A major history of Afghanistan and its changing political culture Afghanistan traces the historic struggles and the changing nature of political authority in this volatile region of the world, from the Mughal Empire in the sixteenth century to the Taliban resurgence today. Thomas Barfield introduces readers to the bewildering diversity of tribal and ethnic groups in Afghanistan, explaining what unites them as Afghans despite the regional, cultural, and political differences that divide them. He shows how governing these peoples was relatively easy when power was concentrated in a small dynastic elite, but how this delicate political order broke down in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when Afghanistan's rulers mobilized rural militias to expel first the British and later the Soviets. Armed insurgency proved remarkably successful against the foreign occupiers, but it also undermined the Afghan government's authority and rendered the country ever more difficult to govern as time passed. B

A novel theory of how technological revolutions affect the rise and fall of great powers When scholars and policymakers consider how technological advances affect the rise and fall of great powers, they draw on theories that center the moment of innovation the eureka moment that sparks astonishing technological feats. In this book, Jeffrey Ding offers a different explanation of how technological revolutions affect competition among great powers. Rather than focusing on which state first introduced major innovations, he investigates why some states were more successful than others at adapting and embracing new technologies at scale. Drawing on historical case studies of past industrial revolutions as well as statistical analysis, Ding develops a theory that emphasizes institutional adaptations oriented around diffusing technological advances throughout the entire economy.Examining Britain s rise to preeminence in the First Industrial Revolution, America and Germany s overtaking of Britain in the Second

内容简介 本书是关于我们如何从科学的视角重新认识这个世界的科普读物，阐述了宇宙、世界、生命科学视角下，对世界本源的认识，并结合生物学、数学、物理学和计算机科学知识，更加细致入微地解释我们观察到的世界中的各类现象。 在这本书中，作者希望表明我们的宇宙不仅仅是一座没有生命、毫无意义的数学机器。在我们真正了解意识和人类思想的奇迹之前，我们能真正了解宇宙吗？为了做到这一点，作者超越了物理世界去寻找答案。对于对生命、宇宙和一切事物的深层问题感到好奇的读者来说，《世界本身》是一本必不可少的读物。

《当代中国公益慈善研究丛书：慈善组织公信力研究》是一部基于实证调查研究慈善组织公信力的著作。作者石国亮在辨析公信力与信任二者异同的基础上，立足我国慈善组织的客观现实，放眼全球慈善组织的发展趋势，通过全国性抽样调查和深度访谈，多角度分析了慈善组织公信力的现状和影响因素。研究发现，影响慈善组织公信力的因素包括知晓慈善组织数目、慈善的个人效能感、捐后的信息反馈、普遍信任、媒体认知和慈善事件等。作者运用层次分析法，以公众和慈善组织自身两个维度为基准，确立了包括六个一级指标、十八个二级指标和若干个三级指标在内的慈善组织公信力评价体系和评价模型，以期为慈善组织公信力建设提供一种备选方案。