Best of
Society

2004

Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism and its Triumphs


John Pilger - 2004
    The book - a selection of articles, broadcasts and books extracts that revealed important and disturbing truths - ranges from across many of the critical events, scandals and struggles of the past fifty years. Along the way it bears witness to epic injustices committed against the peoples of Vietnam, Cambodia, East Timor and Palestine. John Pilger sets each piece of reporting in its context and introduces the collection with a passionate essay arguing that the kind of journalism he celebrates here is being subverted by the very forces that ought to be its enemy. Taken as a whole, the book tells an extraordinary 'secret history' of the modern era. It is also a call to arms to journalists everywhere - before it is too late.

A Short History of Progress


Ronald Wright - 2004
    The twentieth century—a time of unprecedented progress—has produced a tremendous strain on the very elements that comprise life itself: This raises the key question of the twenty-first century: How much longer can this go on? With wit and erudition, Ronald Wright lays out a-convincing case that history has always provided an answer, whether we care to notice or not. From Neanderthal man to the Sumerians to the Roman Empire, A Short History of Progress dissects the cyclical nature of humanity's development and demise, the 10,000-year old experiment that we've unleashed but have yet to control. It is Wright's contention that only by understanding and ultimately breaking from the patterns of progress and disaster that humanity has repeated around the world since the Stone Age can we avoid the onset of a new Dark Age. Wright illustrates how various cultures throughout history have literally manufactured their own end by producing an overabundance of innovation and stripping bare the very elements that allowed them to initially advance. Wright's book is brilliant; a fascinating rumination on the hubris at the heart of human development and the pitfalls we still may have time to avoid.

Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity


Lawrence Lessig - 2004
    Never before have the cultural powers- that-be been able to exert such control over what we can and can't do with the culture around us. Our society defends free markets and free speech; why then does it permit such top-down control? To lose our long tradition of free culture, Lawrence Lessig shows us, is to lose our freedom to create, our freedom to build, and, ultimately, our freedom to imagine.

The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear


Paul Rogat Loeb - 2004
    In THE IMPOSSIBLE WILL TAKE A LITTLE WHILE, a phrase borrowed from Billie Holliday, the editor of Soul of a Citizen brings together fifty stories and essays that range across nations, eras, wars, and political movements.Danusha Goska, an Indiana activist with a paralyzing physical disability, writes about overcoming political immobilization, drawing on her history with the Peace Corps and Mother Teresa. Vaclav Havel, the former president of the Czech Republic, finds value in seemingly doomed or futile actions taken by oppressed peoples.Rosemarie Freeney Harding recalls the music that sustained the civil rights movement, and Paxus Calta-Star recounts the powerful vignette of an 18-year-old who launched the overthrow of Bulgaria’s dictatorship.Many of the essays are new, others classic works that continue to inspire. Together, these writers explore a path of heartfelt community involvement that leads beyond despair to compassion and hope. The voices collected in THE IMPOSSIBLE WILL TAKE A LITTLE WHILE will help keep us all working for a better world despite the obstacles.

Living a Life of Inner Peace


Eckhart Tolle - 2004
    Beyond the information that is being conveyed, something deeper happens. For the listener, a field of alert stillness arises where before there was mental noise, signaling the entry to a state of presence that precedes transformation.While Tolle's writing is not simple, he does not "speak down" to his audience in any way — his talks are far more informal, relaxed, and funny. Tolle makes people laugh at themselves, with the result being powerfully effective therapy. Living a Life of Inner Peace records one of Tolle's most moving, transformative talks. For those new to his teachings, this is an ideal introduction. Those familiar with his work, including the bestsellers The Power of Now and Stillness Speaks, should be prepared for something extraordinary.

The Lost Amazon


Wade Davis - 2004
    Schultes chronicled his stay there in hundreds of remarkable photographs of the tribes and the land, evocative of the great documentary photographers such as Edward Sheriff Curtis. Published to coincide with a traveling exhibition to debut at the Govinda Gallery in Washington, D.C., The Lost Amazon is the first major publication to examine the work of Dr. Schultes, as seen through his photographs and field notes. With text by Schultes's protege and fellow explorer, Wade Davis, this impressive document takes armchair travelers where they've never gone before.

The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them


Amy Goodman - 2004
    Her goal is "to go where the silence is, to give voice to the silenced majority," and she is fond of quoting Margaret Mead: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." This book informs and empowers people to act on that principle. For years, Amy Goodman has confronted the Washington establishment and its corporate cronies while giving voice to the voiceless. She hosts the national radio and TV show Democracy Now!, which began in 1996 and is now the largest media collaboration in public broadcasting in North America. Democracy Now! is not just a show-it's a movement.

Let America be America Again and Other Poems


Langston Hughes - 2004
    That was the essence of the life an poetry of Langston Hughes.”—Senator John Kerry, from the PrefaceA beautifully designed collection of some of the greatest poems by a quintessentially American poet, whose theme of the promise of American inclusiveness continues to ring true.Langston Hughes was uncommonly attuned to the ideals of freedom and democracy and the sometimes elusive American dream. The poems collected here offer a hopeful, truly democratic vision for America. Incantatory and stirring, passionate and provocative, they are as resonant for our times as they were over half a century ago.Contents:“Let America Be America Again,” “Dream of Freedom,” “America,” “Search,” “Some Day,” “In Time of Silver Rain,” “Dare,” “Give Us Our Peace,” “I Dream a World.”

Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations, and Society


Peter M. Senge - 2004
    In wide-ranging conversations held over a year and a half, organizational learning pioneers Peter Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers explored the nature of transformational change--how it arises, and the fresh possibilities it offers a world dangerously out of balance. The book introduces the idea of "presence"--a concept borrowed from the natural world that the whole is entirely present in any of its parts--to the worlds of business, education, government, and leadership. Too often, the authors found, we remain stuck in old patterns of seeing and acting. By encouraging deeper levels of learning, we create an awareness of the larger whole, leading to actions that can help to shape its evolution and our future.Drawing on the wisdom and experience of 150 scientists, social leaders, and entrepreneurs, including Brian Arthur, Rupert Sheldrake, Buckminster Fuller, Lao Tzu, and Carl Jung, Presence is both revolutionary in its exploration and hopeful in its message. This astonishing and completely original work goes on to define the capabilities that underlie our ability to see, sense, and realize new possibilities--in ourselves, in our institutions and organizations, and in society itself.

The Working Poor: Invisible in America


David K. Shipler - 2004
    Shipler makes clear in this powerful, humane study, the invisible poor are engaged in the activity most respected in American ideology—hard, honest work. But their version of the American Dream is a nightmare: low-paying, dead-end jobs; the profound failure of government to improve upon decaying housing, health care, and education; the failure of families to break the patterns of child abuse and substance abuse. Shipler exposes the interlocking problems by taking us into the sorrowful, infuriating, courageous lives of the poor—white and black, Asian and Latino, citizens and immigrants. We encounter them every day, for they do jobs essential to the American economy.We meet drifting farmworkers in North Carolina, exploited garment workers in New Hampshire, illegal immigrants trapped in the steaming kitchens of Los Angeles restaurants, addicts who struggle into productive work from the cruel streets of the nation's capital—each life another aspect of a confounding, far-reaching urgent national crisis. And unlike mostworks on poverty, this one delves into the calculations of some employers as well—their razor-thin profits, their anxieties about competition from abroad, their frustrations in finding qualified workers.This impassioned book not only dissects the problems, but makes pointed, informed recommendations for change. It is a book that stands to make a difference.

Interaction Ritual Chains


Randall Collins - 2004
    And yet, argues sociologist Randall Collins, they and much else in our social lives are driven by a common force: interaction rituals. Interaction Ritual Chains is a major work of sociological theory that attempts to develop a “radical microsociology.” It proposes that successful rituals create symbols of group membership and pump up individuals with emotional energy, while failed rituals drain emotional energy. Each person flows from situation to situation, drawn to those interactions where their cultural capital gives them the best emotional energy payoff. Thinking, too, can be explained by the internalization of conversations within the flow of situations; individual selves are thoroughly and continually social, constructed from the outside in.The first half of Interaction Ritual Chains is based on the classic analyses of Durkheim, Mead, and Goffman and draws on micro-sociological research on conversation, bodily rhythms, emotions, and intellectual creativity. The second half discusses how such activities as sex, smoking, and social stratification are shaped by interaction ritual chains. For example, the book addresses the emotional and symbolic nature of sexual exchanges of all sorts — from hand-holding to masturbation to sexual relationships with prostitutes — while describing the interaction rituals they involve. This book will appeal not only to psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists, but to those in fields as diverse as human sexuality, religious studies, and literary theory.

Animal Farm


Ian Wooldridge - 2004
    “Dare I say it . . . as good as the book.”—Guardian

The Church and the Market: A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy


Thomas E. Woods Jr. - 2004
    Woods Jr. makes a vigorous argument in favor of the market economy from a Catholic perspective. Filling a lapse in the debate on the role of religious thought in economic theory, Woods's uncompromising position, informed by the history of Catholic economic thought, shows that the long-seen contradiction between Catholic faith and support for the market economy does not exist. With attention to detail on almost all aspects of the free market, from the Federal Reserve System and inflation to antitrust legislation and labor issues, this book provides essential background for anyone interested in balancing issues of social conscience with modern economic principles.

Sex Is Not the Problem (Lust Is) - A Study Guide for Men


Joshua Harris - 2004
    They’re designed for a variety of settings, from one-on-one accountability partnerships to Sunday school classes. Sex Is Not the Problem (Lust Is) made the statement that lust is a human problem (not just a guy problem) and that Jesus can free anyone from its power. Going further, these gender-specific study guides feature questions and discussion starters that directly address the temptations unique to men and women. These resources are a must-have for anyone challenged to defeat lust and celebrate purity in their lives. Experience Victory Along the Journey to Holiness Based on his bestselling message in Sex Is Not the Problem (Lust Is), Joshua Harris offers a companion study guide specifically designed to address the issues men face. Versatile in nature, this study guide can be used in one-on-one accountability or in a church group setting. “ Joshua Harris has done it again. Sex Is Not the Problem (Lust Is) contains the undiluted biblical truth on a vital topic, served up with honesty and humility.” —C. J. Mahaney Author of The Cross Centered Life Each of the ten small-group sessions includes:    • Easy Review: A quick chapter summary makes review simple.    • Discussion Questions: Questions that serve as icebreakers, and then lead to deeper discussion and personal application.    • Accountability Follow-Up: Questions to help check each other’s progress in a truthful and caring setting.    • Meditate and Memorize: Key Scriptures that will help men gain victory over lust.    • Custom-Tailored Action Plan: Men will be led in a step-by-step formulation of an Action Plan, uniquely tailored to combat their specific battles. Story Behind the Book“I was preparing a message on lust when I realized that the book I wanted to consult hadn’t been written. That book would make it clear that only Jesus Christ can free us from the hopeless treadmill of shame and guilt that so many well-intentioned people end up on. It would instill a love for holiness and a hatred for sin without dragging the reader’s imagination through the gutter. And it would be for both men and women, because I’ve learned that lust isn’t just a guy problem—it’s a human problem.” —Joshua Harris

Ain't No Makin' It: Aspirations and Attainment in a Low-Income Neighborhood


Jay MacLeod - 2004
    MacLeod's return eight years later, and the resulting 1995 revision, revealed little improvement in the lives of these men as they struggled in the labor market and crime-ridden underground economy. This classic ethnography addresses one of the most important issues in modern social theory and policy: how social inequality is reproduced from one generation to the next. Now republished with a preface by Joe Feagin, Ain't No Makin' It remains an admired and invaluable text.

