Download or read book Cybernetic Revolutionaries written by Eden Medina and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A historical study of Chile's twin experiments with cybernetics and socialism, and what they tell us about the relationship of technology and politics. In Cybernetic Revolutionaries, Eden Medina tells the history of two intersecting utopian visions, one political and one technological. The first was Chile's experiment with peaceful socialist change under Salvador Allende; the second was the simultaneous attempt to build a computer system that would manage Chile's economy. Neither vision was fully realized—Allende's government ended with a violent military coup; the system, known as Project Cybersyn, was never completely implemented—but they hold lessons for today about the relationship between technology and politics. Drawing on extensive archival material and interviews, Medina examines the cybernetic system envisioned by the Chilean government—which was to feature holistic system design, decentralized management, human-computer interaction, a national telex network, near real-time control of the growing industrial sector, and modeling the behavior of dynamic systems. She also describes, and documents with photographs, the network's Star Trek-like operations room, which featured swivel chairs with armrest control panels, a wall of screens displaying data, and flashing red lights to indicate economic emergencies. Studying project Cybersyn today helps us understand not only the technological ambitions of a government in the midst of political change but also the limitations of the Chilean revolution. This history further shows how human attempts to combine the political and the technological with the goal of creating a more just society can open new technological, intellectual, and political possibilities. Technologies, Medina writes, are historical texts; when we read them we are reading history.

Download or read book Opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel of the United States Department of Justice written by United States. Department of Justice. Office of Legal Counsel and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Consisting of selected memorandum opinions advising the President of the United States, the Attorney General, and other executive officers of the Federal Government in relation to their official duties.

Download or read book From Poverty to Power written by Duncan Green and published by Oxfam. This book was released on 2008 with total page 540 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers a look at the causes and effects of poverty and inequality, as well as the possible solutions. This title features research, human stories, statistics, and compelling arguments. It discusses about the world we live in and how we can make it a better place.

Download or read book The New Latin American Left written by Patrick S. Barrett and published by Pluto Press (UK). This book was released on 2008-10-20 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leading scholars discuss ideology and hotly contested post-structuralist theory.

Download or read book Strategic Latency Unleashed written by Zachary Davis and published by . This book was released on 2021-01-30 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world is being transformed physically and politically. Technology is the handmaiden of much of this change. But since the current sweep of global change is transforming the face of warfare, Special Operations Forces (SOF) must adapt to these circumstances. Fortunately, adaptation is in the SOF DNA. This book examines the changes affecting SOF and offers possible solutions to the complexities that are challenging many long-held assumptions. The chapters explore what has changed, what stays the same, and what it all means for U.S. SOF. The authors are a mix of leading experts in technology, business, policy, intelligence, and geopolitics, partnered with experienced special operators who either cowrote the chapters or reviewed them to ensure accuracy and relevance for SOF. Our goal is to provide insights into the changes around us and generate ideas about how SOF can adapt and succeed in the emerging operational environment.

Download or read book Open Veins of Latin America written by Eduardo Galeano and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since its U.S. debut a quarter-century ago, this brilliant text has set a new standard for historical scholarship of Latin America. It is also an outstanding political economy, a social and cultural narrative of the highest quality, and perhaps the finest description of primitive capital accumulation since Marx. Rather than chronology, geography, or political successions, Eduardo Galeano has organized the various facets of Latin American history according to the patterns of five centuries of exploitation. Thus he is concerned with gold and silver, cacao and cotton, rubber and coffee, fruit, hides and wool, petroleum, iron, nickel, manganese, copper, aluminum ore, nitrates, and tin. These are the veins which he traces through the body of the entire continent, up to the Rio Grande and throughout the Caribbean, and all the way to their open ends where they empty into the coffers of wealth in the United States and Europe. Weaving fact and imagery into a rich tapestry, Galeano fuses scientific analysis with the passions of a plundered and suffering people. An immense gathering of materials is framed with a vigorous style that never falters in its command of themes. All readers interested in great historical, economic, political, and social writing will find a singular analytical achievement, and an overwhelming narrative that makes history speak, unforgettably. This classic is now further honored by Isabel Allende's inspiring introduction. Universally recognized as one of the most important writers of our time, Allende once again contributes her talents to literature, to political principles, and to enlightenment.

