by Athena AktipisHijacked

NEW DEALS

HIJACKED The New Science of Neural Manipulation and What It Means for Our Health, Happiness, and Sense of Self ATHENA AKTIPIS

The Selfish Gene meets Parasite Rex in this tour of the evolutionary biology of neural manipulation and what it means for our physical health, our mental health and the way we see ourselves.

Who is really in control of our bodies and minds? In HIJACKED, Athena Aktipis takes the reader on a whirlwind tour through new scientific findings that challenge our long-held assumptions about who we are and why we do what we do. She provides an in-depth look at examples of how things that aren’t us can manipulate our brains, take over our behaviour and affect our physical and mental health. From microbes that shape our food preferences to fetal cells that can take over maternal physiology, our lives are not entirely under our control. Our bodies and minds are a constant battleground of manipulation: not just because of foreign cells inside us, but also because of information coming in from the outside world – from our relationships, our families, and the technology we constantly interact with.

Luckily, we have evolved to decrease our vulnerability to manipulation through sophisticated immune systems, cheater-detection systems and bullshit detectors. But our world has also changed dramatically in recent decades and our anti-mind-control strategies have not necessarily kept pace. Are we now entering an age where we are particularly vulnerable to being hijacked, enabled by more rapid transmission of agents of manipulation, whether microbes or memes? In HIJACKED, we learn how to counter mind-control tactics that come from forces both inside and outside us. At the same time, however, we learn that manipulation is not always a bad thing – it for example allows us to accomplish things together we otherwise wouldn’t be able to do alone. As Aktipis argues, our ability to share microbes and information – our ability to hijack and be hijacked – is part of what makes us human.

ATHENA AKTIPIS studies general principles of cooperation across diverse systems from human society to cancer and multicellular life. She is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University, director of the Interdisciplinary Cooperation Initiative, and co-director of the Human Generosity Project. She is also the chair of the Zombie Apocalypse Medicine Meeting, host of the new podcast ‘Zombified’, producer of Channel Zed, and author of THE CHEATING CELL: How Evolution Helps Us Understand and Treat Cancer (Princeton University Press, 2020).

Agent: Jeff Shreve

Publisher: Princeton University Press Delivery: August 2022 Publication: Summer 2023 Status: Proposal and sample chapter Length: 75,000 words

All rights available excluding World English Language (Princeton University Press), Japan (Kagaku-Dojin)

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FOR THE CULTURE How to Catalyse Collective Behavior and Inspire People to Move MARCUS COLLINS

An award-winning marketer for the likes of Beyoncé, Budweiser, and the Brooklyn Nets argues that true cultural engagement is the most powerful vehicle for influencing behaviour at scale.

We all try to influence others in our daily lives. We are all marketers, whether you are a manager motivating your team, an employee making a big presentation, an activist staging a protest, a bundle of nerves asking your crush on a date, a coach trying to get the most out of your players, or a teacher trying to encourage your students. In FOR THE CULTURE, Marcus Collins shares cultural insights for everyone, no matter your background – not only to teach you what he’s learned, but also to empower you with the ability to inspire collective behavioural change.

Collins starts with a simple observation: to effectively engage with any community, we first need to think hard about what we will contribute to that community. Cultural influence is impossible without cultural participation. In FOR THE CULTURE he begins by unpacking the origins of culture and its core relationship to identity, before diving into the specifics of how we leverage the power of culture and what happens when cultural connection goes wrong.

The past year has forced us to completely rethink how we engage with people – in business, in education, in politics, in our societies, and in everyday conversation. Despite our barriers to connection, how can we still convince people to share our vision? With a deep perspective based on a century’s worth of data, and designed for our hyper-connected, light-speed world, FOR THE CULTURE tackles this question head-on. But it does more than that: it reminds readers of the power of cultural community. In the midst of social distancing, videoconferences, stay-at-home orders, and travel restrictions, we desperately need to restore that sense of community in our personal and professional lives, before we lose it altogether.

