CURRENT AFFAIRS - POLITICS - ECONOMICS
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Under a White Sky ; The Nature of the Future
Elizabeth Kolbert
- Vintage publishing
- 4 Mars 2021
- 9781847925442
**A TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES AND GUARDIAN 'BOOK OF 2021'**
'Important, necessary, urgent and phenomenally interesting' HELEN MACDONALD, New York Times
The author of the international bestseller The Sixth Extinction returns to humanity's transformative impact on the environment, asking: can we save nature in time?
Elizabeth Kolbert has become one of the most important writers on the environment. Now she investigates the immense challenges humanity faces as we scramble to reverse, in a matter of decades, the effects we've had on the atmosphere, the oceans, the world's forests and rivers - on the very topography of the globe.
In Under a White Sky, she takes a hard look at the new world we are creating. Along the way, she meets biologists who are trying to preserve the world's rarest fish; engineers who are turning carbon emissions to stone in Iceland; Australian researchers who are trying to develop a 'super coral' that can survive on a hotter globe; and physicists who are contemplating shooting tiny diamonds into the stratosphere to cool the earth, changing the sky from blue to white.
One way to look at human civilisation, says Kolbert, is as a ten-thousand-year exercise in defying nature. By turns inspiring, terrifying and darkly comic, Under a White Sky is an utterly original examination of the challenges we face.
**CHOSEN BY BILL GATES AND BARACK OBAMA AS A SUMMER 2021 READ** -
Divided We Fall ; America's Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation
David French
- St martin's press
- 22 Septembre 2020
- 9781250201973
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New York Times Bestseller
COVID-19 is speeding up history, but how? What is the shape of the world to come? -
The Iconoclast ; Shinzo Abe and the New Japan
Tobias S. Harris
- C hurst & co publishers ltd
- 27 Août 2020
- 9781787383104
Shinzo Abe entered politics burdened by high expectations: that he would change Japan. In 2007, seemingly overwhelmed, he resigned after only a year as prime minister. Yet, following five years of reinvention, he masterfully regained the premiership in 2012 and, until his resignation in 2020, dominated Japanese democracy as no leader had done before. Abe inspired fierce loyalty among his followers, cowing Japan's left with his ambitious economic programme and support for the security and armed forces. He staked a leadership role for Japan in a region being rapidly transformed by the rise of China and India, while carefully preserving an ironclad relationship with Trump's America. The Iconoclast tells the story of Abe's meteoric rise and stunning fall, his remarkable comeback, and his unlikely emergence as a global statesman who laid the groundwork for Japan's survival in a turbulent century.
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Bob Woodward's second global bestseller on the Trump presidency, based on in-depth research and interviews with the president
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The perfect gift for the activists, rebels and freedom fighters in your life...
FROM THE BEST-SELLING AUTHOR OF MY SEDITIOUS HEART AND THE MINISTRY OF UTMOST HAPPINESS, A NEW AND PRESSING DISPATCH FROM THE HEART OF THE CROWD AND THE SOLITUDE OF A WRITER'S DESK
The chant of 'Azadi!' - Urdu for 'Freedom!' - is the slogan of the freedom struggle in Kashmir against what Kashmiris see as the Indian Occupation. Ironically, it also became the chant of millions on the streets of India against the project of Hindu Nationalism.
Even as Arundhati Roy began to ask what lay between these two calls for Freedom - a chasm or a bridge? - the streets fell silent. Not only in India, but all over the world. The Coronavirus brought with it another, more terrible understanding of Azadi, making a nonsense of international borders, incarcerating whole populations, and bringing the modern world to a halt like nothing else ever could.
In this series of electrifying essays, Arundhati Roy challenges us to reflect on the meaning of freedom in a world of growing authoritarianism.
