American Government and Politics in the Information Age

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This text is a comprehensive introduction to the vital subject of American government and politics. Governments decide who gets what, when, how (See Harold D. Lasswell, Politics: Who Gets What, When, How, [New York: McGraw-Hill, 1936]); they make policies and pass laws that are binding on all a society’s members; they decide about taxation and spending, benefits and costs, even life and death.Governments possess power—the ability to gain compliance and to get people under their jurisdiction to obey them—and they may exercise their power by using the police and military to enforce their decisions. However, power need not involve the exercise of force or compulsion; people often obey because they think it is in their interest to do so, they have no reason to disobey, or they fear punishment. Above all, people obey their government because it has authority; its power is seen by people as rightfully held, as legitimate. People can grant their government legitimacy because they have been socialized to do so; because there are processes, such as elections, that enable them to choose and change their rulers; and because they believe that their governing institutions operate justly.Politics is the process by which leaders are selected and policy decisions are made and executed. It involves people and groups, both inside and outside of government, engaged in deliberation and debate, disagreement and conflict, cooperation and consensus, and power struggles.In covering American government and politics, this text introduces the intricacies of the Constitution, the complexities of federalism, the meanings of civil liberties, and the conflicts over civil rights;explains how people are socialized to politics, acquire and express opinions, and participate in political life; describes interest groups, political parties, and elections—the intermediaries that link people to government and politics; details the branches of government and how they operate; and shows how policies are made and affect people’s lives.

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: David L. Paletz, Diana Owen, Timothy E. Cook

Attenuated Democracy

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A Critical Introduction to U.S. Government and Politics Word Count: 243127 (Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Material Type: Textbook

Author: David Hubert

American Government 3e

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American Government is designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of the single-semester American government course. This title includes innovative features designed to enhance student learning, including Insider Perspective features and a Get Connected Module that shows students how they can get engaged in the political process. The book provides an important opportunity for students to learn the core concepts of American government and understand how those concepts apply to their lives and the world around them. American Government includes updated information on the 2016 presidential election.

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: Glen Krutz, Sylvie Waskiewicz

Community Resilience to Climate Change: Theory, Research and Practice

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This reader is an Open Educational Resource, meant to accompany a graduate or higher-level undergraduate university course in climate change resilience, adaptation, and/or planning. While the material is geared toward students in urban and regional planning, it may also be of interest to students of urban studies, public health, geography, political science, sociology, risk management, and others.

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: Dana E. Hellman, Vivek Shandas

History of International Relations: A Non-European Perspective

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Existing textbooks on international relations treat history in a cursory fashion and perpetuate a Euro-centric perspective. This textbook pioneers a new approach by historicizing the material traditionally taught in International Relations courses, and by explicitly focusing on non-European cases, debates and issues. The volume is divided into three parts. The first part focuses on the international systems that traditionally existed in Europe, East Asia, pre-Columbian Central and South America, Africa and Polynesia. The second part discusses the ways in which these international systems were brought into contact with each other through the agency of Mongols in Central Asia, Arabs in the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, Indic and Sinic societies in South East Asia, and the Europeans through their travels and colonial expansion. The concluding section concerns contemporary issues: the processes of decolonization, neo-colonialism and globalization – and their consequences on contemporary society. History of International Relations provides a unique textbook for undergraduate and graduate students of international relations, and anybody interested in international relations theory, history, and contemporary politics.

Material Type: Textbook

Author: Erik Ringmar

International Relations

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This book is designed to be a ‘Day 0' introduction to International Relations. As a beginner's guide, it has been structured to condense the most important information into the smallest space and present that information in the most accessible way. The chapters offer a broad sweep of the basic components of International Relations and the key contemporaryissues that concern the discipline. The narrative arc forms a complete circle, taking readers from no knowledge to competency. The journey starts by examining how the international system was formed and ends by reflecting that International Relations is always adapting to events and is therefore a never-ending journey of discovery. Unlike typical textbooks, there are no boxes, charts, pictures or exercises. The philosophy underpinning this book is that these things can be a distraction. This book, like others in the E-IR Foundations series, is designed to capture attention with an engaging narrative. The chapters are short, with simple paragraphs and clear sentences placing the reader inside crucial issues and debates so they can understand how things work, and where they fit in the world around them.

