-Titulo Original : Grand Transitions: How The Modern World Was Made-Fabricante : Oxford University Press-Descripcion Original: Review Vaclav Smil is my favorite author. -- Bill Gates, GatesNotesHis book roams impressively around the globe and across five centuries as it asks big questions and searches for big answers. . . .His five-pack of grand transitions encompasses population, agriculture and diets, energy, economy, and environment. . . . anyone who hasnt read about these subjectssince graduation will be awestruck by the amount of research that has gone into these vaguely familiar stories. Smil pulls recent studies together, throws in a few of his own, offers interpretive twists, and fills his account with delicious nuggets of information. (This book actually got me introuble at home, as I kept asking my family, Did you know... about some gem of an anecdote.) -- Andre Schmid, Literary Review of CanadaNo one writes about the great issues of our time with more rigor or erudition than Vaclav Smil. Grand Transitions is at once sweeping, sobering, and profoundly informative. --Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction, winner of the Pulitzer Prize An expert portrait of spectacular technical and economic advances that many in the 21st century enjoy but which exclude large segments of the population and are creating problems that may or may not be solvable. Ingenious, insightful, and disturbing.--KirkusUnderpinned by mesmerizing data and deep analysis, Grand Transitions provides a clear and compelling framework for thinking about the future of energy, the environment, and the economy. A feast for anyone interested in the future of energy. A must read.--Atul Arya, Chief Energy Strategist, IHSMarkit Grand Transitions is the epitome of excellence in integrative systemic scientific analysis, anchored in a magisterial exploration of the main five transitions of mankind since civilizations emerged. And it provides a healthy antidote to the wishful thinking so prevalent today. Decision makers andthe public should educate themselves with this authoritative evaluation, which will shape their decisions on how to ensure a harmonious, sustainable future for all.--Didier Sornette, Professor of Entrepreneurial Risks and Finance, ETH Zurich For a generation, polymath Vaclav Smil has expounded on the big patterns in energy, food, and other means through which humans have transformed their environment. In Grand Transitions he has zoomed out even further to paint a picture of how the pieces fit together and to explain how the modernworld works. In elegant prose with relentless attention to fact and reality-rare these days-he has written a masterpiece that forces you to think, disagree, wonder, and grapple with the accomplishments and challenges of todays industrial society.--David G. Victor, Professor of InternationalRelations, University of California, San DiegoIn Grand Transitions, Vaclav Smil reminds us of the fundamental point that the economy cannot be untethered from nature. Technological ingenuity has loosened the links, but the outlook for economic gains--or losses--is inextricably tied to the dynamics of population change, and of food and energyproduction.--Diane Coyle, Bennett Professor of Public Policy, University of CambridgeInvesting requires quantification of impact. But Vaclav Smil convincingly challenges the increased reliance on applying mathematical modelling to single-frame narratives. He steadily illustrates why such approaches seldom provide useful enough insights, as they tend to ignore technical constraintsand biospheric limits. --Philippe Rohner, Pictet Asset Management Smil offers a sweeping account of the deep material forces that have shaped the modern world... He tells a remarkable story of the human capacity to innovate, build, and integrate societies across vast distances.--Foreign AffairsSmil is a conjurer with numbers. In Grand Transitions, he works to show just how thoroughly this is now a planet of our making--and how rapidly the transformation is still happening.--Washington Post Product Desc...

-Titulo Original : The Hardhat Riot Nixon, New York City, And The Dawn Of The White Working-class Revolution-Fabricante : Oxford University Press-Descripcion Original: One of the New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2020.Perhaps the best book ever on how Democrats lost the white working class. --James CarvilleIn May 1970, four days after Kent State, construction workers chased students through downtown Manhattan, beating scores of protesters bloody. As hardhats clashed with hippies, it soon became clear that something larger was underway--Democrats were at war with themselves. In The Hardhat Riot, David Paul Kuhn tells the fateful story of when the white working class first turned against liberalism, when Richard Nixon seized the breach, and America was forever changed. It was unthinkable one generation before: FDRs forgotten man siding with the party of Big Business and, ultimately, paving the way for presidencies from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump. This is the story of the schism that tore liberalism apart. In the shadow of the half-built Twin Towers, on the same day the Knicks rallied against the odds and won their first championship, we experience the tumult of Nixons America and John Lindsays New York City, as festering division explodes into violence and Nixons advisors realize that the Democratic coalition has collapsed, that this is their chance, because these, quite candidly, are our people now. In this riveting story--rooted in meticulous research, including thousands of pages of never-before-seen records--we go back to a harrowing day that explains the politics of today. We experience an emerging class conflict between two newly polarized Americas, and how it all boiled over on one brutal day, when the Democratic Partys future was bludgeoned by its past. Review Riveting. --Jill Lepore, The New Yorker Engrossing, well-crafted, The Hardhat Riot ... argues persuasively that the riot sparked a vast national political shift driven by a widening divide between the working class and the educated elite that has led to the era of the Trump presidency. ... Kuhn writes with empathy for both sides. ... Kuhns accounts of the violence are vivid and raw. ... The author concludes with a sharp analysis of how the revolt of the White working class almost immediately reshaped American politics, beginning with Nixons opportunistic claim of blue-collar Whites as Silent Majority supporters of his law-and-order presidency. Kuhn shows the reverberations over the decades, right up to the making of Donald Trumps political base. ... Kuhn argues that class divisions have driven people so far apart that its as if Americans now live in entirely different places, even if they are still called by one name--America.--The Washington Post book review Perhaps the best book ever on how Democrats lost the white working class. The Hardhat Riot is a great read, but also a must-read to understand the voters that Democrats neglected at their own peril.--James Carville, former Chief Strategist for President Bill Clinton Over the past 15 years few writers have covered this realignment with the consistency of David Paul Kuhn, whose warnings about the reasons white working people were moving away from the Democrats were largely dismissed by the news media and party elites ... Mr. Kuhn remained an unacknowledged prophet. ... Now he has synthesized his message with a lesson from history: The Hardhat Riot, a riveting account of ... [a] clash on the streets of New York [that] came to symbolize the irreconcilable division taking shape in the rest of the country. ... Mr. Kuhn avoids polemics and judgment, yet leads the reader to understand the deeper questions implicit in so many of todays political debates. ... The Hardhat Riot insightfully explains why and how this happened. Perhaps the Democratic Partys leaders will finally understand what David Paul Kuhn has been trying to tell them.--Jim Webb, The Wall Street Journal book review The Hardhat Riot, by David Paul Kuhn, vividly evokes . . . a blue-collar rampage whose effects still ripple, not the least of them b...

