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Why American Elections Are Flawed (And How to Fix Them) - Pippa Norris - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Why American Elections Are Flawed (And How to Fix Them) - Pippa Norris - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

The flaws in the American electoral process have become increasingly apparent in recent years. The contemporary tipping point in public awareness occurred during the 2000 election count, and concern deepened due to several major problems observed in the 2016 campaign, worsening party polarization, and corroding public trust in the legitimacy of the outcome.To gather evidence about the quality of elections around the world, in 2012 the Electoral Integrity Project (EIP) was established as an independent research project based at Harvard and Sydney universities. The results show that experts rated American elections as the worst among all Western democracies. Without reform, these problems risk damaging the legitimacy of American elections—further weakening public confidence in political parties, Congress, and the U.S. government, depressing voter turnout, and exacerbating the risks of mass protests. Why American Elections Are Flawed describes several major challenges observed during the 2016 U.S. elections arising from deepening party polarization over basic voting procedures, the serious risks of hacking and weak cyber-security, the consequences of deregulating campaign spending, and lack of professional and impartial electoral management. Pippa Norris outlines the core concept and measure of electoral integrity, the key yardstick used to evaluate free and fair elections. Evidence from expert and mass surveys demonstrate the extent of problems in American elections. She shows how these challenges could be addressed through several practical steps designed to improve electoral procedures and practices. If implemented, the reforms will advance free and fair elections, and liberal democracy, at home and abroad.

DKK 111.00
1

The Blue Kind - Kathryn Born - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

The Blue Kind - Kathryn Born - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

In Neom the laws of physics are lax and everyone still gets high. The city squares do it so they can keep working non-stop. The hipsters do it so they can accept things as they are and not how they want them to be. And for a thousand years, Alison has done it to cope with the burdens of immortality. If you can''t die, she says, at least you can be as stoned as the living dead. So begins The Blue Kind , a dystopian drug-fantasy that unfolds in the apocalyptic debris of an all but unrecognizable American city. In the wake of Drug War II, all the soldiers have become dealers and all the women have become collateral for the intoxicants they both peddle and pop like Skittles. But a powerful new drug is rumored to top them all, one that will fix everything wrong with Alison''s life, but one that is cooked and sold by her fiercest adversary: a dealer who threatens to destroy her entire world. Brimming with a rich and labyrinth plot, indelible characters, and an unforgettable ending, The Blue Kind is as wild a ride as they come: a free-wheeling read about the cycle of addiction that is, itself, addictive.

DKK 167.00
1

Signs of Grace - Kristin Schwain - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Signs of Grace - Kristin Schwain - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Religious imagery was ubiquitous in late-nineteenth-century American life: department stores, schoolbooks, postcards, and popular magazines all featured elements of Christian visual culture. Such imagery was not limited to commercial and religious artifacts, however, for it also found its way into contemporary fine art. In Signs of Grace, Kristin Schwain looks anew at the explicitly religious work of four prominent artists in this period—Thomas Eakins, F. Holland Day, Abbott Handerson Thayer, and Henry Ossawa Tanner—and argues that art and religion performed analogous functions within American culture. Fully expressing the concerns and values of turn-of-the-century Americans, this artwork depicted religious figures and encouraged the beholders'' communion with them. Describing how these artists drew on their religious beliefs and practices, as well as how beholders looked to art to provide a transcendent experience, Schwain explores how a modern conception of faith as an individual relationship with the divine facilitated this sanctified relationship between art and viewer. This stress on the interior and subjective experience of religion accentuated the artist''s efforts to engage beholders personally with works of art; how better to fix the viewer''s attention than to hold out the promise of salvation? Schwain shows that while these new visual practices emphasized individual encounters with art objects, they also carried profound social implications. By negotiating changes in religious belief—by aestheticizing faith in a new, particularly American manner—these practices contributed to evolving debates about art, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender.

DKK 329.00
1

The Commander-in-Chief Test - Jeffrey A. Friedman - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

The Commander-in-Chief Test - Jeffrey A. Friedman - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

In The Commander-in-Chief Test , Jeffrey A. Friedman offers a fresh explanation for why Americans are often frustrated by the cost and scope of US foreign policy—and how we can fix that for the future. Americans frequently criticize US foreign policy for being overly costly and excessively militaristic. With its rising defense budgets and open-ended "forever wars," US foreign policy often appears disconnected from public opinion, reflecting the views of elites and special interests rather than the attitudes of ordinary citizens. The Commander-in-Chief Test argues that this conventional wisdom underestimates the role public opinion plays in shaping foreign policy. Voters may prefer to elect leaders who share their policy views, but they prioritize selecting presidents who seem to have the right personal attributes to be an effective commander in chief. Leaders then use hawkish foreign policies as tools for showing that they are tough enough to defend America''s interests on the international stage. This link between leaders'' policy positions and their personal images steers US foreign policy in directions that are more hawkish than what voters actually want. Combining polling data with survey experiments and original archival research on cases from the Vietnam War through the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, Friedman demonstrates that public opinion plays a surprisingly extensive—and often problematic—role in shaping US international behavior. With the commander-in-chief test, a perennial point of debate in national elections, Friedman''s insights offer important lessons on how the politics of image-making impacts foreign policy and how the public should choose its president.

