Commemorating the 400th anniversary of the publication of Francis Bacon's Advancement of Learning (1605), this collection examines Bacon's recasting of proto-scientific philosophies and practices into early modern discourses of knowledge. Like Bacon, all of the contributors to this volume confront an essential question: how to integrate intellectual traditions with emergent knowledges to forge new intellectual futures. The volume's main theme is Bacon's core interest in identifying and conceptualizing coherent intellectual disciplines, including the central question of whether Bacon succeeded in creating unified discourses about learning. Bacon's interests in natural philosophy, politics, ethics, law, medicine, religion, neoplatonic magic, technology and humanistic learning are here mirrored in the contributors' varied intellectual backgrounds and diverse approaches to Bacon's thought.

"What an amazing story this is! One family's struggle for survival in the chaos of Syria, and one boy's courageous decision to risk his life to tell the story. This graphic memoir is inspiring and exciting, powerful and very poignant. I loved it!" -Anderson Cooper "A story of journalism at its most inspiring, its most heartbreaking, its most essential. Muhammad is a reporter who brings hope to a damaged world." -John Berman, CNN anchor "A powerful true story that demonstrates the power of one young person determined to change the world. Everyone should read this phenomenal book." -Victoria Jamieson, coauthor of When Stars Are Scattered "A beautiful book about an incredible boy. In telling Muhammad's story, Neus simultaneously captures the extraordinary sincerity and courage of so many young Syrians, against the backdrop of a hideous war. Children everywhere should read this inspiring book." -Clarissa Ward, CNN Chief International Correspondent Muhammad Najem was only eight years old when the war in Syria began. He was thirteen when his beloved Baba, his father, was killed in a bombing while praying. By fifteen, Muhammad didn't want to hide anymore-he wanted to act. He was determined to reveal what families like his were enduring in Syria: bombings by their own government and days hiding in dark underground shelters. Armed with the camera on his phone and the support of his family, he started reporting on the war using social media. He interviewed other kids like him to show what they hope for and dream about. More than anything, he did it to show that Syrian kids like his toddler brother and infant sister, are just like kids in any other country. Despite unimaginable loss, Muhammad was always determined to document the humanity of the Syrian people. Eventually, the world took notice. This tenderly illustrated graphic memoir is told by Muhammad himself along with CNN producer Nora Neus, who helped break Muhammad's story and bring his family's plight to an international audience.

How we arrived at a capacity for taking cold, hard looks at the facts of nature -- and whether we ever truly have done so -- are questions that continue to engage both historians of science and students of culture. Historians of modern European intellectual history commonly credit Francis Bacon with laying the groundwork for a mode of study that begins without presuppositions, religious or otherwise, the kind of searching we know as research and long have credited as being "disinterested."

In Objectivity in the Making, Julie Robin Solomon shows how "disinterestedness" became a dominant principle of intellectual modernity by examining Bacon's notion of scientific self-distancing against the background of early modern political ideology, socioeconomic behavior, and traditions of learning. Solomon places him between two cultures -- Jacobean monarchical mercantilism and the self-distancing strategies of early-seventeenth-century traders and travelers. She shows that Bacon -- by virtue of his prominent political position within the Jacobean court, familiarity with prevailing commercial practices, and humanistic learning -- made his signal contributions to natural philosophy because of where he stood at a critical juncture.