Best of
Sociology

2008

Righteous Dopefiend


Philippe Bourgois - 2008
    For over a decade Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg followed a social network of two dozen heroin injectors and crack smokers in the San Francisco drug scene, accompanying them as they scrambled to generate income through burglary, larceny, panhandling, recycling, and day labor. Righteous Dopefiend interweaves stunning black-and-white photography with vivid dialogue, oral biography, detailed field notes, and critical theoretical analysis to viscerally illustrate the life of a drug addict. Its gripping narrative develops a cast of characters around the themes of violence, racism and race relations, sexuality, trauma, embodied suffering, social inequality, and power relations. The result is a dispassionate chronicle of fixes and overdoses; of survival, loss, caring, and hope rooted in the drug abusers’ determination to hang on for one more day, through a "moral economy of sharing" that precariously balances mutual solidarity and interpersonal betrayal.

Outliers: The Story of Success


Malcolm Gladwell - 2008
    He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.Brilliant and entertaining, Outliers is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.

Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey Through The Dark World of Compulsory Schooling


John Taylor Gatto - 2008
    He puts forth his thesis with a rhetorical style that is passionate, logical, and laden with examples and illustrations.” ForeWord Magazine“Weapons of Mass Instruction is probably his best yet. Gatto’s storytelling skill shines as he relates tales of real people who fled the school system and succeeded in spite of the popular wisdom that insists on diplomas, degrees and credentials. If you are just beginning to suspect there may be a problem with schooling (as opposed to educating as Gatto would say), then you’ll not likely find a better expose of the problem than Weapons of Mass Instruction.” Cathy Duffy Reviews"In this book, the noisy gadfly of U.S. education takes up the question of damage done in the name of schooling. Again he touches on many of the same questions and finds the same answers.  Gatto is a bold and compelling critic in a field defined by politic statements, and from the first pages of this book he takes even unwilling readers along with him. In Weapons of Mass Instruction, he speaks movingly to readers' deepest desires for an education that taps their talents and frees frustrated ambitions. It is a challenging and extraordinary book that is a must read for anyone navigating their way through the school system." - Ria Julien - Winnipeg Free PressJohn Taylor Gatto’s Weapons of Mass Instruction focuses on mechanisms of familiar schooling that cripple imagination, discourage critical thinking, and create a false view of learning as a by-product of rote-memorization drills. Gatto’s earlier book, Dumbing Us Down, put that now-famous expression of the title into common use worldwide. Weapons of Mass Instruction promises to add another chilling metaphor to the brief against schooling.Here is a demonstration that the harm school inflicts is quite rational and deliberate, following high-level political theories constructed by Plato, Calvin, Spinoza, Fichte, Darwin, Wundt, and others, which contend the term “education” is meaningless because humanity is strictly limited by necessities of biology, psychology, and theology. The real function of pedagogy is to render the common population manageable.Realizing that goal demands that the young be conditioned to rely upon experts, remain divided from natural alliances, and accept disconnections from the experiences that create self-reliance and independence.Escaping this trap requires a different way of growing up, one Gatto calls “open source learning.” In chapters such as “A Letter to Kristina, my Granddaughter”; “Fat Stanley”; and “Walkabout:London,” this different reality is illustrated.John Taylor Gatto taught for thirty years in public schools before resigning from school-teaching in the op-ed pages of The Wall Street Journal during the year he was named New York State’s official Teacher of the Year. Since then, he has traveled three million miles lecturing on school reform.

A Companion to Marx's Capital


David Harvey - 2008
    For nearly forty years, David Harvey has written and lectured on Capital, becoming one of the world’s most foremost Marx scholars.Based on his recent lectures, this current volume aims to bring this depth of learning to a broader audience, guiding first-time readers through a fascinating and deeply rewarding text. A Companion to Marx’s Capital offers fresh, original and sometimes critical interpretations of a book that changed the course of history and, as Harvey intimates, may do so again.David Harvey’s video lecture course can be found here: davidharvey.org/reading-capital/

The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why


Amanda Ripley - 2008
    Today, nine out of ten Americans live in places at significant risk of earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, terrorism, or other disasters. Tomorrow, some of us will have to make split-second choices to save ourselves and our families. How will we react? What will it feel like? Will we be heroes or victims? Will our upbringing, our gender, our personality–anything we’ve ever learned, thought, or dreamed of–ultimately matter?    Amanda Ripley, an award-winning journalist for Time magazine who has covered some of the most devastating disasters of our age, set out to discover what lies beyond fear and speculation. In this magnificent work of investigative journalism, Ripley retraces the human response to some of history’s epic disasters, from the explosion of the Mont Blanc munitions ship in 1917–one of the biggest explosions before the invention of the atomic bomb–to a plane crash in England in 1985 that mystified investigators for years, to the journeys of the 15,000 people who found their way out of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Then, to understand the science behind the stories, Ripley turns to leading brain scientists, trauma psychologists, and other disaster experts, formal and informal, from a Holocaust survivor who studies heroism to a master gunfighter who learned to overcome the effects of extreme fear. Finally, Ripley steps into the dark corners of her own imagination, having her brain examined by military researchers and experiencing through realistic simulations what it might be like to survive a plane crash into the ocean or to escape a raging fire.     Ripley comes back with precious wisdom about the surprising humanity of crowds, the elegance of the brain’s fear circuits, and the stunning inadequacy of many of our evolutionary responses. Most unexpectedly, she discovers the brain’s ability to do much, much better, with just a little help.The Unthinkable escorts us into the bleakest regions of our nightmares, flicks on a flashlight, and takes a steady look around. Then it leads us home, smarter and stronger than we were before.

Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America


Paul Tough - 2008
    What would it take to change the lives of poor children—not one by one, through heroic interventions and occasional miracles, but in big numbers, and in a way that could be replicated nationwide? The question led him to create the Harlem Children’s Zone, a ninety-seven-block laboratory in central Harlem where he is testing new and sometimes controversial ideas about poverty in America. His conclusion: if you want poor kids to be able to compete with their middle-class peers, you need to change everything in their lives—their schools, their neighborhoods, even the child-rearing practices of their parents.Whatever It Takes is a tour de force of reporting, an inspired portrait not only of Geoffrey Canada but of the parents and children in Harlem who are struggling to better their lives, often against great odds. Carefully researched and deeply affecting, this is a dispatch from inside the most daring and potentially transformative social experiment of our time.

Lady Q: The Rise and Fall of a Latin Queen


Reymundo Sánchez - 2008
    At age five Sonia Rodriguez’s stepfather began to abuse her; at 10 she was molested by her uncle and beaten by her mother when she told on him; and by 13 her home had become a hangout for the Latin Kings and Queens who were friends with her older sister. Threatened by rival gang members at school, Sonia turned away from her education and extracurricular activities in favor of a world of drugs and violence. The Latin Kings, one of the largest and most notorious street gangs in America, became her refuge, but its violence cost her friends, freedom, self-respect, and nearly her life. As a Latin Queen, she experienced the exhilarating highs and unbelievable lows of gang life. From being shot at by her own gang and kicked out at age 18 with an infant daughter to rejoining the gang and distinguishing herself as a leader, her legacy as Lady Q was cemented both for her willingness to commit violence and for her role as a drug mule. For the first time, a woman’s perspective on gang life is presented.

Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery


Siddharth Kara - 2008
    These trafficked sex slaves form the backbone of one of the world's most profitable illicit enterprises and generate huge profits for their exploiters, for unlike narcotics, which must be grown, harvested, refined, and packaged, sex slaves require no such "processing," and can be repeatedly "consumed."Kara first encountered the horrors of slavery in a Bosnian refugee camp in 1995. Subsequently, in the first journey of its kind, he traveled across four continents to investigate these crimes and take stock of their devastating human toll. Kara made several trips to India, Nepal, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, Albania, Moldova, Mexico, and the United States. He witnessed firsthand the sale of human beings into slavery, interviewed over four hundred slaves, and confronted some of those who trafficked and exploited them.In this book, Kara provides a riveting account of his journey into this unconscionable industry, sharing the moving stories of its victims and revealing the shocking conditions of their exploitation. He draws on his background in finance, economics, and law to provide the first ever business analysis of contemporary slavery worldwide, focusing on its most profitable and barbaric form: sex trafficking. Kara describes the local factors and global economic forces that gave rise to this and other forms of modern slavery over the past two decades and quantifies, for the first time, the size, growth, and profitability of each industry. Finally, he identifies the sectors of the sex trafficking industry that would be hardest hit by specifically designed interventions and recommends the specific legal, tactical, and policy measures that would target these vulnerable sectors and help to abolish this form of slavery, once and for all.The author will donate a portion of the proceeds of this book to the anti-slavery organization, Free the Slaves.

Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets


Sudhir Venkatesh - 2008
    Gang Leader for a Day is the fascinating full story of how Sudhir Venkatesh managed to gain entrée into the gang, what he learned, and how his method revolutionized the academic establishment. When Venkatesh walked into an abandoned building in one of Chicago's most notorious housing projects, he was looking for people to take a multiple-choice survey on urban poverty. A first-year grad student, he would befriend a gang leader named JT and spend the better part of the next decade inside the projects under JT's protection, documenting what he saw there. Over the next seven years, Venkatesh observed JT and the rest of the gang as they operated their crack selling business, conducted PR within their community, and rose up or fell within the ranks of the gang's complex organizational structure. Gang Leader for a Day is an inside view into the morally ambiguous, highly intricate, often corrupt struggle to survive in an urban war zone. It is also the story of a complicated friendship between two young and ambitious men, a universe apart.

Underground America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives


Peter OrnerLuis Alberto - 2008
    Supporting myriad industries, these workers form an essential part of our economy — often by working the least desirable jobs without the most basic legal protections. Underground America allows this largely ignored part of our country to finally share its experiences.

The Government of Self and Others: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1982–1983


Michel Foucault - 2008
    Through the study of this notion of truth-telling, of speaking out freely, Foucault re-examines Greek citizenship, showing how the courage of the truth forms the forgotten ethical basis of Athenian democracy. The figure of the philosopher king, the condemnation of writing, and Socrates' rejection of political involvement are some of the many topics of ancient philosophy revisited here.

A Brief History of Time


Shaindel Beers - 2008
    These poems, many of them award-winning, span a wide range of styles-from plainsong free verse to sestinas to nearly epic works. The characters/speakers in Beers' poems range from the rural working class to mythological characters. These poems look at the world with an honest, unflinching eye. She is one of the up-and-coming poets from Generation X we will be hearing a great deal from in the future.

