Best of
Social

2007

Not for Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade—and How We Can Fight It


David Batstone - 2007
    In this book, David Batstone profiles the new generation of abolitionists who are leading the struggle to end this appalling epidemic.

Dancing with Rose: Finding Life in the Land of Alzheimer's


Lauren Kessler - 2007
    To deal with the pain of her loss, and to better understand the confounding aspects of living with a disease that afflicts four and a half million people every year, Kessler enlisted as a caregiver at a facility she calls Maplewood. Life inside the facility is exhausting and humbling, a microenvironment built upon the intense relationships between two groups of marginalized people: the victims of Alzheimer's and the underpaid, overworked employees who care for them. But what surprises Kessler more than the disability and backbreaking work is the grace, humor, and unexpected humanity that are alive and well at Maplewood.Dancing with Rose is forceful and funny, clear-eyed and compelling. An intriguing narrative about the relationships and realities of end-of-life care, it stars an endearing cast of characters who give a human face to what has always been considered a dehumanizing condition. Illuminating and beautifully written, Kessler's immersion offers a new, optimistic view on what Alzheimer's has to teach us.

The Seven Levels of Intimacy: The Art of Loving and the Joy of Being Loved


Matthew Kelly - 2007
    But oftentimes, this complete, unrestrained sharing of ourselves is too daunting a task. Now, in The Seven Levels of Intimacy, Matthew Kelly explains step-by-step how to move beyond our fears and experience the power of true intimacy. By achieving each of Kelly’s seven levels, we can understand and gain confidence in our partners and ourselves until we are fully able to experience love, commitment, trust, and happiness. With profound insight and the use of powerful and relatable examples, The Seven Levels of Intimacy redefines the most important relationships in our lives and how we view our interactions with one another. By finally comprehending and experiencing the great depths of intimacy, we can create the strong connections, deep joy, and lasting bonds that we all long for in our lives.

Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges


C. Otto Scharmer - 2007
    Fundamental problems, as Einstein once noted, cannot be solved at the same level of thought that created them. What we pay attention to, and how we pay attention - both individually and collectively - is key to what we create. What often prevents us from attending is what Scharmer calls our blind spot, the inner place from which each of us operates. Learning to become aware of our blind spot is critical to bringing forth the profound systemic changes so needed in business and society today. First introduced in Presence, the U methodology of leading profound change is expanded and deepened in Theory U. By moving through the "U" process we learn to connect to our essential Self in the realm of presencing - a term coined by Scharmer that combines the present with sensing. Here we are able to see our own blind spot and pay attention in a way that allows us to experience the opening of our minds, our hearts, and our wills. This wholistic opening constitutes a shift in awareness that allows us to learn from the future as it emerges, and to realize that future in the world. Theory U explores a new territory of scientific research and personal leadership, one that is grounded in real life experience and shared practices. Scharmer shares much from his own personal and professional development, and draws from a rich diversity of compelling stories and examples. Readers will find themselves drawn to new ways of thinking and acting as they read, completing a parallel journey of exploration and discovery. The final chapters lay out principles and practices that allow everyone to participate fully in co-creating and bringing forth the desired future that is working to emerge through us.

The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever


Christopher HitchensGeorge Eliot - 2007
    Christopher Hitchens continues to make the case for a splendidly godless universe in this first-ever gathering of the influential voices--past and present--that have shaped his side of the current (and raging) God/no-god debate. With Hitchens as your erudite and witty guide, you'll be led through a wealth of philosophy, literature, and scientific inquiry, including generous portions of the words of Lucretius, Benedict de Spinoza, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Mark Twain, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Emma Goldman, H. L. Mencken, Albert Einstein, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and many others well-known and lesser known. And they're all set in context and commented upon as only Christopher Hitchens political and literary journalist extraordinaire can.” (Los Angeles Times) Atheist? Believer? Uncertain? No matter: The Portable Atheist will speak to you and engage you every step of the way.

Learning ACT: An Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Skills-Training Manual for Therapists


Jason B. Luoma - 2007
    Whether you are new to the profession or an experienced clinician with an established career, seeking to incorporate ACT work into your practice, this book is an essential resource. ACT is both a unique approach and somewhat counterintuitive in its methods. Learning to “do ACT” well requires practice, patience, and good information. This book is a major contribution to ACT professional literature: a comprehensive, activity-based workbook that will help you understand and take advantage of ACT’s unique six process model, both as a tool for diagnosis and case conceptualization and as a basis for structuring treatments for clients.Learning ACT begins with an overview of the ACT model, outlining its theoretical and philosophical underpinnings. Next you will learn how to understand and make use of the six core ACT processes. In later chapters, you'll be introduced to the ACT approach to establishing an effective and powerful therapeutic relationship and learn to conceptualize cases from an ACT perspective. Throughout these chapters are numerous exercises to help you apply what you are learning in order to process the material at a deeper level.Unique to this volume is a DVD that includes role-played examples of the core ACT processes in action. Use this helpful addition to bring to life the concepts developed in the text. An invaluable aid to serious ACT study, the DVD can be reviewed often as you gain facility with the model.

The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation


Drew Westen - 2007
    For two decades Drew Westen, professor of psychology and psychiatry at Emory University, has explored a theory of the mind that differs substantially from the more "dispassionate" notions held by most cognitive psychologists, political scientists, and economists—and Democratic campaign strategists. The idea of the mind as a cool calculator that makes decisions by weighing the evidence bears no relation to how the brain actually works. When political candidates assume voters dispassionately make decisions based on "the issues," they lose. That's why only one Democrat has been re-elected to the presidency since Franklin Roosevelt—and only one Republican has failed in that quest. In politics, when reason and emotion collide, emotion invariably wins. Elections are decided in the marketplace of emotions, a marketplace filled with values, images, analogies, moral sentiments, and moving oratory, in which logic plays only a supporting role. Westen shows, through a whistle-stop journey through the evolution of the passionate brain and a bravura tour through fifty years of American presidential and national elections, why campaigns succeed and fail. The evidence is overwhelming that three things determine how people vote, in this order: their feelings toward the parties and their principles, their feelings toward the candidates, and, if they haven't decided by then, their feelings toward the candidates' policy positions.Westen turns conventional political analyses on their head, suggesting that the question for Democratic politics isn't so much about moving to the right or the left but about moving the electorate. He shows how it can be done through examples of what candidates have said—or could have said—in debates, speeches, and ads. Westen's discoveries could utterly transform electoral arithmetic, showing how a different view of the mind and brain leads to a different way of talking with voters about issues that have tied the tongues of Democrats for much of forty years—such as abortion, guns, taxes, and race. You can't change the structure of the brain. But you can change the way you appeal to it. And here's how…

When He's Married to Mom: How to Help Mother-Enmeshed Men Open Their Hearts to True Love and Commitment


Kenneth M. Adams - 2007
    Often this kind of man is bound by an unhealthy attachment to his mother. This phenomenon is called "mother-son enmeshment." In When He's Married to Mom, clinical psychologist and renowned intimacy expert Dr. Kenneth M. Adams goes beyond the stereotypes of momma's boys and meddling mothers to explain how mother-son enmeshment affects everyone: the mother, the son, and the woman who loves him. In his twenty-five years of practice, Dr. Adams has successfully treated hundreds of enmeshed men and shares their stories in this informative guide. He provides proven methods to make things better, including: —Guidelines to help women create fulfilling relationships with mother-enmeshed men —Tools to help mother-enmeshed men have healthy and successful dating experiences leading to serious relationships and marriage —Strategies to help parents avoid enmeshing their children

The Unofficial Harry Potter Encyclopedia: Harry Potter a - Z


Kristina Benson - 2007
    K. Rowling about a teenage boy named Harry Potter. Since the release of her first novel, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in 1997, the books have gained enormous popularity, critical acclaim and commercial success worldwide, spawning films, video games and assorted merchandise. The Unofficial Harry Potter Encyclopedia: Harry Potter A - Z studies each character in Harry's World from his two best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger to Lord Voldemort to Professor Dumbledore. No Wizard, Witch or Muggle is to be missed in this encyclopedia of characters. Note: This book is an independent and unauthorized publication. It is not endorsed by J.K Rowling, her publishers, copyright or trademark holders.

