Author: Bruce Bueno de Mesquita
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 154177440X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 339
Book Description
In the tradition of Why Nations Fail, this book solves one of the great puzzles of history: Why did the West become the most powerful civilization in the world? Western exceptionalism—the idea that European civilizations are freer, wealthier, and less violent—is a widespread and powerful political idea. It has been a source of peace and prosperity in some societies, and of ethnic cleansing and havoc in others. Yet in The Invention of Power, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita draws on his expertise in political maneuvering, deal-making, and game theory to present a revolutionary new theory of Western exceptionalism: that a single, rarely discussed event in the twelfth century changed the course of European and world history. By creating a compromise between churches and nation-states that, in effect, traded money for power and power for money, the 1122 Concordat of Worms incentivized economic growth, facilitated secularization, and improved the lot of the citizenry, all of which set European countries on a course for prosperity. In the centuries since, countries that have had a similar dynamic of competition between church and state have been consistently better off than those that have not. The Invention of Power upends conventional thinking about European culture, religion, and race and presents a persuasive new vision of world history.
The Invention of Power
Author: Bruce Bueno de Mesquita
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 154177440X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 339
Book Description
In the tradition of Why Nations Fail, this book solves one of the great puzzles of history: Why did the West become the most powerful civilization in the world? Western exceptionalism—the idea that European civilizations are freer, wealthier, and less violent—is a widespread and powerful political idea. It has been a source of peace and prosperity in some societies, and of ethnic cleansing and havoc in others. Yet in The Invention of Power, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita draws on his expertise in political maneuvering, deal-making, and game theory to present a revolutionary new theory of Western exceptionalism: that a single, rarely discussed event in the twelfth century changed the course of European and world history. By creating a compromise between churches and nation-states that, in effect, traded money for power and power for money, the 1122 Concordat of Worms incentivized economic growth, facilitated secularization, and improved the lot of the citizenry, all of which set European countries on a course for prosperity. In the centuries since, countries that have had a similar dynamic of competition between church and state have been consistently better off than those that have not. The Invention of Power upends conventional thinking about European culture, religion, and race and presents a persuasive new vision of world history.
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 154177440X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 339
Book Description
In the tradition of Why Nations Fail, this book solves one of the great puzzles of history: Why did the West become the most powerful civilization in the world? Western exceptionalism—the idea that European civilizations are freer, wealthier, and less violent—is a widespread and powerful political idea. It has been a source of peace and prosperity in some societies, and of ethnic cleansing and havoc in others. Yet in The Invention of Power, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita draws on his expertise in political maneuvering, deal-making, and game theory to present a revolutionary new theory of Western exceptionalism: that a single, rarely discussed event in the twelfth century changed the course of European and world history. By creating a compromise between churches and nation-states that, in effect, traded money for power and power for money, the 1122 Concordat of Worms incentivized economic growth, facilitated secularization, and improved the lot of the citizenry, all of which set European countries on a course for prosperity. In the centuries since, countries that have had a similar dynamic of competition between church and state have been consistently better off than those that have not. The Invention of Power upends conventional thinking about European culture, religion, and race and presents a persuasive new vision of world history.
The Invention of Miracles
Author: Katie Booth
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501167103
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 416
Book Description
Finalist for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography Finalist for the Mark Lynton History Prize “Meticulously researched, crackling with insights, and rich in novelistic detail” (Steve Silberman), this “provocative, sensitive, beautifully written biography” (Sylvia Nasar) tells the true—and troubling—story of Alexander Graham Bell’s quest to end deafness. “Researched and written through the Deaf perspective, this marvelously engaging history will have us rethinking the invention of the telephone.” —Jaipreet Virdi, PhD, author of Hearing Happiness: Deafness Cures in History We think of Alexander Graham Bell as the inventor of the telephone, but that’s not how he saw his own career. As the son of a deaf woman and, later, husband to another, his goal in life from adolescence was to teach deaf students to speak. Even his tinkering sprang from his teaching work; the telephone had its origins as a speech reading machine. The Invention of Miracles takes a “stirring” (The New York Times Book Review), “provocative” (The Boston Globe), “scrupulously researched” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) new look at an American icon, revealing the astonishing true genesis of the telephone and its connection to another, far more disturbing legacy of Bell’s: his efforts to suppress American Sign Language. Weaving together a dazzling tale of innovation with a moving love story, the book offers a heartbreaking account of how a champion can become an adversary and an enthralling depiction of the deaf community’s fight to reclaim a once-forbidden language. Katie Booth has been researching this story for more than fifteen years, poring over Bell’s papers, Library of Congress archives, and the records of deaf schools around America. But she’s also lived with this story for her entire life. Witnessing the damaging impact of Bell’s legacy on her family would set her on a path that overturned everything she thought she knew about language, power, deafness, and the telephone.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501167103
