Search results for ""Debate""

Based on first-hand interviews with survivors, people who have committed offences, and others on the frontlines, Indictment puts the Canadian criminal justice system on trial and proposes a bold new vision of transformative justice. 　 #MeToo. Black Lives Matter. Decriminalize Drugs. No More Stolen Sisters. Stop Stranger Attacks. Do we need more cops or to defund the police? Harm reduction or treatment? Tougher sentences or prison abolition? The debate about Canada’s criminal justice system has rarely been so polarized – or so in need of fresh ideas. Indictment brings the heartrending and captivating stories of survivors and people who have committed offences to the forefront to help us understand why the criminal justice system is facing such an existential crisis. Benjamin Perrin draws on his expertise as a lawyer, former top criminal justice advisor to the prime minister, and law clerk at the Supreme Court of Canada to investigate the criminal justice system itself. Indictment critiques the system from a trauma-informed perspective, examining its treatment of victims of crime, Indigenous people and Black Canadians, people with substance use and mental health disorders, and people experiencing homelessness, poverty, and unemployment. Perrin also shares insights from others on the frontlines, including prosecutors and defence lawyers, police chiefs, Indigenous leaders, victim support workers, corrections officers, public health experts, gang outreach workers, prisoner and victims’ rights advocates, criminologists, psychologists, and leading trauma experts. Bringing forward the voices of marginalized people, along with their stories of survival and resilience, Indictment shows that a better way is possible.

Read more less

"At the conclusion of my discussions with one group of the Magdalene Women one of those present sang 'Whispering Hope'. A line from that song stays in my mind - 'when the dark midnight is over, watch for the breaking of day'.Let me hope that this day and this debate heralds a new dawn for all those who feared that the dark midnight might never end."Taoiseach Enda Kenny's State apology to the Magdalene women.On 19 February 2013 the Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny apologized to the women who had been incarcerated in Ireland's Magdalene laundries. In the audience sat Steven O'Riordan, a documentary filmmaker and founder of the charity Magdalene Survivors Together. And by his side, waiting patiently for the words they'd been fighting to hear, were some of the women he had helped.For Nancy, Kathleen, Diane, Marie and Marina were confined in Magdalene laundries throughout Ireland during the 1950s, 60s and 70s. The harrowing physical and psychological abuse they endured in the institutions, run on behalf of the State, led to a lifetime of shame and secrecy.Now, in WHISPERING HOPE, these women tell their stories for the first time. Their fight for justice and forged friendships has enabled them to move forward and have their voices heard, their individual accounts weaving together in an immensely powerful narrative that shines a light on a dark chapter in Ireland's history.Inspirational and moving, this is the story of five women brave enough to confront their past and strong enough to not let it define them.

Read more less

The aim of this book is nothing less than to assess and reset the terms of the debate about the kind of nation we want to be. It asks: What are the essential values we need for building a just, sustainable and compassionate society in which all can participate? Chapters by expert economic, political, religious and social thinkers, including contributions by Lord Adonis, Sir Philip Mawer, Oliver O'Donovan, Andrew Sentance, Julia Unwin and Archbishop Justin Welby Addresses crucial questions about the moral principles that undergird the way Britain is governed Written for people of any or no religious background who are concerned about the values that influence our political attitudes and decisions Faced with a period of change as great as that of the 1930s, the continued cohesion of our society is at risk as expectations of ever-rising prosperity are challenged and many struggle to make ends meet. It is within this context that the contributors to this book examine some fundamental questions. How can we draw upon the wellsprings of social solidarity today? What would a new social contract - a new understanding about the respective rights and obligations of the individual citizen and the state - look like today? At a time when budgets and other resources are being reduced, what are the principles we should adopt to distribute them? In short, what values can the Christian faith bring to the table to help address the problems we face today? These and other core questions about the kind of society we seek lie at the heart of this book.

Read more less

A root-and-branch rethinking of how history has shaped the science of genetics. In 1900, almost no one had heard of Gregor Mendel. Ten years later, he was famous as the father of a new science of heredity—genetics. Even today, Mendelian ideas serve as a standard point of entry for learning about genes. The message students receive is plain: the twenty-first century owes an enlightened understanding of how biological inheritance really works to the persistence of an intellectual inheritance that traces back to Mendel’s garden. Disputed Inheritance turns that message on its head. As Gregory Radick shows, Mendelian ideas became foundational not because they match reality—little in nature behaves like Mendel’s peas—but because, in England in the early years of the twentieth century, a ferocious debate ended as it did. On one side was the Cambridge biologist William Bateson, who, in Mendel’s name, wanted biology and society reorganized around the recognition that heredity is destiny. On the other side was the Oxford biologist W. F. R. Weldon, who, admiring Mendel's discoveries in a limited way, thought Bateson's "Mendelism" represented a backward step, since it pushed growing knowledge of the modifying role of environments, internal and external, to the margins. Weldon's untimely death in 1906, before he could finish a book setting out his alternative vision, is, Radick suggests, what sealed the Mendelian victory. Bringing together extensive archival research with searching analyses of the nature of science and history, Disputed Inheritance challenges the way we think about genetics and its possibilities, past, present, and future.

Read more less

Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) was the outstanding philosopher-theologian of the Latin West between Augustine and the thirteenth century. As a public figure, especially as Archbishop of Canterbury, he corresponded with kings and nobles, popes and bishops, in letters that reveal a fascinating personality and flesh out the practical dimensions of his theoretical philosophy. He wrote at a time when a renewed interest in logic encouraged careful and rigorous argumentation, but before the recovery of Aristotle filled the philosophical discourse with difficult technical jargon, making for writing that is unrivalled for its lucidity and accessibility. He offers the first clear account of what we now call a libertarian view of free will, according to which free choices cannot be determined by the agent's internal states or by external influences. His famous 'ontological argument' for the existence of God continues to generate discussion, debate, and puzzlement. His understanding of God is rightly regarded as one of the definitive expressions of classical theism or perfect-being theology, which remains influential in philosophy of religion and analytic theology. His account of the Atonement is one that every theologian to this day still grapples with. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Read more less

An African American Dilemma offers the first social history of northern Black debates over school integration versus separation from the 1840s to the present. Since Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 Americans have viewed school integration as a central tenet of the Black civil rights movement. Yet, school integration was not the only--or even always the dominant--civil rights strategy. At times, African Americans also fought for separate, Black controlled schools dedicated to racial uplift and community empowerment. An African American Dilemma offers a social history of these debates within northern Black communities from the 1840s to the present. Drawing on sources including the Black press, school board records, social science studies, the papers of civil rights activists, and court cases, it reveals that northern Black communities, urban and suburban, vacillated between a preference for either school integration or separation during specific eras. Yet, there was never a consensus. It also highlights the chorus of dissent, debate, and counter-narratives that pushed families to consider a fuller range of educational reforms. A sweeping historical analysis that covers the entire history of public education in the North, this work complicates our understanding of school integration by highlighting the diverse perspectives of Black students, parents, teachers, and community leaders all committed to improving public education. It finds that Black school integrationists and separatists have worked together in a dynamic tension that fueled effective strategies for educational reform and the Black civil rights movement, a discussion that continues to be highly charged in present-day schooling choices.

