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Paperback. Condizione: New. Today's economic system, premised on the sale of physical goods, does not fit the information age in which we live. The capitalist order requires the maintenance of an artificial scarcity in goods that have the potential for near infinite and almost free replication. The sharing of informational goods through distributed global networks - digital libraries, file-sharing, live-streaming, free software, free-access publishing, the free-sharing of scientific knowledge, and open-source pharmaceuticals - not only challenges the dominance of a scarcity-based economic system, but also enables a more efficient, innovative, just and free culture. In a series of seven explorations of contemporary sharing, Matthew David shows that in each case sharing surpasses markets, private ownership and intellectual property rights in fostering motivation, creativity, innovation, production, distribution and reward. In transforming the idea of an information economy into an information society, sharing connects struggles against inequality and poverty in developed and developing countries. Challenging taken-for-granted justifications of the status quo, Sharing debunks the 'tragedy of the commons' and makes the case for digital network sharing as a viable mode of economic counterpower, prefiguring a post-capitalist society.

Hardback. Condizione: New. On 13 November 2015, Paris suffered the second wave of brutal terrorist attacks in a year, leaving 130 dead and many more seriously injured. How are we to make sense of these violent acts and what do they tell us about the forces shaping our world today?In this short book the influential philosopher Alain Badiou argues that while these violent events are commonly portrayed as acts of Islamic terrorism, in fact they attest to a much deeper malaise that is connected to the triumph of global capitalism and to new forms of imperialism that involve the weakening of states, such that whole regions of the world have been turned into ungovernable zones run by armed gangs in which ordinary people are forced to live the most precarious lives. These zones have become the breeding ground for a new kind of nihilism that seeks revenge for the domination of the West. And it is this new nihilism, on to which Islam has been grafted, that exerts a particular appeal to the young men and women on the margins who carried out the atrocities in Paris. The tragedy of 13 November might appear at first sight to be rooted in immigration and Islam but our wound is not so recent: it is rooted in a deeper set of transformations that have reshaped our world, creating small islands of privilege amidst large masses of the destitute and depriving us of a politics that would offer a serious alternative to the present.

Paperback. Condizione: New. Thirty years after the end of the Cold War, world peace is at risk again. The United States has withdrawn from the disarmament treaty with Russia, Europe is disintegrating, China is surging forward and a wave of nationalism and populism is destabilizing established political institutions and endangering hard-won liberties.  Moreover, the coronavirus pandemic has brought into sharp relief the fragility of the global order and the speed with which it can slide into chaos.    In view of this dangerous and unpredictable state of affairs, Mikhail Gorbachev, the last great statesman of the 1989 revolution, has written this short book to warn us of the grave risks we now face and to urge us all, political leaders and citizens alike, to take action to address them. He focuses on the big challenges of our time, such as the renewal of the arms race and the growing risks of nuclear war, the new tension between Russia and the West, the global environmental crisis, the global threat of diseases and epidemics, the rise of populism and the decline of democracy. He argues that self-serving policies and narrow-minded politics aimed at the pursuit of national interests are taking the place of political principles and overshadowing the vision of a free and just world for all peoples. He offers his view of where Russia is heading and he urges political leaders in the West to recognize that re-establishing trust between Russia and the West requires the courage of true leadership and a commitment to genuine dialogue and understanding on both sides. Now more than ever, the responses to the great challenges we face cannot be purely national in character but must be based on a collaborative effort in which political leaders put aside their differences and work together to advance the human security of all.

Hardback. Condizione: New. On 13 November 2015, Paris suffered the second wave of brutal terrorist attacks in a year, leaving 130 dead and many more seriously injured. How are we to make sense of these violent acts and what do they tell us about the forces shaping our world today?In this short book the influential philosopher Alain Badiou argues that while these violent events are commonly portrayed as acts of Islamic terrorism, in fact they attest to a much deeper malaise that is connected to the triumph of global capitalism and to new forms of imperialism that involve the weakening of states, such that whole regions of the world have been turned into ungovernable zones run by armed gangs in which ordinary people are forced to live the most precarious lives. These zones have become the breeding ground for a new kind of nihilism that seeks revenge for the domination of the West. And it is this new nihilism, on to which Islam has been grafted, that exerts a particular appeal to the young men and women on the margins who carried out the atrocities in Paris. The tragedy of 13 November might appear at first sight to be rooted in immigration and Islam but our wound is not so recent: it is rooted in a deeper set of transformations that have reshaped our world, creating small islands of privilege amidst large masses of the destitute and depriving us of a politics that would offer a serious alternative to the present.

