John Beck

A shocking, on-the-ground investigation of the Chinese government's brutal oppression of its Muslim citizens -- the Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and others -- told by the victims . . . Award-winning journalist John Beck recounts China's persecution of Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs and other predominantly Muslim minorities in Xinjiang and its relentless pursuit of the few who escaped beyond its borders. Through intertwined literary narratives combined with snippets of original source material, including official directives and speeches, he pieces together the individual stories of what consecutive American administrations have described as genocide. The narrative moves from China to Kazakhstan, Turkey and the US, incorporating the tensions, discrimination, and occasional violence that characterised life in Xinjiang for decades. Then the dismantling of rights and escalating repression under President Xi Jinping that quickly accelerated into a crackdown of unprecedented scope and brutality. We follow 4 characters: a Kazakh writer and an Uyghur nurse who survived re-education camps before ultimately escaping abroad, a human rights advocate involved in securing their release and, an inadvertent exile spied on by Chinese authorities as his family back home was used as leverage against him. In their stories, the book explores identity, dehumanization, and censorship, the force of literature in dark times, and an all-pervasive apparatus of repression able to exist within miles of the White House. John Beck lived in Istanbul for a number of years, where he was in close contact with the city's Uyghur diaspora and wrote on the crackdown and related issues for publications including Harper's and National Geographic. Some of that work forms the basis of this book along with further reporting from Almaty, Kazakhstan, Virginia, and New York.

Once the playgrounds and raw material for the avantgarde, abandoned places and things--decommissioned military sites, postindustrial spaces, contested and forgotten edgelands--are now just as likely to be seen as assets for entrepreneurs or connoisseurs of the authentically worn-out. This is the age of patina, where the material remains of times past--the fields and factories, test sites, back alleys, machines, and statues--are coveted, adored, mourned, and commemorated, as well as sometimes despised. Through an exploration of a wide range of recent film, photography, art, and writing about place, Landscape as Weapon argues that these abandoned sites are a critical arena for debate about the meaning of space and time under late capitalism.

In Technocrats of the Imagination John Beck and Ryan Bishop explore the collaborations between the American avant-garde art world and the military-industrial complex during the 1960s, in which artists worked with scientists and engineers in universities, private labs, and museums. For artists, designers, and educators working with the likes of Bell Labs, the RAND Corporation, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, experiments in art and technology presaged not only a new aesthetic but a new utopian social order based on collective experimentation. In examining these projects' promises and pitfalls and how they have inspired a new generation of collaborative labs populated by artists, engineers, and scientists, Beck and Bishop reveal the connections between the contemporary art world and the militarized lab model of research that has dominated the sciences since the 1950s.

In Technocrats of the Imagination John Beck and Ryan Bishop explore the collaborations between the American avant-garde art world and the military-industrial complex during the 1960s, in which artists worked with scientists and engineers in universities, private labs, and museums. For artists, designers, and educators working with the likes of Bell Labs, the RAND Corporation, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, experiments in art and technology presaged not only a new aesthetic but a new utopian social order based on collective experimentation. In examining these projects' promises and pitfalls and how they have inspired a new generation of collaborative labs populated by artists, engineers, and scientists, Beck and Bishop reveal the connections between the contemporary art world and the militarized lab model of research that has dominated the sciences since the 1950s.

Mining historian Kerby Jackson introduces us to Volume 1 in this important re-issue of "The Nature of Ore Deposits". Unavailable since 1905, this publication offers rare insights into the origins and nature of ore deposits. Chapters include Magmatic Segregations, Bedded Ore Deposits, Epigenetic Ore Deposits, Detrital Deposits, General Advice to The Prospector, and much more. Included are details on numerous varieties of ore deposits that will be of interest to anyone interested in minerals or mining. One of the most authorative and concise books available on the subject of ore deposits. Lavishly illustrated. Note: This book is one of a two part set and this edition is a perfect facsimile of the original edition and is not set in a modern typeface. As such, some type characters and images might suffer from slight imperfections or minor shadows in the page background.

Mining historian Kerby Jackson introduces us to Volume 1 in this important re-issue of "The Nature of Ore Deposits". Unavailable since 1905, this publication offers rare insights into the origins and nature of ore deposits. Chapters include Magmatic Segregations, Bedded Ore Deposits, Epigenetic Ore Deposits, Detrital Deposits, General Advice to The Prospector, and much more. Included are details on numerous varieties of ore deposits that will be of interest to anyone interested in minerals or mining. One of the most authorative and concise books available on the subject of ore deposits. Lavishly illustrated. Note: This book is one of a two part set and this edition is a perfect facsimile of the original edition and is not set in a modern typeface. As such, some type characters and images might suffer from slight imperfections or minor shadows in the page background.