The essays include meditations on language, public as well as private, and on the role of fiction and alternative imaginations in these disturbing times. The pandemic, she says, is a portal between one world and another. For all the illness and devastation it has left in its wake, it is an invitation to the human race, an opportunity, to imagine another world. -
How to Lose the Information War ; Russia, Fake News, and the Future of Conflict
Nina Jankowicz
- Bloomsbury publishing plc
- 9 Juillet 2020
- 9781838607685
Since the start of the Trump era, the United States and the Western world has finally begun to wake up to the threat of online warfare and the attacks from Russia, who flood social media with disinformation, and circulate false and misleading information to fuel fake narratives and make the case for illegal warfare. The question no one seems to be able to answer is: what can the West do about it? Central and Eastern European states, including Ukraine and Poland, however, have been aware of the threat for years. Nina Jankowicz has advised these governments on the front lines of the information war. The lessons she learnt from that fight, and from her attempts to get US congress to act, make for essential reading. How to Lose the Information War takes the reader on a journey through five Western governments' responses to Russian information warfare tactics - all of which have failed. She journeys into the campaigns the Russian operatives run, and shows how we can better understand the motivations behind these attacks and how to beat them. Above all, this book shows what is at stake: the future of civil discourse and democracy, and the value of truth itself.
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If Then ; How One Data Company Invented the Future
Jill Lepore
- John murray press
- 17 Septembre 2020
- 9781529386165
A brilliant, revelatory account of the Cold War origins of the data-mad, algorithmic twenty-first century, from the acclaimed and internationally bestselling author.
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Hidden Hand ; Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World
Clive Hamilton, Mareike Ohlberg
- Oneworld publications
- 16 Juillet 2020
- 9781786077837
China is a growing threat to democracy and liberal values around the world
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Let the People Rule ; How Direct Democracy Can Meet the Populist Challenge
John G. Matsusaka
- Princeton university press
- 25 Février 2020
- 9780691199726
How referendums can diffuse populist tensions by putting power back into the hands of the people
Propelled by the belief that government has slipped out of the hands of ordinary citizens, a surging wave of populism is destabilizing democracies around the world. As John Matsusaka reveals in Let the People Rule, this belief is based in fact. Over the past century, while democratic governments have become more efficient, they have also become more disconnected from the people they purport to represent. The solution Matsusaka advances is familiar but surprisingly underused: direct democracy, in the form of referendums. While this might seem like a dangerous idea post-Brexit, there is a great deal of evidence that, with careful design and thoughtful implementation, referendums can help bridge the growing gulf between the government and the people.
Drawing on examples from around the world, Matsusaka shows how direct democracy can bring policies back in line with the will of the people (and provide other benefits, like curbing corruption). Taking lessons from failed processes like Brexit, he also describes what issues are best suited to referendums and how they should be designed, and he tackles questions that have long vexed direct democracy: can voters be trusted to choose reasonable policies, and can minority rights survive majority decisions? The result is one of the most comprehensive examinations of direct democracy to date-coupled with concrete, nonpartisan proposals for how countries can make the most of the powerful tools that referendums offer.
With a crisis of representation hobbling democracies across the globe, Let the People Rule offers important new ideas about the crucial role the referendum can play in the future of government. -
Oil Powers ; A History of the U.S.-Saudi Alliance
Victor McFarland
- Columbia university press
- 14 Juillet 2020
- 9780231197274
Victor McFarland challenges the view that the U.S.-Saudi alliance is the inevitable consequence of American energy demand and Saudi Arabia's huge oil reserves. Oil Powers traces the growth of the alliance through a dense web of political, economic, and social connections that bolstered royal and executive power and the national-security state.