The Terror Timeline: Year by Year, Day by Day, Minute by Minute: A Comprehensive Chronicle of the Road to 9/11--and America's Response


Paul Thompson - 2004
    investigations and counterterrorism efforts. It traces the actions (and inactions) of every important figure in the war on terror, both before and after 9/11, bringing them together in a volume that offers a comprehensive and provocative look at this complex subject. Packed with little-known facts and disturbing questions, The Terror Timeline is the first complete reference guide to the events of 9/11 and the war on terror -- the definitive primer on the most momentous issue of our times.

The Place of Enchantment: British Occultism and the Culture of the Modern


Alex Owen - 2004
    The radical ideas of Charles Darwin had shaken traditional religious beliefs. Sigmund Freud was developing his innovative models of the conscious and unconscious mind. And anthropologist James George Frazer was subjecting magic, myth, and ritual to systematic inquiry. Why, then, in this quintessentially modern moment, did late-Victorian and Edwardian men and women become absorbed by metaphysical quests, heterodox spiritual encounters, and occult experimentation?In answering this question for the first time, The Place of Enchantment breaks new ground in its consideration of the role of occultism in British culture prior to World War I. Rescuing occultism from its status as an "irrational indulgence" and situating it at the center of British intellectual life, Owen argues that an involvement with the occult was a leitmotif of the intellectual avant-garde. Carefully placing a serious engagement with esotericism squarely alongside revolutionary understandings of rationality and consciousness, Owen demonstrates how a newly psychologized magic operated in conjunction with the developing patterns of modern life. She details such fascinating examples of occult practice as the sex magic of Aleister Crowley, the pharmacological experimentation of W. B. Yeats, and complex forms of astral clairvoyance as taught in secret and hierarchical magical societies like the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.Through a remarkable blend of theoretical discussion and intellectual history, Owen has produced a work that moves far beyond a consideration of occultists and their world. Bearing directly on our understanding of modernity, her conclusions will force us to rethink the place of the irrational in modern culture. “An intelligent, well-argued and richly detailed work of cultural history that offers a substantial contribution to our understanding of Britain.”—Nick Freeman, Washington Times

You Have What It Takes: What Every Father Needs to Know


John Eldredge - 2004
    Now this small book goes a step further, encouraging fathers to pass this insight on to their children. It is not by accident, contends John Eldredge, that little boys dream of being heroes and little girls dream of being rescued by a prince. It is woven into the very fiber of the sexes. Men struggle with this most pivotal role, and Eldredge's writing is the affirmation and encouragement each man needs.Eldredge gives fathers a look inside both themselves and their sons and daughters, encouraging them to give their children permission to be who God designed them to be.

Nature's Way: Native Wisdom for Living in Balance with the Earth


Ed McGaa - 2004
    He then offers everyday lessons and values gleaned from Nature that endure for all times and people.In this call for spiritual awakening, McGaa explains how we can create a new global culture based not on dominance over nature for economic and political gain, but on values that endure for all times and all people. Nature's Way explores Native American belief systems, oppression of Native Americans by the dominant society, the desacralisation of Nature, and the complicity of institutional religion.Taking on religion, politics, and culture, McGaa provides a template for readers – a path designed by Nature that anyone can follow. Using the lessons of eagle, bear, lion, wolf, orca, owl, tiger, buffalo, rat, deer – even the cottonwood tree, Nature's Way teaches all of us how we can overcome religious intolerance, treat women and men equally, preserve our environment, and live in peace.

Ethnicity Without Groups


Rogers Brubaker - 2004
    Journalists, policymakers, and researchers routinely frame accounts of ethnic, racial, and national conflict as the struggles of internally homogeneous, externally bounded ethnic groups, races, and nations. In doing so, they unwittingly adopt the language of participants in such struggles, and contribute to the reification of ethnic groups.In this timely and provocative volume, Rogers Brubaker--well known for his work on immigration, citizenship, and nationalism--challenges this pervasive and commonsense "groupism." But he does not simply revert to standard constructivist tropes about the fluidity and multiplicity of identity. Once a bracing challenge to conventional wisdom, constructivism has grown complacent, even cliched. That ethnicity is constructed is commonplace; this volume provides new insights into how it is constructed. By shifting the analytical focus from identity to identifications, from groups as entities to group-making projects, from shared culture to categorization, from substance to process, Brubaker shows that ethnicity, race, and nation are not things in the world but perspectives on the world: ways of seeing, interpreting, and representing the social world.

For the Love of India: The Life and Times of Jamsetji Tata


R.M. Lala - 2004
    Yet the projects he envisioned laid the foundation for the nation's development once it became independent. More extraordinary still, these institutions continue to set the pace for others in their respective areas. For, among his many achievements are the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, which has groomed some of the country's best scientists, the Tata Steel plant in Jamshedpur, which marked the country's transition from trading to manufacturing, his pioneering hydro-electric project, and the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai, one of the finest in the world. In these as in other projects he undertook, Jamsetji revealed the unerring instinct of a man who knew what it would take to restore the pride of a subjugated nation and help it prepare for a place among the leading nations of the world once it came into its own. The scale of the projects required abilities of a high order. In some cases it was sheer perseverance that paid off "as with finding a suitable site for the steel project. In others, such as the Indian Institute of Science, it was his exceptional persuasive skills and patience that finally got him the approval of a reluctant viceroy, Lord Curzon. In For the Love of India, R.M. Lala has drawn upon fresh material from the India Office Library in London and other archives, as also Jamsetji's letters, to portray the man and his age. It is an absorbing account that makes clear how remarkable Jamsetji's achievement truly was, and why, even now, one hundred years after his death, he seems like a man well ahead of the times.

