Download or read book Becoming Civilized written by Graham Wrightson and published by Cognella Academic Publishing. This book was released on 2016-12-31 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Becoming Civilized? A History of the Western World to 1600 traces the history of the western world through primary sources that reveal to readers what each society or culture thought of as civilized behavior or a civilized way of life. Readers will see how views of civilized behavior changed over time and across cultures, yet retained certain common elements and themes. Becoming Civilized teaches students much more than key terms, events, dates, places, and people. Through thoughtful evaluation and interpretation of visual and written sources, the material also teaches students that history is more than a collection of facts. By asking them to consider the very definition of civilization and how it is manifested, it teaches them that the study of history involves interpreting and weighing historical evidence. Developed for basic history survey courses, Becoming Civilized provides readers with the basic building blocks of history, while also helping them develop their abilities to engage in detailed analysis and critical thinking. Becoming Civilized is an excellent instructional tool for courses in western civilization or surveys of European history before 1600. Born in the United Kingdom, Graham Wrightson earned his undergraduate degree at Cambridge University and his Ph.D. in Greek and Near East history at the University of Calgary. Dr. Wrightson is now an assistant professor of history at South Dakota State University, where he regularly teaches courses on western civilization, ancient Greece and Rome, medieval Europe, and women in antiquity. His research interests include the military and Hellenism in Greek history, Roman Republican history, military manuals, and conquest societies. Dr. Wrightson is a member of the Association of Ancient Historians and the Society for Classical Studies.
Download or read book Civilized to Death written by Christopher Ryan and published by Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestselling coauthor of Sex at Dawn explores the ways in which “progress” has perverted the way we live—how we eat, learn, feel, mate, parent, communicate, work, and die—in this “engaging, extensively documented, well-organized, and thought-provoking” (Booklist) book. Most of us have instinctive evidence the world is ending—balmy December days, face-to-face conversation replaced with heads-to-screens zomboidism, a world at constant war, a political system in disarray. We hear some myths and lies so frequently that they feel like truths: Civilization is humankind’s greatest accomplishment. Progress is undeniable. Count your blessings. You’re lucky to be alive here and now. Well, maybe we are and maybe we aren’t. Civilized to Death counters the idea that progress is inherently good, arguing that the “progress” defining our age is analogous to an advancing disease. Prehistoric life, of course, was not without serious dangers and disadvantages. Many babies died in infancy. A broken bone, infected wound, snakebite, or difficult pregnancy could be life-threatening. But ultimately, Christopher Ryan questions, were these pre-civilized dangers more murderous than modern scourges, such as car accidents, cancers, cardiovascular disease, and a technologically prolonged dying process? Civilized to Death “will make you see our so-called progress in a whole new light” (Book Riot) and adds to the timely conversation that “the way we have been living is no longer sustainable, at least as long as we want to the earth to outlive us” (Psychology Today). Ryan makes the claim that we should start looking backwards to find our way into a better future.
Download or read book 1177 B C written by Eric H. Cline and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-09-22 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bold reassessment of what caused the Late Bronze Age collapse In 1177 B.C., marauding groups known only as the "Sea Peoples" invaded Egypt. The pharaoh's army and navy managed to defeat them, but the victory so weakened Egypt that it soon slid into decline, as did most of the surrounding civilizations. After centuries of brilliance, the civilized world of the Bronze Age came to an abrupt and cataclysmic end. Kingdoms fell like dominoes over the course of just a few decades. No more Minoans or Mycenaeans. No more Trojans, Hittites, or Babylonians. The thriving economy and cultures of the late second millennium B.C., which had stretched from Greece to Egypt and Mesopotamia, suddenly ceased to exist, along with writing systems, technology, and monumental architecture. But the Sea Peoples alone could not have caused such widespread breakdown. How did it happen? In this major new account of the causes of this "First Dark Ages," Eric Cline tells the gripping story of how the end was brought about by multiple interconnected failures, ranging from invasion and revolt to earthquakes, drought, and the cutting of international trade routes. Bringing to life the vibrant multicultural world of these great civilizations, he draws a sweeping panorama of the empires and globalized peoples of the Late Bronze Age and shows that it was their very interdependence that hastened their dramatic collapse and ushered in a dark age that lasted centuries. A compelling combination of narrative and the latest scholarship, 1177 B.C. sheds new light on the complex ties that gave rise to, and ultimately destroyed, the flourishing civilizations of the Late Bronze Age—and that set the stage for the emergence of classical Greece.
