Best of
Sociology

2007

The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex


Incite! Women of Color Against ViolencePaula X. Rojas - 2007
    From art museums and university hospitals to think tanks and church charities, over 1.5 million organizations of staggering diversity share the tax-exempt 501(c)(3) designation, if little else. Many social justice organizations have joined this world, often blunting political goals to satisfy government and foundation mandates. But even as funding shrinks and government surveillance rises, many activists often find it difficult to imagine movement-building outside the nonprofit model. The Revolution Will Not Be Funded gathers original essays by radical activists from around the globe who are critically rethinking the long-term consequences of this investment. Together with educators and nonprofit staff they finally name the “nonprofit industrial complex” and ask hard questions: How did politics shape the birth of the nonprofit model? How does 501(c)(3) status allow the state to co-opt political movements? Activists--or careerists? How do we fund the movement outside this complex? Urgent and visionary, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded is an unbeholden exposé of the “nonprofit industrial complex” and its quietly devastating role in managing dissent.

Not for Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade—and How We Can Fight It


David Batstone - 2007
    In this book, David Batstone profiles the new generation of abolitionists who are leading the struggle to end this appalling epidemic.

Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California


Ruth Wilson Gilmore - 2007
    prisons has increased more than 450%. Despite a crime rate that has been falling steadily for decades, California has led the way in this explosion, with what a state analyst called “the biggest prison building project in the history of the world.” Golden Gulag provides the first detailed explanation for that buildup by looking at how political and economic forces, ranging from global to local, conjoined to produce the prison boom. In an informed and impassioned account, Ruth Wilson Gilmore examines this issue through statewide, rural, and urban perspectives to explain how the expansion developed from surpluses of finance capital, labor, land, and state capacity. Detailing crises that hit California’s economy with particular ferocity, she argues that defeats of radical struggles, weakening of labor, and shifting patterns of capital investment have been key conditions for prison growth. The results—a vast and expensive prison system, a huge number of incarcerated young people of color, and the increase in punitive justice such as the “three strikes” law—pose profound and troubling questions for the future of California, the United States, and the world. Golden Gulag provides a rich context for this complex dilemma, and at the same time challenges many cherished assumptions about who benefits and who suffers from the state’s commitment to prison expansion.

A Secular Age


Charles Taylor - 2007
    This book takes up the question of what these changes mean—of what, precisely, happens when a society in which it is virtually impossible not to believe in God becomes one in which faith is only one human possibility among others.

The Ascent of Humanity


Charles Eisenstein - 2007
    Eisenstein traces all of the converging crises of our age to a common source, which he calls Separation. It is the ideology of the discrete and separate self that has generated these crises; therefore, he argues, nothing less than a "revolution in human beingness" will be sufficient to transform our relationship to each other and the planet. And this revolution is underway already. In all realms of human endeavor, an Age of Reunion is emerging out of the birth-pangs of a planet in crisis. The range and depth of Eisenstein's thesis is breath-taking. Encompassing science, religion, spirituality, technology, economics, medicine, education, and more, he details a vast paradigm shift reflecting a more fundamental shift in the human sense of self. Even in this dark hour, he says, a more beautiful world is possible -- but not through the extension of millennia-old methods of management and control. The convergence of crises is revealing the final bankruptcy of those methods. Soon, he says, we will abandon the Babelian effort to build a tower to Heaven, as we realize that the sky is all around us already. Then, we will turn our efforts to creating a new kind of civilization, a conscious civilization designed for beauty rather than height.

A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix


Edwin H. Friedman - 2007
    He was the first to tell us that all organizations have personalities, like families, and to apply the insights of family therapy to churches and synagogues, rectors and rabbis, politicians and teachers.Failure of Nerve is essential reading for all leaders, be they parents or presidents, corporate executives or educators, religious superiors or coaches, healers or generals, managers or clergy. Friedman's insights about our regressed, seatbelt society, oriented toward safety rather than adventure, help explain the sabotage that leaders constantly face today.Suspicious of the quick fixes and instant solutions that sweep through our culture only to give way to the next fad, he argues for strength and self-differentiation as the marks of true leadership. His formula for success is more maturity, not more data; stamina, not technique; and personal responsibility, not empathy.This book was unfinished at the time of Friedman's death, and originally published in a limited edition. This new edition makes his life-changing insights and challenges available to a new generation of readers.

Abandoned


Anya Peters - 2007
    Beaten, humiliated and sexually abused by him from the age of six, she thought her life couldn't get worse. But one day it did."I was used to Daddy screaming 'whore's child' at me, over and over again. But I couldn't get used to what he made me do."Anya was too terrified to tell anybody about what her uncle did to her. But then he got careless and started abusing her in front of the other children. When her brothers started calling her a 'whore', Anya cracked and all her terrible secrets came pouring out.Anya had always coped because there was one woman who loved her deeply, her 'Mummy'. But this time love was not enough. One morning 'Mummy' just left.Determined to make a new life, Anya buried her feelings and tried to move on. But when she ended up homeless, living in her car, she knew she had to face her past if she was ever going to find happiness and security again.Top 10 Sunday Times Bestseller, Abandoned is Anya's inspirational story of her fight to find love, acceptance and a place to belong.

Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America's Soul


Edward Humes - 2007
    Monkey Girl takes you behind the scenes of the recent war on evolution in Dover, Pennsylvania, the epic court case on teaching "intelligent design" it spawned, and the national struggle over what Americans believe about human origins.Told from the perspectives of all sides of the battle, Monkey Girl is about what happens when science and religion collide.

And The Whippoorwill Sang


Micki Peluso - 2007
     Around the dining room table of her 100 year old farmhouse Micki Peluso's six children along with three of their friends eagerly gulp down a chicken dinner. As soon as the last morsel is ravished, the lot of them is off in different directions. Except for the one whose turn it is to do the dishes. After offering her mother a buck if she’ll do them, with an impish grin, the child rushes out the front door, too excited for a hug, calling out, "Bye Mom," as the door slams shut. For the Peluso’s the nightmare begins. Micki and Butch face the horror every parent fears—awaiting the fate of one of their children. While sitting vigil in the ICU waiting room, Micki traverses the past, as a way of dealing with an inconceivable future. From the bizarre teenage elopement with her high school sweetheart, Butch, in a double wedding with her own mother, to comical family trips across country in an antiquated camper with six kids and a dog, they leave a path of chaos, antics and destruction in their wake. Micki relives the happy times of raising six children while living in a haunted house, as the young parents grow up with their kids. She bravely attempts to be the man of the house while her husband, Butch is working out of town. Hearing strange noises, which all the younger kids are sure is the ghosts, Micki tiptoes down to the cellar, shotgun in hand and nearly shoots an Idaho potato that has fallen from the pantry and thumped down the stairs. Of course her children feel obligated to tell the world. Just when their lives are nearly perfect, tragedy strikes—and the laughter dies. A terrible accident takes place in the placid valley nestled within the Susquehanna Mountains in the town of Williamsport, Pennsylvania. On a country lane just blocks from the family’s hundred year old haunted farmhouse, lives are changed forever. In a state of shock, Micki muses through their delightful past to avoid confronting an uncertain future—as the family copes with fear and apprehension. One of her six children is fighting for life in Intensive Care. Both parents are pressured by doctors to disconnect Noelle, their fourteen-year-old daughter. Her beautiful girl, funny and bright, who breathes life into every moment, who does cartwheels in piles of Autumn leaves, who loves to sing and dance down country roads, and above all loves her family with all her soul. How can Micki let this child go? The family embarks upon yet another journey, to the other side of sorrow and grasps the poignant gift of life as they begin. . .to weep. . .to laugh. . .to grieve. . .to dance—and forgive.

The Bond: Three Young Men Learn to Forgive and Reconnect with Their Fathers


Sampson Davis - 2007
    Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, and Rameck Hunt discovered early in their friendship that they shared a disturbing trait: as children, they navigated dangerous inner-city life without a father s guidance. In spite of this, they escaped delinquency and crime to form the Pact, dedicated to putting themselves on the road to success. Now, the Three Doctors make a new promise: to set aside their resentment, and rebuild the relationships with their fathers men they barely recognize. Told in alternating voices between father and son, "The Bond" explores the hard lessons of growing up without a father and suggests ways to stem the tide of fatherlessness in communities across the country. Honest, brave, and poignant, "The Bond" is a book for every child and every family."

The Pit Bull Placebo: The Media, Myths and Politics of Canine Aggression


Karen Delise - 2007
    Then it was the Doberman, symbol of the Nazi menace. Today, it is the Pit bull that is vilified for the depravity of his masters. Today, police chase down fleeing Pit bulls in the street, firing dozens of wild shots in response to media-fed rumors of supernatural Pit bull abilities. Politicians coach and nurture this fear with their own brand of rhetoric used to assist in the passing of quick and ineffective legislation created to pacify communities ignorant of the real cause for dog attacks. Hundreds of animal shelters throughout the country kill all unclaimed Pit bull-looking dogs, as they are deemed "unadoptable" solely on their physical appearance. This has occurred because the human/dog bond, the most complex and profound inter-species relationship in the history of mankind, has been reduced to a simple axiom: Breed of dog = degree of dangerousness. We have come to accept that hanging entire breeds of dogs in effigy for the sins of their owners is an acceptable solution to canine aggression because we have been placated by a Pit Bull Placebo. Like the pharmacologically inactive sugar pill dispensed to pacify a patient who supposes it to be medicine, eradication of the Pit bull is the placebo administered to ease the public's anxiety about dog attacks. The book, The Pit Bull Placebo: The Media, Myths and Politics of Canine Aggression, explores how our views and beliefs about canine aggression have changed over the last 150 years and how our perceptions about the nature and behavior of dogs has been influenced by persons and organizations who often times disseminate information about dog attacks which is tailored to further an agenda unrelated to the improvement of the human/dog bond. We are in the midst of a social hysteria about Pit bulls because we have abandoned centuries-old common-sense and have been duped by inaccurate reporting from the "Pit Bull Paparazzi" and by politicians who traffic in rumors, myths and pseudoscience in their efforts to pass legislation that demonizes dogs while exonerating criminal and abusive owners. If we truly believe that the extremely rare cases of fatal dog attacks merit extreme measures in the management of dogs, if our concern and shock is genuine, then we must be equally genuine and sincere in seeking out and addressing the real causes for these incidents. Only by stepping back from the swirl of present-day hysteria surrounding isolated cases of severe canine aggression and examining the problem from a broader and more objective perspective can we hope to understand and address the human and canine behaviors which contribute to these incidents.

