This multidisciplinary volume includes an international roster of contributors who explore how mass hysteria has emerged among people across the globe as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. The contributors provide international perspectives on the effects of this "corohysteria" in areas such as education, healthcare, religion, psychology, mathematics, economics, media, racism, politics, etc. They argue the hysteria, angst, fear, unrest, and difficulties associated with the pandemic are exploited to foster political and social agendas and have led to the undermining of national and global responses to the virus.

THE NEW BOOK FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF EVERYBODY LIES 'Don't Trust Your Gut is a tour de force - an intoxicating blend of analysis, humor, and humanity' DANIEL H. PINK 'Seth Stephens-Davidowitz is an expert on data-driven thinking, and this engaging book is full of surprising, useful insights for using the information at your fingertips to make better decisions' ADAM GRANT Big decisions are hard. We might consult friends and family, read advice online or turn to self-help books for guidance, but in the end we usually just do what feels right. But what if our gut is wrong? As economist and former Google data scientist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz argues, our gut is actually not that reliable - and data can prove this. In Don't Trust Your Gut, he unearths the startling conclusions that the right data can teach us about who we are and what will make our lives better. Over the past decade, scholars have mined enormous datasets to find remarkable new approaches to life's biggest self-help puzzles, from the boring careers that produce the most wealth, to old-school, data-backed relationship advice. While we often think we know how to better ourselves, the numbers, it turns out, disagree. Telling fascinating stories through the latest big data research, Stephens-Davidowitz reveals just how wrong we really are when it comes to improving our lives, and offers a new way of tackling our most consequential choices.

The unexpected and fascinating interspecies relationship between humans and horseshoe crabs. Horseshoe crabs are considered both a prehistoric and indicator species. They have not changed in tens of millions of years and provide useful data to scientists who monitor the health of the environment. From the pharmaceutical industry to paleontologists to the fishing industry, the horseshoe crab has made vast, but largely unknown, contributions to human life and our shared ecosystem. Catch and Release examines how these intersections steer the trajectory of both species' lives, and futures. Based on interviews with conservationists, field biologists, ecologists, and paleontologists over three years of fieldwork on urban beaches, noted ethnographer Lisa Jean Moore shows how humans literally harvest the life out of the horseshoe crabs. We use them as markers for understanding geologic time, collect them for agricultural fertilizer, and eat them as delicacies, capture them as bait, then rescue them for conservation, and categorize them as endangered. The book details the biomedical bleeding of crabs; how they are caught, drained of 40% of their blood, and then released back into their habitat. The model of catch and release is essential. Horseshoe crabs cannot be bred in captivity and can only survive in their own ecosystems. Moore shows how horseshoe crabs are used as an exploitable resource, and are now considered a "vulnerable" species. An investigation of how humans approach animals that are essential for their survival, Catch and Release questions whether humans should have divine, moral, or ethical claims to any living being in their path.

Offering a fresh approach to new explorations of the reconfigurations of sociological thought, this book provides a mix of literature review, original theory and autobiographical material in order to understand formations of sociological knowledge.

We live in the worlds that we help to create every day. Every activity either supports an existing system or effects some change, however small. But is it possible to consciously create the worlds in which we want to live?

This volume brings together systems theorists and practitioners who have worked on that question for decades. It explores connections between design and systems ideas to explain why some efforts have been more successful than others, and what is needed if we are to move forward. It offers reflections on early and large-scale attempts at impacting societal systems, as well as proposals for taking those ideas into the future. Examples date back to the Club of Rome in the 1960s and look forward to the creation of ecologically sustainable systems in the future. They address the need for collaboration and inclusion in settings from communities to corporations. And while theories are presented as support for the examples, they are explained in practical ways meant to be accessible both to students and to general readers.

Have you ever wondered why some women behave in unpredictable ways as if there are no rules governing their behavior? Have you been puzzled by a sudden, seemingly illogical change in your woman s mood? If so then this book is for you. This latest attempt at solving the eternal puzzle of understanding women is backed by twenty years of research, investigation, and in-depth analysis. We have finally cracked the eternal puzzle.

Unlike other relationship books that teach do(s) and don t(s), this book sheds the light on the root cause of inexplicable female behavior, thus providing the reader with the tools to analyze it, understand it and deal with it effectively.

Unfortunately, a lot of experienced men who acquired similar knowledge the hard way would not share it with the young because they are in direct competition with them. Young people have the asset of youth, while older people have the advantage of experience. The combination of youth and experience should provide the reader with a competitive edge that each group on its own does not enjoy. Author Anastasio Nasa opens up his hands-on findings to your benefit with "Commodity Women: A Daring Journey into the Mind-Set of Some Women."

