Showing 1,741-1,770 of 2,619 items.

Snowshoeing Through Sewers

Adventures in New York City, New Jersey, and Philadelphia

Rutgers University Press

When Daniel Boone heard a neighbor's dog bark, he moved West. But when there's no Wild West left, where is adventure to be found? Michael Aaron Rockland looks for adventure in the megalopolis, "not where no one has been but where no one wishes to go . . . across traffic-clogged cities, the parking lots of wall-to-wall suburban malls, and the sinister waterways that seep through rusting industrial sites."

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Public Health

The Development of a Discipline, From the Age of Hippocrates to the Progressive Era

Rutgers University Press

Public health as a discipline grew out of traditional Western medicine but expanded to include interests in social policy, hygiene, epidemiology, infectious disease, sanitation, and health education. This book, the first of a two-volume set, is a collection of important and representative historical texts that serve to trace and to illuminate the development of conceptions, policies, and treatments in public health from the dawn of Western civilization through the Progressive Era of the early twentieth century.

The editors provide annotated readings and biographical details to punctuate the historical timeline and to provide students with insights into the progression of ideas, initiatives, and reforms in the field. From Hippocrates and John Graunt in the early period, to John Snow and Florence Nightingale during the nineteenth-century sanitary reform movement, to Upton Sinclair and Margaret Sanger in the Progressive Era, readers follow the identification, evolution, and implementation of public health concepts as they came together under one discipline.

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Finding Faith

The Spiritual Quest of the Post-Boomer Generation

Rutgers University Press

Despite the masses still lining up to enter mega-churches with warehouse-like architecture, casually dressed clergy, and pop Christian music, the "Post-Boomer" generation-those ranging in age from twenty to forty-is having second thoughts. In this perceptive look at the evolving face of Christianity in contemporary culture, sociologists Richard Flory and Donald E. Miller argue that we are on the verge of another potential revolution in how Christians worship and associate with one another.

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500 Years of Chicana Women's History / 500 Años de la Mujer Chicana

Bilingual Edition

Rutgers University Press

Named the 2009 AAUP Best of the Best - Outstanding Book Distinction

The history of Mexican Americans spans more than five centuries and varies from region to region across the United States. Yet most of our history books devote at most a chapter to Chicano history, with even less attention to the story of Chicanas. 500 Years of Chicana Women’s History offers a powerful antidote to this omission with a vivid, pictorial account of struggle and survival, resilience and achievement, discrimination and identity. The bilingual text, along with hundreds of photos and other images, ranges from female-centered stories of pre-Columbian Mexico to profiles of contemporary social justice activists, labor leaders, youth organizers, artists, and environmentalists, among others.  With a distinguished, seventeen-member advisory board, the book presents a remarkable combination of scholarship and youthful appeal.

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Pump and Dump

The Rancid Rules of the New Economy

Rutgers University Press

In Pump and Dump: The Rancid Rules of the New Economy,Robert H. Tillman and Michael L. Indergaard argue that these scandals are symptoms of a corporate governance problem that began in the 1990s as New Economy pundits claimed that advances in technology and forms of business organization were changing the rules.

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Policing Dissent

Social Control and the Anti-Globalization Movement

Rutgers University Press

Policing Dissent provides a firsthand account of the changing nature of control efforts employed by law enforcement agencies when confronted with mass activism.

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Millennial Makeover

MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics

Rutgers University Press

Change in the 2008 election will cause another of our country's periodic political makeovers resulting from the coming of age of the Millennial Generation and the full emergence of the Internet-based communications technology that this generation uses so well

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Forensics Under Fire

Are Bad Science and Dueling Experts Corrupting Criminal Justice?

Rutgers University Press

The American public has become captivated by success stories like this one with their satisfyingly definitive conclusions, all made possible because of the wonders of forensic science. Unfortunately, however, popular television dramas do not represent the way most homicide cases in the United States are actually handled. Crime scenes are not always protected from contamination; physical evidence is often packaged improperly, lost, or left unaccounted for; forensic experts are not always consulted; and mistakes and omissions on the autopsy table frequently cut investigations short or send detectives down the wrong investigative path.