-Titulo Original : The Elements Of Legal Style-Fabricante : Oxford University Press-Descripcion Original: With expanded coverage in this new edition, The Elements of Legal Style features additional sections, many more examples, and a thoroughly researched appendix that contains 80 major statements on prose style--what it is and how to attain it.Inspired by Strunk and Whites The Elements of Style, this book clearly (often wittily) explains the full range of what legal writers need to know: mechanics, word choice, structure, and rhetoric, as well as all the special conventions that legal writers should follow in using headings, definedterms, quotations, and many other devices. Garner also provides abundant examples from the best legal writers of yesterday and today, including Oliver Wendell Holmes, Clarence Darrow, Frank Easterbrook, and Antonin Scalia.If you want to make your writing clearer, more precise, more persuasive, and above all more stylish, The Elements of Legal Style offers the surest--and the most enjoyable--means to that end. From Library Journal A decade after the key first edition, Garner, editor in chief of Blacks Law Dictionary and other works on legal writing, provides expanded coverage of appropriate legal prose and common errors in legal language, with the goal of encouraging clarity in legal writing. Throughout, he emphasizes fundamental rules of usage and fundamental principles of legal writing that range from punctuation, word choice, and syntactic arrangement to various forms of repetition. Suggestions regarding word choice give a good indication of his approach: he guides writers to strike out and replace fancy words, challenge vague words, and eschew euphemisms. In the foreword, Charles Alan Wright accurately comments that for lawyers words are the only things we have to work with. Indeed, this book speaks not only to lawyers but to other writers as well, urging them to use style to develop persuasion, description, or analysis. Highly recommended for academic and larger public libraries. Steven Puro, St. Louis Univ. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Review Publishers each year spew out writing books for law students by the dozen. Forget them. This is the best. We had not believed that this classic work could be substantially improved. The inimitable Mr. Garner has proven this belief wrong, and happily so.-ABA Appellate Practice JournalGarner has given to the legal profession [an] extraordinary book....Invaluable.--South Dakota Law ReviewBryan Garner...is rapidly becoming--if hes not there already--Americas foremost authority on language and the law.--BarristerAn expanded and more relaxed edition of his 1991 sourcebook.--William Safire, New York Times Magazine About the Author Bryan A. Garner is a best-selling legal author with more than a dozen titles to his credit, including A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage, The Winning Brief, A Dictionary of Modern American Usage, and Legal Writing in Plain English. He is also the editor in chief of Blacks Law Dictionary in all itscurrent editions...

-Titulo Original : The Great Depression And The New Deal A Very Short Introduction-Fabricante : Oxford University Press-Descripcion Original: The New Deal shaped our nations politics for decades, and was seen by many as tantamount to the American Way itself. Now, in this superb compact history, Eric Rauchway offers an informed account of the New Deal and the Great Depression, illuminating its successes and failures.Rauchway first describes how the roots of the Great Depression lay in Americas post-war economic policies--described as laissez-faire with a vengeance--which in effect isolated our nation from the world economy just when the world needed the United States most. He shows how the magnitude of theresulting economic upheaval, and the ineffectiveness of the old ways of dealing with financial hardships, set the stage for Roosevelts vigorous (and sometimes unconstitutional) Depression-fighting policies. Indeed, Rauchway stresses that the New Deal only makes sense as a response to this globaleconomic disaster. The book examines a key sampling of New Deal programs, ranging from the National Recovery Agency and the Securities and Exchange Commission, to the Public Works Administration and Social Security, revealing why some worked and others did not. In the end, Rauchway concludes, it wasthe coming of World War II that finally generated the political will to spend the massive amounts of public money needed to put Americans back to work. And only the Cold War saw the full implementation of New Deal policies abroad--including the United Nations, the World Bank, and the InternationalMonetary Fund.Today we can look back at the New Deal and, for the first time, see its full complexity. Rauchway captures this complexity in a remarkably short space, making this book an ideal introduction to one of the great policy revolutions in history.About the Series: Oxfords Very Short Introductions offers concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects--from Islam to Sociology, Politics to Classics, and Literary Theory to History. Not simply a textbook of definitions, each volume provides trenchant and provocative--yet alwaysbalanced and complete--discussions of the central issues in a given topic. Every Very Short Introduction gives a readable evolution of the subject in question, demonstrating how it has developed and influenced society. Whatever the area of study, whatever the topic that fascinates the reader, theseries has a handy and affordable guide that will likely prove indispensable. Review Rauchway boils it down to 150 pages. He calls it: The Great Depression and the New Deal: A Very Short Introduction. I call it required reading.--Laura Conaway, NPRs Planet MoneyEverybodys talking new New Deal these days... Eric Rauchway is all over this.-Paul Krugman, The New York TimesThis well written, informative and illustrated book sets the scene, introduces the analysis and paves the way for an informed debate from which we can--and should--learn much.--Andrew Dodgshon, Tribune (UK) About the Author Eric Rauchway is Professor of History at the University of California, Davis. He is the author most recently of Blessed Among Nations: How the World Made America and Murdering McKinley: The Making of Theodore Roosevelts America. He has written for The American Prospect, The Financial Times (aregular columnist while teaching at Oxford), The New Republic Online, and MSNBCs Altercation...

-Titulo Original : Antigone (greek Tragedy In New Translations)-Fabricante : Oxford University Press-Descripcion Original: About the Author About the Translator:Richard Emil Braun is Professor of Classics at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. He has published several volumes of poetry and translations, including Children Passing, The Foreclosure, and Persius Satires. Based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves can properly recreate the celebrated and timeless tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the Greek Tragedy in New Translations series offers new translations that go beyond the literal meaning of the Greek in order to evoke the poetry of the originals. The series seeks to recover the entire extant corpus of Greek tragedy, quite as though the ancient tragedians wrote in the English of our own time. Under the editorship of Peter Burian and Alan Shapiro, each of these volumes includes a critical introduction, commentary on the text, full stage directions, and a glossary of the mythical and geographical references in the plays.This finely tuned translation of Sophocles Antigone by Richard Emil Braun, both a distinguished poet and a professional scholar critic, offers, in lean, sinewy verse and lyrics of unusual intensity, an interpretation informed by exemplary scholarship and critical insight. Braun presents an Antigone not marred by excessive sentimentality or pietistic attitudes.His translation underscores the extraordinary structural symmetry and beauty of Sophocles design by focusing on the balanced and harmonious view of tragically opposed wills that makes the play so moving. Unlike the traditionally gentle and pious protagonist opposed to a brutal and villainous Creon, Brauns Antigone emerges as a true Sophoclean heroine with all the harshness and even hubris, as well as pathos and beauty, that Sophoclean heroism requires. Braun also reveals a Creon as stubbornly principled as Antigone, instead of simply the arrogant tyrant of conventional interpretations. Review An exceptionally compelling translation that captures the feel of the original. The introduction and the end material add several useful dimensions. Highly recommended! George Perreault, Gonzaga UniversityBrauns translation is as steely as the Greek and his introduction cuts through to the heart of the play. J.P. Sullivan, University of California, Santa BarbaraPraise for the series:While every reader may have a favorite translation that does this or that differently, these are finely modulated to seem neither foolishly colloquial nor irritatingly archaic. The great delight of this series, for me, are the first-rate brief introductions, the practical and wise notes, the enormously useful classical glossary. This series is likely to be a standard for years to come. Kliatt Young Adult Paperback GuideThe transaltion is very readable....Notes are very helpful. Brad Wright, Cornell UniversityThe translation, introduction, notes, appendix, and glossary should attract the intelligent reader. The translation itself is accurate and of high quality. Patricia P. Watsen, University of South Carolin...

