Business is one of the most potent cultural forces today, profoundly affecting every facet of our lives whether we are working in a corporate environment or not. This book surveys some of the most controversial issues and topics central to the contemporary business world. Included are more than 70 alphabetically arranged entries written by expert contributors. Each entry explores a topic's relevance and influence, highlights opposing viewpoints, provides sidebars of interesting information, and lists resources for further research. For students and general readers, this book is an engaging, accessible, and essential resource on the role of business in society. Globalization. Outsourcing. Downsizing. These are some of the economic issues at the center of today's society. Time after time, we see that business is one of the most powerful forces in the modern world, profoundly affecting every facet of our lives whether we work in a corporate environment or not. Because in one way or another the world is all about economics, students need to understand and appreciate the role of business in their lives. This book overviews the most important topics and issues characterizing the role of business in today's society. Included are alphabetically arranged entries on more than 70 critical issues or topics central to the role of business in our lives. Each is written by an expert contributor and provides a summary of the topic's relevance and influence, a consideration of opposing viewpoints, and a list of resources for further research. For students and general readers, this book is an engaging, accessible, and essential resource on the role of business in everyday life.

The environment inflames passions in people on all points of the political spectrum. Controversies over such issues as the rise of cancer in industrialized countries, climate change, and urban sprawl have skyrocketed as we recognize the impact that humans have on the environment. Many people become immersed in these controversies at a local level before they know much about the topic - the nuances of many environmental conflicts are often overlooked as the media focuses on the adversarial nature of the conflict. This reference resource provides students, teachers, librarians, and citizens as a whole with the necessary first step in understanding these hot-button issues. Each entry identifies the issue involved, who was holding various points of view or positions, where and when the conflict occurred, and explains the cultural, social, and political context and dimensions of the conflict. Battleground: Environment provides in-depth analysis of over 100 of the most controversial topics involving the environment, including childhood asthma, the Kyoto Summit and Treaty, smart growth, the Three Gorges Dam in China, and genetically modified food. Entries include descriptions of public policies and discussions of the future of the controversy. Each entry concludes with cross references and a short, relevant bibliography suitable for student research. The resource includes numerous sidebars that discuss in detail particular local controversies that illuminate the complexity of the topics discussed.

WHY DO THEY FIGHT?In their quest for a world without war, Rain and Air have been reprogramming history itself by erasing key figures with the Devil’s Bullet. But when the two are assigned to a transport mission guarding next-generation technology, the arrival of a powerful new enemy leaves Rain wounded and stranded—and his only chance of survival is to cooperate with his attacker. They’ll need to use the Devil’s Bullet to get out of this—but on whom?

Even before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Central Region faced numerous obstacles to building a stable and prosperous future. The region, which encompasses the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, Central Asia, and South Asia, has been plagued by economic and political uncertainty amidst dramatic shifts in the global power structure. With the pandemic now exacerbating the volatility in this already fragile region, the U.S.'s strategic objectives are rife for re-examination. A complicated stew of factors such as weakening of established governance systems, the emboldening of extremist individuals and groups through advances in digital technology, the humanitarian crises in Afghanistan and Syria, and the intensification of the great power competition with China and Russia are creating a fertile environment for the growth of violent extremist organizations (VEOs). Such organizations take advantage of vulnerable, aggrieved, and traumatized populations to fuel radicalization, recruitment, and unrest, which further undermine stability and the potential for peace and prosperity. While it is still early to fully understand how the ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic will impact U.S. policy, this book provides a timely analysis of relevant dynamics such as popular radicalization, digital information ecosystems, networks of influence, and new capabilities to recognize and prepare for other such black swan events in the region.

Calvin Fletcher, born in Vermont in 1798, came to Indiana from Ohio in 1821, and in the next forty-five years made a fortune, raised eleven children, and was a pillar of the community. This pioneer Indianapolis lawyer, banker, and philanthropist kept a diary for most of his long life, and in it he recorded both the growth of his family and his community. Whether complaining, criticizing, observing shrewdly, or agonizing, Fletcher emerges as both a complex and unforgettable human being. Each of the set's nine volumes has a preface, chronology, and index. Volume nine includes a cumulative index.

No topic sparks an argument faster among the American public, even with relatively apolitical people, than how their children are taught. In schools across the country, school boards, parents, teachers, and students themselves debate issues ranging from charter schools, to the first amendment rights of students, to the efficacy of the No Child Left Behind Act. School districts in Georgia and Pennsylvania have seen battles over the teaching of evolution; places as diverse as Colorado, Washington, and Kentucky have had debates over how best to protect children while at school. Battleground: Schools provides an in-depth, balanced overview of these controversial topics and enables teachers, students, and their parents to better understand the foundations of these conflicts.

