Social Society

Our world order is under pressure as never before. From new authoritarian regimes in the US, Turkey and Russia to the imminent breakup of the European Union and a social media awash with intolerance, things look set to fall apart just as abruptly as the Soviet Union did some 30 years ago. How did we get here, and what do we do now? In this searching new exploration of our crisis, Paul Mason argues that at its heart lies an attack on the idea of humanity itself.

Transcendentalism embodies the concept that people have a deeper and more profound understanding of the world around them than simply by what they can glimpse with their senses. In this collection of essays and poems, the works of three transcendentalist authors are shared, each with their own impressions and opinions supporting the movement.

Sages from Cicero to Oprah have told us that forgiveness requires us to let go of negative emotions and that it has a unique power to heal our wounds. In Failures of Forgiveness, Myisha Cherry argues that these beliefs couldn’t be more wrong—and that the ways we think about and use forgiveness, personally and as a society, can often do more harm than good. She presents a new and healthier understanding of forgiveness—one that will give us a better chance to recover from wrongdoing and move toward “radical repair.”

New York Times, Wired, Atlantic Monthly, Discover bestselling author Steven Kotler has written extensively about those pivotal moments when science fiction became science fact...and fundamentally reshaped the world. Now he gathers the best of his best, updated and expanded upon, to guide listeners on a mind-bending tour of the far frontier, and how these advances are radically transforming our lives.

Debord returns to the themes of his previous analysis and demonstrates how they were relevant in a period where the “integrated spectacle” was dominant. Refusing to be reconciled to the system, Debord slices through the obfuscation and mystification offered by journalists and pundits to show how aspects of reality as diverse as terrorism and the environment, the Mafia and the media, were caught up in the logic of the spectacular society. His final work conveys the revolutionary impulse at the heart of Situationism and later movements such as Occupy, Antifa, and Black Lives Matter.

Henry at Work invites listeners to rethink how we work today by exploring an aspect of Henry David Thoreau that has often been overlooked: Thoreau the worker. John Kaag and Jonathan van Belle overturn the popular misconception of Thoreau as a navel-gazing recluse who was scornful of work and other mundanities. In fact, Thoreau worked hard—surveying land, running his family's pencil-making business, writing, lecturing, and building his cabin at Walden Pond—and thought intensely about work in its many dimensions.

Surviving the Future is a story drawn from the fertile ground of the late David Fleming's extraordinary Lean Logic: A Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It. That hardback consists of 404 interlinked dictionary entries, inviting listeners to choose their own path through its radical vision. Recognizing that Lean Logic's sheer size and unusual structure can be daunting, Fleming's long-time collaborator Shaun Chamberlin has selected and edited one of these potential narratives to create Surviving the Future.

Unsupervised examines the fast-emerging technologies and tools that are already starting to completely revolutionize our world. Beyond that, the book takes an in-depth look at how we have arrived at this dizzying point in our history, who holds the reins of these formidable technologies, mostly without any supervision. It explains why we as business leaders, entrepreneurs, academics, educators, lawmakers, investors or users and all responsible citizens must act now to influence and help oversee the future of a technological world.

What do people in the United States and Europe think about the rich? There are several thousand books and articles on stereotypes and prejudices directed at women, people of various races or nationalities, and even the poor. In contrast, there has only been sporadic research into stereotypes about the rich, and no published comprehensive, scientific study on the topic—until now.

Women Unsilenced explores the impact of unthinkable violence committed against women and girls through multiple perspectives—women’s recall of life-threatening ordeals of torture, human trafficking, and organized crime, society’s failure to recognize and address such crimes, and close examinations of how justice, health, political, and social systems perpetuate revictimizing trauma.

Pete Brown is a convivial guide on this journey through the intoxicating history of the working men’s clubs. From the movement’s founding by teetotaller social reformer the Reverend Henry Solly to the booze-soaked mid-century heyday, when more than seven million Brits were members, this warm-hearted and entertaining book reveals how and why the clubs became the cornerstone of Britain’s social life—offering much more than cheap Federation Bitter and chicken in a basket.

The digital age we live in is as transformative as the Industrial Revolution, and Joshua Cooper Ramo explains how to survive. If you find yourself longing for a disconnected world where information is not always at your fingertips, you may eventually be as useful as the carriage maker post-Henry Ford. It's practically impossible to know where the marriage of imagination and technology will take us (sorry, Betamax and Kodak), and the only certainty is that in the networked world we will only become more intertwined.

Le texte qui suit fut rédigé en 1913, dans un contexte social et culturel marqué notamment par l'industrialisation de la France, l'émergence du modèle capitaliste en Occident et les changements profonds qu'implique le basculement d'un modèle de société vers un autre. Et c'est justement de la critique d'un système de représentation dont il est ici question, de la remise en cause d'une idéologie naissante qui place désormais l'argent au sommet des valeurs.

Kahlil Gibran's magnificent book, "The Prophet," stands as a cherished classic in our literary heritage. Gibran's contemplative reflections are artfully organized into twenty-eight chapters, each delving into expansive themes such as love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, housing, clothes, buying and selling, crime and punishment, laws, freedom, reason and passion, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, talking, time, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, beauty, religion, and death.

The French thinker and political theorist Georges Sorel (1847-1922), fired up by his interest in Marxism and his anger at the injustice of the Dreyfus case, faced this challenge and in the seven chapters of Reflections on Violence he explored the question. It proved sufficiently stimulating over succeeding decades to be espoused by both Marxists and Fascists alike: class struggle, revolution and above all radical change were central to Sorel’s thought.

From government to business, banks to media, trust in institutions is at an all-time low. But this isn't the age of distrust - far from it. Rachel Botsman reveals that we are at the tipping point of one of the biggest social transformations in human history. A new world order is emerging: We might have lost faith in institutions and leaders, but millions of people rent their homes to total strangers, exchange digital currencies, or find themselves trusting a bot. This is the age of "distributed trust", a paradigm shift driven by innovative technologies that are rewriting the rules....

What will it take to restore balance to our world, repair past injustices, and support future generations' survival? Looking deeply into the web of life that created and supports us, and drawing inspiration from diverse cultural traditions and perspectives, spirited thinkers Michael Pawlyn and Sarah Ichioka propose a bold set of regenerative principles with potential to transform how we design, make, and manage our buildings; infrastructure; and communities.

It’s time to breathe again, to be free from this feeling that keeps you hidden and afraid of every social encounter. Afraid of embarrassment, afraid of being laughed at, being misunderstood, not being cool or clever enough, too fat, too thin. You feel you look different, so you think you can’t fit in.

There may not be such a thing as a perfect city, but all great cities have moments of perfection - perfect streets or buildings, perfect places to raise a family or to relax with a coffee - and all of them strive for perfection when they undertake grand projects...Joe Berridge, one of the world's leading urban planners, takes us on an insider's tour of the world's largest and most diverse cities, from New York to London, Shanghai to Singapore, Toronto to Sydney, to examine what is working and not working, what is promising and what needs to be fixed in the contemporary megalopolis.

Humans versus Nature tells a history of the global environment from the Stone Age to the present, emphasizing the adversarial relationship between the human and natural worlds. Nature is cast as an active protagonist rather than a mere backdrop or victim of human malfeasance. Daniel R. Headrick shows how environmental changes - epidemics, climate shocks, and volcanic eruptions - have molded human societies and cultures, sometimes overwhelming them.