Catalog Search Results
41) Intellectuals
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Since the time of Voltaire and Rousseau, the secular intellectual has increasingly filled the vacuum left by the decline of the cleric and assumed the functions of moral mentor and critic of mankind. This fascinating portrait of the minds that have shaped the modern world examines the moral credentials of those whose thoughts have influenced humanity.
How do intellectuals set about reaching their conclusions? How carefully do they examine the
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"Revered biographer Ray Monk solves the enigma of Robert Oppenheimer's life and personality and brilliantly illuminates his contribution to the revolution in twentieth-century physics. In Robert Oppenheimer, Ray Monk delves into the rich and complex intellectual life of America's most fascinating and elusive scientist, the father of the atomic bomb. As a young professor at Berkeley, the wealthy, cultured Oppenheimer finally came into his own as a...
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"Explores the eventful intertwining of outward event and inner intellectual life to tell, in all its richness and depth, the story of the 17th century in Europe. It was a time of creativity unparalleled in history before or since, from science to the arts, from philosophy to politics ... Grayling points to three primary factors [behind this epochal shift]: the rise of vernacular (popular) languages in philosophy, theology, science, and literature;...
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"The other great Renaissance of black culture, influence, and glamour burst forth joyfully in what may seem an unlikely place--Pittsburgh, PA--from the 1920s through the 1950s. Today black Pittsburgh is known as the setting for August Wilson's famed plays about noble but doomed working-class strivers. But this community once had an impact on American history that rivaled the far larger black worlds of Harlem and Chicago. It published the most widely...
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What scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit? This is the question John Brockman, publisher of Edge.org, posed to the world's most influential thinkers. Their visionary answers flow from the frontiers of psychology, philosophy, economics, physics, sociology, and more. Surprising and enlightening, these insights will revolutionize the way you think about yourself and the world.
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"The creators of the popular website Black Nerd Problems bring their witty and unflinching insight to this engaging collection of pop culture essays on everything from Mario Kart and The Wire to issues of representation and police brutality across media"--
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Iain Sinclair has been documenting the peculiar magic of the river city that absorbs and obsesses him for most of his adult life. In [this book], Sinclair strikes out on a series of solitary walks and collaborative expeditions to make a final reckoning with a capital stretched beyond recognition.
50) The authority gap: why women are still taken less seriously than men, and what we can do about it
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"An incisive, intersectional look at the mother of all gender biases: a resistance to women's authority and power. Every woman has a story of being underestimated, ignored, challenged, or patronized in the workplace. Maybe she tried to speak up in a meeting, only to be talked over by male colleagues. Or a client addressed her male subordinate instead of her. Despite the progress we've made toward equality, we still fail, more often than we might realize,...
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"The chant of "Azadi!"-Urdu for "Freedom!"-is the slogan of the freedom struggle in Kashmir against what Kashmiris see as the Indian Occupation. Ironically, it has also become the chant of millions on the streets of India against the project of Hindu nationalism. Just as Arundhati Roy began to ask what lay between these two calls for freedom-a chasm or a bridge?-the streets fell silent. Not only in India but all over the world. The coronavirus brought...
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Penguin history of Britain volume VIII
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English
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In the nineteenth century, Britain was a country that saw itself at the summit of the world: the largest empire in history. Yet despite the vast growth of its cities and theevolutions in transportation, communication, science, and work, it was also a society permeated with doubt, fear, and introspection. Politicians and writers felt themselves to be staring into an abyss, and what is seen as an era of irritating self-belief was in fact obsessed with...
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International Bestseller: This “absolute gem of a book” offers a month-by-month account of the year before World War I—one of the most exciting times in the 20th century (The Observer).
“A sexy, comic and occasionally heartbreaking soap opera” for history buffs interested in 20th-century art, music, and literature (Washington Post).
It was the year Henry Ford first put a...
“A sexy, comic and occasionally heartbreaking soap opera” for history buffs interested in 20th-century art, music, and literature (Washington Post).
It was the year Henry Ford first put a...
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Buenos Aires, Argentina, recognized for its European-style architecture and lively theater scene, is a truly special place. The second-largest city in South America, it has been the home of such renowned cultural and historical figures as Jorge Luis Borges and Astor Piazzola, Che Guevara and Eva Peron. Like every truly great city, New York, London and Prague; Buenos Aires is its own universe, with its own center of gravity, its own scents and flavors,...
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A memoir of the steamboat era on the Mississippi River before the American Civil War. The first half details a brief history of the river from its discovery by Hernando de Soto in 1541 and describes Twain's career as a Mississippi steamboat pilot, the fulfillment of a childhood dream. The second half of Life on the Mississippi tells of Twain's return, many years after, to travel the river from St. Louis to New Orleans. By then the competition from...
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"For more than thirty years, Michael Eric Dyson has played a prominent role in the nation as a public intellectual, university professor, cultural critic, social activist and ordained Baptist minister. He has presented a rich and resourceful set of ideas about American history and culture. Now for the first time he brings together the various components of his multihued identity and eclectic pursuits. Entertaining Race is a testament to Dyson's consistent...
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The bestselling author of Brunelleschi's dome and Michelangelo and the Pope's ceiling captures the excitement and spirit of the Renaissance in this chronicle of the life and work of 'the king of the world's booksellers" and the technological disruption that forever changed the ways knowledge spread.
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"Personal essays about the author's family woven together with cultural history and critique about the Great Migration to Chicago, Northern segregation, the life and work of Richard Wright and other Black Chicago intellectuals, Black masculinity, and the specter of violence in Chicago"--