Download or read book Superheroes and Presidents How Absurd Stories Have Poisoned the American Mind written by David Sinclair and published by Magus Books. This book was released on with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conservatives see Donald Trump as Batman, the mighty crusader cleaning out "Gotham City" – the Swamp, the Deep State, the liberal elite. Liberals previously regarded Trump as the Joker, a psychotic maniac destroying America. However, since "Joker" – Todd Phillips' 2019 movie tour de force – the Joker is now seen as a liberal anti-hero, fighting the good fight against the super-rich elites. Batman, the sleazy playboy billionaire who stands for the military-industrial complex and predatory capitalism is now the psychotic monster who needs to be defeated. American culture is defined by the shifting sands of superheroes – comic book characters who rule a fantasy world – while China gets on with conquering the real world via its relentless progress in science, mathematics, engineering, computing and technology. Who will dominate the 21st century – the lazy illiterates that love superhero movies – or the hard-working strivers using their highly advanced knowledge to transform everything? America's love of fantasy is its doom. China's love of hard work and intelligence will sweep all before it. The Thucydides Trap is finally here – the USA is the declining power, being replaced by the rising power, China. No superheroes are coming to America's aid. They are up against 1.4 billion industrious high achievers, with the highest ambitions, and total certainty that the future is theirs. The dogs in the street know who's going to win this showdown. It's not Captain America, that's for sure.

Download or read book The Psychology of Superheroes written by Robin S. Rosenberg and published by BenBella Books. This book was released on 2008-02-09 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This latest installment in the Psychology of Popular Culture series turns its focus to superheroes. Superheroes have survived and fascinated for more than 70 years in no small part due to their psychological depth. In The Psychology of Superheroes, almost two dozen psychologists get into the heads of today's most popular and intriguing superheroes. Why do superheroes choose to be superheroes? Where does Spider-Man's altruism come from, and what does it mean? Why is there so much prejudice against the X-Men, and how could they have responded to it, other than the way they did? Why are super-villains so aggressive? The Psychology of Superheroes answers these questions, exploring the inner workings our heroes usually only share with their therapists.

Download or read book Pax Romana written by Jonathan Hickman and published by Image Comics. This book was released on 2012-03-07 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Collects issues 1-4 of PAX ROMANA plus bonus materials! From the mind of comic book innovator Jonathan Hickman, comes the exhilarating time-traveling epic: PAX ROMANA. The creator of THE NIGHTLY NEWS brings his unique sensibility to science fiction and the result is a visually stunning look at a new history of the world. PAX ROMANA tells the tale of 5000 men sent on an impossible mission to change the past and save the future.

Download or read book Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors written by Carl Sagan and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2011-07-06 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “Exciting and provocative . . . A tour de force of a book that begs to be seen as well as to be read.”—The Washington Post Book World World renowned scientist Carl Sagan and acclaimed author Ann Druyan have written a Roots for the human species, a lucid and riveting account of how humans got to be the way we are. Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is a thrilling saga that starts with the origin of the Earth. It shows with humor and drama that many of our key traits—self-awareness, technology, family ties, submission to authority, hatred for those a little different from ourselves, reason, and ethics—are rooted in the deep past, and illuminated by our kinship with other animals. Sagan and Druyan conduct a breathtaking journey through space and time, zeroing in on critical turning points in evolutionary history, and tracing the origins of sex, altruism, violence, rape, and dominance. Their book culminates in a stunningly original examination of the connection between primate and human traits. Astonishing in its scope, brilliant in its insights, and an absolutely compelling read, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is a triumph of popular science.