Community: The Structure of Belonging


Peter Block - 2008
    The various sectors of our communities--businesses, schools, social service organizations, churches, government--do not work together. They exist in their own worlds. As do so many individual citizens, who long for connection but end up marginalized, their gifts overlooked, their potential contributions lost. This disconnection and detachment makes it hard if not impossible to envision a common future and work towards it together. We know what healthy communities look like--there are many success stories out there, and they've been described in detail. What Block provides in this inspiring new book is an exploration of the exact way community can emerge from fragmentation: How is community built? How does the transformation occur? What fundamental shifts are involved? He explores a way of thinking about our places that creates an opening for authentic communities to exist and details what each of us can do to make that happen.

The Globalisation of Addiction: A Study in Poverty of the Spirit


Bruce K. Alexander - 2008
    Arguing that the cause of this failure to control addiction is that treatments have focused too single-mindedly on the afflicted individual addict, this book presents a radical rethink about the nature of addiction.

Daughters of Shame


Jasvinder Sanghera - 2008
    I listen and I am humbled by their resilience.' Jasvinder Sanghera knows what it means to flee from your family under threat of forced marriage' and to face the terrible consequences that follow. As a young girl that was just what she had to do. Jasvinder is now at the frontline of the battle to save women from the honour-based violence and threat of forced marriage that destroyed her own youth. Daughters of Shame reveals the stories of young women such as Shazia, kidnapped and taken to Pakistan to marry a man she had never met; and Banaz, murdered by her own family after escaping an abusive marriage.By turns frightening, enthralling and uplifting. It reveals Jasvinder as a woman heedless of her own personal safety as she fights to help these women, in a world where the suffering and abuse of many is challenged by the courage of the few.

Disability Theory


Tobin Anthony Siebers - 2008
    Clear, cogent, compelling analyses of the tension between the 'social model' of disability and the material details of impairment; of identity politics and unstable identities; of capability rights and human interdependence; of disability and law, disability as masquerade, disability and sexuality, disability and democracy---they're all here, in beautifully crafted and intellectually startling essays. Disability Theory is a field-defining book: and if you're curious about what 'disability' has to do with 'theory,' it's just the book you've been waiting for, too."---Michael Bérubé, Pennsylvania State University "Disability Theory is magisterially written, thoroughly researched, and polemically powerful. It will be controversial in a number of areas and will probably ruffle feathers both in disability studies as well as in realms of cultural theory. And that's all to the good."---Michael Davidson, University of California, San Diego"Not only is Disability Theory a groundbreaking contribution to disability studies, it is also a bold, ambitious and much needed revision to a number of adjacent and overlapping fields including cultural studies, literary theory, queer theory, and critical race studies. Siebers has written a powerful manifesto that calls theory to account and forces readers to think beyond our comfort zones."---Helen Deutsch, University of California, Los AngelesIntelligent, provocative, and challenging, Disability Theory revolutionizes the terrain of theory by providing indisputable evidence of the value and utility that a disability studies perspective can bring to key critical and cultural questions. Tobin Siebers persuasively argues that disability studies transfigures basic assumptions about identity, ideology, language, politics, social oppression, and the body. At the same time, he advances the emerging field of disability studies by putting its core issues into contact with signal thinkers in cultural studies, literary theory, queer theory, gender studies, and critical race theory.

Enough: Why the World's Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty


Roger Thurow - 2008
    Yet while the “Green Revolution” succeeded in South America and Asia, it never got to Africa. More than 9 million people every year die of hunger, malnutrition, and related diseases every year—most of them in Africa and most of them children. More die of hunger in Africa than from AIDS and malaria combined. Now, an impending global food crisis threatens to make things worse.In the west we think of famine as a natural disaster, brought about by drought; or as the legacy of brutal dictators. But in this powerful investigative narrative, Thurow & Kilman show exactly how, in the past few decades, American, British, and European policies conspired to keep Africa hungry and unable to feed itself. As a new generation of activists work to keep famine from spreading, Enough is essential reading on a humanitarian issue of utmost urgency.

Who Speaks for Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think


John L. Esposito - 2008
    Who Speaks for Islam? is about this silenced majority. This book is the product of the Gallup World Poll’s massive, multiyear research study. As part of this groundbreaking project, Gallup conducted tens of thousands of interviews with residents of more than 35 nations that are predominantly Muslim or have significant Muslim populations. Gallup posed questions that are on the minds of millions: Is Islam to blame for terrorism? Why is there so much anti-Americanism in the Muslim world? Who are the extremists? Where are the moderates? What do Muslim women really want? Grounded in Gallup World Poll data, not in contentious rhetoric, Who Speaks for Islam? brings data-driven evidence — the voices of a billion Muslims, not those of individual “experts” or “extremists”— to one of the most heated and consequential debates of our time.

Crack House


Harry Keeble - 2008
    By the end of the decade Britain's inner cities were in the midst of a crack epidemic. Narrated by the leader of the Harginey Drugs Squad, 'Crack House' describes a series of breathtaking raids as well as arrests, beatings, stabbings and shootings.

Not with a Bang But a Whimper: The Politics and Culture of Decline


Theodore Dalrymple - 2008
    No social critic today is more adept and incisive in exploring the state of our culture and the ideas that are changing our ways of life. In Not with a Bang But a Whimper, he takes the measure of our cultural decline, with special attention to Britain-its bureaucratic muddle, oppressive welfare mentality, and aimless youth-all pursued in the name of democracy and freedom. He shows how terrorism and the growing numbers of Muslim minorities have changed our public life. Also here are Mr. Dalrymple's trenchant observations on artists and ideologues, and on the questionable treatment of criminals and the mentally disturbed, his area of medical interest.

Just Culture: Balancing Safety and Accountability


Sidney Dekker - 2008
    He shows how to create an environment where learning and accountability are fairly and constructively balanced.

The Spiritual Rules of Engagement: How Kabbalah Can Help Your Soul Mate Find You


Yehuda Berg - 2008
    Right," it’s time for a new set of rules that takes a more spiritual approach. These rules are based on the timeless wisdom of Kabbalah and the very nature of the Universe itself. The Spiritual Rules of Engagement describes how Kabbalah views relationships and what makes them work (or not work); and reveals that it is the woman who holds the power to determine the outcome. The book explains the spiritual reasons behind the way in which men and women think and act differently. Although not a book of dating tips, its rules do work. They have to work: They are the Laws of the Universe. You’ll learn the true meaning of the term "soul mate;" and why it is that your soul mate has to find you, not the other way around. Written by a kabbalistic teacher who regularly provides counsel to hundreds of individuals and couples, and who is happily married himself, the book will resonate with people of all backgrounds. These are more than just rules of engagement; they’re rules for creating a happier, more fulfilling life.

The Willie Lynch Letter and the Making of a Slave


Willie Lynch - 2008
    The speaker, William Lynch, is said to have been a slave owner in the West Indies, and was summoned to Virginia in 1712; in part due to several slave revolts in the area prior to his visit, and more so because of his reputation of being an authoritarian and strict slave master. The Willie Lynch Letter is an account of a short speech given by Willie Lynch, in which he tells other slave owners that he has discovered the -secret- to controlling enslaved Africans by setting them against one another.

Social and Economic Networks


Matthew O. Jackson - 2008
    The many aspects of our lives that are governed by social networks make it critical to understand how they impact behavior, which network structures are likely to emerge in a society, and why we organize ourselves as we do. In Social and Economic Networks, Matthew Jackson offers a comprehensive introduction to social and economic networks, drawing on the latest findings in economics, sociology, computer science, physics, and mathematics. He provides empirical background on networks and the regularities that they exhibit, and discusses random graph-based models and strategic models of network formation. He helps readers to understand behavior in networked societies, with a detailed analysis of learning and diffusion in networks, decision making by individuals who are influenced by their social neighbors, game theory and markets on networks, and a host of related subjects. Jackson also describes the varied statistical and modeling techniques used to analyze social networks. Each chapter includes exercises to aid students in their analysis of how networks function.This book is an indispensable resource for students and researchers in economics, mathematics, physics, sociology, and business.

StreetChild: An Unpaved Passage


Justin Reed Early - 2008
    The problem inspired the classic and riveting documentary, "STREETWISE", which was nominated for an Academy Award in 1984.Author Justin Reed Early, a credited participant of the documentary and now successful Los Angeles resident, tells the story of how he survived the arduous streets. We grow with this homeless youth as he relives a harrowing journey into adulthood. Justin introduces us to the characters and dramas of his younger years bringing new life to his street family as many of their lives have been silenced by AIDS, suicide and serial killers (the Green River killer).Join this tragic yet magical journey as Justin honors childhood heroes, pays tribute to many lost friends and learns of forgiveness when the now middle aged Justin is thrust into a life defining experience that will change his world - forever.

The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit: And Its Impact on World History


E. Michael Jones - 2008
    This book is the story of such contests played out over 2000 turbulent years. In his most ambitious work yet, Dr. E. Michael Jones provides a breathtaking and controversial tour of history from the Gospels to Julian the Apostate to the Hussites to the French Revolution to Neoconservatism and the End of History.

Workflow of Data Analysis Using Stata


J. Scott Long - 2008
    Scott Long, is an essential productivity tool for data analysts. Long presents lessons gained from his experience and demonstrates how to design and implement efficient workflows for both one-person projects and team projects. After introducing workflows and explaining how a better workflow can make it easier to work with data, Long describes planning, organizing, and documenting your work. He then introduces how to write and debug Stata do-files and how to use local and global macros. After a discussion of conventions that greatly simplify data analysis the author covers cleaning, analyzing, and protecting data.

When Friday Comes: Football in the War Zone


James Montague - 2008
    James Montague travelled there for three years, observing the region's cultures and politics through the prism of football and interviewing all the major teams along the way. He soon realised that to understand the game there is to understand its people. For as much as football forms an unlikely common thread between different countries, the sport also reflects what is unique in the national characters of those who play, support and organise it.When Friday Comes is an insightful and humorous account of Montague's journey, during which he gets stoned with the Yemeni FA, harangues Iran's Deputy President at the World Cup, has a gun pulled on him by genocidal Lebanese football fans, encounters a rioting group of fanatical young Jews singing 'I'm West Ham 'til I Die' in mockney English and was made to strip and then dance for the Iraqi national team.This is a compelling travel memoir that will enlighten, surprise and entertain football fans everywhere.

