Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses

Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa. University Of Chicago Press 256 pp. $70 (2011)

With rising numbers of students paying increasing sums to attend university, two social scientists' finding that they learn little when they get there is sobering. In their study of 2,300 students at 24 institutions in the United States, Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa demonstrate that undergraduates displayed little advancement in a range of skills including critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing. They suggest that the many social distractions of campus culture hinder learning.

The Quiet World: Saving Alaska's Wilderness Kingdom, 1879–1960

  • Douglas Brinkley
Harper 592 pp. $29.99 (2011)

The pristine Alaskan wilderness is at the centre of a tussle between environmentalists and the extraction industries. It has long been so, historian Douglas Brinkley reminds us. He documents attempts by the US federal government from 1879 to 1960 to protect wild areas of the state — including Mount McKinley, the Tongass and Chugach national forests, and the Coastal Plain of the Beaufort Sea. Drawing on new archival material, he describes the colourful characters who established the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in 1960.

Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind

  • Robert Kurzban
Princeton University Press 288 pp. $27.95 (2011)

We are all hypocrites, according to psychologist Robert Kurzban. Because of the different ways in which various regions of our brains have evolved, he explains, our actions are riddled with inconsistency. Using humour and anecdotes, he reveals how conflict between the modules of the mind leads to contradictory beliefs, vacillating behaviours, broken moral boundaries and inflated egos. He argues that we should think of ourselves not as 'I' but as 'we' — a collection of interacting systems that are in constant conflict.

Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth

  • Mark Hertsgaard
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 352 pp. $25 (2011)

Concern for his daughter's future drives journalist Mark Hertsgaard to consider the impacts of climate change over the next five decades. Focusing on the United States but including reports from around the world, he explains how Chicago's climate may come to resemble Houston's, how coastal cities such as New York will have to tackle rising sea levels and frequent storm surges, and how water shortages and altered crop yields will affect people around the globe. He argues that human survival will depend on citizens to push for government action.

Acceleration: The Forces Driving Human Progress

  • Ronald G. Havelock
Prometheus Books 363 pp. $28 (2011)

Countering fears about humanity's survival, social psychologist and knowledge-transfer consultant Robert Havelock argues that progress is accelerating. His focus is the creation and dispersal of knowledge, the increasing rate of which he tracks from the Stone Age to the present. Rather than worrying about particular threats such as global warming and nuclear proliferation, he argues that in the long term, the sharing of information across global society is a force for good that enhances well-being.