Social Security: History and Politics from the New Deal to the Privatization Debate (Studies in Government & Public Policy)

Social Security: History and Politics from the New Deal to the Privatization Debate (Studies in Government & Public Policy) Review

Everyone agrees that Social Security's future is in jeopardy-or is it? Long viewed as the "third rail" of American politics, Social Security is a major political issue, and many experts and politicians would like to restructure this program. But too few of us, young and elderly alike, really understand the origins and workings of this popular program. Daniel Béland answers the call for objective information with a short history that provides context and clarity for the current debates.

Covering six decades through the beginning of the current century, Béland chronicles how Social Security and the controversy surrounding its solvency have evolved, offering along the way new insights into its past, present, and future. His balanced perspective will help readers understand and evaluate partisan arguments on both sides of the issue.

Béland reconstructs the political history of Social Security, describes the impact of subsequent amendments to the original act, and offers comparative insights from other countries that can improve our understanding of the debate. He focuses particularly on the relationship between ideas and institutions in policymaking to examine the impact of gender and race on Social Security politics; and he shows that gender has had a more direct impact on Social Security development-especially regarding spousal benefits-and is more important in understanding the politics of reform than has often been understood.

In assessing how Social Security has been sold to the public, Béland reveals how the 1935 act resulted in part from its link with the traditional American belief in the values associated with hard work and self-reliance, while surreptitiously providing some economic security for the impoverished. Today's privatizers argue for changing from a guaranteed benefit to a defined contribution program, seeking to reclaim from liberals the rhetoric about American values in order to alter the very nature of Social Security-effectually turning discourse centered on personal and collective gain against the institutional legacy of the New Deal.

Succinct and illuminating, Béland's work provides concerned citizens with a thoughtful exploration of how the politics of Social Security evolved, while offering scholars new theoretical insights about the welfare state and the role of ideas and institutions in policymaking.

Key Events in African History: A Reference Guide

Key Events in African History: A Reference Guide Review

This reference guide to African history provides substantive entries on 36 watershed events that shaped the history of the continent from the prehistoric past to the dawn of the 21st century. Noted African scholar Toyin Falola clearly and articulately chronicles the growth and change of the continent from the agricultural revolution through colonial rule to African independence and the end of apartheid, examining the powerful moments at which Africa became drawn into the global world. Each entry appears in chronological order and consists of a comprehensive essay on the event, its historical, social, and geographic context, and its long-term significance. Many illustrations and maps provide valuable visual tools for the reader. Each entry concludes with suggestions for further reading. A narrative introduction to the history of the continent and a timeline of events place the events in historical and global context.

Based on the latest scholarship, this reference work analyzes the major events in African history and their ramifications, and draws connections between the past and the present. Key themes recur throughout: the development of diverse African cultures, Arab and European incursions and influence, and the efforts of African peoples to gain independence in the 20th century. Among the events recounted are the Iron Age, the rise of the Kush, the spread of Islam, the 19th-century outbreak of Islamic Jihad, the Atlantic slave trade, European conquest and the African response, Pan-Africanism, the women's decade of 1965-1975, and environmental and political challenges of the last years of the 20th century. Well written and objective, this work is an essential reference tool for students and an excellent complement to the study of African history.

Event History Analysis With Stata

Event History Analysis With Stata Review

Event History Analysis With Stata provides an introduction to event history modeling techniques using Stata (version 9), a widely used statistical program that provides tools for data analysis. The book emphasizes the usefulness of event history models for causal analysis in the social sciences and the application of continuous-time models.
 
The authors illustrate the entire research path required in the application of event-history analysis, from the initial problems of recording event-oriented data, to data organization, to applications using the software, to the interpretation of results. The book also demonstrates, through example, how to implement hypotheses tests and how to choose the right model. The strengths and limitations of various techniques are emphasized in each example, along with an introduction to the model, details on how to input data, and the related Stata commands. Each application is accompanied by a brief explanation of the underlying statistical concept.
 
Readers are offered the unique opportunity to easily run and modify all of the book’s application examples on a computer, by visiting the author’s Web site at http://www.uni-bamberg.de/sowi/soziologie-i/eha/. Examples include survival rates of patients in medical studies; unemployment periods in economic studies; and the time it takes a criminal to break the law after his release in a criminological study. This new book supplements Event History Analysis, by Blossfeld et al, and Techniques of Event History Modeling, by Blossfeld and Rohwer, extending on their coverage of practical applications and statistical theory.
 
Intended for researchers in a variety of fields such as statistics, economics, psychology, sociology, and political science, Event History Analysis With Stata also serves as a text, in combination with the authors’ other two books, for courses on event history analysis.

A History of Germany 1918-2008: The Divided Nation

A History of Germany 1918-2008: The Divided Nation Review

A History of Germany 1918-2008: The Divided Nation Feature

• ISBN13: 9781405188142
• Condition: New
• Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

The third edition of A History of Germany traces the dramatic social, cultural, and political tensions in Germany since 1918.

• Offers a persuasive interpretation of the dynamics of twentieth-century German history
• Treats German history from 1918-2008 from the perspective of division and reunification, covering East and West German history in equal depth
• Covers the self-destructive Weimar Republic, the extremes of genocide and military aggression in the Nazi era, the division of the nation in the Cold War, and the collapse of communist East Germany and unification in 1990
• New edition includes updates throughout, especially covering the Nazi period and the Holocaust; a new chapter on Germany since the 1990s; and a substantially revised and updated bibliography

Spirit of Rebellion: Labor and Religion in the New Cotton South (Working Class in American History)

Spirit of Rebellion: Labor and Religion in the New Cotton South (Working Class in American History) Review

Winner of the Herbert G. Gutman Prize from the Labor and Working-Class History Association 

In Spirit of Rebellion, Jarod Roll documents an alternative tradition of American protest by linking working-class political movements to grassroots religious revivals. He reveals how ordinary rural citizens in the south used available resources and their shared faith to defend their agrarian livelihoods amid the political and economic upheaval of the first half of the twentieth century. 

