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Ways to Go Beyond and Why They Work: Seven Spiritual Practices in a Scientific Age
by Rupert SheldrakeBy the author of The Science Delusion a detailed account of how science can authenticate spiritualityTo go beyond is to move into a higher state of consciousness, to a place of bliss, greater understanding, love, and deep connectedness, a realm where we finally find life's meaning - experiences for which all spiritual seekers seek.Dr Rupert Sheldrake, writing as both a scientist and a spiritual explorer, looks at seven spiritual practices that are personally transformative and have scientifically measurable effects. He combines the latest scientific research with his extensive knowledge of mystical traditions around the world to show how we may tune into more-than-human realms of consciousness through psychedelics, such as ayahuasca, and by taking cannabis. He also shows how everyday activities can have mystical dimensions, including sports and learning from animals. He discusses traditional religious practices such as fasting, prayer, and the celebration of festivals and holy days.Why do these practices work? Are their effects all inside brains and essentially illusory? Or can we really make contact with forms of consciousness greater than our own? We are in the midst of a spiritual revival. This book is an essential guide.(P)2019 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
Wayward Comet: A Descriptive History of Cometary Orbits, Kepler's Problem and the Cometarium
by Martin BeechComets have not only blazed across the celestial vault throughout human history, they have embellished the night sky since the Earth itself formed some 4.5 billion years ago. Comets were among the first-born solid bodies in the solar system, and their frozen nuclei tell of the primordial chemistry and chaos that ultimately resulted in the formation of the planets, the evolution of life and us. For all this, however, comets have long been celestial oddities: they baffled our distant ancestors, and human society continues to marvel and speculate wildly at their appearance even to the present day. Cutting against the perceived constancy of the stars, comets seemingly present themselves at random times and they are often interpreted as harbingers of terrestrial change - both good and ill. How then are we to tame the comet: where do they form, how do they move, and can their appearances be predicted? Such questions have preoccupied astronomers for centuries but comets have only gradually allowed the secrets of their wayward flight to be revealed. In this book I explore the historical struggle to understand not only the place of comets within a societal context, but also the scientific quest to make their paths amenable to mathematical certitude. The latter narrative is the more technical in content, but it took tactile form with the invention, in 1732, of the cometarium, a mechanical device to demonstrate the first two of Kepler's planetary laws. And, this development was later paralleled, in the mid to late 19th century, by the development of various mechanical devices (analog computers) to help obtain solutions to Kepler's Problem - the problem which asks, exactly where in its orbit is a given comet at some specific set time. The telling of the wayward comets story covers the past two millennia of human history, and it takes us from the phenomenological musings of Aristotle, through the exactitude of Newton's gravitational theory and calculus, to the truly incredible study of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, by the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft, in the modern era.
WCFS2019: Proceedings of the World Conference on Floating Solutions (Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering #41)
by Chien Ming Wang Soon Heng Lim Zhi Yung TayThis book highlights recent research and developments in floating structures on rivers, lakes, seas and oceans for energy harvesting, aquaculture and farming, leisure activities, infrastructure, industrial plants, real estate and cities, with a focus on sustainably living, relaxing and working offshore. Bringing together international experts and leaders, from both industry and academia it reviews and discusses ocean space utilization, and offers an ideal platform for those wanting to establish new collaborations on floating structure projects.
We All Feel: Understanding Animal Grief & Love (Chicago Shorts)
by Barbara J. KingFrom the time of our earliest childhood encounters with animals, we casually ascribe familiar emotions to them, though scientists have long cautioned against such anthropomorphizing. Recently, however, things have begun to shift in the other direction, and anthropologist Barbara J. King is at the forefront of that movement, arguing strenuously that we can—and should—attend to animal emotions. In the stories she tells here, King relays how some farm animals—horses, goats, chickens, and ducks—bond with others and engage in mourning when their friends die. Here, too, dolphins and whales exhibit striking signs of suffering over the loss of babies and companions: a mother dolphin will not give up her dead baby, and whales risk stranding themselves in small groups rather than abandon kin. As part of a larger web of life, death, love, and loss, King calls our attention to emotions—both our own and those of our companion species.
