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Democratic Hope - Robert B. Westbrook - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Democratic Hope - Robert B. Westbrook - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Pragmatism, as Richard Rorty has said, "names the chief glory of our country''s intellectual tradition." In Democratic Hope , Robert B. Westbrook examines the varieties of classical pragmatist thought in the work of John Dewey, William James, and Charles Peirce, testing in good pragmatic fashion the truth of propositions by their consequences in experience. Westbrook also attends to the recent revival of pragmatism by Rorty, Cheryl Misak, Richard Posner, Hilary Putnam, Cornel West, and others and to pragmatist strains in contemporary American political thinking. Westbrook''s aims are both historical and political: to ensure that the genealogy of pragmatism is an honest one and to argue for a hopeful vision of deliberative democracy underwritten by a pragmatist epistemology and ethics.

DKK 262.00
1

Knowing the Past - - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Knowing the Past - - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

To what extent is it possible to know the past or to know other cultures? Can one describe the past without imposing one''s own cultural, political, social, or personal preconceptions? Testing the current skepticism that insists that it is impossible not to read one''s own moment onto other times and cultures, the essays in this collection use the Victorian era as a means of developing a theory and critique of historical reclamation.In Knowing the Past, a distinguished group of Victorian scholars reflect on the Victorian past and examine the Victorians'' own sophisticated contributions to debates about historical and cultural knowledge. Confronting, confirming, and opposing the skeptics, the essays provide close readings of particular texts. They encompass the larger constellation of ideas and questions that went into the making of the texts while participating in larger theoretical debates about knowledge of the past and other cultures.

DKK 371.00
1

Postcommunist Welfare States - Linda J. Cook - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Postcommunist Welfare States - Linda J. Cook - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

In the early 1990s, the countries of the former Soviet Bloc faced an urgent need to reform the systems by which they delivered broad, basic social welfare to their citizens. Inherited systems were inefficient and financially unsustainable. Linda J. Cook here explores the politics and policy of social welfare from 1990 to 2004 in the Russian Federation, Poland, Hungary, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. Most of these countries, she shows, tried to institute reforms based on a liberal paradigm of reduced entitlements and subsidies, means-testing, and privatization. But these proposals provoked opposition from pro-welfare interests, and the politics of negotiating change varied substantially from one political arena to another. In Russia, for example, liberalizing reform was blocked for a decade. Only as Vladimir Putin rose to power did the country change its inherited welfare system. Cook finds that the impact of economic pressures on welfare was strongly mediated by domestic political factors, including the level of democratization and balance of pro- and anti-reform political forces. Postcommunist welfare politics throughout Russia and Eastern Europe, she shows, are marked by the large role played by bureaucratic welfare stakeholders who were left over from the communist period and, in weak states, by the development of informal processes in social sectors.

DKK 270.00
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Penelope Voyages - Karen R. Lawrence - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Penelope Voyages - Karen R. Lawrence - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Looking at travel writing by British women from the seventeenth century on, Karen R. Lawrence asks an intriguing question: What happens when, instead of waiting patiently for Odysseus, Penelope voyages and records her journey—when the woman who is expected to waitsets forth herself and traces an itinerary of her own? Lawrence ranges widely, discussing both fiction and nonfiction and traversing the genres of travel letters, realistic and sentimental novels, ethnography, fantasy, and postmodern narrative. In examining works as dissimilar as Margaret Cavendish''s rendition of the Renaissance adventure narrative and Christine Brooke-Rose''s postmodernist Between , she explores not only the significance of gender for travel writing, but also the value of travel itself for testing the limits of women''s social freedoms and restraints. Lawrence shows how writings by Frances Burney, Mary Wollstonecraft, Sarah Lee, Mary Kingsley, Virginia Woolf, and Brigid Brophy reconceive the meanings of femininity in relation to such apparent oppositions as travel/home, other/self, and foreign/domestic. Despite the differences-historical, generic, political-among these writers, Lawrence maintains, they share common insights. Their accounts overturn the dichotomy between adventure and domesticity, demonstrating something illusory within both the stability of home and the freedom of travel.