Download or read book Cuban Cinema written by Michael Chanan and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New chapters express ongoing concerns about freedom of expression, the role of the Havana Film Festival in restoring Havana's central position in Latin American cinema, & the changing audience for Cuban films.

Download or read book The World Bank written by Devesh Kapur and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2011-08-01 with total page 1310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This effort constitutes the most comprehensive and authoritative work to date on the history of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, or the World Bank. Author-editors John Lewis, Richard Webb, and Devesh Kapur chronicle the evolution of this institution and offer insights into its successes, failures, and prospects for the future. The result of their intense labors is an invaluable resource for other researchers and a fascinating study in its own right. The work is divided into two volumes. The first is organized thematically and examines the critical events and policy issues in the World Bank's development over the last fifty years. Chapter topics include poverty alleviation, structural adjustment lending, environmental programs, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the International Development Association (IDA), and the evolution of the Bank as an institution. The second volume contains case studies written by experts with experience in the various regions in which the Bank operates. There are chapters on the Bank's activities in Korea, Mexico, Africa, South Asia, and Eastern Europe. Volume 2 also contains essays on the World Bank's relationship with the United States, Japan, and Western Europe, and its partnership with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). By special arrangement, the authors have had wide-ranging access to confidential documents at the World Bank, making this work a unique source of information on the internal workings of this critical institution. They have also drawn on extensive interviews with current and past Bank officials. Moreover, publication could not be more timely, coming as it does when many in the development community and in the U.S. Congress are questioning the Bank's track record and even its reason for existence. The World Bank: Its First Half Century will be of great interest not only to development practitioners but also to students of international relations, development economics, and global finance. During the course of the project, John P. Lewis and Richard Webb were nonresident senior fellows, and Devesh Kapur was a program associate, in the Foreign Policy Studies program at the Brookings Institution.

Download or read book A Taste of Power written by Elaine Brown and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2015-05-20 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Profound, funny ... wild and moving ... heartbreaking accounts of a lonely black childhood.... Brown sees racial oppression in national and global context; every political word she writes pounds home a lesson about commerce, money, racism, communism, you name it ... A glowing achievement.” —Los Angeles Times Elaine Brown assumed her role as the first and only female leader of the Black Panther Party with these words: “I have all the guns and all the money. I can withstand challenge from without and from within. Am I right, Comrade?” It was August 1974. From a small Oakland-based cell, the Panthers had grown to become a revolutionary national organization, mobilizing black communities and white supporters across the country—but relentlessly targeted by the police and the FBI, and increasingly riven by violence and strife within. How Brown came to a position of power over this paramilitary, male-dominated organization, and what she did with that power, is a riveting, unsparing account of self-discovery. Brown’s story begins with growing up in an impoverished neighborhood in Philadelphia and attending a predominantly white school, where she first sensed what it meant to be black, female, and poor in America. She describes her political awakening during the bohemian years of her adolescence, and her time as a foot soldier for the Panthers, who seemed to hold the promise of redemption. And she tells of her ascent into the upper echelons of Panther leadership: her tumultuous relationship with the charismatic Huey Newton, who would become her lover and her nemesis; her experience with the male power rituals that would sow the seeds of the party's demise; and the scars that she both suffered and inflicted in that era’s paradigm-shifting clashes of sex and power. Stunning, lyrical, and acute, this is the indelible testimony of a black woman’s battle to define herself.

