Raymond Aron's In Defense of Decadent Europe was first conceived at a time of great uncertainty for the Western democracies. The postwar economic boom had been interrupted by "stagflation," while communist and socialist parties in Italy and France were powerful factors in Europe's political landscape. Aron's book has a threefold purpose: the analysis of the Soviet Russian regime and its Marxist-Leninist theoretical foundation; the detailed empirical comparison between liberal democracies and collectivist regimes of the East; and, above all, the exploration of what might be termed the "problem" of democracy the tendency of democratic regimes to undermine themselves unless checked in their most extreme tendencies. Aron denounces the clash between democracy and the Marxist-Leninist mystification and explains how Marxism leads to Soviet-style ideology. The second part of the book constitutes a defense of liberal Europe. The author makes comparisons in terms of productivity, technical innovation, living standards, scientific progress, and human freedom. But Aron also notes there are important ways in which the West must put her house in order by cultivating authority in the church, in universities, in business, and even in the army. This paradox is conveyed by the title of the book, the juxtaposition of the words In Defense of and Decadent Europe. In the new introduction, Daniel Mahoney and Brian Anderson discuss the disenchanted conservative liberalism of Raymond Aron that set him apart. Among the topics they cover are: the challenge of ideocracy, the decadence of democracy, and Aron as a civic philosopher. In Defense of Decadent Europe combines ideological debate with economic and social analysis. Its thorough examination of Western freedom versus the Eastern communism of the recent past extends well beyond parochial debates into a basic vision of Western societies. The book will be compelling for historians, political scientists, economists, and philosophers.

An ambitious monograph on Neri Oxman, one of the most inventive minds of our time, whose interdisciplinary design work blends, transcends and redefines the practices of computer science, digital fabrication, material science and synthetic biology. Neri Oxman has forged a singular career across design, science and technology for over twenty years. Trained as both a medical doctor and an architect, she has brought an entirely new spirit of thinking and experimentation to all facets of design. Oxman defines her work at the MIT Media Lab, which approaches nature as processes and substances to be molded to design ends, as 'material ecology.' Using this method, products and buildings are designed as interactive entities that are environmentally informed, biologically augmented, computationally grown and digitally manufactured. The products of her ground-breaking methods are arresting and have major implications for all aspects and scales of design, where Oxman's work is at the edge of many interrelated - and unexpected - practices. From using silkworms' thread to generate a cocoon-like construction to a synthetic apiary, from a water-based fabrication platform that prints structures made out of biopolymers, to automated microrobots that can build their own structure, Oxman and her teams are producing an entirely new vocabulary for designers with far-reaching implications. Mediated Matter is the first comprehensive overview of Oxman's work. Six central chapters - Biopolymers, Cellular Solids, Fibers, Functional Pigments, Organic Comb and Symbiotic Microbes - present the thinking behind the key projects and the process of their creation as well as, crucially, their potential for use in the built environment, all shown in detail through diagrams, explanatory texts, process documents and breathtaking photographs. Through its scientific rigour, sheer imagination and design innovation, this novel publication, like its author, is a future-facing manifesto for a true symbiosis of nature and design.

This book tells the story of the Dönme, the descendents of Jews who resided in the Ottoman Empire and converted to Islam along with their messiah, Rabbi Shabbatai Tzevi, in the seventeenth century. For two centuries following their conversion, the Dönme were accepted as Muslims, and by the end of the nineteenth century rose to the top of Salonikan society. The Dönme helped transform Salonika into a cosmopolitan city, promoting the newest innovation in trade and finance, urban reform, and modern education. They eventually became the driving force behind the 1908 revolution that led to the overthrow of the Ottoman sultan and the establishment of a secular republic. To their proponents, the Dönme are enlightened secularists and Turkish nationalists who fought against the dark forces of superstition and religious obscurantism. To their opponents, they were simply crypto-Jews engaged in a plot to dissolve the Islamic empire. Both points of view assume the Dönme were anti-religious, whether couched as critique or praise. But it is time that we take these religious people seriously on their own terms. In the Ottoman Empire, the Dönme promoted morality, ethics, spirituality, and a syncretistic religion that reflected their origins at the intersection of Jewish Kabbalah and Islamic Sufism. This is the first book to tell their story, from their origins to their near total dissolution as they became secular Turks in the mid-twentieth century.

