New Books: Social Sciences

Michel Foucault's philosophy has made an indelible impact on Western thought, and his History of Sexuality series--which traces cultural and intellectual notions of sexuality, arguing that it is profoundly shaped by the power structures applied to it--is one of his most influential works. At the time of his death in 1984, he had completed--but not yet edited or published--the fourth volume, which posits that the origins of totalitarian self-surveillance began with the Christian practice of confession. This is a text both sweeping and deeply personal, as Foucault--born into a French Catholic family--undoubtedly wrestled with these issues himself.

What makes a life fulfilling and meaningful? The simple but surprising answer is: relationships. The stronger our relationships, the more likely we are to live happy, satisfying, and healthier lives. In fact, the Harvard Study of Adult Development reveals that the strength of our connections with others can predict the health of both our bodies and our brains as we go through life. The invaluable insights in this book emerge from the revealing personal stories of hundreds of participants in the Harvard Study as they were followed year after year for their entire adult lives, and this wisdom was bolstered by research findings from many other studies.

Memento Mori takes the reader on a ghoulish but beautiful tour of some of the world's more unusual sacred sites and traditions, in which human remains are displayed for the benefit of the living. From burial caves in Indonesia festooned with bones, to skulls smoking cigarettes, wearing beanie hats and sunglasses, and decorated with garlands of flowers in South America, Koudounaris ventures beyond the grave to find messages of hope and salvation. His photographs and commentaries reveal that in many places, the realms of the living and the dead are nowhere near so distinct as contemporary Western society would have us believe.

Edward Said was the pioneer of postcolonial studies, a tireless champion for his native Palestine, and an erudite literary critic whose books continue to impact students and thinkers today. In Places of Mind, Timothy Brennan provides the first complete biography of his thesis adviser, who emerges as a self-doubting, tender, eloquent advocate of literature's dramatic effects on politics and civic life. Brennan traces the Arab influences on Said's thinking along with the tutelage by Lebanese statesmen, offbeat modernist auteurs, and New York literati as Said grew into a scholar whose writings changed the face of university life forever.

In December 2017, U.S. immigration authorities shackled and abused 92 African refugees for two days while attempting to deport them by plane to Somalia. When national media broke the story, government officials lied about what happened. Shackled tells the story of this harrowing failed deportation, the resulting class action litigation, and two men's search for safety in the United States over the course of three long years. Through firsthand accounts, immigration lawyer Rebecca Sharpless brings to life the harsh consequences of the U.S. deportation system and how racism and antiblackness operate within it.

Saul shows that two linguistic devices, dogwhistles and figleaves, have played a crucial role in making political discourse more racist and conspiracist. Some dogwhistles serve to disguise messages that would otherwise be rejected as unacceptable, allowing them to be transmitted surreptitiously; while other dogwhistles work by influencing people in ways that they are not aware of, and which they would likely reject were they aware. Figleaves take messages that could easily be recognized as unacceptable, and provide just enough cover that people become more willing to accept them. Saul shows how these dogwhistles and figleaves have both exploited and widened existing divisions in society.

Many Americans hold substantial misperceptions about what the government actually does. However, they get the facts wrong not because they are lazy, stupid, or blinded by partisan loyalty. Rather, information about existing policy is largely unavailable to them. Faced with these gaps in their knowledge, people often engage in inductive reasoning about public policies. They draw on cues from the environment to make inferences about what the government does. Many of these inferences are incorrect, and taken together they make up what Thorson calls the "invented state": widespread misperceptions about public policy.

Since its publication in 1651 Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan has unsettled and challenged how we understand the world. Condemned and vilified by each new generation, his cold political vision continues to see through any number of human political and ethical vanities. Since the collapse of the USSR, so many poisonous ideas have flourished, and yet our liberal certainties treat them as aberrations that will somehow dissolve. Hobbes would not be so confident. As a species we always seem to be struggling to face the reality of base and delusive human instincts. Might a more self-aware, realistic, and disabused ethics help us?

Bringing together a remarkable group of scholars and experts, this volume confronts the beginning and end of the Constitutional right to obtain an abortion in the United States, from the landmark decision in Roe v. Wade to its shocking overturning in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health fifty years later. This is a critical moment in which to reflect on the past, present, and future of abortion regulations and legislation in the U.S.

This book fills longstanding gaps in negotiation, a field that too often assumes everyone in diverse societies navigates the same realities. Elite solutions do not trickle down easily to those breaking cycles of poverty and disempowerment. Asking your boss for a raise at a tech company, for example, requires a different negotiation strategy than asking Social Services to help you get your kids back from the court. Context matters. This book makes central how heritage, ethnicity, wealth, gender, age, education, and other factors influence what we ask for, how people respond to our requests, as well as what is at stake when we negotiate.