From household appliances to applications in robotics, engineered systems involving complex dynamics can only be as effective as the algorithms that control them. While Dynamic Programming (DP) has provided researchers with a way to optimally solve decision and control problems involving complex dynamic systems, its practical value was limited by algorithms that lacked the capacity to scale up to realistic problems. However, in recent years, dramatic developments in Reinforcement Learning (RL), the model-free counterpart of DP, changed our understanding of what is possible. Those developments led to the creation of reliable methods that can be applied even when a mathematical model of the system is unavailable, allowing researchers to solve challenging control problems in engineering, as well as in a variety of other disciplines, including economics, medicine, and artificial intelligence. Reinforcement Learning and Dynamic Programming Using Function Approximators provides a comprehensive and unparalleled exploration of the field of RL and DP. With a focus on continuous-variable problems, this seminal text details essential developments that have substantially altered the field over the past decade. In its pages, pioneering experts provide a concise introduction to classical RL and DP, followed by an extensive presentation of the state-of-the-art and novel methods in RL and DP with approximation. Combining algorithm development with theoretical guarantees, they elaborate on their work with illustrative examples and insightful comparisons. Three individual chapters are dedicated to representative algorithms from each of the major classes of techniques: value iteration, policy iteration, and policy search. The features and performance of these algorithms are highlighted in extensive experimental studies on a range of control applications. The recent development of applications involving complex systems has led to a surge of interest in RL and DP methods and the subsequent need for a quality resource on the subject. For graduate students and others new to the field, this book offers a thorough introduction to both the basics and emerging methods. And for those researchers and practitioners working in the fields of optimal and adaptive control, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and operations research, this resource offers a combination of practical algorithms, theoretical analysis, and comprehensive examples that they will be able to adapt and apply to their own work. Access the authors' website at www.dcsc.tudelft.nl/rlbook/ for additional material, including computer code used in the studies and information concerning new developments.
The market liberalization is expected to affect drastically the operation of power systems, which under economical pressure and increasing amount of transactions are being operated much closer to their limits than previously. These changes put the system operators faced with rather different and much more problematic scenarios than in the past. They have now to calculate available transfer capabilities and manage congestion problems in a near on line environment, while operating the transmission system under extremely stressed conditions. This requires highly reliable and efficient software aids, which today are non-existent, or not yet in use. One of the most problematic issues, very much needed but not yet en countered today, is on-line dynamic security assessment and control, enabling the power system to withstand unexpected contingencies without experienc ing voltage or transient instabilities. This monograph is devoted to a unified approach to transient stability assessment and control, called SIngle Machine Equivalent (S1ME).
Pink Herrings engages in a re-examination of six of Freud's cases via Lacan's account of sexuation. Specifically, the book outlines a theoretical framework in which sexuation is understood as a 'choice' made in response to the fact of the sexual non relationship. In making this choice, unconscious fantasy allows for the circulation of object a, which bear traces of jouissance. Drawing upon Lacan's distinction between phallic and other jouissance, Pink Herrings examines the four positions outlined in Lacan's formula of sexuation, and maps these onto the six case studies. In so doing, Pink Herrings not only brings new life and insights to the cases, but also clears a path to what is referred to as a 'clinic of sexuation'. Such a clinic would not replace existing Lacanian psychoanalytic practice (with its focus on the structures of neurosis, perversion and psychosis), but instead provide additional avenues through which to explore the operations of fantasy.
The gripping “untold story” of the Secret Hunters, deep-cover British special forces who pursued Nazi fugitives from justice after World War II (Daily Mail). In the late summer of 1944, eighty British Special Air Service (SAS) soldiers undertook a covert commando raid, parachuting behind enemy lines into the Vosges Mountains in occupied France to sabotage Nazi-held roads, railways, and ammo dumps, and assassinate high-ranking German officers, undermining the final stand of Hitler’s Third Reich. Despite their successes, more than half the men were captured, tortured, and executed. Although the SAS was officially dissolved when the war ended, a top-secret black ops unit was formed, under Churchill’s personal command, to hunt down the SS commanders who had murdered their special forces comrades, as well as war criminals from concentration camps who had eluded the Nuremberg trials. Under the cover of full deniability, “The Secret Hunters” waged a covert war of justice and retribution—uncovering the full horror of Hitler’s regime as well as dark secrets of Stalin’s Russia and the growing threat of what would become the Cold War. Finally revealing the fascinating details of the secret postwar mission that became a central part of the SAS’s founding legend, Damien Lewis “delves into some of the darkest days of the regiment’s history to tell a story of tragedy, valor and revenge . . . [a] remarkable story” (War History Online).
