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Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Area / regional studies
Global Studies: A Reader on Issues and Institutions provides
students with a collection of curated articles that help them
better understand the complex, daily functioning of our world. The
anthology explores topics and issues that are equally vital at the
global and local levels, including migration, technology and
communications, public health, and the ever-changing environment.
The text is organized into eight chapters. Chapter 1 addresses the
movement of people with focus on two particular areas: forced
migration and voluntary, temporary movement such as tourism.
Additional chapters examine the effects of technology and
communication on global engagement, economics and commerce,
nationalism and transnationalism, and the role of culture in
shaping identity through the idea of multiculturalism. Students
learn about different approaches to political authority and
governance, public health, and climate change across the world.
Each chapter features an introduction to contextualize the
readings, suggestions for further reading, and post-reading
questions to enrich the student learning experience. Featuring a
uniquely contemporary and applied focus, Global Studies is an ideal
resource for courses within the discipline.
A long and ongoing challenge for social justice movements has been
how to address difference. Traditional strategies have often
emphasized universalizing messages and common identities as means
of facilitating collective action. Feminist movements, gay
liberation movements, racial justice movements, and even labour
movements, have all focused predominantly on respective singular
dimensions of oppression. Each has called on diverse groups of
people to mobilize, but without necessarily acknowledging or
grappling with other relevant dimensions of identity and
oppression. While focusing on commonality can be an effective means
of mobilization, universalist messages can also obscure difference
and can serve to exclude and marginalize groups in already
precarious positions. Scholars and activists, particularly those
located at the intersection of these movements, have long advocated
for more inclusive approaches that acknowledge the significance and
complexity of different social locations, with mixed success.
Gender Mobilizations and Intersectional Challenges provides a much
needed intersectional analysis of social movements in Europe and
North America. With an emphasis on gendered mobilization, it looks
at movements traditionally understood and/or classified as
singularly gendered as well as those organized around other
dimensions of identity and oppression or at the intersection of
multiple dimensions. This comparative study of movements allows for
a better understanding of the need for as well as the challenges
French rule over Syria and Lebanon was premised on a vision of a
special French protectorate established through centuries of
cultural activity: archaeological, educational and charitable.
Initial French methods of organising and supervising cultural
activity sought to embrace this vision and to implement it in the
exploitation of antiquities, the management and promotion of
cultural heritage, the organisation of education and the control of
public opinion among the literate classes. However, an examination
of the first five years of the League of Nations-assigned mandate,
1920-1925, reveals that French expectations of a protectorate were
quickly dashed by widespread resistance to their cultural policies,
not simply among Arabists but also among minority groups initially
expected to be loyal to the French. The violence of imposing the
mandate 'de facto', starting with a landing of French troops in the
Lebanese and Syrian coast in 1919 - and followed by extension to
the Syrian interior in 1920 - was met by consistent violent revolt.
Examining the role of cultural institutions reveals less violent
yet similarly consistent contestation of the French mandate. The
political discourses emerging after World War I fostered
expectations of European tutelages that prepared local peoples for
autonomy and independence. Yet, even among the most Francophile of
stakeholders, the unfolding of the first years of French rule
brought forth entirely different events and methods. In this book,
Idir Ouahes provides an in-depth analysis of the shifts in
discourses, attitudes and activities unfolding in French and
locally-organised institutions such as schools, museums and
newspapers, revealing how local resistance put pressure on cultural
activity in the early years of the French mandate.
This report lays the foundations for the World Bank to fully
integrate a social contract lens in its development policy toolkit
in SSA. This report's contribution consists mostly of a conceptual
and empirical framework, mapping knowledge gaps, and presenting
examples for the application of a social contract lens in the
region.
“In The Russians are Coming Again, Jeremy Kuzmarov and John
Marciano present an excellent and well researched effort to remind
liberal America of how awful the Cold War was and how it was based
on a cynical exaggeration of a largely fictional `Russian
threat.’ Their warning against creating a new Cold War with
post-communist Russia is well worth considering.”—David N.
Gibbs, University of Arizona, author, First Do No Harm:
Humanitarian Intervention and the Destruction of Yugoslavia Karl
Marx famously wrote in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon
that history repeats itself, “first as tragedy, then as farce.”
The Cold War waged between the United States and Soviet Union from
1945 until the latter's dissolution in 1991 was a great tragedy,
resulting in millions of civilian deaths in proxy wars, and a
destructive arms race that diverted money from social spending and
nearly led to nuclear annihilation. The New Cold War between the
United States and Russia is playing out as farce – a dangerous
one at that. The Russians Are Coming, Again is a red flag to
restore our historical consciousness about U.S.-Russian relations,
and how denying this consciousness is leading to a repetition of
past follies. Kuzmarov and Marciano's book is timely and trenchant.
The authors argue that the Democrats’ strategy, backed by the
corporate media, of demonizing Russia and Putin in order to
challenge Trump is not only dangerous, but also, based on the
evidence so far, unjustified, misguided, and a major distraction.
Grounding their argument in all-but-forgotten U.S.-Russian history,
such as the 1918-20 Allied invasion of Soviet Russia, the book
delivers a panoramic narrative of the First Cold War, showing it as
an all-too avoidable catastrophe run by the imperatives of class
rule and political witch-hunts. The distortion of public memory
surrounding the First Cold War has set the groundwork for the New
Cold War, which the book explains is a key feature, skewing the
nation’s politics yet again. This is an important, necessary
book, one that, by including accounts of the wisdom and courage of
the First Cold War's victims and dissidents, will inspire a fresh
generation of radicals in today's new, dangerously farcical times.
Foreigners in their Own Land: A Mexican American Studies Reader
provides students with a carefully selected collection of articles
that demonstrate how the Mexican American story can be interwoven
within a traditional, American master narrative. It provides a
thematic overview of issues that have shaped the Mexican American
experience in the United States while simultaneously covering
centuries of history. Readers gain an understanding of the
diversity of the Hispanic culture and how Mexicans are one small
part of the Hispanic story. The readings in this anthology are
written by scholars from a range of disciplines-history, political
science, sociology, criminology, and anthropology, to name a
few-showcasing a wide range of perspectives. The book is organized
into six chapters, which address U.S.-Spanish heritage and
exploration; Mexican women in the 19th century; Mexican lynching;
immigration and the Bracero Program; education; and borderlands and
21st century Mexican Americans. Each chapter includes an
introduction, the selected readings, and discussion questions that
enhance the learning experience and inspire critical thought.
Challenging the typical master narrative of U.S. history,
Foreigners in their Own Land is an engaging and enlightening
supplemental resource for courses in Mexican American studies.
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