Search results for ""debate""

‘The year’s best cricket book’ Daily Telegraph‘Well researched and engagingly written, this exemplary work reveals a hidden history…superbly told story’ Sunday Times‘Easily the cricket book of the year, of the century…It extends the possibility of cricket-writing-as-literature’ Suresh Menon, The Hindu It is arguably the most famous photograph in the history of cricket. In George Beldam's picture, Victor Trumper is caught in mid stroke, the personification of cricketing grace, skill and power, about to hit the ball long and hard. Yet this image, 'Jumping Out', is important not only because of who it depicts, but also what it illustrates about the changing nature of the game and how it has been seen. Now, in Gideon Haigh's brilliant new book, Stroke of Genius, we learn not only about the man in the picture but also the iconography of Trumper's powerful position in cricket's mythology. For many, Australian batsman Trumper was the greatest ever. Neville Cardus wrote: 'I have never yet met a cricketer who, having seen and played with Victor Trumper, did not describe him without doubt or hesitation as the most accomplished of all batsmen of his acquaintance.' Like Lionel Messi or Roger Federer today, he defied the obvious bounds of affiliation. Unlike the current generation of sporting stars, however, there were no memoirs or papers, very few interviews, no action footage - even his date of birth is a matter of debate and conjecture. What isn't in doubt, though, is the impact he had on the game and on his nation. Haigh reveals how Trumper, and 'Jumping Out', helped to change cricket from the Victorian era of static imagery to something much more dynamic, modern and compelling. As such, Trumper helped not only transform cricket but even the way his country viewed itself.

Read more less

In February 1988, philosophers Jacques Derrida, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe came together in Heidelberg before a large audience to discuss the philosophical and political implications of Martin Heidegger’s thought. This event took place in the very amphitheater in which, more than fifty years earlier, Heidegger, as rector of the University of Freiburg and a member of the Nazi Party, had given a speech entitled “The University in the New Reich.” Heidegger’s involvement in Nazism has always been, and will remain, an indelible scandal, but what is its real relation to his work and thought? And what are the responsibilities of those who read this work, who analyze and elaborate this thought? Conversely, what is at stake in the wholesale dismissal of this important but compromised twentieth-century philosopher? In 1988, in the wake of the recent publication of Victor Farias’s Heidegger and Nazism, and of the heated debates that ensued, these questions had become more pressing than ever. The reflections presented by three of the most prominent of Heidegger’s readers, improvised in French and transcribed here, were an attempt to approach these questions before a broad public, but with a depth of knowledge and a complex sense of the questions at issue that have been often lacking in the press. Ranging over two days and including exchanges with one another and with the audience, the discussions pursued by these major thinkers remain highly relevant today, especially following the publication of Heidegger’s already notorious “Black Notebooks,” which have added another chapter to the ongoing debates over this contested figure. The present volume recalls a highly charged moment in this history, while also drawing the debate toward its most essential questions.

Read more less

A paradoxical situation emerged at the turn of the twenty-first century: the dramatic upscaling of the suburban American dream even as the possibilities for achieving and maintaining it diminished. Having fled to the suburbs in search of affordable homes, open space, and better schools, city-raised parents found their modest homes eclipsed by McMansions, local schools and roads overburdened and underfunded, and their ability to keep up with the pressures of extravagant consumerism increasingly tenuous. How do class anxieties play out amid such disconcerting cultural, political, and economic changes? In this incisive ethnography set in a New Jersey suburb outside New York City, Rachel Heiman takes us into people's homes; their community meetings, where they debate security gates and school redistricting; and even their cars, to offer an intimate view of the tensions and uncertainties of being middle class at that time. With a gift for bringing to life the everyday workings of class in the lives of children, youth, and their parents, Heiman offers an illuminating look at the contemporary complexities of class rooted in racialized lives, hyperconsumption, and neoliberal citizenship. She argues convincingly that to understand our current economic situation we need to attend to the subtle but forceful formation of sensibilities, spaces, and habits that durably motivate people and shape their actions and outlooks. Rugged entitlement" is Heiman's name for the middle class' sense of entitlement to a way of life that is increasingly untenable and that is accompanied by an anxious feeling that they must vigilantly pursue their own interests to maintain and further their class position. Driving after Class is a model of fine-grained ethnography that shows how families try to make sense of who they are and where they are going in a highly competitive and uncertain time.

Read more less

This book offers a cross-national perspective on contemporary urban renewal in relation to social rental housing. Social housing estates – as developed either by governments (public housing) or not-for-profit agencies – became a prominent feature of the 20th century urban landscape in Northern European cities, but also in North America and Australia. Many estates were built as part of earlier urban renewal, ‘slum clearance’ programs especially in the post-World War 2 heyday of the Keynesian welfare state. During the last three decades, however, Western governments have launched high-profile ‘new urban renewal’ programs whose aim has been to change the image and status of social housing estates away from being zones of concentrated poverty, crime and other social problems. This latest phase of urban renewal – often called ‘regeneration’ – has involved widespread demolition of social housing estates and their replacement with mixed-tenure housing developments in which poverty deconcentration, reduced territorial stigmatization, and social mixing of poor tenants and wealthy homeowners are explicit policy goals. Academic critical urbanists, as well as housing activists, have however queried this dominant policy narrative regarding contemporary urban renewal, preferring instead to regard it as a key part of neoliberal urban restructuring and state-led gentrification which generate new socio-spatial inequalities and insecurities through displacement and exclusion processes. This book examines this debate through original, in-depth case study research on the processes and impacts of urban renewal on social housing in European, U.S. and Australian cities. The book also looks beyond the Western urban heartlands of social housing to consider how renewal is occurring, and with what effects, in countries with historically limited social housing sectors such as Japan, Chile, Turkey and South Africa.

Read more less

Winner, 2021 Gloria E. Anzaldúa Book Prize, given by the National Women's Studies Association Winner, 2021 Harry Levin Prize, given by the American Comparative Literature Association Winner, 2021 Lambda Literary Award in LGBTQ Studies Argues that Blackness disrupts our essential ideas of race, gender, and, ultimately, the human Rewriting the pernicious, enduring relationship between Blackness and animality in the history of Western science and philosophy, Becoming Human: Matter and Meaning in an Antiblack World breaks open the rancorous debate between Black critical theory and posthumanism. Through the cultural terrain of literature by Toni Morrison, Nalo Hopkinson, Audre Lorde, and Octavia Butler, the art of Wangechi Mutu and Ezrom Legae, and the oratory of Frederick Douglass, Zakiyyah Iman Jackson both critiques and displaces the racial logic that has dominated scientific thought since the Enlightenment. In so doing, Becoming Human demonstrates that the history of racialized gender and maternity, specifically anti-Blackness, is indispensable to future thought on matter, materiality, animality, and posthumanism. Jackson argues that African diasporic cultural production alters the meaning of being human and engages in imaginative practices of world-building against a history of the bestialization and thingification of Blackness—the process of imagining the Black person as an empty vessel, a non-being, an ontological zero—and the violent imposition of colonial myths of racial hierarchy. She creatively responds to the animalization of Blackness by generating alternative frameworks of thought and relationality that not only disrupt the racialization of the human/animal distinction found in Western science and philosophy but also challenge the epistemic and material terms under which the specter of animal life acquires its authority. What emerges is a radically unruly sense of a being, knowing, feeling existence: one that necessarily ruptures the foundations of "the human."

Read more less

′This book provides a variety of ideas for use in the classroom, based on practical applications of the conceptual understanding of learning power... ...[It] tells the reader about the "Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory" research programme (ELLI) and uses practical examples of how it can work in actual classes to explain its effectiveness. Its value for practitioners working with children with SEN appears to be in the way it challenges them to look at themselves as learners - also how they can support the children they work with to become more effective learners′ - Special Needs Coordinator′s File ′This is not a gimmicky approach... The approach here fosters deeper understanding for both the teacher and learner of exactly what the process involves... It contains much to interest schoolteachers, senior managers and those involved with learners of any age′ - ESCalate Contains Learning Power flash cards! What kind of learner are you? How can you become a better learner? This book puts the findings of the well known Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory (ELLI) research programme into the practical context of the classroom, helping you to find answers to these questions. The book offers many suggestions for practical ways to improve the learning power of all the children in your class. It looks at: " learning power - what it is and how it can be achieved " creating the right classroom environment for powerful learning " how learning power works in the primary and secondary school classroom " how animal metaphors can be used with children to explain concepts. This is an exciting read for anyone interested in how children learn, and how we can help them to learn more effectively. It fits in very well with the debate around such concepts as accelerated learning, thinking skills and learning styles.