Why Good People Do Bad Things: Understanding Our Darker Selves


James Hollis - 2007
    It is working toward the possibility of greater wholeness. We will never experience healing until we can come to love our unlovable places, for they, too, ask love of us. How is it that good people do bad things? Why is our personal story and our societal history so bloody, so repetitive, so injurious to self and others? How do we make sense of the discrepancies between who we think we are—or who we show to the outside world—versus our everyday behaviors? Why are otherwise ordinary people driven to addictions and compulsions, whether alcohol, drugs, food, shopping, infidelity, or the Internet? Why are interpersonal relationships so often filled with strife? Exploring Jung’s concept of the Shadow—the unconscious parts of our self that contradict the image of the self we hope to project--Why Good People Do Bad Things guides you through all the ways in which many of our seemingly unexplainable behaviors are manifestations of the Shadow. In addition to its presence in our personal lives, Hollis looks at the larger picture of the Shadow at work in our culture—from organized religion to the suffering and injustice that abounds in our modern world. Accepting and examining the Shadow as part of one’s self, Hollis suggests, is the first step toward wholeness. Revealing a new way of understanding our darker selves, Hollis offers wisdom to help you to acquire a more conscious conduct of your life and bring a new level of awareness to your daily actions and choices.

In Praise of Prejudice: The Necessity of Preconceived Ideas


Theodore Dalrymple - 2007
    English psychiatrist and writer Theodore Dalrymple shows that freeing the mind from prejudice is not only impossible, but entails intellectual, moral and emotional dishonesty. The attempt to eradicate prejudice has several dire consequences for the individual and society as a whole.

The Essential Writings of Machiavelli


Niccolò Machiavelli - 2007
    Refreshingly accessible, these superb new translations are faithful to Machiavelli’s original, beautifully crafted writings.The volume features essays that appear in English for the first time, such as “A Caution to the Medici” and “The Persecution of Africa.” Also included are complete versions of the political treatise, The Prince, the comic satire The Mandrake, The Life of Castruccio Castracani, and the classic story “Belfagor”, along with selections from The Discourses, The Art of War, and Florentine Histories. Augmented with useful features–vital and concise annotations and cross-references–this unique compendium is certain to become the standard one-volume reference to this influential, versatile, and ever timely writer.“Machiavelli's stress on political necessity rather than moral perfection helped inspire the Renaissance by renewing links with Thucydides and other classical thinkers. This new collection provides deeper insight into Machiavelli’s personality as a writer, thus broadening our understanding of him.”–Robert D. Kaplan, author of Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos “Constantine’s selection is not only intelligent; his translations are astonishingly good. Thoughtfully introduced by Albert Russell Ascoli, this edition belongs in everyone’s library.”–John Jeffries Martin, professor and chair, department of history, Trinity University“If one were to assign a single edition of Machiavelli's works, this most certainly would be it.”–John P. McCormick, professor, department of political science, University of Chicago

Naoto Fukasawa


Naoto Fukasawa - 2007
    His simple, restrained and user-friendly products appeal to people's shared experience of things. The wall-mounted CD player he designed for MUJI in 1999, based on the image of a kitchen fan, was selected into MoMA's design collection in 2005The book is the first survey on Fukasawa's work to be published in English. Edited by Fukasawa himself, and with contributions by artists, designers and lecturers, such as Antony Gormley and Jasper Morrison, the book introduces the reader to the designer's particular and innovative design approach. Illustrated with newly commissioned photography, the book showcases over 100 products, which Fukasawa elucidates with a clever combination of images and words

The David Icke Guide to the Global Conspiracy: And How to End It


David Icke - 2007
    His latest book is an extraordinary and unique compilation of his 20 years of research in more than 40 countries, as he connects the dots between apparently unconnected people, events and subjects to show how everything fits together -- and to what end. The interest all over the world in David Icke's work is simply exploding and, with this book, the world's most controversial man is destinated to reach a still greater audience.

Why Don't We Listen Better?: Communicating & Connecting in Relationships


Jim Petersen - 2007
    Jim Petersen distills years of counseling and pastoral ministry into an informal volume loaded with practical tips, examples and techniques to practice. His book highlights our cultures courtroomlike communication that often puts people at odds with each other. Most people think they listen well but dont and folks walk away unheard, misunderstood and disconnected. Readers will chuckle in recognition at the tongueincheek but spoton flatbrain theory of emotions. It shows how and why we get upset and confused in tense situations and what to do about it. It lays the practical groundwork to better manage emotionally loaded situations. This book shows communication that works and is equally appropriate for professionals, such as pastors and therapists and for the general public. The ingenious TalkerListener Card gives a takingturn method to end arguing as we know it. It works for couples, business relationships, church listening programs, counselors, group discussions and the family dinner table listening game. Thirty listening techniques will help the reader immediately begin to turn enemies into friends, poor relationships into decent ones and good relationships into better ones. These accessible skills are being used in pastoral counseling classes, counseling offices, church staffs, professional offices, on dates, in corporate board rooms and at kitchen tables around the country .

In Search of Hope: The Global Diaries of Mariane Pearl


Mariane Pearl - 2007
    During the first year of writing her monthly "Global Diary" column, Pearl logged nearly 100,000 miles and met 12 brave, determined women-true agents of change in their communities-who make the world a more just and harmonious place despite personal hardship, discouraging odds and even death threats. In Search of Hope: The Global Diaries of Mariane Pearl introduces readers to these everyday heroes. The limited-edition run of In Search of Hope features more than 200 previously unpublished images from Pearl's travels and updates on the women since they were first profiled in the magazine. Mariane's good friend, Angelina Jolie, who also portrays her in A Mighty Heart, has written a touching and personal tribute to Mariane as the foreword for In Search of Hope. Among some of the inspirational women readers will meet are Somaly Mam, a former child sex slave in Cambodia who now rescues girls from forced prostitution; Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first woman to be elected head of an African country; Lydia Cacho, the intrepid Mexican reporter who exposes violence against women and children despite repeated threats on her life; Sheila Watt-Cloutier, the Inuit leader and a Nobel Peace Prize nominee working toward the reverse of global warming; and Dr. Julian Atim, a Ugandan AIDS orphan-turned-doctor fighting for health rights in her country. "The women featured here are all different and their context varies widely, yet you will find the same active principle animating them. This is the ultimate value of hope," says Mariane Pearl. "These women teach us a lot about the power of human empathy and the value of beauty that emanates from them as they progress on this lonely yet magnificent path that will lead them to become a genuine source of hope for all people." "As anyone who's seen or read A Mighty Heart knows, Mariane is a woman of incredible personal strength," says Cindi Leive, Glamour editor-in-chief. "But as millions of Glamour readers have learned, she's also a fiercely committed journalist. She set out to find women who are changing the world-and the stories she's brought back, collected here for the first time, are the kind of personal profiles that alter your thinking forever." Mariane Pearl's acclaimed "Global Diary" column for Glamour has been featured in The New York Times and on CNN, and has been recognized as a National Headliner Award winner. Glamour will donate 100 percent of its proceeds and royalties from all books sold on glamour.com to charities selected by the women profiled.

The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War


David Livingstone Smith - 2007
    It tells the story of why all human beings have the potential to be hideously cruel and destructive to one another. Why are we our own worst enemy? The book shows us that war has been with us---in one form or another---since prehistoric times, and looking at the behavior of our close relatives, the chimpanzees, it argues that a penchant for group violence has been bred into us over millions of years of biological evolution. The Most Dangerous Animal takes the reader on a journey through evolution, history, anthropology, and psychology, showing how and why the human mind has a dual nature: on the one hand, we are ferocious, dangerous animals who regularly commit terrible atrocities against our own kind, on the other, we have a deep aversion to killing, a horror of taking human life. Meticulously researched and far-reaching in scope and with examples taken from ancient and modern history, The Most Dangerous Animal delivers a sobering lesson for an increasingly dangerous world.

