De Gruyter Contemporary Social Sciences – serie
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80 produkter
80 produkter
Inbunden, Engelska, 2026
1 503 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
“The Rise of the Babylonian Empire” surveys Babylonian history during the transitional period between 631 and 585 BC, from the end of Ashurbanipal’s reign to the first half of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II. This period witnessed the fall of the Assyrian Empire and the formation of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, after which the Neo-Babylonian Empire reached its mature stage with consolidated territorial control, administrative systems, and state ideologies. The main focusses of the monograph are the unfolding of the Nabopolassar Revolt, the processes and consequences of imperial expansion, the way in which the new dynasty administered its territory, and the interventions and royal ideologies adopted during the early years of the Neo-Babylonian rule. These historical factors contributed to the various transformations in Babylonia politically, economically, socially, and demographically.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2024
1 660 kr
Skickas inom 3-6 vardagar
From smart gates and drone patrols to e-visas and mobile GPS apps, digital technologies are becoming a ubiquitous feature of state borders and travel. The embedding of digital technologies into bordering and travel processes is reshaping the ways people move around the world, as well as the means sovereign states use to control and facilitate that movement. Digital Mobilities studies these changes and examines how ‘digitisation’ is remaking the very fabric of state sovereignty, territory, and borders. Some of the core bordering and travel transitions prompted by digitisation that are examined in Digital Mobilities include the spatial and temporal reorganisation of borders; the algorithmic assessment of travellers as ‘data doubles’; the reformulation of border agency, or who or what performs the border; the digital augmentation of international travel; and the new tensions and conflicts arising between smart borders and digital mobilities. Understanding these transitions is essential for policy makers, advocates, and members of the public to comprehend both the exceptional opportunities and monumental risks posed by the embedding of digital technologies into borders and travel.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2021
1 289 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
Multidimensional Inequalities is a deep dive into the historical contexts and contemporary realities that negatively influence society and its structures. It is often overlooked that inequality is not just about income and wealth but rather a broad spectrum of intersecting factors. This book focuses on each aspect individually, analysing its effect on welfare systems, and informs about the instruments available to reduce inequality.
Del 4 - De Gruyter Contemporary Social Sciences
Multidimensional Inequalities
International Perspectives Across Welfare States
Häftad, Engelska, 2024
380 kr
Skickas inom 3-6 vardagar
Multidimensional Inequalities is a deep dive into the historical contexts and contemporary realities that negatively influence society and its structures. It is often overlooked that inequality is not just about income and wealth but rather a broad spectrum of intersecting factors. This book focuses on each aspect individually, analysing its effect on welfare systems, and informs about the instruments available to reduce inequality.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2022
1 251 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
Personalisation is the most relevant political phenomenon of our time. After the decline of structural and ideological foundations of Western democracies, a radical shift from collective to individual actors and institutions has occurred in several political systems. On the one hand, political leaders have gained centrality on the democratic scene as a consequence of both a more direct, sometimes plebiscitary, relationship with citizens, and a more direct control of the executive administration. On the other hand, a process of fragmentation occurs at the mass level, where electoral volatility has strongly increased and the spread of social media enables each citizen to express their convictions in the self-referential autonomy of the digital networks. Monocratic Government: The Impact of Personalisation on Democratic Regimes analyses the consequences of personalisation of political leaders on democratic government by asking whether it is possible to keep together demos and kratos in a post-particratic context. It explores topics such as governmental decrees, Trump-governance, and includes an analysis of the coronavirus outbreak. Offering comparative insights and exploring how political leaders govern in the United States, France, Germany, Italy, and Hungary, this volume brings into focus the study of political personalisation in relation to some of the key trends – and crises – in modern politics.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2023
