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Empty Fields, Empty Promises: A State-by-State Guide to Understanding and Transforming the Right to Farm (Rural Studies Series)
by Loka Ashwood Danielle Diamond Allen Franco Aimee Imlay Lindsay KuehnThe right to farm is essential to everyone's survival. Since the late 1970s, states across the nation have adopted so-called right-to-farm laws to limit nuisance suits loosely related to agriculture. But since their adoption, there has yet to be a comprehensive analysis of what these laws do and who they benefit. This book offers the first national analysis and guide to these laws. It reveals that they generally benefit the largest operators, like processing plants, while traditional farmers benefit the least. Disfavored most of all are those seeking to defend their homes and environment against multinational corporations that use right-to-farm laws to strip neighboring owners of their property rights. Through what the book calls the "midburden," right-to-farm laws dispossess the many in favor of the few, paving the path to rural poverty. Empty Fields, Empty Promises summarizes every state's right-to-farm laws to help readers track and navigate their local and regional legal landscape. The book concludes by offering paths forward for a more distributed and democratic agrifood system that achieves agricultural, rural, and environmental justice.
Practical Web Accessibility: A Comprehensive Guide to Digital Inclusion
by Ashley FirthEveryone deserves to use the Internet. An estimated 1.3 billion people experience significant disability. That’s 16percent of the world’s population, or one in six of us. At the same time, over 96 percent of the one million most popular websites have an accessibility issue. Add to this the massive rise in legal cases around sites not being accessible, including Beyoncé, Disney, and Netflix, and you have an important topic that more and more people are starting to engage with.In this updated and revamped second edition of the Amazon technology chart-topping Practical Web Accessibility, you’ll be guided through a broad range of disabilities and access needs. You’ll understand the ways these users typically engage with the web, the barriers they often face, and practical advice on how your websites and content can be compliant, but more than that, inclusive and enjoyable to use. There’s also a new chapter on “Outsourcing Accessibility,” exploring third party “bolt-on” tools, “build your own website” platforms like Wix, and popular design systems. You‘ll explore whether they’re helpful or detrimental in the fight to make the web more accessible.Throughout this book you’ll learn to test for, spot, and fix web accessibility issues for a wide range of physical and mental impairments. Featuring content from the latest compliance frameworks, including the newly released WCAG 2.2 and exploratory concepts in WCAG 3, you’ll see how to go beyond the basic requirements in order to help your users. You’ll also learn that an accessible approach won’t just help people with disabilities, it will improve your website for everyone.This book comes complete with practical examples you can use in your own sites, along with a brand-new approach to auditing and improving a website’s accessibility, and a team’s approach to it, based on tools created by the author and refined over years as a consultant — The FAIR framework and ACCESS checklist. With these tools, you can set up processes for yourself and your team that will drastically improve the accessibility of your sites and, importantly, keep them that way in the future. Suitable for those of any profession or experience level, Practical Web Accessibility gives you all the information you need to ensure that your sites are truly accessible for the modern, inclusive web. If you would like to learn about web accessibility in a clear and actionable way, this book is for you.What You Will LearnA greater understanding of a vast range of disabilities that have online access needs, and the issues they typically face accessing content online.Ways to apply the practical steps required to cater for those needs.How to take your sites, and colleagues, on a journey from being inaccessible to accessible.The importance of accessibility in your designs, code, content, and more.The best ways to test andimprove your sites, so you can be compliant, and truly accessible. Who This Book Is For Anyone, regardless of what they do, who wants to learn how to make websites and their content more accessible for those with disabilities. In the world of web, the book has been used by front and backend developers, designers, product and project managers, team and business leaders.
