Other books that might interest you

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  Passionate Work - Endurance...

  Renyi Hong

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  In Passionate Work, Renyi Hong theorizes the notion of being "passionate about your work" as an affective project that encourages people to endure economically trying situations like unemployment, job change, repetitive and menial labor, and freelancing. Not simply a subject of aspiration, passion has been deployed as a means to build resilience and mend disappointments with our experiences of work. Tracking the rise of passion in nineteenth-century management to trends like gamification, coworking, and unemployment insurance, Hong demonstrates how passion can emerge in instances that would not typically be understood as passionate. Gamification numbs crippling boredom by keeping call center workers in an unthinking, suspensive state, pursuing even the most banal tasks in hope of career advancement. Coworking spaces marketed toward freelancers combat loneliness and disconnection at the precise moment when middle-class sureties are profoundly threatened. Ultimately, Hong argues, the ideal of passionate work sustains a condition of cruel optimism in which passion is offered as the solution for the injustices of contemporary capitalism.

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  Fighting in World War I: The...

  Editors Charles River

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  World War I, also known in its time as the “Great War” or the “War to End all Wars”, was an unprecedented holocaust in terms of its sheer scale. Fought by men who hailed from all corners of the globe, it saw millions of soldiers do battle in brutal assaults of attrition which dragged on for months with little to no respite. Tens of millions of artillery shells and untold hundreds of millions of rifle and machine gun bullets were fired in a conflict that demonstrated man’s capacity to kill each other on a heretofore unprecedented scale, and as always, such a war brought about technological innovation at a rate that made the boom of the Industrial Revolution seem stagnant.  
  By 1918, all the great powers were fielding squadrons of fighting aircraft armed with machine-guns and bombs, to say nothing of light reconnaissance planes. Tanks, a common feature on the battlefield by 1918, had not previously existed outside of the realm of science fiction stories written by authors like H.G. Wells. Machine guns had gone from being heavy, cumbersome pieces with elaborate water-cooling systems to single-man-portable, magazine-fed affairs like the Chauchat, the Lewis Gun and the M1918 BAR.  
  These technological developments led to an imbalance. Before the introduction of the man-portable light machine gun (which took place in the second half of the war), not to mention tanks (which also joined the fight late in the game), defensive firepower vastly outweighed offensive capability. Massed batteries of artillery, emplaced heavy machine guns, barbed wire entanglements, and bewildering fortifications meant that ground could not be taken except at incredible cost.  
  Fighting in World War I analyzes the technological advancements in weaponry that produced the deadliest conflict in history up to that time, and the adjusting tactics that the combatants came up with on land, at sea, and in the air. 

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  Strange Skies & Shifting Shadows...

  Michael Dean

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  Some stories cling to us long after they’re told. A flicker of doubt, a chill that lingers, a whisper that says the world is not as ordinary as we like to believe. Across the towns, moors, and coastlines of the United Kingdom, mysteries take root. They are retold in pubs and passed down in families, woven into the fabric of our landscapes until fact and folklore blur together. 
  This book began as a podcast—a chance to explore some of Britain’s most intriguing unsolved mysteries. From strange lights in the sky to vanished men, haunted houses to entire stretches of countryside steeped in unease, each episode set out to capture both the history and the enduring sense of the uncanny that clings to these tales. 
  Collected here, the stories form something different. Read together, they reveal patterns: how ordinary lives collide with the inexplicable, how mystery resists tidy explanation, and how the unknown remains part of our national imagination. These aren’t simply curiosities of the past—they are living stories, reshaped every time they are retold. 
  Whether you are returning to these stories after listening to the podcast, or discovering them for the first time, I invite you to treat them as more than puzzles. They are glimpses into the strange corners of our history, reminders that even in an age of reason and technology, mystery endures. 
  Turn the page, and step into a Britain where history, mystery, and imagination meet.

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  Waiting to Inhale - Cannabis...

  Tahira Rehmatullah, Akwasi...

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  From the start, the War on Drugs targeted Black, Brown, and Indigenous Americans already disadvantaged by a system stacked against them. Even now, as white Americans who largely escaped the fire capitalize on the legalization movement and a booming cannabis industry, their less fortunate peers continue to suffer the consequences of the systemic racism in policing and failed drug policy that fueled the original crisis. In Waiting to Inhale, Akwasi Owusu-Bempah and Tahira Rehmatullah issue a powerful call for a racial reckoning and provide a roadmap to redress this deep and abiding injustice. 
   
   
   
  Waiting to Inhale illuminates the stories of those on the front lines of the War on Drugs. As attitudes toward cannabis are shifting, now is the opportune time, Owusu-Bempah and Rehmatullah submit, to expunge cannabis convictions and make a place in the burgeoning legal cannabis market for Black and other underrepresented groups who have borne the brunt of harsh cannabis laws. 
   
   
   
  A powerful indictment of one of the worst social and political failures in the nation's history, Waiting to Inhale offers an equally powerful vision of the possibility of redemption. Communities can be rebuilt, and racist policies must be overturned in order to give way to a new era of justice

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  Debating Gender - A Study of...

  Nadia Harhash

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  This work is an in-depth examination of medieval and contemporary discussions of gender in Islam, focusing in particular on views of women.
  Ms. Harhash wisely introduces the discussion by clarifying the legal status of women in medieval Islam, which provides a useful framework for her discussion.
  While her sympathy clearly lies with Averroes, I was particularly impressed by the chapter on al Ghazali, which traces a nuanced picture of al Ghazali's approach to women, highlighting striking differences in his various works and connecting his (to the modern ear) unpalatable claims about women- to his embracement of Sufism.
  While Ms. Harhash is attracted to the "progressive" view of Averroes, she offers a lucid analysis of his core egalitarian statements in the commentary on the Republic without omitting to point out that his philosophical position is in some tension with the more traditional position in forming his legal decisions.
  Ibn Taymiyyah is probably the biggest villain in Ms. Harhash's narrative and is portrayed as a kind of antipode to Averroes.
  With respect to modern discussion, she focuses on Nawal El Saadawi and Fatima Mernissi, where she situates the modern discussion vis a vis its medieval counterpart and highlights differences and commonalities.
  Ms. Harhash does a good job showing how the critique of the oppression of women in modern days leads to the same question that she had already addressed in Averroes, namely whether a critique of unjust structures in contemporary Islamic societies can be separated from a critique of Islam itself.
  Overall, the thesis is a remarkable achievement. Ms. Harhash reconstructs the medieval and modern discussion with intellectual confidence and independence and brings out similarities and differences that are genuinely illuminating.

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  Theaetetus - What Is Knowledge?...

  Plato, Tim Zengerink

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  What if knowledge was just a feeling—and not a fact? 
  Plato’s Theaetetus is a dynamic and challenging exploration of knowledge, perception, and belief. In this dialogue, Socrates meets Theaetetus, a bright youth, to examine what it really means to "know" something. Through probing questions and clever counterarguments, Socrates reveals the limits of perception, the pitfalls of assumption, and the elusive nature of certainty. 
  What you'll discover inside: 
  •	A Powerful Dialogue on Knowledge – Socratic reasoning that explores the foundations of thought 
  •	The Roots of Western Epistemology – Ideas that continue to influence how we understand truth 
  •	A Modern, Accessible Translation – Making classical wisdom engaging for today’s listeners 
  •	A Journey of Intellectual Exploration – An encounter with doubt that leads to deeper understanding 
  Perfect for listeners seeking intellectual stimulation and philosophical reflection, Theaetetus invites you to re-examine the way you see the world. Join Socrates on a quest to uncover the essence of knowledge.

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