★英国皇家植物园邱园&美国史密森尼国家自然历史博物馆权威制作
★特别献礼达尔文《物种起源》出版150周年、邱园建立250周年
★珍藏全球84位植物绘画大师的136幅杰作，一本书领略当代植物绘画艺术的最高成就
★一座珍贵的纸上博物馆，艺术与科学完美结合，呈现植物进化之美
★一座可以挂起来的家庭美术馆，随书附赠4幅10寸可装裱植物插画，博物爱好者和艺术爱好者珍藏首选
.
为庆祝《物种起源》出版150周年以及邱园建立250周年，世界两大权威机构联合出版了这份珍贵礼物——《植物进化的艺术》。全书结合数百幅惊艳的大师级绘画和国际最新的植物分类知识（APG分类法），向大众展示了植物进化的历程。从古老的植物化石到最新的DNA测序技术，从林奈、达尔文到APG分类系统，从科学到历史、文化和艺术，讲述植物不为人知的生存智慧和进化奇迹。
以艺术的眼光发现美，以科学的视角认识世界。
建议与高分纪录片《植物王国》（Kingdom of Plants）搭配阅读体验更佳。

What can we learn from the genomes of our closest evolutionary relatives?
Neanderthal Man tells the story of geneticist Svante Pääbo’s mission to answer this question, and recounts his ultimately successful efforts to genetically define what makes us different from our Neanderthal cousins. Beginning with the study of DNA in Egyptian mummies in the early 1980s and culminating in the sequencing of the Neanderthal genome in 2010, Neanderthal Man describes the events, intrigues, failures, and triumphs of these scientifically rich years through the lens of the pioneer and inventor of the field of ancient DNA.
We learn that Neanderthal genes offer a unique window into the lives of our hominin relatives and may hold the key to unlocking the mystery of why humans survived while Neanderthals went extinct. Drawing on genetic and fossil clues, Pääbo explores what is known about the origin of modern humans and their relationship to the Neanderthals and describes the fierce debate surrounding the nature of the two species’ interactions. His findings have not only redrawn our family tree, but recast the fundamentals of human history—the biological beginnings of fully modern Homo sapiens, the direct ancestors of all people alive today.
A riveting story about a visionary researcher and the nature of scientific inquiry, Neanderthal Man offers rich insight into the fundamental question of who we are.

Douglas Hofstadter's long-awaited return to the themes of Gödel, Escher, Bach--an original and controversial view of the nature of consciousness and identity.
Can thought arise out of matter? Can self, a soul, a consciousness, an "I" arise out of mere matter? If it cannot, then how can you or I be here?
I Am a Strange Loop argues that the key to understanding selves and consciousness is the "strange loop"--a special kind of abstract feedback loop inhabiting our brains. The most central and complex symbol in your brain or mine is the one called "I." The "I" is the nexus in our brain, one of many symbols seeming to have free will and to have gained the paradoxical ability to push particles around, rather than the reverse.
How can a mysterious abstraction be real--or is our "I" merely a convenient fiction? Does an "I" exert genuine power over the particles in our brain, or is it helplessly pushed around by the laws of physics?
These are the mysteries tackled in I Am a Strange Loop, Douglas R. Hofstadter's first book-length journey into philosophy since Gödel, Escher, Bach. Compulsively readable and endlessly thought-provoking, this is the book Hofstadter's many readers have been waiting for.

《意识的解释》全方位地探索意识现象。在这本里程碑式的著作中，丹尼尔•丹尼特反驳传统的、常识的意识理论，提出一个全新的模型，广泛吸收来自神经科学、心理学、人工智能等领域的信息。我们当前关于有意识生命物(人类、动物，甚至机器人)的各种理论，都会因为此书揭示的全新视角而发生根本转变。