MARCUS COLLINS is an award-winning marketer and cultural translator. He is a marketing professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, recipient of Advertising Age’s 40 Under 40 award and Crain’s Business 40 Under 40 award, and a recent inductee to the American Advertising Federation’s Hall of Achievement. Before serving as Chief Consumer Connections Officer at Doner Advertising, Collins led Social Engagement at Steve Stoute’s New York-based advertising agency, Translation. His strategies and creative contributions have led to the success of Budweiser’s ‘Made In America’ music festival, the launch of Bud Light Platinum, and the Brooklyn Nets’ ‘Hello Brooklyn!’ and State Farm’s ‘Cliff Paul’ campaigns – among others. Prior to his advertising tenure, Collins worked on iTunes + Nike sport music initiatives at Apple and ran digital strategy for Beyoncé.

Agent: Jeff Shreve

Publisher: Public Affairs Delivery: May 2022 Publication: Spring 2023 Status: Proposal and sample chapter Length: 65,000–75,000 words

All rights available excluding World English Language (Public Affairs)

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SPIKE The Virus v The People The Inside Story JEREMY FARRAR & ANJANA AHUJA

Interviews with Jeremy Farrar in German media:

Spiegel (5 January 2021) Spiegel (7 February 2020) Zeit (7 December 2020) Zeit (28 April 2020)

The covid-19 pandemic will be a source of endless human accounts. But there is an objective scientific narrative to be written about how the early weeks and months of the epidemic unfolded and how the world faced up to the unprecedented threat. SPIKE is that story: the first inside account by one of the world’s most trusted, connected and influential pandemic experts.

Jeremy Farrar, an expert in emerging infectious diseases who has seen epidemics all over the globe, including HIV, Ebola, Sars and H5N1 bird flu, was one of the first people to hear about a mysterious new respiratory virus in China – and to learn it is more contagious and spreads more quickly than human influenza. He helped to mobilize the global science community through the World Health Organization and has a major role advising governments around the world (from 2017 until 2019, for instance, he was a member of the German Ministry of Health’s International Advisory Board on Global Health).

SPIKE is a riveting account of what it feels like at the sharp end of such a fast-moving situation, when complex decisions must be made quickly with minimal information and in the face of great uncertainty. With the acclaimed science writer Anjana Ahuja, Farrar weaves a fast-paced narrative that transports readers to pivotal moments in the pandemic. They show the human side of science, introducing researchers studying this unusual virus and predicting its next move. Along the way they demystify what happens when a new disease breaks out, explain the evolving science (including vaccines and treatments) and shed light on the perpetual struggle between people and pathogens.

JEREMY FARRAR is director of the Wellcome Trust, a biomedical research charity and one of the world’s wealthiest charitable foundations. Among numerous national and international advisory roles, he is the chair of the Scientific Advisory Group of the WHO R&D Blueprint (a strategy and preparedness plan for activating research in epidemics) and a member of the WHO group setting out principles of equitable access to covid-19 medicines and vaccines. Before joining Wellcome in 2013, he directed the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. He has made outstanding contributions to the understanding of many diseases including tuberculosis, malaria, typhoid, dengue and influenza, and trained researchers and doctors across southeast Asia. He was knighted for services to global health in 2019.

ANJANA AHUJA is the Financial Times’s science columnist and was one of the first UK journalists to interview scientists about the mystery pneumonia from Wuhan. She has since covered almost every aspect of the pandemic for the FT. She also contributes to the New Statesman and has hosted live webcasts and podcasts on covid-19 for organizations including the Royal Society. Anjana first met Jeremy in 2006, when she travelled to Vietnam to report on an H5N1 outbreak for the London Times.

Agent: Peter Tallack

Publisher: Profile Delivery: Autumn 2021 Publication: 30 April 2021 Status: Proposal and sample chapters Length: 40,000 words