How "Aha!" really happens. When do you get your best ideas? You probably answer "At night," or "In the shower," or "Stuck in traffic." You get a flash of insight. Things come together in your mind. You connect the dots. You say to yourself, "Aha! I see what to do." Brain science now reveals how these flashes of insight happen. It's a special form of intuition. We call it strategic intuition, because it gives you an idea for action-a strategy. Brain science tells us there are three kinds of intuition: ordinary, expert, and strategic. Ordinary intuition is just a feeling, a gut instinct. Expert intuition is snap judgments, when you instantly recognize something familiar, the way a tennis pro knows where the ball will go from the arc and speed of the opponent's racket. (Malcolm Gladwell wrote about this kind of intuition in Blink.) The third kind, strategic intuition, is not a vague feeling, like ordinary intuition. Strategic intuition is a clear thought. And it's not fast, like expert intuition. It's slow. That flash of insight you had last night might solve a problem that's been on your mind for a month. And it doesn't happen in familiar situations, like a tennis match. Strategic intuition works in new situations. That's when you need it most. Everyone knows you need creative thinking, or entrepreneurial thinking, or innovative thinking, or strategic thinking to succeed in the modern world. All these kinds of thinking happen through flashes of insight--strategic intuition. And now that we know how it works, you can learn to do it better. That's what this book is about. Over the past ten years, William Duggan has conducted pioneering research on strategic intuition and for the past three years has taught a popular course at Columbia Business School on the subject. He now gives us this eye-opening book that shows how strategic intuition lies at the heart of great achievements throughout human history: the scientific and computer revolutions, women's suffrage, the civil rights movement, modern art, microfinance in poor countries, and more. Considering the achievements of people and organizations, from Bill Gates to Google, Copernicus to Martin Luther King, Picasso to Patton, you'll never think the same way about strategy again. Three kinds of strategic ideas apply to human achievement: * Strategic analysis, where you study the situation you face * Strategic intuition, where you get a creative idea for what to do * Strategic planning, where you work out the details of how to do it. There is no shortage of books about strategic analysis and strategic planning. This new book by William Duggan is the first full treatment of strategic intuition. It's the missing piece of the strategy puzzle that makes essential reading for anyone interested in achieving more in any field of human endeavor.

Comparative urban history examines early modern economic and cultural achievements in Antwerp, Amsterdam, and London.

William A. Beardslee was born in 1916 at Holland, Michigan. He was educated at Harvard, New Brunswick Theological Seminary, where he obtained a BD in 1941, and at Union Theological Seminary, where he studied on a part-time basis while he was in the ministry. He became a PhD of the University of Chicago in 1951. Dr. Beardslee was a minister of the Reformed Church in America. He was Assistant Professor of Bible (1947-1952) and Associate Professor of Bible (1956-1956) at Emory University. He has written a number of articles and reviews and served as Associate Editor of the Journal of Bible and Religion. He authored (with E. H. Rece) of Reading the Bible: A Guide.

The field of human motivation has been undergoing a revolutionary shift in the 21st century. What new philosophical assumptions, motivational models, and empirical evidence have emerged? What does this look like in theory and in application? The Oxford Handbook of Human Motivation, Second Edition addresses these key advances made in the field since the previous edition, offering the latest insights from the top theorists and researchers of human motivation. The volume includes chapters on social learning theory, control theory, self-determination theory, terror management theory, and regulatory focus theory, while also presenting articles from leading scholars on phenomena such as ego-depletion, choice, curiosity, flow, implicit motives, and personal interests. A special section dedicated to goal research highlights achievement goals, goal attainment, goal pursuit and unconscious goals, and the goal orientation process across adulthood. This Handbook also provides practical research and guidance with sections on relationships and applications in areas such as psychotherapy, education, physical activity, sport, and work. By providing reviews of the most advanced work by the very best scholars in this field, The Oxford Handbook of Human Motivation, Second Edition represents an invaluable resource for both researchers and practitioners, as well as any student of human nature.

Is mathematics created or discovered? The answer has been debated for centuries. This book answers the question clearly and decisively by applying the concept of language games, invented by the philosopher Wittgenstein to solve difficult philosophical issues. Using the results of modern brain science, the book also explains how it is possible that eminent mathematicians and scientists offer diametrically opposed answers to the question of creation vs. discovery. Interested in the topic but intimidated by mathematics? Not to worry. If you are familiar with the elementary operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, you can follow the arguments of this book.

Although Lester Frank Ward's accomplishments are not as well known today, he is considered the father of American Sociology and his work profoundly influenced such important thinkers as Thorstein Veblen, John Dewey, Edward Ross, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In Apostle of Human Progress, Edward C. Rafferty presents the first full scale intellectual portrait of this important public thinker. Rafferty shows how Ward's thought laid the foundations for the modern administrative state and explores his contributions to twentieth century American liberalism. Ideal for anyone interested in the history of American intellectuals and ideas.

One of today's most widely read philosophers considers the shift in violence from visible to invisible, from negativity to excess of positivity. Some things never disappear—violence, for example. Violence is ubiquitous and incessant but protean, varying its outward form according to the social constellation at hand. In Topology of Violence, the philosopher Byung-Chul Han considers the shift in violence from the visible to the invisible, from the frontal to the viral to the self-inflicted, from brute force to mediated force, from the real to the virtual. Violence, Han tells us, has gone from the negative—explosive, massive, and martial—to the positive, wielded without enmity or domination. This, he says, creates the false impression that violence has disappeared. Anonymized, desubjectified, systemic, violence conceals itself because it has become one with society. Han first investigates the macro-physical manifestations of violence, which take the form of negativity—developing from the tension between self and other, interior and exterior, friend and enemy. These manifestations include the archaic violence of sacrifice and blood, the mythical violence of jealous and vengeful gods, the deadly violence of the sovereign, the merciless violence of torture, the bloodless violence of the gas chamber, the viral violence of terrorism, and the verbal violence of hurtful language. He then examines the violence of positivity—the expression of an excess of positivity—which manifests itself as over-achievement, over-production, over-communication, hyper-attention, and hyperactivity. The violence of positivity, Han warns, could be even more disastrous than that of negativity. Infection, invasion, and infiltration have given way to infarction.