China Under Communism examines how Marxism took root, flourished and developed within the context of an ancient Chinese civilization.
Through analysis of China's history and traditional culture, the author explores the nature of Chinese communism and how it has diverged from the Soviet model. This book also provides insight into the changing perceptions Westerners have of the Chinese, and vice versa.
Key features include:
* assessment of controversial issues: The Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution and Mao's record
* coverage of gender and family, ethnicity, nationalism, and popular culture
* long historical context.
This timely evaluation details how China's political and economic policies have been inextricably linked, and assesses past failures and successes, as well as major problems for the future.

Beginning in the early days of the Space Age - well before the advent of manned spaceflight - the United States, followed soon by other nations, undertook an ambitious effort to study the planets of the solar system. The remarkable fruits of this research revolutionized the public's view of their celestial neighbors, capturing the imaginations of people from all backgrounds like nothing else save the Apollo lunar missions. From the first space probes to the most recent planetary rovers, they have continually delivered impressive discoveries and reshaped our understanding of the cosmos. Offering fascinating investigations into this crucial chapter in space history, this collection of specially commissioned essays from leading historians opens new vistas in our understanding of the development of planetary science.

Perhaps the twentieth century's most revered presidents, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan could not seem more different as standard-bearers of liberal and conservative revolutions. But, as John Sloan demonstrates, they were more similar than most people suppose.

One rising out of the Great Depression and the self-defeating efforts of Herbert Hoover, the other out of the malaise of the 1970s and the failings of Jimmy Carter, both these presidents entered office with a mandate for change and oversaw a quantum shift in the national psyche. And while everyone takes their clashing visions for granted, Sloan demonstrates that these two very different presidents shared an ability to replace exhausted old leadership with a genuinely new vision.

FDR and Reagan is a study of how old regimes unravel, how new ones are constructed, and how the political system is rejuvenated. Adapting noted presidential scholar Stephen Skowronek's framework, Sloan analyzes how two iconic "reconstructive" presidents redefined the country's fundamental philosophy, priorities, and policies as he weighs their similarities, differences, and impacts. He compares their lives, core policies, and leadership traits and shows that today's politics and policies are still heavily influenced by these key presidencies.

Each of these men transformed the way Americans thought about the legitimate role of government, whether providing more security for citizens or stepping back from federal regulation. But, as Sloan reminds us, the new order never totally destroys the old-reconstructive presidents never completely eradicate the ideas and programs associated with the regime they replaced. Big business survived the New Deal, just as the welfare state weathered the Reagan Revolution.

As with other transformative presidents before them, the words and deeds of FDR and Reagan have taken on nearly mythical significance; yet Americans remain torn between the economic security offered by one and the economic freedom championed by the other. Sloan's book helps readers see through this contradiction and better understand the decisive role of presidents in promoting national progress.

The chapters in this volume examine a few facets in the drama of how the survivors of the Holocaust contended with life after the darkest night in Jewish history. They include the Earl Harrison mission and significant report, the effort to keep Europe's borders open to refugee infiltration, the murder of the first Jew in Germany after V-E Day and its aftermath, and the iconic sculptures of Nathan Rapoport and Poland's landscape of Holocaust memory up to the present day. Joining extensive archival research and a limpid prose, Professor Monty Noam Penkower again displays a definitive mastery of his craft.

Just before Christmas 1989, a small group of armed fighters crossed a narrow river marking the frontier with Sierra Leone, and entered the West African state of Liberia. The civil war which followed plunged the African continent's oldest republic into a long and agonising nightmare, during which the country was torn apart and its people brutalised by terror, violence and bloodshed. The war promised to liberate Liberians after almost ten years of vicious dictatorship under President Samuel Doe; instead, as the first shots were fired, the seeds of Liberia's devastation were sown.
Mark Huband's account of the conflict, which begins a few days after the original incursion, is a moving and dramatic portrayal of the war as it unfolded. His extensive research and access to key figures in the conflict, together with a wealth of poignant and disturbing eye-witness detail, provide a fascinating portrait of Doe, his US-backed rule, and the enemies he made. Vivid and often harrowing, the book draws upon the author's experience of living among the fighters, the leaders and the terrorised population as they witnessed the growing horror of the conflict in which they had become trapped.

