Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences and law, expertly written by the world's leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas. This cutting edge book introduces the origins and consequences of digital platforms, examining how artificial intelligence-enabled digital platforms collect and process data from and about users by providing social media and e-commerce services. Robin Mansell and W. Edward Steinmueller compare and contrast neoclassical, institutional and critical political economy approaches. They show how uneven power relationships between platform operators and their users are analysed in different economic traditions. Key features include: analysis of economic and public values provides a foundation for platform regulation examines the impacts of platforms on the media industry challenges claims of the inevitability of platform dominance discusses key challenges, including: artificial intelligence, data sharing and competition in the digital economy. This concise book will be indispensable for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of media and communication studies, innovation studies and economics, particularly those focusing on platform economics.

Mass Insanity explores the subjects of insane communities, the clash of identities, and how societies indoctrinate their members and shape their way of thinking. It uses theories of social, clinical and forensic psychology to analyse Islam. It explores Islamic invasions, piracy, slavery, terrorism, female genital mutilation, rape, suppression of human rights and critical thinking. It also discusses the decay of Western civilisation and the arising psychological difficulties. Why do millions of supposedly sane people endorse the assassination of writers, cartoonist, and journalists, the suppression of women, the killing of children, the destruction of art, culture and heritage? Can a society that includes millions of people lose its mind and how? In contrast, why would any country allow a group of people to immigrate, legally and illegally, to its territories to kill its children, rape its daughters, take its wealth, and destroy its identity? Why would a community lose the will to defend itself against an enemy seeking its demise? How could a society stand idly by and watch its own offspring being slain and raped? Again, are these healthy societies?

'Patricia Lockwood is the voice of a generation' Namita Gokhale 'A masterpiece' Guardian 'I really admire and love this book' Sally Rooney 'An intellectual and emotional rollercoaster' Daily Mail 'I can't remember the last time I laughed so much reading a book' David Sedaris 'A rare wonder . . . I was left in bits' Douglas Stuart * WINNER OF THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE 2022 * * SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021 * * SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2021 * * A BBC BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOK CLUB PICK * ______________________________________________ This is a story about a life lived in two halves. It's about what happens when real life collides with the increasing absurdity of a world accessed through a screen. It's about living in world that contains both an abundance of proof that there is goodness, empathy, and justice in the universe, and a deluge of evidence to the contrary. It's a meditation on love, language and human connection from one of the most original voices of our time. ______________________________________________ 'An utterly distinctive mixture of depth, dazzling linguistic richness, anarchic wit and raw emotional candour' Rowan Williams A 2021 Book of the Year: Sunday Times, Guardian, Daily Mail, Telegraph, Evening Standard, The Times, New Statesman, Red, Observer, Independent, Daily Telegraph

A gripping history of China's deteriorating relationship with Hong Kong, and its implications for the rest of the world. For the 150 years that Hong Kong was a British colony, people, money and technology flowed freely, while Hong Kong residents enjoyed freedoms that simply did not exist in mainland China. When the territory was handed over to China in 1997, the Communist Party promised that Hong Kong would remain highly autonomous for fifty years. Now, at the halfway mark, it is clear that China has not kept its word. Universal suffrage and free elections have not been instituted and activists have been jailed en masse following the decree of a sweeping national security law by Beijing. As China continues to expand its global influence, Hong Kong serves as a chilling preview of how dissenters could be treated in regions that fall under the emerging superpower's control. A Hong Kong resident from 1992 to 2021, Mark L. Clifford has witnessed this transformation first-hand and has unrivalled access to the full range of the city's society, from student protestors to billionaire businessmen and senior government officials. A powerful and dramatic mix of history and on-the-ground reporting, Today Hong Kong, Tomorrow the World is the definitive account of one of the most important geopolitical standoffs of our time.