Read more less

Shortlisted for the FT & McKinsey Business Book of the Year 2018'An inspiring, rip-roaring read - like the astonishing story it describes' Liam Halligan, Daily TelegraphWhere does prosperity come from, and how does it spread through a society? What role does innovation play in creating prosperity and why do some eras see the fruits of innovation spread more democratically, and others, including our own, find the opposite?In Capitalism in America, Alan Greenspan, legendary Chair of the Federal Reserve, distils a lifetime of grappling with these questions into a profound assessment of the decisive drivers of the US economy over the course of its history. In partnership with Economist journalist and historian Adrian Wooldridge, he unfolds a tale of vast landscapes, titanic figures and triumphant breakthroughs as well as terrible moral failings. Every crucial American economic debate is here - from the role of slavery in the antebellum Southern economy to America's violent swings in its openness to global trade.At heart, the authors argue, America's genius has been its enthusiasm for the effects of creative destruction, the ceaseless churn of the old giving way to the new. Although messy and painful, it has lifted the overwhelming majority of Americans to standards of living unimaginable even a few generations past. At a time when productivity has again stalled, stirring populist furies, and the continuing of American pre-eminence seems uncertain, Capitalism in America explains why America has worked so successfully in the past and been such a gigantic engine of economic growth.

Read more less

The former editor-in-chief of Details and Star adventures into the fascinating "brave new world" of cannabis, tracing its history and possible future as he investigates the social, medical, legal, and cultural ramifications of this surprisingly versatile plant. Pot. Weed. Grass. Mary Jane. We all think we know what cannabis is and what we use it for. But do we? Our collective understanding of this surprising plant has been muddled by politics and morality; what we think we know isn't the real story. A war on cannabis has been waged in the United States since the early years of the twentieth century, yet in the past decade, society has undergone a massive shift in perspective that has allowed us to reconsider our beliefs. In Brave New Weed, Joe Dolce travels the globe to "tear down the cannabis closet" and de-mystify this new frontier, seeking answers to the questions we didn't know we should ask. Dolce heads to a host of places, including Amsterdam, Israel, California, and Colorado, where he skillfully unfolds the odd, shocking, and wildly funny history of this complex plant. From the outlandish stories of murder trials where defendants claimed "insanity due to marijuana consumption" to the groundbreaking success stories about the plant's impressive medicinal benefits, Dolce paints a fresh and much-needed portrait of cannabis, our changing attitudes toward it, and the brave new direction science and cultural acceptance are leading us. Enlightening, entertaining, and thought-provoking, Brave New Weed is a compelling read that will surprise and educate proponents on both sides of the cannabis debate.

Read more less

This lavish coffee-table book traces the history of photography from the first black and white images to celebrated examples of 21st-century digital photography.Photography celebrates the most iconic photographs of the past 200 years and includes more than 50 biographies of the most famous photographers, explaining how they pushed the bounds of the medium. It also showcases examples of the extraordinary cameras that photographers experimented with, from the daguerreotype to the latest camera phones!Charting the influence of social and cultural change, as well as the impact of science and technology, this beautiful book follows the history of photographs from the first grainy attempts at portrait and landscape photography to gritty photojournalism, street photography, and digital photography, with special features delving into the stories behind photographic images that changed how people saw the world.This fantastic photography book promises:- A selection of the most important "lost" cultural artefacts from ancient times to the present day- Features images of the artworks where available, or specially commissioned illustrations of them based on written accounts- Includes details of the ongoing debate about whether looted art should be returned to its country of originPacked with information and full of inspiration, Photography is the perfect reference for budding photographers, seasoned professionals, and anyone with an interest in the subject. Whether you're looking for a riveting reference book to display on your coffee table or gift to a friend, or you're a life-longer learner with a thirst for knowledge - Photography is sure to delight!

Read more less

China stands as a major "Red Swan" challenge to the social sciences. The political resilience of the Communist party-state, in combination with a rapidly expanding and internationally competitive economy, represents a significant deviant and unpredicted case with a huge potential impact not only on the global distribution of political and economic power but also on the global debate about models of development. China's exceptional development trajectory thus challenges conventional wisdom as well as conventional models of political change. The traditional approach to systemic classification is not helpful in understanding the dynamics in China, a system which is unexpectedly adaptable and versatile in many policy fields, particularly as regards economic and technology policy.To avoid the inherent limitations of typological approaches, this book uses analytical approaches drawn from policy studies. The focus is on the manner in which action programs in China's governmental system can be developed, formulated, implemented, adjusted, and revised. Policy making is therefore seen in this book as an open-ended process with an uncertain outcome, driven by conflicting interests, recurrent interactions, and continuous feedback—it is not seen as being determined by history, regime type, or institutions in a straight-forward way. Key to this are the political and administrative methodology as well as the capacity to deal with both existing and emerging challenges, the correction mechanisms when things go wrong and conflicts arise, and adaptive capabilities in a constantly changing economic or international context.

Read more less

Publius Ovid (43 BC-17/18 AD) describes in his Metamorphoses Niobe’s transformation into a weeping rock. Niobe’s transformation incorporates the form and matter of the medium of sculpture. According to the humanist paragone debate, painting and sculpture struggle to be the medium with the highest qualities of virtuosity. Aby Warburg (1866-1929) refers to the Niobe motif’s Nachleben in his Tafel 5: Beraubte Mutter. (Niobe, Flucht und Schrecken). This displays the images of both the bereaved mother (Niobe) and the murderous mother (Medea). The montage also introduces the theme of the descent to the underworld. It becomes clear how the cluster of motifs around the figure of Niobe - hybris, lamentatio and the chthonic substrate - functions as a direct entry to a bipolar hermeneutics of the visual medium: the ‘historical psychology of human expression’ that navigates between Apollo and Dionysus. The 'weeping rock' that according to legend still stands on Mount Sipylus in Turkey, draws upon deeper anthropological patterns. Petrification indicates inertia, frigidity and a Medusan psychosis of fear. In nature, stones and rocks have a 'slumbering insistence' that can be captivating. Stones are after all visible but impenetrable, they index an irrevocable absence in their presence, and ‘have abode’ in an otherworldly region of utter blindness and silence. From a psychoanalytical perspective, Niobe’s petrifaction symbolises the straitening of her life and the loss of anima within a culture divorced from authentic feeling, nature, and instinct. Here Niobe meets Echo.

Read more less

The Wisdom of Ben Sira and the Wisdom of Solomon are included in the Septuagint, but not in the Hebrew Bible. For a long time, these books were little read and studied. Today, however, there is a growing interest in them, stimulated not only by the discovery of Hebrew manuscripts of Ben Sira but also by the awareness that both books provide a privileged witness to the judaism in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Both books invite the reader to recognise that authentic wisdom consists in fear of the Lord and in loyality to the Torah. In addition to this common feature, both express different points of view in the debate in which the Jewish communities of Jerusalem (Wisdom of Ben Sira) and Alexandria (Wisdom of Solomon) were engaged in the face of the rise of Hellenistic culture. These books contain an essential key to the understanding of Judaism at the time and the beginning of Christianity. Professor Maurice Gilbert s.j. has devoted most of his scientific work, first, on the study of the Wisdom of Solomon and, later, on the Wisdom of Ben Sira. The present volume is dedicated to his honour on the occasion of his 65th birthday. It includes thirty-two studies by some of today's authorities on wisdom literature, and may be considered as a major contribution to the understanding of two important books of the Greek Bible.

