Editorial director. Michael Upshall

From amino acids to zygotes, this book will give you a quick and easy reference to all life-science terms. Written for the general reader, this dictionary contains the essential facts about life-sciences, alphabetically arranged to put the facts at your fingertips.

Oxford. Helicon Publishing. Brockhampton Press. 1997. 228p.

By Charles Darwin

From the Introduction: “The nature of the following work will be best understood by a brief account of how it came to be written. During many years I collected notes on the origin or descent of man, without any intention of publishing on the subject, but rather with the determination not to publish, as I thought that I should thus only add to the prejudices against my views. It seemed to me sufficient to indicate, in the first edition of my 'Origin of Species that by this work light would be thrown on the origin of man and his history and this implies that man must be included with other organic beings in any general conclusion respecting his manner of appearanco on this earth. Now the case wears a wholly different aspect. When a naturalist like Carl Vogt ventures to say in his address as President of the National Institution of Geneva (1869),… it is manifest that at least a large number of naturalists must admit that species are the modified descendants of other species; and this especially holds good with the younger and rising naturalists. The greater number accept the agency of natural selection; though some urge, whether with justice the future must decide, that I have greatly overrated its importance. Of the older and honoured chiefs in natural science, many unfortunately are still opposed to evolution in overy form.:.”

London. John Murray 1901. 1062p.

By Amitai Etzioni

From the Preface: “Most Americans tend to view their society as well advanced, politically stable and not very violent, although sophisticated observers point out to Americans that violence is frequently present in this country. Presidential assassinations, lynchings, abuses of police powers, threats and violence against negroes and blacks, and the violence and shootings in the newly settled western territories in the 19th century and early 20th century all indicate that violence was and still is common in the United States. We will probably never be able to answer the question whether the United States is a violent country; such a simple, naive question is obviously unanswerable. It seems safe to say that different nations are characterized by more and less violence; there are some nations that exhibit more incidence of violence and others have less; placing the United States in its proper place along this continuum would be a costly and difficult piece of social research. Whatever is the answer to this question, it is clear that many Americans, both politicians and ordinary citizens, were deeply disturbed by the demonstrations and violence of the mid-to-late 1960’s. For many reasons Lyndon Johnson appointed the President’s National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence; the task of the Commis­sion was clear, to help us gain an understanding and to help us prevent the commission of violent acts.”

NY. Gordon and Breach, Science Publishers. 1970. 115p.

By Matthew Arnold. Edited by J. Dover Wilson

From the cover: Manifesting the special intelligence of a literary critic of original gifts, Culture and Anarchy is still a living classic. It is addressed to the flexible and the disinterested, to those who are not committed to the findings of their particular discipline, and it assumes in its reader a critical intelligence that will begin its work with the reader himself. Arnold employs a delicate and stringent irony in an examination of the society of his time: a rapidly expanding industrial society, just beginning to accustom itself to the changes in its institutions that the pace of its own development called for. Coming virtually at the end of the decade (1868) and immediately prior to W. E. Forster’s Education Act, Culture and Anarchy phrases with a particular cogency the problems that find their centre in the questions: what kind of life do we think individuals in mass societies should be assisted to lead? How may we best ensure that the quality of their living is not impoverished? Arnold applies himself to the detail of his time: to the case of Mr Smith ‘who feared he would come to poverty and be eternally lost’, to the Reform agitation, to the commercial values that working people were encouraged to respect, and to the limitations of even the best Rationalist intelligence. The degree of local reference is therefore high, but Professor Dover Wilson’s introduction and notes to this edition supply valuable assistance to a reader fresh to the period. And they are informed by the respect and perceptive affection that Professor Dover Wilson brings to the work of Matthew Arnold as a whole.

London. Cambridge University Press. 1963. 270p.

By H. Stuart Hughes

From the Introduction: The present study is an essay in intellectual history.. But to declare that one is writing intellectual his­tory is really to say nothing until one has defined the term. History of this sort obviously deals with the thoughts and emotions of men—with reasoned argu­ment and with passionate outburst alike. The whole range of human expression—as revealed in writing, speech, practice, and tradition—falls within its orbit. Indeed every declaration of mankind more explicit than a bestial cry may in some sense be considered the sub­ject matter of intellectual history.

