The steady accretion of public policies over the decades has fundamentally changed how America is governed. The formulation and delivery of policy have emerged as the government’s entire raison d’être, redefining rights and reconfiguring institutional structures. The Policy State looks closely at this massive unnoticed fact of modern politics and addresses the controversies swirling around it. Government has become more responsive and inclusive, but the shift has also polarized politics and sowed a deep distrust of institutions. These developments demand a thorough reconsideration of historical governance. “A sterling example of political science at its best: analytically rigorous, historically informed, and targeted at questions of undeniable contemporary significance... Orren and Skowronek uncover a transformation that revolutionized American politics and now threatens to tear it apart.” —Timothy Shenk, New Republic “Wherever you start out in our politics, this book will turn your sense of things sideways and make you rethink deeply held assumptions. It’s a model of what political science could be, but so rarely is.” —Yuval Levin, National Review “A gripping narrative...opening up new avenues for reflection along methodological, conceptual, and normative lines.” —Bernardo Zacka, Contemporary Political Theory

America’s Overpopulation Predicament: Blindsiding Future Generations— The subject of this book will profoundly and adversely affect every man, woman and child on earth by 2050. Most of us have experienced a situation when we or someone we know has some critical knowledge to share that needs immediate action only to be told to wait our turn as other irrelevant topics are given attention. This author asks for his findings to be heard against an ocean of mediocrity as he relates his personal “eye opening” experiences from all over the world with similar emotion, I suspect, as Newton felt when he suddenly understood the force of gravity, or that of Archimedes when he shouted “Eureka” as he suddenly understood the method for measuring precious metal content in an object. Like the seer who catches a glimpse into the future, Wooldridge finds it hard to limit his efforts to the written word. For here we find as compelling a case for massive and immediate action as ever there was one. Here is a subject matter so extraordinary that it should be shouted from every rooftop. The information this book contains is imperative and irrefutable. It destroys the impotent etchings of any clay or gold tablets as a roadmap for humanity. Man or woman, young or old, it will entreat you to look ahead without bias to the stark reality of what is ahead for our nation and our world. Packed with references to support his case, and literally floating above contrary voices like whitecaps on the ocean, Wooldridge advances the case for the salvation of modern civilization. He suggests courses of action that will ultimately prove to be the only way to prevent humanity from vanishing like dust in the wind. K. R. Hampshire, Researcher and Entrepreneur, Denver, Colorado

What is the meaning of blackness in Africa? This title tackles the question of race in West Africa through its post-colonial manifestations. Pierre examines key facets of contemporary Ghanaian society, from the pervasive significance of 'whiteness' to the practice of chemical skin-bleaching to the government's active promotion of Pan-African 'heritage tourism'.

Are our lives meaningful, or meaningless? Is our inevitable death a bad thing? Would immortality be an improvement? Would it be better, all things considered, to hasten our deaths by suicide? Many people ask these big questions -- and some people are plagued by them. Surprisingly, analytic philosophers have said relatively little about these important questions about the meaning of life. When they have tackled the big questions, they have tended, like popular writers, to offer comforting, optimistic answers. The Human Predicament invites readers to take a clear-eyed and unfettered view of the human condition. David Benatar here offers a substantial, but not unmitigated, pessimism about the central questions of human existence. He argues that while our lives can have some meaning, we are ultimately the insignificant beings that we fear we might be. He maintains that the quality of life, although less bad for some than for others, leaves much to be desired in even the best cases. Worse, death is generally not a solution; in fact, it exacerbates rather than mitigates our cosmic meaninglessness. While it can release us from suffering, it imposes another cost - annihilation. This state of affairs has nuanced implications for how we should think about many things, including immortality and suicide, and how we should think about the possibility of deeper meaning in our lives. Ultimately, this thoughtful, provocative, and deeply candid treatment of life's big questions will interest anyone who has contemplated why we are here, and what the answer means for how we should live.

That the Blood Stay Pure traces the history and legacy of the commonwealth of Virginia's effort to maintain racial purity and its impact on the relations between African Americans and Native Americans. Arica L. Coleman tells the story of Virginia's racial purity campaign from the perspective of those who were disavowed or expelled from tribal communities due to their affiliation with people of African descent or because their physical attributes linked them to those of African ancestry. Coleman also explores the social consequences of the racial purity ethos for tribal communities that have refused to define Indian identity based on a denial of blackness. This rich interdisciplinary history, which includes contemporary case studies, addresses a neglected aspect of America's long struggle with race and identity.