Possibilities: Essays on Hierarchy, Rebellion, and Desire


David Graeber - 2007
    Not only does he accomplish this profound feat, he redoubles it by the critical task—now more urgent than ever—of making the possibilities of other people’s worlds the basis for understanding our own.” —Marshall Sahlins, University of Chicago“Graeber’s ideas are rich and wide-ranging; he pushes us to expand the boundaries of what we admit to be possible, or even thinkable.”—Steven Shaviro, Wayne State UniversityIn this new collection, David Graeber revisits questions raised in his popular book, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology. Written in an unpretentious style that uses accessible and entertaining language to convey complex theoretical ideas, these twelve essays cover a lot of ground, including the origins of capitalism, the history of European table manners, love potions in rural Madagascar, and the phenomenology of giant puppets at street protests. But they’re linked by a clear purpose: to explore the nature of social power and the forms that resistance to it have taken, or might take in the future.Anarchism is currently undergoing a worldwide revival, in many ways replacing Marxism as the theoretical and moral center of new revolutionary social movements. It has, however, left little mark on the academy. While anarchists and other visionaries have turned to anthropology for ideas and inspiration, anthropologists are reluctant to enter into serious dialogue. David Graeber is not. These essays, spanning almost twenty years, show how scholarly concerns can be of use to radical social movements, and how the perspectives of such movements shed new light on debates within the academy.David Graeber has written for Harper’s Magazine, New Left Review, and numerous scholarly journals. He is the author or editor of four books and currently lives in New York City.In Oakland, California on March 24, 2015 a fire destroyed the AK Press warehouse along with several other businesses. Please consider visiting the AK Press website to learn more about the fundraiser to help them and their neighbors.

Can We Talk about Race?: And Other Conversations in an Era of School Resegregation


Beverly Daniel Tatum - 2007
    Tatum's unique ability to get people talking about race captured the attention of many, from Oprah Winfrey to President Clinton, who invited her to join him in his nationally televised dialogues on race.In her first book since that pathbreaking success, Tatum starts with a warning call about the increasing but underreported resegregation of America. A self-described "integration baby"--she was born in 1954--Tatum sees our growing isolation from each other as deeply problematic, and she believes that schools can be key institutions for forging connections across the racial divide.In this ambitious, accessible book, Tatum examines some of the most resonant issues in American education and race relations: -The need of African American students to see themselves reflected in curricula and institutions-How unexamined racial attitudes can negatively affect minority-student achievement-The possibilities--and complications--of intimate crossracial friendshipsTatum approaches all these topics with the blend of analysis and storytelling that make her one of our most persuasive and engaging commentators on race.Can We Talk About Race? launches a collaborative lecture and book series between Beacon Press and Simmons College, which aims to reinvigorate a crucial national public conversation on race, education and democracy."What Tatum seeks to do above all is trigger sometimes challenging discussions about race, and infuse those discussions with a reality-based focus on how race affects us all. Her latest book does that beautifully, asking touch questions, and patiently, inclusively seeking answers." --Boston Globe Beverly Daniel Tatum is author of Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? and Assimilation Blues. She is currently president of Spelman College in Atlanta, where she lives with her husband.

The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation


Drew Westen - 2007
    For two decades Drew Westen, professor of psychology and psychiatry at Emory University, has explored a theory of the mind that differs substantially from the more "dispassionate" notions held by most cognitive psychologists, political scientists, and economists—and Democratic campaign strategists. The idea of the mind as a cool calculator that makes decisions by weighing the evidence bears no relation to how the brain actually works. When political candidates assume voters dispassionately make decisions based on "the issues," they lose. That's why only one Democrat has been re-elected to the presidency since Franklin Roosevelt—and only one Republican has failed in that quest. In politics, when reason and emotion collide, emotion invariably wins. Elections are decided in the marketplace of emotions, a marketplace filled with values, images, analogies, moral sentiments, and moving oratory, in which logic plays only a supporting role. Westen shows, through a whistle-stop journey through the evolution of the passionate brain and a bravura tour through fifty years of American presidential and national elections, why campaigns succeed and fail. The evidence is overwhelming that three things determine how people vote, in this order: their feelings toward the parties and their principles, their feelings toward the candidates, and, if they haven't decided by then, their feelings toward the candidates' policy positions.Westen turns conventional political analyses on their head, suggesting that the question for Democratic politics isn't so much about moving to the right or the left but about moving the electorate. He shows how it can be done through examples of what candidates have said—or could have said—in debates, speeches, and ads. Westen's discoveries could utterly transform electoral arithmetic, showing how a different view of the mind and brain leads to a different way of talking with voters about issues that have tied the tongues of Democrats for much of forty years—such as abortion, guns, taxes, and race. You can't change the structure of the brain. But you can change the way you appeal to it. And here's how…

An Undivided Life: Seeking Wholeness in Ourselves, Our Work, and Our World


Parker J. Palmer - 2007
    Perhaps no one has explored this topic more deeply than bestselling author and distinguished educator Parker J. Palmer.Now you can experience his inspiring and transformative teachings on An Undivided Life. Infused with compassionate intelligence, this landmark program will encourage and deepen your reflections about what it means to live "a life divided no more."In this five-hour journey, Palmer shares some of his most personal lessons and profound insights gained from a lifetime of faithful inquiry. Join him for an open and honest conversation that explores:The power of paradox to help us find meaning in the darkness and light of life's experiencesHow to live creatively in "the tragic gap"--the space between hard realities and what we know to be possible"Hearing each other into speech"--a soul-honoring way of deepening our relationshipsHow understanding our inner dynamics can help us make choices that are life-giving for ourselves and others"My experience--from the depths of depression to the heights of joy--has taught me that the path toward wholeness takes patience and passion," teaches Parker Palmer. With An Undivided Life, you will receive his timeless wisdom and guidance to help you discern, trust, and follow your authentic self at home, in your work, and in the world.Course objectives: Describe what it means to live an undivided lifeDefine "paradox"Discern between a true community and a false communityDiscuss what the "true self" is

Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts


Carol Tavris - 2007
    When we make mistakes, we must calm the cognitive dissonance that jars our feelings of self-worth. And so we create fictions that absolve us of responsibility, restoring our belief that we are smart, moral, and right -- a belief that often keeps us on a course that is dumb, immoral, and wrong. Backed by years of research and delivered in lively, energetic prose, Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) offers a fascinating explanation of self-deception -- how it works, the harm it can cause, and how we can overcome it.

In Praise of Prejudice: The Necessity of Preconceived Ideas


Theodore Dalrymple - 2007
    English psychiatrist and writer Theodore Dalrymple shows that freeing the mind from prejudice is not only impossible, but entails intellectual, moral and emotional dishonesty. The attempt to eradicate prejudice has several dire consequences for the individual and society as a whole.

City of Shadows: Sydney Police Photographs 1912-1948


Peter Doyle - 2007
    This text draws on Peter Doyle's extensive research into these fascinating and often eerily beautiful images of everyday misadventures in Sydney between 1912 and 1948.

Categorically Unequal: The American Stratification System


Douglas S. Massey - 2007
    While other developed countries face similar challenges from globalization and technological change, none rivals America’s singularly poor record for equitably distributing the benefits and burdens of recent economic shifts. In Categorically Unequal, Douglas Massey weaves together history, political economy, and even neuropsychology to provide a comprehensive explanation of how America’s culture and political system perpetuates inequalities between different segments of the population.Categorically Unequal is striking both for its theoretical originality and for the breadth of topics it covers. Massey argues that social inequalities arise from the universal human tendency to place others into social categories. In America, ethnic minorities, women, and the poor have consistently been the targets of stereotyping, and as a result, they have been exploited and discriminated against throughout the nation’s history. African-Americans continue to face discrimination in markets for jobs, housing, and credit. Meanwhile, the militarization of the US-Mexican border has discouraged Mexican migrants from leaving the United States, creating a pool of exploitable workers who lack the legal rights of citizens. Massey also shows that women’s advances in the labor market have been concentrated among the affluent and well-educated, while low-skilled female workers have been relegated to occupations that offer few chances for earnings mobility. At the same time, as the wages of low-income men have fallen, more working-class women are remaining unmarried and raising children on their own. Even as minorities and women continue to face these obstacles, the progressive legacy of the New Deal has come under frontal assault. The government has passed anti-union legislation, made taxes more regressive, allowed the real value of the federal minimum wage to decline, and drastically cut social welfare spending. As a result, the income gap between the richest and poorest has dramatically widened since 1980. Massey attributes these anti-poor policies in part to the increasing segregation of neighborhoods by income, which has insulated the affluent from the social consequences of poverty, and to the disenfranchisement of the poor, as the population of immigrants, prisoners, and ex-felons swells.America’s unrivaled disparities are not simply the inevitable result of globalization and technological change. As Massey shows, privileged groups have systematically exploited and excluded many of their fellow Americans. By delving into the root causes of inequality in America, Categorically Unequal provides a compelling argument for the creation of a more equitable society. A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation's Centennial Series

Gentrification


Loretta Lees - 2007
    The gentrification of urban areas has accelerated across the globe to become a central engine of urban development, and it is a topic that has attracted a great deal of interest in both academia and the popular press. Gentrification presents major theoretical ideas and concepts with case studies, and summaries of the ideas in the book as well as offering ideas for future research.

They Take Our Jobs!: And 20 Other Myths about Immigration


Aviva Chomsky - 2007
    Chomsky dismantles twenty of the most common assumptions and beliefs underlying statements like "I'm not against immigration, only illegal immigration" and challenges the misinformation in clear, straightforward prose.In exposing the myths that underlie today's debate, Chomsky illustrates how the parameters and presumptions of the debate distort how we think—and have been thinking—about immigration. She observes that race, ethnicity, and gender were historically used as reasons to exclude portions of the population from access to rights. Today, Chomsky argues, the dividing line is citizenship. Although resentment against immigrants and attempts to further marginalize them are still apparent today, the notion that non-citizens, too, are created equal is virtually absent from the public sphere. Engaging and fresh, this book will challenge common assumptions about immigrants, immigration, and U.S. history.

Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry


Laura María Agustín - 2007
    Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radical analysis. Frequently, says Agustín, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry. Although they are treated as a marginalised group, they form part of the dynamic global economy.Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice.-from the back cover

Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the Twenty-First Century


Giovanni Arrighi - 2007
    In this magisterial new work, Giovanni Arrighi shows how China’s extraordinary rise invites us to read The Wealth of Nations in a radically different way than is usually done. He examines how the recent US attempt to bring into existence the first truly global empire in world history was conceived in order to counter China’s spectacular economic success of the 1990s, and how the US’s disastrous failure in Iraq has made the People’s Republic of China the true winner of the US War on Terror. In the 21st century, China may well become again the kind of noncapitalist market economy that Smith described, under totally different domestic and world-historical conditions.

