Book picks similar to
Uncertain Guardians: The News Media as a Political Institution by Bartholomew H. Sparrow
got-rid-of
grad-school
lek
nonf
Quantum Physics for Beginners: From Wave Theory to Quantum Computing. Understanding How Everything Works by a Simplified Explanation of Quantum Physics and Mechanics Principles
Carl J. Pratt - 2021
10 Rules for Achieving English Fluency: Learn how to successfully learn English as a foreign language
Anthony Kelleher - 2014
These are the same rules that all my top students used to become masters with the English language. Implement 1 of these rules, and your English will improve. Implement all 10, and you're sure to become an excellent English speaker.
"Dirty Northern Bastards!" And Other Tales from the Terraces: The Story of Britain's Football Chants
Tim Marshall - 2014
You can't fully understand one without the other; and if you haven't got a sense of humour it's not worth even trying."My name's Tim Marshall and it's been a week since my last match. I support a football club. That's not just five words; it' s a life sentence."Why do so many of us attend football grounds, rain or shine, week in week out, to bellow at our fellow countrymen?Because we love it.Football chants are the grassroots of the game, from the Premier League all the way down to the Conference and beyond. They're funny. And they're sharp. And in the UK they run very deep.In this witty and insightful account, Tim Marshall tells the story of British football through the songs and chants that give it meaning.This is a book about the fans, written for the fans, with all the flair and banter that bring the beautiful game to life. No other sport has a culture quite like it.Comes with a special weblink so you can hear the chants online at FanChants.com
Simpler: The Future of Government
Cass R. Sunstein - 2013
Sunstein, bestselling author and President Obama’s “Regulatory Czar,” helped to oversee a revolution in better government. He explains how and why—and what comes next.The future of government arrived four years ago. Government became simpler, it became smarter, and Cass Sunstein was at the center of it all. Drawing on state-of-the-art work in behavioral psychology and economics, Sunstein, as administrator of the powerful White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), quietly helped save the nation billions of dollars while preventing thousands of deaths and countless illnesses and accidents. All this was accomplished in part through the extraordinary power of nudges—low-cost, seemingly modest policies that preserve freedom of choice. In combination with smart, disciplined cost-benefit analysis, nudges are simplifying government and making it far more effective.Twenty-first century insights now inform simplified mortgage and student loan applications, the labeling of food and energy-efficient cars, financial reform, and health care reform. New principles—democratizing data, presenting individuals and businesses with the most salient information, ensuring that the better outcome is the automatic outcome—are transforming government. Countless regulations are being streamlined or eliminated. Transparent review of which rules are working, and which aren’t, is becoming the norm. Citing numerous examples from his years in the first term of the Obama Administration, and projecting forward into a data-driven future, Simpler provides a new understanding of how government can work.
Are We Rome?: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America
Cullen Murphy - 2007
Today we focus less on the Roman Republic than on the empire that took its place. Depending on who's doing the talking, the history of Rome serves as either a triumphal call to action or a dire warming of imminent collapse.The esteemed editor and author Cullen Murphy ventures past the pundits' rhetoric to draw nuanced lessons about how America might avoid Rome's demise. Working on a canvas that extends far beyond the issue of an overstretched military, Murphy reveals a wide array of similarities between the two empires: the blinkered, insular culture of our capitals; the debilitating effect of venality in public life; the paradoxical issue of borders; and the weakening of the body politic though various forms of privatization. He persuasively argues that we most resemble Rome in the burgeoning corruption of our government and in our arrogant ignorance of the world outside -- two things that are in our power to change.In lively, richly detailed historical stories based on the latest scholarship, the ancient world leaps to life and casts our own contemporary world in a provocative new light.
Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies
David Bentley Hart - 2009
David Bentley Hart provides a bold correction of the New Atheists’ misrepresentations of the Christian past, countering their polemics with a brilliant account of Christianity and its message of human charity as the most revolutionary movement in all of Western history.Hart outlines how Christianity transformed the ancient world in ways we may have forgotten: bringing liberation from fatalism, conferring great dignity on human beings, subverting the cruelest aspects of pagan society, and elevating charity above all virtues. He then argues that what we term the “Age of Reason” was in fact the beginning of the eclipse of reason’s authority as a cultural value. Hart closes the book in the present, delineating the ominous consequences of the decline of Christendom in a culture that is built upon its moral and spiritual values.
