Sociology Memoirs

John Lynch was a promising athlete, but at age 11 was struck by a crippling illness. He was diagnosed with juvenile arthritis (JA), a disease that affects 300,000 children, making them unable to live full-functioning, pain-free lives. John continued to seek new treatments, but not until age 53 was he given the “miracle drug” that enabled him to sustain a 30-year legal practice. During that time, he dedicated his life to helping others who suffered from JA and became a much-honored advocate for easing their distress.

As long as she can remember, Leah has had the mysterious feeling that she's searching for a twin - that she belongs as one of an intimate pair. It begins with friends, dance partners, and her own reflection in the mirror as she studies ballet growing up; continues with physical and emotional attractions to girlfriends in college; and leads her, finally, to Eric, whom she moves across the country for and marries. But her steadfast, monogamous relationship leaves her with questions she can't answer about her sexuality and her identity, so she and her husband decide to try an open marriage.

From one of America's most transformative politicians and activists, a powerful and inspiring memoir that sheds light on a harrowing personal journey and reveals how urgently we need our political leadership to prioritize meeting the needs of our most marginalized communities.

Dame Sue Black es una de las científicas forenses más reconocidas del mundo y se enfrenta a la muerte todos los días: analiza restos mortales humanos en su laboratorio, en lugares de entierro y en escenas de violencia, asesinatos y desmembramiento criminal. Sus aportaciones en el análisis de muertes en masa debido a guerras, desastres naturales o accidentes han sido fundamentales. La autora revela los muchos rostros de la muerte que ha llegado a conocer, utilizando distintos casos clave y experiencias de su vida personal para explorar cómo se ha desarrollado la ciencia forense.

The college basketball scandals of 1951 were to basketball what the 1919 Black Sox scandals were to baseball - a loss of innocence, after which the game would be permanently tarnished, its relationship to power and big money firmly established. In Scandals of '51, Charley Rosen identifies all the major figures - including players, coaches, gangsters, clergymen, politicians - that made up the elaborate network that controlled the outcomes to many games or protected those who did so.

Women of Privilege traces the decline of a once-privileged Hudson River Valley family where the neighbors were Vanderbilts, Delanos, and Roosevelts. Susan Gillotti provides insight into her ancestors' heretofore secret lives, culled from private diaries, letters, and journals of the three generations of women who inhabited Grasmere - one of the great houses of the Hudson River Valley. On the surface, their lives seem ideal, but beneath that facade, there was mental illness, alcoholism, yearning for divorce, and questions of sexual identity.

El cerebro de mi hermano es un relato de la evolución de un padecimiento degenerativo en el seno de una familia. Recuerdos, emociones, temores y expectativas, el singular proceso de adaptación a lo impensable, el dolor de atestiguar la extinción de un ser querido, pero también la historia compartida, los años, los lugares, las pasiones conjuntas, la apertura a la conciencia del propio final, el ajuste de cuentas inexorable con lo vivido....

In 2016, Sandy Winterbottom embarked on an epic six-week tall-ship voyage from Uruguay to Antarctica. At the mid-way stop in South Georgia, her pristine image of the Antarctic was shattered when she discovered the dark legacy of twentieth century industrial-scale whaling. Enraged by what she found, she was quick to blame the men who undertook this whole scale slaughter, but then she stumbled upon the grave of an eighteen-year-old whaler from Edinburgh who she could not allow to bear the brunt of blame. There are two sides to every story.

In this fascinating historical adventure, broadcaster and author Selina Mills takes us on a journey through the history of blindness in Western Culture to discover that blindness is not so dark after all. Inspired by her own experience of losing her sight as she forged a successful journalistic career, Life Unseen takes us through a personal and unsentimental historical quest through the lives, stories and achievements of blind people—as well as those sighted people who sought to patronize, demonize and fix them.

Con el formidable éxito de ventas de Entre limones -el divertidísimo relato autobiográfico de un joven inglés que, con tal de no vestir traje y acudir a una oficina, se gasta todos sus ahorros en la compra de un ruinoso cortijo en la Alpujarra granadina- Chris Stewart dio comienzoa su célebre trilogía sobre el irresistible encanto de la vida alternativa, en la que los pequeños sucesos cotidianos y la tranquila observación del espectáculo que supone la actitud del hombre ante sus semejantes y ante la naturaleza compensan con creces los placeres materiales de una vida normal.

