Polity press aug 2010 (19 Ergebnisse)

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - We spend more time shopping than doing anything else, after sleep and work. So why is it not taken more seriously The answer: we take shopping for granted. Indeed, culture can only 'work' by being taken for granted. This paradox - that what is most familiar, like shopping, is also the hardest to 'see' analytically - provides the starting point for this compelling examination of the many dimensions of the shopping experience. Shopping enables readers to realize the significance of their shopping memories and milestones, how the rhythm of the day or week revolves as much around shop opening hours as working hours or bus times, and why Mayor Giuliani was right after 9/11 to tell Americans to keep on shopping. From an exciting cultural perspective, Jenny Shaw explores how shopping is viewed, the history behind its 'fall from grace', its part in the common culture, its role in helping us craft new identities, hold on to old ones, adjust to change, and generally 'hold us together' both as individuals and communities. Students of sociology, anthropology, social psychology, media and business studies interested in culture and the everyday world will be gripped by this engaging and accessible guide to the meaning behind what the ordinary shopper actually does and why shopping remains so popular despite social and cultural changes.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - This book, by a renowned and distinguished historian, is an arresting account of the role that resentment has played throughout history, from Antiquity and early Christianity through to the present day.At the origin of resentment we always find an injury, an act of humiliation, an affront, a trauma. Those who feel victimized cannot react because they are powerless. They brood on their desire for revenge, which they cannot satisfy but which constantly nags at them. Until finally they explode with anger. This period of waiting may also be accompanied by a repudiation of the oppressor's values and a rehabilitation of the victim's own values, and this gives the oppressed new strength, fuelling the act of revolt or revenge.Ferro effortlessly weaves together historical examples such as the role played by resentment in the French and Russian revolutions, the resentment against the historical suffering of African Americans thatunderpinned the Civil Rights movement and the rise of black power, and the revival of resentment by proponents of radical Islam whose violent acts of terror in New York, London and elsewhere have shaken the world.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Many families leave their children for years to be looked after by young people about whom they know next to nothing, from places they have barely heard of. Who are these au pairs, why do they come and what is their experience of this arrangement Do they, for their part, find that they are treated as one of the family, and would they even want to be After a year of careful research, this book shows how most of our assumptions and expectations about au pairs are wrong.This is the first book devoted to the lives of au pairs, their leisure as well as their work time. We see this world from the eyes of the visitors, and their unique perspective on what lies at the heart of our family life. The book does not flinch from documenting the realities of the situation the racism and the problematic behaviour of the au pairs themselves, as much as the ignorance and exploitation they can be subject to. The book is a case study in how to come to feel modern life empathetically from the viewpoint of one of those many migrant groups we take for granted and rely on but rarely try to understand.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - For a long time, France and its culture have been one and the same. The greatness of the former added to the influence of the latter, and vice versa. French writers, artists and philosophers were at the centre of the world's attention and enjoyed unparalleled prestige. Of this past glory, all that is left today is navel-gazing, nostalgia, and timidity. This was the disabused verdict reached by Donald Morrison, an American in Paris, at the conclusion his inquiry into the place of French culture in the world. The creativity of its artists may be undeniable, but the influence (ghostlike) and the importance (derisory) of France in cultural exchanges both go to show that French culture no longer speaks to the world. This decline ultimately suits the French national mentality, inclined as it is to lamentation and sorrow. When Morrison originally published this piercing verdict on contemporary French culture in Time magazine in November 2007, it caused a sensation. Morrison was pilloried by the French press and attacked in countless newspapers, magazines and blogs. Morrison's article gave rise to an extended interrogation of French culture by admirers and critics alike. Undeterred by the controversy, Morrison has returned to his original article to see how well his central arguments hold up in the light of the criticisms levelled at him. This new and updated version of his controversial text is accompanied by a thoughtful reply by Antoine Compagnon, who highlights a certain ambivalence within French culture, still capable of achieving the best but seemingly paralysed by its preoccupation with its own grandeur. This important exchange between Morrison and Compagnon will be of great interest to anyone concerned with French culture and its legacy in the world today.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - This book offers a clear and highly readable introduction to the ethical and social-political philosophy of John Stuart Mill. Dale E. Miller argues for a 'utopian' reading of Mill's utilitarianism. He analyses Mill's views on happiness and goes on to show the practical, social and political implications that can be drawn from his utilitarianism, especially in relation to the construction of morality, individual freedom, democratic reform, and economic organization. By highlighting the utopian thinking which lies at the heart of Mill's theories, Miller shows that rather than allowing for well-being for the few, Mill believed that a society must do everything in its power to see to it that each individual can enjoy a genuinely happy life if the happiness of its members is to be maximized. Miller provides a cogent and careful account of the main arguments offered by Mill, considers the critical responses to his work, and assesses its legacy for contemporary philosophy. Lucidly and persuasively written, this book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars seeking to understand the continued importance of Mill's thinking.