The Human Race is about to die away, leaving the planet they were born to the elements of decay and worsening climatological disasters. Future archaeologists who now have two heads, six legs and four arms discover some five million years from now that the end of the Human Race could have been avoided. They seem to have had the knowledge and the technological know-how to select out of their DNA, all the qualities of their kind that were destroying themselves. But, for some reason, they chose to do nothing and allow the deadliest catastrophe in Earth's long history to go on unabated, until finally they were all gone Sound like Science Fiction? Actually, this is how some future species of life may describe us in their Science text-books when they dig up evidence of a race of intelligent creatures - US - who once lived here. We are currently only a few years away from the total destruction of all life on Earth. The tsunamis are getting worse, the Hurricanes are devastating our lands. Plagues of Locusts are eating our food. Saharan dust storms are blowing all around the planet. The oceans are dying. The planet is heating up. Food production is down. Population continues to explode. Rain forests are on fire. Even the forests of the Arctic Circle are on fire. The Arctic Ice Cap is practically gone. The Ozone protection layers of our atmosphere are disappearing. There is now more plastic in the oceans than fish. Toxic chemicals fill the air that we breathe and toxic waste fills the water that we drink. Worse yet, more and more people on the planet are demanding more and more energy be produced for their comfort and luxury. We have in our DNA an innate instinct for luxury and easy living. This has been the Holy Grail for centuries. But today, more and more of us can see the unintended consequences of an out-of-control quest for comfort and consumption of Earth's depleted resources. This book is a primer on how to expunge all of our evil ways.

Some of humankind's greatest tools have been forged in the research laboratory. Who could argue that medical advances like antibiotics, blood transfusions, and pacemakers have not improved the quality of people's lives? But with each new technological breakthrough there comes an array of consequences, at once predicted and unpredictable, beneficial and hazardous. Outcry over recent developments in the reproductive and genetic sciences has revealed deep fissures in society's perception of biotechnical progress. Many are concerned that reckless technological development, driven by consumerist impulses and greedy entrepreneurialism, has the potential to radically shift the human condition—and not for the greater good. Biotechnology and the Human Good builds a case for a stewardship deeply rooted in Judeo-Christian theism to responsibly interpret and assess new technologies in a way that answers this concern. The authors jointly recognize humans not as autonomous beings but as ones accountable to each other, to the world they live in, and to God. They argue that to question and critique how fields like cybernetics, nanotechnology, and genetics might affect our future is not anti-science, anti-industry, or anti-progress, but rather a way to promote human flourishing, common sense, and good stewardship. A synthetic work drawing on the thought of a physician, ethicists, and a theologian, Biotechnology and the Human Good reminds us that although technology is a powerful and often awe-inspiring tool, it is what lies in the heart and soul of who wields this tool that truly makes the difference in our world.

Revised, Extended, and Extensively Updated Text Uses Historical Geographical and Thematic Approach to Provide Undergraduates with a Firm Foundation in Human Geography Drawing on nearly three decades of instructional experience and a wealth of testing pedagogical innovations with students, Mark Boyle has revised and expanded this authoritative and comprehensive introduction to Human Geography. As with the First Edition, Boyle follows the premise that “history makes geography whilst geography makes history,” and that the key to studying the principal demographic, social, political, economic, cultural and environmental processes in any region in the world today is to look at how that region has been impacted by, and in turn has impacted, the story of the rise, reign, and decline of the West. Moreover he argues that Human Geog­raphy itself is best understood as both an intellectual endeavour and a historical, political, and institutional project. Informed by recent developments in post-colonial scholarship, the book covers key concepts, seminal thinkers, and influential texts in the field. Although designed for the beginner student, Boyle does not shy away from ideas and debates often avoided in introductory texts, clearly communicating theory without condescension. In addition, he places human geography in its larger academic context, discussing the influences on the field from related subjects. Notable features in the Second Edition include: Extensive revision and updating of coverage of key ideas, developments, debates and case studies New chapter on uneven geographical development at different scales and development theory and practice Dedicated coverage of Covid-19s geographies New learning resources (figures, tables, plates, maps, Deep Dive boxes, etc.) throughout the text, plus learning objectives, essay questions, checklists summarizing key ideas, and guidance for further reading Updated and expanded companion website with MP4 and MP3 chapter-by-chapter lectures and PowerPoint slides for each chapter, new multiple-choice exam paper and additional essay-style exam questions, and a wide range of student tutorial exercises Human Geography: An Essential Introduction, Second Edition is an excellent foundational text for undergraduate courses in human geography, globalization, Western civilization, historiographies of intellectual thought, the grand public problems confronting humanity in the twenty first century, and other wider social science courses.

