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Meeting the Medicine Men
By Charles Langley. 2008
A chance meeting with a young Navajo Indian propels an English traveler out of his middle-class London life and into…
the world of the North American Indian Medicine Men, where people believe that witchcraft can bring ruin and even death. Only the Medicine Men have the knowledge to do battle with witches, lift curses and restore the sick to health. The larger-than-life Blue Horse is one of a dwindling band of Medicine Men traveling the vast Navajo reservation of New Mexico and Arizona, ministering to the victims of evil spirits. Charles Langley, former London newspaper editor, finds himself serving as Blue Horse's bag carrier and chauffeur, eventually becoming his apprentice. He sees Blue Horse perform incredible feats - predicting the future, uncovering the past, curing the sick and communicating with spirits. At first bemused by what he sees, Langley attributes Blue Horse's successes to luck or fraud. But logical explanations soon fall short. In Meeting the Medicine Men, Langley studies the accumulating evidence that Navajo Medicine Men really can cure the sick, change history and foretell the future and explores a culture that has endured since the Ice Age but is now cracking under the pressure of the modern world.Elite Parties, Poor Voters
By Tariq Thachil. 2014
Why do poor people often vote against their material interests? This puzzle has been famously studied within wealthy Western democracies,…
yet the fact that the poor voter paradox also routinely manifests within poor countries has remained unexplored. This book studies how this paradox emerged in India, the world's largest democracy. Tariq Thachil shows how arguments from studies of wealthy democracies (such as moral values voting) and the global south (such as patronage or ethnic appeals) cannot explain why poor voters in poor countries support parties that represent elite policy interests. He instead draws on extensive survey data and fieldwork to document a novel strategy through which elite parties can recruit the poor, while retaining the rich. He shows how these parties can win over disadvantaged voters by privately providing them with basic social services via grassroots affiliates. Such outsourcing permits the party itself to continue to represent the policy interests of their privileged base.Extremely Violent Societies: Mass Violence in the Twentieth-Century World
By Christian Gerlach. 2010
In this groundbreaking book Christian Gerlach traces the social roots of the extraordinary processes of human destruction involved in mass…
violence throughout the twentieth century. He argues that terms such as 'genocide' and 'ethnic cleansing' are too narrow to explain the diverse motives and interests that cause violence to spread in varying forms and intensities. From killings and expulsions to enforced hunger, collective rape, strategic bombing, forced labour and imprisonment he explores what happened before, during, and after periods of widespread bloodshed in countries such as Armenia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nazi-occupied Greece and in anti-guerilla wars worldwide in order to highlight the crucial role of socio-economic pressures in the generation of group conflicts. By focussing on why so many different people participated in or supported mass violence, and why different groups were victimized, he offers us a new way of understanding one of the most disturbing phenomena of our times.Origins of the Women's Rights Movement (Finding a Voice: Women's Fight for Equal)
By Leeanne Gelletly. 2013
In the 1800s, women were second-class citizens. By law, married women were owned by their husbands. Women had no political…
rights. They could not vote. They could not hold office. By custom, women did not dare speak before men in public. But some women refused to be silenced. They saw wrongs in the world that needed fixing. The injustice of slavery led women like Lucretia Mott, Angelina Grimké, and Lucy Stone to step outside traditional roles. As women abolitionists, they lectured, circulated petitions, and lobbied lawmakers. But female reformers soon became frustrated. Men-only groups prevented women from speaking. Their help was often rejected. This led a determined few to call for equal rights for women. Among the movement's early leaders were Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Along with many other women activists, they would fight for a woman's right to be a true citizen of the United States.Population and Overcrowding (Africa: Progress and Problems)
By Tunde Obadina. 2014
Africa is the worlds poorest continent, and it also has the worlds fastest-growing population. Many observers have concluded that overpopulation…
is a root cause of Africas poverty, and that if the continent is ever to emerge from underdevelopment its rapid population growth will have to be slowed. This book examines those assertions, offering a wealth of statistical and other evidence to suggest that the link between African poverty and the size of Africas population is by no means definitive. The book also examines the important demographic trendssuch as rapid urbanization, elevated mortality rates from the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and continued high fertilitythat will help shape African societies in the decades to come.Poverty and Morality
