Social Research

With each passing day the potential reach of a single false news story — and its ability to negatively impact all of us — grows in both size and scope. Although politicians, activists, and ordinary citizens regularly complain about deceptive or biased news reports, they tend to define fake news as anything with which they happen to disagree, thus compounding the problem even further.

Our preferences and opinions are constantly being shaped by countless forces–especially in the digital age with its nonstop procession of “thumbs up” and “likes” and “stars.” Tom Vanderbilt, bestselling author of Traffic, explains why we like the things we like, why we hate the things we hate, and what all this tell us about ourselves.

Ben Judah is an acclaimed foreign correspondent, but here he turns his reporter's gaze on home, immersing himself in the hidden world of London's immigrants to reveal the city in the eyes of its beggars, bankers, coppers, gangsters, carers and witch-doctors. From the backrooms of its mosques, Tube tunnels and nightclubs to the frontlines of its streets, Judah has supped with oligarchs and spent nights sleeping rough, worked on building sites and talked business with prostitutes; he's heard stories of heartbreaking failure, but also witnessed extraordinary acts of compassion.

We live in an era of tribalism, polarization, and intense social division - separating people along lines of religion, political conviction, race, ethnicity, and sometimes gender. How did this happen? In Conformity, Cass R. Sunstein argues that the key to making sense of living in this fractured world lies in understanding the idea of conformity - what it is and how it works - as well as the countervailing force of dissent.

From Derek Hunter - one of the most entertaining political writers today - comes an insightful, alarming look at how progressives have took over academia, pop culture, and journalism in order to declare everything liberal great, and everything great, liberal. Progressives love to attack conservatives as anti-science, wallowing in fake news, and culturally backwards. But who are the real denialists here? There are three institutions in American life run by gatekeepers that have stopped letting in anyone who questions their liberal script: academia, journalism, and pop culture.

By one expert's prediction, within 20 years half of Americans will have body implants that tell retailers how they feel about specific products as they browse their local stores. The notion may be outlandish, but it reflects executives' drive to understand shoppers in the aisles with the same obsessive detail that they track us online. In fact, a hidden surveillance revolution is already taking place inside brick-and-mortar stores, where Americans still do most of their buying.

Spanning 15 years of work, Everywhere I Look is an audiobook full of unexpected moments, sudden shafts of light, piercing intuition, flashes of anger and incidental humour. It takes us from backstage at the ballet to the trial of a woman for the murder of her newborn baby. It moves effortlessly from the significance of moving house to the pleasure of rereading Pride and Prejudice.

Plastic surgery has become the answer for many Americans, and in American Plastic sociologist Laurie Essig explores how we arrived at this particular solution. Over the last decade there has been a 465 percent increase in cosmetic work, and we now spend over $12 billion annually on procedures like liposuction, face-lifts, tummy tucks, and boob jobs.

Robert P. Jones, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), challenges us to grasp the profound political and cultural consequences of a new reality - that America is no longer a majority white Christian nation.

Grant McCracken, an anthropologist who now trains some of the world's biggest companies and consulting firms, argues that the CCO would keep a finger on the pulse of contemporary cultural trends, from sneakers to slow food to preppies, while developing a systematic understanding of the deep waves of culture in America and the world. The CCOs professionalism would allow the corporation to see coming changes, even when they only exist as the weakest of signals.

In this widely acclaimed memoir ("Riveting, moving...a wonderful book" The New York Times Book Review), Katharine Graham tells her story—one that is extraordinary both for the events it encompasses and for the courage, candor, and dignity of its telling.

Writers are witnesses and scribes to society’s conscience but writing about social issues in the twenty-first century requires a new, sharper toolkit. Craft and Conscience helps writers weave together their narrative craft, analytical and research skills, and their conscience to create prose which makes us feel the individual and collective impact of crucial issues of our time. Kavita Das guides writers to take on nuanced perspectives and embrace intentionality through a social justice lens.

Exploring the initial stages of psychedelic study in Europe and America, Thomas Hatsis offers a full history of the psychedelic-fueled revolution in healing and consciousness expansion that blossomed in the 1950s - the first “golden age” of psychedelic research. Revealing LSD as a “wonder child” rather than Albert Hofmann’s infamous “problem child”, the author focuses on the extensive studies with LSD that took place in the ’50s.

Surprising, charming, upsetting, enlightening, and ultimately hopeful - driven by the insight and humor of Salzman’s voice and by the intelligence, candor, and strength of his students, whose writing appears throughout the book - True Notebooks is itself a reward of the self-expression Mark Salzman teaches: a revelatory meditation on the process, power, and meaning of writing.

This audiobook contains three selected essays from around 1918 that focus on the ethical issues of newspaper journalism. It provides a fascinating glimpse into ethical issues that still confront us a century later.

A pause-resisting, existential romp through the life and times of the world’s most polarizing punctuation mark. Through her rollicking biography of the semicolon, Watson writes a guide to grammar that explains why we don’t need guides at all and refocuses our attention on the deepest, most primary value of language: true communication.

As a Ziegfeld Follies girl and film actress, Justine Johnstone (1895-1982) was celebrated as "the most beautiful woman in the world." Her career took an unexpected turn when she abruptly retired from acting at 31. For the remainder of her life, she dedicated herself to medical research and social activism. The first full-length biography of Johnstone chronicles her extraordinary success in two male-dominated fields - show business and medical science - and follows her remarkable journey into a fascinating and fulfilling life.

This title is laser-focused on making you sound smarter and becoming more respected by using a larger, more sophisticated vocabulary. Simply has systematically excluded words here that did meet this goal - words that are perfectly good in some contexts, but will not make you sound smarter. Included words sound appropriate in conversation, work seamlessly, and will not be interpreted as "show off" words.

It’s a new era of business and consumerism - and you play a role in defining it.

Today’s biggest trends - the mobile web, social media, real time - have produced a new consumer landscape. The End of Business As Usual explores this complex information revolution, how it has changed the future of business, media, and culture, and what you can do about it. This is the end of business as usual and the beginning of a new era of relevance.

Whistlestop tells the human story of nervous gambits hatched in first-floor hotel rooms, failures of will before the microphone, and the cross-country crack-ups of long-planned stratagems. At the bar at the end of a campaign day, these are the stories reporters rehash for themselves and embellish for newcomers. In addition to the familiar tales, Whistlestop also remembers the forgotten stories about the bruising and reckless campaigns of the 19th century.