Paperback. Condizione: New. Thirty years after the end of the Cold War, world peace is at risk again. The United States has withdrawn from the disarmament treaty with Russia, Europe is disintegrating, China is surging forward and a wave of nationalism and populism is destabilizing established political institutions and endangering hard-won liberties.  Moreover, the coronavirus pandemic has brought into sharp relief the fragility of the global order and the speed with which it can slide into chaos.    In view of this dangerous and unpredictable state of affairs, Mikhail Gorbachev, the last great statesman of the 1989 revolution, has written this short book to warn us of the grave risks we now face and to urge us all, political leaders and citizens alike, to take action to address them. He focuses on the big challenges of our time, such as the renewal of the arms race and the growing risks of nuclear war, the new tension between Russia and the West, the global environmental crisis, the global threat of diseases and epidemics, the rise of populism and the decline of democracy. He argues that self-serving policies and narrow-minded politics aimed at the pursuit of national interests are taking the place of political principles and overshadowing the vision of a free and just world for all peoples. He offers his view of where Russia is heading and he urges political leaders in the West to recognize that re-establishing trust between Russia and the West requires the courage of true leadership and a commitment to genuine dialogue and understanding on both sides. Now more than ever, the responses to the great challenges we face cannot be purely national in character but must be based on a collaborative effort in which political leaders put aside their differences and work together to advance the human security of all.

Hardback. Condizione: New. The idea was simple: pack a suitcase, go to another city where you have no connections and try to find a job, anonymously. That was the idea that took Florence Aubenas - one of France's mostaccomplished undercover journalists - on a journey into the worst recession since the Great Depression. Day after day she searched for work, one unemployed worker among others, with no special skills or qualifications. She immersed herself in the crowd of job seekers, going from one employment office toanother, eventually managing to cobble together a few hours working as a night cleaner on a ferry that crossed the English Channel. For many people the global financial crisis seems real enough but remote from their daily lives. They have little sense of what it really means to be unemployed in the midst of a recession. Florence Aubenas was determined to find out. This book is the story of herjourney. The Night Cleaner became an instant number one bestseller in France and has subsequently become a bestseller in many countries throughout the world. Better than any academic treatise on the topic, this book shows what recession means today.

Paperback. Condizione: New. Develop balance and harmony in all areas of life through mindfulness The second edition of the Mindfulness Pocketbook: Little Exercises for a Calmer Life brings you exercises and practices to achieve greater balance and harmony in all areas of your life. You'll find new ideas for enjoying nature, being mindful at work, staying physically active, and encouraging creativity. With this book, you can discover how mindfulness opens you up to new ideas and fresh ways of doing things. You'll have a new approach to reducing stress and increasing your enjoyment. This revised edition of the bestselling Mindfulness Pocketbook shares guidance on new paths to living more harmoniously. Be mindful in the outdoors, communing with natureUse mindful techniques to enhance creativityPractice mindful physical activity for a healthy body and mindAdd mindfulness to your workday The new section in this pocketbook edition encourages you to treat yourself to small pleasures, learn a new skill, and take time for relaxation and holidays. A calmer, more balanced life is closer than you think!

Paperback. Condizione: New. As people throughout the world react to globalization and revert to nationalism, they are proclaiming distinct cultural identities for themselves.  Cultural identity seems to offer a defensive wall against the homogenizing effects of globalization and a framework for nurturing and protecting cultural differences. In this short and provocative book, François Jullien argues that this emphasis on cultural identity is a mistake.  Cultures exist in relation to one another and they are constantly mutating and transforming themselves.  There is no cultural identity, there are only what Jullien calls 'resources'.  Resources are created in a certain space, they are available to all and belong to no one. They are not exclusive, like the values to which we proclaim loyalty; instead, we deploy them or not, activate them or let them fall by the wayside, and each of us as individuals is responsible for these choices.  This conceptual shift requires us to redefine three key terms - the universal, the uniform and the common.  Equipped with these concepts, we can rethink the dialogue between cultures in a way that avoids what Jullien sees as the false debate about identity and difference. This powerful critique of the modern shibboleth of cultural identity will appeal to anyone interested in the great social and political questions of our time.

