Author: John F. Ermisch What do economists have to say about behavior within the context of the family? This book improves our understanding of how families and markets interact, why important aspects of families have been changing in recent decades, and how families respond to, and are affected by, public policy. It covers a broader range of topics with more consistency than have previous studies, including all major theoretical developments in the field over the past decade. John Ermisch builds his analysis on the premise that the standard analytical methods of microeconomics can help us understand resource allocation and the distribution of welfare within the family. Families are dynamic institutions--and so the author uses these same methods to study family formation and dissolution (including marriage, fertility, and divorce) and household formation, as well as intergenerational transfers, household production and investment, and bargaining between family members. He also shows how economic theories of the family can help guide and structure empirical analyses of demographic and related phenomena, such as labor supply, child support, and returns to education. Examples of studies that apply the theory are provided throughout the book. The most comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to an increasingly dynamic area of research, one with important implications for public policy, An Economic Analysis of the Family will be a valuable resource for advanced students of microeconomics and also for students and researchers in sociology, psychology, and other social sciences.
Author: Don Lincoln
If extraterrestrials exist, where are they? What is the probability that somewhere out there in the universe an Earth-like planet supports an advanced culture? Why do so many people claim to have encountered Aliens? In this gripping exploration, scientist Don Lincoln exposes and explains the truths about the belief in and the search for life on other planets. In the first half of Alien Universe, Lincoln looks to Western civilization's collective image of Aliens, showing how our perceptions of extraterrestrials have evolved over time. The roots of this belief can be traced as far back as our earliest recognition of other planets in the universethe idea of them supporting life was a natural progression of thinking that has fascinated us ever since. Our captivation with Aliens has, however, led to mixed results. The world was fooled in the nineteenth century during the Great Moon Hoax of 1835, and many people misunderstood, with calamitous results, Orson Welles's 1938 radio broadcast, The War of the Worlds. Our continuing interest in Aliens is reflected in entertainment successes such as E.T., The X-Files, and Star Trek. The second half of Alien Universe explores the scientific possibility of whether advanced Alien civilizations do exist. For many years, researchers have sought to answer Enrico Fermis great paradoxif there are so many planets in the universe and there is a high probability that many of those can support life, then why have we not actually encountered any Aliens? (Apologies to those who are sure we have.) Lincoln describes how modern science teaches us what is possible and what is not in our search for extraterrestrial civilizations. Whether you are drawn to the psychological belief in Aliens, the history of our interest in life on other planets, or the scientific possibility of Alien existence, Alien Universe is sure to hold you spellbound.
Author: John J. Clayton
Mourning the death of his wife after a senseless and tragic accident, Boston businessman Adam Friedman finds solace through living the mitzvot—instructions for goodness, justice, and compassion. In a frenzy of good deeds, he saves lives and helps the needy. Even his adolescent daughter, whose grief is as intense as his own, begins to wonder if there isn’t more than a shared joke to the superhero T-shirt she has designed for him. When a thwarted crime and a supplicant’s good fortune propel Friedman into the headlines, followers gather unbidden on his doorstep. Voices, dreams, and auras visit him. Miracles occur among family, friends, and strangers alike. But while some hail the Mitzvah Man as a modern-day prophet, others brand him a madman in danger of losing custody of his only child. Is he crazy? Is he holy? Through his experiences of love and loss, beauty and pain, language and custom, Friedman’s daily quest reveals the unexpected ways in which God may inhabit us all.
Author: Marianne E. Krasny
In communities across the country and around the world, people are coming together to rebuild and restore local environments that have been affected by crisis or disaster. In New Orleans after Katrina, in New York after Sandy, in Soweto after apartheid, and in any number of postindustrial, depopulated cities, people work together to restore nature, renew communities, and heal themselves. In Civic Ecology, Marianne Krasny and Keith Tidball offer stories of this emerging grassroots environmental stewardship, along with an interdisciplinary framework for understanding and studying it as a growing international phenomenon. Krasny and Tidball draw on research in social capital and collective efficacy, ecosystem services, social learning, governance, social-ecological systems, and other findings in the social and ecological sciences to investigate how people, practices, and communities interact. Along the way, they chronicle local environmental stewards who have undertaken such tasks as beautifying blocks in the Bronx, clearing trash from the Iranian countryside, and working with traumatized veterans to conserve nature and recreate community. Krasny and Tidball argue that humans' innate love of nature and attachment to place compels them to restore nature and places that are threatened, destroyed, or lost. At the same time, they report, nature and community exert a healing and restorative power on their stewards.
