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Traffic : genius, rivalry, and delusion in the billion-dollar race to go viral / by Smith, Ben(Journalist),author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The origin story of the Age of Disinformation: the candid inside tale of two online media rivals, Jonah Peretti of HuffPost and Buzzfeed and Nick Denton of Gawker Media, whose delirious pursuit of attention at scale in the first two decades of the 21st century helped release the dark forces that would overtake the internet and American society. If attention is the new oil, Ben Smith's Traffic is the story of the time between the first gusher and the impact of climate change. The curtain opens in Soho in the early 2000's, in that brief moment after the first dotcom crash and before Google, Apple, and Facebook exploded, when it seemed that New York City rather than Silicon Valley might become tech's center of gravity. There, within a few square blocks, Nick Denton's merry band of nihilists at his growing Gawker empire and Jonah Peretti's sunnier crew at HuffPost and Buzzfeed were building the foundations of click-bait media. It was tech's age of innocence: the old establishment might have been discredited by the Iraq War, but digital news would facilitate the spread of truth. Progressive activists were first to the scene, and for a while it seemed they were the scene. After all, didn't they get Barack Obama elected? Ben Smith, who would go on to earn a controversial reputation as Buzzfeed's editor-in-chief, was either there or talked to everyone who was, and in his trademark fashion, he chronicles it all with marvelous lucidity scored with dark wit, sparing no one--and certainly not himself. Denton and Gawker were seen at the time as the black hats, but in Smith's hands the story is much more nuanced: yes, Denton's ideology of radical transparency was problematic, but at least he had an ideology. Jonah Peretti survived long after Denton's Gawker perished because his focus on clicks was relentlessly content-agnostic. But as with the proverbial sorcerer's apprentice, unintended consequences began to gain momentum. At the heart of Traffic is one of the great ironies of our time: the internet, which was going to help the left remake the world in its image, has become the motive force of right populism. As Smith and his colleagues and rivals thought they were inventing digital media, other figures, flickering around the margins of their story, had different designs. People like Steve Bannon and Andrew Breitbart and Gavin McInnes and Chris Poole, the creator of 4chan, all seemed like minor characters in the narrative in which Nick and Jonah and crew were the stars. By 2020, any reasonable observer might wonder if the opposite wasn't the case. To understand how we got here, Traffic is essential and enthralling reading"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Denton, Nicholas.; Peretti, Jonah.; Digital media; Internet industry; News Web sites;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Booze, cigarettes, and constitutional dust-ups : Canada's quest for interprovincial free trade / by Manucha, Ryan,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Gerard Comeau, a retiree living in rural New Brunswick, never thought his booze run would turn him into a Canadian hero. In 2012, after Comeau had driven to Quebec to purchase cheaper beer and crossed back into his home province, police officers participating in a low-stakes sting operation tailed and detained him, confiscated his haul, and levied a fine of less than 300 dollars. Countries routinely engage in trade wars and erect barriers to protect domestic industries from foreign competition. Comeau, however, was detained by the full force of the law for engaging in commerce with a Canadian business on the other side of a domestic border. With Comeau's story as its starting point, Booze, Cigarettes, and Constitutional Dust-Ups tells the fascinating tale of Canadian interprovincial trade. Ryan Manucha examines the historical, political, and legal forces that gave rise to the regulation of interprovincial commerce in Canada, the trade-offs that come with liberalized domestic free trade, and Canada's enduring pursuit of economic union. The pandemic laid bare the vulnerability of global supply chains, the fickleness of foreign trading partners, and the surprising slipperiness of domestic trade. In a global climate of increasingly isolationist geopolitics, the history and possibility of Canada's economic union, quirks and all, deserve careful attention."--
Subjects: Free trade; Free trade; Interstate commerce; Interprovincial commerce;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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We've got issues : how you can stand strong for America's soul and sanity / by McGraw, Phillip C.,1950-author.;
Do you think mainstream America needs to find its voice? If so, you're not alone. The country is under attack by extremists at the fringes who put ideology before sanity and stoke division for their own gain. They are robbing America of its common sense and denying empirical truths, and we're all suffering the consequences. From Dr. Phil, the #1 NYT bestselling author and beloved television host, comes a new book on how to come home to our core values, fortify our families, and re-embrace self-determination and self-governance.
