Ireland has been transformed in the last quarter century from a poor, traditional society to one of the wealthiest and most globalized countries in the world. This broad-ranging text provides an accessible and up-to-date introduction to Irish society, politics and culture as well as developments in its economy and place in Europe and the world.

In keeping with the tenets of socialist internationalism, the political culture of the German Democratic Republic strongly emphasized solidarity with the non-white world: children sent telegrams to Angela Davis in prison, workers made contributions from their wages to relief efforts in Vietnam and Angola, and the deaths of Patrice Lumumba, Ho Chi Minh, and Martin Luther King, Jr. inspired public memorials. Despite their prominence, however, scholars have rarely examined such displays in detail. Through a series of illuminating historical investigations, this volume deploys archival research, ethnography, and a variety of other interdisciplinary tools to explore the rhetoric and reality of East German internationalism.

Scholarship on the history of West Germany's educational system has traditionally portrayed the postwar period of Allied occupation as a failure and the following decades as a time of pedagogical stagnation. Two decades after World War II, however, the Federal Republic had become a stable democracy, a member of NATO, and a close ally of the West. Had the schools really failed to contribute to this remarkable transformation of German society and political culture? This study persuasively argues that long before the protest movements of the late 1960s, the West German educational system was undergoing meaningful reform from within. Although politicians and intellectual elites paid little attention to education after 1945, administrators, teachers, and pupils initiated significant changes in schools at the local level. The work of these actors resulted in an array of democratic reforms that signaled a departure from the authoritarian and nationalistic legacies of the past. The establishment of exchange programs between the United States and West Germany, the formation of student government organizations and student newspapers, the publication of revised history and civics textbooks, the expansion of teacher training programs, and the creation of a Social Studies curriculum all contributed to the advent of a new German educational system following World War II. The subtle, incremental reforms inaugurated during the first two postwar decades prepared a new generation of young Germans for their responsibilities as citizens of a democratic state.

The Cold War produced a matrix of Canadian/US extra-governmental military and economic relationships which significantly shaped Canadian political decision-making as it related to the defence of the continent under the auspices of the North American Air/Aerospace Defence Agreement (NORAD). In the post-cold War era, these relationships continue to effectively support a traditional security agenda for the Canadian government. The rewritten NORAD Agreement, signed in March 1996, is the vehicle for Canadian participation in US missile defence programs worldwide. Paying particular attention to the decisions to adopt a nuclear weapons role for Canada's continental air defence forces, to test the US air-lunched cruise missile in the Canadian North, and to become increasingly involved in active missile and space-based defence programs, the author examines: * the Cold War construction of Canadian/US military and economic relationships * the effects of these relationships on political decision-making * the public discourse as a site of alternative understandings of Canada's role in the Cold War. Ann Denholm Crosby provides a challenging analysis of Canadian defence decision-making in both its Cold war and post-Cold War contexts.

This book explores the ways in which personal and social identities in Britain, France, and Germany were shaped by the lasting impact of the Second World War.It strengthens the case for considering war trauma from a comparative European perspective. It encourages greater understanding of the dynamics of memory and identity. It accommodates both national and supra-national experiences, thus contributing to a modern European historiography. It provides a concise yet illuminating snapshot of the reconstruction of European societies in the aftermath of World War II.The Second World War brought suffering and trauma to the people of Europe on an unprecedented scale. This volume addresses World War II as a common European trauma by focusing on key trans-national developments and comparing the different wars as experienced by three similar civilian populations.

Since 1945, the Jewish population in Germany has grown steadily and there has been a flourishing of "Jewish" culture in Germany. Does this development mean that Jews are playing a significant role in German social life or that the German-Jewish relationship, often referred to as a kind of symbiosis, has re-emerged? The essays in this book cover the changes in German society since 1945 in Jewish communities, literature, theater, film, architecture, and other areas including an examination of the resurgence of anti-Semitism in Austria.