Read more less

HERALD BOOKS OF THE YEAR and NEW STATESMAN BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2014 Part of a trilogy on Scottish history, T.M. Devine's The Scottish Nation: A Modern History traces the epic story of a nation from the Union with England to today's debates on the possibilities of Scottish independence. Drawing on extensive research and exploring everything from the high politics of the devolved parliament to the everyday effects of huge and growing levels of social inequality, this bestselling history places Scotland firmly within an international context and provides a key focus for the ongoing debate regarding Scotland's future. Ranging from high politics to everyday life, The Scottish Nation is the most read modern history of Scotland at home and abroad: vital to understanding an ancient nation at a crucial time. 'Outstanding ... if you are after answers to the big questions of Scottish history, Devine is your man' Niall Ferguson 'Magnificent ... a high achievement, a history of modern Scotland which, rarely for the subject, endows with sweep and power the changes that have created the country we live in' Michael Fry, The Herald 'The work of a compendious historical mind ... the first history of Scotland which both a nationalist and a unionist Scot can keep on their shelves with pride, and that is a large achievement in itself' John Lloyd, Financial Times 'A formidable work ... quite remarkable' Donald Dewar 'A fiercely intelligent account of Scotland ... Devine is the country's most prominent historian, and from the evidence of this book, rightly so' Rosemary Goring, Scotland on Sunday T.M. Devine, OBE is University Research Professor and Director of the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen. His other books include The Scottish Nation and To the Ends of the Earth.

Read more less

The perfect treat for fans of Evie Dunmore and Netflix's Bridgerton and Enola Holmes! It is a truth universally acknowledged that a lady in danger must be in need of rescue, but whether she wants to be rescued is up for debate . . . England, 1867: Miss Poppy Delamare is living a lie. To escape an odious betrothal, she fled to London where she's been hiding as the unassuming secretary Flora Deaver. However, when her beloved sister is accused of murder, Poppy cannot leave her to the wolves. Only a most unexpected - and unwelcome - collision interrupts her journey home . . . Despite a rather dismal first meeting, Joshua Fielding, the Duke of Langham, has no intention of abandoning a lady in need. But he's not above asking a favour. A fake betrothal will give Poppy and her sister the power of the dukedom and protect Langham from the society misses intent on becoming his duchess.Yet the longer the ruse goes on, the more Poppy and Langham realize how false their first impressions were - and the less pretend their engagement feels. But before Langham can propose in truth, their search reveals a tangled web of lies and betrayals. With time running out, can Poppy and Langham find the real culprit? Before Poppy becomes the next victim?Praise for Manda Collins'Witty, intelligent, and hard to put down' Rachel Van Dyken'Manda Collins heats up the ballroom and writes romance to melt even the frostiest duke's heart' Tessa Dare'Utterly charming' Popsugar'Manda Collins is a delight!' Elizabeth Hoyt'Mystery, romance, and an indomitable heroine make for a brisk, compelling read' Madeline Hunter'Sexy and smart historical romance, with a big dash of fun' Vanessa Kelly'Sexy, thrilling, romantic . . . Manda Collins makes her Regency world a place any reader would want to dwell' Kieran Kramer

Read more less

There is ample evidence that it is difficult for the general public to understand and internalize scientific facts. Disputes over such facts are often amplified amid political controversies. As we've seen with climate change and even COVID-19, politicians rely on the perceptions of their constituents when making decisions that impact public policy. So, how do we make sure that what the public understands is accurate? In this book, Steven L. Goldman traces the public's suspicion of scientific knowledge claims to a broad misunderstanding, reinforced by scientists themselves, of what it is that scientists know, how they know it, and how to act on the basis of it. In sixteen chapters, Goldman takes readers through the history of scientific knowledge from Plato and Aristotle, through the birth of modern science and its maturation, into a powerful force for social change to the present day. He explains how scientists have wrestled with their own understanding of what it is that they know, that theories evolve, and why the public misunderstands the reliability of scientific knowledge claims. With many examples drawn from the history of philosophy and science, the chapters illustrate an ongoing debate over how we know what we say we know and the relationship between knowledge and reality. Goldman covers a rich selection of ideas from the founders of modern science and John Locke's response to Newton's theories to Thomas Kuhn's re-interpretation of scientific knowledge and the Science Wars that followed it. Goldman relates these historical disputes to current issues, underlining the important role scientists play in explaining their own research to nonscientists and the effort nonscientists must make to incorporate science into public policies. A narrative exploration of scientific knowledge, Science Wars engages with the arguments of both sides by providing thoughtful scientific, philosophical, and historical discussions on every page.

Read more less

From Tristram Hunt, award-winning author of The Frock-Coated Communist and leading UK politician, Ten Cities that Made an Empire presents a new approach to Britain's imperial past through the cities that epitomised itSince the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997 and the end days of Empire, Britain's colonial past has been the subject of passionate debate. Tristram Hunt goes beyond the now familiar arguments about Empire being good or bad and adopts a fresh approach to Britain's empire and its legacy. Through an exceptional array of first-hand accounts and personal reflections, he portrays the great colonial and imperial cities of Boston, Bridgetown, Dublin, Cape Town, Calcutta, Hong Kong, Bombay, Melbourne, New Delhi, and twentieth-century Liverpool: their architecture, culture, and society balls; the famines, uprisings and repressions which coursed through them; the primitive accumulation and ghostly bureaucracy which ran them; the British supremacists and multicultural trailblazers who inhabited them.From the pioneers of early America to the builders of modern India, from west to east and back again, Hunt follows the processes of exchange and adaptation that collectively moulded the colonial experience and which in their turn transformed the culture, economy and identity of the British Isles. This vivid and richly detailed imperial story, located in ten of the most important cities which the Empire constructed, demolished, reconstructed and transformed, allows us a new understanding of the British Empire's influence upon the world and the world's influence upon it.Praise for The Frock-Coated Communist:'Beautifully written and consistently engaging' - Independent'An excellent book ... Hunt has a mastery of 19th-century British culture and European political thought' - Robert Service, Sunday Times'Thoughtful and engaging' - Telegraph Review

Read more less

Think of a number between one and ten.No, hang on, let's make this interesting. Between zero and infinity. Even if you stick to the whole numbers, there are a lot to choose from - an infinite number in fact. Throw in decimal fractions and infinity suddenly gets an awful lot bigger (is that even possible?) And then there are the negative numbers, the imaginary numbers, the irrational numbers like pi which never end. It literally never ends.The world of numbers is indeed strange and beautiful. Among its inhabitants are some really notable characters - pi, e, the "imaginary" number i and the famous golden ratio to name just a few. Prime numbers occupy a special status. Zero is very odd indeed: is it a number, or isn't it?How Numbers Work takes a tour of this mind-blowing but beautiful realm of numbers and the mathematical rules that connect them. Not only that, but take a crash course on the biggest unsolved problems that keep mathematicians up at night, find out about the strange and unexpected ways mathematics influences our everyday lives, and discover the incredible connection between numbers and reality itself.ABOUT THE SERIESNew Scientist Instant Expert books are definitive and accessible entry points to the most important subjects in science; subjects that challenge, attract debate, invite controversy and engage the most enquiring minds. Designed for curious readers who want to know how things work and why, the Instant Expert series explores the topics that really matter and their impact on individuals, society, and the planet, translating the scientific complexities around us into language that's open to everyone, and putting new ideas and discoveries into perspective and context.

Read more less

In the age of adventure, when dirigibles coasted through the air and vast swaths of the Earth remained untouched and unseen by man, one pack of relentless explorers competed in the race of a lifetime: to be the first aviator to fly over the North Pole. What inspired their dangerous fascination? For some, it was the romantic theory about a “lost world,” a hidden continent in the Arctic Ocean. Others were seduced by new aviation technology, which they strove to push to its ultimate limit. The story of their quest is breathtaking and inspiring; the heroes are still a matter of debate.It was the 1920s. The main players in this high stakes game were Richard Byrd, a dashing Navy officer and early aviation pioneer; and Roald Amundsen, a Viking in the sky, bitter rival of Byrd’s and a hardened veteran of polar expeditions. Each man was determined to be the first aviator to fly over the North Pole, despite brutal weather conditions, financial disasters, world wars, and their own personal demons. Byrd and Amundsen’s epic struggle for air primacy ended in a Homeric episode, in which one man had to fly to the rescue of his downed nemesis, and left behind an enduring mystery: who was the first man to fly over the North Pole?Race to the Top of the World: Richard Byrd and the First Flight to the North Pole is a fast-paced, larger-than-life adventure story from Sheldon Bart, the only historian with unprecedented access to Richard Byrd’s personal archives. With powerful, never-before-seen evidence of the race to pioneer one of Earth’s last true frontiers, Race to the Top of the World is a story of a day when men were heroes and the wild was untamed.

