Interesting book. This is a relatively new societal issue ...
928514
Interesting book. This is a relatively new societal issue and the book is well structured to provide a framework for thinking about personal behavior with regards to the topics.
2182575
This is not an academic book. This is not a book that explains behavior. This is a modern view of the behaviors and consumption patterns of individuals of varying sexualities. It also attempts to postulate how the consumption correlates with modern dating/mating behaviors. Its an incredibly interesting read and is incredibly engaging.
1934966
This book raises some interesting points that have not bee addressed by the international community or the United States Government in a formal way.  Whether these issues have gone unaddressed by the policy makers intentionally or by accident, they will eventually have to be addressed to reduce the level of violence in the world.
4331743
An interesting approach to consideration of individual liberty in the face of the supposed greater good of society.
2919950
Surprisingly relevant historical fiction for some of the issues facing society today.
468483
The title throws you, but it is an interesting addition to understanding the troubled times, and disruption of so many people.
1311182
The issue at hand is very current. There is also the element of what would you do in the same circumstances - fight for the project to go through or let your prejudices influence your decision? This novel is a must for book discussion groups.
3600033
"Literacy, Technology, and Society, Confronting the Issues", edited by Gail E. Hawisher and Cynthia L. Selfe is a textbook made up of a collection of essays that were published in popular presses from around the world.  The essays are all based on technological issues.  Specifically, the essays regard issues of social life, education, ethics and law, gender, and government.  The text also offers comic relief with cartoons, interesting images, and advertisements.  After every essay there is a "Thinking and Re-Reading" and a "Writing and Learning" section to help understand and elaborate on the essay.

 The essays in the text are quite interesting and informative and even though they are based on technological issues they can be understood by anyone who does not know much about technology. Although the essays are interesting and informative the text was published in the year 1997.  Because technology evolves rapidly some of the issues in the text are distant from the issues we have with technology today.

 "Literacy, Technology, and Society, Confronting the Issues", is a very enlightening textbook concerning interesting topics of technological issues.  The only problem with the book is that it is timeworn considering how technology has advanced since the year 1997.  I believe that the book was much more practical eight years ago than it is today.
1547550
Very interesting, thought provoking look into what can happen when society breaks down to its bare survival instincts.  Parts of this book haunt me days later, especially when people go out of the their way to perform common courtesies like holding open a door, offering a woman a seat on the subway, or saying, "good bless you," when a stranger sneezes.  This book makes you think, how many of these people would try to kill you for your food if our world changed tomorrow.  You definitely look at life through a different lens after reading, Sky So Heavy.
502537
Elsewhere USA tells a sociological story about how American society has evolved in recent decades, initially using as its device the comparison of the imaginary types "1959 man" with "2009 man."  At the start of the book, meeting the imaginary types, I found the book a bit annoying--the description of "2009 man" seemed to me a caricature of a very particular version of modern American life: the self-important, well-educated New Yorker who has a hard time understanding that any life of value could be lived away from New York.  To my reading pleasure, and maybe to the detriment of any coherent organization for the whole book, however the importance of that charicature gradually went away as the book progressed.  Instead, it became a thought-provoking and fun to read series of riffs drawing from sociology to analyze modern life.  The book gradually demonstrates the usefulness of the sociological imagination as a lens for making sense of our social world--riffs about why we've come to accept sitting through advertising to get to watch movies in a theater, or why personal crime rates have gone down as inequality has risen, or how the idea of growing work insecurity is a myth (the book notes at several points, perhaps with a degree of psychological insecurity, that we are more likely to lose a marriage than a job).

As a social scientist myself (though not a sociologist), I didn't always agree with the interpretations offered in Elsewhere USA but I did appreciate the book's attempt to offer an accessible but educated interpretation of modern life.  The idea of a book that attempts a contemporary version of "The Organization Man" or "The Lonely Crowd" is a worthy endeavor.  It is, however, important to be aware that this books interpretations are just that--attempts to understand rather than definitive conclusions.  There is, in fact, a helpful reminder of that fact in a footnote very early in the book when market de-regulation is held up as a stabilizing force because in a globalized economy risk is so widely distributed there is little economic risk--an interpretation that seems ludicrous amidst the 'great recession' of 2009 brought on (at least in part) by reckless de-regulation.  But to the credit of "Elsewhere USA" each interpretation offered in the book is emphasized as only part of the explanation.  The social world is damn complicated, a simple fact that some find frustrating and I find fascinating.  That is also a fact that makes me appreciate this book as a series of well-crafted riffs spun into a thought provoking narrative--even if most of the individual lives I'm familiar with bear little resemblence to that of the wealthy Manhattanite caricatured here as somehow representing an epoch.
4253157
This is a new book and is worth the read -- it corroborates what a lot of us have been thinking
and reading in the latest issues on Alternative 3, the Nazi UFOs, and an evaluation of what
Gary McKinnon found when he hacked NASA in 2002 ... Solar Warden appears to be a reality after all.
It is a short book but it is packed with issues geared to make a reader think more about Alternative 3
and a probable Space Program begun in the 80's... and what that might mean for our future...
That is to say -- Why do these two issues exist? Do we need to be getting ready for something?
Read Phillips' book, evaluate the many drawings and pictures  and decide for yourself..
3639939
Very interesting reading. If you think you'd know the answers to the questions posed & answered,  you'd likely find that you might be right that the lower the socioeconomic status of an individual or group, the lower level of education. What you may not realize is the the stresses of those people higher on the food chain, as it were, have increased stresses as well, that mental health problems, alcoholism, drug abuse, obesity, teen pregnancy, physical health problems, literacy & other problems also occur across the board when these levels are distorted by the society they occur in.

