Essential Histories

When someone is labeled a nihilist, it's not usually meant as a compliment. Most of us associate nihilism with destructiveness and violence. Nihilism means, literally, "an ideology of nothing". Is nihilism, then, believing in nothing? If we can learn to recognize the many varieties of nihilism, Nolen Gertz writes, then we can learnto distinguish what is meaningful from what is meaningless. In this addition to the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Gertz traces the history of nihilism in Western philosophy from Socrates through Hannah Arendt and Jean-Paul Sartre.

This workbook will lead you through the mystical and enlightening stories of all 66 books making up the modern Bible. In this way, the scriptures are transformed from ancient writings to a living doctrine that breathes life into your nostrils. Study the theories and complete the activities in this audiobook so you can balance a scholarly understanding of the Bible with its practical application in your life.

In Essential Asatru, renowned author and priestess Diana Paxson demystifies an ancient, rich, and often misunderstood religion, and offers a practical guide for its modern followers. Filled with clear, concise instructions on living Asatru every day, this truly accessible guide takes you on a journey from Asatru's origins in Scandinavian and German paganism to its recognition as an official religion in the 1970s and its widespread acceptance today.

Since Alan Turing first posed the question "Can machines think?" artificial intelligence has evolved from a speculative idea to a transformative force. The Shortest History of AI traces this evolution, from Ada Lovelace's visionary work to IBM's groundbreaking defeat of the chess world champion and the revolutionary emergence of ChatGPT. It also explores AI's cultural journey, touching on classics such as Frankenstein, A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Hinduism is an ancient religion, philosophy and way of life. Unlike other great religions that are based on a small set of books, there are hundreds of texts in Hinduism, most of which are very voluminous. They span not merely centuries, but millennia. And most importantly, these ancient...

A bestselling historian takes readers on an intellectual and cultural adventure, offering a carefully curated guide to great, short nonfiction works by some of the world’s most influential writers—from Plato to Toni Morrison, Ernest Hemingway to bell hooks, and Marcus Aurelius to Joan Didion...

This book is not about the newest trends or the latest hacks. Instead, it revisits the early practices and principles that shaped social media, reminding us that the roots of Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and more still matter today. If you’re searching for new tricks, this book is not for you. But if you want to rediscover the timeless foundations that built social media, then you’ve found the right guide.

A comparison of nine leaders who led their nations through the greatest wars the world has ever seen and whose unique strengths—and weaknesses—shaped the course of human history, from the bestselling, award-winning author of Churchill, Napoleon, and The Last King of America “Has the...

In this audiobook, machine learning expert Ethem Alpaydin offers a concise overview of the subject for the general listener, describing its evolution, explaining important learning algorithms, and presenting example applications. Alpaydin offers an account of how digital technology advanced from number-crunching mainframes to mobile devices, putting today's machine learning boom in context.

This compact volume of the journals of Lewis and Clark, compiled by American Book Award nominee Landon Y. Jones, includes all of the most riveting tales of their adventure—in their own words The journals of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark remain the single most important document in the...

Artificial intelligence powers Google's search engine, enables Facebook to target advertising, and allows Alexa and Siri to do their jobs. AI is also behind self-driving cars, predictive policing, and autonomous weapons that can kill without human intervention. These and other AI applications raise complex ethical issues that are the subject of ongoing debate. This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series offers an accessible synthesis of these issues.

My beginner's book is your ticket to one of the coolest and most mysterious subjects out there. This isn't your average physics book. It's a portal to understanding the stuff that makes up... well, everything! Subatomic particles. Do not let their size fool you; they have a massive impact on the world around you—the fundamental part of how everything works and not as complex as you might fear.

Horatio Herbert Kitchener, born on June 1850 in Ballylongford, County Kerry, Ireland was a great soldier and statesman. Kitchener was credited in 1898 for winning the Battle of Omdurman and securing control of the Sudan for which he was made Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, becoming a qualifying peer and of mid-rank as an Earl. On 5 June 1916, Kitchener was making his way to Russia to attend negotiations, on HMS Hampshire, when it struck a German mine just west of the Orkney, Scotland and sank. Kitchener was among 737 who died. This is his story.

Can’t Stop Won’t Stop meets Girls to the Front in this essential and long overdue history of hip-hop’s female pioneers and its enduring stars. Every history of hip-hop previously published, from Jeff Chang’s Can’t Stop Won’t Stop to Shea Serrano’s The Rap Yearbook, focuses...

An indispensable, richly informative, and always entertaining sourcebook on Provence by the writer who has made the region his own. Though organized from A to Z, this is hardly a conventional work of reference. It is rather a selection of those aspects of Provence that Peter Mayle in almost...

Brushstrokes in Time, written by Sylvia Vetta, is a memoir of fictional Chinese artist, Little Winter, written for her American daughter. It takes the story of Communist China beyond the death of Mao and for the first time in fiction shows the birth of the radical art movement, The Stars, in 1979. Her haunting love story connects us to this time of hope for freedom of expression in China, and to a man frustrated by "being kept in small shoes".

Artificial intelligence surrounds us. More and more of the systems and services you interact with every day are based on AI technology. Most AI is narrowly specific; that is, it can only do a single thing, in a single context. Human intelligence is different. We can solve a variety of tasks, including those we have not seen before. In Artificial General Intelligence, Julian Togelius explores technical approaches to developing more general artificial intelligence and asks what general AI would mean for human civilization.

This book is not about the newest tricks or the latest trends. Instead, it revisits the early practices and ideas that made Instagram grow in its beginning, bringing back what users and creators once relied on. If you’re looking for the next update or cutting-edge hacks, this book is not for you. But if you want to rediscover the timeless foundations that still apply today, then you’ve found the right guide.

The French are "different." You'll often hear this in conversations among the "Anglo-Saxons," as the French like to call English speakers. "Different" means charming, challenging, questioning, stylish, and doing things in their own way and to their own advantage. By looking at the attitudes and values of the French, and explaining how French life and business works, Culture Smart! France shows you how to fit in as a foreigner.

Marking the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth, What Matters in Jane Austen? solves the mysteries of Austen’s fictional world. Jane Austen’s novels have been a staple of the English canon since the nineteenth century. Yet critics of the time did not appreciate the true complexity of her work. Nothing, John Mullan argues, is accidental or coincidental in Austen. As Austen herself said, she wrote for readers who have "a great deal of ingenuity themselves."