Best of
Social-Science

2008

Righteous Dopefiend


Philippe Bourgois - 2008
    For over a decade Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg followed a social network of two dozen heroin injectors and crack smokers in the San Francisco drug scene, accompanying them as they scrambled to generate income through burglary, larceny, panhandling, recycling, and day labor. Righteous Dopefiend interweaves stunning black-and-white photography with vivid dialogue, oral biography, detailed field notes, and critical theoretical analysis to viscerally illustrate the life of a drug addict. Its gripping narrative develops a cast of characters around the themes of violence, racism and race relations, sexuality, trauma, embodied suffering, social inequality, and power relations. The result is a dispassionate chronicle of fixes and overdoses; of survival, loss, caring, and hope rooted in the drug abusers’ determination to hang on for one more day, through a "moral economy of sharing" that precariously balances mutual solidarity and interpersonal betrayal.

Outliers: The Story of Success


Malcolm Gladwell - 2008
    He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.Brilliant and entertaining, Outliers is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.

A Companion to Marx's Capital


David Harvey - 2008
    For nearly forty years, David Harvey has written and lectured on Capital, becoming one of the world’s most foremost Marx scholars.Based on his recent lectures, this current volume aims to bring this depth of learning to a broader audience, guiding first-time readers through a fascinating and deeply rewarding text. A Companion to Marx’s Capital offers fresh, original and sometimes critical interpretations of a book that changed the course of history and, as Harvey intimates, may do so again.David Harvey’s video lecture course can be found here: davidharvey.org/reading-capital/

The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why


Amanda Ripley - 2008
    Today, nine out of ten Americans live in places at significant risk of earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, terrorism, or other disasters. Tomorrow, some of us will have to make split-second choices to save ourselves and our families. How will we react? What will it feel like? Will we be heroes or victims? Will our upbringing, our gender, our personality–anything we’ve ever learned, thought, or dreamed of–ultimately matter?    Amanda Ripley, an award-winning journalist for Time magazine who has covered some of the most devastating disasters of our age, set out to discover what lies beyond fear and speculation. In this magnificent work of investigative journalism, Ripley retraces the human response to some of history’s epic disasters, from the explosion of the Mont Blanc munitions ship in 1917–one of the biggest explosions before the invention of the atomic bomb–to a plane crash in England in 1985 that mystified investigators for years, to the journeys of the 15,000 people who found their way out of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Then, to understand the science behind the stories, Ripley turns to leading brain scientists, trauma psychologists, and other disaster experts, formal and informal, from a Holocaust survivor who studies heroism to a master gunfighter who learned to overcome the effects of extreme fear. Finally, Ripley steps into the dark corners of her own imagination, having her brain examined by military researchers and experiencing through realistic simulations what it might be like to survive a plane crash into the ocean or to escape a raging fire.     Ripley comes back with precious wisdom about the surprising humanity of crowds, the elegance of the brain’s fear circuits, and the stunning inadequacy of many of our evolutionary responses. Most unexpectedly, she discovers the brain’s ability to do much, much better, with just a little help.The Unthinkable escorts us into the bleakest regions of our nightmares, flicks on a flashlight, and takes a steady look around. Then it leads us home, smarter and stronger than we were before.

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions


Dan Ariely - 2008
    We think we're making smart, rational choices. But are we?In a series of illuminating, often surprising experiments, MIT behavioral economist Dan Ariely refutes the common assumption that we behave in fundamentally rational ways. Blending everyday experience with groundbreaking research, Ariely explains how expectations, emotions, social norms, and other invisible, seemingly illogical forces skew our reasoning abilities.Not only do we make astonishingly simple mistakes every day, but we make the same "types" of mistakes, Ariely discovers. We consistently overpay, underestimate, and procrastinate. We fail to understand the profound effects of our emotions on what we want, and we overvalue what we already own. Yet these misguided behaviors are neither random nor senseless. They're systematic and predictable--making us "predictably" irrational.From drinking coffee to losing weight, from buying a car to choosing a romantic partner, Ariely explains how to break through these systematic patterns of thought to make better decisions. "Predictably Irrational" will change the way we interact with the world--one small decision at a time.

The Long Descent: A User's Guide to the End of the Industrial Age


John Michael Greer - 2008
    Greer fans will recognize many of the book's passages from previous essays, but will be delighted to see them fleshed out here with additional examples and analysis.The Long Descent is one of the most highly anticipated peak oil books of the year, and it lives up to every ounce of hype. Greer is a captivating, brilliantly inventive writer with a deep knowledge of history, an impressive amount of mechanical savvy, a flair for storytelling and a gift for drawing art analogies. His new book presents an astonishing view of our society's past, present and future trajectory--one that is unmatched in its breadth and depth. Reviewed by Frank KaminskiWired.com—  The Long Descent is a welcome antidote to the armageddonism that often accompanies peak oil discussions. "The decline of a civilization is rarely anything like so sudden for those who live through it" writes Greer, encouragingly; it's "a much slower and more complex transformation than the sudden catastrophes imagined by many soical critics today."The changes that will follow the decline of world petroleum production are likely to be sweeping and global, Greer concludes, but from the perspective of those who live through them these changes are much more likely to take gradual and local forms. Reviewed by Bruce SterlingAmericans are expressing deep concern about US dependence on petroleum, rising energy prices, and the threat of climate change. Unlike the energy crisis of the 1970s, however, there is a lurking fear that now the times are different and the crisis may not easily be resolved.The Long Descent examines the basis of such fear through three core themes:• Industrial society is following the same well-worn path that has led other civilizations into decline, a path involving a much slower and more complex transformation than the sudden catastrophes imagined by so many social critics today.• The roots of the crisis lie in the cultural stories that shape the way we understand the world. Since problems cannot be solved with the same thinking that created them, these ways of thinking need to be replaced with others better suited to the needs of our time.• It is too late for massive programs for top-down change; the change must come from individuals.Hope exists in actions that range from taking up a handicraft or adopting an “obsolete” technology, through planting an organic vegetable garden, taking charge of your own health care or spirituality, and building community.Focusing eloquently on constructive adaptation to massive change, this book will have wide appeal.John Michael Greer is a certified Master Conserver, organic gardener, and scholar of ecological history. The current Grand Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America (AODA), his widely-cited blog, The Archdruid Report (thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com) deals with peak oil, among other issues. He lives in Ashland, Oregon.

Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets


Sudhir Venkatesh - 2008
    Gang Leader for a Day is the fascinating full story of how Sudhir Venkatesh managed to gain entrée into the gang, what he learned, and how his method revolutionized the academic establishment. When Venkatesh walked into an abandoned building in one of Chicago's most notorious housing projects, he was looking for people to take a multiple-choice survey on urban poverty. A first-year grad student, he would befriend a gang leader named JT and spend the better part of the next decade inside the projects under JT's protection, documenting what he saw there. Over the next seven years, Venkatesh observed JT and the rest of the gang as they operated their crack selling business, conducted PR within their community, and rose up or fell within the ranks of the gang's complex organizational structure. Gang Leader for a Day is an inside view into the morally ambiguous, highly intricate, often corrupt struggle to survive in an urban war zone. It is also the story of a complicated friendship between two young and ambitious men, a universe apart.

SuicideGirls: Beauty Redefined


Missy Suicide - 2008
    This giant tome provides a timely look at the fascinating women who created and inhabit the SG community. With an introduction by SG founder, Missy Suicide and images of hundreds of SuicideGirls world-wide, this title shines a light on a new female aesthetic - a look reminiscent of vintage Betty Page and Bunny Yeager photos, but with a decisively 21st century edge. "There's no other place in the media to see girls (like these) who are tremendously smart and beautiful in their own way" says Missy, "Everywhere you look you just see the super-thin, super-tall, bleach blonde Baywatch babe. There are a lot of people out there who want to see a different kind of beauty."

The Globalisation of Addiction: A Study in Poverty of the Spirit


Bruce K. Alexander - 2008
    Arguing that the cause of this failure to control addiction is that treatments have focused too single-mindedly on the afflicted individual addict, this book presents a radical rethink about the nature of addiction.

The Anthropology of Childhood: Cherubs, Chattel, Changelings


David F. Lancy - 2008
    The Anthropology of Childhood provides the first comprehensive review of the literature on children from a distinctly anthropological perspective. Bringing together key evidence from cultural anthropology, history, and primate studies, it argues that our common understandings about children are narrowly culture-bound. Whereas dominant society views children as precious, innocent and preternaturally cute 'cherubs', Lancy introduces the reader to societies where children are viewed as unwanted, inconvenient 'changelings', or as desired but pragmatically commoditized 'chattels'. Looking in particular at family structure and reproduction, profiles of children's caretakers, their treatment at different ages, their play, work, schooling, and transition to adulthood, this volume provides a rich, interesting, and original portrait of children in past and contemporary cultures. A must-read for anyone interested in childhood.

