Seeing Like a State


Book Description

“One of the most profound and illuminating studies of this century to have been published in recent decades.”—John Gray, New York Times Book Review Hailed as “a magisterial critique of top-down social planning” by the New York Times, this essential work analyzes disasters from Russia to Tanzania to uncover why states so often fail—sometimes catastrophically—in grand efforts to engineer their society or their environment, and uncovers the conditions common to all such planning disasters. “Beautifully written, this book calls into sharp relief the nature of the world we now inhabit.”—New Yorker “A tour de force.”— Charles Tilly, Columbia University




Social Psychology in Christian Perspective


Book Description

Angela Sabates offers a well-researched social psychology textbook that makes full use of the unique view of human persons coming down to us from the Christian tradition. She highlights Christian contributions to a wide range of questions from the dynamics of persuasion to the social psychology of violence.




The Human Condition


Book Description

Over a very short period, only a few hundred years, our understanding of the cosmos, our planet Earth, the evolution of life on it, and the beginnings of our very own human endeavor have radically changed. These revolutions in science and technology have dramatically altered our societies in many ways. For quite some time it seemed as if our planets resources were unlimited. Today we know that this is not the case. Human civilizations are shaping our planets future in ways that have profound consequences for all other life on Earth as well as for us. We need to reflect broadly on what defines our human condition if we wish our societies to be successful in navigating a future that cannot be just ours but must include the broad diversity of life on Earth without which humankind will not survive. This book tells the story of how we discovered the universe, how we learned about our planet and the life evolving on it, how humanity emerged from pre-history, and what some of the future of our civilizations could hold.




Human Natures


Book Description

Why do we behave the way we do? Biologist Paul Ehrlich suggests that although people share a common genetic code, these genes "do not shout commands at us...at the very most, they whisper suggestions." He argues that human nature is not so much result of genetic coding; rather, it is heavily influenced by cultural conditioning and environmental factors. With personal anecdotes, a well-written narrative, and clear examples, Human Natures is a major work of synthesis and scholarship as well as a valuable primer on genetics and evolution that makes complex scientific concepts accessible to lay readers.




Communication and the Human Condition


Book Description

Starting with the premise that we live in communication (rather than standing outside communication and using it for secondary purposes), Pearce claims that people who live in various cultures and historical epochs not only communicate differently but experience different ways of being human because they communicate differently. This century, he notes, ushered in the "communication revolution," the discovery that communication is far more important and central to the human condition than ever before realized. Essential to the communication revolution is the recognition that multiple forms of discourse exist in contemporary human society. Further, these forms of discourse are not benign; they comprise alternative ways of being human. Thus communication theory must encompass all that it "means to live a life, the shape of social institutions and cultural traditions, the pragmatics of social action, and the poetics of social order."




The Human Condition


Book Description

"Chapter I was published as "The Human World" in Ratio 22 (2009): I37-56. Chapter 5 is a substantial revision of Chapter 6 in Enjoyment: The Moral Significance of Styles of Life (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2008). Chapter 7 includes parts of Chapter 13 in The Roots of Evil (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005)"--Acknowledgements.




The Human Condition


Book Description

Human beings are complex. For all our contemporary knowledge and ability, however wonderful and widely available, people around the world face a crisis of human identity that calls into question the meaning of existence and the basis of moral behaviour. Responding to these challenges, Joe Kapolyo recognizes both the authority of the Bible, which teaches that people are created in the image of God but also corrupted by rebellion and sin, and the relevance of distinctly African perspectives on what it means to be human. Although he reads these perspectives critically, they lead him to reaffirm the biblical vision of redeemed human life in community in Christ. This vision offers a solution to the crisis of identity experienced by people who have forgotten who they are - and whose they are.




Freedom


Book Description

The fastest growing realization everywhere is that humanity can't go on the way it is going. Indeed, the great fear is we're entering endgame where we appear to have lost the race between self-destruction and self-discovery--the race to find the psychologically relieving understanding of our 'good and evil'-afflicted human condition. WELL, ASTONISHING AS IT IS, THIS BOOK BY AUSTRALIAN BIOLOGIST JEREMY GRIFFITH PRESENTS THE 11TH HOUR BREAKTHROUGH BIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION OF THE HUMAN CONDITION NECESSARY FOR THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REHABILITATION AND TRANSFORMATION OF OUR SPECIES! The culmination of 40 years of studying and writing about our species' psychosis, FREEDOM delivers nothing less than the holy grail of insight we have needed to free ourselves from the human condition. It is, in short, as Professor Harry Prosen, a former president of the Canadian Psychiatric Association, asserts in his Introduction, 'THE BOOK THAT SAVES THE WORLD!'. Griffith has been able to venture right to the bottom of the dark depths of what it is to be human and return with the fully accountable, true explanation of our seemingly imperfect lives. At long last we have the redeeming and thus transforming understanding of human behaviour! And with that explanation found all the other great outstanding scientific mysteries about our existence are now also able to be truthfully explained--of the meaning of our existence, of the origin of our unconditionally selfless moral instincts, and of why we humans became conscious when other animals haven't. Yes, the full story of life on Earth can finally be told--and all of these incredible breakthroughs and insights are presented here in this 'greatest of all books'.




Psychoanalytic Versions of the Human Condition


Book Description

What is psychoanalysis? Whereas there was once a time when proponents of "mainstream psychoanalysis" could point to the preeminence of Freud's drive theory and the version of the human condition associated with it–man as seeking pleasure in an erotically tinged universe–contemporary psychoanalysis is a fractured and contentious discipline in which competing theories share little more than the basic concepts of unconscious mental processes, repression, and transference. Taking the complexities, ambiguities, and contradictions engendered by psychoanalysis over the past several decades as an encouraging point of departure rather than as evidence of the dissolution of the "psychoanalytic tradition," Psychoanalytic Versions of the Human Condition makes explicit how, within each major theory, a particular story about the nature of the world and what it means to be human decisively shapes how the clinician conceptualizes individual psychopathology and approaches treatment. A chorus of voices that both challenges and reaffirms the theory and practice of psychoanalysis, Psychoanalytic Versions of the Human Condition asks urgent questions–about the politics of psychoanalytic knowledge, and about how the profession is situated and operates in our contemporary culture. Whether Freudian, Jungian, Kleinian, Kohutian, Lacanian, or hybrid, the clinician will find this book a useful guide to understanding how each theory's "philosophy of life" infuses clinical work.