Great Delusion

Endless economic growth rests on a belief in the limitless abundance of the natural world. But when did people begin to believe that societies should—even that they must—expand in wealth indefinitely? In The Great Delusion, the historian and storyteller Steven Stoll weaves past and present together through the life of a strange and brooding nineteenth-century German engineer and technological utopian named John Adolphus Etzler, who pursued universal wealth from the inexhaustible forces of nature: wind, water, and sunlight. The Great Delusion neatly demonstrates that Etzler's fantasy has become our reality and that we continue to live by some of the same economic assumptions that he embraced. Like Etzler, we assume that the transfer of matter from environments into the economy is not bounded by any condition of those environments and that energy for powering our cars and iPods will always exist. Like Etzler, we think of growth as progress, a turn in the meaning of that word that dates to the moment when a soaring productive capacity fused with older ideas about human destiny. The result is economic growth as we know it, not as measured by the gross domestic product but as the expectation that our society depends on continued physical expansion in order to survive.

A major theoretical statement by a distinguished political scholar explains why a policy of liberal hegemony is doomed to fail It is widely believed in the West that the United States should spread liberal democracy across the world, foster an open international economy, and build international institutions. The policy of remaking the world in America's image is supposed to protect human rights, promote peace, and make the world safe for democracy. But this is not what has happened. Instead, the United States has become a highly militarized state fighting wars that undermine peace, harm human rights, and threaten liberal values at home. In this major statement, the renowned international-relations scholar John Mearsheimer argues that liberal hegemony--the foreign policy pursued by the United States since the Cold War ended--is doomed to fail. It makes far more sense, he maintains, for Washington to adopt a more restrained foreign policy based on a sound understanding of how nationalism and realism constrain great powers abroad. The Great Delusion is a lucid and compelling work of the first importance for scholars, policymakers, and everyone interested in the future of American foreign policy.

Something has been going badly wrong in America. But what is really happening, why, and what does it mean? Could the US itself now be the greatest threat to the future of the West? What does Joe Biden need to do to get America back on track? In this fascinating account of America today, Patrick Davies, former British Deputy Ambassador to the US, sets out to understand how America, blinded by myths of its own exceptionalism, has failed to tackle serious political, social and economic problems which are exacerbating divisions in its society, poisoning its politics and ultimately fuelling America’s decline. The Great American Delusion asks whether, with global power shifting eastwards, the US can save itself and, with it, the Western world before it’s too late. Patrick Davies worked alongside the Obama and Trump White Houses for five years. He has more than 30 years’ experience of America, its people and its politics.

John Milors fascinating work is based on the Bible telling of a powerful deception that will overshadow the Earth, a deception so intense that only those with a genuine love relationship with God will be able to endure it. Events from the authors own life, including a series of supernatural encounters, have revealed some key components of this strong delusion, which he believes will initiate a grand display of open contact with extraterrestrials. It will also involve the global rise of Islam. Its no mistake that the faiths of four billion people (Christians and Muslims) include two versions of prophetic visions that are nearly identical, yet they represent opposite sides of a global conflict that will end in the Battle of Armageddon. This book delves into myriad topics, including: Encounters with angels, otherworldly beings, and Jesus Christ; Encounters with demons, ghosts, nephilim, jinns, and mythical creatures; The Bibles explanation of ET good guys and bad guys; The Quran and Hadiths ET connection: Was Muhammad abducted as a boy, and operated on? Was the angel that abducted Muhammad really Gabriel? Were the mysterious jinns of Islam actually surviving nephilim? Is the Quran and Hadiths ideology specifically tailored for the Antichrist? These and other topics harken to ancient times and peer into a not-too-distant future, when the author believes we will see a return to the days of Noah, as prophesied by Jesus.

A Behavioral Scientist Notable Book of 2021 A Next Big Idea Club Best Nonfiction of 2021 From the New York Times best-selling author and host of Hidden Brain comes a thought-provoking look at the role of self-deception in human flourishing. Self-deception does terrible harm to us, to our communities, and to the planet. But if it is so bad for us, why is it ubiquitous? In Useful Delusions, Shankar Vedantam and Bill Mesler argue that, paradoxically, self-deception can also play a vital role in our success and well-being. The lies we tell ourselves sustain our daily interactions with friends, lovers, and coworkers. They can explain why some people live longer than others, why some couples remain in love and others don’t, why some nations hold together while others splinter. Filled with powerful personal stories and drawing on new insights in psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy, Useful Delusions offers a fascinating tour of what it really means to be human.

