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Futures Beyond Dystopia: Creating Social Foresight (Futures In Education Ser.)
by Richard A. SlaughterHow can dystopian futures help provide the motivation to change the ways we operate day to day?Futures Beyond Dystopia takes the view that the dominant trends in the world suggest a long-term decline into unliveable Dystopian futures. The human prospect is therefore very challenging, yet the perception of dangers and dysfunctions is the first step towards dealing with them. The motivation to avoid future dangers is matched by the human need to create plans and move forward. These twin motivations can be very powerful and help to stimulate the fields of Futures Studies and Applied Foresight.This analysis of current Futures practice is split into six sections:* The Case Against Hegemony* Expanding and Deepening a Futures Frame* Futures Studies and the Integral Agenda* Social Learning through Applied Foresight* Strategies and Outlooks* The Dialectic of Foresight and Experience.This fascinating book will stimulate anyone involved in Futures work around the world and will challenge practitioners and others to re-examine many of their assumptions, methodologies and practices.
Futures of Anti-Racism: Paradoxes of Deracialization in Brazil, South Africa, Sweden, and the UK (Mapping Global Racisms)
by Nikolay Zakharov Shirley Anne Tate Ian Law Joaze Bernardino-CostaThis book assesses the nature and extent of the project of deracialisation required to counter the contemporary dynamics of racialisation across four varieties of modernity: Sweden, South Africa, Brazil and the UK, based on original research on each of the four country contexts. Since racism began to be recognised or identified as a problem, an assemblage of supra-national initiatives have been devised in the name of combatting, dismantling or reducing it. There has been a recent shift whereby such supra-national bodies move toward embedding strategies against racism within the framework of human rights and devolving such responsibility to other bodies at a national level.The authors bring together a team of international experts in this field, in order to compare the priorities and effectiveness of current strategic approaches in each national context, examining their relationalities and connecting these cases within a joint theoretical and methodological framework. Thus, this book contributes to theoretical knowledge on racialisation and deracialisation, produce a new data set on contemporary interventions and institutions and establish new principles and practice for national projects of deracialisation and anti-racism, building on cross-national learning.
Futures of Journalism: Technology-stimulated Evolution in the Audience-News Media Relationship
by Anthony Ridge-Newman Ville J. E. Manninen Mari K. NiemiThis book examines how technologies are changing, will change, or could change the relationship between audiences and news media. It highlights how novel technologies could have fundamental implications for the way that news media interact with wider society. The book comprises of four thematic parts. Firstly, it focuses on the impact of technological development on the news media business, exploring how news media uses new technologies to improve their sustainability. Secondly, it considers the ethical dilemmas that arise when audience-news media relationships are transformed by technological development. The third part of the book approaches the effects of novel technologies from the journalists’ viewpoint: how do new technologies intervene in the audience-news media relationship through journalistic work? Finally, the fourth part dissects the ways new technologies can impact audience-news media relationships through transforming audience agency, audience preferences and news media’s understanding of them.
FutureShop: How to Trade Up to a Luxury Lifestyle Today
by Daniel NissanoffThis is a book about change. In particular, it's about how our consumer culture is rapidly evolving to allow us to live better, richer lives for less. The catalyst to this change is eBay and similar sites that are quickly growing into mainstream shopping venues and creating unprecedented levels of liquidity for our everyday goods. The wave of the future will be temporary ownership-consumers will be able to buy what they really want because they'll be able to easily sell it when they are ready to upgrade to the next item on their wish list. Veteran Web entrepreneur Daniel Nissanoff's invaluable heads-up explores why this change is taking place and discusses what consumers and businesses can do in order to benefit from this new paradigm.
Futurize! Dealing with Megatrends and Disruptors: A Handbook for the Future-Oriented CEO
by André de Waal Julie LinthorstThe future will bring only more megatrends and disruptions. With the guidance of this book, which centers around the authors’ years-of-research-backed high-performance organizations (HPO) framework and includes the unique self-assessment tool Futurize! Diagnosis, business leaders and organizations will be prepared and truly ‘future ready.’ The next two decades will present massive challenges for organizations, as they navigate the need for sustainable development against a complex backdrop of factors such as increasing inequality, resource scarcity, continued globalization, and the ever-increasing speed of technological advancement. This book will help business leaders and organizations set priorities and make decisions so that not only do they honor commitments to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, but also become more future ready by: identifying the megatrends and disruptors which impact organizations now and will in the future specifically outlining how those megatrends and disruptors will impact organizations showing how organizations can deal with this impact in practical terms. This book is a must for management teams, aspiring leaders, and professionals and students interested in the future of work, human resource management, and innovation.
