Download or read book Immoderate Greatness written by William Ophuls and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Immoderate Greatness* explains how a civilization's very magnitude conspires against it to cause downfall. Civilizations are hard-wired for self-destruction. They travel an arc from initial success to terminal decay and ultimate collapse due to intrinsic, inescapable biophysical limits combined with an inexorable trend toward moral decay and practical failure. Because our own civilization is global, its collapse will also be global, as well as uniquely devastating owing to the immensity of its population, complexity, and consumption. To avoid the common fate of all past civilizations will require a radical change in our ethos-to wit, the deliberate renunciation of greatness-lest we precipitate a dark age in which the arts and adornments of civilization are partially or completely lost.
Download or read book The Fate of Empires written by Arthur John Hubbard and published by . This book was released on 1913 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Fate of Empires: Being an Inquiry into the Stability of Civilisation by Arthur John Hubbard, first published in 1913, is a rare manuscript, the original residing in one of the great libraries of the world. This book is a reproduction of that original, which has been scanned and cleaned by state-of-the-art publishing tools for better readability and enhanced appreciation. Restoration Editors' mission is to bring long out of print manuscripts back to life. Some smudges, annotations or unclear text may still exist, due to permanent damage to the original work. We believe the literary significance of the text justifies offering this reproduction, allowing a new generation to appreciate it.
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 Overshoot written by William R. Catton and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1980-10-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our day-to-day experiences over the past decade have taught us that there must be limits to our tremendous appetite for energy, natural resources, and consumer goods. Even utility and oil companies now promote conservation in the face of demands for dwindling energy reserves. And for years some biologists have warned us of the direct correlation between scarcity and population growth. These scientists see an appalling future riding the tidal wave of a worldwide growth of population and technology. A calm but unflinching realist, Catton suggests that we cannot stop this wave - for we have already overshot the Earth's capacity to support so huge a load. He contradicts those scientists, engineers, and technocrats who continue to write optimistically about energy alternatives. Catton asserts that the technological panaceas proposed by those who would harvest from the seas, harness the winds, and farm the deserts are ignoring the fundamental premise that "the principals of ecology apply to all living things." These principles tell us that, within a finite system, economic expansion is not irreversible and population growth cannot continue indefinitely. If we disregard these facts, our sagging American Dream will soon shatter completely.
Download or read book Plato s Revenge written by William Ophuls and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2011-08-19 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative essay that imagines a truly ecological future based on political transformation rather than the superficialities of “sustainability.” In this provocative call for a new ecological politics, William Ophuls starts from a radical premise: “sustainability” is impossible. We are on an industrial Titanic, fueled by rapidly depleting stocks of fossil hydrocarbons. Making the deck chairs from recyclable materials and feeding the boilers with biofuels is futile. In the end, the ship is doomed by the laws of thermodynamics and by the implacable biological and geological limits that are already beginning to pinch. Ophuls warns us that we are headed for a postindustrial future that, however technologically sophisticated, will resemble the preindustrial past in many important respects. With Plato's Revenge, Ophuls, author of Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity, envisions political and social transformations that will lead to a new natural-law politics based on the realities of ecology, physics, and psychology. In a discussion that ranges widely—from ecology to quantum physics to Jungian psychology to Eastern religion to Western political philosophy—Ophuls argues for an essentially Platonic politics of consciousness dedicated to inner cultivation rather than outward expansion and the pursuit of perpetual growth. We would then achieve a way of life that is materially and institutionally simple but culturally and spiritually rich, one in which humanity flourishes in harmony with nature.
Download or read book Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity Revisited written by William Ophuls and published by W H Freeman & Company. This book was released on 1992 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity written by William Ophuls and published by W.H. Freeman. This book was released on 1977 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on the author's thesis, Yale, 1973. Includes index. Bibliography: p. [249]-284.
