Reference Books - Page 4

Social Workers' Desk Reference

Albert R. Roberts

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Following in the groundbreaking path of its predecessor, the second edition of the Social Workers' Desk Reference provides reliable and highly accessible information about effective services and treatment approaches across the full spectrum of social work practice. Succinct, illuminating chapters written by the field's most respected and experienced scholars and practitioners ensure that it will continue to be the sourcebook for all social workers.

Social work practitioners and agency administrators are increasingly confronted with having to do more with less, and must make decisions and provide services as quickly as possible. The Social Workers' Desk Reference, Second Edition, builds on the landmark achievement of the first edition with thorough revisions and over 75 all-new chapters. Its outstanding wealth of well-tested knowledge, presented in a crisp, to-the-point manner, makes it an even more vital resource for time-pressed practitioners. Page after page offers an abundance of up-to-date information and key tools and resources such as practice guidelines, program evaluations, validated assessment scales, and step-by-step treatment plans necessary for success in today's managed-care environment. The growing importance of evidence-based practice in social work is reflected throughout the chapters, as well as by the inclusion of an entire section devoted to showing how to use evidence intelligently and efficaciously.

The Social Workers' Desk Reference, Second Edition, speaks directly to the daily realities of social workers in private, non-profit, and public settings, whatever their expertise and in all areas of practice: assessment and diagnosis, ethics, risk assessment, program evaluation, and beyond. Case managers, clinical social workers, supervisors, and administrators alike who have come to rely on the previous volume will quickly find its successor just as indispensable.

Life on the Outside: The Prison Odyssey of Elaine Bartlett

Jennifer Gonnerman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Life on the Outside tells the story of Elaine Bartlett, who spent sixteen years in Bedford Hills prison for selling cocaine--a first offense--under New York's Rockefeller drug laws. The book opens on the morning of January 26, 2000, when Bartlett is set free and returns to New York City. At 42, she has virtually nothing: no money, no job, no real home. All she does have is a large and troubled family, including four children, who live in a decrepit housing project on the Lower East Side. "I left one prison to come home to another," Elaine says. Over the next months, she clashes with her daughters, hunts for a job, visits her son and husband in prison, negotiates the rules of parole, and campaigns for the repeal of the laws that led to her long prison term. Russell Simmons, founder of Def Jam Records, says: "At a time when the prison-industrial complex is destroying African American families and neighborhoods, Elaine Bartlett is more than a survivor: she is a heroine. The future of our communities depends on women like her."

Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream

Jay Stevens

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 32 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Very good but ignores many facets of certain indivuals 4 out of 5 stars.
6 of 10 people found this review helpful.

This was a very good book. You get lots of interesting stuff about Aldous Huxley, the famous beat writers, Owsley, Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey and the evolution of the so called counterculture as a whole.

The problems that I have with Storming Heaven is not for what was in it but what was left out. For one Stevens was WAY too easy on Timothy Leary. The author seemed almost like a school girl with a crush when he recounts his visit to Learys home for an interview for the book. He comes off more as a fan than he does an objective writer at times when he deals with Leary. Why wasn't it mentioned that it has come out that Leary was a government informant and information he gave led to the death of two members of the Weather Underground? Its also a known fact that Leary was surrounded by CIA assets and there is a lot of evidence that he was a government agent himself, and at the least he was feeding them information.

There is also a fleeting mention that wasn't elaborated on about Ken Kesey that he had LSD experiments done on him at Stanford by the guy that ended up in charge of the CIAs Mkultra mind control program. This really makes me wonder about Kesey. Its more or less accepted history that the first LSD to get out on the street level was what Kesey stole from the medicine chest at his job as a night shift janitor at a mental hospital and distributed it among his elitist friends. Kesey went from writing what was probably the best novel written during the 1960's to, while becoming a counterculture hero, never writing another thing worth reading again. Did doing too much LSD scramble his brains and ruin his creativity or was his creativity nullified by Mkultra programming? Its hard to say for sure but I have to wonder if Kesey was not under some sort of mind control or was being used by the CIA in one way or another. There are a lot of unanswered questions in my mind about Kesey.

They also fleetingly mention the Brotherhood of Eternal Love who were major LSD distributors and were known to be full of CIA people and had a close association with a Jewish man named Ron Starks who was a CIA spook that also happened to the biggest LSD dealer in the world. Starks was not even given the first mention in this book!

I mean with all these ivy league, Mkultra and CIA connections to the elites of the so called counterculture I have to seriously wonder how much of the hippy movement of the late 60's was an organic rebellion against what was (and still is) a very repressive society both socially and politically and how much of it was intentional social engineering that came from the highest levels of the power structure. Many people believe that the anti-war movement was flooded with drugs, in particular LSD, by federal agents. Its well known that the government tried to subvert and destroy the anti-war movement with the cointelpro program so why wouldn't they also use drugs to try to destroy it? While it can't be denied that LSD has enhanced many an artist, writer and musicians work can you honestly say that sitting around frying on acid all the time is going to do anything but disable political activists who in many cases were in a life and death struggle? Besides that the fact remains that many people became permanently damaged as result of doing acid.

