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Projectification of Organizations, Governance and Societies: Theoretical Perspectives and Empirical Implications
by Mats Fred Sebastian GodenhjelmThis book is about projectification – a concept that captures the increasing reliance on “the project” in contemporary societies, governance and economies. Despite its significance, this development and transformation, not only of public and private organizations but also our working environment and way of living, has received little scholarly attention compared to other major societal movements. Since its conceptualization in 1995 the phenomena of projectification has grown in scope, and researchers beyond management and organization studies have argued for and applied a broader and critical perspective to what projects are and how we are to understand the term. This volume gathers researchers who critically examine the function and effects of “the project”, and analyzes the logic, politics, discursive practices and contexts of projectification. The book consolidates this research field by illustrating theoretical perspectives on, and empirical implications of, projectification. It also highlights the need for more research, and provides encouragements for other disciplines to scrutinize this phenomenon from other perspectives.
The Projectification of the Public Sector (Routledge Critical Studies in Public Management)
by Damian Hodgson Mats Fred Simon Bailey Patrik HallIn recent decades, we have witnessed an increasing use of projects and similar temporary modes of organising in the public sector of nations in Europe and around the world. While for some this is a welcome development which unlocks entrepreneurial zeal and renders public services more flexible and accountable, others argue that this seeks to depoliticise policy initiatives, rendering them increasingly technocratic, and that the project organisations formed in this process offer fragmented and unsustainable short-term solutions to long-term problems. This volume sets out to address public sector projectification by drawing together research from a range of academic fields to develop a critical and theoretically-informed understanding of the causes, nature, and consequences of the projectification of the public sector. This book includes 13 chapters and is organised into three parts. The first part centres on the politics of projectification, specifically the role of projects in de-politicisation, often accomplished by rendering the political “technical”. The chapters in the second part all relate to the reframing of the relationship between the centre and periphery, or between policy making and implementation, and the role of temporality in reshaping this relation. The third and final part brings a focus upon the tools, techniques, and agents through which public sector projectification is assembled, constructed, and performed.
Projecting Canada
by Zoë DruickBased on newly uncovered archival information and a close reading of numerous NFB films, Projecting Canada explores the NFB's involvement with British Empire communication theory and American social science. Using a critical cultural policy studies framework, Druick develops the concept of "government realism" to describe films featuring ordinary people as representative of segments of the population. She demonstrates the close connection between NFB production policies and shifting techniques developed in relation to the evolution of social science from the 1940s to the present and argues that government policy has been the overriding factor in determining the ideology of NFB films. Projecting Canada offers a compelling new perspective on both the development of the documentary form and the role of cultural policy in creating essential spaces for aesthetic production.
Projecting Canada: Government Policy and Documentary Film at the National Film Board (Arts Insights Series #1)
by Zoë DruickBased on newly uncovered archival information and a close reading of numerous NFB films, Projecting Canada explores the NFB's involvement with British Empire communication theory and American social science. Using a critical cultural policy studies framework, Druick develops the concept of "government realism" to describe films featuring ordinary people as representative of segments of the population. She demonstrates the close connection between NFB production policies and shifting techniques developed in relation to the evolution of social science from the 1940s to the present and argues that government policy has been the overriding factor in determining the ideology of NFB films. Projecting Canada offers a compelling new perspective on both the development of the documentary form and the role of cultural policy in creating essential spaces for aesthetic production.
Projecting Resilience Across the Mediterranean
by Eugenio Cusumano Stefan HofmaierThis book examines the strategies pursued by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU) to foster resilience in the Middle East, Maghreb and Sahel regions, ranging from military operations to humanitarian assistance. Thanks to its constructive ambiguity, resilience can bring together policy communities and connect sponsors of reform with local societies, but also bridge rifts between and within the EU and NATO. However, existing resilience-based policies are fraught with policy, theoretical and normative dilemmas. This volume examines these dilemmas by including international relations, European politics and area studies scholars, as well as practitioners from armed forces, international organisations, humanitarian NGOs and think tanks.
