Showing results by publisher "Blackstone Audio, Inc." in Politics & Social Sciences

Future Shock is about the present. Future Shock is about what is happening today to people and groups who are overwhelmed by change. Change affects our products, communities, organizations - even our patterns of friendship and love. Future Shock vividly describes the emerging global civilization: tomorrow's family life, the rise of new businesses, subcultures, lifestyles, and human relationships - all of them temporary. It illuminates the world of tomorrow by exploding countless cliches about today.

Henry VIII ruled England from 1509 to 1547. As a young man, he was fond of sports and hunting and was said to be uncommonly handsome. Standing more than six feet tall, he loomed large in the lives and minds of his subjects as he navigated his country through the tricky diplomatic and military hazards of the 16th century.

One of the great, but often unmentioned, causes of both happiness and misery is the quality of our environment: the kinds of chairs, walls, buildings, and streets that surround us. And yet, a concern for architecture is too often described as frivolous, even self-indulgent. Alain de Botton starts from the idea that where we are heavily influences who we can be, and argues that it is architecture's task to stand as an eloquent reminder of our full potential.

"The path the slave took to 'citizenship' is what I want to look at. And I make my analogy through the slave citizen's music - through the music that is most closely associated with him: blues and a later, but parallel, development, jazz...[If] the Negro represents, or is symbolic of, something in and about the nature of American culture, this certainly should be revealed by his characteristic music." So says Amiri Baraka in the introduction to Blues People, his classic work on the place of jazz and blues in American social, musical, economic, and cultural history.

When Jonell McLain saw the diamond necklace in the store window, it aroused first desire, then a provocative question: Why are personal luxuries so plentiful, yet accessible to so few? What if we shared what we desired? A dozen phone calls and a leap of faith later, Jonell bought the necklace with 12 other women, with the goal of sharing it.

True power is living the realization that you are your own healer, hero, and leader. Inward is a collection of poetry, quotes, and prose that explores the movement from self-love to unconditional love, the power of letting go, and the wisdom that comes when we truly try to know ourselves. It serves as a reminder to the listener that healing, transformation, and freedom are possible.

The term "blowback", invented by the CIA, refers to the unintended consequences of American actions abroad. In this incisive and controversial book, Chalmers Johnson lays out in vivid detail the dangers faced by our overextended empire and reveals the ways in which our misguided policies are planting the seeds of future disaster.

America is in serious trouble, and our days as a superpower are numbered, argues businessman and entrepreneur Donald J. Trump in his blockbuster new book. With his trademark candor and charisma, Trump reveals his hardline, commonsense solutions to the problems plaguing us today and shows how we can put our country back on the path to greatness. Nobody is better at achieving spectacular success than Donald Trump. Here, Trump shows how America can do the same.

In 1974 the historian Fawn Brodie predicted that a "sensitive study of the Lincoln marriage will not always defy biographers". Until now, it has. The only book-length treatment of the marriage was published in 1953, when scholars lacked today's resources and were still struggling with deep-seated prejudices about Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln. Now Daniel Mark Epstein has produced an incisive and balanced portrait of the Lincolns.

William F. Buckley Jr. is widely regarded as the most influential American conservative writer, activist, and organizer in the postwar era. In this nuanced biography, Alvin Felzenberg sheds light on little-known aspects of Buckley's career, including his role as back-channel adviser to policy makers, his intimate friendship with both Ronald and Nancy Reagan, his changing views on civil rights, and his break with George W. Bush over the Iraq War.

On October 12, 2000, at 11:18 a.m., an 8,400-ton destroyer, the USS Cole, was rocked by an enormous explosion. The ship’s commander, Kirk Lippold, watched as tiles tumbled from the ceiling, mugs of coffee tumbled to the floor, and everything not bolted down seemed to float in midair. Lippold knew in a matter of moments that the Cole had been attacked. What he didn’t know was how much the world was changing around him.

Here is an insightful and much anticipated history of Bill Clinton's first term in office, describing his extraordinary effort to be a modern president in a modern world. A decade and a half after William Jefferson Clinton first took the oath of office, best-selling, award-winning biographer Nigel Hamilton tells the riveting story of what was possibly the greatest self-reinvention of a president in office in modern times.

America is suffering from an information glut. Most Americans are no longer clear about what news is worth remembering or how any of it connects to anything else. Thus, Americans are rapidly becoming the least knowledgeable people in the industrial world. Author and academic Neil Postman and television journalist Steve Powers tell you how to become a discerning viewer.

Following September 11, the United States successfully overthrew the Taliban regime. It established security throughout the country, and Afghanistan finally began to emerge from more than two decades of conflict. But Jones argues that, as early as 2001, planning for the Iraq War siphoned off resources and talented personnel, undermining the gains that had been made. After eight years, the United States had pushed al-Qaeda’s headquarters about one hundred miles across the border into Pakistan.

Philosophy professor Christina Sommers has exposed a disturbing development: how a group of zealots, claiming to speak for all women, are promoting a dangerous new agenda that threatens our most cherished ideals and sets women against men in all spheres of life. In case after case, Sommers shows how these extremists have propped up their arguments with highly questionable but well-funded research, presenting inflammatory and often inaccurate information and stifling any semblance of free and open scrutiny.

Rene Descartes spent most of his childhood in solitude, a situation that also came to characterize his adult life. Fortunately, these countless lonely hours helped Descartes produce the declaration that changed all philosophy: "I think, therefore I am." Eventually convincing himself to doubt and disregard sensory knowledge, Descartes found he could prove his existence through his thoughts. This internal information, he believed, was the true reality and external forces were hopelessly deceiving.

The Third Wave makes startling sense of the violent changes now battering our world. Its sweeping synthesis casts fresh light on our new forms of marriage and family, on today's dramatic changes in business and economics. It explains the role of cults, the new definitions of work, play, love, and success. It points toward new forms of 21st-century democracy.

Generoso Pope, Sr., an Italian immigrant, arrived in New York in 1906 with only pennies in his pocket. He got a job shoveling sand, but through his intelligence, he worked his way up to become the biggest provider of cement, just as it was becoming the key material for building. Gene Pope, Jr., was his father’s choice to inherit and run the business, but Gene’s mother and two brothers forced him out, and he found himself penniless and on his own. With a loan from his godfather, mobster Frank Costello, Gene bought the New York Enquirer. He renamed it the National Enquirer.

What really happened to TWA 800? On the 20th anniversary of the crash, author Jack Cashill reveals shocking new evidence. TWA Flight 800 crashed into the Atlantic shortly after takeoff from JFK Airport on July 17, 1996, killing all 230 passengers onboard. Although initial reports suggested a terrorist attack, FBI and NTSB investigators blamed a fuel-tank explosion. But skeptics have long questioned the official story, and new evidence has surfaced that suggests a widespread conspiracy.

Carlo D'Este's brilliant biography examines Winston Churchill through the prism of his military service as both a soldier and a warlord: a descendant of Marlborough who, despite never having risen above the rank of lieutenant colonel, came eventually to direct Britain's military campaigns as prime minister and defeated Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito for the democracies.