Download or read book The Infinite Desire for Growth written by Daniel Cohen and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-08 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why society’s expectation of economic growth is no longer realistic Economic growth—and the hope of better things to come—is the religion of the modern world. Yet its prospects have become bleak, with crashes following booms in an endless cycle. In the United States, eighty percent of the population has seen no increase in purchasing power over the last thirty years and the situation is not much better elsewhere. The Infinite Desire for Growth spotlights the obsession with wanting more, and the global tensions that have arisen as a result. Daniel Cohen provides a whirlwind tour of the history of economic growth, from the early days of civilization to modern times, underscoring what is so unsettling today. He examines how a future less dependent on material gain might be considered, and how, in a culture of competition, individual desires might be better attuned to the greater needs of society.
Download or read book The Inglorious Years written by Daniel Cohen and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-18 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book describes how today's postindustrial society is transforming us all into sequences of data that can be manipulated by algorithms from anywhere on the planet. As yesterday's assembly line was replaced by working online, the leftist protests of the 1960s have given way to angry protests by the populist right. The author demonstrates how the digital economy creates the same mix of promises and disappointments as the old industrial order, and how it revives questions about society that are as relevant to us today as they were to the ancients
Download or read book The Modern World System II written by Immanuel Wallerstein and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2011-05-11 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Modern World System", Immanuel Wallerstein's influential multivolume reinterpretation of global history, traces the emergence and development of the modern world from the sixteenth century to the twentieth. -- From publisher's description.
Download or read book Montreal written by Dany Fougères and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2018-04-06 with total page 1505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Surrounded by water and located at the heart of a fertile plain, the Island of Montreal has been a crossroads for Indigenous peoples, European settlers, and today's citizens, and an inland port city for the movement of people and goods into and out of North America. Commemorating the city's 375th anniversary, Montreal: The History of a North American City is the definitive, two-volume account of this fascinating metropolis and its storied hinterland. This comprehensive collection of essays, filled with hundreds of illustrations, photographs, and maps, draws on human geography and environmental history to show that while certain distinctive features remain unchanged – Mount Royal, the Lachine Rapids of the Saint Lawrence River – human intervention and urban evolution mean that over time Montrealers have had drastically different experiences and historical understandings. Significant issues such as religion, government, social conditions, the economy, labour, transportation, culture and entertainment, and scientific and technological innovation are treated thematically in innovative and diverse chapters to illuminate how people's lives changed along with the transformation of Montreal. This history of a city in motion presents an entire picture of the changes that have marked the region as it spread from the old city of Ville-Marie into parishes, autonomous towns, boroughs, and suburbs on and off the island. The first volume encompasses the city up to 1930, vividly depicting the lives of First Nations prior to the arrival of Europeans, colonization by the French, and the beginning of British Rule. The crucial roles of waterways, portaging, paths, and trails as the primary means of travelling and trade are first examined before delving into the construction of canals, railways, and the first major roads. Nineteenth-century industrialization created a period of near-total change in Montreal as it became Canada's leading city and witnessed staggering population growth from less than 20,000 people in 1800 to over one million by 1930. The second volume treats the history of Montreal since 1930, the year that the Jacques Cartier Bridge was opened and allowed for the outward expansion of a region, which before had been confined to the island. From the Great Depression and Montreal's role as a munitions manufacturing centre during the Second World War to major cultural events like Expo 67, the twentieth century saw Montreal grow into one of the continent's largest cities, requiring stringent management of infrastructure, public utilities, and transportation. This volume also extensively studies the kinds of political debate with which the region and country still grapple regarding language, nationalism, federalism, and self-determination. Contributors include Philippe Apparicio (INRS), Guy Bellavance (INRS), Laurence Bherer (University of Montreal), Stéphane Castonguay (UQTR), the late Jean-Pierre Collin (INRS), Magda Fahrni (UQAM), the late Jean-Marie Fecteau (UQAM), Dany Fougères (UQAM), Robert Gagnon (UQAM), Danielle Gauvreau (Concordia), Annick Germain (INRS), Janice Harvey (Dawson College), Annie-Claude Labrecque (independent scholar), Yvan Lamonde (McGill), Daniel Latouche (INRS), Roderick MacLeod (independent scholar), Paula Negron-Poblete (University of Montreal), Normand Perron (INRS), Martin Petitclerc (UQAM), Christian Poirier (INRS), Claire Poitras (INRS), Mario Polèse (INRS), Myriam Richard (unaffiliated), Damaris Rose (INRS), Anne-Marie Séguin (INRS), Gilles Sénécal (INRS), Valérie Shaffer (independent scholar), Richard Shearmur (McGill), Sylvie Taschereau (UQTR), Michel Trépanier (INRS), Laurent Turcot (UQTR), Nathalie Vachon (INRS), and Roland Viau (University of Montreal).
