By the canons of orthodox social science, countries like India are not supposed to have
an environmental consciousness. They are, as it were, 'too poor to be green'. In this
deeply researched book, Ramachandra Guha challenges this narrative by revealing a
virtually unknown prehistory of the global movement set far outside Europe or America.
Long before the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and well before climate
change gained currency as a term, ten remarkable individuals wrote with deep insight
about the dangers of environmental abuse from within an Indian context. In strikingly
contemporary language, Rabindranath Tagore, Radhakamal Mukerjee, J.C. Kumarappa,
Patrick Geddes, Albert and Gabrielle Howard, Mira, Verrier Elwin, K.M. Munshi and M.
Krishnan wrote about the forest and the wild, soil and water, urbanization and
industrialization. Positing the idea of what Guha calls 'livelihood environmentalism' in
contrast to the 'full-stomach environmentalism' of the affluent world, these writers,
activists and scientists played a pioneering role in shaping global conversations about
humanity's relationship with nature.
Spanning more than a century of Indian history and decidedly transnational in
reference, Speaking with Nature offers rich resources for considering the threat of
climate change today.
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India’s maharajahs have traditionally been cast as petty despots, consumed by lust and luxury. The British circulated the idea that brown royalty needed ‘enlightened’ white hands to guide it, and many Indians, too, bought into the stereotype. In this brilliant book, Manu S. Pillai disputes this view. Tracking the travels of the painter Ravi Varma through five princely states, he uncovers a picture far removed from this cliché. We meet maharajahs obsessed with industrialization and rulers who funded nationalists. Good governance became a spectacularly subversive act, by which maharajahs refuted claims that Indians could not rule themselves. By refocusing attention on princely India, False Allies reminds us that the maharajahs were serious political actors – essential to knowing modern India.
In September 1924, John Marshall, Director General of the Archaeological Society of India, informed the world about the existence of the Indus (Harappan) civilization: as ancient as Mesopotamia, as grand as ancient Egypt. Was this civilization part of the Bronze Age Trading Network? How did it contribute to
later Vedic and Tantrik thought? Did the Harappans follow monastic ideals that later contributed to Buddhism and Jainism? Was their script like today's emojis, conveying ideas? Why are there images of rivalry, but no images of war and no images of romance either to be found at the Harappan sites? Why did the cities disappear while the villages continued to flourish? An eventful century later, Devdutt Pattanaik uses the lens of mythology to reflect on this most mysterious of 'peaceful' civilizations, now spread across geographies in India and Pakistan. With over 500 illustrations, he draws attention to how much Harappan memory persists in our lives today.
Bridges the gap between AI and neuroscience by telling the story of how the brain came to be.
'I found this book amazing' Daniel Kahneman, Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics and bestselling author of Thinking Fast & Slow The entirety of the human brain’s 4-billion-year story can be summarised as the culmination of five evolutionary breakthroughs, starting from the very first brains, all the way to the modern human brains. Each breakthrough emerged from new sets of brain modifications, and equipped animals with a new suite of intellectual faculties.
These five breakthroughs are the organising map to this book, and they make up our itinerary for our adventure back in time. Each breakthrough also has fascinating corollaries to breakthroughs in AI. Indeed, there will be plenty of such surprises along the way. For instance: the innovation that enabled
AI to beat humans in the game of Go – temporal difference reinforcement learning – was an innovation discovered by our fish ancestors over 500 million years ago. The solutions to many of the current mysteries in AI – such as ‘common sense’ – can be found in the tiny brain of a mouse. Where do emotions come from? Research suggests that they may have arisen simply as a solution to navigation in ancient worm brains. Unravelling this evolutionary story will reveal the hidden features of human intelligence and with them, just how your mind came to be.
A sweeping narrative ranging from the unsettled early American frontier and the battlefields of the Revolution to the history-making clashes within Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, Bret Baier’s To Rescue the Constitution dramatically illuminates the life of George Washington, the Founder who did more than perhaps any other individual to secure the future of the United States.
George Washington rescued the nation three times: first by leading the Continental Army to victory in the Revolutionary War, second by presiding over the Constitutional Convention that set the blueprint for the United States and ushering the Constitution through a fractious ratification process, and third by leading the nation as its first president. There is no doubt that the struggling new nation needed to be rescued—and that Washington was the only American who could bring them together.
After the victorious War of Independence, when a spirit of unity and patriotism might have been expected, instead the nation fractured. The states were no more than a loosely knit and contentious confederation, with no strong central union. It was an urgent matter that led to the calling of a Constitutional Convention to meet in Philadelphia during the summer of 1787.
Setting aside his plan to retire to Mount Vernon, Washington agreed to be a delegate at Philadelphia. There he was unanimously elected president of the convention. After successfully bringing the Constitution into being, Washington then sacrificed any hope of returning to private life by accepting the unanimous election to be the nation’s first president. Washington was not known for brilliant oratory or prose, but his quiet, steady leadership gave life to the Constitution by showing how it should be enacted.
In this vivid and moving portrait of America’s early struggles, Baier captures the critical moments when Washington’s leadership brought the nation from the brink of collapse. Baier exposes an early America that is grittier and far more divided than is often portrayed—one we can see reflected in today’s conflicts.
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A long-time Austinite and journalist’s exploration of the profound movements that have shaped Austin, Texas—charting the shifts within its vibrant music scene, the impact of rapid urbanization, and the challenges of gentrification—ultimately questioning what this city’s transformation signals for American urban identity.
