The Jack-Roller helped to establish the life-history or "own story" as an important instrument of sociological research. The book remains as relevant today to the study and treatment of juvenile delinquency and maladjustment as it was when originally published in 1930.

    The book is remarkably short--just 150 pages--but bristles with ideas. Sykes argued that many of the psychological effects of modern prison are even more brutal than the physical cruelties of the past. The trauma of being designated one of the very worst human beings in the world left prisoners with lifelong scars. It also inspired solidarity among prisoners and fierce resistance to authorities as strategies for rejecting those who rejected them. His analysis called into question whether prisons genuinely were, as many believed, total institutions, where every facet of life was rigidly controlled. Sykes showed that the stronger the bonds among prisoners, the more difficult it was for prison guards to run the prisons without finding ways of accommodating the prisoners.The book set the stage for Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish, among other works. Since it appeared in 1958, it has served society as an indispensable text in coming to terms with the nature of modern power.

    At eighteen, fate would take his remaining family, sending him on the road with three hundred dollars and into the life of a Depression Era migrant worker, but his appetite for knowledge--history, science, mankind--remained and became the basis for his insights on human nature. Filled with timeless aphorisms and entertaining stories, Truth Imagined tracks Hoffer's years on the road, which served as the breeding ground for his most fertile thoughts.

    This groundbreaking book by the most influential philosopher since Sartre compels us to reevaluate our assumptions about all the ensuing reforms in the penal institutions of the West. For as he examines innovations that range from the abolition of torture to the institution of forced labor and the appearance of the modern penitentiary, Michel Foucault suggests that punishment has shifted its focus from the prisoner's body to the soul — and that our very concern with rehabilitation encourages and refines criminal activity.Lucidly reasoned and deftly marshaling a vast body of research, Discipline and Punish is a genuinely revolutionary book, whose implications extend beyond the prison to the minute power relations of our society.

    The dialectical framework, integrated throughout the book, is used as a lens to examine the relationship of these research traditions. This text is unique in its emphasis on the importance of histories, popular culture, and identities.

    How does the spectacle of the sufferings of others (via television or newspapers) affect us? Are viewers inured--or incited--to violence by the depiction of cruelty? In Regarding the Pain of Others, Sontag takes a fresh look at the representation of atrocity--from Goya's The Disasters of War to photographs of the American Civil War, lynchings of blacks in the South, and the Nazi death camps, to contemporary horrific images of Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Israel and Palestine, and New York City on September 11, 2001. In Regarding the Pain of Others Susan Sontag once again changes the way we think about the uses and meanings of images in our world, and offers an important reflection about how war itself is waged (and understood) in our time.Features an analysis of our numbed response to images of horror. This title alters our thinking about the uses and meanings of images, and about the nature of war, the limits of sympathy, and the obligations of conscience.

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

    Janell Carroll clearly conveys foundational biological and health issues, extensively cites both current and classic research, and addresses all material in a fresh and fun way; her book helps teach students what they need, and want, to know about sexuality. Her focus takes into account the social, religious, ethnic, racial, and cultural contexts of today's students. Dr. Carroll has used feedback from the first edition to add even further value to this popular title-streamlining student pedagogy and providing dynamic learning opportunities through Active Summaries at the end of chapters, a new online student tutorial, new video components, and content for Classroom Response Systems. This continues to be the text most representative of today's students, incorporating new sexual position art, a new pronunciation guide, and (for instructors) a new cross-cultural Slang Guide.

    Here, for the first time and in detail, Zimbardo tells the full story of the Stanford Prison Experiment, the landmark study in which a group of college-student volunteers was randomly divided into “guards” and “inmates” and then placed in a mock prison environment. Within a week, the study was abandoned, as ordinary college students were transformed into either brutal, sadistic guards or emotionally broken prisoners. By illuminating the psychological causes behind such disturbing metamorphoses, Zimbardo enables us to better understand a variety of harrowing phenomena, from corporate malfeasance to organized genocide to how once upstanding American soldiers came to abuse and torture Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib. He replaces the long-held notion of the “bad apple” with that of the “bad barrel”—the idea that the social setting and the system contaminate the individual, rather than the other way around.

    Drawing from his unique cultural vision, Žižek brings new light to the Paris riots of 2005; he questions the permissiveness of violence in philanthropy; in daring terms, he reflects on the powerful image and determination of contemporary terrorists.Violence, Žižek states, takes three forms--subjective (crime, terror), objective (racism, hate-speech, discrimination), and systemic (the catastrophic effects of economic and political systems)--and often one form of violence blunts our ability to see the others, raising complicated questions.Does the advent of capitalism and, indeed, civilization cause more violence than it prevents? Is there violence in the simple idea of "the neighbour"? And could the appropriate form of action against violence today simply be to contemplate, to think?Beginning with these and other equally contemplative questions, Žižek discusses the inherent violence of globalization, capitalism, fundamentalism, and language, in a work that will confirm his standing as one of our most erudite and incendiary modern thinkers.

    The book is divided into three sections: differing approaches to the study of security; the broadening and deepening of security; and a range of traditional and non-traditional issues that have emerged on the security agenda.The study of international security has undergone dramatic changes since the end of the Cold War. While war and the threat to use force is part of the security equation it is not exclusively so. Security studies encompasses dangers that range from pandemics, such as HIV/AIDS, and environmental degradation through to the more readily associated security concerns of direct violence, such as terrorism and inter-state armed conflict.Accessible and easy to use, Contemporary Security Studies is essential reading for all students new to international security.The book is accompanied by an Online Resource Center.Student resources:Case studies on the Iraq War, Zimbabwe, migration and North Korea Web links Multiple Choice Questions Flashcard glossaryLecturer resources:PowerPoint slides

    In her study of the state of modern humanity, Hannah Arendt considers humankind from the perspective of the actions of which it is capable. The problems Arendt identified then--diminishing human agency and political freedom; the paradox that as human powers increase through technological and humanistic inquiry, we are less equipped to control the consequences of our actions—continue to confront us today.

    In his gripping and controversial new work, New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows that despite the ceaseless news about war, crime, and terrorism, violence has actually been in decline over long stretches of history. Exploding myths about humankind's inherent violence and the curse of modernity, this ambitious book continues Pinker's exploration of the essence of human nature, mixing psychology and history to provide a remarkable picture of an increasingly enlightened world.

    It provides the basis of study for undergraduate students, new postgraduate students, and those who need a foundation knowledge of criminology for other relevant courses including access and foundation degree courses in colleges and universities, courses in law, probation, policing, criminal and forensic investigation and on other aspects of crime and the criminal justice system. Key points include:fully comprehensive covering all major areas of criminology and criminal justice as well as guidance on disseration/long-essay writing authoritative written by a leading criminologist and experienced teacher broad approach moves beyond sociological approaches to crime and criminal justice to take account of the contribution of other disciplines up-to-date informed by QAA subject benchmarks for the teaching of criminology extensively illustrated with photographs, charts, tables and diagrams and a range of questions for students to discuss and debate additional website support for students and teachers."

    In her most impassioned and personal book to date, Judith Butler responds in this profound appraisal of post-9/11 America to the current US policies to wage perpetual war, and calls for a deeper understanding of how mourning and violence might instead inspire solidarity and a quest for global justice.