On the frontier of the New Cotton South in Missouri's Bootheel, the relationships between black and white farmers were complicated by racial tensions and bitter competition. Despite these divisions, workers found common ground as dissidents fighting for economic security, decent housing, and basic health, ultimately drawing on the democratic potential of evangelical religion to wage working-class revolts against commodity agriculture and the political forces that buoyed it. Roll convincingly shows how the moral clarity and spiritual vigor these working people found in the burgeoning Pentecostal revivals gave them the courage and fortitude to develop an expansive agenda of workers' rights by tapping into the powers of existing organizations such as the Socialist Party, the Universal Negro Improvement Association, the NAACP, and the interracial Southern Tenant Farmers' Union.

Astropolitik: Classical Geopolitics in the Space Age (Strategy and History)

Astropolitik: Classical Geopolitics in the Space Age (Strategy and History) Review

This volume identifies and evaluates the relationship between outer-space geography and geographic position (astrogeography), and the evolution of current and future military space strategy. In doing so, it explores five primary propositions.

Education in a Free Society: An American History (8th Edition)

Education in a Free Society: An American History (8th Edition) Review

This text provides a comprehensive, chronological history of American educational ideas and practices in their social context. The text focuses on major events and figures - including John Dewey, Jean Piaget, and Howard Gardner - from the colonial period to the present.

Disease and the Modern World: 1500 to the Present Day (Themes in History)

Disease and the Modern World: 1500 to the Present Day (Themes in History) Review

'Mark Harrison's book illuminates the threats posed by infectious diseases since 1500. He places these diseases within an international perspective, and demonstrates the relationship between European expansion and changing epidemiological patterns. The book is a significant introduction to a fascinating subject.' Gerald N. Grob, Rutgers State University


In this lively and accessible book, Mark Harrison charts the history of disease from the birth of the modern world around 1500 through to the present day. He explores how the rise of modern nation-states was closely linked to the threat posed by disease, and particularly infectious, epidemic diseases. He examines the ways in which disease and its treatment and prevention, changed over the centuries, under the impact of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, and with the advent of scientific medicine.





For the first time, the author integrates the history of disease in the West with a broader analysis of the rise of the modern world, as it was transformed by commerce, slavery, and colonial rule. Disease played a vital role in this process, easing European domination in some areas, limiting it in others. Harrison goes on to show how a new environment was produced in which poverty and education rather than geography became the main factors in the distribution of disease.





Assuming no prior knowledge of the history of disease, Disease and the Modern World provides an invaluable introduction to one of the richest and most important areas of history. It will be essential reading for all undergraduates and postgraduates taking courses in the history of disease and medicine, and for anyone interested in how disease has shaped, and has been shaped by, the modern world.

Introduction to the New Testament, Vol. 1: History, Culture, and Religion of the Hellenistic Age (2nd edition)

Introduction to the New Testament, Vol. 1: History, Culture, and Religion of the Hellenistic Age (2nd edition) Review

Among the striking features that distinguish this comprehensive two-volume work, now complete in its second edition, from other books of similar title are its wide historical scope, its tretment of early Christian literature in the chronological sequence, and the inclusion of over sixty noncanonical Christian documents.

Volume 2, after considering problems related to the interpretation of early Christian writings - transmission, canon, text, form criticism, literary criticism, and narrative and rhetorical criticism - unfolds the story of the early Christian communities and their literature from John the Baptist and Jesus to Justin Martyr, Valentinus, and Polycarp.

This narrative has been written in a readable, nontechnical style, supplemented by current bibliographies for each selection that include listings of the best editions of original texts as well as the most accessible English translations. An essential work for students, teachers, and clergy, this set will also appeal to the educated layperson looking for a scholary treatment of the New Testament and its background in the world of Jewish and Greco-Roman antiquity.

Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol Empire: A Cultural History of Islamic Textiles (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization)

Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol Empire: A Cultural History of Islamic Textiles (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization) Review

In the thirteenth century the Mongols created a vast transcontinental empire that transported skilled artisans from one cultural zone to another. Among those transported were Muslim textile workers, resettled in China, where they made clothes for the imperial court. In a fascinating account, the author considers the significance of cloth and color in the political and cultural life of the Mongols. Situated within the broader context of the history of the Silk Road, the book will interest not only historians of the Middle East and Asia, but also art historians and textile specialists.

Popular Justice: A History of American Criminal Justice

Popular Justice: A History of American Criminal Justice Review

This popular one-volume analysis of the evolution of American criminal justice places contemporary issues of crime and justice in historical perspective. Walker identifies the major periods in the development of the American system of criminal justice, from the small institutions of the colonial period to the creation of the police, the prison, and the juvenile court in the nineteenth century and the search for professionalism in the twentieth century. He argues that the democratic tradition is responsible for the worst as well as the best in the history of criminal justice in the United States. Offering a challenging perspective on current controversies in the administration of criminal justice in light of historical origins, the author explores the evolving conflict between the advocates of crime control and the advocates of due process.
Now in its second edition, Popular Justice has been completely revised to include the most recent scholarship on crime and justice. Walker has updated his analysis of the history of American criminal justice and explores the tension between popular passions and the rule of law. He examines changing patterns in criminal activity, the institutional development of the system of criminal justice, and the major issues concerning the administration of justice. Timely and comprehensive, this text will be useful for courses in criminal justice, legal history, and criminology.