In this urgent and “thrillingly written” book, there is a case and solution for humanity’s last shot at survival (Sunday Times).**Humanity’s future is at risk. We face existential catastrophes, climate change, nuclear war, and more. If we do not act fast to reach a place of safety, it will soon be too late.Drawing on over a decade of research, The Precipice explores the cutting-edge science behind the risks we face. And it points the way ...

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Very often we're uncertain about what we ought, morally, to do. We don't know how to weigh the interests of animals against humans, how strong our duties are to improve the lives of distant strangers, or how to think about the ethics of bringing new people into exist...

From one of the world’s leading moral voices, this urgent and eye-opening book makes the case thatprotecting humanity’s future is the central challenge of our time.If all goes well, human history is just beginning. Our species could survive for billions of years—enough time toend disease, poverty, and injustice, and to flourish in ways unimaginable today. But this vast future is at risk. With theadvent of nuclear weapons, humanity entered a new age, where we fa...

An inside account of the fight to contain the world's deadliest diseases -- and the panic and corruption that make them worse.Throughout history, humankind's biggest killers have been infectious diseases: the Black Death, the Spanish Flu, and AIDS alone account for over one hundred million deaths. We ignore this reality most of the time, but when a new threat -- Ebola, SARS, Zika, coronavirus -- seems imminent, we send our best and bravest doctors to contain it. Pe...

**From a former President of the United Nations Security Council, an authoritative look at the US, China, and the defining geopolitical contest of the twenty-first century“Mahbubani has written an excellent and important book on the biggest question in international affairs: how will the relationship between the US and China evolve?” —Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Commentator,** Financial TimesChina and America are world powers without serious rival...

Bestselling author Norman Cantor delivers this compact but magisterial survey of the ancient world—from the birth of Sumerian civilization around 3500 BC in the Tigris-Euphrates valley (present-day Iraq) to the fall of the Roman Empire in AD 476. In Antiquity, Cantor covers such subjects as Classical Greece, Judaism, the founding of Christianity, and the triumph and decline of Rome.In this fascinating and comprehensive analysis, the author explores social and cultural hist...

**From a former president of the United Nations Security Council, an authoritative look at the US, China, and the defining geopolitical contest of the twenty-first century“An excellent and important book on the biggest question in international affairs: how will the relationship between the US and China evolve?” —Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator, Financial Times**China and the United States are world powers without serious rivals. They eye each other warily...

This "fantastic revisionist history . . . captures the excitement of the scientific revolution and makes a point of celebrating the advances it ushered in" ( Financial Times).We live in a world transformed by scientific discovery. In The Invention of Science, historian David Wootton reveals why the Scientific Revolution was truly the greatest event in our history. Spanning continents and centuries, Wootton chronicles the factors that led to this cr...

An inside account of the fight to contain the world's deadliest diseases -- and the panic and corruption that make them worse.Throughout history, humankind's biggest killers have been infectious diseases: the Black Death, the Spanish Flu, and AIDS alone account for over one hundred million deaths. We ignore this reality most of the time, but when a new threat -- Ebola, SARS, Zika, coronavirus -- seems imminent, we send our best and bravest doctors to contain it. Pe...

“With his characteristic eloquence and lucid insights. . . Cantor offers a splendid and accessible portrait of the cultures of the ancient world.”—Publishers WeeklyBestselling author Norman Cantor delivers this compact but magisterial survey of the ancient world—from the birth of Sumerian civilization around 3500 B.C. in the Tigris-Euphrates valley (present-day Iraq) to the fall of the Roman Empire in A.D. 476. He covers such subjects as Classical Greece, Judaism, the founding of C...

In this stirring memoir, a preeminent politician and diplomat traces the transformation of the Republic of Singapore from a poor colony into an Asian powerhouse.In Living the Asian Century, Kishore Mahbubani vividly chronicles his own life going from a poor childhood in a multiethnic neighborhood to an illustrious diplomatic career that led him far from Singapore to the United States.Along the way Mahbubani has become one of Asia’s most widely know...

"Fascinating and beautiful . . . if only chemistry had been like this at school." —Matt Ridley, New York Times–bestselling author of Genome, in Prospect magazineLike the alphabet, the calendar, or the zodiac, the periodic table of the chemical elements has a permanent place in our imagination. But aside from the handful of common ones (iron, carbon, copper, gold), the elements themselves remain wrapped in mystery. We do not know what most ...