The Federal Republic of Germany Since 1949: Politics, Society and Economics Before and After Unification

Customer Reviews:

Splendid!.......2001-08-03

AN exclusive analysis of the economy,politics and the society of the Federal Republic of Germany. Each page is full of information and this book is recommended not only to the one related to the studies of economy or politics but also to the general for this is book is carefully written to teach those who have little idea of what economy is. WHat the federal did in order to revive their economy amid the restrictions of the allies, the economic Miracle and so on. Written by Brilliant guys from all the fields from economics to politics.

Splendid!.......2001-08-03

Book Description

Issues spawned by the headlong pace of developments in science and technology fill the courts. How should we deal with frozen embryos and leaky implants, dangerous chemicals, DNA fingerprints, and genetically engineered animals? The realm of the law, to which beleaguered people look for answers, is sometimes at a loss--constrained by its own assumptions and practices, Sheila Jasanoff suggests. This book exposes American law's long-standing involvement in constructing, propagating, and perpetuating a variety of myths about science and technology.

Science at the Bar is the first book to examine in detail how two powerful American institutions--both seekers after truth--interact with each other. Looking at cases involving product liability, medical malpractice, toxic torts, genetic engineering, and life and death, Jasanoff argues that the courts do not simply depend on scientific findings for guidance--they actually influence the production of science and technology at many different levels. Research is conducted and interpreted to answer legal questions. Experts are selected to be credible on the witness stand. Products are redesigned to reduce the risk of lawsuits. At the same time the courts emerge here as democratizing agents in disputes over the control and deployment of new technologies, advancing and sustaining a public dialogue about the limits of expertise. Jasanoff shows how positivistic views of science and the law often prevent courts from realizing their full potential as centers for a progressive critique of science and technology.

With its lucid analysis of both scientific and legal modes of reasoning, and its recommendations for scholars and policymakers, this book will be an indispensable resource for anyone who hopes to understand the changing configurations of science, technology, and the law in our litigious society.

Customer Reviews:

Clear, well-researched & useful.......2006-12-26

Sheila Jasanoff writes books that are well-researched, clear and useful for people in a variety of areas: public policy, science studies, law & society, biotech/analysis.

I have read most of her books, and recommended this to (advanced) students, who also found it very useful.

I probably would not have bothered to review it here: it is obviously good, and has been well received elsewhere. But I felt moved to counteract (what I regarded as) the highly misleading negative review printed below.

Biased against science........2003-01-21

This is not a law text nor a history of science text but a sociology text. Her language shows a bias against scientific analysis, and in favor of sociologists (her profession): peer review is said to give an "impartial facade"; scientific experts are said to have a "technocratic bias." Two other scholars are said to have "complete disregard for findings in contemporary... sociology." Science in general is said to have too high a reputation for credibility: "science generally functions in an atmosphere of credulousness..."

The implication is that courts should allow in all opposing scientific claims, since "science" has no claims to "truth" greater than any other profession.

Only recommended for its survey of cases and judicial/regulatory opinions and trends over the last several decades.

Undoing Junk Science.......2000-05-16

This really excellent book should be required reading for every lawyer who expects to handle expert evidence. Sheila Jasanoff's scholarly and reflective analysis will tell you far more about the law's construction of science than any of Peter Huber's musings (or, if you will, rantings) on the subject.

Readers will find Jasanoff's critique of the leading cases of Frye v United States and Daubert v Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc particularly helpful in understanding the law's constuction of expertise. Jasanoff does not descend to the dust of the arena as Huber does but that does not mean that she avoids trenchant criticism.

Her views are nicely understated. For example, she notes that the majority opinion in Daubert was drafted by Justice Blackmun, "regarded at that time as the court's leading authority on science". She has the good taste not to remark that Blackmun was a mathematician and that most of his expertise in science was founded on little more than that he came from a family of physicians. This background also gave rise to the pseudo-medical privacy analysis (rather than an equal protection one) employed in Roe v Wade and has been the cause of many of that case's subsequent woes. Her evaluation of the worth of Daubert can be seen in her phrase "Daubert's fine disregard for a philosophically coherent decision rule on admissibility may exemplify the common law's genius for muddling through..."

Readers who have enjoyed Jonathan Harr's A Civil Action will find much of interest in her chapter entitled "Toxic Torts and the Politics of Causation". Her treatment of genetic patents and of brushes between the law and genetic engineering is illuminating and topical.

Book Description

T Lymphocyte Subpopulations in Immunotoxicology Edited by Ian Kimber ZENECA Pharmaceuticals, Central Toxicology Laboratory, Macclesfield, Cheshire, UK and Mary Jane K. Selgrade US Environmental Protection Agency, National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, NC, USA Immunotoxicology is a diverse discipline that embraces the investigation of the adverse health effects that may result from the interaction of xenobiotics with the immune system. T lymphocytes orchestrate adaptive immune responses and are of central importance in the consideration of immunotoxicity. These cells and/or the tissue responsible for their functional maturation (the thymus) have been implicated as the primary or secondary targets for chemical insult. Moreover, T lymphocytes play pivotal roles in the induction and elicitation of chemical and protein allergy and in the pathogenesis of autoimmune disease. Classically, T lymphocytes have been divided into two main populations: CD4 helper T cells and CD8 suppressor/cytotoxic T cells. It is now apparent that there exists within both populations considerable functional heterogeneity, characterized usually by variable cytokine secretion patterns. Two major subpopulations of T helper (Th) cells have been identified and designated Th1 and Th2, with similar, but less well characterized, sub-types of cytotoxic (Tc) cells having been described also. The discovery of functional subpopulations of Th (and Tc) cells has profoundly influenced our view of the immune response and, in particular, our appreciation of the way in which the immune system can tailor responses to meet challenges of different types. This has also translated into a much more detailed understanding of certain immunopathologic processes and the role of T lymphocytes in the development of allergic, autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. This book explores the role of T lymphocyte subpopulations in the development and expression of immunotoxic effects. Constituent chapters reveal that a consideration of the impact of chemicals on these diverse T cell populations and the polarization of T cell responses has already contributed greatly to our understanding of the mechanisms underlying immunotoxicity, including immune suppression and allergic and autoimmune responses.

