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A Compelling Guide to the Ultimate Spiritual Revolution They rose up to challenge the status quo and shake the foundations of our world. Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, Mother Mary, and divine rebels throughout the ages—their true legacy is not what they did in their time on earth, but the eternal beacon that they held up for each of us to follow. On Divine Rebels, Caroline Myss and Andrew Harvey offer you an opportunity and a challenge—to listen for the same divine voice that called to history's greatest spiritual trailblazers, and to answer it in your own life. Essential Training for an Insurgency of Truth and Love "If you are ready to put your soul in charge of your life instead of your ego, you are ready for your own rebellion," teaches Caroline Myss. Inspired by mystics such as Rumi, Sri Aurobindo, and Saint John of the Cross, Myss and Harvey have created a map for the journey to your own awakening. The first stage, they teach, is to overthrow the harmful and false beliefs we hold about ourselves—that we are small, unworthy, and isolated from the divine. Once you have grasped that revolutionary idea, you can begin to usurp the dominion of the ego and overcome the obstacles that stand in the way of your true purpose. Every one of us will hear the call in our lives—a drive to act that starts with the soul and expresses itself as a radical transformation in the way we live. The lesson of the divine rebel is that when we offer ourselves wholly to do what the divine asks of us, the power of grace will come flooding into our lives. Divine Rebels is a training course in finding the inspiration and courage to answer your own call—and discover for yourself why the ultimate rebellion is love. Music by Jon Samson HIGHLIGHTS Untold stories of saints, sages, and mystics—what we can learn from their struggles and triumphs • Honoring the great "yes"—the convergence of the sacred masculine and sacred feminine in our time • How spontaneous healings and miracles are an act of defiance—and what they defy • Why a mystic must be willing to challenge the divine—and to completely surrender • The steps of initiation to becoming a divine rebel • Love and truth—the essential pillars of a spiritual revolution • The dark night of the soul—how this spiritual crucible burns away the blockages between who we are and what we can be • Rumi and Shams, John and Teresa—the evolutionary nature of divine rebel partnerships • More than nine hours of fierce wisdom, revelatory teachings, and compassionate guidance for our soul's most transformative journey Course objectives: Discuss the steps of initiation in becoming a divine rebel, including more than one dark night of the soul, preparing you to walk a path of truth and love for the ultimate spiritual revolution. • Observe stories of saints, sages, and mystics—including the evolutionary nature of divine rebel partnerships--and learn from both their struggles and triumphs. • Summarize the value of the convergence of the sacred masculine and sacred feminine in our time. • Observe fierce wisdom, revelatory teachings, and compassionate guidance for your soul's most transformative journey.

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What is the man who cannot be known apart from his socio-political environment? As Zbigniew Janowski asserts, one does not ask who this man is, for he does not even know himself. This man is suppressed and separated, and not by Fascism or Communism. In present-day America this has been accomplished by democracy. “Only someone shortsighted, or someone who values equality more than freedom, would deny that today’s citizens enjoy little or no freedom, particularly freedom of speech, and even less the ability to express openly or publicly the opinions that are not in conformity with what the majority considers acceptable at a given moment. It may sound paradoxical to contemporary ears, but a fight against totalitarianism must also mean a fight against the expansion of democracy.” Janowski all at once brazen and out of bounds states what he calls the obvious and unthinkable truth: In the United States, we are already living in a totalitarian reality. The American citizen, the Homo Americanus, is an ideological being who is no longer good or bad, reasonable or irrational, proper or improper except when measured against the objectives of the dominating egalitarian mentality that American democracy has successfully incubated. American democracy has done what other despotic regimes have likewise achieved––namely, taken hold of the individual and forced him to renounce (or forget) his greatness, pursuit of virtue and his orientation toward history and Tradition. Homo Americanus, Janowski argues, has no mind or soul and he cannot tolerate diversity and indeed he now censors himself. Democracy is not benign, and we should fear its principles come by and applied ad hoc. It is deeply troublesome that in the way democracy moves today it gives critics no real insight into any trajectory of reason behind its motion, which is erratic and unmappable. The Homo Americanus is an ideological entity whose thought and even morality are forbidden from universal abstraction. Janowski mounts the offensive against what the American holds most sacred, and he does so in order to save him. After exposing the danger and the damage done, Janowski makes another startling proposal. It is a “diseased collective mind” that is the source of this ideology, the liberal anti-perspective that presses man into the image of the Homo Americanus, and its grip can only be broken through the recovery of instinct. Homo Americanus cannot be free again until he is himself again. That is, until the shadow that belongs only to him is restored, and he is thereby no longer alienated from others. Despite the condemnation Janowski seems to be levying on the citizen of the United States, he betrays a great hope and confidence that the means to shake ourselves awake from the bad dream are nevertheless in hand. Janowski’s work is the next title in St. Augustine’s Press Dissident American Thought Today Series. It occupies a controversial overlapping terrain between the philosophical descriptions of liberalism as a tradition, psychology and the fundamentally influential critiques of democracy offered by Thucydides, Jefferson, Franklin, Tocqueville, Mill, Burke and more. More anecdotal than analytical, Janowski offers the contemporary proof that the reader is right to be scandalized by democracy and his or her own likeness of the Homo Americanus. Once upon a time it was the despicable Homo Sovieticus fruit of tyranny, but now we fear democratic society too might fall and all its citizens never be found again.

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The potential use of space for military purposes has, since the end of the Second World War, been intrinsically linked to the development of space technology and space flight. The political relevance of outer space continues to be recognised by nations, particularly the strategic benefit of Earth observation from outer space as a national security tool. However, the dual-use potential of many space applications increasingly blurs the distinction between the military and non-military uses of space. In fact, many States have openly declared their willingness to protect their space assets by military means and some have even described outer space as a war-fighting domain. Non-State entities are becoming more and more involved in outer space activities, including the use of satellites for navigation purposes, the transportation of supplies to the International Space Station and the offering of tourist flights into outer space. Private operators have significantly increased activity in the launch of satellites and in 2021 no less than three private space companies (Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin and SpaceX) conducted successful space tourist flights. Today in all space-faring countries, the space industry contributes to national GDP and supports the labour force. It also serves as a catalyst for technological advancement and productivity growth, and has become an integral part of the day-to-day lives of people around the world. Consequently, the socio-economic benefits of space technology (in particular satellite technology) have made the development of space programmes an increasing necessity for developing States. Outer space has become a congested environment. The involvement of private actors, specifically, has given rise to a number of legal issues, including questions pertaining to liability, insurance, space debris, human rights and property rights in space. To address these legal uncertainties, the existing chapters in the second edition of Outer Space Law: Legal Policy and Practice have been updated significantly and several new chapters have been added dealing with topical issues including: the regulation of satellite navigation systems, and satellite constellations; the application of human rights in outer space settlements; the exploration and colonisation of outer space; and planetary protection. The second edition of Outer Space Law: Legal Policy and Practice remains aimed at readers looking for a single title to understand the key issues relevant to the space sector, by also emphasising the practical application of those issues. The book will be specifically relevant to legal practitioners, academics and State departments primarily working in the space arena, as well as to those in other related sectors such as IT and media, insurance and political science. Edited by Yanal Abul Failat, lawyer at the international law firm Fasken, and Professor Anél Ferreira-Snyman, a professor of law specialising in international space law at the University of South Africa, the book includes contributions by leading experts from space agencies, space venturers, lawyers, economists, insurers, academics and financiers.

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Through five colourful characters, three of them living out their very individual lives in an unnamed public park in Johannesburg, Zakes Mda explores the plight of women and children in a patriarchal and male-dominated twenty-first century world.Lord Stewart mourns his virginal companion (and regrets he didn’t try a little harder to change her state). He turns to another virgin, the eponymous Lady of Benoni, to help him find his lost love. Professor mourns the loss of his wife, Thabisile, humiliated and driven out of her community because she was believed not to have been a virgin before her marriage. MaDlomo mourns the fate of her child, raped as a three-month-old by a man seeking a cure for his HIV-positive state. And running in the background is the court case of a spiritual leader accused of rape and defended by the indomitable MaDlomo because of his support for the reintroduction of virginity testing.Stylistically adventurous and unafraid to deviate from conventionally accepted norms, Mda is iconoclastic in his handling of the ways in which attitudes to power, superstition, ethics and sex are constructed. The discourse of patriarchy and its ‘regime of truths’ that define female sexuality, its obligations and its custodianship, are the focus of the play.Zakes Mda’s satire is a kaleidoscopic display of the extremes to which men (and by implication women) are prepared to go in terms of valuing what is ‘virginal’. Mda presents us with the consequences of transgression: that which is seen as polluted and judged to be dangerous to the good health and purity of a group, a society, a culture. Taboos, superstition, customs and moral ethics become the subjects of inquiry and are, at times, subjected to ribald satire. This play cuts into a virtuoso style of theatre that can in no way be confused with the objectives and methods of conventional realism. Mda establishes a unique style and tone that is innovative, entertaining and challenging. It fuses satirical elements derived from classical poetry with a modernist sensibility that synthesises Brechtian and Absurdist features of theatricality, using characters as types and montage. Above all, in this work there is a profound exploration of what it means to operate in the politically charged landscape that defines post-apartheid South Africa with its cultural pluralities and differentials in access to resources and agency. Stylistically adventurous and unafraid to deviate from conventionally accepted norms, Mda is iconoclastic in his handling of the ways in which attitudes to power, superstition, ethics and sex are constructed. The cultural discourse of patriarchy and the ‘regime of truths’ regarding ideals and taboos defining female sexuality, its obligations, and its custodianship are the focus of this play.Written with ribald wit and trenchant satire, Our Lady of Benoni is suffused with laughter and pathos, leaving readers with much to ponder.

