Social High

Why has war been such a consistent presence throughout the human past? A leading historian explains, drawing on rich examples and keen insight. Richard Overy is not the first scholar to take up the title question. In 1931, at the request of the League of Nations, Albert Einstein asked Sigmund Freud to collaborate on a short work examining whether there was "a way of delivering mankind from the menace of war." Published the next year as a pamphlet entitled Why War?, it conveyed Freud's conclusion that the "death drive" made any deliverance impossible.

The police are constantly under scrutiny. They are criticized for failings, praised for successes, and hailed as heroes for their sacrifices. Starting from the premise that every society has norms and ways of dealing with transgressors, A Short History of Police and Policing traces the evolution of the multiple forms of "policing" that existed in the past. Professor Emsley explores the idea and reality of policing, and shows how an institution we now call "the police" came to be virtually universal in our modern world.

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.

When Grace @FilthyBlueBird tweeted her dirtiest, most delicious secret desires to MovieStar @VaughnAsher she never expected a reply, let alone a face-to-face meeting and an offer of a lifetime. And when MovieStar @VaughnAsher figured out the woman vacationing at his family’s St. Thomas resort was the author of all those dirty hashtags a fan was relentlessly tweeting at him...well that was a challenge he couldn’t pass up. He was more than happy to #RockHerFilthyWorld.

Renowned linguistic anthropologist Don Kulick first went to study the tiny jungle village of Gapun in New Guinea over 30 years ago to document how it was that their native language, Tayap, was dying. But you can't study a language without settling in among the people, understanding how they speak every day, and even more, how they live. This book takes us inside the village as Kulick came to know it, revealing what it is like to live in a difficult-to-get-to village of 200 people, carved out like a cleft in the middle of a swamp, in the middle of a tropical rainforest.

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.

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.

Global Politics is a concise and engaging introduction to international relations. In it, Stephanie Lawson introduces the key theories and concepts underpinning the discipline, giving listeners a foundation to study politics on both a personal and global scale, including issues relating to gender, sexuality, and ethnicity, as well as the economy, environment, and concepts of justice.

Eating is about more than satisfying our hunger. It's also about the environment, social justice, personal development, and sustainable living. Many Americans already know this. We're eating less red meat and more organically produced foods, and most restaurants offer vegetarian options. But do we really know the truth about mechanized animal farming and slaughterhouses, herbicide and pesticide use, and labels that promise "Certified Humane"?

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...

Almost forty years ago, Neil Postman argued that television had brought about a fundamental transformation to democracy. By turning entertainment into our supreme ideology, television had recreated public discourse in its image and converted democracy into show business. In Trolling Ourselves to Death, Jason Hannan builds on Postman's classic thesis, arguing that we are now not so much amusing, as trolling ourselves to death. Contrary to the popular view of the troll as an exclusively anonymous online prankster, Hannan asserts that trolls have emerged from the cave, so to speak.

One of the most pernicious and persistent myths in the United States is the association of Black skin with poverty. Though there are forty million more poor white people than Black people, most Americans, both Republicans and Democrats, continue to think of poverty—along with issues like welfare, unemployment, and food stamps—as solely a Black problem. Why is this so? What are the historical causes? And what are the political consequences that result?

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.

When Congress originally created the National Security Council in 1947, it was intended to better coordinate foreign policy after World War II. Nearly an afterthought, a small administrative staff was established to help keep its papers moving. President Kennedy was, as John Gans documents, the first to make what became known as the NSC staff his own, selectively hiring bright young aides to do his bidding.

In Four Lost Cities, acclaimed science journalist Annalee Newitz takes listeners on an entertaining and mind-bending adventure into the deep history of urban life. Investigating across the centuries and around the world, Newitz explores the rise and fall of four ancient cities, each the center of a sophisticated civilization: the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Central Turkey, the Roman vacation town of Pompeii in Italy, the medieval megacity of Angkor in Cambodia, and the indigenous metropolis Cahokia, which stood beside the Mississippi River where East St. Louis is today.

The Strange Case of Donald J. Trump provides a coherent and nuanced psychological portrait of Donald Trump, drawing upon biographical events in the subject's life and contemporary scientific research and theory in personality, developmental, and social psychology.

In 2015, a major story broke exposing Hillary Clinton's role in approving the sale of an American uranium company to the Russian state nuclear agency Rosatom. An indispensable guide to the hidden background of recent events, Fallout shows how Putin's bid for nuclear dominance produced a series of political scandals that ultimately posed one of the greatest threats to our democracy in modern American history.

Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the modern world. It is ubiquitous-in our homes and offices, in the present and most certainly in the future. Today, we encounter AI as our distant ancestors once encountered fire. If we manage AI well, it will become a force for good, lighting the way to many transformative inventions. If we deploy it thoughtlessly, it will advance beyond our control. As AI policy experts Ben Buchanan and Andrew Imbrie show in The New Fire, few choices are more urgent—or more fascinating—than how we harness this technology and for what purpose.

The Longest Con tells the fascinating story of the partisan con artists who have corrupted conservative politics in our time, creating a toxic phenomenon that culminated in the election of Donald Trump, a bumptious fraud whose checkered career and tawdry retinue, including his presidential cabinet, have featured almost every variety of scam. But long before he appeared, Trump's path to power was blazed by the motley horde of swindlers and quacks who preceded him.

A little too smart, a little too fat, Bobby Goodspeed has always been a go-along-to-get-along kind of guy. But when his friend Addie decides to tackle the student council elections, Bobby finds himself changing in ways he never could have imagined in this tender, touching, utterly hilarious novel of life as a middle school misfit.