Social Situations Books

The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism

Ron Suskind

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Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> General
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Philosophy -> Ethics & Morality
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Philosophy -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 22 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

From Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author Ron Suskind comes a startling look at how America lost its way and at the nation's struggle, day by day, to reclaim the moral authority upon which its survival depends. From the White House to Downing Street, from the fault-line countries of South Asia to the sands of Guantánamo, Suskind offers an astonishing story that connects world leaders to the forces waging today's shadow wars and to the next generation of global citizens. Tracking down truth and hope within the Beltway and far beyond it, Suskind delivers historic disclosures with this emotionally stirring and strikingly original portrait of the post-9/11 world. In a sweeping, propulsive, and multilayered narrative, The Way of the World investigates how America relinquished the moral leadership it now desperately needs to fight the real threat of our era: a nuclear weapon in the hands of terrorists. Truth, justice, and accountability become more than mere words in this story. Suskind shows where the most neglected dangers lie in the story of "The Armageddon Test" —a desperate gamble to send undercover teams into the world's nuclear black market to frustrate the efforts of terrorists trying to procure weapons-grade uranium. In the end, he finally reveals for the first time the explosive falsehood underlying the Iraq War and the entire Bush presidency. While the public and political realms struggle, The Way of the World simultaneously follows an ensemble of characters in America and abroad who are turning fear and frustration into a desperate—and often daring—brand of human salvation. They include a striving, twenty-four-year-old Pakistani émigré, a fearless UN refugee commissioner, an Afghan teenager, a Holocaust survivor's son, and Benazir Bhutto, who discovers, days before her death, how she's been abandoned by the United States at her moment of greatest need. They are all testing American values at a time of peril, and discovering solutions—human solutions—to so much that has gone wrong. For anyone hoping to exercise truly informed consent and begin the process of restoring the values and hope—along with the moral clarity and earned optimism—at the heart of the American tradition, The Way of the World is a must-read.

Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age (Russell Sage Foundation Co-Pub)

Larry M. Bartels

Amazon Price: $19.77 List Price: $29.95 Usually ships in 3 to 4 weeks By: Princeton University Press Amazon Marketplace: 14 new & used starting at $19.77

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Economics -> Economic Conditions
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Economics -> Economic Policy & Development
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> International -> Economic Conditions

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Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Unequal Democracy debunks many myths about politics in contemporary America, using the widening gap between the rich and the poor to shed disturbing light on the workings of American democracy. Larry Bartels shows that increasing inequality is not simply the result of economic forces, but the product of broad-reaching policy choices in a political system dominated by partisan ideologies and the interests of the wealthy.

Bartels demonstrates that elected officials respond to the views of affluent constituents but ignore the views of poor people. He shows that Republican presidents in particular have consistently produced much less income growth for middle-class and working-poor families than for affluent families, greatly increasing inequality. He provides revealing case studies of key policy shifts contributing to inequality, including the massive Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 and the erosion of the minimum wage. Finally, he challenges conventional explanations for why many voters seem to vote against their own economic interests, contending that working-class voters have not been lured into the Republican camp by "values issues" like abortion and gay marriage, as commonly believed, but that Republican presidents have been remarkably successful in timing income growth to cater to short-sighted voters.

Unequal Democracy is social science at its very best. It provides a deep and searching analysis of the political causes and consequences of America's growing income gap, and a sobering assessment of the capacity of the American political system to live up to its democratic ideals.

Social Problems

John J. Macionis

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Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Current Events -> Poverty -> Social Services & Welfare
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Sociology -> General
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Sociology -> Social Situations

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

Clear, compellling authors!! 5 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

I used this text for a course in "Social Problems in Human Relations." A quote from one of my students perhaps typifies all student reactions: "Reading Sociology books used to be murder, but this text is so readable, so compelling. What happened (for the better)?!"
As instructor, I appreciate the way the authors include not
only the theoretical paradigms to accompany each social
issue, but also the political perspectives -- all in reader
friendly ways.
Each chapter opens with a brief, real-life story, helping the reader to instantly connect with the so-called "sociological imagination" and begging the reader to read on.

Editorial Review:

Macionis's Social Problems is the only social problems text that explains how society frames social problems and solutions through politics. The text analyzes social issues and policies, using the concepts of sociological theory and the everyday language of politics.

This text helps students understand the attitudes and values that define the political spectrum in the United States. Once students know how social problems are defined by our society through politics, and how the policies to solve these problems are developed, students are able to become involved in solving social problems through activism and political involvement.

