Basic books mai 2025 (9 Ergebnisse)

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - A compelling call to rediscover the transformative power of art in an age of distraction, coercion, and spectacle featuring an introduction from Pulitzer Prizewinning author Donna Tartt In Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice, J. F. Martel offers a compelling and incisive meditation on the nature of art in a world dominated by invasive media, rampant consumer culture, and artificial intelligence. Drawing on a wide range of examples, from Paleolithic cave art to contemporary cinema, Martel argues that true art reveals the unseen forces shaping our existenceforces that transcend politics, technology, and even culture. In contrast to artifice, which seeks to manipulate or distract, authentic art calls us back to the essence of things, opening "rifts" onto the sublime and the weird and reconnecting us with the radical mystery at the heart of the world. Featuring an introduction by Pulitzer Prizewinning author Donna Tartt, this edition also includes a new afterword by the author, reflecting on the continued relevance of art in our increasingly mediated world.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - "For anyone involved in settling disputes" (Richard Dawkins), a famed political scientist offers a classic argument for how to achieve a more cooperative world We assume that, in a world ruled by natural selection, selfishness pays. So why cooperate In The Evolution of Cooperation, political scientist Robert Axelrod seeks to answer this question. In 1979, he organized the famed Computer Prisoner's Dilemma Tournament, which sought to find the most effective strategy for the ubiquitous prisoner's dilemma, a model of strategy problems in the nuclear age. The expectation had been that some complicated scheme of competition would win the day. Instead, a simple, cooperative program called Tit for Tat did. The effects of that victory continue to reverberate today, from college campuses to the Situation Room. A vital book for leaders and decision-makers, The Evolution of Cooperation reveals how cooperative principles help us think better about everything from military strategy to political elections to family dynamics.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - The latest volume in the New York Timesbestselling physics series explains Einstein's masterpiece: the general theory of relativity? He taught us classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, and special relativity. Now, physicist Leonard Susskind, assisted by a new collaborator, mathematician André Cabannes, returns to tackle Einstein's general theory of relativity. Starting from the equivalence principle and covering the necessary mathematics of Riemannian spaces and tensor calculus, Susskind and Cabannes explain the link between gravity and geometry. They delve into black holes, establish Einstein field equations, and solve them to describe gravity waves. The authors provide vivid explanations that, to borrow a phrase from Einstein himself, are as simple as possible (but no simpler). An approachable yet rigorous introduction to one of the most important topics in physics, General Relativity is a must-read for anyone who wants a deeper knowledge of the universe's real structure.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - The extraordinary history of the epic rivalry between the ancient world's two great superpowers. "Magnificent." Spectator The Roman Empire was like no other. Stretching from the north of Britain to the Sahara, and from the Atlantic coast to the Euphrates, it imposed peace and prosperity on an unprecedented scale. Its only true rival lay in the east, where the Parthian and then Persian empires ruled over great cities and the trade routes to mysterious lands beyond. This was the region Alexander the Great had swept through, creating a dream of glory and conquest that tantalized Greeks and Romans alike. Tracing seven centuries of conflict between Rome and Persia, historian Adrian Goldsworthy shows how these two great powers evolved together. Despite their endless clashes, trade between the empires enriched them both, and a mutual respect prevented both Rome and Persia from permanently destroying the other. Epic in scope, Rome and Persia completely reshapes our understanding of one of the greatest rivalries of world history.…