This book addresses the relationship between the production of social problems in educational policy, the research practices required to inform policy, and the daily production of normalcies and differences in school contexts. It reports on the opportunities and consequences for policy, research, and practice when normalcy is stigmatized at the same level as difference. The book employs a critical analysis combining queer, feminist, and post-representational theories to understand the implications of dominant ways of understanding the division between normal and different subjectivities and how they reiterate structures of inequality in schools.

Agent-based modeling/simulation is an emergent approach to the analysis of social and economic systems. It provides a bottom-up experimental method to be applied to social sciences such as economics, management, sociology, and politics as well as some engineering fields dealing with social activities. This book includes selected papers presented at theSeventh International Workshop on Agent-Based Approaches in Economic and Social Complex Systems held in Osaka, Japan, in 2012.

At the workshop, 24 reviewed full papers were presented, and of those, 17 were selected to be included in this volume. The papers are divided into two groups as "Fundamentals of Agent-Based Modeling" and "Applications of Agent-Based Modeling.""

Looking For Lady takes up where Dennis Apperly's first novel Wasteground leaves off - at the funeral of The Professor, in the cathedral. They are all there - Midnight Sam, Scots Robby, Fen, Nobby and Splodge and Brian Davies, to name but a few - as Bishop John leads the huge congregation in a poignant farewell to the city's best-loved tramp. After the funeral, life on the wasteground goes on much as before, although Midnight Sam - who regarded the late street-drinker as his personal responsibility - is not the same since The Prof's death. Not only does he miss his friend, but he misses the vulnerable Lady Jane, who has been whisked 'up north' by the violent Blacklock. With not altogether welcome assistance from cronies old and new, Midnight embarks upon a chaotic mission to find the woman he slowly begins to realise he is in love with. The lovable down-and-out soon makes a remarkable discovery: find Lady Jane and he finds Midnight Sam. Meanwhile, Lady makes a remarkable discovery of her own - a discovery which changes her life and the life of Midnight Sam forever. Looking for Lady is more than a bitter-sweet love story with a difference. It is an Odyssey of hope for two seemingly hopeless individuals. Against a background of intermingled tragedy and comedy, the book demonstrates how it is possible for society's so-called misfits to rise triumphantly above the wasteground and proves that love really can conquer all.

Crime is perceived as a perennial problem in society. However, in the one hundred and fifty years or so of criminological study, we have, arguably, learned very little about questions of criminality. The reason for this is that criminology remains largely a modernist empirical discipline with attendant modernist assumptions. Primary among these is the assumption that criminals are pathological in their responses to the world around them. This book demonstrates that this is not the case. In order to do this it deconstructs conventional modernist criminological conceptualizations of the role of individuals in the construction of the world of which they are a part and provides a radically new model of the relationship between humans' way of being in the world and the capacities of society to constrain them.

The 2020 Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests highlighted with sharp clarity the role of race in social conflict and social movements. Building on more than a century of political and sociological scholarship, Race and Space considers the connections between race as a descriptor of physical differences between humans and space as a geographic location, and their subsequent impact on the human experience. The chapters address racialized issues spanning from how the characteristics of our community shape whether we experience police or immigrant violence, whether first-hand experience (or lack thereof) of this violence is likely to shape one's choice to engage in ethno-racial justice activism, to analysing how the space of the prison shapes one's sense of self and political possibility post-incarceration. Drawing together key drivers of activism such as flaws within the criminal justice system, race, ethnicity, and citizenship, this collection demonstrates how these elements interact to shape immigration policy and the experience of being accepted as a full member of one's society. Emphasising location-specific human experience and incorporating insights from geography, Race and Space's careful study of the differences of physical spaces gives rise to more complete explanations for social issues and variances in social movements.

Arguing that Antarctica is the most mediated place on earth and thus an ideal location for testing the limits of bio-political management of population and place, this book remaps national and postcolonial methods and offers a new look on a 'forgotten' continent now the focus of ecological concern.

