Customs & Traditions Books - Page 2

The Complete Guide to Successful Event Planning : With Companion CD-ROM

Shannon Kilkenny

Amazon Price: $26.37 List Price: $39.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Atlantic Publishing Company (FL) Amazon Marketplace: 27 new & used starting at $19.96

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> General
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Industries & Professions -> Hospitality, Travel & Tourism
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Management & Leadership -> Management

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Gathering people together for a special event is always a challenge even for the experienced planner for each event is unique. This book is designed to empower any planner to meet all challenges that surround a production. Whether you find yourself in charge of one important event or you have chosen event planning as a career, you want your events to be incredibly successful and remembered for years to come. A memorable event is one that flows smoothly with every detail carefully orchestrated and produced meticulously with the participant in mind. Successful events do not just happen; they are the result of hard work, creativity, awareness, and careful attention to detail. Every detail! Successful Event Planning is the most thorough, concise, and easy to follow event planning book available. From the initial concept to ongoing management, this book has techniques to increase your chances of success and systems to avoid many common mistakes. It shows you dozens of ways to save time and money and introduces you to every facet of the planning process. This ultimate guidebook equips the reader with new ideas, support, and creative problem-solving skills. The chapters follow the dynamics of the actual event planning process and are supported by extensive checklists and timelines. As the reader undertakes the complexities of daily responsibilities and tasks, Successful Event Planning inspires efficiency and confidence and makes it possible to stay on track. Whether you are a professional or a novice, you will find this guidebook a must-have if you are planning the Academy Awards or your daughter's wedding. The information found in this book is suitable for creating any event for any theme, size, location, or budget. Two significant, timely, and relevant advantages this book offers that you will not find elsewhere are Environmental Friendly practices and the latest up-to-date technology applications and gadgets. **2007 Eric Hoffer Book Awards: Notable in Bus

100 Things to Do Before You Die: Travel Events You Just Can't Miss

Neil Teplica, Dave Freeman

Amazon Price: $11.53 List Price: $16.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Taylor Trade Publishing Amazon Marketplace: 54 new & used starting at $7.10

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Humor -> General
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Customs & Traditions
Subjects -> Travel -> Reference & Tips -> Guidebooks

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

100 things to AVOID before you die, like this book 1 out of 5 stars.
93 of 121 people found this review helpful.

This book is the worst. The suggestions of things to do are just plain aweful. It seems to suggest every crowded fair and typical tourist attraction in any city. This would be great if you love crowds and mayhem. The suggestions are useless. New Years Eve in Times square? Mardi Gras? Acadamy Awards? Carnaval? Who's not aware of these events? It could have some redeaming qualities if it had suggestions about where to stay and how to plan these types of trips, but it does not offer any other information than the dates and location. Nobel Prize Ceremonies? Running of the Bulls? Come on!!!! What a waste of paper, money and time.

Good title, but what about content.... 1 out of 5 stars.
44 of 59 people found this review helpful.

According to my opinion absolutely useless book - seems that authors just "copy -paste" infomation from different sources. Also I disgaree with other reviewers that book is giving some practical information concerning participation in certian events. Having seen some of the events (places) what authors are describing I consider that information sometimes is misleading. Not to mention format and layout of the book - you really do not want to hold in hands such book, especially about travelling.

Editorial Review:

Highlights the wildest and most exciting events on the planet and looks at travel in a brand-new way.

Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History

Sidney W. Mintz

Amazon Price: $10.88 List Price: $16.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Penguin (Non-Classics) Amazon Marketplace: 84 new & used starting at $2.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> General
Subjects -> History -> World -> General
Subjects -> History -> Historical Study -> History of Ideas

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

How has sugar moved you 4 out of 5 stars.
27 of 33 people found this review helpful.

Mintz carefully places implications that sugar has caused human nature and culture to change and the end of his work, after a brief overview of all that we have been doing with sugar or rather sugar has been doing with us for the past 1000 years. MintzÕs work is divided into 5 sections: Food, Sociality and Sugar; Production; Consumption; Power; and finally Eating and Being. Mintz really hopes to build a base of facts to reveal to us how we as a people have identified with and sought to consume sugar over the past 1000 years and how that has affected us.

Sugar is always a labor intensive project, from the mill, to the distillery, to the storehouse and all the laborers it takes to run these places. Mintz discusses how this need for labor caused the British to look to Africa and other places to find cheap or free labor. With sugar came slavery, and those slaves who did the plantation work generally worked in the Caribbean while the product they created was delivered to British aristocracy.

In the mid-1700Õs sugar is made cheaper and more accessible to the lower classes and at this point shifts in its purpose to sweeten food. And as outlined by the upper statistics, sugar only continues to grow in demand. It is interesting that because sugar started as something precious and hard to come by, when it later became more cheap and accessible to the working class it still seemed to uphold that Òrareness.Ó The working class felt like they were increasing in freedom and status as they started to consume sugar. Sugar and like products Òrepresented the growing freedom of ordinary folks,Ó yet did Sugar really mean freedom?

