|
|
New Adult 000 - 300s Nonfiction 000 - Computer Science, Knowledge, and Systems 100 - Philosophy and Psychology 200 - Religion 300- Social Science, Law, and Education |
|
|
|
Q: The Hidden Power of Questions in a World That Wants Answers
by Lani Watson
We live in a world that wants answers. Answers provide solutions to our problems, teach us about the world, and help us navigate our lives. But we rush toward answers forgetting that it is questions that set the course. Questions are a form of power, as well as a vital, everyday tool. After all, if you don't ask the right questions, you won't get the right answers. In Q, philosopher Lani Watson examines the history of question-asking, analyzes our answer-oriented present, and offers a
path forward toward a question-oriented future. Along the way, she
asks us to consider what a question is, why we ask the questions we do, when we first start asking questions, and where we want our questions to take us. The shift from prioritizing answers to focusing on questions
is not easy, and it requires careful attention and practice. Q also
includes practical tips called Q Tools, inspired by the historical, philosophical, and cultural material of each chapter that offer readers exercises and advice for becoming better question-askers. There are real-world benefits to creating a question-oriented future, and it will require a personal, social, political, philosophical and technological transition. In Q, Lani Watson provides us with the knowledge and tools that we need to implement this change in our own lives and communities.
|
|
|
|
The Greatest Love: Lessons for Living with Extraordinary Courage--Even After the Worst Day of Your Life
by Tim Brown
Tim Brown shares the lessons he's learned about grief, resilience, sacrificial love, and transforming pain into purpose. Would you be able
to stand again after the worst day of your life? How do you keep
serving and leading when the task is heavy and the cost is high? On September 11, 2001, FDNY firefighter and emergency manager Tim Brown was inside the World Trade Center complex when the towers fell. Nearly one hundred of his friends and colleagues were killed. He lived--and vowed to never forget. Then came September 12. And every day after that. Days spent first surviving, then grieving, then learning how
to transform pain into purpose. Drawing on decades in fire service, disaster response, and national security, as well as on the lessons learned from the fallen heroes, Brown distills the principles of sacrificial service that he forged in the midst of pressure, trauma, and great personal cost. In The Greatest Love, you'll learn: How to re-discover purpose by finding your sacrificial why; What nine therapists missed about managing grief--and the process that finally worked; Why establishing the DNA of service in your life is key; How to forge brotherhood and a legacy. Sacrificial service is the greatest love any of us can show. This means carrying the load when no one is watching, putting service before self-protection, and not letting your loss dictate who you become. Step beyond survival and into a life marked by purpose, resilience, and grace.
|
|
|
|
All My Dead Cats and Other Losses: Practicing Good Grief in a Culture That Fears Mourning
by S. E. Smith
Have you suffered a loss? How was your life changed by the grief you experienced? Mourning is a personal experience and shouldn't be judged. There are no do-overs in death, but there are do-betters. All
My Dead Cats is not a book about pet loss. You will meet award-winning journalist and debut author s.e. smith's cats and read small slices of
their stories. Their vignettes serve as an opening to scary conversations about loss, so grief can feel less intimidating and more relatable. This is a book about grief and mourning as collective activities best undertaken in community. S.e. interviews dozens of experts--from death doulas to funeral home directors to therapists and psychologists--and discusses
the different stages of grief. The shared perspectives help us
understand that grief is not fixable but it can be livable. They teach us that if we have the courage, which begins with honest conversations about how we navigate grief, then we can learn how to do better. After reading you'll better understand: Disenfranchised grief and how you can be part of the solution and not the problem. How to be an advocate for people subjected to trauma and violence. The stages of grief and how
to process your experiences. Grief is not over once the body is neatly disposed of, the rubble of the house has been taken away in dumpsters, the final fit on the prosthesis is done, the law is passed and withstands legal challenges, or when the permanent peace is brokered. It is an ongoing shift in our relationship to the world, and one that deserves attention and care as well as time and space to be amongst fellow mourners, to whom we do not need to justify or explain, because they understand where we are. Readers will feel seen rather than being chastised for how they grieve and better understand how to process mourning--and how to help others. All My Dead Cats provides an entry point, by beginning the conversation about a beloved pet, so readers
can think about the larger stakes of death and live a more fulfilled life.
