Showing titles in Society

We live in an age of unprecedented prosperity, yet everywhere we see signs that our pursuit of happiness has proven fruitless. Dissatisfied, we seek change for the sake of change - even if it means undermining the foundations of our common life. In Why We Are Restless, Benjamin and Jenna Storey offer a profound and beautiful reflection on the roots of this malaise and examine how we might begin to cure ourselves.

This American classic details the experiences of Henry David Thoreau while he lived at Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts. Thoreau, a transcendentalist writer, recounts extensively his reflections on his natural surroundings, as well as his values and experience of independence, self-reliance, and relation to nature and society.

Written in Greek by an intellectual Roman emperor without any intention of publication, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius offer a wide range of fascinating spiritual reflections and exercises developed as the leader struggled to understand himself and make sense of the universe. Spanning from doubt and despair to conviction and exaltation, they cover such diverse topics as the question of virtue, human rationality, the nature of the gods and the values of leadership.

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.

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.

Beneath the stylized violence and thrilling car crashes, the Mad Max films consider universal questions about the nature of human life, order and anarchy, justice and moral responsibility, society and technology, and ultimately, human redemption. In Mad Max and Philosophy, a diverse team of political scientists, historians, and philosophers investigates the underlying themes of the blockbuster movie franchise, following Max as he attempts to rebuild himself and the world.

You don’t live around plastic. You live inside it. From childhood toys to water bottles, from Tupperware to your bloodstream — plastic didn’t just change the world. It became it. Foreverland is the story of the synthetic substance that reprogrammed reality. What started as a miracle material became a cultural operating system — reshaping taste, convenience, economics, nostalgia, and even human biology. Funny, haunting, and eye-opening, this book will make you see the modern world for what it really is: Plastic. And it’s not going away.

En este libro, Fernando Díaz Villanueva analiza la influencia y el impacto de la civilización occidental en la política, la cultura y la sociedad para demostrar cómo sus ideales han transformado el mundo que conocemos. Contra el pesimismo es una invitación a mirar hacia el futuro con optimismo. Porque, como argumenta el autor, «vivimos en el mejor de los mundos posibles y aún queda mucho por construir».

These are the famous opening words of a treatise that has stirred vigorous debate ever since its first publication in 1762. Rejecting the view that anyone has a natural right to wield authority over others, Rousseau argues instead for a pact, or 'social contract', that should exist between all the citizens of a state and that should be the source of sovereign power.

When UNESCO convenes a diverse team of world-renowned experts in Paris, the goal is audacious: to settle the question of free will once and for all. For the first time ever, the combined knowledge of neuroscientists, cognitive psychologists, philosophers, a physicist, a legal scholar, and an advanced AI may finally crack it. Through a dynamic blend of cutting-edge science, spirited dialogue, unexpected twists and riveting thrills, this audiobook explores the mind, choice, and what it means to be human.

In a world with an endless hunger for innovation, why is it so hard to create audacious change? According to thought leader Seth Goldenberg, the answer to this question stems from how we, as a society, view questions themselves. In Radical Curiosity, Goldenberg argues that because we value knowing above learning and prioritize doing over thinking, curiosity has become an endangered species.

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.

Transcendentalism embodies the concept that people have a deeper and more profound understanding of the world around them than simply by what they can glimpse with their senses. In this collection of essays and poems, the works of three transcendentalist authors are shared, each with their own impressions and opinions supporting the movement.

In this short accessible book, leading democratic theorist Jason Brennan guides listeners through the evolution of the concept of democracy and actual democratic practice over time to help them understand the foundations of this longstanding and yet newly fragile political system. In his wide-ranging tour of the concept, Brennan will examine what democracy meant to the Greeks who first developed the concept before examining how it changed throughout European and later Western history.

Charles Handy is one of the giants of contemporary thought. His books on management - including Understanding Organizations and Gods of Management - have changed the way we view business. His work on broader issues and trends - such as Beyond Certainty and The Second Curve - has changed the way we view society. In his new book, Handy builds on a life's work to glimpse into the future and see what challenges and opportunities the next generation faces.

Love is most often associated with happiness, satisfaction, and pleasure. But it has a darker side we ignore at our peril. Love is often an uncomfortable and difficult feeling. The people we love can let us down badly. Since we are inevitably disappointed by love, wouldn't we be better off without it? No, says Carrie Jenkins. Instead, we need a new philosophy of love, one that recognizes that the pain and suffering love causes are a natural, even a good part of what makes love worthwhile. It's time we liberated love.

Surviving the Future is a story drawn from the fertile ground of the late David Fleming's extraordinary Lean Logic: A Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It. That hardback consists of 404 interlinked dictionary entries, inviting listeners to choose their own path through its radical vision. Recognizing that Lean Logic's sheer size and unusual structure can be daunting, Fleming's long-time collaborator Shaun Chamberlin has selected and edited one of these potential narratives to create Surviving the Future.

One of the world's most famous intellectual ghost stories, The Turn of the Screw is a haunting tale of suspected supernatural possession. A governess at a country house claims that Miles and Flora, two orphaned children in her care, are being controlled by spirits for some evil purpose. No one else can see the ghosts, and the children themselves are silent. Are they being dominated by spectral forces, or are they hiding something? Is the governess simply paranoid, or is something else going on?

In this bold and far-reaching exploration of our new political landscape, William Davies reveals how feelings have come to reshape our world. Drawing deep on history, philosophy, psychology and economics, he shows how some of the fundamental assumptions that defined the modern world have dissolved. With advances in science and medicine, the division between mind and body is no longer so clear-cut. The spread of digital and military technology has left us not quite at war nor exactly at peace.

A professor emeritus of philosophy at Princeton University, Harry G. Frankfurt penned a surprise smash hit with his New York Times best seller On Bullshit, which insightfully and wittily captured the human capacity for, and tendency toward, BS. Now he examines the other side of the coin with this equally entertaining and provocative follow-up.