Download or read book Never Saw It Coming written by Karen A. Cerulo and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-09-15 with total page 691 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: People—especially Americans—are by and large optimists. They're much better at imagining best-case scenarios (I could win the lottery!) than worst-case scenarios (A hurricane could destroy my neighborhood!). This is true not just of their approach to imagining the future, but of their memories as well: people are better able to describe the best moments of their lives than they are the worst. Though there are psychological reasons for this phenomenon, Karen A.Cerulo, in Never Saw It Coming, considers instead the role of society in fostering this attitude. What kinds of communities develop this pattern of thought, which do not, and what does that say about human ability to evaluate possible outcomes of decisions and events? Cerulo takes readers to diverse realms of experience, including intimate family relationships, key transitions in our lives, the places we work and play, and the boardrooms of organizations and bureaucracies. Using interviews, surveys, artistic and fictional accounts, media reports, historical data, and official records, she illuminates one of the most common, yet least studied, of human traits—a blatant disregard for worst-case scenarios. Never Saw It Coming, therefore, will be crucial to anyone who wants to understand human attempts to picture or plan the future. “In Never Saw It Coming, Karen Cerulo argues that in American society there is a ‘positive symmetry,’ a tendency to focus on and exaggerate the best, the winner, the most optimistic outcome and outlook. Thus, the conceptions of the worst are underdeveloped and elided. Naturally, as she masterfully outlines, there are dramatic consequences to this characterological inability to imagine and prepare for the worst, as the failure to heed memos leading up to both the 9/11 and NASA Challenger disasters, for instance, so painfully reminded us.”--Robin Wagner-Pacifici, Swarthmore College “Katrina, 9/11, and the War in Iraq—all demonstrate the costliness of failing to anticipate worst-case scenarios. Never Saw It Coming explains why it is so hard to do so: adaptive behavior hard-wired into human cognition is complemented and reinforced by cultural practices, which are in turn institutionalized in the rules and structures of formal organizations. But Karen Cerulo doesn’t just diagnose the problem; she uses case studies of settings in which people effectively anticipate and deal with potential disaster to describe structural solutions to the chronic dilemmas she describes so well. Never Saw It Coming is a powerful contribution to the emerging fields of cognitive and moral sociology.”--Paul DiMaggio, Princeton University

Download or read book Worst Cases written by Lee Clarke and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2021-04-02 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Al Qaeda detonates a nuclear weapon in Times Square during rush hour, wiping out half of Manhattan and killing 500,000 people. A virulent strain of bird flu jumps to humans in Thailand, sweeps across Asia, and claims more than fifty million lives. A single freight car of chlorine derails on the outskirts of Los Angeles, spilling its contents and killing seven million. An asteroid ten kilometers wide slams into the Atlantic Ocean, unleashing a tsunami that renders life on the planet as we know it extinct. We consider the few who live in fear of such scenarios to be alarmist or even paranoid. But Worst Cases shows that such individuals—like Cassandra foreseeing the fall of Troy—are more reasonable and prescient than you might think. In this book, Lee Clarke surveys the full range of possible catastrophes that animate and dominate the popular imagination, from toxic spills and terrorism to plane crashes and pandemics. Along the way, he explores how the ubiquity of worst cases in everyday life has rendered them ordinary and mundane. Fear and dread, Clarke argues, have actually become too rare: only when the public has more substantial information and more credible warnings will it take worst cases as seriously as it should. A timely and necessary look into how we think about the unthinkable, Worst Cases will be must reading for anyone attuned to our current climate of threat and fear.

Download or read book Good Strategy Bad Strategy written by Richard Rumelt and published by Currency. This book was released on 2011-07-19 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Good Strategy/Bad Strategy clarifies the muddled thinking underlying too many strategies and provides a clear way to create and implement a powerful action-oriented strategy for the real world. Developing and implementing a strategy is the central task of a leader. A good strategy is a specific and coherent response to—and approach for—overcoming the obstacles to progress. A good strategy works by harnessing and applying power where it will have the greatest effect. Yet, Rumelt shows that there has been a growing and unfortunate tendency to equate Mom-and-apple-pie values, fluffy packages of buzzwords, motivational slogans, and financial goals with “strategy.” In Good Strategy/Bad Strategy, he debunks these elements of “bad strategy” and awakens an understanding of the power of a “good strategy.” He introduces nine sources of power—ranging from using leverage to effectively focusing on growth—that are eye-opening yet pragmatic tools that can easily be put to work on Monday morning, and uses fascinating examples from business, nonprofit, and military affairs to bring its original and pragmatic ideas to life. The detailed examples range from Apple to General Motors, from the two Iraq wars to Afghanistan, from a small local market to Wal-Mart, from Nvidia to Silicon Graphics, from the Getty Trust to the Los Angeles Unified School District, from Cisco Systems to Paccar, and from Global Crossing to the 2007–08 financial crisis. Reflecting an astonishing grasp and integration of economics, finance, technology, history, and the brilliance and foibles of the human character, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy stems from Rumelt’s decades of digging beyond the superficial to address hard questions with honesty and integrity.

