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Reinventing Rural: New Realities in an Urbanizing World (Studies in Urban–Rural Dynamics)
by Gregory Fulkerson Aimee Vieira Fern Willits Alexander Thomas Leanne Avery Stephanie Bennett Matthew Clement Michael Fortunato Carrie Kane Laura McKinney Gene TheodoriReinventing Rural is a collection of original research papers that examine the ways in which rural people and places are changing in the context of an urbanizing world. This includes exploring the role of the environment, the economy, and related issues such as tourism. While traditionally relying on primary sector work in agriculture, mining, natural resources, and the like, rural areas are finding new ways to sustain themselves. This involves a new emphasis on environmental protection, as one important strategy has been to capitalize on natural amenities to attract residents and tourists. Beyond improvements to the economy are general improvements to the quality-of-life in rural communities. Consistent with this, the volume focuses on the two cornerstones of education and health, considering current challenges and offering ideas for reinventing rural quality-of-life.
Antagonizing White Feminism: Intersectionality's Critique of Women's Studies and the Academy (Feminist Strategies: Flexible Theories And Resilient Practices Ser.)
by Noelle Chaddock Sara Salem Beverly Guy-Sheftall Beth Hinderliter Piya Chatterjee Timothy W. Gerken Laneshia Conner Pablo Ariel Scharagrodsky Magalí Pérez Riedel Vanessa Drew-Branch Sonyia RichardsonThis text pushes back against the exclusive scholarship and discourse coming out of women-centered spaces and projects, which throw up barriers by narrowly defining who can participate. Vehement resistance to using inclusive language and renaming scholarly spaces like Women's Studies and Critical Feminism expresses itself in concerns that women are still oppressed and thus women-only spaces must be maintained. But who is a woman? What are the characteristics of a woman's lived experience? Do affinity and a history of oppression justify exclusion? This book shows how intersectional feminism is often underperformed and appropriated as a "woke" vocabulary by elite women who are unwilling to do the necessary emotional work around their privilege. As Trans Women, Femmes, Women of Color, Queer Women, Gender Variant, and Gender Non-Conforming scholars emerge, the heteronormative, cisgender, colonial idea of women and the feminine is rapidly under attack. The contributors believe that to engage in the necessary conversations about the oppressed performing oppression is to disrupt the exclusionary basis of monolithic understandings of the feminine. Only then can we advance the coalition needed to forge a multiracial, multicultural, queer-led, anti-imperialist feminism.
Aquatic Habitats in Sustainable Urban Water Management: Urban Water Series - UNESCO-IHP
by Iwona Wagner; Jiri Marsalek; Pascal BreilAquatic habitats supply a wide range of vital ecosystem benefits to cities and their inhabitants. The unsustainable use of aquatic habitats, including inadequate urban water management itself, however, tends to alter and reduce their biodiversity and therewith diminish their ability to provide clean water, protect us from waterborne diseases and po
Visualization Analysis and Design (Ak Peters Visualization Ser.)
by Tamara MunznerLearn How to Design Effective Visualization SystemsVisualization Analysis and Design provides a systematic, comprehensive framework for thinking about visualization in terms of principles and design choices. The book features a unified approach encompassing information visualization techniques for abstract data, scientific visualization techniques
Data Visualization: Principles and Practice, Second Edition
by Alexandru C. TeleaDesigning a complete visualization system involves many subtle decisions. When designing a complex, real-world visualization system, such decisions involve many types of constraints, such as performance, platform (in)dependence, available programming languages and styles, user-interface toolkits, input/output data format constraints, integration wi
DOE Simplified: Practical Tools for Effective Experimentation, Third Edition
by Mark J. Anderson Patrick J. WhitcombOffering a planned approach for determining cause and effect, DOE Simplified: Practical Tools for Effective Experimentation, Third Edition integrates the authors decades of combined experience in providing training, consulting, and computational tools to industrial experimenters. Supplying readers with the statistical means to analyze how numerous variables interact, it is ideal for those seeking breakthroughs in product quality and process efficiency via systematic experimentation.Following in the footsteps of its bestselling predecessors, this edition incorporates a lively approach to learning the fundamentals of the design of experiments (DOE). It lightens up the inherently dry complexities with interesting sidebars and amusing anecdotes.The book explains simple methods for collecting and displaying data and presents comparative experiments for testing hypotheses. Discussing how to block the sources of variation from your analysis, it looks at two-level factorial designs and covers analysis of variance. It also details a four-step planning process for designing and executing experiments that takes statistical power into consideration.This edition includes a major revision of the software that accompanies the book (via download) and sets the stage for introducing experiment designs where the randomization of one or more hard-to-change factors can be restricted. Along these lines, it includes a new chapter on split plots and adds coverage of a number of recent developments in the design and analysis of experiments.Readers have access to case studies, problems, practice experiments, a glossary of terms, and a glossary of statistical symbols, as well as a series of dynamic online lectures that cover the first several chapters of the book.
