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At the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, South Africa, visitors confront the past upon arrival. They must decide whether to enter the museum through a door marked "whites" or another marked "non-whites." Inside, along with text, they encounter hanging nooses and other reminders of apartheid-era atrocities. In the United States, museum exhibitions about racial violence and segregation are mostly confined to black history museums, with national history museums sidelining such difficult material. Even the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture is dedicated not to violent histories of racial domination but to a more generalized narrative about black identity and culture. The scale at which violent racial pasts have been incorporated into South African national historical narratives is lacking in the U.S. Desegregating the Past considers why this is the case, tracking the production and display of historical representations of racial pasts at museums in both countries and what it reveals about underlying social anxieties, unsettled emotions, and aspirations surrounding contemporary social fault lines around race. Robyn Autry consults museum archives, conducts interviews with staff, and recounts the public and private battles fought over the creation and content of history museums. Despite vast differences in the development of South African and U.S. society, Autry finds a common set of ideological, political, economic, and institutional dilemmas arising out of the selective reconstruction of the past. Museums have played a major role in shaping public memory, at times recognizing and at other times blurring the ongoing influence of historical crimes. The narratives museums produce to engage with difficult, violent histories expose present anxieties concerning identity, (mis)recognition, and ongoing conflict.

"Fragile families"—unmarried parents who struggle emotionally and financially—are one of the primary targets of the Healthy Marriage Initiative, a federal policy that has funded marriage education programs in nearly every state. These programs, which encourage marriage by teaching relationship skills, are predicated on the hope that married couples can provide a more emotionally and financially stable home for their children. Healthy marriage policy promotes a pro-marriage culture in which two-parent married families are considered the healthiest. It also assumes that marriage can be a socioeconomic survival mechanism for low-income families, and an engine of upward mobility. Through interviews with couples and her own observations and participation in marriage education courses, Jennifer M. Randles challenges these assumptions and critically examines the effects of such classes on participants. She takes the reader inside healthy marriage classrooms to reveal how their curricula are reflections of broader issues of culture, gender, governance, and social inequality. In analyzing the implementation of healthy marriage policy, Randles questions whether it should target individual behavior or the social and economic context of that behavior. The most valuable approach, she concludes, will not be grounded in notions of middle-class marriage culture. Instead, it will reflect the fundamental premise that love and commitment thrive most within the context of social and economic opportunity.

Initially marketed as a life-saving advancement, flame retardants are now mired in controversy. Some argue that data show the chemicals are unsafe while others continue to support their use. The tactics of each side have far-reaching consequences for how we interpret new scientific discoveries. An experienced environmental sociologist, Alissa Cordner conducts more than a hundred interviews with activists, scientists, regulators, and industry professionals to isolate the social, scientific, economic, and political forces influencing environmental health policy today. Introducing “strategic science translation,” she describes how stakeholders use scientific evidence to support nonscientific goals and construct “conceptual risk formulas” to shape risk assessment and the interpretation of empirical evidence. A revelatory text for public-health advocates, Toxic Safety demonstrates that while all parties interested in health issues use science to support their claims, they do not compete on a level playing field and even good intentions can have deleterious effects.

This book introduces a process-based, patient-centered approach to palliative care that substantiates an indication-oriented treatment and radical reconsideration of our transition to death. Drawing on decades of work with terminally ill cancer patients and a trove of research on near-death experiences, Monika Renz encourages practitioners to not only safeguard patients’ dignity as they die but also take stock of their verbal, nonverbal, and metaphorical cues as they progress, helping to personalize treatment and realize a more peaceful death. Renz divides dying into three parts: pre-transition, transition, and post-transition. As we die, all egoism and ego-centered perception fall away, bringing us to another state of consciousness, a different register of sensitivity, and an alternative dimension of spiritual connectedness. As patients pass through these stages, they offer nonverbal signals that indicate their gradual withdrawal from everyday consciousness. This transformation explains why emotional and spiritual issues become enhanced during the dying process. Relatives and practitioners are often deeply impressed and feel a sense of awe. Fear and struggle shift to trust and peace; denial melts into acceptance. At first, family problems and the need for reconciliation are urgent, but gradually these concerns fade. By delineating these processes, Renz helps practitioners grow more cognizant of the changing emotions and symptoms of the patients under their care, enabling them to respond with the utmost respect for their patients’ dignity.

