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  Beyond Racial Division - A...

  George A. Yancey

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  Efforts at colorblindness and antiracism have not been very effective in addressing racial tensions in the United States. 
   
   
   
  Colorblindness ignores the realities of race and the history of injustice. On the other hand, antiracism centers racial concerns and in so doing often alienates people who need to be involved in the process. Sociologist George Yancey offers an alternative approach to racial relations where all parties contribute and are mutually accountable to one another for societal well-being. He provides empirical rationale for how collaborative conversations in a mutual accountability model can reduce racial division. History and societal complexity mean that different participants may have different kinds of responsibility, but all are involved in seeking the common good for all to thrive. Avoiding unilateral decisions that close off dialogue, Yancey casts a vision for moving beyond racial alienation toward a lifestyle and movement of collaborative conversation and mutuality.

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  Pleasure of Thinking - Essays

  Wang Xiaob

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  An essay collection on the importance of critical thought, from one of the foremost Chinese intellectuals of the 1990s. 
   
    
   
  Wang Xiaobo's Pleasure of Thinking is an essay collection as riotous as it is contemplative. Between rollicking anecdotes about living between the East and West and serious musings on the intellectual situations at home and abroad, Xiaobo examines modern life with the levity missing from so much of today's politico-cultural discourse. 
   
   
    
  In "The Maverick Pig," he considers the existential differences between humans and livestock. In "Tales From Abroad: Food," he recounts the culture shock of discovering American diets while studying at Carnegie Mellon. Several pieces focus on literature, with notable essays devoted to Italo Calvino, Bertrand Russell, and Ernest Hemingway, whom Xiaobo admired greatly. Others are more personal in nature, ranging from a meditation on getting mugged, to the consideration of the question: why do I write? 
   
   
    
  Controversial, hilarious, and inimitable, Pleasure of Thinking is a delightful celebration of Wang Xiaobo's unique critical perspective.

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  Ming Dynasty - Exploration Great...

  Rolf Hedger

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  The Ming Dynasty emerged from the ashes of the Yuan Dynasty, a Mongol-led empire that had ruled China for nearly a century. By the late 14th century, the Yuan government had become weak and corrupt, plagued by heavy taxation, famines, and widespread unrest. The Chinese population, weary of foreign rule, began to rise in rebellion. Among the many insurgent leaders, one man would rise to power and change the course of Chinese history—Zhu Yuanzhang. 
  Born into a poor peasant family, Zhu Yuanzhang experienced hardship early in life. Orphaned as a child, he spent years in a Buddhist monastery before joining the Red Turban Rebellion, a movement dedicated to overthrowing the Yuan. His military prowess and strategic mind quickly elevated him through the ranks. As he consolidated power, he systematically eliminated rival factions, eventually establishing himself as the dominant leader of the rebellion. In 1368, Zhu marched his forces into Beijing, forcing the last Yuan emperor to flee northward. Declaring the end of Mongol rule, he proclaimed himself emperor and founded the Ming Dynasty, choosing the name "Ming," meaning "brilliant" or "bright," to symbolize a new era of Chinese rule. 
  As the first Ming emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang, now known as the Hongwu Emperor, sought to restore Chinese traditions and repair the damage caused by Mongol rule. He reestablished Confucian principles as the foundation of government, reinstating the civil service examination system to ensure that officials were selected based on merit rather than birthright. He also implemented strict laws to reduce corruption, often resorting to harsh punishments to maintain order. His administration worked to rebuild agriculture, improve irrigation systems, and distribute land to farmers, strengthening the economy and ensuring food security.

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  How Did Life End Up With Us? -...

  Ss O'Connor

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  Why does the gene behave like a hedge fund manager? Why are mutations like a gambling scam? Why does nothing ever become top dog in life and win forever? Humans only arrived after 99.99% of the time there’s been life on earth. So what was here before us? And how did these species, and the evolutionary process that created them, end up with the unpromising creatures that were our ancestors?In this, the first book of The Secrets of Life quartet, SS O’Connor brings his outsider’s, questioning eye to reveal the great forces that lie behind life: from the laws that arose with Big Bang, through to the ‘decisions’ that organisms make to determine their chances.But how did everything come about? And what made some life forms succeed - while others would join the 99.9% of species that appeared, yet went on to become extinct? The story goes right back to our single-celled forebears - the only things that were on the planet for 80% of its existence, and then continues as it lays out the ways that successive transmissions built increasing complexity, and how the resulting species found their synergistic ways of coexisting.  In an easy-going, conversational style, O'Connor explains in lay-man's language how the gene is the great conductor of life’s orchestra, how it helped millions of life forms to refine themselves - yet why it also sees failure, death and extinctions as opportunities rather than disasters.  Last, the book tells the story of the men who unpicked the mysteries, what they meant by fitness and ‘the fittest’, but why they continued to be baffled by organisms that broke the rules by helping each other. Why would some even choose to be sterile when producing the next generation was the overriding compulsion in life? And why would the answer to this question explain why altruism is the proof for the ‘gene-based theory of evolution’ - and why cooperation was to become the strongest force in life?

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  Mughal Empire The: The History...

  Editors Charles River

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  In the late 15th century, Western Europe entered the Renaissance, which is often credited with the origins of modern, scientific thought. The Age of Exploration also began around that time, and 1517 is when the Reformation began. Meanwhile, the Islamic world was also quickly evolving around the same time, with the Ottoman Empire expanding into Eastern Europe and wiping the Orthodox Christian Byzantine Empire off the face of the map. And while the Ottomans were establishing themselves as the premier Islamic power with the help of early gunpowder weapons, hundreds of miles away in Central Asia, another “gunpowder empire” was forming.  
  	The Mughals, a group with Turkish and Mongolian roots, also used gunpowder weapons to sweep into northern India, topple the existing Islamic dynasty in Delhi, and eventually subject most of India to their rule. The term “gunpowder empire” was originally coined by Russian scholar V. V. Bartold and popularized by American historians William McNeil and Marshall Hodgson in the mid-20th century to describe the Islamic Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal empires, which they claimed came to power through gunpowder. Although that core thesis has been challenged by historians in recent years, who argue that gunpowder weapons were a feature or result of the rise of these empires, not the cause for them, the term is still used (Streusand 2011, 3).  
  	To be fair, the Mughals rose through a combination of political acumen and battlefield brutality, and they held onto their empire for hundreds of years in much the same way. In the process, the Mughals developed a state that was unique in many ways, adopting elements of Islamic culture and meshing them with native Indian culture and even Western European culture. When the British conquered India in the mid-19th century, they had the benefit of inheriting the Mughal system, which, despite many problems, proved to be a suitable template for rule over a land as vast and diverse as India.

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  Cognitive Bias in...

  William Rands

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  This book contains the following titles: 
  - The Overconfidence Bias: Overconfidence is a cognitive bias that affects the way we perceive our abilities, knowledge, and future outcomes. It leads individuals to overestimate their competence and the precision of their knowledge, often resulting in flawed decision-making. At its core, overconfidence is an inflated sense of self-assurance that distorts reality. While a certain level of confidence is essential for success, excessive confidence can cloud judgment and lead to risky choices. 
  - The Dunning-Kruger Effect: The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias that leads individuals with limited knowledge or ability in a particular area to overestimate their competence. Named after psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger, who first identified this phenomenon in 1999, the effect reveals a paradox in human cognition: the less people know, the more likely they are to believe they know everything. Conversely, experts in a field tend to underestimate their abilities, assuming that others possess the same level of expertise. This bias is not only fascinating from a psychological standpoint but also carries significant implications for personal, professional, and societal development.

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