DKK 341.00
1

Defense 101 - Michael E. O'hanlon - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Defense 101 - Michael E. O'hanlon - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

In Defense 101, a concise primer for understanding the United States' $700+ billion defense budget and rapidly changing military technologies, Michael O'Hanlon provides a deeply informed yet accessible analysis of American military power. After an introduction in which O'Hanlon surveys today's international security environment, provides a brief sketch of the history of the US military, its command structure, the organization of its three million personnel, and a review of its domestic basing and global reach, Defense 101 provides in-depth coverage of four critical areas in military affairs:• Defense Budgeting and Resource Allocation: detailed budget and cost breakdowns, wartime spending allocations, economics of overseas basing, military readiness, and defense budgeting versus US grand strategy• Gaming and Modeling Combat: wargaming, micro modeling, nuclear exchange calculations, China scenarios, and assessments of counterinsurgency missions• Technological Change and Military Innovation: use of computers, communications, and robotics, cutting-edge developments in projectiles and propulsion systems• The Science of War, military uses of space, missile defense, and nuclear weapons, testing, and proliferationFor policy makers and experts, military professionals, students, and citizens alike, Defense 101 helps make sense of the US Department of Defense, the basics of war and the future of armed conflict, and the most important characteristics of the American military.

DKK 238.00
1

Project Plowshare - Scott Kaufman - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Project Plowshare - Scott Kaufman - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Inspired by President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s "Atoms for Peace" speech, scientists at the Atomic Energy Commission and the University of California’s Radiation Laboratory began in 1957 a program they called Plowshare. Joined by like-minded government officials, scientists, and business leaders, champions of "peaceful nuclear explosions" maintained that they could create new elements and isotopes for general use, build storage facilities for water or fuel, mine ores, increase oil and natural gas production, generate heat for power production, and construct roads, harbors, and canals. By harnessing the power of the atom for nonmilitary purposes, Plowshare backers expected to protect American security, defend U.S. legitimacy and prestige, and ensure access to energy resources. Scott Kaufman’s extensive research in nearly two dozen archives in three nations shows how science, politics, and environmentalism converged to shape the lasting conflict over the use of nuclear technology. Indeed, despite technological and strategic promise, Plowshare’s early champions soon found themselves facing a vocal and powerful coalition of federal and state officials, scientists, industrialists, environmentalists, and average citizens. Skeptical politicians, domestic and international pressure to stop nuclear testing, and a lack of government funding severely restricted the program. By the mid-1970s, Plowshare was, in the words of one government official, "dead as a doornail." However, the thought of using the atom for peaceful purposes remains alive.

DKK 346.00
1

Shakespeare's Foreign Worlds - Carole Levin - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Shakespeare's Foreign Worlds - Carole Levin - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

In Shakespeare''s Foreign Worlds, Carole Levin and John Watkins focus on the relationship between the London-based professional theater preeminently associated with William Shakespeare and an unprecedented European experience of geographic, social, and intellectual mobility. Shakespeare''s plays bear the marks of exile and exploration, rural depopulation, urban expansion, and shifting mercantile and diplomatic configurations. He fills his plays with characters testing the limits of personal identity: foreigners, usurpers, outcasts, outlaws, scolds, shrews, witches, mercenaries, and cross-dressers. Through parallel discussions of Henry VI, The Taming of the Shrew, and The Merchant of Venice, Levin and Watkins argue that Shakespeare''s centrality to English national consciousness is inseparable from his creation of the foreign as a category asserting dangerous affinities between England''s internal minorities and its competitors within an increasingly fraught European mercantile system. As a women''s historian, Levin is particularly interested in Shakespeare''s responses to marginalized sectors of English society. As a scholar of English, Italian Studies, and Medieval Studies, Watkins situates Shakespeare in the context of broadly European historical movements. Together Levin and Watkins narrate the emergence of the foreign as portable category that might be applied both to "strangers" from other countries and to native-born English men and women, such as religious dissidents, who resisted conformity to an increasingly narrow sense of English identity. Shakespeare''s Foreign Worlds will appeal to historians, literary scholars, theater specialists, and anyone interested in Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Age.

