Sociology History

Who is the richest person in the world, ever? Does where you were born affect how much money you'll earn over a lifetime? How would we know? Why, beyond the idle curiosity, do these questions even matter? In The Haves and the Have-Nots, Branko Milanovic, one of the world's leading experts on wealth, poverty, and the gap that separates them, explains these and other mysteries of how wealth is unevenly spread throughout our world, now and through time.

America’s unique prosperity is based on its creation of a middle class. In the 20th century, that middle class provided the workforce, the educated skills, and the demand that gave life to the world’s greatest consumer economy. It was innovative and dynamic; it eclipsed old imperial systems and colonial archetypes. It gave rise to a dream: that if you worked hard and followed the rules you would prosper in America, and your children would enjoy a better life than yours. Incredibly, however, for more than 30 years, government and big business in America have conspired to roll back the American dream....

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.

As one of America's most fabled communities - long a magnet for artists, celebrities, the very rich, and their respective hangers-on - the Hamptons have been a scene of constant collision among the established old guard, New Money, and the local families who farmed and fished the region for generations. In serving up three centuries of Hamptons history, Steven Gaines introduces a host of colorful characters including Jackson Pollock, Ron Perelman, Lauren Bacall, and the Bouvier Beales of Grey Gardens infamy.

Que outra história do Ocidente poderia ser construída se a rainha Njinga de Angola, a poeta escravizada Phillis Wheatley e o intelectual palestino Edward Said fossem vistos como figuras relevantes na história da civilização ocidental? Ao descentralizar o papel da Europa, a autora desafia essa versão já conhecida e desconstrói a história hegemônica do Ocidente, jogando luz em importantes personagens históricos que foram escanteados por todo este tempo.

In partnership with Texas Monthly, the following articles spotlighting true crime are now available in a bundle as an audio download: "The Cheerleader Murder Plot" features a woman who went to extreme, murderous lengths to ensure her daughter's spot on the cheerleading squad. "The Last Ride of Cowboy Bob" profiles the mysterious Peggy Jo Tallas who, disguised as a man, robbed banks and confounded police for years. Also featuring "A Kiss Before Dying", "The Talented Mr. Khater", and "Just Desserts".

Popular progressive radio host and New York Times best-selling author Thom Hartmann reveals how and why attempts to establish affordable universal healthcare in the United States have been thwarted and what we can do to finally make it a reality.

The Black River flows from Missouri into Arkansas, east of Branson and west of the Bootheel. It meanders where the foothills of the Ozarks begin to rise out of the Mississippi plain. The area was sparsely populated when E. R. Coleman was a young man. Like the population they served, businesses were modest, mostly small, and scattered. Arkansas was still the Bear State; slogans boasting that it was - or predicting that it would become - the "Land of Opportunity" were yet to be conceived.

What do you get when you mix courage, faith, humor, and a few spunky women? You get Overjoyed!, a brand new devotional by six impressible authors who know how to squeeze the maximum amount of gladness out of life.

City of Hope, City of Rage gives a fascinating account of three turbulent and transformative decades in the history of Miami. Marked by mass immigration, racially motivated uprisings, economic inequity, rising crime, and social change, Miami's history from 1968 to 1994 saw the city evolve rapidly from a predominantly white city and vacation spot into a global, Hispanic-majority metropolis with an international tourist base. And yet Miami remains highly segregated today.

In 2018, Joe Hammond, wrote a piece for the Guardian about the 33 birthday cards he was writing for his two sons. It was shared by thousands. In A Short History of Falling he tells the story behind that piece, about the experience of living with - and dying of - motor neurone disease (ALS). A Short History of Falling is not a lament. It is a deeply imaginative meditation on what it feels like to confront the fact that your family will persist through time without you.

Humankind has always wrestled with the existence of suffering. For two centuries, many American ministers, physicians, and scientists believed that an omnipotent and omniscient God created the world such that people might relieve suffering through ingenuity and learning. Others responded to the new worldview introduced by the scientific revolution as a threat to the divine order. In Imagining Progress, Kristin Johnson traces the history of Americans' evolving relationship with science and religion at "one of its most dramatic places"—the bedsides of dying children.

Ask children where food comes from, and they’ll probably answer: “the supermarket.” Ask most adults, and their replies may not be much different. Where our foods are raised and what happens to them between farm and supermarket shelf have become mysteries. How did we become so disconnected from the sources of our breads, beef, cheeses, cereal, apples, and countless other foods that nourish us every day?

From the New York Times reporter whose beat is culture and ideas comes a fascinating, revelatory, and timely social history of the concept of middle age. For the first time ever, the middle-aged make up the biggest, richest, and most influential segment of the country, yet the history of middle age has remained largely untold. This important and immensely listenable book finally fills the gap.

In the mid-1990s, residents of Anniston, Alabama, began a legal fight against the agrochemical company Monsanto over the dumping of PCBs in the city's historically African American and white working-class west side. Simultaneously, Anniston environmentalists sought to safely eliminate chemical weaponry that had been secretly stockpiled near the city during the Cold War. In this probing work, Ellen Griffith Spears offers a compelling narrative of Anniston's battles for environmental justice.

For the last two decades, Sidney Tarrow has explored "contentious politics" - disruptions of the settled political order caused by social movements. These disruptions range from strikes and street protests to riots and civil disobedience to revolution. In War, States, and Contention, Tarrow shows how such movements sometimes trigger, animate, and guide the course of war and how they sometimes rise during war and in war's wake to change regimes or even overthrow states.

This riveting biography of a Massachusetts slave boy who fought in the Revolutionary War illuminates race relations in the Northern colonies, early battles of the revolution, and the experiences of Black soldiers on both sides of the conflict.

Our investmeents are devastated, obesity is epidemic, blue-chip companies circle the drain, and popular medications turn out to be ineffective and even dangerous. What happened? Didn't we listen to the scientists, economists, and other experts who promised us that if we followed their advice all would be well?

From the 1830s onward, a succession of well-born Britons headed west to the great American wilderness to find adventure and fulfillment. They brought their dogs, sporting guns, valets, and all the attitudes and prejudices of their class. Prairie Fever explores why the West had such a strong romantic appeal for them at a time when their inherited wealth and passion for sport had no American equivalent.

The greatest wave of communal living in American history crested in the tumultuous 1960s era including the early 1970s. To the fascination and amusement of more decorous citizens, hundreds of thousands of mostly young dreamers set out to build a new culture apart from the established society. Widely believed by the larger public to be sinks of drug-ridden sexual immorality, the communes both intrigued and repelled the American people.