Voilà désormais plus de 10 000 ans que la civilisation occidentale s'est installée et voilà 10 000 ans qu'elle viole le sens même de la nature : la vie. En s'appropriant sans concession ce qui l'entourait, l'homme de l'Ouest a vu son horizon ployer sous la charge de la destruction qu'il lui avait lui-même réalisée. Sommes-nous des lycanthropes ou des vampires? Ces monstres si terrifiants qui sortent de notre imagination sont-ils en réalité la copie de notre comportement dévastateur? Prédateurs, nous pompons sans remords les énergies qui nous entourent. Jusqu'où ira-t-on?.
Based on a true crime - the unsolved brutal murder of Düsseldorf prostitute Emma Gross - and the story of notorious serial killer Peter Kürten - the so-called "Vampire of Düsseldorf" - The Killing of Emma Gross is a gripping police thriller set during the dying days of Weimar Republic Germany. Detective Thomas Klein's career is going nowhere until he gets a tip-off leading to the Ripper's arrest. But the killer's confession to the hooker's murder is full of holes, and Klein soon comes to believe this is one murder the killer didn't commit. Motivated by spite, ambition, or maybe even a long-buried sense of justice, finding out who really killed Emma Gross becomes Klein's obsession. Particularly when the evidence begins to point closer to home... Part historical police procedural, part true crime thriller, The Killing of Emma Gross will particularly appeal to fans of Philip Kerr (the Bernie Gunther novels) and Andrea Maria Schenkel (The Murder Farm). Fans of Child 44, James Ellroy's LA Quartet and Christopher Isherwood's Berlin novels are also in for a treat. As is anyone else hankering for a damn good mystery. What they're saying..."...a top notch piece of detective fiction... it is the lightness of [Damien Seaman's] touch when building characters and settings that make this book such an enjoyable read" - James Oswald, author of Natural Causes "One of the highlights of my holiday reading." - Stuart MacBride, author of Birthdays For The Dead "I read it in one sitting. It's brilliant: tough, unsentimental, humane and intelligent, and Seaman wears his considerable learning lightly." - Ruth Dudley Edwards, author of Murdering Americans "...a fast-paced novel that delves into the dark heart of Weimar Germany. A page-turner that gripped me from start to finish." - William Ryan, author of The Holy Thief "Damien Seaman has written one of the best first novels I've read. An immediate classic." - Tony Black, author of Murder Mile ""I loved everything... Damien Seaman's clean, uncluttered style, the simultaneously vivid and subtle journey through 1929 Düsseldorf, and the fact that it was based on real events. This is as good as it gets." - Helen FitzGerald, author of The Donor From the author... "The Killing of Emma Gross, based on true events, tells the story of a police detective who gets dragged into a high-profile serial-killer case and ends up shunning the limelight to solve the neglected murder of a prostitute instead. Set against the backdrop of a country teetering into madness, the novel explores how the meanest motivations can still lead to noble acts, while the noblest intentions can lead to disaster. It also features a detailed and accurate timeline of real events for true crime buffs with an interest in the Kürten case.
This innovative volume brings together the views of leading scholars on a range of controversial subjects including human rights, animal rights, ecology, abortion, euthanasia, and contemporary business practice.
