One afternoon, Nasruddin was resting in the shade of a walnut tree next to a watermelon patch.
“What a strange world this is!” he exclaimed. “Tiny walnuts are growing on this enormous tree, while the watermelons are lying there in the dirt, growing on those scrawny vines. If I were in charge, I’d arrange things in a much more logical way.”
Then a walnut happened to fall on Nasruddin’s head.
“Praise God, now I understand!” he exclaimed. “It is because of Divine Providence that I was hit on the head by this tiny walnut and not by an enormous watermelon.”
In this major new book, the leading sociologist, historical anthropologist and demographer Emmanuel Todd sheds fresh light on our current predicament by reconstructing the historical dynamics of human societies from the Stone Age to the present. Eschewing the tendency to attribute special causal significance to the economy, Todd develops an anthropological account of history, focusing on the long-term dynamics of family systems and their links to religion and ideology - what he sees as the slow-moving, unconscious level of society, in contrast to the conscious level of the economy and politics. He also analyses the dramatic changes brought about by the spread of education. This enables him to explain the different historical trajectories of the advanced nations and the growing divergence between them, a divergence that can be observed in such phenomena as the rise of the Anglosphere in the modern period, the paradox of a Homo americanus who is both innovative and archaic, the startling electoral success of Donald Trump, the lack of realism in the will to power shown by Germany and China, the emergence of stable authoritarian democracy in Russia, the new introversion of Japan and the recent turbulent developments in Europe, including Brexit.
Whereas Volume 1 of Endgame presents the problem of civilization, Volume 2 of this pivotal work illustrates our means of resistance. Incensed and hopeful, impassioned and lucid, Endgame leapfrogs the environmental movement's deadlock over our willingness to change our conduct, focusing instead on our ability to adapt to the impending ecological revolution.
Git-R-Done is chock-full of fart jokes and straight talk about America. I sat down one day and said to myself, "Larry, you've done it all. You've got three gold records, a successful DVD, a hit TV show, a picture of Shania Twain givin' ya the finger, and most important, the high score on Frogger. What more could you possibly do?" Then I started thinking about writing a book. I wanted mostly to write Git-R-Done for all those good Americans who just wanna laugh like I do.
“Help us!” the boys said to Nasruddin. “We have this bag of walnuts but we don’t know how to divide them.”
“Do you want to divide them God’s way, or the human way?”
“God’s way!” shouted the boys.
So Nasruddin gave two handfuls to one boy, a handful to another, a few walnuts to the third, and none to the fourth.
The boys looked at him in confusion.
“All things come from God, not just walnuts,” Nasruddin explained. “Life itself is a gift from God! As for walnuts: he gives more to some, less to others, and some get none.”
Everywhere we turn, a startling new device promises to transfigure our lives. But at what cost? In this urgent and revelatory excavation of our Information Age, leading technology thinker Adam Greenfield forces us to reconsider our relationship with the networked objects, services and spaces that define us. It is time to re-evaluate the Silicon Valley consensus determining the future.
We already depend on the smartphone to navigate every aspect of our existence. We're told that innovations—from augmented-reality interfaces and virtual assistants to autonomous delivery drones and self-driving cars—will make life easier, more convenient and more productive. 3D printing promises unprecedented control over the form and distribution of matter, while the blockchain stands to revolutionize everything from the recording and exchange of value to the way we organize the mundane realities of the day to day. And, all the while, fiendishly complex algorithms are operating quietly in the background, reshaping the economy, transforming the fundamental terms of our politics and even redefining what it means to be human.
This is the last book in the series. The author died a month after it was published so there will be no more although she did have other stand alone books published that I will read
Federalist No.72 The Same Subject Continued, and Re-Eligibility of the Executive Considered uthor: Alexander Hamilton To the People of the State of New York:
A word of warning - if you are one of those ultra-modern people who can't get along with characters who are restrained and circumspect, who do not communicate their feelings with modern-day standards of openness etc, this book won't be for you. I know from reading reviews that a lot of such readers do exist. The people who populate this book are circumspect, discreet and undemonstrative to a very high degree. If that bothers you, give this book a miss. As great as it is, you probably won't like it.