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Online technologies excite the public imagination with narratives of democratization. The Internet is a political medium, borne of democracy, but is it democratizing Late modern democracies are characterized by civic apathy, public skepticism, disillusionment with politics, and general disinterest in conventional political process. And yet, public interest in blogging, online news, net-based activism, collaborative news filtering, and online networking reveal an electorate that is not disinterested, but rather, fatigued with political conventions of the mainstream.This book examines how online digital media shape and are shaped by contemporary democracies, by addressing the following issues:\* How do online technologies remake how we function as citizens in contemporary democracies \* What happens to our understanding of public and private as digitalized democracies converge technologies, spaces and practices \* How do citizens of today understand and practice their civic responsibilities, and how do they compare to citizens of the past \* How do discourses of globalization, commercialization and convergence inform audience/producer, citizen/consumer, personal/political, public/private roles individuals must take on \* Are resulting political behaviors atomized or collective \* Is there a public sphere anymore, and if not, what model of civic engagement expresses current tendencies and tensions best Students and scholars of media studies, political science, and critical theory will find this to be a fresh engagement with some of the most important questions facing democracies today.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - This book is a wide-ranging analysis of the nature of economic planning in both capitalist and statist societies. It seeks to establish an alternative to market forces as a means of coordinating decentralized economic decisions. Devine begins with an analysis of the theory and practice of capitalist planning, central planning and 'market socialism'. He argues that, while market socialism iscurrently favoured by many economists who reject both capitalism and the command planning of the Soviet model, it cannot fulfil the promises held out for it. In the remainder of the book Devine elaborates an alternative model based on the novel idea of 'negotiated coordination'. The model combines system-wide with decentralized decision-making, recognizes the existence of differences of interest and incorporates a transformative dynamic in which individuals modify their attitudes in the light of the positions of others. The model offers a detailed account of how economic activity could be organised in a self-governing society. Democracy and Economic Planning will be of interest to students of economics, politics, sociology, and geography, as well as to a more general audience concerned with the nature of, and prospects for, socialism and democracy - life after capitalism.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Reading the Bible as Literature provides the ideal entry-point to the process of reading, understanding, and assessing what many recognize to be the important and powerful literature of the Bible. Such reading holds potential for helping students understand literature generally and the Bible in itself. The book introduces the tools of literary analysis, including: language and style, the formal structures of genre (narrative, drama, and poetry), character study, and thematic analysis. The overall organizational structure of the book proceeds incrementally from basic literary elements to higher units of form. Each chapter includes an outline, preliminary considerations that provide background and insight into scholarly debates, and an explanation of the literary qualities of the primary text through specific examples, exercises, and directions for further study. The book emphasizes the act of reading itself, focusing upon the whole text as it exists in its current form. It invites an experiential entering into and reliving of the Bible's stories, encourages analytical and holistic reading, explores multiple interpretations, and embraces a power of language originating in the mythological, metaphorical, and symbolic. Above all, the book seeks to return the Bible to the common reader and to build in that reader an appreciation for a collection of ancient, literary texts often trivialized by competing theologies or marginalized by a relentless insistence upon fact, science, and history.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - The trinity of government, military and publics has been drawn together into immediate and unpredictable relationships in a 'new media ecology' that has ushered in new asymmetries in the waging of war and terror. To help us understand these new relationships, Andrew Hoskins and Ben O'Loughlin here provide a timely, comprehensive and highly readable survey of the field of war and media. War is diffused through a complex mesh of our everyday media. Paradoxically, this both facilitates and contains the presence and power of enemies near and far. The conventions of so-called traditional warfare have been splintered by the availability and connectivity of the principal locus of war today: the electronic and digital media. Hoskins and O'Loughlin identify and illuminate the conditions of what they term 'diffused war' and the new challenges it raises for the actors who wage and counter warfare, for their agents and mechanisms of the new media and for mass publics. This book offers an invaluable review of the key literature and presents a fresh approach to the understanding of the dynamic relationships between war and media. It will be welcomed by a broad range of students taking courses on war and media and related modules, especially in media, communication and cultural studies, politics and international relations, sociology, journalism, and security studies. …

