Download or read book Immoderate Greatness written by William Ophuls and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Immoderate Greatness* explains how a civilization's very magnitude conspires against it to cause downfall. Civilizations are hard-wired for self-destruction. They travel an arc from initial success to terminal decay and ultimate collapse due to intrinsic, inescapable biophysical limits combined with an inexorable trend toward moral decay and practical failure. Because our own civilization is global, its collapse will also be global, as well as uniquely devastating owing to the immensity of its population, complexity, and consumption. To avoid the common fate of all past civilizations will require a radical change in our ethos-to wit, the deliberate renunciation of greatness-lest we precipitate a dark age in which the arts and adornments of civilization are partially or completely lost.
Download or read book Dirt written by David R. Montgomery and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2007-05-14 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dirt, soil, call it what you want—it's everywhere we go. It is the root of our existence, supporting our feet, our farms, our cities. This fascinating yet disquieting book finds, however, that we are running out of dirt, and it's no laughing matter. An engaging natural and cultural history of soil that sweeps from ancient civilizations to modern times, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations explores the compelling idea that we are—and have long been—using up Earth's soil. Once bare of protective vegetation and exposed to wind and rain, cultivated soils erode bit by bit, slowly enough to be ignored in a single lifetime but fast enough over centuries to limit the lifespan of civilizations. A rich mix of history, archaeology and geology, Dirt traces the role of soil use and abuse in the history of Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, China, European colonialism, Central America, and the American push westward. We see how soil has shaped us and we have shaped soil—as society after society has risen, prospered, and plowed through a natural endowment of fertile dirt. David R. Montgomery sees in the recent rise of organic and no-till farming the hope for a new agricultural revolution that might help us avoid the fate of previous civilizations.
Download or read book The Fate of Empires written by Arthur John Hubbard and published by . This book was released on 1913 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Fate of Empires: Being an Inquiry into the Stability of Civilisation by Arthur John Hubbard, first published in 1913, is a rare manuscript, the original residing in one of the great libraries of the world. This book is a reproduction of that original, which has been scanned and cleaned by state-of-the-art publishing tools for better readability and enhanced appreciation. Restoration Editors' mission is to bring long out of print manuscripts back to life. Some smudges, annotations or unclear text may still exist, due to permanent damage to the original work. We believe the literary significance of the text justifies offering this reproduction, allowing a new generation to appreciate it.
Download or read book The Great Gain of Godliness written by Thomas Watson and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2015-12-02 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: C. H. Spurgeon had a well-stocked library of Puritan books that contained around 12,000 volumes. However, one rare book was not to be found amongst that valuable collection: Thomas Watson's Notes on Malachi 3:16-18. With a note of sadness in his voice he said to his College students: ""This volume] would be a great find if we could come at it, for Watson is one of the clearest and liveliest of Puritan authors. We fear we shall never see this commentary, for we have tried to obtain it, and tried in vain."" In this reset and lightly edited edition you can now read the book that was on Spurgeon's 'wish-list' ""The Great Gain of Godliness"" is Watson's exposition of Mal. 3:16-18. In it he aims ""to encourage solid piety and confute the atheists of the world, who imagine there is no gain in godliness."" This book has all the hallmarks of Thomas Watson's other writings: a combination of rich spirituality, nourishing doctrine, and sane practical wisdom coupled with fascinating illustrations and a very pleasant style
Download or read book Great Satan s Rage written by Scott Wilson and published by . This book was released on 2008-07-15 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Great Satan's Rage looks at how rap and metal--the two most pervasive popular music forms of the 1990s--have been highly engaged with America's role in the world, super-capitalism, and their own role within it. This has especially been the case when genres have crossed over as an effect of cross-racial forms of identification and desire, marketing strategy, political engagement, opportunism, and experimentation. It is how examples of these forms have negotiated, contested, raged against, survived, exploited, simulated and performed "Satan's Rage" that is the subject of this book. The book offers a highly original approach in relating rap/metal to critical theories of economy and culture, introducing a new method of cultural analysis based on theories of negativity and expenditure.
