Thank you for being late: an optimist's guide to thriving in the age of accelerations

By Friedman, Thomas L.

Publishing Date: [2016]

Classification: 300

Call Number: 303.483 FRI

A field guide to the twenty-first century shares strategies for surviving today's hectic technological, environmental, and economic challenges, contrasting present-day environments with the working model of an earlier generation.

The wild and the wicked: on nature and human nature

By Hale, Benjamin

Publishing Date: [2016]

Classification: 300

Call Number: 304.2 HAL

"Most of us think that in order to be environmentalists, we have to love nature. Essentially, we should be tree huggers -- embracing majestic redwoods, mighty oaks, graceful birches, etc. We ought to eat granola, drive hybrids, cook tofu, and write our appointments in Sierra Club calendars. Nature's splendor, in other words, justifies our protection of it. But, asks Benjamin Hale in this provocative book, what about tsunamis, earthquakes, cancer, bird flu, killer asteroids? They are nature, too. For years, environmentalists have insisted that nature is fundamentally good. In The Wild and the Wicked, Benjamin Hale adopts the opposite position -- that much of the time nature can be bad -- in order to show that even if nature is cruel, we still need to be environmentally conscientious. Hale argues that environmentalists needn't feel compelled to defend the value of nature, or even to adopt the attitudes of tree-hugging nature lovers. We can acknowledge nature's indifference and periodic hostility. Deftly weaving anecdote and philosophy, he shows that we don't need to love nature to be green. What really ought to be driving our environmentalism is our humanity, not nature's value. Hale argues that our unique burden as human beings is that we can act for reasons, good or bad. He claims that we should be environmentalists because environmentalism is right, because we humans have the capacity to be better than nature. As humans, we fail to live up to our moral potential if we act as brutally as nature. Hale argues that despite nature's indifference to the plight of humanity, humanity cannot be indifferent to the plight of nature."--Publisher's description.

The dog by the cradle, the serpent beneath: some paradoxes of human-animal relationships

By Ritter, Erika

Publishing Date: [2009], ©2009

Classification: 300

Call Number: 304.27 RIT

In a recent survey, 70% of respondents identified their family pet as "a member of the family." Even as these animals are revered as loved ones, the meat, fish, and dairy industries continue to thrive. Speaking to this disparity, Dog by the Cradle, the Serpent Beneath addresses this fascinating subject. Using interviews with philosophers, scientists, farmers, poets, and commentators, Ritter explores our complicated, and often inconsistent, relationship to the animal world. - (Perseus Publishing)

Our kids: the American Dream in crisis

By Putnam, Robert D.

Publishing Date: 2015

Classification: 300

Call Number: 305.5 PUT

"A groundbreaking examination of the growing inequality gap from the bestselling author of Bowling Alone: why fewer Americans today have the opportunity for upward mobility. It's the American dream: get a good education, work hard, buy a house, and achieve prosperity and success. This is the America we believe in--a nation of opportunity, constrained only by ability and effort. But during the last twenty-five years we have seen a disturbing "opportunity gap" emerge. Americans have always believed in equality of opportunity, the idea that all kids, regardless of their family background, should have a decent chance to improve their lot in life. Now, this central tenet of the American dream seems no longer true or at the least, much less true than it was. Robert Putnam--about whom The Economist said, "his scholarship is wide-ranging, his intelligence luminous, his tone modest, his prose unpretentious and frequently funny"--offers a personal but also authoritative look at this new American crisis. Putnam begins with his high school class of 1959 in Port Clinton, Ohio. By and large the vast majority of those students--"our kids"--went on to lives better than those of their parents. But their children and grandchildren have had harder lives amid diminishing prospects. Putnam tells the tale of lessening opportunity through poignant life stories of rich and poor kids from cities and suburbs across the country, drawing on a formidable body of research done especially for this book. Our Kids is a rare combination of individual testimony and rigorous evidence. Putnam provides a disturbing account of the American dream that should initiate a deep examination of the future of our country"--

Blood at the root: a racial cleansing in America

By Phillips, Patrick

Publishing Date: [2016]

Classification: 300

Call Number: 305.8009 PHI

"A gripping tale of racial cleansing in Forsyth County, Georgia and ... testament to the deep roots of racial violence in America ... Patrick Phillips breaks the century-long silence of his hometown and uncovers a history of racial terrorism that continues to shape America in the twenty-first century"--

Braiding sweetgrass

By Kimmerer, Robin Wall

Publishing Date: 2013

Classification: 300

Call Number: 305.897 KIM

"An inspired weaving of indigenous knowledge, plant science, and personal narrative from a distinguished professor of science and a Native American whose previous book, Gathering Moss, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing. As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the Potawatomi, as well as a majority of other cultures indigenous to this land, consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowing together to reveal what it means to see humans as "the younger brothers of creation." As she explores these themes she circles toward a central argument: the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgement and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the world. Once we begin to listen for the languages of other beings, we can begin to understand the innumerable life-giving gifts the world provides us and learn to offer our thanks, our care, and our own gifts in return"--