Just before Christmas 1989, a small group of armed fighters crossed a narrow river marking the frontier with Sierra Leone, and entered the West African state of Liberia. The civil war which followed plunged the African continent's oldest republic into a long and agonising nightmare, during which the country was torn apart and its people brutalised by terror, violence and bloodshed. The war promised to liberate Liberians after almost ten years of vicious dictatorship under President Samuel Doe; instead, as the first shots were fired, the seeds of Liberia's devastation were sown.
Mark Huband's account of the conflict, which begins a few days after the original incursion, is a moving and dramatic portrayal of the war as it unfolded. His extensive research and access to key figures in the conflict, together with a wealth of poignant and disturbing eye-witness detail, provide a fascinating portrait of Doe, his US-backed rule, and the enemies he made. Vivid and often harrowing, the book draws upon the author's experience of living among the fighters, the leaders and the terrorised population as they witnessed the growing horror of the conflict in which they had become trapped.

The six newly independent Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union - Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan - have redefined the Middle East, creating a region of interest for both the international community and the neighbouring states who have had to adjust their policies to the possible ramifications, new opportunities and novel challenges. The emergence of Muslim republics has been part of a larger transformation experienced by the Middle East in the 1990s. The main purpose of this volume is to examine the impact of the transformation on the Middle East, with special emphasis placed on the republics' relations with Turkey and Iran - the two countries closest to and most actively involved in the Muslim republics of Central Asia and Transcaucasia. The ability of Middle Eastern states to influence the republics is still questionable - regional relationships between the Middle East and Central Asia have (re)emerged only in the 1990s - but their independence has had profound implications for the Middle East itself.

A successful lawyer, child welfare advocate, health care activist, and the first First Lady elected to the U.S. Senate, Hillary Rodham Clinton has become one of the most iconic women in America today. This accessible biography explores her childhood and undergraduate political activism, and her work toward positive legislation for families, the elderly, and international women's issues--as a governor's wife, and later as a first lady. The final portions of the book are devoted to her two terms as a New York senator and her decision to run for president in 2008. One of the most current Hillary Clinton biographies at the high school level, this volume offers an insightful look into the life of a modern American icon and the role of women in politics today. This volume explores: Her family background and strict upbringing The political activism of her college years Her marriage to Bill Clinton and her promotion of education policy as a governor's wife Her advocation of health care reform as First Lady, amidst media battles and scandal accusations Her senate terms and potential presidential nomination. Rounded out through photos, a timeline, a bibliography, and an index, this volume will appeal to general readers as well as students of women's issues, current events, and political science.

The challenges that vex the United States today in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere are not altogether as new and unique as they seem. U.S. involvement in Central America during the 1980s clearly demonstrated the costs, risks, and limits to intervention and the use of force in internal conflicts. Much can be learned today about the nature of irregular warfare from the experiences of the United States and the other protagonists in Central America during the final phase of the Cold War. The U.S. perceived a threat to national security in these wars from determined insurgents with a compelling revolutionary ideology and powerful allies that linked them to other conflicts around the world. This strategy and policy analysis makes a new contribution to irregular warfare theory through an examination of the origins, strategic dynamics, and termination of the Sandinista insurrection in Nicaragua, the decade long counterinsurgency of the Salvadoran government against the FMLN guerrillas, and the concurrent Contra insurgency against the Sandinistas. Many of the lessons about the fundamental and recurring nature of irregular warfare are being rediscovered in the current challenges of radical Islam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, despite the great differences in circumstance, culture, and geography. In the Central American case, three successive Presidents encountered serious domestic controversy over U.S. policies and refrained from sending U.S. combat troops to intervene directly. Most importantly, they prudently heeded warnings that internal wars of all types are rarely subject to military solutions, because their natures are equally and fundamentally political. Greentree presents hisargument as a strategy and policy case study of the civil wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador during the final decade of the Cold War. The book comprises an examination of the origins, strategic dynamics, and termination of these wars from the points of view of the main participants--Nicaragua, El Salvador, Cuba, the Soviet Union, and the United States. It also develops a general conceptual framework for understanding the nature of insurgency, counterinsurgency, revolution, and intervention that builds on classic strategic theory and contemporary thought on irregular warfare. From the perspective of global superpower conflict, the wars in Central America were peripheral "small wars" or "low intensity conflicts." However, for the internal protagonists these were total and bloody wars for survival. Involvement in such wars has been cyclical in the U.S. experience, and it is misfortunate, if not tragic, that the greatly similar problems encountered across widely varying circumstances are quickly forgotten.