Download or read book Desire and Excess written by Jonah Siegel and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2000-08-20 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this fascinating look at the creative power of institutions, Jonah Siegel explores the rise of the modern idea of the artist in the nineteenth century, a period that also witnessed the emergence of the museum and the professional critic. Treating these developments as interrelated, he analyzes both visual material and literary texts to portray a culture in which art came to be thought of in powerful new ways. Ultimately, Siegel shows that artistic controversies commonly associated with the self-consciously radical movements of modernism and postmodernism have their roots in a dynamic era unfairly characterized as staid, self-satisfied, and stable. The nineteenth century has been called the Age of the Museum, and yet critics, art theorists, and poets during this period grappled with the question of whether the proliferation of museums might lead to the death of Art itself. Did the assembly and display of works of art help the viewer to understand them or did it numb the senses? How was the contemporary artist to respond to the vast storehouses of art from disparate nations and periods that came to proliferate in this era? Siegel presents a lively discussion of the shock experienced by neoclassical artists troubled by remains of antiquity that were trivial or even obscene, as well as the anxious aesthetic reveries of nineteenth-century art lovers overwhelmed by the quantity of objects quickly crowding museums and exhibition halls. In so doing, he illuminates the fruitful crises provoked when the longing for admired art is suddenly satisfied. Drawing upon neoclassical art and theory, biographies of early nineteenth-century writers including Keats and Scott, and the writings of art critics such as Hazlitt, Ruskin, and Wilde, this book reproduces a cultural matrix that brings to life the artistic passions and anxieties of an entire era.
Download or read book Plato s Revenge written by William Ophuls and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2011-08-19 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative essay that imagines a truly ecological future based on political transformation rather than the superficialities of “sustainability.” In this provocative call for a new ecological politics, William Ophuls starts from a radical premise: “sustainability” is impossible. We are on an industrial Titanic, fueled by rapidly depleting stocks of fossil hydrocarbons. Making the deck chairs from recyclable materials and feeding the boilers with biofuels is futile. In the end, the ship is doomed by the laws of thermodynamics and by the implacable biological and geological limits that are already beginning to pinch. Ophuls warns us that we are headed for a postindustrial future that, however technologically sophisticated, will resemble the preindustrial past in many important respects. With Plato's Revenge, Ophuls, author of Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity, envisions political and social transformations that will lead to a new natural-law politics based on the realities of ecology, physics, and psychology. In a discussion that ranges widely—from ecology to quantum physics to Jungian psychology to Eastern religion to Western political philosophy—Ophuls argues for an essentially Platonic politics of consciousness dedicated to inner cultivation rather than outward expansion and the pursuit of perpetual growth. We would then achieve a way of life that is materially and institutionally simple but culturally and spiritually rich, one in which humanity flourishes in harmony with nature.
Download or read book Deadly Secrets of Iranian Princes written by Pascal Mahvi and published by FriesenPress. This book was released on 2011 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every once in a while, someone with unprecedented access to the truth, lifts the veil in a memoir so stark and revealing that it has the power to reframe history and our perceptions of those who defined it. Pascal Mahvi's book is one such to me. The Deadly Secrets of Iranian Princes, which spans three decades, is Mahvi's candid account of his struggle growing up straddling two cultures and in the process reconciling his own identity both as an American and a descendant of Iranian royalty. When the newly appointed Shah of Iran reaches out to Mahvi's father to become his chief advisor and confidante, young Pascal is thrust into the controversial leader's elite inner-sanctum during one of the most pivotal periods in history. The author's story of survival is at once both riveting and poignant, offering rare, intimate glimpses of the Shah at his most human away from the glare of the spotlight. It is also a window into the surprising strengths and frailties of some of the world's most famous celebrities from the deeply personal perspective of someone who unexpectedly finds himself an intimate part of their world. Told through the eyes of a son forced to become a man against a backdrop of unimaginable danger and sacrifice, Deadly Secrets of Iranian Princes is the front page story that hasn't been broken...until now. The revelations in this book, from corporate treason and corrupt government to the surreal demands of being an insider in the shadow of a nuclear arms race are sure to ignite a firestorm of controversy, especially for those whose betrayals will finally become public. More than a news story, at its heart, Deadly Secrets of Iranian Princes is also a haunting testimonial to the complexities of extreme privilege and the unforgettable chronicle of one man's quest to honor his father....
