The ​sociology of modern Britain An ​introductory reader

Oliver Ramsbotham - Tom Woodhouse - Hugh Miall - Contemporary ​Conflict Resolution
Since ​the end of the Cold War, conflict prevention and resolution, peacekeeping and peacebuilding have risen to the top of the international agenda. The third edition of this hugely popular text explains the key concepts, charts the development of the field, evaluates successes and failures, and assesses the main current challenges and debates in the second decade of the twenty-first century. Existing material has been thoroughly updated and four new chapters added, on environmental conflict resolution, conflict resolution in the arts and popular culture, conflict resolution in the media and the communications revolution, and theories and critiques of the field. The authors argue that a new form of cosmopolitan conflict resolution is emerging, which offers a hopeful means for human societies to handle their conflicts non-violently and eventually to transcend and celebrate their differences. Part I offers a comprehensive survey of the theory and practice of conflict resolution. Part II sets the field within the context of rapid global change and addresses the controversies that have surrounded conflict resolution as it has entered the mainstream. Contemporary Conflict Resolution is essential reading for students of peace and security studies, conflict management and international politics, as well as for those working in non-governmental organizations and think-tanks.

A. S. Neill - Summerhill ​(angol)
Publisher ​Harold Hart approached Neill to write about his controversial school, & together compiled this book from Neill's other works, which became the number one nonfiction bestseller in the USA. The effect of the book helped to promulgate Neill's educational theories, as well as reviving the flagging attendance at the long-running experimental school that he had founded in 1921 in Germany in conjunction with the Neue Schule, & then moved to England in 1923.

Lynne McTaggart - The ​Bond
Our ​way of life isn’t working anymore. People are losing their jobs, their homes, their neighborhoods—and even their hope for a just society. We urgently need a new story to live by, based on fairness—not simply on the accumulation of wealth and “survival of the fittest.” The Bond offers a radical new blueprint for living a more harmonious, prosperous, and connected life. International bestselling author Lynne McTaggart demonstrates with hard science that we are living contrary to our true nature. In fact, life doesn’t have to be I win, you lose; we have been designed to succeed and prosper when we work as part of a greater whole. The Bond proves that we are weak when we compete, and thrive only when we cooperate and connect deeply with each other. In this seminal book for our age, McTaggart also offers a complete program of practical tools and exercises to help you enjoy closer relationships—across even the deepest divides—encourage a more connected workplace, rebuild a united neighborhood, and become a powerful, global agent of change.

James Mollison - Where ​Children Sleep
Where ​Children Sleep presents James Mollison's photographs of children's bedrooms around the world, from sixteen countries including the USA, Mexico, Brazil, the UK, Italy, Kenya, Senegal, Japan, China and Nepal - each shown with a portrait of the child whose bedroom is featured and with a short story text about their life. The book's aim is to interest and engage its readers in the lives of children around the world - in the diversity of circumstances in which children sleep and grow, and in some of the social issues that affect them. We learn about children like Kaya in Tokyo, whose bedroom is full of the dress her proud mother makes for her; about Bilal, the Bedouin goatherd living in the West Bank, who sleeps outdoors with his family; about Indira, who has worked in a granite quarry in Nepal since she was three years old; and about Ahkohxet, the Kraho boy who sleeps on the floor of a hut deep in the Amazon jungle. A book to be enjoyed by the readers of all ages, its texts have been prepared with an audience of nice to thirteen-year-olds in mind. "I hope this book will help children think about inequality, within and between societies around the world,: says Mollison in his introduction, "and perhaps start to figure out how, in their own lives, they may respond."

George Mikes - How ​to be a Brit
George ​Mikes has been studying the British for a long time; here in one book are his three major works, in which he unstintingly offers the fruits of forty years of field research to all aspirant Brits. Having himself been born abroad, Mr. Mikes is in the ideal position to counsel others in the same unhappy state - and even Brits born and bred may pick up a few unexpected tips from his irresistible blend of laconic humour and sharp observation.

