Book Description
The threat of continued warfare to the future of humanity has become dire. "The Great Turning explores that threat in detail and provides an equally detailed plan for meeting -- and overcoming -- it. Written in the author's trademark clear, compelling style, this timely book uncovers the roots of Empire in ancient Athens and charts the long transition from the institutions of monarchy to those of the global economy as the favored instruments of imperialism. Korten then discusses the promise of early America as a democracy dedicated to spreading liberty and freedom -- and the failure of the "American experiment" through the contemporary takeover of the U.S. government by corporate plutocrats, religious theocrats, and neoconservative militarists in pursuit of naked imperial ambition. Korten draws on sources as varied as evolution, developmental psychology, and the wisdom of religious mystics to make the case for "Earth Community" -- a people-centered, community-based future that is both possible and necessary.
Customer Reviews:
Hope Restored.......2007-08-07
David Korten has restored my hope that humanity can and will survive the upcoming collision with our own short sighted Hubris. Some, perhaps many of us will make it through and will have restored to us in the process a great deal more of our own compassionate humanity. Well researched, well written. A seminal work! Thank you David!
The Great Turning.......2007-06-12
This book should be read by anyone thinking about how to move toward a fair, just society. Korten talks about levels of maturity leading to understanding that enough people and groups have reached a level where a society based on the principle of community rather than that of domination is within reach. It undercuts struggling with all the forms injustice takes in our present society and considers joining with like-minded groups all over the world to form a bottom-up society concerned with the good of all rather than just looking out for what's good for the most powerful among us.
The Ideal of the Bodhisattva.......2007-05-13
The Great Turning masterfully traces the concept of Empire from pre-history to the present and states that the current world situtation has been shaped by the concentration of power and wealth in the hands of the few. The motivating actions of governments are to preserve their control over the forces of money and power. The democracies of the Western world are not true democracies as they maintain their control over the many by giving prevledge to the few. Korten goes on to relate various pardighms that our culture buys into and which perpetuate the rule of Empire. one of these views is related in the "Imperial Secular Meaning Story."
"Matter is the only reality. the whole of the cosmos is a product of the orderly playing out of physical forces amenable to description and prediction by mathematical equations. Life is the accidental outcome of material complexity. Consciousness and free will are illusions, nothing more. Because life has no intrinsic meaning, the only rational couse of the intelligent individual is to seek material gratification through the accumulation of wealth and power.
The evolution of the living species occurs through a competitive struggle in which the fittest survive and the less fit perish. Mammalian species, naturally organize themselves into heirarchies of dominance for mutual protection and breeding success.
Human progress likewise depends on competitive struggle in which the most fit triumph and those of second rank serve the most fit. the winners prove their superior worth and therby their contribution to the betterment of the whole by virute of their victory. They have a natural right to the rewards of their victory as their just due. Their is no reason for guilt or for concern for those whom the struggle destroys or leaves behind, as their loss is itself proof that they are the less fit. For the betterment of the whole, we must all accept that this their proper fate."
What makes the Great Turning a landmark book is that it exposes these myths for what they are-propaganda for maintaining control with power and wealth. The actions of governments rather than being for the well being of the people are for the maintaining of the myths which concentrate power and wealth in the hands of the few. Korten goes on to forge the strategy for removal of these myths and replacing them with the reality of a sustainable Earth Community.
The human and Divine potential of the sage, writer, artist, scientist cannot be fully realized without the move away from empire to Earth Community. The Bodhisattva's vow while at the threshold of enlightenment takes on the meaning for all of us to work out our daily lives in harmony with the forces that are attempting to bring about an Earth Community.
A "Must Read" for Every Lover of Democracy.......2007-03-08
This is the most important book I have read in years! There is hope. The people can take back America and truly make it a land of freedom, liberty and justice for all.
A MUST-READ.......2007-02-20
This book has changed the way I think about the world and the challenge we face in avoiding "the great unraveling." After reading it, I want to stand up and start making a difference.
Book Description
One of the world's most influential environmentalists reveals a worldwide grassroots movement of hope and humanity
Blessed Unrest tells the story of a worldwide movement that is largely unseen by politicians or the media. Hawken, an environmentalist and author, has spent more than a decade researching organizations dedicated to restoring the environment and fostering social justice. From billion-dollar nonprofits to single-person causes, these organizations collectively comprise the largest movement on earth. This is a movement that has no name, leader, or location, but is in every city, town, and culture. It is organizing from the bottom up and is emerging as an extraordinary and creative expression of people's needs worldwide.
