By Aaron Lynch

From the Preface:” This book introduces a new branch of science dealing with the evolution of ideas that program f for their own retransmission. These self-spreading ideas have been called memes ever since zoologist Richard Dawkins coined the term in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene. After ten chapters on genetic evolution, he devoted the closing chapter to the nongenetic evolution of memes. Two years later, I independently reinvented this theory of self-propagating ideas, and realized that ti would someday warrant a whole book. I had coined a different neologism back then, but later adopted the term meme after a friend told me about Dawkins's meme chapter.”

NY. Basic Books, 1996. 194p. CONTAINS MARK-UP

By Joseph .J. Ellis

From the Preface: The pages that follow are concerned with the American Revolution, with the generation of Americans that came of age during the revolutionary crisis, with the expectations they harbored for the future of American culture, and with their responses when that future failed to materialize. After attempting to identify the rapidly changing social conditions and values of revolutionary America, I try to tell thestory offour men whoselives grew out of thatsocial context: Charles Willson Peale, an artist; Hugh Henry Brackenridge, a novelist; William Dunlap, a dramatist and theater manager; and Noah Webster, an educator, linguist, and all-purpose polemicist. Each of these men believed that the American Revolution was more than a war for colonial independence. Each expected the Revolution to alter American society in fundamental ways. Each thought that the Revolution would remove long-standing constraints to national development and thereby unleash vast reservoirs of untapped energy within American society and within individual personalities…….Expectations this excessive, you might say, are doomed from the start……

NY. W.W. Norton. 1979. 267p. CONTAINS MARK-UP

By Richard Dawkins

From the introduction: “Darwinism encompasses all of life- human, animal, plant, bacterial, and, fi I am right in the last chapter of this book, extraterrestrial. It provides the only satisfying explanation forwhy we all exist, why we are the way that we are. It is t h ebedrock on which rest all t h edisciplines known as the humanities. I do not mean that history, literarycriticism, and the law should be recast in a specifically Darwinian mould. Far fromit, very far. But all human works are the products of brains, brainsare evolved data processing devices, and we shall misunderstand their works if we forget this fundamental fact. If more doctors understood Darwinism, humanity would not now be facing a crisis of antibiotic resistance. Darwinian evolution, as onereviewer has observed, 'is the most portentous natural truth that science has yet discovered'. I'd add, o'r is likely to discover.”

London. Norton. 1986. 360p. CONTAINS MARK-UP

Biden, Joseph R., Jr.

From the document: "Hate and the violence it fuels are on the rise in America. Hate crimes, targeted violence, and acts of harassment--including online abuse--have increased in recent years, eroding our democracy, decreasing public trust, and putting so many American communities at risk. We have seen this unfold from bomb threats at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, to rising hate crimes against Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (AANHPIs) fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic, to escalating threats against women and LGBTQI+ [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex and other] Americans, to persistent bias and violence against Muslim, Sikh, and South Asian communities, to harassment of Jews and attacks on Jewish communities. Antisemitism is often called 'the oldest hatred,' yet it remains all too present today--including in America. [...] While antisemitism most directly and intensely affects the American Jewish community, antisemitism also threatens the democracy, values, safety, and rights of all Americans. [...] This strategy represents the most comprehensive and ambitious U.S. government effort to counter antisemitism in American history. To implement this strategy, executive agencies will take a broad array of actions to address antisemitism. But the federal government cannot address antisemitism alone. This strategy also calls on Congress to act and play its part in countering antisemitism. It urges action from all of society--state and local authorities, civil society, community and faith leaders, the private sector, individual citizens."

United States. White House Office. 2023. 60p.

United States. Department Of State

From the document: "Over the last 65 years, the United States has been a leader in exploring and utilizing outer space for peaceful purposes; maximizing the benefits of space for U.S. citizens and the citizens of the world. Our nation's commitment to progress for all humankind has made the United States the global space partner of choice. We continue working with allies and partners to expand the base of likeminded space faring nations. This first Strategic Framework for Space Diplomacy outlines how State Department diplomacy will advance continued U.S. space leadership and will expand international cooperation on mutually beneficial space activities, while promoting responsible behavior from all space actors, strengthening the understanding of, and support for, U.S. national space policies and programs, and promoting international use of U.S. space capabilities, systems, and services."