The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: An Enduring Debate
Scott D. Sagan - 2012
The new edition, An Enduring Debate, continues the important discussion of nuclear proliferation and the dangers of a nuclear-armed world. With new chapters on the questions surrounding a nuclear North Korea, Iran, and Iraq and the potential for a world free of nuclear weapons, this Third Edition will continue to generate a lively classroom experience.
So That Others May Live: Caroline Hebard & Her Search-And-Rescue Dogs
Hank Whittemore - 1995
Disaster team Canine Unit has been called "remarkable," "compelling," and "inspiring" by reviewers coast-to-coast. From the rubble of earthquakes in El Salvador to the tragic site of the Oklahoma City bombing, Caroline and her dogs convey an unforgettable lesson in teamwork and sheer bravery that is not to be missed. HC: Bantam.
Ethnicity, Inc.
John L. Comaroff - 2009
anthropologists John L. and Jean Comaroff analyze a new moment in the history of human identity: its rampant commodification. Through a wide-ranging exploration of the changing relationship between culture and the market, they address a pressing question: Wherein lies the future of ethnicity?Their account begins in South Africa, with the incorporation of an ethno-business in venture capital by a group of traditional African chiefs. But their horizons are global: Native American casinos; Scotland’s efforts to brand itself; a Zulu ethno-theme park named Shakaland; a world religion declared to be intellectual property; a chiefdom made into a global business by means of its platinum holdings; San “Bushmen” with patent rights potentially worth millions of dollars; nations acting as commercial enterprises; and the rapid growth of marketing firms that target specific ethnic populations are just some of the diverse examples that fall under the Comaroffs’ incisive scrutiny. These phenomena range from the disturbing through the intriguing to the absurd. Through them, the Comaroffs trace the contradictory effects of neoliberalism as it transforms identities and social being across the globe.Ethnicity, Inc. is a penetrating account of the ways in which ethnic populations are remaking themselves in the image of the corporation—while corporations coopt ethnic practices to open up new markets and regimes of consumption. Intellectually rigorous but leavened with wit, this is a powerful, highly original portrayal of a new world being born in a tectonic collision of culture, capitalism, and identity.
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Frederic P. Miller - 2010
It focuses on the tumultuous lives of two Afghan women and how their lives cross each other, spanning from the 1960s to 2003. The book was released on May 22, 2007, and received favorable prepublication reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Booklist, as well as reaching #2 on Amazon.com's bestseller list before its release. Time magazine's Lev Grossman placed it at number three in the Top 10 Fiction Books of 2007, and praised it as a "dense, rich, pressure-packed guide to enduring the unendurable." Jonathan Yardley said in the Washington Post "Book World": "Just in case you're wondering whether Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns is as good as The Kite Runner, here's the answer: No. It's better."
Them And Us: Politics, Greed And Inequality Why We Need A Fair Society
Will Hutton - 2010
Pub Date: 2010 Pages: 256 Publisher: Little own An incisive look at how our society has the fuller the into inequality and how to address this most crucial blight is on our times
Authentocrats: Culture, Politics and the New Seriousness
Joe Kennedy - 2018
So-called illiberal democracy and authoritarian populism are in the political ascendant; the shelves of our bookshops groan with the work of attention-grabbing thinkers insisting that permissiveness, multiculturalism and 'identity politics' have failed us and that we must now fall back on some notion of tradition. We have had our fun, and now it's time to get serious, to shore our fragments against the ruin of postmodernist meaninglessness. It's not only the usual, conservative suspects who have got on board with this argument. Authentocrats critiques the manner in which post-liberal ideas have been mobilised underhandedly by centrist politicians who, at least notionally, are hostile to the likes of Donald Trump and UKIP. It examines the forms this populism of the centre has taken in the United Kingdom and situates the moderate withdrawal from liberalism within a story which begins in the early 1990s. Blairism promised socially liberal politics as the pay-off for relinquishing commitments to public ownership and redistributive policies: many current centrists insist New Labour's error was not its capitulation to the market, but its unwillingness to heed the allegedly natural conservatism of England's provincial working classes. In this book, we see how this spurious concern for 'real people' is part of a broader turn within British culture by which the mainstream withdraws from the openness of the Nineties under the bad-faith supposition that there's nowhere to go but backwards. The self-anointing political realism which declares that the left can save itself only by becoming less liberal is matched culturally by an interest in time-worn traditional identities: the brute masculinity of Daniel Craig's James Bond, the allegedly 'progressive' patriotism of nature writing, a televisual obsession with the World Wars. Authentocrats charges liberals themselves with fuelling the post-liberal turn, and asks where the space might be found for an alternative.
