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  • Save 14%
    - What 4-H Teaches Seven Million Kids and How Its Lessons Could Change Food and Farming Forever
    by Kiera Butler
    £17.99

    When city-dwelling journalist Kiera Butler visits a county fair for the first time, she is captivated by the white-uniformed members of the 4-H club and their perfectly groomed animals. She sets off on a search for a "e;real"e; 4-H'er, a hypothetical wholesome youth whom she imagines wearing cowboy boots and living on a ranch. Along the way, she meets five teenage 4-H'ers from diverse backgrounds and gets to know them as they prepare to compete at the fair. Butler's on-the-ground account of the teens' concerns with their goats, pigs, sheep, proms, and SAT scores is interwoven with a fascinating history of the century-old 4-H club as it solicits corporate donations from top agribusiness firms such as DuPont, Monsanto, and Cargill. Her quest takes her from California's cities and suburbs all the way to Ghana, where she investigates 4-H's unprecedented push to expand its programs in the developing world-and the corporate partnership that is supporting this expansion.Raise masterfully combines vivid accounts from a little-known subculture with a broader analysis of agriculture education today, using 4-H as a lens through which to view the changing landscape of farming in America and the rest of the world. Lively, deeply informed, and perceptive in its analysis, Raise provides answers to complex questions about our collective concern over the future of food. Photographs by Rafael Roy.

  • Save 18%
    - The Story of the Met
    by Charles Affron & Mirella Jona Affron
    £30.99

    The Metropolitan has stood among the grandest of opera companies since its birth in 1883. Tracing the offstage/onstage workings of this famed New York institution, Charles Affron and Mirella Jona Affron tell how the Met became and remains a powerful actor on the global cultural scene. In this first new history of the company in thirty years, each of the chronologically sequenced chapters surveys a composer or a slice of the repertoire and brings to life dominant personalities and memorable performances of the time. From the opening night Faust to the recent controversial production of Wagner's "e;Ring,"e; Grand Opera is a remarkable account of management and audience response to the push and pull of tradition and reinvention. Spanning the decades between the Gilded Age and the age of new media, this story of the Met concludes by tipping its hat to the hugely successful "e;Live in HD"e; simulcasts and other twenty-first-century innovations. Grand Opera's appeal extends far beyond the large circle of opera enthusiasts. Drawing on unpublished documents from the Metropolitan Opera Archives, reviews, recordings, and much more, this richly detailed book looks at the Met in the broad context of national and international issues and events.

  • Save 14%
    - A Search for the Future of National Parks
    by William C. Tweed
    £17.99

    In this provocative walking meditation, writer and former park ranger William Tweed takes us to California's spectacular High Sierra to discover a new vision for our national parks as they approach their 100th anniversary. Tweed, who worked among the Sierra Nevada's big peaks and big trees for more than thirty years, has now hiked more than 200 miles along California's John Muir Trail in a personal search for answers: How do we address the climate change we are seeing even now-in melting glaciers in Glacier National Park, changing rainy seasons on Mt Rainer, and more fire in the West's iconic parks. Should we intervene where we can to preserve biodiversity? Should the parks merely become ecosystem museums that exhibit famous landscapes and species? Asking how we can make these magnificent parks relevant for the next generation, Tweed, through his journey, ultimately shows why we must do just that.

  • Save 18%
    - Immigration Policy, Youth, and Families
    by Marjorie S. Zatz & Nancy Rodriguez
    £27.99 - 62.99

    Dreams and Nightmares takes a critical look at the challenges and dilemmas of immigration policy and practice in the absence of comprehensive immigration reform. The experiences of children and youth provide a prism through which the interwoven dynamics and consequences of immigration policy become apparent. Using a unique sociolegal perspective, authors Zatz and Rodriguez examine the mechanisms by which immigration policies and practices mitigate or exacerbate harm to vulnerable youth. They pay particular attention to prosecutorial discretion, assessing its potential and limitations for resolving issues involving parental detention and deportation, unaccompanied minors, and Dreamers who came to the United States as young children. The book demonstrates how these policies and practices offer a means of prioritizing immigration enforcement in ways that alleviate harm to children, and why they remain controversial and vulnerable to political challenges.

