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Books > History > Theory & methods > General

Republic (Paperback): Plato Republic (Paperback)
Plato
R95 R76 Discovery Miles 760 Save R19 (20%) Ships in 5 - 10 working days

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. Plato's Republic has influenced Western philosophers for centuries, with its main focus on what makes a well-balanced society and individual.

Why History Matters (Hardcover, 2nd edition): John Tosh Why History Matters (Hardcover, 2nd edition)
John Tosh
R2,004 Discovery Miles 20 040 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Does history matter? Is it anything more than entertainment? And if so, what practical relevance does it have? In this fully revised second edition of a seminal text, John Tosh persuasively argues that history is central to an informed and critical understanding of topical issues in the present. Including a range of contemporary examples from Brexit to child sexual abuse to the impact of the internet, this is an important and practical introduction for all students of history. Inspiring and empowering, this book provides both students and general readers with a stimulating and practical rationale for the study of history. It is essential reading for all undergraduate students of history who require an engaging introduction to the subject. New to this Edition: - Illustrative examples and case studies are fully updated - Features a postscript on British historians and Brexit - Bibliography is heavily revised

Margery kempe of lynn (Paperback): Trues Yard Fisherfolk Museum Margery kempe of lynn (Paperback)
Trues Yard Fisherfolk Museum
R325 Discovery Miles 3 250 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Daughter. Wife. Mother. Mystic. Discover the life of this fifteenth century merchant's wife from King's Lynn who despite being unable to read or write created the first autobiography in English. Explore Margery's world of visions, pilgrimages and the constant threat of being burned for heresy.

Using Digital Humanities in the Classroom - A Practical Introduction for Teachers, Lecturers, and Students (Hardcover, 2nd... Using Digital Humanities in the Classroom - A Practical Introduction for Teachers, Lecturers, and Students (Hardcover, 2nd edition)
Claire Battershill, Shawna Ross
R2,336 Discovery Miles 23 360 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Rooted in the day-to-day experience of teaching and written for those without specialist technical knowledge, this is a new edition of the go-to guide to using digital tools and resources in the humanities classroom. In response to the rapidly changing nature of the field, this new edition has been updated throughout and now features: - A brand-new Preface accounting for new developments in the broader field of DH pedagogy - New chapters on 'Collaborating' and on 'Teaching in a Digital Classroom' - New sections on collaborating with other teachers; teaching students with learning differences; explaining the benefits of digital pedagogy to your students; and advising graduate students about the technologies they need to master - New 'advanced activities' and 'advanced assignment' sections (including bots, vlogging, crowd-sourcing, digital storytelling, web scraping, critical making, automatic text generation, and digital media art) - Expanded chapter bibliographies and over two dozen tables offering practical advice on choosing software programs Accompanied by a streamlined companion website, which has been entirely redesigned to answer commonly asked questions quickly and clearly, this is essential reading for anyone looking to incorporate digital tools and resources into their daily teaching.

Understanding and Teaching the Holocaust (Paperback): Laura Hilton, Avinoam Patt Understanding and Teaching the Holocaust (Paperback)
Laura Hilton, Avinoam Patt
R719 Discovery Miles 7 190 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Few topics in modern history draw the attention that the Holocaust does. The Shoah has become synonymous with unspeakable atrocity and unbearable suffering. Yet it has also been used to teach tolerance, empathy, resistance, and hope. Understanding and Teaching the Holocaust provides a starting point for teachers in many disciplines to illuminate this crucial event in world history for students. Using a vast array of source materials-from literature and film to survivor testimonies and interviews-the contributors demonstrate how to guide students through these sensitive and painful subjects within their specific historical and social contexts. Each chapter provides pedagogical case studies for teaching content such as antisemitism, resistance and rescue, and the postwar lives of displaced persons. It will transform how students learn about the Holocaust and the circumstances surrounding it.

Transforming History - A Guide to Effective, Inclusive, and Evidence-Based Teaching (Hardcover): Mary Jo Festle Transforming History - A Guide to Effective, Inclusive, and Evidence-Based Teaching (Hardcover)
Mary Jo Festle
R919 Discovery Miles 9 190 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Teaching history well is not just a matter of knowing history - it is a set of skills that can be developed and honed through practice. In this theoretically informed but eminently practical volume, Mary Jo Festle examines the recent explosion of research on the teaching and learning of history. Illuminated by her own work, Festle applies the concept of "backward design" as an organizing framework to the history classroom. She provides concrete strategies for setting up an environment that is inclusive and welcoming but still challenging and engaging. Instructors will improve their own conceptual understandings of teaching and learning issues, as well as receive guidance on designing courses and implementing pedagogies consistent with what research tells us about how students learn. The book offers practical illustrations of assignments, goals, questions, grading rubrics, unit plans, and formats for peer observation that are adaptable for courses on any subject and of any size. Transforming History is a critical guide for higher and secondary education faculty - neophytes and longtime professionals alike - working to improve student learning.

