Author: Hugo Mercier
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691208921
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 384
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Book Description
Why people are not as gullible as we think Not Born Yesterday explains how we decide who we can trust and what we should believe—and argues that we're pretty good at making these decisions. In this lively and provocative book, Hugo Mercier demonstrates how virtually all attempts at mass persuasion—whether by religious leaders, politicians, or advertisers—fail miserably. Drawing on recent findings from political science and other fields ranging from history to anthropology, Mercier shows that the narrative of widespread gullibility, in which a credulous public is easily misled by demagogues and charlatans, is simply wrong. Why is mass persuasion so difficult? Mercier uses the latest findings from experimental psychology to show how each of us is endowed with sophisticated cognitive mechanisms of open vigilance. Computing a variety of cues, these mechanisms enable us to be on guard against harmful beliefs, while being open enough to change our minds when presented with the right evidence. Even failures—when we accept false confessions, spread wild rumors, or fall for quack medicine—are better explained as bugs in otherwise well-functioning cognitive mechanisms than as symptoms of general gullibility. Not Born Yesterday shows how we filter the flow of information that surrounds us, argues that we do it well, and explains how we can do it better still.
Author: James Solheim
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101587644
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 32
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Book Description
July 8 Imagine! A day ago I?d never even heard of the world, and suddenly here I am in it. There?s so much to write about?macaroni, Fun World, and a big sister who has it all figured out. Which is why boys adore her. I need to get her attention back on me? and quick. But how? Should I take up sumo wrestling? Stunt flying? All I know how to do is write. But don?t tell anyone. This diary you?re looking at is TOP SECRET? just for you and me! Renowned illustrator Simon James brings sweetness and charm to James Solheim?s hilarious diary of a baby?and the result is a one-of-a-kind picture book no one will be expecting!
Author: Stephanie Insley Hershinow
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN: 1421438836
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 193
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Book Description
The early novel was not the coming-of-age story we know today—eighteenth-century adolescent protagonists remained in a constant state of arrested development, never truly maturing. Between the emergence of the realist novel in the early eighteenth century and the novel's subsequent alignment with self-improvement a century later lies a significant moment when novelistic characters were unlikely to mature in any meaningful way. That adolescent protagonists poised on the cusp of adulthood resisted a headlong tumble into maturity through the workings of plot reveals a curious literary and philosophical counter-tradition in the history of the novel. Stephanie Insley Hershinow's Born Yesterday shows how the archetype of the early realist novice reveals literary character tout court. Through new readings of canonical novels by Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, Frances Burney, and Jane Austen, Hershinow severs the too-easy tie between novelistic form and character formation, a conflation, she argues, of Bild with Bildung. A pop-culture-infused epilogue illustrates the influence of the eighteenth-century novice, as embodied by Austen's Emma, in the 1995 film Clueless, as well as in dystopian YA works like The Hunger Games. Drawing on bold close readings, Born Yesterday alters the landscape of literary historical eighteenth-century studies and challenges some of novel theory's most well-worn assumptions.
Author: Gordon Burn
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571266983
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 226
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Book Description
Summer 2007 was an extraordinarily rich time for news. Floods. Foot and mouth. The disappearances of Tony Blair and Madeleine McCann. The arrival of Gordon Brown. Terror attacks in Glasgow. And Gordon Burn, artist, journalist and true-crime author, has taken the events from this bleak summer and turned them into an utterly unique novel about the way news is made, and how the media creates and manipulates the stories we see before us. A daring and thrilling novel from one of the most astute observers of celebrity and tragedy, that is sure to make the headlines itself.
Author: Garson Kanin
Publisher: Dramatists Play Service, Inc.
ISBN: 9780822201366
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 100
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Book Description
THE STORY: The vulgar, egotistic junkman Harry Brock has come to a swanky hotel in Washington to make crooked deals with government big-wigs. He has brought with him the charming but dumb ex-chorus girl Billie, whose lack of social graces embarrass
Author: George Cappannelli
Publisher: Beaufort Books
ISBN: 0825307031
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 423
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Book Description
Winner of 9 national book awards, Do Not Go Quietly is an inspiring call to action and guide to a life of greater meaning, consciousness, and passion for those "who weren't born yesterday"—GenXers, Boomers, and Elders. It also speaks honestly and eloquently to those under 40 who want to better navigate the path ahead and better understand the world for which they will soon be responsible. It reminds us all that when we turn away from what we are passionate about, we dim the light of our intellect, depress our energies, diminish our health, and prevent ourselves from achieving the very thing we came here to this earth to accomplish—living the lives we were born to live. So, if you are in, or are approaching the second half of life, this book invites you to take the matter of how and why you live back into your own hands. It encourages you to use the tremendous power and resources available to you to ensure that you do not slip quietly and meekly into the background, but instead live your life with the dignity, purpose, and quality of experience you deserve.
