272 products in Books

In this instant New York Times bestseller, renowned economist Thomas Sowell demolishes the myths that underpin the social justice movement “Light on rhetoric, seriously heavy on data, and accessible in style, there is a reason why Sowell has been described as ‘among the most brilliant thinkers in the world today’ by Harvard University’s Steven Pinker and an ‘American sage’ by the Wall Street Journal.” – Washington Examiner The quest for social justice is a powerful crusade of our time, with an appeal to many different people, for many different reasons. But those who use the same words do not always present the same meanings. Clarifying those meanings is the first step toward finding out what we agree on and disagree on. From there, it is largely a question of what the facts are. Social Justice Fallacies reveals how many things that are thought to be true simply cannot stand up to documented facts, which are often the opposite of what is widely believed. However attractive the social justice vision, the crucial question is whether the social justice agenda will get us to the fulfillment of that vision. History shows that the social justice agenda has often led in the opposite direction, sometimes with catastrophic consequences.  More things are involved besides simply mistakes. All human beings are fallible, and social justice advocates may not necessarily make any more mistakes than others. But crusaders with an utter certainty about their mission are often undeterred by obstacles, evidence or even fatal dangers. That is where much of the Western world is today. The question is whether we will continue on heedlessly, past the point of no return.

Legal Foundations of a Free Society is an updated selection of articles published over three decades dealing with a variety of issues in libertarian rights and legal theory, including the nature and foundations of libertarianism, rights and punishment theory, causation and responsibility, contract theory, and intellectual property. The chapters have been significantly revised and updated and integrated with each other with extensive cross-references, and with an extensive bibliography and index. “… more than 40 years after the first publication of Rothbard’s Ethics of Liberty and characterized by much practical disappointment and increasing theoretical confusion, the publication of Stephan Kinsella’s present work must be considered a most welcome sign of renewed hope and new, refreshing intellectual inspiration. Indeed, with this work, that has been in the making for more than two decades, Kinsella has produced no less than an intellectual landmark, establishing himself as the leading legal theorist and the foremost libertarian thinker of his generation. While following in Rothbard’s footsteps, Kinsella’s work does not merely rehash what has been said or written before. Rather, having absorbed as well all of the relevant literature that has appeared during the last few decades since Rothbard’s passing, Kinsella in the following offers some fresh perspectives and an innovative approach to the age-old quest for justice, and he adds several highly significant refinements and improvements and some centrally important new insights to the theories of personhood, property and contract, most famously some radical criticism and rejection of the idea of ‘intellectual property’ and ‘intellectual property rights.’ … Henceforth, then, all essential studies in the philosophy of law and the field of legal theory will have to take full account of the theories and criticisms expounded by Kinsella.” —From the Foreword, by Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Star Trek fans and collectors will love this one-of-a-kind, mini-size collectible communicator with light and sound. The communicator is used for voice communication and serves as an emergency-signaling device for Starfleet. Kit includes a replica of the iconic communicator, with light and sound, and a 48-page book on the history of communicators, complete with full-color photos.

"He was the most important scholar of privacy since Louis Brandeis."—Jeffrey Rosen In defining privacy as “the claim of individuals…to determine for themselves when, how and to what extent information about them is communicated,” Alan Westin’s 1967 classic Privacy and Freedom laid the philosophical groundwork for the current debates about technology and personal freedom, and is considered a foundational text in the field of privacy law. By arguing that citizens retained control over how their personal data was used, Westin redefined privacy as an individual freedom, taking Justice Louis Brandeis’ 19th century definition of privacy as a legal right and expanding it for use in modern times. Westin’s ideas transformed the meaning of privacy, leading to a spate of privacy laws in the 1970s, as well as prefiguring the arguments over privacy that have come to dominate the internet era. This all new edition of Privacy and Freedom features an introduction by Daniel J. Solove, John Marshall Harlan Research Professor of Law at the George Washington University Law School.

Privacy is a puzzling concept. From the backyard to the bedroom, everyday life gives rise to an abundance of privacy claims. In the legal sphere, privacy is invoked with respect to issues including abortion, marriage, and sexuality. Yet privacy is surrounded by a mire of theoretical debate. Certain philosophers argue that privacy is neither conceptually nor morally distinct from other interests, while numerous legal scholars point to the apparently disparate interests involved in constitutional and tort privacy law. By arguing that intimacy is the core of privacy, including privacy law, Inness undermines privacy skepticism, providing a strong theoretical foundation for many of our everyday and legal privacy claims, including the controversial constitutional right to privacy.

