Showing titles in Politics & Social Sciences

For 46 years, Carol Minto has quietly gone about her life, carrying with her the most extraordinary and heartbreaking secrets. In The Asylum, Carol tells the full story of how she overcame unimaginable suffering, to find the happiness and solace she has today as a mother and grandmother.

When Allied fighters were trapped behind enemy lines, one branch of military intelligence helped them escape: MI9. The organization set up clandestine routes that zigzagged across Nazi-occupied Europe, enabling soldiers and airmen to make their way home. Secret agents and resistance fighters risked their lives and those of their families to hide the men. Drawing on declassified files and eye-witness testimonies from across Europe and the United States, Helen Fry provides a significant reassessment of MI9’s wartime role.

Sapiens showed us where we came from. Homo Deus looked to the future. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century explores the present. How can we protect ourselves from nuclear war, ecological cataclysms and technological disruptions? What can we do about the epidemic of fake news or the threat of terrorism? What should we teach our children? Yuval Noah Harari takes us on a thrilling journey through today’s most urgent issues.

Criminal is the first of its kind. A show about people who’ve done wrong, been wronged, or gotten caught somewhere in the middle. Hosted by Phoebe Judge. Named a Best Podcast of 2023 by the New York Times. Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

What is the meaning of life?It's a question every thoughtful person has pondered at one time or another. Indeed, it may be the biggest question of all-at once profound and universal, but also deeply personal.We want to understand the world in which we live, but we also want to understand how to make our own lives as meaningful as possible; to know not only why we're living, but that we're doing it with intention, purpose, and ethical commitment.

Dish up the red meat, eggs, and whole milk! In this well-researched and captivating narrative, veteran food writer Nina Teicholz proves how everything we've been told about fat is wrong. For decades, Americans have cut back on red meat and dairy products full of "bad" saturated fats. We obediently complied with nutritional guidelines to eat "heart healthy" fats found in olive oil, fish, and nuts, and followed a Mediterranean diet heavy on fruits, vegetables, and grains. Yet the nation's health has declined. What is going on?

In Thatcher's Spy, the Cold War meets Northern Ireland's Dirty War in the remarkable real-life story of a deep under-cover British intelligence agent, a man now doomed forever to look over his shoulder. In March 1985, as he climbed the six steps of Margaret Thatcher's prime-ministerial jet on the runway of RAF Aldergrove, little did Willie Carlin know the role Freddie Scappaticci played in saving his life.

A compelling mix of reportage and personal experience, The Coming Storm gets under the skin of these conspiracy theories to show us a radical new kind of politics emerging, a movement that has coalesced around a loose alliance of white supremacists, men's rights activists, tech bros, and radically disenchanted leftists. As we approach the 2024 US presidential election, and perhaps the most perilous moment in the history of American democracy, Gatehouse's book tells us some dark truths about our present, and provides clues about our future.

In the first volume of this epic new series, Alison Weir strips away centuries of romantic mythology and prejudice to reveal the lives of England's queens in the century after the Norman Conquest. Beginning with Matilda of Flanders, who supported William the Conqueror in 1066, to the turbulent life of the Empress Maud, who claimed to be queen of England in her own right and fought a bitter war to that end, the five Norman queens emerge as hugely influential figures and fascinating characters.

This is a neglected history. No attempt at a sweeping, definitive, exhaustive history of the world but something quieter, more intimate and particular, told by Annabelle Hirsch through her selection of 101 objects, and now brought thrillingly alive for you by a chorus of 101 remarkable women in this ground-breaking audio release.

In this combative, controversial book, Terry Eagleton takes issue with the prejudice that Marxism is dead and done with. Taking 10 of the most common objections to Marxism - that it leads to political tyranny, that it reduces everything to the economic, that it is a form of historical determinism, and so on - he demonstrates in each case what a woeful travesty of Marx's own thought these assumptions are.

In The War on the West, international best-selling author Douglas Murray asks: if the history of humankind is a history of slavery, conquest, prejudice, genocide and exploitation, why are only Western nations taking the blame for it? It’s become, he explains, perfectly acceptable to celebrate the contributions of non-Western cultures, but discussing their flaws and crimes is called hate speech. What’s more it has become acceptable to discuss the flaws and crimes of Western culture, but celebrating their contributions is also called hate speech.

Serial killers: Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and Jeffrey Dahmer are often the first names that spring to mind. Many people assume serial killers are primarily an American phenomenon that came about in the latter part of the 20th century. But such assumptions are far from the truth. Serial killers have been around for a very long time and can be found in every corner of the globe - and they're not just limited to the male gender either. Some of these predators have been caught and brought to justice whereas others have never been found, let alone identified.

In this lucid classic, beloved teacher Ayya Khema introduces the listener to the essence of the Buddhist path. She addresses the how and why of meditation, providing a clear framework for understanding the nature of karma and rebirth and the entirety of the eightfold path. With specific, practical advice, Ayya Khema illuminates the practices of compassion and sympathetic joy, and offers forthright guidance in working with the hindrances that we all encounter in meditation.

Amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, this piercing work distills 3,000 years of the history of power into 48 well-explicated laws. This bold volume outlines the laws of power in their unvarnished essence, synthesizing the philosophies of Machiavelli, Sun-tzu, Carl von Clausewitz, and other great thinkers.

Before the internet became widely known as a global tool for terrorists, one perceptive US citizen recognized its ominous potential. Armed with clear evidence of computer espionage, he began a highly personal quest to expose a hidden network of spies that threatened national security. But would the authorities back him up? Cliff Stoll's dramatic firsthand account is "a computer-age detective story, instantly fascinating [and] astonishingly gripping" - Smithsonian.

Hailed as the most compelling biography of the German dictator yet written, Ian Kershaw's Hitler brings us closer than ever before to the heart of its subject's immense darkness. From his illegitimate birth in a small Austrian village to his fiery death in a bunker under the Reich chancellery in Berlin, Adolf Hitler left a murky trail, strewn with contradictory tales and overgrown with self-created myths. One truth prevails: the sheer scale of the evils that he unleashed on the world has made him a demonic figure without equal in the 20th century.

Michael Crawley immerses himself in various endurance cultures and asks what makes enduring together meaningful to people. He learns how Nepalese runners face different challenges depending on their location up a mountain, from those in the lowlands and ‘middle hills’ to Sherpas from the Solu Khumbu, and observes Tarahumara ultrarunners’ ability to cover extreme distances on highly technical terrain. But he also delves into the history of Dance Marathons, six-day pedestrianism races in Madison Square Gardens and the unique Enhanced Games.

Spooked features true-life supernatural stories, told firsthand by people who can barely believe it happened themselves. Be afraid. Created in the dark of night, by Snap Judgment Studios, in partnership with KQED & PRX. It is hosted by Glynn Washington.Episodes drop every week on Friday! Spooked is available for free on ALL podcast platforms. Featuring brand NEW stories -- along with episodes previously available only by subscription.For Luminary subscribers, previously released episodes are still on Luminary.

No one makes such a fuss about manners quite as much as the UK, yet in a fast-changing world, no one can seem to agree on precisely what the ‘done thing’ is, either. William Hanson, world-leading etiquette expert is on a mission to reclaim the British crown of good manners. In Just Good Manners, he shares his definitive guidance on how to behave in every situation - as well as celebrating our country’s distinctively British way of doing things!