Society and culture: general Books

Book SynopsisQuestion of Method in Cultural Studies brings together a group of scholars from across the social sciences and humanities to consider one of the most vexing issues confronting the proverbial 'anti-discipline' of cultural studies.Trade Review“White and Schwoch take on the challenge of delineating cultural studies methodology in this highly engaging collection. Leading scholars in the field scrutinize defining issues in theory and practice with penetrating insight. In seeking to forge a common ground for the field, this offers a major breakthrough.” Denise Bielby, University of California at Santa BarbaraTable of ContentsNotes on Contributors.. Acknowledgments.. 1. Introduction: The Questions of Method in Cultural Studies. (James Schwoch and Mimi White). . Part I: Space/Time/Objects. Introduction.. 2. From the Ordinary to the Concrete: Cultural Studies and the Politics of Scale. (Anna McCarthy)3. Raymond Williams’ Culture and Society as Research Method. (John Durham Peters). 4. “Read thy self.” Text, Audience, and Method in Cultural Studies. (John Hartley). . Part II: Production and Reception: The Politics of Knowledge. Introduction.. 5. Cultural Studies of Media Production: Critical Industrial Practice. (John Caldwell). 6. Feminism and the Politics of Method. (Joke Hermes). 7. Taking Audience Research into the Age of New Media: Old Problems and New Challenges. (Andrea Press and Sonia Livingstone). . Part III: Cultural Studies and Selected Disciplines: Anthropology, Sociology, Ethnomusicology, Popular Music Studies. Introduction. 8. Mixed and Rigorous Cultural Studies Methodology--an Oxymoron? (Micaela di Leonardo). 9. Is Globalization Undermining the Sacred Principles of Modernity? (Pertti Alasuutari). 10. Engagement through Alienation: Parallels of Paradox in World Music and Tourism in Sarawak, Malaysia. (Gini Gorlinski)11. For the Record: Interdisciplinarity, Cultural Studies and the Search for Method in Popular Music Studies. (Tim Anderson). Index.

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Book Synopsis* The first volume to present an accessible yet challenging overview of the changing geographies of state power under capitalism. * A unique, interdisciplinary collection of contributions by major theorists and analysts of state spatial restructuring in the current era.Trade Review"This useful and interesting reader addresses an emergent research agenda on the production and transformation of state space" Johanna Kantola, Univeristy of BristolTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: State Space in Question 1 Neil Brenner, Bob Jessop, Martin Jones, and Gordon MacLeod Part I Theoretical Foundations 27 1 Exploration, Cartography and the Modernization of State Power 29 Marcelo Escolar 2 The Autonomous Power of the State: Its Origins, Mechanisms and Results 53 Michael Mann 3 The Nation 65 Nicos Poulantzas 4 Space and the State 84 Henri Lefebvre 5 The State as Container: Territoriality in the Modern World-System 101 Peter J. Taylor Part II Remaking State Territorialities 115 6 The State of Globalization: Towards a Theory of State Transformation 117 Martin Shaw 7 The Rise of East Asia and the Withering Away of the Interstate System 131 Giovanni Arrighi 8 The Struggle over European Order: Transnational Class Agency in the Making of ``Embedded Neo-Liberalism'' 147 Bastiaan van Apeldoorn 9 The Imagined Economy: Mapping Transformations in the Contemporary State 165 Angus Cameron and Ronen Palan 10 Debordering the World of States: Toward a Multi-Level System in Europe and a Multi-Polity System in North America? Insights from Border Regions 185 Joachim K. Blatter 11 Rethinking Globalisation: Re-articulating the Spatial Scale and Temporal Horizons of Trans-Border Spaces 208 Ngai-Ling Sum Part III Reshaping Political Spaces 225 12 Remaking Scale: Competition and Cooperation in Pre-National and Post-National Europe 227 Neil Smith 13 The National and the Regional: Their Autonomy Vis-aÁ-Vis the Capitalist World Crisis 239 Alain Lipietz Government in Western Europe 256 Michael Keating 15 Globalization Makes States: Perspectives on Local Governance in the Age of the World City 278 Roger Keil 16 Cities and Citizenship 296 James Holston and Arjun Appadurai 17 Citizenship, Territoriality and the Gendered Construction of Difference 309 Nira Yuval-Davis 18 Shadows and Sovereigns 326 Carolyn Nordstrom Subject Index 344 Name Index 354

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Book SynopsisPresents an introduction to research methods in the social sciences. This book focuses on everyday life as a way to understand research methods. It covers ethics, data gathering and analysis, and statistics. It also includes reading lists, graphs, exercises, study questions, a glossary, and an annotated list of web resources.Trade Review“Janet Ruane has written the most lively and lucid introductory methods book I’ve ever read. The book is filled with contemporary examples that will engage the beginning student while providing a thorough and memorable grounding in the conduct of social research.” Edward J. Hackett, Arizona State University “Finally a well written, non-intimidating, down-to-earth beginners methods textbook. Ruane truly fills a void in the literature. Her book will delight both teachers and students.” Sophia P. Tsakraklides, Temple University “Essentials provides a basis for making research methods accessible and, more important, interesting to students. Ruane’s no-nonsense approach, real-life examples, and avoidance of jargon-laden explanations allow students to learn, understand, and appreciate research methods in spite of themselves …Great book!” Maureen Outlaw, Providence CollegeTable of ContentsList of Figures and Tables. Preface. Acknowledgements. 1. When Should We Trust What We Know? Why Research Methods?. 2. Ethics: It’s the Right Thing To Do. 3. Some Perfectly Valid Points: Measurement, Internal, and External Validity. 4. Measure By Measure—Making the Abstract Concrete. 5. If It Glitters Is It Gold? Assessing Measures. 6. One Thing Leads to Another: Causal Analysis. 7. Designing Ideas: Research Strategies. 8. An Informative Few:Sampling. 9. Our Inquisitive Nature: The Questionnaire. 10. Talking Heads: The Interview. 11. Watch and Learn: Field Research. 12. Getting Organized: Descriptive Statistics. 13. Beyond Description: Inferential Statistics. References. Web Resources. Index

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Book SynopsisPresents an introduction to research methods in the social sciences. This book focuses on everyday life as a way to understand research methods. It covers ethics, data gathering and analysis, and statistics.Trade Review“Janet Ruane has written the most lively and lucid introductory methods book I’ve ever read. The book is filled with contemporary examples that will engage the beginning student while providing a thorough and memorable grounding in the conduct of social research.” Edward J. Hackett, Arizona State University “Finally a well written, non-intimidating, down-to-earth beginners methods textbook. Ruane truly fills a void in the literature. Her book will delight both teachers and students.” Sophia P. Tsakraklides, Temple University “Essentials provides a basis for making research methods accessible and, more important, interesting to students. Ruane’s no-nonsense approach, real-life examples, and avoidance of jargon-laden explanations allow students to learn, understand, and appreciate research methods in spite of themselves …Great book!” Maureen Outlaw, Providence CollegeTable of ContentsList of Figures and Tables. Preface. Acknowledgements. 1. When Should We Trust What We Know? Why Research Methods?. 2. Ethics: It’s the Right Thing To Do. 3. Some Perfectly Valid Points: Measurement, Internal, and External Validity. 4. Measure By Measure—Making the Abstract Concrete. 5. If It Glitters Is It Gold? Assessing Measures. 6. One Thing Leads to Another: Causal Analysis. 7. Designing Ideas: Research Strategies. 8. An Informative Few:Sampling. 9. Our Inquisitive Nature: The Questionnaire. 10. Talking Heads: The Interview. 11. Watch and Learn: Field Research. 12. Getting Organized: Descriptive Statistics. 13. Beyond Description: Inferential Statistics. References. Web Resources. Index

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Book SynopsisA Companion to Literature in Film provides state--of--the--art research on world literature, film, and the complex theoretical relationship between them. 25 essays by international experts cover the most important topics in the study of literature and film adaptations.Trade Review“This volume stands as a model for consolidating studies of film and literature. It demonstrates that this field of intellectual inquiry, as it has developed over the last 15 years, encompasses the highbrow and the low; first and third world subject matter; issues of audience as well as authorship; and a commitment to interdisciplinarity. This collection will be useful for all kinds of readers: scholars, undergraduates, and all those who take seriously the pleasures provided by movies and novels.” Eric Smoodin, University of California at Davis “To anyone believing the discussion of novel-into-film had been exhausted a generation ago, A Companion to Literature and Film will come as a welcome surprise. Each of the twenty-five brilliantly argued case studies shows a level of conceptual clarity and interdisciplinary range that is astonishing. Scholars will find that this book bristles with ideas, while newcomers to the debates have an indispensable and expert guide.” Thomas Elsaesser, University of AmsterdamTable of ContentsList of Illustrations viii Notes on Contributors ix Preface xiv Acknowledgments xvi 1 Novels, Films, and the Word/Image Wars 1 Kamilla Elliott 2 Sacred Word, Profane Image: Theologies of Adaptation 23 Ella Shohat 3 Gospel Truth? From Cecil B. DeMille to Nicholas Ray 46 Pamela Grace 4 Transécriture and Narrative Mediatics: The Stakes of Intermediality 58 André Gaudreault and Philippe Marion 5 The Look: From Film to Novel. An Essay in Comparative Narratology 71 François Jost 6 Adaptation and Mis-adaptations: Film, Literature, and Social Discourses 81 Francesco Casetti 7 The Invisible Novelty: Film Adaptations in the 1910s 92 Yuri Tsivian 8 Italy and America: Pinocchio’s First Cinematic Trip 112 Raffaele De Berti 9 The Intertextuality of Early Cinema: A Prologue to Fantômas 127 Tom Gunning 10 Cosmopolitan Projections: World Literature on Chinese Screens 144 Zhang Zhen 11 The Rhetoric of Interruption 164 Allen S. Weiss 12 Visualizing the Voice: Joyce, Cinema, and the Politics of Vision 171 Luke Gibbons 13 Adapting Cinema to History: A Revolution in the Making 189 Dudley Andrew 14 Photographic Verismo, Cinematic Adaptation, and the Staging of a Neorealist Landscape 205 Noa Steimatsky 15 The Devil’s Parody: Horace McCoy’s Appropriation and Refiguration of Two Hollywood Musicals 229 Charles Musser 16 The Sociological Turn of Adaptation Studies: The Example of Film Noir 258 R. Barton Palmer 17 Adapting Farewell, My Lovely 278 William Luhr 18 Daphne du Maurier and Alfred Hitchcock 298 Richard Allen 19 Running Time: The Chronotope of The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner 326 Peter Hitchcock 20 From Libertinage to Eric Rohmer: Transcending “Adaptation” 343 Maria Tortajada 21 The Moment of Portraiture: Scorsese Reads Wharton 358 Brigitte Peucker 22 The Talented Poststructuralist: Hetero-masculinity, Gay Artifice, and Class Passing 368 Chris Straayer 23 From Bram Stoker’s Dracula to Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” 385 Margaret Montalbano 24 The Bible as Cultural Object(s) in Cinema 399 Gavriel Moses 25 All’s Wells that Ends Wells: Apocalypse and Empire in The War of the Worlds 423 Julian Cornell Index 448

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Book SynopsisLiterature and Film is a cornucopia of vibrant essays that chart the history and confluence of literature and film. It explores in detail a wide and international spectrum of novels and adaptations, bringing together the very latest scholarship in the field.Trade Review“Stam and Raengo's Literature and Film offers a wonderful collection of approaches to the multifaceted and sometimes contradictory relationship between the written word and the filmic image, bringing into the discussion a refreshing series of examples drawn from international and minority cinemas.” Richard Pea, Columbia UniversityTable of ContentsList of Illustrations viii Notes on Contributors ix Preface xiii Acknowledgments xv Introduction: The Theory and Practice of Adaptation 1 Robert Stam 1 Improvements and Reparations at Mansfield Park 53 Tim Watson 2 Keeping the Carcass in Motion: Adaptation and Transmutations of the National in The Last of the Mohicans 71 Jacquelyn Kilpatrick 3 The Discreet Charm of the Leisure Class: Terence Davies’s The House of Mirth 86 Richard Porton 4 In Search of Adaptation: Proust and Film 100 Melissa Anderson 5 The Grapes of Wrath: Thematic Emphasis through Visual Style 111 Vivian C. Sobchack 6 Cape Fear and Trembling: Familial Dread 126 Kirsten Thompson 7 The Carnival of Repression: German Left-wing Politics and The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum 148 Alexandra Seibel 8 Serial Time: Bluebeard in Stepford 163 Bliss Cua Lim 9 Boyz N the Hood Chronotopes: Spike Lee, Richard Price, and the Changing Authorship of Clockers 191 Paula J. Massood 10 Defusing the English Patient 208 Patrick Deer 11 Carnivals and Goldfish: History and Crisis in the Butcher Boy 233 Jessica Scarlata 12 Passion or Heartburn? The Uses of Humor in Esquivel’s and Arau’s Like Water for Chocolate 252 Dianna C. Niebylski 13 Beloved: The Adaptation of an American Slave Narrative 272 Mia Mask 14 Oral Traditions, Literature, and Cinema in Africa 295 Mbye Cham 15 Memory and History in the Politics of Adaptation: Revisiting the Partition of India in Tamas 313 Ranjani Mazumdar 16 The Written Scene: Writers as Figures of Cinematic Redemption 331 Paul Arthur Index 343

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Book SynopsisOffers an introduction to the diverse meanings of nationalism and its most important aspects. This title addresses the rise of nationalism in the US post-September 11. It brings together 'culturalist' and state-centered approaches to nationalism. It contains useful examples to illustrate key aspects of nationalism.Trade Review"Puri is particularly good at demonstrating the extent to which nationalisms are gendered ... The book is an interpretative essay that seeks to realign debate on its subject. In this it is challenging and interesting." Ethnic and Racial Studies "The book explicitly discusses the wide array of debates centered around the theme of nationalism and therefore acts as a work that provides a seminal undersatnding of the issue of nationalism." International Journal of Contemporary Sociology "This is a wonderful entry point for students and faculty trying to get a grip on the often slippery but politically fraught idea, and practice, of nationalism. Puri puts earlier discussions of nationalism into a post-September 11 focus. Moreover, she brings the ongoing debates about the nature and uses of nationalism up to date by showing how central to nationalism are presumptions about women, and sexuality." – Cynthia Enloe, Clark University "This is a thoughtful introduction to the field of nationalism. It successfully analyzes the gendered and sexual dimensions of nationalist projects, and contextualizes them within global, economic, and political relations of power during the colonial period and the present day." – Nira Yuval-Davis, University of East LondonTable of ContentsAcknowledgments. Introduction. Parades, Flags, and National Pride. Vexed Links: Perspectives on Nationalism, the State, and Modernity. Fraught Legacies: Nationalism, Colonialism, and Race. Redoubtable Essences: Nationalisms and Genders. Checking (Homo)Sexualities at the Nation’s Door: Nationalisms and Sexualities. In the Name of God, Community, and Country: Nationalisms, Ethnicity, and Religion. Conclusion. Speculations on the Future of Nationalisms. Index.

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Book SynopsisIn exploring the subject of nationalism, this work asks three broad questions: what do we mean by nationalism and what are its important cultural aspects?; why is it important to consider issues of nationalism from a critical viewpoint?; and what are the limitations of the construct of nationalism?Trade Review"Puri is particularly good at demonstrating the extent to which nationalisms are gendered ... The book is an interpretative essay that seeks to realign debate on its subject. In this it is challenging and interesting." Ethnic and Racial Studies "The book explicitly discusses the wide array of debates centered around the theme of nationalism and therefore acts as a work that provides a seminal undersatnding of the issue of nationalism." International Journal of Contemporary Sociology "This is a wonderful entry point for students and faculty trying to get a grip on the often slippery but politically fraught idea, and practice, of nationalism. Puri puts earlier discussions of nationalism into a post-September 11 focus. Moreover, she brings the ongoing debates about the nature and uses of nationalism up to date by showing how central to nationalism are presumptions about women, and sexuality." – Cynthia Enloe, Clark University "This is a thoughtful introduction to the field of nationalism. It successfully analyzes the gendered and sexual dimensions of nationalist projects, and contextualizes them within global, economic, and political relations of power during the colonial period and the present day." – Nira Yuval-Davis, University of East LondonTable of ContentsAcknowledgments. Introduction. Parades, Flags, and National Pride. Vexed Links: Perspectives on Nationalism, the State, and Modernity. Fraught Legacies: Nationalism, Colonialism, and Race. Redoubtable Essences: Nationalisms and Genders. Checking (Homo)Sexualities at the Nation’s Door: Nationalisms and Sexualities. In the Name of God, Community, and Country: Nationalisms, Ethnicity, and Religion. Conclusion. Speculations on the Future of Nationalisms. Index.

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Book SynopsisConsequentialism is a major approach to normative ethical theory, which considers the production of good and prevention of bad consequences the touchstone of the moral evaluation. This work brings together both the main classical sources and the central contemporary expressions of this position.Trade Review‘A judicious selection, which offers not only a broad view of the main lines of consequentialist thought and its history, but an insight into significant recent developments within the tradition, and some widely discussed objections to it.’ Roger Crisp, St Anne's College 'Darwall's collection is ideal for a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses in ethical theory in which consequentialism is a central topic. It contains generous excerpts from the main historical proponents of consequentialism and a well-chosen selection of contemporary expressions and discussions of consequentialism.’ David O. Brink, University of California, San DiegoTable of ContentsAcknowledgments. Introduction. Part I: Classical Sources:. 1. From An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation: Jeremy Bentham. 2. From Utilitarianism: John Stuart Mill. 3. From Dr Whewell on Moral Philosophy: John Stuart Mill. 4. From The Methods of Ethics: Henry Sidgwick. 5. From Principia Ethica: G. E. Moore. Part II: Contemporary Expressions:. 6. Consequentialism: Philip Pettit. 7. From The Rejection of Consequentialism: Samuel Scheffler. 8. From Reasons and Persons:Derek Parfit. 9. Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality: Peter Railton. 10. Bayesian Decision Theory and Utilitarian Ethics: John C. Harsanyi. 11. Toward a Credible Form of Utilitarianism: Richard B. Brandt. 12. Motive Utilitarianism: Robert Adams. Part III: Contemporary Discussion:. 13. Classical Utilitarianism: John Rawls. 14. Utilitarianism and Welfarism: Amartya Sen. Index.

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Book SynopsisContractualism/Contractarianism collects, for the first time, both major classical sources and central contemporary discussions of these important approaches to philosophical ethics. Edited and introduced by Stephen Darwall, these readings are essential for anyone interested in normative ethics. With a helpful introduction by Stephen Darwall, examines key topics in the contractarian and contractualist moral theory. Includes six contemporary essays which respond to the classic sources. Includes an insightful discussion of contractualism by Gary Watson. Includes classic excerpts by key figures such as Hobbes, Rousseau, and Kant, and recent reactions to this work by philosophers, including David Gauthier, Gilbert Harman, John Rawls, and T. M. Scanlon. Trade Review“Contractarianism/Contractualism is an extremely valuable collection of seminal works by the major representatives of the social contract tradition. The excellent texts are well chosen; together they provide a first-rate introduction to this important area of moral and political thought.” Samuel Freeman, University of Pennsylvania “One of the most interesting attempts to explain moral obligation traces it to a form of contract or agreement. Darwall's collection reprints classic attempts to offer this kind of explanation by Hobbes, Rousseau, and Kant, along with more recent versions. The volume not only brings out the power of this approach to morality, but also usefully distinguishes a number of important variations of contractarian and contractualist accounts.” Gilbert Harman, Princeton UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgments. Introduction. Part I: Classical Sources: Contactarianism:. 1. From Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes. Part II: Classical Sources: Contractualism:. 2. From The Social Contract: Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 3. From Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: Immanuel Kant. Part III: Contemporary Expressions: Contractarianism:. 4. "Why Contractarianism?": David Gauthier. 5. From Morals by Agreement: David Gauthier. 6. "Convention": Gilbert Harman. Part IV: Contemporary Expressions: Contractualism:. 7. From A Theory of Justice: John Rawls. 8. "Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory": John Rawls. 9. "Contractualism and Utilitarianism": T. M. Scanlon. Part V: Contemporary Discussion:. 10. "Some Considerations in Favor of Contractualism": Gary Watson. Index.

