Introduction to JavaScript Object Notation

An award-winning music scholar presents an introduction to the art of listening to jazz that covers everything from the music’s structure and history to the basic foundation of improvisation, explaini

Whenever we worry about what to eat, how to love, or simply how to be happy, we are worrying about how to lead a good life. No goal is more elusive. In How to Be a Stoic, philosopher Massimo Pigliucci

From war powers to health care, freedom of speech to gun ownership, religious liberty to abortion, practically every aspect of American life is shaped by the Constitution. This vital document, along w

Overwork is the new normal. Rest is something to do when the important things are done?but they are never done. Looking at different forms of rest, from sleep to vacation, Silicon Valley futurist and

Preeminent conservative thinker Yuval Levin argues that our political thinking is stuck in the past, and that both parties must adapt to our modern world if we are to solve the massive social problems

A theoretical physicist and jazz musician combines his two interests to present a new theory of the universe, using jazz to clarify confounding issues in physics and answer questions about the past an

According to a leading cognitive scientist, we’ve been teaching reading wrong. The latest science reveals how we can do it right.

From roulette tables to racetracks, a fascinating look at how science and math are taking Lady Luck down a peg

An acclaimed expert on parenting and childhood development argues that kids today are suffering because their parents are no longer in charge—and explains what parents and educators can do to reverse

We do not come into the world with an innate sense of taste and nutrition; as omnivores, we have to learn how and what to eat, how sweet is too sweet, and what food will give us the most energy for th

The Magic of Maths is the maths book you wish you had in school. Using a delightful assortment of examples, from ice cream scoops and poker hands that teach you factorials to mnemonics that help you memorize pi, this book empowers you to see the beauty, simplicity, and fun behind those formulas and equations that once left your head spinning. You'll learn the key ideas of classic areas of mathematics like arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and calculus but you'll also have fun playing with pi, fooling around with Fibonacci numbers, investigating infinity, and marvelling over mathematical magic tricks. A tour of the greatest hits of mathematics, The Magic of Maths is a book for both fans of mathematics and those who want to be proven wrong about their previous prejudices of maths. Arthur Benjamin is a mathematician-known throughout the world as the "mathemagician"-who mixes mathematics and magic to make the subject fun and beautiful. Maths lovers are going to find new ways to

For centuries, the Northeast?home to abolitionism and a refuge for blacks fleeing the Jim Crow South?has presented itself as a model of racial equality. After World War II, the victories of black cult

Americans tend to cast slavery as a pre-modern institution?the nation’s original sin, perhaps, but isolated in time and divorced from America’s later success. But to do so robs the millions who suffer

A revised and updated edition of the essential guide to grant-writing.

Our health care system is crippled by desperate efforts to prevent the inevitable. A third of the national Medicare budget—nearly $175 billion—is spent on the final year of life, and a third of that a

A primatologist examines unspoken social customs, from jilting a lover to being competitive on the job, to explain how behavioral complexities are linked to humans' primate heritage.

Presents alphabetically arranged entries on a variety of political, economic, and social topics relevant to the political philosophy of libertarianism.

Why are homeless people sleeping on the sidewalks of New York in the winter, when the abandoned apartment buildings in the city have four times as many dwelling units as there are homeless people in the city? Why did Russians have to import food to feed people in Moscow, when Russia itself has vast amounts of some of the richest farmland in Europe within easy driving distance? Why did unemployment reach 25 percent and American corporations as a whole operate in the red for two years in a row during the Great Depression of the 1930s?All these very different—but equally puzzling and needless—tragedies grew out of a failure to understand and apply basic economic principles. Explaining these principles for the general public in plain English, with neither graphs nor equations nor jargon, is the goal and the achievement of Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell. Professor Sowell has taught economics at leading colleges and universities across the country and now uses his years of experience to br

In finance, as in life, there’s no such thing as a free lunch—unless you’re well diversified. The push toward diversification inspires many investors to buy index funds, a smart mov

