Raymond Williams_a Welsh media critic and one of the founding thinkers behind the popular field of cultural studies_believed that the traditional focus of biographies on individuals isolated these people from their communities. For this reason, Alan O'Connor looks at Williams and his time period, one of social change and crisis in Wales and England. Williams, the son of a railway worker, would have pursued university studies, an atypical act for a working-class boy, had the Second World War not disrupted his plans. So the unorthodox intellectual executed his work outside the university until...

Raymond Williams--a Welsh media critic and one of the founding thinkers behind the popular field of cultural studies--believed that the traditional focus of biographies on individuals isolated these people from their communities. For this reason, Alan O'Connor looks at Williams and his time period, one of social change and crisis in Wales and England. Williams, the son of a railway worker, would have pursued university studies, an atypical act for a working-class boy, had the Second World War not disrupted his plans. So the unorthodox intellectual executed his work outside the university...

Using tape recordings, videos, and the ideas of Antonio Gramsci and Raymond Williams, this work examines the uses of radio for development, the impact on oral culture, and the use of radio by indigenous people in Ecuador and miners in Bolivia. Few anthropologists have studied radio, and The Voice of the Mountains is unique in its approach to the field. Alan O'Connor is not committed to a single research method--ethnography--but to a question about the relationship between radio and political struggles. This work questions what is the field when studying radio broadcasting? The answer involves...

Unlike studies that consider punk as subculture and style, this innovative book maps the field of punk-rock labels. Using the ideas of Pierre Bourdieu, it describes the social life of the field and the struggles of punks to live up to their ideals.

Electric drive vehicles (EDVs) are seen on American roads in increasing numbers. Related to this market trend and critical for it to increase are improvements in battery technology. Battery Technology for Electric Vehicles examines in detail at the research support from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for the development of nickel-metal-hydride (NiMH) and lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries used in EDVs. With public support comes accountability of the social outcomes associated with public investments.

The book overviews DOE investments in advanced battery...