Fundamentals of User-Centered Design: A Practical Approach
by Brian Still Kate CraneThere has been some solid work done in the area of User-Centered Design (UCD) over the last few years. What’s been missing is an in-depth, comprehensive textbook that connects UCD to usability and User Experience (UX) principles and practices. This new textbook discusses a theoretical framework in relation to other design theories. It provides a repeatable, practical process for implementation, offering numerous examples, methods, and case studies for support, and it emphasizes best practices in specific environments, including mobile and web applications, print products, as well as hardware.
Human-Computer Interface Technologies for the Motor Impaired (Rehabilitation Science In Practice Ser.)
by Dinesh K. Kumar Sridhar Poosapadi ArjunanHuman Computer Interface Technologies for the Motor Impaired examines both the technical and social aspects of human computer interface (HCI). Written by world-class academic experts committed to improving HCI technologies for people with disabilities, this all-inclusive book explores the latest research, and offers insight into the current limitat
Bringing Value to Healthcare: Practical Steps for Getting to a Market-Based Model
by Rita E. Numerof Michael AbramsIn Bringing Value to Healthcare: Practical Steps for Getting to a Market-Based Model, Rita Numerof and Michael Abrams lay out the roadmap to a healthcare system that is accountable for delivering optimal patient outcomes at a sustainable cost. This is the handbook for payer, provider, pharmaceutical, and medical device executives seeking to preserve today‘s profitability while positioning their organizations for success in the very different markets of tomorrow. The book‘s guidance is illuminated by case studies and each chapter concludes with a self-assessment tool and key questions.
Modern Statistics for the Social and Behavioral Sciences: A Practical Introduction (Second Edition)
by Rand Wilcox<p>Requiring no prior training, Modern Statistics for the Social and Behavioral Sciences provides a two-semester, graduate-level introduction to basic statistical techniques that takes into account recent advances and insights that are typically ignored in an introductory course. <p>Hundreds of journal articles make it clear that basic techniques, routinely taught and used, can perform poorly when dealing with skewed distributions, outliers, heteroscedasticity (unequal variances) and curvature. Methods for dealing with these concerns have been derived and can provide a deeper, more accurate and more nuanced understanding of data. A conceptual basis is provided for understanding when and why standard methods can have poor power and yield misleading measures of effect size. Modern techniques for dealing with known concerns are described and illustrated. <p>Features: <p> <li>Presents an in-depth description of both classic and modern methods <li>Explains and illustrates why recent advances can provide more power and a deeper understanding of data <li>Provides numerous illustrations using the software R <li>Includes an R package with over 1300 functions <li>Includes a solution manual giving detailed answers to all of the exercises</li> <p> <p>This second edition describes many recent advances relevant to basic techniques. For example, a vast array of new and improved methods is now available for dealing with regression, including substantially improved ANCOVA techniques. The coverage of multiple comparison procedures has been expanded and new ANOVA techniques are described.</p>
Before You Know It: The Unconscious Reasons We Do What We Do
by John BarghDr. John Bargh, the world’s leading expert on the unconscious mind, presents a groundbreaking book, twenty years in the making, which gives us an entirely new understanding of the hidden mental processes that secretly govern every aspect of our behavior.For more than three decades, Dr. John Bargh has been responsible for the revolutionary research into the unconscious mind, research that informed bestsellers like Blink and Thinking Fast and Slow. Now, in what Dr. John Gottman said “will be the most important and exciting book in psychology that has been written in the past twenty years,” Dr. Bargh takes us on an entertaining and enlightening tour of the forces that affect everyday behavior while transforming our understanding of ourselves in profound ways. Telling personal anecdotes with infectious enthusiasm and disclosing startling and delightful discoveries, Dr. Bargh takes the reader into his labs at New York University and Yale where he and his colleagues have discovered how the unconscious guides our behavior, goals, and motivations in areas like race relations, parenting, business, consumer behavior, and addiction. He reveals what science now knows about the pervasive influence of the unconscious mind in who we choose to date or vote for, what we buy, where we live, how we perform on tests and in job interviews, and much more. Because the unconscious works in ways we are completely unaware of, Before You Know It is full of surprising and entertaining revelations as well as tricks to help you remember to-do items, shop smarter, and sleep better. Destined to be a bestseller, Before You Know It is an intimate introduction to a fabulous world only recently discovered, the world that exists below the surface of your awareness and yet is the key to knowing yourself and unlocking new ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving.