A renowned scholar argues that liberal hegemony—the policy America has pursued since the Cold War ended—is doomed to fail Named a Financial Times Best Book of 2018 “Idealists as well as realists need to read this systematic tour de force.”—Robert D. Kaplan, author of The Return of Marco Polo’s World It is widely believed in the West that the United States should spread liberal democracy across the world, foster an open international economy, and build international institutions. The policy of remaking the world in America’s image is supposed to protect human rights, promote peace, and make the world safe for democracy. But this is not what has happened. Instead, the United States has become a highly militarized state fighting wars that undermine peace, harm human rights, and threaten liberal values at home. In this major statement, the renowned international-relations scholar John Mearsheimer argues that liberal hegemony—the foreign policy pursued by the United States since the Cold War ended—is doomed to fail. It makes far more sense, he maintains, for Washington to adopt a more restrained foreign policy based on a sound understanding of how nationalism and realism constrain great powers abroad. The Great Delusion is a lucid and compelling work of the first importance for scholars, policymakers, and everyone interested in the future of American foreign policy.

The Great Delusion explores the gap that persists between the Zionist ambition to implement its project among the neighboring Arab world peacefully, achieving recognition and acceptance amicably, and the reality of a century-old permanent state of war and hostility towards Jews, Zionism, and Israel, which has been cultivated among the Arab populace. In recent decades, and especially since President Donald Trump’s administration, American mediation has helped break that wall of enmity, at least on the governmental level. But on emotional and popular levels, the long years of anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli propaganda seem much more difficult to eradicate. This volume discusses the frustration on the part of Israel to attain a permanent peace with the Arab world.

"Vaccination: The Story of a Great Delusion" is the 15th book in the "History of Vaccination" series. The 25 books in the “History of Vaccination” series shed light on the history of vaccines through the eyes of doctors, scientists, and historical data. They answer the pressing question, “Are vaccines safe and effective?” The 25 books in the “History of Vaccination” series are: 1) The Poisoned Needle: Suppressed Facts About Vaccination Eleanor McBean 1957 2) A Century of Vaccination and What It Teaches William Scott Tebb, MA, MD, DPH 1898 3) Vaccination: Proved Useless and Dangerous From 45 Years of Registration Statistics Alfred R. Wallace, LLD DUBL., DCL OXON., FRS, etc. 1885 4) Vaccination: Its Fallacies and Evils Robert A. Gunn, MD 1882 5) Compulsory Vaccination: The Crime Against the School Child Chas. M. (Charles Michael) Higgins 1915 6) The Truth about Vaccination and Immunization Lily Loat, secretary of the National Anti-Vaccination League of London 1951 7) Leicester: Sanitation versus Vaccination Its Vital Statistics Compared with Those of Other Towns, the Army, Navy, Japan, and England and Wales By J.T. Biggs, J.P. 1912 8) The Vaccination Question Arthur Wollaston Hutton, MA 1895 9) Vaccination a Delusion: Its Penal Enforcement a Crime Alfred Russel Wallace, LLD DUBL., DCL OXON., FRS, etc. 1898 10) Vaccination a Curse and Menace to Personal Liberty With Statistics Showing Its Dangers and Criminality James Martin Peebles, MD, MA, PhD Tenth Edition, 1913 11) Dr. C.G.G. Nittinger’s Evils of Vaccination C. Charles Schieferdecker, MD 1856 12) The Vaccination Question in the Light of Modern Experience An Appeal for Reconsideration C. Killick Millard, M.D., D.Sc. 1914 13) Jenner and Vaccination: A Strange Chapter of Medical History Charles Creighton, MD 1889 14) The Horrors of Vaccination: Exposed and Illustrated Charles M. Higgins 1919 15) Vaccination: The Story of a Great Delusion William White 1885 16) Vital Statistics in the United States, 1940-1960 Robert D. Grove, Alice M. Hetzel US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare 1968 17) The Mandatory Vaccination Plan National Immunization Policy Council 1977 18) The Fraud of Vaccination Walter Hadwen, JP., MD, LRCP., MRCS, LSA From "Truth," January 3, 1923 19) Vaccination a Curse C.W. Amerige, MD 1895 20) Vaccination a Medical Fallacy Alexander Wilder, MD 1879 21) The Dream & Lie of Louis Pasteur Originally Pasteur: Plagiarist, Imposter R.B. Pearson 1942 22) The Vaccination Problem Joseph Swan 1936 23) The Fallacy of Vaccination John Pitcairn, President of the Anti-Vaccination League of America 1911 24) The Case Against Vaccination Walter Hadwen, JP, MD, LRCP, MRCS, LSA 1896 25) A Catalogue of Anti-Vaccination Literature The London Society for the Abolition of Compulsory Vaccination 114 Victoria Street, Westminster 1882, 2018 Never Vaccinate Your Child Lessons from Parents, Doctors, Scientists, Media, and HISTORY Trung Nguyen June 2018