The series, Mao's Road to Power, consisting of translations of Mao Zedong's writings from 1912 to 1949, provides abundant documentation in his own words on his life and thought as well as on developments in China during the pre-1949 period. This penultimate volume in the series, Volume 9, covers the period from the Japanese Surrender through the Chinese Communist Party's Strategic Defense during the Civil War, August 1945 to June 1947.

Why did NATO expand its membership during the Cold War years, and what was its attraction to new members? This book locates the answers to these questions not solely in the Cold War, but in the historical problems of international order in Europe and the growing idea of the West. A wide range of sources is used, and the analysis looks at a process of neo-enlargement during NATO's inception as well as the formal accessions that followed.

The transition to sustainable development will test government and democracy in a fundamentally radical way. There is probably no such end state as truly sustainable development. So the pathways towards it are endless. In any case, like a mirage, sustainable development will metamorphose like a more distant goal as it is approached.
This series of essays looks at three elements of sustainable development in terms of the institutional challenge they pose, and from the viewpoint of five European Union Member States.

The transition to sustainable development will test government and democracy in a fundamentally radical way. There is probably no such end state as truly sustainable development. So the pathways towards it are endless. In any case, like a mirage, sustainable development will metamorphose like a more distant goal as it is approached.
This series of essays looks at three elements of sustainable development in terms of the institutional challenge they pose, and from the viewpoint of five European Union Member States.

France's liberation was expected to trigger a decisive break both with the Vichy regime and with the pre-war Third Republic. What happened, over three crucial years (1944-47), was an untidy patchwork of unplanned continuities and false starts - along with fresh departures that defined France's future for the next half-century. Prepared by an international team of specialists, "The Uncertain Foundation" analyses a complex process of regime change, economic renewal, social transformation, and adjustment to a fast-evolving world.

GorbacheV's reforms in domestic and foreign policy were motivated by the overriding objective of making Soviet socialism a legitimate and viable alternative among the world community of nations. Drawing on recently opened archives, this study examines the radicalization of GorbacheV's reforms and the resistance to them from the conservatives in the party apparat and the military. Gorbachev sought to demilitarize the Soviet Union from the beginning but that process took on a more revolutionary hue as he came to understand how deeply embedded Stalinism was. He sought to continue where Lenin had left off, believing that Stalin had sidetracked and deformed Soviet socialism. Toward this end, Gorbachev redefined the image of the enemy by emphasizing common human values in international relations over class conflict, and altered the nature of the threat by stressing the primacy of economic over military competition. Gorbachev changed the terms of political discourse, and by changing the way in which the Soviet Union viewed the world, he sought to make improvements in relations with the West and to decrease the military burden of his overstretched country.

The six newly independent Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union - Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan - have redefined the Middle East, creating a region of interest for both the international community and the neighbouring states who have had to adjust their policies to the possible ramifications, new opportunities and novel challenges. The emergence of Muslim republics has been part of a larger transformation experienced by the Middle East in the 1990s. The main purpose of this volume is to examine the impact of the transformation on the Middle East, with special emphasis placed on the republics' relations with Turkey and Iran - the two countries closest to and most actively involved in the Muslim republics of Central Asia and Transcaucasia. The ability of Middle Eastern states to influence the republics is still questionable - regional relationships between the Middle East and Central Asia have (re)emerged only in the 1990s - but their independence has had profound implications for the Middle East itself.

In the Introduction, the editor gives an historical overview of the tradition of the political involvement of intellectuals in these countries, especially in the 19th Century. The chapters which follow describe the typical political and social attitude of Central European intellectuals, including writers, poets, artists, and scientists.

The present work is basically an authentic account of historical events in Iran and the inside story of the Shah's regime. It concentrates on the underlying consideration which paved the way for the rise to power of Reza Shah and the untold reasons for the collapse of the Pahlavi dynasty. It also gives an account of a movement which overthrew the Shah under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini. It also aims at providing a comprehensive and objective consideration of the major contemporary issues.

The police force in Japan has frequently been idealized by Western commentators, who trace its origin to the American Occupation of Japan (1945-52) "Police in Occupation Japan" challenges the assumptions that underlie these accounts, focusing on the problems that attended the reform of the Japanese police during the Occupation. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources, Christopher Aldous explores the extent to which America failed in its goal of "democratizing" the Japanese police force, arguing that deeply-rooted tradition, the pivotal importance of the black market, and America's decision to opt for an indirect Occupation led to resistance to reform. His study concludes with a consideration of the postwar legacy of the Occupation's police reform, and explores a number of recent controversies.