Janesville: An American Story
by Amy Goldstein* Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year * Winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize * 800-CEO-READ Business Book of the Year * A New York Times Notable Book * A Washington Post Notable Book * An NPR Best Book of 2017 * A Wall Street Journal Best Book of 2017 * An Economist Best Book of 2017 * A Business Insider Best Book of 2017 * &“A gripping story of psychological defeat and resilience&” (Bob Woodward, The Washington Post)—an intimate account of the fallout from the closing of a General Motors assembly plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, and a larger story of the hollowing of the American middle class.This is the story of what happens to an industrial town in the American heartland when its main factory shuts down—but it&’s not the familiar tale. Most observers record the immediate shock of vanished jobs, but few stay around long enough to notice what happens next when a community with a can-do spirit tries to pick itself up. Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Amy Goldstein spent years immersed in Janesville, Wisconsin, where the nation&’s oldest operating General Motors assembly plant shut down in the midst of the Great Recession. Now, with intelligence, sympathy, and insight into what connects and divides people in an era of economic upheaval, Goldstein shows the consequences of one of America&’s biggest political issues. Her reporting takes the reader deep into the lives of autoworkers, educators, bankers, politicians, and job re-trainers to show why it&’s so hard in the twenty-first century to recreate a healthy, prosperous working class. &“Moving and magnificently well-researched...Janesville joins a growing family of books about the evisceration of the working class in the United States. What sets it apart is the sophistication of its storytelling and analysis&” (Jennifer Senior, The New York Times). &“Anyone tempted to generalize about the American working class ought to meet the people in Janesville. The reporting behind this book is extraordinary and the story—a stark, heartbreaking reminder that political ideologies have real consequences—is told with rare sympathy and insight&” (Tracy Kidder, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Soul of a New Machine).
Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade
by Robert CialdiniThe author of the legendary bestseller Influence, social psychologist Robert Cialdini shines a light on effective persuasion and reveals that the secret doesn't lie in the message itself, but in the key moment before that message is delivered.What separates effective communicators from truly successful persuaders? Using the same combination of rigorous scientific research and accessibility that made his Influence an iconic bestseller, Robert Cialdini explains how to capitalize on the essential window of time before you deliver an important message. This "privileged moment for change" prepares people to be receptive to a message before they experience it. Optimal persuasion is achieved only through optimal pre-suasion. In other words, to change "minds" a pre-suader must also change "states of mind." His first solo work in over thirty years, Cialdini's Pre-Suasion draws on his extensive experience as the most cited social psychologist of our time and explains the techniques a person should implement to become a master persuader. Altering a listener's attitudes, beliefs, or experiences isn't necessary, says Cialdini--all that's required is for a communicator to redirect the audience's focus of attention before a relevant action. From studies on advertising imagery to treating opiate addiction, from the annual letters of Berkshire Hathaway to the annals of history, Cialdini draws on an array of studies and narratives to outline the specific techniques you can use on online marketing campaigns and even effective wartime propaganda. He illustrates how the artful diversion of attention leads to successful pre-suasion and gets your targeted audience primed and ready to say, "Yes."
