Soviet authorities in 1987-1991 tried to encourage the union republics to use their diplomatic apparatuses, created by Stalin in 1944, to solicit foreign economic trade and aid. In many cases, union republics were able to draw upon diplomatic precedents established during the early Soviet period, or when they were independent states in the period 1918-1921. The many international contacts and ties the former union republics had established abroad helped them to promptly gain diplomatic recognition and establish diplomatic relations with many foreign states, mitigating to some degree the shock to the world order caused by the breakup of the Soviet Union.

By bringing together and critically engaging with accounts of certain themes in business and labour history, and utilizing original research, this book aims to widen understanding of industrial society and provide a background to further study and research in the area management and labour relations history.

"That isn't what I meant!" Truly listening and being heard is far from simple, even between people who care about each other. This perennial bestseller--now revised and updated for the digital age--analyzes how any conversation can go off the rails and provides essential skills for building mutual understanding. Thoughtful, witty, and empathic, the book is filled with vivid stories of couples, coworkers, friends, and family working through tough emotions and navigating differences of all kinds. Learn ways you can: *Hear what people mean, not just what they say. *Share a difference of opinion without sounding dismissive. *Encourage uncommunicative people to open up. *Make sure both sides get heard in heated discussions. *Get through to someone who never seems to listen. *Ask for support without getting unwanted advice. *Reduce miscommunication in texts and online. From renowned therapist Michael P. Nichols and new coauthor Martha B. Straus, the third edition reflects the huge impact of technology and social media on relationships, and gives advice for talking to loved ones across social and political divides

Short Stories and Political Philosophy: Power, Prose, and Persuasion explores the relationship between fictional short stories and the classic works of political philosophy. This edited volume addresses the innovative ways that short stories grapple with the same complex political and moral questions, concerns, and problems studied in the fields of political philosophy and ethics. The volume is designed to highlight the ways in which short stories may be used as an access point for the challenging works of political philosophy encountered in higher education. Each chapter analyzes a single story through the lens of thinkers ranging from Plato and Aristotle to Max Weber and Hannah Arendt. The contributors to this volume do not adhere to a single theme or intellectual tradition. Rather, this volume is a celebration of the intellectual and literary diversity available to students and teachers of political philosophy. It is a resource for scholars as well as educators who seek to incorporate short stories into their teaching practice.

First published in 1988. This thought-provoking volume offers a constructive critical anal ysis of family therapy for its neglect of the self in the system, and provides a therapeutic approach to clinical problems that takes into account both individual and family dynamics. The author shows that by elevating the metaphor of the system to dogma, family therapy has lost sight of much of the richness and complicating influence of personal feeling, motivation, and conflict, resulting in a proliferation of esoteric, abstract theories and highly mechanistic, technical interventions. The Self in the System describes a different reality that is often overlooked: no matter how much their behavior is coordinated within the system, family members remain separate individuals with private hopes and ambitions, motives and expectations, quirks and foibles, and potentials for creative work. This book provides a unique approach that develops a better understanding of family members' individual experiences, and helps in enhancing their personal responsibility and ability to solve their own interactional problems within the family system. The approach, however, is not just another version of psychoanalytic family therapy, but rather one that utilizes the best tools of family therapy and the most useful ideas from individual psychology and psychodynamic psychotherapy. Chapters cover such important topics as finding the family and losing the self; the problem of change; working with interaction; the effective use of empathy; making assessments that include both the whole family system and the psychology of its members; interac tional psychodynamics; a practical guide to object relations theory; how to develop understanding; and working with resistance.

This volume brings Continental philosophical interpretations of Van Gogh into dialogue with one another to explore how for Van Gogh, art places human beings in their world, and yet in other ways displaces them, not allowing them to belong to that world.

The overall aim of the volume is to explore the relation of Socratic philosophizing, as Plato represents it, to those activities to which it is typically opposed. The essays address a range of figures who appear in the dialogues as distinct "others" against whom Socrates is contrasted-most obviously, the figure of the sophist, but also the tragic hero, the rhetorician, the tyrant, and the poet. Each of the individual essays shows, in a different way, that the harder one tries to disentangle Socrates' own activity from that of its apparent opposite, the more entangled they become. Yet, it is only by taking this entanglement seriously, and exploring it fully, that the distinctive character of Socratic philosophy emerges. As a whole, the collection sheds new light on the artful ways in which Plato not only represents philosophy in relation to what it is not, but also makes it "strange" to itself. It shows how concerns that seem to be raised about the activity of philosophical questioning (from the point of view of the political community, for example) can be seen, upon closer examination, to emerge from within that very enterprise. Each of the essays then goes on to consider how Socratic philosophizing can be defined, and its virtues defended, against an attack that comes as much from within as from without. The volume includes chapters by distinguished contributors such as Catherine Zuckert, Ronna Burger, Michael Davis, Jacob Howland, and others, the majority of which were written especially for this volume. Together, they address an important theme in Plato's dialogues that is touched upon in the literature but has never been the subject of a book-length study that traces its development across a wide range of dialogues. One virtue of the collection is that it brings together a number of prominent scholars from both political science and philosophy whose work intersects in important and revealing ways. A related virtue is that it treats more familiar dialogues (Republic, Sophist, Apology, Phaedrus) alongside some works that are less well known (Theages, Major Hippias, Minor Hippias, Charmides, and Lovers). While the volume is specialized in its topic and approach, the overarching question-about the potentially troubling implications of Socratic philosophy, and the Platonic response-should be of interest to a broad range of scholars in philosophy, political science, and classics.