|
|
|
|
Instructions for the End of the World: Homilies of Comfort and Resistance
by Maggie Helwig
An activist priest's sermons remind us that one of the first social justice frameworks was the Bible. When lifelong activist and celebrated author Maggie Helwig became an Anglican priest, she brought both her hard-earned social justice wisdom and her incomparable literary prowess to the role. Where the homily - the weekly act of taking biblical texts and making them speak to one's time, place, and community - can easily become a rote exercise, Helwig takes the language and narrative very seriously. The homilies in this book, selected from those presented to
her congregation over the last five years, talk about the Bible, and by extension, the world, through both an activist and a literary lens. 'Instructions for the End of the World' is how Helwig describes the gospels. As we live through the climate crisis and the rise of fascism around the world, Helwig's responses to the ancient texts feel urgent and necessary, reminders of hope and meaning during a time of great anxiety and fear. Whether you're religious or not, these homilies offer a basis for resistance and resources for building communities that may sustain us all.
|
|
|
|
Redwood: The Untold Story of the Cold War's Most Extraordinary Spy
by Ben MacIntyre
In 1981, KGB Major Vladimir Kuzichkin, codenamed Redwood, was the best Soviet officer in Iran, running spies in the wake of the Islamic revolution and working with a hidden network of Iranian communists to undermine the new regime. But Kuzichkin had a problem, a sexual
secret that, if revealed, would humiliate him with his colleagues, cost
him his job, and send him into exile. Desperate for a solution, he reached out to the only place he believed could help: Britain's MI6. So begins one of the most astounding true spy stories of the Cold War, set against the terrifying prospect of nuclear armageddon. Taking readers through shadowy back alleys of Tehran, across bloody streets and into cloistered intelligence offices, Ben Macintyre unfolds a world in turmoil, where no one's motive is what it seems, and exposure means death. As Kuzichkin helps the Soviet leadership plot an overthrow of the
Ayatollah's fledgling regime--and the American government secretly contemplates a nuclear response if they do--it falls on MI6's resourceful young undercover officer Ian McCredie to spirit Kuzichkin's vital information back to the West. But when both Iranian intelligence and
the KGB close in on the Russian double-agent, McCredie must design an improbable high-stakes escape plan for Kuzichkin, in which failure is almost certain and the direction of the Cold War hangs in the balance.
|
|
|
|
Aging Out: An Exploration of Caregiving, Community, and How Americans Grow Old
by Lucy Schiller
Unlike many other cultures, our collective stance toward older people in the United States has long been one of casual avoidance and neglect. This attitude became brutally clear during the height of the COVID pandemic, when too many people saw elderly deaths not as tragedies but as foregone conclusions. Like many of us, Lucy Schiller experienced this callousness firsthand when her grandmother passed away during
the pandemic. In the wake of this trauma, propelled by equal parts grief and curiosity about her own fear of aging, Schiller embarked on an investigative journey to understand why the prospect of aging is so frightening and how being old in America intersects with class, race, disability, and public policy. From profit-driven networks of care facilities to systemic failures in economic support, the future of older Americans looks increasingly uncertain. In Aging Out, Schiller reports this crisis, sharing the human toll of inadequate housing, health care, and community, while simultaneously excavating her own complicated relationship with aging.
|
|
|
|
The Vanishing Earth: Dispatches from the Frontiers of Extraction
by James Crawford
Over the last half-century, humanity has taken more from the Earth
than in all prior history combined. The planet is littered with the vast scars of extraction – yet, ironically, it is only by confronting the ruins of our 'old' world that we can find the path towards the 'new'. In The Vanishing Earth, James Crawford, born into a landscape and family steeped in fossil fuels, takes readers to the literal and ideological frontiers of extraction. Beginning with the story of humanity's
decoupling from nature, Crawford embarks on an epic journey to five resource landscapes rapidly trending towards exhaustion: landscapes of rock, metal, sand, water and thought. From the salt flats of Chile's Atacama Desert lithium mines to the 'sacrifice zone' of Florida's phosphorus-rich Bone Valley, and even chillingly advanced attempts to harvest personal data from the brain itself, Crawford explores some of the most extreme scenes of the Anthropocene. Along the way, he asks what lies behind our insatiable appetites and explores emerging alternatives that might just spare our vanishing natural resources, transform our economies, and save our relationship with nature itself.
