- Table View
- List View
Random Acts of Kindness: Eccentric, Quirky and Occasionally Suicidal Examples of Selflessness and Courtesy
by Andrew TaylorDrawn from many sources, this engaging collection demonstrates that courteous behaviour transcends all barriers, from gender and wealth to age and class - here are noble acts by footballers and fashionistas, television personalities and teenagers, great commanders and humble private soldiers, society ladies and modest housewives, elderly philosophers and very young children. It includes Alexander the Great, Marie Antoinette, the Duke of Wellington, Evelyn Waugh, Winston Churchill, Sammy Davis Junior and Colonel Tim Collins.Often amusing, sometimes moving, occasionally astounding and always fascinating, How to Be Kind is both a marvellous read and a tribute to the finest, albeit often overlooked, qualities of humankind.
The Random Factor: How Chance and Luck Profoundly Shape Our Lives and the World around Us
by Prof. Mark Robert RankUpending notions of predictability and rugged individualism to reveal how truly random the world is. It’s comforting to think that we can be successful because we work hard, climb ladders, and get what we deserve, but each of us has been profoundly touched by randomness. Chance is shown to play a crucial role in shaping outcomes across history, throughout the natural world, and in our everyday lives. In The Random Factor, Mark Robert Rank draws from a wealth of evidence, including interviews and research, to explain how luck and chance play out and reveals how we can use these lessons to guide our personal lives and public policies. The Random Factor traverses luck from macro to micro, from events like the Cuban Missile Crisis to our personal encounters and relationships. From his perspective as a scholar of poverty, Rank also delves into the class and race dynamics of chance, emphasizing the stark disparities it brings to light. This transformative book prompts a new understanding of the twists and turns in our daily lives and encourages readers to fully appreciate the surprising world of randomness in which we live.
Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx
by Adrian Nicole Leblanc<P>Random Family tells the American outlaw saga lurking behind the headlines of gangsta glamour, gold-drenched drug dealers, and street-corner society. <P>With an immediacy made possible only after ten years of reporting, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc immerses the reader in the mind-boggling intricacies of the little-known ghetto world. She charts the tumultuous cycle of the generations, as girls become mothers, mothers become grandmothers, boys become criminals, and hope struggles against deprivation. <P>Two romances thread through Random Family: the sexually charismatic nineteen-year-old Jessica's dizzying infatuation with a hugely successful young heroin dealer, Boy George, and fourteen-year-old Coco's first love with Jessica's little brother, Cesar, an aspiring thug. <P>Fleeing from family problems, the young couples try to outrun their destinies. Chauffeurs whisk them to getaways in the Poconos and to nightclubs. They cruise the streets in Lamborghinis and customized James Bond cars. <P>Jessica and Boy George ride the wild adventure between riches and ruin, while Coco and Cesar stick closer to the street, all four caught in a precarious dance between life and death. <P>Friends get murdered; the DEA and FBI investigate Boy George's business activities; Cesar becomes a fugitive; Jessica and Coco endure homelessness, betrayal, the heartbreaking separation of prison, and throughout it all, the insidious damage of poverty. <P>Together, then apart, the teenagers make family where they find it. Girls look for excitement and find trouble; boys, searching for adventure, join crews and prison gangs. Coco moves upstate to dodge the hazards of the Bronx; Jessica seeks solace in romance. Both find that love is the only place to go. <P>A gifted prose stylist and a profoundly compassionate observer, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc has slipped behind the cold statistics and sensationalism surrounding inner-city life and come back with a riveting, haunting, and true urban soap opera that reveals the clenched grip of the streets. <P>Random Family is a compulsive read and an important journalistic achievement, sure to take its place beside the classics of the genre.
