Richard Davies Books

To predict our future, we must look to the extremes. So argues the economist Richard Davies, who takes readers to the margins of the modern economy and beyond. These extreme economies illustrate the forces that test human resilience, drive societies to failure, and promise to shape our collective future. Reviving a foundational idea from the medical sciences, Extreme Economies turns the logic of modern economics on its head by arguing that these outlier societies can teach us more about our own than we might imagine. By adapting to circumstances unimaginable to most of us, the people in these societies are pioneering the economic infrastructure of the future.

The photographs in this book have been taken over a period of nine years. These churches are the remnants of thousands that were built all over Russia from the time of Prince Vladimir, who, on his conversion to Christianity in 988, 'ordained that wooden churches should be built and established where pagan idols had previously stood. Most of those that survive are to be found in the sparsely populated north-western corner of Russia - specifically, in the Leningrad, Vologda, Murmansk, and Archangel Regions and the Republic of Karelia. The area is vast and many thousands of miles have been travelled by car, jeep, aeroplane, boat, train, snowmobile, sledge and foot to track them down. These fragile, desecrated structures retain a spiritual presence that commands respect even in the absence of their gilded icons. They are nearing the end of their days. It is extraordinary that a country as rich and powerful as Russia, with a cultural legacy beyond compare, should let these wonderful, life-enhancing treasures slip through its fingers. Along with the photographs of Richard Davies, there are first-hand accounts by Matilda Moreton of their journeys, and the insights and interpretations of writers and artists, travellers and historians, propagandists and politicians.

Set against the backdrop of late medieval Oxford during the onset of the Hundred Years War, a young man embarks on a journey to find his fortune. Armed with a rational mindset, he becomes embroiled in a murder investigation that reaches the upper echelons of power. Alongside a runaway slave, he navigates the dangers of social ascent, intertwining themes of ambition, love, and the quest for justice amidst political turmoil.

This Element puts together the arguments of Plato and Aristotle in favor of the positive value of pleasure and in the direction of hedonism. It sets store for the activities which Eudoxus has been most renowned: mathematics and astronomy.