Most Popular Books by Paul Lewis

At the end of World War II, Argentina was the most industrialized nation in Latin America, with a highly urbanized, literate, and pluralistic society. But over the past four decades, the country has suffered political and economic crises of increasing intensity that have stalled industrial growth, sharpened class conflict, and led to long periods of military rule. In this book, Paul Lewis attempts to explain how that happened. Lewis begins by describing the early development of Argentine industry, from just before the turn of the century to the eve of Juan Peron''s rise to power after World War II. He discusses the emergence of the new industrialists and urban workers and delineates the relationships between those classes and the traditional agrarian elites who controlled the state. Under Peron, the country shifted from an essentially liberal strategy of development to a more corporatist approach. Whereas most writers view Peron as a pragmatist, if not opportunist, Lewis treats him as an ideologue whose views remained consistent throughout his career, and he holds Peron, along with his military colleagues, chiefly responsible for ending the evolution of Argentina''s economy toward dynamic capitalism. Lewis describes the political stalemate between Peronists and anti-Peronists from 1955 to 1987 and shows how the failure of post-Peron governments to incorporate the trade union movement into the political and economic mainstream resulted in political polarization, economic stagnation, and a growing level of violence. He then recounts Peron''s triumphal return to power and the subsequent inability of his government to restore order and economic vigor through a return to corporatist measures. Finally, Lewis examines the equally disappointing failures of the succeeding military regime under General Videla and the restoration of democracy under President Raul Alfonsin to revive the free market. By focusing on the organization, development, and political activities of pressure groups rather than on parties or governmental institutions, Lewis gets to the root causes of Argentina''s instability and decline--what he calls "the politics of political stagnation." At the same time, he provides important information about Argentina''s entrepreneurial classes and their relation to labor, government, the military, and foreign capital. The book is unique in the wealth of its detail and the depth of its analysis.

What do Jon Stewart, Freddy Krueger, Patch Adams, and George W. Bush have in common? As Paul Lewis shows in Cracking Up, they are all among the ranks of joke tellers who aim to do much more than simply amuse. Exploring topics that range from the sadistic mockery of Abu Ghraib prison guards to New Age platitudes about the healing power of laughter, from jokes used to ridicule the possibility of global climate change to the heartwarming performances of hospital clowns, Lewis demonstrates that over the past thirty years American humor has become increasingly purposeful and embattled. Navigating this contentious world of controversial, manipulative, and disturbing laughter, Cracking Up argues that the good news about American humor in our time—that it is delightful, relaxing, and distracting—is also the bad news. In a culture that both enjoys and quarrels about jokes, humor expresses our most nurturing and hurtful impulses, informs and misinforms us, and exposes as well as covers up the shortcomings of our leaders. Wondering what’s so funny about a culture determined to laugh at problems it prefers not to face, Lewis reveals connections between such seemingly unrelated jokers as Norman Cousins, Hannibal Lecter, Rush Limbaugh, Garry Trudeau, Jay Leno, Ronald Reagan, Beavis and Butt-Head, and Bill Clinton. The result is a surprising, alarming, and at times hilarious argument that will appeal to anyone interested in the ways humor is changing our cultural and political landscapes.

Political Parties in Post-Communist Eastern Europe is the first textbook to survey the course of party developments in eastern Europe as a whole in the post-Communist period. This book relates the specifics of the post-communist situation to the broader picture of the early stages of party development in western Europe and also to contemporary models of party organisation in established democracies. The book includes: · a brief historical introduction to the context of post-communist change · the process of competitive party formation and democratic elections · the development of independent parties; their ideologies, and electoral volatility · the structure and level of organisation developed by new parties · an analysis of stable party systems which have emerged in eastern Europe and the contribution they make to emerging democracies in the region Party Politics in Post-Communist Eastern Europe will be a comprehensive and invaluable resource, accessible to undergraduates of politics and European studies, as well as the non-specialist reader.

Lewis draws on both humor theories and research, arguing for the development of interdisciplinary methodologies in the study of literary humor. He demonstrates that the sociologist of humor and the comic playwright approach the same subject—humor in and between groups—with different tools, that writers of Bildungsromane and developmental psychologists share a common interest in the role of humor in maturation, and that the monsters that haunt the psyches of professional comedians can be useful in understanding the odd minglings of humor and fear in Gothic fiction. His treatment of writers who differ widely in their use of humor suggests that the complexity and diversity of humor make it a richly variable determinant of character, genre, and writer.

