Welcome to our book review site go-pdf.online!
You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Endings
Arguing that death is the central force shaping our social life and order, Michael Kearl draws on anthropology, religion, politics, philosophy, the natural sciences, economics, and psychology to provide a broad sociological perspective on the interrelationships of life and death, showing how death contributes to social change and how the meanings of death are generated to serve social functions. Working from a social as well as a psychological perspective, Kearl analyzes traditional topics, including aging, suicide, grief, and medical ethics while also examining current issues such as the impact of the AIDS epidemic on social trust, governments' use of death symbolism, the business of death and dying, the political economy of doomsday weaponry, and death in popular culture. Incisive and original, this book maps the separate contributions of various social institutions to American attitudes toward death, observing the influence of each upon the broader cultural outlook on life.
Agents and Audiences
Papers presented to the IXth International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, Chicago, 1973.
Musical Improvisation
A musical practice used for centuries the world over, improvisation too often has been neglected by scholars who dismiss it as either technically undissectible or inexplicably mysterious. At different times and in different cultures, performing music that is not "precomposed" has constituted an artful expression of the performer's individuality (the Baroque); a wild, unthinking form of expression (jazz antagonists); and the best method to train inexperienced musicians to use their instruments (the Middle East). This wide-ranging collection of essays considers musical improvisation from a variety of approaches, including ethnomusicology, education, performance, historical musicology, and music theory. Laying the groundwork for even further research into improvisation, the contributors of this volume delve into topics as diverse as the creative minds of Mozart and Beethoven, the place of improvised musics in Western and non-Western societies, and the development of jazz as a musical and cultural phenomenon.
Leaving Words to Remember
This volume examines the influence of literacy on the development of different genres of mourning in ancient Greece. The oral tradition of lament in the Homeric poems forms the point of departure for close readings of epigraphic material and written texts commemorating the dead in the archaic and classical periods, including grave epigrams, threnoi, tragedy, and Athenian epitaphioi. These texts reveal the non-linear development of Greek literacy and offer insight into the ongoing influence of lament in diverse poetic genres and the evolving uses of death and mourning in different media. In particular, the discussion focuses on the role of writing in commemorating soldiers and the evolution of the written memorial into a historical and civic medium of communication.
Access to Origins
In many non-industrial, non-Western societies, power and prestige are closely linked to the extent of an individual's or group's perceived connection to the supernatural realm, which also explains and validates tangible activities such as economic success, victories in war, or control over lucrative trade. Affines (in-laws), ancestors, and aristocrats, in particular, are connected to the realm of creative cosmological origins (i.e., to Genesis), which accords them distinctive, supernatural powers and gives them a natural and legitimate right to worldly authority. This is the hypothesis that Mary W. Helms pursues in this broadly cross-cultural study of aristocracy in chiefly societies. She begins with basic ideas about the dead, ancestors, affines, and concepts of cosmological origins. This leads her to a discussion of cosmologically defined hierarchies, the qualities that characterize aristocracy, and the political and ideological roles of aristocrats as wife-givers and wife-takers (that is, as in-laws). She concludes by considering various models that explain how societies may develop or define aristocracies.
Symbols and Meaning
Womack offers a concise and easy-to-read overview of the power and meaning of symbols in all human societies. She describes how symbols_images, words, or behaviors with multi-layered meanings_are mechanism of communication. She demonstrates how we experience the power of symbols in all aspects of human life: birth, death, love, sexual desire, and the need for food and shelter. Womack investigates the use of symbols in the language of religion, healing, politics, social organization and control, popular culture, psychology, philosophy, semiotics, magic and expressive culture, including art, aesthetics, literature, theater, sports, and music. The author's eclectic, anthropological approach incorporates the social, conceptual and psychological dynamics of symbols. Her new book is an essential introductory textbook for courses that define fundamental concepts in religion, cultural anthropology, communication, and art.
Leadership . . . in Crisis
This book focuses on leading through times of crisis as a true measure of authentic and credible leadership, which is often tested during turbulent, inconsistent, and unpredictable times rather than through stable and steady phases. The emphasis is on those leaders that learned valuable lessons from various crisis experiences and adapted accordingly. Rather than be swayed by external circumstances, it is time to lead, to become the rudder—offering direction and opportunity—rather than the sails—being wavered by the winds. The most appropriate question that leaders should ask upon the onset of a crisis is not “When will all this end?” but rather “How will all this end?” The “h...
Economics and Ageing
This upper level textbook provides a coherent introduction to the economic implications of individual and population ageing. Placing economic considerations into a wider social sciences context, this is ideal reading not only for advanced undergraduate and masters students in health economics and economics of ageing, but policy makers, professionals and practitioners in gerontology, sociology, health-related sciences, and social care. This volume introduces topics in labour economics, including the economic implications of ageing workforces. It covers pension economics and pension systems with their macroeconomic and distributive effects, and the question of risk. Finally, it describes macroeconomic consequences of ageing populations on aggregate saving, inflation, international trade, and financial markets.
