Reviews (9)

Review on "Beyond Malthus"
This book is a great book that brings to light some of the problems the world currently faces. During the last half century the world population has more then doubled, climbing from 2.5 billion in 1950 to 5.9 billion in 1998. Malthus foresaw food shortages and famine because of the massive increase in population growth. The rise in the worldwide population accompanied with consumption is pushing the planets beyond its natural limits. A Critique of Beyond Malthus
Recently, the U.N. predicted that another three billion people will be added to our already existing population by the year 2050.We have to wonder if our earth has the resources to support this many people and if it does, what problems will result from increased population.These questions among others are answered in the book Beyond Malthus: Nineteen Dimensions of the Population Challenge, by Lester R. Brown atal.In this book, Brown evaluates 19 different problems with the environment and society that are the result of overpopulation.The book describes how our growing population affects our natural resources as well as our economic stability.Things such as fish, grain, water, forest, and fossil fuels are being consumed in greater amounts per person and their rate of production and availability are diminishing.Brown illustrates how so many of our world's problems are the result of our growing population and he presents a solution that will require an all out effort by every country. Interesting
Lester Brown, Gary Gardner and Brian Halweil team up in their book, Beyond Malthus: Nineteen Dimensions of the Population Challenge, to present some of the problematic issues involved with the rate of global population growth.The book analyzes and argues that growing economies will use up our planet's resources by 2050 if we keep reproducing and consuming at the current levels.Read more

Subjects:  1. Demography    2. Environmental Science    3. Environmental aspects    4. Human Geography    5. Overpopulation    6. Population    7. Population forecasting    8. Science    9. Science/Mathematics    10. Sociology    11. Population & demography   

Subjects:  1. Economic History    2. Economic conditions    3. Employment    4. Employment Of Women    5. History    6. Sociology    7. United States    8. Women    9. Women In The U.S.    10. Women's Studies - History    11. Employment & unemployment    12. Population & demography    13. Social Science / Women's Studies    14. Social history    15. USA    16. Women's studies   

Reviews (3)

Book Is Presumptuous! Author is Spiteful, Condescending!
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But where are the facts?
I found myself wishing the author would include more statistics to demonstrate his conclusions.Nice work.Lots of poetry!

pretty good
As a feminist and white Woman, I empathize with the experiences of African Americans, and am happy to combat the white patriarchal paradigms of hatred in the U.S. This book, while taking no real risks, is helpful indemonstrating how whites can often insult and abuse African Americanswithout 'realizing it'. I suppose bell hooks is a more interesting andtransgressive writer, and this book lacks appropriate feminist content; theincredible variety and richness of contemporary feminist discourse goesalmost unmentioned here. Still, this is a book all eurocentric people needto read. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. 1975-    2. African American children    3. African Americans    4. Biography / Autobiography    5. Blacks In The U.S.    6. Education    7. Ethnic Studies - African American Studies - General    8. General    9. History    10. Race And Ethnic Relations    11. Race relations    12. Social Science    13. Social conditions    14. Sociology    15. United States    16. Black studies    17. Multicultural studies    18. Population & demography    19. Social history    20. USA   

Reviews (1)

Insightful and Englightening
Spickard explores the history of Japanese Americans, beginning with the first group who migrated to the United States between the period of the Civil War and World War 1 (1890-1910).By providing a brief history of Japan and the reasons for migration, the author tells the story of Japanese immigrants - their hardship in the new country, their struggle against racism, internment during World War 11 and rebuilding their lives after the war, the new wave of immigrants and their struggle to preserve Japanese ethnic identity. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Asians In The U.S.    2. History    3. History: World    4. Immigrants    5. Japanese Americans    6. Minority Studies - Ethnic American    7. Sociology    8. United States    9. United States - General    10. American history    11. Ethnic studies    12. Population & demography    13. Social history    14. USA   

Subjects:  1. Demography    2. Earth Sciences - Geography    3. Geographic information systems    4. Remote Sensing    5. Science    6. Science/Mathematics    7. Sociology    8. Target marketing    9. Geography    10. Science / Geography   

