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Ambiguous Childhoods: Peer Socialisation, Schooling and Agency in a Zambian Village
by Nana ClemensenGrowing up with social and economic upheaval in the peripheries of global neoliberalism, children in rural Zambia are presented with diverging social and moral protocols across homes, classrooms, church halls, and the street. Mostly unmonitored by adults, they explore the ambiguities of adult life in playful interactions with their siblings and kin across gender and age. Drawing on rich linguistic-ethnographic details of such interactions combined with observations of school and household procedures, the author provides a rare insight into the lives, voices, and learning paths of children in a rural African setting.
Ambiguous Pleasures
by Rachel SpronkAmong both male and female young urban professionals in Nairobi, sexuality is a key to achieving a 'modern' identity. These young men and women see themselves as the avant garde of a new Africa, while they also express the recurring worry of how to combine an 'African' identity with the new lifestyles with which they are experimenting. By focusing on public debates and their preoccupations with issues of African heritage, gerontocratic power relations and conventional morality on the one hand, and personal sexual relationships, intimacy and self-perceptions on the other, this study works out the complexities of sexuality and culture in the context of modernity in an African society. It moves beyond an investigation of a health or development perspective of sexuality and instead examines desire, pleasure and eroticism, revealing new insights into the methodology and theory of the study of sexuality within the social sciences. Sexuality serves as a prism for analysing how social developments generate new notions of self in postcolonial Kenya and is a crucial component towards understanding the way people recognize and deal with modern changes in their personal lives.
Ambiguous Relations: The American Jewish Community and Germany Since 1945
by Shlomo ShafirThe reemergence of a united Germany as a dominant power in Europe has increased even more it's importance as a major political ally and trade partner of the United States, despite the misgivings of some U.S. citizens. Ambiguous Relations addresses for the first time the complex relationships between American Jews and Germany over the fifty years following the end of World War II, and examines American Jewry's' ambiguous attitude toward Germany that continues despite sociological and generational changes within the community. Shlomo Shafir recounts attempts by American Jews to influence U.S. policy toward Germany after the ware and traces these efforts through President Reagan's infamous visit to Bitburg and beyond. He shows how Jewish demands for justice were hampered not only by America's changing attitude toward West Germany as a postwar European power but also by the distraction of anti-communist hysteria in this country. In evaluating the impact of Jewish pressure on American public opinion and on the West German government, Shafir discusses the rationales and strategies of Jewish communal and religious groups, legislators, and intellectuals, as well as the rise of Holocaust consciousness and the roles of Israel and surviving German Jewish communities. He also describes the efforts of German diplomats to assuage American Jewish hostility and relates how the American Jewish community has been able to influence German soul-searching regarding their historical responsibility and even successfully intervened to bring war criminals to trial. Based on extensive archival research in Germany, Israel, and the Unities States, Ambiguous Relations in the first book to examine this tenuous situation in such depth. It is a comprehensive account of recent history that comes to groups with emotional and political reality.
Ambiguous Transitions: Gender, the State, and Everyday Life in Socialist and Postsocialist Romania
by Jill MassinoFocusing on youth, family, work, and consumption, Ambiguous Transitions analyzes the interplay between gender and citizenship postwar Romania. By juxtaposing official sources with oral histories and socialist policies with everyday practices, Jill Massino illuminates the gendered dimensions of socialist modernization and its complex effects on women’s roles, relationships, and identities. Analyzing women as subjects and agents, the book examines how they negotiated the challenges that arose as Romanian society modernized, even as it clung to traditional ideas about gender. Massino concludes by exploring the ambiguities of postsocialism, highlighting how the legacies of the past have shaped politics and women’s lived experiences since 1989.
Ambisexuality: The Anatomy of Transerotic Desire
by James WatsonAmbisexuals are men who are erotically attracted to 'women with a penis'. Michael simply smiled and said, "I've never been with a man. For me, a trans woman is a woman with masculine genitals, but she is still a woman. She looks like a woman and she acts like a woman." It's the 21st century. Trans women sex workers go to great lengths to meet these needs. Tens of thousands of men like Michael currently live around the world. You might think this is a modern development made possible by sex-change technology. But meticulous research reveals that this unrecognised sexual orientation has persisted across all major cultures throughout recorded history. In spite of this, almost nothing is known about ambisexuality. What motivates their sexual orientation… and the trans women they are drawn to? This book has fascinating anecdotal stories and hard data which leads to deep insights. It will make you re-evaluate what you think you know about human sexuality in an era of growing acceptance of gender diversity and sexual expression.