Download or read book Bad Men written by Howard Rambsy II. and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2020-04-01 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How have African American writers drawn on "bad" black men and black boys as creative touchstones for their evocative and vibrant art? This is the question posed by Howard Rambsy’s new book, which explores bad men as a central, recurring, and understudied figure in African American literature and music. By focusing on how various iterations of the bad black man figure serve as creative muse and inspiration for literary production, Rambsy puts a wide variety of contemporary African American literary and cultural works in conversation with creativity research for the first time. Employing concepts such as playfulness, productivity, divergent thinking, and problem finding, Rambsy examines the works of a wide range of writers—including Elizabeth Alexander, Amiri Baraka, Paul Beatty, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Tyehimba Jess, Trymaine Lee, Adrian Matejka, Aaron McGruder, Evie Shockley, and Kevin Young—who have drawn on notions of bad black men and boys to create innovative and challenging works in a variety of genres. Through groundbreaking readings, Rambsy demonstrates the fruitfulness of viewing black literary art through the lens of creativity research.

Download or read book What s the Worst That Could Happen written by Donald E. Westlake and published by Mysterious Press. This book was released on 2001-04-11 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It started with a ring. A cheap ring. The yellow metal said brass, not gold, and the sparkly bits were certainly not diamonds. But the ring belonged to May's horseplaying uncle, who swore it brought good luck. Dortmunder, who wouldn't kick a little good luck out of bed, puts it to the test when he goes to burglarize Long Island billionaire Max Fairbanks. As luck would have it, Dortmunder is greeted by Fairbanks himself - and a loaded gun - as soon as he strolls through the door. When the cops arrive, the mogul adds insult to injury by claiming that Dortmunder's lucky ring is actually his. Big mistake, big guy. As soon as Dortmunder can give the cops the slip, the world's most single-minded burglar goes after the fat cat with a vengeance and a team of crooks that only he can assemble. And from the get go everything will go Dortmunder's way - everything, that is, except the ring.

Download or read book Fearing the Black Body written by Sabrina Strings and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2019-05-07 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner, 2020 Body and Embodiment Best Publication Award, given by the American Sociological Association Honorable Mention, 2020 Sociology of Sex and Gender Distinguished Book Award, given by the American Sociological Association How the female body has been racialized for over two hundred years There is an obesity epidemic in this country and poor black women are particularly stigmatized as “diseased” and a burden on the public health care system. This is only the most recent incarnation of the fear of fat black women, which Sabrina Strings shows took root more than two hundred years ago. Strings weaves together an eye-opening historical narrative ranging from the Renaissance to the current moment, analyzing important works of art, newspaper and magazine articles, and scientific literature and medical journals—where fat bodies were once praised—showing that fat phobia, as it relates to black women, did not originate with medical findings, but with the Enlightenment era belief that fatness was evidence of “savagery” and racial inferiority. The author argues that the contemporary ideal of slenderness is, at its very core, racialized and racist. Indeed, it was not until the early twentieth century, when racialized attitudes against fatness were already entrenched in the culture, that the medical establishment began its crusade against obesity. An important and original work, Fearing the Black Body argues convincingly that fat phobia isn’t about health at all, but rather a means of using the body to validate race, class, and gender prejudice.

Download or read book Straying written by Molly McCloskey and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-02-20 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A memoir-vivid portrait of a vertiginous affair” (Vogue) for readers of Jenny Offill, Garth Greenwell, and Anne Enright, an unforgettable novel about a young American expat who settles in Ireland, marries, and lives through the consequences of an affair—by “an extravagantly gifted writer” (Rachel Cusk). In this “humane and lucid novel” (The New York Times), Alice, a young American, arrives in the West of Ireland with no plans and no strong attachments. She meets and falls in love with an Irishman, quickly marries him, and settles down in a place whose customs are unfamiliar. And then, in the course of a single hot summer, she embarks on an affair that breaks her marriage and sets her life on a new course. Years later, in the immediate aftermath of her beloved mother’s death, Alice, having worked in war zones around the world, finds herself back in Ireland, contemplating the forces that led her to put down roots and then tear them up again. What drew her to her husband, and what pulled her away? Was her husband strangely complicit in the affair? Was she always under surveillance by friends and neighbors who knew more than they let on? “Short, intense, and emotionally precise” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis), Straying is at once a “ferociously well written” (The Guardian) account of passion and ambivalence and an exquisite rumination on the things that matter most.

