Products

China has made nationalism central as the country seeks to achieve a “rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” The new wave of consumer nationalism in China reached a fever pitch in recent years. This book will be the first book that systematically analyzes the different waves of consumer nationalism in China, the types of its nationalistic consumer actions, and the critical impact of the new wave which has increased the possibility of a consumer base that could turn hostile at any moment. It argues that the outbursts of nationalist consumer outrage has become an increasing risk for businesses in China or businesses dealing with Chinese markets, and that as China faces growing diplomatic challenges abroad, multinational companies need to operate with extreme caution when dealing with the world’s second-largest economy.

The book argues that interest in buying and personal pleasure is the most common feature of Chinese modern life. It provides a historical context for Chinese consumers’ nationalism and characteristics of each wave. It answers questions of how Chinese nationalism has changed in recent years and what consequences would the emerged new wave lead to. It looks at the different type of consumer nationalistic actions in China and their

consequences with cases. It argues that China’s emergence as the world’s number two economy carries

political implications that complicate the ambitions of multinational businesses. It discusses some major consumer nationalistic actions in China in the past five years, and proposes a number of pragmatic strategies that could have been taken by some companies in terms of reputation management. The book concludes that the rise of nationalism and governments that interfere in markets pose a threat to the global economic system.

This anthology explores the relationships and interdependencies between literary production and distinctions of taste by examining how the material aspects of literary texts, such as the cover, binding, typography, and paper stock, reflect or even determine their cultural status. In the nineteenth century, for example, the industrialization of printing made possible a wide range of cheap formats, such as dime novels, pulp magazines, and paperbacks, which made literature available to a mass reading public. The increased demand for new content effectively lowered the cultural entrance level, which resulted in a tremendous expansion of popular or trivial fiction. These developments were often perceived as a threat to traditional literary institutions, which increasingly relied on material distinctions as a way of preserving their cultural authority, and some publishers even attempted to mimic the conventions of exclusivity by creating deluxe editions that were designed to preserve the privileged status of so-called “highbrow” texts. In many cases, the distinctions between “highbrow” and “lowbrow” taste actually had little to do with the content of the texts themselves, as books more often functioned as markers of socioeconomic status, like clothing or home décor. At the risk of being provocative, one might even go so far as to say that the concept of literary taste was more closely related to fashion sense than critical judgment. The anthology seeks to address this claim by examining how the tensions between consumerism and prestige reflect fundamental historical changes with regard to the development of technology, literacy, and social power.

The individual chapters cover a wide range of historical periods, genres, and national literatures, and they are divided into four sections that focus on different ways in which the materiality of literature is related to cultural prestige. The first section, “Material Forms and Literary Publishing,” focuses on how writers and publishers used the material properties of books to enhance their symbolic value and to challenge the idea of literature as a mass-produced commodity. These material strategies thus served to reinforce traditional distinctions of taste, which were closely aligned with the power of the literary elite, as the consumers of deluxe editions often sought to acquire respect and admiration within their social spheres. The second section, “Material Distinctions in Popular Fiction,” examines how the publishers of popular texts also used the material properties of books to enhance their symbolic and economic value, as works that were perceived as less prestigious were often more marketable, yet they could appeal to different groups of readers in different ways based on an alternative set of cultural distinctions. Instead of using books to signify their socioeconomic status, for example, fans of popular genre fiction more often fetishize special editions as a way of gaining prestige within their own reading communities. The third section, “Cultural Prestige and Graphic Narratives,” focuses on how the material properties of visual texts were also used to signify the differences between “low” and “high” art. The graphic novel format, for example, often served to enhance the status of previously lowbrow content by presenting it as a durable work that was worthy of being sold in bookstores and preserved in archives. The fourth and final section, “Electronic Publishing and Reading Practices,” also focuses on how new forms of electronic display are currently transforming the status of literary texts. While some contributors argue that e-books are potentially more prestigious than printed books, as they are less dependent on the economic imperatives of the publishing industry, others argue that printed books continue to serve a crucial non-literary function as markers of socioeconomic status. As with the other sections, therefore, the contributors in this section agree that distinctions of taste are still largely dependent on the materiality of literature, as the material properties of literary texts continue to reflect and influence their cultural prestige.