Ambition Redefined: Why the Corner Office Doesn't Work for Every Woman & What to Do Instead
by Kathryn Sollmann"CRITICAL ADVICE FOR WOMEN WHEN THE TRADITIONAL OFFICE JOB DOESN'T FIT FAMILY LIFE." "Sollmann advocates that we 'lean in' to what she aptly labels one's own personal measure of success, rather than a monolithic vision of the ideal career."-- Whitney Johnson, critically-acclaimed author, Build an A Team and Disrupt Yourself, Thinkers50 Management Thinkers Ambition Redefined is a timely alternative to current women's business books that define professional ambition and success as climbing the corporate ladder. In fact, this is not a path that all women want or should feel pressured to follow. Sollmann's focus is on the more critical and widespread workplace issue for everyday women--to always work in a way that fits their lives alongside their two major caregiving roles: for children and aging parents. Sollmann debunks common assumptions such as:IT'S NOT "WORTH IT" UNLESS THE SALARY IS HIGH. Women forfeit up to 4X their salaries every year out of the workforce to care for children and/or elderly parents--and it does not take a six-figure salary to achieve long-term financial security. FINDING FLEXIBLE WORK IS IMPOSSIBLE. Sollmann shines a bright light on the ever-widening world of flexwork--where women can find many interesting and exciting ways to tuck all generations of their families into a future that is financially secure and safe. The book includes realistic, practical tools for preparing for and finding flexible work within a current job or a new opportunity.IT WON'T HAPPEN TO ME. Divorce, death of a spouse, or unexpected financial support for aging parents are some of the life "you never knows" that all women could experience. Divorce, death of a spouse, caring for aging parents or adult children are some of the life "you never knows" that all women could experience. Sollmann encourages women to anticipate and buffer life surprises and she shows the profound impact of continual earning, saving, and investing toward a long and comfortable retirement. WORK ENDS AT AGE 65. Women who leave the workforce and want to return in their forties, fifties or sixties will be in good company as the ranks of older workers rise. Over the next two decades, adults age 50 and over will have greater rates of workforce participation into their sixth and seventh decades.Eye-opening and practical, the book shows that when we redefine ambition, we acknowledge that challenging, lucrative work can be found in many flexible ways that favor personal satisfaction over public applause.
Ambition, A History: From Vice to Virtue
by William Casey KingIs &“ambitious&” a compliment? It depends: &“[A] masterpiece of intellectual and cultural history.&”—David Brion Davis, author of Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World From rags to riches, log house to White House, enslaved to liberator, ghetto to CEO, ambition fuels the American Dream. Yet at the time of the nation's founding, ambition was viewed as a dangerous vice, everything from &“a canker on the soul&” to the impetus for original sin. This engaging book explores ambition&’s surprising transformation, tracing attitudes from classical antiquity to early modern Europe to the New World and America&’s founding. From this broad historical perspective, William Casey King deepens our understanding of the American mythos and offers a striking reinterpretation of the introduction to the Declaration of Independence. Through an innovative array of sources and authors—Aquinas, Dante, Machiavelli, the Geneva Bible, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Thomas Jefferson, and many others—King demonstrates that a transformed view of ambition became possible the moment Europe realized that Columbus had discovered not a new route but a new world. In addition the author argues that reconstituting ambition as a virtue was a necessary precondition of the American republic. The book suggests that even in the twenty-first century, ambition has never fully lost its ties to vice and continues to exhibit a dual nature—positive or negative depending upon the ends, the means, and the individual involved.