Read more less

Using this edition, the reader may see at once how Shakespeare's manuscript of the play, upon which the second quarto (Q2) is based, was adapted for the Elizabethan stage by the author and/or his colleagues. Q1 is considerably shorter than Q2. While many long speeches are cut, abbreviated, or revised, the structure of the play remains essentially as Shakespeare originally conceived it. Q1 is thus quite different, for instance, from Q1 Hamlet, whose provenance is still open to debate. While both of these early quartos were once believed to be memorial reconstructions, and thus 'Bad' quartos, the theory of memorial reconstructions has now been seriously disputed. One of the essays appended to Halio's edition, 'Handy-Dandy: Q1/Q2 Romeo and Juliet,' discusses this issue and brings fresh evidence to bear to show that Q1 Romeo is not truly a 'Bad' quarto, as A. W. Pollard long maintained. In another essay, Halio offers a brief stage history of Romeo and Juliet. Many non-authorial changes in the texts of Shakespeare's play were common in the eighteenth century. For example, Garrick introduced Juliet's spectacular funeral procession at the end of act 4, along with many new songs. Later, the American actress Charlotte Cushman removed many of these interpolations and restored much of Shakespeare's original text. Modern-dress productions of the play have often been staged, which introduced a good deal of modern technology into the action.

Read more less

A critique of religious dogma historically provides the basis for rational inquiry into the physical and social world. "Critique of Intelligent Design" is a key to understanding the forces of irrationalism that seek to undermine the natural and social sciences. This book illuminates the historical evolution of the materialist critique - that is, explaining the world in terms of itself - from antiquity to the present through engaging the work of Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Lucretius, Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, David Hume, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and Stephen Jay Gould among others.Proponents of "intelligent design" - creationism in its contemporary guise - have reignited an age-old war in which they claim to elevate their doctrine to empirical truth and thus incorporate it into science curricula. They attack the modern scientific view elevating both a pseudo-scientific and -cultural renewal in line with their theological orientation and what they perceive as a knowable moral order." Critique of Intelligent Design" is a compelling account of the debate between materialism and religion as well as an overview of the contemporary fight concerning nature, science, history, morality, and knowledge. The authors demonstrate how historical materialism is a crucial social foundation from which to confront intelligent design. They provide a fascinating account of the development of science in opposition to the proponents of "received wisdom." "Critique of Intelligent Design" offers empowering tools to understand and defend critical and scientific reasoning.

Read more less

The record of the American economy since 1945 offers an embarrassment of riches for the historian, and Wyatt Wells has brought them together in a compact and incisive history. His theme is how greatly many economic circumstances changed—and how many other features remained essentially the same. He shows how throughout the period the United States enjoyed not only the world's largest economy but by most measures its most diverse and sophisticated. The second half of the twentieth century witnessed extraordinary change: the development of entirely new industries, such as television and computers; the decline of established industries, such as steel and textiles; the impact of international trade and competition on growing numbers of Americans. As the boom of the 1950s and 1960s gave way to "stagflation" in the 1970s, the 1980s became a time of extensive reorganization, which in turn laid the foundation for another boom in the 1990s. Still, as Mr. Wells notes, industry remained in private hands; political debate consistently returned to the same issues involving the proper role of government in the economy; and the country remained committed to an open international economic system. American Capitalism examines the development of economic policy (government spending, taxes, regulation, and monetary policy), economic structure (companies, markets, technology, and labor), and ideas about both, explaining the complex interaction of these factors over the past half-century. The book offers an essential short course on American economic development over these years.

Read more less

In the third book of the popular Seaside Café Mysteries, Tide and Punishment, it's not all Christmas sweets, tinsel, and wrapping paper. Everly Swan will have to follow a string of clues before it's too late—because no one dreams of a killer Christmas...Hitting all the sweet-tea spots, this series is:A delightful Tea Shop and Café Culinary MysteryThe ideal cozy beach readPerfect for fans of Laura Childs and Kate CarlisleIt's Christmastime in Charm, North Carolina, and while Everly Swan would prefer to focus on decorating her iced tea shop and café for its first holiday season, Great-Aunt Fran has decided to run for mayor against her long-time nemesis. But when the other candidate turns up dead just before the first scheduled debate, all eyes turn to Fran as the suspect with the most obvious motive.As a rare blizzard threatens to bury all evidence, small-town holiday cheer turns to suspicion and the tension between Everly and the handsome Detective Grady Hays builds. Everly knows her sweet, elderly Aunt Fran couldn't have murdered anyone, but as she struggles to find the real killer, it begins to seem like this may be the last happy holiday her family will ever have. Can she tie this Christmas mystery up in a bow before it's too late? This next book in Bree Baker's cozy mysteries will keep you guessing right up to the end!INCLUDES DELICIOUS FOOD AND DRINK RECIPES

Read more less

The field of biomedical technology has experienced rapid growth in recent years. New technologies promise to diagnose, treat, and prevent human diseases. Increasingly, however, the ability of these technologies to "enhance" normal human functioning beyond what is necessary to restore or sustain health has raised considerable debate about the proper limits of biotechnology. Whereas the public-facing proponents of bioenhancements tend to come from privileged positions in society, Bioenhancement Technologies and the Vulnerable Body seeks to analyze the nuances of bioenhancement from the perspective of those who are often marginalized in bioethical discussions.Any moral assessment of technology must consider its effects on all people, principally those who have not benefited equally from technological advancements. From the premise that minority perspectives yield new insights into biomedical enhancements, this volume centers the bodies of persons who are vulnerable to health disparities--particularly persons with disabilities and persons of color. Contributors critically examine bioenhancement technologies with two key questions in mind: What does it mean to be human?, and What does it mean to be vulnerable? Each chapter uses distinct Christian theological methods and ontological suppositions to reflect on the distinctiveness of human creatureliness in relation to technology and what difference bioenhancement might make for our conceptions of vulnerability. Bioenhancement Technologies and the Vulnerable Body is aimed primarily at Christian scholars and graduate students already conversant in bioethics but will also appeal to contextual theologians and others not well-versed in these debates.

Read more less

Too small to be important, too different to be trusted. The New Testament's Catholic letters have suffered neglect when compared to the attention lavished upon Jesus, the Gospels, and Paul. Jude and 2 Peter, especially, have been ignored. Jörg Frey remedies this dearth with this full-scale commentary on Jude and 2 Peter. Frey's meticulous, sustained verse-by-verse interpretation highlights the theological achievements of the two canonical writings without sidestepping any of the open historical and literary questions plaguing these two pseudepigraphal letters. The Letter of Jude and the Second Letter of Peter investigates the historical location of the two writings, the literary context, the shape of their arguments, and the profile of the respective opponents that are the central concern of each epistle. The analysis also explores Jude and 2 Peter's use of biblical, Second Temple Jewish, and apocalyptic traditions, the long-recognized interrelation between the two letters, and the difficult text-critical issues that haunt both. Frey's careful interpretation points to the theological work each letter performs. Jude takes part in a critical debate within the Pauline and post-Pauline communities, while 2 Peter becomes a testimony to the theological discussions of the second century. Far from insignificant or irrelevant, the epistles provide invaluable insight into the growth and consolidation of early Christian tradition. With this groundbreaking commentary, Frey rightly draws our attention back to these texts' important role within the canon and early Christianity.

