Social High

In this "laugh-out-loud funny” book (Hank Green, New York Times bestselling author), social media star and comedian Josh Sundquist takes readers on his hilarious journey to the fringes of viral stardom to discover if it’s possible to be both very famous and very happy As a semi-famous...

What does it mean to be cosmopolitan? Typically, cosmopolitanism is understood as a broad moral orientation, involving some kind of commitment to global moral equality. On this understanding, to be cosmopolitan is simply to evidence that moral orientation oneself. By contrast, Being Cosmopolitan takes up a thoroughly political approach. The focus is on what it might mean, and what it is like, to be political in a distinctly cosmopolitan form.

Tackling the Everyday shows how college football particularly harms the young Black men who are overrepresented on gridirons across the country. Although coaches and universities constantly invoke the misleading "football family" narrative, this book describes how a brotherhood among Black players operates alongside their caring mothers, who support them on and off the field. With a Black feminist approach—one that highlights often-overlooked voices—Canada exposes how race, gender, kinship, and care shape the lives of the young athletes who shoulder America's favorite game.

John Perry’s insights and laugh-out-loud humor bring to mind Thurber, Wodehouse, and Harry Frankfurt’s On Bullshit. This charming and accessible audio educates, entertains, and illuminates a universal subject. Procrastinators will be relieved to learn that you can actually accomplish quite a lot while procrastinating. In fact, the book itself is the result of Perry avoiding grading papers, refereeing academic proposals, and reviewing dissertation drafts. It also has a practical side, offering up advice that listeners can put to use.

In one memorable The Simpsons moment, Homer laughs hysterically at a standup comic, pausing only to gasp, "It's true, we're so lame!" In a sense, that is author Chris Turner's main thesis: Over the last 15 years, The Simpsons has chronicled the absurdities and the defining events of an increasingly confusing culture.

The year 2020 was a tumultuous time in American politics. It brought a global pandemic, protests for racial justice, and a razor-thin presidential election outcome. It culminated in an attack on the US Capitol that attempted to deny Joe Biden's victory. The Bitter End explores the long-term trends and short-term shocks that shaped this dramatic year and what these changes could mean for the future. Ultimately, instead of the country coming together to face national challenges—the pandemic, George Floyd's murder, and the Capitol riot—the challenges only reinforced divisions.

In a televised social experiment before millions of viewers, police sergeant Derrick Levasseur demonstrated that techniques used by undercover detectives could help people achieve their goals in everyday social situations. The result: he walked away with more than half a million dollars. In The Undercover Edge, Derrick shares his personal mind-set surrounding human behavior and motivation. Even more than that, he provides easy yet groundbreaking tools acquired while overcoming personal adversity.

In The Drone Age, Michael J. Boyle addresses some of the biggest questions surrounding the impact of drones on our world today and the risks that we might face tomorrow. Will drones produce a safer world because they reduce risk to pilots, or will the prospect of clean, remote warfare lead governments to engage in more conflicts? Will drones begin to replace humans on the battlefield? Will they empower soldiers and peacekeepers to act more precisely and humanely in crisis zones? How will terrorist organizations turn this technology back on the governments that fight them?

Our era is one of sexual upheaval. It may seem as though debates over sex are more intense than ever, but as acclaimed historian Rebecca L. Davis demonstrates in Fierce Desires, we should not be too surprised, because Americans have been arguing over which kinds of sex are "acceptable"—and which are not—since before the founding itself. Davis presents a sweeping, engrossing, illuminating four-hundred-year account of this nation's sexual past.

The citizens of Western democracies have been relentlessly propagandized, lied to, and fed a steady diet of distortions and untruths by their media for decades. Editor Michael Walsh brings together a stellar collection of critical thinkers and writers to explain how and why this is happening, its negative effects on our democracies, and what we can do to reverse it.

Known as the twice-born - first into the flesh and again when initiated into their vocation - the Brahmins are a caste devoted to sacred learning. But what Taseer finds in Benares, the holy city of death also known as Varanasi, is a window on an India as internally fractured as his own continent-bridging identity.

From Joseph Romm, Chief Science Advisor for National Geographic's Years of Living Dangerously series and one of Rolling Stone's "100 people who are changing America," Climate Change offers user-friendly, scientifically rigorous answers to the most difficult (and commonly politicized) questions surrounding what climatologist Lonnie Thompson has deemed "a clear and present danger to civilization."

In Friend and Foe, researchers Galinsky and Schweitzer explain why this debate misses the mark. Rather than being hardwired to compete or cooperate, humans have evolved to do both. It is only by learning how to strike the right balance between these two forces that we can improve our long-term relationships and get more of what we want.

Globalization, long considered the best route to economic prosperity, is not inevitable. An approach built on the principles of free trade and, since the 1980s, open capital markets is beginning to fracture. With disappointing growth rates across the Western world, nations are no longer willing to sacrifice national interests for global growth, nor are their leaders able - or willing - to sell the idea of pursuing a global agenda of prosperity to their citizens.

As a private banker working for the largest bank in the world, UBS, Bradley Birkenfeld was an expert in Switzerland's shell-game of offshore companies and secret numbered accounts. He wined and dined ultrawealthy clients whose millions of dollars were hidden away from business partners, spouses, and tax authorities. As his client list grew, Birkenfeld lived a life of money, fast cars, and beautiful women, but when he discovered that UBS was planning to betray him, he blew the whistle to the US government.

The Ultimate History of the '80s Teen Movie goes behind the scenes of a genre where cult hits mingled with studio blockbusters, where giants like Spielberg and Coppola rubbed shoulders with baby-faced first-timers, and where future superstars Sean, Demi, and Tom all got their big break. Music, comedy, and politics all play a part in the surprisingly complex history of the '80s teen movie. And while the films might have been aimed primarily at adolescents, the best tackle universal issues and remain relevant to all ages.

We're bombarded with information like never before. Some of it's true, some of it's spin, and some of it's flat-out fake news. And that's by design. Propaganda helps governments and corporations sell us products, lifestyles, and ideas. Sometimes the agenda is harmless, but other times it's destructive, and it's not always easy to spot the difference. Whether you want to be informed on the issues or debunk misinformation wherever you encounter it, How to Win the War on Truth is here to help.

As one of the most prestigious high schools in the nation, St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, has long been the exclusive domain of America's wealthiest sons. But times have changed. Today, a new elite of boys and girls is being molded at St. Paul's, one that reflects the hope of openness but also the persistence of inequality. In Privilege, Shamus Khan returns to his alma mater to provide an inside look at an institution that has been the private realm of the elite for the past 150 years.

By now it's clear that whether you're promoting a business, a product, or yourself, social media is near the top of what determines your success or failure. And there are countless pundits, authors, and consultants eager to advise you. But there's no one like Guy Kawasaki, the legendary former chief evangelist for Apple and a pioneer of business blogging, tweeting, Facebooking, Tumbling, and much more. Guy has teamed up with Peg Fitzpatrick, who he says is the best social-media person he's ever met, to offer The Art of Social Media - the one essential guide to get the most bang for your time, effort, and money.

How do social movements arise, wield power, and decline? Renowned scholar Linda Gordon investigates these questions in a groundbreaking work, narrating the stories of many of America's most influential twentieth-century social movements. Beginning with the turn-of-the-century settlement house movement, Gordon then scrutinizes the 1920s Ku Klux Klan and its successors, the violent American fascist groups of the 1930s.