Baron-Forness Library: Sociology

The A to Z of the welfare state / . . Bent Greve.

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Abandoned in the heartland : . work, family, and living in East St. Louis / . Jennifer F. Hamer.

Description: "Urban poverty, along with all of its poignant manifestations, is moving from city centers to working-class and industrial suburbs in contemporary America. Nowhere is this more evident than in East St. Louis, Illinois. Once a thriving manufacturing and transportation center, East St. Louis is now known for its unemployment, crime, and collapsing infrastructure. Abandoned in the Heartland takes us into the lives of East St. Louis's predominantly African American residents to find out what has happened since industry abandoned the city, and jobs, quality schools, and city services disappeared, leaving people isolated and imperiled. Jennifer Hamer introduces men who search for meaning and opportunity in dead-end jobs, women who often take on caretaking responsibilities until well into old age, and parents who have the impossible task of protecting their children in this dangerous, and literally toxic, environment. Illustrated with historical and contemporary photographs showing how the city has changed over time, this book, full of stories of courage and fortitude, offers a powerful vision of the transformed circumstances of life in one American suburb."--Publisher's website.

Academically adrift : . limited learning on college campuses / . Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa.

Description: Are undergraduates really learning anything once they get to college? The answer is no. As troubling as their findings are, the authors argue that for many faculty and administrators this conclusion will come as no surprise and is the expected result of a student body distracted by socializing or working and an institutional culture that puts undergraduate learning close to the bottom of the priority list.

Access denied : . the practice and policy of global Internet filtering / . edited by Ronald Deibert ... [et al.].

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Acculturated / . . edited by Naomi Schaefer Riley and Christine Rosen.

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ADHD and maternal resiliency : . a cross-cultural examination of Canadian and American mothers / . Patricia E. Neff.

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African-American holidays, festivals, and celebrations : . the history, customs, and symbols associated with both traditional and contemporary religious and secular events observed by Americans of African descent / . by Kathlyn Gay ; foreword by Jean Currie Church ; introduction by Jessie Carney Smith.

Description: "Provides information about the history and celebration of more than 100 holidays, festivals, and other events observed by Americans of African descent. Features include narrative overviews, chronology of historical events related to holidays and festivals, calendar and geographical listings of observances, bibliography, and contact information and web sites"--Provided by publisher.

The agile city : . building well-being and wealth in an era of climate change / . James S. Russell.

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Aging in America / . . John C. Cavanaugh ... [et al.].

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Alaska Native cultures and issues : . responses to frequently asked questions / . edited by Libby Roderick.

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All shook up : . how rock 'n' roll changed America / . Glenn C. Altschuler.

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Alone together : . why we expect more from technology and less from each other / . Sherry Turkle.

Description: In "Alone Together," MIT technology and society professor Sherry Turkle explores the power of our new tools and toys to dramatically alter our social lives. It's a nuanced exploration of what we are looking for--and sacrificing--in a world of electronic companions and social networking tools, and an argument that, despite the hand-waving of today's self-described prophets of the future, it will be the next generation who will chart the path between isolation and connectivity.

American swastika : . inside the white power movement's hidden spaces of hate / . Pete Simi and Robert Futrell.

Description: "American Swastika takes readers through hidden enclaves of hate in America, exploring how White Supremacy movements thrive nationwide, even as the country on the surface advocates racial equality. The authors explain the difference between movements such as the KKK, the Aryan Nation, and Skinheads, among others, then discuss the various ways White Supremacists cultivate, maintain, and spread their beliefs, largely under the radar of most Americans." "Authors Pete Simi and Robert Futrell draw on over a decade of research and interviews, from the infamous Hayden Lake Aryan compound in Northern Idaho, to private homes in L.A., to hate music concerts around the country. Through descriptive case studies, the authors look at hate in the home, talking with parents who aim to raise "little Hitler" and discussing the impact home schooling and cultural isolation can have on children. The authors also describe Aryan crash pads, Bible studies, and rituals, take readers through the hate music scene from underground bars to massive rallies, and examine how the Internet has shaped communication and created disturbing new virtual communities."--BOOK JACKET.

The American teenager / . . Robin Bowman, portraits + interviews ; afterword by Robert Coles.

Description: Presents a collection of interviews and photographs of American teenagers in which they describe their lives.

Animating difference : . race, gender, and sexuality in contemporary films for children / . C. Richard King, Carmen R. Lugo-Lugo, Mary K. Bloodsworth-Lugo.

Description: From the Publisher: Animating Difference studies the way race, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender are portrayed in recent animated films from 1990 through the present. Ranging from Aladdin to Toy Story to Up, these popular films are key media through which children (and adults) learn about the world and how to behave. While racial and gender stereotypes may not be as obvious as they may have been in films of decades past, they often continue to convey troubling messages and stereotypes in subtle and surprising ways.

Arab & Arab American feminisms : . gender, violence, & belonging / . edited by Rabab Abdulhadi, Evelyn Alsultany, and Nadine Naber.

Description: In this collection, Arab and Arab American feminists enlist their intimate experiences to challenge simplistic and long-held assumptions about gender, sexuality, and commitments to feminism and justice-centered struggles. Contributors hail from multiple geographical sites, spiritualities, occupations, sexualities, class backgrounds, and generations. Poets, creative writers, artists, scholars, and activists employ a mix of genres to express feminist commitments and ambiguities and to highlight how Arab and Arab American feminist perspectives simultaneously inhabit multiple, overlapping, and intersecting spaces: within families and communities; in anticolonial and antiracist struggles; in debates over spirituality and the divine; within radical, feminist, and queer spaces; in academia and on the street. Contributors explore themes as diverse as the intersections between gender, sexuality, Orientalism, racism, Islamophobia, and Zionism, and the place of Arab Jews in Arab and Arab American histories. This book asks how members of diasporic communities navigate their sense of belonging when the countries in which they live wage wars in the lands of their ancestors. This work opens up new possibilities for placing grounded perspectives at the center of gender, Middle East, American, and ethnic studies. -- From publisher.

Are social networking sites harmful? / . . Stefan Kiesbye, book editor.

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The automobile and American life / . . John A. Heitmann.

Description: From the Publisher: This is the story of how the automobile changed the essence of life in America. Both a general history of the automobile and a broad-ranging analysis of its cultural effects, the text addresses such topics as cars' inception as a mechanical curiosity and later a plaything for the well-to-do; Henry Ford and the rise of the machine age; competition and the evolving consumer in the 1920s; the development of roads and the accompanying road culture; religion, gender, courtship and sex; effects of the Great Depression and World War II; the 1950s golden age of automobiles and the emergence of youth culture; and how American car culture has been represented in film, song, poetry and literature.

Autophobia : . love and hate in the automotive age / . Brian Ladd.

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Baby-making / . . Bart Fauser & Paul Devroey ; with Simon Brown.

Description: In the developed world, the fertility treatments available to couples in the 21st century are wider than ever before. Most types of infertility can be addressed by modern test-tube methods, yet reproduction itself has become inextricably bound with social and political trends such as declining birth rates, delayed first pregnancy, childbirth beyond the age of 40, and the state funding of infertility treatment. It is a topic high on the agenda of politicians in their efforts to reverse declining national fertility rates, and of intensive interest to more and more couples. Assisted reproduction increasingly reflects a life-style choice that is immediately social, cultural, personal, and poilitical. Doctors and professors of reproductive medicine, the authors relay their knowledge of this field's many advances since the first live in-vitro fertilization birth in 1978. These include IVF, sperm injection techniques, egg donation, fertility preservation, single embryo transfer, and reproductive surgery. With reasoned, rational discussion, the authors review the technology, ethical dilemmas, and statistical results of many current practices, providing data from around the world. Looking to the future, they address controversial topics including cloning, pregnancy in older women, and posthumous reproduction. With sympathy for patients who undergo fertility treatment, the authors discuss techniques and outcomes in detail, informing both practitioners and patients. The book's information on the availability of IVF relates to Europe, and the prices for procedures are given in euros.

