Best of
Society

2006

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism


Naomi Klein - 2006
    She called it "disaster capitalism." Covering Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami, and New Orleans post-Katrina, she witnessed something remarkably similar. People still reeling from catastrophe were being hit again, this time with economic "shock treatment" losing their land and homes to rapid-fire corporate makeovers. The Shock Doctrine retells the story of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman's free market economic revolution. In contrast to the popular myth of this movement's peaceful global victory, Klein shows how it has exploited moments of shock and extreme violence in order to implement its economic policies in so many parts of the world from Latin America and Eastern Europe to South Africa, Russia, and Iraq. At the core of disaster capitalism is the use of cataclysmic events to advance radical privatization combined with the privatization of the disaster response itself. By capitalizing on crises, created by nature or war, Klein argues that the disaster capitalism complex now exists as a booming new economy, and is the violent culmination of a radical economic project that has been incubating for fifty years.

White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era


Shelby Steele - 2006
    Forty years later, despite the strong DNA evidence against him, accused murderer O. J. Simpson went free after his attorney portrayed him as a victim of racism. The age of white supremacy has given way to an age of "white guilt" and neither has been good for African Americans.Through articulate analysis and engrossing recollections, acclaimed race relations scholar Shelby Steele sounds a powerful call for a new culture of personal responsibility.

The Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, And the Radical Remaking of Economics


Eric D. Beinhocker - 2006
    How did this marvel of self-organized complexity evolve? How is wealth created within this system? And how can wealth be increased for the benefit of individuals, businesses, and society? In The Origin of Wealth, Eric D. Beinhocker argues that modern science provides a radical perspective on these age-old questions, with far-reaching implications. According to Beinhocker, wealth creation is the product of a simple but profoundly powerful evolutionary formula: differentiate, select, and amplify. In this view, the economy is a "complex adaptive system" in which physical technologies, social technologies, and business designs continuously interact to create novel products, new ideas, and increasing wealth. Taking readers on an entertaining journey through economic history, from the Stone Age to modern economy, Beinhocker explores how "complexity economics" provides provocative insights on issues ranging from creating adaptive organizations to the evolutionary workings of stock markets to new perspectives on government policies. A landmark book that shatters conventional economic theory, The Origin of Wealth will rewire our thinking about how we came to be here—and where we are going.

The Authoritarians


Bob Altemeyer - 2006
    Bob Altemeyer—author of Atheists and The Authoritarian Specter —gives a readable analysis of the nature of authoritarianism and its current impact on American politics.Full text available at theauthoritarians.org.

America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It


Mark Steyn - 2006
    Europeans already are. And liberals will still tell you that "diversity is our strength"--while Talibanic enforcers cruise Greenwich Village burning books and barber shops, the Supreme Court decides sharia law doesn't violate the "separation of church and state," and the Hollywood Left decides to give up on gay rights in favor of the much safer charms of polygamy. If you think this can't happen, you haven't been paying attention, as the hilarious, provocative, and brilliant Mark Steyn--the most popular conservative columnist in the English-speaking world--shows to devastating effect. The future, as Steyn shows, belongs to the fecund and the confident. And the Islamists are both, while the West is looking ever more like the ruins of a civilization. But America can survive, prosper, and defend its freedom only if it continues to believe in itself, in the sturdier virtues of self-reliance (not government), in the centrality of family, and in the conviction that our country really is the world's last best hope. Mark Steyn's America Alone is laugh-out-loud funny--but it will also change the way you look at the world.

Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism


Sheldon S. Wolin - 2006
    But what if the country is no longer a democracy at all? In "Democracy Incorporated," Sheldon Wolin considers the unthinkable: has America unwittingly morphed into a new and strange kind of political hybrid, one where economic and state powers are conjoined and virtually unbridled? Can the nation check its descent into what the author terms "inverted totalitarianism"?Wolin portrays a country where citizens are politically uninterested and submissive--and where elites are eager to keep them that way. At best the nation has become a "managed democracy" where the public is shepherded, not sovereign. At worst it is a place where corporate power no longer answers to state controls. Wolin makes clear that today's America is in no way morally or politically comparable to totalitarian states like Nazi Germany, yet he warns that unchecked economic power risks verging on total power and has its own unnerving pathologies. Wolin examines the myths and mythmaking that justify today's politics, the quest for an ever-expanding economy, and the perverse attractions of an endless war on terror. He argues passionately that democracy's best hope lies in citizens themselves learning anew to exercise power at the local level."Democracy Incorporated" is one of the most worrying diagnoses of America's political ills to emerge in decades. It is sure to be a lightning rod for political debate for years to come."

Ever Wonder Why? and Other Controversial Essays


Thomas Sowell - 2006
    From "gun control myths" to "mealy mouth media" to "free lunch medicine," Sowell gets to the heart of the matters we all care about with his characteristically unsparing candor.

Endgame, Vol. 1: The Problem of Civilization


Derrick Jensen - 2006
    Accepting the increasingly widespread belief that industrialized culture inevitably erodes the natural world, Endgame sets out to explore how this relationship impels us towards a revolutionary and as-yet undiscovered shift in strategy. Building on a series of simple but increasingly provocative premises, Jensen leaves us hoping for what may be inevitable: a return to agrarian communal life via the disintegration of civilization itself.

