The definitive survey of the countries and territories of Western Europe, comprising expert analysis and commentary, up-to-date economic and socio-political data and extensive directory information. General Survey Essays by leading experts on the area cover issues of regional importance. Country Surveys Individual chapters on each country, comprising: an introductory survey, containing essays on the geography, history and economy of each country, including a chronology and map. an extensive statistical survey of economic and demographic indicators, including area and population, health and welfare, agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, industry, finance, trade, transport, tourism, communications media and education. a comprehensive directory of names and contact details covering the most significant political and commercial institutions. Regional Information a directory of research institutes specializing in the region bibliographies of books and periodicals covering the region.

America is quickly eroding as a nation. Our political, economic, and social structures have collapsed, and life as we know it is quickly disappearing. To correct our decline, Republicans argue that we need less government, and Democrats argue that we need more government. Both parties claim understanding, but apparently neither has wisdom. Unfortunately, we have failed to consult God in our attempt to recover.

God's word provides a clear illustration regarding where America is politically, economically, and socially in Genesis and Exodus. The demise of America parallels almost perfectly with the demise of the Israelites in Egypt. The similarities are eerily disturbing.

If God's word is true, that we reap what we sow, then it is equally true that we, like the Israelites, control the harvest. The Israelites' harvest included 430 years of bondage, and it is becoming increasingly apparent that America's harvest will result in nothing less, but remember; we controlled the harvest.

In The Wyoming State Constitution, Robert B. Keiter provides a comprehensive guide to Wyoming's colorful constitutional history. Featuring an outstanding analysis of the state's governing charter, the book includes an in-depth, section-by-section analysis of the entire constitution, detailing important changes that have been made since its initial drafting. This treatment, which includes a list of cases, index, and bibliography, makes this guide indispensable for students, scholars, and practitioners of Wyoming's constitution. The second edition contains an up-to-date analysis of the Wyoming Supreme Court's constitutional decisions, new state constitutional amendments and Supreme Court decisions since 1992. Also included is new material explaining how the Wyoming Supreme Court goes about interpreting the state constitution. The Oxford Commentaries on the State Constitutions of the United States is an important series that reflects a renewed international interest in constitutional history and provides expert insight into each of the 50 state constitutions. Each volume in this innovative series contains a historical overview of the state's constitutional development, a section-by-section analysis of its current constitution, and a comprehensive guide to further research. Under the expert editorship of Professor G. Alan Tarr, Director of the Center on State Constitutional Studies at Rutgers University, this series provides essential reference tools for understanding state constitutional law. Books in the series can be purchased individually or as part of a complete set, giving readers unmatched access to these important political documents.

‘An unsanitised reflection on the deep intersecting crisis that humanity finds itself in at a time of global pessimism and despair. Yet, the inspirational case studies and the lessons they offer guide us to a transformative path towards sanity, justice and sustainability. A timely contribution in this moment of deep searching for systemic solutions’ — Kumi Naidoo, President, Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative and Global ambassador, Africans Rising for Justice, Peace and Dignity
‘In a world spiraling through climate breakdown and extreme inequality, this book reveals how communities are already building real alternatives from below. From Kerala to Mondragón, these stories of solidarity, commons, and planetary care show that another post-capitalist future is not just possible, it’s happening’
— Kohei Saito, author of Marx in the Anthropocene: Towards the Idea of Degrowth
Communism
‘For anyone wanting to find out what worker cooperatives and the solidarity-economy based cooperative systems are, this book is an important source of knowledge and insights. It is also a great source of inspiration about the positive difference that the cooperative system can, and does, make to individuals, communities, societies, and to nature’ — Adotey Bing-Pappoe, Co-Chair of Cooperation Africa
Capitalism’s crisis is planetary. It is a system upending nature and society, causing many to live and work in despair. So far, the left has been incapable of inspiring a practical challenge to it. In Worker Cooperatives and Deep Democracy, Vishwas Satgar and Michelle Williams map a new transformative politics arising from inspiring worker cooperative systems that advance planetary care from below and that have the potential to undermine the capitalist status quo.
Based on over a decade of research across 15 countries, the authors examine case studies that explore transformative approaches to social reproduction, public power, nature, and territorial expansion in opposition to global hegemonic power. They also uncover the power of solidarities engendering emancipatory, utopian imaginaries in the global north and south.
They show how, against all the odds, people are experimenting with deep democracy and building systems of care to live diff erently and exit the planetary crisis