Each of us is controlled in some way by shame, one of the ugliest emotions in human experience. It saps our self-respect, builds walls between people, and forces us to create elaborate defenses to protect ourselves. This informative and practical analysis of the role of shame in our lives helps us to understand the root of our insecurity. Only by facing and coming to terms with our shame can we begin to resolve insecurities and become free to participate fully in life. Nichols discusses love and worth, the social sources of humiliation, the frustration of adolescence, and positive parenting, among other important topics, in this wonderful combination of clinical sophistication, common sense, and humanity

First published in 1988. This thought-provoking volume offers a constructive critical anal ysis of family therapy for its neglect of the self in the system, and provides a therapeutic approach to clinical problems that takes into account both individual and family dynamics. The author shows that by elevating the metaphor of the system to dogma, family therapy has lost sight of much of the richness and complicating influence of personal feeling, motivation, and conflict, resulting in a proliferation of esoteric, abstract theories and highly mechanistic, technical interventions. The Self in the System describes a different reality that is often overlooked: no matter how much their behavior is coordinated within the system, family members remain separate individuals with private hopes and ambitions, motives and expectations, quirks and foibles, and potentials for creative work. This book provides a unique approach that develops a better understanding of family members' individual experiences, and helps in enhancing their personal responsibility and ability to solve their own interactional problems within the family system. The approach, however, is not just another version of psychoanalytic family therapy, but rather one that utilizes the best tools of family therapy and the most useful ideas from individual psychology and psychodynamic psychotherapy. Chapters cover such important topics as finding the family and losing the self; the problem of change; working with interaction; the effective use of empathy; making assessments that include both the whole family system and the psychology of its members; interac tional psychodynamics; a practical guide to object relations theory; how to develop understanding; and working with resistance.

Alexis de Tocqueville asserted that America had no truly great literature, and that American writers merely mimicked the British and European traditions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This new edited collection masterfully refutes Tocqueville's monocultural myopia and reveals the distinctive role American poetry and prose have played in reflecting and passing judgment upon the core values of American democracy. The essays, profiling the work of Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Updike, Edith Wharton, Walt Whitman, Henry James, Willa Cather, Walker Percy, and Tom Wolfe, reveal how America's greatest writers have acted as society's most ardent cheerleaders and its most penetrating critics. Christine Dunn Henderson's exciting new work offers literature as a portal through which to view the philosophical principles that animate America's political order and the mores which either reinforce or undermine them.

By bringing together and critically engaging with accounts of certain themes in business and labour history, and utilizing original research, this book aims to widen understanding of industrial society and provide a background to further study and research in the area management and labour relations history.

In the summer of 2014 leading experts in the theory of water waves gathered at the Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Cambridge for four weeks of research interaction. A cross-section of those experts was invited to give introductory-level talks on active topics. This book is a compilation of those talks and illustrates the diversity, intensity, and progress of current research in this area. The key themes that emerge are numerical methods for analysis, stability and simulation of water waves, transform methods, rigorous analysis of model equations, three-dimensionality of water waves, variational principles, shallow water hydrodynamics, the role of deterministic and random bottom topography, and modulation equations. This book is an ideal introduction for PhD students and researchers looking for a research project. It may also be used as a supplementary text for advanced courses in mathematics or fluid dynamics.

In Socrates on Friendship and Community, Mary P. Nichols addresses Kierkegaard's and Nietzsche's criticism of Socrates and recovers the place of friendship and community in Socratic philosophizing. This approach stands in contrast to the modern philosophical tradition, in which Plato's Socrates has been viewed as an alienating influence on Western thought and life. Nichols' rich analysis of both dramatic details and philosophic themes in Plato's Symposium, Phaedras, and Lysis shows how love finds its fulfilment in the reciprocal relation of friends. Nichols also shows how friends experience another as their own and themselves as belonging to another. Their experience, she argues, both sheds light on the nature of philosophy and serves as a standard for a political life that does justice to human freedom and community.

At the center of people's lives is the family, which can be and should be a haven from the harshness of the outside world. Unfortunately, the source of people's greatest hope for happiness often turns out to be the source of their worst disappointments. Now, the family therapist, Salvador Minuchin unravels the knots of family dynamics against the background of his own odyssey from an extended Argentinian Jewish family to his innovative treatment of troubled families. Through the stories of families who have sought his help, the reader is taken inside the consulting room to see how families struggle with self-defeating patterns of behavior. Through his confrontational style of therapy, Dr Minuchin demonstrates the strict but unseen rules that trap family members in stifling roles, and illuminates methods for helping families untangle systems of disharmony. In Dr Minuchin's therapy there are no villains and no victims, only people trying to deal with various problems at each stage of the family life cycle. Minuchin understands the family as a system of interconnected lives, not as a "dysfunctional" group. Each story of a therapeutic encounter brings a new understanding of familiar dilemmas and classic mistakes, and recounts Dr Minuchin's creative solutions.

In Socrates on Friendship and Community, Mary P. Nichols addresses Kierkegaard's and Nietzsche's criticism of Socrates and recovers the place of friendship and community in Socratic philosophizing. This approach stands in contrast to the modern philosophical tradition, in which Plato's Socrates has been viewed as an alienating influence on Western thought and life. Nichols' rich analysis of both dramatic details and philosophic themes in Plato's Symposium, Phaedras, and Lysis shows how love finds its fulfilment in the reciprocal relation of friends. Nichols also shows how friends experience another as their own and themselves as belonging to another. Their experience, she argues, both sheds light on the nature of philosophy and serves as a standard for a political life that does justice to human freedom and community.

My name is Rose and I have a question for you. Have you ever been transformed into a horse or a unicorn? How about a dragon or an eagle or even a dolphin for that matter? Have you ever been transported into a strange new world? Well let me tell you, it's AMAZING!! I should know because it happened to me, my brother and some of our friends. You see I always knew that I was different, even when I was very little. I just didn't realise that I was a visionary. There were always clues, but the biggest clue of all were the dreams that I had had for as long as I can remember. Flying horses, talking lions, fire breathing dragons, you name it! Some people might say 'everyone has dreams', which of course is true. The thing is, my dreams actually came true. This is the story of what happened next and how I discovered The Magical Secret of the Crystal Kingdom.

In Thucydides and the Pursuit of Freedom, Mary P. Nichols argues for the centrality of the idea of freedom in Thucydides' thought. Through her close reading of his History of the Peloponnesian War, she explores the manifestations of this theme. Cities and individuals in Thucydides' history take freedom as their goal, whether they claim to possess it and want to maintain it or whether they desire to attain it for themselves or others. Freedom is the goal of both antagonists in the Peloponnesian War, Sparta and Athens, although in different ways. One of the fullest expressions of freedom can be seen in the rhetoric of Thucydides' Pericles, especially in his famous funeral oration. More than simply documenting the struggle for freedom, however, Thucydides himself is taking freedom as his cause. On the one hand, he demonstrates that freedom makes possible human excellence, including courage, self-restraint, deliberation, and judgment, which support freedom in turn. On the other hand, the pursuit of freedom, in one's own regime and in the world at large, clashes with interests and material necessity, and indeed the very passions required for its support. Thucydides' work, which he himself considered a possession for all time, therefore speaks very much to our time, encouraging the defense of freedom while warning of the limits and dangers in doing so. The powerful must defend freedom, Thucydides teaches, but beware that the cost not become freedom itself.

YOU PROBABLY CARE ABOUT YOUR ORGANIZATION THE SAME WAY YOU CARE ABOUT YOUR BODY. God was very deliberate in how He designed our bodies. Very intricate, pain-staking detail has been applied to every single one of our bodies. Every unique cell, every unique tissue, every unique muscle, every unique organ plays a part in how our bodies function daily. How much thought do you really give to the uniqueness of your body? How much thought do you give to how it functions, how it is nurtured and cared for? How much effort and time do you take to make sure your body is well on the inside and well on the outside? You probably care about your organization the same way you care about your body. Your organization probably functions as well as your body functions. Do you treat your organization (i.e., company, business, place of worship, non-profit entity, social association) the same way you treat your body? As you give true thought to how amazingly, intricately and uniquely designed your body is, you ought to take a moment to think about how distinctively designed your organization is. Amazingly, intricately, and uniquely designed. Sonja Phillips Nichols has served in many organizational leadership roles on both a local and regional level. She has worked in Corporate America and as an entrepreneur; provided support on several nonprofit boards; performed in executive leadership in several social organizations; and continues to assist as a Sunday School teacher in her church. Sonja is married to the most wonderful husband ever, Richard L. Nichols, Jr. and is the proud mother of two fantastic sons, Richard III and James, and a beautiful daughter, Kayla, the talented illustrator of this book. Photography by Darlene Noisette Ferguson