Best of
Humanities

2008

Big History: The Big Bang, Life On Earth, And The Rise Of Humanity


David Christian - 2008
    David Christian, professor of history at San Diego State University, surveys the past at all possible scales, from conventional history, to the much larger scales of biology and geology, to the universal scales of cosmology.

A Thousand Hills: Rwanda's Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It


Stephen Kinzer - 2008
    Learn about President Kagame, who strives to make Rwanda the first middle-income country in Africa, in a single generation. In this adventurous tale, learn about Kagame's early fascination with Che Guevara and James Bond, his years as an intelligence agent, his training in Cuba and the United States, the way he built his secret rebel army, his bloody rebellion, and his outsized ambitions for Rwanda.

The World We Have: A Buddhist Approach to Peace and Ecology


Thich Nhat Hanh - 2008
    Hanh finds answers to these critical problems in the Buddhist teaching of the impermanence of all things. He demonstrates how this teaching can offer inner peace and help us use our collective wisdom and technology to restore the Earth's balance. Mixing inspiring insights with practical strategies, Hanh cites projects his own monastic community has undertaken that can serve as models for any community. Both his “ No Car Day,” observed once a week, and the “Earth Peace Treaty Commitment Sheet” can impact our ecological footprint on the Earth. Above all, he shows how acceptance of problems is that first critical step toward a deeper understanding of the best way to care for our Earth.

Islamic Geometric Patterns [With CDROM]


Eric Broug - 2008
    The ancient practitioners of this craft used traditional methods of measurement to create dazzling geometric compositions, often based on the repetition of a single pattern. The results are magnificent in their beauty and awe-inspiring in their execution. Now, with the aid of this book, everyone can learn how to master this ancient art and create their own intricate patterns or re-create classic examples. All one needs are a pencil, a ruler, a compass, and a steady hand. First, technical tips demonstrate the basics: how to draw a square, hexagon, or pentagon. This is followed by some of the best examples of geometric patterns from around the world, arranged into three levels of complexity, with careful, step-by-step instructions. The book features geometric patterns from some of the most famous and beautiful Islamic architecture and art, including: La Mezquita, Cordoba; Capella Palatina, Sicily; Mustansiriya Madrasa, Baghdad; Umayyad Mosque, Damascus; Mosque of al-Salih Tala'I, Cairo; The Koran of Rashid al-Din.

Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation


Saree Makdisi - 2008
    Tending one's fields, visiting a relative, going to the hospital: for ordinary Palestinians, such everyday activities require negotiating permits and passes, curfews and closures, "sterile roads" and "seam zones"—bureaucratic hurdles ultimately as deadly as outright military incursion.Not since the late Edward Said has there been such an articulate Arab voice on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In devastating detail, Saree Makdisi reveals how the "peace process" institutionalized Palestinians' loss of control over their inner and outer lives. He shows how Israel's massive concrete walls going up around Gaza and the West Bank isolate communities from their lands, their livelihoods, and each other. Through eye-opening statistics and day-by-day reports, we learn how Palestinians have seen their hopes for freedom and statehood culminate in the creation of abject "territories" comparable to open-air prisons.Anyone surprised at Arab anger or the election of Hamas must read this book.

Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan: Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupation


Iraq Veterans Against the War - 2008
    Here are the powerful words, images, and documents of this historic gathering, which show the reality of life in Afghanistan and Iraq.Iraq Veterans Against the War argues that well-publicized incidents of American brutality like the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the massacre of an entire family of Iraqis in the town of Haditha are not the isolated incidents perpetrated by “a few bad apples,” as many politicians and military leaders have claimed. They are part of a pattern, the group says, of “an increasingly bloody occupation.” "Here is the war as it should be reported, seeing the pain, refusing to sanitize an unprovoked attack that has killed over one million people.  All over America are victims who have returned from this conflict with hideous wounds -- wounds that turn the lives of the entire family upside down. And the American people are not seeing this.  Until now.     "Winter Soldier, an enormously important project of Iraq Veterans Against the War, cuts this debacle to the bone, exposing details hard to come by and even harder to believe.  This is must reading for patriots who have already begun the effort to insure that this never happens again."--Phil Donahue  "Winter Soldier makes us feel the pain and despair endured by those who serve in a military stretched to the breaking point by stop-loss policies, multiple combat tours, and a war where the goals and the enemies keep shifting ... [and] also make[s] us admire the unbreakable idealism and hope of those men and women who still believe that by speaking out they can make things better both for themselves and for those who come after them."--San Francisco ChronicleFormed in the aftermath of the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) was founded in 2004 to give those who have served in the military since September 11, 2001, a way to come together and speak out against an unjust, illegal, and unwinnable war. Today, IVAW has over seven hundred members in forty-nine states, Washington, DC, Canada, and on military bases overseas. Aaron Glantz is an independent journalist who has covered the Iraq War from the front lines. He is the author of How America Lost Iraq (Tarcher) and a forthcoming book on the Iraq War from the University of California Press.Anthony Swofford is the author of Jarhead: A Marine’s Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles.

Science Fiction: Stories and Contexts


Heather Masri - 2008
    Heather Masri, editor of Science Fiction: Stories and Contexts, has prepared an anthology that recognizes, and is designed to meet, the needs of students and instructors in an introductory survey course in science fiction.Grouped into major themes, her comprehensive selection of fiction — enjoyable and captivating stories, notable for their literary, philosophical, and cultural richness — are by classic and emerging writers from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. The stories are uniquely complemented by contextual documents that suggest the scholarly, theoretical, and historical currents that drove the development of the genre, and informative editorial matter that contributes to the book’s flexibility for instructors and usefulness for students.

The War Nerd


Gary Brecher - 2008
    But Brecher writes about war, too. War Nerd collects his most opinionated, enraging, enlightening, and entertaining pieces. Part war commentator, part angry humorist àla Bill Hicks, Brecher inveighs against pieties of all stripes — Liberian generals, Dick Cheney, U.N. peacekeepers, the neo-cons — and the massive incompetence of military powers. A provocative free thinker, he finds much to admire in the most unlikely places, and not always for the most pacifistic reasons: the Tamil Tigers, the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Danes of 1,000 years ago, and so on, across the globe and through the centuries. Crude, scatological, un-P.C., yet deeply informed, Brecher provides a radically different, completely unvarnished perspective on the nature of warfare.

The Making of Buddhist Modernism


David L. McMahan - 2008
    This literature, Asian as well as Western, weaves together the strands of different traditions to create a novel hybrid that brings Buddhism into alignment with many of the ideologies and sensibilities of the post-Enlightenment West.In this book, David McMahan charts the development of this "Buddhist modernism." McMahan examines and analyzes a wide range of popular and scholarly writings produced by Buddhists around the globe. He focuses on ideological and imaginative encounters between Buddhism and modernity, for example in the realms of science, mythology, literature, art, psychology, and religious pluralism. He shows how certain themes cut across cultural and geographical contexts, and how this form of Buddhism has been created by multiple agents in a variety of times and places. His position is critical but empathetic: while he presents Buddhist modernism as a construction of numerous parties with varying interests, he does not reduce it to a mistake, a misrepresentation, or fabrication. Rather, he presents it as a complex historical process constituted by a variety of responses -- sometimes trivial, often profound -- to some of the most important concerns of the modern era.

Remembering Simplified Hanzi 1: How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Chinese Characters


James W. Heisig - 2008
    Book 1 of Remembering Simplified Hanzi covers the writing and meaning of the 1,000 most commonly used characters in the simplified Chinese writing system, plus another 500 that are best learned at an early stage. (Book 2 adds another 1,500 characters for a total of 3,000.)Of critical importance to the approach found in these pages is the systematic arranging of characters in an order best suited to memorization. In the Chinese writing system, strokes and simple components are nested within relatively simple characters, which can, in turn, serve as parts of more complicated characters and so on. Taking advantage of this allows a logical ordering, making it possible for students to approach most new characters with prior knowledge that can greatly facilitate the learning process.Guidance and detailed instructions are provided along the way. Students are taught to employ imaginative memory to associate each character's component parts, or primitive elements, with one another and with a key word that has been carefully selected to represent an important meaning of the character. This is accomplished through the creation of a story that engagingly ties the primitive elements and key word together. In this way, the collections of dots, strokes, and components that make up the characters are associated in memorable fashion, dramatically shortening the time required for learning and helping to prevent characters from slipping out of memory.

Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan


Kim Phillips-Fein - 2008
    These nearly unknown, larger-than-life, and sometimes eccentric personalities--such as GE's zealous, silver-tongued Lemuel Ricketts Boulware and the self-described "revolutionary" Jasper Crane of DuPont--make for a fascinating, behind-the-scenes view of American history.The winner of a prestigious academic award for her original research on this book, Kim Phillips-Fein is already being heralded as an important new young American historian. Her meticulous research and narrative gifts reveal the dramatic story of a pragmatic, step-by-step, check-by-check campaign to promote an ideological revolution--one that ultimately helped propel conservative ideas to electoral triumph.

The Prisons We Broke


Baby Kamble - 2008
    The Prisons We Broke provides a graphic insight into the oppressive caste and patriarchal tenets of the Indian society, but nowhere does the writing descend to self-pity. With verve and colour the narrative brings to life, among other things, the festivals, rituals, marriages, snot-nosed children, hard lives and hardy women of the Mahar community. The original Marathi work, Jina Amucha, re-defined autobiographical writing in Marathi in terms of form and narrative strategies adopted, and the selfhood and subjectivities that were articulated. It is the first autobiography by a Dalit woman in Marathi, probably even the first of its kind in any Indian language.

Schizophrenia: Cognitive Theory, Research, and Therapy


Aaron T. Beck - 2008
    Beck and colleagues, this is the definitive work on the cognitive model of schizophrenia and its treatment. The volume integrates cognitive-behavioral and biological knowledge into a comprehensive conceptual framework. It examines the origins, development, and maintenance of key symptom areas: delusions, hallucinations, negative symptoms, and formal thought disorder. Treatment chapters then offer concrete guidance for addressing each type of symptom, complete with case examples and session outlines. Anyone who treats or studies serious mental illness will find a new level of understanding together with theoretically and empirically grounded clinical techniques.

Masters Of Greek Thought: Plato, Socrates, And Aristotle


Robert C. Bartlett - 2008
    

Feminism and War: Confronting U.S. Imperialism


Robin L. Riley - 2008
    But there has been little public space for dialogue about the complex relationship between feminism, women, and war. The editors of Feminism and War have brought together a diverse set of leading theorists and activists who examine the questions raised by ongoing American military initiatives, such as:- What are the implications of an imperial nation/state laying claim to women's liberation? - What is the relation between this claim and resulting American foreign policy and military action? - Did American intervention and invasion in fact result in liberation for women in Afghanistan and Iraq? - What multiple concepts are embedded in the phrase 'women’s liberation'? - How are these connected to the specifics of religion, culture, history, economics, and nation within current conflicts? - What is the relation between the lives of Afghan and Iraqi women before and after invasion, and that of women living in the US? - How do women who define themselves as feminists resist or acquiesce to this nation/state claim in current theory and organizing?Feminism and War reveals and critically analyzes the complicated ways in which America uses gender, race, class, nationalism, imperialism to justify, legitimate, and continue war. Each chapter builds on the next to develop an anti-racist, feminist politics that places imperialist power, and forms of resistance to it, central to its comprehensive analysis.

The Forgotten Horses


Tony Stromberg - 2008
    But thanks to the work of rescue organizations and horse sanctuaries, many of these formerly unwanted horses are enjoying genuine appreciation and newfound freedom. The horses in this book were abused, neglected, abandoned, rejected. They are lame, old, blind, or just unattractive according to modern ideas of beauty. Some are crossbreeds with no clearly defined bloodline. Others are wild horses that have been forced off public lands. They are enjoying a second chance to live a meaningful and dignified life. They are here to teach us different measures of value, measures we have almost forgotten.To document these remarkable creatures, acclaimed equine photographer Tony Stromberg traveled to sanctuaries across North America. While many horse books focus on exotic, flashy breeds or famous thoroughbreds, Tony chose to capture the soul of “working-class” equines — many enjoying love and freedom for the first time. Through gorgeous photography, The Forgotten Horses reveals the profound spirit of these amazing animals and honors the people and sanctuaries that have offered them a well-deserved home.