Conservative evangelicalism has transformed American politics, disseminating a sometimes fearful message not just through conventional channels, but through subcultures and alternate modes of communication. Within this world is a "Religion of Fear," a critical impulse that dramatizes cultural and political conflicts and issues in frightening ways that serve to contrast "orthodox" behaviors and beliefs with those linked to darkness, fear, and demonology. Jason Bivins offers close examinations of several popular evangelical cultural creations including the Left Behind novels, church-sponsored Halloween "Hell Houses," sensational comic books, especially those disseminated by Jack Chick, and anti-rock and -rap rhetoric and censorship. Bivins depicts these fascinating and often troubling phenomena in vivid (sometimes lurid) detail and shows how they seek to shape evangelical cultural identity.
As the "Religion of Fear" has developed since the 1960s, Bivins sees its message moving from a place of relative marginality to one of prominence. What does it say about American public life that such ideas of fearful religion and violent politics have become normalized? Addressing this question, Bivins establishes links and resonances between the cultural politics of evangelical pop, the activism of the New Christian Right, and the political exhaustion facing American democracy.
Religion of Fear is a significant contribution to our understanding of the new shapes of political religion in the United States, of American evangelicalism, of the relation of religion and the media, and the link between religious pop culture and politics.

This is the credo and seminal text of the movement which was later characterized as liberation theology. The book burst upon the scene in the early seventies, and was swiftly acknowledged as a pioneering and prophetic approach to theology which famously made an option for the poor, placing the exploited, the alienated, and the economically wretched at the centre of a programme where "the oppressed and maimed and blind and lame" were prioritized at the expense of those who either maintained the status quo or who abused the structures of power for their own ends. This powerful, compassionate and radical book attracted criticism for daring to mix politics and religion in so explicit a manner, but was also welcomed by those who had the capacity to see that its agenda was nothing more nor less than to give "good news to the poor", and redeem God's people from bondage.

The material compiled in this volume provides a chronological record of events and documents of the Group of 77 since its creation in 1963. This Third Volume focuses on the North-South Dialogue and other negotiations regarding trade, tariffs, international finance, foreign aid, and governance of multinationals.

This study explores the dynamic relations between cultural forms and political formations in some urban cultural movements. The analysis is based on a detailed study of the structure and development of the London Notting Hill Carnival, widely described as Europe's biggest street festival. Started in 1966 as a small-scale, multi-ethnic local festival, it grew into a massive West-Indian dominated affair that over the years occasioned violent confrontations between black youth and the police. The carnival developed and mobilized a homogenous and communal West-Indian culture that helped in the struggle against rampant racism. The celebration is contrasted with other carnival movements, such as California's 'Renaissance Pleasure Faire'. Analytically, this is a follow-up to Cohen's earlier studies of the relations between drama and politics in some urban religious, ethnic and elitist movements in Africa. The conclusion focuses on the processes underlying the transformation of rational political strategies into non-rational cultural forms.

One of the world's most ancient and enduring civilizations, Iran has long played a central role in human events and continues to do so today. This book traces the spread of Iranian culture among diverse populations ranging from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, and along the Silk Roads as far as China, from prehistoric times up to the present day. From paradise gardens and Persian carpets to the mystical poetry of Rumi and Hafez, Iran's contributions have earned it a place among history's greatest and most influential civilizations. Encompassing the fields of religion, literature and the arts, politics, and higher learning, this book provides a holistic history of this important culture.

