5 Politics, Sociology eBooks

Rethinking Media Development through Evaluation: Beyond Freedom (Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change) by Jessica Noske-Turner
The Ecology of Language in Multilingual India: Voices of Women and Educators in the Himalayan Foothills (Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities) by Cynthia Groff
Cult Media: Re-packaged, Re-released and Restored by Jonathan Wroot
Internal Combustion: How Corporations and Governments Addicted the World to Oil and Derailed the Alternatives by Edwin Black
David A. Stockman, "The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America"

Rethinking Media Development through Evaluation: Beyond Freedom (Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change) by Jessica Noske-Turner
English | 19 Nov. 2017 | ISBN: 3319585673 | 174 Pages | PDF | 2.15 MB
This book argues for an overhaul of the way media assistance is evaluated, and explores how new thinking about evaluation can reinforce the shifts towards better media development. The pursuit of media freedom has been the bedrock of media development since its height in the 1990s. Today, citizen voice, participation, social change, government responsiveness and accountability, and other ‘demand-side’ aspects of governance, are increasingly the rubric within with assistance to media development operates. This volume will appeal to scholars and students of media development and communication for social change whilst simultaneously representing a deep commitment to translating theoretical concepts in action-oriented ways.

The Ecology of Language in Multilingual India: Voices of Women and Educators in the Himalayan Foothills (Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities) by Cynthia Groff
English | 27 Nov. 2017 | ISBN: 1137519606 | 324 Pages | PDF | 2.14 MB
This book explores the linguistic ecology of the Kumaun region of Uttarakhand, India through the experiences and discourses of minority youth and their educators. Providing in-depth examples of Indian multilingualism, this volume analyses how each language is valued in its own context; how national-level policies are appropriated and contested in local discourses; and how language and culture influence educational opportunities and identity negotiation for Kumauni young women. In doing so, the author examines how students and educators navigate a multilingual society with similarly diverse classroom practices. She simultaneously critiques the language and education system in modern India and highlights alternative perspectives on empowerment through the lens of a unique Gandhian educational context. This volume allows Kumauni women and their educators to take centre stage, and provides a thoughtful and nuanced insight into their minority language environment. This unique book is sure to appeal to students and scholars of multilingualism, sociolinguistics, language policy and minority languages.

Cult Media: Re-packaged, Re-released and Restored by Jonathan Wroot
English | 26 Nov. 2017 | ISBN: 3319636782 | 240 Pages | PDF | 4.18 MB
This volume brings together writing on the topic of home media, and in particular releases described as appealing to ‘cult’ fans and audiences. Despite popular assumptions to the contrary, the distributors of physical media maintain a vivid presence in the digital age. Perhaps more so than any other category of film or media, this is especially the case with titles considered ‘cult’ and its related processes of distribution and exhibition. The chapters in this collection chart such uses and definitions of ‘cult’, ranging from home media re-releases to promotional events, film screenings, file-sharing and the exploitation of established fan communities. This book will be of interest to the ever-growing number of academics and research students that are specializing in studies of cult cinema and fan practices, as well as professionals (filmmakers, journalists, promoters) who are familiar with these types of films.

Internal Combustion: How Corporations and Governments Addicted the World to Oil and Derailed the Alternatives by Edwin Black
English | September 5, 2006 | ISBN: 0312359071, 031235908X | EPUB | 432 pages | 4.2 MB
Internal Combustion is the compelling tale of corruption and manipulation that subjected the U.S. and the world to an oil addiction that could have been avoided, that was never necessary, and that could be ended not in ten years, not in five years, but today.
Edwin Black, award-winning author of IBM and the Holocaust, has mined scores of corporate and governmental archives to assemble thousands of previously uncovered and long-forgotten documents and studies into this dramatic story. Black traces a continuum of rapacious energy cartels and special interests dating back nearly 5,000 years, from wood to coal to oil, and then to the bicycle and electric battery cartels of the 1890s, which created thousands of electric vehicles that plied American streets a century ago. But those noiseless and clean cars were scuttled by petroleum interests, despite the little-known efforts of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford to mass-produce electric cars powered by personal backyard energy stations. Black also documents how General Motors criminally conspired to undermine mass transit in dozens of cities and how Big Oil, Big Corn, and Big Coal have subverted synthetic fuels and other alternatives.
He then brings the story full-circle to the present day oil crises, global warming and beyond. Black showcases overlooked compressed-gas, electric and hydrogen cars on the market today, as well as inexpensive all-function home energy units that could eliminate much oil usage. His eye-opening call for a Manhattan Project for immediate energy independence will help energize society to finally take action.
Internal Combustion will generate a much-needed national debate at a crucial time. It should be read by every citizen who consumes oil – everyone. Internal Combustion can change everything, not by reinventing the wheel, but by excavating it from where it was buried a century ago.

David A. Stockman, "The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America"
ISBN: 1586489127, 1610395239 | 2013 | EPUB | 768 pages | 906 KB
A New York Times bestseller
The Great Deformation is a searing look at Washington's craven response to the recent myriad of financial crises and fiscal cliffs. It counters conventional wisdom with an eighty-year revisionist history of how the American state—especially the Federal Reserve—has fallen prey to the politics of crony capitalism and the ideologies of fiscal stimulus, monetary central planning, and financial bailouts. These forces have left the public sector teetering on the edge of political dysfunction and fiscal collapse and have caused America's private enterprise foundation to morph into a speculative casino that swindles the masses and enriches the few.
Defying right- and left-wing boxes, David Stockman provides a catalogue of corrupters and defenders of sound money, fiscal rectitude, and free markets. The former includes Franklin Roosevelt, who fathered crony capitalism; Richard Nixon, who destroyed national financial discipline and the Bretton Woods gold-backed dollar; Fed chairmen Greenspan and Bernanke, who fostered our present scourge of bubble finance and addiction to debt and speculation; George W. Bush, who repudiated fiscal rectitude and ballooned the warfare state via senseless wars; and Barack Obama, who revived failed Keynesian “borrow and spend” policies that have driven the national debt to perilous heights. By contrast, the book also traces a parade of statesmen who championed balanced budgets and financial market discipline including Carter Glass, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Bill Simon, Paul Volcker, Bill Clinton, and Sheila Bair.
Stockman's analysis skewers Keynesian spenders and GOP tax-cutters alike, showing how they converged to bloat the welfare state, perpetuate the military-industrial complex, and deplete the revenue base—even as the Fed's massive money printing allowed politicians to enjoy “deficits without tears.” But these policies have also fueled new financial bubbles and favored Wall Street with cheap money and rigged stock and bond markets, while crushing Main Street savers and punishing family budgets with soaring food and energy costs. The Great Deformation explains how we got here and why these warped, crony capitalist policies are an epochal threat to free market prosperity and American political democracy.