Market Dreams

Drawing on a rich trove of focus group data, interviews, and textual sources, Elaine Weiner's Market Dreams powerfully captures the varied responses of female managers and factory workers in the Czech Republic to their country's transition from socialism to capitalism. Her work, rooted in sociology and comparative feminism, is an important advance for the literature on women in Eastern Europe. "Market Dreams is a conceptually-sophisticated and empirically-rich account of how the discourses and practices of the free market penetrated the hearts and minds of everyday Czech citizens. Weiner's provocative analysis takes readers inside the worlds of female factory workers to expose the discontinuities between their radiant market dreams and their everyday realities--and juxtaposes them to the continuities experienced by female managers. In the process, it challenges many of our ideas about post/socialism, marketization, and gender and reveals the enduring power of stories in shaping social identities and actions." ---Lynne Haney, Associate Professor of Sociology, New York University "Through interviews and a careful analysis of newspaper articles written in the first decade after the collapse of state socialism, Weiner explores the complicated interconnections between personal stories and the emerging neoliberal metanarrative of the free market in the Czech Republic after 1989. Her book transcends many of the dichotomies with which researchers of post-state socialism have been struggling: 'East' vs. 'West,' losers and winners, emancipation vs. oppression, etc., and thus makes a truly novel contribution to our understanding of women's lives after state socialism." ---Éva Fodor, Assistant Professor of Gender Studies, Central European University "Weiner's rich and innovative study of female Czech managers and workers exemplifies the importance of narrative analysis for understanding why gender and class have not (yet) reconfigured the sense of postcommunism's alternatives. This is critical reading for feminists, class analysts, and students of postcommunist social change." ---Michael Kennedy, Director, Center for European Studies, University of Michigan Elaine Weiner is Assistant Professor of Sociology at McGill University. Visit the author's website at: www.mcgill.ca/sociology/faculty/weiner/. Cover Credit: Frank Scherschel/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

In a globalized economy that is heavily sustained by the labor of immigrants, why are certain nations defined as "ideal" labor resources and why do certain groups dominate a particular labor force? The Philippines has emerged as a lucrative source of labor for countries around the world. In Marketing Dreams, Manufacturing Heroes Anna Romina Guevarra focuses on the Philippines—which views itself as the "home of the great Filipino worker"—and the multilevel brokering process that manages and sends workers worldwide. She unravels the transnational production of Filipinos as ideal migrant workers by the state and explores how race, color, class, and gender operate. The experience of Filipino nurses and domestic workers—two of the country's prized exports—is at the core of the research, which utilizes interviews with employees at labor brokering agencies, state officials from governmental organizations in the Philippines, and nurses working in the United States. Guevarra's multisited ethnography reveals the disciplinary power that state and employment agencies exercise over care workers—managing migration and garnering wages—to govern social conduct, and brings this isolated yet widespread social problem to life.

Connor Grey, a consultant for the Boston P.D., must stop the war between Celtic fairies and Teutonic elves that, fueled by a mysterious new drug, locks down the entire city of Boston and puts the human race in grave danger. Original.

In war everyone loses. This brutal truth can be seen in the eyes of every soldier in every world... In Letherii, the exiled Malazan army commanded by Adjunct Tavore begins its march into the eastern Wastelands, to fight for an unknown cause against an enemy it has never seen. And in these same Wastelands, others gather to confront their destinies. The warlike Barghast, thwarted in their vengeance against the Tiste Edur, seek new enemies beyond the border and Onos Toolan, once immortal T'lan Imass now mortal commander of the White Face clan, faces insurrection. To the south, the Perish Grey Helms parlay passage through the treacherous kingdom of Bolkando. Their intention is to rendezvous with the Bonehunters but their vow of allegiance to the Malazans will be sorely tested. And ancient enclaves of an Elder Race are in search of salvation—not among their own kind, but among humans—as an old enemy draws ever closer to the last surviving bastion of the K'Chain Che'Malle. So this last great army of the Malazan Empire is resolved to make one final defiant, heroic stand in the name of redemption. But can deeds be heroic when there is no one to witness them? And can that which is not witnessed forever change the world? Destines are rarely simple, truths never clear but one certainty is that time is on no one's side. For the Deck of Dragons has been read, unleashing a dread power that none can comprehend... In a faraway land and beneath indifferent skies, the final chapter of ‘The Malazan Book of the Fallen' has begun... At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

From a MacArthur “Genius,” an intellectual history of the free market, from ancient Rome to the twenty-first century After two government bailouts of the US economy in less than twenty years, free market ideology is due for serious reappraisal. In Free Market, Jacob Soll details how we got to this current crisis, and how we can find our way out by looking to earlier iterations of free market thought. Contrary to popular narratives, early market theorists believed that states had an important role in building and maintaining free markets. But in the eighteenth century, thinkers insisted on free markets without state intervention, leading to a tradition of ideological brittleness. That tradition only calcified in the centuries that followed. Tracing the intellectual evolution of the free market from Cicero to Milton Friedman, Soll argues that we need to go back to the origins of free market ideology in order to truly understand it—and to develop new economic concepts to face today’s challenges.

Why Do People Buy, Anyway? Every businessperson, sales professional, advertising copywriter should be endlessly exploring this question. Sadly, few do. Instead, most stay stubbornly focused on the question of: how can we make them buy our 'thing'? And, sadly, most training remains focused on selling. We are all better served pondering the psychology of the buyer ratherthan the techniques and tactics of selling. That's what Robert Imbriale has done in Motivational Marketing. This book is a valuable exercise in being about the customer." —From the Foreword by bestselling author Dan S. Kennedy

The Donovan legacy continues in these two classic tales of love and magic! Charmed Anastasia Donovan has sworn off romance. After a past boyfriend refused to accept Ana's gift of witchcraft, Ana decided she would move on and start fresh. So when Ana befriends her new next-door neighbor--six-year-old Jessie--she doesn't plan on falling for Jessie's protective single father, Boone Sawyer. Boone and Ana have an undeniable connection and their relationship blooms quickly, but Ana decides to keep her magical secret to herself. The only magic Boone is used to is the kind he writes about in his acclamied children's stories. How can Ana convince him that he's living in a real-life fairy tale? Enchanted Tired of her practical life, Rowan Murray escapes to a secluded, peaceful cabin on a whim for a much-needed adventure. Her only companions are her neighbor, the reclusive and mysterious Liam Donovan, and a wolf that lives in the woods around her house. Strange as it seems, Rowan befriends the wild animal, finding his presence comforting in the midst of such uncertainty in her life. Eventually, Liam warms to Rowan, too. But he's hiding a secret about his true identity--one that might scare Rowan away if he reveals it before she's ready...

In financial markets, “Speculation is trading in shares or commodities or in any financial instrument involving high risk in expectation of substantial gains”.This is an act of trading in financial instruments or act of entering into any financial transaction that has a significant risk of losing most of or all of the initial investment in expectation of significant gains. Decision making based on anticipation of what the future can be, is speculating. What motivates speculating is the possibility to make huge gains out of the transaction by putting some money on risk. One looks for and expects big rewards as proportionate to the risk taken.