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 416
Book Description
Finalist for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography Finalist for the Mark Lynton History Prize “Meticulously researched, crackling with insights, and rich in novelistic detail” (Steve Silberman), this “provocative, sensitive, beautifully written biography” (Sylvia Nasar) tells the true—and troubling—story of Alexander Graham Bell’s quest to end deafness. “Researched and written through the Deaf perspective, this marvelously engaging history will have us rethinking the invention of the telephone.” —Jaipreet Virdi, PhD, author of Hearing Happiness: Deafness Cures in History We think of Alexander Graham Bell as the inventor of the telephone, but that’s not how he saw his own career. As the son of a deaf woman and, later, husband to another, his goal in life from adolescence was to teach deaf students to speak. Even his tinkering sprang from his teaching work; the telephone had its origins as a speech reading machine. The Invention of Miracles takes a “stirring” (The New York Times Book Review), “provocative” (The Boston Globe), “scrupulously researched” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) new look at an American icon, revealing the astonishing true genesis of the telephone and its connection to another, far more disturbing legacy of Bell’s: his efforts to suppress American Sign Language. Weaving together a dazzling tale of innovation with a moving love story, the book offers a heartbreaking account of how a champion can become an adversary and an enthralling depiction of the deaf community’s fight to reclaim a once-forbidden language. Katie Booth has been researching this story for more than fifteen years, poring over Bell’s papers, Library of Congress archives, and the records of deaf schools around America. But she’s also lived with this story for her entire life. Witnessing the damaging impact of Bell’s legacy on her family would set her on a path that overturned everything she thought she knew about language, power, deafness, and the telephone.
The Modern Invention of Information
Author: Ronald E Day
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 9780809328482
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 156
Book Description
In The Modern Invention of Information: Discourse, History, and Power, Ronald E. Day provides a historically informed critical analysis of the concept and politics of information. Analyzing texts in Europe and the United States, his critical reading method goes beyond traditional historiographical readings of communication and information by engaging specific historical texts in terms of their attempts to construct and reshape history. After laying the groundwork and justifying his method of close reading for this study, Day examines the texts of two pre–World War II documentalists, Paul Otlet and Suzanne Briet. Through the work of Otlet and Briet, Day shows how documentation and information were associated with concepts of cultural progress. Day also discusses the social expansion of the conduit metaphor in the works of Warren Weaver and Norbert Wiener. He then shows how the work of contemporary French multimedia theorist Pierre Lévy refracts the earlier philosophical writings of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari through the prism of the capitalist understanding of the “virtual society.” Turning back to the pre–World War II period, Day examines two critics of the information society: Martin Heidegger and Walter Benjamin. He explains Heidegger’s philosophical critique of the information culture’s model of language and truth as well as Benjamin’s aesthetic and historical critique of mass information and communication. Day concludes by contemplating the relation of critical theory and information, particularly in regard to the information culture’s transformation of history, historiography, and historicity into positive categories of assumed and represented knowledge.
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 9780809328482
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 156
Book Description
In The Modern Invention of Information: Discourse, History, and Power, Ronald E. Day provides a historically informed critical analysis of the concept and politics of information. Analyzing texts in Europe and the United States, his critical reading method goes beyond traditional historiographical readings of communication and information by engaging specific historical texts in terms of their attempts to construct and reshape history. After laying the groundwork and justifying his method of close reading for this study, Day examines the texts of two pre–World War II documentalists, Paul Otlet and Suzanne Briet. Through the work of Otlet and Briet, Day shows how documentation and information were associated with concepts of cultural progress. Day also discusses the social expansion of the conduit metaphor in the works of Warren Weaver and Norbert Wiener. He then shows how the work of contemporary French multimedia theorist Pierre Lévy refracts the earlier philosophical writings of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari through the prism of the capitalist understanding of the “virtual society.” Turning back to the pre–World War II period, Day examines two critics of the information society: Martin Heidegger and Walter Benjamin. He explains Heidegger’s philosophical critique of the information culture’s model of language and truth as well as Benjamin’s aesthetic and historical critique of mass information and communication. Day concludes by contemplating the relation of critical theory and information, particularly in regard to the information culture’s transformation of history, historiography, and historicity into positive categories of assumed and represented knowledge.
Power and Invention
Author: Isabelle Stengers
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 9780816625178
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Book Description
Using the law of thermodynamics, one of today's most penetrating and celebrated thinkers sets out to explain the consequences of nonlinear dynamics (or chaos theory) for philosophy and science. Concerned with the interplay between science, society, and power, Isabelle Stengers offers a unique perspective on the power of scientific theories to modify society, and vice versa. 9 diagrams.
