Spanning a 5,000-year period, this is the first work to document the origins, evolution, and current status of all major ethnic groups in Iran. From ancient civilizations of 3000 B.C. to the election of President Mohammad Khatami five millennia later, Iran's history is a rich palette of conquests, invasions, occupations, and revolutions. Iran's Diverse Peoples: A Reference Sourcebook documents for the first time the major ethnic groups that emerged during each era and traces their evolution to the present day. Written by a social anthropologist educated in Iran and England, this analysis presents vital statistics on the Persians, Kurds, Turks, Lurs, Assyrians, Arabs, and other pastoral and urban groups of Iran, highlighting their differing languages, religions, cultural practices, political agendas, and current problems. The settling of nomadic tribes, the unveiling of women, the Islamic Revolution, OPEC, Soviet intervention, Kurdish oppression—these and other contentious topics are all examined with respect to their impact on Iran's ethnic entities.

Caldas and Bankston provide a critical, dispassionate analysis of why desegregation in the United States has failed to achieve the goal of providing equal educational opportunities for all students. They offer case histories through dozens of examples of failed desegregation plans from all over the country. The book takes a very broad perspective on race and education, situated in the larger context of the development of individual rights in Western civiliztion. The book traces the long legal history of first racial segregation, and then racial desegregation in America. The authors explain how rapidly changing demographics and family structure in the United States have greatly complicated the project of top-down government efforts to achieve an ideal racial balance in schools. It describes how social capital—a positive outcome of social interaction between and among parents, children, and teachers—creates strong bonds that lead to high academic achievement. The authors show how coercive desegregation weakens bonds and hurts not only students and schools, but also entire communities. Examples from all parts of the United States show how parents undermined desegregation plans by seeking better educational alternatives for their children rather than supporting the public schools to which their children were assigned. Most important, this book offers an alternative, more realistic viewpoint on class, race, and education in America.

This book, written by leading experts in the field, is intended for thoughtful leaders, advisors, and academics who want to better understand cutting edge thinking and the latest research on leadership in the complex, highly interconnected organization of today. Unlike most books on the subject, it does not purport to provide simple answers to difficult questions. Rather, it seeks to provide new insights and tools that have only recently become apparent through advances in complexity science-like, for example, the intricate dynamics of emergent leadership as simulated through agent-based modeling (ABM). Complex Systems Leadership Theory is a powerful beginning to what promises to be a deeper, more thoughtful investigation of how and why organizations succeed and what leaders can do to make a difference.

Based on original research, this book looks at the role of community organisations as intermediaries between community and culture, analysing the role they play in mitigating the worst effects of social exclusion. The authors examine the necessity to engage communities with different forms of cultural consumption and production, and consider issues surrounding power, governance, and future practice.

An accessible, concise reference source on Polynesia's complex mythology, product of a culture little known outside its home. Encounters with the West introduced Polynesian mythology to the world—and sealed its fate as a casualty of colonialism. But for centuries before the Europeans came, that mythology was as vast as the triangle of ocean in which it flourished, as diverse as the people it served, and as complex as the mythologies of Greece and Rome. Students, researchers, and enthusiasts can follow vivid retellings of stories of creation, death, and great voyages, tracking variations from island to island. They can use the book's reference section for information on major deities, heroes, elves, fairies, and recurring themes, as well as the mythic implications of everything from dogs and volcanoes to the hula, Easter Island, and tattooing (invented in the South Pacific and popularized by returning sailors).

Since the first Superman film came to the screen in 1978, films adapted from comics have become increasingly important as a film form. But 1978 was also important because it was the year of release for Will Eisner's A Contract with God, and Other Stories, generally credited as the first long-form comic book to label itself a graphic novel. Since that time, advances in computer-generated special effects have significantly improved the ability of film to capture the style and action of comics, producing such hugely successful films as X-Men (2000) and Spider-Man (2002). Meanwhile, the genre of the graphic novel has greatly evolved as a form—especially through the works of people like Frank Miller and Alan Moore—taking comics in dramatically new and different directions, generally darker and more serious than conventional comics. Graphic novels have also formed the basis for less visually spectacular, but intelligent and thoughtful films such as Ghost World (2001) and American Splendor (2002). Booker surveys this important development in film history, tracking the movement to a more mature style in comics, and then a more mature style in films about comics. He focuses on detailed discussions of 15 major films or franchises, but also considers the general impact of graphic novels on the style and content of American film in general. The Batman franchise, especially in the 1989 film and in 2005's Batman Begins, has provided adaptations of a classic comic-book motif inflected through the Dark Knight graphic novels of Frank Miller. The marriage of new film technology and the development of the genre of the graphic novel has produced a number of important innovations in film, including such breakthrough efforts in visual art as The Crow (1994), and Sin City (2005). Films such as Road to Perdition (2002) and A History of Violence (2005) have provided interesting adaptations of noirish graphic novels that rely somewhat less on visual style to achieve their effects.