Projecting the Nation: History and Ideology on the Israeli Screen
by Eran KaplanProjecting the Nation: History and Ideology on the Israeli Screen is a wide-ranging history of over seven decades of Israeli cinema. The only book in English to offer this type of historical scope was Ella Shohat’s Israeli Cinema: East West and the Politics of Representation from 1989. Since 1989, however, Israeli cinema and Israeli society have undergone some crucial transformations and, moreover, Shohat’s book offered a single framework through which to judge Israeli cinema: a critique of orientalism. Projecting the Nation contends that Israeli cinema offers much richer historical and ideological perspectives that expose the complexity of the Israeli project. By analyzing Israeli films which address such issues as the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Ashkenazi-Mizrahi divide, the kibbutz and urban life, the rise of religion in Israeli public life and more, the book explores the way cinema has represented and also shaped our understanding of the history of modern Israel as it evolved from a collectivist society to a society where individualism and adherence to local identities is the dominant ideology.
Projections of Power: Framing News, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy
by Robert M. EntmanTo succeed in foreign policy, U.S. presidents have to sell their versions or framings of political events to the news media and to the public. But since the end of the Cold War, journalists have increasingly resisted presidential views, even offering their own spin on events. What, then, determines whether the media will accept or reject the White House perspective? And what consequences does this new media environment have for policymaking and public opinion? To answer these questions, Robert M. Entman develops a powerful new model of how media framing works -- a model that allows him to explain why the media cheered American victories over small-time dictators in Grenada and Panama but barely noticed the success of far more difficult missions in Haiti and Kosovo. Discussing the practical implications of his model, Entman also suggests ways to more effectively encourage the exchange of ideas between the government and the media and between the media and the public. His book will be an essential guide for political scientists, students of the media, and anyone interested in the increasingly influential role of the media in foreign policy.
Projections of Power: The United States and Europe in Colonial Southeast Asia, 1919-1941
by Anne L. FosterThroughout its history, the United States has been both imperialistic and anticolonial: imperialistic in its expansion across the continent and across oceans to colonies such as the Philippines, and anticolonial in its rhetoric and ideology. How did this contradiction shape its interactions with European colonists and Southeast Asians after the United States joined the ranks of colonial powers in 1898? Anne L. Foster argues that the actions of the United States functioned primarily to uphold, and even strengthen, the colonial order in Southeast Asia. The United States participated in international agreements to track and suppress the region’s communists and radical nationalists, and in economic agreements benefiting the colonial powers. Yet the American presence did not always serve colonial ends; American cultural products (including movies and consumer goods) and its economic practices (such as encouraging indigenous entrepreneurship) were appropriated by Southeast Asians for their own purposes. Scholars have rarely explored the interactions among the European colonies of Southeast Asia in the early twentieth century. Foster is the first to incorporate the United States into such an analysis. As she demonstrates, the presence of the United States as a colonial power in Southeast Asia after the First World War helps to explain the resiliency of colonialism in the region. It also highlights the inexorable and appealing changes that Southeast Asians perceived as possibilities for the region’s future.
The Projects
by James Diego VigilThe Pico Gardens housing development in East Los Angeles has a high percentage of resident families with a history of persistent poverty, gang involvement, and crime. In some families, members of three generations have belonged to gangs. Many other Pico Gardens families, however, have managed to avoid the cycle of gang involvement. In this work, Vigil adds to the tradition of poverty research and elaborates on the association of family dynamics and gang membership. The main objective of his research was to discover what factors make some families more vulnerable to gang membership, and why gang resistance was evidenced in similarly situated non-gang-involved families. Providing rich, in-depth interviews and observations, Vigil examines the wide variations in income and social capital that exist among the ostensibly poor, mostly Mexican American residents. Vigil documents how families connect and interact with social agencies in greater East Los Angeles to help chart the routines and rhythms of the lives of public housing residents. He presents family life histories to augment and provide texture to the quantitative information. By studying life in Pico Gardens, Vigil feels we can better understand how human agency interacts with structural factors to produce the reality that families living in all public housing developments must contend with daily.
