Socjologia i społeczeństwo

A year after Richard Herrin confessed to killing his girlfriend, Bonnie Garland, he was found not guilty of murder. His crime, he pleaded, was committed "under extreme emotional disturbance," excusing him from maximum responsibility. He was convicted on the reduced charge of manslaughter.

In this incisive examination of the murder, the trial, and its aftermath, a distinguished psychiatrist addresses the issue of the insanity defense. He shows how psychiatric...

In this captivating blend of culinary history and popular culture, the award-winning author of Perfection Salad shows us what happened when the food industry elbowed its way into the kitchen after World War II, brandishing canned hamburgers, frozen baked beans, and instant piecrusts. Big Business waged an all-out campaign to win the allegiance of American housewives, but most women were suspicious of the new foods--and the make-believe cooking they entailed. With...

Ian Buruma's Murder in Amsterdam is a masterpiece of investigative journalism, a book with the intimacy and narrative control of a crime novel and the analytical brilliance for which Buruma is renowned. On a cold November day in Amsterdam in 2004, the celebrated and controversial Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was shot and killed by an Islamic extremist for making a movie that "insulted the prophet Mohammed." The murder sent shock waves across Europe and around the world. Shortly...

Millions of TV viewers have known Lou Dobbs for years as the Walter Cronkite of economics coverage, and now the anchor has become the preeminent champion of the common man and the good of the national interest, who tells uncomfortable truths in a voice that can't be ignored. In this incendiary book, he presents a frontline report on the betrayal of America's middle class by interests that range from rapacious corporations to an out-of-touch political elite. The result is not only...

Have you ever wondered how the water in your faucet gets there? Where your garbage goes? What the pipes under city streets do? How bananas from Ecuador get to your local market? Why radiators in apartment buildings clang? Using New York City as its point of reference, The Works takes readers down manholes and behind the scenes to explain exactly how an urban infrastructure operates. Deftly weaving text and graphics, author Kate Ascher explores the systems that manage water, traffic, sewage and garbage,...

• Russian spouses don't count beach resort flings as infidelity
• South Africans consider drunkenness an adequate excuse for extramarital sex
• Japanese businessmen believe, "If you pay, it's not cheating."

Voyeuristic and packed with eyebrow-raising statistics and interviews, Lust...