Sentencing: A Reference Handbook offers a complete overview of the complex sentencing procedures devised by the federal government and each of the 50 states. From the Code of Hammurabi (1800 BC) to the present, Sentencing: A Reference Handbook follows the historical evolution of the process of criminal punishment, then focuses on the U.S. judicial system to show how American sentencing laws have changed in response to surges of different types of crime, or to other factors such as prison overcrowding. To help readers understand the complex issue of criminal sentencing, this informative volume describes the major sentencing procedures used in American courts (determinate, indeterminate, guidelines-based, and mandatory), highlighting the merits and flaws of each with well-documented cases and examples. Coverage includes a range of contentious issues, including the disproportionate application of the death penalty, sex offender laws, punishing the addicted and the mentally ill, and balancing punishment with rehabilitation.

Historians consider the previous century to have been one of the most violent periods in human history. As we move into an era where violence is sanitized and normalized in the media, and depicted as glamorous and fun, how will we relate to the violence in our midst? Why do people and their governments choose to engage in violent activity? How to peaceful people who live under violent conditions such as warfare or domestic abuse make sense of it?

Catherine Besteman tackles these questions in this multi-disciplinary anthology that explores the topic of violence from a wide variety of perspectives. The first section focuses on state violence and deals with nationalism, warmaking and the Nazi genocide. The second section treats the question of anti-state violence with essays on the IRA, Sihk rebels and the paramilitary conflict in the Balkans. The third section examines criminal violence such as armed robbery, murder and sexual assualt while the final section explores how ordinary citizens respond when their societies are suffused with violence. Combining classic essays by Max Weber and Hannah Arendt, with contemporary treatments by leading scholars such as Michael Taussig and Julie Peteet, this anthology is designed for course use and is accessible to undergraduate and graduate students.

Contributors: Max Weber, Charles Tilly, Hannah Arendt, Zygmunt Bauman, Martha Crenshaw, Deborah Poole, Cynthia Mahmood, Begonia Aretxaga, Rhonda Copelon, Jack Katz, Deborah Cameron, Elizabeth Fraser, Michael Taussig, Julie Peteet, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, and Carolyn Nordstrom.

This book offers an examination of the films of Roman Polanski, focusing on the impact that his life as an exile has had upon his work. Roman Polanski: A Life in Exile is a revealing look at this acclaimed filmmaker whose life in exile seems to have made his films all the more personal and powerful. Written by a film critic, this insightful book follows Polanski's story from his childhood in a World War II Jewish ghetto to his early films in Poland; from his American breakout, Rosemary's Baby, to his wife's murder by the Manson family; from the spectacular return of Chinatown, to his exile as a convicted sex criminal, to the monumental career peak, The Pianist. The Holocaust, the oppression of communism, the shattering of the swinging 60s, the decadence of Hollywood, the life of a fugitive—Polanski experienced all of these firsthand, and understanding those experiences provides a fascinating pathway through his work.

The Science Fiction Film in Contemporary Hollywood focuses on the American science fiction (SF) film during the period 2001-2020, in order to provide a theoretical mapping of the genre in the context of Conglomerate Hollywood. Using a social semiotics approach in a systematic corpus of films, the book argues that the SF film can be delineated by two semiotic squares —the first one centering on the genre’s more-than-human ontologies (SF bodies), and the second one focusing on its imaginative worlds (SF worlds). Based on this theoretical framework, the book examines the genre in six cycles, which are placed in their historical context, and are analyzed in relation to cultural discourses, such as technological embodiment, race, animal-human relations, environmentalism, global capitalism, and the techno-scientific Empire. By considering these cycles —which include superhero films, creature films, space operas, among others—as expressions of the genre’s basic oppositions, the book facilitates the comparison and juxtaposition of films that have rarely been discussed in tandem, offering a new perspective on the multiple articulations of the SF film in the new millennium.

