Social Change

Wallet Activism challenges you to rethink your financial power so can feel confident spending, earning, and saving money in ways that align with your values.

Through economics, our politicians have the power to transform people's lives for better or worse. Think Deng Xiaoping who lifted millions out of poverty by opening up China; Franklin D Roosevelt whose 'New Deal' helped the USA break free of the Great Depression; or Peron and his successors in Argentina who brought the country to the brink of ruin. In this magisterial history, economist and politician Vince Cable examines the legacy of 16 world leaders who transformed their countries' economic fortunes and who also challenged economic convention.

Language is perhaps humanity’s most astonishing capacity - and one that remains poorly understood. In The Language Game, cognitive scientists Morten H. Christiansen and Nick Chater show us where generations of scientists seeking the rules of language got it wrong. Language isn’t about hardwired grammars but about near-total freedom, something like a game of charades, with the only requirement being a desire to understand and be understood.

A book of global significance that provides new insight into China, Factory Girls demonstrates how the mass movement from rural villages to cities is remaking individual lives and transforming Chinese society, much as immigration to America's shores remade our own country a century ago.

Unconventional warfare provides an indirect means to harass, undermine, and overthrow regimes through the use of surrogates. Recent examples in the Ukraine, Myanmar, Syria, and Libya have changed the way we view this age old form of conflict. Global instantaneous communications, social media, and the application of precision munitions from conventional forces have radically altered our understanding of proxy warfare. The sustainment provided by external non-state actors has made these already chaotic conflicts even more so. Unconventional Warfare 2.0 describes how demographic trends, rapid ...

Training is created with the goal of changing learners' behaviors, but anyone who has created learning experiences knows that there's a big gap between knowing and doing. You can create an engaging learning experience that informs and helps people remember, but often those people go back to their regular world and continue to do things the same way they always have. In the last few decades, the fields of psychology, behavioral economics, and other behavioral sciences have brought an enormous amount of scientific research into helping people with behavior change.

In these new essays, Williams explores the concept of erosion: of the land, of the self, of belief, of fear. She wrangles with the paradox of desert lands and the truth of erosion: What is weathered, worn, and whittled away through wind, water, and time is as powerful as what remains. Our undoing is also our becoming.

In this fascinating and entertaining look at games throughout history, Tim Clare explores the legal highs of a good dice roll, the thrills of a predatory race game, and the tactile pleasures of the games that age with us through our lives. Drawing on Roman anti-cheating devices, organised crime card games, and dice contests that link Chaucer to Warren G, The Game Changers will show you why games are more popular now than ever, and how playing them helps us win more often, become better losers and stay one step ahead - on and off the board. Through play, we become fully ourselves.

If it weren't for the 57 bus, Sasha and Richard never would have met. Both were high school students from Oakland, California, one of the most diverse cities in the country, but they inhabited different worlds. Sasha, a white teen, lived in the middle-class foothills and attended a small private school. Richard, a black teen, lived in the crime-plagued flatlands and attended a large public one. Each day, their paths overlapped for a mere eight minutes. But, one afternoon, on the bus ride home from school, a single reckless act left Sasha severely burned.

Michael Shellenberger has been fighting for a greener planet for decades. He helped save the world’s last unprotected redwoods. He co-created the predecessor to today’s Green New Deal. And he led a successful effort by climate scientists and activists to keep nuclear plants operating, preventing a spike of emissions. But in 2019, as some claimed "billions of people are going to die", contributing to rising anxiety, including among adolescents, Shellenberger decided that he needed to speak out to separate science from fiction.

Current events have deep roots, and the key to navigating today’s roiling policies lies in the events that started it all — the 2008 economic crisis and its aftermath. Despite initial attempts to downplay the crisis as a local incident, what happened on Wall Street beginning in 2008 was, in fact, a dramatic caesura of global significance that spiraled around the world, from the financial markets of the UK and Europe to the factories and dockyards of Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.

Warmer temperatures. Fires in the Amazon. Superstorms. These are just some of the effects of climate change that we are already experiencing. The good news is that we can all do something about it. A movement is already underway to combat not only the environmental effects of climate change but also to fight for climate justice and make a fair and livable future possible for everyone. And young people are not just part of that movement, they are leading the way. They are showing us that this moment of danger is also a moment of great opportunity - an opportunity to change everything.

The Art of Conversation will show you step by step how to converse skillfully and enjoyably with other people, at home, at work, on the phone, and in the street. Even if you're daunted now, discover the difference good conversation can make in every aspect of your life.

In the third book in the New York Times best-selling middle grade series inspired by the life of iconic New York Yankee Derek Jeter, Derek's father keeps his promise to coach his son's youth baseball team. Derek is sure this will be the best season yet! He has it all planned: His dad will have him start at shortstop, and the team will cruise to a championship. But sometimes life doesn't go according to plan.

One idea can change a nation. Four simple words. In a fractured United States, divided into eleven autonomous states, a ruling Presidential dynasty, protected by the Freedom Protection Unit (FPU), holds each territory under a tight, relentless grip. Isolationism has reshaped society, ensuring a life of obedience and conformity, but beneath the surface, something is stirring. A hidden knowledge. Alex Harper, an ordinary factory worker, stumbles upon a book, a guide to awakening the mind, connecting with energy, and reclaiming inner power. As he begins to unravel its mysteries, he discovers a...

Smedley Butler was the most celebrated warfighter of his time. Best-selling books were written about him. Hollywood adored him. Wherever the flag went, “The Fighting Quaker” went - serving in nearly every major overseas conflict from the Spanish War of 1898 until the eve of World War II.

Former New York Times columnist Anand Giridharadas takes us into the inner sanctums of a new gilded age, where the rich and powerful fight for equality and justice any way they can--except ways that threaten the social order and their position atop it.

In today’s political climate, it’s hard not to get discouraged. Isolated, doom scrolling, lacking a sense of purpose or community...it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the dire state of American democracy and do nothing, because why try when the odds are never in our favor?

In 1519, the Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortés first met Montezuma, the Aztec emperor, at the entrance to the capital city of Tenochtitlan. This introduction - the prelude to the Spanish seizure of Mexico City and to European colonization of the mainland of the Americas - has long been the symbol of Cortés' bold and brilliant military genius. Montezuma, on the other hand, is remembered as a coward who gave away a vast empire and touched off a wave of colonial invasions across the hemisphere. But is this really what happened?

In his most ambitious work to date, Thomas L. Friedman shows that we have entered an age of dizzying acceleration - and explains how to live in it. Due to an exponential increase in computing power, climbers atop Mount Everest enjoy excellent cell phone service, and self-driving cars are taking to the roads. A parallel explosion of economic interdependency has created new riches as well as spiraling debt burdens.