Since the early 2000s, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has rapidly gained significance in India, both among large companies and as a policy instrument formally intended to foster corporate contributions to the country's development goals. This book analyses this phenomenon in relation to broader political and economic changes induced by India's 'pro-business' development strategy. Using a systems-theoretical approach, the analysis shows that 'pro-business' policies have led profit-driven economic processes to increasingly override collective aspirations for social welfare, environmental protection, and democracy. In order to decipher how CSR changes the interplays between profit-making and developmental aspirations, the book provides detailed analyses of CSR in the cement industry and in regulatory policies adopted by the central government. It shows that CSR operates as an 'intermediary institution' which further enhances the autonomy of the economic system, as it makes profit-making more responsive to risks arising from competing collective values and interests.
Coventry, home of the cycle industry, was also to become the birthplace of the motor industry when the Daimler Company became the first in Britain to mass produce cars in the late 1890s.Spearheaded by H.J. Lawson, Coventry soon became a hub of motoring activity, and by the early 1900s was teaming with small and large companies, testing cars, motor-bicycles and tricycles around the local streets and surrounding country lanes. Many of these companies had previously been established as cycle manufacturers, yet introduced engines to their cycle frames in various forms, as well as producing safer three- and four-wheeled experimental machines. Other companies were established solely as motor manufacturers, many were short-lived, but others would survive and prosper.This new-found industry soon attracted a new type of worker to Coventry, specialised in mechanical engineering. These men and their families came from all parts of the UK and beyond, and made new lives for themselves in the city.Coventry has been home to well in excess of 100 independent motor manufacturers, but in recent years the city has suffered greatly with the loss of huge companied like Jaguar and Peugeot. The legacy of many of these historic cars can, however, still be enjoyed through museums and private collections.This outstanding volume is illustrated with 200 archive photographs and ephemera from the collection held at Coventry Transport Museum, and is a valuable record of the motor companies and their machines, as well as the individuals who both founded and worked for these manufacturers.
With an increasingly aged population, eye diseases are becoming more widespread. Biomaterials have contributed in recent years to numerous medical devices for the restoration of eyesight, improving many patients’ quality of life. Consequently, biomaterials and regenerative medicine are becoming increasingly important to the advances of ophthalmology and optometry. Biomaterials and regenerative medicine in ophthalmology reviews the present status and future direction of biomaterials and regenerative medicine in this important field.Part one discusses applications in the anterior segment of the eye with chapters on such topics as advances in intraocular lenses (IOLs), synthetic corneal implants, contact lenses, and tissue engineering of the lens. Part two then reviews applications in the posterior segment of the eye with such chapters on designing hydrogels as vitreous substitutes, retinal repair and regeneration and the development of tissue engineered membranes. Chapters in Part three discuss other pertinent topics such as hydrogel sealants for wound repair in ophthalmic surgery, orbital enucleation implants and polymeric materials for orbital reconstruction.With its distinguished editor and international team of contributors, Biomaterials and regenerative medicine in ophthalmology is a standard reference for scientists and clinicians, as well as all those concerned with this ophthalmology. Reviews the increasingly important role of biomaterials and regenerative medicine in the advancement of ophthalmology and optometry Provides an overview of the present status and future direction of biomaterials and regenerative medicine in this important field Discusses applications in both the anterior and prosterior segments of the eye with chapters on such topics as synthetic corneal implants and retinal repair and regeneration
Two centuries ago, the first Enlightenment failed when its dream of reason smashed into the passions and fury of stubborn humans. Without a deep, broad understanding of the world, the emerging Enlightenment was left floundering, its best impulses perverted into the bloody excess of the French Revolution. Arguably, its idealism and noble goals led directly, and shockingly, to the 20th century's totalitarian nightmares. Now the 21st century is learning anew the Faustian hunger to know everything that can be known. But Enlightenment values of reason and tolerance, enriched by new knowledge, face a complex world no less eager to embrace medieval terrorism and ancient superstitions, a world bizarrely denying itself many of the fresh opportunities amd insights availed by science. Can we find cures for poverty, unhappiness, ignorance, the ruination of the planet, aging, and perhaps for death itself? If so, should we? Damien Broderick's own ferocious mind invites you to explore today's unexpected treasure-house of understanding-and provides enticing glimpses of tomorrow's.
