We may have advanced technologically and scientifically, but when it comes to raw intelligence we have progressed no further than the Greeks and the Romans. When it comes to business and strategy, Greece and Rome could well be called the “Mothers of Invention”. Ancient Greeks and Romans were as industrious in business as they were in warfare, construction, science, oratory, technology, philosophy, literature and art. They created sophisticated systems for law, trade, supplies and distribut...

The essays in this volume address the displacement of natural and cultural heritage caused by disasters, whether they be dramatic natural impacts or terrible events unleashed by humankind, including holocaust and genocide. Disasters can be natural or human-made, rapid or slow, great or small, yet the impact is effectively the same; nature, people and cultural heritage are displaced or lost. Yet while heritage and place are at risk from disasters, in time,sites of suffering are sometimes re...

The Internet is behaving in a way that is affecting everything we do. And it is making us think about things in a way we never previously thought. The Internet is contrary and the opposite of previous inventions. It has, oddly, a reverse polarity of discovery in which seeking to know more about what and who we already know (think Facebook, Twitter,Google) is more valid than learning new things. This is the "implosion" that this book examines and which goes on to assess the great impact thi...

Aboriginal design is of a distinctly cultural nature, based in the Dreaming and in ancient practices grounded in Country. It is visible in the aerodynamic boomerang, the ingenious design of fish traps and the precise layouts of community settlements that strengthen social cohesion. Alison Page and Paul Memmott show how these design principles of sophisticated function, sustainability and storytelling, refined over many millennia, are now being applied to contemporary practices. Design: Bui...

In this era of climate crisis, in which our very futures are at stake, sustainability is a global imperative. Yet we tend to associate sustainability, nature, and the environment with distant places, science, and policy. The truth is that everything is environmental, from transportation to taxes, work to love, cities to cuisine.This book is the first to examine contemporary Singapore from an ecocultural lens, looking at the ways that Singaporean life and culture is deeply entangled...

Thoughts and feelings about home traditionally provided people of all cultures with a firm sense of where they belonged, and why. But with the world rapidly changing, many of our basic notions are becoming problematic. Both internationally and within countries, populations are constantly on the move, seeking better opportunities and living conditions, or an escape from violence and war. In spite of, or perhaps even because of these trends, ideas about home continue to shape the way people ...

A journey into science and spirituality to help us reconnect with soil, soul, and society from "one of the world's leading environmental campaigners" (BBC TV).Climate change is the greatest challenge to humankind today. While the coronavirus sheds a light on the vulnerability of our interconnected world, the effects of global warming will be permanent, indeed catastrophic, without a massive shift in human behavior.Writer, scholar and broadcaster Alastair Mc...

Landscapes is a timely and well-written analysis of the meaning of cultural landscapes. The book delves into the layers of meaning that are invested in ordinary landscapes as well as landscapes of spectacle and power. Landscapes is a powerful and vivid application of the new cultural geography to case studies not previously visited within cultural geography texts.

The study of vernacular architecture explores the characteristics of domestic buildings in particular regions or localities, and the many social and cultural factors that have contributed to their evolution. In this book, vernacular architecture specialist Paul Oliver brings together a wealth of information that spans over two decades, and the whole globe. Some previously unpublished papers, as well as those only available in hard to find conference proceedings, are brought together in one...

Rivers have played an extraordinarily important role in creating the world in which we live. They create landscapes and provide water to people, plants and animals, nourishing both town and country. The flow of rivers has enthused poets and painters, explorers and pilgrims. Rivers have acted as cradles for civilization and agents of disaster; a river may be a barrier or a highway, it can bear trade and sediment, culture and conflict. A river may inspire or it may terrify. This Very Sho...

Our twenty first century world is facing a series of unprecedented crises. Pandemics of loneliness, obesity and diabetes. Spiralling inequality. Financial meltdowns. Environmental destruction.We’re obsessed with finding big, complicated, technological solutions to these modern ills. But what if the solutions lie not in techno fixes, but in harnessing the power of one of the oldest and simplest human units – the sympathy group? The sympathy group is the smallest social unit outside ...

Climate is an enduring idea of the human mind and also a powerful one. Today, the idea of climate is most commonly associated with the discourse of climate-change and its scientific, political, economic, social, religious and ethical dimensions. However, to understand adequately the cultural politics of climate-change it is important to establish the different origins of the idea of climate itself and the range of historical, political and cultural work that the idea of climate accomplishe...