NCW Libraries

How a band of antislavery leaders recovered the radical philosophical inspirations of the first American Revolution to defeat the slaveholders' oligarchy in the Civil War.

"A comprehensive framework for ethical psychedelic medicine that applies a social-justice lens to entheogenic practice and focuses on ethics, boundaries, and informed use"-- Provided by publisher.

"It's easy to look at the state of the world around us and feel hopeless. We live in an era marked by war, climate crisis, political polarization, and acute inequality-and yet many of us feel powerless to do anything about these profound issues. We've been assured that unfettered capitalism is necessary to ensure our freedom and prosperity, even as we see its corrosive effects proliferating daily. Why, in our age of unchecked corporate power, are...

"To most of us, it seems like recent developments in artificial intelligence emerged out of nowhere to pose unprecedented threats to humankind. But to Dr. Joy Buolamwini, who has been at the forefront of AI research, this moment has been a long time in the making. In Unmasking AI, Buolamwini explains how we've arrived at an era of AI harms and oppression, and what we can do to avoid its pitfalls. After tinkering with robotics as a high school student...

This story of a technological paradise suddenly turned nightmare is a genuine shocker. For $1,000 a day, vacationers can indulge whims at the "theme park" called Westworld where the gunhands and dance-hall girls are all robots programmed to serve the guests' violent and lustful fantasies--until something goes wrong with their circuitry.

"Big tech has replaced capitalism's twin pillars--markets and profit--with its platforms and rents. With every click and scroll, we labor like serfs to increase its power. Welcome to technofeudalism..."--

As head of TED, Chris Anderson has had a ringside view of the world's boldest thinkers sharing their most uplifting ideas. Inspired by them and the unique insights he gained from how online sharing transformed TED into a global beacon of transformative ideas, he believes there's a pathway back from outrage to optimism. It all comes down to reimagining the role that generosity can play in our connected era. Anderson shows how the same technologies...

"A timely, nuanced work that dissects the thorny debate around cultural appropriation and the literary imagination. How do we properly define cultural appropriation, and is it always wrong? If we can write in the voice of another, should we? And if so, what questions do we need to consider first? In Appropriate, creative writing professor Paisley Rekdal addresses a young writer to delineate how the idea of cultural appropriation has evolved--and perhaps...