Read more less

This open access book analyses barriers and challenges associated with the financing of clean energy access in sub-Saharan Africa. By considering various economic, financial, political, environmental and social factors, it explores the consequences of energy poverty across the region and maps the real and perceived investment risks for potential capital providers, both domestic and international. Furthermore, it analyses risk mitigation strategies and innovative financing structures available to the public and private sectors, which are aimed at leveraging capital in the clean energy sector at scale and fostering the creation of an enabling business and investment environment.More specifically, the present book analyses how to (i) enhance capital allocation in projects and organisations that foster clean energy access in the region, (ii) mobilize private capital at scale and (iii) decrease the cost of financing through risk mitigation strategies. Going beyond traditional approaches, the book also considers socioeconomic and cultural aspects associated with investment barriers across the subcontinent. Moreover, it urges the public and private spheres to become more actively involved in tackling this pressing development issue, and provides policy recommendations for the public sector, including proposals for business model evolution at multilateral agencies and development institutions. It will appeal to a wide readership of both academics and professionals working in the energy industry, the financial sector and the political sphere, as well as to general readers interested in the ongoing debate about energy, sustainable development and finance.

Read more less

In recent decades, international research on Virgil has been marked, if not dominated, by the ideas of the 'Harvard school' and similar trends, according to which the poet was engaged in an elaborate work of subtle subversion, directed against the new ruler of the Roman world, Octavian-Augustus. Much of Virgil's oeuvre consists prima facie of eulogy of the ruler, and of emphatic prediction of his enduring success: this is explained by numerous modern critics as generic convention, or as studied ambiguity, or as irony.This paradoxical position, which runs against ancient - as well as much modern - interpretation of the poet, continues to create widespread unease. Stahl's new monograph is the most thorough study so far to question modern Virgilian criticism on philological grounds. He bases himself on the internal logic and rhetoric of the Aeneid, and considers also political, historical, archaeological and philosophical subjects addressed by the poem. He finds that the poet has so presented the morality of his central figure, Augustus' supposed ancestor Aeneas, and of those who (eventually) clash with him, Turnus and Dido, as to make it certain that Roman readers and hearers of the poem were meant to conclude in Aeneas' favour. Virgil's intention emerges from Stahl's thorough, ingenious and original argumentation as decisively pro-Augustan. Stahl's work, in short, will not only enliven debate on current critical hypotheses but for many will enduringly affect their credibility.

Read more less

Whatever the eventual outcome of the Brexit negotiations, the critical questions remain: what does the Referendum vote tell us about the sort of society we are? Why was the result a shock to so many? Did we not understand how divided we were? Old against young, provincial against metropolitan, Scotland and London against much of the rest of England and Wales. Instead we must look at how our failure over decades to invest properly in the country's societal future and the life chances of the young shaped the vote this summer. Economic growth allowed Britain to live beyond its means. The gap in the skills base was concealed by immigration. The shortsightedness and dishonesty of our political class can obscure the issue; criticising the policies and practices of the establishment - important though that is - allows us to ignore the uncomfortable truths about ourselves. In Brexit and the British Stephen Green argues that it is time to acknowledge that underlying all the sound and fury of the Brexit debate was a question - whether or not fully recognised - about our identity. Are we British different, special and capable of finding our own way in the world? Who are we, who call ourselves British? Is it too easy for Remain voters to blame Brexit on post-industrial decline in the Labour heartlands, scare-mongering and deluded Little Englanders? Or is our identity more complex, deep-rooted - and perhaps, in some sense, troubling - than those of other European nations?

Read more less

The process of transition from a centrally planned economy to one driven primarily by market forces has been a source of controversy and debate. Although the pace and approach has varied we are now beginning to understand some of the essential ingredients necessary for a successful transition.These changes have produced a tremendous quantity of literature which can make it difficult to grasp the most important issues. This book focuses on the key questions and problems facing the monetary and financial sectors of transitional economies, specifically in Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. It examines many of the reforms, why these proved necessary, and their impact in the early stages of transition. The authors focus on four main themes: the removal of state intervention and its effect on liquidity and the availability of credit the failure of credit markets and the implications for corporate finance< the role of property rights and the importance of bankruptcy in a well-functioning market economy effects of the separation of the central bank from commercial lending functions, and its consequences for the overall operation of monetary policy in a transitional economy. Money and Finance in the Transition to a Market Economy will be essential reading for those wishing to learn more about the financial and monetary implications of the transition to a market economy in the Central and Eastern European countries. It will be welcomed by graduates, academics, researchers and policymakers alike.

Read more less

This illuminating monograph introduces a status-equilibrating, social capital explanation for the persistent gender stratification in the field of information technology. The authors analyze why the workforce has become increasingly male-dominated over time by looking at how pre-employment conditions provide different experiences and opportunities for women and men. Employing a large-scale, longitudinal data set, this book forays further into the field than other contemporary studies, where all too often the debate focuses on broad and potentially too-far-reaching differences between men and women that are difficult to prove, making for spirited conversation but little else. The authors collect, analyze and present data on social interactions, sex-role attitudes and behavior, leadership, demographics, program retention, job placement, and career attitudes for five cohorts of undergraduate students spanning their last two years in a management information science program and through the job search process. By testing novel theory against their data, the authors demonstrate how structural factors interact with individual characteristics to determine not only who enters the field, but also how they enter it and whether they are likely to stay. These and other analyses ultimately lead to concrete suggestions for addressing gender stratification in the IT industry. Raising - and answering - stimulating questions that will invariably enrich the field, this discerning volume will appeal to IT professionals and those in management roles in the discipline, as well as students and scholars of sociology, management, women's studies, and social and organizational psychology.

Read more less

The nature of the relationship between children, parents and the state has been central to the growth of the modern welfare state and has long been a problem for western liberal democracies. Welfare states have undergone profound restructuring over the past two decades and families also have changed, in terms of their form and the nature of the contributions that men and women make to them. More attention is being paid to children by policymakers, but often because of their importanceas future 'citizen workers'. The book explores the implications of changes to the welfare state for children in a range of countries. Children, Changing Families and Welfare States: examines the implications of social policies for children sets the discussion in the broader context of both family change and welfare state change, exploring the nature of the policy debate that has allowed the welfare of the child to come to the fore tackles policies to do with both the care and financial support of children looks at the household level and how children fare when both adult men and women must seek to combine paid and unpaid work, and what support is offered by welfare states endeavours to provide a comparative perspective on these issues. The contributors have written a book that will be warmly welcomed by scholars and researchers of social policy, social work and sociology and students at both the advanced undergraduate and post-graduate level.

