Best of
Social

1990

The Anti-Politics Machine: "Development," Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho


James Ferguson - 1990
    When these projects fail, as they do with astonishing regularity, they nonetheless produce a host of regular and unacknowledged effects, including the expansion of bureaucratic state power and the translation of the political realities of poverty and powerlessness into "technical" problems awaiting solution by "development" agencies and experts. It is the political intelligibility of these effects, along with the process that produces them, that this book seeks to illuminate through a detailed case study of the workings of the "development" industry in one country, Lesotho, and in one "development" project.Using an anthropological approach grounded in the work of Foucault, James Ferguson analyzes the institutional framework within which such projects are crafted and the nature of "development discourse," revealing how it is that, despite all the "expertise" that goes into formulating development projects, they nonetheless often demonstrate a startling ignorance of the historical and political realities of the locale they are intended to help. In a close examination of the attempted implementation of the Thaba-Tseka project in Lesotho, Ferguson shows how such a misguided approach plays out, how, in fact, the "development" apparatus in Lesotho acts as an "anti-politics machine," everywhere whisking political realities out of sight and all the while performing, almost unnoticed, its own pre-eminently political operation of strengthening the state presence in the local region.James Ferguson is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of California at Irvine.

The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race In America


Shelby Steele - 1990
    With candor and persuasive argument, he shows us how both black and white Americans have become trapped into seeing color before character, and how social policies designed to lessen racial inequities have instead increased them. The Content of Our Character is neither "liberal" nor "conservative," but an honest, courageous look at America's most enduring and wrenching social dilemma.

Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth, and Power at the Edge of the 21st Century


Alvin Toffler - 1990
    The very nature of power is changing under your eyes.

Opening Up: The Healing Power of Expressing Emotions


James W. Pennebaker - 1990
    This book presents astonishing evidence that personal self-disclosure is not only good for our emotional health, but boosts our physical health as well.Psychologist James W. Pennebaker has conducted controlled clinical research that sheds new light on the powerful mind body connection. This book interweaves his findings with insightful case studies on secret-keeping, confession, and the hidden price of silence. Filled with information and encouragement, Opening Up explains:*Why suppressing inner problems takes a devastating toll on health *How long-buried trauma affects the immune system *How writing about your problems can improve your health *Why it's never too late to heal old emotional wounds *When self-disclosure may be risky--and how to know whom to trust

Inventing the Feeble Mind: A History of Intellectual Disability in the United States


James W. Trent - 1990
    But in the decade of the 1840s, a group of American physicians and reformers began to view mental retardation as a social problem requiring public intervention. For the next century and a half, social science and medical professionals constructed meanings of mental retardation, at the same time incarcerating hundreds of thousands of Americans in institutions and "special" schools. James W. Trent uses public documents, private letters, investigative reports, and rare photographs to explore our changing perceptions of "feeble minds." From local family matter to state and social problem, constructions of mental retardation represent a history of ideas, techniques, and tools. Trent contends that the economic vulnerability of mentally retarded people and their families, more than the claims made for their intellectual or social limitations, has determined their institutional treatment. He finds that the focus on technical and usually psychomedical interpretations of mental retardation has led to a general ignorance of the maldistribution of resources, status, and power so evident in the lives of the retarded. Superintendents, social welfare agents, IQ testers, and sterlizers have utilized these psychological and medical paradigms to insure their own social privilege and professional legitimacy. Rather than simply moving "from care to control, " state schools have made care an effective and integral part of control. In analyzing the current policy of deinstitutionalization, Trent concludes it has been more successful in dispersing disabled citizens than in integrating them into American communities. Inventing the Feeble Mind powerfully shatters conventional understandings of mental retardation. It is essential reading for social workers, psychologists, historians, sociologists, educator

Apprenticeship in Thinking: Cognitive Development in Social Context


Barbara Rogoff - 1990
    The author, a leading developmental psychologist, views development as an apprenticeship in which children engage in the use of intellectual tools in societally structured activities with parents, other adults, and children. The author has gathered evidence from various disciplines--cognitive, developmental, and cultural psychology; anthropology; infancy studies; and communication research--furnishing a coherent and broadly based account of cognitive development in its sociocultural context. This work examines the mutual roles of the individual and the sociocultural world, and the culturally based processes by which children appropriate and extend skill and understanding from their involvement in shared thinking with other people. The book is written in a lively and engaging style and is supplemented by photographs and original illustrations by the author.

The Brighter Side of Human Nature: Altruism and Empathy in Everyday Life


Alfie Kohn - 1990
    This lively refutation of cynical assumptions about our species considers the nature of empathy and the causes of war, why we (incorrectly) explain all behavior in terms of self-interest, and how we can teach children to care.

The Mirror at Midnight: A South African Journey


Adam Hochschild - 1990
    Hochschild looks at the tensions of modern South Africa through a dramatic prism: the pivotal nineteenth-century Battle of Blood River -- which determined whether the Boers or the Zulus would control that part of the world -- and its contentious commemoration by rival groups 150 years later. This incisive book offers an unusual window onto a society that remains divided. In his epilogue, Hochschild extends his view to the astonishing political changes that have occurred in the country in recent years -- and the changes yet to be made.

