Books about Degraded from Amazon.com

The mythology of nineteenth-century American economic exceptionalism trumpeted the positive work incentives prevailing in a society of scarce labor, weak class barriers, and abundant opportunity. This ideology agreed with the optimistic vein of political economy, in which high wages went hand in hand with increased productivity. What, then, was the supposed role of poverty, the fear of poverty, and other "negative" work incentives in the era of early industrial capitalism and escalating sectional conflict over slavery? American Exceptionalism, American Anxiety examines a wide spectrum of antebellum American thought on these and related issues, including slavery and cheap immigrant and female sweated labor.

Some leading American critics of slavery and "indiscriminate" poor relief suggested that "free market" compulsions of hunger and thirst were therapeutic and ennobling and by themselves elevated capitalist wage labor above chattel servitude. Others, including prominent Republican proponents of the mythology of northern American exceptionalism, tied the legitimacy of capitalist wage labor to the hireling's ability to commodify his labor to his own advantage. Distinct from both these groups were labor-reform critics who insisted both that capitalists were finding "starvation wages" sufficiently labor-inducing and that the "lash" of poverty demoralized and crushed, rather than ennobled, northern wage laborers. Glickstein pays particular attention to neglected early nineteenth-century debates over the circumstances under which the allure to employers of "cheap" or otherwise "servile" labor trumped the supposed superior productivity of more generously compensated, "respectable" free labor. In probing Republican commentators' paradoxical fear that northern white labor could not withstand competition from "inferior" slave labor, for example, he challenges the still-dominant characterization of Republican Party free-labor ideology as an optimistic, self-confident creed.

In the course of exploring the dark side of antebellum American labor ideologies, Glickstein engages some of the most significant issues in antebellum historiography, including the market revolution, the linguistic turn, whiteness as an axis of self-identity, and bourgeois ideological hegemony..
Price: $7.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The media served a highly partisan and propagandistic role in NATO's Kosovo war, uncritically reproducing official spin in a way that was incompatible with their proclaimed democratic role as objective purveyors of information. This book integrates a critical interpretation of Western policy towards the former Yugoslavia with analysis of media coverage of the Kosovo crisis and war. The first part of the book deals with the war itself and the build-up to it, placing this in the context of earlier Western intervention in Yugoslavia. Part two discusses key issues raised by the media coverage, including the demonisation of the enemy, and the role of CNN. In the final section, contributors analyse how the war was reported in different countries around the world, including the United States, Britain, Germany, India, Greece, Russia, and France. The book offers a corrective to the hysteria and misinformation that permeated media coverage. Subjects covered include the role of the Internet, the changing media-military relationship, the depiction and definition of "war crimes", and how Yugoslav television was presented as a legitimate military target. Contributors include John Pilger, Edward S. Herman, Phil Hammond, Diana Johnstone, Jim Naureckas and Jan Oberg..
Price: $19.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Ancient DNA Typing is a comprehensive manual about the analysis of ancient and degraded DNA. It is an equally useful textbook and working tool for various disciplines such as: Anthropology, Archaeology, Forensic Medicine, Conservation Biology, Environmental Sciences and Food Engineering.

The reader benefits from a clear division of strategies, methods and applications with many interesting examples of the analysis of historic skeletal and cultural remains. The book contains a detailed protocol chapter which serves as a lab manual with the most important methods for DNA extraction, PCR and electrophoretic analysis of degraded samples. The appendix helps to set up a PCR lab specializing in ancient DNA research and answers the most frequent questions concerning technical problems in investigations of degraded DNA..
Price: $75.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Remediation and Management of Degraded Lands presents the program of the first International Conference on the Remediation and Management of Degraded Lands. This collection reviews the extent of resource debasement and offers solutions for their restoration. The 14-part first section deals with mine management and rehabilitation. Topics include the devastating results of open-cut mining, open-pit mining, lignite surface mining and acid mining. Despite such ruin, the articles reveal the possibilities for reclamation. Part two devotes nine chapters to the management of derelict lands. Reforestation, soil fertility prognosis, and the uses of nitrogen are just a few of the covered subjects. This portion of the book pays special attention to the successful results of remediation in China and Hong Kong. The final division addresses soil contamination and reclamation. There are eleven chapters on subjects that include the single and interactive effects of aluminum, the effectiveness of EDTA/HCI and the value of pig-on-litter compost as a tool for edible crop growth. These and other innovative techniques make Remediation and Management of Degraded Lands a valuable addition to any environmental library..
Price: $99.82 [Notify me when price goes down.]