549 results for "Public Policy"

The age of turbulence

Greenspan, Alan
The post 9/11 global economy is a new and turbulent system - vastly more flexible, resilient, open, self-directing, and fast-changing than ever before. The Age of Turbulence will be an incomparable reckoning with the nature of this new world - how we got here, what we're living through, and what lies over the horizon, for good or ill, channelled through Greenspan's own experiences working in the command room of the global economy for longer and with greater effect than any other single living figure. He will share the story of the extraordinary years he has experienced and shaped, and the individuals who made strong impressions on him, including every US President from Nixon to George W. Bush. But his main goal is to draw readers along the same learning curve he followed, so they have a grasp of his own hard-won, layered understanding of the dynamics that drive world events.
Allen Lane 2008 544 pages

Arguing with zombies: economics, politics, and the fight for a better future

Krugman, Paul R.
"An accessible, compelling introduction to today's major policy issues from columnist, best-selling author, and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman. There is no better guide than Paul Krugman to basic economics, the ideas that animate much of our public policy. Likewise, there is no better foe of zombie economics, the misunderstandings that just won't die. This delightful new book finds Krugman at his best, turning readers into intelligent consumers of the daily news with quick, vivid sketches of the key concepts behind taxes, health care, international trade, and more. Arguing with Zombies will put Krugman at the front of the debate in the 2020 election year. Building on and expanding his New York Times columns and other writings, it contains short, accessible chapters on topics including the fight for national health care in the United States, the housing bubble and financial meltdown of 2007- 2008, the European Union and Brexit, the attack on Social Security, and the fraudulent argument- the ultimate zombie- that tax cuts for the rich will benefit all"--
W. W. Norton & Company 2020-01-28 444 pages

The great transformation: the political and economic origins of our time

Polanyi, Karl
"In this classic work of economic history and social theory, Karl Polanyi tracks the economic and social changes brought about by the "great transformation" of the Industrial Revolution. He pays particular attention to capitalism's rise and its role in fundamentally altering life after the Industrial Revolution. This seminal analysis explains not only the deficiencies of the self-regulating market, but the potentially dire social consequences of untempered market capitalism"-- Provided by publisher.
Beacon Press 2025-07-08 360 pages

Genesis: artificial intelligence, hope, and the human spirit

Kissinger, Henry,Mundie, Craig,Schmidt, Eric,Runde, Eleanor
"As it absorbs data, gains agency, and intermediates between humans and reality, AI (artificial intelligence) will help us to address enormous crises, from climate change to geopolitical conflicts to income inequality. It might well solve some of the greatest mysteries of our universe and elevate the human spirit to unimaginable heights. But it will also pose challenges on a scale and of an intensity that we have never seen--usurping our power of independent judgment and action, testing our relationship with the divine, and perhaps even spurring a new phase in human evolution. The last book of elder statesman Henry Kissinger, written with technologists Craig Mundie and Eric Schmidt, 'Genesis' charts a course between blind faith and unjustified fear as it outlines an effective strategy for navigating the age of AI."--
Little, Brown and Company 2024-11-19 249 pages

The Population Bomb

Ehrlich, Paul R
"The Population Bomb" by Paul Ehrlich stirred worldwide fear over the issue of overpopulation when it was published in 1968. Ehrlich's book warned of a future where the world's population would outstrip available resources, leading to widespread famine and societal collapse. His stark predictions captured the attention of the public and policymakers, sparking important discussions about sustainability and the environment. Despite some criticisms and the fact that some of his specific predictions did not come to pass, Ehrlich's work remains a seminal piece in the ongoing dialogue about population growth and its implications for the planet.
Independently published 2024 240 pages

