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From Macaulay in the 19th century to Fukuyama in the late 20th, historians have often been lulled into thinking that things can only get better. Such belief in progress, argues leading political commentator Simon Heffer, may be typical of times of plenty, but it ignores a less palatable truth: that, since the beginnings of recorded history, the major events in international relations can be attributed to a single cause, the desire by rulers to assert or protect their power. Taking a panoramic view from the days of Thucydides up to the present, Heffer offers a fourfold analysis of the motive forces behind the pursuit of power: land, wealth, God and minds. If we understand these forces, he contends, we can more clearly understand why history is destined to repeat itself.
A provocative view of the past and the great rule makers of history yields an arresting perspective on recent events that have radically altered the present for America and the world.
Winner of the 2013 Bullough Award presented by the Foundation for the Scientific Study of Sexuality The term “intersex” evokes diverse images, typically of people who are both male and female or neither male nor female. Neither vision is accurate. The millions of people with an intersex condition, or DSD (disorder of sex development), are men or women whose sex chromosomes, gonads, or sex anatomy do not fit clearly into the male/female binary norm. Until recently, intersex conditions were shrouded in shame and secrecy: many adults were unaware that they had been born with an intersex condition and those who did know were advised to hide the truth. Current medical protocols and societal treatment of people with an intersex condition are based upon false stereotypes about sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability, which create unique challenges to framing effective legal claims and building a strong cohesive movement. InIntersexuality and the Law, Julie A. Greenberg examines the role that legal institutions can play in protecting the rights of people with an intersex condition. She also explores the relationship between the intersex movement and other social justice movements that have effectively utilized legal strategies to challenge similar discriminatory practices. She discusses the feasibility of forming effective alliances and developing mutually beneficial legal arguments with feminists, LGBT organizations, and disability rights advocates to eradicate the discrimination suffered by these marginalized groups.
'You could not ask for a more eloquent guide than this book. Essential' Sathnam Sanghera An eye-opening book about how societies are designed to support those in power, at the expense of those without it. COLONIAL POWER In the 1950s, over 10,000 Kenyans were killed by the British during the Mau Mau uprising against a government determined to install a sympathetic post-independence regime and continue to exploit the resources of its former colonies. PATRIARCHAL POWER After the Iranian revolution in 1979, the Islamic Republic systematically removed freedoms from women, relegating them to second-class citizens in the name of religious teachings. EDUCATIONAL POWER There have been fifty-seven prime ministers of the United Kingdom, of whom forty-three have been privately educated, creating a society built by and for the privileged. These are just some of the stories through which Dr Jack Davy illustrates the key factors that allow societies to create and sustain oppressive systems. Some are historical. Others have played out right before our eyes over the last decade. All are rooted in the systems in which we all participate. Read this book, and take action. 'Sharp and insightful. Jack Davy makes complex ideas accessible in this powerful book about the roots of inequality' Caroline Dodds Pennock, author of On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe 'A deeply humane book with true hope in its message' Ray Mattinson, Blackwells
In an increasingly polarized world, with shifting and extreme politics, Social Forms illustrates artists at the forefront of political and social resistance. Highlighting different moments of crisis and how these are reflected and preserved through crucial artworks, it also asks how to make art in the age of Brexit, Trump, and the refugee and climate crises. In Social Forms: A Short History of Political Art, renowned critic, curator, and writer Christian Viveros-Fauné has picked fifty representative artworks—from Francisco de Goya’s The Disasters of War (1810–1820) to David Hammons’s In the Hood (1993)—that give voice to some of modern art’s strongest calls to political action. In accessible and witty entries on each piece, Viveros-Fauné paints a picture of the context in which each work was created, the artist’s background, and the historical impact of each contribution. At times artists create projects that subvert existing power structures; at other moments they make artwork so powerful it challenges the very fabric of society. Whether it is Picasso’s Guernica and its place at the 1937 Worlds Fair, or Jenny Holzer’s Truisms (1977–1979), which still stop us in our tracks, this book tells the story behind some of the most important and unexpected encounters between artworks and the real worlds they engage with. Never professing to be a definitive history of political art, Social Forms delivers a unique and compelling portrait of how artists during the last 150 years have dealt with changing political systems, the violence of modern warfare, the rise of consumer culture worldwide, the prevalence of inequality and racism, and the challenges of technology.
“A superb survey of the paranormal” and a travelogue through the twilight zone of human consciousness—hailed by experts as the best introduction to psychic phenomena (Herbie Brennan, New York Times–bestselling author). This is the most entertaining and broad survey of the paranormal ever made—combining forgotten lore, evidence from parapsychological experiments, and the testimonies of scientists, archaeologists, anthropologists, psychologists, physicists, and philosophers. Exploring the possibility that paranormal phenomena may be objectively real, this travelogue through the twilight zone of human consciousness is both scientifically rigorous and extremely entertaining. Readers may be surprised to learn that reputable scientists, among them several Nobel laureates, have claimed that: • Telepathy is a reality • Cleopatra’s lost palace and Richard III’s burial place were recovered with clairvoyance • The US military set up an espionage program using psychics Could it be that what we usually call “supernatural” is a natural but little understood communication via this mental internet? The winner of the most prestigious award in the field, the Parapsychological Association Book Award, A Short History of (Nearly) Everything Paranormal is an engaging, entertaining and informative analysis of a controversial subject.
Reviews the emergence and fall of the Taliban, their ideology and their place within Islam, and examines Afghanistan's relevance to issues relating to Islamic extremism, the international drugs trade and international terrorism.
Each time history repeats itself, so it's said, the price goes up. The twentieth century was a time of runaway growth in human population, consumption, and technology, placing a colossal load on all natural systems, especially earth, air, and water — the very elements of life. The most urgent questions of the twenty-first century are: where will this growth lead? can it be consolidated or sustained? and what kind of world is our present bequeathing to our future?In his #1 bestseller A Short History of Progress Ronald Wright argues that our modern predicament is as old as civilization, a 10,000-year experiment we have participated in but seldom controlled. Only by understanding the patterns of triumph and disaster that humanity has repeated around the world since the Stone Age can we recognize the experiment's inherent dangers, and, with luck and wisdom, shape its outcome.
An entertaining look at the origins of mathematical symbols While all of us regularly use basic math symbols such as those for plus, minus, and equals, few of us know that many of these symbols weren't available before the sixteenth century. What did mathematicians rely on for their work before then? And how did mathematical notations evolve into what we know today? In Enlightening Symbols, popular math writer Joseph Mazur explains the fascinating history behind the development of our mathematical notation system. He shows how symbols were used initially, how one symbol replaced another over time, and how written math was conveyed before and after symbols became widely adopted. Traversing mathematical history and the foundations of numerals in different cultures, Mazur looks at how historians have disagreed over the origins of the numerical system for the past two centuries. He follows the transfigurations of algebra from a rhetorical style to a symbolic one, demonstrating that most algebra before the sixteenth century was written in prose or in verse employing the written names of numerals. Mazur also investigates the subconscious and psychological effects that mathematical symbols have had on mathematical thought, moods, meaning, communication, and comprehension. He considers how these symbols influence us (through similarity, association, identity, resemblance, and repeated imagery), how they lead to new ideas by subconscious associations, how they make connections between experience and the unknown, and how they contribute to the communication of basic mathematics. From words to abbreviations to symbols, this book shows how math evolved to the familiar forms we use today.
A Quick History of Politics takes us from pharaohs to fair votes, packed with facts and jokes about the many faces of politics through time.