Interesting that Scandinavia & Japan have the best mental health of the countries studied have the best mental health. This book states they have the narrowest divergence between their highest & lowest incomes. Those with the highest divergence & interestingly highest levels of mental health & physical health problems? The US, Britain & Portugal.

The authors argue that inequality (or it seems to me more the perception of it) breeds stress, syndromes such as depression, immune deficiency, anxiety, obesity, heart problems, addictions, premature aging, and so on.

The bottom line is that large financial inequalities in societies damage the social fabric of a country.

The tendency for more "unequal societies" to have worse health. Health indicators, including age-specific death rates, infant mortality, violence, life expectancy, and illness by the WHO, and other respected data collection areas.

These ill effects aren't from people starving or severe lack of income, but spread across all levels of income and status in socially inequitable countries/societies. Rich, poor, famous or barely making ends meet check to check, everyone is affected.

A very interesting study that everyone should read, especially the top 20% on the income chain. There is such a worship of money in unequal societies where "Keeping up with the Joneses" and income being rubbed into those with lesser incomes in our media play a significant role of making our country FAR less healthy for everyone. Those with very high incomes become the villains & thus they too are affected and have the same problems as those far lower on the food chain financially.

It appears as though societies with large income inequalities become socially dysfunctional. This is something we can change.

The authors have a web site at [...]

The problem isn't prosperity, it is equality. Sweden distributes their income for greater equality, Japan has far more equality over-all - at least the perception of equality.

Huge incomes on the top of a society are plaguing our country. Those with huge incomes take more risks & even those at the bottom of the chain are forced to bail these people & corporations out, thus it is clearly not fear.

If we all get rich, compete with others to gather more physical things/money, we are not focused on family, community, betterment for the greater good and the things that hold the fabric of a society together.

A book every rich person, president/prime minister, politician & other policy-making individuals need to take a hard look at what is making our people, and thus our society unhealthy. We have become a cast system without even realizing it. Everyone needs a voice and it is simply falling on deaf ears and creating an over-regulated society in all the wrong areas, clearly damaging everyone in our society.

It is clear that we need to work smarter, not harder & longer & that our society needs to stop bailing out the top 20% or so, and get back to a far less hustle & bustle society and back to one where everyone is valued equally.
2782583
Interesting book to raise awareness of gender psychology differences, but don't try to fit everything that happens in a relationship into these boxes.
4920063
Relevant in today's discussions of emerging new ideas of community. Interesting approach to begin talking about the idea of the modern community of today, beyond 2010, with so many people, especially in their 20's and 30's who are successful in work but may feel lonely and disconnected.  Vogl seems to have been thinking on this a lot.  In this book, Vogl puts his background and knowledge of religion, philosophy and life experiences and translates traditional, academic ideas into a kind of practicum that could be useful to many.
3779973
This book is full of very current data from recent studies and focuses heavily on newer technologies such as social media.  That being said, the real lesson is that culture needs to be supportive of people that are doing great work by "working around" the existing policies and procedures.  Instead of locking things down more an more, IT needs to reposition itself from a policing role into a supporting role.  Getting the book and its message into the hands and minds of those gatekeepers is the key, in my opinion.
2842356
This is a most intriguing book regarding the situation of the government behind the government so to speak. This definitely requires more than one reading to get the material of this well researched book. I have been aware of many attempts at subconscious control of societies by others over the years but this is the first time I have heard of say the Modernity Project. I am not so sure that there is an accelerating rise in collective empathy in the mass consciousness although there are certainly many individuals who are wakening up as to what has been going on. The solution for which I bought the book is on changing limited perceptions as to our true nature  and the false belief that we are separate from Nature or from Divinity. The author does not cover this aspect of the book as well as he does the problem although the problem per se is certainly an eye opener. It is certainly a time when we will all be required to live on the edge because where we have been has not taken us where we really want or need to go.
1178821
This is an interesting, and newish, approach to the "relationships" field. I have some issues with this approach, though; first, I believe, merely from looking back at my own history, that our "attachment styles" are much more muddled and malleable than the authors concede. And this calls into question the rather single-minded thrust of advice ("This relationship is doomed; get out now") they are giving. Hmm, "effective communication" will get you out of many jams. I don't think I've EVER heard THAT one before (wink wink). This criticism aside, the analysis of "protest behaviour" is good, and the general notion that "attachment" issues are moulded by stress is compelling. So all in all, better than "Men are from Mars ...", certainly.