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The Waterless Sea: A Curious History of Mirages

By (author) Christopher Pinney

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Mirages have long astonished travellers and beguiled thirsty desert voyagers. Chinese and Japanese poetry and images depicted mirages as the exhalations of clam-monsters. Indian sources related them to the â€˜thirst of gazellesâ€™, a metaphor for the futility of desire. From the late eighteenth century to the present, mirages became a symbol of â€˜Oriental despotismâ€™, a malign, but also enchanted, emblem. But the mirage motif is rarely simply condemnatory. More commonly it conveys a sense of escape, of fascination, of a desire to be deceived. The Waterless Sea is the first book devoted to the theories and history of mirages. Christopher Pinney navigates a sinuous pathway through a mysterious and evanescent terrain, showing how mirages have impacted politics, culture, science, and religion, and how we can continue to learn from their sublimity.

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The Coming Wave: AI, Power and Our Future

Mustafa Suleyman
Paperback / softback
352 pages
was: R 295.95
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Helgoland: The Strange and Beautiful Story of Quantum Physics

Carlo Rovelli
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208 pages
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The Order of Time

Carlo Rovelli
Paperback / softback
224 pages
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Originally published in Italian: L'ordine del tempo (Milan: Adelphi Edizioni, 2017).

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