Ignoring the boundaries of disciplines and schools and searching for novel fundamental ideas, theories, and practices, this international community integrates the full range of scientific inquiries that will help us to understand and survive on a complex planet. This volume collects essays from the past thirty years of research, in which contributors explain in clear and accessible language many of the deepest challenges and insights of complexity science. Explore the evolution of complex systems science with chapters from Nobel Laureates Murray Gell-Mann and Kenneth Arrow, as well as numerous pioneering complexity researchers, including John Holland, Brian Arthur, Robert May, Richard Lewontin, Jennifer Dunne, and Geoffrey West.

    From Amman to Beirut and Damascus, Deborah Amos follows the impact of one of the great migrations of modern times.The history of the Middle East tells us that one of the greatest problems of the last forty years has been that of a displaced population, angered by their inability to safely return home and resume ownership of their property--as they see it. Now, the pattern has been repeated. A new population of exiles, as large as the Palestinians, has been created.This particular displacement stirs up the historic conflict between Sunni and Shia. More significant even than the creation of colonial nation states a century ago, the alienation of the Sunni middle class has the capacity to cause resounding resentments across the region for generations to come.

    Why did prosperity explode in some nations between the 1820s and 1960s, creating not just unprecedented material wealth but flourishing--meaningful work, self-expression, and personal growth for more people than ever before? Phelps makes the case that the wellspring of this flourishing was modern values such as the desire to create, explore, and meet challenges. These values fueled the grassroots dynamism that was necessary for widespread, indigenous innovation. Most innovation wasn't driven by a few isolated visionaries like Henry Ford and Steve Jobs; rather, it was driven by millions of people empowered to think of, develop, and market innumerable new products and processes, and improvements to existing ones. Mass flourishing--a combination of material well-being and the good life in a broader sense--was created by this mass innovation.Yet indigenous innovation and flourishing weakened decades ago. In America, evidence indicates that innovation and job satisfaction have decreased since the late 1960s, while postwar Europe has never recaptured its former dynamism. The reason, Phelps argues, is that the modern values underlying the modern economy are under threat by a resurgence of traditional, corporatist values that put the community and state over the individual. The ultimate fate of modern values is now the most pressing question for the West: will Western nations recommit themselves to modernity, grassroots dynamism, indigenous innovation, and widespread personal fulfillment, or will we go on with a narrowed innovation that limits flourishing to a few?A book of immense practical and intellectual importance, Mass Flourishing is essential reading for anyone who cares about the sources of prosperity and the future of the West.

    Reprint. NYT.

    At the height of his career as a journalist, Tony Schwartz hit an unexpected wall.  Why did success suddenly feel so empty?  How could he add richer meaning to his everyday life?  What guides could he trust on the road to wisdom?During the next five years his search for answers took him from a meditation retreat in the mountains of Utah to a biofeedback laboratory in Kansas, from a peak-performance workshop at a tennis academy in Florida to a right-brain drawing course in Boston.  Blending the hunger of a seeker with a journalist's hard-headed inquiry, he discovered the best teachers and techniques for inner development--and identified the potential pitfalls and false gurus he met along the way.  What he found dramatically changed his life.  It may change yours as well.

    The latest addition to the acclaimed Oxford Political Theory series, Pettit's eloquent and compelling account opens withan examination of the traditional republican conception of freedom as non-domination, contrasting this with established negative and positive views of liberty.The first part of the book traces the rise and decline of this conception, displays its many attractions, and makes a case for why it should still be regarded as a central political ideal. The second part of the book looks at what the implementation of the ideal would require with regard tosubstantive policy-making, constitutional and democratic design, regulatory control and the relation between state and civil society. Prominent in this account is a novel concept of democracy, under which government is exposed to systematic contestation, and a vision of state-societal relationsfounded upon civility and trust.Pettit's powerful and insightful new work offers not only a unified, theoretical overview of the many strands of republican ideas, but also a new and sophisticated perspective on studies in related fields including the history of ideas, jurisprudence, and criminology.

