Bøker utgitt av Basic Books

"Over Plato's Academy in ancient Athens, it is said, hung a sign: "Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here." Plato thought no one could do philosophy without also doing mathematics. In The Waltz of Reason, mathematician and philosopher Karl Sigmund shows us why. Charting an epic story spanning millennia and continents, Sigmund shows that philosophy and mathematics are inextricably intertwined, mutual partners in a reeling search for truth. Beginning with-appropriately enough-geometry, Sigmund explores the power and beauty of numbers and logic, and then shows how those ideas laid the ground work for everything from the theory of a fair election, to modern conceptions of governance, cooperation, morality, and even of reason itself. Did you know, for example, that John Locke, author of some of the most important texts in the Western theory of government, was motivated in his work by his study of geometry? Or, that Locke was actually terrible at geometry, a seventeenth-century mathematical laughingstock? He was, a fact that might want us to think again about the logic of his life's work. And Locke wasn't the only one! Sigmund reveals how many of our modern ideas about what is true and what is reasonable are based on similarly shaky grounds. The economists and other thinkers who promulgated game theory, classical economics, and behavioral economics-the basis of so much in modern life-were not necessarily good at either math or philosophy, or both. The result is a remarkable book: accessible, funny, and wise, it tells an engrossing history of ideas that spins as dizzyingly and beautifully as a ballroom full of expert dancers. But it doesn't just celebrate the past. Instead, by making all these great ideas accessible to all, The Waltz of Reason empowers as it entertains, giving each of us the tools to ask, what do we know, how do we know it, and what do we want to do, with all these ideas?"--

The remarkable story of how African Americans transformed Atlanta, the former heart of the Confederacy, into today's Black mecca Atlanta is home to some of America's most prominent Black politicians, artists, businesses, and HBCUs. Yet, in 1861, Atlanta was a final contender to be the capital of the Confederacy. Sixty years later, long after the Civil War, it was the Ku Klux Klan's sacred "Imperial City." America's Black Capital chronicles how a center of Black excellence emerged amid virulent expressions of white nationalism, as African Americans pushed back against Confederate ideology to create an extraordinary locus of achievement. What drove them, historian Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar shows, was the belief that Black uplift would be best advanced by forging Black institutions. America's Black Capital is an inspiring story of Black achievement against all odds, with effects that reached far beyond Georgia, shaping the nation's popular culture, public policy, and politics.

"The nineteenth century was a transformative period in the history of American science, as scientific study, once the domain of armchair enthusiasts and amateurs, became the purview of professional experts and institutions. In [this book], historian Catherine McNeur shows that women were central to the development of the natural sciences during this critical time. She does so by uncovering the forgotten lives of entomologist Margaretta Hare Morris and botanist Elizabeth Morris--sister scientists whose essential contributions to their respective fields, and to the professionalization of science as a whole, have been largely erased"--

"More so than any politician or philosopher, it is William Shakespeare who can teach us about power. What it is, what it means, how it is gained, used, and lost. From the princes and kings of Henry IV to the scheming senators of Julius Caesar, politics fills his plays: brutal cunning, Machiavellian manipulation, fatal overreach, even the rare possibility of redemption. And it is these enduring narratives that can teach us how power plays out to this day. In The Hollow Crown, military scholar Eliot A. Cohen decodes Shakespeare's understanding of politics as theater, shedding light on how businesses, corporations, and governments work in the modern world. The White House, after all, is a court, with intrigues and rivalries just as Shakespeare described, as is an army, a department of state, or even a university. And, besides their settings, what most of all defines these various dramas are their characters, in all their ambition, cruelty, hope, and humanity. Cohen looks to the inspiring speeches of Henry V to better understand John F. Kennedy, to Richard III's darkness to plumb Adolf Hitler's psychology, and to Prospero from The Tempest for a window into George Washington's graceful abdication of power. Ultimately, through Cohen's incisive gaze, Shakespeare's work becomes a skeleton key into the lives of the leaders who, for good or ill, have made and remade our world"--

A leading conservative intellectual argues that to renew America we must recommit to our institutions Americans are living through a social crisis. Our politics is polarized and bitterly divided. Culture wars rage on campus, in the media, social media, and other arenas of our common life. And for too many Americans, alienation can descend into despair, weakening families and communities and even driving an explosion of opioid abuse. Left and right alike have responded with populist anger at our institutions, and use only metaphors of destruction to describe the path forward: cleaning house, draining swamps. But, as Yuval Levin argues, this is a misguided prescription, rooted in a defective diagnosis. The social crisis we confront is defined not by an oppressive presence but by a debilitating absence of the forces that unite us and militate against alienation.As Levin argues, now is not a time to tear down, but rather to build and rebuild by committing ourselves to the institutions around us. From the military to churches, from families to schools, these institutions provide the forms and structures we need to be free. By taking concrete steps to help them be more trustworthy, we can renew the ties that bind Americans to one another.

