Biography: philosophy and social sciences Books

Book SynopsisThis concise biography tells the story of Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner who devoted her life to campaigning for environmental conservation, sustainable development, democracy, human rights, gender equality, and the eradication of poverty.

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Book SynopsisTranslated from German, this exhaustive exploration of Fechner's impact on philosophy and science is an invaluable historical text.Trade ReviewA brilliant book. . . . No historian of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century German science and philosophy can afford to ignore it."" - British Journal for the History of Science

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Book SynopsisPlutarch’s Life of Cicero is one of his greatest works. A valuable historical document, largely based on contemporary sources, it also gives a perceptive analysis of Cicero’s character and psychology. This edition aims at a wide audience, from first-time readers to specialists. Greek text with facing translation, introduction and commentary.Trade Review“Useful and comprehensive introduction... a piece of work both scholarly and useful.”Classical Review“It is unusually good at providing material at all levels: an excellent introduction to Plutarch for beginners, it is also much more quoted than most other volumes in the series because of its contributions to scholarship (his discussion of the concept of ‘truth’ is especially noteworthy).”HistosTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction 1. Using this book 2. The Pleasures and Virtues of Plutarch 3. The Cicero: Structure and Theme 4. Word Patterns 5. Translation 6. Complexity and Intent 7. The Demosthenes-Cicero Pairing 8. The Sources of the Cicero 9. The Cicero: Biography, History, Literature and Truth 10. The Historical Value of the Cicero 11. The Text Text and Translation The Commentary Abbreviations Index

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Book SynopsisA story of growing up in turmoil, of a childhood split between a charming, mercurial, abusive father in the forests of the Pacific Northwest and a mother struggling with poverty in The Dalles. It is also a story of generational turmoil, of violent men, societal restrictions, of children not always chosen and often raised alone.Trade Review“The title of Tina Ontiveros' new memoir, rough house, says it all, describing both the delight of her clever father and his menacing flip-side. Ontiveros pulls no punches in portraying a hardscrabble childhood in Pacific Northwest logging camps and her desperate love for a darkly complicated man."- Debra Gwartney, author of I am a Stranger Here Myself;"In spite of her struggle, there is something so plucky and honest about this book's narrator, you will be converted to a new view of your own troubles. You will look at your own life through the lens of this book, knowing with Ontiveros that "certain beauties can only be seen in the complication of hardship." This kid's got the goods to survive, and this book's got a big story for you."- Kim Stafford, author of Singer Come from Afar

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Book SynopsisStephany Wilkes tells not only her own story, but also that of American wool. What begins as a knitter’s search for local yarn becomes a dirty, unlikely, and irresistible side job. Wilkes become a certified sheep shearer and wool classer, working at the very first step in the textile supply chain, ultimately leaving her high-tech job for a new way of life considered long dead in the American West.

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Book SynopsisVan Berkel's account provides a new and comprehensive interpretation of the origins of the mechanical philosophy of nature, the philosophy that culminated in the work of Isaac Newton.Trade ReviewThis is an exceedingly rich book... it should be mandatory reading for anyone interested in the origins of modern science. -- Richard T. W. Arthur HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science Van Berkel has uncovered the rich content and historical significance of Beeckman and his journal. -- Fokko Jan Dijksterhuis Metascience Van Berkel has done an admirable job of recreating Beeckman's life and helping us to understand his development and his place in the progress of science in the seventeenth century. -- Sheila J. Rabin Sixteenth Century Journal A thoroughly researched... study of Beeckman's life and scientific achievements. -- Antonio Clericuzio The British Journal for the History of Science In the present book Van Berkel succeeds in revealing the context as well as the content of Beeckman's life and scholarly work... An important contribution to the history of the new science of the seventeenth century, and is a must for every scholar of this period. Renaissance Quarterly ... Van Berkel's book is an important contribution to our understanding of early modern natural philosophy. Early Science and MedicineTable of ContentsPrefaceIntroduction1. The Making of a Natural Philosopher, 1588–16192. Schoolteacher and Craftsman, 1619–16273. Among Patricians and Philosophers, 1627–16374. Principles of Mechanical Philosophy I: Matter5. Principles of Mechanical Philosophy II: Motion6. Sources for a Mechanical Philosophy7. Beeckman and the Scientific RevolutionNotesBibliographic EssayIndex

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Book SynopsisOriginally published in 1985. The second volume of Victor Lowe's definitive work on Alfred North Whitehead completes the biography of one of the twentieth century's most influential yet least understood philosophers. In 1910 Whitehead abruptly ended his thirty-year association with Trinity College of Cambridge and moved to London. The intellectual and personal restlessness that precipitated this move ultimately led Whiteheadat the age of sixty-threeto settle in America and change the focus of his work from mathematics to philosophy. Volume 2 of Alfred North Whitehead: The Man and His Work follows Whitehead's journey to the United States and analyzes his expanding intellectual life. Although Whitehead wrote philosophy based on natural science while still in London, he began his most important work shortly after moving to Harvard in 1924. Science and the Modern World appeared in 1925, Religion in the Making in 1926, Symbolism in 1927, and Process and Reality in 1929. Discussing these andTrade ReviewA very readable biography of one of the twentieth century's most powerful philosophers.—IsisTable of ContentsPrefaceChapter 1. IntroductionChapter 2. The WhiteheadsChapter 3. ChildhoodChapter 4. SherborneChapter 5. Student at CambridgeChapter 6. Mathematics at CambridgeChapter 7. The Cambridge ApostlesChapter 8. The Young Mathematician Chapter 9. Whitehead's Thirtieth YearChapter 10. The Married MathematicianChapter 11. Bertrand RussellChapter 12. Principia MathematicaChapter 13. Principia Mathematica (Continued)Chapter 14. "On Mathematical Concepts of the Material World"Chapter 15. Last Years in CambridgeNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisPeruvian Victor Raul Haya de la Torre (1895-1979) was one of Latin America's key revolutionary leaders, well known across national boundaries. Inigo Garcia-Bryce's biography of Haya chronicles his political odyssey as founder of the influential American Popular Revolutionary Alliance, as a political theorist whose philosophy shifted from Marxism to democracy, and as a seasoned opposition figure.