|
|
|
|
Suffer a Witch: A Memoir
by Joy McCullough
Joy McCullough's earliest memories are of time spent in church, moments when she climbed the steps to recite from the pulpit, just like her preacher father. But when she was a teenager in San Diego in the 1990s, her connection to her family and church were forever altered when a youth pastor groomed and sexually assaulted Joy. In her debut memoir, McCullough pairs achingly raw poems recalling her abuse and
its aftermath with hopeful, challenging verses about her life today as
she seeks healing and justice in a country that rewards men for sexual abuse and still insists girls these days will say anything. Among the poems, McCullough also weaves prose letters to historical girls and women--from Joan of Arc to Abigail Williams--whose lives and stories were ignored when they were caught in the maelstrom of witchcraft accusations. Suffer a Witch shines a bright, unsparing light on one woman's experience--and on those of generations of women who came before her.
|
|
|
|
The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State
by Jill Lepore
With Orwellian overtones, The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State demonstrates how technology has corroded global democracy, leading
to the destruction of both human community and capacity for self-government, creating a new form of AI government, a digital citizen’s assembly, where AI will recommend the course of action to humans in place of human-run legislatures. Especially sobering with this proliferation of “dizzying, ever-changing schemes, prophesies, and predictions” is that the Artificial State has come at the expense of the natural world, leading to catastrophic loss of wildlife habitat and biodiversity. Deliberately alarming, The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State, despite its abundance of dire facts, is not a funeral dirge; rather, it’s an inspiring wake-up call, written in Lepore’s typically elegiac prose, which demonstrates that nothing about the Artificial State was
inevitable, for it is a “government without consent, even government without humans.” It can, Lepore asserts, be dismantled. Other heinous systems, like feudalism, fascism, and slavery, have also been
dismantled, but disassembly requires identifying the parts, tracing the sources. It requires telling a new history. This is the purpose of The
Rise and Fall of the Artificial State.
|
|
|
|
Exhumed: Unearthing the History of the American Vampire
by Aaron Mahnke
What would drive a man to exhume the body of his daughter and remove her heart? That question has haunted Aaron Mahnke, creator and host of the award-winning podcast Lore. Fueled by a decade of research, Mahnke excavates the past to understand the hysteria that fueled the ghastly exhumation of Mercy Brown in 1892, who like her mother and sister before her, succumbed to “consumption” at the age
of 19. With Exhumed, Mahnke presents a unique history of the intersection of folklore and science, and how pop culture and both genuine medical advancements and pseudoscience of the time shaped the perspectives of people in 19th century America. From the death of George Washington to Mary Shelley writing Frankenstein, Mahnke leads readers on a fascinating journey through history, touching on methods
of mummification, the multifaceted role of executioners, medicine
made from corpses, European folklore that traveled across the Atlantic, and so much more. He reveals that as shocking as Brown’s exhumation might seem, it also reflected surprisingly common attitudes and beliefs about the relationship between the dead and the living, the nature of science and magic, and the fate of a human soul. It all builds to a revelatory understanding of human behavior that continues to this very day.
|
|
|
|
No Prophets: The Fight to Save Democracy from Christian Nationalism
by Jared Huffman
Sinclair Lewis is said to have warned: “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.” On January 6, 2021, Rep. Jared Huffman saw something chillingly close to that vision. Thousands of Christians following self-declared prophets stormed the Capitol. The insurrection should have been a national wake-up call
about Christian nationalism. Instead, most Americans and politicians looked away. No Prophets argues that Christian nationalism is now America’s most dangerous political movement. Huffman pulls back the curtain on religious extremists behind the insurrection who have only grown more powerful with Trump’s return. Openly vowing to destroy church-state separation and democracy as we know it, they now work inside the highest levels of government to drive domestic and foreign policy, reshape federal agencies, undermine science and education, and tilt elections. The endgame: an authoritarian theocracy that imposes their religious beliefs by force of law. Drawing on his experiences as a formerly devout Christian and the only Humanist ever to serve in Congress, Huffman maps the movement’s largely hidden landscape―taking readers behind the scenes of the Capitol, exposing
the tactics and myths Christian nationalists use to advance their
agenda, and showing how America is imperiled by our reluctance to confront threats cloaked in Christianity. But, he argues, it’s not too late. If we muster a broad interfaith coalition grounded in shared
commitment to democracy, we can reclaim the public square for everyone―religious and secular―to share on equal terms. No Prophets
is a clear-eyed, urgent appeal to defend the secular foundations of democracy.