Mindful Design: A Survival Guide for Responsible Product Designers (Design Thinking)
by Scott RileyLearn to create seamless designs backed by a responsible understanding of the human mind. This new edition is fully updated and reworked to employ a realistic, challenging, and practical approach to interface design, presenting state of the art scientific studies in behavioral sciences, interface design and the psychology of design. All with modern, up-to-date examples and screenshots. The practical portion of this edition has been completely reworked, giving you the chance to follow along with a real, proven design process that has produced several successful products imbued with the principles of mindful, responsible design.You'll examine how human behavior can be used to integrate your product design into lifestyle, rather than interrupt it, and make decisions for the good of those that are using your product. You will also learn about the neurological aspects and limitations of human vision and perception; about our attachment to harmony and dissonance; and about our brain’s propensity towards pattern recognition and how we perceive the world around us. In the second half of the book, you’ll follow along with the key phases of a design project, implementing what you have learned in an end-to-end, practical setting. Design is a responsibility, but not enough designers understand the human mind or the process of thought. Mindful Design, Second Edition introduces the areas of brain science that matter to designers, and passionately explains how those areas affect each human’s day-to-day experiences with products and interfaces, providing a battle-tested toolkit to help you make responsible design decisions. What You'll Learn Review how attention and distraction work and the cost of attentional switchingUse Gestalt principles to communicate visual groupingEnsure your underlying models make sense to your audienceUse time, progression, and transition to create a compositionCarefully examine controlling behavior through reductionist and behaviorist motivation concepts Apply the theoretical knowledge to practical, mindful interface design Who This Book Is For The primary audience for this book is professional designers who wish to learn more about the human mind and how to apply that to their work. The book is also useful for design-focused product owners and startup founders who wish to apply ethical thinking to a team, or when bootstrapping their products. The secondary audience is design students who are either studying a ‘traditional’ visual design course, or a UX/interaction design course who have a desire to learn how they might be able to apply mindful design to their early careers. Finally, a tertiary audience for this book would be tutors involved in teaching design, or peripheral, courses who may wish to incorporate its teachings into their lectures, workshops or seminars.
How the West Indian Child is made Educationally Subnormal in the British School System: The scandal of the Black Child in Schools in Britain
by Bernard Coard"In the book, Coard examines educational inequality and institutional racism in the British educational system through the lens of the country's "educationally subnormal" (ESN) schools—previously called "schools for the mentally subnormal"—which disproportionately and wrongly enrolled Black children, especially those from the British Afro-Caribbean community." -Wikipedia
The 10-Second Commute: New Realities of Virtual Work
by Terri R. Kurtzberg Mason AmeriVirtual work, which was steadily on the rise even before the pandemic, is explored in this timely book that describes the impact of technology on our work experiences, ranging from the individual psychological level to the broad societal implications.Widespread remote work is now possible, but it comes with its share of frustrations. Virtual work has changed our lives in ways big and small, from trying to balance our time to what we wear and where we sit and from how we communicate to where we should look during a videoconference. It's also fundamentally changed what kinds of jobs we can now do.Grounded in research and including lively personal anecdotes, The 10-Second Commute provides a thoughtful and comprehensive scan of the nature of virtual work. The authors, both researchers in management and technology, explore the current questions of our virtual lives, such as: Why Zoom instead of Skype? Why are emojis so useful? Why is videoconferencing so exhausting? How does diversity at work both help and hinder productivity? Virtual work is more than just work-it permeates our whole lives, and it will continue to do so as hybrid work arrangements become the new normal. Helping readers better understand the virtual work experience, this book will engage and inform everyone who is still trying to make it work.
Manufacturing Green Prosperity: The Power to Rebuild the American Middle Class (New Trends and Ideas in American Politics)
by Jon RynnThis timely set of solutions based on a new theory of economics shows how America can reverse its inexorable economic decline and stop the bleeding of its middle class by rebuilding its manufacturing sector on a green basis.Manufacturing Green Prosperity: The Power to Rebuild the American Middle Class connects two critical issues: the importance of manufacturing to the growth and fair distribution of national wealth and the need to create an environmentally sustainable society. In so doing, the book offers groundbreaking arguments demonstrating the centrality of manufacturing and shows ways in which creating a green economy will rebuild U.S. manufacturing and expand the middle class.Drawing from the fields of political science, economics, ecology, history, engineering, and philosophy, the author challenges existing myths about manufacturing, exposes the weaknesses of neoclassical economics, and proposes a production-centered alternative. America, he persuasively argues, needs a sophisticated, green manufacturing base in order to create an entirely new transportation and energy infrastructure-one that will make cities ecologically sustainable; prevent the worst effects of global warming; protect vulnerable ecosystems; and counter the depletion of oil, coal, and other critical natural resources.
