In science, more than elsewhere, a word is expected to mean what it says, nothing more, nothing less. But scientific discourse is neither different nor separable from ordinary language—meanings are multiple, ambiguities ubiquitous. Keywords in Evolutionary Biology grapples with this problem in a field especially prone to the confusion engendered by semantic imprecision.

Written by historians, philosophers, and biologists—including, among others, Stephen Jay Gould, Diane Paul, John Beatty, Robert Richards, Richard Lewontin, David Sloan Wilson, Peter Bowler, and Richard Dawkins—these essays identify and explicate those terms in evolutionary biology which, though commonly used, are plagues by multiple concurrent and historically varying meanings. By clarifying these terms in their many guises, the editors Evelyn Fox Keller and Elisabeth Lloyd hope to focus attention on major scholarly problems in the field—problems sometimes obscured, sometimes reveals, and sometimes even created by the use of such equivocal words. “Competition,” “adaptation,” and “fitness,” for instance, are among the terms whose multiple meaning have led to more than merely semantic debates in evolutionary biology.

Exploring the complexity of keywords and clarifying their role in prominent issues in the field, this book will prove invaluable to scientists and philosophers trying to come to terms with evolutionary theory; it will also serve as a useful guide to future research into the way in which scientific language works.

This book weighs alternative conceptions of the equal opportunity principle through an empirical and ethical exploration of the Federal law that directs local school districts to award special educational opportunities to students who are classified as learning disabled (LD). Mark Kelman and Gillian Lester consider the degree to which students with learning disabilities (rather than merely slow learners, the socially disadvantaged, or even the gifted) are entitled to benefits that might well prove advantageous to their classmates, such as extra time to complete an exam or expensive, individually tailored educational programs.

They examine the vexing question of how we should distribute extra educational funds: should we give them to those who have fewer material resources to begin with, to those who might benefit more than others from extra resources, or should we simply strive to create greater equality of outcome? The book exposes a growing conflict between those who want to distribute scarce resources on an individual basis to children who are in need whatever the reason, and those who seek to eliminate group inequalities.

Despite the frequent appearances of Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri on television screens worldwide, Al Qaeda remains an elusive entity. As the world has grown increasingly familiar with the spectacle of Islamist terrorism, Al Qaeda’s essential worldview has remained bewilderingly opaque. To reveal its inner workings, Gilles Kepel and his collaborators, all scholars of Arabic and Islam, have collected and brilliantly annotated key texts of the major figures from whom the movement has drawn its beliefs and direction. The resulting volume offers an unprecedented glimpse into the assumptions of the salafist jihadists who have reshaped political life at the beginning of the third millennium.

Excerpts from the work of Azzabdallah Azzam, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama Bin Laden, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi—drawn from speeches, internet postings, and published writings—tell the story of Al Qaeda’s evolution, from its origins in the Afghan war through the war in Iraq. These texts reveal the rational, discursive mode used to persuade and to justify violent armed struggle in a universe defined by militant Islam. Substantial interpretive introductions to each leader’s work and extensive critical commentary provide unparalleled access to the intellectual and doctrinal context of Al Qaeda in which these radical ideas have taken shape.

By viewing Al Qaeda from within, this indispensable volume reveals the terrorist network’s insidious role in the global web culture of today and the full dimensions of its frightening threat to world stability and security.

Once described by Trygve Lie as the "most impossible job on earth," the position of UN Secretary-General is as frustratingly constrained as it is prestigious. The Secretary-General's ability to influence global affairs often depends on how the international community regards his moral authority. In relation to such moral authority, past office-holders have drawn on their own ethics and religious backgrounds—as diverse as Lutheranism, Catholicism, Buddhism, and Coptic Christianity—to guide the role that they played in addressing the UN's goals in the international arena, such as the maintenance of international peace and security and the promotion of human rights. In The UN Secretary-General and Moral Authority, contributors provide case studies of all seven former secretaries-general, establishing a much-needed comparative survey of each office-holder's personal religious and moral values. From Trygve Lie's forbearance during the UN's turbulent formative years to the Nobel committee's awarding Kofi Annan and the United Nations the prize for peace in 2001, the case studies all follow the same format, first detailing the environmental and experiential factors that forged these men's ethical frameworks, then analyzing how their "inner code" engaged with the duties of office and the global events particular to their terms.

Balanced and unbiased in its approach, this study provides valuable insight into how religious and moral leadership functions in the realm of international relations, and how the promotion of ethical values works to diffuse international tensions and improve the quality of human life around the world.

In 1961 South Korea was mired in poverty. By 1979 it had a powerful industrial economy and a vibrant civil society in the making, which would lead to a democratic breakthrough eight years later. The transformation took place during the years of Park Chung Hee's presidency. Park seized power in a coup in 1961 and ruled as a virtual dictator until his assassination in October 1979. He is credited with modernizing South Korea, but at a huge political and social cost.

