Social Analysis

In Purity and Danger, Mary Douglas identifies the concern for purity as a key theme at the heart of every society. In lively and lucid prose, she explains its relevance for every listeners by revealing its wide-ranging impact on our attitudes to society, values, cosmology and knowledge.

Published in 1925, The Gift is one of French sociologist Marcel Mauss's few non-collaborative works. In it, he elevates what might appear to be a simple gift from the status of innocent object to something that has the capacity to motivate people and define social relationships. The Gift analyzes cultures across the world and across time, with the way gifts are given and received working as a guide to understanding the rules and traditions of many different societies.

Though written around 1513, more than 500 years ago, Italian diplomat Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince is still very influential. Listeners turn to it for its direct advice on the question of how to attain - and retain - power. Machiavelli's answer, in brief: use any means necessary to make sure the state survives. Given the changeable nature of politics, the strong ruler that Machiavelli describes may need to lie or cheat, deceive and, if necessary, resort to acts of violence - all the while maintaining an "image" of goodness.

Leil Lowndes is a psychologist, motivational speaker, and author who specializes in communication. She authored ten best-selling books and has appeared on countless talk shows. How to Talk to Anyone was published in 2003 and has remained popular since. It is aimed at people looking to improve their business and social relationships. This audiobook encapsulates key takeaways found in the original book. We’ve also provided an in-depth analysis as well as removing any fluff to save you hours of your time.

Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks offers a radical analysis of the psychological effects of colonization on the colonized. Born in 1925 on the island of Martinique - at the time a French colony - Fanon witnessed firsthand the abuses of white colonizers and the system's effects on his country. His revulsion was only confirmed later in life when he worked as a psychiatrist in Algeria, another French colony. Fanon's work played a pivotal role in the civil rights movements of the 1960s and was later taken up by scholars of postcolonialist studies.

The Analysis of the Mind by Bertrand Russell is a collection of 15 lectures he delivered in 1920. Russell was a highly reputed philosopher, mathematician, and social critic, and would go on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950.

The Economics of Poverty reviews critically past and present debates on poverty, spanning both rich and poor countries. The book provides an accessible new synthesis of current economic thinking on key questions: How is poverty measured? How much poverty is there? Why does poverty exist, and is it inevitable? What can be done to reduce poverty? Can it even be eliminated? The book does not assume that listeners know economics already.

What if you could figure out the people you meet in a matter of seconds? Do you know that your body language tells all about your personality? If you want to learn how to analyze people in seconds then keep reading.

With exclusive reporting, eyewitness accounts and analysis from the Pulitzer Prize-winning staff of The New York Times, this edition of THE JANUARY 6 REPORT offers the definitive record of the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Hear the report from the select committee’s investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, with accompanying insights from New York Times reporters who’ve covered the story from the beginning.

When American sociologist C. Wright Mills's The Sociological Imagination was first published in 1959, it provoked much hostile reaction. This was understandable: the book was a hard-hitting attack on how sociology was practiced - and on a number of leading sociologists. Mills was a fierce critic of both modern capitalism and Soviet-style authoritarianism, and argued that the sociology profession failed to look at how people's problems are connected to the structures of the society in which they live.

This is a short but comprehensive analysis of the UN's controversial program established in 1992 as a "sustainable development plan" for the entire world, for the 21st century. Its main points are coincidental to the "Communist Manifesto", issued by Karl Marx in 1848. It includes the abolition of all private property, banning inheritances, reducing the population, and the transfer of all resources into the hands of UN bureaucrats.

The Cold War dominated international life from the end of World War II to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. But how did the conflict begin? Why did it move from its initial origins in Postwar Europe to encompass virtually every corner of the globe? And why, after lasting so long, did the war end so suddenly and unexpectedly? Robert McMahon considers these questions and more, as well as looking at the legacy of the Cold War and its impact on international relations today.

In his 2019 book, Stillness Is the Key, Ryan Holiday guides readers using Stoic and Buddhist philosophies to show people how internal stillness can lead to doing great things, personal peace, and happiness. Stillness Is the Key not only shows that stillness works, but it also helpfully guides readers on how they too can achieve tranquility in their minds, which leads to the ability to handle situations that are externally chaotic.

The success of an autobiography can be measured by many different aspects. Some works are of merit for entertainment purposes alone. Many Hollywood celebrities find an audience for their life's story due to their willingness to share closely held secrets and peculiarities. We are drawn in because of the salacious promise of a glimpse into a life more glamorous or unusual than our own.

Are you an easy target for manipulators? Have you noticed a common theme of those seeking to use you constantly seeking you out, no matter how much you really just want to live peacefully and without their darkness staining your happiness? If you are ready to rid yourself of the toxicity of the manipulators in your life once and for all, keep reading....

In our ordinary human lives, there are many nets that will arrest our freedom. As children, we are forced to listen and learn; to learn the rules and accept the reality we are born into. We are given names, religions and in many parts of the world, a life's timeline. We often grow up unaware of the capacity we own as humans with intelligence, well developed senses and deep untapped potentials. But you can take small, human steps to be able to identify your existence with the divinity that comes from that place and the celestial source.

The Psychology of Human Behavior is written in a way that answers all such queries, along with multiple others. The best part is that the writing style of the book is so practical that the listeners will be able to learn a lot of things instantly.

American lawyer-turned-sociologist David Riesman published his first book, The Lonely Crowd, in 1950. Aimed at academics, it nonetheless gained a large popular audience. In it, Riesman explores the links between social character - the ways in which members of a society are similar to one another - and social structures. Riesman's work popularized sociology, helping to establish it as an academic discipline, and today it provides a fascinating window into the 1950s American psyche.

Exactly What to Say: The Magic Words for Influence and Impact gives the listener insightful ways to engage an audience. The book has examples of phrases and questions you can use in any situation to guide your audience’s behavior to the results you want. NinjaReads summaries are made for go-getters who have an itch to learn and grow. Not only will you learn faster, but you’ll also be more productive as you save hours of your day. As you grow smarter from each listen, your family and friends may notice and give you compliments on how much you have grown.

The United States is addicted to crude oil. In this book, Andrew Price-Smith argues that this addiction has distorted the conduct of American foreign policy in profound and malign ways, resulting in interventionism, exploitation, and other illiberal behaviors that hide behind a facade of liberal internationalism. The symbiotic relationship between the state and the oil industry has produced deviations from rational foreign energy policy, including interventions in Iraq and elsewhere.