Böcker utgivna av Basic Books

"After the Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that the use of race in college admissions was unconstitutional, many predicted that the black middle class was doomed. In The Affirmative Action Myth, Jason L. Riley details the neglected history of black achievement without government intervention. Using empirical data, Riley shows how black families lifted themselves out of poverty prior to the racial preference policies of the 1960s and 1970s. Countering thinkers who blame white supremacy and systemic racism for today's racial gaps, Riley offers a more optimistic story of black success without racial favoritism"--

A "beautifully written" (David Fideler) spiritual biography of Albert Einstein that reveals for the first time the scientific and religious origins of his personal philosophy — "a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the mind of the great physicist" (Jo Marchant) Albert Einstein remains renowned around the world for revolutionizing our understanding of the cosmos, but very few realize that the celebrated scientist had a deep spiritual side. Einstein believed that one wondrous force was woven through all things everywhere—and this sense of the pervasive sacred influenced every aspect of his existence, from his marvelous science to his passionate pacifism.  I Am a Part of Infinity offers the first in-depth exploration of Einstein’s spirituality, showing how he drew on a dazzling diversity of thinkers—from Pythagoras to Plato, Schopenhauer to Spinoza, the Upanishads to Mahatma Gandhi—to create a novel system where mysticism met mathematics, reality was revered, and the human mind was honored as a mirror of the infinite. This wasn’t just a new way of seeing the world. Einstein asked us to commune with the cosmos, to treat every living creature with compassion, to channel the power that permeated all things and put it to use for pure purposes.   Drawing on little-known conversations, recently published letters, and new archival research, I Am a Part of Infinity reveals what Einstein really believed and why his perspective still matters today.

"Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was the sixteenth emperor of Rome-and by far the most powerful man in the world. His collected thoughts, gems that have come to be called his Meditations, have proved an inexhaustible source of wisdom and one of the most important Stoic texts of all time. In often passionate language, the entries range from one-line aphorisms to essays, from profundity to bitterness. An abridged and portable edition of Marcus Aurelius's sage insights, The Wisdom of Marcus Aurelius illuminates one of the greatest works of popular philosophy ever composed"--

An award-winning natural-history writer presents "the perfect mix of science and story" (Sy Montgomery), opening the door to the nature that thrives in our yards, gardens, and parks: "I couldn't put it down" (Doug Tallamy).    We all live on nature’s doorstep, but we often overlook it. From backyards to local parks, the natural places we see the most may well be the ones we know the least.     In Close to Home, biologist Thor Hanson shows how retraining our eyes reveals hidden wonders just waiting to be discovered. In Kansas City, migrating monarch butterflies flock to the local zoo. In the Pacific Northwest, fierce yellowjackets placidly sip honeydew, unseen in the treetops. In New England, a lawn gone slightly wild hosts a naturalist's life's work. And in the soil beneath our feet, remedies for everything from breast cancer to the stench of skunks lie waiting for someone’s searching shovel.     Close to Home is a hands-on natural history for any local patch of Earth. It shows that we each can contribute to science and improve the health of our planet. And even more, it proves that the wonders of nature don’t lie in some far-off land: they await us, close to home.

An “essential” (James Oakes, author of The Crooked Path to Abolition) history of the study of slavery in America, from the Revolutionary era to the 1619 Project, showing how these intellectual debates have shaped American public life In recent years, from school board meetings to the halls of Congress, Americans have engaged in fierce debates about how slavery and its legacies ought to be taught, researched, and narrated. But since the earliest days of the Republic, political leaders, abolitionists, judges, scholars, and ordinary citizens have all struggled to explain and understand the peculiar institution.    In Making Sense of Slavery, historian Scott Spillman shows that the study of slavery was a vital catalyst for the broader development of American intellectual life and politics. In contexts ranging from the plantation fields to the university classroom, Americans interpreted slavery and its afterlives through many lenses, shaping the trajectory of disciplines from economics to sociology, from psychology to history. Spillman delves deeply into the archives, and into the pathbreaking work of scholars such as W. E. B. Du Bois and Annette Gordon-Reed, to trace how generations of Americans have wrestled with the paradox of slavery in a country founded on principles of liberty and equality.    As the debate over the place of slavery in our history rages on, Making Sense of Slavery shows that what is truly central to American history is this very debate itself.