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Book SynopsisThis volume collects both the major classical sources and the central contemporary expressions of deontology. In addition to Kant, classical selections from Richard Price and W.D. Ross are included. Contemporary writers represented include Robert Nozick, Thomas Nagel and Stephen Darwall.Trade Review“This is a well-conceived collection, sensitive both to the history of the subject and to its more practical consequences. It is highly suitable for advanced undergraduate and graduate teaching. Nobody does this sort of thing better than Stephen Darwall.” Jonathan Dancy, University of Reading “Working out an approach to teaching deontology has traditionally been a process of making costly choices. It is a singular virtue of Darwall's thoughtful collection of readings that by including classical readings as well contemporary discussions, general rationales as well as specific cases, it frees us from the need to make these choices.” Paul Hurley, Pomona College "In this book we have an excellent investigation of anti-consequentialist discourse through a very appropriate selection of essays effecting an imaginative and profound expansion of deontology. It will prove to be a valuable collection for all academics and students ..." Dr Marianna Papastephanou "... in this book we have an excellent inverstigation of anti-consequentialist discourse through a very appropriate selection of essays effecting an imaginative and profound expansion of deontology. It will prove to be a valuable collection for all academics and students who are interested in current debates over moral duty, responsibility and their limits." Marianna Papastephanou, University of CyprusTable of ContentsIntroduction. Part I: Classical Sources:. 1. From Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: Immanuel Kant. 2. From The Metaphysics of Morals: Immanuel Kant. 3. 'On a Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy': Immanuel Kant. 4. From A Review of the Principal Questions in Morals: Richard Price. 5. From The Right and the Good: W. D. Ross. Part II: Contemporary Expressions:. 6. 'Moral Constraints and Moral Goals': Robert Nozick. 7. 'Agent-Relativity and Deontology': Thomas Nagel. 8. 'Agent-Centred Restrictions From the Inside Out': Stephen Darwall. 9. 'The Trolley Problem': Judith Thomson. 10. 'Harming Some to Save Others': Frances Kamm. 11. 'Actions, Intentions, and Consequences: The Doctrine of Double Effect': Warren Quinn. 12. 'The Right to Lie: Kant on Dealing with Evil': Christine Korsgaard. Index.

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Book Synopsis* Introduced by Stephen Darwall, this collection brings together classic and contemporary readings which define and advance the literature on virtue ethics. * Includes six essays which respond to the classic sources. * Includes a contemporary discussion on character and virtue by Gary Watson.Trade Review“Finally, here's a book that can get one well launched on the study of virtue ethics. Containing classical texts and groundbreaking contemporary essays, it reprints some of the great pivotal pieces that showcase the theory's appeal. Unlike other readers, it represents both the Aristotelian and sentiment-based virtue traditions. It is high time we had such a unique and useful collection available.” Rachel Cohon, The University at Albany, State University of New York Table of ContentsAcknowledgements vi Introduction 1 Part I Classical Sources 5 1 Aristotle From The Nicomachean Ethics 7 2 Francis Hutcheson From An Inquiry into the Original of Our Idea of Virtue 51 3 David Hume From Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals 63 Part II Contemporary Expressions 103 4 Philippa Foot Virtues and Vices 105 5 John McDowell Virtue and Reason 121 6 Alasdair MacIntyre The Nature of the Virtues 144 7 Annette Baier What Do women Want in a Moral Theory? 168 8 Rosalind Hursthouse Normative Virture Ethics 184 9 Michael Slote Agent-Based Virtue Ethics 203 Part III Contemporary Discussion 227 10 Gary Watson On the Primacy of Character 229 Index 251

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Book SynopsisBringing together the key essays that have constituted this field since its inception and that point the way toward its future, Theorizing Diaspora is a central resource for understanding diaspora as an emergent and contested theoretical space. Anthologizes the most influential and critically received essays that have shaped the trajectory of diaspora studies. Offers classic statements that have defined the field by scholars including Appadurai, Gilroy, Radhakrishnan, and Hall. Presents divergent strains of multiple diasporas, including Chinese, Black African, Jewish, South Asian, Latin American, and Caribbean. Reflects the modalities and methodologies of scholars across the humanities and social sciences. Includes a postscript on diaspora in cyberspace and an extensive bibliography. Trade Review"Diaspora is one of the most critically debated terms in contemporary discussions of migration and identity. Bringing together key essays in the field, this superb collection offers us a comprehensive overview of diaspora's past politics and potential futures. Above all, it reminds us that diaspora is a distinctly human phenomenon, involving the displacement, movement, and separation of peoples." David L. Eng, Columbia University "Theorizing Diaspora speaks not only to those previously colonized and oppressed Others who have relocated from There to Here, but discusses why deracination is a process that affects all constituencies: those in the newly inhabited metropolis as well as those who remain behind." Grant Farred, Duke UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgments. Nation, Migration, Globalization: Points Of Contention In Diaspora Studies. (Jana Evans Braziel And Anita Mannur). Part I: Modernity, Globalism, And Diaspora. 1. Disjuncture And Difference In The Global Cultural Economy. (Arjun Appadurai). 2. The Black Atlantic As A Counterculture Of Modernity. (Paul Gilroy). Additional Readings On Modernity, Globalism, And Diaspora. Part II: Ethnicity, Identity, And Diaspora. 3. Diaspora: Generational Ground Of Jewish Diaspora. (Daniel Boyarin And Jonathan Boyarin). 4. Ethnicity In An Age Of Diaspora. (R. Radhakrishnan). 5. Heterogeneity, Hybridity, Multiplicity: Making Asian American Differences. (Lisa Lowe). Additional Readings On Ethnicity, Identity, And Diaspora. Part III: Sexuality, Gender, And Diaspora. 6. Against The Lures Of Diaspora: Minority Discourse, Chinese Women And Intellectual Hegemony. (Rey Chow). 7. Returning(S): Relocating The Critical Feminist Auto-Ethnographer. (Jayne O. Ifekwunigwe). 8. In The Shadows Of Stonewall: Examining Gay Transnational Politics And The Diasporic Dilemma. (Martin F. Manalansan IV). Additional Readings In Sexuality, Gender, And Diaspora. Part IV: Cultural Production And Diaspora. 9. Cultural Identity And Diaspora Stuart Hall. 10. Diaspora Culture And The Dialogic Imagination. (Kobena Mercer). 11. Nostalgia, Desire, Diaspora: South Asian Sexualities In Motion. (Gayatri Gopinath). Additional Readings On Cultural Production And Diaspora. Post-Script: Cyber-Scapes And The Interfacing Of Diaspora. (Anita Mannur). Additional Readings On Diaspora And Cyberelectronics. Selected Bibliography of Works on Diaspora (Anita Mannur). Index.

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Book SynopsisAmerican Identities is a dazzling array of primary documents and critical essays culled from American history, literature, memoir, and popular culture that explore major currents and trends in American history from 1945 to the present. Charts the rich multiplicity of American identities through the different lenses of race, class, and gender, and shaped by common historical social processes such as migration, families, work, and war. Includes editorial introductions for the volume and for each reading, and study questions for each selection. Enables students to engage in the history-making process while developing the skills crucial to interpreting rich and enduring cultural texts. Accompanied by an instructor''s guide containing reading, viewing, and listening exercises, interview questions, bibliographies, time-lines, and sample excerpts of students'' family histories for course use. Trade Review“This unique collection has what students (and their teachers) will find absorbing, provocative, and useful in that perennial quest to locate ourselves in a world we may not have made but that we can understand and change.” Paul Lauter, Trinity CollegeTable of ContentsAlternative Contents by Genre x Preface: How to Use This Book xiii Acknowledgments xiv Introduction 1 PART I IDENTITY, FAMILY, AND MEMORY 6 Understanding Identity 1 Identities and Social Locations: Who Am I? Who Are My People? 8Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey American Families in Historical Perspective 2 What We Really Miss About the 1950s 17Stephanie Coontz Memory and Community 3 Generational Memory in an American Town 29John Bodnar 4 Growing Up Asian in America 39Kesaya E. Noda PART II WORLD WAR II AND THE POSTWAR ERA 1940–1960 46 World War II and American Families 5 War Babies 48Maria Fleming Tymoczko 6 From Citizen 13660 56Mine´ Okubo The Cold War and Domestic Politics 7 Containment at Home: Cold War, Warm Hearth 65Elaine Tyler May 8 The Problem That Has No Name 71Betty Friedan 9 The Civil Rights Revolution, 1945–1960 78William H. Chafe 10 From Like One of the Family: Conversations from a Domestic’s Life 84Alice Childress Family Migrations, Urban and Suburban 11 Songs of the Chicago Blues 90 12 Halfway to Dick and Jane: A Puerto Rican Pilgrimage 93Jack Agüeros 13 From Goodbye, Columbus 103Philip Roth PART III WAR AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, 1960–1975 112 The Civil Rights Movement 14 Letter from Birmingham City Jail 114Martin Luther King, Jr. 15 Message to the Grass Roots 119Malcolm X 16 Songs of the Civil Rights Movement 126 Student Activism 17 Port Huron Statement 130 Students for a Democratic Society 18 The Port Huron Statement at 40 134Tom Hayden and Richard Flacks The Vietnam War 19 From Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam 138Christian G. Appy 20 From Born on the Fourth of July 143Ron Kovic 21 From Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans 150Richard J. Ford III Black and Puerto Rican Power 22 Black Power: Its Need and Substance 158Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton 23 ‘‘Respect’’ 166Aretha Franklin 24 ‘‘Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud)’’ 168James Brown 25 13-Point Program and Platform 170Young Lords Party Women’s Lives, Women’s Rights 26 Sources of the Second Wave: The Rebirth of Feminism 174Sara M. Evans 27 NOW Bill of Rights 185National Organization for Women 28 The Liberation of Black Women 187Pauli Murray 29 Jessie Lopez De La Cruz: The Battle for Farmworkers’ Rights 192Ellen Cantarow The American Indian Movement 30 This Country Was a Lot Better Off When the Indians Were Running It 203Vine Deloria, Jr. The Occupation of Alcatraz Island 208Indians of All Tribes The Gay Liberation Movement 31 Gay Liberation 212John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman 32 The Fighting Irishman 218A. Damien Martin 33 The Drag Queen 226Rey ‘‘Sylvia Lee’’ Rivera The New American Right 34 From Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right 233Lisa McGirr PART IV A POSTINDUSTRIAL AND GLOBAL SOCIETY, 1975–2000 240 Deindustrializing America 35 From The Great U-Turn: Corporate Restructuring and the Polarizing of America 242Bennett Harrison and Barry Bluestone 36 From ‘‘It Ain’t No Sin To Be Glad You’re Alive’’: The Promise of Bruce Springsteen 249Eric Alterman 37 A Musical Representation of Work in Postindustrial America 254 38 Class in America: Myths and Realities (2000) 264Gregory Mantsios Marriage and Family: Modern and Postmodern 39 From Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood 272Kristin Luker 40 The Making and Unmaking of Modern Families 281Judith Stacey Multicultural America 41 From Jasmine 290Bharati Mukherjee 42 Growing Up Biracial and Bicultural 300Claudine Chiawei O’Hearn 43 From The Business of Fancydancing: Stories and Poems 305Sherman Alexie The United States as Borderlands 44 Through a Glass Darkly: Toward the Twenty-first Century 309Ronald Takaki 45 ‘‘To live in the Borderlands means you’’ 316Gloria Anzaldúa 46 From No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies 318Naomi Klein PART V THE FUTURE OF US ALL? 326 47 Brave New World: Gray Boys, Funky Aztecs, and Honorary Homegirls 328Lynell George 48 From The Future of Us All 335Roger Sanjek 49 The Society That Unions Can Build 348David Reynolds Text and Illustration Credits 359 Index 364

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Book SynopsisAmerican Identities is a dazzling array of primary documents and critical essays culled from American history, literature, memoir, and popular culture that explore major currents and trends in American history from 1945 to the present.Trade Review“This unique collection has what students (and their teachers) will find absorbing, provocative, and useful in that perennial quest to locate ourselves in a world we may not have made but that we can understand and change.” Paul Lauter, Trinity CollegeTable of ContentsAlternative Contents by Genre x Preface: How to Use This Book xiii Acknowledgments xiv Introduction 1 Part I Identity, Family, And Memory 6 Understanding Identity 1 Identities and Social Locations: Who Am I? Who Are My People? 8Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey American Families in Historical Perspective 2 What We Really Miss About the 1950s 17Stephanie Coontz Memory and Community 3 Generational Memory in an American Town 29John Bodnar 4 Growing Up Asian in America 39Kesaya E. Noda Part II World War II And The Postwar Era 1940–1960 46 World War II and American Families 5 War Babies 48Maria Fleming Tymoczko 6 From Citizen 13660 56Mine´ Okubo The Cold War and Domestic Politics 7 Containment at Home: Cold War, Warm Hearth 65Elaine Tyler May 8 The Problem That Has No Name 71Betty Friedan 9 The Civil Rights Revolution, 1945–1960 78William H. Chafe 10 From Like One of the Family: Conversations from a Domestic’s Life 84Alice Childress Family Migrations, Urban and Suburban 11 Songs of the Chicago Blues 90 12 Halfway to Dick and Jane: A Puerto Rican Pilgrimage 93Jack Agu¨eros 13 From Goodbye, Columbus 103Philip Roth Part III War And Social Movements, 1960–1975 112 The Civil Rights Movement 14 Letter from Birmingham City Jail 114Martin Luther King, Jr. 15 Message to the Grass Roots 119Malcolm X 16 Songs of the Civil Rights Movement 126 Student Activism 17 Port Huron Statement 130 Students for a Democratic Society 18 The Port Huron Statement at 40 134Tom Hayden and Richard Flacks The Vietnam War 19 From Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam 138Christian G. Appy 20 From Born on the Fourth of July 143Ron Kovic 21 From Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans 150Richard J. Ford III Black and Puerto Rican Power 22 Black Power: Its Need and Substance 158Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton 23 ‘‘Respect’’ 166Aretha Franklin 24 ‘‘Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud)’’ 168James Brown 25 13-Point Program and Platform 170Young Lords Party Women’s Lives, Women’s Rights 26 Sources of the Second Wave: The Rebirth of Feminism 174Sara M. Evans 27 Now Bill of Rights 185 National Organization for Women 28 The Liberation of Black Women 187Pauli Murray 29 Jessie Lopez De La Cruz: The Battle for Farmworkers’ Rights 192Ellen Cantarow The American Indian Movement 30 This Country Was a Lot Better Off When the Indians Were Running It 203Vine Deloria, Jr. The Occupation of Alcatraz Island 208 Indians of All Tribes The Gay Liberation Movement 31 Gay Liberation 212John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman 32 The Fighting Irishman 218 A. Damien Martin 33 The Drag Queen 226Rey ‘‘Sylvia Lee’’ Rivera The New American Right 34 From Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right 233Lisa McGirr Part IV A Postindustrial And Global Society, 1975–2000 240 Deindustrializing America 35 From The Great U-Turn: Corporate Restructuring and the Polarizing of America 242Bennett Harrison and Barry Bluestone 36 From ‘‘It Ain’t No Sin To Be Glad You’re Alive’’: The Promise of Bruce Springsteen 249Eric Alterman 37 A Musical Representation of Work in Postindustrial America 254 38 Class in America: Myths and Realities (2000) 264Gregory Mantsios Marriage and Family: Modern and Postmodern 39 From Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood 272Kristin Luker 40 The Making and Unmaking of Modern Families 281Judith Stacey Multicultural America 41 From Jasmine 290Bharati Mukherjee 42 Growing Up Biracial and Bicultural 300Claudine Chiawei O’Hearn 43 From The Business of Fancydancing: Stories and Poems 305Sherman Alexie The United States as Borderlands 44 Through a Glass Darkly: Toward the Twenty-first Century 309Ronald Takaki 45 ‘‘To live in the Borderlands means you’’ 316Gloria Anzaldu´a 46 From No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies 318Naomi Klein Part V The Future Of Us All? 326 47 Brave New World: Gray Boys, Funky Aztecs, and Honorary Homegirls 328Lynell George 48 From The Future of Us All 335Roger Sanjek 49 The Society That Unions Can Build 348David Reynolds Text and Illustration Credits 359 Index 364

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Book SynopsisA collection of essays that provides fresh perspectives in Asian media studies. It covers a diverse range of topics from media policy to globalization, using examples from various countries and media.Trade Review"With the publication of this volume, cultural studies begins to speak with a multiplicity of Asian accents, marking an excellent step towards meaningful and contrapuntal dialogues with those who have Anglo-American accents in the era of globalization." --Chin-Chuan Lee, City University of Hong Kong "This book represents a coming of age of critical media studies in Asia, and about Asia. Written by Asian authors who are attuned to the hegemonic power of both Western media and Western paradigms of media studies, this collection of essays outlays the complex landscape of Asian media scholarship in one of the most dynamic regions in the world today. What we find is that there are many Asias, shaped by the intersections of power and subordination, pessimism and optimism, hope and despair." --Ien Ang, University of Western Sydney "The mediascapes of Asia are among the most dynamic and exciting in the world right now, and the most politically vital. This absorbing collection does much more than explore the profound changes occurring in the region as transnational media flows intensify, different modes of historical and political consciousness form, and new subjective realities take shape. In doing all this with acuity and flair, it revitalizes media studies." --Meaghan Morris, Lingnan UniversityTable of ContentsNotes on Contributors. Acknowledgments. 1. Introduction: Our Asian Media Studies? (John Nguyet Erni, City University of Hong Kong and Siew Keng Chua, Nanyang Technological University). Part I: Moving In, Moving Out: Transnational Flows. 2. Discrepant Intimacy: Popular Culture Flows In East Asia (Koichi Iwabuchi, International Christian University). 3. Hook 'em Young: Mcadvertising And Kids In Singapore (Siew Keng Chua, Nanyang Technological University and Afshan Junaid, Nanyang Technological University). 4. Techno-Orientalization: The Asian VCD Experience (Kelly Hu, National Chung Cheng University). Part II: Moving Backward, Moving Forward: Histories And Politics. 5. The Struggle For Press Freedom And Emergence Of "Un-Elected" Media Power (Myungkoo Kang, Seoul National University). 6. "Forward-Looking" News?: Singapore's News 5 and the Marginalization of the Dissenting Voice (Sue Abel, University Of Auckland). 7. Beyond the Fragments: Reflecting On "Communicational" Cultural Studies in South Korea (Keehyeung Lee, Yonsei University). 8. Re-Advertising Hong Kong: Nostalgia Industry and Popular History (Eric Kit-Wai Ma, Chinese University Of Hong Kong). Part III: Moving Between: Formations Of Audiences And Subjectivities. 9. The Whole World is Watching Us: Music Television Audiences in India (Vamsee Juluri, University Of San Francisco). 10. From Variety Show To Body-Sculpting Commercials: Figures Of Audience and the Sexualization of Women/Girls (Irene Fang-Chih Yang, National Dong Hwa University). 11. Recuperating Malay Custom/Adat In Female Sexuality in Malaysian Films (Gaik Cheng Khoo, Asia Research Institute). 12. The Formation of a Queer Imagined Community in Post-Martial Law Taiwan (John Nguyet Erni and Anthony Spires, Yale University). Index.

