In the past decade the Asia-Pacific region has become a focus of international politics and military strategies. Due to China's rising economic and military strength, North Korea's nuclear tests and missile launches, tense international disputes over small island groups in the seas around Asia, and the United States pivoting a majority of its military forces to the region, the islands of the western Pacific have increasingly become the center of global attention. While the Pacific is a cur- rent hotbed of geopolitical rivalry and intense militarization, the region is also something else: a homeland to the hundreds of millions of people that inhabit it.
Based on a decade of research in the region, "The Empires' Edge" examines the tremendous damage the militarization of the Pacific has wrought on its people and environments. Furthermore, Davis details how contemporary social movements in this region are affecting global geopolitics by challenging the military use of Pacific islands and by developing a demilitarized view of security based on affinity, mutual aid, and international solidarity. Through an examination of "sacrificed" is- lands from across the region--including Bikini Atoll, Okinawa, Hawai'i, and Guam--"The Empires' Edge" makes the case that the great political contest of the twenty-first century is not about which country gets hegemony in a global system but rather about the choice be- tween perpetuating a system of international relations based on domination or pursuing a more egalitarian and cooperative future.

The contents are carefully mapped to the AQA AS and A level specifications, so you can be sure you are studying exactly what you need to. The book focuses on the key topics of Families and Households, Education, Methods in Context and Research Methods to achieve the depth of coverage required for top grades. Clear headings and subheadings signpost and organise the content - particularly important for students new to the subject. The text is accessible to students of all abilities, with key concepts, methods and studies explained in straightforward language pitched at just the right level for first year A level students. The attractive, full-colour design and thought-provoking photos stimulate students' interest and engagement. There are realistic practice exam questions throughout the book, together with detailed guidance on tackling them, plus marked student answers with examiner's commentaries to show what is expected. A separate chapter on preparing for the exams gives detailed examiner's advice and provides separate practice exam questions for AS and A level papers. Every Topic includes activities for individual and group work to check students' understanding and consolidate and deepen their learning. The book comes with a comprehensive, free online resource package, including free student workbooks, online activities and schemes of work. The authors are experienced chief and principal examiners, teachers and authors who have written extensively for AS and A level students and teachers. This book is the companion volume to AQA A Level Sociology Book Two by the same authors.

This book presents a collection of critical thinking that concern cultural, social and political issues for science education in the Nordic countries. The chapter authors describe specific scenarios to challenge persisting views, interrogate frameworks and trouble contemporary approaches to researching teaching and learning in science. Taking a point of departure in empirical examples from the Nordic countries the collection of work is taking a critical sideways glance at the Nordic education principles. Critical examinations target specifically those who are researching in the fields of science education research to question whether conventional research approaches, foci and theoretical approaches are sufficient in a world of science education that is neither politically neutral, nor free of cultural values. Attention is not only on the individual learner but on the cultural, social and political conditions and contexts in science education. The different chapters review debates and research in teacher education, school teaching and learning including when external stakeholders are involved. Even though the chapters are contextualized in Nordic settings there will be similarities and parallels that will be informative to the international science education research community.

StreetWays: Chronicling the Homeless in Miami is a collection of interviews with 28 homeless individuals living in downtown Miami and Miami Beach. Besides extensive photographs of these people and their lives on the street, the book also includes interviews with social service providers, as well as a detailed analysis of homelessness in the United States and more specifically in Miami. The work concludes with a policy analysis and suggestions for addressing issues of homelessness in Miami and the nation. StreetWays attempts to make clear how and why homelessness occurs, and what the actual lives and experiences of the homeless are about. Through extensive interviews and extensive documentary photographs, a selected group of homeless Miamians lose their invisibility as their experiences, needs and aspirations are reported. The book calls for a better understanding of the experience of homelessness places such as Miami, and of the need to understand homelessness as an issue of diversity and human rights.

Around 1796, Mr. Malthus, an English gentleman, had finished reading a book that confidently predicted human life would continue to grow richer, more comfortable and more secure, and that nothing could stop the march of progress. He discussed this theme with his son, Thomas, and Thomas ardently disagreed with both his father and the book he had been reading, along with the entire idea of unending human progress. Mr. Malthus suggested that he write down his objections so that they could discuss them point-by-point. Not long after, Thomas returned with a rather long essay. His father was so impressed that he urged his son to have it published. And so, in 1798, appeared An Essay on Population, by British political economist and demographer THOMAS ROBERT MALTHUS (1766-1834). Though it was attacked at the time and ridiculed for many years afterward, it has remained one of the most influential works in the English language on the general checks and balances of the world's population and its necessary control. This is a replica of the 1826 sixth edition. Volume 1 includes: Book I: "Of the Checks to the Population in the Less Civilised Parts of the World and in Past Times" and Book II: "Of the Checks to the Population in the Different States of Modern Europe."

