Computer Technology and Computer Programming

This dual biography of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King upends longstanding preconceptions to transform our understanding of the twentieth century's most iconic African American leaders.To most Americ

We live in the age of Computer Business Systems (CBSs)?the highly complex, computer-intensive management programs on which large organizations increasingly rely. In Mindless, Simon Head argues that th

A bestselling author, neuroscientist, and computer engineer unveils a theory of intelligence that will revolutionize our understanding of the brain and the future of AI. For all of neuroscience's

Lives of the Planets is a sweeping tour of our solar system, from the sun to recently demoted Pluto, to the Kuiper Belt and beyond the edge of the interstellar void. From the Neolithic computer that

In Interop, technology experts John Palfrey and Urs Gasser explore the immense importance of interoperability?the standardization and integration of technology?and show how this simple principle will

How do we know what’s real? That’s not a trick question: sensory science is increasingly finding that we don’t perceive reality: we create it through perception. InWe Have the Technology, science writ

The story of the rise of modern navigation technology, from radio location to GPS?and the consequent decline of privacyWhat does it mean to never get lost? You Are Here examines the rise of our techno

In the aftermath of World War II, the United States stood at a precipice. The forces of modernity unleashed by the war had led to astonishing advances in daily life, but technology and mass culture al

Technology is evolving faster than we are. As our mobile phones, mp3 players, cars, and digital cameras become more and more complex, we understand less and less about how they actually work and what

Breger (psychoanalytic studies, California Institute of Technology) relates the story of how a young Sigmund Freud met physician Josef Breuer in Vienna, how Breuer became his mentor, and how he provid

Considers how breakthroughs in DNA technology is significantly impacting the criminal justice system, citing the controversial role of DNA testing in the cases of O.J. Simpson, Chandra Levy, and Edwar

Our world todayfrom the phone in your pocket to the car that you drive, the allure of social media to the strategy of the Pentagonhas been shaped irrevocably by the technology of silicon transistors.

"From drone warfare in the Middle East to the NSA digital spying, the U.S. government has harnessed the power of cutting-edge technology to terrible effect. But what happens when ordinary people have

We generally associate scientific research and technological development with the promise of innovation and productivity?the goal is to create tools that will make our lives better, easier, and happie

Oh, the humanity!” Radio reporter Herbert Morrison’s words on witnessing the destruction of theHindenburg are etched in our collective memory. Yet, while the Hindenburglike theTitanicis a symbol of th

Barbarians, Marauders, and Infidels examines the motives and terrors of war during the Middle Ages, the rise and fall of ethnic and religious groups, and the actions of good and evil military leaders

《世界秩序的前世與未來》——西方衰退，全球重塑新秩序🌏 五千年歷史回顧 × 全球秩序變革 × 非西方視角的未來藍圖西方衰退會帶來混亂，還是更公平的世界？政治學家 Amitav Acharya 深入探討全球秩序的起源，從蘇美爾、古印度、希臘到現代國際體系，揭示非西方國家如何塑造歷史。📖 「世界秩序不屬於西方，未來將更加多元。」——Kishore Mahbubani，《亞洲世紀》作者🔥 顛覆傳統國際關係視角，引領讀者理解後西方時代的新世界！The epic story of the past, present, and future of world order, offering a "timely" (Odd Arne Westad, coauthor of The Great Transformation) argument that the decline of the West may be a good thing for the world Since the dawn of the twenty-first century, the West has been in crisis. Social unrest, political polarization, and the rise of other great powers--especially China--threaten to unravel today's Western-led world order. Many fear this would lead to global chaos. But the West has never had a monopoly on order. Surveying five thousand years of global history, political scientist Amitav Acharya reveals that world order--the political architecture enabling cooperation and peace among nations--existed long before the rise of the West. Moving from ancient Sumer, Ind

From a leading expert on longevity, a guide to how individuals and society can seize the advantages of living longer lives and avoid the pitfalls of an aging society Thanks to increases in life expectancy, we can now expect to live for a long time. Most of us would welcome an extra day in the week, so why do so many of us view the prospect of additional years with fear and skepticism? The reason is simple: society is not currently structured to support long lives. Rather than thinking in terms of the needs of a rising number of older people, we must instead support the young and middle-aged to prepare differently for the longer futures they can expect. The Longevity Imperative outlines the innovations needed to make the most of these longer lives: substantial changes to our health system, economy, and financial sector, as well as in how we manage our careers, health, finances, and relationships. Instead of seeing longevity as a problem, economist Andrew J. Scott challenges us to view i