For many centuries, the history of the crusades, as written by Western historians, was based solidly on Western sources. Evidence from the Islamic societies that the crusaders attacked was used only sparingly – in part because it was hard for most westerners to read, and in part because much of it was inaccessible even for historians who did speak Arabic. Carole Hillenbrand set out to re-evaluate the sources for the crusading period, not only looking with fresh eyes at known accounts, but also locating and utilizing new sources that had previously been overlooked. Her work involved her in conducting extensive evaluations of the new sources, assessing their arguments, their evidence, and their reasoning in order to assess their value and (using the critical thinking skill of analysis, a powerful method for understanding how arguments are built) to place them correctly in the context of crusade studies as a whole. The result is not only a history that is more balanced, better argued and more adequate than most that have gone before it, but also a work with relevance for today. At a time when crusading imagery and mentions of the current War on Terror as a ‘crusade’ help to fuel political narrative, Hillenbrand's evaluative work acts as an important corrective to oversimplification and misrepresentation.
Reading by Starlight explores the characteristics in the writing, marketing and reception of science fiction which distinguish it as a genre. Damien Broderick explores the postmodern self-referentiality of the sci-fi narrative, its intricate coded language and discursive `encyclopaedia'. He shows how, for perfect understanding, sci-fi readers must learn the codes of these imaginary worlds and vocabularies, all the time picking up references to texts by other writers. Reading by Starlight includes close readings of paradigmatic cyberpunk texts and writings by SF novelists and theorists including Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Brian Aldiss, Patrick Parrinder, Kim Stanley Robinson, John Varley, Roger Zelazny, William Gibson, Fredric Jameson and Samuel R. Delaney.
Though the work of Irish writers has been paramount in conventional accounts of literary modernism, Ireland itself only rarely occupies a meaningful position in accounts of modernism’s historical trajectory. With an itinerary moving not simply among Dublin, Belfast, and London but also Paris, New York, Addis Ababa, Rome, Berlin, Geneva, and the world’s radio receivers, Ireland and the Problem of Information examines the pivotal mediations through which social knowledge was produced in the mid-twentieth century. Organized as a series of cross-fading case studies, the book argues that an expanded sphere of Irish cultural production should be read as much for what it indicates about practices of intermedial circulation and their consequences as for what it reveals about Irish writing around the time of the Second World War. In this way, it positions the “problem of information” as, first and foremost, an international predicament, but one with particular national implications for the Irish field.
The emergence of nanoelectronics has led us to renew the concepts of transport theory used in semiconductor device physics and the engineering community. It has become crucial to question the traditional semi-classical view of charge carrier transport and to adequately take into account the wave-like nature of electrons by considering not only their coherent evolution but also the out-of-equilibrium states and the scattering effects. This book gives an overview of the quantum transport approaches for nanodevices and focuses on the Wigner formalism. It details the implementation of a particle-based Monte Carlo solution of the Wigner transport equation and how the technique is applied to typical devices exhibiting quantum phenomena, such as the resonant tunnelling diode, the ultra-short silicon MOSFET and the carbon nanotube transistor. In the final part, decoherence theory is used to explain the emergence of the semi-classical transport in nanodevices.
What do we know of the emotional life of the Middle Ages? Though a long-neglected subject, a multitude of sources – spiritual and secular literature, iconography, chronicles, as well as theological and medical works – provide clues to the central role emotions played in medieval society. In this work, historians Damien Boquet and Piroska Nagy delve into a rich variety of texts and images to reveal the many and nuanced experiences of emotion during the Middle Ages – from the demonstrative shame of a saint to a nobleman's fear of embarrassment, from the enthusiasm of a crusading band to the fear of a town threatened by the approach of war or plague. Boquet and Nagy show how these outbursts of joy and pain, while universal expressions, must be understood within the specific context of medieval society. During the Middle Ages, a Christian model of affectivity was formed in the ‘laboratory’ of the monasteries, one which gradually seeped into wider society, interacting with the sensibilities of courtly culture and other forms of expression. Bouqet and Nagy bring a thousand years of history to life, demonstrating how the study of emotions in medieval society can also allow us to understand better our own social outlooks and customs.