Understanding and Teaching the Civil Rights Movement (Paperback): Hasan Kwame Jeffries Understanding and Teaching the Civil Rights Movement (Paperback)
Hasan Kwame Jeffries
R622 Discovery Miles 6 220 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

The civil rights movement transformed the United States in such fundamental ways that exploring it in the classroom can pose real challenges for instructors and students alike. Speaking to the critical pedagogical need to teach civil rights history accurately and effectively, this volume goes beyond the usual focus on iconic leaders of the 1950s and 1960s to examine the broadly configured origins, evolution, and outcomes of African Americans' struggle for freedom. Essays provide strategies for teaching famous and forgotten civil rights people and places, suggestions for using music and movies, frameworks for teaching self-defense and activism outside the South, a curriculum guide for examining the Black Panther Party, and more. Books in the popular Harvey Goldberg Series provide high school and introductory college-level instructors with ample resources and strategies for better engaging students in critical, thought-provoking topics. By allowing for the implementation of a more nuanced curriculum, this is history instruction at its best. Understanding and Teaching the Civil Rights Movement will transform how the United States civil rights movement is taught.

Understanding and Teaching Contemporary US History since Reagan (Hardcover): Kimber Quinney, Amy L. Sayward Understanding and Teaching Contemporary US History since Reagan (Hardcover)
Kimber Quinney, Amy L. Sayward
R998 Discovery Miles 9 980 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Understanding and Teaching Contemporary US History since Reagan is designed for teachers looking for new perspectives on teaching the recent past, the period of US history often given the least attention in classrooms. Less of a traditional textbook than a pedagogical Swiss Army knife, the volume offers a diversity of voices and approaches to teaching a field that, by its very nature, invites vigorous debate and puts generational differences in stark relief. Older history is likely to feel removed from the lived experiences of both teachers and students, allowing for a certain dispassion of perspective. By contrast, contemporary history creates unique challenges, as individual teachers and students may think they know "what really happened" by virtue of their personal experiences. The volume addresses a wide swath of topics, from social movements around identity and representation to the Supreme Court, law enforcement, migration, climate change, and international relations. Emphasizing critical thinking and primary-source analysis, it will aid teachers in creating an invigorating and democratizing classroom experience. Intended for use in both secondary and postsecondary classrooms, the book's structure allows for a variety of applications and invites a broad audience.

Hollywood or History? - An Inquiry-Based Strategy for Using Television Shows to Teach Issue-Centered Curriculum (Hardcover):... Hollywood or History? - An Inquiry-Based Strategy for Using Television Shows to Teach Issue-Centered Curriculum (Hardcover)
Starlynn R. Nance
R2,652 Discovery Miles 26 520 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Teaching with film is not a new approach in the social studies classroom. Different publications, such as Hollywood or History, have bridged the gap with challenges attached to using historical film and engage students through inquiry, not entertainment. To continue with the Hollywood or History strategy, this text uses television shows (sitcoms) to brings issue-centered curriculum to middle and high school classrooms. By exploring issues in specific episodes, students can learn the history behind an issue, relate it to their lives, and develop an informed decision associated with the issue. The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) framework is an integral part to the exploration of issue-centered curriculum. In each chapter, the students will work through the four dimensions and develop critical thinking, reading, and writing skills. My hope is that this text can play a small role in walking practicing teachers through the C3 framework while allowing students to learn about issues that affect society and the communities where they live.

