In Jared Diamond's follow-up to the Pulitzer-Prize winning Guns, Germs and Steel, the author explores how climate change, the population explosion and political discord create the conditions for the collapse of civilization. Diamond is also the author of Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis

Environmental damage, climate change, globalization, rapid population growth, and unwise political choices were all factors in the demise of societies around the world, but some found solutions a...

Anyone who has been asked to read and understand a poem has probably wondered: What does this really mean? Have I understood this the way I was supposed to? Did I get it? As the least literal of all of forms of creative writing, poetry is for many readers also the most cryptic. Confronted by the mysteries of poetic interpretation, some people are intrigued, some become addicted, others are left frustrated. Shira Wolosky's accessibly written book, The Art of Poetry, provides a road map of the ...

Why are some countries rich and others poor? In 1500, the income differences were small, but they have grown dramatically since Columbus reached America. Since then, the interplay between geography, globalization, technological change, and economic policy has determined the wealth and poverty of nations. The industrial revolution was Britain's path breaking response to the challenge of globalization.

Western Europe and North America joined Britain to form a club ofrich nations by pursuing fou...

Introduction to Geophysical Fluid Dynamics provides an introductory-level exploration of geophysical fluid dynamics (GFD), the principles governing air and water flows on large terrestrial scales. Physical principles are illustrated with the aid of the simplest existing models, and the computer methods are shown in juxtaposition with the equations to which they apply. It explores contemporary topics of climate dynamics and equatorial dynamics, including the Greenhouse Effect, global warming, ...

Financial Management in Agriculture, Seventh Edition, introduces students to modern concepts and tools of finance, developed and applied to the agricultural sector. Using case studies, practical problems, and a lucid presentation, the text focuses on planning, analyzing, and controlling business performance in agriculture and related financial markets. This new edition addresses recent structural changes in the food system, covering important topics such as the growth in vertical coordination...

Dialogue is a many-sided critical concept; at once an ancient philosophical genre, a formal component of fiction and drama, a model for the relationship of writer and reader, and a theoretical key to the nature of language. In all its forms, it questions ‘literature’, disturbing the singleness and fixity of the written text with the fluid interactivity of conversation. In this clear and concise guide to the multiple significance of the term, Peter Womack: outlines the history of dialogue ...

'Richly documented and convincingly presented' -- New SocietyMods and Rockers, skinheads, video nasties, designer drugs, bogus asylum seeks and hoodies. Every era has its own moral panics. It was Stanley Cohen’s classic account, first published in the early 1970s and regularly revised, that brought the term ‘moral panic’ into widespread discussion.

It is an outstanding investigation of the way in which the media and often those in a position of political power define a condition, or gro...

Research design is fundamental to all scientific endeavors, at all levels and in all institutional settings. In many social science disciplines, however, scholars working in an interpretive-qualitative tradition get little guidance on this aspect of research from the positivist-centered training they receive. This book is an authoritative examination of the concepts and processes underlying the design of an interpretive research project.

Such an approach to design starts with the recognition ...

The success of the Apgar score demonstrates the astounding power of an appropriate clinical instrument. This down-to-earth book provides practical advice, underpinned by theoretical principles, on developing and evaluating measurement instruments in all fields of medicine. It equips you to choose the most appropriate instrument for specific purposes.

The book covers measurement theories, methods and criteria for evaluating and selecting instruments. It provides methods to assess measurement p...

Adopting the same approach used in his highly popular A Student's Guide to Maxwell's Equations, Fleisch explains vectors and tensors in plain language to give undergraduate and beginning graduate students a better understanding of how to use vectors and tensors to solve problems in physics and engineering.