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From EverQuest to World of Warcraft, online games have evolved from the exclusive domain of computer geeks into an extraordinarily lucrative staple of the entertainment industry. People of all ages and from all walks of life now spend thousands of hours—and dollars—partaking in this popular new brand of escapism. But the line between fantasy and reality is starting to blur. Players have created virtual societies with governments and economies of their own whose currencies now trade against the dollar on eBay at rates higher than the yen. And the players who inhabit these synthetic worlds are starting to spend more time online than at their day jobs. In Synthetic Worlds, Edward Castronova offers the first comprehensive look at the online game industry, exploring its implications for business and culture alike. He starts with the players, giving us a revealing look into the everyday lives of the gamers—outlining what they do in their synthetic worlds and why. He then describes the economies inside these worlds to show how they might dramatically affect real world financial systems, from potential disruptions of markets to new business horizons. Ultimately, he explores the long-term social consequences of online games: If players can inhabit worlds that are more alluring and gratifying than reality, then how can the real world ever compete? Will a day ever come when we spend more time in these synthetic worlds than in our own? Or even more startling, will a day ever come when such questions no longer sound alarmist but instead seem obsolete? With more than ten million active players worldwide—and with Microsoft and Sony pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into video game development—online games have become too big to ignore. Synthetic Worlds spearheads our efforts to come to terms with this virtual reality and its concrete effects. “Illuminating. . . . Castronova’s analysis of the economics of fun is intriguing. Virtual-world economies are designed to make the resulting game interesting and enjoyable for their inhabitants. Many games follow a rags-to-riches storyline, for example. But how can all the players end up in the top 10%? Simple: the upwardly mobile human players need only be a subset of the world's population. An underclass of computer-controlled 'bot' citizens, meanwhile, stays poor forever. Mr. Castronova explains all this with clarity, wit, and a merciful lack of academic jargon.”—The Economist “Synthetic Worlds is a surprisingly profound book about the social, political, and economic issues arising from the emergence of vast multiplayer games on the Internet. What Castronova has realized is that these games, where players contribute considerable labor in exchange for things they value, are not merely like real economies, they are real economies, displaying inflation, fraud, Chinese sweatshops, and some surprising in-game innovations.”—Tim Harford, Chronicle of Higher Education

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NVIDIA's Full-Color Guide to Deep Learning: All You Need to Get Started and Get Results "To enable everyone to be part of this historic revolution requires the democratization of AI knowledge and resources. This book is timely and relevant towards accomplishing these lofty goals." -- From the foreword by Dr. Anima Anandkumar, Bren Professor, Caltech, and Director of ML Research, NVIDIA "Ekman uses a learning technique that in our experience has proven pivotal to success—asking the reader to think about using DL techniques in practice. His straightforward approach is refreshing, and he permits the reader to dream, just a bit, about where DL may yet take us." -- From the foreword by Dr. Craig Clawson, Director, NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute Deep learning (DL) is a key component of today's exciting advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence. Learning Deep Learning is a complete guide to DL. Illuminating both the core concepts and the hands-on programming techniques needed to succeed, this book is ideal for developers, data scientists, analysts, and others--including those with no prior machine learning or statistics experience.After introducing the essential building blocks of deep neural networks, such as artificial neurons and fully connected, convolutional, and recurrent layers, Magnus Ekman shows how to use them to build advanced architectures, including the Transformer. He describes how these concepts are used to build modern networks for computer vision and natural language processing (NLP), including Mask R-CNN, GPT, and BERT. And he explains how a natural language translator and a system generating natural language descriptions of images.Throughout, Ekman provides concise, well-annotated code examples using TensorFlow with Keras. Corresponding PyTorch examples are provided online, and the book thereby covers the two dominating Python libraries for DL used in industry and academia. He concludes with an introduction to neural architecture search (NAS), exploring important ethical issues and providing resources for further learning. Explore and master core concepts: perceptrons, gradient-based learning, sigmoid neurons, and back propagation See how DL frameworks make it easier to develop more complicated and useful neural networks Discover how convolutional neural networks (CNNs) revolutionize image classification and analysis Apply recurrent neural networks (RNNs) and long short-term memory (LSTM) to text and other variable-length sequences Master NLP with sequence-to-sequence networks and the Transformer architecture Build applications for natural language translation and image captioning NVIDIA's invention of the GPU sparked the PC gaming market. The company's pioneering work in accelerated computing--a supercharged form of computing at the intersection of computer graphics, high-performance computing, and AI--is reshaping trillion-dollar industries, such as transportation, healthcare, and manufacturing, and fueling the growth of many others.Register your book for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. See inside book for details.

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Using contemporary empirical research data, this book takes the stance that purposeful self-regulation actively contributes to promoting deeper learning approaches and generally improves teaching and learning. The underlying aim is to help students become strategic, motivated, and independent learners, capable of controlling themselves by themselves. Such self-control may range over a host of variables (behavioural, psychological, emotional, etc.). This book comes at a time when connectivity has exponentially improved worldwide so that more and more individuals have real time information at their fingertips. The fundamental shift in information accessibility from tedious searching through books and manuscripts to on-demand click of a mouse has had phenomenal impacts of the way we do business. Whereas previously, self-regulation may not have been a priority for many persons, increasingly it has now assumed preeminence with the proliferation of laptop computers, tablets, smart phones and numerous other handheld devices that allow easy access to the Internet. In fact, researchers continue to develop software for helping students self-regulate as well as getting the most out of their studies. Needless to say, self-regulated learning (SRL) is mandatory not only for employability but also for lifelong learning since it enables learners to construct knowledge (constructivism) by identifying their own learning goals; self-managing their learning processes; and self-evaluating their performance against goals. Additionally, SRL is very important when often times it is observed that several individuals who have noticeably lower cognitive abilities are able to better self-regulate and consequently achieve more than they should be able to according to their cognitive ranking. Improving teaching and learning through self-regulation therefore has far reaching implications for the kind of individuals we send out to society and the nature of the contributions they make. Quotations from well known persons in the public domain serve to anchor the reader in preparation for the contents of the corresponding section. Such quotations have been found to serve as an effective form of motivation and accordingly may be successfully echoed to students when appropriate. The shareware graphics interspaced in the text not only break the possible monotony usually experienced by many readers, especially in today's online age, but serve to engage and stimulate thought and, in many instances, bring comic relief. These exhibits help to capture the attention of readers and help them to focus on the contents of the various sections at hand. Reinforcing ideas is another powerful function served by the apparent preponderance of exhibits. Hence, what may well be easily misconstrued as too many exhibits, would be much better interpreted as a unique and unusual presentation, with a variation of format, that is meant to have the reader truly appreciate the common saying, 'a picture is worth a thousand words'!

