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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political activism
This book questions when, why, and how it is just for a people to
go to war, or to refrain from warring, in a post-9/11 world. To do
so, it explores Just War Theory (JWT) in relationship to recent
American accounts of the experience of war. The book analyses the
jus ad bellum criteria of just war-right intention, legitimate
authority, just cause, probability of success, and last
resort-before exploring jus in bello, or the law that governs the
way in which warfare is conducted. By combining just-war ethics and
sustained explorations of major works of twentieth and twenty-first
century American war writing, this study offers the first
book-length reflection on how JWT and literary studies can inform
one another fruitfully.
There is a danger in the West of viewing terrorism exclusively
through the prism of 9/11. This ground-breaking examination of
terrorism in North East India demonstrates how grave a mistake this
is.
The nature of terrorism is the subject of ever-increasing scrutiny
and there are many lessons to be learned from India's borderlands.
Terrorism, fostered at first by post-colonial resentments, took
root in the region because of an increased sense of cultural
identity and perceived discrimination and exclusion by the Indian
state. This book examines the long term effects of terrorism on the
population of North East India - where the best-known conflict is
the Naga tribe's ongoing campaign for a greater Nagaland - as well
as its international consequences.
India's Fragile Borderlands offers a comprehensive study of the
nature, origins and history of terrorism in India's North East
within an international perspective. Sharing borders with China,
Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar (Burma) and Bhutan, the region abounds
in nationalist, separatist and even religious organizations that
have used terrorism as a strategy to achieve their aims. Archana
Upadhyay explores the complex and specific ideologies of these
groups while highlighting the cross-border links and connections
with organized crime that funds the violence in the region. This
important new book includes many insights into the nature of
terrorism in India's northeastern frontiers and will be invaluable
for students of politics, history and International Relations.
This book challenges the rhetoric linking 'war on terror' with 'war
on human trafficking' by juxtaposing lived experiences of survivors
of trafficking, refugees, and labor migrants with macro-level
security concerns. Drawing on research in the United States and in
Europe, Gozdziak shows how human trafficking has replaced migration
in public narratives, policy responses, and practice with migrants
and analyzes lived experiences of (in)security of trafficked
victims, irregular migrants, and asylum seekers. .
Supporters of Stalin saw Trotsky as a traitor and renegade.
Trotsky's own supporters saw him as the only true Leninist. In
Trotsky and the Russian Revolution, Geoffrey Swain restores Trotsky
to his real and central role in the Russian Revolution. In this
succinct and comprehensive study, Swain contests that: In the years
between 1903 and 1917, it was the ideas of Trotsky, rather than
Lenin, which shaped the nascent Bolshevik Party and prepared it for
the overthrow of the Tsar. During the autumn of 1917 workers
supported Trotsky's idea of an insurrection carried out by the
soviet, rather than Lenin's demand for a party orchestrated coup
d'etat. During the Russian Civil War, Trotsky persuaded a sceptical
Lenin that the only way to victory was through the employment of
officers trained in the Tsar's army. As well as examining Trotsky's
critique of Stalin's Russia in the 1930s, this seminar reader
probes deeper to explore the ideas which drove Trotsky forward
during his years of influence over Russia's revolutionary politics,
exploring such key concepts as how to construct a revolutionary
party, how to stage a successful insurrection, how to fight a
revolutionary war, and how to build a socialist state.
This book examines why Turkey has become infamous as a repressor of
news media freedom. For the past decade or so it has stood
alongside China as a notorious jailer of journalists - at the same
time as being a candidate state of the EU. The author argues that
the reasons for this conundrum are complex and whilst the AKP is
responsible for the most recent illiberality, its actions should be
taken in the wider context of Turkish politics - and the three way
battle for power which has been raging between Kemalists, Kurds and
Islamists since the republic was founded in 1923. The AKP are the
current winners of this tripartite power struggle and the
securitisation of journalists as terrorists is part of that quest.
Moreover, whilst securitisation is not new, it has intensified
recently as the number of the AKP's political opponents has
proliferated. Securitisation is also a means of delegitimising
journalism - and neutralizing any threat to the AKP's electoral
prospects - whilst maintaining a democratic facade on the world
stage. Lastly, the book argues that whilst the AKP's securitisation
of news began as a means of quashing the reporting of illiberality
against wider political targets, since 2016 it has become a target
in its own right. In the battle for power in Turkey, journalism is
now one of the many losers.
