"In Going to Extremes, renowned legal scholar and best-selling author Cass R. Sunstein offers startling insights into why and when people gravitate toward extremism."--Inside jacket.
Explores the limits of human survival and the physiological adaptations that enable us to exist under extreme conditions. The author reviews limits to human life underwater, at high altitudes, at high speeds, at micro levels, and at freezing and hot temperatures.
From a drunken housewife who barely escapes being caught in adultery to the author's soul-stirring encounter with one of the earth's last scenes of natural splendor, Going to Extremes succeeds in encompassing the surreal qualities and mind-bending contradictions of Alaska today. What Joe McGinniss found on his extraordinary odyssey was a world of stark contrasts. He introduces us to the people-from pot-smoking high-school principals to TV-watching Eskimos-and their problems: rampant drinking, divorce, human disintegration, and the oil-inspired greed and waste. And he recaptures both the power and the beauty of a land still untamed and undefiled, and the endurance of a spirit of independence and adventure that finds Alaska its natural home. A deeply moving, personal book, in turns wry, witty, cutting and bedazzling, Going to Extremes is, quite simply, a thoroughly rewarding experience.
"Surviving the Extremes brings personal experience and scientific knowledge together beautifully, giving us narrative that are powerful, moving, and very real." -Oliver Sacks A true-life scientific thriller no reader will forget, Surviving the Extremes takes us to the farthest reaches of the earth as well as into the uncharted territory within the human body, spirit, and brain. A vice president of the legendary Explorers Club, as well as surgeon, explorer, and masterful storyteller, Dr. Kenneth Kamler has spent years discovering what happens to the human body in extreme environmental conditions. Divided into six sections—jungle, high seas, desert, underwater, high altitude, and outer space—this book uses firsthand testimony and documented accounts to investigate the science of what a body goes through and explains why people survive—and why they sometimes don’t.
In anaesthetist Dr Kevin Fong's television programmes he has often demonstrated the impact of extremes on the human body by using his own body as a 'guinea pig'. So Dr Fong is well placed to share his experience of the sheer audacity of medical practice at extreme physiological limits, where human life is balanced on a knife edge. Through gripping accounts of extraordinary events and pioneering medicine, Dr Fong explores how our body responds when tested by the extremes of heat and cold, vacuum and altitude, age and disease. He shows how science, technology and medicine have taken what was once lethal in the world and made it survivable. This is not only a book about medicine, but also about exploration in its broadest sense - and about how, by probing the very limits of our biology, we may ultimately return with a better appreciation of how our bodies work, of what life is, and what it means to be human.
British-born Teresa Simons returns to England after the death of her husband, an FBI agent, who was killed by an out-of-control gunman while on assignment in Texas. A shocking coincidence has drawn her to the run-down south coast town of Bulverton, where a gunman's massacre has haunting similarities to the murders in Texas. Desperate to unravel the mystery, Teresa turns to the virtual reality world of Extreme Experience, ExEx, now commercially available since she trained on it in the US. The best and worst of human experience can be found in ExEx, and in the extremes of violence Teresa finds that past and present combine ... Christopher Priest is a genre-leading author of SFF fiction. His novel, THE PRESTIGE, won a number of awards and was adapted into a critically acclaimed, Oscar-nominated film directed by Christopher Nolan (TENET, INCEPTION) starring Hugh Jackman (THE GREATEST SHOWMAN, X-MEN), Christian Bale (THE BIG SHORT, BATMAN BEGINS), Michael Caine (THE ITALIAN JOB) and Scarlett Johansson (MARRIAGE STORY, THE AVENGERS).
Max Quinn's filmmaking career has taken him to the ends of the earth; from his native New Zealand to Alaska; Antarctica to the Arctic. A Life of Extremes is a personal account of his travel and work in these remote locations. It focuses on Max's polar filmmaking experiences, which started in 1991 when he spent 11 months filming the wildlife of Antarctica. The illuminating text and stunning images illustrate 20 years of subsequent adventures in polar climates. The stories in this book capture experiences that can only be had in the most extreme places on earth. Whether it be travelling 80 kilometres over crevassed ice to a lonely colony of Emperor penguins who have evolved to live and breed in temperatures as low as -50 degrees, or figuring out how to keep bodies and cameras warm in the coldest places on earth, Max Quinn has a story to tell about it. The historical background given to the tales will enthral any natural history buff, while filmmaking enthusiasts will wonder at the methods behind capturing life on the edge. Become inspired to leave the tourist trail behind with this unique book about what life is like behind the camera, beyond public transport and even human inhabitation. Learn about dog sled racing, the last great ice age, penguin colonies, and everything else that happens in the immensely beautiful landscapes where the temperature is permanently below freezing.
What makes the 21st century different from the 20th century? This century is the century of extremes -- political, economic, social, and global black-swan events happening with increasing frequency and severity. Book of Extremes is a tour of the current reality as seen through the lens of complexity theory – the only theory capable of explaining why the Arab Spring happened and why it will happen again; why social networks in the virtual world behave like flashmobs in the physical world; why financial bubbles blow up in our faces and will grow and burst again; why the rich get richer and will continue to get richer regardless of governmental policies; why the future of economic wealth and national power lies in comparative advantage and global trade; why natural disasters will continue to get bigger and happen more frequently; and why the Internet – invented by the US -- is headed for a global monopoly controlled by a non-US corporation. It is also about the extreme innovations and heroic innovators yet to be discovered and recognized over the next 100 years.Complexity theory combines the predictable with the unpredictable. It assumes a nonlinear world of long-tailed distributions instead of the classical linear world of normal distributions. In the complex 21st century, almost nothing is linear or normal. Instead, the world is highly connected, conditional, nonlinear, fractal, and punctuated. Life in the 21st century is a long-tailed random walk – Levy walks -- through extreme events of unprecedented impact. It is an exciting time to be alive.
Describes the time in America prior to the first World War, the vast differences between the wealthy and the poor, the changing from farming to factory work, and the inventions of conveniences such as electric lights, telephones, and bicycles.