Proletarian China: A Century of Chinese Labour
by Ivan Franceschini Christian SoraceA century of complex relations between Communists and workers in ChinaIn 2021, the Chinese Communist Party celebrated a century of existence. Since the Party&’s humble beginnings in the Marxist groups of the Republican era to its current global ambitions, one thing has not changed for China&’s leaders: their claim to represent the vanguard of the Chinese working class. Spanning from the night classes for workers organised by student activists in Beijing in the 1910s to the labour struggles during the 1920s and 1930s; from the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution to the social convulsions of the reform era to China&’s global push today, this book reconstructs the contentious history of labour in China from the early twentieth century to this day (and beyond). This will be achieved through a series of essays penned by scholars in the field of Chinese society, politics, and culture, each one of which will revolve around a specific historical event, in a mosaic of different voices, perspectives, and interpretations of what constituted the experience of being a worker in China in the past century.Contributors: Corey Byrnes, Craig A. Smith, Xu Guoqi, Zhou Ruixue, Lin Chun, Elizabeth J. Perry, Tony Saich, Wang Kan, Gail Hershatter, Apo Leong, S.A. Smith, Alexander F. Day, Yige Dong, Seung-Joon Lee, Lu Yan, Joshua Howard, Bo Ærenlund Sørensen, Brian DeMare, Emily Honig, Po-chien Chen, Yi-hung Liu, Jake Werner, Malcolm Thompson, Robert Cliver, Mark W. Frazier, John Williams, Christian Sorace, Zhu Ruiyi, Ivan Franceschini, Chen Feng, Ben Kindler, Jane Hayward, Tim Wright, Koji Hirata, Jacob Eyferth, Aminda Smith, Fabio Lanza, Ralph Litzinger, J onathan Unger, Covell F. Meyskens, Maggie Clinton, Patricia M. Thornton, Ray Yep, Andrea Piazzaroli Longobardi, Joel Andreas, Matt Galway, Michel Bonnin, A.C. Baecker, Mary Ann O&’Donnell, Tiantian Zheng, Jeanne L. Wilson, Ming-sho Ho, Yueran Zhang, Anita Chan, Sarah Biddulph, Jude Howell, William Hurst, Dorothy J. Solinger, Ching Kwan Lee, Chloé Froissart, Mary Gallagher, Eric Florence, Junxi Qian, Chris King-chi Chan, Elaine Sio-Ieng Hui, Jenny Chan, Eli Friedman, Aaron Halegua, Wanning Sun, Marc Blecher, Huang Yu, Manfred Elfstrom, Darren Byler, Carlos Rojas, Chen Qiufan.
The Proletarian Gamble: Korean Workers in Interwar Japan
by Ken C. KawashimaKoreans constituted the largest colonial labor force in imperial Japan during the 1920s and 1930s. Caught between the Scylla of agricultural destitution in Korea and the Charybdis of industrial depression in Japan, migrant Korean peasants arrived on Japanese soil amid extreme instability in the labor and housing markets. In The Proletarian Gamble, Ken C. Kawashima maintains that contingent labor is a defining characteristic of capitalist commodity economies. He scrutinizes how the labor power of Korean workers in Japan was commodified, and how these workers both fought against the racist and contingent conditions of exchange and combated institutionalized racism. Kawashima draws on previously unseen archival materials from interwar Japan as he describes how Korean migrants struggled against various recruitment practices, unfair and discriminatory wages, sudden firings, racist housing practices, and excessive bureaucratic red tape. Demonstrating that there was no single Korean "minority," he reveals how Koreans exploited fellow Koreans and how the stratification of their communities worked to the advantage of state and capital. However, Kawashima also describes how, when migrant workers did organize--as when they became involved in Rōsō (the largest Korean communist labor union in Japan) and in Zenkyō (the Japanese communist labor union)--their diverse struggles were united toward a common goal. In The Proletarian Gamble, his analysis of the Korean migrant workers' experiences opens into a much broader rethinking of the fundamental nature of capitalist commodity economies and the analytical categories of the proletariat, surplus populations, commodification, and state power.