It's a Jetsons World: Private Miracles and Public Crimes
Jeffrey Tucker - 2011
Meanwhile, the public sector is systematically wrecking the physical world in sneaky and petty ways that really do matter. Jeffrey Tucker, in this follow-up to his Bourbon for Breakfast, draws detailed attention to both. He points out that the products of digital capitalism are amazing, astounding, beyond belief-more outrageously advanced than anything the makers of the Jetsons could even imagine. With this tiny box in hand, we can do a real-time video chat with anyone on the planet and pay nothing more than my usual service fee. This means that anyone on the planet can do business with and be friends with any other person on the globe. The borders, the limits, the barriers-they are all being blasted away. The pace of change is mind-boggling. The world is being reinvented in our lifetimes, every day. Email has only been mainstream for 15 years or so, and young people now regard it as a dated form of communication used only for the most formal correspondence. Today young people are brief instant messaging through social media, but that's only for now, and who knows what next year will bring. Oddly, hardly anyone seems to care, and even fewer care about the institutional force that makes all this possible, which is the market economy. Instead, we just adjust to the new reality. We even hear of the grave problem of "miracle fatigue"-too much great stuff, too often. Truly, this new world seems to have arrived without much fanfare at all. And why? It has something to do with the nature of the human mind, Tucker argues, which does not and This book will inspire love for free markets - and loathing of government.
Eggs, Cookies, and Leeches: Memorable Writing from The
The New YorkerSasha Frere-Jones - 2005
The authors include such best sellers as Malcolm Gladwell, Seymour Hersh, and Jonathan Franzen - and the subjects range from the lives of short-order cooks to the secrets of college admissions.In all, there are nine stories:ANNALS OF TECHNOLOGY"The Bakeoff" by Malcolm Gladwell: Project Delta aims to create the perfect cookie. (Originally published Sept. 5, 2005)COMMENT"Mired" by Hendrik Hertzberg: Evolution vs. creationism vs. intelligent design. (Originally published Aug. 22, 2005)ANNALS OF MEDICINE"Bloodsuckers" by John Colapinto: Leeches are good for you after all. (Originally published July 25, 2005)BOOKS"A Cloud of Dust" by John Updike: A review of E. L. Doctorow's new novel, The March. (Originally published Sept. 12, 2005)THE TALK OF THE TOWN:"Watergate Days" by Seymour Hersh: The veteran investigative reporter writes about the revelation of the identity of "Deep Throat" and his own reporting experiences. (Originally published June 13 & 20, 2005)IN THE KITCHEN"The Egg Men" by Burkhard Bilger: What it takes to be a short-order cook in Las Vegas. (Originally published Sept. 5, 2005)A CRITIC AT LARGE"Getting In" by Malcolm Gladwell: The social logic of Ivy League admissions. (Originally published Oct. 10, 2005)ANNALS OF ADOLESCENCE"The Retreat" by Jonathan Franzen: Memories of a church youth group. (Originally published June 6, 2005)POP MUSIC"The Gift and the Curse" by Sasha Frere-Jones: The "vexing brilliance" of Jack White and the latest release by The White Stripes. (Originally published June 13 & 20, 2005)The articles in this collection were selected by Audible in cooperation with the editorial staff of The New Yorker. Narration by William Dufris, Todd Mundt, and Christine Marshall.(P) and ©2005 The New YorkerListening Length: 4 hours and 32 minutes
King James: Believe the Hype---The LeBron James Story
Ryan Jones - 2003
He was the undisputed finest high school player in America. He was the one NBA scouts drooled over, corporations dreamed of, event promoters begged for, and now fans clamor after. Never before had a high school basketball player been so highly touted or an eighteen-year-old athlete been the subject of such fascination. Maybe no basketball player in the world has had that level of attention.Now with the Cleveland Cavaliers, LeBron has become a certified NBA all-star. Love him or hate him, there is no denying that LeBron James is a force on the basketball court, and his rags to riches story is the stuff that dreams are made of.Ryan Jones has updated his smash hit book King James to incorporate everything that is LeBron: the controversy, the star power, the shoes, the cars, the hobnobbing with the world's most famous celebrities, and, of course, the game. This is a book for every fan of LeBron James and for anybody interested in reading about an NBA legend in the making.