The Accidental President of Brazil: A Memoir


Fernando Henrique Cardoso - 2006
    As he put the phone down and stared into the darkness of his hotel room, he feared he'd been handed a political death sentence. The year was 1993, and he would be responsible for an economy that had had seven different currencies in the previous eight years to cope with inflation that had run at 3000 percent a year. Brazil had a habit of chewing up finance ministers with the ferocity of an Amazon piranha. This was just one of the turns in a largely unscripted and sometimes unwanted political career. In exile during the harshest period of the junta that ruled Brazil for twenty years, Cardoso started his political life with a tentative run for the Federal Senate in 1978. Within fifteen years, and despite himself, this former sociologist was running the country.And what a country! Brazil, it is often said, is on the edge of modernity, striding with one foot in mid-air towards the future, the other still rooted deep in a traditional past. It is a land of sophisticated music and brutal gold-digging, of the next global superpower and the last old-time coffee plantations. It is gloriously ungovernable, irrepressibly attractive, and home to the family, friends and extraordinary life of Fernando Henrique Cardoso. This is his story and his love song to his country.

Heat: How to Stop the Planet From Burning


George Monbiot - 2006
    The question is no longer Is climate change actually happening? but What do we do about it? George Monbiot offers an ambitious and far-reaching program to cut our carbon dioxide emissions to the point where the environmental scales start tipping back—away from catastrophe. Though writing with a "spirit of optimism," Monbiot does not pretend it will be easy. The only way to avoid further devastation, he argues, is a 90% cut in CO2 emissions in the rich nations of the world by 2030. In other words, our response will have to be immediate, and it will have to be decisive. In every case he supports his proposals with a rigorous investigation into what works, what doesn’t, how much it costs, and what the problems might be. He wages war on bad ideas as energetically as he promotes good ones. And he is not afraid to attack anyone—friend or foe—whose claims are false or whose figures have been fudged.After all, there is no time to waste. As Monbiot has said himself, "we are the last generation that can make this happen, and this is the last possible moment at which we can make it happen." George Monbiot is the best-selling author of The Age of Consent and Captive State, as well as the investigative travel books Poisoned Arrows, Amazon Watershed, and No Man’s Land. In 1995, Nelson Mandela presented him with a United Nations Global 500 Award for outstanding environmental achievement. He has held visiting fellowships or professorships at the universities of Oxford (environmental policy), Bristol (philosophy), Keele (politics), and East London (environmental science). Currently visiting professor of planning at Oxford Brookes University, he writes a weekly column for the Guardian newspaper.

Life: The Platinum Anniversary Collection: 70 Years of Extraordinary Photography


LIFE - 2006
    It also contains photos from Hollywood's greatest stars, from the wonders of small-town America, from the terrible wars, as well as from the zestful years of childhood.

Devi: The Devi Bhagavatam Retold


Ramesh Menon - 2006
    Legends, backgrounds on Devi, a Shakta Purana. Devi is Kali anad Durga, Mother of the Universe. an abridged literary rendering of the Bhagavatam, retells all major legends and stories.

How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok


Glenn Greenwald - 2006
    Not liberal, not conservative. Politicians were all the same and it didn’t matter which party was in power. Extremists on both ends canceled each other out, and the United States would essentially remain forever centrist. Or so he thought. Then came September 11, 2001. Greenwald’s disinterest in politics was replaced by patriotism, and he supported the war in Afghanistan. He also gave President Bush the benefit of the doubt over his decision to invade Iraq. But, as he saw Americans and others being disappeared, jailed and tortured, without charges or legal representation, he began to worry. And when he learned his president had seized the power to spy on American citizens on American soil, without the oversight required by law, he could stand no more. At the heart of these actions, Greenwald saw unprecedented and extremist theories of presidential power, theories that flout the Constitution and make President Bush accountable to no one, and no law. How Would a Patriot Act? is one man’s story of being galvanized into action to defend America’s founding principles, and a reasoned argument for what must be done. Greenwald’s penetrating words should inspire a nation to defend the Constitution from a president who secretly bestowed upon himself the powers of a monarch. If we are to remain a constitutional republic, Greenwald writes, we cannot abide radical theories of executive power, which are transforming the very core of our national character, and moving us from democracy toward despotism. This is not hyperbole. This is the crisis all Americans—liberals and conservatives--now face. In the spirit of the colonists who once mustered the strength to denounce a king, Greenwald invites us to consider: How would a patriot act today?

The Myth of Progress: Toward a Sustainable Future


Tom Wessels - 2006
    It is a myth, he contends, that progress depends on a growing economy. Wessels explains his theory with his three Laws of Sustainability: the law of limits to growth, the second law of thermodynamics, which exposes the dangers of increased energy consumption, and the law of self-organization, which results in the marvelous diversity of such highly evolved systems as the human body and complex ecosystems. These laws, scientifically proven to sustain life in its myriad forms, have been cast aside since the eighteenth century, first by western economists, political pragmatists, and governments attracted by the idea of unlimited growth, and more recently by a global economy dominated by large corporations, in which consolidation and oversimplification create large-scale inefficiencies in material and energy usage. how the Laws of Sustainability function in the complex systems we can observe in the natural world around us. He shows how systems such as forests can be templates for developing sustainable economic practices that will allow true progress. Demonstrating that all environmental problems have their source in the Myth of Progress's disregard for the Laws of Sustainability, he concludes with an impassioned argument for cultural change.

The Other Side of War: Women's Stories of Survival and Hope


Zainab Salbi - 2006
    She has been a guest on "Oprah," has been interviewed by Katie Couric, Al Franken, and George Stephanopoulos, and has been profiled in the New York Times, The Washington Post, and People magazine. Her organization, Women for Women International, plays a vital role in helping to heal war-torn nations including Afghanistan, Bosnia, Rwanda, Congo, Sudan, and Colombia. With stunning images by award-winning photographers Susan Meiselas, Lekha Singh, and Sylvia Plachy, Salbi presents a riveting collection of letters and first-person narratives by amazing women who survived war's devastation and now must find the strength to rebuild families and communities. Throbbing with pain and loss yet glowing with courage and hope, The Other Side of War explores six regions where Women for Women International has helped survivors of the world's most tumultuous countries learn new skills, open small businesses and forge bonds with sponsors. Overviews by the author explain how each nation's history led to violent conflict; then, with searing eloquence, the women tell their stories—of horror, cruelty, and suffering but also of profound inspiration as they work toward renewal and toward the day their fierce determination is rewarded with productivity, prosperity, and lasting joy.

