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In this sweeping chronicle of guaraná—a glossy-leaved Amazonian vine packed with more caffeine than any other plant—Seth Garfield develops a wide-ranging approach to the history of Brazil itself. The story begins with guaraná as the pre-Columbian cultivar of the Sateré-Mawé people in the Lower Amazon region, where it figured centrally in the Indigenous nation's origin(...)
Guaraná: How Brazil Embraced the World's Most Caffeine-Rich Plant
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$50.95
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Summary:
In this sweeping chronicle of guaraná—a glossy-leaved Amazonian vine packed with more caffeine than any other plant—Seth Garfield develops a wide-ranging approach to the history of Brazil itself. The story begins with guaraná as the pre-Columbian cultivar of the Sateré-Mawé people in the Lower Amazon region, where it figured centrally in the Indigenous nation's origin stories, dietary regimes, and communal ceremonies. During subsequent centuries of Portuguese colonialism and Brazilian rule, guaraná was reformulated by settlers, scientists, folklorists, food technologists, and marketers. Whether in search of pleasure, profits, professional distinction, or patriotic markers, promoters imparted new meanings to guaraná and found new uses for it. Today, it is the namesake ingredient of a multibillion-dollar soft drink industry and a beloved national symbol. Guaraná’s journey elucidates human impacts on Amazonian ecosystems; the circulation of knowledge, goods, and power; and the promise of modernity in Latin America's largest nation. For Garfield, the beverage's history reveals not only the structuring of inequalities in Brazil but also the mythmaking and ordering of social practices that constitute so-called traditional and modern societies.
Food
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Big Tech firms dominate the global economy. But what value do they actually produce? In this brilliant survey of global tech economy, Nick Dyer-Witheford and Alessandra Mularoni argue that the role of firms like Amazon and Google, Palantir and Uber, is in the automation of circulation. By applying digital technologies to processes of market exchange—everything from(...)
Cybernetic circulation complex: Big tech and planetary crisis
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Big Tech firms dominate the global economy. But what value do they actually produce? In this brilliant survey of global tech economy, Nick Dyer-Witheford and Alessandra Mularoni argue that the role of firms like Amazon and Google, Palantir and Uber, is in the automation of circulation. By applying digital technologies to processes of market exchange—everything from advertising and shopping, to logistics and financial services—Big Tech aims to subject these activities to the level of control and predictability that capital has secured in industrial production. But there is a way out of the multiple crises that Big Tech has helped precipitate. If we are to break their grip on the global economy then it’ll take more than just antitrust legislation or reducing individual time online. By understanding the central role Big Tech plays in contemporary capitalism, Dyer-Witheford and Mularoni argue that what is required instead is a new, ambitious and comprehensive program of democratic collective planning that can move us beyond capitalism. ''Cybernetic Circulation Complex'' offers not only a compelling analysis of the power of Big Tech and their role in our current global crises, but a roadmap for a new form of life: biocommunism, a digital degrowth that can help us steer between the double boundaries of ecological sustainability and equitable social development.
Social
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''Cloud-to-ground'' is the scientific term for lightning that strikes directly into the ground. Cloud-to-ground, published in conjunction with the Israeli pavilion at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, investigates the shifts in political power structure that result from the wide-spread use of cloud technology: the storage, processing,(...)
Cloud-to-ground.Israel pavillion, Venice Architecture Biennale
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''Cloud-to-ground'' is the scientific term for lightning that strikes directly into the ground. Cloud-to-ground, published in conjunction with the Israeli pavilion at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, investigates the shifts in political power structure that result from the wide-spread use of cloud technology: the storage, processing, and analysis of inconceivable amounts of data in computer “clouds.” The focus is on major infrastructure projects currently underway in Israel and the Middle East region. These include Nimbus, a major cloud project pursued by the Israeli government for which Google and Amazon are building new powerful data centers, and the Blue Raman fiber-optic cable across the Negev Desert, also laid by Google, which will bypass Egypt on its way from India to Europe and at the same time revive the ancient trade routes that passed through this country. ''Cloud-to-ground'' also documents the decommissioning and demolition of countless telephone exchanges in Israel’s cities that have become obsolete. It thus brings to attention the physical nature of these largely ignored “black box” structures and connects them to the history of the Middle East and recent developments in global communication technology. Essays by prominent Israeli scholars are complemented by numerous photographs, sketches, and archival documents, as well as a newly compiled index of 140 telephone exchanges in Israel.
Biennial