Political theory, from antiquity to the present, has been divided over the relationship between the requirements of justice and the limitations of persons and institutions to meet those requirements. Some theorists hold that a theory of justice should be utopian or idealistic-that the derivation of the correct principles of justice should not take into account human and institutional limitations. Others insist on a realist or non-utopian view, according to which feasibility-facts about what is possible given human and institutional limitations-is a constraint on principles of justice. In recent years, the relationship between the ideal and the real has become the subject of renewed scholarly interest. This anthology aims to represent the contemporary state of this classic debate. By and large, contributors to the volume deny that the choice between realism and idealism is binary. Rather, there is a continuum between realism and idealism that locates these extremes of each view at opposite poles. The contributors, therefore, tend to occupy middle positions, only leaning in the ideal or non-ideal direction. Together, their contributions not only represent a wide array of attractive positions in the new literature on the topic, but also collectively advance how we understand the difference between idealism and realism itself.

Stephen C. Berkwitz's Buddhist Poetry and Colonialism examines five works by a single poet to demonstrate how Buddhism in Sri Lanka was shaped and transformed by encounters with Portuguese colonizers and missionaries in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. By following the written works of Alagiyavanna Mukaveti (1552-1625?) from the court of a powerful Sinhala king through the cultural upheavals of warfare and Christian missions and finally to his eventual conversion to Catholicism and employment under the Portuguese Crown, this book uses the poetry of a single author to reflect upon how Sinhala verse fashioned new visions of power and religious identity when many of the traditional Buddhist institutions were in retreat. Berkwitz traces the development of Alagiyavanna's poetry as a medium for celebrating the fame of rulers, devotion to the Buddha and his Dharma, morality and truth in the Buddha's religion, and the glories of Portuguese rule in Sri Lanka. Employing an interdisciplinary approach that combines Buddhist Studies, History, Literary Criticism, and Postcolonial Studies, the author constructs a picture of the effects of colonialism on Buddhist literature and culture at an early juncture in the history of the encounter between Asia and Europe.

Early work in conflict resolution and peace research focused on why wars broke out, why they persisted, and why peace agreements failed to endure. Later research has focused on what actions and circumstances have actually averted destructive escalations, stopped the perpetuation of destructive conduct, produced a relatively good conflict transformation, or resulted in an enduring and relatively equitable relationship among former adversaries. This later research, which began in the 1950s, recognizes that conflict is inevitable and is often waged in the name of rectifying injustice. Additionally, it argues that damages can be minimized and gains maximized for various stakeholders in waging and settling conflicts. This theory, which is known as the constructive conflict approach, looks at how conflicts can be waged and resolved so they are broadly beneficial rather than mutually destructive. In this book, Louis Kriesberg, one of the major figures in the school of constructive conflict, looks at every major foreign conflict episode in which the United States has been involved since the onset of the Cold War to analyze when American involvement in foreign conflicts has been relatively effective and beneficial and when it has not. In doing so he analyzes whether the US took constructive approaches to conflict and whether the approach yielded better consequences than more traditional coercive approaches. Realizing Peace helps readers interested in engaging or learning about foreign policy to better understand what has happened in past American involvement in foreign conflicts, to think freshly about better alternatives, and to act in support of more constructive strategies in the future.

As Oliver Richmond explains, there is a level to peacemaking that operates in the realm of dialogue, declarations, symbols and rituals. But after all this pomp and circumstance is where the reality of security, development, politics, economics, identity, and culture figure in; conflict, cooperation, and reconciliation are at their most vivid at the local scale. Thus local peace operations are crucial to maintaining order on the ground even in the most violent contexts. However, as Richmond argues, such local capacity to build peace from the inside is generally left unrecognized, and it has been largely ignored in the policy and scholarly literature on peacebuilding. In Peace and Political Order, Richmond looks at peace processes as they scale up from local to transnational efforts to consider how to build a lasting and productive peace. He takes a comparative and expansive look at peace efforts in conflict situations in countries around the world to consider what local voices might suggest about the inadequacy of peace processes engineered at the international level. As well, he explores how local workers act to modify or resist peace processes headed by international NGOs, and to what degree local actors have enjoyed success in the peace process (and how they have affected the international peace process).