Download or read book The Book of Barely Imagined Beings written by Caspar Henderson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-04-10 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From medieval bestiaries to Borges’s Book of Imaginary Beings, we’ve long been enchanted by extraordinary animals, be they terrifying three-headed dogs or asps impervious to a snake charmer’s song. But bestiaries are more than just zany zoology—they are artful attempts to convey broader beliefs about human beings and the natural order. Today, we no longer fear sea monsters or banshees. But from the infamous honey badger to the giant squid, animals continue to captivate us with the things they can do and the things they cannot, what we know about them and what we don’t. With The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, Caspar Henderson offers readers a fascinating, beautifully produced modern-day menagerie. But whereas medieval bestiaries were often based on folklore and myth, the creatures that abound in Henderson’s book—from the axolotl to the zebrafish—are, with one exception, very much with us, albeit sometimes in depleted numbers. The Book of Barely Imagined Beings transports readers to a world of real creatures that seem as if they should be made up—that are somehow more astonishing than anything we might have imagined. The yeti crab, for example, uses its furry claws to farm the bacteria on which it feeds. The waterbear, meanwhile, is among nature’s “extreme survivors,” able to withstand a week unprotected in outer space. These and other strange and surprising species invite readers to reflect on what we value—or fail to value—and what we might change. A powerful combination of wit, cutting-edge natural history, and philosophical meditation, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings is an infectious and inspiring celebration of the sheer ingenuity and variety of life in a time of crisis and change.
Download or read book Apologies to the Grandchldren written by William Ophuls and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2018-11-29 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why are we sleepwalking toward a foreordained ecological collapse? What is the connection between the ecological crisis and the breakdown of liberal democracy? What do political history and philosophy, along with anthropology and depth psychology, have to say about these issues? And what will society look like when we exhaust solar capital in the form of fossil fuels and must live once again on the daily and seasonal flow of solar income? These interlocking essays throw light on all these questions, illuminating the forces that will determine the long-term future of humanity.
Download or read book The Fate of Rome written by Kyle Harper and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-02 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How devastating viruses, pandemics, and other natural catastrophes swept through the far-flung Roman Empire and helped to bring down one of the mightiest civilizations of the ancient world Here is the monumental retelling of one of the most consequential chapters of human history: the fall of the Roman Empire. The Fate of Rome is the first book to examine the catastrophic role that climate change and infectious diseases played in the collapse of Rome’s power—a story of nature’s triumph over human ambition. Interweaving a grand historical narrative with cutting-edge climate science and genetic discoveries, Kyle Harper traces how the fate of Rome was decided not just by emperors, soldiers, and barbarians but also by volcanic eruptions, solar cycles, climate instability, and devastating viruses and bacteria. He takes readers from Rome’s pinnacle in the second century, when the empire seemed an invincible superpower, to its unraveling by the seventh century, when Rome was politically fragmented and materially depleted. Harper describes how the Romans were resilient in the face of enormous environmental stress, until the besieged empire could no longer withstand the combined challenges of a “little ice age” and recurrent outbreaks of bubonic plague. A poignant reflection on humanity’s intimate relationship with the environment, The Fate of Rome provides a sweeping account of how one of history’s greatest civilizations encountered and endured, yet ultimately succumbed to the cumulative burden of nature’s violence. The example of Rome is a timely reminder that climate change and germ evolution have shaped the world we inhabit—in ways that are surprising and profound.
Download or read book Facing Challenges Committing to Change written by Bernard Warrington Jr and published by Outskirts Press. This book was released on 2013-02 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: God's truth and grace offer deliverance, healing, and freedom! Being still before God does not mean inaction. Being still before God means attentively anticipating in faith the plan God is orchestrating. During your stillness and silence, He'll impart the knowledge and provide the path to deliverance (Proverbs 11:9). "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." If we are aware of all God has done, His omnipotence will keep our hearts strong and secure as we remain still before Him. In his latest book, Bernard Warrington, Jr. shares the change God continues to work within his life in hopes it helps others to change in the midst of adversity. When we accept that life's challenges can facilitate change in all aspects of who we are, we can fulfill that "good and perfect will of God." It's a powerful, life-changing message wrapped in an inspirational and motivating package.
Download or read book The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival written by Sir John Bagot Glubb and published by . This book was released on 1978-01-01 with total page 46 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Decline of the West written by Oswald Spengler and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1991 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spengler's work describes how we have entered into a centuries-long "world-historical" phase comparable to late antiquity, and his controversial ideas spark debate over the meaning of historiography.
