Showing results by narrator "MIKE COOPER" in All Categories

The Enlightenment: An Idea and Its History provides a critical historical analysis of the Enlightenment in England, Scotland, France, Germany, and the United States from c. 1650 to the present. It argues that the degree of commonality between social and intellectual movements in each—and, more broadly, between the five societies—has been overstated for polemical purposes. Clark shows that the concept of 'the Enlightenment' was not widely adopted in those societies until the mid-twentieth century; indeed, that it was unknown in the eighteenth.

Following the discovery of the Higgs boson, Frank Close has produced this major revision to his classic and compelling introduction to the fundamental particles that make up the universe. Frank Close takes us on a journey into the atom to examine known particles such as quarks, electrons, and the ghostly neutrino, and explains the key role and significance of the Higgs boson. Along the way he provides fascinating insights into how discoveries in particle physics have actually been made, and discusses how our picture of the world has been radically revised in the light of these developments.

Over the last decade, scientists have discovered the importance and widespread presence in the body of a remarkable family of proteins known as prion proteins. Research links various types of prion proteins to neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's—and this has fueled the search for new drugs that could halt the progression of these terrible disorders. Other discoveries have revealed the essential roles prion proteins play in memory and immunity, and the part they may have played in the beginnings of life on our planet.

Distraction isn't a new problem. We're also not the first to complain about how hard it is to concentrate. Early Christian monks beat us to it. They had given up everything to focus on God, yet they still struggled to keep the demons of distraction at bay. But rather than surrender to the meandering of their minds, they developed powerful strategies to improve their attention and engagement. How to Focus is an inviting collection of their strikingly relatable insights and advice—frank, funny, sympathetic, and psychologically sophisticated.

From Parkinson’s disease to Tourette’s syndrome and depression to psychopathy, Broken Brains reveals the mysteries of brain function - and dysfunction. In this no-nonsense introduction, Ian Mitchell takes you on a tour through the sometimes devastating and sometimes bizarre effects of what happens when brains break down.

Horror movies hold a complicated space in the queer community: historically misogynist, and often homo- and transphobic, the genre has also been inadvertently feminist and open to subversive readings. It Came from the Closet features twenty-five original essays by writers speaking to this relationship, through connections both empowering and oppressive. From Carmen Maria Machado on Jennifer’s Body, Jude Ellison S. Doyle on In My Skin, Addie Tsai on Dead Ringers, and many more, these conversations convey the rich reciprocity between queerness and horror.

Dive into the adventures of Miles, an average kid who embarks on an anything-but-average journey into the heart of the jungle with his scientist parents. When they're unexpectedly separated, Miles stumbles upon an ancient, hidden world beneath the lush canopy—a realm filled with remarkable creatures and formidable foes. This scripted audiobook is a thrilling exploration of bravery, discovery, and the magic of stepping into the unknown.

When uprisings against colonial rule broke out across the world after 1945, Britain responded with overwhelming and brutal force. Although this period has conventionally been dubbed "postwar," it was punctuated by a succession of hard-fought, long-running conflicts that were geographically diffuse, morally ambiguous, and impervious to neat endings or declarations of victory. Age of Emergency traces facts and feelings about violence as torture, summary executions, collective punishments, and other ruthless methods were employed in "states of emergency."

On January 22, 1879, the British Army in South Africa was swept aside by the seemingly unstoppable Zulu warriors at the Battle of Isandlwana. Nearby, at a remote outpost on the Buffalo River, a single company of the 24th Regiment and a few dozen recuperating hospital patients were passing a hot, monotonous day. It seemed certain that the Rorke's Drift detachment would share the same fate. And yet, against incredible odds, the British managed to defend their station.

After a period of tremendous upheaval, it is necessary for organizations to transform alongside their employees and welcome new ways of working. While it is impossible to predict which changes will be successful, it is crucial for leaders to now ask: what should work look like to achieve productive, healthy, and safe organizations? In Brave New Workplace, Julian Barling argues that we should focus on creating environments in which employees can flourish, rather than relying on the resiliency of workers to withstand difficult working conditions.

The Oxford Handbook of Lord Byron offers the latest in critical thinking about the poet that defined the Romantic era across Europe and beyond. The volume presents forty-four groundbreaking essays that enable listeners to assess Lord Byron's central position in Romantic traditions and his profound and far-reaching influence on British, European, and world culture.

Immediate, visceral, and full of new analyses that defy decades of conventional wisdom, The First Clash is a superb interpretation of a conflict that indeed made the world safe for Aristotle, Plato, and our own modern democracy. But it was also a battle whose legacy and lessons have often been misunderstood—perhaps, now more than ever, at our own peril.

While doing fieldwork on the remote Indonesian island of Flores, anthropologist Gregory Forth came across people talking about half-apelike, half-humanlike creatures that once lived in a cave on the slopes of a nearby volcano. Over the years he continued to record what locals had to say about these mystery hominoids while searching for ways to explain them as imaginary symbols of the wild or other cultural representations. We follow Forth on the trail of this mystery hominoid, and the space they occupy in islanders' culture as both natural creatures and as supernatural beings.

In Regency England the eldest son usually inherited almost everything—while his younger brothers, left with little inheritance, had to make a crucial decision: What should they do to make an independent living? Historian Rory Muir weaves together the stories of many obscure and well-known young men of good family but small fortune, shedding light on an overlooked aspect of Regency society. This is the first scholarly yet accessible exploration of the lifestyle and prospects of these younger sons.

This book explores why there is a major war again in Europe. Putin's actions need to be understood if not forgiven. With the Ukraine conflict seen as a proxy war of NATO versus Russia, how likely is the fighting to spread?

Science is the basis of our assumptions about ourselves and our world, from ideas about our evolutionary past to our conceptions of the vast expanses of space and the smallest particles of matter. In this panoramic book, acclaimed historian of science Peter Dear uncovers the roots of such beliefs, revealing how they constitute a natural philosophy that has been developed and refined over the course of centuries—and how the world as we have come to know it was by no means inevitable.

Drawing on the experience and insights of CEOs across several industries, as well as lessons from neuroscience, computer science, psychology, and philosophy, BCG's Martin Reeves and Jack Fuller provide a fascinating look into the mechanics of imagination and lay out a six-step process for creating ideas and bringing them to life. The Imagination Machine is the guide you need to demystify and operationalize this powerful human capacity, to inject new life into your company, and to head into unknown territory with the right tools by your side.

The narrative surrounding Britain's anti-invasion forces has often centered on "Dad's Army"-like characters running around with pitchforks, on unpreparedness and sense of inevitability of invasion and defeat. The truth, however, is very different.

On the Japanese island of Shikoku, amidst mountains, coasts, and bamboo forests, lies one of the worlds most sacred trails—the eighty-eight-temple pilgrimage. Inspired by Paulo Coelho, the author of The Alchemist, and driven by dissatisfaction with the day-to-day grind, Matt Jardine embarks on a journey in search of answers to life’s great questions, mysteries that confound us all. Heartfelt, accessible, humorous, and profound, what he discovers is that the hardest path is rarely the one we walk outside, but the one we walk within.

Some people are cleverer than others. This everyday observation is the subject of an academic field that is often portrayed as confused and controversial, when in fact, the field of intelligence holds some of psychology's best-replicated findings. This Very Short Introduction audiobook describes what psychologists have discovered about how and why people differ in their thinking powers. Drawing on largescale data, Ian Deary considers how many types of intelligence there are and how intelligence changes with age.