For over seven centuries, Dante and his masterpiece, "The Divine Comedy," have held a special place in Western culture. The poem is at once a vivid journey through hell to heaven, a poignant love story, and a picture of humanity's relationship to God. It is so richly imaginative that a first reading can be bewildering. In response, Peter Hawkins has written an inspiring introduction to the poet, his greatest work, and its abiding influence. His knowledge of Dante and enthusiasm for his vision make him an expert guide for the willing reader.

This ethnography describes the intense contradictions that exist between the cultural values of American life and the cultural values needed to survive in combat, as represented through the experiences of forward-deployed U.S. Army units in Germany during the height of the Cold War. Living in constant military readiness, yet participating in peacetime community and family processes, Army personnel had to tolerate the contradictions and live by both sets of principles. In soldier perception, family life and community activities ought to have been guided by American rather than military values. Yet the military ran the community, and military activities penetrated and disrupted family life.

In Germany the penetration and disruption was much exacerbated by isolation, for these Americans did not generally have the language or cultural skills to escape from the military community. Rather, they were marooned in an intensely judgmental fish bowl community where there was no private life. The resulting scrutiny and the measures people took to avoid it and sustain autonomy corrupted the community, its families, and the units themselves. The scrutiny, with its attendant risks, and the intense contradiction in values led to feelings of profound alienation.

Here is an efficient guide to measuring and graphing behavioral outcomes, and letting the results influence clinical decisions. The authors, all clinical psychologists, describe how the continuous' measurement of outcomes can document clinical results and provide practical methods for clinicians to routinely get and use credible, precise data. They provide numerous clinical examples that illustrate how behavioral health outcomes can be measured directly and simply.

As the Internet's presence in health care grows more pervasive, an increasing number of health care providers have begun to implement eHealth innovations in their practice. The interactive health communication system (IHCS), one such eHealth solution, provides consumers with information, informal support, and a venue for communication. Investing in eHealth: What it Takes to Sustain Consumer Health Informatics examines the evolution of the IHCS and the significant changes in organizational culture and operational systems that may be required for successful and sustained implementation. This book explores the development of a model (funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in 1998) to predict and explain the degree of success of such implementation efforts. This model allows an institution to benchmark its progress towards IHCS implementation and advises administrators where to invest resources to increase the chance of successful implementation. A set of case studies highlights key features of the model; each study describes an attempt by an organization to implement the Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System (CHESS), a proven IHCS.After examining the success or failure of each particular implementation, the book suggests steps that could have been taken to address weaknesses identified by the model. Investing in eHealth culminates in a set of general guidelines for any health care provider striving to successfully employ the model, and suggests directions for future research.

Here is an efficient guide to measuring and graphing behavioral outcomes, and letting the results influence clinical decisions. The authors, all clinical psychologists, describe how the continuous' measurement of outcomes can document clinical results and provide practical methods for clinicians to routinely get and use credible, precise data. They provide numerous clinical examples that illustrate how behavioral health outcomes can be measured directly and simply.

Since the 1950s there has been an upsurge of interest and activity in the field of hypnosis amongst academic and applied psychologists, medical practitioners, dentists and other health service professionals, as well as the public at large. There is evidence of the increasing routine use of hypnosis by professionals in Europe, North America and Australasia, and interest is also being shown in South Africa and Japan.

As the Internet's presence in health care grows more pervasive, an increasing number of health care providers have begun to implement eHealth innovations in their practice. This book explores the development of a model to predict and explain the degree of success it is possible to achieve in implementing e-health systems. This model allows an institution to benchmark its progress towards IHCS implementation and advises administrators where to invest resources to increase the chance of successful implementation. A set of case studies highlights key features of the model, with each case study fully analysed for strengths and weaknesses.