When she started working with the aged more than forty years ago, Ann Burack-Weiss began storing the knowledge and skills she thought would help when she got old herself. It was not until she hit her mid-seventies that she realized she had packed sneakers to climb Mount Everest, not anticipating the crevices and chasms that constitute the rocky terrain of old age. The professional gerontological and social work literature offered little help, so she turned to the late-life works of beloved women authors who had bravely climbed the mountain and sent back news from the summit. Maya Angelou, Colette, Simone de Beauvoir, Joan Didion, Marguerite Duras, M. F. K. Fisher, Doris Lessing, Mary Oliver, Adrienne Rich, May Sarton, and Florida Scott-Maxwell were among the many guides she turned to for inspiration. In The Lioness in Winter, Burack-Weiss blends an analysis of key writings from these and other famed women authors with her own wisdom to create an essential companion for older women and those who care for them. She fearlessly examines issues such as living with loss, finding comfort and joy in unexpected places, and facing disability and death. This book is filled with powerful passages from women who turned their experiences of aging into art, and Burack-Weiss ties their words to her own struggles and epiphanies, framing their collective observations with key insights from social work practice.

Reaching as far back as ancient times, Ronojoy Sen pairs a novel history of India’s engagement with sport and a probing analysis of its cultural and political development under monarchy and colonialism, and as an independent nation. Some sports that originated in India have fallen out of favor, while others, such as cricket, have been adopted and made wholly India’s own. Sen’s innovative project casts sport less as a natural expression of human competition than as an instructive practice reflecting a unique play with power, morality, aesthetics, identity, and money. Sen follows the transformation of sport from an elite, kingly pastime to a national obsession tied to colonialism, nationalism, and free market liberalization. He pays special attention to two modern phenomena: the dominance of cricket in the Indian consciousness and the chronic failure of a billion-strong nation to compete successfully in international sporting competitions, such as the Olympics. Innovatively incorporating examples from popular media and other unconventional sources, Sen not only captures the political nature of sport in India but also reveals the patterns of patronage, clientage, and institutionalization that have bound this diverse nation together for centuries.

This book recounts a series of discussions between philosopher Jorge J. E. Gracia and fifteen prominent scholars on race, ethnicity, nationality, and Hispanic/Latino identity in the United States. These debates relate to two distinct traditions: the philosophy of race begun by African Americans in the nineteenth century, and the search for an understanding of identity initiated by Latin American philosophers in the sixteenth century. Participants include Linda M. Alcoff, K. Anthony Appiah, Richard J. Bernstein, Lawrence Blum, Robert Gooding-Williams, Eduardo Mendieta, and Lucius T. Outlaw Jr. The resulting dialogues reflect the analytic, Aristotelian, Continental, literary, Marxist, and pragmatic schools of thought. The debates cover the philosophy of Hispanics/Latinos in the United States and then move on to the philosophy of African Americans and Anglo Americans in the United States and the philosophy of Latin Americans in Latin America. Gracia and his interlocutors discuss the nature of race and ethnicity and their relation to nationality, linguistic rights, matters of identity, and affirmative action. They bind the concepts of race and ethnicity together in ways that open up new paths of inquiry. Gracia's familial-historical theory of ethnic and Hispanic/Latino identity operates at the center of each of these discussions, providing access to the philosopher's arguments while adding depth to issues that can be difficult to understand.

This book reveals the cultural and biological realities of race, gender, and sexual orientation from the perspective of the blind. Through ten case studies and dozens of interviews, the book taps directly into the phenomenology of race, gender, and sexual orientation among blind individuals, along with the everyday epistemology of vision. It reveals not only how the blind create systems of meaning out of cultural norms but also how cultural norms inform our conscious and unconscious interactions with others regardless of our physical ability to see.

Popularized by Michael Pollan in his best-selling In Defense of Food, this book's concept of nutritionism refers to the reductive understanding of nutrients as the key indicators of healthy food—an approach that has dominated nutrition science, dietary advice, and food marketing. The book argues this ideology has narrowed and in some cases distorted our appreciation of food quality, such that even highly processed foods may be perceived as healthful depending on their content of “good” or “bad” nutrients. Investigating the butter versus margarine debate, the battle between low-fat, low-carb, and other weight-loss diets, and the food industry's strategic promotion of nutritionally enhanced foods, the book reveals the scientific, social, and economic factors driving our modern fascination with nutrition. The book develops an original framework and terminology for analyzing the characteristics and consequences of nutritionism since the late nineteenth century. It begins with the era of quantification, in which the idea of protective nutrients, caloric reductionism, and vitamins' curative effects took shape. It follows with the era of good and bad nutritionism, which set nutricentric dietary guidelines and defined the parameters of unhealthy nutrients; and concludes with our current era of functional nutritionism, in which the focus has shifted to targeted nutrients, superfoods, and optimal diets. The book ultimately shows how nutritionism has aligned the demands and perceived needs of consumers with the commercial interests of food manufacturers and corporations. It also offers an alternative paradigm for assessing the healthfulness of foods-the food quality paradigm—that privileges food production and processing quality, cultural—traditional knowledge, and sensual-practical experience, and promotes less reductive forms of nutrition research and dietary advice.

