Archives de catégorie : Anthropology/Sociology

HOW TRUST WORKS de Peter H. Kim

A timely and important examination of one of the most essential factors in all successful relationships: trust, by a leading expert in the field of trust, betrayal and redemption, in a debut book that is the result of more than twenty years of research into the science of trust repair.

HOW TRUST WORKS (And The Science of How to Repair It)
by Dr. Peter H. Kim
Flatiron, Publication Date TBD

In HOW TRUST WORKS, Dr. Kim will explain the two most powerful determinants of trust (perceived competence and perceived integrity) and why those determinants can be weighted so unevenly when we are deciding whether to trust or forgive someone—or not. We as humans are bad at determining the trustworthiness of other people, and we are even worse at defending our own trustworthiness when it comes under fire. Yet despite this shortcoming, and the fact that we are all keenly aware of how important trust is in all of our personal and professional relationships, surprisingly little substantive research had been done on the topic before Dr. Kim began his inquiries. In fact, the majority of our institutional knowledge at the time seemed to rely almost entirely on case studies and other anecdotes. Dr. Kim was forced to develop his own set of rigorous scientific tools that would help him analyze how people interact with one another in the face of conflict.
Dr. Kim will illustrate how the patterns he identified in the lab play out in the real world using both recent and infamously public examples of trust violations and attempts at repair. These examples range from why the public was willing to overlook Arnold Schwarzenegger’s sex scandal but never forgave Bill Clinton, to revisiting the 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville and reactions to the police killing of George Floyd, including an examination of how different cultures can develop very different views about what constitutes an irredeemable transgression.

A Professor of Management and Organization at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business, Dr. Peter H. Kim is a leading expert in the field of trust, betrayal and redemption. His work has been published in leading scientific journals, including the Journal of Experimental Psychology, as well as in popular news outlets such as The New York Times, TIME, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, NPR, and others. Dr. Kim was born in Korea, and his family came to the United States when he was a child. He has given talks in Australia, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Turkey, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Canada, and he hopes to expand his international speaking circuit as soon as it is safe to do so.

THE SEDIMENTS OF TIME de Meave Leakey

Meave Leakey’s thrilling, high-stakes memoir—written with her daughter Samira—encapsulates her distinguished life and career on the front lines of the hunt for our human origins, a quest made all the more notable by her stature as a woman in a highly competitive, male-dominated field.

THE SEDIMENTS OF TIME
by Meave Leakey
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, November 2020
(chez MacKenzie Wolf – voir catalogue)

In THE SEDIMENTS OF TIME, preeminent paleoanthropologist Meave Leakey brings us along on her remarkable journey to reveal the diversity of our early pre-human ancestors and how past climate change drove their evolution. She offers a fresh account of our past, as recent breakthroughs have allowed new analysis of her team’s fossil findings and vastly expanded our understanding of our ancestors. Meave’s own personal story is replete with drama, from thrilling discoveries on the shores of Lake Turkana to run-ins with armed herders and every manner of wildlife, to raising her children and supporting her renowned paleoanthropologist husband Richard Leakey’s ambitions amidst social and political strife in Kenya. When Richard needs a kidney, Meave provides him with hers, and when he asks her to assume the reins of their field expeditions after he loses both legs in a plane crash, the result of likely sabotage, Meave steps in. THE SEDIMENTS OF TIME is the summation of a lifetime of Meave Leakey’s efforts; it is a compelling picture of our human origins and climate change, as well as a high-stakes story of ambition, struggle, and hope.

« A fascinating glimpse into our origins. Meave Leakey is a great storyteller, and she presents new information about the far off time when we emerged from our ape-like ancestors to start the long journey that has led to our becoming the dominant species on Earth. That story, woven into her own journey of research and discovery, gives us a book that is informative and captivating, one that you will not forget. » —Jane Goodall, PhD, DBE, Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute

An exciting and richly informative scientist’s autobiography…This major work of scientific dedication and original insight illuminates both our distant past and our current, serious, human-caused planetary challenges.” —Booklist starred review

Meave Leakey currently coheads the significant field efforts in northern Kenya, started nearly a century ago by Louis and Mary Leakey, seeking the fossil records to the roots of humankind. She has worked at the National Museums of Kenya since 1969, including the head of the paleontology department, and is research professor at Stony Brook University, New York. She is the recipient of several honorary degrees, has been elected an honorary fellow of the Geological Society of London, inducted into the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC, was a National Geographic Explorer in Residence, served as a fellow of the African Academy of Sciences, and received the National Geographic Society Hubbard Medal, among many other accolades and achievements. She is also an author of numerous groundbreaking scientific publications in prestigious journals and of several monographs documenting her research.

Samira Leakey obtained a BA in politics with First-Class Honours from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London and a master’s in public administration from Princeton University. Samira worked at the World Bank in Washington, DC, and now lives in Nairobi with her daughter.

FRIENDSHIP IN THE AGE OF LONELINESS de Adam “Smiley” Poswolsky

A refreshing, positive guide for taking care of your people and forming deep connections in the digital age.