Paperback. Condizione: New. In autumn 1962 Theodor W. Adorno gave a lecture on fighting antisemitism to the German Coordinating Council of Societies for Christian-Jewish Cooperation, a lecture that remains as topical and urgent today as it was in the 1960s.  After the Second World War, Germany was grappling with a reluctance to admit collective guilt for the horrors of the Holocaust and German society was witnessing the emergence of various forms of hidden or 'crypto' antisemitism. In his lecture Adorno demonstrated that antisemitism is a central and essential element of right-wing extremism and is identical in structure to racism. It is accompanied by an authoritarian mindset and a conformist anti-intellectualism. Moreover, a classic trick used by anti-Semites is to protest against taboos which prevent them from freely spreading their hate by classing them as a form of persecution, and to present themselves as victims of it. The only antidote to this poison is an unwavering loyalty to the truth in dealing with historical and political realities. Adorno advocates an anti-authoritarian programme to prevent antisemitic character development and advises taking firm action against outbreaks of antisemitic behaviour. His brilliant analysis of the sources and dangers of antisemitism is as relevant now as it was sixty years ago.

Paperback. Condizione: New. As a heatwave hits Paris, the author's entire existence is disrupted and disoriented by the effects of climate change. All his normal reference points are destroyed. To escape the heat and his growing anxieties, he flees to the small Mediterranean island of Porquerolles. But even in this idyllic setting, can he escape the harsh realities of the Anthropocene? Written as a fictionalized travelogue based on the author's own experiences, this inquiry into the issues raised by the climate crisis will be of interest to everyone concerned about the increasingly dire situation in which we find ourselves on our climate-damaged planet.

Paperback. Condizione: New. A woman's life is different. This is clear when a stranger's catcall makes her feel targeted in the street. When politicians make off-the-cuff sexist remarks. When media commentators wade in with their condemnation of free, unrestricted abortion. When a father is praised to the skies for attending parents' evening while the mother's attendance is taken for granted. When they fire her because she's pregnant. When they dismiss her medical symptoms as anxiety. To counter sexism today, we need to learn the art of self-defence.  Today, feminism is more alive and more necessary than ever because discrimination against women has become more subtle and difficult to detect, yet it retains its paralysing power. With combative energy and acerbic wit, Bel Olid explains the key concepts of the current feminist struggle in a smart, radical and often counterintuitive way.

Paperback. Condizione: New. 1st. Jürgen Habermas's book The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, first published in 1962, has long been recognized as one of the most important works of twentieth-century social thought. Blending philosophy and social history, it offered an account of the public sphere as a domain that mediates between civil society and the state in which citizens could discuss matters of common concern and participate in democratic decision-making through the formation of public opinion.  Now, in view of the digital revolution and the resulting crisis of democracy, he returns to this important topic. In this new book Habermas focuses on digital media, in particular social media, which are increasingly relegating traditional mass media to the background. While the new media initially promised to empower users, this promise is being undermined by their algorithm-steered platform structure that promotes self-enclosed informational 'bubbles' and discursive 'echo chambers' in which users split into a plurality of pseudo-publics that are largely closed off from one other. Habermas argues that, without appropriate regulation of digital media, this new structural transformation is in danger of hollowing out the institutions through which democracies can shape social and economic processes and address urgent collective problems, ranging from growing social inequality to the climate crisis.

Paperback. Condizione: New. For more than a century, the United States has been the world's most powerful state. Now some analysts predict that China will soon take its place. Does this mean that we are living in a post-American world? Will China's rapid rise spark a new Cold War between the two titans? In this compelling essay, world renowned foreign policy analyst, Joseph Nye, explains why the American century is far from over and what the US must do to retain its lead in an era of increasingly diffuse power politics. America's superpower status may well be tempered by its own domestic problems and China's economic boom, he argues, but its military, economic and soft power capabilities will continue to outstrip those of its closest rivals for decades to come.