Defending a Higher Law: Why We Must Resist Same-Sex "Marriage" and the Homosexual Movement


TFP Committee of American Issues - 2004
    The new TFP work is titled Defending a Higher Law: Why We Must Resist Same-Sex "Marriage" and the Homosexual Movement. Written by TFP's Committee on American Issues, the 212-page book is a much needed defense of traditional marriage based on Catholic tradition and natural law. It is a powerful and incisive attack on the myths buttressing homosexual agenda.

The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge


John D. Leonard - 2004
    An indispensable resource for every home, office, dorm room, and library, The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge includes insightful sidebars by Times writers, and covers major categories including art, astronomy, business, sports, history, medicine, philosophy, photography, biology, film, and much more!Years in the making, this one volume is designed to offer more information than any other book on the most popular subjects as well as providing easy-to-access data vital for everyday living. It is the only comprehensive reference book to include authoritative, engaging in-depth essays from experts in almost every field of endeavor, with innovative cross-referencing to allow for to even greater understanding.Featuring:- Biographical dictionary of nearly one thousand of the most important people of every field- Writers Guide to grammar, usage and style- The United States Constitution- The most complete sports section of any one-volume reference book- A thirty-thousand-word history of the world - Crossword dictionaryContributors include:- Jane Brody on health matters- Dennis Overbye on the Big Bang - Linda Greenhouse on the Supreme Court today - Andrew Revkin on the state of the world's environment- John Noble Wilford on the oldest human fossil - Michael Kimmelman on the origins of photography- Will Shortz on crosswords- Natalie Angier on war- Nicholas Wade on how life began

Nine Commentaries On The Communist Party


The Epoch Group - 2004
    It is a final verdict on the CCP, and has been spreading very rapidly in China. During the 80-year history of the CCP, its lies, dictatorship, various political movements and crackdowns have wreaked unprecedented havoc in the land of China and caused irrevocable destruction to the traditional values and morality of the Chinese nation. In today¡¯s China, under the CCP¡¯s violent and despotic rule, social tension is extremely high, and crises have been emerging one after another. The Chinese communist regime is seated on a live volcano that may evaporate at any moment. Since its publication, The Nine Commentaries have posed the most serious challenge ever to the CCP¡¯s ideology. It has profoundly touched the hearts of many Chinese people in China and around the world. It is bound to bring about the rebirth of the nation¡¯s soul. Commentary 1: On What the Communist Party Is Commentary 2: On the Beginnings of the Chinese Communist Party Commentary 3: On the Tyranny of the Chinese Communist Party Commentary 4: On How the Communist Party Is an Anti-Universe Force Commentary 5: On the Collusion of Jiang Zemin and the Communist Party to Persecute Falun-Gong Commentary 6: On How the Chinese Communist Party Destroyed Traditional Culture Commentary 7: On How the Chinese Communist Party 's History of Killing Commentary 8: On How the Chinese Communist Party is an Evil Cult Commentary 9: On the Unscrupulous Nature of the Chinese Communist Party

Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law


Martha C. Nussbaum - 2004
    Nussbaum argues that the thought-content of disgust embodies magical ideas of contamination, and impossible aspirations to purity that are just not in line with human life as we know it. She argues that disgust should never be the basis for criminalizing an act, or play either the aggravating or the mitigating role in criminal law it currently does. She writes that we should be similarly suspicious of what she calls primitive shame, a shame at the very fact of human imperfection, and she is harshly critical of the role that such shame plays in certain punishments.Drawing on an extraordinarily rich variety of philosophical, psychological, and historical references--from Aristotle and Freud to Nazi ideas about purity--and on legal examples as diverse as the trials of Oscar Wilde and the Martha Stewart insider trading case, this is a major work of legal and moral philosophy.

Politics: Observations and Arguments, 1966-2004


Hendrik Hertzberg - 2004
    Arranged thematically, each section contains the choicest, most illuminating pieces from his body of work and begins with a new piece of writing that frames the subject at hand. A tour of the defining moments of American life from the mid-’60s to the mid- ’00s, Politics is at once the story of American life from LBJ to GWB and a testament to the power of the written word.

The Meritocracy Myth


Stephen J. McNamee - 2004
    Fully revised and updated throughout, the second edition includes compelling new case studies, such as the impact of social and cultural capital in the cases of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and new material on current topics such as the impact of the financial and credit crisis, intergenerational mobility, and the impact of racism and sexism. The Meritocracy Myth examines talent, attitude, work ethic, and character as elements of merit and evaluates the effect of non-merit factors such as social status, race, heritage, and wealth on meritocracy. A compelling book on an often-overlooked topic, the first edition was highly regarded and proved a useful examination of this classic American ideal.

After Method: Mess in Social Science Research


John Law - 2004
    The implications of this argument are highly significant. If this is the case, methods are always political, and it raises the question of what kinds of social realities we want to create.Most current methods look for clarity and precision. It is usually said that only poor research produces messy findings, and the idea that things in the world might be fluid, elusive, or multiple is unthinkable. Law's startling argument is that this is wrong and it is time for a new approach. Many realities, he says, are vague and ephemeral. If methods want to know and help to shape the world, then they need to reinvent themselves and their politics to deal with mess. That is the challenge. Nothing less will do.

The Origin and Evolution of Cultures


Robert Boyd - 2004
    Their interdisciplinary research is based on two notions. First, that culture is crucial for understanding human behavior; unlike other organisms, socially transmitted beliefs, attitudes, and values heavily influence our behavior. Secondly, culture is part of biology: the capacity to acquire and transmit culture is a derived component of human psychology, and the contents of culture are deeply intertwined with our biology. Culture then is a pool of information, stored in the brains of the population that gets transmitted from one brain to another by social learning processes. Therefore, culture can account for both our outstanding ecological success as well as the maladaptations that characterize much of human behavior. The interest in this collection will span anthropology, psychology, economics, philosophy, and political science.

