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  The New Goliaths - How...

  James Bessen

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  An approach to reinvigorating economic competition that doesn’t break up corporate giants, but compels them to share their technology, data, and knowledge 
    
  “Bessen is a master of unpacking the nuances of a complex array of interrelated trends to build a coherent story of how the promise of the democratized Internet ended up under the control of just a few. Read The New Goliaths to see how the forest came to have only room for a few tall trees with the rest of us in the undergrowth.”—Joshua Gans, coauthor of Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence 
    
  Historically, competition has powered progress under capitalism. Companies with productive new products rise to the top, but sooner or later, competitors come along with better innovations and disrupt the threat of monopoly. Dominant firms like Walmart, Amazon, and Google argue that this process of “creative destruction” prevents them from becoming too powerful or entrenched. 
    
  But the threat of competition has sharply decreased over the past twenty years, and today’s corporate giants have come to power by using proprietary information technologies to create a tilted playing field. This development has increased economic inequality and social division, slowed innovation, and allowed dominant firms to evade government regulation. In the face of increasing calls to break up the largest companies, James Bessen argues that a better way to restore competitive balance and dynamism is to encourage or compel these companies to share technology, data, and knowledge.

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  Surveillance - A Very Short...

  David Lyon

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  Surveillance permeates every aspect of our lives today. Every click on the keyboard, every call, text or email, every purchase, every contact with a doctor or the police or a government department, each time you walk under a video camera or pass through a security check, and in many other ways, you are recorded, identified, traced, and tracked. Who processes this free-flowing data, how, and with what consequences, is a critical question affecting everyone. 
   
   
   
  Surveillance is not inherently good or bad but neither is it neutral. It urgently needs to be understood better because people's lives and life-chances depend on it. Today surveillance is central to doing business, meeting friends, organizing governance, maintaining security, and being entertained. Surveillance requires not just exploration and understanding but ethical guidance and political debate. How you get credit or welfare benefits or get on a no-fly list or are ranked as a consumer depends on surveillance. This Very Short Introduction investigates how surveillance makes people visible, how it grew to its present size and prevalence, how it came to rely on technologies of data-handling, and how it developed its own cultural features. Throughout, David Lyon also considers the ethics of surveillance, and explores its potential in prompting political struggles.

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  Release Your Inner critic...

  Think ThinkAndBloom

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  There is a voice in your head that always criticizes you, belittle you, and judges you in a harsh way. And you know that you are the voice inside your head. It has a damaging effect on our self-esteem, self-value, and confidence level. If these inner critics overtake your mind, you will lose control in seeing your true beauty. 
  In this course, we will free ourselves from the critical mind. We bring out a new perspective for you to release sabotaging thought patterns. So that we do not need to seek out anyone's approval. We owe our power and stay in our center 
  Through coaching sessions, meditations & hypnosis, you will Release toxic thought patternsFinding the root causeHeal the emotions behindStop any harsh judgmentsKnow that you are good enoughEmbrace your values and uniquenessStop seeking approval from othersAnd much more 
  When you own your power back, you start to see yourself in a different eye. You will feel more compassionate towards yourself and others.

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  Ottoman Empire’s Worst Defeats...