DKK 228.00
1

Hard Interests, Soft Illusions - Natasha Hamilton Hart - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Hard Interests, Soft Illusions - Natasha Hamilton Hart - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

In Hard Interests, Soft Illusions , Natasha Hamilton-Hart explores the belief held by foreign policy elites in much of Southeast Asia—Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, and Vietnam—that the United States is a relatively benign power. She argues that this belief is an important factor underpinning U.S. preeminence in the region, because beliefs inform specific foreign policy decisions and form the basis for broad orientations of alignment, opposition, or nonalignment. Such foundational beliefs, however, do not simply reflect objective facts and reasoning processes. Hamilton-Hart argues that they are driven by both interests—in this case the political and economic interests of ruling groups in Southeast Asia—and illusions. Hamilton-Hart shows how the information landscape and standards of professional expertise within the foreign policy communities of Southeast Asia shape beliefs about the United States. These opinions frequently rest on deeply biased understandings of national history that dominate perceptions of the past and underlie strategic assessments of the present and future. Members of the foreign policy community rarely engage in probabilistic reasoning or effortful knowledge-testing strategies. This does not mean, she emphasizes, that the beliefs are insincere or merely instrumental rationalizations. Rather, cognitive and affective biases in the ways humans access and use information mean that interests influence beliefs; how they do so depends on available information, the social organization and practices of a professional sphere, and prevailing standards for generating knowledge.

DKK 380.00
1

Racism and Justice - Gertrude Ezorsky - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Racism and Justice - Gertrude Ezorsky - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Affirmative action: does it really counteract racism? Is it morally justifiable? In her timely and tough-minded book, Gertrude Ezorsky addresses these central issues in the ongoing controversy surrounding affirmative action, and comes up with some convincing answers. Ezorsky begins by examining the effectiveness of affirmative action as a remedy for institutional racism in the workplace. She analyzes the ways in which common practices-selection of employees based on personal connections, qualification, and seniority standards-perpetuate the injurious effect of past racial discrimination, and she assesses the rationale for such affirmative action measures as objective job-related testing, numerical goals, and preferential treatment for basically qualified blacks. To illuminate the social reality in which affirmative action takes place, she draws on recent work by social scientists and legal scholars. Turning to the moral issues, Ezorsky posits two basic justifications for affirmative action: first, looking backward-to provide deserved compensation for past racial injustice that was sanctioned, practiced, and encouraged by our government; second, looking forward-to promote racial desegregation in the American workplace. Unlike some supporters of affirmative action, she does not deny that preferential treatment may place an unfair burden on white males. Indeed, she suggests specific practical measures for spreading that burden more equitably. Clear-headed, well-reasoned, and persuasive, this book will be read eagerly by everyone from students to legislators, by anyone concerned with racial justice in America.

DKK 220.00
1

Heartland Serial Killers - Richard Lindberg - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Heartland Serial Killers - Richard Lindberg - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Lindberg, an accomplished local historian and true crime writer, presents a fascinating story of two contemporaneous serial killers, both weaving marriage and murder in and around Chicago during the 1890s and 1900s. Johann Hoch was a debonair bigamist and wife killer who boasted of having perfected a "scientific technique" to romance and seduction. Belle Gunness was a nesting "Black Widow" whose sprawling farm in Northwest Indiana was a fatal lure for lonely bachelors seeking the comforts of middle-age security by answering matrimonial advertisements placed by Gunness. Notorious in his own day, Hoch had faded into the dark background of Chicago crime history. But, in Heartland Serial Killers , Lindberg brings back vividly the horrors of one of Chicago''s first celebrity criminals and uncovers new evidence of a close connection between Hoch and H.H. Holmes, the "Devil in the White City." Unlike Hoch, Belle Gunness, likely the most prolific and infamous female serial killer of the twentiethe century, has remained fascinating to the public. Here, Lindberg presents the most comprehensive and compelling study of the Gunness case to date, including new information regarding ongoing DNA testing of remains found at the site of Gunness'' farm in LaPorte, Indiana, which may serve to resolve once and for all the mystery surrounding Gunness'' death. Told in alternating chapters and rapidly paced, this book is true crime at its best—gripping, pulpy, and full of sharp historical tidbits. True crime fans, history buffs, and those interested in local lore will delight in this chilling tale of two ruthless killers.

DKK 245.00
1

Uncovering Ways of War - Thomas G. Mahnken - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Uncovering Ways of War - Thomas G. Mahnken - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Intelligence operations face the challenging task of predicting the shape of future wars. This task is hindered by their limited ability to warn of peacetime foreign military innovation. Using formerly classified sources—in particular, the reports of military attachés and other diplomat-officers—Thomas G. Mahnken sheds light on the shadowy world of U.S. intelligence-gathering, tracing how America learned of military developments in Japan, Germany, and Great Britain in the period between the two world wars. The interwar period witnessed both a considerable shift in the balance of power in Europe and Asia and the emergence of new ways of war, such as carrier aviation, amphibious operations, and combined-arms armored warfare. American attempts to follow these developments, Mahnken says, illustrate the problems that intelligence organizations face in their efforts to bridge the gulf between prewar expectations and wartime reality. He finds three reasons for intelligence''s relative lack of success: intelligence agencies are more inclined to monitor established weapons systems than to search for new ones; their attention is more likely to focus on technology and doctrine already demonstrated in combat; and they have more success identifying innovation in areas their own country is testing. Uncovering Ways of War substantially revises the perception of how American intelligence performed prior to World War II. Mahnken challenges the assumption that intelligence regarding foreign militaries had little influence on the development of U.S. weapons and doctrine. Finally, he explains the obstacles these agencies must still negotiate as they seek to understand foreign efforts to exploit the information revolution.

