Most Popular Books by Peter John

This groundbreaking book will be a point of departure for all international relations and political theorists, as well as those involved with environmental policy and philosophy.

Assumptions and speculation about the Spanish conquerors'' treatment of the indigenous miners at Potosí, Peru, have long obscured the complexity of the motives in mining there. Peter Bakewell''s innovative study incorporates the Indians'' viewpoints, finding that they were willing to work for the Spaniards. Many of them quickly combined their technical skills and individual initiative to become the first silver mining entrepreneurs of Potosí. Although Indian entrepreneurship declined after the 1750s, a substantial portion of the native work force retained more control over its condition of labor and life than previously recognized. -- From publisher''s description.

Did Martin Luther King Jr. deserve the praise heaped upon him or was he a media creation. This biography of the most celebrated African American in history provides a thorough re-examination of both the man and the Civil Rights Movement.

From reviews of the previous editions.

When Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in 1837 that "Our Age is Ocular," he offered a succinct assessment of antebellum America''s cultural, commercial, and physiological preoccupation with sight. In the early nineteenth century, the American city''s visual culture was manifest in pamphlets, newspapers, painting exhibitions, and spectacular entertainments; businesses promoted their wares to consumers on the move with broadsides, posters, and signboards; and advances in ophthalmological sciences linked the mechanics of vision to the physiological functions of the human body. Within this crowded visual field, sight circulated as a metaphor, as a physiological process, and as a commercial commodity. Out of the intersection of these various discourses and practices emerged an entirely new understanding of vision. The Commerce of Vision integrates cultural history, art history, and material culture studies to explore how vision was understood and experienced in the first half of the nineteenth century. Peter John Brownlee examines a wide selection of objects and practices that demonstrate the contemporary preoccupation with ocular culture and accurate vision: from the birth of ophthalmic surgery to the business of opticians, from the typography used by urban sign painters and job printers to the explosion of daguerreotypes and other visual forms, and from the novels of Edgar Allan Poe and Herman Melville to the genre paintings of Richard Caton Woodville and Francis Edmonds. In response to this expanding visual culture, antebellum Americans cultivated new perceptual practices, habits, and aptitudes. At the same time, however, new visual experiences became quickly integrated with the machinery of commodity production and highlighted the physical shortcomings of sight, as well as nascent ethical shortcomings of a surface-based culture. Through its theoretically acute and extensively researched analysis, The Commerce of Vision synthesizes the broad culturing of vision in antebellum America.

`Its strength lies in combining theoretical insights with an impressive range of empirical material. The analysis is subtle and multi-layered.... This is a timely and important book′ - Political Studies `Local governance have gained massive attention among scholars and practitioners during the past several years. Peter John′s book fills a void in the literature by tracing the historical roots of local governance and by placing his findings in a comparative perspective′ - Professor Jon Pierre, University of Gothenburg, Sweden `Peter John has produced a fascinating and stimulating book in which he assesses current developments in urban politics and local government in Europe and suggests how these changes are leading to different patterns of sub-national territorial politics in the EU today. What he has to say is of important interest to all students of local government; comparative politics and of territorial politics more generally′ - Michael Goldsmith, University of Salford `this book offers a fascinating comparative analysis... themes such as New Public Management, globalisation, regionalism and privatisation will be relevant to numerous courses in government, politics, public administration and public policy′ - West European Politics This text provides a comprehensive introduction to local government and urban politics in contemporary Western Europe. It is the first book to map and explain the change in local political systems and to place these in comparative context. The book introduces students to the traditional structures and institutions of local government and shows how these have been transformed in response to increased economic and political competition, new ideas, institutional reform and the Europeanization of public policy. At the book′s core is the perceived transition from local government to local governance. The book traces this key development thematically across a wide range of West European states including: Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom.

The fully revised and updated new edition of this textbook continues to provide the most accessible overview of the main approaches in the study of public policy. It seeks to review the most common and widely used frameworks in the study of policy analysis: institutions groups and networks society and the economy individual interests ideas. The book explains each one, offers constructive criticisms and explores their claims in the light of a variety of American, British and European examples. Arguing that no one framework offers a comprehensive explanation of public policy; John suggests a synthesis based on different aspects of the approaches, introducing concepts/approaches of advocacy coalitions, punctuated equilibrium and evolution as more effective ways to understand public policy. Combining both a clear summary of debates in public policy and a new and original approach to the subject, this book remains essential reading for students of public policy and policy analysis.

