In Oklahoma in the 1980s and 1990s, suicide—not accident as previously assumed—was the leading cause of agricultural fatalities among farmers. Men were five times more likely to die by suicide than by accident. What was causing these men—but not women—to want to kill themselves? Ramírez-Ferrero suggests that the root causes lie not in purely economic or personal factors but rather in the processes of modernization. He shows how cultural and social changes have a dramatic effect on men's id...

Dances with Dependency offers effective strategies to eliminate welfare dependency and help eradicate poverty among indigenous populations. Beginning with an impassioned and insightful portrait of today's native communities, it connects the prevailing impoverishment and despair directly to a "dependency mindset" forged by welfare economics. To reframe this debilitating mindset, it advocates policy reform in conjunction with a return to native peoples' ten-thousand-year tradition o...

A bracingly provocative challenge to one of our most cherished ideas and institutionsMost people believe democracy is a uniquely just form of government. They believe people have the right to an equal share of political power. And they believe that political participation is good for us—it empowers us, helps us get what we want, and tends to make us smarter, more virtuous, and more caring for one another. These are some of our most cherished ideas about democracy. ...

The greatest obstacle to sound economic policy is not entrenched special interests or rampant lobbying, but the popular misconceptions, irrational beliefs, and personal biases held by ordinary voters. This is economist Bryan Caplan's sobering assessment in this provocative and eye-opening book. Caplan argues that voters continually elect politicians who either share their biases or else pretend to, resulting in bad policies winning again and again by popular demand.Boldly calling i...

The legendary economist explains how a nation can remain both compassionate and fiscally sound, with "common sense raised to the level of genius" ( The New Yorker).This compact, eloquent book offers a blueprint for a workable national agenda that allows for human weakness without compromising a humane culture. Arguing that it is in the best interest of the United States to avoid excessive wealth and income inequality, and to safeguard the well-being of its...

How "colorblindness" in policy and personal practice perpetuate racial inequity in the United States today.Following the civil rights movement, race relations in the United States entered a new era.Legal gains were interpreted by some as ensuring equal treatment for all and that "colorblind" policies and programs would be the best way forward. Since then, many voices have called for an end to affirmative action and other color-conscious policies and programs, and e...

For centuries we've believed that work was where you learned discipline, initiative, honesty, self-reliance—in a word, character. A job was also, and not incidentally, the source of your income: if you didn’t work, you didn’t eat, or else you must be stealing from someone. According to such pieties, if you truly worked hard, you could earn your way and maybe even make something of yourself. In recent decades, through everyday experience, these beliefs have proven spectacularly false. Here,...

The most controversial essays from the bestselling author once called the most dangerous man in America—collected for the first time.The nation’s most-cited legal scholar who for decades has been at the forefront of applied behavioral economics, and the bestselling author of Nudge and Simpler, Cass Sunstein is one of the world’s most innovative thinkers in the academy and the world of practical politics. In the years leading up to...

In this groundbreaking study, Andrew Hacker offers a fresh and disturbing examination of the divisions of color and class in present-day America, analyzing the conditions that keep black and white Americans dangerously far apart in their ability to achieve the American dream.Why, despite continued efforts to increase understanding and expand opportunities, do black and white Americans still lead se...

What should we expect from democracy, and how likely is it that democracies will live up to those expectations? In The State of Democratic Theory, Ian Shapiro offers a critical assessment of contemporary answers to these questions, lays out his distinctive alternative, and explores its implications for policy and political action.Some accounts of democracy's purposes focus on aggregating preferences; others deal with collective deliberation in search of the common good. Sh...

The social suffering and self-determination of Indigenous peoples are important public policy issues in Canada today. This book asks a fundamental question regarding Canadian-Aboriginal relations: Are self-government agreements an effective path to self-determination?Finding Dahshaa describes self-government negotiations between Canada and the Dehcho, Délînê, and Inuvialuit and Gwich’in peoples in the Northwest Territories. It contrasts boardroom negotiating sessions with ...

New Third Edition!If sociology could teach everyone just one thing, what would it be? The Forest and the Trees is one sociologist's response to the hypothetical-the core insight with the greatest potential to change how people see the world and themselves in relation to it.This Third Edition features:• Updated key references, data, resources, and examples, from global warming, Obama's election, and gay marriage to transgender/cisgender and the Occupy Movemen...