Collection: Politics

Humans greatest strength is our ability to adapt to our surroundings, but what if those surroundings are unhealthy? What is the conditions we are growing accustomed to are not fit for our own habitation? What if the very places we find ourselves living are making us sick? The places we shape, in turn, shape our lives. We are a product of our environment and our environment has degraded to the point of having severe consequences for our personal health. As we have experienced decline all around us, we can't help but follow suit internally. Our places dictate the people we become, the friends we will make, and our health and happiness. Food has become an obsession in our culture, yet we only eat three times a day. We are shaped by our places 24/7 and it is time we flip the table and give as much thought to the places that shape our lives as we do the ingredients we consume. Ultimately, it is the places in which we exist in that will dictate the people we will be. In understanding this, we can begin to grasp how important it is to shape those places accordingly.

Learn how the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence.

A True Book: American History series allows readers to experience the earliest moments in American history and to discover how these moments helped shape the country that it is today. This series includes an age appropriate (grades 3-5) introduction to curriculum-relevant subjects and a robust resource section that encourages independent study.This book recounts the origins of the desire for independence in the colonies that would become the United States, the events that led to open rebellion, and how the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, and discusses its meaning.

The most sweeping account of how neoliberalism came to dominate American politics for nearly a half century before crashing against the forces of Trumpism on the right and a new progressivism on the left.

The epochal shift toward neoliberalism--a web of related policies that, broadly speaking, reduced the footprint of government in society and reassigned economic power to private market forces--that began in the United States and Great Britain in the late 1970s fundamentally changed the world. Today, the word "neoliberal" is often used to condemn a broad swath of policies, from prizing free market principles over people to advancing privatization programs in developing nations around the world.

To be sure, neoliberalism has contributed to a number of alarming trends, not least of which has been a massive growth in income inequality. Yet as the eminent historian Gary Gerstle argues in The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order, these indictments fail to reckon with the full contours of what neoliberalism was and why its worldview had such persuasive hold on both the right and the left for three decades. As he shows, the neoliberal order that emerged in America in the 1970s fused ideas of deregulation with personal freedoms, open borders with cosmopolitanism, and globalization with the promise of increased prosperity for all. Along with tracing how this worldview emerged in America and grew to dominate the world, Gerstle explores the previously unrecognized extent to which its triumph was facilitated by the collapse of the Soviet Union and its communist allies. He is also the first to chart the story of the neoliberal order's fall, originating in the failed reconstruction of Iraq and Great Recession of the Bush years and culminating in the rise of Trump and a reinvigorated Bernie Sanders-led American left in the 2010s.

An indispensable and sweeping re-interpretation of the last fifty years, this book illuminates how the ideology of neoliberalism became so infused in the daily life of an era, while probing what remains of that ideology and its political programs as America enters an uncertain future.

A "fascinating" (The Wall Street Journal), "spirited and inspiring" (Jacobin) tour through the ages in search of the thinkers and communities that have dared to reimagine how we might better live our daily lives.

In the 6th century BCE, the Greek philosopher Pythagoras--a man remembered today more for his theorem about right-angled triangles than for his progressive politics--founded a commune in a seaside village in what's now southern Italy. The men and women there shared their property, lived as equals, and dedicated themselves to the study of mathematics and the mysteries of the universe.

Ever since, humans have been dreaming up better ways to organize how we live together, pool our resources, raise our children, and determine who's part of our families. Some of these experiments burned brightly for only a brief while, but others carry on today: from the Danish cohousing communities that share chores and deepen neighborly bonds, to matriarchal Colombian ecovillages where residents grow their own food; and from Connecticut, where new laws make it easier for extra "alloparents" to help raise children not their own, to China where planned microdistricts ensure everything a busy household might need is nearby.

One of those startlingly rare books that upends what you think is possible, Everyday Utopia provides a "powerful reminder that dreaming of better worlds is not just some fantastical project, but also a political one" (Rebecca Traister, New York Times bestselling author of Good and Mad). This "must-read" (Thomas Piketty, New York Times bestselling author of A Brief History of Equality) offers a radically hopeful vision for how to build more contented and connected societies, alongside a practical guide to what we all can do in the meantime to live the good life each and every day.

"A regenerative no-till pioneer."--NBC News

"We need to reintegrate livestock and crops on our farms and ranches, and Gabe Brown shows us how to do it well."--Temple Grandin, author of Animals in Translation

"Dirt to Soil is the [regenerative farming] movements's holy text."--The Observer

Gabe Brown didn't set out to change the world when he first started working alongside his father-in-law on the family farm in North Dakota. But as a series of weather-related crop disasters put Brown and his wife, Shelly, in desperate financial straits, they started making bold changes to their farm. Brown--in an effort to simply survive--began experimenting with new practices he'd learned about from reading and talking with innovative researchers and ranchers. As he and his family struggled to keep the farm viable, they found themselves on an amazing journey into a new type of farming: regenerative agriculture.

