This volume reflects on what happens when the idea and practice of universal human rights cross the cultural borders between different communities of knowledge. Although such rights are usually presumed to be founded on certain globally shared beliefs, the norms and values of many cultures are often incommensurable with these "universal" principles, and hence the need to translate and “vernacularize” them. Any law that would successfully institutionalize them must frame human rights in a w...

A startling and gripping reexamination of the Jim Crow era, as seen through the eyes of some of the most important American writers"Walker has opened up a fresh way of thinking about the intellectual history of the South during the civil-rights movement."—Robert Greene, The NationIn this dramatic reexamination of the Jim Crow South, Anders Walker demonstrates that racial segregation fostered not simply terror and vi...

In "Letter from Birmingham Jail," Martin Luther King, Jr. asserted that "the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice." To date, our understanding of the Civil Rights era has been largely defined by high-profile public events such as the crisis at Little Rock high school, bus boycotts, and sit-ins-incidents that were met with massive resistan...

Not just ancient stories—but a code for how we think, desire, fear, and believe.Readers' Favorite Book Award WinnerA profound psychological approach… Fascinating stuff. —James Sale, author of Gods, Heroes, and UsMyths have never been merely entertainment. For thousands of years, they have shaped religion, philosophy, psychology, politics, and art. But what are they really—primitive...

Other countries have social safety nets. The U.S. has women. Holding It Together chronicles the causes and dire consequences.America runs on women—women who are tasked with holding society together at the seams and fixing it when things fall apart. In this tour de force, acclaimed Sociologist Jessica Calarco lays bare the devastating consequences of our status quo.Holding It Together draws on five years of research in which Calarc...

**NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “The conscience of the AI revolution” (Fortune) explains how we’ve arrived at an era of AI harms and oppression, and what we can do to avoid its pitfalls.“AI is not coming, it’s here. If we answer the beautiful call inside these pages, we can decide who we are going to be and how we’re going to use technology in service of what it means to be fully human.”—Brené Brown, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dare to Lead**

A Next Big Idea Club Must Read of February 2025"Von Hippel presents a radically new way to understand why human happiness has diminished. What’s more, he offers superlative advice for how to get back on track.” —Sonja Lyubomirsky, New York Times bestselling author of The How of HappinessFrom the author of The Social Leap comes this thought-provoking exploration, grounded in evolutionary ps...

In this definitive book on revenge, psychiatry researcher James Kimmel, Jr. exposes the unseen neurobiological cause of violence—a compulsive desire for retribution—and offers a profound new understanding of human behavior and breakthrough framework for making our lives and communities safer.**“This riveting, science-based exploration of why we feel pleasure from other people’s pain is a must-read.”—Anna Lembke, MD, author of Dopamine NationA Next ...

The New York Times–bestselling author looks at the real history of the corrupting influence of oligarchy in America—and how we can fight back.Billionaire oligarchs want to own our republic, and they're nearly there thanks to legislation and Supreme Court decisions that they have essentially bought. They put Trump and his political allies into office and support a vast network of think tanks, publications, and social media that every day push our nation clos...

Winner of the NAACP Image Award for FictionFrom the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Heavy, comes a “funny, astute, searching” (The Wall Street Journal) debut novel about Black teenagers that is a satirical exploration of celebrity, authorship, violence, religion, and coming of age in post-Katrina Mississippi.Written in a voice that’s alternately humorous, lacerating, and wise, Long Division features two ...

As America continues down its path of polarization, a celebrated journalist tells us the deep story of the red-state/blue-state divideIn the wake of Trump's presidency, Republican-led states have joined in an alarming assault on our democratic system. But the drift toward authoritarianism in red states has far deeper roots. We now have a country where tens of millions of people live under regimes that have spent years starving education and health care, empowering ...

**Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker and EsquireThis revelatory and inclusive book “unearths the stories of the people—farm laborers, domestic workers, factory employees—behind some of the labor movement’s biggest successes” (The New York Times) from independent journalist and Teen Vogue labor columnist Kim Kelly.**Freed Black women organizing for protection in the Reconstruction-era South. Jewish immigrant garment w...