But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories. In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty analyzes a unique collection of data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns. His findings will transform debate and set the agenda for the next generation of thought about wealth and inequality.Piketty shows that modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have allowed us to avoid inequalities on the apocalyptic scale predicted by Karl Marx. But we have not modified the deep structures of capital and inequality as much as we thought in the optimistic decades following World War II. The main driver of inequality—the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth—today threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values. But economic trends are not acts of God. Political action has curbed dangerous inequalities in the past, Piketty says, and may do so again.

    With her brilliant bestsellers Sexual Pcrsonae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson and Sex, Art and American Culture she became America's first internationally recognized public thinker since the 1960s. Her new collection, Vamps and Tramps, is forthcoming in Penguin and covers subjects from pop to politics to pagan sexuality.

    The Lucifer Priciple is a revolutionary work that explores the intricate relationships among genetics, human behavior, and culture to put forth the thesis that “evil” is a by-product of nature’s strategies for creation and that it is woven into our most basic biological fabric.

    Any ambitious proposal, however, inevitably runs into the buzz saw of how to find the money to pay for it, rooted in myths about deficits that are hobbling us as a country.Kelton busts through the myths that prevent us from taking action: that the federal government should budget like a household, that deficits will harm the next generation, crowd out private investment, and undermine long-term growth, and that entitlements are propelling us toward a grave fiscal crisis.MMT, as Kelton shows, shifts the terrain from narrow budgetary questions to one of broader economic and social benefits. With its important new ways of understanding money, taxes, and the critical role of deficit spending, MMT redefines how to responsibly use our resources so that we can maximize our potential as a society. MMT gives us the power to imagine a new politics and a new economy and move from a narrative of scarcity to one of opportunity.

    Thing 4: The washing machine has changed the world more than the Internet. Thing 5: Assume the worst about people, and you get the worst. Thing 13: Making rich people richer doesn't make the rest of us richer.If you've wondered how we did not see the economic collapse coming, Ha-Joon Chang knows the answer: We didn't ask what they didn't tell us about capitalism. This is a lighthearted book with a serious purpose: to question the assumptions behind the dogma and sheer hype that the dominant school of neoliberal economists-the apostles of the freemarket-have spun since the Age of Reagan.Chang, the author of the international bestseller Bad Samaritans, is one of the world's most respected economists, a voice of sanity-and wit-in the tradition of John Kenneth Galbraith and Joseph Stiglitz. 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism equips readers with an understanding of how global capitalism works-and doesn't. In his final chapter, "How to Rebuild the World," Chang offers a vision of how we can shape capitalism to humane ends, instead of becoming slaves of the market.Ha-Joon Chang teaches in the Faculty of Economics at the University of Cambridge. His books include the bestselling Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism. His Kicking Away the Ladder received the 2003 Myrdal Prize, and, in 2005, Chang was awarded the Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought.

    Why do we mistrust people more in the UK than in Japan? Why do Americans have higher rates of teenage pregnancy than the French? What makes the Swedish thinner than the Greeks? The answer: inequality. This groundbreaking book, based on years of research, provides hard evidence to show how almost everything—-from life expectancy to depression levels, violence to illiteracy-—is affected not by how wealthy a society is, but how equal it is. Urgent, provocative and genuinely uplifting, The Spirit Level has been heralded as providing a new way of thinking about ourselves and our communities, and could change the way you see the world.

    In this new edition of a groundbreaking work -- one of the first to bring critical theory into dialogue with more traditional approaches to international relations -- David Campbell provides a fundamental reappraisal of American foreign policy, with a new epilogue to address current world affairs and the burgeoning focus on culture and identity in the study of international relations.Extending recent debates in international relations, Campbell shows how perceptions of danger and difference work to establish the identity of the United States. He demonstrates how foreign policy, far from being an expression of a given society, constitutes state identity through the interpretation of danger posed by others.

    The Essential Chomsky brings together selections from his most important writings since 1959-from his groundbreaking critique of B.F. Skinner to his bestselling works Hegermony or Survival and Failed States-concerning subjects ranging from critiques of corporate media and U.S. interventionism to intellectual freedom and the political economy of human rights. With a foreword by Anthony Arnove, The Essential Chomsky is an unprecedented, comprehensive overview of Chomsky's thought.

    . . leave it to a poet to tackle the unthinkable so wisely and so wittily."* A literary guide to life in the pre-apocalypse, The Unreality of Memory collects profound and prophetic essays on the Internet age’s media-saturated disaster coverage and our addiction to viewing and discussing the world’s ills.We stare at our phones. We keep multiple tabs open. Our chats and conversations are full of the phrase “Did you see?” The feeling that we’re living in the worst of times seems to be intensifying, alongside a desire to know precisely how bad things have gotten—and each new catastrophe distracts us from the last.The Unreality of Memory collects provocative, searching essays on disaster culture, climate anxiety, and our mounting collective sense of doom. In this new collection, acclaimed poet and essayist Elisa Gabbert explores our obsessions with disasters past and future, from the sinking of the Titanic to Chernobyl, from witch hunts to the plague. These deeply researched, prophetic meditations question how the world will end—if indeed it will—and why we can’t stop fantasizing about it.Can we avoid repeating history? Can we understand our moment from inside the moment? With The Unreality of Memory, Gabbert offers a hauntingly perceptive analysis of our new ways of being and a means of reconciling ourselves to this unreal new world."A work of sheer brilliance, beauty and bravery.” *—Andrew Sean Greer, author of Less

    He argues that the only feasible explanations of scientific successes are historical explanations, and that anarchism must now replace rationalism in the theory of knowledge.

