Tweets from the Trenches


Book Description

"Follow Carmichael's odyssey deep into the dugouts of World War I military history. ... This 168-page book is written in flash documentary creative non-fiction, and features small stories pulled from journals and letters of Allied soldiers from Prince Edward Island to Yorkshire to South Carolina, touching on everything from rationed rum and brave homing pigeons to post-traumatic stress disorder."--




War in 140 Characters


Book Description

A leading foreign correspondent looks at how social media has transformed the modern battlefield, and how wars are fought Modern warfare is a war of narratives, where bullets are fired both physically and virtually. Whether you are a president or a terrorist, if you don't understand how to deploy the power of social media effectively you may win the odd battle but you will lose a twenty-first century war. Here, journalist David Patrikarakos draws on unprecedented access to key players to provide a new narrative for modern warfare. He travels thousands of miles across continents to meet a de-radicalized female member of ISIS recruited via Skype, a liberal Russian in Siberia who takes a job manufacturing "Ukrainian" news, and many others to explore the way social media has transformed the way we fight, win, and consume wars-and what this means for the world going forward.




Trench Talk


Book Description

The First World War largely directed the course of the twentieth century. Fought on three continents, the war saw 14 million killed and 34 million wounded. Its impact shaped the world we live in today, and the language of the trenches continues to live in the modern consciousness. One of the enduring myths of the First World War is that the experience of the trenches was not talked about. Yet dozens of words entered or became familiar in the English language as a direct result of the soldiers' experiences. This book looks at how the experience of the First World War changed the English language, adding words that were both in slang and standard military use, and modifying the usage and connotations of existing words and phrases. Illustrated with material from the authors' collections and photographs of the objects of the war, the book will look at how the words emerged into everyday language.




Trowels in the Trenches


Book Description

Presenting examples from the fields of critical race studies, cultural resource management, digital archaeology, environmental studies, and heritage studies, Trowels in the Trenches demonstrates the many different ways archaeology can be used to contest social injustice. This volume shows that activism in archaeology does not need to involve radical or explicitly political actions but can be practiced in subtler forms as a means of studying the past, informing the present, and creating a better future. In case studies that range from the Upper Paleolithic period to the modern era and span the globe, contributors show how contemporary economic, environmental, political, and social issues are manifestations of past injustices. These essays find legacies of marginalization in art, toys, houses, and other components of the material world. As they illuminate inequalities and forgotten histories, these case studies exemplify how even methods such as 3D modeling and database management can be activist when they are used to preserve artifacts and heritage sites and to safeguard knowledge over generations. While the archaeologists in this volume focus on different topics and time periods and use many different practices in their research, they all seek to expand their work beyond the networks and perspectives of modern capitalism in which the discipline developed. These studies support the argument that at its core, archaeology is an interdisciplinary research endeavor armed with a broad methodological and theoretical arsenal that should be used to benefit all members of society. Contributors: |Christopher P. Barton | Stephen A. Brighton | Tiffany Cain | Stacey L. Camp | Kasey Diserens Morgan | Yamoussa Fane | Daouda Keita | Nathan Klembara | Ora V. Marek-Martinez | Christopher N. Matthews | Bernard K. Means | Vinod Nautiyal | Kyle Somerville | Moussa dit Martin Tessougue | Kerry F. Thompson | Joe Watkins | Andrew J. Webster




Twitter and Tear Gas


Book Description

A firsthand account and incisive analysis of modern protest, revealing internet-fueled social movements’ greatest strengths and frequent challenges To understand a thwarted Turkish coup, an anti–Wall Street encampment, and a packed Tahrir Square, we must first comprehend the power and the weaknesses of using new technologies to mobilize large numbers of people. An incisive observer, writer, and participant in today’s social movements, Zeynep Tufekci explains in this accessible and compelling book the nuanced trajectories of modern protests—how they form, how they operate differently from past protests, and why they have difficulty persisting in their long-term quests for change. Tufekci speaks from direct experience, combining on-the-ground interviews with insightful analysis. She describes how the internet helped the Zapatista uprisings in Mexico, the necessity of remote Twitter users to organize medical supplies during Arab Spring, the refusal to use bullhorns in the Occupy Movement that started in New York, and the empowering effect of tear gas in Istanbul’s Gezi Park. These details from life inside social movements complete a moving investigation of authority, technology, and culture—and offer essential insights into the future of governance.