Riley-Smith’s 1986 book gives convincing case for a ‘revisionist’ view of the crusades, challenging the common belief that the crusades were motivated by fanaticism and were designed to plunder the Holy Lands. After studying handwritten documents held in churches across Western Europe in which crusaders explained their personal reasons for heading out on the “holy war,” he pioneered the use of computer spreadsheets to cross-reference data on individual crusaders and their families allowing him to paint a much more complete picture than had been possible previously. Riley-Smith determined that most crusaders were motivated by spiritual devotion and a genuine desire to atone for past sins.
We thought we had gone through the topic in the first volume, those two games opened new pists of reflexions. The in-depth analysis of Hidetaka Miyazaki's Dark Souls saga continues with this volume 2, decoding the Bloodborne and Dark Souls III episodes. An indinspensale ebook for all the fans of the game Dark Souls ! EXTRACT "The project, christened Project Beast, began soon after the Astorias of the Abyss DLC was released in August 2012. At the time, FromSoftware was also beginning to build Dark Souls II, its cash cow. Miyazaki kept his distance from this sequel, which was handed off to Tomohiro Shibuya and Yui Tanimura, with support from the FromSoftware president and creator of King’s Field, Naotoshi Zin, who supervised the game system. On his end, Hidetaka Miyazaki formed a trusted team of regular collaborators, such as lead programmer Jun Itô (who had already filled this role for Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls), composer and lead sound designer Tsukasa Saitô (Armored Core games), and most of his regular artists: Daisuke Satake, Masanori Waragai and Hiroshi Nakamura. The success of Demon’s Souls, and the even greater success of Dark Souls, allowed FromSoftware to grow its ranks significantly. In total, no fewer than fifty programmers participated in the project, along with around twenty game system designers and fifty people working on visual creation (animation, scenery, characters, etc.). Thanks to financial support from Sony, many Japanese, Chinese and Taiwanese studios were sub-contracted during the production to help with graphics and visuals." ABOUT THE AUTHORS Passionate about films and video games, Damien Mecheri joined the writers team of Gameplay RPG in 2004, writing several articles for the second special edition on the Final Fantasy saga. He continued his work with the team in another publication called Background, before continuing the online adventure in 2008 with the site Gameweb.fr. Since 2011, he has come aboard Third Éditions with Mehdi El Kanafi and Nicolas Courcier, the publisher’s two founders. Damien is also the author of the book Video Game Music: a History of Gaming Music. For Third Éditions, he is actively working on the “Level Up” and “Année jeu vidéo” collections. He has also written or co-written several works from the same publisher: The Legend of Final Fantasy X, Welcome to Silent Hill: a journey into Hell, The Works of Fumito Ueda: a Different Perspective on Video Games and, of course, the first volume of Dark Souls: Beyond the Grave. Curious by nature, a dreamer against the grain and a chronic ranter, Sylvain Romieu is also a passionate traveler of the real and the unreal, the world and the virtual universes, always in search of enriching discoveries and varied cultures. A developer by trade, he took up his modest pen several years ago to study the characteristics and richness of the marvelously creative world of video games. He writes for a French video game site called Chroniques-Ludiques, particularly on the topic of RPGs, his preferred genre.
A follow-up to the bestselling "An Evolution of Bond" comes Collection Editions James Bond. For the first time every 007 fan can see the entire history of the world's most famous spy. From Ian Fleming's wartime adventures through to the creation of this beloved character... Bringing books to screen, the lawsuits, the scandals, the lost opportunities, the deaths and loss of limbs on set, and the successes of the biggest movie franchise ever.
