"From world-renowned economist Paul Collier, a candid diagnosis of the many failures of the greatest economic system in history, and a pragmatic and realistic vision for how we can repair it. Western society, once thriving, is being torn apart by deep new rifts in its social and economic fabric. It's now populous cities versus rural counties; the highly skilled elite versus the less educated; wealthy versus developing countries. As these breaks have...

Explains the "black swan" phenomenon, which is an event characterized by its unpredictability, massive impact, and the explanations used to try and make it appear less random, and explores how "black swans" throughout history have influenced civilizations, religions, and governments.

Klosterman "visualizes the contemporary world as it will appear to those who'll perceive it as the distant past, [asking] questions that are profound in their simplicity: How certain are we about our understanding of gravity? How certain are we about our understanding of time? What will be the defining memory of rock music, five hundred years from today? How seriously should we view the content of our dreams? How seriously should we view the content...

"Friedman zooms in on the region that has, for five hundred years, been the cultural hotbed of the world--Europe--and examines the most basic and fascinating building block of the region: culture. Analyzing the fault lines that have existed for centuries--and which have led to two world wars and dozens more conflicts--Friedman walks us through the 'flashpoints' that are still smoldering beneath the surface and are on course to erupt again"--

The authors document how four forces--exponential technologies, the DIY innovator, the Technophilanthropist, and the Rising Billion--are conspiring to solve our biggest problems. "Abundance" establishes hard targets for change and lays out a strategic roadmap for governments, industry and entrepreneurs, giving us plenty of reason for optimism.

"The acclaimed author of the influential bestseller The Black Swan, Nicholas Nassim Taleb takes a next big step with a deceptively simple concept: the "antifragile." Like the Greek hydra that grows two heads for each one it loses, people, systems, and institutions that are antifragile not only withstand shocks, they benefit from them. In a modern world dominated by chaos and uncertainty, Antifragile is a revolutionary vision from one of the most subversive...

"What if Atlantis wasn't a myth, but an early precursor to a new age of great flooding? Across the globe, scientists and civilians alike are noticing rapidly rising sea levels, and higher and higher tides pushing more water directly into the places we live, from our most vibrant, historic cities to our last remaining traditional coastal villages. With each crack in the great ice sheets of the Arctic and Antarctica, and each tick upwards of Earth's...

The conservative stalwart proposes a bold vision of the future: America is on the cusp of a renaissance, a new birth of technological and scientific innovation that will dramatically transform the prosperity and quality of life of every American. Our biggest enemy? Special interest groups, powerful lobbyists, and government bureaucrats who are determined to squash, control, or prevent these innovations--and permanently change the future of America....

Celebrated economic policy maker and political theorist Robert B. Reich argues that the nation's 2008 economic collapse is the result of an increasing concentration of income and wealth at the top--and a middle class that had to go deeply into debt to maintain a decent standard of living. To ensure that prosperity is widely shared, he continues, requires the implementation of a much broader safety net for the middle class financed by higher marginal...

Jimmy Tock comes into the world on the very night his grandfather leaves it. Rudy Tock spends long hours walking the corridors between the expectant fathers' waiting room and his dying father's bedside. When Josef Tock suddenly sits up in bed and speaks for the first and last time since his stroke, he says that there will be five dark days in the life of his grandson-each occurring at different times of his life. Rudy is all too ready to discount...