In September of 2010, the Daily Mail Reporter announced "Anti-immigration party formed from skinhead movement seizes balance of power in Sweden." A politics of skinhead protest, expressed through White Power Music and an explicitly nationalistic subgenre known as Viking Rock, has relied on its music to voice opposition to immigration and multiculturism. Often labeled "neo-Nazis" or "right-wing extremists," these actors shook political establishments throughout Sweden, Denmark, and Norway during the 1980s and 1990s by rallying around white power music and skinhead subculture. More recently, however, these groups methodically revised their presentation in an effort to refashion themselves as upstanding, intelligent champions of love and human diversity, and once again using music to do so. In Lions of the North: Sounds of the New Nordic Radical Nationalism, author Benjamin Teitelbaum explores this transformation of anti-immigrant, anti-liberal activism in the Nordic countries as it manifests in thought and sound. As his fieldwork in Sweden overlapped with Anders Behring Breivik's attacks in 2011, Teitelbaum observed the radical nationalist movement at a particularly sensitive moment. Offering a rare ethnographic glimpse into controversial and secretive political movements, Lions of the North investigates changes in the music nationalists make and patronize, reading their surprising new music styles as attempts to escape stereotypes and fashion a new image for themselves. Teitelbaum's work reveals organized opposition to immigration and multiculturalism in Scandinavia to be a scene in flux, populated by individuals with diverse understandings of themselves, their cause, and the significance of music. Ultimately, he uncovers the ways in which nationalists use music to frame themselves as agents of justice, an image that is helping to propel these actors to unprecedented success in societies often considered the most tolerant in the world. A timely and powerful work of interdisciplinary ethnomusicology, Lions of the North will appeal to a wide audience, from scholars in the humanities to those in political science.

When considering the structures that drive the global diffusion of human rights norms, Brian Greenhill argues that we need to look beyond institutions that are explicitly committed to human rights and instead focus on the dense web of international government organizations (IGOs)-some big, some small; some focused on human rights; some not-that has arisen in the last two generations. While most of these organizations have no direct connection to human rights issues, their participation in broader IGO networks has important implications for the human rights practices of their member states. Featuring a rigorous empirical analysis, Transmitting Rights shows that countries tend to adopt similar human rights practices to those of their IGO partners, whether for better or worse. Greenhill argues that IGOs constitute a tightly-woven fabric of ties between states and that this network provides an important channel through which states can influence the behavior of others. Indeed, his analysis suggests that a policy of isolating "rogue" states is probably self-defeating given that this will reduce their exposure to some of the more positive IGO-based influences on their human rights. Greenhill's analysis of the role of IGOs in rights diffusion will not only increase our understanding of the international politics of human rights; it will also reshape how we think about the role of international institutions in world politics.

Many believe that support for the abolition of slavery was universally accepted in Vermont, but it was actually a fiercely divisive issue that rocked the Green Mountain State. In the midst of turbulence and violence, though, some brave Vermonters helped fight for the freedom of their enslaved Southern brethren. Thaddeus Stevens--one of abolition's most outspoken advocates--was a Vermont native. Delia Webster, the first woman arrested for aiding a fugitive slave, was also a Vermonter. The Rokeby house in Ferrisburgh was a busy Underground Railroad station for decades. Peacham's Oliver Johnson worked closely with William Lloyd Garrison during the abolition movement. Discover the stories of these and others in Vermont who risked their own lives to help more than four thousand slaves to freedom.

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.

Since its formation the European Union has expanded beyond all expectations, and this expansion seems set to continue as more countries seek accession and the scope of EU law expands, touching more and more aspects of its citizens' lives. The EU has never been stronger and yet it now appears to be reaching a crisis point, beset on all sides by conflict and challenges to its legitimacy. Nationalist sentiment is on the rise and the Eurozone crisis has had a deep and lasting impact. EU law, always controversial, continues to perplex, not least because it remains difficult to analyse. What is the EU? An international organization, or a federation? Should its legal concepts be measured against national standards, or another norm? The Oxford Handbook of European Union Law illuminates the richness and complexity of the debates surrounding the law and policies of the EU. Comprising eight sections, it examines how we are to conceptualize EU law; the architecture of EU law; making and administering EU law; the economic constitution and the citizen; regulation of the market place; economic, monetary, and fiscal union; the Area of Freedom, Security, and Justice; and what lies beyond the regulatory state. Each chapter summarizes, analyses, and reflects on the state of play in a given area, and suggests how it is likely to develop in the foreseeable future. Written by an international team of leading commentators, this Oxford Handbook creates a vivid and provocative tapestry of the key issues shaping the laws of the European Union.