亚马逊网络书店特别推荐图书
台湾《中国时报》开卷一周好书
《联合报•读书人》年度最佳书奖
畅销书作家奥利弗•萨克斯
和“火星上的人类学家”一起
再一次引领我们走进想象之外的国度
探索人类大脑最为神奇、最不可思议的秘密
他们就在我们周围 他们却都是“外星人”
内容简介：
《火星上的人类学家》是“萨克斯医生讲故事”系列的第二本（第一本为《错把妻子当帽子》），讲述了七名脑神经病患者的真实故事，叙述他们因患病而遭受的巨大生活变故。
作者怀着深刻的人文关怀的精神，以独特的视角，深情的文字，以平等的立场，成功地塑造出特色鲜明的人物，讲述他们奇特的命运。展示了人类积极的生活态度，人类大脑惊人的重建和适应能力。车祸后患上色盲症、双眼看不见色彩的画家，反而迎来事业的高峰；从小失明的男孩，因爱情而手术，恢复视觉后，却想再度变回盲人；对生活绝望的男人，因为患上怪病，意外成为才华横溢的画家；自己是无法治愈的病人，却成为最优秀的外科医生、最勇敢的飞行员；被周围一切人排斥的自闭症患者，在苦难中成长为著名的动物学专家……
七个脑神经患者浴火重生的故事，神奇而曲折，令人震惊，使人泪下！
 他是画家，车祸后患上色盲症、双眼看不见色彩，反而迎来事业的高峰
 他从小失明，因心爱的人而手术，恢复视觉后，却想再度变回盲人
 他对生活彻底绝望，却因为患上怪病，意外成为才华横溢的画家
 他是无法治愈的神经病人，却又是最优秀的外科医生、最勇敢的飞行员
 她是自闭症患者，被周围所有人排斥，却成长为著名的动物学专家
相关评价：
萨克斯的故事如此动人，它们不仅给现代医学以启示，更给现代人的生活以巨大的启发。 ——《纽约时报》
迷人的文字、温暖的情感、广博的知识，萨克斯为传统的故事带来全新的力量，他的科学故事，将病历变成了优雅的艺术。 ——《时代》周刊
萨克斯有着惊人的天赋，他的文笔明晰晓畅而又动人心弦，人物刻画精致细腻，让当今大多数的小说家相形见绌。 —— 《每日电讯》
萨克斯用他的故事给我们的人生以绝妙的启迪！ ——《卫报》
一部多才多艺的杰作，令人感动。萨克斯于希望被放逐之地找到希望，这种艺术让本书成为无价之宝。 ——《芝加哥论坛报》
目录：（章节概览）
自序 想象之外的国度
第一章 火星上的人类学家
第二章 外科医生的完美生活
第三章 宁愿再度失明的人
第四章 怪病患者的艺术人生
第五章 自闭症神童
第六章 看不见色彩的画家
第七章 世界上最后一个嬉皮士

To these seven narratives of neurological disorder Dr. Sacks brings the same humanity, poetic observation, and infectious sense of wonder that are apparent in his bestsellers Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. These men, women, and one extraordinary child emerge as brilliantly adaptive personalities, whose conditions have not so much debilitated them as ushered them into another reality.

人類之所以成為萬物之靈，大腦可說是居功厥偉，它使人類與動物在智慧上產生差異，然而人腦的大小與智力商數的相關卻只有○‧三，亦即僅百分之九的IQ可以用腦大小來解釋，並非一般人想像的重要。大腦究竟與聰明才智有何關係？而它又是如何演化來的？
作者歐門博士專事大腦演化研究逾三十年，本書結合目前所知最複雜的組織系統--大腦，以及最具高度智慧挑戰的知識--演化，連同遺傳發展法則、地質歷史、動物生態、解剖和生理學等學科進行多面性的探究，從靈長目在視覺方面的成就，探查視網膜上的視覺影像是如何在牠們的腦中轉換成神經訊號。此外，當面對可能威脅生存的有害環境變遷時，大腦正是可使生物免受衝擊的緩衝物之一。歐門博士透過分析生物體結構的變異過程來了解大腦演化，可說是了解生命本質的關鍵所在。

Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts.
When asked simple questions about global trends―what percentage of the world’s population live in poverty; why the world’s population is increasing; how many girls finish school―we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess teachers, journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers.
In Factfulness, Professor of International Health and global TED phenomenon Hans Rosling, together with his two long-time collaborators, Anna and Ola, offers a radical new explanation of why this happens. They reveal the ten instincts that distort our perspective―from our tendency to divide the world into two camps (usually some version of us and them) to the way we consume media (where fear rules) to how we perceive progress (believing that most things are getting worse).
Our problem is that we don’t know what we don’t know, and even our guesses are informed by unconscious and predictable biases.
It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections, is in a much better state than we might think. That doesn’t mean there aren’t real concerns. But when we worry about everything all the time instead of embracing a worldview based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most.
Inspiring and revelatory, filled with lively anecdotes and moving stories, Factfulness is an urgent and essential book that will change the way you see the world and empower you to respond to the crises and opportunities of the future.