“Stasiland demonstrates that great, original reporting is still possible. . . . A heartbreaking, beautifully written book. A classic.” — Claire Tomalin, Guardian “Books of the Year” Winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction: a powerfully moving account of people who heroically resisted the communist dictatorship of East Germany, and of people who worked for its secret police, the Stasi. Anna Funder delivers a prize-winning and powerfully rendered account of the resistance against East Germany’s communist dictatorship in these harrowing, personal tales of life behind the Iron Curtain—and, especially, of life under the iron fist of the Stasi, East Germany’s brutal state security force. In thetradition of Frederick Taylor’s The Berlin Wall and Philip Gourevitch’s We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families, Funder’s Stasiland is a masterpiece of investigative reporting, written with novelistic vividness and the compelling intensity of a universal, real-life story.

Andrew Dickson White's classic historical essay on hyperinflation is as powerful today as when it was written.

Gold Medal Winner, Living Now Book Awards 2024 Best Books of 2024, Kirkus Reviews Winner, Independent Press Awards 2024 Honorable Mention, Royal Dragonfly Book Awards 2024 (Religion/Spirituality) Winner, PenCraft Book Awards 2024 (Fiction: Intrigue) Best AI Books of 2024, The Information Winner, American Book Fest (Nonfiction: Cross-Genre) Winner, 2025 American Legacy Book Award (Nonfiction: Cross-Genre) Bostrom’s last book, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (OUP, 2014), sparked a global conversation on AI that continues and widens to this day. That book, which despite its academic style became a New York Times bestseller, focused on what would happen if AI goes wrong. But what if AI goes right? Suppose we succeed in developing superintelligence safely and that we make good use of the almost magical powers this unlocks. We would then achieve full unemployment. More than that, we would transition into a “post-instrumental condition," in which human effort is not needed for any practical purpose. This would be a condition of material abundance. Human nature itself would become fully malleable. In such a solved world, what would be the point of human existence? What could give meaning to our lives? Which old values will we have to sacrifice, and which new values will we be able to realize to wonderful degrees? Deep Utopia—a work that is again years ahead of its time—takes the readers on a journey into some of the most profound questions that arise as we dissolve the limits of our current mode of being. It is a lush, playful, difficult, and human text that interleaves fiction stories and philosophical lectures that show us a glimpse of a different kind of existence–one that might be ours in the not-so-distant future.

TCP/IP Illustrated, an ongoing series covering the many facets of TCP/IP, brings a highly-effective visual approach to learning about this networking protocol suite. TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 2 contains a thorough explanation of how TCP/IP protocols are implemented. There isn't a more practical or up-to-date bookothis volume is the only one to cover the de facto standard implementation from the 4.4BSD-Lite release, the foundation for TCP/IP implementations run daily on hundreds of thousands of systems worldwide. Combining 500 illustrations with 15,000 lines of real, working code, TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 2 uses a teach-by-example approach to help you master TCP/IP implementation. You will learn about such topics as the relationship between the sockets API and the protocol suite, and the differences between a host implementation and a router. In addition, the book covers the newest features of the 4.4BSD-Lite release, including multicasting, long fat pipe support, window scale, timestamp options, and protection against wrapped sequence numbers, and many other topics. Comprehensive in scope, based on a working standard, and thoroughly illustrated, this book is an indispensable resource for anyone working with TCP/IP.

In the vast, boundless expanse of Plurality, each life is a unique and precious existence...Regardless of how perilous external circumstances may be...(l)et us take positive action to allow the seeds of shared goodness to break through the earth and blossom into flower of empathy, joy and harmony. — His Holiness the Dalai Lama XIV of Tibet In a technologically advanced, politically challenging, and rapidly evolving 21st century, what does a free and open future look like? Glen, Audrey and their coauthors offer a compelling view of a way forward. — Vitalik Buterin, Founder of Ethereum Democracy has been a confrontation between opposing values. In Taiwan, however, it has become a conversation among a diversity of values. Audrey Tang has shown us how to create a "digital democracy" that transcends the constraints of ideology - that is the major contribution of this book. — Tsai Ing-wen, President of the ROC (Taiwan) They offer us a portal into a future where technology supports democracy, pluralism, and broad human flourishing. We know this future is possible because Tang has been building it in Taiwan. The conceptual foundations laid here usher in a much-needed paradigm change for modern life. — Danielle S. Allen, political philosopher, James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard, MacArthur Fellow, and author of Our Declaration and Cuz Plurality reads like optimistic sci-fi, already happening in real life! Can democracies around the world follow in Taiwan’s footsteps to upgrade free society for the digital age? Fingers crossed for a happy ending. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emmy-winning artist and founder of HITRECORD Digital technology threatens to tear free and open societies apart through polarization, inequality, and loneliness. But in the decade since the weekslong occupation of their parliament, a diverse island of resilience has shown another way is possible. Taiwan achieved inclusive, technology-fueled growth, overcame the pandemic without lockdowns and the infodemic without takedowns, entrusted its people to tackle shared challenges like environmental protection while capitalizing on a culture of innovation to “hack the government.” Here, the architects of Taiwan’s internationally acclaimed digital democracy share the secret of their success. Plurality (symbolized ⿻) harnesses digital tools not to replace humans or trust, but to channel the potential energy in social diversity that can erupt in conflict instead for progress, growth and beauty. From intimate digitally empowered telepathy to global trade running on social networks rather than money, ⿻ offers tools to radically enrich relationships while leaving no one behind. ⿻ thus promises to transform every sector from healthcare to media, as illustrated by the way it has been written: as a chorus of open, self-governing collaboration of voices from around the globe. Their work in public on this openly available text shows — as well as tells — how everyone from a devout African farmer to a Hollywood celebrity can help build a more dynamic, harmonious and inclusive world. E. Glen Weyl is Founder of RadicalxChange, Microsoft Research's Plural Technology Collaboratory, & Plurality Institute & co-author of Radical Markets. Audrey Tang is the inaugural Minister of Digital Affairs in Taiwan & the inaugural ⚧️ minister in the 🌐. A global ⿻ community of dozens collaborated to create this first-ever open-source self-governed book harnessing tools described within. You are invited to join us at https://www.plurality.net