Beats, rhymes, and classroom life : . hip-hop pedagogy and the politics of identity / . Marc Lamont Hill ; foreword by Gloria Ladson-Billings.

Description: Discusses the importance of identity to students, and examines the potential effects of introducing elements from the hip-hop culture in the classroom, and covers hip-hop text and context, narratives, memory, and more.

Becoming deviant / . . David Matza ; with a new introduction by Thomas G. Blomberg.

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Behind the backlash : . Muslim Americans after 9/11 / . Lori Peek.

Description: Peek chronicles the exclusion that Muslim American men and women faced before and especially in the aftermath of 9/11. Personal narratives describe the range of discrimination they experienced, the personal and collective impacts of the backlash, and the ways in which Muslims adapted in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks.

Belonging in an adopted world : . race, identity, and transnational adoption / . Barbara Yngvesson.

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Black is-- black ain't . a personal journey through black identity / . a presentation of California Newsreel ; Independent Television Service ; produced and directed by Marlon Riggs.

Description: A frank and honest look at black identity in America. Uses incisive storytelling and commentary from prominent black intellectuals, including Angela Davis, Bell Hooks, and Cornel West. Meant to stir provocative debate and add reinforcement to a bold vision for a humanity that embraces all people. Explodes the myth that black America is monolithic.

The black-white achievement gap : . why closing it is the greatest civil rights issue of our time / . Rod Paige, Elaine Witty.

Description: "The African American journey from slavery to racial equality and social justice in America has been, and continues to be, a long and arduous struggle. No barrier - whether embedded in law, rooted in social or economic custom, or enforced by racial terror - has ever been able to hold firm against the powerful and unwavering commitment of a determined, authentic black leadership. Yet there now exists an obstruction more subtle than past oppressions ... and one that threatens to impede any future progress." "On almost every measure of academic performance - be it the SAT, ACT, or state-mandated examinations - African American student performance trails, by large margins, that of their white peers. And while this achievement gap was first identified long ago and has since been the subject of countless studies and surveys, little public outcry has erupted - and no truly concerted effort has been made to combat it." "In The Black-White Achievement Gap, renowned former U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige and Elaine Witty provide a wake-up call to black leaders and communities, urging the kind of action that is essential if this blight on African American achievement is ever to be defeated. They trace the history of the achievement gap, discuss its relevance to racial equality and social justice, examine popular explanations, and offer strong suggestions for the type of committed leadership and community involvement that are needed to close it."--BOOK JACKET.

Blended nation : . portraits and interviews of mixed-race America / . photographs and interviews by Mike Tauber ; co-produced by Pamela Singh ; introduction by Rebecca Walker ; foreword by Ann Curry ; essay by Alan H. Goodman.

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Bullying and hazing / . . Jill Hamilton, book editor.

Description: Describes what bullying and hazing is and what steps can be taken to stop it.

Can't stop, won't stop : . a history of the hip-hop generation / . Jeff Chang ; introduction by DJ Kool Herc.

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The celebrity culture reader / . . edited by P. David Marshall.

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Cinderella ate my daughter : . dispatches from the front lines of the new girlie-girl culture / . Peggy Orenstein.

Description: The author explores her own conflicting feelings as a mother as she protects her offspring and probes the roots and tendrils of the girlie-girl movement and concludes that parents who think through their values early on and set reasonable limits, encourage dialogue and skepticism, and are canny about the consumer culture can combat the 24/7 "media machine" aimed at girls and hold off the focus on beauty, materialism, and the color pink somewhat.

The city, revisited : . urban theory from Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York / . Dennis R. Judd and Dick Simpson, editors.

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Civil rights memorials and the geography of memory / . . Owen J. Dwyer and Derek H. Alderman.

Description: "The creation of memorials dedicated to the Civil Right Movement is a watershed event in the commemoration of Southern and American history, an important reversal in the traditional invisibility of African American within the historic preservation movement. As the authors suggest, collective memory is certainly concerned with respecting the past. But collective memory is also associated with the ongoing campaign for civil rights and the economic challenges presented by heritage tourism." "Owen Dwyer and Derek Alderman examine civil rights memorials as cultural landscapes, offering the first book-length critical reading of the monuments, museums, parts, streets, and sites dedicated to the African-American struggle for civil rights and interpreting them is the context of the Movement's broader history and its current scene. In paying close attention to which stories, people, and places are remembered and which are forgotten, the authors present an engaging account of an unforgettable story."--Jacket.

Class dismissed : . why we cannot teach or learn our way out of inequality / . John Marsh.

Description: "In Class Dismissed, John Marsh debunks a myth cherished by journalists, politicians, and economists: that growing poverty and inequality in the United States can be solved through education. Using sophisticated analysis combined with personal experience in the classroom, Marsh not only shows that education has little impact on poverty and inequality, but that our mistaken beliefs actively shape the way we structure our schools and what we teach in them. Rather than focus attention on the hierarchy of jobs and power--where most jobs require relatively little education, and the poor enjoy very little political power--money is funneled into educational endeavors that ultimately do nothing to challenge established social structures, and in fact reinforce them. And when educational programs prove ineffective at reducing inequality, the ones whom these programs were intended to help end up blaming themselves. Marsh's struggle to grasp the connection between education, poverty, and inequality is both powerful and poignant"-- Provided by publisher.

Click : . when we knew we were feminists / . edited by Courtney E. Martin and J. Courtney Sullivan.

Description: Collects particular moments in the authors' lives when they realized they were feminists.

The complete directory for people with disabilities : . a comprehensive source book for individuals and professionals. .

Description: Provides information on resources, products, and services for people with disabilities.

The conflict : . how modern motherhood undermines the status of women / . Elisabeth Badinter ; translated by Adriana Hunter.

Description: In this book the author Identifies vulnerabilities in today's parenting models for women, arguing that current recommendations are imposing 1950s era limitations at the expense of women's health, fatherhood, and child independence. Progressive modern motherhood is seen as a threat to women's freedom. The author names a reactionary shift that is intensely felt but has not been clearly articulated until now, a shift that America has pioneered. She reserves special ire for the orthodoxy of the La Leche League, an offshoot of conservative Evangelicalism, showing how on demand breastfeeding, with all its limitations, curtails women's choices. Moreover, the pressure to provide children with 24/7 availability and empathy has produced a generation of overwhelmed and guilt laden mothers, one cause of the West's alarming decline in birthrate. The author has for decades been in the vanguard of the European fight for women's equality. In this book she points her finger at a most unlikely force undermining the status of women: liberal motherhood, in thrall to all that is "natural." Attachment parenting, co-sleeping, baby-wearing, and especially breast-feeding, these hallmarks of contemporary motherhood have succeeded in tethering women to the home and family to an extent not seen since the 1950s. She argues that the taboos now surrounding epidurals, formula, disposable diapers, cribs, and anything that distracts a mother's attention from her offspring have turned childrearing into a singularly regressive force. This work is a scathing indictment of a stealthy zealotry that cheats women of their full potential.

Country driving : . a journey through China from farm to factory / . Peter Hessler.

Description: In this penetrating narrative account, Hessler investigates China's lurch into modernity as he survives the advent of the nation's uniquely terrifying car culture, probes the transformation of village life, and explores China's frantic industrialization.

Crime on-line : . correlates, causes, and context / . edited by Thomas J. Holt.

Description: Examines various forms of cybercrime and deviance, discussing fraud, harassment, prostitution, and terror attacks, and looks at the legal and social response to these issues using empirical data and comprehensive overviews of existing research.

Critical rural theory : . structure, space, culture / . Alexander R. Thomas ... [et al.].

