Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators by Ronan Farrow

$20.00 NZD

Category: Social Science | Reading Level: very good

Ray: "Riveting. Compelling. The story of how Ronan Farrow held his ground against the powerful media establishment, unprincipled lawyers, public relations spinmasters, spies, to expose the sexual predations of Hollywood mogul Henry Weinstein. An Australian-born media executive tried to stop the book fro m being sold in Australia. Read Catch and Kill, and you’ll be glad he failed."   In a dramatic account of violence and espionage, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Ronan Farrow exposes serial abusers and a cabal of powerful interests hell-bent on covering up the truth, at any cost. In 2017, a routine network television investigation led Ronan Farrow to a story only whispered about: one of Hollywood's most powerful producers was a predator, protected by fear, wealth, and a conspiracy of silence. As Farrow drew closer to the truth, shadowy operatives, from high-priced lawyers to elite war-hardened spies, mounted a secret campaign of intimidation, threatening his career, following his every move and weaponizing an account of abuse in his own family. All the while, Farrow and his producer faced a degree of resistance that could not be explained - until now. And a trail of clues revealed corruption and cover-ups from Hollywood, to Washington, and beyond. This is the untold story of the exotic tactics of surveillance and intimidation deployed by wealthy and connected men to threaten journalists, evade accountability and silence victims of abuse - and it's the story of the women who risked everything to expose the truth and spark a global movement. Both a spy thriller and a meticulous work of investigative journalism, Catch and Kill breaks devastating new stories about the rampant abuse of power - and sheds far-reaching light on investigations that shook the culture. ...Show more

Popular Culture: The Metropolitan Experience by Iain Chambers

$10.00 NZD

Category: Social Science | Series: Studies in Communication | Reading Level: good

The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World by Bjorn Lomborg

$30.00 NZD

Category: Ecology

The Skeptical Environmentalist challenges widely held beliefs that the environmental situation is getting worse and worse. The author, himself a former member of Greenpeace, is critical of the way in which many environmental organisations make selective and misleading use of the scientific evidence. Usi ng the best available statistical information from internationally recognised research institutes, Bjorn Lomborg systematically examines a range of major environmental problems that feature prominently in headline news across the world. His arguments are presented in non-technical, accessible language and are carefully backed up by over 2500 footnotes allowing readers to check sources for themselves. Concluding that there are more reasons for optimism than pessimism, Bjorn Lomborg stresses the need for clear-headed prioritisation of resources to tackle real, not imagined problems. The Skeptical Environmentalist offers readers a non-partisan stocktaking exercise that serves as a useful corrective to the more alarmist accounts favoured by campaign groups and the media. ...Show more

Debating the Earth: The Environmental Politics Reader by John Dryzek

$35.00 NZD

Category: Social Science | Reading Level: near fine

Debating the Earth brings together over 40 essential readings which illustrate the diversity of political responses to environmental issues. They are organized in a way that emphasizes the differences and debates across the various schools of thought on environmental affairs and there is a mixture of cl assic pieces and cutting-edge essays. The key debates that are covered include the severity of environmental problems, reformist responses to environmental issues, the environment and economics and green critiques. The second edition includes a new section on 'The Global South and Indigenous Perspectives' which broadens the geographical scope. 25 extracts are new to this edition and there are more extracts by women. ...Show more

Identity Politics in the Public Realm - Bringing Institutions Back In by Avigail Eisenberg (Editor); Will Kymlicka (Editor)

$16.00 NZD

Category: Social Science | Series: Ethnicity and Democratic Governance Ser. | Reading Level: very good

In an age of multiculturalism and identity politics, many minority groups seek some form of official recognition or public accommodation of their identity. But can public institutions accurately recognize or accommodate something as subjective and dynamic as "identity?" Avigail Eisenberg and Will Kymlic ka lead a distinguished team of scholars who explore state responses to identity claims worldwide. Their case studies focus on key issues where identity is central to public policy. By illuminating both the risks and opportunities of institutional responses to diversity, this volume shows that public institutions can either enhance or distort the benefits of identity politics. ...Show more

Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism by Benedict Anderson

$15.00 NZD

Category: Social Science | Reading Level: near fine

What are the imagined communities that compel men to kill or to die for an idea of a nation? This notion of nationhood had its origins in the founding of the Americas, but was then adopted and transformed by populist movements in nineteenth-century Europe. It became the rallying cry for anti-Imperialism as well as the abiding explanation for colonialism. In this scintillating, groundbreaking work of intellectual history Anderson explores how ideas are formed and reformulated at every level, from high politics to popular culture, and the way that they can make people do extraordinary things. In the twenty-first century, these debates on the nature of the nation state are even more urgent. As new nations rise, vying for influence, and old empires decline, we must understand who we are as a community in the face of history, and change. ...Show more