  • Save 17%
    - Caring and the Logics of Difference in Contemporary Italy
    by Cristiana Giordano
    £24.99

    Migrants in Translation is an ethnographic reflection on foreign migration, mental health, and cultural translation in Italy. Its larger context is Europe and the rapid shifts in cultural and political identities that are negotiated between cultural affinity and a multicultural, multiracial Europe. The issue of migration and cultural difference figures as central in the process of forming diverse yet unified European identities. In this context, legal and illegal foreigners-mostly from Eastern Europe and Northern and Sub-Saharan Africa-are often portrayed as a threat to national and supranational identities, security, cultural foundations, and religious values. This book addresses the legal, therapeutic, and moral techniques of recognition and cultural translation that emerge in response to these social uncertainties. In particular, Migrants in Translation focuses on Italian ethno-psychiatry as an emerging technique that provides culturally appropriate therapeutic services exclusively to migrants, political refugees, and victims of torture and trafficking. Cristiana Giordano argues that ethno-psychiatry's focus on cultural identifications as therapeutic-inasmuch as it complies with current political desires for diversity and multiculturalism-also provides a radical critique of psychiatric, legal, and moral categories of inclusion, and allows for a rethinking of the politics of recognition.

  • Save 20%
    - Comic Mimesis in Late Eighteenth-Century Music
    by Wye Jamison Allanbrook
    £39.99

    Wye Jamison Allanbrook's The Secular Commedia is a stimulating and original rethinking of the music of the late eighteenth century. Hearing the symphonies and concertos of Haydn and Mozart with an ear tuned to operatic style, as their earliest listeners did, Allanbrook shows that this familiar music is built on a set of mimetic associations drawn from conventional modes of depicting character and emotion in opera buffa. Allanbrook mines a rich trove of writings by eighteenth-century philosophers and music theorists to show that vocal music was considered aesthetically superior to instrumental music and that listeners easily perceived the theatrical tropes that underpinned the style. Tracing Enlightenment notions of character and expression back to Greek and Latin writings about comedy and drama, she strips away preoccupations with symphonic form and teleology to reveal anew the kaleidoscopic variety and gestural vitality of the musical surface. In prose as graceful and nimble as the music she discusses, Allanbrook elucidates the idiom of this period for contemporary readers. With notes, musical examples, and a foreword by editors Mary Ann Smart and Richard Taruskin.

  • Save 16%
    - Pacific Islander Teens Confront Violent Legacies
    by Katherine Irwin & Karen Umemoto
    £20.99 - 62.99

    In the context of two hundred years of American colonial control in the Pacific, Katherine Irwin and Karen Umemoto shed light on the experiences of today's inner city and rural girls and boys in Hawai';i who face racism, sexism, poverty, and political neglect. Basing their book on nine years of ethnographic research, the authors highlight how legacies of injustice endure, prompting teens to fight for dignity and the chance to thrive in America, a nation that the youth describe as inherently ';jacked up'riggedand ';unjust.' While the story begins with the youth battling multiple contingencies, it ends on a hopeful note with many of the teens overcoming numerous hardships, often with the guidance of steadfast, caring adults.

  • Save 16%
    - Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy
    by Victor Tan Chen
    £20.99 - 62.99

    Years after the Great Recession, the economy is still weak, and an unprecedented number of workers have sunk into long spells of unemployment. Cut Loose provides a vivid and moving account of the experiences of some of these men and women, through the example of a historically important group: autoworkers. Their well-paid jobs on the assembly lines built a strong middle class in the decades after World War II. But today, they find themselves beleaguered in a changed economy of greater inequality and risk, one that favors the well-educated-or well-connected.Their declining fortunes in recent decades tell us something about what the white-collar workforce should expect to see in the years ahead, as job-killing technologies and the shipping of work overseas take away even more good jobs. Cut Loose offers a poignant look at how the long-term unemployed struggle in today's unfair economy to support their families, rebuild their lives, and overcome the shame and self-blame they deal with on a daily basis. It is also a call to action-a blueprint for a new kind of politics, one that offers a measure of grace in a society of ruthless advancement.

