Results by title
52 books match the query 'Why' and 11 start with t
Teaching Vocabulary Is the Writing Teacher's Job
Why and HowKeith S. Folse
University of Michigan Press, 2020
The Art of Military Coercion
Why the West's Military Superiority Scarcely MattersRob de Wijk
Amsterdam University Press, 2014
The Catholic Church and American Culture
Why the Claims of Dan Brown Strike a ChordEric A. Plumer
University of Scranton Press, 2009
More than fifty books debunking the religious claims of The Da Vinci Code have been published. Thisis the first book devoted to the fundamentally more interesting question: if those claims are so unfounded and erroneous, why have they resonated so strongly with millions of intelligent readers and filmgoers?
From the sexual abuse scandal that shook the foundations of the Catholic Church to the 9/11 terrorist attacks that cast a cloud over a troubled nation, Eric Plumer’s The Catholic Church and American Culture: Why the Claims of the DaVinci Code Struck a Chord investigates the contemporary events, ideas, and movements that fostered Dan Brown’s unprecedented dominance of best-seller lists and dinner-table conversation. This ambitious book considers the feminist movement, radical individualism, twelve-step programs, the authority of science and psychology, and other cultural developments that paved the way for The Da Vinci Code craze. It also reflects on the recent publication of the Gnostic Gospels, including the Gospel of Mary Magdalene. Plumer’s engaging book is sure to stimulate further discussion about the role of religion in contemporary life.
The Color of Mind
Why the Origins of the Achievement Gap Matter for JusticeDerrick Darby and John L. Rury
University of Chicago Press, 2018
Telling the story of what they call the Color of Mind—the idea that there are racial differences in intelligence, character, and behavior—they show how philosophers, such as David Hume and Immanuel Kant, and American statesman Thomas Jefferson, contributed to the construction of this pernicious idea, how it influenced the nature of schooling and student achievement, and how voices of dissent such as Frederick Douglass, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and W. E. B. Du Bois debunked the Color of Mind and worked to undo its adverse impacts.
Rejecting the view that racial differences in educational achievement are a product of innate or cultural differences, Darby and Rury uncover the historical interplay between ideas about race and American schooling, to show clearly that the racial achievement gap has been socially and institutionally constructed. School leaders striving to bring justice and dignity to American schools today must work to root out the systemic manifestations of these ideas within schools, while still doing what they can to mitigate the negative effects of poverty, segregation, inequality, and other external factors that adversely affect student achievement. While we cannot expect schools alone to solve these vexing social problems, we must demand that they address the dignitary injustices associated with how we track, discipline, and deal with special education that reinforce long-standing racist ideas. That is the only way to expel the Color of Mind from schools, close the racial achievement gap, and afford all children the dignity they deserve.
The Political Origins of Inequality
Why a More Equal World Is Better for Us AllSimon Reid-Henry
University of Chicago Press, 2015
The problem of inequality, Reid-Henry argues, is a problem that manifests between places as well as over time. This is one reason why it cannot be resolved by the usual arguments of left versus right, bound as they are to the national scale alone. Most of all, however, it is why the level of inequality that confronts us today is indicative of a more general crisis in political thought. Modern political discourse has no place for public reason or the common good. Equality is yesterday’s dream. Yet the fact that we now accept such a world—a world that values security over freedom, special treatment over universal opportunity, and efficiency over fairness—is ultimately because we have stopped even trying in recent decades to build the political architecture the world actually requires.
Our politics has fallen out of step with the world, then, and at the every moment it is needed more than ever. Yet it is within our power to address this. Doing so involves identifying and then meeting our political responsibilities to others, not just offering them the selective charity of the rich. It means looking beyond issues of economics and outside our national borders. But above all it demands of us that we reinvent the language of equality for a modern, global world: and then institute this. The world is not falling apart. Different worlds, we all can see, are colliding together. It is our capacity to act in concert that is falling apart. It is this that needs restoring most of all.
The Seven Deadly Virtues
18 Conservative Writers on Why the Virtuous Life is Funny as HellJonathan V. Last
Templeton Press, 2014
The book’s contributors include Sonny Bunch, Christopher Buckley, David “Iowahawk” Burge, Christopher Caldwell, Andrew Ferguson, Jonah Goldberg, Michael Graham, Mollie Hemingway, Rita Koganzon, Matt Labash, James Lileks, Rob Long, Larry Miller, P. J. O’Rourke, Joe Queenan, Christine Rosen, and Andrew Stiles. Jonathan V. Last, senior writer at the Weekly Standard, editor of the collection, is also a contributor. All eighteen essays in this book are appearing for the first time anywhere.
In the book’s opening essay, P. J. O’Rourke observes: “Virtue has by no means disappeared. It’s as much in public view as ever. But it’s been strung up by the heels. Virtue is upside down. Virtue is uncomfortable. Virtue looks ridiculous. All the change and the house keys are falling out of Virtue’s pants pockets.”
Here are the virtues everyone (including the book’s contributors) was taught in Sunday school but have totally forgotten about until this very moment. In this sanctimony-free zone:
• Joe Queenan observes: “In essence, thrift is a virtue that resembles being very good at Mahjong. You’ve heard about people who can do it, but you’ve never actually met any of them.”
