Firm Commitment

Colin Mayer

The corporation is one of the most important and remarkable institutions in the world. It affects all our lives continuously. It feeds, entertains, houses and, employs us. It generates vast amounts of revenue for those who own it and it invests a substantial proportion of the wealth that we possess. But the corporation is also the cause of immense problems and suffering, a source of poverty and pollution, and its failures are increasing. How is the corporation failing us? Why is it happening? What should we do to restore trust in it? While governments are subject to repeated questioning and scrutiny, the corporation receives relatively little attention. (Read more)

Holy Sh-t

Melissa Mohr

Swearing is a fascinating thing. Almost everyone does it, or worries about not doing it, from the two year old who has just discovered the power of the potty mouth to the grandma who wonders why every other word she hears is obscene. But more than its cultural ubiquity, swearing is also interesting for what it tells us about language and society, today and in the past. It is a record of what people care about on the deepest levels of a culture - what's divine, what's terrifying, and what's taboo. (Read more)

America Bewitched

Owen Davies

America Bewtiched is the first major history of witchcraft in America - from the Salem witch trials of 1692 to the present day.

The infamous Salem trials are etched into the consciousness of modern America, the human toll a reminder of the dangers of intolerance and persecution. The refrain 'Remember Salem!' was invoked frequently over the ensuing centuries. As time passed, the trials became a milepost measuring the distance America had progressed from its colonial past, its victims now the righteous and their persecutors the shamed. Yet the story of witchcraft did not end as the American Enlightenment dawned - a new, long, and chilling chapter was about to begin.(Read more)

Green Equilibrium

Christopher Wills

In Green Equilibrium, Christopher Wills explains the rules by which ecosystems maintain a diversity of interdependent species, in particular the balance of predators and prey. Wills is both an eminent academic and a hugely experienced field-biologist. In presenting the concept of "green equilibrium", he draws on a fascinating range of examples, including coral reefs off the densely populated Philippines, the isolated and densely forested valleys of Papua New Guinea, the changing Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, and a Californian ranch being allowed to return to a wild state. In each case he assesses the impact of modern changes and attempts at conservation on these delicately balanced ecosystems.(Read more)

Make It a Green Peace!

Frank Zelko

The emergence of Greenpeace in the late 1960s from a loose-knit group of anti-nuclear and anti-whaling activists fundamentally changed the nature of environmentalism - its purpose, philosophy, and tactics - around the world. And yet there has been no comprehensive objective history of Greenpeace's origins - until now.

Make It a Green Peace! draws upon meeting minutes, internal correspondence, manifestos, philosophical writings, and interviews with former members to offer the first full account of the origins of what has become the most recognizable environmental non-governmental organization in the world. (Read more)

Serengeti Story: A scientist in paradise

Anthony Sinclair

Serengeti is arguably the most well-known and highly treasured conservation area in the world. In 1972 the United Nations meeting on National Parks and Protected Areas agreed to set up World Heritage Sites, now supervised by UNESCO, and at that meeting they voted Serengeti top of the list. What makes this site outstanding? What happens in Serengeti biologically? How did it become a protected area? What are the historical events that have shaped its present dynamics? What will happen to it in future? How has it become relevant to human society and conservation? These are the questions that Anthony Sinclair answers. (Read more)

What's Wrong with Fat?

Abigail Saguy

The United States, we are told, is facing an obesity epidemic, a "battle of the bulge" that requires drastic and immediate action. Some have predicted that, due to increasing rates of overweight and obesity, this generation will be the first to die at a younger age than their parents. Obesity has been blamed for increasing healthcare expenditure, rising costs of airplane travel, and even global warming. How and why has obesity exploded onto the public health agenda? How does this perspective of obesity as a crisis - as well as how we assign blame and responsibility for obesity - affect how we feel about our bodies? And how does it inform how medical professionals and the general public treat visibly fat people? (Read more)

The Scientific Sherlock Holmes

James O'Brien

One of the most popular and widely known characters in all of fiction, Sherlock Holmes has an enduring appeal based largely on his uncanny ability to make the most remarkable deductions from the most mundane facts. The very first words that Sherlock Holmes ever says to Dr. Watson are, "How are you? You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive." Watson responds, "How on earth did you know that?" And so a crime-solving legend is born. (Read more)

Little Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, Fifth Edition

Edited by Susan Ratcliffe

This updated edition is the perfect gift for every occasion. From Shakespeare and Mark Twain to Albert Einstein and Kate Moss, this dictionary features 4,000 of the best and most popular quotations of past and present. Packed with quotable quotes on over 300 themes from Parties to Punctuality, this is the ideal tool for finding exactly the right words to express yourself in any situation. 'There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates' loot on Treasure Island' said Walt Disney, and in this book a crowd of voices offer ideas: 'Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world', 'Life is either a daring adventure or it is nothing', 'The fool wonders, the wise man asks', 'Comedy is tragedy plus time', 'Friends are the sunshine of life'.(Read more)

The Diner's Dictionary

John Ayto

Did you know that "croissant" literally means "crescent" or that oranges are native to China? Do you realize that the word "pie" has been around for seven hundred years in English or that "toast" comes from the Latin word for "scorch"?

