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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > General
From the bestselling author of Azadi and My Seditious Heart, a piercing
exploration of modern empire, nationalism and rising fascism that gives
us the tools to resist and fight back
For decades, history has considered Tammany Hall, New York's famous political machine, shorthand for the worst of urban politics: graft, crime, and patronage personified by notoriously corrupt characters. Infamous crooks like William "Boss" Tweed dominate traditional histories of Tammany, distorting our understanding of a critical chapter of American political history. In Machine Made, historian and New York City journalist Terry Golway convincingly dismantles these stereotypes; Tammany's corruption was real, but so was its heretofore forgotten role in protecting marginalized and maligned immigrants in desperate need of a political voice. Irish immigrants arriving in New York during the nineteenth century faced an unrelenting onslaught of hyperbolic, nativist propaganda. They were voiceless in a city that proved, time and again, that real power remained in the hands of the mercantile elite, not with a crush of ragged newcomers flooding its streets. Haunted by fresh memories of the horrific Irish potato famine in the old country, Irish immigrants had already learned an indelible lesson about the dire consequences of political helplessness. Tammany Hall emerged as a distinct force to support the city's Catholic newcomers, courting their votes while acting as a powerful intermediary between them and the Anglo-Saxon Protestant ruling class. In a city that had yet to develop the social services we now expect, Tammany often functioned as a rudimentary public welfare system and a champion of crucial social reforms benefiting its constituency, including workers' compensation, prohibitions against child labor, and public pensions for widows with children. Tammany figures also fought against attempts to limit immigration and to strip the poor of the only power they had the vote. While rescuing Tammany from its maligned legacy, Golway hardly ignores Tammany's ugly underbelly, from its constituents' participation in the bloody Draft Riots of 1863 to its rampant cronyism. However, even under occasionally notorious leadership, Tammany played a profound and long-ignored role in laying the groundwork for social reform, and nurtured the careers of two of New York's greatest political figures, Al Smith and Robert Wagner. Despite devastating electoral defeats and countless scandals, Tammany nonetheless created a formidable political coalition, one that eventually made its way into the echelons of FDR s Democratic Party and progressive New Deal agenda. Tracing the events of a tumultuous century, Golway shows how mainstream American government began to embrace both Tammany s constituents and its ideals. Machine Made is a revelatory work of revisionist history, and a rich, multifaceted portrait of roiling New York City politics in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries."
Accessible in its style, yet comprehensive in content, this groundbreaking book provides a wealth of advice on how academics can enhance their research practices. It also highlights the fundamental role of research leaders and how their support can prove invaluable to academics in improving their research methodology. Don Webber expertly compiles responses from different research environments and practices across a range of universities, succinctly summarising those that achieve better quality research output. Highlighting collective practices as well as individual ones, he further illustrates the responsibilities placed upon academics for their own research alongside those of their peers and how these can have considerable mutual benefits. This invigorating read will be an excellent resource for new academics who wish to learn best practice and experienced academics who may have lost their way and are wanting to get their research back on track. Research leaders who wish to have a high performing department will find this book insightful in gaining ideas on how to enable their colleagues to achieve their full potential.
Deneys Schreiner was one of an illustrious family that produced a world-famous author (his great-aunt Olive); a prime minister of the Cape Colony (his grandfather, W.P, who also defended a Zulu prince against specious charges in a colonial court); and Appellate Justice O.D. Schreiner, his father, who fought against National Party efforts to remove coloured people from the common voters' roll. Deneys was an academic, a scientist and a man of strong liberal principles, with a good sense of humour and widespread interests in the sciences, arts and public affairs. These qualities enabled him, in his quiet, steady way, to transform what was then the University of Natal and the society around it. Between the 1960s and 1980s, he supported and initiated several important endeavours to promote constitutional futures other than those imposed by the apartheid government. One of the most significant of these was the Buthelezi Commission, which he chaired. This biography sets out the contexts of Deneys's forebears, his youth, wartime service, studies in Britain and America, family life, and tenure as vice principal, as well as the context of the times in which he lived. It is based on extensive archival research, supported by interviews with family members, former colleagues, friends and journalists. The picture that emerges is of a man who made a great contribution to the struggle for democracy in South Africa. And then there is the story of his beard, once described as a potent symbol of his presence and implacable integrity.