|
|
|
|
The Crooked Places Made Straight: Reflections on the Moral Meaning of America
by Raphael G. Warnock
Senator Reverend Raphael G. Warnock is a transformational voice in Congress and the pastor of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Ebenezer Baptist Church, and for the semiquincentennial of America, he exhorts us to reach for the highest and noblest aspects of our national character. Senator Warnock argues that we suffer not from a paucity of resources but from a poverty of moral imagination. His sermon on the book of Isaiah draws from ideals resonant in his own faith and all the great
faiths and other moral traditions, offering a bold vision of how to live
and relate to one another in the land. A moral topography, he calls it, a geopolitics that centers love and justice, or as Dr. King would so often say, the beloved community. The Crooked Places Made Straight
examines six crises at the center of American life: voting rights and
voter suppression, gun violence, mass incarceration, the persistence of poverty, dark money in politics, and the climate emergency.
|
|
|
|
Data Empire: The Power of Information to Organize, Control, and Dominate
by Roopika Risam
Long before writing existed, at the dawn of civilization in Mesopotamia, rulers pressed marks into clay to keep track of land, people and grain.
To rule, they had to keep count. It is no accident, then, that the first written name in human history was neither a god nor a king, but an accountant. As ships and navigation expanded our horizons, a new age of European empires took control of more than 80 percent of the
world's surface using censuses, maps and ledgers to decide who belonged, who owed, and who could be sacrificed. Today, we live in the third great era, when trading our information for access can feel harmless or inevitable - yet from targeted advertising to border policing and mass surveillance, data shapes the course of our lives. With our earliest tools like ancient cave markings and knotted strings, to colonial record-keeping and the algorithmic state, Data Empire reveals how
data has always been the seed of power: a technology of control that has shaped civilizations and upheld empires. Empire was never just about weapons or ships. It was built on collecting information on us, to rule us. Both a sweeping history and a sharp critique, Data Empire is a call to recognize the power data holds--and to imagine what resistance looks like in an age defined by it.
|
|
|
|
Fierce Country: The Untold Story of Three Women Who Ignited America's Love for the Wild
by Heather Hansman
Throughout the 20th century Georgie White, Anne LaBastille, and Dolores LaChapelle did more to inspire our love of the great outdoors than just about anyone. Georgie devoted her life to the Grand Canyon, kickstarting the river running craze in the 40s and igniting the
recreation industry. Anne, a wilderness guide and bestselling author, protected endangered species and predicted the impacts of climate change from her isolated, off-grid cabin in the Adirondacks. And deep powder skier Dolores developed an environmental philosophy that shaped everything from the radical environmental movement of the
'70s to modern conservation ethics. Now, for the first time, outdoor
journalist and bestselling author of Powder Days, Heather Hansman, goes deep into multiple rugged American landscapes to bring three fascinating lives to the forefront of the outdoor movement, affirming their rightful place in the larger story of an evolving American wild.
|
|
|
|
Dad Brain: The New Science of Fatherhood and How It Shapes Men's Lives
by Darby Saxbe
A groundbreaking exploration of the science and significance of fatherhood that shows great dads are made, not born. Over the last decade, we've learned more about the transformative power of parenthood--biologically, psychologically, and socially--than ever before. But while the experience of motherhood has attracted well-deserved attention, fatherhood has remained overlooked and, often, misunderstood. Now, in Dad Brain, field-leading psychologist Darby Saxbe, PhD, explains how becoming a father changes men, from their bodies and brain architecture to their hormones and sense of purpose. Inspired by her relationship with her dad, Saxbe has studied fathers
and families for over twenty years. In her first book, she takes readers behind the scenes of her new research and around the world, from hunter-gatherers in the Congo to contemporary suburban dads, and
into her pioneering studies of how parenthood shapes men's brains and
lives. Ultimately, fatherhood can help men discover a richer, more connected, and more meaningful life. For fans of science-based storytelling that is also irreverent, funny, and personal, Dad Brain
offers an illuminating, empowering, and optimistic new understanding
of fatherhood that will become a must-read for every parent.