Material Type: Textbook

Author: Stephen McGlinchey

International Relations Theory

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This book is designed as a foundational entry point to International Relations theory – structured to condense the most important information into the smallest space and present that information in an accessible manner. The first half of the book covers the theories that are most commonly taught in undergraduate programmes. The book then expands to present emerging approaches and offer wider perspectives. Each chapter sets out the basics of a theory whilst also applying it to a real-world event or issue, creating a lively, readable and relevant guide that will help students to see not only what theories are – but why they matter.

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: Christian Scheinpflug, Rosie Walters, Stephen McGlinchey

The Adventure of Physics - Vol. VI: The Strand Model - A Speculation on Unification

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This book is written for anybody who is intensely curious about nature and motion. Have you ever asked: Why do people, animals, things, images and empty space move? The answer leads to many adventures, and this book presents one of the best of them: the search for a precise, unified and final description of all motion. The wish to describe all motion is a large endeavour. Fortunately, this large endeavour can be structured in the simple diagram shown in Figure 1. The final and unified description of motion, the topic of this book, corresponds to the highest point in the diagram. Searching for this final and unified description is an old quest. In the following, I briefly summarize its history and then present an intriguing, though speculative solution to the riddle. The search for the final, unified description of motion is a story of many surprises. For example, twentieth-century research has shown that there is a smallest distance in nature. Research has also shown that matter cannot be distinguished from empty space at those small distances. A last surprise dates from this century: particles and space are best described as made of strands, instead of little spheres or points. The present text explains how to reach these unexpected conclusions. In particular, quantum field theory, the standard model of particle physics, general relativity and cosmology are shown to follow from strands. The three gauge interactions, the three particle generations and the three dimensions of space turn out to be due to strands. In fact, all the open questions of twentieth-century physics about the foundations of motion, all the millennium issues, can be solved with the help of strands. The strand model, as presented in this text, is an unexpected result from a threefold aim that I have pursued since 1990, in the five previous volumes of this series: to present the basics of motion in a way that is up to date, captivating and simple. In retrospect, the aim for maximum simplicity has been central in deducing this speculation. While the previous volumes introduced, in an entertaining way, the established parts of physics, this volume presents, in the same entertaining and playful way, a speculation about unification. Nothing in this volume is established knowledge – yet. The text is the original presentation of the topic. The search for a final theory is one of the great adventures of life: it leads to the limits of thought. The search overthrows our thinking habits about nature. A change in thinking habits can produce fear, often hidden by anger. But by overcoming our fears we gain strength and serenity. Changing thinking habits thus requires courage, but it also produces intense and beautiful emotions. Enjoy them!

Material Type: Textbook

Author: Christoph Schiller

The Adventure of Physics - Vol. V: Motion Inside Matter - Pleasure, Technology, and Stars

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This book is written for anybody who is curious about nature and motion. Curiosity about how bodies, images and empty space move leads to many adventures. This volume presents the best adventures about the motion inside people, inside animals, and inside any other type of matter – from the largest stars to the smallest nuclei. Motion inside bodies – dead or alive – is described by quantum theory. Quantum theory describes all motion with the quantum of action h, the smallest change observed in nature. Building on this basic idea, the text first shows how to describe life, death and pleasure. Then, the text explains the observations of chemistry, materials science, astrophysics and particle physics. In the structure of physics, these topics correspond to the three ‘quantum’ points in Figure 1. The story of motion inside living and non-living matter, from the coldest gases to the hottest stars, is told here in a way that is simple, up to date and captivating. In order to be simple, the text focuses on concepts, while keeping mathematics to the necessary minimum. Understanding the concepts of physics is given precedence over using formulae in calculations. The whole text is within the reach of an undergraduate. In order to be up to date, the text is enriched by the many gems – both theoretical and empirical – that are scattered throughout the scientific literature. In order to be captivating, the text tries to startle the reader as much as possible. Read- ing a book on physics should be like going to a magic show. We watch, we are astonished, we do not believe our eyes, we think, and finally we understand the trick. When we look at nature, we often have the same experience. Indeed, every page presents at least one sur- prise that makes the reader think. Also numerous interesting challenges are proposed. The motto of the text, die Menschen stärken, die Sachen klären, a famous statement by Hartmut von Hentig on pedagogy, translates as: ‘To fortify people, to clarify things.’ Clar- ifying things – and adhering only to the truth – requires courage, as changing the habits of thought produces fear, often hidden by anger. But by overcoming our fears we grow in strength. And we experience intense and beautiful emotions. All great adventures in life allow this, and exploring motion is one of them. Enjoy it!