The surprising history of old age in modern America, showing how we created unprecedented security for some and painful uncertainty for others On farms and in factories, Americans once had little choice but to work until death. As the nation prospered, a new idea was born: the right to a dignified and secure old age. That project has benefited millions, but it remains incomplete--and today it's under siege. In Golden Years, historian James Chappel shows how old age first emerged as a distinct stage of life and how it evolved over the last century, shaped by politicians' choices, activists' demands, medical advancements, and cultural models from utopian novels to The Golden Girls. Only after World War II did government subsidies and employer pensions allow people to retire en masse. Just one generation later, this model crumbled. Older people streamed back into the workforce, and free-market policymakers pushed the burdens of aging back onto older Americans and their families. We now confront an old age mired in contradictions: ever longer lifespans and spiraling health-care costs, 401(k)s and economic precarity, unprecedented opportunity and often disastrous instability. As the population of older Americans grows, Golden Years urges us to look to the past to better understand old age today--and how it could be better tomorrow.

A "fun" and "unexpected" (The Economist) global tour of the world's greatest games and the mathematics that underlies them Where should you move first in Connect 4? What is the best property in Monopoly? And how can pi help you win rock paper scissors? Spanning millennia, oceans and continents, countries and cultures, Around the World in Eighty Games gleefully explores how mathematics and games have always been deeply intertwined. Renowned mathematician Marcus du Sautoy investigates how games provided the first opportunities for deep mathematical insight into the world, how understanding math can help us play games better, and how both math and games are integral to human psychology and culture. For as long as there have been people, there have been games, and for nearly as long, we have been exploring and discovering mathematics. A grand adventure, Around the World in Eighty Games teaches us not just how games are won, but how they, and their math, shape who we are.

How the path from climate change to a habitable future winds through the world's forests In recent years, planting a tree has become a catchall to represent "doing something good for the planet." Many companies commit to planting a tree with every purchase. But who plants those trees and where? Will they flourish and offer the benefits that people expect? Can all the individual efforts around the world help remedy the ever-looming climate crisis? In Treekeepers, Lauren E. Oakes takes us on a poetic and practical journey from the Scottish Highlands to the Panamanian jungle to meet the scientists, innovators, and local citizens who each offer part of the answer. Their work isn't just about planting lots of trees, but also about understanding what it takes to grow or regrow a forest and to protect what remains. Throughout, Oakes shows the complex roles of forests in the fight against climate change, and of the people who are giving trees a chance with hope for our mutual survival. Timely, meticulously reported, and ultimately optimistic, Treekeepers teaches us how to live with a sense of urgency in our warming world, to find beauty in the present for ourselves and our children, and to take action big or small.

A heartfelt, humane, and even hilarious account of why rule-obsessed veganism fails and how a focus on flourishing can bring about an abundant future for all Perhaps you've looked at factory farming or climate change and thought, I should become a vegan. And like most people who think that, very probably you haven't. Why? Well, in our world, roast turkey emanates gratitude, steak confers virility, and chicken soup represents a mother's love. Against that, simply swapping meat for plants won't work. In Hungry Beautiful Animals, philosopher Matthew C. Halteman shows us how--despite all the forces arrayed against going vegan--we can create an abundant life for everyone without using animals for food. It might seem that moral rectitude or environmental judgement should do the trick, but they can't. Going vegan must be about flourishing, for all life. Shame and blame don't lead to flourishing. We must do it with joy instead. Hungry Beautiful Animals is more than philosophy: it's a book of action, of forgiveness, of love. Funny and wise, this book frees us joyfully to want what we already know we need.

