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Elsevier

Books in Arts and humanities

Elsevier's Arts and Humanities titles encompass a rich spectrum of scholarship that explores human culture, history, philosophy, and creative expression. These works offer deep insights into language, literature, visual arts, and critical theory, supporting the academic community in understanding diverse perspectives and cultural legacies. Designed for scholars, educators, and students, this collection bridges classic studies with contemporary issues, fostering a deeper appreciation and knowledge of the human experience.

  • Social History and Social Policy

    • 1st Edition
    • David J. Rothman + 1 more
    • English
    Social History and Social Policy is a collection of papers that explores the correlation of social history and social policy. Each article in the book are prepared by social historians, preoccupied in the study of the origins and structure of health systems, urban planning, schools, and pension programs, who seek to change the process of social policy formation. The book is divided into three sections. Part I serves as an introduction and provides the history of social institutions. The second part deals with the history of social problems, discussing public employee pension problems; policies on health care; and a few aspects of the history of criminal justice in the United States. The last part provides the uses of history in the making of social policy. The text will be a valuable source of insight for public administrators, politicians, policy makers, political leaders, and analysts.

  • Technology, the University and the Community

    A Study of the Regional Role of Engineering Colleges
    • 1st Edition
    • George Bugliarello + 1 more
    • English
    Technology, the University and the Community: A Study of the Regional Role of Engineering Colleges focuses on the regional role of engineering colleges and suggests some mechanisms for increasing the interaction between the universities, or their colleges of engineering, and the local region. The study examines the problem of not effectively tapping the potential of state universities to bring applied science to the service of state governments. Comprised of four chapters, this book begins with an overview of the engineering college and its environments, together with its two main resources: human beings and information. Traditional views on the roles of engineering colleges are considered, and their impacts on regional development are examined. The next chapter deals with dimensions and models for the various roles of the engineering college and how the activities of the people of the college, including faculty and students, constitute the main areas of impact upon the region. The obstacles that must be overcome to increase the regional involvement of engineering colleges are then discussed by thinking of the university in terms of human and information resources. The final chapter describes some mechanisms for increasing the regional involvement of engineering colleges. This monograph will be of interest to university administrators, local government officials, and educational policymakers.

  • Attitudes, Conflict, and Social Change

    • 1st Edition
    • Bert T. King + 1 more
    • English
    Attitudes, Conflict, and Social Change is based on a symposium on attitudes, social change, and intergroup conflict conducted on the University of Maryland campus. The book focuses on the following interrelated topics and issues: (1) The concepts of "attitude" and "attitude change" as they are used in psychological, sociological, and political science research. (2) How people change their attitudes and behavior in response to technological change and broad social currents as well as to specific persuasive communications delivered via the mass media or within an organization or a small group. (3) The role of attitudes and their modification in social change. (4) The role of attitudes in the genesis, the processes, and the outcomes of intergroup conflict at the level of the organization, at different societal levels, and at the international level. (5) The perplexing problems involved in determining how attitudes and overt behavior relate to each other. (6) Relationships between theories of attitude change and action programs designed to change attitudes in various social, cultural, ethnic, and national groups. (7) Relationships between laboratory experiments and field research involving attitude change. (8) The directions that future attitude research might take in order to be most productive with respect to both theory development and applications.

  • Studies in American Historical Demography

    Studies in Population
    • 1st Edition
    • Maris A. Vinovskis
    • English
    Studies in American Historical Demography is a collection of the best studies in American historical demography. The book discusses some methodological and conceptual considerations in the trends in American historical demography; the demographic history of colonial New England; and the marital migration in Essex County, Massachusetts, in the colonial and early federal periods. The text also describes the historical trends in parental power and marriage patterns in Hingham, Massachusetts; the use of demographic data that are, or may be, retrieved from colonial New England gravestones; and the mortality rates and trends in Massachusetts, Massachusetts. The estimates of the vital rates of the United States black population during the 19th century; the two-parent household; as well as the differential fertility in Madison County, New York, 1865 are also considered. The book further tackles the socioeconomic determinants of interstate fertility differentials in the United States in 1850 and 1860; cohorts of native born Massachusetts women, 1830-1920; and the demographic change and the life cycle of American families. Historians, demographers, anthropologists, economists, and sociologists will find the book invaluable.

  • Psychotherapy and the Behavioral Sciences

    Contributions of the Biological, Psychological, Social and Philosophic Fields to Psychotherapeutic Theory and Process
    • 1st Edition
    • Lewis R. Wolberg
    • English
    Psychotherapy and the Behavioral Sciences discusses the techniques used in neurophysiological analysis. It defines the neuronal building blocks. The book provides a detailed examination of the brain. This is followed by a discussion of the function of cerebral cortex. A chapter of the text focuses on biochemical interactions including neuropharmacology and psychopharmacology. The volume defines such terms as genetics, behavior genetics, and ethology. This is followed by a discussion on the conditioning of neural circuits. Another chapter is devoted on the examination of stress and adaptation. Ontogenetic maturation, developmental, and personality theories are explored analytically. The development of personality is the focus of fourth chapter. Concepts such as learning theory, learning principles, and psychoanalytic theory are fully explained. Cultural anthropology is the subject of the tenth chapter. While cybernetics is discuss in the eleventh chapter of the book. The book will provide useful information to psychologists, psychoanalysts, students, and researchers in the field of psychology.