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - FromWall Street Journalcolumnist and Manhattan Institute senior fellow Jason L.Riley, a 'clear, concise, and humane account' (Christina Hoff Sommers) of how racial preferences have done more harm than good for black Americans After the Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that the use of race in college admissions was unconstitutional, many predicted that the black middle class was doomed. One byproduct of a half century of affirmative action is that it has given people the impression that blacks can't advance without special treatment. In The Affirmative Action Myth, Jason L. Riley details the neglected history of black achievement without government intervention. Using empirical data, Riley shows how black families lifted themselves out of poverty prior to the racial preference policies of the 1960s and 1970s. Black incomes, homeownership, and educational attainment were all on the risein the first two-thirds of the twentieth century and began to stagnate only after affirmative action became the law of the land, tainting black achievement with suspicions of unfair advantage. Countering thinkers who blame white supremacy and systemic racism for today's racial gaps, Riley offers a more optimistic story of black success without racial favoritism.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - The first volume of the landmark study, tracing the emergence and formation of sociological thought from the French liberal school to the MarxistsMain Currents in Sociological Thought remains a foundational synthesis in the field. In this first part of his magisterial two-volume survey, Raymond Aron embraces an expansive definition of sociology that merges empirical inquiry with historical and social analysis. At its core, Aron's work is an engagement with the very question of modernity: How did the intellectual currents that emerged in the eighteenth century shape the modern political and philosophical order With scrupulous fairness, Aron examines the thoughts and arguments of the discipline's major social thinkers to discern how they answered this question. Volume 1 explores three traditions: the French liberal school of political sociology, represented by Montesquieu and Tocqueville; the Comtean tradition, anticipating Durkheim in its elevation of social unity and consensus; and the Marxists, who posited the struggle between classes and placed their faith in historical necessity. Written with his customary lucid elegance of thought and style, Aron's work is essential reading for students across the social sciences.…

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - An award-winning mathematician shows how we prove what's true, and what to do when we can't "Engaging and uncondescending" Financial Times How do we establish what we believe And how can we be certain that what we believe is true And how do we convince other people that it is true For thousands of years, from the ancient Greeks to the Arabic golden age to the modern world, science has used different methodslogical, empirical, intuitive, and moreto separate fact from fiction. But it all had the same goal: find perfect evidence and be rewarded with universal truth. As mathematician Adam Kucharski shows, however, there is far more to proof than axioms, theories, and laws: when demonstrating that a new medical treatment works, persuading a jury of someone's guilt, or deciding whether you trust a self-driving car, the weighing up of evidence is far from simple. To discover proof, we must reach into a thicket of errors and biases and embrace uncertaintyand never more so than when existing methods fail. Spanning mathematics, science, politics, philosophy, and economics, this book offers the ultimate exploration of how we can find our way to proofand, just as importantly, of how to go forward when supposed facts falter.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - The second volume of the landmark study, examining the work of sociology's defining thinkers from the turn of the nineteenth century to the interwar periodMain Currents in Sociological Thought remains a foundational synthesis in the field. In this second and final volume of his classic survey, Raymond Aron explores the work of three figures who profoundly shaped sociology as it entered the twentieth century: Durkheim, who continued Comte's quest for a science of society and a scientific validation of morality; Pareto, the Italian "neo-Machiavellian" who emphasized the elitist character of all societies; and Weber, the German sociologist who reflected critically on the prospects for human freedom in an age of disenchantment. Bringing together penetrating intellectual portraits of these great thinkers and close readings of their most consequential texts, Main Currents in Sociological Thought highlights the historical and intellectual context within which each man wrote and draws out their works' enduring insights and influence in the field today.…

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - An unsparing, 'sweeping,' and 'vivid' (Drew Gilpin Faust, author ofThis Republic of Suffering)new history of World War II, recasting the conflict as a brutal struggle for survival among declining and ascendant imperial powers In popular memory, the Second World War was an unalloyed victory for freedom over totalitarianism, marking the demise of the age of empires and the triumph of an American-led democratic order. In Scorched Earth, historian Paul Thomas Chamberlin dispatches the myth of World War II as a good war. Instead, he depicts the conflict as it truly was: a massive battle beset by vicious racial atrocities, fought between rival empires across huge stretches of Asia and Europe. The war was sparked by German and Japanese invasions that threatened the old powers' dominance, not by Allied opposition to fascism. The Allies achieved victory not through pluck and democratic idealism but through savage firebombing raids on civilian targets and the slaughter of millions of Soviet soldiers. The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as hyper-militarized new imperial powers, each laying claim to former Axis holdings across the globe before turning on one another and triggering a new forever war. Dramatically rendered and persuasively argued, Scorched Earth shows that World War II marked the culmination of centuries of colonial violence and ushered in a new era of imperial struggle.…