Facing a World in Crisis
Facing a World in Crisis

Author: J. Krishnamurti

Publisher: Shambhala Publications

Published: 2005-03-08

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 0834824043

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J. Krishnamurti, one of the most beloved and renowned religious teachers of the twentieth century, often taught his students that they must look at the state of the world, with all its violence and conflict, if they are ever to understand themselves. To turn away from world events was for him not to be alive to what life has to teach. Facing a World in Crisis presents a selection of talks that Krishnamurti gave on how to live in and respond to troubling and uncertain times. His message of personal responsibility and the importance of connecting with the broader world is presented in a nonsectarian and nonpolitical way. Direct and ultimately life-affirming, Facing a World in Crisis will resonate with readers today who are looking for a new way to understand and find hope in challenging times.

Upheaval
Upheaval

Author: Jared Diamond

Publisher: Little, Brown

Published: 2019-05-07

Total Pages: 510

ISBN-13: 0316409154

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A "riveting and illuminating" Bill Gates Summer Reading pick about how and why some nations recover from trauma and others don't (Yuval Noah Harari), by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the landmark bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel. In his international bestsellers Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse, Jared Diamond transformed our understanding of what makes civilizations rise and fall. Now, in his third book in this monumental trilogy, he reveals how successful nations recover from crises while adopting selective changes -- a coping mechanism more commonly associated with individuals recovering from personal crises. Diamond compares how six countries have survived recent upheavals -- ranging from the forced opening of Japan by U.S. Commodore Perry's fleet, to the Soviet Union's attack on Finland, to a murderous coup or countercoup in Chile and Indonesia, to the transformations of Germany and Austria after World War Two. Because Diamond has lived and spoken the language in five of these six countries, he can present gut-wrenching histories experienced firsthand. These nations coped, to varying degrees, through mechanisms such as acknowledgment of responsibility, painfully honest self-appraisal, and learning from models of other nations. Looking to the future, Diamond examines whether the United States, Japan, and the whole world are successfully coping with the grave crises they currently face. Can we learn from lessons of the past? Adding a psychological dimension to the in-depth history, geography, biology, and anthropology that mark all of Diamond's books, Upheaval reveals factors influencing how both whole nations and individual people can respond to big challenges. The result is a book epic in scope, but also his most personal yet.

World in Crisis
World in Crisis

Author: Gabriel Kolko

Publisher: Pluto Press

Published: 2009-04-15

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780745328669

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World in Crisis is a new book from one of the world's leading scholars.Gabriel Kolko provides a panoramic overview of the problems facing the US and the world today. Each chapter covers a key topic, spanning a range of international issues including the current financial crisis, the limits of US foreign policy, the politicisation of intelligence, and why a war with Iran would by likely to culminate in disaster for the US. Kolko also outlines why changes in military technology make all wars, no matter who fights them, increasingly futile.At the heart of the book is the idea that the international system is in the grip of a great transition. Kolko shows how America is losing its dominance, and examines the profound changes we are experiencing as it is forced to accept the limits of its military power.

State of Crisis
State of Crisis

Author: Zygmunt Bauman

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2014-07-17

Total Pages: 151

ISBN-13: 0745685293

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Today we hear much talk of crisis and comparisons are often made with the Great Depression of the 1930s, but there is a crucial difference that sets our current malaise apart from the 1930s: today we no longer trust in the capacity of the state to resolve the crisis and to chart a new way forward. In our increasingly globalized world, states have been stripped of much of their power to shape the course of events. Many of our problems are globally produced but the volume of power at the disposal of individual nation-states is simply not sufficient to cope with the problems they face. This divorce between power and politics produces a new kind of paralysis. It undermines the political agency that is needed to tackle the crisis and it saps citizens’ belief that governments can deliver on their promises. The impotence of governments goes hand in hand with the growing cynicism and distrust of citizens. Hence the current crisis is at once a crisis of agency, a crisis of representative democracy and a crisis of the sovereignty of the state. In this book the world-renowned sociologist Zygmunt Bauman and fellow traveller Carlo Bordoni explore the social and political dimensions of the current crisis. While this crisis has been greatly exacerbated by the turmoil following the financial crisis of 2007-8, Bauman and Bordoni argue that the crisis facing Western societies is rooted in a much more profound series of transformations that stretch back further in time and are producing long-lasting effects. This highly original analysis of our current predicament by two of the world’s leading social thinkers will be of interest to a wide readership.

The World Crisis - and what to Do about it
The World Crisis - and what to Do about it

Author: Nicholas Maxwell

Publisher:

Published: 1901

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9789811234613

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"This philosophy of science book spells out in detail the changes that need to be made to academic inquiry and higher education, why they need to be made, and how they would enable universities to help humanity actively and effectively tackle and solve current global problems"--

Confronting Collapse
Confronting Collapse

Author: Michael C. Ruppert

Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing

Published: 2009-12-15

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 1603582991

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The book that inspired the movie Collapse. The world is running short of energy-especially cheap, easy-to-find oil. Shortages, along with resulting price increases, threaten industrialized civilization, the global economy, and our entire way of life. In Confronting Collapse, author Michael C. Ruppert, a former LAPD narcotics officer turned investigative journalist, details the intricate connections between money and energy, including the ways in which oil shortages and price spikes triggered the economic crash that began in September 2008. Given the 96 percent correlation between economic growth and greenhouse gas emissions and the unlikelihood of economic growth without a spike in energy use, Ruppert argues that we are not, in fact, on the verge of economic recovery, but on the verge of complete collapse. Ruppert's truth is not merely inconvenient. It is utterly devastating. But there is still hope. Ruppert outlines a 25-point plan of action, including the creation of a second strategic petroleum reserve for the use of state and local governments, the immediate implementation of a national Feed-in Tariff mandating that electric utilities pay 3 percent above market rates for all surplus electricity generated from renewable sources, a thorough assessment of soil conditions nationwide, and an emergency action plan for soil restoration and sustainable agriculture.

