Thirty years of award-winning teaching in New York City's public schools led [the author] to the sad conclusion that compulsory government schooling has nothing to do with education, doing little but teach young people to conform to the economy and the social order--page [4] of cover.

The renowned political thinker and author of The Origins of Totalitarianism examines the troubling consequences of humanity's increasing power. A work of striking originality, The Human Condition is in many respects more relevant today than when it first appeared in 1958. In her study of the state of modern humanity, Hannah Arendt considers humankind in terms of its ever-expanding capabilities. Her analysis reveals a troubling paradox: that as human...

Economist Steven D. Levitt and journalist Stephen Dubner explore the hidden meanings behind how economics make the world operate.

What would happen if every human being on Earth disappeared? This isn't the story of how we might vanish it's the story of what happens to the world we leave behind.

Nicholas Kristof grew up, in rural Yamhill, Oregon, an area that prospered for much of the twentieth century but has been devastated in the last few decades as blue-collar jobs disappeared. About one-quarter of the children on Kristof's old school bus died in adulthood from drugs, alcohol, suicide, or reckless accidents. And while these particular stories unfolded in one corner of the country, they are representative of many places the authors write...

ESCAPING POLYGAMY follows three sisters who left the Kingston clan, a secretive polygamist group in Utah known as the Order, and who now help loved ones and strangers break free of polygamy.

The Book Keepers follows the uplifting journey of a husband who keeps his wife's dream alive by becoming the spokesperson for her book after her death. Carol Wall's debut memoir, about cancer, friendship, and cultivating an open heart, was a breakout success. But joy turned to tragedy when the breast cancer she wrote about returned, and she died months after its publication. Carol's husband, Dick, determined to help her life-affirming message find...

Profiles the world's most renowned sociologists and more than 100 of their biggest ideas, including issues of equality, diversity, identity, and human rights; the effects of globalization; the role of institutions; and the rise of urban living in modern society.

The complex relationship between violence and nonviolence in social movements. We are living in a time of uprisings that routinely involve physical confrontation-burning vehicles, barricades, vandalism, and scuffles between protesters and authorities. Yet the Left has struggled to incorporate rioting into theories of change, remaining stuck in recurring debates over violence and nonviolence. Civil resistance studies have popularized the term "strategic...