El futuro del trabajo ya no es lo que era
by Albert CañigueralUn lúcido análisis de las perspectivas del trabajo en el futuro y de las consecuencias del COVID-19 en nuestra sociedad. Fenómenos como el teletrabajo o las plataformas digitales nos obligan a preguntarnos por lo que nos espera en el futuro. ¿Seguiremos teniendo un único trabajo? ¿Tendrá sentido hacer el mismo horario cada día? ¿Cómo serán los empleos después del COVID-19? A través de este ensayo, Albert Cañigueral (El trabajo ya no es lo que era, Conecta, 2020) responde a estas preguntas, demostrando que es necesario buscar nuevas definiciones para el empleo. Además, propone siete utopías del trabajo para que, entre todos, podamos diseñar un futuro mejor. «Seamos valientes. Diseñemos futuros de trabajo deseables»
El futuro es ahora: Un viaje a través de la realidad virtual
by Jaron LanierEl padre de la realidad virtual nos explica sus infinitas posibilidades a través de su experiencia con la tecnología. A través del fascinante recorrido de una vida dedicada a la tecnología, Jaron Lanier expone la capacidad de la realidad virtual para iluminar y amplificar la comprensión que tenemos de nuestra especie y ofrece a los lectores una nueva perspectiva sobre cómo el cerebro y el cuerpo humano se conectan al mundo. Al entender la realidad virtual como una aventura tanto científica como cultural, Lanier demuestra el componente humanístico que esta aporta a la tecnología. Si bien sus libros anteriores ofrecían una visión más crítica de las redes sociales y de otras manifestaciones de la tecnología, en El futuro es ahora el autor argumenta que la realidad virtual puede hacer que nuestra vida sea más rica y más completa. Una obra que no solo nos muestra qué significa ser humano en esta era de posibilidades tecnológicas sin precedentes, sino que también une la dimensión tecnológica con nuestra experiencia corporal. Reseñas:«Una historia maravillosa, profundamente humana y sumamente personal.»Dave Eggers «Es el padre de la realidad virtual y un genio de la tecnología punta.»Sunday Times «Una mente tan ilimitada como internet.»Evening Standard «Íntimo e idiosincrásico [...] peculiar y fascinante [...] La vívida imaginación de Lanier se convierte en un personaje más. Su visión es humanista e insiste en que el objetivo más importante del desarrollo de la realidad virtual debe ser la conexión humana.»The New York Times Book Review «Una lectura esencial, no solo para los conocedores de la realidad virtual, sino para cualquiera interesado en comprender cómo la sociedad ha llegado a convertirse en lo que es hoy en día y en qué podría convertirse en un futuro no tan lejano.»The Economist «Brillante e inspirador.»Publishers Weekly
Fuzzy Humanist: Trilogie Teil III: Von der Fuzzy-Logik zum Computing with Words (essentials)
by Edy PortmannAuch mit Worten, Phrasen, Präpositionen, Fragen sowie anderen semantischen Einheiten der natürlichen Sprache ist es möglich, zu rechnen. Daher ist diese Methode für einen Einsatz im Sinne des Humanismus prädestiniert. Edy Portmann erläutert den Zusammenhang von Fuzzy-Logik und dem Rechnen mit Worten und zeigt daran den Unterschied zwischen heutigen Suchmaschinen sowie zukünftigen Frage-Antwort-Systemen auf. Er legt dar, wie das Rechnen mit Worten als Grundlage einer Mensch-Maschine-Symbiose dient, die in kollektiver (urbaner) Intelligenz mündet. Als Ausblick weist der Autor darauf hin, wie Computing with Words zur Schaffung von kollektiver Intelligenz beitragen kann.Der Autor:Prof. Dr. Edy Portmann ist Swiss Post Professor of Computer Science am Human-IST Institut der Universität Fribourg, Schweiz. In seiner Forschung beschäftigt er sich mit Fragen rund um Informationssysteme, -verarbeitung und -beschaffung.