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Book SynopsisIn this fascinating work, K. Stephen Prince sheds fresh light on both the history of the Robert Charles riots and the practice of history-writing itself. He reveals evidence of intentional erasures, both in the ways the riot and its aftermath were chronicled and in the ways stories were silenced or purposefully obscured.

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Book SynopsisThis probing study of the career, works, and influence of Ernst Cassirer -- a German-Jewish neo-Kantian who taught at the University of Hamburg until Hitler came to power -- analyses his thoughts on human culture as they developed during the turbulent political and cultural conditions in the Germany of his time. The most striking characteristic for Cassirer's life and work was his belief in the freedom of the individual and in the necessary connection between individual freedom and the primacy of reason in human history. Cassirer wanted to pass on his contemporaries the courage to use their own reason. His failure to create the lasting world view based on these ideas reflected a dilemma confronting many liberal intellectuals on the European continent. The author examines several distinct phases in Cassirer's career. Part I deals with Cassirer as a philosopher of Imperial Germany and examines his early neo-Kantian writings (1899-1914). Part 2 covers the years 1914-22 and the reorien

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Book SynopsisIn This Fish Is FowlXu Xi offers the transnational and feminist perspective of a contemporary“glocalized” American life. Xu’s quirky, darkly comic, and obsessively personal essays emerge from her diverse professional career as a writer, business executive, entrepreneur, and educator. From her origins in Hong Kong as an Indonesian of Chinese descent to her U.S. citizenship and multiple countries of residence, she writes her way around the globe. Caring for her mother with Alzheimer’s in Hong Kong becomes the rhythmic accompaniment to an enforced, long-term, long-distance relationship with her partner and home in New York. In between Xu reflects on all her selves, which are defined by those myriad monikers of existence. As an author who began life as a novelist and fiction writer, she also considers the nature of genre, which snakes its way through these essays. In her linguistic trip across the comic tragedy that is globalism, she wonders Trade Review"A whirlwind, wise introduction to the complicated joys of multiculturalism, This Fish Is Fowl is intensely personal yet fully engaged with the world, celebrating our differences as well as our shared universal experiences."—Foreword Reviews, starred"Broad-ranging, introspective, and honest essays that reveal a fine writer's experiences, mind, and heart."—Kirkus"Throughout these broad-ranging and honest essays, Xi wonders about humanity and the future of our world. She explores her cultural and family identity as well as past experiences. . . . Xi reminds us of the true meanings of identity and belonging, while celebrating all our differences."—Anita Nham, Hippocampus Magazine“There is absolutely no one like Xu Xi. To read these smart, inventive, and always surprising essays is to be given a passport to a transnational perspective the world sorely needs at this moment. Xu Xi’s sense of identity: Indonesian/Chinese/American/Hong Kong is not mixed up (though she likes to label herself a ‘mongrel’), but expansive. Identity for her has almost nothing to do with borders but with a kind of echolocation—sending forth her speculations on what it means to be a traveler, a daughter, a life partner, a woman in order to determine a shifting but remarkable path through geographies of being.”—Robin Hemley, founder of NonfictioNOW and author of A Field Guide for Immersion Writing“In an age of willful ignorance, parochialism, and a dominant prose style typified by misspelled tweets, Xu Xi’s writing is smart, international, and fluid. She navigates smoothly between not only countries and continents but, perhaps hardest of all, family members. Here the personal isn’t just political; it’s global. And, most important, deeply compassionate.”—Sue William Silverman, author of The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew“This Fish is Fowl: Essays of Being explores the life of one whose shredded passport is never large enough to hold it all. Woven into skillful family story are topics ranging from the status of Dreamers in the U.S. to the ‘crying city’ of Hong Kong after the Occupy Movement, all dancing around the question of what it means to belong. With so many countries gripped by a new and brutal nationalism, Xu Xi reminds us there is another side—a world lived by many between a blur of borders. Part breezy, leaping memoir, part social commentary, this book adds a crucial chapter to the old story of national identity.”—Susanne Antonetta, author of Make Me a Mother and A Mind ApartTable of ContentsList of Illustrations AcknowledgmentsOn Being To Be American Why I Stopped Being Chinese Citizenship BG: The Significant Years Default Home Letter from America Winter Moon The Summers of My Discontent The Crying CityMum and Me Typhoon Mum Maternity Leave My Mother’s Story: The Fiction and Fact Mum and Me Precarious Precision Journeys through Past Times: A Norwich Narrative Home Base And Then, Filial Time Off-Season with Snake Waiting Women For As Long As We Both Shall LiveWo/man Roars Feminism and Faith On Being Fowl: Notes on Some Explorations in Home Economics Concubine LoveOrigins A Ledge, a Nun The English of My Story Ambition Game The Book That Saved My Writing Life To Loaf, or How Not to Write a CV This Door Is Close By Any Other Name

