In 1656, after being excommunicated from Amsterdam's Portuguese-Jewish community for "abominable heresies" and "monstrous deeds," the young Baruch Spinoza abandoned his family's import business to dedicate his life to philosophy. He quickly became notorious across Europe for his views on God, the Bible, and miracles, as well as for his uncompromising defense of free thought. Yet the radicalism of Spinoza's views has long obscured that his primary reason for turning to philosophy was to ans...

A pioneering scientist presents a mind-expanding account of the sociogenomics revolution, which promises to upend everything we know about human development.Sociogenomics brings together advances in molecular genetics and traditional social and behavioral science. The key tool is the polygenic index, which allows us to analyze DNA to measure a child's genetic potential. Today, we can estimate a child's adult height, how far they will go in school, and their weight ...

Consumers want personalized experiences, but few companies are rising to the challenge. To be done effectively, personalization must be a critical element of an organization's strategy.Personalized is a playbook for delivering true personalization at scale. In this book, Boston Consulting Group's Mark Abraham and Harvard Business School's David C. Edelman describe Five Promises of Personalization: Empower Me: Understand each customer's needs and how best t...

Based on massive new research, a compelling and surprising account of the twentieth century's closest election.The 1960 presidential election between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon is one of the most frequently described political events of the twentieth century, yet the accounts to date have been remarkably unbalanced. Far more attention is given to Kennedy's side than to Nixon's. The imbalance began with the first book on that election, Theodore White's Th...

Telecommunications networks are vast, intricate, hugely costly systems for exchanging messages and information—within cities and across continents. From the Post Office and the telegraph to today's internet, these networks have sown domestic division while also acting as sources of international power.In Crossed Wires, Dan Schiller, who has conducted archival research on United States telecommunications for more than forty years, recovers the extraordinary social history o...

Why Wendell Berry, Michael Pollan, and other slow-food-loving locavores are wrong about food in America—and why Waffle House can save us allThe food industry is a major driver of climate change, pollution, obesity, animal suffering, and workplace exploitation. Many food writers blame the industrial food system and tell individual eaters to fix these problems by buying local, artisanal food from small farmers—a solution most Americans can't afford. But, as food poli...

This engaging book by Jeff Rauseo blends film history with a modern guide to streaming, helping you navigate the complex history of movie making and ultimately how to know what to watch in the vast ocean of content. From the golden age of Hollywood to the best new movies to stream, Rauseo breaks down the ever-evolving movie watching experience to help us understand the good, the bad, and the ugly of streaming.Ever feel overwhelmed by endless streaming choices? Jeff Rauseo's Los...

We all know the importance of mothers. They are typically as paramount in the wild as they are in human relationships. But what about fathers? In most mammals, fathers have little to no involvement in raising their offspring—and sometimes even kill the offspring sired by other fathers. How, then, can we explain modern fathers having the capacity to be highly engaged parents? In Father Nature, James Rilling explores how humans have evolved to endow modern fathers with this potentia...

A must-listen guide to all the adult stuff you're expected to know (but that nobody ever explains).Do you ever feel like you missed the day in school when they taught you . . . literally everything you were going to need for a successful adulthood? How do you iron clothes? Where do friends come from? Why are there so many types of insurance? Does everyone else already know this stuff, and where did they learn it?Well, you don't have to flail around anymore,...

Perhaps no other single day in United States history was as threatening to the survival of the nation as August 24, 1814, when British forces captured Washington, DC. This unique moment might have significantly altered the nation's path forward, but the event and the reasons why it happened are little remembered by most Americans.When Washington Burned narrates and examines the British campaign and American missteps that led to the fall of Washington during the War of 1812...

In the 1960s and 1970s, an insurgent attack on traditional liberalism took shape in America. It was built on new ideals of citizen advocacy and the public interest. Drawing energy from civil rights protests and opposition to the Vietnam War, the new citizens' movement drew legions of followers and scored major victories. Citizen advocates disrupted government plans for urban highways and new hydroelectric dams and got Congress to pass tough legislation to protect clean air and clean water....

How the Republican Party transformed from the Party of Lincoln to the Party of LeeThe Republican House Divided is the first comprehensive study of the relationships between the Republican Party and Civil War memory in the twentieth century. Tim Galsworthy reveals how rival Republicans deployed Civil War memory to support, oppose, and ultimately shape the GOP's transformation, during the civil rights era, into a racially conservative party. Drawing on exten...