Subjects:  1. Demography    2. Economic conditions    3. Ethnic Studies - Hispanic American Studies    4. General    5. Government policy    6. Hispanic Americans    7. Science    8. Social Science    9. Social conditions    10. Sociology    11. Statistics    12. Ethnic studies    13. USA   

Reviews (2)

Revolutionary Christianity
West's books is an eye-opening account of racism since modernity and a proposed response.He begins with an account of modernity and proceeds to an insightful genealogy of racism.Racism, he claims, comes from a combination of an emphasis on science, Cartesian philosophy, and Greek thought and aesthetics.West then turns attention to four common African American responses to the problem, highlighting humanism as the preferable option.Finally, West spends 2 chapters arguing for a combination of Christian and Marxist perspectives for a revolutionary Christianity.
Intellectually and Spiritually Inspiring
I read this book for the first time as a young graduate student! It was one of the most exciting books I had read at the time. It's fine combination of intellectual insight and grounding in the best of the prophetic Christian tradition did more to help shape my religious imagination than many other books I have read before or since. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. African Americans    2. Black Theology    3. Christianity - History - General    4. Communism and Christianity    5. Ethnic Studies - African American Studies - General    6. General    7. Marxist Philosophy    8. People of Color    9. Racism    10. Religion    11. Religion - Church History    12. Social Science    13. Sociology    14. United States    15. Black studies    16. Christian social thought & activity    17. Christian theology    18. Population & demography    19. Social history    20. USA   

Editorial Review

This fascinating study of the suburbs of Long Island, New York (and by analogy, those across America) arose from the authors' daily commute from Manhattan to SUNY Old Westbury, which is near Levittown, one of the earliest and perhaps the most famous of American suburbs. Initially they had imagined suburbia "as an anaesthetized state of mind, a no place dominated by a culture of conformity and consumption." Their research quickly taught them otherwise. While Read more

Reviews (4)

worth reading, but deeply flawed
This book is interesting and worth reading because its subject is interesting. For too long, the suburbs have been treated largely as an object of satire or contempt. Baxandall and Ewen do a good job of contesting this stale perspective, but the book's focus on Long Island- and Levittown in particular, seems unnecessarily narrow, even parochial. They appear to be totally unaware of the similar Levitt developments - also named Levittown - in Pennyslvania and New Jersey.Surely, these might have provided the basis for some useful comparisons.Likewise, the authors appear oblivious to the landmark NJ Supreme Court "Mount Laurel" decisions of the 1970s and 1980s, (chronicled in David Kirp's much betterbook "Our Town"') which have had national implications for housing policy and which offers a direct challenge to Baxandall and Ewen's claim that developers have shown no interest in low income housing.The authors don't even make very good use of the apparently extensive interviews they conducted with Levittown residents of the 1940s-1960s era.They fail to convey any real sense of the rhythms and rituals of suburban life in this period.In short, this is not a bad book; just a very disappointing one.

We're living here in Levittown.
"Picture Windows" is a unique analysis of the suburban phenomenon, to be sure. Knowing that it was written by two New York city professors, I approached it with mild trepidation, expecting the familiarattitude of New Yorkers toward Long Islanders. And although that attitude -that Long Islaners, and suburbanites at large, are cretinous, culturallyvoid ciphers - is pretty well suppressed here, Baxandall and Ewen fail toentirely conceal their snobbery, even as they admit to it. In many of theextracts from their interviews of Long Islanders, and in their analyses ofthese people's thoughts, one detects the faintest smirk ofcondescension. Basically a good read.
Is living in the suburbs, the nice green lawns, the big houses, the picture perfect family life that seems to be accepted norm? Picture Windows may paint a completely different outlook and you might be surprise to readwhat they have to say.Read more

Subjects:  1. General    2. History    3. History - General History    4. History: World    5. Sociology    6. Sociology - Urban    7. Population & demography    8. Postwar period, 1945 to c 2000    9. Social issues    10. USA    11. Urban communities   