It might well be argued that this subject matter is not the deepest stuff of history. Below it (to use the work­able but deceptively concrete metaphor of the “high” and “low” when dealing with the human psyche) lies the realm of unorganized sentiments and routine eco­nomic processes. Marx called this realm the “sub­stratum.” For Marx the important thing to know about it was the character of the regime of production that inexorably conditioned human life: for the great social

NY. Vintage Books. Random House. 1958. 448p. THIS BOOK CONTAINS MARK-UP

By United States. Congress. House. Permanent Select Committee On Intelligence

From the Introduction: "The COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc across the country, with almost every household feeling its effects. The United States' death toll from this virus has surpassed one million people. Although concrete data is hard to lock down, millions of Americans are suffering from the long-term effects directly attributed to this virus. [...] This Committee is uniquely positioned to assist in answering the questions surrounding the origins of COVID 19. This unclassified report attempts to add to the discourse of COVID-19 origins with the understanding that information held by the United States Intelligence Community (IC) that has yet to be shared with this Committee could be useful in making a final determination of the question of whether the origin of this pandemic was natural or lab-related. [...] U.S. officials have pushed China to be more transparent about what it knows. However, as explained below, the U.S. government has itself withheld relevant information, namely, information regarding Chinese research activities and goals. Indeed, because of its access to nonpublic, classified intelligence, the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) has unique capabilities in obtaining relevant information and in determining the origins of COVID-19. Unfortunately, its efforts to date have fallen short, both in its own assessments and in what it has been willing to share with Congress and the public. The classified version of this Committee report was prepared with access to some, but not all, of the IC's classified reporting. The IC has largely refused our requests for additional information. This unclassified summary of the underlying classified report necessarily omits vital information in order to comply with our obligations regarding classified information."

United States. Congress. House. Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. 2022. 22p.

By United States. Congress. House. Permanent Select Committee On Intelligence

From the Document: "Today, the House Intelligence Committee released a declassified report examining the Intelligence Community's response to the COVID-19 pandemic following a two-year investigation. The report examines the IC's [Intelligence Committee's] posture to support global health security policymakers, the IC's performance in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the steps the IC must take to strengthen any future pandemic response. The report details how the Intelligence Community was not well positioned or prepared to provide early warning and unique insights on the pandemic due to an inconsistent focus on health security and pandemics as a national security threat."

United States. Congress. House. Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. 2022. 85p.

By Alvin W. Gouldner.

From the Preface: Social theorists today work within a crumbling social matrix of paralyzed urban centers and battered campuses. Some may put cotton in their ears, but their bodies still feel the shock waves. It is no exaggeration to say that we theorize today within the sound of guns. The old order has the picks of a hundred rebellions thrust into its hide.

While I was working on this study, one of the popular songs of the time was "Come on Baby, Light My Fire.” It is characteristic of our time that this song, which during the Detroit riots was used as an ode to urban conflagration, was also subsequently made into a singing commercial by a Detroit auto manufacturer. One wonders: Is this “repressive tolerance,” or is it, more simply, that they just do not understand? It is this context of social contradictions and conflicts that is the historical matrix of what I have called “The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology.” What I shall be examining here is the reflec­tion of these conflicts in the idiom of social theory.

The present study is part of a larger work plan, whose first product was Enter Plato, and whose objective is to contribute to an historically informed sociology of social theory. The plan envisages a series of studies called "The Social Origins of Western Social Theory,” and I am now at work on two other volumes in it. One of these is on the relation of the nineteenth century Romantic move­ment to social theory, and another is a study in which I hope to connect the various analytic threads, presenting a more systematic and generalized sociological theory about social theories.