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 Becoming Roman written by Greg Woolf and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2000-07-27 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Studies the 'Romanization' of Rome's Gallic provinces in the late Republic and early empire.
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 The Other Side written by Qazi Nasir Uddin Ph.D. and published by Author House. This book was released on 2011-01-26 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When one side is bright, the other side must be dark. To look at the other side, we have to shed some light on the other side or better be there physically when the sun rises on the other side. We can see pictures of the other side, read books about it, and talk to some people from that side to get some ideas about that side. But, none can be compared to going to the other side and staying there as long as it is necessary to know that side well.
Download or read book The Art of Not Being Governed written by James C. Scott and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the acclaimed author and scholar James C. Scott, the compelling tale of Asian peoples who until recently have stemmed the vast tide of state-making to live at arm’s length from any organized state society For two thousand years the disparate groups that now reside in Zomia (a mountainous region the size of Europe that consists of portions of seven Asian countries) have fled the projects of the organized state societies that surround them—slavery, conscription, taxes, corvée labor, epidemics, and warfare. This book, essentially an “anarchist history,” is the first-ever examination of the huge literature on state-making whose author evaluates why people would deliberately and reactively remain stateless. Among the strategies employed by the people of Zomia to remain stateless are physical dispersion in rugged terrain; agricultural practices that enhance mobility; pliable ethnic identities; devotion to prophetic, millenarian leaders; and maintenance of a largely oral culture that allows them to reinvent their histories and genealogies as they move between and around states. In accessible language, James Scott, recognized worldwide as an eminent authority in Southeast Asian, peasant, and agrarian studies, tells the story of the peoples of Zomia and their unlikely odyssey in search of self-determination. He redefines our views on Asian politics, history, demographics, and even our fundamental ideas about what constitutes civilization, and challenges us with a radically different approach to history that presents events from the perspective of stateless peoples and redefines state-making as a form of “internal colonialism.” This new perspective requires a radical reevaluation of the civilizational narratives of the lowland states. Scott’s work on Zomia represents a new way to think of area studies that will be applicable to other runaway, fugitive, and marooned communities, be they Gypsies, Cossacks, tribes fleeing slave raiders, Marsh Arabs, or San-Bushmen.
Download or read book The Works of Robert G Ingersoll written by Robert Green Ingersoll and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2018-05-23 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reproduction of the original: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll by Robert Green Ingersoll
Download or read book Closing of the American Mind written by Allan Bloom and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-06-30 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The brilliant, controversial, bestselling critique of American culture that “hits with the approximate force and effect of electroshock therapy” (The New York Times)—now featuring a new afterword by Andrew Ferguson in a twenty-fifth anniversary edition. In 1987, eminent political philosopher Allan Bloom published The Closing of the American Mind, an appraisal of contemporary America that “hits with the approximate force and effect of electroshock therapy” (The New York Times) and has not only been vindicated, but has also become more urgent today. In clear, spirited prose, Bloom argues that the social and political crises of contemporary America are part of a larger intellectual crisis: the result of a dangerous narrowing of curiosity and exploration by the university elites. Now, in this twenty-fifth anniversary edition, acclaimed author and journalist Andrew Ferguson contributes a new essay that describes why Bloom’s argument caused such a furor at publication and why our culture so deeply resists its truths today.
Download or read book When Victims Become Killers written by Mahmood Mamdani and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-28 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An incisive look at the causes and consequences of the Rwandan genocide "When we captured Kigali, we thought we would face criminals in the state; instead, we faced a criminal population." So a political commissar in the Rwanda Patriotic Front reflected after the 1994 massacre of as many as one million Tutsis in Rwanda. Underlying his statement was the realization that, though ordered by a minority of state functionaries, the slaughter was performed by hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens, including judges, doctors, priests, and friends. Rejecting easy explanations of the Rwandan genocide as a mysterious evil force that was bizarrely unleashed, When Victims Become Killers situates the tragedy in its proper context. Mahmood Mamdani coaxes to the surface the historical, geographical, and political forces that made it possible for so many Hutus to turn so brutally on their neighbors. In so doing, Mamdani usefully broadens understandings of citizenship and political identity in postcolonial Africa and provides a direction for preventing similar future tragedies.