Resilient life: the art of living dangerously

By Evans, Brad

Publishing Date: 2014

Classification: 300

Call Number: 320.01 EVA

What does it mean to live dangerously? This is not just a philosophical question or an ethical call to reflect upon our own individual recklessness. It is a deeply political issue, fundamental to the new doctrine of 'resilience' that is becoming a key term of art for governing planetary life in the 21st Century. No longer should we think in terms of evading the possibility of traumatic experiences. Catastrophic events, we are told, are not just inevitable but learning experiences from which we have to grow and prosper, collectively and individually. Vulnerability to threat, injury and loss has to be accepted as a reality of human existence. In this original and compelling text, Brad Evans and Julian Reid explore the political and philosophical stakes of the resilience turn in security and governmental thinking. Resilience, they argue, is a neo-liberal deceit that works by disempowering endangered populations of autonomous agency. Its consequences represent a profound assault on the human subject whose meaning and sole purpose is reduced to survivability. Not only does this reveal the nihilistic qualities of a liberal project that is coming to terms with its political demise. All life now enters into lasting crises that are catastrophic unto the end. - (WILEY)

NEW RELEASE

Rediscovering Americanism: and the tyranny of progressivism

By Levin, Mark R.

Publishing Date: [2017]

Classification: 300

Call Number: 320.5109 LEV

In Rediscovering Americanism, Mark R. Levin revisits the founders' warnings about the perils of overreach by the federal government and concludes that the men who created our country would be outraged and disappointed to see where we've ended up. Levin returns to the impassioned question he's explored in each of his bestselling books: How do we save our exceptional country? Because our values are in such a precarious state, he argues that a restoration to the essential truths on which our country was founded has never been more urgent. Understanding these principles, in Levin's words, can 'serve as the antidote to tyrannical regimes and governments.' Rediscovering Americanism is not an exercise in nostalgia, but an appeal to his fellow citizens to reverse course. This essential book brings Levin's celebrated, sophisticated analysis to the troubling question of America's future, and reminds us what we must restore for the sake of our children and our children's children.

NEW RELEASE

Shattered: inside Hillary Clinton's doomed campaign

By Allen, Jonathan

Publishing Date: 2017

Classification: 300

Call Number: 324.973 ALL

"It was never supposed to be this close. And of course she was supposed to win. How Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election to Donald Trump is the tragic story of a sure thing gone off the rails. For every James Comey revelation or hindsight acknowledgment about the electorate, no explanation of defeat can begin with anything other than the core problem of Clinton's campaign--the candidate herself. Through deep access to insiders from the top to the bottom of the campaign, political writers Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes have reconstructed the key decisions and unseized opportunities, the well-intentioned misfires and the hidden thorns that turned a winnable contest into a devastating loss. Drawing on the authors' deep knowledge of Clinton from their previous book, the acclaimed biography HRC, Shattered offers an object lesson in how Clinton herself made victory an uphill battle, how her difficulty articulating a vision irreparably hobbled her impact with voters, and how the campaign failed to internalize the lessons of populist fury from the hard-fought primary against Bernie Sanders. Moving blow-by-blow from the campaign's difficult birth through the bewildering terror of election night, Shattered tells an unforgettable story with urgent lessons both political and personal, filled with revelations that will change the way readers understand just what happened to America on November 8, 2016"--Provided by publisher.

NEW RELEASE

Devil's bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the storming of the Presidency

By Green, Joshua

Publishing Date: 2017

Classification: 300

Call Number: 324.973 GRE

The elevation of Bannon to head Trump's flagging presidential campaign on August 17, 2016, seemed to signal the meltdown of the Republican Party. Bannon was a bomb-throwing pugilist despised by Democrats and Republicans alike. Green shows that, to understand Trump's extraordinary rise and Clinton's fall, you have to weave Trump's story together with Bannon's, or else it doesn't make sense.

NEW RELEASE

Insane clown president: dispatches from the 2016 circus

By Taibbi, Matt

Publishing Date: [2017]

Classification: 300

Call Number: 324.973 TAI

"Matt Taibbi's first piece on the 2016 presidential election, published in August 2015, opens with these words: "The thing is, when you actually think about it, it's not funny. Given what's at stake, it's more like the opposite, like the first sign of the collapse of the United States as a global superpower. Twenty years from now, when we're all living like prehistory hominids and hunting rats with sticks, we'll probably look back at this moment as the beginning of the end." In twenty-four pieces from Rolling Stone--plus two original essays--Taibbi tells the full story the campaign, from its tragi-comic beginnings to its apocalyptic conclusion, through sharp, on-the-ground reporting, incisive analysis, and gallows humor. This isn't simply a blow-by-blow recounting of this uniquely bizarre and disturbing election season, but the wider story of the seeming collapse of American democracy. Unlike many campaign chroniclers, Taibbi grasped the essential themes of the story from beginning: the power of spectacle over substance, or even truth; the absence of a shared reality between warring sides of the political spectrum; the nihilistic rebellion of the white working class; the death of the political establishment; and the emergence of a new, explicit form of white nationalism that would destroy what was left of the Kingian dream of a successful pluralistic society. The pieces cover the "clown car" of the Republican primary season, the thwarted Bernie insurgency, the deeply flawed and aimless Clinton campaign, the often pathetic media coverage, the legacy of the Obama administration, and the lives of actual voters across the country forced to bear witness to the whole dispiriting spectacle"--

The hellhound of Wall Street: how Ferdinand Pecora's investigation of the great crash forever changed American finance

By Perino, Michael A.