Counterinsurgency Warfare Theory and Practice

David Galula
This volume in the Praeger Security International (PSI) series "Classics of the Counterinsurgency Era" defines the laws of insurgency and outlines the strategy and tactics to combat such threats. Drawn from the observations of a French officer, David Galula, who witnessed guerrilla warfare on three continents, the book remains relevant today as American policymakers, military analysts, and members of the public look to the counterinsurgency era of the 1960s for lessons to apply to the current situation in Iraq and Afghanistan. With a new foreword by John A. Nagl, author of Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam (Praeger, 2002).
Greenwood Publishing Group 1964-05 143 pages

Fake President Decoding Trump's Gaslighting, Corruption, and General Bullsh*t

Mark Green,Ralph Nader
"Read Fake President ….This book can help us replace Trump with truth." —Gloria Steinem "Terrific new book . Fake President informs as it entertains." -- Laurence Tribe ​ An incisive, witty roadmap into the disinformation and betrayals of President Trump—just in time for the impeachment hearings and the 2020 election. Donald Trump was lawfully selected as the US president...but is still a "fake" president because he simply lacks the integrity, intelligence, and stability to perform the duties of the office as the Constitution intended. "If you spend so much time golfing, tweeting, and seething," write Green and Nader, "it's understandable that a POTUS doesn't get around to appointing one-third of all agency inspector generals...Might as well expect a surgeon to be an opera singer." As the House Impeachment Inquiry unfolds based on a similar premise , Fake President decodes many of his worst scandals and "twistifications" (a Jefferson coinage). And it’s bound to get even worse as the House gets closer to actual Articles of Impeachment and the Fall election approaches. Since it's nearly impossible to keep track of Trump's "daily lava of lies," two of America’s foremost public advocates do that work for you. This is your one-stop shop that explains what the Lyin' King means to our democracy. It’s a cheeky, deadly rebuke of Trump’s incorrigible "fakery"...from his dishonesty about foreign policy to blatant ignorance about the environment to his messianic narcissism. Fake President is an essential guide to help you understand the two biggest news stories of the coming year—impeachment and the 2020 presidential election.
Skyhorse 2019-12-03 304 pages

The demagogue's playbook: the battle for American democracy from the founders to Trump

Posner, Eric A.
A New York Times Book Review Editor's Pick What Happens to Democracy When a Demagogue Comes to Power? "It is hard to imagine understanding the Trump presidency and its significance without reading this book.” —Bob Bauer, Former Chief Counsel to President Barack Obama What—and who—is a demagogue? How did America’s Founders envision the presidency? What should a constitutional democracy look like—and how can it be fixed when it appears to be broken? Something is definitely wrong with Donald Trump’s presidency, but what exactly? The extraordinary negative reaction to Trump’s election—by conservative intellectuals, liberals, Democrats, and global leaders alike—goes beyond ordinary partisan and policy disagreements. It reflects genuine fear about the vitality of our constitutional system. The Founders, reaching back to classical precedents, feared that their experiment in mass self-government could produce a demagogue: a charismatic ruler who would gain and hold on to power by manipulating the public rather than by advancing the public good. President Trump, who has played to the mob and attacked institutions from the judiciary to the press, appears to embody these ideas. How can we move past his rhetoric and maintain faith in our great nation? In The Demagogue’s Playbook , acclaimed legal scholar Eric A. Posner offers a blueprint for how America can prevent the rise of another demagogue and protect the features of a democracy that help it thrive—and restore national greatness, for one and all. “Cuts through the hyperbole and hysteria that often distorts assessments of our republic, particularly at this time.” — Alan Taylor, winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for History
St. Martin's Griffin 2021-06-29 320 pages

Common Wealth

Jeffrey D. Sachs
“Lucid, quietly urgent, and relentlessly logical . . . this is Bigthink with a capital B.” —The New York Times Book Review “Common Wealth explains the most basic economic reckoning that the world faces.” —Al Gore, winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize and former vice president of the United States In Common Wealth, Jeffrey D. Sachs-one of the world's most respected economists and the author of The New York Times bestseller The End of Poverty- offers an urgent assessment of the environmental degradation, rapid population growth, and extreme poverty that threaten global peace and prosperity. Through crystalline examination of hard facts, Sachs predicts the cascade of crises that awaits this crowded planet-and presents a program of sustainable development and international cooperation that will correct this dangerous course. Few luminaries anywhere on the planet are as schooled in this daunting subject as Sachs, and this is the vital product of his experience and wisdom.
Penguin US 2008-03-18 400 pages