Whether in the home or in the public arenas of media, work, sports, politics, art or religion, women often become embroiled as subjects in the political, social, and cultural debates in America. People on all areas of the political landscape see women in diverse and conflicting ways—as either too liberated or not liberated enough, or whether and how gender and sexual roles are rooted in either biology or culture. Battleground: Women, Gender, and Sexuality helps readers navigate contemporary issues and debates pertaining to women's lives in the United States and globally. This work examines how science and culture intertwine to influence how we think about our identities, desires, relationships, and societal roles today. Battleground: Women, Gender, and Sexuality comprises lengthy, in-depth discussions of the most timely issues that are debated in today's culture, such as, birth control, comparable worth, disability and gender, glass ceiling, immigration, plastic surgery, tattooing, and piercing, same-sex marriage, and sexual assault and sexual harrassment Each essay provides a balanced overview of these hot-button topics, and a list of works for Further Reading after each entry serves as a stepping-stone to more in-depth material for students who are writing papers or researching reports.

Few international issues have aroused as much passionate interest and political activity among Canadians. The contest on "the domestic battleground" has been decisive in determining Canada's policies in the Middle East. The Domestic Battleground provides the history and background needed to understand Canadian attitudes toward both the explosive unrest occurring in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the participants in the conflict - Israel, the Palestinians, and the rest of the Arab world. Taras and Goldberg analyse the struggles over the levers of decision making in Ottawa and the battle between moral stances and convictions that has taken place among concerned Canadians. The Domestic Battleground is the first book devoted to analysing the study of Canada's Middle Eastern policy. David Taras and David H. Goldberg take readers inside the Canadian decision-making process on key issues regarding the Middle East over the last forty years. Bringing together articles by scholars with differing perspectives, this volume brings to light the positions and actions of Canadian political leaders - Mackenzie King, Lester B. Pearson, Joe Clark, Pierre Trudeau, and Brian Mulroney - and assess the impact of media coverage, corporate and governmental interests, and Arab and Jewish lobby groups. The Domestic Battleground addresses the narrowing of the emotional distance separating Canada from the conflicts and disputes indigenous to the Middle East and responds to the presence of the Arab-Israeli conflict in the mainstream of daily life and politics in Canada.

The twenty-first century has witnessed the rise of India as a major media producer and consumer market increasingly engaged with the global economy. Aided by rising incomes, technological remediation, regulatory strategies, and a shifting political terrain, the business of media has been given official recognition as a substantive component of India’s economy and as a prominent feature of its economic thinking. In light of these developments, these two pioneering volumes investigate the dynamics of an increasingly integrated media economy encompassing television, film, music, sport, and telecoms. Volume 1: Industrial Dynamics and Cultural Adaptation illustrates the distinctive industrial dynamics of India’s media economy, tracking the deeply embedded cultural, political, and economic forces that determine its everyday operation. The selection of essays serves to demonstrate the unique patterns of development and the complex field of exchanges that have constituted India’s media economy. As a whole, this volume posits a comprehensive approach to understanding the nature of media resources, the negotiation of industrial norms and the cultural context of a media economy firmly situated in the realities of India’s distinct regions, cultures, and human networks. Volume 2: Market Dynamics and Social Transactions provides a comprehensive analysis of the interlocking markets that constitute the media economy, focusing upon its particular commodity forms, labour conditions, and spaces of consumption. Taking account of a rich set of case studies, this volume argues for the necessary consideration of multiple and interdependent markets in explicating our everyday encounters with media. By foregrounding the social transactions that encapsulate market exchanges, it begins to illustrate some of the novel aspirations, meanings, and relationships arising with India’s media economy.

This volume provides a platform for localized perspectives on CSR in developing countries across the globe. The chapters bring local context and business to the forefront and highlight the efforts spearheaded by indigenous actors from within the developing world. They present insights from developing countries through successful and less successful examples of locally-led CSR efforts. Together, these perspectives capture the complex paradoxes of CSR in developing countries and highlight common features in national institutions across the developing world, such as weak political and regulatory institutions, that shape local CSR initiatives and often limit its developmental impact.The editors argue the need to embrace partnership models that leverage the strengths of different actors to promote effective development and tackle the complex challenges facing the developing world. This important series will be the reference source for academics, practitioners, policy-makers and NGOs involved in development-oriented CSR.