A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies


Astrid Erll - 2008
    Articles by renowned international scholars offer readers a unique overview of the key concepts of cultural memory studies. The handbook not only documents current research in an unprecedented way; it also serves as a forum for bringing together approaches from areas as varied as sociology, political sciences, history, theology, literary studies, media studies, philosophy, psychology, and neurosciences."Cultural memory studies" - as defined in this handbook - came into being at the beginning of the 20th century, with the works of Maurice Halbwachs on m'moire collective. In the course of the last two decades this area of research has witnessed a veritable boom in various countries and disciplines. As a consequence, the study of the relation of "culture" and "memory" has diversified into a wide range of approaches. This handbook is based on a broad understanding of "cultural memory" as the interplay of present and past in sociocultural contexts. It presents concepts for the study of individual remembering in a social context, group and family memory, national memory, the various media of memory, and finally the host of emerging transnational lieux de m'moire such as 9/11.

Existentialism (Beginner's Guides)


Thomas E. Wartenberg - 2008
    In this lively and topical introduction, Wartenberg reveals a vibrant mode of philosophical inquiry that addresses concerns at the heart of the existence of every human being. Wartenberg uses classic films, novels, and plays to present the ideas of now-legendary Existentialist thinkers from Nietzsche and Camus to Sartre and Heidegger and to explore central concepts, including Freedom, Anxiety, and the Absurd. Special attention is paid to the views of Simone de Beauvoir and Franz Fanon, who use the theories of Existentialism to address gender and colonial oppression.

Fifty Things You Need To Know About British History


Hugh Williams - 2008
    Along the way, he has some fascinating tales to tell, making this a highly enjoyable read as well as a perceptive insight into our shared past, and vital for anyone who wants quickly and enjoyably to grasp the essential facts about Britain’s history.

Psoriatic Arthritis (The Facts)


Dafna Gladman - 2008
    It is characterised by swelling and inflammation in and around the joints as well as inflammation of the skin. While there is currently no cure for psoriatic arthritis, several new treatments are emerging that offer new hope to patients. In this guide for patients, the authors draw on their experience from one of the largest clinics in the world that is dedicated to understanding and managing patients with psoriatic arthritis, and highlight what is know about the causes and clinical features, along with the emotional impact that this condition has on peoples lives and how to manage it.

The Western Literary Canon in Context


John M. Bowers - 2008
    Even if you haven't read some of them, you've undoubtedly heard of them—their mere titles are synonymous with greatness.But what exactly is the Western literary canon? Why does it contain certain works and not others?What is its history? What is its future?Most important: What do particular works in the Western canon tell us about the development of literature and civilization?You explore these and other thought-provoking questions in The Western Literary Canon in Context, a thorough investigation of more than 30 key works of the Western canon and the critical roles they played—and continue to play—in the development of Western literature. Over the course of 36 lectures, award-winning professor and author John M. Bowers of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas takes you from the formation of the Bible to the postcolonial literature of the late 20th century, revealing the exciting stories behind these classic works and their often surprising connections with one another.It's an insightful approach that will reshape your thoughts about the evolution of literature and will open your eyes to the hidden dialogue among Western civilization's most cherished and influential authors.

The Infinite Question


Christopher Bollas - 2008
    From earliest childhood to the end of our lives, we are driven by this impulse in its varying forms, and The Infinite Question illustrates how Freud's free associative method provides both patient and analyst with answers and, in turn, with an ongoing interplay of further questions.At the book's core are transcripts of real analytical sessions, accompanied by parallel commentaries which highlight key aspects of the free associative method in practice. These transcripts are contextualised by further discussion of the cases themselves, as well as a wider theoretical framework which places its emphasis on Freud's theory of the logic of sequence: by learning to listen to this free associative logic, Bollas argues, we can discover a richer and more complex unconscious voice than if we rely solely on Freud's theory of repressed ideas.Bollas demonstrates, in an eloquent and persuasive manner, how the Freudian position of evenly suspended attentiveness enables the analyst's unconscious to catch the drift of the patient's own unconscious. He also shows that to stimulate further questioning is often of more benefit to the analytical process than to jump to an interpretation. Yet whatever fascinating course a session may take, neither the patient nor the analyst can halt the progress of the self-propelling interrogative drive.The Infinite Question will be invaluable to both the new student and the experienced psychoanalyst, read either on its own or as a practice-based extension of the theoretical ideas elaborated in its companion volume, The Evocative Object World (also published by Routledge).

