Politics
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The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Michelle Alexander
Format: Paperback
Publisher: New Press, The; Reprint edition (2012, Jan 16th).
Pages: 336
Once in a great while a book comes along that changes the way we see the world and helps to fuel a nationwide social movement. The New Jim Crow is such a book. Praised by Harvard Law professor Lani Guinier as "brave and bold," this book directly challenges the notion that the election of Barack Obama signals a new era of colorblindness. With dazzling candor, legal scholar Michelle Alexander argues that "we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it." By targeting black men through the War on Drugs and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control—relegating millions to a permanent second-class status—even as it formally adheres to the principle of colorblindness. more
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The Athena Doctrine: How Women (and the Men Who Think Like Them) Will Rule the Future
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: John Gerzema
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (2013, Apr 16th).
Pages: 320
How feminine values can solve our toughest problems and build a more prosperous futureAmong 64,000 people surveyed in thirteen nations, two thirds feel the world would be a better place if men thought more like women. This marks a global trend away from the winner-takes-all, masculine approach to getting things done. Drawing from interviews at innovative organizations in eighteen nations and at Fortune 500 boardrooms, the authors reveal how men and women alike are recognizing significant value in traits commonly associated with women, such as nurturing, cooperation, communication, and sharing. The Athena Doctrine shows why femininity is the operating system of 21st century prosperity.Advocates a new way to solve today's toughest problems in business, education, government, and moreBased on a landmark survey and results from Young & Rubicam's respected Brand Asset Valuator's global survey, as well as on-the-ground interviews in 18 countriesFrom acclaimed social theorist, consumer expert, and bestselling author, John Gerzema, and award-winning author, Michael D'AntonioBrought to life through real world examples and backed by rigorous data,The Athena Doctrine shows how feminine traits are ascending—and bringing success to people and organizations around the world. more
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The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Vali Nasr
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday (2013, Apr 23rd).
Pages: 336
Former State Department advisor for Afghanistan and Pakistan and bestselling author Vali Nasr delivers a sharp indictment of America's flawed foreign policy and outlines a new relationship with the Muslim world and with new players in the changing Middle East. In this essential new book, Vali Nasr argues that the Obama administration had a chance to improve its relations with the Middle East, but instead chose to pursue its predecessor's questionable strategies there. Nasr takes readers behind the scenes at the State Department and reveals how the new government's fear of political backlash and the specter of terrorism crippled the efforts of diplomatic giants, like Richard Holbrooke and Hillary Clinton, to boost America's foundering credibility with world leaders. more
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Work with Me: The 8 Blind Spots Between Men and Women in Business
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: John Gray
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (2013, May 14th).
Pages: 272
Work With Me is the timely collaboration of two of the world’s foremost authorities on gender relations. Barbara Annis, world-renowned expert on gender issues in the workplace, and John Gray, author of the number one relationship book of all time, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, team up to resolve the most stressful and confusing challenges facing men and women at work. Annis and Gray reveal, for the first time, survey results of over 100,000 in-depth interviews of men and women executives in over 60 Fortune 500 companies. Readers will discover the Eight Gender Blind Spots, the false assumptions and opinions men and women have of each other, and in many ways, believe of themselves. Through research, science, and stories, Annis and Gray expose the blind spots that cause our misunderstandings, miscommunications, mistrust, resentment, and frustrations at work. more
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Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Lee Smolin
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2013, Apr 23rd).
Pages: 352
From one of our foremost thinkers and public intellectuals, a radical new view of the nature of time and the cosmosWhat is time?This deceptively simple question is the single most important problem facing science as we probe more deeply into the fundamentals of the universe. All of the mysteries physicists and cosmologists face—from the Big Bang to the future of the universe, from the puzzles of quantum physics to the unification of forces and particles—come down to the nature of time.The fact that time is real may seem obvious. You experience it passing every day when you watch clocks tick, bread toast, and children grow. But most physicists, from Newton to Einstein to today’s quantum theorists, have seen things differently. more
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The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: David A. Stockman
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: PublicAffairs (2013, Apr 2nd).
