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Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life
by Luke BurgisA groundbreaking exploration of why we want what we want, and a toolkit for freeing ourselves from chasing unfulfilling desires.Gravity affects every aspect of our physical being, but there’s a psychological force just as powerful—yet almost nobody has heard of it. It’s responsible for bringing groups of people together and pulling them apart, making certain goals attractive to some and not to others, and fueling cycles of anxiety and conflict. In Wanting, Luke Burgis draws on the work of French polymath René Girard to bring this hidden force to light and reveals how it shapes our lives and societies. According to Girard, humans don’t desire anything independently. Human desire is mimetic—we imitate what other people want. This affects the way we choose partners, friends, careers, clothes, and vacation destinations. Mimetic desire is responsible for the formation of our very identities. It explains the enduring relevancy of Shakespeare’s plays, why Peter Thiel decided to be the first investor in Facebook, and why our world is growing more divided as it becomes more connected.Wanting also shows that conflict does not arise because of our differences—it comes from our sameness. Because we learn to want what other people want, we often end up competing for the same things. Ignoring our large similarities, we cling to our perceived differences.Drawing on his experience as an entrepreneur, teacher, and student of classical philosophy and theology, Burgis shares tactics that help turn blind wanting into intentional wanting--not by trying to rid ourselves of desire, but by desiring differently. It’s possible to be more in control of the things we want, to achieve more independence from trends and bubbles, and to find more meaning in our work and lives.The future will be shaped by our desires. Wanting shows us how to desire a better one.
Wanting: Women Writing About Desire
by Margot Kahn and Kelly McMastersAn intimate and empowering anthology of essays that explore the changing face of female desire in whip-smart, sensuous prose, with pieces by Tara Conklin, Camille Dungy, Melissa Febos, Lisa Taddeo, and othersWhat is desire? And what are its rules? In this daring collection, award-winning and emerging female writers share their innermost longings, in turn dismantling both personal and political constructs of what desire is or can be.In the opening essay, Larissa Pham unearths the ache beneath all her wants: time. Rena Priest&’s desire for a pair of five-hundred-dollar cowboy boots spurs a reckoning with her childhood on the rez and the fraught history of her hometown. Other pieces in the collection turn cultural tropes around dating, sex, and romance on their heads—Angela Cardinale tries dating as a divorced mother of two in the California suburbs only to discover sweet solace in being alone; Keyanah B. Nurse finds power in polyamory; and when Joanna Rakoff spots a former lover at a bar, the heat between them unravels her family as she is pulled into his orbit—an undoing, she decides, that&’s worth everything.Including pieces by Tara Conklin, Torrey Peters, Camille Dungy, Melissa Febos, Lisa Taddeo, and so many others, these candid and insightful essays tackle the complicated knot of women&’s desire.Featuring essays by Elisa Albert, Kristen Arnett, Molly McCully Brown, Angela Cardinale, Tara Conklin, Sonia Maria David, Jennifer De Leon, Camille T. Dungy, Melissa Febos, Amber Flame, Amy Gall, Aracelis Girmay, Sonora Jha, Nicole Hardy, Laura Joyce-Hubbard, TaraShea Nesbit, Keyanah B. Nurse, Torrey Peters, Amanda Petrusich, Larissa Pham, Rena Priest, Joanna Rakoff, Karen Russell, Domenica Ruta, Susan Shapiro, Terese Svoboda, Lisa Taddeo, Ann Tashi Slater, Abigail Thomas, Merritt Tierce, Michelle Wildgen, Jane Wong, and Teresa Wong
Wanton Wenches and Wayward Wives: Peasants and Illicit Sex in Early Seventeenth Century England (Routledge Library Editions: History of Sexuality #5)
by G. R. QuaifeOriginally published in 1979. This highly detailed study of illicit sex amongst the peasantry of Somerset between 1601 and 1660 recreates the atmosphere of the period and questions a number of previously accepted hypotheses. Based on the depositions presented to the county and regional courts during this period, it sheds as much light on prevailing village attitudes as it does on the specific discussion matter. Outlining the precarious existence of the peasant and the supervision of sexual morality, the book looks at pre-marital sex, pregnancy, prostitution, masturbation, contraception, rape, homosexuality and incest, along with the prevailing punishments of the time.This extensively researched work combines both demographic and literary-based analyses, with analytical and anecdotal approaches to the subject. It presents a rich source of social history, examining and questioning the role of Christian morality as an important factor in influencing the sexual habits of the peasant.