DKK 255.00
1

In Pursuit of Privacy - Judith Wagner Decew - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

In Pursuit of Privacy - Judith Wagner Decew - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Judith Wagner DeCew provides a solid philosophical foundation for legal discussions of privacy by articulating and unifying diverse arguments on the right to privacy and on how it should be guaranteed in various contemporary contexts. Philosophers and legal theorists tend either to define privacy narrowly or to abandon privacy as conceptually incoherent, she claims. In order to assess how far privacy should extend, and determine how the wide range of specific cases can be reconciled, DeCew surveys the history of the notion of privacy as it first evolved in American tort law and constitutional law and then analyzes current characterizations. In different contexts, privacy has been defined on the basis of information, autonomy, property, and intimacy. DeCew''s broader claim is that privacy has fundamental value because it allows us to create ourselves as individuals, offering us freedom from judgment, scrutiny, and the pressure to conform. Feminist theorists often view privacy as a tool for shielding abuses. DeCew responds to this feminist critique of privacy, as well as addressing the issues of abortion and of gay and lesbian sexuality in the context of specific landmark legal cases. In discussions of Roe v. Wade , Bowers v. Hardwick , and the Hart/Devlin debates on decriminalization of homosexuality and prostitution, DeCew applies her broad theory to sexual and reproductive privacy, anti-sodomy laws, and the legislation and enforcement of morals. She finally discusses the intersection of privacy with public safety concerns, such as drug testing, and in light of new communication technologies, such as caller ID.

DKK 304.00
1

Unarmed Forces - Matthew Evangelista - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Unarmed Forces - Matthew Evangelista - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Throughout the Cold War, people worldwide feared that the U.S. and Soviet governments could not prevent a nuclear showdown. Citizens from both East-bloc and Western countries, among them prominent scientists and physicians, formed networks to promote ideas and policies that would lessen this danger. Two of their organizations—the Pugwash movement and the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War—won Nobel Peace Prizes. Still, many observers believe that their influence was negligible and that the Reagan administration deserves sole credit for ending the Cold War. The first book to explore the impact these activists had on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain, Unarmed Forces demonstrates the importance of their efforts on behalf of arms control and disarmament. Matthew Evangelista examines the work of transnational peace movements throughout the Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev eras and into the first years of Boris Yeltsin''s leadership. Drawing on extensive research in Russian archives and on interviews with Russian and Western activists and policymakers, he investigates the sources of Soviet policy on nuclear testing, strategic defense, and conventional forces. Evangelista concludes that transnational actors at times played a crucial role in influencing Soviet policy—specifically in encouraging moderate as opposed to hard-line responses—for they supplied both information and ideas to that closed society. Evangelista''s findings challenge widely accepted views about the peaceful resolution of the Cold War. By revealing the connection between a state''s domestic structure and its susceptibility to the influence of transnational groups, Unarmed Forces will also stimulate thinking about the broader issue of how government policy is shaped.

DKK 312.00
1

The Ancient Constitution and the Origins of Anglo-American Liberty - John Phillip Reid - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

The Ancient Constitution and the Origins of Anglo-American Liberty - John Phillip Reid - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, English and American lawyers appealed to "the ancient constitution" as the cornerstone of liberty. According to this idea, constitutional law was not dictated by a monarch but based on the authority of custom, passed down unaltered from time immemorial. Legal historian John Phillip Reid convincingly demonstrates that this concept of an unchanging, ancient constitution furnished English common lawyers and parliamentarians an argument with which to combat royal prerogative power. At the same time, it provided American revolutionaries with legal arguments for rejecting the British parliament''s effort to impose arbitrary rule upon the colonies. Whereas modern historians have tended to fault the constitutionalists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for inventing a mystical past, these polemical pamphleteers had less interest in the accuracy of their history than in its usefulness in forensic argumentation. Much as lawyers contending before the bar, they appealed to the past as precedent, as analogy, as principle—in short, as forensic history. Claiming that liberty had been more effective and secure during ancient times, they upheld an idealized Anglo-Saxon standard for testing contemporary institutions. More significantly, they called upon the authority of the ancient constitution as a defense against the innovations of the English monarchy and against the assertions of an unrepresentative parliament. The Ancient Constitution and the Origins of Anglo-American Liberty complements Reid''s recent book on another cornerstone of Anglo-American jurisprudence and constitutional theory, Rule of Law . Whereas "rule of law" insists that one law applies to rulers and ruled alike, the ancient constitution embodied the ideal for what that one law should be.

