The Best Psychology & Social Science Books 2024

Updated On September 11th, 2022

Looking for the best Psychology & Social Science Books? You aren't short of choices in 2022. The difficult bit is deciding the best Psychology & Social Science Books for you, but luckily that's where we can help. Based on testing out in the field with reviews, sells etc, we've created this ranked list of the finest Psychology & Social Science Books.

Rank Product Name Score
1
Crossing to Avalon: A Woman's Midlife Quest for the Sacred Feminine (Paperback)

Crossing to Avalon: A Woman's Midlife Quest for the Sacred Feminine (Paperback)

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2
Understanding the Enneagram: The Practical Guide to Personality Types (Paperback)

Understanding the Enneagram: The Practical Guide to Personality Types (Paperback)

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3
The Middle of Everywhere (Paperback)

The Middle of Everywhere (Paperback)

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4
Culture Jam: How to Reverse America's Suicidal Consumer Binge--Any Why We Must (Paperback)

Culture Jam: How to Reverse America's Suicidal Consumer Binge--Any Why We Must (Paperback)

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5
Lustmord : Sexual Murder in Weimar Germany

Lustmord : Sexual Murder in Weimar Germany

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6
Sparks of Genius: The Thirteen Thinking Tools of the World's Most Creative People (Paperback)

Sparks of Genius: The Thirteen Thinking Tools of the World's Most Creative People (Paperback)

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7
At the Will of the Body (Paperback)

At the Will of the Body (Paperback)

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8
Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses (Paperback)

Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses (Paperback)

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9
Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves (Paperback)

Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves (Paperback)

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10
Same Sex, Different Cultures: Exploring Gay And Lesbian Lives (Paperback)

Same Sex, Different Cultures: Exploring Gay And Lesbian Lives (Paperback)

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1. Crossing to Avalon: A Woman's Midlife Quest for the Sacred Feminine (Paperback)

Crossing to Avalon: A Woman's Midlife Quest for the Sacred Feminine (Paperback)
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A MIDLIFE QUEST FOR THE GRAIL AND THE GODDESS Dr Jean Shinoda Bolen's extraordinary memoir celebrates the pilgrimage that heralded her spiritual awakening and leads readers down the path of self-discovery. In this account of her journey to Europe in search of the sacred feminine, she unveils the mythological significance of the midlife search for meaning and renewal. "[Bolen] charts a path that will lead many readers to the heart of their own emotional and spiritual pilgrimages." SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE BOOK REVIEW "This wise and challenging work, the most personal of Jean Shinoda Bolen's books, is an absorbing often uncannily perceptive, and useful companion for the soul journeys of our time, which is 'The Time of the Goddess Returning."' ALICE WALKER, author of 'The Color Purple' "In 'Crossing to Avalon', Jean Shinoda Bolen turns her acute and brilliant eye toward the interconnectedness of women's mysteries, sacredness of the body, the effect of pilgrimage on soul, and deep feminine friendships." CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTES, Ph.D., author of 'Women Who Run with the Wolves' Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D., is a Jungian analyst and clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. She is the author of 'Goddesses in Everywoman, Gods in Everyman, ' and 'The Tao of Psychology.'

Crossing to Avalon: A Woman's Midlife Quest for the Sacred Feminine (Paperback)

2. Understanding the Enneagram: The Practical Guide to Personality Types (Paperback)

Understanding the Enneagram: The Practical Guide to Personality Types (Paperback)
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Understanding the Enneagram is the practical guide to applying the principles in day-to-day activities, from the world's foremost Enneagram experts. Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson's Personality Types has become the leading guide to the Enneagram, as well as a cherished classic in the literature of personal growth around the world. This is the groundbreaking book that set the standard for insight and accuracy about this ancient symbol of human personality. Now, Understanding the Enneagram is another indispensable reseource, teaching readers not only how to understand this psychological framework in daily life but how to use it in many different settings. Riso and Hudson have now fully revised and updated this authoritative guide to the Enneagram, based on their continuing work in the field, which is attracting ever-increasing attention. Discover how to use the Enneagram to find fulfillment in your personal development and in all of your relationships.

Understanding the Enneagram: The Practical Guide to Personality Types (Paperback)

3. The Middle of Everywhere (Paperback)

The Middle of Everywhere (Paperback)
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The New York Times's best-selling author of Reviving Ophelia, Mary Pipher connects us with our greater family--the human family. Over the past decade, Mary Pipher has been a great source of wisdom, helping us to better understand our family members. Now she connects us with the newest members of the American family--refugees. In cities all over the country, refugees arrive daily. Lost Boys from Sudan, survivors from Kosovo, families fleeing Afghanistan and Vietnam: they come with nothing but the hope and desire to experience the American dream. Their endurance in the face of tragedy and their ability to hold on to the virtues of family, love, and joy are a lesson for all Americans. Their stories will make you laugh and weep, and give you a deeper understanding of the wider world in which we live. The Middle of Everywhere moves beyond the headlines into the homes of refugees from around the world. Working as a cultural broker, teacher, and therapist, Mary Pipher has once again opened our eyes--and our hearts--to those with whom we share the future.