Religion and World Civilizations [3 volumes]: How Faith Shaped Societies from Antiquity to the Present [3 volumes]
by Andrew HoltAn indispensable resource for readers investigating how religion has influenced societies and cultures, this three-volume encyclopedia assesses and synthesizes the many ways in which religious faith has shaped societies from the ancient world to today. Each volume of the set focuses on a different era of world history, ranging through the ancient, medieval, and modern worlds. Every volume is filled with essays that focus on religious themes from different geographical regions. For example, volume one includes essays considering religion in ancient Rome, while volume three features essays focused on religion in modern Africa. This accessible layout makes it easy for readers to learn more about the ways that religion and society have intersected over the centuries, as well as specific religious trends, events, and milestones in a particular era and place in world history.Taken as a a whole, this ambitious and wide-ranging work gathers more than 500 essays from more than 150 scholars who share their expertise and knowledge about religious faiths, tenets, people, places, and events that have influenced the development of civilization over the course of recorded human history.
Marriage and Divorce in America: Issues, Trends, and Controversies
by Jaimee L. Hartenstein, EditorThis wide-ranging resource will help readers understand the history and current state of marriage and divorce in the United States, including their many cultural, economic, political, legal, and religious facets. Coverage includes information and insights on broad trends in relationships that are changing the landscape of American society, such as childcare, delayed marriages, blended families, and prevalence of marriage and divorce among various socioeconomic groups. In addition, the encyclopedia features in-depth entries covering high-interest issues that are shaping the character of marriage, divorce, relationships, and family life in the 21st century, including economic/legal topics (child support, prenups, divisions of assets in divorce, the wedding industry, no-fault divorce, legal representation in divorce, and economic independence as a factor in separations/divorce); other divorce factors (infidelity, parenthood, illness, domestic abuse, and child abuse); and a host of other legal/cultural issues, factors, and phenomena, both current and historical.
Youth Sports in America: The Most Important Issues in Youth Sports Today
by Skye G. Arthur-BanningWritten by a former Olympic consultant, this book examines youth sports in America today, from institutions that dominate organized youth sports to high-profile controversies ranging from burnout and out-of-control parents to the health risks of youth football.As organized youth sports occupy an ever-greater role in the lives of American families, critics have begun to question whether some programs and participants have lost their way. This timely book examines the state of youth sports in America today, analyzing how organized sports influence communities, discussing the potential emotional and physical benefits as well as drawbacks of youth sports, and profiling the industry's key participants, ranging from parent coaches to club sports owners to personal trainers.The work begins with a look at the evolution of youth sports in the United States, then explores such topics as burnout, self-discipline, performance-enhancing drugs, parental violence, and scholarships. The content includes coverage of 20 individual youth sports, such as basketball, softball, lacrosse, baseball, volleyball, football, soccer, cross-country, and swimming, and provides breakdowns of historical and current participation rates, injury rates, and sport-specific scholarship trends. Each summary includes contact information on important organizations specific to that sport.
Workplace Bullying and Mobbing in the United States [2 volumes]: [2 volumes]
by Maureen Duffy and David C. YamadaOffering multidisciplinary research and analysis on workplace bullying and mobbing, this two-volume set explores the prevalence of these behaviors in sectors ranging from K–12 education to corporate environments and exposes their effects on both individuals and organizations.Workplace Bullying and Mobbing in the United States provides a comprehensive overview of the nature and scope of the problem of workplace bullying and mobbing. By tapping the knowledge of a breadth of subject experts and interpreting contemporary survey data, this resource examines the impact of bullying and mobbing on targets; identifies what constitutes effective prevention and intervention; surveys the legal landscape for addressing the problem, from both American and (for multinational employers) transnational perspectives; and provides an analysis of key employment sectors with practical recommendations for prevention and amelioration of these behaviors.The contributors to this outstanding work include researchers, practitioners, and policy and subject-matter experts who are widely recognized as authorities on workplace bullying and mobbing, including Drs. Gary and Ruth Namie, cofounders of the U.S. workplace anti-bullying movement; Drs. Maureen Duffy and Len Sperry, internationally recognized authorities on workplace mobbing; and professor David Yamada, leading expert on the legal aspects of workplace bullying. The set's content will be of particular value to scholars and practitioners in disciplines that overlap with American labor and employee relations, industrial/organizational psychology and mental health, and law and conflict resolution.