For many centuries, the history of the crusades, as written by Western historians, was based solidly on Western sources. Evidence from the Islamic societies that the crusaders attacked was used only sparingly – in part because it was hard for most westerners to read, and in part because much of it was inaccessible even for historians who did speak Arabic. Carole Hillenbrand set out to re-evaluate the sources for the crusading period, not only looking with fresh eyes at known accounts, but also locating and utilizing new sources that had previously been overlooked. Her work involved her in conducting extensive evaluations of the new sources, assessing their arguments, their evidence, and their reasoning in order to assess their value and (using the critical thinking skill of analysis, a powerful method for understanding how arguments are built) to place them correctly in the context of crusade studies as a whole. The result is not only a history that is more balanced, better argued and more adequate than most that have gone before it, but also a work with relevance for today. At a time when crusading imagery and mentions of the current War on Terror as a ‘crusade’ help to fuel political narrative, Hillenbrand's evaluative work acts as an important corrective to oversimplification and misrepresentation.
In the mid-1960s, British science fiction and fantasy were convulsed by the "New Wave." This movement emerged from the SF magazines edited by John Carnell. Such brilliant NEW WORLDS and SCIENCE FANTASY writers as J. G. Ballard, Brian W. Aldiss, John Brunner, and Michael Moorcock heralded the rise of this new kind of fantastic fiction. John Boston and Damien Broderick's concluding volume of their critical trilogy examines the history and development of these important magazines--and the fiction that they championed. By the end of this period (1964), Carnell had set the stage for that major development in UK science fiction--the new wave adventures of the transformed NEW WORLDS, under the editorship of Moorcock--and had himself shifted gear into the next mode of SF publishing as editor of the paperback anthology series, New Writings in SF. Boston and Broderick's series will become the definitive critical histories of these important British magazines. Complete with indices of names and titles cited.
California is a state of immense contradictions. Home to colossal wealth and long portrayed as a bastion of opportunity, it also has one of the largest prison populations in the United States and consistently ranks on the bottom of education indexes. Taking a unique, multifaceted insider’s perspective, First Strike delves into the root causes of its ever-expansive prison system and disastrous educational policy. Recentering analysis of Black masculinity beyond public rhetoric, First Strike critiques the trope of the “school-to-prison pipeline” and instead explores the realm of public school as a form of “enclosure” that has influenced the schooling (and denial of schooling) and imprisonment of Black people in California. Through a fascinating ethnography of a public school in Los Angeles County, and a “day in the life tour” of the effect of prisons on the education of Black youth, Damien M. Sojoyner looks at the contestation over education in the Black community from Reconstruction to the civil rights and Black liberation movements of the past three decades. Policy makers, school districts, and local governments have long known that there is a relationship between high incarceration rates and school failure. First Strike is the first book that demonstrates why that connection exists and shows how school districts, cities and states have been complicit and can reverse a disturbing and needless trend. Rather than rely upon state-sponsored ideological or policy-driven models that do nothing more than to maintain structures of hierarchal domination, it allows us to resituate our framework of understanding and begin looking for solutions in spaces that are readily available and are immersed in radically democratic social visions of the future.
The series aims at publishing works operating at the intersections of political theory, intellectual and conceptual history, and empirically dense socio-economic and political analyses of power. The works published in this series will place particular emphasis on the transregional – transimperial, transnational, transcultural – and the transtemporal orientation of political concepts and practices of power, with a special focus on idioms of rulership, political normativity and order, as well as subversion and rebellion against such regimes.
