Society & Culture

Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos, and the Washington Post Martin Baron · 2023 · read Sep 2026Baron's eight years as executive editor of the Washington Post were a squeeze from two sides. DisneyWar James B. Stewart · 2005 · read Aug 2026Michael Eisner saved Disney, then spent years making sure no one could replace him. Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection John Green · 2025 · read Jun 2026Tuberculosis is curable, preventable, and still the deadliest infectious disease in the world. Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration's Response to the Pandemic That Changed History Yasmeen Abutaleb, Damian Paletta · 2021 · read Jun 2026Trump's idea of quarantining infected Americans at Guantanamo Bay, a scrapped plan to mail masks to households, white powder sent… The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson Jeffrey Toobin · 1996 · read Jun 2026When Simpson's defense decided to put detective Mark Fuhrman on trial, Toobin reported the plan in The New Yorker in July 1994. Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America Robert B. Reich · 2025 · read Mar 2026Reich is still proud of family and medical leave and the expanded tax credits of the Clinton years. Too Famous Michael Wolff · 2021 · read Feb 2026Wolff says up front that "almost everyone in this book is a determined social climber," and his case is that chasing attention… The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich Evan Osnos · 2025 · read Jan 2026Superyachts, luxury bunkers, trusts and political donations: Osnos follows what extreme wealth buys, how it gets protected and… Abundance Ezra Klein · 2025 · read Jan 2026If you've ever wondered why housing and clean energy take so long to build in America, Klein and Thompson's answer is rules. Losing Big: America's Reckless Bet on Sports Gambling Jonathan D. Cohen · 2025 · read Oct 2025Legal sports betting is a big, popular business: about one in five American adults bet on sports in 2023, $121 billion in all. White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America Nancy Isenberg · 2016 · read Mar 2025America was never the classless society of its founding myth. On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything Nate Silver · 2024 · read Mar 2025"Few places in American life attract a broader cross-section of society," Silver writes of casinos, and the book opens at one in… Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past Steve Benen · 2024 · read Feb 2025Benen's case is that rewriting the recent past has become Republican strategy rather than spin, and that a false version only… Revenge of the Tipping Point Malcolm Gladwell · 2024 · read Jan 2025Gladwell's 2000 book asked how good ideas spread like epidemics, and this return asks how harmful ones do. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference Malcolm Gladwell · 2000 · read Jan 2025Ideas, products and behaviors spread like epidemics, reaching a threshold and then taking off. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness Jonathan Haidt · 2024 · read Dec 2024A play-based childhood traded for a phone-based one in the early 2010s: that's the great rewiring Haidt blames for surging teen… The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet Jeff Goodell · 2023 · read Oct 2024Your body, the work you do, the city you live in, your food and the diseases that reach you are all being reshaped by extreme… Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father's Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success Russ Buettner · 2024 · read Sep 2024Trump received more than $400 million from his father, in today's dollars, through loans never repaid, trust funds and interest… The Reckoning: Our Nation's Trauma and Finding a Way to Heal Mary L. Trump · 2021 · read Sep 2024Genocide against Native Americans, slavery and systemic racism: Mary L. Attack from Within: How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America Barbara McQuade · 2024 · read Sep 2024Disinformation works through emotion: it polarizes you, exploits the divisions you already have, undermines institutions and… What Happened Hillary Rodham Clinton · 2017 · read Sep 2024Who does Clinton blame for losing in 2016? American Oligarchs: The Kushners, the Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power Andrea Bernstein · 2020 · read Aug 2024It starts with two immigrant grandfathers, a Trump from Germany in 1885 and a Kushner from Poland after World War II, and runs… The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It Robert B. Reich · 2020 · read Aug 2024Socialism for the rich and harsh market discipline for everyone else: that's how Robert Reich describes an economy where four… Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis J.D. Vance · 2016 · read Jul 2024Deindustrialization hit Rust Belt towns hard, and Vance grants what that did. Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty Patrick Radden Keefe · 2021 · read Jun 2024The Sackler name hung on museum galleries until institutions started taking it down. Sandy Hook Elizabeth Williamson · 2022 · read Jun 2024For the families of the twenty first-graders and six educators killed at Sandy Hook Elementary in December 2012, the shooting was… First Platoon: A Story of Modern War in the Age of Identity Dominance Annie Jacobsen · 2021 · read May 2024In 2012, 82nd Airborne paratroopers in Afghanistan were collecting fingerprints, iris scans and DNA from civilians and dead… Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base Annie Jacobsen · 2011 · read May 2024About 75 miles from Las Vegas sits a base whose Cold War history, from nuclear testing to the U-2 and A-12 Oxcart, outstrips the… Pipeline to Power: The 40-Year Plan to Capture the Supreme Court Vicky Ward · 2023 · read Nov 2023Pipeline to Power is an Audible Original, about four hours long, written and narrated by Vicky Ward. American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15 Cameron McWhirter · 2023 · read Oct 2023The AR-15 was designed to make soldiers more mobile and safer. End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration Peter Turchin · 2023 · read Aug 2023What tips a society into crisis? The Declassification Engine: What History Reveals About America's Top Secrets Matthew Connelly · 2023 · read May 2023The United States was a republic with few formal secrets for roughly its first 150 years. Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us Brian Klaas · 2021 · read May 2023Does power corrupt, or do corruptible people go looking for it? Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City Matthew Desmond · 2016 · read Apr 2023Some tenants in Milwaukee's poorest neighborhoods spent 70 to 80 percent of their income on rent for substandard housing. Men Without Work: America's Invisible Crisis (New Threats to Freedom Series) Nicholas Eberstadt · 2016 · read Feb 2023How can the unemployment rate look low while so many men aren't working? Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion Gabrielle Stanley Blair · 2022 · read Dec 2022Gabrielle Stanley Blair's argument is that unwanted pregnancies, and so abortions, are caused by irresponsible ejaculation. For a Dollar and a Dream: State Lotteries in Modern America Jonathan D. Cohen · 2022 · read Dec 2022State lotteries let politicians raise money without raising your taxes. Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America Kurt Andersen · 2020 · read Sep 2022In 1971 about 175 companies had lobbyists in Washington, and by the Reagan years nearly 2,500 did. Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History Kurt Andersen · 2017 · read Sep 2022Gold-seekers and religious zealots, both betting on extraordinary outcomes, made the colonies in Kurt Andersen's telling, and his… Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families—and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World Dorothy Roberts · 2022 · read Aug 2022The child welfare system is, in Dorothy Roberts's account, a family policing system that works alongside police and prisons to… Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power Anna Merlan · 2019 · read Jul 2022Some suspicion of government is earned, since COINTELPRO, the Tuskegee syphilis study and MKUltra were real. The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap Mehrsa Baradaran · 2017 · read Jul 2022Black banks were promoted as a way to close the racial wealth gap. The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy Peter Temin · 2017 · read Mar 2021Peter Temin's argument is that the United States now runs as two economies, using a model W. Between the World and Me Ta-Nehisi Coates · 2015 · read Feb 2021Written to his 15-year-old son, Samori, Ta-Nehisi Coates's letter argues that American racism is first a physical threat to Black… White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America Joan C. Williams · 2017 · read Feb 2021Economics matters to working-class voters. The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person Frederick Joseph · 2020 · read Feb 2021If you're white, Frederick Joseph's framing is that much of the change on race starts with you, because white people hold the… Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution 1863-1877 Eric Foner · 1988 · read Jan 2021In Eric Foner's history, Reconstruction starts in 1863 with the Emancipation Proclamation rather than at the war's end, and freed… Leveraged Learning: How the Disruption of Education Helps Lifelong Learners, and Experts with Something to Teach Danny Iny · 2018 · read Jan 2021If you front-load your education into a degree, in Danny Iny's argument, it won't keep up with what work asks of you. How to Be an Antiracist Ibram X. Kendi · 2019 · read Jan 2021There's no neutral ground called not racist, in Ibram X. White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism Robin DiAngelo · 2018 · read Jan 2021Anger, silence, withdrawal. So You Want to Talk About Race Ijeoma Oluo · 2018 · read Dec 2020Is racism about intent? How to Win Friends & Influence People Dale Carnegie · 1936 · read Nov 2019Sinclair Lewis mocked it as a guide to faking interest for gain, and later critics called it manipulative. Outliers: The Story of Success Malcolm Gladwell · 2008 · read Nov 2019A January 1 age cutoff, and elite Canadian hockey rosters full of players born early in the year: Gladwell's case is that success…