San Antonio College Library

A compelling exploration of how reputation affects every aspect of contemporary life. Reputation touches almost everything, guiding our behavior and choices in countless ways. But it is also shrouded in mystery. Why is it so powerful when the criteria by which people and things are defined as good or bad often appear to be arbitrary? Why do we care so much about how others see us that we may even do irrational and harmful things to try to influence...

"How to get a good reputation--deserved or not!--and why we care what other people think. Why does a fish only bite another fish if no one else is watching? Why do people overshare online? Why do some people meet trivial insults with extreme violence? Why do so many gods have multiple eyes? In People Will Talk, science writer John Whitfield shows how reputation helps answer all of these questions, and more. What is the secret to getting a good reputation?...

"Robert Garland turns the spotlight on the careers of some of the most successful and colourful self-promoters ever to have lived, including Alcibiades, Socrates, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Augustus, Jesus, Nero and Theodosia, and investigates the secrets of their success. He also looks at ways in which other highly talented individuals turned themselves into celebrities, including sports personalities, entertainers, philosophers,...

"'Of Good and Ill Repute' examines the complex social regulations and stigmatizations that medieval society used to arrive at its decisions about condemnation and exoneration. In eleven interrelated essays, including five previously unpublished works, Hanawalt explores how social control was maintained in Medieval England in the later Middle Ages. Focusing on gender, criminal behavior, law enforcement, arbitration, and cultural rituals of inclusion...