Ambitionierte Komplizenschaft: Eine ethnographische Studie zu kindlichen Praktiken in der Schulvorbereitung (Methodologisch-Methodische Perspektiven auf Kindheit(en))
by Juliane EngelIn der ethnographischen Studie wird der Frage nachgegangen, wie Kinder am Angebot der institutionellen Schulvorbereitung teilnehmen bzw. wie sie dieses (mit-)hervorbringen. Hierfür wurden die Kinder über ihr letztes Kindergartenjahr hinweg während dieses Arrangements begleitet und teilnehmend beobachtet. Neben den aktuellen Konzepten der Kindheitsforschung spielen hierzu praxistheoretische Zugänge eine zentrale Rolle und deren relationale Perspektive auf Schulvorbereitung, als soziales Gefüge aus Akteur:innen, Artefakten und den zugrundeliegenden Strukturen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, wie sich Kinder innerhalb der Schulvorbereitung zu Kompliz:innen der Fachkräfte und deren pädagogischen Schulvorbereitungsprogramme entwickeln. Mit der „Ambitionierten Komplizenschaft“ stellt die Arbeit darüber hinaus eine konzeptionelle Weiterentwicklung vor, indem sie das besondere Engagement der beobachteten Kinder während der Schulvorbereitung betont.
Ambitious Like a Mother: Why Prioritizing Your Career Is Good for Your Kids
by Lara BazelonIn this captivating and radical look at &“work-life balance,&” Lara Bazelon reframes our understanding of working women—and shows how prioritizing your career benefits mothers, kids, and society at large.In this singular cultural moment, mothers have unparalleled opportunities to succeed at work while continuing to face the same societal impediments that held back our mothers and grandmothers. We still encounter entrenched gender bias in the workplace and are expected to shoulder the lion&’s share of labor and burdens at home while being made to feel as if we&’re never doing enough. All the while we&’re told that the perfect work-life balance is possible, if only we try hard enough to achieve it.It&’s time to change the conversation—about work, life, and &“balance.&” Work and life are inextricably, intimately intertwined. We need to celebrate what we do give our children—even and especially in moments of imbalance—rather than apologizing for what we don&’t. In this way, we can model for our children how we use our talents to help others and raise awareness about the issues closest to our hearts. We can embrace the personal fulfillment and financial independence that pursuing meaningful work can bring as a way of showing our children how to live happy, purpose-driven lives. Bazelon argues not only that we can but that we should. Being ambitious at work and being a good mother to our children are not at odds—these qualities mutually reinforce each other.Backed up by research and filled with personal stories from Bazelon&’s life, as well as that of her mother and the many other women she interviewed across the cultural and financial spectrum, Ambitious Like a Mother is an anthem, a beacon for all to recognize and celebrate the pioneering women who reject the false idols of the Selfless Mother and Work-Life Balance, and a call to embrace your own ambitions and model your multiplicities for your children.
Ambitious and Anxious: How Chinese College Students Succeed and Struggle in American Higher Education
by Yingyi MaOver the past decade, a wave of Chinese international undergraduate students—mostly self-funded—has swept across American higher education. From 2005 to 2015, undergraduate enrollment from China rose from under 10,000 to over 135,000. This privileged yet diverse group of young people from a changing China must navigate the complications and confusions of their formative years while bridging the two most powerful countries in the world. How do these students come to study in the United States? What does this experience mean to them? What does American higher education need to know and do in order to continue attracting these students and to provide sufficient support for them? <P><P>In Ambitious and Anxious, the sociologist Yingyi Ma offers a multifaceted analysis of this new wave of Chinese students based on research in both Chinese high schools and American higher-education institutions. Ma argues that these students’ experiences embody the duality of ambition and anxiety that arises from transformative social changes in China. These students and their families have the ambition to navigate two very different educational systems and societies. Yet the intricacy and pressure of these systems generate a great deal of anxiety, from applying to colleges before arriving, to studying and socializing on campus, and to looking ahead upon graduation. Ambitious and Anxious also considers policy implications for American colleges and universities, including recruitment, student experiences, faculty support, and career services.