The Good Pirates of the Forgotten Bayous: Fighting to Save a Way of Life in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina


Ken Wells - 2008
    Bernard Parish, Louisiana, make a fateful decision to ride out Hurricane Katrina on their hand-built fishing boats in a sheltered Civil War–era harbor called Violet Canal.  But when Violet is overrun by killer surges, the Robins must summon all their courage, seamanship, and cunning to save themselves and the scores of others suddenly cast into their care. In this gripping saga, Louisiana native Ken Wells provides a close-up look at the harrowing experiences in the backwaters of New Orleans during and after Katrina. Focusing on the plight of the intrepid Robin family, whose members trace their local roots to before the American Revolution, Wells recounts the landfall of the storm and the tumultuous seventy-two hours afterward, when the Robins’ beloved bayou country lay catastrophically flooded and all but forgotten by outside authorities as the world focused its attention on New Orleans. Wells follows his characters for more than two years as they strive, amid mind-boggling wreckage and governmental fecklessness, to rebuild their shattered lives. This is a story about the deep longing for home and a proud bayou people’s love of the fertile but imperiled low country that has nourished them.

Yes We Can: Barack Obama's History-Making Presidential Campaign


Scout Tufankjian - 2008
    Obama’s grassroots journey touched something profound in America, inspiring individuals of every age, color, educational background, and economic status with his visions of leadership, belief in a better tomorrow, and a return to the hallmarks of American ideals. In the course of his visits to almost every state in the union, Obama electrified record-breaking crowds at his rallies and motivated millions of people to engage in the political process. The results have been nothing short of a revolution in political strategy, communication, and activism. Be it a skeptical old farmer from Tama, Iowa, who was surprised to realize that he had something in common with this young black politician, or an eight-year-old boy from Los Angeles who couldn’t stop saying, “He looks like me and he is going to be President!”, Senator Obama instilled a feeling of unity and hope in a nation scarred by divisive politics and pessimism. Obama’s campaign created a movement, a faith, and a feeling that has not been present in American politics for decades—if ever. Yes We Can is a comprehensive and intimate portrait of this world-changing campaign. With more than 200 color photographs by Tufankjian, the book takes the reader along on Obama’s personal and political journey. Tufankjian was there from the beginning, attending a book signing almost two years ago in New Hampshire that marked the start of a fascination with the man who would be president. Sensing something truly important was happening, Tufankjian decided to document the journey of this long-shot candidate. From coffee shops and diners to auto manufacturing plants and bowling alleys, Tufankjian followed Obama as he wooed potential voters in expensive houses as well as in poverty-stricken Indian reservations. She covered the primaries, the debates, and the final weeks of the hard-fought campaign, shooting more than 12,000 images—the deepest, most comprehensive, and most personal portrait of the man and his run as well as the people who came to see him, hear him, and vote for him. Yes We Can is as much about Americans and their hopes and visions for America as it is about the man that gave them voice.

The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters


Rose George - 2008
    But we should--even those of us who take care of our business in pristine, sanitary conditions. For it's not only in developing countries that human waste is a major public health threat: population growth is taxing even the most advanced sewage systems, and the disease spread by waste kills more people worldwide every year than any other single cause of death. Even in America, 1.95 million people have no access to an indoor toilet. Yet the subject remains unmentionable."The Big Necessity "takes aim at the taboo, revealing everything that matters about how people do--and don't--deal with their own waste. Moving from the deep underground sewers of Paris, London, and New York--an infrastructure disaster waiting to happen--to an Indian slum where ten toilets are shared by 60,000 people, Rose George stops along the way to explore the potential saviors: China's five million biogas digesters, which produce energy from waste; the heroes of third world sanitation movements; the inventor of the humble Car Loo; and the U.S. Army's personal lasers used by soldiers to zap their feces in the field.With razor-sharp wit and crusading urgency, mixing levity with gravity, Rose George has turned the subject we like to avoid into a cause with the most serious of consequences.

Family and Civilization


Carle C. Zimmerman - 2008
    In this unjustly forgotten work Zimmerman demonstrates the close and causal connections between the rise and fall of different types of families and the rise and fall of civilizations, particularly ancient Greece and Rome, medieval and modern Europe, and the United States. Zimmerman traces the evolution of family structure from tribes and clans to extended and large nuclear families to the small nuclear families and broken families of today. And he shows the consequences of each structure for the bearing and rearing of children; for religion, law, and everyday life; and for the fate of civilization itself.            Originally published in 1947, this compelling analysis predicted many of today’s cultural and social controversies and trends, including youth violence and depression, abortion and homosexuality, the demographic collapse of Europe and of the West more generally, and the displacement of peoples. This new edition, part of ISI Books’ Background series, has been edited and abridged by cultural commentator James Kurth of Swarthmore College and includes essays on the text by Kurth, Allan Carlson, and Bryce Christensen.

Haunting the Korean Diaspora: Shame, Secrecy, and the Forgotten War


Grace M. Cho - 2008
    servicemen. More than 100,000 women married GIs and moved to the United States. Haunting the Korean Diaspora explores the repressed history of emotional and physical violence between the United States and Korea and the unexamined reverberations of sexual relationships between Korean women and American soldiers.

Night of the Living Dead


Benjamin A. Hervey - 2008
    Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential horror films of all time.  Shot on a low budget on black and white film, Night depicts an America under siege from reanimated corpses.  The action centres around a motley group of survivors holed up in a suburb of Pittsburgh, besieged by flesh-eating ghouls.  Romero’s focus on tensions between members of this makeshift community resonates with contemporary racial and gender conflicts and, in addition to its shockingly visceral content, the film’s impact lay in its engagement with contemporary social upheaval – Vietnam and the peace movement, the civil rights struggle, assassinations and escalating urban tensions.Benjamin Hervey’s study of the film is the first to provide a close analysis of the film and an in-depth account of its reception. Drawing on original archival research, Hervey traces how the film quickly gained cult status, while at the same time it was hailed as a piece of art cinema and as a deep political allegory.  Hervey analyses the film scene-by-scene, detailing how the scoring, editing, photography and lighting came together to overall powerful effect.  He provides a richly detailed historical context for his reading of the film, showing, for example, how scenes in Night directly relate to contemporary news coverage of Vietnam.

Salsa Dancing Into the Social Sciences: Research in an Age of Info-Glut


Kristin Luker - 2008
    But trust me. Salsa dancing is a practice as well as a metaphor for a kind of research that will make your life easier and better.""Savvy, witty, and sensible, this unique book is both a handbook for defining and completing a research project, and an astute introduction to the neglected history and changeable philosophy of modern social science. In this volume, Kristin Luker guides novice researchers in: knowing the difference between an area of interest and a research topicdefining the relevant parts of a potentially infinite research literaturemastering sampling, operationalization, and generalizationunderstanding which research methods best answer your questionsbeating writer's blockMost important, she shows how friendships, nonacademic interests, and even salsa dancing can make for a better researcher.""You know about setting the kitchen timer and writing for only an hour, or only 15 minutes if you are feeling particularly anxious. I wrote a fairly large part of this book feeling exactly like that. If I can write an entire book 15 minutes at a time, so can you.""

White Logic, White Methods: Racism and Methodology


Tukufu Zuberi - 2008
    With an assemblage of leading scholars, White Logic, White Methods explores the possibilities and necessary dethroning of current social research practices, and demands a complete overhaul of current methods, towards multicultural and pluralist approach to what we know, think, and question.

Speaking Treason Fluently: Anti-Racist Reflections from an Angry White Male


Tim Wise - 2008
    The essays included in this collection span the last ten years of Wise’s writing and cover all the hottest racial topics of the past decade: affirmative action, Hurricane Katrina, racial tension in the wake of the Duke lacrosse scandal, white school shootings, racial profiling, phony racial unity in the wake of 9/11, and the political rise of Barack Obama. Wise’s commentaries make forceful yet accessible arguments that serve to counter both white denial and complacency—two of the main obstacles to creating a more racially equitable and just society. Speaking Treason Fluently is a superbly crafted collection of Wise’s best work, which reveals the ongoing salience of race in America today and demonstrates that racial privilege is not only a real and persistent problem, but one that ultimately threatens the health and well-being of the entire society.

Lost Person Behavior: A Search and Rescue Guide on Where to Look for Land, Air, and Water


Robert J. Koester - 2008
    The book ties togather and will be a required reference manual for land, maritime, and aeronautical searchers. From abductions and downed aircraft to lost workers and youth. The book is aimed at law enforcement, fire, emergency management, researchers, and the search and rescue specialist. Everyone involved in search and rescue must answear the basic question, where is the missing person. This book guides the reader through the initial reflex response and subsequent search. Field personnel will also gain important insight into the nature of lost person behavior. Readers will learn how to apply learn new methods of looking at lost person behavior. Lost person categories include dementia, children in detailed age brackets, despondents, bikes, ATVs, snowboarders, snowmobiliers, and many other new subject categories. The book also tackles the subjects of those who become lost in vehicles, runaway from vehicles, are abducted, become trapped in structure collapse, crash in aircraft, and enter into the water. Each subject category provides a detailed definition, overview of the category, unique subject profile and characteristics, distance statistics, mobility, elevation, find location, and survivability characteristics. In addition, basic initial tasks based upon these facts tell the searcher or search planner what should be done first. Finally, several detailed and subject specfic investigation questions are provided. Almost all of the research and tables has never been seen before. If you are in any way related, involved, or interested in search and rescue, you must have this book.

The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation


Leo R. Chavez - 2008
    In The Latino Threat, Leo R. Chavez critically investigates the media stories about and recent experiences of immigrants to show how prejudices and stereotypes have been used to malign an entire immigrant population—and to define what it means to be an American.Pundits—and the media at large—nurture and perpetuate the notion that Latinos, particularly Mexicans, are an invading force bent on reconquering land once considered their own. Through a perceived refusal to learn English and an "out of control" birthrate, many say that Latinos are destroying the American way of life. But Chavez questions these assumptions and offers facts to counter the myth that Latinos are a threat to the security and prosperity of our nation.His breakdown of the "Latino threat" contests this myth's basic tenets, challenging such well-known authors as Samuel Huntington, Pat Buchanan, and Peter Brimelow. Chavez concludes that citizenship is not just about legal definitions, but about participation in society. Deeply resonant in today's atmosphere of exclusion, Chavez's insights offer an alternative and optimistic view of the vitality and future of our country.

Black Bodies, White Gazes: The Continuing Significance of Race


George Yancy - 2008
    George Yancy examines themes such as double consciousness, invisibility, and corporeal malediction that capture the lived reality of Black bodies under tremendous existential duress. He demonstrates that the Black body is a historically lived text on which whites have inscribed their projections which speak equally forcefully to whites' own self-conceptions.