DKK 312.00
1

Speaking of Slavery - Steven A. Epstein - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Speaking of Slavery - Steven A. Epstein - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

In this highly original work, Steven A. Epstein shows that the ways Italians employ words and think about race and labor are profoundly affected by the language used in medieval Italy to sustain a system of slavery. The author''s findings about the surprising persistence of the "language of slavery" demonstrate the difficulty of escaping the legacy of a shameful past. For Epstein, language is crucial to understanding slavery, for it preserves the hidden conditions of that institution. He begins his book by discussing the words used to conduct and describe slavery in Italy, from pertinent definitions given in early dictionaries, to the naming of slaves by their masters, to the ways in which bondage has been depicted by Italian writers from Dante to Primo Levi and Antonio Gramsci. Epstein then probes Italian legal history, tracing the evolution of contracts for buying, selling, renting, and freeing people. Next he considers the behaviors of slaves and slave owners as a means of exploring how concepts of liberty and morality changed over time. He concludes by analyzing the language of the market, where medieval Italians used words to fix the prices of people they bought and sold. The first history of slavery in Italy ever published, Epstein''s work has important implications for other societies, particularly America''s. "For too long," Epstein notes, "Americans have studied their own slavery as it if were the only one ever to have existed, as if it were the archetype of all others." His book allows citizens of the United States and other former slave-holding nations a richer understanding of their past and present.

DKK 549.00
1

Watch Your Back! - Richard A. Deyo - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Watch Your Back! - Richard A. Deyo - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Over the past twenty years, treatment of back pain has become ever more expensive and intensive. Use of MRI scans, narcotic painkillers, injections, and invasive spine surgery have all grown by several hundred percent. In some areas of medicine, newer treatments have improved quality and duration of life, but as back pain is treated more aggressively, annual surveys of people with back pain report steadily worse impairments. In Watch Your Back! , Richard A. Deyo, MD, proposes an approach to managing back pain, which most adults in the United States experience at some point, that empowers the individual and leads more directly to effective care. Though it may seem counterintuitive, fewer medical interventions may produce better results. Expecting a probe, a pill, or a procedure to cure back pain is usually unrealistic, yet entire industries promote the notion that someone else will "fix" you. Watch Your Back! exposes these flaws in the current approach to back pain, along with the profit motives and conflicts of interest behind many of them. The book dramatizes the problems with stories of prominent individuals who encountered high-tech pitfalls, then found low-tech solutions suited to their lifestyles and the nature of their back pain. Watch Your Back! will be useful not only for people with back pain but also for doctors and policy makers. Our health care system has a growing interest in reducing waste, overuse, and unnecessary care. There’s a consensus that health care is too expensive and that we get too little for the money. Back pain exemplifies a problem for which we can simultaneously improve quality of care and reduce costs.

DKK 195.00
1

Speaking of Slavery - Steven A. Epstein - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Speaking of Slavery - Steven A. Epstein - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

In this highly original work, Steven A. Epstein shows that the ways Italians employ words and think about race and labor are profoundly affected by the language used in medieval Italy to sustain a system of slavery. The author''s findings about the surprising persistence of the "language of slavery" demonstrate the difficulty of escaping the legacy of a shameful past. For Epstein, language is crucial to understanding slavery, for it preserves the hidden conditions of that institution. He begins his book by discussing the words used to conduct and describe slavery in Italy, from pertinent definitions given in early dictionaries, to the naming of slaves by their masters, to the ways in which bondage has been depicted by Italian writers from Dante to Primo Levi and Antonio Gramsci. Epstein then probes Italian legal history, tracing the evolution of contracts for buying, selling, renting, and freeing people. Next he considers the behaviors of slaves and slave owners as a means of exploring how concepts of liberty and morality changed over time. He concludes by analyzing the language of the market, where medieval Italians used words to fix the prices of people they bought and sold. The first history of slavery in Italy ever published, Epstein''s work has important implications for other societies, particularly America''s. "For too long," Epstein notes, "Americans have studied their own slavery as it if were the only one ever to have existed, as if it were the archetype of all others." His book allows citizens of the United States and other former slave-holding nations a richer understanding of their past and present.