This anthology explores the relationships and interdependencies between literary production and distinctions of taste by examining how the material aspects of literary texts, such as the cover, binding, typography, and paper stock, reflect or even determine their cultural status. In the nineteenth century, for example, the industrialization of printing made possible a wide range of cheap formats, such as dime novels, pulp magazines, and paperbacks, which made literature available to a mass reading public. The increased demand for new content effectively lowered the cultural entrance level, which resulted in a tremendous expansion of popular or trivial fiction. These developments were often perceived as a threat to traditional literary institutions, which increasingly relied on material distinctions as a way of preserving their cultural authority, and some publishers even attempted to mimic the conventions of exclusivity by creating deluxe editions that were designed to preserve the privileged status of so-called “highbrow” texts. In many cases, the distinctions between “highbrow” and “lowbrow” taste actually had little to do with the content of the texts themselves, as books more often functioned as markers of socioeconomic status, like clothing or home décor. At the risk of being provocative, one might even go so far as to say that the concept of literary taste was more closely related to fashion sense than critical judgment. The anthology seeks to address this claim by examining how the tensions between consumerism and prestige reflect fundamental historical changes with regard to the development of technology, literacy, and social power.

The individual chapters cover a wide range of historical periods, genres, and national literatures, and they are divided into four sections that focus on different ways in which the materiality of literature is related to cultural prestige. The first section, “Material Forms and Literary Publishing,” focuses on how writers and publishers used the material properties of books to enhance their symbolic value and to challenge the idea of literature as a mass-produced commodity. These material strategies thus served to reinforce traditional distinctions of taste, which were closely aligned with the power of the literary elite, as the consumers of deluxe editions often sought to acquire respect and admiration within their social spheres. The second section, “Material Distinctions in Popular Fiction,” examines how the publishers of popular texts also used the material properties of books to enhance their symbolic and economic value, as works that were perceived as less prestigious were often more marketable, yet they could appeal to different groups of readers in different ways based on an alternative set of cultural distinctions. Instead of using books to signify their socioeconomic status, for example, fans of popular genre fiction more often fetishize special editions as a way of gaining prestige within their own reading communities. The third section, “Cultural Prestige and Graphic Narratives,” focuses on how the material properties of visual texts were also used to signify the differences between “low” and “high” art. The graphic novel format, for example, often served to enhance the status of previously lowbrow content by presenting it as a durable work that was worthy of being sold in bookstores and preserved in archives. The fourth and final section, “Electronic Publishing and Reading Practices,” also focuses on how new forms of electronic display are currently transforming the status of literary texts. While some contributors argue that e-books are potentially more prestigious than printed books, as they are less dependent on the economic imperatives of the publishing industry, others argue that printed books continue to serve a crucial non-literary function as markers of socioeconomic status. As with the other sections, therefore, the contributors in this section agree that distinctions of taste are still largely dependent on the materiality of literature, as the material properties of literary texts continue to reflect and influence their cultural prestige.

In ‘Consumption, Cities and States: Comparing Singapore with Asian and Western Cities’, Ann Brooks and Lionel Wee focus on the interrelationship of consumption, citizenship and the state in the context of globalization, calling for greater emphasis to be placed on the citizen as consumer. While it is widely recognized that citizenship is increasingly defined by ‘gradations of esteem’, where different kinds of rights and responsibilities accrue to different categories and subcategories of ‘citizens’, not enough analytical focus has been given to how the status of being a citizen impacts the individual’s consumption. The interface between citizen status and consumer activity is a crucial point of analysis in light of the neoliberal assertion that individuals and institutions perform at their best within a free market economy, and because of the state’s expectations regarding citizens’ rights and responsibilities as consumers not just as producers. In this remarkable comparative study, the authors examine these relationships across a number of cities in both Asia and the West.

In ‘Consumption, Cities and States: Comparing Singapore with Asian and Western Cities’, Ann Brooks and Lionel Wee focus on the interrelationship of consumption, citizenship and the state in the context of globalization, calling for greater emphasis to be placed on the citizen as consumer. While it is widely recognized that citizenship is increasingly defined by ‘gradations of esteem’, where different kinds of rights and responsibilities accrue to different categories and subcategories of ‘citizens’, not enough analytical focus has been given to how the status of being a citizen impacts the individual’s consumption. The interface between citizen status and consumer activity is a crucial point of analysis in light of the neoliberal assertion that individuals and institutions perform at their best within a free market economy, and because of the state’s expectations regarding citizens’ rights and responsibilities as consumers not just as producers. In this remarkable comparative study, the authors examine these relationships across a number of cities in both Asia and the West.