In Forensics Under Fire, Jim Fisher makes a compelling case that these and other problems in the practice of forensic science allow offenders to escape justice and can also lead to the imprisonment of innocent people. Bringing together examples from a host of high-profile criminal cases and familiar figures, such as the JonBenet Ramsey case and Dr. Henry Lee who presented physical evidence in the O. J. Simpson trial, along with many lesser known but fascinating stories, Fisher presents daunting evidence that forensic science has a long way to go before it lives up to its potential and the public's expectations.

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Visions and Divisions

American Immigration Literature, 1870-1930

Rutgers University Press

 For many years, America cherished its image as a Golden Door for the world’s oppressed. But during the Progressive Era, mounting racial hostility along with new national legislation that imposed strict restrictions on immigration began to show the nation in a different light. The literature of this period reflects the controversy and uncertainty that abounded regarding the meaning of “American.” Literary output participated in debates about restriction, assimilation, and whether the idea of the “Melting Pot” was worth preserving. Writers advocated—and also challenged—what emerged as a radical new way of understanding the nation’s ethnic and racial identity: cultural pluralism. 

From these debates came such novels as Willa Cather’s My Ántonia and Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. Henry James, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Carl Sandburg added to the diversity of viewpoints of native born Americans while equally divergent immigrant perspectives were represented by writers such as Anzia Yezierska, Kahlil Gibran, and Claude McKay. This anthology presents the writing of these authors, among others less well known, to show the many ways literature participated in shaping the face of immigration. The volume also includes an introduction, annotations, a timeline, and historical documents that contextualize the literature.

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The Truth About Health Care

Why Reform is Not Working in America

Rutgers University Press

In The Truth about Health Care, David Mechanic explains how health care in America has evolved in ways that favor a myriad of economic, professional, and political interests over those of patients. While money has always had a place in medical care, "big money" and the quest for profits has become dominant, making meaningful reforms difficult to achieve. Mechanic acknowledges that railing against these influences, which are here to stay, can achieve only so much. Instead, he asks whether it is possible to convert what is best about health care in America into a well functioning system that better serves the entire population.

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The Traffic In Poems

Nineteenth-Century Poetry and Transatlantic Exchange

Rutgers University Press

Drawing on examples such as Felicia Hemans's elaboration of the foundational American myth of Plymouth Rock, Emma Lazarus's ambivalent welcome of Europe's cast-off populations, black abolitionist Mary Webb's European performances of Hiawatha, and American reprints of Robert Browning and George Meredith, the eleven essays in this book focus on poetic depictions of exile, slavery, immigration, and citizenship and explore the often asymmetrical traffic between British and American poetic cultures.

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Neither Villain nor Victim

Empowerment and Agency among Women Substance Abusers

Edited by Tammy Anderson
Rutgers University Press

Female drug addicts are often stereotyped either as promiscuous, lazy, and selfish, or as weak, scared, and trapped into addiction. These depictions typify the "pathology and powerlessness" narrative that has historically characterized popular and academic conversations about female substance abusers. Neither Villain Nor Victim attempts to correct these polarizing perspectives by presenting a critical feminist analysis of the drug world. By shifting the discussion to one centered on women's agency and empowerment, this book reveals the complex experiences and social relationships of women addicts.

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Designing Modern Childhoods

History, Space, and the Material Culture of Children

Edited by Marta Gutman and Ning de Coninck-Smith; Foreword by Paula S. Fass; Epilogue by John R Gillis
Rutgers University Press

In Designing Modern Childhoods, architectural historians, social historians, social scientists, and architects examine the history and design of places and objects such as schools, hospitals, playgrounds, houses, cell phones, snowboards, and even the McDonald's Happy Meal. Special attention is given to how children use and interpret the spaces, buildings, and objects that are part of their lives, becoming themselves creators and carriers of culture.

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Trees, Truffles, and Beasts

How Forests Function

Rutgers University Press

Because today's decisions are tomorrow's consequences, every small effort makes a difference, but a broader understanding of our environmental problems is necessary to the development of sustainable ecosystem policies. In Trees, Truffles, and Beasts, Chris Maser, Andrew W. Claridge, and James M. Trappe make a compelling case that we must first understand the complexity and interdependency of species and habitats from the microscopic level to the gigantic. Comparing forests in the Pacific Northwestern United States and Southeastern mainland of Australia, the authors show how easily observable species, trees and mammals are part of a complicated infrastructure that includes fungi, lichens, and organisms invisible to the naked eye, such as microbes.

