Synopses & Reviews
A significant number of Americans spend their weekends at UFO conventions hearing whispers of government cover-ups, at New Age gatherings learning the keys to enlightenment, or ambling around historical downtowns learning about resident ghosts in tourist-targeted “ghost walks”. They have been fed a steady diet of fictional shows with paranormal themes such as
The X-Files,
Supernatural, and
Medium, shows that may seek to simply entertain, but also serve to disseminate paranormal beliefs. The public hunger for the paranormal seems insatiable.
Paranormal America provides the definitive portrait of Americans who believe in or have experienced such phenomena as ghosts, Bigfoot, UFOs, psychic phenomena, astrology, and the power of mediums. However, unlike many books on the paranormal, this volume does not focus on proving or disproving the paranormal, but rather on understanding the people who believe and how those beliefs shape their lives.
Drawing on the Baylor Religion Survey—a multi-year national random sample of American religious values, practices, and behaviors—as well as extensive fieldwork including joining hunts for Bigfoot and spending the night in a haunted house, authors Christopher Bader, F. Carson Mencken, and Joseph Baker shed light on what the various types of paranormal experiences, beliefs, and activities claimed by Americans are; whether holding an unconventional belief, such as believing in Bigfoot, means that one is unconventional in other attitudes and behaviors; who has such experiences and beliefs and how they differ from other Americans; and if we can expect major religions to emerge from the paranormal.
Brimming with engaging personal stories and provocative findings, Paranormal America is an entertaining yet authoritative look at a growing segment of American religious culture.
Review
“According to Ross, job insecurity became commonplace long before the current financial debacle. As economies shifted from industry to information, the benefits and securities of the Keynesian era quietly gave way to a workforce of temps, freelancers, adjuncts, and migrants. Ross finds that city fathers are more interested in Olympic bids and stadium projects than in sustainable employment, while corporations spend more on ‘social responsibility public-relations campaigns than on addressing worker complaints, and activists are too focussed on narrow concerns to find common cause with natural allies.”
- The New Yorker
Review
"There are no easy answers in Ross's often surprising case studies of work in the new millennium. His reach is global, from North America to Europe to Asia, as he teases out the contradictory character of contemporary employment."
- Cary Nelson, University of Illinois
Review
“Economic liberalization, [Ross] demonstrates, has opened up a frenetic global traffic in jobs and migrants, uprooting people in a manner both useful and troubling to the managers of capital. In short, more people are available to exploit, but they are also harder to control. . . . A thorough and thoughtful study of global professional insecurity.”
- The Times Literary Supplement
Review
“Illuminating. . . . Who knows what will be on the table when the damage of the global crisis is told? At the very least, one may hope for a return to security, sensible financial regulation, and a renewed interest in economic equity. Other worlds are possible, and with luck thinkers like Ross can point the way to imagining them more fully.”
- BookForum
Review
“This excellent and, in places, brilliant book should be read by anyone interested in a timely and astute analysis of the malaise of life and work in neoliberal postmodern society. . . . Highly recommended.”
- Choice
Review
“Economic liberalization, [Ross] demonstrates, has opened up a frenetic global traffic in jobs and migrants, uprooting people in a manner both useful and troubling to the managers of capital. In short, more people are available to exploit, but they are also harder to control. . . . A thorough and thoughtful study of global professional insecurity.”
- The Times Literary Supplement
“With admirable timing, [Ross] examines a global workplace infrastructure thats as shaky as the economy would indicate. . . . Though far from uplifting, this is a bold, pointed look at reality as it is, a far more valuable commodity.”
- Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
“According to Ross, job insecurity became commonplace long before the current financial debacle. As economies shifted from industry to information, the benefits and securities of the Keynesian era quietly gave way to a workforce of temps, freelancers, adjuncts, and migrants. Ross finds that city fathers are more interested in Olympic bids and stadium projects than in sustainable employment, while corporations spend more on ‘social responsibility public-relations campaigns than on addressing worker complaints, and activists are too focussed on narrow concerns to find common cause with natural allies.”
- The New Yorker
“Illuminating. . . . Who knows what will be on the table when the damage of the global crisis is told? At the very least, one may hope for a return to security, sensible financial regulation, and a renewed interest in economic equity. Other worlds are possible, and with luck thinkers like Ross can point the way to imagining them more fully.”
- BookForum
“This excellent and, in places, brilliant book should be read by anyone interested in a timely and astute analysis of the malaise of life and work in neoliberal postmodern society. . . . Highly recommended.”
- Choice
Review
“[Ross'] discussion of many topics is clearly informed by his own history as an activist who played a role in supporting the unionization movement of grads and non-tenure-track faculty at New York University. His respect for those doing the work on the ground is most welcome.”
“Ross takes us on a wide-ranging journey through the global economy to analyze the dynamics of precarious work in the twenty-first century. Along the way, he poses an urgent question: can creative-class professionals make common cause with low-wage laborers, based on their shared experience of economic insecurity?”
“There are no easy answers in Ross’s often surprising case studies of work in the new millennium. His reach is global, from North America to Europe to Asia, as he teases out the contradictory character of contemporary employment.”
