Download or read book A Fragile Future written by Ahmed Rashid and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-04-07 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating up-to-date look at the roots of our financial crisis from the New York Times bestselling author Kevin Phillips Descent into Chaos is Ahmed Rashid's sweeping, brilliant exploration of the failure of the United States to secure peace and nourish democracy in Pakistan and Afghanistan after the removal of the Taliban following 9/11. Thoroughly researched and powerfully written, it has been hailed from all corners as one of the most important books on the effects of American policy in the Middle East to appear in some time. In this searching update, Rashid takes stock of events in Pakistan since the book's publication, including the 2008 elections, the end of the Musharraf era, and the further resurgence of the Taliban. Up from Chaos makes the convincing case that if peace is to come to central Asia, Pakistan remains the key.
Download or read book Fragile Futures written by Vito Tanzi and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-05-19 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book revisits a distinction introduced in 1921 by economists Frank Knight and John Maynard Keynes: that between statistically predictable future events ('risks') and statistically unpredictable, uncertain events ('uncertainties'). Governments have generally ignored the latter, perceiving phenomena such as pandemics, natural disasters and climate change as uncontrollable Acts of God. As a result, there has been little if any preparation for future catastrophes. Our modern society is more interconnected and more globalized than ever. Dealing with uncertain future events requires a stronger and more globally coordinated government response. This book suggests a larger, more global government role in dealing with these disasters and keeping economic inequalities low. Major institutional changes, such as regulating the private sector for the common good and dealing with special harms, risks and crises, especially those concerning climate change and pandemics, are necessary in order to achieve any semblance of future progress for humankind.
Download or read book Insatiable Curiosity written by Helga Nowotny and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2010-08-13 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An influential scholar in science studies argues that innovation tames the insatiable and limitless curiosity driving science, and that society's acute ambivalence about this is an inevitable legacy of modernity. Curiosity is the main driving force behind scientific activity. Scientific curiosity, insatiable in its explorations, does not know what it will find, or where it will lead. Science needs autonomy to cultivate this kind of untrammeled curiosity; innovation, however, responds to the needs and desires of society. Innovation, argues influential European science studies scholar Helga Nowotny, tames the passion of science, harnessing it to produce “deliverables.” Science brings uncertainties; innovation successfully copes with them. Society calls for both the passion for knowledge and its taming. This ambivalence, Nowotny contends, is an inevitable result of modernity. In Insatiable Curiosity, Nowotny explores the strands of the often unexpected intertwining of science and technology and society. Uncertainty arises, she writes, from an oversupply of knowledge. The quest for innovation is society's response to the uncertainties that come with scientific and technological achievement. Our dilemma is how to balance the immense but unpredictable potential of science and technology with our acknowledgement that not everything that can be done should be done. We can escape the old polarities of utopias and dystopias, writes Nowotny, by accepting our ambivalence—as a legacy of modernism and a positive cultural resource.
Download or read book Wilted written by Julie Guthman and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2019-08-20 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Strawberries are big business in California. They are the sixth-highest-grossing crop in the state, which produces 88 percent of the nation’s favorite berry. Yet the industry is often criticized for its backbreaking labor conditions and dependence on highly toxic soil fumigants used to control fungal pathogens and other soilborne pests. In Wilted, Julie Guthman tells the story of how the strawberry industry came to rely on soil fumigants, and how that reliance reverberated throughout the rest of the fruit’s production system. The particular conditions of plants, soils, chemicals, climate, and laboring bodies that once made strawberry production so lucrative in the Golden State have now changed and become a set of related threats that jeopardize the future of the industry.
Download or read book Fragile Futures written by Helle Samuelsen and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2024-02-02 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Caring for small children and the family in Burkina Faso is hard work. Although the health infrastructure in Burkina Faso is weak and many citizens feel neglected by the state, Fragile Futures shows that the state continues to play an important role in people’s engagements and hopes for a better future. Based on more than twenty years of research engagement with Burkina Faso, it is an ethnography of how rural citizens address ambiguities of sickness and care and try to secure a decent future for themselves and their families.
Download or read book Fragile Futures written by Vito Tanzi and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-05-19 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Governments have not adequately prepared for unpredictable events such as climate change and pandemics, which require global responses.
Download or read book Descent Into Chaos written by Ahmed Rashid and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines how the failure of the nation building policies of the United States have contributed to increased instability in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, a result which represents the greatest threat to peace and security in the global community.