Description: "Critical Rural Theory is an attempt to bring together the concepts of structure, space, and culture in order to explain the relationship between rural communities and urban society. The overarching theme revolves around the many ways-structural, spatial, and cultural-in which urban systems create and maintain a hegemonic relationship with rural areas and people. Central to this theme is the concept of urbanormativity: the cultural assumption of the dominance and superiority of urban communities and patterns of life. Urbanormativity is an outgrowth of the structural forces in an urban society that favor the interests of cities over those of the countryside, of a generally exploitative relationship between the two. The structure of a society is encoded in the settlement space, which in turn influences one's experience. The experience of social space produces cultural dynamics that are reproduced from generation to generation. These mechanisms are explored through popular culture, physical patterns of urban expansion, and historical patterns of social change."--pub. desc.

Cruel creeds, virtuous violence : . religious violence across culture and history / . Jack David Eller.

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The culture of fear : . why Americans are afraid of the wrong things / . Barry Glassner.

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The dark side of the ivory tower : . campus crime as a social problem / . John J. Sloan III, Bonnie S. Fisher.

Description: "The Dark Side of the Ivory Tower chronicles how four groups of activists convinced the public and Congress that campus crime posed a new danger to college students and the Ivory Tower itself"--Provided by publisher.

Dead aid : . why aid is not working and how there is a better way for Africa / . Dambisa Moyo.

Description: From the Publisher: In the past fifty years, more than $1 trillion in development-related aid has been transferred from rich countries to Africa. Has this assistance improved the lives of Africans? No. In fact, across the continent, the recipients of this aid are not better off as a result of it, but worse-much worse. In Dead Aid, Dambisa Moyo describes the state of postwar development policy in Africa today and unflinchingly confronts one of the greatest myths of our time: that billions of dollars in aid sent from wealthy countries to developing African nations has helped to reduce poverty and increase growth. In fact, poverty levels continue to escalate and growth rates have steadily declined-and millions continue to suffer. Provocatively drawing a sharp contrast between African countries that have rejected the aid route and prospered and others that have become aid-dependent and seen poverty increase, Moyo illuminates the way in which over reliance on aid has trapped developing nations in a vicious circle of aid dependency, corruption, market distortion, and further poverty, leaving them with nothing but the "need" for more aid. Debunking the current model of international aid promoted by both Hollywood celebrities and policy makers, Moyo offers a bold new road map for financing development of the world's poorest countries that guarantees economic growth and a significant decline in poverty-without reliance on foreign aid or aid-related assistance. Dead Aid is an unsettling yet optimistic work, a powerful challenge to the assumptions and arguments that support a profoundly misguided development policy in Africa. And it is a clarion call to a new, more hopeful vision of how to address the desperate poverty that plagues millions.

The decline of men : . how the American male is tuning out, giving up, and flipping off his future / . Guy Garcia.

Description: A cautionary analysis of the state of American manhood contends that today's men are losing jobs, forfeiting their educations, and leading increasingly single and isolated lives in their preference for recreational and virtual existences.

Deep down . a story from the heart of coal country. . a film by Jen Gilomen and Sally Rubin.

Description: Neighbors and friends living in a small eastern Kentucky community find themselves on opposite sides of a debate over the activities of a coal mining company conducting mountaintop removal mining in their backyards.

Delusions of gender : . how our minds, society, and neurosexism create difference / . Cordelia Fine.

Description: Drawing on the latest research in neuroscience and psychology, Cordelia Fine debunks the myth of hardwired differences between men's and women's brains, unraveling the evidence behind such claims as men's brains aren't wired for empathy and women's brains aren't made to fix cars. She then goes one step further, offering a very different explanation of the dissimilarities between men's and women's behavior. Instead of a "male brain" and a "female brain," Fine gives us a glimpse of plastic, mutable minds that are continuously influenced by cultural assumptions about gender.--From publisher description.

Disability and the Internet : . confronting a digital divide / . Paul T. Jaeger.

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Disability hate crimes : . does anyone really hate disabled people? / . Mark Sherry.

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Disintegration : . the splintering of Black America / . Eugene Robinson.

Description: Explains how years of desegregation and affirmative action have led to the revelation of four distinct African American groups who reflect unique political views and circumstances, in a report that also illuminates crucial modern debates on race and class.

The divine nine : . the history of African American fraternities and sororities / . Lawrence C. Ross, Jr.

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Earth and the American dream . . Direct Cinema Limited presents ; Home Box Office presents a Couturiâe Company production ; writers, Ken Richards, Bill Couturiâe ; producers, Bill Couturiâe, Janet Mercer ; director, Bill Couturiâe.

Description: Presents a chronicle of the price that has been paid to attain the "American Dream," a trend which has contributed towards the destruction of nature.

Extra lives : . why video games matter / . Tom Bissell.

Description: Synopsis: Tom Bissell is a prizewinning writer who published three widely acclaimed books before the age of thirty-four. He is also an obsessive gamer who has spent untold hours in front of his various video game consoles, playing titles such as Far Cry 2, Left 4 Dead, BioShock, and Oblivion for, literally, days. If you are reading this flap copy, the same thing can probably be said of you, or of someone you know. Until recently, Bissell was somewhat reluctant to admit to his passion for games. In this, he is not alone. Millions of adults spend hours every week playing video games, and the industry itself now reliably out earns Hollywood. But the wider culture seems to regard video games as, at best, well designed if mindless entertainment. Extra Lives is an impassioned defense of this assailed and misunderstood art form. Bissell argues that we are in a golden age of gaming-but he also believes games could be even better. He offers a fascinating and often hilarious critique of the ways video games dazzle and, just as often, frustrate. Along the way, we get firsthand portraits of some of the best minds (Jonathan Blow, Clint Hocking, Cliff Bleszinski, Peter Molyneux) at work in video game design today, as well as a shattering and deeply moving final chapter that describes, in searing detail, Bissell's descent into the world of Grand Theft Auto IV, a game whose themes mirror his own increasingly self-destructive compulsions. Blending memoir, criticism, and first-rate reportage, Extra Lives is like no other book on the subject ever published. Whether you love video games, loathe video games, or are merely curious about why they are becoming the dominant popular art form of our time, Extra Lives is required reading.

Facing age : . women growing older in anti-aging culture / . Laura Hurd Clarke.

Description: Examines the relationship between aging and women in a culture obsessed with youthfulness and brings alive feminist theories about aging, beauty work, femininity, and the body.

Family properties : . race, real estate, and the exploitation of Black urban America / . Beryl Satter.

Description: Part family story and part urban history, this work is a landmark investigation of segregation and urban decay in Chicago, and in cities across the nation. The "promised land" for thousands of Southern blacks, postwar Chicago quickly became the most segregated city in the North, the site of the nation's worst ghettos and the target of Martin Luther King Jr.'s first campaign beyond the South. In this book, the author identifies the true causes of the city's black slums and the ruin of urban neighborhoods throughout the country. It is not, as some have argued, black pathology, the culture of poverty, or white flight, but a widespread and institutionalized system of legal and financial exploitation. This is an account of a city in crisis; unscrupulous lawyers, slumlords, and speculators are pitched against religious reformers, community organizers, and an impassioned attorney who launched a crusade against the profiteers, the author's father, Mark J. Satter. At the heart of the struggle stand the black migrants who, having left the South with its legacy of sharecropping, suddenly find themselves caught in a new kind of debt peonage. The author shows the interlocking forces at work in their oppression: the discriminatory practices of the banking industry; the federal policies that created the country's shameful "dual housing market" ; the economic anxieties that fueled white violence; and the tempting profits to be made by preying on the city's most vulnerable population. This tale of racism and real estate, politics and finance, will forever change our understanding of the forces that transformed urban America.--[Provided by publisher.].

Fatherhood : . evolution and human paternal behavior / . Peter B. Gray, Kermyt G. Anderson.

