Research Articles Base: Book Reviews Samples

Renda’s Haiti: Beyon Paternalism

Taking Haiti: A Review   This paper is a summary of the book entitled ‘Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S Imperialism, 1915-1940’ by . It provides the basic themes of the book which is centered on paternalism and racism. Also, a comparison with other books was provided for in this paper   Summary   The invasion of Haiti by the United States in July 1915 had led to a nineteen years of military occupation. During the stay of marines in Haiti, a puppet president was installed and a new constitution was forced favoring foreign investments. U.S officials are able to take control of the Haitian finances with the help of the marines. A war against the insurgents called Caco was raged the marines during their stay in Haiti. For several years, these insurgents have maintained armed resistance which engendered violent Haitian resistance. With the occupation, the Haitian military was reorganized and strengthened. The occupation was supposed to carry out specific tasks that will bring about political stability in Haiti but as well as to secure control over the Haiti. Specific gains for Haiti were proposed especially by those who supported the occupation. Indeed, the economic development and the new Haitian democracy were sought by the U.S policy makers. Initially, the U. S military has gained support from the Haitian elite while other Haitians were suspicious of the foreign powers and of government. The Haitians indeed have shown everyday resistance with the Cacos mounting their own rebellion (, 2001) The military occupation of Haiti that started in 1915 was argued to be a no sideshow in this book. More so, the occupation was one of the important arenas overseas imperial ventures has remade the United States. Places around the globe such as Puerto Rico, Cuba, Nicaragua, China, Philippines and others were effected by the transformation of imperialism. Imperial control and influence are built through foreign interventions and the occupation of territories. Both form the solid foundations for the US new cultural departures. Haitians like other who were the focus of imperial factors has interacted with US citizens which contribute to the matrix of the U.S imperial culture. The primary cultural mechanism conscripted the soldiers to carry out US rule in Haiti is the paternalist discourse. The marines are infused with the paternalist discourse with the viewpoint that the Haitians were wards and that their undertaking was to make a rich and a productive property for them. Paternalism is an important element of the U.S foreign policy. It is not merely a justification to the wrongdoing of the Americans but a collection of meanings, ideas and values that shaped the relations of the former European colonial possessions with the U.S. Indeed, it is a metaphor of a father’s relationship tom his children in which authority, superiority and control are asserted. More so, it is a form of domination and power disguised as benevolent by referring it with paternal care and guidance. Hence, paternalism is among the cultural vehicle for violence. Diverse implications on the issue of race, class, gender and sexuality are associated with the cultural framework of the U.S soldiers as father figures in Haiti. Moreover, another discourse operating in the occupation is the issue of racism and racial awareness that competed with the attention of the marines. Countless cultural realities have confronted that U.S upon their arrival in the Haitian soil. Historical discourses of the Haiti have provided alternative interpretations of its relations to the United States. Cultural resources that became the basis for communicating the understanding of race, gender and Americanness was offered by the Haiti to the marines (, 2001).             By occupation, Americans are engaged as participants and supporters of the U.S Empire. The United States have encouraged marines and other supporters to see themselves as helping out a needy child through paternalist representations. An imperial perspective is thus adopted by Americans with the popular and unofficial discourses fueling the fascination with Haiti. The imperial consciousness was to a greater extent fostered and met with success. Images of Haiti, Cuba, Mexico, Polynesia, China, Africa, Arabia were brought with the imperial imaginations of the Americans. The acceptance of Pear Harbor as part of the America in December 1941 was an indication of the embrace of imperialism among the citizens of the United States. Haitian and Haitian culture narratives that has taken place in the literature of empire has indeed helped in the production of that reality.             Moreover, the national identity of the country was questioned with the broadening control and influence. Whether the American culture could remain wholly separate and unaffected by foreign culture was quesitoned. The problem of the empire lies on the ingestion of the territory without allowing it to become evidently part of the nation or the nation’s culture. The nation was also troubled with the implications of paternalism in other ways. African Americans with their paternalist discourses challenged the whiteness of the American identity and demanded for rights and respect. Paternalist discourses on Haiti as viewed by White Americans will lead to the weakening of hostilities and stronger forms of racism whilst the emergence of new types of racism (, 2001).             Ultimately, the occupation of Haiti was not a simple form of cultural event. Strategy, economics and politics are matters that are associated with the occupation. More so, the institutional growth and the development of the U.S government have to do a lot with it. The emergence of the international economy has shaped the ambitions of the policy makers of the US government.   Critical Analysis   The foundation of the U.S military and its political actions is explored in this book. It illustrates how American intellectuals are affected by the occupation of Haiti.  The invasion of Haiti by the United States in July 1915 gave rise to the nineteen years of occupation and the fascination of Americans with Haiti. Fundamentally, paternalism was the central theme of the involvement of the US in Haiti. Paternalism and racism were manifested with the economic and military support for the grounds of occupations. Haitians were regarded as inferior people who are in need of the protection for white men. Such protection led to violence since the Haitian’s uprisings were suppressed by U.S marines. The cultural baggage of paternalism was carried by statesmen, diplomats and soldiers who were involved in the invasion and the occupation of Haiti. The universal idea which resulted form this was the duty of Americans as occupiers to act as parent to the native Haitians. This encompasses the duty to bring the benefits of order, stability, secure commerce and modern rational customs as regarded by the Americans. Paternalism as noted by the author was ’the cultural flagship of the United States in Haiti’. Soldiers have tried to shape the culture of Haiti in their own image and culture through coercive means though the attempts have failed because of the Haitians resistance. The racism of American soldiers led to the perception of Haitians as ignorant children that are unworthy of ruling themselves. Seeing them as such, the marines have come to imagine themselves to act in protective and disciplinary motivations. Moreover, the occupations on the Haiti have articulated an effect on the US citizens. The author argued that the military intervention has remade U.S and that imperialism can intervene with domestic cultural politics. She identified the cultural fabric of the Haitian occupation with the racial, sexual and gender apparatus that is associated with the marines.             The occupation of Haiti has impacted the United States in terms of understanding the imperialist actions of the country around the globe. It has been presented in the book that the Haiti’s occupation was a transformation of the role of U. S in the world as well as the beliefs of Americans toward themselves. Also, the book illustrates the impact of the occupation which transformed Haiti in ways intended by the U. S policy makers.             In the book, ‘A date which will Live; Pearl Harbor in American Memory’, the author argued that Americans have discussed foreign policy in the way that it is a metaphor to Pearl Harbor. It is discussed in the said book that the memories of the event have led to different lessons. The attack was described by then President Franklin Roosevelt as ‘a date which will live infamy’ has been embedded in the memory of the Americans. The infamy implies the innocence of the United States and the deceitful act of the Japanese military. The event has reinforced the policy of containment in the nation and the guarding against possible or future treachery through a strong military. However, Rosenberg pointed out that the same meaning was not shared by all Americans. The intelligence network was blamed to justify why the America was caught unaware. The aftermath of the attack led to racist antagonism against the Japanese which gave rise to restrictive immigration laws (, 2005). The story of Pearl Harbor as illustrated by the author, played an important role in the shaping the images of the Japanese as treacherous enemies or powerful trading partners and giants.             Ultimately, the book brings into understanding the memories surrounding the defining moment of the American history during the attack at the Pearl Harbor and how such memories led to the interpretation of another infamous attack. History and memory are mingled that provide an understanding of the past events. These events in turn bring different messages and serve as icons marking the turning point of the country’s history. Both authors have discussed the issue of racism of Americans. Taking Haiti by  was rather focused on the paternalism. She provided a strong point of the paternalism that coincides with the occupation of the Haiti. She has clearly illustrated that the Americans have indeed taken the concept of paternalism simply by supporting the occupation. Their fascination with Haiti led to the imperial perspective adopted by the American themselves. However, the motives behind the occupation reflect more than that of a paternalistic intent. Also, the book reflects the role of power and the need for strategies for the emerging international economy as the driving factor behind the occupation. Moreover, the cultures of paternalism have brought the imperial imaginations of the Americans towards other countries. The transformation of the Haiti as manifested in the book impacted the Americans perception towards themselves. Also it illustrates the transformation of the role of the United States among countries in the world. With regard to Rosenberg’s book, the infamy brought about by the Pearl Harbor attack has brought different lessons to the country. She also illustrated the racism which has emerged following the attack against the Japanese. Ultimately, these books provide an understanding of the historical events which has shaped the role of United States in other countries and its foreign relations.     References Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Renda’s Haiti: Beyon Paternalism