Divorce has long been viewed as a single phenomenon affecting two individuals without considering the framework conditions in which it occurs. Due to the increase of divorce rates in the past decades researchers have changed their perspective and have concentrated on the view of divorce as a personal experience that is greatly affected by the socials and economic environment. The aim of this thesis is to investigate divorce that has become a mass phenomenon in our present society. The assumption is that in order to understand the grounds for divorce and its consequences, we have to view divorce as a phenomenon that occurs at the intersection of personal, socio-economic and legal factors. Family disputes involve persons who have interdependent and continued relati- ships and arise in a context of distressing emotions. Separation and divorce affect all the members of the family, especially children. The study presents a comprehensive analysis of divorce as a psychological process that is situated within a social and a legal context. It presents a comprehensive view of divorce as a psychosocial, economic and legal phenomenon and contains a review of the research literature about divorce and its consequences for parents and children. Moreover, it describes divorce by proposing conceptual frames and explanatory models.

A Day of Life: Moments in Time takes mankind as a protagonist on a daily journey through time where one human seven billion days ago counts down to day one and an environment coping with seven billion humans. The author tries to create a conscious awareness within the reader of the five life-forms and the six constants-the imbalance of which has plagued mankind to this day. A Day of Life is meant to encourage the reader to draw his or her own conclusions regarding the life-forms and constants and to make choices as to the immanency of a possible systemic collapse from exponential expansion.

The Fair Dinkum Economy offers an easy-to-read, easy-to-understand economic guide for everyone. It explores the recent decline in the living standards of developed countries and negative effects of the swing in the balance of power to the Asian and Indian regions. Author Robert Gibson maintains that the way this economic change is happening will not benefit any country. What's more, there is an alternate path we can take that could lead us to a better, more equal world. It is not a nice thought that the twentieth century may have seen the peak in the status and strength of Western Nations. If we keep going the way we are, however, that is what history may record. We need to be encouraged to present our ideas because debate is healthy. New ideas stimulate thinking along different lines, about different possibilities. The Fair Dinkum Economy presents an idea-a plan that is not just about what is good for the richest nations, but that instead works with the global trading system for the betterment of all mankind.

Peter L. Berger is arguably the best-known American sociologist living today. Since the 1960s he has been publishing books on many facets of the American social scene, and several are now considered classics. So it may be hard to believe Professor Berger's description of himself as an "accidental sociologist." But that in fact accurately describes how he stumbled into sociology. In this witty, intellectually stimulating memoir, Berger explains not only how he became a social scientist, but the many adventures that this calling has led to.
Rather than writing an autobiography, he focuses on the main intellectual issues that motivated his work and the various people and situations he encountered in the course of his career. Full of memorable vignettes and colorful characters depicted in a lively narrative often laced with humor, Berger's memoir conveys the excitement that a study of social life can bring. The first part of the book describes Berger's initiation into sociology through the New School for Social Research, "a European enclave in the midst of Greenwich Village bohemia." Berger was first a student at the New School and later a young professor amidst a clique of like-minded individuals. There he published "The Social Construction of Reality "(with colleague Thomas Luckmann), one of his most successful books, followed by" The Sacred Canopy" on the sociology of religion, also still widely cited.
The book covers Berger's experience as a "globe-trekking sociologist" including trips to Mexico, where he studied approaches to Third World poverty; to East Asia, where he discovered the potential of capitalism to improve social conditions; and to South Africa, where he chaired an international study group on the future of post-Apartheid society.
Berger then tells about his role as the director of a research center at Boston University. For over two decades he and his colleagues have been tackling such important issues as globalization, the secularization of Europe, and the ongoing dialectic between relativism and fundamentalism in contemporary culture.
What comes across throughout is Berger's boundless curiosity with the many ways in which people interact in society. This book offers longtime Berger readers as well as newcomers to sociology proof that the sociologist's attempt to explain the world is anything but boring.

The second edition of Mildred Blaxter's successful and highly respected book offers a comprehensive and engaging introduction to the key debates surrounding the concept of health today. It discusses how health is defined, constructed, experienced and acted out in contemporary developed societies, drawing on a range of empirical data from the USA, Britain, France, and many other countries.

The new edition has been thoroughly revised and updated, with new material added on health and identity, the "new genetics," the sociology of the body, and the formation of health capital throughout the life course. The topic is the concept of health, rather than the more usual emphasis on illness and health-care systems. Special emphasis is given to the lay perspective to show how people themselves think about and experience health. Blaxter guides students through all the relevant conceptual models of the relationship of health to the structure of society, from inequality in health to the ideas of the risk society, the 'socio-biological translation' and the contribution of health to social capital. The book concludes with a comprehensively revised and thought-provoking discussion of the impact of new technology, the boundaries between life and death, modern commodification of health, technological transformations of the body and theories of evolutionary biology.

"Health" is an invaluable textbook for students of medicine and other health professions as well as those studying sociology, health sciences and health promotion.