Law is integral to culture, and culture to law. Often considered a distinctive domain with strange rules and stranger language, law is actually part of a culture's way of expressing its sense of the order of things. In Law as Culture, Lawrence Rosen invites readers to consider how the facts that are adduced in a legal forum connect to the ways in which facts are constructed in other areas of everyday life, how the processes of legal decision-making partake of the logic by which the culture as a whole is put together, and how courts, mediators, or social pressures fashion a sense of the world as consistent with common sense and social identity. While the book explores issues comparatively, in each instance it relates them to contemporary Western experience. The development of the jury and Continental legal proceedings thus becomes a story of the development of Western ideas of the person and time; African mediation techniques become tests for the style and success of similar efforts in America and Europe; the assertion that one's culture should be considered as an excuse for a crime becomes a challenge to the relation of cultural norms and cultural diversity. Throughout the book, the reader is invited to approach law afresh, as a realm that is integral to every culture and as a window into the nature of culture itself.
Legal systems do not operate in isolation but in complex cultural contexts. This original and thought-provoking volume considers how cultural assumptions are built into American legal decision-making, drawing on a series of case studies to demonstrate the range of ways courts express their understanding of human nature, social relationships, and the sense of orderliness that cultural schemes purport to offer. Unpacking issues such as native heritage, male circumcision, and natural law, Rosen provides fresh insight into socio-legal studies, drawing on his extensive experience as both an anthropologist and a law professional to provide a unique perspective on the important issue of law and cultural practice. The Judgement of Culture will make informative reading for students and scholars of anthropology, law, and related subjects across the social sciences.
Argues that a refined concept of culture can be used by American courts to better analyze cases that cover the sense of community. Supreme Court Justices frequently justify their opinions in terms of the traditions and customs of a community. Yet, the rights and interests of entities that fit neither with the state nor the individual are treated as fluid and subjective, often existing without clarity in the current legal framework. The Rights of Groups focuses on a series of specific examples to argue that a more refined concept of culture than has been employed by American courts could offer better ways to analyze a broad range of cases that employ the notion of community. Through an original reading of the Ninth Amendment, Lawrence Rosen illustrates how a constitutional consideration for group protections might be applied to decisions arising before the Supreme Court, including the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Similarly, in other chapters, Rosen shows how a revised theory of culture can change the concepts—including those of “community”—that courts currently apply, whether it is the application of indigenous concepts of value to revise the statutes governing intellectual property, the importance to native peoples that burial remains be returned to the group, the role a community can play in the responsibilities attendant on the prudent investor rule, the cultural organization of Western states’ water resources, or the implementation of a new basis for group defamation suits. The book thus concludes with a call for a more sophisticated concept of culture that can sharpen our usage of the legitimate rights and interests of those entities that fit neither with the state nor the individual.
Drawn from Memory" is an important contribution to Moroccan studies, to the field of anthropology, and to academic approaches to biography. Rosen weaves the threads of his narrative together into a tapestry focused on the lives of four men: a raconteur, a teacher, an entrepreneur, and a cloth dealer, a Jew. Ordinary people have intellectual lives, Rosen tells us. They may never have written a book; they may never even have read one. But their lives are rich in ideas, constantly fashioned and revised, elaborated and rearranged. Rosen first encountered the four men he profiles in his book in the course of his academic research, and he then visited and revisited these men, and the towns in which they live, over several decades. He engaged them ina kind of continuous conversation. He spoke to members of their family, their neighbors, and the town people. Out of this wealth of material, he has constructed a narrative that takes the reader not only into four intensely observed individual lives but also, as it were, the history of Morocco s evolution across the span of many decades; he takes the reader not only into the outwardly lived lives of his subjects, but their innermost thoughts, their own perceptions of themselves and the evolving Moroccan world around them. At the same time, he manages to evoke the physical landscape, the towns in which these men live, marvelously well, so that the towns and their inhabitants come alive for the reader. Beautifully illustrated with archival and ethnographic photos, "Drawn from Memory" teaches us that that for Moroccans, and by extension Muslims in general, nothing in everyday social life is hard and fast, and the meaning and outcome of all interactions is the product of negotiation and relatedness.