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Book SynopsisA Companion to African-American Studies is an exciting and comprehensive re-appraisal of the history and future of African American studies. Contains original essays by expert contributors in the field of African-American Studies Creates a groundbreaking re-appraisal of the history and future of the field Includes a series of reflections from those who established African American Studies as a bona fide academic discipline Captures the dynamic interaction of African American Studies with other fields of inquiry. Trade Review“An excellent … resource … edited with an excellent introduction by Lewis R. Gordon and Jane Anna Gordon, which includes articles by a wide range of scholars that document the development of black studies in the United States and outline the trajectories of the field in all its multi-genre richness.” (Year's Work in English Studies, November 2008)Table of ContentsNotes on Contributors. Preface and Acknowledgments. Note on the Text. Introduction: On Working through a Most Difficult Terrain. (Lewis R. Gordon and Jane Anna Gordon). Part I: Stones That Former Builders Refused. 1. On My First Acquaintance with Black Studies: A Yale Story. (Houston Baker, Jr.). 2. Sustaining Africology: On the Creation and Development of a Discipline. (Molefi Kete Asante). 3. Dreams, Nightmares, and Realities: Afro-American Studies at Brown University, 1969-1986. (Rhett Jones). 4. Black Studies in the Whirlwind: A Retrospective View. (Charlotte Morgan-Cato). 5. From the Birth to a Mature Afro-American Studies at Harvard, 1969-2002. (Martin Kilson). 6. Black Studies and Ethnic Studies: The Crucible of Knowledge and Social Action. (Johnnella E. Butler). 7. A Debate on Activism in Black Studies. (Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Manning Marable). 8. Singing the Challenges: The Arts and Humanities as Collaborative Sites in African American Studies. (Herman Beavers). 9. On How We Mistook the Map for the Territory, and Re-Imprisoned Ourselves in Our Unbearable Wrongness of Being, of Desêtre: Black Studies Toward the Human Project. (Sylvia Wynter). 10. The New Auction Block: Blackness and the Marketplace. (Hazel V. Carby). 11. Black Studies, Black Professors, and the Struggles of Perception. (Nell Irvin Painter). 12. Autobiography of an Ex-White Man. (Robert Paul Wolff). Part II: Such Fertile Fields. . .. A The Blues Are Brewing . . . for a Humanistic Humanism. 13. Homage to Mistress Wheatley . (Rowan Ricardo Phillips). 14. Toni Cade Bambara's Those Bones Are Not My Child: Placing the Humanities at the Core of Black Studies. (Joyce Ann Joyce). 15. Jazz Consciousness. (Paul Austerlitz). B What Does It Mean to Be a Problem?. 16. Afro-American Studies and the Rise of African-American Philosophy. (Paget Henry). 17. Sociology and the African Diaspora Experience . (Tukufu Zuberi). 18. Suicide in Black and White: Theories and Statistics. (Alvin Poussaint and Amy Alexander). 19. Some Reflections on Challenges Posed to Social-Scientific Method by the Study of Race. (Jane Anna Gordon). 20. African-American Queer Studies . (David Ross Fryer). 21. Black Studies, Race, and Critical Race Theory: A Narrative Deconstruction of Law . (Clevis Headley). C Having Hitherto Interpreted the World, the Point is to Change It. 22. Unthinkable History?: Some Reflections on the Haitian Revolution, Historiography, and Modernity on the Periphery. (Sibylle Fischer). 23. Historical Consciousness in the Relation of African-American Studies to Modernity. (Stefan M. Wheelock). 24. An Emerging Mosaic: Rewriting Postwar African-American History. (Peniel E. Joseph). 25. Reflections on African-American Political Thought: The Many Rivers of Freedom. (B. Anthony Bogues). 26. Politics of Knowledge: Black Policy Professionals in the Managerial Age. (Floyd Hayes, III). D Not by Bread Alone. 27. From the Nile to the Niger: The Evolution of African Spiritual Concepts. (Charles Finch, III). 28. Three Rival Narratives of Black Religion. (William D. Hart). 29. Babel in the North: Black Migration, Moral Community, and the Ethics of Racial Authenticity. (Eddie S. Glaude, Jr). 30. Orienting Afro-American Judaism: A Critique of White Normativity in Literature on Black Jews in America. (Walter Isaac). Part III: Creolization and the Geography of Reason. 31. Playing with the Dark: The Deployment of Blackness and Brownness in the Africana and Latino Literary Imaginations. (Claudia M. Milian Arias). 32. Africana Studies: The International Context and Boundaries. (Anani Dzidzienyo). 33. Africana Thought and African-Diasporic Studies. (Lewis R. Gordon). Works Cited. Index.

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Book SynopsisDrawing on diverse research literature from the fields of anthropology, cultural studies, cultural geography, and media studies, Cultural Globalization: A User's Guide presents a new perspective through which to raise questions about globalization, a perspective framed by the concepts of territory, identity, and culture.Trade Review?There's no question that Wise's Cultural Globalization is a useful addition to cultural studies pedagogy.? (Reconstruction, March 2009) "MacGregor Wise?s meander through music and youth culture offers a vision of a free global sweet shop, in which fashionable kids can pick and mix their identities ... .A comparison of the manner in which the music press elevates certain types of 'world music' with British colonial approval of the Indian caste system provides ... originality." (Times Literary Supplement, February 2009) "I would not hesitate to recommend Cultural Globalization as a standard textbook for courses in media and cultural studies dealing with the nature and consequences of globalization. The book brings together complex theories in an accessible and elegant way, and provides a truly global and grounded view of creative processes and political battlefields. There is also strength in the fact that Wise advocates a perspective that accounts for the sedimented nature of all cultural expression."Table of ContentsPreface. Acknowledgments. 1. Culture at Home. Culture. Territory. Identity. Home. Ideology and Hegemony. 2. Culture and the Global. Non-Local Connections. Globalization. Global Flows. Form and Content, Local and Global. 3. Global Youth. Youth as a Contested Category. Constructing Youth. Surveillance and Youth. Global Youth. Core and Periphery. 4. Global Music. World Music and Cultural Imperialism. Global Flows of Music. Forms of Global Music. 5. Territories of Cultural Globalization. Faye Wong. Dick Lee. Panlatinidad. Audiotopias. Citizenship. Conclusion: Opening Windows. References. Index

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Book SynopsisDrawing on diverse research literature from the fields of anthropology, cultural studies, cultural geography, and media studies, Cultural Globalization: A User's Guide presents a new perspective through which to raise questions about globalization, a perspective framed by the concepts of territory, identity, and culture.Trade Review"MacGregor Wise’s meander through music and youth culture offers a vision of a free global sweet shop, in which fashionable kids can pick and mix their identities ... .A comparison of the manner in which the music press elevates certain types of 'world music' with British colonial approval of the Indian caste system provides ... originality." (Times Literary Supplement, February 2009)Table of ContentsPreface. Acknowledgments. 1. Culture at Home. Culture. Territory. Identity. Home. Ideology and Hegemony. 2. Culture and the Global. Non-Local Connections. Globalization. Global Flows. Form and Content, Local and Global. 3. Global Youth. Youth as a Contested Category. Constructing Youth. Surveillance and Youth. Global Youth. Core and Periphery. 4. Global Music. World Music and Cultural Imperialism. Global Flows of Music. Forms of Global Music. 5. Territories of Cultural Globalization. Faye Wong. Dick Lee. Panlatinidad. Audiotopias. Citizenship. Conclusion: Opening Windows. References. Index

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Book SynopsisMorality still matters, argues philosopher Roger Trigg, in this accessible introduction to moral thinking. * Written for general readers with no background in philosophy. * Argues that we need a shared moral vision in order to live together, both nationally and internationally.Trade Review" 'This is the book that should be given to every minister in the current government, to slow the silly progress of their social engineering projects.' This is good, clear, serious teaching, timely and relevant. For a comprehensive study of rights and law, the clash of ideals and competing claims, the demands of social and political groupings and how to decide between them in equity and justice, this is an admirable piece of sound writing. If you are a non-philosopher, you should end the book wiser ... " New Directions, November 2004 "In Morality Matters Roger Trigg takes his readers on a romp through classical and contemporary questions of moral philosophy and political theory. Trigg does not purport to provide all the answers. His gift is for raising the right questions in the right contexts and provoking us to think about them more and more deeply. Both specialists and general readers will find much of value in this book." Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University " ... there is quite a lot to be learned here. [Trigg] makes a very, very good case for the position that moral choices lie behind everything we do, that relativism can undermine our ability to talk or think rationally about moral choices, and that a greater focus on our moral values is a necessary condition to political, social, and personal progress." atheism.about.com "The book is accessible and can be recommended to all those who are interested in political ethics." Puleng LenkaBula, University of South Africa, Religion & TheologyTable of ContentsPreface. Introduction. Chapter 1 What is Natural?. Chapter 2 Human Nature and Natural Law. Chapter 3 Human Rights. Chapter 4 Natural Rights and Law. Chapter 5 The Rule of Law. Chapter 6 The Public and the Private. Chapter 7 Groups and Individuals. Chapter 8 Patriotism and Nationalism. Chapter 9 One World: A Global Ethic?. Chapter 10 Character and Principle. Chapter 11 Morality and Human Nature. Glossary. Bibliography. Index.

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Book SynopsisSuitable for general readers with no background in philosophy, this title argues that we need a shared moral vision in order to live together, both nationally and internationally. It stresses that private behaviour cannot be kept separate from public choices. It discusses matters of topical debate on both sides of the Atlantic.Trade Review" 'This is the book that should be given to every minister in the current government, to slow the silly progress of their social engineering projects.' This is good, clear, serious teaching, timely and relevant. For a comprehensive study of rights and law, the clash of ideals and competing claims, the demands of social and political groupings and how to decide between them in equity and justice, this is an admirable piece of sound writing. If you are a non-philosopher, you should end the book wiser ... " New Directions, November 2004 "In Morality Matters Roger Trigg takes his readers on a romp through classical and contemporary questions of moral philosophy and political theory. Trigg does not purport to provide all the answers. His gift is for raising the right questions in the right contexts and provoking us to think about them more and more deeply. Both specialists and general readers will find much of value in this book." Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University " ... there is quite a lot to be learned here. [Trigg] makes a very, very good case for the position that moral choices lie behind everything we do, that relativism can undermine our ability to talk or think rationally about moral choices, and that a greater focus on our moral values is a necessary condition to political, social, and personal progress." atheism.about.com "The book is accessible and can be recommended to all those who are interested in political ethics." Puleng LenkaBula, University of South Africa, Religion & TheologyTable of ContentsPreface. Introduction. Chapter 1 What is Natural?. Chapter 2 Human Nature and Natural Law. Chapter 3 Human Rights. Chapter 4 Natural Rights and Law. Chapter 5 The Rule of Law. Chapter 6 The Public and the Private. Chapter 7 Groups and Individuals. Chapter 8 Patriotism and Nationalism. Chapter 9 One World: A Global Ethic?. Chapter 10 Character and Principle. Chapter 11 Morality and Human Nature. Glossary. Bibliography. Index.

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Book SynopsisGod and Morality evaluates the ethical theories of four principle philosophers, Aristotle, Duns Scotus, Kant, and R.M. Hare. Uses their thinking as the basis for telling the story of the history and development of ethical thought more broadly Focuses specifically on their writings on virtue, will, duty, and consequence Concentrates on the theistic beliefs to highlight continuity of philosophical thought Trade Review"This book is important. It offers a profound contribution rather than the last word on theism and ethics" Ethical Perspectives “This is a splendid history of philosophical ethics, with special interest in God’s presence and importance in that perennial enterprise, by one of the leading philosophers of ethics writing today. Hare tops off this surprising, exciting, and unorthodox history with an account of his own that collects together the best features of the theistic ethics of the past. God and Morality is written with crystal clarity and impressive scholarship.” Robert Roberts, Baylor University Table of ContentsIntroduction. 1. Aristotle. The School of Athens. The Protretpicus. God and Nous in Nicomachean Ethics Book I. The First Sentence of the Nicomachean Ethics. Heading towards the Good. Virtue. Larry Arnhart. 2. Duns Scotus. The Disputà. Duns Scotus, Lectura. The Two Affections of the Will. Justice and God. Scotus and Virtue. Scotus and Particularity. Jean-Paul Sartre. 3. Immanuel Kant. The Time Between. Kant, Lectures on Ethics (Collins). The Groundwork. The Critique of Practical Reason. Religion. Metaphysics of Morals. Christine Korsgaard. 4. R. M. Hare. The Time Between. ”An Essay on Monism”. The Language of Morals. Freedom and Reason. Moral Thinking. Peter Singer. 5. Combining the Theories. The Goal of the Chapter. Virtue Theory. Command Theory. Consequentialism. Bibliography. Index of Biblical References. General Index

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Book SynopsisInternationalizing Cultural Studies is an unprecedented resource that introduces and consolidates cultural studies literature from diverse locales and intellectual traditions. Contains forty-four contemporary essays that introduce and pluralize cultural studies work from diverse locales and intellectual traditions Covers regions the world over, including Asia, Europe, and Africa Organizes material around key themes such as race and ethnicity, transnationalism, gender and sexual cultures, media production and consumption, urban life, popular practices, techno-cultures, and visual cultures Includes expert introductions from an international panel of editors, and facilitates customization of content for course use Trade Review“This book is an important step forward for cultural studies. It is a significant effort to re-present cultural studies as a truly international endeavor. With its coverage of cultural studies’ enormous geographical diversity, and the range of its speaking positions, it will hopefully reshape the ways we think about and teach cultural studies.” Lawrence Grossberg, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill "A-List authors and impressive analysis. This major collection captures the international scope and ambition of cultural studies and alerts us to vital new directions in the field. A must-have book." -- John Hartley, Queensland University of Technology "Internationalizing Cultural Studies is a big, rich, innovative book: conceptually capacious, methodologically diverse, multiple in sites, sophisticated in linkages, well-organized for use, it just calls out for pedagogical application at those global/local pressure points where critical theory gets tested and transformed. This is a powerful work de-centering the global, agitating the local. Drawing on a far-flung trans-disciplinary team, Abbas and Erni have collated exemplary work, highlighted emergent tactics, sites, and paradigm shifts in a beautiful collection that will help frame debates, topics, methods and new trajectories of field-formation in the coming years and across various institutional and disciplinary frameworks." -- Rob Wilson, University of California at Santa CruzTable of ContentsAlternative Table of Contents – Speaking Positions. Alternative Table of Contents – Localities. Preface: How to Use this Book. Acknowledgments. . 1. INTRODUCTION. Ackbar Abbas and John Nguyet Erni. . PART I: TECHNO-CULTURES. Introduction. J. Macgregor Wise. 2. Science as a Reason of State. Ashis Nandy. 3. Biotechnological Development and the Conservation of Biodiversity. Vandana Shiva. 4. Recycling Modernity: Pirate Electronic Cultures in India. Ravi Sundaram. 5. Karaoke in East Asia: Modernization, Japanization, or Asianization?. Akiko Otake & Shuhei Hosokawa. 6. Techno-Being. Viktor Mazin. PART II: Performance and Culture. Introduction. Della Pollock. . 7. Health Theatre in a Hmong Refugee Camp: Performance, Communication and Culture. Dwight Conquergood. 8. The Answerability of Memory: ‘Saving’ Khmer Classical Dance. Judith Hamera. 9. The Fool. Smadar Lavie. 10. East Asian Bouquet: Ethnicity and Gender in the Wartime Japanese Revue Theatre. Jennifer Robertson. 11. The Theatre of Operations: Performing Nation-ness in the Public Sphere. Diana Taylor. . PART III: GENDER AND SEXUALITY. Introduction. Cindy Patton. 12. Frontier City Berlin: The Post War Politics. Erica Carter. 13. Gender-Bending in Paradise: Doing ‘Female’ and ‘Male’ in Japan. Jennifer Robertson. 14. The Marriage of Feminism and Islamism in Egypt: Selective Repudiation as a Dynamic of Postcolonial Cultural Politics. Lila Abu-Lughod. 15. Freeing South Africa: The ‘modernization’ of male-male sexuality in Soweto. Donald L. Donham. 16. Very Close to yinfu and ënu, Or How Prefaces Matter for JPM (1695) and Enu Shu (Taipei, 1995). Ding Naifei. . PART IV: MEDIA PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION. Introduction. Toby Miller. 17. Hizballah’s Virtual Civil Society. Janine Abboushi Dallal. 18. Towards a Semiotic Inquiry into the Television Message. Umberto Eco. . 19. Looking for My Penis: The Eroticized Asian in Gay Video Porn. Richard Fung. 20. From the Public to the Private: The ‘Americanization’ of Spectators. Néstor García-Canclini. 21. Embedded Aesthetics: Creating a Discursive Space for Indigenous Media. Faye Ginsburg. . PART V: POPULAR PRACTICES. Introduction. John Nguyet Erni. 22. The World of the Yoruba Taxi Driver: An Interpretative Approach to Vehicle Slogans. Olatunde Bayo Lawuyi. 23. Doing Verbal Play: Creative Work of Cantonese Working Class Schoolboys in Hong Kong. Angel Lin. 24. Love Letters and Amanuenses: Beginning the Cultural History of the Working Class Private Sphere in Southern Africa, 1900-1933. Keith Breckenridge. 25. Live Life More Selfishly: An On-line Gay Advice Column in Japan. Mark McLelland. 26. African Cuisines: Recipes for Nation-Building?. Igor Cusack. . PART VI: RACE, ETHNICITY AND NATION. Introduction. Wimal Dissanayake. 27. Racisms. Kwame Anthony Appiah. 28. Race and Social Theory. Cornel West. 29. The End of Anti-racism. Paul Gilroy. 30. Whose Imagined Communities?. Partha Chatterjee. 31. Patriotism and Its Futures. Arjun Appadurai. PART VII: VISUAL CULTURES. Introduction. Dominic Pettman. 32. Visual Culture and the Place of Modernity. Sudeep Dasgupta. 33. Popular Culture on a Global Scale: A Challenge for Cultural Studies?. Simon During. 34. The Abject Artefacts of Memory: The 1997 Museum of Modern Art New York Exhibition of Photographs from Cambodia’s Genocide. Rachel Hughes. 35. Sex Machine: Global Hypermasculinity and Images of the Asian Woman in Modernity. L. H. M. Ling. 36. De-Eurocentrizing Cultural Studies: Some Proposals. Robert Stam & Ella Shohat. . PART VIII: GLOBAL DIASPORAS. Introduction. Ping-hui Liao. 37. Exodus. Benedict Anderson. 38. Diaspora. James Clifford. 39. Out Here and Over There: Queerness and Diaspora in Asian American Studies. David Eng. 40. Situating Accented Cinema. Hamid Nacify. . PART IX: CITIES AND THE URBAN IMAGINARY. Introduction. Ackbar Abbas. 41. Cultural Intersections: Re-visioning Architecture and the City in the Twentieth Century. Zeynep Çelik. 42. Grassrooting the Space of Flows. Manuel Castells. 43. The Generic City. Rem Koolhaas. 44. Scene X: The Development of the X-Urban City. Mario Gandelsonas. 45. On the Political Economy of the Fake. Ziauddin Sardar