How the Mongol invasions of the Near East reshaped the balance of world power in the Middle Ages For centuries, the Crusades have been central to the story of the medieval Near East, but these religious wars are only part of the region's complex history. As The Mongol Storm reveals, during the same era the Near East was utterly remade by another series of wars: the Mongol invasions. In a single generation, the Mongols conquered vast swaths of the Near East and upended the region's geopolitics. Amid the chaos of the Mongol onslaught, long-standing powers such as the Byzantines, the Seljuk Turks, and the crusaders struggled to survive, while new players such as the Ottomans arose to fight back. The Mongol conquests forever transformed the region, while forging closer ties among societies spread across Eurasia. This is the definitive history of the Mongol assault on the Near East and its enduring global consequences.

How the tools that enabled us to overcome the uncertainty of the weather will enable us to find new answers to modern science's most pressing questions Why does your weather app say "There's a 10% chance of rain" instead of "It will be sunny tomorrow"? In large part this is due to the insight of Tim Palmer, who made uncertainty essential to the study of weather and climate. Now he wants to apply it to how we study everything else. In The Primacy of Doubt, Palmer argues that embracing the mathematics of uncertainty is vital to understanding ourselves and the universe around us. Whether we want to predict climate change or market crashes, understand how the brain is able to outpace supercomputers, or find a theory that links quantum and cosmological physics, Palmer shows how his vision of mathematical uncertainty provides new insights into some of the deepest problems in science. The result is a revolution--one that shows that power begins by embracing what we don't know.

What Socrates’s greatest failure reveals about an ancient question: Can we teach our leaders to be better people? Is good character something that can be taught? In 430 BCE, Socrates set out to teach the vain, power-seeking Athenian statesman Alcibiades how to be a good person―and failed spectacularly. Alcibiades went on to beguile his city into a hopeless war with Syracuse, and all of Athens paid the price. In The Quest for Character, philosophy professor Massimo Pigliucci tells this famous story and asks what we can learn from it. He blends ancient sources with modern interpretations to give a full picture of the philosophy and cultivation of character, virtue, and personal excellence―what the Greeks called arete. At heart, The Quest for Character isn’t simply about what makes a good leader. Drawing on Socrates as well as his followers among the Stoics, this book gives us lessons perhaps even more crucial: how we can each lead an excellent life.

A spellbinding exploration of the human capacity to imagine the future Our ability to think about the future is one of the most powerful tools at our disposal. In The Invention of Tomorrow, cognitive scientists Thomas Suddendorf, Jonathan Redshaw, and Adam Bulley argue that its emergence transformed humans from unremarkable primates to creatures that hold the destiny of the planet in their hands. Drawing on their own cutting-edge research, the authors break down the science of foresight, showing us where it comes from, how it works, and how it made our world. Journeying through biology, psychology, history, and culture, they show that thinking ahead is at the heart of human nature―even if we often get it terribly wrong. Incisive and expansive, The Invention of Tomorrow offers a fresh perspective on the human tale that shows how our species clawed its way to control the future.

How games are being harnessed as instruments of exploitation―and what we can do about it Warehouse workers pack boxes while a virtual dragon races across their screen. If they beat their colleagues, they get an award. If not, they can be fired. Uber presents exhausted drivers with challenges to keep them driving. China scores its citizens so they behave well, and games with in-app purchases use achievements to empty your wallet.Points, badges, and leaderboards are creeping into every aspect of modern life. In You’ve Been Played, game designer Adrian Hon delivers a blistering takedown of how corporations, schools, and governments use games and gamification as tools for profit and coercion. These are games that we often have no choice but to play, where losing has heavy penalties. You’ve Been Played is a scathing indictment of a tech-driven world that wants to convince us that misery is fun, and a call to arms for anyone who hopes to preserve their dignity and autonomy.

