Broadview Press
Natural beauty; a theory of aesthetics beyond the arts.
Recognizing the dangers inherent in such an enterprise, Moore (philosophy, U. of Washington) seeks to line up many — not all, but enough to be significant — phenomena of the natural world into a coherent system of aesthetics. His perspectives include early and modern developments in syncretism, the framing paradox, and patterns of appreciation and aesthetic development. Some of the material has been published elsewhere in earlier form. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
On the move; the politics of social change in Latin America.
Veltmeyer (sociology and development, Saint Mary's U., Canada) provides a broad overview of the dynamics of social change in Latin America from the 1980s forward. His central concern is how popular movements have navigated between the three options he sees as available to push social change: electoral politics, mobilization of the popular forces of resistance by means of direct action against the powerful, and rural development in the form of micro-projects that aim to promote improvements within local spaces of the prevailing power structure. He begins by describing efforts involving each of these paradigms and strategies. He then offers chapters discussing the role of local governments in promoting local social development, the international development community's response to poverty, political struggle over access to land, and the politics of the new peasant social movements of the 1990s. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Reading archaeology; an introduction.
This archaeological textbook, suitable for undergraduate students, was designed to pair with a core text for maximum effect. Muckle (archaeology, Capilano College, Vancouver, BC) presents 29 selections from scholarly journals and books as well as semi-scientific periodicals and the popular press, intended to provoke student interest and introduce a variety of archaeological literature. Each selection contains an introduction providing information on the general topic, the author's and the original publication information, and study questions about the selection. Articles are sorted into five sections: past and present; ethics, legislation, and intellectual property rights; working in the field and laboratory; reconstructing culture history and past lifeways; and explaining things of archaeological interest. An appendix listing periodicals of archaeological interest is included, and the bibliography provides an easy source for quickly ascertaining where sections were originally published, but there is no index to this title. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Readings in the philosophy of law, 2d ed.
Organized by key arguments, ideas of law and legal reasoning, this anthology contains a broad range of classical and contemporary view, mostly in their original form. Culver (philosophy, U. of New Brunswick) provides a succinct introduction for each selection that provides historical and social contexts along with key terms, claims, issues and points of conflict. Thoroughly updating his selections to include such topics as critical race theory (Delgado) and the implications of the emergence of the European Union, Culver provides texts and study questions on natural law theory (with Aquinus and Finnis), legal positivism (Austin and Hart), integrity (Dworkin and Riggs v. Palmer), legal realism, feminist jurisprudence (Patricia Smith and Catherine MacKinnon), law and limits on individual liberty (Mill, Dworkin, Devlin and Hart), responsibility (Hart, Duff and R v. Shivpuri), and the nature of international law (Grotius, Hart, Koskenniemi and MacCormick). (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
