Download or read book Use of Weapons written by Iain M. Banks and published by Orbit. This book was released on 2008-12-22 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The man known as Cheradenine Zakalwe was one of Special Circumstances' foremost agents, changing the destiny of planets to suit the Culture through intrigue, dirty tricks and military action. The woman known as Diziet Sma had plucked him from obscurity and pushed him towards his present eminence, but despite all their dealings she did not know him as well as she thought. The drone known as Skaffen-Amtiskaw knew both of these people. It had once saved the woman's life by massacring her attackers in a particularly bloody manner. It believed the man to be a lost cause. But not even its machine could see the horrors in his past. Ferociously intelligent, both witty and horrific, Use of Weapons is a masterpiece of science fiction. The Culture Series Consider Phlebas The Player of Games Use of Weapons The State of the Art Excession Inversions Look to Windward Matter Surface Detail The Hydrogen Sonata
Download or read book Weapons Culture and the Anthropology Museum written by Tom Crowley and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Largely due to the tastes of nineteenth century Western collectors and curators, weaponry abounds in ethnographic museums. However, the relative absence of Asian, African, Native American and Oceanic arms and armour from contemporary gallery displays neither reflects this fact, nor accords these important artefacts the attention they deserve. Weapons are often those objects in museums which most strongly record traumatic histories of colonial conquest around the world, showcase a societys most complex technologies, and encode a wealth of historical information relating to violent conflict, cultural identities, and indigenous masculinities. This volume brings together an international collective of museum professionals, indigenous cultural historians, anthropologists and material culture specialists to address the historical role of weapon collections in ethnographic museums, and to reconsider the value of studying arms for the purposes of writing richer cultural histories. From Australia to the Amazon, from Uttar Pradesh to ancient Ulster, the essays in this book endeavour to return ethnographic weapons to the centre of material culture studies. In doing so, they offer a blueprint for a more sophisticated future treatment of world weaponry.
Download or read book The Gunning of America written by Pamela Haag and published by . This book was released on 2016-04-19 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An acclaimed historian explodes the myth about the 'special relationship' between Americans and their guns, revealing that savvy 19th century businessmen--not gun lovers--created American gun culture"--
Download or read book Gun Culture in Early Modern England written by Lois G. Schwoerer and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2016-05-30 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Guns had an enormous impact on the social, economic, cultural, and political lives of civilian men, women, and children of all social strata in early modern England. In this study, Lois Schwoerer identifies and analyzes England’s domestic gun culture from 1500 to 1740, uncovering how guns became available, what effects they had on society, and how different sectors of the population contributed to gun culture. The rise of guns made for recreational use followed the development of a robust gun industry intended by King Henry VIII to produce artillery and handguns for war. Located first in London, the gun industry brought the city new sounds, smells, street names, shops, sights, and communities of gun workers, many of whom were immigrants. Elite men used guns for hunting, target shooting, and protection. They collected beautifully decorated guns, gave them as gifts, and included them in portraits and coats-of-arms, regarding firearms as a mark of status, power, and sophistication. With statutes and proclamations, the government legally denied firearms to subjects with an annual income under £100—about 98 percent of the population—whose reactions ranged from grudging acceptance to willful disobedience. Schwoerer shows how this domestic gun culture influenced England’s Bill of Rights in 1689, a document often cited to support the claim that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution conveys the right to have arms as an Anglo-American legacy. Schwoerer shows that the Bill of Rights did not grant a universal right to have arms, but rather a right restricted by religion, law, and economic standing, terms that reflected the nation's gun culture. Examining everything from gunmakers’ records to wills, and from period portraits to toy guns, Gun Culture in Early Modern England offers new data and fresh insights on the place of the gun in English society.
Download or read book Culture as Weapon written by Nato Thompson and published by Melville House. This book was released on 2017-01-17 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the country's leading activist curators explores how corporations and governments have used art and culture to mystify and manipulate us. The production of culture was once the domain of artists, but beginning in the early 1900s, the emerging fields of public relations, advertising and marketing transformed the way the powerful communicate with the rest of us. A century later, the tools are more sophisticated than ever, the onslaught more relentless. In Culture as Weapon, acclaimed curator and critic Nato Thompson reveals how institutions use art and culture to ensure profits and constrain dissent--and shows us that there are alternatives. An eye-opening account of the way advertising, media, and politics work today, Culture as Weapon offers a radically new way of looking at our world.
Download or read book Strategic Culture and Weapons of Mass Destruction written by Jeannie L. Johnson and published by Palgrave MacMillan. This book was released on 2009-02-13 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interest in reviving strategic culture as a field of study results from the inadequacy of traditional analytical approaches and calls to develop a new framework to guide policymaking in the post-9/11 security environment. The book considers 10 case studies of WMD decision-making, profiling culture in terms of geography, shared narratives, group relationships, threat perception, ideology, religion, economics, leadership style, and more. Strategic culture can help us more accurately evaluate intelligence regarding dangers emanating from other cultures and improve our strategic communications. A strategic cultural perspective makes us appreciate the requirements for promoting U.S. global responsibilities in a multi-cultural context, negotiate across cultures more effectively, and forecast the implications of cultural change for strategic planning purposes.