"Contemporary Art, World Cinema, and Visual Culture: Essays by Hamid Dabashi" is a collection of writings by the acclaimed cultural critic and scholar. A thorough Introduction rigorously frames chapters and identifies in Dabashi’s writings a comprehensive approach, which forms the criteria for selecting the essays for the volume. The Introduction also teases out of these essays the overarching theme that holds them together, the manner they inform a particularly critical angle in them and the way they cohere. The Introduction dwells on the work of one scholar, public intellectual and theorist of modern and contemporary arts to extrapolate more universal issues of concern to art criticism in general. These scattered materials and their underlying theoretical and critical logic are a unique contribution to the field of modern and contemporary arts.

This book looks at contemporary Gothic cinema within a transnational approach. With a focus on the aesthetic and philosophical roots which lie at the heart of the Gothic, the study invokes its literary as well as filmic forebears, by exploring how these styles informed strands of the modern filmic Gothic: the ghost narrative, folk horror, the vampire movie, cosmic horror and finally, the zombie film. In recent years, the concept of transnationalism has ‘trans’-cended its original boundaries, perhaps excessively in the minds of some. Originally defined in the wake of the rise of globalisation in the 1990s, as a way to study cinema beyond national boundaries, where the look and the story of a film reflected the input of more than one nation, or region, or culture. It was considered too confining to study national cinemas in an age of internationalization, witnessing the fusions of cultures, and post-colonialism, exile and diasporas. The concept allows us to appreciate the broader range of forces from a wider international perspective while at the same time also engaging with concepts of nationalism, identity and an acknowledgement of cinema itself. It also facilitated studies to focus on notions of hybridity where terms were not fixed but were constantly shifting and mobile.

The central idea of the book is that after horror/Gothic film was dragged into disrepute by the rise of torture porn and endless North American remakes, a set of international filmmakers are seeking to emphasize the aesthetic, artistic and philosophical potential of the Gothic. Such filmmakers include Guillermo del Toro (Crimson Peak), Ana Lily Amirpour (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night), Park Chan-wook (The Handmaiden, Stoker), Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In), Wim Wenders (Only Lovers Left Alive), Ben Wheatley (A Field in England), Jane Campion (Top of the Lake), and Carol Morley (The Falling).

Although written in an accessible manner, the book incorporates theory and engages extensively into research to tap into key developments in Gothic studies – transnationalism, fandom and genre fiction, and transmedia exchanges – bringing these together along with popular culture and associated phenomena.

This book looks at contemporary Gothic cinema within a transnational approach. With a focus on the aesthetic and philosophical roots which lie at the heart of the Gothic, the study invokes its literary as well as filmic forebears, by exploring how these styles informed strands of the modern filmic Gothic: the ghost narrative, folk horror, the vampire movie, cosmic horror and finally, the zombie film. In recent years, the concept of transnationalism has ‘trans’-cended its original boundaries, perhaps excessively in the minds of some. Originally defined in the wake of the rise of globalisation in the 1990s, as a way to study cinema beyond national boundaries, where the look and the story of a film reflected the input of more than one nation, or region, or culture. It was considered too confining to study national cinemas in an age of internationalization, witnessing the fusions of cultures, and post-colonialism, exile and diasporas. The concept allows us to appreciate the broader range of forces from a wider international perspective while at the same time also engaging with concepts of nationalism, identity and an acknowledgement of cinema itself. It also facilitated studies to focus on notions of hybridity where terms were not fixed but were constantly shifting and mobile.

The central idea of the book is that after horror/Gothic film was dragged into disrepute by the rise of torture porn and endless North American remakes, a set of international filmmakers are seeking to emphasize the aesthetic, artistic and philosophical potential of the Gothic. Such filmmakers include Guillermo del Toro (Crimson Peak), Ana Lily Amirpour (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night), Park Chan-wook (The Handmaiden, Stoker), Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In), Wim Wenders (Only Lovers Left Alive), Ben Wheatley (A Field in England), Jane Campion (Top of the Lake), and Carol Morley (The Falling).

Although written in an accessible manner, the book incorporates theory and engages extensively into research to tap into key developments in Gothic studies – transnationalism, fandom and genre fiction, and transmedia exchanges – bringing these together along with popular culture and associated phenomena.

This book examines how contemporary Taiwanese ghost films reimagine trauma, folklore, and identity within a dynamic and globally connected cinematic context.

