Social Sciences Education

Expert guidance for navigating the difficult new issues around free speech rights in higher education In their earlier book, Free Speech on Campus, Erwin Chemerinsky and Howard Gillman argued that colleges and universities should permit the expression of the widest possible range of views. Nearly ten tumultuous years later, many issues have arisen that this simple principle does not adequately address. To what extent must an institution provide expensive security for extremely controversial speakers?

In 2018, Bri Lee's brilliant young friend Damian was named a Rhodes Scholar, an apex of academic achievement. When she goes to visit him and takes a tour of Oxford and Rhodes House, she begins questioning her belief in a system she has previously revered, as she learns the truth behind what Virginia Woolf described almost a century earlier as the 'stream of gold and silver' that flows through elite institutions and dictates decisions about who deserves to be educated there.

In 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, Yuval Noah Harari raises challenging questions about concepts that have become so enshrined in the global society and the author shows how these concepts have failed us, particularly now that we need them the most. Disclaimer: This is NOT the original book. If you’re looking for the original book, it is available from Amazon and Audible.

Regina Martínez was no stranger to retaliation. A journalist out of Mexico’s Gulf Coast state of Veracruz, Regina's stories for the magazine Proceso laid out the corruption and abuse underlying Mexican politics. She was barred from press conferences, and copies of Proceso often disappeared before they made the newsstands. In 2012, shortly after Proceso published an article on corruption and two Veracruz politicians, and the magazine went missing once again, she was bludgeoned to death in her bathroom. The message was clear: No journalist in Mexico was safe.

DEI Exposed puts the spotlight on a Big Con: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

The Anatomy of Fake News offers the first historical examination of fake news that takes as its goal the effective teaching of critical news literacy in the United States. Higdon employs a critical-historical media ecosystems approach to identify the producers, themes, purposes, and influences of fake news.

Arthur Schopenhauer's The Art of Literature is a lively, illuminating and brutally honest collection of essays on literary style and values, writers and critics, and the nature of genius. Schopenhauer advises seclusion and independent thought, criticizes Pliny's reading habits, and explains the pitfalls of certain schools of thought and even virtues like modesty. His thought-provoking arguments, caustic wit, and accessible style make this a must for any aspiring writer.

Sociologist Émile Durkheim's 1897 work On Suicide is a powerful evidence-based study of why people take their own lives. In the late 19th century it was generally accepted that each suicide was an individual phenomenon, caused by such personal factors as grief, loss, and financial problems. But Durkheim felt there were patterns in suicide rates, and believed that a more likely cause of suicide lay in the individual's relationship to society.

The intellectual foundation established by the Kalkiism Research Center in Nepal, composed of a team of 50 leading economists and 50 top medical professionals, has strongly advocated for free health care for all citizens in Nepal. Interestingly, this appears to be merely a byproduct of a cashless economy where all banks are owned by the government. Another byproduct is the eradication of the inhumane dowry system, which has long dehumanized half the population. A third benefit is the elimination of corruption.

In Small Teaching K-8, a team of veteran educators bridges the gap between cognitive theory and the K-8 classroom environment, applying the same foundational research found in author James Lang's bestselling Small Teaching to the elementary and middle school setting. The book demonstrates how to integrate simple interventions into pre-existing pedagogical techniques to dramatically improve student outcomes.

A peaceful summer night is shattered by gunfire as an unseen assailant tries to murder police officer John Busby. Though horribly wounded, Busby survives. But the perpetrator remains at large, meaning neither Busby, nor his wife, nor their three children are safe. In separate chapters John and his daughter, Cylin, who was nine at the time, recount the story of that year. John writes graphically, and movingly, of his wounds, his pain, his multiple surgeries, and his rage.

Christine Montross was a nervous first-year medical student, standing outside the anatomy lab on her first day of class, preparing herself for what was to come. Entering a room with stainless-steel tables topped by corpses in body bags is shocking, no matter how long you've prepared yourself, but a strange thing happened when Montross met her cadaver.

In the book, Gawande is able to build a narrative through the collection of experiences that leads to the conclusion that as we perceive ourselves as closer to death, our thoughts on mortality transform our goals and values to that of simpler things. Through a collection of insights, statistics and stories, Gawande argues on how we should focus less on prolonging life and more on how we can make it more meaningful. (Disclaimer: This is NOT the original book. If you’re looking for the original book, it is available from Amazon and Audible.)

Beginning with America’s first newspaper, investigative reporting has provided journalism with its most significant achievements and challenging controversies. In The Evolution of American Investigative Journalism, James L. Aucoin provides listeners with the first comprehensive history of investigative journalism.

Though written around 1513, more than 500 years ago, Italian diplomat Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince is still very influential. Listeners turn to it for its direct advice on the question of how to attain - and retain - power. Machiavelli's answer, in brief: use any means necessary to make sure the state survives. Given the changeable nature of politics, the strong ruler that Machiavelli describes may need to lie or cheat, deceive and, if necessary, resort to acts of violence - all the while maintaining an "image" of goodness.

For the truly well-rounded "intellectual," nothing fascinates so much as the subversive, the contrarian, the suppressed, and the bizarre. Richard Zacks has unloosed his admittedly strange mind and astonishing research abilities upon the entire spectrum of human knowledge, ferreting out endlessly fascinating facts, and stories guaranteed to make you laugh, gasp in wonder, and occasionally shudder at the depths of human depravity. The result of his labors is this quasi-encyclopedia that provides alternative takes on art, business, crime, science, medicine, sex (lots of that), and many other facets of human experience.

Critical race theory has hijacked the US education system on every level. Parents, students, educators, and policymakers must know and support the truth about American history and reject this divisive and anti-American theory’s obsession with skin color and prejudice.

Euphemistically labeled as the "Water Supply and Prophylaxis Administration" and "HippoEpizootic Administration" of the Imperial Japanese Army, Unit 731 and Unit 100, as well as their subsidiary branches, performed human experimentation on the innocents under the leadership of Dr. Ishii Shiro. Although the exact number of victims is unclear since the Japanese destroyed most of the evidence at the end of the war, but it ranged from 3,000-250,000 innocent men, women, and children.

“Dear Law Student: Here’s the truth. You belong here.” Law Professor Andrew Ferguson and former student Jonathan Yusef Newton open with this statement of reassurance in The Law of Law School. As all former law students and current lawyers can attest, law school is disorienting, overwhelming, and difficult. Unlike other educational institutions, law school is not set up simply to teach a subject. Instead, the first year of law school is set up to teach a skill set and way of thinking, which you then apply to do the work of lawyering.

With each passing day the potential reach of a single false news story — and its ability to negatively impact all of us — grows in both size and scope. Although politicians, activists, and ordinary citizens regularly complain about deceptive or biased news reports, they tend to define fake news as anything with which they happen to disagree, thus compounding the problem even further.