Glen O'Hara draws a compelling picture of Second World War Britain by investigating relations between people and government: the electorate's rising expectations and demands for universally-available social services, the increasing complexity of the new solutions to these needs, and mounting frustration with both among both governors and governed.

The urban rebellions that rocked Miami in 1980, and other large cities in the United States during the 1960s, can be looked at as contributory components of the Black freedom movement. This new study argues that they are, on one level, a tactical response to contemporary forms of White domination and, on another level, an act in which key core values of the African American experience are sustained. The book provides an overview of racial violence in America, from the slaveocracy of the 18th and 19th centuries, to the urban rebellions of the late 20th century. It shows that in Black-White intergroup relations, Whites have used violence and the threat of violence to repress and intimidate Blacks. Blacks have used violence as a way of resisting White domination. The form that violence has taken has been shaped by prevailing societal conditions.

Importantly, the book concentrates on the essence of Black-White intergroup relations. In doing so, the thematic and cultural propensities that pattern the reality of those relations are clearer. Foremost is the practice of White domination and the Black response of resistance, which seeks to end that domination and encourage freedom and justice. The book ends by going beyond current thinking and looks to African American core values as key referents to examine Black violence.

German unification came as a surprise. Nobody in West Germany had expected the collapse of the German Democratic Republic so soon. What were the causes of the breakdown of the Communist system in East Germany? How did the Federal Republic and the Four Powers react when unification first became possible, then inevitable? Was there an alternative to the currency union? How does German unification affect the European Community and the international system? These are some of the fundamental questions examined in this volume by the distinguished German political scientists.

An accessible collection of essays about one of the most dramatic moment in France's modern history: the "event" of 1968. Often seen purely as a student revolution, the events of 1968 in fact impacted on almost every aspect of French society - theatre, film, gender relations, sexuality, race and immigration, farmers, workers. This volume of essays, written by young researchers and established scholars from France, Britain and the United States is the only book in English to explore the full diversity of this extraordinary upheaval. It takes us out of Paris to the regions of France, out of the student Latin Quarter into the factories, and shows how the events of 1968 continued to reverberate throughout the next decade, and how their legacy is still highly contested in France today.

The United States in the Long Twentieth Century explores the nature of American politics and society in the period from 1900 to the present day, illuminating both the changes and the continuities. This was a period largely characterized by exceptional growth and international power, though one also assailed by the crises and divisions that Michael Heale carefully examines. A strength of the book is its integration of political with social history, and it thus explores a range of social, demographic and economic phenomena that have been central to American history in the long twentieth century, such as immigration and ethnicity, the labour, civil rights and environmental movements, and the role and achievements of women. This new and fully revised edition of the seminal student textbook Twentieth-Century America has been updated throughout to take recent scholarship in the field into account and also includes a number of important new features, including: - a brand new chapter on the years from 2000 onwards, covering 9/11, the financial crisis, and the rise of Barack Obama; - substantial revisions to Part III, covering 1969 to the present day, and in particular to the material on Reagan, Clinton, African Americans, immigrants, the growth of the financial sector and (de)regulation and global warming; one theme is the limits of conservatism and the resilience of liberalism; - greater emphasis on the United States in a transnational world and within the context of the rise of globalization. The United States in the Long Twentieth Century is a detailed guide to American political and social history since 1900 and an essential text for all students interested in the modern history of the United States of America.

"Ambiguous Memory" examines the role of memory in the building of a new national identity in reunified Germany. The author maintains that the contentious debates surrounding contemporary monumnets to the Nazi past testify to the ambiguity of German memory and the continued link of Nazism with contemporary German national identity. The book discusses how certain monuments, and the ways Germans have viewed them, contribute to the different ways Germans have dealt with the past, and how they continue to deal with it as one country. Kattago concludes that West Germans have internalized their Nazi past as a normative orientation for the democratic culture of West Germany, while East Germans have universalized Nazism and the Holocaust, transforming it into an abstraction in which the Jewish question is down played. In order to form a new collective memory, the author argues that unified Germany must contend with these conflicting views of the past, incorporating certain aspects of both views.

