Problem Of The Century

In 1899 the great African American scholar, W.E.B. DuBois, published The Philadelphia Negro, the first systematic case study of an African American community and one of the foundations of American sociology. DuBois prophesied that the color line would be the problem of the twentieth century. One hundred years later, Problem of the Century reflects upon his prophecy, exploring the ways in which the color line is still visible in the labor market, the housing market, education, family structure, and many other aspects of life at the turn of a new century. The book opens with a theoretical discussion of the way racial identity is constructed and institutionalized. When the government classifies races and confers group rights upon them, is it subtly reenforcing damaging racial divisions, or redressing the group privileges that whites monopolized for so long? The book also delineates the social dynamics that underpin racial inequality. The contributors explore the causes and consequences of high rates of mortality and low rates of marriage in black communities, as well as the way race affects a person's chances of economic success. African Americans may soon lose their historical position as America's majority minority, and the book also examines how race plays out in the sometimes fractious relations between blacks and immigrants. The final part of the book shows how the color line manifests itself at work and in schools. Contributors find racial issues at play on both ends of the occupational ladder—among absentee fathers paying child support from their meager earnings and among black executives prospering in the corporate world. In the schools, the book explores how race defines a student's peer group and how peer pressure affects a student's grades. Problem of the Century draws upon the distinguished faculty of sociologists at the University of Pennsylvania, where DuBois conducted his research for The Philadelphia Negro. The contributors combine a scrupulous commitment to empirical inquiry with an eclectic openness to different methods and approaches. Problem of the Century blends ethnographies and surveys, statistics and content analyses, census data and historical records, to provide a far-reaching examination of racial inequality in all its contemporary manifestations.

An analysis of how the conditions of race and racism in our culture have changed in our time and what this means for our future. “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line,” W. E. B. Du Bois wrote in 1903, and his words have proven sadly prophetic. As we enter the twenty-first century, the problem remains—and yet it, and the line that defines it, have shifted in subtle but significant ways. This brief book speaks powerfully to the question of how the circumstances of race and racism have changed in our time—and how these changes will affect our future. Foremost among the book’s concerns are the contradictions and incoherence of a system that idealizes black celebrities in politics, popular culture, and sports even as it diminishes the average African-American citizen. The world of the assembly line, boxer Jack Johnson’s career, and The Birth of a Nation come under Thomas Holt’s scrutiny as he relates the malign progress of race and racism to the loss of industrial jobs and the rise of our modern consumer society. Understanding race as ideology, he describes the processes of consumerism and commodification that have transformed, but not necessarily improved, the place of black citizens in our society. As disturbing as it is enlightening, this timely work reveals the radical nature of change as it relates to race and its cultural phenomena. It offers conceptual tools and a new way to think and talk about racism as social reality. Praise for The Problem of Race in the Twenty-first Century “Debates about race often take the form of a mind game designed to establish whether or not a particular word or act is racially motivated . . . [This book] provides a compelling argument for rethinking our ideas about race.” —Frank Furedi, New Statesman “Holt rightly asserts that our racial legacy should be a point of departure—not a destination—in examining the enduring nature of racial enmity. As a nation and as individuals, we must imagine ourselves beyond, while remaining aware of, those forces that are at the root of the enmity.” —Vernon Ford, Booklist “[Readers] will benefit from Holt’s expert and careful examination of these “narratives of contradiction and incoherence” as he attempts to forecast the reigning racial ethos for the next millennium. . . . Holt writes in clear, precise prose . . . and makes an important contribution to both public and academic discussions of race and labor and their intersections in U.S. politics.” —Publishers Weekly

The twentieth century was a time of unprecedented development in mathematics, as well as in all sciences: more theorems were proved and results found in a hundred years than in all of previous history. In The Mathematical Century, Piergiorgio Odifreddi distills this unwieldy mass of knowledge into a fascinating and authoritative overview of the subject. He concentrates on thirty highlights of pure and applied mathematics. Each tells the story of an exciting problem, from its historical origins to its modern solution, in lively prose free of technical details. Odifreddi opens by discussing the four main philosophical foundations of mathematics of the nineteenth century and ends by describing the four most important open mathematical problems of the twenty-first century. In presenting the thirty problems at the heart of the book he devotes equal attention to pure and applied mathematics, with applications ranging from physics and computer science to biology and economics. Special attention is dedicated to the famous "23 problems" outlined by David Hilbert in his address to the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1900 as a research program for the new century, and to the work of the winners of the Fields Medal, the equivalent of a Nobel prize in mathematics. This eminently readable book will be treasured not only by students and their teachers but also by all those who seek to make sense of the elusive macrocosm of twentieth-century mathematics.

Assembling accessible and informative essays on contemporary debates and future issues in politics, this rewarding volume focuses on political developments in UK, European and international issues, and modern theoretical debates and problems. Each essay establishes the historical context before providing a speculative analysis of possible future developments. The collection presents a range of challenging and provocative accounts that deal with some of the most delicate, complex and fundamental issues that affect people living in Western Europe in the twenty-first century.

