Sociology Theory

In her previous book, Stoned, Raden asked, “What makes a thing valuable?” In The Truth About Lies, she asks “What makes a thing real?” With cutting wit and a deft touch, Raden untangles the relationship of truth to lie, belief to faith, and deception to propaganda. The Truth About Lies will change everything you thought you knew about what you know, and whether you ever really know it.

Este é o resumo de Não-coisas. O livro gira em torno de coisas e não-coisas. Desenvolve tanto uma filosofia do smartphone quanto uma crítica da inteligência artificial a partir de uma nova perspectiva. Ao mesmo tempo, recupera a magia do sólido e do tangível e reflete sobre o silêncio que se perde no ruído da informação.

Boomers are narcissists. Millennials are spoiled. Gen Zers are lazy. We assume people born around the same time have basically the same values. It makes for good headlines, but is it true? Bobby Duffy has spent years studying generational distinctions. In this book, he argues that our generational identities are not fixed but fluid, reforming throughout our lives.

After five years of ground-breaking research, Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom share some unexpected answers, gripping stories, and a tapestry of unlikely connections. The Starfish and the Spider argues that organizations fall into two categories: traditional “spiders,” which have a rigid hierarchy and top-down leadership, and revolutionary “starfish,” which rely on the power of peer relationships. The Starfish and the Spider explores what happens when starfish take on spiders (such as the music industry vs. Napster, Kazaa, and the P2P services that followed).

Starting with the publication of their seminal bestseller, Future Shock, Alvin and Heidi Toffler have given millions of listeners new ways to think about personal life in today’s high-speed world with its constantly changing, seemingly random impacts on our businesses, governments, families and daily lives. Now, writing with the same rare grasp and clarity that made their earlier books classics, the Tofflers turn their attention to the revolution in wealth now sweeping the planet. And once again, they provide a penetrating, coherent way to make sense of the seemingly senseless.

Revolutionary Wealth is about how tomorrow's wealth will be created, and who will get it and how. But twenty-first-century wealth, according to the Tofflers, is not just about money, and cannot be understood in terms of industrial-age economics.

Identity Economics bridges a critical gap in the social sciences. It brings identity and norms to economics. People’s notions of what is proper, and what is forbidden, and for whom, are fundamental to how hard they work, and how they learn, spend, and save. Thus people’s identity—their conception of who they are, and of who they choose to be—may be the most important factor affecting their economic lives.

Drawing from the intriguing (and sometimes unbelievable) true stories of the lives of everyday Americans, historian Julie M. Fenster traces the history of the weakening of our national ethics through the practice of cheating. From marital infidelity to financial fraud; rigged sports competitions to corruption in politics and the American education system; nuclear weaponry to beauty pageants; hospitals, TV game shows, and charities; nothing and no one is exempt.

In What's Wrong With the World, G.K. Chesterton discusses big business, education, government, feminism, and more. The work draws on thousands of essays Chesterton contributed to newspapers and periodicals over his lifetime. Eloquently opposing materialism, hypocrisy, and snobbery, Chesterton was a steadfast champion of family, faith, and the working man. The work includes a discussion of humankind and its nature, the power of spirituality and the consequences of increasing secularism in the modern world, and the role of education in shaping the young to fit into the society.

Eamonn McCann’s account of what it is like to grow up a Catholic in a Northern Irish ghetto - first published in 1974 - quickly became a classic account of the feelings generated by British rule. The author was at the center of events in Derry which first brought Northern Ireland to world attention. He witnessed the gradual transformation of the civil rights movement from a mild campaign for “British Democracy” to an all-out military assault on the British state. This book describes the people involved in the war and gives an account of the springs of the "Catholic" opposition.

Engine 40, Ladder 35 was one of the firehouses hardest hit in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the World Trade towers. On the morning of September 11, 2001, two rigs carrying 13 men set out from this firehouse, located on the West Side of Manhattan near Lincoln Center; 12 of the men would never return. The story of what happens when one small institution gets caught in an apocalyptic day, it is a book that will move readers as few others have in our time.

In Faking It, Lux Alptraum tackles the topic of seemingly dishonest women; investigating whether women actually lie, and what social situations might encourage deceptions both great and small. Using her experience as a sex educator and former CEO of Fleshbot (the foremost blog on sexuality), first-hand interviews with sexuality experts and everyday women, Alptraum raises important questions: Are lying women all that common - or is the idea of the dishonest woman a symptom of male paranoia? Are women trying to please men, or just avoid their anger?

In this paradigm-shattering book, biologist Mark W. Moffett draws on findings in psychology, sociology, and anthropology to explain the social adaptations that bind societies. He explores how the tension between identity and anonymity defines how societies develop, function, and fail. Surpassing Guns, Germs, and Steel and Sapiens, The Human Swarm reveals how mankind created sprawling civilizations of unrivaled complexity - and what it will take to sustain them.

Demography, literally the study of people, addresses the size, distribution, composition, and density of populations, and considers the impact the drivers which mediate these will have on both individual lives and the changing structure of human populations. This Very Short Introduction considers the way in which the global population has evolved over time and space. Sarah Harper discusses the theorists, theories, and methods involved in studying population trends and movements.

Over the centuries, two important beliefs arose in Europe: a faith that man could order his own destiny and that progress was normal. By 1900, doubts arose concerning traditional Western values. The continuing problems of the world's poor, environmental deterioration, the inequality of women, and continued warfare pose real questions about the advancement of the human race.

In the months and weeks before the fateful November 22nd, 1963, Dallas was brewing with political passions, a city crammed with larger-than-life characters dead-set against the Kennedy presidency. These included rabid warriors like defrocked military general Edwin A. Walker; the world's richest oil baron, H. L. Hunt; the leader of the largest Baptist congregation in the world, W.A. Criswell; and the media mogul Ted Dealey, who raucously confronted JFK and whose family name adorns the plaza where the president was murdered.

Powerful institutions, from schools to tech and social media companies, create breeding grounds for isolation by failing to invest in relational work. This obstacle stands in the way of our fight for racial equity, economic justice, and climate resilience. In Relationality, asexuality and relationship activist David Jay brings clarity to the crisis with a fresh perspective that expands upon the fundamental idea that all entities in the universe are connected. Jay draws from a range of personal experiences, including his time spent helping tech workers and policymakers reform social media.

As heard in a 2018 episode of The Hidden Brain, the tall poppy syndrome is a human condition that has been present in every society from the beginning of time. It explains why we seek out equality and justify our actions by cutting others down. With over 600 citations, The Tall Poppy Syndrome: The Joy of Cutting Others Down is the most comprehensive audiobook on the subject. Doug Garland has been studying the phenomenon for over 10 years after he experienced it firsthand in his own career.

Status was once easy to identify—fast cars, fancy shoes, sprawling estates, elite brands. But in place of Louboutin’s and Lamborghinis, the relevance of the rich, famous, and gauche is waning and a riveting revolution is underfoot. Chuck Thompson—dubbed “savagely funny” by The New York Times and “wickedly entertaining” by the San Francisco Chronicle—sets out to determine what “status” means today and learns that what was once considered the low life has become the high life.

In The Other Side of the River, his eagerly awaited new book, Kotlowitz takes us to southern Michigan. Here, separated by the St. Joseph River, are two towns, St. Joseph and Benton Harbor. Geographically close, they are worlds apart, a living metaphor for America's racial divisions: St. Joseph is a prosperous lakeshore community and 95 percent white, while Benton Harbor is impoverished and 92 percent black. When the body of a black teenaged boy from Benton Harbor is found in the river, unhealed wounds and suspicions between the two towns' populations surface as well.