THE CONVERGING WORLD tells the incredible story of one community's attempt to change their world for the better. Faced with the challenge of making the English village of Chew Magna a 'zero waste' society, Pontin developed a groundbreaking non-profit scheme that twinned them with Tamil Nadu, a poor rural community in southern India. He helped set up a system of wind turbines for Tamil Nadu that would not only reduce the community's reliance on fossil fuels but also provided a local source of sustainable income. The carbon credits produced through this scheme were then sold in Chew Magna to individuals and businesses to offset emissions they cannot yet reduce - all part of a larger local zero-waste effort. The effects of this scheme have been dramatic and exhilarating - while Chew Magna gets closer to zero waste, Tamil Nadu's carbon emissions and poverty levels are diminishing accordingly. Pontin's story presents a model of action for any individual or community concerned about climate change, environmental damage, social inequality and the plight of the third world.

Media Today uses convergence as a lens that puts students at the center of the profound changes in the 21st century media world. Through the convergence lens they learn to think critically about the role of media today and what these changes mean for their lives presently and in the future. The book’s media systems approach helps students to look carefully at how media content is created, distributed, and exhibited in the new world that the digital revolution has created. From newspapers to video games and social networking to mobile platforms, Media Today prepares students to live in the digital world of media.

Providing a survey of colonial American history both regionally broad and "Atlantic" in coverage, Converging Worlds presents the most recent research in an accessible manner for undergraduate students. The ideal accompaniment to Converging Worlds: Communities and Cultures in Colonial America, this Sourcebook is a collection of primary documents that contextualize and bring to life the exciting narrative of early America. The expert authors of each chapter have hand-picked multiple documents corresponding with the same chapter in the textbook to help students delve deeper into the diverse geographic regions and variety of topics covered in this time period, including: Letters Pamphlets and newspaper articles Excerpts from diaries Patents and charters Court records And much more! While the Sourcebook and text make a perfectly integrated package, the Sourcebook also features general introductions and section introductions framing the documents, so students can easily use it on its own to explore the vast colonial world up close. In addition to the helpful maps, timelines, and further resources available for students on the companion site, instructors will have access to the full text of many of the documents included in the Sourcebook. For additional information and classroom resources please visit the Converging Worlds companion website at www.routledge.com/cw/breen.

This book develops a surveillance studies approach to social media by presenting first hand ethnographic research with a variety of personal and professional social media users. Using Facebook as a case-study, it describes growing monitoring practices that involve social media. What makes this study unique is that it not only considers social media surveillance as multi-purpose, but also shows how these different purposes augment one another, leading to a rapid spread of surveillance and visibility.

This book explores a compelling range of community-based activities from different cultures and nations which help nurture intercultural understanding and practices of sustainable development. The specially commissioned chapters from practitioners and academics offer a set of interconnected case studies, personal stories, philosophical discussions and critical reflections on direct experiences focussing on co-operative action, creative media innovation and community empowerment connecting individuals, groups, organisations from across our converging world. At the bookís core is a central belief that ecological sustainability can only be attained through social learning, community empowerment, participation and a commitment to global justice. It is the first in a series of books addressing issues emerging from the Schumacher Instituteís Converging World Initiative.

The principle of 'contraction and convergence' can be applied to climate change, showing us a way forward by reducing the ecological footprint of some while increasing that of others. Such convergence has many dimensions: technological change, cultural diversity, human rights and political power. This Briefing explores these ideas and describes how a charity put these ideas into action. Inspired by the work of Social Change and Development (SCAD) in India, the charity has directly reduced carbon emissions by erecting wind turbines in India, funded by individuals and businesses with high emissions elsewhere in the world in return for an allocation of the carbon saved. The Converging World is an action story which tackles the complexities of climate change, environmental degradation and social injustice.

Exploring recent changes in employment practices in seven industrialized countries (Australia, Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the United States) and in two essential industries (automobile and telecommunications), Harry C. Katz and Owen Darbishire find that traditional national systems of employment are being challenged by four cross-national patterns. The patterns, which are becoming ever more prevalent, can be categorized as low-wage, human resource management, Japanese-oriented, and joint team-based strategies. The authors go on to show that these changing employment patterns are closely related to the decline of unions and growing income inequality. Drawing upon plant-level evidence on emerging employment practices, they provide a comprehensive analysis of changes in employment systems and labor-management relations. They conclude that while the variation in employment patterns is increasing within countries, evidence suggests that there is much commonality across countries in the nature of that variation and also similarity in the processes through which variation is appearing. Hence the term "converging divergences."

Providing a survey of colonial American history both regionally broad and "Atlantic" in coverage, Converging Worlds presents the most recent research in an accessible manner for undergraduate students. The ideal accompaniment to Converging Worlds: Communities and Cultures in Colonial America, this Sourcebook is a collection of primary documents that contextualize and bring to life the exciting narrative of early America. The expert authors of each chapter have hand-picked multiple documents corresponding with the same chapter in the textbook to help students delve deeper into the diverse geographic regions and variety of topics covered in this time period, including: Letters Pamphlets and newspaper articles Excerpts from diaries Patents and charters Court records And much more! While the Sourcebook and text make a perfectly integrated package, the Sourcebook also features general introductions and section introductions framing the documents, so students can easily use it on its own to explore the vast colonial world up close. In addition to the helpful maps, timelines, and further resources available for students on the companion site, instructors will have access to the full text of many of the documents included in the Sourcebook. For additional information and classroom resources please visit the Converging Worlds companion website at www.routledge.com/cw/breen.

The current volume examines the renewed global dynamic, and how it is changing the relationships between the interdependent global communities across Asia and the Middle East. Focussing on the broader aspects of finance and trade between the Middle East and Asia, as well as growing security issues over natural resources and questions of sovereignty, this volume concludes with speculations on the growing importance of Asia and the Middle East in the global setting.

A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book for 2011 With the British Industrial Revolution, part of the world's population started to experience extraordinary economic growth—leading to enormous gaps in wealth and living standards between the industrialized West and the rest of the world. This pattern of divergence reversed after World War II, and now we are midway through a century of high and accelerating growth in the developing world and a new convergence with the advanced countries—a trend that is set to reshape the world. Michael Spence, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, explains what happened to cause this dramatic shift in the prospects of the five billion people who live in developing countries. The growth rates are extraordinary, and continuing them presents unprecedented challenges in governance, international coordination, and ecological sustainability. The implications for those living in the advanced countries are great but little understood. Spence clearly and boldly describes what's at stake for all of us as he looks ahead to how the global economy will develop over the next fifty years. The Next Convergence is certain to spark a heated debate how best to move forward in the post-crisis period and reset the balance between national and international economic interests, and short-term fixes and long-term sustainability.