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Harvard Book Store

Harvard Book Store is an independently run bookstore serving the greater Cambridge area. The bookstore is located in Harvard Square and has been family-owned since 1932. We are known for our extraordinary selection of new, used and remaindered books and for a history of innovation. In 2009, we introduced same-day "green delivery" and a book-making robot capable of printing and binding any of millions of titles in minutes. Find out more about us at www.harvard.com.

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Unmasking AI

Mon, Nov 18, 2024

Scientist, engineer and artist Dr. Joy Buolamwini discusses her book UNMASKING AI: My Mission to Protect What is Human in a World of Machines. In it, she uncovers what she calls “the coded gaze”, evidence of encoded racial and gender bias, discrimination and exclusion in tech products. On the basis of her research, Buolamwini founded the Algorithmic Justice League (AJL) to show how racism, sexism, colorism, and ableism can overlap and render broad swaths of humanity “excoded” and vulnerable in a world rapidly adopting AI tools. Encouraging everyone to join this fight, Buolamwini writes, “The rising frontier for civil rights will require algorithmic justice. AI should be for the people and by the people, not just the privileged few.”

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THE ART OF POWER: A conversation with Nancy Pelosi

Wed, Oct 23, 2024

Cambridge Forum is delighted to partner with Harvard Book Store to bring you a conversation with Nancy Pelosi about The Art of Power, which chronicles her life as America’s first female Speaker of the House and one of the most powerful women in American political history.

When Nancy Pelosi, aged 46 years and a mother of five, asked her youngest daughter if she should run for Congress, Alexandra Pelosi answered: “Mother, get a life!” And so Nancy did, and what a life it has been. In her book The Art of Power, Pelosi describes what it takes to make history—not only as the first woman to ascend to the most powerful legislative role in our nation, but to pass laws that would save lives and livelihoods, from the emergency rescue of the economy in 2008 to the transformation of health care. She describes the perseverance, persuasion, and respect required to succeed, but also the joy of seeing America change for the better. Renowned for her hard work and diligent preparation, Pelosi worked to find common ground, but also learned how to stand her ground with presidents from Bush to Biden.

In her memoir, she reveals how she went toe-to-toe with Trump, leading up to January 6, 2021, when he unleashed his post-election fury on the Congress. Pelosi provides a personal account of that day: the assault not only on democracy but on those who had come to serve the nation, never expecting to hide under desks or flee for their lives—and her determined efforts to get the National Guard to the Capitol.

Nearly two years later, violence and fury erupted inside Pelosi’s own home when an intruder, demanding to see the Speaker, viciously attacked her husband, Paul. Pelosi shares details of that fateful day and the traumatic aftermath. However, Pelosi does not fear a good fight and “The Art of Power” is about the fighting spirit that has always animated her, and helped her create an historic legacy.

She is joined in conversation by Governor Maura Healey—the 73rd Governor of Massachusetts.

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AGE OF REVOLUTIONS: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present

Fri, Apr 5, 2024

FAREED ZAKARIA, best-selling author & host of CNN’s flagship international affairs show “Fareed Zakaria GPS”, discusses his latest book, “AGE OF REVOLUTIONS: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present” with STEVEN PINKER, Professor of Psychology at Harvard and author of twelve books.

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Doppelganger with Naomi Klein

Thu, Sep 14, 2023

Award-winning author and Guardian columnist, Naomi Klein has departed from her usual topics with this newest book which enters more personal territory. Doppelganger uses the fact that Klein has often been mistaken for author Naomi Wolf, as a jumping-off point to explore conspiracy theories and what Klein calls the “Mirror World”. Klein looks at how “far-right movements feign solidarity with the working class, AI-generated content blurs the line between genuine and spurious, and new-age wellness entrepreneurs turned anti-vaxxers further scramble our familiar political alliances.” Doppelganger explores “what it feels like to watch one’s identity slip away in the digital ether, an experience many more of us will have in the age of AI”.

