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Race, Class, and the Soul of the Nation
The ideology of the American dream--the faith that an individual can attain success and virtue through strenuous effort--is the very soul of the American nation. According to Jennifer Hochschild, we have failed to face up to what that dream requires of our society, and yet we possess no other central belief that can save the United States from chaos. In this compassionate but frightening book, Hochschild attributes our national distress to the ways in which whites and African Americans have come to view their own and each other's opportunities. By examining the hopes and fears of whites and especially of blacks of various social classes, Hochschild demonstrates that America's only unifying vision may soon vanish in the face of racial conflict and discontent.
Hochschild combines survey data and vivid anecdote to clarify several paradoxes. Since the 1960s white Americans have seen African Americans as having better and better chances to achieve the dream. At the same time middle-class blacks, by now one-third of the African American population, have become increasingly frustrated personally and anxious about the progress of their race. Most poor blacks, however, cling with astonishing strength to the notion that they and their families can succeed--despite their terrible, perhaps worsening, living conditions. Meanwhile, a tiny number of the estranged poor, who have completely given up on the American dream or any other faith, threaten the social fabric of the black community and the very lives of their fellow blacks.
Hochschild probes these patterns and gives them historical depth by comparing the experience of today's African Americans to that of white ethnic immigrants at the turn of the century. She concludes by claiming that America's only alternative to the social disaster of intensified racial conflict lies in the inclusiveness, optimism, discipline, and high-mindedness of the American dream at its best.
An Economic Study of Policy Alternatives
How diverse can, and should, TV programming be? And especially, in what precise ways does governmental regulation of TV affect (or fail to affect) the programs station owners produce—programs which, in the final analysis, shape in such large measure the values of Americans? It is to these timely and beguiling questions that Harvey Levin addresses his dispassionate assessment of the complex relationship between government and the TV industry. Analyzing data drawn from the history of the FCC's regulatory decisions, as well as from interviews with numerous government and industry officials, Professor Levin shows how the present form of restrictive governmental regulation almost always results in higher profits and rents for TV stations, with no concomitant increase in programming diversity.
In addition, Professor Levin investigates various other aspects of the media market, from the particular kinds of crucial decisions that are made when, for example, a newspaper owns a TV station, to the kinds of problems that arise when commercial rents are taxed to fund public TV; from the brand of programming we are offered when a monopoly controls a given TV market to the nature of programming in a situation of steady and fair competition. Following a comprehensive assessment, the author makes a compelling case for diversification of station ownership, in order to be "safe rather than sorry." He also argues for the entry of new stations, more extensive support of public TV, and some form of quantitative program requirements—all of which will help bring about greater program diversity.
Professor Levin's volume provides us with a fully documented and sharply focused analysis of the theories, policies, and problems of one of the most powerful and misunderstood of contemporary institutions.
Ralph W. Rader, along with Sheldon Sacks and Wayne Booth, was one of the three leading figures of the second generation of neo-Aristotelian critics. During his long career in the English Department at the University of California, Berkeley, Rader published scores of essays. Fact, Fiction, and Form: Selected Essays, edited by James Phelan and David H. Richter, collects the most important of these essays, all of them written between the late 1960s and the late 1990s. These critical inquiries, which engage with a remarkable range of literary texts—Moll Flanders, Pamela, Tristram Shandy, “Tintern Abbey,” “My Last Duchess,” Barchester Towers, Lord Jim, Ulysses, and more—are a rich resource for anyone interested in criticism’s ongoing conversations about the following major issues: the concept of form, the genres of the lyric and the novel, the literary dimensions of literary history, the distinction between fiction and nonfiction, the evaluation of literary quality, and the testing of theories and of interpretations. Moreover, the essays collectively develop a distinctive, coherent, and compelling vision of literary form, purpose, and value. Rader’s vision is distinctive and coherent because it is based not on an underlying theory of language, power, history, or culture but rather on the idea that form is the means by which humans respond to fundamental aspects and conditions of their existence in the world. His vision is compelling because it includes a rigorous set of standards for adequate interpretation against which he invites his audience to measure his own readings.
de la micro-entreprise‡ l'entreprise capitaliste moderneen RÈpublique dÈmocratique du Congo
Pour faire face ? l'inefficacit? du mod?le ?tatique de d?veloppement des ann?es 1960-1970, les initiatives priv?es et l'entreprenariat ont ?t? encourag?s comme un moyen de sortir les ?conomies africaines au suddu Sahara de leur marasme chronique. Dans le cas de la R?publique d?mocratique du Congo, ce changement d'orientation ?conomique a entrain? l'?mergence de micro et petites entreprises qui -compte tenu deleur manque de structuration, de leur ?volution en marge du cadre l?gal, de leurs insuffisances intrins?ques ? pourvoir des emplois durables et deleur faible impact socio-?conomique- ont montr? leur limite quant ? leur capacit? de fournir un gage de d?veloppement durable. Avec une approche m?thodologique bas?e sur la micro-?conomie, la statistique et l'?conom?trie, ce livre scrute l'environnement ?conomique, mais aussi l?gal et financier dans lequel ?voluent les PME congolaises. Ce livre tente aussi de r?pondre aux questions li?es aux facteurs decroissance, aux conditions et m?canismes qui doivent constituer lesoubassement du d?veloppement des PME dans le contexte de la RDC. Un d?veloppement qui facilitera la transition vers l'?re de l'entreprise capitaliste moderne. Emmanuel-Gustave Kintambu Mafukuest Professeur titulaire ?l'Universit? de Kinshasa et ? l'Universit? Kongo ? Mbanza-Ngungu. Il estle directeur du Centre de promotion de la petite et moyenne entreprise(CEPRO/PME) et le coordonnateur du Groupe National de Travail (GNT)sur la RDC.
