The lies that bind: rethinking identity, creed, country, color, class, culture

By Appiah, Anthony

Publishing Date: [2018]

Classification: 300

Call Number: 302.5 APP

"Who do you think you are? That's a question bound up in another: what do you think you are? Gender. Religion. Race. Nationality. Class. Culture. Such affiliations give contours to our sense of self, and shape our polarized world. Yet the collective identities they spawn are riddled with contradictions, and cratered with falsehoods. Kwame Anthony Appiah's The Lies That Bind is an incandescent exploration of the nature and history of the identities that define us. It challenges our assumptions about how identities work. We all know there are conflicts between identities, but Appiah shows how identities are created by conflict. Religion, he demonstrates, gains power because it isn't primarily about belief. Our everyday notions of race are the detritus of discarded nineteenth-century science. Our cherished concept of the sovereign nation--of self-rule--is incoherent and unstable. Class systems can become entrenched by efforts to reform them. Even the very idea of Western culture is a shimmering mirage. From Anton Wilhelm Amo, the eighteenth-century African child who miraculously became an eminent European philosopher before retiring back to Africa, to Italo Svevo, the literary marvel who changed citizenship without leaving home, to Appiah's own father, Joseph, an anticolonial firebrand who was ready to give his life for a nation that did not yet exist, Appiah interweaves keen-edged argument with vibrant narratives to expose the myths behind our collective identities. These 'mistaken identities,' Appiah explains, can fuel some of our worst atrocities--from chattel slavery to genocide. And yet, he argues that social identities aren't something we can simply do away with. They can usher in moral progress and bring significance to our lives by connecting the small scale of our daily existence with larger movements, causes, and concerns. Elaborating a bold and clarifying new theory of identity, The Lies That Bind is a ringing philosophical statement for the anxious, conflict-ridden twenty-first century. This book will transform the way we think about who--and what--'we' are"--Dust jacket.

Hello world: being human in the age of algorithms

By Fry, Hannah

Publishing Date: [2018]

Classification: 300

Call Number: 303.483 FRY

If you were accused of a crime, who would you rather decide your sentence--a mathematically consistent algorithm incapable of empathy or a compassionate human judge prone to bias and error? What if you want to buy a driverless car and must choose between one programmed to save as many lives as possible and another that prioritizes the lives of its own passengers? And would you agree to share your family's full medical history if you were told that it would help researchers find a cure for cancer? These are just some of the dilemmas that we are beginning to face as we approach the age of the algorithm, when it feels as if the machines reign supreme. Already, these lines of code are telling us what to watch, where to go, whom to date, and even whom to send to jail. But as we rely on algorithms to automate big, important decision--in crime, justice, healthcare, transportation, and money--they raise questions about what we want our world to look like. What matters most: Helping doctors with diagnosis or preserving privacy? Protecting victims of crime or preventing innocent people being falsely accused? Hello World takes us on a tour through the good, the bad, and the downright ugly of the algorithms that surround us on a daily basis. Mathematician Hannah Fry reveals their inner workings, showing us how algorithms are written and implemented, and demonstrates the ways in which human bias can literally be written into the code. By weaving in relatable, real-world stories with accessible explanations of the underlying mathematics that power algorithms, Hello World helps us to determine their power, expose their limitations, and examine whether they really are an improvement on the human systems they replace. -- Dust jacket flaps.

NEW RELEASE

How to be an antiracist

By Kendi, Ibram X.

Publishing Date: [2019]

Classification: 300

Call Number: 305.8009 KEN

Combines ethics, history, law, and science with a personal narrative to describe how to move beyond the awareness of racism and contribute to making society just and equitable.

Oglala Women: Myth, Ritual, and Reality

By Powers, Marla N.