Read more less

The inclusion of software and algorithms in the scope of patents by the US Patent and Trademark Office has propelled an ongoing debate on the contribution of patents to innovation and economic growth. This book examines the effects of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), namely patents and copyrights, on innovation and technical change in information technologies. It provides new insights on the links between markets, technologies and legislation by applying a variety of empirical and analytical methods. The book also explores the success of the Open Source movement to establish an alternative regime for IPRs by illuminating the rationale behind it and illustrating how Open Source can strategically be used by firms.Initially the book analyzes the role of IPRs by building upon the literature on the economics of innovation and technical change and on insights from evolutionary economics - in particular, the role of knowledge in the economy. It then goes on to analyze the evolution of IPR regimes and IPR policies with regards to IT and software technologies and products and elaborates their impact on innovation. Finally, a series of empirical and analytical models are provided to elaborate the balance between monopoly rights (by patent and copyrights) and knowledge disclosure as an input for innovation and technological development. Elad Harison's book will appeal to researchers and academics of law and economics, policymakers such as the European Commission, Patent offices, EPO, OECD, as well as directors and strategic managers in large software companies.

Read more less

This book deals with the nature of contemporary globalisation. Maurice Mullard aims to show that globalisation is not an inescapable, unstoppable process somehow beyond human control, rather that it represents, and is being shaped by, a series of deliberate policy choices and policy decisions. The emphasis of this fascinating work is on how these policy choices are creating new forms of economic inequalities and also political elites that distort the democratic process.The mapping of winners and losers goes beyond the usual analysis of the rich North versus the poor South, by including an examination of the widening inequalities in the North and the emergence of new elites in the South. Policies of privatisation and liberalisation of water and electricity create new political elites. The author reveals the shift in the North towards multi national corporations with their emphasis on profits and stock market prices, while at the same time incomes for most employees have either stagnated or actually declined. The standard discourse on globalisation and market flexibility often blurs the issues of declining trade union influence and corporations moving to countries offering lower labour costs. Maurice Mullard herein attempts to rectify this imbalance.The Politics of Globalisation and Polarisation is interdisciplinary and will therefore be relevant for academics and researchers of politics, social policy, public policy and economics. Scholars involved in globalisation will find this book to be a major contribution to the ongoing debate.

Read more less

This book deals with some of the most important questions in innovation research such as the role of corporate governance, national systems of innovation, and government regulation in the development and adoption of innovations. In particular, it presents new evidence on the factors which shape innovation in construction by drawing on extensive interviews with construction firms across Europe. The authors offer broad lessons for the systems of innovation approach and suggest that particular structures of ownership and management, and inter-organisational relations are responsible for variations in the economic performance of the construction industry in different European countries. The particular challenges posed by the adoption of sustainable technologies such as natural thermal insulation and active solar heating systems are also explored. These environmental innovations are expected to have an impact on sustainable building and regeneration, and at a more general level can help identify the factors which can facilitate or inhibit the innovation process. Importantly, the book does not simply focus on the relationship between technology, firm organisation and competitiveness, but also considers the social and institutional aspects which affect the construction sector's ability to innovate. The extensive case studies from 5 European countries allow the reader to analyse innovation performance from an international comparative perspective. Innovation in Construction represents an important contribution to the theoretical debate on innovation. It will be highly useful to scholars and students interested in innovation studies, environmental management, and construction management and economics.

Read more less

'It's fair to say that Peter Hitchens remains one of the most misrepresented figures in the British media... Hitchens is in reality one of the most thought-provoking and intelligent commentators on life in contemporary Britain' -- Neil Clark, Spectator From identification cards to how we protect our property, public debate rages over what our basic human rights are, and how they are to be protected.In this trenchant and provocative book Peter Hitchens sets out to show that popular views of these hotly contested issues - from crime and punishment to so-called 'soft drugs' - are based on mistaken beliefs, massaged figures and cheap slogans. His powerful and counter-intuitive conclusions make challenging reading for those on both the Left and the Right and are essential reading for all concerned with creating a lawful and peaceful society.The Abolition of Liberty argues that because of the misdemeanours of the few, the liberty of the many is seriously jeopardized.'The issues Hitchens is addressing are important and his willingness to challenge shibboleths is often illuminating ... he is rightly scathing about attempts to deal with crime by raising the conviction rate.' -- John Willman, Financial Times'It is a pleasure to read a lucid polemic by a man who is so obviously more interested in the welfare of the common man than in the approbation of his peers' Theodore Dalrymple, Sunday Telegraph'[This book] should not be ignored... there are several pressing challenges to liberals and the left in particular.' -- Jonathan Freedland, Guardian

Read more less

This is the second of two volumes of case studies that illustrate how environmental economists place values on environmental assets and on the flows of goods and services generated by those assets.The first volume, Valuing the Environment in Developing Countries, illustrates methodologies and applications of valuation techniques in the developing world; this volume concentrates on developed or 'wealthy' nations where the first examples of economic valuation of the environment were carried out. This important book assembles studies that discuss broad areas of application of economic valuation - from amenity and pollution through to water and health risks, from forestry to green urban space. In this, his last book, the late David Pearce brought together leading European experts, contributors to some two dozen case studies exploring the frontiers of economic valuation of natural resources and environmental amenity in the developed world. Essays on the role of valuation in environmental policy, environmental justice and green accounts are presented, and case study topics include: valuing forestry benefits GM crops water use and quality externalities in the electricity sector renewable energy benefits electricity transmission line disamenity urban greenspace chemical risks noise pollution. Economic valuation has undoubtedly made an important contribution to the environmental debate, and the contributors illustrate how sophisticated techniques have become, and how powerful their application can be. As such, this significant volume will prove essential reading for academics, researchers, students and practitioners in the field of environmental economics.

Read more less

Everyone has a view about animal ethics. Each of us, for example, has an opinion about whether we should eat meat; whether animals should be used for scientific research, or whether the use of animals in sport is acceptable. But very few of us stop to wonder about the basis of our views, or to rationalise them. In this book, Madeleine Campbell aims to enable us to do so, by addressing a series of questions such as: When does animal use become abuse? Why do we treat some animals differently from others? Are there some things which we should never do to animals? And, just because we can, should we? Drawing on her experience as a Veterinarian; a European Diplomate in Animal Welfare Science, Ethics and Law; a researcher and teacher, and a member of various industry ethical review bodies and of welfare and ethics committees for membership organisations and government, the author takes ethical argument beyond academia and applies it to the question which currently dominates societal debate about human-animal interactions: what (if anything) is a reasonable use of an animal? Animals, Ethics, and Us offers a stripped back, balanced and moderate perspective, based on logical argument, philosophical principles and sound science. It is a thought-provoking read aimed at a broad readership including informed owners and animal enthusiasts, as well as useful a primer for students of animal ethics, welfare and veterinary medicine.

