Essays Social

In this lively, accessible, and provocative collection, Aph and Syl Ko provide new theoretical frameworks on race, advocacy for nonhuman animals, and feminism. Using popular culture as a point of reference for their critiques, the Ko sisters engage in groundbreaking analysis of the compartmentalized nature of contemporary social movements, present new ways of understanding interconnected oppressions, and offer conceptual ways of moving forward, expressive of Afrofuturism and Black veganism.

What made FDR a more successful leader during the Depression crisis than Hoover? Why was Eisenhower more effective as supreme commander during World War II than he was as president? Why was Grant one of the best presidents of his day, if not in all of American history? What drove Bobby Kennedy into the scrum of electoral politics? Find the surprising and revelatory answers to these questions and more in this collection of new essays by great historians.

Preeminent French cynic and philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778) collected ideas and thoughts that were too short for pamphlets but worth saving for later development. These jottings eventually became the Philosophical Dictionary, filled with witty and wise entries on subjects as diverse as Atheism and Kissing - a compendium of the whole spectrum of Voltaire's ideas.

Jill Louise Busby spent years in the nonprofit sector specializing in diversity and inclusion. She spoke at academic institutions, businesses, and detention centers on the topics of race, power, and privilege and delivered over 200 workshops to nonprofit organizations all over the California Bay Area. In 2016, fed up with what passed as progressive in the Pacific Northwest, Busby uploaded a one-minute video about race, white institutions, and faux liberalism to Instagram. The video received millions of views across social platforms.

The Lie We Refuse to End is not a book of predictions. It is a map of the collapse we’ve already chosen. In these essays, Elias Winter names the invisible machinery of decline: fiscal illusion, moral cowardice, linguistic decay. With piercing clarity and prophetic calm, he dismantles the polite lies of empire and reclaims language as an instrument of truth.

Namita Gokhale and Malashri Lal, who brought us In Search of Sita: Revisiting Mythology, now present an anthology on the mysterious Radha, the epitome of love, who defies all conventional codes yet transcends social prohibitions through the power of the spiritual and the sensual, the sacred and the erotic. Finding Radha is the first of its kind: a collection of poetry, prose, and translation that enter the historical as well as the artistic dimensions of the eternal romance of Radha and Krishna.

Novelist Porochista Khakpour's family moved to Los Angeles after fleeing the Iranian Revolution, giving up their successes only to be greeted by an alienating culture. Growing up as an immigrant in America means that one has to make one's way through a confusing tangle of conflicting cultures and expectations. And Porochista is pulled between the glitzy culture of Tehrangeles, an enclave of wealthy Iranians and Persians in LA, her own family's modest life and culture, and becoming an assimilated American.

A new, expanded collection of both new and previously published essays and articles from one of the mainstays of the Washington, DC underground rock-and-roll scene, The Psychic Soviet is the most complete collection of writings by Ian Svenonius. The selections are written in a scholarly yet engaging style, filled with parody and biting humor that subvert capitalist culture, and cover such topics as the ascent of the DJ as a star, the “cosmic depression” that followed the defeat of the USSR, and the status of rock and roll as a religion.

Words matter. They wound, they inflate, they define, they demean. They have nuance and power. "Effortless", "Sassy", "Ambitious", "Aggressive": What subtle digs and sneaky implications are conveyed when women are described with words like these? Words are made into weapons, warnings, praise, and blame, bearing an outsized influence on women's lives - to say nothing of our moods.

Estos cinco ensayos y artículos por el genial Miguel de Unamuno, reúnen sus opiniones y análisis sobre temas que fueron tan corrientes en su tiempo como lo son hoy: religión, política, los famosos y la cultura. Los cinco ensayos y artículos cortos que aquí presentamos representan algunos de los mejores escritos por este maestro español. Estos son: La Feliz Ignorancia, Literatura al Día, Pensar con la Pluma, Políticos y Literatos, y Religión y Patria.

As geek culture goes mainstream - from Game of Thrones to the Avengers - it's never been more important to look at the role women play in it and the future they're helping to create. And Kameron is the smart, funny, and profane voice we need to guide listeners through the world of fandom and the coming revolution in pop culture.

This second collection of This I Believe essays gathers 75 essayists - ranging from famous to previously unknown - completing the thought that begins the book's title. With contributors who run the gamut from cellist Yo-Yo Ma to ordinary folks like a diner waitress, an Iraq War veteran, a farmer, a new husband, and many others, This I Believe II, like the first New York Times best-selling collection, showcases moving and irresistible essays.

When Paul Auster was asked to join NPR's Weekend All Things Considered program to tell stories, he turned the proposition on its head: he would let the stories come to him. He invited listeners to submit brief, true-life anecdotes about events that touched their lives.

In a series of penetrating and alarming essays, whose centerpiece is a commentary on the events of September 11, 2001 (deemed then too controversial to publish), Gore Vidal challenges the comforting consensus following September 11th and goes back and draws connections to Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. He asks were these simply the acts of “evil-doers?”

Over the last decade, Kevin Dedner has been on a mission to explore this powerful and troubling question, shining an unconventional spotlight on the impact of racism on mental health. In his debut book, The Joy of the Disinherited, Dedner articulates his call for urgent change: We must knock down the invisible barriers that make it harder for Black people to get the mental health care they need and deserve.

An essay by James J. Caterino, the author of Girl Pop, Dreams, True Stories, To Meghan, I Want to Believe, Ghost Stories, The Geek Girl and the Quarterback, The Last Neanderthal, Pop Star, The Girl from the Stars, and Watch the Skies.

Gay culture has become a nightmare of consumerism, whether it's an endless quest for Absolut vodka, Diesel jeans, rainbow Hummers, pec implants, or Pottery Barn. Whatever happened to sexual flamboyance and gender liberation, an end to marriage, the military, and the nuclear family? As backrooms are shut down to make way for wedding vows, and gay sexual culture morphs into “straight-acting dudes hangin’ out”, what are the possibilities for a defiant faggotry that challenges the assimilationist norms of a corporate-cozy lifestyle?

More than 50 years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote his Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Much has transpired in the half-century since, and progress has been made in the issues that were close to Dr. King’s heart. Thankfully, the burning crosses, biting police dogs, and angry mobs of that day are long gone. But in their place, passivity has emerged. A passivity that must be addressed. That’s the aim of Letters to a Birmingham Jail. A collection of essays written by men of various ethnicities and ages.

Love, for Emerson, is neither simple nor sweet. It is a force—wild, untamable, and yet profoundly human. In Love, he explores the deep currents that pull us together and push us apart, not with the softness of romance, but with the clarity of a philosopher who sees love as a transformative, even unsettling, experience. It is not just an emotion, but a vital, unpredictable energy that shapes and redefines us. Emerson doesn't idealize love; he insists on its complexity.

As humankind moves deeper into the Anthropocene, a period marked by climate disruption, species extinction, and profound challenges to human and animal welfare, what and how we teach our children has never been of greater importance. In this passionate, incisive, and diverse collection of 13 interconnected essays, educators at every level of education and from four continents call for a re-imagined pedagogy that embeds respect for the other-than-human world, encourages imagination and resilience, and fosters open inquiry based on principles of justice, fairness, and equity.