Since World War II, the American West has become the nation's military arsenal, proving ground, and disposal site. Through a wide-ranging discussion of recent literature produced in and about the West, Dirty Wars explores how the region's iconic landscapes, invested with myths of national virtue, have obscured the West's crucial role in a post–World War II age of "permanent war." In readings of western—particularly southwestern—literature, John Beck provides a historically informed account of how the military-industrial economy, established to protect the United States after Pearl Harbor, has instead produced western waste lands and "waste populations" as the enemies and collateral casualties of a permanent state of emergency. Beck offers new readings of writers such as Cormac McCarthy, Leslie Marmon Silko, Don DeLillo, Rebecca Solnit, Julie Otsuka, and Terry Tempest Williams. He also draws on a variety of sources in history, political theory, philosophy, environmental studies, and other fields. Throughout Dirty Wars, he identifies resonances between different experiences and representations of the West that allow us to think about internment policies, the manufacture of atomic weapons, the culture of Cold War security, border policing, and toxic pollution as part of a broader program of a sustained and invasive management of western space.

This monograph celebrates the 50th anniversary of Michael Young's iconic book "The Rise of the Meritocracy" by analysing the ideas behind meritocracy, citizenship and education and offering an extension to Young's initial findings.Young's iconic book "The Rise of the Meritocracy", not only coined the word meritocracy but contained a prescient warning about the dangers of pursuing the vision of a meritocratic society.This fascinating book takes this anniversary as its starting point for an analysis and critique of meritocracy, citizenship and education. Part I begins with two substantial chapters - the first discussing Young's book and its influence, and the second the revival of support for meritocracy under New Labour in the UK, with particular reference to its implications for education; the third chapter then examines and critiques the ways New Labour has interpreted the idea of active citizenship.Part II examines issues of continuity and change in New Labour policy on schools, the curriculum, and the professions (especially but not only the teaching profession).Issues raised in Part I are revisited in Part III, which is devoted to an analysis of policy responses to the problems of multiculturalism and their relation to immigration policy and ideas of a common civic culture in both Britain and overseas. In all the sections, the aim is to go beyond exposition to develop a sustained critique, particularly of New Labour's over-centralizing tendencies and the associated erosion of local and institutional democracy.

Following the introduction of student loans and tuition fees, the situation of students and new graduates has changed considerably. Set in this context, Graduate Citizens is a thought-provoking, and insightful look at the current generation of students' attitudes towards citizenship and matters of social and moral responsibility.Drawing on small-scale case studies of students in two universities, the authors explore students' changing sense of citizenship against the backdrop of recent changes in higher education. It addresses students' approaches to being in debt, the role of their families in providing support and their attitudes towards careers. Questioning the claim that the current generation of students is politically apathetic, this book shows that they are in fact socially concerned with, though distant from, official, mainstream politics. It investigates students' responses to such political and economic phenomena as globalisation and the ever-increasing promotion of market forces.Graduate Citizens illuminates and explores the links between reforms in higher education, student experience of university and issues of citizenship. It poses questions about the condition and future of citizenship in Britain and discusses the implications for citizenship education.

Following the introduction of student loans and tuition fees, the situation of students and new graduates has changed considerably. Set in this context, Graduate Citizens is a thought-provoking, and insightful look at the current generation of students' attitudes towards citizenship and matters of social and moral responsibility.Drawing on small-scale case studies of students in two universities, the authors explore students' changing sense of citizenship against the backdrop of recent changes in higher education. It addresses students' approaches to being in debt, the role of their families in providing support and their attitudes towards careers. Questioning the claim that the current generation of students is politically apathetic, this book shows that they are in fact socially concerned with, though distant from, official, mainstream politics. It investigates students' responses to such political and economic phenomena as globalisation and the ever-increasing promotion of market forces.Graduate Citizens illuminates and explores the links between reforms in higher education, student experience of university and issues of citizenship. It poses questions about the condition and future of citizenship in Britain and discusses the implications for citizenship education.

Explores the cultural work of two important early-twentieth-century writers: the poet William Carlos Williams and the educator/philosopher John Dewey, both key figures in American democracy.Placing the philosopher John Dewey and the poet William Carlos Williams together-two important figures of twentieth-century American culture-this book examines the ambitions and failings of progressive liberal culture during the first half of the twentieth century. This book shows that, while their work ostensibly shares little in common, Williams and Dewey share the ambition to realize the radical potential of a democratic cultural politics. Including close readings of texts like Williams's Spring and All, In the American Grain, and Paterson, and Dewey's Individualism Old and New and Art as Experience, Beck offers an important contribution to current debates over the relationship between politics and cultural production.

The first section of this book compares and contrasts "declinist" accounts of the current moral predicament with the somewhat more optimistic approach derived from recent sociological analyses. The second section is more directly devoted to the role of schools in educating about values, morality and citizenship. Specific curricular issues such as the values of enterprise and enterprise culture, educating about citizenship, and the ambiguities about the meaning of the term "spiritual" are dealt with in successive chapters.