Ideas and practices concerning sleep and night-time are constantly changing and widely varied in different cultures and societies. What we do during the day and night is the result of much political struggle. Trade unions, political parties, entrepreneurs, leaders and schools boards, all have an interest in questions of timing for the opening and closing of shops, the starting hours of schools and factories, and the number of hours people have to work and sleep. By drawing together compara...

This book brings together an unprecedented number and range of contributions from different disciplines relating to sleep in one comprehensive volume.The contributors explore the science of sleep - what it is, what makes it happen and why we do it - as well as the measurement of sleep, its importance for daytime performance and its sociological and cultural aspects. Sleep disorders, sleep quality and the importance of sleep for daytime performance are also explored, as are the ways...

Four years after the 3.11 disaster in Japan, this acclaimed collection of ethnographies in English on the Japanese communities affected by the giant Tohoku earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters continues to be the only one of its kind. With a new preface offering an update on the affected communities, this volume brings together studies by experienced researchers of Japan from field sites around the disaster zone. The contributors present the survivors’ struggles in their own words: fr...

"Robert M. Sapolsky is one of the best science writers of our time."—Oliver SacksThe author of New York Times Bestseller Determined offers a completely revised and updated edition of his most popular work, with over 225,000 copies in print.Now in a third edition, the renowned primatologist Robert M. Sapolsky's acclaimed and successful Why Zebras...

Why do we need sleep? How much sleep is enough? What is sleep? What happens when we don't get enough? We spend about a third of our lives asleep - it plays a crucial role in our health and wellbeing. References to sleep abound in literature and art, and sleep has been recognized as fundamental to the human condition for thousands of years. Over the past century, our knowledge of how sleep occurs, what it does, and what happens to our health if we do not have enough has developed h...

The best jobs in Britain today are overwhelmingly done by the children of the wealthy. Meanwhile, it is increasingly difficult for bright but poor kids to transcend their circumstances. This state of affairs should not only worry the less well-off. It hurts the middle classes too, who are increasingly locked out of the top professions by those from affluent backgrounds.Hitherto, Labour and Conservative politicians alike have sought to deal with the problem by promoting the idea of ...

Do antidepressants work? Of course -- everyone knows it. Like his colleagues, Irving Kirsch, a researcher and clinical psychologist, for years referred patients to psychiatrists to have their depression treated with drugs before deciding to investigate for himself just how effective the drugs actually were. Over the course of the past fifteen years, however, Kirsch's research -- a thorough analysis of decades of Food and Drug Administration data -- has demonstrated that what everyone knew ...

"A harrowing story of the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster that turned Japan upside down . . . contemporary journalism and history at its finest." —Douglas Brinkley, New York Times– bestselling authorBlending history, science, and gripping storytelling, Strong in the Rain brings the 9.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Japan in 2011 and its immediate aftermath to life through the eyes of the men and women who exp...

Please do everything to save his life. It is always heard at any place where care is given, although it is not said in each and every situation. Nowadays, the doctor's decision about his or her patients has become a dilemma. Is it the doctors duty to relieve pain and suffering even by taking the patient's life? Or should she or he respect human life and stand back, waiting for the nature to take its course? Some people argue that in certain circumstances killing someone to relieve his or h...

Temperament is the single most pervasive aspect of us and our fellow human beings. We notice it; we gossip about it; we make judgments based on it; we unconsciously shape our lives around it.In The Temperamental Thread, developmental psychologist Jerome Kagan draws on decades of research to describe the nature of temperament—the in-born traits that underlie our responses to experience. Along the way he answers such questions as, How does the temperament we are born with af...

Following a crushing defeat in World War II, Japan rose like a phoenix from the literal ashes to become a model of modernity and success, for decades Asia’s premier economic giant. Yet it remains a nation hobbled by rigid gender roles, protectionist policies, and a defensive, inflexible corporate system that has helped bring about political and economic stagnation. The unique social cohesion that enabled Japan to cope with adversity and develop swiftly has also encouraged isolationism, g...

As the twenty-first century moves towards its third decade, applied theatre is being shaped by contemporary economic and environmental concerns and is contributing to new conceptual paradigms that influence the ways in which socially engaged art is produced and understood. This collection offers fresh perspectives on the aesthetics, politics and histories of applied theatre. With contributions from leading scholars in the field, the book illuminates theatre in a diverse range of global con...