Beneath the glitzy surface of the resorts and the seemingly cookie-cutter suburban sprawl of Las Vegas lies a vibrant and diverse ethnic life. People of varied origins make up the population of nearly two million and yet, until now, little mention of the city has been made in studies and discussion of ethnicity or immigration. The Peoples of Las Vegas: One City, Many Faces fills this void by presenting the work of seventeen scholars of history, political science, sociology, anthropology, law, urban studies, cultural studies, literature, social work, and ethnic studies to provide profiles of thirteen of the city’s many ethnic groups. The book’s introduction and opening chapters explore the historical and demographic context of these groups, as well as analyze the economic and social conditions that make Las Vegas so attractive to recent immigrants. Each group is the subject of the subsequent chapters, outlining migration motivations and processes, economic pursuits, cultural institutions and means of transmitting culture, involvement in the broader community, ties to homelands, and recent demographic trends.
In this volume, a diverse group of scholars explores key themes in the distinctive history of Milwaukee, from settlement to the present, both in terms of the area's internal development and its comparative standing with other Great Lakes cities. Contributors discuss the importance of socialism and labor in local politics; Milwaukee's ethnic diversity, including long-standing African American, Latino, and Asian communities as well as an unusually large and significant German American population; the function and origins of the city's residential architecture; and the role of religious and ethnic culture in forming the city's identity. Rich in detail, the essays also challenge readers and researchers to pursue additional research on the city and the region by identifying critical areas and methods for future investigations into Milwaukee's past.
Contributors are Margo Anderson, Steven M. Avella, John D. Buenker, Jack Dougherty, Eric Fure-Slocum, Victor Greene, Thomas C. Hubka, Judith T. Kenny, Genevieve G. McBride, Aims McGuinness, Anke Ortlepp, Joseph A. Rodriguez, and N. Mark Shelley.
The population of Brazil increased tenfold, from 10 to over 100 million, between 1880 and 1980, nearly half of this increase occurring since the end of World War II. The Politics of Population in Brazil examines the attitudes toward population planning of Brazilian government officials and other elites—bishops, politicians, labor leaders, and business owners—in comparison with mass public opinion. The authors' findings that elites seriously underestimate the desire for family planning services, while the public views birth control as a basic issue, represent an important contribution on a timely issue.
A major reason for this disparity is that the elites tend to define the issue as a matter of national power and collective growth, and the public sees it as a bread-and-butter question affecting the daily lives of families. McDonough and DeSouza document not only the real gulf between elite and mass opinion but also the propensity of the elites to exaggerate this gap through their stereotyping of public opinion as conservative and disinterested in family planning.
Despite these differences, the authors demonstrate that population planning is less conflict ridden than many other controversies in Brazilian politics and probably more amenable to piecemeal bargaining than some earlier studies suggest. In part, this is because attitudes on the issue are not closely identified with opinions regarding left-versus-right disputes. In addition, for the public in general, religious sentiment affects attitudes toward family planning only indirectly. This separation, which reflects the historical lack of penetration of Brazilian society on the part of the church, further attenuates the issue's potential for galvanizing deep-seated antagonisms. As the authors note, this situation stands in contrast to the fierce debates that moral issues have generated in Spain and Ireland.
The study is noteworthy not only for its original approach—the incorporation of mass and elite data and the departure from the standard concerns with fertility determinants in population—but also for its sophisticated methodology and lucid presentation.
Because nearly all aspects of culture depend on the movement of bodies, objects, and ideas, mobility has been a primary topic during the past forty years of archaeological research on small-scale societies. Most studies have concentrated either on local moves related to subsistence within geographically bounded communities or on migrations between regions resulting from pan-regional social and environmental changes. Gregson Schachner, however, contends that a critical aspect of mobility is the transfer of people, goods, and information within regions. This type of movement, which geographers term "population circulation," is vitally important in defining how both regional social systems and local communities are constituted, maintained, and—most important—changed.
