Winner, 2022 Nautilus Award
Finalist, 2022 Columbia/ Nieman J. Anthony Lukas Prize
for Excellence in Nonfiction
Finalist, 2022 NYPL Helen Bernstein Book Award
for Excellence in Journalism
Finalist, 2022 National Association of Science Writers Book Prize
Finalist, 2021 Royal Society Science Book Prize
Finalist, American Society Journalists and Authors Book Award
Best Books of the Year, AARP
Best Books of the Year, Greater Good
Best Books of the Year, Inc.
When it comes to bias and discrimination, what actually changes people and cultures?
Poetically written and rigorously researched, The End of Bias: A Beginning reveals concrete steps we can take to create the cultures, organizations, and communities we all deserve.
Bias robs organizations of talent, science of breakthroughs, politics of insight, individuals of their futures, and communities of justice. It disrupts our social reality and distorts our perceptions of the world. But bias can be changed. As this capacious, ambitious book of solutions journalism shows, it’s already begun.
“Despite revolutions in our understanding of bias, we’re still much better at documenting the problem than solving it. When it comes to prevention and cure, Jessica Nordell’s powerful book is a breakthrough. With state-of-the-art science and gripping narratives, she reveals what concrete steps individuals, groups, and institutions can take to fight prejudice.”
―Adam Grant, author of Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know and host of the TED podcast WorkLife
“In an age of snap judgments and empty moralizing, The End of Bias: A Beginning is a salve and a lifeboat. Nordell accompanies her incredible depth of research with the kind of attention to nuance, self-examination, and genuine compassion that marks the difference between information and wisdom. This book will not just make you want to be a better person―it will convince you that others can be better, too, all while patiently lighting the way forward.”
―Jenny Odell, author of How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy.
"Thoughtful . . . rousing . . . As the author explains, overcoming internalised bias isn’t a matter of flipping a mental switch; it is a lifelong process of constantly questioning our deeply held beliefs. None of us is immune."
―The Guardian
"Too often people think in terms of discrete moments―a degrading meeting here, a fleeting comment there―but Nordell points out that bias is often iterative and chronic . . . This isn’t a book that lets anyone off the hook. The End of Bias argues for a more profound sense of responsibility. "
―The New York Times Book Review
“A reflective and capacious thinker.”
―Jennifer Szalai, New York Times Book Review podcast
“Drawing on insights from cognitive science and social psychology . . . the book presents many convincing accounts of personal bias being reduced through self-reflection [and] emphasizes, above all, the urgent need for systemic solutions."
―The New Yorker