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Reproduction of the original: Travels in the Central Parts of Indo-China (Siam), Cambodia, and Laos (Vol. 1 of 2) by Henri Mouhot

Ruptures brings together leading and emerging international anthropologists to explore the concept of ‘rupture’. Understood as radical and often forceful forms of discontinuity, rupture is the active ingredient of the current sense of a world in turmoil, lying at the heart of some of the most defining experiences of our time: the rise of populist politics, the corollary impulse towards protest and even revolutionary change, as well as moves towards violence and terror, and the responses these moves elicit. Rupture is addressed in selected ethnographic and historical contexts: images of the guillotine in the French revolution; reactions to Trump’s election in the USA; the motivations of young Danes who join ISIS in Syria; ‘butterfly effect’ activism among environmental anarchists in northern Europe; the experiences of political trauma and its ‘repair’ through privately sponsored museums of Mao’s revolution in China; people’s experience of the devastating 2001 earthquake in Gujarat; the ‘inner’ rupture of Protestant faith among Danish nationalist theologians; and the attempt to invent ex nihilo an alphabet for use in Christian prophetic movements in Congo and Angola. Ruptures takes in new directions broader intellectual debates about continuity and change. In particular, by thematising rupture as a radical, sometimes violent, and even brutal form of discontinuity, it adds a sharper critical edge to contemporary discourses, both in social theory and public debate and policy.

John Hick is one of the world's foremost theologians and philosophers of religion: his books feature on many comparative religion and philosophy courses and his theories and work in the field of race relations have earned him international acclaim. In this warm-hearted account, he tells his life story, from his schoolboy days in Yorkshire, through his conversion to evangelical fundamentalism, to his renunciation of this to become a staunch advocate of religious pluralism.

Earthquakes rank among the most terrifying natural disasters faced by mankind. Out of a clear blue sky-or worse, a jet black one-comes shaking strong enough to hurl furniture across the room, human bodies out of bed, and entire houses off of their foundations. When the dust settles, the immediate aftermath of an earthquake in an urbanized society can be profound. Phone and water supplies can be disrupted for days, fires erupt, and even a small number of overpass collapses can snarl traffic for months. However, when one examines the collective responses of developed societies to major earthquake disasters in recent historic times, a somewhat surprising theme emerges: not only determination, but resilience; not only resilience, but acceptance; not only acceptance, but astonishingly, humor. Elastic rebound is one of the most basic tenets of modern earthquake science, the term that scientists use to describe the build-up and release of energy along faults. It is also the best metaphor for societal responses to major earthquakes in recent historic times. After The Earth Quakes focuses on this theme, using a number of pivotal and intriguing historic earthquakes as illustration. The book concludes with a consideration of projected future losses on an increasingly urbanized planet, including the near-certainty that a future earthquake will someday claim over a million lives. This grim prediction impels us to take steps to mitigate earthquake risk, the innately human capacity for rebound notwithstanding.

The masterwork of a brilliant career, and an important document of the crisis now facing mankind. Today we find ourselves in the midst of the greatest crisis in the history of the human race. Technology has placed in our hands almost unlimited power at the very moment when we have run up against the limits of our resources aboard Spaceship Earth, as the crises of the late twentieth century—political, economic, environmental, and ethical—determine whether or not humanity survives. In this masterful summing up of an entire lifetime’s thought and concern, R. Buckminster Fuller addresses these crucial issues in his most significant, accessible, and urgent work. Critical Path traces the origins and evolution of humanity’s social, political, and economic systems from the obscure mists of prehistory, through the development of the great political empires, to the vast international corporate and political systems that control our destiny today to show how we got to our present situation and what options are available to man. With his customary brilliance, extraordinary energy, and unlimited devotion, Bucky Fuller shows how mankind can survive, and how each individual can respond to the unprecedented threat we face today. The crowning achievement of an extraordinary career, Critical Path offers the reader the excitement of understanding the essential dilemmas of our time and how responsible citizens can rise to meet this ultimate challenge to our future.