The Everyday Language of White Racism


Jane H. Hill - 2008
    Hill provides an incisive analysis of everyday language to reveal the underlying racist stereotypes that continue to circulate in American culture.* Provides a detailed background on the theory of race and racism* Reveals how racializing discourse--talk and text that produces and reproduces ideas about races and assigns people to them--facilitates a victim-blaming logic* Integrates a broad and interdisciplinary range of literature, from sociology, social psychology, justice studies, critical legal studies, philosophy, literature, and other disciplines that have studied racism, as well as material from anthropology and sociolinguistics* Part of the "Blackwell Studies in Discourse and Culture Series"

Nurturing the Nations: Reclaiming the Dignity of Women in Building Healthy Cultures


Darrow L. Miller - 2008
    But this is not just a book about women; it is a book that deals with the intersection of three seemingly very different subjects women poverty and world view. Nurturing the Nations explains how the ideas that societies embrace create healthy or impoverished cultures and supports that theory with information regarding domestic violence murder and pornography. The book addresses one of the greatest causes of worldwide poverty the lie that men are superior to women. In noting that the world view of a culture frames how it understands women and men various paradigms are studied such as Hinduism and Animism showing how they lead to the abuse and hatred of women.This topic cannot be addressed without studying the Trinity as a model for malefemale relationships. Servanthood submission and the transcendence of sexuality are all discussed based on the idea that male and female were created equal in being but different in function. The book concludes with a look at the history of women in the Old and New Testamenthow they were established as the colaborers of men in the development of creation and the liberating challenge Jesus issued to the sexist culture of his day.Nurturing the Nations is for Christians who are interested in the issue of poverty; missionaries; relief and development workers; and Christians who are working with poor and abused women.

Thinking About Capitalism


Jerry Z. Muller - 2008
    This is a set of eighteen audio CDs and an accompanying softcover course guidebook.Contains parts 1 - 3 of the Thinking About Capitalism course.

Franco's International Brigades: Adventurers, Fascists, and Christian Crusaders in the Spanish Civil War


Christopher Othen - 2008
    

On Complexity


Edgar Morin - 2008
    These essays will certainly stimulate the critical debate within complexity circles, but is also essential reading for anybody interested in our complex world and how to live in it.

The Trouble with Black Boys: And Other Reflections on Race, Equity, and the Future of Public Education


Pedro A. Noguera - 2008
    For many of us it will continue to shape where we live, pray, go to school, and socialize. We cannot simply wish away the existence of race or racism, but we can take steps to lessen the ways in which the categories trap and confine us. Educators, who should be committed to helping young people realize their intellectual potential as they make their way toward adulthood, have a responsibility to help them find ways to expand identities related to race so that they can experience the fullest possibility of all that they may become. In this brutally honest--yet ultimately hopeful-- book Pedro Noguera examines the many facets of race in schools and society and reveals what it will take to improve outcomes for all students. From achievement gaps to immigration, Noguera offers a rich and compelling picture of a complex issue that affects all of us.

A Typology of Domestic Violence: Intimate Terrorism, Violent Resistance, and Situational Couple Violence


Michael P. Johnson - 2008
    The first debate is about gender and domestic violence. Some scholars argue that domestic violence is primarily male-perpetrated, others that women are as violent as men in intimate relationships. Johnson's response to this debate--and the central theme of this book--is that there is more than one type of intimate partner violence. Some studies address the type of violence that is perpetrated primarily by men, while others are getting at the kind of violence that women areinvolved in as well. Because there has been no theoretical framework delineating types of domestic violence, researchers have easily misread one another's studies.The second major debate involves how many women are abused each year by their partners. Estimates range from two to six million. Johnson's response once again comes from this book's central theme. If there is more than one type of intimate partner violence, then the numbers depend on what type you're talking about.Johnson argues that domestic violence is not a unitary phenomenon. Instead, he delineates three major, dramatically different, forms of partner violence: intimate terrorism, violent resistance, and situational couple violence. He roots the conceptual distinctions among the forms of violence in an analysis of the role of power and control in relationship violence and shows that the failure to make these basic distinctions among types of partner violence has produced a research literature that is plagued by both overgeneralizations and ostensibly contradictory findings. This volume begins the work of theorizing forms of domestic violence, a crucial first step to a better understanding of these phenomena among scholars, social scientists, policy makers, and service providers.

Subverting Global Myths: Theology and the Public Issues Shaping Our World


Vinoth Ramachandra - 2008
    The myths that the ruling classes believe may be more sophisticated, but they are myths nonetheless. These public, large-scale narratives engage our imaginations and shape the way we experience the world. They are the stories that tell us what is important to know and how to live. Subverting Global Myths takes up six areas of contemporary global discourse--terrorism, religious violence, human rights, multiculturalism, science and postcolonialism. Here powerful myths energize and mobilize considerable public funding as well as academic production. This book is not addressed primarily to theological specialists, but to all thoughtful readers who are concerned about the public issues that shape our increasingly interconnected and interdependent world. Vinoth Ramachandra draws at length on his own experience working among university students and professors against a backdrop of militant religious and secular ideologies in Sri Lanka, a country that has suffered from "terrorism" and a "war on terror" that has claimed over sixty thousand lives since the late 1970s and shows no signs of abating. Reflected as well is his experience of living and traveling extensively not only in the West but in several of the trouble spots of Asia today. Thoughtful critical readers who care to explore reality rather than flip from one reality show to another will appreciate this invitation to subvert present reality in order to make way for another.

Revolution, Democracy, Socialism: Selected Writings of V.I. Lenin


Vladimir Lenin - 2008
    For the first time it brings together crucial shorter works, to show that Lenin held a life-long commitment to freedom and democracy. Le Blanc has written a comprehensive introduction, which gives an accessible overview of Lenin's life and work, and explains his relevance to political thought today.Lenin has been much maligned in the mainstream, accused of viewing 'man as modeling clay' and of 'social engineering of the most radical kind.' However, in contrast to today's world leaders, who happily turn to violence to achieve their objectives, Lenin believed it impossible to reach his goals 'by any other path than that of political democracy.'This collection will be of immense value to students encountering Lenin for the first time, and those looking for a new interpretation of one of the 20th century's most inspiring figures.

Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage: Valuing All Families under the Law


Nancy D. Polikoff - 2008
    Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage boldly moves the discussion forward by focusing on the larger, more fundamental issue of marriage and the law. The root problem, asserts law professor and LGBT rights activist Nancy Polikoff, is that marriage is a bright dividing line between those relationships that legally matter and those that don't. A woman married to a man for nine months is entitled to Social Security survivor's benefits when he dies; a woman living for nineteen years with a man or woman to whom she is not married receives nothing.Polikoff reframes the debate by arguing that all family relationships and households need the economic stability and emotional peace of mind that now extend only to married couples. Unmarried couples of any sexual orientation, single-parent households, extended family units, and myriad other familial configurations need recognition and protection to meet the concerns they all share: building and sustaining economic and emotional interdependence, and nurturing the next generation. Couples should have the choice to marry based on the spiritual, cultural, or religious meaning of marriage in their lives, asserts Polikoff. While marriage equality for same-sex couples is a civil rights victory, she contends that no one should have to marry in order to reap specific and unique legal results. A persuasive argument that married couples should not receive special rights denied to other families, Polikoff shows how the law can value all families, and why it must.

Violence: A Micro-Sociological Theory


Randall Collins - 2008
    Randall Collins challenges this view in Violence, arguing that violent confrontation goes against human physiological hardwiring. It is the exception, not the rule--regardless of the underlying conditions or motivations. Collins gives a comprehensive explanation of violence and its dynamics, drawing upon video footage, cutting-edge forensics, and ethnography to examine violent situations up close as they actually happen--and his conclusions will surprise you. Violence comes neither easily nor automatically. Antagonists are by nature tense and fearful, and their confrontational anxieties put up a powerful emotional barrier against violence. Collins guides readers into the very real and disturbing worlds of human discord--from domestic abuse and schoolyard bullying to muggings, violent sports, and armed conflicts. He reveals how the fog of war pervades all violent encounters, limiting people mostly to bluster and bluff, and making violence, when it does occur, largely incompetent, often injuring someone other than its intended target. Collins shows how violence can be triggered only when pathways around this emotional barrier are presented. He explains why violence typically comes in the form of atrocities against the weak, ritualized exhibitions before audiences, or clandestine acts of terrorism and murder--and why a small number of individuals are competent at violence.Violence overturns standard views about the root causes of violence and offers solutions for confronting it in the future.

The Myth of the Model Minority: Asian Americans Facing Racism


Rosalind S. Chou - 2008
    This reality becomes clear from the voices of Asian Americans heard in this first in-depth book on the experiences of racism among Asian Americans from many different nations and social classes.Chou and Feagin assess racial stereotyping and discrimination from dozens of interviews across the country with Asian Americans in a variety of settings, from elementary schools to colleges, workplaces, and other public arenas. They explore the widely varied ways of daily coping that Asian Americans employ--some choosing to conform and others actively resisting.This book dispels notions that Asian Americans are universally "favored" by whites and have an easy time adapting to life in American society. The authors conclude with policy measures that can improve the lives not only of Asian Americans but also of other Americans of color.

Fixing Sex: Intersex, Medical Authority, and Lived Experience


Katrina Karkazis - 2008
    Since the 1950s, standard treatment has involved determining a sex for these infants and performing surgery to normalize the infant’s genitalia. Over the past decade intersex advocates have mounted unprecedented challenges to treatment, offering alternative perspectives about the meaning and appropriate medical response to intersexuality and driving the field of those who treat intersex conditions into a deep crisis. Katrina Karkazis offers a nuanced, compassionate picture of these charged issues in Fixing Sex, the first book to examine contemporary controversies over the medical management of intersexuality in the United States from the multiple perspectives of those most intimately involved. Drawing extensively on interviews with adults with intersex conditions, parents, and physicians, Karkazis moves beyond the heated rhetoric to reveal the complex reality of how intersexuality is understood, treated, and experienced today. As she unravels the historical, technological, social, and political forces that have culminated in debates surrounding intersexuality, Karkazis exposes the contentious disagreements among theorists, physicians, intersex adults, activists, and parents—and all that those debates imply about gender and the changing landscape of intersex management. She argues that by viewing intersexuality exclusively through a narrow medical lens we avoid much more difficult questions. Do gender atypical bodies require treatment? Should physicians intervene to control the “sex” of the body? As this illuminating book reveals, debates over treatment for intersexuality force reassessment of the seemingly natural connections between gender, biology, and the body.

Criminal Intimacy: Prison and the Uneven History of Modern American Sexuality


Regina G. Kunzel - 2008
    But it has long been the subject of intense scrutiny by both prison administrators and reformers—as well as a source of fascination and anxiety for the American public. Historically, sex behind bars has evoked radically different responses from professionals and the public alike. In Criminal Intimacy, Regina Kunzel tracks these varying interpretations and reveals their foundational influence on modern thinking about sexuality and identity. Historians have held the fusion of sexual desire and identity to be the defining marker of sexual modernity, but sex behind bars, often involving otherwise heterosexual prisoners, calls those assumptions into question. By exploring the sexual lives of prisoners and the sexual culture of prisons over the past two centuries—along with the impact of a range of issues, including race, class, and gender; sexual violence; prisoners’ rights activism; and the HIV epidemic—Kunzel discovers a world whose surprising plurality and mutability reveals the fissures and fault lines beneath modern sexuality itself. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including physicians, psychiatrists, sociologists, correctional administrators, journalists, and prisoners themselves—as well as depictions of prison life in popular culture—Kunzel argues for the importance of the prison to the history of sexuality and for the centrality of ideas about sex and sexuality to the modern prison. In the process, she deepens and complicates our understanding of sexuality in America.

