This first-hand empirical study of elderly Soviet Jews who immigrated to Israel during the Great Exodus of 1989 to 1991 demonstrates the double jeopardy of transnational relocation in later life. The book traces the depletions that occurred in the elderly immigrants' social networks and examines the impact of a range of network factors on their personal well-being. Given the dearth of systematic field research into the problems and needs of elderly immigrants, and of this group in particular, gerontologists and sociologists will find this case study invaluable. Students, teachers, policymakers, social service providers, and other professional practitioners will gain from the findings about elderly immigrants' network relationships and from practical suggestions for the planning of effective network interventions on their behalf.

With over a billion followers spread across the world, Islam today stands as the second largest and the fastest growing religion of our time. I wonder how many of these over one billion followers know that their religious scriptures mention spacecrafts that visited the deserts of Arabia during Prophet Muhammad's time. To most Muslims, it will come as a great surprise that the pagan Arabs, who opposed the Prophet, worshipped alien visitors from outer space! These alien visitors (or sky-gods as they were understood by pagan Arabs) are mentioned repeatedly in the Quran and the Hadeeth. Yet, in spite of their emphasized mention, the Muslim world has not been able to gather any concrete proof of their existence. In the absence of concrete scientific proof, these alien space travelers occupy Muslim conscience as spiritual beings. Concrete proof of the existence of UFOs has been gathered elsewhere in another part of the world. In the West, thousands of books have been written on the subject of UFOs but the real reasons for their visits to our world have still remained a mystery. Furthermore, UFO researchers today understand that governments of certain Western countries are concealing important information on UFOs, but the reasons for this global censorship have not been understood. It took courage to write this book and it will take courage to read it. Yet, one thing is for sure, UFOs in the Quran will blow your mind. At times it will amaze you, at times it will frighten you but for most part, it will just take the ground from under your feet. Abdul Aziz Khan is a television journalist whose news reports and documentaries have gone on air in many countries around the world. He is a former Field Investigator with MUFON, the worlds largest organization doing investigations into unexplained aerial phenomenon.

Like many other cities in the United States, Grand Rapids, Michigan has struggled with redeveloping its economic identity after the devastation of the Great Recession of 2008. "Last Chance Mile: The Reinvention of an" "American Community "demonstrates how Grand Rapids has been redefined as a hub for the greatest scientific minds in the world by developing what has come to be called the "Medical Mile."

The Medical Mile is cluster of prosperity that is anchored by a world-renowned research institute, a major healthcare organization, a Big Ten medical school, an allied health professions program at a nearby university, and an entrepreneurial incubator where new medical device and life sciences businesses are being born. None of this existed until a $1 billion donation from Jay Andel changed not only the way the world views Grand Rapids, but how the community views itself.

It has been a long journey of self-discovery for Grand Rapids that could serve as inspiration for other American communities.

A journey through Johannesburg via three art projects raises intriguing notions about the constitutive relationship between the city, imagination and the public sphere- through walking, gaming and performance art. Amid prevailing economic validations, the trilogy posits art within an urban commons in which imagination is all-important.

Four miles southeast of the village of Matfield Green in Chase County, Kansas--the heart of the Flint Hills--lies the abandoned settlement of Thurman. At the turn of the century Thurman was a prosperous farming and ranching settlement with fifty-one households, a post office, two general stores, a blacksmith shop, five schools, and a church. Today, only the ruins of Thurman remain.

Joseph Hickey uses Thurman to explore the settlement form of social organization, which--along with the village, hamlet, and small town--was a dominant feature of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American life. He traces Thurman's birth in 1874, its shallow rises and falls, and its demise in 1944. Akin to what William Least Heat-Moon did for Chase County in PrairyErth, Hicky provides a "deep map" for one post-office community and, consequently, tells us a great deal about America's rural past.

Describing the shifting relationships between Thurmanites and their Matfield Green neighbors, Hickey details how social forces set in motion by the American ideal of individualism and the machinations of capitalist entrepreneurs produced a Darwinian struggle between Thurman stock raisers and Flint Hills "cattle barons" that ultimately doomed Thurman. Central to the story are the concept of "ordinary entrepreneurship" and the profoundly capitalist attitudes of the farmers who settled Thurman and thousands of other communities dotting the American landscape.