    Edgar Hoover by a member of his personal staff—his former assistant, Paul Letersky—offers unprecedented, “clear-eyed and compelling” (Mark Olshaker, coauthor of Mindhunter) insight into an American legend.The 1960s and 1970s were arguably among America’s most turbulent post-Civil War decades. While the Vietnam War continued seemingly without end, protests and riots ravaged most cities, the Kennedys and MLK were assassinated, and corruption found its way to the highest levels of politics, culminating in Watergate. In 1965, at the beginning of the chaos, twenty-two-year-old Paul Letersky was assigned to assist the legendary FBI director J. Edgar Hoover who’d just turned seventy and had, by then, led the Bureau for an incredible forty-one years. Hoover was a rare and complex man who walked confidently among the most powerful. His personal privacy was more tightly guarded than the secret “files” he carefully collected—and that were so feared by politicians and celebrities. Through Letersky’s close working relationship with Hoover, and the trust and confidence he gained from Hoover’s most loyal senior assistant, Helen Gandy, Paul became one of the few able to enter the Director’s secretive—and sometimes perilous—world. Since Hoover’s death half a century ago, millions of words have been written about the man and hundreds of hours of TV dramas and A-list Hollywood films produced. But until now, there has been virtually no account from someone who, for a period of years, spent hours with the Director on a daily basis. Balanced, honest, and keenly observed, this “vivid, foibles-and-all portrait of the fabled scourge of gangsters, Klansmen, and communists” (The Wall Street Journal) sheds new light on one of the most powerful law enforcement figures in American history.

    He has run the toughest city in America with an independence and show of ego that first brought him great success—and eventually threatened it. Yet while Bloomberg is internationally known and admired, few people know the man behind the carefully crafted public persona.In Mike Bloomberg, Joyce Purnick explores Mr. Bloomberg's life from his childhood in the suburbs of Boston, to his rise on Wall Street and the creation of Bloomberg L.P., to his mayoral record and controversial gamble on a third term. Drawing on her deep knowledge of New York City politics, and interviews with Bloomberg's friends, family, colleagues, and the mayor himself, she creates a textured portrait of one of the more complex men of our era.

    Old certainties have been shoved aside by new entities such as WikiLeaks and Gawker, Politico and the Huffington Post. But where, in all this digital innovation, is the future of great journalism? Is there a difference between an opinion column and a blog, a reporter and a social networker? Who curates the news, or should it be streamed unimpeded by editorial influence? Expanding on Andrew Rossi’s "riveting" film (Slate), David Folkenflik has convened some of the smartest media savants to talk about the present and the future of news. Behind all the debate is the presence of the New York Times, and the inside story of its attempt to navigate the new world, embracing the immediacy of the web without straying from a commitment to accurate reporting and analysis that provides the paper with its own definition of what it is there to showcase: all the news that’s fit to print.

    This is a classic example of a PSYOP a psychological operation, a mission to change what you believe by feeding you information that is inaccurate, incomplete, or an outright lie. This PSYOP is one of many by entities who've been at war with God since the Garden of Eden. The Bible calls them gods. God Himself calls them gods. But we've been taught that they're imaginary, so we stumble around the battlefield completely unprepared to defend ourselves. In The Great Inception, you will learn: How we know the war between God and the gods is real *The importance of mountains and the holy mountain where the final battle will be fought *Why the Tower of Babel was not in Babylon and the real reason God stopped it *Where God led His heavenly army to battle the chief god of the Canaanites *The true identities of Satan and Apollyon, king of the demons in the abyss *The mystery behind what God meant when He told Abraham about the sin of the Amorites *Why the Red Sea crossing was a literal battle between God and Ba`al (and why a Canaanite god was in Egypt in the first place) *Connects Titans of Greek mythology, the Nephilim of Genesis 6 with people who fought Israel from the time of Moses to the present *Jesus did battle with the rebel gods *How the moon-god of ancient Babylon influences world events today *Where Armageddon will be fought (it s not where you think) *Possible end-times scenario that includes the most diabolical double-cross in history Combining research from scholars of ancient history, languages, archaeology, and Bible prophecy, Derek P. Gilbert shows that the Bible is anything but a boring list of thou-shalt-nots; it's an epic tale of a war between God and the rebel gods who want to usurp His throne before He can restore humanity to His holy mountain and the place we once had in the divine council.