  • Save 15%
    - Talking across Today's Transformative Movements
    by Chris Dixon
    £20.49 - 46.99

    Amidst war, economic meltdown, and ecological crisis, a "e;new spirit of radicalism is blooming"e; from New York to Cairo, according to Chris Dixon. In Another Politics, he examines the trajectory of efforts that contributed to the radicalism of Occupy Wall Street and other recent movement upsurges. Drawing on voices of leading organizers across the United States and Canada, he delivers an engaging presentation of the histories and principles that shape many contemporary struggles. Dixon outlines the work of activists aligned with anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist, and anti-oppression politics and discusses the lessons they are learning in their efforts to create social transformation. The book explores solutions to the key challenge for today's activists, organizers, fighters, and dreamers: building a substantive link between the work of "e;against,"e; which fights ruling institutions, and the work of "e;beyond,"e; which develops liberatory alternatives.

  • Save 16%
    - Sex and Money in the Twenty-First Century
    by Megan D. Daigle
    £20.99 - 62.99

    From Cuba with Love deals with love, sexuality, and politics in contemporary Cuba. In this beautiful narrative, Megan Daigle explores the role of women in Cuban political culture by examining the rise of economies of sex, romance, and money since the early 1990s. Daigle draws attention to the violence experienced by young women suspected of involvement with foreigners at the hands of a moralistic state, an opportunistic police force, and even their own families and partners. Investigating the lived realities of the Cuban women (and some men) who date tourists and offering a unique perspective on the surrounding debates, From Cuba with Love raises issues about women's bodies-what they can or should do and, equally, what can be done to them. Daigle's provocative perspective will make readers question how race and politics in Cuba are tied to women and sex, and the ways in which political power acts directly on the bodies of individuals through law, policing, institutional programs, and social norms.

  • Save 16%
    - A Style Sheet
    by D. Kern Holoman
    £20.99

    Where do you place the hyphen in "e;Beethoven"e; if it breaks between two lines? How do you cite John Coltrane's album A Love Supreme? Is it "e;premiere"e; or "e;premiere"e;? The answers and much more can be found in this definitive resource for authors, students, editors, concert producers-anyone who deals with music in print. Extending the principles devised for the classical repertoires, this revised and expanded edition now includes examples from world music, rock, jazz, popular music, and cinema. This essential volume covers some of the thorniest issues of musical discourse: how to go about describing musical works and procedures in prose, the rules for citations in notes and bibliography, and proper preparation of such materials as musical examples, tables, and illustrations. One section discusses program notes, while others explain the requirements for submitting manuscripts and electronic files, and outline best practices for student writers. An appendix lists common problem words. Updates include greatly simplified citations of Internet locators, the recognition of multiple platforms, and the expectation of paperless transmission and storage of work. Cited as the authority by The Chicago Manual of Style, this classic handbook is the go-to source for anyone writing about music.

  • Save 19%
    - Crime Prediction and Risk Reduction
    by Leslie W. Kennedy & Joel M. Caplan
    £33.99

    Imagine using an evidence-basedriskmanagementmodelthat enables researchers and practitioners alike to analyze the spatial dynamics of crime, allocate resources, and implement custom crime andriskreduction strategies that are transparent, measurable, and effective.RiskTerrainModeling(RTM) diagnoses the spatial attractors of criminal behavior and makes accurate forecasts of where crime will occur at the microlevel. RTM informs decisions about how the combined factors that contribute to criminal behavior can be targeted, connections to crime can be monitored, spatial vulnerabilities can be assessed, and actions can be taken to reduce worst effects. As a diagnostic method, RTM offers astatistically valid way to identify vulnerable places. To learn more, visithttp://www.riskterrainmodeling.comand begin using RTM with the many free tutorials and resources.

