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Race and Imperial Defence in the British World, 1870–1914
By John C. Mitcham. 2016
The first comprehensive account of the cultural and racial origins of the imperial security partnership between Britain, Canada, Australia, New…
Zealand, and South Africa. Drawing on research from every corner of the globe, John C. Mitcham merges studies of diplomacy, defense strategy, and politics with a wider analysis of society and popular culture, and in doing so, poses important questions about race, British identity, and the idea of empire. The book examines diverse subjects such as the South African War, the Anglo-German naval arms race, Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, and the birth of the Boy Scout Movement, and positions them within the larger phenomenon of British race patriotism that permeated the fin de siècle. Most importantly, Mitcham demonstrates how this shared concept of 'Britishness' gradually led to closer relations between the self-governing states of the empire, and ultimately resulted in a remarkably unified effort during the First World War.The Yin & Yang of American Culture: A Paradox
By Eun Y. Kim. 2001
According to the principles of yin and yang, life is governed by the coexistence of two opposites that complete each…
other in order to create harmony. In many ways, this concept can help us understand the advantages and drawbacks of American customs and values as perceived by Asians. Discussing the facets of culture by following the original principles of yin and yang, Kim Y. Eun explains various aspects of both Asian and American culture in terms of history, wisdom, proverbs, personal experiences, anecdotes, and quotes. The Yin and Yang of American Culture will dispel any misconceptions with its grounded analysis of American culture; it will help to build mutual understanding among Asians and Americans alike.The Arabic Print Revolution
By Ami Ayalon. 2016
In a brief historic moment, printing presses, publishing ventures, a periodical press, circulation networks, and a mass readership came into…
being all at once in the Middle East, where none had previously existed, with ramifications in every sphere of the community's life. Among other outcomes, this significant change facilitated the cultural and literary movement known as the Arab 'nahda' ('awakening'). Ayalon's book offers both students and scholars a critical inquiry into the formative phase of that shift in Arab societies. This comprehensive analysis explores the advent of printing and publishing; the formation of mass readership; and the creation of distribution channels, the vital and often overlooked nexus linking the former two processes. It considers questions of cultural and religious tradition, social norms and relations, and concepts of education, offering a unique presentation of the emerging print culture in the Middle East.Foppish, impulsive, and philandering: William Jackson was every Georgian parent’s worst nightmare. Gentlemen were expected to be honorable and virtuous,…
but William was the opposite, much to the dismay of his father, a well-to-do representative of the East India Company in Madras. In The Profligate Son, historian Nicola Phillips meticulously reconstructs William’s life from a recently discovered family archive, describing how his youthful misbehavior reduced his family to ruin. At first, William seemed destined for a life of great fortune, but before long, he was indulging regularly in pornography and brothels and using his father’s abundant credit to swindle tradesmen. Eventually, William found himself in debtor’s prison and then on a long, typhus-ridden voyage to an Australian penal colony. He spent the rest of his days there, dying a pauper at the age of thirty-seven. A masterpiece of literary nonfiction as dramatic as any Dickens novel, The Profligate Son transports readers from the steamy streets of India, to London’s elegant squares and seedy brothels, to the sunbaked shores of Australia, tracing the arc of a life long buried in history.The Tinkerers: The Amateurs, DIYers, and Inventors Who Make America Great
By Alec Foege. 2013
Having completed her transition from a manufacturing economy, America - it is said - has stopped making things. When there…
are breakthroughs in engineering and design, it's usually thanks to a team of corporate researchers trying to squeeze out more profit. But once upon a time, the United States was a nation of tinkerers. Amateurs and professionals alike applied their ingenuity and talent to the problems of their day, coming up with innovative solutions that at once channeled the optimistic spirit of America and kept that spirit alive. Guided by the curiosity of an inquiring mind, a desire to know how things work, and a belief that anything can be improved, they laid the foundations for the American century.When Alexander Graham Bell beat Thomas Edison to the invention of the telephone, Edison fiddled around with the transmitter and receiver until he produced an equally revolutionary machine - the phonograph. When Thomas MacDonald observed the hardship that a lack of good roads imposed on his fellow Iowans, he began a road-building project that eventually morphed into the interstate highway system. Some of the people profiled in this book attended the finest engineering schools in the world; some, like Microsoft's former chief technology officer Nathan Myhrvold, had no formal training in their chosen fields. Some see themselves as solo visionaries; others emphasize the importance of working