In 1939, residents of a rural village near Chengdu watched as Lei Mingyuan, a member of a violent secret society known as the Gowned Brothers, executed his teenage daughter. Six years later, Shen Baoyuan, a sociology student at Yenching University, arrived in the town to conduct fieldwork on the society that once held sway over local matters. She got to know Lei Mingyuan and his family, recording many rare insights about the murder and the Gowned Brothers' inner workings. Using the filicide as a starting point to examine the history, culture, and organization of the Gowned Brothers, Di Wang offers nuanced insights into the structures of local power in 1940s rural Sichuan. Moreover, he examines the influence of Western sociology and anthropology on the way intellectuals in the Republic of China perceived rural communities. By studying the complex relationship between the Gowned Brothers and the Chinese Communist Party, he offers a unique perspective on China's transition to socialism. In so doing, Wang persuasively connects a family in a rural community, with little overt influence on national destiny, to the movements and ideologies that helped shape contemporary China.

University student-run communications agencies allow students to work with real clients and get real world experience before they graduate from college and enter the workforce. Student-run agencies are increasing in popularity, but building a successful agency is challenging. With more than ten years of experience supervising a student-run agency, Swanson examines the three critical roles a student agency must fulfill in order to be successful. First, the agency must be an exceptional environment for learning. Second, it must be a successful business-without satisfied clients, the agency will not survive. Third, it must be a supportive partner in both on- and off-campus communities. As the first book to address student-run agencies, Real World Career Preparation offers extensive 'how to' guidance, and is supported by 22 Agency Spotlight best practice examples from student-run agencies across the U.S. The book ends with a comprehensive directory of 158 university student-run agencies in operation all over the world. Real World Career Preparation is essential reading for any faculty member or administrator who is involved with an agency, or who plans to launch one in the future. This book is also valuable for college students working in an agency who seek 'the big picture' view of how their work for clients has long-lasting impact on the campus and the community.

Astor. Rockefeller. McCormick. Belmont. All family names that still adorn buildings, streets and charity foundations. While the men blazed across America with their oil, industry, and railways, the matriarchs founded art museums, opera houses, and symphony houses that functioned almost as private clubs. These women ruled American society with a style and impact that make today's socialites seem pale reflections of their forbears. Linked by money, marriage, privilege, power and class, they formed a grand American matriarchy that dominated the social and cultural life of the nation between the 1870s and the Second World War. The Grandes Dames of America knew just what they wanted and precisely how to get it, and when faced with criticism, malice or jealousy, they would rise above their detractors and usually persevere. Preeminent social historian Stephen Birmingham takes us into the drawing rooms of these powerful women, providing keen insights into aspects of an American Society that no longer exists. Caroline Astor, when asked for her fare boarding a street car, responded, "No thank you, I have my own favorite charities." Edith "Effie" Stern decided that no existing school would do for her child, so she had a new one built. And the legendary Isabella Stewart Gardner replied to a contemporary who was overly taken with their Mayflower ancestors: "Of course, immigration laws are much more strict nowadays." These women had looks, manner, and style, but more than that they had presence-there was a sense that when one of them entered a room, something momentous was about to occur. Birmingham opens a window to the highest levels of American society with these eight profiles of American "royalty".

Over the past 200 years, many thousands of undergraduates have been initiated into membership of Apollo - the Masonic lodge of the University of Oxford. These have included such diverse figures as Oscar Wilde, Osbert Lancaster, Samuel Reynolds Hole, Cecil Rhodes, Edward, Prince of Wales and his brother Leopold, Charles Canning, Hugh Trevor-Roper, Godfrey Elton and Roger Makins. Drawing on archives held in the Bodleian Library, this book is the first serious attempt to set the story of Apollo in the context of Oxford life and learning as well as its wider social and political diaspora. From the devastating numbers lost in the First and Second World Wars, as well as those decorated for bravery, to the significant number of Olympians who were members of the lodge, it also charts the lodge's charitable work, its changes of location, social events and adaptation to twenty-first-century life in Oxford. Illustrated with archival material, portraits and Masonic treasures, this is history in a minor key, but a minor narrative with major implications, documenting the remarkable numbers of Oxford freemasons with distinguished careers in government, law, the army and the Church.

