Showing results by publisher "Recorded Books" in Politics & Social Sciences

In 2017, a small crew gathered in a windowless Pentagon room to put AI at the heart of how America makes war. Led by a Marine Corps colonel haunted by the deaths of US troops and prospect of AI-enhanced rivals, the Project Maven team raced to send AI into combat, igniting controversy and forever changing the US military. Summoning the mayhem of a tech startup, the group wrestled Pentagon bureaucrats and each other, enlisted an initially reluctant Silicon Valley, and convinced US forces to deploy little-tested AI systems in hot wars.

In What We Owe The Future, philosopher William MacAskill argues for longtermism, that idea that positively influencing the distant future is a key moral priority of our time. It’s not enough to reverse climate change or avert the next pandemic. We must ensure that civilization would rebound if it collapsed, counter the end of moral progress, and prepare for a planet where the smartest beings are digital, not human. If we set humanity’s course right, our grandchildren’s grandchildren will thrive, knowing we did everything to give them a world of justice, hope, and beauty.

There is no one better qualified than Jared Diamond - renowned expert in the fields of physiology and evolutionary biology and award-winning author - to explain the evolutionary forces that operated on our ancestors to make us sexually different. With wit and a wealth of fascinating examples, he explains how our sexuality has been as crucial as our large brains and upright posture in our rise to human status. 

The three novels that make up this trilogy have long been recognized as masterpieces of 20th-century literature, and Galsworthy as one of its leading exponents. But don’t let that be the reason you put off listening to this wonderful work. There are passion and lust in these pages, high art and low comedy, and unthinking violence that ride alongside ever-correct manners. Scandal, tragedy, despair, rape, accidental death, marriage, remarriage and a healthy leavening of births all unfold against a rolling backdrop of a world war.

In his earlier best sellers Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse, Jared Diamond transformed our understanding of what makes civilizations rise and fall. Now, in the final audiobook in this monumental trilogy, he reveals how successful nations recover from crisis through selective change - a coping mechanism more commonly associated with personal trauma.  

Originally drawn to Yaqui Indian spiritual leader don Juan Matus for his knowledge of mind-altering plants, best-selling author Carlos Castaneda soon immersed himself in the sorcerer's magical world entirely. Ten years after his first encounter with the shaman, Castaneda examines his field notes and comes to understand what don Juan knew all along - that these plants are merely a means to understanding the alternative realities that one cannot fully embrace on one's own.  

A professor emeritus of philosophy at Princeton University, Harry G. Frankfurt penned a surprise smash hit with his New York Times best seller On Bullshit, which insightfully and wittily captured the human capacity for, and tendency toward, BS. Now he examines the other side of the coin with this equally entertaining and provocative follow-up.

Life is boring: filled with meetings and traffic, errands and emails. Nothing we'd ever call fun. But what if we've gotten fun wrong? In Play Anything, visionary game designer and philosopher Ian Bogost shows how we can overcome our daily anxiety; transforming the boring, ordinary world around us into one of endless, playful possibilities. The key to this playful mindset lies in discovering the secret truth of fun and games.

Carlos Castanada was a student of anthropology when he met Don Juan Matus, a Yaqui shaman and the inspiration for Castanada’s The Teachings of Don Juan. In this controversial work, Castanada relays his experiences being challenged by his mentor on his perception of the world and all living things in it.

America is in an undeclared state of emergency. Not since the Cold War has the US faced such powerful enemies—and our military isn’t ready. Shyam Sankar, Chief Technology Officer of Palantir, issues an urgent call to action: Mobilize. The American industrial base once underwrote American victory. Builders and workers rallied to win World War II. For most of the twentieth century, great American companies from General Mills to Chrysler had defense businesses that sent mankind into space and won the Cold War. But the forges fell silent and the furnaces went dark.

A former Wall Street Journal editor and the current president and CEO of the Atlantic Council, Frederick Kempe draws on recently released documents and personal interviews to re-create the powder keg that was 1961 Berlin. In Cold War Berlin, the United States and the Soviet Union stand nose to nose, with the possibility of nuclear war just one misstep away.

Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights is a genre-defying collection of essays that record the small joys that occurred in one year, from birthday to birthday, and that we often overlook in our busy lives. His is a meditation on delight that takes a clear-eyed view of the complexities, even the terrors, in his life, including living in America as a Black man; the ecological and psychic violence of our consumer culture; the loss of those he loves. 

A historical and philosophical exploration of the impact of design on underserved communities, examining the field’s shortcomings as well as its potential to create positive change. Through essays that delve into history and practice, and case studies that demonstrate practical strategies, Design Against Racism explores how designers of all disciplines can address, through their work, the legacies of racism and oppression.

The author of The Teachings of Don Juan reveals the spiritual adventures that can be attained through dreams, describing his own journeys into new worlds by using ancient, powerful techniques. 

Over the past four years, world-renowned economist Thomas Piketty documented his close observations on current events through a regular column in the French newspaper Le Monde. His pen captured the rise and fall of Trump, the drama of Brexit, Macron’s ascendance to the French presidency, the unfolding of a global pandemic, and much else besides, always through the lens of Piketty’s fight for a more equitable world. This collection brings together those articles.

From the telegraph and telephone in the 1800s to the internet and social media in our own day, the public has welcomed new communication systems. Whenever people gain more power to share information, the assumption goes, society prospers. Superbloom tells a startlingly different story. As communication becomes more mechanized and efficient, it breeds confusion more than understanding, strife more than harmony. Media technologies all too often bring out the worst in us.

In Outside the Box, Levinson explains that globalization is entering a new era in which moving stuff will matter much less than moving services, information, and ideas.

In A Hacker’s Mind, Bruce Schneier takes hacking out of the world of computing and uses it to analyze the systems that underpin our society: from tax laws to financial markets to politics. He reveals an array of powerful actors whose hacks bend our economic, political, and legal systems to their advantage, at the expense of everyone else.

In the wake of a personal loss and the global upheaval of the pandemic, philosopher Justin Smith-Ruiu found himself at a California cannabis dispensary, pondering a simple yet profound question: Who am I, and how did I get here? This moment marked the beginning of a transformative journey for Smith-Ruiu, one that would take him deep into the realm of psychedelics and alter his perception of the world.

In On Xi Jinping, former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd provides an authoritative account of the ideological worldview driving Chinese behaviour both domestically and on the world stage—that of President Xi Jinping, who now holds near-total control over the Chinese Communist Party and is now, in effect, president-for-life. Rudd argues that Xi’s worldview differs significantly from those of the leaders who preceded him, and that this ideological shift is reflected in the real world of Chinese policy and behaviour.