His Brain, Her Brain: How Divinely Designed Differences Can Strengthen Your Marriage


Walt Larimore - 2008
    He doesn't ask for directions, and she doesn't appreciate his advice. She is so mysterious, and he is so practical. He does not seem to listen, and she seems so emotional. The list goes on and on . . .In a world where men and women are constantly told they are not different, His Brain, Her Brain shows couples what they instinctively know--men and women are different, and these divinely designed differences, when understood, make a marriage stronger and happier.Combining the latest brain research along with their experiences in over three decades of marriage and counseling, Dr. Walt and Barb Larimore explain how the unique design of each sex, particularly the unique brain and hormones of each, results in different habits, tendencies, and nuances of thought and action.

Pawprints of Katrina: Pets Saved and Lessons Learned


Cathy Scott - 2008
    In Pawprints of Katrina: Pets Saved and Lessons Learned, Cathy Scott documents her experience working with the Best Friends Animal Society triage center to rescue lost animals and reunite them with their owners. Over two hundred stories with accompanying photos describe dramatic and challenging rescue cases with details about the rescues, the examinations, treatment, and follow-up care by the selfless volunteers who worked to save beloved best friends.

Attachment-Focused Parenting: Effective Strategies to Care for Children


Daniel A. Hughes - 2008
    Moreover, as neuroscience reveals how the human brain is designed to work in good relationships, and how such relationships are central to healthy human development, the practical implications for the parent-child attachment relationship become even more apparent.Here, a leading attachment specialist with over 30 years of clinical experience brings the rich and comprehensive field of attachment theory and research from inside the therapy room to the outside, equipping therapists and caregivers with practical parenting skills and techniques rooted in proven therapeutic principles.A guide for all parents and a resource for all mental health clinicians and parent-educators who are searching for ways to effectively love, discipline, and communicate with children, this book presents the techniques and practices that are fundamental to optimal child development and family functioning—how to set limits, provide guidance, and manage the responsibilities and difficulties of daily life, while at the same time communicating safety, fun, joy, and love. Filled with valuable clinical vignettes and sample dialogues, Hughes shows how attachment-focused research can guide all those who care for children in their efforts to better raise them.

The Black Male Handbook: A Blueprint for Life


Kevin Powell - 2008
    William Jelani Cobb, Ryan Mack, Kendrick B. Nathaniel, and Dr. Andre L. Brown deliver an essential collection of essays for Black men at all stages of their lives on surviving and thriving in an unjust world.The Black Male Handbook answers a collective hunger for new direction, fresh solutions to old problems, and a different kind of conversation—man-to-man and with Black male voices, all from the hip hop generation. The book tackles issues related to political, practical, cultural, and spiritual matters, and ending violence against women and girls. The book also features an appendix filled with useful readings, advice, and resources. The Black Male Handbook is a blueprint for those aspiring to thrive against the odds in America today. This is a must-have book, not only for Black male readers, but the women who befriend, parent, partner, and love them.

Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs


Melody Petersen - 2008
    They pitch drugs with video games and soft cuddly toys for children; promote them in churches and subways, at NASCAR races and state fairs. They've become experts at promoting fear of disease, just so they can sell us hope. No question: drugs can save lives. But the relentless marketing that has enriched corporate executives and sent stock prices soaring has come with a dark side. Prescription pills taken as directed by physicians are estimated to kill one American every five minutes. And that figure doesn't reflect the damage done as the overmedicated take to the roads. "Our Daily Meds "connects the dots for the first time to show how corporate salesmanship has triumphed over science inside the biggest pharmaceutical companies and, in turn, how this promotion driven industry has taken over the practice of medicine and is changing American life. It is an ageless story of the battle between good and evil, with potentially life-changing consequences for everyone, not just the 65 percent of Americans who unscrew a prescription cap every day. An industry with the promise to help so many is now leaving a legacy of needless harm. Melody Petersen covered the pharmaceutical beat for "The New York Times "for four years. In 1997, her investigative reporting won a Gerald Loeb Award, one of the highest honors in business journalism. She lives with her husband in Los Angeles. A Finalist for the Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism

Shapes: Nature's Patterns: A Tapestry in Three Parts


Philip Ball - 2008
    Where does this order and regularity come from? It creates itself. The patterns we see come from self-organization. Whether living or non-living, scientists have found that there is a pattern-forming tendency inherent in the basic structure and processes of nature, so that from a few simple themes, and the repetition of simple rules, endless beautiful variations can arise.Part of a trilogy of books exploring the science of patterns in nature, acclaimed science writer Philip Ball here looks at how shapes form. From soap bubbles to honeycombs, delicate shell patterns, and even the developing body parts of a complex animal like ourselves, he uncovers patterns in growth and form in all corners of the natural world, explains how these patterns are self-made, and why similar shapes and structures may be found in very different settings, orchestrated by nothing more than simple physical forces. This book will make you look at the world with fresh eyes, seeing order and form even in the places you'd least expect.

Social and Economic Networks


Matthew O. Jackson - 2008
    The many aspects of our lives that are governed by social networks make it critical to understand how they impact behavior, which network structures are likely to emerge in a society, and why we organize ourselves as we do. In Social and Economic Networks, Matthew Jackson offers a comprehensive introduction to social and economic networks, drawing on the latest findings in economics, sociology, computer science, physics, and mathematics. He provides empirical background on networks and the regularities that they exhibit, and discusses random graph-based models and strategic models of network formation. He helps readers to understand behavior in networked societies, with a detailed analysis of learning and diffusion in networks, decision making by individuals who are influenced by their social neighbors, game theory and markets on networks, and a host of related subjects. Jackson also describes the varied statistical and modeling techniques used to analyze social networks. Each chapter includes exercises to aid students in their analysis of how networks function.This book is an indispensable resource for students and researchers in economics, mathematics, physics, sociology, and business.

I'll Be Watching You


M. William Phelps - 2008
    of photos. Original.

The Western Illusion of Human Nature: With Reflections on the Long History of Hierarchy, Equality and the Sublimation of Anarchy in the West, and Comparative Notes on Other Conceptions of the Human Condition


Marshall Sahlins - 2008
    He cites Nietzsche to the effect that deep issues are like cold baths; one should get into and out of them as quickly as possible. The deep issue here is the ancient Western specter of a presocial and antisocial human nature: a supposedly innate self-interest that is represented in our native folklore as the basis or nemesis of cultural order. Yet these Western notions of nature and culture ignore the one truly universal character of human sociality: namely, symbolically constructed kinship relations. Kinsmen are members of one another: they live each other's lives and die each other's deaths. But where the existence of the other is thus incorporated in the being of the self, neither interest, nor agency or even experience is an individual fact, let alone an egoistic disposition. "Sorry, beg your pardon," Sahlins concludes, Western society has been built on a perverse and mistaken idea of human nature.

Salsa Dancing Into the Social Sciences: Research in an Age of Info-Glut


Kristin Luker - 2008
    But trust me. Salsa dancing is a practice as well as a metaphor for a kind of research that will make your life easier and better.""Savvy, witty, and sensible, this unique book is both a handbook for defining and completing a research project, and an astute introduction to the neglected history and changeable philosophy of modern social science. In this volume, Kristin Luker guides novice researchers in: knowing the difference between an area of interest and a research topicdefining the relevant parts of a potentially infinite research literaturemastering sampling, operationalization, and generalizationunderstanding which research methods best answer your questionsbeating writer's blockMost important, she shows how friendships, nonacademic interests, and even salsa dancing can make for a better researcher.""You know about setting the kitchen timer and writing for only an hour, or only 15 minutes if you are feeling particularly anxious. I wrote a fairly large part of this book feeling exactly like that. If I can write an entire book 15 minutes at a time, so can you.""

The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation


Leo R. Chavez - 2008
    In The Latino Threat, Leo R. Chavez critically investigates the media stories about and recent experiences of immigrants to show how prejudices and stereotypes have been used to malign an entire immigrant population—and to define what it means to be an American.Pundits—and the media at large—nurture and perpetuate the notion that Latinos, particularly Mexicans, are an invading force bent on reconquering land once considered their own. Through a perceived refusal to learn English and an "out of control" birthrate, many say that Latinos are destroying the American way of life. But Chavez questions these assumptions and offers facts to counter the myth that Latinos are a threat to the security and prosperity of our nation.His breakdown of the "Latino threat" contests this myth's basic tenets, challenging such well-known authors as Samuel Huntington, Pat Buchanan, and Peter Brimelow. Chavez concludes that citizenship is not just about legal definitions, but about participation in society. Deeply resonant in today's atmosphere of exclusion, Chavez's insights offer an alternative and optimistic view of the vitality and future of our country.

Poverty and Power: A Structural Perspective on American Inequality


Edward Royce - 2008
    In opposition to this dominant, individualistic view, Poverty and Power proposes that American poverty is a structural problem, resulting from the failings of the political economy, not the failings of the poor. In Poverty and Power Edward Royce argues that the current poverty problem originates from changes in the larger economic, political and cultural landscape and from a corresponding shift in the balance of power that has worked to the advantage of business over labor.

