Showing titles in Sociology

James Baldwin's impassioned plea to 'end the racial nightmare' in America was a bestseller when it appeared in 1963, galvanising a nation and giving voice to the emerging civil rights movement. Told in the form of two intensely personal 'letters', The Fire Next Time is at once a powerful evocation of Baldwin's early life in Harlem and an excoriating condemnation of the terrible legacy of racial injustice.

Humans are a puzzling species. On the one hand, we struggle to survive on our own in the wild, often failing to overcome even basic challenges, like obtaining food, building shelters, or avoiding predators. On the other hand, human groups have produced ingenious technologies, sophisticated languages, and complex institutions that have permitted us to successfully expand into a vast range of diverse environments. What has enabled us to dominate the globe, more than any other species, while remaining virtually helpless as lone individuals?

"Do Not Go Gentle is a bracing, often chilling wrestle with the ethical dilemmas surrounding the assisted death service - a deeply unsettling read, clear and powerful. Kathleen Stock remains fearless, endless, thought provoking and always entertaining." Nick Cave "Characteristically sharp...

Tarana Burke and Dr Brené Brown bring together a dynamic group of Black writers, organisers, artists, academics and cultural figures to discuss the topics the two have dedicated their lives to understanding and teaching: vulnerability and shame resilience.

"With meticulous detective work, Timothy Egan shines a light on one of the most sinister chapters in American history—how a viciously racist movement, led by a murderous conman, rose to power in the early twentieth century. A Fever in the Heartland is compelling, powerful, and profoundly...

The quest for social justice is a powerful crusade of our time, with an appeal to many different people, for many different reasons. But those who use the same words do not always present the same meanings. Clarifying those meanings is the first step toward finding out what we agree on and...

Brought to you by Penguin. LONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION Discover the essential, must-read book about how the UK legal system is failing women, as told by one of Britain’s foremost lawyers. For more than quarter of a century, Harriet Wistrich has fought the corner of...

The definitive edition of the classic, myth-shattering history of the American family Leave It to Beaver was not a documentary, a man's home has never been his castle, the "male breadwinner marriage" is the least traditional family in history, and rape and sexual assault were far higher in the...

Since its release in 1949, The Hero with a Thousand Faces has influenced millions of readers by combining the insights of modern psychology with Joseph Campbell's revolutionary understanding of comparative mythology. In this book, Campbell outlines the Hero's Journey, a universal motif of adventure and transformation that runs through virtually all of the world's mythic traditions. He also explores the Cosmogonic Cycle, the mythic pattern of world creation and destruction.

'This is an important and necessary book by a superb and subtle writer. There's no one more qualified to write it than Jake Wallis Simons, both as ground-breaking Middle East security correspondent and Editor of the Jewish Chronicle. It analyses the often prejudiced coverage and intense scrutiny...

Brought to you by Penguin. A ground-breaking look at the science of love and connection – and an urgent corrective to some of our most fundamental assumptions about attraction. We’re told that what men and women desire from relationship is different and at odds – he’s looking for novelty...

The grid is an accident of history and of culture, in no way intrinsic to how we produce, deliver and consume electrical power. Yet this is the system the United States ended up with, a jerry-built structure now so rickety and near collapse that a strong wind or a hot day can bring it to a grinding halt. The grid is now under threat from a new source: renewable and variable energy, which puts stress on its logics as much as its components.

In Marriage, a History, historian and marriage expert Stephanie Coontz takes listeners from the marital intrigues of ancient Babylon to the torments of Victorian lovers to demonstrate how recent the idea of marrying for love is - and how absurd it would have seemed to most of our ancestors. It was when marriage moved into the emotional sphere in the 19th century, she argues, that it suffered as an institution just as it began to thrive as a personal relationship.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The New Jim Crow written by Michelle Alexander, read by Karen Chilton. Once in a great while a book comes along that radically changes our understanding of a crucial political issue and helps to fuel a social movement. The New Jim Crow is such a book...

What exactly are the weird and the eerie? In this new essay, Mark Fisher argues that some of the most haunting and anomalous fiction of the 20th century belongs to these two modes. The weird and the eerie are closely related but distinct modes, each possessing its own distinct properties. Both have often been associated with horror, yet this emphasis overlooks the aching fascination that such texts can exercise. The weird and the eerie both fundamentally concern the outside and the unknown, which are not intrinsically horrifying, even if they are always unsettling.

"Dieses Buch hilft mir, meine Mutter besser zu verstehen, und dir, Deutschland besser zu verstehen." Noch bevor Tahsim Durgun die Grundschule abschließt, muss er für seine Mutter die Abschiebebescheide entziffern, begleitet sie als Dolmetscher zu intimen Arztbesuchen und verliest Aldi-Kataloge am Fliesentisch. So wie Tahsim geht es vielen jungen Menschen mit Migrationsgeschichte, die früh Verantwortung für ihre Eltern übernehmen und gleichzeitig einen Platz finden müssen in einem oft feindseligen Land.

Penguin presents the unabridged downloadable, audiobook edition of The Road to Character by David Brooks, read by Arthur Morey and David Brooks. #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER In The Road to Character David Brooks, best-selling author of The Social Animal and New York Times columnist, explains why...

In Britain alone, more than 20 per cent of the adult population take a psychiatric drug in any one year. This is an increase of over 500 per cent since 1980 and the numbers continue to grow. Yet, despite this prescription epidemic, levels of mental illness of all types have actually increased in number and severity. Using a wealth of studies, interviews with experts, and detailed analysis, Dr James Davies argues that this is because we have fundamentally mischaracterised the problem.

Brought to you by Penguin. A revelatory account of the racist conspiracy theory behind the global rise of authoritarian politics – from the prize-winning historian and number-one-bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi. Throughout the world, authoritarian movements are...

This is a story of a London you won’t find in any guidebooks. This is a story about what it’s like to exist in the moment, about boys too eager to become men, growing up in the hidden war zones of big cities - and the girls trying to make it their own way. This is a story of reputations made and lost, of violence and vengeance - and never counting the cost. This is a story of concrete towers and blank-eyed windows, of endless nights in police stations and prison cells, of brotherhood and betrayal.