Best of
Society

1992

Christopher Columbus and the Afrikan Holocaust: Slavery and the Rise of European Capitalism


John Henrik Clarke - 1992
    Book by John Henrik Clarke

Nile Valley Contributions to Civilization: Exploding the Myths


Anthony T. Browder - 1992
    Tony Browder's book, Nile Valley Contributions To Civilization, is about correcting some of these misconceptions so the reader, in fact, can be introduced to a Nile Valley Civilizations in order to understand its role as the parent of future civilizations.

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World


Kevin Kelly - 1992
    Out of Control chronicles the dawn of a new era in which the machines and systems that drive our economy are so complex and autonomous as to be indistinguishable from living things.

Watch My Back: The Geoff Thompson Story


Geoff Thompson - 1992
    He took a job as a bouncer in one of Britain's roughest nightclubs. His life was never to be the same again. This is his story.

Year 501: The Conquest Continues


Noam Chomsky - 1992
    With chapters on Haiti, Latin America, the new global economic order, the Third World at home, and much more, this is a powerful treatise on the not-so-new New World Order.

An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology


Pierre Bourdieu - 1992
    Yet, despite the influence of his work, no single introduction to his wide-ranging oeuvre is available. This book, intended for an English-speaking audience, offers a systematic and accessible overview, providing interpretive keys to the internal logic of Bourdieu's work by explicating thematic and methodological principles underlying his work. The structure of Bourdieu's theory of knowledge, practice, and society is first dissected by Loic Wacquant; he then collaborates with Bourdieu in a dialogue in which they discuss central concepts of Bourdieu's work, confront the main objections and criticisms his work has met, and outline Bourdieu's views of the relation of sociology to philosophy, economics, history, and politics. The final section captures Bourdieu in action in the seminar room as he addresses the topic of how to practice the craft of reflexive sociology. Throughout, they stress Bourdieu's emphasis on reflexivity—his inclusion of a theory of intellectual practice as an integral component of a theory of society—and on method—particularly his manner of posing problems that permits a transfer of knowledge from one area of inquiry into another. Amplified by notes and an extensive bibliography, this synthetic view is essential reading for both students and advanced scholars.

Race-Ing Justice, En-Gendering Power: Essays on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, and the Construction of Social Reality


Toni Morrison - 1992
    Yet even as the televised proceedings shocked and galvanized viewers not only in this country but the world over, they cast a long shadow on essential issues that define America.In Race-ing Justice, En-gendering Power, Toni Morrison contributes an introduction and brings together eighteen provocative essays, all but one written especially for this book, by prominent and distinguished academicians—black and white, male and female. These writings powerfully elucidate not only the racial and sexual but also the historical, political, cultural, legal, psychological, and linguistic aspects of a signal and revelatory moment in American history.With contributions by:Homi K. Bhabha, Margaret A. Burnham, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Paula Giddings, A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., Claudia Brodsky Lacour, Wahneema Lubiano, Manning Marable, Nellie Y. McKay, Toni Morrison, Nell Irvin Painter, Gayle Pemberton, Andrew Ross, Christine Stansell, Carol M. Swain, Michael Thelwell, Kendall Thomas, Cornel West, Patricia J. Williams

From Alice to Ocean: Alone Across the Outback


Rick Smolan - 1992
    Her 1,700-mile solo journey across the Australian outback was a cover story in National Geographic, and her account of her trek has become a worldwide bestseller. Now the photographer who originally took the pictures for the NG story combines Davidson's text with his award winning photos, most never before published.

Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics


Jane Jacobs - 1992
    The author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities looks at business fraud and criminal enterprise, overextended government farm subsidies and zealous transit police, to show what happens when the moral systems of commerce collide with those of politics.

Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West


John Ralston Saul - 1992
    

Men's Work: How to Stop the Violence That Tears Our Lives Apart


Paul Kivel - 1992
    Acknowledging that there are no easy answers to the problem of male violence--particularly in a world that seems to thrive on aggression and physical force--Men's Work reaches straight to its root causes. In his ground-breaking work, author Paul Kivel helps men confront the political, social, and personal forces that generate and reward misogyny, hatred, anger, and violent behavior. Combining years of personal study and reflection with his work with men in the Oakland Men's Project, Men's Work presents an innovative and workable approach to stopping male violence. Kivel shows men how to reclaim the power and responsibility needed to unlearn the lessons of control and aggression.Paul Kivel is a nationally known expert on men's issues. Through his work at the Oakland Men's Project, he helps men confront and change violent behaviors and teaches alternatives to violence in their relationships. He also trains teachers, therapists, probation officers, and agency staff who work with men, exploring such topics as male/female relationships, alternatives to violence, family violence, and sexual assault. Kivel resides in Oakland, California.

