Society

What does everyone in the modern world need to know? Renowned psychologist Jordan B. Peterson's answer to this most difficult of questions uniquely combines the hard-won truths....

This groundbreaking study reveals how social connections are far more important than we thought, showing us the steps we can take to build better relationships and improve our lives.

From the New York Times best-selling author of The Black Swan, a bold new work that challenges many of our long-held beliefs about risk and reward, politics and religion....

One of the most important and influential books of the past half-century, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance tells the iconic story of a father and son's motorcycle trip across America in the 1960s....

One of our greatest philosophers and scientists of the mind asks where the self comes from - and how our selves can exist in the minds of others....

Whenever we worry about what to eat, how to love, or simply how to be happy, we are worrying about how to lead a good life....

An economist explores the five laws that confirm our worst fears: Stupid people can and do rule the world....

This landmark in the field of social psychology is completely relevant and essential for understanding the world today as it delivers a visionary, highly provocative look into the mind of the fanatic and a penetrating study of how an individual becomes one....

Spot-on, often satirical, always insightful, contributing editor of The American Mind and mother of a brood Peachy Keenan argues that the only way we can save our families, ourselves, and the world—even California!—is by embracing our inner domestic extremists....

In 1962, the young Eugene Rose - the future Hieromonk Seraphim - undertook to write a monumental chronicle of the abandonment of truth in the modern age....

From the author of the critically acclaimed Interior States comes a strikingly original exploration of what it might mean to be authentically human in the age of artificial intelligence....

An astonishing work of cultural criticism, this book is widely recognized as a brilliant and devastating challenge to conventional views of literature, anthropology, religion, and psychoanalysis....

From the New York Times best-selling author of How Not to Be Wrong - himself a world-class geometer - comes a far-ranging exploration of the power of geometry, which turns out to help us think better about practically everything....

Misogyny is a hot topic, yet it's often misunderstood. Who deserves to be called a misogynist? How does misogyny contrast with sexism, and why is it prone to persist even when sexist gender roles are waning? This book is an exploration of misogyny in public life and politics....

Solidarity is often invoked, but it is rarely analyzed and poorly understood. Here, two leading activists and thinkers survey the past, present, and future of the concept across borders of nation, identity, and class....

A remarkable story of race and the American dream, The Fire Is upon Us reveals the deep roots and lasting legacy of a conflict that continues to haunt our politics....

Charles Eisenstein explores the history and potential future of civilization, tracing the converging crises of our age to the illusion of the separate self....

In her mid-thirties, Marian Evans transformed herself into George Eliot—an author celebrated for her genius as soon as she published her debut novel. During those years she also found her life partner, George Lewes-writer, philosopher, and married father of three....

What Thoreau can teach us about working—why we do it, what it does to us, and how we can make it more meaningful: Henry at Work invites listeners to rethink how we work today by exploring an aspect of Henry David Thoreau that has often been overlooked....

Peikoff, as Rand's foremost interpreter, here reveals both the abstract fundamentals of objectivism and its practical applications....

Visionary and provocative, The Good-Enough Life demonstrates how we can work together to cultivate a good-enough life for all instead of tearing ourselves apart in a race to the top of the social pyramid....

Economist and philosopher Daniel Chandler builds a powerful case for a new progressive agenda that would fundamentally reshape our societies for the better....

Critical theory emerged in the 1920s from the work of the Frankfurt School, the circle of German-Jewish academics. This Very Short Introduction sheds light on the cluster of concepts and themes that set critical theory apart from its more traditional philosophical competitors....

Violence and the Sacred is Rene Girard's landmark study of human evil. Here Girard explores violence as it is represented and occurs throughout history, literature, and myth.

Niccolò Machiavelli's brutally uncompromising manual of statecraft, The Prince....

The idea of sexual fluidity may seem new, but it is at least as old as the ancient Greeks, who wrote about queer experiences with remarkable frankness, wit, and insight. How to Be Queer is an infatuating collection of these writings about desire, love, and lust between men, between women, and between humans and gods, in lucid and lively new translations.

In "Confronting Chaos: The Civility Crisis," Nelson dives deep into the heart of America's current societal turmoil, pinpointing the root cause: the erosion of civility. With a blend of insight, compassion, and urgency, Nelson navigates listeners through the complexities of this crisis, offering both analysis and solutions. Drawing upon historical perspectives and contemporary examples, "Confronting Chaos" illuminates how the abandonment of traditional values, particularly those rooted in Christian principles, has led to a breakdown in respectful discourse and behavior.

