Politics
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Big, Hot, Cheap, and Right: What America Can Learn from the Strange Genius of Texas
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Erica Grieder
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: PublicAffairs (2013, Apr 23rd).
Pages: 304
Texas may well be America’s most controversial state. Evangelicals dominate the halls of power, millions of its people live in poverty, and its death row is the busiest in the country. Skeptical outsiders have found much to be offended by in the state’s politics and attitude. And yet, according to journalist (and Texan) Erica Grieder, the United States has a great deal to learn from Texas.In Big, Hot, Cheap, and Right, Grieder traces the political history of a state that was always larger than life. From its rowdy beginnings, Texas has combined a long-standing suspicion of government intrusion with a passion for business. Looking to the present, Greider assesses the unique mix of policies on issues like immigration, debt, taxes, regulation, and energy, which together have sparked a bonafide Texas Miracle of job growth. more
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End of The Good Life: How the Financial Crisis Threatens a Lost Generation--and What We Can Do About It
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Riva Froymovich
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Harper Perennial; Original edition (2013, Apr 23rd).
Pages: 240
Financial journalist Riva Froymovich has good reason to be anxious about the financial turmoil facing Generation Y. This is her generation.Indeed, Generation Y has suffered the brunt of the financial crisis and great recession. For those in the U.S. born after 1976, the American dream is a is becoming a nightmare. Swamped in student loan debt they’re postponing marriage and buying homes, unable to save money, and delaying having children.The End of the Good Life: How the Financial Crisis Threatens a Lost Generation--and What We Can Do About It examines short-sighted government policies and initiatives that will wreak havoc on our youth. In addition to offering concrete policy suggestions, this book is driven by the touching personal stories of Americans and other young people around the globe affected by the financial crisis. 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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Urban Sustainability: A Global Perspective
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Igor Vojnovic
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Michigan State University Press; 1st edition (2012, Dec 1st).
Pages: 714
More than half the world’s population currently lives in urban areas, and virtually all of the world’s population growth over the next three decades is expected to be in cities. What impact will this growth have on the environment? What can we do now to pave the way for resource longevity? Sustainability has received considerable attention in recent years, though conceptions of the term remain vague. Using a wide array of cities around the globe as case studies, this timely book explores the varying nature of global urban-environmental stresses and the complexities involved in defining sustainability policies. Working with six core themes, the editor examines the past, present, and future of urban sustainability within local, national, and global contexts. more
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The End of Big: How the Internet Makes David the New Goliath
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Nicco Mele
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: St. Martin's Press (2013, Apr 2nd).
Pages: 304
How seemingly innocuous technologies are unsettling the balance of power by putting it in the hands of the masses - and what a world without "big" will mean for all of us.In The End of Big, social media pioneer, political and business strategist, and Harvard Kennedy School faculty member Nicco Mele offers a fascinating, sometimes frightening look at how our ability to stay connected - constantly, instantly, and globally - is dramatically changing our world.Governments are being upended by individuals relying only on social media. Major political parties are seeing their power eroded by grassroots forces through online fund-raising. Universities are scrambling to preserve their student populations in the face of less expensive, more accessible online courses. 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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The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Eric Schmidt
Format: Deckle Edge]
Publisher: Knopf (2013, Apr 23rd).
Pages:
In an unparalleled collaboration, two leading global thinkers in technology and foreign affairs give us their widely anticipated, transformational vision of the future: a world where everyone is connected—a world full of challenges and benefits that are ours to meet and to harness. Eric Schmidt is one of Silicon Valley’s great leaders, having taken Google from a small startup to one of the world’s most influential companies. Jared Cohen is the director of Google Ideas and a former adviser to secretaries of state Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton. With their combined knowledge and experiences, the authors are uniquely positioned to take on some of the toughest questions about our future: Who will be more powerful in the future, the citizen or the state? Will technology make terrorism easier or harder to carry out? What is the relationship between privacy and security, and how much will we have to give up to be part of the new digital age? In this groundbreaking book, Schmidt and Cohen combine observation and insight to outline the promise and peril awaiting us in the coming decades. more
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The Invisible Girls: A Memoir
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Sarah Thebarge
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Jericho Books (2013, Apr 16th).
Pages: 272
Twenty-seven-year-old Sarah Thebarge had it all - a loving boyfriend, an Ivy League degree, and a successful career - when her life was derailed by an unthinkable diagnosis: aggressive breast cancer. After surviving the grueling treatments - though just barely - Sarah moved to Portland, Oregon to start over. There, a chance encounter with an exhausted African mother and her daughters transformed her life again. A Somali refugee whose husband had left her, Hadhi was struggling to raise five young daughters, half a world a way from her war-torn homeland. Alone in a strange country, Hadhi and the girls were on the brink of starvation in their own home, "invisible" to their neighbors and to the world. As Sarah helped Hadhi and the girls navigate American life, her outreach to the family became a source of courage and a lifeline for herself. more
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My Beloved Brontosaurus: On the Road with Old Bones, New Science, and Our Favorite Dinosaurs
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Brian Switek
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2013, Apr 16th).
Pages: 272
One of Publishers Weekly’s Top Ten Spring Science BooksSelected by Apple’s iBookstore as one of the best books of AprilDinosaurs, with their awe-inspiring size, terrifying claws and teeth, and otherworldly abilities, occupy a sacred place in our childhoods. They loom over museum halls, thunder through movies, and are a fundamental part of our collective imagination. In My Beloved Brontosaurus, the dinosaur fanatic Brian Switek enriches the childlike sense of wonder these amazing creatures instill in us. Investigating the latest discoveries in paleontology, he breathes new life into old bones.Switek reunites us with these mysterious creatures as he visits desolate excavation sites and hallowed museum vaults, exploring everything from the sex life of Apatosaurus and T. more
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Two Nations Indivisible: Mexico, the United States, and the Road Ahead
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Shannon K. O'Neil
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (2013, Apr 4th).
Pages: 264
A lawless border shootout with American guns in Mexican hands. Tragic stories of immigrants dying in the desert while heading north. Decapitations, kidnappings, and body counts. These sorts of grim tales dominate the media, infiltrate movies and TV shows, and ultimately shape Americans' perception of Mexico as a dangerous country, overrun by brutal drug lords. Without a doubt, the drug war is real. In the last six years, more than 60,000 people have been murdered in narco-related crimes. But there is far more to Mexico's story than this gruesome narrative would suggest. Hidden behind the headlines is a more hopeful Mexico, one undergoing rapid and widespread social, political, and economic transformations. It is one of a globally competitive economy, a rising middle class, and increasingly influential pro-democracy voters. more
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