Download or read book Globalization and Its Enemies written by Daniel Cohen and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2007-09-07 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative argument that the frustrations of globalization stem from the gap between the expectations created and the lagging economic reality in poor countries. The enemies of globalization—whether they denounce the exploitation of poor countries by rich ones or the imposition of Western values on traditional cultures—see the new world economy as forcing a system on people who do not want it. But the truth of the matter, writes Daniel Cohen in this provocative account, may be the reverse. Globalization, thanks to the speed of twenty-first-century communications, shows people a world of material prosperity that they do want—a vivid world of promises that have yet to be fulfilled. For the most impoverished developing nations, globalization remains only an elusive image, a fleeting mirage. Never before, Cohen says, have the means of communication—the media—created such a global consciousness, and never have economic forces lagged so far behind expectations. Today's globalization, Cohen argues, is the third act in a history that began with the Spanish Conquistadors in the sixteenth century and continued with Great Britain's nineteenth-century empire of free trade. In the nineteenth century, as in the twenty-first, a revolution in transportation and communication did not promote widespread wealth but favored polarization. India, a part of the British empire, was just as poor in 1913 as it was in 1820. Will today's information economy do better in disseminating wealth than the telegraph did two centuries ago? Presumably yes, if one gauges the outcome from China's perspective; surely not, if Africa's experience is a guide. At any rate, poor countries require much effort and investment to become players in the global game. The view that technologies and world trade bring wealth by themselves is no more true today than it was two centuries ago. We should not, Cohen writes, consider globalization as an accomplished fact. It is because of what has yet to happen—the unfulfilled promises of prosperity—that globalization has so many enemies in the contemporary world. For the poorest countries of the world, the problem is not so much that they are exploited by globalization as that they are forgotten and excluded.
Download or read book Bibliography of Art and Architecture in the Islamic World 2 vols written by Susan Sinclair and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2012-04-03 with total page 1508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following the tradition and style of the acclaimed Index Islamicus, the editors have created this new Bibliography of Art and Architecture in the Islamic World. The editors have surveyed and annotated a wide range of books and articles from collected volumes and journals published in all European languages (except Turkish) between 1906 and 2011. This comprehensive bibliography is an indispensable tool for everyone involved in the study of material culture in Muslim societies.
Download or read book Modern Migrations in Western Africa written by Samir Amin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-08-16 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1974, this volume deals with studies of migration from census and other data, variations in scale, distance and duration of various types of migration, social relations of migrant populations with their home areas and their host communities, and expectations and valuation of migrants concerning rural and urban life. It also examines interrelations between levels of migration, labour supply, wage rates and unemployment in urban centres, the impact of different types of migration on the national economy and economic planning and governemnt measures and conflicting interests of the labour supplying and receiving countries. The introduction analyses the main economic and political factors and the socio-economic consequences and problems brought about by migrations in and between territories.
Download or read book Land in the Struggles for Citizenship in Africa written by Moyo, Sam and published by CODESRIA. This book was released on 2015-12-01 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The variety of land questions facing Africa and the divergent strategies proposed to resolve them continue to evoke debates. Increasingly, in response to the enduring problems of land tenure, there are land movements of all shapes and orientations, some reformist and others quite revolutionary in their agenda. However revolutionary, land movements have tended to ignore the land tenure interests of women, pastoralists, youth and indigenous people. Several of these longstanding and emerging issues in land tenure include the role of the state in land tenure reforms; urban land questions, the nature of land struggles and improvements; and, the impact of land tenure developments on particular social groups and countries. An overarching concern is the extent to which land rights are being commodified, through the conversion of land held under customary tenure systems into marketised systems. The consequences of this include growing land concentration, land tenure insecurities, diminishing access to land by various sections of society, including the poor, women and less dominant ethno-religious groups. This volume brings together different studies on Africa's land questions exploring emerging land issues on the continent in terms of the wider questions of development, citizenship, and democratisation. The chapters discuss the land question through a variety of themes. Some focus on the agrarian aspects of the land questions, while others elucidate the urban dimensions of the land question.
Download or read book At Home in Postwar France written by Nicole C. Rudolph and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2015-03-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After World War II, France embarked on a project of modernization, which included the development of the modern mass home. At Home in Postwar France examines key groups of actors — state officials, architects, sociologists and tastemakers — arguing that modernizers looked to the home as a site for social engineering and nation-building; designers and advocates of the modern home contributed to the democratization of French society; and the French home of the Trente Glorieuses, as it was built and inhabited, was a hybrid product of architects’, planners’, and residents’ understandings of modernity. This volume identifies the “right to comfort” as an invention of the postwar period and suggests that the modern mass home played a vital role in shaping new expectations for well-being and happiness.
