The Era of Choice
The Era of Choice

Author: Edward C. Rosenthal Ph.D.

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2006-09-22

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 0262250241

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How today's cornucopia of choices has transformed our lives and our culture, from the foundations of scientific theory to the anxiety of everyday decisions. Today most of us are awash with choices. The cornucopia of material goods available to those of us in the developed world can turn each of us into a kid in a candy store; but our delight at picking the prize is undercut by our regret at lost opportunities. And what's the criterion for choosing anything—material, spiritual, the path taken or not taken—when we have lost our faith in everything? In The Era of Choice Edward Rosenthal argues that choice, and having to make choices, has become the most important influence in both our personal lives and our cultural expression. Choice, he claims, has transformed how we live, how we think, and who we are. This transformation began in the nineteenth century, catalyzed by the growing prosperity of the Industrial Age and a diminishing faith in moral and scientific absolutes. The multiplicity of choices forces us to form oppositions; this, says Rosenthal, has spawned a keen interest in dualism, dilemmas, contradictions, and paradoxes. In response, we have developed mechanisms to hedge, compromise, and to synthesize. Rosenthal looks at the scientific and philosophical theories and cultural movements that choice has influenced—from physics (for example, Niels Bohr's theory that light is both particle and wave) to postmodernism, from Disney trailers to multiculturalism. He also reveals the effect of choice on the personal level, where we grapple with decisions that range from which wine to have with dinner to whether to marry or divorce, as we hurtle through lives of instant gratification, accelerated consumption, trend, change, and speed. But we have discovered, writes Rosenthal, that sometimes, we can have our cake and eat it, too.

Equal Means Equal
Equal Means Equal

Author: Jessica Neuwirth

Publisher: New Press, The

Published: 2015-01-05

Total Pages: 157

ISBN-13: 1620970481

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When the Equal Rights Amendment was first passed by Congress in 1972, Richard Nixon was president and All in the Family's Archie Bunker was telling his feisty wife Edith to stifle it. Over the course of the next ten years, an initial wave of enthusiasm led to ratification of the ERA by thirty-five states, just three short of the thirty-eight states needed by the 1982 deadline. Many of the arguments against the ERA that historically stood in the way of ratification have gone the way of bouffant hairdos and Bobby Riggs, and a new Coalition for the ERA was recently set up to bring the experience and wisdom of old-guard activists together with the energy and social media skills of a new-guard generation of women. In a series of short, accessible chapters looking at several key areas of sex discrimination recognized by the Supreme Court, Equal Means Equal tells the story of the legal cases that inform the need for an ERA, along with contemporary cases in which women's rights are compromised without the protection of an ERA. Covering topics ranging from pay equity and pregnancy discrimination to violence against women, Equal Means Equal makes abundantly clear that an ERA will improve the lives of real women living in America.

The Era of Chinese Multinationals
The Era of Chinese Multinationals

Author: Lourdes Casanova

Publisher: Academic Press

Published: 2019-11

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 0128168579

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Chinese multinationals have grown in size and increased their global presence dramatically over the last decade. They have emerged as formidable competitors for western incumbents. These firms have instigated profound changes, such as displaced trade and investment flows, new business models, and the emergence of a new geography of global innovation. In a single volume, The Era of Chinese Multinationals captures the forces driving the disruptive growth of Chinese multinational corporations. Following a presentation of the surge of Chinese companies, the book turns to corporate characteristics of those firms and how they compare with western multinationals in terms of revenues, profits, branding, and business strategy. The book uses data and case studies to depict the relevant issues with the goal of providing insights to global executives on collaborating and competing with Chinese companies. Covers the Chinese government's expansionist policies and Chinese firms' new role as a global acquirer of companies Examines common characteristics of Chinese companies and their efforts to make China an innovation hub Illustrates its analysis with case studies and interviews with corporate executives and experts in multilateral institutions

The Program Era
The Program Era

Author: Mark McGurl

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2011-11-30

Total Pages: 481

ISBN-13: 0674266021

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In The Program Era, Mark McGurl offers a fundamental reinterpretation of postwar American fiction, asserting that it can be properly understood only in relation to the rise of mass higher education and the creative writing program. McGurl asks both how the patronage of the university has reorganized American literature and—even more important—how the increasing intimacy of writing and schooling can be brought to bear on a reading of this literature. McGurl argues that far from occasioning a decline in the quality or interest of American writing, the rise of the creative writing program has instead generated a complex and evolving constellation of aesthetic problems that have been explored with energy and at times brilliance by authors ranging from Flannery O’Connor to Vladimir Nabokov, Philip Roth, Raymond Carver, Joyce Carol Oates, and Toni Morrison. Through transformative readings of these and many other writers, The Program Era becomes a meditation on systematic creativity—an idea that until recently would have seemed a contradiction in terms, but which in our time has become central to cultural production both within and beyond the university. An engaging and stylishly written examination of an era we thought we knew, The Program Era will be at the center of debates about postwar literature and culture for years to come.