Download or read book Arming America written by Michael A. Bellesiles and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 604 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Dying of Whiteness written by Jonathan M. Metzl and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2019-03-05 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A physician's "provocative" (Boston Globe) and "timely" (Ibram X. Kendi, New York Times Book Review) account of how right-wing backlash policies have deadly consequences -- even for the white voters they promise to help. In election after election, conservative white Americans have embraced politicians who pledge to make their lives great again. But as physician Jonathan M. Metzl shows in Dying of Whiteness, the policies that result actually place white Americans at ever-greater risk of sickness and death. Interviewing a range of everyday Americans, Metzl examines how racial resentment has fueled progun laws in Missouri, resistance to the Affordable Care Act in Tennessee, and cuts to schools and social services in Kansas. He shows these policies' costs: increasing deaths by gun suicide, falling life expectancies, and rising dropout rates. Now updated with a new afterword, Dying of Whiteness demonstrates how much white America would benefit by emphasizing cooperation rather than chasing false promises of supremacy. Winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award
Download or read book Inversions written by Iain M. Banks and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-10-19 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published: London: Orbit, 1998.
Download or read book Thundersticks written by David J. Silverman and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2016-10-10 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The adoption of firearms by American Indians between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries marked a turning point in the history of North America’s indigenous peoples—a cultural earthquake so profound, says David Silverman, that its impact has yet to be adequately measured. Thundersticks reframes our understanding of Indians’ historical relationship with guns, arguing against the notion that they prized these weapons more for the pyrotechnic terror guns inspired than for their efficiency as tools of war. Native peoples fully recognized the potential of firearms to assist them in their struggles against colonial forces, and mostly against one another. The smoothbore, flintlock musket was Indians’ stock firearm, and its destructive potential transformed their lives. For the deer hunters east of the Mississippi, the gun evolved into an essential hunting tool. Most importantly, well-armed tribes were able to capture and enslave their neighbors, plunder wealth, and conquer territory. Arms races erupted across North America, intensifying intertribal rivalries and solidifying the importance of firearms in Indian politics and culture. Though American tribes grew dependent on guns manufactured in Europe and the United States, their dependence never prevented them from rising up against Euro-American power. The Seminoles, Blackfeet, Lakotas, and others remained formidably armed right up to the time of their subjugation. Far from being a Trojan horse for colonialism, firearms empowered American Indians to pursue their interests and defend their political and economic autonomy over two centuries.
Download or read book Debating Gun Control written by David DeGrazia and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Americans have an ambivalent relationship to guns. The debate over the role of guns and gun regulations in American society tends to be acrimonious and misinformed. DeGrazia and Hunt bring the advantages of philosophical analysis to this highly-charged issue in the service of illuminating the strongest possible cases for and against (relatively extensive) gun regulations.
Download or read book The Gun Debate written by Philip J. Cook and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-04-01 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No topic is more polarizing than guns and gun control. From a gun culture that took root early in American history to the mass shootings that repeatedly bring the public discussion of gun control to a fever pitch, the topic has preoccupied citizens, public officials, and special interest groups for decades. The Gun Debate: What Everyone Needs to Know? delves into the issues that Americans debate when they talk about guns. With a balanced and broad-ranging approach, noted economist Philip J. Cook and political scientist Kristin A. Goss thoroughly cover the latest research, data, and developments on gun ownership, gun violence, the firearms industry, and the regulation of firearms. The authors also tackle sensitive issues such as the effectiveness of gun control, the connection between mental illness and violent crime, the question of whether more guns make us safer, and ways that video games and the media might contribute to gun violence. No discussion of guns in the U.S. would be complete without consideration of the history, culture, and politics that drive the passion behind the debate. Cook and Goss deftly explore the origins of the American gun culture and the makeup of both the gun rights and gun control movements. Written in question-and-answer format, the book will help readers make sense of the ideologically driven statistics and slogans that characterize our national conversation on firearms. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in getting a clear view of the issues surrounding guns and gun policy in America. What Everyone Needs to Know? is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press.
