My passion for visions and pathways to a better world is based on three main cornerstones: (1) The discontent with the current state of affairs in our immediate cultural environment as well as in geopolitics. (2) My belief is that successful action needs visions, including scientific visions. (3) The experience that visions interact with their Implementation; they actually live by being put into (partial) existence. And since we are all parts of the same biological species, we are able to develop also via writing and reading.
I wrote...
Tango Waves: Omega and Alpha dance in the dark to the song of evolutionary political economy
I love this book because it is a wonderful example of a creative contradiction: It is the most accurate analysis of the dynamics of 20th-century grand politics and, at the same time, a simple fable for children.
What I find so fascinating is that it speaks to my feelings as well as to my intellect. As I am currently–in the face of geopolitics–also often torn apart into contradictions between mood and the wish for analytical clarity, reading a fable, which at the same time carries consolidating rationality, gives me trust in human creativity. Humanism will prevail.
The perfect edition for any Orwell enthusiasts' collection, discover Orwell's classic dystopian masterpiece beautifully reimagined by renowned street artist Shepard Fairey
'All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others.'
Mr Jones of Manor Farm is so lazy and drunken that one day he forgets to feed his livestock. The ensuing rebellion under the leadership of the pigs Napoleon and Snowball leads to the animals taking over the farm. Vowing to eliminate the terrible inequities of the farmyard, the renamed Animal Farm is organised to benefit all who walk on four legs. But as time passes, the…
In 2011, I spent a semester in London; I had arranged to meet Eric Hobsbawm, the famous historian whom I adored. Unfortunately, he was too ill when I arrived and died before I could meet him. In this book he did not only surprise me with his insight into episodes of rebellions and revolutions, what is even more scintillating is that he mixes all that with the evolving emergence of the particular world of jazz.
Rarely a personality with such broad scientific knowledge has managed to be so uncommonly common in its very specific empathy for a particular cultural obsession. The book shows how important it is to walk on two feet: The ordinary animal within its species and the extraordinary scientific observer, letting his spirit fly above singular events.
These 26 essays range over the history of working men and women between the late18th century and the present day. They include Hobsbawm's pioneering studies in labour history and social protest - the formation of the British workin class, labour custom and traditions, the political radicalism of 19th century shoemakers, male and female images in revolutionary movements, the machine-breakers, revolution and sex, peasants and politics, the rules of violence, the common-sense of Tom Paine. There are more recent reflections: on the May Day holiday; the Vietnam War; socialism and the avantgarde; Mario Puzo, the Mafia and the Sicilian bandit Salvatore…
László’s book is a masterpiece of interweaving exciting storytelling with prudent proposals for a new view on seemingly unexplainable ‘bursts’ of behavior. I like the sudden breaks in the text, which abruptly jump from focus to focus—this keeps me alert and induces me to invent my own overarching interpretation.
A new stage of understanding the manyfold links in our social world has to include sudden breaks in standard behavior—this is the main message that the eminent network researcher Barabasi has in store for me.
A revolutionary new theory showing how we can predict human behavior-from a radical genius and bestselling author
Can we scientifically predict our future? Scientists and pseudo scientists have been pursuing this mystery for hundreds and perhaps thousands of years. But now, astonishing new research is revealing patterns in human behavior previously thought to be purely random. Precise, orderly, predictable patterns...
In this captivating exploration into the patterns of human behavior, Albert-László Barabási unveils a groundbreaking theory that challenges the notion of randomness. Barabási, a world-renowned expert in the science of networks, delves into the intricacies of our digital world, revealing…
This is a very old book–written when merchant capitalism just started to take off. It always impresses me–I have read it several times now–how 500 years ago, such an agglomeration of innovative ideas, of visions for a future society, could have been formulated.
A vision, that today is as vibrant and thought-provoking for an author and scientist like me, as it must have been at the time when it was written. Simply stupendous!
First published in Latin in 1516, Utopia was the work of Sir Thomas More (1477–1535), the brilliant humanist, scholar, and churchman executed by Henry VIII for his refusal to accept the king as the supreme head of the Church of England. In this work, which gave its name to the whole genre of books and movements hypothesizing an ideal society, More envisioned a patriarchal island kingdom that practiced religious tolerance, in which everybody worked, no one has more than his fellows, all goods were community-owned, and violence, bloodshed, and vice nonexistent. Based to some extent on the writings of Plato…
This book reached me when I was a young rebellious man in 1971, and it had an immediate impact on my behavior. The youth revolt that we not only could watch on TV since 1968, but which we also could live with our anti-authoritarian behavior at schools, universities, and at work, this new style was given a fresh and funny voice in this book.
Later, Frank Zappa elevated it to more intellectual grounds in lyrics and Jazz-Rock. But for me, Rubin's book still is the best starter for getting the original spirit of the youth revolt of 68.
Slight damage to frt corners, Split 2" down bk cvr from top of bk edge of spine, old sticker removed inside frt cvr. Btm of spine taped. Good reading copy. Intro by Eldridge Cleaver. Insight into the 1960's social change.
The microcosmos of a love and friendship of five people in London develops in parallel to the macro cosmos of the European political economy that is characterized by a shift to the extreme right. Both movements proceed in a kind of Tango waves, alternating between getting tight and letting go, between unbound hope and deep despair.
It is this alternation between the description of the evolution of very personal individual feelings and a somewhat distant scientific look at what goes on politically, which rocks the text. In an appendix, called mysterious links, music and scientific papers are linked to each chapter.