Read more less

With forests now enshrined in the Paris climate agreement, REDD+ initiatives and low emission development strategies (LEDS) will need insights like the ones provided in this timely and important volume to make a difference on the ground. The book draws on the perspectives of government officials from multiple sectors and at multiple levels to present a rich analysis of the economics, conditionalities and accountabilities for the design of intergovernmental fiscal transfers aimed at forest conservation - in competition with the income and jobs generated by natural resource exploitation. I highly recommend this book to anyone seeking practical ways forward on climate mitigation.'- Anne M. Larson, Center for International Forestry Research, PeruIntergovernmental fiscal transfers (IFTs) are an innovative way to create incentives for local public actors to support conservation. This book contributes to the debate about how to conserve tropical forests by implementing mechanisms for reducing deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+).With Indonesia as a case study, the authors adopt an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on political science, economics, and public policy. They consider the theoretical justification, as well as the wider political and administrative context for developing the design of IFTs for conservation.Students and scholars looking at conservation, ecological economics, decentralisation, forest policy and climate change will find this book to be of interest. It will also be of considerable use to policy-makers and practitioners working on forest policy, particularly those implementing REDD+.

Read more less

Essays on the connections between politics and society in the middle ages, showing their interdependence. Christine Carpenter's influential work on late-medieval English society aspires to encompass a wide spectrum of human experience. Her vision of "total" history embeds the study of politics in a multi-dimensional social frameworkwhich ranges from mentalities and ideology to economy and geography. This collection of essays celebrates Professor Carpenter's achievement by drawing attention to the social underpinning of political culture; the articles reflectthe range of her interests, chronologically from the thirteenth century to the sixteenth, and thematically from ideology and culture, through government and its officials, the nobility, gentry and yeomanry, the law and the church, to local society. The connection between centre and locality pervades the volume, as does the interplay of the ideological and cultural with the practical and material. The essays highlight both how ideas were moulded in political debate and action, and how their roots sprang from social pressures and interests. It also emphasises the wider cultural aspects of topics too-easily conceived as local and material. BENJAMIN THOMPSON is Fellow and Tutor in History at Somerville College, Oxford; JOHN WATTS is Professor of Later Medieval History at the University of Oxford and Fellow and Tutor of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Contributors: Jackson Armstrong, Caroline Burt, Tony Moore, Richard Partington, Ted Powell, Andrea Ruddick, Andrew Spencer, Benjamin Thompson, John Watts, Theron Westervelt, Jenny Wormald.

Read more less

Many people come for help because they remain stuck in a destructive relationship, job, legal battle or memories of child abuse. A growing number of therapists believe that forgiveness is of crucial importance in helping people break away from these patterns of resentment and revenge. Does forgiveness help? Or is the concept out of date in our more secular society? Forgiveness and the Healing Process considers this debate. Experienced contributors: * Consider the place of forgiveness in working with individuals and couples* Explore the benefits of mediation as a way forward both for the individual and the organisation, and also within the criminal justice system* Offer a valuable insight into South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the crucial role of forgiveness in post-apartheid South Africa* Examine a client's view of seeking forgiveness* Present new frameworks for workers seeking to help people cope with trauma and injustice.Forgiveness and the Healing Process helps counsellors, psychotherapists, social workers, mediators, psychiatrists, and those working in the criminal justice system understand how forgiveness can facilitate the therapeutic process.Cynthia Ransley is a lecturer and course leader in social work at Brunel University. She is an integrative psychotherapist, supervisor and trainer in London.Terri Spy is a counselling psychologist and fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. She is a London-based integrative psychotherapist, supervisor and trainer.Contributors: Michael Carroll, Jane Cooper, Gill Eagle, Maria Gilbert, Joy Green, Guy Masters, Fathima Moosa, Cynthia Ransley, Terri Spy, Gill Straker.

Read more less

This book by one of Latin America’s leading cultural theorists examines the place of the subject and the role of biographical and autobiographical genres in contemporary culture. Arfuch argues that the on-going proliferation of private and intimate stories – what she calls the ‘biographical space’ – can be seen as symptomatic of the impersonalizing dynamics of contemporary times. Autobiographical genres, however, harbour an intersubjective dimension. The ‘I’ who speaks wants to be heard by another, and the other who listens discovers in autobiography possible points of identification. Autobiographical genres, including those that border on fiction, therefore become spaces in which the singularity of experience opens onto the collective and its historicity in ways that allow us to reflect on the ethical, political, and aesthetic dimensions not only of self-representation but also of life itself. Opening up debate through juxtaposition and dialogue, Arfuch’s own poetic writing moves freely from the Holocaust to Argentina’s last dictatorship and its traumatic memories, and then to the troubled borderlands between Mexico and the United States to show how artists rescue shards of memory that would otherwise be relegated to the dustbin of history. In so doing, she makes us see not only how challenging it is to represent past traumas and violence but also how vitally necessary it is to do so as a political strategy for combating the tides of forgetting and for finding ways of being in common.

Read more less

Social Media Abyss plunges into the paradoxical condition of the new digital normal versus a lived state of emergency. There is a heightened, post-Snowden awareness; we know we are under surveillance but we click, share, rank and remix with a perverse indifference to technologies of capture and cultures of fear. Despite the incursion into privacy by companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon, social media use continues to be a daily habit with shrinking gadgets now an integral part of our busy lives. We are thrown between addiction anxiety and subliminal, obsessive use. Where does art, culture and criticism venture when the digital vanishes into the background?Geert Lovink strides into the frenzied social media debate with Social Media Abyss - the fifth volume of his ongoing investigation into critical internet culture. He examines the symbiotic yet problematic relation between networks and social movements, and further develops the notion of organized networks. Lovink doesn't just submit to the empty soul of 24/7 communication but rather provides the reader with radical alternatives.Selfie culture is one of many Lovink's topics, along with the internet obsession of American writer Jonathan Franzen, the internet in Uganda, the aesthetics of Anonymous and an anatomy of the Bitcoin religion. Will monetization through cybercurrencies and crowdfunding contribute to a redistribution of wealth or further widen the gap between rich and poor? In this age of the free, how a revenue model of the 99% be collectively designed? Welcome back to the Social Question.

Read more less

One of the most durable figures in modern history, the peasant has long been a site of intense intellectual and political debate. Yet underlying much of this literature is the assumption that peasants simply existed everywhere, a general if not generic group, traced backward from modernity to antiquity. Focused on the transformation of Panjab during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this book accounts for the colonial origins of global capitalism through a radical history of the concept of "the peasant," demonstrating how seemingly fixed hierarchies were in fact produced, legitimized, and challenged within the preeminent agricultural region of South Asia. Navyug Gill uncovers how and why British officials and ascendant Panjabis disrupted existing forms of identity and occupation to generate a new agrarian order in the countryside. The notion of the hereditary caste peasant engaged in timeless cultivation thus emerged, paradoxically, as a result of a dramatic series of conceptual, juridical, and monetary divisions. Far from archaic relics, this book ultimately reveals both the landowning peasant and landless laborer to be novel political subjects forged through the encounter between colonialism and struggles over culture and capital within Panjabi society. Questions of progress, exploitation and knowledge come to animate the vernacular operations of power. With this history, Gill brings difference and contingency to understandings of the global past in order to re-think the itinerary of comparative political economy as well as alternative possibilities for emancipatory futures.

