Civic Science

In his widely acclaimed volume Our Undemocratic Constitution, Sanford Levinson boldly argued that our Constitution should not be treated with "sanctimonious reverence," but as a badly flawed document deserving revision. Now Levinson takes us deeper, asking what were the original assumptions underlying our institutions, and whether we accept those assumptions 225 years later.

Can a football game affect the outcome of an election? What about shark attacks? Or a drought? In a rational world the answer, of course, would be no. But as best-selling historian Rick Shenkman shows in Political Animals, our world is anything but rational. This isn't because we aren't smart. Instead, modern cues are setting off ancient, instinctive responses that worked to keep us safe in the Stone Age but lead us astray today.

The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore is a firsthand account of the events that shaped the 2016 presidential election and the cultural forces that powered Donald Trump into the White House. Featuring in-the-field reports as well as deep analysis, Sexton's book is not just the story of the most unexpected and divisive election in modern political history. It is also a sobering chronicle of our democracy's political polarization - a result of our self-constructed, technologically assisted echo chambers.

Legal luminary Burt Neuborne argues that the structure of the First Amendment as well as of the entire Bill of Rights was more intentional than most people realize, beginning with the internal freedom of conscience and working outward to freedom of expression and finally freedom of public association. This design, Neuborne argues, was not to protect discrete individual rights - such as the rights of corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections.

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.

Volunteering is a skill that evolves with the time, experience, and wisdom of the elders. Volunteering is about developing altruistic attitudes, the opportunity to practice shared activities and service, and the community experience. There are many ways to help those in need, and volunteering adds an extra dimension to your life.

No major arena of US governance is more elitist than foreign policy. International relations barely surface in election campaigns, and policymakers take little input from Congress. For much of the twentieth century, officials, activists, and academics worked to foster an informed public that would embrace participation in foreign policy as a civic duty. Every Citizen a Statesman recounts an abandoned effort to create a democratic foreign policy.

Think about the last time you tried to talk with someone about political, social, or environmental issues who didn't already agree with you. How well did it go? These conversations are vital, but too often they get stuck, or we avoid them entirely. We retreat to our camps, frustrated that we can't move our cause forward. What if, in these difficult conversations, we could stay true to ourselves while enriching relationships and creating powerful pathways forward?

In We Can All Do Better, for the first time since the financial meltdown and since the worst of the intensifying political gridlock, Bill Bradley offers his own concise, powerful, and highly personal review of the state of the nation. He argues that government is not the problem. He criticizes the role of money and politics, explains how continuing on our existing foreign policy, electoral, and economic paths will mean a diminished future, and lays out exactly what needs to be done to reverse course.

Each of us faces a moment of truth - at a time of crisis, do we stand up and speak out or retreat into our private lives? This audiobook is for those frustrated by what they see happening in the world but are not sure what they can do about it. Veteran organizer Gordon Whitman shows that we have the power we need to create a racially and economically just society. The audiobook is a road map for standing up to the bullies who've hijacked our democracy and divided us against each other.

Be Less Dickish clarifies differences between an asshole, douchebag, dick, pussy, and - bonus - the piece of shit. These crass, destructive, and often hilarious characters reveal insights about you and the men you know. Understanding these guys will help you deal with them.

A global exploration of the Internet meme as an agent of pop culture, politics, protest, and propaganda on and offline and how they will save or destroy us all. Using social media-driven movements as her guide, technologist and digital media scholar An Xiao Mina unpacks the mechanics of memes and how they operate to reinforce, amplify, and shape today's politics.

If the midterm elections were a declaration of war on the status quo, Rand Paul leads the battle charge. Voters fearful of growing government and debt have found voice in the Tea Party phenomenon, and the movement continues to deliver a message that Washington, D.C., has found impossible to ignore.

From identification cards to how we protect our property, public debate rages over what our basic human rights are and how they are to be protected. In this trenchant and provocative audiobook, Peter Hitchens sets out to show that popular views of these hotly contested issues - from crime and punishment to so-called 'soft drugs' - are based on mistaken beliefs, massaged figures and cheap slogans.

Trump, as extreme as he is, is less an aberration than a logical conclusion - a pastiche of pretty much all the worst and most dangerous trends of the past half century. A one-man megabrand, with wife and children as spin-off brands... Remember when it all seemed to be getting better? Before Trump happened? Naomi Klein, internationally acclaimed journalist, activist and best-selling author, shows us how we got to this surreal and dangerous place, how to stop it getting a lot worse, and how, if we keep our heads, we can make things better.

The liberal arts university has been in decline since well before the virtualization of campus life, increasingly inviting public skepticism about its viability as an institution of personal, civ­ic, and professional growth. New technologies that might have brought people together have instead frustrated the university’s capacity to foster thoughtful citizenship among tomorrow’s lead­ers and exacerbated socioeconomic inequalities that are poison­ing America’s civic culture.

One year into Donald Trump's presidency, the US 2016 presidential election is still being fought by both parties. As the case of Russian hacking and collusion is investigated, and Hillary Clinton desperately attempts to explain what happened to her and why she lost, a more important question, one haunted by shadowy tactics and campaign double-dealing, rings out: what happened to Bernie Sanders?

In late 2014, Arundhati Roy, John Cusack, and Daniel Ellsberg traveled to Moscow to meet with Edward Snowden. The result is a series of essays and dialogues in which Roy and Cusack reflect on their conversations with Snowden. In these provocative and penetrating discussions, Roy and Cusack discuss the nature of the state, empire, and surveillance in an era of perpetual war, the meaning of flags and patriotism, the role of foundations and NGOs in limiting dissent, and the ways in which capital but not people can freely cross borders.

CIA case officer, Kent Clizbe, analyzes counter-intelligence details to demonstrate that KGB covert influence agents in American education and academia, Hollywood, and the media inserted the anti-American payload that became Political Correctness (PC). The KGB officers suffered death in Stalin's purges. Their American accomplices, not needing guidance, built the elite mindset of "reflexive loathing of the United States and its people," that defines PC.

Our American democracy is not broken. Our two-party political system and constitutional government are working, though perhaps not at their best. In recent years, we have experienced the storming of the Capitol, the rise of demagogues (such as Donald Trump and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), and the polarization into Red and Blue States. Unfortunately, we seem to be at a low point, a possible breaking point.