Venus, closest planet to the Earth, is a torrid world of extremes shrouded from direct view by dense clouds. This Atlas of Venus shows all the fascinating detail discovered on the recent Magellan mission to map the planet surface. Giving the historical background to our perception of the planet, this book clearly explains why Venus has been the goal of so many missions by both Russian and American space programmes. With the latest images from the Magellan mission, this colourful Atlas shows the beautiful landscape of Venus and its dynamic volcanism. Over 100 maps and illustrations show the dramatic beauty of this photogenic planet. Complete with detailed maps of the planet and a gazetteer of all landmarks, this is the essential reference source for all professional and amateur astronomers, and planetary scientists interested in our closest neighbour.

The Story of the Earth presents the complex history of the Earth from its formation through to the emergence of man and his influence on the planet. Peter Cattermole and Patrick Moore trace the evolution of Earth from its beginnings in the primeval Solar Nebula, through its bombardment by cosmic particles, continental drifting and the formation of mountains and oceans, and end with a study of the last Ice Age and the rise of man. While the approach is roughly chronological, time is spent in explaining some of the methods that geologists, physicists, chemists and biologists use to discover what processes have contributed to the internal make-up and external appearance of our unique planet. Accounts are included of the dramatic events that are still changing the face of the Earth: volcanoes and photographs - several taken from orbiting satelites - help to elucidate the story.

Building Plant Earth presents a description of Earth as a planet, commencing with its physical and chemical evolution out of the primordial solar nebula. The condensation of elements and their redistribution are described, leading into a section dealing with mapping, geophysical and geochemical studies. This establishes the gross structure of the Earth, following which basic principles and processes of plate tectonics are then described, leading to the elucidation of the working of geological cycles. The main thrust of the remainder of the book is a description of the geological evolution of the Earth. Volcanism and seismicity, ice ages and climate, isotopic techniques and age dating, are all treated. The impact of mass extinctions, global-warming and ozone holes are included. The book is illustrated profusely and closes with a number of useful appendices.

This book is an accessible review of the main approaches in the study of public policy. The author argues that most writers who seek to explain how policy varies and changes use one of five frameworks: institutional, group/network, socio-economic, rational choice and ideas-based. The book sets out each one, offers constructive criticisms and explores their claims in the light of American, British and French examples. Peter John argues that no one approach offers a comprehensive explanation of public policy, so a combination is needed. After reviewing some recent attempts at synthesis, he advocates an evolutionary approach which is best able to account for the importance of ideas and interests in the policy process. Readers will find that this book contains both a clear summary of debates in public policy and a new and original approach to the subject. They will also find that no other similar work covers so much ground in such a concise and cogent manner. ''Peter John provides a clear account of, and balanced judgement about, the several attempts to explain policy change and variation while developing his preferred ''synthetic'' approach. Students of public policy will be duly grateful, colleagues will enjoy the argument.'' R.A.W. Rhodes, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne ''Peter John offers a truly fresh presentation and critique of the public policy literature that will be essential to students and professionals on both sides of the Atlantic. But John does more than critique: he points the field toward a new synthesis based on evolutionary theory.'' Bryan Jones, Department of Political Science, University of Washington

What will gain the system’s attention? “Explores the dynamics of a broad range of policy issues in different countries . . . an important scholarly contribution.” —Political Studies Review Before making significant policy decisions, political actors and parties must first craft an agenda designed to place certain issues at the center of political attention. The agenda-setting approach in political science holds that the amount of attention devoted by the various actors within a political system to issues like immigration, health care, and the economy can inform our understanding of its basic patterns and processes. While there has been considerable attention to how political systems process issues in the United States, Christoffer Green-Pedersen and Stefaan Walgrave demonstrate the broader applicability of this approach by extending it to other countries and their political systems. This book brings together essays on eleven countries and two broad themes. Contributors to the first section analyze the extent to which party and electoral changes and shifts in the partisan composition of government have led—or not led—to policy changes in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, and France. The second section turns the focus on changing institutional structures in Germany, Italy, Belgium, Spain, and Canada, including the German reunification and the collapse of the Italian party system. Together, the essays make clear the efficacy of the agenda-setting approach for understanding not only how policies evolve, but also how political systems function.

