Development as Freedom


Amartya Sen - 1999
    Freedom, Sen argues, is both the end and most efficient means of sustaining economic life and the key to securing the general welfare of the world's entire population. Releasing the idea of individual freedom from association with any particular historical, intellectual, political, or religious tradition, Sen clearly demonstrates its current applicability and possibilities. In the new global economy, where, despite unprecedented increases in overall opulence, the contemporary world denies elementary freedoms to vast numbers—perhaps even the majority of people—he concludes, it is still possible to practically and optimistically regain a sense of social accountability. Development as Freedom is essential reading.

The Everything Labrador Retriever Book: A Complete Guide to Raising, Training, and Caring for Your Lab


Kim Campbell Thornton - 2004
    In fact, nearly three times as many Labs were registered in 2002 than any other breed. The Everything Labrador Retriever Book is the perfect introduction to America’s most popular pet. Written by dog expert Kim Campbell Thornton, The Everything Labrador Retriever Book is packed with professional, breed-specific advice that helps readers raise, care for, and train their Lab safely and successfully. Packed full of photos showing Labs in action, The Everything Labrador Retriever Book is perfect for new and seasoned dog owners!

Mayor Rob Ford: Uncontrollable How I Tried to Help the World's Most Notorious Mayor


Mark Towhey - 2015
    Weeks later, he was accused of groping a campaign rival. In March, he was asked to leave a gala for being too intoxicated; in May fired as the coach of a high school football team. The events were part of a stream of Rob Ford “mishaps,” which include DUIs, accusations of domestic violence, and a trial where the Toronto City Council stripped him of his powers.Through it all, Ford’s former chief of staff, Mark Towhey, stood by his side. Towhey was part of Ford’s inner circle; he’d joined Ford’s mayoral campaign in 2010 and quickly became one of his closest advisors. He responded to media questions regarding Ford’s drug and alcohol additions, his anger management problems, and, of course, the video of Ford smoking crack. In May 2013, Mark Towhey had a confidential conversation with Ford. It was shortly after the video was made public and also followed rumors of Ford's involvement in the murder of Anthony Smith, who stands beside Ford in the video. Thus far, the public only knows two words from that conversation; Towhey told Ford to “get help.” They also know what happened next, Towhey was fired. In Uncontrollable: My Life with Mayor Rob Ford, Towhey gives an insider account of working with Ford, covering for him, managing a man who people see as a joke, who trips over himself in videos; who throws candy at children instead of handing it to them; who rants and raves, and gets belligerent in meetings and at private events.This is a must-read for Canadians voting in the mayoral election, as well as fans of Ford—and his antics—all over the world. It’s an unparalleled tell-all and perhaps what’s most amazing is that Towhey bears no ill will toward the mayor. This is not the account of a man eager to get revenge. It’s simply an up-close look at the mayor—and what goes on behind the scenes.

Feardom: How Politicians Exploit Your Emotions and What You Can Do to Stop Them


Connor Boyack - 2014
    Sometimes the fear derives from a pre-existing threat. At other times, crises are created or intensified to invoke a sense of panic and anxiety where none previously existed.This pattern is as predictable as it is destructive. The end result is the same: a loss of liberty. Policies that are costly, oppressive, and harmful are supported by people who abandon any interest in freedom or personal responsibility in hopes of feeling safe.Manufactured fear, with its negative impact on liberty, is a societal plague. There have been widespread casualties. We need an antidote. Feardom offers its readers a much-needed immunization.

Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life


Albert-László Barabási - 2002
    Albert-László Barabási, the nation’s foremost expert in the new science of networks and author of Bursts, takes us on an intellectual adventure to prove that social networks, corporations, and living organisms are more similar than previously thought. Grasping a full understanding of network science will someday allow us to design blue-chip businesses, stop the outbreak of deadly diseases, and influence the exchange of ideas and information. Just as James Gleick and the Erdos–Rényi model brought the discovery of chaos theory to the general public, Linked tells the story of the true science of the future and of experiments in statistical mechanics on the internet, all vital parts of what would eventually be called the Barabási–Albert model.

Unspeakable Truths: Facing the Challenge of Truth Commissions


Priscilla B. Hayner - 2002
    Hayner examines twenty major truth commissions established around the world paying special attention to South Africa, El Salvador, Argentina, Chile, and Guatemala.

How to Win Friends and Influence Enemies: Deliver Winning Conservative Arguments Against Mainstream Media


Will Witt - 2021
    Most young people have never even heard of conservative values from someone their age, and if they do, the message is often bland and outdated. Almost every Hollywood actor, musician, media personality, and role model for young people in America rejects conservative values, and gen Zs and millennials are quick to regurgitate these viewpoints without developing their own opinions on issues.  In How to Win Friends and Influence Enemies, political commentator and media personality Will Witt will give young conservatives the ammunition they need to fight back.  So many young people in America want to stand up for their beliefs in their classrooms, at their jobs, with their friends, or on social media, but they don’t have the tools to do so. Will Witt arms Gen Zs and millennials with the knowledge and skills to combat the leftist narrative they hear every day.