1 251 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
Neoliberalism Reloaded: Authoritarian Governmentality and the Rise of the Radical Right analyzes the violent enforcement of neoliberal governmentality and its relationship to the emergence of a new political and cultural Right that combines political authoritarianism, ethnocentric nationalism, racism, misogyny, and antifeminism with neoliberal economic principles. Many critical thinkers have defined this post-2008 crisis phase as a fascist moment of neoliberalism since far-Right movements and parties are not only enhancing their political representation but also setting the agenda of today’s politics. However, such a crucial political moment needs more precise analytical tools. In this framework, Neoliberalism Reloaded: Authoritarian Governmentality and the Rise of the Radical Right seeks to understand the emergence of the New Right and punitive neoliberalism not only as a reaction to a crisis of accumulation but also as an outcome of neoliberal reason and the historical neoliberal alliance with conservative and reactionary political forces. Therefore, far from thinking this moment as exceptional, this book seeks the roots of today’s punitive neoliberalism in its theoretical framework and in the violence inherent to neoliberal capitalism towards those racialized, colonized, genderized and precarized populations that cannot adjust to the norm of competitiveness. Thus, Neoliberalism Reloaded seeks to contribute to understanding the challenges of our present as a necessary step to imagine alternative futures.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2021
1 374 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
Men Do It Too: Opting Out and In offers a timely and comprehensive analysis of the phenomenon of men leaving mainstream careers models, adding to current debates on opting out. The book investigates how globalization, individualization, and this age of high modernity, in addition to issues of masculinity and what it means to be a man in contemporary society and organizational contexts, affect decisions to opt out. Throughout the book, social theory and relevant debates are interwoven with the narratives of 15 men who have left successful careers and mainstream career models to live and work on their own terms: six from the United States, five from Finland, and four from the UK. The narratives help illustrate the issues presented, as well as providing an insight into the men’s identity work throughout their opting out processes. In addition, Biese explores what organizations can learn from the knowledge gathered in her research on men (and women) opting out. This is important in order to create sustainable work environments that not only attract but also retain employees.
Del 8 - De Gruyter Contemporary Social Sciences
Monocratic Government
The Impact of Personalisation on Democratic Regimes
Häftad, Engelska, 2024
353 kr
Skickas inom 3-6 vardagar
Personalisation is the most relevant political phenomenon of our time. After the decline of structural and ideological foundations of Western democracies, a radical shift from collective to individual actors and institutions has occurred in several political systems. From the one hand political leaders have gained centrality on the democratic scene, as a consequence of both a more direct, sometimes plebiscitary, relationship with citizens, and a more direct control of the executive administration. From the other hand a process of fragmentation occurs at the mass level, where electoral volatility has strongly increased and especially after the spread of social media each citizen elaborates his convictions in the self-referential autonomy of the digital networks. This book analyses the consequences of personalisation of political leaders on democratic government, by asking whether it is possible to keep together demos and kratos in a post-particratic context. It explores topics such as governmental decrees, Trump-governance, and analysis of the coronavirus outbreak. The book brings to the fore the study of political personalization in relation to some of the most important crises and trends in modern politics. It does so offering comparative insights, exploring how political leaders govern in the United States, France, Germany, Italy, and Hungary.