Randomistas: How Radical Researchers Are Changing Our World
by Andrew LeighA fascinating account of how radical researchers have used experiments to overturn conventional wisdom and shaped life as we know itExperiments have consistently been used in the hard sciences, but in recent decades social scientists have adopted the practice. Randomized trials have been used to design policies to increase educational attainment, lower crime rates, elevate employment rates, and improve living standards among the poor.This book tells the stories of radical researchers who have used experiments to overturn conventional wisdom. From finding the cure for scurvy to discovering what policies really improve literacy rates, Leigh shows how randomistas have shaped life as we know it. Written in a &“Gladwell-esque&” style, this book provides a fascinating account of key randomized control trial studies from across the globe and the challenges that randomistas have faced in getting their studies accepted and their findings implemented. In telling these stories, Leigh draws out key lessons learned and shows the most effective way to conduct these trials.
Randomized Response and Related Methods: Surveying Sensitive Data (Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences #58)
by James Alan FoxRandomized response is a data collection strategy specifically designed for surveys of a sensitive nature. By establishing a probabilistic connection between question and answer, randomized response and related methods protect respondents who are asked to disclose personal information. Covering a half century of theoretical and applied research, the Second Edition of James Alan Fox’s Randomized Response and Related Methods significantly updates and expands what was, at the time, the first comprehensive and practical guide to randomized response.
Randomized Response and Related Methods: Surveying Sensitive Data (Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences #58)
by James Alan FoxRandomized response is a data collection strategy specifically designed for surveys of a sensitive nature. By establishing a probabilistic connection between question and answer, randomized response and related methods protect respondents who are asked to disclose personal information. Covering a half century of theoretical and applied research, the Second Edition of James Alan Fox’s Randomized Response and Related Methods significantly updates and expands what was, at the time, the first comprehensive and practical guide to randomized response.
Range Management In Arid Zones
by Samira A. S. Omar Mohammed A. Razzaque Fozia AlsdirawiFirst published in 1995. This title presents the proceedings of The Second International Conference on Range Management in the Arabian Gulf, 1990. The objectives of the Conference were to: evaluate progress made following the First Conference; exchange information on range management development; review advances in applicable technologies; discuss potential strategies for range enhancement and assemble pertinent recommendations for enactment. As such, these proceedings will serve as a reference base for researchers, professors, lecturers, and students alike, both at advanced undergraduate and graduate levels.
Rangeland Ecology And Management
by R. Dennis Child Harold HeadyOver the last two decades the science of range management, like many other resource disciplines, has embraced and integrated environmental concerns in the field, the laboratory, and policy. Rangeland Ecology and Management now brings this integrated approach to the classroom in a thoroughly researched, comprehensive, and readable text. The authors discuss the basics of rangeland management-including grazing and practical management of animals and vegetation-and place those basics within the context of decision making for damaged land, riparian and water conservation, multiple use, and modeling. Concepts such as succession, stability, and range condition are examined and their effects discussed. Fire is considered as an environmental factor. Appendixes provide scientific and common names of range plants and animals. These and many other issues crucial to the understanding of successful range management combine to make the finest text for upper-level undergraduates now available.
Rangeland Ecology And Management
by Harold HeadyThe science of range management, like many other resource disciplines, has embraced and integrated environmental concerns in the field, the laboratory, and policy. Rangeland Ecology and Management now brings this integrated approach to the classroom in a thoroughly researched, comprehensive, and readable text. The authors discuss the basics of ran
Rangeland Ecology And Management
by Harold Heady R. Dennis ChildThis revised and updated second edition of Rangeland Ecology and Management offers a new description of the world's rangelands. Several chapters on the effects of defoliation of land by animals have been updated. Heady and Child explain changes in plant succession, state-and-transition models, stability, and monitoring of range condition. The authors place emphasis on environmental concerns, repair of damaged land, riparian zone management, multiple uses, livestock grazing, and animal management. Revised vegetational management highlights wildlife habitat, seeding native species, use of fire as a management tool, and rehabilitation after wild fires.