in teams. What binds them together is an ability to imagine new systems and subvert old ones, to see fresh potential in existing technologies, and to apply technical know-how to the problems of their day.In The Tinkerers, Alec Foege presents a version of American history told through feats of engineering, large and small. He argues that reports of tinkering's death have been greatly exaggerated; since World War II, it has been the guiding force behind projects from corporate-sponsored innovations (the personal computer, Ethernet) to smaller scale inventions with great potential (a machine that can make low-cost eyeglass lenses for people in impoverished countries, a device that uses lasers to shoot malarial mosquitoes out of the sky). Think tanks and companies have recognized the benefits of tinkering and have done their best to harness and institutionalize it. But as systems become more complex, budding inventors may become intimidated. Foege argues that this would be an enormous loss to a nation that achieved its strength largely thanks to the accomplishments of its innovators. He shows us how tinkering remains, in new and unexpected forms, at the heart of American society and culture.Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys
By Kay S. Hymowitz. 2011
Articulating Islam: Anthropological Approaches To Muslim Worlds (Muslims in Global Societies Series #6)
By Konstantinos Retsikas, Magnus Marsden. 2012
This collection of arresting and innovative chapters applies the techniques of anthropology in analyzing the role played by Islam in…
the social lives of the world s Muslims The volume begins with an introduction that sets out a powerful case for a fresh approach to this kind of research exhorting anthropologists to pause and reflect on when Islam is and is not a central feature of their informants life-worlds and identities The chapters that follow are written by scholars with long-term specialist research experience in Muslim societies ranging from Kenya to Pakistan and from Yemen to China thus they explore and compare Islam s social significance in a variety of settings that are not confined to the Middle East or South Asia alone The authors assess how helpful current anthropological research is in shedding light on Islam s relationship to contemporary societies Collectively the contributors deploy both theoretical and ethnographic analysis of key developments in the anthropology of Islam over the last 30 years even as they extrapolate their findings to address wider debates over the anthropology of world religions more generally Crucially they also tackle the thorny question of how in the current political context anthropologists might continue conducting sensitive and nuanced work with Muslim communities Finally an afterword by a scholar of Christianity explores the conceptual parallels between the book s key themes and the anthropology of world religions in a broader context This volume has key contemporary relevance for example its conclusions on the fluidity of people s relations with Islam will provide an important counterpoint to many commonly held assumptions about the incontestability of Islam in the public sphereA Land on Fire: The Environmental Consequences of the Southeast Asian Boom
By James David Fahn. 2005
The future of Earth's environment will be decided in Asia, home to 60 percent of the world's population and some…
of the world's fastest-growing economies. As an award-winning investigative journalist based in Bankok, James Fahn spent a decade grappling with the challenges facing the region's mega-cities, tropical forests, coastlines, and societies dashing toward modernity. In A Land on Fire, he shares his findings - the profound implications for global issues such as climate change, the loss of biodiversity, and the greening of world trade. He explores Southeast Asia's environmental battles through the eyes of the people fighting them, and recounts his many adventures while covering them. Whether chasing down log smugglers along the Thai-Burmese border, exposing the dumping of toxic mercury into the Gulf of Thailand by multinational oil corporations, or covering the controversy surrounding the filming of the movie The Beach, Fahn provides unique insight into the relationship between sustainable development and democracy, the crippling impact of corruption, and the environmental challenges facing us all.Dark Days, Bright Nights: From Black Power to Barack Obama
By Peniel E. Joseph. 2010
The Civil Rights Movement is now remembered as a long-lost era, which came to an end along with the idealism…
of the 1960s. In Dark Days, Bright Nights, acclaimed scholar Peniel E. Joseph puts this pat assessment to the test, showing the 60s-particularly the tumultuous period after the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act-to be the catalyst of a movement that culminated in the inauguration of Barack Obama.Joseph argues that the 1965 Voting Rights Act burst a dam holding back radical democratic impulses. This political explosion initially took the form of the Black Power Movement, conventionally adjudged a failure. Joseph resurrects the movement to elucidate its unfairly forgotten achievements.Told through the lives of activists, intellectuals, and artists, including Malcolm X, Huey P. Newton, Amiri Baraka, Tupac Shakur, and Barack Obama, Dark Days, Bright Nights will make coherent a fraught half-century of struggle, reassessing its impact on American democracy and the larger world.The Voice of Prophecy: And Other Essays
By Edwin Ardener Dagger. 2018
