The Demise Of Diversity

Maintaining the natural diversity of the countless species on Earth is of fundamental importance for the continued existence of life on this planet. Nevertheless, ecosystems are being destroyed, as the cultivation of land for agriculture, industry and housing is intensified and oceans continue to be exploited. The Demise of Diversity: Loss and Extinction deals with biodiversity on this planet and the vital importance of sustaining it—nothing less than the future of life on Earth.

“In plain English, Martin Davidson explains how diversity can make a company more efficient and innovative, which leads to greater profits.” —Reginald Hudlin, producer/director and former President, Black Entertainment Television, Inc. A conversation with a CFO he worked with led Martin Davidson to explore the flaws in how companies typically manage diversity. They don’t integrate diversity into their overall business strategy. They focus on differences that have little impact on their business. And often their diversity efforts end up hindering the professional development of the very people they were designed to help. Davidson explains how what he calls Leveraging DifferenceTM turns persistent diversity problems into solutions that drive business results. Difference becomes a powerful source of sustainable competitive advantage instead of a distracting mandate handed down from HR. To begin with, leaders must identify the differences most important to achieving organizational goals, even if the differences aren’t the obvious ones. The second challenge is to help employees work together to understand the ways these differences matter to the business. Finally, leaders need to experiment with how to use these relevant differences to get things done. Davidson provides compelling examples of how organizations have tackled each of these challenges. Ultimately this is a book about leadership. As with any other strategic imperative, leaders need to take an active role—drive rather than just delegate. Successfully leveraging difference can be what distinguishes an ordinary organization from an extraordinary one. “This extensively researched book moves the diversity paradigm from the human resource cubicle to the whole organization, the tactical to the strategic, the short term to the sustainable, and the domestic to the global.” —Dr. Austin Ifedirah, Founder & Managing Partner, Engagent Health

The End of Diversity in Art Historical Writing is the most globally informed book on world art history, drawing on research in 76 countries. In addition some chapters have been crowd sourced: posted on the internet for comments, which have been incorporated into the text. It covers the principal accounts of Eurocentrism, center and margins, circulations and atlases of art, decolonial theory, incommensurate cultures, the origins and dissemination of the "October" model, problems of access to resources, models of multiple modernisms, and the emergence of English as the de facto lingua franca of art writing.

In this book, Arjun Tremblay considers the future of multiculturalism, contextualised within an ideological and political shift to the right. Is there any hope that multiculturalism will survive alongside the rise of the political right across democracies? How can policy makers continue to recognize and to accommodate minorities in an increasingly inhospitable ideological environment? Based on evidence from three case studies, Tremblay develops a hypothesis of multicultural outcomes, arguing that while the threat to multiculturalism is real, there still is hope, and that not only is the fate of minority rights in liberal democracies far from sealed, but it may still be possible to further protect the rights of immigrant and other minority groups in years to come. In order to do this, proponents of diversity politics may need to reconceptualise multiculturalism and other minority rights along instrumental lines as a means to fulfil policy objectives above and beyond the recognition and accommodation of immigrant minorities. This will be an important read for scholars interested in minority rights, multiculturalism, diversity politics, comparative politics, institutionalism, right-wing and far-right studies, and public policy.

After the devastation of World War II, Germany and Japan built national capitalist institutions that were remarkably successful in terms of national reconstruction and international competitiveness. Yet both "miracles" have since faltered, allowing U.S. capital and its institutional forms to establish global dominance. National varieties of capitalism are now under intense pressure to converge to the U.S. model. Kozo Yamamura and Wolfgang Streeck have gathered an international group of authors to examine the likelihood of convergence—to determine whether the global forces of Anglo-American capitalism will give rise to a single, homogeneous capitalist system. The chapters in this volume approach this question from five directions: international integration, technological innovation, labor relations and production systems, financial regimes and corporate governance, and domestic politics. In their introduction, Yamamura and Streeck summarize the crises of performance and confidence that have beset German and Japanese capitalism and revived the question of competitive convergence. The editors ask whether the two countries, confronted with the political and economic exigencies of technological revolution and economic internationalization, must abandon their distinctive institutions and the competitive advantages these have yielded in the past, or whether they can adapt and retain such institutions, thereby preserving the social cohesion and economic competitiveness of their societies.

Davidson makes the bold claim that millions--maybe billions--of dollars in diversity training are being wasted. He has found a better way: Stop forcing diversity on people as a goal in and of itself, and instead use it strategically, creating business improvement strategies that draw on employees' different strengths.

Coral reefs are among Earth's most diverse, productive, and beautiful ecosystems, but until recently, their ecology and the means to manage them have been poorly understood and documented. In response to the inadequate information base for coral reefs, this book reviews the ecological and conservation status of coral reefs of the Western Indian Ocean, bringing together presentations of the region's leading scientists and managers working on coral reefs.Coral Reefs of the Indian Ocean: Their Ecology and Conservation starts with a general overview of the biogeography of the region and a historical account of attempts to conserve this ecosystem. It goes on to describe the state of the reefs in each of the countries with coral reefs, and it concludes with a series of management case studies.The book also summarizes most of the existing ecological information on reefs in this region and efforts at management, making it useful for students, teachers, and investigators interested in tropical or marine ecology, conservation biology and management, and environmental sciences.

Affirmative action in US college admissions has inspired fierce debate as well as several US Supreme Court cases. In this significant study, leading US professors J. Scott Carter and Cameron D. Lippard provide an in-depth examination of the issue using sociological, policy and legal perspectives to frame both pro- and anti-affirmative action arguments, within past and present Supreme Court cases. With affirmative action policy under constant attack, this is a crucial book that not only explains the state of this policy but also further deconstructs the state of race and racism in American society today.