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According to the Qur'an, God created two parallel species, man and the jinn, the former from clay and the latter from fire. Beliefs regarding the jinn are deeply integrated into Muslim culture and religion, and have a constant presence in legends, myths, poetry, and literature. In Islam, Arabs, and the Intelligent World of the Jinn, Amira El-Zein explores the integral role these mythological figures play, revealing that the concept of jinn is fundamental...
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Reconfiguring Families in Contemporary Vietnam chronicles and analyzes the most significant change for families in Vietnam's recent past – the transition to a market economy, referred to as Doi Moi in Vietnamese and generally translated as the "renovation". Two decades have passed since the wide-ranging institutional transformations that took place reconfigured the ways families produce and reproduce. The downsizing of the socialist welfare system...
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Rise of the Red Engineers explains the tumultuous origins of the class of technocratic officials who rule China today. In a fascinating account, author Joel Andreas chronicles how two mutually hostile groups-the poorly educated peasant revolutionaries who seized power in 1949 and China's old educated elite-coalesced to form a new dominant class. After dispossessing the country's propertied classes, Mao and the Communist Party took radical measures...
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Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth life history interviews, this illuminating book provides an intimate portrait of contemporary Chinese Christianity in the context of a modern, commercialized economy. In vivid detail, anthropologist Nanlai Cao explores the massive resurgence of Protestant Christianity in the southeastern coastal city of Wenzhou-popularly referred to by its residents as "China's Jerusalem"-a nationwide model...
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Girls and young women are bombarded with images of the ideal female, which vary greatly depending on the source. Unrealistic portrayals can wage war on the self-esteem. This book provides thoughtful, sensitive, and straightforward guidance on how to navigate toward a healthy and well-adjusted understanding of self-worth.
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This book is about how the design of institutional change results in unintended consequences. Many post-authoritarian societies have adopted decentralization-effectively localizing power-as part and parcel of democratization, but also in their efforts to entrench "good governance." Vedi Hadiz shifts the attention to the accompanying tensions and contradictions that define the terms under which the localization of power actually takes place. In the...
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Girls and women are faced with crucial daily decisions concerning personal wellbeing and self-awareness. Relationships can be challenging, confusing, and destructive if chosen poorly. They can also be rewarding, enriching, and life-altering if chosen well. This helpful guide provides information on how to make friends, maintain intimate relationships, and how to approach challenges in a productive way.
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Females are faced with daily decisions concerning personal well-being and self-awareness that are not always under their control. Important issues include sexual health and reproductive rights. This book provides a comprehensive history of reproductive rights, objective advice for careful decision-making, and answers to tough questions that every girl and woman faces.
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Women account for 46 percent of today's American workforce, and nearly half of the new jobs created go to women. Despite these numbers, however, women still face inequality in terms of pay and opportunity. In addition to unequal treatment on the job, women are vulnerable to sexual harassment-ranging from jokes and snide remarks to unwanted sexual advances. Readers are given a look at the history of women and work, and the attitudes that society held...
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This book breaks new ground by systematically examining China's capitalist transformation through several comparative lenses. The great majority of research on China to date has consisted of single-country studies. This is the result of the methodological demands of studying China and a sense of the country's distinctiveness due to its grand size and long history. The moniker Middle Kingdom, a direct translation of the Chinese-language word for China,...
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Life in twenty-first century Tonga is rife with uncertainties. Though the postcolonial island kingdom may give the appearance of stability and order, there is a malaise that pervades everyday life, a disquiet rooted in the feeling that the twin forces of "progress" and "development"-and the seemingly inevitable wealth distribution that follows from them-have bypassed the society. Niko Besnier's illuminating ethnography analyzes the ways in which segments...
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Smart phones and social media sites may be contemporary fixations, but using technology to replace face-to-face interactions is not a new cultural phenomenon. Throughout our history, intimacy with machines has often supplanted mutual human connection. This book reveals how consumer technologies changed from analgesic devices that soothed the loneliness of a newly urban generation to prosthetic interfaces that act as substitutes for companionship in...
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Struggling under cultural expectations regarding masculinity, pushed by peer pressure, pulled by parental authority, and buffeted by hormones, adolescence can be a fraught time for teenage boys. Striking an accepting, compassionate tone, this book explains to teen male readers why they may be experiencing so much confusion, frustration, anger, and sadness, why this is normal, and how it can be dealt with in a healthy and positive manner. Addressing...
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The teen years are a fertile and fevered period of self-doubt, self-exploration, and identity building. Teen boys experience enormous pressure to think and act in certain ways and to not "stick out" for any reason. This book seeks to lay bare the many pressures being exerted upon teen males to develop into a socially acceptable type of manhood. Tackling head-on issues such as bullying, peer pressure, parental disapproval, sexual confusion and anxiety,...
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So many aspects of our popular culture, including male subcultures such as fraternities and gangs, tell boys that being aggressive is fundamentally, quintessentially male. Is it any surprise that many boys come to believe that in order to be real men, they must be aggressive? This book offers the opposite message to young men-that they can be safe and strong without resorting to violence and aggression. The author provides thoughtful advice about...
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Lively and engaging essays covering President Obama's domestic and foreign policy, governing style, and character.
Barack Obama's presidency is a pivotal one in American history, coming at a time of dramatic political change in the United States and amidst an astonishing array of domestic and foreign policy challenges. Not surprisingly, then, the Obama administration has been the focus of intense scrutiny by scholars, the press, and the public, and...
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Most social science studies of local organizations tend to focus on "civil society" associations, voluntary associations independent from state control, whereas government-sponsored organizations tend to be theorized in totalitarian terms as "mass organizations" or manifestations of state corporatism. Roots of the State examines neighborhood associations in Beijing and Taipei that occupy a unique space that exists between these concepts. Benjamin...
18) Activism
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Support and inspiration are provided to teens interested in taking action on women's issues. The author reports on activists who have helped women's causes in amazing ways, and provides a wide variety of ideas and resources for teens wanting to make a difference. Chapters highlight a host of areas where help is needed, including fighting harmful media images of women, combating violence against women, improving women's health worldwide, and advancing...
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The East Asian economic miracle of the twentieth century is now a fond memory. What does it mean to be living in post-miracle times? For the youth of China, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea, the opportunities and challenges of the neoliberal age, deeply shaped by global forces in labor markets, powerfully frame their life prospects in ways that are barely recognizable to their parents. Global Futures in East Asia gathers together ethnographic explorations...
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While the occupation of Iraq and its aftermath has received media and political attention, we know very little about the everyday lives of Iraqis. Iraqi men, women, and children are not merely passive victims of violence, vulnerable recipients of repressive regimes, or bystanders of their country's destruction. In the face of danger and trauma, Iraqis continue to cope, preparing food, sending their children to school, socializing, telling jokes, and...
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