The Present Moment: 365 Daily Affirmations


Louise L. Hay - 2007
    Each day Louise L. Hay will help guide your thinking in positive ways to accomplish these goals. As you read this work, you’ll find that you develop new mental habits that you can use for the rest of your life!

Burning Book: A Visual History of Burning Man


Jessica Bruder - 2007
    Two decades later Burning Man has evolved into a dazzling annual extravaganza dedicated to radical self-reliance and self-expression, attracting nearly forty thousand people. These revelers -- an eclectic mix of punks, geeks, families, ravers, grad students, gear heads, hippies, and tourists -- turn the ancient lakebed of Nevada's Black Rock Desert into a bustling city that exists for one glorious week before disappearing in a cloud of ashes and dust.Burning Book is both a loving commemoration of the event's storied history and an enlightening companion for festival goers. Bruder explores the unique ethos and breathtaking art installations that have shaped the event, along with Black Rock City's distinctive landmarks, pranks, lore, and gift-based economy. Illustrated with hundreds of stunning photographs, Burning Book is a striking tribute to an extraordinary cultural phenomenon for the legions who participate in Burning Man every year, and for those who haven't become part of this unforgettable celebration -- yet.

The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War


David Livingstone Smith - 2007
    It tells the story of why all human beings have the potential to be hideously cruel and destructive to one another. Why are we our own worst enemy? The book shows us that war has been with us---in one form or another---since prehistoric times, and looking at the behavior of our close relatives, the chimpanzees, it argues that a penchant for group violence has been bred into us over millions of years of biological evolution. The Most Dangerous Animal takes the reader on a journey through evolution, history, anthropology, and psychology, showing how and why the human mind has a dual nature: on the one hand, we are ferocious, dangerous animals who regularly commit terrible atrocities against our own kind, on the other, we have a deep aversion to killing, a horror of taking human life. Meticulously researched and far-reaching in scope and with examples taken from ancient and modern history, The Most Dangerous Animal delivers a sobering lesson for an increasingly dangerous world.

Marked: Race, Crime, and Finding Work in an Era of Mass Incarceration


Devah Pager - 2007
    Devah Pager matched up pairs of young men, randomly assigned them criminal records, then sent them on hundreds of real job searches throughout the city of Milwaukee. Her applicants were attractive, articulate, and capable—yet ex-offenders received less than half the callbacks of the equally qualified applicants without criminal backgrounds. Young black men, meanwhile, paid a particularly high price: those with clean records fared no better in their job searches than white men just out of prison. Such shocking barriers to legitimate work, Pager contends, are an important reason that many ex-prisoners soon find themselves back in the realm of poverty, underground employment, and crime that led them to prison in the first place.“Using scholarly research, field research in Milwaukee, and graphics, [Pager] shows that ex-offenders, white or black, stand a very poor chance of getting a legitimate job. . . . Both informative and convincing.”—Library Journal“Marked is that rare book: a penetrating text that rings with moral concern couched in vivid prose—and one of the most useful sociological studies in years.”—Michael Eric Dyson

Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life


Robert B. Reich - 2007
    With his customary wit and insight, Reich shows how widening inequality of income and wealth, heightened job insecurity, and corporate corruption are merely the logical results of a system in which politicians are more beholden to the influence of business lobbyists than to the voters who elected them. Powerful and thought-provoking, Supercapitalism argues that a clear separation of politics and capitalism will foster an enviroment in which both business and government thrive, by putting capitalism in the service of democracy, and not the other way around.From the Trade Paperback edition.

The Nation and Its Ruins: Antiquity, Archaeology, and National Imagination in Greece


Yannis Hamilakis - 2007
    It also shows how, in return, national imagination has created and shaped classical antiquities and archaeological practice from the nineteenth century to the present. Yannis Hamilakis covers a diverse range of topics, including the role of antiquities in the foundation of the Greek state in the nineteenth century, the Elgin marbles controversy, the role of archaeology under dictatorial regimes, the use of antiquities in the detention camps of the Greek civil war, and the discovery of the so-called tomb of Philip of Macedonia.

Telling About Society


Howard S. Becker - 2007
    The work has neither a beginning nor an end. Nor does it contain any analysis. But it nonetheless reveals profound truths about French society during the 1940s and 50s. Taking Perec’s book as its cue, Telling About Society explores the unconventional ways we communicate what we know about society to others. The third in distinguished teacher Howard Becker’s best-selling series of writing guides for social scientists, the book explores the many ways knowledge about society can be shared and interpreted through different forms of telling—fiction, films, photographs, maps, even mathematical models—many of which remain outside the boundaries of conventional social science. Eight case studies, including the photographs of Walker Evans, the plays of George Bernard Shaw, the novels of Jane Austen and Italo Calvino, and the sociology of Erving Goffman, provide convincing support for Becker’s argument: that every way of telling about society is perfect—for some purpose. The trick is, as Becker notes, to discover what purpose is served by doing it this way rather than that. With Becker’s trademark humor and eminently practical advice, Telling About Society is an ideal guide for social scientists in all fields, for artists interested in saying something about society, and for anyone interested in communicating knowledge in unconventional ways.

In the Name of Allah Vol. 1 a History of Clarence 13x and the Five Percenters.


Wakeel Allah - 2007
    Thousands of young Blacks and Latinos have pledged allegiance to the philosophy of the Five Percenters. Their influence has permeated throughout the streets of urban America, the school system, rap music and the penal institutions. The origins of the Five Percenters can be traced to its founder the late Clarence 13X Smith a.k.a. "Allah." A former member of Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam, he studied under Minister Malcolm X at the Harlem Mosque in the early 60's. He left the organization and subsequently founded a youth movement based on the core doctrine of the NOI and his own lessons referred to as "Supreme Mathematics" and "Supreme Alphabets." The name and ideology of the Five Percenters are derived from NOI teachings that describe the population into three categories. The 85% are misled to believe in a "mystery god," the 10% teach lies to master the poor and superstitious, and alas the 5% are the "poor righteous teachers" of "freedom, justice and equality" who teach that the true and living God is the "Black Man of Asia." During his short reign as leader of the Five Percenters, Clarence 13X (Allah) faced many challenges but accomplished many objectives. Unfortunately in June of 1969, he was gunned down by unknown assassins. He left a legacy of countless youth who embraced the concepts of the Five Percenters which are evident in the conscious youth of today that identify with his teachings. Until now, there has yet to be a comprehensive history written in regard to the man called Allah and the Five Percenters. This information has now been compiled and presented as an anthology by a member of the movement over the past 25 years. "In The Name of Allah: A History of Clarence 13X and the Five Percenters" is a must have for anyone who desires to know more about the controversial movement.

The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics


Riane Eisler - 2007
    She then presents a radical reformulation of economics priorities focused on activities of caring and caregiving at the individual, organizational, societal, and environmental levels.

The Socialist Phenomenon: A Historical Survey of Socialist Policies and Ideals


Igor Shafarevich - 2007
    The Socialist Phenomenon is a powerful survey  of socialism  and socialist thought from ancient times to the present day. Most assume that socialism and communism began with the writings of Karl Marx, but through his book Shafarevich lays out with amazing clarity that socialism is an evil that has been present in man’s thoughts and actions for thousands of years. In the age of “democratic socialism” and other modern iterations, The Socialist Phenomenon reminds us of the truth about socialism and the dangers that come when societies embrace socialist policies and ideals.

The Myth of Mars and Venus: Do Men and Women Really Speak Different Languages?


Deborah Cameron - 2007
    In this wide-ranging and thoroughly readable book, Deborah Cameron, Rupert Murdoch Professor of Language and Communication at Oxford University and author of a number of leading texts in the field of language and gender studies, draws on over 30 years of scientific research to explain what we really know and to demonstrate how this is often very different from the accounts we are familiar with from recent popular writing. Ambitious in scope and exceptionally accessible, The Myth of Mars and Venus tells it like it is: widely accepted attitudes from the past and from other cultures are at heart related to assumptions about language and the place of men and women in society; and there is as much similarity and variation within each gender as between men and women, often associated with social roles and relationships. The author goes on to consider the influence of Darwinian theories of natural selection and the notion that girls and boys are socialized during childhood into different ways of using language, before addressing problems of miscommunication surrounding, for example, sex and consent to sex, and women's relative lack of success in work and politics. Arguing that what linguistic differences there are between men and women are driven by the need to construct and project personal meaning and identity, Cameron concludes that we have an urgent need to think about gender in more complex ways than the prevailing myths and stereotypes allow.

Whoever Controls The Schools Rules The World


Gary DeMar - 2007
    That's why, after building homes and churches, they established educational institutions like Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Dartmouth. Today, most Christians have adopted the false premise that facts are neutral. They believe it doesn't matter who teaches math, science, and history, because facts are facts. The humanists took advantage of this type of thinking by gradually shaping and controlling education in terms of materialist assumptions. Whoever Controls the Schools Rules the World shows how education can be used as a vehicle for social change from Karl Marx and Adolf Hitler to secular humanism and radical Islam. Our worldview opponents understand that education is where the war of ideas is fought. If Christians are serious about securing the future for our children, they must understand the nature of the war we are fighting.

Temporarily Yours: Intimacy, Authenticity, and the Commerce of Sex


Elizabeth Bernstein - 2007
    Yet in both the developing world and in postindustrial cities of the West, sexual commerce has continued to flourish, diversifying along technological, spatial, and social lines. In this deeply engaging and theoretically provocative study, Elizabeth Bernstein examines the social features that undergird the expansion and diversification of commercialized sex, demonstrating the ways that postindustrial economic and cultural formations have spawned rapid and unforeseen changes in the forms, meanings, and spatial organization of sexual labor.Drawing upon dynamic and innovative research with sex workers, their clients, and state actors, Bernstein argues that in cities such as San Francisco, Stockholm, and Amstersdam, the nature of what is purchased in commercial sexual encounters is also new. Rather than the expedient exchange of cash for sexual relations, what sex workers are increasingly paid to offer their clients is an erotic experience premised upon the performance of authentic interpersonal connection. As such, contemporary sex markets are emblematic of a cultural moment in which the boundaries between intimacy and commerce—and between public life and private—have been radically redrawn. Not simply a compelling exploration of the changing landscape of sex-work, Temporarily Yours ultimately lays bare the intimate intersections of political economy, desire, and culture.

Human Rights and Empire: The Political Philosophy of Cosmopolitanism


Costas Douzinas - 2007
    Addressing the paradox of a contemporary humanitarianism that has abandoned politics in favour of combating evil, Douzinas, a leading scholar and author in the field of human rights and legal theory, considers the most pressing international questions.Asking whether there 'is an intrinsic relationship between human rights and the recent wars carried out in their name?' and whether 'human rights are a barrier against domination and oppression or the ideological gloss of an emerging empire?' this book examines a range of topics, including:the normative characteristics, political philosophy and metaphysical foundations of our age the subjective and institutional aspects of human rights and their involvement in the creation of identity and definition of the meaning and powers of humanity the use of human rights as a justification for a new configuration of political, economic and military power.Exploring the legacy and the contemporary role of human rights, this topical and incisive book is a must for all those interested in human rights law, jurisprudence and philosophy of law, political philosophy and political theory.

