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Doom : the politics of catastrophe / by Ferguson, Niall,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Setting the great crisis of 2020 in broad historical perspective, Niall Ferguson challenges the conventional wisdom that our failure to cope better with disaster was solely a crisis of political leadership, as opposed to a more profound systemic problem. Disasters are by their very nature hard to predict. Pandemics, like earthquakes, wildfires, financial crises and wars, are not normally distributed; there is no cycle of history to help us anticipate the next catastrophe. But when disaster strikes, we ought to be better prepared than the Romans were when Vesuvius erupted, or medieval Italians when the Black Death struck. We have science on our side, after all. Yet the responses of a number of developed countries, including the United States, to a new pathogen from China were badly bungled. Why? The facile answer is to blame poor leadership. While populist leaders have certainly performed poorly in the face of the pandemic, more profound problems have been exposed by COVID-19. Only when we understand the central challenge posed by disaster in history can we see that this was also a failure of an administrative state and economic elites that had grown myopic over much longer than just a few years. Why were so many Cassandras for so long ignored? Why did only some countries learn the right lessons from SARS and MERS? Why do appeals to "the science" often turn out to be magical thinking? Drawing from multiple disciplines, including history, economics, public health, and network science, Doom is a global postmortem for a plague year. In books going back nearly twenty years, including Colossus, The Great Degeneration, and The Square and the Tower, Niall Ferguson has studied the pathologies that afflict modern America, from imperial hubris to bureaucratic sclerosis and online schism. Doom is the lesson of history that this country--indeed the West as a whole--urgently needs to learn--if we want to avoid the doom of irreversible decline"--
Subjects: COVID-19 (Disease); COVID-19 (Disease); Epidemics; Political leadership.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Hidden Valley Road : inside the mind of an American family / by Kolker, Robert,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American dream. After World War II, Don's work with the Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their twelve children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. In those years, there was an established script for a family like the Galvins--aspiration, hard work, upward mobility, domestic harmony--and they worked hard to play their parts. But behind the scenes was a different story: psychological breakdown, sudden shocking violence, hidden abuse. By the mid-1970s, six of the ten Galvin boys, one after the other, were diagnosed as schizophrenic. How could all this happen to one family? What took place inside the house on Hidden Valley Road was so extraordinary that the Galvins became one of the first families to be studied by the National Institutes of Mental Health. Their story offers a shadow history of the science of schizophrenia, from the era of institutionalization, lobotomy, and the schizophrenogenic mother, to the search for genetic markers for the disease, always amidst profound disagreements about the nature of the illness itself. And unbeknownst to the Galvins, samples of their DNA informed decades of genetic research that continues today, offering paths to treatment, prediction, and even eradication of the disease for future generations. With clarity and compassion, bestselling and award-winning author Robert Kolker uncovers one family's unforgettable legacy of suffering, love and hope"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Schizophrenics; Schizophrenia; Schizophrenia; Schizophrenics; Mentally ill;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Twenty-one days / by Perry, Anne,author.;
"As a new series debuts, a young lawyer races to save his client from execution, putting him at odds with his own father: Thomas Pitt, head of London's Special Police Branch. 1910: Twenty-five-year-old Daniel Pitt is a junior barrister in London and eager to prove himself, independent of his renowned parents' influence. And the new case before him will be the test. When his client, arrogant biographer Russell Graves, is found guilty of murdering his wife, Daniel is dispatched to find the real killer before Graves faces the hangman's noose--in only twenty-one days. Could Mrs. Graves's violent death have anything to do with her husband's profession? Someone in power may be framing the biographer to keep damaging secrets from coming to light. It is a theory that leads Daniel's investigation unexpectedly to London's Special Branch--and, disturbingly, to one of his father's closest colleagues. Caught between duty to the law and a fierce desire to protect his family, Daniel must call on his keen intellect--and trust his natural instincts--to find the truth in a tangle of dark deception, lest an innocent man hang for another's heinous crime"--
