BiblioVault - Books about Alternatives

Alternatives to Assimilation: The Response of Reform Judaism to American Culture, 1840–1930
Alan Silverstein
Brandeis University Press, 1995
Library of Congress BM197.S49 1994 | Dewey Decimal 296.83460973

Explores the influence of American culture and history on the development of Reform Jewish institutions. Brandeis Series in American Jewish History, Culture, and Life.

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The Bible Without Theology: The Theological Tradition and Alternatives to It
Robert A. Oden, Jr.
University of Illinois Press, 1987
Library of Congress BS1171.2.O34 2000 | Dewey Decimal 221.601

In this thought-provoking volume, Robert A. Oden Jr. advocates stripping away the theological and historiographic biases that underlie modern biblical scholarship in order to arrive at a nontheological historical reading of the Bible. Oden calls into question a scholarly tradition that accepts biblical writers' views of themselves and their neighbors at face value and reproduces a view of Israelite religion as divinely guided and inherently superior.

Using cross-cultural and interdisciplinary methodology, Oden investigates three biblical issues--the clothing of Adam and Eve, Jacob's name change to Israel, and ritual prostitution and Deuteronomy--in light of extra-biblical evidence. He also challenges scholars' assumptions of Scripture as monotheistic and proposes treating biblical narrative as myth rather than as historical fact.

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GANGS IN THE GLOBAL CITY: Alternatives to Traditional Criminology
Edited by John M. Hagedorn
University of Illinois Press, 2006
Library of Congress HV6437.G354 2007 | Dewey Decimal 364.1066

Although they were originally considered an American phenomenon, gangs today have grown and transformed into global enterprises. Despite these changes, criminologists have not yet reassessed worldwide gangs in terms of the other changes associated with globalization.

John M. Hagedorn aims to correct this oversight by incorporating important theoretical advances in urban political economy and understanding changes in gangs around the world as a result of globalization and the growth of the information economy. Contrary to older conceptions, today’s gangs are international, are often institutionalized, and may be explicitly concerned with race and ethnicity. Gangs in the Global City presents the work of an assortment of international scholars that challenges traditional approaches to problems in criminology from many different perspectives and includes theoretical discussions, case studies, and examinations of gang members’ identities. The contributors consider gangs not as fundamentally a crime problem but as variable social organizations in poor communities that are transitioning to the new economy.

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The Midwestern Native Garden: Native Alternatives to Nonnative Flowers and Plants
Charlotte Adelman
Ohio University Press, 2011
Library of Congress QK128.A34 2011 | Dewey Decimal 635.9510978

Midwestern gardeners and landscapers are becoming increasingly attracted to noninvasive regional native wildflowers and plants over popular nonnative species. The Midwestern Native Garden offers viable alternatives to both amateurs and professionals, whether they are considering adding a few native plants or intending to go native all the way. Native plants improve air and water quality, reduce use of pesticides, and provide vital food and reproductive sites to birds and butterflies, that nonnative plants cannot offer, helping bring back a healthy ecosystem.

The authors provide a comprehensive selection of native alternatives that look similar or even identical to a range of nonnative ornamentals. These are native plants that are suitable for all garden styles, bloom during the same season, and have the same cultivation requirements as their nonnative counterparts. Plant entries are accompanied by nature notes setting out the specific birds and butterflies the native plants attract.

The Midwestern Native Garden will be a welcome guide to gardeners whose styles range from formal to naturalistic but who want to create an authentic sense of place, with regional natives. The beauty, hardiness, and easy maintenance of native Midwestern plants will soon make them the new favorites.

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Polarizing Development: Alternatives to Neoliberalism and the Crisis
Edited by Lucia Pradella and Thomas Marois
Pluto Press, 2015
Library of Congress HD75.P632 2015 | Dewey Decimal 338.9001

The global economic crisis has exposed the limits of neoliberalism and dramatically deepened social polarization. Yet, despite increasing social resistance and opposition, neoliberalism prevails globally.