Taking Haiti: A Review This paper is a summary of the book entitled ‘Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S Imperi...

So far from God

So far from God                         This novel is a story of a Chicano family. Sofi, her husband Domingo together with their four daughters – Esperanza, Fe, Caridad, and Loca live in the little town of Tome, New Mexico. The story focuses on the struggles of Sofi, the death of her daughters and the problems of their town. Sofi endures all the hardships and problems that come her way. Her marriage is deteriorating; her daughters are dying one by one. But, she endures it all and comes out stronger and more enlightened than ever. Sofi is a woman that never gives up no matter how poorly life treats her. The author- Ana Castillo mixes religion, super natural occurrences, sex, laughter and heartbreak in this novel. The novel is tragic, with no happy ending but at the same time funny and inspiring. It is full of the victory of the human spirit. The names of Sofi’s first three daughters denote the three major Christian ideals (Hope, Faith and Charity).             Esperanza, the most liberated of the sisters, devoted her life to make other people’s lives better. She became a reporter and later on died while covering the Gulf Crisis. She returned home, to her family as a spirit. At first, she spoke through La Llorona, a messenger who informed La Loca that her sister has died. All her family members saw her. She appeared to her mother as a little girl who had a nightmare and went near to her mother for comfort.  Caridad had conversations with her about politics and La Loca talked to her by the river behind their home.             Fe, the second daughter is the one who most subscribed to the traditions of her culture. She was jilted by her fiancé but later on found a new boyfriend. In order to secure a better future for them, Fe left her position at the bank for a higher paying job at an arms manufacturing company. She was soon promoted but the promotion proved fatal as the company exposed her to hazardous chemical. She died of cancer.             Caridad, after being abandoned by her husband, lived a promiscuous life. She was known for “loving anyone she met at the bars who vaguely resembled her husband Memo”. She was brutally raped and mangled by a mysterious spirit identity known as “Malogra”.  However, she healed miraculously and from that moment on, she lost interest in men. She became an apprentice curandera, and during a religious pilgrimage, she saw a woman and she instantly fell in love with her. She found out that her obsessed stalker, Francisco raped Esmeralda – the woman of her affection. She jumped off a cliff while holding hands with Esmeralda as they were being pursued by Francisco. The people searched for their bodies but they were nowhere to be found. It was believed that they were taken by the deity “Tsicktinako” who led them deep within the soft, moist earth where they would be safe and live forever. Here the author connects her work to the Acoma creation myth in order to question the patriarchal constructions of Catholicism. The legend of Tsichtintako was adopted by the author.             La Loca died when she was just Three years old. One night, Sofi was awakened by the howling of the animals. She went to check on her daughters and found the baby, La Loca  jerking and foaming in the mouth. The entire town of Tome mourned for the death of La Loca. Domingo, Sofi’s husband did not come to the funeral. At the funeral mass, everyone was astonished when the seemingly dead child pushed open the lid of her coffin and flew onto the roof of the church. The child argued with the priest and claimed that she came back from Hell. She also claimed that all humans have odors that are akin to that which she smelled in the places she had passed through when she was dead. The townspeople called her “La Loca Santa”. They accepted the young girls return from the dead as being of a divine nature.  She abhorred human touch and only allows the animals and her mother to touch her. Like her sisters, she was destined to die young. She was diagnosed with AIDS. On her death pilgrimage, the people canonized her and made her the saint of the kitchens, new brides and progressive grooms.                The town has a considerable host of curanderas, santeras, penitents and healers. These people have a particular way of interpreting God’s messages. They make use of the earth and its products to perform rituals and produce remedies. The characters in the novel combined Christianity with traditional beliefs and practices.             So far from God is a novel that incites rebellion against the norms and values of Chicano patriarchal society. The novel by Ana Castillo is concerned with the lives of the four Chicana sisters and their mother. Sofi as the head of her family created a home for her daughters, a space they can call their own. Her three older daughters left their home, in search of a more meaningful life in the “big world” outside. Her daughters had gone out into the world and had all eventually returned to their mother’s home. All three of them ( Esperanza, Fe, and Caridad) experienced traumas and cruelties in a world that is dominated by males. Only La Loca remained at home with her mother. She helped in healing her sisters’ spirit.  Drawing on the legends of the second-century martyrs (Faith, Hope, Cahrity, and Sophia), of Nuestro Senor de Esquipulas, and of Tsichtintako, the author revitalized and emboldened the representation of women, in the face of the ideological construction of supposed preternatural myths. The novel presents a religious realm in which, in spite of the established Catholicism people still follow traditional beliefs. Legendary figures interact with the main characters. The story is enhanced by the combination of real and mythic character. The legends that the author included in her work depict the complexity and richness of the Chicano heritage. This novel demonstrates how outrageous life is for a Mexican-American woman.             Sofi later on decided to run for Mayor de Tome. She wanted to improve the people’s lives and to protect their village against destruction. She became the spark that started the fire. She founded an organization, MOMAS (Mothers of Martyrs and Saints). After the death of her daughters, Sofi dedicated her life on improving Tome and helping the people of the village.         Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

So far from God

So far from God This novel is a story of a Chicano family. Sofi, her husband Domingo together with their four daug...

“It can destroy an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending a good deal on luck. No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky.”