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Zero's Neighbour is Hélène Cixous's tribute to the minimalist genius of the artist in exile who courted nothingness in his writing like nobody else: Samuel Beckett. In this unabashedly personal odyssey through a sizeable range of his novels, plays and poems, Cixous celebrates Beckett's linguistic flair and the poignant, powerful thrust of his stylistic terseness, and passionately declares her love for his unrivalled expression of the meaningless 'precious little' of life, its unfathomable banality ending in chaos and death. Poised between a critical essay and a textual performance across two languages adapting Beckett's own literary vein, this book will appeal to scholars, critics and creative writers as well as students of the 'grey self-Sam'. Its allusive intertextual insights will also prove to be of critical relevance to readers of Dante and Proust, among other literary figures, as much as to those appreciative of Cixous's own inimitable genius for dissecting the quintessence of the life and works of a 'neighbourly' artist.…

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - For a long time, France and its culture have been one and the same. The greatness of the former added to the influence of the latter, and vice versa. French writers, artists and philosophers were at the centre of the world's attention and enjoyed unparalleled prestige. Of this past glory, all that is left today is navel-gazing, nostalgia, and timidity. This was the disabused verdict reached by Donald Morrison, an American in Paris, at the conclusion his inquiry into the place of French culture in the world. The creativity of its artists may be undeniable, but the influence (ghostlike) and the importance (derisory) of France in cultural exchanges both go to show that French culture no longer speaks to the world. This decline ultimately suits the French national mentality, inclined as it is to lamentation and sorrow. When Morrison originally published this piercing verdict on contemporary French culture in Time magazine in November 2007, it caused a sensation. Morrison was pilloried by the French press and attacked in countless newspapers, magazines and blogs. Morrison's article gave rise to an extended interrogation of French culture by admirers and critics alike. Undeterred by the controversy, Morrison has returned to his original article to see how well his central arguments hold up in the light of the criticisms levelled at him. This new and updated version of his controversial text is accompanied by a thoughtful reply by Antoine Compagnon, who highlights a certain ambivalence within French culture, still capable of achieving the best but seemingly paralysed by its preoccupation with its own grandeur. This important exchange between Morrison and Compagnon will be of great interest to anyone concerned with French culture and its legacy in the world today. …

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Many families leave their children for years to be looked after by young people about whom they know next to nothing, from places they have barely heard of. Who are these au pairs, why do they come and what is their experience of this arrangement Do they, for their part, find that they are treated as one of the family, and would they even want to be After a year of careful research, this book shows how most of our assumptions and expectations about au pairs are wrong. This is the first book devoted to the lives of au pairs, their leisure as well as their work time. We see this world from the eyes of the visitors, and their unique perspective on what lies at the heart of our family life. The book does not flinch from documenting the realities of the situation Ð the racism and the problematic behaviour of the au pairs themselves, as much as the ignorance and exploitation they can be subject to. The book is a case study in how to come to feel modern life empathetically from the viewpoint of one of those many migrant groups we take for granted and rely on but rarely try to understand.…

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - This book, by a renowned and distinguished historian, is an arresting account of the role that resentment has played throughout history, from Antiquity and early Christianity through to the present day.At the origin of resentment we always find an injury, an act of humiliation, an affront, a trauma. Those who feel victimized cannot react because they are powerless. They brood on their desire for revenge, which they cannot satisfy but which constantly nags at them. Until finally they explode with anger. This period of waiting may also be accompanied by a repudiation of the oppressor's values and a rehabilitation of the victim's own values, and this gives the oppressed new strength, fuelling the act of revolt or revenge.Ferro effortlessly weaves together historical examples such as the role played by resentment in the French and Russian revolutions, the resentment against the historical suffering of African Americans thatunderpinned the Civil Rights movement and the rise of black power, and the revival of resentment by proponents of radical Islam whose violent acts of terror in New York, London and elsewhere have shaken the world.…

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - We spend more time shopping than doing anything else, after sleep and work. So why is it not taken more seriously The answer: we take shopping for granted. Indeed, culture can only 'work' by being taken for granted. This paradox - that what is most familiar, like shopping, is also the hardest to 'see' analytically - provides the starting point for this compelling examination of the many dimensions of the shopping experience. Shopping enables readers to realize the significance of their shopping memories and milestones, how the rhythm of the day or week revolves as much around shop opening hours as working hours or bus times, and why Mayor Giuliani was right after 9/11 to tell Americans to keep on shopping. From an exciting cultural perspective, Jenny Shaw explores how shopping is viewed, the history behind its 'fall from grace', its part in the common culture, its role in helping us craft new identities, hold on to old ones, adjust to change, and generally 'hold us together' both as individuals and communities. Students of sociology, anthropology, social psychology, media and business studies interested in culture and the everyday world will be gripped by this engaging and accessible guide to the meaning behind what the ordinary shopper actually does and why shopping remains so popular despite social and cultural changes.…