  • Youth and History

    Tradition and Change in European Age Relations 1770–Present
    • 1st Edition
    • John R. Gillis
    • Charles Tilly + 1 more
    • English
    Youth and History: Tradition and Change in European Age Relations 1770-Present deals with the patterns of behavior and styles that characterizes the youth in a particular period of time. Chapters in the book discuss such topics as the description of youth in preindustrial Europe; the emergence of separate working class and middle class traditions of youth and the conflict between these traditions, as it was institutionalized in the academic and extracurricular cultures of the early twentieth century; and the youth tradition in the volatile 1950s and 1960s. Psychologists, sociologists, and historians will find the book insightful.

  • The Impact of International Economic Disturbances on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe

    Transmission and Response
    • 1st Edition
    • Egon Neuberger + 1 more
    • English
    The Impact of International Economic Disturbances on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe: Transmission and Response focuses on the transmission of economic disturbances to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, as well as the policy responses of both to such disturbances. Topics covered include external inflation, balance of trade, and resource allocation, along with the impact of the world economic crisis on intra-CMEA trade. This book is comprised of 16 chapters and begins with an overview of major international economic disturbances during the first half of the 1970s and their transmission to the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries. The following chapters examine the adjustment made by East European economies to external disturbances; external inflation, balance of trade, and resource allocation in small centrally planned economies; whether the Soviet Union was affected by the international economic disturbances of the 1970s; and the relationship between foreign trade and the Soviet economy. The transmission of international disturbances to Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Poland and the responses of each country are also discussed. The final chapter assesses how the energy crisis and Western ""stagflation"" have affected the nature of Soviet-East European political relations in the years 1956-1973. This monograph will be of interest to economists and economic policymakers.

  • The Social Impact of Computers

    • 1st Edition
    • Richard S. Rosenberg
    • English
    The Social Impact of Computers should be read as a guide to the social implications of current and future applications of computers. Among the basic themes presented are the following: the changing nature of work in response to technological innovation as well as the threat to jobs; personal freedom in the machine age as manifested by challenges to privacy, dignity, and work; the relationship between advances in computer and communications technology and the possibility of increased centralization of authority; and the emergence and influence of artificial intelligence and its role in decision-making, especially in military applications. The book begins with background and historical information on computers and technology. Separate chapters then cover major applications: business, medicine, education, government; major social issues, including crime, privacy, work; and new technologies and problems: industry regulation, electronic funds transfer systems, international competition, national industrial policies, robotics and industrial automation, productivity, the information society, videotex. The final chapter discusses issues associated with ethics and professionalism. The material presented should be accessible to most university students who have had an introductory course in computer science. Self taught or sufficiently motivated individuals who have gained an understanding of how computers operate should also profit from this book. Especially useful are backgrounds in sociology, economics, history, political science, or philosophy.

  • Politics as Symbolic Action

    Mass Arousal and Quiescence
    • 1st Edition
    • Murray Edelman
    • English
    Politics as Symbolic Action: Mass Arousal and Quiescence deals with the dynamics of development of political threats related to political behavior. The book discusses the conditions under which the dynamics related to political behavior are the prior causes of political arousal, violence, and quiescence. The text examines the influence of governmental activity on people's beliefs and perceptions—how non-empirical cognitions become the resistant basis of change. The text also examines how the individual phenomenon and the group phenomenon become linked through symbol formation and myths. The book discusses emotion as a catalyst of political ritual and political violence as inferred from Theodore Sarbin's role theory. The use of metaphors, language forms, and mass tensions can all be social-psychological and political processes that can lead to political arousal or quiescence. The book also explains major violent disturbances as having patterns reflective of organization, disorganization, or by leadership example; the book notes the popular notion that the organization or the leader's direction starts or worsens the violence as very simplistic. The book then proposes that political perceptions and beliefs are changeable and that phenomenological perceptions of specific groups of people can identify which political behavior are systematic. The text is suitable for political analysts, political scientists, sociologists, and educators involved in group psychology and analyses.

  • Going North

    Migration of Blacks and Whites from the South, 1900—1950
    • 1st Edition
    • Neil Fligstein
    • Peter H. Rossi
    • English
    Going North: Migration of Blacks and Whites from the South, 1900—1950 discusses the historical, demographic, sociological, and economic reasons for black and white migrations. The book explains the transition from a rural, extractive economy to an urban, industrial and service economy, with emphasis on the effects on the Southern rural population. After the Civil War, emerging business concerns became politically and economically significant, making the South a source for needed resources. 1930 was a defining year. Before 1930, migration reflected the growth and contraction of cotton agriculture in the South. After 1930, the transition from a tenant, labor-intensive cotton agriculture economy to a capitalist machine-driven economy caused the black and white migration to the north. American development was not a simple process—it shows how northern business interests defeated southern planters. This transformation has created a permanent underclass in society that can be found in the cities of the South, North, and Midwest regions of America today. Sociologists, economists, academicians doing sociological research, and students of U.S. history can benefit from reading the book.

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