front cover of Campaign Advertising and American Democracy
Campaign Advertising and American Democracy
Michael M. Franz, Paul B. Freedman, Kenneth M. Goldstein and Travis N. Ridout
Temple University Press, 2007
It has been estimated that more than three million political ads were televised leading up to the elections of 2004.  More than $800,000,000 was spent on TV ads in the race for the White House alone and presidential candidates, along with their party and interest group allies, broadcast over a million ads -- more than twice the number aired before the 2000 elections.  What were the consequences of this barrage of advertising?

Were viewers turned off by political advertising to the extent that it disuaded them from voting, as some critics suggest?  Did they feel more connected to political issues and the political system or were they alienated?  These are the questions this book answers, based on a unique, robust, and extensive database dedicated to political advertising.

Confronting prevailing opinion, the authors of this carefully researched work find that political ads may actually educate, engage, and mobilize American voters.  Only in the rarest of circumstances do they have negative impacts.
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Capitalism's Conscience
200 Years of the Guardian
Des Freedman
Pluto Press, 2021
'A lively and well-researched history and critique' - Jonathan Steele, former Chief Foreign Correspondent for the Guardian

Since its inception in Manchester in 1821 as a response to the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, the Guardian has been a key institution in the definition and development of liberalism. The stereotype of the 'Guardianista', an environmentally-conscious, Labour-voting, progressively-minded public sector worker endures in the popular mythology of British press history.

Yet the title has a complex lineage and occupies an equivocal position between capital and its opponents. It has both fiercely defended the need for fearless, independent journalism and handed over documents to the authorities; it has carved out a niche for itself in the UK media as a progressive voice but has also consistently diminished more radical projects on the left.

Published to coincide with its 200th anniversary, Capitalism's Conscience brings together historians, journalists and activists in an appraisal of the Guardian's contribution to British politics, society and culture - and its distinctive brand of centrism. Contextualising some of the main controversies in which the title has been implicated, the book offers timely insights into the publication's history, loyalties and political values.
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Chaco's Northern Prodigies
Salmon, Aztec, and the Ascendancy of the Middle San Juan Region after AD 1100
Paul F Reed
University of Utah Press, 2011
In the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, the ancient pueblo sites of Aztec and Salmon in the Middle San Juan region rapidly emerged as population and political centers during the closing stages of Chaco’s ascendancy. Some archaeologists have attributed the development of these centers to migration and colonization by people from Chaco Canyon. Others have suggested that the so-called Chacoan 'system' was largely the result of emulation of Chacoan characteristics by local groups in outlying areas. Research over the last five years in the Middle San Juan suggests that both of these processes were operating.

Work by two groups of contributors resulted in this synthetic volume, which interprets thirty-five years of research at Salmon Ruins. Chaco’s Northern Prodigies also puts recent work at Salmon Ruins in the context of Middle San Juan archaeological research. It is a timely synopsis of the archaeology of this region of the Southwest.
 
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Circa 1600
A Revolution of Style in Italian Painting
S. J. Freedberg
Harvard University Press, 1983
A distinguished art historian examines a radical change in style that occurred around 1600, a change that turned the whole course of Italian painting—and, through its influence, the painting of other European countries as well—from the Mannerism of the late sixteenth century to the grand achievements of the Baroque. The principal authors of the change were three artists of North Italian origin: Annibale Carracci, Caravaggio, and Ludovico Carracci. S. J. Freedberg defines the particular qualities of each artist’s work and traces the intellectual, visual, and technical evolution of their style.
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Circling Faith
Southern Women on Spirituality
Wendy Reed
University of Alabama Press, 2012
Circling Faith is a collection of essays by southern women that encompasses spirituality and the experience of winding through the religiously charged environment of the American South.
 
Mary Karr, in “Facing Altars,” describes how the consolation she found in poetry directed her to a similar solace in prayer. In “Chiaroscuro: Shimmer and Shadow,” Susan Cushman recounts how her dissatisfaction with a Presbyterian upbringing led her to hold her own worship services at home and eventually to join the Eastern Orthodox Church. “Magic” by Amy Blackmarr depicts a religious practice that occurs wholly outside of any formal setting—she recognizes places, such as a fishing shack in south Georgia, and things, such as crystal Cherokee earrings, as reminders that God exists everywhere and that a Great Comforter is always present. In “The Only Jews in Town,” Stella Suberman gives her account of growing up as a religious minority in Tennessee, connecting her story to a larger narrative of Eastern European Jews who moved away from the Northeast, often to found and run “Jew stores” in midwestern and southern towns.  Alice Walker, in an interview with Valerie Reiss titled “Alice Walker Calls God ‘Mama,’” relates her dynamic relationship with her God, which includes meditation and yoga, and explains how she views the role of faith in her work, including her novel The Color Purple.  These essays showcase the large spectrum of spirituality that abides in the South, as well as the equally large spectrum of individual women who hold these faiths.
 
 
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front cover of Citizenship, Political Engagement, and Belonging
Citizenship, Political Engagement, and Belonging
Immigrants in Europe and the United States
Reed-Danahay, Deborah
Rutgers University Press, 2008

Immigration is continuously and rapidly changing the face of Western countries. While newcomers are harbingers of change, host nations also participate in how new populations are incorporated into their social and political fabric.

Bringing together a transcontinental group of anthropologists, this book provides an in-depth look at the current processes of immigration, political behavior, and citizenship in both the United States and Europe. Essays draw on issues of race, national identity, religion, and more, while addressing questions, including: How should citizenship be defined? In what ways do immigrants use the political process to achieve group aims? And, how do adults and youth learn to become active participants in the public sphere?