Download or read book Social Protest Violence Terror in Nineteenth Twentieth Century Europe written by Gerhard Hirschfeld and published by Springer. This book was released on 1982-11-25 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book America and Guerrilla Warfare written by Anthony James Joes and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2004 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On December 26, 2004, a massive tsunami triggered by an underwater earthquake pummeled the coasts of Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and other countries along the Indian Ocean. With casualties as far away as Africa, the aftermath was overwhelming: ships could be spotted miles inland; cars floated in the ocean; legions of the unidentified deadÑan estimated 225,000Ñwere buried in mass graves; relief organizations struggled to reach rural areas and provide adequate aid for survivors. Shortly after this disaster, researchers from around the world traveled to the regionÕs most devastated areas, observing and documenting the tsunamiÕs impact. The Indian Ocean Tsunami: The Global Response to a Natural Disaster offers the first analysis of the response and recovery effort. Editors Pradyumna P. Karan and S. Subbiah, employing an interdisciplinary approach, have assembled an international team of top geographers, geologists, anthropologists, and political scientists to study the environmental, economic, and political effects of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The volume includes chapters that address the tsunamiÕs geo-environmental impact on coastal ecosystems and groundwater systems. Other chapters offer sociocultural perspectives on religious power relations in South India and suggest ways to improve government agenciesÕ response systems for natural disasters. A clear and definitive analysis of the second deadliest natural disaster on record, The Indian Ocean Tsunami will be of interest to environmentalists and political scientists alike, as well as to planners and administrators of disaster-preparedness programs.

Download or read book The Costs of War written by John V. Denson and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The greatest accomplishment of Western civilization is arguably the achievement of individual liberty through limits on the power of the state. In the war-torn twentieth century, we rarely hear that one of the main costs of armed conflict is long-term loss of liberty to winners and losers alike. Beyond the obvious and direct costs of dead and wounded soldiers, there is the lifetime struggle of veterans to live with their nightmares and their injuries; the hidden economic costs of inflation, debts, and taxes; and more generally the damages caused to our culture, our morality, and to civilization at large. The new edition is now available in paperback, with a number of new essays. It represents a large-scale collective effort to pierce the veils of myth and propaganda to reveal the true costs of war, above all, the cost to liberty. Central to this volume are the views of Ludwig von Mises on war and foreign policy. Mises argued that war, along with colonialism and imperialism, is the greatest enemy of freedom and prosperity, and that peace throughout the world cannot be achieved until the central governments of the major nations become limited in scope and power. In the spirit of these theorems by Mises, the contributors to this volume consider the costs of war generally and assess specific corrosive effects of major American wars since the Revolution. The first section includes chapters on the theoretical and institutional dimensions of the relationship between war and society, including conscription, infringements on freedom, the military as an engine of social change, war and literature, and the right of citizens to bear arms. The second group includes reconsiderations of Lincoln and Churchill, an analysis of the anti-interventionist idea in American politics, a discussion of the meaning of the "just war," an assessment of how World War I changed the course of Western civilization, and finally two eyewitness accounts of the true horrors of actual combat by veterans of World War II. The Costs of War is unique in its combination of historical scope and timeliness for current debates about foreign policy and military intervention. It will be of interest to historians, political scientists, economists, and sociologists.

Download or read book The Assassination of Fred Hampton written by Jeffrey Haas and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2019-11-05 with total page 509 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Read the story behind the award-winning film Judas and the Black Messiah On December 4, 1969, attorney Jeff Haas was in a police lockup in Chicago, interviewing Fred Hampton's fiancÉe. Deborah Johnson described how the police pulled her from the room as Fred lay unconscious on their bed. She heard one officer say, "He's still alive." She then heard two shots. A second officer said, "He's good and dead now." She looked at Jeff and asked, "What can you do?" The Assassination of Fred Hampton remains Haas's personal account of how he and People's Law Office partner Flint Taylor pursued Hampton's assassins, ultimately prevailing over unlimited government resources and FBI conspiracy. Fifty years later, Haas writes that there is still an urgent need for the revolutionary systemic changes Hampton was organizing to accomplish. Not only a story of justice delivered, this book spotlights Hampton as a dynamic community leader and an inspiration for those in the ongoing fight against injustice and police brutality.

