Social High

As a young man, Vince Ellison began his career in the belly of the beast—as a prison guard working in the worst cellblock imaginable. And it was to his dismay and sadness that he has seen that same evil later in life. This time, not in the faces of incarcerated criminals, but rather in the eyes of the leaders of the Democratic party. In this persuasive work, Vince marshals his own experience and couples it with a learned and original analysis to conclude that the leaders of America's "progressive" party aren't just wrong on their policy stances—they are deliberately destructive.

There are times when we've all felt that we haven't been treated as we deserve—that we've been misjudged, shortchanged, or given a raw deal. And, at one time or another, other people have probably felt that we've treated them just as unfairly. How to Do the Right Thing draws on the principles of ancient Stoicism as articulated by the Roman statesman and philosopher Seneca to help listeners better navigate one of the most important practical questions of daily life—how to do right by others.

The world is encountering multiple crises—climate, droughts, floods, energy, food, and pandemics, to name a few. We have a problem, this is the solution. Capitalism and Crises is about how capitalism can fix them—how it can solve not cause them. The reason why it has caused them is that we have misconceived the nature of our capitalist system. We have failed to understand the key institution at the heart of it—business—and as a result we have allowed it to cause as well as solve problems. This book describes why this has happened and what needs to change to address it.

A vast censorship regime has smothered America's digital marketplace of ideas, squelching free speech on vital policy issues. Its supporters regard its benefits as morally and politically beyond question. They contend it's carried out by private social media platforms, not governmental authorities. In Free Speech and Turbulent Freedom, Michael J. Glennon offers a timely and incisive response. The censors are short-sighted, he argues.

At the age of 60, Cory Taylor is dying of melanoma-related brain cancer. Her illness is no longer treatable: She now weighs less than her neighbor's retriever. As her body weakens, she describes the experience - the vulnerability and strength, the courage and humility, the anger and acceptance - of knowing she will soon die. Written in the space of a few weeks, in a tremendous creative surge, this powerful and beautiful memoir is a clear-eyed account of what dying teaches.

Rarely does a week go by without a well-known executive being indicted for engaging in a white-collar crime. Perplexed as to what drives successful, wealthy people to risk it all, Harvard Business School professor Eugene Soltes spent seven years in the company of the men behind the largest corporate crimes in history - from the financial fraudsters of Enron, to the embezzlers at Tyco, to the Ponzi schemers Bernie Madoff and Allen Stanford.

At the height of the Great Depression, Sam Babb, the charismatic basketball coach of tiny Oklahoma Presbyterian College, began dreaming. Like so many others, he wanted a reason to have hope. Traveling from farm to farm, he recruited talented, hardworking young women and offered them a chance at a better life: a free college education if they would come play for his basketball team, the Cardinals. Despite their fears of leaving home and the sacrifices faced by their families, the women followed Babb and his dream.

Where do you get your values and sensibilities from? If you grew up in a Western democracy, the answer is probably liberalism. Conservatives are right about one thing: liberalism is the ideology of our times, as omnipresent as religion once was. Yet, as Alexandre Lefebvre argues in Liberalism as a Way of Life, many of us are liberal without fully realizing it—or grasping what it means.

The police are constantly under scrutiny. They are criticized for failings, praised for successes, and hailed as heroes for their sacrifices. Starting from the premise that every society has norms and ways of dealing with transgressors, A Short History of Police and Policing traces the evolution of the multiple forms of "policing" that existed in the past. Professor Emsley explores the idea and reality of policing, and shows how an institution we now call "the police" came to be virtually universal in our modern world.

From the simple to the intricate and the audacious to the absurd, Adam Kucharski reveals the long and tangled history between betting and science and explains why gambling continues to generate insights into luck and decision making today. Covering exploits and ideas from across the globe, he meets the teams behind hedge funds that capitalize on inaccurate sports betting odds and explains how PhD-level pundits are using methods originally developed for the US nuclear program to predict sports results.

Rachel Herz uncovers the fascinating and surprising facts that affect food consumption. Why You Eat What You Eat mixes the social with the scientific to uncover how psychology, neurology, and physiology shape our relationship with food and how food alters the relationships we have with ourselves and with one another.

Metabolism, behavior, sleep, mood swings, the immune system, fighting, fleeing, puberty, and sex: these are just a few of the things our bodies control with hormones. Armed with a healthy dose of wit and curiosity, Randi Hutter Epstein takes us on a journey through the unusual history of these potent chemicals and their discovery, from the London laboratory where the concept of hormones was identified to a basement filled with jarred brains to a canine sex lab.

Psychologists and neuroscientists struggle with how best to interpret human motivation and decision making. The assumption is that below a mental "surface" of conscious awareness lies a deep and complex set of inner beliefs, values, and desires that govern our thoughts, ideas, and actions, and that to know this depth is to know ourselves. In this profoundly original book, behavioral scientist Nick Chater contends just the opposite: Rather than being the plaything of unconscious currents, the brain generates behaviors in the moment based entirely on our past experiences.

In this audio book you will discover a sure way to remove public speaking from your top 10 fears. This audiobook will guide you through delivering a successful public speech with the comfort that you have always wanted. Public speaking, a skill that could provide you a great advantage in today’s competitive world, is no longer a foreign and scary concept. This audiobook will teach you the pervasiveness of public speaking and how we incorporate it in our daily lives. Public speaking is an art that involves the delivery of a message in front of an audience.

Winnie Perry went through a lot when she was 11, from shifting friendships to her teenage sister's mood swings. But now that Winnie is 12, and one step closer to being a teenager herself, there is so much more to deal with. Will her new friendship with Dinah last? Can she handle the pressures of junior high? And, most important, will Winnie survive bra shopping (in public!) with Mom?

Using examples and analysis, Abramson gives an account of gaslighting and its immorality, and argues that such a discussion can help us understand other aspects of social life—from racism and sexism to the structure of interpersonal trust.

Many people believe that, at its core, biological sex is a fundamental, diverging force in our development. According to this familiar story, differences between the sexes are shaped by past evolutionary pressures - women are more cautious and parenting-focused, men seek status to attract more mates - re-created in each generation by sex hormones and male and female brains. This, in turn, is the basis of supposedly entrenched inequalities in our modern societies.

We're bombarded with information like never before. Some of it's true, some of it's spin, and some of it's flat-out fake news. And that's by design. Propaganda helps governments and corporations sell us products, lifestyles, and ideas. Sometimes the agenda is harmless, but other times it's destructive, and it's not always easy to spot the difference. Whether you want to be informed on the issues or debunk misinformation wherever you encounter it, How to Win the War on Truth is here to help.

What happens when democracy produces "bad" outcomes? Is democracy good because of its outcomes or despite them? This "democratic dilemma" is one of the most persistent, vexing problems for America abroad, particularly in the Middle East. When Islamist parties rise to power through free elections, the United States has too often been ambivalent or opposed, preferring instead pliable dictators. With this legacy of democratic disrespect in mind, and drawing on new interviews with top American officials, Shadi Hamid explores universal questions of morality, power, and hypocrisy.

From his hardscrabble NYC upbringing, through the NYPD ranks, to command of America's first ever joint task force on terrorism alongside the FBI, Kevin M. Hallinan lived a lot of history. From beat cop to detective, Hallinan maneuvered through some of America's most volatile decades and saw from the inside the tenuous gray line between law and order.