Hickey's account of Thurman's social organization and disintegration provides a new perspective on what happened when the cattle drives from Texas and the Southwest shifted in the 1880s from the Kansas cowtowns to the Flint Hills. Moreover, he punctures numerous myths about the Flint Hills, including those that cattle dominated because the land is too rocky to farm or that Indians refused to farm because of traditional beliefs.

Like many other small rural communities, Hickey argues, Thurman during its seventy-year history was actually several different settlements. A product of changing social conditions, each one resulted from shifting memberships and boundaries that reflected the efforts of local entrepreneurs to use country schools, churches, and other forms of "social capital" to gain advantages over their competitors. In the end, Thurman succumbed to the impact of agribusiness, which had the effect of transforming social capital from an asset into a liability. Ultimately, Hickey shows, the settlement's fate echoed the decline of rural community throughout America.

This collection of articles, all being published in English for the first time, focuses on the child-rearing and educational practices of the Kibbutz, and the effect they have on children. Unlike other Kibbutz studies, however, written by outsiders and non-Israelis, almost all of these studies have been authored by Kibbutz members. Fifteen articles are included, drawn from data obtained by the Institute of Research on Kibbutz Education at Oranim Haifa University, and reflect the concern of workers in a system rather than the preoccupation of outside observers. The studies cover a wide range of topics and age groups, from early infancy through adolescence, and taken as a whole provide a panoramic view of the issues of concern to Kibbutz education in their historical context. Each article in the volume was chosen according to three criteria: it had to represent the principal questions of concern to the kibbutz educational system today; reflect the changes that have taken place in recent years in child-rearing; and display an exacting methodology. The studies are divided into four parts according to subject and age groups, covering early childhood and motherhood, the transition from communal to family sleeping arrangements, elementary school children, and adolescence. An additional part brings together articles that fall outside of these categories. Each part and each study also features an introduction containing specific comments, and the book concludes with a bibliography, a name index, and a subject index. This collection of intra-cultural studies will be a significant addition to academic and public libraries, and a valuable reference for courses in sociology, education, and Israelistudies.

Many prominent science fiction writers, artists, and editors began as s.f. "fans." This is the first book to survey fandom's history, manifestations, and accomplishments, including clubs, fanzines, and conventions. The 24 essays are divided into sections that consider the following: the types of people who become fans and the satisfactions they receive; the development of fandom in America; fandom in Europe and the Orient; social interactions in the form of local clubs or wider-drawing conventions; and long-term results in the form of beginning professional careers in writing or publishing, exercising critical attention, and so forth. The writers of these essays have all participated in the activities they describe. The book also contains a glossary, an annotated bibliography, and an index. Overall, this book gives a detailed look at the most important facets of a fascinating subculture that has contributed significantly to the direction of modern science fiction.

Scholars in various disciplines are recommending comprehensive measures to solve multiple societal as well as individual problems. The philosophy of community education has been overlooked but is a workable, comprehensive approach to addressing crime. As used in this book, community education is a philosophy, process, and program comprised of three overriding and interrelated elements: community empowerment, community problem-solving, and the effort to involve all community members in the pursuit of lifelong learning.

The Hyde Park neighborhood in St. Louis has one of the highest rates of reported drug sales and high rates of homicide, robbery, aggravated assault, arson, and burglary. The community lays claim to several crime-inducing variables including population loss, a high percentage of population shift resulting in a higher percentage of black population and boarded-up housing units, a high rate of unemployment, a very low per capita income and a high percentage of citizens living below the poverty line, and a high percentage of female-headed households. Nevertheless, the people of Hyde Park are participating in a crime prevention approach that is applicable to all communities. Insights to urban life and problem solving are provided by community members, covering such topics as policing and how it can be improved. These insights and others offered by the author are supported by theories and philosophies found in the literature. In the process of solving their own problems, community members involve themselves in lifelong learning activities and leadership development. Written in a style that is appealing to the general public as well as academics, it is of special interest to educators, community leaders, criminologists, academics in urban affairs and sociology, social workers, law enforcement agents, and politicians.

