This book brings together an unprecedented number and range of contributions from different disciplines relating to sleep in one comprehensive volume.The contributors explore the science of sleep - what it is, what makes it happen and why we do it - as well as the measurement of sleep, its importance for daytime performance and its sociological and cultural aspects. Sleep disorders, sleep quality and the importance of sleep for daytime performance are also explored, as are the ways...

Ideas and practices concerning sleep and night-time are constantly changing and widely varied in different cultures and societies. What we do during the day and night is the result of much political struggle. Trade unions, political parties, entrepreneurs, leaders and schools boards, all have an interest in questions of timing for the opening and closing of shops, the starting hours of schools and factories, and the number of hours people have to work and sleep. By drawing together compara...

Four years after the 3.11 disaster in Japan, this acclaimed collection of ethnographies in English on the Japanese communities affected by the giant Tohoku earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters continues to be the only one of its kind. With a new preface offering an update on the affected communities, this volume brings together studies by experienced researchers of Japan from field sites around the disaster zone. The contributors present the survivors’ struggles in their own words: fr...