Originally published in 1981 Social Welfare and the Failure of the State looks at how the 1980s have ushered in an intensification on the debate of the role of the state in social welfare. The book highlights the trends towards centralisation in modern Britain and then provides a critical argument on to new ground. It highlights the trends towards centralisation in modern Britain and then provides a critical analysis of the growth of the social services in the 1960s and 1970s. But its target is the way these services were provided, not the amount of money spent on them. The authors argue that they have grown in the wrong direction.

Originally published in 1981 Social Welfare and the Failure of the State looks at how the 1980s have ushered in an intensification on the debate of the role of the state in social welfare. The book highlights the trends towards centralisation in modern Britain and then provides a critical argument on to new ground. It highlights the trends towards centralisation in modern Britain and then provides a critical analysis of the growth of the social services in the 1960s and 1970s. But its target is the way these services were provided, not the amount of money spent on them. The authors argue that they have grown in the wrong direction.

According to a wry saying among radiologists, finding a tumour in a mammogram is like finding a snowball in a blizzard. Up to thirty percent of breast-cancer diagnoses are given to those who have no cancer at all. Medicine is subject to far more uncertainty than we commonly acknowledge. While it is portrayed a science, it can sometimes be scarily close to educated guesswork. Covering everything from the efficacy of Prozac to the regular barrage of health advice by the media, Snowball in a Blizzard is a profound meditation on why it's essential that doctors and their patients know what we don't know. The world is more complicated than we like to believe. Informed by years of frontline medical experience and filled with personal reflections, this important book is filled with counter-intuitive revelations about flawed reasoning, helpful guidance and hard-earned insight. It will change the way you view the health of yourself, your loved ones or your patients.

John Muir is best known for his work in preserving the great natural areas of America. What is not commonly known is that he was also a great contemplative thinker - a sort of "wilderness mystic" - one who experienced union with the Divine through contact with the great natural areas of the Western United States. Muir's preservation efforts were motivated in large part by his experience of the spiritual dimension of Nature. It was Muir's earthy mysticism that motivated him to work so diligently for the preservation of wild places, which he viewed as "God's First Temples." This book is a sort of "bible" of Muir quotations related to a vibrant and ecstatic spirituality of Nature. It includes a new selection of never-before published selections from original journals contained in the John Muir Papers, as well as passages from his published works. Anyone interested in experiencing a deeper communion with Nature will find this book invaluable.

What does it feel like to be a medical student during the third year -- the first "true" year of medical school, when eager-eyed but utterly ignorant apprentice physicians are released from the library and unleashed on unsuspecting patients? How does one manage to appear even remotely competent after dropping a ten-pound ovarian tumor on the floor? Steven Hatch seeks to explain these questions, providing readers with the texture of this crucial period for a nascent physician.