From absinthe to zabaglione, this lively guide presents the meaning and origin of over 2,300 food and drink terms. From basic ingredients to herbs, spices, and traditional dishes to more exotic products and delicacies, this book offers a feast of classic food and recipe terms as well as new additions to our gastronomic vocabulary over recent years such as Kobe beef, goji berry, latte, and wrap. Full of fascinating stories about some of our most popular foods and dishes as well as the more obscure, this is a delicious must-have for foodies and word buffs alike.(Read more)

Growing in Love and Wisdom

Susan J. Stabile

In Growing in Love and Wisdom, Susan Stabile draws on a unique dual perspective to explore the value of interreligious dialogue, the essential spiritual dynamics that operate across faith traditions, and the many fruitful ways Buddhist meditation practices can deepen Christian prayer. (Read more)

Islam and the Arab Awakening

Tariq Ramadan

One of the most important developments in the modern history of the Middle East, the so-called Arab Spring began in Tunisia in December 2010, and has since surpassed anything imagined. It has brought down dictators, sparked a civil war in Libya, and ignited a bloody uprising in Syria; its repercussions in Egypt and elsewhere remain unclear. Now one of the world's leading Islamic thinkers examines and explains it, in a searching, provocative, and necessary book. (Read more)

Haida

William Sclater

This action-packed, first-hand account chronicles the mission of Canada's most famous naval warship from her commissioning in 1943 to her return to Halifax for a refit in late 1944. The ship began her career on convoy duty from Britain to Murmansk, and the book includes a vivid description of the battle between the HMS Duke of York and the German Scharnhorst that led to the Scharnhorst's destruction.  (Read more)

A Small Town Near Auschwitz

Mary Fulbrook

The Silesian town of Bedzin lies a mere twenty-five miles from Auschwitz; through the linked ghettos of Bedzin and its neighbouring town, some 85,000 Jews passed on their way to slave labour or the gas chambers.  (Read more)

Erasmus Darwin

Dr. Patricia Fara

Dr Erasmus Darwin seemed an innocuous Midlands physician, a respectable stalwart of eighteenth-century society. But there was another side to him.
Botanist, inventor, Lunar inventor and popular poet, Darwin was internationally renowned for breathtakingly long poems explaining his theories about sex and science. Yet he become a target for the political classes, the victim of a sustained and vitriolic character assassination by London's most savage satirists.  (Read more)

Canada and Conflict

Patrick James

This short, concise book evaluates Canada's evolving foreign policy in a world that changed a great deal in the wake of September 11, 2001. Where Canadians may once have thought of themselves as a "moral super-power" with a focus on peacekeeping, the country's foreign policy has been undergoing a degree of remodelling. This is reflected in significant changes to the Canadian Forces as well as Canada's decision to engage in a sustained combat engagement in Afghanistan, but not in Iraq. In addition, the country's positioning towards the United States has seen adjustments in recent years, as Canadians debate topics including a North American approach to border security, ballistic missile defence, and the reality of a reshaped Arctic border on a warming planet.  (Read more)

Jazz Standards

Ted Gioia

Written by award-winning jazz historian Ted Gioia, this comprehensive guide offers an illuminating look at more than 250 seminal jazz compositions. In this comprehensive and unique survey, here are the songs that sit at the heart of the jazz repertoire, ranging from "Ain't Misbehavin'" and "Autumn in New York" to "God Bless the Child," "How High the Moon," and "I Can't Give You Anything But Love." Gioia includes Broadway show tunes written by such greats as George Gershwin and Irving Berlin, and classics by such famed jazz musicians as Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, and John Coltrane.  (Read more)

Sound Advice

Jean Ashworth Bartle

Sound Advice is a valuable resource for college students, beginning teachers, and experienced conductors of children's choirs. It covers the vast array of skills needed by today's conductor and will benefit all choir directors who want their choirs to reach a higher level of artistry. (Read more)