The Covenant In Action


Tavis Smiley - 2007
    The Covenant in Action was developed to continue the inspirational spirit of the Covenant With Black America and to empower people to take effective action to achieve THE Covenant goals.  The information, tools, and ideas presented in The Covenant in Action will enable and inspire people to become agents of change in their respective communities and to become partners in a larger Covenant movement.The Covenant in Action is organized into three parts: (1) stories about the projects and actions that everyday people have undertaken over the past year that were inspired by the Covenant With Black America; (2) motivational essays from young Black activists who are on the ground impacting their environments; and (3) a toolkit outlining steps you can take to organize, connect, and act.  The toolkit contains not only traditional action strategies, but includes innovative approaches to organizing and community building that will result in stronger, more bonded communities that are reflective of their history and past experiences.  The Covenant With Black America was only the first step.  The Covenant in Action toolkit will prime and prepare individuals and communities to actually move the Covenant book into action.

Debating Race: with Michael Eric Dyson


Michael Eric Dyson - 2007
    No stranger to intellectual combat, Dyson has always been ready to engage friends and foes alike in open conversation about the issues that matter. Debating Race collects many of Dyson’s most memorable encounters and most poignant arguments. Dyson shows that he is as eloquent off the cuff as he is on the book page, and Debating Race gives readers a front row seat as he spars with politicians, pundits, and public intellectuals. From John Kerry and John McCain to Ann Coulter and the hosts of television’s “The View”-Dyson shows the mental agility and rhetorical tenacity that have made him one of America’s most astute intellectuals, and with topics ranging from civil rights, the legacy of the O.J. Simpson trial, and the authenticity of Colin Powell there is something in Debating Race to touch a nerve in all of us.

Inclusion: The Politics of Difference in Medical Research


Steven Epstein - 2007
    Until the mid-1980s, scientists often studied groups of white, middle-aged men—and assumed that conclusions drawn from studying them would apply to the rest of the population. But struggles involving advocacy groups, experts, and Congress led to reforms that forced researchers to diversify the population from which they drew for clinical research. While the prominence of these inclusive practices has offered hope to traditionally underserved groups, Epstein argues that it has drawn attention away from the tremendous inequalities in health that are rooted not in biology but in society.“Epstein’s use of theory to demonstrate how public policies in the health profession are shaped makes this book relevant for many academic disciplines. . . . Highly recommended.”—Choice “A masterful comprehensive overview of a wide terrain.”—Troy Duster, Biosocieties

Global Pentecostalism: The New Face of Christian Social Engagement


Donald E. Miller - 2007
    Miller and Tetsunao Yamamori spent four years traveling the globe conducting extensive on-the-ground research in twenty different countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe. The result is this vividly detailed book which provides the most comprehensive information available on Pentecostalism, the fastest-growing religion in the world. Rich with scenes from everyday life, the book dispel many stereotypes about this religion as they build a wide-ranging, nuanced portrait of a major new social movement.

The Medicalization of Everyday Life: Selected Essays


Thomas Szasz - 2007
    From Diagnoses Are Not Diseases to The Existential Identity Thief, Fatal Temptation, and Killing as Therapy, the book delves into the complex evolution of medicalization, concluding with Pharmacracy: The New Despotism. In practice, society must draw a line between what counts as medical practice and what does not. Where it draws that line goes far in defining the kinds of laws its citizens live under, the kinds of medical care they receive, and the kinds of lives they are allowed to live.

Lines: A Brief History


Tim Ingold - 2007
    In this extraordinary book Tim Ingold imagines a world in which everyone and everything consists of interwoven or interconnected lines and lays the foundations for a completely new discipline: the anthropological archaeology of the line.Ingold's argument leads us through the music of Ancient Greece and contemporary Japan, Siberian labyrinths and Roman roads, Chinese calligraphy and the printed alphabet, weaving a path between antiquity and the present.Setting out from a puzzle about the relation between speech and song, Ingold considers how two kinds of line - threads and traces - can turn into one another as surfaces form or dissolve. He reveals how our perception of lines has changed over time, with modernity converting to point-to-point connectors before becoming straight, only to be ruptured and fragmented by the postmodern world.Drawing on a multitude of disciplines including archaeology, classical studies, art history, linguistics, psychology, musicology, philosophy and many others, and including more than seventy illustrations, this book takes us on an exhilarating intellectual journey that will change the way we look at the world and how we go about in it.

Black Geographies and the Politics of Place


Katherine McKittrick - 2007
    From the Middle Passage to the “Whites Only” signposts of US apartheid, the black Diasporic experience is rooted firmly in the politics of place.Literature has long explored the cultural differences in the experience of blackness in different quarters of the Diaspora. But what are the real differences between being a maroon in the hills of Jamaica and a runaway in the swamps of Florida? How does location impact repression and resistance, both on the ground and in the terrain of political imagination?Enter Black Geographies. In this path-breaking collection, fourteen authors interrogate the intersection between space and race. For instance, confronted with the importance of space in black cultural creation and preservation, some activists have sought to protect or restore black historical sites such as Tulsa’s “Black Wall Street” and the African Burial Ground in New York City. For the dispossessed, all markers of history and belonging, including cultural property, become paramount. Yet each of these sites has in common acts of racial hatred and state terrorism that have left few of the historical structures standing—making them unlikely candidates for preservation. This begs the question: Is it even possible that advocating for preserving historic locations can act as a vehicle for social justice and spur community redevelopment?Other contributors consider how Bob Marley’s music maps a path to freedom, whether Malcolm Little could have emerged as Malcolm X outside of a black urban center, and if “lost” communities can be recovered.Katherine McKittrick authored Demonic Grounds: Black Women and Cartographies of Struggle.Clyde Woods authored Development Arrested: Race, Power, and the Blues in the Mississippi Delta.

Two-Faced Racism: Whites in the Backstage and Frontstage


Leslie Houts Picca - 2007
    While there are many books that deal with public attitudes, behaviours, and incidences concerning race and racism (frontstage), there are few studies on the attitudes whites display among friends, family, and other whites in private settings (backstage). The core of this book draws upon 626 journals of racial events kept by white college students at twenty-eight colleges in the United States. The book seeks to comprehend how whites think in racial terms by analyzing their reported racial events.

Mathematical Models of Social Evolution: A Guide for the Perplexed


Richard McElreath - 2007
    But students in these disciplines often seriously lack the tools to understand them. A primer on behavioral modeling that includes both mathematics and evolutionary theory, Mathematical Models of Social Evolution aims to make the student and professional researcher in biology and the social sciences fully conversant in the language of the field.Teaching biological concepts from which models can be developed, Richard McElreath and Robert Boyd introduce readers to many of the typical mathematical tools that are used to analyze evolutionary models and end each chapter with a set of problems that draw upon these techniques. Mathematical Models of Social Evolution equips behaviorists and evolutionary biologists with the mathematical knowledge to truly understand the models on which their research depends. Ultimately, McElreath and Boyd’s goal is to impart the fundamental concepts that underlie modern biological understandings of the evolution of behavior so that readers will be able to more fully appreciate journal articles and scientific literature, and start building models of their own.

Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City


Mary Pattillo - 2007
    But in the late 1980s, activists rose up to tackle the social problems that had plagued the area for decades. Black on the Block tells the remarkable story of how these residents laid the groundwork for a revitalized and self-consciously black neighborhood that continues to flourish today. But theirs is not a tale of easy consensus and political unity, and here Pattillo teases out the divergent class interests that have come to define black communities like North Kenwood–Oakland. She explores the often heated battles between haves and have-nots, home owners and apartment dwellers, and newcomers and old-timers as they clash over the social implications of gentrification. Along the way, Pattillo highlights the conflicted but crucial role that middle-class blacks play in transforming such districts as they negotiate between established centers of white economic and political power and the needs of their less fortunate black neighbors. “A century from now, when today's sociologists and journalists are dust and their books are too, those who want to understand what the hell happened to Chicago will be finding the answer in this one.”—Chicago Reader “To see how diversity creates strange and sometimes awkward bedfellows . . . turn to Mary Pattillo's Black on the Block.”—Boston Globe

The Will to Improve: Governmentality, Development, and the Practice of Politics


Tania Murray Li - 2007
    Focusing on attempts to improve landscapes and livelihoods in Indonesia, Tania Murray Li carefully exposes the practices that enable experts to diagnose problems and devise interventions, and the agency of people whose conduct is targeted for reform. Deftly integrating theory, ethnography, and history, she illuminates the work of colonial officials and missionaries; specialists in agriculture, hygiene, and credit; and political activists with their own schemes for guiding villagers toward better ways of life. She examines donor-funded initiatives that seek to integrate conservation with development through the participation of communities, and a one-billion-dollar program designed by the World Bank to optimize the social capital of villagers, inculcate new habits of competition and choice, and remake society from the bottom up.Demonstrating that the “will to improve” has a long and troubled history, Li identifies enduring continuities from the colonial period to the present. She explores the tools experts have used to set the conditions for reform—tools that combine the reshaping of desires with applications of force. Attending in detail to the highlands of Sulawesi, she shows how a series of interventions entangled with one another and tracks their results, ranging from wealth to famine, from compliance to political mobilization, and from new solidarities to oppositional identities and violent attack. The Will to Improve is an engaging read—conceptually innovative, empirically rich, and alive with the actions and reflections of the targets of improvement, people with their own critical analyses of the problems that beset them.

Rigging the Game: How Inequality Is Reproduced in Everyday Life


Michael Schwalbe - 2007
    Guided by the questions How did the situation get this way? and How does it stay this way?, Schwalbe tracks inequality from its roots to its regulation. In the final chapter, "Escaping the Inequality Trap," he also shows how inequality can be overcome. Throughout, Schwalbe's engaging writing style draws students into the material, providing instructors with a solid foundation for discussing this challenging and provocative subject.With its lively combination of incisive analysis and compelling fictional narratives, Rigging the Game is an innovative teaching tool--not only for courses on stratification, but also for social problems courses, introductory sociology courses, and any course that takes a close look at how the inequalities of race, class, and gender are perpetuated.

