Social Systems

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.

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.

Despite what major media sources say, violence against Native women is not an epidemic. An epidemic is biological and blameless. Violence against Native women is historical and political, bounded by oppression and colonial violence. This book, like all of Sarah Deer's work, is aimed at engaging the problem head-on - and ending it. The Beginning and End of Rape collects and expands the powerful writings in which Deer has advocated for cultural and legal reforms to protect Native women from endemic sexual violence and abuse.

Everyone agrees that education is the key to creating a more just and equal world, and that our schools are broken and failing. Proposed reforms variously target incompetent teachers, corrupt union practices, or outdated curricula, but no one acknowledges a scientifically-proven fact that we all understand intuitively: academic potential varies between individuals, and cannot be dramatically improved.

Many believe the child welfare system protects children from abuse. But as Torn Apart uncovers, this system is designed to punish Black families. Drawing on decades of research, legal scholar and sociologist Dorothy Roberts reveals that the child welfare system is better understood as a “family policing system” that collaborates with law enforcement and prisons to oppress Black communities. Child protection investigations ensnare a majority of Black children, putting their families under intense state surveillance and regulation.

The Introvert Dating Playbook is for introverts who want to learn how to open women effectively.

Much has been written about the challenges tech presents to equality and democracy. But we can either criticize big data and automation or steer it to do better. Lobel makes a compelling argument that while we cannot stop technological development, we can direct its course according to our most fundamental values. With provocative insights in every chapter, Lobel masterfully shows that digital technology frequently has a comparative advantage over humans.

Crimes and violations of the law require punishment, and our legal system is set up to punish, but what if the system was recalibrated to also weigh grounds for forgiveness? What if something like bankruptcy - a fresh start for debtors - were available to people convicted of crimes? Martha Minow explores the complicated intersection of the law, justice, and forgiveness, asking whether the law should encourage people to forgive, and when courts, public officials, and specific laws should forgive.

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.

Preet Bharara has spent much of his life examining our legal system, pushing to make it better, and prosecuting those looking to subvert it. Bharara believes in our system and knows it must be protected, but to do so, he argues, we must also acknowledge and allow for flaws both in our justice system and in human nature. Bharara uses the many illustrative anecdotes and case histories from his storied, formidable career - the successes as well as the failures - to shed light on the realities of the legal system and the consequences of taking action.

Alan Dershowitz, one of the foremost legal thinkers of our time, explores a series of questions raised by the most-watched criminal trial in American history. Through this brilliant, eye-opening account of the O.J. Simpson case, he exposes the realities of the criminal justice system of this country.

Here, Professor Dershowitz examines the issues and social forces -- media, money, gender, and race -- that shape the criminal justice system in America today.

Al Franken reveals the alarming story of how Bush (barely) beat Kerry with his campaign of "fear, smear, and queers", and then claimed a nonexistent mandate; Republicans decided that Terri Schiavo would make "a great political issue"; Conservatives sought to undermine Social Security by using a strategy borrowed from...Vladimir Lenin; and more.

If the confusion following the last presidential election is any indication, the average citizen knows precious little about the democratic system and the laws that affect their daily lives. The Everything American Government Book unravels the complexities of our democracy and provides listeners with the knowledge necessary to make the right decisions and take an active role in the management of their country. This thoroughly researched work is ideal for anyone brushing up on civics, as well as students of all ages.

China's strategic capabilities and doctrine have historically differed from the United States' and Russia's. China has continued to modernize and expand its arsenal despite its policy of no first use, while the United States and Russia have decreased deployed weapons stocks. This volume brings together an international group of distinguished scholars to provide a fresh assessment of China's strategic military capabilities, doctrines, and political perceptions in light of rapidly advancing technologies.

New York Times best-selling author Seth Siegel tells how contaminants got in our drinking water, what they’re doing to us, and what we must do to make our water safe.

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.

On a summer night in 1984, 19-year-old UC Berkeley sophomore Karen Thomas leaves her uniformed patrol job at the University of California Police Department and walks home alone in darkness. At the threshold of her apartment a man assaults her at knife point. After a soul chilling struggle she manages to escape and call 911. Police catch her assailant, she identifies him, and he is arrested. Fast forward 2014, 30 years after her assault. Why does the body remember what the mind tries so desperately to forget?

An incisive biography of the Supreme Court's enigmatic chief justice, taking us inside the momentous legal decisions of his tenure so far.

When we think of Constitutional law, we invariably think of the US Supreme Court and the federal court system. Yet much of our constitutional law is not made at the federal level. In 51 Imperfect Solutions, US Court of Appeals Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton argues that American Constitutional law should account for the role of the state courts and state constitutions, together with the federal courts and the federal Constitution, in protecting individual liberties.

Socrates' admonition that "the unexamined life is not worth living" still resonates with many people, and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Philosophy is a great introduction to that mental exercise. In this audiobook, listeners will find a fully comprehensive guide to the essential philosophers and their philosophies, both ancient and modern, from East to West. The content has been expanded to include the relationship of systems theory to philosophy today and includes explanations of the latest thinking in 20th- and 21st-century philosophical thought.