Book Description

In this intriguing and accessible book, physicist Allan Franklin examines the experiments on neutrino oscillations. He argues that this history gives us good reason to believe in the existence of the neutrino, a particle that interacts so weakly with matter that its interaction length is measured in light years of lead. Only recently, the scientific process has provided evidence of the elusive neutrino. Written in a style accessible to any reader with a college education in physics, Are There Really Neutrinos? is of interest to students and researchers alike.

Are There Really Neutrinos?: An Evidential History

Average customer rating:

Science and logic

Are There Really Neutrinos?: An Evidential History
Allan Franklin
Manufacturer: Perseus Books Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Physics | Science | Subjects | Books

Book Description

The quest to prove the existence of one of the fundamental particles in the universe.

In this intriguing book, physicist Allan Franklin argues that science is a reasonable enterprise that produces knowledge of the physical world based on valid experimental evidence and critical discussion. He does this by looking at the history of the neutrino, which he traces from the discovery of radioactivity to recent experiments on neutrino oscillations. He argues that this history has given us good reason to believe in the existence of the neutrino, a particle that interacts so weakly with matter that its interaction length is measured in light years of lead. If science can provide evidence for the reality of such an elusive particle then we can reasonably conclude that it provides us with knowledge. Written in a style accessible to any reader with a college education in physics, Are There Really Neutrinos? will be of great interest to students and professionals in many fields.

Customer Reviews:

Science and logic.......2004-06-20

Look, let it be said upfront that no physicist credibly doubts that neutrinos exist. A couple of Nobels have been awarded to Cowan and Reines for in fact detecting these.

But Franklin has chosen neutrinos as a pedagogic vessel. He shows how in the early years, when neutrinos were first postulated, in order to "save" the law of conservation of energy, that the evidence for them was indeed flimsy. Not totally lacking, but sketchy. A touch of faith was required.

He traces the history of neutrino research, and shows how, painfully slowly, evidence was accumulated. Along the way, you can see scientific logic in action, not just in one scientist's work, but in an entire community.

Average customer rating:
Are There Really Neutrinos?: An Evidental History
Allan Franklin
Manufacturer: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000MUHILM

Customer Reviews:

Not his best work, but good.......2000-03-31

I'm a big fan of Larry Levis' work, so I decided to read one of his earlier works. I didn't like this book as much as Winter Stars or Elegy, but it was admirable. These poems blend events and people together creating eerie mystical scenes that will stay with the reader for a long time. His poems are better developed in his later work although the buds are here in his early stuff.

Average customer rating:

"Dollmaker" and Other Sinister Stories
Jean Russell
Manufacturer: Egmont Childrens Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Short Story Collections | Literature | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0749714905

Book Description

The Sephardim, a fast-disappearing group of Jews whose ancestors were exiled from the Iberian Peninsula at the end of the fifteenth century, have fought to retain their identity while necessarily assimilating to the surrounding society. This culture was changed by settlement and residence in non-Spanish areas for over four centuries, a Diaspora in the late nineteenth century, and the Nazi Holocaust. Sephardic settlements in Latin America, the United States, Israel, and elsewhere were the result. Because Judaism is as much a culture as a religion, any move toward assimilation into a non-Jewish culture has historically been seen as a threat to Jewish identity: this is an ongoing crisis in Sephardic life.

These essays, representing some of the most innovative work being done in Sephardic studies, are divided into sections exploring history, sociology, anthropology, language, literature and the performing arts. Topics include the possibility that the Sephardim are Judaized Arabs, Berbers and Iberians; the role of Spanish exiles in the Ottoman Empire; Sephardic remnants in Greece; Sephardic philosophy; the literature of New Christians (the community that arose out of forcibly converted Jews) whose works reveal Jewish roots; the Judeo-Spanish press in Salonika; and the influences of Sephardism on contemporary Argentine literature. An introduction to Sephardism begins the work and a conclusion discusses the Sephardic Education Center, which hopes to assure the culture's future.

Book Description

This timely collection of essays and photographs explores the creation stories, rituals, and myths, hunting and farming methods, and the belief in using the gifts of the earth to present Native American perspectives on nature.

Book Description

Ecosystems of the benthic environment are a sensitive index to ecological change, and as such demand long-term and effective monitoring. Methods for the Study of Marine Benthos provides comprehensive information on the tools and techniques available to those working in areas where the declining health of the sea, depletion of marine resources and the biodiversity of marine life are major concerns.In response to the need for increasingly detailed information on bottom-living communities, this fully revised new edition offers:Contributions from a broad range of internationally recognised expertsNew information for those compiling environmental impact statements, pollution assessments and working with eco-system managementTwo separate chapters on Imaging Techniques and Diving SystemsA vital tool for all marine and environmental scientists, ecologists, fisheries workers and oceanographers, libraries in all universities and research establishments where these subjects are studied and taught will find this book a valuable addition to their shelves.

Average customer rating:

Methods for the Study of Marine Benthos
Lippincott
Manufacturer: Mosby
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 039760176X

Average customer rating:

Methods for the Study of Marine Benthos

Manufacturer: Mosby
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0801622360

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books