Tag: Society
Equality: The Impossible Quest (Martin van Creveld)
Equality: The Impossible Quest: Learn more at Amazon or at Goodreads.
“All over the Western world gaps between rich and poor are widening—or the headlines say. Nobody has done more to spread this view than the French economic historian Thomas Piketty, whose best-selling volume, Capital in the Twentieth Century, not only documents the process but represents one long call for reducing the gaps so as to create a more equal society. But what is equality? Who invented the idea, when, where, and why? How did it develop, grow, mature, and interact with other ideas? Continue reading…
Trust: Mastering the Four Essential Trusts: Trust in Self, Trust in God, Trust in Others, Trust in Life (Iyanla Vanzant)
Trust: Mastering the Four Essential Trusts: Trust in Self, Trust in God, Trust in Others, Trust in Life: Learn more at Amazon or at Goodreads.
“‘You just can’t trust anyone!’ seems to be a constant refrain in the modern world. Indeed, learning to trust is one of life’s most difficult lessons. ‘That’s because trust is not a verb,’ says legendary life coach Iyanla Vanzant, ‘it’s a noun. Trust is a state of mind and a state of being.’
In this wise book, the New York Times best-selling author and host of OWN’s popular reality TV show Iyanla: Fix My Life reveals how to cultivate this liberating power—by exploring what trust really is, how to trust, and why to trust. Continue reading…
On Being Human (Erich Fromm)
On Being Human: Learn more at Amazon or at Goodreads.
“Social psychologist Erich Fromm observed the spread of alienation in the 1960s, arguing that humans who were once dynamic, creative beings were reduced to fixating on TV screens, emotionally paralyzed by anxieties over threats like nuclear war. Though we may stare at different devices and worry about other dangers today, his insights are as useful as ever, and allow us to gain perspective on the human condition.
A collection of his writings on ‘New Humanism’ and the need to reclaim our happiness and peace of mind, this is a thoughtful, fascinating overview of the past that shaped us, and the philosophies and practices that can ensure a better future, both for ourselves and for the world at large. Continue reading…
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis (J.D. Vance)
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis: Learn more at Amazon or at Goodreads.
“Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J.D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck. Continue reading…
Doing It: Women Tell the Truth About Great Sex (Karen Pickering)
Doing It: Women Tell the Truth About Great Sex: Learn more at Amazon or at Goodreads.
“Women love sex. So why do we have such a difficult time accepting them as sexual creatures? For a society that loves to project sex onto women, we’re not so keen on their free sexual expression. Doing It brings together some incredible female writers to reflect on why that might be, how they feel about sex, and why they love it. Women don’t get to talk about this, or hear it, enough. Edited by renowned feminist Karen Pickering, Doing It celebrates women taking control of their sexual lives, with some brilliant writing on intimacy, physicality, gender and power. Continue reading…
Highlights from The Communist Manifesto (Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels)
From our journey through random or quality (or random quality) books, here are some highlights from Karl Marx’s and Friedrich Engels’s The Communist Manifesto (1848).
Emphasis as it appears in the original work may be missing, and our own edits, though marked, may be broad. Important: By sharing these highlights we neither endorse nor recommend respective authors and their views. Assume that we know little of the authors, and that we have nuanced views on the matter—as with all our book recommendations.
The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles.
The Sociology Book (Big Ideas Simply Explained) (Sam Atkinson)
The Sociology Book (Big Ideas Simply Explained): Learn more at Amazon or at Goodreads.
“The Sociology Book takes on some of humankind’s biggest questions: What is society? What makes it tick? Why do we interact in the way that we do with our friends, coworkers, and rivals?
The Sociology Book 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
Easy to navigate and chock-full of key concepts, profiles of major sociological thinkers, and conversation starters galore, this is a must-have, in-a-nutshell guide to some of the most fascinating questions on earth. Continue reading…
The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (Gustave Le Bon)
The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind: Learn more at Amazon or at Goodreads.
“The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (French: Psychologie des Foules; literally: Psychology of Crowds) is a book authored by Gustave Le Bon that was first published in 1895.
In the book, Le Bon claims that there are several characteristics of crowd psychology: ‘impulsiveness, irritability, incapacity to reason, the absence of judgement of the critical spirit, the exaggeration of sentiments, and others…’ Le Bon claimed that ‘an individual immersed for some length of time in a crowd soon finds himself—either in consequence of magnetic influence given out by the crowd or from some other cause of which we are ignorant—in a special state, which much resembles the state of fascination in which the hypnotized individual finds himself in the hands of the hypnotizer.’”
Authority (Richard Sennett)
Authority: Learn more at Amazon or at Goodreads.
“This book is a study of both how we experience authority and how we might experience it differently. Sennett explores the bonds that rebellion against authority paradoxically establishes, showing how this paradox has been in the making since the French Revolution and how today it expresses itself in offices, in factories, and in government as well as in the family. Drawing on examples from psychology, sociology, and literature, he eloquently projects how we might reinvigorate the role of authority according to good and rational ideals. Continue reading…
No Is Not Enough: Resisting Trump’s Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need (Naomi Klein)
No Is Not Enough: Resisting Trump’s Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need: Learn more at Amazon or at Goodreads.
“A road map to resistance in the Trump era from internationally acclaimed activist and bestselling author Naomi Klein.
‘This book is a toolkit to help understand how we arrived at this surreal political moment, how to keep it from getting a lot worse, and how, if we keep our heads, we can flip the script and seize the opportunity to make things a whole lot better in a time of urgent need. Continue reading…