Author: Niall Ferguson File Type: epub From renowned historian Niall Ferguson, a searching and provocative examination of the widespread institutional rot that threatens our collective future What causes rich countries to lose their way? Symptoms of decline are all around us today slowing growth, crushing debts, increasing inequality, aging populations, antisocial behavior. But what exactly has gone wrong? The answer, Niall Ferguson argues in The Great Degeneration, is that our institutionsthe intricate frameworks within which a society can flourish or failare degenerating. Representative government, the free market, the rule of law, and civil societythese are the four pillars of West European and North American societies. It was these institutions, rather than any geographical or climatic advantages, that set the West on the path to global dominance beginning around 1500. In our time, however, these institutions have deteriorated in disturbing ways. Our democracies have broken the contract between the generations by heaping IOUs on our children and grandchildren. Our markets are hindered by overcomplex regulations that debilitate the political and economic processes they were created to support the rule of law has become the rule of lawyers. And civil society has degenerated into uncivil society, where we lazily expect all of our problems to be solved by the state. It is institutional degeneration, in other words, that lies behind economic stagnation and the geopolitical decline that comes with it. With characteristic verve and historical insight, Ferguson analyzes not only the causes of this stagnation but also its profound consequences. The Great Degeneration is an incisive indictment of an era of negligence and complacency. While the Arab world struggles to adopt democracy and China struggles to move from economic liberalization to the rule of law, our society is squandering the institutional inheritance of centuries. To arrest the breakdown of our civilization, Ferguson warns, will take heroic leadership and radical reform.**Review[Fergusons] intellectual virtuosity is refreshing. The Great Degeneration wont be popular in the Obama White House or other centers of power. Jeremiah wasnt popular with the elders of Judea either. They tossed him in jail for his sedition. They had reason later to be sorry. TheWall Street Journal An informative and enjoyable read.Financial TimesAbout the Author NIALL FERGUSON is one of the worlds most renowned historians. He is the author of Paper and Iron, The House of Rothschild, The Pity of War, The Cash Nexus, Empire, Colossus, The War of the World, The Ascent of Money, High Financier, and Civilization. He is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, a senior research fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, and a senior research fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is also a regular contributor to Newsweek and Bloomberg television.

Author: G. R. S. Mead File Type: pdf What... is the use, in the resurrection, of a body of flesh, blood, sinews, and bones, of limbs and organs for functions of the flesh, such as eating and drinking, excretion and procreation? Are we to continue to do all these things for eternity?-from The Resurrection-BodyThe concept that the physical body is but a manifestation of a more numinous expression of the soul sounds very Eastern to modern ears, but in fact it was one of the foundations of Christianity that the tradition abandoned long ago. In this short but profound study, first published in 1919, one of the greatest thinkers on the origins of Christianity and a renowned expert on Gnostic and Hermetic literature reconnects us with an ancient belief in the divine within us all that is, surprisingly, powerfully reflected in modern ideas about psychology and biology. No mystic himself, Mead instead finds a middle ground between superstitions of old and the oddities of advanced scientific thinking.Also available from Cosimo Classics Meads The Hymn of Jesus and Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.?British scholar and philosopher GEORGE ROBERT STOW MEAD (1863-1933) was educated at Cambridge University. He served as editor of The Theosophical Societys Theosophical Review, and later formed The Quest Society and edited its journal, The Quest Review. He is also the author of Notes on Nirvana (1893) and an 1896 translation of The Upanishads.

Author: Tiffiny A. Tung File Type: pdf A ground-breaking study that provides one of the best case studies we have in the bioarchaeology of violence. A must-read for anyone interested in the origin and evolution of aggression and violence in human societies.Debra L. Martin, University of Nevada In this exciting new work, Dr. Tung provides the first comprehensive view of life and the bodies inside ancient Perus Wari Empire. Situating the study of archaeological human remains where bioarchaeology and the contemporary archaeology intersect, Tung focuses on the lived experience of Wari inhabitants to explore the creation of bioarchaeological narratives, the ways that bodies become material culture, and the influence of imperial control.Christina Torres-Rouff, Colorado College The Wari Empire thrived in the Peruvian Andes between AD 600 and 1000. This study of human skeletons reveals the biological and social impact of Wari imperialism on peoples lives, particularly its effects on community organization and frequency of violence of both ruling elites and subjects. The Wari state was one of the first politically centralized civilizations in the New World that expanded dramatically as a product of its economic and military might. Tiffiny Tung reveals that Wari political and military elites promoted and valorized aggressive actions, such as the abduction of men, women, and children from foreign settlements. Captive men and children were sacrificed, dismembered, and transformed into trophy heads, while non-local women received different treatment relative to the men and children. ?By inspecting bioarchaeological data from skeletons and ancient DNA, as well as archaeological data, Tung provides a better understanding of how the empires practices affected human communities, particularly in terms of agesex structure, mortuary treatment, use of violence, and ritual processes associated with power and bodies. Tiffiny A. Tung is associate professor of anthropology at Vanderbilt University. A volume in the series Bioarchaeological Interpretations of the Human Past Local, Regional, and Global Perspectives, edited by Clark Spencer Larsen **

Author: Jeffrey C. Goldfarb File Type: pdf Political change doesnt always begin with a bang it often starts with just a whisper. From the discussions around kitchen tables that led to the dismantling of the Soviet bloc to the more recent emergence of Internet initiatives like MoveOn.org and Redeem the Vote that are revolutionizing the American political landscape, consequential political life develops in small spaces where dialogue generates political power. In The Politics of Small Things, Jeffrey Goldfarb provides an innovative way for understanding politics, a way of appreciating the significance of politics at the micro level by comparatively analyzing key turning points and institutions in recent history. He presents a sociology of human interactions that lead from small to large dissent around the old Soviet bloc life on the streets in Warsaw, Prague, and Bucharest in 1989 the network of terror that spawned 911 and the religious and Internet mobilizations that transformed the 2004 presidential election, to name a few. In such pivotal moments, he masterfully shows, political autonomy can be generated, presenting alternatives to the big politics of the global stage and the dominant narratives of terrorism, antiterrorism, and globalization. **