A case for literary critics and other humanists to stop wallowing in their aestheticized helplessness and instead turn to poetry, comedy, and love. Literary criticism is an agent of despair, and its poster child is Walter Benjamin. Critics have spent decades stewing in his melancholy. What if instead we dared to love poetry? To choose comedy over Hamlet’s tragedy, romance over Benjamin’s suicide on the edge of France, of Europe, of civilization? Paul Bové challenges young lit critters to throw away their shades and let the sun shine in. Love’s Shadow is his three-step manifesto for a new literary criticism that risks sentimentality and melodrama and eschews self-consciousness. The first step is to choose poetry. There has been since the time of Plato a battle between philosophy and poetry. Philosophy has championed misogyny, while poetry has championed women, like Shakespeare’s Rosalind. Philosophy is ever so stringent; try instead the sober cheerfulness of Wallace Stevens. Bové’s second step is to choose the essay. He praises Benjamin’s great friend and sometime antagonist Theodor Adorno, who gloried in the writing of essays, not dissertations and treatises. The third step is to choose love. If you want a Baroque hero, make it Rembrandt, who brought lovers to life in his paintings. Putting aside passivity and cynicism would amount to a revolution in literary studies. Bové seeks nothing less, and he has a program for achieving it.

The Emerging Politics of (Re) making Cairo's Old Quarters examines postcolonial planning practices that aimed to modernise Cairo’s urban spaces. The author examines the expanding field of postcolonial urbanism by linking the state’s political ideologies and systems of governance with methods of spatial representations that aimed to transform the urban realm in Cairo. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the study draws on planning, history and politics to develop a distinctive account of postcolonial planning in Cairo following Egypt’s 1952 revolution. The book widely connects the ideological role of a different type of politicised urbanism practised during the days of Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak and the overarching policies, institutions and attitudes involved in the visions for (re) building a new nation in Egypt. By examining the notion of remaking urban spaces, the study interprets the ambitions and powers of state policies for improving the spatial qualities of Cairo’s old districts since the early 20th century. These acts are situated in their spatial, political and historical contexts of Cairo’s heterogeneous old quarters and urban spaces particularly the remaking of one of the city’s older quarts named Bulaq Abul Ela established during the Ottoman rule in the thirteenth century. It therefore writes, in a chronological sequence, a narrative through time and space connecting various layers of historical and contemporary political phases for remaking Bulaq. The endeavor is to explain this process from a spatial perspective in terms of the implications and consequences not only on places, but also on the people’s everyday practices. By deeply investigating the problems and consequences; the strengths and weaknesses; and the state’s reliability to achieve the remaking objectives, the book reveals evidence that shifting forms of governance had anchored planning practices into a narrow path of creativity and responsive planning.

This is a book about Christianity in one particular region in Kenya. It walks into churches, listens to sermons, dances to music, and interviews the people sitting in the pews, all with the aim of understanding how spiritual power enables these churches to function as agents within their contemporary society. Ecclesiastical communities in Africa draw upon divine power in order to engage in modernity-related topics. Humans are not unresponsive to global flows of meaning; they are integrative agents who fashion their world by living in it. The kind of modernity arising from these churches does not blindly follow Western forms, but flows from its own internal logic in which spiritual power occupies central hermeneutical function. Theological resources contribute to the formation of sociological expressions. Divine power pertains directly to human constructs, which then allows the churches to actively "image" God for the development of unique forms of modernity arising on the continent.

This volume is addressed to scholars as well as a popular audience, aimed to bridge the gap between academia and the general public. It deals with "who we are," concerning our sense of self and identity; and "how we live," concerning our ways of life in diverse cultures. It affirms that we may transcend our cultural-ethnic roots and redefine our identities, individual or collective. Transcendence opens the door not only to personal transformation but also to confront ethnic stereotypes and prejudices. Readers will gain fresh cultural knowledge from both the East and the West and be attuned to the theme of letting no ethnic group be alien to us. This book is at once about the immersion of life in culture and the remaking of culture by human action--reciprocal influence at work.  The idea of immersion underscores the powerful cultural forces that shape our perceptions, thinking, and emotions. Unlike other cultural psychology texts, this volume dwells on the accelerating alterations of culture by human action, and hence the remaking of our own being, in the age of the Internet. In the author's own words: "I write with the passion of a person who has lived life from being marginal, neither Eastern nor Western, to being a world citizen; turned to English like a duck to the water, thus circumventing my handicap of Chinese orthographic dyslexia. I have two cultural parents, one Chinese and one Western, who transformed me into a thoroughly bilingual-bicultural person, empowered to build intercultural bridges. The East is rising, and the West can ill-afford to remain ignorant of the East."

Human rights in peace and development are accepted throughout the Global South as established, normative, and beyond debate. Only in the powerful elite sectors of the Global North have these rights been resisted and refuted. The policies and interests of these global forces are antithetical to advancing human rights, ending global poverty, and respecting the sovereign integrity of States and governments throughout the Global South. The link between poverty, war, and environmental degradation has become evident over the last 60 years, further augmenting international consciousness of these issues as interconnected with the rest of the human rights corpus. This book examines the history of this struggle and outlines practical means to implement these rights through a global framework of constitutional protections. Within this emerging framework, it argues that States will be increasingly obligated to formulate policies and programs to achieve peace and development throughout the global society.