Empathy is the power of understanding others, imaginatively entering into their feelings. It is a fundamental human attribute, without which mutually co-operative societies cannot function. In a revolutionary development, we now know who has it, who lacks it and why. Via the MRI scanner we are mapping the human brain. This is a new frontier that reveals a host of beneficial ideas for childcare, teens challenged by the internet, the justice system,...

This title tells the extraordinary story of a young woman's ordeal in a harem in Afghanistan and how her escape inspired her fight for human rights. The dramatic tale re-creates a time gone by, a place that is no more, and shares the way in which Chesler turned adversity into a passion for worldwide social, educational, and political reform.

Umberto Eco was an international cultural superstar. A celebrated essayist as well as novelist, in this, his last collection, he explores many aspects of the modern world with irrepressible curiosity and wisdom. A crisis in ideological values, a crisis in politics, unbridled individualism - the familiar backdrop to our lives: a 'liquid society' where it's not easy to find a polestar, though stars and starlets are not lacking. In these pieces, written...

Europe is facing a wave of migration unmatched since the end of World War II - and no-one has reported on this crisis in more depth or breadth than the Guardian's migration correspondent, Patrick Kingsley. Throughout 2015, Kingsley travelled to 17 countries along the migrant trail, meeting hundreds of refugees making epic odysseys across deserts, seas and mountains to reach the holy grail of Europe. This is Kingsley's unparalleled account of who these...

These days, we seem to have less and less time for play. At school, children are focused on exams, while at home we're all glued to our phones and iPads. Here, Michael Rosen shows us why we need more play in our lives. He explores the influence of play on everyone from Shakespeare to Dickens and Dali, delving into the history of play via puns, nonsense, improvisation and physical toys. He also explains why play is a core part of child development,...

Thackeray's biographer updates his 1848 }The Book Of Snobs{ for the 21st century. Waspish, acute and very funny.

Who are Western Muslims? Are they nameless taxi drivers and shopkeepers, or celebrity bakers and athletes? Yemeni poor or Saudi rich? Marginalised or privileged? Are hijabi women ultra-made-up and bejewelled, or suffocatingly swathed and oppressed? The nymphomaniacs of Orientalist fantasies, or the sexually repressed puritans of tabloids? An Anglo-American born to Sufi converts, Medina Tenour Whiteman stands at the margins of whiteness and Islam....

This is an educational resource with newspaper and magazine articles arranged thematically about animals, arts and culture, body image, Britain and its citizens, disability, education, environmental issues, family & relationships, gender, health, and more.

Opening with the notorious bonfires of 'un-German' and Jewish literature in 1933 that offered such a clear signal of Nazi intentions, 'Burning the Books' takes us on a 3000-year journey through the destruction of knowledge and the fight against all the odds to preserve it.