Autos and Progress PDF Download

Author: Michel Bourdeau
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822983419
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
Auguste Comte's doctrine of positivism was both a philosophy of science and a political philosophy designed to organize a new, secular, stable society based on positive or scientific, ideas, rather than the theological dogmas and metaphysical speculations associated with the ancien regime. This volume offers the most comprehensive English-language overview of Auguste Comte's philosophy, the relation of his work to the sciences of his day, and the extensive, continuing impact of his thinking on philosophy and especially secular political movements in Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Contributors consider Comte’s reasons for establishing a Religion of Humanity as well as his views on domestic life and the arts in his positivist utopia. The volume further details Comte's attempt to apply his "positive method," first to social science and then to politics and morality, thereby defending the continuity of his career while also critically examining the limits of his approach.

Author: Joel Wolfe
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199798745
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
Autos and Progress reinterprets twentieth-century Brazilian history through automobiles, using them as a window for understanding the nation's struggle for modernity in the face of its massive geographical size, weak central government, and dependence on agricultural exports. Among the topics Wolfe touches upon are the first sports cars and elite consumerism; intellectuals' embrace of cars as the key for transformation and unification of Brazil; Henry Ford's building of a company town in the Brazilian jungle; the creation of a transportation infrastructure; democratization and consumer culture; auto workers and their creation of a national political party; and the economic and environmental impact of autos on Brazil. This focus on Brazilians' fascination with automobiles and their reliance on auto production and consumption as keys to their economic and social transformation, explains how Brazil--which enshrined its belief in science and technology in its national slogan of Order and Progress--has differentiated itself from other Latin American nations. Autos and Progress engages key issues in Brazil around the meaning and role of race in society and also addresses several classic debates in Brazilian studies about the nature of Brazil's great size and diversity and how they shaped state-making.

Author: William Roderick Summerhill
Publisher:
ISBN: 0804732248
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
This study presents a new and provocative picture of the impact of railroads on the Brazilian economy. How did foreign investment in infrastructure affect a relatively backward Latin American economy? The author engages this long-standing issue in Latin American history by applying the methods of the “new economic history” to the study of Brazilian railway development.

Author: Hugh De Santis
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226142968
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
Argues that in a world of dwindling resources, economic inequality, and unremitting violence, the belief in endless progress can no longer be sustained. Asserts that we have arrived at a great historic divide, in which the old modern order is giving way to an age of "mutualism". Draws on world history and the study of international relations to explore the emerging future, in which new forms of social and political identity and regional associations and alignments will be needed to solve global problems. Argues that mutualism will require a dramatical change in the way states, international institutions, corporations, and local communities interact, and that this transformation will be especially difficult for the United States, which will have to abandon its exceptionalist identity and rejoin a world it can no longer escape.

Author: Robert Nisbet
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351515462
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 594

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Book Description
The idea of progress from the Enlightenment to postmodernism is still very much with us. In intellectual discourse, journals, popular magazines, and radio and talk shows, the debate between those who are "progressivists" and those who are "declinists" is as spirited as it was in the late seventeenth century. In History of the Idea of Progress, Robert Nisbet traces the idea of progress from its origins in Greek, Roman, and medieval civilizations to modern times. It is a masterful frame of reference for understanding the present world. Nisbet asserts there are two fundamental building blocks necessary to Western doctrines of human advancement: the idea of growth, and the idea of necessity. He sees Christianity as a key element in both secular and spiritual evolution, for it conveys all the ingredients of the modern idea of progress: the advancement of the human race in time, a single time frame for all the peoples and epochs of the past and present, the conception of time as linear, and the envisagement of the future as having a Utopian end. In his new introduction, Nisbet shows why the idea of progress remains of critical importance to studies of social evolution and natural history. He provides a contemporary basis for many disciplines, including sociology, economics, philosophy, religion, politics, and science. History of the Idea of Progress continues to be a major resource for scholars in all these areas.

Author: Robert Nisbet
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1684516366
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
One of the leading thinkers to emerge in the postwar conservative intellectual revival was the sociologist Robert Nisbet. His book The Quest for Community, published in 1953, stands as one of the most persuasive accounts of the dilemmas confronting modern society. Nearly a half century before Robert Putnam documented the atomization of society in Bowling Alone, Nisbet argued that the rise of the powerful modern state had eroded the sources of community—the family, the neighborhood, the church, the guild. Alienation and loneliness inevitably resulted. But as the traditional ties that bind fell away, the human impulse toward community led people to turn even more to the government itself, allowing statism—even totalitarianism—to flourish. This edition of Nisbet’s magnum opus features a brilliant introduction by New York Times columnist Ross Douthat and three critical essays. Published at a time when our communal life has only grown weaker and when many Americans display cultish enthusiasm for a charismatic president, this new edition of The Quest for Community shows that Nisbet’s insights are as relevant today as ever.

Author: Roberto De Vogli
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415490693
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
In Progress or Collapse, Roberto De Vogli guides us through the multiple converging global crises of economic progress. He explores the connections between the environmental crisis and the psychological, social, cultural, political and economic emergencies affecting modern societies. It is not a coincidence, the author argues, that global ecological destruction is occurring in tandem with other crises: rising mental disorders, mindless consumerism, rampant conformism, status competition, civic disengagement, startling social inequalities, global financial instability, and widespread political impasse.

Author: Johan Norberg
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1786072327
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
A Book of the Year for The Economist and the Observer Our world seems to be collapsing. The daily news cycle reports the deterioration: divisive politics across the Western world, racism, poverty, war, inequality, hunger. While politicians, journalists and activists from all sides talk about the damage done, Johan Norberg offers an illuminating and heartening analysis of just how far we have come in tackling the greatest problems facing humanity. In the face of fear-mongering, darkness and division, the facts are unequivocal: the golden age is now.

Author: Lieteke van Vucht Tijssen
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401585008
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Modernity dissolves absolute certainties; late modernity dissolves them absolutely. In the modern world system there appears to be no firm, unchallenged ground on which to construct a meaningful canopy. But around the world, many individuals and groups long for a kind of cultural coherence that they believe once existed. They search for fundamentals. While these may be sought in religious traditions, many also aspire to new secular certainties. In their various new forms and contexts the contemporary quests for meaning in turn transform the societies in which they occur. The rich comparative examples in The Search for Fundamentals are used to analyze the sources and consequences of several cultural movements. The book also offers theoretical reflections on the difficulties they experience and on the message they carry for students of modernity. Audience: A broad readership of scholars and advanced students in the social sciences and humanities.

Author: Kobus Van Der Zel
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1430307099
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
A journey in search of the primary forces that either fuel or destroy progress in companies today. Scientists changed our world by proving that the complex world of physics is ruled by only a few forces which obey simple Laws. This allowed a quantum leap in our progress. In this business novel an Eastern woman teams up with a Western turnaround guy to master the forces that are limiting their progress in business. They set their aim as high as the imagination will allow: *For their traditional products company to achieve a Viable Vision - to turn its sales into its net profits in 4 years, and *To encourage their people to escape from the rat race by becoming millionaires - free to pursue their real purpose in life. They use ancient Laws and wisdoms to defeat the forces that stand in their way. Is it possible that a traditional business is also ruled by a few distinct forces - which could be mastered to allow for a quantum leap in the performance of the business and its people?