DKK 338.00
1

Smartups - Rob Ryan - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Smartups - Rob Ryan - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Building successful start-ups was never quite as easy as it seemed, and the changing economic climate has raised the stakes, reduced the margin of error. New entrepreneurs can''t stumble into wealth on the power of half-formed ideas, or turn dreams into reality without doing a lot of homework. It''s time to get smart. This book teaches would-be entrepreneurs the skills they need to get through the venture capital process with companies that will survive to grow and succeed. Rob Ryan, a pioneer in the high-tech industry, founded Ascend Communications in 1989, and throughout the nineties provided firms with the infrastructure they needed to keep up with the rapid growth of the Internet. At the beginning of 1999, Ascend was sold to Lucent for $25 billion. Since retiring from Ascend and starting Entrepreneur America, Ryan has helped launch a string of successful companies, including Virtmed, RightNow, and Virtual Ink. All provide electronic solutions to real-world problems, meet existing—rather than manufactured—needs, and save their customers time and money. In Smartups, Ryan focuses on methods he''s developed over the years for building a sustainable business that makes money. He emphasizes the importance of testing ideas on customers and making sure that a product offers something new and important. Recognizing a team''s key competencies is crucial, Ryan says. He also finds it necessary to take certain steps at the correct stages of a company''s inception. Smartups will show you how to turn your idea into a real product, take it to investors, and get your start-up started right.

DKK 195.00
1

Principles in Power - Vanessa Walker - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Principles in Power - Vanessa Walker - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Vanessa Walker''s Principles in Power explores the relationship between policy makers and nongovernment advocates in Latin America and the United States government in order to explain the rise of anti-interventionist human rights policies uniquely critical of U.S. power during the Cold War. Walker shows that the new human rights policies of the 1970s were based on a complex dynamic of domestic and foreign considerations that was rife with tensions between the seats of power in the United States and Latin America, and the growing activist movement that sought to reform them. By addressing the development of U.S. diplomacy and politics alongside that of activist networks, especially in Chile and Argentina, Walker shows that Latin America was central to the policy assumptions that shaped the Carter administration''s foreign policy agenda. The coup that ousted the socialist president of Chile, Salvador Allende, sparked new human rights advocacy as a direct result of U.S. policies that supported authoritarian regimes in the name of Cold War security interests. From 1973 onward, the attention of Washington and capitals around the globe turned to Latin America as the testing ground for the viability of a new paradigm for U.S. power. This approach, oriented around human rights, required collaboration among activists and state officials in places as diverse as Buenos Aires, Santiago, and Washington, DC. Principles in Power tells the complicated story of the potentials and limits of partnership between government and nongovernment actors. Analyzing how different groups deployed human rights language to reform domestic and international power, Walker explores the multiple and often conflicting purposes of U.S. human rights policy.

DKK 381.00
1

The Fight for Local Control - Campbell F. Scribner - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

The Fight for Local Control - Campbell F. Scribner - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Throughout the twentieth century, local control of school districts was one of the most contentious issues in American politics. As state and federal regulation attempted to standardize public schools, conservatives defended local prerogative as a bulwark of democratic values. Yet their commitment to those values was shifting and selective. In The Fight for Local Control , Campbell F. Scribner demonstrates how, in the decades after World War II, suburban communities appropriated legacies of rural education to assert their political autonomy and in the process radically changed educational law. Scribner’s account unfolds on the metropolitan fringe, where rapid suburbanization overlapped with the consolidation of thousands of small rural schools. Rural residents initially clashed with their new neighbors, but by the 1960s the groups had rallied to resist government oversight. What began as residual opposition to school consolidation would transform into campaigns against race-based busing, unionized teachers, tax equalization, and secular curriculum. In case after case, suburban conservatives carved out new rights for local autonomy, stifling equal educational opportunity. Yet Scribner also provides insight into why many conservatives have since abandoned localism for policies that stress school choice and federal accountability. In the 1970s, as new battles arose over unions, textbooks, and taxes, districts on the rural-suburban fringe became the first to assert individual choice in the form of school vouchers, religious exemptions, and a marketplace model of education. At the same time, they began to embrace tax limitation and standardized testing, policies that checked educational bureaucracy but bypassed local school boards. The effect, Scribner concludes, has been to reinforce inequalities between districts while weakening participatory government within them, keeping the worst aspects of local control in place while forfeiting its virtues.