Contestatory and Creative Poetics for a Time of Climate Catastrophe: Volume 1: Per Se is an extended narrative meditation upon the meaning of per se, which generally denotes the thing-in-itself, for its own sake – but that, upon closer examination, transpires to be a high tensile composite of the ‘thing’ (se) and a relationship (per) that always links it to something else – and indeed, in relations of internal complexity, to itself. Per se, in the book’s multiple parsings of the term, is a moniker for the infinite relationality of the world and the relationality of each thing in itself. Per se also denotes the endless fractal embedding of bundles of relationality at the successive levels of thing-ness from the infinitesimally minute nano-scale to the unimaginably distant outer reaches of the sideral. Per se becomes an exploration of the way commodities, cut loose from their context of production and floating on sea of oscillating (exchange) values, never cease to morph back into artefacts defined by the socially intensive use-values their fellow actants discover in them.

The book thus focalises a politicised effort to revision the rampant multiscalar individualism, solipsism and apartheid-like segregation of our age. Instead, it searches for possibilities or community in every aspect of the world we have learnt to see through a relentlessly atomising and hypostatising filter. The volume claims that every act of perception is political, reestablishing obfuscated connections, thereby seeking to repair the shredded fabric of the ecosphere below the threshold of myopic common-sense. Yet it also celebrates the myriad acts of citizen defiance, visible and invisible, that constitute activist agendas around the world, sending signals – both practical and exemplary, symbolic and literary – that shore up communities of resistance everywhere. The book does not hesitate to interrogate the fractal responsiveness to its own nature, meditating repeatedly on the political character of writing, and more significantly, of the teaching of writing.

Central to its concerns are various avatars of trees, from the pirogue that hangs above a bar in Lille, and one that is crafted as part of an Italian artist’s global collaboration on the periphery of this volume’s emergence, via the jacarandas of post-apartheid South Africa, to a wood-chipped pine forest that has become a memorial library in Oslo – to name only a few of the topics taken up by the book’s many silvan micro-fictions. Looming over all these concerns are two contemporary silvan catastrophes: the megablazes that destroyed forests in Amazonia, Australia, California, Siberia and the Mediterranean during the period when the book was being written and the deforestation that has allowed zoogenic diseases to jump from once secluded animal species to the humans that would never have been their neighbours if naturally occurring forest-barriers had been left intact.

Coolitude is both an intellectual interpretation of and a poetic and artistic immersion into the world of the vanished coolie. This collection of previously unpublished texts, poems and sketches captures the essence of the Indian plantation experience and deconstructs traditional depictions of the status of the coolie in the British Empire.

The concept of 'coolitude' encompasses the experiences of first generation workers together with those of their descendants spread across the Caribbean, Pacific and Indian Ocean islands today. The symbolic value of the word lies in both the scope it gives us to interpret the specificities of the coolie experience and its use as a comparative tool. The book embraces 'coolitude' in its various incarnations: the shared experience of the voyaging migrants, the walk from village to port town and the weeks spent on board ship. All Coolies, irrespective of whether they went to Fiji, South Africa, the West Indies or the Indian Ocean islands, underwent an exile from their Indian homeland. 'Coolitude' emphasizes their shared history.

Coolitude is both an intellectual interpretation of and a poetic and artistic immersion into the world of the vanished coolie. This collection of previously unpublished texts, poems and sketches captures the essence of the Indian plantation experience and deconstructs traditional depictions of the status of the coolie in the British Empire.

The concept of 'coolitude' encompasses the experiences of first generation workers together with those of their descendants spread across the Caribbean, Pacific and Indian Ocean islands today. The symbolic value of the word lies in both the scope it gives us to interpret the specificities of the coolie experience and its use as a comparative tool. The book embraces 'coolitude' in its various incarnations: the shared experience of the voyaging migrants, the walk from village to port town and the weeks spent on board ship. All Coolies, irrespective of whether they went to Fiji, South Africa, the West Indies or the Indian Ocean islands, underwent an exile from their Indian homeland. 'Coolitude' emphasizes their shared history.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) or billionaire philanthropy is like a Rorschach test – the same act can look very different depending on how we understand its intentions and its consequences. In this book the author examines the politics of CSR in India to assess its ability to advance inclusive and sustainable development. The focus is on how CSR is remaking the practices and agendas of civic organizations that are being encouraged to collaborate with business to advance equality and prosperity.

Civil society organizations (CSOs) and corporations have a history of hostility to each other. According to CSO workers, businesses selfishly exploit workers, despoil natural resources, and distort democracy to serve their own profit-making ends. According to business executives, CSOs are hopelessly naïve, inefficient, and interfere in the market in ways that reduce economic growth. And yet, in the past decade more and more CSOs and businesses are collaborating in new ways. Individuals from both sectors are setting up social impact enterprises, and social investing funds are increasing. The more traditional forms of corporate-CSO collaboration have expanded as more funds are flowing from business to the social sector. The divide between the corporate sector and civil society seems to be narrowing. Why is this happening and what are its consequences? This book examines these trends in India, where since 2013 the state has mandated co-operation between the largest firms and NGOs in pursuit of inclusive and sustainable development.