Material Type: Textbook

Author: Christoph Schiller

The American LGBTQ Rights Movement: An Introduction

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The American LGBTQ Rights Movement: An Introduction is a peer-reviewed chronological survey of the LGBTQ fight for equal rights from the turn of the 20th century to the early 21st century. Illustrated with historical photographs, the book beautifully reveals the heroic people and key events that shaped the American LGBTQ rights movement. The book includes personal narratives to capture the lived experience from each era, as well as details of essential organizations, texts, and court cases that defined LGBTQ activism and advocacy.

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: Kyle Morgan, Meg Rodriguez

Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies: Teaching and Assessing Writing for a Socially Just Future

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In Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies, Asao B. Inoue theorizes classroom writing assessment as a complex system that is "more than" its interconnected elements. To explain how and why antiracist work in the writing classroom is vital to literacy learning, Inoue incorporates ideas about the white racial habitus that informs dominant discourses in the academy and other contexts. Inoue helps teachers understand the unintended racism that often occurs when teachers do not have explicit antiracist agendas in their assessments. Drawing on his own teaching and classroom inquiry, Inoue offers a heuristic for developing and critiquing writing assessment ecologies that explores seven elements of any writing assessment ecology: power, parts, purposes, people, processes, products, and places.

Material Type: Textbook

Author: Asao B. Inoue

Slavery to Liberation: The African American Experience

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Slavery to Liberation: The African American Experience gives instructors, students, and general readers a comprehensive and up-to-date account of African Americans’ cultural and political history, economic development, artistic expressiveness, and religious and philosophical worldviews in a critical framework. It offers sound interdisciplinary analysis of selected historical and contemporary issues surrounding the origins and manifestations of White supremacy in the United States. By placing race at the center of the work, the book offers significant lessons for understanding the institutional marginalization of Blacks in contemporary America and their historical resistance and perseverance.

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: Gwendolyn Graham, Joshua Farrington, Norman W. Powell

Beyond Race: Cultural Influences on Human Social Life

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The book is supported by discussion of relevant theory and research in cultural sociology.Beyond Race: Cultural Influences on Human Social Life has stressed learner-centered teaching with the instructor taking on the role of a facilitator of learning. As such, it is expected the instructor will serve as the mediator between the content of this book and learners’ understanding of material on multiple and higher levels. This book does not offer a set of rules in teaching cultural sociology, but rather suggests content and applications to consider and modify as needed by the ever-changing dynamics of instructors and learners.

Material Type: Textbook

Author: Vera Kennedy

APEX Calculus

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APEX Calculus is a calculus textbook written for traditional college/university calculus courses. It has the look and feel of the calculus book you likely use right now (Stewart, Thomas & Finney, etc.). The explanations of new concepts is clear, written for someone who does not yet know calculus. Each section ends with an exercise set with ample problems to practice & test skills (odd answers are in the back).

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: Brian Heinold, Dimplekumar Chalishajar, Gregory Hartman, Troy Siemers

APEX PreCalculus

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This text was written as a prequel to the APEXCalculus series, a three–volume series on Calculus. This text is not intended to fully prepare students with all of the mathematical knowledge they need to tackle Calculus, rather it is designed to review mathematical concepts that are often stumbling blocks in the Calculus sequence. It starts basic and builds to more complex topics. This text is written so that each section and topic largely stands on its own, making it a good resource for students in Calculus who are struggling with the supporting mathemathics found in Calculus courses. The topics were chosen based on experience; several instructors in the Applied Mathemathics Department at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) compiled a list of topics that Calculus students commonly struggle with, giving the focus of this text. This allows for a more focused approach; at first glance one of the obvious differences from a standard Pre-Calculus text is its size.

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: Amy Givler Chapman, Jessica Libertini, Meagan Herald

Abstract Algebra: Theory and Applications

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This text is intended for a one- or two-semester undergraduate course in abstract algebra. Traditionally, these courses have covered the theoretical aspects of groups, rings, and fields. However, with the development of computing in the last several decades, applications that involve abstract algebra and discrete mathematics have become increasingly important, and many science, engineering, and computer science students are now electing to minor in mathematics. Though theory still occupies a central role in the subject of abstract algebra and no student should go through such a course without a good notion of what a proof is, the importance of applications such as coding theory and cryptography has grown significantly.

