Download or read book The Virus in the Age of Madness written by Bernard-Henri Lévy and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-28 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A trenchant look at how the coronavirus reveals the dangerous fault lines of contemporary society With medical mysteries, rising death tolls, and conspiracy theories beamed minute by minute through the vast web universe, the coronavirus pandemic has irrevocably altered societies around the world. In this sharp essay, world-renowned philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy interrogates the many meanings and metaphors we have assigned to the pandemic—and what they tell us about ourselves. Drawing on the philosophical tradition from Plato and Aristotle to Lacan and Foucault, Lévy asks uncomfortable questions about reality and mythology: he rejects the idea that the virus is a warning from nature, the inevitable result of global capitalism; he questions the heroic status of doctors, asking us to think critically about the loci of authority and power; he challenges the panicked polarization that dominates online discourse. Lucid, incisive, and always original, Lévy takes a bird’s-eye view of the most consequential historical event of our time and proposes a way to defend human society from threats to our collective future.

Download or read book The Virus in the Age of Madness written by Bernard-Henri Lévy and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-28 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A trenchant look at how the coronavirus reveals the dangerous fault lines of contemporary society As seen on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS: “A stirring alarm addressed to an unsettled world.” (Kirkus Reviews) Forget the world that came before. The author of American Vertigo serves up an incisive look at how COVID-19 reveals the dangerous fault lines of contemporary society. With medical mysteries, rising death tolls, and conspiracy theories beamed minute by minute through the vast web universe, the coronavirus pandemic has irrevocably altered societies around the world. In this sharp essay, world-renowned philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy interrogates the many meanings and metaphors we have assigned to the pandemic—and what they tell us about ourselves. Drawing on the philosophical tradition from Plato and Aristotle to Lacan and Foucault, Lévy asks uncomfortable questions about reality and mythology: he rejects the idea that the virus is a warning from nature, the inevitable result of global capitalism; he questions the heroic status of doctors, asking us to think critically about the loci of authority and power; he challenges the panicked polarization that dominates online discourse. Lucid, incisive, and always original, Lévy takes a bird’s-eye view of the most consequential historical event of our time and proposes a way to defend human society from threats to our collective future. A portion of the author’s proceeds will be donated to Binc (The Book Industry Charitable Foundation).

Download or read book Brain On Fire My Month of Madness written by Susannah Cahalan and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2012-11-13 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'My first serious blackout marked the line between sanity and insanity. Though I would have moments of lucidity over the coming days and weeks, I would never again be the same person ...' Susannah Cahalan was a happy, clever, healthy twenty-four-year old. Then one day she woke up in hospital, with no memory of what had happened or how she had got there. Within weeks, she would be transformed into someone unrecognizable, descending into a state of acute psychosis, undergoing rages and convulsions, hallucinating that her father had murdered his wife; that she could control time with her mind. Everything she had taken for granted about her life, and who she was, was wiped out. Brain on Fire is Susannah's story of her terrifying descent into madness and the desperate hunt for a diagnosis, as, after dozens of tests and scans, baffled doctors concluded she should be confined in a psychiatric ward. It is also the story of how one brilliant man, Syria-born Dr Najar, finally proved - using a simple pen and paper - that Susannah's psychotic behaviour was caused by a rare autoimmune disease attacking her brain. His diagnosis of this little-known condition, thought to have been the real cause of devil-possessions through history, saved her life, and possibly the lives of many others. Cahalan takes readers inside this newly-discovered disease through the progress of her own harrowing journey, piecing it together using memories, journals, hospital videos and records. Written with passionate honesty and intelligence, Brain on Fire is a searingly personal yet universal book, which asks what happens when your identity is suddenly destroyed, and how you get it back. 'With eagle-eye precision and brutal honesty, Susannah Cahalan turns her journalistic gaze on herself as she bravely looks back on one of the most harrowing and unimaginable experiences one could ever face: the loss of mind, body and self. Brain on Fire is a mesmerizing story' -Mira Bartók, New York Times bestselling author of The Memory Palace Susannah Cahalan is a reporter on the New York Post, and the recipient of the 2010 Silurian Award of Excellence in Journalism for Feature Writing. Her writing has also appeared in the New York Times, and is frequently picked up by the Daily Mail, Gawker, Gothamist, AOL and Yahoo among other news aggregrator sites.

