A Free Society Reader

A Free Society Reader

Author: Michael Novak

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 456

ISBN-13: 9780739101445

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Confronting the challenges of freedom that has pervaded the world at the turn of the millennium has been for many different reasons, a struggle for people across the world. This reader offers thoughts and insights on freedom's challenge.


Liberalism and the Free Society in 2021

Liberalism and the Free Society in 2021

Author: Brad Lips

Publisher:

Published: 2021-06-09

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 9781732587311

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In 2021, the world is emerging from an extraordinary health crisis. It now confronts an extraordinary freedom crisis. Brad Lips's Liberalism and the Free Society 2021 takes a sober look at how institutions of liberal democracy are now tested - in the U.S. and worldwide - by lockdowns, cronyism, cancel culture, and more. Exploring trends from the Global Index of Economic Mentality and drawing insights from an international network of experts and activists, Liberalism and the Free Society 2021 offers readers a deeper understanding of the fragility of freedom's future. Importantly, the book also shares reasons for hope as well as a path forward for building a larger coalition around the timeless values that sustain free societies.


The Consumer Society Reader

The Consumer Society Reader

Author: Juliet Schor

Publisher: The New Press

Published: 2011-07-26

Total Pages: 530

ISBN-13: 1595587586

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The Consumer Society Reader features a range of key works on the nature and evolution of consumer society. Included here is much-discussed work by leading critics such as Jean Baudrillard, Susan Bordo, Dick Hebdige, bell hooks, and Janice Radway. Also included is a full range of classics, such as Frankfurt School writers Adorno and Horkheimer on the Culture Industry; Thorstein Veblen's oft-cited writings on "conspicuous consumption"; Betty Friedan on the housewife's central role in consumer society; John Kenneth Galbraith's influential analysis of the "affluent society"; and Pierre Bourdieu on the notion of "taste." "Consumer society--the 'air we breathe,' as George Orwell has described it--disappears during economic downtruns and political crises. It becomes visible again when prosperity seems secure, cultural transformation is too rapid, or enviornmental disasters occur. Such is the time in which we now find ourselves. As the roads clog with gas-guzzling SUVs and McMansions proliferate in the suburbs, the nation is once again asking fundamental questions about lifestyle. Has 'luxury fever,' to use Robert Frank's phrase, gotten out of hand? Are we really comfortable with the 'Brand Is Me' mentality? Have we gone too far in pursuit of the almighty dollar, to the detriment of our families, communities, and natural enviornment? Even politicians, ordinarily impermeable to questions about consumerism, are voicing doubts... [and] polls suggest majorities of Americans feel the country has become too materialistic, too focused on getting and spending, and increasingly removed from long-standing non-materialist values." —From the introduction by Douglas B. Holt and Juliet B. Schor


The Law and Society Reader II

The Law and Society Reader II

Author: Erik Larson

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 442

ISBN-13: 0814789331

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Law and society scholars challenge the common belief that law is simply a neutral tool by which society sets standards and resolves disputes. Decades of research shows how much the nature of communities, organizations, and the people inhabiting them affect how law works. Just as much, law shapes beliefs, behaviors, and wider social structures, but the connections are much more nuancedOCoand surprisingOCothan many expect. Law and Society Reader II provides readers an accessible overview to the breadth of recent developments in this research tradition, bringing to life the developments in this dynamic field. Following up a first Law and Society Reader published in 1995, editors Erik W. Larson and Patrick D. Schmidt have compiled excerpts of 43 illuminating articles published since 1993 in The Law & Society Review, the flagship journal of the Law and Society Association. By its organization and approach, this volume enables readers to join in discussing the key ideas of law and society research. The selections highlight the core insights and developments in this research tradition, making these works indispensable for those exploring the field and ideal for classroom use. Across six concisely-introduced sections, this volume analyzes inequality, lawyering, the relation between law and organizations, and the place of law in relation to other social institutions."


