Over the past 5 decades, the neoliberal consensus has hollowed America's economic capabilities and it is dangerously close to being overtaken in key sectors by allies and adversaries

In this episode of Books in 5, the co-author of "Industrial Policy for the United States: Winning the Competition for Good Jobs and High-Value Industries" joins us to highlight the harsh reality that the United States finds itself in and what policymakers should do to ensure that nation and it's people remain prosperous in an increasingly volatile world.

By using the lens of economic history and judicious case studies to better understand the opportunities and challenges of the past, present and future, the book showcases just how critical industrial policy is

Ian Fletcher is on the Coalition for a Prosperous America’s Advisory Board. He is the author of Free Trade Doesn’t Work and coauthor of The Conservative Case against Free Trade. He has been senior economist at the Coalition, a research fellow at the US Business and Industry Council, an economist in private practice, and an IT consultant. He was educated at Columbia University and the University of Chicago. He lives in San Francisco.

https://www.industrialpolicy.us/

https://prosperousamerica.org/

Shamans have held a deep appeal to humans for millennia as they fulfill a critical psychological need by taming & guiding the aspects of human life that are uncontrollable.

In this episode of Books in 5, the author of "Shamanism: The Timeless Religion" joins us to highlight the development of Shamans throughout human history, their impact on modern society and the reality & fictions of their practices.

Through the use of rituals and simulation, Shamans have played an important role throughout humanity's evolution and this ancient practice still continues into the present day in a myriad of interesting ways.

Manvir Singh is an Assistant Professor of anthropology at the University of California, Davis. He holds a bachelor’s degree in human biology from Brown University and a Ph.D. from Harvard University. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker, and his writings have also appeared in Wired, Vice, Aeon, and The Guardian, as well as leading academic journals, including Science, Nature Human Behaviour, and Behavioral and Brain Sciences. He has studied Indigenous psychedelics use in the Orinoco river basin of Colombia and, since 2014, has conducted ethnographic fieldwork with Mentawai communities on Siberut Island, Indonesia, focusing on shamanism and justice. He lives with his wife and baby daughter in Davis, CA.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/730339/shamanism-by-manvir-singh/

https://www.manvir.org/

https://x.com/mnvrsngh

Humanity has always been interested in ranking the world around them and the invention of the like button is most recent & powerful way that people are displaying their preferences, for good and for ill.

In this episode of Books in 5, the author of "Like: The Button That Changed the World" joins us to showcase just how this unassuming icon has come to dominate social media metrics, the messy process of innovation and what the future potentially holds as the giant technology platform companies are motivated to hold the attention of the masses in order to boost revenues.

The story of the like button reveals a great deal about modern life as it's spread to dominate human interactions online factors in the decision-making of consumers, corporations and the world at large.

Martin Reeves is a managing director and senior partner in BCG’s San Francisco office, and Chair of the BCG Henderson Institute, BCG’s think tank.

His consulting career has focused on strategy – with equal emphasis on idea origination and development, and application by consulting with clients on their strategy challenges. He is the co-author of Your Strategy Needs a Strategy (HBR Press, 2015) and The Imagination Machine (HBR Press, 2021) Martin holds a triple first-class MA in natural sciences from Cambridge University and an MBA from Cranfield School of Management.

https://www.likebook.org/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-reeves/

https://x.com/MartinKReeves

https://bcghendersoninstitute.com/contributors/martin-reeves/