“It can destroy an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending a good deal on luck. No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky.”                                                                                                                      New York is an enigma, a rock star, a celebrity among all cities in the world. So much have been said and have been written about her. The city appeared in movies, in its own Broadway plays, and many songs have been sung for the great New York, but still it seems that the city is the most misunderstood city of all. New York is arguably the most famous or infamous city, depending on which perspective we are, in the whole world.             Two different stories, two different times, and one city is more than enough to inspire two individuals to write about the schizophrenia of New York. Schizophrenia, because New York is a city of different personality, different moods, and according to many, one can never be too familiar with New York. “Pregnant in New York” and “New York, 1936” are but two glimpses of the many different kinds of New York to many different people.              “New York, 1936” is an account of the city’s personality at the turn of the century and the author’s amazement and awe of his first few days in the great city of New York. The American writer  was born in Oklahoma City, on Mar. 1, 1914. He achieved international fame with his first novel, Invisible Man in 1952 (1986).   In 1936 he moved to New York City, where he met the novelist , and became associated with the Federal Writers’ Project, publishing short stories and articles in such magazines as New Challenge and New Masses.              hailing from the South saw racial discrimination as part of everyday life. Add to that the problems of Great Depression during the decade, whites called for blacks to be fired from their jobs as long as there where whites out of work. Because of this racial violence erupted especially in the South (American Memory Timeline). This prompted, among many other reasons for Ellison to move to New York. New York being a melting pot of races and ethnicities all around the world was a little more indifferent to cultural differences that black and white Americans can co-exist, albeit strangers.             Racial segregation was common in many parts of America during that time, that in extreme cases, public facilities and transportations often label people through skin color ( 1998). But in New York, it was different, in fact according to , it was as if he was transported to the Eden of American culture for he was actually free to do whatever he likes (watching a theater which actually plays the struggle of the blacks in the South) and as to wherever he wants to go (riding a bus without being told to sit at the back, which was a common practice in the South) though he also said that his freedom is not absolute for he was personally restrained by himself unconsciously, that in escaping discrimination from the South, he brought it along to New York where he viewed the city dwellers through the overlay of his own Southern experience. Racial segregation was definitely a big niche in his childhood that New York could not erase easily.             Pregnant in New York by  is a poignant story written in a humor-filled-with-sarcasm prose against male machismo in New York. The author,  is a novelist, social critic, and Pulitzer Prize-winning Columnist. She is the author of Object Lessons, One True Thing, and Black and Blue.             Pregnant in New York is a story not only focused on difficulties of pregnancy which is even made more difficult by being in New York, but it also tackles a wider issue, specifically being a woman along the streets of New York.  exposed New York as a place where most lives are anonymous and indifferent to each other. New York, according to her, has no pity and is always engage in a rat race. And in that race it’s a man to his own, and she being pregnant (herself and a half) seemed to be always a step behind.             Though in New York, one could actually do anything as he pleases, privacy is another issue. In fact, according to ”everyone is right up against everyone else and they all feel compelled to say what they think” that privacy is no longer an issue because there really is no privacy in the city. The author narrates her experience with the deli countermen where she gets unwarranted and rude comments just because she is pregnant. New York, famous for the yellow cabs are also infamous for not picking up pregnant women, because according to Quindlen they could be afraid or they don’t just like it when pregnant women delivers inside their cars. So most of the time, pregnant women have to take public transportation which are usually crowded and where women pregnant or not wont have to expect male gallantry by offering his seat.             The streets of New York are also famous for thugs and muggers, which in sarcasm the author felt that muggers in the city could take anything from anyone, even her baby, and that’s how dangerous the streets are especially to women who are generally pitied as defenseless. And a very typical New Yorker would alone in the street would look for a group not for social necessity but for protection, ignoring the fact that they are strangers to one another. And after the perceived danger is gone, they are back to being individuals indifferent with each other.   Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

“It can destroy an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending a good deal on luck. No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky.”

“It can destroy an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending a good deal on luck. No one should come to New York to live unless he is ...

The Leadership Challenge

The Leadership Challenge   1) The authors of the book entitled “The Leadership Challenge” are  or also known as  and  who are colleagues at the School of Business in  University, California.  is not only highly regarded as a leadership scholar and experienced executive, but The Wall Street Journal has quoted him as one of the twelve best executive educators in the United States. He is also a famous speaker, who shares lessons learned about leadership from over 20 years of original research, and leaves his audiences encouraged with sensible leadership tools and tips that can be applied at work, at home, and in their communities. On the other hand,  is an international renowned scholar who has published more than 80 researches and practitioner-oriented articles, and is currently on the editorial review boards of the Journal of Business Ethics, Leadership Review, and Leadership and Organization Development Journal.   2) Initially, the first edition of the book was written in 1987, which was described by  as “seminal and totally original, and became a modern classic on leadership practically overnight”. In the book’s latest edition, which is its third edition and written in 2002, emphasized that it has “new cases, concepts, and action steps that are even riper and more important, goes away beyond their earlier work and have made yet another brilliant contribution to leadership studies”. In the latest edition of the book, date is not a factor in its analysis because the participants interviewed in the accomplishment of the book do not include the leading performers of that time, but instead, the common leaders in different public and private organizations worldwide. Date is not a factor because theoretically, the leadership of such individuals, as the book concluded, did not change with the present leadership styles being adopted and implemented today.   3) The main ideas of the book include the stress on the fundamental aspects of leaderships that are being addressed in the current situation of organizations, such as speed in the turnover of employees, the changing workforce in an organization, and work relationships in relation to team-building. The book emphasized on considering two sides or aspects of the leadership equation, which includes the leaders and their followers, and argued that one aspect, cannot be successful without the support of the other. With this, it can be understood that the concept of leadership is a mutual process between those who have chosen to lead and those who have chosen to follow. From this statement, it can be deduced that successful leadership is related to the saying, “It takes two to tango”, such that in leadership, the leader and his or her followers interact effectively and efficiently to accomplish a beautiful dance. Another important point made clear by the authors is that leadership is a set of discernible, learnable practices that can be mastered by anybody, who desires to lead, such that leadership becomes dependent on the traits of the leader. These traits include having a certain charisma to attract others to follow them openly towards common desires and interests or being charismatic. An additional trait is valuing people, which must be implemented by a good leader to by giving importance and becoming sensitive to the needs, wants and expectations of his followers. An effective leader must give due credit to those who have done well and must have this effective ability to establish loyalty among their followers. Last major point emphasized in the book is the adage saying, “Credibility is the foundation of leadership”. A leader should be credible for him or her to lead, and must possess traits such as honesty, competence, aspiration, and a forward-looking attitude. Leaders primarily work through and with other people, and helps establish the conditions that enable others to be effective. Because of these functions, they are expected to fulfill a set of functions that may be performed by any different persons in different roles throughout a community, by being credible enough in gaining the trust of his or her followers.   4) I have learned from this book that for one to be able to become a successful leader, one has to follow certain fundamentals in the aspects of leadership. These fundamentals must be based on the procedures suited in the management of an organization. In addition, a successful leader must have to have skills and intelligence to be able to adopt its practices, which are essential in leading his or her followers, and lastly, he or she must be highly credible and reliable to gain the trust and confidence of his or her followers. In a business organization, it is important that the leader or the management must know what style of leadership is to be used. In addition, the hallmark of all successful leaders is to keep going despite set backs. He or she must have a positive attitude, should be optimistic, has ideas, always sees a way out, and will not give up easily. Because leaders have a variety of roles, they are responsible for making decisions that help their organizations adapt and succeed in competitive environments, and these entitles them also to make mistakes. However, they take every mistake as a learning experience and not committing them twice. Strength of character and will are the moral qualities of a leader, the principles that motivate and control his or her functions to make the right choices. Moreover, humility is necessary to define a leader’s ability and limitations especially and in the correct measuring of other people’s worth and value. These can be used immediately to set as a foundation for a leader in his or her service to the company.   5) The book attempts to clarify the topic of leadership and describe the critical role that it plays in human organizations. The practices and principle described in this book are based on years of extensive research studies conducted by . Its origins were in a research project that the authors began in 1983, with a purpose of understanding the actions and decisions of different individuals when they were at their “personal best” in leading others. The uniqueness of this book lies on the fact that instead of interviewing star employees in excellent companies, the authors interviewed ordinary people regarding their extraordinary experiences.   Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

The Leadership Challenge

The Leadership Challenge 1) The authors of the book entitled “The Leadership Challenge” are or also known as and who are colleagu...

