Human-Computer Interaction

Language's key function is to enable human social interaction, for which people are motivated to engage by powerful brain mechanisms. This book integrates recent work on embodied simulations, traditional meaning-making processes and a myriad of semantic and other meaning contributors to formulate a new model of how language functions following a pattern of conjoined antonymy. It investigates how embodied simulations,semantic information, deviation, omission, indirectness, figurativity, language play, and other processes leverage rich meaning from only a few words by using inherently biological, cognitive and social frameworks. The interaction of these meaning-making components of language is described and a language-functioning model based on recent neuroscientific research is laid out to allow for a more complete understanding of how language operates.

Geosphere-Biosphere Interactions and Climate brings together many of the world's leading environmental scientists to discuss the interaction between the geosphere/biosphere and climate. The volume was first published in 2002 and arises from a working group of the prestigious Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the International Geosphere–Biosphere Programme. The chapters give an excellent summary of the understanding of the climate and environment by understanding Earth's past, human influence on the climate, a description of climate and its relation to the Earth's surface, ocean, and atmosphere, and future predictions of climate variability. This volume will be invaluable for researchers and graduate students in climate studies who wish to gain a multidisciplinary perspective of our current understanding of the interaction between the geosphere/biosphere and climate.

Geosphere-Biosphere Interactions and Climate brings together many of the world's leading environmental scientists to discuss the interaction between the geosphere/biosphere and climate. The volume was first published in 2002 and arises from a working group of the prestigious Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the International Geosphere–Biosphere Programme. The chapters give an excellent summary of the understanding of the climate and environment by understanding Earth's past, human influence on the climate, a description of climate and its relation to the Earth's surface, ocean, and atmosphere, and future predictions of climate variability. This volume will be invaluable for researchers and graduate students in climate studies who wish to gain a multidisciplinary perspective of our current understanding of the interaction between the geosphere/biosphere and climate.

Is the human mind uniquely nonphysical or even spiritual, such that divine intentions can meet physical realities? As scholars in science and religion have spent decades attempting to identify a 'causal joint' between God and the natural world, human consciousness has been often privileged as just such a locus of divine-human interaction. However, this intuitively dualistic move is both out of step with contemporary science and theologically insufficient. By discarding the God-nature model implied by contemporary noninterventionist divine action theories, one is freed up to explore theological and metaphysical alternatives for understanding divine action in the mind. Sarah Lane Ritchie suggests that a theologically robust theistic naturalism offers a more compelling vision of divine action in the mind. By affirming that to be fully natural is to be involved with God's active presence, one may affirm divine action not only in the human mind, but throughout the natural world.

Co-Operative Action proposes a new framework for the study of how human beings create action and shared knowledge in concert with others by re-using transformation resources inherited from earlier actors: we inhabit each other's actions. Goodwin uses videotape to examine in detail the speech and embodied actions of children arguing and playing hopscotch, interactions in the home of a man with severe aphasia, the fieldwork of archaeologists and geologists, chemists and oceanographers, and legal argument in the Rodney King trial. Through ethnographically rich, rigorous qualitative analysis of human action, sociality and meaning-making that incorporates the interdependent use of language, the body, and historically shaped settings, the analysis cuts across the boundaries of traditional disciplines. It investigates language-in-interaction, human tools and their use, the progressive accumulation of human cultural, linguistic and social diversity, and multimodality as different outcomes of c

Islands represent unique opportunities to examine human interaction with the natural environment. They capture the human imagination as remote, vulnerable and exotic, yet there is comparatively little understanding of their basic geology, geography, or the impact of island colonization by plants, animals and humans. This detailed study of island environments focuses on nine island groups, including Hawaii, New Zealand and the British Isles, exploring their differing geology, geography, climate and soils, as well as the varying effects of human actions. It illustrates the natural and anthropogenic disturbances common to island groups, all of which face an uncertain future clouded by extinctions of endemic flora and fauna, growing populations of invasive species, and burgeoning resident and tourist populations. Examining the natural and human history of each island group from early settlement onwards, the book provides a critique of the concept of sustainable growth and offers realistic

