Open Access Publisher and Free Library
10-social sciences.jpg

SOCIAL SCIENCES

EXCLUSION-SUICIDE-HATE-DIVERSITY-EXTREMISM-SOCIOLOGY-PSYCHOLOGY-INCLUSION-EQUITY-CULTURE

Posts tagged social history
THE PROTESTANT ESTABLISHMENT: Aristocracy and Caste in America

MAY CONTAIN MARKUP

By E. Digby Baltzell

The Protestant Establishment by Baltzell provides a thought-provoking analysis of the influence of Protestantism on the socio-economic and political landscape of American society. Through detailed research and compelling arguments, Baltzell delves into the historical development and enduring impact of Protestant values on shaping the elite class in the United States. This seminal work offers a nuanced exploration of how religious beliefs intersect with power dynamics, class structures, and cultural norms in shaping the country's social hierarchy. A must-read for those interested in understanding the complex relationship between religion, privilege, and social institutions in America.

NY. Vintage Random House. 1964. 445p.

Extremism, Society and the State

Edited by Giacomo Loperfido

Extremism does not happen in a vacuum. Rather, extremism is a relative concept that often emerges in crisis situations, taking shape within the tense and contradictory relations that tie marginal spaces, state orders, and mainstream culture. This collected volume brings together leading anthropologists and cultural analysts to offer a concise look at the narratives, symbolic, and metaphoric fields related to extremism, systematizing an approach to extremism, and placing these ideologies into historical, political, and geo-systemic contexts.

New York; Oxford, UK: Berghahn Books 2021. 194p.

Empire: The British Imperial Experience from 1765 to the Present

By Denis Judd

FROM THE COVER: The British Empire radically altered the modern world. At its height it governed over a quarter of the human race, encompassed more than one fifth of the globe and provided the British people with profits and a sense of international purpose. For the people it dominated and controlled, however, the Empire represented arbitrary power, gunboat diplomacy and the disruption of local customs. Yet while it rested upon military force and direct rule, it also pulsated with ideals - of freedom, democracy and even equality.

London. Phoenix Press. 1996. 567p. USED BOOK. CONTAINS MARK-UP

Being Indigenous in Jim Crow Virginia: Powhatan People and the Color Line

By Laura J. Feller

Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act of 1924 recodified the state’s long-standing racial hierarchy as a more rigid Black-white binary. Then, Virginia officials asserted that no Virginia Indians could be other than legally Black, given centuries of love and marriage across color lines. How indigenous peoples of Virginia resisted erasure and built their identities as Native Americans is the powerful story this book tells. Spanning a century of fraught history, Being Indigenous in Jim Crow Virginia describes the critical strategic work that tidewater Virginia Indians, descendants of the seventeenth-century Algonquian Powhatan chiefdom, undertook to sustain their Native identity in the face of deep racial hostility from segregationist officials, politicians, and institutions. Like other Southeastern Native groups living under Jim Crow regimes, tidewater Native groups and individuals fortified their communities by founding tribal organizations, churches, and schools; they displayed their Indianness in public performances; and they enlisted whites, including well-known ethnographers, to help them argue for their Native distinctness. Describing an arduous campaign marked by ingenuity, conviction, and perseverance, Laura J. Feller shows how these tidewater Native people drew on their shared histories as descendants of Powhatan peoples, and how they strengthened their bonds through living and marrying within clusters of Native Virginians, both on and off reservation lands. She also finds that, by at times excluding African Americans from Indian organizations and Native families, Virginian Indians themselves reinforced racial segregation while they built their own communities. Even as it paved the way to tribal recognition in Virginia, the tidewater Natives’ sustained efforts chronicled in this book demonstrate the fluidity, instability, and persistent destructive power of the construction of race in America.

Norman : University of Oklahoma Press, [2022] 275p.

Feudal America: Elements of the Middle Ages in Contemporary Society

By Vladimir Shlapentokh and Joshua Woods

Do Americans live in a liberal capitalist society, or a society in which big money, private security, and personal relations determine key social outcomes? Shlapentokh and Woods argue that the answer to these questions cannot be found among the conventional models. Offering a new analytical tool, the authors present a provocative explanation of the nature of contemporary society by comparing its essential characteristics to those of medieval European societies. Their feudal model emphasizes five elements: the weakness of the state to protect its citizens, conflict and collusion between and within organizations that involve corruption and other forms of illegal or semilegal actions, the dominance of personal relations in political and economic life, the prevalence of an elitist ideology, and the use of private agents and organizations to provide safety and security. Feudal America urges readers to look for explanations of contemporary social problems in medieval European history.