Read more less

Examines legal and literary narratives of personhood in the 19th century Traces the concept of character through related areas of law, cultural discourses of character and the formal structures of the novel Offers new readings of works by Nathaniel Hawthorne, George Eliot, Anne Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell, Anthony Trollope, Robert Louis Stevenson, Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle Analyses literary constructions of character in relation to specific legal cases and doctrines, including the right to silence, libel and privacy Includes new work on Anthony Trollope's topical and editorial interest in libel Covers the relationship between libel, the development of privacy rights and emerging modernist aesthetics Presents a transatlantic approach to select works and issues, including the right to silence and privacy Why would Hawthorne and Eliot grant their fallen women an anachronistic right to silence that could only worsen their punishment? Why did Bronte and Gaskell find gossip such a useful source of information when lawyers excluded it as hearsay? How did Trollope's work as an editor influence his preoccupation throughout his novels with libel? Drawing on a range of primary sources including novels, Victorian periodical literature, legislative debate, case law, and legal treatise, Cathrine O. Frank traces the ways conventions of literary characterisation mingled with character-centred legal developments to produce a jurisprudential theory of character that extends beyond the legal profession. She explores how key categories and representational strategies for imagining individual personhood also defined communities and mediated relations within them, in life and in fiction.

Read more less

A comparative analysis of key Islamic authority platforms and their debatesAt the turn of the twenty-first century, scholarship and policy debate on Islam and Muslim societies has come to focus primarily on Islam's ability to make young Muslims gravitate towards anti-modernity movements. Many attribute Islamic militancy, as well as the general socio-economic and political stagnation experienced in some Muslim societies, to Islamic theological or legal dictates. Yet Islamic scholarly tradition is highly pluralistic, and today's leading Islamic authority structures are developing competing conceptual and methodological approaches which vary greatly in their ability to engage with societal change.This volume focuses on the four most influential Islamic authority structures with a visible following among Muslims around the globe. It makes a major contribution to refining our understanding of the plurality of Islamic tradition in contemporary times, helping to counter the dominant narrative of an inevitable clash of civilisations. It presents evidence of great creative energy within many Islamic scholarly platforms (old as well as new); an energy which aims to provide dynamic answers to modern day challenges from within the Islamic legal and theological tradition.Key featuresFocuses on four influential Sunni Islamic scholarly platforms with a global following: Al-Azhar (Egypt); Saudi Salafism (Saudi Arabia); Deoband (South Asia); Diyanet (Turkey)Each case study traces the institution's intellectual genealogy, contemporary political standing, and the discourses of its scholars on Islamic law and social change

Read more less

Winner of the Ramnath Goenka Award 2020 On 26th January 1950 India became a republic, shedding its last links with its colonial past and inaugurating a new era of liberty and freedom. With fundamental rights and civil liberties guaranteed by the state, the new constitution was universally acclaimed as the ‘world’s greatest experiment in liberal government’. This idealistic birth of a new republic meant a clean break with a repressive past. And yet, barely twelve months later, the very makers of the constitution were denouncing their own creation. Passed in June 1951, the First Amendment to the Constitution was a pivotal moment in Indian constitutional history. Sixteen Stormy Days explores the contentious legacy of this First Amendment which drastically curbed freedom of speech, restricted freedom against discrimination and circumscribed the right to property. It follows the sixteen days of debate that led up to it, the people that created it, the great battle waged against it and the immense consequences it has had for Indian democracy. It is a cautionary tale about an almost forgotten but hugely consequential piece of history that holds the key to understanding the position of civil liberties and individual freedoms in India today. It challenges conventional wisdom on iconic figures such as Jawaharlal Nehru, B.R. Ambedkar, Rajendra Prasad, Sardar Patel and Shyama Prasad Mookerji, and lays bare the vast gulf between the liberal promise of India’s Constitution and the authoritarian impulses of her first government.

Read more less

A research-based guide to political psychology that is filled with critical arguments from noted experts Political Psychology is solidly grounded in empirical research and critical arguments. The text puts the emphasis on alternative approaches to psychological enquiry that challenge our traditional assumptions about the world. With contributions from an international panel of experts, the text contains a meaningful exchange of ideas that draw on the disciplines of social psychology, sociology, history, media studies and philosophy. This important text offers a broader understanding of the different intellectual positions that academics may take towards political psychology. Comprehensive in scope Political Psychology provides a historical context to the subject and offers a critical history of common research methods. The contributors offer insight on political thought in psychology, the politics of psychological language, narrating as political action, political decision-making and much more. This important text: Offers contributions from a panel of international experts on the topic Includes a review of some political ideas associated with the work of Karl Marx, Erich Fromm, R.D. Laing, Michel Foucault and others Presents information on prejudice, stereotypes and discrimination in the context of mass migration Reviews a wide range of relevant topics such as identity, social exclusion and foreign policy and more Contains questions for group debate and discussion at the end of each chapter Written for academics and students of political psychology, Political Psychology is a comprehensive resource that includes contributions from experts in a variety of fields and disciplines.

Read more less

The growth of joint-stock business in Victorian Britain re-evaluated, showing in particular the resistance to it. Winner of the Economic History Society's Best First Monograph award 2009 The emergence of the joint-stock company in nineteenth-century Britain was a culture shock for many Victorians. Though the home of the industrialrevolution, the nation's economy was dominated by the private partnership, seen as the most efficient as well as the most ethical form of business organisation. The large, impersonal company and the rampant speculation it was thought to encourage were viewed with suspicion and downright hostility. This book argues that the existing historiography understates society's resistance to joint-stock enterprise; it employs an eclectic range of sources, fromnewspapers and parliamentary papers to cartoons, novels and plays, to unearth this forgotten economic debate. It explores how the legal system was gradually restructured to facilitate joint-stock enterprise, a process culminatingin the limited liability legislation of the mid-1850s. This has typically been interpreted as evidence for the emergence of new, positive attitudes to speculation and economic growth, but the book demonstrates how traditional outlooks continued to influence legislation, and the way in which economic reforms were driven by political agendas. It shows how debates on the economic culture of nineteenth-century Britain are strikingly relevant to current questions over the ethics of multinational corporations. James Taylor is Senior Lecturer in British History at Lancaster University.

Read more less

In Black Athena Writes Back Martin Bernal responds to the passionate debates set off by the 1987 publication of his book Black Athena. Producing a shock wave of reaction from scholars, Black Athena argued that the development of Greek civilization was heavily influenced by Afroasiatic civilizations. Moreover, Bernal asserted that this knowledge had been deliberately obscured by the rampant racism of nineteenth-century Europeans who could not abide the notion that Greek society—for centuries recognized as the originating culture of Europe—had its origins in Africa and Southwest Asia. The subsequent rancor among classicists over Bernal’s theory and accusations was picked up in the popular media, and his suggestion that Greek culture had its origin in Africa was widely derided. In a report on 60 Minutes, for example, it was suggested that Bernal’s hypothesis was essentially an attempt to provide blacks with self-esteem so that they would feel included in the march of progress. In Black Athena Writes Back Bernal provides additional documentation to back up his thesis, as well as offering persuasive explanations of why traditional scholarship on the subject remains inaccurate and why specific arguments lobbed against his theories are themselves faulty.Black Athena Writes Back requires no prior familiarity with either the Black Athena hypothesis or with the arguments advanced against it. It will be essential reading for those who have been following this long-running debate, as well as for those just discovering this fascinating subject.