The Everyday Language of White Racism


Jane H. Hill - 2008
    Hill provides an incisive analysis of everyday language to reveal the underlying racist stereotypes that continue to circulate in American culture.* Provides a detailed background on the theory of race and racism* Reveals how racializing discourse--talk and text that produces and reproduces ideas about races and assigns people to them--facilitates a victim-blaming logic* Integrates a broad and interdisciplinary range of literature, from sociology, social psychology, justice studies, critical legal studies, philosophy, literature, and other disciplines that have studied racism, as well as material from anthropology and sociolinguistics* Part of the "Blackwell Studies in Discourse and Culture Series"

Resurrection After Rape: A Guide to Transforming From Victim to Survivor


Matt Atkinson - 2008
    It is current "gold standard" for counselors, treatment centers, college course texts, and, of course, survivors of rape. Thousands of copies sold have made it one of the most sought-after guides for personal recovery after sexual assault. Addresses PTSD, spirituality, self-injury, sexuality, guilt/shame, and therapy.

The Key to Living the Law of Attraction: The Secret to Creating the Life of Your Dreams


Jack Canfield - 2008
    THE KEY explains not only what you need to KNOW but what you need to DO in order to attract what you want in your life. It addresses important issues of CLARITY, PURPOSE and ACTION. This thought-provoking guide will take you step by step through the processes of defining your dreams, goals and desires. And along the way you will gain a greater understanding of yourself - a sense of who you really are and why you are here. Your journey begins right here, right now. You can change your life, increase your awareness and empower yourself to create an amazing future - one that is filled with love, joy and abundance.

The Effects of Childhood Trauma on Adult Perception and Worldview


Asa Don Brown - 2008
    Previous research has focused on safeguarding children and minimizing the effects of trauma. The intent was to determine the underlying factors that contribute to an adult's perception and worldview in relationship to childhood traumatic experiences. Participants were adult men and women who self-reported traumatization in childhood. The core of the research was a semiguided interview protocol. The research used three supporting questionnaires as a basis for demographics. The research anticipates clarification between the effects of childhood trauma and the plausibility that the trauma may be a source of difficulty for adults, therefore perpetuating one's life struggles or being a source of inspiration to move forward. It was discovered that those children who possessed the factors that reinforce resiliency tended to have a more positive perception and worldview.

Cognitive Behavior Therapy and Eating Disorders


Christopher G. Fairburn - 2008
    Written with the practitioner in mind, the book demonstrates how this transdiagnostic approach can be used with the full range of eating disorders seen in clinical practice. Christopher Fairburn and colleagues describe in detail how to tailor CBT-E to the needs of individual patients, and how to adapt it for patients who require hospitalization. Also addressed are frequently encountered co-occurring disorders and how to manage them. Reproducible appendices feature the Eating Disorder Examination interview and questionnaire. CBT-E is recognized as a best practice for the treatment of adult eating disorders by the U.K. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).

A Typology of Domestic Violence: Intimate Terrorism, Violent Resistance, and Situational Couple Violence


Michael P. Johnson - 2008
    The first debate is about gender and domestic violence. Some scholars argue that domestic violence is primarily male-perpetrated, others that women are as violent as men in intimate relationships. Johnson's response to this debate--and the central theme of this book--is that there is more than one type of intimate partner violence. Some studies address the type of violence that is perpetrated primarily by men, while others are getting at the kind of violence that women areinvolved in as well. Because there has been no theoretical framework delineating types of domestic violence, researchers have easily misread one another's studies.The second major debate involves how many women are abused each year by their partners. Estimates range from two to six million. Johnson's response once again comes from this book's central theme. If there is more than one type of intimate partner violence, then the numbers depend on what type you're talking about.Johnson argues that domestic violence is not a unitary phenomenon. Instead, he delineates three major, dramatically different, forms of partner violence: intimate terrorism, violent resistance, and situational couple violence. He roots the conceptual distinctions among the forms of violence in an analysis of the role of power and control in relationship violence and shows that the failure to make these basic distinctions among types of partner violence has produced a research literature that is plagued by both overgeneralizations and ostensibly contradictory findings. This volume begins the work of theorizing forms of domestic violence, a crucial first step to a better understanding of these phenomena among scholars, social scientists, policy makers, and service providers.

Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage: Valuing All Families under the Law


Nancy D. Polikoff - 2008
    Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage boldly moves the discussion forward by focusing on the larger, more fundamental issue of marriage and the law. The root problem, asserts law professor and LGBT rights activist Nancy Polikoff, is that marriage is a bright dividing line between those relationships that legally matter and those that don't. A woman married to a man for nine months is entitled to Social Security survivor's benefits when he dies; a woman living for nineteen years with a man or woman to whom she is not married receives nothing.Polikoff reframes the debate by arguing that all family relationships and households need the economic stability and emotional peace of mind that now extend only to married couples. Unmarried couples of any sexual orientation, single-parent households, extended family units, and myriad other familial configurations need recognition and protection to meet the concerns they all share: building and sustaining economic and emotional interdependence, and nurturing the next generation. Couples should have the choice to marry based on the spiritual, cultural, or religious meaning of marriage in their lives, asserts Polikoff. While marriage equality for same-sex couples is a civil rights victory, she contends that no one should have to marry in order to reap specific and unique legal results. A persuasive argument that married couples should not receive special rights denied to other families, Polikoff shows how the law can value all families, and why it must.

To Have and To Kill


John Glatt - 2008
    In each were body parts of a man. In a forensics room, the truth was discovered: William McGuire had been horribly murdered and dismembered.William and his loving wife, a registered nurse named Melanie, had just closed on their New Jersey dream home. Little did William know about the nightmare that was in store... For Melanie had been involved in a long-term affair with a married doctor at the fertility clinic where she worked--and she had plans for the future that didn't include William.Investigators believe that on April 29, 2004, Melanie first drugged her husband, then murdered him in cold blood. Three years after America witnessed the details of the suitcase incident unfold--on "48 Hours, Dateline NBC, "and" ABC Primetime," and in "People "magazine, among other news outlets--Melanie was convicted of first-degree murder and desecrating human remains. This is the true story of a marriage that turned deadly...

Violence: A Micro-Sociological Theory


Randall Collins - 2008
    Randall Collins challenges this view in Violence, arguing that violent confrontation goes against human physiological hardwiring. It is the exception, not the rule--regardless of the underlying conditions or motivations. Collins gives a comprehensive explanation of violence and its dynamics, drawing upon video footage, cutting-edge forensics, and ethnography to examine violent situations up close as they actually happen--and his conclusions will surprise you. Violence comes neither easily nor automatically. Antagonists are by nature tense and fearful, and their confrontational anxieties put up a powerful emotional barrier against violence. Collins guides readers into the very real and disturbing worlds of human discord--from domestic abuse and schoolyard bullying to muggings, violent sports, and armed conflicts. He reveals how the fog of war pervades all violent encounters, limiting people mostly to bluster and bluff, and making violence, when it does occur, largely incompetent, often injuring someone other than its intended target. Collins shows how violence can be triggered only when pathways around this emotional barrier are presented. He explains why violence typically comes in the form of atrocities against the weak, ritualized exhibitions before audiences, or clandestine acts of terrorism and murder--and why a small number of individuals are competent at violence.Violence overturns standard views about the root causes of violence and offers solutions for confronting it in the future.

Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects


Dmitry Orlov - 2008
    These trends mirror the experience of the Soviet Union in the early 1980s. Reinventing Collapse examines the circumstances of the demise of the Soviet superpower and offers clear insights into how we might prepare for coming events.Rather than focusing on doom and gloom, Reinventing Collapse suggests that there is room for optimism if we focus our efforts on personal and cultural transformation. With characteristic dry humor, Dmitry Orlov identifies three progressive stages of response to the looming crisis:Mitigation—alleviating the impact of the coming upheaval Adaptation—adjusting to the reality of changed conditions Opportunity—flourishing after the collapse He argues that by examining maladaptive parts of our common cultural baggage, we can survive, thrive, and discover more meaningful and fulfilling lives, in spite of steadily deteriorating circumstances.This challenging yet inspiring work is a must-read for anyone concerned about energy, geopolitics, international relations, and life in a post-Peak Oil world.Dmitry Orlov was born in Leningrad and immigrated to the United States at the age of twelve. He was an eyewitness to the Soviet collapse over several extended visits to his Russian homeland between the late eighties and mid-nineties. He is an engineer and a leading Peak Oil theorist whose writing is featured on such sites as www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net and www.powerswitch.org.uk.

The Bill McKibben Reader: Pieces from an Active Life


Bill McKibben - 2008
    His groundbreaking book on climate change, The End of Nature, is considered "as important as Rachel Carson's classic Silent Spring"* and Deep Economy, his "deeply thoughtful and mind-expanding"** exploration of globalization, helped awaken and fuel a movement to restore local economies.Now, for the first time, the best of McKibben's essays—fiery, magical, and infused with his uniquely soulful investigations of modern life—are collected in a single volume. Whether meditating on today's golden age in radio, the natural place of biting black flies in our lives, or the patriotism of a grandmother fighting to get corporate money out of politics, McKibben inspires us to become better caretakers of the Earth—and of one another.*The Plain Dealer (Cleveland )**Michael Pollan

Catching History on the Wing: Race, Culture and Globalisation


Ambalavaner Sivanandan - 2008
    Sivanandan is a highly influential thinker on race, racism, globalisation and resistance. Since 1972, he has been the director of the Institute of Race Relations and the editor of Race & Class, which set the policy agenda on ethnicity and race in the UK and worldwide. Sivanandan has been writing for over forty years and this is the definitive collection of his work.The articles selected span his entire career and are chosen for their relevance to today's most pressing issues. Included is a complete bibliography of Sivanandan’s writings, and an introduction by Colin Prescod (chair of the IRR), which sets the writings in context.This book is highly relevant to undergraduate politics students and anyone reading or writing on race, ethnicity and immigration.