-Titulo Original : Chinas Economy What Everyone Needs To Know®-Fabricante : Oxford University Press-Descripcion Original: Chinas economic growth has been revolutionary, and is the foundation of its increasingly prominent role in world affairs. It is the worlds second biggest economy, the largest manufacturing and trading nation, the consumer of half the worlds steel and coal, the biggest source ofinternational tourists, and one of the most influential investors in developing countries from southeast Asia to Africa to Latin America. Multinational companies make billions of dollars in profits in China each year, while traders around the world shudder at every gyration of the countrys unrulystock markets. Perhaps paradoxically, its capitalist economy is governed by an authoritarian Communist Party that shows no sign of loosening its grip.China is frequently in the news, whether because of trade disputes, the challenges of its Belt and Road initiative for global infrastructure, or its increasing military strength. Chinas political and technological challenges, created by a country whose political system and values differdramatically from most of the other major world economies, creates uncertainty and even fear. Chinas Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know® is a concise introduction to the most astonishing economic and political story of the last three decades. Arthur Kroeber enhances our understanding of Chinas changes and their implications. Among the essential questions he answers are: How did Chinagrow so fast for so long? Can it keep growing and still solve its problems of environmental damage, fast-rising debt and rampant corruption? How long can its vibrant economy co-exist with the repressive one-party state? How do Chinas changes affect the rest of the world? This thoroughly revised and updated second edition includes a comprehensive discussion of the origins and development of the US-China strategic rivalry, including Trumps trade war and the race for technological supremacy. It also explores the recent changes in Chinas political system, reflectingXi Jinpings emergence as the most powerful leader since Mao Zedong. It includes insights on changes in Chinas financial sector, covering the rise and fall of the shadow banking sector, and Chinas increasing integration with global financial markets. And it covers Chinas rapid technologicaldevelopment and the rise of its global Internet champions such as Alibaba and Tencent. Review (This) Updated second edition explains how Chinas economy rose to its position today and where it might be headed in the coming years, highlighting Chinas increased relevance to the world since 2016. -- Journal of Economic Literature About the Author Arthur R. Kroeber is founding partner and managing director of Gavekal Dragonomics, a research firm focusing on China with offices in Hong Kong and Beijing. Before establishing Dragonomics in 2002, he spent 15 years as a financial and economic journalist in China and South Asia. He is seniornon-resident fellow at the Brookings-Tsinghua Center in Beijing, adjunct professor at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs and at the NYU Stern School of Business, and a member of the National Committee on US-China Relations...

-Titulo Original : The Idea Of History-Fabricante : Oxford University Press-Descripcion Original: The Idea of History is the best-known work of the great Oxford philosopher, historian, and archaeologist R.G. Collingwood. It was originally published posthumously in 1946, having been mainly reconstructed from Collingwoods manuscripts, many of which are now lost. This important work examineshow the idea of history has evolved from the time of Herodotus to the twentieth century, and offers Collingwoods own view of what history is. For this revised edition, Collingwoods most important lectures on the philosophy of history are published here for the first time. These texts have beenprepared by Jan van der Dussen from manuscripts that have only recently become available. The lectures contain Collingwoods first comprehensive statement of his philosophy of history; they are therefore essential for a full understanding of his thought, and in particular for a correctinterpretation of The Idea of History itself. Van der Dussen contributes a substantial introduction in which he explains the background to this new edition and surveys the scholarship of the last fifty years. Review Thanks for keeping a paperbound edition of this classic in print.--David Hodges, Grambling State University About the Author The late R.G. Collingwood was Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at Oxford University.Jan van der Dussen is Professor of History and Philosophy at the Open University of the Netherlands...

-Titulo Original : Capital An Abridged Edition (oxford Worlds Classics)-Fabricante : Oxford University Press-Descripcion Original: A classic of early modernism, Capital combines vivid historical detail with economic analysis to produce a bitter denunciation of mid-Victorian capitalist society. It has proved to be the most influential work in twentieth-century social science; Marx did for social science what Darwin haddone for biology. This is the only abridged edition to take into account the whole of Capital. It offers virtually all of Volume 1, which Marx himself published in 1867; excerpts from a new translation of The Result of the Immediate Process Production; and a selection of key chapters from Volume3, which Engels published in 1895.About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford Worlds Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxfords commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expertintroductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. About the Author David McLellan is Professor of Political Theory at the University of Kent...

-Titulo Original : Plutopia Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, And The Great Soviet And American Plutonium Disasters-Fabricante : Oxford University Press-Descripcion Original: While many transnational histories of the nuclear arms race have been written, Kate Brown provides the first definitive account of the great plutonium disasters of the United States and the Soviet Union. In Plutopia, Brown draws on official records and dozens of interviews to tell the extraordinary stories of Richland, Washington and Ozersk, Russia-the first two cities in the world to produce plutonium. To contain secrets, American and Soviet leaders created plutopias--communities of nuclearfamilies living in highly-subsidized, limited-access atomic cities. Fully employed and medically monitored, the residents of Richland and Ozersk enjoyed all the pleasures of consumer society, while nearby, migrants, prisoners, and soldiers were banned from plutopia--they lived in temporary staginggrounds and often performed the most dangerous work at the plant. Brown shows that the plants segregation of permanent and temporary workers and of nuclear and non-nuclear zones created a bubble of immunity, where dumps and accidents were glossed over and plant managers freely embezzled andpolluted. In four decades, the Hanford plant near Richland and the Maiak plant near Ozersk each issued at least 200 million curies of radioactive isotopes into the surrounding environment--equaling four Chernobyls--laying waste to hundreds of square miles and contaminating rivers, fields, forests,and food supplies. Because of the decades of secrecy, downwind and downriver neighbors of the plutonium plants had difficulty proving what they suspected, that the rash of illnesses, cancers, and birth defects in their communities were caused by the plants radioactive emissions. Plutopia wassuccessful because in its zoned-off isolation it appeared to deliver the promises of the American dream and Soviet communism; in reality, it concealed disasters that remain highly unstable and threatening today. An untold and profoundly important piece of Cold War history, Plutopia invites readers to consider the nuclear footprint left by the arms race and the enormous price of paying for it. Review Winner of the Ellis W. Hawley Prize of the Organization of American Historians Winner of the Albert J. Beveridge Award of the American Historical Association Winner of the George Perkins Marsh Prize of the American Society for Environmental History Winner of the Wayne S. Vucinich Book Prize of the Association for Slavic Studies, East European, and Eurasian Studies Winner of the Heldt Prize in the category of Best Book in Slavic/Eastern European/Eurasian Studies from the Association of Women in Slavic Studies Winner of the Robert G. Athearn Prize of the Western History Association Turning up a surprising amount of hitherto hidden material and talkative survivors, Brown writes a vivid, often hair-raising history of the great plutonium factories and the privileged cities built around them... Readers will squirm to learn of the high radiation levels workers routinelyexperienced and the casualness with which wastes poured into the local air, land and rivers... An angry but fascinating account of negligence, incompetence and injustice justified (as it still is) in the name of national security. --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)An unflinching and chilling account. --Seattle TimesHarrowing... Meticulously researched... Plutopia has important messages for those managing todays nuclear facilities, arguing for caution and transparency. --NatureThe book tells two intertwined stories. One is an appalling narrative of environmental disasters... The second narrative is about the towns, the townspeople, and the creation of a spatially segmented landscape that enabled those disasters... This is admirable comparative history. --Carl Abbott,Environmental HistoryFascinating. -- DissentOne of the Cold Wars more striking perversities never made it to public view. ... Brown is a good writer, and she describes with precision the construction of the two sites (a...