Fuzzy Leadership: Trilogie Teil I: Von den Wurzeln der Fuzzy-Logik bis zur smarten Gesellschaft (essentials)
by Edy Portmann Andreas MeierDie unscharfe Logik (Fuzzy Logic) erweitert die klassische Logik, indem neben den beiden Wahrheitswerten 1 für ‚wahr’ und 0 für ‚falsch’ alle Werte des Einheitsintervalls zugelassen sind. Die unscharfe Logik entspricht der menschlichen Wahrnehmung, da sie unsichere Sachverhalte oder vage Aussagen in einem Entscheidungsprozess mitberücksichtigt. Edy Portmann und Andreas Meier geben in diesem essential über Fuzzy Leadership einen Überblick zu Grundlagen der unscharfen Logik und zeigen das Potenzial in unterschiedlichen Anwendungen der digitalen Wirtschaft sowie in der Informations- und Wissensgesellschaft auf. Die Autoren:Prof. Dr. Edy Portmann ist Swiss Post Professor of Computer Science am Human-IST Institut der Universität Fribourg, Schweiz. In seiner Forschung beschäftigt er sich mit Fragen rund um Informationssysteme, -verarbeitung und -beschaffung. Prof. Dr. Andreas Meier leitete in den Jahren 1999 bis 2018 den Lehrstuhl für Wirtschaftsinformatik an der Universität Fribourg, Schweiz. Seine Forschungsgebiete waren eBusiness, eGovernment und Informationsmanagement.
G-Dog and the Homeboys: Father Greg Boyle and the Gangs of East Los Angeles
by Celeste FremonFather Gregory J. Boyle, SJ, is a native of Los Angeles, a Jesuit priest, and founder of Homeboy Industries, an economic development and jobs program begun in 1988 for at-risk and gang-involved youth. "A great many kids in my neighborhood don't plan their futures; they plan their funerals." G-Dog and the Homeboys presents the story of Boyle's unconventional ministry and its extraordinary successes. In this expanded, updated edition, Celeste Fremon has returned to East L.A. to report on gang members she first profiled fifteen years ago. Using their individual stories as models, she examines what policy makers should know about gang intervention now, years later.
G.H. Mead: A Reader (Routledge Classics in Sociology)
by G. H. MeadThis book introduces social scientists to the ideas of George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) - one of the most original yet neglected thinkers of early twentieth century sociology. Mead is an exceptional case amongst sociological classics in that, until now, there has been no comprehensive reader of his work. As the first one-volume, comprehensive edited collection of Mead’s published and unpublished writing, this book fills this gap. It is the first to critically assess all of Mead's writings and draw out the aspects that are central to his system of thought. The book is divided into three parts (social psychology, science and epistemology, and democratic politics), comprising a total of 30 chapters - a third of which are published here for the first time. G.H. Mead: A Reader provides a unique and timely contribution to the understanding of this key theorist. It is essential reading for both undergraduate and postgraduate students in the fields of sociology, social psychology, philosophy of social science, social and cultural anthropology, and social and political theory.
G.I. Messiahs
by Jonathan H. EbelJonathan Ebel has long been interested in how religion helps individuals and communities render meaningful the traumatic experiences of violence and war. In this new work, he examines cases from the Great War to the present day and argues that our notions of what it means to be an American soldier are not just strongly religious, but strongly Christian. Drawing on a vast array of sources, he further reveals the effects of soldier veneration on the men and women so often cast as heroes. Imagined as the embodiments of American ideals, described as redeemers of the nation, adored as the ones willing to suffer and die that we, the nation, may live-soldiers have often lived in subtle but significant tension with civil religious expectations of them. With chapters on prominent soldiers past and present, Ebel recovers and re-narrates the stories of the common American men and women that live and die at both the center and edges of public consciousness. "
G.l.s. Shackle
by Peter E. Earl Bruce Littleboy Michael JeffersonThis is an intellectual biography of G. L. S. Shackle, economic theorist, philosopher, and historian of economic theory. It explores how Shackle challenged the aims, methods and assumptions of mainstream economics. He stressed macroeconomic instability, and developed a radically subjectivist theory for behavioural economics and business planning.