University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2011.

Fall of the Ottomans: The great war in the Middle East

By Eugene Rogan

NY. Basic Books. 2015. 504p.

Rogan begins by describing the state of the Ottoman Empire on the eve of World War I, including its political, economic, and military weaknesses. He then examines the Ottoman Empire's decision to enter the war on the side of Germany, and the subsequent military campaigns in the Middle East, including the battles of Gallipoli, Kut, and Gaza.

The book also explores the political and social consequences of the war in the Middle East, including the emergence of nationalist movements and the rise of new states such as Turkey, Iraq, and Syria. Rogan discusses the impact of the war on religious and ethnic minorities in the region, including the Armenians, Assyrians, and Kurds, who suffered greatly during the conflict.

Throughout the book, Rogan emphasizes the complexity of the Middle Eastern theater of World War I, including the diverse range of actors involved and the multiple layers of conflict and rivalry. He also highlights the impact of the war on the wider geopolitical landscape of the region, including the role played by European powers such as Britain and France in shaping the post-war order.

A Portrait of India

A monumental biography of the Indian subcontinent from the award-winning author of The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul.
 
Second only to China in the magnitude of its economic miracle and second to none in its potential to shape the new century, India is fast undergoing one of the most momentous transformations the world has ever seen. In this dazzlingly panoramic book, Patrick French chronicles that epic change, telling human stories to explain a larger national narrative. With a familiarity and insight few Westerners could approach, he provides a vital corrective to the many outdated notions about a uniquely dynamic and consequential nation.By Ted Mheta

NY. Penguin. 1957. 590p.

The Rules Of Sociological Method

First published in 1895: Emile Durkheim’s masterful work on the nature and scope of sociology—now with a new introduction and improved translation by leading scholar Steven Lukes.

The Rules of the Sociological Method is among the most important contributions to the field of sociology, still debated among scholars today. Through letters, arguments, and commentaries on significant debates, Durkheim confronted critics, clarified his own position, and defended the objective scientific method he applied to his study of humans. This updated edition offers an introduction and extra notes as well as a new translation to improve the clarity and accessibility of this essential work.

In the introduction, Steven Lukes, author of the definitive biography Emile Durkheim: His Life and Work, spells out Durkheim’s intentions, shows the limits of Durkheim’s view of sociology, and presents its political background and significance. Making use of the various texts in this volume and Durkheim’s later work, Lukes discusses how Durkheim’s methodology was modified or disregarded in practice—and how it is still relevant today.

With substantial notes on context, this user-friendly edition will greatly ease the task of students and scholars working with Durkheim’s method—a view that has been a focal point of sociology since its original publication. The Rules of the Sociological Method will engage a new generation of readers with Durkheim’s rich contribution to the field.By Emile Durkheim

NY. The Free Press. 1938. 204p. CONTAINS MARK-UP

The Social Process

By Charles Horton Cooley

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.

This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

NY. Scribners. 1922. 416p. CONTAINS MARK-UP

India

By V. S. Naipaul

Returning to India--the subject of his acclaimed "An Area of Darkness"--in 1975, Naipaul produced this concise masterpiece of journalism and cultural analysis, a vibrant, defiantly unsentimental portrait of a society traumatized by repeated foreign invasions and immured in a mythic vision of its past. In 1975, at the height of Indira Gandhi's "Emergency," V. S. Naipaul returned to India, the country his ancestors had left one hundred years earlier. Out of that journey he produced a vibrant, defiantly unsentimental portrait of India. Drawing on novels, news reports, political memoirs, and his own encounters with ordinary Indians--from a supercilious prince to an engineer constructing housing for Bombay's homeless--Naipaul captures a vast, mysterious, and agonized continent inaccessible to foreigners and barely visible to its own people. He sees both the burgeoning space program and the 5,000 volunteers chanting mantras to purify a defiled temple; the feudal village autocrat and the Naxalite revolutionaries who combined Maoist rhetoric with ritual murder. Relentless in its vision, thrilling in the keenness of its prose, India: A Wounded Civilization is a work of astonishing insight and candor.