Having worked for several decades in North Africa, anthropologist Lawrence Rosen is uniquely placed to ask what factors contribute to the continuity and changes characterizing the present-day Muslim world. In The Culture of Islam, he brings his erudition and his experiences to illuminating key aspects of Muslim life and how central tenets of that life are being challenged and culturally refashioned. Through a series of poignant tales—from the struggle by a group of friends against daily corruption to the contest over a saint's identity, from nostalgia for the departed Jews to Salman Rushdie's vision of doubt in a world of religious certainty—Rosen shows how a dazzling array of potential changes are occurring alongside deeply embedded continuity, a process he compares to a game of chess in which infinite variations of moves can be achieved while fundamental aspects of "the game" have had a remarkably enduring quality. Whether it is the potential fabrication of new forms of Islam by migrants to Europe (creating a new "Euro-Islam," as Rosen calls it), the emphasis put on individuals rather than institutions, or the heartrending problems Muslims may face when their marriages cross national boundaries, each story and each interpretation offers a window into a world of contending concepts and challenged coherence. The Culture of Islam is both an antidote to simplified versions of Islam circulating today and a consistent story of the continuities that account for much of ordinary Muslim life. It offers, in its human stories and its insights, its own contribution, as the author says, "to the mutual understanding and forgiveness that alone will make true peace possible.
This book takes a case study approach to explore the crisis of legitimacy in American political culture. The question of legitimacy resides at the heart of any political system. However, understanding why an individual should recognize another’s power over them is not solely limited to the analytically political but is deeply embedded in the larger cultural context of any society. Through a series of ethnographic case studies focused on the United States – from those involving the rhetoric of presidential prophecy and abuse of power to the dispute over a local sewerage authority’s reach and a case of classroom blasphemy – the book aims to demonstrate both a ground-up approach to the problem of legitimacy and to capture some of the common cultural features that bond the examples together. The book will, therefore, be of interest to scholars of anthropology, sociology, political science, and socio-legal studies.
Exploring political, economic, and social encounters within and with the Muslim world across the eras, Lawrence Rosen develops a vibrant, nuanced portrait of the Islamic world that challenges existing stereotypes. Using a diverse range of illustrative case studies, Rosen draws previously unseen linkages across time, regions, and cultures.
In Varieties of Muslim Experience, anthropologist Lawrence Rosen explores aspects of Arab Muslim life that are, at first glance, perplexing to Westerners. He ranges over such diverse topics as why Arabs eschew portraiture, why a Muslim scientist might be attracted to fundamentalism, and why the Prophet must be protected from blasphemous cartoons. What connects these seemingly disparate features of Arab social, political, and cultural life? Rosen argues that the common thread is the importance Arabs place on the negotiation of interpersonal relationships—a link that helps to explain actions as seemingly unfathomable as suicide bombing and as elusive as Quranic interpretation. Written with eloquence and a deep knowledge of the entire spectrum of Muslim experience, Rosen’s book will interest not only anthropologists and Islamicists but anyone invested in better understanding the Arab world.
--Using Internal Rate of Return (IRR) to make financial decisions and evaluate and choose investments ranging from reverse mortgages to stocks, bonds, and real estate.
--Using Internal Rate of Return (IRR) to make financial decisions and evaluate and choose investments ranging from reverse mortgages to stocks, bonds, and real estate.
Straightforward, reliable financial guidance is contained in this one-of-a-kind reference. This handbook clearly explains the concepts you need to invest, borrow, or lend intelligently with reduced risk and greater understanding. Here are the ready answers to virtually all of your questions about interest, yields, and returns, whether you are an investor trying to decide which kind of bond to invest in, a business manager evaluating alternative prospective capital investment opportunities using discounted cash flow techniques such as the internal rate of return (IRR), a senior citizen pondering increasing his or her cash flow by taking out a "reverse" mortgage, a borrower who is unsure whether refinancing is a good idea, and an individual who simply wants to make financial decisions that pay off. This valuable handbook provides you with the analytical tools essential to making decisions about buying, selling, or holding stocks, bonds, and real estate. Or if you are lending or borrowing money, you will find the information necessary to compare different forms of investment proposals by using the IRR or net present value as simple, accurate yardsticks. In the Handbook, you will find answers to such other vital questions as: . Why does the Fed's annual percentage rate understate the true cost of most loans? How can you make tax shelters work for you? Why don't you have to reinvest at all to achieve the IRR or yield-to-maturity at purchase? What are the big dangers of investing in callable or zero coupon bonds? Which kind of bond is most desirable: discount, par, or premium? What is the most you can withdraw monthly from your retirement savings and still have the income last for yourexpected life span? How can you construct a loan amortization schedule? Is it advisable to accelerate paying off your mortgage or other loan? What is modified duration, and how can it help control a portfolio's risk level? The Handbook is written in a no-nonsense style that makes its subject accessible to a broad spectrum of readers. In addition, you will find numerous graphs that will help solve even the most complex money puzzles in moments. If you are among the investors, borrowers, portfolio managers, bankers, accountants, and business professionals who must grapple with financial decision making in an uncertain business climate, you will find this one-stop guide to be your invaluable financial coach, ever at your aide with dependable and practical information presented in a lucid, easily understood manner. With this handbook, you'll make informed, advantageous money decisions.