Blessed Unrest explores the diversity of this movement, its brilliant ideas, innovative strategies, and centuries-old history. The culmination of Hawken's many years of leadership in these fields, it will inspire, surprise, and delight anyone who is worried about the direction the modern world is headed. Blessed Unrest is a description of humanity's collective genius and the unstoppable movement to re-imagine our relationship to the environment and one another. Like Hawken's previous books, Blessed Unrest will become a classic in its field— a touchstone for anyone concerned about our future.
Customer Reviews:
The Unconquered Underground.......2007-09-22
This book surely deserves its nearly universal praise, but I'm going to have to throw a wrench into the works by pointing out a few of its structural flaws. As a widely-read conservationist I can credit Paul Hawken as one of the best modern writers and thinkers on our movement, and his classic "Natural Capitalism" is my absolute all-time favorite from the genre. "Blessed Unrest" will surely be a groundbreaker and it could seriously be influential for millions of people for decades to come. But the proof is actually in the appendix (which takes up more than a third of the book), while the main text is faintly disappointing in a few structural ways. In a nutshell, the relatively short main text covers Hawken's research into the quietly rising social movement around the world of literally millions of small organizations that are combining environmentalism, civil rights, and social justice in ways that are revitalizing democracy, conservation, and the human spirit for volunteerism. Most importantly, this movement utilizes ideas and not ideologies, and is inclusive rather than exclusive.
This is a crucially important topic and Hawken is doing the world a great service by bringing this immense but little-respected mass movement into the light. However, only one chapter in the book's main text ("Immunity") and a few other passages really focus specifically on this great movement and how exemplary groups are creating real change. Instead, most of the main text functions as a lengthy introduction that accomplishes little more than a set-up for the appendix. Hawken fills these pages with a fairly standard history of the environmental movement and the latest developments in conservationist philosophy. Of course this material is informative and necessary, but similar information can be found in myriad other books, and here it becomes quite predictable and detracts from the specifics of the unique worldwide movement that this book is supposed to be about. Thus the book becomes a bit of a disappointment for those who have been attracted by its promotional materials, which promise coverage of the movement itself, not its less specific historical underpinnings.
With that being said, the book is saved by the immense appendix, which is built from the crucial and valuable database of small worldwide organizations at the WiserEarth website. Here we can see the movement in full flower, with a useful categorization of volunteer efforts into a mindboggling array of topics that combine conservation of the Earth's gifts and justice for humanity. This book will be vastly influential merely for drawing attention to this outstanding online resource. Overall, Hawken remains at the top of the heap for influential and inspirational conservationist writers, but just beware of this book's structural limitations. [~doomsdayer520~]
A thought provoking and revealing book, an absolute masterpiece by a genuis.......2007-09-14
After many years of reading, one book stands out, this is it, this is one of the best books that I have ever read, it reveals many truths not found in regular books, like where we are heading as human beings, and about how we are destroying the environment and upsetting the fragile ecological balance of mother earth etc. I've been book marking many pages and am amazed by the wisdom and inspiration of this book.
It mentions how civilizations, species, indigenous people and cultures are being destroyed by greed and materialism, by most of us, it talks about Columbus and colonialism and how it has destroyed entire cultures and civilizations, quote "Native people have remarked that, of the many promises made by white men, the only one that they kept was the vow to take their land"
Most popular books available today are about "How to succeed", "How to make more money" "How to open a franchise" " "How to market", "How to get an MBA" etc, there are very few books on morality, wisdom, truth, divinity, modesty, humbleness, respect, protection of the environment, protection of animals etc.
It reminds us that from our very first day at school, through high school and college, we are mostly taught about making money and materialism, getting and spending etc, we have thus become modern day slaves to banks and the wealthy in the form of mounting debt, we are debt ridden all our lives and it takes a lifetime to pay off this debt, part of the ultimate consumer society.
Today, markets and currencies are manipulated by wealthy nations, and poorer nations are at the mercy of industrialized nations, sadly poorer countries are exploited by trading their minerals, diamonds, gold, raw materials, forests etc. by wealthier nations and are paid for in kind by weapons and armaments, which are then used for committing genocide on their own people while wealthy nations enjoy all the material comforts and luxurious life at the expense of the poor.