Read more less

This book is the first comprehensive chronological study of the works of a significant but little-known figure in early American history. A confidant of Thomas Jefferson, John Taylor of Caroline County, Virginia (1735-1824) represented the anti-Federalist position during the Constitutional debates and wrote extensively on government, economics, slavery, and liberty in each republic. Taylor's ideology blends Lockean liberal and Classical Republican ideas. This study fills an important gap in our understanding of early American political thought. This results in a surprising discovery that redefines the current scholarly debate on early American political thought. It finds that John Taylor reconciles Lockean liberalism and Classical Republicanism in ways that challenge the belief that liberalism's basis in natural rights, individualism, limited, impartial government, and laissez fair economics is incompatible with republican concern for civic virtue, corruption, patronage, public credit, stock companies, centralized government, and standing armies. Taylor's writings provide a revealing perspective on American government that clears away much of the confusion of recent scholarship and offers a view of the Constitution that will be startling to many twentieth-century minds. Ironically, the Classical Republican paradigm which resurrects John Taylor, is seriously challenged by his theories, and yet is responsible for rescuing him from the opprobrium of being the premier "states' rights" philosopher. Taylor's conception of government is based on the Lockean view that people are free, equal, and independent individuals who possess natural rights and should have the moral liberty to choose any form of government that suits them, without obligation to hereditary rulers or established social classes. Taylor acknowledges distinctions based only on individual merit: talents, education, and industry. Progress would occur as human reason improved and, therefore, government should be kept in close touch with its consti

Read more less

How is the church to understand the Eucharist? Historically, the church has thought in terms of Christ’s sacrifice that atones or makes satisfaction for our sins. Today, many theologians hold that Christ’s death is primarily a self-gift, and they de-emphasize atonement or satisfaction. According to Michon M. Matthiesen, the early twentieth-century Jesuit Maurice de la Taille offered a theology that is relevant to this contemporary debate because it accounts for both the sacrifice and gift aspects of the Eucharist. De la Taille’s three-volume masterpiece, Mysterium Fidei, published in 1921, generated theological excitement and controversy. Some praised the work as a new theological method that overcame post-Tridentine immolationist Eucharistic theories of sacrifice. Others objected to his view of Trent and were offended by his mystical-theological synthesis. Sacrifice as Gift retrieves de la Taille’s magisterial thought, presenting him as an early nouvelle théologie thinker who recovered patristic and medieval insights that lost prominence after Trent. The volume also demonstrates his role in the liturgical movement in Europe. According to Matthiesen, de la Taille did not claim to offer a “new theory” about the sacrifice of the Mass. Rather, he carefully read the tradition, weaving “the voices of the pages”—from scripture and the Fathers (East and West), to the scholastics, and the mystics of the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries. This study captures the remarkably integrated nature of de la Taille’s thought on eucharistic sacrifice. Matthiesen argues that de la Taille’s theology of eucharistic sacrifice cannot be properly understood apart from his theology of grace and contemplative prayer. Besides providing a new appreciation of the depth of de la Taille’s theological contribution, Sacrifice as Gift is a timely presentation of a forgotten vision of eucharistic sacrifice, one that reconfigures the current philosophical and theological divide between sacrifice and gift.

Read more less

Cardinal Patrick O'Boyle (1896-1987) is largely remembered as the controversial leader of the Archdiocese of Washington during its first, formative quarter century. Combining considerable foresight about the Church's social concerns with a stubborn resistance to innovation, he countered opposition from those who reviled his progressive stand, especially his steadfast demand for racial equality and support of organized labor. At the same time he earned the opprobrium of those who resisted his firm support of the magisterium, in particular his controversial defense of the pope's ban on artificial birth control and his rejection of liturgical experimentation in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. Often overlooked is the fact that O'Boyle's Washington years followed a quarter-century participation in the modernization of the American Church's charity apparatus and the organization of its international relief effort. Such assignments placed him at the epicenter of the debate over the proper roles of church and state in providing social services. A product of the Catholic ghettoization of the early twentieth century, he was expected to lead his Church into fruitful partnerships with government and other organizations in support of society's most needy. This engaging biography seeks to explain O'Boyle's apparent contradictions by placing special emphasis on his formative years as the only child in an immigrant, staunchly pro-labor family in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and his training as a seminarian and curate in the rigidly traditional Church of his adopted New York. These influences, combined with his subsequent work with the poor and orphaned, instilled in him a progressive economic and social outlook as well as a lifetime sympathy for society's neglected. At the same time they strengthened an unquestioned obedience and loyalty to those in authority that figured so prominently in his later Washington years, where he came to embody the paradox of simple faith and complex humanity.

Read more less

Is there a universal set of rules for discovering and testing scientific hypotheses? Since the birth of modern science, philosophers, scientists, and other thinkers have wrestled with this fundamental question of scientific practice. Efforts to devise rigorous methods for obtaining scientific knowledge include the twenty-one rules Descartes proposed in his Rules for the Direction of the Mind and the four rules of reasoning that begin the third book of Newton's Principia, and continue today in debates over the very possibility of such rules. Bringing together key primary sources spanning almost four centuries, Science Rules introduces readers to scientific methods that have played a prominent role in the history of scientific practice. Editor Peter Achinstein includes works by scientists and philosophers of science to offer a new perspective on the nature of scientific reasoning. For each of the methods discussed, he presents the original formulation of the method; selections written by a proponent of the method together with an application to a particular scientific example; and a critical analysis of the method that draws on historical and contemporary sources. The methods included in this volume are Cartesian rationalism with an application to Descartes' laws of motion; Newton's inductivism and the law of gravity; two versions of hypothetico-deductivism-those of William Whewell and Karl Popper-and the nineteenth-century wave theory of light; Paul Feyerabend's principle of proliferation and Thomas Kuhn's views on scientific values, both of which deny that there are universal rules of method, with an application to Galileo's tower argument. Included also is a famous nineteenth-century debate about scientific reasoning between the hypothetico-deductivist William Whewell and the inductivist John Stuart Mill; and an account of the realism-antirealism dispute about unobservables in science, with a consideration of Perrin's argument for the existence of molecules in the early twentieth century.

Read more less

A new collection about violence and the rural Midwest from a poet whose first book was hailed as “memorable” (Stephanie Burt, Yale Review) and “impressive” (Chicago Tribune)Flyover Country is a powerful collection of poems about violence: the violence we do to the land, to animals, to refugees, to the people of distant countries, and to one another. Drawing on memories of his childhood on a dairy farm in Illinois, Austin Smith explores the beauty and cruelty of rural life, challenging the idea that the American Midwest is mere “flyover country,” a place that deserves passing over. At the same time, the collection suggests that America itself has become a flyover country, carrying out drone strikes and surveillance abroad, locked in a state of perpetual war that Americans seem helpless to stop.In these poems, midwestern barns and farmhouses are linked to other lands and times as if by psychic tunnels. A poem about a barn cat moving her kittens in the night because they have been discovered by a group of boys resonates with a poem about the house in Amsterdam where Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazis. A poem beginning with a boy on a farmhouse porch idly swatting flies ends with the image of people fleeing before a drone strike. A poem about a barbwire fence suggests, if only metaphorically, the debate over immigration and borders. Though at times a dark book, the collection closes with a poem titled “The Light at the End,” suggesting the possibility of redemption and forgiveness.Building on Smith’s reputation as an accessible and inventive poet with deep insights about rural America, Flyover Country also draws profound connections between the Midwest and the wider world.

Read more less

The first systematic and comprehensive attempt to identify and analyze the role of Isaianic language and imagery in literature, art, and music Using reception history as its basis for study, Isaiah Through the Centuries is an unprecedented exploration of the afterlife of the Book of Isaiah, specifically in art, literature, and music. This is a commentary that guides the reader through the Book of Isaiah, examining the differing interpretations of each phrase or passage from a variety of cultural and religious perspectives, Jewish, Christian and Muslim. Clearly structured and accessible, and richly illustrated, the book functions as a complete and comprehensive educational reference work. Isaiah Through the Centuries encourages readers to learn with an open mind and to understand how different interpretations have helped in the teaching and comprehension of the Bible and Isaiah’s place in it. As part of the Wiley-Blackwell Bible Commentaries series, which is primarily concerned with reception history, the book emphasizes that how people interpret the prophet—and how they’ve been influenced by him—is often just as important as the sacred text’s original meaning. Uses reception history to study the renowned prophet Provides a historical context for every use or interpretation discussed Offers essential background information on authors, artists, musicians, etc. in its glossary and biographies Minimizes historical details in order to focus as much as possible on exegetical matters Presents the role of Isaiah and the Bible in the creative arts Will be useful to multiple disciplines including theology and religion, English literature, art history and the history of music, not just Biblical Studies Comprehensive in scope, Isaiah Through the Centuries is a much-needed resource for all those interested in the influence of the Bible on Western culture, and presents unique perspectives for anyone interested in the Bible to discuss and debate for many years to come.

