Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide


Andrea Lee Smith - 2005
    In Conquest, Smith places Native American women at the center of her analysis of sexual violence, challenging both conventional definitions of the term and conventional responses to the problem.Beginning with the impact of the abuses inflicted on Native American children at state-sanctioned boarding schools from the 1880s to the 1980s, Smith adroitly expands our conception of violence to include environmental racism, population control and the widespread appropriation of Indian cultural practices by whites and other non-natives. Smith deftly connects these and other examples of historical and contemporary colonialism to the high rates of violence against Native American women—the most likely women in the United States to die of poverty-related illnesses, be victims of rape and suffer partner abuse.Essential reading for scholars and activists, Conquest is the powerful synthesis of Andrea Smith’s intellectual and political work to date. By focusing on the impact of sexual violence on Native American women, Smith articulates an agenda that is compelling to feminists, Native Americans, other people of color and all who are committed to creating viable alternatives to state-based “solutions.”

Advice for a Young Investigator


Santiago Ramón y Cajal - 1897
    Hailed as the father of modern anatomy and neurobiology, he was largely responsible for the modern conception of the brain. His groundbreaking works were New Ideas on the Structure of the Nervous System and Histology of the Nervous System in Man and Vertebrates. In addition to leaving a legacy of unparalleled scientific research, Cajal sought to educate the novice scientist about how science was done and how he thought it should be done. This recently rediscovered classic, first published in 1897, is an anecdotal guide for the perplexed new investigator as well as a refreshing resource for the old pro.Cajal was a pragmatist, aware of the pitfalls of being too idealistic--and he had a sense of humor, particularly evident in his diagnoses of various stereotypes of eccentric scientists. The book covers everything from valuable personality traits for an investigator to social factors conducive to scientific work.

The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World


Vijay Prashad - 2007
    The Darker Nations traces the intellectual origins and the political history of the twentieth century attempt to knit together the world’s impoverished countries in opposition to the United States and Soviet spheres of influence in the decades following World War II.Spanning every continent of the global South, Vijay Prashad’s fascinating narrative takes us from the birth of postcolonial nations after World War II to the downfall and corruption of nationalist regimes. A breakthrough book of cutting-edge scholarship, it includes vivid portraits of Third World giants like India’s Nehru, Egypt’s Nasser, and Indonesia’s Sukarno—as well as scores of extraordinary but now–forgotten intellectuals, artists, and freedom fighters. The Darker Nations restores to memory the vibrant though flawed idea of the Third World, whose demise, Prashad ultimately argues, has produced a much impoverished international political arena.

On Power and Ideology: The Managua Lectures


Noam Chomsky - 1999
    One of Chomsky's most accessible books, this succinct series of lectures lays out the parameters of his foreign policy analysis.

Cloud Road: A Journey through the Inca Heartland


John Harrison - 2010
    Hiking at more than 10,000 feet for almost the entire trip, the author follows the great road of the Incas, the Camino Real. Hand-built more than 500 years ago, this road crosses the most difficult and dangerous mountains in all the Americas, and life continues as if Columbus had never sailed. Finding and studying remote villages is central to the quest, and—despite dog attacks, sweltering canyons, floods, and stubborn donkeys—the author makes his way from the equator to Cuzco and on to the most magical city of all: Machu Picchu.

Unfaithful Angels: How Social Work Has Abandoned its Mission


Harry Specht - 1993
    As Specht and Courtney persuasively demonstrate, if social work continues to drift in this direction there is good reason to expect that the profession will be entirely engulfed by psychotherapy within the next twenty years, leaving a huge gap in the provision of social services traditionally filled by social workers. The authors examine the waste of public funds this trend occasions, as social workers educated with public money abandon community service in increasing numbers.

The Place of Tolerance in Islam


Khaled Abou El Fadl - 2002
    Injunctions to violence against nonbelievers stem from misreadings of the Qur'an, he claims, and even jihad, or so-called holy war, has no basis in Qur'anic text or Muslim theology but instead grew out of social and political conflict.Many of Abou El Fadl's respondents think differently. Some contend that his brand of Islam will only appeal to Westerners and students in "liberal divinity schools" and that serious religious dialogue in the Muslim world requires dramatic political reforms. Other respondents argue that theological debates are irrelevant and that our focus should be on Western sabotage of such reforms. Still others argue that calls for Islamic "tolerance" betray the Qur'anic injunction for Muslims to struggle against their oppressors.The debate underscores an enduring challenge posed by religious morality in a pluralistic age: how can we preserve deep religious conviction while participating in what Abou El Fadl calls "a collective enterprise of goodness" that cuts across confessional differences?With contributions from Tariq Ali, Milton Viorst, and John Esposito, and others.

The World and a Very Small Place in Africa: A History of Globalization in Niumi, the Gambia


Donald R. Wright - 1997
    In addition to covering the standard elements of economic, social, and political history, he has incorporated newer concerns in world and African history such as transnational and cross-cultural influences, environmental and biological issues, matters pertaining to women, and the effects of globalization on the world's poor. The first edition appeared in 1997; the second benefits from his 2003 visit to the region.

Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples


Linda Tuhiwai Smith - 1999
    Here, an indigenous researcher issues a clarion call for the decolonization of research methods.The book is divided into two parts. In the first, the author critically examines the historical and philosophical base of Western research. Extending the work of Foucault, she explores the intersections of imperialism, knowledge and research, and the different ways in which imperialism is embedded in disciplines of knowledge and methodologies as 'regimes of truth'. Providing a history of knowledge from the Enlightenment to Postcoloniality, she also discusses the fate of concepts such as 'discovery, 'claiming' and 'naming' through which the west has incorporated and continues to incorporate the indigenous world within its own web.The second part of the book meets the urgent need for people who are carrying out their own research projects, for literature which validates their frustrations in dealing with various western paradigms, academic traditions and methodologies, which continue to position the indigenous as 'Other'. In setting an agenda for planning and implementing indigenous research, the author shows how such programmes are part of the wider project of reclaiming control over indigenous ways of knowing and being.Exploring the broad range of issues which have confronted, and continue to confront, indigenous peoples, in their encounters with western knowledge, this book also sets a standard for truly emancipatory research. It brilliantly demonstrates that "when indigenous peoples become the researchers and not merely the researched, the activity of research is transformed."

The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution


C.L.R. James - 1938
    It is the story of the French colony of San Domingo, a place where the brutality of master toward slave was commonplace and ingeniously refined. And it is the story of a barely literate slave named Toussaint L'Ouverture, who led the black people of San Domingo in a successful struggle against successive invasions by overwhelming French, Spanish, and English forces and in the process helped form the first independent nation in the Caribbean.

Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India


Bernard S. Cohn - 1996
    His earlier publications have shown how dramatic British innovations in India, including revenue and legal systems, led to fundamental structural changes in Indian social relations. This collection of his writings in the last fifteen years discusses areas in which the colonial impact has generally been overlooked. The essays form a multifaceted exploration of the ways in which the British discovery, collection, and codification of information about Indian society contributed to colonial cultural hegemony and political control.Cohn argues that the British Orientalists' study of Indian languages was important to the colonial project of control and command. He also asserts that an arena of colonial power that seemed most benign and most susceptible to indigenous influences--mostly law--in fact became responsible for the institutional reactivation of peculiarly British notions about how to regulate a colonial society made up of others. He shows how the very Orientalist imagination that led to brilliant antiquarian collections, archaeological finds, and photographic forays were in fact forms of constructing an India that could be better packaged, inferiorized, and ruled. A final essay on cloth suggests how clothes have been part of the history of both colonialism and anticolonialism.

3,000 Solved Problems in Physics


Alvin Halpern - 1988
    Contains 3000 solved problems with solutions, solved problems; an index to help you quickly locate the types of problems you want to solve; problems like those you'll find on your exams; techniques for choosing the correct approach to problems; and guidance toward efficient solutions.

The Major Works


Anselm of Canterbury
    He considered the doctrines of faith an invitation to question, to think, and to learn; and he devoted his life to confronting and understanding the most elusive aspects of Christianity. His writings on matters such as free will, the nature of truth, and the existence of God make Anselm one of the greatest theologians and philosophers in history, and this translation provides readers with their first opportunity to read his most important works within a single volume.

The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War


Greg Grandin - 2004
    The Last Colonial Massacre challenges these views.Using Guatemala as a case study, Greg Grandin argues that the Cold War in Latin America was a struggle not between American liberalism and Soviet Communism but between two visions of democracy. The main effect of United States intervention in Latin America, Grandin shows, was not the containment of Communism but the elimination of home-grown concepts of social democracy.Through unprecedented archival research and gripping personal testimonies, Grandin uncovers the hidden history of the Latin American Cold War: of hidebound reactionaries intent on holding on to their own power and privilege; of Mayan Marxists, blending indigenous notions of justice with universal ideas of freedom and equality; and of a United States supporting new styles of state terror throughout the continent. Drawing from declassified U.S. documents, Grandin exposes Washington's involvement in the 1966 secret execution of more than thirty Guatemalan leftists, which, he argues, prefigured the later wave of disappearances in Chile and Argentina.Impassioned but judicious, The Last Colonial Massacre is history of the highest order—a work that will dramatically recast our understanding of Latin American politics and the triumphal role of the United States in the Cold War and beyond.

The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups


Mancur Olson - 1965
    Applying economic analysis to the subjects of the political scientist, sociologist, and economist, Mancur Olson examines the extent to which the individuals that share a common interest find it in their individual interest to bear the costs of the organizational effort.The theory shows that most organizations produce what the economist calls "public goods"--goods or services that are available to every member, whether or not he has borne any of the costs of providing them. Economists have long understood that defense, law, and order were public goods that could not be marketed to individuals, and that taxation was necessary. They have not, however, taken account of the fact that private as well as governmental organizations produce public goods.The services the labor union provides for the worker it represents, or the benefits a lobby obtains for the group it represents, are public goods: they automatically go to every individual in the group, whether or not he helped bear the costs. It follows that, just as governments require compulsory taxation, many large private organizations require special (and sometimes coercive) devices to obtain the resources they need. This is not true of smaller organizations for, as this book shows, small and large organizations support themselves in entirely different ways. The theory indicates that, though small groups can act to further their interest much more easily than large ones, they will tend to devote too few resources to the satisfaction of their common interests, and that there is a surprising tendency for the "lesser" members of the small group to exploit the "greater" members by making them bear a disproportionate share of the burden of any group action.All of the theory in the book is in Chapter 1; the remaining chapters contain empirical and historical evidence of the theory's relevance to labor unions, pressure groups, corporations, and Marxian class action.