【内容简介】
梦，究竟是睡眠的守护神，还是焦虑的放大镜？
本书带你探索占据人生三分之一时间的黑夜帝国，深入了解鲜为人知的睡梦世界。
和很多人一样，作者大卫•K.兰德尔也是一个睡梦中的“不安分”分子，他会说梦话、唱歌，会大笑、打呼噜，会跳动、踢腿……但直到他开始梦游，并撞上走廊，才想要去研究占据着我们生命近三分之一的黑暗时间。为此，他访问了睡眠研究者、历史学家、人类学家、运动训练人员、企业家、婚姻咨询专家、心理医生、小儿科医生以及睡眠犯罪研究专家，却发现，睡梦中竟然有着大科学。
《梦的真相》告诉我们，睡眠并不像看起来那么简单。男人和女人的睡眠有没有什么不同？我们为什么会做梦？而如果你在梦游的时候，碰巧杀了一个人，这算不算谋杀？
更有趣的是，斯坦福大学的研究者整理了“周一橄榄球之夜”25年来的比赛记录，竟然发现处于知觉反应高峰的运动员相较于生物钟处于睡眠时间的运动员来说具有某种看不见的优势，所以赌徒们乐坏了，只要把将赌注压在来自西海岸的队伍身上，赢的概率就高达70%，这简直是就地捡钱。
《梦的真相》，为我们打开了光怪陆离的睡梦世界，令人不安又着迷，也许从此之后，即使是你的枕头，都能让你另眼相看。当然，它也不是典型的指导书，没有“完善睡眠的10个简单步骤”这类内容，但是读完这本书，你会对入睡时你的身体里发生了什么，以及如果忽视睡眠太久会发生什么，有一个全新的理解。
-----------------
【编辑推荐】
☆梦，究竟是睡眠的守护神，还是焦虑的放大镜？在《梦的真相》中，你将偶遇历史学家、人类学家、企业家、心理医生、睡眠研究专家……他们将带你科学探索占据人生三分之一时间的黑夜帝国梦境的秘密，深入了解透析鲜为人知的睡梦世界。
☆《纽约时报》《华尔街日报》《新科学家》《柯克斯书评》评论图书。
☆不论有没有睡眠障碍的人，都应该阅读本书，它会让你对入睡时你的身体里发生了什么，以及如果忽视睡眠太久会发生什么，有一个全新的理解。家长、教育者和领导们也许更应该读一读，从而总结出新的工作方法与时间安排。
☆挑战弗洛伊德《梦的解析》之“隐藏欲望”论，提出“梦不过是我们每天考虑的所有可能性的糟糕反应”观点
弗洛伊德认为睡梦并不是偶然的，而是包含着各种隐藏含义，这些隐藏含义就是做梦者隐秘期望和欲望的投射。而作者通过采访与整理其他睡梦解析专家的研究，用数据证明，大多数梦境都相当直接，更多是反应现实的焦虑。
☆重新定义睡眠以及梦的意义
A）爱迪生发明的电灯，或许是造成现代人类睡眠障碍的罪魁祸首。
B）科学已经证实“长时间的清醒，会让人的创新性与效率大打折扣”，而哪怕短时间小憩也能让人体恢复的观点却常常得不到认可。
C）梦还被看作“一种嵌入式夜晚疗法”。在梦中，大脑在休息的同时，还会将新鲜的或恼人的信息同已知信息混合起来，常常有出人意料的结果。那些常常觉得才思枯竭，而一觉醒来却有了很好想法的人，也许对此深有感触。
☆唤醒人们对生物钟的重视
无论是战场，还是考场，甚至是赌场，生物钟都发挥着难以想象的作用，而这，却并未得到世人重视。
☆这本书满足了你的好奇心
男人和女人的睡眠有没有什么不同？我们为什么会做梦？为什么哄孩子入睡是让新生儿父母头疼的任务，世界上所有家庭都是这样的吗？是什么让我的身体开始梦游，为什么不能让其停止？而如果你在梦游的时候，碰巧杀了一个人，这算不算谋杀？
看完这本书，你的答案也许不是一长串“不知道”。
-----------------
【名家推荐】
关于睡眠的生动概述。
——莫琳·科里根（Maureen Corrigan），华盛顿乔治城大学教授，“新鲜空气”（美国公共国家电台栏目）
生活中，我们对这个话题十分熟悉， 但就其原理来说我们又十分外行，作者的概述详尽有趣，可以有效地引导我们明白梦境。
——阿比盖尔·楚格（Abigail Zuger），医学博士，《纽约时报》
就这个话题来说，这本书有趣，且令人着迷。并且据我们所知，目前找不到其他比《梦的真相》更吸引人的指南了。
——劳拉•米勒（Laura Miller），纽约沙龙网
对于那些一心研究科学探索的人来说，这本书大概会让他们爱不释手。
——苏珊娜·卡哈兰（Susannah Cahalan），《纽约邮报》
“轻科学”的典范之作，对我们私人和社会生活中有重大影响的人类生物学和行为科学的方方面面都会有重大启发。
——卡罗尔·塔夫里斯（Carol Tavris），《华尔街日报》
兰德尔的智慧与好奇心成就了他，使他成为人们在探索梦境方面的一个令人欣慰的“引路人”。
——《波士顿环球报》
作者对一个如此令人着迷的话题展开深入研究，并以一种通俗易懂的方式启发人们去探索梦的真相。
——《新科学家》
这本神奇的书很可能帮人们解决在睡眠方面存在的所有问题……书中介绍了很多实用的信息，比如在不依赖药物的情况下如何克服失眠，如何做可以在睡眠中不打鼾，如何说服小孩子按时上床睡觉等。还有一点，可能对一些人来说，也是更有用的一点吧，就是如何在专业足球比赛中成功下注：一般周一晚上，人体的生物周期节律更有利于西海岸队的发挥。总之，这是一本让人爱不释手的书（这是一本让人一旦读起来都不舍得睡觉的书）。
——《出版者周刊》
兰德尔在书中强调了太容易被人们忽视的常识，也就是——睡眠并非无效。相反，在决定人们能否生活幸福的要素中，睡眠质量很可能占据其中三分之一。作者还指出，睡眠不是一个无差别的连续统一体，看似平静的睡眠分为五个阶段，每个阶段约90分钟。总体来说，该书对生活中那些被遗忘、被忽视以及被推迟元素的研究还是很令人满意的。
——《科克斯评论》