Receiving the Gift of Friendship: Profound Disability, Theological Anthropology, and Ethics


Hans S. Reinders - 2008
    He acknowledges that, at first glance, this is not an unusual claim given the steps taken within the last few decades to bring the rights of those with disabilities into line with the rights of the mainstream. But, he argues, that cannot be the end of the matter, because the disabled are human beings before they are citizens. "To live a human life properly," he says, "they must not only be included in our institutions and have access to our public spaces; they must also be included in other people's lives, not just by natural necessity but by choice."Receiving the Gift of Friendship consists of three parts: (1) Profound Disability, (2) Theology, and (3) Ethics. Overturning the "commonsense" view of human beings, Reinders's argument for a paradigm shift in our relation to people with disabilities is founded on a groundbreaking philosophical-theological consideration of humanity and of our basic human commonality. Moreover, Reinders gives his study human vividness and warmth with stories of the profoundly disabled from his own life and from the work of Jean Vanier and Henri Nouwen in L'Arche communities.

Race: A Theological Account


J. Kameron Carter - 2008
    Kameron Carter meditates on the multiple legacies implicated in the production of a racialized world and that still mark how we function in it and think about ourselves. These are the legacies of colonialism and empire, political theories of the state, anthropological theories of the human, and philosophy itself, from the eighteenth-century Enlightenment to the present.Carter's claim is that Christian theology, and the signal transformation it (along with Christianity) underwent, is at the heart of these legacies. In that transformation, Christian anti-Judaism biologized itself so as to racialize itself. As a result, and with the legitimation of Christian theology, Christianity became the cultural property of the West, the religious ground of white supremacy and global hegemony. In short, Christianity became white. The racial imagination is thus a particular kind of theological problem.Not content only to describe this problem, Carter constructs a way forward for Christian theology. Through engagement with figures as disparate in outlook and as varied across the historical landscape as Immanuel Kant, Frederick Douglass, Jarena Lee, Michel Foucault, Cornel West, Albert Raboteau, Charles Long, James Cone, Irenaeus of Lyons, Gregory of Nyssa, and Maximus the Confessor, Carter reorients the whole of Christian theology, bringing it into the twenty-first century.Neither a simple reiteration of Black Theology nor another expression of the new theological orthodoxies, this groundbreaking book will be a major contribution to contemporary Christian theology, with ramifications in other areas of the humanities.

Scales of Justice: Reimagining Political Space in a Globalizing World


Nancy Fraser - 2008
    With that "Westphalian" picture of political space assumed by default, the scope of justice was rarely subject to open dispute. Today, however, human-rights activists and international feminists join critics of structural adjustment and the World Trade Organization in challenging the view that justice can only be a domestic relation among fellow citizens. Targeting injustices that cut across borders, they are making the scale of justice an object of explicit struggle.Inspired by these efforts, Nancy Fraser asks: What is the proper frame for theorizing justice? Faced with a plurality of competing scales, how do we know which one is truly just? In exploring these questions, Fraser revises her widely discussed theory of redistribution and recognition. She introduces a third, "political" dimension of justice--representation--and elaborates a new, reflexive type of critical theory that foregrounds injustices of "misframing." Engaging with thinkers such as J�rgen Habermas, John Rawls, Michel Foucault, and Hannah Arendt, she envisions a "postwestphalian" mapping of political space that accommodates transnational solidarity, transborder publicity, and democratic frame-setting, as well as emancipatory projects that cross borders. The result is a sustained reflection on who should count with respect to what in a globalizing world.

The Tyranny of Liberalism: Understanding and Overcoming Administered Freedom, Inquisitorial Tolerance, and Equality by Command


James Kalb - 2008
    But take a longer view—look beyond and below politics—and it is the unchallenged triumph of liberalism and its philosophical assumptions that ought to command our attention.The triumph of liberalism means the tyranny of liberalism, explains James Kalb in this illuminating book, for liberalism is the extension into the sociopolitical realm of modern scientific thought and technological rationality. These modes of thinking are regarded by nearly everyone today as uniquely authoritative; those institutions and beliefs which do not conform are regarded at best as annoyances, and at worst as evil. Furthermore, Kalb shows how liberalism is an expression of the interests and outlook of commercial and managerial elites, who are suspicious of less rationalized and controllable forms of social organization like the family.Kalb does not merely rehearse a tale of woe, nor is he content simply to analyze the current situation. With reference to concrete issues such as the debate surrounding same-sex marriage, he outlines the kind of traditionalist response to liberalism that is likely to be most effective. He argues that traditional, decentralized, and nonliberal forms of social organization are ultimately impossible to eradicate, and he shows how more human forms of association than those favored by liberalism might once again be brought into being.

Concerning Violence


Frantz Fanon - 2008
    More than four decades on, Fanon's work still inspires liberation movements today.

Saving the Modern Soul: Therapy, Emotions, and the Culture of Self-Help


Eva Illouz - 2008
    Saving the Modern Soul examines the profound impact of therapeutic discourse on our lives and on our contemporary notions of identity. Eva Illouz plumbs today's particular cultural moment to understand how and why psychology has secured its place at the core of modern identity. She examines a wide range of sources to show how self-help culture has transformed contemporary emotional life and how therapy complicates individuals' lives even as it claims to dissect their emotional experiences and heal trauma.

America at Home: A Close-Up Look at How We Live


Rick Smolan - 2008
    The week of September 17, 2007, marked the largest collaborative project in Internet history as 100 of the top photojournalists and millions of Americans documented the concept of home. The result--which included several million photos--is the most extensive record of American home life at the beginning of the 21st century.Now the powerhouse team of photographers and editors behind such bestselling titles as America 24/7 and the A Day in the Life of... series, present their latest collection of stunning personal and dramatic moments with this tie-in volume.America at Home aims to capture the emotions of home: the distinctive rituals, ceremonies, traditions, intimate moments, and all the myriad ways in which we work, play, learn, conduct our lives, and interact with friends, family members (and pets!) as we transform our houses (and apartments, trailers, etc.) into our homes. From McMansions to mobile homes, from tree houses to tenement slums, from ranches to old-age homes, the public was invited to help document the harmonies and paradoxes of home life across America over a single seven-day period...Highlights of this extraordinary project include:Massive grassroots online outreach: Americans were invited to simultaneously contribute their own images via a series of daily snapshots each day throughout the week. These shots covered topics such as: morning rush, what's for dinner, and evening family rituals. Participants received daily emails with assignment instructions and also took general photos of what makes their home special. The public was able to sign in and upload them at www.MyAmericaAtHome.com.Multiple formats: An international team of leading magazine and newspaper photo editors edited all of the images, shot by both professionals and amateurs. The best images are woven together here with essays from leading writers in a unique and evocative coffee table book. In addition to the website, a TV show and photography exhibit are planned, with the help (and advertising) of major corporate sponsors such as IKEA, Google, HP's Snapfish, and BabyCenter.com.

Our Bodies, Our Crimes: The Policing of Women's Reproduction in America


Jeanne Flavin - 2008
    Poor women are pressured to undergo sterilization. Women addicted to illicit drugs risk arrest for carrying their pregnancies to term. Courts, child welfare, and law enforcement agencies fail to recognize the efforts of battered and incarcerated women to care for their children. Pregnant inmates are subject to inhumane practices such as shackling during labor and poor prenatal care. And decades after Roe, the criminalization of certain procedures and regulation of abortion providers still obstruct women's access to safe and private abortions.In this important work, Jeanne Flavin looks beyond abortion to document how the law and the criminal justice system police women's rights to conceive, to be pregnant, and to raise their children. Through vivid and disturbing case studies, Flavin shows how the state seeks to establish what a "good woman" and "fit mother" should look like and whose reproduction is valued. With a stirring conclusion that calls for broad-based measures that strengthen women's economic position, choice-making, autonomy, sexual freedom, and health care, Our Bodies, Our Crimes is a battle cry for all women in their fight to be fully recognized as human beings. At its heart, this book is about the right of a woman to be a healthy and valued member of society independent of how or whether she reproduces.

Travesty in Haiti: A true account of Christian missions, orphanages, fraud, food aid and drug trafficking


Timothy T. Schwartz - 2008
    It is a story of failed agricultural, health and credit projects; violent struggles for control over foreign aid; corrupt orphanage owners, pastors, and missionaries; the nepotistic manipulation of research funds; economically counterproductive food aid distribution programs that undermine the Haitian agricultural economy; disastrous social engineering by foreign governments, international financial and development organizations--such as the World Bank and USAID-- and the multinational corporate charities that have sprung up in their service, CARE International, Catholic Relief Services, World Vision, and the dozens of other massive charities that have programs spread across the globe, moving in response not only to disasters and need, but political agendas and economic opportunity. TRAVESTY also chronicles the lives of Haitians and describes how political disillusionment sometimes ignites explosive mob rage among peasants frustrated with the foreign aid organizations, governments and international agencies that fund them. TRAVESTY recounts how some Haitians use whatever means possible try to better their living standards, most recently drug trafficking, and in doing so explains why at the service of international narcotraffickers and Haitian money laundering elites, Haiti has become a failed State. TRAVESTY reads like a novel. It takes the reader from the bowels of foreign aid in the field; to the posh and orderly urban headquarters of charities such as CARE International; to the cold, distant heights of Capitol Hill policy planners. The journey is marked by true accounts involving violence, corruption, appalling greed, sexual exploitation, disastrous social engineering, and the inside world of drug traffickers. But TRAVESTY it is not a novel. It is founded on 15 years of academic and field experience, research, and hard data. It entertains the reader with vivid first hand accounts while treating seriously the problems inherent not only in international aid, but the sabotaging effects of the drug war on economic development in remote and impoverished areas of the hemisphere.

Matteo Ricci: A Jesuit in the Ming Court


Michela Fontana - 2008
    This engrossing and fluid book offers a thorough, knowledgeable biography of this fascinating and influential man, telling a deeply human and captivating story that still resonates today. Michela Fontana traces Ricci's travels in China in detail, providing a rich portrait of Ming China and the growing importance of cultural exchanges between China and the West. She shows how Ricci incorporated his ideas of "cultural accommodation" into both his life and his writings aimed at the Chinese elite. Her biography is the first to highlight Ricci's immensely important scientific work and that of key Christian converts, such as Xu Guangqi, who translated Euclid's Elements together with Ricci. Exploring the history of science in China and the West as well as their dramatically different cultural attitudes toward religious and philosophical issues, Michela Fontana introduces not only Ricci's life but the first significant encounter between Western and Chinese civilizations.