Jessica Valenti - Full ​Frontal Feminism
Feminism ​isn't dead. It just isn't very cool anymore. Enter _Full Frontal Feminism_, a book that embodies the forward-looking messages that author Jessica Valenti propagates on her popular website, Feministing.com. Covering a range of topics, including pop culture, health, reproductive rights, violence, education, relationships, and more, Valenti provides young women a primer on why feminism matters. Valenti knows better than anyone that young women need a smart-ass book that deals with real-life issues in a style they can relate to. No rehashing the same old issues. No belaboring where today's young women have gone wrong. Feminism should be something young women feel comfortable with, something they can own. _Full Frontal Feminism_ is sending out the message to readers — yeah, you're feminists, and that's actually pretty frigging cool.

Marshall B. Rosenberg - Nonviolent Communication - A Language of Life
An enlightening look at how peaceful communication can create compassionate connections with family, friends, and other acquaintances. The book uses stories, examples, and sample dialogues to provide solutions to communication problems both at home and in the workplace. Guidance is provided on identifying and articulating feelings and needs, expressing anger fully, and exploring the power of empathy in order to speak honestly without creating hostility, break patterns of thinking that lead to anger and depression, and communicate compassionately. These non-violent communication skills are fully explained and can be applied to personal, professional, and political differences. Included in this new edition is information on how to compassionately connect with oneself.

Ismeretlen szerző - Factory ​Towns of South China / 華南工廠城 (Huánán Gōngchǎng Chéng)
Most ​consumer products come primarily from the Pearl River Delta, the "factory of the world" with the largest industrial region on earth. The delta has attracted millions of poor rural residents to settle in factory towns in hopes for a better life. _Factory Towns of South China_ opens a window on these walled compounds, exposing the gritty establishments, crowded dormitories and monotonous labor carried out by workers. Some function as self-contained cities, with their own fire brigade, hospital, bank, TV station and as many as half a million workers living within the compounds. Other factories are scattered in larger villages to mask their existence and evade governmental crackdowns on the production of fake consumer goods and illegal casino machines. Contributors include David Bray, Minnie Chan, Jia-Ching Chen, Paul Chu Hoi Shan, Eli Friedman, Claudia Juhre, Laurence Liauw, Paul Lin, Ting Shi, Casey Wang, Rex Wong, and Chun Yang.

Ethan Zuckermann - Rewire
A ​rousing call to action for those who would be citizens of the world—online and off. In an age of connection supercharged by the Internet, we often assume that more people online means a smaller, more cosmopolitan world. In reality, it is easier to ship bottles of water from Fiji to Atlanta than it is to get news from Tokyo to New York. In Rewire media expert Ethan Zuckerman draws on contemporary research in psychology, sociology, and his own work on how humans “flock together” to explain why the technological ability to reach someone does not inevitably lead to increased human connection. For those who seek a wider picture—a picture now critical for global success—Zuckerman highlights the challenges, and the headway already made, by attempts to bridge cultures through translation, cross-cultural inspiration, and the search for new, serendipitous experience. Rich with Zuckerman’s personal experience and wisdom, Rewire offers a map of the social, technical, and policy innovations needed to more tightly connect the world.

Ismeretlen szerző - Ayahuasca ​Shamanism in the Amazon and Beyond
Beatriz ​Caiuby Labate and Clancy Cavnar offer an in-depth exploration of how Amerindian epistemology and ontology concerning indigenous shamanic rituals of the Amazon have spread to Western societies, and of how indigenous, mestizo, and cosmopolitan cultures have engaged with and transformed these forest traditions. The volume focuses on the use of ayahuasca, a psychoactive drink essential in many indigenous shamanic rituals of the Amazon. Ayahuasca use has spread to countries far beyond its Amazonian origin, spurring a wide variety of legal and cultural responses. The essays in this volume look at how these responses have influenced ritual design and performance in traditional and non-traditional contexts, how displaced indigenous people and rubber tappers are engaged in the creative reinvention of rituals, and how these rituals help build ethnic alliances and cultural and political strategies. These essays explore important classic and contemporary issues in anthropology, including the relationship between the expansion of ecotourism and ethnic tourism and recent indigenous cultural revival and the emergence of new ethnic identities. The volume also examines trends in the commodification of indigenous cultures in post-colonial contexts, the combination of shamanism with a network of health and spiritually related services, and identity hybridization in global societies. The rich ethnographies and extensive analysis of these essays will allow deeper understanding of the role of ritual in mediating the encounter between indigenous traditions and modern societies.