BOOK REVIEW

This paper is book review on the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi entitled Flow- the Psychology of Optimal Experience. The author is a psychologist and is currently the director of Quality of Life Research Center at the Drucker School of Management, a non-profit research institute that studies positive psychology or human strengths such as optimism, creativity, intrinsic motivation and responsibility. The author is also known with his books such as Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Intention published in 1996; Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life in 1997; and Good Business: Flow, Leadership and the Making of Meaning in 2003.             The book basically deals with the psychological theory “flow”. The author defined flow as the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter (, 1990). When one is in a state of flow, he simply enjoys what he is doing and in absolute absorption of an activity. The book deals with the optimal experience or simply happiness, on why it is difficult to be happy and how one’s life can be meaningful by finding real happiness. It started with an introduction about Aristotle’s conclusion that more than anything else, men and women, seek for happiness (, 1990). The author discovered that happiness is not something that happens or a result of a good fortune but a condition that can not be consciously searched for. According to the author, there are outside forces that contribute of whether we feel good or bad and these forces are beyond our control such as our looks, the time we were born and to whose parents and even the environment we will grow are beyond our control. Generally, the book emphasized that it is difficult to be happy because the universe was simply not built for our happiness (, 2003). The book is the fulfillment of the author’s research on the state of optimal experience. Optimal experience is those times when people report feelings of concentration and deep enjoyment. With his study, the author found out that people feel genuinely happy when they are in the “flow”. A person is said to be in the flow when he feels alert and strong effortlessly and unselfconsciously with what he is doing like in an activity when he is so absorbed with that, for a while he never care on his surrounding, feeling the optimal experience. Optimal experience can be understood as the feeling of having control in one’s actions regardless of the outside forces around us. Optimal experience is also something that we make happen like opportunities and challenges and are sometimes not easy to control but in the long run can be mastered.               The author tried to determine what people really feel when at their optimal experience to be able to discuss effectively the theory “flow”. The book tells the reader how pleasurable the state of flow can be and how one can achieve this state.  The book examines the process of achieving happiness through the control of one’s inner life. This means that happiness is something that can be achieved and independent of outside forces. Everything a person experiences is represented in the mind as information and the ability to control this information will lead us to what kind of life we like.             However, flow is interrupted by internal conflict and a preoccupation with socially conditioned desires. This is why a person should set realistic goals, focus on them, and learn to adapt to external environment that may cause unhappiness.             All in all, the book simply states that the key to optimal experience or happiness is the bringing out of order to consciousness or the control of the mind. Those who are in control of the mind sets realistic goals, do exactly the things they find enjoyment or fulfilling and not letting outside forces interrupt the flow.             This psychology book does not tell the reader on the things to do and not to do in order to be happy but it is a form of self-help book that tells the reader theories. It is up to the reader whether to be convinced and apply these theories on themselves or not. Generally, the author is convincing and the book can be helpful especially to those who can not really find happiness even on just small things that can satisfy human such as a simple hobby or simple sport. Happiness really depends on how a person looks at life and this book can be of help to those persons who want to be more competitive in any aspects of life. The book is helpful in realizing happiness and how to find it within one’s inner self.   References:   Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

BOOK REVIEW

This paper is book review on the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi entitled Flow- the Psychology of Optimal Experience. The auth...

The Leadership Challenge

The Leadership Challenge   1) The authors of the book entitled “The Leadership Challenge” are  who are colleagues at the Leavey School of Business in  University, California.  is not only highly regarded as a leadership scholar and experienced executive, but The Wall Street Journal has quoted him as one of the twelve best executive educators in the United States. He is also a famous speaker, who shares lessons learned about leadership from over 20 years of original research, and leaves his audiences encouraged with sensible leadership tools and tips that can be applied at work, at home, and in their communities (2007). On the other hand,  is an international renowned scholar who has published more than 80 researches and practitioner-oriented articles, and is currently on the editorial review boards of the Journal of Business Ethics, Leadership Review, and Leadership and Organization Development Journal (2007). Both of these authors were given the International Management Council’s award in 2001 as the nation’s top management and leadership educators (2007), and were honored the prestigious Wilbur M. McFeely Award in the same year (2007). Recently, they have developed the widely used and highly acclaimed Leadership Practices Inventory, which is a 360 degrees questionnaire that evaluates leadership behavior ( 2007).   2) Initially, the first edition of the book was written in 1987, which was described by  as “seminal and totally original, and became a modern classic on leadership practically overnight” (2007). In the book’s latest edition, which is its third edition and written in 2002,  emphasized that it has “new cases, concepts, and action steps that are even riper and more important, goes away beyond their earlier work and have made yet another brilliant contribution to leadership studies” ( 2007). In the latest edition of the book, date is not a factor in its analysis because the participants interviewed in the accomplishment of the book do not include the leading performers of that time, but instead, the common leaders in different public and private organizations worldwide. Date is not a factor because theoretically, the leadership of such individuals, as the book concluded, did not change with the present leadership styles being adopted and implemented today.   3) The main ideas of the book include the emphasis on the fundamental aspects of leaderships that are being addressed in the current situation of organizations, such as speed, the changing workforce, and team-oriented work relationships (2006). The book emphasized on considering two sides or aspects of the leadership equation, which includes the leaders and their constituents, and argued that one aspect cannot be successful without the support of the other, such that leadership is a reciprocal process between those who choose to lead and those who chose to follow (2000). Another important point made clear by the authors is that leadership is a set of observable, learnable practices that can be mastered by anyone with the desire to lead effectively (2000), and this is dependent on the traits of a leader, such as having a certain charisma to attract others to follow them openly towards common desires and interests. Being charismatic, leaders value people and give due to credit to those who have done well. They also have this effective ability to establish loyalty among their followers. Last major point emphasized in the book is the adage saying, “Credibility is the foundation of leadership” ( 2002). A leader should be credible for him or her to lead, and must possess traits such as honesty, competence, aspiration, and a forward-looking attitude. Because followers are being asked to undertake a difficult journey, they need to believe that the leader is the sort of individual who consistently delivers on promises (2004), and because of this, a leader must have reliable skills and traits that can be depended upon by his followers.   4) I have learned from this book that for one to be able to become a successful leader, one has to follow certain fundamentals in the aspects of leadership. These fundamentals must be based on the procedures suited in the management of an organization. In addition, a successful leader must have to have skills and intelligence to be able to adopt its practices, which are essential in leading his or her followers, and lastly, he or she must be highly credible and reliable to gain the trust and confidence of his or her followers. In a business organization, it is important that the leader or the management must know what style of leadership is to be used. In addition, the hallmark of all successful leaders is to keep going despite set backs. He or she must have a positive attitude, should be optimistic, has ideas, always sees a way out, and will not give up easily. Leaders take every mistake as a learning experience. Strength of character and will are the moral qualities of a leader, the principles that motivate and control his or her functions to make the right choices. Moreover, humility is necessary to define a leader’s ability and limitations especially and in the correct measuring of other people’s worth and value. These can be used immediately to set as a foundation for a leader in his or her service to the company.   5)  (2000) points out that this book attempts to clarify the topic of leadership and describe the critical role that it plays in human organizations. The practices and principle described in this book are based on years of extensive research studies conducted by . Its origins were in a research project the authors began in 1983, with an objective of understanding what individuals did when they were at their “personal best” in leading others. Its uniqueness lies on the fact that instead of interviewing star performers in excellent companies to discover best practices, the authors interviewed ordinary people regarding their extraordinary experiences. This approach is useful and practical, as it aims to “strengthen the abilities and uplift the spirits” of the everyday person faced with the daunting challenge of “leading” others, on the job, in the community, and at home (2000). Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

