Peter Conrad's exhilarating book exposes the absurdity and occasional insanity of our godforsaken, demon-haunted contemporary culture. Conrad casts his brilliant beam upon subjects from the Queen to the Kardashians, via Banksy, Nando's, vaping, the vogue of the cronut, the mushroom-like rise of Dubai, the launch of the Large Hadron Collider, the growth of the Pacific garbage patch... In Judge Judy, he shows us a matronly Roman goddess dispensing justice with a fly swatter. In the metamorphosis of Caitlyn Jenner from Olympic athlete and paterfamilias into idealized female form, he sees parallels to the deeds of the residents of Mount Olympus themselves. Finally, after surveying advances in biomedical engineering and artificial intelligence, he asks whether we might be on the brink of a post-human world.

It dominates our lives. It is the twentieth-century medium. And yet we're all a little sheepish when it comes to television, disowning it by disavowal or by inventing subtle, innocuous disguises for it. Why is this? In this book, first published in 1982, Peter Conrad argues that our unease stems from the way that the medium works: it absorbs the messages it transmits, it invents a reality of its own and ends by luring the world into the confines of its box. Television's achievement is to have estranged us from the reality which it puports to represent, but which it actually refracts. This invasion of our lives is monitored and projected in programmes designed to ape the human routine. Following a discussion of television as furniture, Peter Conrad explores its various versions of reality: the simulated conversation of the talk show, the competitive consumerism of the games, the messianic commercials, the eventless protraction of the soap operas and the camera's incitement of happenings which the television calls news.

Traditional secret-based credentials can't scale to meet the complexity and size of cloud and on-premises infrastructure. Today's applications are spread across a diverse range of clouds and colocation facilities, as well as on-prem data centers. Each layer of this modern stack has its own attack vectors and protocols to consider. How can you secure access to diverse infrastructure components, from bare metal to ephemeral containers, consistently and simply? In this practical book, authors Ev Kontsevoy, Sakshyam Shah, and Peter Conrad break this topic down into manageable pieces. You'll discover how different parts of the approach fit together in a way that enables engineering teams to build more secure applications without slowing down productivity. With this book, you'll learn: The four pillars of access: connectivity, authentication, authorization, and audit Why every attack follows the same pattern, and how to make this threat impossible How to implement identity-based access across your entire infrastructure with digital certificates Why it's time for secret-based credentials to go away How to securely connect to remote resources including servers, databases, K8s Pods, and internal applications such as Jenkins and GitLab Authentication and authorization methods for gaining access to and permission for using protected resources

This is a new and expanded edition of a classic case-study in the medicalization of ADHD, originally published in 1976. The book centres on an empirical study of the process of identifying hyperactive children, providing a perceptive and accessible introduction to the concepts and issues involved. In this revised edition, Peter Conrad sets the original study in context, demonstrating the continuing relevance of his research. He highlights the issues at stake, outlining recent changes in our understanding of ADHD and reviewing recent sociological research. Peter Conrad is Harry Coplan Professor of Social Sciences at Brandeis University, USA. He has written extensively in the area of medical sociology, publishing nine books and over eighty articles and chapters.

It dominates our lives. It is the twentieth-century medium. And yet we're all a little sheepish when it comes to television, disowning it by disavowal or by inventing subtle, innocuous disguises for it. Why is this? In this book, first published in 1982, Peter Conrad argues that our unease stems from the way that the medium works: it absorbs the messages it transmits, it invents a reality of its own and ends by luring the world into the confines of its box. Television's achievement is to have estranged us from the reality which it puports to represent, but which it actually refracts. This invasion of our lives is monitored and projected in programmes designed to ape the human routine. Following a discussion of television as furniture, Peter Conrad explores its various versions of reality: the simulated conversation of the talk show, the competitive consumerism of the games, the messianic commercials, the eventless protraction of the soap operas and the camera's incitement of happenings which the television calls news.