Subjects: Political culture;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Beyond order : 12 more rules for life / by Peterson, Jordan B.,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The highly anticipated sequel to the global bestseller 12 Rules for Life. In 12 Rules for Life, acclaimed public thinker and clinical psychologist Jordan B. Peterson offered an antidote to the chaos in our lives: eternal truths applied to modern anxieties. His insights have helped millions of readers and resonated powerfully around the world. Now in his long-awaited sequel, Peterson goes further, showing that part of life's meaning comes from reaching out into the domain beyond what we know, and adapting to an ever-transforming world. While an excess of chaos threatens us with uncertainty, an excess of order leads to a lack of curiosity and creative vitality. Beyond Order therefore calls on us to balance the two fundamental principles of reality--order and chaos--and reveals the profound meaning that can be found on the path that divides them. In times of instability and suffering, Peterson reminds us that there are sources of strength on which we can all draw: insights borrowed from psychology, philosophy, and humanity's greatest myths and stories. Drawing on the hard-won truths of ancient wisdom, as well as deeply personal lessons from his own life and clinical practice, Peterson offers twelve new principles to guide readers towards a more courageous, truthful, and meaningful life"--
Subjects: Self-help publications.; Conduct of life;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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The quantum solution / by Lustbader, Eric,author.;
"Evan Ryder is an extraordinary intelligence field agent now working for the security arm of Parachute, a private company and the world's leader in the application of quantum technology. In the past, Ryder has done lethal battle in the modern global wars of power politics, extremist ideology, corrosive disinformation, and outrageous greed. But now she finds herself in a battle arena whose dangers, while less obvious, are greater than anything the world has seen before -- the present and future war of weaponized quantum technology. When an elite Russian scientist and the American Secretary of Defense die, at the same time half a world apart, of inexplicable sudden catastrophic brain damage, the world's intelligence services realize that the quantum war has truly begun. Ryder and her long-time partner, Ben Butler, will risk their lives to discover who the true combatants are, racing against the doomsday scenario of all-out war between America and Russia"--
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Spy fiction.; Novels.; Intelligence officers; Military weapons; Quantum theory; Spies;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
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The slave's cause : a history of abolition / by Sinha, Manisha,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Received historical wisdom casts abolitionists as bourgeois, mostly white reformers burdened by racial paternalism and economic conservatism. Manisha Sinha overturns this image, broadening her scope beyond the antebellum period usually associated with abolitionism and recasting it as a radical social movement in which men and women, black and white, free and enslaved found common ground in causes ranging from feminism and utopian socialism to anti-imperialism and efforts to defend the rights of labor. Drawing on extensive archival research, including newly discovered letters and pamphlets, Sinha documents the influence of the Haitian Revolution and the centrality of slave resistance in shaping the ideology and tactics of abolition. This book is a comprehensive history of the abolition movement in a transnational context. It illustrates how the abolitionist vision ultimately linked the slave's cause to the struggle to redefine American democracy and human rights across the globe.".
Subjects: Abolitionists; African Americans; Antislavery movements; Slavery;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Oppo : a novel / by Rosenstiel, Tom,author.;
It's presidential primary season in Washington, DC, and both parties are on edge. At campaign rallies for all the candidates around the country, there are disturbing incidents of violence and protest and shocking acts of civil disobedience. Rena and Brooks are happy to sit it out. Against this backdrop, Wendy Upton, the highly respected centrist senator, must make a choice: she's been offered the VP slot by both parties' leading candidates. When she receives an anonymous, unnerving threat that could destroy her promising career, she hires Peter Rena to investigate her past and figure out which side is threatening her and what they are threatening her with. As Rena digs through the senator's seemingly squeaky-clean past, he must walk the tightrope between two parties at war with each other and with themselves, an electorate that is as restive as it has ever been, and a political culture that is as much driven by money as it is by ideology.