Download or read book A Fragile Life written by Todd May and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-03 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is perhaps our noblest cause, and certainly one of our oldest: to end suffering. Think of the Buddha, Chuang Tzu, or Marcus Aurelius: stoically composed figures impervious to the torments of the wider world, living their lives in complete serenity—and teaching us how to do the same. After all, isn’t a life free from suffering the ideal? Isn’t it what so many of us seek? Absolutely not, argues Todd May in this provocative but compassionate book. In a moving examination of life and the trials that beset it, he shows that our fragility, our ability to suffer, is actually one of the most important aspects of our humanity. May starts with a simple but hard truth: suffering is inevitable. At the most basic level, we suffer physically—a sprained ankle or a bad back. But we also suffer insults and indifference. We suffer from overburdened schedules and unforeseen circumstances, from moral dilemmas and emotional heartaches. Even just thinking about our own mortality—the fact that we only live one life—can lead us to tremendous suffering. No wonder philosophies such as Buddhism, Taosim, Stoicism, and even Epicureanism—all of which counsel us to rise above these plights—have had appeal over the centuries. May highlights the tremendous value of these philosophies and the ways they can guide us toward better lives, but he also exposes a major drawback to their tenets: such invulnerability is too emotionally disengaged from the world, leading us to place too great a distance between ourselves and our experience. Rather than seeking absolute immunity, he argues most of us just want to hurt less and learn how to embrace and accept what suffering we do endure in a meaningful way. Offering a guide on how to positively engage suffering, May ultimately lays out a new way of thinking about how we exist in the world, one that reassures us that our suffering, rather than a failure of physical or psychological resilience, is a powerful and essential part of life itself.
Download or read book The Fragile Balance of Terror written by Vipin Narang and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2023-01-15 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Fragile Balance of Terror, the foremost experts on nuclear policy and strategy offer insight into an era rife with more nuclear powers. Some of these new powers suffer domestic instability, others are led by pathological personalist dictators, and many are situated in highly unstable regions of the world—a volatile mix of variables. The increasing fragility of deterrence in the twenty-first century is created by a confluence of forces: military technologies that create vulnerable arsenals, a novel information ecosystem that rapidly transmits both information and misinformation, nuclear rivalries that include three or more nuclear powers, and dictatorial decision making that encourages rash choices. The nuclear threats posed by India, Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea are thus fraught with danger. The Fragile Balance of Terror, edited by Vipin Narang and Scott D. Sagan, brings together a diverse collection of rigorous and creative scholars who analyze how the nuclear landscape is changing for the worse. Scholars, pundits, and policymakers who think that the spread of nuclear weapons can create stable forms of nuclear deterrence in the future will be forced to think again. Contributors: Giles David Arceneaux, Mark S. Bell, Christopher Clary, Peter D. Feaver, Jeffrey Lewis, Rose McDermott, Nicholas L. Miller, Vipin Narang, Ankit Panda, Scott D. Sagan, Caitlin Talmadge, Heather Williams, Amy Zegart
Download or read book The Fragility of Freedom written by Joshua Mitchell and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1999-05-15 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this fresh interpretation of Tocqueville's thought, Joshua Mitchell explores the dynamic interplay between religion and politics in American democracy. Focusing on Democracy in America, The Fragility of Freedom examines Tocqueville's key works and argues that his analysis of democracy is ultimately rooted in an Augustinian view of human psychology. As much a work of political philosophy as of religion, The Fragility of Freedom argues for the importance of a political theology that recognizes moderation. "An intelligent and sharply drawn portrait of a conservative Toqueville."—Anne C. Rose, Journal of American History "I recommend this book as one of a very few to approach seriously the sources of Tocqueville's intellectual and moral greatness."—Peter Augustine Lawler, Journal of Politics "Mitchell ably places Democracy in America in the long conversation of Western political and theological thought."—Wilfred M. McClay, First Things "Learned and thought-provoking."—Peter Berkowitz, New Republic
Download or read book Fragile Web written by Jonathan W. Silvertown and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jonathan Silvertown is professor of ecology at the Open University, Milton Keynes, and the author of An Orchard Invisible and Demons in Eden and editor of 99% Ape, all published by the University of Chicago Press. --Book Jacket.
Download or read book Yayoi Kusama written by Victoria Miro Gallery and published by . This book was released on 2021-08-24 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Akira Tatehata
Download or read book A Bright Future written by Joshua S. Goldstein and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2019-01-08 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inspiration for Nuclear Now, the new Oliver Stone film, co-written by Joshua Goldstein As climate change quickly approaches a series of turning points that guarantee disastrous outcomes, a solution is hiding in plain sight. Several countries have already replaced fossil fuels with low-carbon energy sources, and done so rapidly, in one to two decades. By following their methods, we could decarbonize the global economy by midcentury, replacing fossil fuels even while world energy use continues to rise. But so far we have lacked the courage to really try. In this clear-sighted and compelling book, Joshua Goldstein and Staffan Qvist explain how clean energy quickly replaced fossil fuels in such places as Sweden, France, South Korea, and Ontario. Their people enjoyed prosperity and growing energy use in harmony with the natural environment. They didn't do this through personal sacrifice, nor through 100 percent renewables, but by using them in combination with an energy source the Swedes call käkraft, hundreds of times safer and cleaner than coal. Clearly written and beautifully illustrated, yet footnoted with extensive technical references, Goldstein and Qvist's book will provide a new touchstone in discussions of climate change. It could spark a shift in world energy policy that, in the words of Steven Pinker's foreword, literally saves the world.