-Titulo Original : Mind & Cosmos Why The Materialist Neo-darwinian Conception Of Nature Is Almost Certainly False-Fabricante : Oxford University Press-Descripcion Original: The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a majorproblem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology.Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolutioncannot be a merely materialist history, either. An adequate conception of nature would have to explain the appearance in the universe of materially irreducible conscious minds, as such. Nagels skepticism is not based on religious belief or on a belief in any definite alternative. In Mind and Cosmos, he does suggest that if the materialist account is wrong, then principles of a different kind may also be at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that arein their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic.In spite of the great achievements of the physical sciences, reductive materialism is a world view ripe for displacement. Nagel shows that to recognize its limits is the first step in looking for alternatives, or at least in being open to their possibility. Review If evolutionary biology redraws its boundaries as this book says it must, then the dialogue between theology and science will be considerably altered. --Anglican Theological Review[This] troublemaking book has sparked the most exciting disputation in many years... I like Nagels mind and I like Nagels cosmos. He thinks strictly but not imperiously, and in grateful view of the full tremendousness of existence. -- Leon Wieseltier, The New RepublicA sharp, lucidly argued challenge to todays scientific worldview. -- Jim Holt, The Wall Street JournalStarts with a boldly discerning look at that strange creature, mankind, and comes to some remarkable speculations about who we are and what our place is in the universe... The very beauty of Nagels theory - its power to inspire imagination - counts in its favor. -- Richard Brody, The NewYorkerAn intense philosophical takedown of Neo-Darwinism and scientific materialism. Its a brave and contrarian book. Reminds me of Wittgensteins remark: Even if all our scientific questions are answered, our problem is still not touched at all. -- E.L. Doctorow, The New York Times Book ReviewNagels arguments against reductionism should give those who are in search of a reductionist physical theory of everything pause for thought... The book serves as a challenging invitation to ponder the limits of science and as a reminder of the astonishing puzzle of consciousness. -- ScienceMind and Cosmos, weighing in at 128 closely argued pages, is hardly a barn-burning polemic. But in his cool style Mr. Nagel extends his ideas about consciousness into a sweeping critique of the modern scientific worldview. -- The New York TimesHis important new book is a brief but powerful assault on materialist naturalism... [Nagel has] performed an important service with his withering critical examination of some of the most common and oppressive dogmas of our age. -- The New Republic [This] short, tightly argued, exacting new book is a work of considerable courage and importance. -- National Review Provocative... Reflects the efforts of a fiercely independent mind. -- H. Allen Orr, The New York Review of Books[Nagel] is an avowed nonbeliever, but regularly enrages the New Atheist crowd because he is determined to leave open a space... for the incomprehensible, for the numinous... and writes very honestly about that. -- James WoodThis short book is packed like a neutron s...

-Titulo Original : Exorbitant Privilege The Rise And Fall Of The Dollar And The Future Of The International Monetary System-Fabricante : Oxford University Press-Descripcion Original: For more than half a century, the U.S. dollar has been not just Americas currency but the worlds. It is used globally by importers, exporters, investors, governments and central banks alike. Nearly three-quarters of all $100 bills circulate outside the United States. The dollar holdings ofthe Chinese government alone come to more than $1,000 per Chinese resident. This dependence on dollars, by banks, corporations and governments around the world, is a source of strength for the United States. It is, as a critic of U.S. policies once put it, Americas exorbitant privilege. However, recent events have raised concerns that this soon may be a privilege lost.Among these have been the effects of the financial crisis and the Great Recession: high unemployment, record federal deficits, and financial distress. In addition there is the rise of challengers like the euro and Chinas renminbi. Some say that the dollar may soon cease to be the worlds standardcurrency--which would depress American living standards and weaken the countrys international influence.In Exorbitant Privilege, one of our foremost economists, Barry Eichengreen, traces the rise of the dollar to international prominence over the course of the 20th century. He shows how the greenback dominated internationally in the second half of the century for the same reasons--and in the sameway--that the United States dominated the global economy. But now, with the rise of China, India, Brazil and other emerging economies, America no longer towers over the global economy. It follows, Eichengreen argues, that the dollar will not be as dominant. But this does not mean that the comingchanges will necessarily be sudden and dire--or that the dollar is doomed to lose its international status. Challenging the presumption that there is room for only one true global currency--either the dollar or something else--Eichengreen shows that several currencies have shared this internationalrole over long periods. What was true in the distant past will be true, once again, in the not-too-distant future.The dollar will lose its international currency status, Eichengreen warns, only if the United States repeats the mistakes that led to the financial crisis and only if it fails to put its fiscal and financial house in order. The greenbacks fate hinges, in other words, not on the actions of theChinese government but on economic policy decisions here in the United States.Incisive, challenging and iconoclastic, Exorbitant Privilege, which was shortlisted for the FT Goldman Sachs 2011 Best Business Book of the Year, is a fascinating analysis of the changes that lie ahead. It is a challenge, equally, to those who warn that the dollar is doomed and to those who regardits continuing dominance as inevitable. Review A fascinating and readable account of the dollars rise and potential fall--The Economist A rare combination of macroeconomic mastery, historical erudition, good political instincts and the sort of stubborn common sense that is constantly placing familiar problems in a new light.--Financial TimesThis short, accessible book about the U.S. dollar by Barry Eichengreen may be one of the most important published this year.--Barrons[A] brisk primer on the dollars role in the international monetary system.--Bloomberg NewsExorbitant Privilege is a book for anyone who has been perplexed why, despite the frequent predictions of the dollars demise over the last fifty years, it has managed to maintain its position as the worlds pre-eminent reserve currency. The book includes both a lively historical account of thedollars role in the international monetary system and an incisive and balanced discussion of future challenges.--Liaquat Ahamed, author of Lords of FinanceShort and eminently readable.... In just 177 pages of text, [Eichengreen] provides a wealth of material for both the lay reader and the scholar... You cant do better than Eichengreen for a s...

-Titulo Original : Game Theory A Very Short Introduction-Fabricante : Oxford University Press-Descripcion Original: Games are everywhere: Drivers maneuvering in heavy traffic are playing a driving game. Bargain hunters bidding on eBay are playing an auctioning game. The supermarkets price for corn flakes is decided by playing an economic game. This Very Short Introduction offers a succinct tour of thefascinating world of game theory, a ground-breaking field that analyzes how to play games in a rational way. Ken Binmore, a renowned game theorist, explains the theory in a way that is both entertaining and non-mathematical yet also deeply insightful, revealing how game theory can shed light oneverything from social gatherings, to ethical decision-making, to successful card-playing strategies, to calculating the sex ratio among bees. With mini-biographies of many fascinating, and occasionally eccentric, founders of the subject--including John Nash, subject of the movie A BeautifulMind--this book offers a concise overview of a cutting-edge field that has seen spectacular successes in evolutionary biology and economics, and is beginning to revolutionize other disciplines from psychology to political science.About the Series: Oxfords Very Short Introductions offers concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects--from Islam to Sociology, Politics to Classics, and Literary Theory to History. Not simply a textbook of definitions, each volume provides trenchant and provocative--yet alwaysbalanced and complete--discussions of the central issues in a given topic. Every Very Short Introduction gives a readable evolution of the subject in question, demonstrating how it has developed and influenced society. Whatever the area of study, whatever the topic that fascinates the reader, theseries has a handy and affordable guide that will likely prove indispensable. About the Author Ken Binmore is Emeritus Professor of Economics at University College, London. He has held Chairs in Economics at the London School of Economics and the University of Michigan...

