Controversial Knowledge

The period of rule by the Nazis has generated a number of powerful, deep-rooted and entirely untrue narratives of conspiracy which continue to claim adherents to the present day. In a sense this is unsurprising: Nazism was itself a conspiratorial movement addicted to fraudulent s...cience and history and whose leading figures left behind them a trail of many thousands of untrue assertions. But the continuing, sometimes widespread belief in some of these ideas shines a fascinating light on how we encounter history and how historians must continue to battle against malign or confused assertion. The Hitler Conspiracies describes five very different false narratives: the invention and dissemination of 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'; the theory that the Germany army lost the Great War because it was 'stabbed in the back'; the belief that the Nazis burned down the Reichstag in order to seize dictatorial power; the idea that Rudolf Hess's flight to the UK in 1941 was sanctioned by Hitler and conveyed peace terms suppressed by Churchill; and the pervasive belief that the Fuhrer successfully fled the Bunker and retired to South America. One of the great historians of the Third Reich, Richard J. Evans here gives a highly entertaining and challenging masterclass in historical method, proper scepticism and the terrible damage that 'fake news' can do.
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From the prize-winning author of To Be a Machine - meet the men and women preparing for the end of the world In the remote mountains of Scotland, in high-tech bunkers in South Dakota and in the lush valleys of New Zealand, small groups of determined men and women are getting read...y. They are environmentalists who fear the ravages of climate change; billionaire entrepreneurs dreaming of life on Mars; and right-wing conspiracists yearning for a lost American idyll. One thing unites them: their certainty that we are only years away from the end of civilization as we know it. Not unconcerned himself by the possibility of the end of days, Mark O'Connell set out to meet them.
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'There is no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil' Bill Gates Is flying dangerous? How much do the world's cows weigh? And what makes people happy? From earth's nations and inhabitants, through the fuels and foods that energize them, to the transportation an...d inventions of our modern world - and how all of this affects the planet itself - in Numbers Don't Lie, Professor Vaclav Smil takes us on a fact-finding adventure, using surprising statistics and illuminating graphs to challenge lazy thinking. Packed with 'well-I-never-knew-that' information and with fascinating and unusual examples throughout, we see how it is too soon to judge shale gas, that vaccination yields the best return on investment, and why electric cars aren't as great as we think (yet). There's a wonderful mix of science, history and wit, all in bite-sized chapters on a broad range of topics. Should you trust unemployment figures? Is China's rise unstoppable? And what's worse for the environment: your car or mobile phone? Unclouded by pessimism or optimism and unafraid of big questions, Smil explains why calls for the Anthropocene era may be premature but why the Paris Agreement does not go far enough. These issues are not straightforward and progress takes longer than you think, but with Smil as our authoritative and entertaining guide we get a healthy shot of realism. Urgent and essential, Numbers Don't Lie is a powerful rallying cry for interrogating what you take to be true in these significant times. Smil is on a mission to make facts matter, because after all, numbers may not lie, but which truth do they convey? 'He is rigorously numeric, using data to illuminate every topic he writes about. The word polymath was invented to describe people like him' Bill Gates 'Important' Mark Zuckerberg, on Energy 'One of the world's foremost thinkers on development history and a master of statistical analysis . . . The nerd's nerd' Guardian 'There is perhaps no other academic who paint
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Our age is obsessed by the idea of conspiracy. We see it everywhere - from Pearl Harbour to 9/11, from the assassination of Kennedy to the death of Diana. This book demolishes the conspiracy theories. It reveals why people are so ready to believe in them and the dangers of this c...redulity.
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Conservative journalist Allum Bokhari examines how the liberal-leaning elites of Silicon Valley have completely overtaken social media, creating a crisis for privacy and freedom of expression --