Paperback. Condizione: New. The distant past is commonly characterized in terms of dominant materials of the time - the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, etc. Since the dawn of writing, however, characterizing eras in terms of materials has fallen by the wayside, and yet materials have continued to exert a powerful influence on our collective imagination.Viewed from this perspective, France in the period from 1815 to 1855 could be seen as the half-century of plaster. After the French Revolution, plaster was used for a great variety of things: building, moulding, sculpting, decorating. Cheap and easy to use, plaster was everywhere, from Napoleon's death mask to household ornaments, from walls to elaborate mouldings. Plaster was king - but a fragile king that easily crumbled and fell apart. The age of plaster was also the reign of the ephemeral and the transient, the vulgar and the eclectic, and the men and women of the time struggled to maintain stability and continuity with the past. In the space of a few decades, no fewer than seven political regimes succeeded one another. Plaster - symbol of the ephemeral, the flaking and the vulgar - is the material which defines the first half of the nineteenth century.Written with his characteristic brilliance and eye for unconventional topics, Alain Corbin's highly original exploration of the role of plaster in history will be of interest to a wide readership.

Paperback. Condizione: New. What position does America occupy in the recent history of Western philosophy?  At once the destination for a series of fantasies and the place from which a new relationship to thought originated, America incarnates a dark continent whose strangeness and singularity has driven thinkers outside of their own philosophical comfort zone - often forcing them to show anger, anxiety or desire towards what they considered a challenge or a threat. This book provides a mapping of this complex relationship between America and philosophy through a series of examples drawn from a wide range of authors, from Freud and Heidegger to Adorno, Derrida and many others.  It also examines the way American thinkers themselves have imported, used and abused philosophical views coming from Europe, often transforming them into something other than what they were.  Is then philosophy an anti-American discourse, or America an anti-philosophical country? Or is it, rather, that America provokes philosophy from a place where its own history affirms the impossibilities, paradoxes and contradictions of philosophy itself? At a time when the syntagm "America" has come to crystallize a certain understanding of the world order, interrogating the place that it occupies in our intellectual tradition is also a way to engage critically with the violence attached to it. "America" is a syntagm for violence, but this violence might very well be different than we thought.

Paperback. Condizione: New. What role does religion play in modern societies?  Is it merely an anachronism that hinders our economic growth?  Is it a kind of superstition that people should be left to enjoy in private but should refrain from discussing in public?  It is no secret that the Christian churches in Western societies have massive problems - quite apart from the recent scandals.  Shrinking congregations are just one sign of their diminishing relevance. But what would happen to democracy if the resonance of religion were to fade entirely? Leading sociologist Hartmut Rosa addresses this fundamental question in a way that makes us think afresh about religion and the role it plays in our contemporary democratic societies.  He argues that religion fosters a culture of dialogue, listening and reflection that allows us to form connections with others and experience the world as meaningful.  This, in turn, helps citizens cultivate a democratic sensibility that can serve as an anchor in unstable times.  With his characteristic clarity and insight, Rosa analyses our contemporary societies and dares to ponder what would happen if the centuries-old reservoir of wisdom embedded in religion were to be lost in an ultra-modern age.

Paperback. Condizione: New. Razors, tweezers, wax and hair removal creams: these are the tools for the initiation rites that signal the passage from girl to woman. Today the only acceptable places for a woman to have hair are on her head (preferably long), her eyebrows (not too wild) and eyelashes (not too sparse). All kinds of cosmetics are sold to achieve the desired effect of localized luxuriance. At the same time, the industry of removing hair everywhere else on the body advances relentlessly. Hair is no longer a sign of joy but a battleground of cosmetic surgery. In this short book, the Catalan writer Bel Olid draws on personal experience to dismantle preconceived ideas about the supposed benefits of waxing and shaving, and to lay bare the social penalties that are meted out to any woman who allows their body hair to grow.  With clarity and courage, Bel Olid exposes the contradictions and hidden costs of hair removal, and issues a rousing call to women everywhere to set themselves free from the urge to please everyone else and to focus, instead, on what pleases them.

