Basic Books imprint: 1165 books

A leading M.I.T. social scientist and consultant examines five professions-engineering, architecture, management, psychotherapy, and town planning-to show how professionals really go about solving problems.The best professionals, Donald Schön maintains, know more than they can put into words. To...

How do we know which social and economic policies work, which should be continued, and which should be changed? Jim Manzi argues that throughout history, various methods have been attempted-except for controlled experimentation. Experiments provide the feedback loop that allows us, in certain limited...

Unlike other barnyard animals, which pull plows, give eggs or milk, or grow wool, a pig produces only one thing: meat. Incredibly efficient at converting almost any organic matter into nourishing, delectable protein, swine are nothing short of a gastronomic godsend-yet their flesh is banned in many...

The best-selling guide to network science, the revolutionary field that reveals the deep links between all forms of human social life A cocktail party. A terrorist cell. Ancient bacteria. An international conglomerate. All are networks, and all are a part of a surprising scientific revolution....

Technology is evolving faster than we are. As our mobile phones, mp3 players, cars, and digital cameras become more and more complex, we understand less and less about how they actually work and what personal details these gadgets might reveal about us. Robert Vamosi, an award-winning journalist...

Why do certain civilizations, societies, and ecosystems collapse? How does the domino effect relate to the credit crunch? When can mathematics help explain marriage? And how on earth do toads predict earthquakes? The future is uncertain. But science can help foretell what lies ahead. Drawing...

The first edition of The Growth Experiment, originally published in 1990 as a response to critics of the Reagan-era tax cuts, became a kind of bible for proponents of supply-side economics. This new and updated edition, which explores the economic effects of America's tax policy over the last five...

This book sets out the case for Hard Green, a conservative environmental agenda. Modern environmentalism, Peter Huber argues, destroys the environment. Captured as it has been by the Soft Green oligarchy of scientists, regulators, and lawyers, modern environmentalism does not conserve forests, oceans,...

Programmable matter is probably not the next technological revolution, nor even perhaps the one after that. But it's coming, and when it does, it will change our lives as much as any invention ever has. Imagine being able to program matter itself-to change it, with the click of a cursor, from hard...

Bestselling author and eminent foreign policy scholar Zbigniew Brzezinski's classic book on American's strategic mission in the modern world In The Grand Chessboard, renowned geostrategist Zbigniew Brzezinski delivers a brutally honest and provocative vision for American preeminence in the...

The most complete account of the theory and application of Multiple Intelligences available anywhere Howard Gardner's brilliant conception of individual competence, known as Multiple Intelligences theory, has changed the face of education. Tens of thousands of educators, parents, and researchers...

We live in an age of awesome technological potential. From nanotechnology to synthetic organisms, new technologies stand to revolutionize whole domains of human experience. But with awesome potential comes awesome risk: drones can deliver a bomb as readily as they can a new smartphone; makers and...

Jennifer Washburn, a scholar and journalist, reveals how the growing influence of corporations over universities compromises the future of all those whose careers depend on a university education, and all those who will be employed, governed, or taught by the products of American universities.

Considered the definitive history of the American healthcare system, The Social Transformation of American Medicine examines how the roles of doctors, hospitals, health plans, and government programs have evolved over the last two and a half centuries. How did the financially insecure medical profession...