Where did the unicorn come from and how was it accepted for so long as a part of the animal kingdom? Chris Lavers argues that although the unicorn of our imagination isn't real, traces of its character can be found in existing species. In this lively and vivid exploration of the natural world, Lavers follows the beast's trail to the plateaus of India and into the jungles of Africa to unearth the flesh and blood ancestors of our iconic unicorn--and, along the way, he introduces the peoples, historians, explorers, traders, and scientists who steadfastly believed.

Policing Sex in the Sunflower State: The Story of the Kansas State Industrial Farm for Women is the history of how, over a span of two decades, the state of Kansas detained over 5,000 women for no other crime than having a venereal disease. In 1917, the Kansas legislature passed Chapter 205, a law that gave the state Board of Health broad powers to quarantine people for disease. State authorities quickly began enforcing Chapter 205 to control the spread of venereal disease among soldiers preparing to fight in World War I. Though Chapter 205 was officially gender-neutral, it was primarily enforced against women; this gendered enforcement became even more dramatic as Chapter 205 transitioned from a wartime emergency measure to a peacetime public health strategy. Women were quarantined alongside regular female prisoners at the Kansas State Industrial Farm for Women (the Farm). Women detained under Chapter 205 constituted 71 percent of the total inmate population between 1918 and 1942. Their confinement at the Farm was indefinite, with doctors and superintendents deciding when they were physically and morally cured enough to reenter society; in practice, women detained under Chapter 205 spent an average of four months at the Farm. While at the Farm, inmates received treatment for their diseases and were subjected to a plan of moral reform that focused on the value of hard work and the inculcation of middle-class norms for proper feminine behavior. Nicole Perry's research reveals fresh insights into histories of women, sexuality, and programs of public health and social control. Underlying each of these are the prevailing ideas and practices of respectability, in some cases culturally encoded, in others legislated, enforced, and institutionalized. Perry recovers the voices of the different groups of women involved with the Farm: the activist women who lobbied to create the Farm, the professional women who worked there, and the incarcerated women whose bodies came under the control of the state. Policing Sex in the Sunflower State offers an incisive and timely critique of a failed public health policy that was based on perceptions of gender, race, class, and respectability rather than a reasoned response to the social problem at hand.

Societal resilience is relatively a newly emerging concept in academia. It requires extensive research and more interdisciplinary studies. The concept of societal resilience draws its root from different theories created over time, such as James Samuel Coleman's concept of Social Capital, Anthony Giddens' structuration theory, Manuel Castells' organizational theory, and Niki Frantzeskaki's conceptualization of Urban Resilience which solidified the concept of Societal Resilience. This book provides a substantial critique on post-modernism theories in the area for valid interpretations and analyses of the phenomena of disease response and pathological behavior. It studies the shifts in modern social values and illness behavior in contemporary society, especially under COVID-19. This book also identifies best practices of interventional and innovative solutions that deal with pandemics. There will also be a specific focus on big-pandemic data and statistics, how pandemics are monitored globally, regionally, and locally, and the analysis of deeper insights behind data numbers and statistics. There will also be a focus on the social side, looking at illnesses and the different social relationships and human behavior during the pandemic. This book is essential for academia, professors, professionals, graduate students, policy makers, along with experts, professionals, and academics within the fields of sociology, anthropology, law, economics, political sciences, data management, education, nursing and medical sciences, public health, and other academic disciplines.

This timely Handbook demonstrates that global linkages, flows and circulations merit a more central place in theorization about development. Calling for a mobilities turn, it challenges the sedentarist assumptions which still underlie much policy making and planning for the future. Expert contributors analyze development from a mobilities perspective, exploring how globalization connects distant people and places, so that what happens in one place has direct bearing on another. Chapters provide an overview of the global trends related to the flows of people and capital over the past decade, and offer insights into the consequences of developmental practices and policies that unfold on the ground. Drawing on specific case studies from Africa, Asia and Latin America, this Handbook considers how, in many localities, livelihood opportunities are ever more shaped by positionality, and the ways in which people are attached to and participate in translocal and transnational networks. Providing a bottom-up analysis of the implications of globalization for translocal development, this Handbook will be a valuable resource for scholars and students of development studies, human geography, and sustainability and environmental science. Its use of global case studies will also be useful for practitioners and policy makers who desire a better understanding of the developmental impact of policies and investments.