Download or read book Rabid written by Bill Wasik and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-06-25 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most fatal virus known to science, rabies-a disease that spreads avidly from animals to humans-kills nearly one hundred percent of its victims once the infection takes root in the brain. In this critically acclaimed exploration, journalist Bill Wasik and veterinarian Monica Murphy chart four thousand years of the history, science, and cultural mythology of rabies. From Greek myths to zombie flicks, from the laboratory heroics of Louis Pasteur to the contemporary search for a lifesaving treatment, Rabid is a fresh and often wildly entertaining look at one of humankind's oldest and most fearsome foes. "A searing narrative." -The New York Times "In this keen and exceptionally well-written book, rife with surprises, narrative suspense and a steady flow of expansive insights, 'the world's most diabolical virus' conquers the unsuspecting reader's imaginative nervous system. . . . A smart, unsettling, and strangely stirring piece of work." -San Francisco Chronicle "Fascinating. . . . Wasik and Murphy chronicle more than two millennia of myths and discoveries about rabies and the animals that transmit it, including dogs, bats and raccoons." -The Wall Street Journal

Download or read book Technology and Society written by Deborah G. Johnson and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2008-10-17 with total page 853 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An anthology of writings by thinkers ranging from Freeman Dyson to Bruno Latour that focuses on the interconnections of technology, society, and values and how these may affect the future. Technological change does not happen in a vacuum; decisions about which technologies to develop, fund, market, and use engage ideas about values as well as calculations of costs and benefits. This anthology focuses on the interconnections of technology, society, and values. It offers writings by authorities as varied as Freeman Dyson, Laurence Lessig, Bruno Latour, and Judy Wajcman that will introduce readers to recent thinking about technology and provide them with conceptual tools, a theoretical framework, and knowledge to help understand how technology shapes society and how society shapes technology. It offers readers a new perspective on such current issues as globalization, the balance between security and privacy, environmental justice, and poverty in the developing world. The careful ordering of the selections and the editors' introductions give Technology and Society a coherence and flow that is unusual in anthologies. The book is suitable for use in undergraduate courses in STS and other disciplines. The selections begin with predictions of the future that range from forecasts of technological utopia to cautionary tales. These are followed by writings that explore the complexity of sociotechnical systems, presenting a picture of how technology and society work in step, shaping and being shaped by one another. Finally, the book goes back to considerations of the future, discussing twenty-first-century challenges that include nanotechnology, the role of citizens in technological decisions, and the technologies of human enhancement.

Download or read book The Will to See written by Bernard-Henri Lévy and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2021-10-26 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An unflinching look at the most urgent humanitarian crises around the globe, from one of the world’s most daring philosopher-reporters “Call[s] on people not just to see the world, but to be moved and interested by what they find there, and to do something about it.”—Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic “Fierce and elegant, Lévy’s musings will be of profound interest to any reader of modern continental philosophy.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review Over the past fifty years, renowned public intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy has reported extensively on human rights abuses around the world. This new book follows the intrepid Lévy into eight international hotspots—in Nigeria; Syrian and Iraqi Kurdistan; Ukraine; Somalia; Bangladesh; Lesbos, Greece; Libya; and Afghanistan—that have escaped global attention or active response. In a deeply personal introduction, Lévy recounts the intellectual journey that led him to advocacy, arguing that a truly humanist philosophy must necessarily lead to action in defense of the most vulnerable. In the second section, he reports on the eight investigative trips he undertook just before or during the coronavirus pandemic, from the massacred Christian villages in Nigeria to a dangerously fragile Afghanistan on the eve of the Taliban talks, from an anti-Semitic ambush in Libya to the overrun refugee camp on the island of Lesbos. Part manifesto, part missives from the field, this new book is a stirring rebuke to indifference and an exhortation to level our gaze at those most hidden from us.