Controversy still surrounds the Anglo-French invasion of Egypt in 1956 and the role of senior British politicians such as the Prime Minister, Anthony Eden. This volume traces the history of Anglo-Egyptian relations since the opening of the canal, and Britain's wider interests in the region. The crisis itself, from its development to the invasion and the aftermath, is fully explored. The wider implications of the episode, both for Britain and on a global scale, are considered in detail. A wide range of documentary evidence is carefully woven into textual analysis. Included are: key UK and US government sources; photographs, cartoons; diary entries; interviews, and extracts from newspapers. The significance of individual sources - and their usefulness for historians - is highlighted.

In 1956 the Suez Crisis finally shattered the old myths of the British Empire and paved the way for the tumultuous changes of the decades to come. In NEVER HAD IT SO GOOD, Dominic Sandbrook takes a fresh look at the dramatic story of affluence and decline between 1956 and 1963. Arguing that historians have until now been besotted by the supposed cultural revolution of the Sixties, Sandbrook re-examines the myths of this controversial period and paints a more complicated picture of a society caught between conservatism and change. He explores the growth of a modern consumer society, the impact of immigration, the invention of modern pop music and the British retreat from empire. He tells the story of the colourful characters of the period, like Harold Macmillan, Kingsley Amis and Paul McCartney, and brings to life the experience of the first post-imperial generation, from the Notting Hill riots to the first Beatles hits, from the Profumo scandal to the cult of James Bond. In this strikingly impressive debut, he combines academic verve and insight with colourful, dramatic writing to produce a classic, ground-breaking work that will change forever how we think about the Sixties.

In 1989, the floodgates of revolution were opened in Eastern Europe. Communist governments toppled in all of the East European countries that were members of the Warsaw Pact. Glasnost and perestroika in the Soviet Union, the prospect of increasing West European integration leading to the further marginization of Eastern Europe, and long-suppressed alienation of the public from the political leadership throughout Eastern Europe were amongst the immediate factors leading to the upheavals of 1989. In this research volume, Alpo Rusi, Director of Planning and Research in the Political Department of the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, examines the history of the postwar east-west relationship in Europe, the underlying proceses of change and the implications of the present period of transition to a new European order.;In Dr Rusi's view the events of 1989 are but a harbinger of a new security order in Europe. The author analyses the rise of bipolarism, both during the conflict of the Cold War and during the growth of detente, and lays stress on the parallel process of an evolution towards multilateralism. Dr Rusi's view is that in exploring the prospects for Europe's future, analysts

This title examines efforts to create effective Iraqi military, security, and police forces. This volume documents both the initial mistakes and the changes in U.S. policy that now offer real hope of success in Iraq. Although the United States understood neither the strategic situation in Iraq, nor the value of Iraqi military, security, and police forces in fighting the growing insurgency, the country undertook a series of policy changes in June 2004 that may well correct these mistakes and create the kind of Iraqi forces that are vital to both Iraq's future and any successful reduction in foreign forces and eventual withdrawal from Iraq. In this book, Cordesman sets a number of U.S. policy priorities that must be attained if Iraqi forces are to be created at anything like the levels of strength and competence that are required. He is convinced that pursuing the right programme consistently and with the right resources may well succeed in solving the security aspects of the nation-building problem in Iraq. The history of U.S. efforts to create Iraqi forces is a warning that Americans at every level need to think about what alliance and cooperation mean in creating allied forces for forms of asymmetric warfare. What is equally clear is that Americans must understand that they have a moral and ethical responsibility to the forces they are creating. The author is a high-profile commentator on the war in Iraq. Published in cooperation with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C., this work addresses one of most important elements for establishing stability in post-Saddam Iraq, and presents a balanced viewpoint that will appeal to both supporters and critics of the war.

The 20th century's most protracted conflict, the Cold War, also provided the longest and most stable peace in the history of the modern world--a fragile peace that came at the price of national freedom for many. With the demise of the Cold War, new nearly unknown countries, long ignored or suppressed, came to the world's attention, as ethnic and national conflicts, rooted in the newly independent states' own multiethnic populations, emerged. From Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia to Eritrea and Uzbekistan, this book provides an essential guide to the states recognized since 1989 and the nations that dwell in their borders.

It is the first reference work to address the post-Cold War nationalist resurgence by focusing on the nations within the new nation-states--both the core nationalities and the national minorities. Each article highlights the historical, political, social, and economic evolution of the new nations. The book provides detailed up-to-date information on nations that are emerging to claim a role in the post-Cold War world.