Intimate Politics: How I Grew Up Red, Fought for Free Speech, and Became a Feminist Rebel


Bettina Aptheker - 2006
    At eight years old, Bettina Aptheker watched her family's politics play out in countless living rooms across the country when her father, historian and U.S. Communist Party leader Herbert Aptheker, testified on television in front of the House on Un-American Activities Committee in 1953. Born into one of the most influential U.S. Communist families whose friends included W. E. B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson, and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Bettina lived her parents' politics witnessing first-hand one of the most dramatic upheavals in American history. She also lived with a terrible secret: incest at the hands of her famous father and a frightening and lonely life lived inside a home wrought with family tensions. A gripping and beautifully rendered memoir, Intimate Politics is at its core the story of one woman's struggle to still the demons of her personal world while becoming a controversial public figure herself. This is the story of childhood sexual abuse, abortion, sexual violence, activism, and the triumph over one's past. It's about FBI harassment and persecution, Jewish heritage, and lesbian identity. It is, finally, about the courage to speak one's truth despite the consequences and to break the sacred silence of family secrets.

Anarchy and the Law: The Political Economy of Choice


Edward P. StringhamDaniel Sutter - 2006
    But whereas limited government libertarians argue in favor of political constraints, anarchist libertarians argue that, to check government against abuse, the state itself must be replaced by a social order of self-government based on contracts. Indeed, contemporary history has shown that limited government is untenable, as it is inherently unstable and prone to corruption, being dependent on the interest-group politics of the state's current leadership. Anarchy and the Law presents the most important essays explaining, debating, and examining historical examples of stateless orders.Section I, "Theory of Private Property Anarchism," presents articles that criticize arguments for government law enforcement and discuss how the private sector can provide law. In Section II, "Debate," limited government libertarians argue with anarchist libertarians about the morality and viability of private-sector law enforcement. Section III, "History of Anarchist Thought," contains a sampling of both classic anarchist works and modern studies of the history of anarchist thought and societies. Section IV, "Historical Case Studies of Non-Government Law Enforcement," shows that the idea that markets can function without state coercion is an entirely viable concept. Anarchy and the Law is a comprehensive reader on anarchist libertarian thought that will be welcomed by students of government, political science, history, philosophy, law, economics, and the broader study of liberty.

Vanishing Ireland


James Fennell - 2006
    Through their own words and memories, 64 men and women transport readers to a time when people lived off the land and the sea, music and storytelling were essential parts of life, and a person was defined by their trade. Divided into five parts—Children of the Field, Children of the Music, Children of the Horse, Children of the Trade, and Children of the Water—this collection brings together the stories of those who lived through Ireland’s formative years. We hear of children harassed by the Black and Tans, céilís in kitchens, the rigors of working in the fields, the wonder of electricity, and the devastation of emigration. From coalminers to saddlers, farmers to fishermen, along with horse dealers, publicans, housemaids, and musicians, these remarkably poignant interviews and photographs, in their simplicity and honesty, will make readers laugh and cry but, above all, will provide a valuable chronicle that connects the 21st century Irish to a rapidly disappearing world.

Homegrown: Engaged Cultural Criticism


bell hooks - 2006
    In Witness, Amalia Mesa-Bains and bell hooks invite us to reexamine this politically popular binary and consider which differences are manufactured and which are real.In Witness, Mesa-Bains and hooks explore their own similarities and differences, sharing the ways their childhoods, families, and work have shaped their political activism, teaching, and artistic expression. Drawing on shared experiences of sexism, classism, and racism, hooks and Mesa-Bains show how people from divergent cultural backgrounds can work together for radical social change.While the black/Latino divide and the increasing cross-community political collaboration has been addressed in progressive newspapers and magazines, Witness, an inclusive call to reflect and act, is the first of its kind to look at these issues in depth. And Amalia Mesa-Bains, a pioneer scholar and producer of Chicana art, with bell hooks, one of the most acclaimed of African American theorists—prove an unparalleled match for the job.bell hooks is one of the leading public intellectuals of her generation. She has written extensively on the emotional impact of racism and sexism, particularly on black women, as well as the importance of political engagement with art and the media. In her recent work on love, relationships, and community, she shows how emotional health is a necessary component to effective resistance and activism.Amalia Mesa-Bains is an artist, curator, and writer who has initiated comprehensive exhibitions of Latino art, including Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation and Mi Alma, Mi Tierra, Mi Gente: Contemporary Chicana Art. Her artwork incorporates various aspects of Chicano/a history, culture, and folk traditions, exploring religion, ritual, and female rites of passage. She won a MacArthur Fellowship in 1992.

Typecasting: On the Arts and Sciences of Human Inequality


Elizabeth Ewen - 2006
    In this groundbreaking exploration of the growth of stereotyping amidst the rise of modern society, authors Ewen & Ewen demonstrate "typecasting" as a persistent cultural practice. Drawing on fields as diverse as history, pop culture, racial science, and film, and including over one hundred images, many published here for the first time, the authors present a vivid portrait of stereotyping as it was forged by colonialism, industrialization, mass media, urban life, and the global economy.