Examining a phenomenon that is sweeping the country, Cancel This Book shines the spotlight on the suppression of open and candid debate. The public shaming of individuals for actual or perceived offenses, often against emerging notions of proper racial and gender norms and relations, has become commonplace. In a number of cases, the shaming is accompanied by calls for the offending individuals to lose their jobs, positions, or other status. Frequently, those targeted for "cancellation" simply do not know the latest, ever-changing norms (often related to language) that they are accused of transgressing-or they have honest questions about issues that have been deemed off-limits for debate and discussion. Cancel This Book offers a unique perspective from Dan Kovalik, a progressive author who supports the ongoing movements for racial and gender equality and justice, but who is concerned about the prevalence of "cancelling" people, and especially of people who are well-intentioned and who are themselves allied with these movements. While many progressives believe that "cancelling" others is a form of activism and holding others accountable, Cancel This Book argues that "cancellation" is oftentimes counter-productive and destructive of the very values which the "cancellers" claim to support. And indeed, we now see instances in the workplace where employers are using this spirt of "cancellation" to pit employees against each other, to exert more control over the workforce and to undermine worker and labor solidarity. Kovalik observes that many progressives are quietly opposed to this "Cancel Culture" and to many instances of "cancellation" they witness, but they are afraid to air these concerns publicly lest they themselves be "cancelled." The result is the suppression of open debate about important issues involving racial and gender matters, and even issues related to how to best confront the current COVID-19 pandemic. While people speak in whispers about their true feelings about such issues, critical debate and discussion is avoided, resentments build, and the movement for justice and equality is ultimately disserved.

Oratory is a valuable source for reconstructing the practices, legalities, and attitudes surrounding sexual labor in classical Athens. It provides evidence of male and female sex laborers, sex slaves, brothels, sex traffickers, the cost of sex, contracts for sexual labor, and manumission practices for sex slaves. Yet the witty, wealthy, and independent hetaira, well-known from other genres, does not feature. Its detailed narratives and character portrayals provide a unique discourse on sexual labor and reveal the complex relationship between such labor and Athenian society. Through a holistic examination of five key speeches, Sexual Labor in the Athenian Courts considers how portrayals of sex laborers intersected with gender, the body, sexuality, the family, urban spaces, and the polis in the context of the Athenian courts. Drawing on gender theory and exploring questions of space, place, and mobility, Allison Glazebrook shows how sex laborers represented a diverse set of anxieties concerning social legitimacy and how the public discourse about them is in fact a discourse on Athenian society, values, and institutions.

In this autobiography by Norma McCorvey, the "Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade," you have the opportunity to read the behind-the-scenes report of one of this century's most surprising and public confessions of faith.

In this fascinating follow-up to the bestselling Information is Beautiful and Knowledge is Beautiful, the king of infographics David McCandless uses spectacular visuals to give us all a bit of good news. We are living in the Information Age, in which we are constantly bombarded with data - on television, in print and online. How can we relate to this mind-numbing overload? Enter David McCandless and his amazing infographics: simple, elegant ways to understand information too complex or abstract to grasp any way but visually. In his unique signature style, he creates dazzling displays that blend facts with their connections, contexts and relationships, making information meaningful, entertaining - and beautiful. In his highly anticipated third book, McCandless illustrates positive news from around the world, for an informative, engaging and uplifting collection of new infographic art.

A powerful portrait of the greatest humanitarian emergency of our time, from the director of Human Flow In the course of making Human Flow, his epic feature documentary about the global refugee crisis, the artist Ai Weiwei and his collaborators interviewed more than 600 refugees, aid workers, politicians, activists, doctors, and local authorities in twenty-three countries around the world. A handful of those interviews were included in the film. This book presents one hundred of these conversations in their entirety, providing compelling first-person stories of the lives of those affected by the crisis and those on the front lines of working to address its immense challenges. Speaking in their own words, refugees give voice to their experiences of migrating across borders, living in refugee camps, and struggling to rebuild their lives in unfamiliar and uncertain surroundings. They talk about the dire circumstances that drove them to migrate, whether war, famine, or persecution; and their hopes and fears for the future. A wide range of related voices provides context for the historical evolution of this crisis, the challenges for regions and states, and the options for moving forward. Complete with photographs taken by Ai Weiwei while filming Human Flow, this book provides a powerful, personal, and moving account of the most urgent humanitarian crisis of our time.

