Serial Mexico responds to a continued need to historicize and contextualize seriality, particularly as it exists outside of dominant U.S./European contexts. In Mexico, serialization has been an important feature of narrative since the birth of the nation. Amy Wright's exploration begins with a study of novels serialized in pamphlets and newspapers by key Mexican authors of the nineteenth century, showing that serialization was essential to the development of both the novel and national identities-to Mexican popular culture-during its foundational period. In the twentieth century, a technological explosion after the Mexican Revolution (1910-20) set Mexico's transmedial wheels into motion, as a variety of media recycled and repurposed earlier serialized tales, themselves drawn from a repertoire of oral traditions to national nostalgic effect. Along the way, Serial Mexico responds to the following series of questions: How has serialized storytelling functioned in Mexico? How can we better understand the relationship of seriality to transmediality through this historical case study? Which stories (characters, themes, storylines, and storyworlds) have circulated repeatedly over time? How have those stories defined Mexico? The goal of this book is to begin to understand some of the possible answers to these questions through five case studies, which highlight five key artifacts, in five different media, at five different historical points spanning nearly two hundred years of Mexico's history. Serial Mexico offers important insights into not only the topic of serialized storytelling, but to larger notions of how national identities are created through narrative, with crucial cultural and sometimes political implications.

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"(Wright and Smith) have written a remarkably lucid and elegantly organized history that keeps the major themes in view, even while discussing the minutiae of crafting and marketing various new insurance products or of managing the firm and its investment portfolio. As the authors themselves point out, the history of life insurance has not attracted much serious scholarship or inspired writing. Fortunately, Mutually Beneficial has both. It integrates the Guardian's career into a wider account of the American life-insurance business and American economic history more generally, and it manages to do so with a light touch."
--Geoffrey Clark, "Harvard Business History Review"

"(Mutually Beneficial is), without doubt, a major contribution to the economics and history of life insurance in the twentieth century. Wright and Smith have provided, for example, the most comprehensive account yet of product development, and the section on investment strategies is also important. In sum this will make a fine addition to the library of insurance historians, and to financial and business historians more generally."
--Robin Pearson, "Accounting, Business & Financial History"

"The matieral is well documented. The authors have produced a nonvanity company history that goes behind the scenes to describe the company's corporate culture and policies and provide a explanation of how ethical and business precepts have led to consistent profitability."
--"Enterprise & Society"

Mutually Beneficial tells the story of the evolution of The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America, one of the most important life and health insurers inthe history of the U.S. economy and life insurance industry. Relying on exclusive access to the company's archives, interviews with its current executive officers, the public record, and scholarly articles and monographs, Robert E. Wright and George David Smith provide a strategic analysis of Guardian, from its founding to its standing in the insurance world today.

Mutually Beneficial also describes the origin of Guardian's distinctive approach to business-its corporate culture and policy-and how these principles flow from the ethical and business precepts of its founders. By rigorously attending to its policyholders as a matter of practice as well as principle, Guardian has long been one of the most consistently profitable life insurance firms as measured by return on net wealth. This unique history will be of interest to anyone in the insurance business, as well as financial and economic professionals.

This volume begins in a period in which bitterness and revenge vied with hope and a new ideal of liberty. The Reconstruction imposed by the North upon the South is examined by the author from all points of view. He traces the steps by which the economy recovered and by which the USA emerged as the world's industrial giant. Factors as various as the anarchy of the Wild West and the gold rush, the completion of the railroad system, the maturing of the great centers of learning, the numerous manifestations of opportunity and strength led to the formation of a distinct culture and to a new consciousness of nationhood. They also gave birth, Professor Wright argues, to the American Dream, an elusive idea of such force that it informed much of the twentieth century in the USA and, as American power became pre-eminent, influenced the world at large. After describing the key American involvement in the European, Pacific and Asian wars, and the development of culture, politics, and ideology at home, the author examines the dissipation of that dream in the disillusion and corruption of the Reagan years.