Whether hailed as heroes or cast as threats to social order, entrepreneurs - and their innovations - have had an enormous influence on the growth and prosperity of nations. "The Invention of Enterprise" gathers together, for the first time, leading economic historians to explore the entrepreneur's role in society from antiquity to the present. Addressing social and institutional influences from a historical context, each chapter examines entrepreneurship during a particular period and in an important geographic location. The book chronicles the sweeping history of enterprise in Mesopotamia and Neo-Babylon; carries the reader through the Islamic Middle East; offers insights into the entrepreneurial history of China, Japan, and Colonial India; and, describes the crucial role of the entrepreneur in innovative activity in Europe and the United States, from the medieval period to today. In considering the critical contributions of entrepreneurship, the authors discuss why entrepreneurial activities are not always productive and may even sabotage prosperity. They examine the institutions and restrictions that have enabled or impeded innovation, and the incentives for the adoption and dissemination of inventions. They also describe the wide variations in global entrepreneurial activity during different historical periods and the similarities in development, as well as entrepreneurship's role in economic growth. The book is filled with past examples and events that provide lessons for promoting and successfully pursuing contemporary entrepreneurship as a means of contributing to the welfare of society.

"The book of Job has often been called the greatest poem ever written. The book, in Edward Greenstein's characterization, is "a Wunderkind, a genius emerging out of the confluence of two literary streams" which "dazzles like Shakespeare with unrivaled vocabulary and a penchant for linguistic innovation." Despite the text's literary prestige and cultural prominence, no English translation has come close to conveying the proper sense of the original. The book has consequently been misunderstood in innumerable details and in its main themes. Edward Greenstein's new translation of Job is the culmination of decades of intensive research and painstaking philological and literary analysis, offering a major reinterpretation of this canonical text. Through his beautifully rendered translation and insightful introduction and commentary, Greenstein presents a new perspective: Job, he shows, was defiant of God until the end. The book is more about speaking truth to power than the problem of unjust suffering."--Page 2 of cover.

A Jewish leader describes how to reinvigorate the Jewish community in North America, calling for acceptance of intermarried families and disengaged Jews, embracing of Jewish diversity, and openness to innovation and young leadership.

About the Book: In this remarkable collection, internationally renowned Ethiopianist Donald Levine has assembled interpretive vignettes-some never before published-spanning more than half a century. Thanks to his unique experiences living among peasants of Northern Shoa, visiting historic monasteries, and enjoying personal connections with modernizing Ethiopians from all political viewpoints, these essays offer acute glimpses into everything from local life-worlds to historic perspectives spanning two millennia. Catching diverse ways in which Ethiopians construct their own narratives is one of the distinctive features of this work. This includes stunning interpretations of Ethiopia's national epic, Kibre Negest; different ways in which Oromos construct their own narratives; and the clash of perspectives among protagonists in the 2005 political crisis, between the ruling party and the main opposition party at that time. The book also includes important political documents such as Levine's first-hand account of the December 1960 coup; his 1976 testimony for the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Africa concerning the Derg; and his thoughtful plea regarding the 1993 Eritrean referendum. The book climaxes with broad interpretive sketches, including the renowned essay on Ethiopia and Japan in comparative civilizational perspective, and Levine's revised interpretation of the evolution of Ethiopia as a historic multi-ethnic society. In addition to historic and cultural forays, Interpreting Ethiopia includes a number of chapters devoted to current domestic challenges, such as the problem of chronic hunger and overpopulation; the problems posed by the exponential growth of an Ethiopian Diaspora after 1974; and the obstacles and opportunities faced by Ethiopians in their effort to create a national public. Reviews: Professor Levine's essays savor like a fine cup of Ethiopian coffee. It is a blend of the earthy taste of ethnography, the subtle aroma of social theory, and the spices of history! -Eloi Ficquet, co-editor of Understanding Contemporary Ethiopia: Monarchy, Revolution and the Legacy of Meles Zenawi The breadth, depth and commitment of Levine's work on Ethiopia spanning fifty years has finally been woven together in this unique and inspiring collection that links profound insights across disciplines from anthropology and archaeology through sociology to history, political science and peace-making. Interpreting Ethiopia is required reading for anyone interested in Ethiopian studies. -Alula Pankhurst, co-editor of Moving People: Displacement, Development and the State in Ethiopia and Country Director of Young Lives Ethiopia This outstanding collection of work by Donald Levine from 1959 through 2014 demonstrates why he is unquestionably one of the world's leading scholars on Ethiopia. -David Shinn, Adjunct Professor of International Affairs at the George Washington University and the Former United States Ambassador to Ethiopia About the Author: DONALD N. LEVINE, is the Peter B. Ritzma Professor of Sociology and former dean of the College at the University of Chicago. For nearly half a century he has been devoted to Ethiopia-as a scholar, in university teaching, in providing expert assistance to various government bodies, and in community service on behalf of Ethiopians at home and abroad. Levine's publications on Ethiopia include dozens of articles, parts of The Flight from Ambiguity: Essays in Social and Cultural Theory (1985), and two books, Wax and Gold: Tradition and Innovation in Ethiopian Culture (1965), now reprinted by Tsehai Publishers and Greater Ethiopia: The Evolution of a Multiethnic Society (1974), a second edition of which, with a new preface was published, in 2001.

