Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing.Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature–tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking–which demagogues are all too willing to exploit. Many commentators, committed to political, religious, or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation.With intellectual depth and literary flair, Enlightenment Now makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress.

    The shift toward automation is about to create a tsunami of unemployment. Not in the distant future—now. One recent estimate predicts 45 million American workers will lose their jobs within the next twelve years—jobs that won't be replaced. In a future marked by restlessness and chronic unemployment, what will happen to American society? In The War on Normal People, Andrew Yang paints a dire portrait of the American economy. Rapidly advancing technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics and automation software are making millions of Americans' livelihoods irrelevant. The consequences of these trends are already being felt across our communities in the form of political unrest, drug use, and other social ills. The future looks dire-but is it unavoidable? In The War on Normal People, Yang imagines a different future—one in which having a job is distinct from the capacity to prosper and seek fulfillment. At this vision's core is Universal Basic Income, the concept of providing all citizens with a guaranteed income-and one that is rapidly gaining popularity among forward-thinking politicians and economists. Yang proposes that UBI is an essential step toward a new, more durable kind of economy, one he calls "human capitalism."

    The professor is uniquely capable of arguing a position, while putting a premium on legal and ethical legitimacy, not its popularity. Bravo, Dershowitz!" – Chris Cuomo, anchor and reporter, CNN"This collection shows Alan Dershowitz at his best—passionate, fearless, and occasionally very wrong." – Jeffrey Toobin, bestselling author of The Nine, Too Close to Call, A Vast Conspiracy, and The Run of His Life. "Alan Dershowitz doesn’t twist the constitution to fit an agenda. He tells you what it REALLY means. That’s why he has always been my go-to guy on the law and the Constitution." – Greta Van Susteren, former anchor at CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC"This book will reinforce Alan Dershowitz’s well-earned reputation as a brilliant legal analyst who, although often swimming against the established current, is usually right. Dershowitz substitutes his trenchant legal analysis for the wishful thinking and self-aggrandizing moral superiority that is presented by many in the academy and media, as well as Trump’s political opponents. Dershowitz’s arguments should cause all rational citizens to take a deep breath and recognize, as Dershowitz demonstrates, that Trump may be many things, but, under current law and the known evidence, the President is not a criminal. His analysis seems flawless to me." – Harvey A. Silverglate, Criminal and civil liberties lawyer, author of Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the InnocentIn our current age of hyper-partisan politics, nearly everyone takes sides. This is especially true with regard to the Trump presidency. It has become difficult to have a reasonable discussion about the most controversial president in our recent history. For Trump zealots, their president has not only committed no crimes, he has done nothing wrong. For anti-Trump zealots, nothing Trump has done—even in foreign policy—is good. Everything he has done is wrong, and since it is wrong, it must necessarily be criminal. This deeply undemocratic fallacy—that political sins must be investigated and prosecuted as criminal—is an exceedingly dangerous trend.Hardening positions on both sides has been manifested by increasing demands to criminalize political differences. Both sides scream “lock ‘em up” instead of making substantive criticisms of opposing views.The real fear, as Alan Dershowitz argues, in this compelling collection, is that we have weakened our national commitment to civil liberties as the Left becomes ever more intolerant and the Right slips into authoritarian rhetoric. The vibrant center is weakening, with traditional liberalism and conservatism becoming further apart, not just in approach, but in their respect for Constitutional norms that have served us well for more than two centuries.While Donald Trump is not the only cause of this profound division, his election drew it to the surface and made it the dominant paradigm of political debate. Unless we as a nation begin to focus again on what unites us rather than on what divides us, America might not survive the next decade.