Ironically, this was the time when the USA emerged as the world's sole super-power. And the country remained - as it had been for almost all its history - the ideal destination for the poor and downtrodden of the world, a beacon of opportunity, hope and, above all, of liberty.

In a Unification of Electromagnetism and Gravity, author Selwyn Wright describes his New Relativity (NR) theory in a simple physical way, in order to help the lay person to understand. At the same time he seeks to update aspects of modern physics in a rigorous manner. NR removes confusion in Einstein's relativity, simplifies our understanding of the universe and challenges relativity as a more logical and comprehensive theory.

Motional electromagnetic (EM) and gravitational theories are shown to have two inherent deficiencies that have prevented them from becoming a unified theory. Firstly they do not recognize that the propagation medium (ether) is the essential thread that runs through these developments. Secondly they do not realise that EM waves and gravity are two forms of the same field - unsteady electric and steady difference electric fields. Wright's new theory re-establishes a preferred frame of reference and restores the connection between classical and modern physics. It also forges new links between electrical sources and observers in motion and between electric fields and gravity.

As explained in the Unification of Electromagnetism and Gravity the medium provides the bridge between the Lorentz transform, accelerating frames and gravity, providing a basis for the unification theory of the universe.

Changing Scotland uses longitudinal data from the British Household Panel Survey to improve our knowledge and understanding of the impact of devolution on the lives of people in Scotland. It is the first time that BHPS data has been used in this way. The book provides a detailed examination of social, economic, demographic and political differences, especially those involving dynamic behaviour such as residential mobility, unemployment duration, job mobility, income inequality, poverty, health and deprivation, national identity, family structure and other aspects of individual's lives as they change over time. This data provides a 'baseline' for policy formulation and for analysing the impact of subsequent differential developments arising out of devolution. The book is also an invaluable resource for establishing pre-existing differences between England and Scotland and evaluating the impact of policy initiatives by the Scottish Executive.

In this evocative and engaging memoir, Thomas Wright recalls, with eloquence, frankness, and humor, a man coming to terms with his homosexuality and seeking his happiness in ignorant and repressive times. Throughout his life and in his travels, Wright gathered a distinguished circle of friends that included some of the most influential writers of the mid-20th century, among them Tennessee Williams, Paul Bowles, and Christopher Isherwood. Scion of an old Louisiana family, Wright left the South after college to live in the scintillating Manhattan of the late 1940s. Stimulated by the Columbia University of Trilling and Van Doren, he went on to develop lasting friendships with Allen and Caroline Tate, Tennessee Williams, and socialized with William Inge, Chester Kallman, Speed Lankin, Bill Goyen, Carson McCullers' family, and Harold Norse. Wright moved to southern California in the 1950s to become a writer. There he became intimate with Christopher Isherwood and Edward James (the purported son of Edward VII of England), enabling him to move in circles that included Igor Stravinsky, Gerald Heard, and Aldous Huxley. In the 1960s he began his travels, moving first to Mexico, then to Europe and on to Morocco, where he became a confidante of Paul Bowles. By the mid-1970s Wright began traveling again, moving throughout Latin America and finally settling in Guatemala where he now resides. Wright's honest treatment of his homosexuality and personal remembrances of the literary legends he befriended will inspire and fascinate readers.

This book presents a unique sociological examination of British raciology, focusing on women's literary works of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It uniquely offers a sociological perspective drawing from a range of academic disciplines, particularly literature, history and cultural studies. Wright traces the emergence of British modernity through the writings of a select group of women writers (including Jane Austen, Hannah More, Fanny Burney, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley and Marla Edgeworth) of diverse political and philosophical affiliations, and fills a gap in scholarship on feminist accounts of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century women's writing.

Controversy erupted in 1996 when the Oakland Unified School District’s ‘Ebonics Resolution’ proposed an approach to teaching Standard English that recognized the variety of English spoken by African American students. With new demands for accountability driven by the No Child Left Behind policy and its emphasis on high-stakes testing in Standard English, this debate will no doubt rise again. This book seeks to better inform this next episode. In Part 1, leading scholars place the debate within its historical and contemporary context, provide clear explanations of what Ebonics is and is not, and offer practical approaches schools can and should follow to address the linguistic needs of African American students. Part 2 provides original documents that accompanied the debate, including the original resolutions, legislation, organization position papers, and commentary/analyses from leading linguists. This book is written for all those whose work impacts the lives of Ebonics speakers in our public schools.

