With a 30-year-long career in human-rights journalism, she has travelled the globe and witnessed the worst atrocities inflicted on women. Observing first-handthe war on the female race, she's experienced and interacted with the brave ones who fight back. This is a breath-taking and visceral narrative, interweaving the real-life experiences of the heroines combating gross inequality. It is an examination of how women are treated across the globe: from the pay gap in the UK and the laundries in Ireland, to gender discrimination in Saudi Arabia and female genital mutilation in Africa. In a world where the issues facing women are so disparate, we're facing a war of varying extremities and this has created a breakdown in the feminist discourse. But through her extraordinary and unique experiences, Lloyd-Roberts starts to build a bigger picture with a pervasive perspective. The book delves into our history and takes us on a journey towards the analysis of the state of women's lives in modern-day society. This is a ground-breaking approach to a global problem; anecdotal evidence bridges the gap between different fights and gradually starts to knit together the battles being fought by the starkly different cultures across the world.

    How does it feel to be constantly regarded as a potential threat, strip-searched at every airport?Or be told that, as an actress, the part you’re most fitted to play is ‘wife of a terrorist’? How does it feel to have words from your native language misused, misappropriated and used aggressively towards you? How does it feel to hear a child of colour say in a classroom that stories can only be about white people? How does it feel to go ‘home’ to India when your home is really London? What is it like to feel you always have to be an ambassador for your race? How does it feel to always tick ‘Other’?Bringing together 21 exciting black, Asian and minority ethnic voices emerging in Britain today, The Good Immigrant explores why immigrants come to the UK, why they stay and what it means to be ‘other’ in a country that doesn’t seem to want you, doesn’t truly accept you – however many generations you’ve been here – but still needs you for its diversity monitoring forms.Inspired by discussion around why society appears to deem people of colour as bad immigrants – job stealers, benefit scroungers, undeserving refugees – until, by winning Olympic races or baking good cakes, or being conscientious doctors, they cross over and become good immigrants, editor Nikesh Shukla has compiled a collection of essays that are poignant, challenging, angry, humorous, heartbreaking, polemic, weary and – most importantly – real.

    He quickly earned a name as the most successful operative of his time and his expertise was called upon by drugs squads around the country to tackle an ever growing problem.But after years on the streets, spending time with the vulnerable users at the bottom of the chain, Neil began to question the seemingly futile war he was risking both his life and sanity for. What if the real enemy wasn’t who he thought?Good Cop, Bad War is an intense account of the true effects of the war on drugs and a gripping insight into the high pressure world of British undercover policing.

    Seven men, all from the town’s Pakistani heritage community, were jailed for selling vulnerable young girls for sex. The convictions made national news, but for one girl the chilling headlines were all too real.      Holly Archer was just fourteen when her life changed forever after becoming embroiled in a frightening web of exploitation and abuse. Enduring countless violent rapes and death threats, she was forced to sleep with several men a night. As her abusers’ grip tightened, she fell into despair, twice becoming pregnant. Hours after her last GCSE exam, she took an overdose in a desperate attempt to end the nightmare that had become her life.      Her escape eventually came when, old enough to leave home, she fled to Birmingham. She moved house every six months, fearing her abusers would hunt her down. She eventually found the strength to return to Telford shortly after giving birth to a daughter, around the same time the police launched an investigation into the exploitation of young girls in the town. She underwent hours of rigorous police interviews but in the end decided she could not face her abusers in court.      Nonetheless, seven men were convicted of sex offences and jailed as a result of the investigation. Holly slowly began to pick up the pieces of her life and was given a job with a rape prevention charity. Having survived her ordeal, she now tells her full, shocking story for the first time.

    Marketplace’s Rob Schmitz is one of them. He immerses himself in his neighborhood, forging deep relationships with ordinary people who see in the city’s sleek skyline a brighter future, and a chance to rewrite their destinies. There’s Zhao, whose path from factory floor to shopkeeper is sidetracked by her desperate measures to ensure a better future for her sons. Down the street lives Auntie Fu, a fervent capitalist forever trying to improve herself with religion and get-rich-quick schemes while keeping her skeptical husband at bay. Up a flight of stairs, musician and café owner CK sets up shop to attract young dreamers like himself, but learns he’s searching for something more. As Schmitz becomes more involved in their lives, he makes surprising discoveries which untangle the complexities of modern China: A mysterious box of letters that serve as a portal to a family’s – and country’s – dark past, and an abandoned neighborhood where fates have been violently altered by unchecked power and greed.  A tale of 21st century China, Street of Eternal Happiness profiles China’s distinct generations through multifaceted characters who illuminate an enlightening, humorous, and at times heartrending journey along the winding road to the Chinese Dream. Each story adds another layer of humanity and texture to modern China, a tapestry also woven with Schmitz’s insight as a foreign correspondent. The result is an intimate and surprising portrait that dispenses with the tired stereotypes of a country we think we know, immersing us instead in the vivid stories of the people who make up one of the world’s most captivating cities.

    The ‘top performing’ schools were designing education in completely different ways from the UK and from each other, and yet, despite their differences, they were all getting top marks.Determined to find answers she couldn’t get from reports and graphs, Lucy set off on a journey around the globe to see these schools and students for herself.Cleverlands is the story of her journey through Finland, Canada, Japan, China and Singapore – five countries regularly at the top of the education charts. She spent three weeks immersed in classrooms in each country – living with teachers, listening to parents, teaching, watching and asking questions.The result is a guided tour of the world’s best educational systems and a reflection on what success in the UK might look like in light of these varying possibilities… not just what our politicians would have us believe.

    From creating brand value to fine-tuning customer service, the folks running cartels have been attentive students of the strategy and tactics used by corporations such as Walmart, McDonald's, and Coca-Cola.     And what can government learn to combat this scourge? By analyzing the cartels as companies, law enforcers might better understand how they work—and stop throwing away 100 billion a year in a futile effort to win the “war” against this global, highly organized business.     Your intrepid guide to the most exotic and brutal industry on earth is Tom Wainwright. Picking his way through Andean cocaine fields, Central American prisons, Colorado pot shops, and the online drug dens of the Dark Web, Wainwright provides a fresh, innovative look into the drug trade and its 250 million customers.     The cast of characters includes “Bin Laden,” the Bolivian coca guide; “Old Lin,” the Salvadoran gang leader; “Starboy,” the millionaire New Zealand pill maker; and a cozy Mexican grandmother who cooks blueberry pancakes while plotting murder. Along with presidents, cops, and teenage hitmen, they explain such matters as the business purpose for head-to-toe tattoos, how gangs decide whether to compete or collude, and why cartels care a surprising amount about corporate social responsibility.More than just an investigation of how drug cartels do business, Narconomics is also a blueprint for how to defeat them.

    When mass movements erupt onto our television screens, the media consistently portrays them as being spontaneous and unpredictable. Yet, in this book, Mark and Paul Engler look at the hidden art behind such outbursts of protest, examining core principles that have been used to spark and guide moments of transformative unrest. With incisive insights from contemporary activists, as well as fresh revelations about the work of groundbreaking figures such as Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Gene Sharp, and Frances Fox Piven, the Englers show how people with few resources and little conventional influence are engineering the upheavals that are reshaping contemporary politics. Nonviolence is usually seen simply as a philosophy or moral code. This Is an Uprising shows how it can instead be deployed as a method of political conflict, disruption, and escalation. It argues that if we are always taken by surprise by dramatic outbreaks of revolt, we pass up the chance to truly understand how social transformation happens.

    As she gets to know people who strongly oppose many of the ideas she famously champions, Russell Hochschild nevertheless finds common ground and quickly warms to the people she meets – among them a Tea Party activist whose town has been swallowed by a sinkhole caused by a drilling accident – people whose concerns are actually ones that all Americans share: the desire for community, the embrace of family, and hopes for their children. Strangers in Their Own Land goes beyond the commonplace liberal idea that these are people who have been duped into voting against their own interests. Instead, Russell Hochschild finds lives ripped apart by stagnant wages, a loss of home, an elusive American dream – and political choices and views that make sense in the context of their lives. Russell Hochschild draws on her expert knowledge of the sociology of emotion to help us understand what it feels like to live in "red" America. Along the way she finds answers to one of the crucial questions of contemporary American politics: why do the people who would seem to benefit most from "liberal" government intervention abhor the very idea?

    It is foundational to our democracy, our way of life - our very conception of what it is to be human. But are we free in the way that we think we are?In Creating Freedom, Raoul Martinez compellingly dismantles the sacred myth of freedom, showing that our belief that our institutions are free, even our sense of ourselves as agents of free will, is all based on false understanding. From the lottery of our birth, to the coercive influence of our media, to the self-reinforcing, consent-manufacturing realities of power and money, this far-reaching manifesto fiercely demonstrates just how differently we would act if we accepted how the world really is.It shows that freedom is not something we are given; it is not even something we can easily take. But with empathy, imagination, and determination - it is something we can create.

    Mann and the Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist Tom Toles have been on the front lines of the fight against climate denialism for most of their careers. They have witnessed the manipulation of the media by business and political interests and the unconscionable play to partisanship on issues that affect the well-being of billions. The lessons they have learned have been invaluable, inspiring this brilliant, colorful escape hatch from the madhouse of the climate wars.The Madhouse Effect portrays the intellectual pretzels into which denialists must twist logic to explain away the clear evidence that human activity has changed Earth's climate. Toles's cartoons collapse counter-scientific strategies into their biased components, helping readers see how to best strike at these fallacies. Mann's expert skills at science communication aim to restore sanity to a debate that continues to rage against widely acknowledged scientific consensus. The synergy of these two climate science crusaders enlivens the gloom and doom of so many climate-themed books--and may even convert die-hard doubters to the side of sound science.

    But unconscious bias holds us back, and de-biasing people s minds has proven to be difficult and expensive. Diversity training programs have had limited success, and individual effort alone often invites backlash. Behavioral design offers a new solution. By de-biasing organizations instead of individuals, we can make smart changes that have big impacts. Presenting research-based solutions, Iris Bohnet hands us the tools we need to move the needle in classrooms and boardrooms, in hiring and promotion, benefiting businesses, governments, and the lives of millions."What Works" is built on new insights into the human mind. It draws on data collected by companies, universities, and governments in Australia, India, Norway, the United Kingdom, the United States, Zambia, and other countries, often in randomized controlled trials. It points out dozens of evidence-based interventions that could be adopted right now and demonstrates how research is addressing gender bias, improving lives and performance. "What Works" shows what more can be done often at shockingly low cost and surprisingly high speed.