Read more less

Value-Based Health Care Linking Finance and Quality Yosef D. Dlugacz Value-Based Health Care? Value-Based Health Care?concisely explains the mandate to successfully link health care quality and finance and describes the tools to implement strategies for organizational success. Yosef Dlugacz provides many illustrative real-world examples of process and outcomes of the value-based approach, taken from a wide range of health care settings. Perfect for students preparing to enter health care management or for practicing health care leaders and professionals, this book is a vital guide to approaches that ensure the health of patients and health care organizations alike. Praise for Value-Based Health Care "Value-Based Health Care provides leaders and quality experts with the much needed roadmap for linking cost and quality. This book will help your organization thrive in today's ultra-competitive environment." —Patrice L. Spath, health care quality specialist and author of Leading Your Health Care Organization to Excellence and Error Reduction in Health Care: A Systems Approach to Improving Patient Safety "Yosef Dlugacz provides an essential overview of how staff, administrators, and clinicians can create not just a culture but a gestalt of quality health care delivery. . . .given the national debate over access, cost, and quality, the book could not be more timely." —Theodore J. Joyce, PhD, professor of economics and finance, academic director of the Baruch/Mt. Sinai MBA Program in Health Care Administration, and research associate, National Bureau of Economic Research "Dr. Dlugacz's?case studies and action plans provide great insights and workable solutions to provide safe and effective patient care. It is a welcome resource as we sit on the?advent of health reform." —Kathy Ciccone, executive director, Quality Institute of the Healthcare Association of New York State

Read more less

"Power" is the central organizing concept for politics. However, despite decades of debate across political science, sociology, and philosophy, scholars have not yet settled on a proper definition of power. Existing definitions fail because they are either circular or so far removed from the ordinary, quotidien meaning of power that they cannot credibly claim to be about the same concept. Political science has looked at how power works, but according to Guido Parietti, fails to define what power means. In On the Concept of Power, Parietti proposes a more proper definition of power--as the condition of having available possibilities and representing them as such--and examines its implications for the study of politics, both empirical and normative. By neglecting the category of possibility, significant portions of political science and philosophy become incapable of conceptualizing power, and therefore politics. Specifically, Parietti asserts that the main failure of political science is in obscuring power's correspondence to the category of possibility in favor of causality and probability; political philosophy, on the other hand, tends to prioritize various forms of a teleologically oriented normativity. All these approaches end up discarding possibility in favor of oriented potentialities, ultimately anchored to various forms of necessity, and are therefore incapable of properly conceptualizing power in accordance with its meaning in ordinary language. Bringing together different disciplinary discourses, On the Concept of Power concludes by examining the conditions for power to have an actual referent; in other words, for politics to appear in our world. In this original and ambitious critique of the prevailing approaches to political theory and political science, Parietti examines what it means to have power and what may endanger our access to and exercise of it.

Read more less

`And that is one thing we need to relearn, that all of life brings its gifts - not only the first two or three decades.' - Rudolf Steiner When are we actually old? What happens as we age? How will we cope with old age? Growing old is an art, and to grow old in the right way we need spiritual understanding. In this enlightening anthology - compiled by a director of care homes for the elderly - wide-ranging cosmological perspectives alternate with detailed observations of the phenomena of ageing. Rudolf Steiner sees ageing within the context of the earthly and spiritual evolution that encompasses all forms of existence. The book thus begins with the primary meaning that ageing has in developmental terms and ends with a consideration of the human being as co-creator in cosmic processes - and with our capacity to become increasingly conscious of the tasks this implies. These key texts by Rudolf Steiner show how spiritual knowledge can broaden the current debate on the study of old age, the process of ageing, and the particular problems faced by older people. Concerns about our `ageing population' can be seen in a broader context that recognizes the fruits of old age. The productive relationship between childhood and old age - a running theme throughout this volume - is one example. If we grow old consciously, viewing ageing not only as a period of physical decline but as a time when we can actively participate in shaping life, then we can begin to find greater meaning in it. Chapters include: `The Core Messages of Ageing'; `Fundamental Principles of Gerontology'; `Ageing as a Developmental Process'; `Ageing: the Risks and Opportunities'; The Art of Growing Old'; `Old Age and Death'; `Growing Old - A Challenge for Education'; `The Cosmological Dimensions of Ageing'.

Read more less

The 1998 Volume on the regulation of communications markets is the third in a successful series of European Competition Law Annuals,founded upon open dialogue between technical experts, market analysts and legal practitioners. Gathering together academic papers and edited transcripts of expert discussions, it offers readers a lively and informed insight into the topical debate of whether governments, or the European Union, should intervene to prevent powerful firms from abusing their control of critical 'gateways' between consumers and communication information services. The Volume examines the technical and market evolutions that have allowed the development of single communications networks, which offer consumers a variety of telephone, audio-visual and computer data services. In an era of market liberalisation, the editors and contributors ask how private ownership of such communications networks may be reconciled with the need to ensure consumers easy access to the services that underpin our, so-called, 'information society'. Table of Contents Introduction - Claus D. Ehlermann Biographical Notes on the Participants Panel One: Regulating Access to Bottlenecks 1 Panel Discussion 2 Working Papers - Fod Barnes, Bernard Amory and Alexandre Verheyden, Jens Arnbak, Henry Ergas, Herbert Hovenkamp, Gunter Knieps, Daniel Rubinfield and Robert Majur, Joachim Scherer, Herbert Hungerer, James Venit Panel Two: Agreements, Integration and Structural Remedies 1 Panel Discussion 2 Working Papers - Mark Armstrong, Donald Baker, Eleanor Fox, Barry Hawk, Colin Long, Michael Reynolds, Alexander Schaub, Klaus-Dieter Scheurle, Mario Siragusa Panel Three: Institutions and Competence 1 Panel Discussion 2 Working Papers - Ulrich Immenga, Stuart Brotman, Ian Forrester, Frederic Jenny, Bruno Lasserre, Santiago Martinez Lage and Helmut Brokelmann, James Rill, Mary Jean Fell, Richard Park and Sarah Bauers, Giuseppe Tesauro, Robert Verrue, Peter Waters, David Stewart and Andrew Simpson, Dieter Wolf, Dimitri Ypsilanti Afterword - Louisa Gosling

Read more less

This book provides a scathing antidote to the standard propositions made by economists about how wonderful market organization is. At the same time the criticism is balanced and recognizes well the advantages of market organization for certain kinds of goods and services. Bart Nooteboom is one of the broadest, and sharpest, social scientists writing today, and this book is vintage Nooteboom'- Richard R. Nelson, Columbia University, USIn this thought-provoking book, Bart Nooteboom offers a radical critique of the principal intellectual and moral assumptions underlying economic science, unravelling the notion of markets: how they work and fail, and how they may be redirected to better serve us.Initially, the inadequacy of economic science in the wake of recent financial and economic crises is outlined. Few economists predicted the crises and subsequent economic thought has been nebulous, failing to apprize guidance, understanding and prevention for the future. Established practices in finance and business continue regardless, and confusion has bred among policy makers, the public, and even economists on what markets actually are. Bart Nooteboom employs an Aristotelian virtue ethic, with a view to multiple dimensions of 'the good life', upturning the utilitarian ethic that dominates economic science and modern politics. The critique makes a corrective-turn, transforming economic thought into an integrative, ethical and interdisciplinary behavioral science of markets.Nooteboom's interdisciplinary approach makes this book an appealing read to economists, sociologists and political scientists with an interest in market processes. People concerned about how markets are developing and policy makers will welcome this topical work to gain fresh insights into collaborative and ethical market policy. This timely book will vitalize debate about markets, what they do and how they may work better.Contents: 1. Introduction 2. Foundations of markets 3. How markets work and fail 4. Variety of industries 5. Hybrids and examples 6. Alternatives Index

