Showing titles in Sociology

No metropolis has been more loved or more hated. To its official boosters, "Los Angeles brings it all together". To detractors, LA is a sunlit mortuary where "you can rot without feeling it". To Mike Davis, the author of this fiercely elegant and wide-ranging work of social history, Los Angeles is both utopia and dystopia, a place where the last Joshua trees are being plowed under to make room for model communities in the desert, where the rich have hired their own police to fend off street gangs, as well as armed Beirut militias.

It is an axiom of American life that advantage should be earned through ability and effort. Even as the country divides itself at every turn, the meritocratic ideal - that social and economic rewards should follow achievement rather than breeding - reigns supreme. Both Democrats and Republicans insistently repeat meritocratic notions. Meritocracy cuts to the heart of who we are. It sustains the American dream.

Noam Chomsky is widely regarded as the most influential thinker of our time, but never before has he devoted a major book to one topic: income inequality. Requiem for the American Dream is not an essay collection but an entire work of some 70,000 words, based on four years of interviews with Chomsky by the editors. It is a book that makes Chomsky's breadth and depth accessible and at the same time gives us his most powerful political ideas with unprecedented, breathtaking directness.

Renowned social psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson take a compelling look into how the brain is wired for self-justification. When we make mistakes, we must calm the cognitive dissonance that jars our feelings of self-worth. And so we create fictions that absolve us of responsibility, restoring our belief that we are smart, moral, and right - a belief that often keeps us on a course that is dumb, immoral, and wrong. Backed by years of research and delivered in energetic prose, Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) offers a fascinating explanation of self-deception.

The world-renowned philosopher and author of the best-selling Justice explores the central question of our time: What has become of the common good? World-renowned philosopher Michael J. Sandel argues that to overcome the crises that are upending our world, we must rethink the attitudes toward success and failure that have accompanied globalization and rising inequality. Sandel shows the hubris a meritocracy generates among the winners and the harsh judgment it imposes on those left behind, and traces the dire consequences across a wide swath of American life.

What happens when a man of today's overconnected world sets off alone across the Pacific at the age of 71? Christian Williams, a veteran sailor and writer, planned a 6,000-mile voyage as a test of his own seamanship and endurance, and to fulfill a lifelong goal. But he found his focus quickly turning from the surrounding sea to all of us. Is anyone the same person when no one else is there? Do we dare to find out?

There is a war being waged on the soul of America, but Phil Robertson believes there is hope. In this compilation of 100 days of readings taken from his best-selling books The Theft of America’s Soul and Jesus Politics, now with newly added prayers and Bible verses, he shows how Americans can turn away from the lies of the devil and embrace the life-giving, healing, and wholly transforming love of God, helping to bring the kingdom of heaven to our homes, neighborhoods, churches, communities, and country.

Seldom has the netherworld of the Mafia been revealed with such fascinating detail and sheer suspense. Featuring eccentric, larger-than-life New York characters and an undercover cop on the brink of being discovered - and murdered - at every step, Takedown is a riveting real-life procedural and one of the most important investigative books of its time.

Drawing on startling new evidence from the mapping of the genome, an explosive new account of the genetic basis of race and its role in the human story. Human evolution, the consensus view insists, ended in prehistory. Inconveniently, as Nicholas Wade argues in A Troublesome Inheritance, the consensus view cannot be right. And in fact, we know that populations have changed in the past few thousand years - to be lactose tolerant, for example, and to survive at high altitudes.

This book is about mutual aid: why it is so important, what it looks like, and how to do it. It provides a grassroots theory of mutual aid, describes how mutual aid is a crucial part of powerful movements for social justice, and offers concrete tools for organizing, such as how to work in groups, how to foster a collective decision-making process, how to prevent and address conflict, and how to deal with burnout.

Geoffrey West's research centres on a quest to find unifying principles and patterns connecting everything, from cells and ecosystems to cities, social networks and businesses. Scale addresses big, urgent questions about global sustainability, population explosion, urbanization, ageing, cancer, human life spans and the increasing pace of life but also encourages us to question the world around us.

