In Performing Deception, Brian Rappert reconstructs the practice of entertainment magic by analysing it through the lens of perception, deception and learning, as he goes about studying conjuring himself. Through this novel meditation on reasoning and skill, Rappert elevates magic from the undertaking of mere trickery to an art that offers the basis for rethinking our possibilities for acting in the modern world. Performing Deception covers a wide range of theories in sociology, philosophy, psychology and elsewhere in order to offer a striking assessment of the way secrecy and deception are woven into social interactions, as well as the illusionary and paradoxical status of expertise.
In the wake of fresh allegations that personal data of Facebook users have been illegally used to influence the outcome of the US general election and the Brexit vote, the debate over manipulation of social Big Data continues to gain more momentum. Cyber Influence and Cognitive Threats addresses various emerging challenges in response to cybersecurity, examining cognitive applications in decision-making, behaviour and basic human interaction. The book examines the role of psychology in cybersecurity by addressing each factor involved in the process: hackers, targets, cybersecurity practitioners, and the wider social context in which these groups operate. Cyber Influence and Cognitive Threats covers a variety of topics including information systems, psychology, sociology, human resources, leadership, strategy, innovation, law, finance and others. - Explains psychological factors inherent in machine learning and artificial intelligence - Explores attitudes towards data and privacy through the phenomena of digital hoarding and protection motivation theory - Discusses the role of social and communal factors in cybersecurity behaviour and attitudes - Investigates the factors that determine the spread and impact of information and disinformation
Now in paperback comes Steinmeyer's astonishing chronicle of half a century of illusionary innovation, backstage chicanery, and keen competition within the world of magicians.
"We are living through the endtimes of the civilizing mission. The ineffectual International Criminal Court and its disastrous first prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, along with the failure in Syria of the Responsibility to Protect are the latest pieces of evidence not of transient misfortunes but of fatal structural defects in international humanism. Whether it is the increase in deadly attacks on aid workers, the torture and 'disappearing' of al-Qaeda suspects by American officials, the flouting of international law by states such as Sri Lanka and Sudan, or the shambles of the Khmer Rouge tribunal in Phnom Penh, the prospect of one world under secular human rights law is receding. What seemed like a dawn is in fact a sunset. The foundations of universal liberal norms and global governance are crumbling."—from The Endtimes of Human Rights In a book that is at once passionate and provocative, Stephen Hopgood argues, against the conventional wisdom, that the idea of universal human rights has become not only ill adapted to current realities but also overambitious and unresponsive. A shift in the global balance of power away from the United States further undermines the foundations on which the global human rights regime is based. American decline exposes the contradictions, hypocrisies and weaknesses behind the attempt to enforce this regime around the world and opens the way for resurgent religious and sovereign actors to challenge human rights. Historically, Hopgood writes, universal humanist norms inspired a sense of secular religiosity among the new middle classes of a rapidly modernizing Europe. Human rights were the product of a particular worldview (Western European and Christian) and specific historical moments (humanitarianism in the nineteenth century, the aftermath of the Holocaust). They were an antidote to a troubling contradiction—the coexistence of a belief in progress with horrifying violence and growing inequality. The obsolescence of that founding purpose in the modern globalized world has, Hopgood asserts, transformed the institutions created to perform it, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and recently the International Criminal Court, into self-perpetuating structures of intermittent power and authority that mask their lack of democratic legitimacy and systematic ineffectiveness. At their best, they provide relief in extraordinary situations of great distress; otherwise they are serving up a mixture of false hope and unaccountability sustained by “human rights” as a global brand. The Endtimes of Human Rights is sure to be controversial. Hopgood makes a plea for a new understanding of where hope lies for human rights, a plea that mourns the promise but rejects the reality of universalism in favor of a less predictable encounter with the diverse realities of today’s multipolar world.
Explores the importance of comparative politics, discusses different comparative methods, investigates the big issues of today and looks forward to the key challenges for comparative politics over the next century.
Get ready for powerful fortune-telling skills and an incredible new level of self-discovery. The eagerly awaited 10th Anniversary edition starts here. Internationally praised as one of the leading experts on divination and oracles, Scott Grossberg returns with this expanded version of his original best-seller. After reading The Vitruvian Square, you will have all the tools needed to bring you and your divination craft to an incredible new level of understanding and effectiveness. The Vitruvian Square contains some penetrating and imaginative approaches to using and combining the Tarot, oracle cards, numerology, labyrinths, H'oponopono, the Platonic Solids, palmistry, astrology, colors, alchemy, the I Ching, and so much more. This marriage of various divination and mystical traditions is what has easily led people all over the world to use The Vitruvian Square in compelling and exciting ways. Since mankind's earliest days, we have sought to know the thoughts of another. No one has ever dreamed it would be possible to bring all the varied divination methods together into one workable system. Until now . . .
This collection of essays has been written by magicians who really care about magic. Having discovered magic at a young age, they have allowed it to mature alongside their intellectual and practical formation. They contemplate different dimensions of magic and how they relate to it. Their stories and reflections reveal remarkable similarities in the themes that they address: Magic as power. Magic as escape. Magic as protection. Magic as play. Magic as medium. Magic as unknowable. Magic as symbol. Magic as language. Magic as incomplete. The book will touch anyone who has imagined a magical world and who has a sense of wonder, either as a child or as an adult. Broad in its approach, specific in its intent, 'The Magiculum' offers much to contemplate.
The 20th century has been described as the bloodiest in human history, but it was also the century in which people around the world embraced ideas of democracy and human rights as never before, constructing social, political and legal institutions seeking to contain human behaviour. Todd Landman offers an optimistic, yet cautionary tale of these developments, drawing on the literature, from politics, international relations and international law. He celebrates the global turn from tyranny and violence towards democracy and rights but also warns of the precariousness of these achievements in the face of democratic setbacks and the undermining of rights commitments by many countries during the so-called 'War on Terror'.