The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot


Naomi Wolf - 2007
    In authoritative research and documentation Wolf explains how events of the last six years parallel steps taken in the early years of the 20th century's worst dictatorships such as Germany, Russia, China, and Chile. The book cuts across political parties and ideologies and speaks directly to those among us who are concerned about the ever-tightening noose being placed around our liberties. In this timely call to arms, Naomi Wolf compels us to face the way our free America is under assault. She warns us-with the straight-to-fellow-citizens urgency of one of Thomas Paine's revolutionary pamphlets-that we have little time to lose if our children are to live in real freedom. -Recent history has profound lessons for us in the U.S. today about how fascist, totalitarian, and other repressive leaders seize and maintain power, especially in what were once democracies. The secret is that these leaders all tend to take very similar, parallel steps. The Founders of this nation were so deeply familiar with tyranny and the habits and practices of tyrants that they set up our checks and balances precisely out of fear of what is unfolding today. We are seeing these same kinds of tactics now closing down freedoms in America, turning our nation into something that in the near future could be quite other than the open society in which we grew up and learned to love liberty, - states Wolf. Wolf is taking her message directly to the American people in the most accessible form and as part of a large national campaign to reach out to ordinary Americans about the dangers we face today. This includes a lecture and speaking tour, and being part of the nascent American Freedom Campaign, a grassroots effort to ensure that presidential candidates pledge to uphold the constitution and protect our liberties from further erosion. The End of America will shock, enrage, and motivate-spurring us to act, as the Founders would have counted on us to do in a time such as this, as rebels and patriots-to save our liberty and defend our nation.

The Geography of Hope: A Tour of the World We Need


Chris Turner - 2007
    Daring to step beyond the rhetoric of panic and despair, The Geography of Hope points to the bright light at the end of this very dark tunnel.With a mix of front-line reporting, analysis and passionate argument, Chris Turner pieces together the glimmers of optimism amid the gloom and the solutions already at work around the world, from Canada’s largest wind farm to Asia’s greenest building and Europe’s most eco-friendly communities. But The Geography of Hope goes far beyond mere technology. Turner seeks out the next generation of political, economic, social and spiritual institutions that could provide the global foundations for a sustainable future–from the green hills of northern Thailand to the parliament houses of Scandinavia, from the villages of southern India, where microcredit finance has remade the social fabric, to America’s most forward-thinking think tanks.In this compelling first-person exploration, punctuated by the wonder and angst of a writer discovering the world’s beacons of possibility, Chris Turner pieces together a dazzling map of the disparate landmarks in a geography of hope.While most of the world has been spinning in stagnant circles of recrimination and debate on the subject of climate change, paralyzed by visions of apocalypse both natural (if nothing of our way of life changes) and economic (if too much does), Denmark has simply marched off with steadfast resolve into the sustainable future, reaching the zenith of its pioneering trek on the island of Samsø. And so if there’s an encircled star on this patchwork map indicating hope’s modest capital, then it should be properly placed on this island. Perhaps, for the sake of precision, at the geographic centre of Jørgen Tranberg’s dairy farm.There are, I’m sure, any number of images called to mind by talk of ecological revolution and renewable energy and sustainable living, but I’m pretty certain they don’t generally include a hearty fiftysomething Dane in rubber boots spotted with mud and cow shit. Which is why Samsø’s transformation is not just revolutionary but inspiring, not just a huge change but a tantalizingly attainable one. And it was a change that seemed at its most workaday–near-effortless, no more remarkable than the cool October wind gusting across the island–down on Tranberg’s farm.—from The Geography of Hope

The Lords Of Avaris


David Rohl - 2007
    This is the start of an epic journey of discovery, in the Homeric mould, which ranges across the ancient lands and archaeological sites of the Mediterranean. From Joshua's Jericho to Romulus' Rome, the true chronicle of our pre-Christian past is uncovered revealing an extraordinary historical picture, previously unimagined by scholars.The epic legends of the West, which permeate the writings of Greece and Rome, appear to have been based on the exploits of genuine historical figures and actual events. There really was an 'Heroic Age' of brazen-clad warriors, the last of which fought before the walls of Troy, just as described in Homer's Iliad.At the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age - two thousand years before the assassination of Julius Caesar in the Roman Senate - a new people appeared on the stage of history to join the great civilisations of Mesopotamia and Egypt. These 'Indo-European'-speaking tribes were chariot-riding warriors from the northern mountains and plains. They became the Hittites, the Aryan kings of Mitanni, the Vedic heroes of the Indus, and the founders of the later empires of Greece, Persia and Rome. They had many legendary names - the Divine Pelasgians of Greece, the Luwians of Troy and western Anatolia, the Rephaim and Anakim of the Bible, and the Hyksos rulers of Avaris who suppressed Egypt for generations. Their heroes and heroines are legionary: Inachus, mythical king of Argos in the Peloponnese; his daughter the beautiful Princess Io who married an Egyptian pharaoh; Danaus, the Hyksos ruler who, fleeing from Egypt to Greece, founded the Mycenaean dynasty which culminated in Agamemnon's ill-fated Trojan War; Cadmus, the bringer of writing to the West; Minos, the Cretan high-king of Knossos who built the infamous Labyrinth; Mopsus, warrior and sage who led a vast Greek, Philistine and Anatolian army into the Levant in a daring attempt to seize Egypt in the time of Ramesses III. All these, and more, are the stuff of legend - but The Lords of Avaris reveals these Classical heroes as flesh-and-blood characters from our ancestral past.

The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics


Riane Eisler - 2007
    She then presents a radical reformulation of economics priorities focused on activities of caring and caregiving at the individual, organizational, societal, and environmental levels.

Burning Book: A Visual History of Burning Man


Jessica Bruder - 2007
    Two decades later Burning Man has evolved into a dazzling annual extravaganza dedicated to radical self-reliance and self-expression, attracting nearly forty thousand people. These revelers -- an eclectic mix of punks, geeks, families, ravers, grad students, gear heads, hippies, and tourists -- turn the ancient lakebed of Nevada's Black Rock Desert into a bustling city that exists for one glorious week before disappearing in a cloud of ashes and dust.Burning Book is both a loving commemoration of the event's storied history and an enlightening companion for festival goers. Bruder explores the unique ethos and breathtaking art installations that have shaped the event, along with Black Rock City's distinctive landmarks, pranks, lore, and gift-based economy. Illustrated with hundreds of stunning photographs, Burning Book is a striking tribute to an extraordinary cultural phenomenon for the legions who participate in Burning Man every year, and for those who haven't become part of this unforgettable celebration -- yet.

Philosophical Papers, Volume 4: Philosophy as Cultural Politics


Richard Rorty - 2007
    Topics discussed include the changing role of philosophy in Western culture over the course of recent centuries, the role of the imagination in intellectual and moral progress, the notion of 'moral identity', the Wittgensteinian claim that the problems of philosophy are linguistic in nature, the irrelevance of cognitive science to philosophy, and the mistaken idea that philosophers should find the 'place' of such things as consciousness and moral value in a world of physical particles. The papers form a rich and distinctive collection which will appeal to anyone with a serious interest in philosophy and its relation to culture.

Temporarily Yours: Intimacy, Authenticity, and the Commerce of Sex


Elizabeth Bernstein - 2007
    Yet in both the developing world and in postindustrial cities of the West, sexual commerce has continued to flourish, diversifying along technological, spatial, and social lines. In this deeply engaging and theoretically provocative study, Elizabeth Bernstein examines the social features that undergird the expansion and diversification of commercialized sex, demonstrating the ways that postindustrial economic and cultural formations have spawned rapid and unforeseen changes in the forms, meanings, and spatial organization of sexual labor.Drawing upon dynamic and innovative research with sex workers, their clients, and state actors, Bernstein argues that in cities such as San Francisco, Stockholm, and Amstersdam, the nature of what is purchased in commercial sexual encounters is also new. Rather than the expedient exchange of cash for sexual relations, what sex workers are increasingly paid to offer their clients is an erotic experience premised upon the performance of authentic interpersonal connection. As such, contemporary sex markets are emblematic of a cultural moment in which the boundaries between intimacy and commerce—and between public life and private—have been radically redrawn. Not simply a compelling exploration of the changing landscape of sex-work, Temporarily Yours ultimately lays bare the intimate intersections of political economy, desire, and culture.