Download or read book The Secret written by Rhonda Byrne and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-07-07 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The tenth-anniversary edition of the book that changed lives in profound ways, now with a new foreword and afterword. In 2006, a groundbreaking feature-length film revealed the great mystery of the universe—The Secret—and, later that year, Rhonda Byrne followed with a book that became a worldwide bestseller. Fragments of a Great Secret have been found in the oral traditions, in literature, in religions and philosophies throughout the centuries. For the first time, all the pieces of The Secret come together in an incredible revelation that will be life-transforming for all who experience it. In this book, you’ll learn how to use The Secret in every aspect of your life—money, health, relationships, happiness, and in every interaction you have in the world. You’ll begin to understand the hidden, untapped power that’s within you, and this revelation can bring joy to every aspect of your life. The Secret contains wisdom from modern-day teachers—men and women who have used it to achieve health, wealth, and happiness. By applying the knowledge of The Secret, they bring to light compelling stories of eradicating disease, acquiring massive wealth, overcoming obstacles, and achieving what many would regard as impossible.

Download or read book The Truth about Transformation written by Kevin Novak and published by Kevin Novak. This book was released on 2023-07-22 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Any organization that seeks transformation desires to take advantage of new opportunities and growth. Most organizations turn to technology as the major driver of change. But technology is an enabler, not a silver bullet. Mistaking technology for transformation will lead an organization to failure. True transformative change requires an understanding of the human factors at play, how conscious and subconscious behaviors can derail any plan, and how society is influencing your organization. Change is the only constant. An evolving reality is emerging, one that will fundamentally change who we are, how we work, and how organizations will be relevant today and in the future. The truth about transformation is not what you may think. This guide to organizational transformation will surprise, confound, provoke, and challenge every ingrained belief. The future is out there, and the truth about transformation will change how you lead.”

Download or read book Signs of Life in the USA written by Sonia Maasik and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2011-11-21 with total page 745 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Signs of Life in the USA teaches students to read and write critically about popular culture by giving them a conceptual framework to do it: semiotics, a field of critical theory developed specifically for the interpretation of culture and its signs. Written by a prominent semiotician and an experienced writing instructor, the text’s high-interest themes feature provocative and current reading selections that ask students to think analytically about America’s impressive popular culture: How is TV’s Mad Men a lightning rod for America’s polarized political climate? Has the nature of personal identity changed in an era when we spend so much of our lives online? Signs of Life bridges the transition to college writing by providing students with academic language to talk about our common, everyday cultural experience. Read the preface. Order Multimodal Readings for Signs of Life in the USA packaged with Signs of Life in the USA, Seventh Edition using ISBN-13: 978-1-4576-1989-2.

Download or read book Envisioning the Future written by Marleen S. Barr and published by Wesleyan University Press. This book was released on 2003-09-03 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Writers speculate on the future and the role of science fiction.

Download or read book The Anxieties of Idleness written by Sarah Jordan and published by Bucknell University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Anxieties of Idleness: Idleness in Eighteenth-Century British Literature and Culture investigates the preoccupation with idleness that haunts the British eighteenth century. Jordan argues that as Great Britain began to define itself as a nation during this period, one important quality it claimed was industriousness. However, this claim was undermined and complicated by many factors, such as leisure's importance to class status. Thus idleness was a subject of intense anxiety. One result of this anxiety was an increased surveillance of the supposed idleness of those members of society with less power to wield: the working classes, the nonwhite races, and women. Jordan analyzes how the "idleness" of these groups is figured, in traditional literature and in extra-literary works. Idleness was also a concern for writers of the day, as writing became a money-earning profession. Jordan examines the lives and works of two writers especially obsessed with idleness, Samuel Johnson and William Cowper.

Download or read book The Worst Princess written by Anna Kemp and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-04-26 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once upon a time, in a tower near you, Lived a sad princess; the Princess Sue. "Some day," she sighed, "my prince will come, But I wish he'd move his royal bum." But when Princess Sue's prince finally does arrive, he's not quite what she had in mind. Find out how the feisty princess escapes the clutches of her twit of a prince in this funny, feminist twist on the traditional princess tale. Forget about pretty dresses, fairytale weddings and grand balls, Princess Sue is all about adventure, mischief and making unusual friends. She really is the worst princess! An empowering picture book from the brilliant author Anna Kemp, with illustrations by Sara Ogilive, illustrator of The Detective Dog – perfect for fans of Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World, Princess Smartypants,Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls and Ada Twist, Scientist. ‘Those sick of the cult of pink princesses will appreciate this quirky take on the traditional princess tale… A very funny new picture book’ The Bookseller Children's Buyers Guide ‘Told in verse, and wonderfully illustrated by Sara Ogilvie, this picture book is so funny it could be safely recommended for all ages’ The Independent on Sunday ‘Girl power is celebrated in this picture book that turns the princess role firmly on its head’ Waking Brain Cells blog ‘This book will remind young girls that it takes courage and determination to be oneself, even when going after one’s dreams or when beginning and ending friendships’ curled up with a good kid's book