War Against The Weak: Eugenics And America's Campaign To Create A Master Race
by Edwin BlackIn War Against the Weak, award-winning investigative journalist Edwin Black connects the crimes of the Nazis to a pseudoscientific American movement of the early 20th century called eugenics. Based on selective breeding of human beings, eugenics began in laboratories on Long Island but ended in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. Cruel and racist laws were enacted in 27 U.S. states, and the supporters of eugenics included progressive thinkers like Woodrow Wilson, Margaret Sanger, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Ultimately, over 60,000 "unfit" Americans were coercively sterilized, a third of them after Nuremberg declared such practices crimes against humanity. This is a timely and shocking chronicle of bad science at its worst — with many important lessons for the impending genetic age.
War Dogs: Canines in Combat
by Michael G. LemishHistory of the United States military working dog. Contains brief discussion of early uses of war dogs with emphasis on canines used in World Wars I and II, in Korea and Vietnam.
War Games (Quick Takes: Movies and Popular Culture)
by Jonna EagleThe word “wargames” might seem like a contradiction in terms. After all, the declaration “This is war” is meant to signal that things have turned deadly serious, that there is no more playing around. Yet the practices of war are intimately entangled with practices of gaming, from military videogames to live battle reenactments. How do these forms of play impact how both soldiers and civilians perceive acts of war? This Quick Take considers how various war games and simulations shape the ways we imagine war. Paradoxically, these games grant us a sense of mastery and control as we strategize and scrutinize the enemy, yet also allow us the thrilling sense of being immersed in the carnage and chaos of battle. But as simulations of war become more integrated into both popular culture and military practice, how do they shape our apprehension of the traumatic realities of warfare? Covering everything from chess to football, from Saving Private Ryan to American Sniper, and from Call of Duty to drone interfaces, War Games is an essential guide for anyone seeking to understand the militarization of American culture, offering a compact yet comprehensive look at how we play with images of war.
War In Human Civilization
by Azar GatWhy do people go to war? Is it rooted in human nature or is it a late cultural invention? How does war relate to the other fundamental developments in the history of human civilization? And what of war today--is it a declining phenomenon or simply changing its shape? In this sweeping study of war and civilization, Azar Gat sets out to find definitive answers to these questions in an attempt to unravel the riddle of war throughout human history, from the early hunter-gatherers right through to the unconventional terrorism of the twenty-first century. In the process, the book generates an astonishing wealth of original and fascinating insights on all major aspects of humankind's remarkable journey through the ages, engaging a wide range of disciplines, from anthropology and evolutionary psychology to sociology and political science. Written with remarkable verve and clarity and wholly free from jargon, it will be of interest to anyone who has ever pondered the puzzle of war.
War Magic: Religion, Sorcery, and Performance
by Douglas FarrerThis compelling volume explores how war magic and warrior religion unleash the power of the gods, demons, ghosts, and the dead. Documenting war magic and warrior religion as they are performed in diverse cultures and across historical time periods, this volume foregrounds embodiment, practice, and performance in anthropological approaches to magic, sorcery, shamanism, and religion. The authors go beyond what magic ‘represents’ to consider what magic does. From Chinese exorcists, Javanese spirit siblings, and black magic in Sumatra to Tamil Tiger suicide bombers, Chamorro spiritual re-enchantment, tantric Buddhist war magic, and Yanomami dark shamans, religion and magic are re-evaluated not just from the practitioner’s perspective but through the victim’s lived experience. These original investigations reveal a nuanced approach to understanding social action, innovation, and the revitalization of tradition in colonial and post-colonial societies undergoing rapid social transformation.
War Memory and Commemoration (Memory Studies: Global Constellations)
by Brad WestIn a period characterised by an unprecedented cultural engagement with the past, individuals, groups and nations are debating and experimenting with commemoration in order to find culturally relevant ways of remembering warfare, genocide and terrorism. This book examines such remembrances and the political consequences of these rites. In particular, the volume focuses on the ways in which recent social and technological forces, including digital archiving, transnational flows of historical knowledge, shifts in academic practice, changes in commemorative forms and consumerist engagements with history affect the shaping of new collective memories and our understanding of the social world. Presenting studies of commemorative practices from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and the Middle East, War Memory and Commemoration illustrates the power of new commemorative forms to shape the world, and highlights the ways in which social actors use them in promoting a range of understandings of the past. The volume will appeal to scholars of sociology, history, cultural studies and journalism with an interest in commemoration, heritage and/or collective memory.
