Library

For links to the books in INCUNABULA A Catalog of Rare Books, Manuscripts & Curiosa Conspiracy Theory, Frontier Science & Alternative Worlds go here.

In Life Inc., award-winning writer, documentary filmmaker, and scholar Douglas Rushkoff traces how corporations went from being convenient legal fictions to being the dominant fact of contemporary life. Indeed, as Rushkoff shows, most Americans have so willingly adopted the values of corporations that they’re no longer even aware of it.

This fascinating journey, from the late Middle Ages to today, reveals the roots of our debacle. From the founding of the first chartered monopoly to the branding of the self; from the invention of central currency to the privatization of banking; from the birth of the modern, self-interested individual to his exploitation through the false ideal of the single-family home; from the Victorian Great Exhibition to the solipsism of MySpace–the corporation has infiltrated all aspects of our daily lives. Life Inc. exposes why we see our homes as investments rather than places to live, our 401(k) plans as the ultimate measure of success, and the Internet as just another place to do business.

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This book is the first single volume to present a complete guide to the most notorious and radical art movement of the twentieth century, the Situationist International (SI). Simon Ford offers a unique history and analysis of the SI and its main protagonists, including Guy Debord, Asger Jorn, Constant and Michele Bernstein. Tracing its development back to the European avant-garde, Ford provides a comprehensive historical background to the SI’s foundation.

Tracing its development back to the European avant-garde and groups such as COBRA, the Lettrists and the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus, Ford provides a comprehensive historical background to the 1957 foundation of the Situationist International under its self-proclaimed leader, the brilliant Guy Debord. Looking at painting, architecture and cinema, Ford includes detailed profiles of the main members such as the Asger Jorn, Constant, Pinot-Gallizio and Ralph Rumney. The final chapter looks at how the SI’s legacy, following its disintegration in 1972, can be traced within subsequent artistic and activist movements, from punk through to culture jamming and media activism.

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The Das Kapital of the 20th century. An essential text, and the main theoretical work of the situationists. Few works of political and cultural theory have been as enduringly provocative. From its publication amid the social upheavals of the 1960′s up to the present, the volatile theses of this book have decisively transformed debates on the shape of modernity, capitalism, and everyday life in the late 20th century. This new edition is the Ken Knabb translation. Certainly it has the most “modern” design of all three editions, as well as a short new introduction from the translator.

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The Matrix conveys the horror of a false world made of nothing but perceptions. Based on the premise that reality is a dream controlled by malevolent forces, it is one of the most overtly philosophical movies ever to come out of Hollywood. These thought-provoking essays by the same team of young philosophers who created The Simpsons and Philosophy discuss different facets of the primary philosophical puzzle of The Matrix: Can we be sure the world is really there, and if not, what should we do about it? Other chapters address issues of religion, lifestyle, pop culture, the Zeitgeist, the nature of mind and matter, and the reality of fiction.

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More than 7 million viewers are captivated weekly by Fringe, a science fiction procedural in the best tradition of The X-Files with a taut central mythology, rich characters, and it’s own laboratory cow. In its weekly cases and its overarching plot, Fringe strikes a compelling balance between the strange and the familiar, and the quirky and the tragic.

Fringe Science delves into the science, science fiction, and pseudoscience of Fringe with a collection of essays by science and science fiction writers on everything from alternate universes to time travel to genetically targeted toxins, as well as discussions on the show’s moral philosophy and the consequences of playing God.

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Part personal odyssey, part espionage adventure, and part social history, Mirage Men delves into the world of UFOs, those who believe in them, and those who would have us believe in them. This is not your average UFO book. Mirage Men explores the strange and symbiotic relationship between the U.S. military and intelligence agencies and the community who believes strongly that UFOs have visited earth.

Just how has the U.S. government manipulated the public’s belief in UFOs to hide military aircraft experimentation? Among the UFO believers are the “mirage men”–a close-knit group of men and women whose careers span science medicine, the military, and the intelligence services. They believe they have received parts of a flying saucer-shaped puzzle, whose final pieces lie tantalizingly out of reach. Dive into this comprehensive and astonishing exposition of exactly what these Mirage Men believe, and why. Interviews, anecdotes, and cold hard facts make this a persuasive book that’s hard to ignore. Many are sure that official disclosure–government announcement of extraterrestrial presence–is just around the corner.

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Are there other dimensions beyond our own? Is time travel possible? Can we change the past? Are there gateways to parallel universes? All of us have pondered such questions, but there was a time when scientists dismissed these notions as outlandish speculations. Not any more. Today, they are the focus of the most intense scientific activity in recent memory. In Hyperspace, Michio Kaku, author of the widely acclaimed Beyond Einstein and a leading theoretical physicist, offers the first book-length tour of the most exciting (and perhaps most bizarre) work in modern physics, work which includes research on the tenth dimension, time warps, black holes, and multiple universes. The theory of hyperspace (or higher dimensional space) – and its newest wrinkle, superstring theory – stand at the center of this revolution, with adherents in every major research laboratory in the world, including several Nobel laureates. Beginning where Hawking’s Brief History of Time left off, Kaku paints a vivid portrayal of the breakthroughs now rocking the physics establishment. Why all the excitement? As the author points out, for over half a century, scientists have puzzled over why the basic forces of the cosmos – gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces – require markedly different mathematical descriptions. But if we see these forces as vibrations in a higher dimensional space, their field equations suddenly fit together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, perfectly snug, in an elegant, astonishingly simple form. This may thus be our leading candidate for the Theory of Everything. If so, it would be the crowning achievement of 2,000 years of scientific investigation into matter and itsforces. Already, the theory has inspired several thousand research papers, and has been the focus of over 200 international conferences. Many leading scientists believe the theory will unlock the deepest secrets of creation and answer some of the most intriguing questions of all.

