San Antonio College Library

David Kelley subjects the institutions of the contemporary welfare state to sustained and withering criticism. A Life of One's Own is a devastating refutation of the flawed concept of "welfare rights." Kelley presents empirical evidence of the welfare state's effects on behavior, historical research on the origins of the welfare state (and on what it displaced), and philosophical clarification of such core ideas as freedom and rights. After a careful...

"Just as the original Populist movement of the nineteenth century helped dethrone the robber barons, Derber contends that a new, positive populism can help contemporary Americans regain control of their lives. In clear, straightforward language, free from the rhetoric of left or right, he calls for changes in our corporate system, changes designed to keep corporations wealthy (business leaders, take note!) while making them accountable to the people....

"Yellowstone holds a special place in America's heart. As the world's first national park, it is globally recognized as the crown jewel of modern environmental preservation. But the park and its surrounding regions have recently become a lightning rod for environmental conflict, plagued by intense and intractable political struggles among the federal government, National Park Service, environmentalists, industry, local residents, and elected officials....

"A Nobel prize winner challenges us to throw off the free market fundamentalists and reclaim our economy. We all have the sense that the American economy;and its government;tilts toward big business, but as Joseph E. Stiglitz explains in his new book ..., the situation is dire. A few corporations have come to dominate entire sectors of the economy, contributing to skyrocketing inequality and slow growth. This is how the financial industry has managed...

"Food waste, hunger, inhumane livestock conditions, disappearing fish stocks--these are exactly the kind of issues we expect food regulations to combat. Yet, today in the United States, laws exist at all levels of government that actually make these problems worse. Baylen Linnekin argues that, too often, government rules handcuff America's most sustainable farmers, producers, sellers, and consumers, while rewarding those whose practices are anything...

Michael Moore examines the impact of corporate dominance on the everyday lives of Americans (and by default, the rest of the world). The film moves from Middle America, to the halls of power in Washington, to the global financial epicenter in Manhattan. With both humor and outrage, the film explores the question: What is the price that America pays for its love of capitalism? Families pay the price with their jobs, their homes, and their savings....

No word is used and misused more than globalisation. It serves to refer to epoch-defining changes in the organisation of societies, economies and politics. But as the authors show, the term globalisation obscures much more than it reveals.