United States. Department of State. 2023.37p

By Vian Bakir and Andrew McStay

This open access book deconstructs the core features of online misinformation and disinformation. It finds that the optimisation of emotions for commercial and political gain is a primary cause of false information online. The chapters distil societal harms, evaluate solutions, and consider what must be done to strengthen societies as new biometric forms of emotion profiling emerge. Based on a rich, empirical, and interdisciplinary literature that examines multiple countries, the book will be of interest to scholars and students of Communications, Journalism, Politics, Sociology, Science and Technology Studies, and Information Science, as well as global and local policymakers and ordinary citizens interested in how to prevent the spread of false information worldwide, both now and in the future.

Cham: Springer, 2022. 280p.

Edited by Steven K. Baum, Neil J. Kressel, Florette Cohen-Abady and Steven Leonard Jacobs

In Antisemitism in North America, leading scholars offer a wide variety of perspectives on why the Jews in North America have sometimes faced considerable bigotry but have, in general, found a home far more hospitable than the ones they left behind in Europe. ; Readership: Those who are interested in a scholarly understanding of prejudice antisemitism, Jewish studies, hate studies, religious studies, cultural studies, Holocaust and genocide studies, social psychology and social sciences.

Leiden; Boston:  Brill: 2016. 476p.

By Jennifer J. Carroll

Against the backdrop of a post-Soviet state set aflame by geopolitical conflict and violent revolution, Narkomania considers whether substance use disorders are everywhere the same and whether our responses to drug use presuppose what kind of people those who use drugs really are. Jennifer J. Carroll's ethnography is a story about public health and international efforts to quell the spread of HIV. Carroll focuses on Ukraine where the prevalence of HIV among people who use drugs is higher than in parts of sub-Saharan Africa and unpacks the arguments and myths surrounding medication-assisted treatment (MAT) in Ukraine. What she presents in Narkomania forces us to question drug policy, its uses, and its effects on "normal" citizens. Carroll uses her findings to explore what people who use drugs can teach us about the contemporary societies emerging in post-Soviet space. With examples of how MAT has been politicized, how drug use has been tied to ideas of "good" citizenship, and how vigilantism towards people who use drugs has occurred, Narkomania details the cultural and historical backstory of the situation in Ukraine. Carroll reveals how global efforts supporting MAT in Ukraine allow the ideas surrounding MAT, drug use, and HIV to resonate more broadly into international politics and echo into the heart of the Ukrainian public.

Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2019. 251p.

By Janice M. Irvine

Marginal People in Deviant Places revisits early- to mid-twentieth-century ethnographic studies, arguing that their focus on marginal subcultures—ranging from American hobos, to men who have sex with other men in St. Louis bathrooms, to hippies, to taxi dancers in Chicago, to elderly Jews in Venice, California—helped produce new ways of thinking about social difference more broadly in the United States. Irvine demonstrates how the social scientists who told the stories of these marginalized groups represented an early challenge to then-dominant narratives of scientific racism, prefiguring the academic fields of gender, ethnic, sexuality, and queer studies in key ways. In recounting the social histories of certain American outsiders, Irvine identifies an American paradox by which social differences are both despised and desired, and she describes the rise of an outsider capitalism that integrates difference into American society by marketing it.

Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2022. 349p.

Edited by Felice Blake Paula Ioanide and Alison  Reed

"Antiracism Inc. traces the ways people along the political spectrum appropriate, incorporate, and neutralize antiracist discourses to perpetuate injustice. It also examines the ways organizers continue to struggle for racial justice in the context of such appropriations. Antiracism Inc. reveals how antiracist claims can be used to propagate racism, and what we can do about it. While related to colorblind, multicultural, and diversity discourses, the appropriation of antiracist rhetoric as a strategy for advancing neoliberal and neoconservative agendas is a unique phenomenon that requires careful interrogation and analysis. Those who co-opt antiracist language and practice do not necessarily deny racial difference, biases, or inequalities. Instead, by performing themselves conservatively as non-racists or liberally as ‘authentic’ antiracists, they purport to be aligned with racial justice even while advancing the logics and practices of systemic racism. Antiracism Inc. therefore considers new ways of struggling toward racial justice in a world that constantly steals and misuses radical ideas and practices. The collection focuses on people and methods that do not seek inclusion in the hierarchical order of gendered racial capitalism. Rather, the collection focuses on aggrieved peoples who have always had to negotiate state violence and cultural erasure, but who work to build the worlds they envision. These collectivities seek to transform social structures and establish a new social warrant guided by what W.E.B. Du Bois called “abolition democracy,” a way of being and thinking that privileges people, mutual interdependence, and ecological harmony over individualist self-aggrandizement and profits. These aggrieved collectivities reshape social relations away from the violence and alienation inherent to gendered racial capitalism, and towards the well-being of the commons. Antiracism Inc. articulates methodologies that strive toward freedom dreams without imposing monolithic or authoritative definitions of resistance. Because power seeks to neutralize revolutionary action through incorporation as much as elimination, these freedom dreams, as well as the language used to articulate them, are constantly transformed through the critical and creative interventions stemming from the active engagement in liberation struggles."