The Official High Times Pot Smokers Handbook: Featuring 420 Things to do When You're Stoned


David Bienenstock - 2008
    Packed with inside information, The Official High Times Pot Smoker's Handbook rolls up all of this collected wisdom into one indispensable ganja guide. With a life-changing list of 420 things to do when you're stoned, this is truly, finally, the ultimate guide to green living.

Saving the Modern Soul: Therapy, Emotions, and the Culture of Self-Help


Eva Illouz - 2008
    Saving the Modern Soul examines the profound impact of therapeutic discourse on our lives and on our contemporary notions of identity. Eva Illouz plumbs today's particular cultural moment to understand how and why psychology has secured its place at the core of modern identity. She examines a wide range of sources to show how self-help culture has transformed contemporary emotional life and how therapy complicates individuals' lives even as it claims to dissect their emotional experiences and heal trauma.

A Deadly Misunderstanding: A Congressman's Quest to Bridge the Muslim-Christian Divide


Mark D. Siljander - 2008
    Siljander takes us on an eye-opening journey of personal, religious, and political discovery. In the 1980s, Siljander was a newly minted Reagan Republican from Michigan who joined Congress in the same generation as Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay, ready to remake the world. A staunch member of the Religious Right, he once walked out of the National Prayer Breakfast when a speaker quoted from the Qur'an.But after losing reelection, Siljander dove into the Bible to look for the passage in which the Bible says it is our job as Christians to convert others in order to save them from eternal damnation. He couldn't find it; in fact, he couldn't even find a passage saying that Jesus set out to form a new religion. This discovery was the first step on a spiritual and political journey that started with an in-depth linguistic study of the Bible and led to the discovery that Christianity and Islam share many base words and concepts. In his role as ambassador to the United Nations Siljander began sharing his insights on the connections between Islam and Christianity, with surprising results. A Deadly Misunderstanding recounts Siljander's amazing discoveries as he travels to some of the most remote and hostile places in the world—deep into Libya, Sudan, Pakistan, and India—forging deep ties with both heads of state and religious leaders. What he has learned could radically shift the contemporary religious landscape and help heal the rift between Islam and the West. No Christian or Muslim will be unaffected after reading this book.

Project Management Techniques


Rory Burke - 2008
    This edition of Project Management has been specially written to include the SAQA unit standards for project management.

A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery


E. Benjamin Skinner - 2008
    With years of reporting in such places as Haiti, Sudan, India, Eastern Europe, The Netherlands, and, yes, even suburban America, he has produced a vivid testament and moving reportage on one of the great evils of our time. There are more slaves in the world today than at any time in history. After spending four years visiting a dozen countries where slavery flourishes, Skinner tells the story, in gripping narrative style, of individuals who live in slavery, those who have escaped from bondage, those who own or traffic in slaves, and the mixed political motives of those who seek to combat the crime.Skinner infiltrates trafficking networks and slave sales on five continents, exposing a modern flesh trade never before portrayed in such proximity. From mega-harems in Dubai to illicit brothels in Bucharest, from slave quarries in India to child markets in Haiti, he explores the underside of a world we scarcely recognize as our own and lays bare a parallel universe where human beings are bought, sold, used, and discarded. He travels from the White House to war zones and immerses us in the political and flesh-and-blood battles on the front lines of the unheralded new abolitionist movement.At the heart of the story are the slaves themselves. Their stories are heartbreaking but, in the midst of tragedy, readers discover a quiet dignity that leads some slaves to resist and aspire to freedom. Despite being abandoned by the international community, despite suffering a crime so monstrous as to strip their awareness of their own humanity, somehow, some enslaved men regain their dignity, some enslaved women learn to trust men, and some enslaved children manage to be kids. Skinner bears witness for them, and for the millions who are held in the shadows.In so doing, he has written one of the most morally courageous books of our time, one that will long linger in the conscience of all who encounter it, and one that -- just perhaps -- may move the world to constructive action.

Foundations of Freedom: Common Sense, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Federalist Papers, the U.S. Constitu


Founding Fathers - 2008
    It was here that our constitutional form of government was first suggested. The forces that were focused and unleashed by Common Sense led directly to The Declaration of Independence. The Declaration led to the American Revolution and the United States' victory in that revolution led to the Articles of Confederation. Dissatisfaction with the Articles caused Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison to write The Federalist Papers, which then led to the United States Constitution as we know it today. Here in one volume are these cornerstones of American freedom.

A Nietzsche Compendium


Friedrich Nietzsche - 2008
    Nietzsche wrote of these works that he intended them as “fish hooks” for catching readers who shared his sense that a cataclysmic shift in human psychology had suddenly occurred with the advent of nihilism – the uncanny and pervasive feeling that life is devoid of all meaning, purpose, and value. Taken together these books offer the reader a definitive account of Nietzsche’s mature philosophy as he intended it to be presented and a sweeping attack upon everything the modern Western world holds to be good about itself.

Sex and War: How Biology Explains Warfare and Terrorism and Offers a Path to a Safer World


Malcolm Potts - 2008
    In the spirit of Guns, Germs and Steel, Sex and War asks the basic questions: Why is war so fundamental to our species? And what can we do about it?Malcolm Potts explores these questions from the frontlines, as a witness to war-torn countries around the world. As a scientist and obstetrician, Potts has worked with governments and aid organizations globally, and in the trenches with women who have been raped and brutalized in the course of war. Combining their own experience with scientific findings in primatology, genetics, and anthropology, Potts and Hayden explain war’s pivotal position in the human experience and how men in particular evolved under conditions that favored gang behavior, rape, and organized aggression. Drawing on these new insights, they propose a rational plan for making warfare less frequent and less brutal in the future.Anyone interested in understanding human nature, warfare, and terrorism at their most fundamental levels will find Sex and War to be an illuminating work, and one that might change the way they see the world.

War Without End: The Iraq War in Context


Michael Schwartz - 2008
    He shows how US occupation is fueling civil war in Iraq and beyond, and how US officials dismantled the Iraqi state and economy, helping to destroy rather than rebuild the country.In a popular style reminiscent of the best writing against the Vietnam War, he punctures the myths used to sell the US public the idea of an endless “war on terror” centered in Iraq. Schwartz shows how the real US interests in Iraq were rooted in the geopolitics of oil and the expansion of a neoliberal economic model in the Middle East—and around the globe—at gunpoint.War Without End also reveals how the failure of the United States in Iraq has forced US planners to fundamentally rethink the imperial dreams driving recent foreign policy.This book is the third in a series of very successful books published in cooperation with TomDispatch.com, including the New York Times bestseller United States v. George W. Bush et al. by Elizabeth de la Vega (Seven Stories Press).Michael Schwartz, professor of sociology and faculty director of the Undergraduate College of Global Studies at Stony Brook University, has written extensively on the war in Iraq at websites including TomDispatch, ZNet, Asia Times, and Mother Jones, and in numerous magazines, including Contexts, Against the Current, and Z Magazine.

The Poulantzas Reader: Marxism, Law and the State


Nicos Poulantzas - 2008
    This volume brings together a wide selection of Poulantzas’ key writings in legal philosophy and political sociology, including some important pieces translated here for the first time. Texts include his early analyses of law, his studies of hegemony, authoritarianism, and social classes, and his debate on the state with Ralph Miliband and Ernesto Laclau.An essential introduction for the scholar and the student to a body of work that continues to reverberate across the social sciences.

Natural Treatments for Tics and Tourette's: A Patient and Family Guide


Sheila J. Rogers - 2008
    The status of behavioral and counseling therapies, EEG biofeedback, homeopathy, bodywork, energy medicine, and Chinese medicine as approaches are explored. Author Sheila Rogers DeMare discusses a range of categories of tics including spasmodic facial movements, eye blinking, mild sounds and vocalizations. She persuasively counters the medical establishment’s standard claim that such disorders are “mysterious” and based only in genetics. The dramatic spike in cases, she argues, belies this explanation. Natural Treatments for Tics and Tourette’s takes a closer look at the environmental factors and underlying physical imbalances that trigger these conditions’ symptoms. In this second edition to Tics and Tourette's: Breakthrough Discoveries in Natural Treatments, DeMare offers a detailed natural treatment plan. No more will patients have to rely on traditional, drug-based treatments that often carry multiple side effects. In eight sections, the book offers advice from medical experts, the latest reports in medical research, a checklist of common tic triggers, inspirational stories from families who have successfully conquered tics and Tourette’s, and practical worksheets for readers to use in their treatment and research. Each of the 23 chapters includes a place for notes and “Takeaway Tips” summarizing key points.

India's New Capitalists: Caste, Business, and Industry in a Modern Nation


Harish Damodaran - 2008
    In tracing the modern-day evolution of business communities in India, this book uses social history to systematically document and understand India's new entrepreneurial groups.

