How The Past Can Improve Our Future

At a time when we are reexamining our values, reeling from the pace of change, witnessing the clash between good instincts and "pragmatism," dealing with the angst of a new millennium, Neil Postman, one of our most distinguished observers of contemporary society, provides for us a source of guidance and inspiration. In Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth Century he revisits the Enlightenment, that great flowering of ideas that provided a humane direction for the future -- ideas that formed our nation and that we would do well to embrace anew. He turns our attention to Goethe, Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Kant, Edward Gibbon, Adam Smith, Thomas Paine, Jefferson, and Franklin, and to their then-radical thinking about inductive science, religious and political freedom, popular education, rational commerce, the nation-state, progress, and happiness. Postman calls for a future connected to traditions that provide sane authority and meaningful purpose -- as opposed to an overreliance on technology and an increasing disregard for the lessons of history. And he argues passionately for specific new guidelines in the education of our children, with renewed emphasis on developing the intellect as successfully as we are developing a computer-driven world. Witty, provocative, and brilliantly reasoned, Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth Century is Neil Postman's most radical, and most commonsensical, book yet.

'An endlessly fascinating tour of the many different factors influencing our decision-making and reasoning' David Robson, author of The Expectation Effect 'An eye-opening and engaging richness of information that gives us a detailed insight into the strengths and weaknesses of human behaviour' Melissa Hogenboom, author of The Motherhood Complex Do emotions really cloud your thinking? Are habits holding you back? Is AI manipulating your mind? Does IQ help you think better? Every one of our thoughts, actions, moods and decisions is shaped by a whole array of factors, most of which we don't pay any attention to. From culture, time and language to genetics, technology and the microorganisms living inside us - even our own unconscious routines and habits - it's clear that we aren't always in the driving seat. The good news is that by better understanding the external and internal forces at work, we can minimise their impact on our lives. Drawing on rigorous interdisciplinary research, leading science journalists Miriam Frankel and Matt Warren bring us extraordinary stories and studies that open our eyes to the inner workings of the mind, challenge our thought processes and improve our decision-making. Most of all, Are You Thinking Clearly? is a rallying cry to know yourself, think broadly, think boldly - and to listen. 'Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand why their beliefs, mistakes, emotions and intuitions are the way they are' Richard Gray, BBC Future

Greece and the Balkans explores the cultural relationships between Greece and other Balkan countries in the domains of language, literature, thought, translation, and music, and examines issues of identity and perception among the Balkan peoples themselves. The essays bring together scholars from across a range of disciplines: historians, anthropologists, linguists and musicologists with specialists on literature, translation, the history of ideas and religion. By raising issues of cultural hybridity, and nationalist or pre-nationalist interpretations of culture and history it lays claim to a place in the context of studies on nationalism and post-colonialism. Greece and the Balkans also contributes to a recognition of the Balkans as a site, like some postcolonial ones, where identities have become fused, orientalism and eurocentrism blurred and where religion and modernity clashed and co-existed. By approaching cultural encounters between Greece and the Balkans from a fresh and informed perspective, it makes a substantial contribution to the study of a rather neglected aspect in the history of a region which has suffered in the past from narrow-minded, nationalistic arguments.

How can we overcome crises and shape our common future? Since the beginning of the Corona pandemic, we have all been put to an immense test. This shows how humanity can successfully and constructively deal with such situations and make the best of them. And we learn that the future is not something that happens to us, but that we can actively and constructively shape it. The basic prerequisite for this is an attitude of openness, mutual helpfulness and hope. This non-fiction book vividly reports on the currently prevailing images of the future and the common longings as well as on people's capacity for hope and action. It reveals the power of desirable images of the future and of a collective hope as the opposite of general helplessness or of blind and naïve optimism. The central statements of this book are based on the experiences of thousands of people in more than ten countries who participated in the scientific study of the Hope Barometer in 2019 and 2020. In a unique way, this combines lived practice with the latest findings of social science futurology, positive psychology and pragmatic philosophy. Target groups: This book is for anyone who wants to look to the future with hope. It offers concrete answers to key questions and shows how crises can be overcome while shaping a better future for individuals and society as a whole. About the author: Dr. Andreas M. Krafft teaches at the University of St. Gallen and at the Free University of Berlin. As co-president of swissfuture, the Swiss Association for Futures Research, and as a board member of the Swiss Society for Positive Psychology, he leads the international research network of the Hope Barometer.