Brooklyn, NY: Punctum Books, 2019. 382p.

Edited by Maik Fielitz and Nick Thurston

How have digital tools and networks transformed the far rights strategies and transnational prospects? This volume presents a unique critical survey of the online and offline tactics, symbols and platforms that are strategically remixed by contemporary far-right groups in Europe and the US. It features thirteen accessible essays by an international range of expert scholars, policy advisors and activists who offer informed answers to a number of urgent practical and theoretical questions: How and why has the internet emboldened extreme nationalisms? What counter-cultural approaches should civil societies develop in response?How have digital tools and networks transformed the far rights strategies and transnational prospects? This volume presents a unique critical survey of the online and offline tactics, symbols and platforms that are strategically remixed by contemporary far-right groups in Europe and the US. It features thirteen accessible essays by an international range of expert scholars, policy advisors and activists who offer informed answers to a number of urgent practical and theoretical questions: How and why has the internet emboldened extreme nationalisms? What counter-cultural approaches should civil societies develop in response?How have digital tools and networks transformed the far rights strategies and transnational prospects? This volume presents a unique critical survey of the online and offline tactics, symbols and platforms that are strategically remixed by contemporary far-right groups in Europe and the US. It features thirteen accessible essays by an international range of expert scholars, policy advisors and activists who offer informed answers to a number of urgent practical and theoretical questions: How and why has the internet emboldened extreme nationalisms? What counter-cultural approaches should civil societies develop in response?

Bielefeld, Germany:  transcript Verlag, 2019. 210p.

 Edited by Joanna Sondel-Cedarmas and Francesco Berti

The Right-Wing Critique of Europe analyses the opposition to the European Union from a variety of right-wing organisations in Western, Central and Eastern Europe. In recent years, opposition to the processes of globalisation and the programme of closer European integration, understood as a threat to the sovereignty of individual member states, has led to an intensification of Eurosceptic sentiments on the Old Continent. The results of the European parliamentary elections in 2014 and 2019, the Brexit referendum and electoral results in different European countries are all testament to the considerable growth of radical populist-nationalist and conservative-sovereignist movements and parties. The common idea that binds these groups, both in Western Europe and in Central and Eastern Europe, is a hostile attitude towards the idea of (an ever-more integrated) united Europe. These parties reject not only the project of building a European federation, but also the current model of the European Union and the values underlying its attitudes. They are united by their criticism of EU policies, in particular those concerning security, emigration, multiculturalism, gender equality and the rights of minorities, as well as economic liberalism and the common currency. However, this criticism manifests itself with varying degrees of intensity, and not all parties fit the classic definition of Euroscepticism but instead represent its mild form, Eurorealism. The authors bring together reflections on the organic and complex critique of the European Union, its policies and cultural and ideological character. The book provides a comparative analysis of this criticism at the transnational level. This book will be of interest to researchers of European politics, the radical right and Euroscepticism.

London; New York: Routledge, 2022. 290p.

By Samuel P. Huntington

From the Preface: “In the summer of 1993 the journal Foreign Affairs published an article of mine titled “The Clash of Civilizations?”. That article, according to the Foreign Affairs editors, stirred up more discussion in three years than any other article they had published since the 1940s. It certainly stirred up more debate in three years than anything else I have written. The responses and comments on it have come from every continent and scores of countries. People were variously impressed, intrigued, outraged, frightened, and perplexed by my argument that the central and most dangerous dimension of the emerging global politics would be conflict between groups from differing civilizations. Whatever else it did, the article struck a nerve in people of every civilization.