Carbon Democracy Political Power in the Age of Oil by Timothy Mitchell

$12.00 NZD

Category: Social Science | Reading Level: good

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Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy - Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore Jr

$12.00 NZD

Category: Social Science | Reading Level: very good

A landmark in comparative history and a challenge to scholars of all lands who are trying to learn how we arrived at where we are now.-New York Times Book Review

The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation and Social Rigidities by Mancur Olson

$10.00 NZD

Category: Economics | Reading Level: good

The years since World War II have seen rapid shifts in the relative positions of different countries and regions. Leading political economist Mancur Olson offers a new and compelling theory to explain these shifts in fortune and then tests his theory against evidence from many periods of history and man y parts of the world. ...Show more

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Professor Daron Acemoglu (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

$12.00 NZD

Category: Economics | Reading Level: very good

"Brilliant and engagingly written, " Why Nations Fail "answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? "Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the ri ght policies are? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence? Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions--with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories. Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including: - China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West? - Are America's best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority? - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson's breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions? "Why Nations Fail "will change the way you look at--and understand--the world. ...Show more

The Politics of Social Protest - Comparitive Perspectives on States and Social Movements by J. Craig Jenkins (Editor); Bert Klandermans (Editor)

$14.00 NZD

Category: Social Science | Series: Social Movements, Protest and Contention Ser. | Reading Level: good

The Politics of Social Protest was first published in 1995. 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. Bringing together celebrated scholars from diverse tr aditions and backgrounds, The Politics of Social Protest focuses on the reciprocal relationships among social movements, states, and political parties. The volume is organized around three key questions: Why do citizens resort to the often risky and demanding strategy of using disruptive protest when other channels of political intervention appear to be available? What is the relationship between social protest movements and systems of political representation? And what is the impact of the structure and development of the state on social movements themselves? Contributors include Ronald Aminzade, University of Minnesota; Paul Burstein, University of Washington; Russell J. Dalton, University of California, Irvine; Donatella della Porta, University of Florence; Henry Dietz, University of Texas, Austin; Rachel L. Einwohner, University of Washington; Steven E. Finkel, University of Virginia; Jerrold D. Green, University of Arizona; Jocelyn Hollander, University of Washington; Hanspeter Kriesi, University of Geneva; Diarmuid Maguire, University of Sydney; Bronislaw Misztal, Indiana University, Fort Wayne; Edward N. Muller, University of Arizona; Michael Nollert, University of Trier; Karl-Dieter Opp, University of Hamburg; Dieter Rucht, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin; Michael Wallace, Indiana University; and Gadi Wolfsfeld, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. J. Craig Jenkins is professor of sociology at The Ohio State University. He is the author of The Politics of Insurgency: The Farm Worker Movement of the 1960's (1985). Bert Klandermans is professor of applied social psychology at Free University in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He has published widely on social movements in journals such as the American Sociological Review, Sociological Forum, and the European Journal of Social Psychology. He is the editor of the Social Movements, Protest, and Contention series for the University of Minnesota Press. Copublished with UCL Press, London. ...Show more

Seeing Like a State - How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed by James C. Scott

$14.00 NZD

Category: Social Science | Series: The\Institution for Social and Policy Studies | Reading Level: good

Compulsory ujamaa villages in Tanzania, collectivization in Russia, Le Corbusier's urban planning theory realized in Brasilia, the Great Leap Forward in China, agricultural "modernization" in the Tropics-the twentieth century has been racked by grand utopian schemes that have inadvertently brought death and disruption to millions. Why do well-intentioned plans for improving the human condition go tragically awry?In this wide-ranging and original book, James C. Scott analyzes failed cases of large-scale authoritarian plans in a variety of fields. Centrally managed social plans misfire, Scott argues, when they impose schematic visions that do violence to complex interdependencies that are not-and cannot-be fully understood. Further, the success of designs for social organization depends upon the recognition that local, practical knowledge is as important as formal, epistemic knowledge. The author builds a persuasive case against "development theory" and imperialistic state planning that disregards the values, desires, and objections of its subjects. He identifies and discusses four conditions common to all planning disasters: administrative ordering of nature and society by the state; a "high-modernist ideology" that places confidence in the ability of science to improve every aspect of human life; a willingness to use authoritarian state power to effect large- scale interventions; and a prostrate civil society that cannot effectively resist such plans. ...Show more