DKK 351.00
1

Creating the Suburban School Advantage - John L. Rury - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Creating the Suburban School Advantage - John L. Rury - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Creating the Suburban School Advantage explains how American suburban school districts gained a competitive edge over their urban counterparts. John L. Rury provides a national overview of the process, focusing on the period between 1950 and 1980, and presents a detailed study of metropolitan Kansas City, a region representative of trends elsewhere. While big-city districts once were widely seen as superior and attracted families seeking the best educational opportunities for their children, suburban school systems grew rapidly in the post–World War II era as middle-class and more affluent families moved to those communities. As Rury relates, at the same time, economically dislocated African Americans migrated from the South to center-city neighborhoods, testing the capacity of urban institutions. As demographic trends drove this urban-suburban divide, a suburban ethos of localism contributed to the socioeconomic exclusion that became a hallmark of outlying school systems. School districts located wholly or partly within the municipal boundaries of Kansas City, Missouri, make for revealing cases that illuminate our understanding of these national patterns. As Rury demonstrates, struggles to achieve greater educational equity and desegregation in urban centers contributed to so-called white flight and what Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan considered to be a crisis of urban education in 1965. Despite the often valiant efforts made to serve inner city children and bolster urban school districts, this exodus, Rury cogently argues, created a new metropolitan educational hierarchy—a mirror image of the urban-centric model that had prevailed before World War II. The stubborn perception that suburban schools are superior, based on test scores and budgets, has persisted into the twenty-first century and instantiates today''s metropolitan landscape of social, economic, and educational inequality.

DKK 254.00
1

Merit - Joseph Kett - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Merit - Joseph Kett - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

The idea that citizens’ advancement should depend exclusively on merit, on qualities that deserve reward rather than on bloodlines or wire-pulling, was among the Founding ideals of the American republic, Joseph F. Kett argues in this provocative and engaging book. Merit’s history, he contends, is best understood within the context of its often conflicting interaction with the other ideals of the Founding, equal rights and government by consent. Merit implies difference; equality suggests sameness. By sanctioning selection of those lower down by those higher up, merit potentially conflicts with the republican ideal that citizens consent to the decisions that affect their lives. In Merit, which traces the history of its subject over three centuries, Kett asserts that Americans have reconciled merit with other principles of the Founding in ways that have shaped their distinctive approach to the grading of public schools, report cards, the forging of workplace hierarchies, employee rating forms, merit systems in government, the selection of officers for the armed forces, and standardized testing for intelligence, character, and vocational interests. Today, the concept of merit is most commonly associated with measures by which it is quantified. Viewing their merit as an element of their selfhood—essential merit—members of the Founding generation showed no interest in quantitative measurements. Rather, they equated merit with an inner quality that accounted for their achievements and that was best measured by their reputations among their peers. In a republic based on equal rights and consent of the people, however, it became important to establish that merit-based rewards were within the grasp of ordinary Americans. In response, Americans embraced institutional merit in the form of procedures focused on drawing small distinctions among average people. They also developed a penchant for increasing the number of winners in competitions—what Kett calls "selection in" rather than "selection out"—in order to satisfy popular aspirations. Merit argues that values rooted in the Founding of the republic continue to influence Americans’ approach to controversies, including those surrounding affirmative action, which involve the ideal of merit.

