Benjamin Franklin : An American Life Editorial Reviews Benjamin Franklin, writes journalist and biographer Walter Isaacson, was that rare Founding Father who would sooner wink at a passer-by than sit still for a formal portrait. What's more, Isaacson relates in this fluent and entertaining biography, the revolutionary leader represents a political tradition that has been all but forgotten today, one that prizes pragmatism over moralism, religious tolerance over fundamentalist rigidity, and social mobility over class privilege. That broadly democratic sensibility allowed Franklin his contradictions, as Isaacson shows. Though a man of lofty principles, Franklin wasn't shy of using sex to sell the newspapers he edited and published; though far from frivolous, he liked his toys and his mortal pleasures; and though he sometimes gave off a simpleton image, he was a shrewd and even crafty politician. Isaacson doesn't shy from enumerating Franklin s occasional peccadilloes and shortcomings, in keepi

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Teens Talk Growing Up: Stories about Growing Up, Meeting Challenges, and Learning from Life Editorial Reviews About the Author Jack Canfield is co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, which includes forty New York Times bestsellers, and coauthor of The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. He is a leader in the field of personal transformation and peak performance and is currently CEO of the Canfield Training Group and Founder and Chairman of the Board of The Foundation for Self-Esteem. An internationally renowned corporate trainer and keynote speaker, he lives in Santa Barbara, California. Mark Victor Hansen is a co-founder of Chicken Soup for the Soul. Product Details Series: Chicken Soup for the Soul Paperback: 400 pages Publisher: Chicken Soup for the Soul; 1 edition (July 29, 2008) Language: English ISBN-10: 193509601X ISBN-13: 978-1935096016 Product

Society Of Mind 内容简介 Marvin Minsky -- one of the fathers of computer science and cofounder of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT -- gives a revolutionary answer to the age-old question: "How does the mind work?" Minsky brilliantly portrays the mind as a "society" of tiny components that are themselves mindless. Mirroring his theory, Minsky boldly casts The Society of Mind as an intellectual puzzle whose pieces are assembled along the way. Each chapter -- on a self-contained page -- corresponds to a piece in the puzzle. As the pages turn, a unified theory of the mind emerges, like a mosaic. Ingenious, amusing, and easy to read, The Society of Mind is an adventure in imagination. 编辑推荐 For some artificial intelligence researchers, Minsky's book is too far removed from hard science to be useful. For others, the high-level approach of The Society of Mind makes it a gold mine of ideas waiting to be implemented. The author, one of the undisputed

History tells us that when you want something clone you turn to a leader: right? Wrong. If you want to make a correct decision or solve a problem, large groups of people are smarter than a few experts. This brilliant and insightful book shows why the conventional wisdom is so wrong and why the theory of the wisdom of crowds has huge implications for how we run our businesses, structure our political systems and organise our society. Shrewd, meticulous and profound, The Wisdom of Crowds will change for ever the way you think about human behaviour. 作者简介： James Surowiecki is a staff writer at the New Yorker, where he writes the popular business column, 'The Financial Page'. His work has appeared in a wide range of publications, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Artforum, Wired and Slate. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.