Suchergebnisse

Intro -- Title Page -- Dedication -- Acknowledgments -- Chapter One: Flashpoints -- Chapter Two: Origins -- Chapter Three: The Korean Peninsula: Locked & -- Loaded -- Chapter Four: China: By the Beautiful Sea -- Chapter Five: From Soviet Union to Russian Empire -- Chapter Six: Mesopotamia: Crime & -- Punishment -- Chapter Seven: Iran to Persia and Back -- Chapter Eight: Africa: Cradle of Lines -- Chapter Nine: Eternal Lines -- Coda -- About the Author -- Notes -- Index -- Map & -- Illustration Credits -- Copyright.

Examines how the failure of the victors at the end of World War I to create a peace settlement based on reconciliation rather than a consolidation of their own powers led to the instability of the Balkans and the Middle East, which continues to the present day

Andelman interviews university professor Hiroshi Amano about how the LED differs from traditional light bulbs and how he came to make this discovery. Amano tells how he got to manufacture LED light on a mass scale worldwide. Then, he explains the role he thinks science should play in making mankind better and his research on how to generate the electricity needed to power the LED. Adapted from the source document.

Andelman examines the power of nations who dare to combine and the fragility of going it alone. In Europe today, there are 28 nations, and the European Union recognizes 24 'official and working languages,' though there are regional dialects, like Catalan and Welsh, even lost languages like France's ancient Languedoc or Breton, that render the linguistic map of Europe all the more byzantine. They are united largely by a common diplomatic language--English, although there is some resistance to that, and a patchwork quality continues. Some countries like Belgium speak two widely disparate tongues (French and Flemish, a Dutch derivative), while Switzerland, though not an actual EU member, has three official languages--French, German, and Italian. Adapted from the source document.

Andelman and Fredrick interview Neal Stephenson, one of the world's premier authors of science fiction. Among other things, Stephenson talks about the greatest single unknown people may be heading toward, something new coming along that will change civilization, and some unknown that could effectively become a universal panacea. Adapted from the source document.

Andelman interviews Segolene Royal, France's Minister of Ecology, Sustainable Development, and Energy, and the former Socialist Party candidate for president of France. Among other things, Royal talks about the environment, and especially the relationship between climate change and the growing global food demands. Adapted from the source document.

Food is all too often a hostage to a host of issues--security, climate, control of land and property, technology, and science. The true test of the stage of development of a nation or society is the ability to produce and distribute food. Imbalances in the supply of food can trigger or be triggered by inflation, recession, and vast disparities in employment and wealth. Here, Andelman opines that protecting nations' farmers and safeguarding their access to world markets may eventually take a back seat to protecting the land itself where food is produced, while retaining the workers who plant and harvest it. More important to feeding Africa's skyrocketing urban population is keeping people on the farms who are in a position to produce food in quantities beyond subsistence levels. Adapted from the source document.