Download or read book Overshoot written by William R. Catton and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1980-10-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our day-to-day experiences over the past decade have taught us that there must be limits to our tremendous appetite for energy, natural resources, and consumer goods. Even utility and oil companies now promote conservation in the face of demands for dwindling energy reserves. And for years some biologists have warned us of the direct correlation between scarcity and population growth. These scientists see an appalling future riding the tidal wave of a worldwide growth of population and technology. A calm but unflinching realist, Catton suggests that we cannot stop this wave - for we have already overshot the Earth's capacity to support so huge a load. He contradicts those scientists, engineers, and technocrats who continue to write optimistically about energy alternatives. Catton asserts that the technological panaceas proposed by those who would harvest from the seas, harness the winds, and farm the deserts are ignoring the fundamental premise that "the principals of ecology apply to all living things." These principles tell us that, within a finite system, economic expansion is not irreversible and population growth cannot continue indefinitely. If we disregard these facts, our sagging American Dream will soon shatter completely.
Download or read book Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity Revisited written by William Ophuls and published by W H Freeman & Company. This book was released on 1992 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Vol 6 written by Edward Gibbon and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-01-18 with total page 471 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gibbon offers an explanation for why the Roman Empire fell, a task made difficult by a lack of comprehensive written sources, though he was not the only historian to tackle the subject. Most of his ideas are directly taken from what few relevant records were available: those of the Roman moralists of the 4th and 5th centuries.
Download or read book The Book of Barely Imagined Beings written by Caspar Henderson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-04-10 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From medieval bestiaries to Borges’s Book of Imaginary Beings, we’ve long been enchanted by extraordinary animals, be they terrifying three-headed dogs or asps impervious to a snake charmer’s song. But bestiaries are more than just zany zoology—they are artful attempts to convey broader beliefs about human beings and the natural order. Today, we no longer fear sea monsters or banshees. But from the infamous honey badger to the giant squid, animals continue to captivate us with the things they can do and the things they cannot, what we know about them and what we don’t. With The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, Caspar Henderson offers readers a fascinating, beautifully produced modern-day menagerie. But whereas medieval bestiaries were often based on folklore and myth, the creatures that abound in Henderson’s book—from the axolotl to the zebrafish—are, with one exception, very much with us, albeit sometimes in depleted numbers. The Book of Barely Imagined Beings transports readers to a world of real creatures that seem as if they should be made up—that are somehow more astonishing than anything we might have imagined. The yeti crab, for example, uses its furry claws to farm the bacteria on which it feeds. The waterbear, meanwhile, is among nature’s “extreme survivors,” able to withstand a week unprotected in outer space. These and other strange and surprising species invite readers to reflect on what we value—or fail to value—and what we might change. A powerful combination of wit, cutting-edge natural history, and philosophical meditation, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings is an infectious and inspiring celebration of the sheer ingenuity and variety of life in a time of crisis and change.
Download or read book Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity written by William Ophuls and published by W.H. Freeman. This book was released on 1977 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on the author's thesis, Yale, 1973. Includes index. Bibliography: p. [249]-284.
Download or read book Apologies to the Grandchldren written by William Ophuls and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2018-11-29 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why are we sleepwalking toward a foreordained ecological collapse? What is the connection between the ecological crisis and the breakdown of liberal democracy? What do political history and philosophy, along with anthropology and depth psychology, have to say about these issues? And what will society look like when we exhaust solar capital in the form of fossil fuels and must live once again on the daily and seasonal flow of solar income? These interlocking essays throw light on all these questions, illuminating the forces that will determine the long-term future of humanity.
