Social High

As President Barack Obama's adviser on Russian affairs, Michael McFaul helped craft the United States' policy known as "reset" that fostered new and unprecedented collaboration between the two countries. And then, as US ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014, he had a front-row seat when this fleeting, hopeful moment crumbled with Vladimir Putin's return to the presidency. This riveting inside account combines history and memoir to tell the full story of US-Russia relations from the fall of the Soviet Union to the new rise of the hostile, paranoid Russian president.

From the beet fields of North Dakota to the wilderness campgrounds of California to an Amazon warehouse in Texas, people who once might have kicked back to enjoy their sunset years are hard at work. Underwater on mortgages or finding that Social Security comes up short, they're hitting the road in astonishing numbers, forming a new community of nomads: RV and van-dwelling migrant laborers, or "workampers".

Since Hamas's attack on Israel last October 7, the term "settler colonialism" has become central to public debate in the United States. A concept new to most Americans, but already established and influential in academic circles, settler colonialism is shaping the way many people think about the history of the United States, Israel and Palestine, and a host of political issues. This short book is the first to examine settler colonialism critically for a general audience.

Saidiya Hartman has been praised as "one of our most brilliant contemporary thinkers" (Claudia Rankine, New York Times Book Review). In Scenes of Subjection—Hartman's first book, now revised and expanded—her singular talents and analytical framework turn away from the "terrible spectacle" and toward the forms of routine terror and quotidian violence characteristic of slavery, illuminating the intertwining of injury, subjugation, and selfhood even in abolitionist depictions of enslavement.

The United States keeps its gold safe at Fort Knox. How is this done? There are fences, locks, guards, and more. Learn more about this high-security place!

Air Force One keeps the U.S. president safe while flying. Learn more about the features that protect this amazing plane. Also find out how team members protect the president as he travels on Air Force One.

A Harvard Business School student pays over $200 for a $20 bill. Washington, D.C., commuters ignore a free subway concert by a violin prodigy. A veteran airline pilot attempts to take off without control-tower clearance and collides with another plane on the runway. Why do we do the wildly irrational things we sometimes do?

In an illuminating analysis, Dr. Genevieve Guenther shows that the climate debate is not, in fact, neatly polarized, with Republicans obstructing climate action and Democrats advancing climate solutions. Partisans on the right and the left often repeat the same fossil-fuel talking points, and this repetition produces a centrist consensus upholding the status quo, even as global heating accelerates. Weaving this analysis through fascinating critical histories of the terms that dominate the language of climate politics Dr. Guenther shows how this consensus is established.

Compelling and incisive, Autocracy 2.0 is a must-listen for anyone seeking to understand China's meteoric rise and how today's autocrats are reshaping the technological frontier, governance, and the global balance of power.

As geek culture goes mainstream - from Game of Thrones to the Avengers - it's never been more important to look at the role women play in it and the future they're helping to create. And Kameron is the smart, funny, and profane voice we need to guide listeners through the world of fandom and the coming revolution in pop culture.

If you have spent any part of your life with a dog, you may have found certain questions popping, unbidden, into your mind: Is my dog living a fulfilled life? Is my dog a good dog? Does my dog love me? Addressing these questions compels you to confront not just your dog's life but yours as well—to think about what fulfillment, and meaning, in life really is. In The Word of Dog, philosopher Mark Rowlands explores these questions and suggests that in dogs we can see hints—faint, shrouded, but discernible—of what a better way of living might look like.

The Parkland school shooting was the most avoidable mass murder in American history. And the policies that made it inevitable have spread to your school....

As host of Closing Arguments on Court TV and Nancy Grace on CNN Headline News, Nancy Grace has won legions of devoted fans with her intelligent, plainspoken approach to the law. A passionate advocate of victims' rights and outspoken critic of the often circus-like atmosphere surrounding high-profile cases, Grace addresses the critical issues at the heart of the criminal justice system.

In the 1980s, a young adventurer and collector for a government library, Abdel Kader Haidara, journeyed across the Sahara Desert and along the Niger River, tracking down and salvaging tens of thousands of ancient Islamic and secular manuscripts that had fallen into obscurity. The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu tells the incredible story of how Haidara, a mild-mannered archivist and historian from the legendary city of Timbuktu, later became one of the world's greatest and most brazen smugglers.

The religious turn to their faith to find meaning. But what about the many people who lead secular lives and are also hungry for meaning? What guides, what approaches are available to them? Distinguished philosophers Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly explain that a secular life charged with meaning is indeed within reach.

Every age and social strata has its bad eggs, rule-breakers, and nose-thumbers. As acclaimed popular historian and author of How to Be a Victorian Ruth Goodman reveals in her madcap chronicle, Elizabethan England was particularly rank with troublemakers, from snooty needlers who took aim with a cutting "thee" to lowbrow drunkards with revolting table manners. Goodman draws on advice manuals, court cases, and sermons to offer this colorfully crude portrait of offenses most foul.

Throughout history, even as daily life has exhibited calm and tolerance, war has never been far away, and even within societies, violence can be a threat. The Goodness Paradox gives a new and powerful argument for how and why this uncanny combination of peacefulness and violence crystallized after our ancestors acquired language in Africa a quarter of a million years ago.

For months in early 1980, scientists, journalists, and ordinary people listened anxiously to rumblings in the long quiescent volcano Mount St. Helens. Still, when a massive explosion took the top off the mountain, no one was prepared. Fifty-seven people died, including newlywed logger John Killian (for years afterward, his father searched for him in the ash), scientist Dave Johnston, and celebrated local curmudgeon Harry Truman. The lives of many others were forever changed.

In 2016, Dr. Angela Mailis, a world-renowned expert on chronic pain management, was brought face-to-face with domestic violence, when an accomplished colleague was murdered by her equally accomplished husband. It was familiar territory for Dr. Mailis, who herself had been involved in an emotionally abusive relationship for 27 years.

Refusing someone is rarely easy. Often, it's downright uncomfortable. But constantly saying "yes" causes anxiety, anger, stress, regret, and feelings of powerlessness. Social psychologist and author Dr. Susan Newman empowers you to break your debilitating "yes" habit with her simple techniques and insights. This new, enhanced edition is filled with research and timely scenarios that offer more ways to say "no" without feeling guilty or damaging your relationships.