Though clergy are clearly important religious leaders within American society, their significance extends far beyond the church doors. Clergy are also important figures within American public life. They are so, in part, because houses of worship stand at the center of American civic life. Gathering to worship is a religious activity, but it is also an important public activity in that, beyond its religious qualities, congregational life brings together relatively diverse individuals for sustained periods of time, frequently on a fairly regular basis. Based on data gathered through national surveys of clergy across four mainline Protestant (the Disciples of Christ; the Presbyterian Church, USA; the Reformed Church in America; and the United Methodist Church) and three evangelical Protestant denominations (the Assemblies of God; the Christian Reformed Church; and, the Southern Baptist Convention), Pastors and Public Life examines the changing sociological, theological, and political characteristics of American Protestant clergy. In this book, Corwin E. Smidt examines what has changed and what has stayed the same with regard to the clergy's social composition, theological beliefs, and perspectives related to the public witness of the church within American society across three different points in time over the past twenty-plus years. Smidt focuses on the relationship between clergy and politics, particularly clergy positions on issues of American public policy, norms on what is appropriate for clergy to do politically, as well as the clergy's political cue-giving, their pronouncements on public policy, and political activism. Written in a manner that makes it accessible to pastors and church laity-yet of interest and value to scholars as well-Pastors and Public Life constitutes the first and only published study that systematically examines such changes and continuity over time.

This book examines the importance of the Glorious Revolution and the passing of the Toleration Act to the development of religious and intellectual freedom in England. Most historians have considered these events to be of little significance in this connection. From Persecution to Toleration focuses on the importance of the Toleration Act for contemporaries, and also explores its wider historical context and impact. Taking its point of departure from the intolerance of the sixteenth century, the book goes on to emphasize what is here seen to be the very substantial contribution of the Toleration Act for the development of religious freedom in England. It demonstrates that his freedom was initially limited to Protestant Nonconformists, immigrant as well as English, and that it quickly came in practice to include Catholics, Jews, and anti-Trinitarians. Contributors: John Bossy, Patrick Collinson, John Dunn, Graham Gibbs, Mark Goldie, Ole Peter Grell, Robin Gwynn, Jonathan I. Israel, David S. Katz, Andrew Pettegree, Richard H. Popkin, Hugh Trevor-Roper, Nicholas Tyacke, and B. R. White.

South Africa's banking miracle and greatest post-apartheid success story was built on lies. The Stellenbosch elite thought their secrets were buried forever. They were wrong.

You don't build a banking empire overnight without breaking a few rules. The first red flag should have been the doctored maiden results, but the market failed to notice. Even, when Viceroy Research unleashed a damning report calling Capitec "A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," the market shrugged. But the ‘grey-zone’ accounting shenanigans are in the numbers, which don't lie — even when the bankers do.

Author Jaegur Martin has assembled the smoking guns that they thought were destroyed. As Michiel le Roux and his cronies count their wealth, one question burns: Will they bail out before the bank needs a bailout?

The banking elite are counting on ignorant silence. Read the book they never wanted written and expose their lies.

Election campaigns ought to be serious occasions in the life of a democratic polity. For citizens of a democracy, an election is a time to take stock-to reexamine our beliefs; to review our understanding of our own interests; to ponder the place of those interests in the larger social order; and to contemplate, and if necessary to revise, our understanding of how our commitments are best translated into governmental policy-or so we profess to believe.
Americans, however, are haunted by the fear that our election campaigns fall far short of the ideal to which we aspire. The typical modern American election campaign seems crass, shallow, and unengaging. The arena of our democratic politics seems to lie in an uncomfortable chasm between our political ideals and everyday reality.
What Are Campaigns For? is a multidisciplinary work of legal scholarship that examines the role of legal institutions in constituting the disjunction between political ideal and reality. The book explores the contemporary American ideal of democratic citizenship in election campaigns by tracing it to its historical sources, documenting its thorough infiltration of legal norms, evaluating its feasibility in light of the findings of empirical social science, and testing it against the requirements of democratic theory.

During the Civil War, Northerners fought each other in elections with almost as much zeal as they fought Southern rebels on the battlefield. Yet politicians and voters alike claimed that partisanship was dangerous in a time of national crisis.
In No Party Now, Adam I. P. Smith challenges the prevailing view that political processes in the North somehow helped the Union be more stable and effective in the war. Instead, Smith argues, early efforts to suspend party politics collapsed in the face of divisions over slavery and the purpose of the war. At the same time, new contexts for political mobilization, such as the army and the avowedly non-partisan Union Leagues, undermined conventional partisan practices. The administration's supporters soon used the power of anti-party discourse to their advantage by connecting their own antislavery arguments to a powerful nationalist ideology. By the time of the 1864 election they sought to de-legitimize partisan opposition with slogans like "No Party Now But All For Our Country!"
No Party Now offers a reinterpretation of Northern wartime politics that challenges the "party period paradigm" in American political history and reveals the many ways in which the unique circumstances of war altered the political calculations and behavior of politicians and voters alike. As Smith shows, beneath the superficial unity lay profound differences about the implications of the war for the kind of nation that the United States was to become.
Finalist, 2007 Peter Seaborg Award for Civil War Scholarship

