Month: March 2013

Book Review: Prisoners of Conscience – Moral Vernaculars of Political Agency

Author: Gerald A. Hauser Series Editor: Thomas W. Benson – Studies in Rhetoric / Communication Publisher: University of South Carolina Press – 283 pages Book Review by: Paiso Jamakar Five case studies of abuse of humans form the core of this eye-opening and enlightening book. These indignities took place twice in South Africa; and once each in Iraq, in Northern Ireland and in the Soviet Union. Thomas W. Benson, the editor of a series of books in rhetoric and communication (which includes this book) published by the University of South Carolina Press, describes Prisoners of Conscience as a “work...

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Book Review: Weapons of the Lewis & Clark Expedition

Author: Jim Garry Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press – 208  pages Book Review by: Paiso Jamakar The famous, pioneering Lewis & Clark Expedition, commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, was named after Capt. Meriwether Lewis and 2nd Lt. William Clark of the United States Army. They were assigned by President Jefferson to find a feasible and safe route to the Western portion of this geographically-expanding country. The main purpose of this voyage – also known as the Corps of Discovery – was to map the newly acquired territory.  The mission of the 33 team...

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Book Review: The Insistent Call – Rhetorical Moments in Black Anticolonialism, 1929-1937

Author: Aric Putnam Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press – 156 pages Book Review by: Paiso Jamakar This highly informative book is about the African-American identity crisis in the 1920s and 1930s. Aric Putnam, an associate professor of communication at the College of St. Benedict / St. John’s University, writes in this book about Black Americans in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who struggled to resist efforts by the public to de-Africanize them. They recalled their personal past and memorable experiences, stressed their African roots, emphasized their distinct culture and traditions, and invoked their uniquely different values in their...

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Dragged Down By Debt, 23 Developed Countries Added Only 20% to World GDP Growth Since 2009

By Chantell (Nighswonger) Cieszkowski  Assistant Account Executive – Allison+Partners Found in this week’s issue of The Economist is a chart of the world GDP which compares the contributions of the BRICS, developed countries, and developing countries against the overall world. Thanks largely to the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) world GDP rose by 2.5% during the final quarter of 2012. The BRICS alone have been responsible for 55% of global growth since the end of 2009. Dragged down by debt and austerity, the 23 countries that make up the developed world contributed just 20% to that...

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Book Review: Women, Money and the Law – 19th Century Fiction, Gender, and the Courts

Author: Joyce W. Warren Publisher: University of Iowa Press – 373 pages Book Review by: Sonu Chandiram This book asks the most important question at the very beginning right on the inside flap: Did nineteenth-century American women have money of their own? Throughout the course of this book, the many aspects of this question are explored and answered by the author Joyce Warren, who is a professor of literature and director of women’s studies at Queens College, part of the City University of New York. Joyce Warren, in reportorial fashion, went through a large archive of documents recorded between...

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