Social Analysis

Plato imagines a dinner party - a symposium - held in the Athens of the late fifth century BC. He invites seven important historical figures including the philosopher Socrates, the comic playwright Aristophanes, and the notorious military general Alcibiades. As entertainment, each guest gives a speech praising eros (human love or erotic desire). Plato then "collects" these seven speeches into Symposium.

In his 1997 work Guns, Germs, and Steel, American geography professor and environmental historian Jared Diamond looks to answer the question of why human history unfolded differently on different continents, and why power and wealth became distributed as they are.

What really happened when the world's two greatest superpowers went head to head during the Cold War? We Now Know is a major reappraisal of the struggle for political and ideological supremacy between the United States and the Soviet Union from 1945 to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

Published in 1990, The Anti-Politics Machine is American anthropologist James Ferguson's first book. It discusses international development projects: how they are conceived, researched, and put into practice. Importantly, it also looks at what these projects actually achieve. Ferguson is critical of the idea of development and argues that the process does not take enough account of the daily realities of the communities it is intended to benefit.

John Milton, author of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, calls for complete freedom of the press and speech and an end to any government censorship in 1644. Censorship is a perennial issue. In addition to insight into the English revolution, Milton has much to teach us today. Anyone interested government censorship should listen to this insightful text.

Edward Snowden’s Permanent Record is a testimony of a man for whom privacy is paramount, but who knows that exposing himself is necessary for the world to understand the importance of the information he revealed about the U.S. government. Snowden takes us through his life and decision to reveal the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance of American citizens and the tools the NSA used to collect every text, e-mail, phone call, and digital action made by citizens.

Published in 1974 in the journal Science, the article Judgment Under Uncertainty had a profound impact across the social sciences. Two relatively young Israeli psychologists were challenging the leading ideas about human thought. For decades, social scientists had used a mythical figure to describe how humans make decisions: homo economicus. Homo economicus was logical and conscientious.

Over the decades, the Mastery Learning method has seen a resurgence in terms of positive research. Such a method is needed to help address the student achievement gap. Many schools are improving or adequate on their own, but a methodology that ensures that students both master material and do so using their respective motivations and learning style can best address said achievement gaps.

Most awkward social situations arise because we’re all different, and many of us aren’t good at judging situations and picking up the telltale signs of discomfort. The good news is that you can discover ways to pick these up, improve your social skills, and drastically improve your professional and personal relationships.

The Discourse on the Method of Reason was the first true work of skepticism, a foundation of doubt which allowed a critical re-examination of all that was previously held to be true. Descartes literally revolutionized both philosophy and mathematics, and this discourse provides the means by which he approached the tangle of contemporary thought and laid the foundation of rational understanding.

Every human being is different - but not so different that you can’t puzzle out what makes them tick, if you know how to look. Science has drilled human personality down to a fine point, identifying the clear categories we each fall into and what drives and motivates each one of us. Using this as your basis, you will learn to read every person who crosses your path like an open book, giving you the advantage in every encounter.

This meticulously researched and thought-provoking book dives deep into the fascinating world of Carlson's ascent to prominence, providing a comprehensive analysis of his career trajectory and the circumstances surrounding his departure from Fox News.

In this audiobook, Carmen Simon explores how writers, artists, and business communicators can use memory to create content that is impossible to ignore. She asserts that people act on what they remember and that ventures become profitable when they learn to influence what their customers recall in the future. According to the author, people act in favor of a business when the business learns to influence their memory by using the right proportion of facts, distinctiveness, familiarity, emotion, sensory intensity, and other variables in its content.

The most essential thing in the world to any individual is to understand himself. The next is to understand the other fellow. From this book you are going to learn which of the five types you are and how to get the best out of it. The alimentive type, or The Enjoyer, is discussed in this volume as well as all key principles of human analysis. Read in English (unabridged).

This is a summary and analysis of the book by Rachel Maddow and not the original book. In Blowout, Rachel Maddow explains how the oil and gas industry is experiencing a Renaissance thanks to fracking and horizontal drilling. The book tells the history of oil and gas over the last decade, and shows how all these pieces are interconnected and are affecting our lives, right now. In fact, it is argued by the author that the geopolitical impact of the oil and gas industry activities is the key explanatory variable of the current global chaos and democratic downturn.

In his 1807 work Phenomenology of Spirit, G. W. F. Hegel introduced the world to his philosophical system. His most influential work - and the culmination of the German Idealist movement begun in the late 18th century as a response to the works of Immanuel Kant - the book remains one of the undisputed classics of Western thought.

With its convenient format, AudioLearn fits your busy lifestyle, enabling you to study anywhere, anytime. Best of all, you'll significantly increase learning and retention with AudioLearn's proven study format.

First published in Germany in 1980, British historian Ian Kershaw's The "Hitler Myth" is recognized as one of the most important books ever written about Adolf Hitler and the Nazi State. Kershaw wanted to focus on what he called the "history of everyday life", and so investigated the attitude of the German public to Hitler at the time, rather than looking at the dictator from the perspective of those in positions of power. He was intrigued to find out how someone like Hitler could have become such a powerful figure.

Why has gender inequality persisted for so long without revolutionary change? That's the central question Joan Wallach Scott poses in her 1998 collection of essays, Gender and the Politics of History. Scott notes that obvious economic, social, and class inequalities have produced large-scale social change, but uncovering the reality of gender inequality has not done the same.

In his 1986 book War Without Mercy, American historian John Dower examines Japanese-American relations during World War II and investigates links between popular culture, stereotypes, and extreme violence. He argues that it was the concept of racism - used equally by both sides - that underpinned the military conflict and led to a particularly brutal war in the Pacific and East Asia.