Textbooks

Bureaucrats are important symbols of the governments that employ them. Contrary to popular stereotypes, they determine much about the way policy is ultimately enacted and experienced by citizens. While we know a great deal about bureaucrats and their actions, we know little about their development. Are particular types of people drawn to government work, or are government workers forged by the agencies they work in? Put simply, are bureaucrats born, or are they made?

In Becoming Bureaucrats, Zachary W. Oberfield traces the paths of two sets of public servants--police officers and welfare caseworkers--from their first day on the job through the end of their second year. Examining original data derived from surveys and in-depth interviews, along with ethnographic observations from the author's year of training and work as a welfare caseworker, Becoming Bureaucrats charts how public-sector entrants develop their bureaucratic identities, motivations, and attitudes. Ranging from individual stories to population-wide statistical analysis, Oberfield's study complicates the long-standing cliché that bureaucracies churn out bureaucrats with mechanical efficiency. He demonstrates that entrants' bureaucratic personalities evolved but remained strongly tied to the views, identities, and motives that they articulated at the outset of their service. As such, he argues that who bureaucrats become and, as a result, how bureaucracies function, depends strongly on patterns of self-selection and recruitment.

Becoming Bureaucrats not only enriches our theoretical understanding of bureaucratic behavior but also provides practical advice to elected officials and public managers on building responsive, accountable workforces.

Start speaking Russian today!
Now
in an updated second edition, Beginner's Russian with Interactive Online
Workbook offers an innovative, easy, and thorough way to speak, and
read Russian confidently. This complete Russian course includes a user-friendly
textbook and interactive online workbook. The carefully-paced, relevant lessons
cover grammar and language basics in the context of everyday situations related
to family, jobs, introductions, dining out, the Internet, and much more. The
chapters are designed for the beginning student, and are full of photos,
cartoons, games, and exercises alongside easy-to-understand lessons.
This new edition includes updated vocabulary to reflect ongoing changes in contemporary Russian culture and society, new speaking and writing activities that allow students to interact with technology and media, and new individual and group projects and oral presentations to engage learners' creativity and help them develop communicative competency.
In
addition to the book, you have access to an interactive website full of videos,
audio, and self-correcting exercises. The enriching material on the website
reinforces the basics of the lessons in the book, helping you acquire Russian
skills in a natural, engaging way.


Thorough explanations and instructions offer a gradual
introduction to the language, Cyrillic alphabet, and grammar
An interactive website features correct pronunciation
by native speakers and helps learners start speaking Russian right away
Ideal for individual self-study or classroom use
Each chapter will take 5-6 hours of classroom instruction,
or approximately 10-12 hours of study for the independent learner.
Students should be able to attain the ACTFL Novice High
or Intermediate Low levels of proficiency by the end of the course

Being Together in Place explores the landscapes that convene Native and non-Native people into sustained and difficult negotiations over their radically different interests and concerns. Grounded in three sites--the Cheslatta-Carrier traditional territory in British Columbia; the Wakarusa Wetlands in northeastern Kansas; and the Waitangi Treaty Grounds in Aotearoa/New Zealand--this book highlights the challenging, tentative, and provisional work of coexistence around such contested spaces as wetlands, treaty grounds, fishing spots, recreation areas, cemeteries, heritage trails, and traditional village sites. At these sites, activists learn how to articulate and defend their intrinsic and life-supportive ways of being, particularly to those who are intent on damaging or destroying these places.

Using ethnographic research and a geographic perspective, Soren C. Larsen and Jay T. Johnson show how the communities in these regions challenge the power relations that structure the ongoing (post)colonial encounter in liberal democratic settler-states. Emerging from their conversations with activists was a distinctive sense that the places for which they cared had agency, a "call" that pulled them into dialogue, relationships, and action with human and nonhuman others. This being-together-in-place, they find, speaks in a powerful way to the vitalities of coexistence: where humans and nonhumans are working to decolonize their relationships; where reciprocal guardianship is being stitched back together in new and unanticipated ways; and where a new kind of "place thinking" is emerging on the borders of colonial power.

"It's the perfect book to pick up to restore your faith in comics or help show infinite diversity in infinite combinations on display on paper using the world's greatest artform." -- Comics Bulletin

The Best American Comics showcases the work of both established and up-and-coming contributors and highlights both fiction and nonfiction -- from graphic novels, pamphlet comics, newspapers, magazines, minicomics, and the Web -- to make a unique, stunning collection. Frank Miller (Sin City, 300) called guest editor Scott McCloud "just about the smartest guy in comics."