Explores twelve pivotal events in the history of Christianity ranging from the fall of Jerusalem and the coronation of Charlemagne to the Edinburgh Missionary Conference.

Artificial Intelligence is here, today. How can society make the best use of it? Until recently, "artificial intelligence" sounded like something out of science fiction. But the technology of artificial intelligence, AI, is becoming increasingly common, from self-driving cars to e-commerce algorithms that seem to know what you want to buy before you do. Throughout the economy and many aspects of daily life, artificial intelligence has become the transformative technology of our time. Despite its current and potential benefits, AI is little understood by the larger public and widely feared. The rapid growth of artificial intelligence has given rise to concerns that hidden technology will create a dystopian world of increased income inequality, a total lack of privacy, and perhaps a broad threat to humanity itself. In their compelling and readable book, two experts at Brookings discuss both the opportunities and risks posed by artificial intelligence--and how near-term policy decisions could determine whether the technology leads to utopia or dystopia. Drawing on in-depth studies of major uses of AI, the authors detail how the technology actually works. They outline a policy and governance blueprint for gaining the benefits of artificial intelligence while minimizing its potential downsides. The book offers major recommendations for actions that governments, businesses, and individuals can take to promote trustworthy and responsible artificial intelligence. Their recommendations include: creation of ethical principles, strengthening government oversight, defining corporate culpability, establishment of advisory boards at federal agencies, using third-party audits to reduce biases inherent in algorithms, tightening personal privacy requirements, using insurance to mitigate exposure to AI risks, broadening decision-making about AI uses and procedures, penalizing malicious uses of new technologies, and taking pro-active steps to address how artificial intelligence affects the workforce. Turning Point is essential reading for anyone concerned about how artificial intelligence works and what can be done to ensure its benefits outweigh its harm.

A compelling vision of a new reality, a reconciliation of science and the human spirit for a future that will work The dynamics underlying the major problems of our time—cancer, crime, pollution, nuclear power, inflation, the energy shortage—are all the same. We have reached a time of dramatic and potentially dangerous change, a turning point for the planet as a whole. We need a new vision of reality, one that allows the forces transforming our world to flow together as a positive movement for social change. Now distinguished scientist Fritjof Capra gives us that vision, a holistic paradigm of science and spirit. “This splendid and thoughtful book is an essential guide for anyone inquiring about the place of science and metascience in our contemporary culture. Those who enjoyed Fritjof Capra’s Tao of Physics should not expect a sequel; this is a much more ambitious book that attempts and succeeds in presenting a whole worldview from the viewpoint of a committed and experienced physicist who also writes from within the North American culture…. It is unusually detailed and thorough in its inclusion of the conventional and the alternative approaches to topics ranging from ecology through medicine and psychology to economics. It is at once scholarly and easy to read.”—Jim Lovelock, New Scientist

It was like any other day on the Anna University campus in Chennai. As I was returning to my room in the evening, the vice-chancellor, Prof. A. Kalanidhi, fell in step with me.Someone had been frantically trying to get in touch with me through the day, he said. Indeed, the phone was ringing when I entered the room.When I answered, a voice at the other end said, 'The prime minister wants to talk with you.' Some months earlier, I had left my post as Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India to return to teaching. Now, as I spoke to the PM, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, my life was set for an unexpected change.Turning Points takes up the incredible Kalam story from where Wings of Fire left off. It brings together details from his career and presidency that are not generally known as he speaks out for the first time on certain points of controversy. It is a continuing saga, above all, of a journey - individual and collective - that will take India to 2020 and beyond as a developed nation.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In Danielle Steel’s powerful new novel, four trauma doctors—the best and brightest in their field—confront exciting new challenges, both personally and professionally, when given an unusual opportunity. Bill Browning heads the trauma unit at San Francisco’s busiest emergency room, SF General. With his ex-wife and daughters in London, he immerses himself in his work and lives for rare visits with his children. A rising star at her teaching hospital, UCSF at Mission Bay, Stephanie Lawrence has two young sons, a frustrated stay-at-home husband, and not enough time for any of them. Harvard-educated Wendy Jones is a dedicated trauma doctor at Stanford, trapped in a dead-end relationship with a married cardiac surgeon. And Tom Wylie’s popularity with women rivals the superb medical skills he employs at his Oakland medical center, but he refuses to let anyone get too close, determined to remain unattached forever. These exceptional doctors are chosen for an honor and a unique project: to work with their counterparts in Paris in a mass-casualty training program. As professionals, they will gain invaluable knowledge from the program. As ordinary men and women, they will find that the City of Light opens up incredible new possibilities, exhilarating, enticing, and frightening. When an unspeakable act of mass violence galvanizes them into action, their temporary life in Paris becomes a stark turning point: a time to face harder choices than they have ever made before—with consequences that will last a lifetime.

The former president's account of his first political battle reveals how his entrance into politics was riddled by a volatile political scene in the South that was spurred by the Supreme Court's "One man, one vote" decision

A reckoning with one of our most beloved art forms, whose past and present are shaped by gender, racial, and class inequities—and a look inside the fight for its future Every day, in dance studios all across America, legions of little children line up at the barre to take ballet class. This time in the studio shapes their lives, instilling lessons about gender, power, bodies, and their place in the world both in and outside of dance. In Turning Pointe, journalist Chloe Angyal captures the intense love for ballet that so many dancers feel, while also grappling with its devastating shortcomings: the power imbalance of an art form performed mostly by women, but dominated by men; the impossible standards of beauty and thinness; and the racism that keeps so many people of color out of ballet. As the rigid traditions of ballet grow increasingly out of step with the modern world, a new generation of dancers is confronting these issues head on, in the studio and on stage. For ballet to survive the twenty-first century and forge a path into a more socially just future, this reckoning is essential.