Social Change

Social Innovation, Inc. declares a new era where companies profit from social change. Leading corporations like GE, Wellpoint, Travelers and Wal-Mart are transforming social responsibility into social innovation and revolutionizing the way we think about the role of business in society. Based on four years of measuring the social strategies of America's leading corporations, Jason Saul lays out the five strategies for social innovation and offers a practical roadmap for how to get started.

In The Environmentalist’s Dilemma, award-winning journalist Arno Kopecky zeroes in on the core predicament of our times: The planet may be dying, but humanity’s doing better than ever. To acknowledge both sides of this paradox is to enter a realm of difficult decisions: Should we take down the government or try to change it from the inside? Is it okay to compare climate change to Hitler? Is hope naive or indispensable? How do you tackle collective delusion? Should we still have kids? And can we take them to Disneyland?

In 2004 Kentaro Toyama, an award-winning computer scientist, moved to India to start a new research group for Microsoft. Its mission: to explore novel technological solutions to the world's persistent social problems. But after a decade of designing technologies for humanitarian causes, Toyama concluded that no technology, however dazzling, could cause social change on its own.

The world needs leaders. Not just people holding titles, or elected into office whose only goal is to stay in their seat of power. But rather, it needs people with a clear vision, a compelling message, and the tools to leverage the power of their community to accomplish their goal. The Creator's Handbook is a concise study of the cognitive and psychological tools critical for aspiring leaders to adopt. It examines frameworks for optimizing your ability to find opportunities, for connecting with an audience, and for growing a motivated network of supporters.

A Harvard-trained lawyer and mediator tells busy couples how to stop fighting and start communicating. Listeners will learn how to identify the bad verbal habits, instinctive responses, and emotional reasoning that can cloud judgment and ultimately lead to the deterioration of otherwise healthy relationships. With exercises, examples, and sample scripts, Puhn's modern voice presents simple five-minute strategies to create immediate, positive changes and provide long-lasting communication skills that couples can continually employ when faced with conflict.

Providing a post-COP26 perspective on the climate emergency, Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant's Guide acknowledges that it is now practically impossible to keep this side of the 1.5°C dangerous climate change guardrail. The upshot is that we can no longer dodge the arrival of a disastrous, all-pervasive climate breakdown that will come. Bill McGuire explains the science behind the climate crisis, painting a blunt but authentic picture of the sort of world our children will grow old in, and our grandchildren grow up in, a world that we catch only glimpses of today.

Artist, poet, and performer Jezz Chung (they/them) focuses on cultural change through personal transformation. In This Way to Change, Jezz shares contemporary poetry, accessible prose, and healing practices from different therapeutic modalities to explore subjects like healing your inner child, nourishing friendships, decolonizing your thinking, deconstructing binaries, and intentional community-making.

As a journalist on the climate security beat, Peter Schwartzstein has been chased by kidnappers, badly beaten, detained by police, and told, in no uncertain terms, that he was no longer welcome in certain countries. Yet these personal brushes with violence are simply a hint of the conflict simmering in our warming world. Schwartzstein has visited ravaged Iraqi towns where ISIS used drought as a recruiting tool and weapon of terror. And he has heard the fear in the voices of women from around the world who say their husbands' tempers flare when the temperature ticks up.

There is one human mentioned in the Quran more than any other: Moses. Why is it that the Jewish prophet dominates the Islamic scripture? Because he is the role model for Muhammad, Islam's own prophet. Because Islam, just like Christianity, is deeply intertwined with Judaism-although surprisingly little attention has been given to this fascinating connection between the two religions. Author and journalist Mustafa Akyol takes listeners on a theological and historical walk through that much-neglected side of the Abrahamic triangle: the Judeo-Islamic tradition.

Far more than a rhetorical exercise, this book is designed to inform, inspire, and spur action. Based on Sachs' 14 years as director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and as special advisor to the United Nations Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals, The Age of Sustainable Development is a landmark publication and a clarion call for all who care about our planet and global justice.

Drawing upon principles of stress management, cognitive behavioral therapy, positive psychology, mindfulness, and teacher experiences, Awakened helps you develop thought habits that produce a greater sense of satisfaction, motivation, and purpose. Learn how to renew your mind and take a fresh approach toward the challenges of teaching!

Christine Benvenuto had been married for more than twenty years - with three young children - when her husband turned to her one night in bed and said, "I'm thinking constantly about my gender." Unhappy in his body, he wanted to become a woman. Part memoir, part voyeur's look into a marriage, Sex Changes is a journey through the end of a marriage and out the other side.

It is not your imagination: water crises are more frequent. Our twentieth-century systems for providing the water that grows food, sustains cities, and supports healthy ecosystems are failing to meet the demands of growing population and the challenges brought on by climate change. But the grim news reports—of empty reservoirs, withering crops, failing ecosystems—need not be cause for despair, argues award-winning author David Sedlak.

Renowned investor and climate champion Tom Steyer has been on the forefront of the climate war for well over a decade, leveraging his investment expertise, business knowledge, and community-organizing skills to support sustainable climate solutions. In this accessible book, he explains how capitalism is an effective tool for scaling climate progress, offers his candid take on fossil fuel enablers, and explains why immediate action on the climate front will be an investment in our economy and our key to a healthy and viable future.

As police racism unsettles Britain’s tolerant self-image, Black Resistance to British Policing details the activism that made movements like Black Lives Matter possible. Elliott-Cooper analyzes racism beyond prejudice and the interpersonal–arguing that Black resistance confronts a global system of racial classification, exploitation, and violence.

Forced to become a normal citizen, the exiled son of the late Shah of Iran attempts to provide understanding and direction for his country and its people.

Merci Suarez knew that sixth grade would be different, but she had no idea just how different. For starters, Merci has never been like the other kids at her private school in Florida, because she and her older brother, Roli, are scholarship students. They don’t have a big house or a fancy boat, and they have to do extra community service to make up for their free tuition.

A theory of change is a planning, participation, and evaluation process that companies, philanthropists, nonprofits, governments, and groups go through to promote social change. The term theory of change was coined by Peter Drucker in his 1954 book, The Practice of Management. He defined it as a form of management by objectives whereby organizations identify and follow high and low order goals in order to meet their objectives. But what is a theory of change exactly? How has the term and practice evolved? And what are its major setbacks and limitations?

The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science (2007) by psychiatrist Norman Doidge explores breakthroughs in neuroscience regarding plasticity, or the brain’s ability to change. Doidge shares inspiring stories of the work done by what he calls “neuroplasticians” - neuroscientists who are pioneering new methods for optimizing brain function....

Teaching to Live: Black Religion, Activist-Educators, and Radical Social Change interrogates the stories of African American activist-educators whose faith convictions inspired them to educate in radical and transformative ways. Almeda M. Wright explores the connections between religion, education, and struggles for freedom within twentieth-century African American communities by telling the stories of key African American teachers.