Showing results by narrator "Eric Jason" in All Categories

I know my own mind. I am able to assess others in a fair and accurate way. These self-perceptions are challenged by leading psychologists Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald as they explore the hidden biases we all carry from a lifetime of exposure to cultural attitudes about age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, social class, sexuality, disability status, and nationality. Blindspot is the authors’ metaphor for the portion of the mind that houses hidden biases.

Growth has been both an unspoken and an explicit aim of our individual and collective striving. It governs the lives of microorganisms and galaxies; it shapes the capabilities of our extraordinarily large brains and the fortunes of our economies. Growth is manifested in annual increments of continental crust, a rising gross domestic product, a child's growth chart, the spread of cancerous cells. In this magisterial book, Vaclav Smil offers systematic investigation of growth in nature and society, from tiny organisms to the trajectories of empires and civilizations.

In a not-so-distant future, a deadly pandemic has forced the world into social isolation. Confined to their homes, millions now survive off drone-delivered food packages and online-only interactions. It’s an especially lonely life for John Chambers, a drone shipment coordinator for the monolithic Chum Corporation. Trapped in his dead-end job, John has started spending much more of his time grinding in virtual reality role-playing games.

"A gifted and thoughtful writer, Metzl brings us to the frontiers of biology and technology, and reveals a world full of promise and peril." —Siddhartha Mukherjee MD, New York Times bestselling author of The Emperor of All Maladies and The Gene A groundbreaking exploration of genetic...

Starting in early 1915, the Ottoman Turks began deporting and killing hundreds of thousands of Armenians in the first major genocide of the 20th century. By the end of the First World War, the number of Armenians in what would become Turkey had been reduced by 90 percent - more than 1,000,000 people. A century later, the Armenian genocide remains controversial but relatively unknown, overshadowed by later slaughters and the chasm separating Turkish and Armenian versions of events.

In a grim, not-so-distant future, humanity is in crisis. A deadly pandemic has confined billions to their homes, leaving society completely isolated in their homes and utterly dependent on the mega-global Chum Corporation. For some lucky beta testers, the only escape is to log into New Arcadia—a real-as-life role-playing game set in a gleaming 1990s-inspired city. There, they can enjoy the freedoms denied to them in the real world—like Prime Beta Tester John Chambers, who has reinvented himself in New Arcadia as street-fighting hero Blaze.

Nox had hoped a successful alchemy business would mark the end of his financial troubles. He couldn't be more wrong. City taxes, labor and material costs, and his competitors now threaten to do what cultists and his step families failed to do—cripple him. Mysterious and concerning dreams also plague his nights as he struggles to stay afloat. But all hope is not lost! A fungal plague threatens the continent's residents and the farmland that feeds them.

Serial killer Gary Heidnik's name will live on in infamy, and his home, 3520 North Marshall Street in Philadelphia, is a house tainted with the memory of unbelievable horrors. What police found there was an incredible nightmare made real. Four young women had been held captive - some for four months - half-naked and chained. They had been tortured, starved, and repeatedly raped. But more grotesque discoveries lay in the kitchen: human limbs frozen, a torso burned to cinders, an empty pot suspiciously scorched....

From facial recognition—capable of checking us onto flights or identifying undocumented residents—to automated decision systems that inform everything from who gets loans to who receives bail, each of us moves through a world determined by data-empowered algorithms. But these technologies didn't just appear: they are part of a history that goes back centuries, from the census enshrined in the US Constitution to the birth of eugenics in Victorian Britain to the development of Google search.

Since the time of Columbus, Indian slavery was illegal in much of the American continent. Yet, as Andrés Reséndez illuminates in his myth-shattering The Other Slavery, it was practiced for centuries as an open secret. There was no abolitionist movement to protect the tens of thousands of natives who were kidnapped and enslaved by the conquistadors, then forced to descend into the "mouth of hell" of 18th-century silver mines or, later, made to serve as domestics for Mormon settlers and rich Anglos.

A sixth-generation funeral director and writer of the popular ""must read"" (Time magazine) blog Confessions of a Funeral Director reflects on mortality and the powerful lessons death holds for every one of us in this compassionate and thoughtful spiritual memoir that combines the humor and...

The lights are coming down. Frank, Dean, and Sammy are about to take the stage. This is the moment we remember, when Las Vegas became classic. And it was at the Sands. Built in 1952 over the ashes of Hollywood Reporter publisher Billy Wilkerson’s last chance in Las Vegas, the Sands was a collective effort. Underworld figures like Meyer Lansky, Doc Stacher, and Frank Costello provided the cash.

An unexpected roadmap—or better yet, a book—makes looking for treasure so much easier. Reading into it what the authors have never even thought about makes for a welcome bonus. These are all but lucky waystations on my journey to the doorsteps of this world's greatest mystery. There's a catch: everyone and his brother has already been there, and even the worst losers know the way. So, is this the end of the road? The demise of the Great Plan? Or have they all knocked on the door the wrong way?

A CIA station chief, later Jordan's lawyer in Washington, reveals the secret history of a lost peace.

Jack O'Connell possessed an uncanny ability to be at the center of things. On his arrival in Jordan in 1958, he unraveled a coup aimed at the young King Hussein, who would become America's most reliable Middle East ally. Over time, their bond of trust and friendship deepened. His narrative contains secrets that will revise our understanding of the Middle East.

The Outward Path refers to the central insight that our true desire as human beings is not really for "happiness," a fleeting mood. What we really want is a rich and worthwhile life, which we can only achieve by pursuing an outward path of engagement with other people.

New Arcadia is growing. Across the river, the borough of Brookline is now ready for players. That’s where the hottest new nightclub is opening for business - Club Re-LOVE-ution. They spelled it that way on purpose. Blaze and his friends must team up to infiltrate the club and stop the deadly Drug X menace from taking over the city. Standing in their way are Berta and Beata, two German pop superstars who have teamed up with a mysterious benefactor for their big comeback. If Blaze’s team fails, it’s Game Over.

Miles “Shrug” Lindstrom received a quest years ago. He was the only person who could see the window, and in addition to the quest, he could also see a countdown to the end of the world. Part of him was hoping that he was just insane and had been hallucinating when he first started seeing the window. Then again, if the quest was just his imagination, he was going to be massively in debt with a rental full of useless junk. But when the countdown finally stops, what happens is nothing like he could have imagined.

On August 9, 1945, on the tiny island of Tinian in the South Pacific, a 25-year-old American Army Air Corps major named Charles W. Sweeney climbed aboard a B-29 Superfortress in command of his first combat mission, one devised specifically to bring a long and terrible war to a necessary conclusion.... The last military officer to command an atomic mission, Maj. Gen. Charles W. Sweeney has the unique distinction of having been an integral part of both the Hiroshima and the Nagasaki bombing runs.

One of the most revered names in SF and fantasy, the incomparable Roger Zelazny was honored with numerous prizes—including six Hugo and three Nebula Awards—over the course of his legendary career. Among his more than fifty books, arguably Zelazny’s most popular literary creations were his...

"If you want to know what anthropology is, look at what anthropologists do," write the authors of Social and Cultural Anthropology: A Very Short Introduction. This engaging overview of the field combines an accessible account of some of the discipline's guiding principles and methodology with abundant examples and illustrations of anthropologists at work.