Lindsey Grant examines the human condition as population and consumption levels approach the edges of the Earth's ability to support them. The book is a unique synopsis of the interactions among population, food production, the energy transition, air pollution and climate change, technology, trade policies, productivity and unemployment. It describes the different ways that the current population explosion plays out in the poorest countries, the emerging countries and the old industrial nations - and shows how they will shape each other's future. It relates that growth to U.S. policies on foreign affairs, agriculture, trade, immigration, unemployment and health care, and proposes some specific changes in thinking and policies.
Farzin Vahdat has written a trenchant analysis of the intellectual discourse of modernity in Iran. Although there have been several recent studies about Iranian intellectuals, this volume is unique in that it focuses almost entirely on intellectual discourse among the clergy. Vahdat first provides us with a solid foundation for understanding the key Critical Theory concept of subjectivity—especially as expounded in the writings of Jurgen Habermas. Then, he successfully shows how one Western philosophical approach does have universal applicability by demonstrating the concern of Iranian theorists such as Shariati, Motahhari, Khomeini, and Sorush with human subjectivity. By engaging the major theoretical discourses of modernity, the author attempts for the first time in a non-Western context to address some of the central theoretical issues involved in, modernity and Iran's experience of these issues. As such, this study can contribute to a profound understanding of modernity and its development in a Middle Eastern context. This book is an important addition to the growing body of work in Global Studies and Critical Theory as well as on contemporary Iran.
In Juggernaut, Uri Dadush and William Shaw explore the major trends associated with the rise of developing countries, including increased manufacturing, expansion in world trade, and, ultimately, improved living and working conditions, as well as the broad challenges those trends pose.
A “funny, contemplative” memoir of working at Amazon in the early years, when it was a struggling online bookstore (San Francisco Chronicle). In a book that Ian Frazier has called “a fascinating and sometimes hair-raising morality tale from deep inside the Internet boom,” James Marcus, hired by Amazon.com in 1996—when the company was so small his e-mail address could be [email protected]—looks back at the ecstatic rise, dramatic fall, and remarkable comeback of the consummate symbol of late 1990s America. Observing “how it was to be in the right place (Seattle) at the right time (the ’90s)” (Chicago Reader), Marcus offers a ringside seat on everything from his first interview with Jeff Bezos to the company’s bizarre Nordic-style retreats, in “a clear-eyed, first-person account, rife with digressions on the larger cultural meaning throughout” (Henry Alford, Newsday). “Marcus tells his story with wit and candor.” —Booklist, starred review
Biotech Juggernaut: Hope, Hype, and Hidden Agendas of Entrepreneurial BioScience relates the intensifying effort of bioentrepreneurs to apply genetic engineering technologies to the human species and to extend the commercial reach of synthetic biology or "extreme genetic engineering." In 1980, legal developments concerning patenting laws transformed scientific researchers into bioentrepreneurs. Often motivated to create profit-driven biotech start-up companies or to serve on their advisory boards, university researchers now commonly operate under serious conflicts of interest. These conflicts stand in the way of giving full consideration to the social and ethical consequences of the technologies they seek to develop. Too often, bioentrepreneurs have worked to obscure how these technologies could alter human evolution and to hide the social costs of keeping on this path. Tracing the rise and cultural politics of biotechnology from a critical perspective, Biotech Juggernaut aims to correct the informational imbalance between producers of biotechnologies on the one hand, and the intended consumers of these technologies and general society, on the other. It explains how the converging vectors of economic, political, social, and cultural elements driving biotechnology’s swift advance constitutes a juggernaut. It concludes with a reflection on whether it is possible for an informed public to halt what appears to be a runaway force.
In the ten years since 9/11, a grassroots truth movement has sprung up that unites the best elements of the right and left. The call to resist the secrecy, imperialism, and the manipulation of the elite has been heard by a wide spectrum of people, across religious and political lines. This is a revolutionary moment that has lacked a clarifying manifesto. Until now. Pulling from his personal confrontations with the FBI, Rudolph Giuliani, Eliot Spitzer, and Dick Cheney, activist, maverick, and investigative reporter Sander Hicks reaches for a broader understanding of who was behind the 9/11 attacks. He reports the mysterious murder of Dr. David M. Graham, a Shreveport dentist who met two of the 9/11 hijackers but was then harassed by the FBI and poisoned. Scientific evidence leads him to take a hard, critical stance against Bush, Cheney, and the 9/11 “Official Story.” Weaving evidence with anecdote, Slingshot to the Juggernaut is an inspiring ride into the 9/11 cover-up and the revolutionary possibilities it inadvertently created. Provocative and unyielding, Hicks examines the evidence, draws conclusions, and offers a vision for the future of the United States.
The big man tried another tactic, which was a mistake. He smiled. His top teeth were filed to fine points... Jason made the mistake of trying to grab for the can of mace in his pocket. The man hit him hard with a body slam that sent the little can of pressurized irritants flying into the woods and Jason falling to his back. As the backwoods warrior stepped in to grab Jason again, Jason kicked hard to the inside of the knee, throwing the man down again. Both man and boy regained their feet at the same time, and the man again charged. Had Jason been fighting as the large muscular man he was only a few days ago, he would have had no trouble throwing the charging barbarian, but he had to remind himself to fight as a kid would against someone over three times his weight...