Download or read book The Hot Zone written by Richard Preston and published by Anchor. This book was released on 1995 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The virus kills nine out of ten of its victims. Its effects are so quick and so gruesome that even biohazard experts are terrified. It is airborne, it is extremely contagious, and it is about to burn through the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Is there any way to stop it? This doomsday scenario confronted a biohazard SWAT team struggling in secret to stop the outbreak of an exotic "hot" virus at an Army research facility outside Washington. "The Hot Zone" tells the dramatic story of their dangerous race against time, along with an alarming account of how previously unknown viruses that have lived undetected in the rain forest for eons are now entering human populations. From the airlocked confines of a biosafety level 4 military lab, to an airliner over Kenya carrying a passenger dissolving into a human virus bomb, to a deserted jungle cave alive with deadly virus, THE HOT ZONE is a non-fiction thriller like no other. "The Andromeda Strain" was fiction--- "this is real!"

Download or read book The Wisdom of Crowds written by Joe Abercrombie and published by Orbit. This book was released on 2021-09-14 with total page 636 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestselling finale to the Age of Madness trilogyfinds the world in an unstoppable revolution where heroes have nothing left to lose as darkness and destruction overtake everything. Chaos. Fury. Destruction. The Great Change is upon us . . . Some say that to change the world you must first burn it down. Now that belief will be tested in the crucible of revolution: the Breakers and Burners have seized the levers of power, the smoke of riots has replaced the smog of industry, and all must submit to the wisdom of crowds. With nothing left to lose, Citizen Brock is determined to become a new hero for the new age, while Citizeness Savine must turn her talents from profit to survival before she can claw her way to redemption. Orso will find that when the world is turned upside down, no one is lower than a monarch. And in the bloody North, Rikke and her fragile Protectorate are running out of allies . . . while Black Calder gathers his forces and plots his vengeance. The banks have fallen, the sun of the Union has been torn down, and in the darkness behind the scenes, the threads of the Weaver's ruthless plan are slowly being drawn together . . . "No one writes with the seismic scope or primal intensity of Joe Abercrombie." —Pierce Brown For more from Joe Abercrombie, check out: The Age of Madness A Little Hatred The Trouble With Peace The Wisdom of Crowds The First Law Trilogy The Blade Itself Before They Are Hanged Last Argument of Kings Best Served Cold The Heroes Red Country The Shattered Sea Trilogy Half a King Half a World Half a War

Download or read book The Monster Enters written by Mike Davis and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2022-02-01 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new edition of a classic book on viral catastrophes--the Spanish flu, the Avian flu, and now, Covid-19 In his book, The Monster at Our Door, the renowned activist and author Mike Davis warned of a coming global threat of viral catastrophes. Now in this expanded edition of that 2005 book, Davis explains how the problems he warned of remain, and he sets the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of previous disastrous outbreaks, notably the 1918 influenza disaster that killed at least forty million people in three months and the Avian flu of a decade and a half ago. In language both accessible and authoritative, The Monster Enters surveys the scientific and political roots of today’s viral apocalypse. In doing so it exposes the key roles of agribusiness and the fast-food industries, abetted by corrupt governments and a capitalist global system careening out of control, in creating the ecological pre-conditions for a plague that has brought much of human existence to a juddering halt.

Download or read book The Trouble with Peace written by Joe Abercrombie and published by Orbit. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 605 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fragile peace gives way to conspiracy, betrayal, and rebellion in this sequel to the New York Times bestselling A Little Hatred from epic fantasy master Joe Abercrombie. "A master of his craft." —Forbes "No one writes with the seismic scope or primal intensity of Joe Abercrombie." —Pierce Brown Peace is just another kind of battlefield . . . Savine dan Glokta, once Adua's most powerful investor, finds her judgement, fortune and reputation in tatters. But she still has all her ambitions, and no scruple will be permitted to stand in her way. For heroes like Leo dan Brock and Stour Nightfall, only happy with swords drawn, peace is an ordeal to end as soon as possible. But grievances must be nursed, power seized, and allies gathered first, while Rikke must master the power of the Long Eye . . . before it kills her. Unrest worms into every layer of society. The Breakers still lurk in the shadows, plotting to free the common man from his shackles, while noblemen bicker for their own advantage. Orso struggles to find a safe path through the maze of knives that is politics, only for his enemies, and his debts, to multiply. The old ways are swept aside, and the old leaders with them, but those who would seize the reins of power will find no alliance, no friendship, and no peace lasts forever. For more from Joe Abercrombie, check out: The Age of MadnessA Little HatredThe Trouble With Peace The Wisdom of Crowds The First Law TrilogyThe Blade ItselfBefore They Are HangedLast Argument of Kings Best Served ColdThe HeroesRed Country The Shattered Sea TrilogyHalf a KingHalf a WorldHalf a War