    And yet many western democracies actively ignore how science might help us to survive our own ingenuity. Shawn Lawrence Otto’s provocative book investigates the historical, social, and emotional reasons for why this is the case, and offers a vision and an argument to bring us to our collective senses, before it’s too late.

    In nearly every moment of our waking lives, we face a barrage of messaging, advertising enticements, branding, sponsored social media, and other efforts to harvest our attention. Few moments or spaces of our day remain uncultivated by the "attention merchants," contributing to the distracted, unfocused tenor of our times. Tim Wu argues that this condition is not simply the byproduct of recent technological innovations but the result of more than a century's growth and expansion in the industries that feed on human attention. From the pre-Madison Avenue birth of advertising to the explosion of the mobile web; from AOL and the invention of email to the attention monopolies of Google and Facebook; from Ed Sullivan to celebritypower brandslike Oprah Winfrey, Kim Kardashian and Donald Trump, the basic business model of "attention merchants" has never changed: free diversion in exchange for a moment of your consideration, sold in turn to the highest-bidding advertiser. Wu describes the revolts that have risen against the relentless siege of our awareness, from the remote control to the creation of public broadcasting to Apple's ad-blocking OS. But he makes clear that attention merchants are always growing new heads, even as their means of getting inside our heads are changing our very nature--cognitive, social, political and otherwise--in ways unimaginable even a generation ago.

    Want to know the highest anyone has travelled on a skateboard, or the largest loop-the-loop completed in a car? Dying to know just how many tricks a cat can do in one minute? The answers to these questions and so much more are right inside.New in this year’s edition are exciting infographic features exploring the fascinating details on topics such as animals, the human body, sports, and explorations. And of course all your favorite record categories are updated for 2017, such as the world’s new tallest dog! And as ever, our team of world-class photographers have traveled the globe to capture amazing images of the year’s most impressive record holders. Let us know your favorite!Do try this at home…Want to be a record-breaker? Inside you’ll find challenges you can try in the back yard, in the kitchen, in your bedroom, or even in the gym. Who knows, you may become a world record holder yourself!Bonus content for the US editionFind exclusive pages just for the USA featuring amazing records from the X Games and a special look at the 125th anniversary of basketball.

    Accessing a cultural archive built over 400 years of Dutch colonial rule, Wekker fundamentally challenges Dutch racial exceptionalism by undermining the dominant narrative of the Netherlands as a "gentle" and "ethical" nation. Wekker analyzes the Dutch media's portrayal of black women and men, the failure to grasp race in the Dutch academy, contemporary conservative politics (including gay politicians espousing anti-immigrant rhetoric), and the controversy surrounding the folkloric character Black Pete, showing how the denial of racism and the expression of innocence safeguards white privilege. Wekker uncovers the postcolonial legacy of race and its role in shaping the white Dutch self, presenting the contested, persistent legacy of racism in the country.

    But for all its commercial success, it proposed a model of feminism that was individualistic and unthreatening to capital.In her powerful debut work Lean Out, acclaimed journalist Dawn Foster unpicks how the purportedly feminist message of Sandberg’s book neatly exempts patriarchy, capitalism and business from any responsibility for changing the position of women in contemporary culture. It looks at the rise of a corporate ‘1% feminism’, and at how feminism has been defanged and depoliticised at a time when women have borne the brunt of the financial crash and the gap between rich and poor is widening faster than ever. Surveying business, media, culture and politics, Foster asks whether this ‘trickledown’ feminism offers any material gain for women collectively, or acts as mere window-dressing PR for the corporations who caused the financial crash. She concludes that ‘leaning out’ of the corporate model is a more effective way of securing change than leaning in.

    Yet the United States holds more than eighty thousand people in isolation on any given day. Now sixteen authors vividly describe the miserable realities of life in solitary.In a book that will add a startling new dimension to the debates around human rights and prison reform, former and current prisoners describe the devastating effects of solitary confinement on their minds and bodies, the solidarity expressed between individuals who live side by side for years without ever meeting one another face to face, the ever-present specters of madness and suicide, and the struggle to maintain hope and humanity.These firsthand accounts are supplemented by the writing of noted experts, exploring the psychological, legal, ethical, and political dimensions of solitary confinement, and a comprehensive introduction by James Ridgeway and Jean Casella. Sarah Shourd, herself a survivor of more than a year of solitary confinement, writes eloquently in a preface about an experience that changed her life.

    Racism is truly our nation's original sin."It's time we right this unacceptable wrong," says bestselling author and leading Christian activist Jim Wallis. Fifty years ago, Wallis was driven away from his faith by a white church that considered dealing with racism to be taboo. His participation in the civil rights movement brought him back when he discovered a faith that commands racial justice. Yet as recent tragedies confirm, we continue to suffer from the legacy of racism. The old patterns of white privilege are colliding with the changing demographics of a diverse nation. The church has been slow to respond, and Sunday morning is still the most segregated hour of the week.In America's Original Sin, Wallis offers a prophetic and deeply personal call to action in overcoming the racism so ingrained in American society. He speaks candidly to Christians--particularly white Christians--urging them to cross a new bridge toward racial justice and healing.Whenever divided cultures and gridlocked power structures fail to end systemic sin, faith communities can help lead the way to grassroots change. Probing yet positive, biblically rooted yet highly practical, this book shows people of faith how they can work together to overcome the embedded racism in America, galvanizing a movement to cross the bridge to a multiracial church and a new America.

    Knowing where we're headed collectively is a crucial step in responding constructively to the challenges of the future and doing what we can now to help our descendants make the most of the world we're leaving them.John Michael Greer, historian of ideas and one of the most influential authors exploring the future of industrial society, writes the widely cited weekly blog the Archdruid Report and has published more than thirty books including The Long Descent, The Ecotechnic Future, The Wealth of Nature, and After Progress. He lives in Cumberland, Maryland, an old mill town in the Appalachians, with his wife Sara.

    In this research-backed guide, she examines each of the "tiger mother" stereotypes and goes beneath the surface to discover what happens in Asian parenting households. How do Asian parents think about childhood, family, and education and what can Western parents learn from them? And what benefits does a traditional Western upbringing have that Asian parents, too, may want to consider? Some of the takeaways from this parenting book include:The best of Asian parenting practices — such as how to teach children math, or raise tech-healthy kidsTeaching your child to broaden his or her attention spanFinding the right balance between work and play, while including family timeHelping your child see failure as a learning experienceAnd many, many more insightsEach chapter offers interviews with hundreds of Asian parents and kids and ends with a "How To" section of specific tips for Asian and Western parents both to aid childhood education and development inside and outside the classroom. Woven into this narrative are her reflections on teaching and parenting in locations that span the East and West. In this book, Thiagarajan synthesizes an extensive body of research on child education and Asian parenting both to provide accessible and practical guidelines for parents.

    Climate change is only the most visible of the modifications we've made—up until this point, inadvertently—to the planet. And our current behavior threatens not only our own future but that of countless other creatures. By comparing Earth's story to those of other planets, astrobiologist David Grinspoon shows what a strange and novel development it is for a species to evolve to build machines, and ultimately, global societies with world-shaping influence.Without minimizing the challenges of the next century, Grinspoon suggests that our present moment is not only one of peril, but also great potential, especially when viewed from a 10,000-year perspective. Our species has surmounted the threat of extinction before, thanks to our innate ingenuity and ability to adapt, and there's every reason to believe we can do so again.Our challenge now is to awaken to our role as a force of planetary change, and to grow into this task. We must become graceful planetary engineers, conscious shapers of our environment and caretakers of Earth's biosphere. This is a perspective that begs us to ask not just what future do we want to avoid, but what do we seek to build? What kind of world do we want? Are humans the worst thing or the best thing to ever happen to our planet? Today we stand at a pivotal juncture, and the answer will depend on the choices we make.

    Now, in this funny and necessary book, he turns round to look at men with a clear eye and ask, what sort of men would make the world a better place, for everyone?What would happen if we rethought the old, macho, outdated version of manhood, and embraced a different idea of what makes a man? Apart from giving up the coronary-inducing stress of always being 'right' and the vast new wardrobe options, the real benefit might be that a newly fitted masculinity will allow men to have better relationships - and that's happiness, right?Grayson Perry admits he's not immune from the stereotypes himself - as the psychoanalysts say, 'if you spot it, you've got it' - and his thoughts on everything from power to physical appearance, from emotions to a brand new Manifesto for Men, are shot through with honesty, tenderness and the belief that, for everyone to benefit, upgrading masculinity has to be something men decide to do themselves. They have nothing to lose but their hang-ups.

    It covers ideas from the various disciplines including psychology, economics, business, mathematics, engineering, physics, social science, literature, statistics and decision making.Don't have this book already? Click here to get it.

    As heard on Mark Levin and Glenn Beck radio. The Black middle class—saviors of the American way.Liberalism or How to Turn Good Men into Whiners, Weenies and Wimps documents the role of the 21 white, self-avowed socialist, atheist and  Marxist founders of the NAACP and their impact on the Black community’s present status at the top of our nations misery index.  It highlights the decades of anti-Black legislation supported by liberal black leaders who prioritized class over race in their zeal for the promises of socialism. Their anti-Black legislation, dating back with the 1932 Davis-Bacon Act, continues today to suppress inter-community Black capitalism, federal construction related Black employment, work and job experience for Black teenagers, quality education access for urban black children, and the role of black men as leaders within the family unit. Liberalism or How to Turn Good Men into Whiners, Weenies and Wimps highlights the strategy, used in 1910, to inject the atheist ideology of socialism into a once enterprising, self-sufficient, competitive and proud Christian black community. A portion of that community, the conservative Black middle class, is positioned to pull our nation back from this abyss.  Americans can ensure that the century-long sacrifice of lost hopes, dreams and lives made by the proud, courageous, patriotic, capitalist, Christianbased, self-sufficient, education-seeking Black community of the early 1900s was not in vain—but only if we choose to learn lessons from those past Black generations.

