In April of 1975, Lebanon, the tranquil Middle Eastern country called the Switzerland of the Orient, exploded into a violent conflict that lasted almost two decades. This book explores the convoluted politics and forces within Lebanon and the Near East that made the atmosphere in that tiny republic highly charged, thus inhibiting conflict resolution. This comprehensive study describes the strategies, battles, and conferences that kept Lebanon aflame, despite the best efforts of all concerned parties to terminate the bloodshed. Abraham looks at Lebanon from the inside-out, highlighting the conflicting politics of Lebanese leaders, the failure of the democratic left to take over the state, and the underlying problem of the PLO's presence in the country.

The ruling communist parties of the postwar Soviet Bloc possessed nearly unprecedented power to shape every level of society; perhaps in part because of this, they have been routinely depicted as monolithic, austere, and even opaque institutions. Communist Parties Revisited takes a markedly different approach, investigating everyday life within basic organizations to illuminate the inner workings of Eastern Bloc parties. Ranging across national and transnational contexts, the contributions assembled here reconstruct the rituals of party meetings, functionaries' informal practices, intra-party power struggles, and the social production of ideology to give a detailed account of state socialist policymaking on a micro-historical scale.

This volume begins in a period in which bitterness and revenge vied with hope and a new ideal of liberty. The Reconstruction imposed by the North upon the South is examined by the author from all points of view. He traces the steps by which the economy recovered and by which the USA emerged as the world's industrial giant. Factors as various as the anarchy of the Wild West and the gold rush, the completion of the railroad system, the maturing of the great centers of learning, the numerous manifestations of opportunity and strength led to the formation of a distinct culture and to a new consciousness of nationhood. They also gave birth, Professor Wright argues, to the American Dream, an elusive idea of such force that it informed much of the twentieth century in the USA and, as American power became pre-eminent, influenced the world at large. After describing the key American involvement in the European, Pacific and Asian wars, and the development of culture, politics, and ideology at home, the author examines the dissipation of that dream in the disillusion and corruption of the Reagan years.

Ironically, this was the time when the USA emerged as the world's sole super-power. And the country remained - as it had been for almost all its history - the ideal destination for the poor and downtrodden of the world, a beacon of opportunity, hope and, above all, of liberty.

Why was there such a far-reaching consensus concerning the utopian goal of national homogeneity in the first half of the twentieth century? Ethnic cleansing is analyzed here as a result of the formation of democratic nation-states, the international order based on them, and European modernity in general. Almost all mass-scale population removals were rationally and precisely organized and carried out in cold blood, with revenge, hatred and other strong emotions playing only a minor role. This book not only considers the majority of population removals which occurred in Eastern Europe, but is also an encompassing, comparative study including Western Europe, interrogating the motivations of Western statesmen and their involvement in large-scale population removals. It also reaches beyond the European continent and considers the reverberations of colonial rule and ethnic cleansing in the former British colonies.

"A dozen experts provide a coherent picture of the Taliban and the Great Game. . . . They discuss the emergence of the Taliban, their military development, the civil war, and their relations with foreign powers. Several of the authors conclusively demonstrate that the Taliban(and their organized opposition) are the creatures of external powers.... Richard Mackenzie provides a devastating summary of the ineptitute with which U.S. policies have been conducted . . . the volume makes it all too clear that outside powers will determine Afghanistan's fate."
--Middle East Quarterly

"A useful analysis of the Taliban and politics and society in Afghanistan today. The four chapters on the intensive foreign involvement--by Pakistan, the United States, Russian, the Central Asian republics, Saudi Arabia, and Iran--show that the venerable "great game" once played between Britain and czarist Russia now has multiple players."
--Foreign Affairs

"A fascinating and thorough analysis of the very complex political/military situation that evolved in Afghanistan follwing the demise of the Soviet puppet regime in 1992. This volume also provides an insightful study of the rise of a new form of puritanical Islamic fundamentalism that overran Kabul in September 1996--namely, the Taliban, and its impact on Afghan society. . . . Highly recommended."
--Choice

"[It] is an important collection of essays by leading experts on Afghanistan and the Taliban...an invaluable academic resource for anyone seeking to understand how the Taliban came to rule and "ruin" Afghanistan."
--"Washington Times"

In 1996, the world watched with varying degrees of interest, surprise, and unease as armed, ultra-fundamentalist insurgents overthrew the Afghan government. Within days of their victory, the Taliban, a militant Islamic sect, were issuing draconian religious decrees, restricting women's employment and movement, rounding up Afghans at gunpoint to pray five times a day, and publicly executing political opponents and criminals.

