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End Times (Hardcover)
[Buy it!] | Peter Turchin | USD 26.49
(Tue May 28 21:17:51 2024) | Abebooks | Grand Eagle Retail | ISBN10: 0593490509, ISBN13: 9780593490501, [publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc] Hardcover Hardcover. Peter Turchin brings science to history. Some like it and some prefer their history plain. But everyone needs to pay attention to the well-informed, convincing and terrifying analysis in this book. Angus Deaton, winner of the Nobel Prize in EconomicsFrom the pioneering co-founder of cliodynamics, the groundbreaking new interdisciplinary science of history, a big-picture explanation for America's civil strife and its possible endgamesPeter Turchin, one of the most interesting social scientists of our age, has infused the study of history with approaches and insights from other fields for more than a quarter century. End Times is the culmination of his work to understand what causes political communities to cohere and what causes them to fall apart, as applied to the current turmoil within the United States. Back in 2010, when Nature magazine asked leading scientists to provide a ten-year forecast, Turchin used his models to predict that America was in a spiral of social disintegration that would lead to a breakdown in the political order circa 2020. The years since have proved his prediction more and more accurate, and End Times reveals why.The lessons of world history are clear, Turchin argues: When the equilibrium between ruling elites and the majority tips too far in favor of elites, political instability is all but inevitable. As income inequality surges and prosperity flows disproportionately into the hands of the elites, the common people suffer, and society-wide efforts to become an elite grow ever more frenzied. He calls this process the wealth pump; its a world of the damned and the saved. And since the number of such positions remains relatively fixed, the overproduction of elites inevitably leads to frustrated elite aspirants, who harness popular resentment to turn against the established order. Turchins models show that when this state has been reached, societies become locked in a death spiral it's very hard to exit.In America, the wealth pump has been operating full blast for two generations. As cliodynamics shows us, our current cycle of elite overproduction and popular immiseration is far along the path to violent political rupture. That is only one possible end time, and the choice is up to us, but the hour grows late. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.
[Wilmington, DE, U.S.A.] [Publication Year: 2023]
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The Fly Trap
[Buy it!] | Fredrik Sjoeberg | USD 32.08
(Tue May 28 21:17:52 2024) | AbebooksUK | WorldofBooks | ISBN10: 184614776X, ISBN13: 9781846147760, [publisher: Penguin Books Ltd, United Kingdom, London] Softcover Fredrik Sjoeberg's Swedish bestseller about summer, islands and finding happiness in the little things. Every summer there are a number of nights, not many, but a number, when everything is perfect. The light, the warmth, the smells, the mist, the birdsong - the moths. Who can sleep? Who wants to? Most people do, it seems. As for me, I'm on the verge of tears from happiness, and I wander around on the island till dawn and dream and think that summer nights are our most underutilized natural resource. A mesmerizing web of associations, The Fly Trap begins with Fredrik Sjoeberg's own experiences collecting hoverflies on a remote island in Sweden. His curiosity about the inventor of his fly trap leads him to rediscover the extraordinary life of a near-forgotten Naturalist, Rene Malaise. The tale that Sjoeberg unravels - of heroic expeditions to Burma and the wilderness of Kamchatka, of lost loves and unexpected treasures - leads him to reflect on life itself, on the natural world and how we learn to interpret it, on slowness, freedom and the bliss of limitation. 'Charming, witty and original . . . a sly challenge to virtually every contemporary orthodoxy' Guardian 'Delightful, at once informative and often humorously digressive . . . a humane man of wide-ranging curiosity, Sjoeberg writes with infectious passion' Independent 'Its joy lies in Sjoeberg's loose-limbed prose . . . at once whimsical and yet laden with erudition and a deep feeling for the natural world and our place in it' Financial Times 'I often return to The Fly Trap, it remains close to my heart. The minute observations from nature that reveal sudden insights into one's life. Sometimes I almost think that he wrote it for me' Tomas Transtroemer, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 'Subtle, convincing . . . Sjoeberg thrives in the indistinct boundary between science and literature' New Scientist 'A quirky tapestry . . . an enjoyable if wayward tale' Ecologist Fredrik Sjoeberg collects hoverflies on the island Runmaroe, in the archipelago east of Stockholm. He is also a literary critic, translator, cultural columnist and the author of several books including The Art of Flight and The Raisin King, which form a trilogy with The Fly Trap. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
[Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom] [Publication Year: 2014] |
