This important new text provides an up-to-date account of the complex interrelationship between politics and the media in Britain. It starts by setting key policy areas in the context of technological convergence, globalization and initiatives at European level. It then addresses the key issues the role of the media in politics and elections.

This title presents a vivid account of how some citizens actively assist state surveillance by 'informing' on others, such as during the Cold War and the current campaign against terrorism. With "Snitch!", Steve Hewitt provides a thorough study of human informers, i.e., people who secretly supply information to a domestic security agency (a spy provides information to a foreign intelligence service). The work begins with an examination of the rise of the modern security state through the Cold War to today's ongoing 'long war' on terror. Using a unique comparative approach, Hewitt analyzes the practical and political aspects of informing, drawing on past and present examples from the United States, United Kingdom, former Soviet Union, and other countries. He argues that although the scale of the use of informers by domestic security agencies differs from nation to nation, the nature of their use and the impact on those targeted by this form of surveillance do not. An engaging read that combines scholarly research and specific case studies, "Snitch!" will appeal to anyone interested in security and intelligence as well as in issues surrounding the use of informers, especially in democratic societies.

The first book ever written on the new topic of strategic communication and how Usama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri are attempting to win the hearts and minds of the world-through fear, religion or admiration. "A chilling but insightful analysis of the words and ideas of the most determined - and dangerous -- ideologues of our times. Important reading for anyone trying to understand what we are up against in the movement of Usama bin Laden." Ashton B. Carter, Chair of the International and Global Affairs faculty, Harvard Kennedy School, and former Assistant Secretary of Defense "William Parker and Heidi Bridges force observers and analysts alike to step outside of their innate prejudices and visceral response to the words and ideas of the perpetrators of 9/11, and innumerable ongoing atrocities, to think strategically and to develop a clear real-time picture of the evolution of a hostile political movement. Parker & Bridges have successfully embedded the writings and statements of Usama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri within the theory, practice, and tradition of strategic communication to yield an invaluable contribution to the intellectual tool kit so critical to the development of the situational awareness vital to recognize and combat the current Jihadist threat. This book is a must read for analysts, policymakers and students in the intelligence, counterterrorism, and homeland security fields." Peter Leitner, President, Higgins Counterterrorism Research Center

In vast swathes of America, the sacredness of the Second Amendment has become a political third rail, never to be questioned. Gun rights supporters wear tri-cornered hats, wave the stars and stripes, and ask what would have happened if the revolutionaries had been unarmed when the British were coming. They have had great success in conflating unfettered gun ownership with the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, and all things American, even in an era of repeated mass shootings. Yet the all-to-familiar narrative of America's gun past, echoed in the Supreme Court's Heller gun rights decision, is not only mythologized, but historically wrong. As Robert J. Spitzer demonstrates in Guns across America, gun ownership is as old as the nation, but so is gun regulation. Drawing on a vast new dataset of early gun laws reflecting every imaginable type of regulation, Spitzer reveals that firearms were actually more strictly regulated in the country's first three centuries than in recent years. The first 'gun grabbers' were not 1960's Chablis-drinking liberals, but seventeenth century rum-guzzling pioneers, and their legacy continued through strict gun regulations in the 1920s and beyond. Spitzer examines interpretations of the Second Amendment, the assault weapons controversy, modern 'stand your ground" laws, and the so-called 'right of rebellion' to show that they play out in America's contemporary political landscape in ways that bear little resemblance to our imagined past. And as gun rights proponents seek to roll back gun laws and press as many guns into as many hands as possible, warning that gun rights are endangered, they sidestep the central question: are stricter gun laws incompatible with robust gun rights? Spitzer answers this question by examining New York State's tough gun laws, where his political analysis is complemented by his own quest for a concealed carry handgun permit and construction of a legal AR-15 assault weapon. Not only can gun rights and rules coexist, but they have throughout American history. Guns across America reveals the long-hidden truth: that gun regulations are in fact as American as apple pie.

Description (3900 characters maximum): Clark, NJ: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., 2012. xxii, 363 pp. The noted historian and author of Jefferson's Louisiana has collected a dozen essays that span legal issues from the development of the United States from the legal rights of colonists, to the Red Scare of 1920, issues revolving around Sunday blue laws in Massachusetts in the 1950s to the legal issues regarding the status of Puerto Rico. Author Bio (3900 characters maximum): George Dargo 1935-2012] grew up in Brooklyn, New York. A graduate of Erasmus Hall High School and Columbia College, he completed his Doctorate in the Department of History at Columbia University and, later, earned his law degree at Northeastern University. His previous books include Jefferson's Louisiana, Roots of the Republic, Law in the New Republic, and A History of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. He was a Professor of Law at New England LawBoston from 1983 until his death. Volume: 1 Review 1 (3900 characters maximum): This book will stand as a monument to an extraordinary historian. George Dargo was one of those rare legal historians with both a PhD in History and a JD in Law. The newly revised and edited essays in Colony to Empire reflect the depth of his background in law and history and they represent the work of an impressive life in scholarship. Few legal historians could successfully write a book of such erudition covering the colonial period to the present. Dargo's achievement is breathtaking. Source: Kenneth S. Greenberg, Dean, Suffolk University, College of Arts and Sciences Review 2 (3900 characters maximum): Multiculturalism is a misapplied buzz-word today. For a true understanding of its role and application, many of the chapters in this book provide a useful corrective. Not only the chapters on Louisiana, but the episodes devoted to the work of Judge Calvert Magruder are particularly illuminating. This book highlights the unique qualities and special contribution that Judge Magruder personified. His broad vision and keen sensitivity enabled him to see decades in advance the true meaning of multiculturalism and how a great judge could advance that meaning in a constitutional democracy. This book brings to life many of these themes and qualities. Its broad reach and wide scope provide a critical new perspective on the role of law in American history. Source: Neil Hecht, Director, Institute of Jewish Law, Professor of Law Emeritus, Boston University School of Law

