There's no shortage of books about public speaking or language or song. But until now, there has been no book about the miracle that underlies them all--the human voice itself. And there are few writers who could take on this surprisingly vast topic with more artistry and expertise than John Colapinto. Beginning with the novel--and compelling--argument that our ability to speak is what made us the planet's dominant species, he guides us from the voice's...

"The classic, bestselling book on the psychology of racism-now fully revised and updated. Walk into any racially mixed high school and you will see Black, White, and Latino youth clustered in their own groups. Is this self-segregation a problem to address or a coping strategy? Beverly Daniel Tatum, a renowned authority on the psychology of racism, argues that straight talk about our racial identities is essential if we are serious about enabling communication...

Provides a critical consumers guide to the images of terrorism that we are offered daily in the mass media. All too often, scholars and journalists accept uncritically the interpretations of terrorism they receive from governments and official agencies. Our perceptions of terrorism are formed by the interaction of bureaucratic agencies, academics and private experts, and the mass media: The images and stereotypes that we are offered do not necessarily...

"A woman describes a series of encounters she has with various people in the ordinary course of her life: an ex she runs into by chance at a public forum, an Airbnb owner unsure how to interact with her guests, a stranger who seeks help comforting his elderly mother, a friend of her youth now hospitalized with terminal cancer. In each of these people the woman finds a common need: the urge to talk about themselves and to have an audience to their...

"A profound new rendering of the struggle by African Americans for equality after the Civil War and the violent counterrevolution that resubjugated them, as seen through the prism of the war of images and ideas that have left an enduring stain on the American mind. The story of the abolition of slavery in the aftermath of the Civil War is a familiar one, as is the civil rights revolution that transformed the nation after World War II. But the century...

Media are fundamental to our sense of living in a social world. Since the beginning of modernity, media have transformed the scale on which we act as social beings. And now in the era of digital media, media themselves are being transformed as platforms, content, and producers multiply. - Yet the implications of social theory for understanding media and of media for rethinking social theory have been neglected; never before has it been more important...