Rangeland Ecology And Management
by Harold Heady R. Dennis ChildOver the last two decades the science of range management, like many other resource disciplines, has embraced and integrated environmental concerns in the field, the laboratory, and policy. Rangeland Ecology and Management now brings this integrated approach to the classroom in a thoroughly researched, comprehensive, and readable text. The authors discuss the basics of rangeland management-including grazing and practical management of animals and vegetation-and place those basics within the context of decision making for damaged land, riparian and water conservation, multiple use, and modeling. Concepts such as succession, stability, and range condition are examined and their effects discussed. Fire is considered as an environmental factor. Appendixes provide scientific and common names of range plants and animals. These and many other issues crucial to the understanding of successful range management combine to make the finest text for upper-level undergraduates now available.
Rangeland Stewardship in Central Asia
by Victor R. SquiresThis volume of 18 chapters is the work of more than 30 authors, many of whom are natives of the Central Asian region or are researchers who have dedicated a large part of their working lives to studying the development dynamics in this vast and fascinating region. The work focuses on the 20 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990. But it also traces the attitudes of land users to the land dating from before the late 19th century, when Russian conquest and colonization occurred, and through the upheavals caused by Soviet-style collectivization and sedentarization. The book is rich with new data presented in 68 easy to understand charts/graphs (many in color) and 50 Tables. Information was generated for this book by experts working in-country. It presents for the first time in English a digest of plethora of previously inaccessible Russian reports and scientific literature that will be invaluable for development agencies, including UN, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Islamic Bank as well as to students of this vast and fascinating region who seek up to date and authoritive information.
Ranger Games: A Story of Soldiers, Family and an Inexplicable Crime
by Ben BlumIn the tradition of Truman Capote and Jon Krakauer, a brilliant exploration of an inexplicable crime and its devastating consequences for the author's family.As a child Ben Blum was a math prodigy adrift in a family of alpha males, foremost among them his first cousin Alex, an immensely popular high school hockey star who had one unshakeable goal in life: endure a brutally difficult training course, become a U.S. Army Ranger and fight terrorists for his country. He succeeded, but on the last day of his leave before deployment, Alex got into his car with two fellow soldiers and two strangers, drove to a local bank in Tacoma and committed armed robbery. The question that haunted Ben, the entire Blum family and even Alex was: Why? Alex didn't need money--his family was well off. He had never had the slightest trouble with the law. He believed passionately in the Ranger's creed, which emphasized honour above all. At first, Alex insisted he thought the robbery was just another exercise in the famously daunting Ranger training program. His attorney presented a case based on the theory that the Ranger indoctrination mirrored that of a cult. Or was it the influence of the soldier who planned the robbery, Alex's superior, Luke Elliott Sommer, a charismatic combat veteran full of swagger and grandiose schemes? Facing his own personal crisis, and in the hopes of helping both Alex and his splintering family cope, Ben delved into these mysteries, growing closer to Alex in the process. As he probed further, he also came to know Sommer, whose manipulative tendencies, combined with a magnetic personality, lured Ben into a relationship that put his loyalties to the test. Intricate, heartrending and morally urgent, Ranger Games is a true crime story like no other. Ben's enormous compassion for his cousin deepens and complicates his search for the answers to profound questions of guilt and innocence, conformity and free will, truth and lies, right and wrong, and how far crisis can stretch the bonds of family.
Rangers And Sovereignty
by Dan W. RobertsA gripping slice of Americana, telling the exciting tale of Texas Ranger Daniel Webster Roberts' Ranger service. As Captain of Company D, this book details the social life of the rangers, their relations with frontier society, their food, dress, and entertainment."We set out in this writing to record the work of Company "D", Frontier Battalion, not for any selfish consideration. But, being almost importuned by our real friends to do so, we thought we could tell what we really know to be true in a way that might spin out a thread strong enough to bind together an intelligent idea of the needs of that service, how the service was performed, and at least a vision of the final disposition of the horrid Indian question. Our egotism doesn't lead us to say that Texas did it all; but our little part is richly treasured in the archives of our "native heath"--Texas. Our sorrows are there, also, in many a grave not even marked by human hands to show where our brave defenders met death--yielding the last sacrifice in defense of Texas."