In this book, an international team of specialists reflects, more than a dozen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, on the implications of that momentous conjuncture for the study of party politics in Europe. In particular, the authors and editors seek to address two inter-connected questions: To what extent is there evidence of convergence in patterns of party politics across Eastern and Western Europe? And how far has the theory of parties and party systems coped with the emergence of democratic politics in Eastern Europe? In a wideranging and stimulating set of essays, these issues are confronted in respect of themes such as the impact of institutional contexts like electoral systems and presidentialism, the evolving nature of cleavage structures, party organizational developments, and intra-party factionalism. This book will make a significant addition to any course reading list on comparative and party politics.

Ethnologue is the comprehensive reference volume that catalogs all the known living languages in the world today. The Ethnologue has been an active research project for more than fifty years. Thousands of linguists and other researchers all over the world rely on and have contributed to the Ethnologue. It is widely regarded to be the most comprehensive listing of information of its kind. A new edition is published approximately every four years. Features 6,909 language descriptions organized by continent and country 41,186 primary names, alternate names, and dialect names 208 color maps showing location and distribution of languages Unique three-letter identifier for each language from the International Standard ISO 639-3 Statistical summaries with numerical tabulations of living languages and number of speakers by continent, by language size, by language family, and by country Quality 7"x10" hardbound single volume

The American metropolis has been transformed over the past quarter century. Cities have turned inside out, with rapidly growing suburbs evolving into edge cities and technoburbs. But not all suburbs are alike. In Shaping Suburbia, Paul Lewis argues that a fundamental political logic underlies the patterns of suburban growth and argues that the key to understanding suburbia is to understand the local governments that control it - their number, functions, and power. Using innovative models and data analyses, Lewis shows that the relative political fragmentation of a metropolitan area plays a key part in shaping its suburbs.

What if the constraints and limitations of architecture became the catalyst for design invention? The award-winning young architecture firm Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis calls their answers to this question ''opportunistic architecture.'' It is a design philosophy that transforms the typically restrictive conditions of architectural practice—small budgets, awkward spaces, strict zoning—into generators of architectural innovation. Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis presents a diverse selection of built and speculative projects ranging from small installations to larger institutional buildings. Built projects are accompanied by thought-provoking texts, beautiful drawings and photographs. An appendix distills their design philosophy into five tactics, a readymade code for students and practitioners looking for design ideas for the real world. Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis is an architecture partnership established in New York City in 1997 by Marc Tsurumaki, Paul Lewis, and David J. Lewis. Paul Lewis is Assistant Professor at Princeton University. Marc Tsurumaki is Adjunct Professor at Columbia University. David J. Lewis is Associate Professor at Parsons The New School for Design.

Along with plan and elevation, section is one of the essential representational techniques of architectural design; among architects and educators, debates about a project''s section are common and often intense. Until now, however, there has been no framework to describe or evaluate it. Manual of Section fills this void. Paul Lewis, Marc Tsurumaki, and David J. Lewis have developed seven categories of section, revealed in structures ranging from simple one-story buildings to complex structures featuring stacked forms, fantastical shapes, internal holes, inclines, sheared planes, nested forms, or combinations thereof. To illustrate these categories, the authors construct sixty-three intricately detailed cross-section perspective drawings of built projects—many of the most significant structures in international architecture from the last one hundred years—based on extensive archival research. Manual of Section also includes smart and accessible essays on the history and uses of section.

Starting with a father whose son has been asking questions about global dangers, A Is for Asteroids, Z Is for Zombies takes us inside our worst fears, laughing at some and taking others seriously. With macabre verse and fantastically gory illustrations, it provides gallows humor for our doom-haunted times.

How does a language community sustain their language in the face of ever-increasing forces of language shift? This volume, both a textbook and a handbook, is the result of ten years of reflection by the authors in light of SIL International’s 80 years of fieldwork in local language communities. Using the Sustainable Use Model detailed here, readers learn how to advise maintaining use of their language at a sustainable level. This could include, not only the level of active literacy, but also levels of orality and identity. The book is aimed at “on the ground” workers involved with a community, to address issues arising from language and culture contact. M. Paul Lewis (Ph.D., sociolinguistics, Georgetown University) did fieldwork in Guatemala, was general editor of the Ethnologue®, and is a Sociolinguistics Consultant with SIL. His research interests are language endangerment, language policy and planning, and language documentation. He has consulted and trained on six continents. Gary F. Simons (Ph.D., linguistics, Cornell University) is Chief Research Officer for SIL and Executive Editor of the Ethnologue®. He was involved in language development in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, co-founder of the Open Language Archives Community (OLAC), and co-developer of the ISO 639-3 identifiers for the world’s languages. "In this clearly written monograph, Lewis and Simons lay the groundwork for those who [work] with members of local language communities, to help them implement diverse activities that most effectively lead to a sustainable level of language use. They build appropriately upon the groundbreaking work that was carried out several decades ago by sociolinguists such as Charles Ferguson, Robert Cooper, and Joshua Fishman." - Adapted from the Foreword by G. Richard Tucker