Del 2 - De Gruyter Contemporary Social Sciences
Men Do It Too
Opting Out and In
Häftad, Engelska, 2022
195 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
Men Do It Too: Opting Out and In offers a timely and comprehensive analysis of the phenomenon of men leaving mainstream careers models, adding to current debates on opting out. The book investigates how globalization, individualization, and this age of high modernity, in addition to issues of masculinity and what it means to be a man in contemporary society and organizational contexts, affect decisions to opt out. Throughout the book, social theory and relevant debates are interwoven with the narratives of 15 men who have left successful careers and mainstream career models to live and work on their own terms: six from the United States, five from Finland, and four from the UK. The narratives help illustrate the issues presented, as well as providing an insight into the men’s identity work throughout their opting out processes. In addition, Biese explores what organizations can learn from the knowledge gathered in her research on men (and women) opting out. This is important in order to create sustainable work environments that not only attract but also retain employees.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2021
1 251 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
The Syrian Social Nationalist Party devoted itself to reviving and unifying the Syrian nation and establishing this nation’s complete independence over its historical homeland, Greater Syria. It continues its struggle today, influencing and shaping Lebanese and Syrian society and politics. Yet, the party remains largely unknown and misunderstood, a condition that stems from the lack of any comprehensive study of it. This book fills this gap. Syrian nationalism and nationalist movements, generally speaking, have been largely neglected and ignored by historians, scholars, and observers of the Middle East. So, too, has the SSNP. The lack of detailed and nuanced analyses has left significant gaps in the party’s rich history unaddressed and enabled the perpetuation of inaccuracies and misperceptions regarding its past. Given this and the party’s ongoing relevance in Lebanon and Syria, a thorough examination of the early history of the SSNP, the political organization and movement that embodied Syrian nationalism’s most explicit, most cogent expression is even more necessary. Based on an extensive and thorough examination of Arabic, French, and English primary sources, the monograph is the first comprehensive, systematic history of the SSNP to date, detailing its struggle to fulfill its nationalist vision and establish a secular, independent state in Greater Syria through a thorough analysis of its formation, evolution, and political activities in Lebanon and Syria.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2022
1 267 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
From Anwar al-Sadat’s dramatic gambit in 1977 to the surprising declaration of the Abraham Accords in 2020, making peace with Israel was always a tough sell for Arab regimes. Through an analysis of hundreds of fatwas, sermons, essays, books, interviews, poems, postage stamps and other media, Peace in the Name of Allah examines how Egyptian, Jordanian, and Emirati political and religious authorities introduced Islamic justifications for peace with Israel, and how those opposed countered them. The discussion demonstrates the flexible and ambiguous nature of revelation-based political discourses; Islam is neither ‘for’ nor ‘against’ peace with Israel – people are, as different Muslim political actors take competing or even contradictory positions.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2023
1 350 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
Enough of Experts: Expert Authority in Crisis analyses the challenges and threats to expert authority in neoliberal political economies and societies. It focuses upon the deep-seated political, economic, social and cultural transformations which have fundamentally destabilized and eroded the institutional foundations of expert authority over more than four decades. The book critically assesses the orthodox or ‘received’ model of expert authority as it has come under escalating pressures from a nexus of ideological, organizational, technological and cultural changes that have radically weakened the former’s core ‘institutional logic’ and practical efficacy. It also looks forward to a range of ‘expert futures’ in which expert groups and organizations decline in power and status as their prevalence proliferates to a stage where they become ubiquitous in neoliberal regimes. Finally, the book presents an alternative reflexive model of expert authority and governance that is grounded in the ‘dynamics of contestation and trust’ and stands in direct contrast to the orthodox, rational model.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2022
703 kr
Skickas
The end of the Cold War marks the geopolitical peak of America’s global primacy. The centerpiece of U.S. Foreign Policy in the pre-pandemic world order was the assumption that promoting human rights and democracy will secure peace. However, the Coronavirus Pandemic challenged the U.S.-dominated globalized order. The international system in the post-pandemic age embodies a paradox of the American primacy and the Chinese struggle for global domination. Pandemics Among Nations: U.S. Foreign Policy and the New Grand Chessboard addresses the geopolitical puzzle of the post-pandemic world order and seeks to explain how COVID 19 has remastered Brzezinski’s theory of the Grand Chessboard. In this book, Ivanov offers a two-level approach, emphasizing the consequences of the Pandemic and their impact on U.S. Foreign Policy. He also argues that if the United States wants to maintain its leadership in the post-pandemic world order, Washington should develop a new concept of smart power to deter the Chinese Art of War. The foremost goal of Pandemics Among Nations is to analyze how America could overcome the geopolitical effects of the Pandemic. The author examines three possible scenarios for the future role of the United States on the post-pandemic Chessboard. The analysis rests on the testing of a series of research hypotheses across a structured comparison of all elements of the remastered Grand Chessboard, not just on isolated case studies such as China’s rise, Russian New Imperialism or European ambitions for a mutual defense.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2022
1 430 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
No detailed description available for "The Tragedy of Ukraine".
