Showing titles in Sociology

Here is the Dick Gregory (1932 -2017) of the devastating wit and pointed humor known to millions. Here, too, is the impassioned social reformer, speaking out on such subjects as respect for law, order, and justice; violence and police brutality; the breakdown of Negro families; civil disobedience; and other vital issues.

In Radical Reparations, this conversation shifter, social justice pioneer, change agent, and inventor of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, which redefined the global conversation on racism and social justice, offers a unifying and unconventional framework for achieving holistic and comprehensive healing of African American communities.

In this illuminating story of her life and conversations, the host of public radio's Speaking of Faith describes her journey of spiritual exploration - a journey shared by countless others.

In 1994, Dr. John Gottman and his colleagues at the University of Washington made a startling announcement: Through scientific observation and mathematical analysis, they could predict, with more than 90-percent accuracy, whether a marriage would succeed or fail. The only thing they did not yet know was how to turn a failing marriage into a successful one, so Gottman teamed up with his clinical psychologist wife, Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman, to develop intervention methods.

Renowned psychologists describe the most useful insights from social psychology that can help make you "wise": wise about why people behave the way they do, and wise about how to use that knowledge in understanding and influencing the people in your life. When faced with a challenge, we often turn to those we trust for words of wisdom. Friends, relatives, and colleagues - someone with the best advice about how to boost sales, the most useful insights into raising children, or the sharpest take on an ongoing conflict.

When a conversation takes a turn into the sometimes uncomfortable and often contentious topics of race, religion, gender, sexuality, and politics, it can be difficult to know what to say or how to respond to someone you disagree with. Compassionate Conversations empowers us to transform these conversations into opportunities to bridge divides and mend relationships by providing the basic set of skills we need to be successful, including listening, reframing, and dealing with strong emotions.

Eres un animal. No te preocupes. ¡No tiene nada de malo reconocerlo! Por mucho que nos queramos resistir a aceptarlo, somos tan animales como el perro que se siente dueño de tu sillón o el gato que se duerme sobre el teclado de tu computadora. Sin embargo, algo nos distingue de todos ellos y nos convierte en, bueno, humanos. ¿Qué es eso que nos separa? Con letras certeras sobre la pérdida de la confianza en estos días, que nos condena a una vida tan hiperconectada como solitaria, Vico nos enseña que la amistad es importante, que compartir y sabernos parte de algo es vital.

We all think we know the South. Even those who have never lived there can rattle off a list of signifiers: the Civil War, Gone with the Wind, the Ku Klux Klan, plantations, football, Jim Crow, slavery. But the idiosyncrasies, dispositions, and habits of the region are stranger and more complex than much of the country tends to acknowledge. In South to America, Imani Perry shows that the meaning of American is inextricably linked with the South, and that our understanding of its history and culture is the key to understanding the nation as a whole.

Author Bakari Sellers expands on the issues he addressed in his New York Times bestseller My Vanishing Country, examining national politics and policies that deeply impact not only Black people in his home state of South Carolina but the lives of millions of African Americans in communities across the nation. Four years later, Sellers has an answer to the question he raised on CNN, offering much-needed prescriptions to help all Black American lives.

Taking America Back for God points to the phenomenon of "Christian nationalism," the belief that the United States is - and should be - a Christian nation. At its heart, Christian nationalism demands that we must preserve a particular kind of social order, an order in which everyone - Christians and non-Christians, native-born and immigrants, whites and minorities, men and women - recognizes their "proper" place in society.

From an early age, it is drilled into our heads: Restlessness, distraction, and ignorance are the enemies of success. We’re told that learning is all self-discipline, that we must confine ourselves to designated study areas, turn off the music, and maintain a strict ritual if we want to ace that test, memorize that presentation, or nail that piano recital. But what if almost everything we were told about learning is wrong?

While the North prevailed in the Civil War, ending slavery and giving the country a "new birth of freedom," Heather Cox Richardson argues in this provocative work that democracy's blood-soaked victory was ephemeral. The system that had sustained the defeated South moved westward and there established a foothold. It was a natural fit. Settlers from the East had for decades been pushing into the West, where the seizure of Mexican lands at the end of the Mexican-American War and treatment of Native Americans cemented racial hierarchies....

Mass incarceration has become a lucrative industry, and the criminal justice system is plagued with bias and unjust practices. And the church has unwittingly contributed to these problems. Dominique Gilliard explores the history and foundation of mass incarceration, examining Christianity's role in its evolution and expansion. He assesses our nation's ethic of meritocratic justice in light of Scripture and exposes the theologies that embolden mass incarceration.

How Real Estate Developers Think considers developers from three different perspectives. Brown profiles the careers of individual developers to illustrate the character of the entrepreneur; considers the roles played by innovation, design, marketing, and sales in the production of real estate; and examines the risks and rewards that motivate developers as people.

In this intimate biography of the Prince of Soul, David Ritz provides a candid look at a star and a friend. Ritz had been collaborating with Marvin Gaye on his story for several years before the singer's tragic death and had conducted a series of extraordinary interviews in which Gaye discussed his deepest secrets. What emerges is a full-scale portrait of a charming but tortured artist, a brilliant singer with a divided soul.

In July 1995, San Jose Mercury-News reporter Gary Webb found the Big One - the blockbuster story every journalist secretly dreams about - without even looking for it. A simple phone call concerning an unexceptional pending drug trial turned into a massive conspiracy involving the Nicaraguan Contra rebels, L.A. and Bay Area crack cocaine dealers, and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Not long after the Berlin Wall fell, three teenagers became friends in the East German town of Jena. It was a time of excitement, but also of economic crisis: some four million East Germans found themselves out of jobs. The friends began attending far-right rallies with people who called themselves National Socialists: Nazis. Like the Hitler-led Nazis before them, they blamed minorities for their ills. From 2000 to 2011, they embarked on the most horrific string of white nationalist killings since the Holocaust. Their target: immigrants.

Why can't we solve our problems anymore? Why do threats such as the Gulf oil spill, worldwide recession, terrorism, and global warming suddenly seem unstoppable? Are there limits to the kinds of problems humans can solve? Rebecca Costa confronts - and offers a solution to - these questions in her highly anticipated and game-changing book, The Watchman's Rattle.

National leader Stacey Abrams has written the guide to harnessing the strengths of being an outsider and succeeding anyway. Leadership is hard. Convincing others - and yourself - that you are capable of taking charge and achieving more requires insight and courage. Lead from the Outside is the handbook for outsiders, written with an eye toward the challenges that hinder women, people of color, the working class, members of the LGBTQ community, and millennials ready to make change.

In the wake of the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, Virginia's Prince Edward County refused to obey the law. Rather than desegregate, the county closed its public schools, locking and chaining the doors. The community's White leaders quickly established a private academy, commandeering supplies from the shuttered public schools to use in their all-White classrooms. Meanwhile, Black parents had few options: keep their kids at home, move across county lines, or send them to live with relatives in other states. For five years, the schools remained closed.