Description: "We've all heard that a father's involvement enriches the lives of children. But how much have we heard about how having a child affects a father's life? As Peter Gray and Kermyt Anderson reveal, fatherhood actually alters a man's sexuality, rewires his brain, and changes his hormonal profile. His very health may suffer - in the short run - and improve in the long. These are just a few aspects of the scientific side of fatherhood explored in this book, which deciphers the findings of myriad studies and makes them accessible to the interested general reader." "Since the mid-1990s Anderson and Gray, themselves fathers of young children, have been studying paternal behavior in places as diverse as Boston, Albuquerque, Cape Town, Kenya, and Jamaica. Their work combines the insights of evolutionary and comparative biology, cross-cultural analysis, and neural physiology to deepen and expand our understanding of fatherhood - from the intense involvement in childcare seen in male hunter-gatherers, to the prodigality of a Genghis Khan leaving millions of descendants, to the anonymous sperm donor in a fertility clinic." "Looking at every kind of fatherhood - being a father in and out of marriage, fathering from a distance, stepfathering, and parenting by gay males - this book presents a uniquely detailed picture of how being a parent fits with men's broader social and work lives, how fatherhood evolved, and how it differs across cultures and through time."--BOOK JACKET.

Framed by gender : . how gender inequality persists in the modern world / . Cecilia L. Ridgeway.

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Framing class : . media representations of wealth and poverty in America / . Diana Kendall.

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From sun cities to the villages : . a history of active adult, age-restricted communities / . Judith Ann Trolander.

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Gang leader for a day : . a rogue sociologist takes to the streets / . Sudhir Venkatesh.

Description: Recounts the story of a young sociologist whose infiltration of a Chicago drug gang was originally introduced in the work "Freakonomics," describing the author's idealism, his friendship with gang leader JT, and his witness to the organization's crack-selling trade.

Gay families and the courts : . the quest for equal rights / . Susan Gluck Mezey.

Description: "Susan Gluck Mezey's newest book, Gay Families and the Courts, is a compelling examination of the role of the state and federal courts in furthering the goals of the gay and lesbian community...this book evaluates the extent to which litigation is effective in advancing equal rights for gay families--families in which at least one member is gay--as they seek to expand their opportunities and battle discrimination. Mezey shows how the courts address gay and lesbian rights and sexual orientation in schools and social organizations such as the Boy Scouts along with family-oriented problems such as marriage and parenthood. In doing so, Mezey emphasizes the complexity of the issues involved in the cases, and assesses the degree to which the outcome of the litigation is explained by the type of case, the type of court, and the judge's perception of his or her role as a policymaker. It is a valuable reference for scholars interested in judicial, legislative, and executive policymaking at the federal and state level as well as anyone interested in LGBT politics."--Publisher description.

Gender violence at the U.S.-Mexico border : . media representation and public response / . edited by Hâector Domâinguez-Ruvalcaba and Ignacio Corona.

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Getting wasted : . why college students drink too much and party so hard / . Thomas Vander Ven.

Description: "Most American college campuses are home to a vibrant drinking scene where students frequently get wasted, train-wrecked, obliterated, hammered, destroyed, and decimated. The terms that university students most commonly use to describe severe alcohol intoxication share a common theme: destruction, and even after repeated embarrassing, physically unpleasant, and even violent drinking episodes, students continue to go out drinking together. In Getting Wasted, Thomas Vander Ven provides a unique answer to the perennial question of why college students drink. Vander Ven argues that college students rely on "drunk support:" contrary to most accounts of alcohol abuse as being a solitary problem of one person drinking to excess, the college drinking scene is very much a social one where students support one another through nights of drinking games, rituals and rites of passage. Drawing on over 400 student accounts, 25 intensive interviews, and one hundred hours of field research, Vander Ven sheds light on the extremely social nature of college drinking. Giving voice to college drinkers as they speak in graphic and revealing terms about the complexity of the drinking scene, Vander Ven argues that college students continue to drink heavily, even after experiencing repeated bad experiences, because of the social support that they give to one another and due to the creative ways in which they reframe and recast violent, embarrassing, and regretful drunken behaviors. Provocatively, Getting Wasted shows that college itself, closed and seemingly secure, encourages these drinking patterns and is one more example of the dark side of campus life." -- Amazon.com.

Girls on the edge : . the four factors driving the new crisis for girls : sexual identity, the cyberbubble, obsessions, environmental toxins / . Leonard Sax.

Description: Girls are cutting themselves with razors. Girls are convinced they're fat, and starve themselves to prove it. Other girls are so anxious about grades they can't sleep at night--at eleven years of age. What's going on? Here, family psychologist Dr. Leonard Sax provides the answers. He shares stories of girls who look confident and strong on the outside, but are fragile within. He shows why a growing proportion of teen and tween girls are confused about their sexual identity, or are obsessed with grades or Facebook. Dr. Sax provides parents with tools to help girls become confident women, along with practical tips on helping your daughter choose a sport, nurturing her spirit through female-centered activities, and more.--From publisher description.

Glued to games : . how video games draw us in and hold us spellbound / . Scott Rigby and Richard M. Ryan.

Description: This book offers a practical yet powerful way to understand the psychological appeal and strong motivation to play video games. Video games have come a long way, from Atari's pinging, monochromatic Pong to the garish mayhem of Grand Theft Auto and the stylish sophistication of Beatles Rock Band. And it is no longer just teenagers that are hooked, audiences both young and old can't seem to get enough. But while "video-game addict" has become a common term, are these games really physically and psychologically addictive? With video game sales in the billions and anxious concerns about their longterm effects growing louder, this volume brings something new to the discussion. It is a research-based analysis on the games and gamers, addressing both the positive and negative aspects of habitual playing by drawing on significant recent studies and established motivational theory. Filled with examples from popular games and the real experiences of gamers themselves, it gets to the heart of gaming's powerful psychological and emotional allure, the benefits as well as the dangers. It gives everyone from researchers to parents to gamers themselves a clearer understanding the psychology of gaming, while offering prescriptions for healthier, more enjoyable games and gaming experiences.

The good caregiver : . a one-of-a-kind compassionate resource for anyone caring for an aging loved one / . Robert L. Kane with Jeannine Ouellette.

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Good jobs America : . making work better for everyone / . Paul Osterman and Beth Shulman.

Description: Discusses issues of underemployment in the United States, focusing on areas where low-paying jobs, with few benefits, or opportunities for advancement have been improved.

The Googlization of everything : . (and why we should worry) / . Siva Vaidhyanathan.

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The great cities in history / . . edited by John Julius Norwich.

Description: From the origins of urbanization in Mesopotamia to the global metropolises of today, great cities have marked the development of human civilization. "The Great Cities in History" tells their stories, from Uruk and Memphis to Tokyo and Sao Paulo. A galaxy of distinguished contributors evoke the character of each place its people, its art and architecture, its government and explain the reasons for its success. Richly illustrated with photographs, paintings, maps and plans, this volume is nothing less that a portrait of world civilization.

Haiti after the earthquake / . . Paul Farmer ; edited by Abbey Gardner and Cassia Van Der Hoof Holstein ; with Joia S. Mukherjee ... [et al.].

Description: "On January 12, 2010 a massive earthquake laid waste to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, killing hundreds of thousands of people. Within three days, Dr. Paul Farmer arrived in the Haitian capital, along with a team of volunteers, to lend his services to the injured. In this vivid narrative, Farmer describes the incredible suffering--and resilience--that he encountered in Haiti. Having worked in the country for nearly thirty years, he skillfully explores the social issues that made Haiti so vulnerable to the earthquake--the very issues that make it an "unnatural disaster." Complementing his account are stories from other doctors, volunteers, and earthquake survivors. Haiti after the earthquake will both inform and inspire readers to stand with the Haitian people against the profound economic and social injustices that formed the fault line for this disaster"--Provided by publisher.

Health disparities in the United States : . social class, race, ethnicity, and health / . Donald A. Barr.

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High stakes : . the rising cost of America's gambling addiction / . Sam Skolnik.

Description: Examines the impact of legalized gambling on American culture, describing the appeal of legalized gambling as a tool for politicians to raise revenues and create jobs, discussing a rise in gambling addictions, and explaining how gambling addiction can lead to higher indebtedness and increased amounts of divorces, suicides, and gambling-related crime.

