Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men


Michael S. Kimmel - 2008
    As he walks with us through dark territories, he points out the significant and reflects on its meaning.”—Mary Pipher, Ph.D., author of Reviving OpheliaThe passage from adolescence to adulthood was once clear. Today, growing up has become more complex and confusing, as young men drift casually through college and beyond—hanging out, partying, playing with tech toys, watching sports. But beneath the appearance of a simple extended boyhood, a more dangerous social world has developed, far away from the traditional signposts and cultural signals that once helped boys navigate their way to manhood—a territory Michael Kimmel has identified as "Guyland."In mapping the troubling social world where men are now made, Kimmel offers a view into the minds and times of America's sons, brothers, and boyfriends, and he works toward redefining what it means to be a man today—and tomorrow. Only by understanding this world and this life stage can we enable young men to chart their own paths, stay true to themselves, and emerge safely from Guyland as responsible and fully formed male adults.

Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010


Charles Murray - 2012
    In Coming Apart, Charles Murray explores the formation of American classes that are different in kind from anything we have ever known, focusing on whites as a way of driving home the fact that the trends he describes do not break along lines of race or ethnicity. Drawing on five decades of statistics and research, Coming Apart demonstrates that a new upper class and a new lower class have diverged so far in core behaviors and values that they barely recognize their underlying American kinship—divergence that has nothing to do with income inequality and that has grown during good economic times and bad. The top and bottom of white America increasingly live in different cultures, Murray argues, with the powerful upper class living in enclaves surrounded by their own kind, ignorant about life in mainstream America, and the lower class suffering from erosions of family and community life that strike at the heart of the pursuit of happiness. That divergence puts the success of the American project at risk. The evidence in Coming Apart is about white America. Its message is about all of America.

Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America


Chris Arnade - 2019
    Arnade's raw, deeply reported accounts cut through today's clickbait media headlines and indict the elitists who misunderstood poverty and addiction in America for decades.After abandoning his Wall Street career, Arnade decided to document poverty and addiction in the Bronx. He began interviewing, photographing, and becoming close friends with homeless addicts, and spent hours in drug dens and McDonald's. Then he started driving across America to see how the rest of the country compared. He found the same types of stories everywhere, across lines of race, ethnicity, religion, and geography.The people he got to know, from Alabama and California to Maine and Nevada, gave Arnade a new respect for the dignity and resilience of what he calls America's Back Row--those who lack the credentials and advantages of the so-called meritocratic upper class. The strivers in the Front Row, with their advanced degrees and upward mobility, see the Back Row's values as worthless. They scorn anyone who stays in a dying town or city as foolish, and mock anyone who clings to religion or tradition as naive.As Takeesha, a woman in the Bronx, told Arnade, she wants to be seen she sees herself: "a prostitute, a mother of six, and a child of God." This book is his attempt to help the rest of us truly see, hear, and respect millions of people who've been left behind.

Not in Our Genes: Biology, Ideology and Human Nature


Richard C. Lewontin - 1984
    Three eminent scientists analyze the scientific, social, and political roots of biological determinism.

Kinds of Minds: Towards an Understanding of Consciousness


Daniel C. Dennett - 1996
    Beginning with the macromolecules of DNA and RNA, the author shows how, step-by-step, animal life moved from the simple ability to respond to frequently recurring environmental conditions to much more powerful ways of beating the odds, ways of using patterns of past experience to predict the future in never-before-encountered situations. Whether talking about robots whose video-camera ”eyes” give us the powerful illusion that ”there is somebody in there” or asking us to consider whether spiders are just tiny robots mindlessly spinning their webs of elegant design, Dennett is a master at finding and posing questions sure to stimulate and even disturb.

The Continuum Concept: In Search of Happiness Lost


Jean Liedloff - 1975
    The experience demolished her Western preconceptions of how we should live and led her to a radically different view of what human nature really is. She offers a new understanding of how we have lost much of our natural well-being and shows us practical ways to regain it for our children and for ourselves.

Pink and White Tyranny: a Society Novel


Harriet Beecher Stowe - 1871
    This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's preservation reformatting program.