Rank and Religion in Tikopia: A Study in Polynesian Paganism and Conversion to Christianity. (Routledge Revivals)
by Raymond FirthOriginally published in 1970, this book represents a unique study of beliefs and ritual practices in a pagan religion, and of the processes by which a transformation to Christianity took place. Christianity came to the major islands of Polynesia nearly two centuries ago, and within a couple of generations, the traditional pagan religion had disappeared. Only a few remote islands such as Tikopia preserved their ancient cults. Over eighty years ago, the author first observed and took part in these pagan rites, and on later visits he studied the change from paganism to Christian faith. Unique in its rich documentation, this book presents a systematic account of the traditional beliefs in gods and spirits and of the way in which these were fused with the social and political structure. The causes and dramatic results of the conversion to Christianity are then described, ending with an examination of the religious situation at the time of the book’s original publication. The book is both a contribution to anthropology and a case study in religious history. It completes the major series of studies of Tikopia society for which the author is famous. It gives the first full account of a Polynesian religious system in a state of change.
Rank Ladies
by M. Alison KiblerA disrobing acrobat, a female Hamlet, and a tuba-playing labor activist--all these women come to life in Rank Ladies. In this comprehensive study of women in vaudeville, Alison Kibler reveals how female performers, patrons, and workers shaped the rise and fall of the most popular live entertainment at the turn of the century.Kibler focuses on the role of gender in struggles over whether high or low culture would reign in vaudeville, examining women's performances and careers in vaudeville, their status in the expanding vaudeville audience, and their activity in the vaudevillians' labor union. Respectable women were a key to vaudeville's success, she says, as entrepreneurs drew women into audiences that had previously been dominated by working-class men and recruited female artists as performers. But although theater managers publicly celebrated the cultural uplift of vaudeville and its popularity among women, in reality their houses were often hostile both to female performers and to female patrons and home to women who challenged conventional understandings of respectable behavior. Once a sign of vaudeville's refinement, Kibler says, women became associated with the decay of vaudeville and were implicated in broader attacks on mass culture as well.
Ranna: Gadāyuddham – The Duel of the Maces
by R.V.S. Sundaram Ammel Sharon AkkamahadeviThe Gadāyuddham (The Duel of the Maces) is a kāvya (poetry) composed in classical Kannada literary style at the turn of the eleventh century. It is written in campū, a genre that developed in the tenth century as a mixture of poetry and prose. Ranna’s poem is remarkably dramatic in nature and is a meditation on the cost of war. Crisp dialogue, body gestures and imagery fill the poem. It is as if the poet were giving us directions for a play.Ranna employs ‘flashbacks’, a technique called simhāvalōkana, that is, a lion turning casually to glance behind him. Ranna builds up to the duel through characters recalling episodes of injury or through lamentation. The duel occupies only a short space in the eighth canto, but Ranna takes this time to fill in past episodes and reflect on the impact of war. This thousand-year-old poem will interest scholars as well as lay readers. Please note: This title is co-published with Manohar Publishers, New Delhi. Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka
Rap and Hip Hop Culture
by Fernando OrejuelaRap and Hip Hop Culture traces the ideological, social, historical, and cultural influences on a musical genre that first came to prominence in the mid-1970s in one of New York's toughest neighborhoods, the South Bronx. Orejuela describes how the arts of DJing, MCing, breakin' [b-boying], and graffiti developed as a way for this community's struggle to find its own voice. He addresses rap's early successes on the pop charts; its spread to mainstream culture; the growth of "gangsta rap" and mainstream society's reaction to it; and the commercial success of rap music from the '90s through today. Throughout, this enlightening text highlights key performers, producers, and voices in the rap and hip hop movements, using their stories to illuminate the underlying issues of racism, poverty, prejudice, and artistic freedom that are part of rap and hip hop's ongoing legacy.