Homophobic bullying : . research and theoretical perspectives / . Ian Rivers.

Description: In Homophobic Bullying, Ian Rivers reviews primary data from key studies conducted in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia, and Scandinavia that have shaped the way we view homophobia in educational contexts.--[book jacket]

How to retire happy : . the 12 most important decisions you must make before you retire / . Stan Hinden.

Description: Award-winning Washington Post retirement columnist Stan Hinden's bestselling How to Retire Happy helps readers decide if they can retire now, or whether they have to stay on the job for a few more years. --from publisher description

Humanity on a tightrope : . thoughts on empathy, family, and big changes for a viable future / . Paul R. Ehrlich and Robert E. Ornstein.

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I am an emotional creature : . the secret life of girls around the world / . Eve Ensler.

Description: Playwright Eve Ensler writes fictional monologues and stories inspired by girls around the globe. Moving through a world of topics and emotions, these voices are fierce, alive, tender, complicated, imaginative, and smart. Girls today often find themselves in a struggle between remaining strong and true to themselves and conforming to society's expectations in an attempt to please. They are taught not to be too intense, too passionate, too smart, too caring, too open. They are encouraged to shut down their instincts, their outrage, their desires and their dreams, to be polite, to obey the rules. This book is a celebration of the authentic voice inside every girl and an inspiring call to action for girls everywhere to speak up, follow their dreams, and become the women they were always meant to be.--From publisher description.

Idolized : . music, media, and identity in American idol / . Katherine Meizel.

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Immigration / . . edited by Ilan Stavans.

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The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks / . . Rebecca Skloot.

Description: Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer, yet her cells--taken without her knowledge--became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first "immortal" human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer and viruses; helped lead to in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions. Yet Henrietta Lacks is buried in an unmarked grave. Her family did not learn of her "immortality" until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. The story of the Lacks family is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of--From publisher description.

India calling : . an intimate portrait of a nation's remaking / . Anand Giridharadas.

Description: Reversing his parents' immigrant path, a young American-born writer returns to India and discovers an old country making itself new. Anand Giridharadas sensed something was afoot as his plane from America prepared to land in Bombay. An elderly passenger looked at him and said, "We're all trying to go that way," pointing to the rear. "You, you're going this way?" Giridharadas was returning to the land of his ancestors, amid an unlikely economic boom. But he was interested less in its gold rush than in its cultural upheaval, as a new generation has sought to reconcile old traditions and customs with new ambitions and dreams. In India Calling, Giridharadas brings to life the people and the dilemmas of India today, through the prism of his ââemigrâe family history and his childhood memories of India. He introduces us to entrepreneurs, radicals, industrialists, and religious seekers, but, most of all, to Indian families. He shows how parents and children, husbands and wives, cousins and siblings are reinventing relationships, bending the meaning of Indianness, and enduring the pangs of the old birthing the new. Through their stories, and his own, he paints an intimate portrait of a country becoming modern while striving to remain itself.--From book jacket.

Internet your way to a new job : . how to really find a job online / . by Alison Doyle.

Description: "Top jobs sites, click a few times to apply for some jobs, and consider your job search well underway. Today, that isn't enough. The job market is becoming increasingly competitive. Hiring managers are overwhelmed with applications and are looking at new and different ways to recruit online. Hiring has changed and so has job searching. It's more complicated than it used to be and job seekers need to be prepared to use all the online job search tools to their advantage. Online job searching often seems like it can be a complicated endeavor. It doesn't have to be there are tips and tricks you can use to make the process run smoothly and simply. Alison Doyle will provide you with everything you need to know on how to build your career and find a new job."--Publisher's website.

The invisible line : . three American families and the secret journey from black to white / . Daniel J. Sharfstein.

Description: This work is a multigenerational saga of three American families crossing the racial divide. In America, race is a riddle. The stories we tell about our past have calcified into the fiction that we are neatly divided into black or white. It is only with the widespread availability of DNA testing and the boom in genealogical research that the frequency with which individuals and entire families crossed the color line has become clear. In this history, the author unravels the stories of three extraordinary families from different eras of American history to represent the complexity of race in America and to force us to rethink our basic assumptions about who we are. The Gibsons were wealthy landowners in the South Carolina backcountry who became white in the 1760s, ascending to the heights of the Southern elite and, ultimately, to the United States Senate. The Spencers were hardscrabble farmers in the hills of eastern Kentucky, joining an isolated Appalachian community in the 1840s and for the better part of a century hovering on the line between white and black. The Walls were fixtures of the rising black middle class in post-Civil War Washington, D.C., only to give up everything they had fought for to become white at the dawn of the twentieth century. Together, their interwoven and intersecting stories uncover a forgotten America in which the rules of race were something to be believed, but not necessarily obeyed. Defining their identities first as people of color and later as whites, the families provide a lens for understanding how people thought about and experienced race and how these ideas and experiences evolved, how the very meaning of black and white changed over time. This work cuts through centuries of myth and amnesia and poisonous racial politics and change how we talk about race, racism, and civil rights.

Is breast best? : . taking on the breastfeeding experts and the new high stakes of motherhood / . Joan B. Wolf.

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Is marriage for white people? : . how the African American marriage decline affects everyone / . Ralph Richard Banks.

Description: Examines a sharp decline in marriage rates among the African-American middle class while analyzing probable causes, tracing the rise of educated and independent black women and evaluating the potential of interracial marriages.

Join the club : . how peer pressure can transform the world / . Tina Rosenberg.

Description: In "Join the Club," Rosenberg identifies a brewing social revolution that is changing the way people live, based on harnessing the positive force of peer pressure, and shows how peer pressure has reduced teen smoking in the United States, made villages in India healthier and more prosperous, helped minority students get top grades in college calculus, and even led to the fall of Slobodan Milosevic.

Joint custody . a new kind of family / . produced and directed by Josephine Hayes Dean.

Description: Investigates the emotional entanglements, financial arrangements, and complex logistics coparents must resolve for the smooth, equitable management of joint custody.

Journey into America : . the challenge of Islam / . Akbar Ahmed.

Description: "Examines American identity as influenced by its founding and history and the diverse Muslim experience in America, as well as the experience of other religious groups, and how each has affected the other"--Provided by publisher.

Judging victims : . why we stigmatize survivors, and how they reclaim respect / . Jennifer L. Dunn.

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Labor rising : . the past and future of working people in America / . edited by Daniel Katz and Richard A. Greenwald.

Description: When Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker threatened the collective bargaining rights of the state's public-sector employees in early 2011, the massive protests that erupted in response put the labor movement back on the nation's front pages. It was a powerful reminder of a not-so-distant past when the "labor question", and the power of organized labor, was part and parcel of a century-long struggle for justice and equality in America. Now, as the reverberations from the "Occupy Wall Street" movement continue to be felt across the nation, the lessons of history, in seemingly short supply, are a vital handhold for the thousands of activists and citizens everywhere who sense that something has gone terribly wrong, and who believe that the labor movement can, and must be saved. This volume provides readers with an understanding of the history that is directly relevant to the economic and political crises working people face today, and points the way to a revitalized twenty-first-century labor movement. With original contributions from leading labor historians, social critics, and activists, the book makes crucial connections between the past and present, and then looks forward, asking how we might imagine a different future for all Americans.

Latino Los Angeles in film and fiction : . the cultural production of social anxiety / . Ignacio Lâopez-Calvo.