-Titulo Original : How To Change The World Social Entrepreneurs And The Power Of New Ideas, Updated Edition-Fabricante : Oxford University Press-Descripcion Original: How to Change the World provides vivid profiles of social entrepreneurs. The book is an In Search of Excellence for social initiatives, intertwining personal stories, anecdotes, and analysis. Readers will discover how one person can make an astonishing difference in the world. The case studies in the book include Jody Williams, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for the international campaign against landmines she ran by e-mail from her Vermont home; Roberto Baggio, a 31-year old Brazilian who has established eighty computer schools in the slums of Brazil; and Diana Propper, who has used investment banking techniques to make American corporations responsive to environmental dangers. The paperback edition will offer a new foreword by the author that shows how the concept of social entrepreneurship has expanded and unfolded over the last few years, including the Gates-Buffetts charitable partnership, the rise of Google, and the increased mainstream coverage of the subject. The book will also update the stories of individual social entrepreneurs that appeared in the cloth edition. Review Book Description Published in over twenty countries, How to Change the World has become the Bible for social entrepreneurship. It profiles men and women from around the world who have found innovative solutions to a wide variety of social and economic problems. Whether they work to deliver solar energy to Brazilian villagers, or improve access to college in the United States, social entrepreneurs offer pioneering solutions that change lives. Discover surprising facts about social entrepreneurs from author David BornsteinAccording to a recent Harris Poll, a whopping 97% of Generation Y are looking for work that allows them to have an impact on the world.In recent years, courses or centers in social entrepreneurship have been created in over 250 universities and colleges such as Harvard Business School, Yale School of Management, Duke, NYUs Stern & Wagner, Wharton, Oxford, and Stanford.Teach for America received 25,000 applications for 3,700 slots in 2008, an increase of more than a third over 2007. In Ivy League schools such as Yale, Cornell, and Dartmouth, close to 10% of all graduates applied to the program.In the past two years, the Acumen Fund, an organization that supports social entrepreneurs who solve major problems through business solutions (eg. malaria nets, water purification, loans for housing), received more than 1,000 applications from top ranked business students for just 15 fellowship positions.The list of top business entrepreneurs who are focusing either full time or a considerable amount of time on social entrepreneurship is highly impressive: Pierre Omidyar, founder of ebay, created Omidyar Network to enable individual self-empowerment on a global scale.Jeff Skoll, cofounder of ebay, also runs Participant Productions, which makes socially conscious films including An Inconvenient Truth and Goodnight and Good Luck.Bill Gates has left Microsoft to pursue a full-time career in philanthropy.Warren Buffett recently donated $30 billion to the Gates Foundation.William Draper, one of the biggest venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, created the Draper Richards Foundation to support social entrepreneurs.Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum (Davos), founded the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship.Sergey Brin and Larry Page, founders of Google, created Google.org, which supports social entrepreneurs and has raised over $1 billion.Legendary venture capitalist John Doerr is leading an effort to raise $100 million for microcredit loans.The Grameen Bank, the leading example for social entrepreneurs worldwide, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.The Bridgespan Group, a consulting group that advises social entrepreneurs, received 1,800 applications for 18 job openings in 2006. Review Wonderfully hopeful and enlightening.... The stories of these social entre...

-Titulo Original : The European Union: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)-Fabricante : Oxford University Press-Descripcion Original: The European Union (EU) stands out as a fascinatingly unique political organization. On the one hand, it has shown the potential for developing deep and wide-ranging cooperation between member states, going far beyond that found anywhere else in the world. On the other, it is currently in thethroes of a phase of profound uncertainty about its viability and future.Showing how and why the EU has developed from 1950 to the present day, this Very Short Introduction covers a range of topics, including the Unions early history, the workings of its institutions and what they do, the interplay between eurosceptics and federalists, and the role of the Union beyondEurope in international affairs and as a peace-keeper. In this fully updated fourth edition, Pinder and Usherwood cover the migrant crisis and the UKs decision to leave the Union, set in the context of a body that is now involved in most areas of public policy. Discussing how the EU continues to draw in new members, they conclude by considering thefuture of the Union and the choices and challenges that may lie ahead. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, andenthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable. About the Author Simon Usherwood is Reader in Politics at the University of Surrey, where he specializes in the study of euroscepticism, and in UK-EU relations. As well as publishing widely in these areas, he has also been a frequent contributor to public debate, through the media, social media, and numerous publicspeaking events. Since 2016, he has been a Senior Fellow of the UK in a Changing Europe programme.John Pinder was Honorary Professor at the College of Europe, and Chairman of the Federal Trust, London. He was the author of The Building of the European Union (Third edition, OUP, 1998)...

-Titulo Original : Capitalism A Very Short Introduction (very Short Introductions)-Fabricante : Oxford University Press-Descripcion Original: What is capitalism? Is capitalism the same everywhere? Is there an alternative? The word capitalism is one that is heard and used frequently, but what is capitalism really all about, and what does it mean? This Very Short Introduction addresses questions such as, what is capital? before discussing the history and development of capitalism through several detailed casestudies, ranging from the tulipomania of 17th century Holland, the Great Depression of the 1930s, and in this new edition, the impact of the global financial crisis that started in 2007-08.James Fulcher looks at the different forms that capitalism takes in Britain, Japan, Sweden, and the United States, and explores whether capitalism has escaped the nation-state by going global. It ends by asking whether there is an alternative to capitalism, discussing socialism, communal andcooperative experiments, and the alternatives proposed by environmentalists.ABOUT THE SERIES:The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to makeinteresting and challenging topics highly readable. About the Author James Fulcher read History at Cambridge, took a Sociology Masters at the London School of Economics, and wrote his PhD at the University of Leicester. His career was spent in the Sociology Department at the University of Leicester and, with John Scott, he produced a number of editions of Sociology,published by Oxford, which has been judged the best of the all-encompassing texts. His main research interest has been in the history of industrial relations in Sweden and his main teaching interest in the development of Japanese society...

