Social Society

Is it really human nature to stab one another in the back in our climb up the corporate ladder? Competitive, selfish behavior is often explained away as instinctive, thanks to evolution and "survival of the fittest", but in fact, humans are equally hard-wired for empathy. Using research from the fields of anthropology, psychology, animal behavior, and neuroscience, Frans de Waal brilliantly argues that humans are group animals.

Karl Marx / Friedrich Engels - "Das kommunistische Manifest". Die industrielle Revolution verursachte eine massive Landflucht. Unzählige Menschen aus bäuerlichen Verhältnissen versuchten ihr Glück als Arbeiter in den Städten, gehen dort jedoch in äußerst prekären Verhältnissen unter. Das Massenelend der Arbeiterklasse führte zum Aufkommen sozialistischer, bzw. kommunistischer Ideen in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts und die beiden deutschen Philosophen Karl Marx und Friedrich Engels verfassten ihr bis heute vielbeachtetes Werk "Das kommunistische Manifest".

This 50th anniversary edition of Men, Machines, and Modern Times, though ultimately concerned with a positive alternative to an Orwellian 1984, offers an entertaining series of historical accounts taken from the 19th century to highlight a main theme: the nature of technological change, the fission brought about in society by such change, and society's reaction to that change.

"Show me what you value more than your freedom and I'll show you the tool of your enslavement." 13 Rules provides readers with an inventory of philosophical insights and principles in order to live a free and meaningful life.

What does it mean to live in harmony with others? Is it possible to balance self-interest with compassion, individuality with community, freedom with responsibility? This book takes you on a journey through philosophy, science, history, and everyday life to explore one of humanity’s oldest questions: how can we live together without destroying each other?

Say good-bye to your beloved Benjamins, because the world is going cashless. So says David Wolman, and in The End of Money, he explores the drastic implications. How is it happening? What's at stake? Why does it matter? Each chapter of this timely and fascinating audiobook focuses on a specific aspect of the coming cashlessness. All told, The End of Money offers everything there is to love about popular nonfiction, rendering a complex subject entertaining and easily approachable for a wide audience while proving the ultimate adventurousness inherent in a curiosity about the workings of the world.

Bullshit Comparisons will challenge the way you think about rankings, charts, and other marketing and political tools designed to create odious and dangerous comparisons.

In this short accessible book, leading democratic theorist Jason Brennan guides listeners through the evolution of the concept of democracy and actual democratic practice over time to help them understand the foundations of this longstanding and yet newly fragile political system. In his wide-ranging tour of the concept, Brennan will examine what democracy meant to the Greeks who first developed the concept before examining how it changed throughout European and later Western history.

Whether you realize it or not, a vision for society—called the “Great Reset”—was formally unveiled by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in 2020, several months after COVID-19 emerged. The WEF is one of the most influential bodies in the world and has ties to the highest levels of global governments and industries. In fact, its Great Reset has implications for our collective future in terms of culture, politics, economics, the environment, technology, and metaphysics. So if you don’t think this subject affects you and your family—think again.

Dave Richards, an alum of Yale, sheds some light on the lesser known stories of Yale's secret societies. He takes us through the history from Phi Beta Kappa in the American Revolution (originally a social and drinking society) through Skull and Bones and its rivals in the 19th and 20th centuries. While there have been articles and books on some of those societies, there has never been a scholarly history of the system as a whole.

Sometimes designed objects reject their users: a computer mouse that doesn't work for left-handed people, for example, or a touchscreen payment system that only works for people who read English phrases, have 20/20 vision, and use a credit card. These mismatches are the building blocks of exclusion. In Mismatch, Kat Holmes describes how design can lead to exclusion, and how design can also remedy exclusion.

In this disquieting cyber thriller, Joseph Menn takes readers into the murky hacker underground, traveling the globe from San Francisco to Costa Rica and London to Russia. His guides are California surfer and computer whiz Barrett Lyon and a fearless British high-tech agent. Through these heroes, Menn shows the evolution of cyber-crime from small-time thieving to sophisticated, organized gangs, who began by attacking corporate websites but increasingly steal financial data from consumers.

Every year, the world’s farmers produce a lot of food for people to eat. Yet every night, millions of people around the world go to bed hungry. Why are people going without food when the earth is able to produce so much? Max Axiom and the Society of Super Scientists go on a fact-finding mission to discover the reasons behind food scarcity. Young listeners can join the team to find out why many people deal with food insecurity and learn ways that they can help.

The Cold War was fought in every corner of society, including in the sport and entertainment industries. Recognizing the importance of culture in the battle for hearts and minds, the United States, like the Soviet Union, attempted to win the favor of citizens in nonaligned states through the soft power of sport. Athletes became de facto ambassadors of US interests, their wins and losses serving as emblems of broader efforts to shield American culture - both at home and abroad - against communism.

In this short, searing book, Auster traces centuries of America’s use and abuse of guns, through the colonial prehistory of the Republic, armed conflict against the native population, the forced enslavement of millions, and the mass shootings that dominate the current news cycle. He examines the embattled gun-control and anti-gun-control camps, frames gun violence as a public health issue, and investigates the details of one horrific incident including the perpetrator’s unchecked purchase of the gun he used and the suffering of a bystander-turned-hero.

An inspiring, hilarious memoir about learning to resist the pressures of conformity, love yourself for who you are, embrace your flaws, and unlock your true potential. Winner of the African American Literary Award for Memoir! Now cohost of Fox's The Real and SiriusXM's Café Mocha, Loni Love...

A social history of cheating and how American history -- through real estate, sports, finance, academics, and of course politics -- has had its unfair share of rigged results and widened the margins on its gray areas. Drawing from the intriguing (and sometimes unbelievable) true stories of the...

The philosopher Susan Neiman argues that the absence of appealing models of maturity is not an accident: By describing life as a downhill process, we prepare young people to expect - and demand - very little from it. In Why Grow Up?, she challenges our culture of permanent adolescence, turning to thinkers including Kant, Rousseau, and Arendt to find a model of maturity that is not a matter of resignation. In growing up, we move from the boundless trust of childhood to the peculiar mixture of disappointment and exhilaration that comes with adolescence.

Freemasons have in many ways shaped the world as we know it today. Discover the hidden history of the secret society of Freemasonry in the last 100 years and the conspiracy theories that followed. In their three centuries of official existence, Freemasons have been routinely praised and despised, regularly cheered and derided. Some believe that they are a fraternal organization that promotes leadership and good character, while others are convinced that they are a secretive cabal hell-bent on world domination.

Social media on the internet can be a nightmarish place. A primary shield against hateful language, violent videos, and online cruelty uploaded by users is not an algorithm. It is people. Mostly invisible by design, more than 100,000 commercial content moderators evaluate posts on mainstream social media platforms: enforcing internal policies, training artificial intelligence systems, and actively screening and removing offensive material. Roberts, an award-winning social media scholar, offers the first extensive ethnographic study of the commercial content moderation industry.