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Book SynopsisA monumental new biography of a pivotal yet poorly understood pioneer in modern philosophy. When a painter once told Goethe that he wanted to paint the most celebrated man of the age, Goethe directed him to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel worked from the credo: To philosophize is to learn to live freely. While he was slow and cautious in the development of his philosophy, his intellectual growth was like an odyssey of the mind, and, contrary to popular belief, his life was full of twists and turns, suspense and even danger. In this landmark biography, the philosopher Klaus Vieweg paints a new picture of the life and work of the most important representative of German idealism. His vivid portrait provides readers an intimate account of Hegel's times and the milieu in which he developed his thought, along with detailed, clear-sighted analyses of Hegel's four major works. What results is a new interpretation of Hegel through the lens of reason and freedom. Vieweg draws on extensive archival research that has brought to light a wealth of hitherto undiscovered documents and handwritten notes relating to Hegel's work, touching on Hegel's engagement with the leading thinkers and writers of his age: Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hölderlin, and others. Combatting clichés and misunderstandings about Hegel, Vieweg also offers a sustained defense of the philosopher's more progressive impulses. Highly praised upon its release in Germany as having set the new biographical standard, this monumental work emphasizes Hegel's relevance for today, depicting him as a vital figure in the history of philosophy.Trade Review"Vieweg's biography of Hegel is more than the best work in its field—it sets new standards for a book on Hegel and for a philosopher's biography as such. It magically unites a detailed knowledge about Hegel's life and work with a deep engagement in today's emancipatory struggle. It is not a historicist account of Hegel's work as the result of its time; it makes Hegel our own contemporary."—Slavoj Žižek, author of Hegel in A Wired Brain"This is a landmark in the 200-year literature on Hegel. Skillfully uncovering the complex strands of ideas and influences that the philosopher weaves together, Vieweg takes Hegel seriously as a living presence in our efforts to understand the world today."—James J. Sheehan, author of Where Have All the Soldiers Gone?"In a crystal clear and vivid style, as far as its subject matter allows, one can trace the development of Hegel's thinking, its roots and influences, but also its originality and, above all, its enduring political relevance."—Richard Kämmerlings, Die Welt"An extensive biography of Hegel has been missing for many decades. Thankfully, Klaus Vieweg now offers one that will be standard for years to come."—GNOSTIIKA"The indisputable value of Vieweg's treatment of Hegel is the paraphrastic intellectual history, his 'walk-throughs' of the main works. Each is a tour de force. For the student of any of these Hegelian works, Vieweg provides a reliable and focused guide."—Russell Berman, author of Fiction Sets You Free"In a clever and vivid way, Vieweg combines biographical and anecdotal elements... with systematic considerations, which however always follow Hegel's way of thinking."—Micha Brumlik, Die Tageszeitung"Vieweg's opulent biography sets standards and may remain unmatched for years to come."—Otto A. Böhmer, Frankfurter Rundschau"A great, often surprising biography."—Jens Bisky, Süddeutsche Zeitung"Klaus Vieweg's outstanding biography, based on original research and written with verve and imagination, rightly places freedom and reason at the center of Hegel's thought. It paints an engaging and colorful picture of one of the world's greatest thinkers."—Stephen Houlgate, author of Hegel on Being"Vieweg's new biography makes us understand how, paradoxically and dialectically, Hegel's personal experience of the frustrated early attempts at founding a German Republic can account for a philosophy enabling and encouraging life in freedom, independently of place and time."—Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, author of Prose of the World"In a bravura weaving together of a richly textured narrative of Hegel's incident-packed life, the tumultuous socio-political world in which he lived, and exuberant reconstructions of the four foundational works, Vieweg has produced an all but unanswerable case that Hegel was, from his youth until his last days, a philosopher of the French Revolution, forever loyal to its ideals and promises, and his system, then and now, the most compelling philosophy of freedom, social freedom, we possess. Scintillating and irreplaceable."—Jay Bernstein, author of Political ConceptsTable of ContentsAbbreviations Introduction To Philosophize Is to Think Freely, to Learn to Live Freely 1. The Beloved Hometown: Growing Up in Stuttgart, 1770–1788 2. A Student at the Protestant Seminary:Tübingen, 1788–1793 3. A Private Tutor of a Patrician Family: Switzerland, 1793–1796 4. From a Mosaic of Fragments to the Cornerstone of a System: Frankfurt, 1797–1800 5. The Birth of Absolute Idealism: Jena 1801–1807 6. The Political Journalist: Bamberg, 1807–1808 7. The First Humanistic Gymnasium and the Science of Logic: Nuremberg, 1808–1816 8. The Owl of Minerva on the Neckar: Heidelberg, 1816–1818 9. The "Great Center": Becoming World-Famous in Berlin, 1818–1831 Obituaries Acknowledgments Notes Index of Names

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Book SynopsisThis volume, the original version of which was published in 1988, brings to a close the autobiographical writings of a modern Christian philosopher who lived through the two World Wars and the ecclesiastical upheaval in the Catholic Church in the context of the Second Vatican Council. What stamps this philosopher throughout the course of his life – with all its social and political uncertainties – is his constant dedication to truth and his manifest unswerving integrity. Themes with which the reader of his previous works would be well acquainted recur in this volume. The dedicated Catholic philosopher, who preferred his independence as a trainer of teachers to the less independent role of a professor in a Catholic university, was quite prepared to criticize developments in the Church which resulted from Vatican II. In his defense of the sacred, which he deemed threatened by popularizing trends in the Church, he criticized what he saw as the watered down language in modern German translations of Church liturgical texts; the growing preference for secular garb; and the compromising developments which saw the sacramental signs – surrounding baptism, for instance – being reduced to such an extent that they no longer had the power to signify their sacred meaning even to a well-intentioned congregation. A great lover of the philosophy of Plato, Augustine, and Aquinas – among many others –, Pieper highlighted the need for living a life of truth. He did not consider truth to be merely something abstract but as something to be lived existentially. While he could explain his philosophy in clear rational terms, something which especially stood to him in his post-war lectures to eager students who were hungry for intellectual guidance and leadership, the great interest of his philosophy was, possibly, his preoccupation with mystery – that which impinges on our inner lives but frustrates all our attempts to account for it in purely rational terms. As a philosopher – one might say a Christian philosopher – Pieper seems to have observed the traditional boundaries drawn between philosophy and theology. His generation was exposed to the modernist debates in the Church. It would have been deemed heretical to say that the Divine could be grasped by our purely human thought processes – access to the Divine being only possible through faith and grace. Pieper was no heretic. But he was also not altogether conservative. In fact, his philosophy, closely allied to existentialism – despite his care, for instance, to distance himself from the negative existentialism of Sartre – focused on the individual’s inner existential grasp of the most profound reality. Truth is to be found within us, even if it remains a mystery. What lies beyond death is, for the individual, the ultimate mystery.

