Books published by publisher Basic Books

Hyperpartisanship is as old as American democracy. But now, acrimony is not confined to a moment; it's a permanent state of affairs and has seeped into every part of the political process. Identifying the overriding problems that have led Congress—and the United States—to the brink of institutional collapse, It's Even Worse Than It Looks profoundly altered the debate about why America's government has become so dysfunctional. Through a new preface and afterword, Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein bring the story forward, examining the 2012 presidential campaign and exploring the prospects of a less dysfunctional government. As provocative and controversial as ever, It's Even Worse Than It Looks will continue to set the terms of our political debate in the years to come.

How should we live? According to philosopher and biologist Massimo Pigliucci, the greatest guidance to this essential question lies in combining the wisdom of 24 centuries of philosophy with the latest research from 21st century science. In Answers for Aristotle, Pigliucci argues that the combination of science and philosophy first pioneered by Aristotle offers us the best possible tool for understanding the world and ourselves. As Aristotle knew, each mode of thought has the power to clarify the other: science provides facts, and philosophy helps us reflect on the values with which to assess them. But over the centuries, the two have become uncoupled, leaving us with questions—about morality, love, friendship, justice, and politics—that neither field could fully answer on its own. Pigliucci argues that only by rejoining each other can modern science and philosophy reach their full potential, while we harness them to help us reach ours. Pigliucci discusses such essential issues as how to tell right from wrong, the nature of love and friendship, and whether we can really ever know ourselves—all in service of helping us find our path to the best possible life. Combining the two most powerful intellectual traditions in history, Answers for Aristotle is a remarkable guide to discovering what really matters and why.

The Romans regarded her as "fatale monstrum" -- a fatal omen. Pascal said the shape of her nose changed the history of the world. Shakespeare portrayed her as an icon of tragic love. But who was Cleopatra, really?We almost feel that we know Cleopatra, but our distorted image of a self-destructive beauty does no justice to Cleopatra's true genius. In Cleopatra, Egyptologist Joyce Tyldesley offers an unexpectedly vivid portrait of a skillful Egyptian ruler. Stripping away our preconceptions, many of them as old as Egypt's Roman conquerors, Cleopatra is a magnificent biography of a most extraordinary queen.

Scary headlines and scarier statistics tell the story of a financial crisis on a scale not seen in decades—certainly not within the lifetime of most Americans. Moreover, this is a worldwide financial crisis. Financial institutions on both sides of the Atlantic have either collapsed or have been saved from collapse by government bailouts, as a result of buying securities based on American housing values that eroded or evaporated.Now completely revised in paperback, The Housing Boom and Bust is designed to unravel the tangled threads of that story. It also attempts to determine whether what is being done to deal with the problem is more likely to make things better or worse.

Bowlby's seminal contribution to the way we understand attachment concludes with an examination of loss. He offers not only a new developmental model but also rare insight into the dynamics of mourning, the problems of depression, and the processes of accommodation and healing. An appreciation by Daniel Stern, whose research on the mother/infant bond affirms and expands on Bowlby's work, fittingly graces this new edition.

How the study of causality revolutionized science and the worldCause and effect: it's at the center of scientific inquiry, and yet for decades scientists had no way of answering simple questions, such as whether smoking causes cancer. In The Book of Why, Judea Pearl and Dana Mackenzie show how Pearl's work on causality has broken through this stalemate, unleashing a revolution in our knowledge of the world. Anyone who wants to understand how science, the human mind, or artificial intelligence works needs The Book of Why."Illuminating. . . a valuable lesson on the history of ideas." --New York Times "This book really gets you thinking about cause and effect as it applies to issues of our time. . . . Extraordinary." --Science Friday

"If one book was all that could be passed on to the next generation of scientists it would undoubtedly have to be Six Easy Pieces."- John Gribbin, New ScientistIt was Richard Feynman's outrageous and scintillating method of teaching that earned him legendary status among students and professors of physics. From 1961 to 1963, Feynman delivered a series of lectures at the California Institute of Technology that revolutionized the teaching of physics around the world. Six Easy Pieces, taken from these famous Lectures on Physics, represent the most accessible material from the series.In these classic lessons, Feynman introduces the general reader to the following topics: atoms, basic physics, energy, gravitation, quantum mechanics, and the relationship of physics to other topics. With his dazzling and inimitable wit, Feynman presents each discussion with a minimum of jargon. Filled with wonderful examples and clever illustrations, Six Easy Pieces is the ideal introduction to the fundamentals of physics by one of the most admired and accessible physicists of modern times.

The first book to bring to life the influential friendship between Malcolm X and Muhammad AliIn 1962, no one believed that the obnoxious Cassius Clay would ever become the heavyweight champion of the world. But Malcolm X saw the potential in Clay, not just for boxing greatness, but as a means of spreading the Nation of Islam's radical message. Malcolm secretly molded Clay into Muhammad Ali--a patriotic boxing star in public, and a radical reformer behind the scenes. Soon, however, their friendship would sour, with disastrous and far-reaching consequences.Based on previously untapped sources, Blood Brothers is the first book to offer an in-depth portrait of this complex bond. An extraordinary narrative of love, betrayal, and violence, this story is a window into the lives of two of our greatest national icons, and the tumultuous period in American history that they helped to shape.

In this "compelling scientific detective story," a leading neuroscientist looks for the nature of human kindness in the brains of heroes and psychopaths (Wall Street Journal).At fourteen, Amber could boast of killing her guinea pig, threatening to burn down her home, and seducing men in exchange for gifts. She used the tools she had available to get what she wanted, and, she didn't care about the damage she inflicted. A few miles away, Lenny Skutnik was so concerned about the life of a drowning woman that he jumped into the ice-cold river to save her. How could Amber care so little about others' lives, while Lenny cared so much? Abigail Marsh studied the brains of both psychopathic children and extreme altruists and found that the answer lies in our ability to recognize others' fear. And as The Fear Factor argues, by studying people who demonstrate heroic and evil behaviors, we can learn more about how human morality is coded in the brain.A path-breaking read, The Fear Factor is essential for anyone seeking to understand the heights and depths of human nature. span

This is a plain-English explanation of how we got into the current economic disaster that developed out of the economics and politics of the housing boom and bust. The “creative” financing of home mortgages and the even more “creative” marketing of financial securities based on American mortgages to countries around the world, are part of the story of how a financial house of cards was built up—and then suddenly collapsed.The politics behind all this is another story full of strange twists. No punches are pulled when discussing politicians of either party, the financial dangers they created, or the distractions they created later to escape their own responsibility for what happened when the financial house of cards in the financial markets collapsed.What to do, now that we are in the midst of an economic disaster, is yet another story—one whose ending we do not yet know, but one whose outlines and implications are explored to reveal some surprising and sobering lessons.

Thomas Sowell's indispensable examination of the most popular economic fallaciesIn Economic Facts and Fallacies, Thomas Sowell exposes some of the most popular fallacies about economic issues in a lively manner that does not require any prior knowledge of economics. These fallacies include many beliefs widely disseminated in the media and by politicians, such as fallacies about urban problems, income differences, male-female economic differences, as well as economic fallacies about academia, about race, and about Third World countries.Sowell shows that fallacies are not simply crazy ideas but in fact have a certain plausibility that gives them their staying power--and makes careful examination of their flaws both necessary and important.