The GAA: An Oral History
by John ScallyFor 125 years, the GAA has been a fixed point in a fast-changing age, and this oral history marks the125th anniversary of the Association. It is the story of the GAA as seen through the eyes of those key personalities who shaped it. Author Jon Scally has carried out over a hundred revealing interviews with players and managers who are synonymous with the Games, including Babs Keating, Jimmy Barry-Murphy, Ger Loughnane, D.J. Carey, Liam Griffin, Mick O'Dwyer, Colm O'Rourke, John O'Mahony, Joe Brolly and Matt Connor, and these contributions offer a unique eyewitness testimony to the dramas that captivated, enthralled and occasionally infuriated the nation both on and off the pitch. The book sheds new light on high-profile controversies, offers new insights into the players and personalities that linger long in the memory and presents a fresh look at the epic contests that turned Ireland's Games into a national soap opera.The GAA: An Oral History is a celebration of the good, the bad and the beautiful of Gaelic Games, and is a must for all sports fans.
Gabriel Tarde: The Future of the Artificial (Routledge Studies in Social and Political Thought)
by David ToewsThis book presents the core ideas of early sociologist Gabriel Tarde and suggests a new pathway for sociology based on his foundational work. Rejecting anthropocentrism, Tarde highlights the contrast between the natural and the artificial, uniquely emphasizing the positive significance of the artificial in an age in which people have come to distrust it profoundly. Recovering Tarde’s theory today in the context of contemporary as well as classical scholarship and recognizing how it fits with such phenomena as quantum physics and digital media, this book develops the concept of the cosmological imagination as the context for a critical Tardian analysis of artifice that can bring together what we know about our contemporary future-oriented global societies. How we know the universe, our place in it, the place of other animals and objects in it, our global socialities, our human claims of power and privilege within it, are pointed questions Tarde asks as he wonders whether a future temporality conducive to constant artifice has become our normal human way of life. Considering our ambivalence about modern products and modernity in general, our thinking about the future, and our tendency to forget what nature used to signify in its presentation of problems beyond our control, such as illnesses and epidemics, Gabriel Tarde: The Future of the Artificial demonstrates the reasons for which we need to return to Tarde’s work to rediscover its relevance for public debate as we seek to think through the new era and its societies in which culture and nature are no longer distinct. This book will appeal to scholars of social and political theory with interests in our digital age, new sociologies of materials and objects, neomonadology, and the thought of Gabriel Tarde.
Gabriel Tarde On Communication and Social Influence: Selected Papers (Heritage of Sociology Series)
by Gabriel Tarde Terry N. Clark Morris JanowitzGabriel Tarde ranks as one of the most outstanding sociologists of nineteenth-century France, though not as well known by English readers as his peers Comte and Durkheim. This book makes available Tarde’s most important work and demonstrates his continuing relevance to a new generation of students and thinkers. Tarde’s landmark research and empirical analysis drew upon collective behavior, mass communications, and civic opinion as elements to be explained within the context of broader social patterns. Unlike the mass society theorists that followed in his wake, Tarde integrated his discussions of societal change at the macrosocietal and individual levels, anticipating later twentieth-century thinkers who fused the studies of mass communications and public opinion research. Terry N. Clark’s introduction, considered the premier guide to Tarde’s opus, accompanies this important work, reprinted here for the first time in forty years.
Gaelic Games in Society: Civilising Processes, Players, Administrators and Spectators (Palgrave Studies on Norbert Elias)
by John Connolly Paddy DolanIn this book John Connolly and Paddy Dolan illustrate and explain developments in Gaelic games, the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), and Irish society over the course of the last 150 years. The main themes in the book include: advances in the threshold of repugnance towards violence in the playing of Gaelic games, changes in the structure of spectator violence, diminishing displays of superiority towards the competing sports of soccer and rugby, the tension between decentralising and centralising processes, the movement in the balance between amateurism and professionalism, changes in the power balance between ‘elite’ players and administrators, and the difficulties in developing a new hybrid sport. The authors also explain how these developments were connected to various social processes including changes in the structure of Irish society and in the social habitus of people in Ireland.
