A biography of Nostradamus, the intriguing sixteenth-century astrologer and physician whose book of prophecies, "The Centuries", is claimed by many to have foretold the Great Fire of London, the French Revolution, the rise of Hitler, and other crucial historical events. This book presents a study of Nostradamus' life and times.
Explores the question of evidence for the paranormal. Containing chapters that deal with topics such as psychics, life after death, parapsychology, astrology, UFOs, faith healing, alternative medicine, and many other, this title examines the empirical evidence supporting these popular paranormal and pseudoscientific claims.
Captures the synthesis that emerges from the dialectical process of a transcending Godhead and the rational and material world. This work covers miracles, the Trinity, Creation, prayer, resurrection, immortality, faith and more.
The transformation of society brought about by the wide dispersion of computers has given rise to moral dilemmas. This is a collection of twenty-six essays, which offer answers to the ethical questions raised by the interaction of people and computers.
After the Civil War, Ingersoll embarked upon a career as a lecturer, touring the United States to make his thoughts on religion, women's rights, and humanism known to all. This title contains one of the most popular of these lectures, a critical examination of the "Pentateuch" (the first five books of the Bible).
In the view of early Muslim history, the Arab tribes, inspired by Muhammad's teachings, embarked on a military jihad that wrested Syria and Palestine from the Byzantine Empire. This book argues that Byzantium voluntarily transferred her eastern provinces to Arab client states in continuance of an imperial policy stretching back for centuries.
Argues that economics is essentially a study of the economic aspects of human culture, which are in a constant state of flux. This book argues that while industry itself demanded diligence, efficiency, and co-operation, businessmen in opposition to engineers and industrialists were only interested in making money and displaying their wealth.
Claudia Simcoe is sure that the harvest dinner being held at her artisan marketplace will wipe away memories of the unpleasantness last summer. But then the newly installed video surveillance system shows local lawyer Clark Gowan removing something from a hidden compartment in the marketplace walls... and Claudia discovers him dead in his office, shot by one of his own vintage guns. Claudia thinks she''s getting a hand on this investigating thing, until another gruesome death, secrets from her building''s past, and a low-speed tractor chase make her wonder if she''s really ready to reap what she''s sown.
Paris, 1890. When Sherlock Holmes finds himself chasing an art dealer through the streets of Paris, he's certain he's smoked out one of the principals of a cunning forgery ring responsible for the theft of some of the Louvre's greatest masterpieces. But for once, Holmes is dead wrong. He doesn't know that the dealer, Theo Van Gogh, is rushing to the side of his brother, who lies dying of a gunshot wound in Auvers. He doesn't know that the dealer's brother is a penniless misfit artist named Vincent, known to few and mourned by even fewer. Officialdom pronounces the death a suicide, but a few minutes at the scene convinces Holmes it was murder. And he's bulldog-determined to discover why a penniless painter who harmed no one had to be killedand who killed him. Who could profit from Vincent's death? How is the murder entwined with his own forgery investigation? Holmes must retrace the last months of Vincent's life, testing his mettle against men like the brutal Paul Gauguin and the secretive Toulouse-Lautrec, all the while searching for the girl Olympia, whom Vincent named with his dying breath. She can provide the truth, but can anyone provide the proof? From the madhouse of St. Remy to the rooftops of Paris, Holmes hunts a killerwhile the killer hunts him.
With personal stories, fun activities, scientific research, and the original approach of #GreenLeisure, Leaf Your Troubles Behind shows how plants and nature can help you de-stress and live a fuller, more joyful life.
Daniel Rhodes and Kathleen Rhodes, D.N.Sc. believe that very real vampires are stalking their prey from the shadows - not the mythical bloodsuckers of folklore fame, but emotional vampires who deliberately drain others psychologically.Emotional Vampires are individuals we deal with in daily life who leave us feeling abnormally angry, confused, upset, or fatigued
Enlightenment?Aufklärung in German, Lumières in French?is more an idea than a period. But it is an idea that took hold in a particular historical context of revolutionary scientific advances, increasing economic and social freedom, rising literacy and prosperity, and a greater willingness to challenge the authoritarianism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In The Wisdom of the Enlightenment, author Michael K. Kellogg points to 1637, the year that gave us Rene Descartes' landmark inquiry into truth, as the beginning of a period that radically changed individual human thought and collective societal action. From Descartes' assertion of "I think, therefore I am,? to the philosophies of Enlightenment thinkers like Moliere, Spinoza, Voltaire, Hume, and Kant, this book charts the new and revolutionary philosophies at a time when progress seemed possible across the whole range of human knowledge and endeavor. In sweeping aside tired superstitions and applying a new scientific methodology, the Enlightenment ideas of progress through free exercise of reason ushered us into the modern world. This engaging and comprehensive survey of Enlightenment thoughts and thinkers is a celebration of the faith that all problems are solvable by human reason.