Beijing presents a clear and gathering threat to Washington—but not for the reasons you think. China’s challenge to the West stems from its transformative brand of capitalism and an entirely different

Even the smartest among us can feel inept as we fail to figure our which light switch or oven burner to turn on, or whether to push, pull, or slide a door. The fault, argues this fascinating, ingenio

From a Bancroft Prize-winning scholar, a new global history of the Cold War and its ongoing impact around the worldWe tend to think of the Cold War as a bounded conflict: a clash of two superpowers, t

The brilliant and charismatic Eugenia Cheng takes us on a dizzying journey through what's bigger than infinity and smaller than its oppositeEvery child had a schoolyard fight that ended with this clas

Every time we order a meal through Seamless or look up an address on Google Maps, we create data. Yet, we the people do not benefit from this wealth of information. Only large corporations such as Goo

Sixteenth-century Europe saw an explosion of female rule. From Isabella of Castile and her granddaughter Mary Tudor, to Catherine de Medici, Anne Boleyn, and Elizabeth Tudor, women wielded enormous po

Mathematics has informed our understanding of the cosmos on every scale: from the origin and motion of the Moon, to the intricacies of asteroids, comets, and Kuiper Belt objects. Math has taught us ho

From an award-winning legal scholar, a stirring argument about the central role of citizen activists in shaping our nation’s constitutional lawWho determines whether gay Americans can marry? Who says

Under the aegis of machine learning in our data-driven machine age, computers are programming themselves and learning aboutand solvingan extraordinary range of problems, from the mundane to the most d

In his long career, eminent psychotherapist and author Irvin Yalom has pressed his patients and readers to grapple with life’s two greatest challenges: that we all must die, and that each of us is res

Theodore Roosevelt is best remembered as America’s prototypical ?cowboy” president?a Rough Rider who derived his political wisdom from a youth spent in the untamed American West. But while the great

If there is a fundamental truth of geopolitics, it is this: whoever controls the core of Europe controls the entire continent, and whoever controls all of Europe can dominate the world. Over the past

Russia is dying from within. Oligarchs and oil barons may still dominate international news coverage, but their prosperity masks a deep-rooted demographic tragedy. Faced with staggering population dec

Technology has become the architect of our intimacies. Online, we fall prey to the illusion of companionship, gathering thousands of Twitter and Facebook friends and confusing tweets and wall posts wi

Argues that geometry is fundamental to string theory--which posits that we live in a 10-dimensional existence--as well as the very nature of the universe, and explains where mathematics will take stri

The influence of intellectuals is not only greater than in previous eras but also takes a very different form from that envisioned by those like Machiavelli and others who have wanted to directly influence rulers. It has not been by shaping the opinions or directing the actions of the holders of power that modern intellectuals have most influenced the course of events, but by shaping public opinion in ways that affect the actions of power holders in democratic societies, whether or not those power holders accept the general vision or the particular policies favored by intellectuals. Even government leaders with disdain or contempt for intellectuals have had to bend to the climate of opinion shaped by those intellectuals.Intellectuals and Society not only examines the track record of intellectuals in the things they have advocated but also analyzes the incentives and constraints under which their views and visions have emerged. One of the most surprising aspects of this study is how oft

It has long been a truism in America that "politics stops at the water's edge" - that is, that partisanship has no place in national security. In Arsenal of Democracy, historian Julian E. Zelizer show

Completely revised and up-to-date, this reference guide for reporters covers the rules of writing, reporting, and research, including photo captions, file copy over the wire, avoiding libel and much m

We’re used to thinking about the self as an independent entity, something that we either have or are. In The Ego Tunnel, philosopher Thomas Metzinger claims otherwise: No such thing as a self e

Before the mid-seventeenth century, scholars generally agreed that it was impossible to predict something by calculating mathematical outcomes. One simply could not put a numerical value on the likel

Explores current scientific thinking on how matter and energy interact, discussing the structure of space as a dynamic Grid that creates physical matter, and examining core theory, which attempts to r