Mithridates the Great: Rome's Indomitable Enemy


Philip Matyszak - 2008
    The Mithridiatic wars stretched over half a century and two continents, and have a fascinating cast of pirates, rebels, turncoats and poisoners (though an unfortunate lack of heroes with untarnished motives). There are pitched battles, epic sieges, double-crosses and world-class political conniving, assassinations and general treachery. Through it all, the story is built about the dominant character of Mithridates, connoisseur of poisons, arch-schemer and strategist; resilient in defeat, savage and vindictive in victory. Almost by definition, this book will break new ground, in that nothing has been written on Mithridates for the general public for almost half a century, though scholarly journals have been adding a steady trickle of new evidence, which is drawn upon here.Few enough leaders went to war with Rome and lived long to tell the tale, but in the first half of the first century BC, Mithridates did so three times. At the high point of his career his armies swept the Romans out of Asia Minor and Greece, reversing a century of Roman expansion in the region. Even once fortune had turned against him he would not submit. Upto the day he died, a fugitive drive to suicide by the treachery of his own son, he was still planning an overland invasion of Roman itself.

The Best of the Bellevue Literary Review


Danielle Ofri - 2008
    . . unsentimental and sometimes unpredictable.”—Journal of the American Medical AssociationFounded just six years ago, Bellevue Literary Review is already widely recognized as a rare forum for emerging and celebrated writers—among them Julia Alvarez, Raphael Campo, Rick Moody, and Abraham Verghese—on issues of health and healing. Gathered here are poignant and prizewinning stories, essays, and poems, the voices of patients and those who care for them, which form the journal’s remarkable dialogue on “humanity and the human experience.”Danielle Ofri, MD, author of Incidental Findings and Singular Intimacies, is the editor in chief of Bellevue Literary Review. She lives in New York City.

Process-Relational Philosophy: An Introduction to Alfred North Whitehead


C. Robert Mesle - 2008
    It is derived from Alfred North Whitehead's philosophy, known as process theology, which lays a groundwork for integrating evolutionary biology, physics, philosophy of mind, theology, environmental ethics, religious pluralism, education, economics, and more.In Process-Relational Philosophy, C. Robert Mesle breaks down Whitehead's complex writings, providing a simple but accurate introduction to the vision that underlies much of contemporary process philosophy and theology. In doing so, he points to a "way beyond both reductive materialism and the traps of Cartesian dualism by showing reality as a relational process in which minds arise from bodies, in which freedom and creativity are foundational to process, in which the relational power of persuasion is more basic than the unilateral power of coercion."Because process-relational philosophy addresses the deep intuitions of a relational world basic to environmental and global thinking, it is being incorporated into undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy, educational theory and practice, environmental ethics, and science and values, among others. Process-Relational Philosophy: A Basic Introduction makes Whitehead's creative vision accessible to all students and general readers.

The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Religion


Peter B. Clarke - 2008
    The role and impact of religion and spirituality on the politics, culture, education and health in the modern world is rigorously discussed and debated. The study of the sociology of religion forges interdisciplinary links to explore aspects of continuity and change in the contemporary interface between society and religion. Using a combination of theoretical, methodological and content-led approaches, the fifty-seven contributors collectively emphasise the complex relationships between religion and aspects of life from scientific research to law, ecology to art, music to cognitive science, crime to institutional health care and more. The developing character of religion, irreligion and atheism and the impact of religious diversity on social cohesion are explored. An overview of current scholarship in the field is provided in each themed chapter with an emphasis on encouraging new thinking and reflection on familiar and emergent themes to stimulate further debate and scholarship. The resulting essay collection provides an invaluable resource for research and teaching in this diverse discipline.