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Theorizing Scriptures

New Critical Orientations to a Cultural Phenomenon

Edited by Vincent Wimbush
Rutgers University Press

Historically, religious scriptures are defined as holy texts that are considered to be beyond the abilities of the layperson to interpret. Their content is most frequently analyzed by clerics who do not question the underlying political or social implications of the text, but use the writing to convey messages to their congregations about how to live a holy existence. In this innovative collection of essays that aims to turn the traditional bible-study definition of scriptures on its head, Vincent L. Wimbush leads an in-depth look at the social, cultural, and racial meanings invested in these texts. 

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'Un-American' Hollywood

Politics and Film in the Blacklist Era

Rutgers University Press

“Un-American” Hollywood  reopens the intense critical debate on the blacklist era and on the aesthetic and political work of the Hollywood Left. In a series of fresh case studies focusing on contexts of production and reception, the contributors offer exciting and original perspectives on the role of progressive politics within a capitalist media industry.

            Original essays scrutinize the work of individual practitioners, such as Robert Rossen, Joseph Losey, Jules Dassin, and Edward Dmytryk, and examine key films, including The Robe, Christ in Concrete, The House I Live In, The Lawless, The Naked City, The Prowler, Body and Soul, and FTA.

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Conversion of a Continent

Contemporary Religious Change in Latin America

Rutgers University Press

A massive religious transformation has unfolded over the past forty years in Latin America and the Caribbean. In a region where the Catholic Church could once claim a near monopoly of adherents, religious pluralism has fundamentally altered the social and religious landscape. Conversion of a Continent brings together twelve original essays that document and explore competing explanations for how and why conversion has occurred.

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The Practice of U.S. Women's History

Narratives, Intersections, and Dialogues

Rutgers University Press

In this collection of seventeen original essays on women’s lives from the colonial period to the present, contributors take the competing forces of race, gender, class, sexuality, religion, and region into account. Among many other examples, they examine how conceptions of gender shaped government officials’ attitudes towards East Asian immigrants; how race and gender inequality pervaded the welfare state; and how color and class shaped Mexican American women’s mobilization for civil and labor rights.

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Rutgers Football

A Gridiron Tradition in Scarlet

Rutgers University Press, Rivergate Books

Rutgers Football: A Gridiron Tradition in Scarlet is a richly illustrated history of one of the most storied programs in all of college football. From the first intercollegiate contest against Princeton in 1869, which started college football as we know it, through the years that Paul Robeson suited up for the team, the famous undefeated season of 1976, and right up to the Schiano era, former Scarlet Knight Michael Pellowski takes you on a fascinating journey that chronicles the highlights of the first 137 years of Rutgers football. He makes special mention of the Scarlet Knights who have gone on to successful careers in the NFL-Brian Leonard, Mike McMahon, L.J. Smith, Gary Brackett, Ray Lucas, Deron Cherry, among others-and includes a complete listing of letter winners.

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You Shall Tell Your Children

Holocaust Memory in American Passover Ritual

Rutgers University Press

  Liora Gubkin critiques commemorations that violate memory by erasing the value of everyday life that was lost and collapse the diversity of responses both during the Shoah and afterward. She recounts oral testimonies from Holocaust survivors, cites references to the holiday in popular American culture, and analyzes examples of actual haggadot. Ultimately, Gubkin concludes that it is possible and important to make a space for Holocaust commemoration, all the time recognizing that haggadot must be constantly revisited and “performed.”

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Utopia, New Jersey

Travels in the Nearest Eden

Rutgers University Press

Utopia. New Jersey. For most people—even the most satisfied New Jersey residents—these words hardly belong in the same sentence. Yet, unbeknown to many, history shows that the state has been a favorite location for utopian experiments for more than a century. Thanks to its location between New York and Philadelphia and its affordable land, it became an ideal proving ground where philosophical and philanthropical organizations and individuals could test their utopian theories.

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Hindu Primary Sources

A Sectarian Reader

Edited by Carl Olson
Rutgers University Press

Bringing together texts from a variety of sectarian traditions, this reader provides the broadest selection of primary source Hindu literature available to date.