This volume presents the data, analyses, and interpretation of a wide range of osteological and burial data. The Petexbatun bioarchaeology subproject included complete assessment of burial practice and osteology. The chapters on this research explore population variability in time and space, paleopathology, and trauma from skeletal remains throughout the various sites and the inter-site areas of the Petexbatun, as well as from Seibal and Altar de Sacrificios. Yet Wright's innovative study goes on to apply the most recent physical and chemical techniques, particularly isotopic analysis, to assess diet and health in the populations of the Pasion region. Variability between sites, across levels of status, and over time are assessed and conservatively interpreted in the light of contemporary issues and problems of physical, chemical, and statistical methodology. Finally, the Petexbatun and Pasion region results are compared in order to reassess past and current studies and interpretation of skeletal remains in other regions of the ancient Maya lowlands. In the final chapters of this work, Wright's cutting-edge osteological analyses are used to critique current alternative interpretations of Late Classic to Postclassic culture history and alternative hypotheses on the role of changes in climate, ecology, diet, nutrition, invasion, and other factors in the end of Classic Maya civilization and the transition to the Postclassic period.
This volume also provides an independent assessment of the results of other Petexbatun region subprojects and a comparative evaluation of recent studies by other projects of Late and Terminal Classic culture change. For bioarchaeologists, this work sets a newstandard in breadth and depth of osteological study. For Pre-Columbian scholars in general, it provides new insights into the environmental and biological issues involved in the debate on the end of the Classic period of Maya civilization.
VIMA Series #2

Modern financial theories enable us to look at old problems in early American Republic historiography from new perspectives. Concepts such as information asymmetry, portfolio choice, and principal-agent dilemmas open up new scholarly vistas. Transcending the ongoing debates over the prevalence of either community or capitalism in early America, Wright offers fresh and compelling arguments that illuminate motivations for individual and collective actions, and brings agency back into the historical equation.

Wright argues that the Colonial rebellion was in part sparked by destabilizing British monetary policy that threatened many with financial insolvency; that in areas without modern financial institutions and practices, dueling was a rational means of protecting one's creditworthiness; that the principle-agent problem led to the institutionalization of the U.S. Constitution's system of checks and balances; and that a lack of information and education induced women to shift from active business owners to passive investors. Economists, historians, and political scientists alike will be interested in this strikingly novel and compelling recasting of our nation's formative decades.

This book explains how six policies collectively called the North American Wildlife Conservation Model (NAWCM), put in place around the turn of the twentieth century, saved numerous iconic big game species from extinction. Rigid adherence to the NAWCM, however, especially its ban on the commercial sale of wild game meat, has allowed deer and some other species to become overabundant pests in areas where hunting pressure recently declined and habitat rebounded. Texas and South Africa have proven that scientific insight and market incentives can combine to prevent game overabundance and decrease the fragility and extend the range of iconic mammal game species. This book outlines how intermediate steps, like proxy hunting and other wildlife regulation reforms, could be used to lure more hunters into the field and move other states towards the Texas model incrementally, thereby minimizing risks to wildlife or human stakeholders.

In the late Cretaceous period of Earth's history, iguanodon Aladar (voiced by D.B. Sweeney) is separated from his own species while still inside his egg. He is taken in and brought up by lemurs Zini and Plio, but when this adoptive family is all by wiped out by a meteor shower, Aladar and his friends are forced to join a mixed herd of dinosaurs who are migrating to a new nesting ground. This tribe is led by the hard-headed Kron (Samuel E. Wright), whose 'survival of the fittest' approach clashes with Aladar's more altruistic nature.

Originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, this volume explores how researchers, educators, artists, and scholars can collaborate with, and engage young people in art, creative practice, and research to work towards social justice and political engagement. By critically interrogating the dominant discourses, cultural, and structural obstacles that we all face today, this volume explores the potential of critical arts pedagogies and community-based research projects to empower young people as agents of social change. Chapters offer nuanced analyses of the limits of arts-based social justice collaborations, and grapple with key ethical, practical, and methodological issues that can arise in creative approaches to youth participatory action research. Theoretical contributions are enhanced by Notes from the Field, which highlight prime examples of arts-based youth work occurring across North America. As a whole, the volume powerfully advocates for collaborative creative practices that facilitate young people to build power, hope, agency, and skills through creative social engagement. This volume will be of interest to scholars, researchers, postgraduate students, and scholar-practitioners involved in community- and arts-based research and education, as well as those working with marginalized youth to improve their opportunities and access to a quality education and to deepen their political participation and engagement in intergenerational partnerships aiming to increase the conditions for social justice.

Recognizing new opportunities and challenges brought about by technological and social change, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic, this volume explores innovative design, implementation, and pedagogy for practica experiences in teacher education programs in the field of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. By showcasing research and practice undertaken in a range of teacher education courses and programs, the volume offers evidence-based approaches to enhancing pre- and in-service teachers' learning and cultural awareness. Chapters come together coherently to address issues and explore innovative structures revolving around high-quality TESOL practica. Particular attention is paid to emerging opportunities offered by virtual and simulated learning in online and in-person practica, as well as potential changes to best practice in community-based programs. Using a diverse set of lenses to examine the practical, theoretical, and methodological aspects of TESOL practica, this volume will be of interest to students, scholars and researchers with an interest in TESOL education, as well as in open and distance education.

The nature of America's early economy has been hotly contested for several decades. Historians have often focused on the question of when America became "capitalist," while economists have tried to determine when American economic growth sped up. In The Origins of Commercial Banking in America, Robert E. Wright argues that the ultimate causes of American economic development and transformation into a modern society can be reduced to the causes of American banking. In the first full analysis of the origins of American commercial banking since Bray Hammond's monumental study forty-five years ago, Wright skillfully examines the political and economic forces that contributed to the origins and rise of banks in cities such as Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, as well as in smaller towns servicing rural America. Wright expertly assesses the impact of the war for independence, Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris' policies under the Confederation, the economic and political effects of the postwar depression of 1784-86, the attempts of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 to address the country's economic problems, and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton's financial program under the new Constitution. Wright looks at both the macro and micro sides of issues how state and national governments addressed problems and chartered (and sometimes unchartered banks) as well as how private individuals tried to cope with the need to obtain capital and the effects on them of early bankruptcy laws. He describes the varied and sometimes arcane financial and commercial instruments that existed both before and after the establishment of banks, and how they fostered economic development. We are introduced to an emerging capitalist system struggling to provide capital needed by America's voracious economy. The Origins of Commercial Banking in America is essential reading for anyone interested in the political and economic origins of the early republic."

This book presents the most compelling arguments for and against implementing a basic income guarantee today, in the voice of proponents and critics, in alternating chapters. Tables, figures, and pictures illustrate the key concepts and evidence, which include benefit cliffs and disincentive deserts, time series macroeconomic data, business, economic, and technological change (BETC), artificial intelligence and other general purpose technologies, along with advanced robotics, the environmental Kuznets Curve, income distributions, democracy, social justice, dependence, autonomy, and economic freedom. A neutral, non-partisan tone introduction defines UBI and covers the history of universal income plans, while the conclusion summarizes the main arguments for and against UBI before surveying alternative policies, including universal basic asset, credit, service, job, and training plans.

There have been many voices in disciplines as various as philosophy, history, psychology, hermeneutics, literary theory, and theology that have claimed that narrative is fundamental to all that is human. Here is a book that in an engaging and amusing way presents a coherent thesis to that effect, connecting the Joke and the Story (with all that comedy and tragedy imply) not only with our sensing and perceiving of the world, but with our faith in each other, and what the character of that faith should be.