The Leadership Challenge

The Leadership Challenge 1) The authors of the book entitled “The Leadership Challenge” are who are colleagues at the Leavey School...

Leadership, Who’s Business is it Anyway?

Leadership, Who’s Business is it Anyway? I n “The Leadership Challenge”,  Kouzes and Posner renowned leadership experts and teachers, attempt to clarify in a revolutionary way, a topic that has baffled man from time immemorial – the topic of leadership. The intent of the book is to describe the critical role of leadership in human organizations. The practices and principles discussed in this book are based on years of extensive research studies conducted by the authors themselves. The book’s origins are in a research project the authors began in 1983 with an objective of understanding what people did when they were at their “personal best” in leading others. The uniqueness of their approach is that instead of interviewing star performers in excellent companies to discover best practices, the authors decided to interview ordinary people about their extraordinary experiences. This fits in nicely with the primary goal of the book, which is to “strengthen the abilities and uplift the spirits” of the everyday person faced with the daunting challenge of “leading” others, whether it be on the job, in the community, or at home. The book isn’t about leaders themselves, but rather about leadership; how ordinary people exercise it and in the process become effective leaders who get extraordinary things done in their organizations. The authors take over where most books leave off, considering two sides of the leadership equation – the leaders and their constituents – arguing that one side cannot be successful without the support of the other. The authors claim leadership to be a reciprocal process between those who choose to lead and those who choose to follow. In fact, to stress the importance of this view, the authors devote an entire chapter describing the dynamics of the relationship between “the two sides of the coin.” Among the dynamics of this relationship is the expectation that the constituents have of their leader, which the authors have effectively summarized at the beginning of the chapter with a quote from Brian Carroll, “Without credibility, you can’t lead.” The authors work hard to bust many of the prevailing myths of leadership, such as the notion of the leader being a so called “Robin Hood,” magnetizing a band of followers with courageous acts, or that of the leader being a prescient visionary with Merlin-like powers, and perhaps the most pernicious myth of all, that leadership is reserved only for the few “chosen ones.” The authors take great care from the very beginning to make crystal clear their most important conclusion that leadership is a set of observable, learnable practices, which can be mastered by anyone with the desire to lead effectively. In my opinion though, the book’s most valuable contribution is the distillation of their findings into a set of five practices encompassing a total of ten commitments. The book is very logically organized around these practices and commitments. Part one of the book is a good “warm up” to prepare the reader for the meat of the text, the actual practices and commitments themselves. Parts two through six of the book are devoted to the set of five practices, dedicating one chapter for each of the ten commitments. It is this organization of the book also makes it an excellent reference book. The book is supplemented with a comprehensive appendix that explains and validates the theoretical foundations of their Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI). This inventory is extremely useful for identifying places of possible improvements for a leader within the context of the five practices discussed in the book. While most of the ideas and concepts presented by the authors are revealing and supported by examples, these must be taken with a grain of salt, since most of the discussions seem to be very “purist” in nature. Take, for example, the first practice of the set of five practices – “Challenging the Process.” The essence of this practice is to constantly question and possibly refine every activity within the organization, which by itself is a noble thought. But where do you draw the line? What about that age-old adage, “If it’s not broke, don’t try to fix it”? The authors do not lay down guidelines for the novice leader to answer these questions. The authors suggest treating “every assignment as a start-over, even if it isn’t.” This is probably not going to be feasible in a production environment in which businesses capitalize on learning curve efficiencies. “Starting over again” is, in essence, discarding these efficiencies. Maybe it’s not, but the authors do not clarify this point. The authors encourage leaders to make mistakes and learn from them, but they never clarify to the novice leader that that’s not all they should be doing. I believe that there must be a balance between engaging in innovative and potentially risky behavior and actually “getting the product out to the market”, but the authors do not explicitly mention this. This leads us to perhaps the most glaring shortcoming of the book: the lack of any guidelines of how to gauge a particular situation and apply the proper mix of the five practices to that situation. Does a commander leading a battalion through enemy territory, in the midst of a war, apply the same mix of the five practices as a community leader organizing a charity fundraiser with volunteer-only help? In my opinion, the book does not answer this question. It is as important to know what behaviors to engage in, as it is to know what behaviors not to engage in. A definition of diplomacy “Not the art of knowing what to say but rather knowing what not to say” comes to mind here. Regardless of whether one completely agrees with the philosophy of the authors’ “ Five Practices And Ten Commitments of Leadership ” and the supporting examples, one is compelled to concede that this remarkably rich and detailed, yet easy-to-read book, provides nutritious “food for thought” and sharpens our understanding of a challenge that most of us face today – the leadership challenge – and ultimately gives us the tools for meeting this challenge head on. After all, as Kouzes and Posner would say, and I agree, “Leadership is everyone’s business.” Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Leadership, Who’s Business is it Anyway?

Leadership, Who’s Business is it Anyway? I n “The Leadership Challenge”, Kouzes and Posner renowned leadership experts and te...

