Social High

Most people are mostly honest, most of the time. And there aren't that many big, pants-on-fire liars in the population overall. But just a few big liars can have an outsized impact on the people around them—ruining personal relationships, bankrupting businesses, and even, when they attain political power, undermining the fabric of society.

On a summer night in 1984, 19-year-old UC Berkeley sophomore Karen Thomas leaves her uniformed patrol job at the University of California Police Department and walks home alone in darkness. At the threshold of her apartment a man assaults her at knife point. After a soul chilling struggle she manages to escape and call 911. Police catch her assailant, she identifies him, and he is arrested. Fast forward 2014, 30 years after her assault. Why does the body remember what the mind tries so desperately to forget?

Bringing together the most influential scholars in the field, the fifth edition of this best-selling book provides unrivaled coverage of international relations theories and arguments.

What makes us who we are? Many think that we are just complicated machines, or animals that are different from machines only by being conscious. Richard Swinburne comes to the defense of the soul and presents new philosophical arguments that are supported by modern neuroscience. When scientific advances enable neuroscientists to transplant a part of brain into a new body, he reasons, no matter how much we can find out about their brain activity or conscious experiences, we will never know whether the resulting person is the same as before or somebody entirely new.

Few public officials have provoked such intense controversy as Henry Kissinger. During his time in the Nixon and Ford administrations, he came to be admired and hated in equal measure. Notoriously, he believed that foreign affairs ought to be based primarily on the power relationships of a situation, not simply on ethics. He went so far as to argue that under certain circumstances America had to protect its national interests even if that meant repressing other countries' attempts at democracy.

The best and the brightest use advisors and experts. Whether in business, sports, entertainment, academia, or politics—expert help is a fundamental enabler of success. That means that the demand for expert advice will grow and the competition will increase for such help. This isn't a matter of "certificates" and "universities," it's a matter of specific skill and behavioral sets that create a trusting bond and reliance. Trusted advisors are beyond coaches—they are comprehensive resources and supporters.

Examining what it means to be vulnerable in love and in art, Sasha offers up an unblinking reckoning with personal traumas amplified by the collective historical traumas of colonialism and genocide that continue to haunt native peoples. Red Paint is an intersectional autobiography of lineage, resilience, and, above all, the ability to heal.

Written in a personable and homespun style, You, Inc. offers doses of humor and pithy knowledge to anyone who wants to thrive in the increasingly competitive business world. What veteran sales and marketing experts Harry and Christine Beckwith understand is that, to succeed in life, the most important thing you need to be able to sell is you.

In this short accessible book, leading democratic theorist Jason Brennan guides listeners through the evolution of the concept of democracy and actual democratic practice over time to help them understand the foundations of this longstanding and yet newly fragile political system. In his wide-ranging tour of the concept, Brennan will examine what democracy meant to the Greeks who first developed the concept before examining how it changed throughout European and later Western history.

In this book, author Orde Kittrie draws on his experiences as a lawfare practitioner, US State Department attorney, and international law scholar in analyzing the theory and practice of lawfare. Kittrie explains how factors including the increased reach of international laws and tribunals and the rise of economic globalization and information technology have fueled lawfare's increasing power and prevalence.

Worried that old age will inevitably mean losing your libido, your health, and possibly your marbles too? Well, Cicero has some good news for you. In How to Grow Old, the great Roman orator and statesman eloquently describes how you can make the second half of life the best part of all - and why you might discover that reading and gardening are actually far more pleasurable than sex ever was.

Betty Boyd Caroli's engrossing and informative First Ladies is an essential resource for anyone interested in the role of America's First Ladies. Caroli observes the role as it has shifted and evolved from ceremonial backdrop to substantive world figure. This expanded and updated fifth edition presents Caroli's keen political analysis and astute observations of recent developments, including Melania Trump's reluctance to take on the mantle and former First Lady Hilary Clinton's recent run for president. Caroli here contributes a new preface and updated chapters.

Since the late 1980s the dominant theory of human origins has been that a "cognitive revolution" (c. 50,000 years ago) led to the advent of our species, Homo sapiens. As a result of this revolution our species spread and eventually replaced all existing archaic Homo species, ultimately leading to the superiority of modern humans. Or so we thought. As Clive Finlayson explains, the latest advances in genetics prove that there was significant interbreeding between modern humans and the Neanderthals.

This isn’t some fluffy, feel-good self-help book. It’s a no-fluff guide built from over 10 years as a social skills coach, coaching hundreds of 1-on-1 clients to overcome their social anxiety and become socially magnetic.

The window between two equally stifling autocracies - the imperial family and the communists - was open only briefly, in the last couple of years of the 19th century until the end of WWI, by which time the revolution was in full fury. From the last years of Tolstoy until the death of the Tsar and his family, however, Russia experimented with liberalism and cultural openness. Novelists and playwrights blossomed and political ideas were swapped in coffee houses.

The clash between Israel and Palestine has been one of the most emotionally engaging causes of modern times. Prophets Without Honor tells the story of the attempts to solve the conflict and examines the reasons for its resilience. Shlomo Ben-Ami, who participated at a high level in the July 2000 Camp David peace talks that almost led to a historic deal, uses his insider experience to illuminate the specific factors that impede a solution to the conflict.

Legendary conservative firebrand David Horowitz argues that America's fundamental principles are under attack, and the progressive left will do anything to see those principles revoked and replaced with their own radical agenda.

Buying groceries, tracking our health, finding a date: whatever we want to do, odds are that we can now do it online. But few of us ask how all these digital products are designed, or why. It's time we change that. Many of the services we rely on are full of oversights, biases, and downright ethical nightmares. Chatbots that harass women. Signup forms that fail anyone who's not straight. Social media sites that send peppy messages about dead relatives. Algorithms that put more black people behind bars.

Annalee Newitz traces the way disinformation, propaganda, and violent threats have evolved from military weapons deployed against foreign adversaries into tools in domestic culture wars. Newitz delves into America's deep-rooted history with psychological operations, beginning with Benjamin Franklin's Revolutionary War-era fake newspaper and nineteenth-century wars on Indigenous nations, and reaching its apotheosis with the Cold War and twenty-first-century influence campaigns online.

For five long years in the 1950s, Senator Joseph McCarthy and his anti-Communist crusade dominated the American scene, terrified politicians, and destroyed the lives of thousands of our citizens. In this masterful history, Haynes Johnson re-creates that time of crisis. Johnson tells this monumental story through the lens of its relevance to our own time, when fear again affects American behavior and attitudes.