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 9780816625178
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Book Description
Using the law of thermodynamics, one of today's most penetrating and celebrated thinkers sets out to explain the consequences of nonlinear dynamics (or chaos theory) for philosophy and science. Concerned with the interplay between science, society, and power, Isabelle Stengers offers a unique perspective on the power of scientific theories to modify society, and vice versa. 9 diagrams.
The Last Word on Power
Author: Tracy Goss
Publisher: Rosetta Books
ISBN: 0795308388
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Book Description
How leaders can achieve something meaningful—transform a brand, a workplace, a technology, themselves—beyond holding an influential position. Do you want to do work that is worthy of your time and talent? Do you want to make your mark on your industry, company, or within your community? Are you satisfied with the fact that reengineering, quality improvements, and other changes never really make a lasting impact? Then you need to go beyond the techniques of improvement and learn the skills that it takes to be extraordinary. The power to be extraordinary is not one we are born with. Rather, it is a power that one can learn, and Tracy Goss helps executives realize this power. Here in this book for the first time, Goss makes her coursework available to the general reader. Goss’s unique methodology shows how you how you can “put at risk the success you’ve become for the power of making the impossible happen.” She positions executives to take on the future that they dream about. She teaches how to behave differently so that you are free of past constraints. She shows how you can be at home in the environment in which you are constantly surrounded by threats, and how to transcend the ordinary to make the impossible happen. Her work has resulted in many important life changes and organizational reinventions worldwide. “Goss offers powerful information, far above the glib self-help mush that already lines the shelves. She answers the fundamental question of why management fads do not work: the personal work has not yet been done.” —Library Journal
Publisher: Rosetta Books
ISBN: 0795308388
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Book Description
How leaders can achieve something meaningful—transform a brand, a workplace, a technology, themselves—beyond holding an influential position. Do you want to do work that is worthy of your time and talent? Do you want to make your mark on your industry, company, or within your community? Are you satisfied with the fact that reengineering, quality improvements, and other changes never really make a lasting impact? Then you need to go beyond the techniques of improvement and learn the skills that it takes to be extraordinary. The power to be extraordinary is not one we are born with. Rather, it is a power that one can learn, and Tracy Goss helps executives realize this power. Here in this book for the first time, Goss makes her coursework available to the general reader. Goss’s unique methodology shows how you how you can “put at risk the success you’ve become for the power of making the impossible happen.” She positions executives to take on the future that they dream about. She teaches how to behave differently so that you are free of past constraints. She shows how you can be at home in the environment in which you are constantly surrounded by threats, and how to transcend the ordinary to make the impossible happen. Her work has resulted in many important life changes and organizational reinventions worldwide. “Goss offers powerful information, far above the glib self-help mush that already lines the shelves. She answers the fundamental question of why management fads do not work: the personal work has not yet been done.” —Library Journal
Power and Style: a World History of Politics and Dress
Author: Dominique Gaulme
Publisher: Flammarion
ISBN: 9782080202987
Category : Clothing and dress
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
This exploration of regalia throughout the world and the ages, and the powerful figures who exemplify each style -- from the ceremonial robes of Chinese emperors to the wigs and stockings of seventeenth-century courtiers to the casual college-inspired blazers and sunglasses of American politicians -- provides a fascinating and comprehensive view of the sociological aspect of clothing.
Publisher: Flammarion
ISBN: 9782080202987
Category : Clothing and dress
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
This exploration of regalia throughout the world and the ages, and the powerful figures who exemplify each style -- from the ceremonial robes of Chinese emperors to the wigs and stockings of seventeenth-century courtiers to the casual college-inspired blazers and sunglasses of American politicians -- provides a fascinating and comprehensive view of the sociological aspect of clothing.
The Invention of Disaster
Author: JC Gaillard
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317617320
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 302
Book Description
This theoretical contribution argues that the domination of Western knowledge in disaster scholarship has allowed normative policies and practices of disaster risk reduction to be imposed all over the world. It takes a postcolonial approach to unpack why scholars claim that disasters are social constructs while offering little but theories, concepts and methods supposed to be universal in understanding the unique and diverse experiences of millions of people across very different cultures. It further challenges forms of governments inherited from the Enlightenment that have been rolled out as standard and ultimate solutions to reduce the risk of disaster. Ultimately, the book encourages the emergence of a more diverse set of world views/senses and ways of knowing for both studying disasters and informing policy and practice of disaster risk reduction. Such pluralism is essential to better reflect local realities of what disasters actually are around the world. This book is an essential read for scholars and postgraduate students interested in disaster studies as well as policy-makers and practitioners of disaster risk reduction.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317617320
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 302
Book Description
This theoretical contribution argues that the domination of Western knowledge in disaster scholarship has allowed normative policies and practices of disaster risk reduction to be imposed all over the world. It takes a postcolonial approach to unpack why scholars claim that disasters are social constructs while offering little but theories, concepts and methods supposed to be universal in understanding the unique and diverse experiences of millions of people across very different cultures. It further challenges forms of governments inherited from the Enlightenment that have been rolled out as standard and ultimate solutions to reduce the risk of disaster. Ultimately, the book encourages the emergence of a more diverse set of world views/senses and ways of knowing for both studying disasters and informing policy and practice of disaster risk reduction. Such pluralism is essential to better reflect local realities of what disasters actually are around the world. This book is an essential read for scholars and postgraduate students interested in disaster studies as well as policy-makers and practitioners of disaster risk reduction.