    He strongly believes that—contrary to conventional political wisdom regarding extreme partisanship—significant change can be accomplished by focusing on issues that most Americans, regardless of political labels, agree are important and need to be addressed. This book is about the emerging political re-alignment that is combining the Left and the Right against corporate tyranny. One of the most urgent issues of our time is the dominant corporate control of the United States economy and political process. Large segments from the progressive, conservative, and libertarian political camps find themselves aligned on a variety of issues, such as opposing the destruction of civil liberties, the draining corporate welfare state, the expansion of America's aggressive wars, and the growing intensity of Wall Street crimes. All of these issues can be traced back to the growing influence of corporate goliaths and their ability to combine forces with indentured government against the interests of the broader public.Nader urges Americans to fight back with unlikely allies. He draws on half a century of his own experience working at the grassroots and in Congress and tells of many surprising victories that have united progressive and conservative forces. As a participator and active observer of these budding alliances, he breaks new ground in showing how these coalitions can expand to achieve power on Capitol Hill, in the courts, and in the arena of public opinion. These examples provide a blueprint for how Americans on both sides of the aisle can fight against the corporate agenda, and reclaim their right to consume safe foods and drugs, breathe clean air, become fairly rewarded for their daily work, regain control of taxpayer assets, and obtain greater voice in the decisions that affect them.This book shows how corporatist strategies of divide-and-rule can be overcome through a united front, in order to enact long overdue changes in our country. Far from espousing “let’s meet half-way” type compromises, Nader argues that it is in the interest of citizens of different political labels to join in the struggle against the corporate state that is ruining the Republic, trampling our constitution, and pushing the American people into the ground.

    But here, at long last, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic William A. Henry III takes on, and debunks, some basic, fundamentally ingrained ideas: that everyone is pretty much alike (and should be); that self-fulfillment is more important than objective achievement; that everyone has something significant to contribute; that all cultures offer something equally worthwhile; that a truly just society would automatically produce equal success results across lines of race, class, and gender; and that the common man is almost always right. Henry makes clear, in a book full of vivid examples and unflinching opinions, that while these notions are seductively democratic they are also hopelessly wrong.

    In this brilliant study (his best-known and most controversial), he opposes the Marxist concept of dialectical materialism and its view that change takes place through "the struggle of opposites." Instead, he relates the rise of a capitalist economy to the Puritan determination to work out anxiety over salvation or damnation by performing good deeds — an effort that ultimately discouraged belief in predestination and encouraged capitalism. Weber's classic study has long been required reading in college and advanced high school social studies classrooms.

    With wisdom and clear, ringing prose, he tackles head-on some of the most difficult problems confronting us near the end of the twentieth century––problems we still face today. Berry elucidates connections between sexual brutality and economic brutality, and the role of art and free speech. He forcefully addresses America's unabashed pursuit of self-liberation, which he says is "still the strongest force now operating in our society." As individuals turn away from their community, they conform to a "rootless and placeless monoculture of commercial expectations and products," buying into the very economic system that is destroying the earth, our communities, and all they represent.

    Landes's acclaimed, best-selling exploration of one of the most contentious and hotly debated questions of our time: Why do some nations achieve economic success while others remain mired in poverty? The answer, as Landes definitively illustrates, is a complex interplay of cultural mores and historical circumstance. Rich with anecdotal evidence, piercing analysis, and a truly astonishing range of erudition, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations is a "picture of enormous sweep and brilliant insight" (Kenneth Arrow) as well as one of the most audaciously ambitious works of history in decades.For the paperback edition, Landes has written a new epilogue, in which he takes account of Asian financial crisises and the international tension between overconfidence and reality.

    This is the view of Ayn Rand, a view so radically opposed to prevailing attitudes that it constitutes a major philosophic revolution. In this series of essays, she presents her stand on the persecution of big business, the causes of war, the default of conservatism, and the evils of altruism. Here is a challenging new look at modern society by one of the most provocative intellectuals on the American scene.   This edition includes two articles by Ayn Rand that did not appear in the hardcover edition: “The Wreckage of the Consensus,” which presents the Objectivists’ views on Vietnam and the draft; and “Requiem for Man,” an answer to the Papal encyclical Progresso Populorum.

    He's the United Nations diplomat who double-parks his Mercedes on New York City streets at rush hour because the cops can't touch him--he has diplomatic immunity. He's the Chinese smuggler who dodges tariffs by magically transforming frozen chickens into frozen turkeys. The dictator, the warlord, the unscrupulous bureaucrat who bilks the developing world of billions in aid. The calculating crook who views stealing and murder as just another part of his business strategy. And, in the wrong set of circumstances, he might just be you.In Economic Gangsters, Raymond Fisman and Edward Miguel take readers into the secretive, chaotic, and brutal worlds inhabited by these lawless and violent thugs. Join these two sleuthing economists as they follow the foreign aid money trail into the grasping hands of corrupt governments and shady underworld characters. Spend time with ingenious black marketeers as they game the international system. Follow the steep rise and fall of stock prices of companies with unseemly connections to Indonesia's former dictator. See for yourself what rainfall has to do with witch killings in Tanzania--and more.Fisman and Miguel use economics to get inside the heads of these "gangsters," and propose solutions that can make a difference to the world's poor--including cash infusions to defuse violence in times of drought, and steering the World Bank away from aid programs most susceptible to corruption.Take an entertaining walk on the dark side of global economic development with Economic Gangsters.

