By Kim Stanley Robinson
With the incomparable imaginative and prescient and breathtaking element that introduced his now-classic Mars trilogy to vibrant existence, bestselling writer KIM STANLEY ROBINSON boldly imagines an alternative background of the final seven-hundred years. In his grandest paintings but, the acclaimed storyteller constructs an international greatly various from the single we know....
The Years of Rice and Salt
It is the fourteenth century and essentially the most apocalyptic occasions in human heritage is determined to occur–the coming of the Black loss of life. heritage teaches us 3rd of Europe’s inhabitants was once destroyed. yet what if? What if the plague killed ninety nine percentage of the inhabitants as a substitute? How may the area have replaced? it is a examine the background which could have been–a background that stretches throughout centuries, a historical past that sees dynasties and international locations upward thrust and collapse, a historical past that spans terrible famine and sumptuous innovation. those are the years of rice and salt.
This is a universe the place the 1st send to arrive the hot global travels around the Pacific Ocean from China and colonization spreads from west to east. this can be a universe the place the commercial Revolution is brought on through the world’s maximum clinical minds–in India. it is a universe the place Buddhism and Islam are the main influential and practiced religions and Christianity is only a historic footnote.
Through the eyes of infantrymen and kings, explorers and philosophers, slaves and students, Robinson renders an immensely wealthy tapestry. Rewriting background and probing the main profound questions as in simple terms he can, Robinson shines his striking mild at the position of faith, tradition, strength, or even love on such an Earth. From the steppes of Asia to the beaches of the Western Hemisphere, from the age of Akbar to the current and past, this is the beautiful tale of the production of a brand new world.
From the Hardcover edition.
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Open up to diversity. Sometimes students can create their instructors by letting go of pictures about different races and ethnic groups. According to one picture, a Hispanic person cannot teach English literature. According to other pictures, a white teacher cannot have anything valid to say about African music, and a teacher in a wheelchair cannot command the attention of a hundred people in a lecture hall. All of those pictures can clash with reality. Releasing them can open up new opportunities for understanding and appreciation.
Some of the most important qualities managers valued in employees were communicating well, taking risks and learning from mistakes, and working with people of diverse backgrounds. JOIN THE CONVERSATION Long ago, before the advent of printing presses, televisions, and computers, people educated themselves by conversing with one another. Students in ancient Athens were often called peripatetic (a word that means “walking around”) because they were frequently seen strolling around the city, engaged in heated philosophical debate.
This quip makes a point: As workers in different fields become more specialized, they run the risk of forgetting how to talk to one another. Higher education can change that. One benefit of studying the liberal arts is the chance to gain a broad vision. People with a liberal arts background are aware of 14 Introduction • The Master Student MASTER THE LIBERAL ARTS According to one traditional model, education means mastering two essential tasks: the use of language and the use of numbers. To acquire these skills, students once immersed themselves in seven subjects: grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.