How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America: Freedom, Politics, and the War on Sex


Cristina Page - 2006
    As activist and writer Cristina Page shows, the gains made by birth-control advocates (historically) and pro-choice organizations (currently) have formed the bedrock of freedoms few Americans would choose to live without. Now, not only is the future of legal abortion far from guaranteed, in many parts of the country ready access to many forms of contraception is in jeopardy as well. And that development, Page argues, should have everyone, regardless of moral or political persuasion, deeply concerned. For these basic freedoms are not just for the freewheeling gals of "Sex and the City," but are central to the lives of working mothers and fathers from Phoenix to Duluth, churchgoers and nonbelievers alike. Page crystallizes the thoughts and attitudes of a generation of women and men whose voices are seldom heard in the political arena. How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America is the first book to address the positive transformation our society has undergone because of our ability to plan when and if to have children. It also exposes the anti-choice movement's far-reaching-and dangerous-agenda. Fresh, bold, and stocked with counterintuitive arguments, this is a book bound to form the basis for heated conversations nationwide.

The View From The Studio Door: How Artists Find Their Way In An Uncertain World


Ted Orland - 2006
    Now, in The View From The Studio Door, Orland turns his attention to broader issues that stand to either side of that artistic moment of truth.In a text marked by grace, brevity and humor, Orland argues that when it comes to art making, theory and practice are always intertwined. There are timeless philosophical questions (How do we make sense of the world?) that address the very nature of art making, as well as gritty real-world questions (Is there art after graduation?) that artists encounter the moment they’re off the starting blocks and producing work on a regular basis.Simply put, this is a book of practical philosophy. As a teacher and working artist himself, Orland brings authentic insight and encouragement to all those who face the challenge of making art in an uncertain world. The breadth of material covered is reflected in chapters that include Making Sense of the World, Art & Society, The Education of the Artist, Surviving Graduation, Making Art That Matters, The Artistic Community, and more.The View From The Studio Door is the perfect companion piece to Art & Fear, and will appeal to a similar (and already-established) audience of students, working artists, teachers and professionals. For students’ benefit, The View is also modestly priced, with wide page margins for easy note-taking and annotation.

City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London


Vic Gatrell - 2006
    These singular conditions prompted revolutionary modes of thought, novel sensibilities, and constant debate about the relations between men and women. Such an atmosphere also stimulated outrageous behavior, from James Boswell's copulating on Westminster Bridge to the Prince Regent's attempt to seduce a woman by pleading, sobbing, and stabbing himself with a pen-knife.  And nowhere was London's lewdness and iconoclasm more vividly represented than its satire.City of Laughter chronicles the rise and fall of a great tradition of ridicule and of the satirical, humorous, and widely circulated prints that sustained it. Focusing not on the polished wit upon which polite society prided itself, but rather on malicious, sardonic and satirical humor--humor that was bawdy, knowing and ironic--Vic Gatrell explores what this tradition says about Georgian views of the world and about their own pretensions. Taking the reader into the clubs and taverns where laughter flowed most freely, Gatrell examines how Londoners laughed about sex, scandal, fashion, drink and similar pleasures of life.Combining words and images-including more than 300 original drawings by Cruikshank, Gillray, Rowlandson, and others--City of Laughter  offers a brilliantly original panorama of the era,  providing a ground-breaking reappraisal of a period of  change and a unique account of the origins of our attitudes toward sex, celebrity and satire today.

Reflections on the Human Condition


Eric Hoffer - 2006
    Self-taught, his appetite for knowledge--history, science, mankind--formed the basis of his insight to human nature. Reflections on the Human Condition is a collection of poignant aphorisms taken from his writings.

Cheating Destiny: Living With Diabetes, America's Biggest Epidemic


James S. Hirsch - 2006
    James Hirsch’s myth-shattering blend of history, reportage, advocacy, and memoir will speak for, and to, the 20 million Americans who live with this disease. Cheating Destiny offers revealing views of the diabetic subculture, the urge toward secrecy that many diabetics feel, the glycemic rollercoaster they ride constantly, and the remarkable perseverance—even heroism—required for survival.Hirsch is uniquely qualified to write this book. An award-winning journalist and best-selling author, he has lived with type 1 diabetes for twenty-five years. His brother Irl, also a diabetic, is one of the country’s leading diabetologists. Most poignantly, he knows firsthand the toll diabetes can take on parents: his three-year-old son was diagnosed with the disease while Hirsch was writing this book.Hirsch draws on all this expertise to craft an incisive, surprising portrayal of the fascinating science behind the disease and the skyrocketing impact of diabetes on our economy and society. Most striking is his candid, authoritative writing about the psychological and emotional hurdles that diabetics confront every day. Anyone who lives with diabetes—or loves a diabetic—will find here an empowering voice of empathy.

Laura Mulvey, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema


Carolina Hein - 2006
    These changes can be seen in every field of life. For instance, the way of supplying basic needs or the way how to make own life better, but also certain norms and values are quite different today. Instead of visiting a theatre in order to be entertained, people can watch TV or use the internet. If a man and a woman live together unmarried, hardly anybody will be shocked about that fact. But often certain attitudes are anchored in society and can hardly be changed. One example is the determination which individual role men and women are likely to play as members of a society and how their image appears in every culture. It is especially interesting to see how the media represent women, the so called -weaker sex-. The following pages respond with the representation of women through the years. Additionally, they deal with problems and consequences coming up because of the difference between men and women.

Luhmann Explained: From Souls to Systems


Hans-Georg Moeller - 2006
    This book introduces his social systems theory which explains specific functions like economy and mass media from a cybernetic perspective, integrating various schools of thought including sociology, philosophy, and biology. Luhmann Explained explores the great thinker’s radical analysis of “world society.” The book gives special attention to the present-day relevance of Luhmann's theory with respect to globalization, electronic mass media, ethics, and new forms of protest.

Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century


Alex Steffen - 2006
    Each chapter will offer practical answers to important questions, such as: Why does buying locally produced food make sense? What steps can we take to influence our workplace toward sustainability? How do we volunteer and advocate more effectively? How can we travel, live, work and learn in world changing ways? How, in short, can every human being help build a better future locally and globally? Illustrated with photographs and designed by Stefan Sagmeister, one of the most influential graphic designers working today, Worldchanging will prove that a life that is sustainably prosperous, just and democratic, dynamic and peaceful, is not just possible, it's here.

Political Ponerology


Andrew M. Lobaczewski - 2006
    The second copy, reassembled painfully by scientists working under impossible conditions of repression, was sent via a courier to the Vatican. Its receipt was never acknowledged, no word was ever heard from the courier - the manuscript and all the valuable data was lost. The third copy was produced after one of the scientists working on the project escaped to America in the 1980s. Zbigniew Brzezinski suppressed it. Political Ponerology was forged in the crucible of the very subject it studies. Scientists living under an oppressive regime decide to study it clinically, to study the founders and supporters of an evil regime to determine what common factor is at play in the rise and propagation of man's inhumanity to man. Shocking in its clinically spare descriptions of the true nature of evil, poignant in the more literary passages where the author reveals the suffering experienced by the researchers who were contaminated or destroyed by the disease they were studying, this is a book that should be required reading by every citizen of every country that claims a moral or humanistic foundation. For it is a certainty that morality and humanism cannot long withstand the predations of Evil. Knowledge of its nature, how it creates its networks and spreads, how insidious is its guileful approach, is the only antidote.

The Culture Struggle


Michael Parenti - 2006
    Drawing from cultures around the world, Parenti shows that beliefs and practices are readily subjected to political manipulation, and that many parts of culture are being commodified, separated from their group or communal origins, to be packaged and sold to those who can pay for them. Folk culture is giving way to a corporate market culture. Art, science, medicine, and psychiatry can be used as instruments of cultural control, and even marriage, the "foundation of society," has been misused by heterosexuals across the centuries.Using vivid examples and riveting arguments throughout, ranging from the everyday to the esoteric, and penned with eloquence and irony, The Culture Struggle presents a collection of snapshots of our time.

The Story Of Childhood: Growing Up In Modern Britain


Libby Brooks - 2006
    She talks to nine very different children between the ages of four and sixteen growing up in Britain today. The public schoolboy, the young offender, the teenage mum, the country lad, for example, talk about their own lives.

Falling Over Backwards: An Essay On Reservations, And On Judicial Populism


Arun Shourie - 2006
    Is this any way to become a knowledge super - power”? As there has been no caste - wise enumeration and tabulation since the 1931 Census, where does this mythical figure, “OBCs are 52 per cent of the population” come from? And what did the 1931 Census itself say about its cast - wise figures?

Negras in Brazil: Re-envisioning Black Women, Citizenship, and the Politics of Identity


Kia Lilly Caldwell - 2006
    In recent decades, however, this image has been severely critiqued, with a growing number of studies highlighting persistent and deep-seated patterns of racial discrimination and inequality. Yet, recent work on race and racism has rarely considered gender as part of its analysis. In Negras in Brazil, Kia Lilly Caldwell examines the life experiences of Afro-Brazilian women whose stories have until now been largely untold. This pathbreaking study analyzes the links between race and gender and broader processes of social, economic, and political exclusion. Drawing on ethnographic research with social movement organizations and thirty-five life history interviews, Caldwell explores the everyday struggles Afro-Brazilian women face in their efforts to achieve equal rights and full citizenship. She also shows how the black women's movement, which has emerged in recent decades, has sought to challenge racial and gender discrimination in Brazil. While proposing a broader view of citizenship that includes domains such as popular culture and the body, Negras in Brazil highlights the continuing relevance of identity politics for members of racially marginalized communities. Providing new insights into black women's social activism and a gendered perspective on Brazilian racial dynamics, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Latin American Studies, African diaspora studies, women's studies, politics, and cultural anthropology.

From the Gulag to the Killing Fields: Personal Accounts of Political Violence and Repression in Communist States


Paul Hollander - 2006
    Many of the narratives gathered here come from well-known authors; all are authentic. Together, they help us finally to come to terms with the tremendous human cost of communism’s allegedly noble ideals.

Shattered Lives: Children Who Live with Courage and Dignity


Camila Batmanghelidjh - 2006
    Chapters take the form of letters to a child capturing their life experiences, hugely impacted by sexual abuse, parental substance misuse and loss, leading to feelings of shame, rejection and worthlessness. Batmanghelidjh offers understanding for those baffled by these hard-to-reach children and warns against stigmatizing them for their problem behaviour. In her critique of existing structures, she exposes the plight of children who are overlooked by the authorities and denounces those who value bureaucracy over the welfare of the individual child. Society's failure to acknowledge the truth of their experiences and act to change the environment in which such mistreatment can flourish is, she strongly argues, leading to the death of childhood. The book is a clarion call for change.

Hospitality as Holiness


Luke Bretherton - 2006
    Some of these questions are new, such as those around human cloning and genetics. Other questions that were previously settled have re-emerged, such as those around the place of religion in politics. Responses to such questions are diverse, numerous and often vehemently contested. Hospitality as Holiness seeks to address the underlying question facing the church within contemporary moral debates: how should Christians relate to their neighbours when ethical disputes arise? The problems the book examines centre on what the nature and basis of Christian moral thought and action is, and in the contemporary context, whether moral disputes may be resolved with those who do not share the same framework as Christians. Bretherton establishes a model – that of hospitality – for how Christians and non-Christians can relate to each other amid moral diversity. This book will appeal to those interested in the broad question of the relationship between reason, tradition, natural law and revelation in theology, and more specifically to those engaged with questions about plurality, tolerance and ethical conflict in Christian ethics and medical ethics.