Working with Millennials: Using Emotional Intelligence and Strategic Compassion to Motivate the Next Generation of Leaders
by Marc RobertsonThis book directly addresses the issues and problems that leaders face in today's business environment—and provides tangible and usable techniques to overcome these challenges.Millennial-generation managers and employees—those ages 18–35—have transformed business in America. More than any previous generation, they don't conform to the traditional ways of doing things. Rather than passively taking orders, Millennials thirst for engagement, expect to be part of a team, and need to be engaged in meaningful tasks. And they aren't as devoted to the corporation as much as they are to the product or service that's provided. This book guides readers—people in management positions or in any corporate setting—in embracing these key differences and nurturing their abilities to listen and empathize with coworkers, supervisors, and employees. Readers will also learn the best ways to encourage and motivate this unique generation in a way that is familiar to them and still serves to push them to work hard, improve, and grow.The book demonstrates how to lead and manage Millennials, explains how to motivate them, and describes how to help them develop professionally. It gives managers the tools and techniques to satisfy Millennials' need to advance rapidly in their careers—and explains how to become a supporter of this desire instead of appearing to stand in their way. Turning the traditional notion of business management on its head, it shows that taking a caring and humanistic approach to employees, coworkers, and colleagues leads to increased productivity, efficiency, and profitability. These same techniques that foster open communication and trust will help companies to create office cultures that encourage people to be self-motivated and minimize worker turnover.
Working Out: The Psychology of Sport and Exercise (The Psychology of Everyday Life)
by Justine J. ReelWritten by a leading expert in the field of sport science, this motivational text provides a thorough overview of fitness and exercise psychology as it relates to everyday life.A title in the Psychology of Everyday Life series, this unique book addresses the connections between sport and exercise psychology and life outside of competitive endeavors—from definitions, theories, and applications to the real-life issues affecting athletes. It provides an accessible overview of sport and exercise psychology that enables readers to apply effective sport performance and exercise psychology concepts to their own lives, regardless of whether they pursue athletic endeavors or not. Covering topics that range from goalsetting to motivation to personality, this book can also serve to inspire readers to create a personal activity program based on achievable goals and realistic expectations, regardless of starting point or desired outcomes.Author Justine J. Reel shares fascinating insights into the world of physical fitness and its associated behaviors, including why athletes who adopt a task-oriented approach will show a stronger work ethic and more motivation than athletes who focus on outcomes, what is prompting the spread of sport psychology to other parts of the world, why more and more athletes are at risk for developing eating disorders, and who social physique anxiety afflicts. The book also presents various viewpoints and debates on current controversies in the field of sport and exercise.
Women, War, and Violence [2 volumes]: Topography, Resistance, and Hope [2 volumes] (Praeger Security International)
by Mariam M. Kurtz and Lester R. KurtzThis set of original articles probes the breadth of vital issues surrounding the impact of war and violence on women globally—and examines what is being done to mitigate their effects.The story of men's roles in war and violence fills headlines and history books, but the women's narrative too often goes unnoticed. This two-volume work brings women's voices to the fore, highlighting new scholarship and journalism to offer a realistic understanding of this timely topic. Including both historical context and contemporary issues, the volumes explore types of violence affecting women and girls—as victims of war and as combatants in and perpetrators of war. Equally important, it provides an in-depth look at resistance movements and peacemaking efforts, examining how these issues can—and should—be addressed.The two volumes bring together a wide range of articles by experts from various fields and backgrounds to provide the first all-inclusive overview of women, war, and violence. Other works on the subject tend to be focused on Western nations, offering a narrow view of a global issue. This compendium, in contrast, takes a truly international approach. It provides general readers, policymakers, students and scholars with a compelling collection of insights from around the world, exposing the varied experiences women have had—and continue to have—with violence and war.
