Everything you know about the Civil War is wrong - History On the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, Americans are engaged in new debates over what it was about. Southern revisionists have long tried to claim it wasn’t about slavery, but rather “Northern aggression” – which is a tough sell since they seceded from the Union despite Lincoln’s attempts at compromise on slavery, and then attacked the federal Fort Sumter in South Carolina. That would be Southern aggression, by any standard. But there’s still room for smart revisionism. Whether or not you accept that premise – more on that later – Goldfield shows definitively that Northern evangelical Protestants were the moral force behind the war, and once they turned it into a religious question, a matter of good v. evil, political compromise was impossible. Still, though nativism was widespread in the North, and within the Republican Party (which absorbed some old Know-Nothing and nativist Whig party remnants), abolitionism remained at the party’s fringe. I wish.
Water | Georgetown University Press The battles of yesterday were fought over land. Those of today are over energy. But the battles of tomorrow may be over water. Nowhere is that danger greater than in water-distressed Asia. Water stress is set to become Asia's defining crisis of the twenty-first century, creating obstacles to continued rapid economic growth, stoking interstate tensions over shared resources, exacerbating long-time territorial disputes, and imposing further hardships on the poor. Asia is home to many of the world's great rivers and lakes, but its huge population and exploding economic and agricultural demand for water make it the most water-scarce continent on a per capita basis. Water: Asia's New Battleground is a pioneering study of Asia's murky water politics and the relationships between fresh water, peace, and security. Brahma Chellaney, one of India's leading strategic thinkers and analysts, is a professor at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi. Reviews "A formidable interdisciplinary book.
Roger Pielke Jr | FiveBooks Tell me why we’ve got Human Impacts on Weather and Climate. Actually, that is a book that’s co-authored by my father, and in my book, The Climate Fix, the first chapter is entitled Dinner Table Climate Science and I explain how growing up I was taught all sorts of things by my father, who was a leading atmospheric scientist, and his colleague, Bill Cotton. They worked together at Colorado State for several decades and they have written this book that provides a thorough and comprehensive look at human influences on the climate system, which includes carbon dioxide but goes far beyond just carbon dioxide. If people want to understand the issue of climate change it’s important to understand the diversity of influences that people have on the climate system. You could point to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Survey, but that’s a monumental tome that is not really written for the layperson. We have monumental tomes on the site. I would have a hard time reading it. Yes. Right.
War of the words "We are all philosophers here where I am, and we debate among other things the question of where it is that we live. On that issue I am a liberal. I live in the interstice yes, but I live in both the city and the city." The closing lines of China Miéville's The City and the City (2009) could serve as a summary of the present state of what used to be called science fiction. Fusing elements from works of fantasy and the pulp literature of horror that descends from H P Lovecraft, much of Miéville's earlier work was set in an alternative world, a highly coloured realm far removed from any in which human beings have ever lived. Reading this book, you realise how much of human life - your own and that of others - passes by unseen. Throughout much of the 20th century, writers imagined alternative worlds in order to enlarge the sense of what was possible. Science fiction pursues an inquiry into what it means to be human. The best-known works of post-apocalyptic fiction are no different.
John Shepherd | FiveBooks Your last book is The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science, by Richard Holmes. The reason for picking this is that it is a sort of cross-cultural book. Richard Holmes is a very eminent biographer. He has written biographies of several of the romantic poets including Shelley and Coleridge. In those days it was considered completely normal to be interested in the arts but also to do scientific experiments. Some people would say that the whole idea of science saving us from the whole mess of climate change is a bit of a cop-out because we should be helping ourselves. But on the other hand I don’t think there is any reason to despair. The Politics of Climate Change, A Survey Climate change is a defining issue in contemporary life. Since the Industrial Revolution, heavy reliance on carbon-based sources for energy in industry and society has contributed to substantial changes in the climate, indicated by increases in temperature and sea level rise. In the last three decades, concerns regarding human contributions to climate change have moved from obscure scientific inquiries to the fore of science, politics, policy and practices at many levels. From local adaptation strategies to international treaty negotiation, ‘the politics of climate change’ is as pervasive, vital and contested as it has ever been. On the cusp of a new commitment to international co-operation to rein in greenhouse gas emissions, this essential book intervenes to help understand and engage with the dynamic and compelling ‘Politics of Climate Change’. A section of Maps offers a visual overview of the effects of environmental change.
Iain Banks: Even at my age I still have something to prove Dear me, have you noticed how many middle-aged, bearded blokes are around these days? It makes Iain Banks terribly difficult to spot in a crowd. Maybe that 70s polytechnic lecturer look he has assiduously adopted for so many years is finally in fashion. Still, when he strides into Edinburgh's swanky Balmoral Hotel, fresh off the train from his home in North Queensferry, he looks trim and well-groomed – and, slightly surprisingly, orders a mineral water from the bar. Banks has cut down on drink, he says, and drugs have been banished. Banks shrugs. In response, he plans to crank out a book a year, rather than his recent rate of one every 18 months. Readers of both Banks's mainstream work and his hardcore science fiction (published under the name Iain M Banks) agree that the quality of his science fiction has held up much better over the years; the "M" novels Look to Windward (2000) and Matter (2008) were among his most ambitious and accomplished works in the genre.
Why We Disagree About Climate Change Climate change is not 'a problem' waiting for 'a solution'. It is an environmental, cultural and political phenomenon which is re-shaping the way we think about ourselves, our societies and humanity's place on Earth. Drawing upon twenty-five years of professional work as an international climate change scientist and public commentator, Mike Hulme provides a unique insider's account of the emergence of this phenomenon and the diverse ways in which it is understood. "This is a very rare book. "In this personal and deeply reflective book, a distinguished climate researcher shows why it may be both wrong and frustrating to keep asking what we can do for climate change. "This book is a 'must read' for anyone interested in the relationship between science and society. This book is so important because Mike Hulme cannot be dismissed as a skeptic yet he is calling for a radical change in the way we discuss climate change.
you should "therealnews.com" its also a good alternative news source by swansen Apr 13