SuperFreakonomics LP

Author: Steven D. Levitt
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061927570
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 416

Book Description
Freakonomics was a worldwide sensation, selling more than four million copies. Now Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner return with SuperFreakonomics, and fans and newcomers alike will find that this freakquel is even bolder, funnier, and more surprising than the first. SuperFreakonomics challenges the way we think all over again, with such questions as: How is a street prostitute like a department-store Santa? What's the best way to catch a terrorist? What do hurricanes, heart attacks, and highway deaths have in common? Are people hardwired for altruism or selfishness? Can eating kangaroo save the planet? Levitt and Dubner mix smart thinking and great storytelling like no one else, whether investigating a solution to global warming or explaining why the price of oral sex has fallen so drastically.

The Willing World

Author: James Bacchus
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108428215
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 529

Book Description
Explains how to grow and govern the global economy in ways that will work economically and environmentally for sustainable development.

Out of Many, One

Author: Ruth O'Brien
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022604176X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 430

Book Description
Feared by conservatives and embraced by liberals when he entered the White House, Barack Obama has since been battered by criticism from both sides. In Out of Many, One, Ruth O’Brien explains why. We are accustomed to seeing politicians supporting either a minimalist state characterized by unfettered capitalism and individual rights or a relatively strong welfare state and regulatory capitalism. Obama, O’Brien argues, represents the values of a lesser-known third tradition in American political thought that defies the usual left-right categorization. Bearing traces of Baruch Spinoza, John Dewey, and Saul Alinsky, Obama’s progressivism embraces the ideas of mutual reliance and collective responsibility, and adopts an interconnected view of the individual and the state. So, while Obama might emphasize difference, he rejects identity politics, which can create permanent minorities and diminish individual agency. Analyzing Obama’s major legislative victories—financial regulation, health care, and the stimulus package—O’Brien shows how they reflect a stakeholder society that neither regulates in the manner of the New Deal nor deregulates. Instead, Obama focuses on negotiated rule making and allows executive branch agencies to fill in the details when dealing with a deadlocked Congress. Similarly, his commitment to difference and his resistance to universal mandates underlies his reluctance to advocate for human rights as much as many on the Democratic left had hoped. By establishing Obama within the context of a much longer and broader political tradition, this book sheds critical light on both the political and philosophical underpinnings of his presidency and a fundamental shift in American political thought.

American Nightmares

Author: Joel Best
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520296346
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Book Description
Popular hazards or, how we insist similar social problems are different -- American nightmares or, why sociologists hate the American dream / written with David Schweingruber -- Evaluating predictions or, how to compare the Maya calendar, Social Security, and climate change -- Future talk or, how slippery slopes shape concern -- Memories as problems or, how to reconsider Confederate flags and other symbols of the past /written with Lawrence T. Nichols -- Economicization or, why economists get more respect than sociologists -- Afterword : the future of American nightmares

When to Rob a Bank

Author: Steven D. Levitt
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062218328
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 157

Book Description
In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the landmark book Freakonomics comes this curated collection from the most readable economics blog in the universe. It’s the perfect solution for the millions of readers who love all things Freakonomics. Surprising and erudite, eloquent and witty, When to Rob a Bank demonstrates the brilliance that has made the Freakonomics guys an international sensation, with more than 7 million books sold in 40 languages, and 150 million downloads of their Freakonomics Radio podcast. When Freakonomics was first published, the authors started a blog—and they’ve kept it up. The writing is more casual, more personal, even more outlandish than in their books. In When to Rob a Bank, they ask a host of typically off-center questions: Why don’t flight attendants get tipped? If you were a terrorist, how would you attack? And why does KFC always run out of fried chicken? Over the past decade, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have published more than 8,000 blog posts on the Freakonomics website. Many of them, they freely admit, were rubbish. But now they’ve gone through and picked the best of the best. You’ll discover what people lie about, and why; the best way to cut gun deaths; why it might be time for a sex tax; and, yes, when to rob a bank. (Short answer: never; the ROI is terrible.) You’ll also learn a great deal about Levitt and Dubner’s own quirks and passions, from gambling and golf to backgammon and the abolition of the penny.

Determined

Author: Robert M. Sapolsky
Publisher: Penguin Group
ISBN: 0525560998
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 529

Book Description
The instant New York Times bestseller “Excellent…Outstanding for its breadth of research, the liveliness of the writing, and the depth of humanity it conveys.” – Wall Street Journal One of our great behavioral scientists, the bestselling author of Behave, plumbs the depths of the science and philosophy of decision-making to mount a devastating case against free will, an argument with profound consequences Robert Sapolsky’s Behave, his now classic account of why humans do good and why they do bad, pointed toward an unsettling conclusion: We may not grasp the precise marriage of nature and nurture that creates the physics and chemistry at the base of human behavior, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Now, in Determined, Sapolsky takes his argument all the way, mounting a brilliant (and in his inimitable way, delightful) full-frontal assault on the pleasant fantasy that there is some separate self telling our biology what to do. Determined offers a marvelous synthesis of what we know about how consciousness works—the tight weave between reason and emotion and between stimulus and response in the moment and over a life. One by one, Sapolsky tackles all the major arguments for free will and takes them out, cutting a path through the thickets of chaos and complexity science and quantum physics, as well as touching ground on some of the wilder shores of philosophy. He shows us that the history of medicine is in no small part the history of learning that fewer and fewer things are somebody’s “fault”; for example, for centuries we thought seizures were a sign of demonic possession. Yet, as he acknowledges, it’s very hard, and at times impossible, to uncouple from our zeal to judge others and to judge ourselves. Sapolsky applies the new understanding of life beyond free will to some of our most essential questions around punishment, morality, and living well together. By the end, Sapolsky argues that while living our daily lives recognizing that we have no free will is going to be monumentally difficult, doing so is not going to result in anarchy, pointlessness, and existential malaise. Instead, it will make for a much more humane world.