Anarchism has been both a vision of a peaceful, cooperative society—and an ideology of revolutionary terror. Since the term itself—anarchism—is a negation, there is a great deal of disagreement on what the positive alternative would look like. The black flag comes in many colors.The Anarchist Handbook is an opportunity for all these many varied voices to speak for themselves, from across the decades. These were human beings who saw things differently from their fellow men. They fought and they loved. They lived and they died. They disagreed on much, but they all shared one vision: Freedom.

Do you think you know something about Bitcoin and Austrian Economics? If so you may be ready for Cryptoeconomics. This is not a work for the uninitiated. The content is dense – it does not repeat itself. It is not a contribution to the echo chamber, will not show you how to set up a wallet, the future price, or what to do. Cryptoeconomics applies rational economic principles to Bitcoin, demonstrating flaws and unnecessary complexities in them, and in common understandings of Bitcoin. It will improve your understanding of both. Bitcoin requires a new, rigorous, and comprehensive discipline. This is it. Bitcoin is something new. It seems to defy understanding. Has there ever been a fixed supply money? Is there another case of production cost varying directly with product price? Is there anything else with a competitive yet fixed rate of transactability? To see past the hype, understand the value proposition, security model, and economic behavior, this may be your only source. Bitcoin is economics, technology, and security. Without incorporating all of these aspects, errors will be made. Economists, technologists, security experts, and even numerologists have attempted to explain it. Each brings a limited perspective, failing to incorporate essential aspects. The author found himself uniquely qualified to integrate them. His work in Bitcoin began with a hardware wallet. He spent a year analyzing threats, working with electronics design, hardware exploitation, and state surveillance experts. He chose the Libbitcoin software library, as Satoshi’s prototype was not factored for development and was largely financed by the Bitcoin Foundation, a corporate consortium. He later dedicated himself to Libbitcoin, eventually writing or editing all of its ~500,000 lines of code. Few have comparable experience with such a comprehensive Bitcoin stack. As a combat-experienced fighter pilot in the U.S. Navy he experienced state threats. He became a highly-qualified Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor, in which his primary role was tactics analysis and threat presentation. He also advised for the Navy on the Strike Fighter Training System network, Joint Strike Fighter, early GPS weapons, and F/A-18 systems. His understanding of the physical nature of all security was enhanced by decades of training in Japanese martial arts, achieving black belt rankings in five disciplines. His degree and experience in computer science mixed with extensive business experience, founding several companies. He has worked at IBM and as a Principle Architect at Microsoft, two of the world’s largest companies. The latter purchased his first startup, and his second was acquired by Veritas Capital. He was awarded three related U.S. patents. Eventually he became an angel investor, sharing his experience with other entrepreneurs. As CTO of his first company he published three computer security advisories via Computer Emergency Response Team. Each was derived entirely from his reading of user documentation. Later he earned a seat on the DHS Open Vulnerability Assessment Language advisory board for his work on software patching. In recent years he uncovered material security flaws in each of the first three iterations of a popular “secure element” hardware wallet, again from review of user documentation. Thirty years of self-study in free market economics was reinforced by extensive global travel. In visiting over 80 countries he has interacted with people on five continents. Still often traveling on a motorcycle with only a shoulder bag, he obtains intimate understanding of global economic realities. From Zimbabwean black market currency traders, to Tanzanian coffee pickers, Venezuelan refugees, Mongolian shepherds, Okinawan jazz musicians, Lao monks, etc. – the world is not as often presented. The ability to integrate these diverse and relevant experiences led to Cryptoeconomics. This is your next stop.