Download or read book African Civilization Revisited written by Basil Davidson and published by Africa Research and Publications. This book was released on 1991 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A classic book on African history as told in the chronicles and records of chiefs and kings, travellers and merchant-adventurers, poets and pirates and priests, soldiers and scholars. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Download or read book Energy and Civilization written by Vaclav Smil and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-11-13 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society throughout history, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel–driven civilization. "I wait for new Smil books the way some people wait for the next 'Star Wars' movie. In his latest book, Energy and Civilization: A History, he goes deep and broad to explain how innovations in humans' ability to turn energy into heat, light, and motion have been a driving force behind our cultural and economic progress over the past 10,000 years. —Bill Gates, Gates Notes, Best Books of the Year Energy is the only universal currency; it is necessary for getting anything done. The conversion of energy on Earth ranges from terra-forming forces of plate tectonics to cumulative erosive effects of raindrops. Life on Earth depends on the photosynthetic conversion of solar energy into plant biomass. Humans have come to rely on many more energy flows—ranging from fossil fuels to photovoltaic generation of electricity—for their civilized existence. In this monumental history, Vaclav Smil provides a comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel–driven civilization. Humans are the only species that can systematically harness energies outside their bodies, using the power of their intellect and an enormous variety of artifacts—from the simplest tools to internal combustion engines and nuclear reactors. The epochal transition to fossil fuels affected everything: agriculture, industry, transportation, weapons, communication, economics, urbanization, quality of life, politics, and the environment. Smil describes humanity's energy eras in panoramic and interdisciplinary fashion, offering readers a magisterial overview. This book is an extensively updated and expanded version of Smil's Energy in World History (1994). Smil has incorporated an enormous amount of new material, reflecting the dramatic developments in energy studies over the last two decades and his own research over that time.

Download or read book An Introduction to Modern Western Civilization written by Edmund Clingan and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2011-10-19 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past 250 years, Europe and the United States have changed from simple societies into complex, densely-populated, industrial powerhouses. Th s book explains how it happened in clear language intended for the general reader. Each chapter includes a timeline, key terms and persons, and web-based sources of writings from the time. "We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us."

Download or read book Catastrophe written by David Keys and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2000-10-02 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It was a catastrophe without precedent in recorded history: for months on end, starting in A.D. 535, a strange, dusky haze robbed much of the earth of normal sunlight. Crops failed in Asia and the Middle East as global weather patterns radically altered. Bubonic plague, exploding out of Africa, wiped out entire populations in Europe. Flood and drought brought ancient cultures to the brink of collapse. In a matter of decades, the old order died and a new world—essentially the modern world as we know it today—began to emerge. In this fascinating, groundbreaking, totally accessible book, archaeological journalist David Keys dramatically reconstructs the global chain of revolutions that began in the catastrophe of A.D. 535, then offers a definitive explanation of how and why this cataclysm occurred on that momentous day centuries ago. The Roman Empire, the greatest power in Europe and the Middle East for centuries, lost half its territory in the century following the catastrophe. During the exact same period, the ancient southern Chinese state, weakened by economic turmoil, succumbed to invaders from the north, and a single unified China was born. Meanwhile, as restless tribes swept down from the central Asian steppes, a new religion known as Islam spread through the Middle East. As Keys demonstrates with compelling originality and authoritative research, these were not isolated upheavals but linked events arising from the same cause and rippling around the world like an enormous tidal wave. Keys's narrative circles the globe as he identifies the eerie fallout from the months of darkness: unprecedented drought in Central America, a strange yellow dust drifting like snow over eastern Asia, prolonged famine, and the hideous pandemic of the bubonic plague. With a superb command of ancient literatures and historical records, Keys makes hitherto unrecognized connections between the "wasteland" that overspread the British countryside and the fall of the great pyramid-building Teotihuacan civilization in Mexico, between a little-known "Jewish empire" in Eastern Europe and the rise of the Japanese nation-state, between storms in France and pestilence in Ireland. In the book's final chapters, Keys delves into the mystery at the heart of this global catastrophe: Why did it happen? The answer, at once surprising and definitive, holds chilling implications for our own precarious geopolitical future. Wide-ranging in its scholarship, written with flair and passion, filled with original insights, Catastrophe is a superb synthesis of history, science, and cultural interpretation.

Download or read book The Lost Arts of Modern Civilization written by Mitchell Kalpakgian and published by TAN Books. This book was released on 2009 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a world gone crazy one might wonder if simple acts of civility are worth the trouble. Dressing with dignity, writing letters, and innocent courtship are just some of the lost arts of kindness and integrity that Dr. Mitchell Kalpakgian tries to dig up and dust off, imploring us to regain the honor and worth our society once had. These noble habits of living fill common life with an abundance of simple pleasures that adorn day to day existence. The Lost Arts of Modern Civilization will inspire you to seek out and nourish the simple joys that lift the spirit, rejoice the heart, and enliven the mind.

