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Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > General
With examples drawn from media coverage of the War on Terror, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Hurricane Katrina and the London underground bombings, Cultural Chaos explores the changing relationship between journalism and power in an increasingly globalised news culture. In this new text, Brian McNair examines the processes of cultural, geographic and political dissolution in the post-Cold War era and the rapid evolution of information and communication technologies. He investigates the impact of these trends on domestic and international journalism and on political processes in democratic and authoritarian societies across the world. Written in a lively and accessible style, Cultural Chaos provides students with an overview of the evolution of the sociology of journalism, a critical review of current thinking within media studies and an argument for a revision and renewal of the paradigms that have dominated the field since the early twentieth century. Separate chapters are devoted to new developments such as the rise of the blogosphere and satellite television news and their impact on journalism more generally. Cultural Chaos will be essential reading for all those interested in the emerging globalised news culture of the twenty-first century.
This is a new analysis of recent changes in important Japanese institutions. It addresses the origin, development, and recent adaptation of core institutions, including financial institutions, corporate governance, lifetime employment, and the amakudari system. After four decades of rapid economic growth in Japan, the 1990s saw the country enter a prolonged period of economic stagnation. Policy reforms were initially half-hearted, and businesses were slow to restructure as the global economy changed. The lagging economy has been impervious to aggressive fiscal stimulus measures and has been plagued by ongoing price deflation for years. Japan's struggle has called into question the ability of the country's economic institutions, originally designed to support factor accumulation and rapid development, to adapt to the new economic environment of the twenty-first century. This book discusses both historical and international comparisons including Meiji Japan, and recent economic and financial reforms in Korea, Scandinavia, Switzerland, and New Zealand, placing the current institutional changes in perspective. The contributors argue that, contrary to conventional wisdom that Japanese institutions have remained relatively rigid, there has been significant institutional change over the last decade.
Adib-Moghaddam examines the causes and consequences of conflict in one of the most important regions of the world. Bridging the gap between critical theories of international relations and the empirical study of the Gulf area, this book expands on the many ideologies, cultural inventions and ideational constructs that have affected relations in the past three decades. Key issues explored include:
Provocatively written, persuasively researched and conclusively argued, The International Politics of the Persian Gulf presents the first comprehensive analysis of international relations in the Gulf from an explicitly multidisciplinary perspective.
Recent political changes in Central Asia, whereby the United States is replacing Russia as the dominant power, are having a profound effect on Russian speakers in the region. These people, formerly perceived as progressive and engaging with Europe, are now confronted by the erasure of their literary, musical, cinematic and journalistic culture, as local ethnic and American cultures become much stronger. This book examines the predicament of Russian culture in Central Asia, looking at literature, language, cinema, music, and religion. It argues that in fact the Soviet past was much more complex than the simplified, polarised rhetoric of the Cold War period allows; and also that the present situation, in which politicians from the former Soviet regime often continue in power, is equally complex.
Written in a clear and easy-to-follow style this revealing text
examines the contemporary political geography of the West Bank and
Gaza strip. Descriptive in nature, it documents the changes and
developments since 1967 right up to the disengagement from Gaza.
The book is supplemented by numerous maps and covers issues
including:
This new book shows how the idea of a strategic triangle can illuminate the security relationships among the United States, the European Union, and Russia in the greater transatlantic sphere. This concept highlights how the relationships among these three actors may, on some issues, be closely related. A central question also follows directly from the use of the notion of the triangle: does the EU have actor capability in this policy sphere or will it get it in the future? The reason this is so important for our project is that only if the Union is regarded by the two other actors, and regards itself, as an actor in security policy does the strategic triangle really exists. Consequently, this book has a strong focus upon the development of the actor capability of the Union. In the case of the United States, it examines to what extent the concept of the strategic triangle has significance under each of five grand strategies that serve as alternative visions of the superpower's role in the world.
The Chinese market is appealing, but the Chinese legal system is very complicated. A basic understanding of Chinese law is absolutely crucial for companies investing in this fast-growing and potentially huge market. Since China is moving toward a socialist market economy and is increasingly integrated into the world market, some aspects of China's commercial law are different from, while others are moving into line with, those of mature market economies. This book provides an introduction to the Chinese legal system, focusing on laws and regulations on foreign direct investment, and highlights recent government policies and measures undertaken to intensify economics reforms so as to meet various challenges arising from China's accession to the World Trade Organization.