This book discusses the relationship, interaction and conflict between everyday life and various institutions in a specific village in North China, with a focus on the formal and informal legal systems. It vividly describes the village's "legal construction problems" as well as the customs and laws, and such it can be seen as a historical and innovative comment on China's problems. The book is based on the author's field investigations assessing vast amounts of material concerning local organizations, formal and informal authorities, economic exchange, religious rituals, as well as interviews with villagers and numerous court files. It presents an in-depth exploration of "pluralism of authority" in China's rural society, and examines how various authorities were formed. It also summarizes how various local disputes are resolved and discusses the villagers' understanding of the concept of "justice." Lastly, it suggests ways in which national law and local customs could communicate and collaborate.

From supreme president to forgotten enemy, John W. Talbot lived a remarkable life. Charismatic, energetic, and powerful, he founded a national fraternal organization, the Order of Owls, and counted senators, congressmen, and business leaders among his friends. He wielded his influence to help causes close to his heart but also to bring down those who stood against him. In So Much Bad in the Best of Us, Greta Fisher's careful research reveals that Talbot was capable of great evil, causing one woman to describe him as "the Devil Incarnate." His string of very public affairs revealed his strange sexual preferences and violent tendencies, and charges leveled against him included perjury, blackmail, jury tampering, slander, libel, misuse of the mail, assault with intent to kill, and White slavery. Ultimately convicted on the slavery charge, he spent several years in Leavenworth penitentiary and eventually lost everything, including control of the Order of Owls. His descent into alcoholism and death by fire was a fitting end to a tumultuous and dramatic life. After 50 years of newspaper headlines and court battles, Talbot's death made national news, but with more enemies than friends and estranged from his family, he was ultimately forgotten. A gripping true crime story, So Much Bad in the Best of Us offers a mesmerizing account of the life of John W. Talbot, the Order of Owls, and how quickly the powerful can fall.

Modern Freemasonry in the United States and Great Britain celebrates its 300th anniversary in 2017 tracing its direct history from the Grand Lodge of England founded in 1717. This text is intended to provide a theory of origin for the Fraternity. It is based on available sources, many of which are not Masonic in nature, but cover the disciplines of history, religion, ethics, economics, politics, and labor development. The book begins with an overview of how the Fraternity initiated members in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and includes the ancient Legend of Noah. It then reviews how history is written and exams the utilization of Biblical and legendary accounts in the development of a country's, peoples', or organization's history. The text moves on to the transition from craft guild to fraternal organization and gives the full text of Freemasonry's four oldest documents: Regius Poem, Cooke Manuscript, Graham Manuscript, and Schaw Statutes. This is followed by a description of the London Masons' Company based on the assumption that this city-wide organization of craftsmen chartered in 1481 may have been the administrative precursor of the Grand Lodge of England. The author then reviews the demise of craft guilds and the rise of fraternal societies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Additional chapters review the Masonic approach to ritual, education, and ethical decision making. The text closes with a discussion of the philosophy of Freemasonry as well as comments and suggestions regarding Freemasonry's future. The last chapter is a Scottish Charge appropriate to all men, not just Freemasons.

Interpreting Masonic Ritual endeavors to addresses the depth of the ritualistic experience through a discussion of what ritual means to man as well as what man means to ritual. Ritual teaches us about reality but we will not come to a full understanding of it if we disparage what others do and view their actions from a position of pseudo-intellectual or cultural superiority. Ritual is the core of Freemasonry and is that thing which sets it apart from so many organizations. It is the key to the Freemason's "secrets" and the manner through which they transmit our "beautiful system of morality." It is something to be treasured, maintained, taught, elevated, evaluated, and, above, reinforced through proper performance, decorum, and setting.