Life in a castle isn't always a fairytale, as the Duchess of Rutland vividly illustrates in her fascinating, revealing and funny autobiography. When Emma Watkins, the pony-mad daughter of a Welsh farmer, imagined her future, she imagined following in her mother's footsteps to marry a farmer of her own. But then she fell in love with David Manners, having no idea that he was heir to one of the most senior hereditary titles in the land. When David succeeded his father, Emma found herself becoming the chatelaine of Belvoir Castle, ancestral home of the Dukes of Rutland. She had to cope with five boisterous children while faced with a vast estate in desperate need of modernisation and staff who wanted nothing to change - it was a daunting responsibility. Yet with sound advice from the doyenne of duchesses, Duchess 'Debo' of Devonshire, she met each challenge with optimism and gusto, including scaling the castle roof in a storm to unclog a flooding gutter; being caught in her nightdress by mesmerised Texan tourists and disguising herself as a cleaner to watch filming of The Crown. She even took on the castle ghosts . . . At times the problems she faced seemed insoluble yet, with her unstoppable energy and talent for thinking on the hoof, she won through, inspired by the vision and passion of those Rutland duchesses in whose footsteps she trod, and indeed the redoubtable and resourceful women who forged her way, whose homes were not castles but remote farmhouses in the Radnorshire Hills. Vividly written and bursting with insights, The Accidental Duchess will appeal to everyone who has visited a stately home and wondered what it would be like to one day find yourself not only living there, but in charge of its future.

Southern England has been studied considerably less than the industrialising north and midlands in the debate on the standard of living in the period up to 1850. Yet it is becoming clear that it was in the south and in the countryside that the greatest poverty and deprivation was to be found. In these essays John Rule and Roger Wells, whose work has made them leading authorities in this area, examine responses to the struggle to live. These responses ranged from, at the most extreme, sheepstealing and incendiarism to joining in food riots in an attempt to impose a 'moral economy'. More sustained protest is to be seen in passive and sometimes active resistance to authority, and in particular in the opposition to the introduction of the New Poor Law of 1834. Finally the appeal yet limitations of Chartism in the south is demonstrated.

This edited book offers an engaging portrait into a vital, religious movement inside this southern Africa country. It tells the story of a community of faith that is often overlooked in the region. The authors include leading scholars of religion, theology, and politics from Botswana and Zimbabwe. The insights they present will help readers understand the place of Pentecostal Christianity in this land of many religions. The chapters detail a history of the movement from its inception to the present. Chapters focus on specific Pentecostal churches, general doctrine of the movement, and the movement's contribution to the country. The writing is deeply informed and features deep historical, theological, and sociological analysis throughout. Readers will also learn about the socio-political and economic relevance of the faith in Zimbabwe as well as the theoretical and methodological implications raised by the Pentecostalisation of society. The volume will serve as a resource book both for teaching and for those doing research on various aspects of the Zimbabwean society past, present, and future. It will be a good resource for those in schools and university and college departments of religious studies, theology, history, politics, sociology, social anthropology, and related studies. Over and above academic and research readers, the book will also be very useful to government policy makers, non-governmental organizations, and civic societies who have the Church as an important stakeholder.

There is growing international evidence that the effectiveness of health services stems primarily from the extent to which the incentives facing providers and consumers are aligned with ""better health"" objectives. Efficiency in health service provision requires that providers and consumers have incentives to use healthcare resources in ways that generate the maximum health gains. Equity in at least one sense requires that consumers requiring the same care are treated equally, irrespective of their ability to pay. Efficiency in the use of health services requires that consumers are knowledgeable about the services on offer and which are most appropriate to their needs. The papers in this volume are selected from an international conference organised by the CDRI, Cambodia, that tried to deal with some of these issues. With participation of international and local experts, it aimed at collecting major experiences and innovative solutions from inside and outside the country to improve health sector performance, with particular focus on institutions, motivations and incentives.

By supporting and influencing their families and communities, grandparents--and those who act as grandparents--can play a key role in today's society. Their special mission is derived from a strong sense of purpose and direction that develops from making significant contributions to family life. These include compiling and recounting family histories, maintaining meaningful relationships among different generations, opening up family communications, explaining social changes, and participating in community life. With the aid of real-life examples of intergenerational family dynamics, the author--a clinical sociologist who has practiced family therapy for more than 25 years--presents principles, techniques, and perspectives for today's grandparents.

