Suggested Books of the Week 40, 2017

Check out these books below by Cambridge University Press and Ancient Origins.

Photo: Storyblocks.com

The Work and Lives of Teachers - A Global Perspective
 

The Work and Lives of Teachers
A Global Perspective

The Work and Lives of Teachers offers a simple but original argument: that the cultural attitudes toward the teaching profession measurably influence how students perform. Cohen uses both ethnographic portraits and personal accounts from teachers for several countries to explore the meaning and value of teaching worldwide. This study includes the ways in which teachers in these countries are educated, recruited, compensated, and perceived by parents, students, administrators, and the culture at large...
Read more...

Global Perspectives on Teacher Motivation

Global Perspectives  
on Teacher Motivation

Many studies of teacher motivation have been conducted in different contexts over time. However, until fairly recently there has not been a reliable measure available to allow comparisons across samples and settings. This has resulted in an abundance of findings which cannot be directly compared or synthesised. The FIT-Choice instrument offers the opportunity to examine motivations across settings. The various studies in this book suggest that people who choose teaching as a career are motivated by a complex interaction of factors embedded within communities and cultural expectations, but seem generally to embrace a desire to undertake meaningful work that makes for a better society...
Read more...

What is a Mathematical Concept?

What is a Mathematical Concept?

Responding to widespread interest within cultural studies and social inquiry, this book addresses the question 'what is a mathematical concept?' using a variety of vanguard theories in the humanities and posthumanities. Tapping historical, philosophical, sociological and psychological perspectives, each chapter explores the question of how mathematics comes to matter. Of interest to scholars across the usual disciplinary divides, this book tracks mathematics as a cultural activity, drawing connections with empirical practice. Unlike other books in this area, it is highly interdisciplinary, devoted to exploring the ontology of mathematics as it plays out in different contexts...
Read more...  

Supernatural Gods: Spiritual Mysteries, Psychic Experiences, and Scientific Truths

Supernatural Gods:
Spiritual Mysteries, Psychic Experiences,
and Scientific Truths

Black Holes. Dark Energy. Dark Matter. Entanglement Theory. Quantum Physics. Modern science estimates dark energy permeates roughly 68% of the universe. Dark matter makes up another 27%, leaving the "normal" matter visible to humans at less than 5% of the cosmos around us. String Theory and Membrane Theory both suggest that parallel dimensions very probably exist. Quantum Entanglement Theory shows two objects connected despite being large distances apart. What does the universe hold―and hide? Where do we come from and where are we headed? Can science explain psychic and supernatural phenomena?
Exploring the collision of science, the universe and the "supernatural" unknown, Supernatural Gods: Spiritual Mysteries, Psychic Experiences, and Scientific Truths by Jim Willis looks at the myths, stories, history, science and facts of healing energies, psychic connections, heavenly messengers, miracles, déjà vu, dreams, out-of-body experiences, and many other psychic phenomena beyond the limits of the five senses...
Read more...

The Writing Revolution: Cuneiform to the Internet 

The Writing Revolution:  
Cuneiform to the Internet

In a world of rapid technological advancements, it can be easy to forget that writing is the original Information Technology, created to transcend the limitations of human memory and to defy time and space. The Writing Revolution picks apart the development of this communication tool to show how it has conquered the world. Explores how writing has liberated the world, making possible everything from complex bureaucracy, literature, and science, to instruction manuals and love letters. Draws on an engaging range of examples, from the first cuneiform clay tablet, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and Japanese syllabaries, to the printing press and the text messaging
Weaves together ideas from a number of fields, including history, cultural studies and archaeology, as well as linguistics and literature, to create an interdisciplinary volume. Traces the origins of each of the world’s major written traditions, along with their applications, adaptations, and cultural influence. 
Read more... 

History, Prehistory and Biological Evolution (Time Maps Book 1) 

History, Prehistory and Biological Evolution
(Time Maps Book 1)

What if all you've been told about history were wrong?
Dr. R.K. Fisher and Martini Fisher discussed the errors in the study of history and how they come about before re-examining humanity and beliefs from the very beginning.
Chapters included are:
•History (If Only it were True)
•Prehistory and the Physical Environment
•Biological Evolution
Written with a Mathematician’s precision and a Historian’s curiosity, Time Maps covers over millennia worth of developments & impacts of civilizations, migrations, leaders and continents. Illuminating concepts of societies, dynasties, heroes, kings and eras through incisive and thorough research, looking at ideas, theories & world views with a sense of wonder and delight. 
Read more...

Source: Cambridge University Press and Ancient Origins