“Proletarian Hegemony” in the Chinese Revolution and the Canton Commune of 1927 (Michigan Monographs In Chinese Studies #23)
by S. Bernard ThomasThe Communist aim of proletarian hegemony in the Chinese revolution was given concrete expression through the Canton Commune—reflected in the policies and strategies that led to the uprising, in the makeup and program of the Soviet setup in Canton, and in the subsequent assessment of the revolt by the Comintern and the Chinese Communist Party. “Proletarian Hegemony” in the Chinese Revolution and the Canton Commune of 1927 describes these developments and, with the further ideological treatment given the Commune serving as a backdrop, will then examine the continuing evolution and ultimate transformation of the proletarian line and the concept of proletarian leadership in the post-1927 history of Chinese Communism. [3]
Proletarian Nights
by Jacques RanciereProletarian Nights, previously published in English as Nights of Labor and one of Rancière's most important works, dramatically reinterprets the Revolution of 1830, contending that workers were not rebelling against specific hardships and conditions but against the unyielding predetermination of their lives. Through a study of worker-run newspapers, letters, journals, and worker-poetry, Rancière reveals the contradictory and conflicting stories that challenge the coherence of these statements celebrating labor.This updated edition includes a new preface by the author, revisiting the work twenty years since its first publication in France.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Proletarian Power: Shanghai In The Cultural Revolution
by Elizabeth PerryThis pathbreaking book offers the first in-depth study of Chinese labor activism during the momentous upheaval of the Cultural Revolution. Arguing that labor was working at cross purposes, the authors explore three distinctive and different forms of working-class protest: rebellion, conservatism, and economism. Drawing upon a wealth of heretofore inaccessible archival sources, the authors probe the divergent political, psychocultural, and socioeconomic strains within the Shanghai labor movement, convincingly illustrating the complexity of working-class politics in contemporary China. }This pathbreaking book offers the first in-depth study of Chinese labor activism during the momentous upheaval of the Cultural Revolution. The authors explore three distinctive forms of working-class protest: rebellion, conservatism, and economism. Labor, they argue, was working at cross-purposes through these three modes of militancy promoted by different types of leaders with differing agendas and motivations. Drawing upon a wealth of heretofore inaccessible archival sources, the authors probe the divergent political, psychocultural, and socioeconomic strains within the Shanghai labor movement. As they convincingly illustrate, the multiplicity of worker responses to the Cultural Revolution cautions against a one-dimensional portrait of working-class politics in contemporary China. }
The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky
by V. I. LeninKautsky's pamphlet, The Dictatorship of the Proletariat, recently published in Vienna is a most lucid example of that utter and ignominious bankruptcy of the Second International about which all honest Socialists in all countries have been talking for a long time. The proletarian revolution is now becoming a practical issue in a number of countries, and an examination of Kautsky's renegade sophistries and complete renunciation of Marxism is therefore essential.
Proliferation Concerns: Assessing U.S. Efforts to Help Contain Nuclear and Other Dangerous Materials and Technologies in the Former Soviet Union
by National Research Council StaffThe successor states of the former Soviet Union have enormous stocks of weapons-usable nuclear material and other militarily significant commodities and technologies. Preventing the flow of such items to countries of proliferation concern and to terrorist groups is a major objective of U.S. national security policy. This book reviews the effectiveness of two U.S. programs directed to this objective. These programs have supported the efforts of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakstan in upgrading the physical protection, control, and accountability of highly enriched uranium and plutonium and strengthening systems to control the export of many types of militarily sensitive items.
The Proliferation of Privileged Partnerships between the European Union and its Neighbours
by Sieglinde Gstöhl David PhinnemoreThis edited volume provides a timely analysis of the European Union’s ‘privileged’ partnerships with neighbouring countries, identifying key points of comparison. It analyses which policy areas are covered and why, the reasons why a specific institutional arrangement has been chosen, the major advantages and shortcomings for both sides and how effectively the privileged partnerships have worked in practice. Drawing on a number of case studies, the book highlights critical junctures and path dependence in the EU’s external relations and examines what general lessons can be drawn regarding privileged partnerships, in particular with a view to the UK’s post-Brexit relationship with the EU. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners in EU affairs, European politics, diplomacy studies, and more broadly to international relations and law.