The present age of omnipresent terrorism is also an era of ever-expanding policing. What is the meaning - and the consequences - of this situation for literature and literary criticism? Policing Literary Theory attempts to answer these questions presenting intriguing and critical analyses of the interplays between police/policing and literature/literary criticism in a variety of linguistic milieus and literary traditions: American, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and others. The volume explores the mechanisms of formulation of knowledge about literature, theory, or culture in general in the post-Foucauldian surveillance society. Topics include North Korean dictatorship, spy narratives, censorship in literature and scholarship, Russian and Soviet authoritarianism, Eastern European cultures during communism, and Kafka's work. Contributors: Vladimir Biti, Reingard Nethersole, Calin-Andrei Mihailescu, Sowon Park, Marko Juvan, Kyohei Norimatsu, Peter Hajdu, Norio Sakanaka, John Zilcosky, Yvonne Howell, and Takayuki Yokota-Murakami.

This textbook provides students and law enforcement officers with the fundamentals of the criminal investigation process, from arrival on the scene to trial procedures. Written in a clear and simple style, Criminal Investigation: Law and Practice surpasses traditional texts by presenting a unique combination of legal, technical, and procedural aspects of the criminal investigation. The hands-on approach taken by the author helps to increase the learning experience.
Criminal Investigation: Law and Practice, Second Edition, has been written to provide future law enforcement officers with a basic understanding of the investigative process. It merges two areas that are crucial to the successful completion of an investigation: the law, both criminal and procedural, and criminal investigative techniques. It is writen to provide the student investigator with the information needed to complete and investigation that can result in a successful prosecution.
- comprehensive coverage of the criminal investigation, from arrival on the scene to trial procedures
-unique combination of legal, technical, and procedural aspects of criminal investigation
-many updated cases, many personally experienced by the author.

After the first war in Chechnya in 1994 and related flareups in Daghestan, the world suddenly discovered within Russia the existence of "exotic," freedom-loving but also "warlike" Muslim peoples intent on liberating themselves from the domination of a distant Russian government.

In In Quest for God and Freedom, Anna Zelkina delves into a past that remains alive in the minds of the peoples of these regions, a past that is crucial to understanding current events. She examines the formative period of the first half of the nineteenth century, during which the Chechens and Daghestanis joined forces under the banner of Islam and shari'a to resist Russian attempts to conquer them, an all-too familiar scenario in light of recent events.

Zelkina focuses on the Sufi brotherhoods, mainly the Naqshbandiyya, under whose charge the resistance was conducted. She reveals the immense impact of this Muslim mystical order upon the social, religious, and political life of the peoples of Chechnya and Daghestan during this crucial period. In the process, she sheds light on the Islamization of the North Caucasus and on the leading role the Sufi brotherhoods still play in Chechen and Daghestani public life today.

In Quest for God and Freedom is must reading for anyone wishing to understand the current crisis in the Caucasus.

History is an important, dangerous, and fragile subject. Historical thought can be censored in widely diverging political and historiographical contexts, as historians are well aware. Yet the problems of censorship, often thought to be obvious, are rarely studied. Filling a significant void, this guide supplies information on the censorship of historical thought and the fate of persecuted historians in over 130 countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe and from 1945 to 2000. With each entry providing a chronological overview of cases and giving a full listing of sources, the book is the first systematic effort to overview the repression of historical thought.

Aiming to encompass all countries in which censorship and persecution have taken place, De Baets sketches a world map of repression that goes beyond the well-known and well-studied cases. It assembles scattered data from three types of sources: the works of censors and censored, historical and biographical dictionaries and historiographical surveys, and reports from international human rights organizations. Showing the universality of historical censorship and its infinite variety in amount and degree, the book also provides a basis for further comparative research.

In this work, Patrick Kelley interprets the intelligence environment of political, military and information empires. His contribution sheds light on the cause of enduring intelligence collection defi cits that affl ict the center of such empires, and that can coincide with their ebb and fl ow. Alert intelligence practitioners, present and future, can note here just how useful a fresh interpretation of the intelligence enterprise can be to a coherent understanding of the global stream of worrisome issues. Th e long-term value of this work will be realized as readers entertain the implications of Churchill's comment that "The empires of the future are the empires of the mind."

Kelley provides an examination of Hillary Rodham Clinton's rhetorical responses to mediated versions of crises in the Clinton Administration. She begins by examining the historical First Lady, and then looks at mediated political realities in general as well as those of the Clinton presidency. Kelley also examines the rhetorical management of political crises and the crises management style of First Ladies, including Florence Harding and Eleanor Roosevelt.

The book focuses on the analysis of Hillary Rodham Clinton's rhetorical management of crises in her husband's Administration, including health care, Travelgate, Whitewater, and allegations of sexual misconduct. Kelley's approach is grounded in Kenneth Burke's framework of language as a symbolic means of inducing cooperation through rhetorical identification. She concludes with speculation regarding both the degree of success of Hillary Clinton's efforts as well as the implications of those efforts to rhetorical and political communication and feminist theory. This book will be of particular interest to scholars and researchers of the presidency and the role of the First Lady, political communication, and feminist studies.