Drawing on extensive archives and interviews with more than 80 activists, this book by a former Red Guard sketches the history and explores the larger implications of the Cultural Revolution as it occurred in one Chinese city. The author addresses important issues of collective action, including the weight of selective incentives, role of political entrepreneurs, formation of coalitions, and the relationship between anarchy and violence. Of interest to scholars of Asian studies and political science, this work is a fresh perspective on this tumultuous era.
A fascinating examination of technological utopianism and its complicated consequences. In The Charisma Machine, Morgan Ames chronicles the life and legacy of the One Laptop per Child project and explains why—despite its failures—the same utopian visions that inspired OLPC still motivate other projects trying to use technology to “disrupt” education and development. Announced in 2005 by MIT Media Lab cofounder Nicholas Negroponte, One Laptop per Child promised to transform the lives of children across the Global South with a small, sturdy, and cheap laptop computer, powered by a hand crank. In reality, the project fell short in many ways—starting with the hand crank, which never materialized. Yet the project remained charismatic to many who were captivated by its claims of access to educational opportunities previously out of reach. Behind its promises, OLPC, like many technology projects that make similarly grand claims, had a fundamentally flawed vision of who the computer was made for and what role technology should play in learning. Drawing on fifty years of history and a seven-month study of a model OLPC project in Paraguay, Ames reveals that the laptops were not only frustrating to use, easy to break, and hard to repair, they were designed for “technically precocious boys”—idealized younger versions of the developers themselves—rather than the children who were actually using them. The Charisma Machine offers a cautionary tale about the allure of technology hype and the problems that result when utopian dreams drive technology development.
A heartracing thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of NERVE, the book that launched the major motion picture! Aislyn suffers from crippling shyness—that is, until she’s offered a dose of Charisma, an underground gene therapy drug guaranteed to make her shine. The effects are instant. She’s charming, vivacious, and popular. But strangely, so are some other kids she knows. The media goes into a frenzy when the disease turns contagious, and then deadly, and the doctor who gave it to them disappears. Aislyn must find a way to stop it, before it's too late. Part medical thriller, part social justice commentary, Charisma will have readers on the edge of their seats.
What if charisma could be taught? The charisma myth is the idea that charisma is a fundamental, inborn quality—you either have it (Bill Clinton, Steve Jobs, Oprah) or you don’t. But that’s simply not true, as Olivia Fox Cabane reveals. Charismatic behaviors can be learned and perfected by anyone. Drawing on techniques she originally developed for Harvard and MIT, Cabane breaks charisma down into its components. Becoming more charismatic doesn’t mean transforming your fundamental personality. It’s about adopting a series of specific practices that fit in with the personality you already have. The Charisma Myth shows you how to become more influential, more persuasive, and more inspiring.
It began well - an experiment in techniques to teach high-risk children - poor, minority, children - the life-strategies that will allow them to succeed in life. And not just succeed, but overcome the odds and become wildly successful. They chose as their model a man who had done it all - Alexander Marcus; a black man who raised himself up from poverty to become one of the wealthiest, most powerful men in America. The imprinting is effective. The children are focused, driven. They are inventive, intelligent, and love learning. But there is a mysterious darkness to them - a ruthlessness that is surprising. Renny Sand first met the children as a journalist covering the sensational trial of a preschool operator. There were terrible charges of sex abuse, but the thing that stayed with Renny was the strange poise and power of a group of eight year old children. That, and the face of the mother of one of them, Vivian Emory. Now the children are thirteen years old, and one of them has been killed in a mysterious hit-and-run accident. Renny Sands sees the possibility of big story, a human interest story, a story that might jump-start his flagging career. He'll do a follow-up on the preschool scandal; and he might get a chance to restart his love life as well - Vivian Emory has divorced her husband in the five years since he met her. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
What are the origins of charisma? Are these the same in the various forms of public life, in politics and the media as well as in religion? In this new and radical interpretation of charisma, David Aberbach argues that the basis of charisma in all its forms must be found in the often-obscure symbolic intersection between the inner world of the charismatic and external social and political reality. As illustrations of various facets of this argument, he provides general analyses of charisma in politics, religion and the media as well as individual studies of Churchill, Hitler, Krishnamurti, Bialik and Chaplin.
Have you ever encountered someone with magnetic charisma? The type of person that you just immediately liked and trusted? That commanded respect without hardly uttering a word? Maybe you've even felt something like it before, like everything you said was engaging and made people laugh. Like people were just drawn to you. Do you want to know how to turn that personal magnetism on at a moment's notice? Then this book is for you! Charisma on Command will teach you how to tap into your charismatic potential so that you can turn it on whenever you want. It draws on analysis of the most charismatic people in the world, including Steve Jobs, Bill Clinton, Russell Brand, Oprah Winfrey, Martin Luther King, Tony Robbins, and more. You will learn the mindsets, body language, and exercises that can make you the person others are drawn to. The type of person you might meet for a minute, but remember for a lifetime.
In the aftermath of a violent incident and near-death experience, Sarah Lange is plagued by heavenly voices and dogged by a desire to return “home.” Frightened by her desire to terminate her existence on earth, she checks into a trauma center in Malibu, California, and meets Dr. David Sutton, an intellectual, scientist, reductionist, and someone who believes in nothing beyond his immediate experience. David’s world is as divorced from mystery and magic as Sarah’s is alive with and animated by it. Their sessions open up a dialogue about the separation of worlds—one easily defined and explained and one unknowable and waiting on the other side of human experience. Even as his faith in his profession fades, David struggles to bring his disturbed patient back to the real world. In a desperate effort to define herself, Sarah “escapes,” and David must decide how far he is willing to go to save a patient, and ultimately, himself.
It is often overlooked, but Bill Clinton assumed the presidency in one of the most difficult times in our nation's history. The country was in a deep recession, the end of the Cold War had created new threats to our national security, and our health care system was in shambles. The country has now come full circle. Leadership has been replaced with self-interest, cronyism, and fear. More than ever, Bill Clinton's candor and success in adversity warrant revisiting during this age of a closed-door administration and governmental incompetence. The Clinton Charisma is a fascinating, prescriptive guide that reveals the former president's complex leadership techniques, including his attention to public opinion, his ability to take quick corrective action, and his efficient damage control in the face of political and personal difficulty. From diversity to decisiveness, from consensus to compromise, each chapter explores how Clinton employed important leadership principles and the ways in which they were--or were not--effective. The author asks in the introduction, "Are there lessons to be learned from his time in office--from his damage control strategies, from his ability to implement diversity, or from his decision-making process?" The answer, as Donald T. Phillips's The Clinton Charisma makes compellingly clear, is yes.