Proliferation of Weapons- and Dual-Use Technologies: Diplomatic, Information, Military, and Economic Approaches (Advanced Sciences and Technologies for Security Applications)
by Margaret E. KosalThis book explores and analyzes the rapid pace of technological evolution in diplomatic, information, military, and economic sectors, which has contributed to a dynamic international policy environment. Global political stability is greatly influenced by innovations originating from numerous sources, including university labs, the technology sector, and military research. Collectively, these innovations guide the movement of people, ideas, and technology that in turn affect the international balance of power. The objective of this volume is to develop new insights into how the proliferation of innovative ideas, low-cost weapons, and dual-use technologies impact the changing global security landscape. Innovative and dual-use technologies can be used for beneficial purposes or defensive purposes. Alternatively they may be appropriated or employed for nefarious purposes by hostile military powers and non-state actors alike. Such actions can threaten global security and stability. As the complexity of technological innovations continues to increase, existing control mechanisms such as international regulations and security arrangements may be insufficient to stem the tide of proliferation over time. As such, this works seeks to assess and present policy solutions to curtail the threat to global stability posed by the proliferation of weapons and dual-use technology.
The Proliferation Puzzle: Why Nuclear Weapons Spread (and What Results) (Routledge Library Editions: Nuclear Security)
by Zachary S. Davis; Benjamin FrankelOriginally published in 1993, this volume was unique in its scope and approach: Unlike most literature on nuclear weapons proliferation at the time, the essays in this volume offer theoretical discussions and suggest testable hypotheses about the causes and effects of nuclear weapons proliferation. The proliferation of nuclear weapons is an ideal subject for social science scholarship, and such scholarship is especially timely now. Among the topics discussed in The Proliferation Puzzle are: The building of nuclear weapons is a complex task touching upon many of the subjects of study at the core of social science and international relations. Nuclear weapons may be acquired as a hedge against external threat, for reasons of national prestige, or as a result of pressures by domestic coalitions among scientists, bureaucrats, and the military. They may be sought for defensive purposes or to support hegemonic aspirations. Nuclear weapons also raise questions about civilian command and control, especially in crisis situations. During the last two decades the acquisition of nuclear weapons has been proscribed by the non-proliferation regime. The decisions countries made about acquiring these weapons and the manner they chose to build them serve as a test of the efficacy of this particular regime, and of international regimes more generally. Nuclear weapons were introduced at the time bipolarity became the international order. As the world moves away from bipolarity, there is a need to answer questions such as: What would be the effect of nuclear weapons in a multipolar order? How will the spread of nuclear weapons affect the distribution of capabilities among states? If nuclear weapons spread to additional countries, will they enhance stability or exacerbate instability? Can the spread of these weapons be managed or controlled? This book brings together scholars from different schools within international relations and the social sciences to address the question of why nuclear weapons spread. A disciplined, rigorous examination of proliferation is important not only for scholarship but also for informed policymaking. The purpose of social science is to formulate hypotheses and devise theories that advance our understanding of society and aid in the fashioning of enlightened policy. The essays in this volume show how explicit hypotheses about the causes and consequences of nuclear weapons proliferation provide a deeper understanding of the problem and suggest specific, theory-informed policy recommendations.
Prologue to a Farce: Communication and Democracy in America
by Mark LloydInspired by Madison's observation, Mark Lloyd has crafted a complex and powerful assessment of the relationship between communications and democracy in the United States. In Prologue to a Farce, he argues that citizens' political capabilities depend on broad public access to media technologies, but that the U.S. communications environment has become unfairly dominated by corporate interests. Drawing on a wealth of historical sources, Lloyd demonstrates that despite the persistent hope that a new technology (from the telegraph to the Internet) will rise to serve the needs of the republic, none have solved the fundamental problems created by corporate domination. After examining failed alternatives to the strong publicly-owned communications model, such as anti-trust regulation, the public trustee rules of the Federal Communications Commission, and the under-funded public broadcasting service, Lloyd argues that we must recreate a modern version of the Founder's communications environment, and offers concrete strategies aimed at empowering citizens.
