Basic Books imprint: 1165 books
High Noon
20 Global Problems, 20 Years To Solve Them
Language: English
Release Date: March 21, 2007
In this age of instant communication and biotechnology, on this ever-smaller planet, what kinds of problems have we created for ourselves? How do we tackle them in a world where the accustomed methods used by nation-states may be reaching their natural limits?In High Noon, J. F. Rischard challenges...
Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids
Why Being a Great Parent is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think
Language: English
Release Date: April 12, 2011
We've needlessly turned parenting into an unpleasant chore. Parents invest more time and money in their kids than ever, but the shocking lesson of twin and adoption research is that upbringing is much less important than genetics in the long run. These revelations have surprising implications for...
In the Shadow Of the Poorhouse
A Social History Of Welfare In America, Tenth Anniversary Edition
Language: English
Release Date: December 11, 1996
With welfare reform a burning political issue, this special anniversary edition of the classic history of welfare in America has been revised and updated to include the latest bipartisan debates on how to end welfare as we know it.”In the Shadow of the Poorhouse examines the origins of social...
by John Allen Paulos
Language: English
Release Date: September 10, 2013
Language: English
Release Date: September 10, 2013
In this lively volume, mathematician John Allen Paulos employs his singular wit to guide us through an unlikely mathematical jungle-the pages of the daily newspaper. From the Senate and sex to celebrities and cults, Paulos takes stories that may not seem to involve math at all and demonstrates how...
by John Allen Paulos
Language: English
Release Date: October 11, 2007
Language: English
Release Date: October 11, 2007
In A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market best-selling author John Allen Paulos demonstrates what the tools of mathematics can tell us about the vagaries of the stock market. Employing his trademark stories, vignettes, paradoxes, and puzzles (and even a film treatment), Paulos addresses every thinking...
The Two-Income Trap
Why Middle-Class Parents Are (Still) Going Broke
Language: English
Release Date: April 12, 2016
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Senator Elizabeth Warren and consultant Amelia Warren Tyagi, the classic book about America's middle class -- and why economic security remains out of reach for many
In this exposé, Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi show that modern middle-class...
by Chris Mooney
Language: English
Release Date: March 16, 2007
Language: English
Release Date: March 16, 2007
Science has never been more crucial to deciding the political issues facing the country. Yet science and scientists have less influence with the federal government than at any time since Richard Nixon fired his science advisors. In the White House and Congress today, findings are reported in a politicized...
King of Fish
The Thousand-Year Run of Salmon
Language: English
Release Date: April 28, 2009
The salmon that symbolize the Pacific Northwest's natural splendor are now threatened with extinction across much of their ancestral range. In studying the natural and human forces that shape the rivers and mountains of that region, geologist David Montgomery has learned to see the evolution and near-extinction...
Getting Better
Why Global Development Is Succeeding--And How We Can Improve the World Even More
Language: English
Release Date: December 4, 2012
As the income gap between developed and developing nations grows, so grows the cacophony of voices claiming that the quest to find a simple recipe for economic growth has failed. Getting Better, in sharp contrast, reports the good news about global progress. Economist Charles Kenny argues against...
Consent of the Networked
The Worldwide Struggle For Internet Freedom
Language: English
Release Date: January 31, 2012
The Internet was going to liberate us, but in truth it has not. For every story about the web’s empowering role in events such as the Arab Spring, there are many more about the quiet corrosion of civil liberties by companies and governments using the same digital technologies we have come to depend...
The Evolution of Cooperation
Revised Edition
Language: English
Release Date: April 29, 2009
A famed political scientist's classic argument for a more cooperative world
We assume that, in a world ruled by natural selection, selfishness pays. So why cooperate? In The Evolution of Cooperation, political scientist Robert Axelrod seeks to answer this question. In 1980, he organized the...
Extra Innings
More Baseball Between the Numbers from the Team at Baseball Prospectus
Language: English
Release Date: April 3, 2012
In 1996, a brassy young team of fans produced a guide to baseball statistics. Printed on a photocopier, its distribution, which was in the low hundreds, was limited to friends, family, and die-hard stat heads. Sixteen years later, the Baseball Prospectus annual regularly hits best-seller lists and...
Shadow Elite
How the World's New Power Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government, and the Free Market
Language: English
Release Date: November 10, 2009
It can feel like we’re swimming in a sea of corruption. It’s unclear who exactly is in charge and what role they play. The same influential people seem to reappear time after time in different professional guises, pressing their own agendas in one venue after another. According to award-winning...
Foreign Policy Begins at Home
The Case for Putting America's House in Order
Language: English
Release Date: April 8, 2014
A rising China, climate change, terrorism, a nuclear Iran, a turbulent Middle East, and a reckless North Korea all present serious challenges to America's national security. But it depends even more on the United States addressing its burgeoning deficit and debt, crumbling infrastructure, second class...