War On Drugs: Studies In The Failure Of U.s. Narcotics Policy
by Alfred W. MccoySince George Bush declared his war on drugs in 1989, cocaine addiction in America has increased 15%, and narcotics have emerged as major commodities from the Third World. Focusing on US narcotics policy, Latin America's cocaine traffic and Asia's heroin trade, the essays in this book offer evidence indicating that the war is not working.
War Over the Family
by David PopenoeOne of the most surprising and controversial social debates of the past two decades has been about the meaning and importance of marriage and the family in contemporary American life. Referred to by some as a culture "war over the family," the debate has pitted those concerned about the weakening of the traditional married-parent nuclear family, especially in its impact on children, against those arguing that nothing has gone wrong with families--that they are merely "diversifying." David Popenoe has been one of the most influential figures in laying out for a wide audience the importance of "family decline," and what it means for our children, our society, and our future.
War Slang: American Fighting Words & Phrases Since the Civil War, Third Edition
by Paul DicksonFrom the homegrown "boodle" of the 19th century to current "misunderstandistan" in the Middle East, America's foremost expert on slang reveals military lingo at its most colorful, innovative, brutal, and ironic. Author Paul Dickson introduces some of the "new words and phrases born of conflict, boredom, good humor, bad food, new technology, and the pure horror of war." This newly updated reference extends to the post-9/11 world and the American military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. Recommended by William Safire in his "On Language" column of The New York Times, it features dictionary-style entries, arranged chronologically by conflict, with helpful introductions to each section and an index for convenient reference. "Paul Dickson is a national treasure who deserves a wide audience," declared Library Journal. The author of more than 50 books, Dickson has written extensively on language. This expanded edition of War Slang features new material by journalist Ben Lando, Iraq Bureau Chief for Iraq Oil Report and a regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal and Time. It serves language lovers and military historians alike by adding an eloquent new dimension to our understanding of war.
War Stories from the Drug Survey: How Culture, Politics, and Statistics Shaped the National Survey on Drug Use and Health
by Joseph GfroererThe primary data driver behind US drug policy is the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. This insider history traces the evolution of the survey and how the survey has interacted with the political and social climate of the country, from its origins during the Vietnam War to its role in the war on drugs. <P><P>The book includes first-hand accounts that explain how the data was used and misused by political leaders, why changes were made in the survey design, and what challenges researchers faced in communicating statistical principles to policymakers and leaders. It also makes recommendations for managing survey data collection and reporting in the context of political pressures and technological advances. <P><P>Survey research students and practitioners will learn practical lessons about questionnaire design, mode effects, sampling, nonresponse, weighting, editing, imputation, statistical significance, and confidentiality. The book also includes common-language explanations of key terms and processes to help data users understand the point of view of survey statisticians.
War Stories: Suffering and Sacrifice in the Civil War North
by Frances M. ClarkeThe American Civil War is often seen as the first modern war, not least because of its immense suffering. Yet unlike later conflicts, it did not produce an outpouring of disillusionment or cynicism, as most people continued to portray the war in highly sentimental and patriotic terms. While scholars typically dismiss this everyday writing as simplistic or naïve, Frances M. Clarke argues that we need to reconsider the letters, diaries, songs, and journalism penned by Union soldiers and their caregivers to fully understand the war’s impact and meaning. In War Stories, Clarke revisits the most common stories that average Northerners told in hopes of redeeming their suffering and loss—stories that enabled people to make sense of their hardship, and to express their beliefs about religion, community, and personal character. From tales of Union soldiers who died heroically to stories of tireless volunteers who exemplified the Republic’s virtues, War Stories sheds new light on this transitional moment in the history of war, emotional culture, and American civic life.
War Volunteering in Modern Times
by Christine G. Krüger Sonja LevsenExploring volunteering as a characteristic of modern wars, this book examines why individuals go to war. It studies the motivations, social backgrounds and military experiences of war volunteersin a wide range of conflicts since the French Revolution, and helps to interpret the relationship between war and society in modern times. "
War and Children
by Anna Freud Dorothy T. BurlinghamThis book looks at the record of children in modern war told honestly and completely, by two of the world's outstanding child psychologists, Anna Freud and Dorothy Burlingham. The work focuses on how war affects psychological development in children; the need for personal attachment, for emotional stability, and for permanency of educational influence.
