Book picks similar to
Owning the Sun: A People's History of Monopoly Medicine from Aspirin to COVID-19 Vaccines by Alexander Zaitchik
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science
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State Change: End Anxiety, Beat Burnout, and Ignite a New Baseline of Energy and Flow
Robin Berzin - 2022
Science shows that these issues are oftentimes intricately entwined with mood issues like depression, anxiety, stress, and persistent fatigue. In State Change, Dr. Berzin draws on cutting-edge research and her work with thousands of patients to tell the complete story of how our bodies drive our minds, mood, and energy levels. This builds on her work at her nationally renowned holistic health service Parsley Health, where Dr. Berzin and her team of over 100 highly trained medical providers focus on treating the whole patient, yielding extraordinary results for those dealing with gastrointestinal, hormone-related, autoimmune, and mental health conditions. This trailblazing book explores the new science of optimizing the body in ways that will help anyone attain a new baseline for energy, calm, and optimism. Dr. Berzin believes that treating common imbalances in the body is the only way to achieve what she calls a state change—a transformation to higher levels of mental focus, emotional stability, and flow. Leveraging Parsley’s unique patient data and successful proprietary protocols, State Change includes a 30-day program for resetting the body, mind, and mood. With easy-to-understand advice and detailed personalized assessments, State Change is the ultimate gateway to a positive mental state and peak physical health.
On Combat: The Psychology and Physiology of Deadly Conflict in War and in Peace
Dave Grossman - 2004
A brief, but insightful look at history shows the evolution of combat, the development of the physical and psychological leverage that enables humans to kill other humans, followed by an objective examination of domestic violence in America. The authors reveal the nature of the warrior, brave men and women who train their minds and bodies to go to that place from which others flee. After examining the incredible impact of a few true warriors in battle, On Combat presents new and exciting research as to how to train the mind to become inoculated to stress, fear and even pain.
The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness
Sarah Ramey - 2020
Worse, as they failed to cure her, they hinted that her devastating symptoms were psychological.The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness is a memoir with a mission, to help the millions of (mostly) women who suffer from unnamed or misunderstood conditions.Ramey's pursuit of a diagnosis and cure for her own mysterious illness is a medical mystery that she says reveals a new understanding of today's chronic illnesses as ecological in nature, driven by modern changes to the basic foundations of health, from the quality of our sleep, diet, and social connection to the state of our microbiomes.
Nobody's Normal: How Culture Created the Stigma of Mental Illness
Roy Richard Grinker - 2021
In Nobody’s Normal, anthropologist Roy Richard Grinker chronicles the progress and setbacks in the struggle against mental-illness stigma—from the eighteenth century, through America’s major wars, and into today’s high-tech economy.Grinker infuses the book with the personal history of his family’s four generations of involvement in psychiatry, including his grandfather’s analysis with Sigmund Freud, his own daughter’s experience with autism, and culminating in his research on neurodiversity. Drawing on cutting-edge science, historical archives, and cross-cultural research in Africa and Asia, Nobody’s Normal explains how we are transforming mental illness and offers a path to end the shadow of stigma. The preeminent historian of medicine, Sander Gilman, calls Nobody’s Normal “the most important work on stigma in more than half a century.”
The Good American: The Epic Life of Bob Gersony, the U.S. Government's Greatest Humanitarian
Robert D. Kaplan - 2021
. . With still greater challenges on the horizon, we will need to find and empower more people like Bob Gersony--both idealistic and pragmatic--who can help make the world a more secure place."--The Washington PostIn his long career as an acclaimed journalist covering the "hot" moments of the Cold War and its aftermath, bestselling author Robert D. Kaplan often found himself crossing paths with Bob Gersony, a consultant for the U.S. State Department whose quiet dedication and consequential work made a deep impression on Kaplan.Gersony, a high school dropout later awarded a Bronze Star for his service in Vietnam, conducted on-the-ground research for the U.S. government in virtually every war and natural-disaster zone in the world. In Thailand, Central and South America, Sudan, Chad, Mozambique, Rwanda, Gaza, Bosnia, North Korea, Iraq, and beyond, Gersony never flinched from entering dangerous areas that diplomats could not reach, sometimes risking his own life. Gersony's behind-the scenes fact-finding, which included interviews with hundreds of refugees and displaced persons from each war zone and natural-disaster area, often challenged the assumptions and received wisdom of the powers that be, on both the left and the right. In nearly every case, his advice and recommendations made American policy at once smarter and more humane--often dramatically so.In Gersony, Kaplan saw a powerful example of how American diplomacy should be conducted. In a work that exhibits Kaplan's signature talent for combining travel and geography with sharp political analysis, The Good American tells Gersony's powerful life story. Set during the State Department's golden age, this is a story about the loneliness, sweat, and tears and the genuine courage that characterized Gersony's work in far-flung places. It is also a celebration of ground-level reporting: a page-turning demonstration, by one of our finest geopolitical thinkers, of how getting an up-close, worm's-eye view of crises and applying sound reason can elicit world-changing results.