Download or read book The Panic Virus written by Seth Mnookin and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-01-03 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A searing account of how vaccine opponents have used the media to spread their message of panic, despite no scientific evidence to support them.

Download or read book Kings of Quarantine written by Caroline Peckham and published by . This book was released on 2022-09-16 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cruel. Heartless. Quarantined.The ruthless boys of Everlake Prep never saw lockdown coming.But the virus isn't their number one enemy.I am. And as if being confined to a boarding school for the elite wasn't bad enough, now I'm stuck in isolation with the boys who hate me most too. Saint, Kyan and Blake. The Night Keepers. Or so they call themselves. They've embodied the Native American legend which lives in this valley, taking on the role of the monsters who lurk in the forest. And though they act like beasts, they may also be the most tempting creatures I've ever seen. With the virus escalating and my dad's name splashed through the news, my entire world is falling apart. What he did has cast a dark shadow over me. And the Night Keepers want to make me pay for his crimes. Then things went from bad to worse when I touched the sacred rock. A rock which supposedly holds a curse to bind me as the Night Keepers' slave. And as crazy as it sounds, I decided to play along. Because there are things about me they don't know. Things my dad has hidden from me for years. All I can be sure of is that I have to find a way to escape this school. But until then, those savage boys are making my life a living hell. As the virus sweeps through the country and the world twists into something ugly and unknown, the kings of this school become true monarchs. Even the teachers bow to them now. And I'm kinda glad about that 'stay six feet away from one another' rule, because without it, I know they'd rip me apart. At least there's a silver lining. I'm cosying up to Coach Monroe. My hot as hell, brooding P.E. teacher who has a vendetta of his own against the Night Keepers. And with his help, I may succeed at doing more than escaping the clutches of these heartless fiends. I might even destroy them along the way. My father taught me how to be strong. How to prepare for the end of the world. So this isn't going to be the end of my world, mark my words. But if I'm able to use my mind and body to bring these assholes to their knees, it might just be the end of theirs. This is a high school bully romance series where the main character will end up with more than one love interest. It may have triggers for some as it has off the charts angst, dark love-hate themes, scenes of intense bullying and some violence (not aimed towards the main character) and is not for the faint of heart. Prepare to enrol at Everlake Prep. Bring your hand sanitiser, face masks and toilet paper to barter with, but don't expect to hold onto them for long. Because it's time to go into quarantine with the Night Keepers. And everything you own now belongs to them.

Download or read book Philosophy Biopolitics and the Virus written by Michael Lewis and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2023-09-05 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every aspect of the pandemic was said to be ‘total,’ absolute, and undiscriminating. Its very name implied as much. The virus was everywhere, and a threat to us all. In Philosophy, Biopolitics, and the Virus: The Elision of an Alternative, Michael Lewis identifies three moments within the pandemic that were conceived in such a monolithic way: (1) ‘The Science,’ which had to be unanimous if it was to assume a sovereign role, and to have us ‘follow’ it; (2) ‘non-pharmaceutical interventions,’ which were regarded as the only possible response, without which death and disease would ‘run riot’; and (3) the one sole remedy that could bring about the promised end of the restrictions, to the exclusion of every other conception of medicine, treatment, and care. In each case of seeming universality, dissent immediately identifies you as a friend of the virus. And yet if all of these cases have been revealing their counterproductivity ever since, what are we to make of the elision of alternatives? Is it part of a more general tendency to thrust the questioning of hegemonic notions to the margins of respectable discourse, inhabited solely by the mad, bad, and dangerous to know?

