The New Silk Roads The Present and Future of the World

The sun is setting on the Western world. Slowly but surely, the direction in which the world spins has reversed: where for the last five centuries the globe turned westwards on its axis, it now turns to the east. For centuries, fame and fortune was to be found in the west in the New World of the Americas. Today, it is the east which calls out to those in search of adventure and riches. The region stretching from eastern Europe and sweeping right across Central Asia deep into China and India, is taking centre stage in international politics, commerce and culture and is shaping the modern world. This region, the true centre of the earth, is obscure to many in the English-speaking world. Yet this is where civilization itself began, where the world’s great religions were born and took root. The Silk Roads were no exotic series of connections, but networks that linked continents and oceans together. Along them flowed ideas, goods, disease and death. This was where empires were won and where they were lost. As a new era emerges, the patterns of exchange are mirroring those that have criss-crossed Asia for millennia. The Silk Roads are rising again. A major reassessment of world history, The Silk Roads is an important account of the forces that have shaped the global economy and the political renaissance in the re-emerging east.

Whales are among the largest, most intelligent, deepest diving species to have ever lived on our planet. We have hunted them for thousands of years and scratched their icons into our mythologies. They simultaneously fill us with waves of terror, awe and affection – yet we know hardly anything about them.Whales tend to only enter our awareness when they die, struck by a ship or stranded in the surf. They evolved from land-roaming, dog-like creatures into animals that move like fish, breathe like us, can grow to 300,000 pounds, live 200 years and roam entire ocean basins. Yet despite centuries of observing whales, we know little about their evolutionary past.In this remarkable new book, the Smithsonian’s star palaeontologist Nick Pyenson takes us to the ends of the earth and to the cutting edge of whale research as he searches for the answers to some of our biggest questions about these graceful giants. His rich storytelling takes us deep inside the Smithsonian’s unparalleled fossil collection, to frigid Antarctic waters, and to the arid desert of Chile, where scientists race against time to document the largest fossil whalebone site on earth.Spying on Whales is an illuminating story of scientific discovery that brings readers closer to the most enigmatic and beloved animals of all time.

From the authors of the fascinating The Age of Cryptocurrency, comes the definitive work on the Internet’s next big thing: the blockchain.Many of the ‘legacy systems’ once designed to make our lives easier and our economy more efficient are no longer up to the task; big banks have grown more entrenched, privacy exists only until the next hack, and credit card fraud has become a fact of life. However, there is a way past all this―a new kind of operating system with the potential to revolutionise our economy: the blockchain.In The Truth Machine, Michael J. Casey and Paul Vigna demystify the blockchain and explain why it can restore personal control over our data, assets, and identities; grant billions of excluded people access to the global economy; and shift the balance of power to revive society’s faith in itself. They reveal the empowerment possible when self-interested middlemen give way to the transparency of the blockchain, while highlighting the job losses, assertion of special interests, and threat to social cohesion that will accompany this shift. With a balanced perspective, Casey and Vigna show why we all must care about the path that blockchain technology takes―moving humanity forward, not backward.

In this provocative book, author, consultant, and church leadership developer Reggie McNeal debunks these and other old assumptions and provides an overall strategy to help church leaders move forward in an entirely different and much more effective way. In The Present Future, McNeal identifies the six most important realities that church leaders must address including: recapturing the spirit of Christianity and replacing «church growth» with a wider vision of kingdom growth; developing disciples instead of church members; fostering the rise of a new apostolic leadership; focusing on spiritual formation rather than church programs; and shifting from prediction and planning to preparation for the challenges of an uncertain world. McNeal contends that by changing the questions church leaders ask themselves about their congregations and their plans, they can frame the core issues and approach the future with new eyes, new purpose, and new ideas. Also available: The Present Future DVD Collection (978-0-7879-8673-5), Reggie McNeal's DVD presentation of the ideas and insights featured in his best-selling book.

Travelling the circumference of the truly gigantic Pacific, Simon Winchester tells the story of the world’s largest body of water, and – in matters economic, political and military – the ocean of the future.The Pacific is a world of tsunamis and Magellan, of the Bounty mutiny and the Boeing Company. It is the stuff of the towering Captain Cook and his wide-ranging network of exploring voyages, Robert Louis Stevenson and Admiral Halsey. It is the place of Paul Gauguin and the explosion of the largest-ever American atomic bomb, on Bikini atoll, in 1951. It has an astonishing recent past, an uncertain present and a hugely important future.The ocean and its peoples are the new lifeblood, fizz and thrill of America – which draws so many of its minds and so much of its manners from the sea – while the inexorable rise of the ancient center of the world, China, is a fixating fascination. The presence of rogue states – North Korea most notoriously today – suggest that the focus of the responsible world is shifting away from the conventional post-war obsessions with Europe and the Middle East, and towards a new set of urgencies. Navigating the newly evolving patterns of commerce and trade, the world’s most violent weather and the fascinating histories, problems and potentials of the many Pacific states, Simon Winchester’s thrilling journey is a grand depiction of the future ocean.