Composed of essays commissioned from the foremost experts on the Taliban, this anthology traces the movement's origins, its ascendance, the reasons for its success, and its role in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. Crucial to the Taliban's staying power as a governing force will be its relations with neighboring countries and with the West. Interestingly, given their intense hatred of Iran, the Taliban were enthusiastically supported by the U.S. government up to the very moment of their triumphant arrival in Kabul.

Examining yet another country on the brink of ethnic disintegration, Fundamentalism Reborn? is a comprehensive and up-to-date account of the history, rise to power, and future of the most dramatic manifestation of Islamic fundamentalism since the Iranian revolution.

Linking two defining narratives of the twentieth century, Sutton's comparative study of Hong Kong and Cyprus - where two of the empire's most effective communist parties operated - examines how British colonial policy-makers took to cultural and ideological battlegrounds to fight the anti-colonial imperialism of their communist enemies in the Cold War. The structure and intentional nature of the British colonial system grants unprecedented access to British perceptions and strategies, which sought to balance constructive socio-political investments with regressive and self-defeating repression, neither of which Britain could afford in the Cold War conflict of empires.

Were Lincoln alive today what would his response be to the immense and complex issues confronting the United States of America? In Lincoln's day the issues facing the country dating from Lincoln's first political speech (1838) until his death in the opening of his second term (1865) were momentous to his generation, just as the issues facing the country in the early 21st Century are immense to its generation. The people of Lincoln's day needed leadership. The people of the United States today also need leadership-not just any kind of leadership-but leadership that is anchored solidly on the fundamental principles and practices of the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence. Within the understanding that people of Lincoln's generation were as people are today in their essential characteristics, good and bad, join in an investigation that utilizes Lincoln's own words from his early career and adapts them in principle to the practices of today. Lincoln was a great leader who rescued the Union and restored the country. We can learn from his leadership-if we simply take the time to read and then apply what we learn into the contemporary circumstances that define our issues.

Shaping the lives of young men in college who would answer their nation's military call in the Korean War, were the sage veterans from World War II. The vets became the mentors for the male freshmen at The University of Texas in 1947 and '48, and these young men would later be called to arms in the Korean conflict beginning in 1950. The war began in June, less than five years after the cessation of hostilities of World War II-and the American public was not ready for a new and major conflict to be thrust upon them. The draft of young men was instituted, and therefore many thousands of young Americans served during one of the bloodiest of wars. Balancing tragedy with humor, anecdotes of the period make for interesting reading about an era where stress, crime and drugs were subjects rarely mentioned in America on the home front-plus school violence was unheard of. Of course, there was no television in the'40s, and very little central air-conditioning in the early '50s. Still, it was a very pleasant era, good music abounded and folks often gathered around the piano to sing. High Forties, Low Fifties describes the easy times but takes the reader overseas to the war that suddenly breaks out. The hi-jinks of college life described segue to the chaos of the Korean conflict, and the reader is treated to heroics and humor in the nonfiction book.

The national cinemas of Czechoslovakia and East Germany were two of the most vital sites of filmmaking in the Eastern Bloc, and over the course of two decades, they contributed to and were shaped by such significant developments as Sovietization, de-Stalinization, and the conservative retrenchment of the late 1950s. This volume comprehensively explores the postwar film cultures of both nations, using a "stereoscopic" approach that traces their similarities and divergences to form a richly contextualized portrait. Ranging from features to children's cinema to film festivals, the studies gathered here provide new insights into the ideological, political, and economic dimensions of Cold War cultural production.

Here, sociologist Ralph Pyle investigates the extent to which a male-dominated, Ivy League educated Protestant establishment in the United States since World War II has given way to an elite whose diversity is more representative of the general population. While there is evidence that major changes have diminished the social, political, and economic prerogatives of the traditional Protestant establishment, the author finds that those in command positions of the most influential institutions bear a strong resemblance to their predecessors who directed affairs in an earlier era. Even if the current expansion of influence among previously disempowered groups continues at its present rate, the disproportionate power of white Protestant Ivy Leaguers will persist for several decades to come.