Gaia-Ästhetiken im zeitgenössischen Spielfilm: Das Wahrnehmbar-Werden der Erde in der filmischen Post/Apokalypse (Environmental Humanities #4)
by Friederike AhrensGaia-Ästhetiken entwerfen Figurationen der Erde und ihrer Lebensformen, welche die Menschen dezentrieren und den Fokus auf die Verbindungen zwischen Lebewesen untereinander und dem Unbelebten richten. Diese Ästhetiken sind der Gaia-Theorie entlehnt. In den 1970er Jahren bei der NASA entwickelt, wird sie von Bruno Latour und Isabelle Stengers in den Kontext des Anthropozäns gesetzt. Die Erde als Gaia ist eine mehr-als-menschliche Assemblage, in der die Menschen Knotenpunkte der Verantwortlichkeit darstellen. Filmische Ästhetiken können diese Knotenpunkte wahrnehmbar werden lassen, wie die Spielfilme I Am Legend (2007) und Planet of the Apes (2011-2017) zeigen. Die Filme präsentieren ihren Zuschauer_innen eine Welt in der Post/Apokalypse, in der die Filmfiguren mit dem Eindringen Gaias konfrontiert sind. Sie werden in der Post/Apokalypse kompostiert: Viren dringen in ihre Körper ein, zersetzen ihre Menschlichkeit und lassen sie zum Teil des mehr-als-menschlichen Gaia-Komposts werden.
Gaining The Dividends Of Longer Life: New Roles For Older Workers
by Jarold A. KiefferNot all older people are unfit for work. Indeed, most people over age 55 remain physically and mentally able to work, and rather than suffer the pressures of inflation or the boredom of idleness, many would prefer to stay productive longer. Dr. Kieffer says that their extensive experience and education qualify most of them to remain self-reliant well past current retirement ages. If they are enabled to do so, it would delay and reduce the time when they are forced to be financially and, in some cases, physically dependent. He argues that unless policy leaders in both the public and private sectors act quickly and imaginatively to gain the financial and social dividends that can accrue from longer life, our country, by default, will find itself preoccupied over the next thirty years with unnecessarily high costs of supporting its longer-living and rapidly increasing older population. Dr. Kieffer explains why current retirement policies are no longer economically and politically manageable, and he suggests a cost-effective strategy whereby public and private funds could be used to enable millions of older people to remain active in jobs that serve unmet community needs. He also outlines a strategy for helping young workers build retirement income assets during their entire work lives so that the unintended burdens that have fallen on the Social Security, pension, and public assistance programs can be eased and made more manageable in the future. Lastly, he describes the roles that government agencies, businesses, educational institutions, foundations, and older people themselves can play in carrying out the jobs and retirement income strategies.
Gaining Freedoms: Claiming Space in Istanbul and Berlin
by Berna TuramGaining Freedoms reveals a new locus for global political change: everyday urban contestation. Cities are often assumed hotbeds of socio-economic division, but this assessment overlooks the importance of urban space and the everyday activities of urban life for empowerment, emancipation, and democratization. Through proximity, neighborhoods, streets, and squares can create unconventional power contestations over lifestyle and consumption. And through struggle, negotiation, and cooperation, competing claims across groups can become platforms to defend freedom and rights from government encroachments. Drawing on more than seven years of fieldwork in three contested urban sites--a downtown neighborhood and a university campus in Istanbul, and a Turkish neighborhood in Berlin--Berna Turam shows how democratic contestation echoes through urban space. Countering common assumptions that Turkey is strongly polarized between Islamists and secularists, she illustrates how contested urban space encourages creative politics, the kind of politics that advance rights, expression, and representation shared between pious and secular groups. Exceptional moments of protest, like the recent Gezi protests which bookend this study, offer clear external signs of upheaval and disruption, but it is the everyday contestation and interaction that forge alliances and inspire change. Ultimately, Turam argues that the process of democratization is not the reduction of conflict, but rather the capacity to form new alliances out of conflict.
Galician Migrations: A Case Study of Emerging Super-diversity (Migration, Minorities and Modernity #3)
by Renée Depalma Antía Pérez-CaramésStudies recent immigration in its earliest, formative stages.<P> Reviews programs that foster intercultural relations in diverse emerging contexts.<P> Analyses relations between outgoing and incoming migrations Identifies diversity within diversity, taking into account factors other than nationality.<P> This focused case study analyses the roots of super-diversity in a place where immigration is an emerging phenomenon, Northwestern Spain (Galicia). It is characterized by a mostly rural population, an aging demographic, and a historically depressed economy. Yet the region has recently experienced a significant increase in immigration - a reversal of the region’s historically pronounced trend of emigration. <P> To understand immigration in its early stages, this book takes a historical approach that focuses on diversities that go beyond nationality. It explores local yet international phenomena such as different patterns of return migration, transnational community and familial relationships, and niche labour markets. <P> The book takes a broad interdisciplinary perspective, drawing on sociology, anthropology, history, sociolinguistics, literature, and education, to provide a detailed case study analysis. While the case is specific, many other geographic regions will share some of the factors the book explores. Understanding how these factors interact will provide a useful point of contrast for analysing them in a range of other international contexts.