FRIENDSHIP IN THE AGE OF LONELINESS:
An Optimist’s Guide To Connection
by Adam “Smiley” Poswolsky

Running Press, May 2021
(chez Levine Greenberg Rostan – voir catalogue)

We are lonelier than ever. The average American hasn’t made a new friend in the last five years. Research has shown that people with close friends are happier, healthier, and live longer than people who lack strong social bonds. But why— when we are seemingly more connected than ever before—can it feel so difficult to keep those bonds alive and well? Why do we spend only four percent of our time with friends? In this warm, inspiring guide, Adam « Smiley » Poswolsky proposes a new solution for the mounting pressures of modern life: focus on your friendships. Smiley offers practical habits and playful reminders on how to create meaningful connections, make new friends, and deepen relationships. He’ll help you develop a healthier relationship with technology, but he’ll also encourage you to prioritize real-world experiences, send snail mail, and engage in self-reflective exercises.
Written in short, digestible, action-oriented sections, this book reminds us that nurturing old and new friendships is a ritual, a necessity, and one of the most worthwhile things we can do in life.

Adam Smiley Poswolsky is a millennial workplace expert, motivational speaker, and author of The Quarter-Life Breakthrough and The Breakthrough Speaker. Smiley helps companies attract, retain, and empower millennial talent, and he has inspired thousands of professionals to be more engaged at work. His TEDx talk on « the quarter-life crisis » has been viewed more than 1.5 million times, and he has spoken in 15 countries about millennials, multigenerational engagement, and fostering connection and belonging in the workplace. Smiley’s work has been featured in The New Yorker, the Washington Post, USA Today, Fast Company, Forbes, Cosmopolitan, CNN, and the World Economic Forum, among many other outlets.

FOSSIL MEN de Kermit Pattison

A behind-the-scenes account of the shocking discovery of the skeleton of “Ardi,” a human ancestor far older than Lucy—a find that shook the world of paleoanthropology and radically altered our understanding of human evolution. FOSSIL MEN is popular science at its best, and a must read for fans of Jared Diamond, Richard Dawkins, and Edward O. Wilson.

FOSSIL MEN:
The Quest for the Oldest Skeleton and the Origins of Humankind
by Kermit Pattison
William Morrow/HarperCollins, June 2020

In 1994, a team led by fossil-hunting legend Tim White—”the Steve Jobs of paleoanthropology”—uncovered the bones of a human ancestor in Ethiopia’s Afar region. Radiometric dating of nearby rocks indicated the skeleton, classified as Ardipithecus ramidus, was 4.4 million years old, more than a million years older than “Lucy,” then the oldest known human ancestor. The findings challenged many assumptions about human evolution—how we started walking upright, how we evolved our nimble hands, and, most significantly, whether we were descended from an ancestor that resembled today’s chimpanzee—and repudiated a half-century of paleoanthropological orthodoxy. FOSSIL MEN is the first full-length exploration of Ardi, the fossil men who found her, and her impact on what we know about the origins of the human species. It is a scientific detective story played out in anatomy and the natural history of the human body. Kermit Pattison brings into focus a cast of eccentric, obsessive scientists, including one of the world’s greatest fossil hunters, Tim White—an exacting and unforgiving fossil hunter whose virtuoso skills in the field were matched only by his propensity for making enemies; Gen Suwa, a Japanese savant who sometimes didn’t bother going home at night to devote more hours to science; Owen Lovejoy, a onetime creationist-turned-paleoanthropologist; Berhane Asfaw, who survived imprisonment and torture to become Ethiopia’s most senior paleoanthropologist and who fought for African scientists to gain equal footing in the study of human origins; and the Leakeys, for decades the most famous family in paleoanthropology.

“An entertaining update on a process as ‘red in tooth and claw’ as nature itself… Pattison delivers a gripping and reasonably balanced account… Big personalities, simmering turmoil, and fascinating popular science.” —Kirkus, starred review

Kermit Pattison is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, GQ, Fast Company, and Inc., among many other publications. He spent more a decade doing research for FOSSIL MEN, a large portion of which was spent in the field in Ethiopia with the team that discovered Ardi. This is his first book. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.

MINE! de Michael Heller & James Salzman

A hidden set of rules governs who owns what—explaining everything from whether you can recline your airplane seat to why HBO lets you borrow a password illegally—and in this lively and entertaining guide, two acclaimed law professors reveal how things become « mine. »

MINE!
How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives
by Michael Heller & James Salzman
Doubleday, March 2021
(chez Levine, Greenberg, Rostan – voir catalogue)

« Mine » is one of the first words babies learn. By the time we grow up, the idea of ownership seems natural, whether buying a cup of coffee or a house. But who controls the space behind your airplane seat: you reclining or the squished laptop user behind? Why is plagiarism wrong, but it’s okay to knock-off a recipe or a dress design? And after a snowstorm, why does a chair in the street hold your parking space in Chicago, but in New York you lose the space and the chair? MINE! explains these puzzles and many more. Surprisingly, there are just six simple stories that everyone uses to claim everything. Owners choose the story that steers us to do what they want. But we can always pick a different story. This is true not just for airplane seats, but also for battles over digital privacy, climate change, and wealth inequality. As Michael Heller and James Salzman show—in the spirited style of Freakonomics, Nudge, and Predictably Irrational—ownership is always up for grabs. With stories that are eye-opening, mind-bending, and sometimes infuriating, MINE! reveals the rules of ownership that secretly control our lives.

Michael Heller and James Salzman are among the world’s leading authorities on ownership. Michael Heller is the Lawrence A. Wien Professor of Real Estate Law at Columbia Law School. He is the author of The Gridlock Economy: How Too Much Ownership Wrecks Markets, Stops Innovation, and Costs Lives. James Salzman is the Donald Bren Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law, with joint appointments at the UCLA School of Law and the UCSB Bren School of the Environment. He is the author of Drinking Water: A History.