Read more less

Since the nineteenth century, ideas centered on the individual, on Emersonian self-reliance, and on the right of the individual to the pursuit of happiness have had a tremendous presence in the United States—and even more so after the Reagan era. But has this presence been for the good of all? In Negative Liberties Cyrus R. K. Patell revises important ideas in the debate about individualism and the political theory of liberalism. He does so by adding two new voices to the current discussion—Toni Morrison and Thomas Pynchon—to examine the different ways in which their writings embody, engage, and critique the official narrative generated by U.S. liberal ideology. Pynchon and Morrison reveal the official narrative of individualism as encompassing a complex structure of contradiction held in abeyance. This narrative imagines that the goals of the individual are not at odds with the goals of the family or society and in fact obscures the existence of an unholy truce between individual liberty and forms of oppression. By bringing these two fiction writers into a discourse dominated by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Isaiah Berlin, John Rawls, George Kateb, Robert Bellah, and Michael Sandel, Patell unmasks the ways in which contemporary U.S. culture has not fully shed the oppressive patterns of reasoning handed down by the slaveholding culture from which American individualism emerged.With its interdisciplinary approach, Negative Liberties will appeal to students and scholars of American literature, culture, sociology, and politics.

Read more less

Ohio Canal Era, a rich analysis of state policies and their impact in directing economic change, is a classic on the subject of the pre–Civil War transportation revolution. This edition contains a new foreword by scholar Lawrence M. Friedman, Professor of Law, Stanford Law School, and a bibliographic note by the author. Professor Scheiber explores how Ohio—as a “public enterprise state,” creating state agencies and mobilizing public resources for transport innovation and control—led in the process of economic change before the Civil War. No other historical account of the period provides so full and insightful a portrayal of “law in action.” Scheiber reveals the important roles of American nineteenth-century government in economic policy-making, finance, administration, and entrepreneurial activities in support of economic development. His study is equally important as an economic history. Scheiber provides a full account of waves of technological innovation and of the transformation of Ohio’s commerce, agriculture, and industrialization in an era of hectic economic change. And he tells the intriguing story of how the earliest railroads of the Old Northwest were built and financed, finally confronting the state-owned canal system with a devastating competitive challenge. Amid the current debate surrounding “privatization,” “deregulation,” and the appropriate use of “industrial policy” by government to shape and channel the economy. Scheiber’s landmark study gives vital historical context to issues of privatization and deregulation that we confront in new forms today.

Read more less

This book examines the common metaphor that equates computing and writing, tracing it from the naming of devices (“notebook” computers) through the design of user interfaces (the “desktop”) to how we describe the work of programmers (“writing” code). Computing as Writing ponders both the implications and contradictions of the metaphor.During the past decade, analysis of digital media honed its focus on particular hardware and software platforms. Daniel Punday argues that scholars should, instead, embrace both the power and the fuzziness of the writing metaphor as it relates to computing—which isn’t simply a set of techniques or a collection of technologies but also an idea that resonates throughout contemporary culture. He addresses a wide array of subjects, including film representations of computing (Desk Set, The Social Network), Neal Stephenson’s famous open source manifesto, J. K. Rowling’s legal battle with a fan site, the sorting of digital libraries, subscription services like Netflix, and the Apple versus Google debate over openness in computing.Punday shows how contemporary authors are caught between traditional notions of writerly authority and computing’s emphasis on doing things with writing. What does it mean to be a writer today? Is writing code for an app equivalent to writing a novel? Should we change how we teach writing? Punday’s answers to these questions and others are original and refreshing, and push the study of digital media in productive new directions.

Read more less

'Twas Honest old Noah first planted the Vine And mended his morals by drinking its Wine. —from a drinking song by Benjamin Franklin There were, Peter Thompson notes, some one hundred and fifty synonyms for inebriation in common use in colonial Philadelphia and, on the eve of the Revolution, just as many licensed drinking establishments. Clearly, eighteenth-century Philadelphians were drawn to the tavern. In addition to the obvious lure of the liquor, taverns offered overnight accommodations, meals, and stabling for visitors. They also served as places to gossip, gamble, find work, make trades, and gather news. In Rum Punch and Revolution, Thompson shows how the public houses provided a setting in which Philadelphians from all walks of life revealed their characters and ideas as nowhere else. He takes the reader into the cramped confines of the colonial bar room, describing the friendships, misunderstandings and conflicts which were generated among the city's drinkers and investigates the profitability of running a tavern in a city which, until independence, set maximum prices on the cost of drinks and services in its public houses. Taverngoing, Thompson writes, fostered a sense of citizenship that influenced political debate in colonial Philadelphia and became an issue in the city's revolution. Opinionated and profoundly undeferential, taverngoers did more than drink; they forced their political leaders to consider whether and how public opinion could be represented in the counsels of a newly independent nation.

Read more less

The Yield is a once-in-a-generation reinterpretation of the oeuvre of Franz Kafka. At the same time, it is a powerful new entry in the debates about the supposed secularity of the modern age. Kafka is one of the most admired writers of the last century, but this book presents us with a Kafka few will recognize. It does so through a fine-grained analysis of the three hundred "thoughts" the writer penned near the end of World War I, when he had just been diagnosed with tuberculosis. Since they were discovered after Kafka's death, the meaning of the so-called "Zürau aphorisms" has been open to debate. Paul North's elucidation of what amounts to Kafka's only theoretical work shows them to contain solutions to problems Europe has faced throughout modernity. Kafka offers responses to phenomena of violence, discrimination, political repression, misunderstanding, ethnic hatred, fantasies of technological progress, and the subjugation of the worker, among other problems. Reflecting on secular modernity and the theological ideas that continue to determine it, he critiques the ideas of sin, suffering, the messiah, paradise, truth, the power of art, good will, and knowledge. Kafka's controversial alternative to the bad state of affairs in his day? Rather than fight it, give in. Developing some of Kafka's arguments, The Yield describes the ways that Kafka envisions we can be good by "yielding" to our situation instead of striving for something better.

Read more less

This volume reflects Jacques Derrida's engagement in the late 1970s with French political debates on the teaching of philosophy and the reform of the French university system. He was a founding member of the Research Group on the Teaching of Philosophy (Greph), an activist group that mobilized opposition to the Giscard government's proposals to "rationalize" the French educational system in 1975, and a convener of the Estates General of Philosophy, a vast gathering in 1979 of educators from across France. While addressing specific contemporary political issues on occasion, thus providing insight into the pragmatic deployment of deconstructive analysis, the essays deal mainly with much broader concerns. With his typical rigor and spark, Derrida investigates the genealogy of several central concepts which any debate about teaching and the university must confront. Thus there are essays on the "teaching body," both the faculty corps and the strange interplay in the French (but not only the French) tradition between the mind and body of the professor; on the question of age in teaching, analyzed through a famous letter of Hegel; on the class, the classroom, and the socio-economic concept of class in education; on language, especially so-called "natural languages" like French; and on the legacy of the revolutionary tradition, the Estates General, in the university. The essays are linked by the extraordinary care and precision with which Derrida undertakes a political intervention into, and a philosophical analysis of, the institutionalization of philosophy in the university.

Read more less