Seeing Us In Them

Group empathy across lines of difference is a major force for reducing conflict, promoting cooperation, and counteracting ethnonationalism.

Ethnocentrism—our tendency to partition the human world into in-groups and out-groups—pervades societies around the world. Surprisingly, though, few scholars have explored its role in political life. Donald Kinder and Cindy Kam fill this gap with Us Against Them, their definitive explanation of how ethnocentrism shapes American public opinion. Arguing that humans are broadly predisposed to ethnocentrism, Kinder and Kam explore its impact on our attitudes toward an array of issues, including the war on terror, humanitarian assistance, immigration, the sanctity of marriage, and the reform of social programs. The authors ground their study in previous theories from a wide range of disciplines, establishing a new framework for understanding what ethnocentrism is and how it becomes politically consequential. They also marshal a vast trove of survey evidence to identify the conditions under which ethnocentrism shapes public opinion. While ethnocentrism is widespread in the United States, the authors demonstrate that its political relevance depends on circumstance. Exploring the implications of these findings for political knowledge, cosmopolitanism, and societies outside the United States, Kinder and Kam add a new dimension to our understanding of how democracy functions.

New York Times bestseller "A cogent analysis of the concurrent Trump/Brexit phenomena and a dire warning about what lies ahead...a lucid, provocative book." --Kirkus Reviews Those who championed globalization once promised a world of winners, one in which free trade would lift all the world's boats, and extremes of left and right would give way to universally embraced liberal values. The past few years have shattered this fantasy, as those who've paid the price for globalism's gains have turned to populist and nationalist politicians to express fury at the political, media, and corporate elites they blame for their losses. The United States elected an anti-immigration, protectionist president who promised to "put America first" and turned a cold eye on alliances and treaties. Across Europe, anti-establishment political parties made gains not seen in decades. The United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. And as Ian Bremmer shows in this eye-opening book, populism is still spreading. Globalism creates plenty of both winners and losers, and those who've missed out want to set things right. They've seen their futures made obsolete. They hear new voices and see new faces all about them. They feel their cultures shift. They don't trust what they read. They've begun to understand the world as a battle for the future that pits "us" vs. "them." Bremmer points to the next wave of global populism, one that hits emerging nations before they have fully emerged. As in Europe and America, citizens want security and prosperity, and they're becoming increasingly frustrated with governments that aren't capable of providing them. To protect themselves, many government will build walls, both digital and physical. For instance... * In Brazil and other fast-developing countries, civilians riot when higher expectations for better government aren't being met--the downside of their own success in lifting millions from poverty. * In Mexico, South Africa, Turkey, Indonesia, Egypt and other emerging states, frustration with government is on the rise and political battle lines are being drawn. * In China, where awareness of inequality is on the rise, the state is building a system to use the data that citizens generate to contain future demand for change * In India, the tools now used to provide essential services for people who've never had them can one day be used to tighten the ruling party's grip on power. When human beings feel threatened, we identify the danger and look for allies. We use the enemy, real or imagined, to rally friends to our side. This book is about the ways in which people will define these threats as fights for survival. It's about the walls governments will build to protect insiders from outsiders and the state from its people. And it's about what we can do about it.

The guide to getting hired, being promoted, and thriving professionally for the 40 million people of color in the workplace—from the CEO and cofounder of Jopwell, the leading career advancement platform for Black, Latinx, and Native American students and professionals. Let Them See You is a collection of Braswell’s straight-talking advice and mentorship for diverse careerists, from college students to mid-level professionals. It’s also an invitation for diversity champions to listen in on the guidance and perspective Braswell provides, particularly for young diverse workers—the population that will make up the majority of the US workforce by 2030. In Let Them See You, Braswell briefly chronicles how the majority-culture workplace evolved and why it’s a business imperative to have a more diverse workforce, and then explains how you can: · overcome not-so-invisible obstacles · create perceived value · get recognition · be true to yourself at work · build a personal brand · harness fear of failure · embrace uncomfortable conversations, and · drive diversity and inclusion, whether you’re entry-level or in management In essence, Braswell delivers all the context, tactics, and language you need to let them see you.