    The rich are getting richer by rigging the system in their favor, leaving the rest of us to struggle just to keep our heads above water. To save the American Dream, we’re told that we need to fight inequality through tax hikes, wealth redistribution schemes, and a far higher minimum wage.But what if that narrative is wrong? What if the real threat to the American Dream isn’t rising income inequality—but an all-out war on success?In Equal is Unfair, a timely and thought-provoking work, Don Watkins and Yaron Brook reveal that almost everything we’ve been taught about inequality is wrong. You’ll discover:• why successful CEOs make so much money—and deserve to• how the minimum wage hurts the very people it claims to help• why middle-class stagnation is a myth• how the little-known history of Sweden reveals the dangers of forced equality• the disturbing philosophy behind Obama’s economic agenda.The critics of inequality are right about one thing: the American Dream is under attack. But instead of fighting to make America a place where anyone can achieve success, they are fighting to tear down those who already have. The real key to making America a freer, fairer, more prosperous nation is to protect and celebrate the pursuit of success—not pull down the high fliers in the name of equality.

    Vast and underappreciated complexities of nonhuman life are explored in detail—from the cultures of pigs and prairie dogs, to the creative use of tools by elephants and fish, to the acumen of caterpillars and fungi. The paralysis of the scientific establishment on moral and ethical issues is confronted and a radical new framework for assessing the intelligence and sentience of nonhuman life is put forth. Jensen attacks mainstream environmental journalism, which too often limits discussions to how ecological changes affect humans or the economy—with little or no regard for nonhuman life. With his signature compassionate logic, he argues that when we separate ourselves from the rest of nature, we in fact orient ourselves against nature, taking an unjust and, in the long run, impossible position.Jensen expresses profound disdain for the human industrial complex and its ecological excesses, contending that it is based on the systematic exploitation of the earth. Page by page, Jensen, who has been called the philosopher-poet of the environmental movement, demonstrates his deep appreciation of the natural world in all its intimacy, and sounds an urgent call for its liberation from human domination.From the Trade Paperback edition.

    When Danny finds Alex’s body, he is forced to pursue the truth behind his death.   This volume of complete scripts is a brilliant companion to the ratings-winning BBC1 series first shown in November 2015 and set for DVD release in May 2016.

    It explains why offshore processing was re-established, what life is like for asylum seekers and refugees on Nauru and Manus, what asylum seekers, refugees and staff in the offshore detention centres have to say about what goes on there, and why the truth has been so hard to find. In doing so, it goes behind the rumours and allegations to reveal what is known – and what still is not known – about Australia’s offshore detention centres.

    Even in this nondescript settlement, people receive money via mobile transfer from family members working in distant cities. There are computer training centres offering diploma courses in Bhojpuri, Hindi and English. Here is an example of India's numerous remote towns that have skipped the stage of basic learning and landed straight into digital literacy as they strive to keep up with the times.In his last book, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, writing with Srijan Pal Singh, draws upon examples ranging from entrepreneurship in places like Badshahpur to a sophisticated missile programme like Agni to show how it can be 'Advantage India' in the final lap of the journey to 2020--the landmark year by which he had envisioned the country could transform into an economic power. How can the new initiatives--such as Make in India, Swachh Bharat, smart cities and skill development for the youth--be used to unleash the country's vast potential?Advantage India offers the answer--a movement driven by every home and school to educate the new generation and give a fresh meaning to citizenship.

    It focuses on how charismatic, authoritarian leaders control their followers' attachment relationships via manipulative social structures and ideologies so that, emotionally and cognitively isolated, they become unable to act in their own survival interests. Using the evolutionary theory of attachment to demonstrate the psychological impact of these environments, and incorporating the latest neuroscientific findings, Stein illustrates how the combined dynamic of terror and 'love' works to break down people's ability to think and behave rationally. From small local cults to global players like ISIS and North Korea, the impact of these movements is widespread and growing.This important book offers clarity and a unique perspective on the dynamics of these systems of control, and concludes with guidance to foster greater awareness and prevention. It will be essential reading for mental health professionals in the field, as well as policy makers, legal professionals, cult survivors, and their families, as well as anyone with an interest in these disturbing groups. Students of social and developmental psychology will also find it fascinating.

    The book covers the finance system, agriculture, design, ecology, economy, sustainability, organizations and society at large. In this remarkable book, Daniel Wahl explores ways in which we can reframe and understand the crises that we currently face, and he explores how we can live our way into the future. Moving from patterns of thinking and believing to our practice of education, design and community living, he systematically shows how we can stop chasing the mirage of certainty and control in a complex and unpredictable world. The book asks how can we collaborate in the creation of diverse regenerative cultures adapted to the unique biocultural conditions of place? How can we create conditions conducive to life? *** "This book is a valuable contribution to the important discussion of the worldview and value system we need to redesign our businesses, economies, and technologies - in fact, our entire culture - so as to make them regenerative rather than destructive." --Fritjof Capra, author of The Web of Life, co-author of The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision *** "This is an excellent addition to the literature on ecological design and it will certainly form a keystone in the foundations of the new MA in Ecological Design Thinking at Schumacher College, Devon. It not only contains a wealth of ideas on what Dr Wahl has termed 'Designing Regenerative Cultures' but what is probably more important, it provides some stimulating new ways of looking at persistent problems in our contemporary culture and hence opens up new ways of thinking and acting in the future." -- Seaton Baxter OBE, Prof. in Ecological Design Thinking, Schumacher College, UK [Subject: Systems Thinking, Education, Social Anthropology, Environmentalism, Ecology, Regenerative Culture, Sociology]

    In a wide-ranging discussion, he considers how normative and evaluative judgments are to be understood, how desire and practical reasoning are to be characterized, what it is to have adequate self-knowledge, and what part narrative plays in our understanding of human lives. He asks, further, what it would be to understand the modern condition from a neo-Aristotelian or Thomistic perspective, and argues that Thomistic Aristotelianism, informed by Marx's insights, provides us with resources for constructing a contemporary politics and ethics which both enable and require us to act against modernity from within modernity. This rich and important book builds on and advances MacIntyre's thinking in ethics and moral philosophy, and will be of great interest to readers in both fields.

    In those heady early days of computing, Britannia very much ruled the digital waves.Electronic Dreams looks back at how Britain embraced the home computer, and at the people who drove the boom: entrepreneurs such as Clive Sinclair and Alan Sugar seeking new markets; politicians proclaiming economic miracles; bedroom programmers with an unhealthy fascination with technology; and millions of everyday folk who bought into the electronic dream and let the computer into their lives. It is a history of home computers such as the Commodore VIC20, BBC Micro, and ZX Spectrum; classic computer games like Manic Miner and Elite; the early information networks that first put the home online; and the transformation of the computer into an everyday object in the British home.Based on interviews with key individuals, archive sources, and study of vintage hardware and software, and with a particular focus on the computer's place in social history, Electronic Dreams is a nostalgic look at how a depressed 1980s Britain got over its fear of microchips and embraced the computer as a “passport to the future.”

     By following the stories of nine contemporary Chinese artists, The Phoenix Years shows how China's rise unleashed creativity, thwarted hopes, and sparked tensions between the individual and the state that continue to this day.It relates the heady years hope and creativity in the 1980s, which ended in the disaster of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Following that tragedy comes China's meteoric economic rise, and the opportunities that emerged alongside the difficult compromises artists and others have to make to be citizens in modern China.Foreign correspondent Madeleine O'Dea has been an eyewitness for over thirty years to the rise of China, the explosion of its contemporary art and cultural scene, and the long, ongoing struggle for free expression. The stories of these artists and their art mirror the history of their country. The Phoenix Years is vital reading for anyone interested in China today.

    The following sixteen years saw politics and pop music come together as never before to challenge racism, gender inequality and social and class divisions. For the first time in UK history, musicians became instigators of social change and their political persuasion as important as the songs they sang.Through the voices of campaigners, musicians, artists and politicians, Daniel Rachel charts this extraordinary and pivotal period between 1976 and 1992, following the rise and fall of three key movements of the time: Rock Against Racism, 2 Tone and Red Wedge, revealing how they both shaped, and were shaped by, the music of a generation.Consisting of new and exclusive in-depth conversations with over 100 contributors, including Pauline Black, Billy Bragg, Jerry Dammers, Phill Jupitus, Neil Kinnock, Linton Kwesi-Johnson, Tom Robinson, Clare Short, Tracey Thorn and many more, Walls Come Tumbling Down is a fascinating, polyphonic and authoritative account of those crucial sixteen years in Britain's history, from the acclaimed writer of Isle of Noises.Walls Come Tumbling Down also features more than 150 images – many rare or previously unpublished – from some of the greatest names in photography, including Adrian Boot, Chalkie Davies, Jill Furmanovsky, Syd Shelton, Pennie Smith, Steve Rapport and Virginia Turbett.

    The Twitter hashtag #charlestonsyllabus quickly emerged as the central resource for help in learning how the tragedy fit into the tumultuous history of race relations - not only in the United States but globally. This reader collects some of the best writings to be recommended and debated using the Charleston Syllabus hashtag. Featuring a variety of texts such as songs and poems, historical documents, op-eds, and excerpts from books and journals, Charleston Syllabus is a tool for understanding the roots of American systemic racism, white privilege, the uses and abuses of the Confederate flag and its ideals, the black church as a foundation for civil rights activity, and much more.

    Just months later, Marie’s shock turns to terror when she’s charged with murdering a lecherous opera maestro. Evidence points squarely at her, but Marie swears she’s been framed.Only her best friend believes her.The stunning wife of renowned pro quarterback Cole Donovan is no stranger to struggle. Not only must she fight off the groupies who want to take her man, but she feels alienated in the NFL’s macho culture. When the philandering, hard-drinking Cole retires, he starts playing with high society’s money. Winning at all costs catches up with him......and leaves Marie on the hook for millions.Scorned by society, charged with murder, Marie pins her hopes on defense attorney Ryan Ingles, Cole’s college football pal. Ryan’s investigator reveals a long line of victims who’ve fallen for the murdered maestro’s charms. Trouble is, most point their diamond-studded fingers back at Marie. Desperate to prove her innocence and pay back Cole’s investors, Marie, Ryan and his investigator fly to exotic islands in search of the missing millions, held captive by a corrupt Pakistani banker.Will Marie find the way to free herself from Cole’s shame?

