Philadelphia exploded in violence in 1910. The general strike that year was a notable point, but not a unique one, in a generations-long history of conflict between the workers and management at one of the nation's largest privately owned transit systems. In Running the Rails, James Wolfinger uses the history of Philadelphia’s sprawling public transportation system to explore how labor relations shifted from the 1880s to the 1960s. As transit workers adapted to fast-paced technological innovation to keep the city’s people and commerce on the move, management sought to limit its employees’ rights. Raw violence, welfare capitalism, race-baiting, and smear campaigns against unions were among the strategies managers used to control the company’s labor force and enhance corporate profits, often at the expense of the workers’ and the city’s well-being. Public service workers and their unions come under frequent attack for being a "special interest" or a hindrance to the smooth functioning of society. This book offers readers a different, historically grounded way of thinking about the people who keep their cities running. Working in public transit is a difficult job now, as it was a century ago. The benefits and decent wages Philadelphia public transit workers secured—advances that were hard-won and well deserved—came as a result of fighting for decades against their exploitation. Given capital’s great power in American society and management's enduring quest to control its workforce, it is remarkable to see how much Philadelphia’s transit workers achieved.

According to a CNN 2013 article on reality TV and youth, behavior portrayed on some reality TV programs is inspiring real-life bullying amongst teens. Research by psychologists at Bringham Young University concluded that aggression in the brain is activated and motivated when youth watch reality TV. This engaging edition looks at the incredibly popular, ever evolving, and divisive form of entertainment that is reality TV. The book looks at what is defined as reality television and provides a brief history of the genre. It discusses why the format appeals to television producers and how it has been received by audiences. Criticisms of the genre are discussed and arguments that point to redeeming qualities of the shows are also examined. The volume includes discussion questions for each chapter and sources for further research on the topic.

For the duration of her writing career, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard has unflinchingly asked and kept on asking enormous and difficult questions: What is the relation of Creator to creation? Why is there evil and unjust suffering? How do we make meaning of our experiences? Who is responsible for redeeming the world's brokenness? Moreover, she has done so in every genre within the impressive range of her canon: her poetry, literary nonfiction, novels, autobiography, literary criticism, and memoirs. Two enduring influences have shaped Dillard's cosmos-spanning questions and their metanarratives--Christianity and Jewish mysticism, particularly Hasidism and Isaac Luria's Kabbalism. Though much scholarly attention has been paid to the influence of Christian mysticism in Dillard's work, none has yet explored the role of her lifelong interest in Jewish mystical traditions. This book seeks to fill that scholarly gap and demonstrate how Dillard's theological vision and voice both reflect and enact central features of Hasidic and Kabbalistic thought, resulting in what could be called Dillard's literary shema.

Since 1971 when useful working concepts for the technique of phase-transfer catalysis (PTC) were introduced, the understanding, development, and applica tions of this method for conducting organic reactions has expanded exponentially. PTC has brought vast new dimensions and options to chemists and chemical engineers. From its use in less than ten commercial processes in 1975, PTC use has increased so that in the early 1990s it is involved in more than 600 industrial applications to manufacture products valued at between 10 and 20 billion U.S. dollars. PTC is widely used for simple organic reactions, steps in synthesis of pharmaceuticals, agricultural chemicals, perfumes, ftavorants, and dyes; for specialty polymerization reactions, polymer modifications, and monomer synthe sis; for pollution and environmental control processes; for analysis oftrace organic and inorganic compounds; and for many other applications. Often, PTC offers the best (and sometimes only) practical technique to obtain certain products. The authors experience in teaching a short course on phase-transfer catalysis has shown to us that a newcomer to PTC can easily be frustrated and confused by the large amount of information available in the literature and in patents. The purpose of this book, therefore, was to bring this information together in a logical and user-friendly way, without sacrificing matters of scholarly and fundamental importance.