Why Scams are Here to Stay: Understanding Political Corruption in India


N. Ram - 2017
    Far from declining and fading away, as predicted, with deregulation and liberalization, it has increased exponentially in the twenty-first century at all levels—central, state, and local. It can be seen today as a normal, not a pathological, condition within the political economy. In several states, corruption involving politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen, and in some cases, criminal elements has graduated to a new qualitative stage, transforming itself into a well-oiled, rule- and rate-bound and self-propelled system of collecting and sharing the illicit spoils of office. In this seminal book, N. Ram, who led the investigation into the Bofors grand corruption scandal, attempts to get a measure of ‘political corruption’ in contemporary India, and explains why it has become an intractable problem.

The Profits of Religion


Upton Sinclair - 1917
    More than just a tirade against religion, this is the work of an impassioned, idealistic socialist writing at the beginning of the First World War, when the notion of an international socialist revolution still seemed like a very real possibility to many of the left-leaning thinkers of the day. Sinclair's chief concern is social justice and his aim is to enlighten common people by training his critical intelligence like a sharpshooter on the many hypocrisies of established religion, which stand in the way of achieving a just society for all. More than anything he is particularly incensed by the collusion of religion with the power structure of capitalism in exploiting the poor to increase its own wealth while ignoring the obvious material needs of the less fortunate. In the end Sinclair places his faith in a "new religion" based on the known facts of human nature and on the largely untapped potential of human beings to solve their own problems through reason and science.This work, written before Sinclair and others on the American left became disillusioned with Stalin's Soviet-style socialism, offers an interesting glimpse into the intellectual currents prevalent on the left at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Why We Should Go Vegan


Magnus Vinding - 2014
    This conclusion is reached through a broad examination of the consequences of our not being vegan – both in relation to human health, environmental pollution, the risk of the spread of diseases, and in relation to the beings we exploit and kill. On all these levels the conclusion is clear: We have no good reason to not go vegan, while we have many good reasons to stop our practice of raising, killing and eating non-human animals and things from them. The bottom line: We have a strong ethical obligation to go vegan."Magnus Vinding makes a compelling case for ending the abuse of other sentient beings. What will we tell our grandchildren? ("But I liked the taste?")"— David Pearce, founder of BLTC Research and co-founder of Humanity+, author of The Hedonistic Imperative."An excellent concise statement of the arguments for going vegan."— Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, author of The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty and Animal Liberation.

A Prayer That Never Fails: 7 Spiritual Practices to Catapult You to Happiness


Sadhvi Vrinda Om - 2019
    When I was initiated into sannyasa, I thought I had become a different person forever. The reality was far from it. The only solace: I was not the only one. Having met numerous seekers who visit our ashram to meet My Guru, Om Swami, I realized that most of them had similar woes. My failures were everyday failures for others just as much. They too were dancing to the fickle tunes of their unanchored and untamed minds. But there was hope. Simple instructions from the ingenious mind of My master rescued me. It is his infallible wisdom that I have tried to capture in this book. I hope the lessons in these pages bring you as much peace and clarity as they brought me.

Cosmology: Philosophy & Physics


alexis karpouzos - 2015
    Cosmic Universe and Human History, microcosm and macrocosm, inorganic and living matter coexist and form a unique unity manifested in multiple forms. The Physical and the Mental constitute the form and the content of the World. The world does not consist of subjects and objects, the “subject” and the “object” are metaphysical abstractions of the single and indivisible Wholeness. Man’s finite knowledge separates the Whole into parts and studies fragmentarily the beings. The Wholeness is manifested in multiple forms and each form encapsulates the Wholeness. The rational explanation of the excerpts and the intuitive apprehension of the Wholeness are required to combine and create the open thought and the holistic knowledge. This means that the measurement should be defined by the ''measure'', but the responsibility for determining the ''measure'' depends on the man. This requires that man overcomes the anthropocentric arrogance and the narcissistic selfishness and he joins the Cosmic World in a friendly and creative manner.

"Dirty Northern Bastards!" And Other Tales from the Terraces: The Story of Britain's Football Chants


Tim Marshall - 2014
    You can't fully understand one without the other; and if you haven't got a sense of humour it's not worth even trying."My name's Tim Marshall and it's been a week since my last match. I support a football club. That's not just five words; it' s a life sentence."Why do so many of us attend football grounds, rain or shine, week in week out, to bellow at our fellow countrymen?Because we love it.Football chants are the grassroots of the game, from the Premier League all the way down to the Conference and beyond. They're funny. And they're sharp. And in the UK they run very deep.In this witty and insightful account, Tim Marshall tells the story of British football through the songs and chants that give it meaning.This is a book about the fans, written for the fans, with all the flair and banter that bring the beautiful game to life. No other sport has a culture quite like it.Comes with a special weblink so you can hear the chants online at FanChants.com

Evil: A Primer: A History of a Bad Idea from Beelzebub to Bin Laden


William Hart - 2004
    Bush, September 11th 2001 Evil! Like a zombie back from the grave, it has arisen--a word many of us had long ago relegated to Sunday sermons, video games and horror flicks. But of course, evil is not old fashioned, nor has it ever gone away, and may be as robust as ever. So what is evil? Does it exist? Veteran journalist Bill Hart tries to drag evil out of the darkness and hold it up to the light. In doing so, he has written a very readable account of 5,000 years of philosophy, theology and human history as it reflects and refines its notion of evil. More than an explanation of why bad things happen, "Evil: A Primer" is a tour through the nether regions in search of what we really know.