    The inflation-adjusted wage of a US worker today is less than 40 years ago—but there are four times as many multimillionaires. As inequality grows, the infrastructure frays and the politics become more poisonous. Every year, more and more Americans go on shooting sprees, killing strangers and passers-by—and now, increasingly, the representatives of the state.Troubling trends of this kind are endlessly discussed by politicians, public intellectuals, and social scientists. But mostly, they talk about only a small slice of the overall problem. After all, how on earth can yet another murderous rampage have anything to do with polarization in Congress? And is there really a connection between too many multimillionaires and government gridlock?Historical analysis shows that long spells of equitable prosperity and internal peace are succeeded by protracted periods of inequity, increasing misery, and political instability. These crisis periods—“Ages of Discord”—tend to share characteristic features, identifiable in many societies throughout history. Modern Americans, for example, may be disconcerted to learn that the US right now has much in common with the Antebellum 1850s and, even more surprisingly, with ancien régime France on the eve of the French Revolution. Can it really be true that our troubled age is nothing new, and that it arises periodically for similar underlying reasons? It can. Ages of Discord marshals a cohesive theory and detailed historical data to show that this is, indeed, the case. The book takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride through American history, from the Era of Good Feelings of the 1820s to our first Age of Discord, which culminated in the American Civil War, to post-WW2 prosperity and, finally, to our present, second Age of Discord.Unlike societies in the past, however, we are in a unique position to take steps to escape the worst. Societal breakdown and the ensuing wave of violence can be avoided by taking collective, cooperative action. The structural-demographic theory, explained in this book, helps us understand why demographic, social, and political trends changed direction from favorable to unfavorable in America around the 1970s. Such understanding is the key to developing reforms that would reverse these negative trends and move us to a more equitable, prosperous, and peaceful society.

    Without countervailing voices, a better world can never materialise. Without countervailing voices, wells will still be dug and bridges will still be built, but only for the few. Food will still be grown, but it will not reach the mouths of the poor. New medicines will be developed, but they will be inaccessible to many of those in need.” George Monbiot is one of the most vocal, and eloquent, critics of the current consensus. How Did We Get into This Mess?, based on his powerful journalism, assesses the state we are now in: the devastation of the natural world, the crisis of inequality, the corporate takeover of nature, our obsessions with growth and profit and the decline of the political debate over what to do. While his diagnosis of the problems in front of us is clear-sighted and reasonable, he also develops solutions to challenge the politics of fear. How do we stand up to the powerful when they seem to have all the weapons? What can we do to prepare our children for an uncertain future? Controversial, clear but always rigorously argued, How Did We Get into This Mess? makes a persuasive case for change in our everyday lives, our politics and economics, the ways we treat each other and the natural world.

    To Live Freely in This World is the first book to tell the story of the brave activists at the beating heart of the sex workers’ rights movement in Africa—the newest and most vibrant face of the global sex workers’ rights struggle. African sex worker activists are proving that communities facing human rights abuses are not bereft of agency. They’re challenging politicians, religious fundamentalists, and anti-prostitution advocates; confronting the multiple stigmas that affect the diverse members of their communities; engaging in intersectional movement building with similarly marginalized groups; and participating in the larger global sex workers’ rights struggle in order to determine their social and political fate. By locating this counter-narrative in Africa, To Live Freely in This World challenges disempowering and one-dimensional depictions of “degraded Third World prostitutes” and helps fill what has been a gaping hole in feminist scholarship regarding sex work in the African context. Based on original fieldwork in seven African countries, including Botswana, Kenya, Mauritius, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, and Uganda, Chi Adanna Mgbako draws on extensive interviews with over 160 African female and male (cisgender and transgender) sex worker activists, and weaves their voices and experiences into a fascinating, richly-detailed, and powerful examination of the history and continuing activism of this young movement.

    Since then, that share has plummeted to where it was in 1900. As Richard Baldwin explains, this reversal of fortune reflects a new age of globalisation that is drastically different from the old.In the 1800s, globalisation leaped forward when steam power and international peace lowered the costs of moving goods across borders. This triggered a self-fueling cycle of industrial agglomeration and growth that propelled today's rich nations to dominance. That was the Great Divergence. The new globalisation is driven by information technology, which has radically reduced the cost of moving ideas across borders. This has made it practical for multinational firms to move labor-intensive work to developing nations. But to keep the whole manufacturing process in sync, the firms also shipped their marketing, managerial, and technical know-how abroad along with the offshored jobs. The new possibility of combining high tech with low wages propelled the rapid industrialisation of a handful of developing nations, the simultaneous deindustrialisation of developed nations, and a commodity supercycle that is only now petering out. The result is today's Great Convergence.Because globalisation is now driven by fast-paced technological change and the fragmentation of production, its impact is more sudden, more selective, more unpredictable, and more uncontrollable. As The Great Convergence shows, the new globalisation presents rich and developing nations alike with unprecedented policy challenges in their efforts to maintain reliable growth and social cohesion.

    His deep love for Christ is evident as he recounts his own upbringing in a devout Catholic family, his early priestly years, and his service as a bishop in the United States and RomeEvery topic is approached from the perspective of deep faith and sound reasoning, without polemics. Cardinal Burke, a great canonist with long pastoral experience, treats difficult subjects with clarity and directness. His lucid and straightforward answers help with understanding the essential moral and spiritual challenges of today. They uncover the foundational truths of the natural law, which is written on our hearts.

    The truth is that I am just a journalist who asks questions, but one who does in fact take a stand."—Jorge Ramos After 30 fascinating years uncovering the hard truth, Emmy Award-winning journalist Jorge Ramos opens up for the first time about life-altering lessons by sharing captivating never-before-told stories. Widely recognized for his unapologetic, no-holds-barred approach to interviewing global leaders, business titans, democratic policy makers and dictators who threaten to derail those principles, Ramos unearths their one common trait—they are all rebels.   Rebels are different. At some point they decided to challenge the prevailing status quo. Sometimes they rebelled to change a regime, other times to prevent abuse or discrimination, but in all cases they strived to correct an injustice.In Take a Stand, Ramos looks back on groundbreaking interviews with rebels such as President Barack Obama, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Spike Lee, Barbara Walters, Fidel Castro and more. Candid and at times controversial, Ramos draws invaluable awareness of issues that influence the mindset of the largest minority in the country and how they will undoubtedly shape not only Presidential elections but also the future of America.

    You will learn how to raise an engaging, accomplished and sophisticated child, one who gets noticed for all the right reasons. From fine dining, travel and art appreciation to navigating social media with integrity - Beyond Good Manners: How to Raise a Sophisticated Child will show you how to take your child to the next level. Whether your child is 5 or 15 this is the one book you will reference time and again for advice and techniques that are relevant, practical and insightful.

    Today we rarely know the origins of the clothes hanging in our closets. The local shoemaker, dressmaker and milliner are long gone, replaced by a globalised fashion industry worth $1.5 trillion a year.In Wardrobe Crisis, fashion journalist Clare Press explores the history and ethics behind what we wear. Putting her insider status to good use, Press examines the entire fashion ecosystem, from sweatshops to haute couture, unearthing the roots of today’s buy-and-discard culture. She traces the origins of icons like Chanel, Dior and Hermès; charts the rise and fall of the department store; and follows the thread that led us from Marie Antoinette to Carrie Bradshaw.From a time when Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein were just two boys from the Bronx, to the world of the global fashion juggernaut, where Zara’s parent company produces more than 900 million garments annually, Press takes us on an insider’s journey of discovery and revelation.Wardrobe Crisis is a witty and persuasive argument for a fashion revolution that will empower you to feel good about your wardrobe again.

    Historically, women have been instrumental in moving the essay to center stage, and Waveform continues this rich tradition, further expanding the dynamic genre s boundaries and testing its edges. With thirty essays by thirty distinguished and diverse women writers, this carefully constructed anthology incorporates works ranging from the traditional to the experimental.Waveform champions the diversity of women s approaches to the structure ofthe essay today a site of invention and innovation, with experiments in collage, fragments, segmentation, braids, triptychs, and diptychs. Focused on these explorations of form, Waveform is not wed to a fixed theme or even to women s experiences per se. It is not driven by subject matter but highlights the writers interaction with all manner of subject and circumstance through style, voice, tone, and structure.This anthology presents some of the women who are shaping the essay today, mapping an ever-changing landscape. It is designed to place essays recently written by women such as Roxane Gay, Cheryl Strayed, Margo Jefferson, Jaquira Diaz, and Eula Biss into the hands of those who have been waiting patiently for something they could equally claim as their own.Contributors: Marcia Aldrich, Jocelyn Bartkevicius, Chelsea Biondolillo, Eula Biss, Barrie Jean Borich, Joy Castro, Meghan Daum, Jaquira Diaz, Laurie Lynn Drummond, Patricia Foster, Roxane Gay, Leslie Jamison, Margo Jefferson, Sonja Livingston, Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, Brenda Miller, Michele Morano, Kyoko Mori, Bich Minh Nguyen, Adriana Paramo, Jericho Parms, Torrey Peters, Kristen Radtke, Wendy Rawlings, Cheryl Strayed, Dana Tommasino, Sarah Valentine, Neela Vaswani, Nicole Walker, Amy Wright"

    In the United States alone, 16,000 people die each year as a result of prescription opioid overdose. But perhaps the most frightening aspect of the prescription drug epidemic is that it’s built on well-meaning doctors treating patients with real problems.In Drug Dealer, MD, Dr. Anna Lembke uncovers the unseen forces driving opioid addiction nationwide. Combining case studies from her own practice with vital statistics drawn from public policy, cultural anthropology, and neuroscience, she explores the complex relationship between doctors and patients, the science of addiction, and the barriers to successfully addressing drug dependence and addiction. Even when addiction is recognized by doctors and their patients, she argues, many doctors don’t know how to treat it, connections to treatment are lacking, and insurance companies won’t pay for rehab. Full of extensive interviews—with health care providers, pharmacists, social workers, hospital administrators, insurance company executives, journalists, economists, advocates, and patients and their families— Drug Dealer, MD, is for anyone whose life has been touched in some way by addiction to prescription drugs. Dr. Lembke gives voice to the millions of Americans struggling with prescription drugs while singling out the real culprits behind the rise in opioid addiction: cultural narratives that promote pills as quick fixes, pharmaceutical corporations in cahoots with organized medicine, and a new medical bureaucracy focused on the bottom line that favors pills, procedures, and patient satisfaction over wellness. Dr. Lembke concludes that the prescription drug epidemic is a symptom of a faltering health care system, the solution for which lies in rethinking how health care is delivered.

