basic books apr 2012 (7 Ergebnisse)

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - In Freedom is Not Enough , award-winning historian James Patterson narrates the birth, life, and afterlife of the explosive Moynihan report, which altered the way we view race in America. In 1965, President Johnson was leading an optimistic nation toward progress, especially in regard to the civil rights movement, which had just achieved the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. But this momentum was quickly lost, in part due to the negative reception of Daniel Patrick Moynihan's Report on Black Family Life. Moynihan marshaled a formidable array of alarming statistics to paint a grim portrait of inner-city black family life, and argued that immediate national action was imperative if America hoped to prevent lower-class black families from crumbling. So pivotal was the Moynihan report that the past half-century of race relations cannot be fully comprehended without considering its role in predicting,yet falling short of averting,decades of failure. Freedom Is Not Enough provides invaluable new insight into this crucial moment in American history, showing how the Moynihan report represents one of the great missed opportunities in 20th century American history.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Ever wondered why there's no female voice as bold, erotic, unflinching, and revealing as Norman Mailer, Henry Miller, or Philip Roth There is. It belongs to Susie Bright. From fearful Irish Catholic Girl Scout to gun-toting teenage revolutionary , and finally the 'The Avatar of American Erotica' ( The New York Times ) , Bright's life story is shaped as much by America's sexual awakening as the national sexual landscape was altered by Bright herself. In Big Sex Little Death, Bright introduces us to her influences and experiences, including her early involvement with notorious high school radicals The Red Tide, as well as the magazine she cofounded in the 1980s, On Our Backs , which turned the lesbian and bisexual community upside down before it took the straight world by storm. Explosive yet intimate, Big Sex Little Death is pure Susie: bold, free-spirited, and unpredictable , larger than life, yet utterly true to life.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Found is Jennifer Lauck's sequel to her New York Times bestseller Blackbird: A Childhood Lost and Found. More than one woman's search for her biological parents, Found is a story of loss, adjustment, and survival. Lauck's investigation into her own troubled past leads her to research that shows the profound trauma undergone by infants when they're separated from their birth mothers,a finding that provides a framework for her writing as well as her life.Though Lauck's story is centreed around her search for her birth mother, it's also about her quest to overcome her displacement, her desire to please and fit in, and her lack of a sense of self,all issues she attributes to having been adopted, and also to having lost her adoptive parents at the early age of nine. Throughout her thirties and early forties, she tries to overcome her struggles by becoming a mother and by pursuing a spiritual path she hopes will lead to wholeness, but she discovers that the elusive peace she has been seeking can only come through investigating,and coming to terms with,her past. Found is a powerful story of belonging, connectedness, and personal truths, in which Lauck lays bare the experience of a woman searching for her identity. Her assertions about mother and child will be a comfort to some in the adoptive community, and distressing to others but her primary motive is to offer another perspective, and to give voice to the adoptive children who may be having trouble making sense of their own experience.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Most abusers display warning signs that intelligent women miss,mostly because the majority of women have not been trained to recognize them. In this ground-breaking book, Lynn Fairweather,an expert in the field of intimate partner violence response and prevention,provides women with the information they need to recognize dangerous men before they become victims of abuse. Educational and empowering, Stop Signs exposes the discernable attributes, tactics, and deterrents of abusers, arming women with the tools they need to choose a safe and loving partner. In the first section, Fairweather familiarizes readers with the topic of intimate partner violence and explains how to develop the combination of self-esteem, preparation, and assertive awareness that can protect women from involvement with abusive individuals in the second section, she explores the minds of abusers, explaining what visible signs of danger are present in their attitudes and actions and in the last section, she provides women with effective strategies for safe extraction should they find themselves involved with an abuser. A go-to manual for women everywhere, Stop Signs contains the life-saving information needed by anyone who is living with abuse, knows someone who is, or wishes to avoid becoming involved in a potentially life-threatening relationship.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - From the editor of Dirty Girls comes a new anthology of steamy stories for women who don't fit into a size zero,or two, or four,and the men and women who love them.In this voluptuously erotic collection, editor and best-selling author Rachel Kramer Bussel showcases the sensual side of having more to love,' from the sexiness of big butts and plus-size corsets to the irresistible allure of pregnant bellies. No aspect of full-figured female sexuality is left unexplored, whether heterosexual or same-sex, raunchy or romantic, femme or butch. Bussel also includes seductive stories featuring characters of varying ethnic and racial backgrounds, exploring how different cultures approach size and eroticism. From trysts between long-time partners to one-night stands, from vanilla encounters to kinky romps, Curvy Girls is an all-inclusive celebration of the sensuality of larger women,in all their curvy glory.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Throughout the world, closely related species are found on landmasses separated by wide stretches of ocean. What explains these far-flung distributions Why are such species found where they are across the Earth Since the discovery of plate tectonics, scientists have conjectured that plants and animals were scattered over the globe by riding pieces of ancient supercontinents as they broke up. In the past decade, however, that theory has foundered, as the genomic revolution has made reams of new data available. And the data has revealed an extraordinary, stranger-than-fiction story that has sparked a scientific upheaval.In The Monkey's Voyage , biologist Alan de Queiroz describes the radical new view of how fragmented distributions came into being: frogs and mammals rode on rafts and icebergs, tiny spiders drifted on storm winds, and plant seeds were carried in the plumage of sea-going birds to create the map of life we see today. In other words, these organisms were not simply constrained by continental fate they were the makers of their own geographic destiny. And as de Queiroz shows, the effects of oceanic dispersal have been crucial in generating the diversity of life on Earth, from monkeys and guinea pigs in South America to beech trees and kiwi birds in New Zealand. By toppling the idea that the slow process of continental drift is the main force behind the odd distributions of organisms, this theory highlights the dynamic and unpredictable nature of the history of life.In the tradition of John McPhee's Basin and Range , The Monkey's Voyage is a beautifully told narrative that strikingly reveals the importance of contingency in history and the nature of scientific discovery.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - What happens when we let robots play the game of life The challenge of studying evolution is that the history of life is buried in the past- we can't witness the dramatic events that shaped the adaptations we see today. But biorobotics expert John Long has found an ingenious way to overcome this problem: he creates robots that look and behave like extinct animals, subjects them to evolutionary pressures, lets them compete for mates and resources, and mutates their &lsquogenes'. In short, he lets robots play the game of life. In Darwin's Devices , Long tells the story of these evolving biorobots- how they came to be, and what they can teach us about the biology of living and extinct species. Evolving biorobots can replicate creatures that disappeared from the earth long ago, showing us in real time what happens in the face of unexpected environmental challenges. Biomechanically correct models of backbones functioning as part of an autonomous robot, for example, can help us understand why the first vertebrates evolved them. But the most impressive feature of these robots, as Long shows, is their ability to illustrate the power of evolution to solve difficult technological challenges autonomously- without human input regarding what a workable solution might be. Even a simple robot can create complex behaviour, often learning or evolving greater intelligence than humans could possibly program. This remarkable idea could forever alter the face of engineering, design, and even warfare. An amazing tour through the workings of a fertile mind, Darwin's Devices will make you rethink everything you thought you knew about evolution, robot intelligence, and life itself.