China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power

Rob Gifford

Amazon Price: $11.56 List Price: $17.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Random House Trade Paperbacks Amazon Marketplace: 34 new & used starting at $9.93

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Economics -> Economic Conditions
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Economics -> International
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> General

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Total reviews: 56 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Route 312 is the Chinese Route 66. It flows three thousand miles from east to west, passing through the factory towns of the coastal areas, through the rural heart of China, then up into the Gobi Desert, where it merges with the Old Silk Road. The highway witnesses every part of the social and economic revolution that is turning China upside down.

In this utterly surprising and deeply personal book, acclaimed National Public Radio reporter Rob Gifford, a fluent Mandarin speaker, takes the dramatic journey along Route 312 from its start in the boomtown of Shanghai to its end on the border with Kazakhstan. Gifford reveals the rich mosaic of modern Chinese life in all its contradictions, as he poses the crucial questions that all of us are asking about China: Will it really be the next global superpower? Is it as solid and as powerful as it looks from the outside? And who are the ordinary Chinese people, to whom the twenty-first century is supposed to belong?

Gifford is not alone on his journey. The largest migration in human history is taking place along highways such as Route 312, as tens of millions of people leave their homes in search of work. He sees signs of the booming urban economy everywhere, but he also uncovers many of the country’s frailties, and some of the deep-seated problems that could derail China’s rise.

The whole compelling adventure is told through the cast of colorful characters Gifford meets: garrulous talk-show hosts and ambitious yuppies, impoverished peasants and tragic prostitutes, cell-phone salesmen, AIDS patients, and Tibetan monks. He rides with members of a Shanghai jeep club, hitchhikes across the Gobi desert, and sings karaoke with migrant workers at truck stops along the way.

As he recounts his travels along Route 312, Rob Gifford gives a face to what has historically, for Westerners, been a faceless country and breathes life into a nation that is so often reduced to economic statistics. Finally, he sounds a warning that all is not well in the Chinese heartlands, that serious problems lie ahead, and that the future of the West has become inextricably linked with the fate of 1.3 billion Chinese people.

“Informative, delightful, and powerfully moving . . . Rob Gifford’s acute powers of observation, his sense of humor and adventure, and his determination to explore the wrenching dilemmas of China’s explosive development open readers’ eyes and reward their minds.”
–Robert A. Kapp, president, U.S.-China Business Council, 1994-2004


From the Hardcover edition.

People Skills: How to Assert Yourself, Listen to Others, and Resolve Conflicts

Robert Bolton

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Skills -> Communications
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Industries & Professions -> Human Resources & Personnel Management
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Small Business & Entrepreneurship -> Entrepreneurship

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 40 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

A wall of silent resentment shuts you off from someone you love....You listen to an argument in which neither party seems to hear the other....Your mind drifts to other matters when people talk to you....

People Skills is a communication-skills handbook that can help you eliminate these and other communication problems. Author Robert Bolton describes the twelve most common communication barriers, showing how these "roadblocks" damage relationships by increasing defensiveness, aggressiveness, or dependency. He explains how to acquire the ability to listen, assert yourself, resolve conflicts, and work out problems with others. These are skills that will help you communicate calmly, even in stressful emotionally charged situations.

People Skills will show you

* How to get your needs met using simple assertion techniques

* How body language often speaks louder than words

* How to use silence as a valuable communication tool

* How to de-escalate family disputes, lovers' quarrels, and other heated arguments

Both thought-provoking and practical, People Skills is filled with workable ideas that you can use to improve your communication in meaningful ways, every day.

Social Problems (11th Edition)

D. Stanley Eitzen, Maxine Baca Zinn, Kelly E. Eitzen Smith

Amazon Price: $83.09 List Price: $92.33 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Allyn & Bacon Amazon Marketplace: 33 new & used starting at $72.71

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Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> General
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Sociology -> General
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Sociology -> Social Situations

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Rich with special feature sections and boxes, this broad, theoretically balanced introduction to contemporary social problems provides readers with a thorough understanding of major social problems facing the United States—their causes, consequences, likely future course, and what can be done about them. It provides the basic data and the sociological frameworks for interpreting those data. Features Social Maps and a variety of boxes: Technology and Social Problems; A Global Glimpse; Divided Society; Thinking Critically About Social Problems; and Issues in Social Problems. Covers a full range of social problems and how sociologists view and interpret them: Aging; Prostitution, Homosexuality, and Pornography; Alcohol and Other Drugs; Rape and Murder; Crime and Criminal Justice; Wealth and Poverty; Race and Ethnic Relations; Sex Discrimination; Problems of Physical and Mental Illness; Education; The Changing Family; Urban Problems; Population and Food; The Environmental Crisis; and War, Terrorism, and the Balance of Power. For anyone interested in acquiring a solid foundation in the kinds, causes, consequences, and solutions to a broad range of some of today's most pressing social problems.