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A third of a century ago, E. F. Schumacher rang out a timely warning against the idolatry of giantism with his book Small Is Beautiful. Schumacher, a highly respected economist and adviser to third-world governments, broke ranks with the accepted wisdom of his peers to warn of impending calamity if rampant consumerism, technological dynamism, and economic expansionism were not checked by human and environmental considerations. Joseph Pearce revisits Schumacher’s arguments and examines the multifarious ways in which Schumacher’s ideas themselves still matter. Faced though we are with fearful new technological possibilities and the continued centralization of power in large governmental and economic structures, there is still the possibility of pursuing a saner and more sustainable vision for humanity. Bigger is not always best, Pearce reminds us, and small is still beautiful. Humanity was lurching blindly in the wrong direction, argued Schumacher. Its obsessive pursuit of wealth would not, as so many believed, ultimately lead to utopia but more probably to catastrophe. Schumacher's greatest achievement was the fusion of ancient wisdom and modern economics in a language that encapsulated contemporary doubts and fears about the industrialized world. The wisdom of the ages, the perennial truths that have guided humanity throughout its history, serves as a constant reminder to each new generation of the limits to human ambition. But if this wisdom is a warning, it is also a battle cry. Schumacher saw that we needed to relearn the beauty of smallness, of human-scale technology and environments.

This book is based around the author’s beautiful and sometimes awe-inspiring color images and mosaics of deep-sky objects. The book describes how similar "Hubble class" images can be created by amateur astronomers in their back garden using commercially available telescopes and CCD cameras. Subsequent processing and image enhancement in the "electronic darkroom" is covered in detail as well. A range of telescopes and equipment is considered, from the author’s 11-inch with Hyperstar camera, down to more affordable instruments. Appendices provide links to free software – not available from a single source – and are themselves an invaluable resource.

In this fascinating book David Ingram traces the history of information technology and health informatics from its pioneers in the middle of the twentieth century to its latest developments. The book is distinctive in its broad scope and coverage and as the eyewitness account of an author who became the first UK professor appointed with the mission to bridge information technology with everyday medicine, health, and care. In this role, he has been a co-founder and leader of two rapidly growing initiatives, openEHR and OpenEyes, which stem from international collaborations of universities, health services and industries. These open source and open platform technologies have struck a widely resonant chord worldwide through their focus on community interest endeavours and open access to their methods and outputs. Set against the history of extremely costly, burdensome, and serially unsuccessful top-down attempts of governments to tackle the domain, the book argues for a greater focus on shared endeavours of this kind, contributing towards a standardized care information utility that incorporates methods and resources evolved, shared, and sustained in the public domain. As information technologies are now at the very core of health care, shaping the relationship between medical services and communities, professions, organisations and industries this book is important reading for politicians, health care academics, administrators and providers, and to anybody interested in the future of health services in the digital age.