It quite literally underlies and underpins everything. Employing the keen intellect, insatiable curiosity, and narrative verve that are the foundations of his previous bestselling works, Simon Winchester examines what we human beings are doing—and have done—with the billions of acres that together make up the solid surface of our planet.Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World examines in depth how we acquire land, how we steward it, how and why we fight over it, and finally, how we can, and on occasion do, come to share it. Ultimately, Winchester confronts the essential question: who actually owns the world’s land—and why does it matter?

    The book continues to help students make sense of a complex world in transition and explains how globalization became part of public discourse. Filled with case studies, this text makes the intricacies of globalization concrete, meaningful, and clear for students and moves them away from simple social evolutionary views, encouraging them to connect social change, development policies, global inequalities and social movements. The book challenges students to see themselves as global citizens whose consumption decisions have real social and ecological implications.

    This book is a blueprint for that organizing. In these pages, you will learn how monopolies and oligopolies have taken over almost every aspect of American life, and you will also learn about what can be done to stop that trend before it is too late." —From the foreword by Bernie Sanders.A passionate attack on the monopolies that are throttling American democracy.Every facet of American life is being overtaken by big platform monopolists like Facebook, Google, and Bayer (which has merged with the former agricultural giant Monsanto), resulting in a greater concentration of wealth and power than we've seen since the Gilded Age. They are evolving into political entities that often have more influence than the actual government, bending state and federal legislatures to their will and even creating arbitration courts that circumvent the US justice system. How can we recover our freedom from these giants? Anti-corruption scholar and activist Zephyr Teachout has the answer: Break 'Em Up.This book is a clarion call for liberals and leftists looking to find a common cause. Teachout makes a compelling case that monopolies are the root cause of many of the issues that today's progressives care about; they drive economic inequality, harm the planet, limit the political power of average citizens, and historically-disenfranchised groups bear the brunt of their shameful and irresponsible business practices. In order to build a better future, we must eradicate monopolies from the private sector and create new safeguards that prevent new ones from seizing power.Through her expert analysis of monopolies in several sectors and their impact on courts, journalism, inequality, and politics, Teachout offers a concrete path toward thwarting these enemies of working Americans and reclaiming our democracy before it’s too late.

    Every developed nation in the world at one time went through the transformation from predominantly informal, extralegal ownership to a formal, unified legal property system. In the West we've forgotten that creating this system is also what allowed people everywhere to leverage property into wealth. This persuasive book will revolutionize our understanding of capital and point the way to a major transformation of the world economy.

    The stakes could not be higher: a global architecture of behavior modification threatens human nature in the twenty-first century just as industrial capitalism disfigured the natural world in the twentieth.Zuboff vividly brings to life the consequences as surveillance capitalism advances from Silicon Valley into every economic sector. Vast wealth and power are accumulated in ominous new "behavioral futures markets," where predictions about our behavior are bought and sold, and the production of goods and services is subordinated to a new "means of behavioral modification."The threat has shifted from a totalitarian Big Brother state to a ubiquitous digital architecture: a "Big Other" operating in the interests of surveillance capital. Here is the crucible of an unprecedented form of power marked by extreme concentrations of knowledge and free from democratic oversight. Zuboff's comprehensive and moving analysis lays bare the threats to twenty-first century society: a controlled "hive" of total connection that seduces with promises of total certainty for maximum profit--at the expense of democracy, freedom, and our human future.With little resistance from law or society, surveillance capitalism is on the verge of dominating the social order and shaping the digital future--if we let it.Table of contentsINTRODUCTION1. Home or exile in the digital futureI. THE FOUNDATIONS OF SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM2. August 9, 2011: Setting the stage for Surveillance Capitalism3. The discovery of behavioral surplus4. The moat around the castle5. The elaboration of Surveillance Capitalism: Kidnap, corner, compete6. Hijacked: The division of learning in societyII. THE ADVANCE OF SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM7. The reality business8. Rendition: From experience to data9. Rendition from the depths10. Make them dance11. The right to the future tenseIII. INSTRUMENTARIAN POWER FOR A THIRD MODERNITY12. Two species of power13. Big Other and the rise of instrumentarian power14. A utopia of certainty15, The instrumentarian collective16. Of life in the hive17. The right to sanctuaryCONCLUSION18. A coup from aboveAcknowledgementsAbout the authorDetailed table of contentsNotesIndex

