For over three decades John Shelton Reed has been "minding" the South. He is the author or editor of thirteen books about the region. Despite his disclaimer concerning the formal study of Southern history, Reed has read widely and in depth about the South. His primary focus is upon Southerners' present-day culture, but he knows that one must approach the South historically in order to understand the place and its people. Why is the South so different from the rest of America? Rupert Vance, Reed's predecessor in sociology at Chapel Hill, once observed that the existence of the South is a triumph of history over geography and economics. The South has resisted being assimilated by the larger United States and has kept a personality that is distinctly its own. That is why Reed celebrates the South. The chapters in this book cover everything from great thinkers about the South—Eugene D. Genovese, C. Vann Woodward, M. E. Bradford—to the uniqueness of a region that was once a hotbed of racism, but has recently attracted hundreds of thousands of black people transplanted from the North. There are also chapters about Southerners who have devoted their talents to politics, soft drinks, rock and roll, and jewelry design. Reed writes with wit and Southern charm, never afraid to speak his mind, even when it comes to taking his beloved South to task. While readers may not share all his opinions, most will agree that John Shelton Reed is one of the best "South watchers" there is.

A history that populates the streets of colonial Sydney with entrepreneurial businesswomen earning their living in a variety of small – and sometimes surprising – enterprises. There are few memorials to colonial businesswomen, but if you know where to look you can find many traces of their presence as you wander the streets of Sydney. From milliners and dressmakers to ironmongers and booksellers; from publicans and boarding-house keepers to butchers and taxidermists; from school teachers to ginger-beer manufacturers: these women have been hidden in the historical record but were visible to their contemporaries. Catherine Bishop brings the stories of these entrepreneurial women to life, with fascinating details of their successes and failures, their determination and wilfulness, their achievements, their tragedies and the occasional juicy scandal. Until now we have imagined colonial women indoors as wives, and mothers, domestic servants or prostitutes. This book sets them firmly out in the open.

For over three decades John Shelton Reed has been "minding" the South. He is the author or editor of thirteen books about the region. Despite his disclaimer concerning the formal study of Southern history, Reed has read widely and in depth about the South. His primary focus is upon Southerners' present-day culture, but he knows that one must approach the South historically in order to understand the place and its people. Why is the South so different from the rest of America? Rupert Vance, Reed's predecessor in sociology at Chapel Hill, once observed that the existence of the South is a triumph of history over geography and economics. The South has resisted being assimilated by the larger United States and has kept a personality that is distinctly its own. That is why Reed celebrates the South. The chapters in this book cover everything from great thinkers about the South�Eugene D. Genovese, C. Vann Woodward, M. E. Bradford�to the uniqueness of a region that was once a hotbed of racism, but has recently attracted hundreds of thousands of black people transplanted from the North. There are also chapters about Southerners who have devoted their talents to politics, soft drinks, rock and roll, and jewelry design. Reed writes with wit and Southern charm, never afraid to speak his mind, even when it comes to taking his beloved South to task. While readers may not share all his opinions, most will agree that John Shelton Reed is one of the best "South watchers" there is.

First published in 1972, The Enduring South challenges the conventional wisdom that economic development, urbanization, and the end of racial segregation spelled the end of a distinctive Southern culture. In this new edition, John Reed updates the public opinion data to the 1980s and reinforces the book's original conclusions: Southerners are different and are likely to stay that way.

The etiquette expert and “authentic comic genius” guides us through the Age of Incivility (Chris Buckley, New York Times-bestselling author of Has Anyone Seen My Toes?). We seem to be entering a new era, liberated from oppressive, old-fashioned rules of etiquette. We’re finally free! Free to shout insults at strangers on the street! Free to pressure people to give us money! Free to use all sorts of offensive language! In this book, New York Times-bestselling author Judith Martin, aka Miss Manners, reminds us that living in an etiquette-free paradise is not all it’s cracked up to be. In wise, witty commentary and responses to letters, she addresses vexing problems in the workplace, at the wedding, on the web, and beyond, in hopes of saving civilization. But fear not, Gentle Reader—she also allows us some important exceptions. For example, despite the rampant oversharing that social media has encouraged, you can politely refuse to answer nosy questions. And you are decidedly not obliged to respond to every inane post; stay on the phone with a telemarketer; or hug your colleagues. “An extremely useful philosopher . . . I consult her frequently, in order to behave better.” —Daniel Handler in TheNew York Times