Capitalism hits the fan: the global economic meltdown and what to do about it

Wolff, Richard D.
"Capitalism Hits the Fan differs sharply from most other explanations offered by politicians, media commentators, and academics. Step by step, Professor Wolff shows that deep economic structures - the relationship of wages to profits, of workers to boards of directors, and of debts to income - account for the crisis. Government bailout interventions have thrown too little money too late at a problem that requires more than money to solve. As this book shows, we must now ask basic questions about capitalism as a system that has now convulsed the world economy into two great depressions in 75 years (and countless lesser crises, recessions, and cycles in between). The book's essays engage the long-overdue public discussion about basic structural changes and systemic alternatives needed not only to fix today's broken economy but to prevent future crises." --Book Jacket.
Olive Branch Press 2010 262 pages

Moonshot Inside Pfizer's Nine-Month Race to Make the Impossible Possible

Albert Bourla
The exclusive, first-hand, behind-the-scenes story of how Pfizer raced to create the first Covid-19 vaccine, told by Pfizer's CEO Dr. Albert Bourla A riveting, fast-paced, inside look at one of the most incredible private sector achievements in history, Moonshot recounts the intensive nine months in 2020 when the scientists at Pfizer, under the visionary leadership of Dr. Albert Bourla, made "the impossible possible"--creating, testing, and manufacturing a safe and effective Covid-19 vaccine that previously would have taken years to develop. Dr. Bourla chronicles how the brilliant, dedicated minds at Pfizer, under the enormous strains of the global pandemic, overcame a series of crises that were compounded by social and political unrest, and reveals the doubts, decisions, obstacles, and failures they encountered. As Dr. Bourla makes clear, Pfizer's success wasn't due to luck; it was because of preparation driven by four simple values--Courage, Excellence, Equity, and Joy. Moonshot is a story of leadership under the most unprecedented circumstances--how Dr. Bourla, a Greek immigrant, a child of Holocaust survivors, and a veterinarian, became the head of one of the world's largest corporations and initiated a dramatic transformation of the organization just before a global health crisis would serve to test the organization, its scientists and its leader, like never before. Moonshot describes best practices that can be used to address the multiple, unprecedented challenges our world faces, reveals Pfizer's implementation of scientific breakthroughs at a record-breaking pace, and offers leadership lessons that can help anyone successfully manage their own seemingly unsolvable problems. As Dr. Bourla explains, "I am sharing the story of our moonshot--the challenges we faced, the lessons we learned, and the core values that allowed us to make it happen--in hopes that it might inspire and inform your own moonshot, whatever that may be."
HarperCollins Publishers Limited 2022-03-16 288 pages

No straight road takes you there: essays for uneven terrain

Solnit, Rebecca
New York Times Bestseller In the spirit of her bestselling book Hope in the Dark, Rebecca Solnit explores how our actions can shape the future and the liberatory possibilities of embracing uncertainty. Beginning with an essay about a three-hundred-year-old violin and what it can tell us about forests, abundance, and climate, and ending with on about a prisoner dreaming of seeing the ocean, No Straight Road Takes You There deftly bridges the political and the literary, offering unique insights, nuanced understanding, and inspiration for the challenging work ahead. In her latest essay collection, the award-winning author explores climate change, feminism, democracy, hope, and power and its abuse. Throughout she asks us to heed the stories we tell or have been told, and the ways those stories can be, or should be changed. Solnit offers a reappraisal of the value of indirect consequences, an embrace of unpredictability, slowness, and imperfection in the politics of how to change the world. "I've tried to find other ways of seeing and to prize the migratory routes ideas take," Solnit writes in the introduction, "the way that hope is most often grounded in memory, because you can't see the future but you can understand the patterns and possibilities if you know the past."
Haymarket Books 2025-05-13 184 pages