Global Warming Gridlock

Author: David G. Victor
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139496824
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 393

Book Description
Global warming is one of today's greatest challenges. The science of climate change leaves no doubt that policies to cut emissions are overdue. Yet, after twenty years of international talks and treaties, the world is now in gridlock about how best to do this. David G. Victor argues that such gridlock has arisen because international talks have drifted away from the reality of what countries are willing and able to implement at home. Most of the lessons that policy makers have drawn from the history of other international environmental problems won't actually work on the problem of global warming. Victor argues that a radical rethinking of global warming policy is required and shows how to make international law on global warming more effective. This book provides a roadmap to a lower carbon future based on encouraging bottom-up initiatives at national, regional and global levels, leveraging national self-interest rather than wishful thinking.

Anthropology and Climate Change

Author: Susan A. Crate
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315530317
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 479

Book Description
The first edition of Anthropology and Climate Change (2009) pioneered the study of climate change through the lens of anthropology, covering the relation between human cultures and the environment from prehistoric times to the present. This second, heavily revised edition brings the material on this rapidly changing field completely up to date, with major scholars from around the world mapping out trajectories of research and issuing specific calls for action. The new edition introduces new “foundational” chapters—laying out what anthropologists know about climate change today, new theoretical and practical perspectives, insights gleaned from sociology, and international efforts to study and curb climate change—making the volume a perfect introductory textbook; presents a series of case studies—both new case studies and old ones updated and viewed with fresh eyes—with the specific purpose of assessing climate trends; provides a close look at how climate change is affecting livelihoods, especially in the context of economic globalization and the migration of youth from rural to urban areas; expands coverage to England, the Amazon, the Marshall Islands, Tanzania, and Ethiopia; re-examines the conclusions and recommendations of the first volume, refining our knowledge of what we do and do not know about climate change and what we can do to adapt.

Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters

Author: Alan Miller
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101203471
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 282

Book Description
Now available in paperback?a provocative new look at biology, evolution, and human behavior ?as disturbing [as it is] fascinating? (Publishers Weekly). Why are most neurosurgeons male and most kindergarten teachers female? Why aren?t there more women on death row? Why do so many male politicians ruin their careers with sex scandals? Why and how do we really fall in love? This engaging book uses the latest research from the field of evolutionary psychology to shed light on why we do the things we do?from life plans to everyday decisions. With a healthy disregard for political correctness, Miller and Kanazawa reexamine the fact that our brains and bodies are hardwired to carry out an evolutionary mission? an inescapable human nature that actually stopped evolving about 10,000 years ago.

Geoengineering, Persuasion, and the Climate Crisis

Author: Ehren Helmut Pflugfelder
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 081732142X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
A rhetorical exploration of an underexamined side of climate change—the ongoing research into and development of geoengineering strategies Geoengineering, Persuasion, and the Climate Crisis: A Geologic Rhetoric exposes the deeply worrying state of discourse over geoengineering—the intentional manipulation of the earth’s climate as means to halt or reverse global warming. These climate-altering projects, which range from cloud-whitening to carbon dioxide removal and from stratospheric aerosol injection to enhanced weathering, are all technological solutions to more complex geosocial problems. Geoengineering represents one of the most alarming forms of deliberative discourse in the twenty-first century. Yet geoengineering could easily generate as much harm as the environmental traumas it seeks to cure. Complicating these deliberations is the scarcity of public discussion. Most deliberations transpire within policy groups, behind the closed doors of climate-oriented startups, between subject-matter experts at scientific conferences, or in the disciplinary jargon of research journals. Further, much of this conversation occurs primarily in the West. Ehren Helmut Pflugfelder makes clear how the deliberative rhetorical strategies coming from geoengineering advocates have been largely deceptive, hegemonic, deterministic, and exploitative. In this volume, he investigates how geoengineering proponents marshal geologic actors into their arguments—and how current discourse could lead to a greater exploitation of the earth in the future. Pflugfelder’s goal is to understand the structure, content, purpose, and effect of these discourses, raise the alarm about their deliberative directions, and help us rethink our approach to the climate. In highlighting both the inherent problems of the discourses and the ways geologic rhetoric can be made productive, he attempts to give “the geologic” a place at the table to better understand the roles that all earth systems continue to play in our lives, now and for years to come.