Social Scientists

John Brockman, editor of This Will Make You Smarter, presents his latest thought-provoking audiobook, featuring insights from leading thinkers such as Steven Pinker, Lisa Randall, Matt Ridley, and Daniel C. Dennett. Drawing from the horizons of science, today's leading thinkers reveal the hidden threats nobody is talking about - and expose the false fears everyone else is distracted by. Encompassing neuroscience, economics, philosophy, physics, psychology, biology, and more - here are 150 ideas that will revolutionize your understanding of the world.

Every day, scientists conduct pioneering experiments with the potential to transform how we live. Yet it isn't every day you hear from the scientists themselves! Now, award-winning author Jim Al-Khalili and his team of top-notch experts explain how today's earthshaking discoveries will shape our world tomorrow - and beyond. Pull back the curtain on genomics, robotics, AI, the Internet of Things, synthetic biology, transhumanism, interstellar travel, colonization of the solar system, teleportation, and much more.

In March 1938, German soldiers crossed the border into Austria and Hitler absorbed the country into the Third Reich. Anticipating these events, many Jews had fled Austria, but the most famous Austrian Jew remained in Vienna, where he had lived since early childhood. Sigmund Freud was eighty-one years old, ill with cancer, and still unconvinced that his life was in danger.

Echoing an enduring message of rare vulnerability and uplifting positivity, On the Other Side of Terminal is a powerful book that shares author Allen Chankowsky’s inspiring and deeply authentic account of his 30-year relationship with cancer. Shattering all expectations, Allen bravely exposes the depths in which he struggled to overcome his rare form of stage-4 cancer. With a palpable sense of unmistakable urgency, his unique style skillfully illuminates the emotional strength it takes to manage the realities of living with a world-crushing diagnosis.

She only wanted to be a mother to her own children - FLDS Cult leader had other plans. Sarah was born in 1979 in the FLDS compound. At 18, Sarah entered into an arranged marriage to Richard S Allred who was the grandson and personal bodyguard to leader Rulon Jeffs, and later Warren Jeffs. Sarah was the first of five wives and was often used to set the example. Sarah's husband was given Warren's prized daughter as his third wife who became Warren's source to control Sarah's family. As the Leadership adjusted, her world turned upside down.

Uncovering the details of the experiments leads her to question the validity of that 65 percent statistic and the claims that it revealed something essential about human nature. Fleshed out with dramatic transcripts of the tests themselves, the book puts a human face on the unwitting people who faced the moral test of the shock machine and offers a gripping, unforgettable tale of one man’s ambition and an experiment that defined a generation.

In 1954, a group of boys attended a remote summer camp in Oklahoma. There they were split into two groups and encouraged to bully, harass and demonise each other. The results would make history as one of social psychology’s classic studies: the Robbers Cave experiment. Conducted at the height of the Cold War, the experiment officially had a happy ending: the boys reconciled, and psychologist Muzafer Sherif demonstrated that while hatred and violence are powerful forces, so, too, are cooperation and harmony.

Over the course of nearly half a century, five American presidents - three Democrats and two Republicans - have relied on the financial acumen, and the integrity, of Paul A. Volcker. During his tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, when he battled the Great Inflation of the 1970s, Volcker did nothing less than restore the reputation of an American financial system on the verge of collapse.

Once a kidnapped slave baby, George Washington Carver found freedom in learning everything he could about the world around him. Overcoming poverty and racism, George became a brilliant scientist and a gifted professor who dedicated his expertise to helping black farmers escape the devastating grip of poverty. George's scientific creativity knew no limits. His ingenious experimentation with peanuts and other plants helped rescue the failing Southern economy.

American Urbanist shares the life and wisdom of a man whose advocacy reshaped many of the places we know and love today—from New York's bustling Bryant Park to preserved forests and farmlands around the country.

In Democracy in Exile, Daniel Bessner shows how the experience of the Weimar Republic’s collapse and the rise of Nazism informed Hans Speier’s work as an American policymaker and institution builder. Bessner delves into Speier’s intellectual development, illuminating the ideological origins of the expert-centered approach to foreign policymaking and revealing the European roots of Cold War liberalism.

What is this strange mental world that seems so essential to being human? The conscious mind brings together sensations, perceptions, thoughts and memories to generate the seamless movie of a person's life. It makes us aware of the world around us and our own self. How all this emerges from a kilogram of brain cells is one of the greatest unanswered questions.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan created one of the dumbest talking points of all time: "I'm not a scientist, but..." Since then, politicians have repeatedly committed egregious transgressions against scientific knowledge prefaced by this seemingly innocuous phrase. Yet, as science journalist Dave Levitan reveals, that line is just the tip of the melting iceberg when it comes to rhetorical tools wielded to attack scientific findings that don't cooperate with political agendas.

Kids are naturally curious, but when it comes to school it seems like their minds are turned off. Why is it that they can remember the smallest details from their favorite television programs, yet miss the most obvious questions on their history test? Cognitive scientist Dan Willingham has focused his acclaimed research on the biological and cognitive basis of learning and has a deep understanding of the daily challenges faced by classroom teachers.

Sigmund Freud was a catalyst who signaled a seat change in how humanity came to understand the world and how it relates to the human mind. And if you have ever had a “Freudian slip”, you know full well that the concepts and theories of Mr. Freud are well ensconced in the modern lexicon. Many of us are familiar with his work, but his audiobook examines the man behind the work.

To Andy Rooney and the Greatest Generation, sex was only a rumor. But to an Indiana University zoology professor, wholesome American youth was in fact promiscuous and adulterous. Alfred Kinsey's bias-masquerading-as-research became accepted wisdom, thus tainting generations of Americans. Now, in a comprehensive and investigative fashion, Judith Reisman traces not only the effects of Kinsey's diabolical research, but describes those early, falsely accused generations in very different terms, because she lived through those times.

Few historians end up as historical actors in their own right, but Bernard Lewis has both witnessed and participated in some of the key events of the last century. When we think of the Middle East, we see it in terms that he defined and articulated.In this exceptional memoir he shares stories of his wartime service in London and Cairo, decrypting intercepts for MI6, with sometimes unexpected consequences. After the war, he was the first Western scholar ever invited into the Ottoman archives in Istanbul.

In this groundbreaking book, Aldon D. Morris’ ambition is truly monumental: to help rewrite the history of sociology and to acknowledge the primacy of W. E. B. Du Bois’ work in the founding of the discipline. Calling into question the prevailing narrative of how sociology developed, Morris, a major scholar of social movements, probes the way in which the history of the discipline has traditionally given credit to Robert E. Park at the University of Chicago, who worked with the conservative Black leader Booker T. Washington to render Du Bois invisible.

The year was 1989. Spiritual forces were at work, calling out to those who could hear. The damage to the world that humans inflicted had just passed a critical point; the Earth could no longer be healed physically. A spiritual calling was being shouted from deep within the earth for aid, and many people heard the call at this time. All over the world, contemporary humans turned to traditional indigenous people for help. Many began seeking to live a more balanced, spiritual life.

Perhaps no one but Kay Redfield Jamison---who combines the acute perceptions of a psychologist with writerly elegance and passion---could bring such a delicate touch to the subject of losing a spouse to cancer. In spare and at times strikingly lyrical prose, Jamison looks back at her relationship with her husband, Richard Wyatt, a renowned scientist who battled severe dyslexia to become one of the foremost experts on schizophrenia.