By William A. Galston, Peter H. Hoffenberg. 2004
This multi-authored book explores the ways that many influential ethical traditions - secular and religious, Western and non-Western - wrestle…
with the moral dimensions of poverty and the needs of the poor. These traditions include Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism, among the religious perspectives; classical liberalism, feminism, liberal-egalitarianism, and Marxism, among the secular; and natural law, which might be claimed by both. The basic questions addressed by each of these traditions are linked to several overarching themes: what poverty is, the particular vulnerabilities of high-risk groups, responsibility for the occurrence of poverty, preferred remedies, how responsibility for its alleviation is distributed, and priorities in the delivery of assistance. This volume features an introduction to the types, scope, and causes of poverty in the modern world and concludes with Michael Walzer's broadly conceived commentary, which provides a direct comparison of the presented views and makes suggestions for further study and policy.The Porcupine Hunter and Other Stories
By Ralph Maud. 1993
Henry W. Tate (d. 1914), a Tsimshian informant to ethnographer Franz Boas, first wrote these stories in English before giving…
Boas Tsimshian equivalents between 1903 and 1913. Boas published them in the much-consulted ethnology classic, Tsimshian Mythology (1916). In Ralph Maud's selection of the best stories, now preserved closer to the way Tate originally intended, Tate emerges as creative writer.Violence against Women and Girls
By The World Bank. 2014
This report documents the dynamics of violence against women in South Asia across the life cycle, from early childhood to…
old age. It explores the different types of violence that women may face throughout their lives, as well as the associated perpetrators (male and female), risk and protective factors for both victims and perpetrators, and interventions to address violence across all life cycle stages. The report also analyzes the societal factors that drive the primarily male - but also female - perpetrators to commit violence against women in the region. For each stage and type of violence, the report critically reviews existing research from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, supplemented by original analysis and select literature from outside the region. Policies and programs that address violence against women and girls are analyzed in order to highlight key actors and promising interventions. Finally, the report identifies critical gaps in research, program evaluations, and interventions in order to provide strategic recommendations for policy makers, civil society, and other stakeholders working to mitigate violence against women in South Asia.A Woman's Place in Early America (Finding a Voice: Women's Fight for Equal)
By Leeanne Gelletly. 2013
In early America, married women had no rights under law. They belonged to their husbands. Their voices were not heard…
in public. But with the War of Independence, women found a voice as patriots. They supported the rebellion with boycotts. During wartime, women spied on the enemy. They served as messengers. They tended the wounded. Some even served as soldiers. Women performed daring feats of bravery. And they proved they were capable of doing much more than 18-century society allowed them. Some women called for change. Abigail Adams asked that the laws of the new nation recognize legal and educational rights for women. Judith Sargent Murray called for educational reform. It would take several more decades before women took up the cause for their legal, educational, and political rights. But leaders of the movement would be able to look to 18th-century American women for inspiration.Indivisible Territory and the Politics of Legitimacy
By Stacie E. Goddard. 2010
Child Neglect: Practice Issues for Health and Social Care
By Julie Taylor, Brigid Daniel, Danielle Turney, Geraldine Macdonald, Helen Buckley. 2005
Neglect is now recognized as leading to significantly poor outcomes for children in the short and long term. It is…
a matter of concern for all professionals who work with children. Children who are neglected are not likely to seek help in their own right and are highly dependent on professionals such as health visitors and schoolteachers identifying and responding to their needs for support and protection. In order to carry out the key tasks of prevention, recognition and response to neglect, practitioners require up-to-date evidence-based information about the aetiology and signs of neglect and what works in prevention and response. This book addresses the key themes in child neglect, draws on current research and practice knowledge and sets out the implications for practice. With a joint health and social work focus, this interdisciplinary book is an essential resource for practitioners, academics and policy makers working towards integrated and collaborative childcare services.The Foragers of Point Hope
