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• What's so good about majority rule? Le Pen, Nader, and other inconveniences Back into the ring Trouble in democracy Explaining the impossible Gaming the system One person, one vote? Calculating corruption The ultimate college experience Trouble in direct democracy Proportional (mis)representation Choosing your voters Bibliography Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

The Mathematics of Voting and Elections: A Hands-On Approach, Second Edition, is an inquiry-based approach to the mathematics of politics and social choice. The aim of the book is to give readers who might not normally choose to engage with mathematics recreationally the chance to discover some interesting mathematical ideas from within a familiar context, and to see the applicability of mathematics to real-world situations. Through this process, readers should improve their critical thinking and problem solving skills, as well as broaden their views of what mathematics really is and how it can be used in unexpected ways. The book was written specifically for non-mathematical audiences and requires virtually no mathematical prerequisites beyond basic arithmetic. At the same time, the questions included are designed to challenge both mathematical and non-mathematical audiences alike. More than giving the right answers, this book asks the right questions. The book is fun to read, with examples that are not just thought-provoking, but also entertaining. It is written in a style that is casual without being condescending. But the discovery-based approach of the book also forces readers to play an active role in their learning, which should lead to a sense of ownership of the main ideas in the book. And while the book provides answers to some of the important questions in the field of mathematical voting theory, it also leads readers to discover new questions and ways to approach them. In addition to make small improvements in all the chapters, this second edition contains several new chapters. Of particular interest might be Chapter 12 which covers a host of topics related to gerrymandering.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction: finding the enemy
• Persistence in the face of extinction
• The long history of population wars
• The meaning of coexistence
• The context of persistence, the bacterial dimension
• The symbiotic dependency of life, the viral dimension
• Establishing a war narrative for populations, the immune system
• War is unwinnable
• Competition is untenable
• Know thyself, don't lie to thyself
• Evolution management.

Life on Earth has been defined by war from the beginning, with war between populations seen as an inevitable part of the evolutionary process. The popular understanding of "the survival of the fittest" explains and often excuses these actions. In Population Wars, Greg Graffin argues that this use of evolutionary theory is wrong, and that mistake has allowed us to justify wars even when other, less violent solutions may be available. Through tales of mass extinctions, developing immune systems, human warfare, the American industrial heartland, and our degrading modern environment, Graffin demonstrates how an over-simplified idea of war, with its victorious winners and vanquished losers, prevents us from responding to the real problems we face. For readers of Richard Dawkins, Jared Diamond, and E.O. Wilson, Populations Wars is a paradigm-shifting book about why humans behave the way they do and the science that explains their behavior.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)