Public Problems

In Why Are Health Disparities Everyone's Problem? Dr. Lisa Cooper shows how we can work together to eliminate the injustices that plague our health care system and society. The book follows Cooper's journey from her childhood in Liberia, West Africa, to her thirty-year career working first as a clinician and then as a health equity researcher at Johns Hopkins University. Drawing on her experiences, it explores how differences in communication and the quality of relationships affect health outcomes.

Public administration places people in situations where decisions carry real consequences for citizens, institutions, and public trust. In Critical Thinking in Public Administration: 10 Analytical Frameworks for Effective Governance, Shahid Hussain Raja argues that the quality of governance depends less on good intentions than on the quality of thinking behind public decisions. Drawing on philosophy, administrative theory, and the social sciences, he introduces a practical framework for disciplined reasoning in government. The book presents ten distinct modes of thought that public servants...

The major social problems of the United States - deteriorating education, lawlessness and crime, homelessness, the collapse of family values, the crisis in medical care - have been produced by well-intended actions of government. That is easy to document. The difficult task is understanding why government is the problem. The power of special interests arising from the concentrated benefits of most government actions and their dispersed costs is only part of the answer.

In many US cities, gun violence is the most urgent crime problem. High rates of deadly violence make a city less livable, dragging down quality of life, economic development, and property values. How can police departments find the right balance between over- and under-policing of high-violence areas? What are the best practices for police to preempt and deter gun violence, while engendering support and cooperation from the public?

Does the number of children gunned down double each year? Does anorexia kill 150,000 young women annually? Do white males account for only a sixth of new workers? Startling statistics shape our thinking about social issues. But all too often, these numbers are wrong. This book is a lively guide to spotting bad statistics and learning to think critically about these influential numbers. Damned Lies and Statistics is essential listening for everyone who reads or listens to the news....

Have you been wondering about the big issues dominating the news? Is climate change a massive threat or not? What is really going on with immigration? More importantly, how did American politics become so divided and hostile? What if we approached American social, cultural and political problems from a purely rational perspective? What if we focus on functional systems instead of division? Careful analysis of readily available data can help us discover patterns and uncover the real issues.

In Curable journalist and health care advocate Travis Christofferson looks at medicine through a magnifying glass and asks an important question: What if the roots of the current US health care crisis are psychological and systemic, perpetuated not just by corporate influence and the powers that be, but by you and me? Curable outlines the future of medicine, detailing brilliant examples of new health care systems that prove we can do better. It turns out we have more control over our health (and happiness) than we think.

During his years as a public official, Mitchell Weiss was told that government can't do new things or solve tough challenges - it's too big and slow and bureaucratic. Sadly, this is what so many of us have come to believe. But in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, he and his city hall colleagues raced to support survivors in new, innovative ways. This kind of entrepreneurial spirit and savvy in government is growing, transforming the public sector's response to big problems at all levels. 

COVID. Climate change. Refugee resettlement. Global supply chains. We're facing a new generation of complex problems, stretching across the public and private sectors. Historically we've looked to government for big solutions, but the reality is, the government we have now is a poor match for the problems we face. We need a fresh new approach. As William D. Eggers and Donald F. Kettl show in this indispensable book, we need a government of bridgebuilders—public managers and leaders who collaborate with partners, both inside and outside government, to get the job done.

Bad-Ass Solutions isn’t about solving problems like what to watch on Netflix tonight. It addresses the big-a-- threats to us and even our civilization, such as global warming, homelessness, and mass killings. This refreshingly NONPARTISAN book is for all of us who are frightened, frustrated and pissed off about these critical issues that just aren’t being addressed.

The New York Times bestseller, Win Every Argument is the ultimate audiobook guide to debate, persuasion and public speaking, written and read by award-winning British-American journalist Mehdi Hasan. 'A masterclass from one of the most formidable debaters and interviewers of our time' – Riz...

The Dealmaker's Ten Commandments contains a practical, no-nonsense methodology for negotiating deals, managing your time, and handling crisis all at the highest level. Peppered with entertainment industry war stories, The Dealmaker's Ten Commandments has been forged in the white-hot crucible of brutal transactional combat.

In the face of unprecedented global change, New York Times best-selling author Alec Ross proposes a new social contract to restore the balance of power between government, citizens, and business.

Jesus calls us to make disciples of all the nations. Many Christians believe this means enlisting soldiers in a culture war. But putting faith in the service of politics risks remaking God in our own image. How can the church help bring God's kingdom to earth without relying on the political structures of this world? Critiquing our idolization of the values of classical Western liberalism, Steven Félix-Jäger seeks a renewal of the church's public witness.

In Uncertainty, Patrik Aspers provides detailed analysis of publicly available means of uncertainty reduction. Drawing on phenomenology, social constructionism, and the sociology of knowledge, Aspers considers the meaningful differences between uncertainty and risk, the different ways people cope and have coped with uncertainty through history, the importance of knowledge and science to reducing uncertainty, and the trade-offs involved in reducing forms of uncertainty while leaving open opportunities for others.

Not just a searing indictment of American drug policy, but a step-by-step guide to addressing it once and for all! Respected attorney Vincent Bugliosi, who successfully prosecuted Charles Manson, directs his attention to a national epidemic— the chronic drug crisis in America. An analysis of the drug policy in the United States, this critical review reveals a disturbing level of ineptness in drug control practices. But Bugliosi also presents a program for bringing the drug crisis in our nation to an end.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall, one economic model emerged triumphant. Capitalism - spanning a spectrum from laissez-faire to authoritarian - shapes the market economies of all the wealthiest and fastest-growing nations. The trouble is cracking its shiny veneer. In the US, economic growth is no longer matched by economic development. Wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few, natural resources are exploited for short-term profits, and good jobs are hard to find.

The most influential voices in our culture aren’t the ones in suits anymore. They’re the ones laughing into microphones. Across millions of hours of long-form commentary, a new kind of authority has emerged. It sounds casual. It feels friendly. It claims to be “just talking.” Yet it shapes public opinion, reframes science, influences elections, fuels outrage cycles, and rewrites social reality for entire audiences who never realize how deeply they’ve been pulled in. This book is not about one person. It is about the system that rewards power without responsibility. Through ...

Congresswoman and Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz challenges the nation to resolve tough issues for future generations. She conveys a vision of an America that has learned hard lessons from its recent past, an America galvanized by a renewed sense of purpose for applying that wisdom through forward-thinking policies on education, civil rights, and foreign policy.

Changing the world is a skill. Right now, we’re bad at it...but we can learn how to be good at it. That's the powerful message at the heart of this transformational book. Deftly and accessibly pulling together decades of social science research, Dr. Lynn explains what we know about how to create social change and what we’ll need to do to address our biggest problems today. The result is a bold, inspiring, yet realistic - a prescription for how to pull ourselves out of our current divisive, dysfunctional crisis and get our society back on track.