This book is an original study of the challenge of implementing sustainable development in Western democracies. It highlights the obstacles which sustainable development presents for strategic governance and critically examines how these problems can best be overcome in a variety of different political contexts.The renowned international contributors, including leading policy experts, try to identify the forms of governance necessary to realize the functions of sustainable development. With the help of detailed case studies, they document and analyze specific governance mechanisms for pursuing and achieving this aim. They move on to offer clearly formulated conclusions on the relationship between the demands of sustainable development and the current norms and practices of Western democracy. The book also raises the fundamental question of whether change can ever be achieved if the overriding goal of development is not firmly stated as 'sustainability' rather than 'business as usual'. This book offers a balanced focus on the difficulties and successes of promoting sustainable development through strategic governance. It will be of particular relevance to those interested in the institutional mechanisms of governance and policy implementation. The book will also appeal to scholars and students of political science, organizational studies and business administration, and policymakers and NGOs directly involved in the task of implementing sustainable development.

American comics from the start have reflected the white supremacist culture out of which they arose. Superheroes and comic books in general are products of whiteness, and both signal and hide its presence. Even when comics creators and publishers sought to advance an antiracist agenda, their attempts were often undermined by a lack of awareness of their own whiteness and the ideological baggage that goes along with it. Even the most celebrated figures of the industry, such as Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Jack Jackson, William Gaines, Stan Lee, Robert Crumb, Will Eisner, and Frank Miller, have not been able to distance themselves from the problematic racism embedded in their narratives despite their intentions or explanations. Bandits, Misfits, and Superheroes: Whiteness and Its Borderlands in American Comics and Graphic Novels provides a sober assessment of these creators and their role in perpetuating racism throughout the history of comics. Josef Benson and Doug Singsen identify how whiteness has been defined, transformed, and occasionally undermined over the course of eighty years in comics and in many genres, including westerns, horror, crime, funny animal, underground comix, autobiography, literary fiction, and historical fiction. This exciting and groundbreaking book assesses industry giants, highlights some of the most important episodes in American comic book history, and demonstrates how they relate to one another and form a larger pattern, in unexpected and surprising ways.

As mobile communication, social media, wireless networks, and flexible user interfaces become prominent topics in the study of media and culture, the screen emerges as a critical research area. This reader brings together insightful and influential texts from a variety of sources-theorists, researchers, critics, inventors, and artists-that explore the screen as a fundamental element not only in popular culture but also in our very understanding of society and the world. The Screen Media Reader is a foundational resource for studying the screen and its cultural impact. Through key contemporary and historical texts addressing the screen's development and role in communications and the social sphere, it considers how the screen functions as an idea, an object, and an everyday experience. Reflecting a number of descriptive and analytical approaches, these essays illustrate the astonishing range and depth of the screen's introduction and application in multiple media configurations and contexts. Together they demonstrate the long-standing influence of the screen as a cultural concept and communication tool that extends well beyond contemporary debates over screen saturation and addiction.

Russia's provinces have long held a prominent place in the nation's cultural imagination. Lyudmila Parts looks at the contested place of the provinces in twenty-first-century Russian literature and popular culture, addressing notions of nationalism, authenticity, Orientalism, Occidentalism, and postimperial identity. Surveying a largely unexplored body of Russian journalism, literature, and film from the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Parts finds that the harshest portrayals of the provinces arise within ""high"" culture. Popular culture, however, has increasingly turned from the newly prosperous, multiethnic, and westernized Moscow to celebrate the hinterlands as repositories of national traditions and moral strength. This change, she argues, has directed debate about Russia's identity away from its loss of imperial might and global prestige and toward a hermetic national identity based on the opposition of ""us vs. us"" rather than ""us vs. them."" She offers an intriguing analysis of the contemporary debate over what it means to be Russian and where ""true"" Russians reside.