Power Play


Dara Girard - 2007
    That's why he chose to work with mousy Mary. But when a sultry, confident Mary strode into his office, he wasn't sure how to handle the challenge. And apparently the new and improved Mary wasn't going to settle for anything less than she deserved, in business or pleasure....

Escape from Saddam: the Incredible True Story of One Man's Journey to Freedom


Lewis Alsamari - 2007
    The training was brutal, with discipline enforced by regular beatings, and desertion punishable by mutilation or imprisonment. Somehow Lewis made it through and, thanks in part to his fluent English, was soon offered a post in Iraqi military intelligence. The job would have made him powerful, comfortably wealthy . . . and a cog in Saddam Hussein’s massive machine of terror. Unable to accept becoming a member of Saddam’s secret police, yet knowing that turning down this “honor” would be considered treasonous, Lewis made plans to flee Iraq. His escape was fraught with peril–he was shot, detained at borders, even pursued by hungry wolves across the desert–but the teenager made his way to Jordan, then Malaysia, and finally to England, where he was granted political asylum. Lewis began building a life for himself, even falling in love and getting married. But he was haunted by thoughts of the loved ones he left behind in Iraq, his uncle’s words echoing in his ears: we are sending you to freedom so that one day you may rescue us from this place. One day, shocking news arrived: because of his escape, Lewis’s family–including his mother and sister–had been interrogated, beaten, and thrown into prison. Frantic with guilt and worry, Lewis was forced to steal the thousands of dollars he needed to buy their release and smuggle them out of Iraq. Then, accompanied by his wife, he embarked on a desperate journey in hope of bringing his family to freedom. Escape from Saddam is a powerful nonfiction thriller that, even as it plunges the reader into a netherworld of crooked border police, military checkpoints, counterfeiters, and smugglers, provides a fascinating window into a totalitarian regime. It is also a remarkably inspirational story of a resourceful young man who refused to accept his fate . . . and then risked everything he’d achieved to save his family.From the Hardcover edition.

Great Debate: Advocates and Opponents of the American Constitution


Thomas L. Pangle - 2007
    6 Audio CD's Total.

Finding Grace: The Face of America's Homeless


Lynn Blodgett - 2007
    Dignity. Humanity. Grace. These qualities are not commonly associated with America's homeless, so often overlooked or avoided on our city streets. Yet they are precisely the qualities that illuminate the faces pictured in this astonishing volume. These are our sisters and brothers, and this collection of portraits honors them. Photographer Lynn Blodgett is the head of the nation's largest provider of computer-based services to state and local governments. While traveling for work, Blodgett began compiling a photographic journal of the homeless people he encountered in each of the cities he visited. He discovered the grace and dignity in his subjects. He listened to their stories. And in response he has created a compelling social document, at once gorgeous and simple. Finding Grace: The Face of America's Homeless is Lynn Blodgett's elegant statement on humanity. Through his lens we are reminded of the inspiration that can be found in the gravest of circumstances, and that can be the source of change. Proceeds from the sale of the book will benefit the Finding Grace Homeless Initiative in its efforts to raise awareness for homeless issues across the country.

Dance Lest We All Fall Down


Margaret Willson - 2007
    She, a white American anthropologist, joins forces with an African-Brazilian shantytown activist to change the violence and despair they see around them. Their pledge to the residents to create a top-quality educational center for girls becomes a turbulent journey that takes us from the shantytowns of Northeastern Brazil to urban Seattle to high-society London. With the author, we experience a world of drug dealers, street urchins, and capoeiristas, English socialites, power-hungry "do-gooders," and wise teachers. This is a true story of insight and inspiration, courage, passion, and intrigue.

How to Read Chinese Poetry: A Guided Anthology


Zong-Qi Cai - 2007
    The volume is divided into 6 chronological sections and features more than 140 examples of the best shi, sao, fu, ci, and qu poems. A comprehensive introduction and extensive thematic table of contents highlight the thematic, formal, and prosodic features of Chinese poetry, and each chapter is written by a scholar who specializes in a particular period or genre. Poems are presented in Chinese and English and are accompanied by a tone-marked romanized version, an explanation of Chinese linguistic and poetic conventions, and recommended reading strategies. Sound recordings of the poems are available online free of charge. These unique features facilitate an intense engagement with Chinese poetical texts and help the reader derive aesthetic pleasure and insight from these works as one could from the original.The companion volume How to Read Chinese Poetry Workbook presents 100 famous poems (56 are new selections) in Chinese, English, and romanization, accompanied by prose translation, textual notes, commentaries, and recordings.Contributors: Robert Ashmore (Univ. of California, Berkeley); Zong-qi Cai; Charles Egan (San Francisco State); Ronald Egan (Univ. of California, Santa Barbara); Grace Fong (McGill); David R. Knechtges (Univ. of Washington); Xinda Lian (Denison); Shuen-fu Lin (Univ. of Michigan); William H. Nienhauser Jr. (Univ. of Wisconsin); Maija Bell Samei; Jui-lung Su (National Univ. of Singapore); Wendy Swartz (Columbia); Xiaofei Tian (Harvard); Paula Varsano (Univ. of California, Berkeley); Fusheng Wu (Univ. of Utah)

Indian Tales


Shenaaz Nanji - 2007
    Magical spirits in the mountains of the northeast, sneaky robbers and brave heroines in the heart of the Indus Valley, action and adventure in the far south, and much more.

The Neuroscience of Fair Play: Why We (Usually) Follow the Golden Rule


Donald W. Pfaff - 2007
    Writing with popular science journalist Sandra J. Ackerman, he explains in this clear and concise account how specific brain signals induce us to consider our actions as if they were directed at ourselves—and subsequently lead us to treat others as we wish to be treated. Brain hormones are a part of this complicated process, and The Neuroscience of Fair Play discusses how brain hormones can catalyze behaviors with moral implications in such areas as self-sacrifice, parental love, friendship, and violent aggression.  Drawing on his own research and other recent studies in brain science, Pfaff offers a thought-provoking hypothesis for why certain ethical codes and ideas have remained constant across human societies and cultures throughout the world and over the centuries of history. An unprecedented and provocative investigation, The Neuroscience of Fair Play offers a new perspective on the increasingly important intersection of neuroscience and ethics.

The Birth of Grafitti


Jon Naar - 2007
    The Faith of Graffiti, the first and most celebrated book about this controversial new art form, reproduced just over forty selections from the hundreds of photographs he took. Now more than one hundred thirty never-before-published pictures from that landmark body of work, together with a selection of key photographs from The Faith of Graffiti, are brought together in a book destined to become a classic in its own right. Presented full-frame, at high resolution, and with meticulous attention to the original color, this book brings to life the gritty, exciting Germany of the early 1970s and the raw visual power of early graffiti. These photographs recall a time when subway cars and tenement walls seemed to explode overnight into bursts of color and energy. Today these ephemeral works survive only in Naar's masterful photographs. Sacha Jenkins, an authority on graffiti's history, places these pictures within an emerging youth culture that now reaches into every corner of art, fashion, and entertainment.

Stories of Illness and Healing: Women Write Their Bodies


Sayantani DasGupta - 2007
    The collection includes a variety of women's illness narratives-poetry, essays, short fiction, short drama, analyses, and transcribed oral testimonies-as well as traditional analytic essays about themes and issues raised by the narratives. Stories of Illness and Healing bridges the artificial divide between women's lives and scholarship in gender, health, and medicine.The authors of these narratives are diverse in age, ethnicity, family situation, sexual orientation, and economic status. They are doctors, patients, spouses, mothers, daughters, activists, writers, educators, and performers. The narratives serve to acknowledge that women's illness experiences are more than their diseases, that they encompass their entire lives. The pages of this book echo with personal accounts of illness, diagnosis, and treatment. They reflect the social constructions of women's bodies, their experiences of sexuality and reproduction, and their roles as professional and family caregivers. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Stories of Illness and Healing draws the connection between women's suffering and advocacy for women's lives.