This book offers evidence that CSR is unlikely to contribute to inclusive and sustainable development. By claiming to be “helpers” corporations are able to silence their critics and thus avoid making the deeper shifts in business models needed in order to create a more just and sustainable society.

This book addresses an old and basic question: what is the moral order of the market? ‘Corporate Wrongdoing and the Art of the Accusation’ is an exploration of accusations of wrongdoing, and the revelations these accusations expose about the dark side of capitalism and modern corporations, and their relationships with suppliers, buyers, peers, investment banks and state regulators. The study explores data gathered from the past twenty years, including over a thousand accusations of economic wrongdoing in corporate America. The research traces exchange paths or structural routes; cultural recipes or ideas about wrongdoing; and interactions between the culture and structure of transgression in economic in markets.

Repertoires of accusation, and the three-way associations between accused, accuser and accusation, reveal the moral order of the market. The tools provided in this data collection and analysis provide a template for the study of the three-way relationship between the following: cultural items or types (i.e., accusation types), structural locations or paths (i.e., market interfaces) and time (i.e., temporal locations of types and paths, or recipes and routes). Repertoires unlock the moral order of the modern market and other institutions (family, politics, education, religion, science) as revealed in accusations of transgression.

This book addresses an old and basic question: what is the moral order of the market? ‘Corporate Wrongdoing and the Art of the Accusation’ is an exploration of accusations of wrongdoing, and the revelations these accusations expose about the dark side of capitalism and modern corporations, and their relationships with suppliers, buyers, peers, investment banks and state regulators. The study explores data gathered from the past twenty years, including over a thousand accusations of economic wrongdoing in corporate America. The research traces exchange paths or structural routes; cultural recipes or ideas about wrongdoing; and interactions between the culture and structure of transgression in economic in markets.

Repertoires of accusation, and the three-way associations between accused, accuser and accusation, reveal the moral order of the market. The tools provided in this data collection and analysis provide a template for the study of the three-way relationship between the following: cultural items or types (i.e., accusation types), structural locations or paths (i.e., market interfaces) and time (i.e., temporal locations of types and paths, or recipes and routes). Repertoires unlock the moral order of the modern market and other institutions (family, politics, education, religion, science) as revealed in accusations of transgression.

The novel coronavirus known as COVID-19 emerged in the city of Wuhan in December 2019 and has then spread across all over the world. Its spread has created trauma, death and destruction on its trail. It has also brought to fore many other related issues such as endemic poverty, racism, structural inequality, aggression and authoritarianism. Societies and nations have responded to these with lock downs which many a time have been done, as in the case of India, in a haste without taking into consideration the plight of the migrant labourers. In the case of the USA, lock down in places such as New York State began much later. In the USA, there have been varieties of responses to the virus as well as the lockdown and as well as ways to open up economies and societies.

Living with and beyond COVID-19 raises these issues of trauma – trauma of the virus and the accompanying illness and disease as well as traumas such as authoritarianism, racism and poverty. But trauma is not just natural. It is constructed, and constructed trauma has the potential to make us aware of our common suffering, fight against both the natural virus and the social virus, and create responsibility and solidarity. Living with COVID-19 and beyond also raises questions of appropriate ethics, politics and spirituality. It invites us to understand the multiple strands of our present condition and understand the critical ontology and genealogy of our viral present. It also challenges us to cultivate pathways of alternative planetary futures. It is not just enough to speak about post-COVID futures. Post-COVID futures without transformation of our contemporary economic, political and social conditions would not necessarily be better compared to our present situation.

Although modern tourism did not begin in Ireland, it developed there rapidly after 1750, making the island one of the first counties in which tourism became a driving economic and cultural factor. Based on the accounts of British and Anglo-Irish travelers, this book charts the development of tourism in Ireland from its origins in the mid-eighteenth century to the country's emergence as a major European tourist destination a century later. Ireland presents an example of how modern tourism developed as a self-organizing system. There were no tourist boards, no planning commissions, no government grants and no consultants.  Apart from some basic infrastructure, such as roads and hostelry, most of the elements needed to support tourism in Ireland emerged without over-arching planning, and coordination largely through the generally uncoordinated actions of landlords, entrepreneurs, and the peasantry.