40 Days And 1001 Nights, One Woman's Dance Through Life In The Islamic World


Tamalyn Dallal - 2008
    This is an Arabic proverb that author Tamalyn Dallal took to heart as she set out to find out who the Muslim people are and what their realities are like. Ms. Dallal gave up her glamorous South Beach lifestyle and didn't tell anyone she met that she was one of the most famous bellydancers on the planet. She simply packed a duffle bag, learned to dress modestly, and set out to lift the veil of misperception about the Muslim world. Twenty percent of the worlds population is Muslim, and we hear some fearsome things, but how much do we really know? Who are they? How do they live? What do they think of us? Tamalyn Dallal throws herself into five Muslim countries for 40 days each, not in search of a sensational story, rather in a quest to experience life... a life that is completely foreign and full of surprises. The journey begins in the tsunami ravaged tip of Indonesia known as Aceh, where people believe that the tsunami came from God, descendants of warrior princeses scoot about on motorbikes, colorful veils billowing in the wind, and the daily grind stops on cue five times a day to heed the call to prayer. Ms. Dallal then takes a bus deep into the Sahara desert, nearly reaching the border with Libya and takes up residence in the Siwa Oasis. The local Berber population, who often have blue eyes, farms dates and olives much like their ancestors did. The taxis are donkey driven. Behind this idyllic facade lies the danger that environmental destruction, abusive police and sexual tourism will destroy the people who made this oasis unique and beautiful. A sultry and hypnotizing song wooes Tamalyn to the east African island of Zanzibar. She falls in love with the romantic Arab-African sounds of Africa's oldest band, the 103 year old Ikhwani Safaa Musical Club. They are like an Arab-African Buena Vista Social Club. While producing a cd of their music, she experiences an all woman spirit channeling sub culture, learns about the local djinn, tries to learn Swahili and learns more than she wants to know about the heroin trade that has infiltrated the island. Tranquility resumes as Tamalyn heads to Jordan, an oasis of peace surrounded by strife. With the help of a French reporter, a bellydancer and a music professor, she meets nomadic Bedouins, Turkmen, Circassians who are said to be the descendants of Amazon Women, enters the worlds largest Palestinean refugee camp, and becomes friends with the family of Jordans most famous Gypsy singer. Lastly, she follows the quote by Prophet Muhammed PBUH, that says; You must pursue knowlege from birth to death, even to faraway lands such as China. Tamalyn Dallal disembarks in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China, formerly East Turkestan, home to the Turkic speaking Uyghurs who are Muslim. In this arid desert, modern skyscrapers compete with horse drawn carts. Traditional medicine brought by the ancient Greeks is still practiced with great success, and people walk a tight rope three stories overhead every night in the heart of the city. Gain a new perspective on a wide slice of our world that we hear so much and know so little about. You will be surprised, delighted, and sometimes shocked at the fascinating web of true life tales told by this modern day Scheherezade.

Disposing Dictators, Demystifying Voting Paradoxes: Social Choice Analysis


Donald G. Saari - 2008
    This expository, largely non-technical book is the first to find positive results showing that the situation is not anywhere as dire and negative as we have been led to believe. Instead there are surprisingly simple explanations for the negative assertions, and positive conclusions can be obtained.

Greeks & Romans Bearing Gifts: How the Ancients Inspired the Founding Fathers


Carl J. Richard - 2008
    The classical education they imbibed as young students inspired them to undertake the American Revolution and influenced their approach to a host of constitutional and practical issues crucial to the shaping of the new American republic. Recounting the stirring stories the founders encountered in their favorite histories of Greece and Rome, renowned scholar Carl J. Richard explores what they learned from these vivid tales and how they applied these lessons to their own heroic quest to win American independence and establish a durable republic. Richard explains how the founders learned the importance of individual rights from the absence of those rights in Sparta, the superiority of republican government to monarchy from the Greek victory over the Persians, the perils of democracy from the instability of Athens, the need for a strong central government from the fall of Greece to Macedon and Rome, the importance of virtue to the success of a republic from early Rome, the need for eternal vigilance against ambitious individuals from the fall of the Roman republic, and the preciousness of liberty from its destruction by the Roman emperors. Crucial to the decisions that shaped the United States, these lessons remain invaluable today for every citizen concerned with America's future course.