We Do: A Celebration of Gay and Lesbian Marriage


Gavin Newsom - 2004
    But when San Francisco's mayor, Gavin Newsom, ordered City Hall to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples on February 12th, thousands of gays and lesbians from around the world lined up to take their vows, inspiring other cities to follow suit. As intense public debate continues, We Do is an intimate portrait of these history-making weddings. A many-splendored thing, love is captured here in all its joy and diversity. Drawing on ceremonies from around the country, here are weddings both traditional and unconventional, whether the brides and grooms are in flowing white gowns, business suits, or blue jeans. The result is a touching album of happy couples, from the two lesbians who've been together 51 years to dads with babes in arms. A joyful celebration, We Do stands witness to the fact that we are all created equal in love.

Social Theory


Hans Joas - 2004
    This book offers a unique overview of the development of social theory from the end of the Second World War in 1945 to the present day. Spanning the literature in English, French and German, it provides an excellent background to the most important social theorists and theories in contemporary sociological thought, with crisp summaries of the main books, arguments and controversies. It also deals with newly emerging schools from rational choice to symbolic interactionism, with new ambitious approaches (Habermas, Luhmann, Giddens, Bourdieu), structuralism and antistructuralism, critical revisions of modernization theory, feminism and neopragmatism. Written by two of the world's leading sociologists and based on their extensive academic teaching, this unrivalled work is ideal both for students in the social sciences and humanities and for anyone interested in contemporary theoretical debates.

Jose Maria Sison: At Home in the World: Portrait of a Revolutionary


Ninotchka Rosca - 2004
    This collaboration between Sison and American Book Award winning novelist, Ninotchka Rosca, goes far to illuminate the political climate and history of the United States' role in Filipino politics. In the frank exchange between Sison and Rosca regarding the Filipino revolutionary movement, the issues of women's rights and empowerment within the CCP, as well as ethnicity, class, age and education, are also addressed. In light of the upcoming US presidential election and the controversy surrounding terrorism and the Bush Administration, Jose Maria Sison: At Home in the World - Portrait of a Revolutionary is a book that can offer the "other side" of the story, chronicling the life of a Filipino revolutionary, his political party and his country, untouched and unfiltered by outside political propaganda.

The Impact of Inequality: How to Make Sick Societies Healthier


Richard G. Wilkinson - 2004
    Richard Wilkinson, a pioneering social scientist, addresses the growing feeling--so common in the United States--that modern societies, despite their material success, are social failures. The Impact of Inequality explains why inequality has such devastating effects on the quality and length of our lives.Wilkinson shows that inequality leads to stress, stress creates sickness on the individual and mass level, and overall society suffers widespread unhappiness and high levels of violence, depression, and mistrust across the social spectrum. The evidence he presents is incontrovertible: social and political equality are essential to improve life for everyone. Wilkinson argues that even small reductions in inequality can make an important difference--for, as this book explains, social relations are always built on material foundations.

Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown v. Board of Education


Danielle S. Allen - 2004
    Today it has blossomed into a fundamental precept of civic education, reflecting interracial distrust, personal and political alienation, and a profound suspicion of others. In this powerful and eloquent essay, Danielle Allen, a 2002 MacArthur Fellow, takes this maxim back to Little Rock, rooting out the seeds of distrust to replace them with "a citizenship of political friendship." Returning to the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954 and to the famous photograph of Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine, being cursed by fellow "citizen" Hazel Bryan, Allen argues that we have yet to complete the transition to political friendship that this moment offered. By combining brief readings of philosophers and political theorists with personal reflections on race politics in Chicago, Allen proposes strikingly practical techniques of citizenship. These tools of political friendship, Allen contends, can help us become more trustworthy to others and overcome the fossilized distrust among us. Sacrifice is the key concept that bridges citizenship and trust, according to Allen. She uncovers the ordinary, daily sacrifices citizens make to keep democracy working—and offers methods for recognizing and reciprocating those sacrifices. Trenchant, incisive, and ultimately hopeful, Talking to Strangers is nothing less than a manifesto for a revitalized democratic citizenry.

No Smoking


Luc Sante - 2004
    How many celebrities today dare to even hold one? No Smoking is a tribute to the 20th century, a century that created, promoted, and glorified the cigarette and then suddenly declared war on it.

Nature: An Economic History


Geerat J. Vermeij - 2004
    This universal truth unites three bodies of thought--economics, evolution, and history--that have developed largely in mutual isolation. Here, Geerat Vermeij undertakes a groundbreaking and provocative exploration of the facts and theories of biology, economics, and geology to show how processes common to all economic systems--competition, cooperation, adaptation, and feedback--govern evolution as surely as they do the human economy, and how historical patterns in both human and nonhuman evolution follow from this principle.Using a wealth of examples of evolutionary innovations, Vermeij argues that evolution and economics are one. Powerful consumers and producers exercise disproportionate controls on the characteristics, activities, and distribution of all life forms. Competition-driven demand by consumers, when coupled with supply-side conditions permitting economic growth, leads to adaptation and escalation among organisms. Although disruptions in production halt or reverse these processes temporarily, they amplify escalation in the long run to produce trends in all economic systems toward greater power, higher production rates, and a wider reach for economic systems and their strongest members.Despite our unprecedented power to shape our surroundings, we humans are subject to all the economic principles and historical trends that emerged at life's origin more than 3 billion years ago. Engagingly written, brilliantly argued, and sweeping in scope, Nature: An Economic History shows that the human institutions most likely to preserve opportunity and adaptability are, after all, built like successful living things.