-Titulo Original : The Modern Mercenary Private Armies And What They Mean For World Order-Fabricante : Oxford University Press-Descripcion Original: It was 2004, and Sean McFate had a mission in Burundi: to keep the president alive and prevent the country from spiraling into genocide, without anyone knowing that the United States was involved. The United States was, of course, involved, but only through McFates employer, the militarycontractor DynCorp International. Throughout the world, similar scenarios are playing out daily. The United States can no longer go to war without contractors. Yet we dont know much about the industrys structure, its operations, or where its heading. Typically led by ex-military men, contractorfirms are by their very nature secretive. Even the U.S. government-the entity that actually pays them-knows relatively little.In The Modern Mercenary, Sean McFate lays bare this opaque world, explaining the economic structure of the industry and showing in detail how firms operate on the ground. A former U.S. Army paratrooper and private military contractor, McFate provides an unparalleled perspective into the nuts andbolts of the industry, as well as a sobering prognosis for the future of war. While at present, the U.S. government and U.S. firms dominate the market, private military companies are emerging from other countries, and warlords and militias have restyled themselves as private security companies inplaces like Afghanistan and Somalia. To understand how the proliferation of private forces may influence international relations, McFate looks back to the European Middle Ages, when mercenaries were common and contract warfare the norm. He concludes that international relations in the twenty-firstcentury may have more in common with the twelfth century than the twentieth. This back to the future situation, which he calls neomedievalism, is not necessarily a negative condition, but it will produce a global system that contains rather than solves problems. The Modern Mercenary is the first work that combines a broad-ranging theory of the phenomenon with an insiders understanding of what the world of the private military industry is actually like. Review Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand a new component of modern warfare. The prevalence of privatized military forces raises serious political, economic, and moral questions. In The Modern Mercenary, Sean McFate applies his years of experience as a US army paratrooper and privatemilitary contractor to explore these questions through invaluable case studies and penetrating analysis. --General Stanley A. McChrystal, co-founder, McChrystal Group The Modern Mercenary is an adrenalin-fueled jaunt through todays battlefields, where we find not just the armies of the state, but security professionals whose considerable skills are available for hire. Writing from first-hand experience as a contractor in the field, Sean McFate helps usunderstand this complex world beyond the cartoon criticisms and film-inspired lore to see both the obvious dangers and the potential benefits provided by a shadowy industry. --Admiral James Stavridis, USN (Ret), Former Supreme Allied Commander at NATO and Dean, The Fletcher School of Law andDiplomacy, Tufts University The Iraq War and Blackwater may seem like yesterdays headlines, but the private military industry is still going strong. In The Modern Mercenary, a book powered by deep research and filled with fascinating details, Sean McFate deftly explores both the historic parallels of todays trade inmilitary services for hire, and its likely future. --P.W. Singer, author of Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry and Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know McFate understands his subject from the inside. His excellent book shows convincingly the urgent need for our governments, and those who work for them, to grasp the consequences of their frequent use of private military companies before they lose control of them. --General Sir Rupert Smith KCB DSOOBE QGM Private Mi...

-Titulo Original : Austerity The History Of A Dangerous Idea-Fabricante : Oxford University Press-Descripcion Original: Selected as a Financial Times Best Book of 2013Governments today in both Europe and the United States have succeeded in casting government spending as reckless wastefulness that has made the economy worse. In contrast, they have advanced a policy of draconian budget cuts--austerity--to solve the financial crisis. We are told that we have alllived beyond our means and now need to tighten our belts. This view conveniently forgets where all that debt came from. Not from an orgy of government spending, but as the direct result of bailing out, recapitalizing, and adding liquidity to the broken banking system. Through these actions privatedebt was rechristened as government debt while those responsible for generating it walked away scot free, placing the blame on the state, and the burden on the taxpayer. That burden now takes the form of a global turn to austerity, the policy of reducing domestic wages and prices to restore competitiveness and balance the budget. The problem, according to political economist Mark Blyth, is that austerity is a very dangerous idea. First of all, it doesnt work. Asthe past four years and countless historical examples from the last 100 years show, while it makes sense for any one state to try and cut its way to growth, it simply cannot work when all states try it simultaneously: all we do is shrink the economy. In the worst case, austerity policies worsenedthe Great Depression and created the conditions for seizures of power by the forces responsible for the Second World War: the Nazis and the Japanese military establishment. As Blyth amply demonstrates, the arguments for austerity are tenuous and the evidence thin. Rather than expanding growth andopportunity, the repeated revival of this dead economic idea has almost always led to low growth along with increases in wealth and income inequality. Austerity demolishes the conventional wisdom, marshaling an army of facts to demand that we austerity for what it is, and what it costs us. Review One of the especially good things in Mark Blyths Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea is the way he traces the rise and fall of the idea of expansionary austerity, the proposition that cutting spending would actually lead to higher output. As Blyth documents, this idea spread likewildfire. --Paul Krugman, The New York Review of Books An important polemic... valid and compelling.--Lawrence Summers, Financial Times Essential reading... The economy is much too important to leave to economists. We need to understand how ideas shape it, and Blyths new book provides an excellent starting point.--Washington Monthly Splendid new book. --Martin Wolf, Financial TimesAusterity is an economic policy strategy, but is also an ideology and an approach to economic management freighted with politics. In this book Mark Blyth uncovers these successive strata. In doing so he wields his spade in a way that shows no patience for fools and foolishness. --BarryEichengreen, George C. Pardee and Helen N. Pardee Professor of Economics and Political Science University of California, Berkeley Of all the zombie ideas that have been reanimated in the wake of the global financial crisis, austerity is the most dangerous. Mark Blyth shows how austerity created the disasters of the 1930s, and contributed to the descent of the world into global war. He shows how European austerity policieshave prevented any recovery from the crisis of 2009, while rescuing and protecting the banks and financial institutions that created the crisis. An essential guide for anyone who wants to understand the current depression. --John Quiggin, author of Zombie Economics Most fascinating is the authors discussion of the historical underpinnings of austerity, first formulated by Enlightenment thinkers Locke, Hume and Adam Smith, around the (good) idea of parsimony and the (bad) idea of debt. Ultimately, writes Blyth, austerity is a zombie economic idea because...

-Titulo Original : Ethics Across The Professions A Reader For Professional Ethics-Fabricante : Oxford University Press-Descripcion Original: The most up-to-date professional ethics reader available, Ethics Across the Professions: A Reader for Professional Ethics, Second Edition, analyzes the complex ethical issues that arise in such fields as engineering, finance, healthcare, journalism, and law. Featuring a wide array of bothclassic and contemporary sources, it ranges from works by Aristotle and Kant to selections by Michael Bayles, Sissela Bok, Paul Ekman, and Thomas Nagel. The book is organized topically and includes detailed chapter introductions, several practical case studies at the end of each chapter, andprovocative discussion questions. The second edition includes reading and discussion questions for each article, fifteen new articles, five new cases, and an expanded chapter on philosophical ethics, including feminist ethics. Review Ethics Across the Professions, Second Edition, is the total package. It offers a strong introduction to moral theory, readings by well-known authors, case studies based on contemporary issues in professional ethics, and enough selections to tailor a course to the instructorsinterests/focus.--Mark Vopat, Youngstown State UniversityIf you want a reader (rather than a single-author text), this is the best on the market. It covers all the basics across a range of professions, and the readings are not too long. And students wont come to class the first day hating you because the books price gave them sticker shock.-- TheodoreGracyk, Minnesota State University MoorheadThis book does a particularly good job of demonstrating how similar ethical issues recur in multiple professional settings. It also provides an excellent opportunity for students to engage with the kinds of ethical dilemmas they will likely face in their future professional careers.--Erica Neely,Ohio Northern UniversityEthics Across the Professions has the best selection and quality of articles of any of the professional ethics textbooks.--Carl Miller III, Fort Hays State UniversityThis book provides a wonderful theoretical filter to help students understand the primary moral issues, dilemmas, and questions of our time in a clear, interesting, and accessible way.--Deborah Mower, Youngstown State University About the Author Clancy Martin is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Martin has authored, coauthored, and edited several books in philosophy, including Love and Lies: An Essay on Truthfulness, Deceit, and the Growth and Care of Erotic Love (2015), Honest Work, Third Edition (OUP,2013), and The Philosophy of Deception (OUP, 2009). Wayne Vaught is Dean for College of Arts & Sciences, Professor of Philosophy and Medicine, and Director of the Center for Applied and Professional Ethics at University of Missouri-Kansas City. Professor Vaught has published articles on bioethics for The Journal of Clinical Ethics, Theoretical Ethicsand Bioethics, and the Hastings Center Report.The late Robert C. Solomon was Quincy Lee Centennial Professor of Business and Philosophy and Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He was the author or editor of more than forty books...