Rerun Era
Rerun Era

Author: Joanna Howard

Publisher: McSweeney's

Published: 2019-10-08

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 9781944211677

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Rerun Era is a captivating, propulsive memoir about growing up in the environmentally and economically devastated rural flatlands of Oklahoma, the entwinement of personal memory and the memory of popular culture, and a family thrown into trial by lost love and illness that found common ground in the television. Told from the magnetic perspective of Joanna Howard's past selves from the late '70s and early '80s, Rerun Era circles the fascinating psyches of her part-Cherokee teamster truck-driving father, her women's libber mother, and her skateboarder, rodeo bull-riding teenage brother. Illuminating to our rural American present, and the way popular culture portrays the rural American past, Rerun Era perfectly captures the irony of growing up in rural America in the midst of nationalistic fantasies of small town local sheriffs and saloon girls, which manifested the urban cowboy, wild west theme-parks, and The Beverly Hillbillies. Written in stunning, lyric prose, Rerun Era gives humanity, perspective, humor, and depth to an often invisible part of this country, and firmly establishes Howard as an urgent and necessary voice in American letters.

Investing in the Era of Climate Change
Investing in the Era of Climate Change

Author: Bruce Usher

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2022-09-28

Total Pages: 399

ISBN-13: 023155382X

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A climate catastrophe can be avoided, but only with a rapid and sustained investment in companies and projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To the surprise of many, this has already begun. Investors are abandoning fossil-fuel companies and other polluting industries and financing businesses offering climate solutions. Rising risks, evolving social norms, government policies, and technological innovation are all accelerating this movement of capital. Bruce Usher offers an indispensable guide to the risks and opportunities for investors as the world faces climate change. He explores the role that investment plays in reducing emissions to net zero by 2050, detailing how to finance the winners and avoid the losers in a transforming global economy. Usher argues that careful examination of climate solutions will offer investors a new and necessary lens on the future for their own financial benefit and for the greater good. Companies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions will create great wealth, and, more importantly, they will provide a lifeline for humanity. Grounded in academic and industry research, Usher’s insights bring clarity to a complex and controversial topic while illuminating the people behind the numbers. This book sets out a practical and actionable plan for investors that will alter the course of climate change.

The Facebook Era
The Facebook Era

Author: Clara Shih

Publisher: Pearson Education

Published: 2010-07-21

Total Pages: 616

ISBN-13: 0132542455

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NEW Best Practices and Techniques for Growing Your Business with Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn! Completely Updated! Five new chapters: planning/metrics, customer service, and much more New and revamped case studies New guest contributions from world-class experts, such as Charlene Li New, instantly actionable “To Do” lists after every chapter New Facebook discussion threads and much more! Whatever your business or organizational goals, this book will help you use social networking to achieve them. Renowned social networking innovator Clara Shih brings together powerful new insights, best practices, and easy-to-use “To Do” lists packed with proven solutions from real-world case studies. Writing for entrepreneurs and business professionals across marketing, sales, service, product development, and recruiting, Shih demonstrates how to move from tactical, reactive use of social networks toward strategic, proactive approaches—and how to accurately measure success. This edition adds extensive new coverage, including hands-on techniques for hypertargeting, engaging customers through Twitter and LinkedIn, leveraging changing social norms, and much more. You’ll also find more than three dozen guest contributions from world-class experts such as author Don Tapscott and Harvard Business School professor Mikolaj Piskorski, as well as a brand-new chapter on customer service and support, today’s fastest-growing area of business social networking. Shih has even added new chapters focused on advice for small businesses, healthcare and education organizations, nonprofits, and political campaigns—making this the one indispensable social networking guide for every organization!

Era of Experimentation
Era of Experimentation

Author: Daniel Peart

Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Published: 2014-05-05

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 081393561X

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In Era of Experimentation, Daniel Peart challenges the pervasive assumption that the present-day political system, organized around two competing parties, represents the logical fulfillment of participatory democracy. Recent accounts of "the rise of American democracy" between the Revolution and the Civil War applaud political parties for opening up public life to mass participation and making government responsive to the people. Yet this celebratory narrative tells only half of the story. By exploring American political practices during the early 1820s, a period of particular flux in the young republic, Peart argues that while parties could serve as vehicles for mass participation, they could also be employed to channel, control, and even curb it. Far from equating democracy with the party system, Americans freely experimented with alternative forms of political organization and resisted efforts to confine their public presence to the polling place. Era of Experimentation demonstrates the sheer variety of political practices that made up what subsequent scholars have labeled "democracy" in the early United States. Peart also highlights some overlooked consequences of the nationalization of competitive two-party politics during the antebellum period, particularly with regard to the closing of alternative avenues for popular participation.

At America's Gates
At America's Gates

Author: Erika Lee

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2004-01-21

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 0807863130

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With the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Chinese laborers became the first group in American history to be excluded from the United States on the basis of their race and class. This landmark law changed the course of U.S. immigration history, but we know little about its consequences for the Chinese in America or for the United States as a nation of immigrants. At America's Gates is the first book devoted entirely to both Chinese immigrants and the American immigration officials who sought to keep them out. Erika Lee explores how Chinese exclusion laws not only transformed Chinese American lives, immigration patterns, identities, and families but also recast the United States into a "gatekeeping nation." Immigrant identification, border enforcement, surveillance, and deportation policies were extended far beyond any controls that had existed in the United States before. Drawing on a rich trove of historical sources--including recently released immigration records, oral histories, interviews, and letters--Lee brings alive the forgotten journeys, secrets, hardships, and triumphs of Chinese immigrants. Her timely book exposes the legacy of Chinese exclusion in current American immigration control and race relations.

Why We Lost the ERA
Why We Lost the ERA

Author: Jane J. Mansbridge

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2015-07-15

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 022618644X

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In this work, Jane Mansbridge's fresh insights uncover a significant democratic irony - the development of self-defeating, contradictory forces within a democratic movement in the course of its struggle to promote its version of the common good. Mansbridge's book is absolutely essential reading for anyone interested in democratic theory and practice.