5 Politics, Sociology eBooks

Justin Rollins, "The Lost Boyz: A Dark Side of Graffiti"
Federico Varese - Vita di mafia. Amore, morte e denaro nel cuore del crimine organizzato
Ben Chappell, "Lowrider Space: Aesthetics and Politics of Mexican American Custom Cars"
Public Library Collections in the Balance: Censorship, Inclusivity, and Truth by Jennifer Downey
A Tangled Web: The Making of Foreign Policy in the Nixon Presidency by William P. Bundy

Justin Rollins, "The Lost Boyz: A Dark Side of Graffiti"
2011 | ISBN-10: 1904380670 | 176 pages | PDF | 6 MB
At age 14, author Justin Rollins went from being a bullied child to the leader of The Warriorz, a group of London street kids involved in graffiti tagging and other crimes, including a series of violent encounters. Eventually given a substantial custodial sentence for an attack with a meat cleaver in the London Underground, Rollins became determined to steer other young people away from such a life. The Lost Boyz tells the story of Rollins' descent into a form of madness, in which self-destruction, anger, wanton behavior, and fear reside at the core. Never has a book taken the reader so far inside the minds of troubled youths who gradually realize that there is no easy escape from their chaotic lifestyle. Their need - to gain respect from and stay credible with each other - stems from offending, alienation, living on the margins of society, and crazy behavior, all of which serve as barriers to rejoining the normal world and going straight. The book contains countless lessons for young people who might be attracted to crime. It will also interest students and researchers of youth offending, gang culture, criminology, mental health issues, or modern social history where graffiti became a telling symbol of disaffected youth.

Federico Varese - Vita di mafia. Amore, morte e denaro nel cuore del crimine organizzato
Italian | 2017 | 287 pages | ISBN: 8806218956 | EPUB | 3,8 MB
Chi sono i mafiosi e come funzionano le loro organizzazioni? Federico Varese ha scritto un saggio-reportage che ci fa entrare davvero nel profondo di Cosa Nostra, della mafia italo-americana, della mafia russa, della yakuza giapponese e delle triadi di Hong Kong. Per inseguire le storie che racconta è stato in Russia, in Cina, in Grecia, a Dubai e si è avventurato nel nord della Birmania. Con la passione del giornalista investigativo e lo scrupolo dell'accademico, Varese scopre alleanze segrete tra 'ndrangheta e gruppi georgiani, mappa le nuove rotte della droga e racconta la presenza della mafia russa in Grecia. Esplora come le mafie, in Asia e America latina, sono diventate uno Stato. Varese scopre ciò che rende queste organizzazioni temibili e durature: tutte hanno un rito di iniziazione di ispirazione religiosa, regole di comportamento codificate, una struttura gerarchica ma flessibile, rapporti con la politica, e mostrano una diffidenza profonda verso l'amore tra uomo e donna.

Ben Chappell, "Lowrider Space: Aesthetics and Politics of Mexican American Custom Cars"
2012 | ISBN-10: 0292737866, 0292754248 | 256 pages | PDF | 28 MB
Aren’t lowriders always gangbangers? And, don’t they always hold high status in their neighborhoods? Contrary to both stereotypes, the people who build and drive lowrider cars perform diverse roles while mobilizing a distinctive aesthetic that is sometimes an act of resistance and sometimes of belonging. A fresh application of critical ethnographic methods, Lowrider Space looks beyond media portrayals, high-profile show cars, and famous cruising scenes to bring readers a realistic tour of the “ordinary” lowriders who turn streetscapes into stages on which dynamic identities can be performed.
Drawing on firsthand participation in everyday practices of car clubs and cruising in Austin, Texas, Ben Chappell challenges histories of erasure, containment, and class immobility to emphasize the politics of presence evidenced in lowrider custom car style. Sketching out a partially personal map of the lowrider presence in Texas’s capital city, Chappell also explores the interior and exterior adornment of the cars (including the use of images of women’s bodies) and the intersecting production of personal and social space. As he moves through a second-hand economy to procure parts necessary for his own lowrider vehicle, on “service sector” wages, themes of materiality and physical labor intersect with questions of identity, ultimately demonstrating how spaces get made in the process of customizing one’s self.

Public Library Collections in the Balance: Censorship, Inclusivity, and Truth by Jennifer Downey
English | July 25, 2017 | ISBN: 1440849641 | EPUB | 203 pages | 1.9 MB
A fascinating and informative read for librarians, library staff, and MLIS students, this book offers practical information and professional guidelines to examine current issues in censorship and libraries while also enabling readers to consider their own opinions about intellectual freedom and censorship.
• Helps librarians and students better understand the intellectual freedom issues and controversies most common to public libraries and put them into the context of real-world situations
• Challenges readers to examine their professional and personal feelings on controversial topics fairly and thoughtfully, with the intent of evolving the library profession
• Offers a big-picture approach covering the many facets of censorship (including the seldom-discussed issue of self-censorship) and presents information on alternative review sources and publishers in order to develop well-balanced collections
• Serves as a continuing education source on a rarely discussed but often-encountered topic

A Tangled Web: The Making of Foreign Policy in the Nixon Presidency by William P. Bundy
English | June 4, 1999 | ISBN: 0809091518, 0809016249 | EPUB | 647 pages | 2.2 MB
An authoritative historical assessment of american foreign policy in a crucial postwar decade.
William Bundy's magisterial book focuses on the controversial record of Richard Nixon's and Henry Kissinger's often overpraised foreign policy of 1969 to 1973, an era that has rightly been described as the hinge on which the last half of the century turned. Bundy's principled, clear-eyed assessment in effect pulls together all the major issues and events of the thirty-year span from the 1940s to the end of the Vietnam War, and makes it clear just how dangerous the consequences of Nixon and Kissinger's deceptive modus operandi were.