Download or read book A Fragile Hope written by Charles R. Ringma and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2021-10-12 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We are living in challenging times. And it is easy to escape, pine for the “good old days,” or unrealistically dream our way into the future. Instead, we are invited, in this book, to face our troubled world, to identify our inner struggles of faith, and to voice our anxieties and pain. And most importantly we are invited to wrestle with the God who so often seems absent. Living with a fragile hope, we are called by the gospel to nurture an inner life that responds with faith and courage to the brokenness of our world and the woundedness of our inner being.
Download or read book Economics for a Fragile Planet written by Edward Barbier and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-03-31 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As global environmental challenges mount, this book offers a policy blueprint for building a safer, sustainable and more inclusive world.
Download or read book Ten Journeys on a Fragile Planet written by Rod Taylor and published by Odyssey Books. This book was released on 2020-11-13 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humanity is sliding toward a collision between global warming, resource depletion, and population growth. The evidence is daunting but we are hampered by anti-science demagogues who tell us everything’s okay, that we’ll run forever on our current course. The problem we are facing is on a global scale, far beyond any individual. It can be overwhelming and it is difficult to remain cheerful. In Ten Journeys on a Fragile Planet, journalist Rod Taylor interviews ten outstanding Australians who have – and are – doing something to confront the perilous state of the environment. This book tells their stories. Featuring: The Activist: Simon Sheikh The Solar Pioneer: Professor Andrew Blakers The Maggot Farmer: Olympia Yarger The Accidental Activist: Charlie Prell The Thoughtful Salesman: Leonard Cohen The Politician: Susan Jeanes The Climate Game Changer: Inez Harker-Schuch The Advocate: Professor Kate Auty The Lady with a Laser: Monica Oliphant A Question of Hope: Dr Siwan Lovett 'The ten case studies, showing what dedicated people can achieve, give us hope for the future. This is an important book.' - Dr Mark Diesendorf 'With the massive bushfires fresh in our minds, we need a remarkable turnaround in policies and actions. The remarkable people who contributed to this book provide us with a wide range of ideas and actions to get us on the right track toward a sustainable future.' -Professor Will Steffen 'Since Homer the world has needed its heroes – people whose deeds and words inspire us, galvanise us, uplift us, afford us glimpses of a better future. In Ten Journeys and a Fragile Planet, Rod Taylor summons ten heroes for our time, the most perilous time that human beings have ever faced: real people, facing real challenges and setbacks, passionate, driven, courageous, wise, unbowed. If there is hope for humanity, he has distilled its essence.' - Julian Cribb, author of Surviving the 21st Century
Download or read book Fragile written by Lisa Unger and published by Crown. This book was released on 2010-08-03 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thrilling novel from New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger about the hunt for a missing girl and one community’s intricate yet fragile bonds. “[A] nail-biting nuanced whodunit.”—People Everybody knows everybody in The Hollows, a quaint, charming town outside of New York City. It’s a place where neighbors keep an eye on one another’s kids, where people say hello in the grocery store, and where high school cliques and antics are never quite forgotten. As a child, Maggie found living under the microscope of small-town life stifling. But as a wife and mother, she has happily returned to The Hollows’s insular embrace. As a psychologist, her knowledge of family histories provides powerful insights into her patients’ lives. So when the girlfriend of her teenage son, Rick, disappears, Maggie’s intuitive gift proves useful to the case—and also dangerous. Eerie parallels soon emerge between Charlene’s disappearance and the abduction of another local girl that shook the community years ago when Maggie was a teenager. The investigation has her husband, Jones, the lead detective on the case, acting strangely. Rick, already a brooding teenager, becomes even more withdrawn. In a town where the past is always present, nobody is above suspicion, not even a son in the eyes of his father. As she tries to reassure him that Rick embodies his father in all of the important ways, Maggie realizes this might be exactly what Jones fears most. Determined to uncover the truth, Maggie pursues her own leads into Charlene’s disappearance and exposes a long-buried town secret—one that could destroy everything she holds dear.