God’s Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan

God’s Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan   This book by  attempts to reexamine the uprisings of China’s Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, a millenarian religious movement inspired by Christianity, and the intellectual development of its leader, Hong Xiuquan. In addition, the author also focuses on to seeking how it could be that this particular man had such an astounding impact on his country for so many years. Accordingly, Taiping Rebellion was a millenarian war which was led by the visionary Hong Xiuquan with his goal of establishing the Kingdom of Heaven. It was then concluded to be the most devastating  war in the nineteenth century with the most number of death mostly of civilians due to famine and pestilence by the struggles of Taiping and Imperial Chinese forces.             The story started in 1836 when Hong Xiuquan, a twenty-two year old school teacher, unsuccessfully passed a provincial civil service examination in Canton twice. The first time he fail did not mean so much since it was his first time. However, in his second failure he took it much harder and so he become gravely ill and that was when he got his first vision which has lasted several days and nights. In his visions he obtained a mission from God to destroy all demons from the surface of the earth and to save the mankind. Hong also believed that he was the Younger Brother of Jesus Christ. From then and onwards, he devoted himself towards interpreting his visions and carrying it into practice. Hong even changed his given names to Xiuquan, to emphasize the syllable quan, meaning fullness. The change also removed the syllable huo, meaning fire, which contradicted his surname, Hong, meaning deluge.             Because practicing his visions proved to be difficult in his native country, he moved to Guangxi province to prophesize further under the local Hakka population. Two of his early followers has even developed their own channels of communication with Heaven, namely through possession by God and by Jesus Christ. The original society of “God-worshippers” was not a very alarming organization, either doctrinally or behaviorally. It had an original liturgy, including weekly “baptisms,” and scriptures consisting of Hong’s writings and excerpts from the Bible. It enjoined a rather Confucian morality with certain Christian additions. Hong and his followers identified the demons as the local deities at first, however, later sometime in 1850 they had came to identify them as the Manchus of the ruling Qing dynasty. Hong Xiuquan went on to find the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace in order to destroy this demonic force. With his followers and their entire families, he started a long trek from their original base on Thistle Mountain to the old imperial city of Nanjing, located in the prosperous Lower Yangzi region. Here they established their Heavenly Capital in 1853. However, the history of China in that era did not conduce to these peaceful pursuits. Law and order were breaking down in the already remote and loosely governed regions of Guangxi in which the group flourished. The Opium War between Great Britain and the Qing government began in 1839. When it ended in 1842, western access to Chinese ports was greatly expanded and the Chinese government was humiliated. The cities of the central Chinese coast were more affected by the war than was the more southerly Canton, whose magistrate contrived to maintain an uneasy truce with the British. In 1856, a terrible power struggle came to a climax, in which Hong had one of his rivals killed, and thousands of his followers put to the sword. By the time of their final defeat in 1864, large parts of China had been thrown into chaos and tens of millions had died of war, hunger or disease. Primarily,  story of God’s Chinese Son, narrates us the story about Heavenly Kingdom. It tells us a story about the perspective of  Hong Xiuquan and his two followers that claimed to have an immediate contact with God and Jesus Christ on their religious belief and practices. Moreover, the author makes full use of missionary reports on Hong Xiuquan’s beliefs, as well as of Hong’s poetry and of his annotations and emendations to the Bible. This last type of source has been little used until now, maybe because we who have been born and raised in a Bible culture tend to do away with Hong’s very personal interpretations as erratic rambling, rather than seeing them as a relevant source of information on Hong’s mentality. By adducing rich contextual materials,  is able to give us a lively and well-informed inside account of Hong Xiuquan and his closest followers. In addition, the author also has illustrated that it is only by further investigating the cultural and religious context of Hong Xiuquan, that we can to expand our understanding of the Heavenly Kingdom movement. Moreover,  () has also focuses on the figure of the underworld king Yanluo and describes the underworld in some detail, since Yanluo featured prominently in Hong’s original vision as a major threat to mankind. However, the importance of the seal and the sword as demon-repelling objects, as well as the overall exorcist task that is assigned to Hong in his vision, () all point towards another interpretation. The seal and the sword are important exorcist objects of the Daoist priest. Exorcism normally plays no role in underworld iconography, except when Daoist priests visit the underworld “to destroy the fortress of hell” and enable deceased souls to gain safe passage through the underworld towards a better incarnation. In Hakka culture in Guangdong province where Hong originated, it was the custom for adults to be initiated in a Daoist exorcist tradition. This custom lasted into the twentieth century. Hong Xiuquan, not of elite background himself, could easily have taken part in this tradition directly or as a spectator. That he was well-acquainted with local religious lore as such is clear. Further,  only mentions indigenous messianic traditions very briefly in his Foreword, () but otherwise devotes little attention to them. They may have been more important than he makes them out to be. In order to more clearly understand the specific brand of Heavenly Kingdom messianism in which demons are seen as the source of all evil, Qing demonological messianic traditions should have been examine more closely that could have provided a source for it. In fact, such traditions circulated widely in southern China. They specified a city specifically the Nanjing as a place of refuge compare the trek to Nanjing by the Heavenly Kingdom. The principal eschatological threats were defined in terms of demons including barbarians, one frequently mentioned saviour descended from the late Ming dynasty’s imperial house which had its first capital in Nanjing, and finally they believed in a mysterious general coming from the West which is also an element in Heavenly Kingdom expectations, discussed for the first time by  (). Furthermore, there is a possibility that the messianic fervor of the Heavenly Kingdom made them interpret origin myths of southern Chinese kinship, social and ethnic groups in the reverse. However, in these myths, the origin of various groups is frequently explained in terms of descent from a previous dynasty either the imperial house or its loyal servants or as a long trek from some place in the north of China. Thus, the Hakkas to whom Hong himself belonged claim to have migrated from the north sometime during the Tang dynasty. A very widespread minority in Guangdong and Guangxi provinces were the Yao, who believed that they had come from a sacred place in the neighbourhood of Nanjing.           Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

God’s Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan

God’s Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan This book by attempts to reexamine the uprisings of China’s Taiping ...

Magical Realism in the La Maravilla

Magical Realism in the La Maravilla Magic realism is a literary class created around the 1960’s in which fictional or magical elements are fused into a realistic setting and makes it appear as if it had been real all along. The term is now used to describe literary work made by Latin Americans. The following are key elements of magical realism: Contains fantastical elements; The fantastic elements may be intrinsically plausible but are never explained; Characters accept rather than question the logic of the magical element; Exhibits a richness of sensory details; Uses symbols and imagery extensively; Emotions and the sexuality of the human as a social construct are often developed in great detail; Distorts time so that it is cyclical or so that it appears absent; Another technique is to collapse time in order to create a setting in which the present repeats or resembles the past; Inverts cause and effect, for instance a character may suffer before a tragedy occurs; Incorporates legend or folklore; Presents events from multiple standpoints – ie. alternates detached with involved narrative voice; likewise, often shifts between characters’ viewpoints and internal narration on shared relationships or memories; Mirrors past against present; astral against physical planes; or characters one against another; Open-ended conclusion leaves the reader to determine whether the magical and/or the mundane rendering of the plot is more truthful or in accord with the world as it is; Owns differing properties of magic and realism at the same time, while incorporating the two together often seamlessly.             In the long history of the Spanish conquest, different cultures from different peoples have come together to create a melting pot in the Americas. Due to this, literature from this side of the world has a Latin and Spanish taste to it. An example of literature of this kind is La Maravilla written by . Somewhat autobiographical, it tells about the life of young Beto who grows to live with migrant workers in the town of  Buckeye in the outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona in the 1950’s and 60’s. It describes much the sights and sounds of the colorful town of Buckeye where people slept in dilapidated old Cadillacs, It also tells of a prostitute whose legendary cleavage doesn’t come anywhere near her sad story. Beto was abandoned by his mother when he was just a young boy. He was left in the care of his abuelos( grandparents), Manuel , a Yaqui Indian and Josephina , a devout Catholic. La Maravilla calls to mind notions on one’s identity, sense of self, culture and surroundings. The story revolves around Beto. He constantly finds himself in between his grandmother’s strict devout Catholic faith, his wheelchair-bound grandfather’s Yaqui Indian beliefs, customs and traditions and the various goings-on in the life of the many multiracial and varied residents of Buckeye: College boys-turned transvestites, Black Americans, Chinese immigrants and even poor White Americans. It is strange that these people come together despite their multiracial barrier. It was because of rough times that these different people arrive together in Buckwheat. Through tough times, the people huddle together and help each other out despite their differences. This novel explores the deep desire of the people in this complex tale to conquer all their hidden demons and fears and to cope up with the difficulty in living in the city.. The novel is an intricate weaving of religion, culture and diversity. The book delves into the different lives of the people interconnected with each other. The symbol of La Maravilla in the story is a mythical blanket of marigold and also, the mythical dog of the underworld who rises up from the dead to lead his master, Mictlan, back to the netherworld. L Maravilla is a symbol of the fear of life and the interconnection between the two. That life coexists with death.. It is the cross, the knowledge carried by all who live in the farthest, dessert plains of America—whether they are of  Asian, African, Latin or even of European descent. Beto, the center of the story, must face the world without the guidance of his mother, who has left him for a better life in the glittery life in the great cities of America. As was said in the book, “Indians are history and Sunday is for football, not church!”. The novel is the mixture of the colorful and wonderful life of the people in Buckeye, despite the mixture of races, a strong camaraderie slowly comes every time there comes a tragedy.               Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Magical Realism in the La Maravilla

