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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > General
The commander, or chief of staff, of the Israel Defense Forces
(IDF) is a prominent public figure in Israel. His decisions,
advice, and persona exert direct influence on force design and
military strategy, and indirectly impact social, economic, and
foreign affairs. This first-ever in-depth comparative study on the
role and performance of the IDF chiefs of staff throughout modern
Israel's history offers lessons for practitioners and students of
strategy, military history, and leadership everywhere.
The Accountability State provides an overview of American federal
Inspectors General and analyzes their development and capacity to
contribute to new forms of democratic legitimacy.
Turkey's EU accession talks, which began in 2005, were intended to
strengthen Turkey's democracy and the EU's ability to embrace
difference. Instead, we have seen repeated questioning of Turkey's
'Europeanness' and mutual exploitation of the other's weaknesses.
Offering a unique analysis of conversations in and about Turkey and
the EU, Lucia Najslova adopts an interdisciplinary ethnographic
lens, taking the reader through misunderstandings in the diplomatic
framework and into everyday interactions between various
protagonists of the relationship. Questions of belonging and
recognition underpin the analysis and connect various research
sites, including the 2016 refugee deal and the status of Turkish
Cypriots. Najslova delves into the temporal dimensions of this
dynamic, such as questions surrounding Turkish modernity and
nation-building, and asks whether there is such a thing as good
timing for democracy and what would happen if the diplomatic
framework of Turkey-EU relations started moving faster.
COMPARATIVE URBANISM 'Comparative Urbanism fully transforms the
scope and purpose of urban studies today, distilling innovative
conceptual and methodological tools. The theoretical and empirical
scope is astounding, enlightening, emboldening. Robinson peels away
conceptual labels that have anointed some cities as paradigmatic
and left others as mere copies. She recalibrates overly used
theoretical perspectives, resurrects forgotten ones long in need of
a dusting off, and brings to the fore those often marginalised.
Robinson's approach radically re-distributes who speaks for the
urban, and which urban conditions shape our theoretical
understandings. With Comparative Urbanism in our hands, we can
start the practice of urban studies anywhere and be relevant to any
number of elsewheres.' Jane M. Jacobs, Professor of Urban Studies,
Yale-NUS College, Singapore 'How to think the multiplicity of urban
realities at the same time, across different times and rhythmic
arrangements; how to move with the emergences and stand-stills,
with conceptualisations that do justice to all things gathered
under the name of the urban. How to imagine comparatively amongst
differences that remain different, individualised outcomes, but yet
exist in-common. No book has so carefully conducted a specifically
urban philosophy on these matters, capable of beginning and ending
anywhere.' AbdouMaliq Simone, Senior Research Fellow, Urban
Institute, University of Sheffield The rapid pace and changing
nature of twenty-first century urbanisation as well as the
diversity of global urban experiences calls for new theories and
new methodologies in urban studies. In Comparative Urbanism:
Tactics for Global Urban Studies, Jennifer Robinson proposes
grounds for reformatting comparative urban practice and offers a
wide range of tactics for researching global urban experiences. The
focus is on inventing new concepts as well as revising existing
approaches. Inspired by postcolonial and decolonial critiques of
urban studies she advocates for an experimental comparative
urbanism, open to learning from different urban experiences and to
expanding conversations amongst urban scholars across the globe.
The book features a wealth of examples of comparative urban
research, concerned with many dimensions of urban life. A range of
theoretical and philosophical approaches ground an understanding of
the radical revisability and emergent nature of concepts of the
urban. Advanced students, urbanists and scholars will be prompted
to compose comparisons which trace the interconnected and
relational character of the urban, and to think with the variety of
urban experiences and urbanisation processes across the globe, to
produce the new insights the twenty-first century urban world
demands.
In his bestselling The End of History and the Last Man, Francis Fukuyama argued that the end of the Cold War would also mean the beginning of a struggle for position in the rapidly emerging order of 21st-century capitalism. In Trust, a penetrating assessment of the emerging global economic order "after History," he explains the social principles of economic life and tells us what we need to know to win the coming struggle for world dominance. Challenging orthodoxies of both the left and right, Fukuyama examines a wide range of national cultures in order to divine the underlying principles that foster social and economic prosperity. Insisting that we cannot divorce economic life from cultural life, he contends that in an era when social capital may be as important as physical capital, only those societies with a high degree of social trust will be able to create the flexible, large-scale business organizations that are needed to compete in the new global economy. A brilliant study of the interconnectedness of economic life with cultural life, Trust is also an essential antidote to the increasing drift of American culture into extreme forms of individualism, which, if unchecked, will have dire consequences for the nation's economic health.