Reproducing, Rethinking, Resisting National Narratives - A Sociocultural Approach to Schematic Narrative Templates (Hardcover):... Reproducing, Rethinking, Resisting National Narratives - A Sociocultural Approach to Schematic Narrative Templates (Hardcover)
Ignacio Bresco de Luna, Floor Van Alphen
R2,652 Discovery Miles 26 520 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

In his now classic Voices of Collective Remembering, James V. Wertsch (2002) examines the extent to which certain narrative themes are embedded in the way the collective past is understood and national communities are imagined. In this work, Wertsch coined the term schematic narrative templates to refer to basic plots, such as the triumph over alien forces or quest for freedom, that are recurrently used, setting a national theme for the past, present and future. Whereas specific narratives are about particular events, dates, settings and actors, schematic narrative templates refer to more abstract structures, grounded in the same basic plot, from which multiple specific accounts of the past can be generated. As dominant and naturalised narrative structures, schematic narrative templates are typically used without being noticed, and are thus extremely conservative, impervious to evidence and resistant to change. The concept of schematic narrative templates is much needed today, especially considering the rise of nationalism and extreme-right populism, political movements that tend to tap into national narratives naturalised and accepted by large swathes of society. The present volume comprises empirical and theoretical contributions to the concept of schematic narrative templates by scholars of different disciplines (Historiography, Psychology, Education and Political Science) and from the vantage point of different cultural and social practices of remembering (viz., school history teaching, political discourses, rituals, museums, the use of images, maps, etc.) in different countries. The volume's main goal is to provide a transdisciplinary debate around the concept of schematic narrative templates, focusing on how narratives change as well as perpetuate at times when nationalist discourses seem to be on the rise. This book will be relevant to anyone interested in history, history teaching, nationalism, collective memory and the wider social debate on how to critically reflect on the past.

Mein Kampf - My Struggle (Vol. I & Vol. II) (Hardcover, (complete & Edition) ed.): Adolf Hitler Mein Kampf - My Struggle (Vol. I & Vol. II) (Hardcover, (complete & Edition) ed.)
Adolf Hitler; Translated by James Murphy
R1,128 Discovery Miles 11 280 Ships in 12 - 17 working days
Doing Experimental Media Archaeology - Practice (Hardcover): Tim van der Heijden, Aleksander Kolkowski Doing Experimental Media Archaeology - Practice (Hardcover)
Tim van der Heijden, Aleksander Kolkowski
R852 R707 Discovery Miles 7 070 Save R145 (17%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the use of experimental approaches to the study of media histories and their cultures. Doing media archaeological experiments, such as historical re-enactments and hands-on simulations with media historical objects, helps us to explore and better understand the workings of past media technologies and their practices of use. By systematically refl ecting on the methodological underpinnings of experimental media archaeology as a relatively new approach in media historical research and teaching, this book aims to serve as a practical handbook for doing media archaeological experiments. Doing Experimental Media Archaeology: Practice is the twin volume to Doing Experimental Media Archaeology: Theory, authored by Andreas Fickers and Annie van den Oever.

Doing Experimental Media Archaeology - Theory (Hardcover): Andreas Fickers, Annie oever Doing Experimental Media Archaeology - Theory (Hardcover)
Andreas Fickers, Annie oever
R2,329 Discovery Miles 23 290 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

This book offers a plea to take the materiality of media technologies and the sensorial and tacit dimensions of media use into account in the writing of the histories of media and technology. In short, it is a bold attempt to question media history from the perspective of an experimental media archaeology approach. It offers a systematic reflection on the value and function of hands-on experimentation in research and teaching. Doing Experimental Media Archaeology: Theory is the twin volume to Doing Experimental Media Archaeology: Practice, authored by Tim van der Heijden and Aleksander Kolkowski.

R.G Collingwood and the Second World War - Facing Barbarism (Hardcover): Peter Johnson R.G Collingwood and the Second World War - Facing Barbarism (Hardcover)
Peter Johnson
R3,143 Discovery Miles 31 430 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

R.G Collingwood's prolific works have shaped the debate about the nature of civilisation and its status as an ideal governing art, morality and social and political existence. As one of the few philosophers to subject civilisation and barbarism to close analysis, R.G Collingwood was acutely aware of the interrelationship between philosophy and history. In Peter Johnson's highly original work, R.G Collingwood and the Second World War: Facing Barbarism, Johnson combines historical, biographical and philosophical discussion in order to illuminate Collingwood's thinking and create the first in-depth analysis of R.G Collingwood's responses to the Second World War. Peter Johnson examines how R.G Collingwood's responses to the war developed from his early rejection of appeasement as a policy for dealing with Hitler's Germany, through his view of Britain's prosecution of the war once the battle with Nazism had been joined, and finally to his picture of a future liberal society in which civility is its overriding ideal.

