Social Science Power

Talking Cure is a timely and enticing excursion into the art of good conversation. Paula Marantz Cohen reveals how conversation connects us in ways that social media never can and explains why simply talking to each other freely and without guile may be the cure to what ails our troubled society. Drawing on her lifelong immersion in literature and culture and her decades of experience as a teacher and critic, Cohen argues that we learn to converse in our families and then carry that knowledge into a broader world where we encounter diverse opinions and sensibilities.

Taking listeners on an irresistible adventure through some of the most colourful, outrageous and polarising events of recent years—from Brexit to the Capitol Hill Riots and QAnon rallies to Extinction Rebellion protests—Phoenix Andrews shows how if we want to understand what's really happening behind the headlines we need to think about one overlooked phenomenon: fandom.

In a society marked by extreme inequality of income and opportunity, why should economists care about how people feel? The truth is that feelings of well-being are critical metrics that predict future life outcomes. In this timely and innovative account, economist Carol Graham argues for the importance of hope—little studied in economics at present—as an independent dimension of well-being.

Prizewinning historian Michael David-Fox traces the experiences of Smolensk residents between the interwar years and the end of World War II, a period during which the city and region passed from Stalinist rule to Nazi occupation and back. The result is a revelatory examination of choice and power under dueling forms of murderous totalitarianism. Exploring the life-and-death decisions of a fascinating cast of characters, David-Fox shows how deeply the Stalinist and Nazi regimes relied on the co-optation of average citizens motivated by greed and need, but always within the orbit of ideology.

El Cártel Judicial puede ser tan letal como el más violento de los grupos delictivos; una sentencia a modo—infundada, a la ligera, sin elementos de prueba, con pruebas viciadas o para satisfacer intereses personales—puede llegar a ser peor que la muerte.

No es una pandilla, no es una célula de un grupo mayor ni tampoco una banda doméstica, sino un auténtico cártel que logró apoderarse del centro del país, justo en las narices de las más altas autoridades. ¿Cómo lo hizo? Ejerciendo una violencia como nunca se había visto, con el liderazgo de un hombre del que poco o nada se sabía, con una red de lavado poderosísima y la apatía de dos administraciones capitalinas.

In Bloody Foreigners and The Last Wolf, Robert Winder explored the way Britain was shaped first by migration and then by hidden geographical factors. Now, in Soft Power he explores the way modern states are asserting themselves not through traditional realpolitik but through alternative means: business, language, culture, ideas, sport, education, music, even food...the texture and values of history and daily life.

Der ehemalige Präsident des Bundesverfassungsgerichts, Andreas Voßkuhle, warnte, die größte Bedrohung für die Institutionen des Staates gehe von rechts aus. Die aktuellen Ermittlungsverfahren gegen rechtsterroristische Vereinigungen unterstreichen die Gefahren, die von Rechtsextremen in Polizei, Bundeswehr, Justiz und Verfassungsschutz ausgehen. Zuletzt wurde dies in der bundesweiten Razzia gegen mutmaßliche rechtsextreme Umsturzpläne aus dem Milieu von Reichsbürgern und AfD deutlich.

Based on ethnographic research and reflective essays from worker-leaders and organizers, this book offers a rich case study of the factors contributing to the union’s successes and setbacks. It provides a practical organizing model applicable beyond Amazon, offering strategies to engage the workforce, sustain support and develop leadership. An essential toolkit for those navigating the complexities of evolving labour practices, with particular relevance for precarious workers and workplaces where access is limited.

The organic grower's guide to planting, propagation, culture, and ecology. Trees are our allies in healing the world. Partnering with trees allows us to build soil, enhance biodiversity, increase wildlife populations, grow food and medicine, and pull carbon out of the atmosphere, sequestering it in the soil. Author Akiva Silver is an enthusiastic tree grower with years of experience running his own commercial nursery. In this audiobook, he clearly explains the most important concepts necessary for success with perennial woody plants.