|
|
|
|
How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University
by Theo Baker
From Theo Baker, winner of the George Polk Award for his investigation that brought down Stanford's president, comes a revelatory and
gripping account of Silicon Valley hubris. Slush funds. Shell companies. Yacht parties. This is life for Silicon Valley's favored teenagers. Seventeen-year-old Theo Baker showed up for freshman year at
Stanford University as a tech-obsessed coder. It seemed like paradise. There were Rodin sculptures next to nuclear laboratories and inventors lounging with Olympians. But Baker soon discovered a culture that embraced corner-cutting, that vested infinite excess and access in the hands of kids with few safeguards to catch bad behavior. Stanford, he realized, was less a school than a business. Its annual budget was
nearly twice that of Harvard or Yale and higher than those of 116 countries. The product? Students. Especially those special few identified as the next trillion-dollar startup founders. For them, there were secret societies, pre-idea funding offers, and social calls from billionaires, all with the expectation that these geniuses would soon join the ruling
elite. At the helm of this business was Marc Tessier-Lavigne, a superstar neuroscientist and wealthy biotech executive. But when Baker joined the student newspaper and started poking around the Stanford president's record, he discovered never-reported allegations of research misconduct in studies published across two decades bearing Tessier-Lavigne's name. Only one month into college and thousands of miles from home, Baker began receiving anonymous letters, going on stakeouts, and tracking down confidential sources. High-powered lawyers and public relations teams were hired to attack his reporting. Stanford opened an investigation into its own leader. And by the end of the year, Tessier-Lavigne was out as president. This is the incredible journey of a
reluctant teenage reporter who uncovered a story that shook the scientific world and became front-page news across the country. It is also an unprecedented inside view of the students learning to rule the world--and what they're learning from those who already do.
|
|
|
|
Liberation Summer: The Moment That Changed the Women's Movement and the Future of American Politics
by Micki McElya
A sweeping, definitive work of history exploring the road to the September 1968 protests of the Miss American Pageant--one led by women's liberationists and the other organized by the emergent Miss Black America Pageant--and the birth of a new politics of beauty. A revolution was brewing. In the dying days of the summer of 1968,
during one unprecedented Pageant weekend, Atlantic City played host not only to the fifty young contestants and thousands of eager visitors who had arrived in town for the Miss America crowning, but also to the first Miss Black America Pageant, mounted to protest its lily-white sister competition, as well as raucous actions from women's liberationists. For just a few hours, the boardwalk became a site of vigorously contested ideas--ideas that would redefine the women's movement and
reverberate across American culture. Now, Pulitzer Prize finalist Micki McElya unfolds the full scope of this history, detailing the shocking injustices and passionate debates that led to the demonstrations, as
well as the broader social and political landscape that gave rise to some of the most iconic women on both sides of the ideological spectrum. Here, we find complex portraits of Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Florynce Kennedy, Phyllis Schlafly, and Anita Bryant as well as glimpses of Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Lewis, Vanessa Williams, and Donald Trump years before they became the public figures we know them as today.
|
|
|
|
Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast
by Pamela Colloff
For more than three decades, Paul Skalnik roamed the Gulf Coast lying about who he was. He passed himself off as a fighter pilot, a high-
rolling oilman, a criminal defense attorney, an undercover agent, and a terminal cancer patient. In these guises he married nine women--some at the same time. When Skalnik got caught, as he invariably did, he would run a different con. Locked up with other men awaiting trial, he claimed they confessed their crimes to him. Then he peddled those stories to prosecutors. In Pinellas County, Florida, he became a frequent witness for the state, thinking nothing of exaggerating men's
wrongdoing or implicating the innocent to help prosecutors win convictions. In return, the state rewarded him with his freedom, fueling his growing sense of invincibility. Soon he was not just committing
fraud; he was preying on girls in their teens or barely into adolescence. In 1985, Jim Dailey, a down-on-his-luck Vietnam veteran, was implicated in the murder of a fourteen-year-old girl and landed in the Pinellas County Jail with Skalnik. No forensic evidence or motive linked Dailey to the killing, but Skalnik's account of his confession helped put Dailey on death row. Skalnik, meanwhile, walked free. More than three decades later, after another man took responsibility for the killing, Pamela Colloff, reporting for the New York Times Magazine and ProPublica, visited Skalnik and asked him if he would recant his testimony. He refused. By then, Skalnik had caused untold damage: to the women and girls he exploited, to the dozens of men he helped imprison, and to Jim Dailey, who went on to receive an execution date. In this mesmerizing debut, Pamela Colloff spins a dark tale of a remorseless and brilliant liar made lethal by a system more concerned with winning convictions than
finding the truth.