A bold defense of the internet, arguing that attempts to fix and regulate it are often misguided The internet stands accused of dividing us, spying on us, making us stupid, and addicting our children. In response, the press and panicked politicians seek greater regulation and control, which could ruin the web before we are finished building it.   Jeff Jarvis is convinced we can have a saner conversation about the internet. Examining the web’s past, present, and future, he shows that most of the problems the media lays at the internet’s door are the result of our own failings. The internet did not make us hate; we brought our bias, bigotry, and prejudice with us online. That’s why even well-intentioned regulation will fail to fix hate speech and misinformation and may instead imperil the freedom of speech the internet affords to all. Once we understand the internet for what it is—a human network—we can reclaim it from the nerds, pundits, and pols who are in charge now and turn our attention where it belongs: to fostering community, conversation, and creativity online.  The Web We Weave offers an antidote to today’s pessimism about the internet, outlining a bold vision for a world with a web that works for all of us.

"The Vietnam War cast a shadow over the American psyche from the moment it began. In its time it sparked budget deficits, campus protests, and an erosion of US influence around the world. Long after the last helicopter evacuated Saigon, Americans have continued to battle over whether it was ever a winnable war. Based on thousands of pages of military, diplomatic, and intelligence documents, [this book] offers a definitive account of a war of choice that was doomed from its inception. ... Wawro narrates campaigns where US troops struggled even to find the enemy in the South Vietnamese wilderness, let alone kill sufficient numbers to turn the tide in their favor. Yet the war dragged on, prolonged by presidents and military leaders who feared the political consequences of accepting defeat. In the end, no number of young lives lost or bombs dropped could prevent America's ally, the corrupt South Vietnamese regime, from collapsing the moment US troops retreated"--

"Humans have learned a lot about the world around us and the universe beyond. We have had powerful insights and created profound theories about the universe and everything in it. Surely the ultimate theory must be waiting, just beyond our current knowledge. Well, maybe. In Into the Unknown, astrophysicist Kelsey Johnson takes us to the edge of scientific understanding about the universe: What caused the Big Bang? What happens inside black holes? Are there other dimensions? She doesn't just celebrate what we know but rather what we don't, and asks what it means if we never find that knowledge. Exploring the convergence of science, philosophy, and theology, Johnson argues we must reckon with possibilities-including those that may be beyond human comprehension. The very places where we run smack into total ignorance are the places where the most important questions-about the philosophy of knowledge, the nature of our cosmos, and even the existence of God-await. As accessible as it is profound, Into the Unknown invites each of us to join in the great quest for knowledge"--

"Aesop's fables are among the most familiar and best-loved stories in the world. Tales like "The Tortoise and the Hare," "The Dog in the Manger," and "Sour Grapes" have captivated us for generations. The fables delight us and teach timeless truths. Aesop's tales offer us a world fundamentally simpler to ours-one with clear good and plain evil-but nonetheless one that is marked by political nuance and literary complexity. Newly translated and annotated by renowned scholar Robin Waterfield, this definitive translation shines a new light on four hundred of Aesop's most enduring fables"--

An irreverent and kaleidoscopic cartoon history of Latino life, culture, and politics, now revised and updated for its twenty-fifth anniversary In Latino USA, Latin American and Latino scholar Ilan Stavans captures the joys, nuances, and multiple dimensions of Latino culture within the context of the English language. Combining the solemnity of so-called serious literature and history with the inherently theatrical and humorous form of comics, this cartoon history of Latinos includes Columbus, the Alamo, Desi Arnaz, West Side Story, Castro, Guevara, the Bay of Pigs, Neruda, the Mariel boatlift, Selena, Sonia Sotomayor, and much more.     To embrace the sweep of Hispanic civilization and its riot of types, archetypes, and stereotypes, Stavans deploys a series of “cliché figurines” as narrators, including a toucan (displayed regularly in books by García Márquez, Allende, and others), the beloved Latino comedian Cantinflas, a masked wrestler, and Captain America. Their multiple, at times contradictory voices provide unique perspectives on Latino history, together creating a carnivalesque epic, democratic and impartial.    Updated to bring the book up to the present moment, this twenty-fifth anniversary edition includes thirty new pages of Latino history, from Hamilton to George Santos. Latino USA, like the history it so entertainingly relates, is a treasure trove of irreverence, wit, subversion, anarchy, politics, humanism, and celebration.