Description: Los Angeles has long been a place where cultures clash and reshape. The city has a growing number of Latina/o authors and filmmakers who are remapping and reclaiming it through ongoing symbolic appropriation. In this illuminating book, Ignacio Lâopez-Calvo foregrounds the emotional experiences of authors, implicit authors, narrators, characters, and readers in order to demonstrate that the evolution of the imaging of Los Angeles in Latino cultural production is closely related to the politics of spatial location. This spatial-temporal approach, he writes, reveals significant social anxieties, repressed rage, and deep racial guilt. Latino Los Angeles in Film and Fiction sets out to reconfigure the scope of Latino literary and cultural studies. Gathering histories of different regions and nations, the book sets the interplay of unresolved contradictions in this particular metropolitan area. The novelists studied here stem from multiple areas, including the U.S. Southwest, Guatemala, and Chile. The study also incorporates non-Latino writers who have contributed to the Latino culture of the city. The first chapter examines Latino cultural production from an ecocritical perspective on urban interethnic relations. Chapter 2 concentrates on the representation of daily life in the barrio and the marginalization of Latino urban youth. The third chapter explores the space of women and how female characters expand their area of ooperationsfrom the domestic space to the public space of both the barrio and the city. A much-needed contribution to the fields of urban theory, race critical theory, Chicana/o-Latina/o studies, and Los Angeles writing and film, Latino Los Angeles in Film and Fiction offers analysis from multiple theoretical perspectives---including urban theory, ecocriticism, ethnic studies, gender studies and cultural studies---contextualized with notions of transnationalism and post-nationalism.

The lifestyle puzzle : . who we are in the 21st century / . Henrik Vejlgaard.

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A long bright future : . an action plan for a lifetime of happiness, health, and financial security / . Laura L. Carstensen.

Description: A reference for readers who have found themselves unprepared for the complexities of senior life challenges popular misconceptions while sharing advice on how to prepare for healthy, fulfilling, and financially stable long lives.

The lord is not on trial here today . . New Day Films ; written, produced, directed and photographed by Jay Rosenstein.

Description: "The Lord is Not on Trial Here Today tells the personal story behind one of the most important and landmark first amendment cases in U.S. history, the case that established the separation of church and state in public schools. The film recounts what plaintiff Vashti McCollum later described as "three years of headlines, headaches, and hatred", but which eventually led to a decision that still resonates in the church-state conflicts of today -- more than 60 years after the original decision in McCollum vs. Board of Education." Container.

Lost and found in Russia : . lives in a post-Soviet landscape / . Susan Richards.

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The lure of the city : . from slums to suburbs / . edited by Austin Williams and Alastair Donald.

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The lust for blood : . why we are fascinated by death, murder, horror, and violence / . Jeffrey A. Kottler.

Description: Draws on interviews with perpetrators, victims, and "consumers" of violence, including several celebrities, to explore the public's morbid fascination with violence, murder, horror, and crime.

Making care count : . a century of gender, race, and paid care work / . Mignon Duffy.

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The making of an elder culture : . reflections on the future of America's most audacious generation / . Theodore Roszak.

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The making of the American landscape / . . edited by Michael P. Conzen.

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Method and meaning in polls and surveys / . . Howard Schuman.

Description: "Howard Schuman is one of the premier scholars of social surveys. His expertise concerns the way questions about attitudes and beliefs are worded and the effects questions have on the answers people give. However, Method and Meaning in Polls and Surveys is less about the substance of wording effects and more about approaches to interpreting the respondent's world, and how surveys can make that world understandable."--Back cover.

Mexican Americans across generations : . immigrant families, racial realities / . Jessica M. Vasquez.

Description: Studies middle class Mexican American families across three generations and their experiences of racism and assimilation.

Miami : . mistress of the Americas / . Jan Nijman.

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Mom : . the transformation of motherhood in modern America / . Rebecca Jo Plant.

Description: "In the early twentieth-century United States, to speak of "mother love" was to invoke an idea of motherhood that served as an all-encompassing identity, rooted in notions of self-sacrifice and infused with powerful social and political meanings. Sixty years later, mainstream views of motherhood had been transformed, and Mother found herself blamed for a wide array of social and psychological ills. In Mom, Rebecca Jo Plant traces this important shift through several key moments in American history and popular culture." "Exploring such topics as maternal caregiving, childbirth, and women's political roles, Mom vividly brings to life the varied groups that challenged older ideals of motherhood, including male critics who railed against female moral authority, psychological experts who hoped to expand their influence, and women who wished to be defined as more than wives and mothers. In her careful analysis of how motherhood came to be viewed as a more private and partial component of modern female identity, Plant ultimately shows how women's maternal role has shaped their place in American civic, social, and familial life."--BOOK JACKET.

The Mormon people : . the making of an American faith / . Matthew Bowman.

Description: With Mormonism on the verge of an unprecedented cultural and political breakthrough, an eminent scholar of American evangelicalism explores the history and reflects on the future of this native-born American faith and its connection to the life of the nation. In 1830, a young seer named Joseph Smith began organizing adherents into a new religious community that would come to be called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (known informally as the Mormons). Here, religious historian Matthew Bowman presents more than 180 years of Mormon history and doctrine. He recounts the church's origin and development, explains how Mormonism came to be one of the fastest-growing religions in the world by the turn of the 21st century, and sets the scene for a 2012 presidential election that has the potential to mark a major turning point in the way this faith is perceived by the wider American public--and internationally.--From publisher description.

The MySpace.com handbook : the complete guide for members and parents / . . by T. Brian Chatfield.

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Nasty, brutish, and long : . adventures in old age and the world of eldercare / . Ira Rosofsky.

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A networked self : . identity, community and culture on social network sites / . edited by Zizi Papacharissi, editor.

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Never say die : . the myth and marketing of the new old age / . Susan Jacoby.

Description: In a narrative that combines the intensely personal with social, economic, and historical analysis, Jacoby turns an unsparing eye on the marketers of longevity--pharmaceutical companies, lifestyle gurus, and scientific businessmen who suggest that there will soon be a "cure" for the "disease" of aging.

The new India : . citizenship, subjectivity, and economic liberalization / . Kanishka Chowdhury.

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A new look at black families / . . Chuck V. Willie and Richard J. Reddick.

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Not fit for our society : . nativism and immigration / . Peter Schrag.

Description: "In a book of deep and telling ironies, Peter Schrag provides essential background for understanding the fractious debate over immigration. Covering the earliest days of the Republic to current events, Schrag sets the modern immigration controversy within the context of three centuries of debate over the same questions about who exactly is fit for citizenship. He finds that nativism has long colored our national history, with the fear - and loathing - of newcomers that provides one of the faultlines of American cultural and political life. Schrag describes the eerie similarities between the race-based arguments for restricting Irish, German, Slav, Italian, Jewish, and Chinese immigrants in the past and the arguments for restricting Latinos and others today. He links the terrible history of eugenic "science" to ideas, individuals, and groups now at the forefront of the fight against rational immigration policies. Not Fit for Our Society makes a powerful case for understanding the complex, often paradoxical history of immigration restriction as we work through the issues that inform, and often distort, the debate over who can become a citizen, who decides, and on what basis." -- Publisher's description.

Not quite adults : . why 20-somethings are choosing a slower path to adulthood, and why it's good for everyone / . Rick Settersten and Barbara E. Ray.

Description: Why are 20-somethings delaying adulthood? The media have flooded us with negative headlines about this generation, from their sense of entitlement to their immaturity. Drawing on almost a decade of cutting-edge research and nearly five hundred interviews with young people, Richard Settersten, Ph.D., and Barbara E. Ray shatter these stereotypes, revealing an unexpected truth.

Notes from no man's land : . American essays / . Eula Biss.

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On being different : . diversity and multiculturalism in the North American mainstream / . Conrad Kottak, Kathryn A. Kozaitis.

Description: "On Being Different provides an up-to-date, comprehensive, and interdisciplinary account of diversity and multiculturalism in the United States and Canada. Kottak (recent inductee to The National Academ of Scineces) and Kozaitis clarify essential issues, themes, and topics in the study of diversity, including ethnicity, religion, gender, and sexual orientation. The book also presents an original theory of multiculturalism, showing how human agency and culture work to organize and change society. The authors use rich and varied ethnographic examples, from North America and abroad, to help students apply the material to their own lives, and thus gain a better understanding of diversity and multiculturalism"--

The other Wes Moore / . . Wes Moore.