Key content coverage is combined with practical tips to create a revision guide that students can rely on to review, strengthen and test their knowledge. With My Revision Notes every student can: - Plan and manage a successful revision programme using the topic-by-topic planner - Enjoy an interactive approach to revision, with clear topic summaries that consolidate knowledge and related activities that put the content into context - Build, practise and enhance exam skills by progressing through revision tasks and Test Yourself activities - Improve exam technique through exam-style questions and sample answers with commentary from expert authors and teachers - Get exam ready with extra quick quizzes and answers to the activities available online
This comprehensive Handbook takes a multidisciplinary approach to the study of parliaments, offering novel insights into the key aspects of legislatures, legislative institutions and legislative politics. Connecting rich and diverse fields of inquiry, it illuminates how the study of parliaments has shaped a wider understanding surrounding politics and society over the past decades. Through 26 thematic chapters, expert contributors analyse parliamentary institutions from various disciplinary perspectives (history, law, political science, political economy, sociology and anthropology). A wide range of approaches is covered, including the sociological study of members of parliaments, gender studies and the mathematical conceptualisation of legislatures. Exploring the history of parliament, the concepts and theories of parliamentarism, constitutional law, and the linkages between parliaments and the administrative state or with populism, this incisive Handbook provides a panoramic view of this institution. Chapters also map the main trends, patterns of developments and controversies related to parliaments, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of current research and identifying a range of promising avenues for further study. Drawing together international and comparative approaches, the Handbook of Parliamentary Studies will be a critical resource for academics and students of parliamentary politics, political science, political economy, public law and political history. It also provides a vital foundation for researchers of legislative and political institutions.
On September 30, 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain
flew back to London from his meeting in Munich with German
Chancellor Adolf Hitler. As he disembarked from the aircraft, he
held aloft a piece of paper, which contained the promise that
Britain and Germany would never go to war with one another again.
He had returned bringing "Peace with honour--Peace for our time."
The world is emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, more fragmented and further away from the more equal and equitable iteration imagined in 2015 when the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were conceptualised. As we hurtle, at seemingly lightning speed, towards the 2030 deadline to achieve these goals, the urgency is palpable. Although we have certainly strayed further away from the targets, there is still time to act in order to ensure that we inch closer to this vision. Tshilidzi Marwala paints a stark, and often grim, picture of our current context – one defined by monumental setbacks in the SDGs. Yet, as he carves out each developmental goal and its implications, it is apparent that there are tangible solutions that can be implemented, now. Tshilidzi’s assertion that now is the time to act is backed by intricate and actionable data with a simple mission statement: we must heal the future. He offers a new narrative that addresses how we can translate the latent potential that exists through technology, innovation and new approaches to leadership and policy-making, to deal with, among others, poverty eradication, joblessness, an education system in crisis, declining economies and food insecurity. Heal our World is a deep-dive into the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly relating to the African context, and looks toward securing a future in which our divisions are blurred, and our goals almost seem in reach again.
When Covid-19 swept the world, governments scrambled to protect their citizens and chart a course back to normality. As Health Secretary, Matt Hancock was at the forefront of Britain's battle against the virus, trying to steer the country through the crisis in a world where information was scarce, judgements huge and the roadmap non-existent. Drawing on a wealth of never-before-seen material, including official records, his notes at the time and communications with all the key players in Britain's Covid-19 story, this candid account reveals the inner workings of government during a time of national crisis, reflecting on both the successes and the failures. Recounting the most important decisions in the race to develop a vaccine in record time and to build a nationwide testing capacity from the ground up, Pandemic Diaries provides the definitive account of Britain's battle to turn the tide against Covid-19. Crucially, it also offers an honest assessment of the lessons we need to learn to be prepared for next time - because there will be a next time.
Despite best intentions, the reality is that "development" is still conceptualised, planned and "delivered" by change agents and their institutions in a top-down manner. This is problematic for both the beneficiaries and government change agents as it amplifies rather than lessens service delivery challenges and does not lead to a grassroots planning partnership. Development, change and the change agent - facilitation at grassroots contextualises the change agent through his or her relationship with the local beneficiaries of development. This updated second edition, previously titled The development change agent - a micro-level approach to development, consists of thirteen chapters contributed by seventeen authors representing nine universities. The key theme is the challenge to establish authentic and empowering participation, and the importance of change agent and local development beneficiary engagement and partnerships in achieving this. It covers an interdisciplinary field of development-related foci using a holistic, people-centred approach which includes grassroots facilitation, capacity building, empowerment and participation, developmental local government and good governance, and national development planning. It also incorporates social capital, indigenous knowledge systems, action research methodology and project management. Scholars, development practitioners, development consultants, those working for NGOs and CBOs, development corporations/agencies, and politicians and government officials, specifically local ones, will find the publication relevant in confronting contemporary developmental challenges. Francois Theron is a senior lecturer at the School of Public Leadership at Stellenbosch University. Trained in anthropology and development studies, he fully supports interdisciplinary research. In 2014, he co-edited Development, the State and Civil Society in South Africa (Van Schaik Publishers) with Ismail Davids. Ntuthuko Mchunu is a project manager for community-based tourism development at the City of Cape Town municipality. In addition to his public and development management qualifications at Stellenbosch University, he has extensive practical experience in the local government sphere as a change agent. Theron and Mchunu have partnered in numerous previous projects, leading to this 2016 publication.
Although religious fundamentalism is often thought to be confined to monotheistic "religions of the book," this study examines the emergence of a fundamentalism rooted in the Shinto tradition and considers its role in shaping postwar Japanese nationalism and politics. Over the past half-century, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the National Association of Shrines (NAS) have been engaged in collaborative efforts to "recover" or "restore" what was destroyed by the process of imperialist secularization during the Allied Occupation of Japan. Since the disaster years of 1995 and 2011, LDP Diet members and prime ministers have increased their support for a political agenda that aims to revive patriotic education, renationalize Yasukuni Shrine, and revise the constitution. The contested nature of this agenda is evident in the critical responses of religious leaders and public intellectuals, and in their efforts to preserve the postwar gains in democratic institutions and prevent the erosion of individual rights. This timely treatment critically engages the contemporary debates surrounding secularization in light of postwar developments in Japanese religions and sheds new light on the role religion continues to play in the public sphere.
Nomasomali – Ubomi bam is the life story of an extraordinary South African woman. Born in 1941 in Bizana in the former Transkei, Marjorie Nomasomali Goniwe Nkomo seems to have lived many lives – as wife, mother, daughter, sister, cousin, aunt, nurse, activist and social worker – Before apartheid, During apartheid and After apartheid. In just 138 pages, the author seamlessly presents her history with the touch of a master storyteller and the universal voice of grandmothers everywhere. From the first line, we are engaged with her back in time, walking among her childhood friends following Nkosi Ndunge, the village traditional leader, as he strides through the streets proclaiming his authority. We are taken back to the homestead and the fields and the hearth, where meals are made and stories are brewed, along with the tea. Divided into three Parts – Before, During, After – the story moves from the innocence of the homestead and tales of growing up among a community of nurturing adults to Nomasomali’s rise to adulthood, marriage, family and the ravages of apartheid. As the history of that period is well documented, it is refreshing to experience it from the perspective of a life moving forward in spite of the events swirling around it. Part 3, ‘After’, is a bittersweet reflection on what has become of our country since South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994. One is left in catharsis, wishing for a return to the innocence of a bygone era but knowing it is gone forever. A sad fact that makes stories like this one such treasures.
A Times Political Book of the Year A Daily Mail Political Book of the Year A Guardian Political Book of the Year An Independent Political Book of the Year Veering from the hilarious to the tragic, Andrew Mitchell's tales from the parliamentary jungle make for one of the most entertaining political memoirs in years. From his prep school years, straight out of Evelyn Waugh, through the Army to Cambridge, the City of London and the Palace of Westminster, Mitchell has passed through a series of British institutions at a time of furious social change - in the process becoming rather more cynical about the Establishment. Here, he brilliantly lifts the lid on its inner workings, from the punctilio of high finance to the dark arts of the government Whips' Office, and reveals how he accidentally started Boris Johnson's political career - an act which rebounded on him spectacularly. Engagingly honest about his ups and downs in politics, Beyond a Fringe is crammed with riotous political anecdotes and irresistible insider gossip from the heart of Westminster.
The fifth edition of American Politics Today is designed to show students the reality of politics today and how it connects to their own lives. New features-from chapter opening cases that address the kinds of questions students ask, to full-page graphics that illustrate key political processes-show students how politics works and why it matters. All components of the learning package-textbook, InQuizitive adaptive learning tool and coursepack-are organised around specific chapter learning goals to ensure that students learn the nuts and bolts of American government.
Piet Matipa is jonk, swart, gay en Afrikaans. Sy rubrieke in Beeld is baie gewild omdat dit aan ’n sonderlinge lewensuitkyk uitdrukking gee. Hy praat vanuit ’n perspektief wat jy nie sommer in Suid-Afrika kry nie. Sy siening van die wêreld is gevorm deur interessante bestemmings waar sy lewenspad aangedoen het. As skolier aan Hoërskool Waterkloof en student aan die Pukke het Piet uitgeblink. Sy skryftande is geslyp as joernalis in Beeld se misdaadkantoor en as sepieskrywer vir 7de Laan , waar hy steeds werksaam is. Nie sleg vir iemand wat in ’n kinderhuis grootgeword het nie! Afrikaans het sy lê op ’n unieke manier in Piet se mond gekry. En vir één ding deins hy nie terug nie: dit is om sy mond verby te praat. In Dwarsklap laat Piet hom uit oor aangeleenthede wat alle Suid-Afrikaners raak. Misdaad en taxi-bestuurders is groot klippe in die skoen. Wenke oor gewigsverlies word gegee, en ook hoe om ’n ontkleedanser by ’n henneparty te kry. En oor liefdesavonture kan jy vir Piet min vertel, veral wanneer sosiale media betrokke is. ’n Hoogs vermaaklike boek wat die donkerte van die lewe in ligte skakerings laat glim.
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