The Economist Book Of Vital World Statistics

A view of how the countries of the world compare on everything from economic strength to energy consumption, industrial output to inflation, export trends to education standards, freezer ownership to financial institutions, CCF emissions to the cost of living and meat production to murder rates.

Jihad vs. McWorld is a groundbreaking work, an elegant and illuminating analysis of the central conflict of our times: consumerist capitalism versus religious and tribal fundamentalism. These diametrically opposed but strangely intertwined forces are tearing apart--and bringing together--the world as we know it, undermining democracy and the nation-state on which it depends. On the one hand, consumer capitalism on the global level is rapidly dissolving the social and economic barriers between nations, transforming the world's diverse populations into a blandly uniform market. On the other hand, ethnic, religious, and racial hatreds are fragmenting the political landscape into smaller and smaller tribal units. Jihad vs. McWorld is the term that distinguished writer and political scientist Benjamin R. Barber has coined to describe the powerful and paradoxical interdependence of these forces. In this important new book, he explores the alarming repercussions of this potent dialectic for democracy. A work of persuasive originality and penetrating insight, Jihad vs. McWorld holds up a sharp, clear lens to the dangerous chaos of the post-Cold War world. Critics and political leaders have already heralded Benjamin R. Barber's work for its bold vision and moral courage. Jihad vs. McWorld is an essential text for anyone who wants to understand our troubled present and the crisis threatening our future.

A challenging yet readily accessible introduction to current global change, which looks (inter alia) at: the future of the state; the environment; war and global rivalries; international political economy; international law and the UN.

Robert Clark delves into 100 millennia of human history to create a unified and consistent explanation for humankind's inner need to spread itself across the globe. He examines key events from different eras, such as the voyages of the Chinese treasure fleet, the shaping of the Aztec's trade system in MesoAmerica, the role of steam-powered transport in the supply of an English city, the rise of the gas-powered engine, and the digitization of information in the computer age, melding them together to form a framework for understanding the process of globalization.Drawing on a variety of academic disciplines including the physical sciences, biology, anthropology, geography, economics, political science, sociology, and demography, Clark reveals the spread of humans and their cultures to be part of an ongoing struggle to supply the energy needs of an increasingly large and complex society. ?Entropy? and ?thermodynamics,? terms often ignored or misunderstood by social science students, clearly frame a fascinating vision of humans' inherent tendency toward a globalized world.Although human expansion has drawn increasing attention in the last several decades, as this tumultuous century has progressed, Clark shows that the process of globalization is not a recent concept. From the very roots of the species, humankind has been driven by a range of internal and external factors to expand in order to survive the increasing complexity of human civilization.

Discover the world records that define our history and jump headfirst into the past using scientific data that reveals accurate and insightful answers to life’s biggest questions. What was history's biggest empire? Or the tallest building of the ancient world? What was the plumbing like in medieval Byzantium? The average wage in the Mughal Empire? Where did scientific writing first emerge? What was the bloodiest ever ritual human sacrifice? ​ We are used to thinking about history in terms of stories. Yet we understand our own world through data: cast arrays of statistics that reveal the workings of our societies. In Figuring Out the Past, radical historians Peter Turchin and Dan Hoyer dive into the numbers that reveal the true shape of the past, drawing on their own Seshat project, a staggeringly ambitious attempt to log every data point that can be gathered for every society that has ever existed. This book does more than tell the story of humanity: it shows you the big picture, by the numbers.

The European Population, 1850-1945 is the first volume of two on demographics. The second volume will appear as part of the Societies of Europe series in 2003 and will cover changes until the year 2000. The European Population, 1850-1945 is a comparative and historical data handbook and accompanying CD-ROM presenting series data on demographic developments, population and household structures for the countries of Western and Central Europe. All major fields of demographic change are covered: fertility, mortality, marriage, and divorce. Population figures are given for each population census by sex, civil status and age. Major demographic developments within the family are described providing a commentary on the main population structures and trends in Europe since the 19th century.