Loving and Leaving the Good Life


Helen Nearing - 1992
    Loving and Leaving the Good Life is Helen's testimonial to their life together and to what they stood for: self-sufficiency, generosity, social justice, and peace.In 1932, after deciding it would be better to be poor in the country than in the city, Helen and Scott moved from New York Ciy to Vermont. Here they created their legendary homestead which they described in Living the Good Life: How to Live Simply and Sanely in a Troubled World, a book that has sold 250,000 copies and inspired thousands of young people to move back to the land.The Nearings moved to Maine in 1953, where they continued their hard physical work as homesteaders and their intense intellectual work promoting social justice. Thirty years later, as Scott approached his 100th birthday, he decided it was time to prepare for his death. He stopped eating, and six weeks later Helen held him and said goodbye.Loving and Leaving the Good Life is a vivid self-portrait of an independent, committed and gifted woman. It is also an eloquent statement of what it means to grow old and to face death quietly, peacefully, and in control. At 88, Helen seems content to be nearing the end of her good life. As she puts it, To have partaken of and to have given love is the greatest of life's rewards. There seems never an end to the loving that goes on forever and ever. Loving and leaving are part of living.Helen's death in 1995 at the age of 92 marks the end of an era. Yet as Helen writes in her remarkable memoir, When one door closes, another opens. As we search for a new understanding of the relationships between death and life, this book provides profound insights into the question of how we age and die.

The World Order: Our Secret Rulers


Eustace Clarence Mullins - 1992
    It also includes some interesting history of the major tax exempt foundations. Unfortunately, this edition does not include footnotes.

The Path to Genocide: Essays on Launching the Final Solution


Christopher R. Browning - 1992
    This authoritative account of the evolution of Nazi Jewish policy from 1939 to 1942 seeks to answer some of the fundamental questions about what actually happened and why, between the outbreak of war and the emergence of the Final Solution. Christopher Browning's account assesses the historians' interpretations and offers his own insights, based on detailed case studies that uncovered important and telling new evidence.

Over the Earth I Come: The Great Sioux Uprising of 1862


Duane P. Schultz - 1992
    On the day after Christmas, in Mankato, Minnesota, thirty-eight Indians were hanged on the order of President Lincoln. This event stands today as the greatest mass execution in the history of the United States. In Over The Earth I Come, Duane Schultz brilliantly retells one of America's most violent and bloody events--the Great Sioux Uprising of 1862.

Mortality, Immortality, and Other Life Strategies


Zygmunt Bauman - 1992
    The book develops a new theory of the ways in which human mortality is reacted to, and dealt with, in social institutions and culture. The hypothesis explored in the book is that the necessity of human beings to live with the constant awareness of death accounts for crucial aspects of the social organization of all known societies. Two different "life strategies" are distinguished in respect of reactions to mortality. One, "the modern strategy," deconstructs mortality by translating the insoluble issue of death into many specific problems of health disease which are "soluble in principle." The "post-modern strategy," is one of deconstructing immortality: life is transformed into a constant rehearsal of "reversible death," a substitution of "temporary disappearance" for the irrevocable termination of life.This profound and provocative book will appeal to a wide audience. It will also be of particular interest to students and professionals in the areas of sociology, anthropology, theology, and philosophy.

SAS Urban Survival Handbook


John Wiseman - 1992
    It shows the dangers of DIY tools, chemicals and poisonous plants in your home and garden and gives help and strategies for home security and fire prevention. It also includes sections on avoiding accidents and injury at work and in sports, dealing with travel dangers, self-defence from all kinds of attack from telephone nuisance to rape and mugging, plus first aid and how to save a life.

Homestead: The Glory and Tragedy of an American Steel Town


William Serrin - 1992
    Homestead was a town made by steel, and its history is that of a mighty corporation, a bloody strike, and a bloodless but very real civic death in 1986, when the last plant closed. Photos. rint.

