Every day, our personal information is gathered online by businesses so they can do a better job tracking our preferences and marketing products to us. Adam Tanner *88 examines how companies assemble and make use of this data in a largely unregulated netherworld in What Stays in Vegas: The World of Personal Data — Lifeblood of Big Business — and the End of Privacy as We Know It.

Mark Alpert ’82’s The Furies weaves cutting-edge science into an inventive thriller. The novel — about a clan of people with a rare genetic mutation who live in seclusion in the wilderness of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula — blends history, science, and witchcraft to explore how the paranormal could indeed be possible.

The global financial crisis of 2008 altered the international balance of power, argues Jonathan Kirshner *92. In American Power After the Financial Crisis, he asserts that the political influence of the United States was eroded during the economic meltdown, while countries such as China found their political capital enhanced.