Explore some of the most anticipated new releases for April
New books this month: a guide to building hope for children in a broken world; an exploration of the roots of racial reckoning through the lens of cannabis; and the science of finding habitable planets outside our solar system. Explore these books and a selection of our new and soon-to-be-published titles below.
Architectures of Spatial Justice by Dana Cuff
As state violence, the pandemic, and environmental collapse have exposed systemic inequities, architects and urbanists have been pushed to confront how their actions contribute to racism and climate crisis—and how they can effect change. Establishing an ethics of spatial justice to lead architecture forward, Dana Cuff shows why the discipline requires critical examination—in relation to not only buildings and the capital required to realize them but privilege, power, aesthetics, and sociality. That is, it requires a reevaluation of architecture’s fundamental tenets.
“An inspiring and provocative book that shows how architecture can turn away from its proximity to late capitalism and bend toward social justice.” —Ananya Roy, UCLA; Founding Director of the Institute on Inequality and Democracy
You might also like Architecture’s Theory by Catherine Ingraham
Parenting on Earth: A Philosopher’s Guide to Doing Right by Your Kids—and Everyone Else by Elizabeth Cripps
Environmental catastrophes, pandemics, antibiotic resistance, institutionalized injustice, and war: in a world so out of balance, what does it take—or even mean—to be a good parent? This book is one woman’s search for an answer, as a moral philosopher, activist, and mother. Drawing on the insights of philosophy and the experience of parent activists, Elizabeth Cripps calls for parents to think radically about exactly what we owe our children—and everyone else. She shows how our children’s needs are inseparable from the fate of the earth and the fortunes of others and how much is at stake in parenting today. And she asks the hardest question: should we have kids at all?
“Rousing, rational, and deeply hopeful, this book helped me feel strong enough to face the future—to fight for my children, and for the world.” —Kirsty Sedgman, author of On Being Unreasonable
You might also like The Parent Trap: How to Stop Overloading Parents and Fix Our Inequality Crisis by Nate G. Hilger
Waiting to Inhale: Cannabis Legalization and the Fight for Racial Justice by Akwasi Owusu-Bempah and Tahira Rehmatullah
From the start, the War on Drugs targeted Black, Brown, and Indigenous Americans already disadvantaged by a system stacked against them. Even now, as white Americans who largely escaped the fire capitalize on the legalization movement and a booming cannabis industry, their less fortunate peers continue to suffer the consequences of the systemic racism in policing and failed drug policy that fueled the original crisis. In Waiting to Inhale, Akwasi Owusu-Bempah and Tahira Rehmatullah issue a powerful call for a racial reckoning and provide a roadmap to redress this deep and abiding injustice.
“Owusu-Bempah and Rehmatullah shed light on the unjust past of what is now a multibillion-dollar industry that has yet to reflect the pain and suffering our community has experienced for far too long.” —Al Harrington, Viola CEO; sixteen-year NBA Veteran
You might also like Cannabis: Global Histories edited by Lucas Richert and James H. Mills
Ending Epidemics: A History of Escape from Contagion by Richard Conniff
After the unprecedented events of the COVID-19 pandemic, it may be hard to imagine a time not so long ago when deadly diseases were a routine part of life. It is harder still to fathom that the best medical thinking at that time blamed these diseases on noxious miasmas, bodily humors, and divine dyspepsia. This all began to change on a day in April 1676, when a little-known Dutch merchant described bacteria for the first time. Beginning on that day in Delft and ending on the day in 1978 when the smallpox virus claimed its last known victim, Ending Epidemics explains how we came to understand and prevent many of our worst infectious diseases—and double average life expectancy.
“Ending Epidemics drives home the post-COVID lesson of the peril of complacency.” —Maryn McKenna, author of Big Chicken, Superbug and Beating Back the Devil
You might also like Epidemic Illusions: On the Coloniality of Global Public Health by Eugene T Richardson
Inside the Competitor’s Mindset: How to Predict Their Next Move and Position Yourself for Success by John Horn
Leading companies invest a lot of resources into competitive intelligence, so why are they still caught off guard by the actions and reactions of their competitors? In Inside the Competitor’s Mindset, John Horn shares proven techniques to help businesses think like their competition and understand why they act the way they do. The keys to unlocking this mindset are cognitive empathy and a strategic approach to competitive insight that focuses on the “why” of a competitor’s move, and not just on “what happened.”
“A valuable tool to help companies stay in the lead at a time when competition is intensifying.” —Steve Case, Chairman and CEO, Revolution; cofounder, AOL
You might also like Workforce Ecosystems: Reaching Strategic Goals with People, Partners, and Technologies by Elizabeth J. Altman, David Kiron, Jeff Schwartz and Robin Jones
Worlds Without End: Exoplanets, Habitability, and the Future of Humanity by Chris Impey
Planet Earth, it turns out, may not be the best of all possible worlds—and lately humanity has been carelessly depleting resources, decimating species, and degrading everything needed for life. Meanwhile, human ingenuity has opened up a vista of habitable worlds well beyond our wildest dreams of outposts on Mars. Worlds Without End is an expertly guided tour of this thrilling frontier in astronomy: the search for planets with the potential to host life.
“For anyone interested in the search for life beyond Earth, this is the essential book. It’s all here: every facet of the modern hunt for biology elsewhere. If this book isn’t on your shelf, it should be.” —Seth Shostak, SETI Institute; author of Confessions of an Alien Hunter
You might also like Off-Earth: Ethical Questions and Quandaries for Living in Outer Space by Erika Nesvold
Causal Inference by Paul R. Rosenbaum
Which of two antiviral drugs does the most to save people infected with Ebola virus? Does a daily glass of wine prolong or shorten life? Does winning the lottery make you more or less likely to go bankrupt? Causal Inference provides a brief and nontechnical introduction to randomized experiments, propensity scores, natural experiments, instrumental variables, sensitivity analysis, and quasi-experimental devices. Ideas are illustrated with examples from medicine, epidemiology, economics and business, the social sciences, and public policy.
You might also like Elements of Causal Inference: Foundations and Learning Algorithms by Jonas Peters, Dominik Janzing and Bernhard Schölkopf