South Korea's political landscape under Park defies easy categorization. The state was predatory yet technocratic, reform-minded yet quick to crack down on dissidents in the name of political order. The nation was balanced uneasily between opposition forces calling for democratic reforms and the Park government's obsession with economic growth. The chaebol (a powerful conglomerate of multinationals based in South Korea) received massive government support to pioneer new growth industries, even as a nationwide campaign of economic shock therapy-interest hikes, devaluation, and wage cuts-met strong public resistance and caused considerable hardship.

This landmark volume examines South Korea's era of development as a study in the complex politics of modernization. Drawing on an extraordinary range of sources in both English and Korean, these essays recover and contextualize many of the ambiguities in South Korea's trajectory from poverty to a sustainable high rate of economic growth.

A new approach to training and evaluating world languages online instructors

The rapid growth in online world language programs in the United States coupled with the widespread implementation of virtual teaching in response to COVID-19 have pushed the field to reconceive instruction. Virtual learning creates unique challenges for instructors, who need to ensure that their students have adequate interaction with their peers, their professor, and native speakers of the language. Even with a growing demand for online language courses, there are few tools that evaluate the training and assessment of online language instructors.

In Online World Language Instruction Training and Assessment, authors Carmen King Ramírez, Barbara A. Lafford, and James E. Wermers fill that gap, providing a critical pedagogical approach to computer-assisted language learning (CALL) teacher education (CTE). By combining best CTE training and evaluation practices with assessment tools, the authors explain how teachers can integrate technology to build successful online programs. Their ecological, holistic approach addresses all facets of learning online—including pressing challenges of moving courses online, teacher training, developing core competencies and skills, instructions for assessment and self-evaluation, goal setting, and the normalization of critical CTE practices in an increasingly digital environment.

The authors propose new solutions to teacher training challenges, providing extensive rubrics and tools that can equitably assess online language instructor skills, the training they receive, the assessment process they undergo, and the instruments used for instructor assessment. A list of CALL and CTE resources (available on the Press’s website) further supports readers’ successful adaptation to an everchanging learning environment.

In the last three decades the field of endangered and minority languages has evolved rapidly, moving from the initial dire warnings of linguists to a swift increase in the number of organizations, funding programs, and community-based efforts dedicated to documentation, maintenance, and revitalization. Sustaining Linguistic Diversity brings together cutting-edge theoretical and empirical work from leading researchers and practitioners in the field. Together, these contributions provide a state-of-the-art overview of current work in defining, documenting, and developing the world's smaller languages and language varieties.

The book begins by grappling with how we define endangerment—how languages and language varieties are best classified, what the implications of such classifications are, and who should have the final say in making them. The contributors then turn to the documentation and description of endangered languages and focus on best practices, methods and goals in documentation, and on current field reports from around the globe. The latter part of the book analyzes current practices in developing endangered languages and dialects and particular language revitalization efforts and outcomes in specific locations. Concluding with critical calls from leading researchers in the field to consider the human lives at stake, Sustaining Linguistic Diversity reminds scholars, researchers, practitioners, and educators that linguistic diversity can only be sustained in a world where diversity in all its forms is valued.

American Workman presents a comprehensive, novel reassessment of the life and work of one of America’s most influential self-taught artists, John Kane. With a full account of Kane’s life as a working man, including his time as a steelworker, coal miner, street paver, and commercial painter in and around Pittsburgh in the early twentieth century, the authors explore how these occupations shaped his development as an artist and his breakthrough success in the modern art world. A rough-and-tumble blue-collar man prone to brawling and drinking, Kane also sought out beauty in the industrial world he inhabited. This Kane paradox—brawny and tough, sensitive and creative—was at the heart of much of the public’s interest in Kane as a person. The allure of the Kane saga was heightened all the more by the fact that he did not achieve renown until he was at the age at which most people are retiring from their professions. Kane’s dedication to painting resulted in a fascinating body of work that has ended up in some of America’s most important museums and private collections. His dramatic life story demonstrates the courage, strength, and creativity of his generation of workmen. They may be long gone, but thanks to Kane they cannot be forgotten.

In 2009, to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the People’s Republic of China, the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies convened a major conference to discuss the health and longevity of China’s ruling system and to consider a fundamental question: After three decades of internal strife and turmoil, followed by an era of reform, entrepreneurialism, and internationalization, is the PRC here for the dynastic long haul?

Bringing together scholars and students of China from around the world, the gathering witnessed an energetic exchange of views on four interrelated themes: polities, social transformations, wealth and well-being, and culture, belief, and practice. Edited and expanded from the original conference papers, the wide-ranging essays in this bilingual volume remain true to the conference’s aim: to promote open discussion of the past, present, and future of the People’s Republic of China.

This manual for students focuses on archival research in the economic and business history of the Republican era (1911–1949). Following a general discussion of archival research and research aids for the Republican period, the handbook introduces the collections of archives in the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China on Taiwan that contain materials in the areas of economics and business, with data on the history of the archives, descriptions of their holdings, and publications on their collections.