Download or read book Player Piano written by Kurt Vonnegut and published by Dial Press. This book was released on 2009-09-30 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A funny, savage appraisal of a totally automated American society of the future.”—San Francisco Chronicle Kurt Vonnegut’s first novel spins the chilling tale of engineer Paul Proteus, who must find a way to live in a world dominated by a supercomputer and run completely by machines. Paul’s rebellion is vintage Vonnegut—wildly funny, deadly serious, and terrifyingly close to reality. Praise for Player Piano “An exuberant, crackling style . . . Vonnegut is a black humorist, fantasist and satirist, a man disposed to deep and comic reflection on the human dilemma.”—Life “His black logic . . . gives us something to laugh about and much to fear.”—The New York Times Book Review

Download or read book Andrew s Brain written by E.L. Doctorow and published by Random House. This book was released on 2014-01-14 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This brilliant novel by an American master, the author of Ragtime, The Book of Daniel, Billy Bathgate, and The March, takes us on a radical trip into the mind of a man who, more than once in his life, has been the inadvertent agent of disaster. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, SLATE, AND THE TELEGRAPH Speaking from an unknown place and to an unknown interlocutor, Andrew is thinking, Andrew is talking, Andrew is telling the story of his life, his loves, and the tragedies that have led him to this place and point in time. And as he confesses, peeling back the layers of his strange story, we are led to question what we know about truth and memory, brain and mind, personality and fate, about one another and ourselves. Written with psychological depth and great lyrical precision, this suspenseful and groundbreaking novel delivers a voice for our times—funny, probing, skeptical, mischievous, profound. Andrew’s Brain is a surprising turn and a singular achievement in the canon of a writer whose prose has the power to create its own landscape, and whose great topic, in the words of Don DeLillo, is “the reach of American possibility, in which plain lives take on the cadences of history.” Praise for Andrew’s Brain “Too compelling to put down . . . fascinating, sometimes funny, often profound . . . Andrew is a provocatively interesting and even sympathetic character. . . . The novel seamlessly combines Doctorow’s remarkable prowess as a literary stylist with deep psychological storytelling pitting truth against delusion, memory and perception, consciousness and craziness. . . . [Doctorow] takes huge creative risks—the best kind.”—USA Today “Cunning [and] sly . . . This babbling Andrew is a casualty of his times, binding his wounds with thick wrappings of words, ideas, bits of story, whatever his spinning mind can unspool for him. One of the things that makes [Andrew] such a terrific comic creation is that he’s both maddeningly self-delusive and scarily self-aware: He’s a fool, but he’s no innocent.”—The New York Times Book Review “A tantalising tour de force . . . a journey worth taking . . . With exhilarating brio, the book plays off . . . two contrasting takes on mind and brain. . . . [Andrew’s Brain encompasses] an astonishing range of modes: vaudeville humour, tragic romance, philosophical speculation. . . . It fizzes with intellectual energy, verbal pyrotechnics and satiric flair.”—The Sunday Times (London) “Dramatic . . . cunning and beautiful . . . strange and oddly fascinating, this book: a musing, a conjecture, a frivolity, a deep interrogatory, a hymn.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Provocative . . . a story aswirl in a whirlpool of neuroscience, human relations, loss, guilt and recent American history . . . Doctorow reveals his mastery in the sheen of a text that is both window and mirror. Reading his work is akin to soaring in a glider. Buoyed by invisible breath, readers encounter stunning vistas stretching to horizons they’ve never imagined.”—The Plain Dealer “Andrew’s ruminations can be funny, and his descriptions gorgeous.”—Associated Press “[An] evocative, suspenseful novel about the deceptive nature of human consciousness.”—More “A quick and acutely intelligent read.”—Entertainment Weekly

Download or read book The Varieties of Scientific Experience written by Carl Sagan and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-11-02 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Ann Druyan has unearthed a treasure. It is a treasure of reason, compassion, and scientific awe. It should be the next book you read.” —Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith “A stunningly valuable legacy left to all of us by a great human being. I miss him so.” —Kurt Vonnegut Carl Sagan's prophetic vision of the tragic resurgence of fundamentalism and the hope-filled potential of the next great development in human spirituality The late great astronomer and astrophysicist describes his personal search to understand the nature of the sacred in the vastness of the cosmos. Exhibiting a breadth of intellect nothing short of astounding, Sagan presents his views on a wide range of topics, including the likelihood of intelligent life on other planets, creationism and so-called intelligent design, and a new concept of science as "informed worship." Originally presented at the centennial celebration of the famous Gifford Lectures in Scotland in 1985 but never published, this book offers a unique encounter with one of the most remarkable minds of the twentieth century.