Against the Law: Labor Protests in China's Rustbelt and Sunbelt


Ching Kwan Lee - 2007
    Based on remarkable fieldwork and extensive interviews in Chinese textile, apparel, machinery, and household appliance factories, Against the Law finds a rising tide of labor unrest mostly hidden from the world's attention. Providing a broad political and economic analysis of this labor struggle together with fine-grained ethnographic detail, the book portrays the Chinese working class as workers' stories unfold in bankrupt state factories and global sweatshops, in crowded dormitories and remote villages, at street protests as well as in quiet disenchantment with the corrupt officialdom and the fledgling legal system.

Re-Engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings: Piecewise Approximations to Reality


William C. Wimsatt - 2007
    Thinkers from the Darwinian sciences now pose alternatives to this simplistic reductionism.In this intellectual tour--essays spanning thirty years--William Wimsatt argues that scientists seek to atomize phenomena only when necessary in the search to understand how entities, events, and processes articulate at different levels. Evolution forms the natural world not as Laplace's all-seeing demon but as a backwoods mechanic fixing and re-fashioning machines out of whatever is at hand. W. V. Quine's lost search for a desert ontology leads instead to Wimsatt's walk through a tropical rain forest.This book offers a philosophy for error-prone humans trying to understand messy systems in the real world. Against eliminative reductionism, Wimsatt pits new perspectives to deal with emerging natural and social complexities. He argues that our philosophy should be rooted in heuristics and models that work in practice, not only in principle. He demonstrates how to do this with an analysis of the strengths, the limits, and a recalibration of our reductionistic and analytic methodologies. Our aims are changed and our philosophy is transfigured in the process.

The Astro Boy Essays: Osamu Tezuka, Mighty Atom, and the Manga/Anime Revolution


Frederik L. Schodt - 2007
    The history of Tetsuwan Atomu and Tezuka’s role in it is a road map to understanding the development of new media in Japan and the United States. Topics include Tezuka’s life, the art of animation, the connection between fantasy robots and technology, spin-offs, and Astro Boy’s cultural impact.Frederik L. Schodt is a translator and author of numerous books about Japan, including Manga! Manga! and Dreamland Japan. He often served as Osamu Tezuka’s English interpreter. In 2009 he was received the The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette for his contribution to the introduction and promotion of Japanese contemporary popular culture.

The Notorious B.I.G.: A Biography


Holly Lang - 2007
    Raised in Brooklyn during the crack-cocaine boom of the late 1970s and early 1980s, Smalls (born Christopher Wallace) worked as a drug dealer before ultimately deciding to become a rapper. With Sean Puffy Combs and Bad Boy Entertainment, Biggie rocketed to fame as one of hip hop's most popular artists. But with the success came controversy: the friendship-turned-feud between Biggie and Tupac fueled the rivalry between East Coast and West Coast hip hop, a gangsta-rap battle that many believe led to the murder of both rappers. While still unsolved, the murder of Biggie in 1997 sparked numerous investigations, litigation, and the dismantling of a Los Angeles Police Department task force in what is considered the largest scandal in LAPD history. Ten years later, Biggie is celebrated as the King of East Coast hip hop. In this biography author Holly Lang recounts the life, music, and legacy of Biggie and investigates the events surrounding his murder.

Arbitrary Justice: The Power of the American Prosecutor


Angela J. Davis - 2007
    Davis examines the expanding power of prosecutors, from mandatory minimum sentencing laws that enhance prosecutorial control over the outcome of cases to the increasing politicization of the office. Drawing on her dozen years of experience as a public defender, Davis demonstrates how the everyday, legal exercise of prosecutorial discretion is responsible for tremendous inequities in criminal justice.Davis uses powerful stories of individuals caught in the system to illustrate how the day-to-day practices and decisions of well-meaning prosecutors produce unfair and unequal treatment of both defendants and victims, often along race and class lines. These disparities are particularly evident in prosecutors' charging and plea-bargaining decisions and in their muddy relationships with victims.Prosecutors not only hold vast power, Davis argues, but they are also under-regulated and lack accountability. The current standards of practice for prosecutors are unenforceable, while the mechanisms that purport to hold prosecutors accountable are weak and ineffectual. Not only does lack of oversight result in injustices, it may even foster a climate tolerant of unfair practices and in some cases, misconduct.Offering a sensible agenda for comprehensive review and reform, Arbitrary Justice challenges the legal community and concerned citizens to pursue and enact meaningful standards of con

The American Idea: The Best of the Atlantic Monthly; 150 Years of Writers and Thinkers Who Shaped Our History


Robert Vare - 2007
    The founders of the magazine valued these things—and they valued the immense amount of effort it takes to preserve them from generation to generation.”--The Editors of The Atlantic Monthly, 2006This landmark collection of writings by the illustrious contributors of The Atlantic Monthly is a one-of-a-kind education in the history of American ideas.The Atlantic Monthly was founded in 1857 by a remarkable group that included some of the towering figures of nineteenth-century intellectual life: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and James Russell Lowell.For 150 years, the magazine has continued to honor its distinguished pedigree by publishing many of America’s most prominent political commentators, journalists, historians, humorists, storytellers, and poets.Throughout the magazine’s history, Atlantic contributors have unflinchingly confronted the fundamental subjects of the American experience: war and peace, science and religion, the conundrum of race, the role of women, the plight of the cities, the struggle to preserve the environment, the strengths and failings of our politics, and, especially, America’s proper place in the world. This extraordinary anthology brings together many of the magazine’s most acclaimed and influential articles. “Broken Windows,” by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling, took on the problem of inner-city crime and gave birth to a new way of thinking about law enforcement. “The Roots of Muslim Rage,” by Bernard Lewis, prophetically warned of the dangers posed to the West by rising Islamic extremism. “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” by Martin Luther King, Jr., became one of the twentieth century’s most famous reflections upon—and calls for—racial equality. And “The Fifty-first State,” by James Fallows, previewed in astonishing detailthe mess in which America would find itself in Iraqa full six months before the invasion.The collection also highlights some of The Atlantic’s finest moments in fiction and poetry—from the likes of Twain, Whitman, Frost, Hemingway, Nabokov, and Bellow—affirming the central role of literature in defining and challenging American society.Rarely has an anthology so vividly captured America. Serious and comic, touching and tough, The American Idea paints a fascinating portrait of who we are, where we have come from, and where we are going.

If They Give You Lined Paper, Write Sideways.


Daniel Quinn - 2007
    His message was transformative for millions of people, and Ishmael continues to attract tens of thousands of new readers each year. Subsequent works, such as The Story of B and My Ishmael, expanded upon his insights and teachings, but only now does he finally tackle the one question he has been asked hundreds of times but has never taken on: "How do you do what you do?" In If They Give You Lined Paper, Write Sideways Quinn elucidates for readers the methods behind his own thought processes, challenging and ultimately empowering them to view the world for themselves in creative, perhaps even revolutionary ways. If They Give You Lines Paper, Write Sideways also includes Quinn's never-before-published essays "The New Renaissance" and "Our Religions." There is a scientific consensus that global warming is approaching a tipping point beyond no return faster than had previously been predicted. Quinn has long portrayed humans as "a species of beings, which, while supposedly rational, are destroying the very planet they live on." So what are we to do? There has never been a plan for the future - and there never will be. But something extraordinary will happen in the next two or three decades; the people of our culture will learn to live sustainably - or not. Either way, it will be extraordinary. The sooner we understand this reality, the greater the chances that human society will transform itself so that the human race might have a future.