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Book SynopsisInternationalizing Cultural Studies is an unprecedented resource that introduces and consolidates cultural studies literature from diverse locales and intellectual traditions. Contains forty-four contemporary essays that introduce and pluralize cultural studies work from diverse locales and intellectual traditions Covers regions the world over, including Asia, Europe, and Africa Organizes material around key themes such as race and ethnicity, transnationalism, gender and sexual cultures, media production and consumption, urban life, popular practices, techno-cultures, and visual cultures Includes expert introductions from an international panel of editors, and facilitates customization of content for course use Trade Review“This book is an important step forward for cultural studies. It is a significant effort to re-present cultural studies as a truly international endeavor. With its coverage of cultural studies’ enormous geographical diversity, and the range of its speaking positions, it will hopefully reshape the ways we think about and teach cultural studies.” Lawrence Grossberg, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill "A-List authors and impressive analysis. This major collection captures the international scope and ambition of cultural studies and alerts us to vital new directions in the field. A must-have book." -- John Hartley, Queensland University of Technology "Internationalizing Cultural Studies is a big, rich, innovative book: conceptually capacious, methodologically diverse, multiple in sites, sophisticated in linkages, well-organized for use, it just calls out for pedagogical application at those global/local pressure points where critical theory gets tested and transformed. This is a powerful work de-centering the global, agitating the local. Drawing on a far-flung trans-disciplinary team, Abbas and Erni have collated exemplary work, highlighted emergent tactics, sites, and paradigm shifts in a beautiful collection that will help frame debates, topics, methods and new trajectories of field-formation in the coming years and across various institutional and disciplinary frameworks." -- Rob Wilson, University of California at Santa CruzTable of ContentsAlternative Table of Contents – Speaking Positions. Alternative Table of Contents – Localities. Preface: How to Use this Book. Acknowledgments. . 1. INTRODUCTION. Ackbar Abbas and John Nguyet Erni. . PART I: TECHNO-CULTURES. Introduction. J. Macgregor Wise. 2. Science as a Reason of State. Ashis Nandy. 3. Biotechnological Development and the Conservation of Biodiversity. Vandana Shiva. 4. Recycling Modernity: Pirate Electronic Cultures in India. Ravi Sundaram. 5. Karaoke in East Asia: Modernization, Japanization, or Asianization?. Akiko Otake & Shuhei Hosokawa. 6. Techno-Being. Viktor Mazin. PART II: Performance and Culture. Introduction. Della Pollock. . 7. Health Theatre in a Hmong Refugee Camp: Performance, Communication and Culture. Dwight Conquergood. 8. The Answerability of Memory: ‘Saving’ Khmer Classical Dance. Judith Hamera. 9. The Fool. Smadar Lavie. 10. East Asian Bouquet: Ethnicity and Gender in the Wartime Japanese Revue Theatre. Jennifer Robertson. 11. The Theatre of Operations: Performing Nation-ness in the Public Sphere. Diana Taylor. . PART III: GENDER AND SEXUALITY. Introduction. Cindy Patton. 12. Frontier City Berlin: The Post War Politics. Erica Carter. 13. Gender-Bending in Paradise: Doing ‘Female’ and ‘Male’ in Japan. Jennifer Robertson. 14. The Marriage of Feminism and Islamism in Egypt: Selective Repudiation as a Dynamic of Postcolonial Cultural Politics. Lila Abu-Lughod. 15. Freeing South Africa: The ‘modernization’ of male-male sexuality in Soweto. Donald L. Donham. 16. Very Close to yinfu and ënu, Or How Prefaces Matter for JPM (1695) and Enu Shu (Taipei, 1995). Ding Naifei. . PART IV: MEDIA PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION. Introduction. Toby Miller. 17. Hizballah’s Virtual Civil Society. Janine Abboushi Dallal. 18. Towards a Semiotic Inquiry into the Television Message. Umberto Eco. . 19. Looking for My Penis: The Eroticized Asian in Gay Video Porn. Richard Fung. 20. From the Public to the Private: The ‘Americanization’ of Spectators. Néstor García-Canclini. 21. Embedded Aesthetics: Creating a Discursive Space for Indigenous Media. Faye Ginsburg. . PART V: POPULAR PRACTICES. Introduction. John Nguyet Erni. 22. The World of the Yoruba Taxi Driver: An Interpretative Approach to Vehicle Slogans. Olatunde Bayo Lawuyi. 23. Doing Verbal Play: Creative Work of Cantonese Working Class Schoolboys in Hong Kong. Angel Lin. 24. Love Letters and Amanuenses: Beginning the Cultural History of the Working Class Private Sphere in Southern Africa, 1900-1933. Keith Breckenridge. 25. Live Life More Selfishly: An On-line Gay Advice Column in Japan. Mark McLelland. 26. African Cuisines: Recipes for Nation-Building?. Igor Cusack. . PART VI: RACE, ETHNICITY AND NATION. Introduction. Wimal Dissanayake. 27. Racisms. Kwame Anthony Appiah. 28. Race and Social Theory. Cornel West. 29. The End of Anti-racism. Paul Gilroy. 30. Whose Imagined Communities?. Partha Chatterjee. 31. Patriotism and Its Futures. Arjun Appadurai. PART VII: VISUAL CULTURES. Introduction. Dominic Pettman. 32. Visual Culture and the Place of Modernity. Sudeep Dasgupta. 33. Popular Culture on a Global Scale: A Challenge for Cultural Studies?. Simon During. 34. The Abject Artefacts of Memory: The 1997 Museum of Modern Art New York Exhibition of Photographs from Cambodia’s Genocide. Rachel Hughes. 35. Sex Machine: Global Hypermasculinity and Images of the Asian Woman in Modernity. L. H. M. Ling. 36. De-Eurocentrizing Cultural Studies: Some Proposals. Robert Stam & Ella Shohat. . PART VIII: GLOBAL DIASPORAS. Introduction. Ping-hui Liao. 37. Exodus. Benedict Anderson. 38. Diaspora. James Clifford. 39. Out Here and Over There: Queerness and Diaspora in Asian American Studies. David Eng. 40. Situating Accented Cinema. Hamid Nacify. . PART IX: CITIES AND THE URBAN IMAGINARY. Introduction. Ackbar Abbas. 41. Cultural Intersections: Re-visioning Architecture and the City in the Twentieth Century. Zeynep Çelik. 42. Grassrooting the Space of Flows. Manuel Castells. 43. The Generic City. Rem Koolhaas. 44. Scene X: The Development of the X-Urban City. Mario Gandelsonas. 45. On the Political Economy of the Fake. Ziauddin Sardar

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Book SynopsisCowen argues that the capitalist market economy is a vital but underappreciated institutional framework for supporting a variety of artistic visions. His philosophy stands in opposition to the cultural pessimism of conservatives, neoconservatives, the Frankfurt School, and some versions of the political correctness and multiculturalist movements.Trade ReviewIn Praise of Commercial Culture by Tyler Cowen…is a treasure trove of insights about artistic genres, styles and trends, dexterously illuminated through economic analysis. Cowen’s main argument is that capitalism—by fostering alternate modes of financial support and multiple market niches, vast wealth and technological innovation—is the best ally the arts could have. -- Andrew Stark * Times Literary Supplement *Penetrating… Cowen calmly and carefully argues that a market economy—in other words, modern capitalism, attentive above all to supply and demand—is the single best guarantor of vigorous culture… What makes In Praise of Commercial Culture such a pleasure to read is partly Cowen’s humility—he writes softly—and partly the care and acuity with which he draws out his argument… Cowen’s real intelligence—the depth of thought that makes this such an interesting book—shows itself when he [notes]: ‘Governments often support creativity most effectively by providing a large number of jobs where individuals are not expected to work very hard’… [This is a] fascinating book. -- Bruce Serafin * Vancouver Sun *In a wide-ranging, brilliant, and thought-provoking book, Tyler Cowen has come to the cultural defense of capitalism. He argues that the record of free markets in supporting culture can stand comparison with that of any other system, from feudalism to communism… Cowen is amazingly learned, both in scholarship about the arts and in the arts themselves. He moves effortlessly from painting to music to literature. He also navigates skillfully between high and low culture, whether he is comparing the great piano virtuoso Franz Liszt to a contemporary stage performer like Prince, or showing how the second part of Don Quixote follows the same logic as do movie sequels like The Empire Strikes Back or Terminator 2… This is a very important and original book. -- Paul Cantor * American Enterprise *In Praise of Commercial Culture is a profoundly important book: In a historical moment when even socialists grant the efficiency and efficacy of markets in delivering a dizzying array of goods and services to people (and an increasing number of conservatives lament the same), there is still a great deal of resistance to applying a similar analysis to the production and consumption of culture… Cowen’s book is a seminal effort toward understanding that cultural matters, like other forms of human activity, benefit greatly from the decentralization, innovation, and feedback mechanisms endemic to market orders. In Praise of Commercial Culture is rich in nuance yet highly accessible to the general reader… By contextualizing pessimism within a larger dynamic of cultural growth and by showing the beneficial effects of markets on art, In Praise of Commercial Culture remaps the debate in a way that should greatly inform all future arguments. -- Nick Gillespie * Reason *This book is such a delight that it’s hard to believe it was written by an economist. It exudes such common sense (another unbelievability where economists are concerned) that, even when it fails to persuade entirely, the lapses invite dialogue, not dismissal… [This book] is neither an Ayn Randian paean to ‘The Artist as Businessman’ nor a dry economic analysis in which ‘cultural production’ becomes one more abstract input to the GDP. Mr. Cowen combines economic perspective with the skills of a cultural historian and the aesthetic sensibilities of a writer who cherishes his own cultural experiences. -- Philip Gold * Washington Times *A masterful performance… Cowen has provided a marvelously exuberant counterblast to the wide-spread view that in our philistine, materialist world the arts are going to hell in a handbasket. They are not. They are alive and well, and thriving as never before. Cowen goes a long way towards explaining why. For anyone with any interest in the history, funding and encouragement of the arts, In Praise of Commercial Culture is not to be missed. -- Winston Fletcher * Times Higher Education Supplement *[Tyler Cowen] argues that market forces stimulate the production of culture, high and low, and that far from homogenizing taste, they tend to produce art that is more specialized and diverse than it would be otherwise. In three especially lively chapters, Cowen traces the markets for the written word (where the printing press has been around for centuries), music (where recording technology became available only relatively recently), and painting (where reproductive technology counts for much less)… The picture of the art markets that emerges from In Praise of Commercial Culture is a reassuring one… It is less possible than ever before to create the monopoly on commercial culture that is the objective of totalitarian states. Within wide bands of fad and fashion, people are going to decide for themselves what they like. -- David Warsh * Boston Sunday Globe *Unlike critics…who laud the free market but have suspicions about the pop culture it spawns, or critics…who love pop culture’s vibrancy but disdain capitalist markets, Mr. Cowen thinks that American-style commerce and culture come awfully close to representing the best of all possible worlds… Key to his argument is the notion that cultural markets are not zero-sum. Even if the markets are serving up pabulum to the masses, that doesn’t prevent Mario Vargas Llosa or Salman Rushdie from reaching an audience. The relevant question isn’t how many more books Tom Clancy sells than Rushdie, Mr. Cowen insists, but whether serious novelists can reach the audiences that are hungry for them. In other words, the efficient distribution of books at every level of taste is the sign of the healthiest kind of market… Mr. Cowen also takes issue with the ‘winner-take-all’ theory of cultural markets…[which] suggests that cultural markets favor lowest-common-denominator blockbusters…and that more artistic works get shunted aside as studios and publishers seek the next giant payday. Mr. Cowen’s response is that trite best sellers may generate more cultural noise than smaller works, but that if you cut through the noise, smaller works are still thriving. -- Christopher Shea * Chronicle of Higher Education *I have been doused by cold water, and by an economist at that. In Praise of Commercial Culture proclaims that a thriving capitalist society sustains the arts better than any other form of social organisation… As with the debate in the US over the National Endowment for the Arts, the row over Britain’s Arts Council never goes away. The belief is that high culture would fade away if state subsidies were withdrawn. We are unwilling to place our cultural bets on the finer impulses of the super-rich. We prefer, irrationally to leave it to officials to decide who is worthy. Creative capitalism does it better. -- Joe Rogaly * Financial Times *Capitalism is better than an other ‘ism’ at delivering the goods—food, cars, shoes, and the other materials of everyday life. But few people associate capitalism with culture. In fact, many see the two as antithetical. Tyler Cowen, an art-loving economist, disagrees. Far from hurting culture, Cowen argues that capitalism nurtures it. Precisely because capitalism delivers the goods, Cowen writes, people have the means to buy books, paintings, and other forms of art. Improvements in production and marketing, for example, as well as increased wealth, have made books available to the masses. In 1760 a common laborer has to work two days to earn enough money to buy a cheap schoolbook; today the cost of a paperback is slightly more than the hourly minimum wage. -- David R. Henderson * Fortune *[Cowen] argues persuasively that literature, Western art, and music ‘from Bach to the Beatles’ flourish best when businesses are profitable and opportunities for innovative artists to find customers are multiplied… As with the debate in the US over the National Endowment for the Arts, the row over Britain’s Arts Council never goes away. The belief is that high culture would fade away if state subsidies were withdrawn. We are unwilling to place our cultural bets on the finer impulses of the super-rich. We prefer, irrationally, to leave it to officials to decide who is worthy. Creative capitalism does it better. -- Joe Rogaly * Financial Review [Australia] *By writing In Praise of Commercial Culture, Tyler Cowen gives his readers a clearly reasoned argument for cultural optimism, and, in the process, gives individuals…confidence to substantively critique Americans’ tendency toward grossly underestimating the quality of our artistic output in the latter half of the twentieth century. -- Craig Farmer * Fodder: The Newsletter of the Hungry Mind Bookstore *[A] provocative and valuable book. -- Alan W. Bock * Liberty *The view that art should sup with commerce only with the help of a very long spoon is the extension of a popular view of artistic endeavor—that the best artists, musicians and writers are outsiders, pushed by poverty, ill-health or an oppressive state to create… Mr. Cowen won’t have a bar of such pessimism. He argues that the best artists have mostly been in the thick of life…writing, painting or composing to the dictates of the market. Commercialisation, in fact, is just what art needs and Adam Smith was right: prose and poetry flow naturally from the growth of prosperity… Moreover, wealth and financial security give artists scope to reject societal values; a large market lowers the cost of creative pursuits and makes market niches easier to find; increasing wealth means better and longer life expectancy, which helps artists realise their potential. -- Graham Adams * New Zealand National Business Review *Cowen has given us a breath of fresh air in these so-called ‘culture wars’… [His] outstanding arguments and penetrating diagnosis convince me that observers from left to right are on the wrong track with ‘cultural pessimism’… I cannot recommend the book more highly. It should be read as a reasoned account of how culture develops and progresses in an atmosphere of personal freedom and market capitalism. More importantly, perhaps, Cowen’s book casts some much-needed light on the enemies of that vital process. * Public Choice *Jesse Helms and Karen Finley: Take note of Tyler Cowen. The George Mason University economist is an avid arts warrior, but one who rises above the reactionary postures that have come to define the debate over arts funding… [His] new book, In Praise of Commercial Culture, argues that free markets, unbridled by government, produce the best environments for creative expression… ‘Ninety percent of what is released is usually junk,’ he observes, ‘but junk is just a symptom of the riches we enjoy.’ -- Louis Jacobson * Washington City Paper *Economist Tyler Cowen has a contrarian message: Pop is good. His book In Praise of Commercial Culture outlines his case for cultural optimism. The progress of democratic capitalism, he says, gives people time and affluence to make and enjoy culture… Mr. Cowen is best when he skewers the popular notion that great artists are poor bohemians who live on the margins of society. * World *This book is full of surprises. It not only informed me wonderfully, it changed my mind. The subject is irresistible, and the analysis, solidly based in history, is compelling. After you enjoy reading it, you can enjoy telling your friends about it. -- Thomas C. Schelling, author of The Strategy of Conflict, Micromotives and Macrobehavior, and Choice and ConsequenceIn Praise of Commercial Culture is a lively and well-informed defense of the values of an unsubsidized free market for artists… I learned more from this book than from so many others that argue the standard view. As a bonus, the book is a pleasure to read. -- Mark Blaug, author of Economic Theory in Retrospect and The Methodology of EconomicsAt a time when critics on both the left and the right decry the degradation of the arts and call for censorship, we need reminding that the very market processes responsible for offensive art have fueled unprecedented artistic diversity, generated technologies to preserve masterpieces, and brought to the masses arts that were once just privileges of the rich. Drawing on vast literatures and using delightfully parsimonious arguments, Tyler Cowen rises to the challenge. Balanced and sensible, yet also provocative and entertaining throughout, In Praise of Commercial Culture will give pause to anyone who thinks that the golden age of the arts has passed. -- Timur Kuran, author of Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference FalsificationTable of Contents* Introduction * The Arts in a Market Economy * The Market for the Written Word * The Wealthy City as a Center for Western Art * The Developing Market for Music: From Bach to the Beatles * Why Cultural Pessimism? * Notes * Index

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Book SynopsisBrudny argues that the rise of the Russian nationalist movement was a combined result of the reinvention of Russian national identity by a group of intellectuals, and the Communist Party's active support of this reinvention in order to gain greater political legitimacy.Trade ReviewMr. Brudny provides a salient background to understanding one of the great phenomena of post-1945 history: how Russians arrive at their view of the West. -- Ron Laurenzo * Washington Times *Brudny is a good guide to the origins of what probably lies ahead. -- Geoffrey A. Hosking * Times Literary Supplement *If readers think that today's anti-Western, antimarket, antisemitic variety of Russian nationalism is simply the fallout from the country's current misery, they should think again. With care and intelligence, Brudny traces its lineage back to the Khrushchev years. What began among the so-called village prose writers as a lament for a rural past ravaged by Stalin's experimentation gradually accumulated further grievances: the devastation of Russian culture and monuments, the infiltration of 'corrupting' Western values, and ultimately under Gorbechev the 'criminal' destruction of Russian power. Much of the book concentrates on how Khrushchev and Brezhnev tried--but ultimately failed--to harness this discontent for their own purposes. -- Robert Legvold * Foreign Affairs *Brudny's survey of relations between Russian nationalism and the Soviet state provides an in-depth insight into one of the most complicated aspects of the Soviet multi-national state. -- Taras Kuzio * International Affairs *A thought-provoking book. * Virginia Quarterly *Brudny shows that Russian cultural nationalism was a powerful force in the post-Stalin years, with ultimate political consequences. In meticulous detail Brudny sets out the various strains of Russian nationalism and points to the regime's encouragement of a certain kind of nationalism as a means of bolstering legitimacy through the 'politics of inclusion'...This volume is a significant contribution to the literature. -- R. J. Mitchell * Choice *In Reinventing Russia, situated at the intersection of culture (specifically the literature of the village prose movement) and politics, Brudny has managed admirably to draw out the wider implications of his inquiry and provided an extremely useful set of orientation points in the current, seemingly so chaotic, political debate in Russia. -- Hans J. Rindisbacher * European Legacy *Brudny's book paints a fascinating picture. It delineates a rich Soviet culture and society, one that is much more varied than has been previously depicted by most Western researchers. The overriding importance of the book derives from its argument that the post-Stalinist cultural debate in the Soviet Union is what created the infrastructure for the seemingly odd alliance between communist ideology and the nationalist intelligentsia--today's 'red-brown' alliance. It's a significant contribution to our understanding of the history of the nationalist idea...[Reinventing Russia provides] an enthralling overview of a historic development that has been neglected by most Western researchers...His book proves once more that anyone who seeks to understand developments in Eastern Europe cannot do so by merely analyzing the economic policy of the political maneuvers of the governing elite. -- Shlomo Avineri * Ha'aretz Book Review *Yitzhak Brudny offers us a most persuasive attempt to explain the intricate, often puzzling relation between Soviet political and cultural bureaucracy and the rise of Russian nationalism in the post-Stalin era. His analysis of Russian nationalist ideology and its role in the corrosion of the official Soviet dogmas is uniquely insightful and provocative. Students of Soviet and post-Soviet affairs will find in Brudny's splendidly researched book an indispensable instrument to grasp the meaning of the still perplexing developments that led to the breakdown of the Leninist state. In the growing body of literature dealing with nationalism and national identity, this one stands out as boldly innovative, theoretically challenging, and culturally sophisticated. -- Vladimir Tismaneanu, University of Maryland, College Park, author of Fantasies of SalvationYitzhak Brudny has produced an impressive and scholarly account of the divisions within the Russian political and cultural elite during the last four decades of the Soviet Union's existence. His book is important both for the fresh light it throws on that period and as essential context for interpreting the debates on nationhood and statehood which rage in Russia today. -- Archie Brown, University of OxfordReinventing Russia provides us with a vivid portrayal of the politics behind the rise of Russian nationalism in post-Stalinist Russia. It is a finely detailed study of not only the relationship of political authority to the spread of nationalist ideas, but also reciprocally of the role played by these ideas in shaping the political. -- Mark Beissinger, University of Wisconsin-MadisonRival nationalists literally shook the Soviet Union apart. The very structure of the Soviet state encouraged all major ethnic groups--including the Russians--to view battles over resources in terms of ethnic and national conflict. Brudny, in this important study, explores precisely how rival nationalist claims emerged during the years following Stalin's death, and why they proved to be simultaneously so robust and pernicious. -- Blair Ruble, Director, Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson CenterThe strength of Yitzhak M. Brudny's book, Reinventing Russia, is its explanation of how Russian Nationalists worked to advance their causes from the time of Stalin's death to the Soviet Union's demise. -- Cpt. Todd Laughman, USAF * Military Review *His analysis is enriched by Soviet archival materials recently made available; by examination of an immense range of published materials; and by interviews in Russia beginning in 1989. Consequently, the book will be very helpful for all concerned with the final decades of the Soviet system and its immediate aftermath in the Russian Republic. -- John A. Armstrong * Journal of Modern History *Yizhak Brudnyadds a new intellectual perspective to previous explications of Russian nationalism by illuminating the relationship between nationalist writers and the state. Unlike other scholars, who have analyzed Russian nationalism from an economic or sociological starting point, Brudny addresses his treatment on the idea that in communist societies the "politics of culture" achieves an unprecedented importance...Reinventing Russia breaks much new ground, transcending earlier studies and illuminating recent Russian political culture through the medium of intellectual history. -- Todd Lee * History *In his excellent book Reinventing Russia: Russian Nationalism and the Soviet State, 1953-1991, historian Yitzhak Brudny demonstrates how post-Stalinist Soviet leaders used nationalism to fill the ideological gaps left by Marxism-Leninism, which was losing its power to inspire the population. -- Amy Knight * Globe and Mail *In his excellent book Reinventing Russia: Russian Nationalism and the Soviet State, 1953-1991, historian Yitzhak Brudny demonstrates how post-Stalinist Soviet leaders used nationalism to fill the ideological gaps left by Marxism-Leninism, which was losing its power to inspire the population. -- Amy Knight * Globe and Mail *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments 1. Russian Nationalists in Soviet Politics 2. The Emergence of Politics by Culture, 1953-1964 3. The First Phase of Inclusionary Politics, 1965-1970 4. The Rise and Fall of Inclusionary Politics, 1971-1985 5. What Went Wrong with the Politics of Inclusion? 6. What Is Russia, and Where Should It Go? Political Debates, 1971-1985 7. The Zenith of Politics by Culture, 1985-1989 8. The Demise of Politics by Culture, 1989-1991 Epilogue: Russian Nationalism in Postcommunist Russia Notes Index