Introduction to Political Psychology


Martha Cottam - 2004
    The authors introduce readers to a broad range of theories, concepts, and case studies of political activity to illustrate that behavior. The book examines many patterns of political behaviors, including leadership, group behavior, voting, race, ethnicity, nationalism, terrorism, war, and genocide. It explores some of the most horrific things people do to one another for political purposes, as well as how to prevent and resolve conflict -- and how to recover from it. The goal is to help the reader understand the enormous complexity of human behavior and the significant role political psychology can play in improving the human condition.The book contains numerous pedagogical features, including text boxes highlighting current and historical events to help students see the connection between the world around them and the concepts they are learning. Different research methodologies used in the discipline are employed, such as experimentation and content analysis. The "Political Being" is used throughout to remind the reader of the psychological theories and concepts to be explored in each chapter.New to the second edition is coverage of recent political events, including the 2008 US presidential election, Darfur, Iraq, and Afghanistan. There are now separate chapters on race, ethnic conflicts, terrorism, and conflict resolution. In addition, instructor resources are available online.This accessible and engaging introductory textbook is suitable as a primary text on a range of upper-level courses in political psychology, political behavior, and related fields, including policymaking.

What Are Old People For?: How Elders Will Save the World


William H. Thomas - 2004
    Nodding to popular culture, history, science, and literature, a passionate and persuasive case is made for removing our ageist blinders and seeing old age as a developmental stage of life.

Dreaming to Some Purpose: The Autobiography of Colin Wilson


Colin Wilson - 2004
    He never went to university, let alone Oxbridge, yet wrote The Outsider, a brilliant account of the pain of being alive today, when he was just twenty-four. It sold millions of copies around the world, and he was acclaimed as one of the leading intellectuals of the age, finding a huge audience with the anti-establishment, alternative and underground thinkers. Because of his radically new attitudes he was - with John Osborne - dubbed an 'angry young man' in the article that originally coined that phrase. In this way a young man from a working class background suddenly found himself moving in the most colourful literary and artistic circles of the day. In his autobiography he tells stories about, among others, Aldous Huxley, Angus Wilson, John Osborne, Kingsley Amis, Kenneth Tynan, Francis Bacon and Norman Mailer - all observed with a true outsider's eye for absurdity. He is regarded by many as a true literary hero - Julian Cope stopped a recent concert to pay tribute to Wilson who as sitting in the audience and Donovan Leitch dedicates his new autobiography to him - but he also has huge mass market appeal. His insightful, brilliant books on the Occult, the Mysteries and Atlantis and the Sphinx were all huge bestsellers netting millions of copies. In this return to the themes of The Outsider, looked at from the point of his own life story, he again proves himself one of the great intellectuals of our age, never ceasing to wrestle with the great questions of life and death, and writing with an erudition and an easy way with ideas that is rare in English literary life.

The Acquisitive Society


R.H. Tawney - 2004
    Arguing that material acquisitiveness is morally wrong and a corrupting social influence, the author draws upon his profound knowledge of labor and politics to show how concentrated wealth distorts economic policies. Colorful but credible, this study offers a timeless vision of alternative means toward a just economic, social, and intellectual order.

Global Assemblages


Aihwa Ong - 2004
     Offers a ground-breaking approach to central debates about globalization with chapters written by leading scholars from across the social sciences. Examines a range of phenomena that articulate broad structural transformations: technoscience, circuits of exchange, systems of governance, and regimes of ethics or values. Investigates these phenomena from the perspective of the "anthropological" problems they pose. Covers a broad range of geographical areas: Africa, the Middle East, East and South Asia, North America, South America, and Europe. Grapples with a number of empirical problems of popular and academic interest -- from the organ trade, to accountancy, to pharmaceutical research, to neoliberal reform.

Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities


Michael S. Kimmel - 2004
    The Handbook provides a broad view of masculinities primarily across the social sciences, with the inclusion of important debates in some areas of the humanities and natural sciences. The various approaches presented in this Handbook range across different disciplines, theoretical perspectives, methodologies, and conceptualizations in relation to the topic of men. Editors Michael S. Kimmel, Jeff Hearn, and Robert W. Connell have assembled an esteemed group of contributors who are among the best-known experts in their particular fields.

Weighing Lives


John Broome - 2004
    These are choices both for individuals and for societies. We have to choose between the convenience to ourselves of road and air travel, and the lives of the future people who will be killed by the global warming we cause. We make choices that affect how many lives there will be in the future: as individuals we choose how many children to have, and societies choose tax policies that influence people's choices about having children. How should we weigh lives? John Broome develops a theoretical basis for answering this practical question. Using some of the precise methods of economic theory (accessible without mathematical expertise), Broome's conclusions will be highly significant for political theorists and economists as well as for philosophers, and anyone concerned with the value of life.

Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End


Rosabeth Moss Kanter - 2004
    . . and stay that way. Is success simply a matter of money and talent? Or is there another reason why some people and organizations always land on their feet, while others, equally talented, stumble again and again? There’s a fundamental principle at work–confidence–that makes the difference between winning and losing in any competition, be it a high school basketball game or a high-stakes business situation. In Confidence, Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter shows why organizations of all types may be brimming with talent but not be winners. Based on her extraordinary investigation of success and failure in companies such as Continental Airlines and Verizon and sports teams such as the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles, as well as the arenas of education, health care, and politics, Kanter explores a new theory and practice of success and provides people in leadership positions with a prescriptive program for maintaining a winning streak or turning around a downward spiral. Packed with brilliant, practical ideas, Confidence provides fresh thinking about success in all facets of life—from the factors that can make or break corporations and governments to the keys for successful relationships in the workplace or at home.