Agent-Based Models


Nigel Gilbert - 2007
    It involves building a computational model consisting of agents, each of which represents an actor in the social world, and an environment in which the agents act. Agents are able to interact with each other and are programmed to be pro-active, autonomous and able to perceive their virtual world. The techniques of ABM are derived from artificial intelligence and computer science, but are now being developed independently in research centers throughout the world.In Agent-Based Models, Nigel Gilbert reviews a range of examples of agent-based modeling, describes how to design and build your own models, and considers practical issues such as verification, validation, planning a modeling project, and how to structure a scholarly article reporting the results of agent-based modeling. It includes a glossary, an annotated list of resources, advice on which programming environment to use when creating agent-based models, and a worked, step-by-step example of the development of an ABM.This latest volume in the SAGE Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences series will have wide appeal in the social sciences, including the disciplines of sociology, economics, social psychology, geography, economic history, science studies, and environmental studies. It is appropriate for graduate students, researchers and academics in these fields, for both those wanting to keep up with new developments in their fields and those who are considering using ABM for their research.Key FeaturesAimed at readers who are new to ABMOffers a brief, but thorough, treatment of a cutting-edge techniqueOffers practical advice about how to design and create ABMIncludes carefully chosen examples from different disciplinesLearn more about The Little Green Book - QASS Series! Click Here

Against the Law: Labor Protests in China's Rustbelt and Sunbelt


Ching Kwan Lee - 2007
    Based on remarkable fieldwork and extensive interviews in Chinese textile, apparel, machinery, and household appliance factories, Against the Law finds a rising tide of labor unrest mostly hidden from the world's attention. Providing a broad political and economic analysis of this labor struggle together with fine-grained ethnographic detail, the book portrays the Chinese working class as workers' stories unfold in bankrupt state factories and global sweatshops, in crowded dormitories and remote villages, at street protests as well as in quiet disenchantment with the corrupt officialdom and the fledgling legal system.

The End of Tolerance: Racism in 21st Century Britain


Arun Kundnani - 2007
    Exacerbated by the attacks of 9/11 and 7/7, Kundnani argues that a new form of racism is emerging that is based on a systematic failure to understand the causes of forced migration, global terrorism and social segregation. The result is a climate of hatred, especially against Muslims and asylum seekers, and the erosion of the human rights of those whose cultures and values are perceived as 'alien'.  Communities are more divided than ever. Yet the government presses ahead with flawed immigration and 'integration' policies and anti-terrorist legislation that creates further resentment, alienation and criminalisation. Behind it all lies a refusal to grasp the ways in which the world has been changed by neoliberal globalisation. What can be done? This timely and precise analysis is a useful account of why racism is now thriving -- and what can be done to stop it. It will be of interest to anyone who is appalled by the current state of race relations in Britain and it should be required reading for all policy-makers.

The Heart of Whiteness: Normal Sexuality and Race in America, 1880-1940


Julian B. Carter - 2007
    Gilded Age elites defined white civilization as the triumphant achievement of exceptional people hewing to a relational ethic of strict self-discipline for the common good. During the early twentieth century, that racial and relational ideal was reconceived in more inclusive terms as “normality,” something toward which everyone should strive. The appearance of inclusiveness helped make “normality” appear consistent with the self-image of a racially diverse republic; nonetheless, “normality” was gauged largely in terms of adherence to erotic and emotional conventions that gained cultural significance through their association with arguments for the legitimacy of white political and social dominance. At the same time, the affectionate, reproductive heterosexuality of “normal” married couples became increasingly central to legitimate membership in the nation.Carter builds his intricate argument from detailed readings of an array of popular texts, focusing on how sex education for children and marital advice for adults provided significant venues for the dissemination of the new ideal of normality. He concludes that because its overt concerns were love, marriage, and babies, normality discourse facilitated white evasiveness about racial inequality. The ostensible focus of “normality” on matters of sexuality provided a superficially race-neutral conceptual structure that whites could and did use to evade engagement with the unequal relations of power that continue to shape American life today.

Brahmin and Non-Brahmin: Genealogies of the Tamil Political Present


M.S.S. Pandian - 2007
    a major new study by leader in subaltern studies movement.In South India, the categories ‘Brahmin’ and ‘non-Brahmin’ are frequently treated as self-evident, both within contemporary Tamil politics and in mainstream academic discourses. Departing from this political and academic ‘common sense’, the present book historicizes the complex processes by which these categories came into being and acquired political power over the past century. Using archival, regional-language and unconventional sources, M.S.S. Pandian unsettles the ‘self-evident’ quality of these two categories and opens up a rich theoretical-critical space to rethink and understand them. In the process of unravelling and historicizing the so-called ‘naturalness’ of ‘Brahmin’ and ‘non-Brahmin’, this book also offers a new perspective on colonialism in South India. Stepping away from mainstream nationalist accounts of colonialism, it shows the ways in which colonialism was, for various strata of Tamil society, both a moment of crisis as well as one of possibilities. The book argues that it was this dual and ambiguous quality of colonial rule which facilitated new ways of looking at the figure of the Brahmin, even as it enabled the making of a non-Brahmin identity. The importance of this book for understanding politics and society in Tamil South India over the past hundred and more years can scarcely be exaggerated. The Non-Brahmin writings and discursive strategies of E.V. Ramasamy ‘Periyar’, Maraimalai Adigal and Iyothee Thoss, alongside those of a wide array of Brahminic thinkers and propagandists (both within Congress and outside), are presented here with a degree of sophistication and analytic skill not available in other works of political, social and intellectual history on the Indian South. This book will interest every historian, sociologist and political analyst of India, as well as all who wish to understand anti-Brahmin and anti-upper-caste social movements.

Post-Foundational Political Thought: Political Difference in Nancy, Lefort, Badiou and Laclau


Oliver Marchart - 2007
    It is also the first introductory overview of post-foundationalism and the tradition of 'left Heideggerianism' the political thought of contemporary theorists who make frequent use of the idea of political difference: Jean-Luc Nancy, Claude Lefort, Alain Badiou and Ernesto Laclau.After an overview of current trends in social post-foundationalism and a genealogical chapter on the historical emergence of the difference between the concepts of 'politics' and 'the political', the work of individual theorists is presented and discussed at length. Individual chapters are presented on the political thought of Jean-Luc Nancy (including Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe), Claude Lefort, Alain Badiou, and Ernesto Laclau (including Chantal Mouffe).Overall the book offers an elaboration of the idea of a post-foundational conception of politics.Other titles in the Taking on the Political series: Valentine and Arditi/ Polemicisation 0 7486 1064 2Shapiro/ Cinematic Political Thought 0 7486 1289 0Chambers/ Language and the Politics of Untimeliness 0 7486 1766 3Bowman/ Post-Marxism Versus Cultural Studies 978 0 7486 1762 3Simons/ Critical Political Theory in the Media Age 0 7486 1583 0

Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex, and Power


Shira Tarrant - 2007
    In the essays, which feature original, lively and accessible prose, anti-sexist men make sense of their gendered experiences in today's culture.The authors tackle the issues of feminism, growing up male, recognizing masculine privilege, taking action to change the imbalance of power and privilege and the constraints that men experience in confronting sexism. They describe their successes and challenges in bucking patriarchal systems in a culture that can be unsupportive of - or downright hostile to - a pro-feminist perspective.In these chapters, a diverse group of men reflect on growing up, share moments in their day-to-day lives, and pose serious questions about being a pro-feminist male living, working, thinking, and learning in a sexist society.

Rape: Sex, Violence, History


Joanna Bourke - 2007
    Neither prurient nor overly sympathetic, she investigates rape from a historical standpoint examining the history of sexual aggression, the idea of rape as a social construct, and the often-ignored idea of embodiment, and analyzes the physical response of rapists as well as the often-cited “rape is about power” theories.Indebted to a growing body of sophisticated feminist analyses about rape victims, Bourke here shifts the emphasis from the victims to the perpetrators in order to place rapists in their historical context. An invaluable study, this book delivers the hard truth that if we are to imagine a world free of unwanted sexual violence, then we must consider the issue of rape from every angle.

Against Paranoid Nationalism: Searching for Hope in a Shrinking Society


Ghassan Hage - 2007
    Hage brings insights from political economy and psychoanalysis, defining societies as mechanisms for the production and distribution of hope.

Third Ways: How Bulgarian Greens, Swedish Housewives, and Beer-Swilling Englishmen Created Family-Centered Economies - And Why They Disappeared


Allan C. Carlson - 2007
    Unlike fascists, these seekers were committed to democracy and pluralism. Unlike liberal capitalists, they refused to treat human labor and relationships as commodities like any other. And unlike communists, they strongly defended private property and the dignity of persons and families. Instead, the builders of these alternative economic systems wanted to protect and renew the “natural” communities of family, village, neighborhood, and parish. They treasured rural culture and family farming and defended traditional sex roles and vital home economies. Carlson’s book takes a fresh look at distributism, the controversial economic project of Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton which focused on broad property ownership and small-scale production; recovers the forgotten thought of Alexander Chayanov, a Russian economist who put forth a theory of “the natural family economy”; discusses the remarkable “third way” policies of peasant-led governments in post–World War I Bulgaria, Poland, and Romania; recounts the dramatic and largely unknown effort by Swedish housewives to defend their homes against radical feminism; relates the iconoclastic ideas of economic historian Karl Polanyi, including his concepts of “the economy without markets” and “the great transformation”; and praises the efforts by European Christian Democrats to build a moral economy on the concept of homo religious—“religious man.”  Finally, Carlson’s work explains why these efforts—at times rich in hope and prospects—ultimately failed, often with tragic results. The tale inspires wistful regret over lost opportunities that, if seized, might have spared tens of millions of lives and forestalled or avoided the blights of fascism, Stalinism, socialism, and the advent of the servile state. And yet the book closes with hope, enunciating a set of principles that could be used today for invigorating a “family way” economy compatible with an authentic, healthy, and humane culture of enterprise.

Surviving America's Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy


Bruce E. Levine - 2007
    We've all heard them, there's no denying the fact that these ads have made each of us wonder: Do I suffer from depression? Would I be happier and healthier if I simply consulted my physician and requested (insert drug name here)?The rate of clinical depression in the U.S. has increased more than tenfold in the last fifty years. Is this epidemic properly being addressed by the insurance, pharmaceutical, and governmental powers-that-be or exacerbated by a failing system focused on instant results and high profit margins? Dr. Bruce E. Levine, a highly respected clinical psychologist, argues the latter and provides a compelling alternative approach to treating depression that makes lasting change more likely than with symptom-based treatment through medication.Surviving America's Depression Epidemic delves into the roots of depression and links our increasingly consumer-based culture and standard-practice psychiatric treatments to worsening depression, instead of solving it. In an easy-to-understand narrative style, Dr. Levine prescribes antidotes to depression including the keys to building morale and selfhealing. Unlike short-term, drug-based solutions, these antidotes foster a long-term cycle where people rediscover passion and purpose, and find meaning in acting on their societal concerns.A groundbreaking work, atypical of the shelf-loads of "pep-talk" based self help books on the market, Surviving America's Depression Epidemic provides the knowledge and counsel of a practicing psychologist in a digestible format that will improve your future. A must read for guidance and pastoral counselors; non-dogmatic psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers; and those tired of the TV ads shilling for better living through chemistry.