Download or read book The History of Modern Civilization written by Gustave Ducoudray and published by . This book was released on 1891 with total page 630 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Punishment and Civilization written by John Pratt and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2002-07-10 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: `A lucid and fascinating account of how society initially comes to be viewed as ′civilized′ on the basis of how it punishes its offenders, and the various numances and contradictions that form the backdrop to that ′civilization′ prior to 1970 and the unraveling of that process thereafter. ...He [Pratt] has at the very least broadened the boundaries of the debate about the history of imprisonment in new and novel ways that will surely become a basis for future analysis′ - The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice ′In presenting and organizing such a wealth of historical material, John Pratt′s book will be welcomed by those who teach and study the history of the prison in the English-speaking world′ - Criminal Justice Punishment and Civilization examines how a framework of punishment that suited the values and standards of the civilized world came to be set in place from around 1800 to the late 20th century. In this book, John Pratt draws on research about prison architecture, clothing, diet, hygienic arrangements and changes in penal language to establish this. The author demonstrates that this did not mean, however, that such a framework of punishment was ′civilized′. Instead it meant that punishment in the civilized world became anonymous and remote. Prison brutalities and privations could be largely unchecked by a public that did not want to be involved. In the last few decades it has become clear that civilized societies have to tolerate new boundaries of punishment. This is not because of any development of ′civilized punishment′. Instead this is due to a shift in public mood and power: from public indifference to public involvement in penal development. Throughout this text theoretical ideas and concepts are accessibly introduced and illustrated with a wide range of examples from the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It will be essential reading for students and academics of punishment, prisons and social theory.

Download or read book In Pursuit of Civility written by Keith Thomas and published by Brandeis University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Keith Thomas's earlier studies in the ethnography of early modern England, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Man and the Natural World, and The Ends of Life, were all attempts to explore beliefs, values, and social practices in the centuries from 1500 to 1800. In Pursuit of Civility continues this quest by examining what English people thought it meant to be "civilized" and how that condition differed from being "barbarous" or "savage." Thomas shows that the upper ranks of society sought to distinguish themselves from their social inferiors by distinctive ways of moving, speaking, and comporting themselves, and that the common people developed their own form of civility. The belief of the English in their superior civility shaped their relations with the Welsh, the Scots, and the Irish, and was fundamental to their dealings with the native peoples of North America, India, and Australia. Yet not everyone shared this belief in the superiority of Western civilization; the book sheds light on the origins of both anticolonialism and cultural relativism. Thomas has written an accessible history based on wide reading, abounding in fresh insights, and illustrated by many striking quotations and anecdotes from contemporary sources.

Download or read book What Makes Civilization written by David Wengrow and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-25 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 'What Makes Civilization?', archaeologist David Wengrow provides a vivid account of the 'birth of civilization' in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia (today's Iraq). These two regions, where many foundations of modern life were laid, are usually treated in isolation. Now, they are brought together within a unified history.

Download or read book Whither Mankind written by Charles Austin Beard and published by New York, Longmans. This book was released on 1928 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction / C.A. Beard -- The civilizations of the East and the West / Hu Shih -- Ancient and medieval civilizations / H.W. Van Loon -- Science / Bertrand Russell -- Business / Julius Klein -- Labor / Sidney and Beatrice Webb -- Law and government / H.L. McBain -- War and peace / Emil Ludwig -- Health / C.E.A. Winslow -- The family / Havelock Ellis -- Race and civilization / G.A. Dorsey -- Religion / J.H. Robinson -- The arts / Lewis Mumford -- Philosophy / John Dewey -- Play / Stuart Chase -- Education / E.D. Martin -- Literature / Carl Van Doren -- Epilogue / C.A. Beard.

Download or read book The Primitive Mind and Modern Civilization written by Charles Roberts Aldrich and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Download or read book The History of Modern Civilization written by Gustave Ducoudray and published by . This book was released on 1891 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Modern Civilization written by S. C. Malik and published by Abhinav Publications. This book was released on 1989 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Crisis Of The Age Inheres In This, That Notwithstanding The Century S Mind-Boggling Disasters, It Persists In Subscribing To Propositions Which Have Logically Led To The Atomization Of The Whole Cloth Of Human Experiencing, And Being. Great Indeed Is The Value, Which Is Placed On The Procedure Of Analytic Dismemberment. While The Method Has Certainly Been Result Producing, Materially, In Its Wake It Has Brought Immense Suffering- Both Physical And Spiritual. The Price Paid For A Lopsided Advance Is Thirty Major Wars With Their Toll Of One Hundred And Thirty Million Lives, And The Irreparable Destruction Of The Natural Environment. The Time Cries For A Reappraisal Of The Basic Paradigms Of Human Existence, But The Hegemony Of Well-Entrenched Vested Interests Material Or Intellectual Would Seem To Preclude This. The Advanced Among The Mankind Of The Day Become Suicidally Specialized. For, If The Mechanical Model Of Thought Has Been Of Advantage In Man S Preceding Unfolding, The Same, What May Be Called The Survival Paradigm,, Now Creates Dangerous Dualities, Binary Oppositions (You-Me, Body-Mind, East-West, Etc.) . The Model Has Outlived Its Usefulness Merely Enforcing Dormancy On A Major Part Of The Human Brain. It Behoves Mankind To Choose Wisely Right Now Since Parallel To The Socio-Economic, Scientific And Technological Revolutions There Has Got To Be The Overdue Radical Psychic Transformation. The First Step Towards Clearing The Fateful Crisis Would Therefore Be To Be Aware, And End The Hold Of The Linear, Causal, Mechanical Thought Orientation Over The Intellectual Culture Of The Times. Delving Deep Into The Epistemological-Cum-Ontological Causation Of The Emergency Confronting The Being And Becoming Of Man, The Author Of This Important Work Provokes The Thoughtful Lay Reader To A Serious Engagement With His Or Her Self.

Download or read book Modern Civilization I written by and published by . This book was released on 1967 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Civilization and Its Discontents written by Sigmund Freud and published by Courier Dover Publications. This book was released on 1994-01-01 with total page 81 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Dover thrift editions).

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 Overskill written by Eugene S. Schwartz and published by Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Company. This book was released on 1971 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: