ìNo person, no country in the world, irrespective of its stage of development, is fully self-sufficient. Cooperation brings together peoples and nations and facilitates peaceful co-existence.î So begins Rural Cooperation In The Cooperative Movement In Tanzania, what will undoubtedly be seen as a seminal work in the field. The author has lectured a course on Rural Cooperation in Tanzania at the University of Dar es Salaam for seven consecutive years, but lack of appropriate books with adequate coverage of the course content obliged him to conduct extensive research on cooperation and cooperatives. The resulting book covers the entire field and addresses the subject by providing a foundation on which wider study can be based. It is intended to make its readers aware of the strategies and challenges of cooperation and has a wider relevance, as it will be useful to policy makers in the cooperative sector, which is a significant part of the private sector in Tanzania, and indeed in most African countries. By June 2008, there were 2614 agricultural marketing cooperative societies, 4780 savings and credits cooperative societies, 71 livestock cooperative societies, 129 fishing cooperative societies, 11 housing cooperative societies, 3 mining cooperative societies, 185 industrial cooperative societies, 98 water irrigation cooperative societies, 4 transport cooperative societies, 103 consumer cooperative societies, and 553 service and other cooperative societies; perfectly illustrative of the movementís scope and the need to pay it careful attention. The topics included make it appropriate for use in Sociology, Rural Development, Marketing, Development Studies and studies in other specialties in the Social Sciences. From an exploration of the cooperative movementís various international iterations to a perspicacious survey of the history of cooperatives in Tanzania, Dr. Lyimo highlights the issues facing farmers and business people and illustrates the way in which cooperative effort- enterprises that put people, and not capital, at the center of their business- can not only improve membersí economic power in bargaining for better marketing conditions and prices, but also to increase employment opportunities, thereby improving the standard of living for a large number of people. In these times of penury and economic disenfranchisement, this book not only fills the information gap, but provides, in the ultimate chapters, ìProcedures for Organizing a Cooperative Societyî, and ìManaging Rural Cooperative Societiesî, the basic principles and advice for those considering the cooperative model as the best means of improving their economic viability.

Every state in the nation has geographic divisions that loom large as barriers to common cause. In Oregon, the so-called “rural-urban divide” has shaped its history. Toward One Oregon examines the prospects for uniting our geographically diverse state in the years ahead.

When Oregon became a state in 1859, its role in the nation and the global economy was quite different than it is today. Current times demand a new, strategic understanding of the state and its role in the nation and the world if its people—all of its people—are to thrive.

Toward One Oregon examines Oregon’s urban and rural history through political, economic, and demographic lenses. The contributors—historians, urban planners, economists, geographers, and political scientists—explore the two Oregons. Using the best of urban and rural policies in strategic and complementary ways, they offer a collaborative path forward—for Oregon and for any state faced with seemingly insurmountable geographic divisions.

This groundbreaking collection examines the regional dynamics of state societies, looking at how people use the concepts of urban and rural, traditional and modern, and industrial and agricultural to define their existence and the experience of living in contemporary Japanese society. The book focuses on the Toµhoku (Northeast) region, which many Japanese consider rural, agrarian, undeveloped economically, and the epitome of the traditional way of life. While this stereotype overstates the case—the region is home to one of Japan’s largest cities—most Japanese contrast Toµhoku (everything traditional) with Tokyo (everything modern). However, the contributors show how various regional phenomena—internationalization, lacquerware production, farming, enka (modern Japanese ballads), women’s roles, and professional dance—combine the traditional, the modern, and the global. Wearing Cultural Styles in Japan demonstrates that while people use the dichotomies of urban/rural and traditional/modern in order to define their experiences, these categories are no longer useful in analyzing contemporary Japan.

Since the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 was enacted, policy makers, agency administrators, community activists, and academics from a broad range of disciplines have debated and researched the implications of welfare reform in the United States. Most of the attention, however, has focused on urban rather than rural America. Welfare Reform in Persistent Rural Poverty examines welfare participants who live in chronically poor rural areas of the United States where there are few job opportunities and poor systems of education, transportation, and child care.Kathleen Pickering and her colleagues look at welfare reform as it has been experienced in four rural and impoverished regions of the United States: American Indian reservations in South Dakota, the Rio Grande region, Appalachian Kentucky, and the Mississippi Delta. Throughout these areas the rhetoric of reform created expectations of new opportunities to find decent work and receive education and training. In fact, these expectations have largely gone unfulfilled as welfare reform has failed to penetrate poor areas where low-income families remain isolated from the economic and social mainstream of American society. Welfare Reform in Persistent Rural Poverty sheds welcome light on the opportunities and challenges that welfare reform has imposed on low-income families situated in disadvantaged areas. Combining both qualitative and quantitative research, it will be an excellent guide for scholars and practitioners alike seeking to address the problem of poverty in rural America.