The Middle of Everywhere (Paperback)

4. Culture Jam: How to Reverse America's Suicidal Consumer Binge--Any Why We Must (Paperback)

Culture Jam: How to Reverse America's Suicidal Consumer Binge--Any Why We Must (Paperback)
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America is no longer a country but a multimillion-dollar brand, says Kalle Lasn and his fellow "culture jammers". The founder of Adbusters magazine, Lasn aims to stop the branding of America by changing the way information flows; the way institutions wield power; the way television stations are run; and the way the food, fashion, automobile, sports, music, and culture industries set agendas. With a courageous and compelling voice, Lasn deconstructs the advertising culture and our fixation on icons and brand names. And he shows how to organize resistance against the power trust that manages the brands by "uncooling" consumer items, by "dermarketing" fashions and celebrities, and by breaking the "media trance" of our TV-addicted age. A powerful manifesto by a leading media activist, Culture Jam lays the foundations for the most significant social movement of the early twenty-first century -- a movement that can change the world and the way we think and live.

Culture Jam: How to Reverse America's Suicidal Consumer Binge--Any Why We Must (Paperback)

5. Lustmord : Sexual Murder in Weimar Germany

Lustmord : Sexual Murder in Weimar Germany
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9780691015903. Pre-owned: Good condition. Trade paperback. Language: English. Pages: 213. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 213 p. Contains: Illustrations, black & white. In a book that confronts our society's obsession with sexual violence, Maria Tatar seeks the meaning behind one of the most disturbing images of twentieth-century Western culture: the violated female corpse. This image is so prevalent in painting, literature, film, and, most recently, in mass media, that we rarely question what is at stake in its representation. Tatar, however, challenges us to consider what is taking place--both artistically and socially--in the construction and circulation of scenes depicting sexual murder. In examining images of sexual murder (Lustmord), she produces a riveting study of how art and murder have intersected in the sexual politics of culture from Weimar Germany to the present. Tatar focuses attention on the politically turbulent Weimar Republic, often viewed as the birthplace of a transgressive avant-garde modernism, where representations of female sexual mutilation abound. Here a revealing episode in the gender politics of cultural production unfolds as male artists and writers, working in a society consumed by fear of outside threats, envision women as enemies that can be contained and mastered through transcendent artistic expression. Not only does Tatar show that male artists openly identified with real-life sexual murderers--George Grosz posed as Jack the Ripper in a photograph where his model and future wife was the target of his knife--but she also reveals the ways in which victims were disavowed and erased. Tatar first analyzes actual cases of sexual murder that aroused wide public interest in Weimar Germany. She then considers how the representation of murdered women in visual and literary works functions as a strategy for managing social and sexual anxieties, and shows how violence against women can be linked to the war trauma, to urban pathologies, and to the politics of cultural production and biological reproduction. In exploring the complex relationship between victim and agent in cases of sexual murder, Tatar explains how the roles came to be destabilized and reversed, turning the perpetrator of criminal deeds into a defenseless victim of seductive evil. Throughout the West today, the creation of similar ideological constructions still occurs in societies that have only recently begun to validate the voices of its victims. Maria Tatar's book opens up an important discussion for readers seeking to understand the forces behind sexual violence and its portrayal in the cultural media throughout this century.

Lustmord: Sexual Murder in Weimar Germany (Paperback)

6. Sparks of Genius: The Thirteen Thinking Tools of the World's Most Creative People (Paperback)

Sparks of Genius: The Thirteen Thinking Tools of the World's Most Creative People (Paperback)
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Sparks of Genius is "a fascinating study of creativie thinking--mankind's greatest attribute" (Desmond Morris, author of The Naked Ape). Creativity isn't born, it's cultivated--and this innovative guide distills the work of extraordinary artists and thinkers to show you how. All the imagination needs to be fruitful is exercise. Robert and Michèle Root-Bernstein identify the thinking tools employed by history's greatest creative minds--from Albert Einstein and Jane Goodall to Amadeus Mozart and Virginia Woolf--so that anyone with the right mix of inspiration and drive can set their own genius in motion. With engaging narratives and ample illustrations, Robert and Michèle investigate cognitive tools as diverse as observing, imaging, recognizing patterns, modeling, playing, and more to provide "a clever, detailed and demanding fitness program for the creative mind" (Kirkus Reviews).