War and Cultural Heritage
by Marie Louise Stig Sørensen Dacia Viejo-RoseThe reconstruction of society after conflict is complex and multifaceted. This book investigates this theme as it relates to cultural heritage through a number of case studies relating to European wars since 1864. The case studies show in detail how buildings, landscapes, and monuments become important agents in postconflict reconstruction, as well as how their meanings change and how they become sites of competition over historical narratives and claims. Looking at iconic and lesser-known sites, this book connects broad theoretical discussions of reconstruction and memorialization to specific physical places, and in the process it traces shifts in their meanings over time. This book identifies common threads and investigates their wider implications. It explores the relationship between cultural heritage and international conflict, paying close attention to the long aftermaths of acts of destruction and reconstruction and making important contributions through the use of new empirical evidence and critical theory.
War and Drugs: The Role of Military Conflict in the Development of Substance Abuse
by Dessa K. Bergen-CicoWar and Drugs explores the relationship between military incursions and substance use and abuse throughout history. For centuries, drugs have been used to weaken enemies, stimulate troops to fight, and quell post-war trauma. They have also served as a source of funding for clandestine military and paramilitary activity. In addition to offering detailed geopolitical perspectives, this book explores the intergenerational trauma that follows military conflict and the rising tide of substance abuse among veterans, especially from the Vietnam and Iraq-Afghan eras. Addiction specialist Bergen-Cico raises important questions about the past and challenges us to consider new approaches in the future to this longest of US wars.
War and Embodied Memory: Becoming Disabled in Sierra Leone
by Maria BerghsHow do you become an 'amputee', 'war-wounded', 'victim' or 'disabled' person? This book describes how an amputee and war-wounded community was created after a decade long conflict (1991-2002) in Sierra Leone. Beginning with a general socio-cultural and historical analysis of what is understood by impairment and disability, it also explains how disability was politically created both during the conflict and post-conflict, as violence became part of the everyday. Despite participating in the neoliberal rebuilding of the nation state, ex-combatants and the security of the nation were the government’s main priorities, not amputee and war-wounded people. In order to survive, people had to form partnerships with NGOs and participate in new discourses and practices around disability and rights, thus accessing identities of 'disabled' or 'persons with disabilities'. NGOs, charities and religious organisations that understood impairment and disability were most successful at aiding this community of people. However, since discourse and practice on disability were mainly bureaucratic, top-down, and not democratic about mainstreaming disability, neoliberal organisations and INGOs have caused a new colonisation of consciousness, and amputee and war-wounded people have had to become skilled in negotiating these new forms of subjectivities to survive.
War and Family Life
by Shelley Macdermid Wadsworth David S. RiggsThis unique resource provides findings and insights regarding the multiple impacts of military duty on service members and veterans, specifically from a family standpoint. Broad areas of coverage include marital and family relationships, parenting issues, family effects of war injuries, and family concerns of single service members. The book's diverse contents highlight understudied populations and topics gaining wider interest while examining the immediate and long-term impact of service on family functioning. In addition to raising awareness of issues, chapters point to potential solutions including science-based pre- and post-deployment programs, more responsive training for practitioners, and more focused research and policy directions. Among the topics covered: * Deployment and divorce: an in-depth analysis by relevant demographic and military characteristics. * Military couples and posttraumatic stress: interpersonally based behaviors and cognitions as mechanisms of individual and couple distress. * Warfare and parent care: armed conflict and the social logic of child and national protection. * Understanding the experiences of women and LGBT veterans in Department of Veterans Affairs care. * Risk and resilience factors in combat military health care providers. * Tangible, instrumental, and emotional support among homeless veterans. War and Family Life offers up-to-date understanding for mental health professionals who serve military families, both in the U. S. and abroad.