Contributions by Lauren R. Carmacci, Keridiana Chez, Kate Glassman, John Granger, Marie Schilling Grogan, Beatrice Groves, Tolonda Henderson, Nusaiba Imady, Cecilia Konchar Farr, Juliana Valadao Lopes, Amy Mars, Christina Phillips-Mattson, Patrick McCauley, Jennifer M. Reeher, Jonathan A. Rose, and Emily Strand Despite their decades-long, phenomenal success, the Harry Potter novels have attracted relatively little attention from literary critics and scholars. While popular books, articles, blogs, and fan sites for general readers proliferate, and while philosophers, historians, theologians, sociologists, psychologists, and even business professors have taken on book-length studies and edited essay collections about Harry Potter, literature scholars, outside of the children's books community, have paid few serious visits to the Potterverse. Could it be that scholars are still reluctant to recognize popular novels, especially those with genre labels "children's literature" or "fantasy," as worthy subjects for academic study? This book challenges that oversight, assembling and foregrounding some of the best literary critical work by scholars trying to move the needle on these novels to reflect their importance to twenty-first-century literate culture. In Open at the Close, contributors consciously address Harry Potter primarily as a literary phenomenon rather than a cultural one. They interrogate the novels on many levels, from multiple perspectives, and with various conclusions, but they come together around the overarching question: What is it about these books? At their heart, what is it that makes the Harry Potter novels so exceptionally compelling, so irresistible to their readers, and so relevant in our time?

How can we get the most out of our close relationships? Research in the area of personal relationships continues to grow, but most prior work has emphasized how to overcome negative aspects. This volume demonstrates that a good relationship is more than simply the absence of a bad relationship, and that establishing and maintaining optimal relationships entails enacting a set of processes that are distinct from merely avoiding negative or harmful behaviors. Drawing on recent relationship science to explore issues such as intimacy, attachment, passion, sacrifice, and compassionate goals, the essays in this volume emphasize the positive features that allow relationships to flourish. In doing so, they integrate several theoretical perspectives, concepts, and mechanisms that produce optimal relationships. The volume also includes a section on intensive and abbreviated interventions that have been empirically validated to be effective in promoting the positive features of close relationships.

This book deals with the nature of contemporary globalisation. Maurice Mullard aims to show that globalisation is not an inescapable, unstoppable process somehow beyond human control, rather that it represents, and is being shaped by, a series of deliberate policy choices and policy decisions. The emphasis of this fascinating work is on how these policy choices are creating new forms of economic inequalities and also political elites that distort the democratic process.The mapping of winners and losers goes beyond the usual analysis of the rich North versus the poor South, by including an examination of the widening inequalities in the North and the emergence of new elites in the South. Policies of privatisation and liberalisation of water and electricity create new political elites. The author reveals the shift in the North towards multi national corporations with their emphasis on profits and stock market prices, while at the same time incomes for most employees have either stagnated or actually declined. The standard discourse on globalisation and market flexibility often blurs the issues of declining trade union influence and corporations moving to countries offering lower labour costs. Maurice Mullard herein attempts to rectify this imbalance. The Politics of Globalisation and Polarisation is interdisciplinary and will therefore be relevant for academics and researchers of politics, social policy, public policy and economics. Scholars involved in globalisation will find this book to be a major contribution to the ongoing debate.

"Understanding Development "is the ideal introduction to the major issues and critical debates about development in the contemporary world. Perfectly suited to students, it offers an accessible overview of the key topics that have come to define this crucial subject. Drawing on a wide range of case studies from across the globe, the book explores such areas as: health and population growthconflict and securityglobal inequality and povertyfair trade and trade liberalizationgender and educationforeign aid and debtsustainability and the environment

This issues-driven text has been designed to offer something different to the standard introductions to the topic, focusing on the debates that have generated the most interest and passion among practitioners and non-practitioners alike. Always attentive to the contested and plural nature of the field, it makes the case for a genuinely interdisciplinary approach which takes full account of the impact of globalization. Both comprehensive and critical, "Understanding Development "is the essential guide to one of the most challenging subjects of our age.

'A joy to immerse oneself in' Andi Oliver 'In the field of food history, Annie Gray leads the pack' Jay Rayner For many people Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without a turkey and trimmings, pudding and brandy butter. And yet it wasn't always that way. Gone are the gluttonous banquets featuring boar's head and brawn - but how did we get to the Christmas food of today? Historian Annie Gray digs into the evolution of our festive meal, from the birth of the twelve-day celebration under Edward I and the the restoration of holiday splendour under Victoria to the present day. Organised by festive dish and illustrated throughout, At Christmas We Feast is a delectable trip through time - stuffed full of classic recipes, doused with history and tradition, and sprinkled with the joy of the feasts of Christmas past.