In 1517, the Ottoman Sultan Selim "the Grim" conquered Egypt and brought his empire for the first time in history into direct contact with the trading world of the Indian Ocean. During the decades that followed, the Ottomans became progressively more engaged in the affairs of this vast and previously unfamiliar region, eventually to the point of launching a systematic ideological, military and commercial challenge to the Portuguese Empire, their main rival for control of the lucrative trade routes of maritime Asia.
The Ottoman Age of Exploration is the first comprehensive historical account of this century-long struggle for global dominance, a struggle that raged from the shores of the Mediterranean to the Straits of Malacca, and from the interior of Africa to the steppes of Central Asia. Based on extensive research in the archives of Turkey and Portugal, as well as materials written on three continents and in a half dozen languages, it presents an unprecedented picture of the global reach of the Ottoman state during the sixteenth century. It does so through a dramatic recounting of the lives of sultans and viziers, spies, corsairs, soldiers-of-fortune, and women from the imperial harem. Challenging traditional narratives of Western dominance, it argues that the Ottomans were not only active participants in the Age of Exploration, but ultimately bested the Portuguese in the game of global politics by using sea power, dynastic prestige, and commercial savoir faire to create their own imperial dominion throughout the Indian Ocean.

Uprisings such as the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street signal a resurgence of populist politics in America, pitting the people against the establishment in a struggle over control of democracy. In the wake of its conservative capture during the Nixon and Reagan eras, and given its increasing ubiquity as a mainstream buzzword of politicians and pundits, democratic theorists and activists have been eager to abandon populism to right-wing demagogues and mega-media spin-doctors. Decades of liberal scholarship have reinforced this shift, turning the term "populism" into a pejorative in academic and public discourse. At best, they conclude that populism encourages an "empty" wish to express a unified popular will beyond the mediating institutions of government; at worst, it has been described as an antidemocratic temperament prone to fomenting backlash against elites and marginalized groups. Populism's Power argues that such routine dismissals of populism reinforce liberalism as the end of democracy. Yet, as long as democracy remains true to its meaning, that is, "rule by the people," democratic theorists and activists must be able to give an account of the people as collective actors. Without such an account of the people's power, democracy's future seems fixed by the institutions of today's neoliberal, managerial states, and not by the always changing demographics of those who live within and across their borders. Laura Grattan looks at how populism cultivates the aspirations of ordinary people to exercise power over their everyday lives and their collective fate. In evaluating competing theories of populism she looks at a range of populist moments, from cultural phenomena such as the Chevrolet ad campaign for "Our Country, Our Truck," to the music of Leonard Cohen, and historical and contemporary populist movements, including nineteenth-century Populism, the Tea Party, broad-based community organizing, and Occupy Wall Street. While she ultimately expresses ambivalence about both populism and democracy, she reopens the idea that grassroots movements-like the insurgent farmers and laborers, New Deal agitators, and Civil Rights and New Left actors of US history-can play a key role in democratizing power and politics in America.