Building the New American Economy Smart, Fair, and Sustainable

Jeffrey D. Sachs
In this passionate and powerful book--part manifesto, part plan of action--the renowned economist Jeffrey D. Sachs offers a practical strategy to move America, seemingly more divided than ever, toward a new consensus: sustainable development. Sustainable development is a holistic approach that emphasizes economic, social, and environmental objectives in shaping policy. In focusing too much on economic growth, the United States has neglected rising economic inequality and dire environmental threats. Now, even growth is imperiled. Sachs explores issues that have captivated the nation and political debate, including infrastructure, trade deals, energy policy, the proper size and role of government, the national debt, and income inequality. Not only does he provide illuminating and accessible explanations of the forces at work in each case, but he also presents specific policy solutions. His argument rises above the pessimism born of political paralysis, economic stagnation, and partisanship to devise a brighter way forward, achievable both individually and collectively. In Building the New American Economy , Sachs shows how the United States can find a path to renewed economic progress that is fair and environmentally sustainable.
Columbia University Press 2018-03-20 130 pages

Gay Marriage Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America

Jonathan Rauch
"Thoughtful and convincingly argued . . . Rauch's impressive book is as enthusiastic an encomium to marriage as anyone, gay or straight, could write." — David J. Garrow, The Washington Post Book World In May 2004, gay marriage became legal in Massachusetts, but it remains a divisive and contentious issue across America. As liberals and conservatives mobilize around this issue, no one has come forward with a more compelling, comprehensive, and readable case for gay marriage than Jonathan Rauch. In this book, he puts forward a clear and honest manifesto explaining why gay marriage is important—even crucial—to the health of marriage in America today, grounding his argument in commonsense, mainstream values and confronting social conservatives on their own turf. Marriage, he observes, is more than a bond between individuals; it also links them to the community at large. Excluding some people from the prospect of marriage not only is harmful to them but also is corrosive of the institution itself. Gay marriage, he shows, is a "win-win-win" for strengthening the bonds that tie us together and for remaining true to our national heritage of fairness and humaneness toward all.
Macmillan 2005-02 207 pages

The beginning comes after the end: notes on a world of change

Solnit, Rebecca
"Rebecca Solnit offers a thrilling account of the sheer breadth and scale of social, political, scientific, and cultural change over the past three quarters of a century. In this sequel to her enduring bestseller Hope in the Dark, Solnit surveys a world that has changed dramatically since the year 1960. Despite the forces seeking to turn back the clock on history, change is not a possibility; it is an inevitability. The changes amount to nothing less than dismantling an old civilization and building a new one, whose newness is often the return of the old ways and wisdoms. In this rising worldview, interconnection is a core idea and value. But because the transformation is obscured within a longer arc of history, its scale is seldom recognized. While the white nationalist and authoritarian backlash drives individualism and isolation, this new world embraces antiracism, feminism, a more expansive understanding of gender, environmental thinking, scientific breakthroughs, and Indigenous and non-Western ideas, pointing toward a more interconnected, relational world." -- Provided by publisher
Haymarket Books 2026-04-21 147 pages

What we've become: living and dying in a country of arms

Metzl, Jonathan
"When a naked, mentally ill white man with an AR-15 killed four young adults of color at a Waffle House, Nashville-based physician and gun policy scholar Dr. Jonathan M. Metzl once again advocated for commonsense gun reform. But as he peeled back evidence surrounding the racially charged mass shooting, a shocking question emerged: Did the public health approach he had championed for years have it all wrong? Long at the forefront of a movement advocating for gun reform as a matter of public health, Metzl has been on constant media call in the aftermath of fatal shootings. But the 2018 Nashville killings led him on a path toward recognizing the limitations of biomedical frameworks for fully diagnosing or treating the impassioned complexities of American gun politics. As he came to understand it, public health is a harder sell in a nation that fundamentally disagrees about what it means to be safe, healthy, or free"--
W.W. Norton and Company 2024 384 pages