DKK 288.00
1

Before the Eyes of the World - Kevin Witherspoon - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Before the Eyes of the World - Kevin Witherspoon - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Mexican leaders eagerly anticipated the attention that hosting the world''s most visible sporting event would bring, yet they could not have predicted the array of conflicts that would play out before the eyes of the world during the notorious 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Following twenty years of economic growth and political stability—known as the "Mexican miracle"—Mexican policy makers escaped their prior image of being economically underdeveloped to successfully craft an image of a nation that was both modern and cosmopolitan but also steeped in culture and tradition. Buoyed by this new image, they set their sights on the Olympic bid, and they not only won but also prepared impressive facilities. Prior to the opening ceremonies, several controversies emerged, the most glaring of which was a student protest movement that culminated in a public massacre, leaving several hundred students dead. Less dramatic were concerns that athletes would suffer harm in the high elevation and thin air, debates over the nature of amateurism, threats by nations opposing apartheid to boycott if South Africa was allowed to compete, and the introduction of drug and gender testing. Additionally the Olympics provided a forum for the United States and the Soviet Union to carry their Cold War rivalry to the playing field—a way to achieve victory without world destruction at stake. During the Games, one of the most significant controversies occurred when two African American athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, raised their fists in the Black Power salute while on the medal stand. This gesture brought worldwide attention to racism within the United States and remains a lasting image of both the Mexico City Olympics and the Civil Rights movement. Although the Olympics are intended to bring athletes of the world together for harmonious competition, the 1968 Games will long be remembered as fraught with discord. This ambitious and comprehensive study will appeal to those interested in US history, Latin American history, sports history, and Olympic history.

DKK 310.00
1

Before the Eyes of the World - Kevin Witherspoon - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Before the Eyes of the World - Kevin Witherspoon - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Mexican leaders eagerly anticipated the attention that hosting the world''s most visible sporting event would bring, yet they could not have predicted the array of conflicts that would play out before the eyes of the world during the notorious 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Following twenty years of economic growth and political stability—known as the "Mexican miracle"—Mexican policy makers escaped their prior image of being economically underdeveloped to successfully craft an image of a nation that was both modern and cosmopolitan but also steeped in culture and tradition. Buoyed by this new image, they set their sights on the Olympic bid, and they not only won but also prepared impressive facilities. Prior to the opening ceremonies, several controversies emerged, the most glaring of which was a student protest movement that culminated in a public massacre, leaving several hundred students dead. Less dramatic were concerns that athletes would suffer harm in the high elevation and thin air, debates over the nature of amateurism, threats by nations opposing apartheid to boycott if South Africa was allowed to compete, and the introduction of drug and gender testing. Additionally the Olympics provided a forum for the United States and the Soviet Union to carry their Cold War rivalry to the playing field—a way to achieve victory without world destruction at stake. During the Games, one of the most significant controversies occurred when two African American athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, raised their fists in the Black Power salute while on the medal stand. This gesture brought worldwide attention to racism within the United States and remains a lasting image of both the Mexico City Olympics and the Civil Rights movement. Although the Olympics are intended to bring athletes of the world together for harmonious competition, the 1968 Games will long be remembered as fraught with discord. This ambitious and comprehensive study will appeal to those interested in US history, Latin American history, sports history, and Olympic history.

DKK 220.00
1

Standards and Their Stories - - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Standards and Their Stories - - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Standardization is one of the defining aspects of modern life, its presence so pervasive that it is usually taken for granted. However cumbersome, onerous, or simply puzzling certain standards may be, their fundamental purpose in streamlining procedures, regulating behaviors, and predicting results is rarely questioned. Indeed, the invisibility of infrastructure and the imperative of standardizing processes signify their absolute necessity. Increasingly, however, social scientists are beginning to examine the origins and effects of the standards that underpin the technology and practices of everyday life.Standards and Their Stories explores how we interact with the network of standards that shape our lives in ways both obvious and invisible. The main chapters analyze standardization in biomedical research, government bureaucracies, the insurance industry, labor markets, and computer technology, providing detailed accounts of the invention of "standard humans" for medical testing and life insurance actuarial tables, the imposition of chronological age as a biographical determinant, the accepted means of determining labor productivity, the creation of international standards for the preservation and access of metadata, and the global consequences of "ASCII imperialism" and the use of English as the lingua franca of the Internet.Accompanying these in-depth critiques are a series of examples that depict an almost infinite variety of standards, from the controversies surrounding the European Union''s supposed regulation of banana curvature to the minimum health requirements for immigrants at Ellis Island, conflicting (and ever-increasing) food portion sizes, and the impact of standardized punishment metrics like "Three Strikes" laws. The volume begins with a pioneering essay from Susan Leigh Star and Martha Lampland on the nature of standards in everyday life that brings together strands from the several fields represented in the book. In an appendix, the editors provide a guide for teaching courses in this emerging interdisciplinary field, which they term "infrastructure studies," making Standards and Their Stories ideal for scholars, students, and those curious about why coffins are becoming wider, for instance, or why the Financial Accounting Standards Board refused to classify September 11 as an "extraordinary" event.