本书通过理论阐述、个案分析及知识窗等方式，系统论述了弹性思维的概念与内涵，阐释了如何理解弹性思维及如何运用弹性思维。重点分析阐述了弹性思维、阈值、适应性循环等理论思想。为了便于读者认识理解，书中除了个案分析与知识窗展示外，还采用比拟手法对理论进行了生动形象地陈述，如借助球－盆体模型阐述了系统变量的变化规律及系统弹性的影响因素，使抽象难懂的阈值理论易于理解。本书兼顾不同读者的需求，既可以作为关心自然资源可持续发展读者的科普读物，也可以作为生态学、资源环境及管理学等专业研究人员的参考书。更为重要的是，它可以为环境保护、生物保护、资源管理等行业部门的工作人员提供全新的弹性思维理念，这将会为人类创造更大的福祉。

本书是一部全面、生动的当代哲学导论著作，介绍了人类生活中最为关键的那些问题，包括心灵与知识的本质、道德论断的状况、上帝的存在、科学的作用，以及语言的法则。
著名哲学家夸梅·安东尼·阿皮亚阐述了在我们的时代“做”哲学意味着什么，以及对于希望活得更有思想深度的人们来说，思考这些哲学问题为什么重要。人们有一种普遍的误解，认为作为一名哲学家就意味着信奉某些哲学观点，或者是某位思想家的追随者。与此相反，阿皮亚认为，“哲学探索的成果并不结束于某一固定观念，而是心灵在众多的可能性上更舒服地休憩；或者重新表述问题，开始新的探索。”
本书围绕八个核心主题展开论述：心灵、知识、语言、科学、道德、政治、法律、形而上学，追述了过去的哲学家们如何思考这些主题，比如霍布斯、维特根斯坦、弗雷格如何思考语言问题，并进而探讨了仍然吸引着当代哲学家的一些重要问题。更重要的，阿皮亚不仅介绍了哲学家们对这些问题的观点，而且解释了哲学家们思考这些问题的方法。在当今的读者思考他们所面对的复杂问题时，这些方法无疑能起到导航作用。