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Book SynopsisWhat does it mean to be instantly transformed into the most hated person in your community? After meeting Fidel Castro at a Havana reception in 1994, Cuban-born Magda Montiel Davis, founder of one of the largest immigration law firms in South Florida, soon found out. The reception - attended by hundreds of other Cuban ÉmigrÉs - was videotaped for historical archives. In a seconds-long clip, Fidel pecks the traditional protocol kiss on Montiel Davis's cheek as she thanks him for the social benefits conferred upon the Cuban people. The video, however, was mysteriously sold to U.S. reporters and aired incessantly throughout South Florida. Soon the encounter was an international cause cÉlÈbre.Life as she knew it was over for Montiel Davis and her family, including a father who worked with the CIA to topple Fidel, a nohablo-inglÉs mother who lived with the family, her five children, and her Jewish Brooklyn-born attorney husband. Kissing Fidel shares the sometimes dismal, sometimes comical realities of an ordinary citizen being thrown into a world of death threats, mob attacks, and terrorism.Trade Review“Kissing Fidel is most generous in how it treats the layered nuances of history; not just as fact, but as something that impacts the body, the landscape, the maze of the mind. I love how this work intersects, how it asks questions of both reader and self, with the understanding that there is no one clear answer. This is a rich and resonant text.”—Hanif Abdurraqib, judge, Iowa Prize for Literary Nonfiction “A powerful, terrifying vision of a dark political landscape unfamiliar to most Americans. After reading Kissing Fidel, I will never see Miami, or this country, quite the same way again.”—Kerry Howley, author, Thrown “In April 1994, Magda Montiel Davis was thrust into a maelstrom of injustice, violence, and bigotry. In this book she writes eloquently of the power drawn from her personal convictions, her family, and the colleagues who stood by her.”—Jean-Bertrand Aristide, former President of Haiti

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Book SynopsisA seminal work that combines ground-breaking philosophy with searing flights of memoir, Afropessimism presents the tenets of an increasingly influential intellectual movement that theorises blackness through the lens of perpetual slavery. Rather than interpreting slavery through a Marxist framework of class oppression, Frank B. Wilderson III, demonstrates that the social construct of slavery is hardly a relic of the past but an almost necessary force in our civilisation that flourishes today, and that Black struggles cannot be conflated with the experiences of any other oppressed group. In mellifluous prose, he juxtaposes his seemingly idyllic Minneapolis upbringing with the harshness later encountered, whether in Berkeley or Soweto. Afropessimism reverberates with wisdom and painful clarity in the fractured world we inhabit.Trade Review"Wilderson’s ambitious book offers its readers two great gifts. First, it strives mightily to make its pessimistic vision plausible. Anyone unconvinced by the vision may find this a dubious contribution, but enough people have been convinced by the view to make an accessible introduction to it a valuable resource just for understanding contemporary intellectual life. Second, the book depicts a remarkable life, lived with daring and sincerity. Afropessimismshares unvarnished glimpses of Wilderson’s childhood, his undergraduate years, his life as a worker and activist between stints in the academy, his graduate studies and their toll on his mental health, his personal relationships, and his experiences as an increasingly well-regarded academic." -- Paul C. Taylor - The Washington Post"There are crucial books that you don’t agree with, but one still comes to understand the importance of the thought experiment. Afropessimism is one of those books." -- Claudia Rankine, author of Citizen: An American Lyric

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Book SynopsisBalik-Tanaw: The Road Taken is the memoir of the distinguished Filipino critic, Soledad S. Reyes. This book is a record of Reyess journey of more than seven decades where personal narrative intertwines with people and events, with social and political movements with which the country sought to negotiate the treacherous shoals in the postwar years. The account carries a fair amount of biographical data (as lodged in the critics memory in the absence of diaries), from her childhood into her college years. But as the context becomes wider and more complex, the narrative takes on a more analytical frame as she tries to make sense of disparate experiences whirling about her in the tumult of the 1970s and beyond, and in the startling changes in the political landscape, local and global, that now grip the Filipino nation. This account, according to the author, is a story of an individual constructing a narrative that seeks to impose order upon chaos by retrieving aspects of the past and weaving a series of recalcitrant experiences into a coherent whole. Published in association with De La Salle University Publishing House