Download or read book The Superhero Reader written by Charles Hatfield and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2013-06-14 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With contributions from Will Brooker, Jeffrey A. Brown, Scott Bukatman, John G. Cawelti, Peter Coogan, Jules Feiffer, Charles Hatfield, Henry Jenkins, Robert Jewett and John Shelton Lawrence, Gerard Jones, Geoff Klock, Karin Kukkonen, Andy Medhurst, Adilifu Nama, Walter Ong, Lorrie Palmer, Richard Reynolds, Trina Robbins, Lillian Robinson, Roger B. Rollin, Gloria Steinem, Jennifer Stuller, Fredric Wertham, and Philip Wylie Despite their commercial appeal and cross-media reach, superheroes are only recently starting to attract sustained scholarly attention. This groundbreaking collection brings together essays and book excerpts by major writers on comics and popular culture. While superhero comics are a distinct and sometimes disdained branch of comics creation, they are integral to the development of the North American comic book and the history of the medium. For the past half-century, they have also been the one overwhelmingly dominant market genre. The sheer volume of superhero comics that have been published over the years is staggering. Major superhero universes constitute one of the most expansive storytelling canvases ever fashioned. Moreover, characters inhabiting these fictional universes are immensely influential, having achieved iconic recognition around the globe. Their images and adventures have shaped many other media, such as film, videogames, and even prose fiction. The primary aim of this reader is twofold: first, to collect in a single volume a sampling of the most sophisticated commentary on superheroes, and second, to bring into sharper focus the ways in which superheroes connect with larger social, cultural, literary, aesthetic, and historical themes that are of interest to a great many readers both in the academy and beyond.

Download or read book New York Magazine written by and published by . This book was released on 1986-07-21 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York magazine was born in 1968 after a run as an insert of the New York Herald Tribune and quickly made a place for itself as the trusted resource for readers across the country. With award-winning writing and photography covering everything from politics and food to theater and fashion, the magazine's consistent mission has been to reflect back to its audience the energy and excitement of the city itself, while celebrating New York as both a place and an idea.

Download or read book Atlanta Magazine written by and published by . This book was released on 2005-10 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Atlanta magazine’s editorial mission is to engage our community through provocative writing, authoritative reporting, and superlative design that illuminate the people, the issues, the trends, and the events that define our city. The magazine informs, challenges, and entertains our readers each month while helping them make intelligent choices, not only about what they do and where they go, but what they think about matters of importance to the community and the region. Atlanta magazine’s editorial mission is to engage our community through provocative writing, authoritative reporting, and superlative design that illuminate the people, the issues, the trends, and the events that define our city. The magazine informs, challenges, and entertains our readers each month while helping them make intelligent choices, not only about what they do and where they go, but what they think about matters of importance to the community and the region.

Download or read book True Swamp written by Jon Lewis and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Definitive presentation of a touchstone alternative comic, long out-of-print and now more vivid than ever.

Download or read book Mothership written by Bill Campbell and published by Rosarium Publishing. This book was released on 2016-01-30 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond is a groundbreaking speculative fiction anthology that showcases the work from some of the most talented writers inside and outside speculative fiction across the globe—including Junot Diaz, Victor LaValle, Lauren Beukes, N. K. Jemisin, Rabih Alameddine, S. P. Somtow, and more. These authors have earned such literary honors as the Pulitzer Prize, the American Book Award, the World Fantasy Award, and the Bram Stoker, among others.

