Best Selling Books by Peter Townsend

A persuasive appreciation of what jazz is and of how it has permeated and enriched the culture of America

The Evolution of Music by Culture and Science aims to recognise the impact of science on music, why it occurs, how we respond, and even to tentatively see if we can predict future developments. Technology has played an immense role in the development of music as it has enabled the production of new sounds, introduced new instruments and continuously improved and modified existing ones. Printing, musical notation, and modern computer aids to composition, plus recordings and electronic transmission have equally enabled us to have access to music from across the world. Such changes, whether just more powerful pianos, or new sounds as from the saxophone, have inspired composers and audiences alike. Acoustics and architecture play similar roles as they changed the scale and performance of concert halls, and with the advent of electronics, they enabled vast pop music festivals. No aspect of modern music making has been untouched by the synergy with scientific innovation. This is not a one-way interaction as the early attempts to make recordings were a major motivating force to design the electronics for amplifiers and these in turn inspired and enabled the designs of semiconductor electronics and modern computer technology. To appreciate the impact of technology on music does not require any prior scientific background as the concepts are invariably extremely simple and are presented here without technical detail. Understanding music and why we like different genres is far more complex, as this involves our personal background and taste. Both aspects change with time, and there is no contradiction in enjoying items as diverse as baroque madrigals, symphonies, jazz or pop music, or music from totally different cultures.

The Dark Side of Technology is intended as a powerful wake-up call to the potential dangers that could, in the near future, destroy our current advanced civilizations. The author examines how fragile our dependence on electronic communications, information storage, and satellites is, as vulnerability increases in an age of raising security concerns. This weakness is evident from the exponential rise in cyber-crime and terrorism. Satellites are crucial to modern-day living, but they can be destroyed by energetic space debris or damaged by solar emissions. Destruction of data, communications, and electrical power grids would bring disaster to advanced nations. Such events could dramatically change our social and economic landscapes within the next 10-20 years. New technology equally impacts employment, agriculture, biology, medicine, transport, languages, and our social well-being. This book explores both the good and the bad aspects of technological advances, in order to raise awareness and promote caution. Technology may be impressive, but we need to be mindful of potential negative future effects. We ought to seriously consider the long term consequences of an increasing failure to pursue healthy life styles, use of ineffective antibiotics, genetic mutations, and the destruction of food supplies and natural resources. The diverse topics covered aims to show why we must act now to plan for both the predictable downsides of technology, and also develop contingency plans for potential major catastrophes, including natural events where we cannot define accurate time scales.

Robert and Helen Lynd''s Middletown set the format in sociological theory and practice for hundreds of studies in the decades following its publication in 1929. Old People in Three Industrial Societies may well set similar standards for studies in its fi eld for many years to come. In addition to achieving a signifi cant breakthrough in the progress of socio logical research techniques, the book offers a monumental cross-cultural exposition of the health, family relationships, and social and economic status of the aged in three countries-the United States, Britain, and Denmark.

First published in 1957, The Family Life of Old People opens with the question: Are old people isolated from their families? Thereafter, the author describes the results of intensive interviews with people of pensionable age in Bethnal Green in East London. Part one shows that most people are members of closely-knit extended families of three generations, often living in separate households in adjoining streets. The life of these families is of absorbing interest and the social structure of the home, the system of family care and the domestic, economic and social relationships between husbands and their wives, and between old people and their children and brothers and sisters, are carefully analysed. Part two discusses the social problems of old age against this background. This book will be of interest to students of sociology and gerontology.

This book is a study of a crucial period in the life of American jazz and popular music. Pearl Harbor Jazz analyses the changes in the world of the professional musician brought about both by the outbreak of World War II and by long-term changes in the music business, in popular taste and in American society itself. It describes how the infrastructure of American music, the interdependent fields of recording, touring, live engagements, radio and the movies, was experiencing change in the conditions of wartime, and how this impacted upon musical styles, and hence upon the later history of popular music. Successive chapters of the book examine the impact of these changed conditions upon the songwriting and music publishing industries, upon the world of the touring big bands, and upon changing conceptions of the role of jazz and popular music. Not only the economic conditions but also ideas were changing; the book traces a movement among writers and critics which created new definitions of ''jazz'' and other terms that had a permanent influence on the way musical styles were thought of for the rest of the century. The book deals in some depth with the work of a number of important artists in these various fields, including, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Johnny Mercer and Frank Sinatra, looks at the growing presence of bebop, the rise of country music, and the contemporary musical scenes in such locations as New York and Los Angeles. The book combines detail of the day-to-day working lives of musicians with challenging views of the long-term development of musical style in jazz and popular music.

"Memoirs of aerial combat at night during the Battle of Britain"--Jacket.

This title is part of UC Press''s Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1979.

This book provides an introduction to ocean sciences that is engaging, evocative and accessible to non-experts interested in marine geoscience, while sparking readers'' interest in important unsolved mysteries in marine science. The scope of the book is quite broad, but focuses on the physical ocean and its geological evolution, including the author''s experiences working as an oceanographer over the last thirty years. Across ten chapters, the book traces the origins of the ocean from its formation 4 billion years ago, reviews the discoveries of the theory of plate tectonics, the ice ages and the great ocean conveyor, and discusses seafloor features (canyons, seamounts, trenches, abyssal plains, etc.), how they formed and their current environmental issues. The book concludes with a prognosis for the future ocean we might expect with global climate change and other human impacts.

Story of a 13-year-old''s escape from Vietnam in an unseaworthy boat, her shipwreck and battle for survival against all odds.

First published in 1993. The scientific and political debate about poverty has been changing fast -with dramatic implications for intellectual interpretation and action by governments- and the intention in publishing this volume is to contribute to that debate. Scientists concerned to analyse poverty have been thrust by events into greater international service. But there are sinister forces at work which are seeking to divert them into petty issues, to blame the victims of poverty, or to cut them off from the resources or opportunities to investigate and report freely. This book is born of that frustration - and represents the changing debate during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Monograph on the relationships between sociology and social policy in the UK - discusses ways of eliminating poverty, and of improving income distribution, social planning, social security, social services, etc., and comments on the policies of the socialist political party during the period from 1950 to 1974. References and statistical tables.