Showing titles in Social Classes & Economic Disparity

If America is the wealthiest country in the world, why are so many people living in poverty and missing out on the promise of the American Dream?Poverty is America's number-one social problem, and while we spend $1.75 trillion every year trying to solve it, much of that effort falls short. But...

It's a strange day when a New York Times conservative columnist is forced to admit that the left is winning, but as David Brooks wrote recently, "the American left is on the cusp of a great victory." Among Americans under thirty, 43 percent had a favorable view of socialism, while only 32...

King Pratapaditya of Yashohar despises everyone—his children, his subjects, and his bahurani (daughter-in-law) most of all. When Surma married the king’s son Udayaditya, she had no idea that her life would be made a living hell by her father-in-law. But Surma is not alone in her misery. She has developed a close friendship with Vibha, the daughter of King Pratapaditya, who is distraught because her father has ordered the death of her husband.

Unregulated capitalism is bad for women. Socialism, if done properly, leads to economic independence, better labour conditions, better work/family balance and, yes, even better sex. If you like the idea of such outcomes, then come along for an exploration of how we can change women's lives for the better.

In its history since Independence, India has seen widely different economic experiments: from Jawharlal Nehru's pragmatism to the rigid state socialism of Indira Gandhi to the brisk liberalization of the 1990s. So which strategy best addresses India's, and by extension the world's, greatest moral challenge: lifting a great number of extremely poor people out of poverty? Bhagwati and Panagariya argue forcefully that only one strategy will help the poor to any significant effect: economic growth, led by markets overseen and encouraged by liberal state policies.

Capital is the defining feature of modern economies, yet most people have no idea where it actually comes from. What is it, exactly, that transforms mere wealth into an asset that automatically creates more wealth? The Code of Capital explains how capital is created behind closed doors in the offices of private attorneys, and why this little-known fact is one of the biggest reasons for the widening wealth gap between the holders of capital and everybody else.  

Silicon Valley technology is transforming the way we work, and Uber is leading the charge. Upending our understanding of work in the digital age, Uberland paints a future where any of us might be managed by a faceless boss. Based on award-winning technology ethnographer Alex Rosenblat's experience of riding over 5,000 miles with Uber drivers, daily visits to online forums, and face-to-face discussions with senior Uber employees, Uberland goes beyond the headlines to reveal the complicated politics of popular technologies that are manipulating both workers and consumers. 

Few works of political and cultural theory have been as enduringly provocative as Guy Debord's Society of the Spectacle. From its publication amid the social upheavals of the 1960s to the present, the volatile theses of this work have decisively transformed debates on the shape of modernity...

'Indian democracy is in deep trouble at this time, but its flame has been kept alive by a multitude of vibrant collectives working on the ground. Aruna Roy and her colleagues in the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan have played a leading role in this effort to defend and expand democratic space.'...

पिछले दो दशकों से पत्रकारिता में सक्रिय शिरीष खरे वंचित और पीड़ित समुदायों के पक्ष में लिखते रहे हैं। राजस्थान पत्रिका और तहलका में कार्य करते हुए इनकी करीब एक हज़ार रिपोर्ट प्रकाशित हुई हैं। भारतीय गाँवों पर उत्कृष्ट रिपोर्टिंग के लिए वर्ष 2013 में ‘भारतीय प्रेस परिषद’ और वर्ष 2009, 2013 और 2020 में ‘संयुक्त राष्ट्र जनसंख्या कोष’ द्वारा लैंगिक संवेदनशीलता पर स्टोरीज़ के लिए ‘लाडली मीडिया अवार्ड’ सहित सात राष्ट्रीय स्तर के पुरस्कारों से सम्मानित शिरीष खरे की अभी तक दो पुस्तकें तहक़ीकात और उम्मीद की पाठशाला प्रकाशित हो चुकी हैं।

A witty and humane account of one man, multiple jobs and what it means to live A Book of the Year in the Guardian, Sunday Times, Economist and the Financial Times Shortlisted for the Baifang Schell Book Prize: Award for Outstanding Non-Fiction Hu AnYan has held nineteen different jobs since he...

Brought to you by Penguin. Beautifully written and full of wonderful descriptions and intriguing tales, In Patagonia is an account of Bruce Chatwin's travels to a remote country in search of a strange beast and his encounters with the people whose fascinating stories delay him on the road. 

“Identity politics” is everywhere, polarizing discourse from the campaign trail to the classroom. But the “identity politics” so compulsively referenced bears little resemblance to the concept as first introduced by the radical Black feminist Combahee River Collective. While the Collective articulated a political viewpoint grounded in their own position as Black lesbians with the explicit aim of building solidarity across lines of difference, “identity politics” is now frequently weaponized as a means of closing ranks around ever-narrower conceptions of group interests. 

This audiobook narrated by Katherine Fenton makes a provocative and timely case for how the science of genetics can help create a more just and equal society In recent years, scientists like Kathryn Paige Harden have shown that DNA makes us different, in our personalities and in our health—and...

In The Journey of Humanity, Oded Galor offers a revelatory explanation of how humanity became, only very recently, the unique species to have escaped a life of subsistence poverty, enjoying previously unthinkable wealth and longevity. He reveals why this process has been so unequal around the world, resulting in the great disparities between nations that exist today. He shows why so many of our efforts to improve lives have failed and how they might succeed.

Brought to you by Penguin. New York City entered 1986 as a city reborn, with record profits on Wall Street sending waves of money splashing across Manhattan and bringing a once-bankrupt and reeling city back to life. But it also entered 1986 as a city divided. Nearly one-third of the city’s...

***New York Times Bestseller*** From 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, a captivating account of how "a skinny Asian kid from upstate" became a successful entrepreneur, only to find a new mission: calling attention to the urgent steps America must take, including Universal Basic...

Despite its manifest failures, the narrative of neoliberalism retains its grip on the public mind and the policies of governments all over the world. By this narrative, less regulation and more ‘animal spirits’ capitalism produces not only greater prosperity, but more freedom for individuals in society - and is therefore morally better. But, in The Road to Freedom Stiglitz asks, whose freedom are we – should we be – thinking about? What happens when one person’s freedom comes at the expense of another’s? 

In 1890s America Thorstein Veblen attacked a careless acceptance of prevailing social structures, identifying ancient roots for ‘pecuniary culture’ and ‘conspicuous consumption’–realities that promoted materialism and squashed fulfilment. In The Theory of the Leisure Class the worthy Engineer, creating essential products for all, is pitted against the predatory Businessman, exempt from grubby industrial toil and focussed on useless profits.