Books about Declining from Amazon.com

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Cherokees called the magnificent mountain range in eastern Tennessee "land ofthe blue mist," which European settlers later changed to "Smoky Mountains "Today, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is one of SouthernAppalachia's leading tourist attractions. But that fabled blue mist isn't so blue-- orhealthy-- any longer. Particularly in the summer months, the "smoke" of the Smokies isa haze of sulfate particles and other pollutants released by coal-burning power plants, amixture more likely to create dangerous ozone levels for visiting tourists than the invigorating "mountain air" so many come to seek.It is a story common throughout Southern Appalachia, one of America's most beautiful,biologically diverse, and fragile bioregions. A Land Imperiled is a symptom-by-symptomlook at the myriad of ecological issues threatening the health of the southernhigh country. Sections on air, water, plants and animals, food, energy, waste, transportation,and population and urbanization make this the most comprehensive environmentalstudy of Southern Appalachia to date-- a much-needed wake-up call for anyone concernedabout the region's natural legacy.But it is not just the future we have to worry about, the author asserts; pollution,development, and other forms of degradation are already affecting our quality of life. Theexcessively high ozone levels plaguing the Smokies have been connected to a host of respiratory problems, including chronic bronchitis and asthma. Once-crystal streams aregreen and sluggish with runoff from agricultural wastes. Over half of the South's naturalforests are gone, and a mere 2 percent of the remaining forests have protected status.The environment of Southern Appalachia is a collection of complex, interrelatedsystems that needs care and protection to function in full health. A Land Imperiled notonly illustrates the many ways in which the health of this bioregion is being affected,but also provides examples of how the damage can be reversed to sustain ourselves andthis natural treasure. John Nolt, a professor of philosophy at University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is the author of several books, including Down to Earth: Toward a Philosophy of Nonviolent Living..
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Prillaman argues that a sound judiciary is critical for building popular support for democracy and laying the foundations for sustainable economic development, but that most Latin American governments have made virtually no progress toward building a more effective judiciary. He shows that the traditional approach to judicial reform is flawed on several levels. Reformers are wrong to focus on a single aspect of the judiciary on the assumption that one reform naturally leads to another. In fact, all aspects of the courts are so closely related that failure to reform one aspect creates a "negative synergy" that ultimately undermines the reformed areas. Instead, a successful reform strategy must simultaneously tackle independence, accountability, access, and efficiency; otherwise, it is virtually assured of failure. As Prillaman points out, judicial reform is not merely a technical process that can be isolated from broader economic and political forces. Rather, it is an inherently political process that will be opposed by forces ranging from politicians accustomed to stocking the courts, to judges and court personnel reluctant to accept greater oversight and professional norms. Based on four case studies, Prillaman concludes that failed judicial reforms have led to growing support for mob lynching and vigilante justice that promises to fill the void created by ineffectual courts--ultimately challenging the quality and sustainability of democracy. An invaluable survey for political scientists, students, and researchers involved with democratic consolidation, institution building, and comparative judicial politics in Latin America specifically and the developing world in general..
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American public policy has become demonstrably more conservative since the 1960s. Neither Jimmy Carter nor Bill Clinton was much like either John F. Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson The American public, however, has not become more conservative. Why, then, the right turn in public policy? Using both individual and aggregate level survey data, Marc Hetherington shows that the rapid decline in Americans' political trust since the 1960s is critical to explaining this puzzle. As people lost faith in the federal government, the delivery system for most progressive policies, they supported progressive ideas much less. The 9/11 attacks increased such trust as public attention focused on security, but the effect was temporary.

Specifically, Hetherington shows that, as political trust declined, so too did support for redistributive programs, such as welfare and food stamps, and race-targeted programs. While the presence of race in a policy area tends to make political trust important for whites, trust affects policy preferences in other, non-race-related policy areas as well. In the mid-1990s the public was easily swayed against comprehensive health care reform because those who felt they could afford coverage worried that a large new federal bureaucracy would make things worse for them. In demonstrating a strong link between public opinion and policy outcomes, this engagingly written book represents a substantial contribution to the study of public opinion and voting behavior, policy, and American politics generally.