The Marvel of Martyrdom takes a broad perspective on self-sacrifice and martyrdom, bringing together religion, popular culture, history, psychology, and mythology. Stories of individuals both famous (Gandhi) and obscure (Rodrigo Rosenberg) intertwine with research on altruism, happiness, and radicalization to terrorism. The changing landscape of the book's setting - from The Roman Empire to 19th-century Russia to Nazi Germany to post-World War II India to present day Ukraine - makes the power of self-sacrifice and martyrdom come alive.

Cuteness has taken the planet by storm. Global sensations Hello Kitty and Pokémon, the works of artists Takashi Murakami and Jeff Koons, Heidi the cross-eyed opossum and E.T. - all reflect its gathering power. But what does “cute” mean, as a sensibility and style? Why is it so pervasive? Is it all infantile fluff, or is there something more uncanny and even menacing going on - in a lighthearted way? In The Power of Cute, Simon May provides nuanced and surprising answers.

The United States is an exceptionally violent country, increasingly unable or unwilling to stem violence in its many forms. A growing corporate crime wave has gone unprosecuted and unpunished. Meanwhile, the country has doubled down on pursuing people accused of street and drug crimes and immigration offenses. Corporate impunity, the financialization of the economy, militarized policing, the burgeoning carceral state, and the forever wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere all have fostered corporate, economic, and state violence in America.

Amazon Bestseller in Democracy, Political Freedom, Radical Thought, and Fascism. It is a sad fact that the world is awash in political tyrants. Ira Chaleff, an expert in political followership and one of the 100 “Best Minds in Leadership,” reveals how political followers can make or “brake” toxic leaders, and what we can do—no matter our level of political influence or where we sit on the political spectrum—to support beneficial leaders and stop the rise of would-be tyrants.

Trump's enemies set out to remove him from office even before his inauguration - which culminated in an election-year impeachment trial.

At the close of World War I, Hitler was an impoverished young artist who scrapped by through selling souvenir paintings, but within a few years, his powerful oratory brought him to the forefront of the Nazi party in Munich and helped make the party much more popular. A smattering of followers in the hundreds quickly became a party of thousands. At the head of it all was a man whose fiery orations denounced Jews, communists, and other "traitors" for bringing upon the German nation the Treaty of Versailles, which had led to hyperinflation and a wrecked economy.

We live in a time of global crisis. All of the crises are interlinked at their core, expressions of what we have called a global intimacy disorder. The urgent need for coherent action is existential. Every crisis has the potential to be a birth. Crisis is an evolutionary driver. Evolution is not happening to us. Rather, evolution is happening in us. We are called to radically realize and be lived as the transformation.

John A. Thompson takes a long view of America's dramatic rise as a world power, from the late 19th century into the post-World War II era. He shows how American leaders from Wilson to Truman developed an ever more capacious understanding of the national interest, and why by the 1940s most Americans came to support the price tag, in blood and treasure, attached to strenuous efforts to shape the world. The beliefs and emotions that led them to do so reflected distinctive aspects of U.S. culture, not least the strength of ties to Europe.

Is America fated to decline as a great power? Can it recover? With absorbing insight and fresh perspective, foreign policy expert Andrew Imbrie provides a road map for bolstering American leadership in an era of turbulence abroad and deepening polarization at home. This is a book about choices: the tough policy trade-offs that political leaders need to make to reinvigorate American money, might, and clout. In the conventional telling, the United States is either destined for continued dominance or doomed to irreversible decline.

Where did they come from, these furiously self-righteous "social justice warriors"? The incoherence of their mixed creed dooms social justice warriors to perpetual frustration. Their identity politics generates ever more radical demands that can never be satisfied, further fracturing a society in desperate need of a unifying myth. We seem to be left with only two options, Mitchell concludes - Nietzsche or Christ, the will to power or the will to truth. The choice is bracingly simple.