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Political fiction.; Legislators; Primaries; Political violence; Threats; Political parties;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The rise and fall of Osama bin Laden / by Bergen, Peter L.,1962-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index.The world's leading expert on Osama bin Laden delivers for the first time the definitive biography of a man who set the course of American foreign policy for the 21st century, and whose ideological heirs we continue to battle today. In The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden, Peter Bergen provides the first reevaluation of the man responsible for precipitating America's long wars with al-Qaeda and its descendants, capturing bin Laden in all the dimensions of his life: as a family man, as a zealot, as a battlefield commander, as a terrorist leader, and as a fugitive. The book sheds light on his many contradictions: he was the son of a billionaire, yet insisted his family live like paupers. He adored his wives and children, depending on two of his wives, both of whom had PhDs, to make important strategic decisions. Yet he also brought ruin to his family. He was fanatically religious, yet willing to kill thousands of civilians in the name of Islam. He inspired deep loyalty yet, in the end, his bodyguards turned against him. And while he inflicted the most lethal act of mass murder in United States history, he failed to achieve any of his strategic goals. The lasting image we have of bin Laden in his final years is of an aging man with a graying beard watching old footage of himself, just another dad flipping through the channels with his remote. In the end, bin Laden died in a squalid suburban compound, far from the front lines of his holy war. And yet despite that unheroic denouement, his ideology lives on. Thanks to exclusive interviews with family members and associates, and documents unearthed only recently, Bergen's portrait of Osama will reveal for the first time who he really was and why he continues to inspire a new generation of jihadists.
Subjects: Biographies.; Bin Laden, Osama, 1957-2011.; Qaida (Organization); Terrorists; Terrorists; Fugitives from justice; Terrorism;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The new populism : democracy stares into the abyss / by Revelli, Marco,author.; Broder, David,translator.; translation of:Revelli, Marco.Populismo 2.0.English.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The word 'populism' has come to cover all manner of sins. Yet despite the prevalence of its use, it is often difficult to understand what connects its various supposed expressions. From Syriza to Trump and from Podemos to Brexit, the electoral earthquakes of recent years have often been grouped under this term. But what actually defines 'populism'? Is it an ideology, a form of organisation, or a mentality? Marco Revelli seeks to answer this question by getting to grips with the historical dynamics of so-called 'populist' movements. While in the early days of democracy, populism sought to represent classes and social layers who asserted their political role for the first time, in today's post-democratic climate, it instead expresses the grievances of those who had until recently felt that they were included. Having lost their power, the disinherited embrace not a political alternative to -isms like liberalism or socialism, but a populist mood of discontent. The new populism is the 'formless form' that protest and grievance assume in the era of financialisation, in the era where the atomised masses lack voice or organisation. For Revelli, this new populism the child of an age in which the Left has been hollowed out and lost its capacity to offer an alternative"--
Subjects: Populism.; Populism;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Exercise of power : American failures, successes, and a new path forward in the post-Cold War world / by Gates, Robert Michael,1943-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Since the end of the Cold War, the global perception of the United States has progressively morphed from dominant international leader to disorganized entity, seemingly unwilling to accept the mantle of leadership or unable to govern itself effectively. Robert Gates argues that this transformation is the result of the failure of political leaders to understand the complexity of American power, its expansiveness, and its limitations. He makes clear that the successful exercise of power is not limited to the use of military might or the ability to coerce or demand submission, but must encompass as well diplomacy, economics, strategic communications, development assistance, intelligence, technology, ideology, and cyber. By analyzing specific challenges faced by the American government in the post-Cold War period--Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, Syria, Libya, Russia, China and others--Gates deconstructs the ways in which leaders have used the instruments of power available to them. With forthright judgments of the performance of past presidents and their senior-most advisors, first-hand knowledge, and insider stories, Gates argues that U.S. national security in the future will require learning, and abiding by, the lessons of the past, and re-creating those capabilities that the misuse of power has cost the nation."--
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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