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This chapter introduces the motivations, beliefs and actions of Americans involved in the peak oil movement and explains the ideology (and ‘ecological identity’) of ‘peakism’ via profiles of three representative peakists and two well-known figures, evangelist James Howard Kunstler and “Peak Shrink” Kathy McMahon. It applies McMahon’s through-the-looking-glass environmental psychological perspective, in which acute awareness of ecological crisis and preparation for the collapse of industrial civilization is not a symptom of emotional instability or mental illness but a sign of lucidity and health, to an experience shared by almost all peak oil believers: social marginalization as a result of discussing and acting on serious environmental issues, such as energy depletion and climate change. Finally, it highlights the ways that peakism deviated from the American ‘dominant social paradigm’ of implicit faith in technology and the inexhaustibility of crucial resources.

This chapter looks at the Contested Illnesses Research Group's (CIRG) early theoretical work on embodied health movements (EHMs). Embodied health movements are a relatively new subset of health social movements that challenge science and medicine on all aspects of contested illnesses. They introduce the biological body into social movements in compelling ways, using the embodied experience of illness to counter the authority of established institutional actors. In this way, EHMs elucidate the political economy of health and disease to shift intervention strategies beyond treatment and toward prevention. Very often, EHMs simultaneously challenge and collaborate with researchers and health professionals to pursue new paths of inquiry about the fundamental causes of disease, including social and environmental factors. These activities lead to a shift in the dominant epidemiological paradigm of disease causation.

Aldo Leopold died in 1948, of a heart attack suffered while fighting a brushfire that threatened the pines he and his family had planted at the shack. By dint of his strong personality, scientific curiosity, and near-universal respect from professional colleagues and nonprofessional wilderness advocates alike, Leopold had personified the search for a unified vision to guide human use of the land and offered a unifying model for conservationists. His death, at the height of his intellectual and leadership powers, left the movement effectively rudderless. The country was at the time being swept away by the postwar economic boom and a new period of unrestrained economic growth pushed environmental concerns off the political agenda. Stephen Rauschenbush, writing in 1952, said, “Conservation is in danger of becoming a lost cause” and provided a list of five “forces and events that had battered away at the old ideal.” Grant McConnell similarly described the conservation movement in 1954 as “small, divided and frequently uncertain.” Wise-use conservationists and land preservationists appeared in the eyes of their opponents, McConnell lamented, as “but the representatives of particular interest groups and . . . hence no better than those whom they accuse.” But the same economic growth that placed conservationists on the defensive in the late 1940s and 1950s created a new demographic situation, including a baby boom that resulted eventually in a large surge in the youthful segment of the population. Increasing incomes allowed discretionary spending on amenities. Outdoor recreation became more popular and vacation homes near the shore or in the mountains proliferated as more families chose to spend time in areas with natural amenities. Environmental historian Samuel Hays explains the resulting shift as focusing interest and concern increasingly on the quality of life. New social, economic, and demographic factors created a context in which the older conservationist concerns about efficient development and use of material resources—concerns with production—were replaced, in the postwar era, with increasing concern with the consumption side of the picture. These changes created a new constituency for environmental groups.

This chapter studies the events that occurred from 1947 to 1964, which are significant in the study of Indian nuclear history. It takes a look at the dominant role played by the political class (expressed by J.L. Nehru) and the scientific class (expressed by Homi J. Bhabha), and then summarizes the pattern of nuclear development in India during the Nehru-Bhabha years. The next section examines the three themes of Nehru's nuclear policy. Two diagrams illustrate the process and structure of the nuclear debate and the decision process for nuclear science policies. The chapter concludes with some theoretical considerations of the ‘dominant-subordinate state system’ paradigm. The internal governmental debate on the military uses of atomic energy is also addressed.

This chapter aims to provide the reader with a general information about the development of the Arab media. The development of Arab media into three historical phases: the colonial phase, the post-colonial phase and the 1990s phase. The colonial phase was geared towards developing media technologies in order to promote the colonial propaganda message. The post-colonial phase was, however, different in its focus and approach. It was characterised by ‘the dominant paradigm’ and attempts to shape media as a tool in order to serve national transformation and independence. The 1990s phase witnessed the proliferation of satellite channels globally, and this had an impact on the Arab world, which in turn started investing in the expansion and development of the Arab media. The chapter contextualizes the discussion about Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya and Al-Hurra and clearly highlights the code of practice that governs the Arab media in general.

This chapter discusses the reasons for skepticism about the dominant massive innate modularity paradigm in relation to the learning-bias-and-canalization (LBC) framework. The formulation and analysis of LBC meets objections to massive modularity and questions about conceptual clarity and explanatory force, explaining the criticisms of evolutionary psychology for requiring massive innate modularity and for being conceptually vague. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the recent developments in LBC interactionist synthesis and the LBC framework.