Ethnic Oral History Materials in Yunnan (Hardcover, New edition): Zidan Chen Ethnic Oral History Materials in Yunnan (Hardcover, New edition)
Zidan Chen
R1,891 Discovery Miles 18 910 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Through case studies of pilot conservation projects launched by the Yunnan Provincial Archives in recent years, this book comprehensively and systematically discusses issues in the conservation of ethnic oral history material and the development of ethnic oral history resources. After an overview of ethnic oral history material in general, the book gives an introduction to the oral history material of the Bai, Hani, Lisu, Wa, Zhuang, and Qiang ethnic groups; discusses theoretical research and work practices related to ethnic oral history; elaborates upon the methods for managing and integrating ethnic oral history archives; reviews the history, current state, and existing issues of work related to ethnic oral materials; summarizes experiences gained from international collaboration in the conservation of ethnic oral materials; and reflects upon issues such as the development of ethnic oral history resources and the establishment of oral history resource systems in multi-ethnic border regions. As the result of research on the management of specialized archives and work related to oral archives, this book contributes towards the establishment of ethnic oral archival science as an academic discipline and enriching the knowledge structure of oral history and the science of managing oral archives.

Teaching U.S. History through Sports (Paperback): Brad Austin, Pamela Grundy Teaching U.S. History through Sports (Paperback)
Brad Austin, Pamela Grundy
R681 Discovery Miles 6 810 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Few areas of study offer more insight into American culture than competitive sports. The games played throughout this nation's history dramatically illuminate social, economic, and cultural developments, from the balance of power in world affairs to changing conceptions of race, gender, and sexuality. Teaching U.S. History through Sports provides strategies for incorporating sports into any U.S. history curriculum. Drawing upon their own classroom experiences, the authors suggest creative ways to use sports as a lens to examine a broad range of historical subjects, including Puritan culture, the rise of Jim Crow, the Cold War, the civil rights movement, and the women's movement. Essays focus on the experiences of African American women, working-class southerners, Latinos, and members of LGBTQ communities, as well as topics including the controversy over Native American mascots and the globalization of U.S. sports.

History Comes Alive - Public History and Popular Culture in the 1970s (Hardcover): M. J. Rymsza-Pawlowska History Comes Alive - Public History and Popular Culture in the 1970s (Hardcover)
M. J. Rymsza-Pawlowska
R2,804 Discovery Miles 28 040 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

During the 1976 Bicentennial celebration, millions of Americans engaged with the past in brand-new ways. They became absorbed by historical miniseries like Roots, visited museums with new exhibits that immersed them in the past, propelled works of historical fiction onto the bestseller list, and participated in living history events across the nation. While many of these activities were sparked by the Bicentennial, M. J. Rymsza-Pawlowska shows that, in fact, they were symptomatic of a fundamental shift in Americans' relationship to history during the 1960s and 1970s. For the majority of the twentieth century, Americans thought of the past as foundational to, but separate from, the present, and they learned and thought about history in informational terms. But Rymsza-Pawlowska argues that the popular culture of the 1970s reflected an emerging desire to engage and enact the past on a more emotional level: to consider the feelings and motivations of historic individuals and, most importantly, to use this in reevaluating both the past and the present. This thought-provoking book charts the era's shifting feeling for history, and explores how it serves as a foundation for the experience and practice of history making today.

Understanding and Teaching the Holocaust (Hardcover): Laura Hilton, Avinoam Patt Understanding and Teaching the Holocaust (Hardcover)
Laura Hilton, Avinoam Patt
R934 Discovery Miles 9 340 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Few topics in modern history draw the attention that the Holocaust does. The Shoah has become synonymous with unspeakable atrocity and unbearable suffering. Yet it has also been used to teach tolerance, empathy, resistance, and hope. Understanding and Teaching the Holocaust provides a starting point for teachers in many disciplines to illuminate this crucial event in world history for students. Using a vast array of source materials-from literature and film to survivor testimonies and interviews-the contributors demonstrate how to guide students through these sensitive and painful subjects within their specific historical and social contexts. Each chapter provides pedagogical case studies for teaching content such as antisemitism, resistance and rescue, and the postwar lives of displaced persons. It will transform how students learn about the Holocaust and the circumstances surrounding it.

