American History Through the Eyes of Modern Chaos Theory concerns itself in the main with the time period between the Revolutionary War and the end of Civil War. Some leads, those concerned with finance, transportation and information, are followed into the 20th century. The point of view is that of modern chaos theory, a rather recent development that imposes severe limitations on future predictability in the social sciences, not to mention the physical, biological and environmental sciences. When taken into account, there emerges a picture of American history very different from today's conventional notions. The trees, so to speak, are the same, but the forest is changed. It is the aim of this book to reinterpret America's rise to Power, Consequence, and Grandeur in light of these findings.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • When did America give up on fairness? The author of Fantasyland tells the epic history of how America decided that big business gets whatever it wants, only the rich get richer, and nothing should ever change—and charts a way back to the future. “Essential, absorbing . . . a graceful, authoritative guide . . . a radicalized moderate’s moderate case for radical change.”—The New York Times Book Review During the twentieth century, America managed to make its economic and social systems both more and more fair and more and more prosperous. A huge, secure, and contented middle class emerged. All boats rose together. But then the New Deal gave way to the Raw Deal. Beginning in the early 1970s, by means of a long war conceived of and executed by a confederacy of big business CEOs, the superrich, and right-wing zealots, the rules and norms that made the American middle class possible were undermined and dismantled. The clock was turned back on a century of economic progress, making greed good, workers powerless, and the market all-powerful while weaponizing nostalgia, lifting up an oligarchy that served only its own interests, and leaving the huge majority of Americans with dwindling economic prospects and hope. Why and how did America take such a wrong turn? In this deeply researched and brilliantly woven cultural, economic, and political chronicle, Kurt Andersen offers a fresh, provocative, and eye-opening history of America’s undoing, naming names, showing receipts, and unsparingly assigning blame—to the radical right in economics and the law, the high priests of high finance, a complacent and complicit Establishment, and liberal “useful idiots,” among whom he includes himself. Only a writer with Andersen’s crackling energy, deep insight, and ability to connect disparate dots and see complex systems with clarity could make such a book both intellectually formidable and vastly entertaining. And only a writer of Andersen’s vision could reckon with our current high-stakes inflection point, and show the way out of this man-made disaster.
The present work investigates global politics and political implications of social science and management with the aid of the latest complexity and chaos theories. Until now, deterministic chaos and nonlinear analysis have not been a focal point in this area of research. This book remedies this deficiency by utilizing these methods in the analysis of the subject matter. The authors provide the reader a detailed analysis on politics and its associated applications with the help of chaos theory, in a single edited volume.
Modern British and Irish dramatic works are among the plays most widely read by students. This volume conveniently introduces 10 major plays by British and Irish dramatists. Each chapter is devoted to a particular play and includes a brief biography, a plot synopsis, a discussion of major themes and characters, an overview of the play's historical background, an analysis of the work's dramatic style, an overview of the play's critical reception, and a list of works for further reading. Modern British and Irish dramatic works are widely enjoyed by general readers and high school students. But because they are rooted in literary Modernism and generally reflect particular historical and cultural concerns, they can also be difficult for students to understand. This volume concisely and conveniently introduces 10 masterpieces of British and Irish drama in an accessible manner.
Lucretius's long shadow falls across the disciplines of literary history and criticism, philosophy, religious studies, classics, political philosophy, and the history of science. The best recent example is Stephen Greenblatt's popular account of the Roman poet's De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) rediscovery by Poggio Bracciolini, and of its reception in early modernity, winner of both a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award. Despite the poem's newfound influence and visibility, very little cross-disciplinary conversation has taken place. This edited collection brings together essays by distinguished scholars to examine the relationship between Lucretius and modernity. Key questions weave this book's ideas and arguments together: What is the relation between literary form and philosophical argument? How does the text of De rerum natura allow itself to be used, at different historical moments and to different ends? What counts as reason for Lucretius? Together, these essays present a nuanced, skeptical, passionate, historically sensitive, and complicated account of what is at stake when we claim Lucretius for modernity.
A History of Modern Psychology provides students with an engaging, comprehensive, and global history of psychological science, from the birth of the field to the present. It examines the attempts to establish psychology as a science in several countries and epochs. The text expertly draws on a vast knowledge of the field in the United States, England, Germany, France, Russia, and Scandinavia, as well as on author Per Saugstad's keen study of neighboring sciences, including physiology, evolutionary biology, psychiatry, and neurology. Offering a unique global perspective on the development of psychology as an empirical science, this text is an ideal introduction to the field for students and other readers interested in the history of modern psychology.
Rand tells the untold story of the men and women who covered first-hand the Chinese Revolution--legendary names such as Agnes Smedley, Rayna Prohme, Edgar Snow, Theodore White, and Thomas Milard. These journalists brought the world's attention to the plight of a land in chaos. of photos.
"Frank shows how Marx and Weber got it all wrong. A fundamental rethinking of the rise of the West and the origin of the world-system. Absolutely essential to understanding world history."--Albert Bergesen, University of Arizona "The great virtue of this stimulating book is its relentless push to redefine our framework for thinking about the early modern economy. . . . A benchmark study."--R. Bin Wong, University of California, Irvine
This book investigates the productive crosscurrents between visual culture and literary texts in the Romantic period, focusing on the construction and manipulation of the visual, the impact of new visual media on the literary and historical imagination, and on fragments and ruins as occupying the shifting border between the visible and the invisible. It examines a broad selection of instances that reflect debates over how seeing should itself be viewed: instances, from Daguerre's Diorama, to the staging of Coleridge's play Remorse, to the figure of the Medusa in Shelley's poetry and at the Phantasmagoria, in which the very act of seeing is represented or dramatized. In reconsidering literary engagements with the expanding visual field, this study argues that the popular culture of Regency Britain reflected not just emergent and highly capitalized forms of mass entertainment, but also a lively interest in the aesthetic and conceptual dimensions of looking. What is commonly thought to be the Romantic resistance to the visible gives way to a generative fascination with the visual and its imaginative--even spectacular--possibilities.
A rich, wide-ranging history of ignorance in all its forms, from antiquity to the present day A Seminary Coop Notable Book of 2023 “Ignorance: A Global History explores the myriad ways in which ‘not-knowing’ affects our lives, sometimes for good, sometimes for ill.”—Michael Dirda, Washington Post Throughout history, every age has thought of itself as more knowledgeable than the last. Renaissance humanists viewed the Middle Ages as an era of darkness, Enlightenment thinkers tried to sweep superstition away with reason, the modern welfare state sought to slay the “giant” of ignorance, and in today’s hyperconnected world seemingly limitless information is available on demand. But what about the knowledge lost over the centuries? Are we really any less ignorant than our ancestors? In this highly original account, Peter Burke examines the long history of humanity’s ignorance across religion and science, war and politics, business and catastrophes. Burke reveals remarkable stories of the many forms of ignorance—genuine or feigned, conscious and unconscious—from the willful politicians who redrew Europe’s borders in 1919 to the politics of whistleblowing and climate change denial. The result is a lively exploration of human knowledge across the ages, and the importance of recognizing its limits.