From their earliest meetings, activist David Graeber knew that the
Occupy Wall Street movement was something different. From small
beginnings its demonstrations spread across the world to cities
like Cairo, Athens, Barcelona and London and gave a glimpse of a
new way. This provocative look at the actions of the 99% asks: why
was it so effective? What went right? And what can we all do now to
make our world democratic once again? Both a treatise on power and
protest and an energetic account of contemporary events, The
Democracy Project will change the way you think about politics, and
the world.
Now a 6-part mini-series called Why the Rest of Us Die airing on
VICE TV! The shocking truth about the government's secret plans to
survive a catastrophic attack on US soil--even if the rest of us
die--is "a frightening eye-opener" (Kirkus Reviews) that spans the
dawn of the nuclear age to today, and "contains everything one
could possibly want to know" (The Wall Street Journal). Every day
in Washington, DC, the blue-and-gold first Helicopter Squadron,
codenamed "MUSSEL," flies over the Potomac River. As obvious as the
Presidential motorcade, most people assume the squadron is a travel
perk for VIPs. They're only half right: while the helicopters do
provide transport, the unit exists to evacuate high-ranking
officials in the event of a terrorist or nuclear attack on the
capital. In the event of an attack, select officials would be
whisked by helicopters to a ring of secret bunkers around
Washington, even as ordinary citizens were left to fend for
themselves. "In exploring the incredible lengths (and depths) that
successive administrations have gone to in planning for the
aftermath of a nuclear assault, Graff deftly weaves a tale of
secrecy and paranoia" (The New York Times Book Review) with details
"that read like they've been ripped from the pages of a pulp spy
novel" (Vice). For more than sixty years, the US government has
been developing secret Doomsday strategies to protect itself, and
the multibillion-dollar Continuity of Government (COG) program
takes numerous forms--from its potential to evacuate the Liberty
Bell from Philadelphia to the plans to launch nuclear missiles from
a Boeing-747 jet flying high over Nebraska. Garrett M. Graff sheds
light on the inner workings of the 650-acre compound, called Raven
Rock, just miles from Camp David, as well as dozens of other
bunkers the government built for its top leaders during the Cold
War, from the White House lawn to Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado to
Palm Beach, Florida, and the secret plans that would have kicked in
after a Cold War nuclear attack to round up foreigners and
dissidents and nationalize industries. Equal parts a presidential,
military, and cultural history, Raven Rock tracks the evolution of
the government plan and the threats of global war from the dawn of
the nuclear era through the War on Terror.
Since time immemorial Europe had been dominated by nobles and
nobilities. In the eighteenth century their power seemed better
entrenched than ever. But in 1790 the French revolutionaries made a
determined attempt to abolish nobility entirely. "Aristocracy"
became the term for everything they were against, and the nobility
of France, so recently the most dazzling and sophisticated elite in
the European world, found itself persecuted in ways that horrified
counterparts in other countries.
Aristocracy and its Enemies traces the roots of the attack on
nobility at this time, looking at intellectual developments over
the preceding centuries, in particular the impact of the American
Revolution. It traces the steps by which French nobles were
disempowered and persecuted, a period during which large numbers
fled the country and many perished or were imprisoned.
In the end abolition of the aristocracy proved impossible, and
nobles recovered much of their property. Napoleon set out to
reconcile the remnants of the old nobility to the consequences of
revolution, and created a titled elite of his own. After his fall
the restored Bourbons offered renewed recognition to all forms of
nobility. But nineteenth century French nobles were a group
transformed and traumatized by the revolutionary experience, and
they never recovered their old hegemony and privileges. As William
Doyle shows, if the revolutionaries failed in their attempt to
abolish nobility, they nevertheless began the longer term process
of aristocratic decline that has marked the last two centuries.
Though scores of texts, films and stories have been told about the
American Revolution from the perspectives of our Founding Fathers
and their followers, comparatively little is known about those
colonists who resisted the revolutionary movement, and tried
desperately to preserve their nation s ties to the British Empire.