In analysis of MintzÕs thesis I am most convinced that sugar is a powerful force that has moved us historically and today. Sugar production has not only caused the physical relocation, its consumption has caused us to form class and psychological identity around it; today we still live with the power of sweetness in our everyday life, most of the time not giving it a second thought.
Sugar took slaves from Africa to the new world in America. It created identity in the aristocracy and later a manufactured sense of freedom among the working class. Today it continues to grow in its use across the world and has become an everyday commodity. The more fast paced life becomes in the 21st century, the more consumers are drawn to pre-prepared processed foods consistently with high contents of sugar. Sucrose production separated African families in the 1700s, brought class distinction to EuropeÕs families during its shift to capitalism, and now it severs families from eating together at the dinner table with its processed and fast foods. With these implications either we allow sugar to keep moving us, or we move it off the table, out of the cupboard and dump it into Boston Harbor.

The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies

Marcel Mauss

Amazon Price: $10.17 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: W. W. Norton & Company Amazon Marketplace: 45 new & used starting at $7.95

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Anthropology -> Cultural
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Anthropology -> General
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Customs & Traditions

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Social Science Man 4 out of 5 stars.
19 of 20 people found this review helpful.

In his The Gift, Marcel Mauss attempts to explain and understand gifts in primitive societies. Mauss first decides to show that the motives behind giving gifts are more complicated than commonly believed to be. In modern day society, gifts are often thought of as something given out of good will and without the expectance of something in return. Mauss shows us that in many tribal and native cultures, this is not necessarily true. In discussing the Maori, he says, "They had a kind of exchange system, or rather one of giving presents that must ultimately either be reciprocated or given back" (10). The principle of gift giving is governed by the concept of mana, which is the authority, honor, and prestige derived from the wealth and glory of being a superior gift giver. One must give gifts in order to maintain and increase mana and reciprocates them in order to prevent oneself from losing it. The obligations to give and receive are both very important. To reject a gift leads to two problems. Initially, Mauss states that to do so "is to reject the bond of alliance and commonality" (13). To reject such an important bond in a society that so heavily values communal identity is "tantamount to declaring war" (13). The second problem is that of losing mana and being viewed as afraid to accept gifts because one is unable to reciprocate them. The concept of gift giving as one that has the motives of power and authority involved displaces the common belief of gift giving. Durkheim's influence on Mauss is apparent in Mauss' discussion of the contract and sacred qualities. The sacred quality of exchange and contracts also has a relationship to appeasing the gods according to Mauss, or so it is viewed in primitive societies (and according to Durkheim the remnants of such beliefs continue in today's society). Mauss says that the ideal of the gift as distributive justice arises from the belief that the gods punish those with great wealth who are not generous. Therefore, if a gift are given out of generosity and to promote justice, does that mean that those with less wealth have not only less honor and authority, but also a lower level of justness because they are unable to give great gifts?
Gift giving appears to be a "total" social phenomenon or service because of how it works on not only economic levels, but also social levels. The motives for gift giving are not as magnanimous as one may believe because as Mauss says concerning exchange-gifts, "They are kept for the sheer pleasure of possessing them" (23). He seeks to understand the blind accumulation of wealth and says that it is motivated by "competition, rivalry, ostentatiousness, the seeking after the grandiose" (28). To him, these are somewhat negative motives, although he does not explicitly say so. Mauss shows how gift giving evolves with the Native Americans where the concept of honor is more exaggerated and the idea of "credit" and a time limit on the reciprocation of gifts is highlighted. A gift is essentially given with the motive that not only does one gain honor, respect, and authority from it, but that one will also receive something in return. Now if this something received in return is usually paid "with interest" so to speak as it is expected to be of greater value than the original gift. If Mauss is indeed correct, then why is there not a greater disparity of wealth in these primitive societies? If one is wealthy, then one could seek to continuously extend one's own authority and wealth at the same time by giving all the time, since accepting the gift is virtually required, a wealthy person could do so and gain interest on all the gifts given.

Overall, it's interesting and provocative. It is helpful to have read Durkheim's Professional Ethics and Civic Morals (then you realize that Mauss is just following in Durkheim's footsteps). What kind of society do they propose? It's not too clear. I'm still trying to figure that one out, but nonetheless, it's a provocative book, as is Durkheim's.

Editorial Review:

Since its first publication in English in 1954, The Gift, Marcel Mauss's groundbreaking study of the relation between forms of exchange and social structure, has been acclaimed as a classic among anthropology texts.