Hawkens mentions that businesses talk about adding value and making higher profits to satisfy shareholders, but at what price, profit without consequence is what they are practicing, they do not think about the destruction to the environment and natural resources, the practice of a 'profits at any cost' will lead to a scorched earth, which threatens our very existence on planet earth.
Globalization only benefits wealthy and highly industrialized nations, it results in exploitation of resources in poorer nations, destroying their cultures, natural resources and the environment so that more profits can be made by the wealthy, i.e. profits without shame, the best example is China, which has the worst human right's record and worker abuses bordering on slavery, only a handful of wealthy Chinese folks and the Communist Party are benefiting from it, what a pity. Globalization is the modern day equivalent of imperialism and colonization, sadly the rich get richer and the poor suffer.
Paul Hawkens is a true visionary and a genius, this book has many spiritual insights. it should become a prescribed text book in high schools and colleges around the world.
Bharat V. P.
Ohio (Lenasia, SA)
A RAY OF HOPE IN THIS PROFIT-BEFORE -PEOPLE WORLD.......2007-09-13
I have just read and am happy to recommend Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming. " Blessed Unrest" is that restlessness and energy that humans of conscience and good will experience when they encounter such evils as injustice, poverty, and wanton damage to the environment.
Author Paul Hawken posits a worldwide coalescing (aided by the World Wide Web) of over a million grass-roots organizations, non-government organizations, relief agencies, and a few enlightened persons and organizations of wealth and influence (e.g., Warren Buffett, the Omidyar Network), each with its special focus, but all sharing a vision of a healed and equitable earth. He likens this unrest to the body's little understood but marvelously effective immune system
This book is partly about profits-before-people social injustice, and climate change, and it cites at length the many shocking global injustices and environmental catastrophes caused by governments (including ours), transnational corporations, the military, and so on. Although you may know of some such instances, Hawken details many examples you may not have known before, concerning Bechtel, The IMF, Exxon-Mobile and Conoco, the World Bank, The WTO, and many others. For example. he describes at length how the massive peaceful demonstrations at WTO's Third Ministerial in Seattle in 1999 were turned into "riots" by over-reactive police and sensationalist reporting by the media.
Another example: The World Bank forced Bolivia (the 5th poorest nation in the world) to privatize a water system to a company partially owned by multinational corporation Bechtel, resulting in water rates to Bolivia's poor becoming higher than for wealthy Bechtel executives living near San Francisco
Hawken holds up two bright red flags regarding our future. In 2005, the Millenium Ecoystem Assessment report, a consensus representing over 1,000 international scientists, concluded that the earth is rapidly losing its ability to support life as we know it due to pollution and environmental degradation and could soon enter a precipitous decline. The second red flag is the separate and rapidly increasing threat of climate change, a human-caused phenomenon recently emphasized in the media. His conclusion is that in order to preserve and heal the earth, and its climate, we must simultaneously address and heal social injustices, including of poverty, ignorance, biases of race, religion, nationality, and culture.
You may read other reviews of this book by Googling the author and title. Hawken is also the author of Natural Capitalism, which former President Clinton has named one of the five most important books in the world today. In its exposition of the world-wide "underground" massing of forces of social change, Blessed Unrest is the only recent book of this kind I have read that gives me a shred of hope for the future.
One caution: as you read, have a good dictionary at your side, unless such words as eutrophication and fungible are part of your daily word bank. For sure, Hawken has not written Blessed Unrest for Dummies. But please consider reading this book; it is informative, hopeful, and important.
Important Book.......2007-09-08
Extremely well-written, insightful, brilliant analysis of what we're all doing to our planet. Grim, yet optimistic.
Hello AMAZON?.......2007-09-07
Yes, I hope someone at Amazon reads this. It is completely inappropriate to list a book review, regardless of who wrote it- in this case Publisher's weekly, decided what is relevant in a book or not. I am specifically directly you to revisit the comment that this book's views on the WTO are naive.
It is naive for a book critic to assume that they have the power to make such a judgement regardless of whether or not they agree with Hawken, their jobs are not to sublimely try to shape the thoughts of potential readers.
In my own opinion, I found this book highly relevant and poignant to many of the world's most pressing issues even in Hawken did leave out some major points. He does deeply criticize the WTO, and it is largely up to readers to truly understand why and find specific examples.
However, it is totally inappropriate to post a book review that places such a judgement on his views without letting the reader decide for himself or herself. That is not the role of a book critic- they should stick to their job description which is to present the facts of a book, not judge it. Please remove that criticism and find another. It's offensive.
