Social Science Theory

In Sacrifice, Rene Girard interrogates the Brahmanas of Vedic India, exploring coincidences with mimetic theory that are too numerous and striking to be accidental. The Bible reveals collective violence, similar to that which generates sacrifice everywhere, but instead of making victims guilty, the Bible and the Gospels reveal the persecutors of a single victim. Instead of elaborating myths, they tell the truth absolutely contrary to the archaic sense.

The World in 2050 is a provocative journey into a future already under construction. It’s not just about artificial intelligence — it’s about what happens when society lets systems decide who is visible, valid, and valuable. This book blends speculative storytelling, real-world parallels, and sharp analysis to explore what happens when predictive scoring replaces human judgment — and when machines are authorized to make irreversible decisions. Experience algorithmic ghosting, risk profiling, and digital erasure — all based on real-world systems that are already shaping our present.

For 200 years, conservatism has defied its reputation as a backward-looking creed by confronting and adapting to liberal modernity. By doing so, the right has won long periods of power and effectively become the dominant tradition in politics. Yet, despite their success, conservatives have continued to fight with each other about how far to compromise with liberalism and democracy - or which values to defend and how. In Conservatism, Edmund Fawcett provides a gripping account of this conflicted history, clarifies key ideas, and illuminates quarrels within the right today.

Most people believe democracy is a uniquely just form of government. They believe people have the right to an equal share of political power. And they believe that political participation is good for us—it empowers us, helps us get what we want, and tends to make us smarter, more virtuous, and more caring for one another. These are some of our most cherished ideas about democracy. But Jason Brennan says they are all wrong. In this trenchant book, Brennan argues that democracy should be judged by its results—and the results are not good enough.

In 1947, British scholar, playwright, and novelist Dorothy Sayers stood in an Oxford hall and delivered a speech that would become a catalyst of the current classical education movement. The Lost Tools of Learning is a flagship address presenting the tools that were given to students in the Middle Ages via the trivium, the study of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. For perhaps the first time, these trivium subjects were applied by Sayers to students' developmental stages. She also advocates the integration of subjects.

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.

Year Zero is a landmark reckoning with the greatdrama that ensued after war came to an end in 1945. One world had ended and anew, uncertain one was beginning. Regime change had come across Asia and all of continental Europe. It was the greatest global powervacuum in history, and out of the often vicious power struggles thatensued emerged the modern world as we know it.

What is wrong with today's banking system? The past few years have shown that risks in banking can impose significant costs on the economy. Many claim, however, that a safer banking system would require sacrificing lending and economic growth. The Bankers' New Clothes examines this claim and the narratives used by bankers, politicians, and regulators to rationalize the lack of reform, exposing them as invalid.

Fluides et denses, ces cinq conférences données par Freud en 1909 aux Etats Unis à la Clark University du Massachussetts sont une introduction excellente à la psychanalyse freudienne. Ces leçons constituent un résumé concis du savoir qu'il a acquis en quinze ans. Rappel des origines de la psychanalyse avec les travaux sur l'hypnose et l'hystérie en collaboration avec Breuer et introduction aux problématiques centrales.

The companion to the Oscar-nominated documentary, an unparalleled look inside Israel's security establishment. Imagine the following situation: You have just received a tip that six suicide bombers are making their way into the heart of Israel's major cities, each one to a different city, to set off explosions in the most crowded centers of population. How far would you go to stop the attacks?

Many Christians feel that they are being opposed at every turn by what seems to be a well-orchestrated political and cultural campaign to de-Christianize every aspect of Western culture. They are right, and it goes even further back than the Obama Administration. In Worshipping the State: How Liberalism Became Our State Religion, Benjamin Wiker argues that it is liberals who seek to establish an official state religion: one of unbelief.

In The Practice of Folklore: Essays Toward a Theory of Tradition, author Simon J. Bronner works with theories of cultural practice to explain the social and psychological need for tradition in everyday life. Bronner proposes a distinctive “praxic” perspective that will answer the pressing philosophical as well as psychological question of why people enjoy repeating themselves. The significance of the keyword practice, he asserts, is the embodiment of a tension between repetition and variation in human behavior.

Boomers are narcissists. Millennials are spoiled. Gen Zers are lazy. We assume people born around the same time have basically the same values. It makes for good headlines, but is it true? Bobby Duffy has spent years studying generational distinctions. In this book, he argues that our generational identities are not fixed but fluid, reforming throughout our lives.

An insider of both the Bush and Obama administrations offers an irrefutable indictment of the mishandling of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program bailouts and the extreme degree to which our government officials—from both parties—served the interests of Wall Street at the expense of the public. From his first day on the job as the special inspector general in charge of overseeing the distribution of the bailout money, Neil Barofsky found that the officials at the Treasury Department in charge of the bailouts were in thrall to the interests of the big banks.

As white supremacy, ultra-nationalism, rabid misogyny, and anti-immigrant fervor coalesce, a new and uniquely American form of fascism looms. Could our current moment actually bring about the end of democracy in the United States? Are Americans willing to surrender their freedom and dignity, along with their ongoing struggle for equality, justice, and mutual respect in the face of the rising tide of political and ideological extremism?

The consensus view of the Civil War - that it was first and foremost a war to restore the Union, and an antislavery war only later when it became necessary for Union victory - dies here. James Oakes’s groundbreaking history shows how deftly Lincoln and congressional Republicans pursued antislavery throughout the war, pragmatic in policy but steadfast on principle. In the disloyal South the federal government quickly began freeing slaves, immediately and without slaveholder compensation, as they fled to Union lines.

In this book Satter tells the story of the apartment bombings and how Boris Yeltsin presided over the criminalization of Russia, why Vladimir Putin was chosen as his sucessor, and how Putin has suppressed all opposition while retaining the appearance of a pluralist state. As the threat represented by Russia becomes increasingly clear, Satter's description of where Russia is and how it got there will be of vital interest to anyone concerned about the dangers facing the world today.

For nearly 90 years, Lord Charnwood’s Abraham Lincoln has been the standard life history of the Great Emancipator. It has become one of the great classics of modern biography and has been read by millions. Charnwood describes the frontier life and continual self-education that developed Lincoln’s rare character and helped him to adapt to great events and demands such as few other men have experienced. Lincoln’s administrative genius, his war strategy, and his neglect of the lesser for the greater are all treated in this masterly portrait.

If you cut off a spider's leg, it's crippled; if you cut off its head, it dies. But if you cut off a starfish's leg it grows a new one, and the old leg can grow into an entirely new starfish. The Starfish and the Spider argues that organizations fall into two categories: "spiders", which have a rigid hierarchy, and "starfish", which rely on the power of peer relationships.

Nomi Prins ushers us into the intimate world of exclusive clubs, vacation spots, and Ivy League universities that binds presidents and financiers. She unravels the multi-generational blood, intermarriage, and protégé relationships that have confined national influence to a privileged cluster of people. This unprecedented history of American power illuminates how financiers have retained their authoritative position through history, swaying presidents regardless of party affiliation.