Howard L. Bingham's Black Panthers 1968


Tom Brokaw - 2008
    The very secretive Panthers and their Minister of Information, Eldridge Cleaver would only allow Life to do the story if Bingham was the photographer. Bingham and Moore followed the Panthers for months from Oakland to New York to Los Angeles only to have the story pulled due to a disagreement between Moore and the magazine. Now, Forty years later, these photographs and their story will finally be published. The book will include interviews with Bingham and Moore about the assignment, the Black Panthers and their place in history.

The Native Mind and the Cultural Construction of Nature


Scott Atran - 2008
    Surveys show that our growing concern over protecting the environment is accompanied by a diminishing sense of human contact with nature. Many people have little commonsense knowledge about nature - are unable, for example, to identify local plants and trees or describe how these plants and animals interact. Researchers report dwindling knowledge of nature even in smaller, nonindustrialized societies. In The Native Mind and the Cultural Construction of Nature, Scott Atran and Douglas Medin trace the cognitive consequences of this loss of knowledge. Drawing on nearly two decades of cross-cultural and developmental research, they examine the relationship between how people think about the natural world and how they act on it and how these are affected by cultural differences.These studies, which involve a series of targeted comparisons among cultural groups living in the same environment and engaged in the same activities, reveal critical universal aspects of mind as well as equally critical cultural differences. Atran and Medin find that, despite a base of universal processes, the cultural differences in understandings of nature are associated with significant differences in environmental decision making as well as intergroup conflict and stereotyping stemming from these differences. The book includes two intensive case studies, one focusing on agro-forestry among Maya Indians and Spanish speakers in Mexico and Guatemala and the other on resource conflict between Native-American and European-American fishermen in Wisconsin. The Native Mind and the Cultural Construction of Nature offers new perspectives on general theories of human categorization, reasoning, decision making, and cognitive development.

The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Religion


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

Out in the Storm: Drug-Addicted Women Living as Shoplifters and Sex Workers


Gail A. Caputo - 2008
    It provides in-depth criminological analysis of drug addiction and female criminality in addition to the sociology of crime work and occupations. Because most of the women interviewed are poor African-Americans raised and living in socially and economically disadvantaged neighborhoods, Caputo pays particular attention to gender, class, and other systems of status in the complex interactions between women s lives, drug addiction, and criminality. Out in the Storm reveals similarities and differences in pathways women take to drug addiction and particular crimes and illustrates how women manage both the business and risks of crime in urban drug cultures. Caputo devotes careful attention to the technical and organizational aspects of shoplifting and sex work and is equally sensitive to nuance and difference among those she interviewed. While her subjects struggle to overcome much pain brought on by victimization and to live within social and economic constraints, Caputo illustrates how these women make crime work and demonstrates how they can and do make choices. With her analysis of shoplifting, Caputo provides rich, new insight into one of society s most compelling social problems and challenges the overly sexualized portrayal of women s crime. Unique in bringing together data on substance abuse, shoplifters, and sex workers, this volume will be an essential resource for scholars, activists, and practitioners with expertise or interest in criminological theory, urban poverty, women s studies, youth crime, the sociology of work and occupations, the sociology of education, and addiction."

The Deepening Darkness: Loss, Patriarchy, and Democracy's Future


Carol Gilligan - 2008
    The book joins a psychological approach with a political-theoretical one that traces both this psychology (based on loss in intimate life) and resistance to it (based on the love of equals) to the Roman Republic and Empire and to three Latin masterpieces: Virgil's Aeneid, Apuleius's The Golden Ass, and Augustine's Confessions. In addition, this book explains many other aspects of our present situation including why movements of ethical resistance are often accompanied by a freeing of sexuality and why we are witnessing an aggressive fundamentalism at home and abroad.

Anam Cara


Keena Kincaid - 2008
    Unlike other such souls caught on a karmic wheel, he remembers the past, and he always remembers her. Liza of Carlisle knows nothing of the vow trapping her in Bran's judgment, yet when he walks into her inn, their instant connection is unnerving. She fights the inevitable, knowing instinctively this wanderer could destroy the life she loves. Determined to repair the damage of his first betrayal, Bran uses the knowledge of a thousand years to woo Liza. Yet just as he regains her heart, a fresh betrayal threatens their last hope for love.

Prison Profiteers: Who Makes Money from Mass Incarceration


Tara Herivel - 2008
    From investment banks, guard unions, and the makers of Taser stun guns to health care providers, telephone companies, and the U.S. military (which relies heavily on prison labor), this network of perversely motivated interests has turned the imprisonment of one out of every 135 Americans into a lucrative business.Called “an essential read for anyone who wants to understand what’s gone wrong with criminal justice in the United States” by ACLU National Prison Project director Elizabeth Alexander, this incisive and deftly researched volume shows how billions of tax dollars designated for the public good end up lining the pockets of those private enterprises dedicated to keeping prisons packed.“An important analysis of a troubling social trend” (Booklist) that is sure to inform and outrage any concerned citizen, Prison Profiteers reframes the conversation by exposing those who stand to profit from the imprisonment of millions of Americans.

The Beatles: The Illustrated Biography (Classic Rare & Unseen)


E. Good - 2008
    From their Liverpool roots the Beatles crafted a musical unique style with the classical trained background talents of their Producer, George Martin, and thus took the world of popular music by storm with what became known as Beatlemania.A Fab collection of full-page photos, from back in the day when they played and laughed together. From their first days together, to their first world tour in 1963, to the end when they dissolved the band in 1970. Lot of fun caught in these images, playful moods at studio sessions, live on stage and in-between. Many have not be published before and descriptions where and when the photo was taken are provided.They were a phenomenon that defined the sixties and their legacy is still very much alive today almost 50 years later. A visual treat for any Beatles Fan.

Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy and Culture


Alan Sokal - 2008
    Sokal's main argument, then and now, is for the centrality of evidence in all matters of public debate. The original article, (included in the book, with new explanatory footnotes), exposed the faulty thinking and outright nonsense of the postmodernist critique of science, which asserts that facts, truth, evidence, even reality itself are all merely social constructs. Today, right wing politicians and industry executives are happily manipulating these basic tenants of postmodernism to obscure the scientific consensus on global warming, biological evolution, second-hand smoke, and a host of other issues. Indeed, Sokal shows that academic leftists have unwittingly abetted right wing ideologies by wrapping themselves in a relativistic fog where any belief is as valid as any other because all claims to truth must be regarded as equally suspect. Sokal's goal, throughout the book, is to expose the dangers in such thinking and to defend a scientific worldview based on respect for evidence, logic, and reasoned argument over wishful thinking, superstition, and demagoguery of any kind.Written with rare lucidity, a lively wit, and a keen appreciation of the real-world consequences of sloppy thinking, Beyond the Hoax is essential reading for anyone concerned with the state of American culture today.

Racism and Education: Coincidence or Conspiracy?


David Gillborn - 2008
    This is the inescapable conclusion of the first major study of the English education system using 'critical race theory'.David Gillborn has been described as Britain's 'most influential race theorist in education'. In this book he dissects the role of racism across the education system; from national policies to school-level decisions about discipline and academic selection.Race inequality is not accidental and things are not getting better. Despite occasional 'good news' stories about fluctuations in statistics, the reality is that race inequality is so deeply entrenched that it is effectively 'locked in' as a permanent feature of the system.Built on a foundation of compelling evidence, from national statistics to studies of classroom life, this book shows how race inequality is shaped and legitimized across the system. The study explores a series of key issues including:the impact of the 'War on Terror' and how policy privileges the interests of white people how assessment systems produce race inequality exposes the 'gifted and talented' programme as a form of eugenic thinking based on discredited and racist myths about intelligence and ability documents the Stephen Lawrence case revealing how policy makers have betrayed earlier commitments to race equality shows how 'model minorities' are created and used to counter anti-racism how education policy is implicated in the defence of white power.Conspiracy? Racism & Education takes critical antiracist analyses to a new level and represents a fundamental challenge to current assumptions in the field. With a preface by Richard Delgado, one of the founders of critical race theory.

Model City Blues: Urban Space and Organized Resistance in New Haven


Mandi Isaacs Jackson - 2008
    Telling the story of how regular people, facing the changing city landscape, fought for their own model of the 'ideal city' by creating grassroots plans for urban renewal, this book offers an account of organized resistance to institutional plans to transform New Haven, Connecticut in the 1960s.

Mesmerization. by Gee Thomson


Gee Thomson - 2008
    From faith to fashion, psycho-babble to cyber-sex, the book examines the viral nature of memes, those ubiquitous spells and social prescriptions that drive and shape global behaviour.

Entering Cultural Communities: Diversity and Change in the Nonprofit Arts


Diane Grams - 2008
    Today, museums, orchestras, dance companies, theaters, and community cultural centers try to involve a variety of people in the arts. They strive to attract a more racially and ethnically diverse group of people, those from a broader range of economic backgrounds, new immigrants, families, and youth. The chapters in this book draw on interviews with leaders, staff, volunteers, and audience members from eighty-five nonprofit cultural organizations to explore how they are trying to increase participation and the extent to which they have been successful. The insiders' accounts point to the opportunities and challenges involved in such efforts, from the reinvention of programs and creation of new activities, to the addition of new departments and staff dynamics, to partnerships with new groups. The authors differentiate between "relational" and "transactional" practices, the former term describing efforts to build connections with local communities and the latter describing efforts to create new consumer markets for cultural products. In both cases, arts leaders report that, although positive results are difficult to measure conclusively, long-term efforts bring better outcomes than short-term activities. The organizations discussed include large, medium, and small nonprofits located in urban, suburban, and rural areas—from large institutions such as the Smithsonian, the Walker Art Center, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the San Francisco Symphony to many cultural organizations that are smaller, but often known nationally for their innovative work, such as AS220, The Loft Literary Center, Armory Center for the Arts, Appalshop, and the Western Folklife Center.