Heard Amid the Guns


Book Description

"Carmichael captures the anguish and the wonder of war in flashes of colour, humour, and gems of human detail mined from letters, diaries, interviews, [and] her own family history." —Halifax Chronicle Herald A rich and varied tapestry of the First World War, highlighting the personal stories of over 150 men and women from across North America who served overseas. After receiving a bundle of worn letters written by her late grandfather George “Black Jack” Vowel during the First World War, journalist Jacqueline Carmichael became fascinated with the daily realities and personal stories of those who had lived through that pivotal and harrowing period in history. Reaching beyond the battlefield descriptions found in most history books, Carmichael presents unforgettable accounts filled with drama, hope, and heartbreak culled from journals and letters of Allied soldiers and nurses. From tales of men “shot at dawn” under charges of desertion or cowardice, to women cross-dressing to get into battle, to a Canadian Member of Parliament whose PTSD-induced death was barely acknowledged by Ottawa for nearly a century, Heard Amid the Guns reflects the human face of war. Featuring profiles of people from every Canadian province and many American states, including soldiers of Indigenous, Asian, Indo-Canadian, and African-Canadian and -American backgrounds, this book is a touching tribute illustrated throughout by WWI-era photos, postcards, documents, and the author’s contemporary photos from battlefield sites and monuments.




Twitter For Dummies


Book Description

A fully updated new edition of the fun and easy guide to getting up and running on Twitter With more than half a billion registered users, Twitter continues to grow by leaps and bounds. This handy guide, from one of the first marketers to discover the power of Twitter, covers all the new features. It explains all the nuts and bolts, how to make good connections, and why and how Twitter can benefit you and your business. Fully updated to cover all the latest features and changes to Twitter Written by a Twitter pioneer who was one of the first marketers to fully tap into Twitter's business applications Ideal for beginners, whether they want to use Twitter to stay in touch with friends or to market their products and services Explains how to incorporate Twitter into other social media and how to use third-party tools to improve and simplify Twitter




My Tweets Are Nothing Like The Sun: William Shakespeare on Twitter


Book Description

Everyone knows something of the sonnets of William Shakespeare - even if they have never read Shakespeare. Allusions are all around in song lyrics, TV shows, and news headlines. The 154 poems Shakespeare wrote in sonnet form and published in 1609 are referenced in so much popular culture, yet unless you are a student of English literature you may not have ever tried reading them. Now you don't have to. In this book, all the 154 original poems are included and paired with a Twitter version. That's right, every one of the sonnets has been reduced to a message of fewer than 140-characters. This is an experiment in making 400-year-old poetry work in the age of social media, but it is also a continuation of the sonnet traditions. Sonnets are very structured, short poems anyway. Poets needed to follow strict rules to make a sonnet work, to convey meaning within a set number of lines. In this book, the sonnets have been reduced to individual tweets - but they still retain the essence of each poem.




The Cold Start Problem


Book Description

A startup executive and investor draws on expertise developed at the premier venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and as an executive at Uber to address how tech’s most successful products have solved the dreaded "cold start problem”—by leveraging network effects to launch and scale toward billions of users. Although software has become easier to build, launching and scaling new products and services remains difficult. Startups face daunting challenges entering the technology ecosystem, including stiff competition, copycats, and ineffective marketing channels. Teams launching new products must consider the advantages of “the network effect,” where a product or service’s value increases as more users engage with it. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and other tech giants utilize network effects, and most tech products incorporate them, whether they’re messaging apps, workplace collaboration tools, or marketplaces. Network effects provide a path for fledgling products to break through, attracting new users through viral growth and word of mouth. Yet most entrepreneurs lack the vocabulary and context to describe them—much less understand the fundamental principles that drive the effect. What exactly are network effects? How do teams create and build them into their products? How do products compete in a market where every player has them? Andrew Chen draws on his experience and on interviews with the CEOs and founding teams of LinkedIn, Twitch, Zoom, Dropbox, Tinder, Uber, Airbnb, and Pinterest to offer unique insights in answering these questions. Chen also provides practical frameworks and principles that can be applied across products and industries. The Cold Start Problem reveals what makes winning networks thrive, why some startups fail to successfully scale, and, most crucially, why products that create and compete using the network effect are vitally important today.




Climate Denial in American Politics


Book Description

Climate Denial in American Politics is a detailed examination of the rise within American politics of climate denialism, the counter movement which challenges the accepted science of climate change. Organized around the administrations of American presidents from Roosevelt to Biden, this book provides an unprecedented account of climate denial within both the White House and Congress, and the ‘climate brawls’ that followed. This volume is a rebuke to discredit the climate denier, their propaganda, and their sources. Gerald Kutney examines the evolution of American political thought on climate change and provides a comprehensive survey and analysis of the sordid history of the propaganda which has promoted climate denial and corrupted politicians in America. He uses direct quotes from primary sources, such as government records, to show the extreme and pervasive nature of anti-science opinions made by political climate deniers and limit any misinterpretation that might result from paraphrasing. Weaving the account of climate denialism in American politics with anecdotes from Kutney’s own decade-long experience of challenging climate deniers on Twitter using #ClimateBrawl, this book provides a valuable insight into the world of climate obstruction. Climate Denial in American Politics will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate change, environmental politics and American politics more broadly.