All that said I would definitely recomend reading or of you can get it cheap, buying Storming Heaven. I could hardly put it down once I started reading it. I realize that this book was more geared toward looking into what psychelic drugs can do with the mind and its exponents history and theories on the subject than any conspiratorial maneuverings by the US government involving LSD but it just didn't go deep enough into the rabbit hole for my tastes.

Editorial Review:

Storming Heaven digs beneath the headlines to bring an amazing science story in which Harvard professors become holy men, and a generation drops out to seek cosmic bliss--only to find something much darker.

Ensayo Sobre la Ceguera/ Blindness (Narrativa (Punto de Lectura))

Jose Saramago

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Instintos Basicos.. 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Como uno a uno en el pueblo (sin nombre....) se fueron quedando ciegos debido a la plaga blanca.. el gobierno asustado por el contagio los mando de "internados" a unas instalaciones nada agradables para la vida cotidiana, poco a poco se fue llenado de ciegos, como empieza a hacer falta desde la comida hasta la misma agua...
que tanto tuvieron que dar algunos para recibir la comida, el precio de los otros por haberla cobrado, estrujante y maravilloso!

Editorial Review:

A terrifying allegory of the dark times of the new millennium. A driver waiting at a red light suddenly becomes blind. So does his wife and the doctor who examines them. They are the first cases of an epidemic of blindness. A magnificent parable of loss and disorientation and a vivid evocation of the horrors of the 20th century, Blindness masterfully portrays man's worst appetites and weaknesses-and man's ultimately exhilarating spirit. The stunningly powerful novel of man's will to survive against all odds, by the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Description in Spanish: Una ceguera blanca se expande de manera fulminante. Internados, en cuarentena o perdidos por la ciudad los ciegos deben enfrentarse a lo más primitivo de la especie humana: la voluntad de sobrevivir a cualquier precio. José Saramago, Premio Nobel de Literatura 1998, teje una aterradora parábola acerca del ser humano, que encierra lo más sublime y miserable de nosotros mismos.

The Anatomy of Racial Inequality (The W. E. B. Du Bois Lectures)

Glenn C. Loury

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Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Speaking wisely and provocatively about the political economy of race, Glenn Loury has become one of our most prominent black intellectuals--and, because of his challenges to the orthodoxies of both left and right, one of the most controversial. A major statement of a position developed over the past decade, this book both epitomizes and explains Loury's understanding of the depressed conditions of so much of black society today--and the origins, consequences, and implications for the future of these conditions.

Using an economist's approach, Loury describes a vicious cycle of tainted social information that has resulted in a self-replicating pattern of racial stereotypes that rationalize and sustain discrimination. His analysis shows how the restrictions placed on black development by stereotypical and stigmatizing racial thinking deny a whole segment of the population the possibility of self-actualization that American society reveres--something that many contend would be undermined by remedies such as affirmative action. On the contrary, this book persuasively argues that the promise of fairness and individual freedom and dignity will remain unfulfilled without some forms of intervention based on race.

Brilliant in its account of how racial classifications are created and perpetuated, and how they resonate through the social, psychological, spiritual, and economic life of the nation, this compelling and passionate book gives us a new way of seeing--and, perhaps, seeing beyond--the damning categorization of race in America.

(20011101)

From Abba to Zoom: A Pop Culture Encyclopedia of the Late 20th Century

David Mansour

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

Editorial Review:

Take a walk . . . down memory lane, you Boomers and Gen Xers! From ABBA to Zoom is sure to grab anyone born in the 1950s, '60s, '70s, or '80s. Whether you grew up watching The Huckleberry Hound Show, Johnny Quest, or Sesame Street, this cultural encyclopedia is sure to draw you into a nostalgic and fun-filled read that you just can't put down.

American pop culture aficionado David Mansour spent 18 years accumulating an extensive collection of dolls, lunch boxes, board games, TV memorabilia, and other items from the 1960s through the '90s. That fascination, along with his lifelong lists-from "best toys" to "all-time coolest singers"-were the genesis for this wide-ranging volume of Boomer and Generation X treasures.

Readers will relish the mere mention of some of their greatest childhood and adolescent connections, then rush to learn the well-researched details behind those icons. Farrah Fawcett's feathered hair, James Bond movies, Lost in Space, Woodstock-it's all here! In page after page, more than 3,000 references arranged alphabetically make this a true trip through the Boom Times. Totally groovy!

Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death

Paul Driessen

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

Dont believe the hype (of this book that is...) 2 out of 5 stars.
17 of 55 people found this review helpful.