Escaping the Prison of the Intellect: A Journey from Here to Here


Deepak Chopra - 1994
    Here he offers compelling answers to the eternal questions of identity, origin, and meaning. Chopra’s thesis is that people rely on their senses to define their experience of reality — limiting their experience of the material world and making them prisoners, out of touch with realities that lie beyond the material. He explains that there is no difference between observer and observed; it is all one shared experience. Realizing this truth, says Chopra, frees people from their sensory-created prison to experience a more nurturing and fulfilling life. The author’s calm, uplifting voice gives these ideas heft and power, and his inclusion of relaxed guitar interludes let listeners pause to contemplate more deeply. Chopra expands the discussion by citing T. S. Eliot, Nietzsche, Rumi, Tagore, and Patanjali, as well as scientific experiments and spiritual texts.

The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and Other Stories


Jack London - 1994
    In his Introduction, James Dickey probes London’s strong personal and literary identification with the wolf-dog as symbol and totem. Andrew Sinclair, London’s official biographer and the volume’s editor, provides a brief account of London’s life a sailor, desperado, socialist, adventurer, and acclaimed author.

The Dog Nobody Loved


Jon Katz - 2013
    They change you, and you almost never see it coming." When writer Jon Katz met Maria Wulf, a quiet, sensitive artist he felt a connection with her immediately, but a formidable obstacle stood in the way: Maria's dog, Frieda. A rottweiler-shepherd mix who had been abandoned and living in the wild for several years, Frieda was ferociously protective. She roared and charged at almost anyone who came near. But to Maria, she was her sweet, loyal and devoted friend. Jon quickly realised that to win over Maria, he'd have to make friends with Frieda too. The Dog Nobody Loved is the heart-warming story of how one man and a dog discovered it's never too late to find love. Please note, The Dog Nobody Loved is the UK title for the book published in the US as The Second-Chance Dog.

Awaken Your Power Within: Let Go of Fear. Discover Your Infinite Potential. Become Your True Self.


Gerry Hussey - 2021
    

Cults in Our Midst: The Continuing Fight Against Their Hidden Menace


Margaret Thaler Singer - 1995
    In this newly revised edition of her definitive work on cults, Singer reveals what cults really are and how they work, focusing specifically on the coercive persuasion techniques of charismatic leaders seeking money and power. The book contains fascinating updates on Heaven's Gate, Falun Gong, Aum Shinrikyo, Hare Krishna, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, and the connection between cults and terrorism in Al Queda and the PLO.

The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man


David W. Maurer - 1940
    A professor of linguistics who specialized in underworld argot, Maurer won the trust of hundreds of swindlers, who let him in on not simply their language but their folkways and the astonishingly complex and elaborate schemes whereby unsuspecting marks, hooked by their own greed and dishonesty, were “taken off” – i.e. cheated—of thousands upon thousands of dollars. The Big Con is a treasure trove of American lingo (the write, the rag, the payoff, ropers, shills, the cold poke, the convincer, to put on the send) and indelible characters (Yellow Kid Weil, Barney the Patch, the Seldom Seen Kid, Limehouse Chappie, Larry the Lug). It served as the source for the Oscar-winning film The Sting.

The Psychology of Gender


Vicki S. Helgeson - 2004
    It reviews the research from multiple perspectives, but emphasizes the implications of social roles, status, and gender-related traits, particularly for relationships and health-areas that are central to students' lives and that have a great impact on their day-to-day functioning. The text is designed for upper-level undergraduate/graduate-level gender-focused courses in a variety of departments.

Women and Madness


Phyllis Chesler - 1972
    This definitive book was the first to address critical questions about women and mental health. Combining patient interviews with an analysis of women's roles in history, society, and myth Chesler concludes that there is a terrible double standard when it comes to women's psychology. In this new edition, she addresses head-on many of the most relevant issues to women and mental health today, including eating disorders, social acceptance of antidepressants, addictions, sexuality, postpartum depression, and more. Fully revised and updated, Women and Madness remains as important today as it was when first published in 1972.