Brown dropped the use of most of the herbicides, insecticides, and synthetic fertilizers that are a standard part of conventional agriculture. He switched to no-till planting, started planting diverse cover crops mixes, and changed his grazing practices. In so doing Brown transformed a degraded farm ecosystem into one full of life--starting with the soil and working his way up, one plant and one animal at a time.

In Dirt to Soil Gabe Brown tells the story of that amazing journey and offers a wealth of innovative solutions to restoring the soil by laying out and explaining his "five principles of soil health," which are:

• Limited Disturbance
• Armor
• Diversity
• Living Roots
• Integrated Animals

The Brown's Ranch model, developed over twenty years of experimentation and refinement, focuses on regenerating resources by continuously enhancing the living biology in the soil. Using regenerative agricultural principles, Brown's Ranch has grown several inches of new topsoil in only twenty years! The 5,000-acre ranch profitably produces a wide variety of cash crops and cover crops as well as grass-finished beef and lamb, pastured laying hens, broilers, and pastured pork, all marketed directly to consumers.

The key is how we think, Brown says. In the industrial agricultural model, all thoughts are focused on killing things. But that mindset was also killing diversity, soil, and profit, Brown realized. Now he channels his creative thinking toward how he can get more life on the land--more plants, animals, and beneficial insects. "The greatest roadblock to solving a problem," Brown says, "is the human mind."

See Gabe Brown―author and farmer―in the Netflix documentary Kiss the Ground and coming soon, (from the makers of Kiss the Ground) look for Gabe in the new documentary Common Ground!

The most effective method used to influence children to read is to incorporate the information that interests them the most. National Geographic Readers are educational, high-interest, and comprehensive for children. In this title, readers will learn about the fascinating life and legacy civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In this level three biography, difficult concepts are made understandable and transitioned into a more approachable manner. This includes the use of sidebars, timetables, diagrams and fun facts to hold the interest of the young reader. The colorful design and educational illustrations round out this text as an exemplary book for their young minds to explore.

National Geographic supports K-12 educators with ELA Common Core Resources.
Visit www.natgeoed.org/commoncore for more information.

Since its publication in 1977, The Unsettling of America has been recognized as a classic of American letters. In it, Wendell Berry argues that good farming is a cultural and spiritual discipline. Today's agribusiness, however, takes farming out of its cultural context and away from families. As a result, we as a nation are more estranged from the land--from the intimate knowledge, love, and care of it.

Sadly, his arguments and observations are more relevant than ever. Although "this book has not had the happy fate of being proved wrong," Berry writes, there are people working "to make something comely and enduring of our life on this earth." Wendell Berry is one of those people, writing and working, as ever, with passion, eloquence, and conviction.

One of the New Yorker's Best Books of 2022

Bill McKibben--award-winning author, activist, educator--is fiercely curious.

"I'm curious about what went so suddenly sour with American patriotism, American faith, and American prosperity."

Like so many of us, McKibben grew up believing--knowing--that the United States was the greatest country on earth. As a teenager, he cheerfully led American Revolution tours in Lexington, Massachusetts. He sang "Kumbaya" at church. And with the remarkable rise of suburbia, he assumed that all Americans would share in the wealth.

But fifty years later, he finds himself in an increasingly doubtful nation strained by bleak racial and economic inequality, on a planet whose future is in peril.

And he is curious: What the hell happened?

In this revelatory cri de coeur, McKibben digs deep into our history (and his own well-meaning but not all-seeing past) and into the latest scholarship on race and inequality in America, on the rise of the religious right, and on our environmental crisis to explain how we got to this point. He finds that he is not without hope. And he wonders if any of that trinity of his youth--The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon--could, or should, be reclaimed in the fight for a fairer future.

A Caldecott-honor winning picture book biography of the mother of Emmett Till, and how she channeled grief over her son's death into a call to action for the civil rights movement.

Mamie Till-Mobley is the mother of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old boy who was brutally murdered while visiting the South in 1955. His death became a rallying point for the civil rights movement, but few know that it was his mother who was the catalyst for bringing his name to the forefront of history.

In Choosing Brave, Angela Joy and Janelle Washington offer a testament to the power of love, the bond of motherhood, and one woman's unwavering advocacy for justice. It is a poised, moving work about a woman who refocused her unimaginable grief into action for the greater good. Mamie fearlessly refused to allow America to turn away from what happened to her only child. She turned pain into change that ensured her son's life mattered.

Timely, powerful, and beautifully told, this thorough and moving story has been masterfully crafted to be both comprehensive and suitable for younger readers.