Choosing Sides: Loyalists in Revolutionary America shows us that
America s original colonies were not nearly as united behind the
concept of forming free, independent states as our society s
collective memory would have us believe. There were, in fact,
numerous colonists, slaves, and Native Americans who counted
themselves among the Loyalists: those who never wanted to sever
ties with the English crown and who viewed revolution as an
unnatural and unlawful mistake. Too often overlooked, these men and
women made valid and valuable arguments against the formation of
the United States both weighing the costs of revolution and the
perilousness of existing without divine rule of a monarch arguments
that even hundreds of years into America s existence are echoed and
championed both within and beyond our borders. Colonists from
commoners to clergymen had nuanced and complex reasons for wanting
to remain under British control, and an awareness of these reasons
and their origins paints a more historically accurate portrait of
the American populous around the time of our country s founding.
This volume not only showcases Dr. Chopra s comprehensive analysis
of Loyalism and its arguments, but includes letters, legislation
and even poems written by Loyalists during and after the
Revolutionary War. Choosing Sides lays a detailed foundation of
facts for its readers and provides them entry points to the debate
surrounding the genesis of the United States. It is both a primary
source and a touchstone for original interpretations and
discussions."
This book is the first extensive research on the role of poetry
during the Iranian Revolution (1979) and the Iran-Iraq War
(1980-1988). How can poetry, especially peaceful medieval Sufi
poems, be applied to exalt violence, to present death as martyrdom,
and to process war traumas? Examining poetry by both Islamic
revolutionary and established dissident poets, it demonstrates how
poetry spurs people to action, even leading them to sacrifice their
lives. The book's originality lies in fresh analyses of how themes
such as martyrdom and violence, and mystical themes such as love
and wine, are integrated in a vehemently political context, while
showing how Shiite ritual such as the pilgrimage to Mecca clash
with Saudi Wahhabi appreciations. A distinguishing quality of the
book is its examination of how martyrdom was instilled in the minds
of Iranians through poetry, employing Sufi themes, motifs and
doctrines to justify death. Such inculcation proved effective in
mobilising people to the front, ready to sacrifice their lives. As
such, the book is a must for readers interested in Iranian culture
and history, in Sufi poetry, in martyrdom and war poetry. Those
involved with Middle Eastern Studies, Iranian Studies, Literary
Studies, Political Philosophy and Religious Studies will benefit
from this book. "From his own memories and expert research, the
author gives us a ravishing account of 'a poetry stained with
blood, violence and death'. His brilliantly layered analysis of
modern Persian poetry shows how it integrates political and
religious ideology and motivational propaganda with age-old
mystical themes for the most traumatic of times for Iran." (Alan
Williams, Research Professor of Iranian Studies, University of
Manchester) "When Asghar Seyed Gohrab, a highly prolific
academician, publishes a new book, you can be certain he has paid
attention to an exciting and largely unexplored subject. Martyrdom,
Mysticism and Dissent: The Poetry of the 1979 Iranian Revolution
and the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) is no exception in the sense that
he combines a few different cultural, religious, mystic, and
political aspects of Iranian life to present a vivid picture and
thorough analysis of the development and effect of what became
known as the revolutionary poetry of the late 1970s and early
1980s. This time, he has even enriched his narrative by inserting
his voice into his analysis. It is a thoughtful book and a
fantastic read." (Professor Kamran Talattof, University of Arizona)
This Woman's Work presents a social history and critical biography
based on the life of award-winning writer Bebe Moore Campbell
(1950-2006). It offers the personal story of a popular novelist,
journalist, and mental health advocate. This book examines
Campbell's life and activism in two periods: first, as a student at
the University of Pittsburgh during the 1960s black student
movement and, second, as a mental health advocate near the end of
her life in 2006. It describes Campbell's activism within the Black
Action Society from 1967 to 1971 and her negotiation of the Black
Nationalist ideologies espoused during the 1960s. The book also
explores Campbell's later involvement in the National Alliance on
Mental Illness (NAMI), her role as a national spokesperson, and the
local activism that sparked the birth of the NAMI Urban-Los Angeles
chapter, which served black and Latino communities (1999-2006).
Adjacent to her activist work, Campbell's first novel, Your Blues
Ain't Like Mine, connects to her emerging political consciousness
(related to race and gender) and the concern for racial violence
during the US black liberation period from 1950 to 1970. Similarly
Campbell's final novel, 72 Hour Hold, is examined closely for its
connection to her activism as well as the sociopolitical
commentary, emphasis on mental health disparities, coping with
mental illness, and advocacy in black communities. As a writer and
activist, Campbell immersed her readers in immediately relevant
historical and sociopolitical matters. This Woman's Work is the
first full-length biography of Bebe Moore Campbell and details the
seamless marriage of her fiction writing and community activism.