"The real fault line in American politics is not between liberals and conservatives.... It is, rather, in how we orient ourselves to the generations to come who will bear the consequences, for better and for worse, of our actions." So writes David Orr in Down to the Wire, a sober and eloquent assessment of climate destabilization and an urgent call to action. Orr describes how political negligence, an economy based on the insatiable consumption of trivial goods, and a disdain for the well-being of future generations have brought us to the tipping point that biologist Edward O. Wilson calls "the bottleneck." Due to our refusal to live within natural limits, we now face a long emergency of rising temperatures, rising sea-levels, and a host of other related problems that will increasingly undermine human civilization. Climate destabilization to which we are already committed will change everything, and to those betting on quick technological fixes or minor adjustments to the way we live now, Down to the Wire is a major wake-up call. But this is not a doomsday book. Orr offers a wide range of pragmatic, far-reaching proposals--some of which have already been adopted by the Obama administration--for how we might reconnect public policy with rigorous science, bring our economy into alignment with ecological realities, and begin to regard ourselves as planetary trustees for future generations. He offers inspiring real-life examples of people already responding to the major threat to our future. An exacting analysis of where we are in terms of climate change, how we got here, and what we must now do, Down to the Wire is essential reading for those wanting to join in the Great Work of our generation.

Are you an Overthinker? Too clever for your own good? Unable to make a decision even after over analysing data in enormous spreadsheets? Feeling stuck and anxious imagining countless what-if scenarios? Act Before You overThink, to free your mind, skyrocket your productivity and improve your well-being. Based on more than 365 interviews with overthinkers, Lison Mage uncovers and debunks the three myths of overthinking that hold you back from reaching your full potential, in your career and relationships. Backing up her findings with psychological studies and behavioural sciences, Act Before You overThink offers practical strategies and tools addressing the different types of overthinking, to break free from stress, self-doubt and perfectionism. You will learn how to: Gain control over your deepest fears and show up as your most empowered self, Balance thinking and doing, setting you on a path to greater joy and purpose, Build confidence and decisiveness when facing complex choices Don’t wait any longer to get out of your own way! It’s time to liberate your mind, improve your decisions, and gift the world your best self.

At war for sixty years, eighteenth-century Britain and France experienced demographic, social, and economic exchanges despite their imperial rivalry. Paradoxically, this rivalry spurred their participation in scientific and industrial developments. Their shared interest in standards of living and cultural practices was fuelled by migration and philosophical exchanges that reciprocally transmitted the values of urban geography, medicine, teaching, and the industrial and fine arts. In Imperial Paradoxes Robert Merrett compares British and French literature on those topics. He explains how food, wine, fashion, and tourism were channels of interdisciplinary relations and shows why authors in both nations turned the notion of empire from commercial and military expansion into a metaphor for exploring self-knowledge and pleasure. Although cognitive science has come to the fore only in the past two generations, eighteenth-century writers tested problems in the dualist and faculty psychology of Western rationalism. Themes of embodiment and embodied thought drawn from recent theorists are applied throughout this book, along with dialectics and models of the senses operating together. Imperial Paradoxes avoids the limitations of strict chronology, weaving together multiple narratives for a more complete picture. Applying major works in the fields of cognitive science, cognitive psychology, and pedagogical theory to prose, poetry, and drama from the eighteenth century, Merrett shows how attention to eating, drinking, dressing, and travelling gives important insights into individual literary works and literary history.