Islands represent unique opportunities to examine human interaction with the natural environment. They capture the human imagination as remote, vulnerable and exotic, yet there is comparatively little understanding of their basic geology, geography, or the impact of island colonization by plants, animals and humans. This detailed study of island environments focuses on nine island groups, including Hawaii, New Zealand and the British Isles, exploring their differing geology, geography, climate and soils, as well as the varying effects of human actions. It illustrates the natural and anthropogenic disturbances common to island groups, all of which face an uncertain future clouded by extinctions of endemic flora and fauna, growing populations of invasive species, and burgeoning resident and tourist populations. Examining the natural and human history of each island group from early settlement onwards, the book provides a critique of the concept of sustainable growth and offers realistic

What is space? This fascinating journey of exploration begins in our own minds - the space within our brains. We discover how space is used in sign language and in architecture, before moving on to the virtual space created in an imaginary computer-generated world. The delineation of space has been important throughout human history, and we look at how boundaries have been mapped in the past, and how they remain politically important today. Finally, we travel into outer space, to look at human exploration and the ultimate nature of space and the universe.

More and more working computer professionals are confronted with the use, maintenance, or customization of cryptographic components and program certification mechanisms for local or mobile code. This text for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students tells what every computer scientist ought to know about cryptographic systems, security protocols, and secure information flow in programs. Highlights include a detailed description of the new advanced encryption standard Rijndael; a complete description of an optimal public-key encryption using RSA which turns 'textbook RSA' into a practical implementation; a current, and formal discussion of standard security models for information flow in computer programs or human organizations; and a discussion of moral, legal, and political issues. Another novel feature of the book is the presentation of a formal model-checking tool for specifying and debugging security protocols. The book also includes numerous implementation exercises

This collection brings together research on morality in human development. Morality in its various forms is a dominant influence on the conduct and evaluation of day-to-day life. The pervasiveness of the moral domain can be detected in every aspect of social life; moral commitments shape the goals and aspirations of individuals and moral judgments are apparent in discourse about most forms of human interaction. Two broad themes integrate this book: social context relationships and development. Contexts include interpersonal as well as societal communities and cultures. This volume will appeal to scholars from many disciplines including: psychology, anthropology, education, sociology, law, linguistics, and ethics.

Humans constantly search for and use information to solve a wide range of problems related to survival, social interactions, and learning. While it is clear that curiosity and the drive for knowledge occupies a central role in defining what being human means to ourselves, where does this desire to know the unknown come from? What is its purpose? And how does it operate? These are some of the core questions this book seeks to answer by showcasing new and exciting research on human information-seeking. The volume brings together perspectives from leading researchers at the cutting edge of the cognitive sciences, working on human brains and behavior within psychology, computer science, and neuroscience. These vital connections between disciplines will continue to lead to further breakthroughs in our understanding of human cognition.

Palaeolithic societies have been a neglected topic in the discussion of human origins. In this book, which succeeds and replaces The Palaeolithic Settlement of Europe, published by Cambridge University Press in 1986, Clive Gamble challenges the established view that the social life of Europeans over the 500,000 years of the European Palaeolithic must remain a mystery. In the past forty years archaeologists have recovered a wealth of information from sites throughout the continent. Professor Gamble now introduces a new approach to this material. He examines the archaeological evidence from stone tools, hunting and campsites for information on the scale of social interaction, and the forms of social life. Taking a pan-European view of the archaeological evidence, he reconstructs ancient human societies, and introduces new perspectives on the unique social experience of human beings.

This book offers a novel perspective on how people engage in sensing the materiality of the world as a way of social interaction. It proposes a conceptual and analytical advance in how to approach sensing as an intersubjective and interactional phenomenon within the framework of conversation analysis and ethnomethodology. Based on a uniquely rich set of video-recorded data, the author shows how people reacting to cheese in gourmet shops across Europe highlights the part the senses play in human behaviour and communication. The multimodal analysis of the case studies reveals the systematic features of looking, touching, smelling, and tasting in situated activities. By blending interdisciplinary research with real life, the volume puts together a theoretical and methodological framework for studying the embodied and linguistic dimensions of sensing in interaction.

In the twenty-first century, fighting impunity has become both the rallying cry and a metric of progress for human rights. The new emphasis on criminal prosecution represents a fundamental change in the positions and priorities of students and practitioners of human rights and transitional justice: it has become almost unquestionable common sense that criminal punishment is a legal, political, and pragmatic imperative for addressing human rights violations. This book challenges that common sense. It does so by documenting and critically analyzing the trend toward an anti-impunity norm in a variety of institutional and geographical contexts, with an eye toward the interaction between practices at the global and local levels. Together, the chapters demonstrate how this laser focus on anti-impunity has created blind spots in practice and in scholarship that result in a constricted response to human rights violations, a narrowed conception of justice, and an impoverished approach to peace.