The Art of City-Making


Charles Landry - 2006
    The skills required to re-enchant the city are far wider than the conventional ones like architecture, engineering and land-use planning. There is no simplistic, ten-point plan, but strong principles can help send good city-making on its way. The vision for 21st century cities must be to be the most imaginative cities for the world rather than in the world. This one change of word - from 'in' to 'for' - gives city-making an ethical foundation and value base. It helps cities become places of solidarity where the relations between the individual, the group, outsiders to the city and the planet are in better alignment. Following the widespread success of The Creative City, this new book, aided by international case studies, explains how to reassess urban potential so that cities can strengthen their identity and adapt to the changing global terms of trade and mass migration. It explores the deeper fault-lines, paradoxes and strategic dilemmas that make creating the 'good city' so difficult.

Century of the Self: From the Same Director as "The Power of Nightmares" - Adam Curtis


Adam Curtis - 2006
    From the same director as "the power of nightmares"ContentsForwardOverviewAwardsCriticismEpisodesMusicVideo Download

History of Dharmashastra Volume I


Pandurang Vaman Kane - 2006
    It was written by Pandurang Vaman Kane, an Indologist. The first volume of the work was published in 1930 and the last one in 1962

Cultural Locations of Disability


Sharon L. Snyder - 2006
    Snyder and David T. Mitchell trace how disabled people came to be viewed as biologically deviant. The eugenics era pioneered techniques that managed "defectives" through the application of therapies, invasive case histories, and acute surveillance techniques, turning disabled persons into subjects for a readily available research pool. In its pursuit of normalization, eugenics implemented disability regulations that included charity systems, marriage laws, sterilization, institutionalization, and even extermination. Enacted in enclosed disability locations, these practices ultimately resulted in expectations of segregation from the mainstream, leaving today's disability politics to focus on reintegration, visibility, inclusion, and the right of meaningful public participation. Snyder and Mitchell reveal cracks in the social production of human variation as aberrancy. From our modern obsessions with tidiness and cleanliness to our desire to attain perfect bodies, notions of disabilities as examples of human insufficiency proliferate. These disability practices infuse more general modes of social obedience at work today. Consequently, this important study explains how disabled people are instrumental to charting the passage from a disciplinary society to one based upon regulation of the self.

Identity in Doris Lessing's Space Fiction


David F. Waterman - 2006
    This is an important addition to understanding the works of this prolific author. His major argument is that Lessing's space fiction identifies the universal problem - society's division into competitive and predatory groups - and places it outside the bounds of time and space, encouraging a social critique which takes into account our inherited blindness, our "degenerative disease" which must be addressed before genuine progress can be made. "Lessing's examination of the relationship between individual identity and group identity produces a productive tension that accounts for so much of interest in her work over many years. Nowhere is that tension more obvious or more interesting than in the "space fiction" that David Waterman so ably explores. Waterman writes convincingly of Lessing's desire "to cut through the performance, the received ideas, the habits and customs of our daily lives." Drawing on a wide range of sources, he provides an interdisciplinary reading of the "space fiction" and maps Lessing's brave exploration of the hierarchical landscapes that so often imprison us. Waterman offers a timely reading of Lessing for contemporary readers living in the landscape of globalization. - Professor Margaret Moan Rowe, Purdue University

Class Acts: Service and Inequality in Luxury Hotels


Rachel Sherman - 2006
    Drawing on in-depth interviews and extended ethnographic research in a range of hotel jobs, including concierge, bellperson, and housekeeper, Sherman gives an insightful analysis of what exactly luxury service consists of, how managers organize its production, and how workers and guests negotiate the inequality between them. She finds that workers employ a variety of practices to assert a powerful sense of self, including playing games, comparing themselves to other workers and guests, and forming meaningful and reciprocal relations with guests. Through their contact with hotel staff, guests learn how to behave in the luxury environment and come to see themselves as deserving of luxury consumption. These practices, Sherman argues, help make class inequality seem normal, something to be taken for granted. Throughout, Class Acts sheds new light on the complex relationship between class and service work, an increasingly relevant topic in light of the growing economic inequality in the United States that underlies luxury consumption.

Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University


William Clark - 2006
    William Clark argues that the research university—which originated in German Protestant lands and spread globally in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—developed in response to market forces and bureaucracy, producing a new kind of academic whose goal was to establish originality and achieve fame through publication. With an astonishing wealth of research, Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University investigates the origins and evolving fixtures of academic life: the lecture catalogue, the library catalog, the grading system, the conduct of oral and written exams, the roles of conversation and the writing of research papers in seminars, the writing and oral defense of the doctoral dissertation, the ethos of "lecturing with applause" and "publish or perish," and the role of reviews and rumor. This is a grand, ambitious book that should be required reading for every academic.

Vicarious Language: Gender and Linguistic Modernity in Japan


Miyako Inoue - 2006
    Focusing on a phenomenon commonly called "women's language," in modern Japanese society, Miyako Inoue considers the history and social effects of this language form. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in a contemporary Tokyo corporation to study the everyday linguistic experience of white-collar females office workers and on historical research from the late nineteenth century to 1930, she calls into question the claim that "women's language" is a Japanese cultural tradition of ancient origin and offers a critical geneaology showing the extent to which this language form is, in fact, a cultural construct linked with Japan's national and capitalist modernity. Her theoretically sophisticated, empirically grounded, interdisciplinary work brilliantly illuminates the relationship between culture and language, the nature of power and subject formation in modernity, and how the complex nexus of gender, language, and political economy are experienced in everyday life.