Download or read book Anti Intellectualism in American Life written by Richard Hofstadter and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-01-04 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 1964 Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction Anti-Intellectualism in American Life is a book which throws light on many features of the American character. Its concern is not merely to portray the scorners of intellect in American life, but to say something about what the intellectual is, and can be, as a force in a democratic society. "As Mr. Hofstadter unfolds the fascinating story, it is no crude battle of eggheads and fatheads. It is a rich, complex, shifting picture of the life of the mind in a society dominated by the ideal of practical success." —Robert Peel in the Christian Science Monitor

Download or read book Forensis written by Lawrence Abu Hamdan and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 763 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The role of material forensics in articulating new notions of the public truth of political struggle, violent conflict, and climate change are the focus of Forensis, the HKW exhibition catalog based on the theories of Eyal Weizman. - The concept of forensis was developed as a research project by Goldsmiths College, Centre for Research Architecture by theorist Eyal Weizman. The project is the subject of a major exhibition at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) and catalog cum theoretical reader presenting the findings and contributions of over 20 influential architects, artists, filmmakers, and academics. Forensis, (Latin for pertaining to the forum ) argues for the role of material forensics as central to the interpretation of the ways in which states police and govern their subjects. Forensics engages struggles for justice across frontiers of contemporary conflict through the study of how technology mediates the testimony of material objects such as bones, ruins, toxic substances, etc. In the hopes of unlocking forensics potential as a political practice, the project participants present innovative investigations aimed at producing new kinds of evidence for use by international prosecutorial teams, political organizations, NGOs, and the UN.

Download or read book Cross Cultural Psychology written by Eric B. Shiraev and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-08-12 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written in a conversational style that transforms complex ideas into accessible ones, this international best-seller provides an interdisciplinary review of the theories and research in cross‐cultural psychology. The book’s unique critical thinking framework, including Critical Thinking boxes, helps to develop analytical skills. Exercises interspersed throughout promote active learning and encourage class discussion. Case in Point sections review controversial issues and opinions about behavior in different cultural contexts. Cross‐Cultural Sensitivity boxes underscore the importance of empathy in communication. Numerous applications better prepare students for working in various multicultural contexts such as teaching, counseling, health care, and social work. The dynamic author team brings a diverse set of experiences in writing this book. Eric Shiraev was raised in the former Soviet Union and David Levy is from Southern California. Sensation, perception, consciousness, intelligence, human development, emotion, motivation, social perception, interaction, psychological disorders, and applied topics are explored from cross‐cultural perspectives. New to the 6th Edition: Over 200 recent references, particularly on studies of non-western regions such as the Middle East, Africa, Asia, & Latin America as well as the US and Europe. New chapter on personality and the self with an emphasis on gender identity. New or revised chapter opening vignettes that draw upon current events. More examples related to the experiences of international students in the US and indigenous people. Many more figures and tables that appeal to visual learners. New research on gender, race, religious beliefs, parenting styles, sexual orientation, ethnic identity and stereotypes, conflict resolution, immigration, intelligence, physical abuse, states of consciousness, DSM-5, cultural customs, evolutionary psychology, treatment of psychological disorders, and acculturation. Revised methodology chapter with more attention to issues related specifically to cross-cultural research and more on qualitative and mixed methods. A companion website at www.routledge.com/9781138668386 where instructors will find a test bank containing multiple choice, true and false, short answer, and essay questions and answers for each chapter, and a complete set of tables and figures from the text; and students will find chapter outlines, flashcards of key terms, and links to further resources and the authors' Facebook page. Intended as a text for courses on cross-cultural psychology, multicultural psychology, cultural psychology, cultural diversity, and the psychology of ethnic groups and a resource for practitioners, researchers, and educators who work in multicultural environments.

Download or read book Narrative Mechanics written by Beat Suter and published by transcript Verlag. This book was released on 2021-05-31 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do stories in games have in common with political narratives? This book identifies narrative strategies as mechanisms for meaning and manipulation in games and real life. It shows that the narrative mechanics so clearly identifiable in games are increasingly used (and abused) in politics and social life. They have »many faces«, displays and interfaces. They occur as texts, recipes, stories, dramas in three acts, movies, videos, tweets, journeys of heroes, but also as rewarding stories in games and as narratives in society - such as a career from rags to riches, the concept of modernity or market economy. Below their surface, however, narrative mechanics are a particular type of motivational design - of game mechanics.