The Rough Patch: Marriage and the Art of Living Together
by Daphne de Marneffe&“Anyone grappling with the bewilderment of midlife…will be at once provoked and comforted by this enormously wise book&” (Dani Shapiro, New York Times bestselling author of Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage), from a psychologist who has worked for decades with people struggling to preserve and enhance their marriages and long-term relationships.People today are trying to make their marriages work over longer lives than ever before. But staying married isn&’t always easy. In the brilliant, transformative, and optimistic The Rough Patch, clinical psychologist Daphne de Marneffe explores the extraordinary pushes and pulls of midlife marriage, where our need to develop as individuals can crash headlong into the demands of our relationships. &“A book of good intentions and helpful advice and a worthy manual for spouses&” (Kirkus Reviews), The Rough Patch addresses common problems: money, alcohol and drugs, the stresses of parenthood, sex, extramarital affairs, lovesickness, health, aging, children leaving home, and dealing with elderly parents. Then, de Marneffe offers seasoned wisdom on these difficulties, explaining the psychological, emotional, and relational capacities we must cultivate to overcome them as individuals and as couples. Blending research, interviews, and clinical experience, de Marneffe dives deep into the workings of love and the structures of relationships. Intimate and always illuminating, The Rough Patch is an essential, compassionate resource for people trying to understand &“where they are&” on the continuum of marriage, giving them a chance to share in other people&’s stories and struggles. &“De Marneffe writes with poetry, wit, and compassion about the necessity of struggle in the quest for true love. Anyone in any relationship at any stage of life could stand to learn from the wisdom in these pages&” (Andrew Solomon, National Book Award-winning author of Far from the Tree).
Norwich: One Tiny Vermont Town's Secret to Happiness and Excellence
by Karen CrouseThe extraordinary story of the small Vermont town that has likely produced more Olympians per capita than any other place in the country—and whose citizens provide a model for achieving excellence while leading a well-rounded life.Norwich, a charming Vermont town of roughly three thousand residents, has sent an athlete to almost every Winter Olympics for the past thirty years—and three times that athlete has returned with a medal. How does Norwich do it? To answer this question, New York Times reporter Karen Crouse moved to Vermont, immersing herself in the lives of Norwich Olympians past and present. There, amidst the organic farms and clapboard colonial buildings, she discovered a culture that’s the opposite of the hypercompetitive schoolyard of today’s tiger moms and eagle dads. In Norwich, kids aren’t cut from teams. They don’t specialize in a single sport, and they even root for their rivals. What’s more, their hands-off parents encourage them to simply enjoy themselves. Making it to the Olympics is seen not as the pinnacle of an athlete’s career but as a fun stop on the way to achieving other, longer-lasting dreams. Norwich, Crouse realized, wasn’t just raising better athletes than the rest of America; it was raising happier, healthier kids. Full of inspiring stories of Olympians who excelled on and off the sports field—and had a blast doing so—Norwich is the book for every parent who wants to raise kids to be levelheaded, fulfilled, and successful.
Payoff: The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivations (TED Books)
by Dan ArielyBestselling author Dan Ariely reveals fascinating new insights into motivation--showing that the subject is far more complex than we ever imagined.Every day we work hard to motivate ourselves, the people we live with, the people who work for and do business with us. In this way, much of what we do can be defined as being "motivators." From the boardroom to the living room, our role as motivators is complex, and the more we try to motivate partners and children, friends and coworkers, the clearer it becomes that the story of motivation is far more intricate and fascinating than we've assumed. Payoff investigates the true nature of motivation, our partial blindness to the way it works, and how we can bridge this gap. With studies that range from Intel to a kindergarten classroom, Ariely digs deep to find the root of motivation--how it works and how we can use this knowledge to approach important choices in our own lives. Along the way, he explores intriguing questions such as: Can giving employees bonuses harm productivity? Why is trust so crucial for successful motivation? What are our misconceptions about how to value our work? How does your sense of your mortality impact your motivation?