This book looks at the phenomenon of food culture, food lore, cooking methods, and eating habits throughout history. The book provides stimulating food for thought for those curious about one of life's most fundamental pleasures. Focusing on the selection, preparation, and mythology of food, the book traverses such subjects as the status of the pantry over the centuries, the various strategies of cooking over time, the gastronomy of famine, the science of flavors, the changing characteristics of convivial rituals, the customs of the table, and the ever-evolving identity of food. It shows that cooking not only is a decisive part of our cultural heritage but also communicates essential information about our material and intellectual well-being. From the invention of basic bread making to chocolate's reputation for decadence, the text positions food culture as a lens through which we can plot changes in historical values and social and economic trends.

Seeking to reenergize Americans' passion for the space program, the value of further exploration of the Moon, and the importance of human beings on the final frontier, this book presents a rich history of American space exploration and its major achievements. It emphasizes the importance of reclaiming national command of the US's manned program and continuing the unmanned space missions, and it stresses the many adventures that still await us in the unfolding universe. Acknowledging space exploration's practical and financial obstacles, the book challenges us to revitalize American leadership in space exploration in order to reap its scientific bounty. The book explains why space exploration, a captivating story of ambition, invention, and discovery, is also increasingly difficult and why space experts always seem to disagree. It argues that the future of the space program requires merging the practicalities of exploration with the constraints of human biology. Space science deals with the unknown, and the margin (and budget) for error is small. Lethal near-vacuum conditions, deadly cosmic radiation, microgravity, vast distances, and highly scattered resources remain immense physical problems. To forge ahead, America needs to develop affordable space transportation and flexible exploration strategies based in sound science. The text closes with suggestions for accomplishing these goals.

This book offers an interpretation of the rise of Chinese food in the United States and reveals the forces that made this cuisine ubiquitous in the American gastronomic landscape. It describes how American diners began to flock to Chinese restaurants more than a century ago, making Chinese food the first mass-consumed cuisine in the United States. By 1980, this food had become the country's most popular ethnic cuisine. Epitomized by chop suey, American Chinese food was a forerunner of McDonald's, democratizing the once-exclusive dining-out experience for such groups as marginalized Anglos, African Americans, and Jews. The book describes the emergence of Chinese food in America as an epic story of global cultural encounter. It explains that its development was engineered by a politically disenfranchised, numerically small and economically exploited group of people and that it reflected not only changes in taste but also a growing appetite for a more leisurely lifestyle. It argues that Americans fell in love with Chinese food not because of its gastronomic excellence but because of its affordability and convenience, which is why they preferred the quick and simple dishes of China while shunning its haute cuisine. The book also characterizes the rise of Chinese food as a classic American story of immigrant entrepreneurship and perseverance: Barred from many occupations, Chinese Americans successfully turned Chinese food from a despised cuisine into a dominant force in the restaurant market, creating a critical lifeline for their community.

This book liberates cooks from the constraints of traditional ingredients and methods through the use of pure molecular compounds. 1-Octen-3-ol, which has a scent of wild mushrooms; limonene, a colorless liquid hydrocarbon that has the smell of citrus; sotolon, whose fragrance at high concentrations resembles curry and at low concentrations, maple syrup or sugar; tyrosine, an odorless but flavorful amino acid present in cheese—these and many other substances, some occurring in nature, some synthesized in the laboratory, make it possible to create novel tastes and flavors in the same way that elementary sound waves can be combined to create new sounds. This book aims to add nutritional value to dishes of all kinds, actually improving upon the health benefits of so-called natural foods. Cooking with molecular compounds will be far more energy efficient and environmentally sustainable than traditional techniques of cooking. This new way of thinking about food heralds a phase of culinary evolution on which the long-term survival of a growing human population depends. The text explains the properties of naturally occurring and synthesized compounds, dispels a host of misconceptions about the place of chemistry in cooking.

