Though in recent months Putin s popularity has frayed at the edges, the dearth of comparably powerful and experienced political leaders leaves no doubt that he will continue to be a key political figure. During his tenure as Russia s President and subsequently as Prime Minister, Putin transcended politics, to become the country s major cultural icon. This book examines the nature of his iconic status. It explores his public persona as glamorous hero, endowed with vision, wisdom, moral and physical strength the man uniquely capable of restoring Russia s reputation as a global power. In analysing cultural representations of Putin, the book assesses the role of the media in constructing and disseminating this image and weighs the Russian populace s contribution to the extraordinary acclamation he enjoyed throughout the first decade of the new millennium, challenged only by a tiny minority.

In June 1944, after two wars with the Soviet Union, the Finnish region of Karelia was ceded to the Soviet Union. As a result, the Finnish population of Karelia, nearly 11% of the Finnish population, was moved across the new border. The war years, the loss of territory, the resettlement of the Karelian population, and the reparations that had to be paid to the Allied Forces, were experiences shared by most people living in Finland between 1939 and the late 1950s. Using a family's memoirs, the author shows how these traumatic events affected people in all spheres of their lives and also how they coped physically and emotionally.

Based on empirical evidence derived from university and national archives across the country and interviews with participants, British Student Activism in the Long Sixties reconstructs the world of university students in the 1960s and 1970s. Student accounts are placed within the context of a wide variety of primary and secondary sources from across Britain and the world, making this project the first book-length history of the British student movement to employ literary and theoretical frameworks which differentiate it from most other histories of student activism to date.

Globalization, especially of mass communications, made British students aware of global problems such as the threat of nuclear weapons, the Vietnam War, racism, sexism and injustice. British students applied these global ideas to their own unique circumstances, using their intellectual traditions and political theories which resulted in unique outcomes. British student activists effectively gained support from students, staff, and workers for their struggle for student s rights to unionize, freely assemble and speak, and participate in university decision-making. Their campaigns effectively raised public awareness of these issues and contributed to significant national decisions in many considerable areas.

The World s Cities offers instructors and students in higher education an accessible introduction to the three major perspectives influencing city-regions worldwide: City-Regions in a World System; Nested City-Regions; and The City-Region as the Engine of Economic Activity/Growth.

The book provides students with helpful essays on each perspective, case studies to illustrate each major viewpoint, and discussion questions following each reading. "The World s Cities" concludes with an original essay by the editor that helps students understand how an analysis incorporating a "combination "of theoretical perspectives and factors can provide a richer appreciation of the world s city dynamics.

The evolution of economic organization, political authority, and social values in post-Mao China is the focus of this distinguished investigation which challenges standard interpretations of contemporary China. Mao's death in 1976 made possible a shift from movement politics that produced a gradual dissolution of pre-existing factions and allowed a redefined political agenda to emerge. This post-Mao agenda, in which the notion of class struggle as the key link was explicitly repudiated, formed the foundation for China's post-1978 modernization program. Burton describes this program as post-socialist, arguing that socialism as a definitive category has become irrelevant. He contends that demands for the reform of China's system of economic organization were the direct result of the failure of the Party's post-revolutionary political agenda and that subsequent economic improvements led to calls for modernization of the nation's structure of political authority. The author also describes the dramatic transformation of prevalent social values that has occurred during the same period. The original research and extensive use of vernacular sources, as well as Burton's multi-disciplinary and integrative approach make this volume required reading for students and scholars of contemporary politics, the sociology of China, and contemporary Chinese thought. Political and Social Change in China Since 1978 will fill the background information gap for generalists intrigued by recent events in China.

In 2002, the second Berlusconi government, given its parliamentary strength, should have been able to implement its ambitious reform program. This 18th edition of Italian Politics examines the events of that year in light of the opportunities and the domestic and international constraints faced by Italy's center-right government. This volume discusses the actions of the Italian president, the prime minister's function within the cabinet, the overall behaviour of the government vis-a-vis Parliament, majority-opposition clashes in the legislature, foreign affairs, and economic and immigration policy. Moreover, the volume focuses on selected heated issues, including Berlusconi's conflict with the judiciary, reform of the labor market, evolution of banking foundations, and the crisis of Fiat, the nation's largest manufacturing group.

Among the various secret or staged processes in court that are all to some degree the focus of public attention, the process against Hungarian Prime Minister Imre Nagy of the 1956 Revolution is especially noteworthy. This volume contains the most important documents of this process: the indictment, the death sentence, the prosecutor's motion 31 years later concerning the repeal of the death sentence, and the acquittal. The separate research papers analyze the historical background of the process and the unlawful practices followed in the administration of justice of the communist party-state, best exemplified by the most serious infringements in the process against Imre Nagy. This book may be read with interest not only by lawyers and historians, but by all interested in the struggle of human will against political terror.