Rap and Politics: A Case Study of Panther, Gangster, and Hyphy Discourses in Oakland, CA (1965-2010)
by Lavar PopeRap and Politics maps out fifty years of political and musical development by exploring three specific moments of local discourse, each a response to failures by local, state, and national governments to address police brutality, violence, poverty, and poor social conditions in Oakland, California and the surrounding Bay Area. First, in the mid-1960s, Black youth responded to repressive political and socioeconomic factors in West Oakland by founding the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, whose representation of violence and community aid, as well as its radical and militant approach to Black Nationalism, became a foundational discourse that shaped the development of rap music in the region. Second, from the collapse of the Party in the early 1980s through the 1990s, gangster rap emerged as a form of political expression among local youth, who drew heavily on radical and militant elements of Panther discourse in their lyrics and artwork. Third, hyphy music in the mid-1990s to early 2000s continued these radical discourses and also incorporated coordinated, subversive public behavior to the mix. The result was a critique of endemic problems facing the local Black community, but also an infectious subgenre of party music that gained mainstream popularity. Overall, this study shows that the specific types of representation created to resist problems of racism and poverty in Oakland is actually key to understanding other rap undergrounds, grassroots subcultures, and social movements elsewhere. In the process, Rap and Politics offers readers a new model focused on the development of settings, representation, movements, discourse banks, and impact within underground rap scenes.
Rap Dad: A Story of Family and the Subculture That Shaped a Generation
by Juan VidalA timely reflection on identity in America, exploring the intersection of fatherhood, race, and hip-hop culture.Just as his music career was taking off, Juan Vidal received life-changing news: he’d soon be a father. Throughout his life, neglectful men were the rule—his own dad struggled with drug addiction and infidelity—a cycle that, inevitably, wrought Vidal with insecurity. At age twenty-six, with only a bare grip on life, what lessons could he possibly offer a kid? Determined to alter the course for his child, Vidal did what he’d always done when confronted with life’s challenges. He turned to the counterculture. “The counterculture took the place of a father I could no longer touch. Since things like school and church couldn’t get through to me, I was being trained up outside of organized institutions. What I gravitated to were these movements that not only felt redeeming, but also freeing. They were almost everything I needed.” In Rap Dad, the musician-turned-journalist takes a thoughtful and inventive approach to exploring identity and examining how we view fatherhood in a modern context. To root out the source of his fears around parenting, Vidal revisits the flash points of his juvenescence, a feat that transports him, a first-generation American born to Colombian parents, back to the drug-fueled streets of 1980s–90s Miami. It’s during those pivotal years that he’s drawn to skateboarding, graffiti, and the music of rebellion: hip-hop. As he looks to the past for answers, he infuses his personal story with rap lyrics and interviews with some of pop culture’s most compelling voices—plenty of whom have proven to be some of society’s best, albeit nontraditional, dads. Along the way, Vidal confronts the unfair stereotypes that taint urban men—especially Black and Latino men—in today’s society. An illuminating journey of discovery, Rap Dad is a striking portrait of modern fatherhood that is as much political as it is entertaining, personal as it is representative, and challenging as it is revealing.
Rap Music and the Youth in Malawi: Reppin' the Flames (Pop Music, Culture and Identity)
by Ken Lipenga Jr.Rap Music and the Youth in Malawi is one of the first book-length studies of Malawian hip hop. It studies the language and content of contemporary Malawian hip hop as a window onto the country's youth culture as Malawian young people negotiate what scholar Alcinda Honwana calls 'waithood,' or the condition, common among Malawian youth, of lacking opportunities to advance from a situation of dependence and being stuck in a state of relative childhood. The book argues that rap music made by Malawian youth music speaks of – and represents, through its very agency – their need to break out of this stagnant state. After situating Malawian hip hop with respect to both other musical genres in the country and to the nation's language in culture, Rap Music and the Youth in Malawi shows how Malawian youth use rap music to create a sense of community, which then becomes a foothold from which they can do activities that get them out of waithood and into the adult world, such as getting involved in the music industry, realizing electoral power, or participating in activism about issues such as violence against people with albinism and the COVID-19 pandemic. Hip hop has been a crucial tool for Malawian youth to build the skills, identity, and agency necessary to exercise their economic, cultural, and civic independence.
