Best of
Society

1990

We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change


Myles Horton - 1990
    Throughout their highly personal conversations recorded here, Horton and Freire discuss the nature of social change and empowerment and their individual literacy campaigns. The ideas of these men developed through two very different channels: Horton's, from the Highlander Center, a small, independent residential education center situated outside the formal schooling system and the state; Freire's, from within university and state-sponsored programs. Myles Horton, who died in January 1990, was a major figure in the civil rights movement and founder of the Highlander Folk School, later the highlander Research and Education Center. Paulo Freire, author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, established the Popular Culture Movement in Recife, Brazil's poorest region, and later was named head of the New National Literacy Campaign until a military coup forced his exile from Brazil. He has been active in educational development programs worldwide. For both men, real liberation is achieved through popular participation. The themes they discuss illuminate problems faced by educators and activists around the world who are concerned with linking participatory education to the practice of liberation and social change. How could two men, working in such different social spaces and times, arrive at similar ideas and methods? These conversations answer that question in rich detail and engaging anecdotes, and show that, underlying the philosophy of both, is the idea that theory emanates from practice and that knowledge grows from and is a reflection of social experience.

What Are People For?


Wendell Berry - 1990
    Berry talks to the reader as one would talk to a next-door neighbor: never preachy, he comes across as someone offering sound advice. He speaks with sadness of the greedy consumption of this country's natural resources and the grim consequences Americans must face if current economic practices do not change drastically. In the end, these essays offer rays of hope in an otherwise bleak forecast of America's future. Berry's program presents convincing steps for America's agricultural and cultural survival.

Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action


Elinor Ostrom - 1990
    Both state control and privatization of resources have been advocated, but neither the state nor the market have been uniformly successful in solving common pool resource problems. After critiquing the foundations of policy analysis as applied to natural resources, Elinor Ostrom here provides a unique body of empirical data to explore conditions under which common pool resource problems have been satisfactorily or unsatisfactorily solved. Dr. Ostrom first describes three models most frequently used as the foundation for recommending state or market solutions. She then outlines theoretical and empirical alternatives to these models in order to illustrate the diversity of possible solutions. In the following chapters she uses institutional analysis to examine different ways--both successful and unsuccessful--of governing the commons. In contrast to the proposition of the tragedy of the commons argument, common pool problems sometimes are solved by voluntary organizations rather than by a coercive state. Among the cases considered are communal tenure in meadows and forests, irrigation communities and other water rights, and fisheries.

Manila, My Manila


Nick Joaquín - 1990
    The city's poet laureate--whose entire body of work sings of Manila as Homer sang of Troy and Virgil of Rome--complied with a will. The firstedition of Manila, My Manila (1990) was distributed exclusively to the city's schools. This hardcover gift edition finally brings Joaquin's celebration of his beloved city to readers throughout the world.

Brave New Family: G.K. Chesterton on Men and Women, Children, Sex, Divorce, Marriage and the Family


G.K. Chesterton - 1990
    K. Chesterton's provocative writings on a subject close to his heart—the family, and the corresponding themes of men and women, children, sex, marriage and divorce. The family was a central element in Chesterton's vision, a unifying theme of his literary work. His eloquent defense of the sacredness of the home is even more applicable in our times because of the tremendous moral problems in our society that threaten the modern family. Chesterton's insights will be a deep inspiration to married couples, those preparing for marriage, priests, teachers, and anyone else interested in marriage and the family. An ideal gift book.

Social Linguistics and Literacies: Ideology in Discourses (Critical Perspectives on Literacy and Education)


James Paul Gee - 1990
    It shows how contemporary sociocultural approaches to language and literacy emerged and: Engages with topics such as orality and literacy, the history of literacy, the nature of discourse analysis and social theories of mind and meaning Explores how language functions in a society Through the exploration of the notion of ‘Discourse’, it surveys the current state of the field with specific reference to cross-cultural issues in communities and schools. This new edition incorporates contemporary work on "new literacies", that is, meaning making that uses digital media, images, or "multimodal texts" which integrate words and images. This new perspective fully updates the book and its approach to language, learning, and literacy in society and culture.

I've Been to the Mountaintop


Martin Luther King Jr. - 1990
    Delivered on April 3, 1968--the eve of King's assassination--this powerful speech of hope, persistence, and divine guidance captures the essence of King's vision.