Dave Cullen - Columbine
Ten ​years in the making and a masterpiece of reportage, "Columbine" is an award-winning journalist's definitive account of one of the most shocking massacres in American history. It is driven by two questions: what drove these killers, and what did they do to this town?

Ismeretlen szerző - The ​Book of Jezebel
From ​Jezebel.com, the popular website for women, comes a must-read encyclopedic guide to pop culture, feminism, fashion, sex, and much more. Within months of Jezebel's May 2007 appearance on the new media scene, fans of the blog began referring to themselves as "Jezzies" in comment threads and organizing reader meet-ups in cities all over the world. By 2008, the devotion of the self-appointed Jezzies reached such a fever pitch that the New York Times ran a feature story about them and parody blogs and copycat websites began popping up right and left. With contributions from the writers and creatives who give the site its distinctive tone and broad influence, THE BOOK OF JEZEBEL is an encyclopedia of everything important to the modern woman. Running the gamut from Abzug, Bella and Baby-sitters Club, The to Xena, Yogurt, and Zits, and filled with entertaining sidebars and arresting images, this is a must-read for the modern woman.

Joseph E. Stiglitz - The ​Price of Inequality
A ​forceful argument against America's vicious circle of growing inequality by the Nobel Prize–winning economist. The top 1 percent of Americans control 40 percent of the nation’s wealth. And, as Joseph E. Stiglitz explains, while those at the top enjoy the best health care, education, and benefits of wealth, they fail to realize that “their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live.” Stiglitz draws on his deep understanding of economics to show that growing inequality is not inevitable: moneyed interests compound their wealth by stifling true, dynamic capitalism. They have made America the most unequal advanced industrial country while crippling growth, trampling on the rule of law, and undermining democracy. The result: a divided society that cannot tackle its most pressing problems. With characteristic insight, Stiglitz examines our current state, then teases out its implications for democracy, for monetary and budgetary policy, and for globalization. He closes with a plan for a more just and prosperous future.

Marshall McLuhan - The ​Medium is the Massage
30 ​years after its publication Marshall McLuhan's The Medium is the Massage remains his most entertaining, provocative, and piquant book. With every technological and social "advance" McLuhan's proclamation that "the media work us over completely" becomes more evident and plain. In his words, 'so pervasive are they in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, or unaltered'. McLuhan's remarkable observation that "societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication" is undoubtedly more relevant today than ever before. With the rise of the internet and the explosion of the digital revolution there has never been a better time to revisit Marshall McLuhan.

The Freedom Writers - Erin Gruwell - The ​Freedom Writers Diary
Straight ​from the front line of urban America, the inspiring story of one fiercely determined teacher and her remarkable students. As an idealistic twenty-three-year-old English teacher at Wilson High School in Long beach, California, Erin Gruwell confronted a room of “unteachable, at-risk” students. One day she intercepted a note with an ugly racial caricature, and angrily declared that this was precisely the sort of thing that led to the Holocaust—only to be met by uncomprehending looks. So she and her students, using the treasured books Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl and Zlata’s Diary: A Child’s Life in Sarajevo as their guides, undertook a life-changing, eye-opening, spirit-raising odyssey against intolerance and misunderstanding. They learned to see the parallels in these books to their own lives, recording their thoughts and feelings in diaries and dubbing themselves the “Freedom Writers” in homage to the civil rights activists “The Freedom Riders.”