We Are Agora: How Humanity Functions as a Single Superorganism That Shapes Our World and Our Future
by Byron ReeseDiscover a groundbreaking new way of thinking about life, society, and the future of our species that bridges science and human history. Could humans unknowingly be a part of a larger superorganism—one with its own motivations and goals, one that is alive, and conscious, and has the power to shape the future of our species? This is the fascinating theory from author and futurist Byron Reese, who calls this human superorganism &“Agora.&” In We Are Agora, Reese starts by asking the question, &“What is life and how did it form?&” From there, he looks at how multicellular life came about, how consciousness emerged, and how other superorganisms in nature have formed. Then, he poses eight big questions based on the Agora theory, including: If ants have colonies, bees have hives, and we have our bodies, how does Agora manifest itself? Does it have a body? Can Agora explain things that happen that are both under our control and near universally undesirable, such as war? How can Agora theory explain long-term progress we&’ve made in the world? In this unique and ambitious work that spans all of human history and looks boldly into its future, Reese melds science and history to look at the human species from a fresh new perspective. Told with his characteristic wit and compulsive readability, We Are Agora will give readers a better understanding of where we&’ve been, where we&’re going, and how our fates are intertwined.
We Are All Monsters: How Deviant Organisms Came to Define Us
by Andrew ManghamHow the monsters of nineteenth-century literature and science came to define us.&“Was I then a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled and whom all men disowned?&” In We Are All Monsters, Andrew Mangham offers a fresh interpretation of this question uttered by Frankenstein&’s creature in Mary Shelley&’s 1818 novel in an expansive exploration of how nineteenth-century literature and science recast the monster as vital to the workings of nature and key to unlocking the knowledge of all life-forms and processes. Even as gothic literature and freak shows exploited an abiding association between abnormal bodies and horror, amazement, or failure, the development of monsters in the ideas and writings of this period showed the world to be dynamic, varied, plentiful, transformative, and creative.In works ranging from Comte de Buffon&’s interrogations of humanity within natural history to Hugo de Vries&’s mutation theory, and from Shelley&’s artificial man to fin de siècle notions of body difference, Mangham expertly traces a persistent attempt to understand modern subjectivity through a range of biological and imaginary monsters. In a world that hides monstrosity behind theoretical and cultural representations that reinscribe its otherness, this enlightened book shows how innovative nineteenth-century thinkers dismantled the fictive idea of normality and provided a means of thinking about life in ways that check the reflexive tendency to categorize and divide.
We Are All Stardust: Scientists Who Shaped Our World Talk about Their Work, Their Lives, and What They Still Want to Know
by Ross Benjamin Stefan Klein“What distinguishes scientists, in your eyes?”—Stefan Klein“First and foremost, curiosity.”—Roald Hoffmann, Nobel Prize–winning chemistWhen Stefan Klein, an acclaimed journalist, sits down to talk with 18 of the world’s leading scientists, he finds they’re driven by, above all, curiosity. When they talk about their work, they turn to what’s next, to what they still hope to discover. And they see inspiration everywhere: From the sports car that physicist Steven Weinberg says helped him on his quest for “the theory of everything” to the jazz musicians who gave psychologist Alison Gopnik new insight into raising children, they reveal how their paradigm-changing work entwines with their lives outside the lab. We hear from extraordinary natural and social scientists, including:Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins on ego and selflessnessPrimatologist Jane Goodall on chimpanzee behaviorNeuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran on consciousnessGeographer Jared Diamond on chance in historyAnthropologist Sarah Hrdy on motherhoodAnd cosmologist Martin Rees on how “ultimately we ourselves are stardust.”