In 1914, Philadelphia was the third largest city in the United States with a population of just over one and a half million people. It was fitting, therefore, that during World War I, Philadelphia mobilized itself for the war effort perhaps more than any other large American city. Nicknamed the "Workshop of the World," Philadelphia saw its manufacturing and textile companies converted, almost overnight, to full wartime production. Meanwhile, private and city-sponsored organizations sprang up to send relief to the people of war-torn Europe and prepare for the possibility of American involvement. The Great War would forever alter the city''s landscape and its people. Architecturally, demographically, and socially, Philadelphia would experience sweeping change, and the people of William Penn''s "greene country towne" would come together as never before to support the war effort at home and their boys abroad.

How social media is giving rise to a chaotic new form of politics As people spend increasing proportions of their daily lives using social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, they are being invited to support myriad political causes by sharing, liking, endorsing, or downloading. Chain reactions caused by these tiny acts of participation form a growing part of collective action today, from neighborhood campaigns to global political movements. Political Turbulence reveals that, in fact, most attempts at collective action online do not succeed, but some give rise to huge mobilizations—even revolutions. Drawing on large-scale data generated from the Internet and real-world events, this book shows how mobilizations that succeed are unpredictable, unstable, and often unsustainable. To better understand this unruly new force in the political world, the authors use experiments that test how social media influence citizens deciding whether or not to participate. They show how different personality types react to social influences and identify which types of people are willing to participate at an early stage in a mobilization when there are few supporters or signals of viability. The authors argue that pluralism is the model of democracy that is emerging in the social media age—not the ordered, organized vision of early pluralists, but a chaotic, turbulent form of politics. This book demonstrates how data science and experimentation with social data can provide a methodological toolkit for understanding, shaping, and perhaps even predicting the outcomes of this democratic turbulence.

Complete history of South and Central America, from ancient civilizations to the 20th century.

Illustrations and Viking images not previously available to the general public. This superb imagery is complemented by excellent maps of Mars provided by the United States Geological Survey. Mars is also a state-of-the-art account of the geology and atmosphere of the planet. The author traverses the different regions of Mars - the ancient cratered highlands, the volcanic plains and the icy polar regions - and explains the gradual evolutionary processes that created them.

How can governments persuade their citizens to act in socially beneficial ways? This ground-breaking book builds on the idea of ''light touch interventions'' or ''nudges'' proposed in Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein''s highly influential Nudge (2008). While recognising the power of this approach, it argues that an alternative also needs to be considered: a ''think'' strategy that calls on citizens to decide their own priorities as part of a process of civic and democratic renewal. As well as setting out these divergent approaches in theory, the book provides evidence from a number of experiments to show how using ''nudge'' or ''think'' techniques works in practice. Updated and rewritten, this second edition features a new epilogue that reflects on recent developments in nudge theory and practice, introducing a radical version of nudge, ‘nudge plus’. There is also a substantial prologue by Cass Sunstein.

More than one hundred and fifty years after Confederates fired on Fort Sumter, the Civil War still occupies a prominent place in the national collective memory. Paintings and photographs, plays and movies, novels, poetry, and songs portray the war as a battle over the future of slavery, often focusing on Lincoln’s determination to save the Union, or highlighting the brutality of brother fighting brother. Battles and battlefields occupy us, too: Bull Run, Antietam, and Gettysburg all conjure up images of desolate landscapes strewn with war dead. Yet the frontlines were not the only landscapes of the war. Countless civilians saw their daily lives upended while the entire nation suffered. Home Front: Daily Life in the Civil War North reveals this side of the war as it happened, comprehensively examining the visual culture of the Northern home front. Through contributions from leading scholars from across the humanities, we discover how the war influenced household economies and the cotton economy; how the absence of young men from the home changed daily life; how war relief work linked home fronts and battle fronts; why Indians on the frontier were pushed out of the riven nation’s consciousness during the war years; and how wartime landscape paintings illuminated the nation’s past, present, and future. A companion volume to a collaborative exhibition organized by the Newberry Library and the Terra Foundation for American Art, Home Front is the first book to expose the visual culture of a world far removed from the horror of war yet intimately bound to it.