An essential insight into this central figure in the modern history of Israel and Zionism. This important new study explores the years that built up to the Six Day War and details the crucial issues and events the world is still grappling with today. This book traces Daniel Ben-Gurion's waning years in Israeli politics. After his resignation from the office of prime minister in 1963, the 'Old Man' soon lost faith in his self-chose successor, Levi Eshkol, and ceaselessly tried to undermine the latter's premiership, eventually forming a breakaway party. The events leading up to the Six-Day War in June 1967 caught Ben-Gurion by surprise. During the weeks-long 'waiting period' prior to the outbreak of hostilities, he paid little attention to daily security issues. But when war did erupt, he displayed one of his key leadership skills - the ability to formulate an accurate, independent situation assessment. It will be of interest to scholars working in Israeli politics and history, this is a lucid, thoroughly researched account of the sunset years of the driving force behind the Israeli nation-state.
Although the Chinese economy is growing at a very high rate, there are massive social dislocations arising as a result of economic restructuring. Though the scale of the problem is huge, very few studies have examined the changes in income inequality in the late 1990s due to a lack of data on household incomes. Based on extensive original research, this book redresses this imbalance, examining the issue of unemployment and the problems it has brought for the people of China. Investigating the market outcomes in post-reform urban China, the book focuses on the relationships between unemployment, inequality, and poverty. In addition, the authors provide an analysis on the emerging urban labour market and its stratified structure, job mobility, profit sharing, and the role of social capital. Empirical analysis is supported by rich data from nationally representative urban household and rural migrant surveys, providing the latest picture of the widening inequality in Chinese urban society.
This book presents significant new findings on new domains of employment for women in China's burgeoning market economy of the 1990s and the twenty-first century. Experts in gender, politics, media studies, and anthropology discuss the impact of economic reform and globalization on Chinese women in family businesses, management, the professions, the prostitution industry and domestic service. Significant themes include changing marriage and consumer aspirations and the reinvention of domestic space. The volume offers fresh insights into changing definitions of 'women's work' in contemporary China and questions women's perceived 'disadvantage' in the market economy.
Throughout the history of modern Japan there has been a continuous
struggle to create an integrated conception of how a politically
and/or culturally autonomous Japan might relate to a pluralistic
and interactive world. The aim of this study is to scrutinise
nationalist and internationalist rhetoric by means of comparatively
constant factors such as personal views of humanity, civilisation,
progress, the nation and the outside world, and thus to develop new
approaches towards the question of the relationship between
Japanese nationalism and internationalism.
The Chinese Journalist provides an intriguing introduction to Chinese journalists and their roles within society for both students of Media and Asian Studies. The book initially offers a background history of journalists and the media in Communist China before examining the origins and development of Chinese journalism in the nineteenth century.
Muslims in India today are responding to the challenge of religious pluralism in a variety of ways. This book explores the attempts being made by scholar-activists and Muslim organisations to develop new understandings of Islam to relate to people of other faiths and to the modern nation-state, and to deal with issues such as democracy and secularism. It examines how a common predicament, characterised by a sense of siege and the perception of being an oppressed minority, is producing new expressions of Islam, some of which seek to relate to non-Muslims in terms of confrontation, and others which call for dialogue, reconciliation and inter-faith harmony.
Existing studies of the Vietnam War have been written mostly from an American perspective, using western sources, and viewing the conflict through western eyes. This book, based on extensive original research, including Vietnamese, Chinese and former Soviet sources, tells the story of the war from the Tet offensive in 1968 up to the reunification of Vietnam in April 1975. Overall, it provides an important corrective to the predominantly US-centric narratives of the war by placing the Vietnamese communists centre-stage in the story. It is a sequel to the author's RoutledgeCurzon book The Vietnam War From the Other Side, which covers the period 1962-68.
There are many different kinds of sub-national conflicts across Asia, with a variety of causes, but since September 11, 2001 these have been increasingly portrayed as part of the global terrorist threat, to be dealt with by the War on Terror. This major new study examines a wide range of such conflicts, showing how, despite their significant differences, they share the role of the media as interlocutor, and exploring how the media exercises this role. The book raises a number of issues concerning how the media report different forms of political violence and conflict, including issues of impartiality in the media's relations with governments and insurgents, and how the focus on the 'War on Terror' has led to some forms of violence - notably those employed by states for political purposes - to be overlooked. As the issue of international terrorism remains one of the most pressing issues of the modern day, this is a significant and important book which will interest the general reader and scholars from all disciplines.
In recent years, there has been a resurgence of academic
interest in Adam Smith. As a consequence, a large number of PhD
dissertations on Smith have been written by international scholars
- in different languages, and in many diverse disciplines,
including economics, women's studies, philosophy, science studies,
political theory and english literature: diversity which has
enriched the area of study. In response to this activity, and in order to making these contributions more easily accessible to other Smith scholars, Leonidas Montes and Eric Schliesser have edited this important new book. Of interest to Smith scholars and those interested in the history of economic thought in general, the contributions to this book are self-consciously interdisciplinary and skilfully employ many different methodologies.
