Böcker utgivna av Basic Books

This portrait of a disorder that afflicts more than 13per cent of Americans, shows how to distinguish social phobia from other problems such as depression or panic disorder as well as treatment options, including behaviour and drug therapy.

An intellectual biography of James Madison, arguing that he invented American politics as we know it

The extraordinary story of a young Indian boy who was kidnapped from coastal Virginia and assimilated into to European culture-before returning to America and waging a lifelong struggle to drive out the invading colonists?

For readers of Tim Weiner's Legacy of Ashes and Henry Crumpton's The Art of Intelligence, the first ever biography of Andrew Marshall, the legendary (and reclusive) Pentagon strategist who has served under every president from Nixon to Obama.

Despite the billions of dollars we've poured into foreign wars, homeland security, and disaster response, we are fundamentally no better prepared for the next terrorist attack or unprecedented flood than we were in 2001. Our response to catastrophe remains unchanged: add another step to airport security, another meter to the levee wall. This approach has proved totally ineffective: reacting to past threats and trying to predict future risks will only waste resources in our increasingly unpredictable world.In Learning from the Octopus, ecologist and security expert Rafe Sagarin rethinks the seemingly intractable problem of security by drawing inspiration from a surprising source: nature. Biological organisms have been livingand thrivingon a risk-filled planet for billions of years. Remarkably, they have done it without planning, predicting, or trying to perfect their responses to complex threats. Rather, they simply adapt to solve the challenges they continually face.Military leaders, public health officials, and business professionals would all like to be more adaptable, but few have figured out how. Sagarinargues that we can learn from observing how nature is organized, how organisms learn, how they create partnerships, and how life continually diversifies on this unpredictable planet.As soon as we dip our toes into a cold Pacific tidepool and watch what we thought was a rock turn into an octopus, jetting away in a cloud of ink, we can begin to see the how human adaptability can mimic natural adaptation. The same mechanisms that enabled the octopus's escape also allow our immune system to ward off new infectious diseases, helped soldiers in Iraq to recognize the threat of IEDs, and aided Google in developing faster ways to detect flu outbreaks. While we will never be able to predict the next earthquake, terrorist attack, or market fluctuation, nature can guide us in developing security systems that are not purely reactive but proactive, holistic, and adaptable. From the tidepools of Monterey to the mountains of Kazakhstan, Sagarin takes us on an eye-opening tour of the security challenges we face, and shows us how we might learn to respond more effectively to the unknown threats lurking in our future.

Americas status as a world power remains at a historic turning point. The strategies employed to win the wars of the twentieth century are no longer working, and the US must contend with the changing nature of power in a globalized world.In America and the World, two of the most respected figures in American foreign policy, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, dissect the challenges facing the US today: the Middle East, Russia, and China, among others. In spontaneous conversations the two authors explore their agreements and disagreements. Defining the center of responsible opinion on American foreign policy, America and the World is an essential primer on a host of urgent issues at a time when our leaders decisions could determine how long our nation remains a superpower.

In this brilliantly conceived and clearly argued discussion of the relationship between high and popular culture, Herbert Gans, outspoken advocate of cultural pluralism, questions the universality of high culture standards.

One of our most original thinkers addresses the scientific world's premier question: What is the nature of consciousness?

From the bestselling author of First Ladies, Inside the White House, and America's First Ladies comes the first look at the women of one of the most influential families in American history: The Roosevelts.

"One of the few unquestioned greats of twentieth-century science, Linus Pauling was the only person to receive two unshared Nobel Prizes--one in chemistry, for deciphering the quantum physics of large m"

An updated edition of the laugh-out-loud guide to the first year of motherhood, filled with helpful advice and wisdom from real moms and dads who aren't at all afraid to tell it like it is

A history of the founding of the American Constitution and its ever-shifting meaning, from the document's most respected scholar

An award-winning historian reveals the horrifying and forgotten story of slavery as big business -- and its role in the making of America

Beijing presents a clear and gathering threat to Washington,but not for the reasons you think. China's challenge to the West stems from its transformative brand of capitalism and an entirely different conception of the international community. In The Beijing Consensus , a leading expert in international relations presents a coherent integration of the many sides of U.S.-China relations.

An account of the author's attempts to "cure" himself of his homosexuality through therapy, medical treatments and faith healers. For this new edition, Duberman has written a new preface chapter and an afterword, bringing his life (and, more broadly, the gay experience in America today) up to date.

A Wall Street Journal correspondent's visionary, big-picture look at why countries, businesses, and people either win or lose in an increasingly multicultural world

"They come from different backgrounds and from professions as varied as medicine, education, and entertainment, but these ten women share one thing in common: They all have breast cancer. This book des"

An exploration of human adolescence, this book is unique because of its ethological perspective. The author presents a comprehensive treatment of adolescent development from a functional, evolutionary point of view, providing a research-based description of human adolescence. He also offers a comparative perspective, describing adolescence in other species, human cultures, and historical periods.

McKnight shows how the experts' best efforts to rebuild and revitalize communities can actually destroy them and celebrates the ability of neighborhoods to heal from within.

"This instructive and entertaining social history of American newspapers shows that the very idea of impartial, objective "news" was the social product of the democratization of political, economic, an"

"In The Last Crusade, Gerald McKnight examines the Poor People's Campaign, the last large-scale demonstration of civil rights--era America, and the systematic efforts of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and"

Three-quarters of a century ago Mustafa Kemal Ataturk launched a sweeping Cultural Revolution in the disintegrating Ottoman Empire, abolishing the Caliphate and Sufi orders and other Islamic institutions to create the modern secular Republic of Turkey.

"It would have been inconceivable," wrote Henry Kissinger in his best-selling book Diplomacy, "that the architects of NATO would have seen as the end result of victory in the Cold War greater diversit"

"Famous as a football star and prizewinning student, then acclaimed as a world-class concert singer and record-breaking actor on stage and screen, Paul Robeson became one of America's most controversia"

"According to commonly repeated reports, wages and personal incomes have stagnated in the U.S. over the last twenty-five years for average Americans. A corollary argument asserts that the combination o"

The story of the woman who, with unprecedented enthusiasm and openness, helped forge a new foreign policy for America.

A powerful account of the tragic and brutal consequences of the Communist Party/KBG control over Soviet scientists and intelligentsia

A Holocaust survivor and sociologist sheds light on, and celebrates, the motivations behind the benevolent actions of ordinary people

A veteran art critic helps us make sense of modern and contemporary art