Books published by Lexington Books

Multiple Marginality and Gangs: Through a Prism Darkly unravels the youth gang problem in a multidimensional approach that encompasses the place, status, social control, subcultural, and identity facets of urban street gangs. The power of place and the status of persons and groups are the major forces that generate the many situations and conditions that give rise to gangs. In its simplest trajectory, Multiple Marginality can be modeled as follows: place/status to street socialization to street subculture to street identity. It is the actions and reactions among them that we fathom. As we witness detrimental or absent family influence, we also observe weaker, underfunded schools that limit educators' reach. At the same time, there has been an increase in the militarization of law enforcement to deal with the youth street populations, the heaviest hand is that of the police. There is a causal relationship between social marginalization factors and gang membership. A psychological analysis also entails how street socialization leads to a street identity. In a place and status group, the cascading effects of marginalization have certainly affectedand mostly thwartedsocial control institutions.

The idea of an inherent backwardness of technology and material culture in early sub-Saharan Africa is a persistent and tenacious myth in the scholarly and popular imagination. Due to the emergence of the field of African studies and the upsurge in historical and archaeological research, in recent decades the stridency of this myth has weakened, and the overtly racist content of arguments mustered in its defense have tended to disappear. But more important are transformations in social, political, and cultural consciousness, which have worked to reshape conceptualizations of African peoples, their histories, and their cultures. Precolonial African Material Culture offers a thorough challenge to the myth of technological backwardness. V. Tarikhu Farrar revisits the early technology of sub-Saharan Africa as revealed by recent research and reconsiders long-possessed primary historical sources. He then explores the ways that indigenous African technologies have influenced the world beyond the African continent.

Being a fan helps people to discover their identities, find friends, develop a sense of belonging, express themselves creatively, and act as powerful creators and participants in a capitalistic system. At times, however, being a fan becomes problematic, especially when clashes with other fans occur both inside and outside of their fandoms and fan communities. As their communication becomes contentious, power imbalances destabilize collectives and fans experience fear, sadness, pain, and harassment. Such problematic situations can become ';fractured fandoms.' Fractured Fandoms: Contentious Communication in Fan Communities observes the problems or fractures that occur within and between fandoms as fans and fan communities experience differences in interpretation, opinion, expectation, and behavior regarding the object at the center of their fandom. The book demonstrates the fractures through an examination of self-interviews, collected news stories, and previous research regarding these problems, ultimately providing an assessment of the causes and effects of such fractures and the larger social and cultural issues they reflect.

This interdisciplinary study provides a broad analysis of Sri Nalanda Mahavihara, the Buddhist learning center, during the first millennium AD. Drawing from history, archaeology, and religious studies, the author examines its role both as a religious and educational institution and investigates the impact of nationalist interpretations of the site.

This book illuminates the troubled history of how Italian and foreign Jews in an internment camp were deported to Auschwitz in full view of a bishop who supposedly was protecting them. Elsewhere brave farmers hid local Jews in caves and farms from the Fascist/Nazi hunters.

In Mississippi After Katrina, Jennifer Trivedi takes an holistic anthropological lens to the city of Biloxi, Mississippi, and illustrates how Hurricane Katrina revealed the cultural, political, and economic issues that shaped the community's history, the storm's impact, and Biloxi's long-term recovery from Katrina.

This book examines how white cisgender people respond to movements seeking racial and gender change in the U.S. Specifically, the authors examine how racial and gender privilege shapes the ways cisgender white people make sense of and respond to the political efforts of racial, gender, and other minority populations.

This book develops an evolutionary account of animal choice and human freedom, thus supplementing the conceptual account of freedom with an explanation how it developed.

In Voluntarily Childfree, Shelly Volsche examines why people choose to remain childfree and what it means to make a life worth living. As the first anthropological study of the childfree, this book is for readers who want to understand those who view parenthood as a choice.

War on the Eve of Nations: Conflicts and Militaries in Eastern Europe, 1450-1500 examines the relationship between warfare and nation building in Eastern Europe during the transition from the medieval to early modern periods.