Pages: 768
A New York Times bestsellerThe Great Deformation is a searing look at Washington’s craven response to the recent myriad of financial crises and fiscal cliffs. It counters conventional wisdom with an eighty-year revisionist history of how the American state—especially the Federal Reserve—has fallen prey to the politics of crony capitalism and the ideologies of fiscal stimulus, monetary central planning, and financial bailouts. These forces have left the public sector teetering on the edge of political dysfunction and fiscal collapse and have caused America’s private enterprise foundation to morph into a speculative casino that swindles the masses and enriches the few.Defying right- and left-wing boxes, David Stockman provides a catalogue of corrupters and defenders of sound money, fiscal rectitude, and free markets. more
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Debtors' Prison: The Politics of Austerity Versus Possibility
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Robert Kuttner
Format: Deckle Edge]
Publisher: Knopf (2013, Apr 30th).
Pages:
One of our foremost economic thinkers challenges a cherished tenet of today’s financial orthodoxy: that spending less, refusing to forgive debt, and shrinking government—“austerity”—is the solution to a persisting economic crisis like ours or Europe’s, now in its fifth year. Since the collapse of September 2008, the conversation about economic recovery has centered on the question of debt: whether we have too much of it, whose debt to forgive, and how to cut the deficit. These questions dominated the sound bites of the 2012 U.S. presidential election, the fiscal-cliff debates, and the perverse policies of the European Union. Robert Kuttner makes the most powerful argument to date that these are the wrong questions and that austerity is the wrong answer. more
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Macarthur's War: The Flawed Genius Who Challenged The American Political System
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Bevin Alexander
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Berkley Hardcover (2013, May 7th).
Pages: 256
Douglas MacArthur famously said there is no substitute for victory . . . As a United States general, he had an unparalleled genius for military strategy, and it was under his leadership that Japan was rebuilt into a democratic ally after World War II. But MacArthur carried out his zero-sum philosophy both on and off the battlefield. During the Korean War, in defiance of President Harry S. Truman and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he pushed for an aggressive confrontation with Communist China—a position intended to provoke a wider war, regardless of the cost or consequences. MacArthur’s ambition to stamp out Communism across the globe was in direct opposition to President Truman, who was much more concerned with containing the Soviet Union than confronting Red China. more
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Mirror, Mirror Off the Wall: How I Learned to Love My Body by Not Looking at It for a Year
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Kjerstin Gruys
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Avery (2013, May 2nd).
Pages: 320
A scholar, fashionista, and bride-to-be spends a year without mirrors to get a better view of herself, her life, and what’s really important. When Kjerstin Gruys became engaged to the love of her life, she was thrilled—until it came time to shop for a wedding dress. Having overcome an eating disorder years before, Gruys found herself struggling to maintain a positive self-image as her pending nuptials imposed a new set of impossible beauty standards. She decided to embark on a bold plan for boosting her self-esteem while refocusing her attention on the beautiful world around her. A memoir of discovery, Mirror Mirror Off the Wall charts Gruys’ awakening as she vows to give up mirrors and other reflective surfaces, relying instead on her friends and her fiancé to help her gauge both her appearance and her outlook on life. more
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The Price of Justice: A True Story of Greed and Corruption
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Laurence Leamer
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Times Books (2013, May 7th).
Pages: 448
A nonfiction legal thriller that traces the fourteen-year struggle of two lawyers to bring the most powerful coal baron in American history, Don Blankenship, to justiceDon Blankenship, head of Massey Energy since the early 1990s, ran an industry that provides nearly half of America’s electric power. But wealth and influence weren’t enough for Blankenship and his company, as they set about destroying corporate and personal rivals, challenging the Constitution, purchasing the West Virginia judiciary, and willfully disregarding safety standards in the company’s mines—in which scores died unnecessarily.As Blankenship hobnobbed with a West Virginia Supreme Court justice in France, his company polluted the drinking water of hundreds of citizens while he himself fostered baroque vendettas against anyone who dared challenge his sovereignty over coal country. more
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