Gary N. Smith Bücher

Die Kontroverse um Hannah Arendts »Bericht von der Banalität des Bösen«, der 1963 die Diskussion um die Verantwortung des einzelnen während der Nazidiktatur zum Sieden brachte, ist in ihrer Schärfe ohne Beispiel - und sie ist, wie u. a. die sogenannte Goldhagen-Debatte zeigt, nicht weniger aktuell als damals. Indem die Autoren dieses Bandes die Ursachen dieser Kontroverse von verschiedenen Positionen aus nachzeichnen, geben sie zugleich ein intellektuelles Porträt einer der bedeutendsten Denkerinnen des 20. Jahrhunderts.

Die Beiträge dieses Bandes befassen sich mit den folgenden Themen: Arnold Davidson: Das Geschlecht und das Auftauchen der Sexualität, Lorraine Daston: Wunder und Beweis im frühneuzeitlichen Europa, Matthias Kroß: Klarheit/Wahrheit, Avishai Margalit: Die Ethik von Hintergrundüberzeugungen, Francoise Meltzer: der Diskurs der Jungfräulichkeit oder Von der Geschlechtlichkeit des Heiligen.

This collection showcases the spirit of sports and the humanity of athletes through the lens of an accomplished sports journalist. Drawing inspiration from the works of John McPhee and David Halberstam, it offers insightful narratives that highlight the emotional and personal dimensions of the game, celebrating both the athletes and the sport itself.

We underestimate the importance of luck in our lives. We think too highly of the golfer who wins the British Open and, if he loses the next tournament, we speculate that he slacked off. Although the winner is surely an excellent golfer, good luck in how the ball bounced and how it rolled afterwards outside of the golfer's control also played an important role. An insufficient appreciation of chance can wreak all kinds of mischief not only in sports, but also education, medicine, business, politics and elsewhere. Perfectly natural, random variation can lead us to attach meaning to the meaningless. Freakonomics showed how economic calculations can explain seemingly counter-intuitive decision-making. Thinking, Fast and Slow, helped readers identify a host of small cognitive errors that can lead to miscalculations and irrational thought. In What the Luck? statistician and author, Gary Smith, sets himself a similar goal, and explains - in clear, understandable, and witty prose - how a statistical understanding of luck can change the way we see just about every aspect of our lives.

Did you know that having a messy room will make you racist? Or that human beings possess the ability to postpone death until after important ceremonial occasions? Or that people live three to five years longer if they have positive initials, like ACE? All of these 'facts' have been argued with a straight face by researchers and backed up with reams of data and convincing statistics. As Nobel Prize-winning economist Ronald Coase once cynically observed, 'If you torture data long enough, it will confess.' Lying with statistics is a time-honoured con. In Standard Deviations, economics professor Gary Smith walks us through the various tricks and traps that people use to back up their own crackpot theories. Sometimes, the unscrupulous deliberately try to mislead us. Other times, the well-intentioned are blissfully unaware of the mischief they are committing. Today, data is so plentiful that researchers spend precious little time distinguishing between good, meaningful deductions and total rubbish. Not only do others use data to fool us, we fool ourselves. Drawing on breakthrough research in behavioural economics by luminaries like Daniel Kahneman and Dan Ariely, and taking to task some of the conclusions of Freakonomics, Standard Deviations demystifies the science behind statistics and brings into stark relief the fraud that surrounds us all.

Smith offers an engaging biography of one of the world's most inspiring, humorous, and provocative authors. He analyzes Mark Twain's constantly changing views of Christianity, humanity, the afterlife, and other theological topics, thereby providing a window into the spiritual crisis of the Gilded... číst celé

"Marking the 50th anniversary of the historic Summit Series, here is the incredible story of an unlikely political stage--the hockey rink--where a Cold War, and the threat of nuclear annihilation, is no less important than a power play in the final minute. Discover a diplomacy mission like no other: caught between capitalism and communism, Canada and the Soviet Union, young Canadian diplomat Gary J. Smith must navigate the rink, melting the ice between two nations skating a dangerous path. Tasked with finding common ground and building friendships between the world's two largest countries and arctic neighbours, a young Canadian diplomat finds himself on his first overseas assignment in Moscow, the Soviet capital. It's the early 1970s and a Cold War between communism and capitalism, the west and the east, is simmering--while the ice rink is just starting to heat up. Trained in Russian and deployed by Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau's détente policy, Smith opts for sports diplomacy, throwing off his embassy black tie dress codes and donning the blue and white sweater of the Moscow Maple Leafs. Armed with cases of Molson, Smith sets forth into Russian beer league hockey. A vodka-infused encounter with the influential Izvestia journalist "The Snowman" leads him into the murky world of Soviet hockey officialdom, the KGB and the decision that USSR "amateurs" were finally ready to play Canadian professionals in an eight-game Friendship Series of the best versus the best. Trusted by each side with unparalleled access to officials, coaches and players on both teams, Smith witnesses this unique and epic hockey series that has come to transcend time, becoming a symbol of the unity and clarity that sports can offer. Discover amazing and surprising events: a motorcycle joyride around the Kremlin with the Canadian prime minister; a secret visit to a Soviet hospital by a blood-coughing Phil Esposito; an argument with Bobby Orr about Team Canada's behaviour; and an invitation in 2017 from Russia to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the series in Moscow. The 1972 Canadian-Soviet Hockey Series will go down in history as a pivotal political event, changing the course of two nations and the world of hockey--learn the fascinating story and more in this book, perfect for history and sports fans alike."-- Provided by publisher