Assessing the Connections
Colleges and universities across the US have created special initiatives to promote faculty development, but to date there has been little research to determine whether such programs have an impact on students' learning. Faculty Development and Student Learning reports the results of a multi-year study undertaken by faculty at Carleton College and Washington State University to assess how students’ learning is affected by faculty members’ efforts to become better teachers. Extending recent research in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) to assessment of faculty development and its effectiveness, the authors show that faculty participation in professional development activities positively affects classroom pedagogy, student learning, and the overall culture of teaching and learning in a college or university.
In 1986 the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) was amended to abolish mandatory retirement for tenured faculty members in colleges and universities effective January 1, 1994. Will this "uncapping" of the retirement age adversely affect the vitality of academic departments or the prospects of advancement for younger scholars? In a definitive study of faculty retirement in the arts and sciences, Albert Rees and Sharon Smith seek to answer this question. Basing their conclusions on original data collected from thirty-three colleges and universities, they do much to resolve an issue that is a frequent subject of discussion in the academic world and in the press. Rees and Smith reveal that the ending of mandatory retirement will have much smaller effects than those generally anticipated--so small that there is no justification for efforts to have Congress continue exempting faculty members from the ADEA past 1994, the date that the exemption is now due to expire. In addition to their data on retirement patterns, the authors make use of surveys of senior faculty and retired faculty to explore attitudes toward retirement.
Originally published in 1991.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
When disgraced evolutionary biologist Dr. Claire Matthews is asked to accompany a group of leading scientists on a fact-finding expedition to Antarctica to investigate a tragic accident, she is naturally suspicious. Her checkered past and ongoing professional exile are more than enough to convince her that any offer made by the charismatic and scheming Dr. Ethan Hatcher merits serious skepticism. Despite her doubts, Claire cannot turn her back on close friend and colleague, Alan Whitehurst. Killed under mysterious circumstances weeks earlier with the members of the first expedition, Alan deserves better than an anonymous death in Earth's harshest and most unforgiving environment. While the expedition promises Claire an unwelcome reunion with an array of personal demons, it also presents her with a golden opportunity to resurrect a once-promising career. Proving the existence of S. iroquoisii, an ancient microscopic organism critical in the evolution of primitive man, would mean the culmination of her life's work, and a triumphant return for one of the scientific community's brightest prodigies. To earn her keep, Claire must determine the role S. iroquoisii played in the catastrophic accident that decimated the previous expedition, before her crew falls prey to a similar fate. Employing the latest in forensic investigation, Claire and a joint team of military and civilian personnel undertake the gruesome task of piecing together the events that led to the massive explosion that destroyed the previous research station. As a nightmare of unimaginable proportions begins to coalesce, Claire is drawn ever deeper into a maze of deception and savage violence. Pitted against a primordial foe they can scarcely fathom, Claire and her colleagues must battle the cold, each other, and the growing madness within themselves to survive the infinite polar night.
A Century of Forgotten Texas Military Sites, Then and Now
Each of the wars fought by Texans spawned the creation of scores of military sites across the state, from the lonely frontier outpost at Adobe Walls to the once-bustling World War II shipyards of Orange. Today, although vestiges of the sites still exist, many are barely discernible, their once-proud martial trappings now faded by time, neglect, the elements and, most of all, public apathy. ?In Faded Glory: A Century of Forgotten Texas Military Sites, Then and Now, Thomas E. Alexander and Dan K. Utley revisit twenty-nine sites—many of them largely forgotten—associated with what was arguably the most tumultuous hundred-year period in a five-century span of Texas history.? Whether in the war with Mexico, the American Civil War, in clashes between Indians and the frontier army, or in two worldwide conflicts fought on foreign shores, Texas and Texans have often answered the call to arms. Beginning in 1845 and continuing through 1945, the Lone Star State and its people were fully involved in seven major conflicts. ?In this thoroughly researched and absorbing guide, Alexander and Utley recount the full story of the sites from their days of fame to the present. Comparing historic sketches, paintings, and period photographs of the original installations with recent photographs, they illustrate how time has dealt with these important places. Providing maps to aid readers in locating each site, the authors close with a resounding call for preservation and interpretation for future generations. ?The descriptions and images restore, at least in the mind’s eye, a touch of vitality and color to these forgotten and disappearing sites. Thanks to Faded Glory: A Century of Forgotten Texas Military Sites, Then and Now, both the traveler and the armchair tourist can recover a sense of these places and events that did so much to shape the military history of Texas.
A Dave Brandstetter Mystery
Fadeout is the first of Joseph Hansen's twelve classic mysteries featuring rugged Dave Brandstetter, an insurance investigator who is contentedly gay. When entertainer Fox Olson's car plunges off a bridge in a storm, a death claim is filed, but where is Olson's body? As Brandstetter questions family, fans, and detractors, he grows certain Olson is still alive and that Dave must find him before the would-be killer does. Suspenseful and wry, shrewd and deeply felt, Fadeout remains as fresh today as when it startled readers more than thirty years ago.