NY. Vintage. 1976. 161p.

A History Of Sociological Analysis

Edited by Tom Bottomore & Robert Nisbet

From the cover: This landmark contribution to the history of social thought, edited by two of the world’s leading sociologists, contains spe­cially commissioned contributions by seventeen internationally renowned scholars. These authoritative essays provide the most comprehensive account of the development of sociological anal­ysis available. “It will undoubtedly become the standard reference on the sub­ject.” “Generally excellent... a valuable contribution [which] can be read with profit both by diverse specialists and by students with little familiarity with the history of social thought."

NY. Basic Books. 1978. 715p. THIS BOOK CONTAINS MARK-UP

The Making Of The English Working Class

By E. P. Thompson

From the introduction: “This book has a clumsy title, but it is.one which meets its purpose. making, because it is a study in an active process, which owes as much to agency as to conditioning. The working class did not rise like the sun at an appointed time. It was present at its own making. Class, rather than classes, for reasons which it is one purpose of this book to examine. There is, of course, a difference. "Work­ ing classes" is a descriptive term, which evades as much as it defines. It ties loosely together a bundle of discrete phenomena. There were tailors here and weavers there, and together they make up the working classes.”

Vintage Books· A Division Of Random House. New York. 1963. 423p. CONTAINS MARK-UP

Madness And Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason

By Michel Foucault. Translation by Richard Howard

From Chapter 1: “At the end of the Middle Ages, leprosy disappeared from the Western world. In the margins of the community, at the gates of cities, there stretched wastelands which sickness had ceased to haunt but had left sterile and long uninhabitable. For centuries, these reaches would belong to the non-human. From the fourteenth to the seventeenth century, they would wait, soliciting with strange incanta- tions a new incarnation of disease, another grimace of ter- ror, renewed rites of purification and exclusion.”

Vintage Random House. 1965. 317p.

Born in 1953: The story about a post-war Swedish cohort, and a longitudinal research project

By Sten-Åke Stenberg

At the beginning of the 1960s, Swedish researchers started a sociological study of all children born in Stockholm in 1953, Project Metropolitan. This book describes the project’s at times dramatic history, where issues of personal integrity and the role of social sciences were heavily debated. These discussions were fueled by the rapid and far-reaching digitalization in society at large and also within social sciences. As such, Project Metropolitan came to symbolize the benefits and potential risks related to an expanding body of research based on large groups of individuals and multiple register data sources. At the outset, the project’s founders sought to answer the following question: “Why do some get on better in life than others?” One of the main aims of the project was to study the long-term impact of conditions in childhood. The book therefore also includes an updated presentation of the main findings, as they have been conveyed in over 160 publications to date. These publications cover a wide array of topics and phenomena such as social mobility and education, substance abuse and crime, health and ill-health, peer influences and family relations, and adult lives of adopted children. Today Project Metropolitan is known as the “Stockholm Birth Cohort Multigenerational Study (SBC Multigen)” and is still in full vigor. From its original group of 15,000 children, the study has become multi-generational by adding data about their parents, siblings, children, nieces and nephews. As they approach their late 60s, it will also be possible to follow these “children” into retirement and old-age. In the concluding chapter the author discusses some of the challenges contemporary social research is facing. What are the current threats to academic freedom and what opportunities do the unique data registers in countries like Sweden provide?

Stockholm: Stockholm University Press, 2018. 284p.

Beerhouses, Brothels and Bobbies: Policing by consent in Huddersfield and the Huddersfield district in the mid-Nineteenth century

By David Taylor

Professor David Taylor has established a fine reputation for his books and articles on the history of policing in England. This new book on Huddersfield policing looks at the mid-nineteenth century and issues facing the local area in relation to policing a centre of West Riding textile production.

Huddersfield, UK: University of Huddersfield Press, 2016. 301p.