The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement
David Brooks - 2011
Now, with the intellectual curiosity and emotional wisdom that make his columns among the most read in the nation, Brooks turns to the building blocks of human flourishing in a multilayered, profoundly illuminating work grounded in everyday life.This is the story of how success happens. It is told through the lives of one composite American couple, Harold and Erica—how they grow, push forward, are pulled back, fail, and succeed. Distilling a vast array of information into these two vividly realized characters, Brooks illustrates a fundamental new understanding of human nature. A scientific revolution has occurred—we have learned more about the human brain in the last thirty years than we had in the previous three thousand. The unconscious mind, it turns out, is most of the mind—not a dark, vestigial place but a creative and enchanted one, where most of the brain’s work gets done. This is the realm of emotions, intuitions, biases, longings, genetic predispositions, personality traits, and social norms: the realm where character is formed and where our most important life decisions are made. The natural habitat of The Social Animal. Drawing on a wealth of current research from numerous disciplines, Brooks takes Harold and Erica from infancy to school; from the “odyssey years” that have come to define young adulthood to the high walls of poverty; from the nature of attachment, love, and commitment, to the nature of effective leadership. He reveals the deeply social aspect of our very minds and exposes the bias in modern culture that overemphasizes rationalism, individualism, and IQ. Along the way, he demolishes conventional definitions of success while looking toward a culture based on trust and humility.The Social Animal is a moving and nuanced intellectual adventure, a story of achievement and a defense of progress. Impossible to put down, it is an essential book for our time, one that will have broad social impact and will change the way we see ourselves and the world.
The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care
T.R. Reid - 2009
R. Reid shows how all the other industrialized democracies have achieved something the United States can’t seem to do: provide health care for everybody at a reasonable cost. In his global quest to find a possible prescription, Reid visits wealthy, free market, industrialized democracies like our own—including France, Germany, Japan, the U.K., and Canada—where he finds inspiration in example. Reid sees problems too: He finds poorly paid doctors in Japan, endless lines in Canada, mistreated patients in Britain, spartan facilities in France. In addition to long-established systems, Reid also studies countries that have carried out major health care reform. The first question facing these countries—and the United States, for that matter—is an ethical issue: Is health care a human right?The Healing of America lays bare the moral question at the heart of our troubled system, dissecting the misleading rhetoric surrounding the health care debate: Is health care a human right?
Sons of Cain: A History of Serial Killers from the Stone Age to the Present
Peter Vronsky - 2018
15,000 BC) to today. Delving further back into human history and deeper into the human psyche than Serial Killers--Vronsky's 2004 book, which has been called "the definitive history of the phenomenon of serial murder"--he focuses strictly on sexual serial killers: thrill killers who engage in murder, rape, torture, cannibalism and necrophilia, as opposed to for-profit serial killers, including hit men, or "political" serial killers, like terrorists or genocidal murderers.These sexual serial killers differ from all other serial killers in their motives and their foundations. They are uniquely human and--as popular culture has demonstrated--uniquely fascinating.
Apollo's Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live
Nicholas A. Christakis - 2020
Drawing on momentous (yet dimly remembered) historical epidemics, contemporary analyses, and cutting-edge research from a range of scientific disciplines, bestselling author, physician, sociologist, and public health expert Nicholas A. Christakis explores what it means to live in a time of plague—an experience that is paradoxically uncommon to the vast majority of humans who are alive, yet deeply fundamental to our species.Unleashing new divisions in our society as well as opportunities for cooperation, this 21st-century pandemic has upended our lives in ways that will test, but not vanquish, our already frayed collective culture. Featuring new, provocative arguments and vivid examples ranging across medicine, history, sociology, epidemiology, data science, and genetics, Apollo's Arrow envisions what happens when the great force of a deadly germ meets the enduring reality of our evolved social nature.
Living Fully: Dare to Step into Your Most Vibrant Life
Mallory Ervin - 2022
But despite her public accomplishments, Mallory is no stranger to battling unhealthy attachments to performance and success. Now, in her unforgettable debut book, Mallory invites readers to see how her surprising journey--from achievement and accolades to devastating, never-before-shared lows--guided her and led her to a deeply fulfilling life.In Living Fully, Mallory shares her personal story of overcoming the unhealthy and damaging patterns in her life and shows readers how to trade this for something completely new and more rewarding. What she discovered was there had always been a different life available to her, one that she had not yet seen. Now she encourages readers to resist a "just fine" existence and to step into a life they never dared to imagine before. Through inspiring stories and practical advice Mallory encourages readers to:- stop returning to a "just getting by" mentality- shift perspective so blessings don't become burdens- remember that life's curveballs don't have to knock you off your feet- identify your passions and get back to your truest self- slow down and enjoy the extraordinary in the everyday moments- quiet the voice of fear- get clear on the life you want"I wrote this to be your wake-up call, the thing that turns the lights on in your life and propels you to make real change, once and for all, " Mallory says. "I want you to wake up and stay awake."For anyone hungry for a richer life, or tired of coasting through life in a "cruise control" mindset, Living Fully is the ultimate invitation to embrace abundance and joy--and not look back!