The Information Society Reader

The Information Society Reader

Author: with Raimo Blom

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-04-02

Total Pages: 466

ISBN-13: 1000082768

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There has been much debate over the idea of 'the information society'. Some thinkers have argued that information is becoming the key ordering principle in society, whereas others suggest that the rise of information has been overstated. Whatever the case, it cannot be denied that 'informization' has produced vast changes in advanced societies. The Information Society Reader pulls together the main contributions to this debate from some of the key figures in the field. Major topics addressed include: * post-industrialism * surveillance * transformations * the network society * democracy * digital divisions * virtual relations. With a comprehensive introduction from Frank Webster, selections from Manuel Castells, Anthony Giddens, Michel Foucault and Christopher Lasch amongst others, and section introductions contextualising the readings, this book will be an invaluable resource for students and academics studying contemporary society and all things cyber.


The Law and Society Reader

The Law and Society Reader

Author: Richard L. Abel

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 1995-05

Total Pages: 463

ISBN-13: 0814706177

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A collection of 19 articles drawn from the Law and Society Review. Written by sociologists, legal scholars, and political scientists, the chapters are divided into sections on disputing, social control, norm creation, regulation, equality, ideology and consciousness, and the legal profession. Each chapter is followed by discussion questions, while methodological discussion and references have been pruned from the original articles for the purpose of this reader. Lacks an index. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR


The Civil Society Reader

The Civil Society Reader

Author: Virginia Hodgkinson

Publisher: UPNE

Published: 2009-08-15

Total Pages: 394

ISBN-13: 1584658312

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A "civil society" anthology for experts and students alike.


Science in a Free Society

Science in a Free Society

Author: Paul Feyerabend

Publisher: Verso Books

Published: 2017-11-10

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 1788731921

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No study in the philosophy of science created such controversy in the seventies as Paul Feyerabend's Against Method. In this work, Feyerabend reviews that controversy, and extends his critique beyond the problem of scientific rules and methods, to the social function and direction of science today. In the first part of the book, he launches a sustained and irreverent attack on the prestige of science in the West. The lofty authority of the "expert" claimed by scientists is, he argues, incompatible with any genuine democracy, and often merely serves to conceal entrenched prejudices and divided opinions with the scientific community itself. Feyerabend insists that these can and should be subjected to the arbitration of the lay population, whose closes interests they constantly affect-as struggles over atomic energy programs so powerfully attest. Calling for far greater diversity in the content of education to facilitate democratic decisions over such issues, Feyerabend recounts the origin and development of his own ideas-successively engaged by Brecht, Ehrenhaft, Popper, Mill and Lakatos-in a spirited intellectual self-portrait. Science in a Free Society is a striking intervention into one of the most topical debates in contemporary culture and politics.


Foundations of a Free Society

Foundations of a Free Society

Author: Gregory Salmieri

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press

Published: 2019-03-15

Total Pages: 399

ISBN-13: 0822986531

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Foundations of a Free Society brings together some of the most knowledgeable Ayn Rand scholars and proponents of her philosophy, as well as notable critics, putting them in conversation with other intellectuals who also see themselves as defenders of capitalism and individual liberty. United by the view that there is something importantly right—though perhaps also much wrong—in Rand’s political philosophy, contributors reflect on her views with the hope of furthering our understandings of what sort of society is best and why. The volume provides a robust elaboration and defense of the foundation of Rand’s political philosophy in the principle that force paralyzes and negates the functioning of reason; it offers an in-depth scholarly discussion of Rand’s view on the nature of individual rights and the role of government in defending them; it deals extensively with the similarities and differences between Rand’s thought and the libertarian tradition (to which she is often assimilated) and objections to her positions arising from this tradition; it explores Rand’s relation to the classical liberal tradition, specifically with regard to her defense of freedom of the intellect; and it discusses her views on the free market, with special attention to the relation between these views and those of the Austrian school of economics.