A trillion-dollar industry, the US non-profit sector is one of the world's largest economies. From art museums and university hospitals to think tanks and church charities, over 1.5 million organizations of staggering diversity share the tax-exempt 501(c)(3) designation, if little else. Many social justice organizations have joined this world, often blunting political goals to satisfy government and foundation mandates. But even as funding shrinks, many activists often find it difficult to imagine movement-building outside the non-profit model. The Revolution Will Not Be Funded gathers essays by radical activists, educators, and non-profit staff from around the globe who critically rethink the long-term consequences of what they call the "non-profit industrial complex." Drawing on their own experiences, the contributors track the history of non-profits and provide strategies to transform and work outside them. Urgent and visionary, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded presents a biting critique of the quietly devastating role the non-profit industrial complex plays in managing dissent.

Contributors. Christine E. Ahn, Robert L. Allen, Alisa Bierria, Nicole Burrowes, Communities Against Rape and Abuse (CARA), William Cordery, Morgan Cousins, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Stephanie Guilloud, Adjoa Florência Jones de Almeida, Tiffany Lethabo King, Paul Kivel, Soniya Munshi, Ewuare Osayande, Amara H. Pérez, Project South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty and Genocide, Dylan Rodríguez, Paula X. Rojas, Ana Clarissa Rojas Durazo, Sisters in Action for Power, Andrea Smith, Eric Tang, Madonna Thunder Hawk, Ije Ude, Craig Willse

Transform your dishes from bland and boring to punchy and flavorsome with this definitive guide to spices.

It's time to spice up your home cooking!

Taking the periodic table of spices as a starting point, this adventurous recipe book explores the science behind the art of making incredible spice blends to help you release the flavor in your dishes. Discover a spice book like no other from TV personality, food scientist and bestselling author, Dr Stuart Farrimond.

Sure to get your tastebuds tingling, you can explore:

- 52 exciting recipes from around the world which showcase each spice blend
- An explanation of what spices are and how they're produced
- Which countries favor which spices and a bit of the history behind it
- Dozens of spice blends you can make and what you can use it for
- A reference guide where you can conveniently look up each spice to understand how to use it
- Various color-coded charts to help you learn the chemical compound that make up the flavors
- Instructions on how to design your own spice blends
- Beautiful photographs of spices and food

Great cooking goes beyond following a recipe - it's knowing how to use the right combination of spices and herbs to get the greatest possible flavor from your dishes. From learning how the flavor compounds within spices work together to exploring the world's top spices, this is the perfect cookbook for curious cooks and adventurous foodies. Whether you're a fan of spice seeking to experiment with new flavor combinations, or simply a beginner-level home cook looking to advance your knowledge on all things spice related, this is a must-have volume also doubling up as a great coffee table book for the whole family to love.

If you've ever wondered why some spices taste stronger than others or how to make your own personal garam masala, The Science of Spice has all the answers! Discover how to use spices for cooking to become more creative in the kitchen, and explore the multiple ways that spices can endlessly heighten your eating experience.

At DK, we believe in the power of discovery.

So why stop there? This series from DK is designed to help you perfect your cooking with practical instruction - and the science behind it. There are more cookbooks to discover from The Science of... series giving you the essentials to cook up a storm! Find the answers to your everyday cooking questions and get more out of your recipes with The Science of Cooking, paired together they make the ideal cookery gifts for your food-loving friends too!

THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER

"This riveting, courageous memoir ought to be mandatory reading for every American." --Michelle Alexander, New York Times bestselling author of The New Jim Crow

"l cried reading this book, realizing more fully what my parents endured." --Amy Tan, New York Times bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club and Where the Past Begins

"This book couldn't be more timely and more necessary." --Dave Eggers, New York Times bestselling author of What Is the What and The Monk of Mokha

Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, called "the most famous undocumented immigrant in America," tackles one of the defining issues of our time in this explosive and deeply personal call to arms.

"This is not a book about the politics of immigration. This book--at its core--is not about immigration at all. This book is about homelessness, not in a traditional sense, but in the unsettled, unmoored psychological state that undocumented immigrants like myself find ourselves in. This book is about lying and being forced to lie to get by; about passing as an American and as a contributing citizen; about families, keeping them together, and having to make new ones when you can't. This book is about constantly hiding from the government and, in the process, hiding from ourselves. This book is about what it means to not have a home.

After 25 years of living illegally in a country that does not consider me one of its own, this book is the closest thing I have to freedom."