Cracking the Cube: Going Slow to Go Fast and Other Unexpected Turns in the World of Competitive Rubik's Cube Solving
by Ian SchefflerA journalist and aspiring "speedcuber" attempts to break into the international phenomenon of speedsolving the Rubik's Cube--think chess played at the speed of Ping-Pong--while exploring the Cube's rise to iconic status around the globe and the lessons that can be learned through solving it.When Hungarian professor Ernő Rubik invented the Rubik's Cube (or, rather, his Cube) in the 1970s out of wooden blocks, rubber bands, and paper clips, he didn't even know if it could be solved, let alone that it would become the world's most popular puzzle. Since its creation, the Cube has become many things to many people: one of the bestselling children's toys of all time, a symbol of intellectual prowess, a frustrating puzzle with 43.2 quintillion possible permutations, and now a worldwide sporting phenomenon that is introducing the classic brainteaser to a new generation. In Cracking the Cube, Ian Scheffler reveals that cubing isn't just fun and games. Along with participating in speedcubing competitions--from the World Championship to local tournaments--and interviewing key figures from the Cube's history, he journeys to Budapest to seek a meeting with the legendary and notoriously reclusive Rubik, who is still tinkering away with puzzles in his seventies. Getting sucked into the competitive circuit himself, Scheffler becomes engrossed in solving Rubik's Cube in under twenty seconds, the quasi-mystical barrier known as "sub-20," which is to cubing what four minutes is to the mile: the difference between the best and everyone else. For Scheffler, the road to sub-20 is not just about memorizing algorithms or even solving the Rubik's Cube. As he learns from the many gurus who cross his path, from pint-sized kids to engineering professors, it's about learning to solve yourself.
My Father Before Me: A Memoir
by Chris ForhanAn award-winning poet offers a multi-generational portrait of an American family--weaving together the lives of his ancestors, his parents, and his own coming of age in the 60s and 70s in the wake of his father's suicide, in this superbly written, "fiercely honest" (Nick Flynn) memoir.The fifth of eight children, Chris Forhan was born into a family of silence. He and his siblings learned, without being told, that certain thoughts and feelings were not to be shared. On the evenings his father didn't come home, the rest of the family would eat dinner without him, his whereabouts unknown, his absence pronounced but not mentioned. And on a cold night in 1973, just before Christmas, Forhan's father killed himself in the carport. Forty years later, Forhan "bravely considers the way he is and is not his father's son" (Larry Watson), digging into his family's past and finding within each generation the same abandonment, loss, and silence in which he was raised. Like Ian Frazier in Family or Frank McCourt in Angela's Ashes, Forhan shows his family members as both a part and a product of their time. My Father Before Me is a family history, an investigation into a death, and a stirring portrait of growing up in an Irish Catholic childhood, all set against a backdrop of America from the Great Depression to the Ramones. Marrying the literary scope of memoirists Geoffrey Wolff and J.R. Moehringer with the intensity of family novels like The Corrections and We Are Not Ourselves, My Father Before Me is the kind of epic, immersive memoir that comes along once in a decade.
Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family
by Mitchell JacksonAn electrifying, dazzlingly written reckoning and an essential addition to the national conversation about race and class, Survival Math takes its name from the calculations award-winning author Mitchell S. Jackson made to survive the Portland, Oregon of his youth. <P><P>This dynamic book explores gangs and guns, near-death experiences, sex work, masculinity, composite fathers, the concept of “hustle,” and the destructive power of addiction—all framed within the story of Jackson, his family, and his community. Lauded for its breathtaking pace, its tender portrayals, its stark candor, and its luminous style, Survival Math reveals on every page the searching intellect and originality of its author. <P><P>The primary narrative, focused on understanding the antecedents of Jackson’s family’s experience, is complemented by poems composed from historical American documents as well as survivor files, which feature photographs and riveting short narratives of several of Jackson’s male relatives. <P><P>The sum of Survival Math’s parts is a highly original whole, one that reflects on the exigencies—over generations—that have shaped the lives of so many disenfranchised Americans. As essential as it is beautiful, as real as it is artful, Mitchell S. Jackson’s nonfiction debut is a singular achievement, not to be missed.