"After 9/11, thousands of mental health professionals from across the country assembled in Manhattan to help handle the almost certain avalanche of traumatized New Yorkers. Curiously, it never came. While plenty of people did seek mental health counseling after 9/11, the numbers were nowhere near expected. As renowned psychologist George Bonanno argues, psychiatrists failed to predict the response to 9/11 because our model of trauma is wrong. Psychiatrists only study clinically traumatized people, and over time this skewed sample has led us to believe that trauma was the natural response to stress. But what about all the people who never come in for help? Bonanno has spent his career studying how people respond to potentially traumatic events, whether or not they show symptoms of PTSD. In TK, he lays out a bold new model of the origins and trauma, and how we can more effectively treat it. Bonanno's research has shown that the natural response to stressful situations is not trauma but resilience. Most people are, by default, able to cope without suffering long-term consequences. This is important because assuming that people are traumatized when they aren't can actually risk traumatizing them. TK explains what makes us resilient, why people sometimes aren't, and what really helps us work through trauma. of the book draws on Bonanno's pioneering studies on trauma in war veterans, car crash victims, assault and abuse survivors, and even the victims of 9/11. His most crucial finding is that resilience does not come from one essential coping strategy, as other books argue. Resilience is actually a process in which we actively explore, assess, and adapt the strategies that allow us to engage with a situation. Trauma happens when our natural systems of resilience falter, and Bonanno develops a method for restoring resilience called the flexibility sequence, a series of strategies designed to help us find new coping strategies when we find ourselves at a loss. Bonanno's first book, The Other Side of Sadness, showed that the oft-touted notion that there are "five stages" of bereavement ignored how real people grieve. The book spoke not only to his fellow psychologists, but to thousands of people who needed to better understand their own experiences of loss. In the same tradition, TK reclaims the study of trauma from outdated theorizing and puts it in the context of people's real experiences, because we can only understand how to heal from trauma once we understand how humans actually deal with it"--

"For a long time, scientists have wondered how life has emerged from inanimate chemistry, and whether Earth is the only place where it exists. Charles Darwin speculated about life on Earth beginning in a warm little pond. Some of his contemporaries believed that life existed on Mars. It once seemed inevitable that the truth would be known by now. It is not. For more than a century, the origins and extent of life have remained shrouded in mystery. But, as Mario Livio and Jack Szostak reveal in Is Earth Exceptional?, the veil is finally lifting. The authors describe how life's building blocks-from RNA to amino acids and cells-could have emerged from the chaos of Earth's early existence. They then apply the knowledge gathered from cutting-edge research across the sciences to the search for life in the cosmos: both life as we know it and life as we don't. Why and where life exists are two of the biggest unsolved problems in science. Is Earth Exceptional? is the ultimate exploration of the question of whether life is a freak accident or a chemical imperative"--

"Many companies worry that expanding into emerging markets is a risky--and even dangerous--move. Professors Viva Ona Bartkus and Emily S. Block see things differently. They argue that by entering markets in the world's frontline regions--areas stuck in cycles of violence and extreme poverty--business can actually create stability and expand opportunity for communities and corporations alike. From helping Colombian farmers transition from growing coca to produce, to disrupting human trafficking rings by creating more construction jobs in the Philippines, Business on the Edge proves that businesses can make money while advancing corporate social responsibility, environmental conservation, and social justice. Partnering with groups including multinational companies, NGOs, and the US military, Bartkus and Block outline their process for generating opportunities, detailing their successes and failures in launching over 80 growth-oriented business solutions in 30 countries. Bridging the gap between academic research and real-world experience, Business on the Edge shows how businesses can reduce risks, cut costs, and increase profits, all while creating economic opportunities that transform communities"--

