Public Spaces Private Lives or Economy Environment Development Knowledge

Public Spaces, Private Lives: Beyond the Culture of Cynicism

Author: Henry A Giroux

Offers progressive readers new and reinvigorated paths of engaged hope, imagination and public involvement.

Library Journal

In each of the five densely written chapters of this ardent critique of American society and politics, educational and cultural critic Giroux (Channel Surfing: Racism, the Media, and the Destruction of Today's Youth) rails against what he perceives to be the pervasive impact of corporatization, commercialization, neo-liberalism, privatization, and consumerism. He quotes from a variety of like-minded social critics (such as Zygmunt Bauman and Stanley Aronowitz), as well as from his own prolific writings, to substantiate his claim that the forces of capitalism have foisted an individualistic ethic on our society at the expense of the common good. An afterword by Douglas Kellner tries to illuminate Giroux's main arguments, although his writing is sometimes as difficult to decipher as Giroux's overlong sentences. Lay readers would be better off reading Jonathan Kozol's moving and incisive critiques of the American educational system and society because they highlight more clearly the societal ills that Giroux excoriates. For large academic libraries and specialized education collections. Jack Forman, San Diego Mesa Coll. Lib. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

See also: Big Book Unplugged or Mindful Eating 101

Economy-Environment-Development-Knowledge

Author: Ken Col

To understand, contrast, and compare alternative understandings of economic, environmental and development issues, we need to be aware why theorists conceptualize the process of social experience so differently. By addressing the disagreements between theorists, this book provides a unique basis to contrast and compare the plethora of theories of, and policies for, economic prosperity, environmental sustainability, and social progress.

Table of Contents:

	Acknowledgements
	Prologue: What can we know about the world?	1
1	The scientific parameters of social existence	5
Pt. I	Economy	21
2	The economy	23
3	The consumer as economic dynamic: the subjective preference theory of value	33
4	The producer as economic dynamic: the cost-of-production theory of value	49
5	The citizen as economic dynamic: the abstract labour theory of value	63
Pt. II	Environment	89
6	Environment	91
7	The environment as a source of pleasure: egocentrism	99
8	The environment as a productive resource: ecocentrism	121
9	The environment and social evolution: sociocentrism	135
Pt. III	Development	153
10	Development	155
11	Development as the fulfilment of individuals' potentials: modernization	167
12	Development as fulfilling the technical potentials of cooperation: structuralism	183
13	Development as the fulfilment of people's social potentials: class struggle	201
Pt. IV	Knowledge	217
14	Knowledge	219
15	What? Identifying events: positivism	229
16	How? Explaining systems: paradigms	237
17	Why? Understanding processes: praxis	245
18	Intellectual panorama, ideological vision, and political view	257
	Epilogue: what do we know about the world?	271
	References	273
	Index	297