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Book SynopsisFrank Tannenbaum Outstanding Book Award from the American Society of Criminology​Faculty Senate Award for Research from Loyola University New Orleans​Out of the Red is one man’s pathbreaking story of how social forces and personal choices combined to deliver an unfortunate fate. After a childhood of poverty, institutional discrimination, violence, and being thrown away by the public education system, Bolden's life took him through the treacherous landscape of street gangs at the age of fourteen. The Bloods offered a sense of family, protection, excitement, and power. Incarcerated during the Texas prison boom, the teenage former gangster was thrust into a fight for survival as he navigated the perils of adult prison. As mass incarceration and prison gangs swallowed up youth like him, survival meant finding hope in a hopeless situation and carving a path to his own rehabilitation. Despite all odds, he forged a new path through education, ultimately achieving the seemingly impossible for a formerly incarcerated ex-gangbanger. Trade Review“Bolden provides a sobering account of gang life through a personal narrative that captures the realities of violence, victimization, adolescent frustrations, and systemic dysfunction in social institutions. He displays an enormous amount of courage by writing clearly about both his participation in violence and his firsthand experiences being either a victim of or witness to brutal crimes. He provides a thorough account of gang life in San Antonio and beyond.” -- Timothy Lauger * author of Real Gangstas: Legitimacy, Reputation, and Violence in the Intergang Environment *"Compelling and powerful, Out of the Red joins a small but important body of autoethnographic works on crime, victimization, and injustice. Seamlessly blending his life story and lived experience with scholarship on gangs, delinquency, and justice, Bolden offers a moving and rigorous assessment of the causes and consequences of social and legal inequalities in America." -- Jody Miller * Distinguished Professor, Rutgers School of Criminal Justice *"Tommy Tucker, First News," WWL Radio interview with Christian Bolden https://www.radio.com/wwl/blogs/tommy-tucker-wwl-first-news/tommy-why-do-some-break-bad * "Tommy Tucker, First News," WWL Radio *"Mr. Holland’s masterpiece: Resurrecting a life" https://clarionherald.org/news/mr-hollands-masterpiece-resurrecting-a-life * Clarion Herald *"The Reading Life: Tom Cooper, Christian Bolden" https://www.wwno.org/post/reading-life-tom-cooper-christian-bolden * The Reading Life, WWNO *"From Gang Member to PhD: Defying the Odds," by Isidoro Rodriguez https://thecrimereport.org/2020/11/04/from-gang-member-to-phd-defying-the-odds/ * The Crime Report *Table of ContentsContents List of Images List of Tables List of Figures Prologue Introduction Part I - Gangs Poverty Adultism Neighborhoods Bangin’ in San Antone Escalation Purgatory Part II - Prison Texas Hold ‘em Fellowship Between the Lines Transitions Wally World Starting from the Bottom Letters Part III - Redemption Outcast Freedom Pinnacles Acknowledgements Appendix - San Antonio Gang Member Interviews Index