Chronicle of the World


Derrik Mercer - 1990
    Imagine it accompanied by a stunning cavalcade of vibrant full-color illustrations, photographs, and maps that bring the past vividly to life. That history is here, in one easy-to-access volume that shows you the events and people that have shaped the world as we know it. 2,750 illustrations and photographs. (Prentice Hall)

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


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

History of Hindu Christian Encounters, Ad 304 to 1996


Sita Ram Goel - 1990
    Thomas the apostle travelled to India. The book mentions the Syrian Christians of the Malabar coast and the Italian traveller Ludovico di Varthema, author of the Itineratio. An important Hindu-Christian encounter was the arrival of the Portuguese with Vasco da Gama in 1498 CE and with Francis Xavier in 1542 CE, an encounter which Goel points out led to the Inquisition reaching India.Koenraad Elst, who read the book before he first met Goel, said about the book, "Hindus have a very good case vis-a-vis Christianity and Islam, but at present it is either not presented at all or presented very badly. This book is a departure."

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


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

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


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

A Theology for the Social Gospel


Walter Rauschenbusch - 1990
    It is here that Rauschenbusch, the father of the social gospel in the United States, articulates the theological roots of social activism that surged forth from mainline Protestant churches in the early part of the twentieth century. Skillfully examining the great theological issues of the Christian faith--sin, evil, salvation, and the kingdom of God--Rauschenbauch offers a powerful justification for the church to fully engage society.The Library of Theological Ethics series focuses on what it means to think theologically and ethically. It presents a selection of important and otherwise unavailable texts in easily accessible form. Volumes in this series will enable sustained dialogue with predecessors though reflection on classic works in the field.

Jim Crow Guide: The Way It Was


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

The Downfall of Capitalism and Communism: Can Capitalism Be Saved?


Ravi Batra - 1990
    

Nursery Rhymes


Paula Rego - 1990
    Their rhymes and insistent rhythms are part of their appeal, but so too is their disturbing mixture of comedy, innocence and cruelty. As Marina Warner writes in her introduction, ‘marvels mix with the everyday and banality meets mystery in the nursery rhyme’.No one captures this eerie combination of magic and menace better than the acclaimed painter Dame Paula Rego. Her first solo show with the prestigious Marlborough Galleries in 1989 was a series of etchings inspired by nursery rhymes. We were delighted when she agreed to create five additional etchings for a special Folio Society book of rhymes based on the renowned anthology by Peter and Iona Opie, and published in 1994. We are pleased to announce that this very collectible book is being republished, giving more Folio Society members the chance to own a copy.The illustrations are a superb evocation of the wondrous and mysterious world of classic rhymes, from ‘Little Bo Peep’ to ‘Three Blind Mice’. Sometimes Rego’s children tower over adults, elsewhere they lie like dolls, while dreamlike, beautiful scenes swirl about them. With an illustration for every rhyme and illustrations printed on the front and back boards, this is a magnificent edition that underscores the creative power of the humble nursery rhyme.

America's Fascinating Indian Heritage


Reader's Digest Association - 1990
    Meet these men and women, the memory of whom still haunts America -- and get acquainted with an integral part of our heritage -- in this honest and informative celebration of the American Indian.

World of Propensities


Karl Popper - 1990
    The first introduces a new view of causality, based on Popper's interpretation of quantum theory. The second lecture gives a glimpse of human knowledge as it evolves from animal knowledge.

Chile from Within, 1973-1988: Seen from Within


Susan Meiselas - 1990
    The Chilean photographers, whose work is reproduced here for the first time, worked for small magazines and underground newspapers, risking their lives to document the brutality of the "Pinochet years". 76 photographs.

The Economics and Sociology of Capitalism


Joseph A. Schumpeter - 1990
    Schumpeter (1883-1950) made seminal contributions not only to economic theory but also to sociology and economic history. His work is now attracting wide attention among sociologists, as well as experiencing a remarkable revival among economists. This anthology, which serves as an excellent introduction to Schumpeter, emphasizes his broad socio-economic vision and his attempt to analyze economic reality from several different perspectives. An ambitious introductory essay by Richard Swedberg uses many new sources to enhance our understanding of Schumpeter's life and work and to help analyze his fascinating character. This essay stresses Schumpeter's ability to draw on several social sciences in his study of capitalism.Some of the articles in the anthology are published for the first time. The most important of these are Schumpeter's Lowell Lectures from 1941, "An Economic Interpretation of Our Time." Also included is the transcript of his lecture "Can Capitalism Survive?" (1936) and the high-spirited debate that followed. The anthology contains many of Schumpeter's classical sociological articles, such as his essays on the tax state, imperialism, and social classes. And, finally, there are lesser known articles on the future of private enterprise, on the concept of rationality in the social sciences, and on the work of Max Weber, with whom Schumpeter collaborated on several occasions.