Paperback. Condizione: New. 1st. Recently there has been an extraordinary international revival of interest in Hannah Arendt. She was extremely perceptive about the dark tendencies in contemporary life that continue to plague us. She developed a concept of politics and public freedom that serves as a critical standard for judging what is wrong with politics today. Richard J. Bernstein argues that Arendt should be read today because her penetrating insights help us to think about both the darkness of our times and the sources of illumination. He explores her thinking about statelessness and refugees; the right to have rights; her critique of Zionism; the meaning of the banality of evil; the complex relations between truth, lying, power, and violence; the tradition of the revolutionary spirit; and the urgent need for each of us to assume responsibility for our political lives. This short and very readable book will be of great interest to anyone who wants to understand the forces that are shaping our world today.

Hardback. Condizione: New. The idea was simple: pack a suitcase, go to another city where you have no connections and try to find a job, anonymously. That was the idea that took Florence Aubenas - one of France's mostaccomplished undercover journalists - on a journey into the worst recession since the Great Depression. Day after day she searched for work, one unemployed worker among others, with no special skills or qualifications. She immersed herself in the crowd of job seekers, going from one employment office toanother, eventually managing to cobble together a few hours working as a night cleaner on a ferry that crossed the English Channel. For many people the global financial crisis seems real enough but remote from their daily lives. They have little sense of what it really means to be unemployed in the midst of a recession. Florence Aubenas was determined to find out. This book is the story of herjourney. The Night Cleaner became an instant number one bestseller in France and has subsequently become a bestseller in many countries throughout the world. Better than any academic treatise on the topic, this book shows what recession means today.

Paperback. Condizione: New. No other Marxist text has come close to achieving the fame and influence of The Communist Manifesto. Translated into over 100 languages, this clarion call to the workers of the world radically shaped the events of the twentieth century. But what relevance does it have for us today? In this slim book Slavoj Zizek argues that, while exploitation no longer occurs the way Marx described it, it has by no means disappeared; on the contrary, the profit once generated through the exploitation of workers has been transformed into rent appropriated through the privatization of the 'general intellect'. Entrepreneurs like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg have become extremely wealthy not because they are exploiting their workers but because they are appropriating the rent for allowing millions of people to participate in the new form of the 'general intellect' that they own and control. But, even if Marx's analysis can no longer be applied to our contemporary world of global capitalism without significant revision, the fundamental problem with which he was concerned, the problem of the commons in all its dimensions - the commons of nature, the cultural commons, and the commons as the universal space of humanity from which no one should be excluded - remains as relevant as ever. This timely reflection on the enduring relevance of The Communist Manifesto will be of great value to everyone interested in the key questions of radical politics today.

Hardback. Condizione: New. DISCOVER ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT ACCOUNTS OF SLAVERY IN NINETEENTH CENTURY AMERICA One of history's greatest crimes, the American slave trade led to the suffering of untold numbers of men and women. But how can we better understand the lives and experiences of those who endured it? Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is a harrowing first hand look at the brutal indignities of slavery in the nineteenth century, and the society that allowed it to happen. To better understand our shared present, we need to fully grapple with our difficult past. Douglass' Narrative is a key piece of that puzzle. An insightful introduction by Debra Newman Ham, a former Black history archivist for the Library of Congress, analyzes the text and looks at the key events in Douglass' life.

Paperback. Condizione: New. How should we talk about desire, power and equality in the wake of the #Me Too debate? For Carolin Emcke, bestselling author and winner of the German Peace Prize, the debate demonstrates one thing above all: a conversation about abuse and sexuality has emerged that can no longer be stifled. Too many questions remain unanswered: which images and concepts shape our imaginings of desire and revulsion? How is violence exposed and obstructed? How do the norms and structures into which men, women and those in between must fit get constructed?  What gets hushed up, and who remains powerless?  How can the plurality of desire and sexuality be expressed, without sacrificing their intricacies? By interrogating her own experiences as well as social practices, music and literature, Emcke demonstrates the enduring complexity of the relationship between sexuality and truth.