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Book SynopsisWinner of the 2022 Memoir Prize for Books - Caregiving category​ESS Public Sociology Award​Recommended Book in Domestic Violence by DomesticShelters.org How do you go about caregiving for an ill and elderly parent with a lifelong history of abuse and control, intertwined with expressions of intense love and adoration? How do you reconcile the resulting ambivalence, fear, and anger? Welcome to Wherever We Are is a meditation on what we hold onto, what we let go of, how we remember others and ultimately how we’re remembered. Deborah Cohan shares her story of caring for her father, a man who was simultaneously loud, gentle, loving and cruel and whose brilliant career as an advertising executive included creating slogans like “Hey, how ‘bout a nice Hawaiian punch?” Wrestling with emotional extremes that characterize abusive relationships, Cohan shows how she navigated life with a man who was at once generous and affectionate, creating magical coat pockets filled with chocolate kisses when she was a little girl, yet who was also prone to searing, vicious remarks like “You’d make my life easier if you’d commit suicide.” In this gripping memoir, Cohan tells her unique personal story while also weaving in her expertise as a sociologist and domestic abuse counselor to address broader questions related to marriage, violence, divorce, only children, intimacy and loss. A story most of us can relate to as we reckon with past and future choices against the backdrop of complicated family dynamics, Welcome to Wherever We Are is about how we might come to live our own lives better amidst unpredictable changes through grief and healing.Questions for Discussion (https://d3tto5i5w9ogdd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/11140346/Cohan_Discussion.docx) Trade Review“With scrupulous honesty, and what Deborah so beautifully calls “tender curiosity,” this is a journey toward reconciliation with the ambivalence she felt towards an emotionally abusive father. She winds up with love. Her memoir is an inspiration.” -- Abigail Thomas * author of What Comes Next and How to Like It: A Memoir and A Three Dog Life *“Cohan’s beautifully-nuanced book is an important addition to a distinctly American strain of memoir that seeks to fully explore family dynamics with all of its complications, glories, travails, and facing of mortality. This is a slice of life that is both wide and deep.” -- Sue William Silverman * author of Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You *“Welcome to Wherever We Are is a memoir of a difficult family, a relationship between a father and a daughter. It involves abuse, dislike, love and a great deal of caring. It is a memoir, but one guided by the sociological lens of writer Deborah Cohan. She offers us a personal story set in the context of complicated family relationships in contemporary American society.” -- Barbara J. Risman * co-editor of Families as They Really Are *"Are we doing enough to protect children from predators?" by Gracie Bonds Staples: https://www.ajc.com/lifestyles/are-doing-enough-protect-children-from-predators/yOPwPpYM1VLO0dnWpGwFML/ * Atlanta Journal-Constitution *"How to Remodel Your Home With Your Significant Other—Without Arguing Even Once," by Kelsey Mulvey: https://www.realsimple.com/home-organizing/home-improvement/renovations/home-remodeling-couple * Real Simple *"Love the sinner, hate the sin: thus, unfurls Cohan's memoir. Fractional love and uncomfortable rage toward her father blend with her longing for his abusive behavior to disappear and leave only the often extraordinary father. Cohan's crystalline honest prose brings the reader inside the dilemma of caring for an aging parent who brought her torment laced with love and magic--what is it like to adore, fear, and protect yourself from the father you feared and cherished?" -- Randy Susan Meyers * author of The Murderer’s Daughters and Waisted *"An Open Letter to College Students about the Heartbeat Bill: Notes from a College Professor on Abortion" by Deborah J. Cohan, Ph.D.: https://medium.com/@debjcoh/an-open-letter-to-college-students-about-the-heartbeat-bill-notes-from-a-college-professor-on-63effdcabdb6 * Medium *"Deborah Cohan has written a brave and beautiful memoir….not ‘beautiful’ in the sense of pretty or lovely or sugarcoated in any way. Beautifully written, yes, but also beautiful in its raw, graphic honesty—that is, in the sense that truth is beauty. There is much hard-won wisdom in these pages--wisdom gleaned from Cohan’s years of caregiving for an abusive parent--and it will benefit those who find themselves navigating that rocky terrain. But this is also a story about life and death, love and loss, and the complicated nature of family and relationship. Which makes Welcome to Wherever We Are a universal story, one with wisdom for us all." -- Abby Seixas * author of Finding the Deep River Within *"How to Support an Employee Coming Out at Work," by Skye Schooley https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15141-employee-coming-out.html * Business News Daily *"The Society Pages 3Q with Deborah J. Cohan" https://thesocietypages.org/ccf/2019/08/06/3q-with-deborah-j-cohan/ * The Society Pages *"There Has to Be a Better Way," by Deborah J. Cohan https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2019/08/21/diversity-and-antiharassment-trainings-must-be-improved-opinion * Inside Higher Education *"The Most Anticipated Memoirs of 2020" by Stephanie Elliot https://shereads.com/most-anticipated-memoirs-of-2020/ * She Reads *"How to Write a Lot on a Heavy Teaching Load" by Deborah J. Cohan https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2019/12/05/how-write-more-regularly-and-publish-more-often-despite-having-heavy-teaching-load * Inside Higher Education *Mention of Welcome to Wherever We Are in the November 2019 issue of Active for Life http://scottvilleareaseniorcenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/November-2019-Working-Copy.pdf * Active for Life (Mason County, MI) *"Author Deborah J. Cohan: 'How To Connect With Yourself To Live With Better Relationships'" by Kristin Marquet https://medium.com/authority-magazine/author-deborah-j-cohan-how-to-connect-with-yourself-to-live-with-better-relationships-9113bf69603a * Authority Magazine *"Cohan tells her personal journey while weaving in her expertise as a sociologist and domestic abuse counselor to address broader questions related to marriage, violence, divorce, only children, intimacy and loss. Most people deal with at least one of these issues. The book explores how people could live better amidst unpredictable changes through grief and healing." * Cleveland Jewish News *"In this engrossing memoir, sociologist Deborah Cohan candidly describes her struggle caring for her aging father, who, as she was growing up, was at once kind and cruel. Undoubtedly, readers will be able to relate to Cohan’s explorations into the complexities of family, evolving relationships, and complicated emotions." * Ms. Magazine *"#GirlDad a nice sentiment but might come with mixed emotions" by Gracie Bonds Staples https://www.ajc.com/lifestyles/girldad-nice-sentiment-but-might-come-with-mixed-emotions/sSVEg8lX35QBA8FNsWjU0N/ * Atlanta Journal Constitution *"Author and Shaker Heights native Deborah J. Cohan to discuss her new book, 'Welcome to Wherever We Are'" by Roxanne Washington https://www.cleveland.com/living/2020/02/author-and-shaker-heights-native-deborah-j-cohan-to-discuss-her-new-book-welcome-to-wherever-we-are.html * Cleveland Plain Dealer *"Phone Calls: An Excerpt From Welcome To Wherever We Are by Deborah J. Cohan" https://www.ravishly.com/phone-calls-excerpt-welcome-wherever-we-are * Ravishly *"Cohan’s father was a story of opposites – abusive and controlling and also at times gentle and loving. When he gets sick and she must take care of him, she’s unsure how to manage her emotions. She must let go of her anger in order to help her father and to come to terms with her own grief to begin to heal." * She Reads *"Welcome to Wherever We Are is a brave memoir that sheds light on the challenges of caring for an abusive parent. This volume is bound to offer solace and support to those in similar situations. Deborah J. Cohan’s honesty and compassion make this a unique and valuable memoir for anyone who has survived abuse by a parent and struggles to make sense of the conflicting feelings of love and responsibility as well as anger and resentment toward their abuser." * Ms. Magazine *"Column: What if the elderly parent you’re caring for abused you as a child? New memoir explores a timely, complicated subject" by Heidi Stevens https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/heidi-stevens/ct-heidi-stevens-coronavirus-welcome-to-wherever-we-are-book-0331-20200331-hfnbmefz7jdffavxle5tpu6j7i-story.html? * Chicago Tribune *"This memoir of caretaking unspools so many of the complicated emotions wrapped up in helping a parent as they die. Writing about taking care of her father, Deborah J. Cohan details the realities of what it means to get sick and the toll it takes on the people around the ill person. A compassionate narrative, the book shows us how life doesn’t stop when we are providing care to sick loved ones — it only gets trickier." * Buzzfeed *"Both Sides of the Truth" by Deborah J. Cohan https://www.brandeis.edu/magazine/2020/summer/turning-points.html * Brandeis Magazine *"A Memoir Of Family, Caregiving and Redemption: 'Some Things Can Be Deleted, Just Often Not The Memory" by Deborah J. Cohan * Ms. Magazine *"In this gripping memoir, Cohan tells her unique personal story while also weaving in her expertise as a sociologist and domestic abuse counselor to address broader questions related to marriage, violence, divorce, only children, intimacy, and loss." * The Ohioana *"Cohan writes poetically about the love we share with others, even those who harm us. Yet, she never sees herself as a victim, rather, Cohan finds the courage to allow herself to be vulnerable, to break, and to find her way into strength and resilience. Her experiences evoke in her a deep compassion for others....As a public sociologist and former domestic abuse counselor, Cohan makes potent links between sociology and memoir. She draws parallels between memoir writing and qualitative research methods, specifically case studies." * Sociological Forum *"At the heart of this book is Cohan’s self-awareness that her father’s love and abuse were intertwined and her ongoing recovery from that confusing simultaneity led her to write this book. It is a rare author who can artfully write a memoir that is both personal and a deep sociological analysis of family and identity. This book is applicable to any sociology or psychology course yet will also appeal to memoir writers and readers who want an example of a compassionate treatment of a life that includes love, abuse, and ongoing recovery." * Psychology of Women Quarterly *“Welcome to Wherever We Are is the perfect illustration of the whole spectrum of intergenerational solidarity, conflict, and ambiguity within family relationships and ties during both life and death.” -- Sarah E. Patterson * Contexts *"In sum, Welcome to Wherever We Are centers the personal—the inner conflict that Cohan had with wanting to provide good care, be a good daughter, and still love an abusive father through continued abuse. It is a book about the contradictions in relationships, in care, and in abuse. While it significantly adds to the research on caregiving and family violence, it does not do so from a distance but breaks down the barriers between academic literature and our own personal experiences by weaving together intimate personal stories grounded in the larger social context. It is up close, personal, emotional, and messy." -- Christina Barmon * Association for Anthropology, Gerontology and the Life Course *Table of ContentsIntroduction Phone Calls The Diaries Messages Accidents Sugar The Dinner Table The Kaleidoscope Medical Records The Gold Pen The Volunteer Random Acts of Kindness Death Notice Obituary Ashes Birthday Letter Re-learning to Fly The Birth(day) Ring Worry Machine Change of Address Epilogue Acknowledgements

