Basic Books: 1466 books
Midnight's Descendants
A History of South Asia since Partition
Language: English
Release Date: March 11, 2014
Dispersed across India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, Midnight's Descendants-the generations born since the 1947 "midnight hour partition" of British India-are the world's fastest growing population. This vast region and its peoples wield an enormous influence over global economics...
Snowball in a Blizzard
A Physician's Notes on Uncertainty in Medicine
Language: English
Release Date: February 23, 2016
There's a running joke among radiologists: finding a tumor in a mammogram is akin to finding a snowball in a blizzard. A bit of medical gallows humor, this simile illustrates the difficulties of finding signals (the snowball) against a background of noise (the blizzard). Doctors are faced with similar...
The Back Of Beyond
A Search For The Soul Of Ireland
Language: English
Release Date: February 18, 2009
In The Back of Beyond, James Charles Roy, a noted authority on Irish history and travel, escorts a disparate group of Americans through the lonely backwaters of ancient Ireland. Visions of a glorious enterprise evaporate as he sees a dejected and weary handful of aged tourists disembark at Shannon...
by Douglas R. Hofstadter
Language: English
Release Date: August 1, 2007
Language: English
Release Date: August 1, 2007
One of our greatest philosophers and scientists of the mind asks, where does the self come from--and how our selves can exist in the minds of others.
Can thought arise out of matter? Can self, soul, consciousness, "I" arise out of mere matter? If it cannot, then how can you or I be here? I...
Classical Literature
An Epic Journey from Homer to Virgil and Beyond
Language: English
Release Date: March 1, 2016
The writings of the Greeks and Romans form the bedrock of Western culture. Inventing the molds for histories, tragedies, and philosophies, while pioneering radical new forms of epic and poetry, the Greeks and Romans created the literary world we still inhabit today. Writing with verve and insight,...
The Other Side of Sadness
What the New Science of Bereavement Tells Us About Life After Loss
Language: English
Release Date: September 22, 2009
A renowned psychologist reveals the power of human resilience in dealing with grief and loss
The conventional view of grieving--encapsulated by the famous five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance--is defined by a mourning process that we can only hope to accept...
Clever Maids
The Secret History of the Grimm Fairy Tales
Language: English
Release Date: April 27, 2009
Most people know the stories of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, but very few know that behind the Brothers Grimm and their fairy tales stood a network of sisters-and mothers, neighbors, and female friends. In this intimate history, Valerie Paradiz tells the real story of the greatest literary collaboration...
Extraordinary Minds
Portraits Of 4 Exceptional Individuals And An Examination Of Our Own Extraordinariness
Language: English
Release Date: August 1, 2008
Fifteen years ago, psychologist and educator Howard Gardner introduced the idea of multiple intelligences, challenging the presumption that intelligence consists of verbal or analytic abilities only-those intelligences that schools tend to measure. He argued for a broader understanding of the intelligent...
Darwin's Worms
On Life Stories and Death Stories
Language: English
Release Date: June 16, 2009
Adam Phillips has been called "the psychotherapist of the floating world" and "the closest thing we have to a philosopher of happiness." His style is epigrammatic; his intelligence, electric. His new book, Darwin's Worms, uses the biographical details of Darwin's and Freud's lives...
Shame
How America's Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country
Language: English
Release Date: February 24, 2015
The greatest barrier to racial equality today is not overt racism, Shelby Steele argues in [Title TK], but white liberals. Under the guise of benevolence, liberals today maintain their position of power over blacks by continuing to cast them as victims in need of saving. This ideology underlies liberal...
The Suicide of Reason
Radical Islam's Threat to the West
Language: English
Release Date: August 2, 2007
Whether by choice or not, the West finds itself in a low-grade yet bitter war with Islamic fanaticism. It is a war the West is singularly ill-equipped to fight. The foe is resistant to any of the normal methods of conflict resolution such as negotiation, economic sanctions, or conventional armed confrontation....
Erotic Capital
The Power of Attraction in the Boardroom and the Bedroom
Language: English
Release Date: August 25, 2011
In 2010, pioneering sociologist Catherine Hakim shocked the world with a provocative new theory: In addition to the three recognized personal assets (economic, cultural, and social capital), each individual has a fourth asset-erotic capital-that he or she can, and should, use to advance within society.
In...
Mind, Language And Society
Philosophy In The Real World
Language: English
Release Date: August 4, 2008
Disillusionment with psychology is leading more and more people to formal philosophy for clues about how to think about life. But most of us who try to grapple with concepts such as reality, truth, common sense, consciousness, and society lack the rigorous training to discuss them with any confidence....
by Edward Teller, Wendy Teller, Wilson Talley
Language: English
Release Date: October 17, 2002
Language: English
Release Date: October 17, 2002
In Conversations on the Dark Secrets of Physics, Teller returns to the fundamentals of physics to share with readers his unbridled enthusiasm for the world of physical reality--from the nature of molecules to quantum mechanics and superconductors, from the elementary laws of thermodynamics to how...