"The best modern account" (Wall Street Journal) of the war that toppled the French Empire, unified Germany, and set Europe on the path to World War I   Among the conflicts that convulsed Europe during the nineteenth century, none was more startling and consequential than the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. Deliberately engineered by Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the war succeeded in shattering French supremacy, deposing Napoleon III, and uniting a new German Empire. But it also produced brutal military innovations and a precarious new imbalance of power that together set the stage for the devastating world wars of the next century.    In Bismarck’s War, historian Rachel Chrastil chronicles events on the battlefield in full, while also showing in intimate detail how the war reshaped and blurred the boundaries between civilian and soldier as the fighting swept across France. The result is the definitive history of a transformative conflict that changed Europe, and the history of warfare, forever.

This devastating critique by the authors of The Deindustrialization of America documents how the economic policies of the Reagan era have damaged the American standard of living and suggests how this trend may be reversed.

"Imagine a friend who earnestly tells you that he thinks men and women are equally good leaders. But when he talks about men's leadership skills, he places his palm at eye-level, and when he talks about women's leadership skills, he places his palm a bit lower, at mouth-level. His hands have given him away: even if he truly thinks that his views are egalitarian, he holds an implicit belief that is now there for all the word to see. You swear you heard him say something disparaging, even if you don't fully realize why. In Thinking With Your Hands, cognitive psychologist Susan Goldin-Meadow reveals just how essential gestures are to how we think and communicate. Drawing on decades of research, including experiments and studies from throughout her own illustrious career, Goldin-Meadow presents the definitive overview of the most important feature of human communication that you've never thought about. Gesture is a universal behavior common to every culture and language. It's found among Deaf people who use their hands to speak in sign language and blind people who have never seen anyone gesture before. Far from being an affective flourish, Goldin-Meadow argues, gestures are an integral piece of the conversation-even if we don't realize it while we're using them. They give form to ideas that are difficult to phrase in language and help us express ideas that we are grappling with but haven't yet fully grasped. Indeed, understanding gesture compels us to re-think everything from to how we set development milestones for children, to what's admissible in a court of law, to whether FaceTime is a good communication technology. A landmark achievement by a star in the field of cognitive psychology, Thinking With Your Hands reveals the entire landscape of communication that's hidden in our hands and promises to transform the way we think about language for decades to come"--

An award-winning poet offers a brilliant introduction to the joys--and challenges--of the genre

"From Joan of Arc to Queen Elizabeth I, to Harriet Tubman and Susan B. Anthony, to Sally Ride and Jennifer Aniston, history is full of women without children. Some chose to forego reproduction in order to pursue intellectually satisfying work--a tension noted by medieval European nuns, 1970s women's liberationists, and modern professionals alike. Some refused to bring children into a world beset by famine, pollution, or climate change. For others, childlessness was involuntary: infertility has been a source of anguish all the way back to the biblical Hannah. But most women without children didn't--and don't--perceive themselves as either proudly childfree or tragically barren. ... It is women ... whose ambivalence throughout their child-bearing years ... makes their choice for them that make up the vast majority of millennials without children in the United States. Drawing on deep archival research and her own experience as a woman without children, historian Peggy O'Donnell shows modern women who are struggling to build lives and to figure out whether those lives allow for children that they are part of a long historical lineage"--

"Founded in 1958 by a small band of anti-New Deal businessmen, the John Birch Society held that a vast communist conspiracy existed within America and posed an existential threat to the country. Birchers railed against the federal government, defended segregation, and accused liberal elites of conspiring to destroy the country's core values-Christianity, capitalism, and individual freedom. Shunned by the political establishment and mainstream media, the organization invented new methods for reaching mass audiences and spread their paranoid anti-government ideology nationwide. Although seen as a fringe movement throughout the 1960s and considered all but dead by the mid-1970s, the John Birch Society in fact birthed an alliance uniting super-rich business titans with grassroots activists that lasts to this day. In Birchers, historian Matthew Dallek uncovers how the Birchers, once the far-right fringe of American politics, forged a conspiratorial, media-savvy style of conservatism that would ultimately take over the Republican Party. Drawing on thousands of archival documents, Dallek traces how an elite coterie of white businessmen kickstarted a national grassroots movement of devout, upwardly mobile defenders of the status quo, who feared the expansion of the welfare state, the advance of communism overseas, and growing calls for racial and gender equality. Ultraconservative propaganda produced by these elites, Dallek shows, radicalized white homeowners, housewives, and middle-class professionals and inspired them to relentlessly push a handful of fringe causes through direct action techniques, such as phone banking, letter writing, and public protest. Liberal critics dismissed the organization as unserious and assumed the far right was destined for failure, but they underestimated the society's depth of support. Most Birchers were in fact affluent, educated, skilled political operatives for whom the movement had touched a chord. Recognizing the strength of these voters, the Republican Party accommodated their extremism, wooed them for money and votes, and gave them a political home long after the John Birch Society had ceased to exist. When the Republican establishment lost credibility following the '08 financial crisis, however, party leaders lost their control over this powerful fringe tradition. Drawing on Birchers' anti-establishment precedent, far-right politicians like Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, and Marjorie Taylor Green were able to thrive and ultimately dominate the GOP electoral coalition in the 2010s. Deeply researched and full of insight, Birchers is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the growth of right-wing extremism in the United States"--

