Author: Daphne Brooks File Type: pdf The power and influence of Grace increases with each passing year. Here, Daphne Brooks traces Jeff Buckleys fascinating musical development through the earliest stages of his career, up to the release of the album. With access to rare archival material, Brooks illustrates Buckleys passion for life and hunger for musical knowledge, and shows just why he was such a crucial figure in the American music scene of the 1990s.EXCERPTJeff Buckley was piecing together a contemporary popular music history for himself that was steeped in the magic of singing. He was busy hearing how Dylan channeled Billie Holiday in Blonde On Blonde and how Robert Plant was doing his best to sound like Janis Joplin on early Led Zeppelin recordings. He was thinking about doo-wop and opera and Elton John and working at developing a way to harness the power of the voice...In the process, he was re-defining punk and grunge attitude itself by rejecting the ambivalent sexual undercurrents of those movements, as well as Led Zeppelins canonical cock rock kingdom that hed grown up adoring. He was forging a one-man revolution set to the rhythms of New York City and beyond. And he was on the brink of recording his elegant battle in song for the world to hear.

Author: Wallace Wang File Type: pdf Steal This File Sharing Book tackles the thorny issue of file sharing networks such as Kazaa, Morpheus, and Usenet. It explains how these networks work and how to use them. It exposes the dangers of using file sharing networks--including viruses, spyware, and lawsuits--and tells how to avoid them. In addition to covering how people use file sharing networks to share everything from music and video files to books and pornography, it also reveals how people use them to share secrets and censored information banned by their governments. Includes coverage of the ongoing battle between the software, video, and music pirates and the industries that are trying to stop them. **

Author: Patrick Roberts File Type: pdf In popular discourse, tropical forests are synonymous with nature and wilderness battlegrounds between apparently pristine floral, faunal, and human communities, and the unrelenting industrial and urban powers of the modern world. It is rarely publicly understood that the extent of human adaptation to, and alteration of, tropical forest environments extends across archaeological, historical, and anthropological timescales. This book is the first attempt to bring together evidence for the nature of human interactions with tropical forests on a global scale, from the emergence of hominins in the tropical forests of Africa to modern conservation issues. Following a review of the natural history and variability of tropical forest ecosystems, this book takes a tour of human, and human ancestor, occupation and use of tropical forest environments through time. Far from being pristine, primordial ecosystems, this book illustrates how our species has inhabited and modified tropical forests from the earliest stages of its evolution. While agricultural strategies and vast urban networks emerged in tropical forests long prior to the arrival of European colonial powers and later industrialization, this should not be taken as justification for the massive deforestation and biodiversity threats imposed on tropical forest ecosystems in the 21st century. Rather, such a long-term perspective highlights the ongoing challenges of sustainability faced by forager, agricultural, and urban societies in these environments, setting the stage for more integrated approaches to conservation and policy-making, and the protection of millennia of ecological and cultural heritage bound up in these habitats. **

Author: Misagh Parsa File Type: pdf In Misagh Parsas view, the outlook for democracy in Iran is stark. Gradual reforms will not be sufficient for real change the government must fundamentally rethink its commitment to the role of religion in politics and civic life. For Iran to democratize, the options are narrowing to a single path another revolution. **Review This book deals with an important and timely issue the difficulties of democratizing the Islamic Republic. Drawing from a wealth of primary materialsinterviews, newspapers, and recent memoirsDemocracy in Iran is the first work that focuses on the movement as a social movement, with a basis in the larger society, and contains valuable insights on problems of democratization. (Ervand Abrahamian, author of The Coup 1953, the CIA, and the Roots of Modern U.S.Iranian Relations) For decades now, Parsa has thrown shafts of illumination on social movements and politics in Iran by sidestepping the polemics and theology to apply the tools of hard-nosed sociological analysis. Here he has analyzed Irans Green Movement in the same incisive way, and anyone who wants to understand the contemporary situation in that countryas opposed to the fantasies constructed by think tanks and opinion page editors inside the Beltwaymust read this book. (Juan Cole, author of The New Arabs How the Millennial Generation Is Changing the Middle East) In this erudite and intellectually challenging book, sociologist Parsa seeks to tackle a fundamental question of democratization theorynamely, under what conditions can a country achieve democratization? In answering this question, Parsa uses Iran as a case study. He frames the case of Iran in a broad comparative perspective. He analyzes alternative routes of democratization and explains why South Korea succeeded in democratizing through reform, whereas countries like the Philippines and Indonesia experienced tumultuous and violent upheavals on their paths toward democratization. (N. Entessar Choice 2017-03-01) Misagh Parsas brilliantly argued Democracy in Iran posits a new revolutionary future for the country, suggesting that as the gap between ruler and ruled widens, and as the different sides in Irans political spectrum become ever more entrenched, the prospector necessityof dramatic upheaval becomes ever more realShe shows us how the Islamic Republic is in danger of becoming as laughable in the distance between reality and propaganda as the Soviet Union became. (Anthony Forbes Times Literary Supplement 2017-05-10) This fine book shreds the dominant narratives about the Islamic Republic as Parsa analyzes the titanic struggle under way in Iran between theocracy and democracy. Along the way, the author shows why gradual reformthe leitmotif for Western supporters of pragmatic Iranian president Hassan Rouhani and of the Obama administrations nuclear dealis unlikely. Parsa digs deep into Persian primary material often ignored in Washington policy discussions, intelligence analysis and journalism. He also mines data from other authoritarian countries to compare and contrast those that have transformed peacefully with those that have changed more violently but still democratically (Indonesia) or erupted and returned to dictatorship (Egypt). Parsas careful scholarship leads him to one overarching conclusion A peaceful evolution to a more humane system in the Islamic Republic, let alone a more democratic one, isnt in the cardsWhile anyone curious about Iran will find it illuminating, for those working in government or the foreign-affairs community, it is mandatory reading[This] book is easily the most important work in English on the Islamic Republic since the revolution. (Reuel Marc Gerecht Wall Street Journal 2017-06-20) Misagh Parsas account of Iran is one of the most important books published about the Islamic Republic since its inception. Parsas mastery of an impressive range of sources, his elegant writing style and his intellectual honesty set his account apart from the legion of other books published on the theocratic state. His conclusions are as stark as they are important the Islamic Republic cannot reform itself, and its path to genuine democratisation can only come through an actual revolution. (Ray Takeyh Survival 2017-04-01) About the Author Misagh Parsa is Professor in the Department of Sociology at Dartmouth College.