• P. J. O’Rourke notes: “Fortitude is quaint. We praise the greatest generation for having it, but they had aluminum siding, church on Sunday, and jobs that required them to wear neckties or nylons (but never at the same time). We don’t want those either.”
• Christine Rosen writes: “A fellowship grounded in sociality means enjoying the company of those with whom you actually share physical space rather than those with whom you regularly and enthusiastically exchange cat videos.”
• Rob Long offers his version of modern day justice: if you sleep late on the weekend, you are forced to wait thirty minutes in line at Costco.
• Jonah Goldberg offers: “There was a time when this desire-to-do-good-in-all-things was considered the only kind of integrity: ‘Angels are better than mortals. They’re always certain about what is right because, by definition, they’re doing God’s will.’ Gabriel knew when it was okay to remove a mattress tag and Sandalphon always tipped the correct amount.”
• Sonny Bunch dissects forbearance, observing that the fictional Two Minutes Hate of George Orwell’s 1984 is now actually a reality directed at living, breathing people. Thanks, in part, to the Internet, “Its targets are designated by a spontaneously created mob—one that, due to its hive-mind nature—is virtually impossible to call off.”
By the time readers have completed The Seven Deadly Virtues, they won’t even realize that they’ve just been catechized into an entirely different—and better—moral universe.
The Three R’s Plus
What Today’s Schools are Trying to Do and WhyRobert H. Beck
University of Minnesota Press, 1956
The Three R's Plus was first published in 1956. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.
Do the schools still teach the three R's or are they neglecting these fundamentals? Should boys and girls be made to study things that don't interest them? What's happened to the report card? Have drill and memorization a place in today's teaching methods? What are the basic ideas behind modern education?
Questions like these are constantly being asked by parents and other responsible citizens in a sincere effort to learn more about what the public schools are doing and why. Such questions deserve thoughtful and thorough answers that will provide a basis for realistic understanding and constructive thinking about present-day schools. In this book, educators themselves explain, in understandable terms, the concepts, the methods, and the aims that underlie our public school teaching today.
Thirty-one experts contribute chapters about their particular fields. The chapters are arranged in sections on Changed and Changing Conceptions, Subjects and Services, and Issues and Interest. The book explains modern educational philosophy and describes the methods of teaching, as applied to specific subject fields, that are based on these theories. The final section discusses such controversial problems as the financial support of the schools and the role of religion in the public school.
The majority of the contributors are members of the faculty of the University of Minnesota but among the authors are included also several administrators in the Minneapolis and St. Paul public school systems.
The Why of Music
Dialogues in an Unexplored Region of AppreciationDonald N. Ferguson
University of Minnesota Press, 1969
The Why of Music was first published in 1969. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.
In his many tears of teaching and writing about music Professor Ferguson has given much thought to the question of the why of music — why does music affect us as it does, why are we deeply moved by some music by not by other music, what is it about music that "sends" us, and where does it send us? In this book he explores such questions in depth and provides intriguing answers. The discussions are presented in the form of dialogues between the author and several friends.
As Professor Ferguson explains, the book is intended to take the reader on a guided tour, a tour which follows, in part, the familiar roads of formal music appreciation but which leads more often into byways where, almost hidden by the brilliant Hows that line the more familiar roads, lurks the essential Why of music. He describes this Why as the fertilizing commerce between music and human experience—a portrayal, not of the tangible facts of experience, but of the concern aroused by our encounter with those facts. He explains that while avant-garde abstractionism is concerned only with music as art—a concern too specialized for the general music lover to grasp and too narrow to sustain interest—the Why of enduring music lies in its endeavor to portray experience as it lives in Everyman's mind.
The Winning Side
Why the Culture of Death Is DyingCharles E. Rice
St. Augustine's Press, 0
Trusted Platform Modules
Why, when and how to use themAriel Segall
The Institution of Engineering and Technology, 2017
Turkey's July 15th Coup
What Happened and WhyEdited by M. Hakan Yavuz and Bayram Balci
University of Utah Press, 2018
Utah Series in Middle East Studies
On July 15, 2016, a faction of the Turkish military attempted to overthrow the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The Turkish government blamed the unsuccessful coup attempt on Gülenists, adherents of an Islamist movement led by Fethullah Gülen. They had helped elect Erdoğan and his AK Party, with the goal of bringing an ostensibly “soft” version of Islam into the secular Turkish government. In alliance with the AK Party, Gülenists steadfastly increased their representation in various government institutions, including the military, the police, and the judiciary. This volume focuses on the historical and sociopolitical contexts of the Gülen Movement’s origins and political ascendancy along with its possible role in the failed coup.
Editors Yavuz and Balcı are among the first international scholars to have studied the movement from its nascent stages in Turkey. The volume's contributors include scholars who have researched the movement in Turkey, Central Asia, and the Balkans. The result is a comprehensive, timely assessment of numerous dimensions of Gülenist activities, including its social and political networks and the institutions that supported the movement as it became a major economic and educational force in Turkey and elsewhere. This volume reflects exchanges among scholars who having studied the Gülenists, assembled to discuss how and why the movement became belligerent opponents of Erdoğan’s government, and it addresses questions such as how this major, still continuing disruption in Turkey’s politics will affect not only the future of the movement but also that of Turkey's embattled democracy as well.