Brave New West: Morphing Moab at the Speed of Greed


Jim Stiles - 2007
    What kind of economy would prevent Moab from becoming yet another ghost town? For more than two decades, environmentalists in southeast Utah have had a simple answer to this question: replace extractive industries—mining, timber, and cattle—with an economy catering to “green” tourists with hotels, restaurants, and bars. They feel that if these lands can be spared further degradation by huge industries, the West could begin to thrive on something cleaner and more lucrative. But Stiles sees a downside to this seemingly idyllic vision. Bringing insight based on decades of residence in Moab, he makes a provocative and compelling argument that the economy most environmentalists hail as the solution to the woes of the rural West is in fact creating an unprecedented impact of its own. In recent years, Moab and other rural towns across the West have seen a massive influx of urbanites fleeing crowded cities in search of a simpler life. Yet Stiles also observes that these transplants are often unwilling to accept the isolation and lack of services that characterize genuine rural life. Believing themselves to be liberal, sensitive, enlightened environmentalists, they nevertheless bring with them exactly the type of lifestyle and ecological impact that they sought to leave behind and, in the process, create a community that no longer serves the native inhabitants. With a blend of travelogue, local color, and geography, Stiles engages readers with folksy humor while defending the lifestyle of the “pre-cappuccino rural Westerners” and exposing the paradox that underlies the professed good intentions of liberal newcomers.

No Tech Hacking: A Guide to Social Engineering, Dumpster Diving, and Shoulder Surfing


Johnny Long - 2007
    Kevin Mitnick's last book sold 40,000 units in North America.As the clich� goes, information is power. In this age of technology, an increasing majority of the world's information is stored electronically. It makes sense then that we rely on high-tech electronic protection systems to guard that information. As professional hackers, Johnny Long and Kevin Mitnick get paid to uncover weaknesses in those systems and exploit them. Whether breaking into buildings or slipping past industrial-grade firewalls, their goal has always been the same: extract the information using any means necessary. After hundreds of jobs, they have discovered the secrets to bypassing every conceivable high-tech security system. This book reveals those secrets; as the title suggests, it has nothing to do with high technology.

I Predict a Riot


Colin Bateman - 2007
    Die-hard copper Superintendent James 'Marsh' Mallow, of the Belfast CID, is nearing the end of his career, but he's not handing in his badge until he's nailed notorious politician and racketeer Pink Harrison. A dismembered body has turned up and Mallow is convinced he's got his man. Problem is, take Pink Harrison down, and the trouble of the full-scale rioting kind is likely to flare up. Then there's Walter, the civil servant who's infatuated with Margaret, the carrot-cake induced coma victim, 'Steve' in 'Office 12' and Redmond, terrorist and occasional birdwatcher, whose only way out of jail is to get himself killed and trust in reincarnation...

Self-Image: How to Overcome Inferiority Judgments


Lou Priolo - 2007
    Readers are encouraged to make a list of their inferiorities--the areas of their lives they believe to be inadequate--and then to classify those inferiorities as inaccurate, accurate but not sinful, or accurate and sinful. The author then provides biblical guidelines to help correct the inferiority judgments in each of these categories.The Resources for Biblical Living booklet series addresses a wide range of practical life issues in a straightforward, down-to-earth, and, most of all, biblical manner.

Energiya-Buran: The Soviet Space Shuttle


Bart Hendrickx - 2007
    The program eventually saw just one unmanned flight in November 1988 before the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union sealed its fate.After a Foreword provided by lead Buran test pilot Igor Volk, the authors look at the experience gradually accumulated in high-speed aeronautics with the development of various Soviet rocket planes and intercontinental cruise missiles between the 1930s to 1950s and the study of several small spaceplanes in the 1960s. Next the authors explain how the perceived military threat of the US Space Shuttle led to the decision in February 1976 to build a Soviet equivalent, and explore the evolution of the design until it was frozen in 1979. Following this is a detailed technical description of both Energiya and Buran and a look at nominal flight scenarios and emergency situations, highlighting similarities and differences with the US Space Shuttle.The authors then expand on the managerial aspects of the Energiya-Buran program, sum up the main design bureaus and production facilities involved in the project and describe the infrastructure needed to transport the hardware and prepare it for launch at the Baikonur cosmodrome. They go on to detail the selection and training of teams of civilian and military test pilots for Buran, crew assignments for the first manned missions and preparatory flights aboard Soyuz spacecraft.Next the focus turns to the extensive test program that preceded the first flight of Buran, notably the often trouble-plagued test firings of rocket engines, the first flight of Energiya with the enigmatic Polyus payload, test flights of subscale models and atmospheric approach and landing tests. After an analysis of Western speculation on the Soviet space shuttle effort in the pre-glasnost era, a detailed account is given of final preparations for the maiden flight of Buran and the mission itself.In the final chapters the authors look at the gradual demise of the project in the early 1990s, the fate of the Soviet orbiters and their cosmodrome infrastructure, cancelled missions, and the many planned derivatives of the Energiya rocket. Attention is also paid to technological spin-offs such as the Zenit and Sea Launch projects and the RD-180 and RD-191 rocket engines. Finally, an overview is given of alternative spaceplane proposals during and after the Buran era, including the MAKS air-launched spaceplane, the Kliper spacecraft and various single-stage-to-orbit systems.The book closes off with key specifications of the Energiya-Buran system, short biographies of the Buran pilots, an extensive list of Russian acronyms, a short bibliographical essay and a detailed index. Based largely on Russian sources, it is richly illustrated with some 250 pictures and diagrams.Although Energiya-Buran was primarily a program of unfulfilled promises and shattered dreams, it represented a major technological breakthrough for the Soviet Union and its story deserves to be told.

Toward a Global Idea of Race


Denise Ferreira da Silva - 2007
    Looking at the United States and Brazil, she argues that modern subjects are formed in philosophical accounts that presume two ontological moments—historicity and globality—which are refigured in the concepts of the nation and the racial, respectively. By displacing historicity’s ontological prerogative, Silva proposes that the notion of racial difference governs the present global power configuration because it institutes moral regions not covered by the leading post-Enlightenment ethical ideals—namely, universality and self-determination.By introducing a view of the racial as the signifier of globality,Toward a Global Idea of Race provides a new basis for the investigation of past and present modern social processes and contexts of subjection.Denise Ferreira da Silva is associate professor of ethnic studies at University of California, San Diego.

Cien Anos De Confusion/ One Hundred Years Of Confusion: Mexico En El Siglo Xx/ Mexico In The Twentieth Century


Macario Schettino - 2007
    

An Idea In Practice: Using the Human Givens Approach


Joe Griffin - 2007
    It demonstrates time and again the approach's efficacy, practicality and power to promote emotional intelligence and clear thinking.

Home on the Road: Further Dispatches from the Ends of the Earth


Catherine Watson - 2007
    From Tibet to the Galapagos, from the Arctic Ocean to Polynesia, Catherine Watson's second collection of travel essays takes readers to the far corners of the globe, sharing rich encounters with other lives, insights into the human spirit, and the bittersweet tension between home and away.

The Origin of the Indo-Iranians (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series)


Elena E. Kuz'mina - 2007
    Already its predecessor ("Otkuda prishli indoarii?," published in 1994) was considered the most comprehensive analysis of the origins of the Indo-Iranians ever published, but in this new, significantly expanded edition (edited by J.P. Mallory) we find an encyclopaedic account of the Andronovo culture of Eurasia. Taking its evidence from archaeology, linguistics, ethnology, mythology, and physical anthropology pertaining to Indo-Iranian origins and expansions, it comprehensively covers the relationships of this culture with neighboring areas and cultures, and its role in the foundation of the Indo-Iranian peoples.

The Cambridge Companion to Modern Jewish Philosophy


Michael L. Morgan - 2007
    This collection of essays examines the work of several of the most important of these figures, from the seventeenth to the late-twentieth centuries, and addresses themes central to the tradition of modern Jewish philosophy: language and revelation, autonomy and authority, the problem of evil, messianism, the influence of Kant, and feminism. Included are essays on Spinoza, Mendelssohn, Cohen, Buber, Rosenzweig, Fackenheim, Soloveitchik, Strauss, and Levinas. Other thinkers discussed include Maimon, Benjamin, Derrida, Scholem, and Arendt. The sixteen original essays are written by a world-renowned group of scholars especially for this volume and give a broad and rich picture of the tradition of modern Jewish philosophy over a period of four centuries.