Sparks of Genius: The Thirteen Thinking Tools of the World's Most Creative People (Paperback)

7. At the Will of the Body (Paperback)

At the Will of the Body (Paperback)
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In this deeply affecting memoir, Arthur W. Frank explores the events of illness from within: the transformation from person to patient, the pain, the wonder, and the ceremony of recovery. To illuminate what illness can teach us about life, Frank draws upon his own encounters with serious illness -- a heart attack at age thirty-nine and, a year later, a diagnosis of cancer. In poignant and clear prose, he offers brilliant insights into what happens when our bodies and emotions are pushed to extremes. Ultimately, he examines what it means to be human. A medical sociologist who has been seriously ill twice (heart attack and cancer) explores his experiences and examines what they taught him about how to live. An important resource for caregivers and patients. In this deeply affecting memoir, Arthur W. Frank explores the events of illness from within: the transformation from person to patient, the pain, the wonder, and the ceremony of recovery. To illuminate what illness can teach us about life, Frank draws upon his own encounters with serious illness--a heart attack at age thirty-nine and, a year later, a diagnosis of cancer. In poignant and clear prose, he offers brilliant insights into what happens when our bodies and emotions are pushed to extremes. Ultimately, he examines what it means to be human.

In this deeply affecting memoir, Arthur W. Frank explores the events of illness from within: the transformation from person to patient, the pain, the wonder,and the ceremony of recovery. To illuminate what illness can teach us about life, Frank draws upon his own encounters with serious illness -- a heart attack at age thirty-nine and, a year later, a diagnosis of cancer. In poignant and clear prose, he offers brilliant insights into what happens when our bodies and emotions are pushed to extremes. Ultimately, he examines what it means to be human.

8. Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses (Paperback)

Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses (Paperback)
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In his most ambitious and accomplished work to date, Michael Taussig undertakes a history of mimesis, the practice of imitation, and its relation to alterity, the opposition of Self and Other. Drawing upon such diverse sources as theories of Benjamin, Adorno and Horckheimer, research on the Cuna Indians, and theories of colonialism and postcolonialism, Taussig shows that the history of mimesis is deeply tied to colonialism, and more specifically, to the colonial trade's construction of "savages." With analysis that is vigorous, unorthodox, and often breathtaking, Taussig's cross-cultural discussion of mimesis deepens our understanding of the relationship between ethnography, racism and society.

Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses (Paperback)

9. Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves (Paperback)

Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves (Paperback)
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Ira Berlin traces the history of African-American slavery in the United States from its beginnings in the seventeenth century to its fiery demise nearly three hundred years later. Most Americans, black and white, have a singular vision of slavery, one fixed in the mid-nineteenth century when most American slaves grew cotton, resided in the deep South, and subscribed to Christianity. Here, however, Berlin offers a dynamic vision, a major reinterpretation in which slaves and their owners continually renegotiated the terms of captivity. Slavery was thus made and remade by successive generations of Africans and African Americans who lived through settlement and adaptation, plantation life, economic transformations, revolution, forced migration, war, and ultimately, emancipation. Berlin's understanding of the processes that continually transformed the lives of slaves makes Generations of Captivity essential reading for anyone interested in the evolution of antebellum America. Connecting the "Charter Generation" to the development of Atlantic society in the seventeenth century, the "Plantation Generation" to the reconstruction of colonial society in the eighteenth century, the "Revolutionary Generation" to the Age of Revolutions, and the "Migration Generation" to American expansionism in the nineteenth century, Berlin integrates the history of slavery into the larger story of American life. He demonstrates how enslaved black people, by adapting to changing circumstances, prepared for the moment when they could seize liberty and declare themselves the "Freedom Generation." This epic story, told by a master historian, provides a rich understanding of the experience of African-American slaves, an experience that continues to mobilize American thought and passions today.

Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves (Paperback)

10. Same Sex, Different Cultures: Exploring Gay And Lesbian Lives (Paperback)

Same Sex, Different Cultures: Exploring Gay And Lesbian Lives (Paperback)
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Because homoerotic relations can be found in so many cultures, Gilbert Herdt argues that we should think of these relations as part of the human condition. This new cross-cultural study of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals around the world, Same Sex, Different Cultures provides a unique perspective on maturing and living within societies, both historical and contemporary, that not only acknowledge but also incorporate same-gender desires and relations.Examining what it means to organize ?sex? in a society that lacks a category for ?sex, ? or to love someone of the same gender when society does not have a ?homosexual? or ?gay/lesbian? role, Herdt provides provocative new insights in our understanding of gay and lesbians lives. Accurate in both its scientific conceptions and wealth of cultural and historical material, examples range from the ancient Greeks and feudal China and Japan to the developing countries of Africa, India, Mexico, Brazil, and Thailand, from a New Guinea society to contemporary U.S. culture, including Native Americans. For all of these peoples, homoerotic relations emerge as part of culture?and not separate from history or society.In many of these groups, loving or engaging in sexual relations is found to be the very basis of the local cultural theory of ?human nature? and the mythological basis for the cosmos and the creation of society. The mistake of modern Western culture, Gilbert contends, is to continue the legalization of prejudice against lesbians and gays.In this light, the book addresses the issue of ?universal? versus particular practices and reveals positive role models that embrace all aspects of human sexuality. Finally, it offers knowledge of the existence of persons who have loved and have been intimate sexually and romantically with the same gender in other lands through divergent cultural practices and social roles.The most important lesson to learn from this cross-cultural and historical study of homosexuality is that there is room for many at the table of humankind

Same Sex, Different Cultures: Exploring Gay And Lesbian Lives (Paperback)


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