Showing results by narrator "Paul Heitsch" in All Categories

We are in the midst of a powerful psychedelic renaissance. After four decades of hibernation, the promise of the psychoactive 60s - that deeper self-awareness, achieved through reality-bending substances and practices, will lead to greater external harmony - is again gaining a major following. The signs are everywhere, from the influence of today's preeminent psychedelic thinker Daniel Pinchbeck, to the renewed interest in the legacy of Terence McKenna, and to the upsurge of collective cultural phenomena like the spectacle of Burning Man.

After the daring rescue of a political dissident, Omega Force is contracted to investigate a rash of violent attacks on civilian shipping lanes within a group of star systems known as the Concordian Cluster. It seems a simple enough job with a huge payday at the end, and it's exactly what the ragtag group of mercenaries needs in order to keep their ship flying and to stay one step ahead of those hunting them.

There is a fine line between right and wrong, good and evil. For years Jason Burke has straddled that line as best he can, always convinced that despite the violence carried out by him and his team they were firmly on the right side of that line. But as he reflects on his time with Omega Force, he begins to have his doubts. When strange happenings from the mysterious Avarian Empire cross the expanse and Jason and Omega Force are pulled into the conflict, they must pick sides between two superpowers

The quadrant is on the brink of all-out civil war, but almost nobody knows it. Now that he knows a malevolent AI that calls itself the Machine has seized much of the ConFed's military apparatus and even controls the Grand Adjudicators themselves, Jason Burke must decide if he risks picking a fight with such an overmatched enemy, or if he runs to hide and fight another day. Omega Force needs allies, and needs them quickly.

The quadrant is burning. Violent, deadly uprisings are breaking out, seemingly at random, all across the Confederation's sphere of influence. The response by the powerful Confederation Fleet has been swift and decisive, but for every planet they restore order to, another erupts into chaos. Omega Force is working along the frontier worlds when they're forced to come to the aid of a longtime ally and soon realize that the two events are not unrelated.

Jason Burke is a broken man. The loss of his friend and crewmate on an ill-fated mission to a Pillar World has left him in a downward spiral of rage and self-destruction. But what if Lucky hadn’t actually died on that planet? While Omega Force tries to pull itself together for the sake of their friend, they also learn that a ruthless new faction has seized control of the ConFed Council and now threatens the stability of the entire quadrant. To make matters worse, the rise of this new regime might be their fault.  

Globally recognized digital expert David L. Rogers argues that digital transformation is not about updating your technology but about upgrading your strategic thinking. Based on Rogers' decade of research and teaching at Columbia Business School and his consulting for businesses around the world, The Digital Transformation Playbook shows how pre-digital-era companies can reinvigorate their game plans and capture the new opportunities of the digital world.   

New York City has long been a destination for rebels and rule breakers, artists, writers, and other hopefuls longing to be part of its rich cultural exchange and unique social fabric. But today, modern gentrification is transforming the city from an exceptional, iconoclastic metropolis into a suburbanized luxury zone. Blogger and cultural commentator Jeremiah Moss leads us on a colorful guided tour of the most changed parts of town lovingly eulogizing iconic institutions as they're replaced with soulless upscale boutiques, luxury condo towers, and suburban chains.

In 1755, New England troops embarked on a "great and noble scheme" to expel 18,000 French-speaking Acadians from Nova Scotia, killing thousands, separating innumerable families, and driving many into forests where they waged a desperate guerrilla resistance. The right of neutrality - to live in peace from the imperial wars waged between France and England - had been one of the founding values of Acadia. John Mack Faragher draws on original research to weave 150 years of history into a gripping narrative of both the civilization of Acadia and the British plot to destroy it.

Working with the full cooperation of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith have accessed a wealth of previously untapped materials. While drawing liberally from the artist's famously eloquent letters, they have also delved into hundreds of unpublished family correspondences, illuminating with poignancy the wanderings of Van Gogh's troubled, restless soul. Naifeh and Smith bring a crucial understanding to the larger-than-life mythology of this great artist.