This is a new and expanded edition of a classic case-study in the medicalization of ADHD, originally published in 1976. The book centres on an empirical study of the process of identifying hyperactive children, providing a perceptive and accessible introduction to the concepts and issues involved. In this revised edition, Peter Conrad sets the original study in context, demonstrating the continuing relevance of his research. He highlights the issues at stake, outlining recent changes in our understanding of ADHD and reviewing recent sociological research. Peter Conrad is Harry Coplan Professor of Social Sciences at Brandeis University, USA. He has written extensively in the area of medical sociology, publishing nine books and over eighty articles and chapters.

In 1623 the actors John Heminges and Henry Condell assembled and published one of the most influential books ever published in the English language: Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies – better known to posterity as The First Folio. In doing so they preserved literature's most dramatically vital and poetically rich account of our human world. Shakespeare's legacy is endlessly renewed as his work is staged, adapted or critically interpreted. His characters have shaped the way we think about consciousness and morality, love and death, politics and war.

Peter Conrad explores the phenomenon of Shakespeare; the world-view of his plays, their generic originality, and their astonishing language; and goes on to assess his global legacy across every continent and across every genre of the creative arts in the four hundred years that have elapsed since his death.

No novel in English has given more pleasure than "Pride and Prejudice. "Because it is one of the great works in our literature, critics in every generation reexamine and reinterpret it. But the rest of us simply fall in love with it--and with its wonderfully charming and intelligent heroine, Elizabeth Bennet.
We are captivated not only by the novel's romantic suspense but also by the fascinations of the world we visit in its pages. The life of the English country gentry at the turn of the nineteenth century is made as real to us as our own, not only by Jane Austen's wit and feeling but by her subtle observation of the way people behave in society and how we are true or treacherous to each other and ourselves.

People who saw the first moving pictures at the end of the nineteenth century were delighted by a new art that communicated without words – yet they were also alarmed to be witnessing events in a strange, mute, spectral realm, where the laws of time and space were suspended and magical transformations could occur. Some early commentators hailed cinema as a blessing and praised it for resurrecting the dead; others likened it to a hypnotic trance or a hallucinogenic drug. The medium has always been excited by speed, and it enjoys sending the body on furious kinetic chases; at the same time, it stealthily probes our minds, invading our dreams and titillating our desires. Although this is an art kindled by light and inflamed by colour, it is nurtured by darkness and can reduce life to an insubstantial shadow play. Either way, as Peter Conrad argues in this brilliant book, the movie camera has given us new eyes and changed forever our view of reality. The Mysteries of Cinema sets out to map this ambiguous territory by taking readers on a thematic roller-coaster ride through movie history. Directors and critics speculate about the nature of cinematic vision, and there are contributions to the debate from writers like Kafka, Virginia Woolf and Joan Didion, artists including Salvador Dalí, George Grosz and Fernand Léger, and the composers Arnold Schoenberg and Dmitri Shostakovich. The book begins from the audacious innovations of silent film, and examines the influence of French surrealism and German expressionism; it accounts for the appeal of Hollywood genres like the Western, the horror film and the musical, and ends by considering the fate of the moving image in our visually glutted society. Combining contagious enthusiasm with an eye for the subjective quirks of filmmakers and the allure of favourite performers, Conrad delivers an astonishing addition to the literature on the seventh art. With 61 illustrations

Attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been a common psychiatric diagnosis in both children and adults since the 1980s and 1990s in the United States. But the diagnosis was much less common-even unknown-in other parts of the world. By the end of the twentieth century, this was no longer the case, and ADHD diagnosis and treatment became an increasingly widespread global phenomenon. As the diagnosis was adopted around the world, the definition and treatment of ADHD often changed in the context of different psychiatric professions, medical systems, and cultures. Global Perspectives on ADHD is the first book to examine how this expanding public health concern is diagnosed and treated in 16 different countries. In some countries, readers learn, over 10% of school-aged children and adolescents are diagnosed with ADHD; in others, that figure is less than 1%. Some countries focus on medicating children with ADHD; others emphasize parent intervention or child therapy. Showing how a medical diagnosis varies across contexts and time periods, this book explains how those distinctions shape medical interventions and guidelines, filling a much-needed gap by examining ADHD on an international scale. Contributors: Madeleine Akrich, Mari J. Armstrong-Hough, Meredith R. Bergey, Eugenia Bianchi, Christian Broer, Peter Conrad, Claire Edwards, Silvia A. Faraone, Angela M. Filipe, Alessandra Frigerio, Valeria Portugal Goncalves, Linda J. Graham, Hiroyuki Ito, Fabian Karsch, Victor Kraak, Claudia Malacrida, Lorenzo Montali, Yasuo Murayama, Sebastian Rojas Navarro, Orla O'Donovan, Francisco Ortega, Monica Pena Ochoa, Brenton J. Prosser, Vololona Rabeharisoa, Patricio Rojas, Tiffani Semach, Ilina Singh, Rachel Spronk, Junko Teruyama, Masatsugu Tsujii, Fan-Tzu Tseng, Manuel Vallee, Rafaela Zorzanelli