    Carefully selected from among nearly 400 such letters, this collection covers a range of themes and subjects, including citizenship, war and peace, law and order, national planning and development, governance and corruption, and India’s place in the world. The letters also cover momentous world events and the many crises and conflicts the country faced during the first sixteen years after Independence. Visionary, wise and reflective, these letters are not just a testimony to Nehru’s statesmanship and his deep engagement with every aspect of India’s democratic journey, but are also of great contemporary relevance for the guidance they provide for our current problems and predicaments.

    They demonstrate that voters even those who are well informed and politically engaged mostly choose parties and candidates on the basis of social identities and partisan loyalties, not political issues. They also show that voters adjust their policy views and even their perceptions of basic matters of fact to match those loyalties. When parties are roughly evenly matched, elections often turn on irrelevant or misleading considerations such as economic spurts or downturns beyond the incumbents' control; the outcomes are essentially random. Thus, voters do not control the course of public policy, even indirectly.Achen and Bartels argue that democratic theory needs to be founded on identity groups and political parties, not on the preferences of individual voters. "Democracy for Realists" provides a powerful challenge to conventional thinking, pointing the way toward a fundamentally different understanding of the realities and potential of democratic government."

    These are the very same behaviors that typify good soldiering and foster a sense of belonging among troops, whether they’re fighting on the front lines or engaged in non-combat activities away from the action. Drawing from history, psychology, and anthropology, bestselling author Sebastian Junger shows us just how at odds the structure of modern society is with our tribal instincts, arguing that the difficulties many veterans face upon returning home from war do not stem entirely from the trauma they’ve suffered, but also from the individualist societies they must reintegrate into.A 2011 study by the Canadian Forces and Statistics Canada reveals that 78 percent of military suicides from 1972 to the end of 2006 involved veterans. Though these numbers present an implicit call to action, the government is only just taking steps now to address the problems veterans face when they return home. But can the government ever truly eliminate the challenges faced by returning veterans? Or is the problem deeper, woven into the very fabric of our modern existence? Perhaps our circumstances are not so bleak, and simply understanding that beneath our modern guises we all belong to one tribe or another would help us face not just the problems of our nation but of our individual lives as well.Well-researched and compellingly written, this timely look at how veterans react to coming home will reconceive our approach to veteran’s affairs and help us to repair our current social dynamic.

    And just as important as it is to choose the right major, choose the right career, and choose the right spouse, no consideration is given as to choosing THE RIGHT PLACE to live in this vast and great country. And where you live arguably determines much more in your life. Who you meet. Your job opportunities. Your career success. Who you fall in love with. Even your health and happiness. But every year millions of Americans let their current familiar environment determine where they live, thus condemning them to mediocre opportunities, mediocre hobbies, mediocre people, and a mediocre life. DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU! Become a "Reconnaissance Man" instead!"Reconnaissance Man" is the young (and old) person's guide to the United States. It explains how to explore this great and vast country to find out where you should go to school, where you will make the most money, where you will be happiest, and ultimately where you belong. Don't live in frozen wastelands like Minnesota. Don't live in socialist hell holes like California or New York. Find your American utopia NOW and not when you're 65, about to retire and about to die. Life's too short to be living in Ohio, so become the classical American "Reconnaissance Man" today! Buy and read "Reconnaissance Man!"

    It is toxic, irradiated, and full of injustice. Aiming to stand aside from the mess can produce a seemingly satisfying self-righteousness in the scant moments we achieve it, but since it is ultimately impossible, individual purity will always disappoint. Might it be better to understand complexity and, indeed, our own complicity in much of what we think of as bad, as fundamental to our lives? Against Purity argues that the only answer—if we are to have any hope of tackling the past, present, and future of colonialism, disease, pollution, and climate change—is a resounding yes. Proposing a powerful new conception of social movements as custodians for the past and incubators for liberated futures, Against Purity undertakes an analysis that draws on theories of race, disability, gender, and animal ethics as a foundation for an innovative approach to the politics and ethics of responding to systemic problems.Being against purity means that there is no primordial state we can recover, no Eden we have desecrated, no pretoxic body we might uncover through enough chia seeds and kombucha. There is no preracial state we could access, no erasing histories of slavery, forced labor, colonialism, genocide, and their concomitant responsibilities and requirements. There is no food we can eat, clothes we can buy, or energy we can use without deepening our ties to complex webbings of suffering. So, what happens if we start from there?Alexis Shotwell shows the importance of critical memory practices to addressing the full implications of living on colonized land; how activism led to the official reclassification of AIDS; why we might worry about studying amphibians when we try to fight industrial contamination; and that we are all affected by nuclear reactor meltdowns. The slate has never been clean, she reminds us, and we can’t wipe off the surface to start fresh—there’s no fresh to start. But, Shotwell argues, hope found in a kind of distributed ethics, in collective activist work, and in speculative fiction writing for gender and disability liberation that opens new futures.

    This fissure is evident across the nation in conflict over LGBTQ rights; in challenges to religious liberty; in clashes over abortion; in tensions between law enforcement and minority communities. With all of this physical and emotional violence enacted by our legal system and such seemingly irresolvable differences in beliefs, values, and identities across the country, we are forced to ask—how can the people of this nation ever live in peace together? In Confident Pluralism, John D. Inazu analyzes the current state of the country, orients the contemporary United States within its broader history, and explores the ways that Americans can—and must—live together peaceably in the future despite these deeply engrained differences. Pluralism is one of the founding creeds of the United States—yet America’s society and legal system continues to face deep, unsolved structural problems in dealing with differing cultural anxieties, and minority viewpoints.  Inazu not only argues that it is possible to cohabitate peacefully in this country, but he also lays out realistic guidelines for our society and legal system to achieve the new American dream through civic practices that value toleration over protest, humility over defensiveness, and persuasion over coercion. An essential clarion call during one of the most troubled times in US history, Confident Pluralism offers a refreshing argument for how the legal system can protect peoples’ personal beliefs and inherent right to differ and shows how we can build towards a healthier future of tolerance, patience, and empathy.

    How can our future be protected in such challenging anduncertain conditions? How can we possibly improve the chances that the human family will not only live, but live well, into the 21st century and beyond?This book locates a key to that future in the distant past: specifically, in the philosophical traditions of virtue ethics developed by classical thinkers from Aristotle and Confucius to the Buddha. Each developed a way of seeking the good life that equips human beings with the moral andintellectual character to flourish even in the most unpredictable, complex and unstable situations--precisely where we find ourselves today.Through an examination of the many risks and opportunities presented by rapidly changing technosocial conditions, Vallor makes the case that if we are to have any real hope of securing a future worth wanting, then we will need more than just better technologies. We will also need better humans.Technology and the Virtues develops a practical framework for seeking that goal by means of the deliberate cultivation of technomoral virtues: specific skills and strengths of character, adapted to the unique challenges of 21st century life, that offer the human family our best chance of learning tolive wisely and well with emerging technologies.

    You had a fit of breathlessness in front of your crush, When FLAMES said marriage, you couldn't help but blush. Blank calls played Morse codes, Two meant - you missed her loads. You were clumsy as shit, because her presence was sublime, But after your break-up, crying became your favorite pastime. You bunked the classes and said - 'Let the studies rot!' But you never missed Kiran ma'am's class, 'coz she was pretty hot!;) Cricket brought you glory, And planting a bomb in school changed your story. Life screwed you over and killed your spirit, But you're glad that you anyway did it. Told from the eyes of an Indian middle-class teenager, this story will make you wonder what you would have done if you were named Ghanshyam and were born a pessimistic nerd, while your optimistic best friend believed in unicorns and utopia! And to add to your woes, what if you fell in love with the most beautiful girl of your school? Wouldn't you then wait for a miracle to happen?Well, what if that miracle happened?

    Patel explains what interfaith leadership is and explores the core competencies and skills of interfaith leadership, before turning to the issues interfaith leaders face and how they can prepare to solve them. Interfaith leaders seek points of connection and commonality in their neighborhoods, schools, college campuses, companies, organizations, hospitals, and other spaces where people of different faiths interact with one another. While it can be challenging to navigate the differences and disagreements that can arise from these interactions, skilled interfaith leaders are vital if we are to have a strong, religiously diverse democracy. This primer presents readers with the philosophical underpinnings of interfaith theory and outlines the skills necessary to practice interfaith leadership today."

    This accessible collection of interviews, essays, poems and commentary explores topics such as definitions of bisexuality, intersections of bisexuality with other identities, stereotypes and biphobia, being bisexual at work, teenage bisexuality and bisexuality through the years, the media’s approach to bisexual celebrities, and fictional bisexual characters. Filled with raw, honest, first-person accounts as well as comments from leading bisexual activists in the UK, this is the book you’ll buy for your friend who’s just come out to you as bi-curious, or for your parents who think your bisexuality is weird or a phase, or for yourself, because you know you’re bi but you don’t know where to go or what to do about it.

    With essays contributed by an array of city-builders, it proposes solutions for fully inclusive communities that respond to the complexities of a global city.John Lorinc is a Toronto-based journalist who writes about urban affairs, politics, and business. He co-edited The Ward: The Life and Loss of Toronto's First Immigrant Neighbourhood (Coach House, 2015).Jay Pitter is a writer and professor based in Toronto. She holds a Masters in Environmental Studies from York University.

    The Culture War examines all of these topics, explaining how the Sexual Revolution transformed Western civilization, and detailing how Christians were caught off-guard by well-planned and brilliantly-executed strategies implemented by ruthless secular activists. This book was written so that Christians can understand how we came to this cultural moment and what we can do now that we are here.

