This book addresses the major problems of leadership in groups, organizations, and societies in the twenty-first century, when rapid change, complex dilemmas, and earth-shattering consequences affect the daily lives of people in the diverse contexts of social institutions, the corporate world, domestic politics, and international terrorism and conflict. The volume convenes a group of distinguished scholars, consultants, and leaders who address significant contemporary dilemmas that test th...

“Like a tough-to-crack case against an idea that most of us have long known is key to repairing the world… will legitimately change how you think about the world and your own sense of morality.” —New York MagazineNew York Post Best Book of the YearWe often think of our capacity to experience the suffering of others as the ultimate source of goodness. Many of our wisest policy-makers, activists, scientists,...

“One of the most important books of our modern era” –Amb. Jaime de BourbonFor anyone struggling with conflict, this book can transform you. Negotiating the Nonnegotiable takes you on a journey into the heart and soul of conflict, providing unique insight into the emotional undercurrents that too often sweep us out to sea. With vivid stories of his closed-door sessions with warring political groups, disputing businesspeople, and families in...

How did human societies scale up from small, tight-knit groups of hunter-gatherers to the large, anonymous, cooperative societies of today--even though anonymity is the enemy of cooperation? How did organized religions with "Big Gods"--the great monotheistic and polytheistic faiths--spread to colonize most minds in the world? In Big Gods, Ara Norenzayan makes the surprising and provocative argument that these fundamental puzzles about the origins of civilization are one and the sa...

Winner of the University of San Diego Outstanding Leadership Book Award 2012!Shortlisted for the British Psychological Society Book Award 2011!Shortlisted for the CMI (Chartered Management Institute) Management Book of the Year Award 2011–2012!According to John Adair, the most important word in the leader's vocabulary is "we" and the least important word is "I". But if this is true, it raises one important question: why do psychological ana...

We have all experienced that sinking feeling that somehow, someone else just took control of our lives and that we are powerless to do anything about it. Maybe, we just accepted a heap of lies from a politician, we bought something we didn't really want, we agreed to do something we really didn't want to do, or we lost an argument because we let our words be twisted against us. We feel helpless because we don't know what is really happening to us and we seem to have no way of finding out.

George W. Bush remains a highly controversial figure, a man for whom millions of Americans have very strong feelings. Dan McAdams' book offers an astute psychological portrait of Bush, one of the first biographies to appear since he left office as well as the first to draw systematically from personality science to analyze his life. McAdams, an international leader in personality psychology and the narrative study of lives, focuses on several key events in Bush's life, such as the death of...

This comprehensive, user-friendly introductory textbook to political psychology explores the psychological origins of political behavior. The authors introduce readers to a broad range of theories, concepts, and case studies of political activity to illustrate that behavior. The book examines many patterns of political behaviors, including leadership, group behavior, voting, media effects, race, ethnicity, nationalism, social movements, terrorism, war, and genocide. It explores some of the...

Terrorism is the most clear and present danger we confront today, yet no phenomenon is more poorly understood by policymakers, the media, and the general public. The Faces of Terrorism is the first serious interdisciplinary examination of terrorism in all its facets. What gives rise to it, who are its proponents and how do they think, and how--and why--does it work?Neil Smelser begins by tackling the fundamental problem of defining what exactly terrorism is. He shows why a...

One in every twenty difficult conflicts ends up grinding to a halt. That's fully 5 percent of not just the diplomatic and political clashes we read about in the newspaper, but disputations and arguments from our everyday lives as well. Once we get pulled into these self-perpetuating conflicts it is nearly impossible to escape. The 5 percent rule us.So what can we do when we find ourselves ensnared? According to Dr. Peter T. Coleman, the solution is in seeing our conflict anew. Appl...

Understanding Foreign Policy Decision Making presents a psychological approach to foreign policy decision making. This approach focuses on the decision process, dynamics, and outcome. The book includes a wealth of extended real-world case studies and examples that are woven into the text. The cases and examples, which are written in an accessible style, include decisions made by leaders of the United States, Israel, New Zealand, Cuba, Iceland, United Kingdom, and others. In addition to cov...

When we think of family, we most often think of our sisters and brothers, our cousins and grandparents, rather than our world family or even our community connections. We still identify with our differences more than our similarities, unless it's convenient to do otherwise. Here, two seasoned authors tackle the question of family and what it means to us now and how it might change to help us address the problems that affect us all. Using specific examples throughout the work, they present ...