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"As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power--which groups have it and which do not." In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched...
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First published in 1895, "The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind" is a pivotal work in the field of group psychology written by French social psychologist Gustave Le Bon. Le Bon theorizes that there are several characteristics of crowds as distinguishable from individual behavior. As it states in the preface: "The following work is devoted to an account of the characteristics of crowds. The whole of the common characteristics with which heredity endows...
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"In the early 19th century, a French sociologist and political scientist undertook a seven-month journey throughout the newly formed United States. Alexis de Tocqueville surveyed the young nation's religious, political, and economic character and reported his findings in two volumes, published in 1835 and 1840. Two centuries later, Democracy in America remains among the most astute and influential surveys of American politics and society. de Tocqueville...
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These acerbic, poignant, and thought-provoking essays concern mankind, its relationship with God, and how the mind works. Twain himself considered them dark and cynical, delaying their publication for many years before finally releasing them as an anonymous, limited-edition collection.
The title essay constitutes a deeply felt blow against religious hypocrisy, written in the form of a Socratic dialogue between a young idealist and an elderly, world-weary...
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In the wake of the election of Donald Trump to the presidency, this "is Almond's effort to make sense of our historical moment, to connect certain dots that go unconnected amid the deluge of hot takes and think pieces. Almond looks to literary voices--from Melville to Orwell, from Bradbury to Baldwin--to help explain the roots of [what he sees as] our moral erosion as a people"--
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It's time for everyone who cares about the state of our nation to heed the call and join forces to redeem the soul of America.
It's time to come together and renounce the politics of rejection, division, and greed. It's time to lift up the common good, move up to higher ground, and revive the heart of democracy.
In a single, rousing sermon, the celebrated Reverend William J. Barber II of the Poor People's Campaign makes an impassioned argument...
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A stevedore on the San Francisco docks in the 1940s, Hoffer wrote philosophical treatises examining mass movements--from Christianity in its infancy to the national uprisings of modern times. His analysis of the psychology of mass movements is a brilliant and frightening study of the mind of the fanatic.
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The author of the groundbreaking work Slut! explores the phenomenon of slut-shaming in the age of sexting, tweeting, and "liking." She shows that the sexual double standard is more dangerous than ever before and offers wisdom and strategies for alleviating its destructive effects on young women's lives. Young women are encouraged to express themselves sexually. Yet when they do, they are derided as "sluts." Caught in a double bind of mixed sexual...
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"Social psychologist and Stanford professor Brian Lowery presents a provocative, powerful theory of identity, arguing that there is no essential "self"--Our selves are social creations of those with whom we interact--exploring what that means for who we can be and who we allow others to be"--
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In this prescient essay collection, the acclaimed author of Foucault’s Pendulum examines the cultural trends and perils at the dawn of the 21st century.
In the last decade of the 20th century, Umberto Eco saw an urgent need to embrace tolerance and multiculturalism in the face of our world’s ever-increasing interconnectivity. At a talk delivered during the first Gulf War, he points out the absurdity
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The Protestant ethic - a moral code stressing hard work, rigorous self-discipline, and the organization of one's life in the service of God - was made famous by sociologist and political economist Max Weber. In this brilliant study (his best-known and most controversial), he opposes the Marxist concept of dialectical materialism and its view that change takes place through "the struggle of opposites." Instead, he relates the rise of a capitalist economy...
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Cuteness has taken the planet by storm. Global sensations Hello Kitty and Pokémon, the works of artists Takashi Murakami and Jeff Koons, Heidi the cross-eyed opossum and E.T. - all reflect its gathering power. But what does "cute" mean, as a sensibility and style? Why is it so pervasive? Is it all infantile fluff, or is there something more uncanny and even menacing going on - in a lighthearted way? In The Power of Cute, Simon May provides nuanced...
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What is nature? What is humanity's place in nature? And what is the relationship of society to the natural world? In an era of ecological breakdown, answering these questions has become of momentous importance for our everyday lives and for the future that we and other life-forms face. In the essays of The Philosophy of Social Ecology,
Murray Bookchin confronts these questions head
on: invoking the ideas of mutualism, self-organization, and unity...
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People have always had an inbuilt tendency to cast blame, and Scapegoat follows the plight of those who have found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is a brilliantly relevant look at an inglorious history, uncovering countless stories of obsession, mania, persecution and injustice from the highest echelons of society to the lowest outcast.
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Research shows that 61 percent of Americans feel lonely, misunderstood, and left out. And those are the numbers before the pandemic enforced isolation. There is also evidence that loneliness can impact your physical health. So how do we go from being lonely to belonging? Becoming a sports fan may be the first step. In Fans Have More Friends, sports fans, dads, and data analysts David Sikorjak and Ben Valenta argue that fandom can not only increase...
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The pioneering sociologist and author of The Seven Day Circle continues his analysis of time with this fascinating look at history as social construct.
Who were the first people to inhabit North America? Does the West Bank belong to the Arabs or the Jews? Why are racists so obsessed with origins? Is a seventh cousin still a cousin? Why do some societies name their children after dead ancestors?
As Eviatar Zerubavel demonstrates in Time Maps, we...
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"Over the last couple of decades, an ideological battle has raged over the political legacy and cultural symbolism of the "golden age" pirates who roamed the seas between the Caribbean Islands and the Indian Ocean from roughly 1690 to 1725. They are depicted as romanticized villains on the one hand and as genuine social rebels on the other. Life Under the Jolly Roger examines the political and cultural significance of these nomadic outlaws by relating...
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The Ku Klux Klan has peaked three times in American history: after the Civil War, around the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, and in the 1920s, when the Klan spread farthest and fastest. Recruiting millions of members even in non-Southern states, the Klan's nationalist insurgency burst into mainstream politics. Almost one hundred years later, once again the pent-up anger of white Americans left behind by a changing economy has directed itself at immigrants...