Croatian Radical Separatism and Diaspora Terrorism During the Cold War (Central European Studies) by Mate Nikola Tokić (3 Reviews)    Price verified 4 hours ago

Croatian Radical Separatism and Diaspora Terrorism During the Cold War examines one of the most active but least remembered groups of terrorists of the Cold War: radical anti-Yugoslav Croatian separatists. Operating in countries as widely dispersed as Sweden, Australia, Argentina, West Germany, and the United States, Croatian extremists were responsible for scores of bombings, numerous attempted and successful assassinations, two guerilla incursions into socialist Yugoslavia, and two airplane hijackings during the height of the Cold War. In Australia alone, Croatian separatists carried out no less than sixty-five significant acts of violence in one ten-year period. Diaspora Croats developed one of the most far-reaching terrorist networks of the Cold War and, in total, committed on average one act of terror every five weeks worldwide between 1962 and 1980. Toki? focuses on the social and political factors that radicalized certain segments of the Croatian diaspora population during the Cold War and the conditions that led them to embrace terrorism as an acceptable form of political expression. At its core, this book is concerned with the discourses and practices of radicalization -- the ways in which both individuals and groups who engage in terrorism construct a particular image of the world to justify their actions. Drawing on exhaustive evidence from seventeen archives in ten countries on three continents -- including diplomatic communiqués, political pamphlets and manifestos, manuals on bomb-making, transcripts of police interrogations of terror suspects, and personal letters among terrorists -- Toki? tells the comprehensive story of one of the Cold War's most compelling global political movements.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Revisiting Migrant Networks: Migrants and their Descendants in Labour Markets (IMISCOE Research Series) by Elif Keskiner (Springer) Price verified 6 hours ago

This open access book provides new conceptualisations on the networks of migrants and their descendants in accessing the labour market. Although references to social networks are common in discussions of migration, simplified ideas of co-ethnic networks often obscure the reality, for example confounding ties with co-ethnics and 'strong ties'. This open access book addresses key questions about the role of networks in migration contexts, particularly in relation to how migrants and their descendants, access the labour market and develop their employment trajectories over time. Rather than adopting a narrow essentializing ethnic lens, the research presented in this book explores intersectional identities of class, generation and gender. By focusing on the kinds of capital circulating between ties, including the dark side of social capital, the book offers insights into power dynamics and the potentially exclusionary dimension of networks. Taking a long term view, across generations, the research in this book shows how migrants and their descendants mobilize resources to tackle discrimination and enhance their position within particular labour markets. Drawing on robust quantitative and rich qualitative data, this book provides a primary source to students, scholars and policy-makers focusing on issues of migration, social networks, social mobility as well as labour market inequalities.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Problems in American Democracy by Thames Williamson (2 Reviews)    Price verified 5 hours ago

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Who Is A Jew?: Reflections on History, Religion, and Culture (Studies in Jewish Civilization Book 25) by Leonard J. Greenspoon (Purdue University Press) (1 Review)    Price verified 12 hours ago

Jewish identity is a perennial concern, as Jews seek to define the major features and status of those who "belong," while at the same time draw distinctions between individuals and groups on the "inside" and those on the "outside." From a variety of perspectives, scholarly as well as confessional, there is intense interest among non-Jewish and Jewish commentators alike in the basic question, "Who is a Jew?" This collection of articles draws diverse historical, cultural, and religious insights from scholars who represent a wide range of academic and theological disciplines. Some of the authors directly address the issue of Jewish identity as it is being played out today in Israel and Diaspora communities. Others look to earlier time periods or societies as invaluable resources for enhanced and deepened analysis of contemporary matters. All authors in this collection make a concerted effort to present their evidence and their conclusions in a way that is accessible to the general public and valid for other scholars. The result is a richly textured approach to a topic that seems always relevant. If, as is the case, no single answer appeals to all of the authors, this is as it should be. We all gain from the application of a number of approaches and perspectives, which enrich our appreciation of the people whose lives are affected, for better or worse, by real-life discussions of this issue and the resultant actions toward exclusivity or inclusivity.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

President Trump’s First Term: The Year in C-SPAN Archives Research, Volume 5 by Robert X. Browning (Purdue University Press) Price verified 7 hours ago

C-SPAN is the network of record for US political affairs, broadcasting live gavel-to-gavel proceedings of the House of Representatives and the Senate, and to other forums where public policy is discussed, debated, and decided--without editing, commentary, or analysis and with a balanced presentation of points of view. The C-SPAN Archives, located adjacent to Purdue University, is the home of the online C-SPAN Video Library. The Archives has recorded all of C-SPAN's television content since 1987. Extensive indexing, captioning, and other enhanced online features provide researchers, policy analysts, students, teachers, and public officials with an unparalleled chronological and internally cross-referenced record for deeper study. Books in this series present the finest interdisciplinary research utilizing tools of the C-SPAN Video Library. Each volume highlights recent scholarship and comprises leading experts and emerging voices in political science, journalism, psychology, computer science, communication, and a variety of other disciplines. Each section within each volume includes responses from expert discussants. Developed in partnership with the Center for C-SPAN Scholarship & Engagement in the Purdue University Brian Lamb School of Communication with support from the C-SPAN Education Foundation, this volume is guided by the ideal that research based on C-SPAN video can increase our understanding of American politics and democracy based on the ideals of our American experiment. The fifth volume of the C-SPAN Archives research focuses primarily on the Trump presidency in the first term. Chapters address his moral language, his rhetoric on climate change, and African American support for Trump. Other chapters use the C-SPAN Archives to study congressional influence on immigration policy, nonverbal cues in congressional speeches, and local and national perspectives on congressional debates.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Exploring the C-SPAN Archives: Advancing the Research Agenda (The Year in C-SPAN Archives Research) by Robert X. Browning Price verified 7 hours ago

Exploring the C-SPAN Archives is a collection of path-breaking research studies that use video drawn from the C-SPAN Archives. The book, based on the papers presented at a November 2014 conference, includes chapters that explore issues in presidential debates, minority representation, the presentation of the first ladies, stem research, and innovative ways to analyze video. The book is divided into five parts: Part 1 consists of an overview of and common scholarship using the C-SPAN Archives and how this research advances the conversation after previously published studies. Featured are the ways in which the collection is indexed and tips on how individuals can find particular materials. This section is essential for increased scholarship and pragmatic applications. Part 2 contains applied research using the video collection. Topics in this section include a look at oral histories of minority members of Congress, an analysis of presidential debates, and the presentation style of Michelle Obama. Part 3 is focused on STEM research, including concepts and contradictions in the debate over STEM initiatives, expertise and evidence in science presentations in the C-SPAN Archives, and the framing of technology issues in a C-SPAN television series, The Communicators. Part 4 presents innovative research using C-SPAN and new computer technology. Two scholars take different technical approaches to evaluate polarization and communication using audio levels and video images. Finally, in Part 5, David Caputo presents ideas on the value of massive open online courses (MOOCs) using C-SPAN and reflects on the use of C-SPAN for citizen education in what he terms the "postdigital world." Additionally, Patrice Buzzanell contributes a reflective essay on the future directions of research using the C-SPAN Archives based on the essays in this volume.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Ancient Households on the North Coast of Peru by Ilana Johnson (University Press of Colorado) Price verified 3 hours ago

Ancient Households on the North Coast of Peru provides insight into the organization of complex, urban, and state-level society in the region from a household perspective, using observations from diverse North Coast households to generate new understandings of broader social processes in and beyond Andean prehistory. Many volumes on this region are limited to one time period or civilization, often the Moche. While Ancient Households on the North Coast of Peru does examine the Moche, it offers a wider thematic approach to a broader swath of prehistory. Chapters on various time periods use a comparable scale of analysis to examine long-term continuity and change and draw on a large corpus of prior research on states, rulership, and cosmology to offer new insight into the intersection of household, community, and state. Contributors address social reproduction, construction and reinforcement of gender identities and social hierarchy, household permanence and resilience, and expression of identity through cuisine. This volume challenges common concepts of the "household" in archaeology by demonstrating the complexity and heterogeneity of household-level dynamics as they intersect with institutions at broader social scales and takes a comparative perspective on daily life within one region of the Andes. It will be of interest to both students and scholars of South American archaeology and household archaeology. Contributors: Brian R. Billman, David Chicoine, Guy S. Duke, Hugo Ikehara, Giles Spence-Morrow, Jessica Ortiz, Edward Swenson, Kari A. Zobler

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Being Human during COVID by Kristin Ann Hass (University of Michigan Press) Price verified 7 hours ago

Science has taken center stage during the COVID-19 crisis; scientists named and diagnosed the virus, traced its spread, and worked together to create a vaccine in record time. But while science made the headlines, the arts and humanities were critical in people's daily lives. As the world went into lockdown, literature, music, and media became crucial means of connection, and historians reminded us of the resonance of the past as many of us heard for the first time about the 1918 influenza pandemic. As the twindemics of COVID-19 and racial injustice tore through the United States, a contested presidential race unfolded, which one candidate described as "a battle for the soul of the nation." Being Human during COVID documents the first year of the pandemic in real time, bringing together humanities scholars from the University of Michigan to address what it feels like to be human during the COVID-19 crisis. Over the course of the pandemic, the questions that occupy the humanities -- about grieving and publics, the social contract and individual rights, racial formation and xenophobia, ideas of home and conceptions of gender, narrative and representations and power -- have become shared life-or-death questions about how human societies work and how culture determines our collective fate. The contributors in this collection draw on scholarly expertise and lived experience to try to make sense of the unfamiliar present in works that range from traditional scholarly essays, to personal essays, to visual art projects. The resulting book is shot through with fear, dread, frustration, and prejudice, and, on a few occasions, with a thrilling sense of hope.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Participatory Research on Child Maltreatment with Children and Adult Survivors: Concepts, Ethics, and Methods (Emerald Studies in Child Centred ... by Maria Roth (1 Review)    Price verified 5 hours ago

The ebook edition of this title is Open Access and freely available to read online. Childhood should be free of violence, and victims of childhood maltreatment should be entitled to participate as expert informants in research about these experiences. Placing children and adult survivors at the heart of research efforts on child maltreatment is critical to effective response and prevention measures in fighting this form of violence. Embedded in the European context, Participatory Research on Child Maltreatment with Children and Adult Survivors presents a mosaic of contexts, theories, and methods relating to children's and adult survivors' participation in research about their adverse experiences. Contributors demonstrate how research can mobilize children and adult survivors to become agents in constructing and disseminating reliable, evidence-based knowledge about child maltreatment. Enriching ongoing debates about ethical concerns and challenges of participatory research in the field of child maltreatment, this contribution to Emerald Studies in Child Centred Practice highlights the advantages that participation as a human right and as a valued endeavour of scientific knowledge accumulation can bring to communities of researchers and helping professionals. The authors of this book are members of a designated working group of the pan-European network on Multisectoral Responses to Child Abuse and Neglect in Europe (Euro-CAN), supported by the European Cooperation on Science Technology (COST Action 19106), that promote children's and child abuse survivors' participation in research on violence.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Elson Grammar School Literature v4 by William H. Elson (1 Review)    Price verified 12 hours ago

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

New Global Cities in Latin America and Asia: Welcome to the Twenty-First Century by Pablo Baisotti (University of Michigan Press) (1 Review)    Price verified 9 hours ago

New Global Cities in Latin America and Asia: Welcome to the Twenty-First Century proposes new visions of global cities and regions historically considered "secondary" in the international context. The arguments are not only based on material progress made by these metropolises, but also on the growing social difficulties experienced (e.g., organized crime, drug trafficking, slums, economic inequalities). The book illustrates the growth of cities according to these problems arising from the modernity of the new century, comparing Latin American and Asian cities. This book analyzes the complex relationships within cities through an interdisciplinary approach, complementing other research and challenging orthodox views on global cities. At the same time, the book provides new theoretical and methodological tools to understand the progress of "Third World" cities and the way of understanding "globality" in the 21st century by confronting the traditional views with which global cities were appreciated since the 1980s. Pablo Baisotti brings together researchers from various fields who provide new interpretative keys to certain cities in Latin America and Asia.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Empowering Female Climate Change Activists in the Global South: The Path Toward Environmental Social Justice (Diverse Perspectives on Creating a ... by Peggy Ann Spitzer (Emerald Publishing Limited) (1 Review)    Price verified 7 hours ago

The ebook edition of this title is Open Access, thanks to Knowledge Unlatched funding, and freely available to read online. The COP27 climate change conference in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt made it clear that fighting global warming will require continuing commitment, cooperation, and collaborative action from multiple constituencies around the world. Urging readers from the Global North to rethink their approaches and potential contributions to long-term change, Empowering Female Climate Change Activists in the Global South explains how woman climate change leaders are confronting patriarchal structures to achieve social justice. Examining the lived experiences of woman climate change activists based in rural areas, Peg Spitzer presents eighty-five original interviews that feature women whose careers in business, education, politics, and the arts have championed women's rights in Asia, environmental defenders who have established projects in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and woman farmers in three Indian villages who have faced climate-related droughts and floods. Suggesting ways in which successful climate change amelioration and adaptation led by women in the Global South may be replicated elsewhere, Spitzer also considers how NGOs and other organizations from the Global North can best contribute to facilitating positive changes in the communities where they work by focusing on empathetic cooperation. Addressing the urgent need to develop gender-just solutions that uplift and empower those who are experiencing environmental degradation in their communities, Empowering Female Climate Change Activists in the Global South uncovers the flaws in current combative structures and strategies and re-examines scholarly research at the nexus of feminism, transnational advocacy, and hierarchies of need.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Internationalizing "International Communication" (The New Media World) by Chin-Chuan Lee (University of Michigan Press) (1 Review)    Price verified 6 hours ago

International communication as a field of inquiry is, in fact, not very "internationalized." Rather, it has been taken as a conceptual extension or empirical application of U.S. communication, and much of the world outside the West has been socialized to adopt truncated versions of Pax Americana's notion of international communication. At stake is the "subject position" of academic and cultural inquirers: Who gets to ask what kind of questions? It is important to note that the quest to establish universally valid "laws" of human society with little regard for cultural values and variations seems to be running out of steam. Many lines of intellectual development are reckoning with the important dimensions of empathetic understanding and subjective consciousness. In Internationalizing "International Communication," Lee and others argue that we must reject both America-writ-large views of the world and self-defeating mirror images that reject anything American or Western on the grounds of cultural incompatibility or even cultural superiority. The point of departure for internationalizing "international communication" must be precisely the opposite of parochialism - namely, a spirit of cosmopolitanism. Scholars worldwide have a moral responsibility to foster global visions and mutual understanding, which forms, metaphorically, symphonic harmony made of cacophonic sounds.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Foundations of a Sociology of Canon Law by Judith Hahn (Springer) (1 Review)    Price verified 5 hours ago

This "Open Access" book investigates the legal reality of the church through a sociological lens and from the perspective of canon law studies, the discipline which researches the law and the legal structure of the Catholic Church. It introduces readers from various backgrounds to the sociology of canon law, which is both a legal and a theological field of study, and is the first step towards introducing a new subdiscipline of the sociology of canon law. As a theoretical approach to mapping out this field, it asks what theology and canon law may learn from sociology; it discusses the understanding of "law" in religious contexts; studies the preconditions of legal validity and effectiveness; and based on these findings it asks in what sense it is possible to speak of canon "law". By studying a religious order as its struggles to find a balance between continuity and change, this book also contributes to the debates on religious law in modernity and the challenges it faces from secular states and plural societies. This book is of interest to researchers and students of the sociology of law, legal studies, law and religion, the sociology of religion, theology, and religious studies. This is an open access book.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Covid Conspiracy Theories in Global Perspective by Michael Butter (Routledge) (1 Review)    Price verified 6 hours ago

Covid Conspiracy Theories in Global Perspective examines how conspiracy theories and related forms of misinformation and disinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic have circulated widely around the world. Covid conspiracy theories have attracted considerable attention from researchers, journalists, and politicians, not least because conspiracy beliefs have the potential to negatively affect adherence to public health measures. While most of this focus has been on the United States and Western Europe, this collection provides a unique global perspective on the emergence and development of conspiracy theories through a series of case studies. The chapters have been commissioned by recognized experts on area studies and conspiracy theories. The chapters present case studies on how Covid conspiracism has played out (some focused on a single country, others on regions), using a range of methods from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including history, politics, sociology, anthropology, and psychology. Collectively, the authors reveal that, although there are many narratives that have spread virally, they have been adapted for different uses and take on different meanings in local contexts. This volume makes an important contribution to the rapidly expanding field of academic conspiracy theory studies, as well as being of interest to those working in the media, regulatory agencies, and civil society organizations, who seek to better understand the problem of how and why conspiracy theories spread. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Scriptures, Shrines, Scapegoats, and World Politics: Religious Sources of Conflict and Cooperation in the Modern Era by Zeev Maoz (University of Michigan Press) (1 Review)    Price verified one hour ago

The effect of religious factors on politics has been a key issue since the end of the Cold War and the subsequent rise of religious terrorism. However, the systematic investigations of these topics have focused primarily on the effects of religion on domestic and international conflict. Scriptures, Shrines, Scapegoats, and World Politics offers a comprehensive evaluation of the role of religion in international relations, broadening the scope of investigation to such topics as the relationship between religion and cooperation, religion and conflict, and the relationship between religion and the quality of life. Religion is often manipulated by political elites to advance their principal goal of political survival. Zeev Maoz and Errol A. Henderson find that no specific religion is either consistently more bellicose or consistently more cooperative than other religions. However, religious similarity between states tends to reduce the propensity of conflict and increase the opportunity for security cooperation. The authors find a significant relationship between secularism and human security.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

International Impacts on Social Policy: Short Histories in Global Perspective (Global Dynamics of Social Policy) by Frank Nullmeier (Palgrave Macmillan) (1 Review)    Price verified 8 hours ago

This open access book consists of 39 short essays that exemplify how interactions between inter- and trans-national interdependencies and domestic factors have shaped the dynamics of social policy in various parts of the world at different points in time. Each chapter highlights a specific type of interdependence which has been identified to provide us with a nuanced understanding of specific social policy developments at discrete points in history. The volume is divided into four parts that are concerned with a particular type of cross-border interrelation. The four parts examine the impact on social policy of trade relations and economic crises, violence, international organisations and cross-border communication and migration. This book will be of interest to academics and postgraduate students in the field of social policy, global history and welfare state research from diverse disciplines: sociology, political science, history, law and economics.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Consensus or Conflict?: China and Globalization in the 21st Century by Huiyao Wang (Springer) (1 Review)    Price verified 8 hours ago

This open access book brings together leading international scholars and policy-makers to explore the challenges and dilemmas of globalization and governance in an era increasingly defined by economic crises, widespread populism, retreating internationalism, and a looming cold war between the United States and China. It provides the diversity of views on those widely concerned topics such as global governance, climate change, global health, migration, S&T revolution, financial market, and sustainable development. It is a truly unique book. Never before has such an authoritative group of essayists come together to develop deep new thinking about global governance that is relevant to current shared global challenges. They express deep concerns about the historically unprecedented upheavals in the world. They describe the unparalleled turbulence that mankind is facing in the form of multiple crises, any one of which has the potential to bring civilization to its knees. The most obvious of these is the threat posed by climate change. They spell out why these perils pose a stark choice for the human race. They stress how any path that leads to conflict increases the risk of catastrophe. In this context, the common thread is that a consensus must be reached about the future of our world. They have put forward many ideas and potential new policies, reflecting their vision of what this consensus should be and how it is the only way forward for the human race.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Equality within Our Lifetimes: How Laws and Policies Can Close—or Widen—Gender Gaps in Economies Worldwide by Jody Heymann (University of California Press) (2 Reviews)    Price verified 7 hours ago

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Well into the twenty-first century, achieving gender equality in the economy remains unfinished business. Worldwide, women's employment, income, and leadership opportunities lag men's. Building and using a one-of-a-kind database that covers 193 countries, this book systematically analyzes how far we've come and how far we have to go in adopting evidence-based solutions to close the gaps. Spanning topics including girls' education, employment discrimination of all kinds, sexual harassment, and caregiving needs across the life course, the authors bring the findings to life through global maps, stories of laws' impact in courts and beyond, and case studies of making change. A powerful call to action, Equality within Our Lifetimes reveals how gender equality is both feasible and urgently needed to address some of the greatest challenges of our generation.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Emotions in Korean Philosophy and Religion: Confucian, Comparative, and Contemporary Perspectives (Palgrave Studies in Comparative East-West ... by Edward Y. J. Chung (Palgrave Macmillan) (1 Review)    Price verified 6 hours ago

This pioneering book presents thirteen articles on the fascinating topic of emotions (jeong ?) in Korean philosophy and religion. Its introductory chapter comprehensively provides a textual, philosophical, ethical, and religious background on this topic in terms of emotions West and East, emotions in the Chinese and Buddhist traditions, and Korean perspectives. Chapters 2 to 5 of part I discuss key Korean Confucian thinkers, debates, and ideas. Chapters 6 to 8 of part II offer comparative thoughts from Confucian moral, political, and social angles. Chapters 9 to 12 of part III deal with contemporary Buddhist and eco-feminist perspectives. The concluding chapter discusses ground-breaking insights into the diversity, dynamics, and distinctiveness of Korean emotions. This is an open access book.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Banished Men: How Migrants Endure the Violence of Deportation by Abigail Leslie Andrews (University of California Press) Price verified 7 hours ago

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. What becomes of men the U.S. locks up and kicks out? From 2009 to 2020, the U.S. deported more than five million people -- over 90 percent of them men. In Banished Men, Abigail Andrews and her students tell 186 of their stories. How, they ask, does expulsion shape men's lives and sense of themselves? The book uncovers a harrowing carceral system that weaves together policing, prison, detention, removal, and border militarization to undermine migrants as men. Guards and gangs beat them down, till they feel like cockroaches, pigs, or dogs. Many lose ties with family. They do not go "home." Instead, they end up in limbo: stripped of their very humanity. Against the odds, they fight for new ways to belong. At once devastating and humane, Banished Men offers a clear-eyed critique of the violence of deportation.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Consuming Cities: The Urban Environment in the Global Economy after Rio by Ingemar Elander (Routledge) (3 Reviews)    Price verified 5 hours ago

This book is about cities as engines of consumption of the world's environment, and the spread of policies to reduce their impact. It looks at these issues by examining the impact of the Rio Declaration and assesses the extent to which it has made a difference. Consuming Cities examines this impact using case studies from around the world including: the USA, Japan, Germany, the UK, China, India, Sweden, Poland, Australia and Indonesia The contributors all have direct experience of the urban environment and urban policies in the countries on which they write and offer an authoritative commentary which brings the urban 'consumption' dimension of sustainable development into focus.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Transformations in Twentieth Century Korea (Routledge Advances in Korean Studies) by Yun-shik Chang (Routledge) (17 Reviews)    Price verified 4 hours ago

This edited collection traces the social, economic, political, and cultural dimensions of Korea's dramatic transformation since the late nineteenth century. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the chapters examine the internal and external forces which facilitated the transition towards industrial capitalism in Korea, the consequences and impact of social change, and the ways in which Korean tradition continues to inform and influence contemporary South Korean society. Transformations in Twentieth Century Korea employs a thematic structure to discuss the interrelated elements of Korea's modernization within agriculture, business and the economy, the state, ideology and culture, and gender and the family. The essays in this volume encompass the Choson dynasty, the colonial period, and postcolonial Korea. Collectively, they provide us with an original and innovative approach to the study of modern Korea, and show how knowledge of the country's past is critical to understanding contemporary Korean society. With contributions from a number of prominent international scholars within sociology, economics, history, and political science, Transformations in Twentieth Century Korea incorporates a global framework of historical narrative, ideology and culture, and statistical and economic analysis to further our understanding of Korea's evolution towards modernity.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Parental Life Courses after Separation and Divorce in Europe (Life Course Research and Social Policies Book 12) by Michaela Kreyenfeld (Springer) (2 Reviews)    Price verified 5 hours ago

This open access book assembles landmark studies on divorce and separation in European countries, and how this affects the life of parents and children. It focuses on four major areas of post-separation lives, namely (1) economic conditions, (2) parent-child relationships, (3) parent and child well-being, and (4) health. Through studies from several European countries, the book showcases how legal regulations and social policies influence parental and child well-being after divorce and separation. It also illustrates how social policies are interwoven with the normative fabric of a country. For example, it is shown that father-child contact after separation is more intense in those countries which have adopted policies that encourage shared parenting. Correspondingly, countries that have adopted these regulations are at the forefront of more egalitarian gender role attitudes. Apart from a strong emphasis on the legal and social policy context, the studies in this volume adopt a longitudinal perspective and situate post-separation behaviour and well-being in the life course. The longitudinal perspective opens up new avenues for research to understand how behaviour and conditions prior or at divorce and separation affect later behaviour and well-being. As such this book is of special appeal to scholars of family research as well as to anyone interested in the role of divorce and separation in Europe in the 21st century.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Empire and Environment: Ecological Ruin in the Transpacific by Jeffrey Santa Ana (University of Michigan Press) Price verified 6 hours ago

Empire and Environment argues that histories of imperialism, colonialism, militarism, and global capitalism are integral to understanding environmental violence in the transpacific region. The collection draws its rationale from the imbrication of imperialism and global environmental crisis, but its inspiration from the ecological work of activists, artists, and intellectuals across the transpacific region. Taking a postcolonial, ecocritical approach to confronting ecological ruin in an age of ecological crises and environmental catastrophes on a global scale, the collection demonstrates how Asian North American, Asian diasporic, and Indigenous Pacific Island cultural expressions critique a de-historicized sense of place, attachment, and belonging. In addition to its thirteen chapters from scholars who span the Pacific, each part of this volume begins with a poem by Craig Santos Perez. The volume also features a foreword by Macarena Gómez-Barris and an afterword by Priscilla Wald.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Refugees on the Move: Crisis and Response in Turkey and Europe (Forced Migration Book 45) by Erol Balkan (1 Review)    Price verified 8 hours ago

Refugees on the Move highlights and explores the profound complexities of the current refugee issue by focusing specifically on Syrian refugees in Turkey and other European countries and responses from the host countries involved. It examines the causes of the movement of refugee populations, the difficulties they face during their journeys, the daily challenges and obstacles they experience, and host governments' attempts to manage and overcome the so-called "refugee crisis."

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Socializing Development: Transnational Social Movement Advocacy and the Human Rights Accountability of Multilateral Development Banks (Soziale ... by Leon Valentin Schettler (transcript Verlag) (1 Review)    Price verified 4 hours ago

As Multilateral Development Banks increasingly gained influence in shaping global development, transnational social movements pushed to hold them accountable for their human rights impact towards communities. Leon Valentin Schettler presents a novel causal mechanism of movement advocacy towards MDBs, combining disruptive and conventional tactics. Systematically comparing the evolution of human rights standards and complaint mechanisms over the last three decades, he reveals how the combination of 1) declining US hegemony, 2) counter-mobilization by China and 3) movement cooptation by the World Bank bureaucracy led to a dilution of human rights accountability in the 2010s.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Book of the Disappeared: The Quest for Transnational Justice (Ethnic Conflict: Studies in Nationality, Race, and Culture) by Jennifer Heath (University of Michigan Press) (2 Reviews)    Price verified 9 hours ago

Book of the Disappeared confronts worldwide human rights violations of enforced disappearance and genocide and explores the global quest for justice with forceful, outstanding contributions by respected scholars, expert practitioners, and provocative contemporary artists. This profoundly humane book spotlights our historic inhumanity while offering insights for survival and transformation.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Gender in Focus: Identities, Codes, Stereotypes and Politics by Andreea Zamfira (Verlag Barbara Budrich) (1 Review)    Price verified 12 hours ago

This book deals with the interplay between identities, codes, stereotypes and politics governing the various constructions and deconstructions of gender in several Western and non-Western societies (Germany, Italy, Serbia, Romania, Cameroon, Indonesia, Vietnam, and others). Readers are invited to discover the realm of gender studies and to reflect upon the transformative potentialities of globalisation and interculturality.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Migration and Social Protection in Europe and Beyond (Volume 2): Comparing Consular Services and Diaspora Policies (IMISCOE Research Series) by Jean-Michel Lafleur (Springer) (1 Review)    Price verified 4 hours ago

This second open access book in a series of three volumes examines the repertoire of policies and programmes led by EU Member States to engage with their nationals residing abroad. Focusing on sending states' engagement in the area of social protection, this book shows how a series of emigration-related policies that go beyond the realm of social security address the needs of nationals abroad in the area of health care, unemployment, family benefits, pensions and economic hardship. In addition, this volume highlights the variety of sending states' institutions that are involved in these policies (consulates, diaspora institutions, ministries, agencies... ) and their engagement with citizens abroad in other policy areas such as electoral rights, citizenship, language, culture, education, business or religion. As such this book is a valuable read to researchers, policy makers, government employees and NGO's.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

South-North Migration of EU Citizens in Times of Crisis (IMISCOE Research Series) by Jean-Michel Lafleur (Springer) (3 Reviews)    Price verified 3 hours ago

This open access book looks at the migration of Southern European EU citizens (from Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece) who move to Northern European Member States (Belgium, France, Germany, United Kingdom) in response to the global economic crisis. Its objective is twofold. First, it identifies the scale and nature of this new Southern European emigration and examines these migrants' socio-economic integration in Northern European destination countries. This is achieved through an analysis of the most recent data on flows and profiles of this new labour force using sending-country and receiving-country databases. Second, it looks at the politics and policies of immigration, both from the perspective of the sending- and receiving-countries. Analysing the policies and debates about these new flows in the home and host countries' this book shows how contentious the issue of intra-EU mobility has recently become in the context of the crisis when the right for EU citizens to move within the EU had previously not been questioned for decades. Overall, the strength of this edited volume is that it compiles in a systematic way quantitative and qualitative analysis of these renewed Southern European migration flows and draws the lessons from this changing climate on EU migration.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Monitoring State Compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: An Analysis of Attributes (Children’s Well-Being: Indicators and ... by Ziba Vaghri (Springer) (1 Review)    Price verified 13 hours ago

This open access book presents a discussion on human rights-based attributes for each article pertinent to the substantive rights of children, as defined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). It provides the reader with a unique and clear overview of the scope and core content of the articles, together with an analysis of the latest jurisprudence of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. For each article of the UNCRC, the authors explore the nature and scope of corresponding State obligations, and identify the main features that need to be taken into consideration when assessing a State's progressive implementation of the UNCRC. This analysis considers which aspects of a given right are most important to track, in order to monitor States' implementation of any given right, and whether there is any resultant change in the lives of children. This approach transforms the narrative of legal international standards concerning a given right into a set of characteristics that ensure no aspect of said right is overlooked. The book develops a clear and comprehensive understanding of the UNCRC that can be used as an introduction to the rights and principles it contains, and to identify directions for future policy and strategy development in compliance with the UNCRC. As such, it offers an invaluable reference guide for researchers and students in the field of childhood and children's rights studies, as well as a wide range of professionals and organisations concerned with the subject.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Wittgenstein's Novels by Martin Klebes (Routledge) (20 Reviews)    Price verified 8 hours ago

Analyzing features of Wittgenstein's philosophical work and including in-depth textual analyses, this study investigates the impact of Ludwig Wittgenstein's work on contemporary German and French novelists. Drawing upon aesthetics, architectural history, philosophy of science, and photography, the book seeks to explain why references both to Wittgenstein as a person, as well as to his work are more pervasive than other equally renowned twentieth century philosophers and asks why some authors such as Händler and Roubaud, are less well-known and only partially translated into English.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Owning the Olympics: Narratives of the New China (The New Media World) by Monroe Price (University of Michigan Press) (4 Reviews)    Price verified 9 hours ago

"A major contribution to the study of global events in times of global media. Owning the Olympics tests the possibilities and limits of the concept of 'media events' by analyzing the mega-event of the information age: the Beijing Olympics... A good read from cover to cover." -- Guobin Yang, Associate Professor, Asian/Middle Eastern Cultures & Sociology, Barnard College, Columbia University From the moment they were announced, the Beijing Games were a major media event and the focus of intense scrutiny and speculation. In contrast to earlier such events, however, the Beijing Games are also unfolding in a newly volatile global media environment that is no longer monopolized by broadcast media. The dramatic expansion of media outlets and the growth of mobile communications technology have changed the nature of media events, making it significantly more difficult to regulate them or control their meaning. This volatility is reflected in the multiple, well-publicized controversies characterizing the run-up to Beijing 2008. According to many Western commentators, the People's Republic of China seized the Olympics as an opportunity to reinvent itself as the "New China"---a global leader in economics, technology, and environmental issues, with an improving human-rights record. But China's maneuverings have also been hotly contested by diverse global voices, including prominent human-rights advocates, all seeking to displace the official story of the Games. Bringing together a distinguished group of scholars from Chinese studies, human rights, media studies, law, and other fields, Owning the Olympics reveals how multiple entities---including the Chinese Communist Party itself---seek to influence and control the narratives through which the Beijing Games will be understood. digitalculturebooks is an imprint of the University of Michigan Press and the Scholarly Publishing Office of the University of Michigan Library dedicated to publishing innovative and accessible work ...

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Migrants and Expats: The Swiss Migration and Mobility Nexus (IMISCOE Research Series) by Ilka Steiner (Springer) (1 Review)    Price verified 6 hours ago

This open access book provides insight on current patterns of migration in Switzerland, which fall along a continuum from long-term and permanent to more temporary and fluid. These patterns are shaped by the interplay of legal norms, economic drivers and societal factors. The various dimensions of this Migration-Mobility Nexus are investigated by means of newly collected survey data: the Migration-Mobility Survey. The book covers different aspects of life in the host country, including the family dimension, the labour market and political participation as well as social integration. The book also takes into account the chronological dimension of migration by considering the migrants' arrival, their stay, and their expectations regarding return. Through applying conclusions drawn from the Swiss context to the migration literature on other European and high-income countries, this book contributes to new knowledge on current migration processes in high-income countries. As such it will be a valuable reference work to scholars and students in migration, social scientists and policy makers.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Sentient Ecologies: Xenophobic Imaginaries of Landscape (Environmental Anthropology and Ethnobiology Book 31) by Alexandra Coțofană (Berghahn Books) (1 Review)    Price verified 9 hours ago

Employing methodological perspectives from the fields of political geography, environmental studies, anthropology, and their cognate disciplines, this volume explores alternative logics of sentient landscapes as racist, xenophobic, and right-wing. While the field of sentient landscapes has gained critical attention, the literature rarely seems to question the intentionality of sentient landscapes, which are often romanticized as pure, good, and just, and perceived as protectors of those who are powerless, indigenous, and colonized. The book takes a new stance on sentient landscapes with the intention of dispelling the denial of "coevalness" represented by their scholarly romanticization.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

First Nationalism Then Identity: On Bosnian Muslims and Their Bosniak Identity (Ethnic Conflict: Studies in Nationality, Race, and Culture) by Mirsad Kriještorac (University of Michigan Press) (1 Review)    Price verified 8 hours ago

First Nationalism Then Identity focuses on the case of Bosnian Muslims, a rare historic instance of a new nation emerging. Although for Bosnian Muslims the process of national emergence and the assertion of a new salient identity have been going on for over two decades, Mirsad Krije?torac is the first to explain the significance of the whole process and how the adoption of their new Bosniak identity occurred. He provides a historical overview of Yugoslav and Bosnian Slavic Muslims' transformation into a full-fledged distinct and independent national group as well as addresses the important question in the field of nationalism studies about the relationship between and workings of nationalism and identity. While this book is noteworthy for ordinary readers interested in the case of Bosnian Muslims, it is an important contribution to the scholarly debate on the role of nationalism in the political life of a group and adds an interdisciplinary perspective to comparative politics scholarship by drawing from anthropology, history, geography, and sociology.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Re-Configurations: Contextualising Transformation Processes and Lasting Crises in the Middle East and North Africa (Politik und Gesellschaft des ... by Rachid Ouaissa (Springer VS) (1 Review)    Price verified 8 hours ago

This edited volume is an open access title and assembles both the historical consciousness and transformation of the MENA region in various disciplinary and topical facets. At the same time, it aims to go beyond the MENA region, contributing to critical debates on area studies while pointing out transregional and cultural references in a broad and comparative manner.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

The Downfall of the American Order? by Peter J. Katzenstein (Cornell University Press) Price verified 6 hours ago

The Downfall of the American Order? offers penetrating insight into the emerging global political economy at this moment of an increasingly chaotic world. For seventy-five years, the basic patterns of world politics and the contours of international economic activity took place in the shadow of American leadership and the institutions it designed -- an order designed to avoid the horrors of previous eras, including, most poignantly, two world wars and the Great Depression. But all things must pass. The global financial crisis of 2008, the legacy of two long, losing wars, and the polarizing and tumultuous presidency of Donald Trump all suggest that global affairs have reached a turning point. The implications of this are profound. The contributors to this book cast their eyes back on the order that once was, and look ahead to what might follow. In dialogue with each other's appraisals and expectations, they differ in their assessments of the probable, ranging from a hollowed-out American primacy muddling through by default, to partial modifications of old institutions and practices at home and abroad, and to wholesale contestations and the search for new orders. Contributors: Rawi Abdelal, Sheri Berman, Mark Blyth, Francis J. Gavin, Peter A. Gourevitch, Ilene Grabel, Peter J. Katzenstein, Jonathan Kirshner, and John Gerard Ruggie

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Representing Mass Violence: Conflicting Responses to Human Rights Violations in Darfur by Joachim J. Savelsberg (University of California Press) (1 Review)    Price verified 5 hours ago

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's new open access publishing program for monographs. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. How do interventions by the UN Security Council and the International Criminal Court influence representations of mass violence? What images arise instead from the humanitarianism and diplomacy fields? How are these competing perspectives communicated to the public via mass media? Zooming in on the case of Darfur, Joachim J. Savelsberg analyzes more than three thousand news reports and opinion pieces and interviews leading newspaper correspondents, NGO experts, and foreign ministry officials from eight countries to show the dramatic differences in the framing of mass violence around the world and across social fields. Representing Mass Violence contributes to our understanding of how the world acknowledges and responds to violence in the Global South.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Social Impact Assessment in India: Learning from the Field by A. K. Sinha (SAGE Spectrum) (1 Review)    Price verified 7 hours ago

This book is a discourse on social impact assessment (SIA), an important tool for identifying and managing impacts of a development project. It provides an outlook on judicial, methodological and ethical complexities in SIA. The book also offers anthropological critique of SIA and collates experiences of practitioners and researchers from India, with the objective of sharpening SIA with redefined practices. Social Impact Assessment in India discusses direct and indirect impacts on project-affected people (displaced and relocated) and the role (ethical and financial) of funding agencies, including legalities and associated vulnerabilities. The strength of this book lies in its field-based approach revealing ground realities and the authors' reflections and insights on situations on the field, across different regions of India.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Envisioning Sociology: Victor Branford, Patrick Geddes, and the Quest for Social Reconstruction (SUNY Press Open Access) by John Scott (SUNY Press) Price verified 3 hours ago

Envisioning Sociology is a landmark work, the first major study of the founding of sociology in Britain and the enormous contributions made by the intellectual circle led by Victor Branford and Patrick Geddes. Authors John Scott and Ray Bromley chronicle the biographical connections and personal partnerships of the circle's key participants, their international connections, their organization-building work, and the business activities that underpinned their efforts. Branford and Geddes fashioned an ambitious and wide-ranging interdisciplinary vision, drawing on geography, anthropology, economics, and urban planning, in addition to sociology. This vision was an integral part of a project of social reconstruction, a "third way" eschewing both liberalism and communism in favor of cooperation, redistribution, and federalism. Envisioning Sociology uncovers a previously hidden history of the social sciences, giving readers a fascinating glimpse into early twentieth-century social science and political economy, while demonstrating the contemporary relevance of the ideas of these underrated figures. Although Branford and Geddes failed to establish the grand sociology they envisioned, their ideas helped develop the theory and practice of community development, participatory democracy, bioregionalism, historic preservation, and neighborhood upgrading. SUNY Press has collaborated with Knowledge Unlatched to unlock KU Select titles. The Knowledge Unlatched titles have been made open access through libraries coming together to crowd fund the publication cost. Each monograph has been released as open access making the eBook freely available to readers worldwide. Discover more about the Knowledge Unlatched program here: https://www.knowledgeunlatched.org/, and access the book online at the SUNY Open Access Repository at http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12648/8479 .

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Self as Method: Thinking Through China and the World by Biao Xiang (Palgrave Macmillan) Price verified 7 hours ago

Despite China's rise to the status of global power, many Chinese youths are anxious about their personal future, in large measure because the rapid changes have left them feeling adrift. This book, available in open access, provides a manifesto of intellectual activism that counsels China's young people to think by themselves and for themselves. Consisting of three conversations between Xiang Biao, a social anthropologist, and Wu Qi, a rising journalist, the book probes how China has reached its current stage and how young people can make changes. The conversations touch on issues of mobility, education, family, relations between the self and the authority, centers and margins, China, and the world. The Chinese version was named the "most impactful book of 2021" by Douban, China's premier website for rating books, films, and music. The English version is translated by David Ownby, who also penned an introduction.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Anthropologies of Global Maternal and Reproductive Health: From Policy Spaces to Sites of Practice (Global Maternal and Child Health) by Lauren J. Wallace (Springer) Price verified 4 hours ago

This open access edited book brings together new research on the mechanisms by which maternal and reproductive health policies are formed and implemented in diverse locales around the world, from global policy spaces to sites of practice. The authors - both internationally respected anthropologists and new voices - demonstrate the value of ethnography and the utility of reproduction as a lens through which to generate rich insights into professionals' and lay people's intimate encounters with policy. Authors look closely at core policy debates in the history of global maternal health across six different continents, including: • Women's use of misoprostol for abortion in Burkina Faso • The place of traditional birth attendants in global maternal health • Donor-driven maternal health programs in Tanzania • Efforts to integrate qualitative evidence in WHO maternal and child health policy-making Anthropologies of Global Maternal and Reproductive Health will engage readers interested in critical conversations about global health policy today. The broad range of foci makes it a valuable resource for teaching in medical anthropology, anthropology of reproduction, and interdisciplinary global health programs. The book will also find readership amongst critical public health scholars, health policy and systems researchers, and global public health practitioners.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Revising the Integration-Citizenship Nexus in Europe: Sites, Policies, and Bureaucracies of Belonging (IMISCOE Research Series) by Roxana Barbulescu (Springer) Price verified 5 hours ago

This open access book critically re-examines the theoretical and empirical interconnections between integration and citizenship, specifically, naturalisation. With new, empirical-grounded analyses of what we term 'citizenship-integration nexus' the central, shared contribution is showcasing how membership is informally achieved through everyday integration -- usually around, but sometimes in spite of, formal citizenship requirements. By providing evidence of a nexus disjuncture, the book contributes to critical dialogues on immigrant integration and political incorporation, relevant for policymakers, civil society actors, and academics alike.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Revolution and Witchcraft: The Code of Ideology in Unsettled Times by Gordon C. Chang (Palgrave Macmillan) (5 Reviews)    Price verified 42 minutes ago

Ideas influence people. In particular, extremely well-developed sets of ideas shape individuals, groups, and societies in far-reaching ways. This book establishes these "idea systems" as an academic concept. Through three intense episodes of manipulation and mayhem connected to idea systems -- Europe's witch hunts, the Mao Zedong-era "revolutions," and the early campaign of the U.S. War on Terror -- this book charts the cognitive and informational matrices that seize control of people's mentalities and behaviors across societies. Through these, the author reaches two conclusions. The first, that we are all vulnerable to the dominating influence of our own matrices of ideas and to those woven by others in the social system. The second, that even the most masterful manipulators of idea programs may lose control of the outcomes of programmatic manipulation. Amongst this analysis, sixty-plus central conceptual terminologies are provided for readers to analyze multiform idea systems that exist across space, time, and cultural contexts. This is an open access book.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Counter-Terrorism, Ethics and Technology: Emerging Challenges at the Frontiers of Counter-Terrorism (Advanced Sciences and Technologies for Security ... by Adam Henschke (Springer) (1 Review)    Price verified 12 hours ago

This open access book brings together a range of contributions that seek to explore the ethical issues arising from the overlap between counter-terrorism, ethics, and technologies. Terrorism and our responses pose some of the most significant ethical challenges to states and people. At the same time, we are becoming increasingly aware of the ethical implications of new and emerging technologies. Whether it is the use of remote weapons like drones as part of counter-terrorism strategies, the application of surveillance technologies to monitor and respond to terrorist activities, or counterintelligence agencies use of machine learning to detect suspicious behavior and hacking computers to gain access to encrypted data, technologies play a significant role in modern counter-terrorism. However, each of these technologies carries with them a range of ethical issues and challenges. How we use these technologies and the policies that govern them have broader impact beyond just the identification and response to terrorist activities. As we are seeing with China, the need to respond to domestic terrorism is one of the justifications for their rollout of the "social credit system." Counter-terrorism technologies can easily succumb to mission creep, where a technology's exceptional application becomes normalized and rolled out to society more generally. This collection is not just timely but an important contribution to understand the ethics of counter-terrorism and technology and has far wider implications for societies and nations around the world.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years by Ida Husted Harper (7 Reviews)    Price verified 5 hours ago

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

CoronAsur: Asian Religions in the Covidian Age by Emily Zoe Hertzman Price verified 2 hours ago

For an open-access edition and online resources, including video and additional images, visit the CoronAsur page on Manifold. https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur By the summer of 2020, when the coronavirus had fully entered our everyday vocabulary and our lives, religious communities and places of worship around the world were already undergoing profound changes. In Asian and Asian diaspora communities, diverse cultural tropes, beliefs, and artifacts were mobilized to make sense of Covid, including a repertoire of gods and demons like Coronasur, the virus depicted with the horns and fangs of a traditional Hindu demon. Various kinds of knowledge were invoked: theologies, indigenous medicines, and biomedical narratives, as well as ethical values and nationalist sentiments. CoronAsur: Asian Religions in the Covidian Age follows the documentation and analysis of the abrupt societal shifts triggered by the pandemic to understand current and future pandemic times, while revealing further avenues for research on religion that have opened up in the Covidian age. Developed in tandem with the research blog CoronAsur: Religion and COVID-19, this volume is a "phygital" publication, a work grounded in empirical roots as well as digitally born communication. It comprises thirty-eight essays and dozens of videos and other online content that examine Asian religious communities -- Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Daoist, and Christian as well as popular/folk and new religious movements -- in terms of the changes brought on by and the ritual responses to the Covid pandemic. Studying religious narratives, practices, and changes in the Covidian age adds to our understanding of not only the specific groups in which they are situated, but also the coronavirus itself, its disputed etiologies and culturally contextualized exegeses. CoronAsur offers a comprehensive and timely discussion of Covidian transformations in religious communities' engagements with media, spaces, and ...

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Kantianism for Animals: A Radical Kantian Animal Ethic (The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series) by Nico Dario Müller (Palgrave Macmillan) (3 Reviews)    Price verified 2 hours ago

This open access book revises Kant's ethical thought in one of its most notorious respects: its exclusion of animals from moral consideration. The book gives readers in animal ethics an accessible introduction to Kant's views on our duties to others, and his view that we have only 'indirect' duties regarding animals. It then investigates how one would have to depart from Kant in order to recognise that animals matter morally for their own sake. Particular attention is paid to Kant's 'Formula of Humanity,' the role of autonomy and the moral law, as well as Kant's notions of practical reason and animal instinct. The result is a deliberately amended version of Kantianism which nevertheless remains faithful to central aspects of Kant's thought. The book's final part illustrates the framework's use in applied contexts, addressing the issues of using animals as mere means, the ethics of veganism and vegetarianism, and environmental protection. Nico Dario Müller shows how, when furnished with duties to animals, Kant's moral philosophy can be a powerful resource for animal ethicists.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Dynasty Divided: A Family History of Russian and Ukrainian Nationalism (NIU Series in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies) by Fabian Baumann (Northern Illinois University Press) (1 Review)    Price verified 3 hours ago

Dynasty Divided uses the story of a prominent Kievan family of journalists, scholars, and politicians to analyze the emergence of rivaling nationalisms in nineteenth-century Ukraine, the most pivotal borderland of the Russian Empire. The Shul'gins identified as Russians and defended the tsarist autocracy; the Shul'hyns identified as Ukrainians and supported peasant-oriented socialism. Fabian Baumann shows how these men and women consciously chose a political position and only then began their self-fashioning as members of a national community, defying the notion of nationalism as a direct consequence of ethnicity. Baumann asks what made individuals into determined nationalists in the first place, revealing the close link to private lives, including intimate family dramas and scandals. He looks at how nationalism emerged from domestic spaces, and how women played an important (if often invisible) role in fin-de-siècle politics. Dynasty Divided explains how nineteenth-century Kievans cultivated their national self-images and how, by the twentieth century, Ukraine steered away from Russia. The two branches of this family of Russian nationalists and Ukrainian nationalists epitomize the struggles for modern Ukraine.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

New Perspectives on Kristallnacht: After 80 Years, the Nazi Pogrom in Global Comparison (The Jewish Role in American Life: An Annual Review Book 17) by Steven J. Ross (Purdue University Press) (5 Reviews)    Price verified 5 hours ago

On November 9 and 10, 1938, Nazi leadership unleashed an unprecedented orchestrated wave of violence against Jews in Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland, supposedly in response to the assassination of a Nazi diplomat by a young Polish Jew, but in reality to force the remaining Jews out of the country. During the pogrom, Stormtroopers, Hitler Youth, and ordinary Germans murdered more than a hundred Jews (many more committed suicide) and ransacked and destroyed thousands of Jewish institutions, synagogues, shops, and homes. Thirty thousand Jews were arrested and sent to Nazi concentration camps. Volume 17 of the Casden Annual Review includes a series of articles presented at an international conference titled "New Perspectives on Kristallnacht: After 80 Years, the Nazi Pogrom in Global Comparison." Assessing events 80 years after the violent anti-Jewish pogrom of 1938, contributors to this volume offer new cutting-edge scholarship on the event and its repercussions. Contributors include scholars from the United States, Germany, Israel, and the United Kingdom who represent a wide variety of disciplines, including history, political science, and Jewish and media studies. Their essays discuss reactions to the pogrom by victims and witnesses inside Nazi Germany as well as by foreign journalists, diplomats, Jewish organizations, and Jewish print media. Several contributors to the volume analyze postwar narratives of and global comparisons to Kristallnacht, with the aim of situating this anti-Jewish pogrom in its historical context, as well as its place in world history.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Oral Literature in Africa (World Oral Literature Series Book 1) by Ruth Finnegan (Open Book Publishers) (27 Reviews)    Price verified 8 hours ago

Ruth Finnegan's Oral Literature in Africa was first published in 1970, and since then has been widely praised as one of the most important books in its field. Based on years of fieldwork, the study traces the history of storytelling across the continent of Africa. This revised edition makes Finnegan's ground-breaking research available to the next generation of scholars. It includes a new introduction, additional images and an updated bibliography, as well as its original chapters on poetry, prose, "drum language" and drama, and an overview of the social, linguistic and historical background of oral literature in Africa. This volume is complemented by original recordings of stories and songs from the Limba country (Sierra Leone), collected by Finnegan during her fieldwork in the late 1960s, which are freely accessible here. The book is available as a free pdf and ebook download thanks to the generous support of interested readers and organisations, who made donations using the crowd-funding website unglue.it. Oral Literature in Africa is part of our World Oral Literature Series in conjunction with the World Oral Literature Project.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Atlas of Fallen Dust in Kuwait by Ali Al-Dousari (Springer) (1 Review)    Price verified 8 hours ago

This open access book serves as an atlas of deposited dust and dust storms in Kuwait in relation to local and global regions. It features a wealth of maps and images of dust storm trajectories in the region, together with detailed descriptions of the chemical and physical properties of fallen dust, including the amount, particle size, statistical parameters, spectra absorption, dust mineralogy, trace and major elements, organic matter, associated pollen, and radionuclides and connected pollutants. Given its scope, the book is a valuable resource for a broad range of researchers, including geologists, chemists, environmentalists, botanists, air quality specialists, nanotechnology scientists, and solar energy experts.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Reforms, Organizational Change and Performance in Higher Education: A Comparative Account from the Nordic Countries by Rómulo Pinheiro (Palgrave Macmillan) (1 Review)    Price verified 8 hours ago

This open access book investigates the effects of changes in leadership and managerial structures of Nordic universities resulting from reforms in the last decade. It builds on a rich, comparative dataset across a multiplicity of system-wide (macro) and organisational (meso and micro) dimensions, namely: reform or policy initiatives; drivers, aims, instruments and actors; structural changes within universities; strategic and performance management; the rise of accountability regimes; incentive and evaluative systems; and perceived changes/effects by the key actors involved, at various levels. The volume provides critical insights to the larger phenomenon of change and adaptation within the public sector. Its findings and implications are of relevance to social science researchers, policy makers, managers/administrators, and external stakeholders.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

The Dynamics of Opportunity in America: Evidence and Perspectives by Irwin Kirsch (Springer) (1 Review)    Price verified 5 hours ago

Across the country, our children are beginning life from very different starting points. Some have aspirations and believe they can be achieved. For too many others, aspirations are tempered, if not dashed, by the sobering realities of everyday life. These different starting points place children on distinctly different trajectories of growth and development, ultimately leading to vastly different adult outcomes. How did we get to a place where circumstances of birth have become so determinative? And what must we do, within communities and across our country, to better equalize opportunity for more Americans - both young and old? The editors of this volume contend that if, as a nation, we do nothing, then we will continue to drift apart, placing an unsustainable strain on the nation's social fabric and the character of its democracy. Consequently, understanding the dynamics governing the distribution and transmission of opportunity - and transforming this understanding into policies and programs - is critical for not only the life outcomes of individual Americans and their children, but also the country as a whole. The goal of Educational Testing Service's Opportunity in America initiative is to explore these powerful dynamics and to describe and convey them in a way that advances the national conversation about why we must take action - and how best to do so. This volume contains 14 chapters, including an epilogue, written by leaders from a range of fields including education, economics, demography, and political science. Collectively, they not only illuminate key aspects of the problem but also offer suggestions of what policies, programs, and changes in practices could begin to reverse the trends we are seeing. Written in an engaging style, this volume constitutes an essential foundation for informed discussion and strategic analysis.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

The Pandemic of Argumentation (Argumentation Library Book 43) by Steve Oswald (Springer) (2 Reviews)    Price verified 5 hours ago

This open access book addresses communicative aspects of the current COVID-19 pandemic as well as the epidemic of misinformation from the perspective of argumentation theory. Argumentation theory is uniquely placed to understand and account for the challenges of public reason as expressed through argumentative discourse. The book thus focuses on the extent to which the forms, norms and functions of public argumentation have changed in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. This question is investigated along the three main research lines of the COST Action project CA 17132: European network for Argumentation and Public PoLicY analysis (APPLY): descriptive, normative, and prescriptive. The volume offers a broad range of contributions which treat argumentative phenomena that are directly related to the changes in public discourse in the wake of the outburst of COVID-19. The volume additionally places particular emphasis on expert argumentation, given (i) the importance expert discourse has had over the last two years, and (ii) the challenges that expert argumentation has faced in the public sphere as a result of scientific uncertainty and widespread misinformation. Contributions are divided into three groups, which (i) examine various features and aspects of public and institutional discourse about the COVID-19 pandemic, (ii) scrutinize the way health policies have been discussed, debated, attacked and defended in the public sphere, and (iii) consider a range of proposals meant to improve the quality of public discourse, and public deliberation in particular, in such a way that concrete proposals for argumentative literacy will be brought to light. Overall, this volume constitutes a timely inquiry into all things argumentative in pandemic discourse. This volume is of interest to a broad readership including philosophers, linguists, communication and legal scholars, and members of the wider public who seek to better understand the discourse surrounding communicative ...

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Evading the Patronage Trap: Interest Representation in Mexico by Brian Palmer-Rubin (University of Michigan Press) (1 Review)    Price verified 12 hours ago

Why have Latin American democracies proven unable to confront the structural inequalities that cripple their economies and stymie social mobility? Brian Palmer-Rubin contends that we may lay the blame on these countries' systems of interest representation, which exhibit "biased pluralism," a system in which the demands of organizations representing economic elites -- especially large corporations -- predominate. A more inclusive model of representation would not only require a more encompassing and empowered set of institutions to represent workers, but would also feature spaces for non-eliteproducers -- such as farmers and small-business owners to have a say in sectoral economic policies. With analysis drawing on over 100 interviews, an original survey, and official government data, this book focuses on such organizations and develops an account of biased pluralism in developing countries typified by the centrality of patronage -- discretionarily allocated state benefits. Rather than serving as conduits for demand-making about development models, political parties and interest organizations often broker state subsidies or social programs, augmenting the short-term income of beneficiaries, but doing little to improve their long-term economic prospects. When organizations become diverted into patronage politics, the economic demands of the masses go unheard in the policies that most affect their lives, and along the way, their economic interests go unrepresented.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Neighbourhoods in Transition: Brownfield Regeneration in European Metropolitan Areas (The Urban Book Series) by Emmanuel Rey (Springer) (1 Review)    Price verified 2 hours ago

This open access book is focused on the intersection between urban brownfields and the sustainability transitions of metreopolitan areas, cities and neighbourhoods. It provides both a theoretical and practical approach to the topic, offering a thorough introduction to urban brownfields and regeneration projects as well as an operational monitoring tool. Neighbourhoods in Transition begins with an overview of historic urban development and strategic areas in the hearts of towns to be developed. It then defines several key issues related to the topic, including urban brownfields, regeneration projects, and sustainability issues related to neighbourhood development. The second part of this book is focused on support tools, explaining the challenges faced, the steps involved in a regeneration process, and offering an operational monitoring tool. It applies the unique tool to case studies in three selected neighbourhoods and the outcomes of one case study are also presented and discussed, highlighting its benefits. The audience for this book will be both professional and academic. It will support researchers as an up-to-date reference book on urban brownfield regeneration projects, and also the work of architects, urban designers, urban planners and engineers involved in sustainability transitions of the built environment.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

China's Global Political Economy: Managerial Perspectives (Routledge Studies on Comparative Asian Politics) by Robert Taylor (Routledge) Price verified 11 hours ago

Much has been written about China's economy, as well as its business management system. China's Global Political Economy, however, is designed to bring together these two perspectives, serving to enhance our understanding of China's growing global role. Examining changes in the management strategies of foreign companies investing in China and Chinese enterprises doing business overseas, this book analyses China's political economy in the context of the Communist Party's changing policies. The introductory section begins by studying the aspects of Chinese economic growth as it impacts on domestic social issues and the projection of Chinese power abroad. Within this overall framework, it then goes on to critically assess the effects of foreign investment, business management strategies, human resource management, corporate social responsibility and the financial services sector. Arguing that the encouragement of consumption is a significant objective of the Chinese leadership, the last section is concerned with the importance of the food industry. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Chinese business, management and international political economy, as well as policymakers and business practitioners.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Transactions with the World: Ecocriticism and the Environmental Sensibility of New Hollywood by Adam O’Brien (Berghahn Books) Price verified 42 minutes ago

In their bold experimentation and bracing engagement with culture and politics, the "New Hollywood" films of the late 1960s and early 1970s are justly celebrated contributions to American cinematic history. Relatively unexplored, however, has been the profound environmental sensibility that characterized movies such as The Wild Bunch, Chinatown, and Nashville. This brisk and engaging study explores how many hallmarks of New Hollywood filmmaking, such as the increased reliance on location shooting and the rejection of American self-mythologizing, made the era such a vividly "grounded" cinematic moment. Synthesizing a range of narrative, aesthetic, and ecocritical theories, it offers a genuinely fresh perspective on one of the most studied periods in film history.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Faith in Life: John Dewey's Early Philosophy (American Philosophy) by Donald J. Morse (Fordham University Press) (8 Reviews)    Price verified 6 hours ago

This is the first book to consider John Dewey's early philosophy on its own terms and to explicate its key ideas. It does so through the fullest treatment to date of his youthful masterwork, the Psychology. This fuller treatment reveals that the received view, which sees Dewey's early philosophy as unimportant in its own right, is deeply mistaken. In fact, Dewey's early philosophy amounts to an important new form of idealism. More specifically, Dewey's idealism contains a new logic of rupture, which allows us to achieve four things: ? A focus on discontinuity that challenges all naturalistic views, including Dewey's own later view; ? A space of critical resistance to events that is at the same time the source of ideals; ? A faith in the development of ideals that challenges pessimists like Schopenhauer and Nietzsche; and ? A non-traditional reading of Hegel that invites comparison with cutting-edge Continental philosophers, such as Adorno, Derrida, and Zizek, and even goes beyond them in its systematic approach; In making these discoveries, the author forges a new link between American and European philosophy, showing how they share similar insights and concerns. He also provides an original assessment of Dewey's relationship to his teacher, George Sylvester Morris, and to other important thinkers of the day, giving us a fresh picture of John Dewey, the man and the philosopher, in the early years of his career. Readers will find a wide range of topics discussed, from Dewey's early reflections on Kant and Hegel to the nature of beauty, courage, sympathy, hatred, love, and even death and despair. This is a book for anyone interested in the thought of John Dewey, American pragmatism, Continental Philosophy, or a new idealism appearing on the scene. Faith in Life: John Dewey's Early Philosophy is available from the publisher on an open-access basis.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Black Campus Life: The Worlds Black Students Make at a Historically White Institution (SUNY Press Open Access) by Antar A. Tichavakunda (SUNY Press) (3 Reviews)    Price verified 13 hours ago

An in-depth ethnography of Black engineering students at a historically White institution, Black Campus Life examines the intersection of two crises, up close: the limited number of college graduates in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, and the state of race relations in higher education. Antar Tichavakunda takes readers across campus, from study groups to parties and beyond as these students work hard, have fun, skip class, fundraise, and, at times, find themselves in tense racialized encounters. By consistently centering their perspectives and demonstrating how different campus communities, or social worlds, shape their experiences, Tichavakunda challenges assumptions about not only Black STEM majors but also Black students and the "racial climate" on college campuses more generally. Most fundamentally, Black Campus Life argues that Black collegians are more than the racism they endure. By studying and appreciating the everyday richness and complexity of their experiences, we all -- faculty, administrators, parents, policymakers, and the broader public -- might learn how to better support them. This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem) -- a collaboration of the Association of American Universities, the Association of University Presses, and the Association of Research Libraries. Learn more at the TOME website, available at: openmonographs.org, and access the book online through the SUNY Open Access Repository at http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12648/7009

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Pauulu’s Diaspora: Black Internationalism and Environmental Justice by Quito J. Swan (University Press of Florida) (6 Reviews)    Price verified 9 hours ago

Choice Outstanding Academic Title Finalist, Association for the Study of African American Life and History Book Prize Honorable Mention, Organization of American Historians Liberty Legacy Foundation Award A Black Perspectives Best Black History Book of 2020 Winner of the African American Intellectual History Society Pauli Murray Book Prize Pauulu's Diaspora is a sweeping story of black internationalism across the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Ocean worlds, told through the life and work of twentieth-century environmental activist Pauulu Kamarakafego. Challenging U.S.-centered views of Black Power, Quito Swan offers a radically broader perspective, showing how Kamarakafego helped connect liberation efforts of the African diaspora throughout the Global South. Born in Bermuda and with formative experiences in Cuba, Kamarakafego was aware at an early age of the effects of colonialism and the international scope of racism and segregation. After pursuing graduate studies in ecological engineering, he traveled to Africa, where he was inspired by the continent's independence struggles and contributed to various sustainable development movements. Swan explores Kamarakafego's remarkable fusion of political agitation and scientific expertise and traces his emergence as a central coordinator of major black internationalist conferences. Despite government surveillance, Kamarakafego built a network of black organizers that reached from Kenya to the islands of Oceania and included such figures as C. L. R. James, Queen Mother Audley Moore, Kwame Nkrumah, Sonia Sanchez, Sylvia Hill, Malcolm X, Vanessa Griffen, and Stokely Carmichael. In a riveting narrative that runs through Caribbean sugarcane fields, Liberian rubber plantations, and Papua New Guinean rainforests, Pauulu's Diaspora recognizes a global leader who has largely been absent from scholarship. In doing so, it brings to light little-known relationships among Black Power, pan-Africanism, and environmental justice.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Science of Societal Safety: Living at Times of Risks and Disasters (Trust Book 2) by Seiji Abe (Springer) (10 Reviews)    Price verified 5 hours ago

This open access book covers comprehensive but fundamental principles and concepts of disaster and accident prevention and mitigation, countermeasures, and recovery from disasters or accidents including treatment and care of the victims. Safety and security problems in our society involve not only engineering but also social, legal, economic, cultural, and psychological issues. The enhancement needed for societal safety includes comprehensive activities of all aspects from precaution to recovery, not only of people but also of governments. In this context, the authors, members of the Faculty of Societal Safety Science, Kansai University, conducted many discussions and concluded that the major strategy is consistent independently of the type and magnitude of disaster or accident, being also the principle of the foundation of our faculty. The topics treated in this book are rather widely distributed but are well organized sequentially to provide a clear understanding of the principles of societal safety. In the first part the fundamental concepts of safety are discussed. The second part deals with risks in the societal and natural environment. Then follows, in the third part, a description of the quantitative estimation of risk and its assessment and management. The fourth part is devoted to disaster prevention, mitigation, and recovery systems. The final, fifth part presents a future perspective of societal safety science. Thorough reading of this introductory volume of societal safety science provides a clear image of the issues. This is largely because the Japanese have suffered often from natural disasters and not only have gained much valuable information about disasters but also have accumulated a store of experience. We are still in the process of reconstruction from the Great East Japan earthquake and the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident. This book is especially valuable therefore in studying the safety and security of people and their societies.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

The Sanctuary City: Immigrant, Refugee, and Receiving Communities in Postindustrial Philadelphia by Domenic Vitiello (Cornell University Press) (4 Reviews)    Price verified 2 hours ago

In The Sanctuary City, Domenic Vitiello argues that sanctuary means much more than the limited protections offered by city governments or churches sheltering immigrants from deportation. It is a wider set of protections and humanitarian support for vulnerable newcomers. Sanctuary cities are the places where immigrants and their allies create safe spaces to rebuild lives and communities, often through the work of social movements and community organizations or civil society. Philadelphia has been an important center of sanctuary and reflects the growing diversity of American cities in recent decades. One result of this diversity is that sanctuary means different things for different immigrant, refugee, and receiving communities. Vitiello explores the migration, settlement, and local and transnational civil society of Central Americans, Southeast Asians, Liberians, Arabs, Mexicans, and their allies in the region across the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Together, their experiences illuminate the diversity of immigrants and refugees in the United States and what is at stake for different people, and for all of us, in our immigration debates.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Designing Smart and Resilient Cities for a Post-Pandemic World: Metropandemic Revolution (Routledge Advances in Regional Economics, Science and ... by Anthony Larsson (Routledge) (2 Reviews)    Price verified 8 hours ago

Are pandemics the end of cities? Or, do they present an opportunity for us to reshape cities in ways making us even more innovative, successful and sustainable? Pandemics such as COVID-19 (and comparable disruptions) have caused intense debates over the future of cities. Through a series of investigative studies, Designing Smart and Resilient Cities for a Post-Pandemic World: Metropandemic Revolution seeks to critically discuss and compare different cases, innovations and approaches as to how cities can utilise nascent and future digital technology and/or new strategies in order to build stronger resilience to better tackle comparable large-scale pandemics and/or disruptions in the future. The authors identify ten separate societal areas where future digital technology can impact resilience. These are discussed in individual chapters. Each chapter concludes with a set of proposed "action points" based on the conclusions of each respective study. These serve as solid policy recommendations of what courses of action to take, to help increase the resilience in smart cities for each designated area. Securing resilience and cohesion between each area will bring about the metropandemic revolution. This book features a foreword by Nobel laureate Peter C. Doherty and an afterword by Professor of Urban Technologies, Carlo Ratti. It provides fresh and unique insights on smart cities and futures studies in a pandemic context, offers profound reflections on contemporary societal functions and the needs to build resilience and combines lessons learned from historical pandemics with possibilities offered by future technology.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

India in the Indo-Pacific: Understanding India's security orientation towards Southeast and East Asia (International and Security Studies Book 8) by Aditi Malhotra (Verlag Barbara Budrich) (1 Review)    Price verified 8 hours ago

Angesichts der sich verändernden Weltordnung nehmen Schwellenländer zunehmend Einfluss auf die gegenwärtige Dynamik regionaler Sicherheiten. Die Autorin beschreibt, wie sich die sicherheitspolitische Rolle Indiens im indo-pazifischen Raum in den letzten zwei Jahrzehnten weiterentwickelt und ausgeweitet hat. Es zeigt sich, dass zwischen der politischen Rhetorik Neu-Delhis und dem politischen Handeln vor Ort eine deutliche Kluft besteht. Die Gründe für diese Ineffektivität werden in dem Buch weiter untersucht.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Familiar Strangers: A History of Muslims in Northwest China (Studies on Ethnic Groups in China) by Jonathan N. Lipman (University of Washington Press) (6 Reviews)    Price verified 5 hours ago

The Chinese-speaking Muslims have for centuries been an inseperable but anomalous part of Chinese society--Sinophone yet incomprehensible, local yet outsiders, normal but different. Long regarded by the Chinese government as prone to violence, they have challenged fundamental Chinese conceptiosn of Self and Other and denied the totally transforming power of Chinese civilization by tenaciously maintaining connectios with Central and West Asia as well as some cultural differences from their non-Muslim neighbors. Familiar Strangers narrates a history of the Muslims of northwest China, at the intersection of the frontiers of the Mongolian-Manchu, Tibetan, Turkic, and Chinese cultural regions. Based on primary and secondary sources in a variety of languages, Familiar Strangers examines the nature of ethnicity and periphery, the role of religion and ethnicity in personal and collective decisions in violent times, and the complexity of belonging to two cultures at once. Concerning itself with a frontier very distant from the core areas of Chinese culture and very strange to most Chinese, it explores the influence of language, religion, and place on Sino-Muslim identity.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

A Study of Crisis by Michael Brecher (University of Michigan Press) (3 Reviews)    Price verified 7 hours ago

As the twentieth century draws to a close, it is time to look back on an epoch of widespread turmoil, including two world wars, the end of the colonial era in world history, and a large number of international crises and conflicts. This book is designed to shed light on the causes and consequences of military-security crises since the end of World War I, in every region, across diverse economic and political regimes, and cultures. The primary aim of this volume is to uncover patterns of crises, conflicts and wars and thereby to contribute to the advancement of international peace and world order. The culmination of more than twenty years of research by Michael Brecher and Jonathan Wilkenfeld, the book analyzes crucial themes about crisis, conflict, and war and presents systematic knowledge about more than 400 crises, thirty-one protracted conflicts and almost 900 state participants. The authors explore many aspects of conflict, including the ethnic dimension, the effect of different kinds of political regimes--notably the question whether democracies are more peaceful than authoritarian regimes, and the role of violence in crisis management. They employ both case studies and aggregate data analysis in a Unified Model of Crisis to focus on two levels of analysis--hostile interactions among states, and the behavior of decision-makers who must cope with the challenge posed by a threat to values, time pressure, and the increased likelihood that military hostilities will engulf them. This book will appeal to scholars in history, political science, sociology, and economics as well as policy makers interested in the causes and effects of crises in international relations. The rich data sets will serve researchers for years to come as they probe additional aspects of crisis, conflict and war in international relations. Michael Brecher is R. B. Angus Professor of Political Science, McGill University. Jonathan Wilkenfeld is Professor and Chair of the Department of ...

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

A Landscape of Travel: The Work of Tourism in Rural Ethnic China (Studies on Ethnic Groups in China) by Jenny T. Chio (University of Washington Press) Price verified 13 hours ago

While the number of domestic leisure travelers has increased dramatically in reform-era China, the persistent gap between urban and rural living standards attests to ongoing social, economic, and political inequalities. The state has widely touted tourism for its potential to bring wealth and modernity to rural ethnic minority communities, but the policies underlying the development of tourism obscure some complicated realities. In tourism, after all, one person's leisure is another person's labor. A Landscape of Travel investigates the contested meanings and unintended consequences of tourism for those people whose lives and livelihoods are most at stake in China's rural ethnic tourism industry: the residents of village destinations. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in Ping'an (a Zhuang village in Guangxi) and Upper Jidao (a Miao village in Guizhou), Jenny Chio analyzes the myriad challenges and possibilities confronted by villagers who are called upon to do the work of tourism. She addresses the shifting significance of migration and rural mobility, the visual politics of tourist photography, and the effects of touristic desires for "exotic difference" on village social relations. In this way, Chio illuminates the contemporary regimes of labor and leisure and the changing imagination of what it means to be rural, ethnic, and modern in China today.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Animals and Inequality in the Ancient World by Benjamin S. Arbuckle (University Press of Colorado) Price verified 2 hours ago

Animals and Inequality in the Ancient World explores the current trends in the social archaeology of human-animal relationships, focusing on the ways in which animals are used to structure, create, support, and even deconstruct social inequalities. The authors provide a global range of case studies from both New and Old World archaeology -- a royal Aztec dog burial, the monumental horse tombs of Central Asia, and the ceremonial macaw cages of ancient Mexico among them. They explore the complex relationships between people and animals in social, economic, political, and ritual contexts, incorporating animal remains from archaeological sites with artifacts, texts, and iconography to develop their interpretations. Animals and Inequality in the Ancient World presents new data and interpretations that reveal the role of animals, their products, and their symbolism in structuring social inequalities in the ancient world. The volume will be of interest to archaeologists, especially zooarchaeologists, and classical scholars of pre-modern civilizations and societies.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Corazón de Dixie: Mexicanos in the U.S. South since 1910 (The David J. Weber Series in the New Borderlands History) by Julie M. Weise (The University of North Carolina Press) (15 Reviews)    Price verified 5 hours ago

When Latino migration to the U.S. South became increasingly visible in the 1990s, observers and advocates grasped for ways to analyze "new" racial dramas in the absence of historical reference points. However, as this book is the first to comprehensively document, Mexicans and Mexican Americans have a long history of migration to the U.S. South. Corazon de Dixie recounts the untold histories of Mexicanos' migrations to New Orleans, Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, and North Carolina as far back as 1910. It follows Mexicanos into the heart of Dixie, where they navigated the Jim Crow system, cultivated community in the cotton fields, purposefully appealed for help to the Mexican government, shaped the southern conservative imagination in the wake of the civil rights movement, and embraced their own version of suburban living at the turn of the twenty-first century. Rooted in U.S. and Mexican archival research, oral history interviews, and family photographs, Corazon de Dixie unearths not just the facts of Mexicanos' long-standing presence in the U.S. South but also their own expectations, strategies, and dreams.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Space, Place and Educational Settings (Knowledge and Space Book 16) by Tim Freytag (Springer) Price verified 7 hours ago

This open access book explores the nexus between knowledge and space with a particular emphasis on the role of educational settings that are, both, shaping and being reshaped by socio-economic and political processes. It gives insight into the complex interplay of educational inequalities and practices of educational governance in the neighborhood and at larger geographical scales. The book adopts quantitative and qualitative methodologies and explores a wide range of theoretical perspectives by drawing upon empirical cases and examples from France, Germany, Italy, the UK and North America, and presents and reflects ongoing research of international scholars from various disciplinary backgrounds such as education, human geography, public policy, sociology, and urban and regional planning. As such, it provides an interesting read for scholars, students and professionals in the broader field of social, cultural and educational studies, as well as policy makers and practitioners in the fields of education, pedagogy, social work, and urban and regional planning.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Un-Settling Middle Eastern Refugees: Regimes of Exclusion and Inclusion in the Middle East, Europe, and North America (Forced Migration Book 40) by Marcia C. Inhorn (Berghahn Books) (1 Review)    Price verified 7 hours ago

Since the Iraq war, the Middle East has been in continuous upheaval, resulting in the displacement of millions of people. Arriving from Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, and Syria in other parts of the world, the refugees show remarkable resilience and creativity amidst profound adversity. Through careful ethnography, this book vividly illustrates how refugees navigate regimes of exclusion, including cumbersome bureaucracies, financial insecurities, medical challenges, vilifying stereotypes, and threats of violence. The collection bears witness to their struggles, while also highlighting their aspirations for safety, settlement, and social inclusion in their host societies and new homes.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

The Dictator's Dilemma at the Ballot Box: Electoral Manipulation, Economic Maneuvering, and Political Order in Autocracies (Weiser Center for ... by Masaaki Higashijima (2 Reviews)    Price verified 5 hours ago

Contrary to our stereotypical views, dictators often introduce elections in which they refrain from employing blatant electoral fraud. Why do electoral reforms happen in autocracies? Do these elections destabilize autocratic rule? The Dictator's Dilemma at the Ballot Box argues that strong autocrats who can garner popular support become less dependent on coercive electioneering strategies. When autocrats fail to design elections properly, elections backfire in the form of coups, protests, and the opposition's stunning election victories. The book's theoretical implications are tested on a battery of cross-national analyses with newly collected data on autocratic elections and in-depth comparative case studies of the two Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

The Teleological and Kalam Cosmological Arguments Revisited (Palgrave Frontiers in Philosophy of Religion) by Andrew Loke (Palgrave Macmillan) (10 Reviews)    Price verified 8 hours ago

A prominent issue in many contemporary philosophy of religion debates concerns whether the universe has a Designer. This book moves the discussion ahead in a significant way by devising an original deductive formulation of the Teleological Argument (TA) which demonstrates that the following are the only possible categories of hypotheses concerning fine-tuning and order: (i) chance, (ii) regularity, (iii) combinations of regularity and chance, (iv) uncaused, and (v) design. This book also demonstrates that there are essential features of each category such that, while the alternatives to design are unlikely, the Design Hypothesis is not, and that one can argue for design by exclusion without having to ?rst assign a prior probability for design. By combining the TA with the Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA) which it defends against various objections, this book responds to the God-of-the-gaps objection by demonstrating that the conclusion of the KCA-TA is not based on gaps which can be filled by further scientific progress, but follows from deduction and exclusion. This is an open access book.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Ways of Being Ethnic in Southwest China (Studies on Ethnic Groups in China) by Stevan Harrell (University of Washington Press) (2 Reviews)    Price verified 5 hours ago

Drawing on extensive fieldwork conducted in the 1980s and 1990s in southern Sichuan, this pathbreaking study examines the nature of ethnic consciousness and ethnic relations among local communities, focusing on the Nuosu (classified as Yi by the Chinese government), Prmi, Naze, and Han. It argues that even within the same regional social system, ethnic identity is formulated, perceived, and promoted differently by different communities at different times. Ways of Being Ethnic in Southwest China exemplifies a model in which ethnic consciousness and ethnic relations consist of drawing boundaries between one?s own group and others, crossing those boundaries, and promoting internal unity within a group. Leaders and members of ethnic groups use commonalties and differences in history, culture, and kinship to promote internal unity and to strengthen or cross external boundaries. Superimposed on the structure of competing and cooperating local groups is a state system of ethnic classification and administration; members and leaders of local groups incorporate this system into their own ethnic consciousness, co-opting or resisting it situationally. The heart of the book consists of detailed case studies of three Nuosu village communities, along with studies of Prmi and Naze communities, smaller groups such as the Yala and Nasu, and Han Chinese who live in minority areas. These are followed by a synthesis that compares different configurations of ethnic identity in different communities and discusses the implications of these examples for our understanding of ethnicity and for the near future of China. This lively description and analysis of the region?s complex ethnic identities and relationships constitutes an original and important contribution to the study of ethnic identity. Ways of Being Ethnic in Southwest China will be of interest to social scientists concerned with issues of ethnicity and state-building.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Surrender: How the Clinton Administration Completed the Reagan Revolution by Michael Allen Meeropol (University of Michigan Press) (6 Reviews)    Price verified 6 hours ago

Michael Meeropol argues that the ballooning of the federal budget deficit was not a serious problem in the 1980s, nor were the successful recent efforts to get it under control the basis for the prosperous economy of the mid-1990s. In this controversial book, the author provides a close look at what actually happened to the American economy during the years of the "Reagan Revolution" and reveals that the huge deficits had no negative effect on the economy. It was the other policies of the Reagan years--high interest rates to fight inflation, supply-side tax cuts, reductions in regulation, increased advantages for investors and the wealthy, the unraveling of the safety net for the poor--that were unsuccessful in generating more rapid growth and other economic improvements. Meeropol provides compelling evidence of the failure of the U.S. economy between 1990 and 1994 to generate rising incomes for most of the population or improvements in productivity. This caused, first, the electoral repudiation of President Bush in 1992, followed by a repudiation of President Clinton in the 1994 Congressional elections. The Clinton administration made a half-hearted attempt to reverse the Reagan Revolution in economic policy, but ultimately surrendered to the Republican Congressional majority in 1996 when Clinton promised to balance the budget by 2000 and signed the welfare reform bill. The rapid growth of the economy in 1997 caused surprisingly high government revenues, a dramatic fall in the federal budget deficit, and a brief euphoria evident in an almost uncontrollable stock market boom. Finally, Meeropol argues powerfully that the next recession, certain to come before the end of 1999, will turn the predicted path to budget balance and millennial prosperity into a painful joke on the hubris of public policymakers. Accessibly written as a work of recent history and public policy as much as economics, this book is intended for all Americans interested in issues of economic ...

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences

Letters of Helena Roerich II: 1935-1939 by Helena Roerich (Agni Yoga Society) (19 Reviews)    Price verified 6 hours ago

Helena Roerich was an unusually gifted woman, author of many books. Her collected Letters, in two volumes, are an example of the wisdom, spiritual insight, and simple advice she shared with a multitude of correspondents -- friends, foes, and co-workers alike.

Genre: Politics & Social Sciences