Mayakovsky: A Biography


Bengt Jangfeldt - 2007
    Born in 1893 and dead by his own hand in 1930, Mayakovsky packed his thirty-six years with drama, politics, passion, and—most important—poetry. An enthusiastic supporter of the Russian Revolution and the emerging Soviet State, Mayakovsky was championed by Stalin after his death and enshrined as a quasi-official Soviet poet, a position that led to undeserved neglect among Western literary scholars even as his influence on other poets has remained powerful.   With Mayakovsky, Bengt Jangfeldt offers the first comprehensive biography of Mayakovsky, revealing a troubled man who was more dreamer than revolutionary, more political romantic than hardened Communist. Jangfeldt sets Mayakovsky’s life and works against the dramatic turbulence of his times, from the aesthetic innovations of the pre-revolutionary avant-garde to the rigidity of Socialist Realism and the destruction of World War I to the violence—and hope—of the Russian Revolution, through the tightening grip of Stalinist terror and the growing disillusion with Russian communism that eventually led the poet to take his life.   Through it all is threaded Mayakovsky’s celebrated love affair with Lili Brik and the moving relationship with Lili’s husband, Osip, along with a brilliant depiction of the larger circle of writers and artists around Mayakovsky, including Maxim Gorky, Viktor Shklovsky, Alexander Rodchenko, and Roman Jakobson. The result is a literary life viewed in the round, enabling us to understand the personal and historical furies that drove Mayakovsky and generated his still-startling poetry.   Illustrated throughout with rare images of key characters and locations, Mayakovsky is a major step in the revitalization of a crucial figure of the twentieth-century avant-garde.

Riding the Whirlwind: Connecting People and Organisations in a Culture of Innovation


Fons Trompenaars - 2007
    What is lacking is a practical book that brings these ideas together. 'Riding The Whirlwind' aims to do just that by reconnecting people, teams and organization to create constant renewal of talent & motivation.

Papa Doc: Portrait of a Haitian Tyrant


John Marquis - 2007
    Francois 'Papa Doc' Duvalier, former self-appointed President-for-life of Haiti, was the most brutal tyrant of his time. His pervasive secret police, the Tontons Macoute, were literally connoisseurs of terror. For more than three decades, they struck terror into the impoverished people of Haiti, in the most macabre way. In this outstanding account of Duvalier's life, the full horror of the Haitian nightmare is laid bare. Disappearances of entire families in the night, public execution of political foes, summary killings of the peasantry and a succession of failed assassinations on Duvalier's life, provide the theme of a demon-possessed president. 'Papa Doc' was the embodiment of evil in the most sinister form. There was voodoo and his own involvement in strange rites, his apparent supernatural powers and reputed immortality. Using voodoo to suppress an entire nation of 7 million souls, 'Papa Doc' became the political ogre of the age, a trained country doctor transmuted by power into a sinister killer his people considered indestructible. He exuded this evil image even in his appearance. He dressed always in dark apparel, from top to toe; he appeared funereal promoting death rather than life. His propensity for Machiavellian intrigue and ruthlessness was limitless. Using a spy trial in Port-au-Prince in 1968 as the foundation of this electrifying tale, the bewitching and terrifying reality of Duvalier's Haiti, the author reveals a spellbinding account of the macabre regime in one of the world's most haunted lands.

The Lost Massey Lectures


John Kenneth Galbraith - 2007
    In this extraordinary collection, major thinkers offer passionate polemics on the major issues of the 20th century. Here are King on race and prejudice; Galbraith on economics and poverty; Jacobs on Canadian cities and Quebec separatism; Goodman on the moral ambiguity of America; Brandt on international peace; Kierans on globalism and the nation-state; and much more. Their words not only have considerable historical significance but also remain hugely relevant to the problems we face today. At last, a selection of these “lost” lectures is available to a world so hungry for, and yet in such short supply of, innovative ideas. The Lost Massey Lectures includes an introduction by veteran CBC producer Bernie Lucht.

American Sovereigns: The People and America's Constitutional Tradition Before the Civil War


Christian G. Fritz - 2007
    National and state debates about government action, law, and the people's political powers reveal how Americans sought to understand how a collective sovereign-the people-could both play the role as the ruler and yet be ruled by governments of their own choosing.

Teenage: The Creation of Youth Culture


Jon Savage - 2007
    Rather, the teenager as icon can be traced back to the 1890s, when the foundations for the new century were laid in urban youth culture. Teenage: The Creation of Youth Culture is a monumental cultural history that charts the spread of the American ideal of youth through England and Europe and around the world. From Peter Pan to Oscar Wilde, Anne Frank to the Wizard of Oz, Savage documents youth culture’s development as a commodity and an industry from the turn of the last century to its current driving force in the global economy. Fusing film, music, literature, diaries, fashion, and art, this epic cultural history is an astonishing and surprising chronicle of modern life sure to appeal to pop culture fans, social history buffs, and anyone who has ever been a teenager.

Is Hip Hop Dead? The Past, Present, and Future of America's Most Wanted Music


Mickey Hess - 2007
    In lyrics, rappers continue to debate the definition of hip hop and question where the line between underground artist and mainstream crossover is drawn, who owns the culture and who runs the industry, and most importantly, how to remain true to the culture's roots while also seeking fame and fortune. The tension between the desires to preserve hip hop's original culture and to create commercially successful music promotes a lyrical war of words between mainstream and underground artists that keeps hip hop very much alive today. In response to criticisms that hip hop has suffered or died in its transition to the mainstream, this book seeks to highlight and examine the ongoing dialogue among rap artists whose work describes their own careers.Proclamations of hip hop's death have flooded the airwaves. The issue may have reached its boiling point in Nas's 2006 album Hip Hop is Dead. Nas's album is driven by nostalgia for a mythically pure moment in hip hop's history, when the music was motivated by artistic passion, instead of base commercialism. In the course of this same album, however, Nas himself brags about making money for his particular record label. These and similar contradictions are emblematic of the complex forces underlying the dialogue that keeps hip hop a vital element of our culture. Is Hip Hop Dead? seeks to illuminate the origins of hip hop nostalgia and examine how artists maintain control of their music and culture in the face of corporate record companies, government censorship, and the standardization of the rap image.Many hip hop artists, both mainstream and underground, use their lyrics to engage in a complex dialogue about rhyme skills versus record sales, and commercialism versus culture. This ongoing dialogue invigorates hip hop and provides a common ground upon which we can reconsider many of the developments in the industry over the past 20 years. Building from black traditions that value knowledge gained from personal experience, rappers emphasize the importance of street knowledge and its role in forging a career in the music business. Lyrics adopt models of the self-made man narrative, yet reject the trajectories of white Americans like Benjamin Franklin who espoused values of prudence, diligence, and delayed gratification. Hip hop's narratives instead promote a more immediately viable gratification through crime and extend this criminal mentality to their work in the music business. Through the lens of hip hop, and the threats to hip hop culture, author Mickey Hess is able to confront a range of important issues, including race, class, criminality, authenticity, the media, and personal identity.

Complex Adaptive Systems: An Introduction to Computational Models of Social Life


John H. Miller - 2007
    Such systems--whether political parties, stock markets, or ant colonies--present some of the most intriguing theoretical and practical challenges confronting the social sciences. Engagingly written, and balancing technical detail with intuitive explanations, Complex Adaptive Systems focuses on the key tools and ideas that have emerged in the field since the mid-1990s, as well as the techniques needed to investigate such systems. It provides a detailed introduction to concepts such as emergence, self-organized criticality, automata, networks, diversity, adaptation, and feedback. It also demonstrates how complex adaptive systems can be explored using methods ranging from mathematics to computational models of adaptive agents. John Miller and Scott Page show how to combine ideas from economics, political science, biology, physics, and computer science to illuminate topics in organization, adaptation, decentralization, and robustness. They also demonstrate how the usual extremes used in modeling can be fruitfully transcended.