Why Women Mean Business showed you why business needs to change. Now Avivah Wittenberg-Cox’s new book shows you how to achieve a healthy and profitable balance. We know that business needs more women. Gender balance has been proven time and time again to lead to more innovation, better business performance and corporate governance. The only question is, how can business leaders make this happen? Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, an acknowledged world authority on women and business, points the way. In four simple steps she provides guidance on how to bring about real change: • Audit – where are you really at with gender balance now? • Awareness – Opening your eyes to what better gender balance could mean for your company • Alignment – Ensuring the buy-in that will bring about real results and change • Sustain – Building gender diversity into corporate DNA This lively, hands-on guide is packed with research and case-studies showing how some of the world’s biggest blue-chip firms have done it. Women are most of the talent and much of the market – you need this book.

"Since 1948, Israel has withstood three full-scale invasions on multiple fronts, bloody wars with Palestinian militias, deadly bombings of its diplomatic missions, and hundreds of terrorist attacks within its territory and against its citizens abroad. This violence has inflicted immense suffering and loss on the people of Israel, but the country has emerged from armed conflict with more territory rather than less, while its permanent preparedness for war has ensured that the full weight of Israeli innovation has been thrown behind the country's military, turning it into the most formidable fighting force in the region. In light of Israel's military prowess, its enemies have opened a new front in their war of annihilation: a full-scale political assault on Israel's legitimacy. The Anti-Israel Agenda reveals how the institutions of greatest moral and political influence including Western governments, the campus, the United Nations, and the Church are being turned against Israel in an effort to isolate and cripple the state until it can no longer defend its interests or its people."--

Drama Characters: 15 male 3 female It's 1929. Two ambitious visionaries race against each other to invent a device called television." Separated by two thousand miles each knows that if he stops working even for a moment the other will gain the edge. Who will unlock the key to the greatest innovation of the 20th century: the ruthless media mogul or the self-taught Idaho farm boy? The answer comes to compelling life in The Farnsworth Invention the new play from Aaron Sor"

Beginning with the development of the compass, Ruling the Waves examines a series of technological revolutions that promised, in their time, to transform the world's politics and business. With Debora Spar's gifted storytelling, each chapter reads like an adventure tale as she recounts the histories of the printing press and maps; of the telegraph, radio, and satellite television; of software, encryption, and the advent of digital music. At each of these junctures Spar suggests that invention led to both a wave of commerce and of chaos. Entrepreneurs such as Samuel Morse and Rupert Murdoch carved new markets from the emerging technology and proclaimed that the old rules no longer applied. And for a while, they were right. But eventually--and inevitably--even cowboys need rules: rules of property, rules of coordination, rules of competition. The erstwhile pioneers thus turn to government, lobbying for order and setting the stage for the next wave of discovery. A fascinating history of business, Ruling the Waves is also an original, thought-provoking analysis of the parallels between past innovations and inventions and our own tumultuous times.

"The goal of this book is to help you better understand the juncture between computer technology and people, the process of creating that technology, and the evolution of those innovations. It does this through the use of essays and annotated case studies of people using technologies such as cell phones, blogs, and personal computer productivity tools"--p. [1]

There is widespread perception that life is faster than it used to be. This book argues that popular and scholarly claims about acceleration gloss over the complex relationship of technology, speed and time. Rather than digital devices rushing us, our experience of always being rushed is the result of the priorities and parameters we ourselves set.

In the blink of an eye, vast economic forces have created new types of communities and reinvented old ones. In The New Geography, acclaimed forecaster Joel Kotkin decodes the changes, and provides the first clear road map for where Americans will live and work in the decades to come, and why. He examines the new role of cities in America and takes us into the new American neighborhood. The New Geography is a brilliant and indispensable guidebook to a fundamentally new landscape. "From the Hardcover edition.

Helpman summarizes two decades of research about the connections among international trade, offshoring, immigration, and changes in net income. The overwhelming conclusion is that globalization has created a small rise in inequality. Other factors must be responsible for most of the rise; evidence suggests the chief culprit is technological change that heavily favors highly skilled workers.--

The words ‘hasid’ and ‘hasidism’ have become so familiar to people interested in the Jewish world that little thought is given to understanding exactly what hasidism is or considering its spiritual and social consequences. What, for example, are the distinguishing features of hasidism? What innovations does it embody? How did its founders see it? Why did it arouse opposition? What is the essential nature of hasidic thought? What is its spiritual essence? What does its literature consist of? What typifies its leadership? What is the secret of its persistence through the centuries? How have scholars explained its origins? Is hasidism an expression of mystical ideas, or a response to changing social circumstances? What is its connection to kabbalah? To Shabateanism? To messianism? What is its relationship to the traditional structures of authority in the Jewish world? This book aims to answer all these questions in a lucid and accessible manner. Rachel Elior focuses on the fundamental positions and the factors of primary importance: the substantial issues that recur in the hasidic texts, including how hasidim have seen themselves over the centuries, how they have constructed a new spiritual and social ideal, and how that ideal has stood the test of reality. The goal is to present the main characteristics of the hasidic movement and to examine the social implications of its mystical ideas. The text is fully supported by references to the relevant hasidic sources and academic literature. The book concludes with a list of the hasidic texts on which the discussion is based and a comprehensive bibliography of scholarly works on kabbalah and hasidism.