Subjects:  1. African Americans    2. Discrimination & Racism    3. History    4. History - General History    5. History - U.S.    6. History: American    7. Human Sexuality    8. Political History    9. Sex customs    10. Sexual behavior    11. Social conditions    12. United States - 20th Century (1900-1945)    13. United States - State & Local - South    14. Virginia    15. Family & relationships    16. History / United States / State & Local / South (AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, VA, WV)    17. Inter-war period, 1918-1939    18. Political control & freedoms    19. Population & demography    20. Second World War, 1939-1945    21. sexual regulation; Virginia; eugenic sterilization; interracial marriage laws; movie censorship; birth control promotion; venereal disease control; prostitution regulation; disfranchisement; public health; sexual danger; Norfolk, Virginia; Richmond, Virginia; Hampton Roads, Virginia; Albemarle County, Virginia; Walter Plecker; Racial Integrity Act; miscegenation; Buck vs. Bell; Medical Society of Virginia; Roy Flannagan; Ennion Williams; syphilis; Julius Rosenwald Fund; David W. Byrd; National Medical Association; Irl Cephas Riggin; Barber Bill; premarital testing; Mary B. Baughman; Virginia Birth Control League; Virginia League for Planned Parenthood; social hygiene; Robert Moses; May Act; Loving v. Virginia   

Subjects:  1. Education    2. Education / Teaching    3. Hispanic Americans    4. Multicultural Education    5. Students & Student Life    6. Anthropology    7. Education / Multicultural Education    8. Ethnic studies    9. Population & demography    10. Teaching of ethnic minorities    11. USA   

Reviews (1)

Rural Migrants in Beijing
The economic reform that started in China in 1978 has brought about the creation of floating population, in which as many as 100 million people left their villages and streamed into cities where manufacturing factories and businesses were booming.In the cities, these rural migrants are considered strangers and outsiders.Since they are denied formal urban membership and substantive rights, they have to struggle hard for a living space.How did they deal with different powers in order to claim their space and have their own rights guarded and protected?Read more

Subjects:  1. Asia - China    2. Beijing    3. China    4. Demography    5. Emigration & Immigration    6. Migrant labor    7. Rural-urban migration    8. Social Science    9. Sociology    10. Sociology - Urban    11. Urban policy    12. Human ecology    13. Social & cultural anthropology   

Subjects:  1. American    2. Congresses    3. Demography    4. Economic conditions    5. Ethnic Issues    6. Ethnic Studies - General    7. Ethnic relations    8. Future Studies    9. Minorities    10. Minority Studies - General    11. Minority Studies - Race Relations    12. Race And Ethnic Relations    13. Race relations    14. Research    15. Social Science    16. Social conditions    17. Sociology    18. United States    19. Ethnography    20. Multicultural studies    21. Population & demography    22. Social groups & communities    23. USA   

Reviews (1)

Adjusting the color of Western American history . . .
I have known about this book for a long time and wish now that I'd read it years ago. It is a retelling of the Western American saga, with a focus on cattlemen and cowboys and, as the title indicates, the presence of black Americans among them. The all-white collective picture of the West is largely the creation of Hollywood, whose images and stories so dominate the memory of our own past.
Read more

Subjects:  1. African American cowboys    2. Americas (North Central South West Indies)    3. Blacks In The U.S.    4. Ethnic Studies - African American Studies - Histor    5. History    6. History - U.S.    7. History: American    8. Social life and customs    9. U.S. Local History - Western United States    10. United States - State & Local - General    11. West (U.S.)    12. Black studies    13. History of specific racial & ethnic groups    14. Local history    15. Population & demography    16. The Americas    17. USA   

Reviews (3)

What would the US be like without them?
This book is a great account of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, which was started in 1960 in regard to Segregation on Americas buses and in the Woolworth dining room.This book leaves out no account, and anyone who had anything to do with the movement and SNCC is mentioned in this book.Carson went all out, and I think this book should be required reading in every Civil Rights History course.