By Charles E. Hilton Benjamin M. Auerbach, Libby W. Cowgill, Charles E. Hilton, Benjamin M. Auerbach. 2014
On the edge of the Arctic Ocean, above the Arctic Circle, the prehistoric settlements at Point Hope, Alaska, represent a…
truly remarkable accomplishment in human biological and cultural adaptations. Presenting a set of anthropological analyses on the human skeletal remains and cultural material from the Ipiutak and Tigara archaeological sites, The Foragers of Point Hope sheds new light on the excavations from 1939–41, which provided one of the largest sets of combined biological and cultural materials of northern latitude peoples in the world. A range of material items indicated successful human foraging strategies in this harsh Arctic environment. They also yielded enigmatic artifacts indicative of complex human cultural life filled with dense ritual and artistic expression. These remnants of past human activity contribute to a crucial understanding of past foraging lifeways and offer important insights into the human condition at the extreme edges of the globe.The Institutional Origins of Communal Violence
By Yuhki Tajima. 2014
Why are transitions from authoritarian rule often marked by spikes in communal violence? Through examining Indonesia's recent transition to democracy,…
this book develops a novel theoretical explanation for this phenomenon that also accounts for why some communities are vulnerable to violence during such transitions while others are able to maintain order. Yuhki Tajima argues that repressive intervention by security forces in Indonesia during the authoritarian period rendered some communities dependent on the state to maintain intercommunal security, whereas communities with a more tenuous exposure to the state developed their own informal institutions to maintain security. As the coercive grip of the authoritarian regime loosened, communities that were more accustomed to state intervention were more vulnerable to spikes in communal violence until they developed informal institutions that were better adapted for less state intervention. To test the theory, Tajima employs extensive fieldwork in, and rigorous statistical evidence from, Indonesia as well as cross-national data.Representing the Advantaged
By Daniel M. Butler. 2014
Political inequality is a major issue in American politics, with racial minorities and low-income voters receiving less favorable representation. Scholars…
argue that this political inequality stems largely from differences in political participation and that if all citizens participated equally we would achieve political equality. Daniel M. Butler shows that this common view is incorrect. He uses innovative field and survey experiments involving public officials to show that a significant amount of bias in representation traces its roots to the information, opinions, and attitudes that politicians bring to office and suggests that even if all voters participated equally, there would still be significant levels of bias in American politics because of differences in elite participation. Butler's work provides a new theoretical basis for understanding inequality in American politics and insights into what institutional changes can be used to fix the problem.The Sociology of War and Violence
By Sinisa Malesevic. 2009
War is a highly complex and dynamic form of social conflict. This new book demonstrates the importance of using sociological…
tools to understand the changing character of war and organised violence. The author offers an original analysis of the historical and contemporary impact that coercion and warfare have on the transformation of social life, and vice versa. Although war and violence were decisive components in the formation of modernity most analyses tend to shy away from the sociological study of the gory origins of contemporary social life. In contrast, this book brings the study of organised violence to the fore by providing a wide-ranging sociological analysis that links classical and contemporary theories with specific historical and geographical contexts. Topics covered include violence before modernity, warfare in the modern age, nationalism and war, war propaganda, battlefield solidarity, war and social stratification, gender and organised violence, and the new wars debate.Between Families and Frankenstein: The Politics of Egg Donation in the United States
By Erin Heidt-Forsythe. 2018
In the United States egg donation for reproduction and egg donation for research involve the same procedures the…
