"Heather C. McGhee's specialty is the American economy--and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. As she dug into subject after subject, from the financial crisis to declining wages to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a common problem at the bottom of them all: racism--but not just in the obvious ways that hurt people of color. Racism has costs for white people, too. It's the common denominator in our most vexing public...

Technology and science are evolving at a blistering, almost incomprehensible pace. The Human Genome Project took eleven years and $2.7 billion dollars to complete. Today, it would take two days to finish, and cost less than getting a pizza delivered. It is estimated that forty percent of the current Fortune 500 companies will no longer exist by 2025. In 2005, half a billion devices were connected to the Internet. By 2030, that number will reach one...

Aftershock and The Work of Nations , his most important book to datea myth-shattering breakdown of how the economic system that helped make America so strong is now failing us, and what it will take to fix it. Perhaps no one is better acquainted with the intersection of economics and politics than Robert B. Reich, and now he reveals how power and influence have created a new American oligarchy, a shrinking middle class, and the greatest income inequality...

California -- always a fascinating marriage of opposite extremes -- is at a cross-roads in agriculture. Many Californians are struggling to fend off overdevelopment and the loss of farming lands and traditions while embracing innovative visions of agricultural sustainability. At the same time, California is where fast food was born and a center of the biotechnology industry and large corporate agribusiness. The debates raging in California over issues...

Imagine a world where ubiquitous connectivity joins all global citizens to the people, products and services they need - anytime, anyplace and anywhere. This vision of the not-too-distant future is presented in a groundbreaking book titled, Anywhere: how global connectivity is revolutionizing the way we do business, by author Emily Nagle Green. Ms. Green is President and CEO of Yankee Group, a Boston Massachusetts based technology research and consulting...

Technological advancement, economic development, population increase - are they signs of a thriving society? Or too much of a good thing? Executive Produced by Martin Scorsese, this provocative documentary explores the concept of progress in our modern world, guiding us through the major "progress traps" facing our civilization in the arenas of technology, economics, consumption, and the environment. Featuring powerful arguments from such visionaries...

"The United States federal government has spent over $10 billion on medical protective wear and emergency supplies, yet as COVID-19 swept the nation, life-saving equipment such as masks, gloves, and ventilators was nearly impossible to find. In this brilliant nonfiction thriller, award-winning investigative reporter J. David McSwane takes us behind the scenes to reveal how traders, contractors, and healthcare companies used one of the darkest moments...

"From the author of EXPECTING BETTER, an economist's guide to the early years of parenting With Expecting Better, award-winning economist Emily Oster spotted a need in the pregnancy market for advice that gave women the information they needed to make the best decision for their own pregnancies. By digging into the data, Oster found that much of the conventional pregnancy wisdom was wrong. In Cribsheet, she now tackles an even great challenge: decision...

Filmmakers Loren and Matt Feinstein provide an eye-opening account of the downside of alternative, food-based fuel sources. Delving deep into the world of agrofuels and monocrops, they explore how the increasingly common practice of diverting food crops to the industrial production of cellulose-based fuels is devastating indigenous communities, undermining small farmers, and endangering the environment across Latin America. Turning to the promise...