    Should the United States attack North Korea and Iran or negotiate with them? What are the implications of climate change and what should be done about it? Are tariffs a good idea? What do we owe refugees and others who want to enter our country? Should democratic countries promote democracy and human rights elsewhere? What can be done to stop terrorism? Are the United States and China heading for a second cold war--and, if so, what can be done to head it off?The World is designed to provide readers of any age and experience with the essential background and building blocks needed to answer these and other critical questions for themselves. It will empower them to manage the flood of daily news. Readers will become more informed, discerning citizens, better able to arrive at sound, independent judgments and to hold elected representatives to account. Those who read The World will be less vulnerable to being misled by politicians and others claiming to be experts.In short, this book will make readers more globally literate. Global literacy--knowing how the world works--is a must, as what goes on outside a country matters enormously to what happens inside. Although the United States is bordered by two oceans, those oceans are not moats. And the so-called Vegas rule--what happens there stays there--does not apply in today's globalized world to anyone anywhere. U.S. foreign policy is uniquely American, but the world Americans seek to shape is not.The tectonic plates of international relations are moving. This is a critical time for high school and college students and others to understand what is taking place around the world, why it is taking place, and how it will affect our lives. Toward these ends, The World focuses on essential history, what makes each region of the world tick, the many challenges globalization presents, and the most influential countries, events, and ideas. Explaining complex ideas with wisdom and clarity, Richard Haass's The World is an evergreen book that will remain relevant and useful even as history continues to unfold.

    Yet all too often, experts recommend solutions that fix immediate problems without addressing the systemic political factors that created them in the first place. Further, they produce an accidental collusion with "benevolent autocrats,” leaving dictators with yet more power to violate the rights of the poor.In The Tyranny of Experts, economist William Easterly, bestselling author of The White Man’s Burden, traces the history of the fight against global poverty, showing not only how these tactics have trampled the individual freedom of the world’s poor, but how in doing so have suppressed a vital debate about an alternative approach to solving poverty: freedom. Presenting a wealth of cutting-edge economic research, Easterly argues that only a new model of development—one predicated on respect for the individual rights of people in developing countries, that understands that unchecked state power is the problem and not the solution —will be capable of ending global poverty once and for all.

    In the 20th century, it was Americanized. Now, in the 21st century, the world is being Asianized.The “Asian Century” is even bigger than you think. Far greater than just China, the new Asian system taking shape is a multi-civilizational order spanning Saudi Arabia to Japan, Russia to Australia, Turkey to Indonesia—linking five billion people through trade, finance, infrastructure, and diplomatic networks that together represent 40 percent of global GDP. China has taken a lead in building the new Silk Roads across Asia, but it will not lead it alone. Rather, Asia is rapidly returning to the centuries-old patterns of commerce, conflict, and cultural exchange that thrived long before European colonialism and American dominance. Asians will determine their own future—and as they collectively assert their interests around the world, they will determine ours as well. There is no more important region of the world for us to better understand than Asia – and thus we cannot afford to keep getting Asia so wrong. Asia’s complexity has led to common misdiagnoses: Western thinking on Asia conflates the entire region with China, predicts imminent World War III around every corner, and regularly forecasts debt-driven collapse for the region’s major economies. But in reality, the region is experiencing a confident new wave of growth led by younger societies from India to the Philippines, nationalist leaders have put aside territorial disputes in favor of integration, and today’s infrastructure investments are the platform for the next generation of digital innovation. If the nineteenth century featured the Europeanization of the world, and the twentieth century its Americanization, then the twenty-first century is the time of Asianization. From investment portfolios and trade wars to Hollywood movies and university admissions, no aspect of life is immune from Asianization. With America’s tech sector dependent on Asian talent and politicians praising Asia’s glittering cities and efficient governments, Asia is permanently in our nation’s consciousness. We know this will be the Asian century. Now we finally have an accurate picture of what it will look like.

