Social Systems

For the past 25 years, scientists have challenged conventional views of evolution and have developed revolutionary theories with profound implications. Fritjof Capra has been at the forefront of this revolution and now, in The Web of Life, he offers a brilliant synthesis of these exciting breakthroughs.

Weaving together cutting-edge social science with riveting stories that take us from the front lines of the Volkswagen scandal to backstage at the Oscars, and from deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico to the top of Mount Everest, Chris Clearfield and András Tilcsik explain how the increasing complexity of our systems creates conditions ripe for failure and why our brains and teams can't keep up. They highlight the paradox of progress: Though modern systems have given us new capabilities, they've become vulnerable to surprising meltdowns - and even to corruption and misconduct.

Tout commence par un mail d’alerte, en février 2022, quelques mois avant le drame qui a coûté la vie à une fillette dans une crèche à Lyon. Deux ans et demi d’investigations, 200 témoins, des lanceurs d’alerte qui risquent leur vie professionnelle, des documents explosifs démontant l’enfer du décor. Ce récit saisissant révèle les secrets de People&Baby, le "premier gestionnaire indépendant français de crèches". Un groupe qui pèserait un milliard d’euros. Mais un ogre peut en cacher bien d’autres. Un secteur qui fait bloc, des mairies complices, le sommet de l’État impliqué.

The Intersectional Environmentalist examines the inextricable link between environmentalism, racism, and privilege and promotes awareness of the fundamental truth that we cannot save the planet without uplifting the voices of its people. Written by Leah Thomas, a prominent voice in the field and the activist who coined the term intersectional environmentalism, this book is simultaneously a call to action, a guide to instigating change for all, and a pledge to work toward the empowerment of all people and the betterment of the planet.

If initiative overload and fragmentation are keeping your best plans from becoming reality, it’s time to lead with coherence. Using the right drivers as your foundation, you’ll bring people and ideas together—and implement the kind of lasting change that maximizes results. The key to success is the Coherence Framework, a dynamic, customizable road map.

Equality is easy to grasp in theory but often hard to achieve in reality. In this accessible and wide-ranging work, American University law professor Robert L. Tsai offers a stirring account of how legal ideas that aren't necessarily about equality at all - ensuring fair play, behaving reasonably, avoiding cruelty, and protecting free speech - have often been used to overcome resistance to justice and remain vital today.

The War on Cops exposes the truth about officer use of force and explodes the conceit of "mass incarceration". A rigorous analysis of data shows that crime, not race, drives police actions and prison rates. The growth of proactive policing in the 1990s, along with lengthened sentences for violent crime, saved thousands of minority lives. In fact, Mac Donald argues, no government agency is more dedicated to the proposition that "black lives matter" than today's data-driven, accountable police department.

Manage anxiety effectively with simple, practical, life-giving strategies to find equilibrium and focus on what you love.

As Reeves shows, the growing separation between the upper middle class and everyone else can be seen in family structure, neighborhoods, attitudes, and lifestyle. Those at the top of the income ladder are becoming more effective at passing on their status to their children, reducing overall social mobility. The result is not just an economic divide but a fracturing of American society along class lines. Upper-middle-class children become upper-middle-class adults.

Anywhere But Here is a powerful exposé of Britain’s broken asylum system and how it fails us all. Each year tens of thousands of people risk their lives to cross the Channel in small boats hoping to find safety in Britain. Yet the very system designed to protect them has all but collapsed. With unique and unparalleled access, award-winning journalist and former Home Office insider Nicola Kelly takes us behind the scenes of the small boats crisis for the first time.

Jeff Alt takes you along every step of his 2,160-mile Appalachian Trail adventure. This entertaining journey includes bears, bugs, blisters, captivating characters, skunk bedmates, and hilarious food cravings. Alt walked more than five million steps in tribute to his brother, who has cerebral palsy and lives in a home called Sunshine. This trail adventure has inspired an annual event that has raised more than $200,000 for Sunshine. It includes hiking tips for the whole family.

We have entered an age of disruption. Financial collapse, climate change, resource depletion, and a growing gap between rich and poor are but a few of the signs. Otto Scharmer and Katrin Kaufer ask, why do we collectively create results nobody wants? Meeting the challenges of this century requires updating our economic logic and operating system from an obsolete “ego-system” focused entirely on the well-being of oneself to an eco-system awareness that emphasizes the well-being of the whole.

Ian Millhiser, Vox's Supreme Court correspondent, tells the story of what the six very conservative Republicans Supreme Court justices are likely to do with their power. The Agenda exposes a radically altered Supreme Court whose powers extend far beyond transforming any individual right - its agenda is to shape the very nature of America's government, redefining who gets to have legal rights, who is beyond the reach of the law, and who chooses the people who make our laws.

From CSI to Forensic Files to the celebrated reputation of the FBI crime lab, forensic scientists have long been mythologized in American popular culture as infallible crime solvers. Juries put their faith in "expert witnesses", and innocent people have been executed as a result. Innocent people are still on death row today, condemned by junk science.

The first geofence warrant was issued in 2016. By 2021, Google was responding to 11,000 geofence warrant requests per year from officers wanting a list of cell phones at a crime scene at the time a crime was being committed. This new aspect of Fourth Amendment constitutional law is exciting and complex. If you are a law enforcement officer, prosecutor, criminal defense lawyer, judge, or citizen who cares about the constitutional right to privacy under the Fourth Amendment, you need to listen to this book.

America’s Bitter Pill is Steven Brill’s acclaimed book on how the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, was written, how it is being implemented, and, most important, how it is changing—and failing to change—the rampant abuses in the healthcare industry. It’s a fly-on-the-wall account of the titanic fight to pass a 961-page law aimed at fixing America’s largest, most dysfunctional industry. It’s a penetrating chronicle of how the profiteering that Brill first identified in his trailblazing Time magazine cover story continues, despite Obamacare.

"Awaken to Love" offers an integrated approach that unites diverse elements into a cohesive path towards restoring wholeness and presence. Drawing from IFS, Jungian psychology, psychosynthesis, and nonduality teachings, it introduces the "path of duonity"—a nested model that honors the distinct aspects of our being while recognizing their inseparability from the whole.

Here is a visionary analysis of how the politics of fear, secrecy, cronyism, and blind faith have combined with the public sphere's degradation to create an environment dangerously hostile to reason. Never has there been a worse time for us to lose the capacity to face the reality of our long-term challenges, from national security to the economy, from issues of health and social welfare to the environment. As The Assault on Reason explains, we have precious little time to waste.

Women don’t build wealth in the same way that men do - and it’s not because we shop too much. Younger generations are struggling to match the financial successes that generations before them experienced, and this is even more true for women, who continue to earn less for doing the same work as men. As a result of this wage gap, women have less to save, less to invest and, ultimately, accumulate less wealth over a lifetime.

On the Wrong Side provides the first comprehensive account of the inner workings of the secretive Title IX system. Drawing on a yearlong study of survivors, perpetrators, and the administrators who oversaw their cases, sociologist Nicole Bedera exposes the structures that predictably punish survivors who come forward in the service of protecting—or even rewarding—their perpetrators. She reveals that the system tasked with ending gender inequality on campus only intensifies it, upending survivors’ lives and threatening their degrees.