Monday, January 16, 2012

The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It

Paul Collier
online access from ProQuest Ebook Central
check holdings in CityU LibraryFind

In the universally acclaimed and award-winning The Bottom Billion, Paul Collier reveals that fifty failed states--home to the poorest one billion people on Earth--pose the central challenge of the developing world in the twenty-first century. The book shines much-needed light on this group of small nations, largely unnoticed by the industrialized West, that are dropping further and further behind the majority of the world's people, often falling into an absolute decline in living standards. A struggle rages within each of these nations between reformers and corrupt leaders--and the corrupt are winning. Collier analyzes the causes of failure, pointing to a set of traps that ensnare these countries, including civil war, a dependence on the extraction and export of natural resources, and bad governance. Standard solutions do not work, he writes; aid is often ineffective, and globalization can actually make matters worse, driving development to more stable nations. What the bottom billion need, Collier argues, is a bold new plan supported by the Group of Eight industrialized nations. If failed states are ever to be helped, the G8 will have to adopt preferential trade policies, new laws against corruption, new international charters, and even conduct carefully calibrated military interventions. Collier has spent a lifetime working to end global poverty. In The Bottom Billion, he offers real hope for solving one of the great humanitarian crises facing the world today.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)



消費社會 (The Consumer Society )

波德里亞 (Jean Baudrillard)
online access from Apabi
online access from SuperStar Digital Library
check holdings in CityU LibraryFind

鮑德里亞的著作《消費社會》是對當代社會學的一大貢獻。作者圍繞消費這個中心對包括美國在內的西方社會進行了詳盡而深刻的剖析,以其獨特的見解,向人們揭示了大型技術統治集團是如何引起不可遏制的消費慾望,而且在此基礎上對階級社會裡的各個階層重新進行了劃分。這部著作對于我們重新審視當代西方社會,加深對其政治、經濟、文化等各個方面的本質的認識,無疑是大有裨益的。

(摘錄自博客來網路書店)

Monday, January 9, 2012

The Aquariums of Pyongyang : Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag

Kang Chol-hwan and Pierre Rigoulot; translated by Yair Reiner
online access from ProQuest Ebook Central
check holdings in CityU LibraryFind

North Korea is today one of the last bastions of hard-line Communism. Its leaders have kept a tight grasp on their one-party regime, quashing any nascent opposition movements and sending all suspected dissidents to its brutal concentration camps for "re-education." Kang Chol-hwan is the first survivor of one of these camps to escape and tell his story to the world, documenting the extreme conditions in these gulags and providing a personal insight into life in North Korea. Part horror story, part historical document, part memoir, part political tract, this record of one man's suffering gives eyewitness proof to an ongoing sorrowful chapter of modern history.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

昨日的世界:一個歐洲人的回憶 (Die Welt von Gestern)

斯蒂芬・茨威格 (Stefan Zweig)
online access from SuperStar Digital Library
check holdings in CityU LibraryFind

作者以飽滿真摯的感情、平實順暢的文字敘述了他所認識的特定時期的各種人物,他親身經歷的社會政治事件,他對那個動盪不安的時代的感受,記錄了當時歐洲從一戰前夜到二戰歐洲危局的社會現實,批露了世界文化名人鮮為人知的生活軼事,同時穿插了作者各種細膩的心跡。

茨威格在詩、小說、戲劇和人物傳記等方面均有過人的造詣,而本書顯著之處有對適逢人類動盪不安的奇特命運下個人遭遇和文化名人心靈的細緻描摹,對人類歷史和故鄉舊友的深情緬懷與追憶逝水年華的雋永文學相得益彰,對各種匪夷所思的人生遭際和被常識掩蓋下的歷史細微深處的大膽揭露,對和平、理性、人道的急切渴望和面對人類瘋狂戰爭的刺痛心扉和恐懼。

(摘錄自dangdang.com)

Monday, January 2, 2012

Future Minds : How the Digital Age is Changing Our Minds, Why This Matters, and What We Can Do About It

Richard Watson
check holdings in CityU LibraryFind

We are on the cusp of a revolution. Mobile phones, computers and iPods are commonplace in hundreds of millions of households worldwide, influencing how we think and shaping how we interact. In the future, smart machines will compete with clever people for employment and even human affection. We are shifting to a world where knowledge will be automated and people will be rewarded instead as conceptual and creative thinkers. Hence being able to think and act in ways that machines cannot will become vital. Ideas are the currency of this new economy and curiosity and imagination are among the key raw materials. But what happens to the rigour of our thinking in a world where we never really sit still or completely switch off? What are some of the unexpected consequences of digital information on the 100 billion cells and quadrillion connections inside our brains? Future Minds illustrates how to maximise the potential of digital technology and minimise its greatest downside, addressing the future of thinking and how we can ensure that we unleash the extraordinary potential of the human mind. In this absorbing new book, discover all about: the sex life of ideas; the rise of the screenager; generations, gender and geography; delving deep inside your head; how to clear a blocked brain; why clever people make dumb mistakes; why we are so afraid of doing nothing; what we can do to reclaim our brains.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

中國現代文學三十年

錢理群, 溫儒敏, 吳福輝 著
online access from Apabi
check holdings in CityU LibraryFind

由錢理群等三位學者撰述的《中國現代文學三十年》修訂本,已被列為普通高等教育“九五”教育部重點教材。這部近六十萬字的現代文學史著作,既注意吸收前人關于作家、作品和文體研究的成果,又克服了以往文學史的敘事模式與狹窄格局,拓寬了研究領域,在“文學現代化”這一命題下,形成了學術品味濃厚的獨異的特色。

首先,在結構布局上,全書按照1917—1949年的歷史分期分為三編,但對各個時期的社會政治形勢只作簡約的交代,著重闡釋各個階段重要的文學思潮與文學現象,從文學演進過程與歷史聯系中去分析文學自身的規律與特點。這本書雖然也按文體分類,卻注重突出各種文體的性質、走向以及不同流派的特點,並對某些代表藝術高峰的作家作品作專章論述,每章還附錄了年表。

在對重要作家的評論中,該書力避對作家生平的羅列和對作品情節冗長的復述,而是重視作品的藝術成就和美學價值,尤其注意分析作品產生久遠影響的原因。如第二章魯迅(一),在評論魯迅小說的結構模式與深邃意蘊時,特意標出“說不盡的魯迅”一節,綜合了近年來學界對“阿Q精神”的人類學內涵的探討。該書還把沈從文列為專章,表示了對這位構築“湘西世界”,“充當現代中國文化的批判者角色”的文化人的同情和理解。

這些都是過去文學史著作所沒有的或所省略的。

對于文學流派,該書不只是強調主流文學,而且也能從地域、文化環境的視角,去關照京派、海派、新感覺派、先鋒派等趣味各異的文學派別,力求恢復現代文學色彩紛呈、枝葉繁茂的本來面貌。

(摘錄自博客來網路書店)