Prologue to Conflict: The Crisis & Compromise of 1850
by Holman HamiltonThis account of the failed Compromise of 1850 a decade before the Civil War “has all the suspense of a novel . . . incisive and provocative” (The Journal of American History).In 1850, America was expanding rapidly westward as countless citizens went in search of land, opportunity—and, thanks to the gold rush in California, fortune. With settlements growing into towns and towns growing into cities, there was an urgent need for state and local government.But the simmering tension over slavery that existed between North and South would boil over as the effort to draw boundaries and establish civil administration proceeded. The slave states were concerned about the delicate balance of power tipping in the North’s favor, while the free states were wary about an expansion of slavery. The debate in the United States Senate lasted for months, and the nation waited anxiously for a resolution. This book tells the story of these events and analyzes their political complexities—and how they served as a dramatic prologue to the civil war that would erupt a decade later.
Prometeo americano: El triunfo y la tragedia de J. Robert Oppenheimer
by Kai Bird Martin J. SherwinPremio Pulitzer 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award 2005 Duff Cooper Prize 2008 La biografía definitiva de Oppenheimer, el padre de la bomba atómica y una de las figuras más emblemáticas del siglo XX. El 16 de julio de 1945, en el desierto de Nuevo México, se detonaba en secreto la primera bomba atómica. Impactado por el poder destructivo de su creación, J. Robert Oppenheimer, director del Proyecto Manhattan, se comprometería desde entonces a luchar contra el desarrollo de la bomba de hidrógeno y contra la guerra nuclear. Sospechoso de comunista para los Estados Unidos de la era McCarthy, fue perseguido por el FBI, calumniado como espía de la Unión Soviética y obligado a dimitir de cualquier función pública. Su vida privada fue arrastrada del mismo modo hacia el esperpento; su casa fue allanada con micrófonos ocultos, y su teléfono, intervenido. No sería hasta 1963 que el presidente Kennedy lo rehabilitaría y, con ello, su figura obtendría otro cariz para los ciudadanos del mundo entero. Treinta años de entrevistas a familiares, amigos y colegas; de búsqueda en archivos del FBI; de análisis de las cintas con discursos e interrogatorios, y de hallazgos de documentos privados del físico nuclear dieron como resultado este monumental libro. Una biografía de una enorme minuciosidad que ofrece una visión íntima del científico más famoso de su generación; una de las figuras icónicas del siglo xx para quien el triunfo y la tragedia se unieron en un nudo gordiano. Críticas:«Se lee como un thriller, cautivador y aterrador por momentos. Sospecho que este año no aparecerá una biografía más absorbente ni, dados los peligros a los que nos enfrentamos, más importante que esta».John Carey, Sunday Times «La biografía definitiva [...] La vida de Oppenheimer no nos influye; nos persigue».Newsweek «Todas las obras anteriores sobre este tema quedan, por decirlo de la manera más amable, despedazadas, frente a este libro que es metafórica y literalmente monumental».Mark Lawson, Esquire «Esta imponente biografía, resultado de veinticinco años de investigación, reevalúa la figura de Oppenheimer, y ofrece uno de los retratos más complejos del físico hasta la fecha».The New Yorker «Un libro esencial».Time «Una obra de voluminosa erudición y lúcida perspicacia que une el retrato del multifacético Oppenheimer con la aguda comprensión de su naturaleza».The New York Times «Un relato magistral del ascenso y la caída de Oppenheimer, situado en el contexto de las turbulentas décadas de la transformación de Estados Unidos. Es un tour de force».Los Angeles Times Book Review «La primera biografía que da cuenta de la extraordinaria complejidad de Oppenheimer. Se erige como un Everest entre las montañas de libros sobre el proyecto de la bomba atómica y Oppenheimer, y es un logro que tal vez no será superado ni igualado».The Boston Globe «Excepcional y documentada con exhaustividad. Kai Bird y Martin Sherwin no solo explican la deslumbrante, emblemática y denigrante carrera de Oppenheimer, sino que también iluminan las tensiones de la cultura estadounidense que conformaron las nociones actuales de liberalismo y reacción».The Atlantic Journal
The Prometheus Man
by Scott ReardonA man with no identity... hunting a man without limits. When a pile of bodies is found in Paris, CIA Agent Tom Blake hustles his way onto a major case: tracking a man with enhanced abilities, the test subject of a secret government program. There's just one problem: the man using Agent Blake's identity is not Agent Blake. He's Tom Reese, a man without a family or a home. Reese is searching for his brother's killer. He stole Agent Blake's identity two months ago and has bluffed his way onto the team investigating his only lead. But his time as a CIA agent is accelerating toward its expiration date.Soon the CIA will find out that Agent Blake is in two places at once. Soon the augmented man will come looking for him. And soon both will discover that Tom Reese carries a secret even he doesn't know about. He is the last test subject of Project Prometheus.