Providing a topography of East, West, and unified German memory during the 1980s and the 1990s, this work contributes to a better understanding of contemporary national identity and society. The author shows how public debate over such issues at Ronald Reagan's visit to Bitburg, the renarration of Buchenwald as Nazi and Soviet internment camp, the Goldhagen controversy, and the Holocaust Memorial debate in Berlin contribute to the complexities surrounding the way Germans see themselves, their relationship to the past, and their future identity as a nation. In a careful analysis, the author shows how the past was used and abused by both the East and the West in the 1980s, and how these approaches merged in the 1990s. This interesting new work takes a sociological approach to the role of memory in forging a new, integrative national identity.

This book is a unique contribution to both media studies and contemporary politics. It analyzes the American media's structure and its role in shaping perceptions of the crisis in the former Yugoslavia, and looks at the key issues involved, from self-determination to genocide. Sadkovich sees the failure of the U.S. media and the West as having prolonged and even aggravated the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. This work will prove useful to both the general reader and students of media and current affairs.

Stories told in the book, "Tony Dufflebag . . . and other Remembrances of the War in Korea," are a mixture of memories, history, journalism and autobiographical experiences that are blended into a fascinating collection. The title story is of the rescue by two soldiers of a six-year-old Korean orphan boy who was found freezing and starving on the streets in war-ravaged Seoul, South Korea, then secreted into protective "adoption" for a few weeks, and how he was cared for and won the hearts of all the soldiers in a frontline Infantry rifle company until he was placed in safer circumstances. The author shares feelings about the death of a fellow soldier, of thoughts about a young wife and son back home, of the dramatic mountain rescue of a critically-wounded friend, reflects on feelings of a Christian soldier in combat, tells about lifelong friendships that develop in wartime, reflects on personal values, beliefs, feelings, commitments, opinions and relates tales of humorous events that occur to and among soldiers, even in a far-off war zone.

In this unique and informative new volume, Beate Hamizrachi offers a fascinating examination of the emergence of the Israeli-controlled Security Belt and the rise of Lebanese Major Saad Haddad in South Lebanon. The detailed descriptions of events and people, often based on the author's personal experience, in the Lebanese kaleidoscope will give scholars, students, decision-makers, and journalists a better understanding of the ongoing internal struggle and the external pressures in Lebanon.

From interpretations of the Holocaust to fascist thought and anti-fascists' responses, and the problems of memorializing this difficult past, this essay collection tackles topics which are rarely studied in conjunction. As well as historical analyses of fascist and anti-fascist thinking, Stone analyses the challenges involved in writing history in general and Holocaust historiography in particular. Following an introductory essay on 'history and its discontents', the wide-ranging chapters deal with individual thinkers of very different sorts, such as Hannah Arendt, Rolf Gardiner, Jules Monnerot and Saul Friedlander, movements such as interwar rural revivalism, the contested translation of Mein Kampf, emigre anti-fascists' writings, and the relationship between memory and history, especially with respect to atrocities like genocide. This unique collection of essays on a wide variety of topics contributes to understanding the roots and consequences of mid-twentieth-century Europe's great catastrophe.

How does one of the world's greatest powers preserve its status and influence when international conditions are unfavourable and its resources do not match its commitments? This was Britain's burden in the 1970s and 1980s when the international order was transformed. Much became unsettled and Britain had to adapt policy to suit new needs and opportunities. Michael J. Turner elucidates the efforts that were made to maximise Britain's role on those matters and in those parts of the world that were of special importance to British strategy, prosperity and security. He examines key decisions and their consequences and places British policy-making in an international context, suggesting that British leaders were more successful in preserving power and prestige on the world stage than has sometimes been appreciated.

What is distinctive about this book is its interdisciplinary approach towards deciphering the complex meanings of President Gabriel Mugabe of Zimbabwe making it possible to evaluate Mugabe from a historical, political, philosophical, gender, literal and decolonial perspectives. It is concerned with capturing various meanings of Mugabeism.