How essential workers’ fight for better jobs during the pandemic revolutionized US labor politics Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, essential workers lashed out against low wages, long hours, and safety risks, attracting a level of support unseen in decades. This explosion of labor unrest seemed sudden to many. But Essential reveals that American workers had simmered in discontent long before their anger boiled over.  Decades of austerity, sociologist Jamie K. McCallum shows, have left frontline workers vulnerable to employer abuse, lacking government protections, and increasingly furious. Through firsthand research conducted as the pandemic unfolded, McCallum traces the evolution of workers’ militancy, showing how their struggles for safer workplaces, better pay and health care, and the right to unionize have benefitted all Americans and spurred a radical new phase of the labor movement. This is essential reading for understanding the past, present, and future of the working class.

The thrilling and terrifying history of genetic engineering  In 2018, scientists manipulated the DNA of human babies for the first time. As biologist and historian Matthew Cobb shows in As Gods, this achievement was one many scientists have feared from the start of the genetic age. Four times in the last fifty years, geneticists, frightened by their own technology, have called a temporary halt to their experiments. They ought to be frightened: Now we have powers that can target the extinction of pests, change our own genes, or create dangerous new versions of diseases in an attempt to prevent future pandemics. Both awe-inspiring and chilling, As Gods traces the history of genetic engineering, showing that this revolutionary technology is far too important to be left to the scientists. They have the power to change life itself, but should we trust them to keep their ingenuity from producing a hellish reality?

"Apes can do a lot of things that we can, too: they can use tools, tell bigger from smaller, and even say hello. But one thing they can't do is say 'see you tomorrow.' That's not just because they don't speak English, but because they are unable to imagine reencountering another ape in the future. Humans, of course, can. As Thomas Suddendorf, Jon Redshaw, and Adam Bulley reveal, that represents a truly earth-shattering capacity. In The Invention of Tomorrow, the three cognitive scientists argue that humanity's unique capacity for foresight is the key to our global dominance. Our minds work like time machines, they explain, allowing us to relive past events in order to predict possible futures. Drawing on cutting-edge research from the last decade - including much of the authors' own work - Suddendorf, Redshaw, and Bulley break down the science of foresight, showing us how this fundamental tool evolved and what makes it unique among animal minds. Foresight powers what are essentially private mental time machines that power our species' capacity for innovation, communication, and moral responsibility. Ultimately, the authors offer us a new vision of human progress, one that foregrounds our capacity to think ahead. Even though we sometimes get it wrong, they argue, human beings are better able to handle future dangers than any creature that has ever existed. The Invention of Tomorrow is a paradigm-shifting exploration of one of humanity's greatest powers, showing how an apparently banal trait has been the key to human ingenuity and culture"--

*A New York Times Editor's Choice pick*Shortlisted for the 2022 Pacific Northwest Book AwardsA beloved natural historian explores how climate change is driving evolution In  Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid, biologist Thor Hanson tells the remarkable story of how plants and animals are responding to climate change: adjusting, evolving, and sometimes dying out. Anole lizards have grown larger toe pads, to grip more tightly in frequent hurricanes. Warm waters have caused the development of Humboldt squid to alter so dramatically that fishermen mistake them for different species. Brown pelicans have moved north, and long-spined sea urchins south, to find cooler homes. And when coral reefs sicken, they leave no territory worth fighting for, so aggressive butterfly fish transform instantly into pacifists.  A story of hope, resilience, and risk, Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid is natural history for readers of Bernd Heinrich, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and David Haskell. It is also a reminder of how unpredictable climate change is as it interacts with the messy lattice of life.