Jim Crow Guide: The Way It Was


Stetson Kennedy - 1990
    . . . The Guide was [first] published in Paris in 1956 by Jean-Paul Sartre because the author could find no American publisher who was willing to issue the book. In this new edition, Kennedy has added an afterword that provides his impressions of contemporary ‘desegregated racism’."—Florida Historical QuarterlyJim Crow Guide documents  the system of legally imposed American apartheid that prevailed during what Stetson Kennedy calls "the long century from Emancipation to the Overcoming." The mock guidebook covers every area of activity where the tentacles of Jim Crow reached. From the texts of state statutes, municipal ordinances, federal regulations, and judicial rulings, Kennedy exhumes the legalistic skeleton of Jim Crow in a work of permanent value for scholars and of exceptional appeal for general readers.

Out There: Marginalization and Contemporary Culture


Russell Ferguson - 1990
    It engages fundamental issues raised by attempts to define such concepts as mainstream, minority, and other, and opens up new ways of thinking about culture and representation. All of the texts deal with questions of representation in the broadest sense, encompassing not just the visual but also the social and psychological aspects of cultural identity. Included are important theoretical writings by Homi Bhabha, Helene Cixous, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, and Monique Wittig. Their work is juxtaposed with essays on more overtly personal themes, often autobiographical, by Gloria Anzaldua, Bell Hooks, and Richard Rodriguez, among others. This rich anthology brings together voices from many different marginalized groups - groups that are often isolated from each other as well as from the dominant culture. It joins issues of gender, race, sexual preference, and class in one forum but without imposing a false unity on the diverse cultures represented. Each piece in the book subtly changes the way every other piece is read. While several essays focus on specific issues in art, such as John Yau's piece on Wilfredo Lam in the Museum of Modern Art, or James Clifford's on collecting art, others draw from debates in literature, film, and critical theory to provide a much broader context than is usually found in work aimed at an art audience. Topics range from the functions of language to the role of public art in the city, from gay pornography to the meanings of black hair styles. Out There also includes essays by Rosalyn Deutsche, Richard Dyer, Kobena Mercer, Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, Gerald Vizenor and Simon Watney, as well as by the editors.Copublished with the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York Distributed by The MIT Press.

How to Be a Winner-Cassette


Zig Ziglar - 1990
    In this life-enhancing audio, Ziglar helps listeners develop the attitude needed to win at anything.

At the Origins of Modern Atheism


Michael Buckley - 1990
    Buckley investigates the origins and development of modern atheism and argues convincingly that its impetus lies paradoxically in the very attempts to counter it.  Although modern atheism finds its initial exponents in Denis Diderot and Paul d’Holbach in the eighteenth century, their works bring to completion a dialectical process that reaches back to the theologians and philosophers of an earlier period.  During the seventeenth century, theologians such as Leonard Lessius and Marin Mersenne determined that in order to defend the existence of god, religious apologetics must become philosophy, surrendering as its primary warrant any intrinsically religious experience or evidence.  The most influential philosophers of the period, René Descartes and Isaac Newton, and the theologians who followed them accepted this settlement, and the new sciences were enlisted to provide the foundation for religion. Almost no one suspected the profound contradictions that this process entailed and that would eventually resolve themselves through the negation of god.  In transferring to other areas of human experience and inquiry its fundamental responsibility to deal with the existence of god, religion dialectically generated its own denial.  The origins and extraordinary power of modern atheism lie with this progressive self-alienation of religion itself.

Understanding Cultural Differences


Edward T. Hall - 1990
    Based on interviews with top German, French and American executives and on over 30 years of research on intercultural relations, this text examines key cross-cultural concepts to break through the misunderstandings and mis-communication between business personnel from these and other countries.

The Social Work Skills Workbook


Barry R. Cournoyer - 1990
    Cournoyer's comprehensive workbook/textbook helps you rehearse and practice the core skills needed in contemporary social work practice. Complete with interesting case examples, summaries and skill-building exercises, THE SOCIAL WORK SKILLS WORKBOOK will help you become a more confident, ethical, and effective helper.

Psychiatry for Medical Students


Robert J. Waldinger - 1990
    Widely used in medical schools and allied mental health curricula, the third edition of Psychiatry for Medical Students is the standard against which all psychiatric texts for beginning medical students are measured. This popular book gives medical students, primary care physicians, nurses, social workers, and psychologists a jargon-free introduction to the basics, including topics such as schizophrenia, electroconvulsive therapy, transference, and tranquilizers. The text also helps the reader develop the basic skills needed to carry out a diagnostic evaluation and provides systematic coverage of common psychiatric disorders, groups of patients, specialized psychiatric fields, special problems encountered among patients with a broad range of psychiatric conditions, and psychotherapies and somatic therapies. This updated edition incorporates the changes in DSM-IV and contains discussions of recent developments throughout the field. Filled with new references and the latest research, this book can be used as a quick reference during clinical work and a starting point for further reading.

The Portable World Complete Pocket Atlas: A Complete Pocket Atlas


B.M. Willett - 1990
    Perfect for slipping into a pocket, suitcase, backpact, or shelf, this handy volume features high-quality, four-color topographical maps which include whole continents (color-coded for easy reference), general regions and specific countries, as well as an extensive 80-page index.

Eros: Anti-Eros


Harold Jaffe - 1990
    Eros collides with Anti-Eros in these menacingly comic fictions in which physical love and desire are policed by a high-tech, militarist, media manipulated society. The calculated silences and disinformation surrounding the AIDS epidemic, the scapegoating of "deviants," and the everyday bafflements of sensual love are intersecting themes in Jaffe's razor-sharp parables about Eros under seige.