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Special purpose jurisdictions, such as school districts, water districts, and transit authorities, constitute the most common form of local government in the United States today. This book offers the first political theory of special purpose jurisdictions and provides extensive empirical analyses of the politics and finances of these often overlooked but increasingly influential governments.
Ashworth et al address this key challenge in the field with a new vision of how to connect empirical and theoretical work, one rooted in the idea of "all else equal." Theory, the authors argue, implicitly rests of the idea of "all-else-equal," and it's precisely this question that empirical work attempts to confirm. Thus theory and empirics have an intrinsic connection, and in recognizing this scholars can bridge the gap between the two. The first part of the book examines the "all-else-equal" connection and goes on to show how how theoretical models yield empirical implications and how substantive identification is the lynch-pin of a credible research design. The second part then follows the progressive back-and-forth between theory and empirics in existing scholarship, breaking these interactions into five types: reinterpreting, elaboration, distinguishing, disentangling, and modeling the research design. .
An investigative criminologist, Christopher Berry-Dee is a man who talks to serial killers. Their pursuit of horror and violence is described in their own words, transcribed from audio and videotape interviews conducted deep inside some of the toughest prisons in the world. Berry-Dee describes the circumstances of his meetings with some of the world's most evil men and reproduces, verbatim, their very words as they describe their crimes and discuss their remorse -- or lack of it. This work offers a penetrating insight into the workings of the criminal mind.
In China on Screen, Chris Berry and Mary Farquhar, leaders in the field of Chinese film studies, explore more than one hundred years of Chinese cinema and nation. Providing new perspectives on key movements, themes, and filmmakers, Berry and Farquhar analyze the films of a variety of directors and actors, including Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou, Hou Hsiao Hsien, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Maggie Cheung, Gong Li, Wong Kar-wai, and Ang Lee. They argue for the abandonment of "national cinema" as an analytic tool and propose "cinema and the national" as a more productive framework. With this approach, they show how movies from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Chinese diaspora construct and contest different ideas of Chinese nation--as empire, republic, or ethnicity, and complicated by gender, class, style, transnationalism, and more. Among the issues and themes covered are the tension between operatic and realist modes, male and female star images, transnational production and circulation of Chinese films, the image of the good foreigner--all related to different ways of imagining nation. Comprehensive and provocative, China on Screen is a crucial work of film analysis.
In 1776 Adam Smith (1723-90) wrote The Wealth of Nations, a book so foundational that it has led to him being called the father of economics. Today he is associated with the promotion of self-interest, a defense of greed and a criticism of any governmental 'interference' in market transactions which, if left to the 'invisible hand', will produce prosperity and liberty. Yet if Smith is actually read these associations are more a caricature than a faithful portrait. In this Very Short Introduction, Christopher Berry offers a balanced and nuanced view of this seminal thinker, embedding his fierce defense of free trade, competition, and assault on special interests in contemporary European histo...
Bestselling author Christopher Berry-Dee returns with a companion volume that delves even deeper into the evil world of psychopaths and their hideous crimes. In Talking with Psychopaths: Beyond Evil, criminologist Berry-Dee combines sections on killers whom he has known, interviewed, or corresponded with, with studies of psychopathic serial killers from the past, including Peter Kurten, the Dusseldorf Monster; John Christie, a murderer and necrophile; and Neville Heath, a ladykiller in every sense of the word. The result is a chilling narrative that sets the forensic examination of killers and their crimes within the context of murder in the 20th and 21st centuries, and the insoluble problem of identifying these psychopaths. This is not a book for the squeamish but is undeniably fascinating in its portrayal of just what one human being will do to another—while all too often moving among us unnoticed and unhindered. If their crimes seem as incomprehensible as they are horrific, it is undeniably true that the world’s most wicked killers may be much closer than we think.
An introduction to the role of Berry phases in our modern understanding of the physics of electrons in solids.
School boards are fighting for their survival. Almost everything that they do is subject to regulations handed down from city councils, state boards of education, legislatures, and courts. As recent mayoral and state takeovers in such cities as Baltimore, Chicago, and New York make abundantly clear, school boards that do not fulfill the expectations of other political players may be stripped of what few independent powers they still retain. Teachers unions exert growing influence over board decision-making processes. And with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, the federal government has aggressively inserted itself into matters of local education governance. B esieged is the first ...
COMBINES HORRIFIC ACCOUNTS OF THE MOST VICIOUS MURDERS EVER COMMITTED WITH THE SHOCKING WORDS OF THE KILLERS THEMSELVES''The bloodstains . . . That happened when I stored one of the guys upsidedown . . . It usually ran out of his nose or mouth or something . . .''--John Wayne Gacy''She kinda wanted it, ya know. Sex, an' stuff like that. Then I get started, an' she starts cryin' and wants her mom, so I suffocated her.''--Arthur John Shawcross, the Genesee River Killer''Killing a woman's like killing a chicken. They both squawk.''--Kenneth Allen McDuff, Broomstick Murderer''I ain't so bad. I've been with hundreds of men. I just ain't killed them all. Then you get a few dirty old men who go radical on me. What am I supposed to do? It was all their fault, and that's the God's honest truth.''--Aileen Carol Wuornos, ''Monster'' ''I took her into the bedroom and killed her. She screamed for her mom and the last thing she saw was the face of her dead friend lying under the sheets next to her.''--Kenneth Bianchi, the Hillside Strangler