    Williamson — the lively, literary firebrand from National Review who was too hot for the Atlantic Monthly — comes to bury democracy, not to praise it, in his irrepressibly readable new book sure to outrage and illuminate, The Smallest Minority: Independent Thinking in the Age of Mob Politics. Funny, profane, and profound, Williamson takes a flamethrower to social-media mobs, literal mobs, and the enforced conformity of identity politics in this thinking man's political book of the year.

    America’s demand for change in the 2008 election will cause another of our country’s periodic political makeovers. This realignment, like all others before it, will result from the coming of age of a new generation of young Americans—the Millennial Generation—and the full emergence of the Internet-based communications technology that this generation uses so well. Beginning in 2008, almost everything about American politics and government will transform—voting patterns, the fortunes of the two political parties, the issues that engage the nation, and our government and its public policy. Building on the seminal work of previous generational theorists,Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais demonstrate and describe, for the first time, the two types of realignments—“idealist” and “civic”—that have alternated with one another throughout the nation’s history.  Based on these patterns, Winograd and Hais predict that the next realignment will be very different from the last one that occurred in 1968. “Idealist” realignments, like the one put into motion forty years ago by the Baby Boomer Generation, produce, among other things, a political emphasis on divisive social issues and governmental gridlock. “Civic” realignments, like the one that is coming, and the one produced by the famous GI or “Greatest” Generation in the 1930s, by contrast, tend to produce societal unity, increased attention to and successful resolution of basic economic and foreign policy issues, and institution-building. The authors detail the contours and causes of the country’s five previous political makeovers, before delving deeply into the generational and technological trends that will shape the next.  The book’s final section forecasts the impact of the Millennial Makeover on the elections, issues, and public policies that will characterize America’s politics in the decades ahead. For additional information go to:Millennial Makeover website.

    But American governments legally suspended the free will of blacks for 150 years, and then denied blacks equal protection of the law for another 150 years. How did this happen in America, how were the Constitution and laws of the land twisted so as to institutionalize racism, and how did it or will it end? In a refreshingly candid book, Dred Scott's Revenge: A Legal History of Race and Freedom In America, Judge Andrew P. Napolitano takes a no-holds-barred look at the role of the government in the denial of freedoms based on race.

    . . An open-eyed analysis of influential technology companies’ ambitions of interest to investors, tech users, and media consumers." —Library JournalIn Silicon States, renowned futurist and celebrated international think-tank leader Lucie Greene offers an unparalleled look at the players, promises, and potential problems of Big Tech. Through interviews with corporate leaders, influential venture capitalists, scholars, journalists, activists, and more, Greene explores the tension inherent in Silicon Valley’s global influence. If these companies can invent a social network, how might they soon transform our political and health-care systems? If they can revolutionize the cell phone, what might they do for space travel, education, or the housing market? As Silicon Valley faces increased scrutiny over its mistreatment of women, cultural shortcomings, and its role in widespread Russian election interference, we are learning where its interests truly lie, and about the great power these companies wield over an unsuspecting citizenry.While the promise of technology is seductive, it is important to understand these corporations’ possible impacts on our political and socioeconomic institutions. Greene emphasizes that before we hand our future over to a rarefied group of companies, we should examine the world they might build and confront its benefits, prejudices, and inherent flaws. Silicon States pushes us to ask if, ultimately, this is the future we really want.

    'Foundations of Physiological Psychology' offers a briefer, 16 chapter introduction to the foundations of physiology, incorporating the latest studies and research in the rapidly changing fields of neuroscience and physiological psychology.