Given its scenic attractions and proximity to Great Britain, Ireland’s position as a tourism Mecca might seem inevitable. Yet tourism in Ireland, as anywhere else in the eighteenth century, had to be invented. Mountains and lakes had to be reconfigured in the public imagination as tourist sites. Through the descriptive accounts of travel writers the sites had to be identified and defined in ways that made them attractive and meaningful to potential visitors. Landlords often opened and organized the sites for visitors. However, the actual activities on the ground - what the tourists viewed and experienced - evolved out of the interaction between the visitors and the veritable army of peasant guides, jarvies, vendors, porters, and beggars who greeted and served them. These contacts combined with British stereotypes regarding the Irish to create distinctly 'Irish' tourist experiences.

In addition to period travel writing, this work draws upon recent scholarship in the fields of tourism and travel studies to produce the first investigation of the history of the initial century of Irish tourism.

Although modern tourism did not begin in Ireland, it developed there rapidly after 1750, making the island one of the first counties in which tourism became a driving economic and cultural factor. Based on the accounts of British and Anglo-Irish travelers, this book charts the development of tourism in Ireland from its origins in the mid-eighteenth century to the country's emergence as a major European tourist destination a century later. Ireland presents an example of how modern tourism developed as a self-organizing system. There were no tourist boards, no planning commissions, no government grants and no consultants.  Apart from some basic infrastructure, such as roads and hostelry, most of the elements needed to support tourism in Ireland emerged without over-arching planning, and coordination largely through the generally uncoordinated actions of landlords, entrepreneurs, and the peasantry.

Given its scenic attractions and proximity to Great Britain, Ireland’s position as a tourism Mecca might seem inevitable. Yet tourism in Ireland, as anywhere else in the eighteenth century, had to be invented. Mountains and lakes had to be reconfigured in the public imagination as tourist sites. Through the descriptive accounts of travel writers the sites had to be identified and defined in ways that made them attractive and meaningful to potential visitors. Landlords often opened and organized the sites for visitors. However, the actual activities on the ground - what the tourists viewed and experienced - evolved out of the interaction between the visitors and the veritable army of peasant guides, jarvies, vendors, porters, and beggars who greeted and served them. These contacts combined with British stereotypes regarding the Irish to create distinctly 'Irish' tourist experiences.

In addition to period travel writing, this work draws upon recent scholarship in the fields of tourism and travel studies to produce the first investigation of the history of the initial century of Irish tourism.

Asia’s legendary playwright- director Stan Lai has written one of the unique works of our time, explaining that the mysterious act of creativity is actually a traceable function of mind, and there is a path to learn creativity through un-learning many of our habits picked up in life. His special map, as well as tailor-made exercises, lays out an awe-inspiring yet practical guide from a lifetime of creative work, revered in Asia by artists and business leaders alike. Through his extensive experience, the greatest living Asian playwright shows us how to cultivate a ‘creative app’ that works within us.
Matthieu Ricard says: “Stan Lai teaches us, how to see and how to do.” Praised by Jack Ma, Ang Lee and other luminaries, this book is a rewrite by the author of his book that is the most prominent work on creativity in China, having sold over 700,000 copies. Robert Wilson calls the work “foundational support for arts and culture.” Stan Lai is uniquely qualified to write on creativity, because he not only has four decades of creative experience, widely acclaimed as the greatest playwright in the Chinese language, but is also a dedicated educator. Shannon Jackson calls the work “A must-read from an internationally renowned artist.”
Can creativity be taught? Most of the books and training in this area deal with skills for jumpstarting alternative thinking, brainstorming and other exercises, but do not deal with creativity itself. They don’t tackle the obvious question: What is creativity and how can I get it? As one of the world's leading artists, Lai explains that the reason we don’t think creativity can be taught is that we don’t really understand what happens in the mysterious process. By slowing down the moment of inspiration, Lai lets us see exactly the elements involved in this complex process that lasts only an instant. Then he shows you how to prepare for this moment, through his unique Map of Creativity. This is a whole path of training in creativity, which he explains clearly and humour and compassion, and tailor-made exercises. Travis Preston says “Stan Lai guides us to the center of the creative moment and the ultimate unity of the spiritual and physical worlds.”
Creativitry is a milestone in understanding and learning the creative act. Born in America, raised in Taiwan, with a career spanning the Chinese diaspora, Lai believes that we are all born creative, but the source to creativity has been blocked, by life. How to take down the barriers that are blocking the source from us is a task of un-learning many things that have become habits and put us into a so-called non-creative mode. Taking his cue from his Buddhist training that wisdom and method are both needed for success in any endeavour, he explains how ‘wisdom’ has mysteriously vanished from education systems all over. Most teaching in creativity focuses on method, which one learns in one’s art. But we need another type of training, more urgently, the training for wisdom, which can only happen in the domain of life. To do, you must first be. To discover your creativity, you must first discover yourself. Octavian Saiu says, “This book is not a manual, but a statement of belief, an enduring message about how each of us can go beyond our limits.”

