Israel currently has two recognized systems of law operating side by side: civil and religious. Israeli religious courts possess the exclusive right to conduct and terminate marriages. There is no civil marriage or divorce in Israel, irrespective of...

In a diverse signing community, it is not unusual to encounter a wide variety of expression in the types of signs used by different people. Perceptions of signing proficiency often vary within the community, however. Conventional wisdom intimates tha...

In this groundbreaking book Andrew Sluyter demonstrates for the first time that Africans played significant creative roles in establishing open-range cattle ranching in the Americas. In so doing, he provides a new way of looking at and studying the h...

Torre David, a 45-story skyscraper in Caracas, has remained uncompleted since the Venezuelan economy collapsed in 1994. Today, it is the improvised home to more than 750 families living in an extra-legal and tenuous squat, that some have called a "ve...

We've been told, again and again, that life is unfair. But what if we're wrong simply to resign ourselves to this situation? What if we have the power – and more, the duty – to change society for the better? We do. And our very nature inclines us t...

The election of America's first black president has led many to believe that race is no longer a real obstacle to success and that remaining racial inequality stems largely from the failure of minority groups to take personal responsibility for seeki...

Stories accompany us through life from birth to death. But they do not merely entertain, inform, or distress us – they show us what counts as right or wrong and teach us who we are and who we can imagine being. Stories connect people, but they can al...

In the opening pages of this irresistible book, William Ian Miller warns, "the general themes... may strike some as glum and grim". Yet humour leavens each page as he confronts old age, its humiliations, and its undeniable hardships. Taking an enti...

"From Camp to City" examines the theme of the refugee camp in the context of urbanism and architecture. Using the examples of the refugee camps in the Algerian desert in which Sahrawis originally from the Western Sahara have been living for 35 years,...

What is it that gives places their individual qualities and defines the life of a city? Architects and urbanists are accustomed to describing and creating the organizational structures, the layouts and physical attributes of our cities. But what are...