Above the Clouds: Status Culture of the Modern Japanese Nobility


Takie Sugiyama Lebra - 1992
    Established as a class at the beginning of the Meiji period, the kazoku ranked directly below the emperor and his family. Officially dissolved in 1947, this group of social elites is still generally perceived as nobility. Lebra gained entry into this tightly knit circle and conducted more than one hundred interviews with its members. She has woven together a reconstructive ethnography from their life histories to create an intimate portrait of a remote and archaic world.As Lebra explores the culture of the kazoku, she places each subject in its historical context. She analyzes the evolution of status boundaries and the indispensable role played by outsiders.But this book is not simply about the elite. It is also about commoners and how each stratum mirrors the other. Revealing previously unobserved complexities in Japanese society, it also sheds light on the universal problem of social stratification.

War and Society in Early Modern Europe, 1495-1715


Frank Tallett - 1992
    Rather than looking at tactics and strategy, it aims to set warfare in social and institutional contexts. Focusing on the early-modern period in western Europe, Frank Tallett gives an insight into the armies and shows how warfare had an impact on different social groups, as well as on the economy and on patterns of settlement.

The Cambridge Cultural History of Britain, Volume 6: The Romantic Age in Britain


Boris Ford - 1992
    Uniquely, it also reveals the cultural and social setting in which the writers, musicians, architects and artists of the age worked. This period was one of transformation, characterised by the growth of industry, new scientific discoveries and inventions, an upsurge in population and the emergence of a new bourgeoisie and working class. In the arts, Blake, Keats, Wordsworth, Turner, Constable and Nash were prominent, while the cult of Handel flourished in musical circles. The novel flowered with Jane Austen, Dickens and Scott, and British crafts and manufacturing design went on show in the Great Exhibition as products of 'the workshop of the world'. An introductory chapter offers a cultural and social backdrop to the period. Fully illustrated chapters follow, written by foremost specialists. One major branch of the arts is explored in each. Special topics include the transformation of the British countryside by the Enclosure movement, and the founding of the Athenaeum Club in London. This is a unique bringing-together in a single volume of all the main strands of creative life of the Romantic age in Britain.

First & Last Emperors: The Absolute State and the Body of the Despot


Kenneth Dean - 1992
    schizoanalysis: Reagan/Bush vs 1st Chinese Empire

American Mythologies


Marshall Blonsky - 1992
    Logging the air miles from Tokyo, Hong Kong, London, Paris, Milan, Moscow, and Beverly Hills, Blonsky tells a mischievous, impudent tale of life and thought at the top of the cultural tower. When Russian TV star Vladimir Pozner calls him an agent (in whose service, he doesn't know) he toucheson a device of this book. The author made himself a protean character, a soft-outlined creature now giving advice to Nightline producers, now pitching in on a porn shoot, now falling in behind Donald Trump on the dais of a Reagan banquet. He lived four years like an inquiring Rohrschach test, making his subjects show and tell too much--and thus give away the store. He tricked me, seduced me, Merv Griffin said after the encounter. But the author is too mercurial to be merely a trickster. He is more a kind of Don Quixote travelling across our landscape of ugliness and deadly play, convening what is, in effect, a global town-meeting. TV anchors, artists, film directors, designers, photographers, writers, and editors: what they comprise is no less than a hidden order--a cultural power structure as important as the economic one. Whether grave, frivolous, boastful, or drunk, they enable us to grasp the logic of the ethicaland cultural systems they are concocting to suit our new age of faxes and cellular phones, laptops and robots. They are creating a United States of Capitalism, an archipelago of privilege in a sea of misery. Who's in this archipelago? Who's out? American Mythologies decodes the unforeseen shiftsin world power (including America's much debated decline) while sketching in the coming shape of the world.

The Facts of Life: Science and the Abortion Controversy


Harold J. Morowitz - 1992
    Sensitive to the myriad ethical and religious arguments beyond the realm of science that swirl around abortion, the authors focus on one crucial question--when does a fetus acquire humanness, that quality that sets us apart from all other living things. While humans are linked via cell structure and cell chemistry with all life on our planet--from monkeys to fruit flys to pumpkins--it is the human brain structure which makes us who we are. Reviewing the latest advances in molecular biology, evolutionary biology, embryology, neurophysiology, and neonatology--fields that all bear on this question--the authors reveal a surprising consensus of scientific opinion; that humanness begins around the twenty-forth week of gestation when connections needed for brain function are finally made. A fascinating inquiry, moving across various scientific disciplines, The Facts of Life makes a valuable contribution to the continuing abortion controversy, and offers a fascinating glimpse of what makes us uniquely human.

Human Societies


Anthony Giddens - 1992