We know that eating animals is bad for the planet and bad for our health, and yet we do it anyway. We¿ve all heard the statistics: animal agriculture is responsible for at least 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions; we need to drop our meat consumption by 50 percent simply to feed the world¿s estimated 10 billion people in 2050; a full third of the Earth¿s arable land is devoted to growing crops for livestock; approximately 80 percent of deforested land in the Amazon is used solely for rearing livestock. Ask anyone in the plant-based movement and the solution seems obvious: Stop eating meat. But for many people, that stark solution is neither appealing nor practical. In Meat Me Halfway, author and founder of the reducetarian movement Brian Kateman puts forth a realistic and balanced goal: mindfully reduce your meat consumption. It might seem strange for a leader of the plant-based movement to say, but meat is here to stay. The question is not how to ween society off meat, but how to make meat more healthy, more humane, and more sustainable. In this book, Kateman answers the question that has plagued vegans for years: why are we so resistant to changing the way we eat, and what can we do about it? Exploring our historical relationship with meat, from the domestication of animals, to the early industrialization of meatpacking, to the advent of the one-stop grocery store, the science of taste, and the laws that impact our access to food, Meat Me Halfway reveals how humans have evolved as meat eaters. Featuring interviews with pioneers in the science of meat alternatives, investigations into new types of farming designed to lessen environmental impact, and innovations in ethical and sustainable agriculture, this down-to-Earth book shows that we all can change the way we create and consume food.
Christopher Phillips has devoted his life to carrying the torch of Socrates and his quest to "Know Thyself.? Yet upon the death of his beloved father and mentor, the originator of the burgeoning global Socrates Café movement had little choice but to confront the inescapable truth: that there are some things we cannot know for sure. This moving, insightful and ultimately hopeful and helpful blend of memoir and philosophical exploration begins in Phillips' native stomping grounds of the tiny volcanic island of Nisyros, Greece and unfurls through space and time as the author explores the connections between his immediate circumstances and the eternal wisdom of popular philosophers. -In this personal and probing book, the acclaimed ?philosopher for the people' shares lessons gleaned from his intimate and often unexpected encounters with uncommonly perceptive human beings both living and long deceased, in the form of weary travelers and some of history's greatest thinkers, from Heraclitus to Dr. Cornel West. Along the way, he charts a pathway for sculpting what Shakespeare describes as a "soul of goodness,? which meshes with Plato's paradigm-shattering conception of the "healthiness of soul.? For those struggling to overcome the hopelessness that can result from grievous loss, setback, or betrayal - what Phillips' touchstone Percy Blythe Shelley calls life circumstances "darker than death or night? - the author spotlights, with philosophical prescriptions both timely and timeless, how to cultivate a ?Socratic spirit' that leads to renewed love, forbearance, and hope at the other end of the tunnel.
Nothing captivates the human imagination like the vast unknowns of space. Ancient petroglyphs present renderings of the heavens, proof that we have been gazing up at the stars with wonder for thousands of years. Since then, mankind has systematically expanded our cosmic possibilities. What were once flights of fancy and dreams of science fiction writers have become nearly routine - a continuous human presence orbiting the Earth, probes flying beyond our solar system, and men walking on the moon. NASA and the Russian space program make traveling to the stars look easy, but it has been far from that. Space travel is a sometimes heroic, sometimes humorous, and always dangerous journey fraught with perils around every corner that most of us have never heard of or have long since forgotten. Space Oddities brings these unknown, offbeat, and obscure stories of space to life. From the showmanship and bravado of the earliest known space fatality, German Max Valier, to the first ever indictment under the Espionage Ac
To Light the Flame of Reason is all about the art of clear thinking, an art that is needed now more than ever in the world we now live in. Written for anyone who wants to navigate better in this world filled with populist dogmas, anti-science attitudes, and pseudo-philosophy
Written by a clinical and forensic psychologist, Marse: A Psychological Portrait of the American Southern White Elite Slave Master and His Endurig Impact focuses on the white men who composed the southern planter class. The book is a psychological autopsy of the mind and slaveholding behavior that helps explain the enduring roots of white supremacy and the hidden wound of racist slavery that continues to affect all Americans today.Marse details and illuminates examples of the psychological mechanisms by which southern slave masters justified owning another human being as property and how they formed a society in which it was morally acceptable. Kirkpatrick uses forensic psychology to analyze the personality formation, defense mechanisms, and psychopathologies of slave masters. Their delusional beliefs and assumptions about black Africans extended to a forceful cohort of white slaveholding women, and they twisted Christianity to promote slavery as a positive good. He examines the masters¿ stress and fears, and how they developed psychologically fatal, slavery-specific defense mechanisms to cope. Through sources such as diaries, letters, autobiographies, and sermons, Marse describes the ways in which slaveholders created a delusional worldview that sanctioned cruel instruments of punishment, and the laws and social policies of domination used to rob Blacks of their human rights. In light of the seismic shift in race relations our nation is experiencing right now, this book is timely because it will advance our understanding of the South¿s self-defeating romance with racist slavery and its latent and chronic effects. The parallels between the psychology of antebellum slaveholding and today¿s racism are palpable.
