Our kids are becoming consumers at an alarmingly young age. Many children are already asking for products by brand name at age two. Toy and media... corporations have long manipulated the insecurities of parents to move their products, but Buy, Buy Baby unveils the chilling fact that these companies are now using and often funding the latest research in child development to enable them to sell directly to babies and toddlers. Susan Gregory Thomas presents shocking evidence that some of these products actually impair development and could harm our kids socially and cognitively, for life.The good news is that parents can overcome this dangerous economic and cultural shift. Blending prodigious reportage with an empathic voice, Thomas shows how we can help our children live at their natural pace, not the frenetic clip that serves only the toddler-industrial complex. Buy, Buy Baby helps us fight the power that marketers wield by exposing the false fears they spread.

These six stories by Nobel Prize winner Gao Xingjian transport the reader to moments where the fragility of love and life, and the haunting power of... memory, are beautifully unveiled. In "The Temple," the narrator's acute and mysterious anxiety overshadows the delirious happiness of an outing with his new wife on their honeymoon. In "The Cramp," a man narrowly escapes drowning in the sea, only to find that no one even noticed his absence. In the title story, the narrator attempts to relieve his homesickness only to find that he is lost in a labyrinth of childhood memories. Everywhere in this collection are powerful psychological portraits of characters whose unarticulated hopes and fears betray the never-ending presence of the past in their present lives.

How did people living on the early American frontier discover and then become a part of the market economy? How do their purchases and their choices... revise our understanding of the market revolution and the emerging consumer ethos? Ann Smart Martin provides answers to these questions by examining the texture of trade on the edge of the upper Shenandoah Valley between 1760 and 1810. Reconstructing the world of one country merchant, John Hook, Martin reveals how the acquisition of consumer goods created and validated a set of ideas about taste, fashion, and lifestyle in a particular place at a particular time. Her analysis of Hook's account ledger illuminates the everyday wants, transactions, and tensions recorded within and brings some of Hook's customers to life: a planter looking for just the right clock, a farmer in search of nails, a young woman and her friends out shopping on their own, and a slave woman choosing a looking glass. This innovative approach melds fascinating narratives with sophisticated analysis of material culture to distill large abstract social and economic systems into intimate triangulations among merchants, customers, and objects. Martin finds that objects not only reflect culture, they are the means to create it.

Brands are dead. Advertising no longer works. Consumers are in control. Or so we're told. In Buying In, Rob Walker argues that this accepted wisdom... misses a much more important cultural shift, including a practice he calls murketing, in which people create brands of their own and participate, in unprecedented ways, in marketing campaigns for their favorites. Yes, rather than becoming immune to them, we are rapidly embracing brands. Profiling Timberland, American Apparel, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Red Bull, iPod, and Livestrong, among others, Walker demonstrates the ways in which buyers adopt products not just as consumer choices but as conscious expressions of their identities. Part marketing primer, part work of cultural anthropology, Buying In reveals why now, more than ever, we are what we buy—and vice versa.  

The tools of American statecraft—defense, diplomacy, foreign and security assistance, homeland security and intelligence—are rarely examined... together. Adams and Williams fill this gap by examining how these tools work, how they are planned for, and how they are budgeted. Seeing policy through the lens of the budget can help decision makers and ordinary citizens discern the genuine priorities of national leaders from the oftentimes illusory ones portrayed in rhetoric. Simply put, policies and strategies cannot be carried out without a corresponding allocation of resources. Buying National Security weaves a tapestry around the institutions, organizations, tools, and processes that support planning and resource allocation across the breadth of the American national security enterprise. The authors analyze the planning and resource integration activities across agencies of the Executive branch as well as examine the structure and processes the Congress uses to carry out its national security oversight and budgetary responsibilities. Finally, they review the adequacy of the current structures and process and evaluate proposals for ways both might be reformed to fit the demands of the 21st century security environment.

A definitive history of consumer activism, Buying Power traces the lineage of this political tradition back to our nation’s founding, revealing that... Americans used purchasing power to support causes and punish enemies long before the word boycott even entered our lexicon. Taking the Boston Tea Party as his starting point, Lawrence Glickman argues that the rejection of British imports by revolutionary patriots inaugurated a continuous series of consumer boycotts, campaigns for safe and ethical consumption, and efforts to make goods more broadly accessible. He explores abolitionist-led efforts to eschew slave-made goods, African American consumer campaigns against Jim Crow, a 1930s refusal of silk from fascist Japan, and emerging contemporary movements like slow food. Uncovering previously unknown episodes and analyzing famous events from a fresh perspective, Glickman illuminates moments when consumer activism intersected with political and civil rights movements. He also sheds new light on activists’ relationship with the consumer movement, which gave rise to lobbies like the National Consumers League and Consumers Union as well as ill-fated legislation to create a federal Consumer Protection Agency.

