Superbia: 31 Ways to Create Sustainable Neighborhoods

Superbia! is a book of practical ideas for creating more socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable neighborhoods. It is about remaking suburban and urban neighborhoods to serve people better and to reduce human impact on the environment.
 

Song of Two Worlds

In Alan Lightman's new book, a verse narrative titled Song of Two Worlds, we meet a man who has lost his faith in all things following a mysterious personal tragedy. After decades of living hung like a dried fly, emptied and haunted by his past, the narrator awakens one morning revitalized and begins a Dante-like journey to find something to believe in, first turning to the world of science and then to the world of philosophy, religion, and human life. As his personal story is slowly revealed, little by little, we confront the great questions of the cosmos and of the human heart, some questions with answers and others without.

King Rat

The time is World War II. The place is a brutal prison camp deep in Japanese-occupied territory. Here, within the seething mass of humanity, one man, an American corporal, seeks dominance over both captives and captors alike. His weapons are human courage, unblinking understanding of human weaknesses, and total willingness to exploit every opportunity to enlarge his power and corrupt or destroy anyone who stands in his path.

Metaphor - Implications and Applications

Research on metaphor has been dominated by Aristotelian questions of processes in metaphor understanding. Although this area is important, it leaves unasked Platonic questions of how structures of the mind affect such processes. Moreover, there has been relatively little work on how metaphors affect human behavior. Although there are numerous postdictive or speculative accounts of the power of metaphors to affect human behavior in particular areas, such as clinical or political arenas, empirical verification of these accounts has been sparse. To fill this void, the editors have compiled this work dedicated to empirical examination of how metaphors affect human behavior and understanding.

From Action to Language: Comparative Perspectives on Primate Tool Use, Gesture and the Evolution of Human Language

Human beings exhibit enormous behavioural diversity within and between populations and have succeeded in populating most of the globe. People vary in their social, mating and parenting behaviour and have diverse and elaborate cultural traits, traditions, norms and institutions. This Theme Issue asks whether and how evolutionary theory can help us to understand this behavioural diversity. The introductory article examines how diversity has been viewed by the main sub-disciplines within the human evolutionary behavioural sciences, namely human behavioural ecology, evolutionary psychology and cultural evolution.