“Fractured: Why Our Societies Are Coming Apart and How We Put Them Back Together Again” by Jon Yates offers a compelling exploration of societal division and a hopeful path toward unity. This thought-provoking book investigates the growing disconnect within communities, examining factors like age, race, class, and economic disparity. Yates argues that increased interaction and shared experiences across these divides are crucial for fostering understanding and tolerance. Through insightful analysis and real-world examples, “Fractured” reveals surprising connections and challenges conventional wisdom. Learn how diverse elements like the England football team and Silicon Valley can offer lessons in unity and how seemingly harmless activities like political debates with friends can be counterproductive. More than just a diagnosis, “Fractured” provides practical solutions for building a “Common Life,” a framework of shared practices that strengthens social bonds and promotes a healthier, more connected society. A must-read for anyone seeking to understand and mend the fractures in our world, available in hardcover. Relevant to categories such as sociology, psychology, politics, and social sciences.
Fractured: Why our societies are coming apart and how we put them back together again
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In stock
How did we become so divided and what do we do about it?
Analytically incisive yet infectiously optimistic, Fractured expertly diagnoses the deepest divisions in our society and provides an urgent manifesto for collective healing. David Lammy MP
This landmark book tackles a deceptively simple idea: the more we spend time with people unlike ourselves, doing things together, the more understanding, tolerant, and even friendly we become.
Combining fresh analysis with a wealth of fascinating examples, Jon Yates demonstrates the ways in which our societies have become disconnected, so that most of us spend less and less time with people who are different as defined by age, race, or class, earning power or education.
By answering a series of surprising questions, Yates reveals a set of truths that will change the way you think about yourself and those around you. What unites the England football team, the iPod and Singapore? How did a city that funded its schools the least become the best place to grow up poor? How did Silicon Valley come from nowhere to dominate the tech industry? How did a village of Italian-Americans become incredibly healthy while smoking cigars, drinking red wine and never exercising? And why is talking to our friends about politics the worst thing we can do for our democracy?
Fractured is ultimately an optimistic book, showing convincingly how great people are when they’re united in diversity. It argues that the pandemic has created an unprecedented opportunity for us to come together. So we must forge a new Common Life a set of shared practises and institutions that can strengthen the glue that bonds our societies, in all their diversity.
For the health of our democracy, our society, and our economy, the time to act is now.
