God's Troublemakers: How Women of Faith Are Changing the World

Description from publisher: This is a book about women who are changing the world as leaders in the public arena. Whether Christian, Jewish or Muslim—their work is religiously or spiritually motivated. They are religious or socio-ethical entrepreneurs, who have invented organizations or movements to repair the world. What shaped and formed them? How do they integrate a progressive social agenda with their faith? How do they exercise public leadership in a world where women’s public roles are sometimes still suspect? The book is thematically organized and touches on many of the most relevant topics being discussed today: separation of church and state, the intersection of politics and religion, the silence of the progressive left and the embodiment of authentic religious pluralism. This book claims space for progressive forms of religion in an area dominated by the Religious Right.

God's Troublemakers is based on extensive interviews with 11 women social entrepreneurs. The 3 best known are Sr. Helen Prejean, the anti-death-penalty activist; Ruth Messenger, former Manhattan Borough President and now executive director of American Jewish World Service; and Helen LaKelly Hunt, who has been a national activist funding women’s causes and a leader in persuading secular feminists to make common cause with religious women.

About the author: Katharine Rhodes Henderson is an ordained Presbyterian minister, who for the past decade has been the executive vice president of Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City. She is co-founder of Face to Face/Faith to Faith, a multifaith leadership bringing together teenagers--Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus--from the Middle East, Northern Ireland, South Africa, and the US.

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Total Chaos: The Art And Aesthetics of Hip-hop

Description from publisher: American Book Award-winning journalist Jeff Chang, author of the acclaimed Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, assembles some of the most innovative and provocative voices in hip-hop to assess the most important cultural movement of our time. It's an incisive look at hip-hop arts in the voices of the pioneers, innovators, and mavericks.

About the author: Jeff Chang is the author of Can't Stop, Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, for which he was awarded the 2005 American Book Award. He has been featured on Vibe Magazine's Top 100 "Juice" List. Chang tours extensively, lecturing at universities, museums, and community arts organizations around the country. He lives in Berkeley, California.

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Tales of the Out & the Gone

Description from publisher: Comprising short fiction from the early 1970s to the twenty-first century-most of which has never been published-Tales of the Out & the Gone reflects the astounding evolution of America's most provocative literary anti-hero.

About the author: Amiri Baraka is the author of numerous books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. He was named Poet Laureate of New Jersey by the N.J. Commission on Humanities, from 2002-2004. His last two books of poetry, Somebody Blew Up America & Other Poems and Un Poco Low Coup received tremendous critical acclaim.

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The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works--and How It's Transforming the American Economy

Description from the publisher: An award-winning journalist breaks through the wall of secrecy to reveal the many astonishing ways Wal-Mart's power affects our lives and reaches all around the world. The Wal-Mart Effect: The overwhelming impact of the world's largest company--due to its relentless pursuit of low prices--on retailers and manufacturers, wages and jobs, the culture of shopping, the shape of our communities, and the environment; a global force of unprecedented nature. Wal-Mart is not only the world's largest company; it is also the largest company in the history of the world.

Americans spend $26 million every hour at Wal-Mart, twenty-four hours of every day, every day of the year. Is the company a good thing or a bad thing? On the one hand, market guru Warren Buffett estimates that the company's low prices save American consumers $10 billion a year. On the other, the behemoth is the #1 employer in thirty-seven of the fifty states yet has never let a union in the door. Though 70 percent of Americans now live within a fifteen-minute drive of a Wal-Mart store, we have not even begun to understand the true power of the company and the many ways it is shaping American life. We know about the lawsuits and the labor protests, but what we don't know is how profoundly the "Wal-Mart effect" is shaping our lives.

About the author: Charles Fishman is a senior editor at Fast Company. In 2005 he was awarded the prestigious Gerald Loeb Award, the highest award in business journalism, and he had been a finalist for the Loeb in three of the last four years.

In 2004 his story about Wal-Mart was given the New York Press Club's award for the best magazine story about business. He has appeared regularly on NPR, CNN, and Fox News.

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Disability and Psychology: Critical Introductions and Reflections

Description from publisher: This book critically examines the relationship between disability studies and psychology. By illuminating the interpersonal, social, cultural, historical and political causes of "disability" (the exclusion of people with physical, sensory or intellectual impairments), the editors and contributors propose ideas for enabling psychological theory and practice.

About the author:
Dan Goodley is a Lecturer in Inclusive Education at the University of Sheffield, and the Inclusive Education and Equality Research Centre. Rebecca Lawthom is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Manchester Metropolitan University and the Interpersonal and Organisational Development Research Group in the Department of Psychology and Speech Pathology.

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The Political Economy of Terrorism

Description from publisher: Presenting a widely accessible approach to the study of terrorism, this volume combines economic methods with political analysis and realities. It applies economic methodology--theoretical and empirical--with political analysis to the study of domestic and transnational terrorism, to provide a qualitative and quantitative investigation of terrorism in a balanced up-to-date presentation for students, policymakers, researchers, and the general reader. Included are historical aspects of the phenomenon, a discussion of watershed events, the rise of modern-day terrorism, examination of current trends, the dilemma of liberal democracies, evaluation of counterterrorism, and analysis of hostage incidents.

About the Author: Walter Enders holds the Bodgood Chair of Economics and Finance at the University of Alabama.

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