In Hard Luck and Heavy Rain Joseph C. Russo takes readers into the everyday lives of the rural residents of southeast Texas. He encounters the region as a kind of world enveloped in on itself, existing under a pall of poverty, illness, and oil refinery smoke. His informants’ stories cover a wide swath of life, from histories of LGBT life and the local petrochemical industries t...(展开全部)

In Hard Luck and Heavy Rain Joseph C. Russo takes readers into the everyday lives of the rural residents of southeast Texas. He encounters the region as a kind of world enveloped in on itself, existing under a pall of poverty, illness, and oil refinery smoke. His informants’ stories cover a wide swath of life, from histories of LGBT life and the local petrochemical industries t...(展开全部)

Sweden is a remote country in the freezing northern Europe, with less than nine million inhabitants and a reputation for Volvos, hockey players, cheap furniture, vodka, and blonde women. Since the late 1980s, however, Sweden has produced over a thousand extreme heavy metal bands, creating one of the most respected regional music scenes in the world. This is the improbable histo...(展开全部)

It is a classical anthropological paradox that symbols of rebirth and fertility are frequently found in funerary rituals throughout the world. The original essays collected here re-examine this phenomenon through insights from China, India, New Guinea, Latin America, and Africa. The contributors, each a specialist in one of these areas, have worked in close collaboration to pro...(展开全部)

In the grand tradition of Paul Kennedy s The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers comes this provocative history of world democracy, which begins with the ancient Myceans and ends in our fractious present. Overturning long-cherished notions, John Keane poses challenging questions: Did democracy actually begin in ancient Greece or earlier in Mesopotamia? Do the American and British...(展开全部)

The Life and Death of Democracy will inspire and shock its readers. Presenting the first grand history of democracy for well over a century, it poses along the way some tough and timely questions: how did democratic ideals and institutions come to have the shape they do today? Given all the recent fanfare about democracy promotion, why are many people now gripped by the feeling...(展开全部)

In the grand tradition of Paul Kennedy s The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers comes this provocative history of world democracy, which begins with the ancient Myceans and ends in our fractious present. Overturning long-cherished notions, John Keane poses challenging questions: Did democracy actually begin in ancient Greece or earlier in Mesopotamia? Do the American and British...(展开全部)

The Life and Death of Democracy will inspire and shock its readers. Presenting the first grand history of democracy for well over a century, it poses along the way some tough and timely questions: how did democratic ideals and institutions come to have the shape they do today? Given all the recent fanfare about democracy promotion, why are many people now gripped by the feeling...(展开全部)

It is a classical anthropological paradox that symbols of rebirth and fertility are frequently found in funerary rituals throughout the world. The original essays collected here re-examine this phenomenon through insights from China, India, New Guinea, Latin America, and Africa. The contributors, each a specialist in one of these areas, have worked in close collaboration to pro...(展开全部)

On January 30, 1933, hearing about the celebrations for Hitler's assumption of power, Erich Ebermayer remarked bitterly in his diary, 'We are the losers, definitely the losers'. Learning of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935, which made Jews non-citizens, he raged, 'hate is sown a million-fold'. Yet in March 1938, he wept for joy at the Anschluss with Austria: 'Not to want it just beca...(展开全部)