    Social networks surrender their original missions to more immediately profitable data mining, while brokerage houses abandon value investing for algorithms that drain markets and our 401ks alike--all tactics driven by the need to stoke growth by any means necessary. Instead of taking this opportunity to reprogram our economy for sustainability, we have doubled down on growth as its core command. We have reached the limits of this approach. We must escape the growth trap, once and for all. Media scholar and technology author Douglas Rushkoff--one of today's most original and influential thinkers--argues for a new economic program that utilizes the unique distributive power of the internet while breaking free of the winner-take-all system the growth trap leaves in its wake. Drawing on sources both contemporary and historical, Rushkoff pioneers a new understanding of the old economic paradigm, from central currency to debt to corporations and labor.Most importantly, he offers a series of practical steps for businesses, consumers, investors, and policymakers to remake the economic operating system from the inside out--and prosper along the way. Instead of boycotting Wal-Mart or overtaxing the wealthy, we simply implement strategies that foster the creation of value by stakeholders other than just ourselves. From our currency to our labor to the corporation, every aspect of the economy can be reprogrammed with minimal disruption to create a more equitably distributed prosperity for all.Inspiring and challenging, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus provides a pragmatic, optimistic, and human-centered model for economic progress in the digital age.

    Humanity stands at a crossroads, and the only alternatives to the “American Trinity” of liberty, natural rights, and the melting-pot ideal of national unity are Islamic totalitarianism, European democratic socialism, capitalist dictatorship, or global chaos if we should fail.  America is Still the Best Hope, as this eminently sensible, profoundly inspiring volume so powerfully proves.

    Gould's brilliant, funny, engaging prose dissects the motivations behind those who would judge intelligence, and hence worth, by cranial size, convolutions, or score on extremely narrow tests. How did scientists decide that intelligence was unipolar and quantifiable? Why did the standard keep changing over time? Gould's answer is clear and simple: power maintains itself. European men of the 19th century, even before Darwin, saw themselves as the pinnacle of creation and sought to prove this assertion through hard measurement. When one measure was found to place members of some "inferior" group such as women or Southeast Asians over the supposedly rightful champions, it would be discarded and replaced with a new, more comfortable measure. The 20th-century obsession with numbers led to the institutionalization of IQ testing and subsequent assignment to work (and rewards) commensurate with the score, shown by Gould to be not simply misguided--for surely intelligence is multifactorial--but also regressive, creating a feedback loop rewarding the rich and powerful. The revised edition includes a scathing critique of Herrnstein and Murray's The Bell Curve, taking them to task for rehashing old arguments to exploit a new political wave of uncaring belt tightening. It might not make you any smarter, but The Mismeasure of Man will certainly make you think.--Rob LightnerThis edition is revised and expanded, with a new introduction

    Citing diverse examples from around the globe, Netanyahu demonstrates that domestic terrorist groups are usually no match for an advanced technological society which can successfully roll back terror without any significant curtailment of civil liberties. But Netanyahu sees an even more potent threat from the new international terrorism which is increasingly the product of Islamic militants, who draw their inspiration and directives from Iran and its growing cadre of satellite states. The spread of fundamentalist Islamic terrorism, coupled with the possibility that Iran will acquire nuclear weapons, poses a more frightening threat from an adversary less rational and therefore less controllable than was Soviet Communism. How democracies can defend themselves against this new threat concludes this provocative book.

    As Pluckrose and Lindsay warn, the unchecked proliferation of these anti-Enlightenment beliefs present a threat not only to liberal democracy but also to modernity itself. While acknowledging the need to challenge the complacency of those who think a just society has been fully achieved, Pluckrose and Lindsay break down how this often-radical activist scholarship does far more harm than good, not least to those marginalized communities it claims to champion. They also detail its alarmingly inconsistent and illiberal ethics. Only through a proper understanding of the evolution of these ideas, they conclude, can those who value science, reason, and consistently liberal ethics successfully challenge this harmful and authoritarian orthodoxy—in the academy, in culture, and beyond.