Altri libri che potrebbero interessarti

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  Bad Nature - How Rat Control...

  Andrew McCumber

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  Offers insights into the social and cultural implications of humans’ relationships with rats and the natural world. Apart from the occasional pet owner who has rats, most people regard rats as disease-carrying nocturnal pests, scurrying around dumpsters and dragging slices of pizza through New York City subways. Since rats are seemingly omnipresent in human life, why do we harbor such negative feelings about them, and why are they among the creatures most frequently targeted for systematic extermination?In Bad Nature, sociologist Andrew McCumber draws out the cultural underpinnings of rat extermination across three countries and two continents. Drawing from ethnographic, interview, and textual data from the frigid prairie of Alberta, Canada; the heart of downtown Los Angeles, California; and the iconic Galápagos Islands of Ecuador, McCumber studies how humans have sought to suppress and exterminate rat populations in a variety of environmental, social, and political situations. He shows how, in these disparate locations, rat control is a social practice that draws and clarifies the spatial and symbolic boundaries between “good” and “bad” forms of nature. Rats are near the bottom of a symbolic hierarchy of species that places human life at the top, companion animals and majestic wildlife just below them, and the “invasive species” that call for systematic extermination at the very bottom. This hierarchy of living things that places rats at the bottom, McCumber argues, mirrors human systems of social inequalities and power dynamics.  Both original and engaging, Bad Nature urges readers to consider, when charting a just and sustainable future, where will the rats be placed in the worlds we envision?

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  Zeroism

  Bryan Johnson

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  The future is here. It's hiding in plain sight. Who can spot it? 
  In the 21st century, humanity faces three existential risks. Artificial intelligence is improving faster than we can comprehend and in ways we cannot predict. The biosphere of our planet is in question, and we humans are dangerously at each other’s throats. For the first time in history, we cannot look to the past to accurately model the future. Where then can we find answers? 
  Introducing Zeroism. Zeroism embraces what we do not know, what we cannot see, and acting courageously nonetheless. It is the underlying philosophy that steers Blueprint, the Autonomous Self, and DON’T DIE. It’s a philosophy that will serve a society that advances, not by each funeral, but at the speed at which it rejuvenates. 
  Bryan Johnson is an entrepreneur and explorer of the new frontiers of being human. Johnson took stock of his health and realized that a decade of chronic depression and poor cognitive control earlier in life had affected every measure of his well-being. He decided it was time to evolve. Johnson’s controversial ideas and methods have attracted both detractors and devoted followers around the globe. In Zeroism, Johnson shares the philosophical principles that aim to help humanity choose a path forward into the future now.

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  Fascism Comes to America - A...

  Bruce Kuklick

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  A deeply relevant look at what fascism means to Americans. 
   
  From the time Mussolini took power in Italy in 1922, Americans have been obsessed with and brooded over the meaning of fascism and how it might migrate to the United States. Fascism Comes to America examines how we have viewed fascism overseas and its implications for our own country. Bruce Kuklick explores the rhetoric of politicians, who have used the language of fascism to smear opponents, and he looks at the discussions of pundits, the analyses of academics, and the displays of fascism in popular culture, including fiction, radio, TV, theater, and film. Kuklick argues that fascism has little informational meaning in the United States, but instead, it is used to denigrate or insult. For example, every political position has been besmirched as fascist. As a result, the term does not describe a phenomenon so much as it denounces what one does not like. Finally, in displaying fascism for most Americans, entertainment—and most importantly film—has been crucial in conveying to citizens what fascism is about. Fascism Comes to America has been enhanced by many illustrations that exhibit how fascism was absorbed into the US public consciousness.  

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  Mussolini in Myth and Memory -...

  Paul Corner

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  Mussolini has rarely been taken seriously as a totalitarian dictator; Hitler and Stalin have always cast too long a shadow. But what was a negative judgement on the Duce, considered innocuous and ineffective, has begun to work to his advantage. As has occurred with many other European dictators, present-day popular memory of Mussolini is increasingly indulgent; in Italy and elsewhere he is remembered as a strong, decisive leader. Mussolini in Myth and Memory argues against this rehabilitation, documenting the inefficiencies, corruption, and violence of a highly repressive regime and exploding the myths of fascist good government. But this short study does not limit itself to setting the record straight; it seeks also to answer the question of why there is nostalgia for dictatorial rule. Linking past history and present memory, Corner's analysis constructs a picture of the realities of the Italian regime and examines the more general problem of why, in a moment of evident crisis of western democracy, people look for strong leadership and take refuge in the memory of past dictatorships. If, in this book, Fascism is placed in its totalitarian context and Mussolini emerges firmly in the company of his fellow dictators, the study also shows how a memory of the past, formed through reliance on illusion and myth, can affect the politics of the present.

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  Ethnic Identity - Bringing Your...

  Steve Tamayo

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  Did you know that the Bible has a great deal to say about ethnicity?
  Through the Bible, God shapes the way we engage with ethnicity. A biblical perspective on ethnicity gives us confidence to explore our own ethnic identities.
  In this eight-session LifeGuide® Bible Study, Steve Tamayo takes us through passages that open us up to difficult yet important conversations about race, culture, and ethnicity. If ethnicity is a gift from God, engaging this material may deeply transform the way we interact with family, friends, and enemies.
  For over three decades LifeGuide Bible Studies have provided solid biblical content and raised thought-provoking questions—making for a one-of-a-kind Bible study experience for individuals and groups. This series has more than 130 titles on Old and New Testament books, character studies, and topical studies.

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  When God Became White -...

  Grace Ji-Sun Kim, David P. Gushee

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  When Western Christians think about God, the default image that comes to mind is usually white and male. How did that happen? 
   
   
   
  Christianity is rooted in the ancient Near East among people of darker skin. But over time, European Christians cast Jesus in their own image, with art that imagined a fair-skinned Savior in the style of imperial rulers. Grace Ji-Sun Kim explores the historical origins and theological implications of how Jesus became white and God became a white male. The myth of the white male God has had a devastating effect as it enabled Christianity to have a profoundly colonialist posture across the globe. Kim examines the roots of the distortion, its harmful impact on the world, and shows what it looks like to recover the biblical reality of a nonwhite, nongendered God. Rediscovering God as Spirit leads us to a more just faith and a better church and world.

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