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Book SynopsisSynthesizing theoretical contributions by Vygotsky, Bakhtin and Bourdieu, Holland and her co-authors examine the processes by which people are constituted as agents as well as subjects of culturally constructed, socially imposed worlds. They develop a theory of self-formation in which identities become the pivot between discipline and agency.Trade ReviewThis book brings a breath of fresh air into the otherwise unimaginative social discourse on 'social identity' that reigns in anthropology and psychology in our time. The perspective outlined in the book is a practice theory; practice conceived not merely as what human beings do, but also what they imagine in conjunction with doing. The authors restore the centrality of personal positioning in the contruction of cultural worlds, and bring anthropologists and psychologists together after their long intellectual separation. -- Jaan Valsiner, Clark UniversityIdentity and Agency in Cultural Worlds is a work of keen intelligence and originality, carefully and clearly written. The authors make an impressive argument about the way in which agency and structure are tangled up in each other, and provide a specific guide to sorting out their various skeins. An essential book for contemporary anthropological theory. -- Tanya Luhrmann, University of California, San DiegoInventive and interdisciplinary...an excellent volume that deserves a wide readership and will be of considerable interest to a number of psychology's researchers, theorists, practitioners, students, and subdisciplines. -- Mark A. Adams * Contemporary Psychology *(A) clear and informative account of how people reshape their sense of self, negotiate their cultural or "figured" world, and rebel against social norms The ethnographic examples include the efforts of undergraduate women to navigate the world of romance; the contested plights of women, especially lower-caste women in Nepal; creating an Alcoholics Anonymous identity by telling the right sort of narrative about one's life; the struggles to survive of persons suffering from mental disorders...Recommended at all levels. -- J.R. Bowen * Choice *Table of ContentsPreface I. On the Shoulders of Bakhtin and Vygotsky 1. The Woman Who Climbed Up the House 2. A Practice Theory of Self and Identity II. Placing Identity and Agency 3. Figured Worlds 4. Personal Stories in Alcoholics Anonymous 5. How Figured Worlds of Romance Become Desire III. Power and Privilege 6. Positional Identities 7. The Sexual Auction Block IV. The Space of Authoring 8. Authoring Selves 9. Mental Disorder, Identity, and Professional Discourse 10. Authoring Oneself as a Woman in Nepal V. Making Worlds 11. Play Worlds, Liberatory Worlds, and Fantasy Resources 12. Making Alternate Worlds in Nepal 13. Identity in Practice Notes References Credits Index

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Book SynopsisThis book, written by the codirectors of the largest ongoing longitudinal study of immigrant children and their families, offers a clear, broad, interdisciplinary view of who the immigrant children are and what their future might hold.Trade ReviewThis book addresses how immigrant children fare in America...What thought has American society given to the special needs of these students? Have we done anything to accommodate them? What have they experienced? The answers to these and many other questions are woven together with moving accounts of immigrant children. It is impossible to read this book without being moved. Highly recommended. -- Sandra Isaacson * Library Journal *This book contributes significantly to this debate not only for the U.S., but also for other receiving countries that have higher percentages of immigrants and less friction…The authors…review some issues in bilingual education in areas of backlash, such as California, and calmly promote the advantages of first-language retention and development until proficiency, accompanied or followed by sufficient English instruction to ensure full competence in both languages…In their interdisciplinary focus and wide knowledge of related fields, the authors are able to give a good account of the facilitating and hindering factors for immigrants from both individual and social perspectives…The book is written in an accessible style; rather friendly to higher-level undergraduates and well informed persons in general…The book is outstanding and will surely contribute to sane and possibly fruitful discussion of the issues both among Americans and those in similar countries that depend on relatively high rates of immigration. -- Judith K. Bernhard * Journal of International Migration and Integration *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. The Varieties of Immigrant Experience 2. Rethinking Immigration 3. The Psychosocial Experience of Immigration 4. Remaking Identities 5. The Children of Immigration in School Epilogue Notes References Index

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Book SynopsisLamont takes us into the world inhabited by working-class men—the world as they understand it. Interviewing French and American working-class men who, because they are not college graduates, have limited access to high-paying jobs and other social benefits, she constructs a revealing portrait of how they see themselves and the rest of society.Trade ReviewThe Dignity of Working Men is an outstanding example of comparative ethnography. Through a series of careful and thoughtful interviews, Michèle Lamont reveals the moral standards ordinary workers use in evaluating their fellow citizens. In this engaging book, Lamont also provides an interesting comparison between workers in the United States and France on the criteria used to draw class and racial boundaries. -- William Julius Wilson, Harvard University and author of When Work DisappearsLamont's book is a classic in the making. It breaks new ground as a major in-depth study of comparative racism. It will also broaden the horizons of social class studies. The Dignity of Working Men opens up a wider perspective, so that by looking at French racial conflict, American racial conflict looks less fixed, less inevitable. There are alternative patterns, revealing that societies do have room to maneuver. -- Randall Collins, University of Pennsylvania and author of The Sociology of Philosophies (Harvard)Lamont's richly-textured comparison does more than hold up for view the moral perspectives of working-class men across the racial divide in the United States and France. It poses fresh and rich challenges to research, demonstrates the difference systematic qualitative analysis can make, and points the way to a politics of sensibility and possibility. -- Ira I. Katznelson, Columbia UniversityThe Dignity of Working Men is a wonderful book. What is most striking is the richness of the interviews. Lamont's questions seem really to have touched working men where they live, to have encouraged them to talk about their sense of self, their pride in themselves as workers, their sense of moral order, their aspirations and (occasional) political passions, their families, their beliefs in equality and inequality, their racial attitudes, and much more. By asking black workers what they think of whites as well as what whites think of blacks, and by comparing racial and ethnic cleavages in France and the United States, The Dignity of Working Men adds a vital new dimension to studies of class and race. -- Ann Swidler, University of California, BerkeleyMany interpreters of current society have posited that class is no longer a useful concept as a basis for identity. This book, based on hundreds of interviews with American and French workers, rejects that analysis...It is fascinating reading, an important contribution to a reexamination of class. -- J. Wishnia * Choice *Was there actually a set of values that could be considered distinctly "working class" in character, that represented a distinctly working-class worldview? One of the most sophisticated recent attempts to answer this question appeared in the recent study The Dignity of Working Men...[Lamont] recognized that asking workers to choose their most important values from a prepared list would essentially force their replies into a predetermined mold that had little to do with their real-world thoughts and feelings. Lamont used instead open-ended and non-directive questions. She interviewed 150 blue-collar workers, black and white, in the United States and in France, and compared them with middle-class people in both countries. Her questions asked workers to describe people who were similar to them and people who were different, people they liked and disliked, and those to whom they felt superior or inferior. Follow-up questions probed why they felt as they did, spontaneously eliciting a complex pattern of moral judgements and values. Both work and family did indeed emerge among the blue-collar workers' core values. But the real significance lay in how those were perceived. -- Andrew Levinson * The Nation *It is hard to imagine a comparative research design as well conceived as the one that frames Michèle Lamont's book…. The book is a model of cross cultural comparative analysis and deserves high praise. -- Rick Fantasia, Contemporary SociologyThe Dignity of Working Men is an important entry into examinations of the intersection of class, race, and immigration. (Lamont) gives us new leverage on both some viable antiracist threads of thinking among the white working class and on the complexity and humanism animating how African Americans engage the great divides of race and class. We shall all be discussing this meticulously researched, cogently argued, and provocative book for some years to come. -- Lawrence Bobo, Contemporary SociologyMichele Lamont's study of working-class men in the USA and France is...the most interesting contribution to this field for quite some time, and should serve as a benchmark for future scholarly debate...This is a really innovative and challenging book and it needs to be read as widely as possible...The Dignity of Working Men has all the potential to become a classic. -- John Solomos * Ethnic and Racial Studies *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Making Sense of Their Worlds The Questions The People The Research I. American Workers 1. The World in Moral Order "Disciplined Selves": Survival, Work Ethic, and Responsibility Providing for and Protecting the Family Straightforwardness and Personal Integrity Salvation from Pollution: Religion and Traditional Morality Caring Selves: Black Conceptions of Solidarity and Altruism The Policing of Moral Boundaries 2. Euphemized Racism: Moral qua Racial Boundaries How Morality Defines Racism Whites on Blacks Blacks on Whites Immigration The Policing of Racial Boundaries 3. Assessing"People Above" and"People Below" Morality and Class Relations "People Above" "People Below" The Policing of Class Boundaries II. The United States Compared 4. Workers Compared Profile of French Workers Profile of North African Immigrants Working Class Morality The Policing of Moral Boundaries Compared 5. Racism Compared French Workers on Muslims French Workers' Antiracism: Egalitarianism and Solidarity North African Responses The Policing of Racial Boundaries Compared 6. Class Boundaries Compared Class Boundaries in a Dying Class Struggle Workers on"People Above" Solidarity a la francaise: Against"Exclusion" The Policing of Class Boundaries Compared Conclusion: Toward a New Agenda Appendix A: Methods and Analysis Appendix B: The Context of the Interview: Economic Insecurity, Globalization, and Places Appendix C: Interviewees Notes References Index

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Book SynopsisDrawing on ethnographic studies of the distinctive modes of psychological functioning in communities around the world, Shweder explores ethnic and cultural differences in ideals of gender, in the life of the emotions, in conceptions of mature adulthood and the stages of life, and in moral judgments about right and wrong.Trade ReviewHow much cultural relativism is enough? Whether you consider yourself a modernist with universalist sympathies or a post-modernist with completely pluralist preferences, you will be given pause by the arguments in this book. You will be informed, amused, infuriated, moved, and prompted to doubt deep personal convictions - often within the space of a single paragraph. No serious student of psychological anthropology or cultural psychology can ignore Shweder's commentary on the great issues confronting those fields. -- Richard E. Nisbett, University of MichiganRichard Shweder is the authentic voice of a concerned and critical anthropology: unbuttoned, funny, courageous, and mercilessly precise. Why Do Men Barbecue? takes no prisoners. It is a major contribution to the exposure of all forms of ethnocentrism, with special and loving attention to our own. -- Clifford Geertz, Institute for Advanced StudyIn fresh, brisk, and arresting language, Shweder challenges us to see the world in new ways or else come up with new arguments for holding on to the views we already have. This insightful and provocative book isn't just for anthropologists and other social scientists, but for those who value having to look twice at the world they think they know. -- Martha Minow, Harvard Law SchoolIn our globalized world there are, and will always be, many divergent views of what is real, good, and true, and how to think and feel and be a person. Rick Shweder's spirited and beautifully written essays remind us that it is not just right but necessary to recognize and understand differences in ideas and ways of life. His provocative insights give us an agenda for a cultural psychology we can really use in the turbulent years ahead. -- Hazel Rose Markus, Stanford UniversityShweder's "recipes" are lucid, timely investigations of suffering, the domestic life of Hindu women, the sleeping arrangements parents of different nationalities and classes institute with their children, and female genital mutilation--to name a few. * Publishers Weekly *Whether writing about the lives of Hindu women in rural India, comparing the family sleeping arrangements of different societies, or challenging feminist criticisms of female genital surgery in sub-Saharan Africa, Shweder describes the results of his ethnography of difference with elegance and wit. He avoids the dehumanizing fetishism of difference that characterizes all too much contemporary social science and social theory, and resists familiar relativist bromides demanding 'tolerance.' -- Michele M. Moody-Adams * Times Literary Supplement *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Anti-Postculturalism (or, The View from Manywheres) 1. Who Sleeps by Whom Revisited (with Lene Balle-Jensen and William Goldstein) 2. The "Big Three" of Morality (Autonomy, Community, Divinity) and the "Big Three" Explanations of Suffering (with Nancy C. Much, Manamohan Mahapatra, and Lawrence Park) 3. Cultural Psychology of Emotions: Ancient and New (with Jonathan Haidt) 4. "What about Female Genital Mutilation?" And Why Understanding Culture Matters 5. The Return of the "White Man's Burden" and the Domestic Life of Hindu Women (with Usha Menon) 6. Culture and Mental Development in Our Poststructural Age 7. A Polytheistic Conception of the Sciences and the Virtues of Deep Variety 8. Fundamentalism for Highbrows: The Aims of Education Address at the University of Chicago Conclusion: From Manywheres to the Civilizing Project, and Back Notes References Acknowledgments Index

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Book SynopsisIn a tour of Western culture that is at once exhilarating and alarming, Nelson shows us the distorted forms in which the spiritual resurfaced in high art but also, strikingly, in the mass culture of puppets, horror-fantasy literature, and cyborgs: from the works of Kleist, Poe, Musil, and Lovecraft to Philip K. Dick and virtual reality simulations.Trade ReviewIn a remarkable scholarly book, The Secret Life of Puppets, Victoria Nelson argues that our sense of the supernatural and yearning for immortality has been displaced from religion to such expressions of popular culture as superheroes, robots and cyborgs. -- Francisco Goldman * New York Times Magazine *From Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, A.I. and X-Files, to the genre grotesqueries of Child’s Play and The Puppet Master, so much of our popular storytelling concerns forces and phenomena our culture firmly insists aren’t real and cannot exist… In a dizzying and fascinating alternate history scored with subterranean connections, Nelson presents alchemists, Platonists, Gnostics and magi in their own terms and contexts… In this rich work of erudite charms, Nelson convincingly argues that the cultural pendulum is swinging back to the platonic side. But because our rigid scientific materialism doesn’t allow us to take any of this seriously, we are left with mostly unconscious expressions that overemphasize the sensational and horrific dark side, with a little sentimental New Age nod to the latent good. -- William S. Kowinski * San Francisco Chronicle *As robots become more prominent, it seems a good time to revisit Victoria Nelson’s The Secret Life of Puppets, a magisterial yet funky discussion of puppets, robots—and humans. Beneath this wide-ranging examination of books and films lies Nelson’s thesis that our worldview is in transition from Aristotelian to Platonic. -- Elizabeth Greene * Times Higher Education *In the opening chapter, Victoria Nelson issues a caveat that deliberately echoes the warnings that preface tales of horror. Do not expect to emerge unchanged. To read this book is akin to entering an ancient grotto, the ante-chamber of the otherworld. Since the Enlightenment, says Nelson, Western culture has dismissed the supernatural as mere superstition and displaced these religious impulses into popular entertainments such as fantasy and science fiction. The emergence of new grottos such as cyberspace are signs that we are entering a new era of sensibility, in which the Platonic and Aristotelian world view can coexist. As a diagnosis of the role of the supernatural in modern secular society, this is a work of extraordinary originality, erudition and flair. Read it and be transformed. -- Fiona Capp * The Age *The Secret Life of Puppets explores the hauntings, possessions, and other uncanny phenomena proliferating in literature and entertainment (and by no means only on the margins); [Nelson] argues strongly, through vivid and original readings of H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe and many artifacts in a variety of media, for a new approach to the uses of fantasy and to the relationship between material and immaterial phenomena. -- Marina Warner * Times Literary Supplement *Freud theorized that modern civilization (the one in which he lived, anyway) repressed our sexual instincts. In her provocative new book, The Secret Life of Puppets, Victoria Nelson contends that modern civilization has repressed our spiritual instincts. And these, she argues, like all repressed instincts, have come back to surprise us in strange new forms. -- Merle Rubin * Christian Science Monitor *Translating ancient thought systems into contemporary terms, finding equivalents of the old in the new, Nelson skillfully manages to thrust the sphere of academic research headlong into popular culture, making this both accessible and erudite… In a dizzying journey that opens with a Renaissance grotto and concludes with The Truman Show and virtual reality, we are taken on a rollercoaster ride through the underside of western mysticism. As Nelson herself warns the reader, when crawling out from the ‘hole of this book’, whatever emerges ‘will not be the same as what went in.’ -- Aura Satz * Financial Times *This is no ordinary work of intellectual history… This is New Age prophecy at its most verbally sexy and literarily savvy. It is fun, enticing, and chock full of brilliance. -- Laura Bass * Washington Times *Some books are fated and fêted for cult status. They have a particular feel and fervency about them. The Secret Life of Puppets by Victoria Nelson, a writer on writing…seems like one of those uncanny, unclassifiable books that break the mould and promise to have a market appeal across disciplines and hobbies, among sober seekers after enlightenment as well as cranks… Nelson’s breathtaking jaunt through the underground of Western culture is certainly illuminating and sometimes intoxicating… Expertly researched, forcefully written, magnificently produced, The Secret Life of Puppets is a haunting, highly charged book that leaves a strong after-image of worlds within worlds. -- William Keenan * Journal of Contemporary Religion *Nelson plots an illuminating journey through a carnival funhouse… Unlike many similar, wide-ranging culture studies, Nelson’s book arrives with no agenda, blaming no one; instead, she offers a learned, exciting ride through a phantasmagoric landscape filled with dark mysteries. * Publishers Weekly *Nelson has written an eloquent, exciting, memorable, important book. It is alive and disturbingly truthful. -- Harold Bloom, author of The Western Canon and Shakespeare: The Invention of the HumanA wonderful, unlikely, necessary book which links high and low and pop culture, the sacred and the profane, into a magnificent webwork of pattern and gnosis—it is erudite, irreverent, and profound. Just read it. -- Neil Gaiman, author of American GodsThe Secret Life of Puppets is one of the most important and inspiring books I’ve read in many years. Ranging widely in the imagination of Western culture, it shows wisely how the human soul went into eclipse, where it remained hidden, and how it might return. The language is fresh, the ideas original. Each page has at least one summary sentence, beautifully compact, that offers a way out of the scientism and displaced notions of transcendence that have chased the life out of modern experience. Drawing on a largely neglected tradition of Neoplatonic and magical thought, it opens up key themes of religion and literature that lie hidden in popular culture and high art. -- Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul and The Soul’s ReligionMuch more than intellectual history and literary criticism, Victoria Nelson’s The Secret Life of Puppets is a provocative, important and exciting thesis about why organized Western religion is no longer the residence of religion. In a convincing series of essays, Nelson demonstrates how the sacred and our yearning for the transcendent has now reappeared in art, film and all manner of simulacra—yes, and even in puppets. This is required reading for any serious student or teacher of religion. -- Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, author of God Was in This Place; I, I Did Not Know; Invisible Lines of Connection; and other booksThis is a book of powerful psychic allure: it consistently engages and challenges; one is pushed into new intellectual spheres by its very oddity and force. It is also spectacularly well-written on a sentence-by-sentence level. Nelson is a prose stylist of sometimes lyric and touching penetration. -- Terry Castle, author of The Female Thermometer and The Apparitional LesbianTable of Contents* Preface * Grotto, An Opening * Early Adventures of the Earthly Gods * The Puppet Tractates * The Strange History of the American Fantastic * H.P. Lovecraft and the Great Heresies * Symmes Hole, or the South Polar Grotto * Is This Real or Am I Crazy? * Two Old Birds and Their New Feathers * The New Expressionists * The Hermeticon of Umbertus E. * The Great Twentieth-Century Puppet Upgrade * The Door in the Sky * Notes * Acknowledgments * Index