Moulin Rouge


Christopher Mirambeau - 2004
    As much of a Parisian symbol as the Eiffel Tower itself, the Moulin Rouge was the site of much of the intrigue, madness, and decadence of the Belle Epoque. Cradle of vice, birthplace of the cancan, this institution of unparalleled charm and ostentation flaunts a rich history that ranges from La Goulue, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Mistinguett to Lisette Malidor and Janet Jackson. This precious book offers a trip through the cycles of the windmill, ending in today¹s Moulin Rouge, whose spectacular revues remain faithful to the spirit of Parisian entertainment

Disrupting White Supremacy


Jennifer HarveySharon D. Welch - 2004
    Through careful, thoughtful examination of the nature and workings of race, racism, and white supremacy, the contributors--an all-white group of theologians, ethicists, teachers, ministers, and activists--have provided a resource that will help white people do their own soul-searching, acknowledging the devastating effects of racism on people of color, and taking their own steps toward its abolishment.

The Upstart Spring: Esalen and the Human Potential Movement: The First Twenty Years


Walter Truett Anderson - 2004
    . . a complex story, but a sequential one nonetheless, with feuds and psychic shoot-outs, games of capture the flag and smell the roses." --Arthur Hough, San Francisco Chronicle"Upstart Spring tells Esalen's riveting, unfinished story - even-handedly, entertainingly, with sympathy, and yet holding little back." --David Toolan, Commonwealth"An absolute delight: brimming with juicy gossip, and as carefully crafted as a page-turner novel. And it has substance, the gift of a therapist who also happens to be a cultural historian with a good eye for the telling meta-detail." --Sandy McDonald, New Age Journal"Walt Anderson has the requisite experience, humor, and affection (if not detachment, since Esalen teaches, indeed proves, that detachment is a universal impossibility) to carry off a wonderful account." --Stewart Brand, Co-Evolution Quarterly"A wonderful read, consistently entertaining on several levels." --Michael Rossman, Associate for Humanistic Psychology Newsletter"A superb wrap-up of a notable influence on our popular culture." --Rita Fink, Pacific Sun

Planetary Citizenship: Your Values, Beliefs and Actions Can Shape A Sustainable World


Hazel Henderson - 2004
    Two world-renowned global activists explore the rise of grassroots globalists -- citizens all over the world who are taking responsibility to build a more peaceful, harmonious, and sustainable future -- in this wide-ranging dialogue.

Time of Transitions


Jürgen Habermas - 2004
    In this new volume of essays and interviews, Habermas focuses his attention on these processes of change and provides some of the resources needed to understand them. What kind of international order should we seek to create in our contemporary global age? How should we understand the political project of Europe and how can the democratic deficit of the EU be overcome? How should we understand the relation between democracy as popular sovereignty, which has become the defining principle of political legitimacy in the modern world, and the idea of basic human rights embodied in the rule of law? Habermas brings his formidable powers of analysis and his distinctive theoretical perspective to bear on these and other key questions of the modern age. His analysis is shaped throughout by his commitment to informed public debate and his powerful advocacy of a postnational renewal of the project of constitutional democracy. Time of Transitions will be essential reading for all students and scholars of sociology and politics, and it will be of interest to anyone concerned with the key social and political questions of our time.

World, Beware!: American Triumphalism in an Age of Terror


Theodore Roszak - 2004
    "World, Beware!" analyzes three major forces that have coalesced to produce the triumphalist policies that now dominate U.S. politics: the corporate elite, the neoconservative intelligentsia, and the fundamentalist churches.Roszak calls for a new "global constituency" that would rein in the superpower's excesses, and promotes a dialogue on the future of industrialism. Fuel to resist the neoconservative assault.

Dark Truths


Christopher Kurtz - 2004
    Over several years they have corresponded with a number of convicted killers who have told of their compulsion to commit serial homicide. their unique insights into the lives of these deranged individuals have allowed them to explore in disturbing detail the homicidal manifestations of a number of mental afflictions, including fantasy addiction and narcissistic personality disorder. Their conclusions make for a frightening reading, but Kurtz and Hunter argue that we must delve into the twisted world of evil and irrational if we are ever to understand the serial killer and his motivations.Dark Truths not only provides an in-depth study of the terrifying obsessions of serial killers and rapists, but it is also a compelling study of alienation and psychosis that lurk just beneath the surface of modern society.

Privatizing Poland: Baby Food, Big Business, and the Remaking of Labor


Elizabeth C. Dunn - 2004
    Using a blend of ethnography and economic geography, Elizabeth C. Dunn shows how management technologies like niche marketing, accounting, audit, and standardization make up flexible capitalism's unique form of labor discipline. This new form of management constitutes some workers as self-auditing, self-regulating actors who are disembedded from a social context while defining others as too entwined in social relations and unable to self-manage.Privatizing Poland examines the effects privatization has on workers' self-concepts; how changes in personhood relate to economic and political transitions; and how globalization and foreign capital investment affect Eastern Europe's integration into the world economy. Dunn investigates these topics through a study of workers and changing management techniques at the Alima-Gerber factory in Rzesz�w, Poland, formerly a state-owned enterprise, which was privatized by the Gerber Products Company of Fremont, Michigan.Alima-Gerber instituted rigid quality control, job evaluation, and training methods, and developed sophisticated distribution techniques. The core principle underlying these goals and strategies, the author finds, is the belief that in order to produce goods for a capitalist market, workers for a capitalist enterprise must also be produced. Working side-by-side with Alima-Gerber employees, Dunn saw firsthand how the new techniques attempted to change not only the organization of production, but also the workers' identities. Her seamless, engaging narrative shows how the employees resisted, redefined, and negotiated work processes for themselves.

