Other books that might interest you

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  Born This Way - Science...

  Joanna Wuest

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  The story of how a biologically driven understanding of gender and sexuality became central to US LGBTQ+ political and legal advocacy. 
   
  Across protests and courtrooms, LGBTQ+ advocates argue that sexual and gender identities are innate. Oppositely, conservatives incite panic over “groomers” and a contagious “gender ideology” that corrupts susceptible children. Yet, as this debate rages on, the history of what first compelled the hunt for homosexuality’s biological origin story may hold answers for the queer rights movement’s future. 
  Born This Way tells the story of how a biologically based understanding of gender and sexuality became central to LGBTQ+ advocacy. Starting in the 1950s, activists sought out mental health experts to combat the pathologizing of homosexuality. As Joanna Wuest shows, these relationships were forged in subsequent decades alongside two broader, concurrent developments: the rise of an interest-group model of rights advocacy and an explosion of biogenetic and bio-based psychological research. The result is essential reading to fully understand LGBTQ+ activism today and how clashes over science remain crucial to equal rights struggles.

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  Leadership from Bad to Worse -...

  Barbara Kellerman

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  Leadership from Bad to Worse is about how leadership that is bad, invariably, inexorably, gets worse—unless it is somehow, by someone or something, stopped or slowed. 
   
   
   
  This work draws on four cases of bad leadership—two in political leadership, two in business leadership—to show how it goes from bad to worse. Kellerman finds that bad leadership and bad followership go through four phases of development: 1) Onward and Upward; 2) Followers Join In; 3) Leaders Start In; and 4) Bad to Worse. These findings correctly suggest that the book, in addition to being of theoretical interest, is of practical import. It is intended, deliberately, to serve as an early warning system. By breaking bad leadership and followership into phases—each more ominous and ultimately dangerous than the one preceding—their progression will be easier to predict and detect. And easier, therefore, to slow or, preferably, to stop before they turn toxic. 
   
   
   
  Bad leadership is a social disease. But unlike diseases that are physical or psychological, it remains at the margins of our collective concerns. Leadership from Bad to Worse is, then, a corrective. Knowing that bad leadership can be checked before it corrupts is knowing that bad and then worse can be, if not completely precluded, then sometimes short-circuited.

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  Xi Jinping - The Most Powerful...

  Stefan Aust, Adrian Geiges

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  If China seems unstoppable, so too does its leader Xi Jinping. As general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and president of China, he commands over 1.4 billion people, in a vast country that spans the prosperous megacities of Beijing and Shanghai and desperately poor rural regions where families still struggle with malnutrition. 
   
   
   
  Today, Xi Jinping faces a series of monumental challenges that would make other global leaders tremble: a trade war with the USA, political unrest in Hong Kong, accusations of genocide in Xinjiang, stuttering economic growth, and a devastating global pandemic that originated inside China. 
   
   
   
  But who is Xi Jinping and what does he really want? To rejuvenate China and bring economic prosperity to all its people? To challenge American supremacy and turn China into the world's dominant power? Avoiding both sycophantic flattery and outright condemnation, this new biography by Stefan Aust and Adrian Geiges gets inside the head of one of the world's most mysterious leaders. Skillfully unraveling the hidden story of Xi Jinping's life and career, from his early childhood to his rise to the pinnacles of the Party and the State, they flesh out his views and uncover how he became the most powerful man in the world.

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  Reluctant Conquest - American...

  Kathryn C. Lavelle

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  What drives American foreign relations in the Arctic? It is difficult to give a unified answer to this question because most histories of the region are divided between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, Asian and European strategic interests, or federal government and Indigenous peoples' concerns, making it difficult to understand the connections among the environmental challenges, scientific understandings, strategic calculations, and governance relationships. Most Americans do not think of their country as an Arctic power, yet it is a region where the United States has had important ties throughout its history.In this sweeping study, from the founding of the country through the acquisition of Alaska to the present, Kathryn C. Lavelle considers American relations across the circumpolar North, incorporating discussions of economics, national security, and science that are conventionally separated. Lavelle argues that it is impossible to understand United States policy without a knowledge of American political development and of how scientific understandings have grown alongside studies of climate and other environmental issues. This history has important implications for future American policy regarding traditional national security and political economy, in addition to climate change and environmental cooperation.

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  We the Elites - Why the US...

  Robert Ovetz

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  Written by fifty-five of the richest white men, and signed by only thirty-nine of them, the US constitution is the sacred text of American nationalism. Popular perceptions of it are mired in idolatry, myth, and misinformation—many Americans have opinions on the constitution but have little idea what it says. This book examines the constitution for what it is—a rule book for elites to protect capitalism from democracy. Social movements have misplaced faith in the constitution as a tool for achieving justice when it actually impedes social change through the many roadblocks and obstructions we call 'checks and balances'. This stymies urgent progress on issues like labor rights, poverty, public health, and climate change, propelling the American people and rest of the world towards destruction. Robert Ovetz's reading of the constitution shows that the system isn't broken. Far from it. It works as it was designed to.

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  On Settler Colonialism -...

  Adam Kirsch

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  A prominent public intellectual tackles one of the most crucial political ideas of our moment. 
   
   
   
  Since Hamas's attack on Israel last October 7, the term "settler colonialism" has become central to public debate in the United States. A concept new to most Americans, but already established and influential in academic circles, settler colonialism is shaping the way many people think about the history of the United States, Israel and Palestine, and a host of political issues. 
   
   
   
  This short book is the first to examine settler colonialism critically for a general audience. By critiquing the most important writers, texts, and ideas in the field, Adam Kirsch shows how the concept emerged in the context of North American and Australian history and how it is being applied to Israel. He examines the sources of its appeal, which, he argues, are spiritual as much as political; how it works to delegitimize nations; and why it has the potential to turn indignation at past injustices into a source of new injustices today. A compact and accessible introduction, rich with historical detail, the book will speak to listeners interested in the Middle East, American history, and today's most urgent cultural-political debates.

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