We Are All Whalers: The Plight of Whales and Our Responsibility
by Michael J. MooreRelating his experiences caring for endangered whales, a veterinarian and marine scientist shows we can all share in the salvation of these imperiled animals.The image most of us have of whalers includes harpoons and intentional trauma. Yet eating commercially caught seafood leads to whales’ entanglement and slow death in rope and nets, and the global shipping routes that bring us readily available goods often lead to death by collision. We—all of us—are whalers, marine scientist and veterinarian Michael J. Moore contends. But we do not have to be.Drawing on over forty years of fieldwork with humpback, pilot, fin, and, in particular, North Atlantic right whales—a species whose population has declined more than 20 percent since 2017—Moore takes us with him as he performs whale necropsies on animals stranded on beaches, in his independent research alongside whalers using explosive harpoons, and as he tracks injured whales to deliver sedatives. The whales’ plight is a complex, confounding, and disturbing one. We learn of existing but poorly enforced conservation laws and of perennial (and often failed) efforts to balance the push for fisheries profit versus the protection of endangered species caught by accident.But despite these challenges, Moore’s tale is an optimistic one. He shows us how technologies for ropeless fishing and the acoustic tracking of whale migrations make a dramatic difference. And he looks ahead with hope as our growing understanding of these extraordinary creatures fuels an ever-stronger drive for change.For more information on Moore’s book and research, please visit his webpage at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
We Are Electric: Inside the 200-Year Hunt for Our Body's Bioelectric Code, and What the Future Holds
by Sally AdeeScience journalist Sally Adee breaks open the field of bioelectricity—the electric currents that run through our bodies and every living thing—its misunderstood history, and why new discoveries will lead to new ways around antibiotic resistance, cleared arteries, and new ways to combat cancer. You may be familiar with the idea of our body's biome: the bacterial fauna that populate our gut and can so profoundly affect our health. In We Are Electric we cross into new scientific understanding: discovering your body's electrome. Every cell in our bodies—bones, skin, nerves, muscle—has a voltage, like a tiny battery. It is the reason our brain can send signals to the rest of our body, how we develop in the womb, and why our body knows to heal itself from injury. When bioelectricity goes awry, illness, deformity, and cancer can result. But if we can control or correct this bioelectricity, the implications for our health are remarkable: an undo switch for cancer that could flip malignant cells back into healthy ones; the ability to regenerate cells, organs, even limbs; to slow aging and so much more. The next scientific frontier might be decrypting the bioelectric code, much the way we did the genetic code. Yet the field is still emerging from two centuries of skepticism and entanglement with medical quackery, all stemming from an 18th-century scientific war about the nature of electricity between Luigi Galvani (father of bioelectricity, famous for shocking frogs) and Alessandro Volta (inventor of the battery). In We Are Electric, award-winning science writer Sally Adee takes readers through the thrilling history of bioelectricity and into the future: from the Victorian medical charlatans claiming to use electricity to cure everything from paralysis to diarrhea, to the advances helped along by the giant axons of squids, and finally to the brain implants and electric drugs that await us—and the moral implications therein. The bioelectric revolution starts here.
We Are Human Animals
by Rosie HaineA resonant reflection on what it means to be human, in the prehistoric past and today.Since the early days of our history, we have been human animals. Thousands of years ago, in paleolithic times, we got up with the sun each morning. The seasons were our calendar, and everything we ate we picked or caught. Some animals were our friends, and others were our food. We loved to meet and talk and dance and wonder at our world. Centuries and centuries have passed since then. But—even though our world is very different now—we are still human animals like the people before us.With simple, poetic words and evocative illustrations, this book transports readers to the strangely familiar Stone Age, when our ancestors were shaping what Homo sapiens would become. We Are Human Animals will spark unforgettable discussions about the history of humanity and the ties that bind us to those who walked the earth long ago.
We Are Not Alone: Why We Have Already Found Extraterrestrial Life
by David Darling Dirk Schulze-MakuchThis groundbreaking book demonstrates that between the results of the 1976 Viking I lander and the latest scientific discoveries - from fertile Martian soil to microbe-ridden meteorites - there is a powerful case for life on the Red Planet and beyond. Exploring what forms extraterrestrial life might take and where it may reside, We Are Not Alone provides a captivating tour of the Solar System and shows that it's much more crowded than we previously realised. Dirk Schulze-Makuch is Associate Professor in Astrobiology at Washington State University. David Darling is an acclaimed popular science writer and bestselling author.
We Are Our Brains: A Neurobiography of the Brain, from the Womb to Alzheimer's
by Jane Hedley-Prole D. F. SwaabA vivid account of what makes us human. Based groundbreaking new research, We Are Our Brains is a sweeping biography of the human brain, from infancy to adulthood to old age. Renowned neuroscientist D. F. Swaab takes us on a guided tour of the intricate inner workings that determine our potential, our limitations, and our desires, with each chapter serving as an eye-opening window on a different stage of brain development: the gender differences that develop in the embryonic brain, what goes on in the heads of adolescents, how parenthood permanently changes the brain. Moving beyond pure biological understanding, Swaab presents a controversial and multilayered ethical argument surrounding the brain. Far from possessing true free will, Swaab argues, we have very little control over our everyday decisions, or who we will become, because our brains predetermine everything about us, long before we are born, from our moral character to our religious leanings to whom we fall in love with. And he challenges many of our prevailing assumptions about what makes us human, decoding the intricate "moral networks" that allow us to experience emotion, revealing maternal instinct to be the result of hormonal changes in the pregnant brain, and exploring the way that religious "imprinting" shapes the brain during childhood. Rife with memorable case studies, We Are Our Brains is already a bestselling international phenomenon. It aims to demystify the chemical and genetic workings of our most mysterious organ, in the process helping us to see who we are through an entirely new lens. Did you know? * The father's brain is affected in pregnancy as well as the mother's. * The withdrawal symptoms we experience at the end of a love affair mirror chemical addiction. * Growing up bilingual reduces the likelihood of Alzheimer's. * Parental religion is imprinted on our brains during early development, much as our native language is. cerebral cortex that directs the fingers of the left hand is five times as large as in people who don't play an instrument.