  • Save 18%
    - The Essential Guide
    by Evan Goldstein
    £27.99

    The most comprehensive guide to the wines of the entire continent, Wines of South America introduces readers to the astounding quality and variety of wines that until recently have been enjoyed, for the most part, only locally. Master Sommelier Evan Goldstein leads wine enthusiasts on an exciting geographical journey across ten countries, describing the wines, grapes, and regions of each. Goldstein begins the tour with a continental overview, discussing the arrival of the vine and wine culture, surveying the range of grapes planted and cultivated, and summarizing the development of modernday viticulture and winemaking. He explores the two giants of the continent, Argentina and Chile, in expansive chapters that cover their unique histories, wine regions, wine styles, prominent grapes, and leading producers. Goldstein covers the evolving industries of Brazil and Uruguay and discusses the modern-day activities in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela. Up-to-date maps, several engaging photos, and pertinent statistics support each section, which also feature lively profiles of key individuals and wineries that have influenced the development of the craft. A closing chapter is devoted to food in South America, with specific information on wine country dining and leading chefs and restaurants. The author provides practical advice for travelers, an appendix of available resources for learning more about the wines of each region, and lists of 'top 10' wine recommendations for quick reference.

  • Save 20%
    - Colonial America and the Indo-Atlantic World
    by Kevin P. McDonald
    £39.99

    In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, more than a thousand pirates poured from the Atlantic into the Indian Ocean. There, according to Kevin P. McDonald, they helped launch an informal trade network that spanned the Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds, connecting the North American colonies with the rich markets of the East Indies. Rather than conducting their commerce through chartered companies based in London or Lisbon, colonial merchants in New York entered into an alliance with Euro-American pirates based in Madagascar. Pirates, Merchants, Settlers, and Slaves explores the resulting global trade network located on the peripheries of world empires and shows the illicit ways American colonists met the consumer demand for slaves and East India goods. The book reveals that pirates played a significant yet misunderstood role in this period and that seafaring slaves were both commodities and essential components in the Indo-Atlantic maritime networks. Enlivened by stories of Indo-Atlantic sailors and cargoes that included textiles, spices, jewels and precious metals, chinaware, alcohol, and drugs, this book links previously isolated themes of piracy, colonialism, slavery, transoceanic networks, and cross-cultural interactions and extends the boundaries of traditional Atlantic, national, world, and colonial histories.

  • Save 14%
    - Lessons Learned from My Twenty Years as a Psychological Expert Witness in Murder Cases
    by James Garbarino
    £17.99

    Listening to Killers offers an inside look at twenty years' worth of murder files from Dr. James Garbarino, a leading expert psychological witness who listens to killers so that he can testify in court. The author offers detailed accounts of how killers travel a path that leads from childhood innocence to lethal violence in adolescence or adulthood. He places the emotional and moral damage of each individual killer within a larger scientific framework of social, psychological, anthropological, and biological research on human development. By linking individual cases to broad social and cultural issues and illustrating the social toxicity and unresolved trauma that drive some people to kill, Dr. Garbarino highlights the humanity we share with killers and the role of understanding and empathy in breaking the cycle of violence.

  • Save 17%
    - How Technology Has Changed Music
    by Mark Katz
    £24.99

    There is more to sound recording than just recording sound. Far from being simply a tool for the preservation of music, the technology is a catalyst. In this award-winning text, Mark Katz provides a wide-ranging, deeply informative, consistently entertaining history of recordings profound impact on the musical life of the past century, from Edison to the Internet. Fully revised and updated, this new edition adds coverage of mashups and Auto-Tune, explores recent developments in file-sharing, and includes an expanded conclusion and bibliography. Find illustrative sound and film clips on the new companion website at www.ucpress.edu/go/capturingsound

  • Save 15%
    - New and Selected Poems
    by Michael McClure
    £19.49

    This essential collection of Michael McClure's poetry contains the most original, radical, and visionary work of a major poet who has been garnering acclaim and generating controversy for more than fifty years. Ranging from A Fist Full, published in 1957, through Swirls in Asphalt, a new poem sequence, Of Indigo and Saffron is both an excellent introduction to this unique American voice and an impressive selection from McClure's landmark volumes for those already familiar with his boldly inventive work. One of the five poets who heralded the Beat movement in the 1955 Six Gallery reading in San Francisco, McClure reveals in his poetry a close kinship to Romanticism, Modernism, Surrealism, and Japanese haiku. These poems-grounded in imagination and a profound regard for the natural world-chart a poetic landscape of utter originality.