Film Studies is a concise and indispensable introduction to the formal study of cinema. Ed Sikov offers a step-by-step curriculum for the appreciation of all types of narrative cinema, detailing the essential elements of film form and systematically training the spectator to be an active listener and critic. He treats a number of fundamental factors in filmmaking, including editing, composition, lighting, the use of color and sound, and narrative. 

The world is facing a global leadership crisis. Seventy-seven percent of leaders think they do a good job of engaging their people, yet 88 percent of employees say their leaders don't engage enough. Based on extensive research, including assessments of more than 35,000 leaders and interviews with 250 C-level executives, The Mind of the Leader concludes that organizations and leaders aren't meeting employees' basic human needs of finding meaning, purpose, connection, and genuine happiness in their work.

In Homeless to Billionaire, Andres Pira presents 18 principles for attracting wealth, creating opportunity, and celebrating self-discovery. Inspired by his own massive life changes, Pira details his business journey from telemarketer to one of Thailand’s best-known billionaires. Using his mentors like Bryan Tracy, Jack Canfield, and Bob Proctor, Pira puts proven knowledge into action, innovating along the way, using his own employees and clients; through failure and success, the 18 Principles are forged. 

November 22, 2013 marks the 50th anniversary of the tragedy that has haunted America ever since. For the first time, this concise and compelling book pierces the veil of secrecy to fully document the small, tightly-held conspiracy that killed President John F. Kennedy. It explains why he was murdered, and how it was done in a way that forced many records to remain secret for almost 50 years. The Hidden History of the JFK Assassination draws on exclusive interviews with more than two dozen associates of John and Robert Kennedy.

A biography of the famous Shawnee describes Tecumseh's plan to amalgamate all North American tribes into one people, his role as statesman and military strategist, and his death in the Battle of Thames.

When the fishing vessel La Conte sinks suddenly at night in 100-mile-per-hour winds and record 90-foot seas during a savage storm in January 1998, her five crewmen are left to drift without a life raft in the freezing Alaskan waters and survive as best they can. One hundred fifty miles away, in Sitka, Alaska, an H-60 Jayhawk helicopter lifts off from America's most remote Coast Guard base in the hopes of tracking down an anonymous Mayday signal. A fisherman's worst nightmare has become a Coast Guard crew's desperate mission.

China's Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know® is a concise introduction to the most astonishing economic growth story of the last three decades. In the 1980s, China was an impoverished backwater, struggling to escape the political turmoil and economic mismanagement of the Mao era. Today it is the world's second biggest economy, the largest manufacturing and trading nation, the consumer of half the world's steel and coal, the biggest source of international tourists, and one of the most influential investors in developing countries from southeast Asia to Africa to Latin America.

Jason Burke was a man hiding from himself in a small cabin high in the American Rocky Mountains when his simple, quiet life was shattered one night by what he first assumed was an aviation mishap. But when he investigates the crash, what he finds will yank him out of his self-imposed exile and thrust him into a world he could have never imagined.

Without doubt the most unique U.S. unit to participate in the Vietnam War, the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Studies and Observations Group (MACVSOG) was a highly-classified, U.S. joint-service organization consisting of Army Special Forces, Navy SEALs, Marine Force Reconnaissance units, the Air Force, and the CIA. Committed to action in Southeast Asia even before the major U.S. build-up in 1965, it also fielded a division-sized element of South Vietnamese military personnel, indigenous Montagnards, ethnic Chinese Nungs, and Taiwanese pilots.

A new wonder drug has the unexpected side effect of making people happy. But should people be happy all of the time? Suppose being happy required you never to disappoint anyone, no matter what they're requesting.... Then there was the energy source for every home that would free the country from its dependence on foreign oil - except that the prototype was rushed into production a bit too fast. Back on the bright side, another device not only couldn't possibly work, but didn't have any obvious uses. Then alien invaders landed and suddenly the crackpot device was the world's only hope.