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Book SynopsisPutting admirable rationales of university education into practice is never easy. While it is popular to emphasize market values and competitive rankings, moral values and ideals sound way too lofty nowadays. Under tensions on campus and in society, the head of a university takes the role of striking a balance as skilfully as possible. Professor Joseph Sung is no exception to all these challenges. He has been enjoying university life with teachers and students, going through ups and downs with them. This book, a collection of 57 blog articles by Professor Sung during his tenure as the seventh Vice-Chancellor of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, tells us the stories. He talks about higher education and social responsibility, pathways and choices our youths make, the visions he had and the challenges he faced, and life values which he wishes his students could take seriously. Though generations come and go, he still cares that they live a simple, noble and humble life. He hopes we care too.

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Book SynopsisThese are stories about an average young man who grew up among talented people. These talented people "raised" him and so many others. We were exceptional in that we picked up their dreams for us and made them ours. We became the farmers, lawyers, doctors and teachers who made our town and South Georgia very special. This volume reminds us that dreams can come true. This was probably the last generation of teachers--mostly women--who opened the door of hope far wider than any of us had ever dreamed.We were among so many brilliant people. Regardless of where you grew up, you had teachers like them. For me, there were people like Mrs. Mitchell, Mrs. Crum, Coaches Davis and Tucker, Mrs. Agnew Andrews Brown, Mrs. Tabor and a host of others. Our parents gave us opportunities they never had. Every name in these pages made a huge difference in the lives they touched. Our world needs again and again what we found in our little country town. May those hearing these stories for the first, second or third time be inspired to tell them over and over again. They are your stories. Claim them.

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Book SynopsisThese are stories about an average young man who grew up among talented people. These talented people "raised" him and so many others. We were exceptional in that we picked up their dreams for us and made them ours. We became the farmers, lawyers, doctors and teachers who made our town and South Georgia very special. This volume reminds us that dreams can come true. This was probably the last generation of teachers--mostly women--who opened the door of hope far wider than any of us had ever dreamed.We were among so many brilliant people. Regardless of where you grew up, you had teachers like them. For me, there were people like Mrs. Mitchell, Mrs. Crum, Coaches Davis and Tucker, Mrs. Agnew Andrews Brown, Mrs. Tabor and a host of others. Our parents gave us opportunities they never had. Every name in these pages made a huge difference in the lives they touched. Our world needs again and again what we found in our little country town. May those hearing these stories for the first, second or third time be inspired to tell them over and over again. They are your stories. Claim them.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisLa apasionante historia de Cambridge Analytica y el Big Data. ¿Está realmente a salvo nuestra democracia tras la victoria de Trump? La dictadura de los datos revela cómo han utilizado nuestros datos y nos advierte cómo podrían volver a hacerlo. Saben lo que compras.   Brittany Kaiser, una novata asesora política especializada en Derechos Humanos y Relaciones Internacionales, creía que los datos recogidos y analizados por los smartphones y las redes sociales estaban en buenas manos hasta que conoció a Alexander Nix, el carismático líder de una nueva empresa de comunicación política llamada Cambridge Analytica. Lo que empezó siendo sólo un puesto de trabajo, pronto se convierte en una operación infame con el objetivo de ayudar a la elección de Trump o interferir en el referéndum que dio paso al Brexit. 