Great analysis of black empowerment
This book traces the rise and fall of SNCC:the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.At the time Carson wrote it, it was one of the few books on the Civil Rights Movement that didn't focus on Martin Luther King and SCLC, and as such provided a welcome addition, even corrective, to the mainstream narrative of the movement.It is also a brilliant analysis of the dynamics of a reform movement and the tensions between leader centered and group centered styles of leadership.The analysis of Bob Moses and his approach to grass roots empowerment is right on target and provides a whole new way for thinking about Freedom Summer and organizing in Mississippi.This book is not for the fainthearted--its academic prose is dense at times and details can be a little confusing for those unfamiliar with SNCC personnel, hence four stars and not five. Nonetheless, it's worth taking time with, and I assign this book regularly for upper level directed studies and recommend it to students for research papers. Whether or not SNCC's achievements were compromised by the antics of former members in the 80s and 90s,Carson's book is a great analysis of its formation, tactics, and dissolution.

SNCC Comes Full Circle
In Struggle recounts the progression of the SNCC from its early days of assimilationism and conventional middle class values, through its radical and militant period, its separatist and provocative period, and then backagain into conventionalism and low-level activism. Many SNCC membersduring its radical period, debated whether the victim should become theexecutioner.Instead, the victim becomes part of the system, such asMarion Barry's accession to the mayor's office in Washington, D.C.And theidealism of the movement went out the window as well, when in the 1990smuch more mundane pursuits took over Barry's life, including crack cocaineand prostitutes. One reason for the winding-down of the SNCC may stem fromthe conditions that spawned it.Under an oppressive system of the Jim CrowSouth, the SNCC had a common enemy to fight, and clear goals to achieve. Once the 1964 Civil Rights Act had been passed, and subsequent advanceswere made at the legislative level, the goals and mission became less clearand less defined.Now that so much had been achieved, the SNCC began tofight amongst itself as each faction attempted to secure ever smallerslices of the revolutionary pie.The cautious liberalism of the Kennedyand Johnson administrations proved fatal to the more ambitious fervor ofthe SNCC; the legislation acted almost as a safety valve, relieving thepressure that had encouraged the formation of the SNCC.SNCC studentswere, in their heyday, overcompensating for all the resentment they hadfrom being historically marginalized and held down.SNCC members haddiscovered their voice and used it passionately, but once people startedlistening to them, SNCC found itself in the position of not knowing what tosay. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Blacks In The U.S.    2. Ethnic Studies - African American Studies - Histor    3. General    4. History - General History    5. Race And Ethnic Relations    6. Reference    7. Black studies    8. History / General    9. History of specific racial & ethnic groups    10. Multicultural studies    11. Population & demography    12. Revolutions & coups    13. Social issues    14. USA   

Reviews (1)

Analysis with Local Census Data
This book is clearly written. It is simple yet not simplistic.It would be helpful to the first time researcher as well as those who have manipulated census data before but do not do it for a living.I found useful information on how to best configure my graphs, what pitfalls to avoid and how to handle data that was collected and recorded differently in previous census counts.There is some discussion of analysis and some examples are given but these are not the focus of the book. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Census    2. Census And General Statistics    3. Demography    4. Earth Sciences - General    5. Mathematics    6. Probability & Statistics - General    7. Science/Mathematics    8. Social sciences    9. Sociology    10. Statistical methods    11. United States    12. Mathematics / Statistics    13. Population & demography    14. Social research & statistics    15. USA   

Editorial Review

Before graduate student Mike King began using his given name, Martin Luther, before Detroit Red changed his name to Malcolm X, and before Medgar Evers joined the NAACP, civil rights activist Harry T. Moore was murdered. On Christmas night, 1951, an explosion ripped through his house, the bomb having been planted directly under his bed. His mother, visiting for the holidays, had been very concerned for Moore's safety. In the 1950s, in the Deep South, Moore's political activism had earned him plenty of enemies. "Every advancement comes by way of sacrifice," he told his mother before going to bed that night. "What I am doing is for the benefit of my race."Read more

Reviews (5)

A necessary and wonderful book
I cannot overstate my admiration for Ben Green's Before His Time. As I read I felt I was traveling the roads with Harry Moore, fighting the fight with him (I should be so brave). I am fairly well read (PhD, English Lit) and have enjoyed many books, but very few have moved me as much Green's has.You need to know Harry T. Moore.Ben Green has given you the chance.Take it.