Read more less

EU environmental law is now a dominant source of influence in the development and application of environmental law and policy in most Member States. This important new study provides a fresh appraisal of the changing nature of EU environmental legislation, and the tensions between discretion and goals. Above all it tackles the difficult questions of the appropriate role and design of law in tackling current and future environmental challenges. It should be required reading byall those concerned with the future of environmental law, both within Europe and elsewhere, and the authors are to be congratulated on the quality and scope of their analysis.'- Richard Macrory, University College, London, UKThis thought-provoking book offers a cross-cutting debate on EU environmental legislation from a legal perspective focusing on key themes such as regulatory instrument choice, the coherency of law, and enforceable commitments.Based on thorough investigations of several environmental domains - particularly water law, air quality law, industrial emissions law and climate and energy law - it presents the current state of EU environmental regulatory approaches and suggests potential ways for improvement. It pays close attention to the consequences of EU legislative choices for Member States and balances the need for clear environmental legislation providing enforceable substantive rights to citizens against the wish to leave discretion to Member States.This timely book provides a critical review of the complexity and inherent flexibility of EU environmental law. It will have great appeal to environmental law scholars, political scientists, environmental policy and law consultants and to Governmental officers both in the EU and Member States.Contributors: B. Beijen, M. Bogaart, F. Groothuijse, S. van Holten, A. Keessen, J. van Kempen, F. Oosterhuis, M. Peeters, M. van Rijswick, R. Uylenburg, E. Vogelezang-Stoute

Read more less

The third children's book by bestselling mindset author and two-time Olympian, Matthew Syed will help readers to find their voice, flex their social superpowers, and speak up with kindness and confidence. What if you could disagree with someone without it turning into the argument of the century? I'm here to tell you that it can be done. If you are the kind of person who...-Avoids disagreements because you don't want to fall out-Gets too embarrassed to say that you've changed your mind-Feels so overwhelmed that you don't know what to think...then this book is for you.What do YOU think? will help young readers to discover what is influencing their ideas, from peer pressure to fake news. They'll learn how to form and change opinions, and how to debate their views with empathy. Readers will see how debates and disagreements can give you new ideas, stronger friendships, and help change the world for the better. I know you have loads of incredible thoughts and ideas and the world deserves to hear your voice. I want to know... what do you think?Practical and positive, this is the book to help children build confidence in their own thoughts, so they can grow into awesome adults who can listen, be listened to, and can agree to disagree while still being friends.From the author of You Are Awesome, children's book of the year 2019 and Sunday Times no. 1 bestseller:"Genuinely funny and engaging. There are messages in this book for both adults and children. It's a must read." - online customer review"A very funny and inspiring read! Brilliantly practical with a wide variety of examples that make it relevant for both boys and girls (and adults)!" - online customer review

Read more less

The Affordable Care Act’s impact on coverage, access to care, and systematic exclusion in our health care system The Affordable Care Act set off an unprecedented wave of health insurance enrollment as the most sweeping overhaul of the U.S. health insurance system since 1965. In the years since its enactment, some 20 million uninsured Americans gained access to coverage. And yet, the law remained unpopular and politically vulnerable. While the ACA extended social protections to some groups, its implementation was troubled and the act itself created new forms of exclusion. Access to affordable coverage options were highly segmented by state of residence, income, and citizenship status. Unequal Coverage documents the everyday experiences of individuals and families across the U.S. as they attempted to access coverage and care in the five years following the passage of the ACA.It argues that while the Affordable Care Act succeeded in expanding access to care, it did so unevenly, ultimately also generating inequality and stratification. The volume investigates the outcomes of the ACA in communities throughout the country and provides up-close, intimate portraits of individuals and groups trying to access and provide health care for both the newly insured and those who remain uncovered. The contributors use the ACA as a lens to examine more broadly how social welfare policies in a multiracial and multiethnic democracy purport to be inclusive while simultaneously embracing certain kinds of exclusions. Unequal Coverage concludes with an examination of the Affordable Care Act’s uncertain legacy under the new Presidential administration and considers what the future may hold for the American health care system. The book illustrates lessons learned and reveals how the law became a flashpoint for battles over inequality, fairness, and the role of government. More books on the health care debate

Read more less

The fascinating history of how coal-based energy became entangled with American security.Since the early twentieth century, Americans have associated oil with national security. From World War I to American involvement in the Middle East, this connection has seemed a self-evident truth. But, as Peter A. Shulman argues, Americans had to learn to think about the geopolitics of energy in terms of security, and they did so beginning in the nineteenth century: the age of coal. Coal and Empire insightfully weaves together pivotal moments in the history of science and technology by linking coal and steam to the realms of foreign relations, navy logistics, and American politics. Long before oil, coal allowed Americans to rethink the place of the United States in the world.Shulman explores how the development of coal-fired oceangoing steam power in the 1840s created new questions, opportunities, and problems for U.S. foreign relations and naval strategy. The search for coal, for example, helped take Commodore Matthew Perry to Japan in the 1850s. It facilitated Abraham Lincoln's pursuit of black colonization in 1860s Panama. After the Civil War, it led Americans to debate whether a need for coaling stations required the construction of a global empire. Until 1898, however, Americans preferred to answer the questions posed by coal with new technologies rather than new territories. Afterward, the establishment of America's string of island outposts created an entirely different demand for coal to secure the country's new colonial borders, a process that paved the way for how Americans incorporated oil into their strategic thought. By exploring how the security dimensions of energy were not intrinsically linked to a particular source of power but rather to political choices about America's role in the world, Shulman ultimately suggests that contemporary global struggles over energy will never disappear, even if oil is someday displaced by alternative sources of power.

Read more less

The first book-length study of lobbying prior to the Civil War.Since the 2008 global economic crisis, historians have embraced the challenge of making visible the invisible hand of the market. This renewed interest in the politics of political economy makes it all the more timely to remind ourselves that debates over free trade and protection were just as controversial in the early United States as they have once again become, and that lobbying, then as now, played an important part in Lincoln's government "of the people, by the people, for the people." In Lobbyists and the Making of US Tariff Policy, 18161861, Daniel Peart reveals how active lobbyists were in Washington throughout the antebellum era. He describes how they involved themselves at every stage of the making of tariff policy, from setting the congressional agenda, through the writing of legislation in committee, to the final vote. Considering policymaking as a process, Peart focuses on the importance of rules and timing, the critical roles played by individual lawmakers and lobbyists, and the high degree of uncertainty that characterized this formative period in American political development.The debate about tariff policy, Peart explains, is an unbroken thread that runs throughout the pre–Civil War era, connecting disparate individuals and events and shaping the development of the United States in myriad ways. Duties levied on imports provided the federal government with the major part of its revenue from the ratification of the Constitution to the close of the nineteenth century. More controversially, they also offered protection to domestic producers against foreign competition, at the expense of increased costs for consumers and the risk of retaliation from international trade partners. Ultimately, this book uses the tariff issue to illustrate the critical role that lobbying played within the antebellum policymaking process.

Read more less

Today's North Atlantic Treaty Organization, with nearly thirty members and a global reach, differs strikingly from the alliance of twelve created in 1949 to "keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down." These differences are not simply the result of the Cold War's end, 9/11, or recent twenty-first-century developments but represent a more general pattern of adaptability first seen in the incorporation of Germany as a full member of the alliance in the early 1950s. Unlike other enduring post-World War II institutions that continue to reflect the international politics of their founding era, NATO stands out for the boldness and frequency of its transformations over the past seventy years. In this compelling book, Seth A. Johnston presents readers with a detailed examination of how NATO adapts. Nearly every aspect of NATO-including its missions, functional scope, size, and membership-is profoundly different than at the organization's founding. Using a theoretical framework of "critical junctures" to explain changes in NATO's organization and strategy throughout its history, Johnston argues that the alliance's own bureaucratic actors played important and often overlooked roles in these adaptations. Touching on renewed confrontation between Russia and the West, which has reignited the debate about NATO's relevance, as well as a quarter century of post-Cold War rapprochement and more than a decade of expeditionary effort in Afghanistan, How NATO Adapts explores how crises from Ukraine to Syria have again made NATO's capacity for adaptation a defining aspect of European and international security. Students, scholars, and policy practitioners will find this a useful resource for understanding NATO, transatlantic relations, and security in Europe and North America, as well as theories about change in international institutions.

Read more less

Should prisons attempt reform and uplift inmates or, by means of principled punishment, deter them from further wrongdoing? This debate has raged in Western Europe and in the United States at least since the late eighteenth century. Joseph F. Spillane examines the failure of progressive reform in New York State by focusing on Coxsackie, a New Deal reformatory built for young male offenders. Opened in 1935 to serve "adolescents adrift," Coxsackie instead became an unstable and brutalizing prison. From the start, the liberal impulse underpinning the prison's mission was overwhelmed by challenges it was unequipped or unwilling to face-drugs, gangs, and racial conflict. Spillane draws on detailed prison records to reconstruct a life behind bars in which "ungovernable" young men posed constant challenges to racial and cultural order. The New Deal order of the prison was unstable from the start; the politics of punishment quickly became the politics of race and social exclusion, and efforts to save liberal reform in postwar New York only deepened its failures. In 1977, inmates took hostages to focus attention on their grievances. The result was stricter discipline and an end to any pretense that Coxsackie was a reform institution. Why did the prison fail? For answers, Spillane immerses readers in the changing culture and racial makeup of the U.S. prison system and borrows from studies of colonial prisons, which emblematized efforts by an exploitative regime to impose cultural and racial restraint on others. In today's era of mass incarceration, prisons have become conflict-ridden warehouses and powerful symbols of racism and inequality. This account challenges the conventional wisdom that America's prison crisis is of comparatively recent vintage, showing instead how a racial and punitive system of control emerged from the ashes of a progressive ideal.