Average customer rating:
|
Handbook on Urban Sustainability
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 General
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Rural
| Sociology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Urban Planning & Development
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Environmental Science
| Earth Sciences
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Geography
| Earth Sciences
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
Planning & Management
| Environmental
| Civil
| Engineering
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
Environmental Science
| Earth Sciences
| Professional Science
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
Geography
| Earth Sciences
| Professional Science
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
Natural Resources
| Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Look Inside Business Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Look Inside Nonfiction Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Look Inside Outdoors & Nature Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Look Inside Science Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
All Titles
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
ASIN: 1402053509 |
Product Description
Municipal authorities and agencies around the world are striving to place their cities on the road to sustainability. Cities, as very complex entities, offer a constant interaction between people, resources and the environment. This makes strategic planning demanding and difficult.
This book, written by worldwide specialists from Canada, India, Italy, Palestine, Peru, Spain and the Netherlands, is a guide to establishing a city on a sustainable path. It addresses sustainable urban planning issues by breaking the city down to its main components. The authors analyze and discuss such topics as:
- urban social and economic factors, including immigration and cultural integration, the gender component, the formation of slums, and social indicators
- the interaction of the city with the environment, including the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)
- urban and regional economics, including specialization and dependency, asset management, and community facilities
- the relationship of a city within its region
- urban planning, including urban sprawl and core revitalization
- housing and relocation, including such concepts as community participation
- degradation and measures to reverse this situation
- energy needs, transportation management, basic infrastructural services, the generation and disposal of waste, and water in the region
- a citys preparedness, including risk analysis and contingency plans
- urban reconstruction after disasters
The concluding chapters provide a what to do and how to do it practical roadmap for implementing a sustainability program.
Amazon.com
It's become clear by now the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism in most places around the globe hasn't ushered in an unequivocal flowering of capitalism in the developing and postcommunist world. Western thinkers have blamed this on everything from these countries' lack of sellable assets to their inherently non-entrepreneurial "mindset." In this book, the renowned Peruvian economist and adviser to presidents and prime ministers Hernando de Soto proposes and argues another reason: it's not that poor, postcommunist countries don't have the assets to make capitalism flourish. As de Soto points out by way of example, in Egypt, the wealth the poor have accumulated is worth 55 times as much as the sum of all direct foreign investment ever recorded there, including that spent on building the Suez Canal and the Aswan Dam.
No, the real problem is that such countries have yet to establish and normalize the invisible network of laws that turns assets from "dead" into "liquid" capital. In the West, standardized laws allow us to mortgage a house to raise money for a new venture, permit the worth of a company to be broken up into so many publicly tradable stocks, and make it possible to govern and appraise property with agreed-upon rules that hold across neighborhoods, towns, or regions. This invisible infrastructure of "asset management"--so taken for granted in the West, even though it has only fully existed in the United States for the past 100 years--is the missing ingredient to success with capitalism, insists de Soto. But even though that link is primarily a legal one, he argues that the process of making it a normalized component of a society is more a political--or attitude-changing--challenge than anything else.
With a fleet of researchers, de Soto has sought out detailed evidence from struggling economies around the world to back up his claims. The result is a fascinating and solidly supported look at the one component that's holding much of the world back from developing healthy free markets. --Timothy Murphy
Book Description
From the most important economist in the Third World, a revolutionary and practical plan for transforming underperforming economies-based on the forgotten history of how wealth was created in the West.
"The hour of capitalism's greatest triumph," writes Hernando de Soto, "is, in the eyes of four-fifths of humanity, its hour of crisis." In The Mystery of Capital, the world-famous Peruvian economist takes up the question that, more than any other, is central to one of the most crucial problems the world faces today: Why do some countries succeed at capitalism while others fail?
In strong opposition to the popular view that success is determined by cultural differences, de Soto finds that it actually has to do with the legal structure of property and property rights. Every developed nation in the world at one time went through the transformation from predominantly informal, extralegal ownership to a formal, unified legal property system, but in the West we've forgotten that creating this system is also what allowed people everywhere to leverage property into wealth. This persuasive book will revolutionize our understanding of capital and point the way to a major transformation of the world economy.
Customer Reviews:
Insightful.......2007-09-26
I thought this was a fantistic book. The author compares the sorry state of property rights in the third world today with identical problems in earlier periods of US history.
Rich countries are frequently blamed for the problems in poor countries but this book shows why that blame is misplaced. This book also shows why billions of dollars in foreign aid have not and can not eliminate third world poverty.