Firstly, i want to make clear that i have a degree in geography and am very familiar with the topics 'discussed' in this book. Paul Driessen is obviously well-educated and knows how to write, therefore it must be assumed that he has purposefully neglected the facts in order to contrive an argument that will appeal only to people with no prior knowledge of the topic...

For example,

He advocates the continued use of fossil fuels by declaring that there is no proof carbon emmisions are responsible for climate change. Regardless of climate change, the excessive air pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels is indeed responsible for chronic respirotory illnesses worldwide (inc in the third world), and also catastrophic 'acid rain'...

This one example is indicative of basically every chapter in this book (this is why it was published by a small company and wasn't found in my university library). Without prior knowledge of the subject, one could easily be led astray.

As a geographer i found this book interesting. However, its profound inadequacies serve only to strengthen the integrity of the environmental movement.

I do fear though, that too many people have believed the rhetoric they have digested in this very short book with a catchy cover and title.

Editorial Review:

Reveals a dark secret of the ideological environmental movement. The movement imposes the views of mostly wealthy, comfortable Americans and Europeans on mostly poor, desperate Africans, Asians and Latin Americans. It violates these people's most basic human rights, denying them economic opportunities, the chance for better lives, the right to rid their countries of diseases that were vanquished long ago in Europe and the United States.

Encyclopedia of Native Tribes of North America

Michael Johnson

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Editorial Review:

Review of the previous edition: "A model of excellence in the art of reference volume publishing... Every public and school library... should acquire this treasure. It will remain the standard for many years to come."
- Dr. James A. Clifton, Department of Anthropology, Western Michigan University

This superb, fully illustrated reference offers the most up-to-date and essential facts on the identity, kinships, locations, populations and cultural characteristics of some 400 separately identifiable peoples native to the North American continent, both living and extinct, from the Canadian Arctic to the Rio Grande.

The concise information is organized for easy use and covers all cultural/geographical regions: the Northeastern Woodlands, Southeastern Woodlands, Plains and Prairie, Plateau, Great Basin, California, Southwest, Northwest Coast, Subarctic and Arctic. Tribes are grouped by linguistic family. The spiritual beliefs and the role of Native Americans in history and modern culture are addressed in detail.

More than 300 color and archival photographs, 21 regional maps and a dazzling portfolio of over 100 specially commissioned color illustrations give a dramatic visual introduction to the vast range of Native American culture. Population and settlement trends based on recent census figures paint detailed portraits of all officially recognized tribes. Appendices include the Powwow Trail and a list of museums holding Native American artifacts (including the new Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian).

This is one of the most comprehensive, up-to-date and useful references on the subject and an important record of Native American peoples.

Introducing Postmodernism

Richard Appignanesi

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Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Biting off more than you can chew 2 out of 5 stars.
2 of 4 people found this review helpful.

'Introducing Postmodernism' is a good source to gather names of philosophers, architects, artists, anthropologists, linguists, and everyone in between that have been somehow connected to PM. The problem, and it is a big one, is that this style of tour de force writing does little to contextualize all these diverse disciplines. Sure, if you only have half an hour to read up on PM, you can whip through this book and go on with your life. But if you're wanting to really absorb the phenomenon, and perhaps go on to read more, this book is NOT the place to start. Check out David Harvey's 'Condition of Postmodernism.' This will rip the top of your head clean off! It's much more weighty (in every sense of the word), but your understanding of PM will vastly improve, and will better prepare you to go on to other important writers of the 'genre'.

Editorial Review:

Postmodernism seemed to promise an end to the grim Cold War era of nuclear confrontation and oppressive ideologies. The notoriously proclaimed 'end of history', the triumph of liberal democracy over Communist tyranny, proved to be an illusion, and we awoke in the anxious grip of globalization, unpredictable terrorism and unforeseen war. Has the 21st century resolved the question of postmodernism or are we more than ever ensnared in its perplexities? Recorded in association with Icon Books.

Introduction to Sociology

Henry L. Tischler

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Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A great introductory book 4 out of 5 stars.
17 of 17 people found this review helpful.

Henry Tischler does a marvelous job writing this book. It is both up-to-date and accurate, blending a myriad of graphs and pictures with easy to read text. It is definitly recomended for the serious student interested in sociology as well as the student taking sociology to meet a GE requirement. It does a marvelous job touching each aspect of sociology, both macro and micro. I highly recomend it for possible sociology major and anybody just wishing to gain a greater understanding of this science.

Editorial Review:

This revised edition of Tischler's INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY continues a tradition of providing proven textbooks to students and professors at lower prices. This value is enhanced with the inclusion of the built-in study guide and practice tests. The author threads two basic ideas through the text--that sociology is a rigorous, scientific discipline and that a basic knowledge of sociology is essential for understanding social interaction in many work and social settings. Each chapter progresses from a specific to a general analysis of society--each part introducing increasingly more comprehensive factors necessary for a broad-based understanding of social organization.