All The Evil of This World


Jared Dillian - 2016
    On March 2nd, 2000, the technology company 3Com spun off its insanely profitable hand-held computer subsidiary, Palm. It was one of the most fascinatingly high profile and complex and bungled trades in history, but All The Evil Of This World isn't about the millions and millions of dollars that instantly came into play, it's about seven separate voices from seven separate individuals (an ambitious low-level clerk fresh out of school, a drug-addicted, party-throwing broker with bad taste and gross amounts of money, a seemingly infallible hedge fund manager tortured by his own good luck, to name a few) and the 3Com/Palm trade is what weaves their stories together. They all collide into it and out of it, and it sometimes unites them, implodes them, saves them, or destroys them.This book is not for the faint of heart--these characters are just as troubled and intense and volatile as their surroundings, and the writing pulls not a single punch--but it's an unrelenting examination into a cast of characters that we rarely examine fairly or patiently, and who we often find it easy to dehumanize. The people who inhabit this world aren't cartoon heroes or villains--as it turns out, people who happen to handle large amounts of money for a living--are just people, with shortcomings, just like us.

Encounters and Dialogues with Martin Heidegger, 1929-1976


Heinrich Wiegand Petzet - 1993
    This account of Heidegger's personal relations, originally published in German and extensively corrected by the author for this translation, enlarges our understanding of a complex figure.A well-known art historian and an intimate friend of Heidegger's, Heinrich Wiegand Petzet provides a rich portrait of Heidegger that is part memoir, part biography, and part cultural history. By recounting chronologically a series of encounters between the two friends from their meeting in 1929 until the philosopher's death in 1976, as well as between Heidegger and other contemporaries, Petzet reveals not only new aspects of Heidegger's thought and attitudes toward the historical and intellectual events of his time but also the greater cultural and social context in which he articulated his thought.

Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder, and the Cold War in the Caribbean


Alex von Tunzelmann - 2011
    The men responsible included, from Cuba, the charismatic Fidel Castro, and his mysterious brother Raúl; from Argentina, the ideologue Che Guevara; from the Dominican Republic, the capricious psychopath Rafael Trujillo; and from Haiti, François "Papa Doc" Duvalier, a buttoned-down doctor with interests in Vodou, embezzlement and torture.Alex von Tunzelmann's brilliant narrative follows these five rivals and accomplices from the beginning of the Cold War to its end, each with a separate vision for his tropical paradise, and each in search of power and adventure as the United States and the USSR acted out the world's tensions in their island nations. The superpowers thought they could use Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic as puppets, but what neither bargained on was that their puppets would come to life. Red Heat is an intimate account of the strong-willed men who, armed with little but words and ruthlessness, took on the most powerful nations on earth.

Great Books: My Adventures with Homer, Rousseau, Woolf, and Other Indestructible Writers of the Western World


David Denby - 1996
    He chronicles his journey in the New York Times bestseller Great Books: My Adventures with Homer, Rousseau, Woolf, and Other Indestructible Writers of the Western World. What brought Denby back to his alma mater was not a sense of nostalgia, but the current academic debate surrounding Western literature. This culture war centers on the left's denunciation of "dead white European males" as oppressive and exclusionary and the right's reverence of the Western canon as the foundation of traditional values and patriotism. Like many of the extremists engaged in the debate, Denby found his memories of these works faded and forgotten. "I possessed information without knowledge, opinions without principles, instincts without beliefs.... And I wanted to add my words to the debate from the ground up, beginning and ending in literature, never leaving the books themselves." Thus Denby returns to Columbia for the two "great books" courses: Literature Humanities and Contemporary Civilization. During his yearlong education he explores the difficulties of going back to reading seriously; analyzes today's college students; observes the teaching styles of four professors; and enters into a period of self-discovery as he learns to deal with life as a middle-aged student, father, and husband. Along the way he gains a new appreciation of writers such as Homer, Boccaccio, Austen, Nietzsche, Conrad, Machiavelli, Marx, and Woolf. He walks away from his experiences believing deeply that students today, more than ever, need this type of humanistic education and that both sides of the culture war are simplifying the Western tradition.

How to Borrow Books from a Public Library for Free Using your Kindle E-reader and Kindle Fire: Step-by-Step Guide with Screenshots on How to Borrow Kindle ... and Audio Books from Amazon Through Ove


Alexa Danvers - 2018
     You’re about to discover how to borrow, read and return books from your Local library for Free. You don't need to buy every book that you want to read. Here Is A Preview Of What You'll Learn... What You Need to Get Started How to Find and Check Out Ebooks At Your Local Library via the Website How to Find and Check Out Ebooks At Your Local Library Using the Overdrive App How to Return a Library Book How to Delete Borrowed Books That Expired Already and Still Showing On Your Device or Reading Applications Much, much more! Download your copy today!

Questions to a Zen Master: Political and Spiritual Answers from the Great Japanese Master


Taisen Deshimaru - 1985
    True religion is the highest Way, the absolute Way: zazen."Here, Deshimaru, the author of True Zen, offers practical suggestions for developing unitary mind-body consciousness through the principles of zazen (translated literally as "seated meditation"). Advice is given on posture, breathing, and concentration, and concepts such as karma and satori are clearly explained.

Teaching Backwards


Andy Griffith - 2014
    It ensures that learners consistently make great progress over time, and offers a practical, hands-on manual for teachers to further develop their attitudes, skills and habits of excellence both for themselves and for their learners.

The Money Men: Capitalism, Democracy, and the Hundred Years' War Over the American Dollar


H.W. Brands - 2006
    Acclaimed historian H. W. Brands brings them back to life: J. P. Morgan, who stabilized a foundering U.S. Treasury in 1907; Alexander Hamilton, who founded the first national bank, and Nicholas Biddle, under whose directorship it failed; Jay Cooke, who helped to finance the Union war effort through his then-innovative strategy of selling bonds to ordinary Americans; and Jay Gould, who tried to corner the market on gold in 1869 and as a result brought about Black Friday and fled for his life.