Power, Pleasure, and Profit
Author: David Wootton
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674989902
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 401
Book Description
A provocative history of the changing values that have given rise to our present discontents. We pursue power, pleasure, and profit. We want as much as we can get, and we deploy instrumental reasoning—cost-benefit analysis—to get it. We judge ourselves and others by how well we succeed. It is a way of life and thought that seems natural, inevitable, and inescapable. As David Wootton shows, it is anything but. In Power, Pleasure, and Profit, he traces an intellectual and cultural revolution that replaced the older systems of Aristotelian ethics and Christian morality with the iron cage of instrumental reasoning that now gives shape and purpose to our lives. Wootton guides us through four centuries of Western thought—from Machiavelli to Madison—to show how new ideas about politics, ethics, and economics stepped into a gap opened up by religious conflict and the Scientific Revolution. As ideas about godliness and Aristotelian virtue faded, theories about the rational pursuit of power, pleasure, and profit moved to the fore in the work of writers both obscure and as famous as Hobbes, Locke, and Adam Smith. The new instrumental reasoning cut through old codes of status and rank, enabling the emergence of movements for liberty and equality. But it also helped to create a world in which virtue, honor, shame, and guilt count for almost nothing, and what matters is success. Is our world better for the rise of instrumental reasoning? To answer that question, Wootton writes, we must first recognize that we live in its grip.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674989902
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 401
Book Description
A provocative history of the changing values that have given rise to our present discontents. We pursue power, pleasure, and profit. We want as much as we can get, and we deploy instrumental reasoning—cost-benefit analysis—to get it. We judge ourselves and others by how well we succeed. It is a way of life and thought that seems natural, inevitable, and inescapable. As David Wootton shows, it is anything but. In Power, Pleasure, and Profit, he traces an intellectual and cultural revolution that replaced the older systems of Aristotelian ethics and Christian morality with the iron cage of instrumental reasoning that now gives shape and purpose to our lives. Wootton guides us through four centuries of Western thought—from Machiavelli to Madison—to show how new ideas about politics, ethics, and economics stepped into a gap opened up by religious conflict and the Scientific Revolution. As ideas about godliness and Aristotelian virtue faded, theories about the rational pursuit of power, pleasure, and profit moved to the fore in the work of writers both obscure and as famous as Hobbes, Locke, and Adam Smith. The new instrumental reasoning cut through old codes of status and rank, enabling the emergence of movements for liberty and equality. But it also helped to create a world in which virtue, honor, shame, and guilt count for almost nothing, and what matters is success. Is our world better for the rise of instrumental reasoning? To answer that question, Wootton writes, we must first recognize that we live in its grip.
Networks of Power
Author: Thomas Parke Hughes
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801846144
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 492
Book Description
Awarded the Dexter Prize by the Society for the History of Technology, this book offers a comparative history of the evolution of modern electric power systems. It described large-scale technological change and demonstrates that technology cannot be understood unless placed in a cultural context.
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801846144
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 492
Book Description
Awarded the Dexter Prize by the Society for the History of Technology, this book offers a comparative history of the evolution of modern electric power systems. It described large-scale technological change and demonstrates that technology cannot be understood unless placed in a cultural context.
The Drummer
Author: Editors of Modern Drummer Magazine
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
ISBN: 1476855897
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 386
Book Description
(Book). To mark the 30th-anniversary of the world's best-loved drum magazine, Modern Drummer , here is the first book to tell the complete tale of the modern drumset masters. A century of drumming is covered: from the founding fathers of jazz, to today's athletic, mind-altering rhythm wizards and everyone in between. Buddy Rich, John Bonham, Keith Moon, Elvin Jones, Max Roach, Ringo Starr, Levon Helm, Neil Peart and dozens of other drum gods are featured.
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
ISBN: 1476855897
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 386
Book Description
(Book). To mark the 30th-anniversary of the world's best-loved drum magazine, Modern Drummer , here is the first book to tell the complete tale of the modern drumset masters. A century of drumming is covered: from the founding fathers of jazz, to today's athletic, mind-altering rhythm wizards and everyone in between. Buddy Rich, John Bonham, Keith Moon, Elvin Jones, Max Roach, Ringo Starr, Levon Helm, Neil Peart and dozens of other drum gods are featured.