Brave New West: Morphing Moab at the Speed of Greed


Jim Stiles - 2007
    What kind of economy would prevent Moab from becoming yet another ghost town? For more than two decades, environmentalists in southeast Utah have had a simple answer to this question: replace extractive industries—mining, timber, and cattle—with an economy catering to “green” tourists with hotels, restaurants, and bars. They feel that if these lands can be spared further degradation by huge industries, the West could begin to thrive on something cleaner and more lucrative. But Stiles sees a downside to this seemingly idyllic vision. Bringing insight based on decades of residence in Moab, he makes a provocative and compelling argument that the economy most environmentalists hail as the solution to the woes of the rural West is in fact creating an unprecedented impact of its own. In recent years, Moab and other rural towns across the West have seen a massive influx of urbanites fleeing crowded cities in search of a simpler life. Yet Stiles also observes that these transplants are often unwilling to accept the isolation and lack of services that characterize genuine rural life. Believing themselves to be liberal, sensitive, enlightened environmentalists, they nevertheless bring with them exactly the type of lifestyle and ecological impact that they sought to leave behind and, in the process, create a community that no longer serves the native inhabitants. With a blend of travelogue, local color, and geography, Stiles engages readers with folksy humor while defending the lifestyle of the “pre-cappuccino rural Westerners” and exposing the paradox that underlies the professed good intentions of liberal newcomers.

Disadvantage


Jonathan Wolff - 2007
    Part 1 presents a pluralist analysis of disadvantage, modifying the capability theory of Sen and Nussbaum to produce the 'genuine opportunity for secure functioning' view. This emphasizes risk and insecurity as a central component of disadvantage. Part 2 shows how to identify the least advantaged in society even on a pluralist view. The authors suggest that disadvantage 'clusters' in the sense that some people are disadvantaged in several different respects. Thus identifying the least advantaged is not as problematic as it appears to be. Conversely, a society which has 'declustered disadvantaged'--in the sense that no group lacks secure functioning on a range of functionings--has made considerable progress in the direction of equality. Part 3 explores how to decluster disadvantage, by paying special attention to 'corrosive disadvantages'--those disadvantages which cause further disadvantages--and 'fertile functionings'--those which are likely to secure other functionings.In sum this books presents a refreshing new analysis of disadvantage, and puts forward proposals to help governments improve the lives of the least advantaged in their societies, thereby moving in the direction of equality.

The Layout Look Book


Max Weber - 2007
    Organized so as to encourage creativity, serendipitous discovery, and inspiration, The Layout Look Book is a great guide for both amateur and professional designers. The book includes techniques that can be used to enhance any layout, as well as insights into the factors that helped make each layout an effective piece. The styles covered in the volume range from traditional to cutting edge, and will enable any designer to become a more creative thinker and produce fantastic work.

The Essential Marcuse: Selected Writings


Herbert Marcuse - 2007
    The most influential radical philosopher of the 1960s, Marcuse's writings are noteworthy for their uncompromising opposition to both capitalism and communism. His words are as relevant to today's society as they were at the time they were written.

Refrigerator Rights: Creating Connections and Restoring Relationships - new preface


Will Miller - 2007
    Will Miller and Dr. Glenn Sparks, the answer is "absolutely yes!" In fact, they argue, our constant mobility and our growing addictions to media of all types get in the way of the close relationships we all need to be emotionally healthy. In essence, they ask "how many people in your life are comfortable opening your refrigerator to get a drink or something to eat without asking your permission first?" This comfort level - relationships with refrigerator rights - is the key to our physical and emotional health. This inspirational book is based on the latest research and its message is delivered with good humor, passion and compassion. Miller and Sparks believe we can all achieve peace of heart by inviting more people into our lives.

The Oxford Handbook of Political Behavior


Russell J. Dalton - 2007
    The recent expansion of democracy has both given new rights and created new responsibilities for the citizenry. These political changes are paralleled by tremendous advances in our empirical knowledge of citizens and their behaviors through the institutionalization of systematic, comparative study of contemporary publics--ranging from the advanced industrial democracies to the emerging democracies of Central and Eastern Europe, to new survey research on the developing world. These essays describe how citizens think about politics, how their values shape their behavior, the patterns of participation, the sources of vote choice, and how public opinion impacts on governing and public policy.This is the most comprehensive review of the cross-national literature of citizen behavior and the relationship between citizens and their governments. It will become the first point of reference for scholars and students interested in these key issues.

Island of the Setting Sun: In Search of Ireland's Ancient Astronomers


Anthony Murphy - 2007
    This book tells the story of their genesis. It explores the invasion myths of Ireland, the link between the ancient astronomers and St Patrick, and the true inspiration behind Newgrange's white quartz facade.

The Wages of Whiteness


David R. Roediger - 2007
    

Beyond the Body Proper: Reading the Anthropology of Material Life


Margaret M. Lock - 2007
    They have begun to perceive embodiment as dynamic rather than static, as experiences that vary over time and across the world as they are shaped by discourses, institutions, practices, technologies, and ideologies. What has emerged is a multiplicity of bodies, inviting a great many disciplinary points of view and modes of interpretation. The forty-seven readings presented in this volume range from classic works of social theory, history, and ethnography to more recent investigations into historical and contemporary modes of embodiment.Beyond the Body Proper includes nine sections conceptually organized around themes such as everyday life, sex and gender, and science. Each section is preceded by interpretive commentary by the volume’s editors. Within the collection are articles and book excerpts focused on bodies using tools and participating in rituals, on bodies walking and eating, and on the female circumcision controversy, as well as pieces on medical classifications, spirit possession, the commodification of body parts, in vitro fertilization, and an artist/anatomist’s “plastination” of cadavers for display. Materialist, phenomenological, and feminist perspectives on embodiment appear along with writings on interpretations of pain and the changing meanings of sexual intercourse. Essays on these topics and many others challenge Eurocentric assumptions about the body as they speak to each other and to the most influential contemporary trends in the human sciences.With selections by: Henry Abelove, Walter Benjamin, Janice Boddy, John Boswell, Judith Butler, Caroline Walker Bynum, Stuart Cosgrove, Michel de Certeau, Gilles Deleuze, Alice Domurat Dreger, Barbara Duden, Friedrich Engels, E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Judith Farquhar, Marcel Granet, Felix Guattari, Ian Hacking, Robert Hertz, Patricia Leyland Kaufert, Arthur Kleinman, Shigehisa Kuriyama, Jean Langford, Bruno Latour, Margaret Lock, Emily Martin, Karl Marx, Marcel Mauss, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Nancy K. Miller, Lisa Jean Moore, John D. O’Neil, Aihwa Ong, Mariella Pandolfi, Susan Pedersen, Gregory M. Pflugfelder, Rayna Rapp, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Kristofer Schipper, Matthew Schmidt, Peter Stallybrass, Michael Taussig, Charis Thompson, E.P. Thompson, Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Victor Turner, Terence Turner, Jose van Dijck, Keith Wailoo, Brad Weiss, Allon White

Arbitrary Justice: The Power of the American Prosecutor


Angela J. Davis - 2007
    Davis examines the expanding power of prosecutors, from mandatory minimum sentencing laws that enhance prosecutorial control over the outcome of cases to the increasing politicization of the office. Drawing on her dozen years of experience as a public defender, Davis demonstrates how the everyday, legal exercise of prosecutorial discretion is responsible for tremendous inequities in criminal justice.Davis uses powerful stories of individuals caught in the system to illustrate how the day-to-day practices and decisions of well-meaning prosecutors produce unfair and unequal treatment of both defendants and victims, often along race and class lines. These disparities are particularly evident in prosecutors' charging and plea-bargaining decisions and in their muddy relationships with victims.Prosecutors not only hold vast power, Davis argues, but they are also under-regulated and lack accountability. The current standards of practice for prosecutors are unenforceable, while the mechanisms that purport to hold prosecutors accountable are weak and ineffectual. Not only does lack of oversight result in injustices, it may even foster a climate tolerant of unfair practices and in some cases, misconduct.Offering a sensible agenda for comprehensive review and reform, Arbitrary Justice challenges the legal community and concerned citizens to pursue and enact meaningful standards of con

Martyr of the Amazon: The Life of Sister Dorothy Stang


Roseanne Murphy - 2007
    This book presents the inspiring story of a woman who died defending the poor and God's creation.

Warfare in the American Homeland: Policing and Prison in a Penal Democracy


Joy James - 2007
    Although most of the U.S. population is non-Hispanic and white, the vast majority of the incarcerated—and policed—is not. In this compelling collection, scholars, activists, and current and former prisoners examine the sensibilities that enable a penal democracy to thrive. Some pieces are new to this volume; others are classic critiques of U.S. state power. Through biography, diary entries, and criticism, the contributors collectively assert that the United States wages war against enemies abroad and against its own people at home.Contributors consider the interning or policing of citizens of color, the activism of radicals, structural racism, destruction and death in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, and the FBI Counterintelligence Program designed to quash domestic dissent. Among the first-person accounts are an interview with Dhoruba Bin Wahad, a Black Panther and former political prisoner; a portrayal of life in prison by a Plowshares nun jailed for her antinuclear and antiwar activism; a discussion of the Puerto Rican Independence Movement by one of its members, now serving a seventy-year prison sentence for sedition; and an excerpt from a 1970 letter by the Black Panther George Jackson chronicling the abuses of inmates in California’s Soledad Prison. Warfare in the American Homeland also includes the first English translation of an excerpt from a pamphlet by Michel Foucault and others. They argue that the 1971 shooting of George Jackson by prison guards was a murder premeditated in response to human-rights and justice organizing by black and brown prisoners and their supporters.Contributors. Hishaam Aidi, Dhoruba Bin Wahad (Richard Moore), Marilyn Buck, Marshall Eddie Conway, Susie Day, Daniel Defert, Madeleine Dwertman, Michel Foucault, Carol Gilbert, Sirène Harb, Rose Heyer, George Jackson, Joy James, Manning Marable, William F. Pinar, Oscar Lòpez Rivera, Dylan Rodríguez, Jared Sexton, Catherine vön Bulow, Laura Whitehorn, Frank B. Wilderson III

Armed America: Portraits of Gun Owners in Their Homes


Kyle Cassidy - 2007
    Hardly anyone he knew didn't have an opinion in the debate over owning guns. Why was a constitutionally protected right so heavily debated, and who exactly as these folks that own guns? "I began to wonder who these seventy or so million Americans were, how they lived and what was important to them. I set out to photographs as many gun owners as I could and ask them one question: "Why do you own a gun."Cassidy traveled over 20,000 miles, crisscrossing the country to meet with gun owners in their homes. Cassidy's photo essays create a powerful, thought provoking and sometimes startling view of gun ownership in the U.S. These "everyman" portraits, and the accompanying views of gun owners, fashion a riveting and provocative hardcover book.