Publishing Date: Nov. 1988

Classification: 300

Call Number: 305.897 POW

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NEW RELEASE

Sea people: the puzzle of Polynesia

By Thompson, Christina

Publishing Date: [2019]

Classification: 300

Call Number: 305.8994 THO

"For more than a millennium, Polynesians occupied the remotest islands in the Pacific Ocean, an enormous triangle stretching from Hawaii to New Zealand to Easter Island. Sailing in large, double-hulled canoes, without the benefit of maps, writing, or metal tools, these ancient mariners were the first and, until the era of European discovery, the only people ever to have reached this part of the globe. Today, they are widely acknowledged as the world's greatest navigators. But how did the earliest Polynesians reach these far-flung islands? How did they conquer the largest ocean on the planet? Diving deep into the history of the Pacific, Christina Thompson explores this epic migration, following the trail of the many sailors, linguists, archaeologists, and geographers who have puzzled over this story, in a quest to discover who these ancient voyagers were, where they came from, and how they managed to colonize every habitable island in the vast region of remote Oceania. [This book] combines the wonder of pursuit and the drama of a gripping historical puzzle in a vivid tour of one of the most captivating regions in the world."--Jacket.

NEW RELEASE

50 things they don't want you to know

By Hudson, Jerome

Publishing Date: [2019]

Classification: 300

Call Number: 306.0973 HUD

"Jerome Hudson pulls back the curtain to show you the facts, statistics, and analysis that the Liberal elite have worked so hard to hide"--

NEW RELEASE

The death of politics: how to heal our frayed republic after Trump

By Wehner, Peter

Publishing Date: 2019

Classification: 300

Call Number: 306.2097 WEH

"The New York Times opinion writer, media commentator, outspoken Republican and Christian critic of the Trump presidency offers a spirited defense of politics and its virtuous and critical role in maintaining our democracy and what we must do to save it before it is too late. "Any nation that elects Donald Trump to be its president has a remarkably low view of politics." Frustrated and feeling betrayed, Americans have come to loathe politics with disastrous results, argues Peter Wehner. In this timely manifesto, the veteran of three Republican administrations and man of faith offers a reasoned and persuasive argument for restoring "politics" as a worthy calling to a cynical and disillusioned generation of Americans. Wehner has long been one of the leading conservative critics of Donald Trump and his effect on the Republican Party. In this impassioned book, he makes clear that unless we overcome the despair that has caused citizens to abandon hope in the primary means for improving our world--the political process--we will not only fall victim to despots but hasten the decline of what has truly made America great. Drawing on history and experience, he reminds us of the hard lessons we have learned about how we rule ourselves--why we have checks and balances, why no one is above the law, why we defend the rights of even those we disagree with. Wehner believes we can turn the country around, but only if we abandon our hatred and learn to appreciate and honor the unique and noble American tradition of doing "politics." If we want the great American experiment to continue and to once again prosper, we must once more take up the responsibility each and every one of us as citizens share"--

NEW RELEASE

The age of surveillance capitalism: the fight for a human future at the new frontier of power

By Zuboff, Shoshana

Publishing Date: 2019

Classification: 300

Call Number: 306.3 ZUB

"Shoshana Zuboff, named "the true prophet of the information age" by the Financial Times, has always been ahead of her time. Her seminal book In the Age of the Smart Machine foresaw the consequences of a then-unfolding era of computer technology. Now, three decades later she asks why the once-celebrated miracle of digital is turning into a nightmare. Zuboff tackles the social, political, business, personal, and technological meaning of "surveillance capitalism" as an unprecedented new market form. It is not simply about tracking us and selling ads, it is the business model for an ominous new marketplace that aims at nothing less than predicting and modifying our everyday behavior--where we go, what we do, what we say, how we feel, who we're with. The consequences of surveillance capitalism for us as individuals and as a society vividly come to life in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism's pathbreaking analysis of power. The threat has shifted from a totalitarian "big brother" state to a universal global architecture of automatic sensors and smart capabilities: A "big other" that imposes a fundamentally new form of power and unprecedented concentrations of knowledge in private companies--free from democratic oversight and control"--

NEW RELEASE

The conservative sensibility

By Will, George F.