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Book SynopsisMagic, During suggests, has helped shape modern culture. Devoted to this deceptively simple proposition, During's work gets at the aesthetic questions at the very heart of the study of culture. How can the most ordinary arts—and by “magic,” During means not the supernatural, but the special effects and conjurings of magic shows—affect people?Trade ReviewSimon During’s book shows deep, wide reading in an awe-inspiring range of disciplines, including urban history, German Romantic philosophy, and modern cultural critiques of consumption… Modern Enchantments is a richly informed, warmly argued addition to the growing number of books in which writers worry at the pervasive blurring of distinctions between act and appearance, organic consciousness and artificial intelligence, imagination and empirical experience, illusion and thought, reality TV and real life, dreams and money. -- Marina Warner * Financial Times *A well-researched and finely paced history of performance magic… During’s history and analysis is certainly thorough and compelling. -- James Flint * The Guardian *The first major academic work on secular magic—magic that makes no claim to the supernatural. The historical research is outstanding, while presented in an entertaining, indeed quite charming, manner. Yet Modern Enchantments is not only a pleasurable account of perhaps forgotten histories… During uses secular magics and their audiences to profoundly problematise assumptions that general culture does not have a plurality of modes of engaging with quite sophisticated nihilisms, materialisms, depths and depthlessnesses of a non-spiritual kind. -- Andrew Murphie * Australian Humanities Review *[This] is the first comprehensive academic history of stage magic, the product of vast research, and rewarding to read. -- Fred Nadis * Technology and Culture *During documents the extent to which magic and magical thinking have pervaded, and continue to pervade, secular life…the author examines 19th- and 20th-century theatrical magic and ‘commercial conjuring’ with great sensitivity to the social and cultural context in the Western world. Equally fascinating is the analysis of magic and early film. -- R. Sugarman * Choice *The erudition behind this book is massive, and as a critical act of sorting and synthesizing so vast a range of materials, it is impressively canny. -- James Chandler, author of England in 1819: the Politics of Literary Culture and the Case of Romantic HistoricismModern Enchantments offers a history of ‘secular,’ or non-supernatural, or entertainment magic as an important but neglected constituent of modern culture… During moves confidently across three centuries of magic (and covers aspects of a few more besides). The sheer wealth of historical detail he provides is impressive, but no less impressive is the subtlety of his argumentation, and the suggestiveness of his claims… This extremely significant piece of work will appeal to literary critics, historians, and not least, devotees of magic. -- Nicholas Daly, author of Modernism, Romance, and the Fin de Siècle: Popular Fiction and British Culture, 1880–1914Modern Enchantments is a magisterial, breathtaking book. Magic is everywhere, During notes, from the simple act of naming to the complicated technologies of the cinema. By connecting performance and religion, he brilliantly shows how older forms of ritual magic find a new and different space in modern culture, reappearing as show business, advertising, and fiction making. This dazzling and stimulating book is sure to rekindle wide interest in spiritualism and magic as makers of modern culture. Modern Enchantments is cultural history at its best. -- Gauri Viswanathan, author of Outside the Fold: Conversion, Modernity, and BeliefTable of ContentsAcknowledgments 1. Magic History: An Introduction 2. Enchantment and Loss: Theorizing Secular Magic 3. Egg-Bag Tricks and Electricity: The Founding of Modern Commercial Conjuring 4. Magic's Moment: The Illusion Business 5. From Magic to Film 6. Magic and Literature 7. Magic Places: The Lyceum and the Great Room, Spring Gardens 8. Spiritualism and the Birth of Optical Technologies Notes Index

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Book SynopsisKaplan shows how U.S. imperialism—from “Manifest Destiny” to the “American Century”—has profoundly shaped key elements of American culture at home, and how the struggle for power over foreign peoples and places has disrupted the quest for domestic order.Trade ReviewKaplan does a beautiful job of reintegrating the "domestic" with the "foreign" in American history, and of demonstrating the persistent, ubiquitous imperialist logic which has informed, inflected, or sometimes fully shaped "domestic" social relations, cultural productions, and utterances of all sorts. In moving from Beecher to Twain to Theodore Roosevelt to Griffith to Du Bois, Kaplan not only offers up original and provocative readings of some very familiar texts (across a number of genres), but she highlights an important thread which runs through the entire period from Manifest Destiny to the WWI years. Texts like Huckleberry Finn and Citizen Kane will never look quite the same. -- Matthew Frye Jacobson, Professor of American Studies at Yale UniveristyOver the past decade, Amy Kaplan has led the way in integrating the field of empire into our understanding of American literature and culture. The contributions of this superb book are many. It compels us to reexamine dominant paradigms and topics in American Studies--from sentimental domesticity, to Twain's stature as a national icon, to the "splendid little war" of 1898, to the rise of modern film--all in the light of empire. Each and every chapter has an eye-opening prospect, but the cumulative view is breathtaking. -- Christopher P. Wilson, Professor of English at Boston CollegeIn six carefully crafted case studies--ranging from American notions of Manifest Destiny in the 1840s through Mark Twain's international travels to late-19th-century popular romances like Charles Major's "When Knighthood Was in Flower" and Mark Johnson's "To Have and To Hold"; journalistic accounts of the Spanish-American War; and a concluding account of Du Bois's incisive remapping of the imperial world in his 1920 book "Darkwater"--Kaplan travels freely over a wide swath of American cultural history. Along the way she casts a theoretically sophisticated eye on disparate texts--some familiar to American readers, many not...The result is a challenging, provocative work that makes a persuasive case for the inextricable--and complicated--connections between American notions of national identity and US foreign policy. -- James A. Miller * Boston Globe *[Kaplan] has a big important idea: the outside world mattered intensely and intimately to Americans from the nineteenth century onward. Through writings such as Harriet Beecher Stowe's writing for housewives, Mark Twain's dispatches fm Hawaii, and W. E. B. Du Bois's fiction, Kaplan traces how America's foreign relations shaped popular consciousness at a time when conventional wisdom has Americans slumbering in isolation and ignorance of the wider world. Kaplan is rightly fascinated with the contradictory impulses in American culture: we want the whole world to be like us, but being different and unique is part of who we are. We cannot have it both ways, but we endlessly try, and Kaplan provides real insight into the ways this conflicted agenda continues to shape American identity. -- Walter Russell Mead * Foreign Affairs *Through insightful readings of texts from film to fiction, travelogue to memoir, Kaplan writes empire into the cultural history of the U.S., and America into the transnational history of empire. With a keen eye for contradiction, Kaplan shows how the endeavour to maintain boundaries--between U.S. and world, domestic and foreign--works constantly against its own undoing. -- Susan Carruthers * Times Higher Education Supplement *Amy Kaplan’s groundbreaking The Anarchy of Empire in the Making of U.S. Culture reveals in all sorts of subtle ways how modern American overseas imperial expansion and rule are tied directly to domestic issues like segregation, domesticity, the attack on Reconstruction, and the gender ideals of manhood. With great refinement and an impressive command of legal, political, and military history, she explores cultural documents whose contributions to American national identity are as profound as they are usually overlooked. This is a book of exceptional interest for all scholars of imperialism and its cultural correlatives at home. -- Edward W. SaidKaplan pulls back the curtain on the imperial spectacle. In doing so, however, she shows the the ‘real’ nature of events is often not what is at stake: the problem is as much how imperialism gets imbedded in our heads. Few scholars in the last decade have done more than Kaplan has to advance critical reading practices that cultivate anti-imperialist intellectual reflexes. The publication of The Anarchy of Empire in the Making of U.S. Culture affirms Kaplan's reputation as one of the most insightful readers of the violent lineaments and effects of that culture. -- Nikhil Pal Singh * American Quarterly *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Manifest Domesticity 2. The Imperial Routes of Mark Twain 3. Romancing the Empire 4. Black and Blue on San Juan Hill 5. Birth of an Empire 6. The Imperial Cartography of W. E. B. Du Bois Notes Acknowledgments Index

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Book SynopsisCompeting Devotions focuses on the broad social and cultural forces that create women’s identities and shape their understanding of what makes life worth living. Mary Blair-Loy examines the career paths of women financial executives who have tried various approaches to balancing career and family.Trade ReviewMany professional women intuit that male colleagues whose spouse handle for them the details of everyday life are favored in the workplace. Blair-Loy confirms this intuition and shows us how it happens. She captures how the cultural schemas of "family devotion" and "work devotion" contribute to the reproduction of gender inequality, and how meeting the demands of a husband's job and other people's needs push professional women to progressively abandon their work to take care of others. Her analysis also gives us hope by comparing the fate of pre and post-baby boomers. This is both an important scholarly contribution and a book that will help readers think differently about their lives. It should be required reading for professional women who aspire to maintain multidimensional lives. -- Michèle Lamont, author of The Dignity of Working Men: Morality and the Boundaries of Race, Class, and ImmigrationThis is a fascinating book with an important message. Blair-Loy's findings are surprising. She challenges conventional viewpoints. She is on to something really new when she writes about not only the interplay between cultural norms and individual actions (and institutional structures) but on the cultural schemas that evoke deep emotional resonances. An outstanding book. -- Cynthia Fuchs-Epstein, author of Deceptive Distinctions: Sex, Gender and the Social OrderMary Blair-Loy's book transcends old debates about work and family by examining the women who have beaten the odds and risen to the top. Her detailed examination of careers and strategies perfectly complements her subtle analysis of the schemas and visions these women have for their lives. Blair-Loy has given us not only a splendid view into a little known world, but also a new way of understanding the dynamic interplay of work and family. Looking beyond the static conflict we have studied so much, she shows how creative women put traditional schemas of family and work into a mutual transformation to build for themselves a new and more livable world. -- Andrew Abbott, author of Time MattersBlair-Loy's comparison of the two groups [of work-committed and family-committed] women is an imaginative and beautifully constructed study that bristles with insight...Rather than serving up the standard menu of neat public policy fixes to achieve work-family 'balance,' Competing Devotions offers a compelling explanation as to why even such long overdue reforms as paid family leave legislation and the proliferation of 'family friendly' corporate benefits are not likely to do much to resolve the work-family conundrum without a far more fundamental set of social changes. Both corporate elite careers and motherhood, Blair-Loy argues, have deep moral and cultural underpinnings. Both are governed by what she calls 'schemas of devotion' that demand total commitment to one's 'calling,' whether it be to the corporation or the child(ren)...These morally laden schemas are so powerful that they often trump economic rationality. -- Ruth Milkman * Women's Review of Books *The work-devotion and family-devotion schemas are not simply used as rationalizations; they are gendered frameworks that others use to interpret behavior. As cultural models, they serve to define 'economic rationality'...Blair-Loy skillfully illustrates the patterns that emerge when we view individual lives in the context of their historical moment and social location. Competing Devotions is an insightful examination of work and family among elite executive women. -- Anita Ilta Garey * American Journal of Sociology *This book will be of significant interest to students of work and organizations, those who are concerned with work-family conflict and accommodation, and those students of cultural sociology who wish to read a testimonial on how important cultural schemas are in constructing social lives. Here the schemas are work and family. But the findings may potentially generalize to other cultural schemas that can have a powerful grip on us as we negotiate our lives, regardless of whether we innovate at the boundaries of competing devotions or not. -- Toby L. Parcel * Administrative Science Quarterly *This work is a welcome addition to the growing body of sociological studies of working women. A significant contribution of this book is that it lends a qualitative consideration to a topic too often evaluated by quantitative measures. -- Susan R. Cody * NWSA Journal *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. The Devotion to Work Schema 2. The Devotion to Family Schema 3. Reinventing Schemas: Creating Part-Time Careers 4. Reinventing Schemas: Family Life among Full-Time Executive Women 5. Turning Points 6. Implications Appendix: Methods and Data Notes References Acknowledgments Index

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Book SynopsisIn this intimate memoir of a young Jewish woman’s adolescence and life in a nineteenth century Eastern European shtetl, Hinde Bergner recalls the gradual impact of modernization on a traditional world as she finds herself caught between her thirst for a European education, true love, and the expectations of her traditional family.

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Book SynopsisThis book—arguably the longest longitudinal study of age, crime, and the life course to date—analyzes data on crime and social development up to age 70 for 500 men who were remanded to reform school in the 1940s. The authors find that men who desisted from crime were rooted in structural routines and had strong social ties to family and community.Trade ReviewThe accounts of individuals are quite riveting, and the book can be recommended strongly purely for the stories provided about diverse lives. However, the book is much, much more than that in terms of the serious challenge that the authors' findings and ideas present to some of the leading contemporary theories of both crime and development. A highly original and scholarly contribution of the highest quality. -- Sir Michael Rutter, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College LondonShared Beginnings, Divergent Lives is an extraordinary work which shows the deep insights gained by studying the whole life course, beginning in childhood and ending in later life. With access to a rare data archive, the authors provide compelling evidence on the remarkably varied adult lives of teenage delinquents who grew up in low-income areas of Boston (born 1925-1935). The story behind these varied life paths and their consequences inspires fresh thinking about crime over the life course through models of life trajectories and vivid narratives that reveal the complexity of lives. -- Glen H. Elder, Jr., University of North Carolina at Chapel HillThis book redraws the landscape of developmental criminology that Laub and Sampson already have done so much to define, setting new standards and benchmarks along the way. The authors both provide new evidence for earlier conclusions and challenge prevailing assumptions and assertions, thereby reshaping the criminological research agenda for years to come. -- John Hagan, Northwestern UniversityShared Beginnings, Divergent Lives by John H. Laub and Robert J. Sampson does not directly address current penal policy, but it provides devastating evidence refuting many fallacies that underlie it. The volume provides the conclusion to a classic criminological study. In the 1940s Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck began to study a sample of 500 Boston men who were remanded to reform school. Between 1940 and 1965 the Gluecks collected a mass of data on this sample (and a matched non-deliquent control group). They were interviewed at an average age of fourteen, again at twenty-five, and finally at thirty-two. The results were published in the Gluecks' seminal book Unravelling Juvenile Delinquency (1950) and subsequent works up to 1974. Shared Beginnings, Divergent Lives reports on Laub and Sampson's attempts to contact and interview surviving members of the Gluecks' original cohort, now aged around seventy...Combining statistical analysis with qualitative depth interviewing, their study illuminates the sources of desistance from, and persistence in, crime over the men's lifetimes...There are many important lessons for current crime control discourse and policy that can be gained from this rigorous, sensitive and insightful study...If rehabilitation of offenders is possible (as this book demonstrates), then the current zero-sum refrain of crime control rhetoric that concern for victims precludes concern for offenders is refuted. Concern to protect victims requires concern for offenders. -- Robert Reiner * Times Literary Supplement *Shared Beginnings, Divergent Lives is a profound, complex, and sometimes difficult book. Nevertheless, it is enormously rewarding. The book, destined to become a classic, will sharpen readers' awareness of adult development forever. The lessons of this book can be applied not only to criminality but also to the natural history of drug abuse, chronic unemployment, marital turmoil, and personality disorders. -- George E. Vaillant, M.D. * American Journal of Psychiatry *This is an invaluable and imaginative study that should provide data for criminologists to examine for years to come. The combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods is a refreshing break from the fetish with quantitative data that characterizes most criminological research…They have provided an excellent example of the thinking and research methods of modern criminology along with a rich source of data on the life course of people who were once labeled as delinquent and were incarcerated in a reformatory. -- William Chambliss * American Journal of Sociology *This is an invaluable and imaginative study that should provide data for criminologists to examine for years to come. The combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods is a refreshing break from the fetish with quantitative data that characterizes most criminological research. -- William Chambliss * American Journal of Sociology *This book analyzes newly collected data on crime and social development up to age 70 for 500 men who were remanded to reform school in the 1940s. Born in Boston in the late 1920s and early 1930s, these men were the subjects of the classic study Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency by Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck (1950). Updating their lives at the close of the twentieth century, and connecting their adult experiences to childhood, this book is arguably the longest longitudinal study of age, crime, and the life course to date. John Laub and Robert Sampson's long-term data, combined with in-depth interviews, defy the conventional wisdom that links individual traits such as poor verbal skills, limited self-control, and difficult temperament to long-term trajectories of offending. The authors reject the idea of categorizing offenders to reveal etiologies of offending--rather, they connect variability in behavior to social context. They find that men who desisted from crime were rooted in structural routines and had strong social ties to family and community. By uniting life-history narratives with rigorous data analysis, the author shed new light on long-term trajectories of crime and current policies of crime control. * Adolescence *This book is arguably the longest longitudinal study of age, crime, and the life course to date. John Laub and Robert Sampson's long-term data, combined with in-depth interviews, defy the conventional wisdom that links individual traits such as poor verbal skills, limited self-control, and difficult temperament to long-term trajectories of offending...By uniting life-history narratives with rigorous data analysis, the authors shed new light on long-term trajectories of crime and current policies of crime control.Table of Contents* Acknowledgments *1. Diverging Pathways of Troubled Boys *2. Persistence or Desistance? *3. Explaining the Life Course of Crime *4. Finding the Men *5. Long-Term Trajectories of Crime *6. Why Some Offenders Stop *7. Why Some Offenders Persist *8. Zigzag Criminal Careers *9. Modeling Change in Crime *10. Rethinking Lives in and out of Crime * Notes * References * Index

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Book SynopsisDid you know that you are more closely related to a mushroom than to a daisy? That dinosaurs are still among us? That the terms “fish” and “invertebrates” do not indicate scientific groupings? All this is the result of major changes in classification. This book diagrams the tree of life according to the most recent methods of this system.Trade ReviewWhile so many fundamental texts rely on new advances in genetics to tell us what is known about the machinery of life, basically none provides a revision of the way that we view the structure of the world itself. This is the only book centered on the pattern of biological data, and it should be a model for every book on biological diversity that follows. -- John W. Wenzel * Cladistics (review of the French edition) *At long last, we have a single source on the classification of the diversity of life based upon modern methodological and conceptual advances. This book is a milestone that will move forward the teaching and understanding of the great tree of life and its branches. The authors are to be commended for creating a book that will be of value to anyone interested in the diversity and history of life on earth, from bacteria to orchids from fungi to man. -- Dennis W. Stevenson, Vice President for Botanical Science & Rupert Barneby Curator, New York Botanical GardenThe Tree of Life by Lecointre and Le Guyader is now the best book available for information on groups of organisms, numbers of species per group, and relationships. All who are interested in how to recognize living and fossil life-forms and their relationships should possess and read this book. Clearly written and beautifully illustrated, it will stand as the most important source for years to come. -- B. K. Hall * Choice *The Tree of Life is a terrific compendium of the conclusions of thirty years of research and standardization by thousands of scientists around the globe. It is clearly written, logically organized, and beautifully illustrated. In short, it is one-stop shopping for anyone with questions about where a given group of organisms fits on the tree of life, what characteristics put it there, and how we know all this...Karen McCoy's translation of the original French edition is competent and fluid, a pleasure to read. This book deserves wide distribution and use in libraries and classrooms, as well as among professionals and students of biology. -- Kevin Padian * Reports of the National Center for Science Education *This will make a great reference for any student of the diversity of life. This book classifies all major groups of living organisms and lists the characters that support them in a regular and organized fashion. I strongly recommend this book for anyone interested in the tree of life's great diversity. -- Marie W. Allard * Journal of Human Biology *As the book review editor, it is obvious that I would request from the publisher a copy of any book with this title, with the intention of then sending it on to a reviewer. However, I just couldn’t make myself do it in this case—I loved the book too much to be able to part with it… [T]he straightforward arrangement, the simple writing style (translated well) and the direct presentation of phylogenetic information all make the book accessible to the reader, both expert and non-expert alike. In short, the book is unique. It not only represents the first thorough attempt to portray life from a purely phylogenetic perspective, it is an excellent implementation of that idea. As an added bonus, there is a 35-page introduction to phylogenetic systematics. This is among the best such introductions in any language. The candid and unadorned writing style comes to the fore, so that the ideas and information are comprehensible to the uninitiated without alienating the experts by oversimplification. None of the complications in phylogeny reconstruction are avoided (although the methodology concentrates on parsimony analysis), and yet the concepts are presented in a straightforward and logical manner, with suitable illustrated examples. -- David A. Morrison * Systematic Biology *