We Are Stardust: Stellar Evolution and Our Cosmic Connection
by Robert FleckThis concise and accessible book explains one of the most profound and inspiring discoveries ever made, namely, the fact that we ourselves—and all we see around us—are a natural product of the workings and wonders of the Universe, tied directly to distant events spread across space and time reaching back to the beginning, back to the Big Bang, and continuing through the birth and death of successive generations of stars. Modern science has shown that, in a very real and profound way, we are intimately connected to the Cosmos: we are, as Joni Mitchell tells us in her song Woodstock, stardust—in a very real sense, children of the stars—star folk made from chemical elements (“starstuff”) cooked by nuclear reactions in stellar furnaces throughout the various stages of stellar evolution. Life as we know it is an inevitable consequence of the life cycle of the stars. Our story begins at the beginning with the Big Bang some 13.8 billion years ago when, during the first three minutes in the history of the Universe, all of the hydrogen and most of the helium, by far the most abundant elements in the Universe, formed from a cooling plasma of protons, neutrons, and electrons. We then trace the life cycles of the stars from birth to death highlighting the synthesis in the stars of the heavier chemical elements so essential to life, along the way touching on many of the hot topics in astrophysics today including exoplanets, supernovae, pulsars, black holes, white dwarfs, and, since these conditions are found throughout the Galaxy, life in the Universe. The reader, awed by the power and beauty of this cosmic perspective, will leave with a better understanding and appreciation of our true cosmic connection. Surprisingly, despite its significance, this fascinating story of our connection to the stars has largely gone unnoticed outside a small circle of scientists. Understanding that the stuff we are made of traces its origin to nuclear processes accompanying the Big Bang, and thereafter to billions of years of the birth and death of generation after generation of stars, is an important and beautiful story that deserves more attention. Intended for a broad audience, this book provides inspiring reading for all students and afficionados of science.
We Are Starlings: Inside the Mesmerizing Magic of a Murmuration
by Robert Furrow Donna Jo NapoliA stunning picture book for young nature lovers about starlings and the fascinating phenomenon of murmurations. Illustrated by the award-winning artist Marc Martin, this book about the natural world vividly explores how such an enigma is even possible.Sweeping, diving, twisting, turning. To look up at a murmuration of starlings is an experience like no other. Hundreds, thousands, and sometimes millions of starlings fly together as one flock. The group ripples, whirls, and waves as each bird stays close to its neighbors in a harmonious synchronicity of movement. The story is told from the point of view of the flock, which gives the reader an inside look at what is happening, and the breathtaking illustrations perfectly capture the ebb and flow of a murmuration. Young readers will witness and fully appreciate the extraordinary communication and collaboration abilities of these birds and may be able to apply these lessons to their own lives.
We are the Martians
by Giovanni F BignamiFor many thousands of years, human beings have been asking themselves whether they are more frightened of being alone in the universe or of the thought that there is someone else out there. Over the past few decades, however, we have moved from imagination to action, exploring the cosmos using new techniques, often with surprising results. Numerous fascinating but little known facts have emerged - for example, that every year many rocks from Mars fall on the Earth, that one of our amino acids has been found in the coma of a comet, and that some of the known thousands of extrasolar planets are similar to our own. There are further exciting and important discoveries around the corner that will cast more light on the great enigma of how life started on Earth. In this intriguing book, one of the World's leading researchers in astrophysics and space science examines fundamental questions concerning life on Earth and the rest of the cosmos in an accessible and stimulating way.
