the way philosophers discuss ethics and will force spiritual questions back onto the political agenda. In order to grapple with the ethics of enhancement, we need to confront questions largely lost from view in the modern world. Since these questions verge on theology, modern philosophers and political theorists tend to shrink from them. But our new powers of biotechnology make these questions unavoidable. Addressing them is the task of this book, by one of America’s preeminent moral and political thinkers.
Author: Joseph Hickman
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1510743200
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 151
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Book Description
“There’s a whole chapter on my son Beau… He was co-located [twice] near these burn pits.” –Joe Biden, former Vice President of the United States of America The Agent Orange of the 21st Century… Thousands of American soldiers are returning from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan with severe wounds from chemical war. They are not the victims of ruthless enemy warfare, but of their own military commanders. These soldiers, afflicted with rare cancers and respiratory diseases, were sickened from the smoke and ash swirling out of the “burn pits” where military contractors incinerated mountains of trash, including old stockpiles of mustard and sarin gas, medical waste, and other toxic material. This shocking work, now for the first time in paperback, includes: Illustration of the devastation in one soldier’s intimate story A plea for help Connection between the burn pits and Major Biden’s unfortunate suffering and death The burn pits’ effects on native citizens of Iraq: mothers, fathers, and children Denial from the Department of Defense and others Warning signs that were ignored and much more Based on thousands of government documents, over five hundred in-depth medical case studies, and interviews with more than one thousand veterans and active-duty GIs, The Burn Pits will shock the nation. The book is more than an explosive work of investigative journalism—it is the deeply moving chronicle of the many young men and women who signed up to serve their country in the wake of 9/11, only to return home permanently damaged, the victims of their own armed forces’ criminal negligence.
Author: Margaret E. Derry
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801873447
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228
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Book Description
How did animal breeding emerge as a movement? Who took part and for what reasons? How do the pedigree and market systems work? What light might the movement shed on the assumptions behind human eugenics? In Bred for Perfection, Margaret Derry provides the most comprehensive and accessible book yet published on the human quest to improve and develop livestock. Derry, herself a breeder and trained historian of science, explores the "triangle" of genetics, eugenics, and practical breeding, focusing on Shorthorn cattle, show dogs and working dogs, and one type of purebred horse, the Arabian. By examining specific breeders and the animals they produced, she illuminates the role of technology, genetics, culture, and economics in the system of purebred breeding. Bred for Perfection also provides the historical context in which this system arose, adding to our understanding of how domestication works and how our welfare—since the dawn of time—has been intertwined with the lives of animals.
Author:
Publisher: New York : Viking Studio
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 112
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Book Description
"At the heart of Buddhism lies the doctrine of the perfection of wisdom. The foremost principles of this teaching are the bodhisattva ideal of the religious life and the essential emptiness of all existence. The sutras known as The Perfection of Wisdom in 8,000 Lines are the oldest version of this important Buddhist text, dating some two thousand years, and are the basis for the present translation." "The message of The Perfection of Wisdom is as applicable to the modern reader as it was to the monks who first studied the text two millennia ago: through an understanding of the perfection of wisdom, it is possible for all of us to detach from the suffering that binds us to the material world, and so move toward enlightenment. This important text is illustrated with extraordinary images taken from the earliest surviving Indian and Nepalese illustrated manuscripts of The Perfection of Wisdom - most of which have never been reproduced before."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Author: Jane Bluestein
Publisher: Health Communications, Inc.
ISBN: 0757318258
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 314
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Book Description
When Dr. Bluestein would tell someone that she just finished writing a book on perfectionism, she would often hear a whole tirade on shoddy workmanship and terrible customer service. 'If you ask me, we need a whole lot more perfectionism,' one individual insisted
Author: Jonathan Marks
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521850698
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 212
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Book Description
Publisher description
Author: Herman Gaylord Wood
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Pyramids
Languages : en
Pages : 292
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Book Description
