Steven Ross – författare

Ever since the film industry relocated to Hollywood early in the twentieth century, it has had an outsized influence on American politics. Through a series of gripping chapters on larger-than-life figures in American cinema--Charlie Chaplin, Louis Mayer, Edward G. Robinson, Harry Belafonte, Ronald Reagan, George Murphy, Jane Fonda, Charlton Heston, Warren Beatty, and Arnold Schwarzenegger--Hollywood Left and Right tells the compelling story of how Hollywood emerged as a vital center of American politics. From Chaplin, whose movies almost always displayed his leftist convictions, to Schwarznegger's nearly seamless transition from action blockbusters to the California governor's mansion, Steve Ross traces the intersection of Hollywood and political activism through the twentieth century and into the 21st. Significantly, Hollywood Left and Right challenges the commonly held belief that Hollywood is a bastion of liberalism. The real story, as Ross shows in this passionate yet highly entertaining work, is a far more complicated one. The Left and the Right each gained ascendancy in Tinseltown at different times, but while the Hollywood Left was usually more vocal and visible, it was the Right that achieved the most, capturing a Senate seat (Murphy), a governorship (Schwarzenegger), and--ultimately--the Presidency (Reagan).

Misunderstanding is a pervasive phenomenon in social life, sometimes with serious consequences for people's life chances. Misunderstandings are especially hazardous in high-stakes events such as job interviews or in the legal system. In unequal power encounters, unsuccessful communication is regularly attributed to the less powerful participant, especially when those participants are members of an ethnic minority group. But even when communicative events are not prestructured by participants' differential positions in social hierarchies, misunderstandings occur at different levels of interactional and social engagement. Misunderstanding in Social Life examines such problematic talk in ordinary conversation and different institutional settings, including socializing events and story tellings, education and assessment activities, and interviews in TV news broadcasts, employment agencies, legal settings, and language testing. The analyzed interactions are located in a variety of sociocultural environments and conducted in a range of languages, including English, French, German, Hebrew, Japanese, such language varieties as Aboriginal Australian English and Maori New Zealand English, and nonnative varieties.The original studies included in this volume adopt a variety of theoretical perspectives, including discourse-pragmatic approaches, conversation analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, social constructionism, tropological and narrative analysis. They represent multiple views of misunderstanding as a multilayered discourse event.

This is an examination of major American and Anglo-American war plans. Rather than discuss the history of planning, Ross considers the execution of the plans, compares the execution with the expectations of the planners and attempts to explain the differences.

Misunderstanding is a pervasive phenomenon in social life, sometimes with serious consequences for people's life chances. Misunderstandings are especially hazardous in high-stakes events such as job interviews or in the legal system. In unequal power encounters, unsuccessful communication is regularly attributed to the less powerful participant, especially when those participants are members of an ethnic minority group. But even when communicative events are not prestructured by participants' differential positions in social hierarchies, misunderstandings occur at different levels of interactional and social engagement. Misunderstanding in Social Life examines such problematic talk in ordinary conversation and different institutional settings, including socializing events and story tellings, education and assessment activities, and interviews in TV news broadcasts, employment agencies, legal settings, and language testing. The analyzed interactions are located in a variety of sociocultural environments and conducted in a range of languages, including English, French, German, Hebrew, Japanese, such language varieties as Aboriginal Australian English and Maori New Zealand English, and nonnative varieties.The original studies included in this volume adopt a variety of theoretical perspectives, including discourse-pragmatic approaches, conversation analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, social constructionism, tropological and narrative analysis. They represent multiple views of misunderstanding as a multilayered discourse event.