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Book SynopsisThe more we learn about psychedelics, the less we seem to understand them. . . . In this engrossing, sometimes hilarious, always dramatic chronicle, a neuropsychologist deflates the hype, explores the limitless possibilities, and reveals a much-needed perspective about psychedelics, giving us a scientist?s first-person experiment with ten different compounds in ten different settings. Once demonized and still largely illegal, psychedelic drugs are now officially a ?breakthrough therapy? in treating mental illness, used to heal trauma, conquer addiction, and enhance well-being. But as Andy Mitchell reveals, this approach to psychedelics is overhyped, and most importantly, neglects what is so unusual and valuable about them: the psychedelic experience itself.In Ten Trips, Mitchell takes ten different drugs in ten diverse locations?including a neuroimaging lab in London, the Columbian Andes, Silicon Valley and his friend?s basement kitchen?to document their remarkable effects. Along the way he encounters a cast of distinctive characters: scientists and gangsters, venture capitalists and philosophers, psychonauts and shamans, musicians, monks, therapists, poets, and conmen. His experience opens a doorway to psychedelics? full potential: for healing and trauma, for ecstatic one-ness and utter terror, for transcendence and corruption, for profundity and laughter.Mitchell argues that by removing psychedelics from their cultures and rituals, both indigenous and underground, we risk rejecting the expertise and the contexts which hold the key to understanding them?and from which their real benefits may derive. In the drive to standardize, control, and monetize the psychedelic experience, we may ultimately destroy what makes them potent: their ability to transform our whole perspective on mental health and reenchant us with the world.A hallucinogenic experience nearly as mind-blowing as actually taking psychedelics themselves, Ten Trips is Michael Pollan?s How to Change Your Mind written by Hunter S. Thompson with a PhD in neuroscience?a perception-altering odyssey that will change the way we see these substances and the world.

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Book SynopsisA soaring intellectual narrative starring the radical, brilliant, and provocative philosophers Simone de Beauvoir, Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil, and Ayn Rand by the critically acclaimed author of Time of the Magicians, Wolfram EilenbergerThe period from 1933 to 1943 was one of the darkest and most chaotic in human history, as the Second World War unfolded with unthinkable cruelty. It was also a crucial decade in the dramatic, intersecting lives of some of history’s greatest philosophers. There were four women, in particular, whose parallel ideas would come to dominate the twentieth century—at once in necessary dialogue and in striking contrast with one another.Simone de Beauvoir, already in a deep emotional and intellectual partnership with Jean-Paul Sartre, was laying the foundations for nothing less than the future of feminism. Born Alisa Rosenbaum in Saint Petersburg, Ayn Rand immigrated to the United States in 1926 and was honing one of the most politically influential voices of the twentieth century. Her novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged would reach the hearts and minds of millions of Americans in the decades to come, becoming canonical libertarian texts that continue to echo today among Silicon Valley’s tech elite. Hannah Arendt was developing some of today’s most important liberal ideas, culminating with the publication of The Origins of Totalitarianism and her arrival as a peerless intellectual celebrity. Perhaps the greatest thinker of all was a classmate of Beauvoir’s: Simone Weil, who turned away from fame to devote herself entirely to refugee aid and the resistance movement during the war. Ultimately, in 1943, she would starve to death in England, a martyr and true saint in the eyes of many.Few authors can synthesize gripping storytelling with sophisticated philosophy as Wolfram Eilenberger does. The Visionaries tells the story of four singular philosophers—indomitable women who were refugees and resistance fighters—each putting forward a vision of a truly free and open society at a time of authoritarianism and war.

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Book SynopsisFrom the internationally acclaimed artist, a stunning collection of portraits of ground-breaking women—Joan of Arc, Josephine Baker, Greta Thunberg, Misty Copeland, and many more history-making women whose names have been forgotten and are finally being brought to light. • With a Foreword by Roxane Gay. “This book, as a whole, offers the reader possibility and promise … You will be introduced to many of these women for the first time, because history is rarely kind to women until it is forced to be. You will learn about artists and activists, rulers and rebels.” —Roxane Gay, from the Foreword Original Sisters was born from the COVID-19 quarantine. In early March 2020, locked down in her home-studio in Toronto and longing for inspiration, artist Anita Kunz started researching women on the Internet. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but she soon found an array of astonishing people who had done amazing things—some of whom she had heard of, but most of whom she had not. And then she began to paint their pictures and write down their stories. The result is a jaw-dropping feat of historic and artistic research. The wide variety of lives, occupations, time periods, and achievements is absolutely mind-bending.   From Joan of Arc to Josephine Baker, from Hippolyta to Greta Thunberg, from Anne Frank to Misty Copeland: these women made and changed history. But there are just as many whom you’ve never heard of, who were never recognized in their lifetimes, whose achievements need to be brought to light. They include the anti-Nazi activist Sophie Scholl, who was executed at age twenty-one by the Third Reich, and Alice Ball, a young African American scientist who discovered a treatment for leprosy but died tragically before she could receive credit for it. This is not only a breathtaking art book. Original Sisters also recounts a secret history that must be told so that it is a secret no more.

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Book SynopsisA Washington Post best nonfiction book pick of 2021“It is biography as an expression of love.” – The New York TimesNew York Times–bestselling author Julie Klam’s funny and moving story of the Morris sisters, distant relations with mysterious pasts. Ever since she was young, Julie Klam has been fascinated by the Morris sisters, cousins of her grandmother. According to family lore, early in the twentieth century the sisters’ parents decided to move the family from Eastern Europe to Los Angeles so their father could become a movie director. On the way, their pregnant mother went into labor in St. Louis, where the baby was born and where their mother died. The father left the children in an orphanage and promised to send for them when he settled in California—a promise he never kept. One of the Morris sisters later became a successful Wall Street trader and advised Franklin Roosevelt

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Book SynopsisAn inspiring memoir that shows that anyone can achieve their dreams if they are willing to fight for them.On January 18, 1958 Willie O'Ree was finally called up to the NHL after years of toiling in the minors, joining the Boston Bruins. And when he stepped out onto the ice against the Montreal Canadiens, not only did he fulfil the childhood dream he shared with so many other Canadian kids, he did something that had never been done before: He broke hockey's colour barrier--just as his hero, Jackie Robinson, had done for baseball.     In that pioneering first NHL game, O'Ree proved that no one could stop him from being a hockey player. But he soon learned that he could never be just a hockey player. He would always be a Black player, with all that entails. There were ugly name-calling and stick-swinging incidents, and nights when the Bruins had to be escorted to their bus by the police.      But O'Ree never backed down. When he

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