"Stalin7;s Cold War" presents a highly original analysis of the Soviet leader7;s role in the gestation of the Cold War. Drawing on rich new evidence from Soviet, East European and British archives, the book offers fresh and illuminating insights into the evolution of Stalin7;s strategy in the transition from cooperation with the United States and Britain during World War II to ideological and geopolitical confrontation. The book reveals Stalin7;s efforts to grapple with the dynamic interaction between democratic and communist parties in the domestic politics of European countries in the aftermath of World War II, and his key role in the gradual but inexorable shift towards communist monopoly of power in the countries of Eastern Europe.

This book brings together a group of scholars from diverse disciplines to interrogate everyday life events in various interpersonal and organizational contexts so as to answer an age-old question: what happens when (carriers of) cultures meet, or, when East meets West? The contributors to this volume argue that, rather than assume clashes of civilizations, assimilation, conversion and essentialism to be the expected outcomes of cultural encounters, we should focus our analytical attention on processes rather than outcomes; on emergence, dialectics, contradictions, ironies and paradoxes, and complexity. We should focus on attempting to learn and grow, to synthesize and integrate, to create and innovate, to change and transform, at personal, micro, macro and global levels. Or, in one word: hybridity. Contexts of cultural encounters analyzed in this book range from business organizations, through individual travels, to personal philosophies, and from mechanical models to complex systems as social imaginaries. This book is based on a special issue of World Futures: The Journal of General Evolution.

The tension between the aim of creating sustainable multilateral region-building dynamics and the need to find more differentiated and flexible forms of cooperation has been ever-present in Euro-Mediterranean relations. The proliferation of different and partially overlapping initiatives in recent years - the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, the European Neighbourhood Policy and the Union for the Mediterranean - is a plain expression of this tension. The 2011 episodes of regime-change in the Arab world have once again placed the debate about differentiation in EU's relations with Southern and Eastern Mediterranean Countries at the top of the Union's foreign policy agenda. This book contributes to theoretical and practical debates on whether differentiation processes can aid or hinder policy convergence processes and region-building efforts more widely. The contributions to this collection assess the actual significance and consequences of differentiation in Euro-Mediterranean relations through sector-specific in-depth analyses, covering issue areas as varied as environmental policy, migration, foreign and defence policy, trade, energy, civil protection and democracy promotion. The particular angle and comprehensive analysis of this book will make it of great interest for both scholars and policy makers alike in a moment when Euro-Mediterranean are in need of a thorough rethink. This book was based on a special issue of Mediterranean Politics.

A Pitchfork Best Music Book of 2022 When Tom Breihan launched his Stereogum column in early 2018, "The Number Ones"-a space in which he has been writing about every #1 hit in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, in chronological order-he figured he'd post capsule-size reviews for each song. But there was so much more to uncover. The column has taken on a life of its own, sparking online debate and occasional death threats. The Billboard Hot 100 began in 1958, and after four years of posting the column, Breihan is still in the early aughts. But readers no longer have to wait for his brilliant synthesis of what the history of #1s has meant to music and our culture. In The Number Ones, Breihan writes about twenty pivotal #1s throughout chart history, revealing a remarkably fluid and connected story of music that is as entertaining as it is enlightening. The Numbers Ones features the greatest pop artists of all time, from the Brill Building songwriters to the Beatles and the Beach Boys; from Motown to Michael Jackson, Prince, and Mariah Carey; and from the digital revolution to the K-pop system. Breihan also ponders great artists who have never hit the top spot, like Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and James Brown. Breihan illuminates what makes indelible ear candy across the decades-including dance crazes, recording innovations, television phenomena, disco, AOR, MTV, rap, compact discs, mp3s, social media, memes, and much more-leaving readers to wonder what could possibly happen next.

Five months after being deployed to Iraq, Lima Company's 1st Platoon, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, found itself in Fallujah, embroiled in some of the most intense house-to-house, hand-to-hand urban combat since World War II. In the city's bloody streets, they came face-to-face with the enemy-radical insurgents high on adrenaline, fighting to a martyr's death, and suicide bombers approaching from every corner. award-winning author and historian Patrick O'Donnell stood shoulder to shoulder with this modern band of brothers as they marched and fought through the streets of Fallujah, and he stayed with them as the casualties mounted.