In Dershowitz on Killing: How the Law Decides Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die, Alan Dershowitz-New York Times bestselling author and one of America's most respected legal scholars-examines the subjects of death, life, and the law. Alan Dershowitz has been called "one of the most prominent and consistent defenders of civil liberties in America" by Politico and "the nation's most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer and one of its most distinguished defenders of individual rights" by Newsweek. His legal career as a criminal defense lawyer has been deeply involved with death and life decisions. Dershowitz on Killing is a timely examination of issues and questions that are front and center in today's society. Employing a philosophical, moral, religious, and cultural lens to the legal aspects surrounding death and life, Dershowitz elucidates the role of government to determine who shall live and who shall die in declaring wars, ordering executions, authorizing deadly force, permitting or denying abortions, providing or mandating vaccines, controlling climate change, allowing or refusing asylum for endangered migrants, and other life and death rulings. He notes that when the government decides these choices, it is asked to do so by first determining whether a "right" is involved, because rights trump mere interest, just as constitutional restrictions trump legislative and executive actions. Dershowitz on Killing asserts that the rules governing death and life decisions should reflect the irreversibility of death. It is essential reading for anyone interested in or concerned about how these decisions are allocated among state and federal; executive, legislative, and judicial; private and governmental; religious and secular institutions-and how people in a democracy, through the power of the ballot, have the ultimate say in these critical decisions.

The urge to censor is as old as the urge to speak. From the first Chinese emperor's wholesale elimination of books to the Vatican's suppression of pornography from its own collection, and on to the attack on Charlie Hebdo and the advent of Internet troll armies, words, images and ideas have always been hunted down by those trying to suppress them. In this compelling account, Eric Berkowitz reveals why and how humanity has, from the beginning, sought to silence itself. Ranging from the absurd - such as Henry VIII's decree of death for anyone who 'imagined' his demise - to claims by American slave owners that abolitionist literature should be supressed because it hurt their feelings, Berkowitz takes the reader on an unruly ride through history, highlighting the use of censorship to reinforce class, race and gender privilege and guard against offence. Elucidating phrases like 'fake news' and 'hate speech', Dangerous Ideas exposes the dangers of erasing history, how censorship has shaped our modern society and what forms it is taking today - and to what disturbing effects.

Physician assisted suicide occurs when a terminally ill patient takes the decision to end their life with the help of their doctor. In this book the authors argue clearly and forcefully for the legalization of physician assisted suicide.

"The best work by anyone on prostitution ever, Rachel Moran's Paid For fuses the memoirist's lived poignancy with the philosopher's conceptual sophistication. The result is riveting, compelling, incontestable. Impossible to put down. This book provides all anyone needs to know about the reality of prostitution in moving, insightful prose that engages and disposes of every argument ever raised in its favor." -Catharine A. MacKinnon, law professor, University of Michigan and Harvard University Born into a troubled family, Rachel Moran left home at the age of fourteen. Being homeless, she was driven into prostitution to survive. With intelligence and empathy, she describes the exploitation she and others endured on the streets and in the brothels. Moran also speaks to the psychological damage inherent to prostitution and the inevitable estrangement from one's body. At twenty-two, Moran escaped the sex trade. She has since become a writer and an abolitionist activist.

Mass Insanity explores the subjects of insane communities, the clash of identities, and how societies indoctrinate their members and shape their way of thinking. It uses theories of social, clinical and forensic psychology to analyse Islam. It explores Islamic invasions, piracy, slavery, terrorism, female genital mutilation, rape, suppression of human rights and critical thinking. It also discusses the decay of Western civilisation and the arising psychological difficulties. Why do millions of supposedly sane people endorse the assassination of writers, cartoonist, and journalists, the suppression of women, the killing of children, the destruction of art, culture and heritage? Can a society that includes millions of people lose its mind and how? In contrast, why would any country allow a group of people to immigrate, legally and illegally, to its territories to kill its children, rape its daughters, take its wealth, and destroy its identity? Why would a community lose the will to defend itself against an enemy seeking its demise? How could a society stand idly by and watch its own offspring being slain and raped? Again, are these healthy societies?

