The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language


Melvyn Bragg - 2003
    It is democratic, everchanging and ingenious in its assimilation of other cultures. English runs through the heart of the world of finance, medicine and the Internet, and it is understood by around two thousand million people across the world. It seems set to go on. Yet it was nearly wiped out in its early years.Embracing elements of Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Arabic, Hindi and Gullah, this 1500-year story covers a huge range of countries and people. The Adventure of English is not only an enthralling story of power, religion and trade, but also the story of people, and how their day-to-day lives shaped and continue to change the extraordinary language that is English.

The Greatest Stories Never Told: 100 Tales from History to Astonish, Bewilder, and Stupefy


Rick Beyer - 2003
    Sometimes it's made when a chauffeur takes a wrong turn, a scientist forgets to clean up his lab, or a drunken soldier gets a bit rowdy. That's the kind of history you'll find in The Greatest Stories Never Told.This is history candy -- the good stuff. Here are 100 tales to astonish, bewilder, and stupefy: more than two thousand years of history filled with courage, cowardice, hope, triumph, sex, intrigue, folly, humor, and ambition. It's a historical delight and a visual feast with hundreds of photographs, drawings, and maps that bring each story to life. A new discovery waits on every page: stories that changed the course of history and stories that affected what you had for breakfast this morning.Consider:The Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock because they ran out of beerSome Roman officials were so corrupt that they actually stole time itselfThree cigars changed the course of the Civil WarThe Scottish kilt was invented by an EnglishmanBased on the popular Timelab 2000® history minutes hosted by Sam Waterston on The History Channel®, this collection of fascinating historical tidbits will have you shaking your head in wonder and disbelief. But they're all true. And you'll soon find yourself telling them to your friends.

Down to Earth Sociology: Introductory Readings


James M. Henslin - 1975
    Now in its fourteenth edition, the most popular anthology in sociology includes new articles on our changing world while also retaining its classic must-read essays. Focusing on social interaction in everyday life, the forty-six selections bring students face-to-face with the twin projects of contemporary sociology: understanding the individual's experience of society and analyzing social structure. The fourteenth edition's exceptional new readings include selections on the role of sympathy in everyday life, mistaken perceptions of the American family, the effects of a criminal record on getting a job, and the major social trends affecting our future. Together with these essential new articles, the selections by Peter Berger, Herbert Gans, Erving Goffman, Donna Eder, Zella Luria, C. Wright Mills, Deborah Tannen, Barrie Thorne, Sidney Katz, Philip Zimbardo, and many others provide firsthand reporting that gives students a sense of "being there." Henslin also explains basic methods of social research, providing insight into how sociologists explore the social world. The selections in Down to Earth Sociology highlight the most significant themes of contemporary sociology, ranging from the sociology of gender, power, politics, and religion to the contemporary crises of racial tension, crime, rape, poverty, and homelessness.

The Devil Reads Derrida - and Other Essays on the University, the Church, Politics, and the Arts


James K.A. Smith - 2009
    Has anyone considered Jamie Smith? This whirling dervish of public philosophy generates enough intellectual energy to supply a middle-size city all by himself. - John Wilson (editor of Books & Culture)By now, Jamie Smith is not just a leading philosophical or postmodern or Reformed theologian: he is simply a leading theologian. This volume shows that he has not only ascended to that height but also descended to a depth that terrifies most academics journalism. He offers a theology as everyday as the neighborhood, the movies, partisan politics, the university, and the street corner and with a twinkle in his eye he shows us Jesus lordship in each place. I hope others will not just read Jamies book, but will go and do likewise. - Jason Byassee (Center for Theology, Writing & Media, Duke Divinity School)A notable young voice in the academy, James K. A. Smith has consistently spoken to the church as the most important public for his intellectual work. Bringing together essays both thoughtful and entertaining, The Devil Reads Derrida displays some of Smiths most significant forays into the public arena.In this engaging work Smith grapples with the Wild at Heart phenomenon and the challenges of secularization, deals with sex and consumerism, and comments on creative works from American Beauty and Harry Potter to A History of Violence and the poetry of Franz Wright. No matter what.

Culture is Everything: The Story And System Of A Start-Up That Became Australia's Best Place To Work


Tristan White - 2017
    He had a dream to work in a job that inspired him. He didn’t find that job, so he created it. In 2004, The Physio Co (TPC) was born with one team member: Tristan White. In the thirteen years since, TPC has become a remarkable healthcare success story based upon fast growth and a thriving, systemized company culture. Tristan’s obsession with creating an inspiring place to work for himself and others has resulted in more than a decade of learning, testing and refining. If you’ve ever wondered how to build and sustain a thriving company culture, the Culture Is Everything system developed by Tristan White and The Physio Co team is your answer. The Physio Co story and Culture Is Everything system explained in this book will give you the confidence and knowledge to create a strong culture in your very own business or team.