"After generations in the shadows, socialism is making headlines in the United States, following the Bernie Sanders presidential campaigns and the election of several democratic socialists to Congress. Today's leftists hail from a long lineage of anti-capitalist activists in the United States, yet the true legacy and lessons of their most radical and controversial forebears, the American Communists, remain little understood. In Reds, historian Maurice Isserman focuses on the deeply contradictory nature of the history of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), a movement that attracted egalitarian idealists and bred authoritarian zealots. Founded in 1919, the CPUSA fought for a just society in America: members organized powerful industrial unions, protested racism, and moved the nation left. At the same time, Communists maintained unwavering faith in the USSR's claims to be a democratic workers' state and came to be regarded as agents of a hostile foreign power. Following Nikita Khrushchev's revelation of Joseph Stalin's crimes, however, doubt in Soviet leadership erupted within the CPUSA, leading to the organization's decline into political irrelevance. This is the balanced and definitive account of an essential chapter in the history of radical politics in the United States"--

"Stadiums are monuments to recreation, sports, and pleasure. Yet from the earliest ballparks to the present, stadiums have also functioned as public squares. Politicians have used them to cultivate loyalty to the status quo, while activists and athletes have used them for anti-fascist rallies, Black Power demonstrations, feminist protests, and much more. In this book, historian Frank Guridy recounts the contested history of play, protest, and politics in American stadiums. From the beginning, stadiums were political, as elites turned games into celebrations of war, banned women from the press box, and enforced racial segregation. By the 1920s, they also became important sites of protest as activists increasingly occupied the stadium floor to challenge racism, sexism, homophobia, fascism, and more. Following the rise of the corporatized stadium in the 1990s, this complex history was largely forgotten. But today's athlete-activists, like Colin Kaepernick and Megan Rapinoe, belong to a powerful tradition in which the stadium is as much an arena of protest as a palace of pleasure. Moving between the field, the press box, and the locker room, this book recovers the hidden history of the stadium and its important role in the struggle for justice in America"--

"Christof Koch explores the only thing we directly experience: consciousness. At the book's heart is integrated-information theory, the idea that the essence of consciousness is the ability to exert causal power over itself, to be an agent of change. Koch investigates the physical origins of consciousness in the brain and how this knowledge can be used to measure consciousness in natural and artificial systems"--

"Assume the cow is a sphere." So begins this lively, irreverent, and informative look at everything from the physics of boiling water to cutting-edge research at the observable limits of the universe. Rich with anecdotes and accessible examples, Fear of Physics nimbly ranges over the tools and thought behind the world of modern physics, taking the mystery out of what is essentially a very human intellectual endeavour.

"Throughout the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union strategized to prop up friendly dictatorships abroad. Today, it is commonly assumed that the two superpowers' military aid enabled the survival of allied autocrats, from Taiwan's Chiang Kai-shek to Ethiopia's Mengistu Haile Mariam. In Up in Arms, political scientist Adam E. Casey rebuts the received wisdom: Cold War-era aid to autocracies often backfired. Casey draws on extensive original data to show that, despite billions poured into friendly regimes, US-backed dictators lasted no longer in power than those without outside help. In fact, American aid regularly destabilized autocratic regimes. The United States encouraged the establishment of strong, independent armies like its own, which then often incubated coups. By contrast, Soviet aid incentivized the subordination of the army to the ruling regime, neutralizing the threat of military takeover. Ultimately, Casey concludes, it is subservient militaries-not outside aid-that help autocrats maintain power. In an era of renewed great power competition, Up in Arms offers invaluable insights into the unforeseen consequences of overseas meddling, revealing how military aid can help pull down dictators as often as it props them up"--

"On November 25th, 1915, Albert Einstein published his field equations of general relativity and reinvented gravity. Rather than being some mysterious unseen force pulling objects together, gravity, Einstein told the world, is a manifestation of the curvature of space-time caused by the presence of massive objects. But Einstein's theory wasn't born in a vacuum, not even the vacuum of space. Instead, the theory of general relativity relies upon complicated geometry; Einstein worked closely with mathematicians Marcel Grossmann, David Hilbert, Tullio Levi-Civita, and others as he pieced together his theory of gravity. In The Gravity of Math, the writer Steve Nadis and mathematician Shing-Tung Yau tell the story of how our view of the universe has been shaped and informed by mathematics, particularly when it comes to the enigmatic workings of gravity. Mathematicians have played a pivotal role in investigating relativity and gravity, gaining insights on phenomena like black holes, gravitational waves, and the Big Bang - in some cases uncovering key results decades, or even a century, before any experimental or observational data became available. An insightful and comprehensive study, The Gravity of Math explores how our understanding of math has defined our understanding of the universe. Gravity's reach is ostensibly boundless, and so is that of mathematics, which can carry us to the edge of infinity and back"--