This recently discovered study by Allen W. Dulles, brother of John Foster and Eleanor Dulles, OSS director in Switzerland during the Second World War and later director of the CIA, was written in the winter of 1947/48 when the acceptance of the Marshall Plan was still in doubt. At this point Dulles, who had been prominently involved in the planning of this recovery programme, produced this well-argued manuscript forcefully putting the case for acceptance. This book offers not only fascinating insights into the dramatic atmosphere of the early postwar period, but may also serve as an inspiration to policy-makers at a time when, 45 years later, there is much discussion of recovery programmes for Eastern Europe and the Marshall Plan is often evoked as a possible model.

With the specter of prosecution after his term is over and the possibility of disbarment in Arkansas hanging over President Clinton, the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal and the events that have followed it show no sign of abating. The question has become what to do, and how to think, about those eight months. Did the President lie or was it plausible that he had truthfully testified to no sexual relationship? Was the job search for Monica just help for a friend or a sinister means of obtaining silence? Even if all the charges were true, did impeachment follow or was censure enough? And what are the lasting repercussions on the office of the Presidency?

Aftermath: The Clinton Impeachment and the Presidency in the Age of Political Spectacle takes a multi-disciplinary approach to analyze the Clinton impeachment from political perspectives across the spectrum. The authors attempt to tease out the meanings of the scandal from the vantage point of law, religion, public opinion, and politics, both public and personal. Further, the impeachment itself is situated broadly within the contemporary American liberal state and mined for the contradictory possibilities for reconciliation it reveals in our culture.

Contributors: David T. Canon, John Cooper, Drucilla Cornell, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Robert W. Gordon, Lawrence Joseph, Leonard V. Kaplan, David Kennedy, Kenneth R. Mayer, Beverly I. Moran, Father Richard John Neuhaus, David Novak, Linda Denise Oakley, Elizabeth Rapaport, Lawrence Rosen, Eric Rothstein, Aviam Soifer, Lawrence M. Solan, Cass R. Sunstein, Stephen Toulmin, Leon Trakman, Frank Tuerkheimer, Mark V. Tushnet, Andrew D. Weiner, Robin L. West.

An in-depth and comprehensive account of the complex history of Japanese modernism from the mid-19th century "opening to the West" until the 21st century globalized world of "postmodernism." Its concept of modernism encompasses not just the aesthetic avant-garde but a wide spectrum of social, political and cultural phenomena.

This volume compares one of the largest instances of 'ethnic cleansing' - the German expellees from the East (Vertriebene) - with the most important case of decolonization migration - the French repatriates of Algeria (pieds-noirs).

Providing an indispensable resource for students, educators, businessmen, and officials investigating the transformative experience of modern China, this book provides a comprehensive summary of the culture, institutions, traditions, and international relations that have shaped today's China. In Modern China, author Xiaobing Li offers a resource far beyond a conventional encyclopedia, providing not only comprehensive coverage of Chinese civilization and traditions, but also addressing the values, issues, and critical views of China. As a result, readers will better understand the transformative experience of the most populous country in the world, and will grasp the complexity of the progress and problems behind the rise of China to a world superpower in less than 30 years. Written by an author who lived in China for three decades, this encyclopedia addresses 16 key topics regarding China, such as its geography, government, social classes and ethnicities, gender-based identities, arts, media, and food, each followed by roughly 250 short entries related to each topic. All the entries are placed within a broad sociopolitical and socioeconomic contextual framework. The format and writing consistency through the book reflects a Chinese perspective, and allows students to compare Chinese with Western and American views. Covers contemporary Chinese politics, economy, geography, law, education, culture, and history, providing readers with a breadth of insights into modern China and its people Addresses a variety of current issues such as pollution, corruption, human trafficking, human rights, civil liberties, and the one-child policy Contains accessible information ideal for high school and college-level students, grade school teachers, and any readers interested in the general topics of Asia and China