In the twenty-first century, fighting impunity has become both the rallying cry and a metric of progress for human rights. The new emphasis on criminal prosecution represents a fundamental change in the positions and priorities of students and practitioners of human rights and transitional justice: it has become almost unquestionable common sense that criminal punishment is a legal, political, and pragmatic imperative for addressing human rights violations. This book challenges that common sense. It does so by documenting and critically analyzing the trend toward an anti-impunity norm in a variety of institutional and geographical contexts, with an eye toward the interaction between practices at the global and local levels. Together, the chapters demonstrate how this laser focus on anti-impunity has created blind spots in practice and in scholarship that result in a constricted response to human rights violations, a narrowed conception of justice, and an impoverished approach to peace.

Humanity and the very notion of the human subject are under threat from postmodernist thinking which has declared not only the 'Death of God' but also the 'Death of Man'. This book is a revindication of the concept of humanity, rejecting contemporary social theory that seeks to diminish human properties and powers. Archer argues that being human depends on an interaction with the real world in which practice takes primacy over language in the emergence of human self-consciousness, thought, emotionality and personal identity - all of which are prior to, and more basic than, our acquisition of a social identity. This original and provocative new book from leading social theorist Margaret S. Archer builds on the themes explored in her previous books Culture and Agency (CUP 1988) and Realist Social Theory (CUP 1995). It will be required reading for academics and students of social theory, cultural theory, political theory, philosophy and theology.

Humanity and the very notion of the human subject are under threat from postmodernist thinking which has declared not only the 'Death of God' but also the 'Death of Man'. This book is a revindication of the concept of humanity, rejecting contemporary social theory that seeks to diminish human properties and powers. Archer argues that being human depends on an interaction with the real world in which practice takes primacy over language in the emergence of human self-consciousness, thought, emotionality and personal identity - all of which are prior to, and more basic than, our acquisition of a social identity. This original and provocative new book from leading social theorist Margaret S. Archer builds on the themes explored in her previous books Culture and Agency (CUP 1988) and Realist Social Theory (CUP 1995). It will be required reading for academics and students of social theory, cultural theory, political theory, philosophy and theology.

Semiotics, the science of signs, has long been recognised as an important discipline for understanding information and communications. Moreover it has found wide application in other areas of computer science, as it offers an effective insight into organisations and the computer systems that support them. An organisation may be viewed as a system of information and communication in which human actors, with the assistance of information technology, are able to process, represent, store and consume information. Computer systems that fit into an organisation and that support and enhance its performance and competitiveness, can be better delivered if semiotic principles are understood and applied. In this book, first published in 2000, semiotic methods are introduced and illustrated through three major case studies, which demonstrate how information systems can be developed to meet business requirements and support business objectives. It will appeal to academics, systems developers and an

Semiotics, the science of signs, has long been recognised as an important discipline for understanding information and communications. Moreover it has found wide application in other areas of computer science, as it offers an effective insight into organisations and the computer systems that support them. An organisation may be viewed as a system of information and communication in which human actors, with the assistance of information technology, are able to process, represent, store and consume information. Computer systems that fit into an organisation and that support and enhance its performance and competitiveness, can be better delivered if semiotic principles are understood and applied. In this book, first published in 2000, semiotic methods are introduced and illustrated through three major case studies, which demonstrate how information systems can be developed to meet business requirements and support business objectives. It will appeal to academics, systems developers and an

Human factors is one of the critical issues in Information Technology, as industry realizes the need to change from technology-oriented goals to meet the demands of computer users. Human factors can help to improve Informatics Usability for real people, and to reduce the huge people-costs of human machine interactions. This book has been developed from lectures given at an Advanced Study course, sponsored by the European Science and Technology Research Committee of the Commission of the European Communities (CREST), and by the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) of the UK. It has three objectives: 1. To review the knowledge and methods available from the field of human factors for improving the usability of informatics systems; 2. To describe recent theoretical and methodological developments in the area; 3. To stimulate increased application of this expertise.