A Horse's Tale: A Colonial Williamsburg Adventure


Susan Lubner - 2008
    Garrick the Gardener’s horse is sad, so the town of Williamsburg rallies to try to cheer him up! Margaret the Milliner sews a counterpane for the horse’s back, and Ben the Blacksmith checks the horseshoes to make sure they aren’t on too tight. The grocer mixes oats and sugar, the apothecary stirs a special brew, and the music teacher even sings a happy song. But nothing lifts the horse’s spirits until they all discover that friendship is the best cure. A fun way for children to learn about life in colonial times, A Horse’s Tale includes a glossary that highlights period words and terms and features the adorable characters first created as plush toys by Merrymakers, Inc. Young readers will take a step back in time to Colonial Williamsburg as they meet a group of friends they will want to make their own.

Buddhism and Taoism Face to Face: Scripture, Ritual, and Iconographic Exchange in Medieval China


Christine Mollier - 2008
    Book annotation not available for this title.

Minority Status, Oppositional Culture, & Schooling


John U. Ogbu - 2008
    The theory and empirical foundation of Ogbu's scholarship, which some have mistakenly reduced to the "acting white hypothesis," is fully presented and re-visited in this posthumous collection of his new writings plus the works of over 20 scholars. Ogbu's own chapters present how his ideas about minority education and culture developed. Readers will find in these chapters the theoretical roots of his cultural ecological model. The book is organized as a dialogue between John Ogbu and the scholarly community, including his most ardent critics; Ogbu's own work can be read at the same time as his critics have their say.Minority Status, Oppositional Culture, and Schooling examines content, methodological, and policy issues framing the debate on academic achievement, school engagement, and oppositional culture. It brings together in one volume, for the first time, some of the most critical works on these issues as well as examples of programs aimed at re-engagement. In addition to African Americans, it also looks at school engagement among Native American and Latino students. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the study of the academic achievement gap.

On Reason: Rationality in a World of Cultural Conflict and Racism


Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze - 2008
    In On Reason, the late philosopher Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze demonstrates that rationality, and by extension philosophy, need not be renounced as manifestations or tools of Western imperialism. Examining reason in connection to the politics of difference—the cluster of issues known variously as cultural diversity, political correctness, the culture wars, and identity politics—Eze expounds a rigorous argument that reason is produced through and because of difference. In so doing, he preserves reason as a human property while at the same time showing that it cannot be thought outside the realities of cultural diversity. Advocating rationality in a multicultural world, he proposes new ways of affirming both identity and difference.Eze draws on an extraordinary command of Western philosophical thought and a deep knowledge of African philosophy and cultural traditions. He explores models of rationality in the thought of philosophers from Aristotle, René Descartes, Francis Bacon, and Thomas Hobbes to Noam Chomsky, Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam, and Jacques Derrida, and he considers portrayals of reason in the work of the African thinkers and novelists Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, and Wole Soyinka. Eze reflects on contemporary thought about genetics, race, and postcolonial historiography as well as on the interplay between reason and unreason in the hearings of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He contends that while rationality may have a foundational formality, any understanding of its foundation and form is dynamic, always based in historical and cultural circumstances.

Documenting Disposable People: Contemporary Global Slavery


Kevin Bales - 2008
    More than 27 million people are still trapped in one of the world's oldest forms of oppression. Documenting Disposable People features newly commissioned photo essays by eight renowned Magnum photographers--Ian Berry, Stuart Franklin, Jim Goldberg, Susan Meiselas, Paolo Pellegrin, Chris Steele-Perkins and Alex Webb--on diverse instances of contemporary global slavery. With texts on each of these projects and an essay by expert and author Kevin Bales, this compendium explores a range of examples, including child labor in Bangladesh, sex slavery from Ukraine to Western Europe and the sexual enslavement of South Korean women by Japanese troops during the Second World War. Documenting Disposable People shows how the unfortunate emergence of a new kind of slavery is inextricably linked to the -ascent- of a global economy.

Israel and Its Army: From Cohesion to Confusion


Stuart A. Cohen - 2008
    This volume analyses the circumstances currently undermining these perceptions, and explores both the changes occurring in Israel's military framework, and their potential implications.The book highlights the influence exerted by massive shifts in both Israel's external strategic landscape and in the country's domestic and cultural environments, which have compelled the IDF to undertake major programmes of structural reform, technological adaptation and doctrinal revision. This book argues that these changes have lead the public to subject the armed forces and their conduct to unprecedented critical scrutiny. The way in which Israelis and their army resolve these tensions is of crucial importance not only for Israel, but for the Middle East as a whole.

Affect Imagery Consciousness: Volume III: The Negative Affects: Anger and Fear and Volume IV: Cognition: Duplication and Transformation of Information


Silvan S. Tomkins - 2008
    Knowing it was his 'lifework, ' Tomkins conflated 'life' and 'work, ' reifying the superstition that its completion would equal death and refusing to release for publication long-completed material. He knew the risks associated with this obsessive, neurotic behavior, and the results were as bad as predicted. The first two volumes of Affect Imagery Consciousness (AIC) were released in 1962 and 1963, Volume III in 1991 shortly before he succumbed to a particularly virulent strain of small cell lymphoma, and Volume IV a year after his death. This last book contains Tomkins's understanding of neocortical cognition, ideas that are even now exciting, but until this current publication of his work as a single supervolume, almost nobody has read it. The bulk of his audience had died along with the enthusiasm generated by his ideas. Big science is now more a matter of big machines and unifocal discoveries as the basis for pars pro toto reasoning than big ideas based on the assembly and analysis of all that is known. Tomkins ignored nothing from any science past or present that might lead him toward a more certain understanding of the mind. Every idea, every theory deserved attention if only because significant observations can loiter in blind alleys.--From the prologue by Donald Nathanson, MDVolume 2 of Springer's deluxe new edition of Tomkins's masterpiece includes The Negative Affects: Fear and Anger and Cognition: Duplication and Transformation of Information.

Biology of Kundalini, Exploring the Fire of Life


Jana Dixon - 2008
    An important innovation in understanding the transformational process and the spiritualization of the body.

Living Deeply: The Art Science of Transformation in Everyday Life


Marilyn Mandala Schlitz - 2008
    Each chapter in the book ends with Experiences of Transformation, exercises drawn from wisdom traditions or scientific investigations meant to enhance your direct experience of the material.Opportunities to actively engage in your own transformation and that of our world are woven into the fabric of your everyday life. Learning more about the terrain of consciousness transformation can not only give you a map, but can help you become the cartographer of your own transformative journey. Research over the last decade at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) has systematically surveyed hundreds of people's stories of their own transformations, as well as conducting over 50 in-depth interviews with teachers and masters of the world's spiritual, religious, and transformative traditions.No matter who you are,where you come from, or what your current path is - whether you seek to transform your life completely or simply make adjustments that will add a layer of richness and depth to your life - exploring the many ways that transformation is stimulated and sustained can hold great power. Weaving together cutting-edge science with wisdom from teachers of the world's transformative traditions this book explores how people experience deep shifts in their consciousness, and how those shifts can lead to healing and wholeness.Research over the last decade at the Institute of Noetic Sciences has explored in depth the phenomenon by which people make significant shifts in the way they experience and view the world. Focusing in particular on positive transformations in consciousness, or those that result in improved health, well-being, and sense of meaning, purpose,and belonging, hundreds of people's stories of their own transformations were included in the research, as well as in-depth interviews with over 50 teachers and masters of the world's spiritual, religious, and transformative traditions.Authors Marilyn Mandala Schlitz, Ph.D., Cassandra Vieten, Ph.D., and Tina Amorok, Psy.D. - will begin conducting workshops based on the information they have gathered for this book. These workshops will blend the rigors of science with the deep wisdom of the world’s spiritual traditions. Drs. Schlitz, Vieten, and Amorok will offer key insights from the decade-long qualitative and quantitative research study, of how people transform their lives. The workshops will include rigorous inquiry, group dialogue, and direct experience about the kinds of transformations in consciousness that change a person’s worldview to one that is more connected to others.For more information about the Signature Education Workshops, please visit www.livingdeeply.orgAlso available is a companion DVD.

Leading Cross-Culturally: Covenant Relationships for Effective Christian Leadership


Sherwood G. Lingenfelter - 2008
    Of particular concern is the issue of leadership--a difficult task made even more challenging in multicultural settings. Sherwood Lingenfelter helps the reader understand his or her own leadership culture (and its blind spots), examine it critically in light of Scripture, and become an effective learner of other cultural perspectives on leadership. He also confronts the issues of power inherent in any leadership situation. Lingenfelter carefully defines cross-cultural leadership and unpacks that definition throughout the book, with an emphasis on building communities of vision, trust, and empowerment through leadership based on biblical principles. In the end, he argues that leaders must inhabit the gospel story to be effective cross-culturally.