Peasant Pasts: History and Memory in Western India


Vinayak Chaturvedi - 2007
    Vinayak Chaturvedi's analysis provides an important intervention in the social and cultural history of India by examining the nature of peasant discourses and practices during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Through rigorous archival study and fieldwork, Chaturvedi shows that peasants in Gujarat were active in the production and circulation of political ideas, establishing critiques of the state and society while promoting complex understandings of political community. By turning to the heartland of M.K. Gandhi's support, Chaturvedi shows that the vast majority of peasants were opposed to nationalism in the early decades of the twentieth century. He argues that nationalists in Gujarat established power through the use of coercion and violence, as they imagined a nation in which they could dominate social relations. Chaturvedi suggests that this littletold story is necessary to understand not only anticolonial nationalism but the direction of postcolonial nationalism as well.

Population Control: Real Costs, Illusory Benefits


Steven W. Mosher - 2007
    They have robbed people of the developing countries of their progeny and the people of the developed world of their pocketbooks. Determined to stop population growth at all costs, those Mosher calls "population controllers" have abused women, targeted racial and religious minorities, undermined primary health care programs, and encouraged dictatorial actions if not dictatorship. They have skewed the foreign aid programs of the United States and other developed countries in an anti-natal direction, corrupted dozens of well-intentioned nongovernmental organizations, and impoverished authentic development programs. Blinded by zealotry, they have even embraced the most brutal birth control campaign in history: China's infamous one-child policy, with all its attendant horrors.There is no workable demographic definition of "overpopulation." Those who argue for its premises conjure up images of poverty--low incomes, poor health, unemployment, malnutrition, overcrowded housing to justify anti-natal programs. The irony is that such policies have in many ways caused what they predicted--a world which is poorer materially, less diverse culturally, less advanced economically, and plagued by disease. The population controllers have not only studiously ignored mounting evidence of their multiple failures; they have avoided the biggest story of them all. Fertility rates are in free fall around the globe.Movements with billions of dollars at their disposal, not to mention thousands of paid advocates, do not go quietly to their graves. Moreover, many in the movement are not content to merely achieve zero population growth, they want to see negative population numbers. In their view, our current population should be reduced to one or two billion or so. Such a goal would keep these interest groups fully employed. It would also have dangerous consequences for a global environment.

Deleuzian Encounters: Studies in Contemporary Social Issues


Peta Malins - 2007
    Topics explored include: the environment, terrorism, refugees, indigenous reconciliation, gender, suicide, intellectual disability, injecting drug use, classroom teaching and global activism. Each contribution provides practical examples of how to make use of Deleuze's thought in social research, and offers fresh insights into the creative and innovative potentials Deleuze's philosophy holds for social thought and action.

Will to Live: AIDS Therapies and the Politics of Survival


João Biehl - 2007
    But anthropologist Jo�o Biehl also tells why this policy, hailed as a model worldwide, has been so difficult to implement among poor Brazilians with HIV/AIDS, who are often stigmatized as noncompliant or untreatable, becoming invisible to the public. More broadly, Biehl examines the political economy of pharmaceuticals that lies behind large-scale treatment rollouts, revealing the possibilities and inequalities that come with a magic bullet approach to health care.By moving back and forth between the institutions shaping the Brazilian response to AIDS and the people affected by the disease, Biehl has created a book of unusual vividness, scope, and detail. At the core of Will to Live is a group of AIDS patients--unemployed, homeless, involved with prostitution and drugs--that established a makeshift health service. Biehl chronicled the personal lives of these people for over ten years and Torben Eskerod represents them here in more than one hundred stark photographs.Ethnography, social medicine, and art merge in this unique book, illuminating the care and agency needed to extend life amid perennial violence. Full of lessons for the future, Will to Live promises to have a lasting influence in the social sciences and in the theory and practice of global public health.

Essential Writings on Race


Samuel T. Francis - 2007
    Here, in one volume, are his most thoughtful essays on this crucial subject. Lovingly edited and introduced by Jared Taylor, Essential Writings on Race is one of the central texts of American race-realist thought.

The SAGE Handbook of Grounded Theory


Kathy C. Charmaz - 2007
    No longer will students have to search the library or internet to find authoritative voices on a variety of topics. It's all right there at their fingertips- Juliet Corbin, San Jose State UniversityGrounded Theory is by far the most widely used research method across a wide range of disciplines and subject areas, including social sciences, nursing and healthcare, medical sociology, information systems, psychology, and anthropology. This handbook gives a comprehensive overview of the theory and practice of Grounded Theory, taking into account the many attempts to revise and refine Glaser and Strauss' original formulation and the debates that have followed.Antony Bryant & Kathy Charmaz bring together leading researchers and practitioners of the method from the US, the UK, Australia and Europe to represent all the major standpoints within Grounded Theory, demonstrating the richness of the approach. The contributions cover a wide range of perspectives on the method, covering its features and ramifications, its intricacies in use, its demands on the skills and capabilities of the researcher and its position in the domain of research methods.The SAGE Handbook of Grounded Theory is an indispensable reference source for academics and researchers across many disciplines who want to develop their understanding of the Grounded Theory method.

Myth and the Greatest Generation: A Social History of Americans in World War II


Kenneth D. Rose - 2007
    Issues of racial, labor unrest, juvenile delinquency, and marital infidelity were rampant, and the black market flourished.This book delves into both personal and national issues, calling into questions the dominant view of World War II as 'The Good War'.

Guardians of the Nation: Activists on the Language Frontiers of Imperial Austria


Pieter M. Judson - 2007
    They hoped to remake local populations into polarized peoples and their villages into focal points of the political conflict that dominated the Habsburg Empire. But they often found bilingual inhabitants accustomed to cultural mixing who were stubbornly indifferent to identifying with only one group. Using examples from several regions, including Bohemia and Styria, Pieter Judson traces the struggle to consolidate the loyalty of local populations for nationalist causes. Whether German, Czech, Italian, or Slovene, the nationalists faced similar and unexpected difficulties in their struggle to make nationalism relevant to local concerns and to bind people permanently to one side. Judson examines the various strategies of the nationalist activists, from the founding of minority language schools to the importation of colonists from other regions, from projects to modernize rural economies to the creation of a tourism industry. By 1914, they succeeded in projecting a public perception of nationalist frontiers, but largely failed to nationalize the populations. Guardians of the Nation offers a provocative challenge to standard accounts of the march of nationalism in modern Europe. (20070901)

Black Stats: African Americans by the Numbers in the Twenty-first Century


Monique W. Morris - 2007
    With fascinating and often surprising information on everything from incarceration rates, lending practices, and the arts to marriage, voting habits, and green jobs, the contextualized material in this book will better attune readers to telling trends while challenging commonly held, yet often misguided, perceptions.A compilation that at once highlights measures of incredible progress and enumerates the disparate impacts of social policies and practices, this book is a critical tool for advocates, educators, and policy makers. Black Stats offers indispensable information that is sure to enlighten discussions and provoke debates about the quality of Black life in the United States today—and help chart the path to a better future.• There are less than a quarter-million Black public school teachers in the U.S.—representing just 7 percent of all teachers in public schools.• Approximately half of the Black population in the United States lives in neighborhoods that have no White residents.• In the five years before the Great Recession, the number of Black-owned businesses in the United States increased by 61 percent.• A 2010 study found that 41 percent of Black youth feel that rap music videos should be more political.• There are no Black owners or presidents of an NFL franchise team.• 78 percent of Black Americans live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant, compared with 56 percent of White Americans.

Rethinking Capitalist Development: Primitive Accumulation, Governmentality and Post-Colonial Capitalism


Kalyan Sanyal - 2007
    Analyzing critical questions from a third world perspective such as: Will the integration into the global capitalist network bring to the third world new economic opportunities? Will this capitalist network make the third world countries an easy prey for predatory multinational corporations? The end result is a discourse, drawing on Marx and Foucault, which envisages the post-colonial capitalist formation, albeit in an entirely different light, in the era of globalization.

Alternatives Beyond Psychiatry


Peter Stastny - 2007
    The book highlights alternatives beyond psychiatry, current possibilities of self-help for individuals experiencing madness, and strategies toward implementing humane treatment.These are some of the main questions, addressed by the 61 authors: * What helps me if I go mad?* How can I find trustworthy help for a relative or a friend in need?* How can I protect myself from coercive treatment?* As a family member or friend, how can I help?* What should I do if I can no longer bear to work in the mental health field?* What are the alternatives to psychiatry?* How can I get involved in creating alternatives?* Assuming psychiatry would be abolished, what do you propose instead?

Interstices of the Sublime: Theology and Psychoanalytic Theory


Clayton Crockett - 2007
    Through creative and constructive psycho-theological readings of topics such as sublimation, schizophrenia, God, and creation ex nihilo, this book contributes to a new form of radical theological thinking that is deeply involved in the world.Here the idea of the Kantian sublime is read into Freud and Lacan, and compared with sublimation. The sublime refers to a conflict of the Kantian faculties of reason and imagination, and involves the attempt to represent what is intrinsically unrepresentable. Sublimation, by contrast, involves the expression and partial satisfaction of primal desires in culturally acceptable terms. The sublime is negatively expressed in sublimation, because it is both the source of sublimation as well as that which resists being sublimated. That is, the Freudian sublime is related to the process of sublimation, but it also distorts or disrupts sublimation, and invokes what Lacan calls the Real. The effects of the sublime are not just psychoanalytic but, importantly, theological, because the sublime is the main form that God takes in the modern world. A radical postmodern theology attends to the workings of the sublime in our thinking and living, and provides resources to understand the complexity of reality. This book is one of the first sustained theological readings of Lacan in English.

Rethinking the Human Revolution


Paul Mellars - 2007
    The 34 papers cover topics ranging from the DNA and skeletal evidence for modern human origins in Africa, through the archaeological evidence for the emergence of distinctively 'modern' patterns of human behaviour and cognition, to the various lines of evidence for the geographical dispersal patterns of biologically and behaviourally modern populations from their African origins throughout Asia, Australasia and Europe, over the past 60,000 years.

When Sex Counts: Making Babies and Making Law


Sherry F. Colb - 2007
    The book consists of previously published general audience articles that are both provocative and newsworthy.