|
|
|
|
Sisters of the Midnight Sun: A Murder in Arctic Alaska
by Rebecca Wright Stevens
Rebecca Wright is a defense attorney living in the Lower 48 when she suddenly finds herself a widow and an empty nester. In need of a radical change, she accepts a public defender position in Utqiagvik on Alaska's North Slope, an oil-rich area the size of Wyoming where the Inupiat community holds great cultural, political, and economic power. Though she'll always be a tanik--an outsider--she works hard to gain the trust and friendship of the folks who call this singular place home. When two well-known sisters, Bernice and Wanda Ipalook, are found murdered, Wright is tasked with representing Amos Lane, a drifter on the short-list of murder suspects. Criminal charges are looming. But this is summer in northern Alaska, the season of the midnight sun, when twenty-four-hour sunlight makes it difficult for witnesses to confirm the time--or even the day--they last saw the sisters, Amos, or anyone else. Wright must navigate an unreliable client, a prosecution willing to entrap her to get a conviction, a budding romance, and a community that believes Amos might deserve a different form of justice from what the tanik legal system can provide. Weaving a detailed portrait of Utqiagvik alongside Wright's complex self-portrait of an outsider in an isolated community, Sisters of the Midnight Sun is a riveting true account that brings to vivid life a land at the edge of the habitable world.
|
|
|
|
Last Branch Standing: A Potentially Surprising, Occasionally Witty Journey
Inside Today's Supreme Court
by Sarah Isgur
The ultimate insider, Isgur takes readers on a deep dive inside the Supreme Court: how cases land at the Court’s doorstep, which justices attend clerk happy hours (and which ones even bother showing up to the office), why conservatives already have buyer’s remorse about Amy Coney Barrett, and how the whole judicial system is kind of a constitutional anomaly. She’ll even help you decide whether you should throw your hat in the ring and go to law school! Blending irreverent humor and incisive commentary, Isgur goes underneath the robes—and shows us what we need to do to preserve the rule of law amid dicey times in this little self-governing experiment we’ve been running for the last 250 years.
|
|
|
|
Shameful Silence: What You Don't Know about Domestic Violence
by Alexandra Lozano
In Shameful Silence, Human Rights attorney Alexandra Lozano exposes the hidden epidemic of male domestic abuse. With unflinching honesty, legal precision, and deep compassion, Lozano draws on sixteen years of frontline experience to advocate for vulnerable individuals in complex legal systems. She reveals a vital truth few confront: abuse can devastate without leaving bruises. Through survivor accounts and rigorous research, this book reveals sophisticated, often invisible tactics used against men, including gaslighting, financial control, parental alienation, false allegations, and using custody battles and immigration status as weapons. These abuses leave no visible scars yet dismantle identity, isolate victims, and destroy lives. Blending legal insight, psychological research, and deeply human storytelling, Shameful
Silence challenges entrenched stereotypes about victimhood and masculinity. Lozano reframes strength not as silence but as truth. Shameful Silence is essential reading for male survivors seeking validation and a way forward. It is also vital for legal, healthcare, and education professionals, as well as social workers and advocates
seeking deeper insight into non-physical abuse and institutional blind spots. This book expands our definition of abuse and challenges
societal beliefs. It offers a blueprint for a world where every survivor
is seen, heard, and protected.
|
|
|
|
American Trickster: The Hidden Lives of Carlos Castaneda
by Ru Marshall
Twenty years in the making, American Trickster: The Hidden Lives of Carlos Castaneda unravels the story of the secretive faux-anthropologist who pulled off one of the greatest literary hoaxes in modern history. Both an investigation of the techniques employed by charismatic narcissists and a study of the cult dynamics that still shape American
life, American Trickster defies conventional biography. It emerges as a chilling allegory for the Trump era, a trenchant critique of academia's complicity in distorting and erasing Indigenous culture, and a deep dive into the mechanics of New Age spiritual abuse. Carlos Castaneda, born
in Peru in 1925, fled to the U.S. in 1951, escaping responsibility for a child he fathered with a thirteen-year-old girl. He changed his name repeatedly, worked as a taxi driver, studied creative writing, and eventually enrolled in anthropology at UCLA in 1959. In 1968, the University of California Press published his first book, The Teachings of Don Juan, which described his supposed encounters with a Yaqui shaman who initiated him into a secret world of peyote-fueled visions and ancient knowledge never before shared with a Westerner.
Castaneda was quickly hailed as a revolutionary figure. Admirers ranged from John Lennon and Joni Mitchell to Federico Fellini, George Lucas, and Octavio Paz. His books became international bestsellers and remain the most popular titles ever published on Native American spirituality--despite having little to no connection to actual Indigenous practices. For a time, his truth went unchallenged. Then, in 1973, Time magazine published a searing expose revealing that Castaneda wasn't who he claimed to be. As his academic credibility unraveled, he turned inward, building a secretive spiritual group that blurred the line between fiction and reality.
|
|
|
|
|
|