Paperback. Condizione: New. Under what conditions could ecology, instead of being one cluster of movements among others, organise politics around an agenda and a set of beliefs? Can ecology aspire to define the political horizon in the way that liberalism, socialism, conservatism and other political ideologies have done at various times and places? What can ecology learn from history about how new political movements emerge, and how they win the struggle for ideas long before they translate their ideas into parties and elections? In this short text, consisting of seventy-six talking points, Bruno Latour and Nikolaj Schultz argue that if the ecological movement is to gain ideological consistency and autonomy it must offer a political narrative that recognises, embraces and effectively represents its project in terms of social conflict. Political ecology must accept that it brings along division. It must provide a convincing cartography of the conflicts it generates and, based on this, it must try to define a common horizon of collective action. In order to represent and describe these conflicts, Latour and Schultz propose to reuse the old notions of 'class' and 'class struggle', albeit infused with a new meaning in line with the ecological concerns of our New Climate Regime. Advancing the idea of a new ecological class, assembled by its collective interests in fighting the logic of production and safeguarding our planet's conditions of habitability, they ask: how can a proud and self-aware ecological class emerge and take effective action to shape our collective future?

Paperback. Condizione: New. The work of Michel Houellebecq - one of the most widely read and controversial novelists of our time - is marked by the thought of Schopenhauer. When Houellebecq came across a copy of Schopenhauer's Aphorisms in a library in his mid-twenties, he was bowled over by it and he hunted down a copy of his major philosophical work, The World as Will and Representation. Houellebecq found in Schopenhauer - the radical pessimist, the chronicler of human suffering, the lonely misanthrope - a powerful conception of the human condition and of the future that awaits us, and when Houellebecq's first writings appeared in the early 1990s, the influence of Schopenhauer was everywhere apparent.  But it was only much later, in 2005, that Houellebecq began to translate and write a commentary on Schopenhauer's work. He thought of turning it into a book but soon abandoned the idea and the text remained unpublished until 2017. Now available in English for the first time, In the Presence of Schopenhauer is the story of a remarkable encounter between a novelist and a philosopher and a testimony to the deep and enduring impact of Schopenhauer's philosophy on one of France's greatest living writers.

Paperback. Condizione: New. Inaction by governments in the face of climate change is often attributed to a lack of political will or a denial of the seriousness of the situation, but as Mark Alizart argues in this provocative book, we shouldn't exclude the possibility that part of the reluctance might be motivated by cynicism and even sheer evil: for some people, there are real financial and political benefits to be gained from the chaos that will ensue from environmental disaster. The climate crisis creates its winners - individuals who orchestrate environmental chaos and bet on the collapse of the world as they bet on declining share values. In the face of this veritable 'carbofascist' coup targeting humanity, modifying our behaviour as individuals won't suffice. We must train our critical attention on those financial and political actors who speculate on catastrophe and, in the light of this, we must rethink the strategy of ecological activism. This is a war to win, not a crisis to overcome.

Paperback. Condizione: New. Unleash your full potential. Take control of your financial future. At twenty years of age, Samuel Leach was studying at university. He appeared to be a typical student, but there was something different about him. Whilst his classmates were engrossed in their studies, as well as their burgeoning social lives, Samuel was adding another facet to his education. He was teaching himself the science and art of trading. With nothing more than a boxer's heart and drive, Samuel turned £2k into £178k in his first year, and a few short years later, he rose to global renown by building his new enterprise to become a multi-million-pound trading business. From delivering an acclaimed TedTalk to running webinars, events, conferences, and training over 2,000 people from over 90 countries, Samuel's list of achievements continues to grow.  The obvious question is how did he accomplish so much in such a short period of time? Samuel Leach's secret to success is understanding the patterns and algorithms of the financial system. These same principles can be applied to life skills and general business skills alike. The Formula for Success will show you how. This insightful book will show you how analysing patterns, mapping behaviours and seeing the potential in your unique talents can lead to success. Learning practical lessons drawn from Samuel's first-hand experiences, you will discover how to apply his formula to your life. This inspiring, valuable book will help you:  Apply the principles of algorithms and pattern-recognition to any and all areas of your personal and financial lifeJoin the scores of teachers, postal workers, firefighters and many other hard-working members of society who have found prosperity and success with Samuel's helpUnderstand the fundamental principles of algorithms without complex maths and confusing theoryLearn how to identify and strengthen the attributes that are vital for success The Formula for Success: How to Win at Life Using Your Own Personal Algorithm is the first step toward personal, professional and financial achievement.