--Jose Antonio Vargas, from Dear America

Twelve lessons in fungal activism, Indigenous knowledge and collaboration for artists, gardeners, educators and anyone intrigued by the fascinating life and inspiring metaphors of the mycelium and the mushroom

The enormous popular interest in the world of fungi and the mycelium testifies to its tremendous resonance as a metaphor for new ways of thinking, new systems and behaviors. Taking its inspiration from this world, Let's Become Fungal! looks at a range of Indigenous practices from Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia that are rooted in multispecies collaboration, symbiosis, alliances, non-monetary resource exchange, decentralization, bottom-up methods and mutual dependency--all suggestive of the behavior of the mycelium.
Each of the book's 12 chapters offers teachings on collaboration, decoloniality, nonlinearity, toxicity, mobilization, biomimicry, death and being nonbinary, while also examining the world of fungi. Let's Become Fungal! shows how fungi can inspire artists, collectives, organizations, educators, policymakers, designers, scientists, anthropologists, curators, urbanists, activists, gardeners, community leaders, farmers and others to become more fungal in their ways of working and being.
Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez (born 1984) works as a curator and researcher on art and ecology, and is based in Mexico City. She has founded and directed many international initiatives at the intersection of art and ecology, including the Green Art Lab Alliance (Asia, Latin America and Europe) and the Nature Research Department, the Van Eyck Food Lab, and the Future Materials Bank at the Jan van Eyck Academie (NL).

From the celebrated poet, speaker, and educator comes Welcome Home, a powerful blueprint for building a strong foundation of self-worth, belonging, and happiness.

"A master class in self-actualization and compassion."--Mari Andrew, New York Times bestselling author of Am I There Yet?

The powerful metaphor of home provides a structure for you to customize your journey to personal transformation as Najwa Zebian shares her own experiences in building a home within herself, and shows you how to construct the following "rooms"

- Self-Love Learn how to build an individualized self-care routine to reflect your daily needs.
- Forgiveness Learn how to allow yourself time, reflection, and space to accept and let go of painful events.
- Compassion Discover the three different types of compassion and learn how you can let people in while maintaining boundaries.
- Clarity Learn how to remove the walls you put up around your authentic self.
- Surrender Learn how to lower your defenses and give yourself space to feel and process your emotions.
- The Dream Garden Learn how to nurture your dreams and create an authentic, original path.

With practical tools, poetry, and prompts for journaling and meditation to lead to self-understanding in each chapter, Zebian shows you how to build each room in your house. Written with her trademark power, candor, and warmth, Welcome Home is an answer to the pain we all experience when we don't feel at peace with ourselves.

Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah's inspiring true story--which was turned into a film, Emmanuel's Gift, narrated by Oprah Winfrey--is nothing short of remarkable.

Born in Ghana, West Africa, with one deformed leg, he was dismissed by most people--but not by his mother, who taught him to reach for his dreams. As a boy, Emmanuel hopped to school more than two miles each way, learned to play soccer, left home at age thirteen to provide for his family, and, eventually, became a cyclist. He rode an astonishing four hundred miles across Ghana in 2001, spreading his powerful message: disability is not inability. Today, Emmanuel continues to work on behalf of the disabled.

Thompson's lyrical prose and Qualls's bold collage illustrations offer a powerful celebration of triumphing over adversity.

Includes an author's note with more information about Emmanuel's charity.

"This is the essential backstory, the history book that you need if you want to understand modern Russia and its wars with Ukraine, with its neighbors, with America, and with the West."
--Anne Applebaum, author of Twilight of Democracy and Red Famine

Named a Most Anticipated Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews

From "the great storyteller of Russian history" (Financial Times), a brilliant account of the national mythologies and imperial ideologies that have shaped Russia's past and politics--essential reading for understanding the country today

The Story of Russia is a fresh approach to the thousand years of Russia's history, concerned as much with the ideas that have shaped how Russians think about their past as it is with the events and personalities comprising it. No other country has reimagined its own story so often, in a perpetual effort to stay in step with the shifts of ruling ideologies.

From the founding of Kievan Rus in the first millennium to Putin's war against Ukraine, Orlando Figes explores the ideas that have guided Russia's actions throughout its long and troubled existence. Whether he's describing the crowning of Ivan the Terrible in a candlelit cathedral or the dramatic upheaval of the peasant revolution, he reveals the impulses, often unappreciated or misunderstood by foreigners, that have driven Russian history: the medieval myth of Mother Russia's holy mission to the world; the imperial tendency toward autocratic rule; the popular belief in a paternal tsar dispensing truth and justice; the cult of sacrifice rooted in the idea of the "Russian soul"; and always, the nationalist myth of Russia's unjust treatment by the West.

How the Russians came to tell their story and to revise it so often as they went along is not only a vital aspect of their history; it is also our best means of understanding how the country thinks and acts today. Based on a lifetime of scholarship and enthrallingly written, The Story of Russia is quintessential Figes: sweeping, revelatory, and masterful.