Letters are tangible language. Joining together in endless combinations to actually show speech, letters convey our messages and tell our stories. While we encounter these tiny shapes hundreds of times a day, we take for granted the long, fascinating history behind one of the most fundamental of human inventions -- the alphabet.The heart of the book is the 26 fact-filled “biographies” of letters A through Z, each one identifying the letter’s particular significance for modern reade...

Letters are tangible language. Joining together in endless combinations to actually show speech, letters convey our messages and tell our stories. While we encounter these tiny shapes hundreds of times a day, we take for granted the long, fascinating history behind one of the most fundamental of human inventions -- the alphabet.The heart of the book is the 26 fact-filled “biographies” of letters A through Z, each one identifying the letter’s particular significance for modern reade...

Ready to Think Like a Champion?In the world of elite sports, victory is often attributed to physical and athletic prowess alone. But what if the key to unlocking your full potential lies not in your physical abilities, but in your mindset?In Extreme Balance, three renowned experts on performance, motivation, and competition dive into the unexplored territory of the mind, paradoxically revealing the one mindset that can truly elevate your game: the ...

"The connection between geography and progress is fundamental," writes Robert Sack in the introduction to the present volume. Touching on both moral and material progress, six of the world's leading geographers and environmental historians explore differing aspects of this connection. Thomas Vale discusses whether progress is discernible in the natural realm; Kenneth Olwig examines fundamental changes that occurred to the notion of progress with the rise of modernity, while David Lowenthal...

Think Like a ChampionIn the world of elite sports, victory is often attributed to physical and athletic prowess alone. But what if the key to unlocking your full potential lies not in your physical abilities, but in your mindset?In Extreme Balance, three renowned experts on performance, motivation, and competition dive into the unexplored territory of the mind, paradoxically revealing the one mindset that can truly elevate your game: the ability to...

In this new book, Bauman examines how we have moved away from a 'heavy' and 'solid', hardware-focused modernity to a 'light' and 'liquid', software-based modernity. This passage, he argues, has brought profound change to all aspects of the human condition. The new remoteness and un-reachability of global systemic structure coupled with the unstructured and under-defined, fluid state of the immediate setting of life-politics and human togetherness, call for the rethinking of the concepts an...

With the rise of science, we moderns believe, the world changed irrevocably, separating us forever from our primitive, premodern ancestors. But if we were to let go of this fond conviction, Bruno Latour asks, what would the world look like? His book, an anthropology of science, shows us how much of modernity is actually a matter of faith. What does it mean to be modern? What difference does the scientific method make? The difference, Latour explains, is in our careful distinctions between ...

A critique of socialism by the Nobel Prize–winning economist: "The energy and precision with which Mr. Hayek sweeps away his opposition is impressive." — The Wall Street JournalIn this work, F.A. Hayek—a pioneer in monetary theory and proponent of libertarian philosophy—gives the main arguments for the free-market case and presents his manifesto on the "errors of socialism." Hayek argues that socialism has, from its origins, been mistaken on factual, and ev...

This critical study "artfully explores the power of limits . . . A compelling—and fittingly concise—read for our times" (Kate Raworth, author of Doughnut Economics).Western culture is infatuated with the dream of endless economic growth, even as it is haunted by the specters of drought, famine, and nuclear winter. How did we come to think of the planet and its limits as we do? This book reclaims, redefines, and makes an impassioned plea for limits—a notion...

What makes us moral beings? How do we decide what is good and what is evil? In the vein of Sapiens comes a grand history of our universal moral values at the moment of their greatest crisis.How did we learn to distinguish good from evil? Have we always been capable of doing so? And will we still be in the world to come?In this breathtaking book, ethics expert Hanno Sauer offers a great universal history of morality...

What does John Ralston Saul's influential philosophical trilogy Voltaire's Bastards, The Doubter's Companion and The Unconscious Civilization mean for the real lives of individuals? Is it possible to apply his groundbreaking theories to everyday life?On Equilibrium presents us with a virtual "how to" of the ways that ideas can translate into action. Saul explains how our different qualities give us the intelligence, self-confidence and ability to...

F"Fundamentals of Sociology is an introduction to the definition, methods and fundamental concepts of sociology. The book prepares the ground for the study of the origins and structures of society and social groups in correlation with other social sciences. In doing so the author looks into the most important facet of social structure—social institutions—which in their varied forms act as agents of socialization and social control. Dwelling upon key issues in sociology this book details: •...