Bøger udgivet af Basic Books

The Affirmative Action Debate collects the leading voices on all sides of this crucial dialogue. A provocative range of politicians, researchers, legal experts, and businesspeople dispute the best way to fight discrimination. Their essays explore such questions as, How did affirmative-action policies come to be? Who benefits most from them, and who suffers? How do these programs work in hiring, contracting, college admissions, and other fields? What will recent Supreme Court rulings and legislative initiatives mean? And, most fundamentally, does any race-conscious remedy simply perpetuate discrimination? Recognizing affirmative action as more than a black-and-white issue, this book includes the voices of women, Latinos, and Asian-Americans who are also affected but often ignored. A sourcebook of solid facts and surprising arguments.

Fights about the fate of the state of Israel, and the Zionist movement that gave birth to it, have long been a staple of both Jewish and American political culture. But despite these arguments' significance to American politics, American Jewish life, and to Israel itself, no one has ever systematically examined their history and explained why they matter. In We Are Not One, historian Eric Alterman traces this debate from its nineteenth-century origins. Following Israel's 1948-1949 War of Independence (called the "nakba" or "catastrophe" by Palestinians), few Americans, including few Jews, paid much attention to Israel or the challenges it faced. Following the 1967 Six-Day War, however, almost overnight support for Israel became the primary component of American Jews' collective identity. Over time, Jewish organizations joined forces with conservative Christians and neoconservative pundits and politicos to wage a tenacious fight to define Israel's image in the US media, popular culture, Congress, and college campuses. Deeply researched, We Are Not One reveals how our consensus on Israel and Palestine emerged and why, today, it is fracturing.

A groundbreaking expose of how our legal system makes it nearly impossible to overturn wrongful convictions

One of our preeminent historians of race and democracy argues that the period since 2008 has marked nothing less than America's Third ReconstructionIn The Third Reconstruction, distinguished historian Peniel E. Joseph offers a powerful and personal new interpretation of recent history. The racial reckoning that unfolded in 2020, he argues, marked the climax of a Third Reconstruction: a new struggle for citizenship and dignity for Black Americans, just as momentous as the movements that arose after the Civil War and during the civil rights era. Joseph draws revealing connections and insights across centuries as he traces this Third Reconstruction from the election of Barack Obama to the rise of Black Lives Matter to the failed assault on the Capitol.America's first and second Reconstructions fell tragically short of their grand aims. Our Third Reconstruction offers a new chance to achieve Black dignity and citizenship at last--an opportunity to choose hope over fear.

Why understanding evolution-the most reviled branch of science-can help us all, from fighting pandemics to undoing racism? ?

From a MacArthur "Genius," a new intellectual history of Free Market ideology, revealing that it has always been more flexible than uncompromising theorists like Milton Friedman would have us believe

A leading Catholic intellectual explains why the teachings of the Second Vatican Council are essential to the Church's future-and the world'sThe Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) was the most important Catholic event in the past five hundred years. Yet sixty years after its opening on October 11, 1962, its meaning remains sharply contested and its promise unfulfilled.In To Sanctify the World, George Weigel explains the necessity of Vatican II and explores the continuing relevance of its teaching in a world seeking a deeper experience of freedom than personal willfulness. The Council's texts are also a critical resource for the Catholic Church as it lives out its original, Christ-centered evangelical purpose.Written with insight and verve, To Sanctify the World recovers the true meaning of Vatican II as the template for a Catholicism that can propose a path toward genuine human dignity and social solidarity.

"At 35, Elsie Robinson feared she'd lost it all. She was reeling from a hostile divorce to a wealthy man that played out in tabloids across the country and she faced an uncertain future as the single mother of a chronically-ill son. She had no clear means of financial support, no college education or training. She'd hit a wall. At a time when it was thought that a woman's highest calling was to become a wife and mother, Elsie hungered for a different kind of life. She dreamed of becoming a professional writer and sacrificed everything in pursuit of a career in letters, going so far as to work a California gold mine to pay the bills. Through it all, she wrote-everything from features to essays to fiction. When the mine shut down, she moved to San Francisco in 1918-at the tail end of a world war and an influenza pandemic. Borrowing money to buy a pen and paper, she created a mock-up for a children's column, then barged into the Oakland Tribune to thrust it into the hands of the managing editor. He hired her on the spot. From there, her popular children's column led to a nationally-syndicated column for adults that ran six days a week for more than 30 years and had 50 million readers. She became the highest-paid female columnist employed by William Randolph Hearst, who personally edited her copy and negotiated her contracts. Told with drama and cinematic detail by bestselling author Julia Scheeres and award-winning journalist Allison Gilbert, Listen, World! is the first biography of this indefatigable woman, capturing what it means to take a gamble on happiness, stumble a few times, and ultimately land on your feet"--

A mathematician reveals the hidden beauty, power, and—yes—fun of algebra  What comes to mind when you think about algebra? For many of us, it’s memories of dull or frustrating classes in high school. Award-winning mathematics professor G. Arnell Williams is here to change that. Algebra the Beautiful is a journey into the heart of fundamental math that proves just how amazing this subject really is.  Drawing on lessons from twenty-five years of teaching mathematics, Williams blends metaphor, history, and storytelling to uncover algebra’s hidden grandeur. Whether you’re a teacher looking to make math come alive for your students, a parent hoping to get your children engaged, a student trying to come to terms with a sometimes bewildering subject, or just a lover of mathematics, this book has something for you. With a passion that’s contagious, G. Arnell Williams shows how each of us can grasp the beauty and harmony of algebra.