Doctoring Data


Malcolm Kendrick - 2014
    Or should you just ignore this relentless bombardment of medical advice and remember that no one gets out alive.With the same brilliance and humour that bowled us over in "The Great Cholesterol Con", Dr Kendrick takes a scalpel to the world of medical research and dissects it for your inspection. He reveals the tricks that are played to make minute risk look enormous. How the drug trials are hyped, the data manipulated, the endless games that are played to scare us into doing what, in many cases, makes the most money. After reading this book you will know what to believe and what to ignore. You'll have a much greater understanding of the world of medical research. A world in crisis.

The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View


Ellen Meiksins Wood - 1999
    Rather, it is a late and localized product of very specific historical conditions, which required great transformations in social relations and in the human interaction with nature.This new edition is substantially revised and expanded, with extensive new material on imperialism, anti-Eurocentric history, capitalism and the nation-state, and the differences between capitalism and non-capitalist commerce. The author traces links between the origin of capitalism and contemporary conditions such as globalization, ecological degradation, and the current agricultural crisis.

Citizenville: Connecting People and Government in the Digital Age


Gavin Newsom - 2013
    As social networking and smart phones have changed the way we communicate with one another, these technologies are also changing our relationship with government.In a world where people can do anything at the touch of a button—shop, communicate, do research, publish a blog, transfer money—government cannot keep functioning in a twentieth-century mind-set. Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom explores the many ways in which technology can transform government and empower citizens: Opening up vast troves of government data, then letting people create apps to use them wisely. Harnessing the popularity of online games to establish a kind of “Angry Birds for Democracy.” Inventing new feedback loops so people can take active part in every facet of governing.Drawing on wide-ranging interviews with thinkers and politicians, Citizenville is the first book by Lieutenant Governor Newsom. He broke new ground as the mayor of San Francisco, one of the most high-tech, experimental, and progressive municipalities in the nation. But when Newsom’s tenure as mayor began, he found that San Francisco was behind the likes of Estonia and South Korea in terms of digital governance. Newsom’s quest to modernize one of America’s most modern cities—and the amazing results he achieves—form the backbone of this far-reaching book.Lieutenant Governor Newsom explains how the problems of twenty-first-century America are too big and too expensive for the government simply to buy solutions. Instead, we must innovate our way out. Just as the post office and the highway system provide public infrastructure to channel both personal and private enterprise—a platform upon which citizens can grow—so too could a modern digital government house the needs, concerns, information, and collaboration of an enlightened digital citizenry.Citizenville shows that the only way Americans can secure their future is by reinventing their relationship to government, just as they have countless times before.(From Amazon)

The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy


Daniel Yergin - 1998
    Across the globe, it has become increasingly accepted dogma that economic activities should be dominated by market forces, not political concerns. With chapters on Europe, the US, Britain, the Third World, the Arab States, Asia, China, India, Latin America, and the former communist countries, Yergin and Stanislaw provide an incisive overview of the state of the economy, and of the battles between governments and markets in each region. Now updated throughout and with two new chapters, The Commanding Heights explains a revolution which is unfolding before our very eyes.

The Way of Sacrifice


Tony Corden - 2021
    Taken from poverty at the extremity of Tarlonin's New Dominions, she is brought to the centre of the Empire to become a mage.[Spoiler (maybe): Weaves of Empire is set in the same universe as The Stork Tower. The connections will eventually become more apparent; the intervening years will be fleshed out in other series (not yet written).]

The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time


Karl Polanyi - 1944
    His analysis explains not only the deficiencies of the self-regulating market, but the potentially dire social consequences of untempered market capitalism. New introductory material reveals the renewed importance of Polanyi's seminal analysis in an era of globalization and free trade.

The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch


Lewis Dartnell - 2014
    It has built on itself for centuries, becoming vast and increasingly specialized. Most of us are ignorant about the fundamental principles of the civilization that supports us, happily utilizing the latest—or even the most basic—technology without having the slightest idea of why it works or how it came to be. If you had to go back to absolute basics, like some sort of postcataclysmic Robinson Crusoe, would you know how to re-create an internal combustion engine, put together a microscope, get metals out of rock, accurately tell time, weave fibers into clothing, or even how to produce food for yourself? Regarded as one of the brightest young scientists of his generation, Lewis Dartnell proposes that the key to preserving civilization in an apocalyptic scenario is to provide a quickstart guide, adapted to cataclysmic circumstances. The Knowledge describes many of the modern technologies we employ, but first it explains the fundamentals upon which they are built. Every piece of technology rests on an enormous support network of other technologies, all interlinked and mutually dependent. You can’t hope to build a radio, for example, without understanding how to acquire the raw materials it requires, as well as generate the electricity needed to run it. But Dartnell doesn’t just provide specific information for starting over; he also reveals the greatest invention of them all—the phenomenal knowledge-generating machine that is the scientific method itself. This would allow survivors to learn technological advances not explicitly explored in The Knowledge as well as things we have yet to discover. The Knowledge is a brilliantly original guide to the fundamentals of science and how it built our modern world as well as a thought experiment about the very idea of scientific knowledge itself.

The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents


William DeGregorio - 1984
    A factual look at all our chief executives, from George Washington to our current president.