Art Therapy and Social Action: Treating the World's Wounds


Frances Kaplan - 2006
    Examining the expanding role of art practitioner as social activist, leading art therapists and other professionals show how creative methods can be used effectively to resolve conflicts, manage aggression, heal trauma and build communities. The contributors provide examples of innovative programs on a range of topics, including those designed to address gun crime, homelessness, racism and experiences of terrorism, among others.This timely book provides new techniques and successful models for art therapists, counselors and mental health practitioners working directly with the challenges of modern society.

Why Humans Cooperate: A Cultural and Evolutionary Explanation


Natalie Henrich - 2006
    Natalie and Joseph Henrich examine this phenomena with a unique fusion of theoretical work on the evolution of cooperation, ethnographic descriptions of social behavior, and a range of other experimental results.Their experimental and ethnographic data come from a small, insular group of middle-class Iraqi Christians called Chaldeans, living in metro Detroit, whom the Henrichs use as an example to show how kinship relations, ethnicity, and culturally transmitted traditions provide the key to explaining theevolution of cooperation over multiple generations.

Global Health


Ann Lindstrand - 2006
    Many simplifications were required for it to fit into a single textbook for students wanting to: 1) get an understanding of how the health of the world's population has changed over time; 2) learn about the main determinants for health; 3) how health can be measured and what the main idicators are for health and illness; 4)learn about what is causing illness, disability and death for large numbers of poeple; 5) to be acquainted with models and structures for health care around the world. The book is written from a public health perspective and shows the close link between health and social realities, money and the environment.

A Different Kind of War: The Un Sanctions Regime in Iraq


Hans C. von Sponeck - 2006
    It should be mandatory reading for all those politicians and their foreign-policy advisors who continue to consider sanctions an effective form of policy. The author not only offers us a critical, lucid, and well-informed survey of political developments in Iraq, but also a heart-rending account of the suffering of the Iraqi people. It was they who bore the brunt of the 13-year's sanctions, while the members of Saddam's regime continued to live in luxury and accumulate huge fortunes.H.-C. von Sponeck, the former -UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, - explores the UN's sanction policies against Iraq, their consequences, and the domestic conditions during this period. His extensive research is based on previously unpublished internal UN documents and discussions with UN decision makers (such as General Secretary Kofi Annan), Iraqi officials and politicians (including Saddam Hussein), and ordinary Iraqis. The author's findings question who really benefited from the program, what role the UN Security Council and its various member states played, and whether there were then and are today alternatives to the UN's Iraq policies.

Caviar and Ashes: A Warsaw Generation's Life and Death in Marxism, 1918-1968


Marci Shore - 2006
    They sat in Café Ziemianska and believed that the world moved on what they said there. Caviar and Ashes tells the story of the young avant-gardists of the early 1920s who became the radical Marxists of the late 1920s. They made the choice for Marxism before Stalinism, before socialist realism, before Marxism meant the imposition of Soviet communism in Poland. It ended tragically.Marci Shore begins with this generation’s coming of age after the First World War and narrates a half-century-long journey through futurist manifestos and proletarian poetry, Stalinist terror and Nazi genocide, a journey from the literary cafés to the cells of prisons and the corridors of power. Using newly available archival materials from Poland and Russia, as well as from Ukraine and Israel, Shore explores what it meant to live Marxism as a European, an East European, and a Jewish intellectual in the twentieth century.

The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations: Shaping The Moral, Spiritual, Cultural, And Political. And Economic Decline Of The United States Of America


John Coleman - 2006
    John Coleman's latest book, The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations: Shaping the Moral, Cultural, Political, and Economic Decline of the United States of America. The Tavistock Institute is located in the City of London and at Sussex University in England. Dr. John Coleman, the author of 15 books, the best known of which is Conspirators Hierarchy, The Committee of 300, was one of the the first writers to bring the world's attention to the existence of Tavistock, hitherto unknown to press and pundits alike, in a monograph published in 1969. Since his initial 1969 revelations concerning the pivotal role that Tavistock plays in shaping political, social, educational, and economic 'opinions', especially in the United States, more than a few writers of global conspiracy have attempted to place laurels upon their shoulders for revelations about Tavistock's key influence as the Mother of all Propaganda Ministries, while ignoring the fact that this pioneering work was first published by John Coleman. Dr. Coleman's new book, however, leaves no doubt as to who is the master and who are the students when it comes to the subject of Tavistock.

The Oxford Handbook of Global Religions


Mark Juergensmeyer - 2006
    Comprising 60 essays, the volume focuses on communities rather than beliefs, symbols, or rites. It is organized into six sections corresponding to the major living religious traditions: the Indic cultural region, the Buddhist/Confucian, the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim regions, and the African cultural region. In each section an introductory essay discusses the social development of that religious tradition historically. The other essays cover the basic social factsthe communitys size, location, organizational and pilgrimage centers, authority figures, patterns of governance, major subgroups and schismsas well as issues regarding boundary maintenance, political involvement, role in providing cultural identity, and encounters with modernity. Communities in the diaspora and at the periphery are covered, as well as the central geographic regions of the religious traditions. Thus, for example, Islamic communities in Asia and the United States are included along with Islamic societies in the Middle East. The contributors are leading scholars of world religions, many of whom are also members of the communities they study. The essays are written to be informative and accessible to the educated public, and to be respectful of the viewpoints of the communities analyzed.

