Archives de catégorie : Nonfiction

18 TINY DEATHS de Bruce Goldfarb

The fascinating story of the forgotten woman who pioneered forensic science

18 TINY DEATHS: The Untold Story of Frances Glessner Lee and the Invention of Modern Forensics
by Bruce Goldfarb
Sourcebooks, February 2020

As World War II rages across the Atlantic, Frances Glessner Lee stands at the front of a wood-paneled classroom within Harvard Medical School and addresses the young men attending her seminar on the developing field of forensic science. A grandmother without a college degree, Lee may appear better suited for a life of knitting than of investigation of unexpected death. Her colleagues and students, however, know her to be an extremely intelligent and exacting researcher and teacher—the perfect candidate, despite her gender, to push the scientific investigation of unexpected death out of the dark confines of centuries-old techniques and into the light of the modern day.

Lee’s decades-long obsession with advancing the discipline of forensic science was a battle from the very beginning. In a time when many prestigious medical schools were closed to female students and young women were discouraged from entering any kind of scientific profession, Lee used her powerful social skills, family wealth, and uncompromising dedication to revolutionize a field that was usually political, often corrupt, and always deeply rooted in the primal human fear of death.

18 Tiny Deaths transports the reader back in time and tells the story of how one woman, who should never have even been allowed into the classrooms she ended up teaching in, changed the face of science forever.

GENIALE KINDSKÖPFE de Sebastian Berger

A new look at human learning

GENIALE KINDSKÖPFE
(Brilliant Baby Brain)
by Sebastian Berger
Kösel, April 2019

Babies truly are miracles in learning: Sebastian Berger introduces us to the fascinating world of early infant learning, describes the development in the brain areas that enable learning, and gives insights into the respective cognitive research. He shows that babies not only learn much faster than adults, but similar to scientists explore the world experimentally, draw their conclusions from statistical information and deduce generally valid regularities from it. From individual observations, the child gains clues to the physical laws of nature and acquires important skills such as trust and the ability to cooperate. Within only a few years, children are able to understand and navigate the physical, psychological and social world perfectly. The book opens our eyes to a new view of the fascinatin world of early infant learning, thus allowing us to better understand and appreciate children.
Professor Sebastian Berger gained his PhD in business and social psychology at the University of Cologne. This was followed by research projects at the universities in Cologne, Stanford and Lausanne, and since 2015 he has been assistant professor for organisation research at the University of Bern. His research work has been discussed globally in such media as the New York Times, Washington Post, FAZ, SZ and NZZ. The birth of his child brought the focus of his research interest to early infant development.

OUTSMARTING THE SOCIOPATH NEXT DOOR de Martha Stout

Hope and concrete solutions for those who are currently dealing with a sociopath

OUTSMARTING THE SOCIOPATH NEXT DOOR: How to Protect Yourself Against a Ruthless Manipulator
by Martha Stout’s
Crown/Harmony Avril 2020

Stout’s 2005 bestseller The Sociopath Next Door (534,000 copies sold to date) showed readers how to identify a sociopath. In this new work, she takes a step further by examining the personal and global implications of sociopathy, providing hope and concrete solutions for those who are currently dealing with a sociopath.Bringing together the countless e-mails, phone calls, and letters that she has collected from readers since the publication of The Sociopath Next Door, Martha Stout mines these accounts for their inherent instruction and fascination, and makes the issue of conscience, or the lack thereof, riveting and relevant to a wide audience.

Organized around categories such as destructive narcissism, violent sociopaths, sociopathic coworkers, and the sociopath in your family, each chapter contains representative stories from « everyday people, » as well as Stout’s detailed explanation and commentary on how best to react in these situations to keep the sociopath at bay. Uniting these categories is Stout’s discussion of changing psychological theories of personality and sociopathy and the enduring triumph of conscience over those who operate without empathy or concern for others. With Outsmarting the Sociopath Next Door, Stout aims to help readers navigate their interactions with the ruthless people in their personal lives and to inform society’s broader interest in character and conceptions of normality.

MARTHA STOUT, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist in private practice, served on the faculty in psychology in the department of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School for 25 years. She is the author of The Sociopath Next Door and The Myth of Sanity.

THE ECONOMISTS’ HOUR de Binyamin Appelbaum

An original history of ideas, and an unforgettable portrait of power,

THE ECONOMISTS’ HOUR:
The Rise of a Discipline, the Failures of Globalization, and the Road to Nationalism
by Binyamin Appelbaum
Little Brown, September 2019

The story is of how, in the decades that followed World War II, a single academic discipline—Economics, one long seen as a “soft,” imprecise, and inferior science, much to the resentment of its disciples—moved out of the realm of the classroom and peer-reviewed journals and in short order took hold of the levers of power and policy in government, first in the U.S., and then around the world. For the past 40 years or so, most of the world has been living in what amounts to a grand experiment, in which the theories of free-market orthodoxy—lower taxes, low inflation, deregulation, free trade, markets in all things—have been put into practice in the laboratory of our lives.

It turns out most of the subjects don’t much like the results. And that we don’t quite behave in the way the Nobel-winning models and equations predicted we would. The Economists’ Hour is coming to an end, and the world they’ve left us with feels less predictable than when it began.

Binyamin Appelbaum is a Washington correspondent for the New York Times, where he covers the Federal Reserve and other aspects of economic policy. Before joining the Times in 2010, he was a reporter at The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and The Charlotte Observer, where he was part of a team of reporters nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 2008 for reporting that uncovered the earliest signs of the subprime mortgage crisis. Binyamin Appelbaum tells the story of the people who sparked four decades of economic revolution.

AMAZONS, ABOLITIONISTS, AND ACTIVISTS de Mikki Kendall et Anna d’Amico

A feminist comic book history of women’s rights, from the ancient world to modern times

AMAZONS, ABOLITIONISTS, AND ACTIVISTS Mikki Kendall and Anna D’Amico
Ten Speed November 2019

August 26, 2020, marks the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment, which granted American women the right to vote. And while suffrage has been a critical win for women’s liberation around the world, the struggle for women’s rights has been ongoing for thousands of years, across many cultures, and encompassing an enormous variety of issues. Kendall examines women’s history from an intersectional approach that includes more than just women’s suffrage—her tone and inclusivity are forward thinking and on trend, which is deeply important to modern feminists.

AMAZONS, ABOLITIONISTS, AND ACTIVISTS is a fun, fascinating, and full-color exploration of that important history, tracing its roots from antiquity to show how 21st-century feminism developed. Along the way, you’ll meet a wide range of important historical figures and learn about many political movements across the world, including suffrage, abolition, labor, LGBT liberation, the waves of feminism, and more.

MIKKI KENDALL is a writer, historian, and diversity consultant who writes about intersectionality, policing, gender, sexual assault, and other current events. Kendall’s nonfiction can be found at Time.com, the Guardian, Washington Post, Ebony, Essence, Salon, XoJane, Bustle, Islamic Monthly, and a host of other outlets. Her media appearances include BBC, NPR, Al Jazeera, WVON, WBEZ, TWIB, and Showtime. Her comics work can be found in the Swords of Sorrow anthology, the Princeless charity anthology, and in the Columbus College of Art and Design anthology of 2016.

ANNA D’AMICO is a Cincinnati-born illustrator who loves all things tea, costuming, and history. She graduated from the Columbus College of Art and Design with a BFA in illustration in 2016, and has been creating comics, watercolor paintings, and digital illustrations ever since.