Read more less

For most of the second half of the twentieth century, the United States and its allies competed with a hostile Soviet Union in almost every way imaginable except open military engagement. The Cold War placed two opposite conceptions of the good society before the uncommitted world and history itself, and science figured prominently in the picture. Competing with the Soviets offers a short, accessible introduction to the special role that science and technology played in maintaining state power during the Cold War, from the atomic bomb to the Human Genome Project. The high-tech machinery of nuclear physics and the space race are at the center of this story, but Audra J. Wolfe also examines the surrogate battlefield of scientific achievement in such diverse fields as urban planning, biology, and economics; explains how defense-driven federal investments created vast laboratories and research programs; and shows how unfamiliar worries about national security and corrosive questions of loyalty crept into the supposedly objective scholarly enterprise. Based on the assumption that scientists are participants in the culture in which they live, "Competing with the Soviets" looks beyond the debate about whether military influence distorted science in the Cold War. Scientists' choices and opportunities have always been shaped by the ideological assumptions, political mandates, and social mores of their times. The idea that American science ever operated in a free zone outside of politics is, Wolfe argues, itself a legacy of the ideological Cold War that held up American science, and scientists, as beacons of freedom in contrast to their peers in the Soviet Union. Arranged chronologically and thematically, the book highlights how ideas about the appropriate relationships among science, scientists, and the state changed over time.

Read more less

"A wise and wide-ranging reminder of the things we should have been talking about when we were talking about Brexit."—Stephanie Flanders, Head of Bloomberg Economics"With the national debate bogged down in the messy process of negotiating the UK’s exit from and future relationship with the EU, this book is a timely look at the bigger question: what kind of country do we want to be after Brexit and how do we make it happen? Sharp, clear writing on the most important question of our time, by some of the smartest people around."—Sarah O'Connor, investigations correspondent and columnist, Financial Times "This excellent collection of astute and forward-looking essays, from some of Britain’s leading commentators and academics, offers much-needed perspective on the emerging trends in our economy, society and politics which are reshaping the UK in fundamental ways. It is an indispensable read for those interested in understanding what these dynamics mean for public policy now, and in decades to come."—Michael Kenny, Professor of Public Policy, University of Cambridge Brexit represents a critical juncture in British politics. In this new collection, leading economists, political scientists, historians and public policy experts analyse what the Brexit decision might mean for Britain’s economy, society and politics. Anticipating the challenges of the 2020s, the authors explore how Britain might change in the aftermath of the current Brexit storm. The contributions analyse the future of the British economic model, migration and the labour market, the UK’s constitution and political parties, the politics of housing, the challenge of generational conflict, tax and public spending, the prospects for the City and the future of UK trade. It is essential reading for anyone interested in how today’s Brexit decision will shape the future of the country.

Read more less

A thoroughly updated and expanded edition of the xVA challenge The period since the global financial crisis has seen a major re-appraisal of derivatives valuation, generally expressed in the form of valuation adjustments (‘xVAs’). The quantification of xVA is now seen as fundamental to derivatives pricing and valuation. The xVA topic has been complicated and further broadened by accounting standards and regulation. All users of derivatives need to have a good understanding of the implications of xVA. The pricing and valuation of the different xVA terms has become a much studied topic and many aspects are in constant debate both in industry and academia. Discussing counterparty credit risk in detail, including the many risk mitigants, and how this leads to the different xVA terms Explains why banks have undertaken a dramatic reappraisal of the assumptions they make when pricing, valuing and managing derivatives Covers what the industry generally means by xVA and how it is used by banks, financial institutions and end-users of derivatives Explains all of the underlying regulatory capital (e.g. SA-CCR, SA-CVA) and liquidity requirements (NSFR and LCR) and their impact on xVA Underscores why banks have realised the significant impact that funding costs, collateral effects and capital charges have on valuation Explains how the evolution of accounting standards to cover CVA, DVA, FVA and potentially other valuation adjustments Explains all of the valuation adjustments – CVA, DVA, FVA, ColVA, MVA and KVA – in detail and how they fit together Covers quantification of xVA terms by discussing modelling and implementation aspects. Taking into account the nature of the underlying market dynamics and new regulatory environment, this book brings readers up to speed on the latest developments on the topic.

Read more less

A comprehensive overview of the interdisciplinary field of Women's and Gender Studies, featuring original contributions from leading experts from around the world The Companion to Women's and Gender Studies is a comprehensive resource for students and scholars alike, exploring the central concepts, theories, themes, debates, and events in this dynamic field. Contributions from leading scholars and researchers cover a wide range of topics while providing diverse international, postcolonial, intersectional, and interdisciplinary insights. In-depth yet accessible chapters discuss the social construction and reproduction of gender and inequalities in various cultural, social-economic, and political contexts. Thematically-organized chapters explore the development of Women's and Gender Studies as an academic discipline, changes in the field, research directions, and significant scholarship in specific, interrelated disciplines such as science, health, psychology, and economics. Original essays offer fresh perspectives on the mechanisms by which gender intersects with other systems of power and privilege, the relation of androcentric approaches to science and gender bias in research, how feminist activists use media to challenge misrepresentations and inequalities, disparity between men and women in the labor market, how social movements continue to change Women's and Gender Studies, and more. Filling a significant gap in contemporary literature in the field, this volume: Features a broad interdisciplinary and international range of essays Engages with both individual and collective approaches to agency and resistance Addresses topics of intense current interest and debate such as transgender movements, gender-based violence, and gender discrimination policy Includes an overview of shifts in naming, theoretical approaches, and central topics in contemporary Women's and Gender Studies Companion to Women's and Gender Studies is an ideal text for instructors teaching courses in gender, sexuality, and feminist studies, or related disciplines such as psychology, history, education, political science, sociology, and cultural studies, as well as practitioners and policy makers working on issues related to gender and sexuality.

Read more less

The simplest way to get to grips with the American political system American Politics For Dummies is an engaging and accessible guide to the inner workings of the U.S. government, cutting through the political jargon, to give you the facts. The book begins with the basics, including government structure and processes, and later covers current events that make the news. The world of American politics can be bewildering to anyone not born and bred in the U.S.A. This plain-English guide is perfect whether you are a student or simply fascinated by the world's most powerful democracy. From the electoral process to 'special relationships', you discover all you need to know with American Politics For Dummies. • The birth of America – find out about the emergence of the US,from the ideas upon which America was founded to the creation of the US Constitution • Go government – understand the powers of the President, how Congress operates, the function of the Supreme Court and how US laws are created and passed • Party on – discover the ins and outs of elections and political parties, from the electoral process and the two-party system to the voting behaviour amongst Americans • One nation, many identities – get to understand the workings of a truly multicultural society • All the world’s a stage – grasp the grand strategy of the US to understand why the nation acts as it does in international politics 2014 kicks off the latest round of U.S. Congressional election and marks the beginning the 2016 Presidential election cycle. There will be headlines, there will be debate and there will be news. If you're looking to keep up and understand it all, American Politics For Dummies is a great place to start.

Read more less

Many nineteenth-century women got their first taste of political activism in small-town societies advocating temperance and other moral causes. Alongside national organizations with charismatic male leaders, these grassroots efforts by ordinary women helped to bring about social reform, change the meaning of political action and, in the process, redefine gender roles. Significantly, women moved from behind-the-scenes moral suasion into the political arena at a time when the question of slavery in the United States was developing from a humanitarian concern into a hotly contested partisan issue. Society met women's entrance into political antislavery with mobs, riots, and sharp debate. In Sister Societies, Beth Salerno documents ties of kinship and friendship that drew women into the more than 200 exclusively female antislavery societies scattered across the free states. These societies were home to a surprising degree of diversity. Whether black or white, churchgoing or come-outer, radical or conservative, members found temporary unity in a common cause and the bonds of womanhood. Though some of the antislavery societies were short-lived, others persisted from the 1830s through the Civil War. As women's activism evolved during these decades, members practiced quiet forms of resistance such as sewing clothing for fugitive slaves, embroidering antislavery slogans on linen goods, and boycotting the products of slave labor. At the same time, they increasingly engaged in public protest by signing petitions, sponsoring conventions, circulating antislavery propaganda, and raising funds for the cause. Salerno looks closely at the ways in which members defined their work as political or moral, as well as how the surrounding society viewed it, to fine-tune our understanding of a critical moment in the history of women's activism.