Manifesto for Islamic Reform


Edip Yüksel - 2008
    Verses of the Quran are hung in high places on the walls, touched and treated with utmost reverence, yet the so-called Muslims rarely refer to them for their guidance. They are too confused by the contradictory and tangled maze of thousands of hearsay reports falsely attributed to Muhammad and lost among the trivial details of sectarian books. When they occasionally refer to the Quran, it is most likely to be in an abusive manner, abusing the verses by taking them out of context and using them as slogans to declare holy wars or to justify aggression. The Quran that liberated people from the darkness of ignorance was transformed, soon after Muhammad's departure, to a book whose verses were recited for the dead, an amulet carried by the mentally and physically sick, and a paper idol to be revered and feared. Unfortunately, ignorance, intolerance, misogynist teachings, superstitions, and outdated practices have accumulated over the centuries in interpreting and translating the holy book of Islam. It is time to re-introduce the actual message of the Quran. It is time to remove the accumulated layers of man-made dogmas and traditions that have attached themselves to the text (6:21; 7:29; 9:31; 16:52; 39:2,11,14; 40:14,65; 42:21; 45.17; 74:1-56; 98:5).

Social Stratification and Inequality


Harold Kerbo - 2008
    Extensive comparative information, as well as an overview of how social stratification has changed and evolved over time, gives readers a global perspective on class conflict. Praised for its thorough research and scholarship, Social Stratification and Inequality includes current statistics and the latest trends in the field.

Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects


Dmitry Orlov - 2008
    These trends mirror the experience of the Soviet Union in the early 1980s. Reinventing Collapse examines the circumstances of the demise of the Soviet superpower and offers clear insights into how we might prepare for coming events.Rather than focusing on doom and gloom, Reinventing Collapse suggests that there is room for optimism if we focus our efforts on personal and cultural transformation. With characteristic dry humor, Dmitry Orlov identifies three progressive stages of response to the looming crisis:Mitigation—alleviating the impact of the coming upheaval Adaptation—adjusting to the reality of changed conditions Opportunity—flourishing after the collapse He argues that by examining maladaptive parts of our common cultural baggage, we can survive, thrive, and discover more meaningful and fulfilling lives, in spite of steadily deteriorating circumstances.This challenging yet inspiring work is a must-read for anyone concerned about energy, geopolitics, international relations, and life in a post-Peak Oil world.Dmitry Orlov was born in Leningrad and immigrated to the United States at the age of twelve. He was an eyewitness to the Soviet collapse over several extended visits to his Russian homeland between the late eighties and mid-nineties. He is an engineer and a leading Peak Oil theorist whose writing is featured on such sites as www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net and www.powerswitch.org.uk.

Transnational Shia Politics: Religious and Political Networks in the Gulf


Laurence Louër - 2008
    She focuses on three key countries in the gulf: Kuwait, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia, whose Shia Islamic groups are the offspring of various Iraqi movements that have surfaced over recent decades. Lou?r explains how these groups first penetrated local societies by espousing the networks of Shiite clergymen. She then describes the role of factional quarrels and the Iranian revolution of 1979 in defining the present landscape of Shiite Islamic activism in the Gulf monarchies. The reshaping of geopolitics after the Gulf War and the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003 had a profound impact on transnational Shiite networks. New political opportunities encouraged these groups to concentrate on national issues, such as becoming fierce opponents of the Saudi monarchy. Yet the question still remains: How deeply have these new beliefs taken root in Islamic society? Are Shiites Saudi or Bahraini patriots? Lou?r's book also considers the transformation of Shia movements in relation to central religious authority. While they strive to formulate independent political agendas, Shia networks remain linked to religious authorities ( "marja'") who reside either in Iraq or Iran. This connection becomes all the more problematic should the "marja'" also be the head of a state, as with Iran's Ali Khamenei. In conclusion, Lou?r argues that the Shia will one day achieve political autonomy, especially as the "marja'," in order to retain transnational religious authority, begin to meddle less and less in the political affairs of other countries.

Lydia's Open Door: Inside Mexico's Most Modern Brothel


Patty Kelly - 2008
    By delving into lives that would otherwise go unremarked, Kelly documents the modernization of the sex industry during the neoliberal era in the city of Tuxtla Gutiérrez and illustrates how state-regulated sex became part of a broader effort by government officials to bring modernity to Chiapas, one of Mexico's poorest and most conflicted states. Kelly's innovative approach locates prostitution in a political-economic context by treating it as work. Most valuably, she conveys her analysis through vivid portraits of the lives of the sex workers themselves and shows how the women involved are neither victims nor heroines.

The Coffee House of Lahore: A Memoir 1942-57


K.K. Aziz - 2008
    

Ballroom, Boogie, Shimmy Sham, Shake: A Social and Popular Dance Reader


Julie Malnig - 2008
    The essays cover different historical periods and styles; encompass regional influences from North and South America, Britain, Europe, and Africa; and emphasize a variety of methodological approaches, including ethnography, anthropology, gender studies, and critical race theory. While social dance is defined primarily as dance performed by the public in ballrooms, clubs, dance halls, and other meeting spots, contributors also examine social dance’s symbiotic relationship with popular, theatrical stage dance forms.Contributors are Elizabeth Aldrich, Barbara Cohen-Stratyner, Yvonne Daniel, Sherril Dodds, Lisa Doolittle, David F. García, Nadine George-Graves, Jurretta Jordan Heckscher, Constance Valis Hill, Karen W. Hubbard, Tim Lawrence, Julie Malnig, Carol Martin, Juliet McMains, Terry Monaghan, Halifu Osumare, Sally R. Sommer, May Gwin Waggoner, Tim Wall, and Christina Zanfagna.

Twenty Lessons in Environmental Sociology


Kenneth A. Gould - 2008
    Instead of compiling articles from professional journals, this innovative reader presents twenty classroom-tested lessons from dedicated, experienced teachers. These diverse readings examine key topics in the field, from the social construction of nature to the growing influence of global media on our understanding of the environment.Building this collection on the model of a successful undergraduate classroom experience, coeditors Kenneth A. Gould and Tammy L. Lewis asked the contributors to choose a topic, match it with their favorite class lecture, and construct a lesson to reflect the way they teach it in the classroom. The result is an engaging, innovative, and versatile volume that presents the core ideas of environmental sociology in concise, accessible chapters. Each brief lesson is designed as a stand-alone piece and can be easily adapted into an existing course syllabus.Ideal for any course that looks at the environment from a sociological perspective, Twenty Lessons in Environmental Sociology offers an insightful introduction to this dynamic subject.

The Starker: Big Jack Zelig, the Becker-Rosenthal Case, and the Advent of the Jewish Gangster


Rose Keefe - 2008
    Like many of his pre-Volstead contemporaries, his historic impact has been overshadowed by Al Capone and Murder Inc. He is listed in today's crime anthologies primarily because four members of the gang, along with corrupt cop Charles Becker, died in the electric chair for the July 1912 murder of gambler Herman Rosenthal. In New York City from 1908 to 1912, however, Zelig inspired admiration and fear, and he was synonymous with the word 'gangster.' New York editor Herbert Bayard Swope recalled that The Starker (Yiddish for 'Big Boss') threw terror into the heart of the New York underworld like no one has before or since." Based on dozens of interviews and years of painstaking research, "The Starker" introduces readers to a story from New York's criminal past that is dazzling in its audacity and criminal in the success of the people responsible for the murders in covering up their own crimes."

Sex and Philosophy: Rethinking de Beauvoir and Sartre


Edward Fullbrook - 2008
    One concerned sex, the other philosophy. The classic view of Beauvoir, encouraged by her own writing and by Sartre's acquiescence, has been one of Sartre as womanizer and Beauvoir as the patient, loyal female victim. The legend also consistently portrayed Beauvoir as the midwife of Sartre's philosophy rather than a thinker in her own right, encouraging the view that her philosophical writings were mere echoes of the thoughts of her man. But over the past 25 years big chunks of documentary evidence have become public which show that both of these traditional interpretations of the Sartre-Beauvoir story are profoundly false. It is now clear, as this book explains, that it was Beauvoir's demand for sexual freedom that dictated the open terms of their relationship and that it fell to Sartre at least as often as to Beauvoir to perform the role of midwife for the other's philosophy.Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir were two of the most brilliant, influential, and scandalous intellectuals of the 20th century. They are remembered as much for the lives they led as for their influence on the way we think. Their committed but notoriously open union created huge controversy in their lifetime. And even before their deaths they had become one of history's legendary couples, renowned for the passion, daring, humor and intellectual intensity of their relationship.This fascinating book presents a biography of Sartre and de Beauvoir's relationship and offers some highly original theories relating to the extent of de Beauvoir's contribution to their shared ideas. Through a thorough examination of Sartre and de Beauvoir's major works, the authors present a compelling story of their romantic and intellectual relationships.

Brilliant Insanity


Yvonne Mason - 2008
    Louis Reinhart has been given permission to tell the world his side of the story. a story which was not allowed to be told in court. The Fort Pierce Sentinel has agreed to send a reporter to interview Reinhart. However, Reinhart has been very specific as to which reporter he will agree to talk to. Her name is Mandy McQuaid. She is a rookie reporter. This is her first job and she is stuck in the obit section of the paper. Even though the Editor is not happy about Reinhart's request, he sends Mandy to conduct the interview. Reinhart has his own agenda. He believes he was justified in his quest for retribution and he wants to share it with the world. Not only does he want to share it with the world, but it is very important that he share it with Mandy. As Reinhart draws Mandy into his web of lies, and narcissistic behavior, one wonders where the next bend in the road leads. With an ending that will shock and amaze even the most seasoned reader, Brilliant Insanity is destined to become the brand of thriller that all others will be compared.