NY. Avon Books. 1970. 518p. CONTAINS MARK-UP

By Frantz Fanon. Translated by Lamb Marksman. “.. it is Fanon the man, rather than the medical specialist or intellec­tual, who makes this book so hard to put down. His ideas and feelings fairly pour out...he became a fighter ancfa voice for the op­pressed, whom he also had the courage to warn: no religious or mystical attitude, no psychologi­cal ‘defense’ will enable the Negro to feel ‘secure’ or ‘himself’ until he is no longer the white man’s social and economic prey . . .”- Robert Coles, The New York Times Book Review

NY. Grove Press. 1967. 237p.

By Ernest Becker

What I have tried to do here is to present in a brief, challenging, and readable way the most important things that the various disciplines have dis­covered about man, about what makes people act the way they do. This is the most intimate question that we know, and what I want to do is to present to the intelligent reader that knowl­edge that the experts themselves get excited about. One curi­ous thing that separates the social from the natural sciences is that the natural sciences, with much fanfare, immediately com­municate to the general public their most exciting new ideas: the social sciences tend to nurse their significant insights in scholarly oblivion. As a result people feel that the social sciences are not doing anything important or exciting. But the opposite is true: probably the most thrilling and potentially liberating discoveries have been made in the fields of anthropology, so­ciology, psvchology, and psychiatry. The result is that we are today in possession of an excellent general theory of human nature, and this is what I want to reveal to the reader.

NY. The Free Press. 1971. 238p.

By Thomas J. Harbin.

“This is a book that I had to write. I had to write it for two reasons. First, I need­ed some materials to give to my patients, men who have a problem dealing with their anger. But writing this book also helped me organize my thoughts and feelings about the role of anger in my own life. Many years ago, others had told me that I had a problem with anger, but I didn’t take them seriously. In fact, I may never have been motivated to take this look at myself if I had not come close to ruining the most important thing in my life: my marriage. On our 10th wedding anniversary, my wife told me that “if the next 10 years are going to be like the last 10 years, I’m outta here.” Her words were not spoken in anger, but there was no doubt that she meant what she had said. What I had seen as a very good marriage with occasional arguments, she had seen as a constant, heavy burden. She felt as though she was always walking on eggshells so as not to “set me off.” When we had a disagreement, I brooded about it for days. Any time she disagreed with me, I immediately went on the attack and tried to defeat her and her point of view by almost any means. When she told me that she had taken all that she could stand, I took her seriously and decided that I had to do some frank soul searching to keep from losing the most impor­tant person I had ever known.”

NY. Marlowe & Company. 2000.217p.

By Oliver Sacks

This is the extraordinary account of a group of 20 patients, survivors of the great sleeping-sickness epidemic which swept the world in the 1920s, and the astonishing, explosive ‘awakening’ effect they experienced 40 years later through a new drug L-DOPA administered by Dr Sacks. The stories he tells of these remarkable individuals are moving, often courageous and sometimes tragic. Through them he also explores the most general questions of health, disease, suffering, care and the human condition. Now hailed as a medical classic, Awakenings was first published in 1973 and won the Hawthomden Prize of that year. It has since inspired a TV documentary, radio and stage plays, including Pinter’s A Kind of Alaska, and a major feature film. For this revised edition the author has written much new material, including a section about Awakenings on stage and screen.

London. Pan Books. 1973. 424p.

By Robert Nozick

In this brilliant and widely acclaimed book, winner of the 1975 National Book Award, Robert Nozick challenges the most commonly held political and social positions of our age—liberal, socialist, and conservative.

[“Nozick’s] faculties of reasoning and imagination are rare; his learning is enormous and interconnected. . . . His ability to surround a subject, to anticipate objection, to see through weakness and pretense, to extract all the im­plications of a contention, to ask a huge number of rele­vant questions about a seemingly settled matter, to en­large into full significance what has only been sketched by others, is amazing.”           —George Kateb. The American Scholar

“No contemporary philosopher possesses a more imagina­tive mind, broader interests, or greater dialectical abilities than Robert Nozick.”        —Harper’s

“A brilliant and important book, bound to contribute no­tably both to theory and, in time, to the good of society.”—W. V. Quine. Harvard University

NY. Basic Books. 1974. 376p. CONTAINS MARK-UP

By Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele.