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An authoritative political history of one of the world's most important empires on the road to decolonisation. Ronald Hyam offers a major reassessment of the end of empire which combines a study of British policymaking with case studies on the experience of decolonization across Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. He describes the dysfunctional policies of an imperial system coping with postwar, interwar and wartime crises from 1918 to 1945 but the main emphasis is on the period after 1945 and the gradual unravelling of empire as a result of international criticism, and the growing imbalance between Britain's capabilities and its global commitments. He analyses the transfers of power from India in 1947 to Swaziland in 1968, the major crises such as Suez and assesses the role of leading figures from Churchill, Attlee and Eden to Macmillan and Wilson. This is essential reading for scholars and students of empire and decolonisation..
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Oil, Jihad and Destiny is a thought-provoking research report on oil depletion. It provides a comprehensive examination of world oil reserves and production, reviews the cultural challenges of the Middle East, analyzes the economic impact of four alternative oil depletion scenarios, and outlines a proposed course of action to enable a 'soft landing'. World oil production and consumption are evaluated by geographic region. This evaluation, along with a projection of how oil depletion is expected to influence inflation, unemployment, economic growth and the price of gas, is presented in multiple tables and charts. The Revised Edition of Oil, Jihad and Destiny uses historical data from 1970 through 2006 as a basis for analysis, projects the underlying trends through 2030, and includes an updated version of the analytical model. Four scenarios are discussed: a projection of current Production Crisis trends, how these trends are modified by tripling the consumption of alternative fuels, and a further modification based on the assumption the United States also reduces its oil consumption by 25 percent (as proposed by some global warming advocates). The forth scenario illustrates the economic impact of a Political Crisis. Oil depletion will create the economic conditions for cultural chaos and extensive lifestyle change. We can, however, engineer a 'soft landing' if we have the collective will. This report describes multiple recommendations to ease our transition to a world without enough oil..
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The last half-century has witnessed substantial change in the opportunities and rewards available to men and women in the workplace. While the gender pay gap narrowed and female labor force participation rose dramatically in recent decades, some dimensions of gender inequality—most notably the division of labor in the family—have been more resistant to change, or have changed more slowly in recent years than in the past. These trends suggest that one of two possible futures could lie ahead: an optimistic scenario in which gender inequalities continue to erode, or a pessimistic scenario where contemporary institutional arrangements persevere and the gender revolution stalls.

In The Declining Significance of Gender? editors Francine Blau, Mary Brinton, and David Grusky bring together top gender scholars in sociology and economics to make sense of the recent changes in gender inequality, and to judge whether the optimistic or pessimistic view better depicts the prospects and bottlenecks that lie ahead. It examines the economic, organizational, political, and cultural forces that have changed the status of women and men in the labor market. The contributors examine the economic assumption that discrimination in hiring is economically inefficient and will be weeded out eventually by market competition. They explore the effect that family-organizational policies have had in drawing women into the workplace and giving them even footing in the organizational hierarchy. Several chapters ask whether political interventions might reduce or increase gender inequality, and others discuss whether a social ethos favoring egalitarianism is working to overcome generations of discriminatory treatment against women.

Although there is much rhetoric about the future of gender inequality, The Declining Significance of Gender? provides a sustained attempt to consider analytically the forces that are shaping the gender revolution. Its wide-ranging analysis of contemporary gender disparities will stimulate readers to think more deeply and in new ways about the extent to which gender remains a major fault line of inequality..
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Middle-aged spread, midlife crisis--just what is middle age, anyway? Unlike puberty or menopause, there are no specific biological occurrences to define it; is it when your hair starts to gray (or fall out), when supermarket checkout clerks start referring to you as "ma'am," or when you realize your favorite movie heartthrob is just a couple of years older than your kids? According to Margaret Morganroth Gullette, author of Declining to Decline, middle age is little more than a marketing ploy. In a culture such as ours in which youth is worshipped and age despised, a concept such as middle age is the catalyst for a booming business in hair dyes, exercise machines, diet powders--and hot little red sports cars.

If middle age is merely a concept, Gullette argues, then it's up to us how we choose to view it. We can buy into society's script of slow decline and loss of all that was valuable (i.e., youth, hard bodies, a taste for Pepsi-Cola) or we can see it as progress--a time when we are financially more secure, less encumbered by debt or child-raising responsibilities, and--hopefully--wiser about the ways of the world than we were in our salad days. Revising our attitudes about aging won't be easy, Gullette cautions; society is against us. Still, Declining to Decline is a refreshing wake-up call, a reminder that you're only as old as you feel..
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