This anthology of regional folklore displays the abundance, humor, and continuing vigor of the American oral tradition. The collection explores rich and... distinctive lore of Maine Down-Easters, Pennsylvania Dutchmen, Southern mountaineers, Louisiana Cajuns, Illinois Egyptians, Southwest Mexicans, and Utah Mormons. Their tales, songs, riddles, proverbs, games, superstitions, and customs provide a wealth of living folklore presented here as it was recorded in the field. And this unvarnished folklore fact—retains the spicy flavor of authentic narrative, told in the vernacular of the skillful folk storyteller.

As part of efforts to save endangered properties and encourage downtown and neighborhood revitalization, many of the nation's most successful historic... preservation and downtown development organizations have become actively involved in real estate. This book explains how one nonprofit organization, Preservation North Carolina, has creatively employed common real estate strategies to save more than 500 endangered historic properties from destruction.

You've got a good idea. You know it could make a crucial difference for you, your organization, your community. You present it to the group, but get... confounding questions, inane comments, and verbal bullets in return. Before you know what's happened, your idea is dead, shot down. You're furious. Everyone has lost: Those who would have benefited from your proposal. You. Your company. Perhaps even the country.It doesn't have to be this way, maintain John Kotter and Lorne Whitehead. In Buy-In, they reveal how to win the support your idea needs to deliver valuable results. The key? Understand the generic attack strategies that naysayers and obfuscators deploy time and time again. Then engage these adversaries with tactics tailored to each strategy. By "inviting in the lions" to critique your idea--and being prepared for them--you'll capture busy people's attention, help them grasp your proposal's value, and secure their commitment to implementing the solution.The book presents a fresh and amusing fictional narrative showing attack strategies in action. It then provides several specific counterstrategies for each basic category the authors have defined--including:· Death-by-delay: Your enemies push discussion of your idea so far into the future it's forgotten.· Confusion: They present so much data that confidence in your proposal dies.· Fearmongering: Critics catalyze irrational anxieties about your idea.· Character assassination: They slam your reputation and credibility.Smart, practical, and filled with useful advice, Buy-In equips you to anticipate and combat attacks--so your good idea makes it through to make a positive change.

How much do we know about why we buy? What truly influences our decisions in today’s message-cluttered world? An eye-grabbing advertisement, a catchy... slogan, an infectious jingle? Or do our buying decisions take place below the surface, so deep within our subconscious minds, we’re barely aware of them?In BUYOLOGY, Lindstrom presents the astonishing findings from his groundbreaking, three-year, seven-million-dollar neuromarketing study, a cutting-edge experiment that peered inside the brains of 2,000 volunteers from all around the world as they encountered various ads, logos, commercials, brands, and products. His startling results shatter much of what we have long believed about what seduces our interest and drives us to buy. Among his finding:Gruesome health warnings on cigarette packages not only fail to discourage smoking, they actually make smokers want to light up.Despite government bans, subliminal advertising still surrounds us – from bars to highway billboards to supermarket shelves. "Cool” brands, like iPods trigger our mating instincts. Other senses – smell, touch, and sound - are so powerful, they physically arouse us when we see a product. Sex doesn't sell. In many cases, people in skimpy clothing and suggestive poses not only fail to persuade us to buy products - they often turn us away .Companies routinetly copy from the world of religion and create rituals – like drinking a Corona with a lime – to capture our hard-earned dollars. Filled with entertaining inside stories about how we respond to such well-known brands as Marlboro, Nokia, Calvin Klein, Ford, and American Idol, BUYOLOGY is a fascinating and shocking journey into the mind of today’s consumer that will captivate anyone who’s been seduced – or turned off – by marketers’ relentless attempts to win our loyalty, our money, and our minds. Includes a foreword by Paco Underhill.

