When discrimination is race-based, we call it racism; when it's gender-based, we call it sexism. This book, by a physicist who is also a former college president and chairman of a major nonprofit board, introduces rank-based discrimination--or "rankism"--A form of injustice that everyone knows, but no one sees. It explains our reluctance to confront rankism, shows where analyses based on identity fall short and, using dozens of examples, traces many...

"A bold, bitingly satirical near-future mosaic novel about a city run along 'meritocratic' lines, the injustice it creates, and the revolution that will destroy it"--

"From the beloved award-winning author of Native Speaker and The Surrendered, a highly provocative, deeply affecting story of one woman's legendary quest in a shocking, future America. On Such a Full Sea takes Chang-rae Lee's elegance of prose, his masterly storytelling, and his long-standing interests in identity, culture, work, and love, and lifts them to a new plane. Stepping from the realistic and historical territories of his previous work,...

"A timely examination by a leading social scientist of the physical, psychological, and moral effects of inequality. Today's inequality is on a scale that none of us has seen in our lifetimes, yet this disparity between rich and poor has ramifications that extend far beyond mere financial means. While conservatives look at poverty and see its roots in personal failures and liberals attribute it to a lack of opportunity, what both sides miss is that...

The year is 2065. Decades ago, the United States of America fell apart after four brutal years of civil war, and the fragments coalesced into new nations divided by economic and political rivalries. Most of the post-U.S. America is wracked by poverty and civil strife, with high-tech skyscrapers rising above crowded, starving slums -- but one of the new nations, the Lakeland Republic of the Upper Midwest, has gone its own way, isolated from the rest...

In the great kingdom of Quandis, everyone is a slave. Some are slaves to the gods. Most are slaves to everyone else. Blessed by the gods with lives of comfort and splendor, the royal elite routinely perform their duties, yet some chafe at their role. A young woman of stunning ambition, Princess Phela refuses to allow a few obstacles-- including her mother the queen and her brother, the heir apparent-- stand in the way of claiming ultimate power...

A pair of technology experts describe how humans will have to keep pace with machines in order to become prosperous in the future and identify strategies and policies for business and individuals to use to combine digital processing power with human ingenuity.

"The year is 1953. Edward VIII and Wallis are preparing for their coronation, and the country is tense with expectation. In honor of the event, Adolf Hitler will be making his first visit to the UK since its surrender to the Germans in 1940. One oppressive change conforming with Nazi ideology is the strict classification of women into hierarchical groups, ranging from the beautiful and privileged Gelis (named after Hitler's adored niece) down to the...

At the stroke of midnight on August 15th, 1947, as India declares independence from Great Britain, babies are being born with super powers. Two of them are switched at birth by a nurse in a Bombay hospital. And so it is that Saleem Sinai, the illegitimate child of a beggar woman, and Shiva, the only son of a wealthy couple, are fated to live the destinies meant for each other. Over the next three decades, Saleem and Shiva find themselves on opposite...

"Why does inequality have such a hold on American society and public policy? And what can we, as citizens, do about it? Inequality in America takes an in-depth look at individual-level and systemic inequality, focusing in particular on race, poverty, and gender, across a wide range of issues from housing and education to crime, employment and health. Caliendo shows how individual-level prejudice and systemic inequality are interrelated, how individual...