Magical Realism in the La Maravilla Magic realism is a literary class created around the 1960’s in which fictional or magical elements ar...

Japan and China Book Review

Introduction Both China and Japan has their own rich culture as well as history. The said two countries are considered as one two of the most powerful as well as famous countries in Asia as well as in the whole world. The rich and long history of the said countries also helped them to shape and improve their cultures and traditions as well as other related aspects such as arts, literatures and beliefs. Both of the country had been a subject for many historical books and their cultures and tradition are one of the most used themes in many of literature forms. Louise Levathes’ When China Rules the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne, 1405-1433, and Pierre Francoi Souyri’s The World Turned Upside Down: Medieval Japanese Society. Both of the said books are dedicated to the rich history of the said countries and how those happenings and events had affected the present cultures and traditions of the said countries. Differences between Leyathes’ and Souyri’s Books             Many of the critiques have said that both of the books are ideal for those undergraduates and or those who are considered as starter in terms of history of China and Japan. This is due to the fact that both of the books had been presented and illustrated in clear manner. One of the primary differences between the two books is the vastness of the scope of the study. Primarily, Levathes focuses on the relationship of China with the foreign country. On the other hand, Souyri’s focuses on the internal affairs of Japan. Levathes focuses on the settings of China, a hundred years before Columbus and the time where in the Europeans are beginning to make their way to the New World. The book focuses on the story of the voyage of the Chinese people as part of their foreign relations. The book focuses on the time of China, where in the said country is beginning to be involved in the foreign trade as well as to build their name and position in the naval aspect of the world. On the other hand, Souyri’s book focuses its topic in the subject about the transitional period of the Japan or the time of the age of the warriors. Or considered as the time where in the country is facing the political as well as social developments of the country during the twelfth century. Another thing is that, while the book of Levathes shows the success of China, and its revolution in foreign relations and trade as well as the peak of career of China in the history of the world, Souyri’s book shows the start or the beginning of the blossoming career of Japan in terms of freedom and economic as well as political development. In addition to that, Levathes begins the story of China in the voyage of the Ming dynasty up to the decline of the power and authority of the country. On the other hand, Souyri’s book begins the story of the history of Japan during the low status or moment of the country and then continues to narrate the different events and happenings that had helped the country to survive during the darkest moment of the history of the world. In general, Souyri’s book shows the evolution of Japan from the dark era, where in fear is reigning in the heart of the citizens and where in warriors are following the principle of the weak should die and the stronger will live and reign. It shows the development of Japan, from a country that is full of chaos and war, to a country that is promoting peace, harmony as well as serenity. It also shows how it helped the country to become one of the most powerful countries in the world up until now. On the other hand, Levathes shows the peak of its career and its fall. It shows the success of the Ming dynasty in becoming one of the most important entities in the foreign trade, but the ending of the story is not that happy. Cultural Learning             One of the primary factor that I have learned from the book of Levathes is about how China had been able to discover the West, before the European had explore the Vasco de Gama, and before Christopher Columbus had been able to travel to Asia. It only shows that Europeans cannot be considered as the initiators of voyage and discoveries in Asia and other part of the world. It also shows that Chinese are considered as the traders and business minded, and considered as one of the primary countries who had established foreign trades.             In addition to that, the book also shows that the notion about the civilized West is the one that discover the Far East is wrong. It only shows that China is one of the leaders or greatest race of all time.             On the other hand, Souyri’s book had been able to show the determination as well as the fighting skills of the Japanese people.  On the other hand, Japan also faced several problems in terms of peacefulness and harmony in the country. The time of transition had helped Japan to rise from its low status in the world. It had also helped them to be developed in terms of different cultural expression such as poetry, theatre, garden design, tea ceremony and flower arranging as well as its illustrated scrolls that is considered as the national identity of the country.             All of the said factor can be considered as the root of the rich culture and traditions of the country. References Souyri, Pierre Francois, The World Turned Upside Down: Medieval Japanese Society. Translated by Kathe Roth. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000   Levathes, L When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne, 1405-1433, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Japan and China Book Review

Introduction Both China and Japan has their own rich culture as well as history. The said two countries are considered as one two of the m...

Garland D (2001) Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society : A Book Review

