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Скачивание или чтение онлайн электронных книг.Identity
Questions about who we are, who we can be, and who is like and unlike us underpin a vast range of contemporary social issues. What makes our families so important to us? What do the often stark differences between how we self-identify and the way others see and define us reveal about our social world? Why do we attach such significance to 'being ourselves'? In this new edition of her popular and inviting introduction, Steph Lawler examines a range of important debates about identity. Taking a sociological perspective, she shows how identity is produced and embedded in social relationships, and worked out in the practice of people's everyday lives. She challenges the perception of identity as belonging within the person, arguing instead that it is produced and negotiated between persons. Chapter-by-chapter her book explores topics such as the relationships between lives and life-stories, the continuing significance of kinship in the face of social change, and how taste works to define identity. In particular, the updated edition has a new chapter on identity politics, as well as carefully compiled guides for further reading that reflect the broad importance and impact of these ideas, and the fact that, without understanding identity, we can't adequately begin to understand the social world. This book is essential reading for upper-level courses across the social sciences that focus on the compelling issues surrounding identity.
Dictatorship
Now available in English for the first time, Dictatorship is Carl Schmitt’s most scholarly book and arguably a paradigm for his entire work. Written shortly after the Russian Revolution and the First World War, Schmitt analyses the problem of the state of emergency and the power of the Reichspräsident in declaring it. Dictatorship, Schmitt argues, is a necessary legal institution in constitutional law and has been wrongly portrayed as just the arbitrary rule of a so-called dictator. Dictatorship is an essential book for understanding the work of Carl Schmitt and a major contribution to the modern theory of a democratic, constitutional state. And despite being written in the early part of the twentieth century, it speaks with remarkable prescience to our contemporary political concerns.
Power
This far-reaching study gives a concise and coherent overview of the debates surrounding the analysis of social power. The concept of power is outlined, and its main dimensions are explored through consideration of various facets – command, pressure, constraint, discipline, protest, and interpersonal power. The book examines both the theoretical debates that have arisen and the kinds of empirical materials relevant to them. Topics covered include the nature of the contemporary state, global economic power, world systems, business governance, professional power, social movements, and family dynamics. Power will be an indispensable introduction for students and researchers in sociology, politics, and the social sciences generally.
Violence
We live in a time when we are overwhelmed with talk and images of violence. Whether on television, the internet, films or the video screen, we can’t escape representations of actual or fictional violence – another murder, another killing spree in a high school or movie theatre, another action movie filled with images of violence. Our age could well be called “The Age of Violence” because representations of real or imagined violence, sometimes fused together, are pervasive. But what do we mean by violence? What can violence achieve? Are there limits to violence and, if so, what are they? In this new book Richard Bernstein seeks to answer these questions by examining the work of five figures who have thought deeply about violence – Carl Schmitt, Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt, Frantz Fanon, and Jan Assmann. He shows that we have much to learn from their work about the meaning of violence in our times. Through the critical examination of their writings he also brings out the limits of violence. There are compelling reasons to commit ourselves to non-violence, and yet at the same time we have to acknowledge that there are exceptional circumstances in which violence can be justified. Bernstein argues that there can be no general criteria for determining when violence is justified. The only plausible way of dealing with this issue is to cultivate publics in which there is free and open discussion and in which individuals are committed to listen to one other: when public debate withers, there is nothing to prevent the triumph of murderous violence.
Posthumanism
This timely book examines the rise of posthumanism as both a material condition and a developing philosophical-ethical project in the age of cloning, gene engineering, organ transplants and implants. Nayar first maps the political and philosophical critiques of traditional humanism, revealing its exclusionary and ‘speciesist’ politics that position the human as a distinctive and dominant life form. He then contextualizes the posthumanist vision which, drawing upon biomedical, engineering and techno-scientific studies, concludes that human consciousness is shaped by its co-evolution with other life forms, and our human form inescapably influenced by tools and technology. Finally the book explores posthumanism’s roots in disability studies, animal studies and bioethics to underscore the constructed nature of ‘normalcy’ in bodies, and the singularity of species and life itself. As this book powerfully demonstrates, posthumanism marks a radical reassessment of the human as constituted by symbiosis, assimilation, difference and dependence upon and with other species. Mapping the terrain of these far-reaching debates, Posthumanism will be an invaluable companion to students of cultural studies and modern and contemporary literature.
Kingship
From despots to powerless figureheads, and from the Neolithic era to the present, this book traces the history of kingship around the world and the tenacity of its connection with the sacred. Considers the many forms that kingship took during this period, including: the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt; the emperors of Japan; the Maya rulers of Mesoamerica; the medieval popes and emperors; and the English and French monarchs of early modern Europe Explores the panoply of governing roles that kingship involved – administrative, military, judicial, economic, religious and symbolic – but focussing on its connection with the sacred. Draws on the insights of cultural anthropology and comparative religion, as well as the on the resources provided by historians.