This dissertation describes first-principles quantum mechanical investigations of several realistic solid-state systems. The main goal of this research has been to understand and predict the electronic, vibrational, and structural properties of materials under pressure. Microscopic information on these properties is obtained within local density functional theory using ab initio pseudopotentials. This work focuses on three categories of materials: (1) Part I deals with the high-pressure behavior of elemental systems from group IV of the Periodic Table. The pressure-dependences of Raman-active phonon modes of high-pressure, metallic phases of silicon, germanium, and tin are studied within the frozen-phonon approximation. In addition, the structural properties of a recently discovered orthorhombic phase of silicon are calculated. The aim of these two investigations is to understand and explain recent experimental results. A third investigation predicts the existence of an orthorhombic, high-pressure phase of germanium. (2) Part II focuses on group V of the Periodic Table. The electronic and vibrational properties of elemental arsenic are studied with the aim of understanding the measured pressure-dependences of the superconducting transition temperature and the normal-state resistance. In addition, several candidate atomic phases of solid nitrogen are studied to determine their structural-stability and electronic properties. (3) Finally, Part III considers the effect of varying the stoichiometry in compound systems. In particular, model calculations are performed to explore the Ga-As system with the goal of motivating experimental studies. The electronic properties of several model Ga-As systems with varying stoichiometry are studied.

Sunthorn Phu (1786–1855) is an unlikely figure through which to understand nineteenth-century Buddhism in Siam. Despite being described as a “drunken writer” by the court astrologer after his death, he is now the national poet of Thailand. Yet the majority of Sunthorn Phu’s literary accomplishments, including many of the nirat journeying poems translated in this volume, are scarcely available in English. In A Drunken Bee, Paul Lewis McBain argues that the irreverent, rebellious, and parodic voice of Sunthorn Phu is an invaluable resource for understanding the Buddhism of early Bangkok. A wealth of information about the conflicts and contradictions of the religious thought of this period can be found in the ways in which the poet describes his local landscape. Following Sunthorn Phu on his journeys, readers encounter cities of celebration and rivers of sadness; kingly processions, railways, and unruly pilgrims on their way to the Saraburi Buddha Footprint; forests of spirit-guardians; and life-prolonging alchemical materials as well as the semimythical oceans of Buddhist cosmology used to make sense of the new, more varied world opening up to Siam in the nineteenth century. In this volume McBain employs theories not only from literary studies but also from the interdisciplinary study of landscapes, applying an innovative approach to understanding how journeying poems may be used as critical sources for uncovering past ways of thinking with and within place. What emerges is one of the most colorful windows into the early modernity of Siam in the nineteenth century. The author convincingly showcases how the kingdom was already developing its own nascent individuality, irony, and skepticism, all broached by redefining Buddhist concepts. The book offers students and scholars of literature and religion new approaches to the study of journeying poems and how literary texts may be employed in landscape studies, as well as how religious affect may be tied with place.

In this volume, the latest addition to the award-winning Pamphlet Architecture series, the authors examine common architectural forms (chairs, doors, and walls) and programs (a cinema, a health club, a skyscraper) in order to dissect and reconfigure them. In the process they create ten new projects that draw their power from an oscillation between the recognizable and the surreal. Cleverly undermining the conventions and norms of contemporary architectural design, the authors pose a direct challenge to the seemingly endless search for new styles, arguing instead that the greatest potential for architecture in the twenty-first century rests on an imaginative examination of what we take for granted. Designed by authors, Situation Normal... weaves together text, photographs, and drawings. An introductory essay establishes the theoretical and historical position of the book.

Gives a list of 236 references to reports by Bureau of Mines scientists and engineers, in Bureau publications and technical journals, grouped under following headings: Oil shale and shale oil; carbonization of coal and lignite; direct hydrogenation of coal, lignite, and tar; and synthesis of methanol and hydrocarbons, Citations of testimony presented before various Congressional committees are included. Gives a list of 236 references to reports by Bureau of Mines scientists and engineers, in Bureau publications and technical journals, grouped under following headings: Oil shale and shale oil; carbonization of coal and lignite; direct hydrogenation of coal, lignite, and tar; and synthesis of methanol and hydrocarbons, Citations of testimony presented before various Congressional committees are included.