Publishing Date: 2019

Classification: 300

Call Number: 320.5209 WIL

"A reflection on American conservatism, examining how the Founders' belief in natural rights created a great American political tradition--one that now finds itself under threat, both from progressives and elements inside the Republican Party"--

NEW RELEASE

Democracy evolving

Publishing Date: 2019

Classification: 300

Call Number: 320.973

1. Democracy defined : -- What is American democracy? 20 common forms of government--study starters / David A. Tomar -- What exactly is neoliberalism? / Kean Birch -- Democracy's midlife crisis : an interview with David Runciman / David Runciman, Danielle Charette, Jacob Hamburger -- History and democracy / Sean Wilentz -- Is the United States of America a republic or a democracy? / Eugene Volokh -- Are we witnessing the death of liberal democracy / Ian McKay -- 2. Democracy in context : -- Democratic identity and economy : the rise of authoritarian capitalism / Kevin Rudd -- Big fail : the internet hasn't helped democracy / Robert Diab -- American democracy is ailing : thinking like an economist can help / Gary Saul Morson, Morton Schapiro -- Economic freedom is essential to democracy / William Dunkelberg -- E pluribus unum? The fight over identity politics / Stacey Y. Abrams, John Sides, Michael Tesler, Lynn Vavreck, Jennifer A. Richeson, Francis Fukuyama -- 3. Democracy or dictatorship? -- Democratic authoritarianism : American democracy is in crisis, and not just because of Trump / Simon Tisdall -- American democracy has gone through dark times before / Robert Dallek -- Lessons in the decline of democracy from the ruined Roman republic / Jason Daley -- A major democracy watchdog just published a scathing report on Trump / Zack Beauchamp -- Why is American democracy in danger? / Eric Schoon, Corey Pech -- 4. How fragile is democracy? -- The global view : the growing signs of the fragility and resilience of liberal democracy / Heidi Koolmeister -- Yes, we need to do better : world leaders talk democracy / The New York Times -- Despite global concerns about democracy, more than half of countries are democratic / Drew DeSilver -- Democracy is more fragile than many of us realized, but don't believe that it is doomed / Andrew Rawnsley -- Poland's nationalism threatens Europe's values and cohesion / Steven Erlanger, Marc Santora -- 5. What do we think of democracy? -- Attitudes and approaches : the public, the political system and American democracy / Pew Research Center -- 20 of America's top political scientists gathered to discuss our democracy : they're scared / Sean Illing -- What the world can learn about equality from the Nordic model / Geoffrey M. Hodgson -- The Nordic Democratic-Socialist myth / Nima Sanandaji -- Are millennials giving up on democracy? / Neil Howe -- On the sidelines of democracy : exploring why so many Americans don't vote / Asma Khalid, Don Gonyea, Leila Fadel.

Where we go from here: two years in the resistance

By Sanders, Bernard

Publishing Date: 2018

Classification: 300

Call Number: 324.2732 SAN

The Democratic presidential candidate, popular senator, and respected economist traces the first year of the Trump administration and what Sanders and his followers are doing to reinforce the progressive movement.

Fever swamp: a journey through the strange Neverland of the 2016 presidential race

By Patterson, Richard North

Publishing Date: 2017

Classification: 300

Call Number: 324.973 PAT

During the 2016 presidential election cycle, novelist Richard North Patterson wrote one column per week for The Huffington Post about the presidential race. Those essays are collected here for the first time in a highly personal 'journal' chronically Paterson's observations in real time.

