Bøger udgivet af Basic Books

The natural and cultural history of how people, birds, and the feather came together

"A magnificent book, an honor to its writer... a book that makes for a return of civilized discussion of the question of the morality of war."-New York Review of Books

Everyone talks to their pets; Chad Orzel tells his about relativity.

Focusing on four major cultural areas, this book attempts to understand the role of cultural differences within nations and between nations in shaping the economic and social fates of peoples and of whole civilizations.

"A timely new book... Anyone who wants to understand how this new world came into being needs to read Mr. Caryl's excellent book."-The Economist

Delves into the qualities that define leadership, the people who exemplify it, and the strategies that anyone can apply to achieve it

Finally available in paperback, Ralph D. Sawyers incomparable study of ancient Chinese warfare

A clear, readable, and highly engrossing translation of Rousseau's masterpiece on the education and training of the young.

Selected as one of the six best nonfiction books of 1990 by the editors f the New York Times Book Review , this is a compelling and entertaining account of the author's two-and-a-half year adventure in Equatorial Guinea, and his efforts to get this small bankrupt African nation on the path of structural development.

The dual reflections of psychiatrist and patient during therapy: a collaboration between the author of Love's Executioner and a talented young writer labeled as "schizoid."

The definitive history of the powerful and brutal East German Secret Police

By carefully examining the biological, genetic, evolutionary, and psychological evidence, a noted biologist finds a shocking lack of substance behind ideas about biologically based sex differences. Features a new chapter and afterward on recent biological breakthroughs.

Migrations and Cultures goes beyond the political view of immigration and presents the whole phenomena of migration and immigration and the major role it plays in the general advancement of the human race.

The pioneering contribution to infant psychology that gave us separation and individuation documents with standard-setting care the intrapsychic process of a child's emergence from symbiotic fusion wi

Three major findings of cognitive science cast doubt on the past 2,500 years of Western philosophy. Lakoff and Johnson propose to rebuild philosophy from the ground up, starting from clearly known facts about the mind.

A 1976 forecast that predicts a radically altered social structure, within thirty to fifty years, by which a more sophisticated technology is employed to harness science toward more instrumental purposes.

Freud's theories demonstrates why they are still indispensable to understanding ourselves and the way we behave.

In this volume, the author draws on research on brain development to show how spanking and humiliation produce dangerous levels of denial in children, leading to emotional blindness and mental barriers that cut off awareness and new ways of of acting. She offers ways to heal these psychic wounds.

The first volume of the landmark study, tracing the emergence and formation of sociological thought from the French liberal school to the Marxists Main Currents in Sociological Thought remains a foundational synthesis in the field. In this first part of his magisterial two-volume survey, Raymond Aron embraces an expansive definition of sociology that merges empirical inquiry with historical and social analysis. At its core, Aron's work is an engagement with the very question of modernity: How did the intellectual currents that emerged in the eighteenth century shape the modern political and philosophical order? With scrupulous fairness, Aron examines the thoughts and arguments of the discipline's major social thinkers to discern how they answered this question. Volume 1 explores three traditions: the French liberal school of political sociology, represented by Montesquieu and Tocqueville; the Comtean tradition, anticipating Durkheim in its elevation of social unity and consensus; and the Marxists, who posited the struggle between classes and placed their faith in historical necessity. Written with his customary lucid elegance of thought and style, Aron's work is essential reading for students across the social sciences.

The second volume of the landmark study, examining the work of sociology's defining thinkers from the turn of the nineteenth century to the interwar periodMain Currents in Sociological Thought remains a foundational synthesis in the field. In this second and final volume of his classic survey, Raymond Aron explores the work of three figures who profoundly shaped sociology as it entered the twentieth century: Durkheim, who continued Comte's quest for a science of society and a scientific validation of morality; Pareto, the Italian "neo-Machiavellian" who emphasized the elitist character of all societies; and Weber, the German sociologist who reflected critically on the prospects for human freedom in an age of disenchantment. Bringing together penetrating intellectual portraits of these great thinkers and close readings of their most consequential texts, Main Currents in Sociological Thought highlights the historical and intellectual context within which each man wrote and draws out their works' enduring insights and influence in the field today.

A kaleidoscopic narrative history of 1963, the pivotal moment in America's long civil rights movement-the year of the March on Washington, Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail," and the assassinations of Medgar Evers and John F. KennedyIn Freedom Season, acclaimed historian Peniel E. Joseph offers a stirring narrative history of 1963, marking it as the defining year of the Black freedom struggle-a year when America faced a deluge of political strife and violence and emerged transformed.Nineteen sixty-three opened with the centenary of the Emancipation Proclamation and ended with America in a state of mourning. The months in between brought waves of racial terror, mass protest, and police repression that shocked the world, inspired radicals and reformers, and forced the hands of moderate legislators. By year's end the murders of John F. Kennedy, Medgar Evers, and four Black girls at a church in Alabama left the nation determined to imagine a new way forward. Alongside the stories of historical giants like James Baldwin and Martin Luther King Jr., Joseph uplifts the perspectives of less celebrated leaders like playwright Lorraine Hansberry and activist Gloria Richardson.Over one heartbreakingly tumultuous year, America unraveled and remade itself as the world looked on. Freedom Season shows how the upheavals of 1963 planted the seeds for watershed civil rights legislation and renewed hope in the promise and possibility of freedom.