same risks and the same population of donors disadvantaged women at the intersections of race and class Yet cultural attitudes and state-level policies regarding egg donation are dramatically different depending on whether the donation is for reproduction or for research Erin Heidt-Forsythe explores the ways that framing egg donation itself creates diverse politics in the United States which unlike other Western democracies has no centralized method of regulating donations relying instead on market forces and state legislatures to regulate egg donation and reproductive technologies Beginning with a history of scientific research around the human egg the book connects historical debates about the natural reproduction and unnatural research uses of women s eggs to contemporary political regulation of egg donation Examining egg donation in California New York Arizona and Louisiana and coupled with original data on how egg donation has been regulated over the last twenty years this book is the first comprehensive overview and analysis of the politics of egg donation across the United StatesThe Dark
By Sergio Chejfec, Heather Cleary. 2000
Opening with the presently shut-in narrator reminiscing about a past relationship with Delia, a young factory worker, The Dark employs…
Chejfec's signature style with an emphasis on the geography and motion of the mind, to recount the time the narrator spent with this multifaceted, yet somewhat absent, woman. The Dark is the most captivating example of Chejfec's unique narrative approach.States of Violence: War, Capital Punishment, and Letting Die
By Austin Sarat, Jennifer L. Culbert. 2009
The book brings together scholarship on three different forms of state violence, examining each for what it can tell us…
about the conditions under which states use violence and the significance of violence to our understanding of states. The contributors to this book demonstrate that states of violence thus have a history and sociology. Yet wherever the state acts violently, the legitimacy of its acts must be engaged with the real facts of war, capital punishment, and the ugly realities of death. This book calls into question the legitimacy of state uses of violence and mounts a sustained effort at interpretation, sense making, and critique. It suggests that condemning the state's decisions to use lethal force is not a simple matter of abolishing the death penalty or - to take another exemplary example of the killing state - demanding that the state engage only in just (publicly declared and justified) wars, pointing out that even such overt instances of lethal force are more elusive as targets of critique than one might think. Indeed, altering such decisions may do little to change the essential relationship of the state to violence. To change that relationship we must also attend to the violent state as a state of mind, a state of mind that is not just a social or psychological condition but also a moral commitment and/or a philosophical position.Living with Insecurity in a Brazilian Favela
By R. Ben Penglase. 2014
The residents of Caxambu, a squatter neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro, live in a state of insecurity as they face…
urban violence Living with Insecurity in a Brazilian Favela examines how inequality, racism, drug trafficking, police brutality, and gang activities affect the daily lives of the people of Caxambu. Some Brazilians see these communities, known as favelas, as centers of drug trafficking that exist beyond the control of the state and threaten the rest of the city. For other Brazilians, favelas are symbols of economic inequality and racial exclusion. Ben Penglase's ethnography goes beyond these perspectives to look at how the people of Caxambu themselves experience violence Although the favela is often seen as a war zone, the residents are linked to each other through bonds of kinship and friendship. In addition, residents often take pride in homes and public spaces that they have built and used over generations. Penglase notes that despite poverty, their lives are not completely defined by illegal violence or deprivation. He argues that urban violence and a larger context of inequality create a social world that is deeply contradictory and ambivalent. The unpredictability and instability of daily experiences result in disagreements and tensions, but the residents also experience their neighborhood as a place of social intimacy. As a result, the social world of the neighborhood is both a place of danger and safety.Everyday Violence in the Irish Civil War
By Gemma Clark. 2014
Everyday Violence in the Irish Civil War presents an innovative study of violence perpetrated by and against non-combatants during the…
Irish Civil War, 1922-3. Drawing from victim accounts of wartime injury as recorded in compensation claims, Dr Gemma Clark sheds new light on hundreds of previously neglected episodes of violence and intimidation - ranging from arson, boycott and animal maiming to assault, murder and sexual violence - that transpired amongst soldiers, civilians and revolutionaries throughout the period of conflict. The author shows us how these micro-level acts, particularly in the counties of Limerick, Tipperary and Waterford, served as an attempt to persecute and purge religious and political minorities and to force redistribution of land. Clark also assesses the international significance of the war, comparing the cruel yet arguably restrained violence that occurred in Ireland with the brutality unleashed in other European conflict zones.