“Surprising and remarkable…Toggling between big ideas, technical details, and his personal intellectual journey, Greene writes a thesis suitable to both airplane reading and PhD seminars.”—The Boston Globe Our brains were designed for tribal life, for getting along with a select group of others (Us) and for fighting off everyone else (Them). But modern times have forced the world’s tribes into a shared space, resulting in epic clashes of values along with unprecedented opportunities. As the world shrinks, the moral lines that divide us become more salient and more puzzling. We fight over everything from tax codes to gay marriage to global warming, and we wonder where, if at all, we can find our common ground. A grand synthesis of neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy, Moral Tribes reveals the underlying causes of modern conflict and lights the way forward. Greene compares the human brain to a dual-mode camera, with point-and-shoot automatic settings (“portrait,” “landscape”) as well as a manual mode. Our point-and-shoot settings are our emotions—efficient, automated programs honed by evolution, culture, and personal experience. The brain’s manual mode is its capacity for deliberate reasoning, which makes our thinking flexible. Point-and-shoot emotions make us social animals, turning Me into Us. But they also make us tribal animals, turning Us against Them. Our tribal emotions make us fight—sometimes with bombs, sometimes with words—often with life-and-death stakes. A major achievement from a rising star in a new scientific field, Moral Tribes will refashion your deepest beliefs about how moral thinking works and how it can work better.

While attending church as a youth, Barbara Wilson often heard of miracles occurring throughout history without any idea that these everyday gifts from God could be so accessible, especially for her. Yet through her own unfortunate experiences with tragedy and heartbreak, Barbara would eventually discover that miracles are available to anyone seeking divine intervention. In a poignant memoir, Barbara offers a candid perspective into her life story with the intention of providing hope and empowerment to those living with addictive disorders or serious medical challenges. While leading others through her fascinating journey beginning with her childhood, Barbara shares insight into what it is like to witness a near-death experience, explores the miracles encountered through this experience and afterwards, and offers ways for others to access and interpret spiritual messages and signs in order to effectively manage challenges and manifest positive outcomes. Do You See Them? There Are Angels Everywhere! is the memoir of a Christian’s journey through life as she learned to accept and embrace the miracles that prepared her for tragedy and ultimately inner peace.

An Oprah's Book Club selection: this "electrifying" book (Washington Post) pays tribute to the wisdom and resilience of children even in the face of the most agonizing circumstances. Uwem Akpan's stunning stories humanize the perils of poverty and violence so piercingly that few readers will feel they've ever encountered Africa so immediately. The eight-year-old narrator of "An Ex-Mas Feast" needs only enough money to buy books and pay fees in order to attend school. Even when his twelve-year-old sister takes to the streets to raise these meager funds, his dream can't be granted. Food comes first. His family lives in a street shanty in Nairobi, Kenya, but their way of both loving and taking advantage of each other strikes a universal chord. In the second of his stories published in a New Yorker special fiction issue, Akpan takes us far beyond what we thought we knew about the tribal conflict in Rwanda. The story is told by a young girl, who, with her little brother, witnesses the worst possible scenario between parents. They are asked to do the previously unimaginable in order to protect their children. This singular collection will also take the reader inside Nigeria, Benin, and Ethiopia, revealing in beautiful prose the harsh consequences for children of life in Africa. Akpan's voice is a literary miracle, rendering lives of almost unimaginable deprivation and terror into stories that are nothing short of transcendent. One of the best books of the year: Wall Street Journal, People, Bloomberg News, Christian Science Monitor, Washington Post Book World, and Entertainment Weekly

The widespread uptake of digital platforms – from YouTube and Instagram to Twitch and TikTok – is reconfiguring cultural production in profound, complex, and highly uneven ways. Longstanding media industries are experiencing tremendous upheaval, while new industrial formations – live-streaming, social media influencing, and podcasting, among others – are evolving at breakneck speed. Poell, Nieborg, and Duffy explore both the processes and the implications of platformization across the cultural industries, identifying key changes in markets, infrastructures, and governance at play in this ongoing transformation, as well as pivotal shifts in the practices of labor, creativity, and democracy. The authors foreground three particular industries – news, gaming, and social media creation – and also draw upon examples from music, advertising, and more. Diverse in its geographic scope, Platforms and Cultural Production builds on the latest research and accounts from across North America, Western Europe, Southeast Asia, and China to reveal crucial differences and surprising parallels in the trajectories of platformization across the globe. Offering a novel conceptual framework grounded in illuminating case studies, this book is essential for students, scholars, policymakers, and practitioners seeking to understand how the institutions and practices of cultural production are transforming – and what the stakes are for understanding platform power.