Edwin Ardener+ was one of the most important social anthropologists in Britain of his time, working on social, economic, demographic…
and political problems and particularly influential in his sustained effort to bring together social anthropology and linguistics in a highly original attempt to reconcile scientific and humanistic approaches to the study of society. This volume offers the best of Ardener's papers and forms a theoretically and conceptually coherent body of work by this innovative and profound thinker, which will continue to excite and stimulate new generations of students and researchers as it did in the past.The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom
By Graham Farmelo. 2009
Paul Dirac was among the great scientific geniuses of the modern age. One of the discoverers of quantum mechanics, the…
most revolutionary theory of the past century, his contributions had a unique insight, eloquence, clarity, and mathematical power. His prediction of antimatter was one of the greatest triumphs in the history of physics. One of Einstein's most admired colleagues, Dirac was in 1933 the youngest theoretician ever to win the Nobel Prize in physics. Dirac's personality is legendary. He was an extraordinarily reserved loner, relentlessly literal-minded and appeared to have no empathy with most people. Yet he was a family man and was intensely loyal to his friends. His tastes in the arts ranged from Beethoven to Cher, from Rembrandt to Mickey Mouse. Based on previously undiscovered archives, The Strangest Man reveals the many facets of Dirac's brilliantly original mind. A compelling human story, The Strangest Man also depicts a spectacularly exciting era in scientific history.Racial and Ethnic Identities in the Media
By Jopi Nyman, Eleftheria Arapoglou, Yiorgos Kalogeras. 2016
This volume examines the role and representation of 'race' and ethnicity in the media with particular emphasis on the United…
States. It highlights contemporary work that focuses on changing meanings of racial and ethnic identity as they are represented in the media; television and film, digital and print media are under examination. Through fourteen innovative and interdisciplinary case studies written by a team of internationally based contributors, the volume identifies ways in which ethnic, racial, and national identities have been produced, reproduced, stereotyped, and contested. It showcases new emerging theoretical approaches in the field, and pays particular attention to the role of race, ethnicity, and national identity, along with communal and transnational allegiances, in the making of identities in the media. The topics of the chapters range from immigrant newspapers and gangster cinema to ethnic stand-up comedy and the use of 'race' in advertising.Psycho-Social Analysis of the Indian Mindset
By Jai B. P. Sinha. 2014
This volume situates Indians in the contemporary world and profiles the major facets of their thought and behaviour; then goes…
back to trace their roots to ancient thought to see how the past predisposes and the present guides Indians in their everyday life. The volume begins with a conceptual framework showing how the Indian worldview has encompassed and enveloped a variety of ideas and influences from divergent sources. As a result, Indians are both collectivists and individualists, hierarchically oriented while respecting merit and quality, religious as well as secular and sexually indulgent, spiritual as well as materialists, excessively dependent but remarkably entrepreneurial, non-violent in principle but violent in practice and comfortable in shifting between analytical, synthetic as well as intuitive approaches to reality. Such a coexistence of opposites often causes inaction, hesitation and perfunctory action, but also equips Indians to be innovative by continuously aligning their thought and behaviour to the demands of a milieu. The milieu has an inner layer consisting of desh (place), kaal (time) and paatra (person), which are embedded in the larger societal contexts of castes and classes, poverty, corruption, fragmenting politics, conflicts and violence and unfolding global opportunities and challenges. Cultural heritage permeates in all these. Indians function in this tiered, multifactorial, dynamic space. This volume draws evidence from ancient texts and the latest national and international research, many of which were conducted by the author and his associates. It does not, however, hesitate to indulge in anecdotal evidence, cases and speculative ideas in order to complete the picture. The author takes an in-depth view of the Indian mindset without getting the reader lost in either the intricacies of ancient philosophical abyss or the trivialities of present-day non-events.No Better Time: The Brief, Remarkable Life of Danny Lewin, the Genius Who Transformed the Internet
By Molly Knight Raskin. 2013
No Better Time tells of a young, driven mathematical genius who wrote a set of algorithms that would create a…
faster, better Internet. It's the story of a beautiful friendship between a loud, irreverent student and his soft-spoken MIT professor, of a husband and father who spent years struggling to make ends meet only to become a billionaire almost overnight with the success of Akamai Technologies, the Internet content delivery network he cofounded with his mentor.Danny Lewin's brilliant but brief life is largely unknown because, until now, those closest to him have guarded their memories and quietly mourned their loss. For Lewin was almost certainly the first victim of 9/11, stabbed to death at age 31 while trying to overpower the terrorists who would eventually fly American Flight 11 into the World Trade Center. But ironically it was 9/11 that proved the ultimate test for Lewin's vision--while phone communication failed and web traffic surged as never before, the critical news and government sites that relied on Akamai--and the technology pioneered by Danny Lewin--remained up and running.Woman in the Mists: The Story of Dian Fossey and the Mountain Gorillas of Africa