    Francis's magnum opus on political theory and the history of the modern world, which had been lost to the world after his untimely death in 2005 and is published here for the first time. This edition includes new introductory and critical essays by Jerry Woodruff, Fran Griffin, and Paul E. Gottfried. In his Introduction, Jerry Woodruff writes, "Following [James] Burnham, Sam believed a new ruling elite emerged in 20th-century. . . . the growth of giant corporations, the expansion of government power and bureaucracy, and the widespread emergence of mass organizations gave birth to a powerful class of skilled professionals to guide and manage the vast operations of the means of economic production, which, on a smaller scale, were once in the hands of private entrepreneurs and their families. As a result, the old ruling bourgeois elite, along with its political and social institutions and its view of society and politics, were replaced by a new "managerial elite," with a world outlook that set out to remake society according to its own interests, and which was hostile to any bourgeois remnants in conflict with that project."

    The word itself was just one of many ideas in this work, her 1998 Honours thesis, a pioneering sociological work that mapped out the emergence of a new category of disability that, till then, had no name. And in the process, prefigured a new paradigm within the disability rights movement of the time. The work attempted a panoramic view of this new terrain from within a post-modern, social constructionist, feminist, disability rights perspective. Its chapters encompassed a brief history of autism, self-exploration of Singer’s life in the middle of three generations of women “somewhere on the autistic spectrum” and her research as a participant-observer on InLv, an online community of people on the spectrum. At the same time it offered a critique of what Singer perceived to be a certain tendency towards social-constructionist fundamentalism within the disability movement, which, she argued, limited the potential of the new paradigm. This volume reproduces the original thesis with the addition of a new introduction, which gives the background to the creation of the work and offers some thoughts on the current neurodiversity movement.

    Now, in a visually rich and deeply inspiring book, the leaders and activists of these and other movements distill their wisdom, sharing lessons of what makes—and what hinders—transformative social change.Longtime social activist Greg Jobin-Leeds joins forces with AgitArte, a collective of artists and organizers, to capture the stories, philosophy, tactics, and art of today’s leading social change movements. When We Fight, We Win! weaves together interviews with today’s most successful activists and artists from across the country and beyond—including Patrisse Cullors-Brignac, Bill McKibben, Clayton Thomas-Muller, Karen Lewis, Favianna Rodriguez, Rea Carey, and Gaby Pacheco, among others—with narrative recountings of strategies and campaigns alongside full-color photos. It includes a foreword by Rinku Sen and an afterword by Antonia Darder.When We Fight, We Win! will give a whole generation of readers the chance to celebrate and benefit from a remarkable decade of activism—a decade that shows just how ripe these times are for social transformation.

    Coming of Age in the Other America shows that despite overwhelming odds, some disadvantaged urban youth do achieve upward mobility. Drawing from ten years of fieldwork with parents and children who resided in Baltimore public housing, sociologists Stefanie DeLuca, Susan Clampet-Lundquist, and Kathryn Edin highlight the remarkable resiliency of some of the youth who hailed from the nation’s poorest neighborhoods and show how the right public policies might help break the cycle of disadvantage.Coming of Age in the Other America illuminates the profound effects of neighborhoods on impoverished families. The authors conducted in-depth interviews and fieldwork with 150 young adults, and found that those who had been able to move to better neighborhoods—either as part of the Moving to Opportunity program or by other means—achieved much higher rates of high school completion and college enrollment than their parents. About half the youth surveyed reported being motivated by an “identity project”—or a strong passion such as music, art, or a dream job—to finish school and build a career.Yet the authors also found troubling evidence that some of the most promising young adults often fell short of their goals and remained mired in poverty. Factors such as neighborhood violence and family trauma put these youth on expedited paths to adulthood, forcing them to shorten or end their schooling and find jobs much earlier than their middle-class counterparts. Weak labor markets and subpar postsecondary educational institutions, including exploitative for-profit trade schools and under-funded community colleges, saddle some young adults with debt and trap them in low-wage jobs. A third of the youth surveyed—particularly those who had not developed identity projects—were neither employed nor in school. To address these barriers to success, the authors recommend initiatives that help transform poor neighborhoods and provide institutional support for the identity projects that motivate youth to stay in school. They propose increased regulation of for-profit schools and increased college resources for low-income high school students.Coming of Age in the Other America presents a sensitive, nuanced account of how a generation of ambitious but underprivileged young Baltimoreans has struggled to succeed. It both challenges long-held myths about inner-city youth and shows how the process of “social reproduction”—where children end up stuck in the same place as their parents—is far from inevitable.Stefanie DeLuca is associate professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University.Susan Clampet-Lundquist is associate professor of sociology at Saint Joseph’s University.Kathryn Edin is Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University.

    Vance (Hillbilly Elegy) and the historical rigour of Carol Anderson (White Rage), Kamal Al-Solaylee explores the in-between space that brown people occupy in today’s world: on the cusp of whiteness and the edge of blackness. Brown proposes a cohesive racial identity and politics for the millions of people from the Global South and provides a timely context for the frictions and anxieties around immigration and multiculturalism that have led to the rise of populist movements in Europe and the election of Donald Trump.At once personal and global, Brown is packed with storytelling and on-the-street reporting conducted over two years in ten countries on four continents that reveals a multitude of lives and stories from destinations as far apart as the United Arab Emirates, the Philippines, the United States, Britain, Trinidad, France, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, Qatar and Canada. It features striking research about the emergence of brown as the colour of cheap labor and the pursuit of a lighter skin tone as a global status symbol. As he studies the significance of brown skin for people from North Africa and the Middle East, Mexico and Central America, and South and East Asia, Al-Solaylee also reflects on his own identity and experiences as a brown-skinned person (in his case from Yemen) who grew up with images of whiteness as the only indicators of beauty and success.This is a daring and politically resonant work that challenges our assumptions about race, immigration and globalism and recounts the heartbreaking stories of the people caught in the middle.

    This book explains how the system works and where it may be moving.Drawing on Chinese and international sources, on extensive collaboration with Chinese scholars, and on the political science of state analysis, Stein Ringen concludes that under the new leadership of Xi Jinping, the system of government has been transformed into a new regime radically harder and more ideological than the legacy of Deng Xiaoping. China is less strong economically and more dictatorial politically than the world has wanted to believe.By analyzing the leadership of Xi Jinping, the meaning of "socialist market economy," corruption, the party-state apparatus, the reach of the party, the mechanisms of repression, taxation and public services, and state-society relations, "The Perfect Dictatorship" broadens the field of China studies, as well as the fields of political economy, comparative politics, development, and welfare state studies.

    Everything from massive inequality to war depends on this process of categorisation and dehumanisation.In this provocative, inspiring piece of writing, Raoul Martinez asks how and why our empathy is controlled, and argues for a very different world – one of deeper understanding and indiscriminate compassion.

    Gaus shows how free and equal people, faced with intractable struggles and irreconcilable conflicts, might share a common moral life shaped by a just framework. He argues that if we are to take diversity seriously and if moral inquiry is sincere about shaping the world, then the pursuit of idealized and perfect theories of justice--essentially, the entire production of theories of justice that has dominated political philosophy for the past forty years--needs to change.Drawing on recent work in social science and philosophy, Gaus points to an important paradox: only those in a heterogeneous society--with its various religious, moral, and political perspectives--have a reasonable hope of understanding what an ideally just society would be like. However, due to its very nature, this world could never be collectively devoted to any single ideal. Gaus defends the moral constitution of this pluralistic, open society, where the very clash and disagreement of ideals spurs all to better understand what their personal ideals of justice happen to be.Presenting an original framework for how we should think about morality, The Tyranny of the Ideal rigorously analyzes a theory of ideal justice more suitable for contemporary times.

    By the end of the Civil War, nearly half a million slaves had taken refuge behind Union lines, in what became known as "contraband camps." These were crowded, dangerous places, yet some 12-15 percent of the Confederacy's slave population took almost unimaginable risks to reach them, and they became the first places Northerners came to know former slaves en masse. Ranging from stories of individuals to those of armies on the move to the debates in Congress, Troubled Refuge probes what the camps were really like and how former slaves and Union soldiers warily united there. This alliance, which would outlast the war, helped to destroy slavery and ward off the surprisingly tenacious danger of re-enslavement. But it also raised unsettling questions about the relationship between American civil and military authority, and reshaped the meaning of American citizenship, to the benefit as well as the lasting cost of African-Americans.

    Esoteric Hollywood is a game-changer in an arena of tabloid-populated titles. After years of scholarly research, Jay Dyer has compiled his most read essays, combining philosophy, comparative religion, symbolism and geopolitics and their connections to film. Readers will watch movies with new eyes, able to decipher on their own, as the secret meanings of cinema are unveiled.

    Before it emerged in the second century, passage to the afterlife required obedience to God and king. Gnosticism proposed that human beings were manifestations of the divine, unsettling the hierarchical foundations of the ancient world. Subversive and revolutionary, Gnostics taught that prayer and mediation could bring human beings into an ecstatic spiritual union with a transcendent deity. This mystical strain affected not just Christianity but many other religions, and it characterizes our understanding of the purpose and meaning of religion today.In The Gnostic New Age, April D. DeConick recovers this vibrant underground history to prove that Gnosticism was not suppressed or defeated by the Catholic Church long ago, nor was the movement a fabrication to justify the violent repression of alternative forms of Christianity. Gnosticism alleviated human suffering, soothing feelings of existential brokenness and alienation through the promise of renewal as God. DeConick begins in ancient Egypt and follows with the rise of Gnosticism in the Middle Ages, the advent of theosophy and other occult movements in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and contemporary New Age spiritual philosophies. As these theories find expression in science-fiction and fantasy films, DeConick sees evidence of Gnosticism's next incarnation. Her work emphasizes the universal, countercultural appeal of a movement that embodies much more than a simple challenge to religious authority.

    To the disillusioned, human beings are a cosmic accident whose intrinsic value is worth no more than other animals.The Death of Humanity explores our culture's declining respect for the sanctity of human life, drawing on philosophy and history to reveal the dark road ahead for society if we lose our faith in human life.