Silvia Bermudez's fascinating study reveals how Spanish popular music, produced between 1980 and 2013, was the first cultural site to engage in critical debate about ethnicity and race in relation to the immigration patterns that have been changing the social landscape of Spanish society since the late 1970s. In Rocking the Boat, Bermudez examines the lyrics of songs by both renowned and up and coming artists to illuminate how these new migrants challenged Spain's notions of homogeneity, boundaries, accommodation, and incorporation. Bermudez observes that immigration has had such a significant influence on Spanish society that the tattered boats, seen to this day on the shores of Spain and throughout the Mediterranean Sea, have become inverted emblems of the ships that were once symbols of great power and economic development. Rocking the Boat is a nuanced account of how popular urban music shaped the discourse on immigration, transnational migrants, and racialization in Spain's new social landscape.

The senses are made, not given. This revolutionary realization has come as of late to inform research across the social sciences and humanities, and is currently inspiring groundbreaking experimentation in the world of art and design, where the focus is now on mixing and manipulating the senses. The Sensory Studies Manifesto tracks these transformations and opens multiple lines of investigation into the diverse ways in which human beings sense and make sense of the world. This unique volume treats the human sensorium as a dynamic whole that is best approached from historical, anthropological, geographic, and sociological perspectives. In doing so, it has altered our understanding of sense perception by directing attention to the sociality of sensation and the cultural mediation of sense experience and expression. David Howes challenges the assumptions of mainstream Western psychology by foregrounding the agency, interactivity, creativity, and wisdom of the senses as shaped by culture. The Sensory Studies Manifesto sets the stage for a radical reorientation of research in the human sciences and artistic practice.

First published in 1995, this book provides a readable survey of the three major forms of working-class self-help in nineteenth century England: the trade unions, the friendly societies and the co-operative movement. It is accessible to an introductory student readership as well as providing a critical appraisal of all types and forms of self-help available to the industrial working-class. Unlike former studies, the author examines trade unionism alongside friendly societies and the co-operative movement and shows how each developed in response to the challenge of industrialization and the demands of urban industrial life. The strengths and limitations of self-help approaches are assessed and wider issues of working-class culture and identity are examined. This book will be of interest to those studying the history of social welfare, class and industrial Britain.

This book explores the foundations of modern secret societies, examining the history and known facts of three very different organisations: the Assassins of the Middle East, the Templars of Europe, and the Secret Tribunals of Westphalia. This was the first book to gather information on these secret orders and, although this is a reprint of an 1846 edition, it is still used widely as a reference book on the subject.

Long encouraged by the International Association for the Study of Organized Crime, the current research on this broad and intriguing topic is systematically brought together in this exemplary reader. Understanding Organized Crime in Global Perspective presents a rich collection of articles by outstanding researchers in the field who examine empirical research examples, salient issues and their explication, and provide a theoretical foundation as a guide for further explorations. Skillfully edited by Patrick J. Ryan and George E. Rush, this accessible and timely volume focuses on such particular areas of study and recent trends as: the nature of organized crime; theoretical perspectives; organized crime in Russia, Eastern Europe and Hong Kong, with predictions for the next century; the diversity of activities and structures; and how the law enforcement community responds to organized crime.

This book provides the first account of the rise of these most distinctive, widespread and powerful of social institutions in Georgian Britain: the British clubs and societies, thousands of which had swept the country by 1800. Looking at the complex mosaic of clubs and societies, ranging from freemasonry to bird-fancying, the author considers the reasons for their successful development, their export to America and the colonies, and examines their long term impact on British Society which continues up to the present day.

This study examines the emergence and evolution in China of a tradition of popular organization generally known under the rubric of "secret society." The author suggests that the secret society is properly understood as one variety of the "brotherhood association," a category that encompasses a range of popular fraternal organizations that flourished in the early and mid-Qing period.
The book begins by describing the proliferation of brotherhood associations in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, particularly in Southeast China. It concludes in the early nineteenth century, as the Qing suppression of the Lin Shuangwen rebellion in late 1780's forced members of the best-known brotherhood association, the Heaven and Earth Society (Tiandihui) to flee their homes in the Southeast, taking refuge in other parts of South China and Southeast Asia and, eventually, in Chinatowns throughout the world. This episode set the stage for the violent nineteenth-century confrontations between the Qing state and the secret societies.