-Titulo Original : China The Bubble That Never Pops-Fabricante : Oxford University Press-Descripcion Original: The Chinese economy appears destined for failure, the financial bubble forever in peril of popping, the real estate sector doomed to collapse, the factories fated for bankruptcy. Banks drowning in bad loans. An urban landscape littered with ghost towns of empty property. Industrial zones stalked by zombie firms. Trade tariffs blocking the path to global markets.And yet, against the odds and against expectations, growth continues, wealth rises, international influence expands. The coming collapse of China is always coming, never arriving.Thomas Orlik, a veteran of more than a decade in Beijing, turns the spotlight on Chinas fragile fundamentals, and resources for resilience. Drawing on discussions with Communist cadres, shadow bankers, and migrant workers, Orlik pieces together a unique perspective on Chinas past, present, andpossible futures.From Deng Xiaopings reform and opening to Donald Trumps trade war, Orlik traces the policy steps and missteps that have taken China to the brink of a Lehman moment credit crisis. Delving into the balance sheets for banks, corporates, and local governments, he plumbs the depths of financialrisks. From Japan in 1989, to Korea in 1997, to the U.S. in 2007, he positions China in the context of a rolling series of global crisis.Mapping possible scenarios, Orlik games out what will happens if the bubble that never pops finally does. The magnitude of the shock to China and the world would be tremendous. For those in the West nervously watching Chinas rise as a geopolitical challenger, the alternative could be even lesspalatable. Review Thomas Orlik provides a valuable historic overview of the crisis and response of the Chinese economy using vivid examples from every corner of China. What sets China apart from other major economies is the governments power to tell banks and firms what to do, although a state-dominated economymight not work forever. -- Zhumin Xu, Laboratoire Techniques, Territoires et Societes (LATTS), Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) and Ecole des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC), Marne-la-Vallee, France, Eurasian Geography and EconomicsOrlick thoroughly depicts a self-sufficient China with the ability to circumvent hurdles that have waylaid other countries in a similar position, producing an informative account of its economic history in the process. -- Julia Kang, International Law and PoliticsBears have written off the chances of continued Chinese success, again and again. They have always been proved wrong. In his detailed account, Orlik demonstrates that a massive accumulation of debt and declining returns on investment threaten Chinas economy yet again. But, as he explains, notonly are policymakers aware of the risks, but China also has great strengths: a competent state, a huge domestic market, and continued potential for rapid catch-up growth. Will the bears be right at last? Probably not. -- Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Commentator, Financial TimesI laughed. I cried. I re-balanced my portfolio. -- Dave Rank, former Charge dAffaires, U.S. Embassy, Beijng Orlik is one of the most astute and entertaining observers of the Chinese economy. His fluid writing style makes the work accessible to specialists and non-specialists alike. This is a book that anyone interested in Chinas future and its consequences for the global community should read. -- TonySaich, Daewoo Professor of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy SchoolThis excellent book unpacks the many mysteries of the Chinese economy in a compelling and cogent manner. Orlik has brought together his journalistic and analytical skills to produce a lively and informative account of how China has sustained its phenomenal growth performance while apparentlyflouting conventional economic precepts. A must-read for anyone who wonders if Chinas economy is doomed to collapse, why it hasnt already, and why it might never do so. -- Eswar Prasad, Cornell University ...

-Titulo Original : No Shortcuts Organizing For Power In The New Gilded Age-Fabricante : Oxford University Press-Descripcion Original: The crisis of the progressive movement is so evident that nothing less than a fundamental rethinking of its basic assumptions is required. Todays progressives now work for professional organizations more comfortable with the inside game in Washington DC (and capitols throughout the West),where they are outmatched and outspent by corporate interests. Labor unions now focus on the narrowest possible understanding of the interests of their members, and membership continues to decline in lockstep with the narrowing of their goals. Meanwhile, promising movements like Occupy Wall Streetand Black Lives Matter lack sufficient power to accomplish meaningful change. Why do progressives in the United States keep losing on so many issues? In No Shortcuts, Jane McAlevey argues that progressives can win, but lack the organized power to enact significant change, to outlast their bosses in labor fights, and to hold elected leaders accountable. Drawing upon her experience as a scholar and longtime organizer in the student, environmental,and labor movements, McAlevey examines cases from labor unions and social movements to pinpoint the factors that helped them succeed - or fail - to accomplish their intended goals. McAlevey makes a compelling case that the great social movements of previous eras gained their power from massorganizing, a strategy todays progressives have mostly abandoned in favor of shallow mobilization or advocacy. She ultimately concludes that, in order to win, progressive movements need strong unions built from bottom-up organizing strategies that place the power for change in the hands of workersand ordinary people at the community level. Beyond the concrete examples in this book, McAleveys arguments have direct implications for anyone involved in organizing for social change. Much more than cogent analysis, No Shortcuts explains exactly how progressives can go about rebuilding powerful movements at work, in our communities, and atthe ballot box. Review McAleveys decades as a labor and community organizer means that she knows what organizers do, or should do. This book lifts the lessons McAlevey takes from that craft into the intellectual realm of power and politics. This book is for anyone who wants a democratic society in which ordinarypeople share power. -- Frances Fox Piven, author of Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America Jane McAlevey is a deeply experienced, uncommonly reflective organizer. In No Shortcuts, McAlevey stresses the distinction between mobilizing and organizing and examines how systematic conflation of the two has reflected and reinforced the labor movements decline over recent decades. More than ahow-to manual for organizers, No Shortcuts is a serious, grounded rumination on building working-class power. It is a must read for everyone concerned with social justice in the US. -- Adolph Reed, Jr., Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania Jane McAlevey is one of the few analysts of social movements today who takes class power and class struggle seriously. McAlevey understands their ineluctable concreteness and force from years of organizing democratic unions that have effectively battled powerful corporations. This is a book forcitizens and activists--but also for students and scholars of social movements--who want to understand how the world can and has been changed for the better. -- Jeff Goodwin, Professor of Sociology, New York University Whether it is Black Lives Matter, climate change, feeling the Bern, or worker rights, success hinges on the ability to build real and sustainable power. Jane McAlevey gives us both a practical guide and a set of underlying principles to understand how organizing matters more than any otheravailable strategy to grow power, and, what it means to organize. A must read for anyone hoping to create a better world. -- Dan Clawson, Professor of Sociology, University of Massachusetts at Amhers...