Social Work with Older Adults


Kathleen McInnis-Dittrich - 2008
     The fourth edition of Social Work with Older Adults provides a comprehensive treatment of a strengths-based approach to the major areas of social work with older adults. The text examines the basics of biopsychosocial functioning and the design of interventions to treat a wide variety of challenges facing older adults. This updated edition includes content on abuse and neglect of older adults, drug and alcohol abuse and the social worker's role in dying, bereavement, and advance directives. Learning Goals Upon completing this book, readers will be able to: Discuss how to engage in differential assessment.Understand the design of intervention to treat a wide variety of challenges facing older adults.

King Stephen


Edmund King - 2008
    After years of work on the sources, Edmund King shows with rare clarity the strengths and weaknesses of the monarch. Keeping Stephen at the forefront of his account, the author also chronicles the activities of key family members and associates whose loyal support sustained Stephen’s kingship. In 1135 the popular Stephen was elected king against the claims of the empress Matilda and her sons. But by 1153, Stephen had lost control over Normandy and other important regions, England had lost prestige, and the weakened king was forced to cede his family’s right to succession. A rich narrative covering the drama of a tumultuous reign, this book focuses well-deserved attention on a king who lost control of his destiny.

BLOGGING to unblock


Mahathir Mohamad - 2008
    Mahathir Mohamad (former Prime Minister of Malaysia). A surprising uniqueness of this book is that it is actually more than 300 pages and not just 152 because if you turn the book upside down from the back, it's written in Bahasa Malaysia.

Travesty in Haiti: A true account of Christian missions, orphanages, fraud, food aid and drug trafficking


Timothy T. Schwartz - 2008
    It is a story of failed agricultural, health and credit projects; violent struggles for control over foreign aid; corrupt orphanage owners, pastors, and missionaries; the nepotistic manipulation of research funds; economically counterproductive food aid distribution programs that undermine the Haitian agricultural economy; disastrous social engineering by foreign governments, international financial and development organizations--such as the World Bank and USAID-- and the multinational corporate charities that have sprung up in their service, CARE International, Catholic Relief Services, World Vision, and the dozens of other massive charities that have programs spread across the globe, moving in response not only to disasters and need, but political agendas and economic opportunity. TRAVESTY also chronicles the lives of Haitians and describes how political disillusionment sometimes ignites explosive mob rage among peasants frustrated with the foreign aid organizations, governments and international agencies that fund them. TRAVESTY recounts how some Haitians use whatever means possible try to better their living standards, most recently drug trafficking, and in doing so explains why at the service of international narcotraffickers and Haitian money laundering elites, Haiti has become a failed State. TRAVESTY reads like a novel. It takes the reader from the bowels of foreign aid in the field; to the posh and orderly urban headquarters of charities such as CARE International; to the cold, distant heights of Capitol Hill policy planners. The journey is marked by true accounts involving violence, corruption, appalling greed, sexual exploitation, disastrous social engineering, and the inside world of drug traffickers. But TRAVESTY it is not a novel. It is founded on 15 years of academic and field experience, research, and hard data. It entertains the reader with vivid first hand accounts while treating seriously the problems inherent not only in international aid, but the sabotaging effects of the drug war on economic development in remote and impoverished areas of the hemisphere.

The Stranger on the Silk Road: A Story of Ancient China


Jessica S. Gunderson - 2008
    After talking too much to a stranger, Song Sun accidentally gives away the Chinese secret of silkmaking. Will Song Sun be able to save the secret?

Dukh - Pain


Hedina Tahirović Sijerčić - 2008
    Hedina's poetry is enlightening in its candidness, which shatters the fanciful myth of the mysterious and ever-carefree Roma, replacing it with lyric images of people living, loving, and dying, not immune to the caprice of the world that surrounds them. It is through such tragedies that the lingering message of these poems has become simply 'dukh', pain.