Bøker av Brian Martin

Over the past fifty years, have things been getting better or worse? Brian Martin sets out to address this big question by looking at a range of topics, from climate to feminism, from happiness to war, from deschooling to death. Along the way, he offers personal stories and assessments of key studies. This is an invitation to avoid excessive gloom and unwarranted optimism by thinking broadly about what's been going on, examining driving forces and resistance to them.

Probability and Statistics for Physical Sciences, Second Edition is an accessible guide to commonly used concepts and methods in statistical analysis used in the physical sciences. This brief yet systematic introduction explains the origin of key techniques, providing mathematical background and useful formulas. The text does not assume any background in statistics and is appropriate for a wide-variety of readers, from first-year undergraduate students to working scientists across many disciplines.

This first biography of Barney Dreyfuss chronicles the innovative career of the Hall of Famer executive who built Forbes Field--the National League's first concrete-and-steel ballpark, into which he put $1 million of his own money - pushed for creation of the office of commissioner to govern the game and helped initiate the modern World Series.

Despite his outstanding pitching record, James Francis "Pud" Galvin (1856-1902) was largely forgotten after his premature death. During his 17-year career pitching for Pittsburgh, Buffalo and St. Louis, he was one of the best-paid players in the game. This book offers the first comprehensive telling of Galvin's story, covering his complete record.

At six-feet-six, the hulking Martin Leo Boutiliere (1872-1944) was hard to miss. Yet the many books written about Babe Ruth relegate the soft-spoken teacher and coach to the shadows. This is the first telling of the full story of the man who gave the world its most famous baseball star.

Social defence is nonviolent community resistance to aggression and repression, as an alternative to military forces. Given the enormous damage caused by military systems, social defence is an alternative worth investigating and pursuing. Since the 1980s, Jørgen Johansen and Brian Martin have been involved in promoting social defence. In this book, they provide an up-to-date treatment of the issues. They address the downsides of military systems, historical examples of nonviolent resistance to invasions and coups, key ideas about social defence, important developments since the end of the Cold War, and the role of social movements. Social defence challenges deeply embedded assumptions about violence and defence. It is also a challenge to powerful groups with vested interests in systems of organised violence, especially militaries and governments. Popular action against aggression and repression is a radical alternative - and a logical one.

In 2009 in Australia, a citizens' campaign was launched to silence public criticism of vaccination. This campaign involved an extraordinary variety of techniques to denigrate, harass and censor public vaccine critics. It was unlike anything seen in other scientific controversies, involving everything from alleging beliefs in conspiracy theories to rewriting Wikipedia entries. Vaccination Panic in Australia analyses this campaign from the point of view of free speech. Brian Martin describes the techniques used in the attack, assesses different ways of defending and offers wider perspectives for understanding the struggle. The book will be of interest to readers interested in the vaccination debate and in struggles over free speech and citizen participation in decision-making.

In your action group, is it ever beneficial to lie to other members? When is it wise to lie to authorities? If a member of your group has done something wrong, is it better to be open about it now or keep it hidden in the hope that outsiders will never know? What are the pros and cons of infiltrating opposition groups to collect information about harmful activities? Should we wear masks at rallies? There's lots of research showing that lying is an everyday occurrence in most people's lives, and furthermore that lies can be beneficial in some circumstances. But they can also be very damaging, especially lies by authorities. The Deceptive Activist introduces key ideas about lying and deception and then provides a series of case studies in which activists need to decide what to do. There are no final answers, but it is important to address the questions.

Most people think of the world as divided into countries, and many people identify with their "own" country. Because there's nothing natural in this, governments and others need to continually encourage identification with the nation. This serves those with power and wealth. Ruling Tactics outlines the methods commonly used to foster everyday nationalism and how they can be countered. These methods are described in a range of areas, including crime, sport, language, economics, terrorism and war. This book can serve as a practical manual for recognising how thinking is oriented towards the state, and how this sort of thinking can be changed.

Climate change, psychiatric drugs, genetically modified organisms, nuclear power, fluoridation, stem cell research - these are just a few of the hundreds of issues involving science and technology that are vigorously debated. If you care about an issue, how can you be more effective in arguing for your viewpoint and campaigning in support of it? The Controversy Manual offers practical advice for campaigners as well as plenty of information for people who want to better understand what's happening and to be able to discuss the issues with friends. The Controversy Manual provides information for understanding controversies, arguing against opponents, getting your message out, and defending against attack. Whether experts are on your side or mostly on the side of opponents, you'll find advice for being more effective. While not taking sides on individual controversies, the emphasis is on fostering fair and open debate and opposing those who use power and manipulation to get their way.

methods of nonviolent action can be used to bring down dictators. Nonviolence Unbound shows how insights into what makes nonviolent action eff ective can be applied to four completely diff erent arenas: defending against verbal abuse, responding to online defamatory pictures, and engaging in the struggles over euthanasia and vaccination. This investigation shows how to analyse options for opposing injustice.

The Detroit Tigers were founding members of the American League and have been the Motor City's team for more than a century. But the Wolverines were the city's first major league club, playing in the National League beginning in 1881 and capturing the pennant in 1887. This first ever history of the Wolverines covers the team's rise and abrupt fall and the powerful men behind it.

An atmospheric and compelling novel that charts the subtle and, at times, dangerous, machinations of the political workings of an Oxford College.

Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) was one of the most eminent and controversial figures of the nineteenth century. His influence spread far beyond the country of his birth, the century in which he lived, and the Church in which he ended his life: he is not only of great importance in the history of religious thought but is known to a much wider circle for his hymns, his books, the text of Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius and the Oratories he founded in Birmingham and London. His religious thought laid the foundations for the second Vatican Council. He is widely loved and remembered¿by Catholics and non-Catholics alike¿as a saintly and gentle figure: yet his conversion to the Church of Rome sparked off one of the bitterest and more divisive controversies of the Victorian age, and one which lost him friends and respect, and was to sever him from his beloved University of Oxford. Brian Martin's sympathetic study combines biography with a critical assessment of Newman's achievements. He takes us through from Newman's birth in London and his school-days in Ealing to his death in the Birmingham Oratory, by way of his brilliant university career in Oxford, his leading part as an Anglican clergyman in the Oxford Movement, his conversion to Roman Catholicism, his involvement in the foundation of the National University of Ireland, and his eventual elevation to the Cardinalate. Unlike previous biographies, Dr Martin has made full use of the extensive Letters and Diaries so as to bring out the human side of this saintly man. His major works, such as his great autobiography, Apologia pro Vita sua, and his novel, Loss and Gain, are discussed in the context of his life.

Father Patrick is newly appointed to a parish in Dublin, and needs to be alone.

This is the previously untold story of the London Tecumsehs, an 1870s baseball team that rose to the top ranks of pro ball. The Tecumsehs of London, Ontario, were among the founding members of the International Association in 1877, the first league established to challenge the struggling National League, formed a year earlier.

Attacks can backfire on attackers sometimes spectacularly. Examples include - the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police in 1991, the surveillance of Ralph Nader in 1965, and the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Through numerous case studies, this work aims to reveal the promising tactics that can make unfair attacks backfire.