Among numerous case studies, examples include instances of racialized citizenship in “Algerian France,” Ireland’s new citizenship laws in response to asylum-seeking mothers, the role of Evangelical Christianity in creating a space for the construction of an identity that transcends state borders, and the Internet as one of the new public spheres for the expression of citizenship, be it local, national, or global.

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front cover of The Cold War in the Himalayas
The Cold War in the Himalayas
Multinational Perspectives on the Sino-Indian Border Conflict, 1950-1970
Reed Chervin
Amsterdam University Press, 2024
Extensive in scope and drawing on newly available evidence from multinational archives, this book reconsiders Sino-Indian border issues during the middle Cold War using multiple established analytical frameworks. It demonstrates how key countries perceived and engaged with the border conflict by aiding the two main participants morally and materially. Before, during, and after the 1962 Sino-Indian border war, multinational political actors pursued their foreign policy goals (e.g., trade, security, and prestige) concerning the frontier, and often tried to destabilize spheres of influence and bolster alliances. Therefore, this contest signified a variation of the Anglo-Russian Great Game in Asia during the nineteenth century, and the theater of operations encompassed not only the border itself, but also the Himalayan kingdoms, Tibet, and Burma. A reevaluation of the border conflict between India and China is necessary given current, ongoing clashes at their still unresolved border as well as the fact that these two countries now possess enhanced technology and weapons.
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front cover of Comparative Essays on the Poetry and Prose of John Donne and George Herbert
Comparative Essays on the Poetry and Prose of John Donne and George Herbert
Combined Lights
Russell M. Hillier
University of Delaware Press, 2022
This book brings together ten essays on John Donne and George Herbert composed by an international group of scholars. The volume represents the first collection of its kind to draw close connections between these two distinguished early modern thinkers and poets who are justly coupled because of their personal and artistic association. The contributors' distinctive new approaches and insights illuminate a variety of topics and fields while suggesting new directions that future study of Donne and Herbert might take. Some chapters explore concrete instances of collaboration or communication between Donne and Herbert, and others find fresh ways to contextualize the Donnean and Herbertian lyric, carefully setting the poetry alongside discourses of apophatic theology or early modern political theory, while still others link Herbert's verse to Donne's devotional prose. Several chapters establish specific theological and aesthetic grounds for comparison, considering Donne and Herbert's respective positions on religious assurance, comic sensibility, and virtuosity with poetic endings. 
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Competition in the Midwestern Coal Industry
Reed Moyer
Harvard University Press

In this vigorous and well-documented "current view" of competition in the mid-western coal industry, Reed Moyer has set himself two tasks: to bring up to date existing economic analyses and to correct a "distortion which arises from generalizing about an industry composed of several diverse parts."

Most previous economic analyses have become obsolete, partly because of the shifting picture within the industry. Moyer’s detailed study of the economic behavior of the midwestern coal industry focuses on the transformation in the mining operation. Contrary to popular opinion, the bituminous coal industry in the Midwest is not "chronically depressed"; instead, it is successfully surmounting years of stagnation dating back to the 1920s, the effects of strikes, and the stiff competition offered coal by other fuels in the recent past. Concerned primarily with the coal producing regions of Illinois, Indiana, and western Kentucky, the author considers not only the economic factors touching the industry, but the geologic and geographic as well. In a framework of market structure, conduct, and performance Moyer analyzes in detail the "geographically isolated position of the midwestern coal industry," which "limits interdistrict competition."

Ample discussion is devoted to factors which influence the structural characteristics and the economic behavior of the industry: seller concentration, the importance of freight rates in determining delivery costs, price competition, entry barriers, and the effect of mining techniques on resource conservation, to name a few. The book includes an extensive treatment of the mining methods, strip and underground, common to the region, and their influence on its economic picture. This crisply written technical study searches thoroughly into the many facets of a leading component of a still lively major industry. The author has drawn on a supply of unpublished material as well as on information from confidential sources.

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The Complete Library Trustee Handbook
Jillian Kalonick
American Library Association, 2010

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The Complete Vegetarian
The Essential Guide to Good Health
Edited by Peggy Carlson M.D.
University of Illinois Press, 2009
The Complete Vegetarian makes important scientific connections between good health and vegetarianism after citing health concerns as the number one reason many people adopt a vegetarian diet. Peggy Carlson examines the vegetarian diet’s impact on chronic diseases and serves as a nutritional guide and meal-planning resource for many health professionals and regular consumers. Vegetarian nutritionists’ and medical doctors’ cutting-edge research find that an absence of meat is the only factor that accounts for the health effects of a vegetarian diet, but also a lower saturated fat and more fiber, antioxidants, and unsaturated fat count than other diets.

Essential and in-depth The Complete Vegetarian is an invaluable guide for health professionals and the growing number of people who have adopted or want to adopt a vegetarian lifestyle.

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front cover of Crossroads
Crossroads
Environmental Priorities For The Future
Edited by Peter Borrelli
Island Press, 1988

The environmental movement today is at a critical crossroads. Crossroads: Environmental Priorities for the Future is an in-depth assessment of the movement's successes and failures, and also offers prescriptions for the future. It includes contributions from some of the country's top environmental leaders and activists, including Barry Commoner, Stewart Udall, William K. Reilly, Gus Speth, Jay Hair, Lois Gibbs, Michael Frome, Chuck Little, and William Futrell.

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