The Myth of Progress**, Adrian Leclerc**The Most Powerful Religion of Our Age Isn't Found in a Cathedral. It's Found in the GDP.Progress is not a fact of history; it is a story we tell to avoid tragedy. For centuries, the West has been governed by a secular faith: the belief that technology, markets, and endless economic expansion will eventually redeem humanity. In The Myth of Progress, Adrian Leclerc argues that this "Go...

Why Civilizations Fall (and Why Ours Will Too)Why do great societies collapse—suddenly, completely, and often without understanding the forces that erased them?From the Maya and the Romans to the Mongols, Byzantium, and the once-dominant empires of Europe, history shows a clear pattern: civilizations do not die of natural causes. They implode from the inside.This book is a deep, sweeping journey into the hidden laws that govern the rise and fall of ...

The Crusades Reconsidered: How a Medieval War Saved Europe and Forged the West by Adrian LeclercThe Crusades were not a crusade against Islam, but against isolation.For centuries, the Crusades have been depicted as the ultimate expression of blind religious fanaticism-a barbaric "holy war" that left a permanent stain on Western history. But what if this narrative is more a product of modern guilt than medieval reality?In The Cru...

Before the revolution, Cuba was not only a Caribbean island shaped by sugar, slavery, rebellion, and empire. It was also one of the most deeply Spanish influenced societies in the Americas, transformed by mass migration from Spain during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.White Cuba traces the demographic and cultural making of pre revolutionary Cuba, from the island’s long colonial connection to Spain to the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Spanish migrants from ...

The 21st century will not be shaped by ideology, technology, or even climate.It will be shaped by population.In Africa Will Change the World, Adrian Leclerc presents a clear and unsettling argument: the future of the global economy, migration, labor, and power will be determined by one force above all others — Africa's demographic rise.By 2100, Africa will account for the majority of global population growth. While Europe, Chi...

"The beauty and levity that Perry and Gabriele have captured in this book are what I think will help it to become a standard text for general audiences for years to come….The Bright Ages is a rare thing—a nuanced historical work that almost anyone can enjoy reading.”—Slate"Incandescent and ultimately intoxicating." —The Boston GlobeA lively and magisterial popular history that refutes common misperceptions...

In 1700, Latin America and British North America were roughly equal in economic terms. Yet over the next three centuries, the United States gradually pulled away from Latin America, and today the gap between the two is huge. Why did this happen? Was it culture? Geography? Economic policies? Natural resources? Differences in political development? The question has occupied scholars for decades, and the debate remains a hot one. In Falling Behind, Francis Fukuyama gathers together s...

"One of the leading big-picture thinkers of our day" (Utne Reader) delivers his boldest work in this erudite, tough-minded, and far-reaching manifesto.Never has the world seemed so completely united-in the form of communication, commerce, and culture-and so savagely torn apart-in the form of war, financial meltdown, global warming, and even the migration of diseases.No matter how much we put our minds to the task of meeting the challenges of a rapi...

All golden ages are marked by periods of spectacular cultural flourishing, scientific exploration, technological achievement and economic growth; yet no two are the same. Their beliefs, societies and place in the wider world all vary. Despite this, all previous golden ages have ended, whether it be because of external pressures or internal fracturing; too much hubris or too little wariness. Looking at seven of humanity's greatest civilizations - ancient Athens, the Roman Republic, Abbasid ...

In Brazil and throughout the African diaspora, black women, especially poor black women, are rarely considered leaders of social movements let alone political theorists. But in the northeastern city of Salvador, Brazil, it is these very women who determine how urban policies are established. Focusing on the Gamboa de Baixo neighborhood in Salvador’s city center, Black Women against the Land Grab explores how black women’s views on development have radicalized local communities to ...

A work of seminal importance, this book presents Ivan Illich's penetrating analysis of the industrial mode of production which characterises our contemporary world. The conviviality for which noted social philosopher Ivan Illich is arguing is one in which the individual's personal energies are under direct personal control and in which the use of tools is responsibly limited. This book claims out attention for the urgency of its appeal, the stunning clarity of its logic and the overwhelmin...

Combining anthropological methods and theories with political philosophy, Sian Lazar analyzes everyday practices and experiences of citizenship in a satellite city to the Bolivian capital of La Paz: El Alto, where more than three-quarters of the population identify as indigenous Aymara. For several years, El Alto has been at the heart of resistance to neoliberal market reforms, such as the export of natural resources and the privatization of public water systems. In October 2003, protests ...