One of WWII’s most daring Allied D-Day missions and the hunt for Hitler’s war criminals is brought to breathtaking life by award-winning, bestselling war reporter Damien Lewis. Award-winning, bestselling author Damien Lewis explores one of WWII’s most remarkable Special Forces missions during the Normany landings on D-Day—and the extraordinary hunt that followed to take down a cadre of fugitive SS and Gestapo war criminals. On the night of June 13th, 1944, a twelve-man SAS unit parachuted into occupied France. Their objective: hit German forces deep behind the lines, cutting the rail-tracks linking Central France to the northern coastline. In a country crawling with enemy troops, their mission was to prevent Hitler from rushing his Panzer divisions to the D-Day beaches and driving the Allied troops back into the sea. It was a Herculean task, but no risk was deemed too great to stop the Nazi assault. In daring to win it all, the SAS patrol were ultimately betrayed, captured, and tortured by the Gestapo before facing execution in a dark French woodland on Hitler’s personal orders. Miraculously, two of the condemned men managed to escape, triggering one of the most-secretive Nazi-hunting operations ever, as the SAS vowed to track down every one of the war criminals who had murdered their brothers in arms . . . all with Churchill’s covert backing. With Nazi Germany’s lightning seizure of much of Western Europe, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had called for the formation of specially trained troops of the “hunter class.” Their purpose was to incite a reign of terror across enemy-occupied Europe. Churchill’s warriors were to shatter all known rules of warfare, taking the fight to the enemy with no holds barred. In doing so, the Special Air Service would be tested as never before during the pivotal D-Day landings, and the quest for vengeance that followed. Breathtaking and exhaustively researched, Churchill’s Band of Brothers is based upon a raft of new and unseen material provided by the families of those who were there. It reveals the untold story of one of the most daring missions of WWII, that not only had ramifications for the war itself, but lead to the most extraordinary and gripping of aftermaths.
Caroline is about to go psychotic—and given her family, it’s no surprise. Joseph cannot talk to women even if he is a certified high-IQ clever dick trying to take snapshots of the end of the universe. Ray and Marj have their own hassles with in‑laws, but student terrorists get in the way. Meanwhile, Brian, misogynist and wit, appalls everyone in the quipu world. Quipus? They are the scandalous fanzines that hikes traded before blogs were invented. Hikes? High-IQ clever dicks, of course. In Quipu, Australian writer Damien Broderick reimagines his prize‑winning 1984 novel Transmitters as the surprising saga of a “family” of genius‑level, one‑of‑a‑kind individuals.
This book is the first bibliographical and methodological work entirely devoted to the modern scholarship on Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī. It includes more than 1000 entries, an introductory essay, annotations, and various indices to help readers navigate the complex field of Rāzī studies.
The Rise and Decline of Modern Democracy assesses the rise of, subsequent political challenges to, and decline of, contemporary liberal democratic processes, in particular since the ‘third wave’ of democratization from the 1990s. Democracy is in global decline. Fewer countries are democratic and fewer people, globally, live in substantive democracies. Autocracy is now the dominant political form and the future looks, at best, challenging for the retention of such democracies that remain. As they did a century ago, nationalism and populism have again reared their ugly heads, and more people are claiming that democracy no longer addresses their most compelling needs or interests. This book examines what democracy is and the circumstances that allowed – even encouraged – it to arise. Democracy has been a product of a need to find a political model that mediates between competing interests, building on conducive conditions. However, there have since been fundamental changes to those conditions, imbalances within democratic countries and between countries, that have diminished the strength of the democratic proposition. The question now arises as to whether democracy can continue as a matter of political will. Challengers to democracy, from the radical Right in developed countries to populist autocracy and state-centred authoritarianism in developing countries, have increasingly shown this may not be the case. Democracy may survive, as this book concludes, but is likely to do so only with more substantial and conscious commitment to the democratic project, with recognition of the need to replenish the fertility of the political soil in which democracy grows. This wide-ranging and empirically and theoretically rich book will be of interest to students, scholars and researchers of political science, international relations, history and democracy.
This book is about the radical novelty of modern polities in a functionally differentiated world society. Premodern states were at the apex of a stratified, hierarchical society. They dominated society and all its groups and strata. Modern polities have to be understood through the ecology of relations among different function systems. They have to find and incessantly redefine their place in society. They produce decisions that are collectively binding, but in preparing these decisions experience constraints and knowledge deficiencies that are related to the complexity of a functionally differentiated society. The book concentrates on six analytical perspectives that reflect how modern polities are embedded into 21st century society. These perspectives are: the concept of inclusion and the inclusion revolution constitutive of modern polities; the internal differentiation of polities that endows them with an unprecedented complexity; the fact that polities do not know anything about society and the ways in which they compensate for this; representation and responsiveness as strategies to reconnect with society; the self-restriction of some polities that brings about ever new autonomous expert organizations; the symmetrical rise of autocracies and democracies as the two modern variants of political regimes.
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