Download or read book Re Envisioning Psychology written by Frank C. Richardson and published by Jossey-Bass. This book was released on 1999-03-26 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does the practice of psychology make a significant and positive contribution to human welfare and the struggle for a good society? This book presents a reinvigorating look at psychology and its societal purpose, offering a bold new philosophical foundation from which professionals in the field can deeply examine their work.

Download or read book Spiritual Abuse written by William Bentonetti and published by Booktango. This book was released on 2013-02-06 with total page 981 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spiritual Abuse is a three part novel about two teenagers from two different families who are the victims of abuse. Teaming up to investigate their parents' pasts in order to learn the reasons for their parents' behavior, they discover shocking secrets that force them into a world of worse physical and mental dangers that they never imagined possible. Violence, sex, lies, drugs, kidnapping, murder and deception are but a few of the many obstacles that these two teens must deal with before reaching the goal of finding out what is going on. What they find is so shocking that nearly every second in this period of their lives ticks by with mystery. Each character in this novel is unique with a role to play in the intricate web of child abuse and relationships. Hopefully, this novel will arouse some to take action to finally eradicate all forms of abuse from the face of this planet forever.

Download or read book The Social Roots of Risk written by Kathleen Tierney and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-23 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This book about risk and disaster—and how they get amplified—is fascinating and hugely important as we face an ever-more-turbulent world.” —Rebecca Solnit, award-winning author of A Field Guide to Getting Lost The first decade of the twenty-first century saw a remarkable number of large-scale disasters. Earthquakes in Haiti and Sumatra underscored the serious economic consequences that catastrophic events can have on developing countries, while 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina showed that first world nations remain vulnerable. The Social Roots of Risk argues against the widespread notion that cataclysmic occurrences are singular events, driven by forces beyond our control. Instead, Kathleen Tierney contends that disasters of all types—be they natural, technological, or economic—are rooted in common social and institutional sources. Put another way, risks and disasters are produced by the social order itself—by governing bodies, organizations, and groups that push for economic growth, oppose risk-reducing regulation, and escape responsibility for tremendous losses when they occur. Considering a wide range of historical and looming events—from a potential mega-earthquake in Tokyo that would cause devastation far greater than what we saw in 2011, to BP’s accident history prior to the 2010 blowout—Tierney illustrates trends in our behavior, connecting what seem like one-off events to illuminate historical patterns. Like risk, human resilience also emerges from the social order, and this book makes a powerful case that we already have a significant capacity to reduce the losses that disasters produce. A provocative rethinking of the way that we approach and remedy disasters, The Social Roots of Risk leaves readers with a better understanding of how our own actions make us vulnerable to the next big crisis—and what we can do to prevent it. “Brilliant . . . Drawing on a trove of timely case studies, Tierney analyses how factors such as speculative finance and rampant development allow natural and economic blips to tip more easily into catastrophe.” —Nature

Download or read book The Jeffrey Journey 2010 Edition written by Helen Baldwin and published by Milverstead Publishing LLC. This book was released on 2010-02-27 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revised and Updated - 2010 with new resources and dedications. In May, 1997, Randy and Helen Baldwin eagerly welcomed their third child, Jeffrey, as did his older siblings, Matthew and Katie. Jeffrey's arrival, unplanned but greatly anticipated, sparked a few adjustments in this family long removed from diaper duty, but Jeffrey was obviously a special gift. Eight weeks later, life took a completely unexpected downward spiral into the depths of despair when Jeffrey was diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), a rare, progressive genetic neuromuscular disease with deadly ramifications. The neurologist handed over the utterly devastating news that Jeffrey had a severe case of the most destructive form without a morsel of hope that anything could be done to thwart the effects of the killer disease. Faced with the nightmare that their baby was expected to die within two years and that there was no treatment or cure, Randy and Helen took their faith in God to a higher level and embarked on a quest to defy SMA and its stranglehold on their precious baby's life. They sought the expertise of alternative practitioners and relentlessly relied on prayers for Jeffrey's health and for strength, courage, and wisdom for themselves and their family. The Jeffrey Journey is the story of how one family - with friends and family, prayer, and God's grace - rose to the challenge of caring for a dying child as they also realized the countless blessings left by their angel.