Rural people and communities continue to play important social, economic, and environmental roles at a time when societies are rapidly urbanizing. This unrivaled critical introduction, now in a comprehensively updated second edition, examines the causes and consequences of major social and economic transformations affecting rural populations in recent decades, explores policies developed to ameliorate problems or enhance opportunities, and highlights the resilience of rural people and communities. In an engaging, reader-friendly style, the book explores both socio-demographic and political economic aspects of rural transformation through an accessible and up-to-date blend of theory and empirical analysis, with each chapter's discussion grounded in real-life case-study materials. The new edition has been completely revised throughout, with new data and literature, and carefully updated to address emerging issues of direct relevance to rural people and places, including a whole new chapter on rural politics. Rural People and Communities in the 21st Century will continue to be the standard reading of choice for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in rural sociology, community sociology, rural and/or population geography, community development, and population studies.

Rural people and communities continue to play important social, economic, and environmental roles at a time when societies are rapidly urbanizing. This unrivaled critical introduction, now in a comprehensively updated second edition, examines the causes and consequences of major social and economic transformations affecting rural populations in recent decades, explores policies developed to ameliorate problems or enhance opportunities, and highlights the resilience of rural people and communities. In an engaging, reader-friendly style, the book explores both socio-demographic and political economic aspects of rural transformation through an accessible and up-to-date blend of theory and empirical analysis, with each chapter's discussion grounded in real-life case-study materials. The new edition has been completely revised throughout, with new data and literature, and carefully updated to address emerging issues of direct relevance to rural people and places, including a whole new chapter on rural politics. Rural People and Communities in the 21st Century will continue to be the standard reading of choice for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in rural sociology, community sociology, rural and/or population geography, community development, and population studies.

Poems of love, nature and moving on to new adventure.

IT'S ABOUT TIME is not a book about Time Management and multi-tasking. Enough people drive down the fast lane while drinking a cup of coffee, smoking a cigarette, and talking on their cell phone. IT'S ABOUT TIME speaks to the Value of Time. The message driven home to all of us from our youth is that Time and Money are the two scarcest commodities known to Man. The premise of IT'S ABOUT TIME is that Time is the more significant of the two for one simple fact: we can recover or replace lost Money, but lost Time is gone forever. Unfortunately most business owners place more emphasis on Money rather than Time. Too many operational decisions consider Money alone without regard to the Value of Time consumed. The author uses anecdotes, illustrations, daily life examples, and experiences as a business owner, business manager, teacher, and business consultant to support the central theme of the book.

In Part 1, Don writes of the flowers around his island home, the grief of his wife's passing and awaking to new love. In Part 2, Eleanor writes of her visions of home, meeting Don, her personal growth and acceptance of her last journey.