Copywriter: include this in European/French History rather than British This is a comparative study of national labour movements in France and Britain during the First World War. Historians of labour in this period have concentrated on pacifism, and on the post-war radicalism and emergent communism to which that contributed. John N. Horne focuses instead on the majorities in both the French and the British labour movements which continued to support the war to its end. He examines the terms of their support, and the broader working-class experience which this reflected, showing how a critical programme of socialist reforms was gradually developed. Labour at War is a genuinely comparative analysis, based on intensive primary research in both countries. It is an important contribution both to labour history, and to the social and political history of the First World War.

Canada's first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald (1815-91) had a forty-seven year career in Parliament that permanently shaped the course of Canadian political life. Sir John A.; An Anecdotal Life of John A. Macdonald gives us the man behind the legend. Lively and revealing anecdotes about Sir John A.'s political and parliamentary life are set against stories of his private joys and sorrows-the death of his brother at the hands of a drunken servant; his rebellious youth; the illness of his beautiful first wife, and her addiction to opium; his courtship and second marriage; the tragedy of his only daughter, born with hydrocephalus; his womanizing; and his life-long battle with alcohol. Stories of patronage, of political campaigns, of loyal supporters and bitter opponents take readers through many of the major events of the nineteenth-century Canada, from the building of the CPR to the Riel Rebellions, to name only a few.

How can religion contribute to democracy in a secular age? What can the millennia-old Catholic tradition say to church-state controversies in the United States and around the world? Secularism, Catholicism, and the Future of Public Life, presents a dialogue between Douglas W. Kmiec, a prominent scholar of American constitutional law and Catholic legal thought, and an international cast of experts from a range of fields. In his essay, "Secularism Crucified?," Kmiec illustrates the profound tensions around religion and secularism through an examination of the Lautsi case, a European judicial decision that supported the presence of crucifixes in Italian classrooms. Laying out a church-state typology, Kmiec argues for clarifying U.S. church-state jurisprudence, and advances principles to prudently limit the over-stretching impulse of religious conscience claims. In the process, he engages secular thinkers, popes, U.S. Supreme Court rulings, and President Barack Obama. The respondents, scholars of legal theory, international relations, journalism, religion, and social science, challenge Kmiec and illustrate ways in which both scholars and citizens should understand religion, democracy, and secularism. Their essays bring together current events in Catholic life, recent social theory, and issues such as migration, the Arab Spring, and social change.

In the months leading up to the 2024 presidential election, news spread about Project 2025, a nearly 1,000-page document published by the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation. The debates—and anxiety—surrounding this initiative have only increased as authors of the Project assume positions of power in the second Trump administration.

So, what is Project 2025, exactly? Who wrote it, what does it actually say, and what does it mean for everyday people around the world, across the political spectrum, in the years to come?

In The Project, award-winning journalist David A. Graham offers much-needed context and distills the essential elements of this sprawling document. Breaking down the Project’s strategy for transforming—and radically empowering—the executive branch, Graham then explains what the architects behind Project 2025 would do with that power: restoring traditional gender norms and the supremacy of the nuclear family, decimating the civil service, performing mass deportations, reducing corporate regulation and worker protections, and more.

Project 2025 is the intellectual blueprint for the new administration, Graham argues, and its tenets should not be legible only to policy wonks. Authoritative yet highly accessible, The Project demystifies it for those whose lives it will impact most.

Democracy in Latin America examines the processes of democratization in Latin America over the past twenty years. It provides a comprehensive analysis of the issues inherent in the move toward democracy--including elections, culture, representation, poverty, and criminality. Organized thematically, with a unique historical perspective, the book focuses on six paradigmatic case studies in the region: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.