A prize-winning historian chronicles a sinister idea of freedom: white Americans' freedom to oppress people of color

The late Elliot Richardson, Washington's ultimate insider, examines the growing hostility of American citizens toward government and explores what it means to be a responsible American today.

A revisionist history of medicine, in which blood plays the starring role

The riveting true story of an enslaved woman who liberated herself, her children, and a notorious jail for enslaved people in the Confederacy's capital, transforming the property into one of the nation's first HBCUs.

The horrors of the Nazi regime and the Holocaust still present some of the most disturbing questions in modern history: Why did Hitler's party appeal to millions of Germans, and how entrenched was anti-Semitism among the population? How could anyone claim, after the war, that the genocide of Europe's Jews was a secret? Did ordinary non-Jewish Germans live in fear of the Nazi state? In this unprecedented firsthand analysis of daily life as experienced in the Third Reich, What We Knew offers answers to these most important questions. Combining the expertise of Eric A. Johnson, an American historian, and Karl-Heinz Reuband, a German sociologist, What We Knew is the most startling oral history yet of everyday life in theThird Reich.

A bold new history of the origins and aftermath of the Texas Revolution, revealing how Indians, Mexicans, and Americans battled for survival in one of the continent's most diverse regions

For centuries humankind has fantasized about life on Mars, whether its intelligent Martian life invading our planet (immortalized in H.G. Wellss The War of the Worlds) or humanity colonizing Mars (the late Ray Bradburys The Martian Chronicles). The Red Planets proximity and likeness to Earth make it a magnet for our collective imagination. Yet the question of whether life exists on Marsor has ever existed thereremains an open one. Science has not caught up to science fictionat least not yet.This summer we will be one step closer to finding the answer. On August 5th, Curiositya one-ton, Mini Cooper-sized nuclear-powered roveris scheduled to land on Mars, with the primary mission of determining whether the red planet has ever been physically capable of supporting life. In Getting to Mars, Roger Wiens, the principal investigator for the ChemCam instrument on the roverthe main tool for measuring Marss past habitabilitywill tell the unlikely story of the development of this payload and rover now blasting towards a planet 354 million miles from Earth.ChemCam (short for Chemistry and Camera) is an instrument onboard the Curiosity designed to vaporize and measure the chemical makeup of Martian rocks. Different elements give off uniquely colored light when zapped with a laser; the light is then read by the instruments spectrometer and identified. The idea is to use ChemCam to detect life-supporting elements such as carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen to evaluate whether conditions on Mars have ever been favorable for microbial life.This is not only an inside story about sending fantastic lasers to Mars, however. Its the story of a new era in space exploration. Starting with NASAs introduction of the Discovery Program in 1992, smaller, scrappier, more nimble missions won out as behemoth manned projects went extinct. This strategic shift presented huge opportunitiesbut also presented huge risks for shutdown and failure. And as Wiens recounts, his project came close to being closed down on numerous occasions. Getting to Mars is the inspiring account of how Wiens and his team overcame incredible challengeslogistical, financial, and politicalto successfully launch a rover in an effort to answer the eternal question: is there life on Mars?

Hofstadters collection of quirky essays is unified by its primary concern: to examine the way people perceive and think.

A leading historian argues that Johnny Cash was the most important political artist of his time

Charles Darwin called it "e;a little world within itself."e; Sailors referred to it as "e;Las Encantadas"e;- the enchanted islands. Lying in the eastern Pacific Ocean, straddling the equator off the west coast of South America, the Gal pagos is the most pristine archipelago to be found anywhere in the tropics. It is so remote, so untouched, that the act of wading ashore can make you feel like you are the first to do so.Yet the Gal pagos is far more than a wild paradise on earth-it is one of the most important sites in the history of science. Home to over 4,000 species native to its shores, around 40 percent of them endemic, the islands have often been called a "e;laboratory of evolution."e; The finches collected on the Gal pagos inspired Darwin's revolutionary theory of natural selection.In The Gal pagos, science writer Henry Nicholls offers a lively natural and human history of the archipelago, charting its course from deserted wilderness to biological testing ground and global ecotourism hot spot. Describing the island chain's fiery geological origins as well as our species' long history of interaction with the islands, he draws vivid portraits of the life forms found in the Gal pagos, capturing its awe-inspiring landscapes, understated flora, and stunning wildlife. Nicholls also reveals the immense challenges facing the islands, which must continually balance conservation and everencroaching development.Beautifully weaving together natural history, evolutionary theory, and his own experience on the islands, Nicholls shows that the story of the Gal pagos is not merely an isolated concern, but reflects the future of our species' relationship with nature-and the fate of our planet.