AnotherWhitewash for Civil Rights Icon Harry T. Moore
The author followed the FBI, the police, the Klan and Sherriff Willis McCall as if everything they said and did was ordered from the almighty and couldn't possibly be wrong. He bought the party line and didn't make any waves.He didn't do any in-depth investigating. This was an overview of a life of a man who should be honored by all the world as an icon for justice, for all men.It was a great let down that the author didn't follow the reporting that had been done previously and refrain from writing in such a mean spirited manner.At least maybe some more people will know what this brave man did and stood for.He should be likened to Nathan Hale who said "I'm sorry I have but one life to give for my country."The book didn't say it but let all citizens unite and Remember " Respectfully yours, HARRY T. MOORE." Could anything be more eloquent or brave thatn that signature?

The story of a Civil Rights Pioneer
Having moved to Brevard County in 1991, just when the Harry T. Moore murder case was back in the news, and the fact that I pass the Moore Justice Center every day, I was anxious to learn about Harry T. Moore andhappily picked up a copy of this book.Read more

Subjects:  1. 20th century    2. African American civil rights workers    3. African Americans    4. Biography    5. Blacks In The U.S.    6. Civil rights    7. Civil rights workers    8. Ethnic Studies - African American Studies - General    9. History    10. History - General History    11. History - U.S.    12. Murder - General    13. People of Color    14. Political Freedom & Security - Civil Rights    15. Social Science    16. Sociology    17. U.S. - Political And Civil Rights Of Blacks    18. United States    19. United States - 20th Century/50s    20. Assassination    21. Biography & Autobiography / People of Color    22. Biography: general    23. Black studies    24. Moore, Harry T    25. Political structure & processes    26. Population & demography    27. Social history    28. USA   

Subjects:  1. Administration    2. Demography    3. Epidemiology    4. Human Geography    5. Miscellanea    6. Population    7. Population Geography    8. Social Science    9. Sociology    10. Medical / Administration    11. Population & demography    12. Public health & preventive medicine   

Subjects:  1. Feminism & Feminist Theory    2. Frontier and pioneer life    3. History    4. Sociology    5. U.S. Local History - Western United States    6. United States - State & Local - West    7. West (U.S.)    8. Women    9. Women In The U.S.    10. Women pioneers   

Reviews (4)

Driving the Amish
The author is a Mennonite, technically an outsider, but by virtue of the fact that the Amish have entrusted him to drive them about in his car when they have a pressing need for such a service, he has an intimate insider's view of the Amish people. I found his accounts to be quite fascinating; short and clearly written, they really give one an appreciation for the perseverance of the Amish people in our modern and technological world. Really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone who wants better understanding of what these people are really like.

Driving the Amish
Excellant reading material.
exactly right
This is a gorgeous book, written by someone who cares about his subject matter. This book has all the charming qualities that make a great memoir. Butterfield obviously is not a writer, but he jumps into the world and makes this unique subculture familiar and beautiful for the reader. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Amish    2. Christianity - Amish    3. Elements In The U.S. Population    4. Farm life    5. History    6. History: American    7. Holmes County    8. Ohio    9. Ohio - Local History    10. Pictorial works    11. Religion - Denominations - Religions    12. Social life and customs    13. United States - General    14. American history    15. Butterfield, Jim    16. Local history    17. Population & demography    18. Protestantism & Protestant Churches    19. Social history    20. USA   

Subjects:  1. Anthropology - Cultural    2. Contemporary Politics - India    3. Gender Studies    4. Gerontology    5. Housing    6. India    7. Older people    8. Political    9. Sex Roles (Sociological Aspects)    10. Social Science    11. Social conditions    12. Sociology    13. Elderly    14. Population & demography    15. Social & cultural anthropology    16. Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural    17. Social, group or collective psychology