C. Wright Mills - The ​Marxists
For ​the past hundred years the Marxists have posed the chief political alternative to capitalist society. They have been successful revolutionaries in Russia, China, and Yugoslavia. They are now the technicians and philosophers whose appeals to the under- developed nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America may be decisive. In this pelican book they speak for themselves – in documents by the leading theorists and rulers from Marx, by way of Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin, to Khruschev, Mao Tse-tung, and even Che Guevara of Cuba. As a guide through these theories C. Wright mills, the controversial and outspoken author of the power elite and other sociological studies, maps out the essential ideas of Marxism and examines them critically. He sketches their historical development – failures and points to their implications for the present and the future.

Jeffrey C. Goldfarb - On ​cultural freedom
In ​this timely study, Jeffrey C. Goldfarb explores the nature and prospects of cultural freedom by examining the conditions that favor or threaten its development in the political East and West. Goldfarb—who examines conditions in the Soviet Union, the United States, and their respective European allies—focuses most closely upon Poland and the United States. He investigates a wide range of concrete cases, including the Polish opposition movement and Solidarity, the migration of artists, the American television and magazine industries, American philanthropy, and communist cultural conveyor belts. From these cases, Goldfarb derives a definitive set of sociological conditions for cultural freedom: critical creativity which resists systematic constraints, continuity of cultural tradition, and a relatively autonomous public realm for the reception of culture. Cultural freedom, Goldfarb shows, is not a static state but a process of achievement. Its parameters and content are determined by social practice in cultural institutions and by their relations with other components and the totality of social structure. So defined, cultural freedom is transformed from an ideological concept into one with real critical and analytical power. Through it we can appreciate the invisible nature of constraint in the West and the unapparent but acting supports of cultural freedom existing in socialist countries. Most importantly, Goldfarb's conclusions provide a framework for understanding more clearly than before the circumstance of cultural freedom in both East and West so that citizens may utilize their full creative abilities as they address the problems of the present day.

Charles Dickens - Our ​Mutual Friend
Paul ​Scofield, one of Britain's most distinguished actors, reads Our Mutual Friend, Dickens' mysterious murder story. Scofield won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Sir Thomas More in A Man For All Seasons, a role he created on the stage. In the last of Dickens' completed novels, a bitter love triangle, a mysterious inheritance, and power of money motivates, frustrates and activates the characters to a bitter end. Our Mutual Friend is a witty indictment of a society fallen prey to the dawning age of commercialism.

William Shakespeare - The ​Norton Shakespeare
The ​text is based on the Oxford Edition, which brings readers closer to Shakespeare's plays as they were first acted than was ever before possible. This Second Edition introduces new scholarship and editorial features that invite readers afresh to Shakespeare's plays and poems. Stephen Greenblatt's dazzling introduction, updated for this edition, creates a window into the culture of early modern England; Shakespeare's life in the theater; and the businesses of printing, publishing, and textual editing. The works themselves are enhanced with lively introductions, also updated, as well as ample glosses, annotations, a textual note, and new annotated bibliographies and filmographies. Andrew Gurr's essay, „The Shakespearean Stage”; a new timeline; new maps; a glossary of theater and printing terms; contextual documents; and redesigned genealogies provide additional help for readers.

Ismeretlen szerző - Japanese ​Visual Culture
Born ​of Japan's cultural encounter with Western entertainment media, manga (comic books or graphic novels) and anime (animated films) are two of the most universally recognized forms of contemporary mass culture. Because they tell stories through visual imagery, they vault over language barriers. Well suited to electronic transmission and distributed by Japan's globalized culture industry, they have become a powerful force in both the mediascape and the marketplace.This volume brings together an international group of scholars from many specialties to probe the richness and subtleties of these deceptively simple cultural forms. The contributors explore the historical, cultural, sociological, and religious dimensions of manga and anime, and examine specific sub-genres, artists, and stylistics. The book also addresses such topics as spirituality, the use of visual culture by Japanese new religious movements, Japanese Goth, nostalgia and Japanese pop, comics for girls, and more. With illustrations throughout, it is a rich source for all scholars and fans of manga and anime as well as students of contemporary mass culture or Japanese culture and civilization.