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Too Much and Never Enough ; How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man
Mary L. Trump
- Simon & schuster ltd
- 14 Juillet 2020
- 9781471190131
The extraordinary inside story from Donald Trump's only niece of the factors that helped make the US president into the world's most dangerous man
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The Drone Age ; How Drone Technology Will Change War and Peace
Michael J. Boyle
- Oxford university press inc
- 10 Septembre 2020
- 9780190635862
Over the last decade, the rapid pace of innovation with drone technology has led to dozens of new and innovative commercial and scientific applications, from Amazon drone deliveries to the patrolling of national parks with drones. But what is less understood is how the spread of unmanned technology will change the patterns of war and peace in the future. Will the use of drones produce a more stable world or will it lead to more conflict? Will drones gradually replace humans on the battlefield or will they empower soldiers to act more precisely, and humanely, in crisis situations? How will drones change surveillance around the world and at home? In The Drone Age, Michael J. Boyle examines how unmanned technology alters the decision-making and risk calculus of its users both on and off the battlefield. It shows that the introduction of drones changes the dynamics of wars, humanitarian crises and peacekeeping missions, empowering some actors while making others more vulnerable to surveillance and even attack. The spread of drones is also reordering geopolitical fault lines and providing new ways for states to test the nerves and strategic commitments of their rivals. Drones are also allowing terrorist groups like the Islamic State to take to the skies and to level the playing field against their enemies. Across the world, the low financial cost of drones and the reduced risks faced by pilots is making drone technology an essential tool for militaries, peacekeeping forces and even private companies. From large surveillance drones to insect-like micro-drones, unmanned technology is revolutionizing the way that states and non-state actors compete with each other and is providing game-changing benefits to those who can most rapidly adapt unmanned technology to their own purposes. An essential guide to a potentially disruptive force in modern world politics, The Drone Age shows how the mastery of drone technology will become central to the ways that governments and non-state actors seek power and influence in the coming decades.
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'I've never met Danny Finkelstein but I think I'm in love with him. His book is such good company - sane, intelligent and witty. He deals with serious subjects in an immensely readable way ... If I'm asked to nominate my book of the year, this will be it'
Wendy Cope -
What's Wrong with Economics? ; A Primer for the Perplexed
Robert Skidelsky
- Yale university press
- 10 Mars 2020
- 9780300249873
A passionate and informed critique of mainstream economics from one of the leading economic thinkers of our time
This insightful book looks at how mainstream economics' quest for scientific certainty has led to a narrowing of vision and a convergence on an orthodoxy that is unhealthy for the field, not to mention the societies which base policy decisions on the advice of flawed economic models. Noted economic thinker Robert Skidelsky explains the circumstances that have brought about this constriction and proposes an approach to economics which includes philosophy, history, sociology, and politics.
Skidelsky's clearly written and compelling critique takes aim at the way that economics is taught in today's universities, where a focus on modelling leaves students ill-equipped to grapple with what is important and true about human life. He argues for a return to the ideal set out by John Maynard Keynes that the economist must be a "mathematician, historian, statesman, [and] philosopher" in equal measure. -
Narrative Economics ; How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events
Robert J. Shiller
- Princeton university press
- 1 Octobre 2019
- 9780691182292
From Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times bestselling author Robert Shiller, a groundbreaking account of how stories help drive economic events-and why financial panics can spread like epidemic viruses
In a world in which internet troll farms attempt to influence foreign elections, can we afford to ignore the power of viral stories to affect economies? In this groundbreaking book, Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times bestselling author Robert Shiller offers a new way to think about the economy and economic change. Using a rich array of historical examples and data, Shiller argues that studying popular stories that affect individual and collective economic behavior-what he calls "narrative economics"-has the potential to vastly improve our ability to predict, prepare for, and lessen the damage of financial crises, recessions, depressions, and other major economic events.
Spread through the public in the form of popular stories, ideas can go viral and move markets-whether it's the belief that tech stocks can only go up, that housing prices never fall, or that some firms are too big to fail. Whether true or false, stories like these-transmitted by word of mouth, by the news media, and increasingly by social media-drive the economy by driving our decisions about how and where to invest, how much to spend and save, and more. But despite the obvious importance of such stories, most economists have paid little attention to them. Narrative Economics sets out to change that by laying the foundation for a way of understanding how stories help propel economic events that have had led to war, mass unemployment, and increased inequality.