Humanitarianism and Mass Migration
Humanitarianism and Mass Migration

Author: Marcelo Suarez-Orozco

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2019-01-08

Total Pages: 410

ISBN-13: 0520969626

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The world is witnessing a rapid rise in the number of victims of human trafficking and of migrants—voluntary and involuntary, internal and international, authorized and unauthorized. In the first two decades of this century alone, more than 65 million people have been forced to escape home into the unknown. The slow-motion disintegration of failing states with feeble institutions, war and terror, demographic imbalances, unchecked climate change, and cataclysmic environmental disruptions have contributed to the catastrophic migrations that are placing millions of human beings at grave risk. Humanitarianism and Mass Migration fills a scholarly gap by examining the uncharted contours of mass migration. Exceptionally curated, it contains contributions from Jacqueline Bhabha, Richard Mollica, Irina Bokova, Pedro Noguera, Hirokazu Yoshikawa, James A. Banks, Mary Waters, and many others. The volume’s interdisciplinary and comparative approach showcases new research that reveals how current structures of health, mental health, and education are anachronistic and out of touch with the new cartographies of mass migrations. Envisioning a hopeful and realistic future, this book provides clear and concrete recommendations for what must be done to mine the inherent agency, cultural resources, resilience, and capacity for self-healing that will help forcefully displaced populations.

Facing the Anthropocene
Facing the Anthropocene

Author: Ian Angus

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2016-07

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 1583676090

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Science tells us that a new and dangerous stage in planetary evolution has begun—the Anthropocene, a time of rising temperatures, extreme weather, rising oceans, and mass species extinctions. Humanity faces not just more pollution or warmer weather, but a crisis of the Earth System. If business as usual continues, this century will be marked by rapid deterioration of our physical, social, and economic environment. Large parts of Earth will become uninhabitable, and civilization itself will be threatened. Facing the Anthropocene shows what has caused this planetary emergency, and what we must do to meet the challenge. Bridging the gap between Earth System science and ecological Marxism, Ian Angus examines not only the latest scientific findings about the physical causes and consequences of the Anthropocene transition, but also the social and economic trends that underlie the crisis. Cogent and compellingly written, Facing the Anthropocene offers a unique synthesis of natural and social science that illustrates how capitalism's inexorable drive for growth, powered by the rapid burning of fossil fuels that took millions of years to form, has driven our world to the brink of disaster. Survival in the Anthropocene, Angus argues, requires radical social change, replacing fossil capitalism with a new, ecosocialist civilization.

Water, Peace, and War
Water, Peace, and War

Author: Brahma Chellaney

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2015-03-01

Total Pages: 425

ISBN-13: 1442249285

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Now in an updated edition, this pioneering and authoritative study considers the profound impact of the growing global water crunch on international peace and security as well as possible ways to mitigate the crisis. Although water is essential to sustaining life and livelihoods, geostrategist Brahma Chellaney argues that it remains the world’s most underappreciated and undervalued resource. One sobering fact is that the retail price of bottled water is already higher than the international spot price of crude oil. But unlike oil, water has no substitute, raising the specter of water becoming the next flashpoint for conflict. Water war as a concept may not mesh with the conventional construct of warfare, especially for those who plan with tanks, combat planes, and attack submarines as weapons. Yet armies don’t necessarily have to march to battle to seize or defend water resources. Water wars—in a political, diplomatic, or economic sense—are already being waged between riparian neighbors in many parts of the world, fueling cycles of bitter recrimination, exacerbating water challenges, and fostering mistrust that impedes broader regional cooperation and integration. The danger is that these water wars could escalate to armed conflict or further limit already stretched food and energy production. Writing in a direct, nontechnical, and engaging style, Brahma Chellaney draws on a wide range of research from scientific and policy fields to examine the different global linkages between water and peace. Offering a holistic picture and integrated solutions, his book has become the recognized authority on the most precious natural resource of this century and how we can secure humankind’s water future.

Rhetoric and Sociolinguistics in Times of Global Crisis
Rhetoric and Sociolinguistics in Times of Global Crisis

Author: Hanc?-Azizoglu, Eda Ba?ak

Publisher: IGI Global

Published: 2021-04-02

Total Pages: 419

ISBN-13: 179986734X

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Crises often leave people in vulnerable situations in which a moment in time can function as a turning point of a catastrophic situation for the better or worse. From another perspective, the concept of crisis signifies losing control of everyday privileges, such as that of a pandemic. Therefore, the interaction of rhetoric and sociolinguistics in times of crisis is inevitable. It is crucial to internalize how rhetoric, an effective skill from ancient times to make meaning of sociological breakthrough events, changed the course of events as well as the fate of humanity. Within the same context, research should focus on diverse disciplines to explore, investigate, and analyze the concept of “crisis” from global, sociolinguistic, and rhetorical perspectives. Rhetoric and Sociolinguistics in Times of Global Crisis explores and situates the concept of global crisis within rhetoric and sociolinguistics as well as other disciplines such as education, technology, society, language, and politics. The chapters included bridge the gap to initiate a discussion on understanding how rhetoric and sociolinguistics can create critical awareness for individuals, societies, and learning environments during times of crisis. While highlighting concepts such as rhetorical evolution, political rhetoric, digital writing, and communications, this book is a valuable reference tool for language teachers, writing experts, communications specialists, politicians and government officials, academicians, researchers, and students working and studying in fields that include rhetoric, education, linguistics, culture, media, political science, and communications.