Showing titles in Politics & Social Sciences

In the 1930s, amidst an impending crisis in Europe, Winston Churchill found himself out of government and with little power. In these years, Chartwell, his country home in Kent, became the headquarters of his campaign against Nazi Germany. He invited trusted advisors and informants, including Albert Einstein and T. E. Lawrence, who could strengthen his hand as he worked tirelessly to sound the alarm at the prospect of war.

Strategy has existed as long as there has been organized conflict. In this new account, Jeremy Black explores the ever-changing relationship between purpose, force, implementation, and effectiveness in military strategy and its dramatic impact on the development of the global power system. Taking a "total" view of strategy, Black looks at leading powers - notably the United States, China, Britain, and Russia - in the wider context of their competition and their domestic and international strengths.

GCHQ is the largest and most secretive intelligence organisation in the UK, and has existed for 100 years - but we still know next to nothing about it. In this ground-breaking book - the first and most definitive history of the organisation ever published - intelligence expert Richard Aldrich traces GCHQ’s development from a wartime code-breaking operation based in the Bedfordshire countryside into one of the world leading espionage organisations.

Best-selling author Mary Roach returns with a new adventure to the invisible realm we carry around inside. Roach takes us down the hatch on an unforgettable tour. The alimentary canal is classic Mary Roach terrain: The questions explored in Gulp are as taboo, in their way, as the cadavers in Stiff and every bit as surreal as the universe of zero gravity explored in Packing for Mars. Why is crunchy food so appealing? Why is it so hard to find words for flavors and smells? Why doesn’t the stomach digest itself? How much can you eat before your stomach bursts?

Everything All at Once is an exciting, inspiring call to unleash the power of the nerd mindset that exists within us all. Nye believes we'll never be able to tackle our society's biggest, most complex problems if we don't even know how to solve the small ones. Step by step, he shows his listeners the key tools behind his everything-all-at-once approach: radical curiosity, a deep desire for a better future, and a willingness to take the actions needed to make it a reality.

Few matters produce more public interest and public anxiety than sex and religion. Much of the political contention and division in societies across the world centres on sexual topics, and one-third of the global population is Christian in background or outlook. The issue goes to the heart of present-day religion. This book seeks to calm fears and encourage understanding through telling a three-thousand-year-long tale of Christians encountering sex, gender and the family, with noises off from their sacred texts.

The Mighty Boosh is unlike any show you are ever likely to hear, and one that defies description; the closest you could get to the unique style of Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding would be in the early days of Reeves and Mortimer, with their cardboard props and men with sticks.

Macmillan Audio presents In My Own Way, Alan Watts' acclaimed autobiography, published for the first time in audio.

In this engrossing and enlightening debut, Blake Healy shares the story of his unusual gift. Having been born with the ability to see angels and demons as regularly and clearly as anything else in waking life, his journey has been one of unique perspective and unique challenge. It is an amazingly clear view into the realm of the spirit, as well as a true testament to the power of living a life in pursuit of deeper relationship with God.

In A Splendid Exchange, William J. Bernstein tells the extraordinary story of global commerce from its prehistoric origins to the myriad controversies surrounding it today. He transports listeners from ancient sailing ships that brought the silk trade from China to Rome in the second century to the rise and fall of the Portuguese monopoly in spices in the 16th.

When Christina Crawford’s harrowing chronicle of child abuse was first published in 1978, it brought global attention to the previously closeted subject. It also shed light on the guarded world of Hollywood and stripped away the façade of Christina’s relentless, alcoholic abuser: her adoptive mother, movie star Joan Crawford.

Roman Mars and co-author Kurt Kohlstedt zoom in on the various elements that make our cities work, exploring the origins and other fascinating stories behind everything from power grids and fire escapes to drinking fountains and street signs. With deeply researched entries and beautiful line drawings throughout, The 99% Invisible City will captivate devoted fans of the show and anyone curious about design, urban environments and the unsung marvels of the world around them. You are about to see stories everywhere, you beautiful nerd. Now get out there.

In the quiet Cotswolds village of Great Rollright in 1944, a thin and unusually elegant housewife emerged from her cottage to go on her usual bike ride. A devoted mother of three, attentive wife and friendly neighbour, Sonya Burton seemed to epitomise rural British domesticity. However, rather than pedalling towards the shops with her ration book, Sonya was heading for the Oxfordshire countryside to gather scientific secrets from a nuclear physicist. Secrets that would enable the Soviet Union to build the atomic bomb.

The ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, perhaps the single most important figure in Western culture, is hidden in plain view. If his claim that “the unexamined life is not worth living” has ceased to shock us, that is not because we know how to live examined ones; we speak of “the Socratic method” in ignorance of just how much that method demands of us. In Open Socrates, acclaimed philosopher Agnes Callard takes us deeper into Socrates’ thought than any modern writer has.

Since he was a small boy, Mosab Hassan Yousef has had an inside view of the deadly terrorist group Hamas. The oldest son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a founding member of Hamas and its most popular leader, young Mosab assisted his father for years in his political activities while being groomed to assume his legacy, politics, status...and power. But everything changed when Mosab turned away from terror and violence and embraced instead the teachings of another famous Middle East leader.

Critical race theory is one of the hottest and most controversial topics in the world today, but what is it, really? Rightly understood, critical race theory is a reinvention of an older, terrible idea, Marxism, using race "as the central construct for understanding inequality" in place of economic class. That is, critical race theory is race Marxism. The evidence of this claim is so overwhelming upon even casual examination that it is a shock that it isn't immediately plain to everyone who encounters it.

An entertaining illumination of the stupid beliefs that make us feel wise. You believe you are a rational, logical being who sees the world as it really is, but journalist David McRaney is here to tell you that you're as deluded as the rest of us. But that's OK - delusions keep us sane. You Are Not So Smart is a celebration of self-delusion. It's like a psychology class, with all the boring parts taken out, and with no homework. Based on the popular blog of the same name, You Are Not So Smart collects more than 46 of the lies we tell ourselves everyday.

In AI Superpowers, Kai-fu Lee argues powerfully that because of these unprecedented developments in AI, dramatic changes will be happening much sooner than many of us expected. Indeed, as the US-Sino AI competition begins to heat up, Lee urges the US and China to both accept and to embrace the great responsibilities that come with significant technological power.

Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother has been called the 'most successful queen since Cleopatra'. Her personality was so captivating that even her arch-enemy, Wallis Simpson, wrote about 'her legendary charm'. Portrayed as a selfless partner to the king in the Oscar-winning movie The King's Speech, The Queen Mother is most often remembered from her later years as the smiling granny with the pastel hats. When she died in 2002, just short of her 102nd birthday, she was praised for a long life well lived. But there was another side to her story.

America, says Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Chris Hedges, is convulsed by an array of pathologies that have arisen out of profound hopelessness, a bitter despair and a civil society that has ceased to function. The opioid crisis, the retreat into gambling to cope with economic distress, the pornification of culture, the rise of magical thinking, the celebration of sadism, hate, and plagues of suicides are the physical manifestations of a society that is being ravaged by corporate pillage and a failed democracy. All these ills presage a frightening reconfiguration of the nation and the planet.