Dishonorable Passions: Sodomy Laws in America, 1861-2003


William N. Eskridge Jr. - 2008
    As William Eskridge persuasively demonstrates in Dishonorable Passions, there is nothing new about this political and legal obsession. The American colonies and the early states prohibited sodomy as the “crime against nature,” but rarely punished such conduct if it took place behind closed doors. By the twentieth century, America’s emerging regulatory state targeted “degenerates” and (later) “homosexuals.” The witch hunts of the McCarthy era caught very few Communists but ruined the lives of thousands of homosexuals. The nation’s sexual revolution of the 1960s fueled a social movement of people seeking repeal of sodomy laws, but it was not until the Supreme Court’s decision in Lawrence v. Texas (2003) that private sex between consenting adults was decriminalized. With dramatic stories of both the hunted (Walt Whitman and Margaret Mead) and the hunters (Earl Warren and J. Edgar Hoover), Dishonorable Passions reveals how American sodomy laws affected the lives of both homosexual and heterosexual Americans. Certain to provoke heated debate, Dishonorable Passions is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of sexuality and its regulation in the United States.

"Baad Bitches" and Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films


Stephane Dunn - 2008
    But starting in 1973, the emergence of "baad bitches" and "sassy supermamas" reversed the trend as self-assured, empowered, and tough black women took the lead in the films Cleopatra Jones, Coffy, and Foxy Brown.Stephane Dunn unpacks the intersecting racial, sexual, and gender politics underlying the representations of racialized bodies, masculinities, and femininities in early 1970s black action films, with particular focus on the representation of black femininity. Recognizing a distinct moment in the history of African American representation in popular cinema, Dunn analyzes how it emerged from a radical political era influenced by the Black Power movement and feminism. Dunn also engages blaxploitation's legacy in contemporary hip-hop culture, as suggested by the music’s disturbing gender politics and the "baad bitch daughters" of Foxy Brown and Cleopatra Jones, rappers Foxy Brown and Lil' Kim.

The Shut-Down Learner: Helping Your Academically Discouraged Child


Richard Selznick - 2008
    The sense of hopelessness that pervades can become almost insurmountable. This is the emotional experience for the child called the shut-down learner. Also referred to as Lego kids or high-spatial children, such kids thrive with hands-on tasks that use their visual and spatial abilities. This book offers perspective and hope to parents who are struggling with these issues.

Same Sex, Different Politics: Success and Failure in the Struggles over Gay Rights


Gary Mucciaroni - 2008
     The first book to compare results across a wide range of gay rights struggles, this volume explores debates over laws governing military service, homosexual conduct, adoption, marriage and partner recognition, hate crimes, and civil rights. It reveals that in each area, the gay rights movement’s achievements depend both on Americans’ perceptions of its demands and on the political venue in which the conflict plays out. Adoption policy, for example, generally takes shape in a decentralized system of courts that enables couples to target sympathetic judges, while fights for gay marriage generally culminate in legislation or ballot referenda against which it is easier to mount opposition. Brilliantly synthesizing all the factors that contribute to each kind of outcome, Same Sex, Different Politics establishes a new framework for understanding the trajectory of a movement.

Qualitative Methods in International Relations: A Pluralist Guide


Audie Klotz - 2008
    We still lack practical answers to one of the most basic questions in empirical research:How should researchers interpret meanings? The contributors take seriously the goals of both post-modernist and positivist researchers, as they offer detailed guidance on how to apply specific tools of analysis and how to circumvent their inherent limitations.

The State of Sex: Nevada's Brothel Industry


Kathryn M. Hausbeck - 2008
    Nevada is part of the "new American heartland," as its pastimes, people, and politics have become more central to the nation. The rise of a service and leisure economy over the past sixty years has propelled sexuality into the heart of contemporary markets. Yet, neoliberal laws in the United States promote business but limit sexual commerce. How have Nevada's legal brothels survived, while the rest of the country criminalizes prostitution? How do brothels operate? Who works in them? This book brings social theory on globalizing economies, politics, leisure consumption, and emotional labor in interactive service work together with research on contemporary prostitution and sexual commerce. The authors employ an innovative, multi-method sociological approach, combining historical analysis of how the brothels came to be with over a decade's worth of ethnographic research on the current state of the industry.

Investigating Science Communication in the Information Age: Implications for Public Engagement and Popular Media


Richard Holliman - 2008
    It addresses current theoretical, practical and policy developments in science communication, including recent calls for greater openness andtransparency; and engagement and dialogue on the part of professional scientists with members of the public. It provides a timely and wide-ranging review of contemporary issues in science communication, focusing on two broad themes.The first theme critically reviews the recent dialogic turn and ascendant branding of 'public engagement with science'. It addresses contemporary theoretical and conceptual issues facing science communication researchers, and draws on a range of methodological approaches and examples.The second theme, popular media, examines recent trends in the theory and research of these forms of science communication. It includes contemporary accounts of the study of 'traditional' forms of popular media, including television and newspapers, examining how they are produced, represented andconsumed. This theme also documents examples where novel forms of popular media are challenging researchers to re-think how they approach these forms of science communication.A companion volume, Practising Science Communication in the Information Age, provides an ideal introduction to anyone wishing to reflect on the practices of contemporary science communication.

The Theory of Taxation and Public Economics


Louis Kaplow - 2008
    An original treatment of the subject rather than a textbook synthesis, the book contains new analysis that generates novel results, including some that overturn long-standing conventional wisdom. This fresh approach should change thinking, research, and teaching for decades to come.Building on the work of James Mirrlees, Anthony Atkinson and Joseph Stiglitz, and subsequent researchers, and in the spirit of classics by A. C. Pigou, William Vickrey, and Richard Musgrave, this book steps back from particular lines of inquiry to consider the field as a whole, including the relationships among different fiscal instruments. Louis Kaplow puts forward a framework that makes it possible to rigorously examine both distributive and distortionary effects of particular policies despite their complex interactions with others. To do so, various reforms--ranging from commodity or estate and gift taxation to regulation and public goods provision--are combined with a distributively offsetting adjustment to the income tax. The resulting distribution-neutral reform package holds much constant while leaving in play the distinctive effects of the policy instrument under consideration. By applying this common methodology to disparate subjects, The Theory of Taxation and Public Economics produces significant cross-fertilization and yields solutions to previously intractable problems.

The 2009 Internet Directory: Web 2.0 Edition


Vince Averello - 2008
    Belicove Nancy Conner Adrienne Crew Sherry Kinkoph Gunter Faithe Wempen The Best of the New Web 2.0 Internet at Your Fingertips! A whole new Web s coming to life: new tools, communities, video, podcasts, everything! You won t find these exciting Web 2.0 destinations with old-fashioned Internet directories and it ll take forever to find them on search engines. But they re all at your fingertips, right here! Carefully selected by humans, not algorithms, here are the Net s 3,000 best Web 2.0 destinations: amazing new sites, tools, and resources for your whole life! They ll help you Have way more fun! Build your business Buy the right stuff, and avoid the junk Stay totally up-to-date on news, politics, science Be a better parent Go green Get healthier and stay healthier Deepen your faith Pursue your hobbies Plan incredible vacations Find the perfect restaurant And more much more!"

Elements of Logic (Revised)


Richard Whately - 2008
    Yet today it again offers useful principles for teaching reasoning and critical thinking to undergraduates, helping them to understand that common reasoning patterns are a constant across subjects and contexts. As the linear reasoning patterns of the inductive scientific method are fading, students are constantly exposed to information that comes in short bursts and is dominated by visual and aural stimuli. Those who must create models of reasoning to fit the electronic media may find guidance in this work.

Practising Science Communication in the Information Age: Theorising Professional Practices


Richard Holliman - 2008
    It considers how scientists communicate with each other as part of their professional practice, critically evaluating how this formsthe basis of the documenting of scientific knowledge, and investigating how open access publication and open review are influencing current practices. It also explores how science communication can play a crucial role when science is disputed, investigating the role of expertise in the formation ofscientific controversy and consensus.The volume provides a theoretically informed review of contemporary trends and issues that are engaging practitioners of science communication, focusing on issues such as the norms and conventions governing the practices of science communication, and how scientists communicate between disciplines.Other topics that receive critical treatment include: peer review, open access publication, the protection of intellectual property, the formation of scientific controversy and consensus, the popularization of science, and the practices of public engagement.A companion volume, Investigating science communication in the information age, provides an ideal introduction to anyone wishing to study contemporary science communication. topics as diverse as peer review, open access pulication, the protection of intellectual property, the popularization ofscience and the practices of public engagement.

