A collection of primary source documents that focus on leading social issues of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. International in scope, each title is devoted to one topic.

"An academic and activist takes an entertaining look at the Nordic welfare state--and shows us how we, too, can have a far more equal and just economic system In America, many Democrats invoke Scandinavia as a promised land of equality, while most Republicans fear it as a hotbed of liberty-threatening socialism. But the left and right can usually agree on one thing: that the Nordic system is impossible to replicate here at home. The US is too big,...

The author explains how Texas politicians Bush, Cheney, Rove, & Perry created a conservative political agenda based on banking deregulation, lax environmental standards, draconian tax cuts, states rights, gun ownership, and sexual abstinence that is now sweeping the country and defining our national identity.

"The United States today is hopelessly polarized; the political Right and Left have hardened into rigid and deeply antagonistic camps, preventing any sort of progress. Amid the bickering and inertia, the promise of the 1960s-when we came together as a nation to fight for equality and universal justice-remains unfulfilled. As Shelby Steele reveals in Shame, the roots of this impasse can be traced back to that decade of protest, when in the act of uncovering...

Working as a correspondent for 20/20 and Good Morning America, John Stossel confronted dozens of scam artists: from hacks who worked out of their basements to some of America's most powerful executives and leading politicians. His efforts shut down countless crooks -- both famous and obscure. Then he realized what the real problem was. In Give Me a Break, Stossel takes on the regulators, lawyers, and politicians who thrive on our hysteria about risk...

Why are some nations rich and others poor? Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of the right policies? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Based on fifteen years of original research, Acemoglu and Robinson marshall historical evidence from the...

A ruling class have emerged in America against the hopes and designs of our Founding Fathers. Over the last hundred years, they have rejected the Constitution and expanded their own power, slowly at first and now rapidly. These people believe their actions are justified because they think they are smarter than the rest of us -- so smart they can run our lives better than we can. But for all the power and resources at their command, they have failed....

Before markets opened in 1978, China was an impoverished planned economy governed by a Maoist bureaucracy. In just three decades it evolved into the world's second-largest economy and is today guided by highly entrepreneurial bureaucrats. In How China Escaped the Poverty Trap, Yuen Yuen Ang explains this astonishing metamorphosis. Rather than insist that either strong institutions of good governance foster markets or that growth enables good governance,...

"Handbook of Big Data provides a state-of-the-art overview of the analysis of large-scale datasets. Featuring contributions from well-known experts in statistics and computer science, this handbook presents a carefully curated collection of techniques from both industry and academia. Thus, the text instills a working understanding of key statistical and computing ideas that can be readily applied in research and practice"--