The stories people tell-about economic confidence or panic, housing booms, the American dream, or Bitcoin-affect economic outcomes. Narrative Economics explains how we can begin to take these stories seriously. It may be Robert Shiller's most important book to date. -
Rewriting the Rules of the European Economy ; An Agenda for Growth and Shared Prosperity
Joseph E. Stiglitz
- Ww norton & co
- 28 Janvier 2020
- 9780393355635
The Nobel Prize-winning economist, in partnership with a leading progressive European think tank, presents a bold new economic platform to restore prosperity in Europe.
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Talking to Strangers ; What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know
Malcolm Gladwell
- Penguin books ltd
- 30 Avril 2020
- 9780141988498
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
'Compelling, haunting, tragic stories . . . resonate long after you put the book down' James McConnachie, Sunday Times Book of the Year
The routine traffic stop that ends in tragedy. The spy who spends years undetected at the highest levels of the Pentagon. The false conviction of Amanda Knox. Why do we so often get other people wrong? Why is it so hard to detect a lie, read a face or judge a stranger's motives?
Using stories of deceit and fatal errors to cast doubt on our strategies for dealing with the unknown, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual adventure into the darker side of human nature, where strangers are never simple and misreading them can have disastrous consequences. -
Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism
Anne Case, Angus Deaton
- Princeton university press
- 17 Mars 2020
- 9780691190785
A New York Times Bestseller
A Wall Street Journal Bestseller
A New York Times Notable Book of 2020
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
Shortlisted for the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year
A New Statesman Book to Read
From economist Anne Case and Nobel Prize winner Angus Deaton, a groundbreaking account of how the flaws in capitalism are fatal for America's working class
Life expectancy in the United States has recently fallen for three years in a row-a reversal not seen since 1918 or in any other wealthy nation in modern times. In the past two decades, deaths of despair from suicide, drug overdose, and alcoholism have risen dramatically, and now claim hundreds of thousands of American lives each year-and they're still rising. Anne Case and Angus Deaton, known for first sounding the alarm about deaths of despair, explain the overwhelming surge in these deaths and shed light on the social and economic forces that are making life harder for the working class. They demonstrate why, for those who used to prosper in America, capitalism is no longer delivering.
Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism paints a troubling portrait of the American dream in decline. For the white working class, today's America has become a land of broken families and few prospects. As the college educated become healthier and wealthier, adults without a degree are literally dying from pain and despair. In this critically important book, Case and Deaton tie the crisis to the weakening position of labor, the growing power of corporations, and, above all, to a rapacious health-care sector that redistributes working-class wages into the pockets of the wealthy. Capitalism, which over two centuries lifted countless people out of poverty, is now destroying the lives of blue-collar America.
This book charts a way forward, providing solutions that can rein in capitalism's excesses and make it work for everyone. -
Fully Grown ; Why a Stagnant Economy Is a Sign of Success
Dietrich Vollrath
- The university of chicago press
- 6 Janvier 2020
- 9780226666006
Most economists would agree that a thriving economy is synonymous with GDP growth. The more we produce and consume, the higher our living standard and the more resources available to the public. This means that our current era, in which growth has slowed substantially from its postwar highs, has raised alarm bells. But should it? Is growth actually the best way to measure economic success--and does our slowdown indicate economic problems? The counterintuitive answer Dietrich Vollrath offers is: No. Looking at the same facts as other economists, he offers a radically different interpretation. Rather than a sign of economic failure, he argues, our current slowdown is, in fact, a sign of our widespread economic success. Our powerful economy has already supplied so much of the necessary stuff of modern life, brought us so much comfort, security, and luxury, that we have turned to new forms of production and consumption that increase our well-being but do not contribute to growth in GDP. In Fully Grown, Vollrath offers a powerful case to support that argument. He explores a number of important trends in the US economy: including a decrease in the number of workers relative to the population, a shift from a goods-driven economy to a services-driven one, and a decline in geographic mobility. In each case, he shows how their economic effects could be read as a sign of success, even though they each act as a brake of GDP growth. He also reveals what growth measurement can and cannot tell us--which factors are rightly correlated with economic success, which tell us nothing about significant changes in the economy, and which fall into a conspicuously gray area. Sure to be controversial, Fully Grown will reset the terms of economic debate and help us think anew about what a successful economy looks like.
