It appears that coercive desegregation efforts may have actually caused school systems to re-segregate, by driving out large numbers of middle-class white students. Using extensive interviews and a wealth of statistical information, the authors examine the failed desegregation efforts in Louisiana as a case study to show how desegregation has followed the same unsuccessful pattern across the United States. Strong supporters of the dream of integration, they show that the practical difficulty with desegregation is that academic environments are created by all the students in a school from the backgrounds that all the students bring with them.

The most eminent expert on medical ethics offers a deeply personal perspective on how we can reap the rewards of modern medicine and be at peace with the idea of our own mortality. Callahan explains how we can live more in harmony with our bodies and be less haunted by the fear of death.

Winner of the History of Science category of the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Awards given by the Association of American Publishers Why do racial and ethnic controversies become attached, as they often do, to discussions of modern genetics? How do theories about genetic difference become entangled with political debates about cultural and group differences in America? Such issues are a conspicuous part of the histories of three hereditary diseases: Tay-Sachs, commonly identified with Jewish Americans; cystic fibrosis, often labeled a "Caucasian" disease; and sickle cell disease, widely associated with African Americans. In this captivating account, historians Keith Wailoo and Stephen Pemberton reveal how these diseases—fraught with ethnic and racial meanings for many Americans—became objects of biological fascination and crucibles of social debate. Peering behind the headlines of breakthrough treatments and coming cures, they tell a complex story: about different kinds of suffering and faith, about unequal access to the promises and perils of modern medicine, and about how Americans consume innovation and how they come to believe in, or resist, the notion of imminent medical breakthroughs. With Tay-Sachs, cystic fibrosis, and sickle cell disease as a powerful backdrop, the authors provide a glimpse into a diverse America where racial ideologies, cultural politics, and conflicting beliefs about the power of genetics shape disparate health care expectations and experiences.

Come for a visit in Bear Country with this classic First Time Book® from Stan and Jan Berenstain. Brother and Sister have started having bad dreams. Now it’s up to Mama and Papa to help them understand that even though bad dreams can be scary, they aren’t real. This beloved story is a perfect way to allay any child’s worries about bedtime and nightmares.

Why we dream: the definitive answer tells the remarkable story of how Joe Griffin discovered how and why dreaming evolved in mammals and helped us unravel what our dreams actually mean. Thanks to Griffin's work we now know what dreams are doing for us: they keep us sane, or, in certain circumstances, can drive us mad (psychotic). And this knowledge opens up wonderful new possibilities for humanity: greater creativity; improved mental health and deeper understanding of who we are. Griffin and Tyrrell convincingly show that dreaming is vital for mental health and that the brain state we associate with dreaming (the REM state) also has crucial importance for when we are awake. This understanding of the REM state explains not only how our brains construct a model of reality, but also explains hypnosis, how creative behaviour works, and why we develop mental illnesses such as depression and psychosis.

A Dream So Big is the story of Steve Peifer, a corporate manager who once oversaw 9,000 computer software consultants, who today helps provide daily lunches for over 20,000 Kenyan school children in thirty-five national public schools, and maintains solar-powered computer labs at twenty rural African schools. Steve and his wife, Nancy, were enjoying a successful management career with one of America’s high tech corporate giants during the dot-com boom of the 1990’s when, in 1997, he and his wife Nancy discovered they were pregnant with their third child. Tragically, doctors said a chromosomal condition left their baby “incompatible with life.” The Peifers only spent 8 days with baby Stephen before he died. Seeking to flee the pain, Steve and Nancy began a pilgrimage that thrust them into a third-world setting where daily life was often defined by tragedy—drought, disease, poverty, hunger, and death. They didn’t arrive in the service of any divine calling, but the truth of their surroundings spoke to their troubled hearts. A short-term, 12-month mission assignment as dorm parents for a Kenyan boarding school turned this ordinary man into the most unlikely internationally recognized hero, and his story will inspire you to pursue similar lives of service.