Interest Projects for girls 11-17

Amazon Price: $9.95 List Price: $9.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Girl Scouts of USA Amazon Marketplace: 37 new & used starting at $2.12

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Teens
Subjects -> Children's Books -> Sports & Activities -> Activity Books -> General
Subjects -> Children's Books -> Sports & Activities -> Games -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Interest Project Patch Book 4 out of 5 stars.
12 of 13 people found this review helpful.

I am a Cadette/Senior Girl Scout Leader. When I first became a leader of this age group, I found this book to be unfriendly, and very hard. After 3 years experience, I have become the expert, and have helped many other troops find resources. Overall, the layout of this material is good, but as far as resources being readily available as in other editions for younger age groups, this is missing. For younger Cadette Scouts, many of the requirements for the badges seem impossible. It takes a creative leader to make some of the requirements accomplishable and interesting.

Interest Projects 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Interest projects are fun and easy to earn, and all the information and requirements are cleary outlined in this book. The interest projects are categorized based of emphasis (Life Skills; Nature, Science and Health; Communications; The Arts and History; Sports and Recreation). The requirements for each patch include: Skill Builders, Technology, Service Projects and Career Information. In addition to the patch requirements, there are also suggestions for completeing the requirements, such as how to interview, role-play, work with younger girls, conduct research investigations, and deal with saftey issues. Information on managing your projects, working toward the Gold and Silver awards, and writting your own interest project are also included. Every cadatte/senoir girl scout should have this book, as well as anyone who works with girls grades 6-12 and need activity ideas.

The Perfect Summer: England 1911, Just Before the Storm

Juliet Nicolson

Amazon Price: $10.20 List Price: $15.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Grove Press Amazon Marketplace: 47 new & used starting at $4.83

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Customs & Traditions
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Sociology -> General
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> England -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 27 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

England before the Great War 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This is an extremely well-written social history of England during the summer of 1911. We follow the activities and actions of many different people, from high to middle to lower class, during what was considered one of the most beautiful three summer months in the 20th century. The author gives us a carefree look at how the folks lived, and what they did and how they thought. Over everything, however, looms the cloud of the coming war, even though the people at that time were completely unaware of it. That is what makes this book so poignant; they laughed and loved, and probably believed that their way of life would continue into the foreseeable futre, when in reality the end of their era was swiftly approaching. It's an informative, and sad, book that shows we can never really plan for the future, because fate is making its own decisions for us, and taking our lives out of our hands.

Editorial Review:

The Perfect Summer chronicles a glorious English summer a century ago, when the world was on the cusp of irrevocable change. Through the tight lens of four months, Juliet Nicolson’s rich storytelling gifts rivet us with the sights, colors, and feelings of a bygone era. That summer of 1911 a new king was crowned and the aristocracy was at play, bounding from one house party to the next. But perfection was not for all. Cracks in the social fabric were showing. The country was brought to a standstill by industrial strikes. Temperatures rose steadily to more than 100 degrees; by August deaths from heatstroke were too many for newspapers to report. Drawing on material from intimate and rarely seen sources and narrated through the eyes of a series of exceptional individuals--among them a debutante, a choirboy, a politician, a trade unionist, a butler, and the queen--The Perfect Summer is a vividly rendered glimpse of the twilight of the Edwardian era.

Wedding Planning For Dummies, Second Edition

Marcy Blum, Laura F. Kaiser

Amazon Price: $13.59 List Price: $19.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Wiley Amazon Marketplace: 77 new & used starting at $4.86

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Relationships -> Marriage
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Self-Help -> General
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 62 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

EXCELLENT for people planing their own weddings. 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

After spending months of watching television shows, reading magazines, browsing online, attending bridal shows and reading other books, I found this book and I LOVE it. If you're planning your own wedding, and can't afford a wedding planner, this book is fantastic. It has TONS of details, large and small, on how the typical wedding works right down to the order of who walks down the isle when depending on what type of ceremony you're having, and nice personal touches you can add to your wedding (if you choose to) like using matching stamps on your invitation and RSVP envelope. If you don't have time to plan every detail of your own wedding, maybe you should be hiring a wedding planner so you don't have to worry about the small stuff, but if you're doing it yourself, this has a TON of useful info. It will tell you what elements are traditionally included, and then you can modify them to your own tastes. I've been leaving sticky notes on pages I want to refer to later, and for my wedding with under a $10,000 budget, I have about 50 sticky notes in the book, and I'm not even done reading yet!

Editorial Review:

It's hard to imagine any wedding detail that could have escaped inclusion in the pages of Weddings for Dummies. How to build a chuppah, how to anchor a comb in the bride's hair, who dances with whom and when--everything you ever wanted to know about getting hitched is right here. Fortunately, Marcy Blum and Laura Fisher Kaiser aren't afraid to give an opinion or two (there's a list of "Ten Tacky Temptations We Beg You to Resist"), but most of the information is entirely nonjudgmental. It's best to have a much-married older sister plan your wedding, but if you have to do it yourself, this is the perfect book to tell you how.