Your Best Health Care Now: Get Doctor Discounts, Save With Better Health Insurance, Find Affordable Prescriptions
by Frank LalliInspired by his viral New York Times article, prize-winning investigative journalist Frank Lalli details how he mastered the ins and outs of health care--and how you, too, can get the best care for your money.Frank Lalli, the former editor of Money and George magazines, has devoted his career to getting to the bottom of a good story. When he was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, a rare but potentially deadly blood cancer, he put his reporter's instincts to work and got the wonder drug he needed at an affordable price--thousands of dollars less than he was told he would have to spend. Amazed by the complex and arbitrary nature of the health care system, he decided to share what he has learned as his own Health Care Detective so that others can find their best care and save money, too. Based on three years of research and more than 300 first-hand interviews with experts, Your Best Health Care Now is your easy-to-follow, real-world guide to making today's health system work for you. You'll learn all the smart moves and timely tips to get better care and save hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars--no matter what your concerns may be. Whether you're trying to book a free check-up or negotiate with a surgeon, looking for an effective generic drug or the best price for a brand-name, or worrying about high insurance deductibles and rising premiums or a stack of surprise bills, Your Best Health Care Now has the answers you need to take charge of your wellbeing.
Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth
by Sarah SmarshLonglisted for the National Book Award for Nonfiction An eye-opening memoir of working-class poverty in the American Midwest. <P><P>During Sarah Smarsh’s turbulent childhood in Kansas in the 1980s and 1990s, the forces of cyclical poverty and the country’s changing economic policies solidified her family’s place among the working poor. By telling the story of her life and the lives of the people she loves, Smarsh challenges us to look more closely at the class divide in our country and examine the myths about people thought to be less because they earn less. <P><P>Her personal history affirms the corrosive impact intergenerational poverty can have on individuals, families, and communities, and she explores this idea as lived experience, metaphor, and level of consciousness. <P><P>Smarsh was born a fifth generation Kansas wheat farmer on her paternal side and the product of generations of teen mothers on her maternal side. Through her experiences growing up as the daughter of a dissatisfied young mother and raised predominantly by her grandmother on a farm thirty miles west of Wichita, we are given a unique and essential look into the lives of poor and working class Americans living in the heartland. <P><P>Combining memoir with powerful analysis and cultural commentary, Heartland is an uncompromising look at class, identity, and the particular perils of having less in a country known for its excess. <P><b>A New York Times Bestseller</b>
The Catholic Ethic And The Spirit Of Capitalism
by Michael Novak Jana NovakThe Catholic Church has, for generations, been reluctant to come to terms with capitalism. Novak argues that a 100-year debate within the Catholic Church has yielded a richer and more humane vision of capitalism than that described in Weber's Protestant Ethic.