In the era of globalization, awareness surrounding issues of violence and human rights violations has reached an all-time high. In a world where billions of human beings have the potential to create endless destruction, these same individuals are capable of working cooperatively to create adequate solutions to current global problems. The Handbook of Research on Transitional Justice and Peace Building in Turbulent Regions focuses on current issues facing nations and regions where poverty and conflict are endangering the lives of citizens as well as the socio-economic viability of those regions. Highlighting crucial topics and offering potential solutions to problems relating to domestic and international conflict, societal safety and security, as well as political instability, this comprehensive publication is designed to meet the research needs of economists, social theorists, politicians, policy makers, human rights activists, researchers, and graduate-level students across disciplines.

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on bloomsburycollections.com. Continuation along current development pathways is not sustainable. Available technology and production practices and the consumption patterns of modern societies are leading to global warming and ecological destruction. Business as usual is not an option. There is an urgent need to find a new development paradigm that ensures environmental sustainability while managing to provide, now and in the future, a decent livelihood for all of humankind. In Technology and Innovation for Sustainable Development, experts in the area provide a variety of insights about the technical transformation needed for sustainable development. It spells out the behavioural and policy changes that would need to accompany the next technological transformation, taking into account the complexity of inducing technological change in the energy and agricultural sectors. The assessment suggests that this will require major, but doable improvements in national innovation systems and major, but affordable shifts in investment patterns and related macroeconomic adjustments.

Authors in this illuminating book probe the social and spiritual contexts from which select iconic figures emerge as innovators and cultural leaders and draw material into forms that subsequent generations consider pioneering and emblematic. The book identifies creators such as novelists, poets, performers and dramatists who are leaders in their respective genres, and in culture and society at large, and examines the influence exerted on and by their works. Critics and admirers understand the cultural leaders discussed in this book as significant figures affecting social and political change. The chapters cover a range of genres, time periods and individuals, mixing literary and historical analysis with concerns relevant to leadership studies. The book includes a cross-disciplinary analysis focusing on its subjects' roles as leaders within and beyond their fields. Scholars and students of religion, history and popular culture with wide-ranging interests in the humanities will find this book a unique and fascinating look at cultural leadership. Contributors include: J.L. Airey, Y. Ariel, K.M.S. Bezio, W. Clark Gilpin, T. Fessenden, K. Lofton, E. Marienberg, C. McCracken-Flesher, S. Paulsell, C.N. Pondrom, J. Wiesenfarth

Museums offer sights into how the world works, what it means to be human in all of its manifestations, how people are related to other species, and what they have achieved through the ages. And museums help kids develop their distinctive sense of self, both by seeing their own reflections in certain respects, and by judging themselves against other stuff that is there on offer. Museums supply excitement, wonderment, instruction, forbidden pleasures, enchantment, and escape, all in one extraordinary spot.' - extract from Chapter 3, 'The First Shall Be The Last: Picturing indigenous peoples and the sins of long ago'. Mounting Queen Victoria is an indispensable guide to the politics of culture and identity in the South African public sphere.

Bringing together contributors from both the university sector and business-centered research institutions, this comprehensive volume offers diverse perspectives on the impacts and consequences of globalization in different parts of the Asian region. Each chapter offers a substantial account of globalization within a particular nation-state or area in the region. Different understandings underpin the chapters. Some contributors perceive globalization as progress in the form of economically driven processes that have made nations mutually dependent in unprecedented and complex ways. Others emphasize the uneven outcomes of globalization, as well as the stakes for economic growth and social order in the global climate of deepening political and religious divisions since September 2001. General and specialist readers alike will gain an appreciation of the myriad emphases placed on globalization within different nations and from various vantage points. The book showcases diverse styles of discourse and serves to greatly broaden the scope of what can be discussed under the rubric of 'globalization' within a single volume.

Even for the casual viewer, the Netflix series Stranger Things will likely feel familiar, reminiscent of popular 1980s coming-of-age movies such as The Goonies, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and Stand by Me. Throughout the series, nods to each movie are abundant. While Stranger Things and these classic 1980s films are all tales of childhood friendship and shared adventures, they are also narratives that reflect and shape the burgeoning cynicism of the 1980s. In Ode to Gen X: Institutional Cynicism in ""Stranger Things"" and 1980s Film, author Melissa Vosen Callens explores the parallels between iconic films featuring children and teenagers and the first three seasons of Stranger Things, a series about a group of young friends set in 1980s Indiana. The text moves beyond the (at times) non-sequitur 1980s Easter eggs to a common underlying narrative: Generation X's growing distrust in American institutions. Despite Gen X's cynicism toward both informal and formal institutions, viewers also see a more positive characteristic of Gen X in these films and series: Gen X's fierce independence and ability to rebuild and redefine the family unit despite continued economic hardships. Vosen Callens demonstrates how Stranger Things draws on popular 1980s popular culture to pay tribute to Gen X's evolving outlook on three key and interwoven American institutions: family, economy, and government.