Inbunden, Engelska, 2022
1 124 kr
Skickas
Everyday life as we knew it is increasingly challenged in a world of climate, social, health and political crisis. Emerging technologies, data analytics and automation open up new possibilities which have implications for energy generation, storage and energy demand. To support these changes we urgently need to rethink how energy will be sourced, shared and used. Yet existing approaches to this problem, driven by engineering, data analytics and capital, are dangerously conservative and entrenched. Energy Futures critically evaluates this context, and the energy infrastructures, stakeholders, and politics that participate in it, to propose plausible, responsible and ethical modes of encountering possible energy futures. Imagining anthropocene challenges, emerging technologies and everyday life otherwise through empirically grounded studies, opens up possible energy futures. Energy Futures proposes and demonstrates a new critical and interventional futures-oriented energy anthropology. Combining the theories and methods of futures anthropology with the critical expertise and perspectives of energy anthropology creates a powerful mode of engagement, which this book argues is needed to disrupt the dominant narratives about our energy futures. Its contributors collectively reveal and evidence through innovative ethnographic practice how new knowledge about imagined and possible energy futures can be mobilised in engagements with emerging technologies, anthropocene challenges and everyday realities. In doing so it brings together authors, analytical expertise and ethnographic evidence from the global south, north and places in between, generated through innovative methodologies including remote video and comic strip methods and documentary video practice as well as long term fieldwork.
Challenge to Academic Freedom in Hungary
A Case Study in Authoritarianism, Culture War and Resistance
Inbunden, Engelska, 2022
1 350 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
The Challenge to Academic Freedom in Hungary: A Case Study in Culture War, Authoritarianism and Resistance presents a case study as to how an authoritarian regime like the one in Hungary seeks to tame academic freedom. Andrew Ryder probes the reasons for ideological conflict within the academy through concepts like ‘culture war’ and authoritarian populism. He explores how the Orbán administration has introduced a series of reforms leading to limitations being placed on the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Gender Studies no longer being recognized by the State, the relocation of the Central European University because of government pressure and new reforms that ostensibly appear to give universities autonomy but critics assert are in fact changes that will lead to cronyism and pro-government interference in academic freedom.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2026
1 519 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
How did China transform from technological copycat to global innovator? The Imitation Paradox challenges Western narratives of "theft" and "imitation," and reframes imitation as a creative force in China's technological rise. Drawing on 40 years of fieldwork – spanning telecoms, shanzhai culture, and pandemic apps – Xiaobai Shen reveals how imitation shapes innovation, participation, and governance in the digital age. Shen argues that China and the West operate within "two moral universes:" In the Chinese framework, shaped by Confucian traditions, ethical concepts like privacy, freedom, and collective good are relational and context-dependent rather than universal. These values support a distinctive digital governance rooted in civic cultivation and mass participation.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2022
1 297 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the mortality crisis which affected Eastern Europe and the republics of the former USSR at the time of the transition to a market economy was arguably the major peacetime health crisis of recent decades. Chernobyl and the Mortality Crisis in Eastern Europe and the Old USSR discusses the importance of that crisis, surprisingly underplayed in the scientific literature, and presents evidence suggesting a potential role of the Chernobyl disaster among the causes contributing to it.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2022
1 316 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
This work argues that a component part of US neoliberalism involves adaptive accumulation, a process in which capital seeks to enlarge public programs, as a means to reroute public revenues into private revenue streams. Along the way, corporations project quasi-public aspirations as a central part of their commercial mission, as the state carves out new – or expands old – areas of accumulative growth for corporate America.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2023
1 247 kr
