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Millennials have been incited to regard their parents' generation as entitled and selfish, and to blame the baby boomers of the 1960s for the cultural and economic problems of today. But is it true that young people have been victimized by their elders? This book looks at generational labels and the groups of people they apply to. It argues that the prominence and popularity of terms like ‘baby boomer’, ‘millennial’, and ‘snowflake’ in mainstream media operates as a smoke screen — directing attention away from important issues such as housing, education, pensions, and employment. The book systematically disputes the myths that surround the ‘generational war’, exposing it to be nothing more than a tool by which the political and social elite can avoid public scrutiny. It highlights the major issues and concerns surrounding the sociological blame game.

Why is government distrust rampant, especially in the rural United States? This book offers a simple explanation: corporations and the government together dispossess rural people of their prosperity, and even their property. Based on four years of fieldwork, this eye-opening assessment plays out in a mixed-race Georgia community that hosted the first nuclear power reactors sanctioned by the government in three decades. This work serves as an explanatory mirror of prominent trends in current American politics. Churches become havens for redemption, poaching a means of retribution, guns a tool of self-defense, and nuclear power a faltering solution to global warming as governance strays from democratic principles. In the absence of hope or trust in rulers, rural racial tensions fester and divide. The book tells of the rebellion that unfolds as the rights of corporations supersede the rights of humans.

This book presents an account of Russia's land reform initiatives from the late 1980s to today. In Russia, a country controlling more land than any other nation, land ownership is central to structures of power, class division, and agricultural production. The aim of Russian land reform for the past thirty years—to undo the collectivization of the Soviet era and encourage public ownership—has been largely unsuccessful. To understand this failure, this book examines contemporary land reform policies in terms of legislation, institutional structure, and human behavior. Using extensive survey data, it analyzes household behaviors in regard to land ownership and usage based on socioeconomic status, family size, demographic distribution, and regional differences.

American agriculture employs some 2.5 million workers during a typical year, most for fewer than six months. Three fourths of these farm workers are immigrants, half are unauthorized, and most will leave seasonal farm work within a decade. What do these statistics mean for farmers, for labourers, for rural America? This book addresses the question by reviewing what is happening on farms and in the towns and cities where immigrant farm workers settle with their families. The book finds that the business-labor model that has evolved in rural America is neither desirable nor sustainable. It proposes regularizing U.S. farm workers and rationalizing the farm labor market, an approach that will help American farmers stay globally competitive while also improving conditions for farm workers.