Social Change

If we hope to interrupt educational inequities and create schools in which every child thrives, we must open our hearts to purposeful conversation and hone our skills to make those conversations effective. With characteristic honesty and wisdom, Elena Aguilar inspires us to commit to transforming our classrooms, lays bare the hidden obstacles to equity, and helps us see how to overcome these obstacles, one conversation at a time.

Social justice work, we often assume, is raised voices and raised fists. But what does it look like for those of us who don't feel comfortable battling in the trenches? Sustaining justice work can be particularly challenging for the sensitive, and it requires a deep level of self-awareness. In Social Justice for the Sensitive Soul, writer Dorcas Cheng-Tozun offers six possible pathways for sensitive types.

Comedians Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld never thought anyone would watch their silly little sitcom about a New York comedian sitting around talking to his friends. NBC executives didn't think anyone would watch either, but they bought it anyway, hiding it away in the TV dead zone of summer. But against all odds, viewers began to watch, first a few and then many, until nine years later nearly 40 million Americans were tuning in weekly.

The Little Ice Age tells the story of the turbulent, unpredictable, and often very cold years of modern European history, how climate altered historical events, and what they mean in the context of today’s global warming.

Thomas Paine was one of the greatest political propagandists in history. The Rights of Man, first published in 1791, is the key to his reputation. Inspired by his outrage at Edmund Burke's attack on the uprising of the French people, Paine's text is a passionate defense of the rights of man. Paine argued against monarchy and outlined the elements of a successful republic, including public education, pensions, and relief of the poor and unemployed, all financed by income tax.

Favereau takes us inside one of the most powerful sources of cross-border integration in world history. The Horde was the central node in the Eurasian commercial boom of the 13th and 14th centuries and was a conduit for exchanges across thousands of miles. Its unique political regime - a complex power-sharing arrangement among the khan and the nobility - rewarded skillful administrators and diplomats and fostered an economic order that was mobile, organized, and innovative.

It's easy to get discouraged by the headlines. It can often feel as if God has left the building, like we are on our own. We want to believe God's promises to us, and we search for signs of his continuing restoration of the world in which we live. Now, with passion and heart, two leading experts on Christianity and culture cut through the chaos and uncertainty to show listeners how God is powerfully active and intensely engaged in fulfilling his promise to restore all things unto himself.

New York Times best-selling author Joan Anderson gives women practical advice and inspiration for building creative, independent, and fulfilling lives through discovering who they truly are and who they can be.

The globe has always been a world of walls, from the Great Wall of China to Hadrian's Wall to the Berlin Wall. But a new age of isolationism and economic nationalism is upon us, visible not just in Trump's obsession with building a wall on the Mexico border or in Britain's Brexit vote but in many other places as well. China has the Great Firewall, holding back Western culture. Europe's countries are walling themselves against immigrants, terrorism, and currency issues. In fact, at least 65 countries have barriers along their borders. Understanding what is behind these divisions is essential to understanding much of what's going on in the world today.

Most of what we know about how ideas spread comes from best-selling authors who give us a compelling picture of a world, in which "influencers" are king, "sticky" ideas "go viral", and good behavior is "nudged" forward. The problem is that the world they describe is a world where information spreads, but beliefs and behaviors stay the same. When it comes to lasting change in what we think or the way we live, the dynamics are different: beliefs and behaviors are not transmitted from person to person in the simple way that a virus is.

HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS AND LANGUAGE EVOLUTION --- This book provides an in-depth exploration of the processes that have shaped human language over millennia, integrating linguistic, archaeological, cognitive, and sociocultural evidence to illuminate the evolution of languages. Anchoring its analysis in historical linguistics, the book goes into the profound effects of migration, educational systems, trade, and technological innovations on language transformation. The bookunfolds with an examination of migration's necessary place in shaping linguistic territory, from the spread of Indo-...

In an evolving networked era, social-issue documentaries like Blackfish are art for civic imagination and social critique. In Story Movements, producer and scholar Caty Borum Chattoo explores how documentaries disrupt dominant cultural narratives through complex, creative, often investigative storytelling.

It turns out giving up your "right" to be offended can be one of the most freeing, healthy, simplifying, relaxing, refreshing, stress-relieving, encouraging things you can do. It's a radical, provocative idea: We're not entitled to get offended or stay angry. The idea of our own "righteous anger" is a myth. It is the number one problem in our societies today and, as Dallas Willard says, Christians have not been taught out of it. But what if Christians were the most unoffendable people on the planet?

Many books teach the mechanics of using Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to compete in business. But no book addresses how to harness the incredible power of social media to make a difference. The Dragonfly Effect shows you how to tap social media and consumer psychological insights to achieve a single, concrete goal.

From Notre Dame professor and author of Why Liberalism Failed comes a provocative call for replacing the tyranny of the self-serving liberal elite with conservative leaders aligned with the interests of the working class.

A five-time Moth GrandSLAM winner and bestselling novelist shows how to tell a great story - and why doing so matters. Whether we realize it or not, we are always telling stories. On a first date or job interview, at a sales presentation or therapy appointment, with family or friends, we are constantly narrating events and interpreting emotions and actions. In this compelling book, storyteller extraordinaire Matthew Dicks presents wonderfully straightforward and engaging tips and techniques for constructing, telling, and polishing stories that will hold the attention of your audience (no matter how big or small).

In an illuminating analysis, Dr. Genevieve Guenther shows that the climate debate is not, in fact, neatly polarized, with Republicans obstructing climate action and Democrats advancing climate solutions. Partisans on the right and the left often repeat the same fossil-fuel talking points, and this repetition produces a centrist consensus upholding the status quo, even as global heating accelerates. Weaving this analysis through fascinating critical histories of the terms that dominate the language of climate politics Dr. Guenther shows how this consensus is established.

Effective altruism is built upon the simple, but profound, idea that living a fully ethical life involves doing the "most good you can do". Such a life requires an unsentimental view of charitable giving: To be a worthy recipient of our support, an organization must be able to demonstrate that it will do more good with our money or our time than other options open to us. Singer introduces us to an array of remarkable people who are restructuring their lives in accordance with these ideas and shows how living altruistically often leads to greater personal fulfillment.

Drawing on his own experience and on the literature of combat from Homer to Michael Herr, Hedges shows how war seduces not just those on the front lines but entire societies, corrupting politics, destroying culture, and perverting the most basic human desires. Mixing hard-nosed realism with profound moral and philosophical insight, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning is a work of terrible power and redemptive clarity whose truths have never been more necessary.

You can bring about positive, lasting change in the world, and you don’t have to be rich and famous or lead a big organization to do it. Global leadership icons and best-selling authors John C. Maxwell and Rob Hoskins provide the inspiring and practical roadmap to get started being the change you want to see - in your community and beyond.