To predict our future, we must look to the extremes. So argues the economist Richard Davies, who takes readers to the margins of the modern economy and beyond. These extreme economies illustrate the forces that test human resilience, drive societies to failure, and promise to shape our collective future. Reviving a foundational idea from the medical sciences, Extreme Economies turns the logic of modern economics on its head by arguing that these outlier...

"Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime? These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much-heralded scholar who studies the riddles of everyday life--from...

Offers insight into healthcare practices, identifying the cellular sources of aging and illness and revealing that aggressive treatments provide an illusion of control and survivability at the cost of life quality.

"A new theory of how the brain constructs emotions that could revolutionize psychology, health care, the legal system, and our understanding of the human mind. Emotions feel automatic, like uncontrollable reactions to things we think and experience. Scientists have long supported this assumption by claiming that emotions are hardwired in the body or the brain. Today, however, the science of emotion is in the midst of a revolution on par with the...

This history of mankind's battles against infectious diseases looks at how epidemics shaped empires and economies and how medical revolutions freed us from these cycles until new threats caused by changes in global trade and climate.

"We are only just beginning to reckon with our post-pandemic future. As political extremism intensifies, the great resignation affects businesses everywhere, and supply chain issues crush bottom lines, we're faced with daunting questions--is our democracy under threat? How will Big Tech change our lives? What does job security look like for me? America is on the brink of massive change--change that will disrupt the workings of our economy and drastically...

"The Power of Sports" explores the topic of sports in American culture"--

"An exploration and manifesto investigating the power of reading--and our potential to become radically better readers in the world"--

For as long as medicine has been a practice, women's bodies have been treated like objects to be examined and ignored, idealized and sexualized, shamed, subjugated, mutilated, and dismissed. The notion that female bodies are flawed inversions of the male ideal lingers on, as do the pervasive societal stigmas and ignorance that shape women's health and relationships with their own bodies. The author draws back the curtain on the collective medical...