Three years after the departure of the Ayatollah Rouhallah Khomeini, Iran's political future remains uncertain. This volume explores the directions the Islamic regime and, more importantly, the Iranian society and nation are likely to take in the 1990s. The study begins with a brief historical survey of Iran's political institutions, its sociocultural traits, and its economic and military conditions, as well as its foreign policy orientation at the time of the revolution. It follows with a summary of the political, social, and economic changes the Islamic revolution introduced. These serve as benchmarks against which to measure the changes and reforms of the last three years and provide a basis for sketching the potential future directions of Iran's domestic evolution and foreign relations.

As critical voices question the quality, authenticity, and value of people, goods, and words in post-Mao China, accusations of emptiness render things open to new investments of meaning, substance, and value. Exploring the production of lack and desire through fine-grained ethnography, this volume examines how diagnoses of emptiness operate in a range of very different domains in contemporary China: In the ostensibly meritocratic exam system and the rhetoric of officials, in underground churches, housing bubbles, and nationalist fantasies, in bodies possessed by spirits and evaluations of jade, there is a pervasive concern with states of lack and emptiness and the contributions suggest that this play of emptiness and fullness is crucial to ongoing constructions of quality, value, and subjectivity in China.

The height of colonial rule on the African continent saw two prominent religious leaders step to the fore: Desmond Tutu in South Africa, and Abel Muzorewa in Zimbabwe. Both Tutu and Muzorewa believed that Africans could govern their own nations responsibly and effectively if only they were given the opportunity. In expressing their religious views about the need for social justice each man borrowed from national traditions that had shaped policy of earlier church leaders. Tutu and Muzorewa argued that the political development of Africans was essential to the security of the white settlers and that whites should seek the promotion of political development of Africans as a condition of that future security. Desmond Tutu and Abel Muzorewa were both motivated by strong religious principles. They disregarded the possible personal repercussions that they might suffer as a result of their efforts to alter the fundamental bases of their colonial governments. Each man hoped to create a new national climate in which blacks and whites could cooperate to build a new nation. Each played a part in eventual independence for Zimbabwe in 1980 and for South Africa in 1994. Mungazi's examination of their efforts reveals how individuals with strong convictions can make a difference in shaping the future of their nations.

Mental Maps in the Era of Detente and the End of the Cold War recreates the way in which the revolutionary changes of the last phase of the Cold War were perceived by fifteen of its leading figures in the West, East and developing world.

An unexpected immigration wave of Jews from the former Soviet Union mostly in the 1990s has stabilized and enlarged Jewish life in Germany. Jewish kindergartens and schools were opened, and Jewish museums, theaters, and festivals are attracting a wide audience. No doubt: Jews will continue to live in Germany. At the same time, Jewish life has undergone an impressing transformation in the second half of the 20th century - from rejection to acceptance, but not without disillusionments and heated debates. And while the 'new Jews of Germany,' 90 percent of them of Eastern European background, are already considered an important factor of the contemporary Jewish diaspora, they still grapple with the shadow of the Holocaust, with internal cultural clashes and with difficulties in shaping a new collective identity. What does it mean to live a Jewish life in present-day Germany? How are Jewish thoughts, feelings, and practices reflected in contemporary arts, literature, and movies? What will remain of the former German Jewish cultural heritage? Who are the new Jewish elites, and how successful is the fight against anti-Semitism? This volume offers some answers.

For much of the past decade, all diplomatic initiatives designed to advance the Arab-Israeli peace process have had in common a concern for the future of the West Bank. This region, along with the Gaza Strip, has often been discussed, but rarely studied. Palestinians living under occupation were often seen as passive and leaderless. This view is no longer tenable.The uprising, or intifadah, that began in the West Bank and Gaza in late 1987 and continued into 1988 represents a new phase of the Palestinian resistance to occupation and search for self-determination. Palestinians in these areas, especially the youth, are politically mobilized and highly nationalistic. The uprising needs to be seen in perspective. It is the product of profound political, social, and economic changes that have taken place over the past twenty years. Emile Sayliyeh analyzes in detail and with great personal knowledge the internal politics of the West Bank Palestinians and their international implications. Traditionally, West Bank politics had been the domain of elite, prominent families used by the Ottomans, the British, and the Jordanians to control local politics. Recent social changes, such as the growing trend toward higher education, exposure to the mass media, and labor mobility, have coincided with recent political changes the consolidation of the communist movement, the radicalization of the student population, and the resurgence of Islam to challenge the political order and give more power to the mass-supported local politicians. In Search of Leadership offers the first comprehensive look at the social and political bases of the factions and groups in the West Bank and suggests how they will affect Palestinian politics in the years ahead.