Ambivalences of Inclusion in Society and Social Work: Research-Based Reflections in Four European Countries (European Social Work Education and Practice)
by Stephan Bundschuh Maria José Freitas Càndid Palacín Bartrolí Nino ŽganecThis book represents the work of the European Research Network: Inclusive Society and the Role of Social Work, which comprises researchers from Barcelona, Spain; Koblenz, Germany; Maastricht, The Netherlands; and Zagreb, Croatia. The authors present research results and reflections from these four different European countries to provide a comprehensive introduction and discussion of the ambivalences of inclusive processes in society and social work. The development towards an inclusive society is a subject of ongoing discussion in Europe. How the subject is addressed, through an examination of political and social characteristics, differs significantly by country. Each country-specific chapter includes evidence-based reflections on inclusive society and the role of social work: In The Netherlands, there is evidence of a top-down process implementing inclusive social policy and social work principles through the self-proclaimed ‘participation society’. In Spain, the process to inclusion is accompanied by the third sector often replacing governmental responsibilities, namely through the bottom-up activities of non-governmental organizations in social work. In Croatia, inclusion is a state initiative in transitioning society and an academic approach to deinstitutionalising social work. In Germany, inclusion is discussed in social systems theory and the reform of school systems. In the migration discourse it was introduced as a less-loaded alternative to integration. Ambivalences of Inclusion in Society and Social Work: Research-Based Reflections in Four European Countries is a useful resource for learners, teachers, practitioners, and researchers in social work, as well as those who have an interest in social policy, social welfare, and sociology.
Ambivalent Childhoods: Speculative Futures and the Psychic Life of the Child
by Jacob BreslowExplores childhood in relation to blackness, transfeminism, queerness, and deportability to interrogate what &“the child&” makes possibleThe concept of childhood contains many contested and ambivalent meanings that have extraordinary implications, particularly for those staking their claim for belonging and justice on the wish for inclusion within it. In Ambivalent Childhoods, Jacob Breslow examines contemporary U.S. social justice movements (including Black Lives Matter, transfeminism, queer youth activism, and antideportation movements) to discover and reveal how childhood operates within and against them.Ambivalent Childhoods brings together critical race, trans, feminist, queer, critical migration, and psychoanalytic theories to explore the role of childhood in shaping and challenging the disposability of young black life, the steadfastness of the gender binary, the queer life of children&’s desires, and the precarious status of migrants. Through an engagement with&“the psychic life of the child&” that combines theoretical discussions of childhood, blackness, transfeminism, and deportability with critical readings of films, narrative, images, and social justice movements, Breslow demonstrates how childhood requires sustained attention as a complex and ambivalent site for contesting the workings of power, not only for the young. Ambivalent Childhoods is a forward-thinking and intersectional analysis of how childhood affects activism, national belonging, and the violence directed against queer, trans, and racialized people.
Ambivalent Embrace: Jewish Upward Mobility in Postwar America
by Rachel KransonThis new cultural history of Jewish life and identity in the United States after World War II focuses on the process of upward mobility. Rachel Kranson challenges the common notion that most American Jews unambivalently celebrated their generally strong growth in economic status and social acceptance during the booming postwar era. In fact, a significant number of Jewish religious, artistic, and intellectual leaders worried about the ascent of large numbers of Jews into the American middle class. Kranson reveals that many Jews were deeply concerned that their lives—affected by rapidly changing political pressures, gender roles, and religious practices—were becoming dangerously disconnected from authentic Jewish values. She uncovers how Jewish leaders delivered jeremiads that warned affluent Jews of hypocrisy and associated "good" Jews with poverty, even at times romanticizing life in America's immigrant slums and Europe's impoverished shtetls. Jewish leaders, while not trying to hinder economic development, thus cemented an ongoing identification with the Jewish heritage of poverty and marginality as a crucial element in an American Jewish ethos.
Ambivalent Encounters
by Jenny HubermanJenny Huberman provides an ethnographic study of encounters between western tourists and the children who work as unlicensed peddlers and guides along the riverfront city of Banaras, India. She examines how and why these children elicit such powerful reactions from western tourists and locals in their community as well as how the children themselves experience their work and render it meaningful. Ambivalent Encounters brings together scholarship on the anthropology of childhood, tourism, consumption, and exchange to ask why children emerge as objects of the international tourist gaze; what role they play in representing socio-economic change; how children are valued and devalued; why they elicit anxieties, fantasies, and debates; and what these tourist encounters teach us more generally about the nature of human interaction. It examines the role of gender in mediating experiences of social change--girls are praised by locals for participating constructively in the informal tourist economy while boys are accused of deviant behavior. Huberman is interested equally in the children's and adults' perspectives; her own experiences as a western visitor and researcher provide an intriguing entry into her interpretations.