Human factors is one of the critical issues in Information Technology, as industry realizes the need to change from technology-oriented goals to meet the demands of computer users. Human factors can help to improve Informatics Usability for real people, and to reduce the huge people-costs of human machine interactions. This book has been developed from lectures given at an Advanced Study course, sponsored by the European Science and Technology Research Committee of the Commission of the European Communities (CREST), and by the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) of the UK. It has three objectives: 1. To review the knowledge and methods available from the field of human factors for improving the usability of informatics systems; 2. To describe recent theoretical and methodological developments in the area; 3. To stimulate increased application of this expertise.

Various theoretical models in psychology have emphasized the social foundation of the mind and the role that social interactions play in human development. Interactive minds emphasizes social transaction and communication between minds without implying particular mechanisms and outcomes. For instance, not all products of interacting minds are positive. Interactive Minds also takes a life-span perspective, which is especially suited for understanding interactive dynamics of behaviour and human development. Experts from a variety of fields address such issues as biological aspects of cooperation, the role of social interaction in learning, the conceptualization of linguistic knowledge, and peer problem solving. In a concluding Epilogue, implications are presented for various fields, including education, developmental and cognitive psychology, and cultural anthropology.

Various theoretical models in psychology have emphasized the social foundation of the mind and the role that social interactions play in human development. Interactive minds emphasizes social transaction and communication between minds without implying particular mechanisms and outcomes. For instance, not all products of interacting minds are positive. Interactive Minds also takes a life-span perspective, which is especially suited for understanding interactive dynamics of behaviour and human development. Experts from a variety of fields address such issues as biological aspects of cooperation, the role of social interaction in learning, the conceptualization of linguistic knowledge, and peer problem solving. In a concluding Epilogue, implications are presented for various fields, including education, developmental and cognitive psychology, and cultural anthropology.

Dialogue has become a central theoretical concept in human and social sciences as well as in professions such as education, health, and psychotherapy. This 'dialogical turn' emphasises the importance of social relations and interaction to our behaviour and how we make sense of the world; hence the dialogical mind is the mind in interaction with others - with individuals, groups, institutions, and cultures in historical perspectives. Through a combination of rigorous theoretical work and empirical investigation, Marková presents an ethics of dialogicality as an alternative to the narrow perspective of individualism and cognitivism that has traditionally dominated the field of social psychology. The dialogical perspective, which focuses on interdependencies among the self and others, offers a powerful theoretical basis to comprehend, analyse, and discuss complex social issues. Marková considers the implications of dialogical epistemology both in daily life and in professional practices i

Dialogue has become a central theoretical concept in human and social sciences as well as in professions such as education, health, and psychotherapy. This 'dialogical turn' emphasises the importance of social relations and interaction to our behaviour and how we make sense of the world; hence the dialogical mind is the mind in interaction with others - with individuals, groups, institutions, and cultures in historical perspectives. Through a combination of rigorous theoretical work and empirical investigation, Marková presents an ethics of dialogicality as an alternative to the narrow perspective of individualism and cognitivism that has traditionally dominated the field of social psychology. The dialogical perspective, which focuses on interdependencies among the self and others, offers a powerful theoretical basis to comprehend, analyse, and discuss complex social issues. Marková considers the implications of dialogical epistemology both in daily life and in professional practices i

Continuing his groundbreaking analysis of economic structures, Douglass North develops an analytical framework for explaining the ways in which institutions and institutional change affect the performance of economies, both at a given time and over time. Institutions exist, he argues, due to the uncertainties involved in human interaction; they are the constraints devised to structure that interaction. Yet, institutions vary widely in their consequences for economic performance; some economies develop institutions that produce growth and development, while others develop institutions that produce stagnation. North first explores the nature of institutions and explains the role of transaction and production costs in their development. The second part of the book deals with institutional change. Institutions create the incentive structure in an economy, and organisations will be created to take advantage of the opportunities provided within a given institutional framework. North argues t

Continuing his groundbreaking analysis of economic structures, Douglass North develops an analytical framework for explaining the ways in which institutions and institutional change affect the performance of economies, both at a given time and over time. Institutions exist, he argues, due to the uncertainties involved in human interaction; they are the constraints devised to structure that interaction. Yet, institutions vary widely in their consequences for economic performance; some economies develop institutions that produce growth and development, while others develop institutions that produce stagnation. North first explores the nature of institutions and explains the role of transaction and production costs in their development. The second part of the book deals with institutional change. Institutions create the incentive structure in an economy, and organisations will be created to take advantage of the opportunities provided within a given institutional framework. North argues t

Can you tell the difference between talking to a human and talking to a machine? Or, is it possible to create a machine which is able to converse like a human? In fact, what is it that even makes us human? Turing's Imitation Game, commonly known as the Turing Test, is fundamental to the science of artificial intelligence. Involving an interrogator conversing with hidden identities, both human and machine, the test strikes at the heart of any questions about the capacity of machines to behave as humans. While this subject area has shifted dramatically in the last few years, this book offers an up-to-date assessment of Turing's Imitation Game, its history, context and implications, all illustrated with practical Turing tests. The contemporary relevance of this topic and the strong emphasis on example transcripts makes this book an ideal companion for undergraduate courses in artificial intelligence, engineering or computer science.