Mass Communication and American Social Thought: Key Texts, 1919-1968 (Critical Media Studies: Institutions, Politics, and Culture)


John Durham PetersBernard R. Berelson - 2004
    Focusing on mass communication and society and how this research fits into larger patterns of social thought, this valuable collection features key texts covering the media studies traditions of the Chicago school, the effects tradition, the critical theory of the Frankfurt school, and mass society theory. Where possible, articles are reproduced in their entirety to preserve the historical flavor and texture of the original works. Topics include popular theater, yellow journalism, cinema, books, public relations, political and military propaganda, advertising, opinion polling, photography, the avant-garde, popular magazines, comics, the urban press, radio drama, soap opera, popular music, and television drama and news. This text is ideal for upper-level courses in mass communication and media theory, media and society, mass communication effects, and mass media history.

Why Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay Gap--And What Women Can Do about It


Warren Farrell - 2004
    Farrell clearly defines the 25 different workplace choices that affect women's and men's incomes -- including putting in more hours at work, taking riskier jobs or more hazardous assignments, being willing to change location, and training for technical jobs that involve less people contact -- and provides readers with specific, research-supported ways for women to earn higher pay.Why Men Earn More, with its brashness in the face of political correctness, is sure to ignite a storm of media controversy that will help to make this thoroughly pragmatic expose Warren Farrell's next bestseller."

The Mismanagement of Talent: Employability and Jobs in the Knowledge Economy


Philip Brown - 2004
    The demand for high-skilled, high waged jobs, has been exaggerated. But it is something that governments want to believe because it distracts attention from thorny political issues around equality, opportunity, and redistribution. If it is assumed that there are plenty of good jobs for people with the appropriate credentials then the issue of who gets the best jobs loses its political sting. But if good jobs are in limited supply, how the competition for a livelihood is organized assumes paramount importance. This issue, is not lost on the middle classes, given that they depend on academic achievement to maintain, if not advance the occupational and social status of family members. The reality is that increasing congestion in the market for knowledge workers has led to growing middle class anxieties about how their off-spring are going to meet the rising threshold of employability that now has to be achieved to stand any realistic chance of finding interesting and rewarding employment. The result is a bare-knuckle struggle for access to elite schools, colleges, universities and jobs. This book examines whether employability policies are flawed because they ignore the realities of 'positional' conflict in the competition for a livelihood, especially as the rise of mass higher education has arguably done little to increase the employability of students for tough-entry jobs. It will be of interest to anyone looking to understand the way knowledge-based firms recruit and how this is influenced by government policy, be they Researchers, Academics and Students of Business and Management, Industrial Relations, Human Resource Management, Politics or Sociology; Human Resource Management or Recruitment Professionals; or job candidates.

Encyclopedia of Leadership


George R. Goethals - 2004
    This encyclopedia is the most comprehensive reference work on the business of leadership, with up-to-date information across a broad range of issues affecting every aspect of the industry and the people it serves, employs, and influences.

The Decline of the Tea Lady: Management for Dissidents


Jenny Stewart - 2004
    The tea ladies knew everyone and were either invariably cheerful or invariably doleful.Ever wondered where all the tea ladies went? Why do bosses spend so much time restructuring? When did you have your last management 'vision'?In The Decline of the Tea Lady Jenny Stewart investigates these and many other questions by looking at all sorts of organisations - business, university, volunteer - from the inside and the bottom up, where the hype has more difficulty penetrating. Her philosophy is that the art of managing just about anything is best understood by not taking it too seriously, and her essays celebrating the richness and weirdness of working life are the very enemy of blah.

Berlin In The Time Of The Wall: Photographs


John Gossage - 2004
    By asking us to look at what we have misplaced or abandoned as well as what we intended Gossage brings us face to face with the present as it becomes history. The production of the book, from its weight (at over 8 lbs), design (case bound, slip cased, acetate dust jacket) and printing (lush duotone) makes it a physical as well visual experience.

DDR Design 1949 1989


Ernst Hedler - 2004
    It calls oneself a “showcase for consumer culture of GDR” (p.13) and so there are much more photos than texts. Nevertheless you learn something about the history of East German Design because Ralf E. Ulrich deals in the introduction of the book with it. He copies the lines of the development of GDR design from the beginning of the GDR in 1949 till the “Wende” in 1989. By all changings in the consumer culture of East Germany it is important to note that the design was always driven by ideology, general social developments and the socialist planned economy. With a greater focus on export markets in the 1960ies it happened yet that on the one hand some design concepts from international products were adapted. On the other hand some GDR products were sold on West German market, too. You could find the marking “Made in GDR” on IKEA pendant lamps made in Halle, Privileg typewriters supplied by the mail order company Quelle and hairdryers.

History Beyond Trauma


Françoise Davoine - 2004
    Handed down from one generation to the next, the unspoken horrors of war, betrayal, dissociation, and disaster in the families of patient and analyst alike are not only revived in the therapeutic relationship but, when understood, actually provide the keys to the healing process. The authors present vivid examples of clinical work with severely traumatized patients, reaching inward to their own intimate family histories as shaped by the Second World War and outward toward an exceptionally broad range of cultural references to literature, philosophy, political theory, and anthropology. Using examples from medieval carnivals and Japanese No theater, to Wittgenstein and Hannah Arendt, to Sioux rituals in North Dakota, they reveal the ways in which psychological damage is done--and undone. With a special focus on the relationship between psychoanalysis and the neurosciences, Davoine and Gaudilliere show how the patient-analyst relationship opens pathways of investigation into the nature of madness, whether on the scale of History--world wars, Vietnam--or on the scale of Story--the silencing of horror within an individual family.In order to show how the therapeutic approach to trauma was developed on the basis of war psychiatry, the authors ground their clinical theory in the work of Thomas Salmon, an American doctor from the time of the First World War. In their case studies, they illustrate how three of the four Salmon principles--proximity, immediacy, and expectancy--affect the handling of the transference-countertransference relationship. The fourth principle, simplicity, shapes the style in which the authors address their readers--that is, with the same clarity and directness with which they speak to their patients.