In these stormy times, voices from all fronts call for change. But
what kind of revolution brings true freedom to both society and the
human soul? Cultural observer Os Guinness explores the nature of
revolutionary faith, contrasting between secular revolutions such
as the French Revolution and the faith-led revolution of ancient
Israel. He argues that the story of Exodus is the highest, richest,
and deepest vision for freedom in human history. It serves as the
master story of human freedom and provides the greatest sustained
critique of the abuse of power. His contrast between "Paris" and
"Sinai" offers a framework for discerning between two kinds of
revolution and their different views of human nature, equality, and
liberty. Drawing on the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, Guinness
develops Exodus as the Magna Carta of humanity, with a constructive
vision of a morally responsible society of independent free people
who are covenanted to each other and to justice, peace, stability,
and the common good of the community. This is the model from the
past that charts our path to the future. "There are two
revolutionary faiths bidding to take the world forward," Guinness
writes. "There is no choice facing America and the West that is
more urgent and consequential than the choice between Sinai and
Paris. Will the coming generation return to faith in God and to
humility, or continue to trust in the all sufficiency of
Enlightenment reason, punditry, and technocracy? Will its politics
be led by principles or by power?" While Guinness cannot predict
our ultimate fate, he warns that we must recognize the crisis of
our time and debate the issues openly. As individuals and as a
people, we must choose between the revolutions, between faith in
God and faith in Reason alone, between freedom and despotism, and
between life and death.
Nietzsche's famous attack upon established Christianity and
religion is brought to the reader in this superb hardcover edition
of The Antichrist, introduced and translated by H.L. Mencken. The
incendiary tone throughout The Antichrist separates it from most
other well-regarded philosophical texts; even in comparison to
Nietzsche's earlier works, the tone of indignation and conviction
behind each argument made is evident. There is little lofty
ponderousness; the book presents its arguments and points at a
blistering pace, placing itself among the most accessible and
comprehensive works of philosophy. The Antichrist comprises a total
of sixty-two short chapters, each with distinct philosophical
arguments or angle upon the targets of Christianity, organised
religion, and those who masquerade as faithful but are in actuality
anything but. Pointedly opposed to notions of Christian morality
and virtue, Nietzsche vehemently sets out a case for the faith's
redundancy and lack of necessity in human life.
Twenty Years at Hull House, by the acclaimed memoir of social
reformer Jane Addams, is presented here complete with all
sixty-three of the original illustrations and the biographical
notes. A landmark autobiography in terms of opening the eyes of
Americans to the plight of the industrial revolution, Twenty Years
at Hull House has been applauded for its unflinching descriptions
of the poverty and degradation of the era. Jane Addams also details
the grave ill-health she suffered during and after her childhood,
giving the reader insight into the adversity which she would
re-purpose into a drive to alleviate the suffering of others. The
process by which Addams founded Hull House in Chicago is detailed;
the sheer scale and severity of the poverty in the city she and
others witnessed, the search for the perfect location, and the
numerous difficulties she and her fellow activists encountered
while establishing and maintaining the house are detailed.
Upper-middle-class white women have long been heralded as "experts"
on feminism. They have presided over multinational feminist
organizations and written much of what we consider the feminist
canon, espousing sexual liberation and satisfaction, LGBTQ
inclusion, and racial solidarity, all while branding the language
of the movement itself in whiteness and speaking over Black and
Brown women in an effort to uphold privilege and perceived cultural
superiority. An American Muslim woman, attorney, and political
philosopher, Rafia Zakaria champions a reconstruction of feminism
in Against White Feminism, centering women of color in this
transformative overview and counter-manifesto to white feminism's
global, long-standing affinity with colonial, patriarchal, and
white supremacist ideals. Covering such ground as the legacy of the
British feminist imperialist savior complex and "the colonial
thesis that all reform comes from the West" to the condescension of
the white feminist-led "aid industrial complex" and the conflation
of sexual liberation as the "sum total of empowerment," Zakaria
follows in the tradition of intersectional feminist forebears
Kimberle Crenshaw, Adrienne Rich, and Audre Lorde. Zakaria
ultimately refutes and reimagines the apolitical aspirations of
white feminist empowerment in this staggering, radical critique,
with Black and Brown feminist thought at the forefront.
The Roosevelts is a brilliant and controversial account of twentieth-century American political culture as seen through the lens of its preeminent political dynasty. Peter Collier shows how Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, along with their descendants, scrambled to define the direction that American politics would take. The Oyster Bay clan, influenced by the flamboyant Teddy, was extroverted, eccentric, tradition-bound, and family-oriented. They represented an age of American innocence that would be replaced by Franklin's Hyde Park Roosevelts, who were aloof and cold yet individualistic and progressive. Drawing on extensive interviews and brimming with trenchant anecdotes, this historical portrait casts new light on the pivotal events and personalities that shaped the Roosevelt legacy -- from Eleanor's often brutal relationship with her children and Theodore Jr.'s undoing in the 1924 New York gubernatorial race, to the heroism of Teddy's sons during both World Wars and FDR's loveless marriage. The Roosevelts is history at its most penetrating, a crucial work that illuminates the foundations of contemporary, American politics.
The typical contemporary Labour MP is almost certain to be a
university-educated Europhile who is more comfortable in the leafy
enclaves of north London than the party's historic heartlands. As a
result, Labour has become radically out of step with the culture
and values of working-class Britain. Drawing on his background as a
firefighter and trade unionist from Dagenham, Paul Embery argues
that this disconnect has been inevitable since the Left political
establishment swallowed a poisonous brew of economic and social
liberalism. They have come to despise traditional working-class
values of patriotism, family and faith and instead embraced
globalisation, rapid demographic change and a toxic, divisive brand
of identity politics. Embery contends that the Left can only revive
if it speaks once again to the priorities of working-class people
by combining socialist economics with the cultural politics of
belonging, place and community. No one who wants to really
understand why our politics has become so dysfunctional and what
the Left can do to fix it can afford to miss this authentic,
insightful and passionate book.
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