Newly revised and updated, this classic manifesto is “a foundational text for anyone hoping to understand transgender politics and culture in the U.S. today” (NPR)*Named as one of 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of All Time by Ms. Magazine*   A landmark of trans and feminist nonfiction, Whipping Girl is Julia Serano’s indispensable account of what it means to be a transgender woman in a world that consistently derides and belittles anything feminine. In a series of incisive essays, Serano draws on gender theory, her training as a biologist, her career in queer activism, and her own experiences before and after her gender transition to examine the deep connections between sexism and transphobia. She coins the term transmisogyny to describe the specific discrimination trans women face—and she shows how, in a world where masculinity is seen as unquestionably superior to femininity, transgender women’s very existence becomes a threat to the established gender hierarchy.   Now updated with a new afterword on the contemporary anti-trans backlash, Whipping Girl makes the case that today's feminists and transgender activists must work to embrace and empower femininity—in all of its wondrous forms—and to make the world safe and just for people of all genders and sexualities.

"For most of the 2,000-plus years since its foundation as a discipline by ancient Greek thinkers, rhetoric-the art of using language to persuade-was a keystone of a Western education. But in the early 20th century, studying rhetoric fell out of fashion. In The Ancient Art of Thinking for Yourself, Robin Reames, one of the world's leading scholars of rhetoric, argues that it's high time to bring it back. Drawing on examples ranging from the Sophist Alcibiades, whose speeches in favor of war led ancient Athens to destruction and defeat, to modern-day conspiracists like Alex Jones, Reames breaks down the major techniques of rhetoric, pulling back the curtain on how politicians, journalists, and "journalists" convince us to believe what we believe-and to vote and act accordingly. Understanding these techniques helps us avoid being manipulated by modern-day sophists who don't have our best interests at heart. But it also grants us rare insight into our own beliefs, and the values that shape them. Learning rhetoric, she argues, doesn't teach what to think but how to think - allowing us to understand our ideological commitments, and those of others, in a completely new way. Thoughtful, nuanced, and leavened with dry humor, The Ancient Art of Thinking for Yourself offers an antidote to our polarized, post-truth world"--

The definitive book on how systemic racism in America really works, revealing the vast and often hidden network of interconnected policies, practices, and beliefs that combine to devastate Black lives In recent years, condemnations of racism in America have echoed from the streets to corporate boardrooms. At the same time, politicians and commentators fiercely debate racism’s very existence. And so, our conversations about racial inequalities remain muddled.    In Metaracism, pioneering scholar Tricia Rose cuts through the noise with a bracing and invaluable new account of what systemic racism actually is, how it works, and how we can fight back. She reveals how—from housing to education to criminal justice—an array of policies and practices connect and interact to produce an even more devastating “metaracism” far worse than the sum of its parts. While these systemic connections can be difficult to see—and are often portrayed as “color-blind”—again and again they function to disproportionately contain, exploit, and punish Black people.     By helping us to comprehend systemic racism’s inner workings and destructive impacts, Metaracism shows us also how to break free—and how to create a more just America for us all.

"The age of Atlantic revolutions-a six-decade period that packed in the American, French, and Haitian Revolutions, the independence of Spanish-speaking Latin America, and a host of lesser-known upheavals-transformed Europe and the Americas, and eventually the globe. Before 1765, most of Europe and the Americas were under the rule of monarchies and empires, and the institution of slavery existed in every jurisdiction. In the ensuing decades, empires were shattered, hierarchies were toppled, new independent states arose, republican forms of government spread widely, and new abolitionist movements arose and, sometimes, triumphed. The modern world owes its basic political complexion to the Atlantic revolutions. But ever since, historians have debated just how radical these changes truly were and how they truly came about"--