    Universally recognized as the definitive competition for photographic reportage, it has been described by former art director of The Sunday Times, Michael Rand, as “the international photographic contest.”Publishing the results of the latest annual World Press Photo Contest, this exceptional book contains the very best press photographs from 2015—pictures submitted by photojournalists, picture agencies, newspapers, and magazines throughout the world.Selected from thousands, these prizewinning photos capture the most powerful, moving, and sometimes disturbing images of the year.

    Intimate portraits of family and community life, they are universal in feel, although they represent an enormous diversity of geographical locations and cultural backgrounds. Each one captures a rich story about the human condition, and invites the viewer to experience scenes of family, magic, love and tradition.Throughout his career, Davis's central aim has been to convey a visceral sense of the mystery and wealth of human culture, the embodiment of all that we are and all that we have created as a species. Through his words and photographs, he sheds light on the great peril that many traditions face, and the danger of losing forever the rich cultural heritages that have sustained us for thousands of years.

    Inspired by outlaw motorcycle clubs, street gangs in Chicago made business cards displaying their symbols, nicknames, territories, and enemies as a means to assert their pride, for recruitment, and to serve as general tokens of affiliation. Less intentional, but perhaps more significant is the role of these cards as historical artifacts—-not only documenting the specific histories of these gangs and their members, but also the larger social dynamics of a contentious time period in the city of Chicago. With enlarged reproductions of 60+ original cards, this book is an appreciation of Chicago gang “compliment cards”: their hand-drawn graphics, their blackletter typefaces, their outlandish names and clever slogans.

    In Vertical, Stephen Graham rewrites the city at every level: how the geography of inequality, politics, and identity is determined in terms of above and below. Starting at the edge of earth's atmosphere and, in a series of riveting studies, descending through each layer, Graham explores the world of drones, the city from the viewpoint of an aerial bomber, the design of sidewalks and the hidden depths of underground bunkers. He asks: why was Dubai built to be seen from Google Earth? How do the super-rich in Sao Paulo live in their penthouses far above the street? Why do London billionaires build vast subterranean basements? And how do the technology of elevators and subversive urban explorers shape life on the surface and subsurface of the earth? Vertical will make you look at the world around you anew: this is a revolution in understanding your place in the world.

     Do you understand what Libertarians stand for? Do you understand the Non-Aggression Principle? Do you think that we should be engaged in endless wars? Do you think that the government should tell people how to live their lives? Do you think the current Republican versus Democrat political banter is actually fixing anything? If you answered "No" to these questions, you definitely should pick this up. In a conversational style, Libertarianism in a Nutshell presents a broad stroke overview and applications of the Libertarian principles of governance.

    People are coming together with corporations to redefine how businesses work, transforming capitalism along the way. New web-enabled platforms (the Inc) are making it possible for peers to realise the potential of their excess capacity (their spare room, smartphones, experiences, free time or networks) to create exciting new ways to work and succeed.In this path-breaking book Robin Chase, co-founder of Zipcar, shows how Peers Inc companies are unlocking the power of the collaborative economy. And further she demonstrates how this revolution is extending beyond business, changing government and legacy companies and its potential to help solve large scale social problems - from disappearing jobs to climate change.

     "Faster, Better, Cheaper" in the History of Manufacturing shows how the ability to make products faster, better, and cheaper has evolved from the stone age to modern times. It explains how different developments over time have raised efficiency and allowed the production of more and better products with less effort and materials, and hence faster, better, and cheaper. In addition, it describes the stories of inventors, entrepreneurs, and industrialists and looks at the intersection between technology, society, machines, materials, management, and - most of all - humans. "Faster, Better, Cheaper" in the History of Manufacturing follows this development throughout the ages. This book covers not only the technical aspects (mechanization, power sources, new materials, interchangeable parts, electricity, automation), but organizational innovations (division of labor, Fordism, Talyorism, Lean). Most of all, it is a story of the people that invented, manufactured, and marketed the products.The book shows how different developments over time raised efficiency and allowed production of more with less effort and materials, which brought us a large part of the wealth and prosperity we enjoy today. The stories of real inventors and industrialists are told, which includes not only their successes but also their problems and failures. The effect of good or bad management on manufacturing is a recurring theme in many chapters, as is the fight for intellectual property through thrilling tales of espionage. This is a story of successes and failures. It is not only about technology but also about social aspects. Ultimately, it is not a book about machines but about people!

    prisons has become long-term and common. Prisoners spend twenty-three hours a day in featureless cells, with no visitors or human contact for years on end, and they are held entirely at administrators’ discretion. Keramet Reiter tells the history of one “supermax,” California’s Pelican Bay State Prison, whose extreme conditions recently sparked a statewide hunger strike by 30,000 prisoners. This book describes how Pelican Bay was created without legislative oversight, in fearful response to 1970s radicals; how easily prisoners slip into solitary; and the mental havoc and social costs of years and decades in isolation. The product of fifteen years of research in and about prisons, this book provides essential background to a subject now drawing national attention.

    Object-oriented, Oil and Candle localizes biographical, theoretical, and imagined content in a Limpias oil and an Abrecaminos prayer candle (or velón). It is as much a confrontation of racism in poetry as it is a torch-song to cultures inherited and not necessarily lived.Oil and Candle was selected as the winner of Timeless, Infinite Light's 2015 TRACT Contest from an exceptionally strong pool of entries by guest judges Brittany Billmeyer-Finn, Cheena Marie Lo, and Syd Staiti.

    Arranged by inner London Borough, BRUTAL LONDON takes in famous examples such as the Trellick Tower, the Brunswick Centre and the Alexandra Road Estate, as well as lesser known housing and municipal spaces. It serves as an introduction to buildings the reader may see every day, an invitation to look differently, a challenge to look up afresh, or to seek out celebrated Brutalism across the capital.

    This book's mission is precisely to disclose and address those obscuring forces. It details also the personal journey of a Catholic convert, once submerged in the New Age, who found liberation in Catholic Tradition.

     This book is not only for expectant parents as it is a delightful tour of the world through the eyes of people living in countries other than their native land. Without knowing the language, culture, or customs, having a baby abroad isn't as easy as you might expect. Knocked Up Abroad is an anthology of 24 stories about the trials and joys experienced by 21 mothers and two dads who raised their families abroad. These life stories span several continents to highlight the infinite ways in which babies are welcomed into the world. Each story is as unique as the child being born. Their experiences range from the spa-like treatments for postpartum women in Japan to insatiable pregnancy cravings in the Seychelles to non-functioning toilets in West Africa. Contributors include: Lana Ankarcrona, Jannecke Balys, Erin Boeck Motum, Candice Cabutihan-Cipullo, Mirren Childs, Michelle Estekantchi, Ersatz Expat, Cathy Ferland, Lisa Ferland, Jonathan Ferland, Naomi Hattaway, Sherah Haustein, Katarina Holm-DiDio, Chantelle Howell, Demi Jones, Olga Mecking, Sarah Metzker Erdemir, Sarah Murdock, Penelope Stanley, Ember Swift, Sten-Ove Tullberg, Meika Weiss, Clara Wiggins, Jackie Wilson

    Additionally, in 2016, single women will be one of the most pivotal voting groups heading into the general election, being courted by both Democrats and Republicans.At the centennial of the first woman elected to Congress (which was three years before women legally earned the right to vote), their presence and influence in Washington has reached a tipping point that affects not only the inner workings of the Federal Government, but also directly influences how Americans live and work.Never before have women been represented in such great numbers in the Supreme Court, both chambers of Congress, and in the West Wing. In Broad Influence , Jay Newton-Small, one of the nation's most deeply respected and sourced journalists takes readers through the corridors of Washington D.C., the offices and hallways of Capital Hill and everywhere else conversations and deals are happening to demonstrate how women are reaching across the aisles, coalescing, and affecting lasting change.With deep, exclusive and behind-closed-doors reporting and interviews, including conversations with Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Mikulski, Kirsten Gillibrand, Valerie Jarrett, Sarah Palin, Kelly Ayotte, Cathy McMorris Rogers and dozens of other former and current senators, representatives, senior White House staffers, governors and cabinet members, Broad Influence is an insightful look at how women are transforming government, politics, and the workforce, and how they are using that power shift to effect change throughout America.

    Former park ranger William C. Tweed takes readers on a tour of the Big Trees in a narrative that travels deep into the Sierras, around the West, and all the way to New Zealand; and in doing so he explores the American public’s evolving relationship with sequoias. It comes as no surprise that the groves in Yosemite and Calaveras were early tourist destinations, as this species that predated Christ and loomed over all the world’s other trees was the embodiment of California’s superlative, almost unbelievable appeal. When sequoias were threatened by logging interests, the feelings of horror that this desecration evoked in people catalyzed protection efforts; in a very direct way, this species inspired the Park Idea. And sequoias’ influence doesn’t end there: as science evolved to consider landscapes more holistically, sequoias were once again at the heart of this attitudinal shift. Featuring an entrancing cast of adventurers, researchers, politicians, and environmentalists, King Sequoia reveals how one tree species has transformed Americans’ connection to the natural world.Published in collaboration with Sierra College Press

    Saving the secular state from political religion, they suggest, is a question of survival for societies characterized by religious diversity. Yet it remains unclear what the crisis is all about. Thisbook argues that its roots are internal to the liberal model of secularism and toleration. Rather than being neutral or non-religious, this is a secularized theological model with deep religious roots. The limits of liberal secularism go back to its emergence from the dynamics and tensions of theProtestant Reformation in Europe. From the very beginning, it went hand in hand with its own mode of intolerance: an anticlerical theology that rejected Catholicism and Judaism as evil forms of political religion. Later this framework produced the colonial descriptions of Hinduism (and its castehierarchy) as a false and immoral religion. Thus, secularism was presented as the only route forward for India. Still, the secular state often harms local forms of living together and reinforces conflicts rather than resolving them. Todays advocacy of secularism is not the outcome of reasonablereflection on the problems of Indian society but a manifestation of colonial consciousness.