  • Save 18%
    - Culture, Politics, and Globalization
    by Jana Arsovska
    £27.99 - 62.99

    The expansion of organized crime across national borders has become a key security concern for the international community. In this theoretically and empirically vibrant portrait of a global phenomenon, Jana Arsovska examines some of the most widespread myths about the so-called Albanian Mafia. Based on more than a decade of research, including interviews with victims, offenders, and law enforcement across ten countries, as well as court files and confidential intelligence reports, Decoding Albanian Organized Crime presents a comprehensive overview of the causes, codes of conduct, activities, migration, and structure of Albanian organized crime groups in the Balkans, Western Europe, and the United States. Paying particular attention to the dynamic relationships among culture, politics, and organized crime, the book develops a framework for understanding the global growth of the criminal underworld and provides a model for future comparative research.

  • Save 17%
    - Why the CEO Pay Experiment Failed and How to Fix It
    by Michael Dorff
    £24.99

    Prodded by economists in the 1970s, corporate directors began adding stock options and bonuses to the already-generous salaries of CEOs with hopes of boosting their companies' fortunes. Guided by largely unproven assumptions, this trend continues today. So what are companies getting in return for all the extra money? Not much, according to the empirical data. In Indispensable and Other Myths: Why the CEO Pay Experiment Failed and How to Fix It, Michael Dorff explores the consequences of this development. He shows how performance pay has not demonstrably improved corporate performance and offers studies showing that performance pay cannot improve performance on the kind of tasks companies ask of their CEOs. Moreover, CEOs of large established companies do not typically have much impact on their companies' results. In this eye-opening expose, Dorff argues that companies should give up on the decades-long experiment to mold compensation into a corporate governance tool and maps out a rationale for returning to the era of guaranteed salaries.

  • Save 20%
    - Power, Duty, Restraint
    by Lawrence O. Gostin & Lindsay F. Wiley
    £43.99

    Lawrence O. Gostin's seminalPublic Health Lawis widely acclaimed as the definitive statement on public health law at the turn of the twenty-first century. In this bold third edition, Gostin is joined by Lindsay F. Wiley to analyze major health threats of our time such as chronic diseases, emerging infectious diseases, antimicrobial resistance, bioterrorism, natural disasters, opiod overdose, and gun violence. The authors draw on constitutional law, administrative law, local government law, and tort law to develop their conception of law as a tool for protecting the public's health. The book creates an intellectual framework for modern public health law and supports that framework with illustrations of the scientific, political, and ethical issues involved. In proposing innovative solutions for the future of the public's health, Gostin and Wiley's essential study provides a blueprint for public and political debates to come. New issues covered in this edition: *; Corporate personhood rights raised in response to regulations of tobacco, food and beverages, alcohol, firearms, prescription drugs, and marijuana. *; Local government authority to protect the public's health. *; Deregulation and harm reduction as modes of public health law intervention. *; Taxation, spending, and alteration of the socioeconomic environment as modes of public health law intervention. *; Access to health care as a strategy for protecting the public's health. *; Taxation, spending, licensing, zoning, and shared-use strategies for chronic disease prevention. *; The public health law perspective on violence and injury prevention. *; Health justice as a framework for reducing health disparities and protecting the public's health.

  • Save 16%
    - Ecology, Health, and the Politics of Entanglement
    by Alex M. Nading
    £20.99

    Dengue fever is the world's most prevalent mosquito-borne illness, but Alex Nading argues that people in dengue-endemic communities do not always view humans and mosquitoes as mortal enemies. Drawing on two years of ethnographic research in urban Nicaragua and challenging current global health approaches to animal-borne illness, Mosquito Trails tells the story of a group of community health workers who struggle to come to terms with dengue epidemics amid poverty, political change, and economic upheaval. Blending theory from medical anthropology, political ecology, and science and technology studies, Nading develops the concept of "e;the politics of entanglement"e; to describe how Nicaraguans strive to remain alive to the world around them despite global health strategies that seek to insulate them from their environments. This innovative ethnography illustrates the continued significance of local environmental histories, politics, and household dynamics to the making and unmaking of a global pandemic.