By Farley Mowat. 1987
Leonid Isaakovich Mandelstam
By Alexander Pechenkin. 2014
This biography of the famous Soviet physicist Leonid Isaakovich Mandelstam (1889-1944), who became a Professor at Moscow State University in…
1925, describes his contributions to both physics and technology, as well as discussing the scientific community which formed around him, usually called the Mandelstam school. Mandelstam's life story is thereby placed in its proper cultural context. The following more general issues are taken under consideration: the impact of German scientific culture on Russian science; the problems and fates of Russian intellectuals during the revolutionary and post-revolutionary years; the formation of the Soviet Academy of Sciences; and transformation of the system of higher education in the USSR during the 1920's and 1930's. The author shows that Mandelstam's fundamental writings and his lectures notes allow to reconstruct his philosophy of science and his approach to the social and ethical functions of science and science education. That reconstruction is enhanced through extensive use of hitherto unpublished archival material as well as the transcripts of personal interviews conducted by the author.Aviation: Cool Women Who Fly
By Carmella Van Vleet, Lena Chandhok. 2016
Have you ever looked up into the sky, seen an airplane, and wondered where it was going and who was…
flying it? Aviation is the study of the design, development and production, and operation of aircraft. In Aviation: Cool Women Who Fly, children ages 9 to 12 learn about this fascinating field and meet three successful women working in aviation. Meg Godlewski is a master certified flight instructor, Kristin Wolfe is a pilot in the Air Force, and Taylor McConnell is a production support engineer.Nomad Press books in the Girls in Science series supply a bridge between girls' interests and their potential futures by investigating science careers and introducing women who have succeeded in science. Compelling stories of real-life aviation experts provide readers with role models that they can look toward as examples of success.Aviation: Cool Women Who Fly uses engaging content, links to primary sources, and essential questions to whet kids' appetites for further exploration and study of aviation. This book explores the history of aviation, the women who helped pioneer flight, and the multitude of varied careers in this exciting and important field. Both boys and girls are encouraged to let their imaginations and dreams soar.Kinship, Love, and Life Cycle in Contemporary Havana, Cuba
By Heidi Härkönen. 2016
This book is an ethnographic analysis of gender, kinship, and love in contemporary Cuba. The focus is on the lives…
of low-income Havana residents over the life cycle from birth to death. The book documents how kinship and love relations are created, reproduced, and negotiated at different life stages through gendered dialectics of care, important to both individuals' relationships and state politics. In the process, through a variety of practices and meanings, ranging from rituals to understandings of sexual desire, gender becomes affirmed as the central social difference characterizing Cuban society. The book argues that Cubans live their lives embedded in social networks of care that are both emotionally and pragmatically central to individual existence. At the same time, the island's contemporary political and economic changes carry gendered consequences to everyday relationships, with the potential to introduce unexpected changes to the life cycle. iv>Shichigosan
By Melinda Papp. 2016
This book presents a case study of shichigosan, an extremely popular childhood family ritual in contemporary Japan. It is an…
interesting example of a custom with very ancient roots (going back to the tenth century), that has undergone several transformations during the course of its history, adapting to changing socio-economic and cultural circumstances. Within the study, the ritual unfolds as a shared platform where basic social values, views on children and family life, and individual perceptions emerge, are expressed and moulded at the same time. This book offers a multidisciplinary approach to the study of a ritual practice in the intensely urbanized context of present-day Japan.Education, Community Engagement and Sustainable Development
By Nicole Blum. 2011
A growing body of research has given critical attention to diverse theories and practices of environmental education, and its potential…
contribution to addressing pressing global issues such as sustainable development and climate change. While much of this work has focused on perspectives and practices in Europe and North America, this book explores environmental learning within formal education, in programmes by non-governmental organisations, and in public education spaces in Monteverde, Costa Rica. The discussion also highlights the need for more research to understand the broader social and economic interactions between such efforts and the communities in which they are located.