Read more less

Legal records illuminate womens' use of legal processes, with regard to the making of wills, the age of consent, rights concerning marriage and children, women as traders, etc. Determined and largely successful effort to read behind and alongside legal discourses to discover women's voices and women's feelings. It adds usefully to the wider debate on women's role in medieval society. ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW What is really new here is the ways in which the authors approach the history of the law: they use some decidedly non-legal texts to examine legal history; they bring together historical and literary sources; and they debunk the view that medieval laws had little to say about women or that medieval women had little legal agency. ALBION The legal position of the late medieval woman has been much neglected, and it is this gap which the essays collected here seek to fill. They explore the ways in which women of all ages and stations during the late middle ages (c.1300-c.1500) could legally shift for themselves, and how and where they did so. Particular topics discussed include the making of wills, the age of consent, rights concerning marriage, care, custody and guardianship (with particular emphasis on the rights of a mother attempting to gain custody of her own children within the court system), women as traders, women as criminals, prostitution, the rights of battered women within the courts, the procedures women had to go through to gain legal redress and access, rape, and women within guilds. NOELJAMES MENUGE gained her Ph.D. from the Centre of Medieval Studies at the University of York. Contributors: P.J.P. GOLDBERG, VICTORIA THOMPSON, JENNIFER SMITH, CORDELIA BEATTIE, KATHERINE J. LEWIS, NOEL JAMES MENUGE, CORINNE SAUNDERS, KIM M. PHILLIPS, EMMA HAWKES

Read more less

In the seventeenth century the ancient hope for the physical resurrection of the body and its flesh began an unexpected second life as critical theory, challenging the notion of an autonomous self and driving early modern avant-garde poetry. As an emerging empirical scientific world view and a rising Cartesian dualist ontology transformed the ancient hope for the resurrection of the flesh into the fantasy of a soul or mind living on separately from any body, literature complicated the terms of the debate. Such poets as Donne, Herbert, Vaughan, and Jonson picked up the discarded idea of the resurrection of the flesh and bent it from an apocalyptic future into the here and now to imagine the self already infused with the strange, vibrant materiality of the resurrection body. Fate of the Flesh explores what happens when seventeenth-century poets posit a resurrection body within the historical person. These poets see the resurrection body as the precondition for the social person’s identities and forms of agency and yet as deeply other to all such identities and agencies, an alien within the self that both enables and undercuts life as a social person. This perspective leads seventeenth-century poets to a compelling awareness of the unsettling materiality within the heart of the self and allows them to re-imagine agency, selfhood, and the natural world in its light. By developing a poetics that seeks a deranging materiality within the self, these poets anticipate twentieth-century “avant-garde” poetics. They frame their poems neither as simple representation nor as beautiful objects but as a form of social praxis that creates new communities of readers and writers assembled around a new experience of self-as-body mediated by poetry.

Read more less

In late summer 1940, as war spread across Europe and as the nation pulled itself out of the Great Depression, an anticommunist hysteria convulsed New York City. Targeting the city’s municipal colleges and public schools, the New York state legislature’s Rapp-Coudert investigation dragged hundreds of suspects before public and private tribunals to root out a perceived communist conspiracy to hijack the city’s teachers unions, subvert public education, and indoctrinate the nation’s youth. Drawing on the vast archive of Rapp-Coudert records, Bad Faith provides the first full history of this witch-hunt, which lasted from August 1940 to March 1942. Anticipating McCarthyism and making it possible, the episode would have repercussions for decades to come. In recapturing this moment in the history of prewar anticommunism, Bad Faith challenges assumptions about the origins of McCarthyism, the liberal political tradition, and the role of anticommunism in modern American life. With roots in the city’s political culture, Rapp-Coudert enjoyed the support of not only conservatives but also key liberal reformers and intellectuals who, well before the Cold War raised threats to national security, joined in accusing communists of “bad faith” and branded them enemies of American democracy. Exploring fundamental schisms between liberals and communists, Bad Faith uncovers a dark, “countersubversive” side of liberalism, which involved charges of misrepresentation, lying, and deception, and led many liberals to argue that the communist left should be excluded from American educational institutions and political life. This study of the Rapp-Coudert inquisition raises difficult questions about the good faith of the many liberals willing to aid and endorse the emerging Red scare, as they sacrificed principles of open debate and academic freedom in the interest of achieving what they believed would be effective modern government based on bipartisanship and a new and seemingly permanent economic prosperity.

Read more less

In February 1988, philosophers Jacques Derrida, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe came together in Heidelberg before a large audience to discuss the philosophical and political implications of Martin Heidegger’s thought. This event took place in the very amphitheater in which, more than fifty years earlier, Heidegger, as rector of the University of Freiburg and a member of the Nazi Party, had given a speech entitled “The University in the New Reich.” Heidegger’s involvement in Nazism has always been, and will remain, an indelible scandal, but what is its real relation to his work and thought? And what are the responsibilities of those who read this work, who analyze and elaborate this thought? Conversely, what is at stake in the wholesale dismissal of this important but compromised twentieth-century philosopher? In 1988, in the wake of the recent publication of Victor Farias’s Heidegger and Nazism, and of the heated debates that ensued, these questions had become more pressing than ever. The reflections presented by three of the most prominent of Heidegger’s readers, improvised in French and transcribed here, were an attempt to approach these questions before a broad public, but with a depth of knowledge and a complex sense of the questions at issue that have been often lacking in the press. Ranging over two days and including exchanges with one another and with the audience, the discussions pursued by these major thinkers remain highly relevant today, especially following the publication of Heidegger’s already notorious “Black Notebooks,” which have added another chapter to the ongoing debates over this contested figure. The present volume recalls a highly charged moment in this history, while also drawing the debate toward its most essential questions.

Read more less

Through virtuoso readings of significant works of American film, television, and fiction, Phillip E. Wegner demonstrates that the period between the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 fostered a unique consciousness and represented a moment of immense historical possibilities now at risk of being forgotten in the midst of the “war on terror.” Wegner argues that 9/11 should be understood as a form of what Jacques Lacan called the “second death,” an event that repeats an earlier “fall,” in this instance the collapse of the Berlin Wall. By describing 9/11 as a repetition, Wegner does not deny its significance. Rather, he argues that it was only with the fall of the towers that the symbolic universe of the Cold War was finally destroyed and a true “new world order,” in which the United States assumed disturbing new powers, was put into place.Wegner shows how phenomena including the debate on globalization, neoliberal notions of the end of history, the explosive growth of the Internet, the efflorescence of new architectural and urban planning projects, developments in literary and cultural production, new turns in theory and philosophy, and the rapid growth of the antiglobalization movement came to characterize the long nineties. He offers readings of some of the most interesting cultural texts of the era: Don DeLillo’s White Noise; Joe Haldeman’s Forever trilogy; Octavia Butler’s Parable novels; the Terminator films; the movies Fight Club, Independence Day, Cape Fear, and Ghost Dog; and the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In so doing, he illuminates fundamental issues concerning narrative, such as how beginnings and endings are recognized and how relationships between events are constructed.

Read more less

Bodily Matters explores the anti-vaccination movement that emerged in England in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth in response to government-mandated smallpox vaccination. By requiring a painful and sometimes dangerous medical procedure for all infants, the Compulsory Vaccination Act set an important precedent for state regulation of bodies. From its inception in 1853 until its demise in 1907, the compulsory smallpox vaccine was fiercely resisted, largely by members of the working class who interpreted it as an infringement of their rights as citizens and a violation of their children’s bodies. Nadja Durbach contends that the anti-vaccination movement is historically significant not only because it was arguably the largest medical resistance campaign ever mounted in Europe but also because it clearly articulated pervasive anxieties regarding the integrity of the body and the role of the modern state.Analyzing historical documents on both sides of the vaccination debate, Durbach focuses on the key events and rhetorical strategies of the resistance campaign. She shows that those for and against the vaccine had very different ideas about how human bodies worked and how best to safeguard them from disease. Individuals opposed to mandatory vaccination saw their own and their children’s bodies not as potentially contagious and thus dangerous to society but rather as highly vulnerable to contamination and violation. Bodily Matters challenges the notion that resistance to vaccination can best be understood, and thus easily dismissed, as the ravings of an unscientific “lunatic fringe.” It locates the anti-vaccination movement at the very center of broad public debates in Victorian England over medical developments, the politics of class, the extent of government intervention into the private lives of its citizens, and the values of a liberal society.

