This book argues that modern technology has radically and irretrievably altered our sense of identity and hence our social, political, and legal life. In traditional societies, relationships and identities were strongly vertical: there was a clear line of authority from top to bottom, and identity was fixed by one's birth or social position. But in modern society, identity and authority have become much more horizontal: people feel freer to choose who they are and to form relationships on a plane of equality. The author examines how modern life centers on human identity seen in terms of race, gender, ethnicity, and religion, and how this new way of defining oneself affects politics, social structure, and the law. He claims that our horizontal society is the product of the mass media -- in particular, television -- which break down the isolation of traditional life and allow individuals to connect with like-minded others across barriers of space and time. As horizontal groups blossom, loyalties and allegiances to smaller groups fragment what seemed to be the unity of the larger nation. In addition, the media's ability to spread a global mass culture causes a breakdown of cultural isolation that leads to more immigration and heavy pressure on the laws and institutions of citizenship and immigration.

Modern technology has radically and irretrievably altered our sense of identity and hence our social, political, and legal life, argues Lawrence M. Friedman in this bold new book. In traditional societies, he explains, relationships and identities were strongly vertical: there was a clear line of authority from top to bottom, and identity was fixed by one's birth or social position. But in modern society, identity and authority have become much more horizontal: people feel freer to choose who they are and to form relationships on a plane of equality. Friedman examines how modern life centers on human identity seen in terms of race, gender, ethnicity, and religion, and how this new way of defining oneself affects politics, social structure, and the law. Our horizontal society, he says, is the product of the mass media-in particular, television-which break down the isolation of traditional life and allow individuals to connect with like-minded others across barriers of space and time. As horizontal groups blossom, loyalties and allegiances to smaller groups fragment what seemed to be the unity of the larger nation. In addition, the media's ability to spread a global mass culture causes a breakdown of cultural isolation that leads to more immigration and heavy pressure on the laws and institutions of citizenship and immigration.

The Horizontal Society is an exposition of rabbinic thought as exemplified by Maimonides. The thought streams of Greece, Rome, and Christendom serve as a contrast. This work is in the Hebrew rhetorical tradition of melisa. The main text in five sections-—The God of Israel, The Books of Israel, The Governance of Israel, The Memory of Israel, and The Folly of Israel—focuses on these core matters. It includes numerous references to orient the reader. The mode is similar to the author's previous work, such as Golden Doves with Silver Dots: Semiotics and Textuality in Rabbinic Tradition, interacting with the latest thought from today's academy.This book illustrates the horizontal organization of the Jewish people. Other social organization is based on hierarchy. Two principles made this difference possible for Israel. First, the Hebrew Scriptures alone propose that every human being is created in the image of God.This necessitates the absolute equality of every human being. Second, the Sinai covenant establishes the Law as the supreme authority. Whereas in other societies, might is the source of authority, in Judaism authority is limited by the Law. These principles were summarized by the last Prophet of Israel: "Has not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously…, profaning the covenant of our fathers?" (Mal 2:10). There is a subdivided bibliography of forty pages, including both Jewish and "Western" sources. The scholarly apparatus includes indices of terms, names, and subjects. There are also seventy appendices of interest to rabbinic readership.

The unique career of choreographer Liz Lerman has taken her from theater stages to shipyards, and from synagogues to science labs. In this wide-ranging collection of essays and articles, she reflects on her life-long exploration of dance as a vehicle for human insight and understanding of the world around us. Lerman has been described by the Washington Post as “the source of an epochal revolution in the scope and purposes of dance art.” Here, she combines broad outlooks on culture and society with practical applications and accessible stories. Her expansive scope encompasses the craft, structure, and inspiration that bring theatrical works to life as well as the applications of art in fields as diverse as faith, aging, particle physics, and human rights law. Offering readers a gentle manifesto describing methods that bring a horizontal focus to bear on a hierarchical world, this is the perfect book for anyone curious about the possible role for art in politics, science, community, motherhood, and the media. The paperback edition includes an afterword with updates and additions to each section of the book. Ebook Edition Note: Two images have been redacted, on page 200, Dances at a Cocktail Party, and on page 201, the bottom photo of Small Dances about Big Ideas.