When Nina Sharma meets Quincy while hitching a ride to a friend’s Fourth of July barbecue, she spots a favorite book, Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, in the back seat of his cramped car, and senses a sadness from him that’s all too familiar to her. She is immediately intrigued—who is this man? In The Way You Make Me Feel, Sharma chronicles her and Quincy’s love story, and in doing so, examines how their Black and Asian relationship becomes the lens through which she moves through and understands the world.

Von 2004 bis 2009 arbeitete Amaryllis Fox undercover als Antiterrorismus-Spezialistin der CIA. In diesem überwältigenden Memoir erzählt sie ihre Geschichte. "Ich trainierte mit der Glock, beherrschte das M4, wusste mich aus Plastikhandschellen zu befreien, während ich im Kofferraum eines Autos lag. Ich wurde gedrillt, Folter auszuhalten, lernte, welche Methoden des Suizids für den Fall einer Gefangenschaft anzuwenden wären. Am Ende aber brachte mir meine kleine Tochter bei, dass zwischenmenschliche Nähe die mächtigste Waffe von allen ist."

A transcendent memoir from an author of rare talent, Laura Bell’s Claiming Ground recounts Bell’s time living mostly alone in the hills of Wyoming, where she herded sheep and cattle and battled isolation. A journey to the heart of self, Bell’s work sparkles with shimmering prose and remarkable insight.

Written with exclusive access to Outlaw himself, Charles Barber’s Citizen Outlaw is the unforgettable story of how a gang leader became the catalyst for one of the greatest civic crime reductions in America, and an inspiring argument for love and compassion in the face of insurmountable odds.

Le bambine e i bambini, nati in Italia nel 2018 grazie alle tecniche di Procreazione medicalmente assistita (Pma), sono il 3,2%. Vuol dire che esistono oltre 14.000 figlie e figli di persone che hanno affrontato questi percorsi. Allargando la fotografia a tutte quelle donne che decidono di avere un figlio da sole o con un'altra donna in una coppia lesbica, ovvero alle soggettività che non rientrano nella visione normativa della legge 40 del 2004, i numeri crescono ancora.

Into the maelstrom of unprecedented contemporary debates about immigrants in the United States, this perfectly timed book gives us a portrait of what the new immigrant experience in America is really like. Written as a "guide" for the newly arrived, and providing "practical information and advice", Roya Hakakian, an immigrant herself, reveals what those who settle here love about the country, what they miss about their homes, the cruelty of some Americans, and the unceasing generosity of others.

Dr Jalees Ansari, a doctor from Malegaon involved in 80 blasts, including some on railway tracks, was supposed to be a quiet, peace-loving medical professional. Fahmida Ansari, a housewife and mother of two from the Jogeshwari slums of Northwest Mumbai, physically planted the bombs herself in a bus and taxis and returned home as if nothing had happened. What drove them to such violent designs? What were their compulsions?

Why did Harsh Mariwala leave his family business? Why did the Burman family quit the day-to-day operations of Dabur? How did the Dhingras turn a collapsing business into India's second-largest paint company? The Inheritors offers a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at what goes on in Marico, Dabur, Keventers, Berger Paints, Select Group, Antara, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, Luxor, and Motilal Oswal. The audiobook focuses on culture, family politics, ego battles, business rivalries, and a lot more. And then, of course, there are the inheritors themselves.

Inspired in seminary by American Muslimahs who wear the hijab for feminist reasons, Lauren Shields took off what she calls the Beauty Suit - the "done" hair, the tasteful and carefully applied makeup, the tight clothes and foot-binding shoes - for nine months. She'd really only wanted to do an experiment. Instead, her life - especially her views on what constitutes "liberation" - changed forever. Rooted in feminist theory and religious history, and guided by a snappy personal narrative, The Beauty Suit unpacks modern American womanhood: a landscape where the female body is still so often the battleground for male ideals and where we struggle with our rights as human beings to define and exercise our freedom.

This essay deals with the topic of death. It covers a number of famous poisoners and the poisons they dispatched to their victims. In addition to the mechanisms of drug action, the subject of apoptosis (programmed cell death) is also discussed. This essay is therefore a resource which can aid students and the layperson interested in drug/toxin action.