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."

So begins Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen's witty comedy of manners--one of the most popular novels of all time--that features splendidly civilized sparring between the proud Mr. Darcy and the prejudiced Elizabeth Bennet as they play out their spirited courtship in a series of eighteenth-century drawing-room intrigues. Renowned literary critic and historian George Saintsbury in 1894 declared it the "most perfect, the most characteristic, the most eminently quintessential of its author's works," and Eudora Welty in the twentieth century described it as "irresistible and as nearly flawless as any fiction could be."

Based on in-depth interviews with eighty people who have epilepsy, this book gives a first-hand account of what it is like to cope with a chronic illness, while working, playing, and building relationships. The authors recount how people discover they have epilepsy and what it means; how families respond to someone labeled 'epileptic'; how seizures affect a person's sense of self and self-control. Epilepsy patients explain what they want from their doctors and why the medication practices they develop may not coincide with 'doctor's orders'. The variety of experiences of epilepsy is suggested both by the interviews and by the range of terms for seizures Petit Mal, Grand Mal, auras, fits, absences. The principal difficulty for many people with epilepsy is not the medical condition but the social stigma. A person with epilepsy has to cope with discrimination in obtaining a job, insurance, or a driver's license, and he or she may be cautious about revealing this 'disabling' condition to an employer or even a spouse. People with epilepsy may manage information about themselves and their 'lapses' and look for 'safe places' like restrooms where they can be alone should a seizure begin. Many of those interviewed complained of overreactions to seizures by colleagues or bystanders: epilepsy patients were embarrassed at having provoked a public crisis or were annoyed at waking up in a hospital emergency room. This is a book for people who have epilepsy, for their families and friends; for health care professionals who deal with chronic illnesses; and, for students of medical sociology and the sociology of deviance. Joseph W. Schneider is Associate Professor of Sociology at Drake University. Peter Conrad is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Brandeis University.

Books end, but the stories they tell continue; if they are retold often enough, they acquire the status of myth. This accessible and entertaining book by a leading novelist and critic traces the multiple incarnations of four pervasive stories: those of Chaucer's pilgrims, Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and King Lear, and the story of Prometheus. Looking at cultural renewals as varied as Romantic music, the films of Michael Powell and Pasolini, an Elvis Presley song, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and the writing of T.S. Eliot and William Burroughs, Conrad's engaging book shows how, by retelling its stories, our culture recreates and reckons with its past.

Introduction by Peter Conrad

This engaging and accessible reader takes a social problems approach to health and medicine, providing a broad and critical lens on contemporary health problems. Designed for courses on social problems and on medical sociology, the volume embraces two fundamental principles: that health and illness are at least partly socially produced, and that health care is not an unfettered good and often brings with it serious social problems. The volume is organized into six sections, addressing the medicalization of human problems; the social construction of health problems; social movements; gender; race and class and the provision of health care; and medical accountability. Taken together, the essays demonstrate the depth and richness of a social problems approach to health and medicine, and the critical perspective it brings to our understanding of health and illness in U.S. society.

Over the past half-century, the social terrain of health and illness has been transformed. What were once considered normal human events and common human problems -- birth, aging, menopause, alcoholism, and obesity -- are now viewed as medical conditions. For better or worse, medicine increasingly permeates aspects of daily life.

