Taking Our Place tells the story of Aboriginal education and the Koori Centre at the University of Sydney. Within its short history, the university has embodied both the virtues and vices of Australia's public attitudes to Indigenous people. The university's early teaching and research focused on Aboriginal people as ethnographical specimens, a race frozen in time.More than a century would pass before two students identified as Aborigines, Charles Perkins and Peter William...

Throughout history certain theories of childhood have influenced the way we have understood, cared for, and educated our young. These theories form the bases of our attitudes toward children, and underpin our popular childrearing pracitces. Yet they have passed through history fort eh most part unexamined. In Visions of Childhood, the authors unveil the central and often surprising notions that have shaped our conceptions of childhood in the Western world.Bringing the skill...

Founded in the forested mountains of China's remote Jiangxi Province in 1958, the Communist Labor University, along with some 100 branch campuses, introduced uneducated farmers and peasants to basic agricultural science and farming techniques through an innovative work-study program until 1980. Drawing on a wealth of archival materials, John Cleverley here explores the inner workings of this unique Chinese institution and the direct personal involvement in its affairs by the nation's key c...

Winner of the Samuel Johnson PrizeAn unprecedented, groundbreaking history of China's Great Famine that recasts the era of Mao Zedong and the history of the People's Republic of China."Between 1958 and 1962, China descended into hell. Mao Zedong threw his country into a frenzy with the Great Leap Forward, an attempt to catch up to and overtake Britain in less than 15 years The experiment ended in the greatest catastrophe the country had eve...

The definitive refutation to the argument of The Bell Curve.When published in 1981, The Mismeasure of Man was immediately hailed as a masterwork, the ringing answer to those who would classify people, rank them according to their supposed genetic gifts and limits.Yet the idea of biology as destiny dies hard, as witness the attention devoted to The Bell Curve, whose arguments are here so effectively anticipated and thoroughly undermined. In this ed...

“The landmark book that argued that psychiatry consistently expands its definition of mental illness to impose its authority over moral and cultural conflict.” — New York TimesThe 50th anniversary edition of the most influential critique of psychiatry every written, with a new preface on the age of Prozac and Ritalin and the rise of designer drugs, plus two bonus essays.Thomas Szasz's classic book revolutionized thinking about the ...

North Korea continues to make headlines, arousing curiosity and fear in equal measure. The world's most secretive nuclear power, it still has Gulag-style prison camps, allows no access to the Internet and bans its people from talking to foreigners without official approval. In this remarkable and eye-opening book, internationally best-selling author Paul French examines in forensic detail the history and politics of North Korea, Pyongyang's complex relations with South Korea, Japan, China ...

A study of aggression from the renowned social psychologist and New York Times –bestselling author of The Art of Loving and Escape from Freedom ."Rich and provocative . . . a major book from the pen of a major writer." — The Washington Post Book WorldThroughout history, humans have sh...

Through a series of lively and absorbing portraits of iconic modern Chinese leaders and thinkers, two of today’s foremost specialists on China provide a panoramic narrative of this country’s rise to preeminence that is at once analytical and personal. How did a nation, after a long and painful period of dynastic decline, intellectual upheaval, foreign occupation, civil war, and revolution, manage to burst forth onto the world stage with such an impressive run of hyperdevelopment and wealth...

Identity: Youth and Crisis collects Erik H. Erikson's major essays on topics originating in the concept of the adolescent identity crisis.Identity, Erikson writes, is an unfathomable as it is all-pervasive. It deals with a process that is located both in the core of the individual and in the core of the communal culture. As the culture changes, new kinds of identity questions arise—Erikson comments, for example, on issues of social protest and changing gender roles that we...

“Spence draws upon his extensive knowledge of Chinese politics and culture to create an illuminating picture of Mao. . . . Superb.” (Chicago Tribune)From humble origins in the provinces, Mao Zedong rose to absolute power, unifying with an iron fist a vast country torn apart by years of weak leadership, colonialism, and war. This sharply drawn and insightful account brings to life this modern-day emperor and the tumultuous era that he did so much to shape.