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 writing about international affairs in the 1960s, historians have naturally focused on the Cold War. The decade featured perilous confrontations between the United States and the Soviet Union over Berlin and Cuba, the massive buildup of nuclear stockpiles, the escalation of war in Vietnam, and bitter East-West rivalry throughout the developing world. Only in recent years have scholars begun to realize that there is another history of international affairs in the 1960s. As the world historical force of globalization has quickened and deepened, historians have begun to see that many of the global challenges that we face today - inequality, terrorism, demographic instability, energy dependence, epidemic disease, massive increases in trade and monetary flows, to name just a few examples - asserted themselves powerfully during the decade. The administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson confronted tectonic shifts in the international environment and perhaps even the beginning of the post-Cold War world. While the ideologically infused struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union was indisputably crucial, new forces and new actors altered international relations in profound and lasting ways. This book asks how the Johnson administration responded to this changing landscape. To what extent did U.S. leaders understand the changes that we can now see clearly with the benefit of hindsight? How did they prioritize these issues alongside the geostrategic concerns that dominated their daily agendas and the headlines of the day? How successfully did Americans grapple with these long-range problems, with what implications for the future? What lessons lie in the efforts of Johnson and his aides to cope with a new and inchoate agenda of problems? This book reconsiders the 1960s and suggests a new research agenda predicated on the idea that the Cold War was not the only - or perhaps even the most important - feature of international life in the period after World War II.

In the United States and Europe, an increasing emphasis on equality has pitted rights claims against each other, raising profound philosophical, moral, legal, and political questions about the meaning and reach of religious liberty. Nowhere has this conflict been more salient than in the debate between claims of religious freedom, on one hand, and equal rights claims made on the behalf of members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community, on the other. As new rights for LGBT individuals have expanded in liberal democracies across the West, longstanding rights of religious freedom - such as the rights of religious communities to adhere to their fundamental teachings, including protecting the rights of conscience; the rights of parents to impart their religious beliefs to their children; and the liberty to advance religiously-based moral arguments as a rationale for laws - have suffered a corresponding decline. Timothy Samuel Shah, Thomas F. Farr, and Jack Friedman's volume, Religious Freedom and Gay Rights brings together some of the world's leading thinkers on religion, morality, politics, and law to analyze the emerging tensions between religious freedom and gay rights in three key geographic regions: the United States, the United Kingdom, and continental Europe. What implications will expanding regimes of equality rights for LGBT individuals have on religious freedom in these regions? What are the legal and moral frameworks that govern tensions between gay rights and religious freedom? How are these tensions illustrated in particular legal, political, and policy controversies? And what is the proper way to balance new claims of equality against existing claims for freedom of religious groups and individuals? Religious Freedom and Gay Rights offers several explorations of these questions.

Digital Dilemmas is a groundbreaking ethnographic, mixed method approach to understanding dynamics of power and resistance as they are played out around the future of the internet. M. I. Franklin looks at the way that publics, governments, and multilateral institutions are being redefined and reinvented in digital settings that are ubiquitous and yet controlled by a relative few. Franklin does this through three original and wide-ranging case studies that get at the way that computer-mediated power relations play out "on the ground" through a mixture of overlapping online and offline activity, at personal, community, and transnational levels. Case studies include online activities around homelessness and street papers in the U.S. and around the world, digital and human rights activism carried out though the United Nations, and the ongoing battle between proprietary and free and open source software proponents. The result is a thought-provoking and seminal work on the way that the new paradigms of power and resistance forged online reshape localized and traditional power structures offline.

This volume of essays explores the long-unstudied relationship between religion and human security throughout the world. The 1950s marked the beginning of a period of extraordinary religious revival, during which religious political-parties and non-governmental organizations gained power around the globe. Until now, there has been little systematic study of the impact that this phenomenon has had on human welfare, except of a relationship between religious revival to violence. The authors of these essays show that religion can have positive as well as negative effects on human wellbeing. They address a number of crucial questions about the relationship between religion and human security: Under what circumstances do religiously motivated actors tend to advance human welfare, and under what circumstances do they tend to threaten it? Are members of some religious groups more likely to engage in welfare-enhancing behavior than in others? Do certain state policies tend to promote security-enhancing behavior among religious groups while other policies tend to promote security-threatening ones? In cases where religious actors are harming the welfare of a population, what responses could eliminate that threat without replacing it with another? Religion and Human Security shows that many states tend to underestimate the power of religious organizations as purveyors of human security. Governments overlook both the importance of human security to their populations and the religious groups who could act as allies in securing the welfare of their people. This volume offers a rich variety of theoretical perspectives on the nuanced relationship between religion and human security. Through case studies ranging from Turkey, Egypt, and Pakistan, to the United States, Northern Ireland, and Zimbabwe, it provides important suggestions to policy makers of how to begin factoring the influence of religion into their evaluation of a population's human security and into programs designed to improve human security around the globe.