At once intimate and wide-ranging, and as enthralling, surprising, and vivid as the place itself, this is a uniquely eye-opening tour of one of the great metropolises of the world, and its largest Spanish-speaking city. Horizontal Vertigo: The title refers to the fear of ever-impending earthquakes that led Mexicans to build their capital city outward rather than upward. With the perspicacity of a keenly observant flaneur, Juan Villoro wanders through Mexico City seemingly without a plan, describing people, places, and things while brilliantly drawing connections among them. In so doing he reveals, in all its multitudinous glory, the vicissitudes and triumphs of the city ’s cultural, political, and social history: from indigenous antiquity to the Aztec period, from the Spanish conquest to Mexico City today—one of the world’s leading cultural and financial centers. In this deeply iconoclastic book, Villoro organizes his text around a recurring series of topics: “Living in the City,” “City Characters,” “Shocks,” “Crossings,” and “Ceremonies.” What he achieves, miraculously, is a stunning, intriguingly coherent meditation on Mexico City’s genius loci, its spirit of place.

Nearly four decades ago Richard Dawkins published The Selfish Gene, famously reducing humans to “survival machines” whose sole purpose was to preserve “the selfish molecules known as genes.” How these selfish genes work together to construct the organism, however, remained a mystery. Standing atop a wealth of new research, The Society of Genes now provides a vision of how genes cooperate and compete in the struggle for life. Pioneers in the nascent field of systems biology, Itai Yanai and Martin Lercher present a compelling new framework to understand how the human genome evolved and why understanding the interactions among our genes shifts the basic paradigm of modern biology. Contrary to what Dawkins’s popular metaphor seems to imply, the genome is not made of individual genes that focus solely on their own survival. Instead, our genomes comprise a society of genes which, like human societies, is composed of members that form alliances and rivalries. In language accessible to lay readers, The Society of Genes uncovers genetic strategies of cooperation and competition at biological scales ranging from individual cells to entire species. It captures the way the genome works in cancer cells and Neanderthals, in sexual reproduction and the origin of life, always underscoring one critical point: that only by putting the interactions among genes at center stage can we appreciate the logic of life.

In 1950, when he commissioned the first edition of The Armed Forces Officer, Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall told its author, S.L.A. Marshall, that "American military officers, of whatever service, should share common ground ethically and morally." In this new edition, the authors methodically explore that common ground, reflecting on the basics of the Profession of Arms, and the officer's special place and distinctive obligations within that profession and especially to the Constitution.

Two contrasting terms are joined to conjugate the traditional idea of metropolis with horizontality; to combine the center of a vast territory--hierarchically organized, dense, vertical, and produced by polarization--with the idea of a more diffuse, isotropic urban condition, where center and periphery blur. Beyond a simplistic center versus periphery opposition, the concept of a horizontal metropolis reveals the dispersed condition as a potential asset, rather than a limit, to the construction of a sustainable and innovative urban dimension. Around 1990, Terry McGee, an urban researcher at University of British Columbia, coined the term desakota, deriving from Indonesian “desa” (village) and “kota” (city). Desakota areas typically occur in Asia, especially South East Asia. The term describes an area situated outside the periurban zone, often sprawling alongside arterial and communication roads, sometimes from one agglomeration to the next. They are characterized by high population density and intensive agricultural use, but differ from densely populated rural areas by more urban-like characteristics. The new book The Horizontal Metropolis investigates such areas alongside examples in the US, Italy, and Switzerland. The study highlights the advantages of the concept and its relevance under economical, ecological, and social aspects. The concept reflects a vision of global urbanization that does no longer allow for “outside” areas and that will test the urban ecosystem to its limits.

Our competitive, service-oriented societies are taking a toll on the late-modern individual. Rather than improving life, multitasking, "user-friendly" technology, and the culture of convenience are producing disorders that range from depression to attention deficit disorder to borderline personality disorder. Byung-Chul Han interprets the spreading malaise as an inability to manage negative experiences in an age characterized by excessive positivity and the universal availability of people and goods. Stress and exhaustion are not just personal experiences, but social and historical phenomena as well. Denouncing a world in which every against-the-grain response can lead to further disempowerment, he draws on literature, philosophy, and the social and natural sciences to explore the stakes of sacrificing intermittent intellectual reflection for constant neural connection.