Small Animals is a riveting examination of the ways our culture of competitive, anxious, and judgmental parenting has profoundly altered the experiences of parents and children. In her signature style - by turns funny, penetrating, and always illuminating - which has dazzled millions of fans and been called "striking" by the New York Times Book Review and "beautiful" by the National Book Critics Circle, Brooks offers a provocative, compelling portrait of parenthood in America and calls us to examine what we most value in our relationships with our children and one another.

Drawing from the history of social movements in the US, especially the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Poor People’s Campaign, Rev. Barber and the contributors to this volume speak to the most pressing issues of our time, including Black Lives Matter, the fight for a $15 minimum wage, the struggle to protect voting rights, the march for women’s rights, and the movement to overcome poverty and unite the dispossessed across all dividing lines.

En 2013, Edward Snowden, responsable de la mayor filtración de inteligencia en la historia, sacudió al mundo revelando que el gobierno estadounidense tenía la capacidad de leer cada correo electrónico, escuchar cada llamada y entrometerse en los rincones de la vida privada de todos y cada uno de los ciudadanos del mundo. En Vigilancia permanente, Snowden desgrana por primera vez por qué lo hizo, cómo ayudó a construir un sistema de vigilancia masivo y la crisis de conciencia que le llevó a destaparlo todo y poner en jaque al sistema.

Throughout history, humans have been driven by the quest for two cherished ideals: community and freedom. The two don’t coexist easily. We value individuality and self-reliance, yet are utterly dependent on community for our most basic needs. In this intricately crafted and thought-provoking book, Sebastian Junger examines the tension that lies at the heart of what it means to be human.

Coming home from the war in Iraq, US Army private Roy Scranton thought he'd left the world of strife behind. Then he watched as new calamities struck America, heralding a threat far more dangerous than ISIS or al-Qaeda: Hurricane Katrina, Superstorm Sandy, megadrought - the shock and awe of global warming. Our world is changing. Rising seas, spiking temperatures, and extreme weather imperil global infrastructure, crops, and water supplies. Conflict, famine, plagues, and riots menace from every quarter.

The Titanic has often been called "An exquisite microcosm of the Edwardian era", but until now, her story has not been presented as such. In Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage, historian Hugh Brewster seamlessly interweaves personal narratives of the lost liner's most fascinating people with a haunting account of the fateful maiden crossing. Employing scrupulous research, he accurately depicts the ship's brief life and tragic denouement and presents compelling, memorable portraits of her most notable passengers.

Aviva Chomsky dismantles 21 of the most widespread and pernicious myths and beliefs about immigrants and immigration in this incisive book. They Take Our Jobs! challenges the underlying assumptions that fuel misinformed claims about immigrants, radically altering our notions of citizenship, discrimination, and US history. With fresh material including a new introduction and revised timeline, this expanded edition is essential listening for anyone who wants to understand how these myths are used to promote aggressive anti-immigrant policies.

Tras "12 reglas para vivir", llega su esperada continuación, la obra que nos da el perfecto equilibrio entre orden y caos. En "12 reglas para vivir", obra de la que se han vendido más de cinco millones de ejemplares y que ha influido como ninguna otra en el ámbito intelectual y político del último lustro, Jordan Peterson ofrecía verdades eternas aplicadas a las ansiedades contemporáneas. Su mensaje provocador sobre el valor de la responsabilidad individual y el significado de nuestras acciones ha resonado con enorme fuerza arrastrando a miles de lectores a las librerías.

Today there are three million homeless people in the US and almost 20 million vacant homes. The most technologically advanced nation in the world has a life expectancy lower than that of Chile and Bahrain. And citizens of the wealthiest country on the planet continue to ingest toxic chemicals through their food, their vaccines, and even their water. America, Jim Marrs argues, has been seized by a culture of death. And who promulgates this culture? The globalist masters of the G.O.D. syndicate - guns, oil, and drugs.