Perhaps the most explosive issue in South Africa today is the question of land ownership. The central theme in this country’s colonial history is the dispossession of indigenous African societies by white settlers, and current calls for land restitution are based on this loss. Yet popular knowledge of the actual process by which Africans were deprived of their land is remarkably sketchy.

This book recounts an important part of this history, describing how the Khoisan and Xhosa people were dispossessed and subjugated from the time that Europeans first arrived until the end of the Cape Frontier Wars (1779–1878).

The Land Wars traces the unfolding hostilities involving Dutch and British colonial authorities, trekboers and settlers, and the San, Khoikhoin, Xhosa, Mfengu and Thembu people – as well as conflicts within these groups. In the process it describes the loss of land by Africans to successive waves of white settlers as the colonial frontier inexorably advanced. The book does not shy away from controversial issues such as war atrocities on both sides, or the expedient decision of some of the indigenous peoples to fight alongside the colonisers rather than against them.

The Land Wars is an epic story, featuring well-known figures such as Ngqika, Lord Charles Somerset and his son, Henry, Andries Stockenström, Hintsa, Harry Smith, Sandile, Maqoma, Bartle Frere and Sarhili, and events such as the arrival of the 1820 Settlers and the Xhosa cattlekilling. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand South Africa’s past and present.

The third and final book in the acclaimed THE LOOP trilogy - perfect for fans of The Hunger Games and The Maze Runner ... 'A terrifying and sinister look into the future that will leave your jaw on the floor.' KASS MORGAN, New York Times bestselling author of THE 100 on book 1 'Your next YA obsession.' ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY on book 1 'Fans of The Hunger Games and The Maze Runner should look no further ... Thrilling and terrifying in equal measure.' OBSERVER on book 1 Luka Kane was executed in front of a jeering crowd, but before he died, he opened one pair of eyes to the truth: lab assistant Chester 'Chilly' Beckett's. Chilly is now determined to find out what's happening in the mysterious locked laboratory on the 65th floor. When he finally does, he finds three paralysed subjects ... and one of the subjects, impossibly, is Luka Kane. A bold escape sets in motion a race against time as Happy's world-ending plans draw to a climax ... The final, nail-biting instalment in The Loop trilogy: a must-read YA series for teens and adults alike Prison Break meets 1984 in this cutting-edge sci-fi thriller - perfect for fans of The Hunger Games and The Maze Runner

No matter what influences a woman to end a pregnancy, the physical, psychological, and spiritual side effects are real and not always anticipated. Feelings of guilt, shame, and grief become a heavy burden, and many women feel that they will never be free, that no one understands, that God will never forgive them. But there is hope. Linda Cochrane has been there. With an understanding spirit and a gentle hand, she guides hurting women to bring their emotional scars "out of the dark past and into his holy light" where true and lasting healing can take place. Cochrane delves into the Scriptures to offer help with issues such as relief, denial, anger, forgiveness, depression, letting go, and acceptance. For every woman yearning for the peace of God's forgiveness, this study can be the first step to healing and wholeness.

A History of Science in Society is a concise overview that introduces complex ideas in a non-technical fashion. Ede and Cormack trace the history of the changing place of science in society and explore the link between the pursuit of knowledge and the desire to make that knowledge useful. Volume I covers the origins of natural philosophy in the ancient world to the Scientific Revolution. New topics in this edition include astronomy and mathematics in ancient Mayan society, science and technology in ancient India and China, and Islamic cartography. New "Connections" features provide in-depth exploration of the ways science and society interconnect. The text is accompanied by 27 colour maps and diagrams, and 4 colour plates highlighting key concepts and events. Essay questions, chapter timelines, a further readings section, and an index provide additional support for students. A companion reader edited by the authors, A History of Science in Society: A Reader, is also available.