Women in Sports [2 volumes]: Breaking Barriers, Facing Obstacles [2 volumes]
by Adrienne N. Milner And Jomills Henry Braddock IICovering a breadth of topics surrounding the current state of women in sports, this two-volume collection taps current events, sociological and feminist theory, and recent research to contextualize women's experiences in sports within a patriarchal society and highlight areas for improvement.Women are continuing to break barriers in all aspects of sports, and a growing number of people are beginning to recognize sex disparities in sports as a social problem. Additionally, women's inclusion and exclusion in sports—and their equitable and inequitable treatment on the playing field—have large-scale social, legal, health, and economic consequences. Women in Sports: Breaking Barriers, Facing Obstacles comprehensively examines the state of women in sports by considering current events, controversies, and trends as well as qualitative and quantitative research. The contributors to this volume take a sociological approach to discussing women in sports by questioning dominant assumptions surrounding notions of women's biological athletic inferiority and by examining other social constructs that affect women's experiences in sports, such as race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and sexual orientation. The book offers a complete and up-to-date account of women's experiences in sports through coverage of the history of women's participation in sports (with a focus on exceptional female athletes) and of the increasing number of women who are competing in traditionally male sports, such as football, baseball, and mixed martial arts. Readers will come away with a greater appreciation for the issues of equity that women face, both within the world of sports and in society in general.
Women and Management [2 volumes]: Global Issues and Promising Solutions [2 volumes] (Women and Careers in Management)
by Michele A. PaludiFor every woman still bumping the glass ceiling and every man who cares, these volumes recount challenges female leaders face—and strategies that will smooth the path to managerial positions in corporate America and worldwide.Expert contributors offer a global perspective on issues women leaders and managers must confront every day, from sex discrimination, sexual harassment, and gender mainstreaming to pay inequity and male perceptions of women leaders. Volume 1, Degrees of Challenge, addresses both overt and subtle biases women encounter in trying to meet their career aspirations. Volume 2, Signs of Solutions, offers concrete, empowering strategies for organizational change intended to eliminate discriminatory treatment of women in the workplace.The 30 research-based studies here are drawn from nations as disparate as the United States, Turkey, Puerto Rico, Australia, Japan, Great Britain, Israel, the Czech Republic, the Dominican Republic, India, Nepal, Korea, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia to showcase new and emerging solutions worldwide. Accounts from woman managers are also included to provide the reader with real-life examples of how women deal with organizations that welcome them—and those that hinder their performance.
Women and Indigenous Religions (Women and Religion in the World)
by Sylvia MarcosThis book examines the critical and often undervalued contributions of women to the culture, well-being, and subsistence of their communities as active, powerful, and wise ritual specialists.From the Dalit midwives in India to the women of the Nahua region in the state of Morelos, Mexico, from the indigenous nations in Turtle Island in Canada to the shamans (male and female) of South Korea and Vietnam, there are still many vital indigenous cultures around the world in which women often hold positions of religious authority and leadership.Women and Indigenous Religions addresses specific issues in the study of religion, such as the multifaceted tensions between indigenous traditions and gender and the genealogy of positions of authority in religion or spiritual matters. A close examination reveals that native religions, with their women specialists, are still a source of inspiration for millions of men and women even in the "advanced" areas in the world. This fact challenges the opinion that indigenous cultures are becoming extinct.
Winning Revolutions [3 volumes]: The Psychosocial Dynamics of Revolts for Freedom, Fairness, and Rights [3 volumes] (Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality)
by J. Harold EllensThe product of 35 senior scholars' research, these volumes examine the psychology driving the religious, political, and economic forces that cause turbulence and violence in human society.Religious, political, and economic revolts have defined the human experience throughout history. These kinds of universal turbulence continue to be the dominate source of human suffering and perplexity during the first decade of the 21st century. What can intensive study of the psychodynamics of cultural and social eruptions tell us that may serve to move cultures around the world beyond ongoing strife? This work seeks to find out, examining the spectrum of cultural and social eruptions from ancient Jewish, Christian, and Muslim revolutions to the modern day economic and political turbulence in Eastern Europe, the Near East, and Latin America. The breadth of this three-volume set ranges from the 12th century BCE to the current struggles in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria; and from the irrational violence of the French Revolution to the genuine quest for liberty of the American Revolution and the Singing Revolutions in the Baltic States in recent decades. Each volume is introduced with a description of its philosophical perspective and concludes with a brief summarization of the takeaways of the research presented.