NEW RELEASE

Appeasement: Chamberlain, Hitler, Churchill, and the road to war

By Bouverie, Tim

Publishing Date: [2019]

Classification: 300

Call Number: 327.4104 BOU

"A new history of the British appeasement of the Third Reich on the eve of World War II"--

The jungle grows back: America and our imperiled world

By Kagan, Robert

Publishing Date: [2018]

Classification: 300

Call Number: 327.73 KAG

"A brilliant and visionary argument for America's role as an enforcer of peace and order throughout the world--and what is likely to happen if we withdraw and focus our attention inward. Recent years have brought deeply disturbing developments around the globe. American sentiment seems to be leaning increasingly toward withdrawal in the face of such disarray. In this powerful, urgent essay, Robert Kagan elucidates the reasons why American withdrawal would be the worst possible response, based as it is on a fundamental and dangerous misreading of the world. Like a jungle that keeps growing back after being cut down, the world has always been full of dangerous actors who, left unchecked, possess the desire and ability to make things worse. Kagan makes clear how the "realist" impulse to recognize our limitations and focus on our failures misunderstands the essential role America has played for decades in keeping the world's worst instability in check. A true realism, he argues, is based on the understanding that the historical norm has always been toward chaos--that the jungle will grow back, if we let it"--

Blaming China: it might feel good but it won't fix America's economy

By Shobert, Benjamin

Publishing Date: [2018]

Classification: 300

Call Number: 330.973 SHO

American society is angrier, more fragmented, and more polarized than at any time since the Civil War. We harbor deep insecurities about our economic future, our place in the world, our response to terrorism, and our deeply dysfunctional government. Over the next several years, Benjamin Shobert says, these four insecurities will be perverted and projected onto China in an attempt to shift blame for errors entirely of our own making. These misdirections will be satisfying in the short term but will eventually destabilize the global world that businesses, consumers, and governments have taken for granted for the last forty years and will usher in an age of geopolitical uncertainty characterized by regional conflict and increasing economic dislocation. Shobert, a senior associate at the National Bureau of Asian Research, explores how America’s attitudes toward China have changed and how our economic anxieties and political dysfunction have laid the foundation for turning our collective frustrations away from acknowledging the consequences of our own poor decisions. Shobert argues that unless we address these problems, a disastrous chapter in American life is right around the corner, one in which Americans will decide that conflict with China is the only sensible option. After framing how the American public thinks about China, Shobert offers two alternative paths forward. He proposes steps that businesses, governments, and individuals can take to potentially stop and reverse America’s path to a dystopian future.- (Univ of Nebraska)

The once and future worker: a vision for the renewal of work in America

By Cass, Oren

Publishing Date: ©2018

Classification: 300

Call Number: 331.1097 CAS

Examines how current economic and social policies in the United States are adversely affecting the American worker and explains why the governing elites need to implement changes that increase wages and provide access to job training and social welfare programs. --

NEW RELEASE

This land: how cowboys, capitalism, and corruption are ruining the American West

By Ketcham, Christopher

Publishing Date: [2019]

Classification: 300

Call Number: 333.7309 KET

"The public lands of the western United States comprise some 450 million acres of grassland, steppe land, canyons, forests, and mountains. It's an American commons, and it is under assault as never before. Journalist Christopher Ketcham has been documenting the confluence of commercial exploitation and governmental misconduct in this region for over a decade. His revelatory book takes the reader on a journey across these last wild places, to see how capitalism is killing our great commons. Ketcham begins in Utah, revealing the environmental destruction caused by unregulated public lands livestock grazing, and exposing rampant malfeasance in the federal land management agencies, who have been compromised by the profit-driven livestock and energy interests they are supposed to regulate. He then turns to the broad effects of those corrupt politics on wildlife. He tracks the Department of Interior's failure to implement and enforce the Endangered Species Act--including its stark betrayal of protections for the grizzly bear and the sage grouse--and investigates the destructive behavior of U.S. Wildlife Services in their shocking mass slaughter of animals that threaten the livestock industry. Along the way, Ketcham talks with ecologists, biologists, botanists, former government employees, whistleblowers, grassroots environmentalists and other citizens who are fighting to protect the public domain for future generations. This Land is a colorful muckraking journey--part Edward Abbey, part Upton Sinclair--exposing the rot in American politics that is rapidly leading to the sell-out of our national heritage"--

