By examining how neoliberal economic reform policies have affected educated young adults in contemporary Morocco, Searching for a Different Future posits a new socioeconomic formation: the global middle class. During Morocco’s postcolonial period, from the 1950s through the 1970s, development policy and nationalist ideology supported the formation of a middle class based on the pursuit of education, employment, and material security. Neoliberal reforms adopted by Morocco since the early 1980s have significantly eroded the capacity of the state to nurture the middle class, and unemployment and temporary employment among educated adults has grown. There is no longer an obvious correlation between the best interests of the state and those of the middle-class worker. As Shana Cohen demonstrates, educated young adults in Morocco do not look toward the state for economic security and fulfillment but toward the diffuse, amorphous global market. Cohen delves into the rupture that has occurred between the middle class, the individual, and the nation in Morocco and elsewhere around the world. Combining institutional economic analysis with cultural theory and ethnographic observation including interviews with seventy young adults in Casablanca and Rabat, she reveals how young, urban, educated Moroccans conceive of their material, social, and political conditions. She finds that, for the most part, they perceive improvement in their economic and social welfare apart from the types of civic participation commonly connected with nationalism and national identity. In answering classic sociological questions about how the evolution of capitalism influences identity, Cohen sheds new light on the measurable social and economic consequences of globalization and on its less tangible effects on individuals’ perception of their place in society and prospects in life.

This is an extensively revised and expanded edition of the classic, definitive, bestselling book on Future Search, which is one of most powerful methods for changing and improving all types of organizations and communities. If you want to do strategic planning, product innovation, quality improvement, organizational restructuring, or any other major change in a participative, whole system way, this book is your guide.

Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR and Science Friday A quest to explore some of the most spectacular ancient cities in human history—and figure out why people abandoned them. In Four Lost Cities, acclaimed science journalist Annalee Newitz takes readers on an entertaining and mind-bending adventure into the deep history of urban life. Investigating across the centuries and around the world, Newitz explores the rise and fall of four ancient cities, each the center of a sophisticated civilization: the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Central Turkey, the Roman vacation town of Pompeii on Italy’s southern coast, the medieval megacity of Angkor in Cambodia, and the indigenous metropolis Cahokia, which stood beside the Mississippi River where East St. Louis is today. Newitz travels to all four sites and investigates the cutting-edge research in archaeology, revealing the mix of environmental changes and political turmoil that doomed these ancient settlements. Tracing the early development of urban planning, Newitz also introduces us to the often anonymous workers—slaves, women, immigrants, and manual laborers—who built these cities and created monuments that lasted millennia. Four Lost Cities is a journey into the forgotten past, but, foreseeing a future in which the majority of people on Earth will be living in cities, it may also reveal something of our own fate.

Changing Circumstances - Looking At The Future Of The Planet is an expansive presentation of international contemporary photography, video, and new media art addressing the challenges presented by global change. The book shows the works of over 30+ leading international artists, focusing on the ways in which photographic, video and digital art reflects on our relationship, as individuals and as a society, to the natural environment around us. An important aspect of this presentation is how individual artists are using their work to initiate and actively support change that seeks to correct the negative impact of human behaviour on the natural environment. The purpose of the book is to provoke, through visual art, new ways of thinking about how we see our role within the natural environment and our connection(s) to the rest of the planet - and how this affects our future. While we cannot ignore the problems of the planet today, the book will not simply be a recitation of negative prognoses. Rather it will look at ways in which artists and scientists are re-visioning our relationship with the earth and space. The artists and artworks address a broad range of issues that we understand as key challenges to the future of the earth - including climate change, migration, water, energy production, and natural resources. Many of the works present atypical uses of visual art and photography to address these changes with new media, moving image, performance, and text. Lead essays will be provided by the pioneering curator Wendy Watriss, Co-Curator of the Changing Circumstances Exhibition and Co-Founder of FotoFest International, and by FotoFest Executive Director and Co-Curator of the Changing Circumstances Exhibition, Steven Evans. The authors will look at the shifting relationships between contemporary art photography, issues of global change, and activism. Co-Founder of FotoFest International and Changing Circumstances Co-Curator Frederick Baldwin, with Watriss and Evans, will provide a philosophical overview of the project in the introduction. The Artists Amy Balkin (USA) Mandy Barker (UK) Daniel Beltrá (Spain) Atul Bhalla (India) Edward Burtynsky (Canada) Barbara Ciurej and Lindsay Lochman (USA) Pedro David (Brazil) Luis Delgado-Qualtrough (Mexico/USA) Susan Derges (UK) Nigel Dickinson (UK) Dornith Doherty (USA) David Doubilet (USA) Peter Fend (USA) Roberto Fernández Ibáñez (Uruguay) Karen Glaser (USA) Gina Glover (UK) Ingo Günther (Germany/USA) Niklas Goldbach (Germany) Lucy Helton (UK/USA) Chris Jordan (USA) Isaac Julien (UK) David Liittschwager (USA) Pablo Lopez Luz (Mexico) Evelyn Messinger and Kim Spencer (USA) Vik Muniz (Brazil) Robert Harding Pittman (Germany/USA) Meridel Rubenstein (USA) Joel Sartore (USA) Toby Smith (UK) Jamey Stillings (USA) Martin Stupich (USA) Brad Temkin (USA)

Mainly focusing on the transition in national identity experienced during the last years of Lee Teng-hui's tenure as President of Taiwan, ten essays, presented by Corcuff (Asian politics and Chinese language, U. de la Rochelle, France) explore how residents of Taiwan have begun to differentiate themselves from China in the past two decades. After exploring some of the historical roots of national identity, essays explore the symbolic representations of nationhood, the political constraints imposed by Chinese policy, the effect of political ideologies, and the relationship of national identity with processes of democratization. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This comprehensive overview of the prediction game takes readers on a journey through the worlds of probability, chance and chaos, and investigates developmental biology, modern warfare, weather and climate prediction, mathematics, economics and games of chance.

This text explores a new way for organizations and communities to apply global thinking and democratic values to achieve rapid whole systems improvement.