Worlds of Sound: The Story of Smithsonian Folkways


Richard Carlin - 2008
    He created Folkways Records to achieve his goal, not just a record label but a statement that all sounds are equal and every voice deserves to be heard. The Folkways catalog grew to include a myriad of voices, from world- and roots-music to political speeches; the voices of contemporary poets and steam engines; folk singers Lead Belly and Woody Guthrie and jazz pianists Mary Lou Williams and James P. Johnson; Haitian vodoun singers and Javanese court musicians; deep-sea sounds and sounds from the outer ring of Earth's atmosphere. Until his death in 1986, Asch—with the help of collaborators ranging from the eccentric visionary Harry Smith to academic musicologists—created more than 2000 albums, a sound-scape of the contemporary world still unequalled in breadth and scope. Worlds of Sound documents this improbable journey. Along the way you'll meet:A young Pete Seeger, revolutionizing the world with his five-string banjo The amazing vocal ensembles of the Ituri PygmiesNorth American tree frogsElla Jenkins's children's musicLead Belly singing "The Midnight Special"The nueva canción of Suni Paz.Folkways became a part of the Smithsonian Institution's collections shortly after Asch's death. Today Smithsonian Folkways continues to make the "worlds of sound" Moe Asch first dreamed of 60 years ago available to all. The Folkways vision is expansive and all-inclusive, and Worlds of Sound advances its rich and lively spirit.

Endangered Words: a Collection of Rare Gems for Word Lovers


Simon Hertnon - 2008
    They smile. They nod their heads. They tell others of their discovery. So says Simon Hertnon in his introduction to Endangered Words, and after wrapping your tongue around the lexical rarities he offers up tohis readers, you'll have to agree Hertnon provides one hundred hand-selected rarities, and, in a virtuoso display of concinnity and logodaedaly, breathes life into them with his lucid descriptions of their meaning and engaging examples of their usage.Thanks to Endangered Words, you no longer have to be at a loss for words or reach for the cliched and commonplace. The English language is brimming with ambrosial alternatives, and this compendium offers the cream of the crop.Filled with words to be treasured for their elegant precision, from anacampserote to sprezzatura to zemblanity, Endangered Words is the perfect handbook for writers, an excellent resource for communicators, and an entertaining read for anyone with an appetite forthe very brightest gems of the English language.

The Other Half: The Life of Jacob Riis and the World of Immigrant America


Tom Buk-Swienty - 2008
    Born in 1849 in rural Denmark, Riis immigrated to America in 1870 following a devastating romantic breakup. Penniless and starving, Riis stumbled into journalism, eventually becoming a charismatic police reporter for the New York Tribune, where he befriended Theodore Roosevelt and witnessed firsthand the appalling tenement conditions of late nineteenth-century New York. His resulting exposé, How the Other Half Lives, was the first major American muckraking book. It brought Americans in touch with their lost humanity, establishing a precedent for Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens, Jane Addams, and Upton Sinclair. Described by Roosevelt as "the ideal American," Riis died in 1914, mourned by millions, a celebrated hero. Tom Buk-Swienty's long-awaited biography, a superb evocation of the muckraking era, is a compelling work, designed with 55 haunting images from Riis's own photographic oeuvre.

Dignity and Defiance: Stories from Bolivia's Challenge to Globalization


Jim Shultz - 2008
    Based on extensive interviews, this story comes alive with first-person accounts of a massive Enron/Shell oil spill from an elderly woman whose livelihood it threatens, of the young people who stood down a former dictator to take back control of their water, and of Bolivia's dramatic and successful challenge to the policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Featuring a substantial introduction, a conclusion, and introductions to each of the chapters, this well-crafted mix of storytelling and analysis is a rich portrait of people calling for global integration to be different than it has been: more fair and more just.

The Disciples


James Mollison - 2008
    Represented bands and stars include Madonna, Marilyn Manson, P. Diddy, the Sex Pistols and Rod Stewart. Beautifully designed, with an introduction by Desmond Morris and more than 500 individual portraits combined into 58 panoramic images, The Disciples is an original, sharp and highly entertaining take on contemporary music culture and the tribalisms inspired by popular music stars.

War Without End: The Iraq War in Context


Michael Schwartz - 2008
    He shows how US occupation is fueling civil war in Iraq and beyond, and how US officials dismantled the Iraqi state and economy, helping to destroy rather than rebuild the country.In a popular style reminiscent of the best writing against the Vietnam War, he punctures the myths used to sell the US public the idea of an endless “war on terror” centered in Iraq. Schwartz shows how the real US interests in Iraq were rooted in the geopolitics of oil and the expansion of a neoliberal economic model in the Middle East—and around the globe—at gunpoint.War Without End also reveals how the failure of the United States in Iraq has forced US planners to fundamentally rethink the imperial dreams driving recent foreign policy.This book is the third in a series of very successful books published in cooperation with TomDispatch.com, including the New York Times bestseller United States v. George W. Bush et al. by Elizabeth de la Vega (Seven Stories Press).Michael Schwartz, professor of sociology and faculty director of the Undergraduate College of Global Studies at Stony Brook University, has written extensively on the war in Iraq at websites including TomDispatch, ZNet, Asia Times, and Mother Jones, and in numerous magazines, including Contexts, Against the Current, and Z Magazine.

Our War: Ireland and the Great War


John Horne - 2008
    You came out older than any span of years could make you." - Catherine Black, Ramelton Co. Donegal, describing her work as a nurse in France during the Great War * "[He] kept me an hour talking of his dead boy. He read his letters aloud but broke down. At this rate everybody in a year will be mourning. I can think of half a dozen already." - Shane Leslie, Glaslough Co. Monaghan; 12 November 1914 * "One fellow's brains were shot into my mouth as I was shouting for them to jump for it. I dived into the sea. Then came the job to swim ashore and one leg useless, where I had been shot. I pulled out a knife and cut the straps and swam ashore. All the time bullets were nipping around me." - Sergeant J. McColgan, describing the assault on Gallipoli, 25 April 1915 * "I was waiting for a barm brack & they did not get them in. I am just sending a cake & butter, but shall send cake & bacon on Friday...I never prayed as fervently.asking the Little Infant Jesus to bring you home safe and unhurt to me." - Mary Moynihan, Tralee Co. Kerry, in a letter to her son Michael, 3 June 1918 (Michael was reported dead on 18 June 1918) * "...you will be alright and you might to [sic] be satisfied now and give over your wild ways." - Roseanne Mooney, Thomas St. Dublin, in a letter to her wounded husband John, c. 1916-17 *** Our War: Ireland and the Great War, written by some of Ireland's leading historians, provides an Irish perspective on the Great War which saw over 200,000 Irish soldiers fighting and up to 50,000 dying. The book relays the experiences of ordinary Irish people during the war and it chronicles the effect this war had, and still has, on Irish society. The lives and deaths of soldiers in the trenches, nurses, politicians, and the workforce are all examined. Archival letters, diaries, wills, and illustrations are reproduced which document the pride, fear, anxiety, and sorrow felt by sweethearts, families, and friends. The book accompanies Ireland's RTE Radio 1 series Our War: Ireland and the Great War, which was broadcast in 2008, from late October to late December.

Overschooled and Undereducated


John S.C. Abbott - 2008
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Refiguring Rhetorical Education: Women Teaching African American, Native American, and Chicano/a Students, 1865-1911


Jessica Enoch - 2008
     Author Jessica Enoch explores the possibilities and limitations of rhetorical education by focusing on the challenges that Child, Zitkala Ša, Idar, Peña, and Villegas made to dominant educational practices. Each of these teachers transformed their seemingly apolitical occupation into a site of resistance, revising debilitating educational methods to advance culture-based and politicized teachings that empowered their students to rise above their subjugated positions.Refiguring Rhetorical Education considers how race, culture, power, and language are both implicit and explicit in discussions of rhetorical education for marginalized students and includes six major tenets to guide present-day pedagogies for civic engagement.

Neko je rekao feminizam?


Adriana ZaharijevićPaula Petričević - 2008
    The books aims at showing that this workhas not been finished yet, by means of demonstrating how lives ofwomen were led before the emergence of feminism, what changes occurredand what is yet to be done. The structure of the book corresponds tothis idea: if one tried to decompose one's everyday life – wherepublic and private mingle, where we work, vote, read, make love, doour best to stay in touch with the world around us, speak, go toexibitions, church and peace rallies – one would find things which hadbeen unimaginable just hundreds years ago, but are part and parcel ofour world today. The book "Somebody Said Feminism? How FeminismAffected Women in XXI Century" wants to show that feminism contributedlargely to this, although we are quite often unaware of it.The books represents 26 young feminist authors from Serbia, some ofwhich are already known to the local audience and some of whichpublish for the first time. By order of their appearance in the book,these are Dragana Obrenic, Marija Perkovic, Tijana Krstec, DianaMiladinovic, Milica Lezajic, Jasmina Stevanovic, Lidija Vasiljevic,Paula Petricevic, Natasa Zlatkovic, Milena Timotijevic, Carna Cosic,Mima Rasic, Vera Kurtic, Marina Simic, Hana Copic, Jelena Visnjic,Mirjana Mirosavljevic, Iva Nenic, Ivana Velimirac, Nadja Duhacek,Jelena Miletic, Katarina Loncarevic, Jana Bacevic, Ana Bukvic, KsenijaPerisic, Marija Mladenovic and Adriana Zaharijevic.The texts are dealing with rights and freedoms (vote, work, education,divorce and abortion), the intersection of public and private (familyand marriage, religion, women's health, prostitution), identities anddifferences (lesbians, Roma women, race and gender), representation ofwomen (language, media, popular culture), arts (literature, theatre,visual arts), theory and activism (peace politics, globalization offeminism, anthropology, psychology), and history of feminism.Along with the individual contributions, the book contains eightappendices: on suffrage timeline, on women presidents and primeministers, on famous women in medicine, on female genital mutilation,on women Nobel prize winners, with a special emphasis on Peace Nobelprize winners, and on feminist positions and theories (contributed byNatasa Zlatkovic and Adriana Zaharijevic). Finally, the book providesa concise historical timeline of important dates for feminism in theworld and Serbia specifically.

Reading Rocky Horror: The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Popular Culture


Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock - 2008
    Reading Rocky Horror is the first edited collection devoted to The Rocky Horror Picture Show and makes up for academia’s neglect of this cult classic by assembling a variety of accessible contributions that examine the film from diverse perspectives including gender and queer studies, disability studies, cultural studies, genre studies, and film studies.

Lost in Space: The Criminalization, Globalization and Urban Ecology of Homelessness


Randall Amster - 2008
    Homeless people find themselves in a struggle to preserve places that are theoretically open to everyone regardless of status. Urban spaces in particular manifest a complex ecology comprised of people, culture, architecture, technology, and the natural environment, expressed through gentrification, redevelopment, and privatization. In this ecology, homeless people are criminalized for performing basic activities such as sitting or sleeping. These trends are evident across the U.S. and internationally, linking local issues with wider forces of globalization.

