In this volume, thirteen authors from all points of the English-speaking world provide a tour of the entwined labyrinths of technology and terrorism. They describe terrorism as an epistemological contact sport. With espionage, one can often deduce from a few pieces of the puzzle a plan's goals and its roots, its sources. But the goals of terrorists are both vague and hopelessly specific, while their means are restrained by rational, institutional thought. Thus, terrorists can be equally expected to flail out without any thought at all, as a child might exhibit in a temper tantrum, and to be...

The history of technology is often troubled by good ideas that do not, for one reason or another, take off right away-sometimes for millennia. Sometimes, technology comes to a standstill, and sometimes, it even reverses itself. Thus, unlike science, which seems to proceed at a reasonable and calm rate, the progress of technology is diffi cult to theorize about. While in science many developments are predictable to a certain extent and this predictability may, at times, direct or stymie science's progress-as with stem-cell research and cloning-technological advances, such as the Internet, are...

There is recurrent public concern with enhancing the quality of professional performance. What is the contemporary understanding of professionalism? Are the needs of professionals in various fields being met at the end of the 20th century, as what is commonly called continuing professional development has become of a sizable industry? Many books treat the professions as homogeneous groups and view them from an external standpoint. In Professional Practices Tony Becher investigates the differences as well as the similarities between and within professional groupings, and presents the...