Following a short introduction, the book is arranged in seven chapters, each dealing with a specific genre and its main themes. The opening chapter considers how the village cricket story laid down the main tropes of cricket and fiction and established a defining relation between cricket, England’s green and pleasant land and national identity, especially in times of war and its aftermath. The second chapter develops the cricket, war and nation theme in the public school cricket novel, especially in the period of the South African (Boer) and First World Wars when cricket and war were frequently dramatised in similar terms. It also discusses the recurring treatment of homosexuality in the public school cricket novel and how the language of cricket was used to write about same-sex attraction. The next chapter breaks new ground in discussing how cricket has featured in murder mysteries. It demonstrates how well suited to each other the sport and the genre are – cricket providing a kind of open-air closed-room setting for a murder narrative – and explores the formal similarities between the shape and structure of a game of cricket and the procedures of the novel.
The following two chapters explore how amenable cricket fiction has proved as a medium for both comedy and tragedy. It discusses the inherent comic potential of cricket for fiction, the mishap and slapstick of a sport in which the box was introduced a century before the helmet. Cricket also has a long association with suicide as many observers of the game have noted. Fictional treatment of this tragic theme has focused on how a sport which is so time-consuming, both in the duration of a game and the extended career of those who play it, has made retirement difficult to manage and sometimes led to suicide.
As the English cricket story declined into insularity and nostalgia, and cricket ceased to be a subject for serious literary fiction, the post-colonial cricket novel emerged. The penultimate chapter considers how contemporary post-colonial novelists have revived and expanded the fictional possibilities of cricket by extending its global range and replenishing its traditional narratives to include previously unspoken issues of migration and race, thereby creating new kinds of stories. The concluding chapter looks at several apocalyptic end-of-the-world cricket stories and develops into a discussion of how cricket is both contributing to and threatened by global heating, raising the question of its sustainability as a sport and as a subject for fiction.

Following a short introduction, the book is arranged in seven chapters, each dealing with a specific genre and its main themes. The opening chapter considers how the village cricket story laid down the main tropes of cricket and fiction and established a defining relation between cricket, England’s green and pleasant land and national identity, especially in times of war and its aftermath. The second chapter develops the cricket, war and nation theme in the public school cricket novel, especially in the period of the South African (Boer) and First World Wars when cricket and war were frequently dramatised in similar terms. It also discusses the recurring treatment of homosexuality in the public school cricket novel and how the language of cricket was used to write about same-sex attraction. The next chapter breaks new ground in discussing how cricket has featured in murder mysteries. It demonstrates how well suited to each other the sport and the genre are – cricket providing a kind of open-air closed-room setting for a murder narrative – and explores the formal similarities between the shape and structure of a game of cricket and the procedures of the novel.
The following two chapters explore how amenable cricket fiction has proved as a medium for both comedy and tragedy. It discusses the inherent comic potential of cricket for fiction, the mishap and slapstick of a sport in which the box was introduced a century before the helmet. Cricket also has a long association with suicide as many observers of the game have noted. Fictional treatment of this tragic theme has focused on how a sport which is so time-consuming, both in the duration of a game and the extended career of those who play it, has made retirement difficult to manage and sometimes led to suicide.
As the English cricket story declined into insularity and nostalgia, and cricket ceased to be a subject for serious literary fiction, the post-colonial cricket novel emerged. The penultimate chapter considers how contemporary post-colonial novelists have revived and expanded the fictional possibilities of cricket by extending its global range and replenishing its traditional narratives to include previously unspoken issues of migration and race, thereby creating new kinds of stories. The concluding chapter looks at several apocalyptic end-of-the-world cricket stories and develops into a discussion of how cricket is both contributing to and threatened by global heating, raising the question of its sustainability as a sport and as a subject for fiction.

