Originally published: Vintage/Random House Australia, 2010, 2010.

A brave, intimate, beautifully crafted memoir by a survivor of the tsunami that struck the Sri Lankan coast in 2004 and took her entire family. On December 26, Boxing Day, Sonali Deraniyagala, her English husband, her parents, her two young sons, and a close friend were ending Christmas vacation at the seaside resort of Yala on the south coast of Sri Lanka when a wave suddenly overtook them. She was only to learn later that this was a tsunami that devastated coastlines through Southeast Asia. When the water began to encroach closer to their hotel, they began to run, but in an instant, water engulfed them, Sonali was separated from her family, and all was lost. Sonali Deraniyagala has written an extraordinarily honest, utterly engrossing account of the surreal tragedy of a devastating event that all at once ended her life as she knew it and her journey since in search of understanding and redemption. It is also a remarkable portrait of a young family's life and what came before, with all the small moments and larger dreams that suddenly and irrevocably ended.

Patterns of the Future explains the current world using the theory of long-term development waves (Kondratiev waves). Markku Wilenius, Professor of Futures Studies, argues that we are now entering the sixth wave: the age of intelligent, integrated technologies, helping to restore the balance between humans, technology and nature by radically improved material and energy efficiency and a wiser use of human potential.The unfolding sixth wave will challenge our current values, institutions and business models. Using a systems-based approach, Patterns of the Future analyses how corporations and the public sector can navigate in the sixth wave. Case studies look at specific examples of this, using high-profile companies to demonstrate both the best- (and worst-) case scenarios of innovation for change.This book spans concepts from multiple disciplines in the social sciences, making it relevant not only to undergraduate and graduate students in futures studies, environmental studies, economics, and business, but also national policymakers, think tanks, corporate operators and indeed for any one seriously interested in the future.

Ideology and Utopia in China’s New Wave Cinema investigates the ways in which New Wave filmmakers represent China in this age of neoliberal reform. Analyzing this paradigm shift in independent cinema, this text explores the historicity of the cinematic form and its cultural-political visions. Through a close reading of the narrative strategy of key films in New Wave Cinema, Xiaoping Wang studies the movement’s impact on film, literature, culture and politics.

What are the major new growth markets of the future? Why do groundbreaking innovations - like the computer, the automobile or the steam engine in the past - increasingly fail to materialize? What are the current growth barriers that hinder the further development of economy and society? The reader will find answers to these questions in this book. The Theory of Long Waves serves as a scientific foundation. In short, it states that economic and social development is significantly determined by periodic cycles that last between 40 and 60 years. In honor of their discoverer Nikolai Kondratieff, these long waves are called Kondratieff cycles. Since the late 18th century, economists have empirically proven five Kondratieff cycles. The long waves have a particularly strategic role: those, who identify the respective current Kondratieff cycle early on are able to focus on the future, to take the lead in economic and social development and benefit the most from its momentum - just like the leading command of information technology during the last, the fifth Kondratieff cycle made full employment and increasing wealth possible for these countries. The sixth Kondratieff cycle has begun with the turn of this century. As the analyses in this book show, health care will be the driving force of this new Kondratieff cycle. However, health is not just seen in a physical, but also in a holistic sense, encompassing the physical, psychological, mental, psycho-mental, social, ecological and spiritual aspects. Why are health expenditures that were previously considered a mere cost factor going to assume the role of a growth locomotive in the future? We need to recall the findings of modern growth theory here: the most important source for economic growth in developed countries is productivity advancements. The analyses in this book show that a new understanding of health is indispensable to improve productivity on all levels of the economy and society. Thanks to this new understanding, health will become a strategic weapon for the next decades. This book is tailored to a general audience, includes 76 graphics and 13 tables and is aimed at stakeholders in economy and society, experts and managers and all those, who are interested in the future. Aside from a profound analysis, the book also describes measures to develop the sixth Kondratieff.

Mobility is fundamental to economic and social activities such as commuting, manufacturing, or supplying energy. Each movement has an origin, a potential set of intermediate locations, a destination, and a nature which is linked with geographical attributes. Transport systems composed of infrastructures, modes and terminals are so embedded in the socio-economic life of individuals, institutions and corporations that they are often invisible to the consumer. This is paradoxical as the perceived invisibility of transportation is derived from its efficiency. Understanding how mobility is linked with geography is main the purpose of this book. The third edition of The Geography of Transport Systems has been revised and updated to provide an overview of the spatial aspects of transportation. This text provides greater discussion of security, energy, green logistics, as well as new and updated case studies, a revised content structure, and new figures. Each chapter covers a specific conceptual dimension including networks, modes, terminals, freight transportation, urban transportation and environmental impacts. A final chapter contains core methodologies linked with transport geography such as accessibility, spatial interactions, graph theory and Geographic Information Systems for transportation (GIS-T). This book provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the field, with a broad overview of its concepts, methods, and areas of application. The accompanying website for this text contains a useful additional material, including digital maps, PowerPoint slides, databases, and links to further reading and websites. The website can be accessed at: http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans This text is an essential resource for undergraduates studying transport geography, as well as those interest in economic and urban geography, transport planning and engineering.

ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR A major book about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a powerful account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes Over the last half a billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. This time around, the cataclysm is us. In The Sixth Extinction, two-time winner of the National Magazine Award and New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert draws on the work of scores of researchers in half a dozen disciplines, accompanying many of them into the field: geologists who study deep ocean cores, botanists who follow the tree line as it climbs up the Andes, marine biologists who dive off the Great Barrier Reef. She introduces us to a dozen species, some already gone, others facing extinction, including the Panamian golden frog, staghorn coral, the great auk, and the Sumatran rhino. Through these stories, Kolbert provides a moving account of the disappearances occurring all around us and traces the evolution of extinction as concept, from its first articulation by Georges Cuvier in revolutionary Paris up through the present day. The sixth extinction is likely to be mankind's most lasting legacy; as Kolbert observes, it compels us to rethink the fundamental question of what it means to be human.

Cassie Sullivan, the survivor of an alien invasion, must rescue her young brother from the enemy with help from a boy who may be one of them.

"I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages." What does it mean to "kiss the wave?" These words, attributed to nineteenth-century British preacher Charles Spurgeon, speak to the Christian's only hope for perseverance in suffering. What if we can learn to experience the nearness of God in the midst of suffering? What if God intends to work through our trials rather than simply take them away? After living for more than a decade with a debilitating nerve condition in both arms, Dave Furman shows us that God, in his grace, always designs trials for our good—not minimizing the pain, but infusing significance into our suffering. Furman demonstrates that, even when tossed to and fro by stormy waves, God is near . . . and that makes all the difference in the world.

In December 2004 the Indian Ocean tsunami devastated coastal regions of Sri Lanka. Six months later, Michele Ruth Gamburd returned to the village where she had been conducting research for many years and began collecting residents' stories of the disaster and its aftermath: the chaos and loss of the flood itself; the sense of community and leveling of social distinctions as people worked together to recover and regroup; and the local and national politics of foreign aid as the country began to rebuild. In The Golden Wave, Gamburd describes how the catastrophe changed social identities, economic dynamics, and political structures.