Kindness
Rediscover kindness and rediscover your worth Have you ever helped someone out of instinct, because not helping never even occurred to you? Remember how surprised you were at their gratitude? It is easy to feel like kindness and gratitude are becoming rare in the world today, but the truth is that it is all around you – you just need to learn how to see it. Kindness shows you how to do just that, and inspires you to take part with tips, ideas, recommendations and advice. You will learn to see yourself and your surroundings in a kinder, happier way. Kindness is not people-pleasing; people-pleasing comes from a place of anxiety, while kindness is borne out of empathy. Kindness expects no reward or recognition, and is just as beneficial to the giver as the receiver. Kindness can be a grand gesture, or something as simple as a smile. It can be quiet or loud, simple or complex. This book helps you internalise the fundamental truth that kindness does not require wealth or possessions, or material giving at all – whatever you have to offer is enough, and it may just change someone’s life. Learn how to: See the silver lining and take care of yourself in difficult times. Do and say kind things when you're not feeling very kindly. Sustain the warm feelings that come from helping others. Express kindness even when other people are rude or critical. Enjoy self-care and treating yourself. Opportunities to be kind present themselves every day, and here you’ll learn how to notice them. Your self-esteem and confidence will grow as you discover the pure joy of helping others, and you’ll feel more comfortable allowing others to help you. In a world where kindness seems to get lost in the shuffle of worry, anxiety, aggression and worse, Kindness shows you how to bring it back into the light.
Enough
John Bogle puts our obsession with financial success in perspective Throughout his legendary career, John C. Bogle-founder of the Vanguard Mutual Fund Group and creator of the first index mutual fund-has helped investors build wealth the right way and led a tireless campaign to restore common sense to the investment world. Along the way, he's seen how destructive an obsession with financial success can be. Now, with Enough., he puts this dilemma in perspective. Inspired in large measure by the hundreds of lectures Bogle has delivered to professional groups and college students in recent years, Enough. seeks, paraphrasing Kurt Vonnegut, «to poison our minds with a little humanity.» Page by page, Bogle thoughtfully considers what «enough» actually means as it relates to money, business, and life. Reveals Bogle's unparalleled insights on money and what we should consider as the true treasures in our lives Details the values we should emulate in our business and professional callings Contains thought-provoking life lessons regarding our individual roles in society Written in a straightforward and accessible style, this unique book examines what it truly means to have «enough» in world increasingly focused on status and score-keeping.
Choice
We make decisions every day. Yet we are sometimes perplexed by these decisions and the decisions of others. To complicate things further, we live in an age where there are more things to choose from than ever before – the Internet is transforming our choices and making us more accountable for them: what we choose is recorded, modelled and used to predict our future behaviour. So are we in a position to make better choices today than we were a decade ago? Certainly there are some who believe so. Psychologists claim we are subject to hidden mental processes that lead us to one thing rather than another; economists offer predictions about what people will buy; and some philosophers claim that our choices echo our evolutionary past. Are these claims merited? Do they reflect the beginnings of a new science of choice? This book offers a critical overview of these and other claims, showing where they are justified and where they are exaggerated. It will be an essential reference for anyone interested in whether science can help us to understand both the ways people make choices in their everyday lives and how these may be changing.
Anticipate
Design and implement the ideal customer focus Anticipate provides business readers with a practical how-to approach for taking their customer-supplier relationship to one that is more sustainable and more mutually profitable. Much of the discussion on customer experience has centered on the hospitality or retail industries and has showcased the discrete techniques organizations use to deliver better service and create more satisfied customers. Anticipate extends and integrates those techniques to deliver an end-to-end customer experience that can be applied in any industry, by any type of organization. Get proven guidance on how to design and implement a customer-focused journey that moves beyond the transaction and satisfied customers, to a relationship and culture that creates and leverages loyalty – and the profitability that comes with it. Explains proprietary methods—such as the Customer Focus Maturity Model ® and Value Chain Labs ® —that teach readers the steps and tools organizations use to create, drive and optimize their customer focus. Authors Bill Thomas and Jeff Tobe have used their 10-point framework to guide Fortune 500’s, start-ups as well as non-profits in charting a customer-focused journey that matures, anticipates and delivers increasing levels of loyalty and profitability with their customers, and across their broader value chain. Anticipate will provide you with field-proven steps, tools and examples that you’ll use to take your customer-focused strategy, execution and culture to the ideal level.