Publishing Date: 2010

Classification: 300

Call Number: 330.973 PER

A gripping account of the underdog Senate lawyer who unmasked the financial wrongdoing that led to the Crash of 1929 and forever changed the relationship between Washington and Wall Street.

NEW RELEASE

Warnings: finding Cassandras to stop catastrophes

By Clarke, Richard A.

Publishing Date: 2017

Classification: 300

Call Number: 363.107 CLA

Warnings is the story of the future of national security, threatening technologies, the U.S. economy, and possibly the fate of civilization.

NEW RELEASE

The radium girls: the dark story of America's shining women

By Moore, Kate

Publishing Date: [2017]

Classification: 300

Call Number: 363.1799 MOO

As World War I raged across the globe, hundreds of young women toiled away at the radium-dial factories, where they painted clock faces with a mysterious new substance called radium. Assured by their bosses that the luminous material was safe, the women themselves shone brightly in the dark, covered from head to toe with the glowing dust. With such a coveted job, these "shining girls" were considered the luckiest alive--until they began to fall mysteriously ill. As the fatal poison of the radium took hold, they found themselves embroiled in one of America's biggest scandals and a groundbreaking battle for workers' rights. The Radium Girls explores the strength of extraordinary women in the face of almost impossible circumstances and the astonishing legacy they left behind.

The next tsunami: living on a restless coast

By Henderson, Bonnie

Publishing Date: 2014

Classification: 300

Call Number: 363.3494 HEN

The story of the geological discoveries--and the scientists who uncovered them--that signal the imminence of a catastrophic tsunami on the Northwest Coast.

NEW RELEASE

The swamp: Washington's murky pool of corruption and cronyism and how Trump can drain it

By Bolling, Eric

Publishing Date: 2017

Classification: 300

Call Number: 364.1323 BOL

The cohost of Fox News' "The Five" chronicles various stories of political scandal in Washington, DC, and ends by offering recommendations on how President Trump can rid America's capital of political corruption.

Go down together: the true, untold story of Bonnie and Clyde

By Guinn, Jeff

Publishing Date: 2009

Classification: 300

Call Number: 364.15 GUI

An account of the exploits of Bonnie and Clyde explores the ways in which they captured the imaginations of people during and after their time, reveals the role of youth and luck in their two-year crime spree, and recounts the events that led to their deaths.

NEW RELEASE

U.S. national debate topic, 2017-2018: Education reform

Publishing Date: 2017

Classification: 300

Call Number: 370.973

NEW RELEASE

The ambitious elementary school: its conception, design, and implications for educational equality

By Hassrick, Elizabeth McGhee

Publishing Date: 2017

Classification: 300

Call Number: 372 HAS

The challenge of overcoming educational inequality in the United States can sometimes appear overwhelming, and great controversy exists as to whether or not elementary schools are up to the task, whether they can ameliorate existing social inequalities and initiate opportunities for economic and civic flourishing for all children. This book shows what can happen when you rethink schools from the ground up with precisely these goals in mind, approaching educational inequality and its entrenched causes head on, student by student.

The well-trained mind: a guide to classical education at home

By Bauer, Susan Wise

Publishing Date: [2016]

Classification: 300

Call Number: 373.241 BAU

This book will instruct you, step by step, on how to give your child an education from preschool through high school -- one that will train him or her to read, to think, to understand, to be well-rounded and curious about learning. Home educators Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise outline the classical pattern of education called the trivium, which organizes learning around the maturing capacity of the child's mind and comprises three stages: the elementary school "grammar stage," when the building blocks of information are absorbed through memorization and rules; the middle school "logic stage," in which the student begins to think more analytically; and the high-school "rhetoric stage," where the student learns to write and speak with force and originality. Using this theory as your model, you'll be able to instruct your child -- whether full-time or as a supplement to classroom education -- in all levels of reading, writing, history, geography, mathematics, science, foreign languages, rhetoric, logic, art, and music, regardless of your own aptitude in those subjects. This edition contains updated curricula and book lists, links to an entirely new set of online resources, new material on teaching children with learning challenges, math and sciences recommendations, answers to common questions about home education, and advice on practical matters such as standardized testing, working with your local school board, designing a high-school program, preparing transcripts, and applying to colleges.