Migration and colonization are major forces affecting the frequency, spatial pattern and spread of genes in human populations. Here, Alan Fix reviews theories of migration developed by biologists and social scientists and surveys patterns of migration in a diverse sample of human populations. Using these empirical studies, he evaluates models of migration developed by population geneticists and explores more realistic models using computer simulation. He then shows the relevance of studies of migration as a microevolutionary process to the understanding of longer term global patterns of human diversification, by examining the spread of anatomically modern Homo sapiens, the demic diffusion of agriculture in Europe, and the origins of human diversity in the Malayan Peninsula. By focusing on migration as a process rather than as its genetic consequences, the book provides a bridge between biological and social science studies of migration, genetic microevolutionary theory and longer term

Migration and colonization are major forces affecting the frequency, spatial pattern and spread of genes in human populations. Here, Alan Fix reviews theories of migration developed by biologists and social scientists and surveys patterns of migration in a diverse sample of human populations. Using these empirical studies, he evaluates models of migration developed by population geneticists and explores more realistic models using computer simulation. He then shows the relevance of studies of migration as a microevolutionary process to the understanding of longer term global patterns of human diversification, by examining the spread of anatomically modern Homo sapiens, the demic diffusion of agriculture in Europe, and the origins of human diversity in the Malayan Peninsula. By focusing on migration as a process rather than as its genetic consequences, the book provides a bridge between biological and social science studies of migration, genetic microevolutionary theory and longer term

Lightning: Physics and Effects is the first book that covers essentially all aspects of lightning, including lightning physics, lightning protection and the interaction of lightning with a variety of objects and systems as well as with the environment. It is written in a style that will be accessible to the technical non-expert and is addressed to anyone interested in lightning and its effects. This will include physicists, engineers working in the power, communications, computer and aviation industries, meteorologists, atmospheric chemists, foresters, ecologists, physicians working in the area of electrical trauma and architects. This comprehensive reference volume contains over 300 illustrations, 70 tables containing quantitative information and a bibliography of more than 6000 references.

Australia's economic history is the story of the transformation of an indigenous economy and a small convict settlement into a nation of nearly 23 million people with advanced economic, social and political structures. It is a history of vast lands with rich, exploitable resources, of adversity in war, and of prosperity and nation building. It is also a history of human behaviour and the institutions created to harness and govern human endeavour. This account provides a systematic and comprehensive treatment of the nation's economic foundations, growth, resilience and future, in an engaging, contemporary narrative. It examines key themes such as the centrality of land and its usage, the role of migrant human capital, the tension between development and the environment, and Australia's interaction with the international economy. Written by a team of eminent economic historians, The Cambridge Economic History of Australia is the definitive study of Australia's economic past and present.

This volume describes culture media and solutions used in human ART; how they have been developed for in vitro human pre-implantation embryo development, the function and importance of the various components in media and solutions and how they interact, and how the systems in which these are used can influence outcomes. Chapters discuss inorganic solutes, energy substrates, amino acids, macromolecules, cytokines, growth factors, buffers, pH, osmolality, and the interaction of these parameters. The role of incubators and other physical factors are reviewed, along with the relevance and prospects of emerging technologies: morphokinetic analysis using time-lapse imaging and dynamic fluid incubation systems. Results of prospective randomized trials are emphasized to ascertain the added value of these techniques for selecting viable embryos. This comprehensive guide will be invaluable for embryologists, physicians and all personnel involved in the fluid products used in human ART seeking to