Ambivalent Europeans: Ritual, Memory and the Public Sphere in Malta
by Jon P. MitchellAmbivalent Europeans examines the implications of living on the fringes of Europe. In Malta, public debate is dominated by the question of Europe, both at a policy level - whether or not to join the EU - and at the level of national identity - whether or not the Maltese are 'European'. Jon Mitchell identifies a profound ambivalence towards Europe, and also more broadly to the key processes of 'modernisation'. He traces this tendency through a number of key areas of social life - gender, the family, community, politics, religion and ritual.
Ambivalent Humanitarianism and Migration Control: Colonial legacies and the Experiences of Migrants in Mexico (Routledge Studies in Criminal Justice, Borders and Citizenship)
by Erika Herrera RosalesAmbivalent Humanitarianism and Migration Control explores the complex relationship between migrants and local aid organisations. These organisations have become indisputably relevant and highly regarded as allies to Northern Central American migrants trying to reach the United States. Thus, this book examines the implications of humanitarian actors in migration governance and bordering practices, which have serious and long-lasting effects on the lives of migrants.Through an in-depth research in Mexico, this book suggests that humanitarian organisations are ambivalent institutions because they intend to help and support individuals while reinforcing social and power inequalities. It explores the narratives, roles, and practices of humanitarian workers, and, at the same time, addresses migrants’ resistance. From an interdisciplinary approach that employs critical humanitarian perspectives, post/decolonial theories, and criminological studies, this study provides a comprehensive analysis of migration governance and migrants’ agency.A highly informative, insightful, and engaging read, Ambivalent Humanitarianism and Migration Control will appeal to students, scholars, and researchers in migration studies, border studies, sociology, and critical criminology. Given its international scope, it also will be of interest to academics, practitioners, and people in Latin America, the United States, the UK, Europe, and beyond.
Ambivalent Transnational Belonging in American Literature (Routledge Transnational Perspectives on American Literature)
by Silvia SchultermandlAmbivalent Transnational Belonging in American Literature discusses the extent to which transnational concepts of identity and community are cast within nationalist frameworks. It analyzes how the different narrative perspectives in texts by Olaudah Equiano, Catharina Maria Sedgwick, Henry James, Jamaica Kincaid, and Mohsin Hamid shape protagonists’ complex transnational subjectivities, which exist between or outside national frameworks but are nevertheless interpellated through the nation-state and through particular myths about liberal, sentimental, or cosmopolitan subjects. The notion of ambivalent transnational belonging yields insights into the affective appeal of the transnational as a category of analysis, as an aesthetic experience, and as an idea of belonging. This means bringing the transnational into conversation with the aesthetic and the affective so we may fully address the new conceptual challenges faced by literary studies due to the transnational turn in American studies.
Ambivalenzen der Optimierung (Würzburger Beiträge zur Designforschung)
by Gerhard Schweppenhäuser Christian Bauer Judith-Frederike PoppInnovation, Wachstum und Optimierung sind normative Grundlagen des Designs, der Technologie, der Wirtschaft, der Gesellschaft und der Kultur. Unter dem Vorzeichen der Digitalisierung zeichnen sich neue ›Optima‹ ab, in denen Menschen zum Bestandteil entgrenzter Netzwerkstrukturen werden. Die in Würzburg entstandenen Aufsätze des vorliegenden Bandes gehen ambivalenten Aspekten dieser Entwicklung mit wissenschaftlichen und gestalterischen Methoden nach. Der Gastbeitrag geht der Frage nach, was dialektisches Denken in Diskurs und Praxis der Gestaltung bedeutet.
