The Third Wave & Other Stories


Book Description

This is a collection of Short Stories (some prize winning) written over a period of some thirty years presenting a wide ranging perspective of life. They portray experiences of individuals who in the course of their daily humdrum existence come upon momentous circumstances which jar their smug self complacency and change their entire outlook on life. A common strain which runs through all the stories is the utter vulnerability of the individual when pitted against the overpowering clatter of the machinery called life. There is a massive gush of apathetic mechanical activity out there which can anytime douse the tenuous flicker of ones own emotions. The Characters are drawn from various strata of society be they a daily wage earner, a smug sophomore, a confused young couple, a sexual pervert, a beleagured single woman, a nave teenage lover or a fling-seeking damsel well past her prime. Thrown into the cauldron of life each frantically struggle to keep their ends up. Some just succumb, while most finally resign themselves to the nebulous drift of existence, as undecipherable as the inexorable cycle of birth and death of stars.




The Third Wave


Book Description

Alison Thompson, a filmmaker living in New York City, was enjoying Christmas with her boyfriend in 2004 when she saw the news reports online: a 9.3 magnitude earthquake had struck the sea near Indonesia, triggering a massive tsunami that hit much of southern Asia. As she watched the death toll climb, Thompson had one thought: She had to go help. A few years earlier, she had spent eight months volunteering at Ground Zero after 9/11. She’d learned then that when disaster strikes, it’s not just the firemen and Red Cross who are needed—every single person can make a difference. With $300 in cash, some basic medical supplies, and a vague idea that she’d go wherever she was needed, Thompson headed to Sri Lanka. Along with a small team of volunteers, she settled in a coastal town that had been hit especially hard and began tending to people’s injuries, giving out food and water, playing games with the children, collecting dead bodies, and helping rebuild the local school and homes that had been destroyed. Thompson had intended to stay for two weeks; she ended up staying for fourteen months. She and her team helped start new businesses and set up the first tsunami early-warning center in Sri Lanka, which continues to save lives today. The Third Wave tells the inspiring story of how volunteering changed Thompson’s life. It begins with her first real introduction to disaster relief after 9/11 and ends with her more recent efforts in Haiti, where she has helped create and run, with Sean Penn, an internally-displaced-person camp and field hospital for more than 65,000 Haitians who lost their homes in the 2010 earthquake. In The Third Wave, Thompson provides an invaluable inside glimpse into what really happens on the ground after a disaster—and a road map for what anyone can do to help. As Alison Thompson shows, with some resilience, a healthy sense of humor, and the desire to make a difference, we all have what it takes to change the world for the better.




The Third Wave


Book Description

Steve Case, co-founder of America Online (AOL) and one of America's most accomplished entrepreneurs, shares a roadmap for how anyone can succeed in a world of rapidly changing technology. We are entering, he explains, a new paradigm called the "Third Wave" of the Internet. The first wave saw AOL and other companies lay the foundation for consumers to connect to the Internet. The second wave saw companies like Google and Facebook build on top of the Internet to create search and social networking capabilities, while apps like Snapchat and Instagram leverage the smartphone revolution. Now, Case argues, we're entering the Third Wave: a period in which entrepreneurs will vastly transform major "real world" sectors like health, education, transportation, energy, and food-and in the process change the way we live our daily lives.




The Third Wave


Book Description

Although much of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) debate centers on the notion that the Information Age represents a Third Wave paradigm shift, the Information Age is only one of the components of the Third Wave. The Third Wave is marked not by a paradigm shift, but the utter lack of a paradigm. Discussions about the RMA (or, as it is increasingly being called, Revolution in Security Affairs, as some call it) should reflect the specific conditions existing in the Third Wave, in this regard, the Tofflers' analysis is incomplete.




The Third Wave


Book Description

Between 1974 and 1990 more than thirty countries in southern Europe, Latin America, East Asia, and Eastern Europe shifted from authoritarian to democratic systems of government. This global democratic revolution is probably the most important political trend in the late twentieth century. In The Third Wave, Samuel P. Huntington analyzes the causes and nature of these democratic transitions, evaluates the prospects for stability of the new democracies, and explores the possibility of more countries becoming democratic. The recent transitions, he argues, are the third major wave of democratization in the modem world. Each of the two previous waves was followed by a reverse wave in which some countries shifted back to authoritarian government. Using concrete examples, empirical evidence, and insightful analysis, Huntington provides neither a theory nor a history of the third wave, but an explanation of why and how it occurred. Factors responsible for the democratic trend include the legitimacy dilemmas of authoritarian regimes; economic and social development; the changed role of the Catholic Church; the impact of the United States, the European Community, and the Soviet Union; and the "snowballing" phenomenon: change in one country stimulating change in others. Five key elite groups within and outside the nondemocratic regime played roles in shaping the various ways democratization occurred. Compromise was key to all democratizations, and elections and nonviolent tactics also were central. New democracies must deal with the "torturer problem" and the "praetorian problem" and attempt to develop democratic values and processes. Disillusionment with democracy, Huntington argues, is necessary to consolidating democracy. He concludes the book with an analysis of the political, economic, and cultural factors that will decide whether or not the third wave continues. Several "Guidelines for Democratizers" offer specific, practical suggestions for initiating and carrying out reform. Huntington's emphasis on practical application makes this book a valuable tool for anyone engaged in the democratization process. At this volatile time in history, Huntington's assessment of the processes of democratization is indispensable to understanding the future of democracy in the world.




