N - 238/1 | The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan

For centuries, fame and fortune were to be found in the west – in the New World of the Americas. Today, it is the east which calls out to those in search of riches and adventure. Sweeping right across Central Asia and deep into China and India, a region that once took centre stage is again rising to dominate global politics, commerce and culture.

A major reassessment of world history, The Silk Roads is a dazzling exploration of the forces that have driven the rise and fall of empires, determined the flow of ideas and goods and are now heralding a new dawn in international affairs.

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N - 238/2 | The New Silk Roads The Present and Future of the World by Peter Frankopan

'All roads used to lead to Rome. Today, they lead to Beijing.'

When The Silk Roads was published in 2015, it became an instant classic. A major reassessment of world history, it compelled us to look at the past from a different perspective. The New Silk Roads brings this story up to date, addressing the present and future of a world that is changing dramatically.

Following the Silk Roads eastwards, from Europe through to China, by way of Russia and the Middle East, The New Silk Roads provides a timely reminder that we live in a world that is profoundly interconnected. In an age of Brexit and Trump, the themes of isolation and fragmentation permeating the Western world stand in sharp contrast to events along the Silk Roads since 2015, where ties have been strengthened and mutual cooperation established.

With brilliant insight, Peter Frankopan takes a fresh look at the network of relationships being formed along the length and breadth of the Silk Roads today, assessing the global reverberations of these continual shifts in the centre of power - all too often absent from headlines in the West. This important - and ultimately hopeful - book asks us to reassess who we are and where we are in the world, illuminating the themes on which all our lives and livelihood depend.

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N - 196 | The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire by William Dalrymple

The story of how the East India Company took over large swaths of Asia, and the devastating results of the corporation running a country.

In August 1765, the East India Company defeated the young Mughal emperor and set up, in his place, a government run by English traders who collected taxes through means of a private army.

The creation of this new government marked the moment that the East India Company ceased to be a conventional company and became something much more unusual: an international corporation transformed into an aggressive colonial power. Over the course of the next 47 years, the company's reach grew until almost all of India south of Delhi was effectively ruled from a boardroom in the city of London.

ID:  N - 196

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N - 152 | Third World America: How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream by Arianna Huffington

It's not an exaggeration to say that middle-class Americans are an endangered species and that the American Dream of a secure, comfortable standard of living has become as outdated as an Edsel with an eight-track player—that the United States of America is in danger of becoming a third world nation.

The evidence is all around us: Our industrial base is vanishing, taking with it the kind of jobs that have formed the backbone of our economy for more than a century; our education system is in shambles, making it harder for tomorrow's workforce to acquire the information and training it needs to land good twenty-first-century jobs; our infrastructure—our roads, our bridges, our sewage and water, our transportation and electrical systems—is crumbling; our economic system has been reduced to recurring episodes of Corporations Gone Wild; our political system is broken, in thrall to a small financial elite using the power of the checkbook to control both parties.

And America's middle class, the driver of so much of our economic success and political stability, is rapidly disappearing, forcing us to confront the fear that we are slipping as a nation—that our children and grandchildren will enjoy fewer opportunities and face a lower standard of living than we did. It's the dark flipside of the American Dream—an American Nightmare of our own making.

Arianna Huffington, who, with the must-read Huffington Post, has her finger on the pulse of America, unflinchingly tracks the gradual demise of America as an industrial, political, and economic leader. In the vein of her fiery bestseller Pigs at the Trough, Third World America points fingers, names names, and details who is killing the American Dream. Finally, calling on the can-do attitude that is part of America's DNA, Huffington shows precisely what we need to do to stop our freefall and keep America from turning into a third world nation.

Third World America is a must-listen for anyone disturbed by our country's steady descent from twentieth-century superpower to backwater banana republic.

ID:  N - 152

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N - 149 | Arguing with Zombies: Economics, Politics, and the Fight for a Better Future by Paul Krugman

There is no better guide than Paul Krugman to basic economics, the ideas that animate much of our public policy. Likewise, there is no stronger foe of zombie economics, the misunderstandings that just won’t die.

In Arguing with Zombies, Krugman tackles many of these misunderstandings, taking stock of where the United States has come from and where it’s headed in a series of concise, digestible chapters. Drawn mainly from his popular New York Times column, they cover a wide range of issues, organized thematically and framed in the context of a wider debate. Explaining the complexities of health care, housing bubbles, tax reform, Social Security, and so much more with unrivaled clarity and precision, Arguing with Zombies is Krugman at the height of his powers.

Arguing with Zombies puts Krugman at the front of the debate in the 2020 election year and is an indispensable guide to two decades’ worth of political and economic discourse in the United States and around the globe. With quick, vivid sketches, Krugman turns his readers into intelligent consumers of the daily news and hands them the keys to unlock the concepts behind the greatest economic policy issues of our time. In doing so, he delivers an instant classic that can serve as a reference point for this and future generations.

ID:  N - 149

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N - 111 | Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life by Rory Sutherland

Why is Red Bull so popular, though everyone—everyone!—hates the taste?

Humans are, in a word, irrational, basing decisions as much on subtle external signals (that little blue can) as on objective qualities (flavor, price, quality). The surrounding world, meanwhile, is irreducibly complex and random. This means future success can’t be projected on any accounting spreadsheet. To strike gold, you must master the dark art and curious science of conjuring irresistible ideas: alchemy.