-Titulo Original : The Condition Of The Working Class In England (oxford Worlds Classics)-Fabricante : Oxford University Press-Descripcion Original: This, the first book written by Engels during his stay in Manchester from 1842 to 1844, is the best known and in many ways the most astute study of the working class in Victorian England. The fluency of his writing, the personal nature of his insights, and his talent for mordant satire allcombiine to make Engelss account of the lives of the victims of early industrial change an undeniable classic.About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford Worlds Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxfords commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expertintroductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. About the Author David McLellan is a leading scholar of Marx and Marxism, and the editor of Marxism: Essential Writings and Selected Writings . He is Professor of Political Theory at the University of Kent at Canterbury...

-Titulo Original : Washingtons Crossing (pivotal Moments In American History)-Fabricante : Oxford University Press-Descripcion Original: Review A meticulous and brilliantly colored account of the period surrounding George Washingtons famous sally across the Delaware river in 1776. --Wall Street JournalFishers thoughtful account describes how Washington, in a frantic, desparate month, turned his collection of troops into a professional force, not by emulating Europeans but by coming up with a model that was distinctly American. --The New YorkerHistory at its best, fascinating in its details, magisterial in its sweep. --Boston GlobePerhaps most valuable is Fischers portrait of Washington. Instead of presenting the Napoleonic hero of the painting, he shows a proud youth who evolved into a humble democratic leader. --NewsweekFischer...describes in moving detail the military campaign of 1776-1777 and the British, German and American soldiers who fought it. As in the familiar 1850 painting by Emmanuel Leutze that inspired Fischers title, Washington stands firmly at the books center. His actions as commander of theAmerican army were pivotal for both his future and that of the fledgling American republic. --Washington Post Book WorldA model of modern historical writing. --National ReviewA highly realistic and wonderfully readable narrative... Fischers ability to combine the panoramic with the palpable is unparalleled in giving us a glimpse of what warfare back then was really like. --The New York Times Book ReviewA tale told with gusto, punctuated by finely rendered accounts of battles and tactics... Helps us understand anew a great American icon. --Los Angeles Times Book Review Six months after the Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution was all but lost. A powerful British force had routed the Americans at New York, occupied three colonies, and advanced within sight of Philadelphia.Yet, as David Hackett Fischer recounts in this riveting history, George Washington and many other Americans refused to let the Revolution die. On Christmas night, as a howling noreaster struck the Delaware Valley, he led his men across the river and attacked the exhausted Hessian garrison at Trenton, killing or capturing nearly a thousand men. A second battle of Trenton followed within days. The Americans held off a counterattack by Lord Cornwalliss best troops, then were almost trapped by the British force. Under cover of night, Washingtons men stole behind the enemy and struck them again, defeating a brigade at Princeton. The British were badly shaken. In twelve weeks of winter fighting, their army suffered severe damage, their hold on New Jersey was broken, and their strategy was ruined.Fischers richly textured narrative reveals the crucial role of contingency in these events. We see how the campaign unfolded in a sequence of difficult choices by many actors, from generals to civilians, on both sides. While British and German forces remained rigid and hierarchical, Americans evolved an open and flexible system that was fundamental to their success. The startling success of Washington and his compatriots not only saved the faltering American Revolution, but helped to give it new meaning. About the Author David Hackett Fischer is University Professor at Brandeis University, and the author of such acclaimed volumes as Albions Seed, The Great Wave, Paul Reveres Ride and Liberty and Freedom...

-Titulo Original : The Strange Career Of Jim Crow-Fabricante : Oxford University Press-Descripcion Original: C. Vann Woodward, who died in 1999 at the age of 91, was Americas most eminent Southern historian, the winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Mary Chestnuts Civil War and a Bancroft Prize for The Origins of the New South. Now, to honor his long and truly distinguished career, Oxford is pleased topublish this special commemorative edition of Woodwards most influential work, The Strange Career of Jim Crow.The Strange Career of Jim Crow is one of the great works of Southern history. Indeed, the book actually helped shape that history. Published in 1955, a year after the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education ordered schools desegregated, Strange Career was cited so often to counter arguments forsegregation that Martin Luther King, Jr. called it the historical Bible of the civil rights movement. The book offers a clear and illuminating analysis of the history of Jim Crow laws, presenting evidence that segregation in the South dated only to the 1890s. Woodward convincingly shows that, evenunder slavery, the two races had not been divided as they were under the Jim Crow laws of the 1890s. In fact, during Reconstruction, there was considerable economic and political mixing of the races. The segregating of the races was a relative newcomer to the region.Hailed as one of the top 100 nonfiction works of the twentieth century, The Strange Career of Jim Crow has sold almost a million copies and remains, in the words of David Herbert Donald, a landmark in the history of American race relations. About the Author The late C. Vann Woodward was the Sterling Professor of History at Yale until his death in 1999. Among his books are Mary Chestnuts Civil War, The Origins of the New South, Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel, and The Burden of Southern History. He was also General Editor of The Oxford History of theUnited States series. William S. McFeely won the Lincoln Prize in 1992 for Frederick Douglass and the Pulitzer Prize in 1982 for Grant: A Biography. He is Abraham Baldwin Professor of the Humanities Emeritus at the University of Georgia and lives in Wellfleet, Massachusetts...

-Titulo Original : China Marine An Infantrymans Life After World War Ii-Fabricante : Oxford University Press-Descripcion Original: See E.B. Sledges story in the HBO miniseries The Pacific!China Marine is the extraordinary sequel to E.B. Sledges memoir, With the Old Breed, which remains the most powerful and moving account of the U.S. Marines in World War II. Sledge continues his story where With the Old Breed left off and recounts the compelling conclusion of his Marine career.After Japans surrender in 1945, Sledge and his company were sent to China to maintain order and to calm the seething cauldron of political and ideological unrest created by opposing factions. His regiment was the first Marine unit to return to the ancient city of Peiping (now Beijing) where theywitnessed the last of old China and the rise of the Communist state. Sledge also recounts the difficulty of returning to his hometown of Mobile, Alabama, and resuming civilian life while haunted by shadows of close combat. Through the discipline of writing and the study of biology, he shows how hecame to terms with the terrifying memories that had plagued him for years.Poignant and compelling, China Marine provides a frank depiction of the real costs of war, emotional and psychological as well as physical, and reveals the enduring bond that develops between men who face the horrors of war. Review Vivid, lively, personally touching.... The book will last. Like With the Old Breed, it will be read, appreciated, and taught, now and for decades to come.--Stephen E. Ambrose, from the Foreword About the Author E. B. Sledge was a World War II veteran, author of With the Old Breed, and a professor of biology at the University of Montevallo, Alabama. He died in March 2001.Stephen E. Ambrose was an American historian and professor of history at the University of New Orleans...