Social Sciences

Goals

To develop systematic understanding of human behavior, social structures, and institutions through empirical research and theoretical frameworks. To analyze social phenomena using disciplinary methods, evaluate evidence critically, and apply social scientific insights to understanding complex societal challenges and human interactions.

Why these books

The four books selected for this curriculum offer complementary windows into human behavior, social structures, and the forces that shape societies — spanning economics, political theory, cognitive psychology, and behavioral public policy.

"Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City" by Matthew Desmond (2016) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning work of narrative sociology that follows eight families in Milwaukee as they struggle to find and keep housing amid poverty. Desmond spent years embedded in the communities he studied, living in a trailer park and a rooming house, and the result is a deeply human portrait of how eviction drives — rather than merely reflects — poverty. The book reveals how landlords profit from low-income renters while those renters are trapped in a cycle of displacement that destabilizes employment, family life, health, and community belonging. For readers of social science, Evicted is an outstanding model of ethnographic fieldwork: it demonstrates how qualitative methods, when conducted rigorously, can illuminate systemic inequality in ways that statistics alone cannot. It also challenges readers to think critically about housing policy, the commodification of basic needs, and the moral dimensions of economic relationships.

"The Origins of Political Order" by Francis Fukuyama (2011) is an ambitious work of comparative political science and historical sociology, tracing the development of political institutions — the state, rule of law, and accountable government — across thousands of years of human civilization. Drawing on anthropology, economics, evolutionary biology, and history, Fukuyama examines why some societies developed stable, functional governance while others did not, ranging from ancient China and tribal societies to medieval Europe and beyond. This is essential reading for anyone interested in how human societies organize power and why institutions matter so profoundly to collective outcomes. For social science learners, the book exemplifies interdisciplinary thinking and the use of comparative historical analysis as a method for generating and testing theoretical claims about political development.

"Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman (2011) synthesizes decades of research in cognitive and behavioral psychology to explain how humans think, reason, and make decisions. Kahneman introduces the now-famous framework of System 1 (fast, intuitive, emotional thinking) and System 2 (slow, deliberate, logical thinking), and shows how the interplay between these modes leads to predictable biases and errors in judgment. From overconfidence and loss aversion to anchoring effects and the planning fallacy, the book catalogs the many ways human reasoning departs from classical models of rationality. For social science students, this book is foundational: it underpins behavioral economics, informs public policy design, and raises important questions about individual agency, decision-making in institutions, and the reliability of human judgment — including that of researchers themselves.

"Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness" by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein (2008) takes the cognitive insights pioneered by Kahneman and translates them into a practical framework for policy and institutional design. Thaler and Sunstein introduce the concept of "choice architecture" — the idea that the way options are presented to people powerfully shapes the decisions they make — and argue that small, carefully designed nudges can steer individuals toward better outcomes without restricting their freedom to choose. Drawing on behavioral economics and law, the book examines real-world applications ranging from retirement savings and organ donation to energy conservation and school cafeteria design. For social science readers, Nudge is a compelling demonstration of how theoretical research can be translated into actionable policy, and it raises rich questions about paternalism, autonomy, and the ethical responsibilities of those who design the environments in which decisions are made. Read alongside Thinking, Fast and Slow, it completes a powerful arc from understanding human cognition to applying that understanding in the world.

Together, these four books represent the breadth of social scientific inquiry. Desmond grounds readers in lived human experience; Fukuyama takes the long view of historical and institutional development; Kahneman illuminates the cognitive machinery underlying individual and collective behavior; and Thaler and Sunstein show how that knowledge can be put to practical use. Each rewards careful, critical reading and each speaks directly to the learning goals of this curriculum.