NEW RELEASE

The dreamt land: chasing water and dust across California

By Arax, Mark

Publishing Date: 2019

Classification: 300

Call Number: 333.91 ARA

"A vivid, searching journey into California's complicated relationship to its water, from the Gold Rush to today -- an epic story of the struggle to overcome the constraints of nature Mark Arax is from a family of Central Valley farmers -- a journalist with deep ties to the land, who has watched as the battles over water have intensified even as the state lurches from drought to flood and back again. In The Dreamt Land he travels the state to explore the century-old water distribution system that is straining to keep up with California's relentless growth. This is a heartfelt, beautifully written book about land and the people who work on it, from the gold miners to the ranchers to the small farmers and today's big ag. Since the beginning, Californians have redirected rivers, drilled ever-deeper wells, and pushed the water supplies past their limits. The Dreamt Land brings to life the enterprising figures who have made a fortune off the land, and used that wealth to increase their leverage, as well as the people who have been left behind. It's a story of politics and hubris, but above all it's about the unceasing human ability to make things happen, and to endure in a hostile environment"--

The art of loading brush: new agrarian writings

By Berry, Wendell

Publishing Date: [2017]

Classification: 300

Call Number: 338.1 BER

Wendell Berry's profound critique of American culture has entered its sixth decade, and in this new gathering he reaches with deep devotion toward a long view of Agrarian philosophy. Mr. Berry believes that American cultural problems are nearly always aligned with their agricultural problems, and recent events have shone a terrible spotlight on the divides between our urban and rural citizens. Our communities are as endangered as our landscapes. There is, as Berry outlines, still much work to do, and our daily lives--in hope and affection -- must triumph over despair. Mr. Berry moves deftly between the real and the imagined. The Art of Loading Brush is an energetic mix of essays and stories, including "The Thought of Limits in a Prodigal Age," which explores Agrarian ideals as they present themselves historically and as they might apply to our work today. "The Presence of Nature in the Natural World" is added here as the bookend of this developing New Agrarianism. Four stories from an as-yet-unfinished novel, better described as "an essay in imagination," extend the Port William story as it follows Andy Catlett throughout his life to this present moment. Andy works alongside his grandson in "The Art of Loading Brush," one of the most moving and tender stories of the entire Port William cycle. Filled with insights and new revelations from a mind thorough in its considerations and careful in its presentations, The Art of Loading Brush is a necessary and timely collection.

A precautionary tale: how one small town banned pesticides, preserved its food heritage, and inspired a movement

By Ackerman-Leist, Philip

Publishing Date: [2017]

Classification: 300

Call Number: 338.1094 ACK

Mals, Italy, has long been known as the breadbasket of the Tyrol. But recently the tiny town became known for something else entirely. A Precautionary Tale tells us why, introducing readers to an unlikely group of activists and a forward-thinking mayor who came together to ban pesticides in Mals by a referendum vote--making it the first place on Earth to accomplish such a feat, and a model for other towns and regions to follow. For hundreds of years, the people of Mals had cherished their traditional foodways and kept their local agriculture organic. Their town had become a mecca for tourists drawn by the alpine landscape, the rural and historic character of the villages, and the fine breads, wines, cheeses, herbs, vegetables, and the other traditional foods they produced. Yet Mals is located high up in the eastern Alps, and the valley below was being steadily overtaken by big apple producers, heavily dependent on pesticides. As Big Apple crept further and further up the region's mountainsides, their toxic spray drifted with the valley's ever-present winds and began to fall on the farms and fields of Mals--threatening their organic certifications, as well as their health and that of their livestock. The advancing threats gradually motivated a diverse cast of characters to take action--each in their own unique way, and then in concert in an iconic display of direct democracy in action. As Ackerman-Leist recounts their uprising, we meet an organic dairy farmer who decides to speak up when his hay is poisoned by drift; a pediatrician who engaged other medical professionals to protect the soil, water, and air that the health of her patients depends upon; a hairdresser whose salon conversations mobilized the town's women in an extraordinarily conceived campaign; and others who together orchestrated one of the rare revolutionary successes of our time and inspired a movement now snaking its way through Europe and the United States.--AMAZON.