Since Wallerstein first developed world-systems analysis, it has become a widely utilized methodology within the historical social sciences and a common point of reference in discussions of globalization. Now, for the first time in one volume, Wallerstein offers a succinct summary of world-systems analysis and a clear outline of the modern world-system, describing the structures of knowledge upon which it is based, its mechanisms, and its future.Wallerstein explains the defining characteristics of world-systems analysis: its emphasis on world-systems rather than nation-states, on the need to consider historical processes as they unfold over long periods of time, and on combining within a single analytical framework bodies of knowledge usually viewed as distinct from one another—such as history, political science, economics, and sociology. He describes the world-system as a social reality comprised of interconnected nations, firms, households, classes, and identity groups of all kinds. He identifies and highlights the significance of the key moments in the evolution of the modern world-system: the development of a capitalist world-economy in the sixteenth-century, the beginning of two centuries of liberal centrism in the French Revolution of 1789, and the undermining of that centrism in the global revolts of 1968. Intended for general readers, students, and experienced practitioners alike, this book presents a complete overview of world-systems analysis by its original architect.

    His eloquent writings on the human condition convey passion, intelligence and deep conviction. "Freedom Is A Two-Edged Sword of which one edge is liberty and the other responsibility, on which both edges are exceedingly sharp".

    In this anthology of art-historical writings from the Renaissance to the present day, key texts have been chosen in which the authors reflect on the nature of their subject and on their own methods of inquiry. Included are texts by Vasari, Winckelmann, Burckhardt, Wolfflin, Panofsky, Gombrich and Pollock, among others. The introduction gives a lucid and readable summary of art-historical methods, and each of the texts is accompanied by a commentary that places it in context and discusses the issues it raises. Also provided is a critical glossary of terms and a select bibliography.

    Unlike traditional empirical psychology, it is more oriented toward the how than the what. An experiment in mind design is more likely to be an attempt to build something and make it work--as in artificial intelligence--than to observe or analyze what already exists. Mind design is psychology by reverse engineering.When Mind Design was first published in 1981, it became a classic in the then-nascent fields of cognitive science and AI. This second edition retains four landmark essays from the first, adding to them one earlier milestone (Turing's Computing Machinery and Intelligence) and eleven more recent articles about connectionism, dynamical systems, and symbolic versus nonsymbolic models. The contributors are divided about evenly between philosophers and scientists. Yet all are philosophical in that they address fundamental issues and concepts; and all are scientific in that they are technically sophisticated and concerned with concrete empirical research.ContributorsRodney A. Brooks, Paul M. Churchland, Andy Clark, Daniel C. Dennett, Hubert L. Dreyfus, Jerry A. Fodor, Joseph Garon, John Haugeland, Marvin Minsky, Allen Newell, Zenon W. Pylyshyn, William Ramsey, Jay F. Rosenberg, David E. Rumelhart, John R. Searle, Herbert A. Simon, Paul Smolensky, Stephen Stich, A.M. Turing, Timothy van Gelder

    A bottle dryer may be a bottle dryer, but signed by Duchamp it is also one of the major works of 20th century art. Duchamp has been an enigma to art historians and a great source of inspiration to other artists. This study addresses the myth and reveals the compelling charisma of Marcel Duchamp. About the Series: Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Art series features:a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance a concise biography approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions

    Davis uncovers startling connections between such seemingly disparate topics as electricity and alchemy; online role-playing games and religious and occult practices; virtual reality and gnostic mythology; programming languages and Kabbalah. The final chapters address the apocalyptic dreams that haunt technology, providing vital historical context as well as new ways to think about a future defined by the mutant intermingling of mind and machine, nightmare and fantasy.

    It is these stories that have shaped Africa as we know it.

    The author rejects the notion that our thinking processes neutrally report on what is out there in an objective world. He explores the manner in which thought actively participates in forming our perceptions, our sense of meaning and our daily actions. He suggests that collective thought and knowledge have become so automated that we are in large part controlled by them, with a subsequent loss of authenticity, freedom and order.

    Wells to the press releases of NASA, we are awash in clich�d claims about high technology's ability to change the course of history. Now, in The Shock of the Old, David Edgerton offers a startling new and fresh way of thinking about the history of technology, radically revising our ideas about the interaction of technology and society in the past and in the present. He challenges us to view the history of technology in terms of what everyday people have actually used-and continue to use-rather than just sophisticated inventions. Indeed, many highly touted technologies, from the V-2 rocket to the Concorde jet, have been costly failures, while many mundane discoveries, like corrugated iron, become hugely important around the world. Edgerton reassesses the significance of such acclaimed inventions as the Pill and information technology, and underscores the continued importance of unheralded technology, debunking many notions about the implications of the information age. A provocative history, The Shock of the Old provides an entirely new way of looking historically at the relationship between invention and innovation.

    

    For students of museum, cultural and sociology studies, this will be an asset to their reading list.

    Only by breaking out of the limitations imposed by a computational model of mind can we grasp the special interaction through which mind both constitutes and is constituted by culture.

    Before this classic appeared, little was known of the way children think. In 1923, however, Jean Piaget, the most important developmental psychologist of the twentieth century, took the psychological world by storm with The Language and Thought of the Child. Applying for the first time the insights of social psychology and psychoanalysis to the observation of children, he uncovered the ways in which a child actively constructs his or her understanding of the world through language. The book has since been a source of inspiration and guidance to generations of parents and teachers. While its conclusions remain contentious to this very day, few can deny the huge debt we owe to this pioneering work in our continuing attempts to understand the minds of the child.

    Claiming Disability captures this moment in the first comprehensive examination of disability studies as a field of inquiry. Arguing that disability studies takes for its subject matter not simply the variations that exist in human behavior, appearance, functioning, sensory acuity, and cognitive processing, but the meaning we make of those variations, this work offers both a passionate challenge to status quo definitions of disability and a methodology for reexamining it.