Download or read book Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute Or Philosophical Society of Great Britain written by and published by . This book was released on 1867 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Magical Criticism written by Christopher Bracken and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-09-15 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Enlightenment, Western scholars racialized ideas, deeming knowledge based on reality superior to that based on ideality. Scholars labeled inquiries into ideality, such as animism and soul-migration, “savage philosophy,” a clear indicator of the racism motivating the distinction between the real and the ideal. In their view, the savage philosopher mistakes connections between signs for connections between real objects and believes that discourse can have physical effects—in other words, they believe in magic. Christopher Bracken’s Magical Criticism brings the unacknowledged history of this racialization to light and shows how, even as we have rejected ethnocentric notions of “the savage,” they remain active today in everything from attacks on postmodernism to Native American land disputes. Here Bracken reveals that many of the most influential Western thinkers dabbled in savage philosophy, from Marx, Nietzsche, and Proust, to Freud, C. S. Peirce, and Walter Benjamin. For Bracken, this recourse to savage philosophy presents an opportunity to reclaim a magical criticism that can explain the very real effects created by the discourse of historians, anthropologists, philosophers, the media, and governments.
Download or read book Collected Philosophical Essays written by John O'Loughlin and published by John O'Loughlin. This book was released on 2022-03-16 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As John O'Loughlin's mature works became increasingly aphoristic and hence, to his mind, increasingly metaphysical, with what he would regard as truth effectively eclipsing the fumblingly discursive nature of essays and, indeed, knowledge generally, he totally abandoned both the essays (as here) and the dialogues (published in a separate collective volume), together with such early aphoristic material that at least had the merit, so far as he was concerned, of anchoring him in a more genuine approach to philosophy than could ever be found in works of a philosophical nature diluted by prose and, hence, by a discursive want of both logic and system unworthy, in his estimation, of true philosophy. Nonetheless, the reader will be aware that philosophical essays are still distinct from literary prose, all the more so when, as in this volume and various others, the material has been centred, the better to intimate of a sort of metaphysical aloofness from the pedament-slaving world which customarily fights shy, in the angularity of its untransvaluated nature, of anything resembing, no matter how metaphorically, the curvilinear subjectivity of a dome, particularly when intimating, in true religious vein, of transcendental possibility, a possibility very much a part of the best of the essays included in this one-volume presentation, spanning the years 1977–84, of John O'Loughlin's literary output. – A Centretruths Editorial
Download or read book Zibaldone written by Giacomo Leopardi and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2013-07-16 with total page 2592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking translation of the epic work of one of the great minds of the nineteenth century Giacomo Leopardi was the greatest Italian poet of the nineteenth century and was recognized by readers from Nietzsche to Beckett as one of the towering literary figures in Italian history. To many, he is the finest Italian poet after Dante. (Jonathan Galassi's translation of Leopardi's Canti was published by FSG in 2010.) He was also a prodigious scholar of classical literature and philosophy, and a voracious reader in numerous ancient and modern languages. For most of his writing career, he kept an immense notebook, known as the Zibaldone, or "hodge-podge," as Harold Bloom has called it, in which Leopardi put down his original, wide-ranging, radically modern responses to his reading. His comments about religion, philosophy, language, history, anthropology, astronomy, literature, poetry, and love are unprecedented in their brilliance and suggestiveness, and the Zibaldone, which was only published at the turn of the twentieth century, has been recognized as one of the foundational books of modern culture. Its 4,500-plus pages have never been fully translated into English until now, when a team under the auspices of Michael Caesar and Franco D'Intino of the Leopardi Centre in Birmingham, England, have spent years producing a lively, accurate version. This essential book will change our understanding of nineteenth-century culture. This is an extraordinary, epochal publication.
Download or read book Liberty and Equality a Dialogue Between a Clergyman and His Parishioner written by and published by . This book was released on 1794 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Reality of God in the Universe written by Bedrich V. Hettich and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2009-02 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who is God? How did humans come to live here on this planet in the middle of nowhere? What does God expect from us and why? Does God have a mind? These questions are often asked by those on earth. In The Reality of God in the Universe, author Bedrich V. Hettich addresses the dynamics of the power of God, describes where we find God, and defines the reality of who God is. Based on Hettich's life experiences and observations, this collection of fifteen essays offers a modern perception of the reality of God and God's power that brings humankind into a unity of its diversity. The writings revolve around a God whose invisible presence is here on earth and addresses the question why and how we got here, what we are supposed to do while we are here, and what happens to us when we die. Timely and timeless, these informative and engaging essays show that God is the unifying power that can bring us together to live in peace and harmony.