We Are the Nerds: The Birth and Tumultuous Life of Reddit, the Internet's Culture Laboratory
by Christine Lagorio-ChafkinA riveting look inside Reddit, the wildly popular, often misunderstood website, whose intensely-engaged users have changed the culture of the Internet--"a must-read for anyone hoping to make sense of the century ahead" (Ashlee Vance, bestselling author of Elon Musk). Reddit hails itself as "the front page of the Internet." It's the third most-visited website in the United States--and yet, millions of Americans have no idea what it is. We Are the Nerds is an engrossing look deep inside this captivating, maddening enterprise, whose army of obsessed users have been credited with everything from solving cold case crimes and spurring tens of millions of dollars in charitable donations to seeding alt-right fury and landing Donald Trump in the White House. We Are the Nerds is a gripping start-up narrative: the story of how Reddit's founders, Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, rose up from their suburban childhoods to become millionaires and create an icon of the digital age--before seeing the site engulfed in controversies and nearly losing control of it for good. Based on Christine Lagorio-Chafkin's exclusive access to founders Ohanian and Huffman, We Are the Nerds is also a compelling exploration of the way we all communicate today--and how we got here. Reddit and its users have become a mirror of the Internet: it has dingy corners, shiny memes, malicious trolls, and a sometimes heart-melting ability to connect people across cultures, oceans, and ideological divides.
We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast
by Jonathan Safran FoerThe New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Safran Foer re-evaluated his meat-based diet--and his conscience--in his powerful memoir and investigative report, Eating Animals. Now, he offers a mind-bending and potentially world-changing call to action on climate change.Most books about the environmental crisis are densely academic, depressingly doom-laden, and crammed with impersonal statistics. We Are the Weather is different--accessible, immediate, and with a single clear solution that individual readers can put into practice straight away. A significant proportion of global carbon emissions come from farming meat. Giving up meat is incredibly hard and nobody is perfect--but just cutting back is much easier and still has a huge positive effect on the environment. Just changing our dinners--cutting out meat for one meal per day--is enough to change the world. With his distinctive wit, insight, and humanity, Foer frames this essential debate as no one else could, bringing it to vivid and urgent life.
We Belong to Gaia (Green Ideas)
by James LovelockIn twenty short books, Penguin brings you the classics of the environmental movement.James Lovelock's We Belong to Gaia draws on decades of wisdom to lay out the history of our remarkable planet, to show that it is not ours to be exploited - and warns us that it is fighting back.Over the past 75 years, a new canon has emerged. As life on Earth has become irrevocably altered by humans, visionary thinkers around the world have raised their voices to defend the planet, and affirm our place at the heart of its restoration. Their words have endured through the decades, becoming the classics of a movement. Together, these books show the richness of environmental thought, and point the way to a fairer, saner, greener world.
We Could Not Fail: The First African Americans in the Space Program
by Richard Paul Steven MossThis &“surprising and insightful&” history profiles ten African American engineers, mathematicians, and others who worked for NASA&’s space program (Lauren Helmuth, New York Times Book Review).The Space Age began just as the struggle for civil rights forced Americans to confront the bitter legacy of slavery, discrimination, and violence against African Americans. NASA itself became an agent of social change, with President Kennedy opening its workplaces to African Americans. In We Could Not Fail, Richard Paul and Steven Moss profile ten pioneer African American space workers whose stories illustrate the role NASA and the space program played in promoting civil rights.Paul and Moss recount how these technicians, mathematicians, engineers, and an astronaut candidate surmounted barriers and navigated being the sole African American in a NASA work group. These brave and determined men went on to help transform Southern society by integrating colleges, patenting new inventions, holding elective office, and reviving and governing defunct towns. Adding new names to the roster of civil rights heroes and a new chapter to the story of space exploration, We Could Not Fail demonstrates how African Americans broke the color barrier by competing successfully at the highest level of American intellectual and technological achievement.
We Could Not Fail: The First African Americans in the Space Program
by Richard Paul Steven MossThis &“surprising and insightful&” history profiles ten African American engineers, mathematicians, and others who worked for NASA&’s space program (Lauren Helmuth, New York Times Book Review).The Space Age began just as the struggle for civil rights forced Americans to confront the bitter legacy of slavery, discrimination, and violence against African Americans. NASA itself became an agent of social change, with President Kennedy opening its workplaces to African Americans. In We Could Not Fail, Richard Paul and Steven Moss profile ten pioneer African American space workers whose stories illustrate the role NASA and the space program played in promoting civil rights.Paul and Moss recount how these technicians, mathematicians, engineers, and an astronaut candidate surmounted barriers and navigated being the sole African American in a NASA work group. These brave and determined men went on to help transform Southern society by integrating colleges, patenting new inventions, holding elective office, and reviving and governing defunct towns. Adding new names to the roster of civil rights heroes and a new chapter to the story of space exploration, We Could Not Fail demonstrates how African Americans broke the color barrier by competing successfully at the highest level of American intellectual and technological achievement.