Decades after the massive student protest movements that consumed much of the world, the 1960s remain a significant subject of scholarly inquiry. While important work has been done regarding radical activism in the United States and Western Europe, events in what is today known as the Global South-Asia, Africa, and Latin America-have yet to receive the attention they deserve. This volume inserts the Third World into the study of the 1960s by examining the local and international articulations of youth protest in various geographical, social, and cultural arenas. Rejecting the notion that the Third World existed on the periphery, it situates the events of the 1960s in a more inclusive context, building a richer, more nuanced understanding of the era that better reflects the dynamism of the period.

In the years since World War II, commercial television has become the most powerful force in American culture. It is also the quintessential example of postmodernist culture. This book studies how "The Twilight Zone, The Prisoner, Twin Peaks," and "The X-Files" display many of the central characteristics that critics and theorists have associated with postmodernism, including fragmentation of narratives and characters, multiplicity in style and genre, and the collapse of traditional categorical boundaries of all kinds. The author labels these series strange TV since they challenge the conventions of television programming, thus producing a form of cognitive estrangement that potentially encourages audiences to question received ideas.

Despite their challenges to the conventions of commercial television, however, these series pose no real threat to the capitalist order. In fact, the very characteristics that identify these series as postmodern are also central characteristics of capitalism itself, especially in its late consumerist phase. An examination of these series within the context of postmodernism thus confirms Fredric Jameson's thesis that postmodernism is a reflection of the cultural logic of late capitalism. At the same time, these series do point toward the potential of television as a genuinely innovative medium that promises to produce genuinely new forms of cultural expression in the future.

This book provides the first detailed analysis of how interactions between government policy and Fleet Street affected the political coverage of the Greek civil war, one of the first major confrontations of the Cold War. During this period the exponential growth of media influence was an immensely potent weapon of psychological warfare. Throughout the 1940s the press maintained its position as the most powerful medium and its influence remained unchallenged. The documentary record shows that a British media consensus was more fabricated than spontaneous, and the tools of media persuasion and manipulation were extremely important in building acceptance for British foreign policy. Gioula Koutsopanagou examines how this media consensus was influenced and molded by the British government and how Foreign Office channels were key to molding public attitudes to British foreign policy. These channels included system of briefings given by the News Department to the diplomatic correspondents, and the contacts between embassies and the British foreign correspondents.

The 1970s were a period of dramatic change in relations between Japan and the People's Republic of China (PRC). The two countries established diplomatic relations for the first time, forged close economic ties and reached political agreements that still guide and constrain relations today. This book delivers a history of this foundational period in Sino-Japanese relations. It presents an up-to-date diplomatic history of the relationship but also goes beyond this to argue that Japan's relations with China must be understood in the context of a larger "China problem" that was inseparable from a domestic contest to define Japanese national identity. "The China Problem in Postwar Japan" challenges some common assertions or assumptions about the role of Japanese national identity in postwar Sino-Japanese relations, showing how the history of Japanese relations with China in the 1970s is shaped by the strength of Japanese national identity, not its weakness.

The papers were, by and large, of good quality, but two are worthy of particular attention. Michael Riccards's Failure of Nerve: How the Liberals Killed Liberalism and Robert D. Loevy's To Write It in the Books of 1964 are outstanding and fresh contributions to often debated topics. . . . Bill Moyers's epilogue is superb, rich with personal observations on the man he served for many years. Choice Two decades after his presidency, Lyndon Baines Johnson continues to be remembered for the brilliance of his political skills, the sweep of his social vision, and the turbulence produced by his Vietnam policy. This collection of essays offers a variety of interpretations of the Johnson presidency and its legacy. The collection blends scholarly analysis with the insights of people who were once either at the heart of the Johnson administration policy-making system or well-known for their political activism. Lyndon Johnson managed to translate a vision of New Deal liberalism into a domestic program of immense and far-reaching proportions. At the same time, his steadfast support in Vietnam of traditional Cold War assumptions, such as the domino theory, though predictable, brought about the unraveling of his presidency. These essays examine the establishment of the Great Society and its programs, the Johnson administration civil rights program and Supreme Court appointments, and the impact of the Vietnam War on the Great Society and the nation's economic health. Introductory and concluding remarks are provided by Tom Wicker and Bill Moyers to complete a unique and fascinating compilation.