National Network for Equitable Library Service

In 1784, passengers on the ship Empress of China became the first Americans to land in China, and the first to eat Chinese food. Today, the United States is home to more Chinese restaurants than any other ethnic cuisine. In this authoritative new history, author Andrew Coe traces the fascinating story of America's centuries-long encounter with Chinese food. CHOP SUEY tells how we went from believing that Chinese meals contained dogs and rats to making regular pilgrimages to the neighborhood chop suey parlor.

Explores two contemporary theories of the family-rational choice theory & transition theory that illuminate what differing theories reveal about families. The book also discusses how meta-theories can assist in refining theory, & offers insight on the 'understanding versus explanation' debate.

Examines the ways in which urban modernity reshapes 'cultural experience'. This work explores the ways that categories of sexual identity and behaviour were reformulated in relation to the restructuring of urban space and the introduction of new cultures of consumption in a period of modernization.

Contested Spaces is a global study of sites of conflict, places of loss, fear, resistance and pilgrimage where the materiality of violence forcibly brings the past into the present. The collection examines a series of internationally significant sites and how they are inhabited, represented, witnessed and visited.

Cities are where the twenty-first century is really going to happen. Already at the beginning of the century, we became 50% urban as a global population, and by 2050 we're going to be up to 70% urban. So cities could either be our coffin or our ark.

The town hall or city hall as a place of local governance is historically related to the founding of cities in medieval Europe. As the space of representative civic authority it aimed to set the terms of public space and engagement with the citizenry. In subsequent centuries, as the idea and built form travelled beyond Europe to become an established institution across the globe, the parameters of civic representation changed and the town hall was forced to negotiate new notions of urbanism and public space.

Exploring the way urbicide is used to un/re-make Palestine, as well as how it is employed as a tool of spatial dispossession and control, this book examines contemporary political violence and destruction in the context of colonial projects in Palestine.

This book examines the role of popular culture in the construction of gendered identities in contemporary society. It draws on a wide range of popular cultural forms - including popular music, newspapers and television - to illustrate how femininity and masculinity are produced, represented and consumed.

In the very near future, “smart” technologies and “big data” will allow us to make large-scale and sophisticated interventions in politics, culture, and everyday life. Technology will allow us to solve problems in highly original ways and create new incentives to get more people to do the right thing. But how will such “solutionism” affect our society, once deeply political, moral, and irresolvable dilemmas are recast as uncontroversial and easily manageable matters of technological efficiency? What if some such problems are simply vices in disguise?

In this unique new history of the world's most ubiquitous language, the foremost expert on linguistics David Crystal draws on the 100 words that best illustrate the huge variety of developments and events that have shaped our vernacular since the first definitively English word was written down in the fifth century.