Description: Two kids with the same name were born blocks apart in the same decaying city within a few years of each other. One grew up to be a Rhodes Scholar, army officer, White House Fellow, and business leader. The other is serving a life sentence in prison. Here is the story of two boys and the journey of a generation.

People of the rainbow : . a nomadic utopia / . Michael I. Niman..

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Pharmaceutical self : . the global shaping of experience in an age of psychopharmacology / . edited by Janis H. Jenkins.

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Piracy : . the intellectual property wars from Gutenberg to Gates / . Adrian Johns.

Description: "Piracy explores the intellectual property wars from the advent of print culture in the fifteenth century to the reign of the Internet in the twenty-first. Written with a historian's flair for narrative and sparkling detail, the book swarms throughout with characters of genius, principle, cunning, and outright criminal intent. In the wars over piracy, it is the victims - from Charles Dickens to Bob Dylan - who have always been the best known, but the principal players - the pirates themselves - have long languished in obscurity, and it is their stories especially that Johns brings to vivid life in these pages."--Book jacket.

Policing and gendered justice : . examining the possibilities / . Marilyn Corsianos.

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Post Black : . how a new generation is redefining African American identity / . Ytasha L. Womack ; foreword by Derek T. Dingle.

Description: "As a young journalist covering black life at large, author Ytasha L. Womack found herself straddling her culture's rarely acknowledged generation gaps and cultural divides. Traditional images show blacks unified culturally, politically, and socially, united by race at venues such as churches and community meetings. But in the "post black" era, individuals do not necessarily define themselves by tradition as much as by personal interests, points of view, and lifestyle. Although grateful to generations that have paved the way, many cannot relate to the rhetoric of pundits who speak as ambassadors of black life any more than they see themselves in exaggerated hip-hop images." "In Post Black: How a New Generation Is Redefining African American Identity, Womack takes a fresh look at the dynamics shaping the lives of contemporary African Americans. Combining interviews, opinions of experts, and extensive research, Post Black will open the eyes of some, validate the lives of others, and provide a realistic picture of the expanding community."--BOOK JACKET.

Poverty in America : . an encyclopedia / . Russell M. Lawson and Benjamin A. Lawson.

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Promises I can keep : . why poor women put motherhood before marriage / . Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas ; with a new preface.

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Prophet's prey : . my seven-year investigation into Warren Jeffs and the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints / . Sam Brower ; [preface by Jon Krakauer].

Description: Private investigator Sam Brower recounts his investigation of Warren Jeffs, leader of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, also known as FLDS.

Pursuit of equality . the unfinished work of American freedom / . Emmett Brooks Productions in association with Enough Said Productions ; produced by Geoff Callan ; directed by Geoff Callan and Mike Shaw.

Description: Documents the compelling human rights struggles surrounding same-sex marriage and captures the elation and despair of couples and families who are fighting for equal rights.

Queer questions, clear answers : . the contemporary debates on sexual orientation / . Thomas S. Serwatka.

Description: This book offers an eye opening conversation about questions, facts and fears, relative to sexual orientation. The book is framed around a series of nine sets of "queer questions," including, who is queer and who is not? how do we interpret and use sacred scriptures to control behavior and set public policy? what lessons can we learn from history and psychology? and what is the homosexual agenda? The author, himself a gay man and prominent academic, combines cross disciplinary research and personal anecdotes in his intriguing search for answers to questions that are central to ongoing cultural and political debates. In discussing each set of questions, he examines perspectives and arguments from across the political spectrum. The clear, articulate, and wholly candid answers he offers will help readers get beyond the headlines and the sound bites to better understand many important arguments about homosexuality and human rights.

The real state of America atlas : . mapping the myths and truths of the United States / . Cynthia Enloe and Joni Seager.

Description: Two professors provide a comprehensive overview of the realities of the modern American experience, providing facts and illustrations depicting the nation's changing demographics, patterns of home ownership and the kind of foods being eaten across the country.

Reducing global poverty / . . Barry B. Hughes ... [et al.].

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Reefer madness : . sex, drugs, and cheap labor in the American black market / . Eric Schlosser.

Description: Reports on America's "shadow" economy of illegal drugs, pornography, and illegal migrant workers, arguing that these underground industries continue to grow with government intervention.

Reimagining equality : . stories of gender, race, and finding home / . Anita Hill.

Description: "In 1991, Anita Hill's courageous testimony during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings sparked a national conversation on sexual harassment and women's equality in politics and the workplace. Today, she turns her attention to another potent and enduring symbol of economic success and equality-the home. Hill details how the current housing crisis, resulting in the devastation of so many families, so many communities, and even whole cities, imperils every American's ability to achieve the American Dream. Hill takes us on a journey that begins with her own family story and ends with the subprime mortgage meltdown. Along the way, she invites us into homes across America, rural and urban, and introduces us to some extraordinary African American women. As slavery ended, Mollie Elliott, Hill's ancestor, found herself with an infant son and no husband. Yet, she bravely set course to define for generations to come what it meant to be a free person of color. On the eve of the civil rights and women's rights movements, Lorraine Hansberry's childhood experience of her family's fight against racial restrictions in a Chicago neighborhood ended tragically for the Hansberry family. Yet, that episode shaped Lorraine's hopeful account of early suburban integration in her iconic American drama A Raisin in the Sun. Two decades later, Marla, a divorced mother, endeavors to keep her children safe from a growing gang presence in 1980s Los Angeles. Her story sheds light on the fears and anxiety countless parents faced during an era of growing neighborhood isolation, and that continue today. In the midst of the 2008 recession, hairdresser Anjanette Booker's dogged determination to keep her Baltimore home and her salon reflects a commitment to her own independence and to her community's economic and social viability. Finally, Hill shares her own journey to a place and a state of being at home that brought her from her roots in rural Oklahoma to suburban Boston, Massachusetts, and connects her own search for home with that of women and men set adrift during the foreclosure crisis. The ability to secure a place that provides access to every opportunity our country has to offer is central to the American Dream. To achieve that ideal, Hill argues, we and our leaders must engage in a new conversation about what it takes to be at home in America. Pointing out that the inclusive democracy our Constitution promises is bigger than the current debate about legal rights, she presents concrete proposals that encourage us to reimagine equality. Hill offers a twenty-first-century vision of America-not a vision of migration, but one of roots; not one simply of tolerance, but one of belonging; not just of rights, but also of community-a community of equals"--Provided by publisher.

Restless cities / . . edited by Matthew Beaumont and Gregory Dart.

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Same-sex marriage : . a reference handbook / . David E. Newton.

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School-age pregnancy and parenthood : . bisocial dimensions / . Jane B. Lancaster, Beatrix A. Hamburg, editors.

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Selling sickness . .

Description: Off-air recording of television program broadcast on October 5, 2004 and date copied on October 19, 2004 made by : Bundoora, Vic. : La Trobe University, The Borchardt Library. OA2004-343.

Shiny objects : . why we spend money we don't have in search of happiness we can't buy / . James A. Roberts.

Description: Roberts, professor of marketing at Baylor University, studies why Americans believe and behave as if possessions will induce, increase, and enhance happiness. His inquiry provides ample psychological and historical insights as well as self-assessment quizzes on how much we spend and how vulnerable we are to status anxiety.

Shocking cases from Dr. Henry Lee's forensic files / . . Henry C. Lee and Jerry Labriola.

Description: A renowned forensic scientist and an acclaimed mystery writer explore five notorious cases, including the Phil Spector murder trial, genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the murder of a nun in Ohio, and the shooting of a Connecticut state trooper.

Skyscraper dreams : . the great real estate dynasties of New York / . Tom Shachtman.

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Smack : . heroin and the American city / . Eric C. Schneider.

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Sold American . . a documentary film by Richard Boehm.