Mayas, and indeed all Guatemalans, are currently experiencing the collapse of their way of life. This collapse is disrupting ideologies, symbols, life practices, and social structures that have undergirded their society for almost five hundred years, and it is causing rapid and massive religious transformation among the K'iche' Maya living in highland western Guatemala. Many Maya are converting to Christian Pentecostal faiths in which adherents and leaders become bodily agitated during worship. Drawing on over fifty years of research and data collected by field-school students, Hawkins argues that two factors-cultural collapse and systematic social and economic exclusion--explain the recent religious transformation of Maya Guatemala and the style and emotional intensity through which that transformation is expressed. Guatemala serves as a window on religious change around the world, and Hawkins examines the rapid pentecostalization of Christianity not only within Guatemala but also throughout the global South. The ""pentecostal wail,"" as he describes it, is ultimately an acknowledgment of the angst and insecurity of contemporary Maya.

For over seven centuries, Dante and his masterpiece, "The Divine Comedy," have held a special place in Western culture. The poem is at once a vivid journey through hell to heaven, a poignant love story, and a picture of humanity's relationship to God. It is so richly imaginative that a first reading can be bewildering. In response, Peter Hawkins has written an inspiring introduction to the poet, his greatest work, and its abiding influence. His knowledge of Dante and enthusiasm for his vision make him an expert guide for the willing reader.

The possibility of violence beneath a thin veneer of civil society is a fact of daily life for twenty-first-century Guatemalans, from field laborers to the president of the country. "Crisis of Governance in Maya Guatemala" explores the causes and consequences of governmental failure by focusing on life in two K'iche' Maya communities in the country's western highlands. The contributors to this volume, who lived among the villagers for some time, include both undergraduate students and distinguished scholars. They describe the ways Mayas struggle to survive and make sense of their lives, both within their communities and in relation to the politico-economic institutions of the nation and the world.

Since Guatemala's thirty-six-year civil war ended in 1996, the state has been dysfunctional, the country's economy precarious, and physical safety uncertain. The intrusion of Mexican cartels led the U.S. State Department to declare Guatemala "the epicenter of the drug threat" in Central America. Rapid cultural change, weak state governance, organized crime, pervasive corruption, and ethnic exclusion provide the backdrop for the studies in this volume.

Seven nuanced ethnographies collected here reveal the complexities of indigenous life and describe physical and cultural conflicts within and between villages, between insiders and outsiders, and between local and federal governments. Many of these essays point to a tragic irony: the communities seem largely forgotten by the government until the state seeks to capture their resources--timber, minerals, votes. Other chapters portray villages responding to criminal activity through lynch mobs and by labeling nonconformist youth as gang members. In focusing on the internal dynamics of poor, marginal communities in Guatemala, this book explores the realities of life for indigenous people on all continents who are faced with the social changes brought about by war and globalization.

When the traditional meets the modern, nowhere is the impact felt as personally as in the realm of health care. Because practitioners trained in Western science tend to ignore traditional medicine in developing countries, conflict is inevitable.Health Care in Maya Guatemala examines medical systems and institutions in three K'iche' Maya communities to reveal the conflicts between indigenous medical care and the Guatemalan biomedical system. The editors and contributors show how people in this rapidly modernizing society think about traditional practices - and reveal that health conditions in traditional communities deteriorate over time as long-standing medical practices erode in the face of Western encroachment. The contributors first consider cultural, institutional, and behavioral aspects of health care in Guatemala. Then they look closely at the nature and treatment of specific health issues, such as dentistry and mental health - especially depression. Finally they provide new insight on midwifery, nutrition, ethnomedicine, and other topics. As a whole, the volume proposes steps toward a health care system more accessible to Mayas, incorporating K'iche' concepts with Western thought. Representing trends seen throughout the world, it shows the necessity of cultural understanding if poor people are to have access to medicine that combines the best of both local tradition and international biomedicine. Although Western medicine continues to ignore the importance of local culture in its attempt to be ""scientific,"" this book makes a strong argument for giving tradition its due.