Accidental Feminist: How Elizabeth Taylor Raised Our Consciousness and We Were Too Distracted by Her Beauty to Notice
M G Lord
Bloomsbury, PB, 9780802716699
Movie stars establish themselves as brands - and Taylor's brand, in its most memorable outings, has repeatedly introduced a broad audience to feminist ideas. In her breakout film, National Velvet (1944), Taylor's character challenges gender discrimination: Forbidden as a girl to ride her beloved horse in an important race, she poses as a male jockey. Her next milestone, A Place in ... More/Buy
Beauty and the Beast
Michael Taussig
University of Chicago, PB, 9780226789866
Beauty and the Beast begins with the question: Is beauty destined to end in tragedy? Drawing on extensive fieldwork in Colombia, Michael Taussig scrutinizes the anxious, audacious, and sometimes destructive attempts people make to transform their bodies through cosmetic surgery and liposuction. He balances an examination of surgeries meant to enhance an individual's beauty with an often overlooked counterpart, surgeries performed ... More/Buy
Celebrity Society
Robert van Krieken
Routledge, PB, 9780415581509
On television, in magazines and books, on the internet and in films, celebrities of all sorts seem to monopolize our attention. Celebrity Society brings new dimensions to our understanding of celebrity, capturing the way in which the figure of 'the celebrity' is bound up with the emergence of modernity. It outlines how the 'celebrification of society' is not just the twentieth-century ... More/Buy
Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class
Owen Jones
Verso, PB, 9781844678648
n modern Britain, the working class has become an object of fear and ridicule. From Little Britain's Vicky Pollard to the demonization of Jade Goody, media and politicians alike dismiss as feckless, criminalized and ignorant a vast, underprivileged swathe of society whose members have become stereotyped by one, hate-filled word: chavs. In this acclaimed investigation, Owen Jones explores how the working ... More/Buy
City: A Guidebook for the Urban Age
P D Smith
Bloomsbury, PB, 9781408824436
For the first time in the history of the planet, more than half the population - 3.3 billion people - are now living in cities. Two hundred years ago only 3 per cent of the world's population were urbanites, a figure that had remained fairly stable (give or take the occasional plague) for about 1000 years. By 2030, 60 per cent ... More/Buy
Covert Racism: Theories, Institutions and Experiences
Rodney D Coates
Haymarket, PB, 9781608462100
Covert racism, subtle in application, often appears hidden by norms of association, affiliation, group membership and/or identity. As such, covert racism is often excused or confused with mechanisms of exclusion and inclusion, ritual and ceremony, acceptance and rejection. Covert racism operates as a boundary keeping mechanism whose primary purpose is to maintain social distance between racial majorities and racial ... More/Buy
Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt
Chris Hedge, Joe Sacco
Nation, HB, 9781568586434
In Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges and award winning cartoonist Joe Sacco bring us a searing on-the-ground report on the crisis gripping underclass America and crime-ridden poverty enclaves - in prisons, urban slums, and rural communities - metastasizing around the nation. With unemployment and underemployment combined at far over ten percent, as Congress proposes ... More/Buy
Girl Land
Caitlin Flanagan
Little Brown, HB, 9780316065986
Caitlin Flanagan's essays about marriage, sex and families have sparked national debates. Now she turns her attention to girls: the biological and cultural milestones for girls today and how they shape a girl's sense of herself. The transition from girl to woman is an experience that has changed radically over the generations: everything from how a girl learns about her period ... More/Buy
The Great Divergence: America's Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do about It
Timothy Noah
Bloomsbury, HB, 9781608196333
What economics Nobelist Paul Krugman terms 'the Great Divergence' has until now been treated as little more than a talking point, a club to be wielded in ideological battles. But it may be the most important change in this country during our lifetimes-a sharp, fundamental shift in the character of American society, and not at all for the better. The income gap ... More/Buy
The Locavore's Dilemma: In Praise of the 10,000 mile Diet
Hiroko Shimizu
Public Affairs, HB, 9781586489403
'Eat local' has become the mantra of a new generation of food activists. Implicit in the locavore agenda is the belief that it combines healthy eating and a high standard of environmental stewardship. But evidence tells us that these claims are mistaken and suggests that, at best, locavorism is a marketing fad that severely distorts the environmental impacts of agricultural production. ... More/Buy
A New Kind of Bleak: Journeys Through Urban Britain
Owen Hatherley
Verso, HB, 9781844678570
What happens when ruination overtakes regeneration? Following on from A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain, Owen Hatherley investigates the fate of British cities in the desolate new world of savage public-sector cuts, when government funds are withdrawn and the Welfare State abdicates. He explores the urban consequences of what Conservatives privately call the 'progressive nonsense' of the Big ... More/Buy
Scattered Sand: The Story of China`s Rurual Migrants
Hsiao-Hung Pai
Verso, HB, 9781844678860
Each year, 200 million workers from China's vast rural interior travel between cities and regions in search of employment: the largest human migration in history. This indispensable army of labor contributes half of China's GDP, but is an unorganized workforce - scattered sand - and the most marginalized and impoverished group of workers in the country. For two years, the award-winning ... More/Buy
Single: Arguments for the Uncoupled
Michael Cobb
New York University Press, PB, 9780814772553
What single person hasn't suffered? Everyone, it seems, must be (or must want to be) in a couple. To exist outside of the couple is to assume an antisocial position that is ruthlessly discouraged because being in a couple is the way most people bind themselves to the social. Singles might just be the single most reviled sexual minorities today. Single: ... More/Buy
Theorizing Power
Jonathan Hearn
Palgrave, PB, 9780230246577
Power is a key issue across all aspects of social life. This text provides a clear introduction to the topic, anchoring abstract ideas in real social and historical contexts. Spanning theorists from Machiavelli to Bourdieu, the text unravels complex concepts to carefully show the relationship between power and ... More/Buy
The Truth Machine: A Social History of the Lie Detector
Geoffrey C Bunn
Johns Hopkins University Press, HB, 9781421405308
How do you trap someone in a lie? For centuries, all manner of truth-seekers have used the lie detector. In this eye-opening book, Geoffrey C. Bunn unpacks the history of this device and explores the interesting and often surprising connection between technology and popular culture. The lie detector figures prominently in many headline-producing criminal cases, including one of the most infamous ... More/Buy
Wired for Culture: The Natural History of Human Cooperation
Mark Pagel
Allen Lane, HB, 9781846140150
Since humans left Africa less than a hundred thousand years ago there has been a staggering explosion of cultures. What caused this blooming of diversity? Why are there so many mutually incomprehensible languages, even within small territories? Why do we rejoice in rituals, wrap ourselves in flags, or define ourselves in opposition to others? In Wired for Culture Mark Pagel, the ... More/Buy