Product Description: The Sociology of Development Handbook gathers essays that reflect the range of debates in development sociology and in the interdisciplinary study and practice of development. The essays address the pressing intellectual challenges of today, including internal and international migration, transformation of political regimes, globalization, changes in household and family formations, gender dynamics, technological change, population and economic growth, environmental sustainability, peace and war, and the production and reproduction of social and economic inequality...read more

Product Description: Since its rediscovery in the early 20th century, through spectacular finds such as those by Sir Arthur Evans at Knossos, Minoan Crete has captured the imagination not only of archaeologists but also of a wider public. This is shown, among other things, by its appearance and uses in a variety of modern cultural practices: from the innovative dances of Sergei Diaghilev and Ted Shawn, to public and vernacular architecture, psychoanalysis, literature, sculpture, fashion designs, and even neo-pagan movements, to mention a few examples...read more

What is it like to be a person today? To think, feel, and act as an individual in a time of accelerated social, cultural, technological, and political change? This question is inspired by the double meaning of subjectivity as both the "first-personness" of consciousness (being a subject of experience) and the conditioning of that consciousness within society (being subject to power, authority, or influence). The contributors to this volume explore the perils and promise of the self in today's world. Their shared aim is to describe where we stand and what is at stake as we move ahead in the twenty-first century. They do so by interrogating the historical moment as a predicament of the subject. Their shared focus is on subjectivity as a dialectic of self and other, or individual and society, and how the defining tensions of subjectivity are reflected in contemporary forms of individualism, identity, autonomy, social connection, and political consciousness.

Product Description: Considering a range of present-day phenomena, from the immediacy effects of literature to the impact of hypercommunication, globalization, and sports, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht notes an important shift in our relationship to history and the passage of time...read more

Product Description: Positing that modern society is an adolescent culture, driven by greed and power and lying on the cusp of an era of spiritual growth and shifting values, this book explores mythic themes in various historical eras to explain the past, present, and future of the human experience...read more

Product Description: Praise for David Houle "Houle breaks down big ideas into easily digestible, entertaining small bites...Crack this book open whenever globalization's gotten you down."-Slate.com. "The Shift Age lifts us out of the rapids of techno-change and helps us see the course of the river we've been rafting on...read more

Product Description: Ours is the era of ‘reinvention’. From psychotherapy to life coaching, from self-help manuals to cosmetic surgery, and from corporate rebranding to urban redesign: the art of reinvention is inextricably interwoven with the lure of the next frontier, the breakthrough to the next boundary – especially boundaries of the self...read more

Product Description: In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, modern urban, industrial, affluent societies have made great strides towards fixing some of the problems that plagued other societies for centuries: food shortages are nearly eliminated, infant and maternal mortality has fallen dramatically, birth control is both readily available and effective, education levels are higher, and internal violence is significantly reduced...read more

Product Description: The Shift Age is about humanity's new ere. As the Information Age gives way to the Shift Age, we are entering a time oftransformation and change that offers both great risk and incredible opportunity. Originally published in 2007, David Houleidentifies and explains the dynamics and forces that already have reshaped and will continue to reshape our world for the next20 years...read more

Product Description: In a wry take on how contemporary culture is antithetical to happiness, Michael Foley paints a philosophical but hugely entertaining portrait of the cultural landscape—and comes up smilingThe good news is that the great thinkers from history have proposed the same strategies for happiness and fulfillment—the bad news is that these turn out to be the very things most discouraged by contemporary culture...read more

Product Description: Alive with insight, delight and Dyer's characteristic irreverence, this book offers a guide through the maze of modern culture. Across ten years worth of essays, 'Working the Room' spans the photography of Martin Parr to the paintings of Turner, and the writing of Scott-Fitzgerald to the criticism of Susan Sontag...read more

Product Description: In our society, cultural activity - or 'the arts' - usually refers to the high culture of the elites and popular mass culture. Clarke Mackey argues for a third category that is as old as human society itself but seldom discussed: vernacular culture...read more

Ten-year-old Mary comes to live in a lonely house on the Yorkshire moors and discovers an invalid cousin and the mysteries of a locked garden