Cognitive Dissonance: 50 Years of a Classic Theory


Joel M. Cooper - 2007
    

Racism in the United States: Implications for the Helping Professions


Joshua L. Miller - 2007
    Authors Joshua Miller and Ann Marie Garran investigate the many facets of racism in the United States, examining how racism exists not only outside of us, but inside of us as well. Human service workers must confront and challenge racism in both these areas. Those in the helping professions are ethically obligated to work for a society of fairness and social justice and to provide culturally responsive services to all clients, ensuring equal access and quality. The authors demonstrate that it is insufficient to solely focus on social structures, services, institutional practices, or on changing other people. They show that we must also look within and explore our own biases and blind spots which influence how we view ourselves and those whom we are committed to helping.

Knock Yourself Up: No Man? No Problem: A Tell-All Guide to Becoming a Single Mom


Louise Sloan - 2007
    In this honest and often hilarious guide, Louise Sloan shares the details of her own funny and heartbreaking journey to single motherhood-including cyberstalking an anonymous sperm donor, dealing with exploding semen vials, and being mistaken for a horse breeder-as well as the experiences of many other women across the country. "Knock Yourself Up" offers an inside look at the logistical and legal processes of opting for single motherhood, drawing on the personal stories of women who have done it. Addressing a range of topics such as coping with loneliness, financial struggles, complex reactions of family members, and more, "Knock Yourself Up" covers the emotional and practical issues and provides the kind of intimate answers you won't find anywhere else to questions like: - When is the right time to decide to have a baby alone? - How do I choose the right sperm? - Is this fair to the kid? - How do I tell my parents? - How do I tell my dates? - What's it like to be pregnant on your own? - If I do this, will I ever have sex-or a life-again? Informative and entertaining, Knock Yourself Up is a fun-to-read, up-to-date guide for any woman who is considering taking the baby plunge, with inspiring stories from women who have created happy families on their own.

Mi Voz, Mi Vida: Latino College Students Tell Their Life Stories


Andrew Garrod - 2007
    Their insights are both balanced and frank, blending personal, anecdotal, political, and cultural viewpoints. Their engaging stories detail the students' personal struggles with issues such as identity and biculturalism, family dynamics, religion, poverty, stereotypes, and the value of education.Throughout, they provide insights into issues of racial identity in contemporary America among a minority population that is very much in the news. This book gives educators, students, and their families a clear view of the experience of Latino students adapting to a challenging educational environment and a cultural context--Dartmouth College--often very different from their childhood ones.

The Art of Listening


Les Back - 2007
    From reality TV to political rallies, there is a clamour to be heard, to narrate, and to receive attention. It reduces 'reality' to revelation and voyeurism.The Art of Listening argues that this way of life is having severe and damaging consequences in a world that is increasingly globalized and where time and space is ever more rare. It addresses the question: how can we listen more carefully? Theory is combined with real stories from the experiences of the desperate stowaways who hide in the undercarriage of jet planes in order to seek asylum, to the young working-class people who use tattooing to commemorate a lost love.Les Back shows how sociology is in a unique position to record 'life passed in living' and to listen to complex experiences with humility and ethical care, in opposition to the Babel of voyeurism that has taken hold in the mainstream media.

Graffiti L.A.: Street Styles and Art


Steve Grody - 2007
    "Cholo" (gangster) scripts became the first distinctive letter forms to evolve in the modern vernacular tradition of graffiti writing. Today Los Angeles writers of diverse backgrounds draw from a unique confluence of cultures that has led to regionally distinctive styles. "Graffiti L.A." provides a comprehensive and visual history of graffiti in Los Angeles, dating back to the 1930s, as well as an in-depth examination of the myriad styles and techniques used by writers today. Complementing the main text, interviews with L.A.s most prolific and infamous writers provide insight into the lives of these fugitive artists. Essential to the understanding of the development of the graffiti movement, this book will be an invaluable source to graffiti fans around the world.

Girls on the Stand: How Courts Fail Pregnant Minors


Helena Silverstein - 2007
    Supreme Court has decided that states may require parental involvement in the abortion decisions of pregnant minors as long as minors have the opportunity to petition for a "bypass" of parental involvement. To date, virtually all of the 34 states that mandate parental involvement have put judges in charge of the bypass process. Individual judges are thereby responsible for deciding whether or not the minor has a legitimate basis to seek an abortion absent parental participation. In this revealing and disturbing book, Helena Silverstein presents a detailed picture of how the bypass process actually functions.Silverstein led a team of researchers who surveyed more than 200 courts designated to handle bypass cases in three states. Her research shows indisputably that laws are being routinely ignored and, when enforced, interpreted by judges in widely divergent ways. In fact, she finds audacious acts of judicial discretion, in which judges structure bypass proceedings in a shameless and calculated effort to communicate their religious and political views and to persuade minors to carry their pregnancies to term. Her investigations uncover judicial mandates that minors receive pro-life counseling from evangelical Christian ministries, as well as the practice of appointing attorneys to represent the interests of unborn children at bypass hearings.Girls on the Stand convincingly demonstrates that safeguards promised by parental involvement laws do not exist in practice and that a legal process designed to help young women make informed decisions instead victimizes them. In making this case, the book casts doubt not only on the structure of parental involvement mandates but also on the na�ve faith in law that sustains them. It consciously contributes to a growing body of books aimed at debunking the popular myth that, in the land of the free, there is equal justice for all.

Social Causes of Health and Disease


William C. Cockerham - 2007
    He argues that stress, poverty, unhealthy lifestyles, and unpleasant living and work conditions can all be directly associated with illness. Noting a new emphasis upon social structure in both theory and multi-level research techniques, he argues that a paradigm shift is now emerging in 21st century medical sociology, which looks beyond individual explanations for health and disease. As the old gives way to the new in medical sociology, the field is headed toward a fundamentally different orientation. William Cockerham's clear and compelling account is at the forefront of these changes. This lively and accessible book offers a coherent introduction to social epidemiology, as well as challenging aspects of the existing literature. It will be indispensable reading for all students and scholars of medical sociology, especially those with the courage to confront the possibility that society really does make people sick.

A Call for Heresy: Why Dissent Is Vital to Islam and America


Anouar Majid - 2007
    Moving beyond simplistic answers, Anouar Majid argues that the Islamic world and the United States are both in precipitous states of decline because, in each, religious, political, and economic orthodoxies have silenced the voices of their most creative thinkers—the visionary nonconformists, radicals, and revolutionaries who are often dismissed, or even punished, as heretics. The United States and contemporary Islam share far more than partisans on either side admit, Majid provocatively argues, and this “clash of civilizations” is in reality a clash of competing fundamentalisms. Illustrating this point, he draws surprising parallels between the histories and cultures of Islam and the United States and their shortsighted suppression of heresy (zandaqa, in Arabic), from Muslim poets and philosophers like Ibn Rushd (known in the West as Averroës) to the freethinker Thomas Paine, and from Abu Bakr Razi and Al-Farabi to Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. He finds bitter irony in the fact that Islamic culture is now at war with a nation whose ideals are losing ground to the reactionary forces that have long condemned Islam to stagnation. The solution, Majid concludes, is a long-overdue revival of dissent. Heresy is no longer a contrarian’s luxury, for only through encouraging an engaged and progressive intellectual tradition can the nations reverse their decline and finally work together for global justice and the common good of humanity.

Giving Notice


Freada Kapor Klein - 2007
    The authors make the hurdles that women and minorities face in the workplace as personal to the reader as they are to those who face them. Giving Notice is filled with sensible approaches for solving the current imbalance and challenges us to rethink unconscious ideas about stereotypes and commonly accepted business practices. Freada Kapor Klein (San Francisco, CA) is an internationally noted consultant and diversity expert. She has been quoted in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and on the Today show, Nightline, and NBC Nightly News. Kimberly Allers (Bayshore, NY) was a writer at Fortune magazine and is a frequent guest speaker at professional development and women-oriented seminars. Martha Mendoza (Santa Cruz, CA) is a national writer for the Associated Press. She won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting.

Allies for Armageddon: The Rise of Christian Zionism


Victoria Clark - 2007
    They believe that war in the Middle East is God’s will for the region. In this timely book, Victoria Clark first explores the 400-year history of this powerful political ideology, laying to rest the idea that Christian Zionism is a passing craze or the province of a lunatic fringe. Then Clark surveys the contemporary Christian Zionist scene in Israel and in the United States, where the influence of the religious fundamentalists has never been greater.Clark engages with Christian Zionism directly, interviewing leaders, attending events, and traveling with Christian Zionists in the Holy Land. She also investigates the Christian Zionist presence in Israel. She finds that the view through the Christian Zionist lens is dangerously simple: President Bush’s War on Terror is a mythic battle between good and evil, and Syria and Iran represent the powers of darkness. Such views are far from rare—an estimated fifteen to twenty million Americans share them. Almost one in three Americans believes Israel was given to the Jews by God as a prelude to the Battle of Armageddon and Jesus’ Second Coming. Clark concludes with an assessment of Christian Zionists’ impact on American foreign policy in the Middle East and on America’s relationships with European allies since the attacks of 9/11.

Battle for Afghanistan: The Soviets Versus the Mujahideen During the 1980s


Mohammad Yousaf - 2007
    The Mujahideen paved the way for the Taliban regime, to exist having all but defeated the Russian Army in the late 80's.The author, Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf, was head of the Afghan Bureau of Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence and as such was effectively the Mujahideen's commander-in-chief. He controlled the flow of thousands of tons of arms across Pakistan and into its occupied neighbor, arms that were bought with CIA and Saudi Arabian funds from the USA. One of the Mujahideen's close allies was none other than Osama Bin Laden.This compelling book was put together with great skill the by military historian, Mark Adkin in conjunction with Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf and is essential reading for anyone interested in the truth behind the Afghanistan War which led to the conditions that exist there today.A hardback edition of this book was published by Casemate in 2001 under the title Afghanistan: The Bear Trap.

The Empire of Trauma: An Inquiry Into the Condition of Victimhood


Didier Fassin - 2007
    The very idea of psychic trauma came into being only at the end of the nineteenth century and for a long time was treated with suspicion. "The Empire of Trauma" tells the story of how the traumatic victim became culturally and politically respectable, and how trauma itself became an unassailable moral category.Basing their analysis on a wide-ranging ethnography, Didier Fassin and Richard Rechtman examine the politics of reparation, testimony, and proof made possible by the recognition of trauma. They study the application of psychiatric victimology to victims of the 1995 terrorist bombings in Paris and the 2001 industrial disaster in Toulouse; the involvement of humanitarian psychiatry with both Palestinians and Israelis during the second Intifada; and the application of the psychotraumatology of exile to asylum seekers victimized by persecution and torture.Revealing how trauma has come to authenticate the suffering of victims, "The Empire of Trauma" provides critical perspective on some of the moral and political issues at stake in the contemporary world.