Rapa Nui Theatre: Staging Indigenous Identities in Easter Island (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies #1)
by Moira Fortin CornejoThis book examines the relationships between theatrical representations and socio-political aspects of Rapa Nui culture from pre-colonial times to the present. This is the first book written about the production of Rapa Nui theatre, which is understood as a unique and culturally distinct performance tradition. Using a multilingual approach, this book journeys through Oceania, reclaiming a sense of connection and reflecting on synergies between performances of Oceanic cultures beyond imagined national boundaries. The author argues for a holistic and inclusive understanding of Rapa Nui theatre as encompassing and being inspired by diverse aspects of Rapa Nui performance cultures, festivals, and art forms. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Indigenous studies, Pacific Island studies, performance, anthropology, theatre education and Rapa Nui community, especially schoolchildren from the island who are learning about their own heritage.
Rape: Challenging Contemporary Thinking
by Jennifer Brown Miranda HorvathRape remains one of the most controversial issues within criminal justice and receives high profile coverage internationally. Despite the many changes there have been to the law, practice and procedure in the investigation of rape allegations, and support available for victims, victims are routinely blamed for their victimization. Only a very small number of perpetrators ever face prosecution, let alone conviction. This book aims to take stock of current thinking and research about rape and the way it is handled in practice within the criminal justice system, and to challenge some of the widely held but inaccurate beliefs about rape. It brings together leading researchers in the field from psychology, sociology and law, considering new research and presenting new data from a strong theoretical and contextual base. The main focus of the book is on adult victims of rape, with chapters exploring such issues as rape and the media, the use of alcohol and drugs in rape, police decision making on rape cases, conviction patterns in rape trials, and interviewing victims of rape and sexual assault.
Rape: The Politics of Consciousness
by Susan GriffinA powerful feminist examination of the deeply ingrained roots of rape in our shared cultural values Rape is the most frequently occurring violent crime in America. In this courageous, controversial, and groundbreaking work, the poet, feminist, and philosopher Susan Griffin examines rape as an inevitable result of a culture that celebrates and rewards aggressive sexual behavior in men, and one in which male dominance and female submissiveness have long been considered natural. With razor-sharp intelligence, clear-eyed candor, and surprising lyricism, Griffin explores the psychological, historical, political, and societal underpinnings of this devastating act, which cruelly denies a victim her self-determination. By viewing the dark phenomenon of rape through the lens of her personal experience--and through the words of injured parties, writers, legal agencies, and the media--Griffin's powerful discourse is an essential contribution to feminist thought and literature.
Rape: Challenging Contemporary Thinking – 10 Years On
by Miranda A. H. HorvathRape: Challenging Contemporary Thinking – 10 Years On takes stock of current thinking and research about rape and the way it is handled in practice within the criminal justice system, as well as challenging some of the widely held but inaccurate beliefs about rape.The second edition of Rape: Challenging Contemporary Thinking – 10 Years On is not a traditional new edition, although it does provide updated versions of substantive issues covered in the first edition. Bringing the book to the cutting edge, it incorporates both old and new contexts where sexual exploitation takes place, identifying some knowledge gaps especially when considering the voices of complainants/victims/survivors who are invisible or muted, numerous new areas of research including the implications arising from #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, the limitations of our present criminal justice systems, and radical alternatives to closing the justice gap. The new book reflects the global reach of research and thinking about rape, including more international coverage, with material from India, the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand as well as the UK. In order to learn from our shared history in this field, two authors reflect on their careers and other authors were encouraged to move away from conventional academic formats to convey their stories. Bringing together leading researchers in the field of psychology, sociology, and law, considering new research, and presenting new data from a strong theoretical and contextual base, the chapters are provocative and engage in innovative thinking, whilst remaining grounded in the available evidence.This book is essential reading for students of criminology, forensic psychology, sociology, criminal justice, law, media studies, and women’s/gender studies. It also aims to inform professionals engaged in the investigation, prosecution of rape, support, and preventative services.