Subjects: Detective and mystery fiction.; Historical fiction.; Death row inmates; Murder; Lawyers;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 3
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Slow productivity : the lost art of accomplishment without burnout / by Newport, Cal,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The author of Digital Minimalism and Deep Work offers a philosophy for pursuing meaningful accomplishment while avoiding overload. History's most creative and impactful philosophers, scientists, artists, and writers mastered the art of producing valuable work with staying power. In this book, Cal Newport harnesses the wisdom of these traditional knowledge workers to transform modern jobs. Drawing from research on the habits and mindsets of a varied cast of thinkers from Galileo and Isaac Newton to Jane Austen and Georgia O'Keefe, Newport lays out the key principles of "slow productivity" and provides step-by-step advice for workers to replace the standard notion of productivity with a slower, more humane alternative"--
Subjects: Humanism.; Labor productivity.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Cannabis & CBD for health & wellness : an essential guide for using nature's medicine to relieve stress, anxiety, chronic pain, inflammation, and more / by Sherman, Aliza,author.; Chin, Junella,1976-author.; Scott, Erin,photographer.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."A safe, comprehensive, and easy-to-use guide to using cannabis--including CBD and THC--to ease chronic and acute health issues such as pain, insomnia, inflammation, depression, anxiety, grief, stress, and more, from the founder of a global cannabis wellness network and an osteopathic physician. With legalization of recreational cannabis in 10 states and medical marijuana in 33 states, interest is growing in cannabis-related health products, especially those made with CBD--a cannabinoid that has healing properties without the psychoactive effects of THC. Cannabis and CBD for Health and Wellness demystifies cannabis and its history, and explains in simple and straightforward language how to use it to treat myriad health and lifestyle issues. With information on cannabis forms (tinctures, topicals, edibles, flowers, concentrates), methods of ingestion (smoking, vaping, capusles, patches, creams, and more), dosing (and microdosing), safety and storage, caregiving, and effectivess for self-care, physical fitness, sexual arousal, aging, and more, this is the only book you need to start using cannabis--in a targeted and safe way--for better health"--
Subjects: Cannabis; Cannabinoids; Marijuana; Alternative medicine.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Dispersals : on plants, borders, and belonging / by Lee, Jessica J.,1986-author.;
Includes bibliographical references."In fourteen essays, Dispersals explores the entanglements of the plant and human worlds: from species considered invasive, like giant hogweed; to those vilified but intimate, like soy; and those like kelp, on which our futures depend. Each of the plants considered in this collection are somehow perceived as being 'out of place'--weeds, samples collected through imperial science, crops introduced and transformed by our hand. Combining memoir, history, and scientific research in poetic prose, Jessica J. Lee meditates on the question of how both plants and people come to belong, why both cross borders, and how our futures are more entwined than we might imagine"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Essays.; Personal narratives.; Belonging (Social psychology); Nature.; Plants.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Lands of lost borders : out of bounds on the Silk Road / by Harris, Kate,1982-author.;
"In the spirit of The Places in Between and Into the Silence, this is a transcendent memoir about travelling wildly out of bounds on the fabled Silk Road. "Carried me up into a state of excitement I haven't felt for years. It's a modern classic."