The Sentient Machine: The Coming Age of Artificial Intelligence
by Amir Husain&“A must-read for anyone looking to understand how artificial intelligence is poised to transform human society and life.&” —Paul Scharre, Author of Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial IntelligenceThe future is now. Acclaimed technologist and inventor Amir Husain explains how we can live amidst the coming age of sentient machines and artificial intelligence—and not only survive, but thrive.Artificial &“machine&” intelligence is playing an ever-greater role in our society. We are already using cruise control in our cars, automatic checkout at the drugstore, and are unable to live without our smartphones. The discussion around AI is polarized; people think either machines will solve all problems for everyone, or they will lead us down a dark, dystopian path into total human irrelevance. Regardless of what you believe, the idea that we might bring forth intelligent creation can be intrinsically frightening. But what if our greatest role as humans so far is that of creators?Amir Husain, a brilliant inventor and computer scientist, argues that we are on the cusp of writing our next, and greatest, creation myth. It is the dawn of a new form of intellectual diversity, one that we need to embrace in order to advance the state of the art in many critical fields, including security, resource management, finance, and energy. &“In The Sentient Machine, Husain prepares us for a brighter future; not with hyperbole about right and wrong, but with serious arguments about risk and potential&” (Dr. Greg Hyslop, Chief Technology Officer, The Boeing Company). He addresses broad existential questions surrounding the coming of AI: Why are we valuable? What can we create in this world? How are we intelligent? What constitutes progress for us? And how might we fail to progress? Husain boils down complex computer science and AI concepts into clear, plainspoken language and draws from a wide variety of cultural and historical references to illustrate his points. Ultimately, Husain challenges many of our societal norms and upends assumptions we hold about &“the good life.&”
The McDavid Effect: Connor McDavid and the New Hope for Hockey
by Marty KlinkenbergStep into the streets, arenas, coffee shops, and offices of Edmonton, and witness how the arrival of a teenage hockey phenomenon is changing the city's fortunes.Once known as the City of Champions, Edmonton is at a crossroads. As oil prices continue to plummet, the economic outlook grows bleaker by the day. Political changes have ushered in an era of uncertainty. And, as though mirroring the city's fortunes, the Edmonton Oilers continue to struggle on the ice, offering little solace or escape to the city's long-suffering hockey fans. But on June 26, 2015, hope was reborn in Edmonton. With the first overall pick in the NHL Entry Draft, the Edmonton Oilers selected Connor McDavid, a once-in-a-generation talent who, at only eighteen years old, was already being compared to the Great One who had preceded him twenty-five years earlier. Sparked by the arrival of McDavid, the construction of a new state-of-the-art hockey arena, and the development of a revitalized downtown core, a new sensibility began to emerge in Edmonton. Sensing an opportunity, the city started to rebuild and rebrand itself in search of a new future. Through exclusive access, uplifting anecdotes, and colourful interviews, The McDavid Effect traces the renewal of not just a hockey team, but of an entire city. Reflecting the multitude of viewpoints that make up Edmonton--from Connor himself to construction crews at work on the downtown development to business executives directing the new shape of the Albertan capital--The McDavid Effect paints a portrait of the city as it is being reimagined, captures the near-religious reverence people have for sports, and shows how the people of Edmonton are coming to hope again.
Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: Tight and Loose Cultures and the Secret Signals that Direct Our Lives
by Michele GelfandA celebrated social psychologist offers a radical new perspective on cultural differences that reveals why some countries, cultures, and individuals take rules more seriously and how following the rules influences the way we think and act.In Rule Makers, Rule Breakers, Michele Gelfand, &“an engaging writer with intellectual range&” (TheNew York Times Book Review), takes us on an epic journey through human cultures, offering a startling new view of the world and ourselves. With a mix of brilliantly conceived studies and surprising on-the-ground discoveries, she shows that much of the diversity in the way we think and act derives from a key difference—how tightly or loosely we adhere to social norms. Just as DNA affects everything from eye color to height, our tight-loose social coding influences much of what we do. Why are clocks in Germany so accurate while those in Brazil are frequently wrong? Why do New Zealand&’s women have the highest number of sexual partners? Why are red and blue states really so divided? Why was the Daimler-Chrysler merger ill-fated from the start? Why is the driver of a Jaguar more likely to run a red light than the driver of a plumber&’s van? Why does one spouse prize running a tight ship while the other refuses to sweat the small stuff? In search of a common answer, Gelfand spent two decades conducting research in more than fifty countries. Across all age groups, family variations, social classes, businesses, states, and nationalities, she has identified a primal pattern that can trigger cooperation or conflict. Her fascinating conclusion: behavior is highly influenced by the perception of threat. &“A useful and engaging take on human behavior&” (Kirkus Reviews) with an approach that is consistently riveting, Rule Makers, Ruler Breakers thrusts many of the puzzling attitudes and actions we observe into sudden and surprising clarity.