In Silent Spring, biologist Rachel Carson condemns the widespread use of pesticides in the 20th century, arguing that these chemicals threaten to devastate the natural environment and poison animals and humans alike. Carson advocates stricter regulation of pesticides by the US government, limited spraying, and the use of biological (rather than chemical) controls. Though Carson’s book was controversial and widely condemned by chemical companies, it’s been credited as an inspiration for the environmentalist movement of the 1970s, the formation of the US Environmental Protection Agency, and the banning of the pesticide DDT.

This guide will explore Carson’s criticisms of pesticides and proposals for change, including discussions of what pesticides do, how they’re used, and what alternatives exist for pest control. We’ll also discuss evolutions in science since the book was published in 1962, backlash to and criticism of Carson’s findings, and the book’s influence on American environmental policy.

Merchants of doubt are people or organizations who discredit science that threatens their agenda or ideology. The first merchants of doubt were members of the tobacco industry—when scientists discovered that smoking caused cancer, that was bad for businesses. It was also bad for capitalism in general because it suggested that the market wasn’t self-regulating, and lack of regulation was killing people. Other defenders of the free market started using the tobacco industry’s techniques, such as funding new (and hopefully more favorable) studies or calling for balanced media coverage.

In Merchants of Doubt, science historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway study the doubt-mongering techniques used in several other important “debates”—nuclear disarmament, acid rain, the ozone layer, climate change, and the pesticide DDT. These techniques are still in use today.

The Undercover Economist will help you think like an economist without boring you with endless graphs or complex math. By thinking like an economist, you’ll use principles like scarcity, price targeting, the stock market, and game theory to make better decisions every day. By understanding these economic principles, you’ll learn how economics operates in everyday life, why you make the economic decisions that you do, and what happens when these principles break down.

In Development as Freedom, Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen calls for a radical rethinking of the way we view poverty and economic development. Pulling from more than five decades of his own research, Sen argues that economic development goes beyond increasing wealth—it’s about expanding freedom.

In this guide, we examine the five types of freedom that Sen argues are integral to development. We explore how empowering women helps communities, how democracy prevents famine, and how capitalist values lead to the greater good.

This guide explains Sen’s reasoning—from what it means to be poor to his idea of justice and the role that markets play in development. Additionally, we examine different perspectives on the substance and practicality of Sen’s “development as freedom” approach.

In Silent Spring, biologist Rachel Carson condemns the widespread use of pesticides in the 20th century, arguing that these chemicals threaten to devastate the natural environment and poison animals and humans alike. Carson advocates stricter regulation of pesticides by the US government, limited spraying, and the use of biological (rather than chemical) controls. Though Carson’s book was controversial and widely condemned by chemical companies, it’s been credited as an inspiration for the environmentalist movement of the 1970s, the formation of the US Environmental Protection Agency, and the banning of the pesticide DDT.

This guide will explore Carson’s criticisms of pesticides and proposals for change, including discussions of what pesticides do, how they’re used, and what alternatives exist for pest control. We’ll also discuss evolutions in science since the book was published in 1962, backlash to and criticism of Carson’s findings, and the book’s influence on American environmental policy.

In The Sixth Extinction, journalist Elizabeth Kolbert argues that by drastically changing the shape of the earth and the composition of the atmosphere, humans have set in motion a sixth mass extinction that may one day be our undoing. The book revisits five previous mass extinction events spanning five hundred million years and compares them to the rapid, widespread extinctions underway today of a range of species including frogs, corals, birds, and rhinos.

These extinctions are a consequence of human-created global warming and ocean acidification, the destruction and fragmentation of forests, and our spread of invasive species around the world. What’s more, these actions will determine the course of life on the planet long after our species is gone.

Americans might be the heaviest, sickest people in the world. The China Study suggests that we can lose weight and lower disease rates by removing animal foods from our diets.

What sets the whole foods, plant-based diet apart from the fads is the extensive research behind it, detailed and distilled in this book. The evidence is compelling and the message clear: Animal foods lead to disease; plant foods prevent and treat it.

Learn how a plant-based diet can give you more energy, reverse your heart disease, decrease your cancer risk, outsmart your genes, and make your life longer and healthier.