Revisits the world of social epidemics first explored in Gladwell's 2000 book "The tipping point," this time taking a closer look at the dark side of social engineering.

New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell looks at why major changes in our society so often happen suddenly and unexpectedly. Ideas, behavior, messages, and products, he argues, often spread like outbreaks of infectious disease. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a few fare-beaters and graffiti artists fuel a subway crime wave, or a satisfied customer fill the empty tables of a new restaurant. These are social epidemics,...

Urban legends, conspiracy theories, and bogus public-health scares circulate effortlessly. Meanwhile, people with important ideas--business people, teachers, politicians, journalists, and others--struggle to make their ideas "stick." Why do some ideas thrive while others die? And how do we improve the chances of worthy ideas? Educators and idea collectors Chip and Dan Heath reveal the anatomy of ideas that stick and explain ways to make ideas stickier,...

"Double Take is a fact-packed look at how science is tackling stereotypes. In the intermediate grades, students are likely to encounter and recognize all kinds of stereotypes. Our brains constantly use categories to sort and label the things (and people) around us -- both with good results and frightening ones. This book explores how we all use stereotypes and how science can help us to build more equal societies, where fewer stereotypes exist and...

A forgotten school bus finds joy and purpose in the most unexpected places.

"Picking up where The Tipping Point leaves off, respected journalist Lee Daniel Kravetz's Strange Contagion is a provocative look at both the science and lived experience of social contagion. We all know that ideas, emotions, and actions are communicable--from mirroring someone's posture to mimicking their speech patterns, we are all driven by unconscious motivations triggered by our environment. But when just the right physiological, psychological,...

When she is turned into a super-modelesque super-fighting machine, Tally, a former ugly, is ordered to keep the uglies down and the pretties stupid in a carefully engineered world of perfection where she refuses to play by the rules.

"In a crowded Chicago airport, an incident at TSA impacts twelve young Asian Americans, all strangers to one another before this day. As events cause their journeys to intertwine, they discover the challenges of friendship, the perils of younger siblings, the power or words, and the unexpected significance of a blue Stratocaster electric guitar. Twelve virtuoso authors draw from their own experiences to explore themes of identity and belonging in...

"A novel about an interactive game designer with no face by the singer-songwriter behind the Mountain Goats and the author of Black Sabbath's Master of Reality (33-1/3)"-- Provided by publisher.

"First published in 1967, Guy Debord's stinging revolutionary critique of contemporary society, The Society of the Spectacle has since acquired a cult status. The Das Kapital of the 20th century. An essential text, and the main theoretical work of the Situationists. Few works of political and cultural theory have been as enduringly provocative. From its publication amid the social upheavals of the 1960's up to the present, the volatile theses of this...