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In Kentucky, the first frontier beyond the Appalachians, Arthur K. Moore finds a unique ground for examining some of the basic elements in America's cultural development. There the frontier mind acquired definite form, and there emerged the forces that largely shaped the American West. Moore reveals the Kentucky frontiersman as a colorful, exciting figure about whom there gathered a golden haze of myth from which historians have never been able to free him. He finds that "noble savage" did not possess those high qualities of mind and spirit which both his contemporaries and present-day writers have attributed him. He especially questions the wide and uncritical acceptance of Frederick Jackson Turner's theory that the illiterate emigrants had vast creative powers and made worthwhile contributions to government, education, religion, and literature. The author, professor of English at the University of Kentucky, has shown how unlikely it was that the uncouth frontiersmen, subjected as they were to brutalizing influences and separated from the main stream of Western civilization, could find in themselves the intellectual and spiritual resources to create a distinctive culture. Far from displaying the benevolence and rationality imputed to men living close to nature, the frontiersmen proved themselves addicted to demagogism, narrow sectarianism, materialism, and anti-intellectualism. The Frontier Mind is an uncompromising book. It may not win your assent, but it will force you to reexamine the grounds of your beliefs about the settlement and development of the American West.
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE A new and eye-opening interpretation of the meaning of the frontier, from early westward expansion to Trump’s border wall. Ever since this nation’s inception, the idea of an open and ever-expanding frontier has been central to American identity. Symbolizing a future of endless promise, it was the foundation of the United States’ belief in itself as an exceptional nation – democratic, individualistic, forward-looking. Today, though, America hasa new symbol: the border wall. In The End of the Myth, acclaimed historian Greg Grandin explores the meaning of the frontier throughout the full sweep of U.S. history – from the American Revolution to the War of 1898, the New Deal to the election of 2016. For centuries, he shows, America’s constant expansion – fighting wars and opening markets – served as a “gate of escape,” helping to deflect domestic political and economic conflicts outward. But this deflection meant that the country’s problems, from racism to inequality, were never confronted directly. And now, the combined catastrophe of the 2008 financial meltdown and our unwinnable wars in the Middle East have slammed this gate shut, bringing political passions that had long been directed elsewhere back home. It is this new reality, Grandin says, that explains the rise of reactionary populism and racist nationalism, the extreme anger and polarization that catapulted Trump to the presidency. The border wall may or may not be built, but it will survive as a rallying point, an allegorical tombstone marking the end of American exceptionalism.
From caves to condos, from spears to spaceships, and from stone to electronic tablets, human beings have broken multiple barriers to pave the path of progress. Today, we are materially much more prosperous than we were a couple of centuries ago, but are we happier and more fulfilled? For many of us, the answer is a bewildering no. We often feel anxious and lost, as if living somebody elses life. The author argues that the answer lies inside our minds, and it is within the highs and lows of our thoughts that we can find clues for addressing our discontent and confusions about life. He explores an innovative methodthe Information Processing Approach (IPA)to understand how the human mind works and throws light on questions such as Who am I?, Whats the purpose of my life?, Why do I dislike my job?, and How can I improve my personal relationships? He takes you on a momentous journey of self-discovery.
'Grayling brings satisfying order to daunting subjects' Steven Pinker _________________________ In very recent times humanity has learnt a vast amount about the universe, the past, and itself. But through our remarkable successes in acquiring knowledge we have learned how much we have yet to learn: the science we have, for example, addresses just 5 per cent of the universe; pre-history is still being revealed, with thousands of historical sites yet to be explored; and the new neurosciences of mind and brain are just beginning. What do we know, and how do we know it? What do we now know that we don't know? And what have we learnt about the obstacles to knowing more? In a time of deepening battles over what knowledge and truth mean, these questions matter more than ever. Bestselling polymath and philosopher A. C. Grayling seeks to answer them in three crucial areas at the frontiers of knowledge: science, history and psychology. A remarkable history of science, life on earth, and the human mind itself, this is a compelling and fascinating tour de force, written with verve, clarity and remarkable breadth of knowledge. _________________________ 'Remarkable, readable and authoritative. How he has mastered so much, so thoroughly, is nothing short of amazing' Lawrence M. Krauss, author of A Universe from Nothing 'This book hums with the excitement of the great human project of discovery' Adam Zeman, author of Aphantasia
Are there really laws governing the universe? Or is the order we see a mere artifact of the way evolution wired the brain? And is what we call science only a set of myths in which quarks, DNA, and information fill the role once occupied by gods? These questions lie at the heart of George Johnson's audacious exploration of the border between science and religion, cosmic accident and timeless law. Northern New Mexico is home both to the most provocative new enterprises in quantum physics, information science, and the evolution of complexity and to the cosmologies of the Tewa Indians and the Catholic Penitentes. As it draws the reader into this landscape, juxtaposing the systems of belief that have taken root there, Fire in the Mind into a gripping intellectual adventure story that compels us to ask where science ends and religion begins. "A must for all those seriously interested in the key ideas at the frontier of scientific discourse."--Paul Davies
The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history, either. An adequate conception of nature would have to explain the appearance in the universe of materially irreducible conscious minds, as such. Nagel's skepticism is not based on religious belief or on a belief in any definite alternative. In Mind and Cosmos, he does suggest that if the materialist account is wrong, then principles of a different kind may also be at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic. In spite of the great achievements of the physical sciences, reductive materialism is a world view ripe for displacement. Nagel shows that to recognize its limits is the first step in looking for alternatives, or at least in being open to their possibility.
It is 1936. Pompey Casmilus (the heroine of Smith's debut, Novel on Yellow Paper) lives in London with her beloved Aunt, bothered by the menace of German militarism, bothered too by the humbug which confronts it, bothered most of all by her hopeless love affair with Freddy. Its ending plunges Pompey into melancholy; six months of rest and recuperation are prescribed and Pompey goes to Schloss Tilssen on the northern German border, only to fall in with a strange band of conspirators: the plum-coloured Mrs Pouncer, the absent-minded Colonel Peck and the dashing Major Tom Satterthwaite, whom Pompey comes to love. How Pompey gets into uniform and becomes a spy is only one of the astounding events in this extraordinary novel which, on a serious level, is also about a powerful investigation of power and cruelty in a world preparing for war.
Insights into the intelligence throughout the natural and technical environment, in the fabric of our devices and dwellings, in our clothes, and under our skin. Is there a way to understand the materials that surround us not as passive objects, but as other intelligences interacting with our own? In Parallel Minds, expert in materials science and nanotechnology Laura Tripaldi delivers not only detailed insights into the properties and emergent behaviors of matter as revealed by state-of-the-art chemistry, synthetic biology, and nanotech, but also a rich philosophical reflection that crosses the frontier between nature and culture, where the most cutting-edge scientific syntheses resonate with ancient myth. The result is a technomaterial bestiary full of unexpected encounters with “strange minds”—from cobwebs to kevlar and carbon fibre, from centaurs to amoebas to arachnids, from polycephalic slime to resonating plasmons, from viruses to golems. Parallel Minds reveals the intelligence at large throughout the natural and technical environment, in the fabric of our devices and dwellings, in our clothes, and even under our skin. Full of lateral ideas and unexpected images, Tripaldi’s book imbues the study and synthesis of materials with a new urgency. For not only do the materials that surround us participate actively in the construction of the world in which we live, but harnessing their ability to interact intelligently with their environment could be the key to the future of our species.