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  Great Zimbabwe - Stone Cities...

  Rolf Hedger

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  The rise of Great Zimbabwe was shaped by geography, economic opportunities, and social organization, allowing it to become one of Africa’s most influential civilizations. Emerging around the 9th century, the settlement developed into a thriving political and economic center by the 11th century, reaching its peak between the 13th and 15th centuries. Its growth was fueled by abundant natural resources, a strategic location, and participation in regional and international trade. 
  The Zimbabwean plateau, with its fertile soil and favorable climate, provided ideal conditions for agriculture. The Shona people, who founded Great Zimbabwe, cultivated sorghum and millet, which sustained the growing population. In addition to farming, cattle herding played a crucial role in the economy. Cattle were a measure of wealth and social status, serving as currency in trade and marriage negotiations. The presence of large herds further reinforced the power of the elite, who controlled access to grazing lands and water sources. 
  Beyond agriculture, Great Zimbabwe’s location made it a key player in long-distance trade. The city was situated between the goldfields of southern Africa and the coastal trade hubs of the Swahili city-states. Gold mining became a major economic activity, with miners extracting the metal from riverbeds and underground deposits. This gold was traded with merchants from Kilwa, Sofala, and other Swahili ports, where it was exchanged for luxury goods such as Persian ceramics, Chinese porcelain, and Indian textiles. The wealth generated from trade allowed Great Zimbabwe to expand, attracting artisans, traders, and skilled laborers.

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  In Praise of Listening - A...

  Christian McEwen

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  In her latest book, In Praise of Listening, Christian McEwen reflects on listening (silence, music, nature, prayer) in a series of thoughtful chapters, each one focused on a different theme. When an athlete speaks of "listening to his body," or a gardener describes herself as "listening to the land," when writers and artists explain that they are "listening" to their work-in-progress, they are using the word as she chooses to use it here—as an extended metaphor for openness and receptivity, rippling out from the self-centered human to the farthest reaches of the non-human world. 
   
   
   
  In Praise of Listening is a kind of sister or first cousin to McEwen's earlier, timely, and very popular, World Enough & Time, with the same emphasis on creativity and slowing down. As McEwen says: Most of us think of listening in fairly literal fashion: human beings listening (or not listening) to one another; the pleasure of attending to a familiar piece of music. But listening can have a far broader and more capacious meaning, moving out beyond the small apparatus of the ears to the hands or belly or enveloping spirit/mind.

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  Science and Politics

  Ian Boyd

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  The recent coronavirus pandemic proved that the time-old notion seems now truer than ever: that science and politics represent a clash of cultures. But why should scientists simply "stick to the facts" and leave politics to the politicians when the world seems to be falling down around us? 
   
   
   
  Drawing on his experience as both a research scientist and an expert advisor at the center of government, Ian Boyd takes an empirical approach to examining the current state of the relationship between science and politics. He argues that the way politicians and scientists work together today results in a science that is on tap for ideological (mis)use, and governance that fails to serve humanity's most fundamental needs. Justice is unlikely—perhaps impossible—while science is not a fully integrated part of the systems for collective decision-making across society. 
   
   
   
  In Science and Politics, Boyd presents an impassioned argument for a series of conceptual and structural innovations that could resolve this fundamental tension, revealing how a radical intermingling of these (apparently contradictory) professions might provide the world with better politics and better science.

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  Useful Junk

  Erika Meitner

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  A master of documentary poetry, Erika Meitner takes up the question of desire and intimacy in her latest collection of poems.In her previous five collections of poetry, Erika Meitner has established herself as one of America’s most incisive observers, cherished for her remarkable ability to temper catastrophe with tenderness. In her newest collection Useful Junk, Meitner considers what it means to be a sexual being in a world that sees women as invisible—as mothers, customers, passengers, worshippers, wives. These poems render our changing bodies as real and alive, shaped by the sense memories of long-lost lovers and the still thrilling touch of a spouse after years of parenthood, affirming that we are made of every intimate moment we have ever had. Letter poems to a younger poet interspersed throughout the collection question desire itself and how new technologies—Uber, sexting, Instagram—are reframing self-image and shifting the ratios of risk and reward in erotic encounters.With dauntless vulnerability, Meitner travels a world of strip malls, supermarkets, and subway platforms, remaining porous and open to the world, always returning to the intimacies rooted deep within the self as a shout against the dying earth. Boldly affirming that pleasure is a vital form of knowledge, Useful Junk reminds us that our selves are made real and beautiful by our embodied experiences and that our desire is what keeps us alive.

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  Codebreakers - How Allied...

  Sage Winters

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  The art of codebreaking has long been an essential aspect of warfare, serving as a hidden weapon that can change the course of history. During World War II, intelligence efforts were not only about gathering information; they were about deciphering the secrets encoded by the enemy to gain a strategic advantage. As technology evolved, so did the complexity of military ciphers, making the task of breaking enemy codes more challenging and more critical than ever. "Codebreakers: How Allied Intelligence Cracked Enemy Codes and the Tide" delves into the extraordinary efforts of Allied cryptographers, whose tireless work behind the scenes helped secure victories that shifted the balance of the war. 
    
  The importance of cryptography in World War II cannot be overstated. The ability to read an enemy’s messages before they had time to act was a decisive factor in numerous key battles and campaigns. The German Enigma machine, a sophisticated encryption device, represented the pinnacle of Nazi Germany’s efforts to protect its communications. Breaking this code was essential to the Allied success, and it was a challenge that seemed insurmountable at the time. However, a group of brilliant minds, including Alan Turing, led the charge in deciphering the Enigma cipher, providing the Allies with invaluable intelligence that allowed them to anticipate German movements, thwart attacks, and save countless lives. 
    
  At the heart of this monumental achievement was Bletchley Park, a secret British facility that became the epicenter of codebreaking during the war. Here, the brightest mathematicians, linguists, and engineers worked tirelessly, often under immense pressure, to crack the German and later the Japanese codes.

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  Neuropsychology

  Miguel Vaquero

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  This book contains two topics, which are the following:1 - Memory Improvement: The ability for the brain to encode, store, and recall information is known as memory. Experience serves as a roadmap for future action.Memory includes both consciously recalled facts and experienced details as well as deeply embedded knowledge that pops up without thought or even awareness. It serves as both a temporary information storage space and a more lasting record of what has been learned.2 - The study of the anatomy and operation of the nervous system and the brain is known as neuroscience. To map the brain mechanistically, neuroscientists draw on cellular and molecular biology, anatomy and physiology, human behavior and cognition, and other fields.Each neuron, or brain cell, in an adult human has an estimated 100 billion connections to other neurons. The mapping of all the cell-to-cell communication networks—the brain circuits that process all ideas, feelings, and behaviors—remains one of the major difficulties of contemporary neuroscience. The resulting image that gradually forms is referred described as "the connectome." All learning is based on the brain's capacity to build new neural circuits and connections, or neuroplasticity.

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