"The Black Power movement is usually associated with heroic, iconic figures, like Stokely Carmichael and Malcolm X, but largely missing from stories about the Black freedom struggle are the hundreds of ordinary foot soldiers who were just as essential to the movement. Stayed on Freedom presents a new history of Black Power by focusing on two unheralded organizers: Zoharah Robinson and Michael Simmons. Robinson was born in Memphis, raised by her grandmother who told her stories of slavery and taught her the value of self-reliance. Simmons was born in Philadelphia, a child of the Great Migration. They met in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, where Robinson was one of the only woman project directors in Mississippi Freedom Summer, after she had dropped out of college to work in the movement full-time. Falling in love while organizing against the war in Vietnam and raising the call for Black Power, their simultaneous commitment to each other and social change took them from SNCC, to the Nation of Islam, to a global movement, as they fought for social justice well after the 1960s. By centering the lives of Robinson and Simmons, Stayed On Freedom offers a history of Black Power that is more expansive, complex, and personal than those previously written. Historian Dan Berger shows how Black Power linked the political futures of African Americans with those of people in Angola, Cambodia, Cuba, South Africa, and the Soviet Union, making it a global movement for workers and women's rights, for peace and popular democracy. Robinson's and Simmons's activism blurs the divides -- between North and South, faith and secular, the US and the world, and the past and the present -- typically applied to Black Power. And, in contrast to conventional surveys of the history of civil rights, Stayed on Freedom is an intimate story anchored in lives of the people who made the movements move, where heroism mingles with uncertainty over decades of intensive political commitment. Drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews with Robinson and Simmons, their families and their friends, in addition to immense archival research, Berger weaves a joyous and intricate history of the Black Power movement, providing a powerful portrait of two people trying to make a life while working to make a better world"--

"Before, during, and after the US Civil War, Boston's Black workers were barred from the skilled trades, factory work, and public-works projects. In Boston, as in cities across the North, white abolitionists focused virtually all their energies on the plight of enslaved Black Southerners, while refusing to address the challenges faced by their Black neighbors. The author presents inspiring and heart-wrenching stories of people-from day laborers and domestics to physicians and lawyers-who ingeniously forged careers in the face of monumental obstacles"--

"Say you are afraid of heights. Very afraid. And say your friend is pressuring you to go sky diving with them. You're wavering, and they deliver a rousing speech about taking the opportunities you're offered. They tell you, Come on, you only live once! You relent. Why? In This Beauty, philosopher Nick Riggle investigates the things we say to inspire each other and ourselves: seize the day, treat yourself, you only live once. Riggle calls them existential imperatives, and they present a conundrum. Their meanings are at best vague, at worst stupid. They're as likely to encourage you to ride down a steep hill in a shopping cart as to marry the love of your life. They imply that you should do something wild with your life because your life is precious, which is a little like saying you should go swimming with your grandfather's watch because it is irreplaceable. And yet these exhortations can't help but be profound. We didn't choose to live this life, in this body, in these conditions. But when we consider the thought that we have only one life, that time is fleeting, or that we might die tomorrow, we often feel a tinge of inspiration, a sense of urgency. We want to embrace the life we were unwittingly given. Drawing on insights from his field of aesthetics and from his own experiences as a professional skater, an academic, and a new father, Riggle considers how they force us to confront what it means to live a worthwhile life. Existential imperatives shock us out of our predictable lives, he argues, and remind us that we aren't bound to the same thing every day, forever. Insightful and deeply humane, This Beauty offers a personal and searching inquiry into the mystery of life's beauty"--

"For centuries, philosophers have debated the question of free will. Do we make our own choices? Or are we more like rudderless ships drifting on the ocean, buffeted by winds and currents outside ourselves? In TK, research psychologist Ken Sheldon reveals that the way we answer these questions has serious implications for our wellbeing. We may never know for certain whether free will exists, Sheldon argues, but recent studies have found that believing in free will matters-indeed, it's an essential component of psychological health. Freely Determined offers an argument for embracing our capacity to choose our own destiny, and a guide for how we might recognize our freedom and use it wisely. Drawing on his own groundbreaking work on motivation, as well as recent research in personality science and social psychology, Sheldon shows us that far from being in the thrall of animal urges and unconscious biases, we humans are constantly making conscious choices: whether to eat the nachos or the salad, whether to shoot the basketball or pass it to a teammate, whether to take that job or marry that person or write that novella. Indeed, over decades of research, Sheldon has established that seeing ourselves as change-makers in our own lives, and in the world, helps us feel happier and even behave more ethically. By identifying and pursuing our deepest values, he argues, we can set and achieve meaningful goals, ones that will help us and our communities flourish. Offering readers insight into how they can live a more self-directed, satisfying life, Freely Determined demystifies the science of choice and reveals that we are radically free to live with greater purpose"--

This wonderful book, based on a previously unpublished three-part public lecture, shows us another side of Richard P. Feynman, as he expounds on the world around us.

A magnificent treasury of the best short works of Feynman--from interviews and speeches to lectures and printed articles--presents a fascinating view of a life in science like no other.