""Taking Care of Barbara" is an inspirational resource book for anyone living in the world of Alzheimer's. There are clear and concise caregiver tips and references in dealing with the everyday struggles that come with the progression of the disease. What a gift to know and be able to anticipate the needs of our loved one when they may not be able to communicate them. Most importantly, this book is a celebration of family and the relationship between the caregiver and the patient. It lifts the caregiver above the everyday struggles and reminds us of where to find the strength and joy in the frequent frustrations of the day. It inspires us to love beyond the external happenings and shows us there lies a deeper and greater gain that will enrich our spirit. The world of Alzheimer's may feel overwhelming, but this book encourages caregivers to get out of bed, put their feet on the floor and face the day with renewed strength and purpose."
-Kelly Cason Hunter, Hospice Volunteer, Pediatric Nurse

Theodore Parker, a great orator of the mid-19th century, was a Unitarian clergyman who directed much of his oratory towards ecclesiastical and social reform. Parker challenged slavery and other social ills. As a volume in the Great American Orators series, the focus is on Parker's oratory and its effect on theology and the social structures of the mid-19th century. Biographical information pertains to those aspects of Parker's life that influenced and shaped his elocution and ideas. Parker's rhetoric and rhetorical techniques are examined. Three of Parker's important speeches are included, each with an introduction that places it in its proper context.

This study will appeal to students of rhetoric, theology, and mid-nineteenth-century American religious history. The book is divided into two sections. The first concentrates on Parker's life, his role as an abolitionist, social reformer, and public order. Part Two scrutinizes three of Parker's most famous discourses. The author establishes Parker's place among mid-19th-century preachers.

View the Table of Contents.
Read the Foreword.

aThabit emphasizes the central role of local institutions in contributing to urban disinvestment and decline.a
-- "Journal of Urban History"

"Walter Thabit has written a highly personal and compelling piece of retrospective analysis."--"Journal of the American Planning Association"

"Thabit's writing is lucid and heartfelt."
--"Urban Studies"

"An excellent source of data and intelligence on the formation of ghettos and the life and struggle within them."
--"Science & Society"

""How East New York Became a Ghetto" describes the shift of East New York from a working-class immigrant neighborhood to a largely black and Puerto Rican one, and shows how a series of racially biased policies caused the deterioration of this once-flourishing area."
--"Arab-American Affairs

"An interesting and worthwhile read, especially for its descriptions."--"Supplement"

"Walter Thabit's book works as a slice of urban sociology, history, and political science. It should whet the appetites of students and scholars to inquire into the "longue duree" of the subject more extensively."
--"New York History"

aThe book powerfully coveys the forces behind the ghettoization of one urban community and illustrates the difficulties of community development.a
-- Urban History Review.

"A comprehensive account of the decline of East New York in Brooklyn into a typical urban slum and of the efforts since the 1960s to redevelop the neighborhood. Anyone interested in urban social problems and improving the quality of life for urban poor should read this astounding analysis of urban decay and rebirth."
--"Multicultural Review"

"Thabit does a Herculean task of documenting the various factors that led to the ghettoization of East New York."
--"Progressive Planning"

"Thabit is in a unique position to document the destruction of the once working class Brooklyn neighborhood. . . Toward the book's conclusion, Thabit sounds a faint note of hope to the emerging community groups."
-- "New York"

"This thoughtful, important analysis is recommended for academics, professionals, and a concerned public library audience."
--"Library Journal"

"Walter Thabit eloquently tells the story of East New York, a neighborhood in eastern Brooklyn, complementing his close observation of events in the neighborhood with astute analyses of the bearing of larger forces on this big city slum. Events in East New York reveal in microcosm the turbulent national forces that have determined the fate of inner city ghettos across the country over the past 40 years."
--from the Foreword by Frances Fox Piven

"The grim descriptions of civil neglect, community disorganization and institutional racism make this a difficult read, particularly when one realizes that this is the story that can be told about thousands of other neighborhoods in scores of citiies by hundreds of people. Perhaps if more planners like Thabit had told their stories, we might not have found oruselves in this predicament."
--"ADPSR NY"

In response to the riots of the mid-'60s, Walter Thabit was hired to work with the community of East New York to develop a plan for low- and moderate-income public housing. In the years that followed, he experienced first-hand the forces that had engineered East New York's dramatic decline and that continued towork against its successful revitalization. How East New York Became a Ghetto describes the shift of East New York from a working-class immigrant neighborhood to a largely black and Puerto Rican neighborhood and shows how the resulting racially biased policies caused the deterioration of this once flourishing area.

