Recent berkeleylibrary_oabooks items

Engineering Mechanics of Deformable Solids: A Presentation with Exercises

Wed, 1 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This book covers the essential elements of engineering mechanics for mechanical elements in tension-compression, torsion, and bending. Its approach emphasizes a fundamental bottom-up approach to the subject for a concise and uncluttered presentation. Each problem class is firmly rooted in its underlying kinematic assumption, and the concepts of equilibrium and material response are carefully separated. The technical theory is connected to the three-dimensional theory with a careful emphasis on kinematic assumptions and the selected use of material models for plastic response, as well as composite or inhomogeneous material distributions. Buckling phenomena and the principles of stationary potential energy and stationary complementary potential energy are covered in detail for both exact as well as approximate solutions. The principles of virtual work – virtual displacements and virtual forces – are treated, and their relation to potential energy methods as well as the basic...

Rebellious Nuns: The Troubled History of a Mexican Convent, 1752-1863

Wed, 1 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This book uses documents that allow an intimate look at two crises that wracked and ultimately destroyed the convent of La Purísima Concepción in San Miguel el Grande, New Spain (Mexico). At the heart of each rebellion was an attempt by some nuns to impose a regimen of strict observance of their vows on the others, and the resistance mounted by those who had a different view of the convent and their own role in it. Would the community adopt as austere a lifestyle as they could endure, doing manual labor, suffering hunger and physical discomfort, deprived of the society of family and friends? Or would these women be allowed to lead comfortable and private lives when not at prayer? Drawing on an abundance of sources, including numerous letters written by the bishop and local vicar as well as nuns of both factions, this book gives us not just the voices but the personalities of the nuns and other actors.

This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks...

Faces of Poverty: Portraits of Women and Children on Welfare

Wed, 1 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Most Americans are insulated from the poor; it is hard to imagine the challenges of poverty, the daily fears of crime and victimization, the frustration of not being able to provide for a child. Instead, we are often exposed to the rhetoric and hyperbole about the excesses of the American welfare system. These messages color our perception of the welfare problem in the United States and they close the American mind to a full understanding of the complexity of family poverty. But who are these poor families? What do we know about how they arrived in such desperate straits? Is poverty their fate for a lifetime or for only a brief period? Faces of Poverty answers these questions as it dispels the misconceptions and myths about welfare and the welfare population that have clouded the true picture of poverty in America. Over the course of a year, the author spent numerous hours as a participant-observer with five women and their families, documenting their daily activities, thoughts,...

Euroclash: The EU, European Identity, and the Future of Europe

Wed, 1 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The European Union's (EU) market integration project has dramatically altered economic activity around Europe. This book presents evidence on how trade has increased, jobs have been created, and European business has been reorganized. The changes in the economy have been accompanied by dramatic changes in how people from different societies interact. This book argues that these changes have produced a truly transnational European society. The book explores the nature of that society and its relationship to the creation of a European identity, popular culture, and politics. Much of the current political conflict around Europe can be attributed to who is and who is not involved in European society. Business owners, managers, professionals, white-collar workers, the educated, and the young have all benefited from European economic integration, specifically by interacting more and more with their counterparts in other societies. They tend to think of themselves as Europeans. Older,...