DKK 300.00
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Prosperity for All - Matthew Hilton - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Prosperity for All - Matthew Hilton - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

The history of consumerism is about much more than just shopping. Ever since the eighteenth century, citizen-consumers have protested against the abuses of the market by boycotting products and promoting fair instead of free trade. In recent decades, consumer activism has responded to the challenges of affluence by helping to guide consumers through an increasingly complex and alien marketplace. In doing so, it has challenged the very meaning of consumer society and tackled some of the key economic, social, and political issues associated with the era of globalization. In Prosperity for All , the first international history of consumer activism, Matthew Hilton shows that modern consumer advocacy reached the peak of its influence in the decades after World War II. Growing out of the product-testing activities of Consumer Reports and its international counterparts (including Which? in the United Kingdom, Que Choisir in France, and Test in Germany), consumerism evolved into a truly global social movement. Consumer unions, NGOs, and individual activists like Ralph Nader emerged in countries around the world—including developing countries in Southeast Asia and Latin America—concerned with creating a more equitable marketplace and articulating a politics of consumption that addressed the needs of both individuals and society as a whole. Consumer activists achieved many victories, from making cars safer to highlighting the dangers of using baby formula instead of breast milk in countries with no access to clean water. The 1980s saw a reversal in the consumer movement''s fortunes, thanks in large part to the rise of an antiregulatory agenda both in the United States and internationally. In the process, the definition of consumerism changed, focusing more on choice than on access. As Hilton shows, this change reflects more broadly on the dilemmas we all face as consumers: Do we want more stuff and more prosperity for ourselves, or do we want others less fortunate to be able to enjoy the same opportunities and standard of living that we do? Prosperity for All makes clear that by abandoning a more idealistic vision for consumer society we reduce consumers to little more than shoppers, and we deny the vast majority of the world''s population the fruits of affluence.

DKK 312.00
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Enlightening the World - Yasmin Sabina Khan - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Enlightening the World - Yasmin Sabina Khan - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Conceived in the aftermath of the American Civil War and the grief that swept France over the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the Statue of Liberty has been a potent symbol of the nation''s highest ideals since it was unveiled in 1886. Dramatically situated on Bedloe''s Island (now Liberty Island) in the harbor of New York City, the statue has served as a reminder for generations of immigrants of America''s long tradition as an asylum for the poor and the persecuted. Although it is among the most famous sculptures in the world, the story of its creation is little known. In Enlightening the World, Yasmin Sabina Khan provides a fascinating new account of the design of the statue and the lives of the people who created it, along with the tumultuous events in France and the United States that influenced them. Khan''s narrative begins on the battlefields of Gettysburg, where Lincoln framed the Civil War as a conflict testing whether a nation "conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal... can long endure." People around the world agreed with Lincoln that this question—and the fate of the Union itself—affected the "whole family of man." Inspired by the Union''s victory and stunned by Lincoln''s death, Édouard-René Lefebvre de Laboulaye, a legal scholar and noted proponent of friendship between his native France and the United States, conceived of a monument to liberty and the exemplary form of government established by the young nation. For Laboulaye and all of France, the statue would be called La Liberté Éclairant le Monde—Liberty Enlightening the World. Following the statue''s twenty-year journey from concept to construction, Khan reveals in brilliant detail the intersecting lives that led to the realization of Laboulaye''s dream: the Marquis de Lafayette; Alexis de Tocqueville; the sculptor Auguste Bartholdi, whose commitment to liberty and self-government was heightened by his experience of the Franco-Prussian War; the architect Richard Morris Hunt, the first American to study architecture at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts in Paris; and the engineer Gustave Eiffel, who pushed the limits for large-scale metal construction. Also here are the contributions of such figures as Senators Charles Sumner and Carl Schurz, the artist John La Farge, the poet Emma Lazarus, and the publisher Joseph Pulitzer. While exploring the creation of the statue, Khan points to possible sources—several previously unexamined—for the design. She links the statue''s crown of rays with Benjamin Franklin''s image of the rising sun and makes a clear connection between the broken chain under Lady Liberty''s foot and the abolition of slavery. Through the rich story of this remarkable national monument, Enlightening the World celebrates both a work of human accomplishment and the vitality of liberty.

DKK 220.00
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