The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels, and the Business of AIDS
Elizabeth Pisani - 2008
With swashbuckling wit and fierce honesty, she dishes on herself and her colleagues as they try to prod reluctant governments to fund HIV prevention for the people who need it most—drug injectors, gay men, sex workers, and johns.Pisani chats with flamboyant Indonesian transsexuals about their boob jobs and watches Chinese streetwalkers turn away clients because their SUVs aren't nice enough. With verve and clarity, she shows the general reader how her profession really works; how easy it is to draw wrong conclusions from "objective" data; and, shockingly, how much money is spent so very badly. "Exhibit A": the 45 billion taxpayer dollars the Bush administration is committing to international AIDS programs.
Foster the Family: Encouragement, Hope, and Practical Help for the Christian Foster Parent
Jamie C. Finn - 2022
Becoming a foster parent is messy, exhausting, and sometimes overwhelming. But you aren't alone. Foster the Family is written by a foster parent, for foster parents, and offers relatable stories as well as hope and direction from God's Word when you desperately need it. When it comes to the hectic life of a foster parent, Jamie Finn gets it. A mother who shares her home with as many as six biological, adoptive, and foster children at any one time, Jamie is no stranger to the court dates, appointments with therapists, and daily frustration that come with multiple children, each with unique stories and needs. But she's also experienced firsthand the joy and rewards. In Foster the Family, Finn offers practical tips for foster parents navigating a broken system. Sharing everything from moments at the dinner table to the unexpected return of a child's biological family member, Foster the Family offers honest, empathetic insights through the lens of the gospel, including: It's okay to feel confused, heartbroken, and joyful at the same timeScripture offers truth and comfort about families in any formNo two children, cases, or challenges are the sameThe foster care system is challenging, but not impossible Being a foster parent can be the hardest and best call of your life. But there is hope.
Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism
Anne Case - 2020
In the past two decades, deaths of despair from suicide, drug overdose, and alcoholism have risen dramatically, and now claim hundreds of thousands of American lives each year--and they're still rising. Anne Case and Angus Deaton, known for first sounding the alarm about deaths of despair, explain the overwhelming surge in these deaths and shed light on the social and economic forces that are making life harder for the working class. They demonstrate why, for those who used to prosper in America, capitalism is no longer delivering.Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism paints a troubling portrait of the American dream in decline. For the white working class, today's America has become a land of broken families and few prospects. As the college educated become healthier and wealthier, adults without a degree are literally dying from pain and despair. In this critically important book, Case and Deaton tie the crisis to the weakening position of labor, the growing power of corporations, and, above all, to a rapacious health-care sector that redistributes working-class wages into the pockets of the wealthy. Capitalism, which over two centuries lifted countless people out of poverty, is now destroying the lives of blue-collar America.This book charts a way forward, providing solutions that can rein in capitalism's excesses and make it work for everyone.
Rest and War: Rhythms of a Well-Fought Life (Paperback)
Ben Stuart - 2022
God made you for a reason, and The Battle and the Build will help you find your purpose and maximize your time, energy, and resources so you can best rise up to that reason.But this is not simply a book about having more discipline so you can live your dreams. The Battle and the Build is about pushing back the chaos and bringing about order to your life. It is about driving the evil dictator out of your heart and establishing the true King so you canovercome the deceptive strategies of sin aimed specifically at your weaknesses that bend your behaviors to broken ends,stop giving your heart to aimless affections and learn how to intentionally orient your life and loves around a God who cares for you,recognize that under your misdirected affections and motivations is a deep and good longing for God, anddiscover methods of overcoming personal shortcomings that do not rely on shame-based motivation.The writer of Hebrews declares we are called to “cast off all that hinders” and “run the race marked out for us.” We are called into the action! In our race we must both flee some things and pursue others. It’s not about being free of all struggles. Rather, we have been empowered to struggle well.
Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer's Twenty-Year Battle against DuPont
Robert Bilott - 2019
Goliath tale with a twist.” —The New York Times Book Review The story that inspired the major motion picture Dark Waters, starring Mark Ruffalo as Robert Bilott.In 1998, Rob Bilott began a legal battle against DuPont that would consume the next twenty years of his life, uncovering the worst case of environmental contamination in modern history and a corporate cover-up that put the health of hundreds of thousands of people at risk. Representing a single farmer who was convinced the creek on his property had been poisoned by runoff from a nearby DuPont landfill, Rob ultimately discovers the truth about PFAS—unregulated, toxic chemicals used in the manufacturing of Teflon and a host of other household goods. DuPont’s own scientists had issued internal warnings for years about the harmful effects of PFAS on human health, but the company continued to allow these chemicals to leach into public drinking water. Until Rob forced them to face the consequences. Exposure is an unforgettable legal drama about malice and manipulation, the failings of environmental regulation, and one lawyer’s quest to expose the truth about this previously unknown—and still unregulated—chemical that presents one of the greatest human health crises of the 21st century.