A clear-sighted, unflinching look at one ghetto community, How East New York Became a Ghetto provides insights and observations on the histories and fates of ghettos throughout the United States.

Gananath Obeyesekere calls his contribution to this volume a peon to 'foolishness'. But this is a fertile foolishness that implies a positive freedom to engage passionately in comparison, to avoid disciplinary overspecialization, to understand that the non-rational need not imply the irrational, and to acknowledge the power of art and literature as potential inspirations for our work. These themes of creativity and engagement echo through this volume's discussions of orthodoxy, aesthetics, and the ambivalences that surround religious authority and leadership. A special section on pilgrimage to Holy Land sites examines sacred space, place, and narrative as expressions of knowledge and power, while Birgit Meyer's inaugural lecture at the University of Utrecht calling for a material approach to religion elicits a number of constructive responses from scholars in art history, anthropology, and religious studies. The volume is rounded out by a teaching section exploring the dynamics of teaching the anthropology of Christianity in a seminary and reviews of recent literature in the anthropology of religion and related studies.

This provocative new volume focuses on the economic features that make Third World social formations distinctive and on non-property characteristics such as religion, ethnicity, and culture, that are central to the survival of these societies. Specifically, the authors look at the significance and revolutionary potential of peasant majorities, who take limited advantage of capitalist modes of production and often manage to maintain their cultural and economic identity and a degree of independence in the process. Following the editors' introduction, which explains the conceptual framework for the study, the historical and structural causes for the weakness of the basic capitalist classes in the periphery (the underdeveloped national regions) are examined. The next several chapters deal with the evolution of classes and institutions in the periphery, the articulation of peasantries within capitalist and socialist societies, and the reasons for the resilience of peasant modes of production. Other topics discussed are the role of the state--capitalist of socialist--in class formation, the relationship between the socialist state and the peasantry, variables in social transformation in the periphery, and the place of the urban poor in Third World development.

Classic representations of the city have focused on simplistic urban dichotomies such as renewal or decline, poverty or prosperity, and vice or vigor. We are left with the question of what actually constitutes a city and what makes it and its people succeed or fail. Recent writing on the city, however, has begun to question the images, metaphors, and discourses through which the contemporary city is represented. Discussing recent visual, architectural and spatial transformations in New York and other major world cities in relation to the themes of ethnicity, capital, and culture, Re-Presenting the City moves between interpretive representations of the newly emerging metropolis and the theoretical and methodological questions raised by the task of such representations. Contributors with backgrounds in urban planning, sociology, cultural studies, architecture, art history, geography, and philosophy reflect on the construction of both the real and the unreal city, the images, metaphors and discourses through which the contemporary city is represented, and the texts which both mediate our experience of, as well as contribute to producing, the city of the future.

An exploration of the fascinating and controversial history of girls' education in America from the colonial era to the computer age. Girls and Literacy in America offers a tour of opportunities, obstacles, and achievements in girls' education from the limited possibilities of colonial days to the wide-open potential of the Internet generation. Six essays, written by historians and focused on particular historical periods, examine the extensive range of girls' literacies in both educational and extracurricular settings. Girls from various ethnic and racial backgrounds, social classes, religions, and geographic areas of the nation are included. A host of primary documents, including such items as an 18th century hornbook to excerpts from girls' "conversations" in Internet chat rooms allow readers an opportunity to evaluate for themselves some of the materials mentioned in the volume's opening essays. And finally, an extensive bibliography will be invaluable to students expected to conduct more extensive primary research. Contributors are experts on literacy including E. Jennifer Monaghan (Brooklyn College), Amy Goodburn (University of Nebraska-Lincoln), and Andrea A. Lunsford (Stanford University) Primary documents printed in full or excerpted include diaries, letters, school assignments, newspaper advice columns, short stories, and poems, all targeted to or written by girls A chronology of the reading and writing done by girls is presented in six essays beginning in the colonial period and ending in the 21st century An extensive bibliography includes archival holdings, secondary scholarship, and online resources