Clear, Precise, Cogent and Important Thoughts.......2007-09-12
Although De Soto is trumpeted in the halls of the Chicago School as a person directly in line with his ideological primogeniteurs, it is clear that De Soto is not an ideologue.
His main thesis is that property rights are one of the fundamental underpinnings of western capitalism. Property rights allow the smooth functioning of capital accumulation without the diversion of too many supernumerary laws and institutions, and form the base impedements that allow capital markets, lending institutions and wealth creation mechanisms to function smoothly. If property rights are not highly developed then the "friction" this creates in the movement of capital impedes growth. As a concrete example, people in Africa and much of Latin America and Asia live in hovels that do represent accumulations of capital, but because these hovels, many owned by squatters cannot be leveraged to create capital or cannot be lent against. They in effect at dead capital because their ownership is in limbo. Advanced societies have smooth functioning property laws and markets that allow the process of wealth creation.
All of this is simple and De Soto does chronicle, as well as he can the underlying condition of dead capital formation, historical development of property rights and solid policies for implementing more legal property controls in the third world.
De Soto is also profoundly motivated to move backward societies forward and feels the poverty profoundly. In this sense he is very much a thinking man's economist and not an ideologue.
The one thing I would state is that the concepts De Soto is propounding are simple in nature and scope. As such I think that De Soto does repeat himself from time to time. Also the historical developments of property rights in the US is a good example of how a country with essentially third-world property rights, emerged to relatively advanced property rights. But I do think that his historical scholarship suffers a little as an Economist outside of his area of interest.
The writing style, though good, is not so exciting at times and would do better with a bit more details on specific human examples. But that should not detract from its scholarship.
Important work.......2007-07-23
This book is a very important work in the area of the economics of property rights. De Soto emphasizes the importance of property rights for the development of developing countries.
Capitalism Triumphs in "Market" and Fails EveryWhere Else.......2007-07-04
Most reader comments on the "political" and "Policy" side of the book. They applause by embracing the idea of less government intervention, better legal protection, better property right and so on. But I will comment the Economic side of the book. The most important point in this book is that there is a lot of "dead capital" in under developing countries. My wonder to this point is that which mechanism generate so huge amount of "dead capital". From the content of De Soto book, it is sure that all these "dead capital" comes from "black/underground Market" or "Illegal Free Market". The "Illegal Free Market" generate 9.3 trillion dollar. Actually I think De Soto is still highly under estimate the value since De Soto does not include all the human capital estimation. I think De Soto agree Free Market is the real source of economic growth.
Also in De Soto analysis, capital is the fuel for economy growth while the Keynesian believe that both individual and government spending the fuel for economy growth. De Soto book does not directly compare this 2 different ways to go. But De Soto clearly show that Foreign loan or aid does no help since it only simulate spending only. From my understanding, De Soto recommends to use Market to replace the government to release the "dead capital". Government is only require to provide minimum effect to ensure that the contract is fulfilled.
Spot on!.......2007-06-24
It's been a while since I read the book. As a citizen and resident of a third world country I can vouch that what de Soto says is the absolute truth. I have also had a business in the USA and the difference is just staggering. The longest procedure in the USA for setting up my business was getting the sales tax permit and that took about two hours. A similar procedure in my country can take months.
I'm a bit amazed that some reviewers are commenting about the book being badly written. I don't have that recollection but then, it's been a while since I read it and I enjoyed it very, very much.
Book Description
Richard A. Posner is probably the leading scholar in the rapidly growing field of the economics of law; he is also an extremely lucid writer. In this book, he applies economic theory to four areas of interest to students of social and legal institutions: the theory of justice, primitive and ancient social and legal institutions, the law and economics of privacy and reputation, and the law and economics of racial discrimination.
The book is designed to display the power of economics to organize and illuminate diverse fields in the study of nonmarket behavior and institutions. A central theme is the importance of uncertainty to an understanding of social and legal institutions. Another major theme is that the logic of the law, in many ways but not all, appears to be an economic one: that judges, for example, in interpreting the common law, act as if they were trying to maximize economic welfare.