Social connection is as essential for our health and happiness as a balanced diet and regular exercise. It reduces our risk of stroke, heart disease, and Alzheimer's. It enhances our creativity and adds years to our life span. Yet many of us struggle to form strong and meaningful bonds—and the problem lies not with our personalities but with a series of cognitive biases that stop us from fulfilling our social potential. In The Laws of Connection, David Robson describes the psychological barriers that lead us to keep others at a distance and offers evidence-based strategies to overcome them.

How to Get Over a Breakup presents an unabashedly modern prose translation of Ovid's lighthearted and provocative work, complete with a lively introduction. Ovid's advice—which he illustrates with ingenious interpretations of classical mythology—ranges from the practical, psychologically astute, and profound to the ironic, deliberately offensive, and bizarre.

Interrogating the historical currents that have brought us here, Harkness envisages a messier, riskier and less comfortable world than the one into which we’re sliding. Challenging listeners to scrutinise what’s missing from their personalised menus, Technology is Not the Problem encourages us to look afresh at the familiar: not just the technology we use every day, how we relate to the world and those around us.

Violence and the Sacred is Rene Girard's landmark study of human evil. Here Girard explores violence as it is represented and occurs throughout history, literature, and myth. Girard's forceful and thought-provoking analyses of Biblical narrative, Greek tragedy, and the lynchings and pogroms propagated by contemporary states illustrate his central argument that violence belongs to everyone and is at the heart of the sacred.

The Science of Rights (originally in German: Grundlage des Naturrechts nach Principien der Wissenschaftslehre) by Johann Gottlieb Fichte, was originally written in 1796 and later translated by Adolph Ernst Kroeger into English.

The Civil Society Playbook by Michael Benedict covers the underreported sources of societal incivility and introduces daily actions (a Playbook) that anyone of any age can take to make our homes, schools, and workplaces more civil. Let's make the world we want to live in - one action at a time.

Success and wealth often seem like distant aspirations, achievable only through extraordinary effort and luck. However, upon closer examination, it becomes apparent that success and wealth are not merely products of individual endeavors but are deeply intertwined with the environments in which individuals are raised. This book explores the mechanisms through which successful family environments foster achievement and prosperity across generations.

Imagine: you are designing a society, but you don't know who you'll be within it - rich or poor, man or woman, gay or straight. What would you want that society to look like? This is the revolutionary thought experiment proposed by the twentieth century's greatest political philosopher, John Rawls. As economist and philosopher Daniel Chandler argues in this hugely ambitious and exhilarating manifesto, it is by rediscovering Rawls that we can find a way out of the escalating crises that are devastating our world today.

In 2011, Emerick, an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church and a licensed clinical social worker, embarked on a self-directed study to educate himself about the nation's principal political disputes. He discovered that America's dominant political and economic theories...are... pitting the demands of the individual against the needs of the community. But in the Constitution's preamble... the concerns of individual liberty and the general welfare are given equal weight, and a more equitable national philosophy will...combine the two.

In May 2022, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences released a paper that measured fourteen European countries on three factors: biodiversity, wellbeing, and nature connectedness. Britain came last in every single category. The findings are clear. We are suffering, and nature is too. Enter ‘Wild Service’ – a visionary concept crafted by the pioneers of the Right to Roam campaign, which argues that humanity’s loss and nature’s need are two sides of the same story. Blending science, nature writing and indigenous philosophy, this groundbreaking book calls for mass reconnection to the land.

We normally don’t have any time, but when we finally do, we lack energy. On those rare occasions when we have energy outside of work, it is restless and difficult to harness towards meaningful goals. Starting from the realization that meaningful time is worthless without energy, the concept of “timenergy” points to something we all lack: large energy-infused blocks of repeatable time throughout the week.

Linear and progressive views of history have dominated the popular imagination for the past seventy years in a worldview wedded to the inexorable rise of globalization and GDP growth at any cost. However, the end of the Cold War failed to produce the end of history as hoped, a fact brought home to many by Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Human beings have taken one thing for granted since our earliest days: we are bodily creatures dealing with one another on a face-to-face basis. The internet has shattered this fundamental feature of human existence. We are suddenly living our lives in two worlds at once-shifting endlessly from virtual to physical reality as we reach out to others.