It's often said that we are what we wear. Tracing an American trajectory in fashion, Lauren Cardon shows how we become what we wear. Over the twentieth century, the American fashion industry diverged from its roots in Paris, expanding and attempting to reach as many consumers as possible. Fashion became a tool for social mobility. During the late twentieth century, the fashion industry offered something even more valuable to its consumers: the opportunity to explore and perform. The works Cardon examines by Sylvia Plath, Jack Kerouac, Toni Morrison, Sherman Alexie, and Aleshia Brevard, among others illustrate how American fashion, with its array of possibilities, has offered a vehicle for curating public personas. Characters explore a host of identities as fashion allows them to deepen their relationships with ethnic or cultural identity, to reject the social codes associated with economic privilege, or to forge connections with family and community. These temporary transformations, or performances, show that identity is a process constantly negotiated and questioned, never completely fixed.

As the European Union continues to struggle to establish a common agenda on tackling social problems, this compelling book presents a set of comparative sociological studies in southern European countries from leading scholars working in the region. While political and sociological discussion is frequently focused on northern EU member states, this book widens the debate by looking at a series of specific social problems of southern Europe. Contributors examine pressing social issues, such as social unrest, Islamophobia, childhood and educational needs, deindustrialization, unemployment and environmental degradation, addressing not only the implications of these issues but also their societal perception and their impact on national and regional identities. Chapters highlight shared trends and critical regional disparities that may improve our understanding of social problems in Mediterranean welfare states. Featuring key research from leading academics in the field, this book is crucial reading for scholars of sociology and social policy working in the field of social problems, particularly those focused on southern Europe. It will also be beneficial to policymakers working in the region who are in need of fresh empirical insights into the social fabric of southern European societies. Contributors include: T. Alvarez Lorente, H. Baldan, A. Barros Cardoso, F. Barros Rodriguez, J.F. Bejarano Bella, I. Benali Tahiri, S. Bertolini, F.J. Canton Correa, P. Cardon, F.F. Castano, E. Dominguez, R. Duque-Calvache, F. Entrena-Duran, M. do Nascimento Esteves Mateus, R. Fajardo Fernandez, C. Fuentes-Lara, N. Fuster, P. Galindo Calvo, J.M. Garcia Moreno, A. Gentile, S.M.A. Gozzo, J. Iglesias de Ussel, E. Igorra Canillas, B. Jimenez Roger, J. Lopez Doblas, L.F. Lopez Garcia, B. Mahmud, R. Manzanera Ruiz, C. Marciano, A. Martinez Lopez, R. Martinez Martin, I. Palomares-Linares, L. Pellizzoni, T.T. Rodriguez Molina, F. Sadio Ramos, M. Sanchez Martinez, M.J. Santiago Segura, R.M. Soriano Miras, J.L. Sousa Soares de Oliveira Braga, J. Susino, J.M. Torrado, A. Torres Rodriguez, A. Trinidad Requena, J.M. Valdera-Gil

New information and communications technologies have revolutionized daily life and work in the 21st century. This insightful book demonstrates how telework has evolved in the last four decades, as technological developments have improved our capacity to work remotely. Based on a new conceptual framework, this book explores the global variations in telework, examining the effects on working conditions and individual and organizational performance. Breaking the traditional intellectual conception that telework is performed only in the home, this book surveys the full breadth of working environments, as technology allows employees increased working mobility. Contributors expose a profound ambiguity surrounding the effects of 21st-century telework, revealing that its advantages and disadvantages may simply be two sides of the same coin. This timely book is crucial reading for researchers of labour and employment interested in the evolution of contemporary telework and the influence of modern technologies in the workplace. Policy-makers will also benefit from this book's concrete policy recommendations to improve the practice of telework. Contributors include: S. Boiarov, P. D'Cruz, A. Dal Colletto, L. Gschwind, T. Harnish, K. Lister, A. Mello, J.C. Messenger, E. Noronha, A. Sato, O. Vargas