Tell Me Tomorrow and Other Stories


Book Description

“Tell me Tomorrow and Other Stories” is a book of miscellaneous tales, most of which involve a distortion of time, as well as the subject of those who experience problems interacting with others in the everyday world. Two are about ghosts; one tells of the nightmare a young woman suffers once losing her job and having recited a nursery rhyme to a child. Another relates to a middle-aged woman who only just discovers that her problems relating to others has been due to having a condition that had gone undiagnosed, while one is about an intolerant right wing political party on the verge of coming into power. Then there is the tale of the girl with cerebral palsy whose wish to become able-bodied and to live an independent life is granted - but only for a limited time, another about the re-introduction of the workhouse and household servant to a post-pandemic Britain, where unemployment is rife and benefits no longer exist, and one about the adverse effects of Covid-19.




Making Home in the Suburb


Book Description




Narrative, Identity, and the City


Book Description

Raul P. Lejano offers a boldly original synthesis of narratology, psychology, and human geography. This helps him articulate his two main insights: that our identity as individuals, though not completely determined by sociocultural factors, nevertheless profoundly reflects our embeddedness in particular places; and that the way we think of, or would like to think of, our own identity is most readily captured in the stories we tell about ourselves. Most revealing of all, he suggests, are our stories about coming to grips with an entire city, especially when our experience of it is actually one of dislocation or relocation – when we in some sense or other “lose” a city to which we have hitherto belonged, or when we “find” a new one. By way of illustration the book includes four specially commissioned autobiographical stories by writers of Filipino origin, which Lejano’s analytical chapters compare and contrast with each other within his interdisciplinary frame of reference. At once learnedly sophisticated and readably empathetic, his commentaries are underpinned by a basically phenomenological orientation, which leads him to view human individuals as essentially relational beings, naturally inclined to enter into dialogue with both their fellow-creatures and the larger environment.




Democratization and Research Methods


Book Description

Democratization and Research Methods is a coherent survey and critique of both democratization research and the methodology of comparative politics. The two themes enhance each other: the democratization literature illustrates the advantages and disadvantages of various methodological approaches, and the critique of methods makes sense of the vast and bewildering democratization field. Michael Coppedge argues that each of the three main approaches in comparative politics - case studies and comparative histories, formal modeling and large-sample statistical analysis - accomplishes one fundamental research goal relatively well: 'thickness', integration and generalization, respectively. Throughout the book, comprehensive surveys of democratization research demonstrate that each approach accomplishes one of these goals well but the other two poorly. Chapters cover conceptualization and measurement, case studies and comparative histories, formal models and theories, political culture and survey research, and quantitative testing. The final chapter summarizes the state of knowledge about democratization and lays out an agenda for multi-method research.




My Red Couch


Book Description

From church pews to library carrels, from the tear gas of political demonstrations to the wails of an infant, and from writer's pen to elevated pulpit, these women speak to a new generation of feminist Christians. They invite a conversation with sister-travelers seeking to be faithful to themselves, to each other, to their communities, to their religious inheritance, to their feminist commitments, and to their best, most creative work. --from the Foreword by Rita Nakashima Brock Do you feel alone in your search to be a feminist and a Christian? Does it often feel impossible to reconcile these two seemingly disparate ideologies? Do you ever have feelings of doubt or disillusionment about your faith tradition? And what does it mean to be a feminist anyway? --from the Introduction In My Red Couch, 24 third-wave feminist women and one man, ages 18-36, tell their stories of seeking to reconcile their faith and their feminism. This book of narrative essays and practical discussion suggestions is for all those who seek an authentic path of Christian faith and social justice defined by contemporary feminism. The book is divided into four parts with five or six essays in each part: 1) In Search of Integrity; 2) In Search of Community; 3) In Search of Creativity; and 4) In Search of Tensegrity. The resource is ideal for both individual and group settings. Contributors are: Sadie Ackerman, Elizabeth J. Andrew, Claire Bischoff, Laurie Brock, Mary Lousie Bozza, Carol Brorsen, Adam J. Copeland, Rachel Gaffron, Megan Gavin, Katie Haegele, April Heaney, Janet Holbrook, Sara Irwin, HyeRan Kim-Cragg, Mary Ann McKibben Dana, Monica Ann Maestras, Ann Crews Melton, Christiana Z. Peppard, Kelsey Rice, Ellie Roscher, Heather Scheiwe, Heather Grace Shortlidge, Monique Simpson, and Megan J. Thorvilson.