Given the interest in, misrepresentation of, and controversy over the article, it seemed desirable for me to explore further the issues it raised. One construc­tive way of posing a question is to state an hypothesis. The article, which had a generally ignored question mark in its title, was an effort to do that. This book is intended to provide a fuller, deeper, and more thoroughly documented answer to the articles question…”

NY. Touchstone. 1996. 350p. CONTAINS MARK-UP

By Carl Miller, David Weir, Shaun Ring, Oliver Marsh, Chris Inskip, Nestor Prieto Chavana

New research from CASM Technology and ISD has found a major and sustained spike in antisemitic posts on Twitter since the company’s takeover by Elon Musk on October 27, 2022.

Powered by the award-winning digital analysis technology Beam – and based on a powerful hate speech detection methodology combining over twenty leading machine-learning models – researchers found that the volume of English-language antisemitic Tweets more than doubled in the period following Musk’s takeover.

In total, analysts detected 325,739 English-language antisemitic Tweets in the 9 months from June 2022 to February 2023, with the weekly average number of antisemitic Tweets increasing by 106% (from 6,204 to 12,762), when comparing the period before and after Musk’s acquisition.

Amman | Berlin | London | Paris | Washington DC: Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2023. 32p.

By Cécile Simmons and Zoé Fourel

Online abuse has a profound impact on the health of democratic societies, threatening progress on diversity and representation in politics. Research has shown that abuse can deter women and individuals from minority groups from pursuing careers in politics, and drive those already engaged to step down from political life. The 2022 midterm elections in the US saw a growing number of candidates from minority backgrounds running for office. Faced with growing public pressure, social media companies took steps to amend their policies and community standards to address illegal and harmful content and behavior on their platforms. Evidence has shown, however, that abusive image and video-based content can fall through the cracks of content moderation, pointing to a lack of adequate response from social media platforms. In the run-up to the November 2022 midterm elections, ISD investigated abusive content on Instagram and TikTok targeting prominent women in US politics. Researchers analyzed hashtag recommendations served to users on both platforms when searching for content related to several key women in US politics in the days before the election. This report finds that platforms recommend abusive hashtags when people search for the names of these female political figures, and also promote abusive content that violate their own terms of service, showing that harmful and abusive content targeting women running for, and in-, office remains in plain sight of the platforms.

Amman | Berlin | London | Paris | Washington DC: Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2022. 36p.

By Daniel Hickey, Matheus Schmitz, Daniel Fessler, Paul E. Smaldino, Goran Muric, Keith Burghardt

On October 27th, 2022, Elon Musk purchased Twitter, becoming its new CEO and firing many top executives in the process. Musk listed fewer restrictions on content moderation and removal of spam bots among his goals for the platform. Given findings of prior research on moderation and hate speech in online communities, the promise of less strict content moderation poses the concern that hate will rise on Twitter. We examine the levels of hate speech and prevalence of bots before and after Musk’s acquisition of the platform. We find that hate speech rose dramatically upon Musk purchasing Twitter and the prevalence of most types of bots increased, while the prevalence of astroturf bots decreased.

Pre-publication: 2023. 6p.

By The Center for Countering Digital Hate; Anti-Defamation League

  Press TV, a broadcasting brand founded by Iran’s state-controlled media corporation, is a platform used to promote the Iranian state’s hateful views of Jewish people, Holocaust denial, and LGBTQ+ and women’s rights to the rest of the world. Founded in 2007, the network’s self-professed aim was to break “the global media stranglehold of Western outlets”. Press TV uses social media to promote ‘Palestine Declassified’, a video series which focuses its hatred towards British Jews, but spreads hateful narratives and lies about Jewish people as a whole. We argue this constitutes a ‘foreign state hate operation’, that is, a foreign influence campaign by one state designed to sow division among audiences abroad, this time with an overt strategy that uses the enormous audiences and algorithmic biases towards contentious material on social media to maximize visibility. Palestine Declassified’s hosts, British ‘useful idiots’ who have previously faced allegations of antisemitism, perpetuate what the Anti-Defamation League has called the antisemitic myths of “power” and “antiZionism” to their followers. The project’s episodes, promoted through social media channels operated by Press TV, target Jewish people with antisemitic tropes and attack charities, schools, journalists, academics, and individuals by promoting the conspiracy that they are part of a coordinated “Zionist movement” – one of a number of phrases used indiscriminately with the aim to homogenize and flatten an otherwise ideologically nuanced and diverse set of people, groups, and communities. Half of the programme’s episodes promote antisemitic narratives – purporting antisemitic myths that “Zionists’’ control world events, “groom” young people in schools and universities, and the well-worn conspiracy that “Zionists” exercise a network of control in the world, specifically in the UK. Its comment section is rife with antisemitism, ranging from abuse to inciting violence against Jews. Banned by regulators from television networks, its .com domain seized by US authorities, and removed from YouTube, Press TV relies on the indifference of social media executives to the spread of hate on their platforms, to funnel traffic to its website. This research clearly demonstrates that social media platforms are providing the Iranian state with the infrastructure to spread its propaganda to millions globally. While platforms claim to have rules against antisemitism, time and time again Big Tech have proven that they will only enforce their rules when convenient. In 2021, CCDH found that major social media platforms failed to remove 84% of antisemitic content reported using platforms’ own tools – ranging from Holocaust denial to conspiracies fueled by anti-Jewish hatred. Thanks to social media platforms, Press TV’s vitriol has gained new ground in the West: the US, the UK, Canada, France and Australia make up 51% of Press TV’s total web traffic, according to data from Similarweb. Palestine Declassified has leveraged social media audiences to disseminate dangerous hate to up to 11.5 million followers, the majority on Twitter and Facebook. Social media companies allow it – and profit from its popularity.  