“Are culture workers the labor aristocracy or new proles of contemporary capitalism? Andrew Ross tracks the growth of creative industries, from the West to China and beyond, and the deepening contradictions between place and creativity, skills and commerce, intellectual rights and the edu-factory. In this wide-ranging account, Ross persuasively argues that the livelihood of creative workers is more precarious than proletarian, shaped by a regime of work casualization and flexible self-management, of labor discipline and fugitive cunning. An exciting exposition that sustains the relevance of political economy in an age for outsourcing talent.”
“Illuminating. . . . Who knows what will be on the table when the damage of the global crisis is told? At the very least, one may hope for a return to security, sensible financial regulation, and a renewed interest in economic equity. Other worlds are possible, and with luck thinkers like Ross can point the way to imagining them more fully.”
Review
“It is accessible to any reader with an interest in the convergence of paranormal beliefs and religion. The thought-provoking narrative will not disappoint experts on the topic. Highly recommended”-Library Journal,
Review
“The authors convincingly show that believing in flying saucers or some other paranormal subject--Bigfoot, ghosts, astrology, psychics--is not fringe at all. More than two-thirds of Americans accept the reality of at least one such phenomenon.”-The Washington Post,
Review
“What makes Paranormal America a fun read is that one would assume scientists would poke more fun at people who study paranormal activity. Instead, they blend skepticism with data and great details that leave readers with a sense of balance.”-Austin American-Statesman Blog,
Review
"This is an interesting study which is likely to be referred to by sociologists for some considerable time to come, and no doubt put to various, sometimes mutually contradictory, uses."-The Magonia Review of Books,
Review
“Paranormal America is an authoritative but extremely readable analysis of an important but often ignored subculture. This fine book explains how many people seek personally-relevant meaning in a chaotic and often alienating world. In these pages we learn much not only about believers in ESP, Bigfoot, and astrology, but also about the general ways in which all human minds make sense of our perplexing position in the universe.”
-William Bainbridge,author of Across the Secular Abyss: From Faith to Wisdom
Synopsis
2009 Choice Outstanding Academic TitleIs job insecurity the new norm? With fewer and fewer people working in steady, long-term positions for one employer, has the dream of a secure job with full benefits and a decent salary become just that—a dream?
In Nice Work If You Can Get It, Andrew Ross surveys the new topography of the global workplace and finds an emerging pattern of labor instability and uneven development on a massive scale. Combining detailed case studies with lucid analysis and graphic prose, he looks at what the new landscape of contingent employment means for workers across national, class, and racial lines—from the emerging “creative class” of high-wage professionals to the multitudes of temporary, migrant, or low-wage workers. Developing the idea of “precarious livelihoods” to describe this new world of work and life, Ross explores what it means in developed nations—comparing the creative industry policies of the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union, as well as developing countries—by examining the quickfire transformation of China's labor market. He also responds to the challenge of sustainability, assessing the promise of “green jobs” through restorative alliances between labor advocates and environmentalists.
Ross argues that regardless of one's views on labor rights, globalization, and quality of life, this new precarious and “indefinite life,&” and the pitfalls and opportunities that accompany it is likely here to stay and must be addressed in a systematic way. A more equitable kind of knowledge society emerges in these pages—less skewed toward flexploitation and the speculative beneficiaries of intellectual property, and more in tune with ideals and practices that are fair, just, and renewable.
Synopsis
2009 Choice Outstanding Academic Title
A survey into an emerging pattern of labor instability and uneven global development
Is job insecurity the new norm? With fewer and fewer people working in steady, long-term positions for one employer, has the dream of a secure job with full benefits and a decent salary become just that--a dream?
In Nice Work If You Can Get It, Andrew Ross surveys the new topography of the global workplace and finds an emerging pattern of labor instability and uneven development on a massive scale. Combining detailed case studies with lucid analysis and graphic prose, he looks at what the new landscape of contingent employment means for workers across national, class, and racial lines--from the emerging "creative class" of high-wage professionals to the multitudes of temporary, migrant, or low-wage workers. Developing the idea of "precarious livelihoods" to describe this new world of work and life, Ross explores what it means in developed nations--comparing the creative industry policies of the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union, as well as developing countries--by examining the quickfire transformation of China's labor market. He also responds to the challenge of sustainability, assessing the promise of "green jobs" through restorative alliances between labor advocates and environmentalists.
Ross argues that regardless of one's views on labor rights, globalization, and quality of life, this new precarious and "indefinite life,&" and the pitfalls and opportunities that accompany it is likely here to stay and must be addressed in a systematic way. A more equitable kind of knowledge society emerges in these pages--less skewed toward flexploitation and the speculative beneficiaries of intellectual property, and more in tune with ideals and practices that are fair, just, and renewable.
About the Author
Christopher D. Bader is an associate professor of sociology at Baylor University. With F. Carson Mencken, he is Principal Investigator on the Baylor Religion Survey Project.
F. Carson Mencken is professor of sociology at Baylor University.
Joseph Baker is an assistant professor of sociology at East Tennessee State University.