New Directions in Social and Cultural History (Hardcover, HPOD): Sasha Handley, Rohan McWilliam, Lucy Noakes New Directions in Social and Cultural History (Hardcover, HPOD)
Sasha Handley, Rohan McWilliam, Lucy Noakes
R2,987 Discovery Miles 29 870 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

What does it mean to be a social and cultural historian today? In the wake of the 'cultural turn', and in an age of digital and public history, what challenges and opportunities await historians in the early 21st century? In this exciting new text, leading historians reflect on key developments in their fields and argue for a range of 'new directions' in social and cultural history. Focusing on emerging areas of historical research such as the history of the emotions and environmental history, New Directions in Social and Cultural History is an invaluable guide to the current and future state of the field. The book is divided into three clear sections, each with an editorial introduction, and covering key thematic areas: histories of the human, the material world, and challenges and provocations. Each chapter in the collection provides an introduction to the key and recent developments in its specialist field, with their authors then moving on to argue for what they see as particularly important shifts and interventions in the theory and methodology and suggest future developments. New Directions in Social and Cultural History provides a comprehensive and insightful overview of this burgeoning field which will be important reading for all students and scholars of social and cultural history and historiography.

The History of Philosophical and Formal Logic - From Aristotle to Tarski (Hardcover, Annotated Ed): Alex Malpass, Marianna... The History of Philosophical and Formal Logic - From Aristotle to Tarski (Hardcover, Annotated Ed)
Alex Malpass, Marianna Antonutti Marfori
R4,272 Discovery Miles 42 720 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

"An Introduction to the History of Philosophical and Formal Logic" introduces ideas and thinkers central to the development of philosophical and formal logic. From its Aristotelian origins to the present-day arguments, logic is broken down into four main time periods: -Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Aristotle and The Stoics) -The early modern period (Leibniz, Bolzano, Boole) -High modern period (Frege, Peano & Russell and Hilbert)-Early 20th century: (Godel and Tarski) Each new time frame begins with an introductory overview highlighting themes and points of importance. Chapters discuss the significance and reception of influential works and look at historical arguments in the context of contemporary debates. To support independent study, comprehensive lists of primary and secondary reading are included at the end of chapters, along with exercises and discussion questions.By clearly presenting and explaining the changes to logic across the history of philosophy, "An Introduction to the History of Philosophical and Formal Logic" constructs an easy-to-follow narrative. This is an ideal starting point for students looking to understand the historical development of logic.

Hollywood or History? - An Inquiry-Based Strategy for Using Film to Acknowledge Trauma in Social Studies (Hardcover): Paul J.... Hollywood or History? - An Inquiry-Based Strategy for Using Film to Acknowledge Trauma in Social Studies (Hardcover)
Paul J. Yoder, Aaron Johnson
R2,668 Discovery Miles 26 680 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Traumagenic events-episodes that have caused or are likely to cause trauma-color the experiences of K-12 students and the social studies curriculum they encounter in U.S. schools. At the same time that the global COVID-19 pandemic has heightened educators' awareness of collective trauma, the racial reckoning of 2020 has drawn important attention to historical and transgenerational trauma. At a time when social studies educators can simply no longer ignore "difficult" knowledge, instruction that acknowledges trauma in social studies classrooms is essential. Through employing relational pedagogies and foregrounding voices that are too often silenced, the lessons in Hollywood or History? An Inquiry-Based Strategy for Using Film to Acknowledge Trauma in Social Studies engage students in examining the role of traumatic or traumagenic events in social studies curriculum. The 20 Hollywood or History? lessons are organized by themes such as political trauma and war and genocide. Each lesson presents film clips, instructional strategies, and primary and secondary sources targeted to the identified K-12 grade levels. As a collection, they provide ready-to-teach resources that are perfect for teachers who are committed to acknowledging trauma in their social studies instruction.

Media Matter - Images as Presenters, Mediators, and Means of Observation (Hardcover): Francisca Comas Rubi, Karin Priem, Sara... Media Matter - Images as Presenters, Mediators, and Means of Observation (Hardcover)
Francisca Comas Rubi, Karin Priem, Sara Gonzalez Gomez
R2,697 Discovery Miles 26 970 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

This volume discusses a broad range of themes and methodological issues around images, photography and film. It is about sharing a fascination about the visual history of education and how images became the most influential (circulating) media within the field of education on local, regional, national and international levels. Within this volume images are primarily analyzed as presenters, mediators, and means of observation. Images are seen as mobile reproducible media which play an active role within the public and educational sphere. They are means of observation and storytelling, they shape identities by presenting models of how we should act in and perceive the world, they circulate though different contexts and media, all of which impacts their meanings.

