The Protestant ethic - a moral code stressing hard work, rigorous self-discipline, and the organization of one's life in the service of God - was made famous by sociologist and political economist Max Weber. In this brilliant study (his best-known and most controversial), he opposes the Marxist concept of dialectical materialism and its view that change takes place through "the struggle of opposites." Instead, he relates the rise of a capitalist economy...

After demolishing the myth of the rock star architect with his book Against Architecture, Franco La Cecla now explores the decisive challenges that cities are going to have to confront in the near future. Urban planning and development has become increasingly inadequate in response to the daily realities of life in our cities. Human, economic, ethnic, and environmental factors, are systematically overlooked in city planning and housing development,...

"The epic story and ultimate big history of how human society evolved from intimate chimp communities into the sprawling civilizations of a world-dominating species. If a chimpanzee ventures into the territory of a different group, it will almost certainly be killed. But a New Yorker can fly to Los Angeles--or Borneo--with very little fear. Psychologists have done little to explain this: for years, they have held that our biology puts a hard upper...

"This is an intro-level text that teaches how to think clearly and conceptually about quantitative information, emphasizing ideas over technicality and assuming no prior exposure to data analysis, statistics, or quantitative methods. The books four parts present the foundation for quantiative reasoning: correlation and causation; statistical relationships; causal phenomena; and incorporating quantitative information into decision making. Within these...

The Study of Sociology, originally published in 1873, was Herbert Spencer's groundbreaking overview of the nascent science of social systems. His basic assertion was that societies were not the creations of a few 'great men,' as Nietzsche asserted, but that they resulted from the interplay of different institutions (such as government, religion, academia, media, economic models, and so forth). Taking a cue from biology, and the emerging theory of...

"Female characters throughout history have been burdened by the moral trap that is likeability. Any woman who dares to reveal her messy side has been treated as a cautionary tale. And yet today, unlikeable female characters are everywhere in film, TV, andwider pop culture. For the first time ever, they are being accepted by audiences and even showered with industry awards. We are finally accepting that women are-gasp-fully fledged human beings. How...

Two families awaiting the arrival of their adopted infant daughters from Korea meet at the airport. The families lives become interwined after the Donaldsons, a young American couple invite the Yazdan's, Maryam, her son and his Iranian American wife to an arrival party, which becomes an annual event. Maryam, who came to this country thirty-five years earlier, feels her values threatened when she is courted by a newly widowed Donaldson. A penetrating...

The latest installment in Michael Apted's Up Series. In 1964, 14 children from diverse backgrounds were interviewed about their lives and dreams. Every seven years, Apted has been back to talk to them, examining the progression of their lives.

"One of the simplest and most powerful ways we understand people is as members of a generation. Your uncle is a bit racist because he's a baby boomer; your gen x boss is not a good team player; your cousin is constantly trying to go viral because he's gen z, and his generation is obsessed with fame. We also use generations as a tool for tracking how a society's values change over time (baby boomers liberated sex; millennials made it problematic),...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri brilliantly illuminates the immigrant experience and the tangled ties between generations. Namesake is a fine-tuned, intimate, and deeply felt novel of identity from "a writer of uncommon elegance and poise." (The New York Times)

Meet the Ganguli family, new arrivals from Calcutta, trying their best to become Americans even as they pine for home. The name they...