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The Economics of Belonging ; A Radical Plan to Win Back the Left Behind and Achieve Prosperity for All
Martin Sandbu
- Princeton university press
- 16 Juin 2020
- 9780691204529
A radical new approach to economic policy that addresses the symptoms and causes of inequality in Western society today
Fueled by populism and the frustrations of the disenfranchised, the past few years have witnessed the widespread rejection of the economic and political order that Western countries built up after 1945. Political debates have turned into violent clashes between those who want to "take their country back" and those viewed as defending an elitist, broken, and unpatriotic social contract. There seems to be an increasing polarization of values. The Economics of Belonging argues that we should step back and take a fresh look at the root causes of our current challenges. In this original, engaging book, Martin Sandbu argues that economics remains at the heart of our widening inequality and it is only by focusing on the right policies that we can address it. He proposes a detailed, radical plan for creating a just economy where everyone can belong.
Sandbu demonstrates that the rising numbers of the left behind are not due to globalization gone too far. Rather, technological change and flawed but avoidable domestic policies have eroded the foundations of an economy in which everyone can participate-and would have done so even with a much less globalized economy. Sandbu contends that we have to double down on economic openness while pursuing dramatic reforms involving productivity, regional development, support for small- and medium-sized businesses, and increased worker representation. He discusses how a more active macroeconomic policy, education for all, universal basic income, and better taxation of capital could work together for society's benefit.
Offering real answers, not invective, for facing our most serious political issues, The Economics of Belonging shows how a better economic system can work for all. -
An entertaining, illustrated adaptation of Ray Dalio's Principles, the #1 New York Times bestseller that has sold more than two million copies worldwide.
Principles for Success distills Ray Dalio's 600-page bestseller, Principles: Life & Work, down to an easy-to-read and entertaining format that's acces sible to readers of all ages. It contains the key elements of the unconven tional principles that helped Dalio become one of the world's most suc cessful people-and that have now been read and shared by millions worldwide-including how to set goals, learn from mistakes, and collaborate with others to produce exceptional results. Whether you're already a fan of the ideas in Princi ples or are discovering them for the first time, this illustrated guide will help you achieve success in having the life that you want to have. -
Slowdown ; The End of the Great Acceleration-and Why It's Good for the Planet, the Economy, and Our Lives
Danny Dorling
- Yale university press
- 31 Mars 2020
- 9780300243406
The end of our high-growth world was underway well before COVID-19 arrived. In this powerful and timely argument, Danny Dorling demonstrates the benefits of a larger, ongoing societal slowdown
Drawing from an incredibly rich trove of global data, this groundbreaking book reveals that human progress has been slowing down since the early 1970s. Danny Dorling uses compelling visualizations to illustrate how fertility rates, growth in GDP per person, and even the frequency of new social movements have all steadily declined over the last few generations.
Perhaps most surprising of all is the fact that even as new technologies frequently reshape our everyday lives and are widely believed to be propelling our civilization into new and uncharted waters, the rate of technological progress is also rapidly dropping. Rather than lament this turn of events, Dorling embraces it as a moment of promise and a move toward stability, and he notes that many of the older great strides in progress that have defined recent history also brought with them widespread warfare, divided societies, and massive inequality. -
Price of Peace ; Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes
Zachary Carter
- Random house usa inc
- 19 Mai 2020
- 9780525509035