Download or read book The Blind Decades written by Philippe Askenazy and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2014-11-26 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "France is often described as one of the last Western economies that has not been able to reform itself in the face of globalization. Yet its economy has not fallen by the wayside, and it has even resisted the great recession that began in 2008. By interlinking historical, economic, and political factors, and by comparing France with other nations, this book offers keys for understanding the puzzle found in the development of France. Dynamics at work in the French case sidestep the usual injunctions--less state control or less rigidity in the labor market--and instead stress the importance of the construction of a long-term industrial strategy"--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity written by Abraham Marcus and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1989 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this innovative historical portrait of society in the premodern Middle East, Abraham Marcus takes us on a guided tour of a past world, revealing its inner workings and throwing new light on its realities during the crucial century before the onset of modernization in the region. Focusing on the great Syrian city of Aleppo, he pieces together aspects of life ranging from business and family to disease and popular pastimes. This work of social history shows how many of the accepted notions and assumptions about what is commonly called premodern, Islamic, or traditional society are inaccurate or unfounded, and draws our attention to the intricacies of a world that may appear alien and exotic but was by no means simple, primitive, or static.
Download or read book An Economic History of Modern France Routledge Revivals written by Francois Caron and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-06-03 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1979, this richly documented study of French development from the early nineteenth century to the present day is of particular importance to students both of history and economics. Francis Caron moves as confidently through the fields of current economic policy and modern economics as he does through the traditional subject matter of French nineteenth-century economic history. His book incorporates the mass of research that has appeared in monograph and periodical form in recent years, making it accessible for the first time to the English-speaking reader.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Modern French Thought written by Christopher John Murray and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2004 with total page 748 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work covers not only philosophy, but also all the other major disciplines, including literary theory, sociology, linguistics, political thought, theology, and more. The 240 analytical entries examine individuals such as Bergson, Durkheim, Mauss, Sartre, Beauvoir, Foucault, Levi-Strauss, Lacan, Kristeva, and Derrida; specific disciplines such as the arts, anthropology, historiography, psychology, and sociology; key beliefs and methodologies such as Catholicism, deconstruction, feminism, Marxism, and phenomenology; themes and concepts such as freedom, language, media, and sexuality; and istorical, political, social, and intellectual context. --From publisher's decription.
Download or read book Advances in Mycorrhizal Science and Technology written by Damase Khasa and published by NRC Research Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mycorrhizal symbioses are widespread and fundamental components of terrestrial ecosystems and have shaped plant evolution. Features such topics as plant/fungal communication, the interaction of mycorrhizal fungi with other soil microorganisms, and the use of mycorrhizal fungi in plant-production systems.
Download or read book Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World written by Jack A. Goldstone and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-19 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What can the great crises of the past teach us about contemporary revolutions? Jack Goldstone shows the important role of population changes, youth bulges, urbanization, elite divisions, and fiscal crises in creating major political crises. Goldstone shows how state breakdowns in both western monarchies and Asian empires followed the same patterns, triggered when inflexible political, economic, and social institutions were overwhelmed by cumulative changes in population structure that collided with popular aspirations and state-elite relations. Examining the great revolutions of Europe—the English and French Revolutions—and the great rebellions of Asia, which shattered dynasties in Ottoman Turkey, China, and Japan, he shows how long cycles of revolutionary crises and stability similarly shaped politics in Europe and Asia, but led to different outcomes. In this 25th anniversary edition, Goldstone reflects on the history of revolutions in the last twenty-five years, from the Philippines and other color revolutions to the Arab Uprisings and the rise of the Islamic State. In a new introduction, he re-examines his pioneering look at the role of population changes—such as rising youth cohorts, urbanization, shifting elite mobility––as continuing causal factors of revolutions and rebellions. The new concluding chapter updates his major theory and looks to the future of revolutions in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa.
Download or read book The Future of Economic Growth written by Robert Boyer and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The work is thought provoking in its analytical part and is also stimulating in its normative-political end, which advocates an institutional architecture wherein growth in a knowledge-based economy could be driven by collective services such as health and education. . . a challenging interpretation of the contemporary political economy. Giovanni Dosi, Journal of Economic Literature How significant was the internet boom and bust? Robert Boyer brings significant and fresh insight to efforts to situate the meaning of the digital transformation through which we are living. With analytic discipline and historical perspective, Boyer provides an important interpretation that will be valuable to scholar and teacher, those just curious about the internet development and those who lived through it. John Zysman, University of California, Berkeley, US In this book, Robert Boyer follows the origins, course and collapse of the new economy and proposes a new interpretation of US dynamism during the 1990s. He argues that the diffusion of information and communication technologies is only part of a story that also requires understanding of the transformation of the financial system, the reorganization of the management of firms and the emergence of a new policy mix. The book includes a long-term retrospective analysis of technological innovation, and an international comparison of OECD countries delivers an unconventional and critical assessment of the hope and the hype of the new economy . The book proposes that the US way is not necessarily the only efficient one, as demonstrated by the experience of the Nordic countries, which manage to combine economic efficiency with social justice. The author argues that European economies would do well to take note and to explore a promising growth regime for the twenty-first century, one built upon health, education, training and leisure, this comprising the anthropogenetic model . The Future of Economic Growth is a challenging and thought-provoking book, and as such will be of interest to many academics, researchers and students within the field of economics. It will be particularly relevant to those with an interest in macroeconomics, industrial organisation and the theory of the firm, and growth theory.
