John Horgan

The definitive biography of Seán Lemass, the finest Taoiseach in the history of the Irish StateThere are few facets of Irish life which do not owe something to the genius, effectiveness or determination of Lemass. Horgans biography explores that contribution quite brilliantly.Bertie Ahern, The Irish TimesAs a boy Sean Lemass fought in the 1916 rising. He was a member of de Valeras first cabinet, Minister for Industry and Commerce in every Fianna Fail government between 1932 and 1959, and as Taoiseach from 1959 to 1966 was the pivotal figure in the modernisation of Ireland.The Lemass that emerges from this fine book is an enigma and a passionate patriot; a protectionist who later became an apostle of free trade; a moderniser in what was often a party of traditionalists.John Horgans excellent biography is the work of a critical admirer who sees his subject as one of the most outstanding Irish political figures of the century. The only biographer to have had complete access to all the government papers for the full period of Lemasss political career, Horgan provides us with a rounded, sympathetic yet critical examination of the life of one of twentieth-century Irelands most distinguished figures. a comprehensive and thoughtful work worthy of the subject, [it] lives up to its billing as a major biography of the Fianna Fail leader.Stephen Collins, The Sunday TribuneSean Lemass was not only one of the most formidable, but, for all his apparently bluff straightforwardness, one of the most elusive personalities in the history of twentieth-century Ireland. John Horgans study, skilfully crafted and elegantly expressed, is a major biography of a major figure, greatly enhancing our understanding of the making of modern Ireland.J.J. Lee, author of The Modernisation of Irish Society, 184819

Si insinua sempre piu spesso il sospetto che la scienza stia per esaurirsi, almeno per quanto riguarda le scoperte essenziali. L''autore compie un viaggio fra gli scienziati piu discussi e le loro idee su questo tema. Horgan riesce a darci il senso della vertiginosa complessita dei problemi, mantenendo tuttavia il tono di una discussione chiarificatrice e insieme facendoci sentire nei tic, nelle eccentricita, nei rancori, nelle ingenuita, nelle ironie, di quale tessuto si compone la vita intellettuale di alcuni fra i piu grandi scienziati di oggi, visitati nel loro habitat.

El terrorismo se ha convertido en la forma más efectiva y virulenta de hacer la guerra y en uno de los principales focos de interés y temor de la ciudadania mundial. Sin embargo, a pesar de la prodigalidad que los medios de comunicacion y la cultura han dedicado al tema, el fenomeno del terrorismo adolece de una falta de informacion de primera mano, una merma que es consecuencia de las caracteristicas del propio objeto de estudio: los corpusculos terroristas estan formados por sujetos volatiles, ocultos, inaprensibles conceptual y moralmente desde una optica occidental. De forma novedosa, John Horgan - uno de los principales especialistas internacionales en terrorismo - traza en esta obra las leyes internas, el porque, la psicologia, en definitiva, que anima a determinadas personas a convertirse en armas letales al servicio de una ideologia de caracter fundamentalista. A partir de entrevistas con ex terroristas y evidencias documentales, el corazon de leste ensayo lo constituye una descripcion del proceso que siguen la mayoria de ex integrantes de organizaciones: como es que, finalmente, lo abandonan. Conocer el pensamiento terrorista y analizarlo sin prejuicios es la clave para comprender y resolver uno de los fenomenos mas aciagos e inquietantes de nuestro tiempo: como y porque un ser humano decide inmolarse para obtener beneficios politicos, a traves de actos que siembran el terror.

¿Hemos contestado ya a todas las grandes preguntas? ¿Se ha alcanzado toda la sabiduría merecedora de retenerse? ¿Se llegará algún día a una teoría completamente definitiva, que suponga el fin de nuestras investigaciones? ¿Hemos dejado ya atras la era de los descubrimientos? ¿Es la ciencia actual un mero rompecabezas que se limita a aportar nuevos detalles a teorias ya existentes? En este libro, John Horgan da unas respuestas sorprendentemente candidas a estas y otras delicadas preguntas sobre temas como Dios, Star Trek, los quarks, la conciencia, el darwinismo, la concepcion marxista del progreso, los robots, Noam Chomsky, Clifford Geertz y otros muchos Y el resultado, a la vez revolucionario y riguroso, constituye toda una argumentacion en favor del finalismo, una vision global divertida, reflexiva e incluso profunda de la empresa cientifica en su conjunto. Pues bien, por un lado la conclusion es que, como deja bien claro Horgan, tal vez la mayor amenaza con que se enfrenta la ciencia actualmente sea la posibilidad de perder su lugar de honor en la jerarquia de las distintas disciplinas y quedar reducida a algo parecido a la critica literaria, lo que el autor denomina la ciencia ironica. Pero, por otra parte, quizas a esta critica radical, basada en la opinion de los principales investigadores del planeta, deba añadirse igualmente un sincero homenaje, pues si la ciencia esta tocando a su fin sera porque ya ha realizado con exito el trabajo que le habia sido encomendado. Entre tanto, la idea misma de racionalidad cientifica es objeto de ataques por parte de los defensores de los animales, los fundamentalistas religiosos y los new agers. ¿Que hacer? No es tan facil decirlo, pero algunas de las respuestas seguro que estan en las paginas de este libro.