Download or read book Books As Weapons written by John B. Hench and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2016-10-15 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Only weeks after the D-Day invasion of June 6, 1944, a surprising cargo—crates of books—joined the flood of troop reinforcements, weapons and ammunition, food, and medicine onto Normandy beaches. The books were destined for French bookshops, to be followed by millions more American books (in translation but also in English) ultimately distributed throughout Europe and the rest of the world. The British were doing similar work, which was uneasily coordinated with that of the Americans within the Psychological Warfare Division of General Eisenhower's Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force, under General Eisenhower's command. Books As Weapons tells the little-known story of the vital partnership between American book publishers and the U.S. government to put carefully selected recent books highlighting American history and values into the hands of civilians liberated from Axis forces. The government desired to use books to help "disintoxicate" the minds of these people from the Nazi and Japanese propaganda and censorship machines and to win their friendship. This objective dovetailed perfectly with U.S. publishers' ambitions to find new profits in international markets, which had been dominated by Britain, France, and Germany before their book trades were devastated by the war. Key figures on both the trade and government sides of the program considered books "the most enduring propaganda of all" and thus effective "weapons in the war of ideas," both during the war and afterward, when the Soviet Union flexed its military might and demonstrated its propaganda savvy. Seldom have books been charged with greater responsibility or imbued with more significance. John B. Hench leavens this fully international account of the programs with fascinating vignettes set in the war rooms of Washington and London, publishers' offices throughout the world, and the jeeps in which information officers drove over bomb-rutted roads to bring the books to people who were hungering for them. Books as Weapons provides context for continuing debates about the relationship between government and private enterprise and the image of the United States abroad.
Download or read book Living by the Sword written by Kristen Brooke Neuschel and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-15 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sharpen your knowledge of swords with Kristen B. Neuschel as she takes you through a captivating 1,000 years of French and English history. Living by the Sword reveals that warrior culture, with the sword as its ultimate symbol, was deeply rooted in ritual long before the introduction of gunpowder weapons transformed the battlefield. Neuschel argues that objects have agency and that decoding their meaning involves seeing them in motion: bought, sold, exchanged, refurbished, written about, displayed, and used in ceremony. Drawing on evidence about swords (from wills, inventories, records of armories, and treasuries) in the possession of nobles and royalty, she explores the meanings people attached to them from the contexts in which they appeared. These environments included other prestige goods such as tapestries, jewels, and tableware—all used to construct and display status. Living by the Sword draws on an exciting diversity of sources from archaeology, military and social history, literature, and material culture studies to inspire students and educated lay readers (including collectors and reenactors) to stretch the boundaries of what they know as the "war and culture" genre.
Download or read book Gun Studies written by Jennifer Carlson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-12-07 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As cultural, social, political, and historical objects, guns are rich with complex and contested significance. What guns mean, why they matter, and what policies should be undertaken to regulate guns remain issues of vigorous scholarly and public debate. Gun Studies offers fresh research and original perspectives on the contentious issue of firearms in public life. Comprising global, interdisciplinary contributions, this insightful volume examines difficult and timely questions through the lens of: Social practice Marketing and commerce Critical theory Political conflict Public policy Criminology Questions explored include the evolution of American gun culture from recreation to self-protection; the changing dynamics of the pro-gun and pro-regulation movements; the deeply personal role of guns as sources of both injury and security; and the relationship between gun-wielding individuals, the state, and social order in the United States and abroad. In addition to introducing new research, Gun Studies presents reflections by senior scholars on what has been learned over the decades and how gun-related research has influenced public policy and everyday conversations. Offering provocative and often intimate perspectives on how guns influence individuals, social structures, and the state in both dramatic and nuanced ways, Gun Studies will appeal to students and researchers interested in fields such as sociology, political science, legal history, criminology, criminal justice, social policy, armaments industries, and violent crime. It will also appeal to policy makers and all others interested in and concerned about the use of guns.
Download or read book How America Got Its Guns written by William Briggs and published by University of New Mexico Press. This book was released on 2017-05-01 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the United States more than thirty thousand deaths each year can be attributed to firearms. This book on the history of guns in America examines the Second Amendment and the laws and court cases it has spawned. The author’s thorough and objective account shows the complexities of the issue, which are so often reduced to bumper-sticker slogans, and suggests ways in which gun violence in this country can be reduced. Briggs profiles not only protagonists in the national gun debate but also ordinary people, showing the ways guns have become part of the lives of many Americans. Among them are gays and lesbians, women, competitive trapshooters, people in the gun-rights and gun-control trenches, the NRA’s first female president, and the most successful gunsmith in American history. Balanced and painstakingly unbiased, Briggs’s account provides the background needed to follow gun politics in America and to understand the gun culture in which we are likely to live for the foreseeable future.
Download or read book Gun Show Nation written by Joan Burbick and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cultural historian, critic and gun owner Joan Burbick examines the lethal politics of gun ownership, answering that perennial question about American culture: why are Americans so obsessed with guns? Looking at the nation from the floor of a gun show, Burbick uncovers a powerful conservative ideology that attempts to place gun ownership at the centre of US democracy. Her analysis takes us from the history of the NRA, through the gun lobby's engagement with US politics, to the movement's contemporary hostility to the United Nations.