Download or read book The End of Normal written by James K. Galbraith and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-09-09 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of the most respected economic thinkers and writers of our time, a brilliant argument about the history and future of economic growth. The years since the Great Crisis of 2008 have seen slow growth, high unemployment, falling home values, chronic deficits, a deepening disaster in Europe—and a stale argument between two false solutions, “austerity” on one side and “stimulus” on the other. Both sides and practically all analyses of the crisis so far take for granted that the economic growth from the early 1950s until 2000—interrupted only by the troubled 1970s—represented a normal performance. From this perspective, the crisis was an interruption, caused by bad policy or bad people, and full recovery is to be expected if the cause is corrected. The End of Normal challenges this view. Placing the crisis in perspective, Galbraith argues that the 1970s already ended the age of easy growth. The 1980s and 1990s saw only uneven growth, with rising inequality within and between countries. And the 2000s saw the end even of that—despite frantic efforts to keep growth going with tax cuts, war spending, and financial deregulation. When the crisis finally came, stimulus and automatic stabilization were able to place a floor under economic collapse. But they are not able to bring about a return to high growth and full employment. In The End of Normal, “Galbraith puts his pessimism into an engaging, plausible frame. His contentions deserve the attention of all economists and serious financial minds across the political spectrum” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
Download or read book The Fate of Rome written by Kyle Harper and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-02 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How devastating viruses, pandemics, and other natural catastrophes swept through the far-flung Roman Empire and helped to bring down one of the mightiest civilizations of the ancient world Here is the monumental retelling of one of the most consequential chapters of human history: the fall of the Roman Empire. The Fate of Rome is the first book to examine the catastrophic role that climate change and infectious diseases played in the collapse of Rome’s power—a story of nature’s triumph over human ambition. Interweaving a grand historical narrative with cutting-edge climate science and genetic discoveries, Kyle Harper traces how the fate of Rome was decided not just by emperors, soldiers, and barbarians but also by volcanic eruptions, solar cycles, climate instability, and devastating viruses and bacteria. He takes readers from Rome’s pinnacle in the second century, when the empire seemed an invincible superpower, to its unraveling by the seventh century, when Rome was politically fragmented and materially depleted. Harper describes how the Romans were resilient in the face of enormous environmental stress, until the besieged empire could no longer withstand the combined challenges of a “little ice age” and recurrent outbreaks of bubonic plague. A poignant reflection on humanity’s intimate relationship with the environment, The Fate of Rome provides a sweeping account of how one of history’s greatest civilizations encountered and endured, yet ultimately succumbed to the cumulative burden of nature’s violence. The example of Rome is a timely reminder that climate change and germ evolution have shaped the world we inhabit—in ways that are surprising and profound.
Download or read book The Wizard and the Prophet written by Charles C. Mann and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2018-01-23 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the best-selling, award-winning author of 1491 and 1493--an incisive portrait of the two little-known twentieth-century scientists, Norman Borlaug and William Vogt, whose diametrically opposed views shaped our ideas about the environment, laying the groundwork for how people in the twenty-first century will choose to live in tomorrow's world. In forty years, Earth's population will reach ten billion. Can our world support that? What kind of world will it be? Those answering these questions generally fall into two deeply divided groups--Wizards and Prophets, as Charles Mann calls them in this balanced, authoritative, nonpolemical new book. The Prophets, he explains, follow William Vogt, a founding environmentalist who believed that in using more than our planet has to give, our prosperity will lead us to ruin. Cut back! was his mantra. Otherwise everyone will lose! The Wizards are the heirs of Norman Borlaug, whose research, in effect, wrangled the world in service to our species to produce modern high-yield crops that then saved millions from starvation. Innovate! was Borlaug's cry. Only in that way can everyone win! Mann delves into these diverging viewpoints to assess the four great challenges humanity faces--food, water, energy, climate change--grounding each in historical context and weighing the options for the future. With our civilization on the line, the author's insightful analysis is an essential addition to the urgent conversation about how our children will fare on an increasingly crowded Earth.