Part I examines the deficiencies of utilitarianism as both a positive and a normative basis of understanding law, ethics, and social institutions, and suggests in its place the economist's concept of "wealth maximization." Part II, an examination of the social and legal institutions of archaic societies, notably that of ancient Greece and primitive societies, argues that economic analysis holds the key to understanding such diverse features of these societies as reciprocal gift-giving, blood guilt, marriage customs, liability rules, and the prestige accorded to generosity. Many topics relevant to modern social and philosophical debate, including the origin of the state and the retributive theory of punishment, are addressed. Parts III and IV deal with more contemporary social and jurisprudential questions. Part III is an economic analysis of privacy and the statutory and common law rules that protect privacy and related interests-rules that include the tort law of privacy, assault and battery, and defamation. Finally, Part IV examines, again from an economic standpoint, the controversial areas of racial and sexual discrimination, with special reference to affirmative action. Both Part III and Part IV develop as a subtheme the issue of proper standards of constitutional adjudication by the Supreme Court.
Customer Reviews:
Wealth Maximization. Holy cow!!!.......2002-06-20
Although denied by the author in his book 'Problems of Jurisprudence,' Richard Posner was an integral early pioneer in the movement known as 'Economics and Law.' Picking up where George Stigler and Gary Becker left off, Posner argues that not only human behavior, but law can be understood by the theory of wealth-maximization. This is the philosophy that individuals act in a way that will maximize their benefit (the results of their action) while minimizing cost (energy, time etc. expended in action.) While my review is necessarily simplified, Posners audience is in for a well-made case.
After his case is made, he moves on to offer a hypothesis of how law may have developed in primitive societies against this backdrop of wealth-maximization. I've read several authors attempts to 'create' a state (Rousseau, Locke, Nozick) and to my eyes, Posners is the most convincing. Let's see what you think!
The third section applies wealth-maximization to privacy and discrimination laws. It is here that Posner is the most likely to disturb. For example, he distinguishes between privacy as seclusion and privacy as secrecy. Privacy as secrecy, Posner argues, is not only inconsistent with constitutional text but is not much more than the right to be able to distort information (whether by omission or declaration) to present and future transactors. This, in turn, distorts the 'market-place' of information and is inconsistent (a slippery slope) with the wealth-maximization of society.
Whether you agree or disagree with Posner, his intellect is undeniable, his thesis, original and his writing, first rate. Should be read by anyone interested in jurisprudence, politics, economics and psychology.
Philosophy and Economics.......1999-02-04
Posner's "Economics of Justice" is still a fascinating read, almost two decades after its first publication. In particular, the first half of the book, which attempts (I think quite successfully) to carve out a middle ground of "ethical wealth maximization" between the 'poles' of Kantian ethics and utilitarian thought, is quite good. I am not always convinced that wealth maximization as a juridical norm in fact escapes the strictures and failures of utilitatarian thought, but Posner's philosophy and economics approach to the law demonstrates quite conclusively that economic thought has much to say about issues of justice. More broadly, Posner's lucid arguments dispel some of the many myths and critiques (some by people who do not understand economics) which contend that economics either oversimplifies or commodifies too much of human experience. What is needed is an update to this work, and more generally, a stronger outpouring of philosophical explanation from other economics-minded scholars such as Posner, to respond to the many socio-cultural legal critiques of law and economics. Overall, though, an excellent read; and although one need not agree with all of Posner's conclusions, the ideas are well worth examining.
Book Description
Since 1980, the number of people in U.S. prisons has increased more than 450%. Despite a crime rate that has been falling steadily for decades, California has led the way in this explosion, with what a state analyst called "the biggest prison building project in the history of the world." Golden Gulag provides the first detailed explanation for that buildup by looking at how political and economic forces, ranging from global to local, conjoined to produce the prison boom.
In an informed and impassioned account, Ruth Wilson Gilmore examines this issue through statewide, rural, and urban perspectives to explain how the expansion developed from surpluses of finance capital, labor, land, and state capacity. Detailing crises that hit California's economy with particular ferocity, she argues that defeats of radical struggles, weakening of labor, and shifting patterns of capital investment have been key conditions for prison growth. The results--a vast and expensive prison system, a huge number off incarcerated young people of color, and the increase in punitive justice such as the "three strikes" law--pose profound and troubling questions for the future of California, the United States, and the world. Golden Gulag provides a rich context for this complex dilemma, and at the same time challenges many cherished assumptions about who benefits and who suffers from the state's commitment to prison expansion.