This book “is a solid indictment of how the rulemakers in Washington and the dealmakers on Wall Street have changed the rules of the game to favor the privileged, the powerful, and the influential — at the expense of everyone else.. Expanding on an unforgettable series of articles in the Philadelphia Inquirer, this book is the culmination of two years of research by Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporters Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele. Assembling over 100,000 pages of documents and interviewing men and women at all levels of the work force across the nation, Barlett and Steele have managed to tell the story we all suspected in language so clear—and graphics so dramatic—that every reader will see how the lives of all of us have been touched by public acts and private greed. America: What Went Wrong? is a gripping portrayal of the painful dismantling of the American middle class.

Universal Press Syndicate. 1992. 246p.

By Jonathan Kenyon,  Jens Binder, and Christopher Baker-Beall

This study explored the role of the Internet in radicalisation pathways of convicted extremist offenders in England and Wales, continuing the work previously reported in Kenyon et al. (2021b). Specific considerations included technological advances and changes in online activities, exploring the relevance of mental health including specific types of difficulties and disorders, and focusing on the sub-group of convicted extremist offenders identified as attackers. Methodological approach and interpreting findings The study built on an existing data set of 269 individuals from the study by Kenyon et al. (2021b) but expanded the numbers substantially by adding those with a completed initial Extremism Risk Guidance (ERG22+) report from January 2018 to December 2021. This resulted in a data set of 490 individuals who had been convicted of an extremist offence, equating to nearly all offenders who have been subject to either a Structured Risk Guidance (SRG) or initial ERG22+ report from October 2010 up to December 2021. The analysis focused on 437 individuals who were identified as ‘Radicalised Extremists’ following a review of all reports. Online behaviours commonly associated with radicalisation, demographic information and offence characteristics were coded for all cases. Professional ratings for overall levels of engagement, intent and capability to commit violent extremist acts were also included. Future offence data was obtained for all individuals by accessing up-to-date offending information and reviewing their current location. Statistical analyses were used to compare three radicalisation pathway groups: those who primarily radicalised online; those who primarily radicalised offline; and those subject to radicalising influences in both the online and offline domain  

London: Her Majesty's Prison and Probation Service, Ministry of Justice Analytical Series , 2022. 70p.

By Ronald C. Slye

This paper provides a framework for policymakers to tailor more effective negotiation and transitional justice strategies to address root causes, break cycles of violence, and strengthen the rule of law in settings affected by violent extremism. This paper draws on an earlier paper authored by me and Mark Freeman of the Institute for Integrated Transitions (also published here on SSRN), the three case studies commissioned for that first paper (ISIS in Iraq, Al Shabaab in Somalia, and Boko Haram in Nigeria), and three newly-commissioned case studies on negotiations with violent extremist groups (Libya and the Libya Islamic Fighting Group, Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army, and Afghanistan and the Taliban). All six case studies can be found on the website of the Institute for Integrated Transitions (https://www.ifit-transitions.org).

Barcelona: Institute for Integrated Transitions (IFIT), 2020. 204p.

By Lorand Bodo and Inga Kristina Trauthig

  The World Wide Web, since its development by Sir Tim Berners‑Lee in 1989, has steadily evolved into an ecosystem in which billions of users have become dependent on relatively few but large corporations. Using a search engine, posting on social media, communicating with others, or storing data in the cloud, for example, these companies have benefited billions of users positively. However, as the user base has grown over the years, so too has their power. Shifting the power from these few, large corporations back into the hands of users is critical to adherents of the Decentralised Web (DWeb). This ‘re‑decentralisation’ should also give the user more control over their data. As extremist actors try to innovate and find inventive ways to spread their propaganda and be more resistant to account and content removals, the DWeb is on their radar. This report gives a brief overview of the current status of the DWeb and ties it to existing and possible future exploitation of the DWeb by extremists. We focus on right‑wing extremist (RWE) and the so‑called Islamic State (IS) as these two strands of extremists are accredited with the highest threat potential in many parts of the world. We analyse a sample of thirty Telegram channels that fulfil our categorical features as being attached to the RWE spectrum. The second dataset, which was provided by UN‑supported Public‑Private Partnership Tech Against Terrorism (TAT), subjects the so‑called Islamic State’s exploitation of the DWeb to critical scrutiny.  

