Simon & Schuster / Social science

The Serpent and the Rainbow

by Wade Davis

In April 1982, ethnobotanist Wade Davis arrived in Haiti to investigate two documented cases of zombis -- people who had reappeared in Haitian society years after they had been officially declared dead and had...

The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World

by David Kirkpatrick

IN LITTLE MORE THAN HALF A DECADE, Facebook has gone from a dorm-room novelty to a company with 500 million users. It is one of the fastest growing companies in history, an essential part of the social life...

Bowling Alone

by Robert D. Putnam

Once we bowled in leagues, usually after work -- but no longer. This seemingly small phenomenon symbolizes a significant social change that Robert Putnam has identified in this brilliant volume, Bowling Alone...

How Israel Lost: The Four Questions

by Richard Ben Cramer

Once in a great while, a book comes along that not only discusses a topic of interest, it changes the boundaries of that discussion forever. This is such a book. In How Israel Lost Richard Ben Cramer analyzes...

What Women Want: The Global Market Turns Female Friendly

by Paco Underhill

PACO UNDERHILL, the author of the hugely successful Why We Buy and The Call of the Mall, reports on the growing importance of women in everybody’s marketplace—what makes a package, product, space, or service...

Guantanamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power: Guantanamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power

by Joseph Margulies

In his address to the nation on September 20, 2001, President Bush declared war on terrorism and set in motion a detention policy unlike any we have ever seen. Since then, the United States has seized thousands...

Everything in Its Path

by Kai T. Erikson

A Simon & Schuster eBook. Simon & Schuster has a great book for every reader.

Greedy Bastards: How We Can Stop Corporate Communists, Banksters, and Other Vampires from Sucking America Dry

by Dylan Ratigan

The host of the eponymous MSNBC show, Dylan Ratigan offers a bold and original post-partisan program to resuscitate the American Dream.

At a time of deep concern with the state of America’s economy and government,...

Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America's Schools

by Steven Brill

IN a reporting tour de force, award-winning journalist Steven Brill takes an uncompromising look at the adults who are fighting over America’s failure to educate its children—and points the way to reversing...

The Chosen Peoples: America, Israel, and the Ordeals of Divine Election

by Todd Gitlin & Liel Leibovitz

Americans and Israelis have often thought that their nations were chosen, in perpetuity, to do God’s work. This belief in divine election is a potent, living force, one that has guided and shaped both peoples...

Years of Renewal: The Concluding Volume of His Classic Memoirs

by Henry Kissinger

Perhaps the best-known American diplomatist of the twentieth century, Henry Kissinger is a major figure in world history, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and arguably one of the most brilliant minds ever placed...

Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There

by David Brooks

Do you believe that spending $15,000 on a media center is vulgar, but that spending $15,000 on a slate shower stall is a sign that you are at one with the Zenlike rhythms of nature? Do you work for one of those...

Eisenhower 1956: The President's Year of Crisis--Suez and the Brink of War

by David. A. Nichols

A gripping tale of international intrigue and betray-al, Eisenhower 1956 is the white-knuckle story of how President Dwight D. Eisenhower guided the United States through the Suez Canal crisis of 1956. The crisis...

How The End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III

by Ron Rosenbaum

The president loses control of fifty nukes for nearly an hour. Russian nuclear bombers almost bump wingtips with American fighter jets over the Pacific coast. North Korea detonates nuclear weapons underground....

Zero-Sum Future: American Power in an Age of Anxiety

by Gideon Rachman

From one of the world’s most influential commentators on international affairs, chief foreign affairs columnist for the Financial Times, comes a stark warning about a gathering global political crisis.

Successive...

Deliver Us From Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords and a World of Endless Conflict

by William Shawcross

Reporting from war zones around the globe, acclaimed journalist William Shawcross gives us an unforgettable portrait of a dangerous world and of the brave men and women, ordinary and extraordinary, who risk...

The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear

by Seth Mnookin

WHO DECIDES WHICH FACTS ARE TRUE?

In 1998 Andrew Wakefield, a British gastroenterologist with a history of self-promotion, published a paper with a shocking allegation: the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine might...

The Truth About Grief: The Myth of Its Five Stages and the New Science of Loss

by Ruth Davis Konigsberg

The five stages of grief are so deeply imbedded in our culture that no American can escape them. Every time we experience loss—a personal or national one—we hear them recited: denial, anger, bargaining,...

The J Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall

by Ian Bremmer

Locate nations on the J Curve -- left for authoritarian, right for democratic. Then figure out how to force those on the left to open their societies, rather than encouraging them to shut them tighter by further...

Had Enough?: A Handbook for Fighting Back

by James Carville

Have you had enough of George W. Bush and the Republican right? Are you sick and tired of the tax-cutting, environment-desecrating, secret-keeping, influence-peddling, war-mongering, free speech-hating hypocrites...