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Book SynopsisIn this history of 20th-century technology, Slade explains how disposability was a necessary condition for America’s rejection of tradition and our acceptance of change and impermanence. But by choosing to support ever-shorter product lives, he argues, we may well be shortening the future of our way of life.Trade ReviewThe flip side of America's worship of novelty is its addiction to waste, a linkage illuminated in this fascinating historical study. Historian Slade surveys the development of disposability as a consumer convenience, design feature, economic stimulus and social problem, from General Motors' 1923 introduction of annual model changes that prodded consumers to trade in perfectly good cars for more stylish updates, to the modern cell-phone industry, where fashion-driven "psychological obsolescence" compounds warp-speed technological obsolescence to dramatically reduce product life-cycles. He also explores the debate over "planned obsolescence" decried by social critics as an unethical affront to values of thrift and craftsmanship, but defended as a Darwinian spur to innovation by business intellectuals who further argued that "wearing things out does not produce prosperity, but buying things does." Slade's even-handed analysis acknowledges both manufacturers' manipulative marketing ploys and consumers' ingrained love of the new as motors of obsolescence, which he considers an inescapable feature of a society so focused on progress and change...Slade's lively, insightful look at a pervasive aspect of America's economy and culture make this book a keeper. * Publisher's Weekly *Slade's fresh and thought-provoking analysis of conspicuous consumption and its unintended environmental consequences closes with a clarion call for combating e-waste. -- Donna Seaman * Booklist *Each year consumers replace old but still-functioning cell phones, televisions, computers, and other electronic items with newer, sleeker models. The discarded items end up in landfills, where they slowly leach their toxic components. Slade examines how obsolenscence became a way of life in the United States. * Science News *A primer for the techno-curious, Giles Slade's Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America outlines the rapid growth of our waste culture beginning with 19th-century paper shirt collars and safety razors. As Americans grew nonchalant about throwing away common items, manufacturers developed advertising practices convincing consumers that larger belongings (like cars), too, had shelf lives, justifying the "throwaway ethic" that pervades modern society...Slade keeps the topic of technological obsolescence interesting with engrossing factoids and anecdotes while sounding an alarm for the e-obsessed. -- Stacy Klein * Playboy *Giles Slade traces the roots of our love affair with 'repetitive buying' in a new book, Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America. It's an eye-opening look at corporate greed and at the statistics of American consumerism. -- Faye B. Zuckerman * Providence Journal *[A] troubling and important book: At least 90 percent of the 315 million still-functional personal computers discarded in North America in 2004 were trashed, and more than 100 million cell phones--200,000 tons' worth--were thrown away in 2005. Things are likely to get much worse in the near future, and this assessment frames Slade's engaging examination of the various kinds of obsolescence that contribute to the problem. * San Francisco Chronicle *Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America is a fascinating, vexing, even enraging history of our "throw-away ethic." Drawing on a wealth of rarely consulted primary sources and writing with lucidity and vigor, Slade documents the creation of consumer culture and the engineering of obsolescence...Informative and entertaining, Slade reveals the thinking behind so much of what we take for granted today in terms of branding, extravagant packaging, ever-changing styles and the many forms of overt and covert advertising that dominate our media and public spaces. But the real shock is found in his thoroughly researched revelations regarding "planned obsolescence," manufacturing techniques used to "artificially limit the durability of a manufactured good in order to stimulate repetitive consumption." This is the secret of the made-to-break strategy, a shameful, shadow side of American know-how...Not only is Made to Break rich in history and analysis, it also contains vivid profiles of seminal inventors, advertising pioneers, inventive business moguls and prescient social critics. Creativity and greed, innovation and irresponsibility, malevolence and hubris, conformity and dissent--all combine in a tale of American ingenuity run amok...We depend on writers like...Giles Slade...--writers working in the great tradition of bold and rigorous American thinkers, observers, critics and muckrakers from Henry David Thoreau to Upton Sinclair, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson and Bill McKibben--to shake us awake, dispel the fever dream of consumerism and reveal the true cost of our love for technology and our obsession with machines and disposable goods. And as precise as...Slade...[is] in [his] coverage of the garbage crisis, [he is] equally meticulous in [his] explications of solutions. -- Donna Seaman * Chicago Tribune *Giles Slade has produced a riveting piece of cultural history to explain the veritable mushroom cloud of electronic waste threatening our planet, while hinting suggestively at why the public seems so detached from the crisis and even its role in creating it...[An] engrossing tale...[Slade is] a thinker worth heeding. -- Heather Menzies * Globe and Mail *The propensity to buy, discard, and buy again is no accident, explains Giles Slade in the engaging Made to Break, which chronicles the history and consequences of Americans' obsession with the next new thing. -- Elizabeth Grossman * Grist *Made to Break is both entertaining and thought-provoking. -- John Emsley * Nature *[Slade's] book is not just about the manufacture of modern must-haves, but how bad they are for the planet when they become must-bins. -- Shane Hegarty * Irish Times *In Made to Break, Giles Slade provides a well-researched and readable account of the history of capital production and product consumption in America over the past century. -- Austin Williams * Times Literary Supplement *Computers, TV sets, and, especially, cell phones are treated as disposable in our society, but sending them to landfills will be hugely injurious to our planet down the road. In this book, packed with thought-provoking digressions, Giles Slade wonders why we don't demand durability in our material goods. -- Rebecca Wigod * Vancouver Sun *Best book for someone whose web browser just doesn't work anymore: Made to Break by Giles Slade. The Richmond, B.C. author's book traces the history of planned obsolescence back to the paper shirt-collar and the mass-market wristwatch. It's lively, thorough, and might just make you reconsider the beauty of the iPod. * The Tyee *Giles Slade's book is an engaging overview of the American consumer's relationship to disposability, fashion, innovation, and "obsolescence" in mass-produced commodities of all sorts during the twentieth century. It will be useful as an introduction to these issues for casual readers and secondary students. -- Greg Downed * American Historical Review *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Repetitive Consumption 2. The Annual Model Change 3. Hard Times 4. Radio, Radio 5. The War and Postwar Progress 6. The Fifties and Sixties 7. Chips 8. Weaponizing Planned Obsolescence 9. Cell Phones and E-Waste Notes Acknowledgments Index

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Book SynopsisMoses Maimonides was the most significant Jewish thinker, jurist, and doctor of the Middle Ages, author of both a monumental code of Jewish law and the most influential and controversial work of Jewish philosophy. These essays mark the 800th anniversary of Maimonides’s death in 1204, covering all aspects of his work and influence.Trade ReviewThis is a useful collection which both scholars and laymen will enjoy. -- Shlomo Brody * Tradition Online *Based on a conference at Harvard University commemorating 800 years since the death of Maimonides, this volume presents a refreshing range of perspectives on the towering Jewish thinker. Though most of the articles deal with the philosophy of Maimonides, especially as presented in his Guide for the Perplexed, there are several important contributions to other aspects of his personality…The range of subjects discussed makes this volume relevant to a wide variety of intellectually-minded readers. Readers will be requesting it for the many important studies it contains. -- Pinchas Roth * Association of Jewish Libraries Newsletter *

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Book SynopsisTwenty years scouring American culture has made Hampton a uniquely hard-nosed guide to the heart of pop darkness. Bridging the space between Apocalypse Now Redux and Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” his writing breaks down barriers of ignorance and arrogance that have segregated art forms from each other and from the world at large.Trade ReviewBorn in Flames encompasses literature and movies, television, the jazz of Anthony Braxton and William Parker, the post-punk of Wire and Essential Logic. It’s one thing to make seemingly wild connections among genres, artists and epochs, pairing Buffy the Vampire Slayer with D.H. Lawrence’s Studies in Classic American Literature or Apocalypse Now with Nirvana. It’s another to make those connections stick… Best of all, he’s fun to read… An aesthetic of pleasure runs through Hampton’s writing… The best criticism forms an unconscious self-portrait of the critic. When Howard Hampton describes the work that matters most to him as having ‘a personal touch that brings something unique and special, always that sense of discovery, of finding things they didn’t anticipate and going further than they thought,’ he’s perfectly described his own. -- Charles Taylor * Los Angeles Times *[Hampton] never substitutes cleverness for incisiveness; reading Born in Flames’ alternate history of the late 20th century’s zeitgeist isn’t just exhilarating but illuminating. Describing an anthology of fellow netherworld traveler Lester Bangs’ articles, Hampton praises a ‘book that could make a person want to become a critic, or remind one why he became a critic in the first place.’ I know what you mean, sir. I’m holding just such a volume in my hands. -- David Fear * Time Out New York *This is writing that exposes an imagination’s workings, overlapping, a floating stew of reference points that encompasses high culture, mass culture and everything in between… [An] astonishing example of the critic’s art. -- David L. Ulin * Los Angeles Times Book Review *Hampton’s method of combining film, music, and literary references to make cases for low and high culture he admires or deplores can be overwhelming if you read this collection of essays straight through: The synthesizing brilliance Hampton has perfected over the past couple of decades is almost impossibly rich. So I suggest you let the book sit on a nearby table and regularly explore a chapter such as ‘Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere,’ his enthralling gallop through rock music as it has been depicted, included, and misunderstood in movies ranging from Easy Rider to A Hard Day’s Night to Carrie. In the latter, Hampton says, ‘De Palma’s Carrie realizes one of rock’s primal fantasies: the bottomless pit of teen anomie made into macabre comedy, the ultimate eroto-destructive distillation of Alice Cooper’s ‘Eighteen’ and ‘School’s Out.’ And Hampton is right, as usual. -- Ken Tucker * Entertainment Weekly *Exhilarating, astonishing, and immensely entertaining… [One of] my favorite books of the year so far… Charged with intelligence, originality, and consummate style, constantly challenging and deeply personal. Hampton’s collection has been with me since the beginning of the year, and, each time I pick it up, I still find new things to investigate. His voice is one of pop-culture delirium, a mind beset by all manner of furies. -- Anthony Miller * Los Angeles City Beat *Howard Hampton, semireclusive resident of Apple Valley and lover of the eclectic, is one of the smartest cultural critics alive, in Born in Flames: Termite Dreams, Dialectical Fairy Tales, and Pop Apocalypses, a collection of his writings from The Village Voice, Film Comment, and Artforum, among others, Hampton tackles everything from Saijun Suzuki films to Nirvana. One of the first Americans to cover the Hong Kong film industry’s golden age and one of the few to champion Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hampton loves savaging criticdom’s sacred cows (Jean-Luc Godard, the Easy Rider soundtrack) and delights in the weird juxtaposition. When he draws connections between, say, Forrest Gump and Natural Born Killers or Jimmy Cliff and Robert Mitchum, it all makes wacky, glorious sense; what seems at first prankish or showboating ultimately enlightens. -- Robert Ito * Los Angeles Magazine *Howard Hampton’s exploration of Hong Kong action films, Walter Benjamin, Pere Ubu and Lars Von Trier (and what they have to do with each other) is a delight to read—his dense arpeggios of wordplay and obscure musical references vie with high pitched fan-boy enthusiasms to form an engaging ode to ‘the allure of extremity.’ A true critic in the manner of Pauline Kael or the late, great Lester Bangs (both of whom are subjects of excellent essays here), Hampton, like all pop culture theorists, revels in the juxtaposition of high and low. Unlike many of his ilk, he understands the potential pitfalls of swinging too far into the pop camp—he refuses to dumb anything down, and is as likely to reference Captain Beefheart or D. H. Lawrence as Buffy the Vampire Slayer… Born in Flames is a gleeful embrace of the ‘poignant and hilarious’… Hampton’s analyses pit the best of pop and academe against each other in a marriage made in heaven—a harmonious medium is achieved, and, in his words, ‘a beautiful, slightly insane relationship is born.’ -- Ali Riley * Calgary Herald *Born in Flames fairly teems with such cunning punning and ticklish postulations. While some critics are correct to note that the aggregation of so much cleverness can prove exhausting, there’s also something exhilarating about a writer who galumphs across so much ground with so nimble a tread. -- Adam Nayman * Cineaste *Hampton’s enthusiasm—not mention his writing style—is infectious. I like this collection, its unresolved tensions between the marketplace of entertainment and the bazaar of the soul, between the critic as functionary factotum and high priest of low-culture ritual, between the writer’s dread that nothing matters and the writer’s need to assert that every little semiotic nuance and secondary character in Buffy, not to mention Buffy spinoff Angel, matters… In this collection, Hampton consistently reminds us that the great thing about pop culture was, and still is, its populist capacity to inspire without demeaning or deluding. -- Hal Niedzviecki * Globe and Mail *The 40 pieces in this anthology representing some 20 years of Hampton’s writing on a broad cultural panorama are, quite simply, a hoot. -- Robert Birnbaum * Morning News *[Hampton’s] an encyclopedic pop-culture jukebox, skipping from track to track faster than a caffeine-addled teen mouse-clicking through cyberspace. He links Forrest Gump to Natural Born Killers as ‘magnetic poles of America’s mania for order’ (‘American Maniacs’) and finds the music of Sting wanting when compared to hillbilly twanger Hasil Adkins (‘Bring Me the Head of Gordon Sumner’). The torrent of allusions presupposes an Olympian level of cultural indoctrination, and some sentences are so dense as to require a little thoughtful chewing, but Hampton offers something that grows scarcer as today’s media bombardment grows in volume: fresh thinking. Knee-jerk intellectuals may find it easy to lampoon someone who takes pop this seriously, but Hampton is a writer—possibly the only one—who can analyze Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the context of D.H. Lawrence (‘American Daemons’) and make it work. -- Keir Graff * Booklist *It’s fitting to find a tribute to Lester Bangs halfway through this collection of film and music reviews, as Hampton appears to be a qualified successor to Bangs in the realm of pop cultural criticism. In these essays, written for alternative newspapers and art magazines, Hampton charts a freewheeling path through Hong Kong cinema, riot grrl albums and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That last show is something of a touchstone for Hampton: in one essay, he links it to Nirvana as part of the same cultural moment; in another, he views the series through the prism of D.H. Lawrence. The book is filled with similarly unlikely pairings that wind up making perfect sense, from the connections between Dennis Potter and punk rock to a revelatory description of Meat Loaf as a B-movie version of Bruce Springsteen. And when something offends Hampton’s sensibilities, watch out. Pans of Forrest Gump and the ‘perfumed gunk’ of Sting cut with a scathing fury. For the most part, though, Hampton chooses to devote his energies to music and movies he loves—and no matter how eclectic your tastes, there’s bound to be at least one artist in this collection he’ll make you want to track down. * Publishers Weekly *We live in an age of barely-concealed hysterias, and what is the reason for this terrible reality? It is a mystery. Howard Hampton’s great achievement as a critic is to see this reality, and to reveal it to the rest of us. Reading him makes me pop-eyed with fear. Reading him a little more makes me realize that I have been pop-eyed with fear all along—the sign of a first-rate cultural critic. -- Paul Berman, author of Terror and Liberalism and Power and the IdealistsYou may not know half the things Howard Hampton is talking about as he takes us on a breathtaking roller coaster ride through the high points and low points of pop culture, but you’re sure to find a lot to interest you. For me, the highlight was the best essay I’ve ever read on Joss Whedon’s wacky apocalyptic TV drama Angel. Hampton neatly sums up its message: ‘If you ask for water and life gives you gasoline, you better learn how to make Molotov cocktails.’ Who says TV has nothing to teach us? Howard Hampton is one of the most distinct voices in pop culture commentary today. -- Paul A. Cantor, author of Gilligan Unbound: Pop Culture in the Age of GlobalizationIn an appropriately explosive writing style, Howard Hampton refreshingly illuminates the freestanding alternative aesthetic in the past half-century. His extremely rigorous critique and electric writing revives the genre of cultural studies for the late twentieth century in the way that the Ramones ripped seventies music out of anaesthetized Osmond disco and sanitized Jackson Browne into the grit of punk. -- Evelyn Nien-Ming Ch’ien, author of Weird EnglishMr. Hampton’s writings form a sort of triangle with those of Greil Marcus and Lester Bangs. Mr. Hampton writes with a fluid, insistent, occasionally delirious sense of linguistic play. The style itself operates as a kind of argument, demonstrating the pleasures of a kind of rapacity and restlessness of intelligence. I find the reasoning, of itself—the modeling of ways to apprehend material culture—deeply useful, and exciting. Even in my disagreements, I come away thinking better and more intensely. -- Joshua Clover, University of California, DavisFor the better part of twenty years Howard Hampton has been one of the three or four greatest American writers about popular culture, and it seems the more unhinged the culture gets, the more he’s up to the job. If Hampton were a movie, he would be Melville’s Le Samouraï: cool hair-trigger instincts, two-steps-ahead-of-everyone savvy, and an outlaw heart expressed with white-fedora elegance. -- Steve EricksonHoward Hampton is one of the most original critics at work in the country today, and Born in Flames shows all his sides. Who else can write so well on William Parker and Chris Marker and Tsui Hark? He makes words flow like pinballs in a cyclotron. -- RJ Smith, author of The Great Black Way: L.A. in the 1940s and the Lost African American RenaissanceBorn in Flames seems to have sprung from the pen of someone who walked out of the apocalyptic ending of Nathanael West’s The Day of the Locust. While by no means parochial, his is a vision deeply grounded in Southern California, resting on a worldview shaped by violence, unkept promises, and a cornucopia of images, spectacle, and pop commodities. Hampton is a polymath and cultural omnivore, and what emerges from the pages of this dizzying and dazzling collection is an example of what important criticism is and can be: critical intervention not only into the meanings of individual genres and oeuvres but into our culture generally. -- David Suisman, University of DelawareWho is Howard Hampton? Who the hell isn’t he? A tragicomic master of doom and glee, of seething and serenity, analysis and outbursts, horror and hope, he’s the fun kind of unsettling. Somehow, this closest of close-ups inside his own trickster head ends up also being an accurate wide shot of American art and life. -- Sarah Vowell, author of Assassination VacationTable of ContentsIntroduction: Meet The Furies/Pop Goes the Apocalypse I. The Glamour of Extremity 1. Fairy Tales from Strangers Cat Power--Ghost World--Lora Logic--Phoebe Gloeckner 2. Chinese Radiation Tiananmen Square--Liberation Music Orchestra--Cloudland 3. Venus, Armed Brigitte Lin 4. American Maniacs Natural Born Killers versus Forrest Gump 5. Jungle Boogie Apocalypse Now Redux 6. Metal-liad Metallica--Guns 'N Roses--Nirvana 7. Smells Like... Sonic Youth--Kurt Cobain 8. Vamp Irma Vep--Olivier Assayas 9. Screaming Target Seijun Suzuki 10. Blood Poet Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia 11. Sympathy for the Devils Assassination Movies 12. "Nebraska" 13. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere The Uneasy Ride of Rock and the New Hollywood II. Shoot the Guitar Player 14. Let Us Now Kill White Elephants Lester Bangs 15. Bring Me the Head of Gordon Sumner Sting--Hasil Adkins 16. Dueling Cadavers The Mekons contra Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism 17. Aftermath Eleventh Dream Day's El Moodio 18. Build Me an L.A. Woman Los Angeles in Music and Memory 19. Do the Clam Elvis Cinema via Viva Las Vegas 20. Reification Blues The Persistence of the '70s 21. Moles on the Beach/Down in Flames Ray-Gun Suitcase/The Day the Earth Met Rocket from the Tombs 22. Mouse Trap Replica Anthony Braxton 23. Eyewitness News Wire 24. Imaginary Cities/Holiday for Strings William Parker 25. Book of Exodus Plastic People of the Universe 26. Prophecy Girls Sleater-Kinney/Cadallaca--Sarah Dougher--Sally Timms 27. Money Jungle Music Matthew Shipp III. Waterloo Sunset Boulevard 28. Such Sweet Thunder Pauline Kael, 1919-2001 29. Anatomies of Melancholy Chris Marker 30. My Own Private Benjamin Selected Writings, Volume 3: 1935-1938 and Walter Benjamin: The Story of a Friendship 31. Blur as Genre Wong Kar-wai's Chungking Express 32. Nice Gesamtkunstwerk If You Can Get It Tsui Hark/Ching Sui-tung 33. JLG/SS Godard-Spielberg, Inc. 34. Lynch Mob The Straight Story and Critical Myopia 35. Flattering the Audience American Splendor 36. Savant-Idiot, or Pull the Last Train to Dogville Lars von Trier 37. American Daemons Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Studies in Classic American Literature 38. Wrecked in El Dorado Angel 39. Whatever You Desire: Movieland and Pornotopia From The Big Sleep to Max Hardcore 40. Gold Diggers of 1935 Pennies from Heaven and London Calling 41. Apocrypha Now! An Imaginary Discography of Thomas Pynchon's Paranoids Notes Acknowledgments Credits Index