A groundbreaking exposé of how our legal system makes it nearly impossible to overturn wrongful convictions Thousands of innocent people are behind bars in the United States. But proving their innocence and winning their release is nearly impossible. In Barred, legal scholar Daniel S. Medwed argues that our justice system’s stringent procedural rules are largely to blame for the ongoing punishment of the innocent. Those rules guarantee criminal defendants just one opportunity to appeal their convictions directly to a higher court. Afterward, the wrongfully convicted can pursue only a few narrow remedies. Even when there is strong evidence of a miscarriage of justice, rigid guidelines, bias, and deference toward lower courts all too often prevent exoneration. Offering clear explanations of legal procedures alongside heart-wrenching stories of their devastating impact, Barred exposes how the system is stacked against the innocent and makes a powerful call for change.

Why understanding evolution―the most reviled branch of science―can help us all, from fighting pandemics to undoing racism Evolutionary science has long been regarded as conservative, a tool for enforcing regressive ideas, particularly about race and gender. But in A Voice in the Wilderness, evolutionary biologist Joseph L. Graves Jr.―once styled as the “Black Darwin”―argues that his field is essential to social justice. He shows, for example, why biological races do not exist. He dismantles recent work in “human biodiversity” seeking genes to explain the achievements of different ethnic groups. He decimates homophobia, sexism, and classism as well. As a pioneering Black biologist, a leftist, and a Christian, Graves uses his personal story―his journey from a child of Jim Crow to a major researcher and leader of his peers―to rewrite his field. A Voice in the Wilderness is a powerful work of scientific anti-racism and a moving account of a trailblazing life.

From one of the world’s leading economists, a grand narrative of the century that made us richer than ever, yet left us unsatisfied Before 1870, humanity lived in dire poverty, with a slow crawl of invention offset by a growing population. Then came a great shift: invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation and utterly transforming the economy again and again. Our ancestors would have presumed we would have used such powers to build utopia. But it was not so. When 1870–2010 ended, the world instead saw global warming; economic depression, uncertainty, and inequality; and broad rejection of the status quo. Economist Brad DeLong's Slouching Towards Utopia tells the story of how this unprecedented explosion of material wealth occurred, how it transformed the globe, and why it failed to deliver us to utopia. Of remarkable breadth and ambition, it reveals the last century to have been less a march of progress than a slouch in the right dir

One of our preeminent historians of race and democracy argues that the period since 2008 has marked nothing less than America’s Third ReconstructionIn The Third Reconstruction, distinguished historian Peniel E. Joseph offers a powerful and personal new interpretation of recent history. The racial reckoning that unfolded in 2020, he argues, marked the climax of a Third Reconstruction: a new struggle for citizenship and dignity for Black Americans, just as momentous as the movements that arose after the Civil War and during the civil rights era. Joseph draws revealing connections and insights across centuries as he traces this Third Reconstruction from the election of Barack Obama to the rise of Black Lives Matter to the failed assault on the Capitol.America’s first and second Reconstructions fell tragically short of their grand aims. Our Third Reconstruction offers a new chance to achieve Black dignity and citizenship at last―an opportunity to choose hope over fear.

From a MacArthur “Genius,” an intellectual history of the free market, from ancient Rome to the twenty-first centuryAfter two government bailouts of the US economy in less than twenty years, free market ideology is due for serious reappraisal. In Free Market, Jacob Soll details how we got to this current crisis, and how we can find our way out by looking to earlier iterations of free market thought. Contrary to popular narratives, early market theorists believed that states had an important role in building and maintaining free markets. But in the eighteenth century, thinkers insisted on free markets without state intervention, leading to a tradition of ideological brittleness. That tradition only calcified in the centuries that followed.Tracing the intellectual evolution of the free market from Cicero to Milton Friedman, Soll argues that we need to go back to the origins of free market ideology in order to truly understand it―and to develop new economic concepts to face today’s challe

“This book will change your sense of how grand the sweep of human history could be, where you fit into it, and how much you could do to change it for the better. It's as simple, and as ambitious, as that.”—Ezra KleinAn Oxford philosopher makes the case for “longtermism” — that positively influencing the long-term future is a key moral priority of our time.The fate of the world is in our hands. Humanity’s written history spans only five thousand years. Our yet-unwritten future could last for millions more — or it could end tomorrow. Astonishing numbers of people could lead lives of great happiness or unimaginable suffering, or never live at all, depending on what we choose to do today. In What We Owe The Future, philosopher William MacAskill argues for longtermism, that idea that positively influencing the distant future is a key moral priority of our time. From this perspective, it’s not enough to reverse climate change or avert the next pandemic. We must ensure that civilization