White Sports/Black Sports: Racial Disparities in Athletic Programs (Racism in American Institutions)
by Lori Latrice MartinThe racial makeup of sports in the United States serves as a classic example of racism in the 21st century. This book examines the racial disparities in sports and the continuing significance of race in 21st-century America, debunking the myth of a "postracial society."Sports can serve as an inspirational example of what can be achieved through hard work and perseverance, regardless of one's race. However, there is plenty of evidence that race still plays a major role in sports, and that sports are key agents of racial socialization. White Sports/Black Sports: Racial Disparities in Athletic Programs challenges the idea that America has moved beyond racial discrimination and identifies the obvious and subtle ways in which racial identities and athletic determinism affect non-white individuals in the world of sports.Author Lori Latrice Martin gives readers a keen awareness of the issues, allowing them to see the links between sports and society as a whole and to perceive that the issues surrounding racism in sports impact people in every realm of life and are not limited to the playing field. She discusses how the media acts as an agent of racial socialization in sports, documents how historical stereotypes of minorities still exist, and looks closely at racial socialization in sports, including basketball, baseball, and football, exposing how blacks remained under-represented in most sports, especially among front office administrators, owners, coaches, and managers. This work serves undergraduate and graduate students in the social sciences to enhance their understanding of minority and majority group relationships and appeals to general readers interested in the history of race and sports in America.
Watchdogs and Whistleblowers: A Reference Guide to Consumer Activism
by Stephen Brobeck & Robert N. MayerThis book is the most comprehensive and up-to-date source of information about ways in which consumer activism has reshaped the economic and political well-being of citizens in the United States and around the world.This all-encompassing collection of information about consumer activism and the consumer movement will provide students, public officials, business groups, and other activists with a one-stop source of facts and insights. The contributors explore hundreds of major consumer protections that have significantly enhanced the quality of life and safety for all Americans, showing how these protections were won through the skillful and determined work of leading activists and activist organizations. Many of the stories told here are related by the activists themselves, often for the first time.More than 140 entries offer a comprehensive treatment of the consumer activism of specific organizations, their leaders, and strategies. The book also includes more than 40 entries about consumer movements in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. A timeline of key events and a listing of the most important books on the subject of consumer activism help provide context for the individual entries as do two introductory essays. Cross references in each entry establish linkages among topics.
Voting Rights under Fire: The Continuing Struggle for People of Color (Racism in American Institutions)
by Donathan L. Brown Michael L. ClemonsWith the increasing demands for changes in how we vote, the authors analyze the complications of race tied to these proposed policies through historical and contemporary challenges.Why does race play such a discursive role when it comes to the "right to vote"? Lawmakers are continuing to propose changes to voting rights policies that directly impact African Americans and the emerging Latino electorate. Ranging from issues like voter identification laws, accusations of voter fraud, and voting rights for convicted felons, this single-volume provides an in-depth analysis regarding the various racial dimensions embedded in cases of public policy. By highlighting the origination and evolution of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Voting Rights under Fire: The Continuing Struggle for People of Color demonstrates the still-prevalent issues around voting and people of color. This work will provide readers an accessible, interdisciplinary book that interconnects past and present issues involving political debates, public policy, and court decisions pertaining to race and voting rights in America.
Voices of Unbelief: Documents from Atheists and Agnostics
by Dale McGowanThis book spotlights individual expressions of atheist, agnostic, and secular humanist opinion—both public and private—to shed light on the phenomenon of religious disbelief throughout history and across cultures.Voices of Unbelief: Documents from Atheists and Agnostics is the first anthology to provide comprehensive, annotated readings on atheism and unbelief expressly for high school and college students. This diverse compilation brings together letters, essays, diary entries, book excerpts, blogs, monologues, and other writings by atheists and agnostics, both through the centuries and across continents and cultures.Unlike most other anthologies of atheist writings, the collection goes beyond public proclamations of well-known individuals to include the personal voices of unbelievers from many walks of life. While readers will certainly find excerpts from the published canon here, they will also discover personal documents that testify to the experience of living outside of the religious mainstream. The book presents each document in its historical context, enriched with an introduction, key questions, and activities that will help readers understand the past and navigate current controversies revolving around religious belief.