Customer Reviews:
Lots of Good Stuff.......2007-05-13
As a researcher in criminology and recidivism, this book proved to be very helpful!
bought for another.......2007-02-19
i purchased for a friend who is an inmate
he has praised the book to me
A disappointment.......2007-02-04
This book could have used an editor. I struggled through 200 of the 250 pages (before the notes at the end) before giving up. I was hoping to read an inside account of how the prison unions gained power to promote the building of more prisons, or perhaps an in-depth review of how politicians manipulated the public to be tough on crime. Instead, I find a hard to follow mish-mash of various vaguely related topics (farm worker struggles in the central valley, problems in Latin America, etc.). Although never outright stated, it seems her main conclusion is that California built all these prisons, and then toughened the laws to fill them, because the state wanted to develop land in rural areas. Huh? Could it be that that instead no one else wanted prisons near them, and rural locations were the only place they would be accepted, partly because locals were more interested in the prison jobs? And if this is the conclusion, one would think there would be some analysis disproving that it wasn't politicians getting tough on crime first, and overcrowding then driving the building of prisons in rural areas, rather than the other way around.
The other problem is that the writing appears like someone trying to sound important, rather than trying to explain something. The sentence structure was difficult to follow, with too many adjectives, etc. Here is an example from page 54: "The pivotal verb 'to reproduce' signifies the broad array of political, economic, cultural, and biological capacities a society uses to renew itself daily, seasonally, generationally." Also, the constant quotes in the middle of the text, apparently to give the air of authority missing in the text itself, was distracting. Why not use footnotes? An example from page 43: "The location of defense and other high-technology jobs (Soja 1989; Oliver et al. 1993) exacerbated the state's residential and income segregation (Walters 1992; Mike Davis 1990; Bullard et al. 1994).
There are a few good points buried in this book. For example, the point that California politicians got tough on crime at a time when crime had already started to decline for two years. Or the fact that the definition of crime determines how many criminals there are - an increasing crime rate doesn't necessarily mean an increase in crime, it can simply reflect a change in the definition of what is a crime (possession of smaller amounts of drugs, etc.). Or that the determinate sentencing we now have was partly a result of prisoners suing to be treated equally under the parole rules, with a very unintended consequence. I wish the book had focused on aspects like these, and had been written in easier to follow language.
An excellent book...a must read!.......2006-12-30
Ruthie Gilmore's examination of California's prison-industrial complex paints a sobering portrait of the effects of the state's post-industrial decline in the past quarter century. Supplemented by numerous charts, maps, and statistics, Gilmore argues that the massive prison-building project that began in the early 1980s was rooted in earlier developments, namely the failure of the "welfare-warfare state" to absorb the numerous surpluses created by political and economic restructuring. Combining theory and historical-sociological analysis, this highly readable book is at once depressing and optimistic; it lays out the facts and guidelines for pursuing meaningful, antiracist struggles against the systemic dehumanization of immigrants, low-wage workers, and youths of color that continues to characterize U.S. political culture.
Book Description
Over the last thirty years, the prison population in the United States has increased more than sevenfold to over two million people, including vastly disproportionate numbers of minorities and people with little education. For some racial and educational groups, incarceration has become a depressingly regular experience, and prison culture and influence pervade their communities. Almost 60 percent of black male high school drop-outs in their early thirties have spent time in prison. In Punishment and Inequality in America, sociologist Bruce Western explores the recent era of mass incarceration and the serious social and economic consequences it has wrought.
Punishment and Inequality in America dispels many of the myths about the relationships among crime, imprisonment, and inequality. While many people support the increase in incarceration because of recent reductions in crime, Western shows that the decrease in crime rates in the 1990s was mostly fueled by growth in city police forces and the pacification of the drug trade. Getting "tough on crime" with longer sentences only explains about 10 percent of the fall in crime, but has come at a significant cost. Punishment and Inequality in America reveals a strong relationship between incarceration and severely dampened economic prospects for former inmates. Western finds that because of their involvement in the penal system, young black men hardly benefited from the economic boom of the 1990s. Those who spent time in prison had much lower wages and employment rates than did similar men without criminal records. The losses from mass incarceration spread to the social sphere as well, leaving one out of ten young black children with a father behind bars by the end of the 1990s, thereby helping perpetuate the damaging cycle of broken families, poverty, and crime.
The recent explosion of imprisonment is exacting heavy costs on American society and exacerbating inequality. Whereas college or the military were once the formative institutions in young men's lives, prison has increasingly usurped that role in many communities. Punishment and Inequality in America profiles how the growth in incarceration came about and the toll it is taking on the social and economic fabric of many American communities.