From the dawn of the atomic age to today, nuclear weapons have been central to the internal dynamics of US alliances in Europe and Asia. But nuclear weapons cooperation in US alliances has varied significantly between allies and over time. This book explores the history of America's nuclear posture worldwide, delving into alliance structures and interaction during and since the end of the Cold War to uncover the underlying dynamics of nuclear weapons cooperation between the US and its allies. Combining in-depth empirical analysis with an accessible theoretical lens, the book reveals that US allies have wielded significant influence in shaping nuclear weapons cooperation with the US in ways that reflect their own, often idiosyncratic, objectives. Alliances are ecosystems of exchange rather than mere tools of external balancing, the book argues, and institutional perspectives can offer an unprecedented insight into how structured cooperation can promote policy convergence. -- .

On December 18, 1972, more than one hundred U.S. B-52 bombers flew over North Vietnam to initiate Operation Linebacker II. During the next eleven days, sixteen of these planes were shot down and another four suffered heavy damage. These losses soon proved so devastating that Strategic Air Command was ordered to halt the bombing. The U.S. Air Force's poor performance in this and other operations during Vietnam was partly due to the fact that they had trained their pilots according to methods devised during World War II and the Korean War, when strategic bombers attacking targets were expected to take heavy losses. Warfare had changed by the 1960s, but the USAF had not adapted. Between 1972 and 1991, however, the Air Force dramatically changed its doctrines and began to overhaul the way it trained pilots through the introduction of a groundbreaking new training program called "Red Flag." In The Air Force Way of War, Brian D. Laslie examines the revolution in pilot instruction that Red Flag brought about after Vietnam. The program's new instruction methods were dubbed "realistic" because they prepared pilots for real-life situations better than the simple cockpit simulations of the past, and students gained proficiency on primary and secondary missions instead of superficially training for numerous possible scenarios. In addition to discussing the program's methods, Laslie analyzes the way its graduates actually functioned in combat during the 1980s and '90s in places such as Grenada, Panama, Libya, and Iraq. Military historians have traditionally emphasized the primacy of technological developments during this period and have overlooked the vital importance of advances in training, but Laslie's unprecedented study of Red Flag addresses this oversight through its examination of the seminal program.

Buraimi is an oasis in an otherwise bleak desert on the border between Oman and the UAE. In the early twentieth century, it shot to notoriety as oil brought the world's attention to this corner of the Arabian Peninsula, and the ensuing battle over energy resources between regional and global superpowers began. In this lively account, Michael Quentin Morton tells the story of how the power of oil and the conflicting interests of the declining British Empire and the United States all came to a head with the conflict between Great Britain and Saudi Arabia, shaping the very future of the Gulf states.
The seeds of conflict over Buraimi were sown during the oil negotiations of 1933 in Jedda, where the international oil companies vied for control of the future industry in the Arabian Peninsula. As a result of lengthy discussions, including the efforts of men such as St John Philby and Ibn Saud himself, the Saudis granted an oil concession for Eastern Arabia without precisely defining the geographical limits of the area to be conceded. Matters came to a head in 1949 when Saudi Arabia made claim to the territory, and Great Britain, acting on behalf of Oman and Abu Dhabi, challenged the actions of the Saudis. Attempts at arbitration failed, and only one year before Britain's defeat over the Suez Canal, Britain expelled Saudi Arabia from the oasis. In the wake of Britain's withdrawal 'East of Suez' in the early 1970s, the dispute was apparently solved between Saudi Arabia and the UAE. But whilst the controversy dominated Anglo-Saudi relations for more than 30 years, it still casts its shadow across the Gulf today, threatening to expose the fragility of the West's ever-present dependency on the region for its supply of oil.
Morton brings a range of historical figures to life, from the American oilmen arriving in steamy Jedda in the 1930s, to the rival sheikhs of Buraimi itself competing for power, wealth and allegiances as well as the great players in world politics: Churchill, Truman and Ibn Saud. This entertaining and thoroughly researched book is both a story of a decisive conflict in the history of Middle East politics and also of the great changes that the discovery of oil brought to this previously desolate land.

This collection brings to the public ten of the best articles in American history published in the last year and selected from over three hundred learned and popular journals. Topics range from the general to the specific and cover all aspects of American history, from the early days of the republic through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It highlights and showcases the questions that today's historians are asking.

This collection of essays examines women in the Krushchev era, using both newly-accessible archival material and a re-reading of published sources. Exploring diverse subjects including housing, space flight, women workers, cinema, religion and consumption, the volume places the analysis of specific events or issues within a broader discussion of economic, political, ideological and international developments to provide a full analysis of the era.

This book examines the process of political and social reform that Colombia has experienced in the past decade. As the relationship between the state, the economy and the society are redefined in Latin America, Colombia has also undergone substantial transformations. This story offers a Colombian dimension to the increasing interest in processes of state reform elsewhere. The approach is interdisciplinary and will be of interest to political scientists, economists, sociologists, geographers and historians.

