Other books that might interest you

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  The Midnight Locker -...

  D.L. Hartley

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  The Midnight Locker: Something’s Hiding at Hallowbrooke Elementary 
  At Hallowbrooke Elementary, the hallways fall silent after dark—except for the sound coming from locker #109. Every night at exactly midnight, it creaks open… even though no one’s touched it in years. 
  Fifth-grader Avery Quinn never believed in ghost stories—until strange things started happening at school. Desks rearranged themselves. Whispers echoed from empty rooms. And students began seeing shadows move where no one stood. 
  When Avery and a group of curious classmates decide to investigate the mysterious locker, they uncover a decades-old secret buried deep within the school’s history—a secret that someone, or something, wants to keep hidden. 
  Now, the kids must unlock the truth before the darkness inside the locker escapes for good. 
  A spine-tingling middle-grade mystery full of suspense, friendship, and eerie twists, The Midnight Locker is perfect for fans of Goosebumps, Stranger Things, and Coraline.

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  The Deadly Rise of Anti-science...

  M.D. Peter J. Hotez

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  During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, one renowned scientist, in his famous bowtie, appeared daily on major news networks such as MSNBC, NPR, the BBC, and others.  
   
  Dr. Peter J. Hotez often went without sleep, working around the clock to develop a nonprofit COVID-19 vaccine and to keep the public informed. During that time, he was one of the most trusted voices on the pandemic and was even nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for  
  his selfless work. He also became one of the main targets of anti-science rhetoric that gained traction through conservative news media.  
   
  In this eyewitness story of how the anti-vaccine movement grew into a dangerous and prominent anti-science element in American politics, Hotez describes the devastating impacts it has had on Americans’ health and lives. As a scientist who has endured antagonism from anti-vaxxers and been at the forefront of both essential scientific discovery and advocacy, Hotez is uniquely qualified to tell this story. By weaving his personal experiences together with information on how the anti-vaccine movement became a tool of far-right political figures around the world, Hotez opens readers’ eyes to the dangers of anti-science. He explains how anti-science became a major societal and lethal force: in the first years of the pandemic, more than 200,000 unvaccinated Americans needlessly died despite the widespread availability of COVID-19 vaccines. Even as he paints a picture of the world under a shadow of aggressive ignorance, Hotez demonstrates his innate optimism, offering solutions for how to combat science denial and save lives in the process.

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  Weaving Solidarity - Decolonial...

  Sebastian Garbe

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  In the Global South, Indigenous and Native people continue to live under colonial relations within formally independent nation-states. Sebastian Garbe offers a critical perspective on contemporary expressions of international solidarity and transnational advocacy. He combines approaches from critical race and decolonial studies with an activist ethnography on networked spaces of encounters created through solidarity activism by Mapuche and non-Mapuche actors. Departing from those experiences, this book not only presents potential pitfalls of transnational advocacy but suggests new ways of understanding and practicing solidarity.

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  Michel de Montaigne: A short...

  5 Minutes, 5 Minute Biographies,...

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  Michel de Montaigne, inventor of the essay and philosopher: Life and work in a short biography! Everything you need to know, brief and concise. Infotainment, education and entertainment at its best!

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  Empedocles - The Four Elements...

  Hector Davidson

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  Empedocles, a philosopher and poet from the ancient Greek city of Acragas (modern-day Agrigento, Sicily), lived during the 5th century BCE and is often regarded as one of the most original thinkers of his time. His life and works remain an intriguing fusion of science, mysticism, and poetry. Though much of what we know about Empedocles comes from fragments of his writings, his ideas have had a profound and lasting influence on philosophy, science, and even religion. 
    
  Empedocles is best known for his theory of the four elements—earth, air, fire, and water—which he posited as the fundamental building blocks of the universe. Unlike his predecessors, who sought to explain the world through a singular substance (such as water for Thales or air for Anaximenes), Empedocles argued that these four elements combined and separated through two cosmic forces: Love (Philia) and Strife (Neikos). Love brings the elements together, fostering harmony and unity, while Strife pulls them apart, creating division and chaos. This cyclical process of combination and separation underlies the ongoing changes in the cosmos. 
    
  In addition to his materialistic philosophy, Empedocles incorporated spiritual and mystical elements into his worldview. He believed in the transmigration of souls, suggesting that human beings and other living creatures are bound to an endless cycle of reincarnation. According to Empedocles, the soul is trapped in a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, and it can achieve liberation through purification and virtuous living. His philosophical system thus integrated both natural and ethical concerns, urging individuals to live in harmony with the forces of the cosmos and pursue a life of virtue.

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  On Heroes Hero-Worship and the...

  Thomas Carlyle

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  Though uncompromising, polemical and argumentative, Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) made a lasting impact on 19th-century culture as a multi-talented man of letters. And though his lengthy history of the French Revolution proved his major scholarly legacy, On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History remains perhaps his most popular and accessible work. It presented his deep-seated belief that ‘Universal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here’.  
   
  It is with this bold declaration that Carlyle opened the collection of six lectures that comprise ‘On Heroes’. Initially delivered in 1840, he published them a year later in an expanded form, and the book’s popularity gave him the broader national presence to which he aspired. The six lectures covered a wide range of man’s activities, but of particular interest were the categories, as much as the individual figures.  
   
  Lecture I. The Hero as Divinity: Odin. Paganism: Scandinavian Mythology.  
   
  Lecture II. The Hero as Prophet. Mahomet: Islam.  
   
  Lecture III. The Hero as Poet. Dante, Shakespeare.  
   
  Lecture IV. The Hero as Priest. Luther. Reformation: Knox; Puritanism.  
   
  Lecture V. The Hero as Man of Letters. Johnson, Rousseau, Burns.  
   
  Lecture VI. The Hero as King. Cromwell, Napoleon: Modern Revolutionism.  
   
  These categories challenged opinions from the outset: Carlyle’s fundamental approach, breaking away from an overbearing militaristic description of the hero figure in history, was revolutionary. He chose to take a more radical view, less hide-bound by the conventional constraints of his day, placing the poet, the philosopher and the revolutionary where, in popular imagination, the conqueror and the champion held sway. This was reflected further in the individuals he chose to represent the categories. If modern-day sensibilities may take a less emphatic ‘Great Men’ approach to history, Carlyle’s original work continues to provide an engaging template for contemporary revision.

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