本书是一本家长与孩子共同学习编程的入门书。作者是一对父子，他们以Python语言为例，详尽细致地介绍了Python如何安装、字符串和操作符等程序设计的基本概念，介绍了条件语句、函数、模块等进阶内容，最后讲解了用Python实现游戏编程。书中的语言生动活泼，叙述简单明了。 为了让学习者觉得编程有趣，本书编排了很多卡通人物及场景对话，让学习者在轻松愉快之中跨入计算机编程的大门。
第 2 版新增内容
首先，我们来说说第 2 版中有哪些内容没有改变，那就是我们决定在第 2 版中继续使用 Python 2，而不是转换到 Python 3。我们会在第 1 章解释其中的原因。
下面是第 2 版与第 1 版的不同之处
增加了一些说明，解释 Python 2 和 Python 3 的区别。
第 12 章增加了一节关于 Python 字典的内容。
在第 20 章的 GUI 编程部分，我们将不再被支持的 PythonCard 换成了应用更广泛的 PyQt。PyQt 也用在第 22 章的 Hangman 程序和第 24 章的电子宠物程序中。
增加了第 25 章，用来详细解释第 10 章中的 Skier 程序。
增加了第 26 章，讲述在简单的对战游戏中，如何编写一个有人工智

According to the reigning competition-driven model of evolution, selfish behaviors that maximize an organism’s reproductive potential offer a fitness advantage over self-sacrificing behaviors—rendering unselfish behavior for the sake of others a mystery that requires extra explanation. Evolution, Games, and God addresses this conundrum by exploring how cooperation, working alongside mutation and natural selection, plays a critical role in populations from microbes to human societies. Inheriting a tendency to cooperate, argue the contributors to this book, may be as beneficial as the self-preserving instincts usually thought to be decisive in evolutionary dynamics.
Assembling experts in mathematical biology, history of science, psychology, philosophy, and theology, Martin Nowak and Sarah Coakley take an interdisciplinary approach to the terms “cooperation” and “altruism.” Using game theory, the authors elucidate mechanisms by which cooperation—a form of working together in which one individual benefits at the cost of another—arises through natural selection. They then examine altruism—cooperation which includes the sometimes conscious choice to act sacrificially for the collective good—as a key concept in scientific attempts to explain the origins of morality. Discoveries in cooperation go beyond the spread of genes in a population to include the spread of cultural transformations such as languages, ethics, and religious systems of meaning.
The authors resist the presumption that theology and evolutionary theory are inevitably at odds. Rather, in rationally presenting a number of theological interpretations of the phenomena of cooperation and altruism, they find evolutionary explanation and theology to be strongly compatible.

Updated for the first time, the classic book on why cooperation is not only natural but also the best survival strategy The Evolution of Cooperation addresses a simple yet age-old question: If living things evolve through competition, how can cooperation ever emerge? Despite the abundant evidence of cooperation all around us, there existed no purely naturalistic answer to this question until 1979, when Robert Axelrod famously ran a computer tournament featuring a standard game-theory exercise called The Prisoner's Dilemma. To everyone's surprise, the program that won the tournament, named Tit for Tat, was not only the simplest but the most "cooperative" entrant. This unexpected victory proved that cooperation--one might even say altruism--is mathematically possible and therefore needs no hidden hand or divine agent to create and sustain it. A great roadblock to the understanding of all sorts of behavior was at last removed. The updated edition includes an extensive new chapter on cooperation in cancer cells and among terrorist organizations. "This book, if read, grasped and applied, could have a profound effect." ( Wall Street Journal ) "A fascinating, provocative, and important book." (Douglas R. Hofstadter, author of Godel, Escher, Bach )

What makes populations stabilize? What makes them fluctuate? Are populations in complex ecosystems more stable than populations in simple ecosystems? In 1973. Robert May addressed these questions in this classic book. May investigated the mathematical roots of population dynamics and argued - counter to most current biological thinking - that complex ecosystems in themselves do not lead to population stability. Stability and Complexity in Model Ecosystems played a key role in introducing nonlinear mathematical models and the study of deterministic chaos into ecology, a role chronicled in James Gleick's book Chaos. In the quarter century since its first publication, the book's message has grown in power. Nonlinear models are now at the center of ecological thinking, and current threats to biodiversity have made questions about the role of ecosystem complexity more crucial than ever. In a new introduction, the author addresses some of the changes that have swept biology and the biological world since the book's first publication.