En este conciso estudio, John Horgan comienza por centrarse en aquellas herramientas que la psicología puede aportar para una comprensión verdadera del fenómeno. Conocer los procesos que impulsan a los individuos a sostener una conducta de violencia. Investigar cual es la relacion entre el individuo y su entorno politico, ideologico y religioso. Preguntarse como suele afectar el terrorismo a los ciudadanos y a las instituciones, y que opinan quienes cometen las acciones terroristas. Basado en entrevistas reales con terroristas y en evidencia documental, el corazon de este ensayo lo constituye un modelo del proceso que siguen la mayoria de aquellos que se adhieren a organizaciones terroristas: como ingresan al grupo, como lo viven y como es que, finalmente, lo dejan detras. Para Horgan, conocer el pensamiento terrorista y construir su analisis sin prejuicios es la principal via para comenzar a comprender el fenomeno mas aciago del siglo que comienza.

As staff writer for Scientific American, John Horgan has a window on contemporary science unsurpassed in all the world. Who else routinely interviews the likes of Lynn Margulis, Roger Penrose, Francis Crick, Richard Dawkins, Freeman Dyson, Murray Gell-Mann, Stephen Jay Gould, Stephen Hawking, Thomas Kuhn, Chris Langton, Karl Popper, Stephen Weinberg, and E.O. Wilson, with the freedom to probe their innermost thoughts? In The End Of Science, Horgan displays his genius for getting these larger-than-life figures to be simply human, and scientists, he writes, "are rarely so human . . . so at there mercy of their fears and desires, as when they are confronting the limits of knowledge."This is the secret fear that Horgan pursues throughout this remarkable book: Have the big questions all been answered? Has all the knowledge worth pursuing become known? Will there be a final "theory of everything" that signals the end? Is the age of great discoverers behind us? Is science today reduced to mere puzzle solving and adding detains to existing theories? Horgan extracts surprisingly candid answers to there and other delicate questions as he discusses God, Star Trek, superstrings, quarks, plectics, consciousness, Neural Darwinism, Marxs view of progress, Kuhns view of revolutions, cellular automata, robots, and the Omega Point, with Fred Hoyle, Noam Chomsky, John Wheeler, Clifford Geertz, and dozens of other eminent scholars. The resulting narrative will both infuriate and delight as it mindless Horgans smart, contrarian argument for "endism" with a witty, thoughtful, even profound overview of the entire scientific enterprise. Scientists have always set themselves apart from other scholars in the belief that they do not construct the truth, they discover it. Their work is not interpretation but simple revelation of what exists in the empirical universe. But science itself keeps imposing limits on its own power. Special relativity prohibits the transmission of matter or information as speeds faster than that of light; quantum mechanics dictates uncertainty; and chaos theory confirms the impossibility of complete prediction. Meanwhile, the very idea of scientific rationality is under fire from Neo-Luddites, animal-rights activists, religious fundamentalists, and New Agers alike. As Horgan makes clear, perhaps the greatest threat to science may come from losing its special place in the hierarchy of disciplines, being reduced to something more akin to literaty criticism as more and more theoreticians engage in the theory twiddling he calls "ironic science." Still, while Horgan offers his critique, grounded in the thinking of the worlds leading researchers, he offers homage too. If science is ending, he maintains, it is only because it has done its work so well.

Reports and dispatches from Irelands finest writers: the first-ever anthology of Irish reportage.Alongside its world-famous tradition of great fiction, Ireland has a less well known but thrilling tradition of reportage: journalism, dispatches and eyewitness accounts. From Elizabeth Bowen to Colm Toibin, from Flann OBrien to Maeve Binchy, some of Irelands greatest writers have produced first-rate journalism. And from R.M. Smyllie and Conor Cruise OBrien to Eamon Dunphy and Olivia OLeary, Ireland has also produced a remarkable number of journalists who can really write. Now, for the first time, the best of Irish reportage - some of it legendary, some of it unjustly forgotten - is gathered into a single volume. Whether its Kate OBrien on the reinterment of W.B. Yeats or Emily OReilly on the election to Westminster of Gerry Adams, whether its Hubert Butler on the Fetherd-on-Sea boycott or Joseph OConnor at the 1994 World Cup, the pieces in Great Irish Reportage illuminate Irish life in a way that no other form of writing can.There is so much to admire and digest between the covers ... All of them put you right there, right on the frontline, right in the momentRTE GuideYoull learn much about this great little nation of ours, and what makes it tick, from this incredibly well chosen collectionHot PressThere are superb examples of reportage here that combine hard fact and descriptive narrative Irish TimesExcellent ... In such time, the need for brave individuals to believe in the power of the words they write is essential. Despite changes in the media landscape in recent years ... it appears as if that hunger from journalists, to question, inspire, and hold those who we democratically elect to accountability, is as strong as everSunday IndependentProbably unbeatable for showing how Ireland has changed ... The editor has done a remarkable jobIrish Catholic

A day in the inner and outer lives of a college professor, blogger, divorced father, thinker, and yearner.What would it feel like to wake up inside the head of someone who writes about science for a living? John Horgan, acclaimed author of the bestseller The End of Science, answers that question in his genre-bending new book Pay Attention, a stream-of-consciousness account of a day in the life of his alter ego, Eamon Toole--a blogger, college professor, and divorced father.This work of fact-based fiction, or "faction," follows Toole as he wakes up in his rented apartment in upstate New York, meditates with the mantra "Duh," commutes via train and subway to an engineering school in New Jersey, teaches a William James essay on consciousness to freshmen, squabbles about Thomas Kuhn with colleagues over lunch, takes a ferry to Manhattan and spends the evening with his bossy, Tarot-reading girlfriend, Emily, on whom he plans to spring a big question. Throughout the day, Toole struggles to be rational while buffeted by fears and yearnings. Thoughts of sex and death keep intruding on his ruminations over quantum spookiness, the neural code, the Singularity, and free will. Pay Attention is a profane, profound meditation on the entanglements of our inner and outer worlds and the elusiveness of truth.