Street Data: A Next-Generation Model for Equity, Pedagogy, and School Transformation


Shane Safir - 2021
    Instead of the focus being on fixing and filling academic gaps, we must envision and rebuild the system from the student up--with classrooms, schools and systems built around students' brilliance, cultural wealth, and intellectual potential. Street data reminds us that what is measurable is not the same as what is valuable and that data can be humanizing, liberatory and healing. By breaking down street data fundamentals: what it is, how to gather it, and how it can complement other forms of data to guide a school or district's equity journey, Safir and Dugan offer an actionable framework for school transformation. Written for educators and policymakers, this book - Offers fresh ideas and innovative tools to apply immediately - Provides an asset-based model to help educators look for what's right in our students and communities instead of seeking what's wrong - Explores a different application of data, from its capacity to help us diagnose root causes of inequity, to its potential to transform learning, and its power to reshape adult culture Now is the time to take an antiracist stance, interrogate our assumptions about knowledge, measurement, and what really matters when it comes to educating young people.

The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life


Anu Partanen - 2016
    She found that navigating the basics of everyday life—from buying a cell phone and filing taxes to education and childcare—was much more complicated and stressful than anything she encountered in her homeland. At first, she attributed her crippling anxiety to the difficulty of adapting to a freewheeling new culture. But as she got to know Americans better, she discovered they shared her deep apprehension. To understand why life is so different in the U.S. and Finland, Partanen began to look closely at both.In The Nordic Theory of Everything, Partanen compares and contrasts life in the United States with life in the Nordic region, focusing on four key relationships—parents and children, men and women, employees and employers, and government and citizens. She debunks criticism that Nordic countries are socialist “nanny states,” revealing instead that it is we Americans who are far more enmeshed in unhealthy dependencies than we realize. As Partanen explains step by step, the Nordic approach allows citizens to enjoy more individual freedom and independence than we do.Partanen wants to open Americans’ eyes to how much better things can be—to show her beloved new country what it can learn from her homeland to reinvigorate and fulfill the promise of the American dream—to provide the opportunity to live a healthy, safe, economically secure, upwardly mobile life for everyone. Offering insights, advice, and solutions, The Nordic Theory of Everything makes a convincing argument that we can rebuild our society, rekindle our optimism, and restore true freedom to our relationships and lives.

The First Survivors of Alzheimer's: How Patients Recovered Life and Hope in Their Own Words


Dale E. Bredesen - 2021
    In his first two books, Dr. Dale Bredesen outlined the revolutionary treatments that are changing what had previously seemed like the inevitable outcome of cognitive decline and dementia. And in these moving narratives, you can hear directly from the first survivors of Alzheimer's themselves--their own amazing stories of hope told in their own words. These first person accounts honestly detail the fear, struggle, and ultimate victory of each patient's journey. They vividly describe what it is like to have Alzheimer's. They also drill down on how each of these patients made the program work for them--the challenges, the workarounds, the encouraging results that are so motivating. Dr. Bredesen includes commentary following each story to help point readers to the tips and tricks that might help them as well.Dr. Bredesen's patients have not just survived; they have thrived to rediscover fulfilling lives, rewarding relationships, and meaningful work. This book will give unprecedented hope to patients and their families.

Courage to Grow: How Acton Academy Turns Learning Upside Down


Laura A. Sandefer - 2018
    They created Acton Academy as a better school where learning is made practical and meaningful and where students begin a lifelong Hero’s Journey to discover their true potential.   Using the Socratic method, elements of the Montessori approach and state-of-the-art online instruction, Acton guides students toward independence and self-motivation, helping them find the courage to grow into the person they were meant to be. Soon, other parents wanted to start their own Acton Academies, and less than a decade from the seven founding students’ first Socratic discussion, Acton has spread around the world.​Courage to Grow is the Sandefer family’s personal quest for their own children’s education and happiness. Their story also contains a path for other parents who want to give their children the freedom to take ownership of their own education and to start their own school. The treasure at the end is much larger than Laura ever expected—a quickly growing network of dedicated, curious young people and parents who are not afraid to set them free.

Excellence Without a Soul: How a Great University Forgot Education


Harry R. Lewis - 2005
    Never before has the competition for excellence been fiercer. But while striving to be unsurpassed in the quality of its faculty and students, Universities have forgotten that the fundamental purpose of undergraduate education is to turn young people into adults who will take responsibility for society. In Excellence Without a Soul, Harry Lewis, a Harvard professor for more than thirty years and Dean of Harvard College for eight, draws from his experience to explain how our great universities have abandoned their mission. Harvard is unique; it is the richest, oldest, most powerful university in America, and so it has set many standards, for better or worse. Lewis evaluates the failures of this grand institution--from the hot button issue of grade inflation to the recent controversy over Harvard's handling of date rape cases--and makes an impassioned argument for change. The loss of purpose in America's great colleges is not inconsequential. Harvard, Yale, Stanford--these places drive American education, on which so much of our future depends. It is time to ask whether they are doing the job we want them to do.