Ambivalenzen von Maske: Ein Brückenschlag von Dietrich Bonhoeffers Theologie in die Popkultur (pop.religion: lebensstil – kultur – theologie)
by Jonathan Frommann-BrecknerEine Maske kann theologisch als ein Phänomen der Ambivalenz verstanden werden. Einerseits kann sie etwas zeigen, indem sie etwas anderes verdeckt. Andererseits kann sie etwas zeigen, was sonst verdeckt bleiben würde. Diese Unterscheidung lässt sich auf maskenähnliche Aspekte des Verhaltens von Menschen übertragen. Menschliches Verhalten kann zum Beispiel zwischen Zeigen und Verdecken, Aufrichtigkeit und Verstellung, Selbstausdruck und Selbstschutz oder Enthüllung und Verhüllung oszillieren. Vor diesem Hintergrund lässt sich eine Idee davon entwickeln, was es bedeuten kann, hinter eine Maske zu sehen oder etwas in einer Maske zu sehen. Dieser phänomenologische Fokus dient als Lektürebrille für Dietrich Bonhoeffers Werk – schwerpunktmäßig für Texte aus den Lebensphasen seiner Konspiration und Haft, in denen eine Theologie der Maske ausgemacht werden kann. Diese Theologie eignet sich als Aufhänger, Vergleichspunkt und Interpretament für die Auseinandersetzung mit Popkultur. Ein solcher theologischer Brückenschlag wird in Bezug auf Quentin Tarantinos Film Inglourious Basterds sowie Selfies im Rahmen von Social Media erprobt.
Amdo Lullaby: An Ethnography of Childhood and Language Shift on the Tibetan Plateau (Anthropological Horizons)
by Shannon WardIn Amdo, a region of eastern Tibet incorporated into mainland China, young children are being raised in a time of social change. In the first decades of the twenty-first century, Chinese state development policies are catalysing rural to urban migration, consolidating schooling in urban centres, and leading Tibetan farmers and nomads to give up their traditional livelihoods. As a result, children face increasing pressure to adopt the state’s official language of Mandarin. Amdo Lullaby charts the contrasting language socialization trajectories of rural and urban children from one extended family, who are native speakers of a Tibetan language known locally as “Farmer Talk.” By integrating a fine-grained analysis of everyday conversations and oral history interviews, linguistic anthropologist Shannon M. Ward examines the forms of migration and resulting language contact that contribute to Farmer Talk’s unique grammatical structures, and that shape Amdo Tibetan children’s language choices. This analysis reveals that young children are not passively abandoning their mother tongue for standard Mandarin, but instead are reformatting traditional Amdo Tibetan cultural associations among language, place, and kinship as they build their peer relationships in everyday play.
America 3.0
by James C. Bennett Michael J. LotusAmerica's greatest days are yet to come. We are in a painful transition period. Our government is crushingly expensive, failing at its basic functions, and unable to keep its promises. It does not work and it cannot continue as it is. But the inevitable end of big government does not mean the end of America. It only means the end of one phase of American life. America is poised to enter a new era of freedom and prosperity. The cultural roots of the American people go back at least fifteen centuries, and make us individualistic, enterprising, and liberty-loving. The Founding generation of the United States lived in a world of family farms and small businesses, America 1.0. This world faded away and was replaced by an industrialized world of big cities, big business, big labor unions and big government, America 2.0. Now America 2.0 is outdated and crumbling, while America 3.0 is struggling to be born. This new world will bring immense productivity, rapid technological progress, greater scope for individual and family-scale autonomy, and a leaner and strictly limited government. America has made one major transition already, and industrial America became an economic colossus. We are now making a new transition, which will surprise many Americans, and astonish the world.
America And Its Sources: A Guided Journey Through Key Documents, 1865-present
by Erin ConlinAmerica and Its Sources: A Guided Journey through Key Documents, 1865-present is an innovative sourcebook designed for non-majors, ESL students, and other students who struggle with large amounts of reading. Through 14 focused units, the editors guide students from important post-1865 documents to major sources from contemporary America. Each unit includes a brief introduction to the era, unit questions, 5 expertly edited primary sources with overviews and guiding questions, and a unit review. This affordable sourcebook offers students the essential tools they need to examine and analyze primary sources without overwhelming them with lengthy and difficult texts.
