Finding the right criteria to use when judging Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) is essential if it is to stand up to criticism from those concerned about the importance of evidence-based medicine. This edited volume highlights how CAM requires different research tools and techniques from conventional medicine, and examines effective methodologies for accurately assessing CAM.Addressing a problem which is often cited as the reason for a failure to appreciate the potentia...

Creating Katrina, Rebuilding Resilience: Lessons from New Orleans on Vulnerability and Resiliency presents a unique, integrative understanding of Hurricane Katrina in the New Orleans area, and the progression to disaster vulnerability as well as resilience pathways. The book integrates the understanding of vulnerability and resiliency by examining the relationships among these two concepts and theories. The disaster knowledge of diverse disciplines and professions is brought together in th...

This book considers a radical change to engineering education. It argues for a reexamination of the traditional way in which engineering students are educated in disciplinary silos and how, instead, we might re-imagine their professional education to more appropriately prepare students to design innovative solutions to increasingly complex global challenges. It poses the question: “How can engineers think outside the engineers’ box?". A box that has over generations rendered engineers to b...

The first decade of the 21st century saw a remarkable number of large-scale disasters. Earthquakes in Haiti and Sumatra underscored the serious economic consequences that catastrophic events can have on developing countries, while 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina showed that first world nations remain vulnerable.The Social Roots of Risk argues against the widespread notion that cataclysmic occurrences are singular events, driven by forces beyond our control. Instead, Kathleen Ti...

Markets of Sorrow, Labors of Faith is an ethnographic account of long-term recovery in post-Katrina New Orleans. It is also a sobering exploration of the privatization of vital social services under market-driven governance. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, public agencies subcontracted disaster relief to private companies that turned the humanitarian work of recovery into lucrative business. These enterprises profited from the very suffering that they failed to ameliorate, produ...

Case studies and analyses investigate how collaborative response to crisis can enhance social-ecological resilience and promote community reinvention.Crisis—whether natural disaster, technological failure, economic collapse, or shocking acts of violence—can offer opportunities for collaboration, consensus building, and transformative social change. Communities often experience a surge of collective energy and purpose in the aftermath of crisis. Rather than rely on ...

This anthology is a two-volume work that focuses on our relationship with the Earth and our future, examining the crossover between psychology and environmental studies in the emerging fields of ecopsychology and environmental psychology.This set offers the first comprehensive and holistic understanding of how our human activities are very rapidly changing the earth's environment and harming its inhabitants. Since our present path of population growth and use of fi...

A short overview shows how many aspects of gambling have remained constant throughout history. More recently, however, the Internet has expanded the range of ways people can gamble, and has drawn many younger people into online betting. The book also evaluates the role social and cultural forces play in gambling, often glamorizing and encouraging risk-taking. As gambling increases, so do its associated problems; while it may appear harmless at first, gambling too often destroys lives.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005. Commentary and analysis typically focused on what went wrong in the post-disaster emergency response. This forward-looking book, however, presents a more cautiously optimistic view about the region's ability to bounce back after multiple disasters.Catastrophes come in different forms-hurricanes, recessions, and oil spills, to name a few. It is imperative that we learn how best to rebuild in the wake of disasters and wha...

This timely resource, written by a team of authors who are working at the forefront of the public sociology movement, provides a contemporary analysis of public sociology. The book highlights a variety of ways in which sociology brings about social change in community settings, assists nonprofit and social service organizations in their work, and influences policy at the local, regional, and national levels. The book also spotlights sociology that informs the general public on key policy i...

The impacts of climate change are already being felt. Learning how to live with these impacts is a priority for human development. In this context, it is too easy to see adaptation as a narrowly defensive task – protecting core assets or functions from the risks of climate change. A more profound engagement, which sees climate change risks as a product and driver of social as well as natural systems, and their interaction, is called for.Adaptation to Climate Change argues ...

What does successful adaptation look like? This is a question we are frequently asked by planners, policy makers and other professionals charged with the task of developing and implementing adaptation strategies. While adaptation is increasingly recognized as an important climate risk management strategy, and on-the-ground adaptation planning activity is becoming more common-place, there is no clear guidance as to what success would look like, what to aim for and how to judge progress....