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Sociology has developed theories of social change in the fields of evolution, conflict and modernization, viewing modern society as essentially unstable and conflict driven. However, it has not seriously studied catastrophe. A Theory of Catastrophe develops a sociology of catastrophes, comparing natural, social and political causes and consequences, and the social theories that might offer explanations. A catastrophe is a general and systematic breakdown of social and political institutions resulting, among other things, in what we could call a catastrophe consciousness. The Greek ‘cata-strophe’ formed the conclusion to a dramatic sequence of strophes. The cata-strophe was the final act of a drama, namely its denouement. Catastrophic denouements are without hope: genocides, military occupations, plagues, famines and earthquakes. A Theory of Catastrophe analyzes Pompeii, the Black Death, colonial genocide in North America, WWI and the Spanish Flu, and Nazi Germany and finally this century: terrorism, new wars, climate change and pandemics. As a study of sociological theory, Bryan Turner discusses Spengler’s Decline of the West, Marxism as a theory of catastrophic capitalism, messianic movements, Weber on modernity, and risk society. He concludes by comparing optimism and pessimism, and the idea of inter-generational justice.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2022
720 kr
Skickas
The Iran National Front and the Struggle for Democracy: 1949–Present explores the activities of the Iran National Front (INF). The INF is a coalition of parties, groups, and individuals and Iran’s oldest and main pro-democracy political party. This book presents a political history of the INF from 1949 to the present day. It discusses the current platform of the INF, its leadership, policies, strategies, as well as criticisms and weaknesses. The volume draws on a rich range of primary sources, INF documents, and interviews, including translated transcripts with the top leader of the INF. As it is one of the major political parties opposing the current regime in Iran, the book also examines the current situation in the country. It provides an analysis of the nature of the political systems under the Shah and the Islamic Republic.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2024
1 647 kr
Skickas inom 3-6 vardagar
Digitalization in Practice: Intersections, Implications and Interventions shows that as welfare is increasingly digitalized, an investigation of the social implications of this digitalization becomes increasingly pertinent. The book offers chapters on how the state operates, from the day-to-day practices of governance to keeping registers of businesses, from overarching and sometimes contradictory policies to considering how to best include citizens in digitalized processes. Moreover, the book takes a citizen perspective on key issues of access, identification and social harm to consider the social implications of digitalization in the everyday. The diversity of topics in Digitalization in Practice reflects how digitalization as an ongoing process and practice fundamentally impacts and often reshapes the relationship between states and citizens.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2023
1 343 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
The rise of far-right communities on digital platforms is a global crisis. Digital Islamophobia tracks far-right groups where they are a virtual and vicious threat, exploring how these networks grow, develop, and circulate Islamophobic hate-speech on Twitter. Reconstructing this media ecosystem, Digital Islamophobia traces the reactionary political ideologies animating these groups through feminist data analytic techniques in a transnational study of German and American far-right, digitally networked users. This work illustrates far-right communities using data visualization techniques, identifies a taxonomy of user-types, analyzes themes and stories that motivate far-right users, and tracks the spread of linked forms of anti-Muslim sentiment, reactionary ideologies, and (mis)information. In doing so, Digital Islamophobia details how far-right discourse is not merely national, or even transatlantic, but increasingly transnationalized among American, German, as well as Indian and Nigerian digital networks. By tracking and tracing the contours of these far-right digital communities on Twitter and analyzing the content of their conversations, Digital Islamophobia provides policy-makers, researchers, and scholars with a potential road-map to stop them.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2024
1 612 kr
Skickas inom 3-6 vardagar
The Affective Agency of Public Space explores the pivotal role that public spaces play in fostering social inclusion and community cohesion within various settings, including Europe and the United States. This scholarly work underscores the critical importance of developing inclusive public zones that enhance urban life and promote integration and interaction among diverse community groups. It also confronts and debunks common myths about ‘different people,’ actively addressing misconceptions while promoting the recognition of diverse identities and voices. Through a comparative lens, the book presents insightful case studies that illustrate its core themes. Serving as a timely and important academic resource, this text is indispensable for urban planners, educators, architects, designers, and sociologists committed to progressive urban planning methodologies.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2024
1 570 kr
Skickas inom 3-6 vardagar
Influencer Politics focuses on current discussions about the role and impact of social media influencers in the political sphere, and how the personal, political and promotional often converges in digital media. A key question is how core ideas of influencer culture – authenticity, intimacy, commercialism, and self-branding – shape the ways in which politics are expressed and understood in this context, as well as opens up space for new ways of connecting and interacting with the public. It also highlights the way that influencer culture itself is infused with politics, where issues of, for example, empowerment and exploitation are articulated and discussed in different ways. The book is the result of a common interest among researchers engaged in work on political aspects of influencer marketing and influencer culture from critical, cultural, and strategic perspectives, and offers a range of case studies devoted to both the promises and limitations of influencer politics.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2024