Leading scholars address the interplay between rule of law and democracy, the most relevant ideals for our present civilisation in the legal and political spheres, at the same time making sense of the different ways in which legal requirements, social commitments, and democratic standards are expected to interweave. Through a reappraisal of the theoretical import of the concepts the contributors provide for a fresh set of inquiries, internal and external, ranging from the State, consolidated and transitional democracies, to interstate, European and global scenarios. Re-orienting the diversity in disciplinary approaches, they converge in tackling disputed empirical and normative questions in-context, and suggest further connections between the rule of law s potential and the transformations of political arenas. Contributors are Monica Ciobanu, Christian Joerges, Poul Kjaer, Friedrich Kratochwil, Leonardo Morlino, Gianluigi Palombella, and Daniela Piana.

Energy and Society (Revised) When first published in 1955, this book was among the first interpretive treatments of the connection between a society's energy conditions and evolution of its culture. The book begins with a basic discussion of the earliest forms of energy uses and evolves through a discussion of how the evolution of alternative energy converters has impacted the growth of civilization. Dr.Cottrell takes us from food gathering societies up through the beginning of the industrial revolution into the age of nuclear power. With each step of change, he discusses how society has changed and the impact these changes have had on economic, moral and social issues. Today, more than any time in history, the questions of energy sources, energy conversion, energy uses and energy distribution are among the greatest challenges faced by civilization. In this book, Dr. Cottrell does not give you answers or predictions but takes you through the thought processes necessary to overcome the multible barriers we face in moving into the future.

Populism is a contested concept when applied to Asia. In Populism in Asian Democracies: Features, Structures and Impacts, members of the Asia Democracy Research Network (ADRN) discuss the diverse subtypes of populism in 11 countries across Asia, their structural elements and societal impacts. Populism takes on different forms in Asia according to its target, rhetoric and strategy. Redistributive populism stems from income inequality and rural poverty while ethno-religious populism represents a continued struggle between majority and minority groups. Progressive populism emphasizes democratic governance over corruption and factional politics, and authoritarian populism rises from government incompetence. As ADRN shows, the 11 Asian democracies have adopted various subtypes-and hybrids-of such populism models, adding importance to regional cooperation in safeguarding democracy.

How do we place value on goods - and, importantly, why? Valuation and pricing are core issues in the market economy, but understanding of these concepts and their interrelation is weak. In response, The Worth of Goods takes a sociological approach to the perennial but timely question of what makes a product valuable.
Structured in three parts, it first examines value in the broader sense - moral values and how they are formed, and the relations between economic and non-economic values - discussing such matters as the value of an oil spill, the price of a scientific paper, value in ethical consumption, and imaginative value. The second part discusses the issues surrounding valuation in aesthetic markets, specifically wine, fashion models, art, and the creative industries. The third part analyzes valuation in financial markets - credit rating agencies, stock exchange markets, and industrial production.
This pioneering volume brings together leading social scientists to provide a range of theoretical tools and case studies for understanding price and the creation of value in markets within social and cultural contexts and preconditions. It is an important source for scholars in economics, sociology, anthropology, and political science interested in how markets work, and how value is established.

Winner, American Sociological Association Asia and Asian America Section Best Book on Asia/Transnational Asia Finalist, 2015 C. Wright Mills Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems India is the top provider of surrogacy services in the world, with a multi-million dollar surrogacy industry that continues to grow exponentially, as increasing numbers of couples from developed nations look for wombs in which to grow their babies. Some scholars have exulted transnational surrogacy for the possibilities it opens for infertile couples, while others have offered bioethical cautionary tales, rebuked exploitative intended parents, or lamented the exploitation of surrogate mothers-but very little is known about the experience of and transaction between surrogate mothers and intended parents outside the lens of the many agencies that control surrogacy in India. Drawing from rich interviews with surrogate mothers and egg donors in Bangalore, as well as twenty straight and gay couples in the U.S. and Australia, Discounted Life focuses on the processes of social and market exchange in transnational surrogacy. Sharmila Rudrappa interrogates the creation and maintenance of reproductive labor markets, the function of agencies and surrogacy brokers, and how women become surrogate mothers. Is surrogacy solely a labor contract for which the surrogate mother receives wages, or do its meanings and import exceed the confines of the market? Rudrappa argues that this reproductive industry is organized to control and disempower women workers and yet her interviews reveal that, by and large, the surrogate mothers in Bangalore found the experience life affirming. Rudrappa explores this tension, and the lived realities of many surrogate mothers whose deepening bodily commodification is paradoxically experienced as a revitalizing life development. A detailed and moving study, Discounted Life delineates how local labor markets intertwine with global reproduction industries, how Bangalore's surrogate mothers make sense of their participation in reproductive assembly lines, and the remarkable ways in which they negotiate positions of power for themselves in progressively untenable socio-economic conditions.

Contested Images: Women of Color in Popular Culture is a collection of 17 essays that analyze representations in popular culture of African American, Asian American, Latina, and Native American women. The anthology is divided into four parts: film images, beauty images, music, and television. The articles share two intellectual traditions: the authors, predominantly women of color, use an intersectionality perspective in their analysis of popular culture and the representation of women of color, and they identify popular culture as a site of conflict and contestation. Instructors will find this collection to be a convenient textbook for women's studies; media studies; race, class, and gender courses; ethnic studies; and more.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1953.