--Pico Iyer. As a teenager, Kate Harris realized that the career she most craved--that of a generalist explorer, equal parts swashbuckler and metaphysician, with a flair for basic science and endless slogging--had gone extinct. From what she could tell of the world from small-town Ontario, the likes of Marco Polo and Magellan had mapped the whole earth. So she looked beyond this planet, vowing to become a scientist and go to Mars. Well along this path, Harris set off by bicycle down a short section of the fabled Silk Road with her childhood friend Mel Yule. This trip was just a simulacrum of exploration, she thought, not the thing itself--a little adventure to pass the time until she could launch for outer space. But somewhere in between sneaking illegally across Tibet, studying the history of science and exploration at Oxford, and staring down a microscope for a doctorate at MIT, she realized that an explorer, in any day and age, is by definition the kind of person who refuses to live between the lines. Forget charting maps, naming peaks, leaving footprints on another planet: what she yearned for was the feeling of soaring completely out of bounds. And where she'd felt that most intensely was on a bicycle, on a bygone trading route. So Harris quit the laboratory and hit the Silk Road again with Yule, this time determined to bike it from beginning to end. Like Rebecca Solnit and Pico Iyer, Kate Harris offers a travel account at once exuberant and meditative, wry and rapturous, and above all full of hope. Lands of Lost Borders explores the nature of limits and the wildness of the self that, like our planet, can never be fully mapped. Weaving adventure and deep reflection with the history of science and exploration, Lands of Lost Borders celebrates our connection as humans to the natural world, and ultimately to each other--a belonging that transcends any fences or stories that may divide us."--
Subjects: Harris, Kate, 1982-; Cycling;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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City on the edge / by Swinson, David(Author),author.;
In the wake of a baffling tragedy, 13-year-old Graham moves with his family to Beirut, Lebanon, a city on the edge of the sea and cataclysmic violence. Inquisitive and restless by nature, Graham suspects his State Department father is a CIA operative, and that their family's fragile domesticity is merely a front for American efforts along the nearby Israeli border. Over the course of one year, 1972, Graham's life will utterly change. Two men are murdered, his parent's marriage disintegrates, and Graham, along with his two ex-pat friends, run afoul of forces they cannot understand.
Subjects: Detective and mystery fiction.; Noir fiction.; Historical fiction.; Americans; Espionage, American; Families; Murder;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The Foundations of Western Civilization. by F., Thomas,actor.; The Great Courses (Firm),dst; Kanopy (Firm),dst;
Thomas F. X. NobleOriginally produced by The Great Courses in 2002.You can discover the essential nature, evolution, and perceptions of Western civilization from its humble beginnings in the great river valleys of Iraq and Egypt to the dawn of the modern world. This broad, sweeping series helps you cover an enormous amount of historical material as you see how Western civilization evolved.Mode of access: World Wide Web.
Subjects: Education films.; Social sciences.; History, Ancient.; Education.; Instructional films.;
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Symphony of secrets / by Slocumb, Brendan,author.;
"From the celebrated author of book club favorite The Violin Conspiracy: A gripping page-turner about a professor who uncovers a shocking secret about the most famous American composer of all time-that his music was stolen from a young Black composer named Josephine Reed. Determined to uncover the truth and right history's wrongs, Bern Hendricks will stop at nothing to finally give Josephine the recognition she deserves. Bern Hendricks has just received the call of a lifetime. As one of the world's preeminent experts on the famed twentieth-century composer Frederick Delaney, Bern knows everything there is to know about the man behind the music. When Mallory Roberts, a board member of the distinguished Delaney Foundation and direct descendant of the man himself, asks for Bern's help authenticating a newly discovered piece, which may be his famous lost opera, RED, he jumps at the chance. With the help of his tech-savvy acquaintance Eboni, Bern soon discovers that the truth is far more complicated than history would have them believe. In 1920s Manhattan, Josephine Reed is living on the streets and frequenting jazz clubs when she meets the struggling musician Fred Delaney. But where young Delaney struggles, Josephine soars. She's a natural prodigy who hears beautiful music in the sounds of the world around her. With Josephine as his silent partner, Delaney's career takes off-but who is the real genius here? In the present day, Bern and Eboni begin to uncover more clues that indicate Delaney may have had help in composing his most successful work. Armed with more questions than answers and caught in the crosshairs of a powerful organization who will stop at nothing to keep their secret hidden, Bern and Eboni will move heaven and earth in their dogged quest to right history's wrongs"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; African American composers; Appropriation (Art); Composers; Secrecy;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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