This book studies a selection of works of Philippine literature written in Spanish during the American occupation of the Philippines (1902-1946). It explores the place of Filipino nationalism in a selection of fiction and non-fiction texts by Spanish-speaking Filipino writers Jesus Balmori, Adelina Gurrea Monasterio, Paz Mendoza Guazon, and Antonio Abad. Taking an interdisciplinary approach that draws from Anthropology, History, Literary Studies, Cultural Analysis and World Literature, this book offers a comparative analysis of the position of these authors toward the cultural transformations that have taken place as a result of the Philippines' triple history of colonization (by Spain, the US, and Japan) while imagining an independent nation. Engaging with an untapped archive, this book is a relevant and timely contribution to the fields of both Filipino and Hispanic literary studies.

Untapped collects twelve previously unpublished essays that analyze the rise of craft beer from social and cultural perspectives. In the United States, the United Kingdom, and Western Europe there has been exponential growth in the number of small independent breweries over the past thirty years - a reversal of the corporate consolidation and narrowing of consumer choice that characterized much of the twentieth century. While there are legal and policy components involved in this shift, the contributors to Untapped ask broader questions. How does the growth of craft beer connect to trends like the farm-to-table movement, gentrification, the rise of the "creative class," and changing attitudes toward both cities and farms? How do craft beers conjure history, place, and authenticity? At perhaps the most fundamental level, how does the rise of craft beer call into being new communities that may challenge or reinscribe hierarchies based on gender, class, and race?

This book discusses the importance of innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems in supporting regional competitiveness. It also encourages academics, business professionals and policy-makers to rethink innovation ecosystems as drivers of regional competitiveness, demonstrating the complex interactions between regional economic and social actors, and their impact on regional competitiveness. Further, the book examines the role of entrepreneurship and innovation policies in different regions (e.g. lagging regions, rural regions, etc.), and describes critical success factors in multi-level technologies and innovation policies and strategies.

This handbook provides critical analyses of the theory and practices of small arms proliferation and its impact on conflicts and organized violence in Africa. It examines the terrains, institutions, factors and actors that drive armed conflict and arms proliferation, and further explores the nature, scope, and dynamics of conflicts across the continent, as well as the extent to which these conflicts are exacerbated by the proliferation of small arms. The volume features rich analyses by contributors who are acquainted with, and widely experienced in, the formal and informal structures of arms proliferation and control, and their repercussions on violence, instability and insecurity across Africa. The chapters dissect the challenges of small arms and light weapons in Africa with a view to understanding roots causes and drivers, and generating a fresh body of analyses that adds value to the existing conversation on conflict management and peacebuilding in Africa. With contributions from scholars, development practitioners, defence and security professionals and civil society activists, the handbook seeks to serve as a reference for students, researchers, and policy makers on small arms proliferation, control and regulation; defence and security practitioners; and those involved in countering violence and managing conflicts in Africa.

This one-volume reference provides a comprehensive overview of gambling in the Americas, examining the history, morality, market growth, and economics of the gaming industry. This is the most complete encyclopedia of gambling, covering the industry in great detail including the players, the games, the venues, and the surrounding social issues. Updates in this second edition reveal the impact of technological advances on the games, the growing legislation regulating the industry, and the expanding global footprint of gambling across the world-from Manitoba to Montana. Author William N. Thompson postulates on the impact of gambling on local communities and shows how the U.S. gaming industry is tied to the global market, most notably gaming expansion in Macau and Singapore. The book addresses the various forms of gaming, such as casino-based and online gambling, sports betting, and lotteries. Additional content examines the social issue of problem and pathological gambling and addresses the rehabilitation programs available for the mitigation and treatment of gambling problems. Includes documents from prominent court cases Profiles leading persons and organizations dealing with gambling operations Features a detailed chronology of events including legalization and laws on Internet gaming Offers an expanded bibliography that provides additional resources for further study