London:  Global Network on Extremism and Technology (GNET), 2022. 44p.

By Daniel Allington

The purpose of this report is to explore the role that conspiracy theories, especially as disseminated through social media, may play in the process of radicalisation, and to make recommendations about how to minimise their occurrence. As it will show, there is clear evidence: • That conspiracy theories are disseminated through social networking and media sharing platforms • That conspiracy theories have historically played an important role in radicalisation, terrorism, persecution and genocide • That belief in conspiracy theories is psychologically associated with bigotry, extremism and willingness to break the law • That the perpetrators and alleged perpetrators of many recent mass shooting events were motivated by belief in conspiracy theories • That conspiracy theories have played a key role in recent political violence in the USA, including the insurrection of 6 January 2021 • That actions taken by social networking and media sharing platforms are inadequate to solve the problems associated with conspiracy theories, in part because the platforms themselves are designed in a way that serves to nurture and protect conspiracy beliefs  

London:  Global Network on Extremism and Technology (GNET), 2021.  48p.

By Paul Thomas

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. How should we understand home-grown terrorism like the 7/7 London bombings? This is a classic monograph focusing on recent British attempts to 'prevent violent extremism', their problems and limitations, and what lessons this can offer for more effective policy approaches in future. Paul Thomas's extensive research suggests that the Prevent policy approaches, and the wider CONTEST counter-terrorism strategy, have been misguided and ineffective, further alienating British Muslim communities instead of supporting longer-term integration. He argues that new, cohesion-based approaches encouraging greater trust and integration across all communities represent the best defence against terrorism.

London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012. 190p.

By  Hannah Rose and AC

• Young people – politicised, active and highly connected – are no longer just passive consumers of online terrorist content by adult groomers but are themselves propaganda creators, group organisers, peer recruiters, extremist financers and terrorist convicts.

• This process, called “youth‑on‑youth radicalisation”, emphasises the agency that young people have in a digital era in which the information hierarchy is increasingly flattened.

• Noting the formation of several new young extreme‑right groups and a series of terrorist convictions across Western Europe, this paper takes first steps to investigate the specific nature of this emerging threat.

• Ten extreme‑right youth groups from across Western Europe will be analysed to evidence the independence of extremist youth activism: Bastión Frontal, Eisenjugend, Junge Revolution, KS Nuoret, Sonnenkrieg Division, Blutkrieg Division, Feuerkrieg Division, Junge Tat, National Partisan Movement and The British Hand.

• More.....

  groups included have emerged since 2018, have an average membership age of under 25 and are associated with arrests for hate crimes, incitement to violence or acts of violence. These groups demonstrate racial nationalist ideologies with a youth‑centric focus, often using unique framings that differentiate them from other, older groups. While the role of social media on young people’s lives is self‑evident, an overview of the platforms to which young extreme‑right groups are attracted and the nature of their external communications will be provided, emphasising the role of Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and Telegram. Instagram is a useful tool for young racial nationalists, providing them with a powerful opportunity to recruit, reach young audiences and present striking visual content. Young extremists use different platforms for different purposes, dedicating themselves to maintaining presence on mainstream platforms through second accounts and circumventing platforms’ content moderation algorithms. As such, they “funnel” users to accounts on platforms with increasingly extreme content and ecosystems.. Offline presence continues to be a vital tool for the majority of extreme‑right youth groups, who engage in fitness or martial arts and organise community service in order to foster an in‑group identity. They incite against out‑groups through expertly styled propaganda and aggressive, often racist rallies, protests and banner drops. The threat posed by extreme‑right youth will be emphasised through exploration of incitement to violence and analysis of hate crimes and terrorist convictions.

London: ICSR King’s College London , 2021. 68p.