 New York: The Center for Countering Digital Hate; Anti-Defamation League, 2023. 49p. 

By Anti-Defamation League

From the document: "The Antisemitism Worldwide Report for 2022 informs of both increases and decreases, some more meaningful than others, in the number of antisemitic incidents in different countries. The United States, where the largest Jewish minority in the world lives, saw a particularly alarming rise in anti-Jewish violence and slander. These data are not encouraging. The record-levels of 2021 were attributed in part to the exceptional social tensions created by the Covid-19 epidemic and the political tensions created by the Guardian of the Walls operation in Gaza. The data for 2022 suggest that the motivations for present-day antisemitism are not transient as some may have hoped. Despite the investment of substantial legal, educational, and political efforts, thousands of antisemitic incidents took place across the globe in 2022, including hundreds of physical assaults. Everyone who cares about human dignity and justice must recognize the need to prevent this reality from becoming normalized."

Tel-Aviv. University. Kantor Center For The Study Of Contemporary European Jewry; 2023. 86p.

By Alan Moorehead

London. Penguin. 1966. 289p.

Moorehead argues that the arrival of Europeans had a catastrophic impact on the indigenous peoples of the South Pacific, leading to the destruction of traditional cultures, the loss of land and resources, and widespread disease and violence. He examines the motivations of the European explorers and colonizers, as well as the impact of their actions on the people and societies they encountered.

The book begins with the arrival of the British navigator Samuel Wallis in Tahiti in 1767, and follows the subsequent voyages of other explorers, including James Cook, Jean-Francois de La Perouse, and William Bligh. Moorehead describes how these explorers brought with them new technologies, ideas, and diseases, and how they often saw the indigenous peoples they encountered as primitive and inferior.

Moorehead also explores the impact of European colonization on the South Pacific, focusing on the experiences of the Maori people in New Zealand and the Aborigines in Australia. He describes how these peoples were forced to adapt to a new way of life, and how they often suffered from violence, disease, and displacement as a result of European settlement.

By Geoffrey Blainey

Australia. Sun Books. 1966. 206p.

Blainey argues that the tyranny of distance has been a defining characteristic of Australian history, impacting everything from exploration and settlement to politics and economics. He notes that Australia is the most isolated continent on earth, and that its distance from other major world powers has both insulated it from external threats and limited its opportunities for growth and development.

The book traces the history of Australia from its earliest days as a British penal colony to its emergence as a modern, prosperous nation. Blainey examines the challenges that early settlers faced in adapting to a harsh and unfamiliar landscape, as well as the role that transportation and communication technologies played in bridging the vast distances between Australia and the rest of the world.

Blainey also explores how distance has shaped Australian identity and culture, arguing that it has fostered a sense of self-reliance and resilience in the face of adversity. He notes that Australians have often had to rely on their own ingenuity and resourcefulness to overcome the challenges posed by their isolation, and that this has helped to forge a distinct national character.

Overall, "The Tyranny of Distance" is a thought-provoking and insightful exploration of how geography has influenced the course of Australian history. It offers a unique perspective on the challenges and opportunities that come with living in a remote and isolated part of the world, and sheds light on the ways in which these factors have shaped Australian society and culture over time.