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This book is going to challenge you and everything you think you know about succession planning. For independent advisors, succession planning is quickly becoming the cornerstone to a strategic growth strategy designed to perpetuate their business and their income streams beyond their own lifetime, while providing a multi-generational service platform that attracts and rewards younger advisors. This makes succession planning one of the most, if not the most, important practice management tools in this industry today. As an independent financial advisor, now is the time to address the question of what will happen to your practice and your clients after you “exit the building.” In most cases, the answers are right in front of you. Thankfully, Succession Planning for Financial Advisors: Building an Enduring Business has arrived to transform today’s practices into businesses designed to endure and prosper and serve generations of clients. Learn how to create a “Lifestyle Succession Plan” that can provide a lifetime of income and benefits to the founder even as he/she gradually retires on the job Unlock the power of equity management – the best planning and building tool an independent advisor owns Learn how to attract and retain the best of the next generation to help you build a great business and to support your succession plans and care for your clients and their families Determine precisely when to start a formal succession plan and related continuity plan so that your business can work for you when you need it most Understand why succession planning and selling your business are completely different strategies, but how they can complement each other when used correctly 95% of independent financial service professionals are one owner practices. To the positive, these practices are among the most valuable professional service models in America. But almost all advisors are assembling their practices using the wrong tools – tools borrowed from historically successful, but vastly different models including wirehouses, broker-dealers, and even OSJ’s and branch managers. Revenue sharing, commission splitting and other eat-what-you-kill compensation methods dominate the independent sector and virtually ensure that today’s independent practices, if left unchanged, will not survive the end of their founder’s career. It is time to change course and this book provides the map and the details to help you do just that. For independent practice owners and staff members, advisors who want to transition to independence, as well as accountants, attorneys, coaches and others involved in the financial services space, there are invaluable lessons to be learned from Succession Planning for Financial Advisors. Written by the leading succession planning expert in the financial services industry, former securities regulator, M&A specialist, and founder of the nationally recognized consulting and equity management firm, FP Transitions, David Grau Sr., JD, has created an unmatched resource that will have an enduring and resounding impact on an entire industry.

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Northumberland to the Romans it was Ad Fines, the limit of the Empire, the end of the Roman World. It was here in 122 AD that the Emperor Hadrian decided to build a wall stretching from coast-to-coast to provide protection, to show the might of the Empire, and as a statement of his grandeur. Visitors to Northumberland can walk the Wall visiting milecastles, Roman frontier forts and settlements such as Housesteads (where you can see the oldest toilets you ll ever see) or Vindolanda (where you can take part in an archaeological dig) where wooden tablets detailing life on this frontier (the oldest example of written language in Britain) were discovered, or the remains of Roman temples and shrines (such as the Mithraeum at Carrawburgh). After the Romans left, Northumberland became the heart of one of the greatest kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon Britain, Northumbria. The home of Saints, scholars and warrior kings. Visitors can see the ancient seat of this kingdom at the medieval Bamburgh Castle, visit Hexham Abbey (built in 674 AD), or tour the magnificent remains of the 7th century Priory at Tynemouth (where three kings are buried Oswin (d. 651), Osred (d. 790), and the Scottish King Malcolm III (d. 1093). No other county in Britain has as many medieval remains as Northumberland. From the most grand such as Alnwick Castle (known as the Windsor of the North, the home of the Dukes of Northumberland, the capital of Northumberland, and, to many, Hogwarts!) to humble remains such as the Chantry at Morpeth. At Warkworth visitors can tour the medieval church (scene of a 12th century Scottish massacre), Warkworth Castle (another Percy possession and the setting for a scene in Shakespeare s Henry IV), a medieval hermitage, and the fortified bridge gatehouse (one of the only surviving examples in Britain). Northumberland was ravaged during the Anglo-Scottish Wars and this led to the development of family clans of Border Reivers who were active during the 16th and early 17th centuries. Raiders, looters, blackmailers and courageous cavalrymen the Reivers have left many surviving remnants of their harsh time. Peel Towers dot the landscape alongside Bastle Houses. The active can even walk in the footsteps of the Reivers by following the Reivers Way long distance path. Victorian Northumberland was dominated by both farming and, increasingly, by the industrial genius of some of its entrepreneurs. The greatest of these, Lord Armstrong (known as the Magician of the North), has left behind one of the most magnificent tourist sites in Britain; his home at Cragside. Carved from a bare hillside and transplanted with millions of trees and shrubs and crowned with the beautiful Cragside House visitors can walk the grounds taking advantage of various trails and spotting wildlife such as red squirrels before visiting the first house in the world to be lit by electricity!

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"If historical scholarship has often proved irrelevant to the world outside university walls, history itself has burst into the public domain. Over the last decade, we have witnessed intense national debates over how to present historic events to a public that attends museums, monitors education in the schools, and gazes at the History Channel. Under these circumstances, historians face the challenge of developing new ways of understanding the past and the place of the past in the present. The essays in this volume explore how scholars have reformulated the study of American history over the past fifteen years and identify new headings for future work."-from the Preface In The Challenge of American History, Louis Masur brings together a sampling recent scholarship to determine the key issues preoccupying historians of American history and to contemplate the discipline's direction for the future. The 15 summary essays comprising this volume allow professional historians, history teachers, and students to grasp in a convenient and accessible form what historians have been writing about. Arranged in a general chronological order, these essays probe such topics as the age of discovery, colonial American history, emancipation, race and labor history, law and political development, and the nature of historical writing since the 1960s. Additional essays discuss race and gender in colonial as well as modern America, the new paradigms of urban history, religious history, visual culture, public history, the new narrative history, and the meanings of national culture.

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The fourteenth novel in Cherryh’s Foreigner space opera series, a groundbreaking tale of first contact and its consequences…Civil war on the world of the atevi is finally over. Bren Cameron, brilliant human diplomat allied with the dominant Western Association, has finally returned to the capital from the southern coast, where he negotiated a daring redistribution of the atevi legislature. Now, Bren is settling back into the capital, in the home he knew prior to the war—but life at the atevi court is never easy. Tabini-aiji, head of the Western Association and Bren's ally, has promised his son, Cajeiri, that he can have the young human children he knew from his voyage on the world's space station sent down to the planet for a birthday celebration. But there's far a darker business going on in the background—a major split compromising the Assassins' Guild, which furnishes security and law enforcement to the whole continent. Tabini's consort's own father has been barred from court, and may be involved in a new conspiracy against him. Tabini wants Bren to take charge of Cajeiri, and see him and his young guests to safety, all while keeping the security problem a state secret. Can Bren protect Cajeiri and the unsuspecting human children who are to be guests in an atevi household that is on the brink of political explosion?The long-running Foreigner series can also be enjoyed by more casual genre readers in sub-trilogy installments. Protector is the 14th Foreigner novel, and the 2nd book in the fifth subtrilogy.

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Postwar multilateral cooperation is often viewed as an attempt to overcome the limitations of the nation-state system. However, in 1945, when the United Nations was founded, large parts of the world were still under imperial control. Building States investigates how the UN tried to manage the dissolution of European empires in the 1950s and 1960s—and helped transform the practice of international development and the meaning of state sovereignty in the process.Eva-Maria Muschik argues that the UN played a key role in the global proliferation and reinvention of the nation-state in the postwar era, as newly independent states came to rely on international assistance. Drawing on previously untapped primary sources, she traces how UN personnel—usually in close consultation with Western officials—sought to manage decolonization peacefully through international development assistance. Examining initiatives in Libya, Somaliland, Bolivia, the Congo, and New York, Muschik shows how the UN pioneered a new understanding and practice of state building, presented as a technical challenge for international experts rather than a political process. UN officials increasingly took on public-policy functions, despite the organization’s mandate not to interfere in the domestic affairs of its member states. These initiatives, Muschik suggests, had lasting effects on international development practice, peacekeeping, and post-conflict territorial administration.Casting new light on how international organizations became major players in the governance of developing countries, Building States has significant implications for the histories of decolonization, the Cold War, and international development.

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This book provides an in-depth look into key political dynamics that obtain in a democracy without parties, offering a window into political undercurrents increasingly in evidence throughout the Latin American region, where political parties are withering. For the past three decades, Peru has showcased a political universe populated by amateur politicians and the dominance of personalism as the main party–voter linkage form. The study peruses the post-2000 evolution of some of the key Peruvian electoral vehicles and classifies the partisan universe as a party non-system. There are several elements endogenous to personalist electoral vehicles that perpetuate partylessness, contributing to the absence of party building. The book also examines electoral dynamics in partyless settings, centrally shaped by effective electoral supply, personal brands, contingency, and iterated rounds of strategic voting calculi. Given the scarcity of information electoral vehicles provide, as well as the enormously complex political environment Peruvian citizens inhabit, personal brands provide readymade informational shortcuts that simplify the political world. The concept of “negative legitimacy environments” is furnished to capture political settings comprised of supermajorities of floating voters, pervasive negative political identities, and a generic citizen preference for newcomers and political outsiders. Such environments, increasingly present throughout Latin America, produce several deleterious effects, including high political uncertainty, incumbency disadvantage, and political time compression. Peru’s “democracy without parties” fails to deliver essential democratic functions including governability, responsiveness, horizontal and vertical accountability, or democratic representation, among others.

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The sacred and the profane, self and world, literature and politics meet in the figure of Pierrot. He is the sad clown, holy fool of literary tradition, the suffering artist who connects to Christ in his most human incarnation as Man of Sorrows. He is also the Pierrot Grenade of Caribbean carnival, the most literary of carnival figures who can spell anything, who carries a whip, but lashes with his tongue. Pierrot is both the bedraggled figure at the sordid end of carnival who is weary of the “Infernal cycles of mamaguy kaiso politricks”, and the risen Christ who, if you listen, can be heard to “crack His midnight robber word”. In his ninth collection of poems, John Robert Lee contemplates his 70th year in St Lucia and the sad chimes of mortality as friends and literary and cultural heroes leave this life. It’s a time for a weighing up of where domestic, political, literary and spiritual journeys have reached. It is a time of honest admissions but also renewed faith in all these journeys. This is no retired poetry steeped in reflective sorrow, but probably the most vigorous, demotic, experimental and intimate of John Robert Lee’s collections. More of the man in all his guises appears here, a confessional voice lightened by self-irony and humour. Sometimes Pierrot is an archetypal figure, sometimes he may be thought to be Lee himself. And if salvation is the ultimate prize, few have beaten down the Babylon of the great northern neighbour with a heavier, more righteous lash than Lee wields in his poem, “Who made me a stranger in this world”.

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With a new look at the 1880s financial reforms in Japan, Steven J. Ericson's Financial Stabilization in Meiji Japan overturns widely held views of the program carried out by Finance Minister Matsukata Masayoshi. As Ericson shows, rather than constituting an orthodox financial-stabilization program—a sort of precursor of the "neoliberal" reforms promoted by the IMF in the 1980s and 1990s—Matsukata's policies differed in significant ways from both classical economic liberalism and neoliberal orthodoxy. The Matsukata financial reform has become famous largely for the wrong reasons, and Ericson sets the record straight. He shows that Matsukata intended to pursue fiscal retrenchment and budget-balancing when he became finance minister in late 1881. Various exigencies, including foreign military crises and a worsening domestic depression, compelled him instead to increase spending by running deficits and floating public bonds. Though he drastically reduced the money supply, he combined the positive and contractionary policies of his immediate predecessors to pull off a program of "expansionary austerity" paralleling state responses to financial crisis elsewhere in the world both then and now. Through a new and much-needed recalibration of this pivotal financial reform, Financial Stabilization in Meiji Japan demonstrates that, in several ways, ranging from state-led export promotion to the creation of a government-controlled central bank, Matsukata advanced policies that were more in line with a nationalist, developmentalist approach than with a liberal economic one. Ericson shows that Matsukata Masayoshi was far from a rigid adherent of classical economic liberalism.

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The Limits of Liberty chronicles the formation of the U.S.-Mexico border from the perspective of the “mobile peoples” who assisted in determining the international boundary from both sides in the mid-nineteenth century. In this historic and timely study, James David Nichols argues against the many top-down connotations that borders carry, noting that the state cannot entirely dominate the process of boundary marking. Even though there were many efforts on the part of the United States and Mexico to define the new international border as a limit, mobile peoples continued to transgress the border and cross it with impunity. Transborder migrants reimagined the dividing line as a gateway to opportunity rather than as a fence limiting their movement. Runaway slaves, Mexican debt peones, and seminomadic Native Americans saw liberty on the other side of the line and crossed in search of greater opportunity. In doing so they devised their own border epistemology that clashed with official understandings of the boundary. These divergent understandings resulted in violence with the crossing of vigilantes, soldiers, and militias in search of fugitives and runaways.The Limits of Liberty explores how the border attracted migrants from both sides and considers border-crossers together, whereas most treatments thus far have considered discrete social groups along the border. Mining Mexican archival sources, Nichols is one of the first scholars to explore the nuance of negotiation that took place between the state and mobile peoples in the formation of borders.

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This archaeological report provides a comprehensive study of the excavations carried out at Amheida House B2 in Egypt's Dakhleh Oasis between 2005 and 2007, followed by three study seasons between 2008 and 2010. The excavations at Amheida in Egypt's western desert, begun in 2001 under the aegis of Columbia University and sponsored by NYU since 2008, are investigating all aspects of social life and material culture at the administrative center of ancient Trimithis. The excavations so far have focused on three areas of this very large site: a centrally located upper-class fourth-century AD house with wall paintings, an adjoining school, and underlying remains of a Roman bath complex; a more modest house of the third century; and the temple hill, with remains of the Temple of Thoth built in the first century AD and of earlier structures. Architectural conservation has protected and partly restored two standing funerary monuments, a mud-brick pyramid and a tower tomb, both of the Roman period. This volume presents and discusses the architecture, artifacts and ecofacts recovered from B2 in a holistic manner, which has rarely before been attempted in a full report on the excavation of a Romano-Egyptian house. The primary aim of this volume is to combine an architectural and material-based study with an explicitly contextual and theoretical analysis. In so doing, it develops a methodology and presents a case study of how the rich material remains of Romano-Egyptian houses may be used to investigate the relationship between domestic remains and social identity.

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Uses literature to understand and remake our ethics regarding nonhuman animals, old human beings, disabled human beings, and cloned posthumans Literary Bioethics argues for literature as an untapped and essential site for the exploration of bioethics. Novels, Maren Tova Linett argues, present vividly imagined worlds in which certain values hold sway, casting new light onto those values; and the more plausible and well rendered readers find these imagined worlds, the more thoroughly we can evaluate the justice of those values. In an innovative set of readings, Linett thinks through the ethics of animal experimentation in H.G. Wells’s The Island of Doctor Moreau, explores the elimination of aging in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, considers the valuation of disabled lives in Flannery O’Connor’s The Violent Bear It Away, and questions the principles of humane farming through reading Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. By analyzing novels published at widely spaced intervals over the span of a century, Linett offers snapshots of how we confront questions of value. In some cases the fictions are swayed by dominant devaluations of nonnormative or nonhuman lives, while in other cases they confirm the value of such lives by resisting instrumental views of their worth—views that influence, explicitly or implicitly, many contemporary bioethical discussions, especially about the value of disabled and nonhuman lives. Literary Bioethics grapples with the most fundamental questions of how we value different kinds of lives, and questions what those in power ought to be permitted to do with those lives as we gain unprecedented levels of technological prowess.

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The broadcasting industry’s trade association, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), sought to sanitize television content via its self-regulatory document, the Television Code. The Code covered everything from the stories, images, and sounds of TV programs (no profanity, illicit sex and drinking, negative portrayals of family life and law enforcement officials, or irreverence for God and religion) to the allowable number of commercial minutes per hour of programming. It mandated that broadcasters make time for religious programming and discouraged them from charging for it. And it called for tasteful and accurate coverage of news, public events, and controversial issues.Using archival documents from the Federal Communications Commission, NBC, the NAB, and a television reformer, Senator William Benton, this book explores the run-up to the adoption of the 1952 Television Code from the perspectives of the government, TV viewers, local broadcasters, national networks, and the industry’s trade association. Deborah L. Jaramillo analyzes the competing motives and agendas of each of these groups as she builds a convincing case that the NAB actually developed the Television Code to protect commercial television from reformers who wanted more educational programming, as well as from advocates of subscription television, an alternative distribution model to the commercial system. By agreeing to self-censor content that viewers, local stations, and politicians found objectionable, Jaramillo concludes, the NAB helped to ensure that commercial broadcast television would remain the dominant model for decades to come.

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As the Great Depression gripped the United States in the early 1930s, the Hoover administration sought to preserve jobs for Anglo-Americans by targeting Mexicans, including long-time residents and even US citizens, for deportation. Mexicans comprised more than 46 percent of all people deported between 1930 and 1939, despite being only 1 percent of the US population. In all, about half a million people of Mexican descent were deported to Mexico, a “homeland” many of them had never seen, or returned voluntarily in fear of deportation.They Came to Toil investigates how the news reporting of this episode in immigration history created frames for representing Mexicans and immigrants that persist to the present. Melita M. Garza sets the story in San Antonio, a city central to the formation of Mexican American identity, and contrasts how the city’s three daily newspapers covered the forced deportations of Mexicans. She shows that the Spanish-language La Prensa not surprisingly provided the fullest and most sympathetic coverage of immigration issues, while the locally owned San Antonio Express and the Hearst chain-owned San Antonio Light varied between supporting Mexican labor and demonizing it. Garza analyzes how these media narratives, particularly in the English-language press, contributed to the racial “othering” of Mexicans and Mexican Americans. Adding an important new chapter to the history of the Long Civil Rights Movement, They Came to Toil brings needed historical context to immigration issues that dominate today’s headlines.

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Henry A. Wallace Award, The Agricultural History Society, 2018Brazil has the second-largest cattle herd in the world and is a major exporter of beef. While ranching in the Amazon—and its destructive environmental consequences—receives attention from both the media and scholars, the states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul actually host the most cattle. A significant beef producer in Brazil beginning in the late nineteenth century, the region served as a laboratory for raising cattle in the tropics, where temperate zone ranching practices do not work. Mato Grosso ranchers and cowboys transformed ranching’s relationship with the environment, including the introduction of an exotic cattle breed—the Zebu—that now dominates Latin American tropical ranching.Cattle in the Backlands presents a comprehensive history of ranching in Mato Grosso. Using extensive primary sources, Robert W. Wilcox explores three key aspects: the economic transformation of a remote frontier region through modern technical inputs; the resulting social changes, especially in labor structures and land tenure; and environmental factors, including the long-term impact of ranching on ecosystems, which, he contends, was not as detrimental as might be assumed. Wilcox demonstrates that ranching practices in Mato Grosso set the parameters for tropical beef production in Brazil and throughout Latin America. As the region was incorporated into national and international economic structures, its ranching industry experienced the entry of foreign investment, the introduction of capitalized processing facilities, and nascent discussions of ecological impacts—developments that later affected many sectors of the Brazilian economy.

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Breaking the mold of existing calculus textbooks, Calculus in Context draws students into the subject in two new ways. Part I develops the mathematical preliminaries (including geometry, trigonometry, algebra, and coordinate geometry) within the historical frame of the ancient Greeks and the heliocentric revolution in astronomy. Part II starts with comprehensive and modern treatments of the fundamentals of both differential and integral calculus, then turns to a wide-ranging discussion of applications. Students will learn that core ideas of calculus are central to concepts such as acceleration, force, momentum, torque, inertia, and the properties of lenses. Classroom-tested at Notre Dame University, this textbook is suitable for students of wide-ranging backgrounds because it engages its subject at several levels and offers ample and flexible problem set options for instructors. Parts I and II are both supplemented by expansive Problems and Projects segments. Topics covered in the book include: * the basics of geometry, trigonometry, algebra, and coordinate geometry and the historical, scientific agenda that drove their development* a brief, introductory calculus from the works of Newton and Leibniz* a modern development of the essentials of differential and integral calculus* the analysis of specific, relatable applications, such as the arc of the George Washington Bridge; the dome of the Pantheon; the optics of a telescope; the dynamics of a bullet; the geometry of the pseudosphere; the motion of a planet in orbit; and the momentum of an object in free fall. Calculus in Context is a compelling exploration-for students and instructors alike-of a discipline that is both rich in conceptual beauty and broad in its applied relevance.

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Gold Medal Winner; Philanthropy, Charities, and Nonprofits; 2012 Axiom Business Book Awards Giving 2.0 is the ultimate resource for anyone navigating the seemingly infinite ways one can give. The future of philanthropy is far more than just writing a check, and Giving 2.0 shows how individuals of every age and income level can harness the power of technology, collaboration, innovation, advocacy, and social entrepreneurship to take their giving to the next level and beyond. Major gifts may dominate headlines, but the majority of giving still comes from individual households—ordinary people with extraordinary generosity. Even in 2009, at a time of deep recession, individual giving averaged almost $2,000 per household and drove 82% of the $300 billion donated that same year. Based on her vast experience as a philanthropist, academic, volunteer, and social innovator, Arrillaga-Andreessen shares the most effective techniques she herself pilots and studies and a vast portfolio of lessons learned during her lifetime of giving. Featuring dozens of stories on innovative and powerful methods of how individuals give time, money, and expertise—whether volunteering and fundraising, leveraging technology and social media, starting a giving circle, fund, foundation, or advocacy group, or aspiring to create greater social impact—Giving 2.0 shows readers how they can renew, improve, and expand their giving and reach their fullest potential. A practical, entertaining, and inspiring call to action, Giving 2.0 is an indispensable tool for anyone passionate about creating change in our world.

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Edition with English translation of a document shedding huge light on one of the most important figures of her time. The household roll of Eleanor, countess of Leicester and Pembroke, offers a fascinating insight into one of the most important domestic establishments in England during the Second Barons' War of 1263-7. As the wife of Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, the leading figure within the baronial regime, and the sister and aunt of King Henry III and the Lord Edward, respectively, Countess Eleanor occupied a position at the heart of English political affairs up to, and after, her husband's death at the Battle of Evesham on 4 August 1265. This volume is a critical edition of the extant thirteen membranes of Countess Eleanor's household account roll for that momentous year, 1265 (British Library, Additional MS 8877). Presented here in the original Latin and with an accompanying English translation, Countess Eleanor's roll includes her diet account for the period from 19 February to 29 August 1265, listing her visitors and the different items of food and drink consumed on each day at each castle at which she was resident, including Wallingford, Odiham and Dover. The roll also incorporates a "wardrobe journal", covering the period up until 1 October 1265, detailing expenditure on the purchase and repair of household furnishings, goods and utensils, on clothing and wages, on the Montfortian war effort in the South, and on messengers travelling to and from the countess, Earl Simon, her sons and associates, in the months before and after the Battle of Evesham.

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This book presents the "forgotten" thought of the Anti-Federalists as an important alternative to the Federalist tradition in American political history. In tracing Anti-Federalist concepts from their origins in prerevolutionary Congregationalist theology through to the writing of the U.S. Constitution, Duncan shows that Anti-Federalist theory underscores the religious, localist, and communitarian origins of the American political tradition. He argues that the Anti-Federalists were indeed the true representatives of the American Revolution and the political arrangements that resulted from it - men of a localist, communitarian faith in which political participation is an end in itself rather than a means to other objectives. As such, he concludes, the course bolstered by the Anti-Federalists represents a viable "road not taken" in America's national heritage.Duncan challenges the dominant view among scholars of the American Anti-Federalists and counters the impression that the Anti-Federalists were liberals whose fear of government and power left them unable to articulate and to construct a lasting political association. Duncan shows that the Anti-Federalists engaged in a rigorous defense of republican political community and its associate ideal of public happiness, in contrast to the liberal ideal of private happiness expressed by their Federalist counterparts.The Anti-Federalists and Early American Political Thought offers insights into a tradition of American political discourse that is relevant to contemporary arguments within political theory. The book will be of interest to students of political philosophy, American government and politics, and early American history.

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Trinidad is known for its vibrant musical traditions, which reflect the island’s ethnic diversity. The annual Carnival, far and away the biggest event in Trinidad, is filled with soca and calypso music. Soca is a dance music derived from calypso, a music with African antecedents. In parang, a Venezuelan and Spanish derived folk music that dominates Trinidadian Christmas festivities, groups of singers and musicians progress from house to house, performing for their neighbors. Chutney is also an Indo-Caribbean music. In Bacchanalian Sentiments, Kevin K. Birth argues that these and other Trinidadian musical genres and traditions not only provide a soundtrack to daily life on the southern Caribbean island; they are central to the ways that Trinidadians experience and navigate their social lives and interpret political events.Birth draws on fieldwork he conducted in one of Trinidad’s ethnically diverse rural villages to explore the relationship between music and social and political consciousness on the island. He describes how Trinidadians use the affective power of music and the physiological experience of performance to express and work through issues related to identity, ethnicity, and politics. He looks at how the performers and audience members relate to different musical traditions. Turning explicitly to politics, Birth recounts how Trinidadians used music as a means of making sense of the attempted coup d’état in 1990 and the 1995 parliamentary election, which resulted in a tie between the two major political parties. Bacchanalian Sentiments is an innovative ethnographic analysis of the significance of music, and particular musical forms, in the everyday lives of rural Trinidadians.

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Traditional literary theory holds that women writers of the Restoration and eighteenth century produced works of limited range and value: simple tales of domestic conflict, seduction, and romance. Bringing a broad range of methodologies (historical, textual, post-structuralist, psychological) to bear on the works of Eliza Haywood, Charlotte Smith, Sarah Fielding, Fanny Burney, Jane Austen, and others. Fetter'd or Free? encourages a re-evaluation of these elder sisters of the Brontes and Eliot. In addition to examining the relationship between the minor female writers and the acknowledged greats of the age, these twenty-three essays focus on such issues as politics and ideology in the novel; the social, cultural, and economic context of the female writer; female character types and iconography; fictional and rhetorical strategies; and the development of such recurrent themes as imprisonment and subversion. What emerges is a much clearer view than we have had of the predicament of the female writer in the eighteenth century, the constraints on her freedom and artistic integrity, and the means by which she recognized, expressed, and responded to the conditions of this turbulent age. The collection includes essays by Paula Backscheider, Patricia M. Spacks, Jerry C. Beasley, Margaret Anne Doody, Robert A. Day, and others. None of the essays has been previously published. In scope and variety, Fetter'd of Free? is unlike anything currently available. It will be of interest to both the specialist and the ambitious general reader and will initiate fresh dialogues among scholars of both eighteenth century literature and women's studies.

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Since the early twentieth century, thousands of Mexican Americans have lived, worked, and formed communities in Chicago’s steel mill neighborhoods. Drawing on individual stories and oral histories, Michael Innis-Jiménez tells the story of a vibrant, active community that continues to play a central role in American politics and society. Examining how the fortunes of Mexicans in South Chicago were linked to the environment they helped to build, Steel Barrio offers new insights into how and why Mexican Americans created community. This book investigates the years between the World Wars, the period that witnessed the first, massive influx of Mexicans into Chicago. South Chicago Mexicans lived in a neighborhood whose literal and figurative boundaries were defined by steel mills, which dominated economic life for Mexican immigrants. Yet while the mills provided jobs for Mexican men, they were neither the center of community life nor the source of collective identity. Steel Barrio argues that the Mexican immigrant and Mexican American men and women who came to South Chicago created physical and imagined community not only to defend against the ever-present social, political, and economic harassment and discrimination, but to grow in a foreign, polluted environment. Steel Barrio reconstructs the everyday strategies the working-class Mexican American community adopted to survive in areas from labor to sports to activism. This book links a particular community in South Chicago to broader issues in twentieth-century U.S. history, including race and labor, urban immigration, and the segregation of cities.

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There have always been mail-order brides in America—but we haven’t always thought about them in the same ways. In Buying a Bride, Marcia A. Zug starts with the so-called “Tobacco Wives” of the Jamestown colony and moves all the way forward to today’s modern same-sex mail-order grooms to explore the advantages and disadvantages of mail-order marriage. It’s a history of deception, physical abuse, and failed unions. It’s also the story of how mail-order marriage can offer women surprising and empowering opportunities. Drawing on a forgotten trove of colorful mail-order marriage court cases, Zug explores the many troubling legal issues that arise in mail-order marriage: domestic abuse and murder, breach of contract, fraud (especially relating to immigration), and human trafficking and prostitution. She tells the story of how mail-order marriage lost the benign reputation it enjoyed in the Civil War era to become more and more reviled over time, and she argues compellingly that it does not entirely deserve its current reputation. While it is a common misperception that women turn to mail-order marriage as a desperate last resort, most mail-order brides are enticed rather than coerced. Since the first mail-order brides arrived on American shores in 1619, mail-order marriage has enabled women to improve both their marital prospects and their legal, political, and social freedoms. Buying A Bride uncovers this history and shows us how mail-order marriage empowers women and should be protected and even encouraged.

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When the 2016 Oscar acting nominations all went to whites for the second consecutive year, #OscarsSoWhite became a trending topic. Yet these enduring racial biases afflict not only the Academy Awards, but also Hollywood as a whole. Why do actors of color, despite exhibiting talent and bankability, continue to lag behind white actors in presence and prominence? Reel Inequality examines the structural barriers minority actors face in Hollywood, while shedding light on how they survive in a racist industry. The book charts how white male gatekeepers dominate Hollywood, breeding a culture of ethnocentric storytelling and casting. Nancy Wang Yuen interviewed nearly a hundred working actors and drew on published interviews with celebrities, such as Viola Davis, Chris Rock, Gina Rodriguez, Oscar Isaac, Lucy Liu, and Ken Jeong, to explore how racial stereotypes categorize and constrain actors. Their stories reveal the day-to-day racism actors of color experience in talent agents’ offices, at auditions, and on sets. Yuen also exposes sexist hiring and programming practices, highlighting the structural inequalities that actors of color, particularly women, continue to face in Hollywood. This book not only conveys the harsh realities of racial inequality in Hollywood, but also provides vital insights from actors who have succeeded on their own terms, whether by sidestepping the system or subverting it from within. Considering how their struggles impact real-world attitudes about race and diversity, Reel Inequality follows actors of color as they suffer, strive, and thrive in Hollywood.

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The nature of identity, especially of groups such as Gypsies, mothers, nurses, and transsexuals is explored by comparing the stories these groups express of themselves against the narratives written about them. ― Feminist Academic Press Hilde Lindemann Nelson focuses on the stories of groups of people—including Gypsies, mothers, nurses, and transsexuals—whose identities have been defined by those with the power to speak for them and to constrain the scope of their actions. By placing their stories side by side with narratives about the groups in question, Nelson arrives at some important insights regarding the nature of identity. She regards personal identity as consisting not only of how people view themselves but also of how others view them. These perceptions combine to shape the person's field of action. If a dominant group constructs the identities of certain people through socially shared narratives that mark them as morally subnormal, those who bear the damaged identity cannot exercise their moral agency freely. Nelson identifies two kinds of damage inflicted on identities by abusive group relations: one kind deprives individuals of important social goods, and the other deprives them of self-respect. To intervene in the production of either kind of damage, Nelson develops the counterstory, a strategy of resistance that allows the identity to be narratively repaired and so restores the person to full membership in the social and moral community. By attending to the power dynamics that constrict agency, Damaged Identities, Narrative Repair augments the narrative approaches of ethicists such as Alasdair MacIntyre, Martha Nussbaum, Richard Rorty, and Charles Taylor.

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In his exceedingly timely and innovative look at the ramifications of the collapse of the U.S. housing market, Herman M. Schwartz makes the case that worldwide, U.S. growth and power over the last twenty years has depended in large part on domestic housing markets. Mortgage-based securities attracted a cascade of overseas capital into the U.S. economy. High levels of private home ownership, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom, have helped pull in a disproportionately large share of world capital flows. As events since mid-2008 have made clear, mortgage lenders became ever more eager to extend housing loans, for the more mortgage packages they securitized, the higher their profits. As a result, they were dangerously inventive in creating new mortgage products, notably adjustable-rate and subprime mortgages, to attract new, mainly first-time, buyers into the housing market. However, mortgage-based instruments work only when confidence in the mortgage system is maintained. Regulatory failures in the U.S. S&L sector, the accounting crisis that led to the extinction of Arthur Andersen, and the subprime crisis that destroyed Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch and damaged many other big financial institutions have jeopardized a significant engine of economic growth. Schwartz concentrates on the impact of U.S. regulatory failure on the international economy. He argues that the "local" problem of the housing crisis carries substantial and ongoing risks for U.S. economic health, the continuing primacy of the U.S. dollar in international financial circles, and U.S. hegemony in the world system.

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Leading historians provide perspective on Trump’s four turbulent years in the White HouseThe Presidency of Donald J. Trump presents a first draft of history by offering needed perspective on one of the nation’s most divisive presidencies. Acclaimed political historian Julian Zelizer brings together many of today’s top scholars to provide balanced and strikingly original assessments of the major issues that shaped the Trump presidency.When Trump took office in 2017, he quickly carved out a loyal base within an increasingly radicalized Republican Party, dominated the news cycle with an endless stream of controversies, and presided over one of the most contentious one-term presidencies in American history. These essays cover the crucial aspects of Trump’s time in office, including his administration’s close relationship with conservative media, his war on feminism, the solidification of a conservative women’s movement, his response to COVID-19, the border wall, growing tensions with China and NATO allies, white nationalism in an era of Black Lives Matter, and how the high-tech sector flourished.The Presidency of Donald J. Trump reveals how Trump was not the cause of the political divisions that defined his term in office but rather was a product of long-term trends in Republican politics and American polarization more broadly.With contributions by Kathleen Belew, Angus Burgin, Geraldo Cadava, Merlin Chowkwanyun, Bathsheba Demuth, Gregory Downs, Jeffrey Engel, Beverly Gage, Nicole Hemmer, Michael Kazin, Daniel C. Kurtzer, James Mann, Mae Ngai, Margaret O’Mara, Jason Scott Smith, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, and Leandra Zarnow.

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In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as German Jews struggled for legal emancipation and social acceptance, they also embarked on a program of cultural renewal, two key dimensions of which were distancing themselves from their fellow Ashkenazim in Poland and giving a special place to the Sephardim of medieval Spain. Where they saw Ashkenazic Jewry as insular and backward, a result of Christian persecution, they depicted the Sephardim as worldly, morally and intellectually superior, and beautiful, products of the tolerant Muslim environment in which they lived. In this elegantly written book, John Efron looks in depth at the special allure Sephardic aesthetics held for German Jewry.Efron examines how German Jews idealized the sound of Sephardic Hebrew and the Sephardim's physical and moral beauty, and shows how the allure of the Sephardic found expression in neo-Moorish synagogue architecture, historical novels, and romanticized depictions of Sephardic history. He argues that the shapers of German-Jewish culture imagined medieval Iberian Jewry as an exemplary Jewish community, bound by tradition yet fully at home in the dominant culture of Muslim Spain. Efron argues that the myth of Sephardic superiority was actually an expression of withering self-critique by German Jews who, by seeking to transform Ashkenazic culture and win the acceptance of German society, hoped to enter their own golden age.Stimulating and provocative, this book demonstrates how the goal of this aesthetic self-refashioning was not assimilation but rather the creation of a new form of German-Jewish identity inspired by Sephardic beauty.

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A provocative new history of liberalism that also provides a road map for today’s liberalsFreedom from Fear offers a striking new account of the dominant political and social theory of our time: liberalism. In a pathbreaking reframing of the historical debate, Alan Kahan charts the development of Western liberalism from the late eighteenth century to the present. Examining key liberal thinkers and issues, Kahan shows how liberalism is both a response to fear and a source of hope: the search for a world in which no one need be afraid.Freedom from Fear reveals how liberal arguments typically rely on three pillars: freedom, markets, and morals. But when liberals ignore one or more of these pillars, their arguments generally fail to persuade. Extending from Adam Smith and Montesquieu to today’s battles between liberals and populists, the book examines the twists and turns of the “incomplete” or unfinished liberal tradition while demonstrating its fundamental continuity. It combines fresh accounts of familiar figures such as Tocqueville and Rawls with discussions of less-famous but pivotal thinkers such as A. V. Dicey and Jane Addams, and explores how liberals have dealt with crucial issues, from debates over male and female suffrage to colonialism and liberal anti-Catholicism.By transforming our understanding of the history of liberal thought and practice, Freedom from Fear provides a new picture of the political creed today: the paths liberals need to follow, the questions they need to answer, and the dead ends they must avoid—if they are to win.

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In the past decade, South Africa's "miracle transition" has been interrupted by waves of protests in relation to basic services such as water and electricity. Less visibly, the post-apartheid period has witnessed widespread illicit acts involving infrastructure, including the nonpayment of service charges, the bypassing of metering devices, and illegal connections to services. Democracy's Infrastructure shows how such administrative links to the state became a central political terrain during the antiapartheid struggle and how this terrain persists in the post-apartheid present. Focusing on conflicts surrounding prepaid water meters, Antina von Schnitzler examines the techno-political forms through which democracy takes shape. Von Schnitzler explores a controversial project to install prepaid water meters in Soweto--one of many efforts to curb the nonpayment of service charges that began during the antiapartheid struggle--and she traces how infrastructure, payment, and technical procedures become sites where citizenship is mediated and contested. She follows engineers, utility officials, and local bureaucrats as they consider ways to prompt Sowetans to pay for water, and she shows how local residents and activists wrestle with the constraints imposed by meters. This investigation of democracy from the perspective of infrastructure reframes the conventional story of South Africa's transition, foregrounding the less visible remainders of apartheid and challenging readers to think in more material terms about citizenship and activism in the postcolonial world. Democracy's Infrastructure examines how seemingly mundane technological domains become charged territory for struggles over South Africa's political transformation.

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In the past decade, South Africa's "miracle transition" has been interrupted by waves of protests in relation to basic services such as water and electricity. Less visibly, the post-apartheid period has witnessed widespread illicit acts involving infrastructure, including the nonpayment of service charges, the bypassing of metering devices, and illegal connections to services. Democracy's Infrastructure shows how such administrative links to the state became a central political terrain during the antiapartheid struggle and how this terrain persists in the post-apartheid present. Focusing on conflicts surrounding prepaid water meters, Antina von Schnitzler examines the techno-political forms through which democracy takes shape. Von Schnitzler explores a controversial project to install prepaid water meters in Soweto--one of many efforts to curb the nonpayment of service charges that began during the antiapartheid struggle--and she traces how infrastructure, payment, and technical procedures become sites where citizenship is mediated and contested. She follows engineers, utility officials, and local bureaucrats as they consider ways to prompt Sowetans to pay for water, and she shows how local residents and activists wrestle with the constraints imposed by meters. This investigation of democracy from the perspective of infrastructure reframes the conventional story of South Africa's transition, foregrounding the less visible remainders of apartheid and challenging readers to think in more material terms about citizenship and activism in the postcolonial world. Democracy's Infrastructure examines how seemingly mundane technological domains become charged territory for struggles over South Africa's political transformation.

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A wide variety of problem-solving courts have been developed in the United States over the past two decades and are now being adopted in countries around the world. These innovative courts--including drug courts, community courts, domestic violence courts, and mental health courts--do not simply adjudicate offenders. Rather, they attempt to solve the problems underlying such criminal behaviors as petty theft, prostitution, and drug offenses. Legal Accents, Legal Borrowing is a study of the international problem-solving court movement and the first comparative analysis of the development of these courts in the United States and the other countries where the movement is most advanced: England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, and Australia. Looking at the various ways in which problem-solving courts have been taken up in these countries, James Nolan finds that while importers often see themselves as adapting the American courts to suit local conditions, they may actually be taking in more aspects of American law and culture than they realize or desire. In the countries that adopt them, problem-solving courts may in fact fundamentally challenge traditional ideas about justice. Based on ethnographic research in all six countries, the book examines these cases of legal borrowing for what they reveal about legal and cultural differences, the inextricable tie between law and culture, the processes of globalization, the unique but contested global role of the United States, and the changing face of law and justice around the world.

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What is it like to be a Westerner teaching political philosophy in an officially Marxist state? Why do Chinese sex workers sing karaoke with their customers? And why do some Communist Party cadres get promoted if they care for their elderly parents? In this entertaining and illuminating book, one of the few Westerners to teach at a Chinese university draws on his personal experiences to paint an unexpected portrait of a society undergoing faster and more sweeping changes than anywhere else on earth. With a storyteller's eye for detail, Daniel Bell observes the rituals, routines, and tensions of daily life in China. China's New Confucianism makes the case that as the nation retreats from communism, it is embracing a new Confucianism that offers a compelling alternative to Western liberalism. Bell provides an insider's account of Chinese culture and, along the way, debunks a variety of stereotypes. He presents the startling argument that Confucian social hierarchy can actually contribute to economic equality in China. He covers such diverse social topics as sex, sports, and the treatment of domestic workers. He considers the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, wondering whether Chinese overcompetitiveness might be tempered by Confucian civility. And he looks at education in China, showing the ways Confucianism impacts his role as a political theorist and teacher. By examining the challenges that arise as China adapts ancient values to contemporary society, China's New Confucianism enriches the dialogue of possibilities available to this rapidly evolving nation. In a new preface, Bell discusses the challenges of promoting Confucianism in China and the West.

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Suburban sprawl transformed the political culture of the American South as much as the civil rights movement did during the second half of the twentieth century. The Silent Majority provides the first regionwide account of the suburbanization of the South from the perspective of corporate leaders, political activists, and especially of the ordinary families who lived in booming Sunbelt metropolises such as Atlanta, Charlotte, and Richmond. Matthew Lassiter examines crucial battles over racial integration, court-ordered busing, and housing segregation to explain how the South moved from the era of Jim Crow fully into the mainstream of national currents. During the 1960s and 1970s, the grassroots mobilization of the suburban homeowners and school parents who embraced Richard Nixon's label of the Silent Majority reshaped southern and national politics and helped to set in motion the center-right shift that has dominated the United States ever since. The Silent Majority traces the emergence of a "color-blind" ideology in the white middle-class suburbs that defended residential segregation and neighborhood schools as the natural outcomes of market forces and individual meritocracy rather than the unconstitutional products of discriminatory public policies. Connecting local and national stories, and reintegrating southern and American history, The Silent Majority is critical reading for those interested in urban and suburban studies, political and social history, the civil rights movement, public policy, and the intersection of race and class in modern America.

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Cities throughout the Roman Empire flourished during the reign of Hadrian (A.D. 117-138), a phenomenon that not only strengthened and legitimized Roman dominion over its possessions but also revealed Hadrian as a masterful negotiator of power relationships. In this comprehensive investigation into the vibrant urban life that existed under Hadrian's rule, Mary T. Boatwright focuses on the emperor's direct interactions with Rome's cities, exploring the many benefactions for which he was celebrated on coins and in literary works and inscriptions. Although such evidence is often as imprecise as it is laudatory, its collective analysis, undertaken for the first time together with all other related material, reveals that over 130 cities received at least one benefaction directly from Hadrian. The benefactions, mediated by members of the empire's municipal elite, touched all aspects of urban life; they included imperial patronage of temples and hero tombs, engineering projects, promotion of athletic and cultural competitions, settlement of boundary disputes, and remission of taxes. Even as he manifested imperial benevolence, Hadrian reaffirmed the self-sufficiency and traditions of cities from Spain to Syria, the major exception being his harsh treatment of Jerusalem, which sparked the Third Jewish Revolt. Overall, the assembled evidence points to Hadrian's recognition of imperial munificence to cities as essential to the peace and prosperity of the empire. Boatwright's treatment of Hadrian and Rome's cities is unique in that it encompasses events throughout the empire, drawing insights from archaeology and art history as well as literature, economy, and religion.

