Social Change

The global story is one that is 7.6 billion authors strong. It is rich and complex, and as of today, it is also perilously close to bringing about the destruction of our planet. Why do we continue to live in a bad story? In his latest work, Moritz Davidesko presents a compelling analysis of human storytelling and explores how that behavior has informed our present understanding of the world. In chronicling our species’ collective powers of narration, Davidesko ushers us from the distant past, to the present state of global affairs—the story of our world as we know it!

Climate change is today's news, but it isn't a new phenomenon. Centuries-long cycles of heating and cooling are well documented for Europe and the North Atlantic. These variations in climate, including the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), AD 900 to 1300, and the early centuries of the Little Ice Age (LIA), AD 1300 to 1600, had a substantial impact on the cultural history of Europe.

Sixteen-year-old Miranda Merchant is great at science and not so great with boys. After major drama with her boyfriend and (now ex) best friend, she's happy to spend the summer on small, mysterious Selkie Island, helping her mother sort out her late grandmother's estate. There Miranda finds new friends and an island with a mysterious, mystical history, presenting her with facts her logical, scientific mind can't make sense of. She also meets Leo, who challenges everything she thought she knew.

Mourning Bands On is an accessible journey into the hypersensitive world of today’s American law enforcement. The listener is brought into the law enforcement world through an introduction to the history, function, and development of the American police model. With an understanding of policing’s role in American society, the listener is then immersed into the raucous and contentious cultural upheaval which American policing is currently experiencing.

Guy Bavli grew up in Israel, a country that has been at war practically throughout its existence. However, the Israeli people never stopped living, loving, singing, dancing, laughing and smiling! Guy soon realized the power of existence, success, and love. A smile! It will change the way you choose to live your life. It is easy to be bitter, angry, and vengeful—but a smile helps you recover, regenerate, overcome, and live!

The Plot to Change America exposes the myths that help identity politics perpetuate itself. This book reveals what has really happened, explains why it is urgent to change course, and offers a strategy to do so. Though we should not fool ourselves into thinking that it will be easy to eliminate identity politics, we should not overthink it, either. Identity politics relies on the creation of groups and then on giving people incentives to adhere to them. If we eliminate group making and the enticements, we can get rid of identity politics.

In response to educators who are already fans of her best seller Change Your Questions, Change Your Life, Marilee Adams, the originator of Question Thinking, presents a compelling model for creating a classroom environment infused with curiosity, creativity, and caring. Through a moving story of a teacher on the verge of burnout, Adams demonstrates the powerful influence our mind-sets have on how we interact with our students, our colleagues, and ourselves.

In 2019, climate activist Charlie Hertzog Young attempted suicide, following a succession of breakdowns. He jumped off a building, resulting in the loss of both legs. He spent a month in a coma, lost his flat and woke up without a job. In rebuilding his life physically and emotionally, Charlie saw that the climate crisis and mental illness are inextricably linked and, equally, little understood. In this reflective account of his own recovery, he explores how his bipolarity was largely driven by climate change and identifies the ways in which our culture has led to the current crisis.

In this book, Nobel Prize-winning economist Edmund Phelps draws on a lifetime of thinking to make a sweeping new argument about what makes nations prosper--and why the sources of that prosperity are under threat today. Why did prosperity explode in some nations between the 1820s and 1960s, creating not just unprecedented material wealth but "flourishing"--meaningful work, self-expression, and personal growth for more people than ever before?

Wie wir Klimarettung und Demokratie neu denken müssen. Klimaschutz und Demokratie, das passt für viele Menschen nicht zusammen. Den einen geht der Kampf gegen die Klimakrise zu langsam voran, während die anderen sich von einer angeblichen Ökodiktatur bedroht sehen. SPIEGEL-Journalist Jonas Schaible räumt in diesem Debatten(hör-)buch mit solchen falschen Widersprüchen auf. Er zeigt, dass Klima und Demokratie sich sogar gegenseitig bedingen: Demokratie gibt es nur auf einem bewohnbaren Planten – und das Klima wird sich nur mit demokratischen Mitteln retten lassen.

Sibylle Berg sagt: "Einer der cleversten Aktivisten, die ich kenne." Sie meint den Aktionskünstler und investigativen Journalisten Jean Peters, der hier von seinen wahnwitzigsten, skurrilsten, mutigsten und kreativsten Versuchen, die Welt zum Besseren zu verändern, erzählt. Als sich abzeichnete, dass die Rechten auf dem Vormarsch sind, als Klimaforscher*innen vor den Folgen exponenziellen Wachstums warnten und alle weitermachten wie bisher, da verspürte Jean Peters das Gefühl politischer Ohnmacht.

In this book in praise of wait times, award-winning author Jason Farman passionately argues that the delay between call and answer has always been an important part of the message. Traveling backward from our current era of Twitter and texts, Farman describes how societies have worked to eliminate waiting in communication and how they have interpreted those times' meanings. And in a rebuttal to the demand for instant communication, Farman makes a powerful case for why good things can come to those who wait.

Human history mirrors the history of climate change. Human origins, for example, can be traced to five million years ago when the climate of East Africa became progressively hotter and drier. This caused the lush tropical jungles to disappear and be replaced by arid plains and savannahs. Our pre-human ancestors learned to exploit those new ecosystems by gathering the seed-bearing grasses, nuts, and tubers that thrived in these semi-arid conditions. Also, by foraging in the heat of the day, proto-humans could minimize unwelcome contact with nocturnal predators.

The old axiom is true: people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. We find ourselves in a cultural moment where people simply want to feel seen, heard, and loved. The good news? A little kindness goes a long way. It's time for this overlooked and underappreciated fruit of the Spirit to get its due.

In his impassioned-yet-measured book, Rafael A. Mangual offers an incisive critique of America's increasingly radical criminal justice reform movement, and makes a convincing case against the pursuit of "justice" through mass-decarceration and depolicing. After a summer of violent protests in...

Can we human beings agree on a set of values which will allow us to confront the numerous threats that we and our planet face? Or will we continue our disagreements, rivalries, and antipathies, even as we collectively approach what, in the not impossible extreme, might be extinction? To answer these questions, A. C. Grayling considers the three most pressing challenges facing the world: climate change, technology, and justice.

Invisible to Invaluable is a celebration of what midlife women do, who we are and what we are capable of. It's a rallying cry for us to change the world for the better. With personal stories, exciting research and insights from a cast of inspirational women, Jane Evans and Carol Russell's manifesto blows open the ageism that's sidelined midlife women at work and in society, and sets out an empowering vision for a world where we can unlock our full potential.

When Sleepers, Wake! was released in Australia, it immediately became influential around the world. Now its author, the polymath and former politician Barry Jones, turns his attention to what has happened since - especially to politics, health, and our climate in the digital age - and to the challenges faced by increasingly fragile democracies and public institutions.

Winchester, Virginia, is an emblematic American town. As the US economy and American culture have transformed in recent decades, the ground under centuries-old social codes has shifted, throwing old folkways into chaos. Homeplace teases apart the tangle of class, race, and family origin that still defines the town and illuminates questions that now dominate our national conversation - about how we move into the future without pretending our past doesn't exist, about what we salvage, and what we leave behind.

Based on 20 years of pioneering workshops engaging white male leaders in transforming their own mindsets, building leadership skills, and creating powerful partnerships at work and at home, Four Days to Change follows a group of men embarking in a life-changing process to broaden their view of the world and lead them into more authentic relationships across race, gender, and sexual orientation. Witness the kinds of conversations that have opened the eyes of thousands of white male leaders.