Download or read book The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg written by Deborah Eisenberg and published by Picador. This book was released on 2010-08-31 with total page 997 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg contains twenty-seven short stories by "a contemporary master" (New York Times). Since 1986 with the publication of her first story collection, Deborah Eisenberg has devoted herself to writing "exquisitely distilled stories" which "present an unusually distinctive portrait of contemporary American life" to quote the MacArthur Foundation. This one volume brings together Transactions in a Foreign Currency (1986), Under the 82nd Airborne (1992), All Around Atlantis (1997) and Twilight of the Superheroes (2006). "One of America's finest writers."—San Francisco Chronicle "Concentrated bursts of perfection."—The Times (London)

Download or read book The Mind of the Censor and the Eye of the Beholder written by Robert Corn-Revere and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-11-04 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book explores the importance of free speech in America by telling the stories of its chief antagonists - the censors.

Download or read book Harrow the Ninth written by Tamsyn Muir and published by Tordotcom. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Harrow the Ninth, an Amazon pick for Best SFF of 2020 and the New York Times and USA Today bestselling sequel to Gideon the Ninth, turns a galaxy inside out as one necromancer struggles to survive the wreckage of herself aboard the Emperor's haunted space station. The Locked Tomb is a 2023 Hugo Award Finalist for Best Series! “Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space! Decadent nobles vie to serve the deathless emperor! Skeletons!” —Charles Stross on Gideon the Ninth “Unlike anything I've ever read.” —V.E. Schwab on Gideon the Ninth “Deft, tense and atmospheric, compellingly immersive and wildly original.” —The New York Times on Gideon the Ninth She answered the Emperor's call. She arrived with her arts, her wits, and her only friend. In victory, her world has turned to ash. After rocking the cosmos with her deathly debut, Tamsyn Muir continues the story of the penumbral Ninth House in Harrow the Ninth, a mind-twisting puzzle box of mystery, murder, magic, and mayhem. Nothing is as it seems in the halls of the Emperor, and the fate of the galaxy rests on one woman's shoulders. Harrowhark Nonagesimus, last necromancer of the Ninth House, has been drafted by her Emperor to fight an unwinnable war. Side-by-side with a detested rival, Harrow must perfect her skills and become an angel of undeath — but her health is failing, her sword makes her nauseous, and even her mind is threatening to betray her. Sealed in the gothic gloom of the Emperor's Mithraeum with three unfriendly teachers, hunted by the mad ghost of a murdered planet, Harrow must confront two unwelcome questions: is somebody trying to kill her? And if they succeeded, would the universe be better off? THE LOCKED TOMB SERIES BOOK 1: Gideon the Ninth BOOK 2: Harrow the Ninth BOOK 3: Nona the Ninth BOOK 4: Alecto the Ninth At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Download or read book Win Bigly written by Scott Adams and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-10-31 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The New York Times bestseller that explains one of the most important perceptual shifts in the history of humankind Scott Adams was one of the earliest public figures to predict Donald Trump’s election. The mainstream media regarded Trump as a lucky clown, but Adams – best known as “the guy who created Dilbert” -- recognized a level of persuasion you only see once in a generation. We’re hardwired to respond to emotion, not reason, and Trump knew exactly which emotional buttons to push. The point isn’t whether Trump was right or wrong, good or bad. Adams goes beyond politics to look at persuasion tools that can work in any setting—the same ones Adams saw in Steve Jobs when he invested in Apple decades ago. Win Bigly is a field guide for persuading others in any situation—or resisting the tactics of emotional persuasion when they’re used on you. This revised edition features a bonus chapter that assesses just how well Adams foresaw the outcomes of Trump’s tactics with North Korea, the NFL protesters, Congress, and more.

Download or read book The Multiversity Pax Americana 2014 1 written by Grant Morrison and published by DC. This book was released on with total page 46 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the assassination of the U.S. president leads to political intrigue, interpersonal drama, and astrophysical wonder, the truth behind the crime and those involved will blow your mind! Writer Grant Morrison and artist Frank Quitely investigate the conspiracy on Earth-4!