Read more less

In seventeen volumes, copublished with Baylor University, this acclaimed series features annotated texts of all of Robert Browning’s known writing. The series encompasses autobiography as well as influences bearing on Browning’s life and career and aspects of Victorian thought and culture. The sixth in the projected seventeen-volume work, this volume covers the second half of Men and Women (1855), perhaps Browning’s most famous collection, and the entirety of Dramatis Personae (1864), the first book Browning produced after the death of Elizabeth Barrett Browning in 1861. Men and Women II contains several great dramatic poems on which Browning’s reputation still depends, including “Andrea del Sarto,” “Saul,” and “Cleon.” It also includes the more intimate and personal works “The Guardian Angel” and “One Word More,” as well as the mysterious “Women and Roses.” The Brownings‘ shared interests in Renaissance art and nineteenth-century Italian politics inform the challenging “Old Pictures in Florence.” The publication of Dramatis Personae was a key event in the rapid rise of Browning’s fame in the 1860s, though the collection is marked by a welter of conflicting impulses that arose after the poet left Italy and his married life behind. The classic monologues “Rabbi Ben Ezra” and “Abt Vogler” are here, but beside them Browning placed the nearly surreal “Caliban upon Setebos” and the achingly self-regarding “James Lee’s Wife,” one of the volume’s handful of dramatic lyrics about betrayed or failed relationships. Also included are “A Death in the Desert,” which contributed to the intense Victorian debate about scriptural validity and religious authority; and “Mr Sludge, ’The Medium,‘” Browning’s ferocious, pyrotechnic exposé of a spiritualist fraud. As always in this acclaimed series, a complete record of textual variants is provided, as well as extensive explanatory notes.

Read more less

Those who support capital punishment often claim that they do so because it provides justice and closure for the victims’ families. In Capital Consequences, attorney Rachel King reminds us that there are other families and other victims who must be considered in the debate over the death penalty.Combining a narrative voice with vivid, passionate, and painful accounts of the families of death row inmates, the book demonstrates that crimes that lead to death sentences also devastate the families of those convicted. These families, King argues, are the unseen victims of capital punishment.King challenges readers to question the morality of a punishment that victimizes families of the condemned and ripples out through future generations. Chapters tell the stories of families that have lost life savings supporting an accused loved one, endured intense public scrutiny, been subjected to harassment by the media, and are struggling to live with the inhumane treatment that their loved ones receive on death row. The author also explores the unique nature of the grief that these families suffer. Because their pain tends to elicit less attention and empathy than that of the crime victims’ families, King shows how it becomes much more desperate and isolating.On a human level, this book is a powerful reminder that tragic events have tragic consequences that far outreach their immediate victims. At the same time, the accounts illustrate many of the flaws inherent in the judicial system—racial and economic bias, incompetent counsel, prosecutorial misconduct, the execution of juveniles, and wrongful convictions, some of which are only now being overturned because of recent advances in DNA technology.Regardless of which side of the death penalty issue you are on, this book will lead you to pause and consider that all acts—criminal and retributive—have broader human implications than we are sometimes willing to realize.

Read more less

Sacred Violence in Early America offers a sweeping reinterpretation of the violence endemic to seventeenth-century English colonization by reexamining some of the key moments of cultural and religious encounter in North America. Susan Juster explores different forms of sacred violence—blood sacrifice, holy war, malediction, and iconoclasm—to uncover how European traditions of ritual violence developed during the wars of the Reformation were introduced and ultimately transformed in the New World. Juster's central argument concerns the rethinking of the relationship between the material and the spiritual worlds that began with the Reformation and reached perhaps its fullest expression on the margins of empire. The Reformation transformed the Christian landscape from an environment rich in sounds, smells, images, and tactile encounters, both divine and human, to an austere space of scriptural contemplation and prayer. When English colonists encountered the gods and rituals of the New World, they were forced to confront the unresolved tensions between the material and spiritual within their own religious practice. Accounts of native cannibalism, for instance, prompted uneasy comparisons with the ongoing debate among Reformers about whether Christ was bodily present in the communion wafer. Sacred Violence in Early America reveals the Old World antecedents of the burning of native bodies and texts during the seventeenth-century wars of extermination, the prosecution of heretics and blasphemers in colonial courts, and the destruction of chapels and mission towns up and down the North American seaboard. At the heart of the book is an analysis of "theologies of violence" that gave conceptual and emotional shape to English colonists' efforts to construct a New World sanctuary in the face of enemies both familiar and strange: blood sacrifice, sacramentalism, legal and philosophical notions of just and holy war, malediction, the contest between "living" and "dead" images in Christian idology, and iconoclasm.

Read more less

The seemingly unlimited reach of powerful biotechnologies and the attendant growth of the multibillion-dollar industry have raised difficult questions about the scientific discoveries, political assumptions, and cultural patterns that gave rise to for-profit biological research. Given such extraordinary stakes, a history of the commercial biotechnology industry must inquire far beyond the predictable attention to scientists, discovery, and corporate sales. It must pursue how something so complex as the biotechnology industry was born, poised to become both a vanguard for contemporary world capitalism and a focal point for polemic ethical debate. In Biotech, Eric J. Vettel chronicles the story behind genetic engineering, recombinant DNA, cloning, and stem-cell research. It is a story about the meteoric rise of government support for scientific research during the Cold War, about activists and student protesters in the Vietnam era pressing for a new purpose in science, about politicians creating policy that alters the course of science, and also about the release of powerful entrepreneurial energies in universities and in venture capital that few realized existed. Most of all, it is a story about people—not just biologists but also followers and opponents who knew nothing about the biological sciences yet cared deeply about how biological research was done and how the resulting knowledge was used. Vettel weaves together these stories to illustrate how the biotechnology industry was born in the San Francisco Bay area, examining the anomalies, ironies, and paradoxes that contributed to its rise. Culled from oral histories, university records, and private corporate archives, including Cetus, the world's first biotechnology company, this compelling history shows how a cultural and political revolution in the 1960s resulted in a new scientific order: the practical application of biological knowledge supported by private investors expecting profitable returns eclipsed basic research supported by government agencies.

Read more less

With the recent controversy in the Oakland, California school district about Ebonics—or as it is referred to in sociolinguistic circles, African American Vernacular English or Black English Vernacular—much attention has been paid to the patterns of speech prevalent among African Americans in the inner city. In January 1997, at the height of the Ebonics debate, author and prominent sociolinguist William Labov testified before a Senate subcommittee that for most inner city African American children, the relation of sound to spelling is different, and more complicated than for speakers of other dialects. He suggested that it was time to apply this knowledge to the teaching of reading. The testimony harkened back to research contained in his groundbreaking book Language in the Inner City, originally published in 1972. In it, Labov probed the question "Does 'Black English' exist?" and emerged with an answer that was well ahead of his time, and that remains essential to our contemporary understanding of the subject. Language in the Inner City firmly establishes African American Vernacular English not simply as slang but as a well-formed set of rules of pronunciation and grammar capable of conveying complex logic and reasoning. Studying not only the normal processes of communication in the inner city but such art forms as the ritual insult and ritualized narrative, Labov confirms the Black vernacular as a separate and independent dialect of English. His analysis goes on to clarify the nature and processes of linguistic change in the context of a changing society. Perhaps even more today than two decades ago, Labov's conclusions are mandatory reading for anyone concerned with education and social change, with African American culture, and with the future of race relations in this country.

Read more less

If your mentally ill patient dies, are you to blame? For Dr. Françoise Davoine, a Parisian psychoanalyst, this question becomes disturbingly real as one of her patients commits suicide on the eve of All Saints' Day. She herself has a crisis, as she reflects on her thirty-year career and questions whether she should ever return to the hospital. But return she does, and thus commences a strange voyage across several centuries and countries, in which patients, fools, and the actors of medieval farces rise up from the past along with great thinkers who represent the author's own philosophical and literary sources: the humanist Erasmus, mathematician René Thom, writer Antonin Artaud, philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, and physicist Edwin Schrödinger, to name a few. Imaginary dialogues ensue as the analyst conjures up an interconnected world, where apiculture, wondrous rituals, theater, and language games illuminate her therapeutic practice as well as her personal history. Deeply affected by her voyage of discovery, the author becomes capable of implementing the teachings of psychotherapist Gaetano Benedetti, a mentor she visits at carnival time on a final fictional stopover in Switzerland. His advice, that the analyst become the equal of her patients and immerse herself in their madness so as to open up a space for treatment, is premised on the belief that individual illness is a reflection and result of severe historical trauma. Mother Folly, which ends on a positive note, is an important intervention in the debate about how to treat the mentally ill, particularly those with psychosis. A practicing analyst and a skilled reader of literary and philosophical texts, Davoine provides a humane antidote to our increasingly mechanized and drug-reliant system of dealing with "fools and madmen."

Read more less