Through the mid-nineteenth century, the US whaling industry helped drive industrialization and urbanization, providing whale oil to lubricate and illuminate the country. The Pennsylvania petroleum boom of the 1860s brought cheap and plentiful petroleum into the market, decimating whale oil's popularity. Here, from our modern age of fossil fuels, Jamie L. Jones uses literary and cultural history to show how the whaling industry held firm in US popular culture even as it slid into obsolescence. Jones shows just how instrumental whaling was to the very idea of "energy" in American culture and how it came to mean a fusion of labor, production, and the circulation of power. She argues that dying industries exert real force on environmental perceptions and cultural imaginations. Analyzing a vast archive that includes novels, periodicals, artifacts from whaling ships, tourist attractions, and even whale carcasses, Jones explores the histories of race, labor, and energy consumption in the nineteenth-century United States through the lens of the whaling industry's legacy. In terms of how they view power, Americans are, she argues, still living in the shadow of the whale.

A fresh look at the earliest Christian movement reveals what made the new faith so compelling...and what we need to change today to make it so again. Once upon a time there was a version of the Christian faith that was practically irresistible. After all, what could be more so than the gospel that Jesus ushered in? Why, then, isn't it the same with Christianity today? Author and pastor Andy Stanley is deeply concerned with the present-day church and its future. He believes that many of the solutions to our issues can be found by investigating our roots. In Irresistible, Andy chronicles what made the early Jesus Movement so compelling, resilient, and irresistible by answering these questions: What did first-century Christians know that we don't—about God's Word, about their lives, about love? What did they do that we're not doing? What makes Christianity so resistible in today's culture? What needs to change in order to repeat the growth our faith had at its beginning? Many people who leave or disparage the faith cite reasons that have less to do with Jesus than with the conduct of his followers. It's time to hit pause and consider the faith modeled by our first-century brothers and sisters who had no official Bible, no status, and little chance of survival. It's time to embrace the version of faith that initiated—against all human odds—a chain of events resulting in the most significant and extensive cultural transformation the world has ever seen. This is a version of Christianity we must remember and re-embrace if we want to be salt and light in an increasingly savorless and dark world.

Media Studies is a comprehensive text for introductory and advanced courses in the growing field of media studies, integrating history with close textual analysis in a concise, readable style. Explores the growing synergies between print and online journalism, and the growth of independent journalism through blogging Discusses the ways advertising is connected to print and screen, economically and from the perspective of the reader Gives students the analytical skills they need in a presentation that is readable without sacrificing complexity Allows students to move within the media they know while increasing comprehension

For the first time in human history, the vast majority of the world’s population is connected through trade, travel, production, media and politics. Ours is an era of ubiquitous mobile communication, economic outsourcing, mass migration and imported consumer goods. At the same time, people everywhere are concerned to keep their identities rooted and sense of place in the face of momentous change.This new edition of Thomas Hylland Eriksen’s concise and engaging landmark textbook outlines the main debates and controversies around globalization, and develops a unique perspective to show how globalization is an inherently double process, taking place both from above and below. Each chapter is supported by boxed case studies and bullet points summarizing the core information, suggestions for further reading, and essay and discussion questions, making this the ideal guide for both the classroom and independent study. Focusing on key concepts of globalization and drawing on international examples, this book is essential for anyone wishing to understand the fundamental processes underlying the contemporary world and the consequences these have for all of us.