Austin isn’t what it used to be.
This is a common sentiment amongst locals, offered with the same confused—and often disappointed—tone familiar to residents of Seattle, Portland, or San Francisco, where rapid growth and expansion have led to an urban identity crisis. Like those cities, Austin is known for its unique qualities: a thriving live music scene and housing affordability that historically made it a compelling home for creatives and self-described weirdos to roost. But now, as Big Tech infiltrates and climate change looms, Austin has become less familiar—and far less affordable.
An exploration of the beloved city’s evolution, Lost in Austin also serves as a critical exploration of the transformation that has befallen one of America’s most beloved cities—and serves as a warning for what the homogenization of cities means for American urban identity. With a journalist’s perspective and the heart of an Austinite, Alex Hannaford delves into the consequences of the city’s rapid growth in chapters that chronicle the major movements permanently altering the city: a vanishing music scene, soaring property values, and the encroachment of major industry. Through keen reportage and extensive interviews, Lost in Austin unveils the toll of unchecked growth and the city’s shift from its rebellious spirit to commercialization.
Through those stories—vibrant, colorful, and clearly full of love for this city—Hannaford raises a crucial question: How do American cities, once celebrated for their unique values, became casualties of their own rapid growth and success? And can they ever return to what they once were?
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Do you remember the first time you fell in love with a book?
'The Haunted Wood is a marvel.' Philip Pullman
The stories we read as children extend far beyond our childhoods; they are a
window into our deepest hopes, joys and anxieties. They reveal our past –
collective and individual, remembered and imagined – and invite us to dream
up different futures.
In a pioneering history of children’s literature, from the ancient world to the
present day, Sam Leith reveals the magic of our most cherished stories, and
the ways in which they have shaped and consoled entire generations.
Excavating the complex lives of beloved writers, Leith offers a humane
portrait of a genre – one acutely sensitive to its authors’ distinct contexts.
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Do you remember the first time you fell in love with a book?
'The Haunted Wood is a marvel.' Philip Pullman
The stories we read as children extend far beyond our childhoods; they are a
window into our deepest hopes, joys and anxieties. They reveal our past –
collective and individual, remembered and imagined – and invite us to dream
up different futures.
In a pioneering history of children’s literature, from the ancient world to the
present day, Sam Leith reveals the magic of our most cherished stories, and
the ways in which they have shaped and consoled entire generations.
Excavating the complex lives of beloved writers, Leith offers a humane
portrait of a genre – one acutely sensitive to its authors’ distinct contexts.
... Read more Read less
An indispensable guide to understanding the Israel–Palestine conflict,
and how we might yet still find a way out of it.
'Ilan Pappe is the most original, radical and hard-hitting of Israel’s "new
historians".' Avi Shlaim, author of Three Worlds
The devastation of 7 October 2023 and the horrors that followed astounded
the world. But the Israel–Palestine conflict didn’t start on 7 October. It didn’t
start in 1967 either, when Israel occupied the West Bank, or in 1948 when
the state of Israel was declared. It started in 1882, when the first Zionist
settlers arrived in what was then Ottoman Palestine. Ilan Pappe untangles
the history of two peoples, now sharing one land. Going back to the founding
fathers of Zionism, Pappe expertly takes us through the twists and turns of
international policy towards Israel–Palestine, Palestinian resistance to
occupation, and the changes taking place in Israel itself.
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“David K. Randall has conjured the first air race to circumnavigate the globe in all its death-defying glory, featuring a cast of unlikely heroes who had the right stuff before anyone knew what that was.” — Mitchell Zuckoff, New York Times bestselling author of Lost in Shangri-La and 13 Hours
“Thrilling reading...an account filled with unexpected layers of intrigue. Recommend Into Unknown Skies to Erik Larson fans.” —Booklist
The unbelievable history of the 1924 race to circumnavigate the globe for the first time by air, a nail-biting contest that pitted underdog US pilots against their better-funded European rivals, created technology that changed aviation, and convinced America that its future was in the sky.
In the early 1920s, America’s faith in aviation was in shambles. Twenty years after the Wright Brothers’ first flight, most Americans believed airplanes were for delivering the mail or performing daredevil stunts in front of crowds. The dream of commercial air travel remained just that. Even the American military was a skeptic—rather than pay to bring its planes back from Europe following World War I, the War Department chose to burn most of them instead.
All that changed with a single race in 1924. It was not just any race, though—it was a race to become the first to circle the globe in an airplane, pitting a team of underdog American pilots against the best aviators in the world from England, Italy, Portugal, France, and Argentina. Rooted in the same daring spirit that pushed early twentieth-century explorers to attempt crossings of the Antarctic ice or locate the source of the Nile, this race was an adventure unlike anything the world had seen before. The obstacles were daunting—from experimental planes, to dangerous landings in uncharted territory, to the simple navigational gauges that could lead pilots hundreds of miles off course. Failure seemed all but guaranteed—the suspense less about who would win than how many would perish for the honor of being the first.
Now on the race’s centennial, award-winning author David K. Randall tells the story of this riveting, long-forgotten race. Through larger-than-life characters, treacherous landings, disease, and ultimately triumph, Into Unknown Skies demonstrates how one race returned America to aviation greatness. A story of underdog teammates, bold exploration, and American ingenuity, Into Unknown Skies is an untold adventure tale showing the power of flight to bring the world together.
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