Building on more than three decades of research, Peter Conrad explores the changing forces behind this trend with case studies of short stature, social anxiety, "male menopause," erectile dysfunction, adult ADHD, and sexual orientation. He examines the emergence of and changes in medicalization, the consequences of the expanding medical domain, and the implications for health and society. He finds in recent developments -- such as the growing number of possible diagnoses and biomedical enhancements -- the future direction of medicalization.

Conrad contends that the impact of medical professionals on medicalization has diminished. Instead, the pharmaceutical and biotechnical industries, insurance companies and HMOs, and the patient as consumer have become the major forces promoting medicalization. This thought-provoking study offers valuable insight into not only how medicalization got to this point but also how it may continue to evolve.

This book tells the stories of heroic Canadian soldiers who escaped from behind enemy lines during the wars of the 20th century. Learn about the Wooden Horse escape and the tragic Great Escape of World War 2. The book includes hair-raising accounts of Canadian soldiers who managed to break to freedom from prisoner trains and eastern front work camps and those who made their way back to Allied territory from behind enemy lines.

Managementforschung informiert jahrlich uber neueste Erkenntnisse und Trends der wissenschaftlichen Diskussion.

Band 22 (2012) enthalt Beitrage zu folgenden Themen:

Formalisierung und Wohlbefinden am Arbeitsplatz

Regulatorische Unsicherheit und private Standardisierung

Die Bedeutung des institutionellen Grundungskontexts fur die Ubernahme der Richtlinien des Deutschen Corporate Governance Kodex

Eine anomietheoretische Analyse des Managements von Innovativitat in Organisationen

Abusive Supervision als stabile Ko-Konstruktion dysfunktionaler Beziehungsrealitat

Regelsysteme in grenzuberschreitenden Geschaftsbeziehungen"

Der zweite Band der jahrlich erscheinenden "Managementforschung" ent- halt sieben alphabetisch geordnete Beitrage. Thematisch setzen sie sich mit zwei zentralen Problembereichen verhaltenswissenschaftlicher Mana- gementforschung und Managementpraxis auseinander. Im ersten Bereich wird die Diskussion um die Erklarungsleistung verhaltenswissenschaftli- cher und oekonomischer Konzepte aufgegriffen und weiterentwickelt. Dazu werden im einzelnen die verhaltenswissenschaftlichen Ursprunge in der Betriebswirtschaftslehre kritisch gesichtet, ein oekonomischer Begrun- dungsversuch fur die Bedeutung der Organisationskultur ausgearbeitet und am Beispiel strategischer Netzwerke Grenzen einer transaktionsko- stentheoretischen Argumentation bestimmt. Im zweiten Bereich werden Strategien und Handlungsalternativen des Managements analysiert, die sich aus dem Wandel des unternehmerischen Umfeldes ergeben. Im einzel- nen interessieren hier die organisatorischen Konsequenzen des informa- tionstechnologischen Wandels fur weltweit tatige Unternehmungen. Ana- lysiert werden des weiteren betriebspolitische Aspekte des Burokratieab- baus in Industrieunternehmen anhand empirischer Daten. Zum dritten wird der Zusammenhang von betrieblichen Qualifikationsstrategien und organisationalem Lernen ausgearbeitet. Dem schliesst sich eine kritische Analyse konzeptioneller Neuerungen in der Personalwirtschaftslehre an. Berlin, im Januar 1992 Wolfgang H. Staehle und Peter Conrad Noch vor Drucklegung des zweiten Bandes ist der Mitbegrunder und Mitherausgeber der "Managementforschung", W.H. Staehle, leider ver- storben. Er hat auch den zweiten Band massgeblich herausgeberisch mit- betreut und mitgestaltet.

In der zweiten Auflage des Sammelbandes geht es um Beitrage, mit denen unter Berucksichtigung bisheriger nationaler als auch internationaler Erfahrungen Gestaltungsvorschlage fur die weiterhin notwendige Optimierung des Aufbaus und des Management des offentlichen Dienstes prasentiert werden. Dabei geht es nicht nur um die Entwicklung planungs- und designtheoretisch zu optimierender Gestaltungsentwurfe, sondern immer auch um Gesichtspunkte einer praktischen politischen Um- und Durchsetzung."