  Editors Charles River

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  In the wake of taking Constantinople, the Ottoman Empire would spend the next few centuries expanding its size, power, and influence, bumping up against Eastern Europe and becoming one of the world’s most important geopolitical players. It was a rise that would not truly start to wane until the 19th century. 	The long agony of the “sick man of Europe,” an expression used by the Tsar of Russia to depict the falling Ottoman Empire, could almost blind people to its incredible power and history. Preserving its mixed heritage, coming from both its geographic position rising above the ashes of the Byzantine Empire and the tradition inherited from the Muslim Conquests, the Ottoman Empire lasted more than six centuries. Its soldiers fought, died, and conquered lands on three different continents, making it one of the few stable multiethnic empires in history, and likely one of the last. Thus, it’s somewhat inevitable that the history of its decline is at the heart of complex geopolitical disputes, as well as sectarian tensions that are still key to understanding the Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans.  
  	When studying the fall of the Ottoman Empire, historians have argued over the breaking point that saw a leading global power slowly become a decadent empire. The defeat in the Battle of Lepanto stopped the Ottomans from pushing further into the Mediterranean, and the Battle of Vienna in 1683 was certainly an important turning point for the expanding empire, as the defeat of Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha at the hands of a coalition led by the Austrian Habsburg dynasty, Holy Roman Empire and Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth marked the end of Ottoman expansionism. It was also the beginning of a slow decline during which the Ottoman Empire suffered multiple military defeats, found itself mired by corruption, and had to deal with the increasingly mutinous Janissaries (the Empire’s initial foot soldiers).

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  Pala Empire - Guardians of...

  Rolf Hedger

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  The Pala Empire emerged in the eastern regions of the Indian subcontinent during the eighth century, marking the beginning of a powerful dynasty that would shape the cultural and political landscape of Bengal and Bihar for nearly four centuries. The empire was established in a period of political fragmentation and instability following the decline of the earlier Gupta Empire and the subsequent rule of smaller, competing kingdoms. This power vacuum set the stage for the rise of a strong and centralized authority under the leadership of Gopala, the first ruler of the Pala dynasty. 
  Gopala's ascent to power is believed to have been unique for the time, as he was reportedly chosen by local chieftains and influential figures through a process of election, rather than simply inheriting his position through lineage. This suggests that his leadership was recognized as a unifying force in a region that had suffered from prolonged disorder and internal conflicts. Once in power, Gopala took significant steps to stabilize his realm, laying the foundation for what would become one of the most enduring dynasties in Indian history. He consolidated his rule over Bengal and expanded his influence into neighboring territories, establishing control over strategic trade routes and fertile agricultural lands that contributed to the empire’s prosperity. 
  Gopala’s son, Dharmapala, proved to be an even more ambitious ruler. Under his leadership, the Pala Empire reached its zenith, with its influence stretching far beyond Bengal into northern and central India. Dharmapala was not only a military leader but also a great patron of Buddhism, playing a crucial role in the expansion of Buddhist institutions, including the famed Nalanda University. His military campaigns brought him into direct conflict with two of the other major powers of the time, the Gurjara-Pratiharas and the Rashtrakutas.

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  Handsome Lake: The Life and...

  Editors Charles River

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  The name "Iroquois", like many Native American tribal names, is not a name the people knew themselves by, but a word applied to them by their enemies the Huron, who called them “Iroquo” (rattlesnake) as an insult. The French later added the suffix “ois.” Moreover, the Iroquois are not even a single tribe but a confederation of several different tribal nations that include the Seneca, Oneida, Onondaga, Mohawk, Cayuga and the Tuscarora, who didn’t become part of the union until the early 1700’s. The name Haudenosaunee (pronounced “ho-den-oh-SHO-nee”) is the name the people use for themselves, which translates as “the People of the Longhouse.” They are also commonly known as the Six Nations. 
  	Despite their own cultural differences, the nations that comprised the Iroquois Confederacy established their political dominance across much of America’s East Coast and Midwest through conquest, and it is that aspect which has perhaps best endured among Americans in terms of the Iroquois’ legacy. European settlers who came into contact with the Mohawks in the Northeast certainly learned to respect their combat skills, to the point that there were literally bounties on the Mohawks’ heads, with scalps fetching money for colonists who succeeded in slaying them and carrying away the “battle prize”. 
  	Handsome Lake (1735-1815) lived through the confederacy’s most turbulent time. His long life started when the Iroquois were powerful and widely feared and respected by all the tribal peoples in the region, and also by the French and the British. He lived through wars, some victories and some defeats, as well as the disunity and the collapse of traditional ways. Handsome Lake experienced his visions late in his life, at a time when the Six Nations, and his own life, were at their nadir.

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