A provocative, timely analysis that asks: What does science tells us about the bias that poisons our politics?We don’t live in a ‘post-truth’ society—but a ‘myside’ society in which no one can agree on accepted truth and facts.In The Bias That Divides Us, psychologist Keith Stanovich argues provocatively that we don’t live in a post-truth society, as has been claimed, but rather a myside society. Our problem is not that we are unab...

Critics of intelligence tests—writers such as Robert Sternberg, Howard Gardner, and Daniel Goleman—have argued in recent years that these tests neglect important qualities such as emotion, empathy, and interpersonal skills. However, such critiques imply that though intelligence tests may miss certain key noncognitive areas, they encompass most of what is important in the cognitive domain. In this book, Keith E. Stanovich challenges this widely held assumption.Stanovich shows that IQ tes...

How to assess critical aspects of cognitive functioning that are not measured by IQ tests: rational thinking skills.Why are we surprised when smart people act foolishly? Smart people do foolish things all the time. Misjudgments and bad decisions by highly educated bankers and money managers, for example, brought us the financial crisis of 2008. Smart people do foolish things because intelligence is not the same as the capacity for rational thinking. The Rationa...

Integrating a decade-long program of empirical research with current cognitive theory, this book demonstrates that psychological research has profound implications for current debates about what it means to be rational. The author brings new evidence to bear on these issues by demonstrating that patterns of individual differences--largely ignored in disputes about human rationality--have strong implications for explanations of the gap between normative and descriptive models of human behav...

This “engrossing history of censorship” is an urgent, timely read for our era of social media trolls, fake news, and free speech debates (The Economist).How restricting speech continuously shapes our culture, props up authorities, and maintains class and gender disparitiesThrough compelling narrative, historian Eric Berkowitz reveals how drastically censorship has shaped our modern society. More than just a history of censorship,

“A delightful compendium of the kind of facts you immediately want to share with anyone you encounter . . . . Simon Winchester has firmly earned his place in history . . . as a promulgator of knowledge of every variety, perhaps the last of the famous explorers who crisscrossed the now-vanished British Empire and reported what they found to an astonished world.” — New York TimesFrom the creation of the first encyclopedia to Wikipedia, from ancient m...

This funny, "extraordinary and thought-provoking" (The Wall Street Journal) book asks whether we are in fact the superior species. As it turns out, the truth is stranger—and far more interesting—than we have been led to believe.If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal overturns everything we thought we knew about human intelligence, and asks the question: would humans be better off as narwhals? Or some other, less brainy species? There’s a good argument to be ...

New York Times–Bestselling Author: "Insightful analysis, moral passion, and keen satirical wit . . . both entertaining and an important commentary on the times." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)What does a middle-class democracy look like when it comes apart? When, after forty years of economic triumph, America's winners persuade themselves that they owe nothing to the rest of the country?With his sharp eye for detail, Thomas Frank, auth...

Covering 13.8 billion years in some 100 pages, a concise, wryly intelligent history of everything, from the Big Bang to the advent of human civilization.With wonder, wit, and flair—and in record time and space—geophysicist David Bercovici explains how everything came to be everywhere, from the creation of stars and galaxies to the formation of Earth's atmosphere and oceans, to the origin of life and human civilization. Bercovici marries humor and legitimate scienti...

"A captivating story, not just an intellectual quest but a personal one . . . gripping [and] filled with the passion and wonder of numbers." — The New York TimesVirtually everything in our lives is digital, numerical, or quantified. But the story of how and where we got these numerals, which we so depend on, has for thousands of years been shrouded in mystery. Finding Zero is the saga of Amir Aczel's lifelong obsession: to find the original sources...

We can't afford to be complacent any more: "A formidable book . . . extremely rich in historical examples, case studies, and quantitative data." — International Journal of Constitutional LawDemocracies are in danger. Around the world, a wave of populist leaders threatens to erode the core structures of democratic self-rule. In the United States, the tenure of Donald Trump marks a decisive turning point for many. What kind of president intimidates jurors, ca...

"A digestible history of this tortured land is something Americans sorely need. . . . Polk carefully constructs one." ― USA TodayWilliam R. Polk provides an informative, readable history of a country which is moving quickly toward becoming the dominant power and culture of the Middle East. A former member of the State Department's Policy Planning Council, Polk describes a country and a history misunderstood by many in the West. While Irani...