We Dare You: Hundreds of Fun Science Bets, Challenges, and Experiments You Can Do at Home
by Vicki CobbWould you believe that you could throw an egg across the room without breaking it? Burn a candle underwater? We Dare You! is a gigantic collection of irresistible, easy-to-perform science experiments, tricks, bets, and games kids can do at home with everyday household objects. Thanks to the principles of gravity, mechanics, fluids, logic, geometry, energy, and perception, kids will find countless hours of fun with the selections included in this book.
We Dare You: Hundreds of Science Bets, Challenges, and Experiments You Can Do at Home
by Vicki Cobb Kathy DarlingWould you believe that you could throw an egg across the room without breaking it? Burn a candle underwater? We Dare You! is a gigantic collection of irresistible, easy-to-perform science experiments, tricks, bets, and games kids can do at home with everyday household objects. Thanks to the principles of gravity, mechanics, fluids, logic, geometry, energy, and perception, kids will find countless hours of fun with the selections included in this book.
We Do Things Differently: The Outsiders Rebooting Our World
by Mark StevensonAn acclaimed futurist visits people around the world who are solving the planet's biggest problems by innovative means. Our systems are failing. Old models—for education, healthcare and government, food production, energy supply—are creaking under the weight of modern challenges. As the world's population heads towards 10 billion, it's clear we need new approaches. In We Do Things Differently, historian and futurologist Mark Stevenson sets out to find them, across four continents. From Brazilian favelas to high tech Boston, from rural India to a shed inventor in England's home counties, Mark Stevenson travels the world to find the advance guard re-imagining our future. At each stop, he meets innovators who have already succeeded in challenging the status quo, pioneering new ways to make our world more sustainable, equitable and humane. Populated by extraordinary characters—including Detroit citizens who created new jobs and promoted healthy eating by building greenhouses, an Austrian mayor who built a new biomass plant using the by-product of a local flooring company, and an Indian doctor who crowdsourced his research and published his findings online—We Do Things Differently paints a riveting picture of what can be done to address the world’s most pressing dilemmas, offering a much needed dose of down-to-earth optimism. It is a window on (and a roadmap to) a different and better future.
We Go Way Back: A Book About Life on Earth and How it All Began
by Idan Ben-BarakFrom the author of kid-favorite Do Not Lick This Book comes an innovative, hilarious, and expansive picture book about the biggest question of all: What is life?It's not an easy question.Life is more than just one thing.Where did it start?Peer back in time - way back in time - to the story of how life began…
We Have Never Been Modern
by Bruno LatourWith the rise of science, we moderns believe, the world changed irrevocably, separating us forever from our primitive, premodern ancestors. But if we were to let go of this fond conviction, Bruno Latour asks, what would the world look like? His book, an anthropology of science, shows us how much of modernity is actually a matter of faith. What does it mean to be modern? What difference does the scientific method make? The difference, Latour explains, is in our careful distinctions between nature and society, between human and thing, distinctions that our benighted ancestors, in their world of alchemy, astrology, and phrenology, never made. But alongside this purifying practice that defines modernity, there exists another seemingly contrary one: the construction of systems that mix politics, science, technology, and nature. The ozone debate is such a hybrid, in Latour's analysis, as are global warming, deforestation, even the idea of black holes. As these hybrids proliferate, the prospect of keeping nature and culture in their separate mental chambers becomes overwhelming--and rather than try, Latour suggests, we should rethink our distinctions, rethink the definition and constitution of modernity itself. His book offers a new explanation of science that finally recognizes the connections between nature and culture--and so, between our culture and others, past and present. Nothing short of a reworking of our mental landscape. We Have Never Been Modern blurs the boundaries among science, the humanities, and the social sciences to enhance understanding on all sides. A summation of the work of one of the most influential and provocative interpreters of science, it aims at saving what is good and valuable in modernity and replacing the rest with a broader, fairer, and finer sense of possibility.