Afierce,funny,andrevolutionarylookatthequeensoftheanimalkingdomStudying zoology madeLucy Cookefeel like a sad freak. Not becausesheloved spiders or would root around in animalfeces:allherfriendsshared the same curious kinks.The problemwashersex. Being female meantshewas, by nature,a loser.Since Charles Darwin,evolutionary biologistshave been convincedthatthemalesof the animalkingdomarethe interesting onesdominatingandpromiscuous,whilefemalesaredull,passive,and devoted.InBitch,Cooketells a new story.Whether investigatingsame-sexfemalealbatrosscouplesthat raise chicks, murderous mother meerkats, or the titanic battle of the sexes waged by ducks,Cookeshows us a new evolutionary biology, one where females can be as dynamic as any male.Thisisn';tyourgrandfather's evolutionary biology.It's more inclusive, truer to life, and, simply, more fun.

Forget the language instinct―this is the story of how we make up language as we go Language is perhaps humanity’s most astonishing capacity―and one that remains poorly understood. In The Language Game, cognitive scientists Morten H. Christiansen and Nick Chater show us where generations of scientists seeking the rules of language got it wrong. Language isn’t about hardwired grammars but about near-total freedom, something like a game of charades, with the only requirement being a desire to understand and be understood. From this new vantage point, Christiansen and Chater find compelling solutions to major mysteries like the origins of languages and how language learning is possible, and to long-running debates such as whether having two words for “blue” changes what we see. In the end, they show that the only real constraint on communication is our imagination.

“The queer memoir you’ve been waiting for”―Carmen Maria MachadoGrace Lavery is a reformed druggie, an unreformed omnisexual chaos Muppet, and 100 percent, all-natural, synthetic female hormone monster. As soon as she solves her “penis problem,” she begins receiving anonymous letters, seemingly sent by a cult of sinister clowns, and sets out on a magical mystery tour to find the source of these surreal missives. Misadventures abound: Grace performs in a David Lynch remake of Sunset Boulevard and is reprogrammed as a sixties femmebot; she writes a Juggalo Ghostbusters prequel and a socialist manifesto disguised as a porn parody of a quiz show. Or is it vice versa? As Grace fumbles toward a new trans identity, she tries on dozens of different voices, creating a coat of many colors.With more dick jokes than a transsexual should be able to pull off, Please Miss gives us what we came for, then slaps us in the face and orders us to come again.

From an award-winning scholar, the extraordinary sixty-thousand-year history of how the Pacific islands were settled The islands of Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia stretch across a huge expanse o

What can we learn about our senses from people who were born without them? We think of perception as a passive, mechanical process, as if our eyes are cameras and our ears microphones. But as neurobio

A New York Times-bestselling author and veteran board member offers an insider's view of corporate boards, their struggles, and why they must adapt to surviveCorporate boards are under great pressure.

When the US Constitution won widespread popular approval in 1788, it was the culmination of decades of passionate argument about legal and political first principles-a furious debate over the nature o

Unlock the secrets to understanding yourself and others with the surprising science of the human minds greatest power: introspection. It happens to everyone: You are asked a questioneven something you

In The Ledger and the Chain, prize-winning historian Joshua D. Rothman tells the disturbing story of the Franklin and Armfield company and the men who built it into the largest and most powerful slave

The definitive annotated translation of Marcus Aurelius's MeditationsMarcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 CE) was the sixteenth emperor of Rome -- and by far the most powerful man in the world. Yet he was also an intensely private person, with a rich interior life and one of the wisest minds of his generation. He collected his thoughts in notebooks, gems that have come to be called his Meditations. Never intended for publication, the work has proved an inexhaustible source of wisdom and one of the most important Stoic texts of all time. In often passionate language, the entries range from one-line aphorisms to essays, from profundity to bitterness.This annotated edition offers the definitive translation of this classic and much beloved text, with copious notes from world-renowned classics expert Robin Waterfield. It illuminates one of the greatest works of popular philosophy for new readers and enriches the understanding of even the most devoted Stoic.

This eye-opening book brilliantly explores the true roots of over-parenting, and makes a case for the vital importance of family life.Parents naturally worry about the future. They want to prepare the