Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

When scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now, and they come to the chapter "Y2K to March 2004," what will they say was the most crucial development? The attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the Iraq war? Or the convergence of technology and events that allowed India, China, and so many other countries to become part of the global supply chain for services and manufacturing, creating... (more)

Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture

Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture

by Ariel Levy

Meet the Female Chauvinist Pig -- the new brand of "empowered woman" who embraces "raunch culture" wherever she finds it. In her groundbreaking book, New York magazine writer Ariel Levy argues that, if male chauvinist pigs of years past thought of women as pieces of meat, Female Chauvinist Pigs of today are doing them one better, making sex objects of other women -- and of themselves. Irresistibly witty and... (more)

The City: A Global History (Modern Library Chronicles)

The City: A Global History (Modern Library Chronicles)

by Joel Kotkin

If humankind can be said to have a single greatest creation, it would be those places that represent the most eloquent expression of our species’s ingenuity, beliefs, and ideals: the city. In this authoritative and engagingly written account, the acclaimed urbanist and bestselling author examines the evolution of urban life over the millennia and, in doing so, attempts to answer the age-old question: What makes a... (more)

Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers

Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers

by Alissa Quart

An incisive exposŽ of the underhanded advertising initiatives that target teens-and an exploration of their disturbing consequences. Generation Y has grown up in an age of the brand, bombarded by name products. In Branded , Alissa Quart illuminates the unsettling new reality of marketing to teenagers, as well as the quieter but no less worrisome forms of teen branding: the teen consultants who work for... (more)

Transmission

by Hari Kunzru

In a networked world, anything can change in an instant, and sometimes everything does… Transmission , Hari Kunzru’s new novel of love and lunacy, immigration and immunity, introduces a daydreaming Indian computer geek whose luxurious fantasies about life in America are shaken when he accepts a California job offer. Lonely and naïve, Arjun Mehta bides his time as a lowly assistant virus tester, pining away... (more)

Living Standards and the Wealth of Nations: Successes and Failures in Real Convergence

Living Standards and the Wealth of Nations: Successes and Failures in Real Convergence

by Stanley Fischer

The question of convergence, or under what conditions the per capita income levels of developing countries can catch up to those found in advanced economies, is critical for understanding economic growth and development. Convergence has happened in many countries and appears to be taking place now in China and India—yet in general per capita income levels in the poorer countries do not converge towards those of... (more)

Nation of Rebels: Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture

Nation of Rebels: Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture

by Joseph Heath, Andrew Potter

In this wide-ranging and perceptive work of cultural criticism, Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter shatter the most important myth that dominates much of radical political, economic, and cultural thinking. The idea of a counterculture -- a world outside of the consumer-dominated world that encompasses us -- pervades everything from the antiglobalization movement to feminism and environmentalism. And the idea that... (more)

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Tags: market forces

The World Is Flat

A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century

by Thomas L. Friedman