Ainslie argues that our responses to the threat of our own inconsistency determine the basic fabric of human culture. He suggests that individuals are more like populations of bargaining agents than like the hierarchical command structures envisaged by cognitive psychologists. The forces that create and constrain these populations help us understand so much that is puzzling in human action and interaction: from addictions and other self-defeating behaviors to the experience of willfulness, from pathological over-control and self-deception to subtler forms of behavior such as altruism, sadism, gambling, and the 'social construction' of belief. This book integrates approaches from experimental psychology, philosophy of mind, microeconomics, and decision science to present one of the most profound and expert accounts of human irrationality available. It will be of great interest to philosophers and an important resource for professionals and students in psychology, economics and political

Ainslie argues that our responses to the threat of our own inconsistency determine the basic fabric of human culture. He suggests that individuals are more like populations of bargaining agents than like the hierarchical command structures envisaged by cognitive psychologists. The forces that create and constrain these populations help us understand so much that is puzzling in human action and interaction: from addictions and other self-defeating behaviors to the experience of willfulness, from pathological over-control and self-deception to subtler forms of behavior such as altruism, sadism, gambling, and the 'social construction' of belief. This book integrates approaches from experimental psychology, philosophy of mind, microeconomics, and decision science to present one of the most profound and expert accounts of human irrationality available. It will be of great interest to philosophers and an important resource for professionals and students in psychology, economics and political

This 1972 volume contains specially written reports by research workers in zoology, psychology and psychiatry applying methods of comparative ethology in studies of human behaviour. It is intended as a contrast to popular researches in animal behaviour. There has been a considerable increase in the number of descriptive/analytical studies of human behaviour concerned principally with the behaviour of children and their mothers, and the methods have become widely used. The present collection of papers assesses the value of the methods and clarifies the particular contributions which they may make to an understanding of human behaviour. The papers cover a range of topics familiar from animal studies: non-verbal communication, mother-infant interaction, play and aggressive behaviour, but also range widely into more usual subjects for developmental psychology: cross-cultural studies, development of skills, class differences in mother-infant interactions. This is essentially a book for rese

The field of linguistic anthropology looks at human uniqueness and diversity through the lens of language, our species' special combination of art and instinct. Human language both shapes, and is shaped by, our minds, societies, and cultural worlds. This state-of-the-field survey covers a wide range of topics, approaches and theories, such as the nature and function of language systems, the relationship between language and social interaction, and the place of language in the social life of communities. Promoting a broad vision of the subject, spanning a range of disciplines from linguistics to biology, from psychology to sociology and philosophy, this authoritative handbook is an essential reference guide for students and researchers working on language and culture across the social sciences.

This book is an advanced introduction to semantics that presents this crucial component of human language through the lens of the 'Meaning-Text' theory - an approach that treats linguistic knowledge as a huge inventory of correspondences between thought and speech. Formally, semantics is viewed as an organized set of rules that connect a representation of meaning (Semantic Representation) to a representation of the sentence (Deep-Syntactic Representation). The approach is particularly interesting for computer assisted language learning, natural language processing and computational lexicography, as our linguistic rules easily lend themselves to formalization and computer applications. The model combines abstract theoretical constructions with numerous linguistic descriptions, as well as multiple practice exercises that provide a solid hands-on approach to learning how to describe natural language semantics.

This book is an advanced introduction to semantics that presents this crucial component of human language through the lens of the 'Meaning-Text' theory - an approach that treats linguistic knowledge as a huge inventory of correspondences between thought and speech. Formally, semantics is viewed as an organized set of rules that connect a representation of meaning (Semantic Representation) to a representation of the sentence (Deep-Syntactic Representation). The approach is particularly interesting for computer assisted language learning, natural language processing and computational lexicography, as our linguistic rules easily lend themselves to formalization and computer applications. The model combines abstract theoretical constructions with numerous linguistic descriptions, as well as multiple practice exercises that provide a solid hands-on approach to learning how to describe natural language semantics.

Why was religion so important for rulers in the pre-modern world? And how did the world come to be dominated by just a handful of religious traditions, especially Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism? Drawing on sociology and anthropology, as well as a huge range of historical literature from all regions and periods of world history, Alan Strathern sets out a new way of thinking about transformations in the fundamental nature of religion and its interaction with political authority. His analysis distinguishes between two quite different forms of religiosity - immanentism, which focused on worldly assistance, and transcendentalism, which centred on salvation from the human condition - and shows how their interaction shaped the course of history. Taking examples drawn from Ancient Rome to the Incas or nineteenth-century Tahiti, a host of phenomena, including sacred kingship, millenarianism, state-church struggles, reformations, iconoclasm, and, above all, conversion are revealed in a new li