Showing results by narrator "MIKE COOPER" in All Categories

The Romantic myth of Bohemia originated in the early nineteenth century as a way of describing the new conditions faced by artists and writers when the previous system of aristocratic patronage collapsed in the wake of the Age of Revolution. Without the patron system, the artist was free to move around, to seek an audience wherever fortune beckoned. This marketing model likening the artist's vagabond career to the "gypsy" life helps to explain part of the bohemian myth, but not all of it. This Very Short Introduction traces the myth of Bohemia through its various fictional manifestations.

No writer followed the building of the Freedom Tower more closely than Esquire’s Scott Raab. Between 2005 and 2015, Raab published a landmark 10-part series about the construction. He shadowed both the suits in their boardrooms and the hardhats in their earthmoving equipment, and chronicled it all in exquisite prose. While familiar names abound - Andrew Cuomo, Chris Christie, Mike Bloomberg and Larry Silverstein, the real estate developer who only a few weeks before 9/11 signed a 99-year, $3.2 billion lease on the World Trade Center - just as memorable are the not-so-famous.

The more we ponder, the odder the world can seem. How do footballers get their shirt numbers? Why does having daughters make couples more likely to divorce? How do you move a horse from one country to another? What counts as a journey into space? The keen minds at the Economist contemplate all these questions and more in their quest for the globe's most extraordinary quandaries and conundrums, with bizarre facts and headscratchers that show the world is even stranger than we might have thought.

From Parkinson’s disease to Tourette’s syndrome and depression to psychopathy, Broken Brains reveals the mysteries of brain function - and dysfunction. In this no-nonsense introduction, Ian Mitchell takes you on a tour through the sometimes devastating and sometimes bizarre effects of what happens when brains break down.

Lenin's work and influence have often been written off as no longer relevant, and many today consider this to be so. Lenin has, they claim, had his day, even though he is still revered in China, the world's most populous country. However, Lenin, like his mentor Marx, has had a tendency to rise from apparent decline and oblivion to renewed force and influence.

Far from slowing down, change and transformation in business seems to come only at a more and more furious rate. The last ten years alone have seen the introduction of groundbreaking new trends that pose new opportunities and challenges for leaders in all industries.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill had no qualms about using native German speakers from Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Germany itself. The majority were Jews who had fled persecution. Two examples of these secret units were X Troop Commandos and the Special Interrogation Group. The SIG men deserve their legendary status. They fought, and often died, wearing Wehmacht uniform. As this book reveals that, after infiltrating Field Marshal Rommel's Afrika Korps, one detachment even drew Nazi pay.

Is the West finished as a political idea? In recent years, observers have begun pointing to signs that this transatlantic community is eroding. When the European Union expanded, the classic European nation state was in decline. Now, nationalism is on the rise. Furthermore, nations within the EU are less willing to cooperate with the US on policies that require sacrifice and risks, such as using military force alongside the US.

The 20th century saw a remarkable upsurge of research on drugs, with major advances in the treatment of bacterial and viral infections, heart disease, stomach ulcers, cancer, and metal illnesses. These, along with the introduction of the oral contraceptive, have altered all of our lives. There has also been an increase in the recreational use and abuse of drugs in the Western world. This Very Short Introduction, in its second edition, gives a nontechnical account of how drugs work in the body.

Some people are cleverer than others. This everyday observation is the subject of an academic field that is often portrayed as confused and controversial, when in fact, the field of intelligence holds some of psychology's best-replicated findings. This Very Short Introduction audiobook describes what psychologists have discovered about how and why people differ in their thinking powers. Drawing on largescale data, Ian Deary considers how many types of intelligence there are and how intelligence changes with age.

Matt Jardine, martial arts teacher and entrepreneur, has spent twenty years seeking the answer to one of life’s ultimate conundrums: How can we lead an authentic, spiritual, and creative life in a relentlessly money-centric world? In this insightful book, he brings together Buddhist teachings, spiritual lessons, and the advice and experience of a variety of experts and professionals from a Paralympic athlete, to a West End musical star, to a city banker, and presents nine practical lessons to help us all discover our passion and make it pay.

Why We Hate tackles a pressing issue of both longstanding interest and fresh relevance: why a social species like Homo sapiens should nevertheless be so hateful to itself. We go to war and are prejudiced against our fellow human beings. We discriminate on the basis of nationality, class, race, sexual orientation, religion, and gender. Why are humans at once so social and so hateful to each other? In this book, Michael Ruse looks at scientific understandings of human hatred, particularly Darwinian evolutionary theory.

As globalization creates increasing challenges to established marketing practices, marketing efforts need to reposition and adapt continuously to maintain an organization's ability to reach potential customers. This Very Short Introduction provides a general overview of the function and importance of marketing to modern organizations. Kenneth Le Meunier-FitzHugh discusses how marketing remains central to creating competitive advantage, and why it needs to be forward looking and constantly reinventing itself in line with new developments in the marketplace.

In today's society, work takes up a vast proportion of the time and energy of ordinary people. Although use of the phrase "work-life balance" is now commonplace in the media and ordinary conversation, people work longer hours than ever before. However, rather than purely a means to an end in terms of supporting oneself financially, the workplace is a place to develop skills and talents and build lasting friendships.

Since the dawn of communication, humankind has looked around itself and used myths and legends to make sense of the world. Gods, Heroes and Monsters invites you to take your place at the campfire that’s been glowing since the first tale was told. Discover the fascinating variety—and several surprising similarities—of the stories that have been shared for millennia, from one person to another, one lesson at a time. Ancient stories are retold under themes such as the beginning (and end) of the world, death, love, and monsters and spirits.

The narrative surrounding Britain's anti-invasion forces has often centered on "Dad's Army"-like characters running around with pitchforks, on unpreparedness and sense of inevitability of invasion and defeat. The truth, however, is very different.

Can we human beings agree on a set of values which will allow us to confront the numerous threats that we and our planet face? Or will we continue our disagreements, rivalries, and antipathies, even as we collectively approach what, in the not impossible extreme, might be extinction? To answer these questions, A. C. Grayling considers the three most pressing challenges facing the world: climate change, technology, and justice.

Four decades after Viking and almost half a century after Apollo, technology has improved beyond recognition - as has politics. As private ventures like SpaceX seize center stage from NASA, Mars has undergone a seismic shift - it’s become the prime destination for future human expansion and colonization. But what’s it really like on Mars, and why should anyone want to go there? How do you get there, and what are the risks? Astrophysicist and science writer Andrew May answers these questions and more, as he traces the history of our fascination with the Red Planet.

Behavior change is hard, but O’Mara shows that by adopting strategies that are well-founded in the science of brain and behavior, individuals and organizations can adapt to the demands of the modern world.

Life histories can be defined as the means by which individuals (or more precisely genotypes) vary their age- or stage-specific expenditures of reproductive effort in response to genetic, phenotypic, and environmental correlates of survival and fecundity. Life histories reflect the expression of traits most closely related to individual fitness, such as age and size at maturity, number and size of offspring, and the timing of the expression of those traits throughout an individual's life. Life-history research plays an integral role in species conservation and management.