1 469 kr
Skickas inom 3-6 vardagar
Digital technology has revolutionized connectivity, but it has also overcome spatial obstacles that used to shield people from subjugating gazes and unlimited exercise of power. The home as an auratic space is dead, and this alienation has hindered our democratic capacities and created complex crises. The Death of Home aims to intellectually engage readers via enhancing spatial literacy to critically confront today’s crises.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2023
1 534 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
Environmental Injustice and Catastrophe meticulously explores key global security issues that pose severe threats to the future of humanity and the planet. This distinctive, timely, and conceptually rigorous book combines a rich body of research. It is a valuable source for sociologists, political scientists, historians, critical theorists, and all those who care about our future and environment.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2023
1 229 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
From QR codes to stay-at-home orders and mask mandates, the pandemic posed intriguing questions about the nature of political power in a time that is increasingly being classified as marked by democratic erosion, backsliding, or populism, Through a multi-methodological analysis of datasets covering different characteristics of pandemic responses in 54 liberal democratic states, Authoritarian Liberal Surveillance and the COVID-19 Pandemic draws attention to a different set of processes and dynamics. By adopting the theoretical frameworks of authoritarian liberalism and surveillance capitalism, a new explanation of political, economic, and social outcomes that arose over the course of the pandemic is provided in a critical cross-national inquiry. Findings turn attention to a previously neglected set of factors that were behind the emergence of widespread illiberal practices. Many liberal democracies experienced a metamorphosis that arose out of the unfettered implementation of authoritarian liberal economic policy making which merged with previously embedded structures of surveillance capitalism.
Häftad, Engelska, 2022
262 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
The Syrian Social Nationalist Party devoted itself to reviving and unifying the Syrian nation and establishing this nation’s complete independence over its historical homeland, Greater Syria. It continues its struggle today, influencing and shaping Lebanese and Syrian society and politics. Yet, the party remains largely unknown and misunderstood, a condition that stems from the lack of any comprehensive study of it. This book fills this gap. Syrian nationalism and nationalist movements, generally speaking, have been largely neglected and ignored by historians, scholars, and observers of the Middle East. So, too, has the SSNP. The lack of detailed and nuanced analyses has left significant gaps in the party’s rich history unaddressed and enabled the perpetuation of inaccuracies and misperceptions regarding its past. Given this and the party’s ongoing relevance in Lebanon and Syria, a thorough examination of the early history of the SSNP, the political organization and movement that embodied Syrian nationalism’s most explicit, most cogent expression is even more necessary. Based on an extensive and thorough examination of Arabic, French, and English primary sources, the monograph is the first comprehensive, systematic history of the SSNP to date, detailing its struggle to fulfill its nationalist vision and establish a secular, independent state in Greater Syria through a thorough analysis of its formation, evolution, and political activities in Lebanon and Syria.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2023
1 267 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
There are many ‘how-to’ books on writing for academics; none of these, however, relate specifically to the discipline of geography. In this book, the author identifies the principle modes of academic writing that graduate students and early-career faculty will encounter – specifically focusing on those forms expected of geographers, that is, those modes that are reviewed by academic peers. This book is readily accessible to senior undergraduate and graduate students and early-career faculty who may feel intimidated by the process of writing. This volume is not strictly a ‘how-to’ or ‘step-by-step’ manual for writing an article or book; rather, through the use of real, concrete examples from published and unpublished works, the author de-mystifies the process of different types of scholarly pieces geographers have to write with the specific needs and challenges of the discipline in mind. Although chapters are thematic-based, e.g., stand-alone chapters on book reviews, articles, and books, the manuscript is structured around the concept of story-telling, for it is the author’s contention that all writing, whether a ‘scientific’ study or more humanist essay, is a form of story-telling.