Expansion Of Everyday Life P

Surrounding the war with an aura of nostalgia both fosters the delusion that war can cure our social ills and makes us strong again, and weakens confidence in our ability to act effectively in our own time."—Journal of Military History

One dealer's journey from the populist mayhem of flea markets to the rarefied realm of auctions reveals the rich, often outrageous subculture of antiques and collectibles. Millions of Americans are drawn to antiques and flea-market culture, whether as participants or as viewers of the perennially popular Antiques Roadshow or the recent hit American Pickers. This world has the air of a lottery: a $20 purchase might net you four, five, or six figures. Master dealer Curt Avery, the unlikely star of Killer Stuff and Tons of Money, plays that lottery every day, and he wins it more than most. Occasionally he gets lucky, but more often, he draws on a deep knowledge of America's past and the odd, fascinating, and beautiful objects that have survived it. Week in, week out, Avery trawls the flea and antiques circuit-buying, selling, and advising other dealers in his many areas of expertise, from furniture to glass to stoneware, and more. On the surface, he's an improbable candidate for an antiques dealer. He wrestled in high school and still retains the pugilistic build; he is gruff, funny, and profane; he favors shorts and sneakers, even in November; and he is remarkably generous toward both competitors and customers who want a break. But as he struggles for a spot in a high-end Boston show, he must step up his game and, perhaps more challenging, fit in with a white-shoe crowd. Through his ascent, we see the flea-osphere for what it truly is-less a lottery than a contact sport with few rules and many pitfalls. This rich and sometimes hilarious subculture rewards peculiar interests and outright obsessions-one dealer specializes in shrunken heads; another wants all the postal memorabilia he can get. So Avery must be a guerrilla historian and use his hard-earned knowledge of America's past to live by and off his wits. Only the smartest survive in one of America's most ruthless meritocracies. Killer Stuff and Tons of Money is many things: an insider's look at a subculture replete with arcane traditions and high drama, an inspiring account of a self-made man making his way in a cutthroat field, a treasure trove of tips for those who seek out old things themselves, and a thoroughly fresh, vibrant view of history as blood sport.

The idea that "home" is a special place, a separate place, a place where we can be our true selves, is so obvious to us today that we barely pause to think about it. But, as Judith Flanders shows in this revealing book, "home" is a relatively new concept. When in 1900 Dorothy assured the citizens of Oz that "There is no place like home," she was expressing a view that was a culmination of 300 years of economic, physical, and emotional change. In The Making of Home, Flanders traces the evolution of the house across northern Europe and America from the 16th to the early 20th century, and paints a striking picture of how the homes we know today differ from homes through history. The transformation of houses into homes, she argues, was not a private matter, but an essential ingredient in the rise of capitalism and the birth of the Industrial Revolution. Without "home," the modern world as we know it would not exist, and as Flanders charts the development of ordinary household objects—from cutlery, chairs, and curtains, to fitted kitchens, plumbing, and windows—she also peels back the myths that surround some of our most basic assumptions, including our entire notion of what it is that makes a family. As full of fascinating detail as her previous bestsellers, The Making of Home is also a book teeming with original and provocative ideas.

The book adopts a critical cultural studies lens to explore the entanglement of government and gambling in everyday life. Its qualitative approach to gambling creates a new theoretical framework for understanding the most urgent questions raised by research and policy on gambling. In the past two decades, gambling industries have experienced exponential growth with annual global expenditure worth approximately 300 billion dollars. Yet most academic research on gambling is concentrated on problem gambling and conducted within the psychological sciences. Nicoll considers gambling at a moment when its integration within everyday cultural spaces, moments, and products is unprecedented. This is the first interdisciplinary cultural study of gambling in everyday life and develops critical and empirical methods that capture the ubiquitous presence of gambling in work, investment and play. This book also contributes to the growing cultural studies literature on video and mobile gaming. In addition to original case studies of gambling moments and spaces, in-depth interviews and participant observations provide readers with an insider’s view of gambling. Advanced students of sociology, cultural theory, and political science, academic researchers in the field of gambling studies will find this an original and useful text for understanding the cultural and political work of gambling industries in liberal societies.

Governmentality, Biopower, and Everyday Life synthesizes and extends the disparate strands of scholarship on Foucault's notions of governmentality and biopower and grounds them in familiar social contexts including the private realm, the market, and the state/military. Topics include public health, genomics, behavioral genetics, neoliberal market logics and technologies, philanthropy, and the war on terror. This book is designed for readers interested in a rigorous, comprehensive introduction to the wide array of interdisciplinary work focusing on Foucault, biopower and governmentality. However, Nadesan does not merely reproduce existing literatures but also responds to implicit critiques made by Cultural Studies and Marxist scholarship concerning identity politics, political economy, and sovereign force and disciplinary control. Using concrete examples and detailed illustrations throughout, this book extends the extant literature on governmentality and biopower and helps shape our understanding of everyday life under neoliberalism.

"Makes a reader feel like a time traveler plopped down among men who were by turns vicious and visionary."—The Christian Science Monitor The modern American economy was the creation of four men: Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan. They were the giants of the Gilded Age, a moment of riotous growth that established America as the richest, most inventive, and most productive country on the planet. Acclaimed author Charles R. Morris vividly brings the men and their times to life. The ruthlessly competitive Carnegie, the imperial Rockefeller, and the provocateur Gould were obsessed with progress, experiment, and speed. They were balanced by Morgan, the gentleman businessman, who fought, instead, for a global trust in American business. Through their antagonism and their verve, they built an industrial behemoth—and a country of middle-class consumers. The Tycoons tells the incredible story of how these four determined men wrenched the economy into the modern age, inventing a nation of full economic participation that could not have been imagined only a few decades earlier.

This intriguing three-volume set explores the ways in which religion is bound to the practice of daily life and how daily life is bound to religion. In Religion and Everyday Life and Culture, 36 international scholars describe the impact of religious practices around the world, using rich examples drawn from personal observation. Instead of repeating generalizations about what religion should mean, these volumes examine how religions actually influence our public and private lives "on the ground," on a day-to-day basis. Volume one introduces regional histories of the world's religions and discusses major ritual practices, such as the Catholic Mass and the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca. Volume two examines themes that will help readers understand how religions interact with the practices of public life, describing the ways religions influence government, education, criminal justice, economy, technology, and the environment. Volume three takes up themes that are central to how religions are realized in the practices of individuals. In these essays, readers meet a shaman healer in South Africa, laugh with Buddhist monks, sing with Bob Dylan, cheer for Australian rugby, and explore Chicana and Iranian art.