English Theory

Finite games, like football or chess, have known players, fixed rules, and a clear endpoint. The winners and losers are easily identified. Infinite games, games with no finish line, like business or politics, or life itself, have players who come and go. The rules of an infinite game are changeable, while infinite games have no defined endpoint. There are no winners or losers - only ahead and behind. The question is, how do we play to succeed in the game we’re in? In this revelatory new audiobook, Simon Sinek offers a framework for leading with an infinite mindset.

As co-host of CBC Radio's As It Happens, Carol Off spent a decade and a half talking to people in the news five nights a week. On top of her stellar writing and reporting career, those 25,000 interviews have given her a unique vantage point on the crucial subject at the heart of her new book—how, in these polarizing years, words that used to define civil society and social justice are being put to work for a completely different political agenda. Or they are being bleached of their meaning as the values they represent are mocked and distorted.

One of the most talked-about scholarly works of the past 50 years, Judith Butler's Gender Trouble is as celebrated as it is controversial. Arguing that traditional feminism is wrong to look to a natural, "essential" notion of the female, or indeed of sex or gender, Butler starts by questioning the category "woman" and continues in this vein with examinations of "the masculine" and "the feminine." Best known however, but also most often misinterpreted, is Butler's concept of gender as a reiterated social performance rather than the expression of a prior reality.

This classic work by psychologist and social philosopher Eric Fromm builds upon his previous popular book To Have or to Be? The Art of Being teaches us to avoid the tantalizing illusions of our consumer-driven world by learning to function as a whole person from a state of inner completeness or being. The transition from an identity of having to being creates a state of enlightened psychological and spiritual happiness.

Levitt and co-author Stephen J. Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives: how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they explore the hidden side of...well, everything. The inner working of a crack gang...the truth about real-estate agents...the secrets of the Klu Klux Klan. What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking, and Freakonomics will redefine the way we view the modern world.

In Naked Economics, journalist Charles Wheelan does “the impossible”—he makes economic principles relevant, interesting and fun. Brimming with scores of down-to-earth examples and sprinkled with humorous anecdotes, this comprehensive overview will keep listeners smiling and wide awake.

Today's "machine-learning" systems, trained by data, are so effective that we've invited them to see and hear for us - and to make decisions on our behalf. But alarm bells are ringing. Systems cull résumés until, years later, we discover that they have inherent gender biases. Algorithms decide bail and parole - and appear to assess black and white defendants differently. We can no longer assume that our mortgage application, or even our medical tests, will be seen by human eyes. And autonomous vehicles on our streets can injure or kill.

The Tragedy of Empire begins in the late fourth century with the reign of Julian, the last non-Christian Roman emperor, and takes listeners to the final years of the Western Roman Empire at the end of the sixth century. Kulikowski traces 200 years of Roman history during which the Western Empire ceased to exist while the Eastern Empire remained politically strong and culturally vibrant.

Complex problem solving is at the very top of the list of essential skills for career progression in the modern world. But how problem solving is taught in our schools, universities, businesses, and organizations comes up short. In Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything, you'll learn the seven-step systematic approach to creative problem solving developed in top consulting firms that will work in any field or industry, turning you into a highly sought-after, bulletproof problem solver who can tackle challenges at which others balk.

Since the days of the early church, Christians have struggled to understand the relationship between two seemingly contradictory concepts in the Bible: law and gospel. If, as the Apostle Paul says, the law cannot save, what can it do? Is it merely an ancient relic from Old Testament Israel to be discarded? Or is it still valuable for Christians today?

Jimmy Carter, 39th president, Nobel Peace Prize winner, international humanitarian, fisherman, reflects on his full and happy life with pride, humor, and a few second thoughts.

Twenty-five years ago, Neil Howe and the late William Strauss dazzled the world with a provocative new theory of American history. Looking back at the last 500 years, they’d uncovered a distinct pattern: modern history moves in cycles, each one lasting roughly 80 to 100 years, the length of a long human life, with each cycle composed of four eras—or “turnings”—that always arrive in the same order and each last about 25 years. The last of these eras—the fourth turning—was always the most perilous, a period of civic upheaval and national mobilization.

The Myth of Capitalism tells the story of how America has gone from an open, competitive marketplace to an economy where a few very powerful companies dominate key industries that affect our daily lives. Digital monopolies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon are gatekeepers to the digital world. Amazon is capturing almost all online shopping dollars. We have the illusion of choice, but for most critical decisions, we have only one or two companies when it comes to high speed internet, health insurance, medical care, mortgage title insurance, or even consumer goods like toothpaste.

The Queer Art of Failure is about finding alternatives - to conventional understandings of success in a heteronormative, capitalist society; to academic disciplines that confirm what is already known according to approved methods of knowing; and to cultural criticism that claims to break new ground but cleaves to conventional archives.

The Idea of the World offers a grounded alternative to the frenzy of unrestrained abstractions and unexamined assumptions in philosophy and science today. This book examines what can be learned about the nature of reality based on conceptual parsimony, straightforward logic, and empirical evidence from fields as diverse as physics and neuroscience. It compiles an overarching case for idealism - the notion that reality is essentially mental - from 10 original articles the author has previously published in leading academic journals.

A young, untested team of problem solvers challenged with saving their company moves from board room to classroom in search of answers - and finds them through lively, open discourse with their innovative professor. This gripping, fast-paced business novel does for project management what Eliyahu M. Goldratt's other novels have done for production and marketing.

Political leaders, diplomats, and business executives around the world - including every president from John F. Kennedy to Donald J. Trump - have sought the counsel of Henry Kissinger, a brilliant diplomat and political scientist whose unprecedented achievements as a negotiator have been universally acknowledged. Now, Kissinger the Negotiator provides a groundbreaking analysis of Kissinger’s overall approach to making deals and his skill in resolving conflicts - expertise that holds powerful and enduring lessons.

There was a time when Israel could do no wrong in America's eyes. That time is long past, and justly so - no nation is absolutely perfect, particularly not one that is engaged in a conflict as long as the Arab-Israeli conflict. But the myth of the perfect Israel has been supplanted by a far more deleterious myth: the myth of the evil Israel. This new myth has so pervaded contemporary culture that the history of Israel - as well documented as it is - has been recast and retold to fit a false narrative of Israel as violent occupier.

Technofeudalism says Yanis Varoufakis, is the new power that is reshaping our lives and the world, and is the greatest current threat to the liberal individual, to our efforts to avert climate catastrophe—and to democracy itself. It also lies behind the new geopolitical tensions, especially the New Cold War between the United States and China. Drawing on stories from Greek myth and pop culture, from Homer to Mad Men, Varoufakis explains this revolutionary transformation: how it enslaves our minds, how it rewrites the rules of global power, and, ultimately, what it will take overthrow it.

Sharpen and sustain your prophetic gift, and learn strategies for speaking the Word of God with confidence. There is a prophetic remnant rising up in the earth who want to be called out, trained, and activated in their gift to hear God's voice and deliver His messages to His people, and they must not grow weary. Best-selling author John Eckhardt provides encouragement for those who operate in their prophetic gift, to endure and continue to be a mouthpiece for the kingdom of God.