Centenary Subjects examines the ideological debates and didactic
exercises in subject formation during the centenary era of
independence (the decade of the 1910s)-the peak of arielismo-and
proposes a new reading of the arielista archive that brings into
focus the racial anxieties, epistemological and spiritual fissures,
and iconoclastic agendas that structure, and at times smother, the
ethos of that era. Arielismo takes its name from JosE Enrique
RodO's foundational essay, "Ariel" (1900), a wide-ranging gospel
dedicated to Latin American youth that incited a cultural awakening
under the banner of the spirit throughout the Americas at an
ominous juncture-when the US co-opted the Cuban War of Independence
in 1898, effectively rebranding it as the Spanish-American War.
RodO's optimistic message of transcendence as an antidote to the
encroaching empire quickly became one of the most pervasive and
malleable paradigms of regional empowerment, reverberating
throughout a range of Latin Americanist projects in the twentieth
and twenty-first centuries. Centenary Subjects recovers a series of
important but understudied essays penned by arielista writers,
radicals, pedagogues, prophets, and politicians of diverse stripes
in the early twentieth century, and analyzes how, under the
auspices of the arielista platform, young people emerged as
historical subjects invested with unprecedented cultural capital,
increasing political power, and an urgent mandate to break with the
past and transform the sociopolitical and cultural landscape of
their countries. But their respective designs harbor racial,
epistemological, aesthetic, and anarchistic strains that bring into
sharper relief the conflicting signals that the centenary subject
had to parse with respect to race, reason, and rupture.
In The Cult of Osama, Psychiatrist Peter Olsson examines Osama bin
Laden's early life experiences and explains, from a
psychoanalytical perspective, how those created a mind filled with
perverse rage at America, as well as why his way of thinking makes
him in many cases a hero to Arab and Muslim youths. "Many other
writings totally demonize bin Laden, and therein strangely play
into putting this troubled man onto a pedestal," says Olsson, who
spent 25 years on a social psychological and psychoanalytical study
of destructive cults and cult leaders. There are many journalistic,
political, military, and intelligence books about bin Laden and his
terror cult group. But this one offers a purely psychological and
psychobiographical perspective on bin Laden and his mushrooming
influence. Bin Laden's destructive "Pied Piper" appeal, leading
youths to murder others and even themselves in suicide missions,
stems from the peculiar and profoundly important synchrony of
shared trauma and pain between bin Laden and Arab/Muslim youth,
says Olsson. "And we in the West neglect this topic, at our own
peril." Among the insights Olsson provides as he traces the
psychological threads of narcissistic wounds and unresolved grief
from Osama's childhood are the death of his father when Osama was
10, separation from his mother even earlier, the humiliation of
Osama as the "son of a slave" in his father's household, and his
lifelong search for a surrogate older brother and father figures
among radical Islamist teachers and mentors. Olsson also spotlights
the idea that Osama experienced "dark epiphanies" as a young adult
which further magnified and focused his unresolved disappointments
and narcissistic rage. Thispsychobiography of one of the world's
most notorious terrorists, written by an Assistant Professor at
Dartmouth Medical School, shows how understanding the psychohistory
and mindset of bin Laden could help prevent the development and
actions of home-grown American and Western terrorists and their
cells.
Voices of Freedom: The Middle East and North Africa showcases
essays from activists, journalists, novelists, and scholars whose
areas of expertise include free speech, peace and reconciliation,
alterity-otherness, and Middle Eastern and North African religions
and literatures. Co-edited by TCU colleagues Rima Abunasser and
Mark Dennis, the volume is meant to serve as a vehicle for giving
dignity and depth to the peoples of these regions by celebrating
courageous voices of freedom trying to respond to fundamental,
often devastating, changes on the ground, including the Arab
Spring, the Syrian refugee crisis, and the rise of the Islamic
State. Writing in both the first- and third-person, essayists offer
deeply moving portraits of voices that cry out for freedom in
chaotic, and often violent, circumstances. Voices of Freedom is
aimed at college classes that address the many ways in which
freedom intersects with politics, religion, and other elements in
the societies of these dynamic and diverse regions. It will serve
as a valuable primary source for college teachers interested in
exploring with their students the struggle for freedom in
non-Western and transnational cultural contexts. The volume is also
meant to attract other audiences, including readers from the
general public interested in learning about inspirational people
from parts of the world about which Americans and other
English-speaking peoples are generally unfamiliar.