Based on thirty years of field work inside the largest experiment in human behavior ever conceived—the forever-unfolding pageant of consumer capitalism—Alchemy, the revolutionary book by Ogilvy advertising legend Rory Sutherland, whose TED talks have been viewed nearly seven million times, decodes human behavior, blending leading-edge scientific research, absurdly entertaining storytelling, deep psychological insight, and practical case studies from his storied career working on campaigns for AmEx, Microsoft, and others.

Heralded as “one of the leading minds in the world of branding” by NPR, Sutherland is a unique thought leader, as comfortable exchanging ideas with Nobel Prize winners Daniel Kahneman and Richard Thaler (both interviewed in this audio) as he is crafting the next product launch.

His unconventional and relentlessly curious approach has led him to discover that the most compelling secrets to human decision-making can be found in surprising places:

What can honey bees teach us about creating a sustainable business?
How could budget airlines show us how to market a healthcare system?
Why is it better to be vaguely right than precisely wrong?
What might soccer penalty kicks teach us about the dangers of risk-aversion?

Better “branding,” Sutherland reveals, can also be employed not just to sell products, but to promote a variety of social aims, like getting people to pay taxes, improving public health outcomes, or encouraging more women to pursue careers in tech.

Equally startling and profound, Sutherland’s journey through the strange world of decision making is filled with astonishing lessons for all aspects of life and business.

ID:  N - 111

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SC - 602 | Biodiesel: From Production to Combustion

Biodiesel: From Production to Combustion ( Biofuel and Biorefinery Technologies Book 8 ) by Meisam Tabatabaei (Editor), Mortaza Aghbashlo (Editor)

This book presents in-depth information on the state of the art of global biodiesel production and investigates its impact on climate change. Subsequently, it comprehensively discusses biodiesel production in terms of production systems (reactor technologies) as well as biodiesel purification and upgrading technologies.

Moreover, the book reviews essential parameters in biodiesel production systems as well as major principles of operation, process control, and trouble-shooting in these systems. Conventional and emerging applications of biodiesel by-products with a view to further economize biodiesel production are also scrutinized. Separate chapters are dedicated to economic risk analysis and critical comparison of biodiesel production systems as well as techno-economical aspects of biodiesel plants. The book also thoroughly investigates the important aspects of biodiesel production and combustion by taking advantage of advanced sustainability analysis tools including life cycle assessment (LCA) and exergy techniques. In closing, the application of Omics technologies in biodiesel production is presented and discussed. This book is relevant to anyone with an interest in renewable, more sustainable fuel and energy solutions.

ISBN: 303000984X | 2018 | ID: SC - 602

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SC - 646 | Green Composites: Processing, Characterisation and Applications for Textiles

Green Composites: Processing, Characterisation and Applications for Textiles (Textile Science and Clothing Technology) by Subramanian Senthilkannan Muthu (Editor)

This book highlights the processing, characterization and applications of various green composites. Composites are known for their unique properties, which are derived by combining two or more components.

This yields properties such as greater strength and rigidity than that of the individual components, as well as reduced weight. To help achieve such outcomes, the book discusses the potential applications of hybrid bio-composites and sisal-fiber-reinforced epoxidized non-edible oil-based epoxy green composites.

2019 | ISBN-10: 9811319715 | ID: SC - 646

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SC - 648 | Urban Galapagos: Transition to Sustainability

Urban Galapagos: Transition to Sustainability in Complex Adaptive Systems (Social and Ecological Interactions in the Galapagos Islands) by Thomas Kvan (Editor), Justyna Karakiewicz (Editor)

This book addresses the future of urbanisation on the Galapagos Islands from a systems, governance and design perspective with the competing parameters of liveability, economic and ecological, using the Galapagos as a laboratory for the theoretical and postulative understanding of evolving settlement and habitation.

The Galapagos islands are one of the world's most examined and reported examples of a series of naturally evolving ecosystems. The biodiversity of these island ecosystems are the focus of tourism and the image across the world yet human settlement are part of the local ecology. While human intervention is limited, the islands are a distinctive context in which to consider the impact of human habitation as a part of our ecosystems. In this book, authors take the framework of complex adaptive systems (CAS) in which to model systems that grow and evolve, the relations between these various sectors change; systems that get more complex as they evolve. Tested and applied discretely in the two realms of natural and urban, for the first time this text will bring the two together in understanding options for the future of urban settlements on the Galapagos Islands and, by extension, consider how the approach can be used globally in other contexts.

2019 | ISBN-10: 3319995332 | ID: SC - 648

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SC - 650 | Seeds of Wealth: Four plants that made men rich

Seeds of Wealth: Four plants that made men rich by Henry Hobhouse

Henry Hobhouse was the first to recognise plants as a causal factor in history in his Seeds of Wealth. In this new book, he examines four plants: rubber, timber, tobacco and the wine grape, each of which enormously increased the wealth of those who dealt in them, created great new industries and changed the course of history.

Ancient Rome's monopoly on wine production had huge economic and hygienic importance. Without rubber, there would have been no development of cars, buses and trucks, bicycles, waterproof clothing or even tennis balls and condoms. Tobacco has largely been condemned for its effects on health and its true role in history ignored. Tobacco has often been used in place of currency and its growth in Virginia supported a colony that produced much of the talent that made Independence possible. Timber shortages led the British Royal Navy to become dependent on American timber. The dearth of timber drove English coal mines deep, which led to the steam pumps, steam engines, and ultimately the Industrial Revolution.

These are fascinating stories the effect of minutiae on the great waves of history.

2012 | ASIN: B0091DL4CA, ISBN: 1593760442 | ID: SC - 650

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