Transatlantic Relations Since 1945 offers a comprehensive account of transatlantic relations in the second half of the 20th century (extending to the present-day). The transatlantic relationship has been the bedrock of international relations since the end of World War II. This new textbook will focus on the period since the defeat of Nazi Germany, when the multitude of links between United States and Western Europe were created, extended, and multiplied. Written in an accessible style, it emphasizes transatlantic interactions, and avoids the temptation to focus on either U.S. 'domination' or European attempts to 'resist' an American effort to subjugate the old continent. That influence has travelled across the Atlantic in both directions is one of the starting points of this text. Structured chronologically, the book will be built around three key themes: Security: From the Cold War to the War on Terror Economics: Integration and Competition 'Soft power' and Transatlantic Relations. This book will be of great interest to students of transatlantic relations, NATO, US Foreign Policy, Cold War History, European History and IR/International history.

Military occupations and interventions have a gendered impact on both those engaged in occupying, and those whose lands have been occupied, yet little has been published about this effect either historically or in contemporary times. This collection redresses this neglect by examining and analyzing the impact of occupation on men and women, both occupied and occupier, in a variety of geographical spaces from Japan to the Philippines to Iraq. The gendered perspectives offered are also intimately tied to analyses of power' how power is enacted by the occupier; how powerlessness is experienced by the occupied; how power is negotiated, shared, compromised, subverted, reclaimed; institutional power; and contested power in post-conflict societies. This collection covers a variety of geographical and period contexts in the Asia Pacific and Middle East since 1945, offering the reader a comparative view across time and space of post-WWII military occupations and interventions. The term military occupation' is interpreted broadly to include military interventions, the presence of military bases, and peacekeeping/post-conflict operations, allowing space to demonstrate that the lines between each definition are blurred. Including perspectives from established and emerging scholars, aid workers, and activists from around the world, this volume incorporates voices from those conducting research on and those with direct experience of military occupations and interventions.

This book analyzes the complex causes and effects of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks both domestically and internationally, and examines the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The first decade of the 21st century witnessed a watershed of political, economic, diplomatic, and military change as a direct result of the events of September 11, 2001. Through narrative chapters, a chronology of events, biographical sketches of principal players, and annotated primary documents, author Tom Lansford documents the domestic impact of the terrorist attacks that stunned the world as well as the subsequent "war on terror" and the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. 9/11 and the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq: A Chronology and Reference Guide explores the origins and aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in both the domestic and international contexts. It addresses the rise of global terrorism and the concurrent histories of Afghanistan, Iraq, and the broader Middle East, as well as the interaction of the United States with the region. Events, trends, groups, and individual players are examined as part of the broader historical context, allowing readers to see the connections between these various elements. Provides insightful quotes from contemporary figures and primary documents ranging from Osama bin Laden's 1998 fatwa against the United States to the 2006 Iraq Study Group Report Contains 12 biographies ranging from Osama bin Laden to George W. Bush that provide detailed background on important figures from the era Presents a chronology of events from the 1970s to the present day, including occurrences leading to the September 11, 2001, attacks and the Iraq War Includes a select bibliography of major works on the September 11, 2001, attacks; the war in Iraq; homeland security; and the war on terror Contains a detailed glossary of key terms such as "Shiite" and "weapons of mass destruction"

Britain since 1945 is the established textbook on contemporary British political history since the end of the Second World War. David Childs' authoritative chronological survey discusses domestic policy and politics in particular, but also covers external and international relations. This new and improved seventh edition of this important book brings the picture to the present by including the following additions: Tony Blair's resignation and Gordon Brown's accession to power immigration the financial crisis from 2007: the first bank run in Britain since 1866 the 'Special-relationship' with the US and Obama the 2010 General elcetion and the first coalition government since 1945 'Broken Britain' and Crime the era of 'owned by China' and Britain's place in a turbulent world. Britain since 1945 is essential reading for any student of contemporary British history and politics.

This volume focuses on Japan over the last one hundred years, with special emphasis on the twentieth century and the contemporary period. Chapters on cultural, intellectual and economic history, domestic politics and foreign relations trace the complex and multi-faceted process through which Japan has been transformed from an isolated agricultural society to an economic world power and model for the other developing nations. The authors demonstrate the adaptibility of Japan's native tradition in its encounter with the world beyond its own shores, and show how many aspects of traditional Japanese culture and society have been transformed while others have survived, giving contemporary Japan that distinctive flavour of an old insular culture which continues to delight and baffle foreign and native scholars alike.