The Age of Conversation


Gavin Heaton - 2008
    If ideas are the currency of our times then this is, undoubtedly, the Age of Conversation, for without the art of dialog, the cut and thrust of debate and discussion, then the economy of ideas would implode under its own heavy weight. Instead, the reverse is true. Far from seeing an implosion, we are living in a time of proliferation - ideas build upon ideas, discussion grows from seeds of thought and single headlines give rise to a thousand medusa-like simulations echoing words whispered somewhere on the other side of the planet. All this - in an instant. In what began as a half dare, the editors, Gavin Heaton and Drew McLellan challenged bloggers around the world to contribute one page - 400 words - on the topic of "conversation." The resulting book, The Age of Conversation, brings together over 100 of the world's leading marketers, writers, thinkers and creative innovators in a ground-breaking and unusual publication.

Health Disparities in the United States: Social Class, Race, Ethnicity, and Health


Donald A. Barr - 2008
    This book examines what the gulf in care and health outcomes means for the medical community, cultural subsets, and society at large. It is suitable as a comprehensive reference for social science and medical professionals.

Bengal's Hindu Holocaust : The Partition of India & Its Aftermath


Sachi G. Dastidar - 2008
    Their families face persecution on a daily basis in Bangladesh, while there are other issues like demographic change in West Bengal, parts of Assam and other North-Eastern states. Men are harassed and killed, their property is confiscated, thanks to Enemy Property Act, and women are kidnapped/ raped leaving the hapless Hindu community ask the question: "Aamago lokera jai koi (Where do my people go)?". The research for this was painstaking and painful for the author, as the authorities remained in near complete denial that a systematic persecution of the Hindu community was and remains, virtually, a daily affair.

Getting Played: African American Girls, Urban Inequality, and Gendered Violence


Jody Miller - 2008
    Wright Mills AwardDraws a vivid picture of the race and gender inequalities that harm young African American women in poor urban communitiesMuch has been written about the challenges that face urban African American young men, but less is said about the harsh realities for African American young women in disadvantaged communities. Sexual harassment, sexual assault, dating violence, and even gang rape are not uncommon experiences. In Getting Played, sociologist Jody Miller presents a compelling picture of this dire social problem and explores how inextricably, and tragically, linked violence is to their daily lives in poor urban neighborhoods.Drawing from richly textured interviews with adolescent girls and boys, Miller brings a keen eye to the troubling realities of a world infused with danger and gender-based violence. These girls are isolated, ignored, and often victimized by those considered family and friends. Community institutions such as the police and schools that are meant to protect them often turn a blind eye, leaving girls to fend for themselves. Miller draws a vivid picture of the race and gender inequalities that harm these communities--and how these result in deeply and dangerously engrained beliefs about gender that teach youths to see such violence--rather than the result of broader social inequalities--as deserved due to individual girls' flawed characters, i.e., she deserved it.Through Miller's careful analysis of these engaging, often unsettling stories, Getting Played shows us not only how these young women are victimized, but how, despite vastly inadequate social support and opportunities, they struggle to navigate this dangerous terrain.

Burning Man Live!: The Living Spirit of Burning Man as Captured by Piss Clear Magazine


Adrian Roberts - 2008
    Popular Culture. For mature audiences 320 pages of alkali-dust-storm-infused advice and wit RE: sex, drugs, survival, performance art and social anarchy. Reading this book is the next best thing to actually attending Burning Man, and for those who have attended, this book is guaranteed to stir up compelling memories. A Burner wrote the below: "Do you all know about Piss Clear, the Burner zine, that was around for 13 years? It's been called 'the Vice Magazine of the playa'--sharp and funny with an alternative view of Black Rock City. Now, RE/Search Publications has published BURNING MAN LIVE, which has the best of all 13 years (1994-2007), including 'Best of Black Rock City,' 'Sex and Drugs,' 'Playa Fashion Do's and Don'ts,' 'You Know You're a Burner When...' 'Borg Wars,' interviews with Larry Harvey (Burning Man cofounder) and Harley DuBois (Director of Community Services), and introductions by Brian Doherty, Adrian Roberts, and Malderor. This book is 320 pages, and HUGE (8.5 by 11 inches) of pure Burning Man history--highly recommended--with really great articles and photos

Critique of Intelligent Design: Materialism Versus Creationism from Antiquity to the Present


John Bellamy Foster - 2008
    Public Schools? Is Science Once More to be Burned on the Cross? Will Creationism Win the 2,500 Year War with Materialism and Reason?A critique of religious dogma historically provides the basis for rational inquiry into the physical and social world. Critique of Intelligent Design is a key to understanding the forces of irrationalism challenging the teaching of evolution in U.S. public schools and seeking to undermine the natural and social sciences. It illuminates the 2,500 year evolution of the materialist critique--the explanation of the world in terms of itself-- from antiquity to the present through engaging the work of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Lucretius, Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, David Hume, William Paley, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Stephen Jay Gould, and numerous others (including contemporary advocates of 'intelligent design').Proponents of intelligent design--creationism in a more subtle guise--have recently reignited the age-old war between materialism and creationism, in which they claim to elevate their doctrine to empirical truth and thus incorporate it into science curricula. They attack modern science, advancing a pseudo-scientific view and a reactionary political culture in line with their theology and what they perceive as a knowable moral order. They single out for criticism the greatest modern representatives of materialist-scientific thought: Darwin, Marx, and Freud.Critique of Intelligent Design is a direct reply to the criticisms of intelligent design proponents and a compelling account of the long debate between materialism and religion in the West. It provides an overview of the contemporary fight concerning nature, science, history, morality, and knowledge. Separate chapters are devoted to the design debate in antiquity, the Enlightenment and natural theology, Marx, Darwin, and Freud, and to current scientific debates over evolution and design. It offers empowering tools to understand and defend critical and scientific reasoning in both the natural and social sciences and society as a whole.

What's the Point of Revolution if We Can't Dance?


Jane Barry - 2008
    Their fears. Hopes. Exhaustion. Exaltation. Grief and pleasure. Pain and loss and wicked black humour. Spirituality. Funding crunches. Backbiting and burnout. Self-worth, desire, selfishness, and selflessness. In Revolution activists from all walks of life talk about the intensely personal and inextricably important side of activism that leaves so many of us fatigued, isolated and ill. Together, we name a culture of activism that sometimes celebrates dying for the cause as a necessary and acceptable part of the activist bargain. We also talked about what keeps us strong the love and passion for the work, and for each other. The simple and complex strategies that activists use to stay well and safe. The book concludes with a call for a revolution within activism that will ensure that we can sustain ourselves and our movements.

Sacred Violence: Torture, Terror, and Sovereignty


Paul W. Kahn - 2008
    This book investigates the reasons for the resort to violence.

Gilles Deleuze's "Logic of Sense": A Critical Introduction and Guide


James Williams - 2008
    Deleuze's philosophy has always promised a revolution in ethical theories and in our understanding of the relation between language, thought and action. This book develops a critical reading of Deleuze's work in order to convey the potential and risks of his new approaches to questions of how to live an intense life in response to the excitement and danger of events. This interpretation covers all aspects of Deleuze's book, including engagements with phenomenology, with analytic philosophy of language, with stoicism, with literary theory and with psychoanalysis. Its aim is to open new debates and develop current ones around Deleuze's work in philosophy, politics, literature, linguistics and sociology.

Gateway of the Gods: The Rise and Fall of Babylon


Anton Gill - 2008
    It was here that the first city-states came into being, and with them many of the social, legal, and economic structures that we recognize today. Beginning with a survey of the early Mesopotamian dynasties, Anton Gill then chronicles the city's rise under the Amorite king Hammurabi who unified Mesopotamia under the hegemony of Babylon, its troubled fortunes in the centuries that followed, its golden age under a dynasty of Chaldean kings in the seventh and sixth centuries BC, and the life of its last great king Nebuchadrezzar II. Gill not only describes the political and military triumphs of Nebuchadrezzar's reign but also explores its many achievements in the cultural sphere—from art to mathematics, from economics to legal matters, and from astronomy to writing—as well as features of everyday life, from sex and shopping to food and drink customs.

The Politics of Harry Potter


Bethany Barratt - 2008
    Readers may be surprised to discover that in fact J. K. Rowling's work provides us with entries into all of the most important political questions in history - from current controversies about terrorism and human rights,to the classic foundations of political thought.

Encyclopedia of African Religion


Molefi Kete Asante - 2008
    It is both a gateway to deeper exploration and a penetrating resource on its own. This is bound to become the definitive scholarly resource on African religions." - Library Journal, Starred Review"Overall, because of its singular focus, reliability, and scope, this encyclopedia will prove invaluable where there is considerable interest in Africa or in different religious traditions." - Library JournalAs the first comprehensive work to assemble ideas, concepts, discourses, and extensive essays in this vital area, the Encyclopedia of African Religion explores such topics as deities and divinities, the nature of humanity, the end of life, the conquest of fear, and the quest for attainment of harmony with nature and other humans. Editors Molefi Kete Asante and Ama Mazama include nearly 500 entries that seek to rediscover the original beauty and majesty of African religion.Features• Offers the best representation to date of the African response to the sacred• Helps readers grasp the enormity of Africa s contribution to religious ideas by presenting richly textured concepts of spirituality, ritual, and initiation while simultaneously advancing new theological categories, cosmological narratives, and ways to conceptualize ethical behavior• Provides readers with new metaphors, figures of speech, modes of reasoning, etymologies, analogies, and cosmogonies• Reveals the complexity, texture, and rhythms of the African religious tradition to provide scholars with a baseline for future worksThe Encyclopedia of African Religion is intended for undergraduate and graduate students in fields such as Religion, Africana Studies, Sociology, and Philosophy.

Out in the Storm: Drug-Addicted Women Living as Shoplifters and Sex Workers


Gail A. Caputo - 2008
    It provides in-depth criminological analysis of drug addiction and female criminality in addition to the sociology of crime work and occupations. Because most of the women interviewed are poor African-Americans raised and living in socially and economically disadvantaged neighborhoods, Caputo pays particular attention to gender, class, and other systems of status in the complex interactions between women s lives, drug addiction, and criminality. Out in the Storm reveals similarities and differences in pathways women take to drug addiction and particular crimes and illustrates how women manage both the business and risks of crime in urban drug cultures. Caputo devotes careful attention to the technical and organizational aspects of shoplifting and sex work and is equally sensitive to nuance and difference among those she interviewed. While her subjects struggle to overcome much pain brought on by victimization and to live within social and economic constraints, Caputo illustrates how these women make crime work and demonstrates how they can and do make choices. With her analysis of shoplifting, Caputo provides rich, new insight into one of society s most compelling social problems and challenges the overly sexualized portrayal of women s crime. Unique in bringing together data on substance abuse, shoplifters, and sex workers, this volume will be an essential resource for scholars, activists, and practitioners with expertise or interest in criminological theory, urban poverty, women s studies, youth crime, the sociology of work and occupations, the sociology of education, and addiction."