"After the Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that the use of race in college admissions was unconstitutional, many predicted that the black middle class was doomed. In The Affirmative Action Myth, Jason L. Riley details the neglected history of black achievement without government intervention. Using empirical data, Riley shows how black families lifted themselves out of poverty prior to the racial preference policies of the 1960s and 1970s. Countering thinkers who blame white supremacy and systemic racism for today's racial gaps, Riley offers a more optimistic story of black success without racial favoritism"--

A "beautifully written" (David Fideler) spiritual biography of Albert Einstein that reveals for the first time the scientific and religious origins of his personal philosophy — "a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the mind of the great physicist" (Jo Marchant) Albert Einstein remains renowned around the world for revolutionizing our understanding of the cosmos, but very few realize that the celebrated scientist had a deep spiritual side. Einstein believed that one wondrous force was woven through all things everywhere—and this sense of the pervasive sacred influenced every aspect of his existence, from his marvelous science to his passionate pacifism.  I Am a Part of Infinity offers the first in-depth exploration of Einstein’s spirituality, showing how he drew on a dazzling diversity of thinkers—from Pythagoras to Plato, Schopenhauer to Spinoza, the Upanishads to Mahatma Gandhi—to create a novel system where mysticism met mathematics, reality was revered, and the human mind was honored as a mirror of the infinite. This wasn’t just a new way of seeing the world. Einstein asked us to commune with the cosmos, to treat every living creature with compassion, to channel the power that permeated all things and put it to use for pure purposes.   Drawing on little-known conversations, recently published letters, and new archival research, I Am a Part of Infinity reveals what Einstein really believed and why his perspective still matters today.

"Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was the sixteenth emperor of Rome-and by far the most powerful man in the world. His collected thoughts, gems that have come to be called his Meditations, have proved an inexhaustible source of wisdom and one of the most important Stoic texts of all time. In often passionate language, the entries range from one-line aphorisms to essays, from profundity to bitterness. An abridged and portable edition of Marcus Aurelius's sage insights, The Wisdom of Marcus Aurelius illuminates one of the greatest works of popular philosophy ever composed"--

An award-winning natural-history writer presents "the perfect mix of science and story" (Sy Montgomery), opening the door to the nature that thrives in our yards, gardens, and parks: "I couldn't put it down" (Doug Tallamy).    We all live on nature’s doorstep, but we often overlook it. From backyards to local parks, the natural places we see the most may well be the ones we know the least.     In Close to Home, biologist Thor Hanson shows how retraining our eyes reveals hidden wonders just waiting to be discovered. In Kansas City, migrating monarch butterflies flock to the local zoo. In the Pacific Northwest, fierce yellowjackets placidly sip honeydew, unseen in the treetops. In New England, a lawn gone slightly wild hosts a naturalist's life's work. And in the soil beneath our feet, remedies for everything from breast cancer to the stench of skunks lie waiting for someone’s searching shovel.     Close to Home is a hands-on natural history for any local patch of Earth. It shows that we each can contribute to science and improve the health of our planet. And even more, it proves that the wonders of nature don’t lie in some far-off land: they await us, close to home.

An “essential” (James Oakes, author of The Crooked Path to Abolition) history of the study of slavery in America, from the Revolutionary era to the 1619 Project, showing how these intellectual debates have shaped American public life In recent years, from school board meetings to the halls of Congress, Americans have engaged in fierce debates about how slavery and its legacies ought to be taught, researched, and narrated. But since the earliest days of the Republic, political leaders, abolitionists, judges, scholars, and ordinary citizens have all struggled to explain and understand the peculiar institution.    In Making Sense of Slavery, historian Scott Spillman shows that the study of slavery was a vital catalyst for the broader development of American intellectual life and politics. In contexts ranging from the plantation fields to the university classroom, Americans interpreted slavery and its afterlives through many lenses, shaping the trajectory of disciplines from economics to sociology, from psychology to history. Spillman delves deeply into the archives, and into the pathbreaking work of scholars such as W. E. B. Du Bois and Annette Gordon-Reed, to trace how generations of Americans have wrestled with the paradox of slavery in a country founded on principles of liberty and equality.    As the debate over the place of slavery in our history rages on, Making Sense of Slavery shows that what is truly central to American history is this very debate itself.