The Landscape of Words: Stone Inscriptions from Early and Medieval China


Robert E. Harrist Jr. - 2008
    Harrist Jr. focuses on the period prior to the eighth century C.E. to demonstrate that the significance of inscriptions on stone embedded in nature depends on the interaction of words with topography. Visitors do not simply climb inscribed mountains, they read them, as the medium of the written word has transformed geological formations into landscapes of ideological and religious significance.The widespread use of stone as a medium for writing did not begin in China until around the first century C.E. - later than in the ancient civilizations of Egypt, the Near East, Greece, and Rome - but by the twentieth century, more inscriptions had been carved in natural stone in China than anywhere else in the world. The Landscape of Words is the first study in a Western language devoted to these texts, moya or moya shike, carved into the natural terrain on granite boulders and cliffs at thousands of sites of historic or scenic interest. Like the writing system itself, moya are one of the distinguishing features of Chinese civilization. Carved in large, bold characters, they constitute a vast repository of texts produced continuously for more than two thousand years and are an important form of public art.Harrist draws on insights from the fields of art history, social and political history, literature, and religion to present detailed case studies of important moya sites, such as the Stone Gate tunnel in Shaanxi and Cloud Peak Mountain, Mount Tie, and Mount Tai in Shangdong. The inscriptions analyzed represent a range of literary genres and content, including poetry, Buddhist sutras, records of imperial rituals, and commemorations of virtuous conduct in public life.

Presidential Leadership in Political Time: Reprise and Reappraisal


Stephen Skowronek - 2008
    This title draws out parallels in the politics of leadership between Andrew Jackson and Franklin Roosevelt and between James Polk and John Kennedy.

Psychological Nudity


Michael Savage - 2008
    a limited, first edition printing of classic American tales, and personal stories, from the life of michael savage, radio host.

Metacognition


John Dunlosky - 2008
    This comprehensive text covers both theoretical and empirical metacognitive research in educational, developmental, cognitive and applied psychology.Authors John Dunlosky and Janet Metcalfe address many of the key questions that have inspired scientists to pursue research in this domain. To answer these and many other questions, the authors assess major theoretical themes and programmatic research in the field. The authors also include chapters that define the scope of metacognition and cover its historical origins. Not only do they describe well-received theories about the nature of metacognition, but they also highlight unresolved mysteries currently on the cutting-edge of research.Key Features Emphasizes the practical relevance of theory and research in metacognition to learning with the use of "Application" boxesIntroduces students to important questions that have yet to be answered by the metacognitive research literature with the inclusion of "Mystery" boxesProvides three easy-to-conduct demonstrations (e.g., tip-of-the-tongue experience, delayed-judgment-of-learning effect, etc.) that students can try themselvesOffers brief biographies that introduce students to some of the most influential leaders in metacognitionIncludes a general summary at the end of each chapteIntended AudienceThis text is an ideal resource for undergraduate cognitive psychology students. It also serves as comprehensive handbook for more advanced students and psychological scientists engaged in the study of metacognitive processes.

Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice


Bill Fletcher Jr. - 2008
    trade union movement finds itself today on a global battlefield filled with landmines and littered with the bodies of various social movements and struggles. Candid, incisive, and accessible, "Solidarity Divided "is a critical examination of labor's current crisis and a plan for a bold new way forward into the twenty-first century. Bill Fletcher and Fernando Gapasin, two longtime union insiders whose experiences as activists of color grant them a unique vantage on the problems now facing U.S. labor, offer a remarkable mix of vivid history and probing analysis. They chart changes in U.S. manufacturing, examine the onslaught of globalization, consider the influence of the environment on labor, and provide the first broad analysis of the fallout from the 2000 and 2004 elections on the U.S. labor movement. Ultimately calling for a wide-ranging reexamination of the ideological and structural underpinnings of today's labor movement, this is essential reading for understanding how the battle for social justice can be fought and won.

Gaming the Vote: Why Elections Aren't Fair (and What We Can Do About It)


William Poundstone - 2008
    presidential elections have been won by the second most popular candidate. The reason was a "spoiler"--a minor candidate who takes enough votes away from the most popular candidate to tip the election to someone else. The spoiler effect is more than a glitch. It is a consequence of one of the most surprising intellectual discoveries of the twentieth century: the "impossibility theorem" of Nobel laureate economist Kenneth Arrow. The impossibility theorem asserts that voting is fundamentally unfair--a finding that has not been lost on today's political consultants. Armed with polls, focus groups, and smear campaigns, political strategists are exploiting the mathematical faults of the simple majority vote. In recent election cycles, this has led to such unlikely tactics as Republicans funding ballot drives for Green spoilers and Democrats paying for right-wing candidates' radio ads. Gaming the Vote shows that there is a solution to the spoiler problem that will satisfy both right and left. A systemcalled range voting, already widely used on the Internet, is the fairest voting method of all, according to computer studies. Despite these findings, range voting remains controversial, and Gaming the Vote assesses the obstacles confronting any attempt to change the American electoral system. The latest of several books by William Poundstone on the theme of how important scientific ideas have affected the real world, Gaming the Vote is a wry exposé of how the political system really works, and a call to action.

Prophets and Princes: Saudi Arabia from Muhammad to the Present


Mark Weston - 2008
    It is the birthplace of Osama bin Laden and fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers. Saudi women are not permitted to drive, work with men, or travel without a man's permission. Prior to 9/11, the Saudis sent millions of dollars abroad to schools that taught Muslim extremism and to charities that turned out to be fronts for al-Qaeda.In Prophets and Princes, a highly respected scholar who has lived in Saudi Arabia contends that despite these serious shortcomings, the kingdom is still America's most important ally in the Middle East, a voice for moderation toward Israel, and a nation with a surprising ability to make many of the economic and cultural changes necessary to adjust to modern realities.Author Mark Weston offers an objective and balanced history of the only nation on earth named after its ruling family. Drawing on interviews with many Saudi men and women, Weston portrays a complex society in which sixty percent of Saudi Arabia's university students are women, and citizens who seek a constitutional monarchy can petition the king without fear of reprisal.Filled with new and underreported information about the most controversial aspects of life in Saudi Arabia, Prophets and Princes is a must-read for anyone interested in the Middle East, oil, Islam, or the war on terror..

What Counts as Credible Evidence in Applied Research and Evaluation Practice?


Stewart I. Donaldson - 2008
    And it isn′t going away.This book explains why. The diverse perspectives presented are balanced, insightful, and critical for making up one′s own mind about what counts as credible evidence. And, in the end, everyone must take a position. You simply can′t engage in or use research and evaluation without deciding what counts as credible evidence. So read this book carefully, take a position, and enter the fray.--Michael Quinn Patton, Author of Utilization-Focused Evaluation, 4eI found this text to be very interesting and useful in capturing and presenting varying perspectives in the field. There are some very good points and considerations for students and practitioners in this book.--Michael Schooley, Centers for Disease ControlDonaldson and colleagues have assembled an insightful and timely collection of papers on the complex issues regarding what constitutes credible evidence in evaluation. This important book offers readers the latest thinking on generating actionable evidence for policy and program decision-making from a wide variety of philosophical perspectives. The book is an indispensable resource for evaluation scholars and practitioners on this longstanding and central debate in the evaluation field.--Robin Lin Miller, Michigan State UniversityPlacing into perspective the meaning of evidence for evaluation professionals and applied researchers, this text provides observations about the diversity and changing nature of credible evidence, Editors Stewart I. Donaldson, Christina A. Christie, and Melvin M. Mark include lessons from their own applied research and evaluation practice, and suggest ways in which practitioners might address the key issues and challenges of collecting credible evidence.Key FeaturesProvides summaries of the strengths and weaknesses of the varied approaches to research and evaluation to give readers greater insight and guidance on how to select the appropriate methods for their workOffers diverse definitions of evidence so that readers can evaluate the landscape of this highly debated research issueDevotes a full chapter to the implications of evidence for contemporary applied research and evaluation practiceThis book is appropriate for a wide range of courses, including Introduction to Evaluation Research, Research Methods, Evaluation Practice, Program valuation, Program Development and Evaluation, and evaluation coursesin Social Work, Education, Public Health, and Public Policy.

Subjectivity and Suffering in American Culture: Possible Selves


Steven M. Parish - 2008
    The volume takes readers deep into private worlds of suffering in American culture, and invites reflection on what the subjectivity of suffering tells us about being human. Addressing universal themes in a way that fully recognizes the individuality of those who experience a personal crisis, Parish shows how individuals personalize the cultural and psychological resources in which they find their possible selves.

The Influence of Affluence: How the New Rich Are Changing America


Russ Alan Prince - 2008
    Comprising 8.4 million households and growing in number, the attitudes and behaviors of these working rich are exerting a powerful influence over our society. So who are these people? They believe in the benefits of hard work. They believe in investing in themselves, and in self improvement. They are more likely to focus on drawing financial gain from their work, and less inclined to be discouraged by failure. And they don’t spend money on the extravagances indulged in by the very rich; instead, they wield their affluence according to middle-class values and ideals. From home security systems to health care, technology to travel, their spending choices are affecting us all – from the products we buy, to the communities in which we live, to the aspirations and values of the broader middle class and American population as a whole. In the bestselling tradition of Bobos in Paradise and The Millionaire Next Door, THE MIDDLE-CLASS MILLIONAIRE is a captivating narrative – part sociology, and part aspirational journey into the lives, attitudes, and values of the middle-class millionaires. Based on extensive surveys and research into more than 3,600 middle-class millionaire households around the country, this book will reshape our understanding of what it takes to be successful – and how all of us can achieve similar success.