    It beautifully juxtaposes his worldwide famous literature with his incredible photographs, creating a dialogue between the visual and literary arts and building towards a complete understanding of the eclectic and versatile artist London. The texts collected in the book are excerpts of some of the author's books: The People of the Abyss (1903); The Russo-Japanese War (1904), with two articles from the San Francisco Examiner; The San Francisco Earthquake (1906); and The Cruise of the Snark. Sixty-nine black and white photographs of his adventures join the texts creating the artistic connection between visual and literary art that lies at the roots of London's art.Alessia Tagliaventi is a scholar of photographic history and editor of Contrasto. She has curated several photography books and catalogs. She is the author of several critical essays for numerous publications, among those My brother's keeper: Documentary Photographers and Human Rights, Master Photographers, Shadows of War, and Photoshow. She also teaches courses in the history of photography.Davide Sapienza is an Italian writer, translator, and journalist. He's a contributor in the Corriere della Sera. Since 2000, he has been dedicating himself to narrative forms strictly bound to the themes of the journey, the path of progress, and the Earth. Among his most famous works are Camminando (2014) La musica della neve (2011), Scrivere la natura (2012), I Diari di Rubha Hunish (2014), and La valle di Ognidove (2013).

    A family journeys through the early morning darkness... A group of young men huddle in a cold muddy trench... Reflection is a powerful tribute to those who have served their country.

    your definition of a 'kinky slut?'If you are a woman reading this, what is the difference between your definition of a 'nice guy' vs. your definition of a 'bad boy'?There are some men who women love engaging in multiple episodes of short-term and/or non-monogamous 'casual' sex, but they would publicly categorize those men as 'jerks' who would never be qualified to be a woman's husband or faithful boyfriend.Similarly, there are some women who men love engaging in many episodes of casual sex, but realistically, they would never, ever entertain the thought of having that woman become their next long-term girlfriend or future wife.What about the men and women on the opposite end?What about those men and women who seem to have a lot to offer members of the opposite sex when it comes to their very friendly, accommodating, and entertaining personalities ... but many of these same men and women are perceived as 'boring' and unsatisfying sexually?If any woman believes that men want to choose between the monogamy-oriented 'good girl' type and the kinkier and more promiscuous 'slut' type, they are being naive. Many men want BOTH types in their life.Similarly, if any man believes that all women want to choose between the friendly, personable, and financially generous 'gentleman' or 'nice guy' type and the kinkier, more erotically dominant and seductive 'bad boy' type, they are also being very naive. A good number of women in society want BOTH types in their life.In the middle of the 20th Century, it was the women who were primarily frustrated with the deceitful and sexually duplicitous ways of men, and their response was The Second Wave of Feminism and the Sexual Revolution.Now, in the first two decades of the New Millennium, it is now men who are very angry and frustrated with the deceitful, manipulative, and sexually duplicitous ways of women, and their response is what Author Alan Roger Currie refers to as "THE BETA MALE REVOLUTION."Currie asserts that 21st Century dating rituals are vastly different than the dating rituals our ancestors engaged in during the 19th Century and the first half of the 20th Century.The appeal of entering into a strictly monogamous marriage has diminished significantly among both men and women, and in today's society, many single men and women have given in to their more promiscuous and/or polyamorous tendencies, and avoid long-term monogamous relationships and strictly monogamous marriages altogether. Currie categorizes this book as somewhat of a 'prequel' to his other popular books, which includes 'Mode One: Let the Women Know What You're REALLY Thinking' and 'Oooooh . . . Say it Again: Mastering the Fine Art of Verbal Seduction and Aural Sex'Read this book and find out where we are as a society, and where we seem to be headed regarding the institution of marriage and the concept of traditional monogamous relationships.In addition to being a book author, Currie tours the country as a public speaker who discusses issues related to developing better interpersonal communication skills between men and women, erotic dominance and submission, and date-rape and sexual assault prevention. Currie has also spoken in Berlin, Germany and London, England.Currie is an alumnus of Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana and has appeared on local, regional, and national television and has been interviewed numerous times on local, regional, and national talk radio programs.

    This is not an anthology of experts, or how-to articles on perfect parenting; it often doesn’t even try to provide answers. Instead, the writers strive to be honest and vulnerable in sharing their stories and experiences, their failures and their regrets. Gathering parents and writers from diverse communities, it explores the process of getting pregnant from trans birth to adoption, grapples with issues of racism and police brutality, probes raising feminists and feminist parenting. It plumbs the depths of empty nesting and letting go. Some contributors are recognizable authors and activists but most are everyday parents working and loving and trying to build a better world one diaper change at a time. It’s a book that reminds us all that we are not alone, that community can help us get through the difficulties, can, in fact, make us better people.

    The priest, broadcaster, writer and ethicist Sam Wells considers some of the biggest contemporary political, social and moral challenges and grapples with them in the light of Christian hope and wisdom.

    None, however, is as riveting as what master storyteller Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o offers in The Upright Revolution. Blending myth and folklore with an acute insight into the human psyche and politics, Wa Thiong'o conjures up a fantastic fable about how and why humans began to walk upright. It is a story that will appeal to children and adults alike, containing a clear and important message: "Life is connected." Originally written in Gikuyu, this short story has been translated into sixty-three languages--forty-seven of them African--making it the most translated story in the history of African literature. This new collector's edition of The Upright Revolution is richly illustrated in full color with Sunandini Banerjee's marvellous digital collages, which open up new vistas of imagination and add unique dimensions to the story.

    The reader accompanies Shannon, the author and historian, through intimate interviews with six Albanian men and women. We hear how everyday people survived shocking living conditions, political persecution and oppression dependent on ethnicity, political status, gender and sexuality. This is a thorough and vivid history of lived communism in Albania, charting political and ideological shifts through the experiences of those who survived. Life is War stands as remarkable and profound testimony to the resilience of humanity in the face of unrelenting political terror. An accurate and precise historical work, engagingly rendered from life narratives, it plunges the reader into the difficult emotional truths that are at the core of remembering Albania's communist past. Life is War is a valuable contribution to studies of everyday life under communism and dictatorship. Eloquently written and expertly researched, it will appeal to readers interested in life histories, war, communism, European history and trauma studies.

    Lets read the tale. Once there was an old man called Ebezener Scrooge. He was worried only about earning money. He never gave charity. He was very miser. It was Christmas Eve. Scrooge was in his office. A young boy came and wished him. Scrooge made the boy run away. Then, Scrooge’s nephew, Fred came to invite him for dinner. But, Scrooge did not go for dinner. He went inside his office and saw his clerk Bob Cratchit sitting. He sent Bob Cratchit home and then went to his own house. What happened next? Buy eBook and read the complete story online.

    Meanwhile, it is increasingly difficult for bright but poor children to transcend their circumstances. This state of affairs should not only worry the poor. It hurts the middle classes too, who are increasingly locked out of the top professions by those from wealthy backgrounds.Hitherto, both Labour and Conservative politicians have sought to deal with this problem by promoting the idea of 'equality of opportunity'. In politics, social mobility is the only game in town and old socialist arguments, which emphasised economic equality, are about as unfashionable today as mullets and shell suits. Yet genuine equality of opportunity is impossible against a backdrop of levels of inequality last seen during the 1930s. In a grossly unequal society, the privileges of the parents unfailingly become the privileges of the children.A vague commitment from our politicians to build a ‘meritocracy’ is not enough. And besides, a perfectly stratified meritocracy, in which everyone knew their station based on ‘merit’, would be a deeply unpleasant place to live. Attempts to improve social mobility must start by reducing the gap between rich and poor.

    　Second, regulative ideals are unable to respond to social change.　 While models based on public reason focus on the justification of principles, this book suggests that we need to orient our normative theories more toward discovery and experimentation. 　The book develops a unique approach to social contract theory that focuses on diverse perspectives. It offers a new moral stance that author Ryan Muldoon calls, "The View From Everywhere," which allows for substantive, fundamental moral disagreement.　 This stance is used to develop a bargaining model in which agents can cooperate despite seeing different perspectives. Rather than arguing for an ideal contract or particular principles of justice, Muldoon outlines a procedure for iterated revisions to the rules of a social contract.　 It expands Mill's conception of experiments in living to help form a foundational principle for social contract theory. 　By embracing this kind of experimentation, we move away from a conception of justice as an end state, and toward a conception of justice as a trajectory.Listen to Robert Talisse interview Ryan Muldoon about Social Contract Theory for a Diverse World on the podcast, New Books in Philosophy: http: //tinyurl.com/j9oq324Also, read Ryan Muldoon's related Niskanen Center article, "Diversity and Disagreement are the Solution, Not the Problem," published Jan. 10, 2017: 　 https: //niskanencenter.org/blog/diversity-dis...

      Drawing in part on his own involvement with planting two churches in the Netherlands, Paas explores confessional motives, growth motives, and innovation motives for church planting in Europe, tracing them back to different traditions and reflecting on them from theological and empirical perspectives. He presents examples from the European context and offers sound advice for improving existing missional practices. Paas also draws out lessons for North America in a chapter coauthored with Darrell Guder and John Franke. Finally, Paas weaves together the various threads in the book with a theological defense of church planting.   Presenting new research as it does, this critical missiological perspective will add significantly to a fuller understanding of church planting in our contemporary context.

    It draws from a number of English legal cases and statutes to illustrate Coase's belief that legal rules are only justified by reference to a cost-benefit analysis, and that nuisances that are often regarded as being the fault of one party are more symmetric conflicts between the interests of the two parties.

    Scholars and commentators today often identify some factor--such as single motherhood, joblessness, or violent street crime--as the key to solving the problem and recommend policies accordingly. But, Tommie Shelby argues, these attempts to "fix" ghettos or "help" their poor inhabitants ignore fundamental questions of justice and fail to see the urban poor as moral agents responding to injustice.Drawing on liberal-egalitarian philosophy and informed by leading social science research, Dark Ghettos examines the thorny questions of political morality raised by ghettos. Should government foster integrated neighborhoods? If a "culture of poverty" exists, what interventions are justified? Should single parenthood be avoided or deterred? Is voluntary nonwork or crime an acceptable mode of dissent? How should a criminal justice system treat the oppressed? Shelby offers practical answers, framed in terms of what justice requires of both a government and its citizens, and he views the oppressed as allies in the fight for a society that warrants everyone's allegiance."The ghetto is not 'their' problem but ours, privileged and disadvantaged alike," Shelby writes. The existence of ghettos is evidence that our society is marred by structural injustices that demand immediate rectification. Dark Ghettos advances a social vision and political ethics that calls for putting the abolition of ghettos at the center of reform.