Voices of the Renaissance: Contemporary Accounts of Daily Life (Voices of an Era)
by John A. WagnerThe documents in this collection trace the course of the Renaissance in Italy and northern Europe, describing the emergence of a vibrant and varied intellectual and artistic culture in various states, cities, and kingdoms.Voices of the Renaissance: Contemporary Accounts of Daily Life contains excerpts from 52 different documents relating to the period of European history known as the Renaissance. In the 14th century, the rise of humanism, a philosophy based on the study of the languages, literature, and material culture of ancient Greece and Rome, led to a sense of revitalization and renewal among the city-states of northern Italy. The political development and economic expansion of those cities provided the ideal conditions for humanist scholarship to flourish. This period of literary, artistic, architectural, and cultural flowering is today known as the Renaissance, a term taken from the French and meaning "rebirth."The Italian Renaissance reached its height in the 15th and early 16th centuries. In the 1490s, the ideals of the Italian Renaissance spread north of the Alps and gave rise to a series of national cultural rebirths in various states. In many places, this Northern Renaissance extended into the 17th century, when war and religious discord put an end to the Renaissance era.
Voices of Civil War America: Contemporary Accounts of Daily Life (Voices of an Era)
by Lawrence A. Kreiser Jr.Letting ordinary people speak for themselves, this book uses primary documents to highlight daily life among Americans—Union and Confederate, black and white, soldier and civilian—during the Civil War and Reconstruction.Focusing on routines as basic as going to school and cooking and cleaning, Voices of Civil War America: Contemporary Accounts of Daily Life explores the lives of ordinary Americans during one of the nation's most tumultuous eras. The book emphasizes the ordinary rather than the momentous to help students achieve a true understanding of mid-19th-century American culture and society.Recognizing that there is no better way to learn history than to allow those who lived it to speak for themselves, the authors utilize primary documents to depict various aspects of daily life, including politics, the military, economics, domestic life, material culture, religion, intellectual life, and leisure. Each of the documents is augmented by an introduction and aftermath, as well as lists of topics to consider and questions to ask.
Virtual Teams: Mastering Communication and Collaboration in the Digital Age
by Terri R. KurtzbergTo advance in today's workplace requires virtual team skills. Most individuals assume their face-to-face skills will translate, but competency with virtual communication and teamwork requires an entirely new set of skills. This book guides readers down the path to success.Electronic communication is now embedded in our daily experience, as is work involving off-site collaborators. Virtual communication has become an essential job skill that is critical to individual and group success, yet most people just muddle through it without giving it any thought. Drawing on decades of scientific research in the fields of psychology, organizational behavior, and sociology, this book explains how to master the art and science of communicating virtually.The author first analyzes the subtle but significant changes that result when conversations are moved online, providing examples and tips to avoid common pitfalls, then discusses how team behavior and decision making can best be guided in this realm. Readers will fully understand what makes teams "click"—what inspires trust, how to get a team "off on the right foot," and what steps to take in order to make good collaborative decisions—as well as other key topics for virtual teamwork, such as best practices for working in the cross-cultural environment. The book serves as an ideal guide for anyone who participates in or manages a virtual team but is also suitable as a supplemental textbook in a business school course on organizational behavior or business communication.
Virtual Lives: A Reference Handbook (Contemporary World Issues)
by James D. Ph.D.This book is the THE source for information on virtual worlds, covering every aspect of this intriguing and fast-changing social practice and the technologies upon which it rests.Virtual Lives: A Reference Handbook describes the history, development, and role of virtual worlds, also known as virtual environments and immersive virtual environments. It provides detailed background about virtual worlds and their societal impact, from early precursors and inspirations to the latest trends and developments. Specifics on user demographics are included, as are descriptions of virtual worlds' functions, discussion of societal concerns and opportunities, and information about relevant research data and key persons and organizations.Although virtual worlds in their current form are a relatively new phenomenon, other online social environments have served as precursors for decades and literary inspirations go back even further. This handbook therefore covers some early developments dating back to the mid-20th century. Its primary focus, however, is on developments since the mid-1990s and especially on the current state and social impact of virtual worlds, including their impact both in the United States and around the world.