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From H.G. Wells to Isaac Asimov to Ursula K. Le Guin, time travel has long been a favorite topic and plot device in tales of science fiction and fantasy. But as any true SF fan knows, astounding stories about traversing alternate universes and swimming the tides of time demand plausible science. That’s just what Paul J. Nahin’s guide provides.

An engineer, physicist, and published science fiction writer, Nahin is uniquely qualified to explain the ins and outs of how to spin such complex theories as worm holes, singularity, and relativity into scientifically sound fiction. First published in 1997, this fast-paced book discusses the common and not-so-common time-travel devices science fiction writers have used over the years, assesses which would theoretically work and which would not, and provides scientific insight inventive authors can use to find their own way forward or backward in time. From hyperspace and faster-than-light travel to causal loops and the uncertainty principle and beyond, Nahin’s equation-free romp across time will help writers send their characters to the past or future in an entertaining, logical, and scientific way.

If you ever wanted to set up the latest and greatest grandfather paradox-or just wanted to know if the time-bending events in the latest pulp you read could ever happen-then this book is for you.

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n this eclectic and interdisciplinary work, chaos pioneer RalphAbraham traces the history of consciousness through a rediscovery ofthe three forces that drive it: chaos, gaia, and eros-the mind, body, and spirit of evolution. With startling originality and clarity ofvision, Abraham employs photographs, timelines, charts, and an engagingformat to sweep the reader along on this wild ride through math, science, mythology, philosophy, and the whole of history.

Sure to fascinate the poet, scientist, philosopher, and historian in all of us, Chaos, Gaia, Eros is a mind-bending masterwork that reunites the chaotic and mythological forces of human history and blows the doors off existing modes of thought.

Chaos, Gaia, Eros deliteralizeshistory so we see it not only as a sequence of events, but as a flow ofideas and cultural myths… T]his is an important book forunderstanding the past, living in the present, and shaping the future.-David Fideler, founder of Phanes Press and editor of Alexandra: The Journal of the Western Cosmological Traditions

This extraordinary work is a veritable Rosetta stone, unlocking the past, present andfuture.-Joan Halifax, author of The Fruitful Darkness.

Ralph Abraham has] his own highly original ideas about the application of chaostheory to changes in history and consciousness, making for a rich and provocativeblend-Riane Eisler, author of The Chalice and the Blade.

Ralph Abraham is the most readable and delightful of mathematical pioneers. Heis in the great tradition of Poincar and Whitehead, a true mathematical humanist.Chaos, Gaia, Eros is destined to be a voice shaping the new millennium. -Terence McKenna, author of True Hallucinations, The Invisible Landscape, Archaic Revival and Food of the Gods.

Ralph Abraham is a world renowned chaos theorist and professoremeritus of mathematicsat the University of California, Santa Cruz.

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A book by anarchist writer Hakim Bey published in 1991 by Autonomedia. It is composed of three sections, “Chaos: The Broadsheets of Ontological Anarchism,” “Communiques of the Association for Ontological Anarchy,” and “The Temporary Autonomous Zone.”

The book describes the socio-political tactic of creating temporary spaces that elude formal structures of control. The essay uses various examples from history and philosophy, all of which suggest that the best way to create a non-hierarchical system of social relationships is to concentrate on the present and on releasing one’s own mind from the controlling mechanisms that have been imposed on it.

In the formation of a TAZ, Bey argues, information becomes a key tool that sneaks into the cracks of formal procedures. A new territory of the moment is created that is on the boundary line of established regions. Any attempt at permanence that goes beyond the moment deteriorates to a structured system that inevitably stifles individual creativity. It is this chance at creativity that is real empowerment.

Bey later expanded the concept beyond the “temporary,” saying “we’ve had to consider the fact that not all existing autonomous zones are ‘temporary.’ Some are … more-or-less ‘permanent.’ “Hence, the concept of the Permanent Autonomous Zone.

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History. Cultural Studies. America was founded as a land of drop-outs, and almost immediately it began to produce its own crop of dissidents – visionaries, utopians, Maroons (escaped slaves), white and black Indians, sailors and buccaneers, tax rebels, angry women, crank reformers, tri-racial isolate communities – all on the lam from Babylon, from control. In this book they return, speaking for a romantic becoming – for an insurrectionary moment – for a restoration of the unknown.
Lost history viewed through cracks in the cartographies of control, including “tri-racial isolate” communities, buccaneers, “white Indians,” black Islamic movements, the Maroons of the Great Dismal Swamp, the Métis nation, scandalous eugenics theories, rural hippie communes, and many other aspects of North American autonomous cultures. A festschrift honoring late historian Hugo Leaming Bey of the Moorish Science Temple.

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This neo-Luddite sequel to Elements of Refusal includes Future Primitive, The Mass Psychology of Misery, Tonality and the Totality, The Catastrophe of Postmodernism, excerpts from The Nihilists Dictionary, and other essays, columns, and reviews. From the editor of Against Civilization and the confidant of alleged Unabomber Ted Kazcynski.

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