This set of readings presents useful insights into urbanization and provides a fresh perspective on American cities and their inhabitants. Advancing the premise that it is not possible to understand how people live in cities without understanding how they think of them, the editor presents historical and contemporary materials that illustrate vividly the variety of ways in which Americans have viewed their cities, and urbanization in general.This book sheds light on what the city is and do...

This is the first volume in the Invitation Lecture Series of York University and it is an auspicious beginning. Three leaders in higher education in the United States here present their thoughts on challenging questions of enrolment, curriculum, and standards which today confront the ever expanding universities of North America. Professor Jones describes "The Idea of a University Once More"; Professor Riesman outlines and comments on some significant recent "Experiments in Higher Education...

This anthology of hard-to-find primary documents provides a solid overview of the foundations of American media studies. Focusing on mass communication and society and how this research fits into larger patterns of social thought, this valuable collection features key texts covering the media studies traditions of the Chicago school, the effects tradition, the critical theory of the Frankfurt school, and mass society theory. Where possible, articles are reproduced in their entirety to pres...

This is a brilliant and unconventional study of one of the most challenging figures in modern social and economic thought. David Riesman has chosen a deliberately personal method of exposition and evaluation, and he is by no means a disciple. He says of Veblen: 'I find him more often interesting than attractive, more often pungent than wise.' By approaching Veblen subjectively and in a critical spirit, Riesman has arrived at an estimate of the man that is objective and balanced.Veblen's id...

“One of the most important books of the twentieth century.”—Gideon Lewis-Kraus, New YorkerConsidered by many to be one of the most influential books of the twentieth century, The Lonely Crowd opened exciting new dimensions in our understanding of the problems confronting the individual in twentieth-century America. Richard Sennett’s new introduction illuminates the ways in which Riesman’s analysis of a middle class obsessed with how others lived s...

This classic collection of essays by David Riesman discusses the implications of affluence in America. Riesman maintains that the question that should be raised by wealth has shifted over time from how to obtain wealth to how to make use of it. Another key theme concerns issues relevant to higher education, such as academic freedom. Abundance for What? examines the notion that America is not as open a society as it may appear to be; it then shows how social science may be used to explain w...

Providing the only full-length study of the compendium of Greek philosophy attributed to Arius Didymus, court philosopher to the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus, this volume elucidates Stoic and Peripatetic ethics for classicists and philosophers. The authors provide careful textual analysis of important passages by this synthesizer of the major schools of Greek thought. Essays include translations of major passages.

Everett C. Hughes had a great impact on the field of sociology as a whole and on an entire generation of sociologists. Some of Hughes' former students and colleagues honor him in this book. The essays address the main themes in his work over the years, and illustrate as well Hughes' impact on the contributors, many of whom are themselves senior figures in the field. The book as a whole provides a distinguished and representative sampling of a major stream of contemporary sociological thoug...

An eye-opening introduction to the timelessly relevant ideas of Noam Chomsky, "arguably the most important intellectual alive" (The New York Times), this book is a penetrating, illusion-shattering look at how things really workOffering something not found anywhere else, How the World Works is pure Chomsky, but tailored for those who are new to his work. The book is made up of meticulously edited speeches and interviews, and every dazzling idea and...

Gritty, heartrending and unputdownable – the story of two sisters sent first to an English, then an Australian orphanage in the aftermath of World War II.Rita and Rosie Stevens are only nine and five years old when their widowed mother marries a violent bully called Jimmy Randall and has a baby boy by him. Under pressure from her new husband, she is persuaded to send the girls to an orphanage – not knowing that the papers she has s...

"[A] passionate, compelling, and disturbing argument that the ills of democracy in the United States today arise from the default of its elites." —John Gray, New York Times Book Review (front-page review)In a front-page review in the Washington Post Book World, John Judis wrote: "Political analysts have been poring over exit polls and precinct-level votes to gauge the meaning of last November's election, but they would probably better employ their...