Offering a comprehensive account of the role played by trade unions in Asia, this book focuses on the strategies they have adopted to represent workers, and discusses the issues surrounding wages and working conditions, health and safety, women‘s employment opportunities and human resource development.

The 1980s is remembered as a time of big hair, synthetic music, and microwave cookery. It is also remembered as the heyday of conservative politics, socioeconomic inequality, and moral panics. It is dichotomously remembered as either a nostalgic age of innocence or a regressive moral wasteland, depending on who you ask, and when. But, most of all, it is remembered. In retro fashion trends, in '80s-based film and television narratives, and through countless rebooted movies, video games, superheroes, and even political slogans imploring us to Make America Great Again (Again). More than merely a historical period, "the '80s" has grown into a contested myth, ever-evolving through the critical and expressive lens of popular culture. This book explores the many shapes the '80s mythos has taken across a diverse array of media. Essays examine television series such as Stranger Things, Cobra Kai, and POSE, films such as Dallas Buyers Club, Summer of '84, and Chocolate Babies, as well as video games, pop music, and toys. Collectively, these essays explore how representations of the 1980s influence the way we think about our past, our present, and our future.

This book looks beyond the common label of 'Ronald Reagan's America' to chart the complex intersection of cultures in the 1980s. In doing so it provides an insightful account of the major cultural forms of 1980s America - literature and drama; film and television; music and performance; art and photography - and influential texts and trends of the decade: from White Noise to Wall Street, from Silicon Valley to MTV, and from Madonna to Cindy Sherman. A focused chapter considers the changing dynamics of American culture in an increasingly globalised marketplace.

In the 1980s the world spent an enormous amount on preparations for war. Year by year, more and more resources went into the military sector. More and more complex weapon systems were devised. At the time, of all research scientists and engineers in the world, more than one in four was working for the military. Throughout the 40 years since the end of World War II, the technological arms race continued. Then began moving faster. The United States lead the way, followed by the Soviet Union. Between them, they possessed some 50 000 nuclear warheads—more than enough to destroy the world. They planned to increase the number, to make the weapons more accurate, and to base them on new weapon platforms closer to the borders of the other side. Some people preferred not to think about these things. Many, however, were becoming increasingly concerned—wondering about the future for themselves and for their children. Originally published in 1985, this book was for those who wanted to know what was happening. What new missiles were being built? What was happening in outer space? What are the facts about chemical weapons? What progress was being made (if any) in Geneva, Vienna and Stockholm, where the powers were negotiating on these matters?

Housing provides shelter, in a variety of forms, but it is also resonant with meaning on many other levels--as a financial asset, a status symbol, an expression of private aspirations and identities, a means of inclusion or exclusion, and finally as a battleground for social change. John Adams' impressive new study explores this complex topic in all its dimensions. Using census data and other housing surveys, Adams describes the recent history of housing in America; the nature of housing supply and demand; patterns of housing use; and selected housing policy questions. Adams supplements this national and regional analysis with a remarkable set of small-area analyses, revealing how neighborhood settings affect housing use and how market forces and other trends interact to shape a neighborhood. These analyses focus on a sample of over fifty urbanized areas, including the nation's three largest cities (New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago). Special two-color maps illustrate the dynamics of housing use in each of these communities. Clearly and insightfully, this volume paints a unique picture of the American "housing landscape," a landscape that reflects and regulates significant aspects of our national life. A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation Census Series

This open access book discusses the emergence and development, and in some cases also the disappearance, of social movements and activism in Sweden during the 1980s. Its aim is to nuance and problematize the image of the 1980s as unilaterally dominated by right-wing politics and neoliberalism, as well as the idea of a conflict-free Scandinavian model. The 1980s have often been described as a period when the influence of radical-left movements during the 1970s diminished. Instead, this book argues that the 1980s was a decade in which new radical social movements emerged in opposition to the prevalent political order, including the nuclear disarmament movement, the women's movement, anti-fascist movements, and the punk and environmental movements. The authors also demonstrate how issues such as squatting, nuclear resistance, rent strikes and the environment, included a variety of contentious collective action. Sweden, therefore, presents an interesting example of how resistance and conflict in a strong welfare state have been influenced by contentious social movements. Placing Sweden within the wider context of Scandinavia and Europe, this edited collection makes an important contribution to the history of social movements.

This is the first systematic study of the succession process of Chinese family businesses which reveals what is truly happening during the time of hand-over. In explaining the features of the Chinese way of succession, special attention is paid to the transfer of social capital and guanxi, among other cultural and socioeconomic contexts, which could impact the behaviours and decisions of the family business stakeholders. Carefully selected 63 cases of family firms and the authentic words and experiences of the founders and their second generation are of high relevance in helping the readers to understand Chinese family businesses and their successions as well as to learn from their successes or failures.

The Decades of Modern American Playwriting series provides a comprehensive survey and study of the theatre produced in each decade from the 1930s to 2009 in eight volumes. Each volume equips readers with a detailed understanding of the context from which work emerged: an introduction considers life in the decade with a focus on domestic life and conditions, social changes, culture, media, technology, industry and political events; while a chapter on the theatre of the decade offers a wide-ranging and thorough survey of theatres, companies, dramatists, new movements and developments in response to the economic and political conditions of the day. The work of the four most prominent playwrights from the decade receives in-depth analysis and re-evaluation by a team of experts, together with commentary on their subsequent work and legacy. A final section brings together original documents such as interviews with the playwrights and with directors, drafts of play scenes, and other previously unpublished material. The major playwrights and their plays to receive in-depth coverage in this volume include: David Mamet: Edmond (1982), Glengarry Glen Ross (1984), Speed-the-Plow (1988) and Oleanna (1992); David Henry Hwang: Family Devotions (1981), The Sound of a Voice (1983) and M. Butterfly (1988); Maria Irene Fornès: The Danube (1982), Mud (1983) and The Conduct of Life (1985); August Wilson: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1984), Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1984) and Fences (1987).