Play Reconsidered: Sociological Perspectives on Human Expression


Thomas S. Henricks - 2006
    In Play Reconsidered, rather than viewing play simply as a preoccupation of the young and a vehicle for skill development, Thomas S. Henricks argues that it's a social and cultural phenomenon of adult life, enveloped by wider structures and processes of society. In that context, he argues that a truly sociological approach to play should begin with a consideration of the largely overlooked writings on play and play-related topics by some of the classic sociological thinkers of the twentieth century. Henricks explores Karl Marx's analysis of creativity in human labor, examines Emile Durkheim's observations on the role of ritual and the formation of collective consciousness, extends Max Weber's ideas about the process of rationalization to the realm of expressive culture and play, surveys Georg Simmel's distinctive approach to sociology and sociability, and discusses Erving Goffman's focus on human conduct as process and play as "encounter." These and other discussions of the contributions of more recent sociologists are framed by an initial consideration of Johan Huizinga's famous challenge to understand the nature and significance of play. In a closing synthesis, Henricks distinguishes play from other forms of human social expression, particularly ritual, communitas, and work.

The Power Law of Information: Life in a Connected World


Srinath Srinivasa - 2006
    It also shows how information affects us in a variety of ways: be it human rationality, the spread of ideas in society, or global monetary systems. Drawing upon current research, author Srinath Srinivasa offers directions on how to model the new world taking shape and possibly to also steer it in the right direction.

Defending Gary: Unraveling the Mind of the Green River Killer


Mark Prothero - 2006
    He's too calm. He's too polite! He can't possibly have murdered forty-nine women. They can't be serious! They must have screwed up! I didn't realize then, but I was right. Gary Ridgway hadn't killed forty-nine women. He'd killed even more than that." Soon, Mark Prothero faced the question: "How could you possibly defend the most prolific serial killer in United States history, the infamous Green River Killer? If anyone deserved to be executed for his crimes, didn't he?"Mark Prothero, co-lead defense attorney who helped save Gary Ridgway from the death sentence, has heard that question many times. Now he's written a book that reveals the true, inside story of exactly how an idealistic public defender, high school swim coach, husband, and dad could bring himself to spend many months of close confinement with a man who brutally murdered at least 75 young women, often in the act of sex. Defending Gary shows how Prothero could reconcile these monstrous acts knowing the reality of this unassuming fellow Gary Ridgway, a mild-mannered, church-going, devoted husband, father, and former Navy man, with an IQ of around 82 and a longtime job as a truck-painter from Auburn, Washington, near Seattle.

The Middle Class: A History


Lawrence James - 2006
    The death of feudalism, the advancement of democracy, the industrial revolutions, the development of mass media - the middle class is never far away, drawing up petitions, pushing for change in attitude and legislation, engaging in philanthropy.

Sexual Utopia in Power: The Feminist Revolt Against Civilization


F. Roger Devlin - 2006
    But when utopian programs clash with dissenters—and with reality itself—the result is chaos, which revolutionaries seek to quash with repression and terror. In Sexual Utopia in Power, F. Roger Devlin explores today’s sexual dystopia, with its loose morals and confused sexual roles; its soaring rates of divorce, celibacy, and childlessness; and the increasingly arbitrary and punitive attempts to regulate and police it. Devlin shows that the breakdown of monogamy results in promiscuity for the few, loneliness for the majority, and unhappiness for all. Every revolution gives rise to a reaction. Devlin, however, is very critical of mainstream conservative responses to the sexual revolution, which often eerily echo feminist complaints about innocent women being preyed upon by wicked men who must be scolded and punished. The most controversial aspect of Devlin’s work is his argument that today’s sexual dystopia is rooted just as much in women’s nature as men’s, exploring such taboo topics as female hypergamy (mating up), narcissism, infidelity, deceptiveness, and masochism. By showing their biological basis, F. Roger Devlin offers a non-traditional defense of traditional sexual morals and institutions and shows us the way out of today’s sexual dystopia. Contents Preface Introduction: The Facts of Life 1. Sexual Utopia in Power 2. Rotating Polyandry—& its Enforcers 3. The Female Sexual Counter-Revolution and its Limitations 4. Home Economics 5. The Family Way 6. Back to Africa: Sexual Atavism in the Modern West 7. The Question of Female Masochism Index (Print edition only) Praise for F. Roger Devlin “‘Sexual Utopia in Power,’ Devlin’s infamous essay that launched a thousand blog posts about female hypergamy, is highly quotable and insightful in its analysis of the contemporary struggle between the sexes. Its indictments of feminism and warnings to men have only become more relevant since it was written. ‘Sexual Utopia’ is also an important response to clueless conservatives who rush to blame men for not marrying and starting families with women who are in many (though not all) cases simply unmarriageable.”— Jack Donovan, author of The Way of Men “. . . outstanding (and MSM blacked out) essays on gender dynamics . . .”—Roissy/Heartiste “If Roissy has anything resembling a mentor, it is F. Roger Devlin.”— Charlotte Allen, The Weekly Standard “Love and sex have never been confusing to me. I have Roger Devlin to thank for that.”—Chloë Thurlow, best-selling author of The Secret Life of Girls “Dr. Devlin is perhaps best role model there is for independent scholars on the right. His writings can be found on nearly every website the mainstream fears.”— Benjamin Villaroel, American Renaissance “In a decent world, Devlin would be an instantly-recognizable name and a literary giant.”— Spirit/Water/Blood “I have admired F. Roger Devlin’s path-breaking writings in The Occidental Quarterly since I became aware of them, and I’ve emphatically recommended them to everyone within reach. Dr. Devlin is a writer — percipient, witty, and courageous — who simply must be read.”— Nicholas Strakon, The Last Ditch “I believe the author is evil.”— Tyler Cowan F. Roger Devlin, Ph.D.

In the Amazon Jungle Adventures in Remote Parts of the Upper Amazon River, Including a Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians


Algot Lange - 2006
    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.