《无穷的开始》是一次大胆的、包罗万象的智力探险。戴维·多伊奇探索那些使我们理解现实世界怎样运转的重大问题。《真实世界的脉络》描述了我们当前知识中最深刻的4条支线——进化、量子物理学、知识和运算，以及它们带来的世界观。《无穷的开始》将这种世界观应用于许多不同的话题和未解问题，涉及到自由意志、创造力与自然规律、人类的未来与起源、现实与表象、解释与无穷。
多伊奇秉持坚定的理性和乐观态度，对人类选择、科学解释和文化进化的性质得出了惊人的新结论。他的立场并非来自充满希望的格言，而来自关于现实世界怎样运转的事实。他的核心结论是，“解释”在宇宙中有着基础性的地位。解释的范围和造成改变的能力是无穷无尽的。它们唯一的创造者——诸如人类这样能够思考的生物——是宇宙万物中最重要的实体。一切事物都在理性的延伸范围内，不仅是科学和数学，还有道德哲学、政治哲学和美学。在通用物理规律允许的情况下，进步没有限制。

[内容简介]
● 继颠覆性巨著《笛卡尔的错误》之后，达马西奥通过对多年认知神经科学研究的总结，向一个困扰人类的根本谜题发起了大胆的冲击。这个谜题就是：意识从哪里来？
● 在梳理了大量临床案例和大脑神经解剖结构的线索后，达马西奥解释了在他眼中大脑如何构建心智、心智如何构建意识的原理，并着重强调了自我在构建意识大脑中的重要性。这种基于演化的研究角度，彻底转变了长久以来人们看待和描述有意识心智的方式。
● 在《当自我来敲门》中，达马西奥邀请读者和他一起踏上一场意识的冒险之旅，带领读者深入迄今为止无人到达的未知领域，层层揭开自我与意识的秘密。
[编辑推荐]
● 知名神经科学家达马西奥全新力作，让诺奖得主奈保尔爱不释手，令大提琴家马友友神魂颠倒。
● 挑战困扰人类的根本谜题，构建心智演化之路，探索意识起源之谜。
● 一场人类意识探索的盛宴，一次刷新阅读体验的脑力挑战！
● 国内外众多知名心理学家、哲学家、文学家、艺术家联袂跨界推荐：北京大学国家发展研究院经济学教授汪丁丁倾情作序！中国心理学会理事长傅小兰、南京大学心理系主任周仁来、北京师范大学认知神经科学与学习国家重点实验室主任李武、清华大学经济管理学院教授宁向东、知名大提琴演奏家马友友、诺贝尔文学奖得主奈保尔联袂推荐！
● 达马西奥“情绪与人性”五部曲之二。
● 湛庐文化出品。

