5 Politics, Sociology eBooks

Ilana Feldman, "Police Encounters: Security and Surveillance in Gaza under Egyptian Rule"
The Archaeology of Japan: From the Earliest Rice Farming Villages to the Rise of the State by Koji Mizoguchi
The Archaeology of Mediterranean Landscapes by Kevin Walsh
Mediterranean Islands, Fragile Communities and Persistent Landscapes: Antikythera in Long-Term Perspective by James Conolly, Andrew Bevan

Ilana Feldman, "Police Encounters: Security and Surveillance in Gaza under Egyptian Rule"
2015 | ISBN-10: 0804793956, 0804795347 | 224 pages | PDF | 4 MB
Egypt came to govern Gaza as a result of a war, a failed effort to maintain Arab Palestine. Throughout the twenty years of its administration (1948-1967), Egyptian policing of Gaza concerned itself not only with crime and politics, but also with control of social and moral order. Through surveillance, interrogation, and a network of local informants, the police extended their reach across the public domain and into private life, seeing Palestinians as both security threats and vulnerable subjects who needed protection. Security practices produced suspicion and safety simultaneously.
Police Encounters explores the paradox of Egyptian rule. Drawing on a rich and detailed archive of daily police records, the book describes an extensive security apparatus guided by intersecting concerns about national interest, social propriety, and everyday illegality. In pursuit of security, Egyptian policing established a relatively safe society, but also one that blocked independent political activity. The repressive aspects of the security society that developed in Gaza under Egyptian rule are beyond dispute. But repression does not tell the entire story about its impact on Gaza. Policing also provided opportunities for people to make claims of government, influence their neighbors, and protect their families.

The Archaeology of Japan: From the Earliest Rice Farming Villages to the Rise of the State by Koji Mizoguchi
English | November 25th, 2013 | ISBN: 052188490X, 0521711886 | 394 Pages | PDF | 30.80 MB
This is the first book-length study of the Yayoi and Kofun periods of Japan (c.600 BC-AD 700), in which the introduction of rice paddy-field farming from the Korean peninsula ignited the rapid development of social complexity and hierarchy that culminated with the formation of the ancient Japanese state.
The author traces the historical trajectory of the Yayoi and Kofun periods by employing cutting-edge sociological, anthropological and archaeological theories and methods. The book reveals a fascinating process through which sophisticated hunting-gathering communities in an archipelago on the eastern fringe of the Eurasian continent were transformed materially and symbolically into a state.

The Archaeology of Mediterranean Landscapes by Kevin Walsh
English | September 12, 2017 | ISBN: 0865718660 | PDF | 256 pages | 2.1 MB
To most people paying attention to the collision between industrial society and the hard limits of a finite planet, it's clear that things are going very, very wrong. We no longer have unlimited time and resources to deal with the crises that define our future, and the options are limited to the tools we have on hand right now.
This book is about one very powerful option: deliberate technological regression.
Technological regression isn't about 'going back,' it's about using the past as a resource to meet the needs of the present. It starts from the recognition that older technologies generally use fewer resources and cost less than modern equivalents, and it embraces the heresy of technological choice, our ability to choose or refuse the technologies pushed by corporate interests. People are already ditching smartphones in favor of 'dumb phones' and land lines and eBook sales are declining, while printed books rebound. Clear signs among many that blind faith in progress is faltering and opening up the possibility that the best way forward may well involve going back.
A must-read for anyone willing to think the unthinkable and embrace the possibilities of a retro future.

Mediterranean Islands, Fragile Communities and Persistent Landscapes: Antikythera in Long-Term Perspective by James Conolly, Andrew Bevan
English | May 31st, 2013 | ISBN: 1107033454 | 334 Pages | PDF | 18.99 MB
Mediterranean landscape ecology, island cultures and long-term human history have all emerged as major research agendas over the past half-century, engaging large swathes of the social and natural sciences. This book brings these traditions together in considering Antikythera, a tiny island perched on the edge of the Aegean and Ionian seas, over the full course of its human history.
Small islands are particularly interesting because their human, plant and animal populations often experience abrupt demographic changes, including periods of near-complete abandonment and recolonization, and Antikythera proves to be one of the best-documented examples of these shifts over time. Small islands also play eccentric but revealing roles in wider social, economic and political networks, serving as places for refugees, hunters, modern eco-tourists, political exiles, hermits and pirates. Antikythera is a rare case of an island that has been investigated in its entirety from several systematic fieldwork and disciplinary perspectives, not least of which is an intensive archaeological survey. The authors use the resulting evidence to offer a unique vantage on settlement and land use histories.