America Anonymous: Eight Addicts in Search of a Life
by Benoit Denizet-LewisAMERICA ANONYMOUS is the unforgettable story of eight men and women struggling with addictions. For nearly three years acclaimed journalist Benoit Denizet-Lewis immersed himself in their lives as they battled drug and alcohol abuse, overeating, and compulsive gambling and sexuality. Alternating with their stories is Denizet-Lewis's candid account of his own recovery from sexual addiction and his compelling examination of our culture of addiction, where we obsessively search for new and innovative ways to escape the reality of the present moment and make ourselves "feel better."Addiction is arguably this country's biggest public-health crisis, triggering and exacerbating many of our most pressing social problems, from crime to child abuse and neglect. But while cancer and AIDS survivors have taken to the streets and to the halls of Congress demanding to be heard, millions of addicts talk only to one another in the confines of anonymous Twelve Step meetings. Through the riveting stories in this book, Denizet-Lewis shines a spotlight on addiction and breaks through the shame and denial that still shape our understanding of it--and hamper our ability to treat it.As these eight addicts stumble, fall, and try again to make a different and better life, Denizet-Lewis records their struggles, and his own, with honesty and empathy.to make a different and better life, Denizet-Lewis records their struggles -- and his own -- with honesty and empathy.
America Ascendant: The Rise of American Exceptionalism
by Dennis M. SpraggAmerica Ascendant vividly portrays the global crisis that brought the media and the government into an alliance that changed the course of American and world history. President Franklin D. Roosevelt organized an extraordinary partnership between the U.S. government and America&’s media outlets to communicate to the reluctant and isolationist American public the nature of the threat that World War II posed to the nation and the world. The coalition&’s aim was to promote the concept of American exceptionalism and use it to galvanize the public for the government&’s cause.America Ascendant details the efforts of many prominent individuals and officials to harness the collective energy of the nation and guide the United States throughout World War II then describes its aftermath and the Cold War period. Dennis M. Spragg demonstrates how the news and entertainment of American broadcasters such as David Sarnoff, William Paley, and Elmer Davis helped rally the American people to fashion a new liberal democratic order to stop the global spread of Communism. This media-government alliance, however, was not achieved without difficulty. Spragg highlights the competing visions and personalities that clashed, as media and government leaders tried to develop the paradigm that ultimately shifted American cultural and political thought. Throughout this searching history he sheds light on the underappreciated coordination between the media and the government to establish a liberal democratic world order and demonstrates why American exceptionalism still matters.
America Becoming: Racial Trends and Their Consequences
by National Research CouncilThe 20th Century has been marked by enormous change in terms of how we define race. In large part, we have thrown out the antiquated notions of the 1800s, giving way to a more realistic, sociocultural view of the world. The United States is, perhaps more than any other industrialized country, distinguished by the size and diversity of its racial and ethnic minority populations. Current trends promise that these features will endure. Fifty years from now, there will most likely be no single majority group in the United States. How will we fare as a nation when race-based issues such as immigration, job opportunities, and affirmative action are already so contentious today?In America Becoming, leading scholars and commentators explore past and current trends among African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans, and Native Americans in the context of a white majority. This volume presents the most up-to-date findings and analysis on racial and social dynamics, with recommendations for ongoing research. It examines compelling issues in the field of race relations, including: Race and ethnicity in criminal justice. Demographic and social trends for Hispanics, Asian Americans, and Native Americans. Trends in minority-owned businesses. Wealth, welfare, and racial stratification. Residential segregation and the meaning of "neighborhood." Disparities in educational test scores among races and ethnicities. Health and development for minority children, adolescents, and adults. Race and ethnicity in the labor market, including the role of minorities in America's military. Immigration and the dynamics of race and ethnicity. The changing meaning of race. Changing racial attitudes.This collection of papers, compiled and edited by distinguished leaders in the behavioral and social sciences, represents the most current literature in the field. Volume 1 covers demographic trends, immigration, racial attitudes, and the geography of opportunity. Volume 2 deals with the criminal justice system, the labor market, welfare, and health trends, Both books will be of great interest to educators, scholars, researchers, students, social scientists, and policymakers.