  • Save 17%
    - Film Libraries before Home Video
    by Eric Hoyt
    £24.99 - 62.99

    Hollywood Vault is the story of how the business of film libraries emerged and evolved, spanning the silent era to the sale of feature libraries to television. Eric Hoyt argues that film libraries became valuable not because of the introduction of new technologies but because of the emergence and growth of new markets, and suggests that studying the history of film libraries leads to insights about their role in the contemporary digital marketplace. The history begins in the mid-1910s, when the star system and other developments enabled a market for old films that featured current stars. After the transition to films with sound, the reissue market declined but the studios used their libraries for the production of remakes and other derivatives. The turning point in the history of studio libraries occurred during the mid to late 1940s, when changes in American culture and an industry-wide recession convinced the studios to employ their libraries as profit centers through the use of theatrical reissues. In the 1950s, intermediary distributors used the growing market of television to harness libraries aggressively as foundations for cross-media expansion, a trend that continues today. By the late 1960s, the television marketplace and the exploitation of film libraries became so lucrative that they prompted conglomerates to acquire the studios. The first book to discuss film libraries as an important and often underestimated part of Hollywood history, Hollywood Vault presents a fascinating trajectory that incorporates cultural, legal, and industrial history.

  • Save 16%
    - The Political Basis of Agricultural Policies
    by Robert H. Bates
    £20.99

    Following independence, most countries in Africa sought to develop, but their governments pursued policies that actually undermined their rural economies. Examining the origins of Africa's "e;growth tragedy,"e; Markets and States in Tropical Africa has for decades shaped the thinking of practitioners and scholars alike. Robert H. Bates's analysis now faces a challenge, however: the revival of economic growth on the continent. In this edition, Bates provides a new preface and chapter that address the seeds of Africa's recovery and discuss the significance of the continent's success for the arguments of this classic work.

  • Save 20%
    - A Half-Century of Reflections
    by Neil J. Smelser
    £43.99

    Neil J. Smelser, one of the most important and influential American sociologists, traces the discipline of sociology from 1969 to the early twenty-first century in Getting Sociology Right: A Half-Century of Reflections. Examining sociology as a vocation and building on the work of Talcott Parsons, Smelser discusses his views on the discipline of sociology and shows how his perspective of the field evolved in the postwar era.

  • Save 16%
    - Becoming a Modern African Woman in the Age of AIDS
    by Sanyu A. Mojola
    £20.99 - 62.99

    How do modern women in developing countries experience sexuality and love? Drawing on a rich array of interview, ethnographic, and survey data from her native country of Kenya, Sanyu A. Mojola examines how young African women, who suffer disproportionate rates of HIV infection compared to young African men, navigate their relationships, schooling, employment, and finances in the context of economic inequality and a devastating HIV epidemic. Writing from a unique outsider-insider perspective, Mojola argues that the entanglement of love, money, and the transformation of girls into "e;consuming women"e; lies at the heart of women's coming-of-age and health crises. At once engaging and compassionate, this text is an incisive analysis of gender, sexuality, and health in Africa.