The second half of the work consists of guided readings in Republican-era documents, such as government decrees, regulations, and business letters, with complete vocabulary lists and explanations of terms. Also included with the handbook are facsimile reproductions of these documents.

On October 27, 2018, three congregations were holding their morning Shabbat services at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood when a lone gunman entered the building and opened fire. He killed eleven people and injured six more in the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in American history. The story made international headlines for weeks following the shooting, but Pittsburgh and the local Jewish community could not simply move on when the news cycle did.

The essays in this anthology, written by local journalists, academics, spiritual leaders, and other community members, reveal a city’s attempts to come to terms with an unfathomable horror. Here, members from each of the three impacted congregations are able to reflect on their experiences in a raw, profound way. Local journalists who covered the story as it unfolded explore the personal and public aspects of reporting the news. Activists consider their work at a calm distance from the chaotic intensity of their daily efforts. Academics mesh their professional expertise with their personal experiences of this shattering event in their hometown. A local rabbi shares his process for crafting messages of comfort even as he attempts to reckon with his own feelings.

Bringing these local voices together into a chorus raises them over the din of international chroniclers who offer important contributions but cannot feel the intensity of this tragedy in the same way as Pittsburghers. The essays in this anthology tell a collective story of city shaken to its very core, but determined that love will ultimately win.

A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book will go to Jewish Family and Community Service of Pittsburgh (https://www.jfcspgh.org/), which serves individuals and families of all faiths throughout the Greater Pittsburgh community.

El español en contacto con otras lenguas is the first comprehensive historical, social, and linguistic overview of Spanish in contact with other languages in all of its major contexts—in Spain, the United States, and Latin America. In this significant contribution to the field of Hispanic linguistics, Carol A. Klee and Andrew Lynch explore the historical and social factors that have shaped contact varieties of the Spanish language, synthesizing the principle arguments and theories about language contact, and examining linguistic changes in Spanish phonology, morphology and syntax, and pragmatics.

Individual chapters analyze particular contact situations: in Spain, contact with Basque, Catalan, Valencian, and Galician; in Mexico, Central, and South America, contact with Nahuatl, Maya, Quechua, Aimara, and Guarani; in the Southern Cone, contact with other principle European languages such as Portuguese, Italian, English, German, and Danish; in the United States, contact with English. A separate chapter explores issues of creolization in the Philippines and the Americas and highlights the historical influence of African languages on Spanish, primarily in the Caribbean and Equatorial Guinea.

Written in Spanish, this detailed synthesis of wide-ranging research will be a valuable resource for scholars of Hispanic linguistics, language contact, and sociolinguistics.

What are the Navaho today? How do they live together and with other races? What is their philosophy of life? Both the general reader and the student will look to this authoritative study for the answers to such questions. The authors review Navaho history from archaeological times to the present, and then present Navaho life today. They show the people’s problems in coping with their physical environment; their social life among their own people; their contacts with whites and other Indians and especially with the Government; their economy; their religious beliefs and practices; their language and the problems this raises in their education and their relationships to whites; and their explicit and implicit philosophy.

This book presents not only a study of Navaho life, however: it is an impartial discussion of an interesting experiment in Government administration of a dependent people, a discussion which is significant for contemporary problems of a wider scope; colonial questions; the whole issue of the contact of different races and peoples. It will appeal to every one interested in the Indians, in the Southwest, in anthropology, in sociology, and to many general readers.

This work forms the most thoroughgoing study ever made of the Navaho Indians, and perhaps of any Indian group. The book was written as a part of the Indian Education Research Project undertaken jointly by the Committee on Human Development of the University of Chicago and the United States Office of Indian Affairs. The cooperation of a psychiatrist and anthropologist both in the research for, and in the writing of, this study is noteworthy—as is the fusion of methods and points of view derived from medicine, psychology, and anthropology. Probably no anthropological study has ever been based upon so many years of field work by so many different persons.

Among the most serious challenges facing health systems in lower and middle income countries is establishing efficient, fair, and sustainable financing mechanisms that offer universal protection. Lack of financial protection forces families to suffer the burden not only of illness but also of economic ruin and impoverishment. In Latin America, financial protection for health continues to be segmented and fragmented; health is mainly financed through out-of-pocket payments.

Financing Health in Latin America presents new and important insight into the crucial issue of financial protection in health systems. The book analyzes the level and determinants of catastrophic health expenditures among households in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Peru, applying both descriptive and econometric analyses. The results demonstrate that out-of-pocket health spending is pushing large segments of the population into impoverishment and that the poorest and most vulnerable segments of the population are most at risk of financial catastrophe. This work is a product of the collaboration between more than 25 researchers and 18 institutions associated with the Research for Health Financing in Latin America and the Caribbean Network, with support from the International Development Research Centre of Canada.