Out Of Our Minds

Explorers and ethnographers in Africa during the period of colonial expansion are usually assumed to have been guided by rational aims such as the desire for scientific knowledge, fame, or financial gain. This book, the culmination of many years of research on nineteenth-century exploration in Central Africa, provides a new view of those early European explorers and their encounters with Africans. Out of Our Minds shows explorers were far from rational--often meeting their hosts in extraordinary states influenced by opiates, alcohol, sex, fever, fatigue, and violence. Johannes Fabian presents fascinating and little-known source material, and points to its implications for our understanding of the beginnings of modern colonization. At the same time, he makes an important contribution to current debates about the intellectual origins and nature of anthropological inquiry. Drawing on travel accounts--most of them Belgian and German--published between 1878 and the start of World War I, Fabian describes encounters between European travelers and the Africans they met. He argues that the loss of control experienced by these early travelers actually served to enhance cross-cultural understanding, allowing the foreigners to make sense of strange facts and customs. Fabian's provocative findings contribute to a critique of narrowly scientific or rationalistic visions of ethnography, illuminating the relationship between travel and intercultural understanding, as well as between imperialism and ethnographic knowledge.

Creativity is critical. Out of Our Minds explores creativity: its value in business, its ubiquity in children, its perceived absence in many adults and the phenomenon through which it disappears — and offers a groundbreaking approach for getting it back. Author Sir Ken Robinson is an internationally recognised authority on creativity, and his TED talk on the subject is the most watched video in TED’s history. In this book, Sir Ken argues that organisations everywhere are struggling to fix a problem that originates in schools and universities. Organisations everywhere are competing in a world that changes in the blink of an eye – they need people who are flexible enough to adapt, and creative enough to find novel solutions to problems old and new. Out of Our Minds describes how schools, businesses and communities can work together to bring creativity out of the closet and realise its inherent value at every stage of life. This new third edition has been updated to reflect changing technologies and demographics, with updated case studies and coverage of recent changes to education. While education and training are the keys to the future, the key can also be turned the other way; locking people away from their own creativity. Only by actively fostering creativity can businesses unlock those doors and achieve their true potential. This book will help you to: Understand the importance of actively promoting creativity and innovation. Discover why creativity stagnates somewhere between childhood and adulthood. Learn how to re-awaken dormant creativity to help your business achieve more. Explore ways in which we can work together to keep creativity alive for everyone. Modern business absolutely demands creativity of thought and action. We're all creative as children — so where does it go? When do we lose it? Out of Our Minds has the answers, and clear solutions for getting it back.

"A stimulating history of how the imagination interacted with its sibling psychological faculties—emotion, perception and reason—to shape the history of human mental life."—The Wall Street Journal To imagine—to see what is not there—is the startling ability that has fueled human development and innovation through the centuries. As a species we stand alone in our remarkable capacity to refashion the world after the picture in our minds. Traversing the realms of science, politics, religion, culture, philosophy, and history, Felipe Fernández-Armesto reveals the thrilling and disquieting tales of our imaginative leaps—from the first Homo sapiens to the present day. Through groundbreaking insights in cognitive science, Fernández-Armesto explores how and why we have ideas in the first place, providing a tantalizing glimpse into who we are and what we might yet accomplish. Unearthing historical evidence, he begins by reconstructing the thoughts of our Paleolithic ancestors to reveal the subtlety and profundity of the thinking of early humans. A masterful paean to the human imagination from a wonderfully elegant thinker, Out of Our Minds shows that bad ideas are often more influential than good ones; that the oldest recoverable thoughts include some of the best; that ideas of Western origin often issued from exchanges with the wider world; and that the pace of innovative thinking is under threat.

This short story collection features tales of people who step into the spotlight but once, stumbling, unintentionally making their way through a brief span of time they will never forget. Don't be surprised if they feel familiar to you. A desperate man finds redemption in the form of a lost boy in the middle of a southern California desert; an elderly woman takes refuge from Alzheimer's in her rose garden; two young sisters leave Arizona and their father to head for Alabama and an uncertain future; a lonely man intrigued by an obituary photo begins an odyssey of revelation; a woman's chance encounter in an antique stop results in a mystical experience, and a young girl recalls her poignant last visit with her uncle before his suicide. These are but a few of the wild stories from wild women Carmi Cosmos and Sarah Bates. Read them all!

"It is often said that education and training are the keys to the future. They are, but a key can be turned in two directions. Turn it one way andyou lock resources away, even from those they belong to. Turn it the otherway and you release resources and give people back to themselves. To realizeour true creative potential—in our organizations, in our schools and in our communities—we need to think differently about ourselves and to actdifferently towards each other. We must learn to be creative." —Ken Robinson PRAISE FOR OUT OF OUR MINDS "Ken Robinson writes brilliantly about the different ways in which creativity is undervalued and ignored . . . especially in our educational systems." —John Cleese "Out of Our Minds explains why being creative in today'sworld is a vital necessity. This book is not to be missed." —Ken Blanchard, co-author of The One-minute Manager and The Secret "If ever there was a time when creativity was necessary for the survival andgrowth of any organization, it is now. This book, more than any other I know, providesimportant insights on how leaders can evoke and sustain those creative juices." —Warren Bennis, Distinguished Professor of Business, University of Southern California; Thomas S. Murphy Distinguished Rresearch Fellow, Harvard Business School; Best-selling Author, Geeks and Geezers "All corporate leaders should read this book." —Richard Scase, Author and Business Forecaster "This really is a remarkable book. It does for human resources what Rachel Carson's Silent Spring did for the environment." —Wally Olins, Founder, Wolff-olins "Books about creativity are not always creative. Ken Robinson's is a welcome exception" —Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, c.s. and d.j. Davidson Professor of Psychology, Claremont Graduate University; Director, Quality of Life Research Center; Best-selling Author, Flow "The best analysis I've seen of the disjunction between the kinds of intelligence that we have traditionally honored in schools and the kinds ofcreativity that we need today in our organizations and our society." —Howard Gardner, a. hobbs professor in cognition and education, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Best-selling Author, Frames of Mind

The summary of Out of Our Minds – Learning to be Creative presented here include a short review of the book at the start followed by quick overview of main points and a list of important take-aways at the end of the summary. The Summary of Out of Our Minds sheds light on a business world that is both fast-paced and dynamically shifting all the time. In particular, it investigates how technology has progressed and altered the way in which we conduct business, despite the fact that our public education system has remained largely unchanged since the days of the industrial revolution. It investigates the ways in which schools need to adapt in order to better equip the next generation to meet the creative challenges that lie ahead. Out of Our Minds summary includes the key points and important takeaways from the book Out of Our Minds by Ken Robinson. Disclaimer: 1. This summary is meant to preview and not to substitute the original book. 2. We recommend, for in-depth study purchase the excellent original book. 3. In this summary key points are rewritten and recreated and no part/text is directly taken or copied from original book. 4. If original author/publisher wants us to remove this summary, please contact us at [email protected]

Vol. 25 is the report of the commissioner of education for 1880; v. 29, report for 1877.

First Published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.