Mr. Chazen is known as an innovator and even a revolutionary, whose ideas changed the face of the apparel industry and retailing forever. The book will provide lessons for everyone in business, as it shows how he and his executives at Liz broke the rules time after time in their pursuit of success -- Pioneering overseas production by American corporations Making consumer choice easier by creating coordinated clothing collections Offering women alternatives to traditional, male-oriented business styles Popularizing designer branding and quality on affordable merchandise Focusing on the end consumer rather than the middleman (in this case the department stores) Growing without advertising Many of his innovations are reflected today in the shopping experience of millions of people around the world: specialized boutiques within larger stores, upscale outlet malls, designer branding on everything, and more. Mr. Chazen's penchant for rule breaking is not limited to business practices but rather extends to career and retirement ideas. For example, he shows how careers are often better nurtured and built up in the hinterlands and away from the New York spotlight. His ideas on a satisfying retirement reflect a "never stop working" approach, and on estate planning a "die broke" philosophy. The book will captivate fashion industry insiders, intrigue general business readers, and enlighten anyone interested in devoting themselves to the entrepreneurial life. In this business memoir, Jerome A. Chazen, tells an extraordinary success story - how, together with designer Liz Claiborne, he took a small startup business and grew it into the largest apparel company in the world. Chazen is one of the most celebrated fashion executives of all time. Through his inventive management of Liz Claiborne, Inc., he created a company beloved by generations of women who enthusiastically dressed themselves for both the workplace and leisure time in Liz Claiborne clothing and accessories. In this book, for the first time, Chazen tells the inside story of the founding of the company, the management tactics and strategies he utilized to propel it into the Fortune 500, the internal struggles and tensions that marked the business' phenomenal growth, an inside look at the processes that made Liz a "rock star" in her time, and revealing insights into what it takes to navigate successfully in one of the most competitive industries in the world. Mr. Chazen shows readers how design and creativity is never enough to ensure success. Only by joining the creative processes to savvy marketing and sales strategies can any company achieve great success. He illustrates how he did it at Liz and shows by example how other companies can do the same and flourish as well.

This substantially revised and updated edition of the 1985 classic is ideal for everyone who wants to know more about Judaism. Whether you are a long-time participant in the Jewish community, a newcomer or someone who has struggled to find a home in Jewish life, this introduction to Jewish thought and practice from a Reconstructionist perspective will offer inspiration and guidance. From Kaplan's belief through contemporary innovations, this engaging text explores Reconstructionist views on God, ethics, Zionism, spirituality, text study, Tikkun Olam, life cycle ritual, intermarriage, gay and lesbian issues... and more! A must-read.

The exhilarating story of how London came to be one of the most exciting and influential places on earth—from the city’s colorful, witty, and well-known mayor. Once a swampland that the Romans could hardly be bothered to conquer, over the centuries London became an incomparably vibrant metropolis that has produced a steady stream of ingenious, original, and outsized figures who have shaped the world we know. Boris Johnson, the internationally beloved mayor of London, is the best possible guide to these colorful characters and the history in which they played such lively roles. Erudite and entertaining, he narrates the story of London as a kind of relay race. Beginning with the days when “a bunch of pushy Italian immigrants” created Londinium, he passes the torch on down through the famous and the infamous, the brilliant and the bizarre—from Hadrian to Samuel Johnson to Winston Churchill to the Rolling Stones—illuminating with unforgettable clarity the era each inhabited. He also pauses to shine a light on innovations that have contributed to the city’s incomparable vibrancy, from the King James Bible to the flush toilet. As wildly entertaining as it is informative, this is an irresistible account of the city and people that in large part shaped the world we know.

In the modern economy, where most workers are knowledge workers, creativity and innovation are the most easily sustainable competitive advantages. In The Big Book of Creativity Games , Harvard trained psychologist Robert Epstein provides dozens of games and activities designed to stimulate creativity and generate innovation in the workplace. Dr. Epstein describes the scientific principles of creativity that underlie the games, and how these principles can be applied to tasks like problem solving, new product development, and marketing. Timely and innovative, The Big Book of Creativity Games is the ideal book for managers to turn to whenever they need: Games that are easy to lead and fun to play Exercises that go far beyond standard brainstorming techniques Innovation jump-starters for team meetings and work groups