Race, while drawn from the visual cues of human diversity, is an idea with a measurable past, an identifiable present, and an uncertain future. The concept of race has been at the center of both triumphs and tragedies in American history and has had a profound effect on the human experience. This book revisits the origins of commonly held beliefs about the scientific nature of racial differences, examines the roots of the modern idea of race, and explains why race continues to generate controversy as a tool of classification even in our genomic age. Surveying the work of some of the twentieth century's most notable scientists, the book reveals how genetics and related biological disciplines formed and preserved ideas of race and, at times, racism. It elucidates the limitations of a racial worldview and throws the contours of our current and evolving understanding of human diversity into sharp relief.

In this book's interviews, winemakers from the United States and abroad clarify the complex process of converting grapes into wine, with more than forty vintners candidly discussing how a combination of talent, passion, and experience shape the outcome of their individual wines. Each winemaker details their personal approach to the various steps required to convert grapes into wine. The book presents winemakers from different backgrounds who work in diverse wine-producing regions, including Chile, England, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, and the United States. They talk about familiar and unfamiliar grape varietals, their struggles with local terroirs, and the vagaries of Mother Nature. Some represent small family wineries with limited production while others work for corporations producing hundreds of thousands of bottles. Each individual offers rare insight into how new technologies are revolutionizing historic winemaking practices. The interviews are supplemented with personal recipes and maps of winemaking regions. An aroma wheel captures the vast array of wine's complex flavors and aromas.

This book makes the case for insects as a sustainable source of protein for humans and a necessary part of our future diet. It provides consumers and chefs with the essential facts about insects for culinary use, with recipes simple enough to make at home yet boasting the international flair of the world's most chic dishes. The book features delicious recipes and interviews with top chefs, insect farmers, political figures, and nutrition experts, including chef René Redzepi, whose establishment was elected three times as “best restaurant of the world”; Kofi Annan, former secretary-general of the United Nations; and Daniella Martin of Girl Meets Bug. The book contains all you need to know about cooking with insects, where to buy them, which ones are edible, and how to store and prepare them at home and in commercial spaces.

Eating is a multisensory experience, yet chefs and scientists have only recently begun to deconstruct food's components, setting the stage for science-based cooking. This book advances culinary knowledge by testing hypotheses rooted in the physical and chemical properties of food. Using traditional and cutting-edge tools, ingredients, and techniques, the book creates, and sometimes revamps, dishes that respond to specific desires and serves up an original encounter with gastronomic practice. From the seemingly mundane to the food fantastic—from grilled cheese sandwiches, pizzas, and soft-boiled eggs to Turkish ice cream, sugar glasses, and jellified beads—the book covers a range of creations and their history and culture. It considers the significance of an eater's background and dining atmosphere and the importance of a chef's methods, as well as the strategies used to create a great diversity of foods and dishes. The book will be of interest to experts and amateurs alike, especially as restaurants rely more on science-based cooking and recreational cooks increasingly explore the physics and chemistry behind their art. Each chapter ends with the author's personal thoughts on food, cooking, and science, offering rare insight into a professional's passion for playing with food.

This book shows diverse organizations how to implement analytics into their decision-making strategies, especially as analytic tools grow increasingly complex. It provides a clear, easily digestible survey of the practice and a detailed understanding of analytics' vast possibilities. It explains how to evaluate different programs and put them to use. Using concrete examples from professional sports teams and case studies demonstrating the use and value of analytics in the field, the book designs a roadmap for managers, general managers, and other professionals as they build their own programs and teach their approach to others.

This text tells the far-flung story of how local and global influences came to flavor Italian identity. The fusion of ancient Roman cuisine—which consisted of bread, wine, and olives—with the barbarian diet—rooted in bread, milk, and meat—first formed the basics of modern eating across Europe. From there, the book highlights the importance of the Italian city in the development of gastronomic taste in the Middle Ages, the role of Arab traders in positioning the country as the supreme producers of pasta, and the nation's healthful contribution of vegetables to the fifteenth-century European diet. Italy became a receiving country with the discovery of the New World, absorbing corn, potatoes, and tomatoes into its national cuisine. As disaster dispersed Italians in the nineteenth century, new immigrant stereotypes portraying Italians as “macaroni eaters” spread. However, two world wars and globalization renewed the perception of Italy and its culture as unique in the world, and the production of food constitutes an important part of that uniqueness.