Book Review                   This review will focus on the book entitled “The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society,” by David Garland. The analysis will focus on different arguments mentioned by the author in relation to crime and justice system as well as cultural aspects. In addition, this will also provide some criticisms on the book.  The main objective of this book is to discuss the history of the presence of penological developments in America and United Kingdom during the late modern generation.   In this book, it can be said that the author has been able to present a complex argument regarding the emergence of a schizophrenic crime control approach. Herein, the author argued on the characteristic of late modern penality. The book has been able to highlight how justice policies on both sides of the Atlantic took their modern shape and the author makes an essential contribution to issuing the rise of punitiveness in modern Western Nations like the US and Britain, the contradictory of the aspects of 21st century justice policies as well as the political interests attributed within such justice process.             The interrogation of the degree which distinguishes contemporary or modern crime control policy from those which governed for most of the 20th century can be considered as one of the most comprehensive and ambitious in this generation. In this book, Garland has carefully avoid to argue the idea that the changes and transformations he noticed in the latter part of the 20th century American and British Justice policy has signalled the end of modernity and the existence of post modernity. In doing so, he recommends that recent crime control approaches on both nations represent reconfigured aspects of interlocking structures and strategies which are usually consisted of old and new elements, the old element was revised and reoriented by new operational context (23). According to the book, there are two social forces which are positioned in the modern crime control system. This includes the distinctive social arrangement which the author labelled as late modernity and the free market policies and neo-conservativism that gained importance and eminence in 2000 onwards in the US. Considering the work of the  Michel Foucault (French Poststructuralist), the author of the book has been able to compare present-day policies as well as praties to those used before the 1970s in creating what the author terms as genealogy of crime and crime control. Te author has also been able to observed drastic changes in crime penal policy, criminological theory and others. For the author, the culture of crime control is described by the following beliefs and attitudes and assumptions of Western culture.             In this book, Garland has also argued that the penal welfarism which described criminal justice system from the 1890s to the 1970s has been dismantled increasingly. Due to significant changes in terms of economic and social aspects, the author of the book recommends that the new politics of crime control have been culturally and socially conditioned and have been more expressive as well as instrumental (139). Garland also suggests that the modern justice policy and system is bifurcated by an adaptive approach which is described by community partnerships as well as a sovereign state approach which addresses coercive control of crime offenders. As discussed in this book, such division existed when high crime rates became common; the rehabilitative notion fell out of favour which leads to the failure of the penal welfare complex in terms of protecting the public from the risks associated with the crime (141).             One of the most important observations made by Garland in this book is about the reinvention of the prison. Recommending that Western nations such as America and Britain possess high rates of imprisonment seems to be pedestrian. Nonetheless, this was not always the situation for these nations. Within the post-war penal welfare justice complex prisons are considered in various manners as schools for crime, counterproductive and a last resort. In this book, the author has been able to explain that significant governmental aspects was expended on the responsibilities of generating other ways to incarceration as well as encouraging sentencers to utilise such (14). In most of the period of the 20th century, a worldly shift away from carceral punishment was very obvious. Such trends have not been observable in modern American and British penality in which record numbers of offenders are presently being locked up. Even if the author of the book gives emphasis on the United States as well as Britain, parallels are still drawn to the experiences of Canada.             As noted in the book, such trends are much more pronounced in the two nations. Nonetheless, Canada too has considered greater emphasis on the prison as a solution to deviance accountability for crime control onto the community. However, the impact of late modern penalty, were still seen much later in Canada than in Britain and US and are specifically obvious in the juvenile justice system.  The association of the development in the US and UK permits the author of the book to show the dissemination of crime control approaches and penological developments in the cross cultural level. In the book, both arguments of cultural context and social aspects have been given emphasized by the author. The author has been able to connect cultural aspects with cultural criminology and determines how culture can control criminal justice system and penalty.             The above discussion provide details about the arguments noted by the author in the book, however this book is also prone to several criticisms.  While reading the book, it can be said that the book is lacking of consistency of the discussion of the differences in crime control approaches between the US and the UK. The book has not been able to provide much attention to the overrepresentation of minority populations in the US prisons which is helpful to understand the main objective even better.  In this book, the viable differences and politically powerless continue to create up the class of offender who frequently feels the sting of the justice system, however, the author has not been able to engage himself fully with such description feature of later modern penality. Furthermore, the author glosses over how modern criminal justice policy differentially impact men and women (gender related disparities).             In this regard, I can say that with the way the book has been presented, this book can be considered as a depressing literature. Although it can be said that this is so eloquent and impressive with its level, and penetrating with the insights of the author and also convincing on how the discussions were analysed, this book had offered little hope. The modern condition that the author has been described is considered as grim which include the hardening of racial and social divisions, the reinforcement of criminogenic approaches, and the alienation of large social groups among other worst situations in the society.     Reference Garland, D. (2001). The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press   Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Garland D (2001) Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society : A Book Review

Book Review This review will focus on the book entitled “The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemp...

A Rose for Emily and The Jilting of Granny Weatherall

A Rose for Emily and The Jilting of Granny Weatherall Introduction The use of characters by the authors resembles the over-flowing imagination and messages that the author wants to deliver. The main character is called as the protagonists wherein the events of the narrative story or plot revolve. The representation of the character has an objective to capture the empathy of the audiences, viewers, listeners, or readers.  In literary art and other related arts like theatre, cinema, or musical, the protagonists call the attention of the people by the structure of their characters. In this paper, the comparison of the protagonist in the “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner and “the Jilting of Granny Weatherall” by Katherine Anne Porter are examined. Emily of “A Rose for Emily” Faulkner designs this narrative position as a reflection of his own stance toward patriarchal societal structures and toward classic realist fiction. He stands firmly within the constructs, yet by calling attention to this vantage point and its inadequacies, by deploying a bisexual narration into the text, and by presenting Emily’s house both as intimate spaces for the character as well as impregnable barrier to its own author/creator, Faulkner dismantles the structure of classic realist fiction. Both narrator and author participate in an attempt to render beyond the powerful systems that construct them. By not outwardly claiming an engendered visionary stance for his or her embodiment, the narrator also creates a bisexual oscillation in language. This particular narrator creates the “permanent state of tension” defined by bisexual writing: “it is generated and regenerated by an interaction between the feminine and masculine, between self and other”. In such writing, the woman character must “traverse the spaces between presence and absence, between her own subjectivity and her bounded status in male discourse”, and Emily does just that. She abides Faulkner’s attempts to write her life and the narrator’s attempts to speak her life; she lives her life in the white space of the page. While Faulkner busily writes and the narrator dutifully tells, Emily craftily arranges — remember that she has an artistic flair exhibited in her china-painting lessons — skeletal bone and one single hair into an image to display at the end of the story. Ellen of “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” In “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall,” Porter depicts an elderly woman near death looking back on her life. The man who promised to marry young Ellen Weatherall never showed up on the appointed day; she eventually married another and, to all outward appearances, went on with her life. Ellen Weatherall does not overstep the bounds of traditional domestic roles; indeed, she takes on the traditional role with a vengeance–determined to have everything that the jilting would have taken away from her–and she is largely successful. When her husband dies young, she steps into a traditionally male role, laboring to make a good home and future for her children and herself. In spite of her accomplishments, on her deathbed Ellen cannot banish the memory of being jilted. The Protagonists Aside from the obvious fact that the two protagonists are women, the roles that they play are somewhat similar. Both characters’ resembles a strong personality as the main characters in the story. Even though the plots, settings, and themes are extremely different, many researchers and book reviews agreed that the Ellen or Granny Weatherall and Emily Grierson share three distinct traits. Both characters are very independent, extremely stubborn, and most of all, a man plays an important role in both their lives to alter it forever. The combination of Miss Emily’s traits is presented in the story by judging her to be mentally ill. Miss Emily’s erratic and idiosyncratic behavior becomes outright bizarre, and the reader, like the townspeople in the story, is left wondering how to explain the fact that Miss Emily has spent years living and sleeping with the corpse of Homer Barron, the man who supposed to leave without marrying Miss Emily. On the other hand, Ellen Weatherall was forced to marry another man and yet he died in their early marriage and despite of her success as an independent woman, she felts that the humanity failed her. She indeed used the name “Granny” than Ellen to recognize her to avoid being hurt again.   Conclusion The strangeness of the two characters made the story more exciting, if not probably intriguing to the readers. In the plot of the stories, the readers are left and wandering to learn more about the characters and to discover the reasons behind their actions which made the readers finish the book in one sitting.   References: Article Myriad [Online] Available at: http://www.articlemyriad.com/rose_emily_analysis.htm [Accessed 28 September 2010] Collins, C., (2003) Jilted Southern Women: The Defiance of Margaret Cooper and Her Twentieth-Century Successors, Studies in the Novel, 35(2): 178+ Curry, R.R., (1994) Gender and Authorial Limitation in Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily, The Mississippi Quarterly, 47(3): 391+   Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

A Rose for Emily and The Jilting of Granny Weatherall

A Rose for Emily and The Jilting of Granny Weatherall Introduction The use of characters by the authors resembles the over-flowing imagi...