Download or read book The COVID 19 Catastrophe written by Richard Horton and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-01-14 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This expanded, updated, and completely revised edition of The COVID-19 Catastrophe is the authoritative guide to a global health crisis that has consumed the world. Richard Horton, editor of the medical journal The Lancet, scrutinises the actions taken by governments as they sought to contain the novel coronavirus. He shows that indecision and disregard for scientific evidence has led many political leaders to preside over hundreds of thousands of needless deaths and the worst global economic crisis for three centuries. This new edition provides a systematic discussion of the pandemic’s course, national responses, more transmissible mutant variants of the virus, and the launch of the world’s largest ever vaccination programme. Only now are we beginning to understand the full scale of the COVID-19 crisis. We need to learn the lessons of this pandemic, and we need to learn them fast, because the next pandemic may arrive sooner than we think.

Download or read book Pandemic Response and the Cost of Lockdowns written by Peter Sutoris and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-11-30 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pandemic Response and the Cost of Lockdowns brings the vast analytical apparatus of the humanities and social sciences to the task of critically analysing the political decisions taken in 2020–21. The global response to the COVID-19 pandemic left little time for critical debate about the impact of lockdowns. Across the world, governments claimed to "follow the science", but they rarely paid attention to the humanities and social sciences. Indeed, the absence of these perspectives is symptomatic of a longer-term trend in the marginalisation of the humanities and social sciences in policymaking and public debate. This book exposes the tragic consequences of this omission in 2020–21 and demonstrates the potential for a different path in the future – a path in which we pay attention to power, complexity, and our biases. The authors establish what these disciplines have to offer in a global emergency and how we can ensure they help us avoid the mistakes of 2020–21 in the future. This original and interdisciplinary book will be of great interest to students, scholars, and researchers throughout the humanities and social sciences, including the fields of philosophy, sociology, anthropology, law, political science, and history, as well as relevant policymakers.

Download or read book Leadership in the Time of Covid written by George Hays II and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2023-10-30 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Covid pandemic has put all modern societies to a serious test of resilience. The interdisciplinary research on which this book is based examined how four European governments behaved in these circumstances. During the months of the crisis, the team of experts coordinated by the editors of this volume took a close look at the decision-making processes in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia – the so-called Visegrad Four. The inquiries focused on experiences from the academic, health, economic and social fields. The methods of comparison included surveys, interviews, discourse analysis, for which the adaptive leadership theory provided the conceptual framework. The conclusions are both academic and practical. Aside the description of the pandemic responses, the research had a formative dimension: how can an adaptive leadership approach better help societies manage the health and societal impacts of similar challenges? The spectrum of emerging anti-democratic tendencies in the region provided the specific context of the exercise. The four states face varying degrees of democratic backsliding as well as illiberal influences that have affected their response to the pandemic, which gives this research on the Visegrad Four a worldwide resonance.

Download or read book Vulnerabilities written by Stefania Achella and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-10-26 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing from a wide array of disciplinary perspectives and geographical contexts, this volume offers new insights for critically engaging with the problem of vulnerability. The essays here contained take the move from the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to explore the inherent vulnerability of individuals, but also of social, economic and political systems, and probe the descriptive and prescriptive import of the concept.Each chapter provides a self-contained perspective on vulnerability, as well as a specific methodological framework for questioning its meaning. Taken together, the chapters combine into a multi-disciplinary toolkit for approaching the various forms and structures of vulnerability, with a special attention to the intersectional factors shaping the individual experience of it: from gender to age, from disability to mental illness, from hospitalisation to incarceration. The book explores the theoretical richness and complexity of the concept and proposes new analytical approaches to it, before illustrating its multifariousness through empirically grounded case studies. The closing section engages with “the future of vulnerability”, as a hermeneutic, epistemological, and critical-normative perspective to be deployed beyond the domain of global crises and emergencies.The volume is primarily intended as a reference for scholars in the human, social and health sciences. The accessible structure and plain language of the chapters make it also a valuable didactic resource for graduate courses in philosophy, the social sciences and public health.