On Election Day in 2016, it seemed unthinkable to many Americans that Donald Trump could become president of the United States. But the victories of the Obama administration hid from view fundamental problems deeply rooted in American social institutions and history. The election’s consequences drastically changed how Americans experience their country, especially for those threatened by the public outburst of bigotry and repression. Amid the deluge of tweets and breaking news stories that...

In the 1960s, many believed that the civil rights movement's successes would foster a new era of racial equality in America. Four decades later, the degree of racial inequality has barely changed. To understand what went wrong, Patrick Sharkey argues that we have to understand what has happened to African American communities over the last several decades. In Stuck in Place, Sharkey describes how political decisions and social policies have led to severe disinvestment from black n...

A distinctive feature of the conflict in Northern Ireland over the past forty years has been the way Catholic and Protestant paramilitaries have policed their own communities. This has mainly involved the violent punishment of petty criminals involved in joyriding and other types of antisocial behavior. Between 1973 and 2007, more than 5,000 nonmilitary shootings and assaults were attributed to paramilitaries punishing their own people. But despite the risk of severe punishment, young pett...

"The Group Mind: A Sketch of the Principles of Collective Psychology" by William McDougall is a groundbreaking exploration of collective psychology. In this seminal work, McDougall delves into the intricacies of group behavior, offering readers a comprehensive understanding of the principles that govern collective thought and action. Through insightful analysis and engaging prose, McDougall examines the dynamics of group interaction, exploring topics such as crowd behavior, social influenc...

Footwork is an original street-corner ethnography drawing on the themes of urban regeneration, lost space and the 24-hour city. From the rough sleeping homeless to street drinkers and sex workers, it shows how urban modernisation, development and austerity politics impact the hidden lives of people living and working on the streets.To create this anthropology of the modern British city, Footwork follows the work of a team of outreach workers in Cardiff, tasked to look out for the h...

Suburbs can be incubators of creativity: innovative and complex, but all too often underappreciated. In Creative Margins, Alison L. Bain documents the unique role of Canadian artists and cultural workers in suburban place-formation and dismantles mischaracterizations of suburbs as cultural wastelands.Creative Margins interweaves stories of the challenges and opportunities presented by the creation of culture in suburbs, focusing on Etobicoke and Mississauga outsid...

A close-up look at the contradictions and wonders of the modern zooOrangutans swing from Kevlar-lined fire hoses. Giraffes feast on celebratory birthday cakes topped with carrots instead of candles. Hi-tech dinosaur robots growl among steel trees, while owls watch animated cartoons on old television sets. In American Zoo, sociologist David Grazian takes us on a safari through the contemporary zoo, alive with its many contradictions and strange wonders....

Selected by Choice magazine as an Outstanding Academic TitleTypically residing in areas of concentrated urban poverty, too many young black men are trapped in a horrific cycle that includes active discrimination, unemployment, violence, crime, prison, and early death. This toxic mixture has given rise to wider stereotypes that limit the social capital of all young black males.Edited and with an introductory chapter by sociologist Elijah Anderson, the essays in ...

Today's news media is full of references to 'globalization' - a buzz word that is quickly becoming ubiquitous. But what exactly is globalization? What are its main driving forces? Does it truly embrace all aspects of our lives, from economics to cultural developments?A Globalizing World? examines these and other key questions in a highly accessible fashion, offering a clear and intelligent guide to the big ideas and debates of our time. In doing so, it does not take one pa...

Labor unions remain the largest membership-based organizations in major North American cities, even after years of decline. Labor continues to play a vital role in mobilizing urban residents, shaping urban conflict, and crafting the policies and regulations that are transforming our urban spaces. As unions become more involved in the daily life of the city, they find themselves confronting the familiar dilemma of how to fold union priorities into broader campaigns that add...

This book concludes a trilogy that began with Intelligent Cities: Innovation, Knowledge Systems and digital spaces (Routledge 2002) and Intelligent Cities and Globalisation of Innovation Networks (Routledge 2008). Together these books examine intelligent cities as environments of innovation and collaborative problem-solving. In this final book, the focus is on planning, strategy and governance of intelligent cities.Divided into three parts, each section elaborates...

First published in 1972, this book rejects as inadequate the ‘trait’ and ‘functionalist’ theories of the professions and instead presents an alternative framework to analyse the contemporaneous occupational change in industrial societies. The author describes how occupational specialisation creates varying degrees of social distance between producers and consumers of goods or services, thus several institutions of control social have developed — collegiate, corporate or oligarchic patronag...