In the West, we tend to think of Islamic law as an arcane and rigid legal system, bound by formulaic texts yet suffused by unfettered discretion. While judges may indeed refer to passages in the classical texts or have recourse to their own orientations, images of binding doctrine and unbounded choice do not reflect the full reality of the Islamic law in its everyday practice. Whether in the Arabic-speaking world, the Muslim portions of South and Southeast Asia, or the countries to which many Muslims have migrated, Islamic law works is readily misunderstood if the local cultures in which it is embedded are not taken into account. With Islam and the Rule of Justice, Lawrence Rosen analyzes a number of these misperceptions. Drawing on specific cases, he explores the application of Islamic law to the treatment of women (who win most of their cases), the relations between Muslims and Jews (which frequently involve close personal and financial ties), and the structure of widespread corruption (which played a key role in prompting the Arab Spring). From these case studie the role of informal mechanisms in the resolution of local disputes. The author also provides a close reading of the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, who was charged in an American court with helping to carry out the 9/11 attacks, using insights into how Islamic justice works to explain the defendant’s actions during the trial. The book closes with an examination of how Islamic cultural concepts may come to bear on the constitutional structure and legal reforms many Muslim countries have been undertaking.
Parents worry about their kids, especially when it comes to their health. Conventional medicine has its place, but health conscious parents often worry about the serious side effects associated with many prescription drugs and other conventional treatments. Treatment Alternatives for Children is an easily accessible reference guide that enables parents to look up any number of childhood ailments—acne, ear infections, ADHD . . . you name it—and get all of the vital comparative information about the most common conventional and alternative treatments. For each side-by-side conventional/alternative comparison, readers get: • A description of the ailment each treats. • The generic and common brand names of each treatment. • Active ingredients. • How each treatment works. • Dosage, where applicable. • Treatment efficacy and timing. • Common mild side effects. • Less common serious side effects. Organized from “A” to “Z,” this book also covers a special “spotlight” on various important natural remedies and methods that can be used for a variety of ailments.
Using data ranging from the courts of North Africa to the treatment of Islam in American courts, these essays demonstrate the appeal of Islamic law in the lives of everyday adherents.
Drawing on the philosophy of speech acts as well as interpretive theory, Rosen shows how, for the people of this Muslim community, reality consists of the network of obligations formed by individuals out of a repertoire of relational possibilities whose defining terms are comprised by a set of essentially negotiable concepts. He thus demonstrates that the bonds of family, tribe, and political alliance take shape only as the bargains struck in and through the malleable terms that describe them take shape that statements about relationship are no more true than a price mentioned in the marketplace until properly validated that the relations between men and women, Arabs and Berbers, Muslims and Jews test the limits of interpersonal negotiation and that the concepts of time, character, and narrative style are consonant with a view of reality as bargained-for network of obligations"--From the publisher's description.
Calculator Mathematics for the Real Estate Professional has two objectives: 1) to show you how to correctly answer the mathematics questions on a real estate licensing examination for salespersons or brokers; 2) to be a time-saving reference for real estate professionals, investors, tenants, accountants, lenders, and attorneys. Even those who are capable of performing complex mathematical computations will welcome the practicality of having the formulas and methods contained in one easy-to-use reference and will benefit from the short-cut, time-saving techniques described, including—how to determine in seconds (without handbooks or tables) the monthly payment on a mortgage loan, the outstanding loan balance at any particular point in time, or the interest portion of mortgage payments for a given year. The first ten chapters explain the various computations one will encounter in licensing examinations and everyday practice. The last three chapters describe how to use a pocket calculator to quickly solve these computations, and provide the method of solving more complex and advanced problems such as: computation of the area of unusually shaped land areas and the various calculations related to ‘balloon" mortgages. Examples are given for an algebraic language calculator and a reverse Polish calculator as well as for a basic four function model. Real estate practitioners who master the time-saving skills explained will increase their productivity, listings, commissions, and professionalism.