Author: Hugo Mercier
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674368304
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 405
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Book Description
“Brilliant...Timely and necessary.” —Financial Times “Especially timely as we struggle to make sense of how it is that individuals and communities persist in holding beliefs that have been thoroughly discredited.” —Darren Frey, Science If reason is what makes us human, why do we behave so irrationally? And if it is so useful, why didn’t it evolve in other animals? This groundbreaking account of the evolution of reason by two renowned cognitive scientists seeks to solve this double enigma. Reason, they argue, helps us justify our beliefs, convince others, and evaluate arguments. It makes it easier to cooperate and communicate and to live together in groups. Provocative, entertaining, and undeniably relevant, The Enigma of Reason will make many reasonable people rethink their beliefs. “Reasonable-seeming people are often totally irrational. Rarely has this insight seemed more relevant...Still, an essential puzzle remains: How did we come to be this way?...Cognitive scientists Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber [argue that] reason developed not to enable us to solve abstract, logical problems...[but] to resolve the problems posed by living in collaborative groups.” —Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker “Turns reason’s weaknesses into strengths, arguing that its supposed flaws are actually design features that work remarkably well.” —Financial Times “The best thing I have read about human reasoning. It is extremely well written, interesting, and very enjoyable to read.” —Gilbert Harman, Princeton University
Author: Rachel Williams-Smith
Publisher: Xulon Press
ISBN: 9781498415378
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 298
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Book Description
Though born in 1965, Rachel's story could easily have been set in the 1800s. Wearing long dresses and broad-brimmed bonnets and living without modern conveniences including electricity, telephone, radio, television, or indoor plumbing, she and her two older brothers were shaped by the extreme religious views of her iron-willed, Vietnam-veteran father and malleable, practical-minded mother. The family separated from society and lived under often harsh conditions in an old, abandoned house atop a remote range of hills in Tennessee, awaiting the end of the world. Then at 16, Rachel was forced to face the world in which she was not raised to live. She struggled to adjust to an unsheltered life without casting aside the good along with the bad. Eventually she found her way to a full, balanced, and vibrant life. Rachel shares an amazing story that ultimately testifies of God's faithful and restorative loving care. --back cover.
Author: Charles Gothard
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 019955157X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 609
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Book Description
The use of international trusts continues to expand, and practitioners increasingly need to be aware of cross-border considerations. This title provides a concise and practical overview of the key aspects of law and practice in all the key jurisdictions offering trusts. Private and commercial trusts are established under the law of an increasing number of jurisdictions, which are competing to attract trust business, and these laws are often dissimilar. As international trusts mature, established trust jurisdictions are changing their laws to comply with the legal demands and standards imposed by international agencies, as well as to meet the legitimate expectations of the institutional investor. The courts of international centers are also developing their own jurisprudence. In addition, jurisdictions new to trusts are introducing trusts in the vehicles which they offer investors, and legislation from these new trust centers is opening up new routes for international investment and tax mitigation. This book provides a comprehensive treatment of the subject, covering all the key on-shore and off-shore jurisdictions that practitioners typically encounter. It offers a very practical overview of the subject using a questionnaire format for each country, avoiding academic material, and giving concise answers to the sorts of frequently asked questions that arise in trust law and practice. The questionnaire covers a full range of subjects such as the mechanics of trusts, issues such as anti-money laundering laws and conflicts of laws, shams, protectors, and forced heirship as well as the different types of trusts used in a jurisdiction. Formerly an annual special issue in the journal Trusts & Trustees, this title has been improved and extended with a reworked questionnaire, new countries and contributors, and a new editor, Charles Gothard.
Author: Nancy Tillman
Publisher: Darling Press
ISBN: 0976576104
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 19
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Book Description
Nature celebrates the individuality of each child being born.