The Point of It All A Lifetime of Great Loves and Endeavors

Charles Krauthammer
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A powerful collection of the influential columnist's most important works--featuring rare speeches and a major new essay about today's populist movements and the future of global democracy "Charles will be remembered as one of the greatest public intellects of his generation."--John McCain In his decades of work as America's preeminent political commentator, whether writing about statecraft and foreign policy or reflecting on more esoteric topics such as baseball, spaceflight and medical ethics, Charles Krauthammer elevated the opinion column to a form of art. This collection features the columns, speeches and unpublished writings that showcase the best of his original thought and his last, enduring words on the state of American politics, the nature of liberal democracy and the course of world history. The book also includes a deeply personal section offering insight into Krauthammer's beliefs about what mattered most to him: friendship, family and the principles he lived by. The Point of It All is a timely demonstration of what made Charles Krauthammer the most celebrated American columnist and political thinker of his generation, a revealing look at the man behind the words and a lasting testament to his belief that anyone with an open and honest mind can grapple deeply with the most urgent questions in politics and in life.
Diversified Publishing 2018 544 pages

The silenced majority: stories of uprisings, occupations, resistance, and hope

Goodman, Amy
""Amy Goodman has taken investigative journalism to new heights of exciting, informative, and probing analysis."-Noam Chomsky Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan began writing a weekly column, "Breaking the Sound Barrier," for King Features Syndicate in 2006. This timely new sequel to Goodman's New York Times bestseller of the same name gives voice to the many ordinary people standing up to corporate and government power-and refusing to be silent. The Silenced Majority pulls back the veil of corporate media reporting to dig deep into the politics of "climate apartheid," the implications of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the movement to halt the execution of Troy Anthony Davis, and the globalization of dissent "From Tahrir Square to Liberty Plaza." Throughout Goodman and Moynihan show the power of ordinary people to change their media-and change the world. Amy Goodman is a multiple New York Times best-selling author and the host and executive producer of Democracy Now! a daily independent news program airing on more than one thousand television and radio stations. Time named Democracy Now! its "Pick of the Podcasts," along with NBC's Meet the Press. Goodman is the first journalist to receive the Right Livelihood Award, widely known as the "Alternative Nobel Prize." Denis Moynihan, since helping co-found Democracy Now! as an independent production company in 2002, has participated in the organization's growth, focusing primarily on distribution, infrastructure development, and coordinating complex live broadcasts from all continents (save Antarctica). He lives in Denver, Colorado. "--
Haymarket Books 2012 345 pages

Algorithms for the people: democracy in the age of AI

Simons, Josh
"Artificial intelligence and machine learning are reshaping our world. Police forces use them to decide where to send police officers, judges to decide whom to release on bail, welfare agencies to decide which children are at risk of abuse, and Facebook and Google to rank content and distribute ads. In these spheres, and many others, powerful prediction tools are changing how decisions are made, narrowing opportunities for the exercise of judgment, empathy, and creativity. In Algorithms for the People, Josh Simons flips the narrative about how we govern these technologies. Instead of examining the impact of technology on democracy, he explores how to put democracy at the heart of AI governance. Drawing on his experience as a research fellow at Harvard University, a visiting research scientist on Facebook’s Responsible AI team, and a policy advisor to the UK’s Labour Party, Simons gets under the hood of predictive technologies, offering an accessible account of how they work, why they matter, and how to regulate the institutions that build and use them. He argues that prediction is political: human choices about how to design and use predictive tools shape their effects. Approaching predictive technologies through the lens of political theory casts new light on how democracies should govern political choices made outside the sphere of representative politics. Showing the connection between technology regulation and democratic reform, Simons argues that we must go beyond conventional theorizing of AI ethics to wrestle with fundamental moral and political questions about how the governance of technology can support the flourishing of democracy." -- Publisher's description.
Princeton University Press 2025-07-08 303 pages