Galveston: A History (Fred Rider Cotten Popular History Ser. #15)
by David G. McCombA colorful history of the island city on Texas&’s Gulf Coast and its survival through times of piracy, plague, civil war, and devastating natural disaster. On the Gulf edge of Texas between land and sea stands Galveston Island. Shaped continually by wind and water, it is one of earth&’s ongoing creations, where time is forever new. Here, on the shoreline, embraced by the waves, a person can still feel the heartbeat of nature. And yet, for all the idyllic possibilities, Galveston&’s history has been anything but tranquil. Across Galveston&’s sands have walked Indians, pirates, revolutionaries, the richest men of nineteenth-century Texas, soldiers, sailors, bootleggers, gamblers, prostitutes, physicians, entertainers, engineers, and preservationists. Major events in the island&’s past include hurricanes, yellow fever, smuggling, vice, the Civil War, the building of a medical school and port, raids by the Texas Rangers, and, always, the struggle to live in a precarious location. Galveston: A History is an engrossing account that also explores the role of technology and the often contradictory relationship between technology and the city, providing a guide to both Galveston history and the dynamics of urban development.
Gambling for Profit
by Kerry G. ChambersOver the past forty years, Western governments have increasingly liberalized and deregulated gambling, which is now used to deliver state revenues and commercial profit in many jurisdictions. Gambling for Profit is a cross-national history of the emergence of legal gambling, including lotteries, gaming machines, and casinos.Gambling for Profit is unique among studies of gambling's twentieth-century growth thanks to Kerry G.E. Chambers's strong analytical framework -- investigating not only the political aspects of legalization, but also the sociocultural factors that influence popular adoption. Chambers provides a useful chronological examination of the electronic gambling phenomenon, as well as comparative data on dates of introduction and revenues across twenty-three countries. Gambling for Profit provides a dynamic model to explore the legalization of gambling and stresses the inadequacy of seeking universal explanations for gambling's entrenchment within particular cultures.
Gambling, Freedom and Democracy (Routledge Studies in Social and Political Thought)
by Peter J. AdamsAs a consequence of the rapid proliferation of commercial gambling in Western-style democracies, governments and communities are encountering a complex array of economic, social and cultural harms associated with this expansion. This book focuses specifically on harms to democratic systems. It examines how people with key roles in democratic structures are vulnerable to subtle influence from the burgeoning profits of gambling. It focuses particularly on the Western-style democracies of North America, Europe and Australasia. It argues that governments have a duty of care to protect their own democratic processes from subtle degradations and that independence from the gambling industries needs to be proactively built into public sector structures and processes. It outlines how a public health approach, harm minimisation strategies and international conventions can provide the base for protecting the integrity of democratic systems.
Gambling in Everyday Life: Spaces, Moments and Products of Enjoyment (Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies)
by Fiona Jean NicollThe book adopts a critical cultural studies lens to explore the entanglement of government and gambling in everyday life. Its qualitative approach to gambling creates a new theoretical framework for understanding the most urgent questions raised by research and policy on gambling. In the past two decades, gambling industries have experienced exponential growth with annual global expenditure worth approximately 300 billion dollars. Yet most academic research on gambling is concentrated on problem gambling and conducted within the psychological sciences. Nicoll considers gambling at a moment when its integration within everyday cultural spaces, moments, and products is unprecedented. This is the first interdisciplinary cultural study of gambling in everyday life and develops critical and empirical methods that capture the ubiquitous presence of gambling in work, investment and play. This book also contributes to the growing cultural studies literature on video and mobile gaming. In addition to original case studies of gambling moments and spaces, in-depth interviews and participant observations provide readers with an insider’s view of gambling. Advanced students of sociology, cultural theory, and political science, academic researchers in the field of gambling studies will find this an original and useful text for understanding the cultural and political work of gambling industries in liberal societies.