No Campus for White Men: The Transformation of Higher Education into Hateful Indoctrination


Scott Greer - 2017
     Across the country, ugly campus protests over speakers with dissenting viewpoints, as well as a preoccupation with "micro-aggressions," "trigger warnings," "safe spaces" and brand-new "gender identities," make it obvious that something has gone terribly wrong with higher education. For years, colleges have pursued policies favoring students based not on their merit, but on their race, gender, and sexual orientation. The disturbingly negative effects of this culture are now impossible to deny. Scott Greer’s investigative work links such seemingly unrelated trends as "rape culture" hysteria and Black Lives Matter to an overall campus mindset intent on elevating and celebrating leftist-designated "protected classes" above everyone else – while intimidating, censoring, and punishing those who disagree with this perversely un-American agenda. In No Campus for White Men, Greer broadens the usual media focus well beyond coverage of demonstrations by easily offended college students, to spotlight the darker forces at work behind the scenes that are feeding higher education’s metastasizing crisis – and how all this results in sustained animosity, first and foremost, toward white men. Greer also documents how this starkly totalitarian culture is not isolated to higher education, but is rather a result of trends already operating in society. Thus, he shows, today's campus madness may eventually dominate much more of America if it is not addressed and reversed soon.

The Conviction to Lead: 25 Principles for Leadership That Matters


R. Albert Mohler Jr. - 2012
    Albert Mohler became the youngest president in the 153-year history of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He was the driving force behind the school's transformation into a thriving institution with an international reputation characterized by a passionate conviction for truth. In the process he became one of the most important and prominent Christian voices in contemporary culture.What will it take to transform your leadership?Effective leaders need more than administrative skills and vision. They need to be able to change the hearts and minds of those they lead. Leadership like this requires passionate beliefs that can stand up to pressure from without and within.Now for the first time, Dr. Mohler reveals 25 principles to crystallize your convictions, revolutionizing your thinking, your decision-making, your communication, and ultimately those you lead.

David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants


Malcolm Gladwell - 2013
    Now he looks at the complex and surprising ways the weak can defeat the strong, the small can match up against the giant, and how our goals (often culturally determined) can make a huge difference in our ultimate sense of success. Drawing upon examples from the world of business, sports, culture, cutting-edge psychology, and an array of unforgettable characters around the world, David and Goliath is in many ways the most practical and provocative book Malcolm Gladwell has ever written.

Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class


Owen Jones - 2011
    From Little Britain’s Vicky Pollard to the demonization of Jade Goody, media and politicians alike dismiss as feckless, criminalized and ignorant a vast, underprivileged swathe of society whose members have become stereotyped by one, hate-filled word: chavs. In this groundbreaking investigation, Owen Jones explores how the working class has gone from “salt of the earth” to “scum of the earth.” Exposing the ignorance and prejudice at the heart of the chav caricature, one based on the media’s inexhaustible obsession with an indigent white underclass, he portrays a far more complex reality. Moving through Westminster’s lobbies and working-class communities from Dagenham to Dewsbury Moor, Jones reveals the increasing poverty and desperation of communities made precarious by wrenching social and industrial change, and all but abandoned by the aspirational, society-fragmenting policies of Thatcherism and New Labour. The chav stereotype, he argues, is used by governments as a convenient figleaf to avoid genuine engagement with social and economic problems, and to justify widening inequality. Based on a wealth of original research, and wide-ranging interviews with media figures, political opinion-formers and workers, Chavs is a damning indictment of the media and political establishment, and an illuminating, disturbing portrait of inequality and class hatred in modern Britain.

The Man Who Would Stop at Nothing: Long-Distance Motorcycling's Endless Road


Melissa Holbrook Pierson - 2011
    These men and women push the limits of human endurance, often in rides of more than one thousand miles a day. Perhaps the most determined of them is John Ryan, a diabetic and a man who even in late middle age loves nothing better than riding impossible distances at no small risk to himself. But why? Melissa Holbrook Pierson, herself a longtime motorcyclist, chronicles the gratifications of long-distance riding as well as the challenges and solitude that accompany it. In seeking to understand why people strive so mightily to reach a goal with no reward other than having gotten there, Pierson gives us an intimate glimpse of a singularly independent yet supportive community and a revealing portrait of its most daring member.