Here is the first guide to understanding and computing the true costs and values of mortgages, savings accounts, installment loans, annuities, etc."--Jacket subtitle.
Price/earnings ratios and dividend payout. Yield to maturity and yield to call. Cash-on- cash return and equity build-up. Sound confusing? Stock brokers, bond dealers, and real estate promoters all speak different languages when it comes to extolling the virtues of their investment proposals. This book reduces the jargon to a single magic number or common denominator—a yardstick by which all forms of investment may be directly compared—the Internal Rate of Return or IRR. Now you can invest like a computer whiz— without a computer. Using the simple graphs devised by Larry Rosen from approximately 30,000,000 calculations, you can quickly evaluate any investment proposal in a highly professional and precise manner. Analysis that would take hours, and in some cases days, can be performed accurately in mere seconds of your time. And if you wish to go a step beyond, you can discover the benefits of analysis by marginal IRR, as well as by partitioning the IRR. Whether you use the graphs or recreate the computations from the programming instructions and formulas that are included, this book will take the mystery out of investing and help you make more intelligent investment decisions.
A celebration of Jewish men's voices in prayer—to strengthen, to heal, to comfort, to inspire from the ancient world up to our own day. "An extraordinary gathering of men—diverse in their ages, their lives, their convictions—have convened in this collection to offer contemporary, compelling and personal prayers. The words published here are not the recitation of established liturgies, but the direct address of today's Jewish men to ha-Shomea Tefilla, the Ancient One who has always heard, and who remains eager to receive, the prayers of our hearts." —from the Foreword by Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, DHL This collection of prayers celebrates the variety of ways Jewish men engage in personal dialogue with God—with words of praise, petition, joy, gratitude, wonder and even anger—from the ancient world up to our own day. Drawn from mystical, traditional, biblical, Talmudic, Hasidic and modern sources, these prayers will help you deepen your relationship with God and help guide your journey of self-discovery, healing and spiritual awareness. Together they provide a powerful and creative expression of Jewish men’s inner lives, and the always revealing, sometimes painful, sometimes joyous—and often even practical—practice that prayer can be. Jewish Men Pray will challenge your preconceived ideas about prayer. It will inspire you to explore new ways of prayerful expression, new paths for finding the sacred in the ordinary and new possibilities for understanding the Jewish relationship with the Divine. This is a book to treasure and to share.
One out of five people in the world today lives subject to Islamic law, but stereotypes of rigid doctrine or harsh punishment obscure an understanding of the values and style of reasoning that characterize everyday lslamic adjudication. By considering its larger social and cultural context Islamic law is shown to be a kind of common law system: justice is sought through a careful assessment of persons, more than facts, and justice resides not in equality but in a quest for equivalence.Through ordinary court proceedings the style of reasoning is seen to be embedded in a set of cultural assumptions, thus rendering the study of Islamic legal proceedings a window on Muslim society generally. Using data ranging from the courts of North Africa to the treatment of Islam in American courts, from a reinterpretation of the Prophet's sociological jurisprudence to the analysis of Islamic concepts of responsibility and trust these essays demonstrate the enduring appeal of Islamic law in the lives of everyday adherents.
Discusses the basics behind using money to purchase goods and services, and outlines how to save money, cost-effective shopping techniques, and the fundamentals of investing.
In this first full-scale study of the operations of a modern Islamic court of law in the Arabic-speaking world, the author examines the cultural foundations of judicial discretion. He shows how the analysis of legal systems requires an understanding of the concepts and relationships encountered in everyday life. Using the Islamic courts of Morocco as its substantive base, he demonstrates how the shaping of facts in a court of law, the use of local experts, and the organization of the judicial structure all contribute to the reliance on local concepts and personnel to inform the range of judicial discretion. By drawing comparisons with Anglo-American law, the author demonstrates that in both societies, it is necessary to view law as integral to culture and culture as indispensable to law.
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