Government Work

You care what's happening in the world - but you can't help feeling you missed the part where the key stuff got explained. What's a budget deficit? How does voting actually work? What's the deal with the UN? And what does net zero mean again? Thankfully, No Silly Questions is here to lay out the facts and principles behind the day's headlines. Zara Seidler and Sam Koslowski, creators of The Daily Aus - Australia's leading social-first news service - are like your super well-informed mates who you can rely on to quickly bring you up to speed.

Based on extensive research with organizations and companies that are boldly breaking out of business as usual, Beloved Economies offer listeners an imagination-expanding vision of what work could be. Authors Rimington and Cea explore possibilities for how we work, learning with more than sixty people from a wide array of enterprises. What these groups have in common is that they are generating forms of success that audaciously prioritize well-being, meaning, connection and resilience—alongside conventional metrics like quality and financial success.

Immer mehr junge Menschen wollen sich für politische, soziale und ökologische Ziele einsetzen. Raul Krauthausen und Benjamin Schwarz ermutigen durch Gespräche mit erfolgreichen Aktivist*innen und inspirieren zu eigenem Engagement. Lange galt Aktivismus eher als Synonym für krawalligen Protest denn als ernsthafte politische Arbeit. Indem Krauthausen und Schwarz den Begriff des konstruktiven Aktivismus in die Debatte einführen, schaffen sie ein neues Verständnis.

Many of us have never really considered how subtly and profoundly our sense of national spirit has colored our view of the world and of ourselves. The Psychology of Nations by GE Partridge shines a light on the philosophy of nationalism and uses this to delve deeply into its shaping of both psychology and sociology.

Our world is about to change. In Digital Destiny: How the New Age of Data Will Change the Way We Live, Work, and Communicate, Shawn DuBravac, chief economist and senior director of research at the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), argues that the groundswell of digital ownership unfolding in our lives signals the beginning of a new era for humanity.

The purpose for this narrative by the author is to add his voice and help ignite any smoldering rubble of broken dreams and disenchantment back to a blazing flame. It is Mwambazi’s opinion that Africa has everything it needs to become the economic engine of the entire world, and it can and will surpass both the West and the East should its citizens awaken to their true potential.

マグロ漁船から、大麻栽培、治験バイト、夜逃げ屋、偽造クリエイターまで、世の中のあらゆる「危ない」「裏のある」仕事に密着。大通りからは見えない裏路地の世界を、ちょっと覗いてみませんか? ※本商品は「裏のハローワーク」(彩図社刊 草下シンヤ著ISBN:978-4-88392-433-2 192頁1,260円(税込))をオーディオ化したものです。(C)2004.Shinya Kusaka

Doctors at War is a candid account of a trauma surgical team based, for a tour of duty, at a field hospital in Helmand, Afghanistan. Mark de Rond tells of the highs and lows of surgical life in hard-hitting detail, bringing to life a morally ambiguous world in which good people face impossible choices and in which routines designed to normalize experience have the unintended effect of highlighting war’s absurdity. With stories that are at once comical and tragic, de Rond captures the surreal experience of being a doctor at war.

From the hosts of New Hampshire Public Radio’s Civics 101 and New Yorker cartoonist Tom Toro comes A User's Guide to Democracy, a lively crash course in everything you should know about how the US government works.

Exploring the full sweep of federalism from the founding to today, Kettl focuses on pivotal moments when power has shifted between state and national governments - from the violent rebalancing of the Civil War, when the nation almost split in two, to the era of civil rights a century later, when there was apparent agreement that inequality was a threat to liberty and the federal government should set policies for states to enact. Despite this consensus, inequality between states has only deepened since that moment.

In Haven't You Heard?, Marie Le Conte looks at the role gossip, whispers and tittle-tattle play in all areas of politics - for the MPs and their advisers, the press who cover them and the civil servants in the middle of it all. From policy rows which aren't about policy at all and boozy nights with dramatic consequences, to people spinning their way to the top and dark secrets never seeing the light of day, Marie explores in great and entertaining detail the human side of the people running the country against a backdrop of political mayhem.

Dramatically narrated case histories from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's stellar career are interwoven with an account of her life - including her childhood, family, beliefs, many-faceted personality, education, marriage, children, legal and judicial career, and other achievements. The cases described, many involving young people, demonstrate her passionate concern for gender equality, fairness, and our constitutional rights.

Best known as a monumental achievement of the civil rights movement, the 1964 Civil Rights Act also revolutionized the lives of America's working women. Title VII of the law made it illegal to discriminate "because of sex". But that simple phrase didn't mean much until ordinary women began using the law to get justice on the job - and some took their fights all the way to the Supreme Court.

Foreign aid organizations collectively spend hundreds of billions of dollars annually, with mixed results. Part of the problem in these endeavors lies in their execution. Dan Honig argues that high-quality implementation of foreign aid programs often requires contextual information that cannot be seen by those in distant headquarters. Drawing on a novel database of over 14,000 discrete development projects, Honig concludes that aid agencies will often benefit from giving field agents the authority to use their own judgments to guide aid delivery.

One in three American workers is now a freelancer. This “gig economy” - one that provides neither the guarantee of steady hours nor benefits - emerged out of the digital era and has revolutionized the way we do business. High-profile tech start-ups such as Uber and Airbnb are constantly making headlines for the disruption they cause to the industries they overturn. But what are the effects of this disruption, from Wall Street down to Main Street? What challenges do employees and job seekers face at every level of professional experience?

Field research, the collection of information outside a lab or workplace setting, requires skills and knowledge not typically taught in the classroom. Fieldwork demands exploratory inquisitiveness, empathy to encourage interviewees to trust the researcher, and sufficient aptitude to work professionally and return home safely. The Field Researcher's Handbook provides a practical guide to planning and executing fieldwork and presenting the results.

Working class, blue-collar voters are staying home in droves instead of going to the polls to support Republicans. The reason? Despite their deeply conservative values, they don't think Republicans speak for them and their interests. In Blue Collar Conservatives, former presidential candidate Rick Santorum explains how we can reenergize the Republican base by showing these blue-collar Americans just how much Republican policies support their personal welfare and by making government the people's servant rather than the people's master.

Newt Gingrich, architect of the Contract with America, says it is time for citizens to demand results from our elected officials. In this revealing and exciting new book, he shows how America can achieve transformational change - from a government of bureaucratic failure to a government that can meet the challenges of the 21st century.

If the election of Barack Obama fills you with dread rather than elation, you're not alone - in fact, pull up a chair next to James Delingpole who has seen this all before and knows exactly where America is heading: into a morass of sprawling government that will slowly start suffocating our economy, our liberties, and our culture.

Who benefits from Universal Basic Income - and who pays for it? Learn everything you need to know about UBI in this short book!