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Tocqueville's view that a virtuous and viable democracy depends on robust associational life has become a cornerstone of contemporary democratic theory. Democratic theorists generally agree that issue networks, recreational associations, support circles, religious groups, unions, advocacy groups, and myriad other kinds of associations enhance democracy by cultivating citizenship, promoting public deliberation, providing voice and representation, and enabling varied forms of governance. Yet there has been little work to show how and why different kinds of association have different effects on democracy--many supportive but others minimal or even destructive. This book offers the first systematic assessment of what associations do and don't do for democracy. Mark Warren explains how and when associational life expands the domain, inclusiveness, and authenticity of democracy. He looks at which associations are most likely to foster individuals' capacities for democratic citizenship, provoke political debate, open existing institutions, guide market activities, or bring democratic decision-making to new venues. Throughout, Warren also considers the trade-offs involved, noting, for example, that organizational solidarity can dampen internal dissent and deliberation even as it enhances public deliberation. Blending political and social theory with an eye to social science, Democracy and Association will draw social scientists with interests in democracy, political philosophers, students of public policy, as well as the many activists who fortify the varied landscape we call civil society. As an original analysis of which associational soils yield vigorous democracies, the book will have a major impact on democratic theory and empirical research.

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Human rights norms do matter. Those established by the Helsinki Final Act contributed directly to the demise of communism in the former East bloc, contends Daniel Thomas. This book counters those skeptics who doubt that such international norms substantially affect domestic political change, while explaining why, when, and how they matter most. Thomas argues that the Final Act, signed in 1975, transformed the agenda of East-West relations and provided a common platform around which opposition forces could mobilize. Without downplaying other factors, Thomas shows that the norms established at Helsinki undermined the viability of one-party Communist rule and thereby contributed significantly to the largely peaceful and democratic changes of 1989, as well as the end of the Cold War. Drawing on both governmental and nongovernmental sources, he offers a powerful Constructivist alternative to Realist theory's failure to anticipate or explain these crucial events. This study will fundamentally influence ongoing debates about the politics of international institutions, the socialization of states, the spread of democracy, and, not least, about the balance of factors that felled the Iron Curtain. It casts new light on Solidarity, Charter 77, and other democratic movements in Eastern Europe, the sources of Gorbachev's reforms, the evolution of the European Union, U.S. foreign policy, and East-West relations in the final decades of the Cold War. The Helsinki Effect will be essential reading for scholars and students of international relations, international law, European politics, human rights, and social movements.

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A new constitutional world burst into American life in the mid-twentieth century. For the first time, the national constitution's religion clauses were extended by the United States Supreme Court to all state and local governments. As energized religious individuals and groups probed the new boundaries between religion and government and claimed their sacred rights in court, a complex and evolving landscape of religion and law emerged.Sarah Gordon tells the stories of passionate believers who turned to the law and the courts to facilitate a dazzling diversity of spiritual practice. Legal decisions revealed the exquisite difficulty of gauging where religion ends and government begins. Controversies over school prayer, public funding, religion in prison, same-sex marriage, and secular rituals roiled long-standing assumptions about religion in public life. The range and depth of such conflicts were remarkable—and ubiquitous.Telling the story from the ground up, Gordon recovers religious practices and traditions that have generated compelling claims while transforming the law of religion. From isolated schoolchildren to outraged housewives and defiant prisoners, believers invoked legal protection while courts struggled to produce stable constitutional standards. In a field dominated by controversy, the vital connection between popular and legal constitutional understandings has sometimes been obscured. The Spirit of the Law explores this tumultuous constitutional world, demonstrating how religion and law have often seemed irreconcilable, even as they became deeply entwined in modern America.

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This book is a study of polyandry, wife-selling, and a variety of related practices in China during the Qing dynasty (1644-1912). By analyzing over 1200 legal cases from local and central court archives, Matthew Sommer explores the functions played by marriage, sex, and reproduction in the survival strategies of the rural poor under conditions of overpopulation, worsening sex ratios, and shrinking farm sizes. Polyandry and wife-selling represented opposite ends of a spectrum of strategies. At one end, polyandry was a means to keep the family together by expanding it. A woman would bring in a second husband in exchange for his help supporting her family. In contrast, wife sale was a means to survive by breaking up a family: a husband would secure an emergency infusion of cash while his wife would escape poverty and secure a fresh start with another man. Even though Qing law prohibited both practices under the rubric "illicit sexual relations," Sommer shows how magistrates charged with propagating and enforcing a fundamentalist Confucian vision of female chastity tried to cope with their social reality in the face of daunting poverty. This contradiction illuminates both the pragmatism of routine adjudication and the increasingly dysfunctional nature of the dynastic state in the face of mounting social crisis. By casting a spotlight on the rural poor and the experiences of both men and women, Sommer provides an alternative to the standard paradigms of women's history that have long dominated scholarship on gender and sexuality in late imperial China.

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Damascus was for centuries a center of learning and commerce. Drawing on the city's dazzling literary tradition-a rich collection of poetry, chronicles, travel accounts, and biographical dictionaries-as well as on Islamic court records, James Grehan explores the material culture of premodern Damascus, reconstructing the economic infrastructure, social customs, and private consumer habits that dominated this cosmopolitan hub in the 1700s. He sketches a lively history of diet, furniture, fashion, and other aspects of daily life, providing an unusual and intimate account of the choices, constraints, and compromises that defined consumer behavior. Coffee, tobacco, and light firearms had arisen as new luxury items in preceding centuries, and Grehan traces the usage of such goods in order to get a picture of the overall standard of living in the premodern Middle East. He looks particularly at how wealth and poverty were defined and how consumption patterns expressed notions of taste, class, and power, illuminating the prominent role played by Damascus in shaping the economy and culture of the Middle East. In assessing the magnitude of social change in modern times, we have few benchmarks from the period preceding the onset of modernity in the nineteenth century. This informative study will make possible more precise cultural and economic comparisons between different parts of the world as it stood on the brink of a radically new economic and political order. The book's focus on a little-examined period and region will appeal to scholars and students of urban social history and Arab popular culture.

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Chronic Hindu-Muslim rioting in India has created a situation in which communal violence is both so normal and so varied in its manifestations that it would seem to defy effective analysis. Paul R. Brass, one of the world’s preeminent experts on South Asia, has tracked more than half a century’s riots in the north Indian city of Aligarh. This book is the culmination of a lifetime’s thinking about the dynamics of institutionalized intergroup violence in northern India, covering the last three decades of British rule as well as the entire post-Independence history of Aligarh. Brass exposes the mechanisms by which endemic communal violence is deliberately provoked and sustained. He convincingly implicates the police, criminal elements, members of Aligarh’s business community, and many of its leading political actors in the continuous effort to “produce” communal violence. Much like a theatrical production, specific roles are played, with phases for rehearsal, staging, and interpretation. In this way, riots become key historical markers in the struggle for political, economic, and social dominance of one community over another. In the course of demonstrating how riots have been produced in Aligarh, Brass offers a compelling argument for abandoning or refining a number of widely held views about the supposed causes of communal violence, not just in India but throughout the rest of the world. An important addition to the literature on Indian and South Asian politics, this book is also an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the interplay of nationalism, ethnicity, religion, and collective violence, wherever it occurs.

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Known for their progressive environmental policies and nature-loving citizens, Nordic countries also produce what may seem a counterintuitive film genre: ecohorror, where distinctions between humans and nature are blurred in unsettling ways. From slashers to arthouse thrillers, transnational Nordic ecohorror films such as Antichrist (dir. Lars von Trier, 2009) and Midsommar (dir. Ari Aster, 2019) have garnered commercial and critical attention, revealing an undercurrent of ecophobia in Nordic culture that belies the region's reputation for environmental friendliness. In Menacing Environments, Benjamin Bigelow examines how ecohorror rings some of the same alarm bells that climate activists have sounded, suggesting that the proper response to the ongoing climate catastrophe is not optimism and a market-friendly focus on sustainable development, but rather fear and dread. Bigelow argues that ecohorror destabilizes the two pillars of Nordic society—the autonomous individual and the sovereign state. He illustrates how doing away with any clean separation of the domains of human culture from a wild, untamed realm of nature reminds viewers of the complex and often threatening material entanglements between humans and their environments. Through Bigelow's analysis, ecohorror proves to be a potent vehicle not only for generating a strong affective response in audiences but also for taking on the revered institutions, unquestioned ideological orthodoxies, and claims of cultural exceptionalism in contemporary Nordic societies. Menacing Environments is freely available in an open access edition thanks to TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem) and the generous support of the University of Minnesota. DOI 10.6069/9780295751658

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