Material Type: Textbook

Author: Thomas Judson

Active Calculus

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Active Calculus is different from most existing calculus texts in at least the following ways: the text is free for download by students and instructors in .pdf format; in the electronic format, graphics are in full color and there are live html links to java applets; the text is open source, and interested instructors can gain access to the original source files upon request; the style of the text requires students to be active learners — there are very few worked examples in the text, with there instead being 3-4 activities per section that engage students in connecting ideas, solving problems, and developing understanding of key calculus concepts; each section begins with motivating questions, a brief introduction, and a preview activity, all of which are designed to be read and completed prior to class; the exercises are few in number and challenging in nature.

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: David Austin, Matt Boelkins, Steve Schlicker

Active Calculus 2.0

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Active Calculus is different from most existing calculus texts in at least the following ways: the text is freely readable online in HTML format and is also available for in PDF; in the electronic format, graphics are in full color and there are live links to java applets; version 2.0 now contains WeBWorK exercises in each chapter, which are fully interactive in the HTML format and included in print in the PDF; the text is open source, and interested users can gain access to the original source files on GitHub; the style of the text requires students to be active learners — there are very few worked examples in the text, with there instead being 3-4 activities per section that engage students in connecting ideas, solving problems, and developing understanding of key calculus concepts; each section begins with motivating questions, a brief introduction, and a preview activity, all of which are designed to be read and completed prior to class; following the WeBWorK exercises in each section, there are several challenging problems that require students to connect key ideas and write to communicate their understanding.

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: David Austin, Matt Boelkins, Steve Schlicker

Active Calculus Multivariable

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Active Calculus Multivariable is the continuation of Active Calculus to multivariable functions. The Active Calculus texts are different from most existing calculus texts in at least the following ways: the texts are free for download by students and instructors in .pdf format; in the electronic format, graphics are in full color and there are live html links to java applets; the texts are open source, and interested instructors can gain access to the original source files upon request; the style of the texts requires students to be active learners — there are very few worked examples in the texts, with there instead being 3-4 activities per section that engage students in connecting ideas, solving problems, and developing understanding of key calculus concepts; each section begins with motivating questions, a brief introduction, and a preview activity, all of which are designed to be read and completed prior to class; the exercises are few in number and challenging in nature.

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: David Austin, Matthew Boelkins, Steven Schlicker

The Adventure of Physics - Vol. I: Fall, Flow, and Heat

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This book is written for anybody who is curious about nature and motion. Curiosity about how people, animals, things, images and space move leads to many adventures. This volume presents the best of them in the domain of everyday life. Carefully observing everyday motion allows us to deduce six essential statements: everyday motion is continuous, conserved, relative, reversible, mirror-invariant – and lazy. Yes, nature is indeed lazy: in every motion, it minimizes change. This text explores how these six results are deduced and how they fit with all those observations that seem to contradict them. In the structure of modern physics, shown in Figure 1, the results on everyday motion form the major part of the starting point at the bottom. The present volume is the first of a six-volume overview of physics. It resulted from a threefold aim I have pursued since 1990: to present motion in a way that is simple, up to date and captivating. In order to be simple, the text focuses on concepts, while keeping mathematics to the necessary minimum. Understanding the concepts of physics is given precedence over using formulae in calculations. The whole text is within the reach of an undergraduate. In order to be up to date, the text is enriched by the many gems – both theoretical and empirical – that are scattered throughout the scientific literature. In order to be captivating, the text tries to startle the reader as much as possible. Reading a book on general physics should be like going to a magic show. We watch, we are astonished, we do not believe our eyes, we think, and finally we understand the trick. When we look at nature, we often have the same experience. Indeed, every page presents at least one surprise or provocation for the reader to think about. Numerous interesting challenges are proposed. The motto of the text, die Menschen stärken, die Sachen klären, a famous statement by Hartmut von Hentig on pedagogy, translates as: ‘To fortify people, to clarify things.’ Clarifying things – and adhering only to the truth – requires courage, as changing the habits of thought produces fear, often hidden by anger. But by overcoming our fears we grow in strength. And we experience intense and beautiful emotions. All great adventures in life allow this, and exploring motion is one of them. Enjoy it!

Material Type: Textbook

Author: Christoph Schiller