A surprisingly understudied topic in international relations is that of gender-based asylum, even though the tactic has been adopted in an increasing number of countries in the global north and west. Those adjudicating gender-based asylum cases must investicate the specific category of gender violence committed against the asylum-seeker, as well as the role of the asylum-seeker's home state in being complicit with such violence. As Nayak argues, it matters not just that but how we respond to gender violence and persecution. Feminist advocates, U.S. governmental officials, and asylum adjudicators have articulated different "frames" for different types of gender violence, promoting ideas about how to categorize violence, its causes, and who counts as its victims. These frames, in turn, may be used successfully to grant asylum to persecuted migrants; however, the frames are also very narrow and limited. This is because the U.S. must negotiate the tension between immigration restriction and human rights obligations to protect refugees from persecution. The effects of the asylum frames are two-fold. First, they leave out or distort the stories and experiences of asylum-seekers who do not "fit" the frames. Second, the frames reflect but also serve as an entry point to deepen, strengthen, and shape the U.S. position of power relative to other countries, international organizations, and immigrant communities. This book explores the politics of gender-based asylum through a comparative examination of asylum policy and cases regarding domestic violence, female circumcision, rape, trafficking, coercive sterilization/abortion, and persecution based on sexual and gender identity.

NGOs headquartered in the North have been, for some time, the most visible in attempts to address the poverty, lack of political representation, and labor exploitation that disproportionally affect women from the global South. Feminist NGOs and NGOs focusing on women's rights have been successful in attracting funding for their causes, but critics argue that the highly educated elites from the global North and South who run them fail to question or understand the power hierarchies in which they operate. In order to give depth to these criticisms, Sara de Jong interviewed women NGO workers in seven different European countries about their experiences and perspectives on working on gendered issues affecting women in the global South. Complicit Sisters untangles and analyzes the complex tensions women NGO workers face and explores the ways in which they negotiate potential complicities in their work. Weighing the women NGO workers' first-hand accounts against critiques arising from feminist theory, postcolonial theory, global civil society theory and critical development literature, de Jong brings to life the dilemmas of "doing good." She considers these workers' ideas about "sisterhood," privilege, gender stereotypes, feminism, and the private/public divide, and she suggests avenues for productive engagement between these and the inevitable tensions and complexities in NGO work.

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.

The Republican Party is best understood as the vehicle of an ideological movement whose leaders prize commitment to conservative doctrine; Republican candidates primarily appeal to voters by emphasizing broad principles and values. In contrast, the Democratic Party is better characterized as a coalition of social groups seeking concrete government action from their allies in office, with group identities and interests playing a larger role than abstract ideology in connecting Democratic elected officials with organizational leaders and electoral supporters. Building on this core distinction, Asymmetric Politics investigates the most consequential differences in the organization and style of the two major parties. Whether examining voters, activists, candidates, or officeholders, Grossman and Hopkins find that Democrats and Republicans think differently about politics, producing distinct practices and structures. The analysis offers a new understanding of the rise in polarization and governing dysfunction and a new explanation for the stable and exceptional character of American political culture and public policy.

This book provides an introduction to the American legal system for a broad readership. Its focus is on law in practice, on the role of the law in American society, and how the social context affects the living law of the United States. It covers the institutions of law creation and application, law in American government, American legal culture and the legal profession, American criminal and civil justice, and civil rights. Clearly written, the book has been widely used in both undergraduate and graduate courses as an introduction to the legal system; it will be useful, too, to a general audience interested in understanding how this vital social system works. _ This new edition, which keeps the same basic structure of earlier editions, has been revised and brought up to date, reflecting the way the legal system has adapted to the complex new world of the twenty-first century.