Most people around the world know Mahatma Gandhi, but only a few know about "Shrimad Rajchandra"-the key faith-figure behind the "making of the Mahatma." This book introduces and explores the teachings of the figure Gandhi himself acknowledged as his foremost spiritual mentor, exemplary guide, and refuge in spiritual crisis.

This book examines the role of forensic musicologists in music copyright infringement claims. It analyzes the contested nature of the legal space in relation to the sometimes contradictory opinions of expert witnesses and non-expert judges and juries.

This study analyzes North Korean comedy films from the late 1960s to present day. It analyzes their role in the culture of the film industry, the subjectivity of the viewer, and the impact popular actors and comedians have had on North Korean society.

This book explores the ways through which many people participate in social movements in Brazil, specifically focusing on the urban poor. This research stems from the starkly high number of the urban poor participating in housing movements, aiming to improve their own living conditions in Sao Paulo.

This book presents a new perspective on the Cold War from British Ambassador to the US, Sir Roger Makins, during the pivotal year of 1953. The book's primary focus is on the historical origins of US diplomacy, a consideration often neglected by those who analyze global events and develop foreign policy in the 21st century.

This book examines Japan's victory over Russia in 1904-05 and how it overhauled press-military relations, ending sixty years of battlefield freedom for correspondents. The authors argue that Japan controlled access and allowed only a narrowly constrained view of the war to circulate, thus creating the template for all modern wars.

Using the Catalan secessionist movement in Spain, this book examines the historical and contemporary role of journalism and its utility in the development of national identities.

This study provides a broad examination of the use of realism in literature. In particular, the author analyzes the such writers as Thackeray, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Maupassant.

The Choral-Orchestral Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams: Autographs, Context, Discourse combines contextual knowledge, a musical commentary, an inventory of the holograph manuscripts, and a critical assessment of the opus to create substantial and meticulous examinations of Ralph Vaughan Williams'' choral-orchestral works.

Drawing on historical and social science literatures and interviews with current piano teachers, the book explores the contemporary U.S. piano teacher through a social science lens.

The goal of this book is to show that the frequently mentioned "no strings attached" nature of China's development assistance to its partners in the Global South is nothing more than a myth. Using a Caribbean case study, the book analyzes the details of Beijing's political, economic, and social conditionalities.

Through interviews with migrants to Zimbabwe, Rose Jaji problematizes classificatory binaries and regionalization of terminologies in the migration lexicon. She argues that while North-South and South-North migrants' experiences differ, motivations for migration transcend classificatory boundaries and the North-South divide.

A study of ancient, medieval, and modern forms of leadership, this book brings to light qualities of statesmanship that continue to resonate in our current political environment.

Inspired by the telegram that the legendary American diplomat and historian George F. Kennan sent from Moscow to Washington in February 1946, The Long Telegram 2.0 provides an original explanation of contemporary Russia, exploring its resurgent imperial character and predicting its forthcoming disintegration.

This book creates a picture of Miskawayh as philosopher, historian, and codifier of the science of adab. An advocate of the intellectually cultivated life, Miskawayh teaches the importance of refining one's character and cultivating a culture of civic and moral humanism to create a life worthy of human beings.

Farese presents a comprehensive analysis of the most important Italian cultural keywords and cultural scripts, which reflect the salient aspects of Italian culture and society. This book illuminates ways in which the Italian language is related to Italians' character, values, and way of thinking.

Healers and Patients Talk provides insight into interactions between patients and health professionals in the clinical setting. Veronique Griffith examines the varied and contested enactments of endometriosis, the multiple ways in which people understand and use the term endometriosis, and the complex pathway to the diagnosis.

This book explores new media and new stories in Holocaust public memory as powerful agents against a rising tide of global intolerance. Arguing that gender is often absent in traditional medial forms of public memory, Costello illustrates how new forms of memorialization shift our orientation toward others and our engagement with the past.

This book argues that anatomy and biology frame our gender, sex and class, but they do not decide our possibilities. Our life styles are our own constructions and expressions of self definition. This argument draws in an original way from both the massive literature of the Global South and the Global North.

This book describes an elementary school's efforts to respond to the needs of their highly distressed central Appalachian community. These educators, their school, and their community are a microcosm of the changes occurring in the region itself.