Unplug the Christmas Machine: A Complete Guide to Putting Love and Joy Back into the Season

Jo Robinson, Jean C. Staeheli

Amazon Price: $10.36 List Price: $12.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Harper Paperbacks Amazon Marketplace: 134 new & used starting at $0.01

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Self-Help -> General
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Self-Help -> Happiness
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Applies to all 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Even though this is not a new book, it remains a good baseline for those who are overly stressed during the holidays. If each of us is honest and answers the posed questions truthfully we can all relax and enjoy the holiday rush. Each chapter validates how we feel and takes away the feeling that "I" am the only going through this emotional time. I am trying to follow the idea of doing less gift giving and truly appreciating why we have Christmas. While doing this it is easy to become more open minded and understanding about those I plan to spend time with during the holidays.

Editorial Review:

Now in its 13th printing, Unplug the Christmas Machine remains one of the most comprehensive guides to managing Christmas stress and combating commercialism. Jo Robinson and Jean Coppock Staeheli give readers solid advice on how to make their celebrations more spiritual and less materialistic. Practical discussions, such as shopping lists, holiday recipes, and family activities, meld with deeper issues, such as how to teach children that Christmas is more than a present or how to find meaning in the holiday when you're not especially religious. Robinson and Staeheli even delve into the mixed blessings of Christmas homecomings to help readers pass the true holiday stress test.

Paris to the Moon

Adam Gopnik

Amazon Price: $10.20 List Price: $15.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Random House Trade Paperbacks Amazon Marketplace: 402 new & used starting at $0.01

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Professionals & Academics -> Journalists
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Memoirs

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 144 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In 1995 Gopnik was offered the plush assignment of writing the "Paris Journals" for the New Yorker. He spent five years in Paris with his wife, Martha, and son, Luke, writing dispatches now collected here along with previously unpublished journal entries. A self-described "comic-sentimental essayist," Gopnik chose the romance of Paris in its particulars as his subject. Gopnik falls in unabashed love with what he calls Paris's commonplace civilization--the cafés, the little shops, the ancient carousel in the park, and the small, intricate experiences that happen in such settings. But Paris can also be a difficult city to love, particularly its pompous and abstract official culture with its parallel paper universe. The tension between these two sides of Paris and the country's general brooding over the decline of French dominance in the face of globalization (haute couture, cooking, and sex, as well as the economy, are running deficits) form the subtexts for these finely wrought and witty essays. With his emphasis on the micro in the macro, Gopnik describes trying to get a Thanksgiving turkey delivered during a general strike and his struggle to find an apartment during a government scandal over favoritism in housing allocations. The essays alternate between reports of national and local events and accounts of expatriate family life, with an emphasis on "the trinity of late-century bourgeois obsessions: children and cooking and spectator sports, including the spectator sport of shopping." Gopnik describes some truly delicious moments, from the rites of Parisian haute couture, to the "occupation" of a local brasserie in protest of its purchase by a restaurant tycoon, to the birth of his daughter with the aid of a doctor in black jeans and a black silk shirt, open at the front. Gopnik makes terrific use of his status as an observer on the fringes of fashionable society to draw some deft comparisons between Paris and New York ("It is as if all American appliances dreamed of being cars while all French appliances dreamed of being telephones") and do some incisive philosophizing on the nature of both. This is masterful reportage with a winning infusion of intelligence, intimacy, and charm. --Lesley Reed

The Humanistic Tradition, Book 2: Medieval Europe And The World Beyond (Humanistic Tradition)

Gloria K. Fiero

Amazon Price: $27.19 Usually ships in 24 hours By: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages Amazon Marketplace: 45 new & used starting at $23.23

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> World -> Medieval
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Philosophy -> Consciousness & Thought
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Philosophy -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 1.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"The Humanistic Tradition is quite simply the finest book of its type. Fiero manages to integrate the political, cultural, and social history of the world into one coherent and fascinating whole. It is a masterpiece of scholarship . . . balanced, interesting, easy to read, and consummately beautiful. Our professors praise its accuracy and scope and our students unanimously say it is their favorite textbook." — Sonia Sorrell, Pepperdine University

The Humanistic Tradition features a flexible, topical approach that helps students understand humankind's creative legacy as a continuum rather than as a series of isolated events. This widely acclaimed interdisciplinary survey offers a global perspective, countless illustrations, and more than 150 literary sources. Available in multiple formats, The Humanistic Tradition explores the political, economic, and social contexts of human culture, providing a global and multicultural perspective which helps students better understand the relationship between the West and other world cultures.