Voluntary distributed computing projects divide large computational tasks into small pieces of data or work that are sent out over the Internet to be processed by individual users, who participate voluntarily in order to provide solutions that would ordinarily require investments of millions of dollars. This approach is contributing to the transformation of computationally heavy scientific research, opening up participation in science to interested lay people and greatly reducing the cost-...

**“A sprawling story richly textured with original material, quirky details and amusing anecdotes . . .” —Wall Street Journal“It is a cause for celebration that Yergin has returned with his perspective on a very different landscape . . . [I]t is impossible to think of a better introduction to the essentials of energy in the 21st century. The Quest is . . . the definitive guide to how we got here.” —The Financial TimesThis long-awaited successor to...

Security cameras, surveillance of your financial transactions, radio frequency spy chips hidden in consumer products, tracking of your Internet searches, and eavesdropping on your e-mail and phone calls. Without your knowledge or consent, every aspect of your life is observed and recorded. But who is watching the watchers?An ultra-secret global elite, functioning as a very real shadow government, controls technology, finance, international law, world trade, political power, and vas...

By 2050, the world’s population is estimated to grow to 10 billion. To feed everyone, we will have to double our food production, to produce more food in the next 40 years than in the whole of the last 6,000. Changing the Food Game shows how our unsustainable food production system cannot support this growth. In this prescient book, Lucas Simons argues that the biggest challenge for our generation can only be solved by effective market transformation to achieve sustainable agriculture and ...

Booker focuses his attention on the mother of all environmental scares: global warming.This original book considers one of the most extraordinary scientific and political stories of our time: how in the 1980s a handful of scientists came to believe that mankind faced catastrophe from runaway global warming, and how today this has persuaded politicians to land us with what promises to be the biggest bill in history.Christopher Booker interweaves the science ...

Farsighted and fascinating predictions for a new world orderVeteran international correspondent Paul Starobin masterfully mixes fresh reportage with rigorous historical analysis to envision a world in which the United States is no longer the dominant superpower. Following an insightful study of America's global ascendency, Starobin provides the reasons for America's waning influence and explores five possible paths for the future, each of which is already in the ma...

History of the Future presents a set of ideas about where we are in history. It focuses on the great majority of people in each society, and shows that life in the modern world will be almost completely different from all previous human experience. The present time is best understood as a period of transition during which one country after another is following along parallel paths from traditional to modern. The process of becoming modern is so powerful that it will have similar effects on...

What can postcolonialism tell us about international relations? What can international relations tell us about postcolonialism?In recent years, postcolonial perspectives and insights have challenged our conventional understanding of international politics. Postcolonial Theory and International Relations is the first book to provide a comprehensive and accessible survey of how postcolonialism radically alters our understanding of international relations.Each chapter...

Despite radical and fundamental reform of the Chinese higher education system, very little is known about this outside China. The past decade has seen radical reform of all levels of China’s education system as it attempts to meet changing economic and social needs and aspirations: this has included transformation of university curricula, pedagogy and evaluation measures, rapidly increasing joint research and degree programmes between Chinese universities and universities abroad, and very ...

This book examines key emergent trends related to aspects of power, sovereignty, conflict, peace, development, and changing social dynamics in the African context. It challenges conventional IR precepts of authority, politics and society, which have proven to be so inadequate in explaining African processes. Rather, this edited collection analyses the significance of many of the uncharted dimensions of Africa's international relations, such as the respatialisation of African societies thro...

With the ever-increasing interdependence across individuals, groups, international organizations, and nation-states an increasingly significant policy concern in the contemporary turbulent world of globalization is the question of state failure. There has been a growing academic interest in the determinants of state failure and an acute awareness across the international community of the need for dealing with issues of instability in states.The contributors to this volume represent...

In recent years, under the impression and the burden of globalization and neoliberalism, debates about the relationship between the theory and practice of progress - including the theory and practice of social critique - have gone through an unexpected and momentous revival, renewal and rejuvenation. This is due in large part to the proliferation of manifest crises in the early years of the twenty-first century. The terrorist attacks in September of 2001, the financial crisis of 2008 that ...