The Gobi Desert, cold mountainous regions, and harsh climate of Mongolia leave it with one of the lowest population densities in the world. Nonetheless, Mongolians are proud of their long heritage, and carry even today their customs of the past. In this all-inclusive study of contemporary Mongolian life, readers will learn about nomadic lifestyles still practiced today. Other topics covered include Buddhism and other religions, literature, arts, cuisine, dress, family life, festivals and leisure activities, social customs, and lifestyle. May also includes an overview of Chinggis Khan, the father of the Mongol Empire, and his legacy in Mongolian culture today. Ideal for high school and undergraduate students, this volume is an essential addition to library shelves.

Corporate Crime examines the ever-present problem of white-collar and corporate crime, not only within the United States but also worldwide. Should corporations and their employees be held criminally liable for shoddy business practices? This volume explores both sides of the question, discussing the nature and scope of corporate crime, the controversies surrounding it, and the most promising solutions. How do we define corporate crime and how do we detect it? Corporate Crime guides readers through the definitions and concepts as well as the difficulties in detecting, prosecuting, and punishing corporate wrongdoing. How do corporations get away with their crimes? This reference examines both the successes and the failures of government and law enforcement policies concerning the punishment of corporate crime and explores leading contemporary proposals for controlling and deterring it. It is an essential information source for any citizen of corporate America.

A four year old Mexican American girl is taken away from her parents because she is obese and experiencing health problems related to her weight. Such a measure, once seen as extreme, quickly comes to be seen as a logical means of addressing a problem viewed as nothing short of child abuse. And yet, for all the purported concern for these children's welfare, little if any mention is ever made of the psychological ramifications of removing children from their families. They are simply the latest victims of the war on obesity--a war declared on a "disease" but conducted, April Herndon contends in this book, along cultural lines.

"Fat Blame" is a book about how the war on obesity is, in many ways, shaping up to be a battle against women and children, especially women and children who are marginalized via class and race. While conceding that fatness can be linked to certain conditions, or that some populations might be heavier than others, Herndon is more interested in the ways women and children are blamed for obesity and the ways interventions aimed at preventing obesity are problematic in and of themselves. From bariatric surgeries being performed on children to women being positioned as responsible for carrying to term a generation of thin children, her book looks closely at the stories of real people whose lives are drastically altered by interventions that are supposedly for their own good.

As with so many practices surrounding bodies and health, like dieting, people are often simultaneously blamed and empowered through policies and interventions, especially those that seem to offer them choices. What Herndon reveals is how such choices only offer the illusion of being empowering. Rather, she shows how woman and children are pushed, pulled, and sometimes victimized by interventions such as bariatric surgeries, limits on reproductive technologies, and having their families broken up by the courts. Only by identifying members of this group as victims of discrimination, she argues, can we hope to return them to a fuller and richer kind of agency.

In declaring a war on obesity, the United States has said that fat is one of the most serious enemies it faces. "Fat Blame" asks us to confront the real enemy--the moral, political, and ideological significance of our every move in this "war."

aOffers refreshing new insights into the Sephardic migration from Ottoman lands to America in the early twentieth century. Drawing heavily upon the unknown riches of the Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) press, Ben-Ur illuminates many unknown aspects of the Jewish immigrant experience. She sheds new light on American Jewry, providing a different narrative that will be especially welcome to students of ethnicity and immigration in general as well as readers seeking information on the Hispanic-Jewish encounter.a
--Jane S. Gerber, Director of the Institute for Sephardic Studies, City University of New York

A small band of Sephardim, or Jews who trace their origins to Spain and Portugal, were the first Jews to arrive in the New World. By the 1720s, these Western Sephardim were outnumbered by Ashkenazim (Jews of Germanic and Eastern European background), though they maintained religious hegemony until the turn of the nineteenth century.

A far larger group of Sephardic Jews, Iberian in remote origin, immigrated to the U.S. from Turkey, Greece, and the Balkans toward the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. Most of these Eastern Sephardim settled in New York, establishing the most important Judeo-Spanish community outside the former Ottoman Empire. A smaller group of Mizrahi Jews from Arab-speaking lands arrived at the same time. A minority within a minority and often differing in their culture and rituals, both Sephardim and Mizrahim were not readily recognized as Jews by their Ashkenazic coreligionists. At the same time, they forged alliances with the Hispanic and Arab non-Jewish immigrant communities with whom they shared significant cultural and linguisticties.