What is a constitutional right? If asked, most Americans would say that it is an entitlement to act as one pleases - i.e., that rights protect autonomy. That understanding, however, is wrong; it is, indeed, The Myth of Rights. The primary purpose and effect of constitutional rights in our society is structural. These rights restrain governmental power in order to maintain a balance between citizens and the State, and an appropriately limited role for the State in our society. Of course, restricting governmental power does have the effect of advancing individual autonomy, but that is not the primary purpose of rights, and furthermore, constitutional rights protect individual autonomy to a far lesser degree that is generally believed.
Professor Bhagwat brings clarity to many difficult controversies with a structural approach towards constitutional rights. Issues discussed include flag-burning, the ongoing debates over affirmative action and same-sex marriage, and the great battles over executive power fought during the second Bush Administration. The Myth of Rights addresses the constitutional issues posed in these and many other areas of law and public policy, and explains why a structural approach to constitutional rights illuminates these disputes in ways that an autonomy-based approach cannot. Readers will understand that while constitutional rights play a critical role in our legal and political system, it is a very different role from what is commonly assumed.

The powerful potential of digital media to engage citizens in political actions has now crossed our news screens many times. But scholarly focus has tended to be on "networked," anti-institutional forms of collective action, to the neglect of advocacy and service organizations. This book investigates the changing fortunes of the citizen-civil society relationship by exploring how social changes and innovations in communication technology are transforming the information expectations and preferences of many citizens, especially young citizens. In doing so, it is the first work to bring together theories of civic identity change with research on civic organizations. Specifically, it argues that a shift in "information styles" may help to explain the disjuncture felt by many young people when it comes to institutional participation and politics. The book theorizes two paradigms of information style: a dutiful style, which was rooted in the society, communication system and citizen norms of the modern era, and an actualizing style, which constitutes the set of information practices and expectations of the young citizens of late modernity for whom interactive digital media are the norm. Hypothesizing that civil society institutions have difficulty adapting to the norms and practices of the actualizing information style, two empirical studies apply the dutiful/actualizing framework to innovative content analyses of organizations' online communications-on their websites, and through Facebook. Results demonstrate that with intriguing exceptions, most major civil society organizations use digital media more in line with dutiful information norms than actualizing ones: they tend to broadcast strategic messages to an audience of receivers, rather than encouraging participation or exchange among an active set of participants. The book concludes with a discussion of the tensions inherent in bureaucratic organizations trying to adapt to an actualizing information style, and recommendations for how they may more successfully do so.

Coretta Scott was committed to social justice long before she met and married Martin Luther King, Jr. She shared in all the dangers that King's prominence in the civil rights movement brought, and she saw herself as full partner in the movement. Yet she generally remained in the background, supporting King's work and caring for their children, until his assassination transformed her into a movement leader in her own right: founder of the King Center, leader of a mass demonstration for a renewed national commitment to nonviolent social change, force behind the establishment of the national holiday bearing her husband's name. This book follows the trajectory of Coretta Scott King's tumultuous life at the heart of the most important American social movement of the 20th century.

Coretta Scott was committed to social justice long before she met and married Martin Luther King, Jr. She shared in all the dangers that King's prominence in the civil rights movement brought, and she saw herself as full partner in the movement. Yet she generally remained in the background, supporting King's work and caring for their children, until his assassination transformed her into a movement leader in her own right: founder of the King Center, leader of a mass demonstration for a renewed national commitment to nonviolent social change, force behind the establishment of the national holiday bearing her husband's name. This book follows the trajectory of Coretta Scott King's tumultuous life at the heart of the most important American social movement of the 20th century.

It can be said of South Asia what has long been said of its great epic poem, the Mahabharata: "there is nothing in it that cannot be found elsewhere in the world and nothing in the world that cannot be found there." South Asia's historic trans-regional connections to the wider world include the trade between its most ancient civilization with Sumer and central Asia, the diffusion beyond its shores of three of the world's major religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism), its cultural encounters with the Greeks, Islam, European imperialism, the spread of it cuisine (from crystalized sugar to "curry"), and its architecture (including the world's most recognized building, the Taj Mahal). While these connections have insured that South Asia has always loomed large in the consideration of the world's collective past, its societies are currently undergoing a transformation that may enable them to rival the United States and China as the world's largest economy. This study employs accessible language and an engaging narrative to provide insight into how world historical processes, from changes in environment to the movement of peoples and ideas, have shaped and continue to shape the history of South Asia and its place in the wider world.