Description: Documentary film that explores the moral, political and economic ramifications of growing cannabis in the early 1980s, before the legalization of medical marijuana transformed the pot trade forever.

The steal : . a cultural history of shoplifting / . Rachel Shteir.

Description: A history of shoplifting assesses its cultural and economic significance, tracing its rise with the onset of department stores, its pathology, and its role as a symbol of anti-establishment sentiments and hyper-consumerism.

Still connected : . family and friends in America since 1970 / . Claude S. Fischer.

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Strange fruit : . why both sides are wrong in the race debate / . Kenan Malik.

Description: From the Publisher: "Kenan Malik shows that race is not a biological reality-but also why it is so useful in scientific and medical research. He claims that it is not through scientific research into human differences but through our obsession with identity and diversity that dangerous ideas about race are once more catching fire. Blaming the preservation of racial ideas on the liberal antiracist movement with its emphasis on human difference over human commonalities, Malik shows how antiracists have, in recent years, become increasingly hostile to both scientific ideas and freedom of thought." Blending politics, history, science, and philosophy, Malik explores the science of skull measurement and the politics of the Holocaust; diabetes rates among Hispanics and the fate of the Elgin Marbles; the genetics of altruism and the struggle for Aboriginal rights; the successes of Human Genome Project and the failures of multiculturalism. Confronting issues such as the link between race and intelligence, the promotion of race-specific drugs, the fashion for genealogy, and why scientific research into controversial areas should not be constrained, Malik proves that the debate about race is back-and shows us how to deal with it.

A strange stirring : . the Feminine mystique and American women at the dawn of the 1960s / . Stephanie Coontz.

Description: Challenging both conservative and liberal myths about Betty Friedan's bestselling book,The Feminine Mystique, historian Stephanie Coontz re-examines the dawn of the 1960s (when the sexual revolution had barely begun) and brilliantly illuminates how a generation of women came to realize that their dissatisfaction with domestic life didn't reflect their personal weakness but rather a social and political injustice.

Strangers in the house : . the world of stepsiblings and half-siblings / . William R. Beer.

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Swimming up the Tigris : . real life encounters with Iraq / . Barbara Nimri Aziz.

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Teen dads : . rights, responsibilities, and joys / . Jeanne Warren Lindsay.

Description: A guide for teenage fathers who want to develop their parenting skills, with an emphasis on dealing with children from birth to the age of three.

Text analysis for the social sciences : . methods for drawing statistical inferences from texts and transcripts / . edited by Carl W. Roberts.

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Those girls : . single women in sixties and seventies popular culture / . Katherine J. Lehman.

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The top 100 : . the fastest-growing careers for the 21st century. .

Description: This handbook provides updates on job market information, with special attention to new technologies and the effects of globalization. It gives information on jobs projected to experience the fastest growth, the greatest opportunity, and the best earnings through 2018, according to statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor. It examines a wide range of industries, including computers, education, engineering, finance, food, health care, and more as well as job opportunities at various levels of skill and education. Each job article describes the job duties, required education, training, and skills, expected earnings and more.

Toward the healthy city : . people, places, and the politics of urban planning / . Jason Corburn.

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Travels in a gay nation : . portraits of LGBTQ Americans / . Philip Gambone.

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Understanding globalization : . the social consequences of political, economic, and environmental change / . Robert K. Schaeffer.

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Unfriendly fire : . how the gay ban undermines the military and weakens America / . Nathaniel Frank.

Description: From the Publisher: When the "don't ask, don't tell" policy emerged as a political compromise under Bill Clinton in 1993, it only ended up worsening the destructive gay ban that had been on the books since World War II. Drawing on more than a decade of research and hundreds of interviews, Nathaniel Frank exposes the military's policy toward gays and lesbians as damaging and demonstrates that "don't ask, don't tell" must be replaced with an outright reversal of the gay ban. Frank is one of the nation's leading experts on gays in the military, and in his evenhanded and always scrupulously documented chronicle, he reveals how the ban on open gays and lesbians in the U.S. military has greatly increased discharges, hampered recruitment, and-contrary to the rationale offered by proponents of the ban-led to lower morale and cohesion within military ranks. Frank does not shy away from tackling controversial issues, and he presents indisputable evidence showing that gays already serve openly without causing problems, and that the policy itself is weakening the military it was supposed to protect. In addition to the moral pitfalls of the gay ban, Frank shows the practical damage it has wrought. Most recently, the discharge of valuable Arabic translators (who happen to be gay) under the current policy has left U.S. forces ill-equipped in the fight against terrorism. Part history, part expose, and fully revealing, Unfriendly Fire is poised to become the definitive story of "don't ask, don't tell." This lively and compelling narrative is sure to make the blood boil of any American who cares about national security, the right to speak the truth, or just plain common sense and fairness.

Waiting on a train : . the embattled future of passenger rail service / . James McCommons ; foreword by James Howard Kunstler.

Description: During the tumultuous year of 2008 - when gas prices reached $4 a gallon, Amtrak set ridership records, and a commuter train collided with a freight train in California - journalist James McCommons spent a year on America's trains, talking to the people who ride and work the rails throughout much of the Amtrak system. Organized around these rail journeys, Waiting on a Train is equal parts travel narrative, personal memoir, and investigative journalism. Readers meet the historians, railroad executives, transportation officials, politicians, government regulators, railroad lobbyists, and passenger-rail advocates who are rallying around a simple question: Why has the greatest railroad nation in the world turned its back on the very form of transportation that made modern life and mobility possible? Distrust of railroads in the nineteenth century, overregulation in the twentieth, and heavy government subsidies for airports and roads have left the country with a skeletal intercity passenger-rail system. Amtrak has endured for decades, and yet failed to prosper owing to a lack of political and financial support and an uneasy relationship with the big, remaining railroads. While riding the rails, McCommons explores how the country may move passenger rail forward in America - and what role government should play in creating and funding mass-transportation systems. Against the backdrop of the nation's stimulus program, he explores what it will take to build high-speed trains and transportation networks, and when the promise of rail will be realized in America.

Waste : . uncovering the global food scandal / . Tristram Stuart.

Description: In "Waste," Stuart points out that farmers, manufacturers, supermarkets, and consumers in North America and Europe discard between 30 and 50 percent of their food supplies--enough to feed all the world's hungry three times over. Traveling from China to New York, from Pakistan to Japan, Stuart encounters grotesque examples of profligacy--but also inspiring innovations--to the global food crisis.

The wellbeing of children in care : . a new approach for improving developmental outcomes / . Kwame Owusu-Bempah.

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What's liberal about the liberal arts? : . classroom politics and "bias" in higher education / . Michael Berube..

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When a heart turns rock solid : . the lives of three Puerto Rican brothers on and off the streets / . Timothy Black.

Description: Employing a sociological storytelling method, Black, associate professor of sociology at the University of Hartford, recounts the lives of three Puerto Rican brothers living in poor, gang-dominated Springfield, Mass., whom he befriended and followed for 18 years. The book is not so much about the brothers--Julio, Fausto and Sammy--and their friends as it is about the cultural and social forces and the economic and political policies that in the latter decades of the 20th century determined the boys' fates and the fates of thousands of others. Flawed bilingual education programs doomed them to virtual illiteracy, while harsh drug laws warehoused them in a rapidly expanding prison system. While the author provided concrete forms of assistance--especially for the two younger brothers, who battled addiction--the pull of the street as well as the inadequacy of their education led to failed or marginally productive lives, even for the motivated eldest son, Julio.

White mother to a dark race : . settler colonialism, maternalism, and the removal of indigenous children in the American West and Australia, 1880-1940 / . Margaret D. Jacobs.

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Women in combat : . a reference handbook / . Rosemarie Skaine.

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The world and Wikipedia : . how we are editing reality / . Andrew Dalby.

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Your digital afterlife : . when Facebook, Flickr and Twitter are your estate, what's your legacy? / . [Evan Carroll and John Romano ; foreword by Omar L. Gallaga].

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