Author: John Shepherd
Over thirty years later, the winter of discontent of 197879 still resonates in British politics. On 22 January 1979, 1.5 million workers were on strike. Industrial unrest swept Britain in an Arctic winter. Militant shop stewards blocked medical supplies to hospitals; mountains of rubbish remained uncollected; striking road hauliers threatened to bring the country to a standstill; even the dead were left unburied. Within weeks, the beleaguered Callaghan Labour government fell from power. In the 1979 general election, Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister, beginning eighteen years of unbroken Conservative rule. Based on a wide range of newly available historical sources and key interviews, this full-length account breaks new ground, analysing the origins, character and impact of a turbulent period of industrial unrest. This important study will appeal to all those interested in contemporary history and British politics.
Author: Jeff Suzuki
How should we count the population of the United States? What would happen if we replaced the electoral college with a direct popular vote? What are the consequences of allowing unlimited partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts? Can six-person juries yield verdicts consistent with the needs of justice? Is it racist to stop and frisk minorities at a higher rate than non-minorities? These and other questions have long been the subject of legal and political debate and are routinely decided by lawyers, politicians, judges, and voters, mostly through an appeal to common sense and tradition. But mathematician Jeff Suzuki asserts that common sense is not so common, and traditions developed long ago in what was a mostly rural, mostly agricultural, mostly isolated nation of three million might not apply to a mostly urban, mostly industrial, mostly global nation of three hundred million. In Constitutional Calculus, Suzuki guides us through the U.S. Constitution and American history to show how mathematics reveals our flaws, finds the answers we need, and moves us closer to our ideals. From the first presidential veto to the debate over mandatory drug testing, the National Security Agency's surveillance program, and the fate of death row inmates, Suzuki draws us into real-world debates and then reveals how math offers a superior compass for decision-making. Relying on iconic cases, including the convictions of the Scottsboro boys, League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry, and Floyd v. City of New York, Suzuki shows that more math can lead to better justice, greater fairness, and a more stable democracy. Whether you are fascinated by history, math, social justice, or government, your interest will be piqued and satisfied by the convincing case Suzuki makes.
Author: edited by Nicholas Paul and Suzanne Yeager
Few events in European history generated more historical, artistic, and literary responses than the conquest of Jerusalem by the armies of the First Crusade in 1099. This epic military and religious expedition, and the many that followed it, became part of the collective memory of communities in Europe, Byzantium, North Africa, and the Near East. Remembering the Crusades examines the ways in which those memories were negotiated, transmitted, and transformed from the Middle Ages through the modern period. Bringing together leading scholars in art history, literature, and medieval European and Near Eastern history, this volume addresses a number of important questions. How did medieval communities respond to the intellectual, cultural, and existential challenges posed by the unique fusion of piety and violence of the First Crusade? How did the crusades alter the form and meaning of monuments and landscapes throughout Europe and the Near East? What role did the crusades play in shaping the collective identity of cities, institutions, and religious sects? In exploring these and other questions, the contributors analyze how the events of the First Crusade resonated in a wide range of cultural artifacts, including literary texts, art and architecture, and liturgical ceremonies. They discuss how Christians, Jews, and Muslims recalled and interpreted the events of the crusades and what far-reaching implications that remembering had on their communities throughout the centuries. Remembering the Crusades is the first collection of essays to investigate the commemoration of the crusades in eastern and western cultures. Its unprecedented multidisciplinary and cross-cultural approach points the way to a complete reevaluation of the place of the crusades in medieval and modern societies.
Author: Eric Burns
Thousands of years ago, before Christ or Buddha or Muhammad...before the Roman Empire rose or the Colossus of Rhodes fell, Eric Burns writes, people in Asia Minor were drinking beer. So begins an account as entertaining as it is extensive, of alcohol's journey through worldand, more important, Americanhistory. In The Spirits of America, Burns relates that drinking was the first national pastime, and shows how it shaped American politics and culture from the earliest colonial days. He details the transformation of alcohol from virtue to vice and back again, how it was thought of as both scourge and medicine. He tells us how the great American thirst developed over the centuries, and how reform movements and laws (some of which, Burn s says, were comic masterpieces of the legislator's art) sprang up to combat it. Burns brings back to life such vivid characters as Carrie Nation and other crusaders against drink. He informs us that, in the final analysis, Prohibition, the culmination of the reformers' quest, had as much to do with politics and economics and geography as it did with spirituous beverage. Filled with the famous, the infamous, and the undeservedly anonymous, The Spirits of America is a masterpiece of the historian's art. It will stand as a classic chroniclewitty, perceptive, and comprehensiveof how this country was created by and continues to be shaped by its ever-changing relationship to the cocktail shaker and the keg.