Schachner analyzes a population shift in the Zuni region of west-central New Mexico during the thirteenth century AD that led to the inception of major demographic changes, the founding of numerous settlements in frontier zones, and the initiation of radical transformations of community organization. Schachner argues that intraregional population circulation played a vital role in shaping social transformation in the region and that many notable changes during this period arose directly out of peoples' attempts to create new social mechanisms for coping with frequent and geographically extensive residential mobility. By examining multiple aspects of population circulation and comparing areas that were newly settled in the thirteenth century to some that had been continuously occupied for hundreds of years, Schachner illustrates the role of population circulation in the formation of social groups and the creation of contexts conducive to social change.
From tax and household registers, law codes, and other primary sources, as well as recent Japanese sources, William Wayne Farris has developed the first systematic, scientific analysis of early Japanese population, including the role of disease in economic development. This work provides a comprehensive study of land clearance, agricultural technology, and rural settlement. The function and nature of ritsuryō institutions are reinterpreted within the revised demographic and economic setting.
Farris’s text is illustrated with maps, population pyramids for five localities, and photographs and translations of portions of tax and household registers, which throw further light on the demography and economy of Japan in the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries.
The earth’s five billion people are linked in a complex web that serves to shape population movements and patterns of births and deaths. In this book, nine experts illuminate the nature of this interplay linking rich and poor countries.
The demographic experience of each nation occurs in a larger context of social, political, economic, cultural, religious, military, and biological forces. On the premise that local population trends cannot be understood apart from such structural and historical factors, the book explores both the highly visible and the more subtle forms of demographic interplay, from the large recent flows of migrants and refugees to smaller yet still important flows such as those of tourists and governments-in-exile, from international shifts in the terms of trade to international programs of population control. It examines the historical roots and contemporary trends of these developments and probes their likely future courses.
The distinguished contributors present here some of the best writing to date on the topic: William H. McNeill on population flows in premodern times, Orlando Patterson on interactions in the West Atlantic region, the late Hedley Bull on the relation between migration and present world structure, Aristide R. Zolberg on guestworker programs, Juergen B. Donges on trade policies and economic migration, William Alonso on changing definitions of the identity of populations, Hans-Joachim Hoffmann-Nowotny on social and cultural dilemmas facing northern Europe, Francis X. Sutton on government policy issues, Myron Weiner on emigration and Third World development. Also discussed are the effects of medical advances on population growth, the implications of differing fertility rates, and the impact of the post-1945 transition from colonial empires to nation-states.
Too often such issues have been treated in disconnected fashion and viewed only as problems of the moment. As this outstanding book shows, they are richly intertwined, both with one another and with the history of world development.
The expression “the New South” was introduced by Henry Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution, to a New York audience in 1886; every generation of writers since has used the term. The southern population, unique in its socioeconomic and cultural characteristics, has always been a topic of major interest with U.S. demographers.
The articles in this book, the majority of which were originally presented at the Southern Regional Demographic Group meeting in 1976, deal with fertility, mortality, migration, and the factors that influence these components. A number of the contributors trace patterns of demographic change in the South showing convergence with the rest of the United States. Questions are raised about whether the convergence represents a permanent trend—possibly due to increased communication—or whether further divergence may be expected in the future.
The contributors include Dudley L. Poston, Jr., William J. Serow, Robert H. Weller, Ronald R. Rindfuss, Harry M. Rosenberg, Drusilla Burnham, David F. Sly, Omer R. Galle, Robert N. Stern, Joachim Singelmann, Susan E. Clarke, and George C. Myers.
Law plays a crucial role in protecting the health of populations. Whether the public health threat is bioterrorism, pandemic influenza, obesity, or lung cancer, law is an essential tool for addressing the problem. Yet for many decades, courts and lawyers have frequently overlooked law’s critical importance to public health. Populations, Public Health, and the Law seeks to remedy that omission. The book demonstrates why public health protection is a vital objective for the law and presents a new population-based approach to legal analysis that can help law achieve its public health mission while remaining true to its own core values.
By looking at a diverse range of topics, including food safety, death and dying, and pandemic preparedness, Wendy E. Parmet shows how a population-based legal analysis that recalls the importance of populations and uses the tools of public health can enhance legal decision making while protecting both public health and the rights and liberties of individuals and their communities.
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