This is it. Vega Jane's time. She's been lied to her whole life, so she breaks away from Wormwood, the only home she's ever known, in search of the truth. She battles horrors to fight her way across the Quag with her best friend, Delph, and her mysterious canine, Harry Two. Against all odds, they survive unimaginable dangers and make it through.And into a new world that's even worse. Not because deadly beasts roam the cobblestones, but because the people are enslaved but don't even know it. It's up to Vega, Delph, Harry Two and their new comrade, Petra, to take up the fight against a foe that's unrivaled in savagery and cunning. Not only is Vega's life and the lives of her friends on the line, but whether she triumphs or fails will determine whether a whole world survives. .

This is it. Vega Jane's time. She's been lied to her whole life, so she breaks away from Wormwood, the only home she's ever known, in search of the truth. She battles horrors to fight her way across the Quag with her best friend, Delph, and her mysterious canine, Harry Two. Against all odds, they survive unimaginable dangers and make it through.And into a new world that's even worse. Not because deadly beasts roam the cobblestones, but because the people are enslaved but don't even know it. It's up to Vega, Delph, Harry Two and their new comrade, Petra, to take up the fight against a foe that's unrivaled in savagery and cunning. Not only is Vega's life and the lives of her friends on the line, but whether she triumphs or fails will determine whether a whole world survives. .

An entertaining biography of Dickens by one of our finest actorsAcclaimed actor and writer Simon Callow captures the essence of Charles Dickens in a sparkling biography that explores the central importance of the theatre to the life of the greatest storyteller in the English language.From his early years as a child entertainer in Portsmouth to his reluctant retirement from ‘these garish lights’ just before his death, Dickens was obsessed with the stage. Not only was he a dazzling mimic who wrote, acted in and stage-managed plays, all with fanatical perfectionism; as a writer he was a compulsive performer, whose very imagination was theatrical, both in terms of plot devices and construction of character.Like many actors, Dickens felt the need to be completed by contact with his audience. He was the original ‘celebrity’ author, who attracted thousands of adoring fans to his readings in Britain and across the Atlantic, in which he gave voice to his unforgettable cast of characters.In Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World, Callow brings his own unique insight to a life driven by performance and showmanship. He reveals an exuberant and irrepressible talent, whose ‘inimitable’ wit and personality crackle off the page.

‘A lovely little book … quietly lyrical, often funny and gently persuasive’ Sunday Times ‘Succinct, clear, sophisticated. I couldn't stop reading it’ Jeff VanderMeer We’ve all seen the fox. A flash of his brushy tail disappearing between the gap of a fence, a blaze of orange caught in the headlights as he scampers across the road. We’ve heard him too, his strange barks echoing in the city night. Perhaps we’ve even come face to face with him, eyes meeting for a few moments before he disappears once more into the darkness. But where is he going, and what is his world really like? In The Hidden World of the Fox, ecologist Adele Brand shines a light on one of Britain’s most familiar yet enigmatic animals, showing us how the astonishing senses, intelligence and behaviour that allowed foxes to thrive in the ancient wildwood now help them survive in the concrete car parks and clattering railway lines of our cities and towns. The result of a lifelong obsession, Brand adds a wealth of firsthand experience to this charming, lyrical love letter to the fox, whether she’s fostering their cubs, studying their interactions with humans, or catching them on hidden cameras everywhere from the Białowieża forest of Poland and the Thar desert of India to the classic English countryside of her home in the North Downs. While encounters with a host of furry acquaintances – Chatter, Old Dogfox, Sooty, the Interloper, the Vixen from Across the Road – will delight and amuse, her message about the importance of living peaceably side-by-side with nature will linger long after the last page is turned.

‘A lovely little book … quietly lyrical, often funny and gently persuasive’ Sunday Times ‘Succinct, clear, sophisticated. I couldn't stop reading it’ Jeff VanderMeerWe’ve all seen the fox.A flash of his brushy tail disappearing between the gap of a fence, a blaze of orange caught in the headlights as he scampers across the road. We’ve heard him too, his strange barks echoing in the city night. Perhaps we’ve even come face to face with him, eyes meeting for a few moments before he disappears once more into the darkness. But where is he going, and what is his world really like?In The Hidden World of the Fox, ecologist Adele Brand shines a light on one of Britain’s most familiar yet enigmatic animals, showing us how the astonishing senses, intelligence and behaviour that allowed foxes to thrive in the ancient wildwood now help them survive in the concrete car parks and clattering railway lines of our cities and towns.The result of a lifelong obsession, Brand adds a wealth of firsthand experience to this charming, lyrical love letter to the fox, whether she’s fostering their cubs, studying their interactions with humans, or catching them on hidden cameras everywhere from the Białowieża forest of Poland and the Thar desert of India to the classic English countryside of her home in the North Downs. While encounters with a host of furry acquaintances – Chatter, Old Dogfox, Sooty, the Interloper, the Vixen from Across the Road – will delight and amuse, her message about the importance of living peaceably side-by-side with nature will linger long after the last page is turned.