How much do we know about why we buy? What truly influences our decisions in today's message-cluttered world? An eye-grabbing advertisement, a catchy... slogan, an infectious jingle? Or do our buying decisions take place below the surface, so deep within our subconscious minds, we're barely aware of them?In BUYOLOGY, Lindstrom, who was voted one of Time Magazine's most influential people of 2009, presents the astonishing findings from his groundbreaking, three-year, seven-million-dollar neuromarketing study, a cutting-edge experiment that peered inside the brains of 2,000 volunteers from all around the world as they encountered various ads, logos, commercials, brands, and products. His startling results shatter much of what we have long believed about what seduces our interest and drives us to buy. Among the questions he explores:Does sex actually sell? To what extent do people in skimpy clothing and suggestive poses persuade us to buy products? Despite government bans, does subliminal advertising still surround us – from bars to highway billboards to supermarket shelves? Can "Cool" brands, like iPods, trigger our mating instincts? Can other senses – smell, touch, and sound - be so powerful as to physically arouse us when we see a product? Do companies copy from the world of religion and create rituals – like drinking a Corona with a lime – to capture our hard-earned dollars? Filled with entertaining inside stories about how we respond to such well-known brands as Marlboro, Nokia, Calvin Klein, Ford, and American Idol, BUYOLOGY is a fascinating and shocking journey into the mind of today's consumer that will captivate anyone who's been seduced – or turned off – by marketers' relentless attempts to win our loyalty, our money, and our minds.

Much has happened since Buzkashi: Game and Power in Afghanistan first appeared; the past three decades have devastated Afghanistan. Replete with... significant updates, including a new chapter profiling Afghanistan's past and recent struggles, this richly illustrated Third Edition remains the first and only full-scale anthropological examination of a single sport, buzkashi, as well as a beautifully written longitudinal case study about the game s social significance. Azoy first describes how the game of buzkashi is played and introduces readers to its rich history, its roots in tradition, and the implicit and explicit meanings attached to it. Next, readers learn about the author's fieldwork and his ex-pat diplomatic experiences, including his personal journey toward understanding the complexities of this ancient game with its "wild-card quality." Azoy's captivating descriptions and his incisive analysis of buzkashi as a metaphor for political control and chaos, provide a window into the volatile nature of Afghanistan's political autonomy.

Much has happened since this book first appeared, almost all of it horrific for Afghanistan. The past quarter century devastated this country more than... any other on earth. No country in all history has proven more resilient. No people alive today are more worthy of admiration, respect, and support. Now available from Waveland Press as an updated Second Edition, Buzkashi: Game and Power in Afghanistan is not only the first full-scale anthropological examination of a single sport, but also a beautifully written case study about a place and a people that have been largely ignored in the social science literature. Buzkashi, perhaps the wildest game in the world and a vivid feature of Afghan life, entails the aggressive struggle of hundreds of horsemen over a mutilated calf carcass. Shortly after the first appearance of Azoy's book, the world press came to use the actual play of buzkashi in print as a metaphor for Afghan politics. Azoy's incisive analysis of Afghan political dynamics demonstrates how play and politics, ordinarily perceived as separate activities, can interpenetrate one another. Sadly but truly, buzkashi continues to prove itself to be an apt metaphor for ongoing Afghan political control and chaos. The Waveland edition includes two new chapters: "For Real (1978 2002)," which describes buzkashi as played over the past twenty years in new places by new people, and a chapter serving as a personal tribute to the author's friend and field informant.

“An absorbing, sharply observed memoir.” —Kirkus Reviews A hilarious and heartrending account of one mother’s journey to understand and... reconnect with her high-spirited preteen son—a true story sure to beguile parents grappling with a child’s bewildering behavior. Popular literature is filled with the stories of self-sacrificing mothers bravely tending to their challenging children. Katherine Ellison offers a different kind of tale. Shortly after Ellison, an award-winning investigative reporter, and her twelve-year-old son, Buzz, were both diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, she found herself making such a hash of parenting that the two of them faced three alternatives: he’d go to boarding school; she’d go AWOL; or they’d make it their full-time job to work out their problems together. They decided to search for a solution while Ellison investigated what genuine relief, if any, might be found in the confusing array of goods sold by the modern mental health industry. The number of diagnoses for childhood attention and behavior issues is exploding, leaving parents and educators on a confusing chase to find the best kind of help for each child. Buzz, a page-turner of a memoir, brings much relief. It is immensely engaging, laugh-out-loud funny, and honest—and packed with helpful insights.

The third edition of the essential, accessible source for understanding how drugs work and their effects on body and ... behavior.Together, the first two editions of Buzzed have sold over 120,000 copies—and now the authors have revised and updated the book to include the most recent discoveries about drugs, including new information on the energy drinks craze, prescription drugs such as OxyContin and Ambien, and the date-rape drug GHB. Scientifically accurate and easy to read, this no-nonsense handbook gives the most balanced, objective information available on the most often used and abused drugs, from alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine to heroin, Ecstasy, and methamphetamine. In both quick-reference summaries and in-depth analysis, it reports on how these drugs enter the body, how they manipulate the brain, their short-term and long-term effects, the kinds of “high” they produce, and the circumstances in which they can be deadly. Neither a “Just Say No” treatise nor a “How to” manual, Buzzed is based on the conviction that people make better decisions with accurate information at hand. 8 pages of color illustrations