Pop Culture Goes to War, by Geoff Martin and Erin Steuter, explores
the persistence of militarism in American popular culture in the
war on terror, from 9/11 to the present day. The authors detail the
role of Hollywood and the entertainment industries in rallying both
the troops and the public for war and show how toys, video games,
music, and television support contemporary militarism. At the same
time that popular culture is enlisting support for militarism, it
is also serving as a major source of resistance to the war on
terror through the traditional mediums of music and movies, and
increasingly through the humor and insight of anti-war artists who
are jamming the culture of militarism. The satire of The Daily
Show, The Simpsons, and South Park are further examples of
so-called culture jamming. This book is for readers who question
the persistence of a warrior culture and offers new insights into
the perpetuation of militaristic values throughout American
culture.
Religion and Terrorism: The Use of Violence in Abrahamic Monotheism
provides theoretical analysis of the nature of religious terrorism
and religious martyrdom and also delves deeply into terrorist
groups and beliefs in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Religious
terrorism is found in all three of the great monotheistic faiths,
and while the public is most aware of Islamic terrorism, Jewish and
Christian faiths have extremist groups that warp their teaching -in
ways unrecognizable to most adherents- to support terrorism. This
work will be of interest to scholars in religious studies,
political science, and sociology.
From Outrage to Action examines the rise and fall of grass-roots
interest groups through in-depth analyses of four incidents that
mobilized citizens around local injustices. In one case, a local
judge declared a five-year-old sexual assault victim a particularly
promiscuous young lady. In another, an innocent black man died in
police custody. In the third, a man with a criminal record was
charged with murdering a ten-year-old girl, and in the last a judge
commented during a juvenile sentencing that rape is a normal
reaction to the way women dress. Through in-depth interviews with
activists, Laura Woliver examines these community actions, studying
the groups involved and linking her conclusions to larger questions
of political power and the impact of social movements. Group
successes and failures are explained through analysis of fluid
social movements and the role of religion, class, gender, and race.
Woliver found that activists unprepared for the ostracism and
conflict resulting from their dissent retreated from public life,
while those who identified with alternative communities avoided
self-blame and maintained their political commitments. She relates
the community responses in these cases to those in the case of
confessed mass murderer Jeffrey Dahmer and in the beating by Los
Angeles police officers of Rodney King. Her findings will make
fascinating reading for those interested in the rise and fall of
grass-roots interest groups, the nature of dissent, and the reasons
why people volunteer countless hours, sometimes in the face of
community opposition and isolation, to dedicate themselves to a
cause. The four ad hoc interest groups studied are the Committee to
Recall Judge ArchieSimonson (Madison), the Coalition for Justice
for Ernest Lacy (Milwaukee), Concerned Citizens for Children (Grant
County, Wisconsin), and Citizens Taking Action (Madison).
This book contributes an analysis of UK-based non-governmental
organisations engaged in transnational lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
trans (LGBT) activism, within a broader recognition of the
complexities that British colonial legacies perpetuate in
contemporary international relations. From this analysis, the book
suggests that greater engagement with intersectional and decolonial
approaches to transnational activism would allow for a more
transformative solidarity that challenges the broader impacts of
coloniality on LGBT people's lives globally. Case studies are used
to explore UK actors' participation in the complexities of
contemporary transnational LGBT activism, including activist
responses to developments in Brunei between 2014 and 2019, and the
use of LGBT aid conditionality by Western governments. Activist
engagements with legacies of British colonialism are also explored,
including a focus on 'sodomy laws' and the Commonwealth, as well as
the challenges faced by LGBT people seeking asylum in the UK.
Routledge Library Editions: Revolution in England examines the
turbulent times that led to the English revolution and civil war as
new political and religious ideas led to the overthrow of the king
and establishment of a republic. Modern ideas of democracy were
established then, and are analysed here in a series of books that
look at the various radical sects such as the Nonjurors and
Levellers that espoused new political thought and ways of living.
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