Radical alternatives, moreover, are only rarely debated. And if they are, such alternatives are reduced to new Keynesian and new developmental agendas, which fail to address existing class divisions and imperialist relations of domination.

This collection of essays polarizes the debate between radical and reformist alternatives by exploring head-on the antagonistic structure of capitalist development. The contributors ground their proposals in an international, non-Eurocentric and Marxian inspired analysis of capitalism and its crises. From Latin America to Asia, Africa to the Middle East and Europe to the US, social and labour movements have emerged as the protagonists behind creating alternatives.

This book’s new generation of scholars has written accessible yet theoretically informed and empirically rich chapters elaborating radical worldwide strategies for moving beyond neoliberalism, and beyond capitalism. The intent is to provoke critical reflection and positive action towards substantive change.

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Property and Values: Alternatives To Public And Private Ownership
Edited by Charles Geisler and Gail Daneker
Island Press, 2000
Library of Congress K721.5.P76 2000 | Dewey Decimal 330.17

Property and Values offers a fresh look at property rights issues, bringing together scholars, attorneys, government officials, community development practitioners, and environmental advocates to consider new and more socially equitable forms of ownership. Based on a Harvard Law School conference organized by the Equity Trust, Inc., in cooperation with the American Bar Association's Commission on Homelessness and Poverty, the book:

explains ownership as an evolving concept, determined by social processes and changing social relations
challenges conventional public-private ownership categories
surveys recent studies on the implications of public policy on property values
offers examples from other cultures of ownership realities unfamiliar or forgotten in the United States
compares experiments in ownership/equity allocation affecting social welfare and environmental conservation

The book synthesizes much innovative thinking on ownership in land and housing, and signals how that thinking might be used across America. Contributors – including David Abromowitz, Darby Bradley, Teresa Duclos, Sally Fairfax, Margaret Grossman, C. Ford Runge, William Singer and others – call for balance between property rights and responsibilities, between private and public rights in property, and between individual and societal interests in land.

Property and Values is a thought-provoking contribution to the literature on property for planners, lawyers, government officials, resource economists, environmental managers, and social scientists as well as for students of planning, environmental law, geography, or public policy.

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Socialism, Capitalism and Alternatives: Area Studies and Global Theories
Edited by Peter J. S. Duncan and Elisabeth Schimpfössl
University College London, 2019

In 1989, the Berlin Wall came down. Two years later, the Soviet Union disintegrated. The collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union discredited the idea of socialism for generations to come. It was seen as representing the final and irreversible victory of capitalism. This triumphant dominance was barely challenged until the 2008 financial crisis threw the Western world into a state of turmoil.

Through analysis of post-Socialist Russia and Central and Eastern Europe, as well as of the United Kingdom, China, and the United States, Socialism, Capitalism and Alternatives confronts the difficulty we face in articulating alternatives to capitalism, socialism, and threatening populist regimes. Beginning with accounts of the impact of capitalism on countries left behind by the planned economies, the book moves on to consider how China has become a beacon of dynamic economic growth, aggressively expanding its global influence. The final section of the book poses alternatives to the ideological dominance of neoliberalism in the West.

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The Squatters' Movement in Europe: Commons and Autonomy as Alternatives to Capitalism
Edited by Squatting Europe Kollective
Pluto Press, 2014
Library of Congress HD7287.96.E85S63 2014 | Dewey Decimal 363.5094

The Squatters' Movement in Europe is the first definitive guide to squatting as an alternative to capitalism. It offers a unique insider's view on the movement – its ideals, actions and ways of life. At a time of growing crisis in Europe with high unemployment, dwindling social housing and declining living standards, squatting has become an increasingly popular option.

The book is written by an activist-scholar collective, whose members have direct experience of squatting: many are still squatters today. There are contributions from the Netherlands, Spain, the USA, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and the UK.

In an age of austerity and precarity this book shows what has been achieved by this resilient social movement, which holds lessons for policy-makers, activists and academics alike.

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