Media Literacy: A Reader


Donaldo Macedo - 2007
    Such an appreciation encourages both critical thinking and self-analysis, as students begin to realize that everyday decisions are not necessarily made freely and rationally. While we strongly believe that humans exercise agency, we understand that there are social, cultural, and political forces that affect agency. In this context our conception of media literacy analyzes the ways our everyday decisions are encoded and inscribed by emotional and bodily commitments relating to the production of desire and mood, all of which leads, in Noam Chomsky's famous phrase, to the �manufacture of consent.� These complex pedagogical and ideological issues demand rigorous skills including questioning, analyzing, interpreting, and meaning-making. Media Literacy: A Reader is a comprehensive collection of essays that is sorely needed, as most of the academic work in the area is written not for an introductory audience, but for scholars in the field. It will shape the agenda in media literacy for years to come.

From Impressionism to Anime: Japan as Fantasy and Fan Cult in the Mind of the West


Susan J. Napier - 2007
    What is it about anime that is so appealing to a transnational fan base? Is the American attraction to anime similar to the popularity of previous fads of Japanese culture, like the Japonisants of fin-de-siecle France enamored of Japanese art and architecture, or the American poets in the fifties and sixties who latched onto haiku? Or is this something new, a product of global culture in which ethnic identities carry less weight? This book explores these issues by taking a look at anime fans and the place they occupy, both in terms of subculture in Japan and America, and in relation to Western perceptions of Japan since the late 1800s.

Icons of Hip Hop [2 Volumes]: An Encyclopedia of the Movement, Music, and Culture


Mickey Hess - 2007
    At the forefront of this global phenomenon stand artists who broke new ground, both musically and politically. This unique reference provides substantial entries on the most revolutionary hip-hop artists and innovators, past and present, and offers in-depth coverage of each icon's influence in shaping hip-hop music. An essential reference for high school and public libraries, this encyclopedia will help students and interested readers uncover the historical and cultural framework of hip-hop as it extends to more recent artists.From Run DMC, the legendary group credited with bringing rap to the mainstream, to Salt N Pepa, the first all-female groups to stake their claim in the male dominated world of hip-hop, to Kanye West's breakout career as a producer and rapper, this encyclopedia recovers the histories of important artists both inside and outside the hip-hop mainstream, all while examining the varied and ever-changing forms of the music. Comprehensive profiles are enhanced by sidebars highlighting such topics as rivalries between artists, the importance of geographic region, musical innovations (including sampling technologies), legal issues, media scandals, and wider phenomena, movements, or styles of hip-hop that were sparked by a particular artist or group.Hip-hop fans will appreciate the critical analysis of the icons' social and cultural impact as well as issues of enduring significance, such as the influence of gangsta rap on youth culture. A timeline, a comprehensive introduction, numerous photos, and an extensive bibliography of print and electronic sources for further reading are included, making this encyclopedia a crucial reference for teachers and students interested in understanding the history and future of hip-hop music.

American Indians, the Irish, and Government Schooling: A Comparative Study


Michael C. Coleman - 2007
    In the early nineteenth century the U.S. government, acting through the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), began a systematic campaign to assimilate Indians. Initially dependent on Christian missionary societies, the BIA later built and ran its own day schools and boarding schools for Indian children. At the same time, the British government established a nationwide elementary school system in Ireland, overseen by the commissioners of national education, to assimilate the Irish. By the 1920s, as these campaigns of cultural transformation were ending, roughly similar proportions of Indian and Irish children attended state-regulated schools. In the first full comparison of American and British government attempts to assimilate “problem peoples” through mass elementary education, Michael C. Coleman presents a complex and fascinating portrait of imperialism at work in the two nations. Drawing on autobiographies, government records, elementary school curricula, and other historical documents, as well as photographs and maps, Coleman conveys a rich personal sense of what it was like to have been a pupil at a school where one’s language was not spoken and one’s local culture almost erased. In absolute terms the campaigns failed, yet the schools deeply changed Indian and Irish peoples in ways unpredictable both to them and to their educators. Meticulously researched and engaging, American Indians, the Irish, and Government Schooling sets the agenda for a new era of comparative analyses in global indigenous studies.

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor: A Novel Teaching Pack


Margaret Whisnant - 2007
    Also suitable for home school programs and independent study. Reproductible. 90 pages.

Ancient Religions


Sarah Iles Johnston - 2007
    New gods encountered in foreign lands by merchants and conquerors were sometimes taken home to be adapted and adopted. This collection of essays by a distinguished international group of scholars, drawn from the groundbreaking reference work Religions of the Ancient World, offers an expansive, comparative perspective on this complex spiritual world.

Third Base Ain't What It Used to Be: What Your Kids Are Learning About Sex Today- and How to Teach Them to Become Sexually Healthy Adults


Logan Levkoff - 2007
    In this groundbreaking book she offers invaluable advice for today's parents who are struggling to answer their kids' questions about sex-or just trying to bring up the topic in the first place. Levkoff offers guidance on discussing everything from gender issues, body image, and sexual orientation, to AIDS and abortion. When it comes to sex, it's a whole new ballgame- and this book shows every parent how to play it by staying calm, communicating both the facts and their values, and engaging in a healthy conversation about what's really going on between boys and girls.

Principles of Linguistic Change: Cognitive and Cultural Factors (Language in Society): 3


William Labov - 2007
    Written by the world-renowned pioneer in the field of modern sociolinguistics, this volume examines the cognitive and cultural factors responsible for linguistic change, tracing the life history of these developments, from triggering events to driving forces and endpoints.Explores the major insights obtained by combining sociolinguistics with the results of dialect geography on a large scaleExamines the cognitive and cultural influences responsible for linguistic changeDemonstrates under what conditions dialects diverge from one anotherEstablishes an essential distinction between transmission within the community and diffusion across communitiesCompletes Labov's seminal "Principles of Linguistic Change" trilogy

Applied Helping Skills: Transforming Lives


Jeffrey A. Kottler - 2007
    Although it has a consistent a big-picture perspective, this book emphasizes the role of counselors to make contact with their individual clients, to help them feel understood, and to clarify the major issues that trouble them.

Wolfgang Tillmans: Manual


Wolfgang Tillmans - 2007
    When he is working on an exhibition or a publication, Tillmans displays and combines pictures on long tables in his studio so that the images are "held in position only by their own weight. The method of laying out two-dimensional objects on a table produces 'clarity' and allows perspective. A new text emerges through the combination of intrinsically different pieces of paper. The issues dealt with on these tables do not claim to be fully comprehensive and the items chosen do not profess to be definitive examples of their kind. Rather, this multivocal process allows me to amplify voices I feel need strengthening, contrasting them with their opposites and their neighbors." This method has become a concept. In Manual the artist combines his own photographs, painterly works and texts together with already existing newspaper articles to create an associative, comprehensive view. The material is condensed into a complex artistic dialogue with various social and political themes, like AIDS or the question of absolute truth, which the artist has been exploring for years.

Islamism and Islam


Bassam Tibi - 2007
    In this important and illuminating book, Bassam Tibi, a senior scholar of Islamic politics, provides a corrective to this dangerous gap in our understanding. He explores the true nature of contemporary Islamism and the essential ways in which it differs from the religious faith of Islam.Drawing on research in twenty Islamic countries over three decades, Tibi describes Islamism as a political ideology based on a reinvented version of Islamic law. In separate chapters devoted to the major features of Islamism, he discusses the Islamist vision of state order, the centrality of antisemitism in Islamist ideology, Islamism's incompatibility with democracy, the reinvention of jihadism as terrorism, the invented tradition of shari'a law as constitutional order, and the Islamists' confusion of the concepts of authenticity and cultural purity. Tibi's concluding chapter applies elements of Hannah Arendt's theory to identify Islamism as a totalitarian ideology.