An absolute truth, sometimes called a universal truth, is an unalterable and permanent fact. It means that something is true no matter where you are and who says it, i.e., 2 +2 = 4, no matter where you go you get the same answer. A universal truth is something anyone can benefit from. They are simple lessons containing wisdom that often goes unnoticed or gets lost in the daily hustle and bustle of our over-stimulated lives. This book is a testament to the struggles that we all face every day in our lives that we must rise up to and overcome in order to be our best and to achieve the miracle that we want to see. These principles are used as a part of Clark's Executive Presentations Skills Training Course. Each has its own significance and each is able to stand alone. Although numbered for reference purposes, they are not presented in any particular order of importance. Clearly, there are far more than 100 principles of communications, but these are the ones most likely to resonate. Like all great truths, they have a timeless quality making them just as meaningful today as they were in the beginning of time and ensuring that they will maintain their significance far into the future.

This book explores how concepts and values of contemporary democracy are variously understood and applied in diverse cultural contexts, with a focus on children and childhood and diversity. Drawing on a range of methodological approaches relevant to early childhood education, it discusses young children's engagement and voice. The book identifies existing practices, strengths, theories and considerations in democracy in early childhood education and childhood, highlighting the democratic participation of children in cultural contexts. Further, it illustrates how democracy can be evident in early childhood practices and interactions across a range of curriculum contexts and perspectives, and considers ways of advancing and sustaining practices with positive transformational opportunities to benefit children and wider ecological systems. It offers readers insights into what democracy and citizenship look like in lived experience, and the issues affecting practice and encouraging reflection and advocacy.

This book explores Ireland's Marriage Bar, examining its impact on women's lives and the predominantly feminised nursing profession. Information on the history of nursing and the evolution of the nursing profession tends to focus on critical events or key persons who shaped the profession. What is less known and explored is the women nurses' work experiences or how the world outside the ward affected the nurse and the nursing profession at moments in time. This book takes one of these moments in time, the period of the Marriage Bar, and examines the women nurses' lives and the nursing profession during this period of Ireland's history. It does so by adopting a historical perspective and a lived experience perspective of women who had to negotiate this practice. Fifty years on from the Bar removal, as remnants of this time in Ireland's history remain, legislative and constitutional change are required to right the wrongs of the past.

Feminists today are re-imagining nature, biology, and matter in feminist thought and critically addressing new developments in biology, physics, neuroscience, epigenetics and other scientific disciplines. Mattering, edited by noted feminist scholar Victoria Pitts-Taylor, presents contemporary feminist perspectives on the materialist or 'naturalizing' turn in feminist theory, and also represents the newest wave of feminist engagement with science. The volume addresses the relationship between human corporeality and subjectivity, questions and redefines the boundaries of human/non-human and nature/culture, elaborates on the entanglements of matter, knowledge, and practice, and addresses biological materialization as a complex and open process. This volume insists that feminist theory can take matter and biology seriously while also accounting for power, taking materialism as a point of departure to rethink key feminist issues. The contributors, an international group of feminist theorists, scientists and scholars, apply concepts in contemporary materialist feminism to examine an array of topics in science, biotechnology, biopolitics, and bioethics. These include neuralplasticity and the brain-machine interface; the use of biometrical identification technologies for transnational border control; epigenetics and the intergenerational transmission of the health effects of social stigma; ADHD and neuropharmacology; and randomized controlled trials of HIV drugs.A unique and interdisciplinary collection, Mattering presents in grounded, concrete terms the need for rethinking disciplinary boundaries and research methodologies in light of the shifts in feminist theorizing and transformations in the sciences.

In most countries around the world, women continue to lag behind men in an array of political orientations and activities. Understanding why this is the case and why some countries have been more successful than others at moderating gender gaps in political involvement is imperative for producing stronger and more representative democracies. Cultural, socioeconomic, and political factors explain some of the gender gaps in political involvement, but not all of them. In this book, the authors argue that electoral institutions attenuate gender gaps in mass political engagement and participation by drawing women, an 'undertapped' constituency, into the democratic process. Using cross-national and country-specific analyses, the authors show that electoral institutions play a complementary and significant role in reducing gender gaps in political involvement. The cross-national analyses draw on comparative survey data from a wide range and large number of countries. The case studies draw out the processes underlying changes in political attitudes and behaviors with evidence from four country studies: New Zealand, Russia, France, and Uruguay. All four countries have altered their electoral institutions, either through large-scale reform of the electoral system itself or adopting gender quotas, allowing the authors to examine patterns of political involvement pre- and post-reform. The book finds that inclusive electoral systems that produce more proportional electoral outcomes have larger effects on women's political engagement and participation than on men's. Gender quotas also mediate women's engagement and participation, but to a lesser degree. On the whole, the book concludes that electoral rules designed to promote social inclusion in parliament are critical for promoting social group inclusion among the electorate. Comparative Politics is a series for students, teachers, and researchers of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu. The Comparative Politics Series is edited by Professor David M. Farrell, School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin, Kenneth Carty, Professor of Political Science, University of British Columbia, and Professor Dirk Berg-Schlosser, Institute of Political Science, Philipps University, Marburg.