DKK 262.00
1

Between Two Motherlands - Theodora K. Dragostinova - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Between Two Motherlands - Theodora K. Dragostinova - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

In 1900, some 100,000 people living in Bulgaria—2 percent of the country’s population—could be described as Greek, whether by nationality, language, or religion. The complex identities of the population—proud heirs of ancient Hellenic colonists, loyal citizens of their Bulgarian homeland, members of a wider Greek diasporic community, devout followers of the Orthodox Patriarchate in Istanbul, and reluctant supporters of the Greek government in Athens—became entangled in the growing national tensions between Bulgaria and Greece during the first half of the twentieth century. In Between Two Motherlands, Theodora Dragostinova explores the shifting allegiances of this Greek minority in Bulgaria. Diverse social groups contested the meaning of the nation, shaping and reshaping what it meant to be Greek and Bulgarian during the slow and painful transition from empire to nation-states in the Balkans. In these decades, the region was racked by a series of upheavals (the Balkan Wars, World War I, interwar population exchanges, World War II, and Communist revolutions). The Bulgarian Greeks were caught between the competing agendas of two states increasingly bent on establishing national homogeneity. Based on extensive research in the archives of Bulgaria and Greece, as well as fieldwork in the two countries, Dragostinova shows that the Greek population did not blindly follow Greek nationalist leaders but was torn between identification with the land of their birth and loyalty to the Greek cause. Many emigrated to Greece in response to nationalist pressures; others sought to maintain their Greek identity and traditions within Bulgaria; some even switched sides when it suited their personal interests. National loyalties remained fluid despite state efforts to fix ethnic and political borders by such means as population movements, minority treaties, and stringent citizenship rules. The lessons of a case such as this continue to reverberate wherever and whenever states try to adjust national borders in regions long inhabited by mixed populations.

DKK 455.00
1

Kidnapped Souls - Tara Zahra - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Kidnapped Souls - Tara Zahra - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Throughout the nineteenth and into the early decades of the twentieth century, it was common for rural and working-class parents in the Czech-German borderlands to ensure that their children were bilingual by sending them to live with families who spoke the "other" language. As nationalism became a more potent force in Central Europe, however, such practices troubled pro-German and pro-Czech activists, who feared that the children born to their nation could literally be "lost" or "kidnapped" from the national community through such experiences and, more generally, by parents who were either flexible about national belonging or altogether indifferent to it. Highlighting this indifference to nationalism—and concerns about such apathy among nationalists—Kidnapped Souls offers a surprising new perspective on Central European politics and society in the first half of the twentieth century. Drawing on Austrian, Czech, and German archives, Tara Zahra shows how nationalists in the Bohemian Lands worked to forge political cultures in which children belonged more rightfully to the national collective than to their parents. Through their educational and social activism to fix the boundaries of nation and family, Zahra finds, Czech and German nationalists reveal the set of beliefs they shared about children, family, democracy, minority rights, and the relationship between the individual and the collective. Zahra shows that by 1939 a vigorous tradition of Czech-German nationalist competition over children had created cultures that would shape the policies of the Nazi occupation and the Czech response to it. The book''s concluding chapter weighs the prehistory and consequences of the postwar expulsion of German families from the Bohemian Lands. Kidnapped Souls is a significant contribution to our understanding of the genealogy of modern nationalism in Central Europe and a groundbreaking exploration of the ways in which children have been the objects of political contestation when national communities have sought to shape, or to reshape, their futures.