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Book SynopsisUnrest in China, from the dramatic events of 1989 to more recent stirrings, offers a rare opportunity to consider how popular contention unfolds in places where speech and assembly are tightly controlled. The contributors to this volume argue that ideas inspired by social movements elsewhere can help explain popular protest in China.Trade ReviewThis is a much needed book that will rightfully attract a great deal of attention. The Introduction is a masterful guide to the range of analytical issues concerning contentious politics, and the quality of the research, analysis, and writing throughout is impressive. -- Marc Blecher, Oberlin CollegeThis important book will interest both China specialists and social movement scholars. The essays cover many major issues in popular contention and protest in China, including labor rights, the environment, the internet, and religion, and offer valuable insights into such understudied topics as protest leaders and the effects of transnational activism. -- Mary E. Gallagher, University of MichiganA valuable addition to the studies of social movements and Chinese politics, Popular Protest in China provides a lively account of various forms of social resistance in a non-democratic environment. The wide range of assembled research encompasses a rich empirical spectrum of collective action from workers' strikes to internet contention, from environmental campaigns to religious dissent, and from openly organized or spontaneous assemblies to underground mobilizations. We find in the book many of the same stories on contemporary Chinese insurgence covered recently by the media but with much more complexity, nuance and depth. -- Xiaodan Zhang * Contemporary Sociology *This book defines its aim as to "nudge the study of contentious politics and China a step closer together." This is a welcome goal in the study of Chinese popular protests, and the book delivers what it promises. At the same time, it provides a wealth of information on contemporary contentious politics in China. Most articles in the book manage to be both theoretically interesting and to provide new information...Everyone interested in contemporary Chinese protests and social movements will find the book worth reading. It also calls for further research using concepts from studies in contentious politics. The book thus raises the level of theoretical debate by asking how well these concepts travel to China and what China can give back to them. -- Lauri Paltemaa * China Journal *Two decades of citizen action in China since 1989 have presented social movement scholars with a goldmine. A veteran scholar of Chinese protest, Kevin O'Brien, brings out this edited volume to showcase a group of experienced field researchers, continuing an effort to build a dialogue between Chinese experiences and the Western-honed theoretical models. The book is a welcome addition to the literature, as movement theorists have for years lamented the lack of lessons learned through a broadened comparative scope. -- Yang Su * China Quarterly *As Kevin O'Brien and Rachel Stern explain in their introductory chapter, the volume is designed as a springboard for new research. In that respect, they succeed marvelously. This book is highly recommended for graduate courses on contemporary Chinese politics and to anyone interested in state-society relations in China. -- James Reilly * Journal of Chinese Political Science *This fine collection of chronicles of what were largely short-lived episodes of disturbance and appeal, paired with analyses of what kept them so, sheds much light on the situation of protest in China today. The individual pieces, most of them drawing attention to novel aspects of expressing dissent in contemporary China, and new means of doing so, are all gems. Almost every one of them improves on work the authors published earlier on the same topics they write on here. But these new essays possess much more relevance to the au courant comparative social movements, "political process" approach--one that account for protest by reference to structural and ideational factors, as well as to the resources available to protesters. The extent of the theoretical and comparative material consulted and assimilated in pretty much every chapter is extremely impressive. -- Dorothy Solinger * China Perspectives *Overall, the book has several strengths that make it a valuable contribution to the literature on popular contention as well as to the study of China more generally. It includes informative cases that reflect some of the contemporary challenges facing the Chinese state. Furthermore, the individual chapters offer detailed reviews of the literature and build on one another quite well, so that the book reads as a unified body of work rather than a disjointed collection of essays, as sometimes occurs with edited volumes. Together, the essays offer a nuanced assessment of the factors contributing to the successes and failures of different protests, and have a nice combination of both historical and contemporary protests to discern important areas of convergence and divergence...The book is highly recommended for a wide audience, and it is a must-read for anyone who is interested in what the future holds for the state of protest in China. -- Carrie Liu Currier * Journal of Asian Studies *Table of Contents* Acknowledgments * Prologue: The New Contentious Politics in China: Poor and Blank or Rich and Complex? Sidney Tarrow * Introduction: Studying Contention in Contemporary China Kevin J. O'Brien and Rachel E. Stern * Student Movements in China and Taiwan Teresa Wright * Collective Petitioning and Institutional Conversion Xi Chen * Mass Frames and Worker Protest William Hurst * Worker Leaders and Framing Factory-Based Resistance Feng Chen * Recruitment to Protestant House Churches Carsten T. Vala and Kevin J. O'Brien * Contention in Cyberspace Guobin Yang * State-Society Relations and Environmental Campaigns Yanfei Sun and Dingxin Zhao * Disruptive Collective Action in the Reform Era Yongshun Cai * Manufacturing Dissent in Transnational China Patricia M. Thornton * Permanent Rebellion? Continuities and Discontinuities in Chinese Protest Elizabeth J. Perry * Notes * Contributors * Index

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Book SynopsisVenkatesh takes us into Maquis Park, a poor black neighborhood on Chicago’s Southside, to explore the desperate and remarkable ways in which a community survives. The result is a dramatic narrative of individuals at work, a rich portrait of a community, and a devastating critique of the entrenched poverty that we so often ignore in America.Trade ReviewNo scholar in America understands the underground economy like Sudhir Venkatesh. The book is both beautifully written and incredibly insightful. I can't remember the last time I learned so much from reading a book. -- Steven D. Levitt, co-author of FreakonomicsSudhir Venkatesh has uncovered a social world that will surprise even the most sophisticated observers of human behavior. This extraordinary study could become a classic urban ethnography, and will certainly change the way we think about life and work in the underground. -- William Julius Wilson, author of When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban PoorOff the Books is an outstanding contribution to our understanding urban economic, social and political processes. This engrossing ethnography has led me to change how I theoretically think about fundamental concepts such as social capital, social isolation, and the state of civil society in the US. -- Michael C. Dawson, author of Black VisionsAn original portrait of the blurred boundaries between so-called legitimate and illegitimate economic relations in the U.S. ghetto …A most comprehensive look at the informal economic life of the urban poor. -- Mitchell Duneier, author of SidewalkAn unsentimental but powerfully human analysis of the webs of underground activity that sustain poor neighborhoods and their residents. Venkatesh gives the lie to the denigrating tropes of shiftlessness, mental dullness, government dependence, and disorganization that have been used to indict families in poverty. -- Mary Pattillo, author of Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the CityIn this revealing study of a Southside Chicago neighborhood, sociologist Venkatesh opens a window on how the poor live...Venkatesh keeps his work vital and poignant by using the words of his subjects. * Publishers Weekly *[Venkatesh] spent years in a 10-square-block neighborhood on Chicago's South Side observing the clandestine work of gangbangers and mechanics, prostitutes and pastors. The result, Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor, suggests that in some American neighborhoods, the underground economy is a source not just of sustenance but of order, and that while shady transactions may be illegal, they adhere to a distinctive and sophisticated set of laws. -- Patrick Radden Keefe * Slate.com *Remember the Chicago grad student in Freakonomics who figured out why drug dealers live with their mothers? His name is Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh, and his new book, Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor, is the riveting drug-dealer back story--and a lot more. Venkatesh, who is now a professor of sociology and African-American studies at Columbia, spent 1995 to 2003 following the money in 10 square blocks of the Chicago ghetto. He finds an intricate underground web. In it are dealers and prostitutes--and also pastors who take their money, nannies who don't report income, unlicensed cab drivers, off-the-books car mechanics, purveyors of home-cooked soul food, and homeless men paid to sleep outside stores. Venkatesh's insight is that the neighborhood doesn't divide between 'decent' and 'street'--almost everyone has a foot in both worlds. 'Don't matter in some ways if it's the gang or the church,' says one woman as she describes the network that gives her some sense of security. The Wire meets academia, Off the Books is a great and an instructive read. -- Emily Bazelon * Slate.com *[Venkatesh] examines the underground economy of a poor Chicago neighborhood and discovers a thriving system of licit and illicit exchange. Although the resourcefulness of certain drug dealers, back-alley mechanics, and fly-by-night day-care providers is remarkable, Venkatesh argues that under-the-table transactions work to further separate their participants from the economic mainstream. -- Benjamin Healy * The Atlantic *In Off the Books, Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh defines the underground economy as 'a web in which many different people, from the criminal to the pious, from the down-and-out to the bourgeois, are inextricably intertwined'...The story Venkatesh tells in Off the Books is specific to Maquis Park, but the underground economy he found there almost certainly has its counterpart in the black ghettos of large cities. Indeed, its reach extends beyond the ghetto to the kitchens of restaurants, the homes of the well-off and the myriad service jobs that employ workers off the books. Yet it remains in the shadows, barely touched by researchers, a vast world usually ignored, misunderstood, or dismissed with stereotypes. Venkatesh's riveting account describes the underground economy through vividly realized characters...[His] dissection of Maquis Park's underground economy overturns one stereotype and common assumption about the urban poor after another...Venkatesh finds the underground economy's origins in the racism, economic devastation, and political abandonment that have decimated many big American cities...What can be done? Venkatesh offers no concrete remedies. But that is not his point. Off the Books is not about policy. Wonderfully written, brilliantly researched, it illuminates, as no other book has done, the ubiquitous world of shady activities that structure everyday life for the residents of the nation's Maquis Parks in ways few Americans observe or understand. -- Michael B. Katz * Chicago Tribune *Venkatesh paints a detailed picture that reflects his close acquaintance with the neighborhood, moving from businesses that are legal but off the books to those that are entirely outside the law and talking to home-based food preparers and preachers, street hustlers and gang members...This is a Chicago you don't know, told in readable prose that puts most other sociologists to shame. -- Harold Henderson * Chicago Reader *In Sudhir Venkatesh's newly published Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor, readers are introduced to a cast-royale of rogues, some loveable, others little short of detestable, who inhabit a super-isolated ghetto neighborhood in Southside Chicago...For four hundred pages, Venkatesh describes in intimate detail the often bizarre world of economic relationships in this urban edge zone, largely outside the web of economic, political, legal, and law-enforcement structures that dominate mainstream American life. The result is a compelling, deeply disturbing ground-level view of today's underclass...His approach--offering a pastiche of images of the ghetto economy rather than bombarding readers with statistics on income levels, life expectancy, and so forth--firmly situates Venkatesh in a long tradition of writers preoccupied with anecdotally chronicling America's underside and crafting verbal portraits of the colorful, often entertaining misfits on the margins...Overall, this is a fascinating look at a place and community that would otherwise remain entirely under the radar. If our economy and society throws up such spectacular inequalities, at the very least we owe it to the poorest of the poor to try to understand their lives, their struggles, their pain. Venkatesh takes us into this world; it's an often-ugly place, but, as Off the Books shows, it is also one that is strangely compelling. -- Sasha Abramsky * American Prospect Online *[A] remarkable book. -- Paul Seabright * Times Literary Supplement *[Venkatesh] immersed himself in Maquis Park, a poor black neighborhood on Chicago’s Southside…He discovered and analyzed the diverse forms of unregulated, unreported, and untaxed work of small business owners. This “off the books” world thrives due to residents’ lack of human capital, high entry costs, poverty, and social isolation. Venkatesh’s analysis weaves hair salons, auto repairs, pimps, drug dealers, block club leaders, ministers, and gang leaders into an intricate web of exchange networks. Varied individuals are also called upon to mediate conflicts in the neighborhood. Venkatesh concludes that without significant changes in inner cities, the underground will flourish. Reminiscent of works by Elijah Anderson. -- J A. Fiola * Choice *Table of Contents* Prologue *1. Living Underground *2. Home at Work *3. The Entrepreneur *4. The Street Hustler *5. The Preacher *6. Our Gang *7. As the Shady World Turns * Notes * Acknowledgments * Index

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Book SynopsisPresents an analysis of pension data collected by the Health and Retirement Study, a unique survey of people over the age of fifty conducted by the University of Michigan for the National Institute on Aging.Trade ReviewThis excellent book will become a standard reference and will be well-cited for years to come. -- David Macpherson, Trinity UniversityPensions in the Health and Retirement Study will be of tremendous value to researchers. It is a thorough and competent statistical analysis and will be an indispensable reference. -- Brigitte Madrian, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

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Book SynopsisIn a world of giddy celebrants and dire detractors, Milad Doueihi speaks with measured authority about what the rise of digital culture means. He ranges from literacy, citizenship, digital subjectivity, and social networks to texts, archiving, storage, and copyright—offering a rare view of the emerging digital space.Trade ReviewDigital Cultures is a wide-ranging and knowledgeable exploration of what it means to participate in online culture. Doueihi covers an impressive range of topics concerning the digital, which include literacy, citizenship, texts, and archiving and storage. The technology is explained in satisfying detail that nevertheless remains accessible throughout. A must-read for anyone interested in this or related fields. -- N. Katherine Hayles, author of How We Think: Digital Technologies and Transforming PowerDoueihi's argument [is] revelatory and important. He presents the diversity of digital practices and the importance of digital literacy in an increasingly complex textual environment. Moving beyond basic functional literacy, Doueihi asks how digitization configures a meta-literacy, "of what it means to be literate.'" -- Tara Brabazon * Times Higher Education *By showing how modes of communication and human relationships have changed since its rise, [Doueihi] makes a persuasive case that digital culture has broken free from print culture, which extends from the Gutenberg Bible of the 1450s to the present. Instant response, brevity, minimal spelling and grammar, novel syntax and different modes of composition have created new forms of literacy...Written in the "old" discursive format, Digital Cultures includes much to think about. The pace of change is fast, but Doueihi's insight is fresh. -- George Rousseau * Nature *

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Book SynopsisBeyond Suffrage is a study of women who achieved positions of national leadership in the 1930s. Susan Ware discusses the network they established, their attitudes toward feminism and social reform, and the impact they had upon the New Deal's social welfare policies and on Democratic party politics.Trade ReviewA sensitive collective biography of twenty-eight women New Dealers and…a description of their tactical means of operation… All can unite in thanking Ware for opening a uniquely political chapter in women’s history and for revitalizing the historiography of the New Deal. * Journal of American History *Beyond Suffrage is a welcome addition to the literature of the New Deal. Until now, there has been no adequate treatment of the role of women during this important period. Susan Ware…has based her book on an extensive and careful use of original sources. It is clearly written and analyzed with skill. * History *This is an excellent book. The story it has to tell is a new and compelling one. -- Kathryn Kish Sklar, University of California, Los AngelesA fascinating and important study. * Labour/Le Travailleur *

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Book SynopsisCentury of Struggle tells the story of one of the great social movements in American history. The struggle for women's voting rights was one of the longest, most successful, and in some respects most radical challenges ever posed to the American system of electoral politics.Trade ReviewMiss Flexner’s well-documented text is brightened by vignettes of…stout and colorful personalities… Her book has depth and amplitude. * New York Times Book Review *Never before…has a book done more to relate the women’s rights movement in the United States to the centuries-old struggle of the individual to attain his (or her) full stature in society. Woman’s fight for the franchise is here presented, not as a separate shred torn from history, but as part of the warp and woof of national progress… Miss Flexner admirably refrains from idealizing her subjects, rightly judging that the facts need no gilding to show in true proportions the stature of these valiant women. * Christian Science Monitor *A book to be read by every student in this country… This account will help us to maintain a truer image of ourselves as we try to finish up the struggle first launched so long ago. -- Betty FriedanTable of ContentsForeword by Ellen Fitzpatrick Preface, 1975 PART ONE 1. The Position 0f American Women up to 1800 2. Early Steps toward Equal Education 3. The Beginnings of Organization among Women 4. The Beginnings of Reform 5. The Seneca Falls Convention, 1848 6. From Seneca Falls to the Civil War PART TWO 7. The Civil War 8. The Intellectual Progress of Women, 1860-1875 9. Women in the Trade Unions, 1860-1875 10. The Emergence of a Suffrage Movement 11. First Victories in the West 12. Breaking Ground for Suffrage 13. The Growth of Women's Organizations 14. Women in the Knights of Labor and the Early A.F. of L. 15. The Reform Era and Woman's Rights 16. The Unification of the Suffrage Movement PART THREE 17. Entering the Twentieth Century 18. Into the Mainstream of Organized Labor 19. The Suffrage Movement Comes of Age, 1906-1913 20. New Life in the Federal Amendment, 1914-1916 21. TheTurn oftheTide, 1916-1918 22. Who Opposed Woman Suffrage? 23. A Hard-Won Victory, 1918-1920 24. Conclusion Afterword Bibliographical Summary Notes Acknowledgments Index

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Book SynopsisBoym provides a view of Russia that is historically informed, replete with unexpected detail, and stamped with authority. Alternating analysis with personal accounts of Russian life, she conveys the foreignness of Russia and examines its peculiar conceptions of private life and common good, of Culture and Trash, of sincerity and banality.Trade ReviewVisitors and outsiders have long lamented that the real lives of Soviet citizens were hidden behind a veil of official rhetoric. The private self was kept separate from the public self as a sort of defensive or coping mechanism. Boym, who was raised in Leningrad but has lived in the West for 13 years, analyzes the dichotomy between the common meeting places of public life and the no-places of private life and discerns a cultural tradition that still persists. Her themes are the communal apartment (which deprived all residents of a private life), graphomania (the compulsion to bad writing), and the spiritual self in Russian philosophy. Examples are drawn from film, literature, painting, and philosophy of the 19th and, primarily, 20th centuries. -- Marcia L. Sprules * Library Journal *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Theoretical Common Places Rubber Plants and the Soviet Order of Things Archeology of the Common Place A Labyrinth without a Monster The Mythologist as Traveler 1. Mythologies of Everyday Life Byt: Daily Grind and Domestic Trash Poshlost': Banality, Obscenity, Bad Taste Meshchanstvo: Middle Class, Middlebrow Private Life and Russian Soul Truth, Sincerity, Affectation Kul'turnost': The Totalitarian Lacquer Box Soviet Songs: From Stalin's Fairy Tale to "Good-bye, Amerika" 2. Living in Common Places: The Communal Apartment Family Romance and Communal Utopia Art and the Housing Crisis: Intellectuals in the Closet Welcome to the Communal Apartment Psychopathology of Soviet Everyday Life Interior Decoration The Ruins of Utopia A Homecoming, 1991 3. Writing Common Places: Graphomania History of the Literary Disease The Forgotten Classics The Genius of the People and the Conceptual Police Glasnost', Graphomania, and Popular Culture A Taxi Ride with a Graphomaniac 4. Postcommunism, Postmodernism The End of the Soviet World: From the Barricades to the Bazaar Glasnost' Streetwalking: Fallen Monuments and Rising Dolls Stalin's Cinematic Charisma, or History as Kitsch Trashy Jewels of Women Artists Merchant Renaissance and Cultural Scandals The Obscure Object of Advertisement Conclusion: Nostalgia for the Common Place Notes Index

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