  • Save 17%
    - Reading the Hollywood Reds
    by Jeff Smith
    £24.99 - 62.99

    Film Criticism, the Cold War, and the Blacklist examines the long-term reception of several key American films released during the postwar period, focusing on the two main critical lenses used in the interpretation of these films: propaganda and allegory. Produced in response to the hearings held by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) that resulted in the Hollywood blacklist, these films' ideological message and rhetorical effectiveness was often muddled by the inherent difficulties in dramatizing villains defined by their thoughts and belief systems rather than their actions. Whereas anti-Communist propaganda films offered explicit political exhortation, allegory was the preferred vehicle for veiled or hidden political comment in many police procedurals, historical films, Westerns, and science fiction films. Jeff Smith examines the way that particular heuristics, such as the mental availability of exemplars and the effects of framing, have encouraged critics to match filmic elements to contemporaneous historical events, persons, and policies. In charting the development of these particular readings, Film Criticism, the Cold War, and the Blacklist features case studies of many canonical Cold War titles, including The Red Menace, On the Waterfront, The Robe, High Noon, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

  • Save 15%
    - How Good Intentions Created a Trillion-Dollar Problem
    by Joel Best & Eric Best
    £19.49 - 24.99

    This illuminating investigation uncovers the full dimensions of the student loan disaster. A father and son team-one a best-selling sociologist, the other a former banker and current quantitative researcher-probes how we've reached the point at which student loan debt-now exceeding $1 trillion and predicted to reach $2 trillion by 2020-threatens to become the sequel to the mortgage meltdown. In spite of their good intentions, Americans have allowed concerns about deadbeat students, crushing debt, exploitative for-profit colleges, and changing attitudes about the purpose of college education to blind them to a growing crisis. With college costs climbing faster than the cost of living, how can access to higher education remain a central part of the American dream? With more than half of college students carrying an average debt of $27,000 at graduation, what are the prospects for young adults in the current economy? Examining how we've arrived at and how we might extricate ourselves from this grave social problem, The Student Loan Mess is a must-read for everyone concerned about the future of American education. Hard facts about the student loan crisis: * Student loan debt is rising by more than $100 billion every year. * Among recent college students who are supposed to be repaying their loans, more than a third are delinquent. * Because student loans cannot be discharged through bankruptcy, the federal government misleadingly treats student loan debt as a government asset. * Higher default rates, spiraling college costs, and proposals for more generous terms for student borrowers make it increasingly likely that student loan policies will eventually cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.

  • Save 14%
    - An Environmental History of the Commodification of Animals
    by John F. Richards
    £17.99

    Presented here is the final and most coherent section of a sweeping classic work in environmental history, The Unending Frontier. The World Hunt focuses on the commercial hunting of wildlife and its profound global impact on the environment and the early modern world economy. Tracing the massive expansion of the European quest for animal products, The World Hunt explores the fur trade in North America and Russia, cod fishing in the North Atlantic, and whaling and sealing on the world's oceans and coastlands.

  • Save 16%
    - Families in Insecure Times
    by Marianne Cooper
    £20.99

    Cut Adrift makes an important and original contribution to the national conversation about inequality and risk in American society. Set against the backdrop of rising economic insecurity and rolled-up safety nets, Marianne Cooper's probing analysis explores what keeps Americans up at night. Through poignant case studies, she reveals what families are concerned about, how they manage their anxiety, whose job it is to worry, and how social class shapes all of these dynamics, including what is even worth worrying about in the first place. This powerful study is packed with intriguing discoveries ranging from the surprising anxieties of the rich to the critical role of women in keeping struggling families afloat. Through tales of stalwart stoicism, heart-wrenching worry, marital angst, and religious conviction, Cut Adrift deepens our understanding of how families are coping in a go-it-alone age-and how the different strategies on which affluent, middle-class, and poor families rely upon not only reflect inequality, but fuel it.

  • Save 17%
    - Sound, Place, and Time since Bebop
    by David Ake
    £24.99

    What, where, and when is jazz? To most of us jazz means small combos, made up mostly of men, performing improvisationally in urban club venues. But jazz has been through many changes in the decades since World War II, emerging in unexpected places and incorporating a wide range of new styles. In this engrossing new book, David Ake expands on the discussion he began in Jazz Cultures, lending his engaging, thoughtful, and stimulating perspective to post-1940s jazz. Ake investigates such issues as improvisational analysis, pedagogy, American exceptionalism, and sense of place in jazz. He uses provocative case studies to illustrate how some of the values ascribed to the postwar jazz culture are reflected in and fundamentally shaped by aspects of sound, location, and time.

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