DKK 380.00
1

First, Do Less Harm - - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

First, Do Less Harm - - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Each year, hospital-acquired infections, prescribing and treatment errors, lost documents and test reports, communication failures, and other problems have caused thousands of deaths in the United States, added millions of days to patients’ hospital stays, and cost Americans tens of billions of dollars. Despite (and sometimes because of) new medical information technology and numerous well-intentioned initiatives to address these problems, threats to patient safety remain and in some areas are on the rise. In First, Do Less Harm, twelve health care professionals and researchers plus two former patients look at patient safety from a variety of perspectives, finding many of the proposed solutions to be inadequate or impractical. Several contributors to this book attribute the failure to confront patient safety concerns to the influence of the "market model" on medicine and emphasize the need for hospital-wide teamwork and greater involvement from frontline workers (from janitors and aides to nurses and physicians) in planning, implementing, and evaluating effective safety initiatives. Several chapters in First, Do Less Harm focus on the critical role of interprofessional and occupational practice in patient safety. Rather than focusing on the usual suspects—physicians, safety champions, or high level management—these chapters expand the list of "stakeholders" and patient safety advocates to include nurses, patient care assistants, and other staff, as well as the health care unions that may represent them. First, Do Less Harm also highlights workplace issues that negatively affect safety: including sleeplessness, excessive workloads, outsourcing of hospital cleaning, and lack of teamwork between physicians and other health care staff. In two chapters, experts explain why the promise of health care information technology to fix safety problems remains unrealized, with examples that are at once humorous and frightening. A book that will be required reading for physicians, nurses, hospital administrators, public health officers, quality and risk managers, healthcare educators, economists, and policymakers, First, Do Less Harm concludes with a list of twenty-seven paradoxes and challenges facing everyone interested in making care safe for both patients and those who care for them.

DKK 276.00
1

History and Its Limits - Dominick Lacapra - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

History and Its Limits - Dominick Lacapra - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Dominick LaCapra''s History and Its Limits articulates the relations among intellectual history, cultural history, and critical theory, examining the recent rise of "Practice Theory" and probing the limitations of prevalent forms of humanism. LaCapra focuses on the problem of understanding extreme cases, specifically events and experiences involving violence and victimization. He asks how historians treat and are simultaneously implicated in the traumatic processes they attempt to represent. In addressing these questions, he also investigates violence''s impact on various types of writing and establishes a distinctive role for critical theory in the face of an insufficiently discriminating aesthetic of the sublime (often unreflectively amalgamated with the uncanny). In History and Its Limits, LaCapra inquires into the related phenomenon of a turn to the "postsecular," even the messianic or the miraculous, in recent theoretical discussions of extreme events by such prominent figures as Giorgio Agamben, Eric L. Santner, and Slavoj Zizek. In a related vein, he discusses Martin Heidegger''s evocative, if not enchanting, understanding of "The Origin of the Work of Art." LaCapra subjects to critical scrutiny the sometimes internally divided way in which violence has been valorized in sacrificial, regenerative, or redemptive terms by a series of important modern intellectuals on both the far right and the far left, including Georges Sorel, the early Walter Benjamin, Georges Bataille, Frantz Fanon, and Ernst Jünger. Violence and victimization are prominent in the relation between the human and the animal. LaCapra questions prevalent anthropocentrism (evident even in theorists of the "posthuman") and the long-standing quest for a decisive criterion separating or dividing the human from the animal. LaCapra regards this attempt to fix the difference as misguided and potentially dangerous because it renders insufficiently problematic the manner in which humans treat other animals and interact with the environment. In raising the issue of desirable transformations in modernity, History and Its Limits examines the legitimacy of normative limits necessary for life in common and explores the disconcerting role of transgressive initiatives beyond limits (including limits blocking the recognition that humans are themselves animals).

DKK 262.00
1

Kidnapped Souls - Tara Zahra - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Kidnapped Souls - Tara Zahra - Bog - Cornell University Press - Plusbog.dk

Throughout the nineteenth and into the early decades of the twentieth century, it was common for rural and working-class parents in the Czech-German borderlands to ensure that their children were bilingual by sending them to live with families who spoke the "other" language. As nationalism became a more potent force in Central Europe, however, such practices troubled pro-German and pro-Czech activists, who feared that the children born to their nation could literally be "lost" or "kidnapped" from the national community through such experiences and, more generally, by parents who were either flexible about national belonging or altogether indifferent to it. Highlighting this indifference to nationalism—and concerns about such apathy among nationalists— Kidnapped Souls offers a surprising new perspective on Central European politics and society in the first half of the twentieth century. Drawing on Austrian, Czech, and German archives, Tara Zahra shows how nationalists in the Bohemian Lands worked to forge political cultures in which children belonged more rightfully to the national collective than to their parents. Through their educational and social activism to fix the boundaries of nation and family, Zahra finds, Czech and German nationalists reveal the set of beliefs they shared about children, family, democracy, minority rights, and the relationship between the individual and the collective. Zahra shows that by 1939 a vigorous tradition of Czech-German nationalist competition over children had created cultures that would shape the policies of the Nazi occupation and the Czech response to it. The book''s concluding chapter weighs the prehistory and consequences of the postwar expulsion of German families from the Bohemian Lands. Kidnapped Souls is a significant contribution to our understanding of the genealogy of modern nationalism in Central Europe and a groundbreaking exploration of the ways in which children have been the objects of political contestation when national communities have sought to shape, or to reshape, their futures.

DKK 282.00
1