Explore some of our most anticipated new releases for February 2024
This month: a primer on how business leaders can move their DEI efforts from intention to impact; an examination of the unsettling history of photography and its relationship to global antiblackness; a field guide to the patient-led revolution for better health care; and more. Explore these books and a selection of our other new and soon-to-be-released titles below.
From Intention to Impact: A Practical Guide to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion by Malia C. Lazu
In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, corporate America has doubled down on its public intentions to be more inclusive and equitable. Yet beyond the pledges it is difficult to see which system changes make a real difference. In From Intention to Impact, Malia Lazu draws on her background as a community organizer, her corporate career as a bank president, and now her experience as a leading DEI consultant to explain what has been holding organizations back and what they need to do better. First and foremost, she recognizes that truly moving from intention to impact means targeting and changing the traditions and culture that normalize whiteness.
You might also like Leading in the Digital World: How to Foster Creativity, Collaboration, and Inclusivity by Amit S. Mukherjee
Mortevivum: Photography and the Politics of the Visual by Kimberly Juanita Brown
Since photography’s invention, black life has been presented as fraught, short, agonizingly filled with violence, and indifferent to intervention: living death—mortevivum—in a series of still frames that refuse a complex humanity. In Mortevivum, Kimberly Juanita Brown shows us how the visual logic of documentary photography and the cultural legacy of empire have come together to produce the understanding that blackness and suffering—and death—are inextricable. Brown traces this idea from the earliest images of the enslaved to the latest newspaper photographs of black bodies, from the United States and South Africa to Haiti and Rwanda, documenting the enduring, pernicious connection between photography and a global history of antiblackness.
You might also like An Anthology of Blackness: The State of Black Design edited by Terresa Moses and Omari Souza
Rebel Health: A Field Guide to the Patient-Led Revolution in Medical Care by Susannah Fox
Anyone who has fallen off the conveyer belt of mainstream health care and into the shadowy corners of illness knows what a dark place it is to land. Where is the infrastructure, the information, the guidance? What should you do next? In Rebel Health, Susannah Fox draws on twenty years of tracking the expert networks of patients, survivors, and caregivers who have come of age between the cracks of the health care system to offer a way forward. Covering everything from diabetes to ALS to Moebius Syndrome to chronic disease management, Fox taps into the wisdom of these individuals, learns their ways, and fuels the rebel alliance that is building up our collective capacity for better health.
You might also like Tornado of Life: A Doctor’s Journey through Constraints and Creativity in the ER by Jay Baruch
The Value of Values: How Leaders Can Grow Their Businesses and Enhance Their Careers by Doing the Right Thing by Daniel Aronson
Acting on values—doing good for the benefit of all—can substantially benefit the bottom line, but many business leaders mistakenly believe that doing the right thing lowers profits. This belief is the greatest barrier holding businesses back from being more financially and competitively successful—and delivering more good for the world. Not only can it be a winning business strategy to act on values, as Daniel Aronson suggests in The Value of Values, but it is also a savvy choice, increasing a company’s power, profit, and competitive advantage—in many cases with little additional investment or risk.
You might also like Open Strategy: Mastering Disruption from Outside the C-Suite by Christian Stadler, Julia Hautz, Kurt Matzler and Stephan Friedrich von den Eichen
The AI Playbook: Mastering the Rare Art of Machine Learning Deployment by Eric Siegel
The greatest tool is the hardest to use. Machine learning is the world’s most important general-purpose technology—but it’s notoriously difficult to launch. Outside Big Tech and a handful of other leading companies, machine learning initiatives routinely fail to deploy, never realizing value. What’s missing? A specialized business practice suitable for wide adoption. In The AI Playbook, bestselling author Eric Siegel presents the gold-standard, six-step practice for ushering machine learning projects from conception to deployment. He illustrates the practice with stories of success and of failure, including revealing case studies from UPS, FICO, and prominent dot-coms. This disciplined approach serves both sides: It empowers business professionals, and it establishes a sorely needed strategic framework for data professionals.
You might also like Working with AI: Real Stories of Human-Machine Collaboration by Thomas H. Davenport and Steven M. Miller
Universal Basic Income by Karl Widerquist
The growing movement for universal basic income (UBI) has been gaining attention from politics and the media with the audacious idea of a regular, unconditional cash grant for everyone as a right of citizenship. This volume in the Essential Knowledge series presents the first short, solid UBI introduction that is neither academic nor polemic. It takes a position in favor of UBI, but its primary goal remains the provision of essential knowledge by answering the fundamental questions about it: What is UBI? How does it work? What are the arguments for and against it? What is the evidence?
You might also like Macroeconomics by Felipe Larraín B.
A Darwinian Survival Guide: Hope for the Twenty-First Century by Daniel R. Brooks and Salvatore J. Agosta
Despite efforts to sustain civilization, humanity faces existential threats from overpopulation, globalized trade and travel, urbanization, and global climate change. In A Darwinian Survival Guide, Daniel Brooks and Salvatore Agosta offer a novel—and hopeful—perspective on how to meet these tremendous challenges by changing the discourse from sustainability to survival. Darwinian evolution, the world’s only theory of survival, is the means by which the biosphere has persisted and renewed itself following past environmental perturbations, and it has never failed, they explain. Even in the aftermath of mass extinctions, enough survivors remain with the potential to produce a new diversified biosphere.
You might also like Off-Earth: Ethical Questions and Quandaries for Living in Outer Space by Erika Nesvold
Devotion by Garrett Bradley
Garrett Bradley works across narrative, documentary, and experimental modes of filmmaking to address themes such as race, class, familial relationships, social justice, and cultural histories in the United States. Her collaborative and research-based approach to filmmaking is often inspired by the real-life stories of her protagonists. This book explores the many varied themes of Bradley’s work and features interviews and conversations with, as well as commissioned essays from, Tina Campt, Josie Roland Hodson, Ashley Clark, and Kevin Quashie. This is the first volume in a new series of readers co-published with Lisson Gallery entitled Re:, which will respond or refer back to a number of its artists and themes past and present.
You might also like In the Black Fantastic by Ekow Eshun