Featuring a new preface for the 10th anniversary As did the national bestseller Nickel and Dimed, Mike Rose’s revelatory book demolishes the long-held notion that people who work with their hands make up a less intelligent class. He shows us waitresses making lightning-fast calculations, carpenters handling complex spatial mathematics, and hairdressers, plumbers, and electricians with their aesthetic and diagnostic acumen. Rose, an educator who is himself the son of a waitress, explores the intellectual repertory of everyday workers and the terrible social cost of undervaluing the work they do. Deftly combining research, interviews, and personal history, this is one of those rare books that has the capacity both to shape public policy and to illuminate general readers.

Still the South.

The way you parent, the clothes you buy, your relationships with your boss and your daughter, your attitude to money and sex, are, to an extraordinary extent, defined by the era into which you were born. Parents, the church, teachers and employers think they understand youngsters because they, too, were young once. But adults no longer live in the world that existed when they were teenagers. We may occupy the same space, home, classroom or office but we live in different worlds. And these worlds often collide. We've moved in one century from a 'built to last' to a 'throwaway' society. No wonder age differences are so vast. In this book you will discover your generation and those of the people who make up your life. Once you understand what makes them, and you, tick, the 'gen gap' begins to shrink. Fasten your seatbelt for a generational roller coaster ride - you may never think the same way again! In this book you'll understand why: your boss insists on endless meetings and conferences; your 20-something student doesn't want a 50-something computer teacher; you're in your 40s but still trying to prove yourself to Mom and Dad; your teacher should be learning from you.

In a course he taught at Harvard Business School, esteemed psychiatrist Robert Coles asked future money market managers and risk arbitrageurs to pause for a semester and reflect on the ethical dimensions of their chosen profession. Now, for corporate professionals, armchair entrepreneurs and other students of commerce, Coles has gathered a generous and stimulating collection of classic literary reflections on the ethical and spiritual predicaments of the business world.

In this brilliant study, Thomas Pfau argues that the loss of foundational concepts in classical and medieval Aristotelian philosophy caused a fateful separation between reason and will in European thought. Pfau traces the evolution and eventual deterioration of key concepts of human agency—will, person, judgment, action—from antiquity through Scholasticism and on to eighteenth-century moral theory and its critical revision in the works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Featuring extended critical discussions of Aristotle, Gnosticism, Augustine, Aquinas, Ockham, Hobbes, Shaftesbury, Mandeville, Hutcheson, Hume, Adam Smith, and Coleridge, this study contends that the humanistic concepts these writers seek to elucidate acquire meaning and significance only inasmuch as we are prepared positively to engage (rather than historicize) their previous usages. Beginning with the rise of theological (and, eventually, secular) voluntarism, modern thought appears increasingly reluctant and, in time, unable to engage the deep history of its own underlying conceptions, thus leaving our understanding of the nature and function of humanistic inquiry increasingly frayed and incoherent. One consequence of this shift is to leave the moral self-expression of intellectual elites and ordinary citizens alike stunted, which in turn has fueled the widespread notion that moral and ethical concerns are but a special branch of inquiry largely determined by opinion rather than dialogical reasoning, judgment, and practice. A clear sign of this regression is the present crisis in the study of the humanities, whose role is overwhelmingly conceived (and negatively appraised) in terms of scientific theories, methods, and objectives. The ultimate casualty of this reductionism has been the very idea of personhood and the disappearance of an adequate ethical language. Minding the Modern is not merely a chapter in the history of ideas; it is a thorough phenomenological and metaphysical study of the roots of today's predicaments.