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Notorious New Jersey

100 True Tales of Murders and Mobsters, Scandals and Scoundrels

Rutgers University Press, Rivergate Books

Notorious New Jersey is the definitive guide to murder, mayhem, the mob, and corruption in the Garden State. With tabloid punch, Jon Blackwell tells riveting accounts of Alexander Hamilton falling mortally wounded on the dueling grounds of Weehawken; Dutch Schultz getting pumped full of lead in the men’s room of the Palace Chop House in Newark; and a gang of Islamic terrorists in Jersey City mixing the witch’s brew of explosives that became the first bomb to rock the World Trade Center. Along with these dramatic stories are tales of lesser-known oddities, such as the nineteenth-century murderer whose skin was turned into leather souvenirs, and the state senator from Jersey City who faked his death in a scuba accident in the 1970s in an effort to avoid prison.

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Genetic Witness

Science, Law, and Controversy in the Making of DNA Profiling

Rutgers University Press

When DNA profiling was first introduced into the American legal system in 1987, it was heralded as a technology that would revolutionize law enforcement. As an investigative tool, it has lived up to much of this hype—it is regularly used to track down unknown criminals, put murderers and rapists behind bars, and exonerate the innocent. 
   
Yet, this promise took ten turbulent years to be fulfilled.  In Genetic Witness, Jay D. Aronson uncovers the dramatic early history of DNA profiling that has been obscured by the technique’s recent success.

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Tuberculosis and the Politics of Exclusion

A History of Public Health and Migration to Los Angeles

Rutgers University Press

Emily K. Abel shows how the association of the disease with “tramps” during the 1880s and 1890s and Dust Bowl refugees during the 1930s provoked exclusionary measures against both groups. In addition, public health officials sought not only to restrict the entry of Mexicans (the majority of immigrants) during the 1920s but also to expel them during the 1930s. 

            Abel’s revealing account provides a critical lens through which to view both the contemporary debate about immigration and the U.S. response to the emergent global tuberculosis epidemic.

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Hemispheric American Studies

Rutgers University Press

What happens to American literary, political, historical, and cultural studies if we recognize the interdependency of nation-state developments throughout all the Americas? What happens if we recognize the nation as historically evolving and contingent rather than already formed? Finally, what happens if the "fixed" borders of a nation are recognized not only as historically produced political constructs but also as component parts of a deeper, more multilayered series of national and indigenous histories? 

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The Many Colors of Hinduism

A Thematic-Historical Introduction

Rutgers University Press

The Many Colors of Hinduism is the first introductory text to provide a balanced view of this rich religious tradition, acknowledging the full range of its many competing and even contradictory aspects. Utilizing a thematic-historical approach, Carl Olson draws on a wide array of textual evidence, the fieldwork of anthropologists in close contact with insiders, and voices of thinkers ranging from Indologist Alf Hiltebeitel to Cambridge scholar Julius Lipner. The result is a narrative approach that offers a view of Hinduism that emulates the storytelling nature of the religion itself.

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Not in Front of the Children

'Indecency,' Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth

Rutgers University Press

In Not in Front of the Children, Marjorie Heins explores the fascinating history of “indecency” laws and other restrictions aimed at protecting youth. From Plato’s argument for rigid censorship, through Victorian laws aimed at repressing libidinous thoughts, to contemporary battles over sex education in public schools and violence in the media, Heins guides us through what became, and remains, an ideological minefield. With fascinating examples drawn from around the globe, she suggests that the “harm to minors” argument rests on shaky foundations.

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Money Jungle

Imagining the New Times Square

By Benjamin Chesluk; By (photographer) Maggie Hopp
Rutgers University Press

For more than a century, Times Square has mesmerized the world with the spectacle of its dazzling supersigns, its theaters, and its often-seedy nightlife. Many have hotly debated the recent transformation of this legendary intersection, with voices typically falling into two opposing camps. Some applaud a blighted red-light district becoming a big-budget, mainstream destination. Others lament an urban zone of lawless possibility being replaced by a Disneyfied, theme-park version of New York. In Money Jungle, Benjamin Chesluk shows that what is really at stake in Times Square are fundamental questions about city life—questions of power, pleasure, and what it means to be a citizen in contemporary urban space. 

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Big Prisons, Big Dreams

Crime and the Failure of America's Penal System

Rutgers University Press

The American prison system has grown tenfold since the 1970s, but crime rates in the United States have not decreased. This doesn't surprise Michael J. Lynch, a critical criminologist, who argues that our oversized prison system is a product of our consumer culture, the public's inaccurate beliefs about controlling crime, and the government's criminalizing of the poor. 

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