The denial of their Jewishness was a defining experience for Sephardi and Mizrahi immigrants and, in some cases, for their native-born children and grandchildren as well. The failure to recognize Sephardim as fellow Jews continues today in textbooks, articles, documentaries, films, and popular awareness. More often than not, Sephardic Jews are simply absent from any sort of portrayal of the American Jewish community.

Drawing on primary source documents such as the Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) press, archival documents, and oral histories, Sephardic Jews in America offers the first book-length academic treatment of their history in the United States, from 1654 to the present, focusing on the age of mass immigration. It will appeal to all those interested in the history of the Jews in America, U.S. immigration, ethnicity, Hispanic and Arab American studies, and sociology.

The lives of Black girls have far too frequently been used to support assertions regarding their alleged deviance and pathology. These claims have public policy implications, as they have served to ignite firestorms of debate and criticism that have ultimately resulted in harsh welfare reform and other such blame-the-victim policy initiatives. This book clarifies that today's Black girls are not receiving equitable learning opportunities in school. Many Black girls are achieving academic success and pursuing higher education despite significant impediments in their schooling. Talkin' Back offers readers specific strategies that are designed to enhance the efforts of parents and communities, as they work in partnership with schools, raising Black girls who are prepared to wisely confront societal and educational challenges.

From fire walking to funerals, the hidden science of the rituals that give life meaning Ritual is perhaps the oldest, and certainly the most enigmatic, thread in human culture. Apparently pointless ceremonies pervade every documented society: from handshakes to hexes, hazings to parades. Before we learned to farm, we were gathering in giant stone temples. And yet, though rituals exist in every culture and can persist nearly unchanged for centuries, their logic has remained a mystery until now. Today, a fearless new generation of anthropologists is venturing into this shadowy realm. Armed with cutting-edge technology and drawing on discoveries from a huge range of disciplines, they emerge with a powerful new perspective on our place in the world. Join the pathfinding scientist Dimitris Xygalatas on a tour of human culture at its strangest. In coronations, in silent prayer, in fire-walks and in all the bewildering variety of humanity's ritual life, Xygalatas reveals the deep and subtle mechanisms that bind us together.

This fascinating book illustrates how human behavior regarding money is triggered by emotion and powered by our psychic makeup, empowering readers to better understand their own behavior and decision making with money. Beyond being an essential medium of exchange, money carries deep psychological significance: having enough of it confers power and status and provides the potential to sustain our lifestyle and fulfill our desires. Not having money triggers a breadth of negative emotions. This book explores the psychological payload money carries and the emotional effects it generates, allowing readers to better understand people's behavior with money and its effects on their own lives. The Emotional Life of Money: How Money Changes the Way We Think and Feel identifies common hang-ups and anxieties about money; summarizes current academic research on money behavior and how people make decisions about their money; discusses the newest branch of economics, behavioral economics; and explores the possibility of the disappearance of cash in the digital future. General readers will be able to comprehend why money has often generated intense feelings of desire, greed, envy, elation, and other emotions, as well as sense of status; and undergraduate students in psychology, economics, and sociology courses will benefit from learning about the latest research on behavior economics and the powerful psychological and emotional effects of money.

Offering both a male and female perspective on the dilemmas women face in business, this book provides the benefits of high-level executive coaching to all women who want to take control of their careers and achieve their aspirations for corporate leadership. Despite efforts to increase diversity within Fortune 500 companies and larger numbers of highly motivated and educated women in the workforce, women remain vastly under-represented at the highest levels of corporate leadership. Only about 15 percent of women hold senior executive positions, and about 17 percent are represented on corporate boards; worldwide, only 3–4 percent of CEOs are women. These statistics are in spite of the fact that many companies are actively seeking to take advantage of the financial boost that gender balance at the corporate level brings: Companies that have women in leadership roles are showing higher performance in various measures of profitability, such as revenues, assets, and stockholder value. How can qualified women leaders overcome the myriad longstanding hurdles of the corporate environment and reach the top? Coauthored by executive coaches to some of corporate America's most notable leaders, this practical, research- and experience-based guide identifies the various barriers that block women from reaching positions of corporate leadership and offers readers specific strategies and approaches that they can utilize to advance themselves into the positions they want—and apply their talents and abilities at the very top. The chapters address very specific challenges for women in the business world, such as strengthening and leveraging their closest connections, including those with their mentors and their sponsors; understanding how "performance" means more than doing their jobs well; garnering positive attention and recognition for their efforts and results; and getting honest, practical feedback that will serve to advance their careers.