Book cover of The Death of Common Sense

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“We need a new idea of how to govern. The current system is broken. Law is supposed to be a framework for humans to make choices, not the replacement for free choice.” So notes Philip K. Howard in the new Afterword to his explosive manifesto The…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Death of Common Sense as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This book is the best I have read on how simple and sound properties in science can be so misapplied in the legal system.

Thresholds and tolerances defined by specific scientific principles and studies, once incorporated into laws, can have unattended consequences when applied to scenarios never anticipated by the original studies.

The book gives numerous examples of well-intentioned laws creating havoc and causing harm when misapplied to new scenarios. It is a book that often comes to mind when I read the basis of a new regulation based on data that we never generated for that purpose.

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These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas,

A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.

German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…

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