How did a small Canadian regional league come to dominate a North American continental sport? Joining the Clubs: The Business of the National Hockey League to 1945 tells the fascinating story of the game off the ice, offering a play-by-play of cooperation and competition among owners, players, arenas, and spectators that produced a major league business enterprise. Ross explores the ways in which the NHL organized itself to maintain long-term stability, deal with its labor force, and adapt its product and structure to the demands of local, regional, and international markets. He argues that sports leagues like the NHL pursued a strategy that responded both to standard commercial incentives and also to consumer demands that the product provide cultural meaning. Leagues successfully used the cartel form—an ostensibly illegal association of businesses that cooperated to monopolize the market for professional hockey—along with a focus on locally branded clubs, to manage competition and attract spectators to the sport. In addition, the NHL had another special challenge: unlike other major leagues, it was a binational league that had to sell and manage its sport in two different countries. Joining the Clubs pays close attention to these national differences, as well as to the context of a historical period characterized by war and peace, by rapid economic growth and dire recession, and by the momentous technological and social changes of the modern age.

“I am a girl, 13 years old, and a proper broncho buster. I can cook and do housework, but I just love to ride.” In letters written to the children’s pages of newspapers, we hear the clear and authentic voices of real children who lived in rural Canada and Newfoundland between 1900 and 1920. Children tell us about their families, their schools, jobs and communities and the suffering caused by the terrible costs of World War I. We read of shared common experiences of isolation, hard work, few amenities, limited educational opportunities, restricted social life and heavy responsibilities, but also of satisfaction over skills mastered and work performed. Though often hard, children’s lives reflected a hopeful and expanding future, and their letters recount their skills and determination as well as family lore and community histories. Children both make and participate in history, but until recently their role has been largely ignored. In “I Want to Join Your Club,” Lewis provides direct evidence that children’s lives, like adults’, have both continuity and change and form part of the warp and woof of the social fabric.

In the style of Nudge or The Spirit Level - a groundbreaking book that will change the way you look at the world. Tina Rosenberg has spent her career tackling some of the world's hardest problems. The Haunted Land, her searing book on how Eastern Europe faced the crimes of Communism, was awarded both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in the US. In Join the Club, she identifies a brewing social revolution that is changing the way people live, based on harnessing the positive force of peer pressure. Her stories of peer power in action show how it has reduced teen smoking in the United States, made villages in India healthier and more prosperous, helped minority students get top grades in college calculus, and even led to the fall of Slobodan Milosevic. She tells how creative social entrepreneurs are starting to use peer pressure to accomplish goals as personal as losing weight and as global as fighting terrorism. Inspiring and engrossing, Join the Club explains how we can better our world through humanity's most powerful and abundant resource: our connections with one another.

"The current debate revolving around Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs highlights the need to foster a more complete understanding of the multidimensionality of states' decision-making process on whether to acquire and retain nuclear weapons. Case studies from the greater Middle East region offer the opportunity to examine the factors such states take into consideration when determining which path to follow. Such factors include threat perceptions, the interpretation of lessons learned from the experience of other countries, the calculus of perceived costs and benefits for national security, the envisioned modes of employment of nuclear weapons (political and military), and the legal/ethical considerations -- all from the perspective of regional actors. Furthermore, a country's specific political decisionmaking process and its institutions are also key factors in understanding how actual and potential regional nuclear powers make decisions on the nuclear issue. As such, an understanding of the motivations and of the perceived utility of nuclear weapons from the perspective of recent and potential nuclear powers can help senior leaders craft more effective U.S. and multilateral nonproliferation, counterproliferation, and deterrence strategies. The two papers included in this monograph offer insights into the differing paths taken by two countries in the greater Middle East region -- Libya and Pakistan -- with the former relinquishing its nuclear program and the latter acquiring a military nuclear capability."--Page [4] pf cover.

Read Virginia Ironside's posts on the Penguin Blog. A screamingly funny and poignant story about embracing life beyond middle age Marie Sharp is heading toward sixty and is just fine with it. She’s already had plenty of excitement in her life: sex and drugs in the freewheeling sixties, career and children, marriage and divorce. Now she’s ready to settle into a quiet, blissfully boring routine. No Italian classes or gym memberships or bicycle trips across Europe, thank you very much! Marie just wants to put her feet up and “start doing old things.” She’s even sworn off men! But as it turns out, life still has some surprises in store, the biggest of which is a new grandson on the way. What’s more, Archie, her old childhood crush, suddenly reenters her life, and her closest friend falls seriously ill. Armed with a biting sense of humor, Marie wrestles with a life that refuses to follow her plans—and may still offer more possibilities than she realizes.

This humorous and heartfelt middle-grade debut by Nina Moreno with illustrations by Courtney Lovett is perfect for fans of Celia C. Perez and Terri Libenson, and any reader still deciding what their passion in life is. "MAYBE I'M GOOD AT SOMETHING I DON'T EVEN KNOW ABOUT YET." Everyone in Maggie Diaz's life seems to be finding their true passion. The one thing that defines them as a person. Her best friends Zoey and Julian are too busy to hang out after school thanks to band and comics club. Mom is finishing her last semester in college. And Maggie’s perfect older sister Caro is perfectly-perfect at sports and tutoring. So Maggie cooks up a plan to join every club she can! But trying to fit in with type-A future leaders, gardening whizzes, and the fearless kids in woodshop is intimidating, exhausting, and seriously confusing. And juggling homework, friends, and all of her after-school activities is way harder than it looks. Seventh grade is all about figuring out who you are -- good thing Maggie Diaz has the perfect plan!

Real-life situations and relatable narratives guide math students through the fundamentals of algebra, which is an essential part of second-grade math. Readers will learn the skills needed to fluently add and subtract, while also building a foundation for the more complex skills that will be needed at higher levels of education. Engaging visuals complement high-interest topics, while visually appealing designs help to make the math concrete. In this book, readers will join Cole as he explores clubs at his school and determines whether group numbers are odd or even. This volume meets CCSS Math Standard 2.OA.C.3.