Drama in the Dailies : Violence and Gender in Dutch Newspapers, 1880 to 1930

By E.C. Wilkinson

This thesis looks at the representation of violence in Dutch newspapers during the rise of the mass media in the Netherlands, from 1880 to 1930. Newspaper circulations shot up and newspapers increasingly targeted women readers and the working class. The thesis examines how these changes affected press coverage of sexual and family violence, crimes that involved women either as the victim or the perpetrator. A key question was whether public condemnation of male violence against women increased during this period, as has been argued by some historians.I find that newspaper reporting on partner violence and sexual violence increased after 1880, and the reports became more sympathetic to the women involved. I argue that this was in part because such human-interest stories were thought to appeal to the new target segment of women readers. However, journalists never treated such violence as a social problem and they often romanticized or trivialized assaults by men. Moreover, crime news was mediated by the sources and shaped by distinctive features of the Dutch criminal justice system.

Leiden, Netherlands: Leiden University, 2020. 293p.

Medieval Communities and the Mad: Narratives of Crime and Mental Illness in Late Medieval France

By Pfau, Aleksandra Nicole

The concept of madness as a challenge to communities lies at the core of legal sources. This book considers how communal networks, ranging from the locale to the realm, responded to people who were considered mad. The madness of individuals played a role in engaging communities with legal mechanisms and proto-national identity constructs, as petitioners sought the king's mercy as an alternative to local justice. The resulting narratives about the mentally ill in late medieval France constructed madness as an inability to live according to communal rules. Although such texts defined madness through acts that threatened social bonds, those ties were reaffirmed through the medium of the remission letter. The composers of the letters presented madness as a communal concern, situating the mad within the household, where care could be provided. These mad were usually not expelled but integrated, often through pilgrimage, surveillance, or chains, into their kin and communal relationships.

Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021. 2-21. 203p.

Men and Violence: gender, honor, and rituals in modern Europe and America

Edited by Petrus Cornelis Spierenburg.

There is growing interest in the history of masculinity and male culture, including violence, as an integral part of a proper understanding of gender. In almost every historical setting, masculinity and violence are closely linked; certainly violent crime has been overwhelmingly a male enterprise. But violence is not always criminal: in many cultural contexts violence is linked instead to honor and encoded in rituals. We possess only an imperfect understanding of the ways in which aggressive behavior, or the abstention from aggressive behavior, contributes to the construction of masculinity and male honor. Pieter Spierenburg brings together eight scholars to explore the fascinating interrelationship of masculinity, honor, and the body. The essays focus on the United States and western Europe from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries.

Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1998. 279p.

Save the Womanhood! Vice, urban immorality and social control in Liverpool, c. 1900-1976

By Samantha Caslin.

The title of this book is taken from a statement made by a Liverpool based women’s refuge, the House of Help, in 1918. Having offered its services to women for two decades, the House of Help looked towards the end of the First World War with the hope that their organization could be part of the ‘building’ of a ‘new world by helping to save the womanhood of our country’.1 Their work providing temporary shelter to women who found themselves lost, stranded or penniless in Liverpool was just one element of local, social purity inspired philanthropic efforts to save young, typically working-class, women from the supposedly corrupting effects of urban life and the temptation to earn money via prostitution. This was a moral war, waged around the docks, the city’s main train station at Lime Street, in city centre entertainment districts and in working-class neighbourhoods. Many of the women who stayed at the House of Help had been directed or brought there by women patrollers from the Liverpool Vigilance Association (LVA) and the local Women Police Patrols. Together, the activities of these patrollers and moral welfare workers proliferated a gendered sense of urban space that was predicated upon the idea that some women required moral guidance in order to deter them from the temptations of vice and sexual immorality.

Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2018. 248p.

Corpus Linguistics and 17th-Century Prostitution: Computational Linguistics and History

By Anthony McEnery and Helen Baker.

Corpus linguistics has much to offer history, being as both disciplines engage so heavily in analysis of large amounts of textual material. This book demonstrates the opportunities for exploring corpus linguistics as a method in historiography and the humanities and social sciences more generally. Focussing on the topic of prostitution in 17th-century England, it shows how corpus methods can assist in social research, and can be used to deepen our understanding and comprehension. McEnery and Baker draw principally on two sources – the newsbook Mercurius Fumigosis and the Early English Books Online Corpus. This scholarship on prostitution and the sex trade offers insight into the social position of women in history.

London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. 271p.