Early essays from the sociologist, displaying the beginnings of his views on politics, society, and Black Americans’ status in the United States. This volume assembles essential essays?some published only posthumously, others obscure, another only recently translated?by W. E. B. Du Bois from 1894 to early 1906. They show the first formulations of some of his most famous ideas, namely, “the veil,” “double-consciousness,” and the “problem of the color line.” Moreover, the deep historical sense of the formation of the modern world that informs Du Bois’s thought and gave rise to his understanding of “the problem of the color line” is on display here. Indeed, the essays constitute an essential companion to Du Bois’s 1903 masterpiece The Souls of Black Folk. The collection is based on two editorial principles: presenting the essays in their entirety and in strict chronological order. Copious annotation affords both student and mature scholar an unprecedented grasp of the range and depth of Du Bois’s everyday intellectual and scholarly reference. These essays commence at the moment of Du Bois’s return to the United States from two years of graduate-level study in Europe at the University of Berlin. At their center is the moment of Du Bois’s first full, self-reflexive formulation of a sense of vocation: as a student and scholar in the pursuit of the human sciences (in their still-nascent disciplinary organization?that is, the institutionalization of a generalized “sociology” or general “ethnology”), as they could be brought to bear on the study of the situation of the so-called Negro question in the United States in all of its multiply refracting dimensions. They close with Du Bois’s realization that the commitments orienting his work and intellectual practice demanded that he move beyond the institutional frames for the practice of the human sciences. The ideas developed in these early essays remained the fundamental matrix for the ongoing development of Du Bois’s thought. The essays gathered here will therefore serve as the essential reference for those seeking to understand the most profound registers of this major American thinker. “A seminal contribution to the history of modern thought. Compiled and edited by the world’s preeminent scholar of early Du Boisian thought, these texts represent his most generative period, when Du Bois engaged every discipline, helped construct modern social science, employed critical inquiry as a weapon of antiracism and political liberation, and always set his sites on the entire world. We know this not by the essays alone, but by Nahum Dimitri Chandler’s brilliant, original, and quite riveting introduction. If you are coming to Du Bois for the first time of the 500th time, this book is a must-read.” —Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination

The population and technology explosions are shrinking the world to a system in which everything is interactive, forcing us to transcend traditional modes of thinking. In this book, the authors set forth the concept of multiple perspectives: technical, organizational, and personal. They begin the book with a multiple-perspective examination of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, a case that foreshadows the intensifying problem of managing hazardous technology in the coming decades. They then apply this approach, on a much larger scale, to the United States in the evolving global setting. Included in the discussion are issues such as the balance between short-term and long-term concerns and between individual and societal responsibilities. The interdependence and inseparability of the three perspectives is reflected in the focus on technological superiority, organizational rethinking, and imaginative personal leadership. This book will help managers and students in business, engineering, science, and policymaking break away from exclusive concern with the technical perspective and thus help prepare them for the challenges of a new era.

With the rapid changes in the social, political, economic and technological landscape around the world, today’s learners face a more globally competitive job market after leaving school. The 21st century, which is characterized by the emergence of knowledge-based societies, expects learners to be comfortable in dealing with ambiguities and complexities in the real world and to be able to use knowledge as a tool at their workplace. This book will help readers develop an in-depth understanding of authentic problem solving and learning, and how it can be used to make a difference in their school or learning communities for the development of 21st century competencies. Comprising 20 chapters written by Singapore-based and international authors, the book is organized into three themes: authentic problems, authentic practices, and authentic participation. It details innovative school practices (e.g. productive failure) concerning the design of problems, learning activities, learning environments, and ICT tools for authentic problem solving and learning. Along with theoretical explanations of authentic learning processes and outcomes, the book also elucidates how students learn by generating and exploring solutions to complex problems and which cognitive functions are needed at different stages of problem-based learning. Presenting coherent descriptions of instructional design principles, successful cases and challenges encountered in K-12 schools and learning communities, the book provides useful information, new insights, and practical guidance for school directors, parents, teachers and researchers seeking to develop authentic learning environments for 21st century learners.

Up-to-Date Coverage of the Navier–Stokes Equation from an Expert in Harmonic Analysis The complete resolution of the Navier–Stokes equation—one of the Clay Millennium Prize Problems—remains an important open challenge in partial differential equations (PDEs) research despite substantial studies on turbulence and three-dimensional fluids. The Navier–Stokes Problem in the 21st Century provides a self-contained guide to the role of harmonic analysis in the PDEs of fluid mechanics. The book focuses on incompressible deterministic Navier–Stokes equations in the case of a fluid filling the whole space. It explores the meaning of the equations, open problems, and recent progress. It includes classical results on local existence and studies criterion for regularity or uniqueness of solutions. The book also incorporates historical references to the (pre)history of the equations as well as recent references that highlight active mathematical research in the field.