Social Change

Instead of thinking about social justice as a process that starts with changing people's minds, Embodied Activism understands our bodies—how we feel in them and relate to others through them—as the sites of transformation.

Regeneration offers a visionary new approach to climate change, one that weaves justice, climate, biodiversity, equity, and human dignity into a seamless tapestry of action, policy, and transformation that can end the climate crisis in one generation. It is the first book to describe and define the burgeoning regeneration movement spreading rapidly throughout the world.

It’s January 2, 1960: the day that Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy declared his candidacy; and with this opening scene, Chris Wallace offers listeners a front-row seat to history. From the challenge of primary battles in a nation that had never elected a Catholic president, to the intense machinations of the national conventions—where JFK chose Lyndon B. Johnson as his running mate over the impassioned objections of his brother Bobby—this is a nonfiction political thriller filled with intrigue, cinematic action, and fresh reporting.

Here is a tour de force of American politics from one of journalism's most acclaimed commentators. History turns on a dime. A missed meeting, a different choice of words, and the outcome changes dramatically. Nowhere is this truer than in American politics, and in three dramatic narratives based on memoirs, histories, oral histories, fresh reporting with journalists and key participants, and Jeff Greenfield's own knowledge of the principal players, he shows just how extraordinary those changes would have been.

Norman Lebrecht has devoted half of his life to pondering and researching the mindset of the Jewish intellectuals, writers, scientists, and thinkers who turned the tides of history and shaped the world today as we know it. In Genius & Anxiety, Lebrecht begins with the Communist Manifesto in 1847 and ends in 1947, when Israel was founded. This robust, magnificent volume, beautifully designed, is an urgent and necessary celebration of Jewish genius and contribution.

Vivek Chibber provides a clear and accessible map of how capitalism works, how it limits the power of working and oppressed people, and how to overcome those limits. The capitalist economy generates incredible wealth but also injustice.

Since the release of her first, career-defining solo album Little Earthquakes, Tori Amos has been one of the music industry’s most enduring and ingenious artists. From her unnerving depiction of sexual assault in “Me and a Gun” to her post-September 11 album, Scarlet’s Walk, to her latest album, Native Invader, her work has never shied away from intermingling the personal with the political. Filled with compassionate guidance and actionable advice, this audiobook is for anyone determined to steer the world back in the right direction.

Cultivating a school culture focused on the achievement of students while anticipating change is imperative, but it’s tough to keep up with varying leadership demands when it seems like society and technology are constantly changing as well! Moving beyond the skills and tools introduced in the first edition, this revamped second edition features new organization emphasizing the interconnectivity of the Pillars of Digital Leadership, innovative strategies and leadership practices that enhance school culture and drive learning improvement, and more.

Today, in an instant, leaders can find themselves face-to-face with crisis. An active shooter. A media controversy. A data breach. In You're It, the faculty of the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative at Harvard University takes you to the front lines of some of the toughest decisions facing our nation's leaders - from how to mobilize during a hurricane or in the aftermath of a bombing to halting a raging pandemic. They also take listeners through the tough decision-making inside the world's largest companies, hottest startups, and leading nonprofits.

You either were there or you wanted to be. A defining New York City institution co-founded by Norman Mailer, The Village Voice was the first newspaper to cover hip-hop, the avant-garde art scene, and Off-Broadway with gravitas. It reported on the AIDS crisis with urgency and seriousness when other papers dismissed it as a gay disease. In 1979, the Voice’s Wayne Barrett uncovered Donald Trump as a corrupt con artist before anyone else was paying attention.

Lyme disease is spreading rapidly around the globe as ticks move into places they could not survive before. The first epidemic to emerge in the era of climate change, the disease infects half a million people in the US and Europe each year, and untold multitudes in Canada, China, Russia, and Australia. Mary Beth Pfeiffer shows how we have contributed to this growing menace and how modern medicine has underestimated its danger.

Growth has been both an unspoken and an explicit aim of our individual and collective striving. It governs the lives of microorganisms and galaxies; it shapes the capabilities of our extraordinarily large brains and the fortunes of our economies. Growth is manifested in annual increments of continental crust, a rising gross domestic product, a child's growth chart, the spread of cancerous cells. In this magisterial book, Vaclav Smil offers systematic investigation of growth in nature and society, from tiny organisms to the trajectories of empires and civilizations.

Scrolling through our daily newsfeeds we see violence and cruelty, turmoil and injustice, fake news and clickbait, and worsening environmental and social crises—just a few of the dark currents feeding a tidal wave of pessimism. In the face of so many challenges, how can we stay optimistic? And, more important, why should we? In The Bright Side, Sumit Paul-Choudhury answers these pressing questions, arguing that optimism is not only essential for overcoming the challenges we face, but also fundamental to human wellbeing

In the Encyclical on Climate Change and Inequality, the beloved pope exhorts the world to combat environmental degradation and its impact on the poor. In a stirring, clarion call that is not merely aimed at Catholic listeners but rather at a wide, lay audience, the pope cites the overwhelming scientific evidence of climate change and does not hesitate to detail how it is the result of a historic level of unequal distribution of wealth.

National leader Stacey Abrams has written the guide to harnessing the strengths of being an outsider and succeeding anyway. Leadership is hard. Convincing others - and yourself - that you are capable of taking charge and achieving more requires insight and courage. Lead from the Outside is the handbook for outsiders, written with an eye toward the challenges that hinder women, people of color, the working class, members of the LGBTQ community, and millennials ready to make change.

In Electrify, Saul Griffith lays out a detailed blueprint - optimistic but feasible - for fighting climate change while creating millions of new jobs and a healthier environment. Griffith's plan can be summed up simply: Electrify everything. He explains exactly what it would take to transform our infrastructure, update our grid, and adapt our households to make this possible. Billionaires may contemplate escaping our worn-out planet on a private rocket ship to Mars, but the rest of us, Griffith says, will stay and fight for the future.

Melinda Long's How I Became a Pirate was a New York Times best-seller, a Book Sense Book of the Year, and a Parents' Choice Gold Award winner. In this humorous sequel, Jeremy Jacob is babysitting his infant sister when his old pirate friends come knocking. They want the treasure stashed in the backyard, but Jeremy will only help if the pirates take care of Bonney.

In “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It,” president emeritus of Macalester College Brian Rosenberg draws on decades of higher education experience to expose the entrenched structures, practices, and cultures that inhibit meaningful postsecondary reform, even as institutions face serious challenges to their financial and educational models. A lively insider’s account, the book pinpoints factors that hinder the ability of U.S. colleges and universities to be creative and entrepreneurial amid calls to improve affordability, access, and equity for students.

In Burn It Down, veteran reporter Maureen Ryan does just that. She draws on decades of experience to connect the dots and illuminate the deeper forces sustaining Hollywood’s corrosive culture. Fresh reporting sheds light on problematic situations at companies like Lucasfilm and shows like Lost, Saturday Night Live, The Goldbergs, Sleepy Hollow, Curb Your Enthusiasm and more.

With the new edition of Unsettled, Steven Koonin draws on decades of experience—including as a top science advisor to the Obama administration—to clear away the fog and explain what science really says (and doesn’t say). With a new introduction, this edition now features reflections on an additional three years of eye-opening data, alternatives to unrealistic “net zero” solutions, global energy inequalities, and the energy crisis arising from the war in Ukraine.