War and Health Insurance Policy in Japan and the United States: World War II to Postwar Reconstruction
by Takakazu YamagishiWorld War II forced extensive and comprehensive social and political changes on nations across the globe. This comparative examination of health insurance in the United States and Japan during and after the war explores how World War II shaped the health care systems of both countries.To compare the development of health insurance in the two countries, Takakazu Yamagishi discusses the impact of total war on four factors: political structure, interest group politics, political culture, and policy feedback. During World War II, the U.S. and Japanese governments realized that healthy soldiers, workers, mothers, and children were vital to national survival. While both countries adopted new, expansive national insurance policies as part of their mobilization efforts, they approached doing so in different ways and achieved near-opposite results. In the United States, private insurance became the predominant means of insuring people, save for a few government-run programs. Japan, meanwhile, created a near-universal, public insurance system. After the war, their different policy paths were consolidated. Yamagishi argues that these disparate outcomes were the result of each nation’s respective war experience. He looks closely at postwar Japan and investigates how political struggles between the American occupation authority and U.S. domestic forces, such as the American Medical Association, helped solidify the existing Japanese health insurance system.Original and tightly argued, this volume makes a strong case for treating total war as a central factor in understanding how the health insurance systems of the two nations grew, while bearing in mind the dual nature of government intervention—however slight—in health care. Those interested in debates about health care in Japan, the United States, and other countries, and especially scholars of comparative political development, will appreciate and learn from Yamagishi’s study.
War and Migration: Social Networks and Economic Strategies of the Hazaras of Afghanistan (Middle East Studies: History, Politics & Law)
by Alessandro MonsuttiFocusing on the case of the Hazaras, a population from central Afghanistan, this book shows how migration studies and transnationalism are at the heart of theoretical and methodological debates which animate anthropology.
War and Moral Dissonance
by Peter A. FrenchThis collection of essays, inspired by the author's experience teaching ethics to Marine and Navy chaplains during the Iraq War, examines the moral and psychological dilemmas posed by war. The first section deals directly with Dr Peter A. French's teaching experience and the specific challenges posed by teaching applied and theoretical ethics to men and women wrestling with the immediate and personal moral conflicts occasioned by the dissonance of their duties as military officers with their religious convictions. The following chapters grew out of philosophical discussions with these chaplains regarding specific ethical issues surrounding the Iraq War, including the nature of moral evil, forgiveness, mercy, retributive punishment, honour, torture, responsibility and just war theory. This book represents a unique viewpoint on the philosophical problems of war, illuminating the devastating toll combat experiences take on both an individual's sense of identity and a society's professed moral code.
War and Peace: Observations on Our Times
by Howard FastIn more than 100 essays, written over a three-year period for the "New York Observer", Howard Fast looks with horror at the official violence inflicted on Nicaragua, El Salvador, Grenada, Panama and Iraq and the unofficial violence that is taking place in the cities of the United States. In "War and Peace", Fast summons us to face the wars and the social disintegration that degraded the Reagan and Bush years, with all the explanations and excuses stripped away. He dwells on the monumental folly of the Cold War and shows us repeatedly what we could have done with the billions spent on planes, bombs and guns if we had spent them on the education and safety of our children, on housing, medical care, rebuilding the cities - and what we can still do in the future. As in Swift, Yahoos populate the essays of this book: the drug dealers; the local political hacks; the anti-Semites; the racists; the women-bashers; the arms traffickers: the whole unsavory cast. As in Mencken, boobs run loose in the White House and in the halls of Congress. From time to time, a Candide-like character named D'emas (Yiddish for the "the truth") appears and asks embarrassing questions about the ways of our civilisation, which his interlocutor is hard-pressed to answer. And yet, after Howard Fast recounts the inanity and brutality of these years, he offers a humane vision of what America and the rest of the world could be. These essays should hold a place in 20th-century letters as a statement of unsurpassed passion on the theme: war and peace.
War and Remembrance in the Twentieth Century
by Jay Winter Emmanuel SivanHow war has been remembered collectively is the central question in this volume. War in the twentieth century is a vivid and traumatic phenomenon which left behind it survivors who engage time and time again in acts of remembrance. This volume, containing essays by outstanding scholars of twentieth-century history, focuses on the issues raised by the shadow of war in this century. The behaviour, not of whole societies or of ruling groups alone, but of the individuals who do the work of remembrance, is discussed by examining the traumatic collective memory resulting from the horrors of the First World War, the Spanish Civil War, the Second World War, and the Algerian War. By studying public forms of remembrance, such as museums and exhibitions, literature and film, the editors have succeeded in bringing together a volume which demonstrates that a popular kind of collective memory is still very much alive.