Using Non-Textual Sources - A Historian's Guide (Hardcover): Catherine Armstrong Using Non-Textual Sources - A Historian's Guide (Hardcover)
Catherine Armstrong
R3,293 Discovery Miles 32 930 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Using Non-Textual Sources provides history students with the theoretical background and skills to interpret non-textual sources. It introduces the full range of non-textual sources used by historians and offers practical guidance on how to interpret them and incorporate them into essays and dissertations. There is coverage of the creation, production and distribution of non-textual sources; the acquisition of skills to 'read' these sources analytically; and the meaning, significance and reliability of these forms of evidence. Using Non-Textual Sources includes a section on interdisciplinary non-textual source work, outlining what historians borrow from disciplines such as art history, archaeology, geography and media studies, as well as a discussion of how to locate these resources online and elsewhere in order to use them in essays and dissertations. Case studies, such as William Hogarth's print Gin Lane (1751), the 1939 John Ford Western Stagecoach and the Hereford Mappa Mundi, are employed throughout to illustrate the functions of main source types. Photographs, cartoons, maps, artwork, audio clips, film, places and artifacts are all explored in a text that provides students with a comprehensive, cohesive and practical guide to using non-textual sources.

'Economy' in European History - Words, Contexts and Change over Time (Hardcover): Luigi Alonzi 'Economy' in European History - Words, Contexts and Change over Time (Hardcover)
Luigi Alonzi
R2,974 Discovery Miles 29 740 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Prompted by the 'linguistic turn' of the late 20th century, intellectual and conceptual historians continue to devote a great deal of attention to the study of concepts in history. This innovative and interdisciplinary volume builds on such scholarship by providing a new history of the term 'economy'. Starting from the Greek idea of the law of the household, Luigi Alonzi traces the different meanings assumed by the word 'economy' during the middle ages and early modern era, highlighting the semantic richness of the word and its uses in various political and cultural contexts. Notably, there is a particular focus on the so-called Oeconomica literature, tracking the reception of works by Plato, Aristotle, the 'pseudo' Aristotle and Xenophon in the Italian and France Renaissance. This tradition was incredibly influential in civic humanism and in texts devoted to power and command and thus affected later debates on Natural Law and the development of new scientific disciplines in the 17th and 18th centuries. In exploring this, the analysis of the function of translations in the transmission and transformation of meanings becomes central. 'Economy' in European History shines much-needed light on an important challenge that many historians repeatedly face: the fact that words can, and do, change over time. It will thus be a vital resource for all scholars of early modern and European economic history.

SuperCivilizations - Civilizations as Superorganisms (Hardcover): Stephen Blaha SuperCivilizations - Civilizations as Superorganisms (Hardcover)
Stephen Blaha
R1,796 Discovery Miles 17 960 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

This book develops a new energetic/thermodynamic basis for the cyclic nature of civilizations. The growth of a civilization is due to the ability of the civilization to acquire and utilize resources for growth. The theory developed turns out to be identical to Blaha's previously developed theory, which successfully matches the history of 50+ civilizations. The energetic/thermodynamic theory appears in studies of superorganisms such as ant and bee colonies as well as other organisms including colonies of microbes. It also appears in theories of predator-prey populations such as wolves and rabbits. The consideration of superorganisms, predator-prey population cyclicity, and human civilization cyclicity suggests that there is an underlying unity in Nature in the growth of large groups of organisms and leads to the conclusion that civilizations are superorganisms. Thus this new model of civilizations is called SuperCivilizations. The book begins by overviewing superorganisms including some exciting new evidence for microbial superorganisms on land and in the deep sea. Subsequently we discuss almost all of the known human civilizations within the framework of this theory. We also consider the Richardson theory of arms races and show that Richardson's equations are identical to those of our energetic/thermodynamic model of civilization dynamics. With a suitable choice of parameters the arms race theory has cyclic solutions (as well as the exponential solutions studied by Richardson) that describe the dynamics of armaments growth in the United States - Russia confrontations from 1981 - 2010. The book also describes a program for the exploration and the colonization of the Solar System and a new means of travel to the stars and galaxies with a view towards the development of a space civilization. The probable effects on contemporary human civilizations of meeting an alien civilization are also described in detail. Because of a close analogy with Newtonian dynamics, and realizing that chance plays a major role in human history, the book also develops a probabilistic theory of civilization dynamics. The cyclic theory of civilizations is also generalized to a civilization theory for populations with three interconnected population segments: a dominant minority/leadership, followers, and external immigrants. This generalized theory leads to the cyclic theory of civilizations under reasonable conditions.

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