    Drawing on unprecedented access to Rand's private papers and the original, unedited versions of Rand's journals, Jennifer Burns offers a groundbreaking reassessment of this key cultural figure, examining her life, her ideas, and her impact on conservative political thought.Goddess of the Market follows Rand from her childhood in Russia through her meteoric rise from struggling Hollywood screenwriter to bestselling novelist, including the writing of her wildly successful The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Burns highlights the two facets of Rand's work that make her a perennial draw for those on the right: her promotion of capitalism, and her defense of limited government. Both sprang from her early, bitter experience of life under Communism, and became among the most deeply enduring of her messages, attracting a diverse audience of college students and intellectuals, business people and Republican Party activists, libertarians and conservatives. The book also traces the development of Rand's Objectivist philosophy and her relationship with Nathaniel Branden, her closest intellectual partner, with whom she had an explosive falling out in 1968.One of the Denver Post's Great Reads of 2009One of Bloomberg News's Top Nonfiction Books of 2009Excellent.--Time magazineA terrific book--a serious consideration of Rand's ideas, and her role in the conservative movement of the past three quarters of a century.--The American ThinkerA wonderful book: beautifully written, completely balanced, extensively researched. The match between author and subject is so perfect that one might believe that the author was chosen by the gods to write this book. She has sympathy and affection for her subject but treats her as a human being, with no attempt to cover up the foibles.--Mises Economics Blog

    Professor Drezner takes you behind the headlines and into the debates to dispel common myths about prosperity and get at deeper truths. By taking a broad view of economics that includes psychology, sociology, political science, and history, his lectures lead you to fundamental insights about how the modern world works and a deeper understanding of the functioning of the U.S., European, Chinese, and other major economies, as well as an appreciation for the special problems faced by underdeveloped nations. You'll examine dozens of case histories that illustrate what works and doesn't work in the drive to increase economic growth. You'll also learn about intriguing examples of prosperity won or lost, including the Dutch tulip mania in 1637, the era of globalization that started in the 1850s and lasting through World War I, and Ukraine's economic missteps after the breakup of the Soviet Union. As a start on your own road to greater prosperity, take this step to invest in an unparalleled explanation of the prerequisites to achieve it.

    Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”—Edward Bernays, PropagandaA seminal and controversial figure in the history of political thought and public relations, Edward Bernays (1891–1995), pioneered the scientific technique of shaping and manipulating public opinion, which he famously dubbed “engineering of consent.” During World War I, he was an integral part of the U.S. Committee on Public Information (CPI), a powerful propaganda apparatus that was mobilized to package, advertise and sell the war to the American people as one that would “Make the World Safe for Democracy.” The CPI would become the blueprint in which marketing strategies for future wars would be based upon.Bernays applied the techniques he had learned in the CPI and, incorporating some of the ideas of Walter Lipmann, became an outspoken proponent of propaganda as a tool for democratic and corporate manipulation of the population. His 1928 bombshell Propaganda lays out his eerily prescient vision for using propaganda to regiment the collective mind in a variety of areas, including government, politics, art, science and education. To read this book today is to frightfully comprehend what our contemporary institutions of government and business have become in regards to organized manipulation of the masses.This is the first reprint of Propaganda in over 30 years and features an introduction by Mark Crispin Miller, author of The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder.

    In fact, they were merely experiencing the same feeling that many British people have felt every day for years.Fifty years ago, people in leafy North London and people in working-class Northern towns could vote for a Labour party that broadly encompassed all of their interests. Today their priorities are poles apart.In this groundbreaking and timely book, Goodhart shows us how people have come to be divided into two camps: the 'Anywheres', who have 'achieved' identities, derived from their careers and education, and 'Somewheres', who get their identity from a sense of place and from the people around them, and who feel a sense of loss due to mass immigration and rapid social change.In a world increasingly divided by Brexit and Trump, Goodhart shows how Anywheres must come to understand and respect Somewhere values to stand a fighting chance against the rise of populism.

    

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    The book's essays engage the public discussion about basic structural changes and systemic alternatives needed to fix today's broken economy.