Dramatic changes in the global security environment have necessitated a fundamental reassessment of U.S. interests and policy worldwide. This book focuses on the underlying forces at work in the Middle East, the challenges the United States will face in the region in the coming decade, and how they will influence U.S. interests and future strategy. The contributors go beyond traditional perspectives in analyzing such critical issues as state-to-state conflicts in the Arab-Israeli and Persian Gulf arenas; growing Western dependence on Middle East oil; an increasingly lethal arms race that may upset the regional balance; competition for scarce resources, such as water, in non-oil states; and ethnic, sectarian, and ideological forces, such as the Islamic revival and pressures for democracy, that will affect regional stability and U.S. interests. Throughout, the authors take a fresh look at strategic priorities, the policy options available, and the dilemmas presented by conflicting U.S. interests. The many layers of analysis are woven together intricately but realistically.

Drawing from a variety of sources - literary, visual, archaeological; papyri, inscriptions and coins - the author studies the nature of Diocletian's imperial strategy, his wars, his religious views and his abdication. The author also examines Galerius' endeavour to take control of Diocletian's empire, his failures and successes, against the backdrop of Constantine's remorseless drive to power. The first comprehensive study of the Emperor Galerius, this book offers an innovative analysis of his reign as both Caesar and Augustus, using his changing relationship with Diocletian as the principal key to unlock the complex imperial politics of the period.

Drawing from a variety of sources - literary, visual, archaeological; papyri, inscriptions and coins - the author studies the nature of Diocletian's imperial strategy, his wars, his religious views and his abdication. The author also examines Galerius' endeavour to take control of Diocletian's empire, his failures and successes, against the backdrop of Constantine's remorseless drive to power. The first comprehensive study of the Emperor Galerius, this book offers an innovative analysis of his reign as both Caesar and Augustus, using his changing relationship with Diocletian as the principal key to unlock the complex imperial politics of the period.

This book is the outgrowth of a collaborative effort by a small group of national security analysts associated with the Institute forNational Strategic Studies of the National Defense University,government officials responsible for pondering defense and foreign policy issues, and academics with long experience in Middle Eastern affairs. In the past several years these scholars, policy analysts, and military planners have been focusing on the impact on U.S. goals and interests in the Middle East of three seminal events-the ending of the cold war, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the invasion of Kuwaitby Saddam Husayn and the subsequent Gulf War. The authors'individual studies have been nourished by frequent intellectual exchanges with one another and by their participation in numerous academic meetings designed to explore the future of U.S. relations with the Middle East.

This volume covers different aspects of recent theoretical and observational work on magnetic reconnection, a fundamental plasma-physical process by which energy stored in magnetic field is converted, often explosively, into heat and kinetic energy. This collection of papers from the fields of solar and space physics, astrophysics, and laboratory plasma physics is especially timely in view of NASA's upcoming Magnetospheric Multiscale mission, which will use Earth's magetosphere as a laboratory to test, through in-situ measurement of the plasma, energetic particles, and electric and magnetic fields, the various and sometimes competing models and theories of magnetic reconnection. This volume is aimed at researchers in solar physics, magnetospheric physics and plasma physics. Previously published in Space Science Reviews journal, Vol. 160/1-4, 2011.

This volume covers different aspects of recent theoretical and observational work on magnetic reconnection, a fundamental plasma-physical process by which energy stored in magnetic field is converted, often explosively, into heat and kinetic energy. This collection of papers from the fields of solar and space physics, astrophysics, and laboratory plasma physics is especially timely in view of NASA's upcoming Magnetospheric Multiscale mission, which will use Earth's magetosphere as a laboratory to test, through in-situ measurement of the plasma, energetic particles, and electric and magnetic fields, the various and sometimes competing models and theories of magnetic reconnection.
This volume is aimed at researchers in solar physics, magnetospheric physics and plasma physics.
Previously published in Space Science Reviews journal, Vol. 160/1-4, 2011.

Philosophers usually have been anxious to avoid solipsism. A large number of good and great philosophers have tried to refute it. Of course, these philosophers have not always had the same target in mind and, like everything else, solipsism over the centuries has become increasingly elusive and subtle. In this book I undertake to state the position in its most modern and what I take to be its most plausible form. At some points in the history of philosophy the solipsist has been one who denied the existence of everything except himself or even the existence of everything except his own present sensations. At other times, the solipsist instead of doubting these things has merely insisted that there could be no good reason for believing in the existence of anything beyond one's own present sensations. Roughly, this doubt is aimed at reasons rather than at things. A solipsist of this sort appears in Santayana's Scepticism and Animal Faith.

This is an introduction to the life and work of one of the greatest Welsh dramatists of this century. John Gwilym Jones (1904-1988) was also a short-story writer, novelist and literary critic whose work was almost exclusively in the Welsh language. The aim of this book is to present Jones's work to the English-speaking world.

The Essence of Nathan Biddle is a coming-of-age novel set in the American South in the 1950s. Narrator Kit Biddle, near the end of his high school career, finds himself tangled in a web of family secrets, including a crazy uncle who hears God and literally sacrifices (murders) his own son, Kit's cousin-landing him in a mental institution. Kit is also vexed by the pressing questions that haunt all teenagers: Who am I? Why am I here? When Anna, the beautiful, brilliant object of his affections, rejects him, Kit spirals into despair. Even his witty best friend, Lichtman, is of no help. Kit's impulsive decision to steal the golf club's maintenance truck one night and speed down the highway ends in a horrific accident and months of convalescence, including interesting hours spent in a therapist's office where Kit tries to piece his life together. Yet tragedy leads to light in this gentle tale; even a new girlfriend appears. "It was calamity that gave me a moment of pause, an occasion for reassessment and redirection. I suffered both a breakdown and a breakthrough," Kit says near the end of his ordeal. Readers will rejoice as Kit closes in on answers to his search for the meaning of life