San Antonio College Library

This book looks inside the secretive subculture of modern magicians. Entering the flourishing Paris magic scene as an apprentice, the author gives a firsthand account of how magicians learn to perform their deceptions. He follows the day-to-day lives of some of France's most renowned performers, revealing not only how secrets are created and shared, but also how they are stolen and destroyed.

"The study of ancient Roman society blossomed in the 1970s. By now, we possess a very large literature on the individuals and groups that constituted the Roman community, and the various ways in which members of that community interacted. There is, however, no overview that takes into account the multifarious progress that has been made in the past thirty or forty years. The purpose of this handbook is twofold. On the one hand, it synthesizes what...

"Introduces students to the sociology of class structure and inequalities as it asks whether the American dream has faded. The fourth edition of this powerful book demonstrates how and why class inequalities in the United States have widened, hardened, and become more entrenched than ever. The fourth edition has been extensively revised and reorganized throughout, including a new introduction that offers an overview of key themes and shorter chapters...

Follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years, a chaotic period that saw the rise to power of Kim Jong Il and the devastation of a famine that killed one-fifth of the population, illustrating what it means to live under the most repressive totalitarian regime today.

Presents a narrative of the last fifty years of African history, analyzing the factors which account for the political chaos, financial troubles, and civil wars which prevail in many African countries today.

Reversing his parents' immigrant path, a young American-born writer returns to India and discovers an old country making itself new. Anand Giridharadas sensed something was afoot as his plane from America prepared to land in Bombay. An elderly passenger looked at him and said, "We're all trying to go that way," pointing to the rear. "You, you're going this way?" Giridharadas was returning to the land of his ancestors, amid an unlikely economic boom....

"The Peoples of Southeast Asia Today offers an anthropological treatment of the ethnography and ethnology of Southeast Asia, covering both the mainland and the insular regions. Based on the proposition that Southeast Asia is a true culture area, the book offers background information on geography, languages, prehistory, and history, with a particular emphasis on the role of colonialism and the development of ethnic pluralism. It then turns to classic...

This groundbreaking work traces developments in poor relief from the mid fourteenth century to the Poor Laws of 1598 and 1601.

Guthrie (sociology and management, New York U.) argues that the changes in China have been more dramatic than outsiders especially in the US realize, that reforms have been successful because of state involvement, and that democracy in China is inevitable. He does not posit some occult connection between capitalism and democracy, but explains that the deliberate transformation of certain institutions has set in motion a gradual process of democratization...