Ignorance

Stuart Firestein

Knowledge is a big subject, says Stuart Firestein, but ignorance is a bigger one. And it is ignorance - not knowledge - that is the true engine of science. Most of us have a false impression of science as a surefire, deliberate, step-by-step method for finding things out and getting things done. In fact, says Firestein, more often than not, science is like looking for a black cat in a dark room, and there may not be a cat in the room. The process is more hit-or-miss than you might imagine, with much stumbling and groping after phantoms.  (Read more)

Shakespeare

Jonathan Bate and Dora Thornton

For any lover of Shakespeare, the thought of time-traveling back to London to see one of his plays at the Globe represents the ultimate theatrical fantasy. The look and feel of Shakespeare's London, the streets, shops, and churches the poet would have visited; the bookstalls where he found source material; the objects that appeared on his stages or sparked his imagination - what were they like?  (Read more)

Paradigms Lost

Norman Sartorius, Heather Stuart and Julio Arboleda-Florez

Paradigms Lost challenges key paradigms currently held about the prevention or reduction of stigma attached to mental illness using evidence and the experience the authors gathered during the many years of their work in this field. Each chapter examines one currently held paradigm and presents reasons why it should be replaced with a new perspective. The book argues for enlightened opportunism (using every opportunity to fight stigma), rather than more time consuming planning, and emphasizes that the best way to approach anti-stigma work is to select targets jointly with those who are most concerned. (Read more)

Internal Markets and Multi-level Governance

Edited by George Anderson

Nearly half the world's people live in countries with federal systems of government. A common ambition of such federations - and, indeed, often a key factor in their origins - has been to create integrated internal markets capable of generating higher levels of economic growth and prosperity. Yet despite the importance of such developments, there has never been a broad comparative study of how internal markets have been managed within federal or multi-level systems. (Read more)

Inequality and Instability

James K. Galbraith

In the press, at the Capitol, on Wall Street and around the world, people are waking up to the dangers of inequality as never before. Mainstream journalists now note that income inequality in America today is greater than at any time since 1929 - just before the Great Depression. Perhaps this is not accidental. (Read more)

Fat, Fate, and Disease

Peter Gluckman and Mark Hanson

"Why are we losing the war against obesity and chronic disease?" This is the simple question Peter Gluckman and Mark Hanson ask, exploring the dominant myth that the exploding epidemic of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes can be tackled by focusing on adult life styles. (Read more)

No One's World: The West, the Rising Rest, and the Coming Global Turn

Charles A. Kupchan

The world is on the cusp of a global turn. Between 1500 and 1800, the West sprinted ahead of other centers of power in Asia and the Middle East. Europe and the United States have dominated the world since. But today the West's preeminence is slipping away as China, India, Brazil and other emerging powers rise. Although most strategists recognize that the dominance of the West is on the wane, they are confident that its founding ideas - democracy, capitalism, and secular nationalism - will continue to spread, ensuring that the Western order will outlast its primacy. (Read more)

The Passionate Muse: Exploration of Emotion in Stories

Keith Oatley

The emotions a character feels - Hamlet's vengefulness when he realizes his uncle has killed his father, Anna Karenina's despair when she feels she can longer sustain her life, Marcel's joy when he tastes a piece of madeleine cake - are vital aspects of the experience of fiction. As Keith Oatley points out, it's not just the emotions of literary characters such as these in which we are interested. If we didn't ourselves experience emotions, we wouldn't go to the play, or watch the film, or read the book. (Read more)

The Road to Confederation: The Emergence of Canada, 1863-1867 (Reissue)

The late Donald Creighton and Donald Wright

Donald Creighton was for many years one of Canada's foremost historians, a firm believer that history was closer to art than it was to science. Marked by beautiful, carefully crafted prose, The Road to Confederation reflects a style that perhaps no contemporary historian would dare: romantic, suspenseful, fearlessly narrative, and full of unapologetic opinions. If not politically correct and sanitized, it is a fascinating exploration of the personalities, the political logjams, even the debt problems that marked the period leading to Confederation. (Read more)

Canada's First Century (Reissue)

The late Donald Creighton and Donald Wright

Award-winning author Donald Creighton was a Red Ensign nationalist and firm supporter of the British Empire. At the time of writing this book, in 1970, he had come to believe that Canada was a lost cause. When everyone else was celebrating Canada's centennial, he was busy writing his own lament for a nation. Canada's First Century paints a large and complex canvas of historical rise and fall: a great transcontinental nation is built, but it is eventually undone as Canada turns its back on the British Empire and embraces a continental role alongside the United States. (Read more)