Customer Reviews:
Thorough Statistics, Excellent Readability, and an Indictment of 1980's Correction Policy.......2007-04-24
Bruce Western has stepped into the realm of public sociology, I feel, with this excellent book. This is a well-written, thoroughly researched, book that is accessible to scholars and others alike. Even though the book teems with tables, figures, and analysis, Western presents them without relying on the reader to interpret regression coefficients for meaningfulness, yet also appends many of the chapters with methodological clarifications just for those kinds of people.
Western presents what is essentially a political book without a political tone. The data speak for themselves, and it is very difficult to think that, after all the work put into this, that he incorrectly attributes so little of the decrease in crime trends to the prison boom (and the absurdity of the cost/benefit for its effect on the decrease). It does seem, however, that he echoes the racial claims of Loic Wacquant in the final chapter, but that's only for a brief moment.
Western also excellently argues and shows off the immense disconnect between crime rates and corrections policy; although only a portion of one chapter, this is a significant point to make. If our policies do not reflect what criminals are actually doing, well, why are we doing it?
My only concern with this book involves Western's "all or nothing" approach to showing the economic/social cost of the prison boom. His analyses show the wage gap, parental gap, and other penalties suffered during and after release by prisoners. He astutely points out the selection bias in unemployment and wage estimates in minority populations due to leaving out the far-more-likely-to-be-incarcerated blacks. However, his analysis in later sections, where he shows the change if none of these people were in prison (to prove the selection bias argument), is one based outside of reality. First, there will never be nobody in prison; second, his own data show that prisoners are of a different background than nonprisoners (such as the "dropping out" of the bottom that artificially raises the mean wage for blacks), so it's hard to estimate where they would fit in among family and work if they were released. Many of them would remain unemployed as well. I understand that this is some of his point, but the difficulty lies in the picture painted, where we exist in a world where the prison boom did happen, Western argues what we would look like if none of the prison boom happened, and the real effect of that is somewhere in between. He is unfoundedly optimistic about the work and family choices (and chances) in these sections of the book. It doesn't change his argument about the problems of the prison boom, however. It merely muddles the otherwise fantastic clarity of his book.
This is a book that can appeal to all sorts of scholars, researchers, policy analysts, and even those who merely wonder what direction out prison policies have taken us. An excellent, excellent work.
Average customer rating:
|
The Promise of the Third Way: Globalization and Social Justice
Otto Newman , and
Richard de Zoysa
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Popular Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
International
| Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Ideologies
| Politics
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
| Communism & Socialism
| Radical Thought
General
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Sociology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Political Science
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Business & Finance
| New & Used Textbooks
| Stores
| Books
General
| Economics
| Business & Finance
| New & Used Textbooks
| Stores
| Books
Look Inside Business Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Look Inside Nonfiction Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
ASIN: 0333792858 |
Book Description
Aiming to transcend the conflict between Left and Right, the Third Way was welcomed by leading figures on the world stage. Its program of modernization, flexibility, and community regeneration indicated a way forward for many societies. Within a firm market emphasis, equality of opportunity and social inclusion were given a prominent place. However, its leaders' lack of direction and disinclination to face hard decisions have left its promise unfulfilled. This book puts forward a rigorous rethinking towards making the Third Way an effective instrument of progress for Britain as well as abroad.
Books:
- The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century
- The Handbook of Restorative Justice: A Global Perspective (Routledge International Handbooks)
- The Legal Answer Book for Private Foundation
- The New Economy of Nature
- The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't
- The Pre-Foreclosure Property Investor's Kit: How to Make Money Buying Distressed Real Estate -- Before the Public Auction
- The Structure and Dynamics of Networks: (Princeton Studies in Complexity)
- The Structure of Economics: A Mathematical Analysis
- The Toyota Way
- The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Life With an Indian Prince: By Archives of American Falconry
- Devices and Desires
- Understanding Construction Drawings
- A Cafecito Story
- Astronomy: A Beginner's Guide to the Universe, Fourth Edition
- Economic Capital Allocation with Basel II: Cost, Benefit and Implementation Procedures
- Breach of Duty: A J.P. Beaumont Mystery
- Historic San Francisco: A Concise History and Guide
- 101 Classic Homes of the Twenties: Floor Plans and Photographs
- Acoustical Signal Processing in the Central Auditory System
When Corporations Rule the World
Evening Thoughts: Reflecting on Earth as Sacred Community
Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming
Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future
The Post Corporate World: Life After Capitalism (BK Currents)