Prometheus Reimagined: Technology, Environment, and Law in the Twenty-first Century
by Albert C. LinTechnologies such as synthetic biology, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and geoengineering promise to address many of our most serious problems, yet they also bring environmental and health-related risks and uncertainties. Moreover, they can come to dominate global production systems and markets with very little public input or awareness. Existing governance institutions and processes do not adequately address the risks of new technologies, nor do they give much consideration to the concerns of persons affected by them. Instead of treating technology, health, and the environment as discrete issues, Albert C. Lin argues that laws must acknowledge their fundamental relationship, anticipating both future technological developments and their potential adverse effects. Laws should encourage international cooperation and the development of common global standards, while allowing for flexibility and reassessment.
The Promise
by Jonathan AlterBarack Obama's inauguration as president on January 20, 2009, inspired the world. But the great promise of "Change We Can Believe In" was immediately tested by the threat of another Great Depression, a worsening war in Afghanistan, and an entrenched and deeply partisan system of business as usual in Washington. Despite all the coverage, the backstory of Obama's historic first year in office has until now remained a mystery. In The Promise: President Obama, Year One, Jonathan Alter, one of the country's most respected journalists and historians, uses his unique access to the White House to produce the first inside look at Obama's difficult debut. What happened in 2009 inside the Oval Office? What worked and what failed? What is the president really like on the job and off-hours, using what his best friend called "a Rubik's Cube in his brain"? These questions are answered here for the first time. We see how a surprisingly cunning Obama took effective charge in Washington several weeks before his election, made trillion-dollar decisions on the stimulus and budget before he was inaugurated, engineered colossally unpopular bailouts of the banking and auto sectors, and escalated a treacherous war not long after settling into office. The Promise is a fast-paced and incisive narrative of a young risk-taking president carving his own path amid sky-high expectations and surging joblessness. Alter reveals that it was Obama alone--"feeling lucky"--who insisted on pushing major health care reform over the objections of his vice president and top advisors, including his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who admitted that "I begged him not to do this." Alter takes the reader inside the room as Obama prevents a fistfight involving a congressman, coldly reprimands the military brass for insubordination, crashes the key meeting at the Copenhagen Climate Change conference, and realizes that a Senate candidate's gaffe about baseball in a Massachusetts special election will dash the big dream of his first year.In Alter's telling, the real Obama is an authentic, demanding, unsentimental, and sometimes overconfident leader. He adapted to the presidency with ease and put more "points on the board" than he is given credit for, but neglected to use his leverage over the banks and failed to connect well with an angry public. We see the famously calm president cursing leaks, playfully trash-talking his advisors, and joking about even the most taboo subjects, still intent on redeeming more of his promise as the problems mount. This brilliant blend of journalism and history offers the freshest reporting and most acute perspective on the biggest story of our time. It will shape impressions of the Obama presidency and of the man himself for years to come.