Written in a clear and easy-to-follow style, this revealing text
examines the contemporary political geography of the West Bank and
Gaza strip. Descriptive in nature, it documents the changes and developments
since 1967 right up to the disengagement from Gaza. The book is
supplemented by numerous maps and covers issues including
demography, Jewish settlements, water and natural resources,
transport infrastructure, planning, partition plans for Jerusalem,
settlement policy and the Separation Fence.
One of the first books to tackle this contentious subject from a geographical rather than a political or historical perspective, The West Bank and Gaza Strip will be of huge interest to both undergraduate and graduate students studying the Israel-Palestine question.
In the last twenty years, Indian cricket has been transformed. With
the arrival of global television networks, mass-media coverage and
multinational sponsors, cricket has become big business and India
has become the economic driving force in the world game. For the
first time a developing country has become a major player in the
international sports arena.
Since the victory of 1949 revolution the incumbency of the Chinese
Communist Party has been characterized by an almost relentless
struggle to legitimize its monopoly on political power. During the
Mao era, attempts to derive legitimacy focused primarily on mass
participation in political affairs, a blend of Marxist and
nationalist ideology and the charismatic authority of Mao Zedong
which was reinforced by a widely propagated cult of personality.
The dramatic failure of the Cultural Revolution forced the post-Mao
leadership to discard these discredited paradigms of legitimacy and
move towards an almost exclusively performance based concept
founded on market economic reform.
This book explores Arab responses to Western culture and values as
expressed mainly through works of fiction written by Arab authors
during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It provides welcome
new insights into the perennial East-West debate, and is
particularly relevant to the current discussion on Islam and the
West.
Despite their small area, the southern islands of Japan can be
seen as stepping stones towards a more nuanced view of cultural
osmosis between Japan and the outside world. This book presents an
ethnographic portrayal of the people of the Southern Ryukyu Islands
and their world. In particular it explores the mind of the
islanders, their relationship with the natural world, their social
relationships, and the rituals which represent and give expression
to these relationships. Based on extensive original research, including participant observation, the book allows the authentic voices of the Ryukyu Island worlds to speak for themselves as well as setting the work in the wider context of anthropology, Japanese Studies and Pacific Island studies.
In the last twenty years, Indian cricket has been transformed. With
the arrival of global television networks, mass-media coverage and
multinational sponsors, cricket has become big business and India
has become the economic driving force in the world game. For the
first time a developing country has become a major player in the
international sports arena.
The number of poor people in China is huge, despite recent economic
advances. The minorities in China constitute less than ten per cent
of the entire population, yet they represent forty to fifty per
cent of the absolute poor. This compelling book investigates the
problem of poverty and inequality in among Chinese ethnic, focusing
in particular on two important questions: Have the minorities
shared the fruits of spectacular economic growth in China during
the past two decades? Is their backwardness due to ethnic and
cultural factors or to extremely low incomes?
This is an in-depth account of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service, a uniquely cosmopolitan institution established in the wake of China's defeat in the Opium Wars (1842 to 43), and a central feature of the Treaty Port system. The British-dominated service was headed by the famous Robert Hart who founded a far-reaching customs administration that also encompassed other responsibilities such as marine and harbour maintenance, quarantine, anti-piracy patrols and postal services. This institution sat at a crucial juncture between Chinese and foreign interests, and was intimately linked to British interests and fortunes in the Far East. Following the establishment of the Republic in 1911 there were grave misgivings as to whether the foreign element of the Service would survive. Yet the Service grew in influence and strength, ensuring the foreign inspectorate a continued role in China's affairs. Delivering an overview of the Service, its bureaucracy, fiscal responsibilities and life for foreigners in its employ, focusing especially on the later years of the Service, Donna Brunero draws on the experiences of the foreign administration of the Service as it attempted to negotiate between Chinese and foreign expectations and interests.
"US-China Relations in the 21st Century" addresses the bilateral
relations of these two nations on an international, domestic,
societal and individual level between 1990 and 2005. Peaceful power
shift remains a central dilemma in world politics, since
historically power transition from a dominant nation to a
challenger has been associated with international wars. This book
examines whether China and the US can learn from history and manage
a potential power transition peacefully. Grounding his research on
contemporary US-China relations with thorough theoretical,
historical and policy exploration, Zhu selects two important cases
of power transitions in history as the background for this study:
power rivalry between Great Britain and Germany (1871-1914) that
led to World War I, and the peaceful power transition from Great
Britain to the United States (1865-1945). |
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