Showing results by publisher "Ascent Audio" in Politics & Government

In today's ultra-polarized and highly partisan political environment, Welfare for the Rich is one of the rare books written to appeal to engaged and open-minded citizens from across the political spectrum. Welfare for the Rich is the first book to describe and analyze the many ways that federal and state governments provide handouts - subsidies, grants, tax credits, loan guarantees, price supports, and many other payouts - to millionaires, billionaires, and the companies they own and run.

The burning of fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide (CO2), and these CO2 emissions are a major driver of climate change. Carbon capture offers a path to climate change mitigation that has received relatively little attention. In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Howard Herzog offers a concise guide to carbon capture, covering basic information as well as the larger context of climate technology and policy.

The issues and arguments surrounding school choice are sometimes hijacked to make political points about government control, democratic ideals, the public good, and privatization. In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, David Garcia avoids partisan arguments to offer an accessible, objective, and comprehensive guide to school choice.

In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, J. M. Berger offers a nuanced introduction to extremist movements, explaining what extremism is, how extremist ideologies are constructed, and why extremism can escalate into violence.

A play-by-play of the political forces and media culture that vilified and ultimately brought down Hillary Clinton during her 2016 Presidential campaign. The Destruction of Hillary Clinton is an answer to the question many have been asking: how did an extraordinarily well-qualified, experienced, and admired candidate - whose victory would have been as historic as Barack Obama's - come to be seen as a tool of the establishment, a chronic liar, and a talentless politician?

A bold new remedy for the sprawling and wasteful health care industry. In this provocative book, Jonathan Bush, cofounder and CEO of athenahealth, calls for a revolution in health care to give customers more choices, freedom, power, and information, and at far lower prices.

They Know Everything About You is a groundbreaking exposé of how government agencies and tech corporations monitor virtually every aspect of our lives, and a fierce defense of privacy and democracy. The revelation that the government has access to a vast trove of personal online data demonstrates that we already live in a surveillance society. But the erosion of privacy rights extends far beyond big government.

In AI and the Art of War, the Chief Intelligence Officer of Microsoft's National Security Group, Paul Rodrigues, explains the contemporary realities of artificial intelligence in the context of national security, defense, and warfare in stunning detail. Dr. Rodrigues draws on his extensive...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a pivotal institution in global economic governance tasked with ensuring monetary stability and preventing financial crises through promoting balanced trade, economic growth, and poverty reduction. It also plays a powerful normative role by shaping economic policies worldwide through its research and expertise. The IMF played a crucial role in managing crises like the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, providing significant financial aid and advocating for stimulus measures.

Top hedge fund managers make more than Oprah, Rupert Murdoch, and A-Rod combined—but they aren't running news and entertainment empires or playing baseball for the New York Yankees. Aren't you curious about how these hedge fund dudes make so much doing who knows what? You may even wonder if you can get there, too. After all, this is America!

In The Next Democracy, social entrepreneur Erdem Ovacik delivers a startlingly insightful discussion of a new collective governance model based on markets and data that can improve our wellbeing as individuals, and as a society. The author explains how we can develop the next generation of government that is data-driven, iterative, transparent, and that allows us to decentrally and directly make laws online using prediction markets and delegative voting.

Fact Forward: The Perils of Bad Information and the Promise of a Data-Savvy Society explores how a growing deluge of data has led to a data-rich world with abundant new opportunities and a precipitous decline in trust due to the problems we face in producing, communicating, and consuming data.

In Consequences: The Rise of a Fractured World Order, William Priest, David Roche, and Alex Michailoff deliver an engaging, timely, and insightful analysis of identifying the sources and challenges facing liberal democracies and their ability to confront autocracies and autocratic behavior. The authors identify and address structural flaws present in both democracies and autocracies.

This introduction to cyborg theory provides a critical vantage point for analyzing the claims around emerging technologies like automation, robots, and AI. Cyborg analyzes and reframes popular and scholarly conversations about cyborgs from the perspective of feminist cyborg theory.

We seem to be stuck, staring at insurmountable challenges. The pandemic is the opening act for climate change, and we need to get much better at anticipating and preparing for these types of challenges. Simply rebuilding bridges once they fall, or houses once they are swept away, is both expensive and risks human lives. Anticipation and preparation costs more now, but is much less costly over time.

Something basic is missing in our culture. Americans know it. Nothing much works as it should. Simple daily choices seem impossible, or fraught with peril. In the workplace, we walk on eggshells. Big projects get stalled in years of review. Endemic social problems such as homelessness become, well, more endemic. Everyday Freedom offers a radical reinterpretation of the corrosion of American culture.

For the crime of falling sick without wealth, Americans today face lawsuits, wage garnishment, home foreclosure, and jail time. Yet who really profits from aggressive medical debt collection? Your Money or Your Life reveals how medical debt collection became a multi-billion-dollar industry and how everyday Americans are made to pay the price. Emergency physician and historian Luke Messac weaves patient stories into a history of law, finance, and medicine to show how debt and debt collection are destroying the foundational trust between doctors and patients at the heart of American healthcare.

During the last two decades, there has been much scholarly and popular interest in the financialization of the American economy-why the turn to finance has taken place, what constituted it, and what has come out of it. In Disembedded, Basak Kus draws from the theories of Karl Polanyi-one of the greatest and most influential political economists of the twentieth century-to answer these questions.

The United States faces a serious retirement challenge. Many of today's workers will lack the resources to retire at traditional ages and maintain their standard of living in retirement. Solving the problem is a major challenge in today's environment in which risk and responsibility have shifted from government and employers to individuals. For this reason, Charles D. Ellis, Alicia H. Munnell, and Andrew D. Eschtruth have written this concise guide for anyone concerned about their own—and the nation's—retirement security.

In 1987, E. L. Doctorow celebrated the Constitution's bicentennial by reading it. "It is five thousand words long but reads like fifty thousand," he said. Distinguished legal scholar Garrett Epps disagrees. It's about 7,500 words. In American Epic, Epps takes us through a complete reading of the Constitution to achieve an appreciation of its power and a holistic understanding of what it says. In this book he seeks not to provide a definitive interpretation, but to listen to the language and ponder its meaning.