Talks about the mindset of predatory criminals - their motives, various plans of attack, and way of thinking - and then teaches simple lifestyle techniques that will help reduce the risk of becoming victimised. This book provides analysis based on real-life cases, in addition to insights from victims and criminals themselves.
In Making Medicine: Surprising Stories from the History of Drug Discovery, author Keith Veronese examines eighteen different molecules and their unlikely discovery -or in many cases, their second discovery -en route to becoming invaluable medications.
When Ferrari of Los Gatos opened, few people could afford an expensive sports car. In 1976, the average annual income was $12,686, and a new home cost about $48,000. Motorists in California could only buy gas on odd or even-numbered days based on the last digit of their license plate, due to the global oil crisis. Times were tough, and people were hesitant to take chances, especially with a car that cost more than a house. At the same time, Brian Burnett and his friend Richard Rivoir had the idea of starting a Ferrari dealership. The Dealer is the story of how one dealership, Ferrari of Los Gatos, fueled the rise of the iconic Italian sports car in the U.S. market on its way to becoming the number one Ferrari dealer in North America. Even Enzo Ferrari himself took notice, flying Brian and the other dealers to Italy to show his appreciation for their success. Customers included movie stars, sports celebrities, entertainers, and some with unusual sources of income and a strong desire for a low profile. Along
The 1930s still conjure painful images: the great want of the Depression, and overseas, the exuberant crowds motivated by self-appointed national saviors dressing up old hatreds as new ideas. But there was another story that embodied mankind in that decade. In the same year that both Adolf Hitler and Franklin D. Roosevelt came to power, the city of Chicago staged what was, up to that time, the most forward-looking international exhibition in history. The 1933 World's Fair looked to the future, unabashedly, as one full of glowing promise. No technology loomed larger at the Fair than aviation. And no persons at the Fair captured the public's interest as much as the romantic figures associated with it: Italy's internationally renowned chief of aeronautics, Italo Balbo; German Zeppelin designer and captain, Doctor Hugo Eckener; and the husband-and-wife aeronaut team of Swiss-born Jean Piccard and Chicago-born Jeannette Ridlon Piccard. This golden age of aviation and its high priests and priestesses portended to
The theory of evolution by natural selection did not spring fully formed and unprecedented from the brain of Charles Darwin. The idea of evolution had been around, in various guises, since the time of Ancient Greece. And nor did theorizing about evolution stop with what Daniel Dennett called "Darwin¿s dangerous idea." In this riveting new book, bestselling science writers John and Mary Gribbin explore the history of the idea of evolution, showing how Darwin's theory built on what went before and how it was developed in the twentieth century, through an understanding of genetics and the biochemical basis of evolution, into the so-called "modern synthesis" and beyond. Darwin deserves his recognition as the primary proponent of the idea of natural selection, but as the authors show, his contribution was one link in a chain that extends back into antiquity and is still being forged today.
Where does morality come from? ApologistsΓÇöpeople who offer a formal defense of their religionΓÇöpoint to God as the answer. By inspiring scriptures that people can read, study, and teach, God supposedly gave humanity a guidebook for how to live.Award-winning scholar of religion and politics Mark Alan Smith shows the errors in this chain of assumptions. Apologists find themselves forced to accept a book that condemns same-sex love and authorizes slavery, genocide, capital punishment for minor offenses, and many other practices widely recognized today as immoral. Apologists try to protect their worldview by ignoring the offending passages, constructing strained reinterpretations, rationalizing the indefensible, or appealing to GodΓÇÖs mysterious ways.Is there a non-religious method for discovering the elements of an objective morality? Yes, Smith arguesΓÇöthe worldview of humanism. Humanists apply reason, logic, and, evidence to all subjects. SmithΓÇÖs humanist approach to morality relies on discussion and debate among diverse participants as the best means to attain a moral code stripped of the biases of each individual, group, and society. The result is a hopeful portrait of how to build on the moral progress humans have achieved since the writing of religious scriptures
"The West will begin to understand Africa when it realizes it's not talking to a child--it's talking to its mother." So writes Jeff Pearce in the introduction to his fascinating, groundbreaking work, The Gifts of Africa: How a Continent and Its People Changed the World. We learn early on in school how Europe and Asia gave us important literature, science, and art, and how their nations changed the course of history. But what about Africa? There are plenty of books that detail its colonialism, corruption, famine, and war, but few that discuss the debt owed to African thinkers and innovators. In The Gifts of Africa, we meet Zera Yacob, an Ethiopian philosopher who developed the same critical approach and several of the same ideas as René Descartes. We consider how Somalis traded with China, and we meet the African warrior queens who still inspire national pride. We explore how Liberia's Edward Wilmot Blyden deeply influenced Marcus Garvey, and we sneak into the galleries and theaters of 1920s Paris, where Af
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