Introduction
How you do introduce the untranslatable?
In our highly connected and communicative world, we have more ways than ever to express ourselves, to tell others how we feel, and to explain the importance or insignificance of our days. The speed and frequency of our exchanges leave just enough room for misunderstandings, though, and now perhaps more than ever before, what we actually mean to say gets lost in translation. The ability to communicate more frequently and faster hasn't eliminated the potential for leaving gaps between meaning and interpretation, and emotions and intentions are misread all too often.
The words in this book may be answers to questions you didn't even know to ask, and perhaps some you did. They might pinpoint emotions and experiences that seemed elusive and indescribable, or they may cause you to remember a person you'd long forgotten. If you take something away from this book other than some brilliant conversation starters, let it be the realization (or affirmation) that you are human, that you are fundamentally, intrinsically bound to every single person on the planet with language and with feelings.
As much as we like to differentiate ourselves, to feel like individuals and rave on about expression and freedom and the experiences that are unique to each one of us, we are all made of the same stuff. We laugh and cry in much the same way, we learn words and then forget them, we meet people from places and cultures different from our own and yet somehow we understand the lives they are living. Language wraps its understanding and punctuation around us all, tempting us to cross boundaries and helping us to comprehend the impossibly difficult questions that life relentlessly throws at us.
Languages aren't unchanging, though they can sometimes hold a false sense of permanence. They do evolve and occasionally die, and whether you speak a few words of one or a thousand words of many, they help to shape us—they give us the ability to voice an opinion, to express love or frustration, to change someone's mind.
For me, making this book has been more than a creative process. It's caused me to look at human nature in an entirely new way, and I find myself recognizing these nouns, adjectives, and verbs in the people I walk by on the street. I see boketto in the eyes of an old man sitting at the ocean's edge, and the resfeber that has taken over the hearts of friends as they prepare to journey across the world to an unknown culture.
I hope this book helps you find a few long-lost parts of yourself, that it brings to mind fond memories, or that it helps put into words thoughts and feelings that you could never clearly express before. Perhaps you'll find the word that perfectly describes your second cousin once removed, the way you felt two summers ago that you were never able to fully describe, or the look in the eyes of the person sitting across from you right now.
Eckhart Tolle wrote, "Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn't very much." I'm hesitant to agree. Words allow us to grasp and hold onto an extraordinary amount. Sure, all languages can be picked apart and reduced to just a few vowels or symbols or sounds, but the ability that language gives us is incredibly complex. There may be some small essential gaps in your mother tongue, but never fear: you can look to other languages to define what you're feeling, and these pages are your starting point.
So go and get lost in translation.

Life is getting better—and at an accelerating rate. Food availability, income, and life span are up; disease, child mortality, and violence are down — all across the globe. Though the world is far from perfect, necessities and luxuries alike are getting cheaper; population growth is slowing; Africa is following Asia out of poverty; the Internet, the mobile phone, and container shipping are enriching people’s lives as never before. The pessimists who dominate public discourse insist that we will soon reach a turning point and things will start to get worse. But they have been saying this for two hundred years. Yet Matt Ridley does more than describe how things are getting better. He explains why. Prosperity comes from everybody working for everybody else. The habit of exchange and specialization—which started more than 100,000 years ago—has created a collective brain that sets human living standards on a rising trend. The mutual dependence, trust, and sharing that result are causes for hope, not despair. This bold book covers the entire sweep of human history, from the Stone Age to the Internet, from the stagnation of the Ming empire to the invention of the steam engine, from the population explosion to the likely consequences of climate change. It ends with a confident assertion that thanks to the ceaseless capacity of the human race for innovative change, and despite inevitable disasters along the way, the twenty-first century will see both human prosperity and natural biodiversity enhanced. Acute, refreshing, and revelatory, The Rational Optimist will change your way of thinking about the world for the better.

悖论是逻辑学中最光彩夺目的部分，也是最能激发逻辑学家、数学家、哲学家以及普通大众兴趣的话题，它指的是与公认的信念相左的“道理”，或是让人陷入两难、无所适从的命题。它虽然看似荒谬，违反常理，但却似乎论证缜密、无从反驳。
悖论起源很早，如古希腊的“说谎者悖论”、中国的“白马非马”之说。历史上，众多的哲学家、数学家、逻辑学家对悖论进行了奇妙而艰苦的探索，带给他们成功的快乐和失败的苦痛，并且不断推进了人类智慧的进展，引发哲学和数学的革命。
本书是国内迄今最全面系统地介绍悖论问题的著作，作者将从古至今五花八门的悖论分成十二类，详细介绍每一类悖论的历史原型、各种变体、逻辑学家的解决方案、与日常生活的关系等等。作为国内著名的逻辑学家，作者展示了多年来在这一领域探索的成果，对于国内外相关领域的逻辑学的进展都将有很大的推动。
悖论之所以存在的深层原因，还在于人类思维深处的矛盾和裂隙，在对悖论漫长的探索过程中，我们不断攀升人类智慧的高度，同时也意识到其局限和不足。
悖论示例：
万能的上帝能创造一块他自己举不起来的石头吗？
如果能，则世界上至少有一块石头是上帝无法举起来的，所以他不是万能的；
如果不能，则世界上至少有一件事是上帝做不到的，所以他也不是万能的。