Download or read book Ways of Attending written by Iain McGilchrist and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-07-11 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Attention is not just receptive, but actively creative of the world we inhabit. How we attend makes all the difference to the world we experience. And nowadays in the West we generally attend in a rather unusual way: governed by the narrowly focussed, target-driven left hemisphere of the brain. Forget everything you thought you knew about the difference between the hemispheres, because it will be largely wrong. It is not what each hemisphere does – they are both involved in everything – but how it does it, that matters. And the prime difference between the brain hemispheres is the manner in which they attend. For reasons of survival we need one hemisphere (in humans and many animals, the left) to pay narrow attention to detail, to grab hold of things we need, while the other, the right, keeps an eye out for everything else. The result is that one hemisphere is good at utilising the world, the other better at understanding it. Absent, present, detached, engaged, alienated, empathic, broad or narrow, sustained or piecemeal, attention has the power to alter whatever it meets. The play of attention can both create and destroy, but it never leaves its object unchanged. How you attend to something – or don’t attend to it – matters a very great deal. This book helps you to see what it is you may have been trained by our very unusual culture not to see.
Download or read book How Rome Fell written by Adrian Goldsworthy and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2009-05-12 with total page 558 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author discusses how the Roman Empire--an empire without a serious rival--rotted from within, its rulers and institutions putting short-term ambition and personal survival over the wider good of the state.
Download or read book Why the West Rules For Now written by Ian Morris and published by McClelland & Stewart. This book was released on 2011-01-14 with total page 767 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why does the West rule? In this magnum opus, eminent Stanford polymath Ian Morris answers this provocative question, drawing on 50,000 years of history, archeology, and the methods of social science, to make sense of when, how, and why the paths of development differed in the East and West — and what this portends for the 21st century. There are two broad schools of thought on why the West rules. Proponents of "Long-Term Lock-In" theories such as Jared Diamond suggest that from time immemorial, some critical factor — geography, climate, or culture perhaps — made East and West unalterably different, and determined that the industrial revolution would happen in the West and push it further ahead of the East. But the East led the West between 500 and 1600, so this development can't have been inevitable; and so proponents of "Short-Term Accident" theories argue that Western rule was a temporary aberration that is now coming to an end, with Japan, China, and India resuming their rightful places on the world stage. However, as the West led for 9,000 of the previous 10,000 years, it wasn't just a temporary aberration. So, if we want to know why the West rules, we need a whole new theory. Ian Morris, boldly entering the turf of Jared Diamond and Niall Ferguson, provides the broader approach that is necessary, combining the textual historian's focus on context, the anthropological archaeologist's awareness of the deep past, and the social scientist's comparative methods to make sense of the past, present, and future — in a way no one has ever done before.
Download or read book Classical and Modern Interactions written by Karl Galinsky and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 1992-01-01 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Postmodernism, multiculturalism, the alleged decline of the United States, deconstruction, leadership, and values - these topics have been at the forefront of contemporary intellectual and cultural debate and are likely to remain so through the 1990s. Participants in the debate can usefully enlarge the perspective to a comparison between the Greco-Roman world and contemporary society. In this thought-provoking work, a noted classics scholar tests the ancient-modern comparison, showing what it can add to the contemporary debates and what its limitations are. Writing for intellectually adventurous readers, Galinsky explores Greece and Rome as multicultural societies, debates the merits of classicism in postmodern architecture, discusses the reign of Augustus in terms of modern leadership theories, and investigates the modern obsession with finding parallels between the supposed "decline and fall" of Rome and the "decay" of U.S. society. Within these discussions, Galinsky shows the continuing vitality of the classical tradition in the contemporary world. The Greek and Roman civilizations have provided us not only with models for conscious adaptation but also points for radical departures. This ability to change and innovate from classical models is crucial, Galinsky maintains. It creates a reciprocal process whereby contemporary issues are projected into the past while aspects of the ancient world are redefined in terms of current approaches. These essays result in a balanced assessment and stimulating restatement of some major issues in both contemporary U.S. society and the Greco-Roman world. The book, which speaks to a wide interdisciplinary audience, is based on a series of lecturesthat Galinsky gave as a national visiting scholar for Phi Beta Kappa. It concludes with a discussion of the role of classical studies in the United States today.
