Art and its objects

Explore Europe's top 100 works of art with America's most trusted travel authority, Rick Steves. Travel through time and discover Europe's most iconic paintings, sculptures, and historic buildings. From Venus to Versailles, Apollo to David, and Mona Lisa to The Thinker, Rick and co-author Gene Openshaw will have you marveling, learning, and laughing, one masterpiece at a time. Whether you're traveling to Europe or just dreaming about it, this book both stokes your wanderlust and kindles a greater appreciation of art, with historical context and information on where to see it for yourself. W…

Centuries of scientific thought in one volume! Natural phenomena, revolutionary inventions, scientific facts, and the most up-to-date questions are all explained in detailed text that is complemented by visually arresting graphics. The Science Book covers a wide range of scientific areas, providing both a general overview of topics for the browsing reader, and more specific information for those who wish to obtain in-depth insight into a particular subject area. Natural phenomena, revolutionary inventions, scientific facts, and up-to-date questions are explained in detailed texts. The vivid…

The earth is not a dead, mute landscape but an eloquent, living being. Sometimes it just takes a spade, a packet of seeds, and a pair of sturdy boots to realize it. The philosopher Byung-Chul Han spent three springs, summers, autumns, and winters in his secret garden in Berlin, devoting himself to daily gardening in all weathers. For Han, gardening is a form of silent meditation, a lingering in stillness. It gives you a different sense of time. Every plant has its own time that is specific to it, and the garden is a space in which these multiple temporalities overlap and cut across one anot…

We no longer inhabit earth and dwell under the sky: these are being replaced by Google Earth and the Cloud. The terrestrial order is giving way to a digital order, the world of things is being replaced by a world of non-things – a constantly expanding "infosphere" of information and communication which displaces objects and obliterates any stillness and calmness in our lives. Byung-Chul Han's critique of the infosphere highlights the price we are paying for our growing preoccupation with information and communication. Today we search for more information without gaining any real knowledge.…

An essential tool for our post-truth world: a witty primer on logic—and the dangers of illogical thinking—by a renowned Notre Dame professor Logic is synonymous with reason, judgment, sense, wisdom, and sanity. Beinglogical is the ability to create concise and reasoned arguments—arguments that build from given premises, using evidence, to a genuine conclusion. But mastering logical thinking also requires studying and understanding illogical thinking, both to sharpen one’s own skills and to protect against incoherent, or deliberately misleading, reasoning. Elegant, pithy, and precise, Being…