Robert Barry – författare

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. The story of the compact disc is also the story of the end of physical media. It is the story of how the quest for perfection laid the grounds for the death of a great industry. For in the passage from analogue media, like records and tapes, to digital formats, like CDs, something changed in the nature of media and in the relationship we have with music. Music became code, a sequence of 1s and 0s, a flow of pure information. The material structure of the medium itself was always supposed to disappear. But the physical has proved to possess an uncanny knack for returning. Today the CD is a zombie medium, still popular amongst certain avant-garde record labels and Japanese consumers. Against all the odds, the spectre endures.Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

Suicide, and how civilized people should respond to it, is an increasingly controversial topic in modern society. In Holland, suicide is the third leading cause of death of people between the ages of fifteen and forty. In the United States, it is the second leading cause of death among older teenagers. Laws prohibiting assisted suicide are being directly and boldly confronted by activists in the United States, most notably Jack Kevorkian. Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union has publicly declared suicide a fundamental human right that should be protected under the Constitution. The Hemlock Society has introduced referenda in California, Washington, and Oregon to legalize suicide and assisted suicide. The most vocal opposition to these initiatives has come from the Roman Catholic church.Breaking the Thread of Life marshalls philosophical, moral, medical, historical, and theological arguments in support of the Roman Catholic position against suicide. In a comprehensive study of the history of suicide, Barry shows that Christian civilization was one of only a few early societies that was able to bring suicide under control. He counters claims that Catholicism and the Bible endorse rational suicide. Barry also analyzes arguments in support of the rationality of suicide and illuminates their biases, inadequacies, and dangers.Barry presents the rationale for the Roman Catholic church's strong, extensive, and articulate opposition to efforts to gain legal and social endorsement of suicide and assisted suicide. His book represents the most complete study of the classical Roman Catholic view of rational suicide to date, and it will be of significant interest to philosophers, theologians, physicians, and lawyers.

Suicide, and how civilized people should respond to it, is an increasingly controversial topic in modern society. In Holland, suicide is the third leading cause of death of people between the ages of fifteen and forty. In the United States, it is the second leading cause of death among older teenagers. Laws prohibiting assisted suicide are being directly and boldly confronted by activists in the United States, most notably Jack Kevorkian. Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union has publicly declared suicide a fundamental human right that should be protected under the Constitution. The Hemlock Society has introduced referenda in California, Washington, and Oregon to legalize suicide and assisted suicide. The most vocal opposition to these initiatives has come from the Roman Catholic church.Breaking the Thread of Life marshalls philosophical, moral, medical, historical, and theological arguments in support of the Roman Catholic position against suicide. In a comprehensive study of the history of suicide, Barry shows that Christian civilization was one of only a few early societies that was able to bring suicide under control. He counters claims that Catholicism and the Bible endorse rational suicide. Barry also analyzes arguments in support of the rationality of suicide and illuminates their biases, inadequacies, and dangers.Barry presents the rationale for the Roman Catholic church's strong, extensive, and articulate opposition to efforts to gain legal and social endorsement of suicide and assisted suicide. His book represents the most complete study of the classical Roman Catholic view of rational suicide to date, and it will be of significant interest to philosophers, theologians, physicians, and lawyers.

Charles Fourier imagined a whole society structured by music. Hector Berlioz wrote science fiction. Hugo Gernsback looked forward to telematic operas. John Cage imagined an infinite sound palette. But where are today's musical futurists? The Music of the Future is not a book of predictions or speculations about how to save the music business or the bleeding edge of technologies. Rather, is is more like a history of failures, mapping 200 years of attempts by composers, performers and critics to imagine a future for music. Encompassing utopian dream cities, temporal dislocations and projects for the emancipation of all sounds, The Music of the Future is finally a sort of call to arms for everyone engaged in music: to fail again, fail better.