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Ezra Klein: Why We're Polarized

Fri, Jan 31, 2020

Vox co-founder and editor-at-large Ezra Klein discusses his book "Why We're Polarized" with Harvard Law professor and former U.S. Presidential candidate, Lawrence Lessig. Image: Book Cover

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Bob Garfield: American Manifesto

Fri, Jan 17, 2020

Bob Garfield, cohost of WNYC’s weekly Peabody Award–winning On the Media, discusses his latest book, American Manifesto: Saving Democracy from Villains, Vandals, and Ourselves. He is joined in conversation by WGBH correspondent Arun Rath. As is often observed, Trump is a symptom of a virus that has been incubating for at least fifty years. But not often observed is where the virus is imbedded: in the psychic core of our identity.

In American Manifesto: Saving Democracy from Villains, Vandals, and Ourselves, Bob Garfield examines the tragic confluence of the American preoccupation with identity and the catastrophic disintegration of the mass media. Garfield investigates how we’ve gotten to this moment when our identity is threatened by both the left and the right, when e pluribus unum is no longer a source of national pride, and why, when looking through this lens of identity, the rise of Trumpism is no surprise.

Overlaying that crisis is the rise of the Facebook-Google duopoly and the filter-bubble archipelago where identity is tribal and immutable. Image: Book Cover

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Naomi Klein: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal

Thu, Oct 10, 2019

Naomi Klein is an award-winning, internationally bestselling author and journalist. For two decades she has chronicled the economic war waged on people and the planet. Harvard Book Store describes Klein as, "an unapologetic champion of a sweeping environmental agenda with justice at its center. In lucid, elegant dispatches from the frontlines of contemporary natural disaster, she pens surging, indispensable essays for a wide public." Her latest book, _On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal_ gathers more than a decade of her writing and pairs it with new material on the high stakes of our immediate political and economic choices. Klein is joined by Juliet B. Schor, Boston College professor and former Guggenheim fellow. This event was co-sponsored by [350 Mass](https://350mass.betterfutureproject.org/), [Cambridge Forum](https://www.cambridgeforum.org/), [The Intercept](https://theintercept.com/), [The Leap](https://theleap.org/), and [Sunrise Movement](https://www.sunrisemovement.org/). Image: Book Cover

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Josh Campbell: Inside Donald Trump's War on the FBI

Wed, Sep 18, 2019

CNN law enforcement analyst Josh Campbell, former special assistant to FBI Director James Comey, discusses his new book "Crossfire Hurricane: Inside Donald Trump's War on the FBI". Campbell covers his experience beginning two weeks before Trump's inauguration when he joined the heads of the US Intelligence community on a briefing visit to Trump Tower in New York City. He is joined in conversation with homeland security expert and analyst Juliette Kayyem. Image: [Book Cover](http://www.harvard.com/event/josh_campbell/)

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The Environmental Impact You Don't Know You Have

Tue, Sep 10, 2019

As we become a more digital society, we imagine that using less paper or buying fewer DVDs is better for the environment. But many don't think about our internet connection's impact on the environment. Whether it's a microwave with WiFi, streaming a movie, or online shopping, these technological advances have created new impacts that even the people who are well-versed in these issues haven't considered. In _Inconspicuous Consumption_, Tatiana Schlossberg reveals the complicated, confounding and even infuriating ways that we all participate in a greenhouse gas-intensive economy and society, and how some of the biggest and most consequential areas of unintended emissions and environmental impacts are unknowingly part of our daily activities. By showing us how we're in this together and explaining a little more about how our everyday lives affect the environment, Schlossberg empowers people to make the best choices that they can for a changing planet. Image: Book Cover

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Rachel Louise Snyder: No Visible Bruises

Mon, May 13, 2019

In No Visible Bruises, journalist Rachel Louise Snyder gives context for what we don't know we're seeing. She frames this urgent and immersive account of the scale of domestic violence in our country around key stories that explode the common myths-that if things were bad enough, victims would just leave; that a violent person cannot become nonviolent; that shelter is an adequate response; and most insidiously that violence inside the home is a private matter, sealed from the public sphere and disconnected from other forms of violence. Through the stories of victims, perpetrators, law enforcement, and reform movements from across the country, Snyder explores the real roots of private violence, its far-reaching consequences for society, and what it will take to truly address it. Image: Book Cover

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