    We live in terror of disease, abuse, stranger danger, environmental devastation and terrorist onslaught. We are bombarded with reports of new concerns for our safety and that of our children, and urged to take greater precautions and seek more protection. But compared to the past, or to the developing world, people in contemporary Western societies have much less familiarity with pain, suffering, debilitating disease and death. We actually enjoy an unprecedented level of personal safety.When confronted with events like the destruction of the World Trade Centre, fear for the future is inevitable. But what happened on September 11th 2001 was in many ways an old fashioned act of terror, representing the destructive side of the human passions. Frank Furedi argues that the greater danger in our culture is the tendency to fear achievements representing a more constructive side of humanity. We panic about GM food, about genetic research, about the health dangers of mobile phones. The facts often fail to support the scare stories about new or growing risks to our health and safefy. Our obsession with theoretical risks is in danger of distracting society from dealing with the old-fashioned dangers that have always threatened our lives. In this new edition Furedi relates his own thinking on the sociology of fear to the thought of earlier thinkers such as Darwin and Fred and to the sociological tradition of Durkheim, C. Wright Mills, Anthony Giddens and others.

    * * *Download for FREE on Kindle Unlimited + Free BONUS Inside!* * *From the ~Personality Disorders and Mental Illnesses~ collection and the award winning writer, Paul Sorensen, comes a masterful explanation into the mind of a sociopath! "An excellent depiction of the modern day sociopath!" - Alex Lemmings, Book CritiqueThink of sociopaths, and what’s the first thing that enters your mind? The soulless murderer, lurking in the shadows? Or perhaps you think of the ruthless business man turned hardened criminal, a modern day depiction in recent movies and media.You’d probably be surprised to know that you’ve met a sociopath already, at least one. Are they your classmate, colleague, friend, or even lover? The thing about sociopaths that so few realize is that they are chameleons, masters at blending in. Unless you know them intimately, you will have no idea what’s going on behind the charming façade.In the real world, sociopaths are far more likely to lie to family members, steal from workplaces, cheat on their partners, abuse drugs, and commit fraud, than they ever are to murder someone.Although not all actions by a sociopath are criminal, many are what society considers immoral, and you remain unaware of the sociopaths in your own life at your peril. In this book you will learn what a true sociopath is like, how to recognize them, and how to deal with them – especially if they cannot be avoided. I also discuss how to help yourself heal after you come out the other side.Is there a cure, or even any hope for sociopaths? The short answer is ‘we don’t know’, but there’s a lot more to it than that, and forewarned is forearmed. Don’t let yourself become the next to be manipulated, lied to, or even assaulted or have your life destroyed by the sociopath you know.Topics of Discussion ✓ What is Sociopathy? ✓ Sociopathic Personalities ✓ How to Recognize a Sociopath ✓ Surviving a Sociopath ✓ Clinical Sociopathy ✓ The Cause of Sociopathy ✓ Is there a Cure? ✓ BONUS! Find Inside… Download Your Copy Today! The contents of this book are easily worth over $20 but if you download it right now you'll get it for only $3.99 or FREE on Kindle Unlimited!---------Tags: Sociopath, ASPD

    The third edition of Readings in Planning Theory features thirteen new readings that define current debates and presents the works that constitute the main focus of the field, addressing the central issues that face planners as theorists and practitioners.Expands the focus on international planning by including globalization and theories of development Includes new readings that examine themes emerging in planning theory, including a critique of the modernist roots of centralized planning, a re-emphasis on space in planning, and a discussion of the difficulty of sustainable development Features new case studies of planning success and failure on both sides of the Atlantic Addresses the range of core planning theory so as to remain the primary text in urban planning courses Examines the current state of planning theory and the new directions it has taken in recent years Draws on a wide range of authors who address planning history, arguments for and against planning, competing planning styles, planning ethics, the public interest, and considerations of race and gender

    But the truth is far more sinister, says Austin Ruse. We're actually living in the age of the low information voter, easily mislead by all-too-convincing false statistics and studies. In Fact-Shaming, Ruse debunks so-called "facts" used to advance political causes one after the other, revealing how poorly they stand up to actual science.

    Judy Mikovits and Kent Heckenlively, this book reviews the evidence for and against widespread public masking as provided by the Centers for Disease Control and the Mayo Clinic, as well as top scientific publications such as the New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet. This debate needs to take place without fear and paranoia. Important questions raised in this book are the affect of masks on oxygen and carbon dioxide levels, how SARS-CoV-2 spreads, the effectiveness of various types of masks, those who are most vulnerable to COVID-19, and whether our children should go back to school in the fall, and if so, what measures they should take.The authors' previous book, PLAGUE OF CORRUPTION, was the runaway science bestseller of 2020, and the authors bring that same passion and attention to detail to the mask question. As politicians and bureaucrats of all stripes are weighing in on this question, with some placing their cities and states under mandatory masking provisions, we need to understand the science behind their decisions. Are such measures a reasonable response to current circumstances, or is it a dramatic overreach, which in many cases might make the situation even worse? America desperately needs this public conversation to take place with the best science we have available. As Americans have always done during difficult times, we must summon the courage to have these challenging conversations.