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - What is Architectural History considers the questions and problems posed by architectural historians since the rise of the discipline in the late nineteenth century. How do historians of architecture organise past time and relate it to the present How does historical evidence translate into historical narrative Should architectural history be useful for practicing architects If so, how Leach treats the disciplinarity of architectural history as an open question, moving between three key approaches to historical knowledge of architecture: within art history, as an historical specialisation and, most prominently, within architecture. He suggests that the confusions around this question have been productive, ensuring a rich variety of approaches to the project of exploring architecture historically. Read alongside introductory surveys of western and global architectural history, this book will open up questions of perspective, frame, and intent for students of architecture, art history, and history. Graduate students and established architectural historians will find much in this book to fuel discussions over the current state of the field in which they work.…

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Globalization: Key Thinkers offers a critical commentary on the leading thinkers in the contemporary globalization debate, as well as new arguments about the future direction of globalization thinking. The book guides the reader through the key arguments of leading thinkers, explaining their place in the wider globalization debate and evaluating their critical reception. Eleven thematic chapters focus on one or two key thinkers covering every aspect of the globalization debate including the theoretical arguments of Anthony Giddens and Manuel Castells, to the positive arguments of Thomas Friedman and Martin Wolf and the reforming ideas of Joseph Stiglitz. Other chapters variously address the ideas of Immanuel Wallerstein, Arjun Appadurai, Paul Hirst, Naomi Klein, Grahame Thompson, David Held, Anthony McGrew, Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri, Saskia Sassen and Peter Dicken. Each chapter also provides some carefully selected recommendations for further reading for the thinkers discussed. The book ends with a concluding chapter that examines how thinking about globalization is likely to develop in future. Whilst individual chapters can stand alone, the book is designed as a whole to enhance the reader's understanding of how different thinkers' ideas relate and contrast to each other.…

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Reading the Bible as Literature provides the ideal entry-point to the process of reading, understanding, and assessing what many recognize to be the important and powerful literature of the Bible. Such reading holds potential for helping students understand literature generally and the Bible in itself. The book introduces the tools of literary analysis, including: language and style, the formal structures of genre (narrative, drama, and poetry), character study, and thematic analysis. The overall organizational structure of the book proceeds incrementally from basic literary elements to higher units of form. Each chapter includes an outline, preliminary considerations that provide background and insight into scholarly debates, and an explanation of the literary qualities of the primary text through specific examples, exercises, and directions for further study. The book emphasizes the act of reading itself, focusing upon the whole text as it exists in its current form. It invites an experiential entering into and reliving of the Bible's stories, encourages analytical and holistic reading, explores multiple interpretations, and embraces a power of language originating in the mythological, metaphorical, and symbolic. Above all, the book seeks to return the Bible to the common reader and to build in that reader an appreciation for a collection of ancient, literary texts often trivialized by competing theologies or marginalized by a relentless insistence upon fact, science, and history.…

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - This book offers a clear and highly readable introduction to the ethical and social-political philosophy of John Stuart Mill. Dale E. Miller argues for a 'utopian' reading of Mill's utilitarianism. He analyses Mill's views on happiness and goes on to show the practical, social and political implications that can be drawn from his utilitarianism, especially in relation to the construction of morality, individual freedom, democratic reform, and economic organization. By highlighting the utopian thinking which lies at the heart of Mill's theories, Miller shows that rather than allowing for well-being for the few, Mill believed that a society must do everything in its power to see to it that each individual can enjoy a genuinely happy life if the happiness of its members is to be maximized. Miller provides a cogent and careful account of the main arguments offered by Mill, considers the critical responses to his work, and assesses its legacy for contemporary philosophy. Lucidly and persuasively written, this book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars seeking to understand the continued importance of Mill's thinking. …

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - The trinity of government, military and publics has been drawn together into immediate and unpredictable relationships in a 'new media ecology' that has ushered in new asymmetries in the waging of war and terror. To help us understand these new relationships, Andrew Hoskins and Ben O'Loughlin here provide a timely, comprehensive and highly readable survey of the field of war and media. War is diffused through a complex mesh of our everyday media. Paradoxically, this both facilitates and contains the presence and power of enemies near and far. The conventions of so-called traditional warfare have been splintered by the availability and connectivity of the principal locus of war today: the electronic and digital media. Hoskins and O'Loughlin identify and illuminate the conditions of what they term 'diffused war' and the new challenges it raises for the actors who wage and counter warfare, for their agents and mechanisms of the new media and for mass publics. This book offers an invaluable review of the key literature and presents a fresh approach to the understanding of the dynamic relationships between war and media. It will be welcomed by a broad range of students taking courses on war and media and related modules, especially in media, communication and cultural studies, politics and international relations, sociology, journalism, and security studies.…