Paperback. Condizione: New. Inaction by governments in the face of climate change is often attributed to a lack of political will or a denial of the seriousness of the situation, but as Mark Alizart argues in this provocative book, we shouldn't exclude the possibility that part of the reluctance might be motivated by cynicism and even sheer evil: for some people, there are real financial and political benefits to be gained from the chaos that will ensue from environmental disaster. The climate crisis creates its winners - individuals who orchestrate environmental chaos and bet on the collapse of the world as they bet on declining share values. In the face of this veritable 'carbofascist' coup targeting humanity, modifying our behaviour as individuals won't suffice. We must train our critical attention on those financial and political actors who speculate on catastrophe and, in the light of this, we must rethink the strategy of ecological activism. This is a war to win, not a crisis to overcome.

Paperback. Condizione: New. For decades, liberal democracy has been extolled as the best system of governance to have emerged out of the long experience of history. Today, such a confident assertion is far from self-evident. Democracy, in crisis across the West, must prove itself. In the West today, the authors argue, we no longer live in "industrial democracies," but "consumer democracies" in which the governing ethos has ended up drowning households and governments in debt and resulted in paralyzing partisanship. In contrast, the long-term focus of the decisive and unified leadership of China is boldly moving its nation into the future. But China also faces challenges arising from its meteoric rise. Its burgeoning middle class will increasingly demand more participation, accountability of government, curbing corruption and the rule of law. As the 21st Century unfolds, both of these core systems of the global order must contend with the same reality: a genuinely multi-polar world where no single power dominates and in which societies themselves are becoming increasingly diverse. The authors argue that a new system of "intelligent governance" is required to meet these new challenges. To cope, the authors argue that both East and West can benefit by adapting each other's best practices. Examining this in relation to widely varying political and cultural contexts, the authors quip that while China must lighten up, the US must tighten up. This highly timely volume is both a conceptual and practical guide of impressive scope to the challenges of good governance as the world continues to undergo profound transformation in the coming decades.

Paperback. Condizione: New. 1st. Jürgen Habermas's book The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, first published in 1962, has long been recognized as one of the most important works of twentieth-century social thought. Blending philosophy and social history, it offered an account of the public sphere as a domain that mediates between civil society and the state in which citizens could discuss matters of common concern and participate in democratic decision-making through the formation of public opinion.  Now, in view of the digital revolution and the resulting crisis of democracy, he returns to this important topic. In this new book Habermas focuses on digital media, in particular social media, which are increasingly relegating traditional mass media to the background. While the new media initially promised to empower users, this promise is being undermined by their algorithm-steered platform structure that promotes self-enclosed informational 'bubbles' and discursive 'echo chambers' in which users split into a plurality of pseudo-publics that are largely closed off from one other. Habermas argues that, without appropriate regulation of digital media, this new structural transformation is in danger of hollowing out the institutions through which democracies can shape social and economic processes and address urgent collective problems, ranging from growing social inequality to the climate crisis.

Paperback. Condizione: New. The work of Michel Houellebecq - one of the most widely read and controversial novelists of our time - is marked by the thought of Schopenhauer. When Houellebecq came across a copy of Schopenhauer's Aphorisms in a library in his mid-twenties, he was bowled over by it and he hunted down a copy of his major philosophical work, The World as Will and Representation. Houellebecq found in Schopenhauer - the radical pessimist, the chronicler of human suffering, the lonely misanthrope - a powerful conception of the human condition and of the future that awaits us, and when Houellebecq's first writings appeared in the early 1990s, the influence of Schopenhauer was everywhere apparent.  But it was only much later, in 2005, that Houellebecq began to translate and write a commentary on Schopenhauer's work. He thought of turning it into a book but soon abandoned the idea and the text remained unpublished until 2017. Now available in English for the first time, In the Presence of Schopenhauer is the story of a remarkable encounter between a novelist and a philosopher and a testimony to the deep and enduring impact of Schopenhauer's philosophy on one of France's greatest living writers.