In the1996 presidential election, voters stayed away from the polls in record numbers. This volume of original essays by leading political scientists and media scholars examines the nature of political disengagement among the public and offers concrete solutions for how the government and media can stimulate public engagement in the political process. Among recommendations are more public deliberation, media responsibility, and campaign finance reform. Candidates with integrity, issues that matter, and information that is both reliable and meaningful will motivate the disaffected more surely than special-interest appeals to minorities, lower-income voters, students, and others. Further recommendations include using the Internet, structural change in registration and voting, and 'reverse socialization'.

For courses in Introduction to Communication A five-principles approach that helps students build practical communication skills Revel (R) Communication: Principles for a Lifetime was designed to address the biggest challenge when teaching Introduction to Communication: how to present the variety of fundamental theories and skills without overwhelming learners. By organizing the text around five key principles of communication, authors Steven Beebe, Susan Beebe, and Diana Ivy help students to see the interplay among communication concepts, skills, and contexts. The 8th Edition offers new Critical/Cultural Perspectives features that examine contemporary issues in communication and refreshed chapter-ending study guides that better reinforce the authors' five-principles approach. Revel empowers students to actively participate in learning. More than a digital textbook, Revel delivers an engaging blend of author content, media, and assessment. With Revel, students read and practice in one continuous experience, anytime, anywhere, on any device.

"[An] elegant ... Survival Manual ... Brief, witty and full of practical applications." - Stefan Kanfer, Time

Why do even well-educated people understand so little about mathematics? And what are the costs of our innumeracy? John Allen Paulos, in his celebrated bestseller first published in 1988, argues that our inability to deal rationally with very large numbers and the probabilities associated with them results in misinformed governmental policies, confused personal decisions, and an increased susceptibility to pseudoscience of all kinds. Innumeracy lets us know what we're missing, and how we can do something about it.

Sprinkling his discussion of numbers and probabilities with quirky stories and anecdotes, Paulos ranges freely over many aspects of modern life, from contested elections to sports stats, from stock scams and newspaper psychics to diet and medical claims, sex discrimination, insurance, lotteries, and drug testing. Readers of Innumeracy will be rewarded with scores of astonishing facts, a fistful of powerful ideas, and, most important, a clearer, more quantitative way of looking at their world.

With a government plagued by systemic ills and deep ideological divides, democracy, as we know it, is in jeopardy. Yet, ironically, voter apathy remains prevalent and evidence suggests standard civic education has done little to instill a sense of civic duty in the American public. While some are waiting for change to come from within, trying to influence already polarized voters, or counting down the days until the "next election," leading child and adolescent development experts Daniel Hart and James Youniss are looking to another solution: America's youth. In Renewing Democracy in Young America, Hart and Youniss examine the widening generation gap, the concentration of wealth in pockets of the US, and the polarized political climate, and they arrive at a compelling solution to some of the most hotly contested issues of our time. The future of democracy depends on the American people seeing citizenship as a long-term psychological identity, and thus it is critical that youth have the opportunity to act as citizens during the time of their identity formation. Proposing that 16- and 17-year-olds be able to vote in municipal elections and suggesting that schools create science-based, community-oriented environmental engagement programs, the authors expound that by engaging youth through direct citizen-participatory experiences, we can successfully create active and committed citizens. Political scientists, media commentators, and citizens alike agree that democratic processes are broken across the nation, but we cannot stop at simply showing that our political system is dysfunctional. Refreshingly lucid and unabashedly hopeful, Renewing Democracy in Young America is an impeccably timed call to action.

For the first time in the history of the Little House books, this new edition features Garth Williams' interior art in vibrant, full color, as well as a beautifully redesigned cover.

Fifteen-year-old Laura lives apart from her family for the first time, teaching school in a claim shanty twelve miles from home. She is very homesick, but keeps at it so that she can help pay for her sister Mary's tuition at the college for the blind. During school vacations Laura has fun with her singing lessons, going on sleigh rides, and best of all, helping Almanzo Wilder drive his new buggy. Friendship soon turns to love for Laura and Almanzo in the romantic conclusion of this Little House book.

In ""Unsolved Crimes"", famous, unresolved cases from the past 120 years are examined to review what police and experts in forensic science did (or failed to do) while trying to resolve each crime. For each case covered, the key theories and suspects are described. Though technology is much improved since the time of Jack the Ripper in 1888, some recent crimes defy the best equipment and best scientists, leaving open-ended mysteries to occupy the minds of amateur sleuths everywhere. Still, it may not be too late to solve these riddles. By reexamining old evidence with modern techniques, police can often breathe new life into a cold case. This book includes such chapters as: Red Jack; The Black Dahlia; The Boy in the Box; JFK: Case Closed?; and, Deadly Medicine. Cases covered include: Jack the Ripper, unidentified serial killer; the murder of Elizabeth Short, aka 'The Black Dahlia'; the assassination of John F. Kennedy, officially solved but often disputed; the disappearance of Teamsters' leader Jimmy Hoffa; the Tylenol poisoning murders and related cases; Lizzie Borden, accused then acquitted of murdering her parents with an axe; Harry and Harriette Moore, murdered during the early days of the Civil Rights movement; and, the murder of JonBenet Ramsey.

Based in Addis Abba, Ethiopia, the Africa Union, established in July 2002, is the successor to the Organization of African Unity, created in 1963. The AU aims include promoting democracy, human rights, and sustainable economic development across Africa, especially by increasing foreign investment through the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). With an elaborate organizational structure roughly modeled on the European Union, the African Union is comprised of a Pan-African Parliament, a Commission, a Court of Justice (human rights abuses), and an Executive Council served by a Permanent Representatives Committee, and additional councils and specialized bodies.

The biblical Book of Revelation is not a cryptic history or prophecy, as is generally believed, but is, in fact, a manual of spiritual development. So explains theosophist James M. Pryse in this 1919 work, which seeks to uncover the hidden significance of the most misunderstood section of the Bible and reinterpret it from a modern theosophical perspective, uncovering its esoteric relationship to other ancient texts, including the Upanishads. Pryse offers a new translation of the Apocalypse based upon undisputed meanings of the original Greek text and comments on it on a verse-by-verse basis to bring to light startling new meaning in a work that many readers will have believed fully explored. Students of comparative mythology, ancient religion, and the Bible will find this an intriguing read. American journalist JAMES MORGAN PRYSE JR. (1859-1942) helped found the Gnostic Society in Los Angeles in 1925. He is also the author of Sermon on the Mount and Other Extracts from the New Testament (1899) and Reincarnation in the New Testament (1900), among other works.

From the dark and dangerous alleys of Tudor London to the busy streets of today's city, spies have always found plenty of work. In this book, you can read about how the Gunpowder Plot was uncovered, who the highest-ever paid spy was, Elizabeth I's wily spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham, the code-cracking boffins of World War II, and the real James Bond.