Informed by fourth-wave feminism, Crime Fiction in the Age of #MeToo presents a compelling and timely reading of crime fiction in the age of #MeToo. The book explores five major fourth-wave feminist topics, #MeToo, rape culture, toxic masculinity, LBGTQ+ perspectives, and transgender. These topics have been the subject of intense feminist scrutiny and campaigning, and the book demonstrates how this attention is reflected in contemporary crime fiction and its generic and thematic preoccupations. The book opens with a chapter presenting an overview of existing critical perspectives and feminist debates, demonstrating how fourth-wave feminist ideas and debates are inspiring innovations in the genre, as well as generating fresh ways of reading past and present crime fictions. Providing an overview and context for both fourth-wave feminism and the #MeToo movement, the chapter establishes the critical and cultural framework for its analysis. The chapter also outlines the book’s methodology and approach, detailing the contents of the chapters. Each of the five subsequent chapters uses critical vocabulary and concepts from feminism and the #MeToo movement to reassess canonical works and present new readings of contemporary crime fiction, producing compelling analyses of gender and genre. Canonical authors whose works are discussed include Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, Josephine Tey, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, and Val McDermid. Examining selected contemporary novels and short stories, the chapters in Crime Fiction in the Age of #MeToo provide fresh readings of both well-known and lesser-known crime authors. The contemporary authors whose work is examined are Lauren Henderson, Susan White, Jennifer Haigh, Allison Leotta, Y.A. Erskine, Heather Fitt, John Harvey, Dorothy Koomson, Pekka Hiltunen, Nekesa Afia, Michael Nava, Stella Duffy, Alex Reeve, V.T. Davy, and Dharma Kelleher.
Through its critical examination of crime fiction, Crime Fiction in the Age of #MeToo offers a powerful feminist analysis of the genre which draws links between literature and ongoing urgent social and cultural debates such as the #Metoo movement and fourth-wave feminism.

This volume seeks to bring to light the lived experiences of those who are at the lowest intersections of injustice—Indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities, refugees, disabled people, the youth, women, children and the poor. It is the fruit of a series of presentations that were delivered for the (In)justice International Workshops 2021 by a variety of commentators, ranging from eminent academics, students at all levels of study, practitioners within the fields of social work and ‘live experience’ alongside victims, esteemed barristers and social justice activists. 
These were presented to an audience of 524 attendees representing 28 countries and they formed the basis upon which broader, more holistic discussions of the lived experiences and traumas of people from different Indigenous origins, ethnicities, disabilities and the ‘so-called’ problematic youth (of all types) could take place.  Gender, social exclusion, institutional discrimination, the intersectional nature of these crimes and effects, (social) media influence and public perception were also prominent aspects of the presentations and ensuing deliberations.
Like this volume intends to do, the workshops uniquely combined the strengths and insights of social policy, sociology, politics and criminology whilst demonstrating a historical/cultural awareness of the issues at hand.  Presentations from this workshop that appear in this book facilitate a combination of theoretical knowledge with a deep awareness of pertinent interpretations of the past or present to promote a greater understanding of why political policies and directions have been embarked upon. In so doing, they—when taken in a multidisciplinary context—help to explain and describe some of the most devastating social outcomes relating to many of the political undertakings portrayed in each chapter.

This book explores fourteen international case studies of ‘crimes of the powerful’, both contemporary and historical. As such, it explores a hidden and often unknown area of criminal and immoral activity beyond the more commonly studied field of conventional or ‘street’ crimes. It offers a unique insight into different examples of criminality and immorality enacted by the powerful, including corporations, states and criminal networks. The case studies include little-known and more widely known events, offering a critical sociological or forensic analysis of each case. By doing so, the book explores what kinds of criminality or immorality the case exemplifies and identifies key contextual and legislative factors facilitating their occurrence and limiting the perpetrators’ accountability. The critical analytical approach situates the case studies within the wider context and considers the role of social, political and other factors, such as neoliberalism, colonialist histories, inequalities of race and gender and globalisation in their facilitation of particular kinds of immoral or criminal acts. Fundamentally, it explores the legacies of social harm produced by the case study events and how these have played out over time.

Drawing upon themes like disasters, medico-crimes, genocide, corporate crime, organised crime, colonial crimes and internment, the book explores key concepts like critical criminology, sociology and legislation combined with critical social policy. It will also include corporate crime, white collar crime, professional crime and social harm. These concepts will be outlined and then applied in the case studies as a way of understanding and analytically engaging with the individual cases.

Being highly topical, the book reflects a growing popular and academic interest in the social harms produced by the actions of the powerful relating to the legacies and consequences of colonialism, and the impacts of global inequalities, particularly in terms of race and gender. Offering a critical sociological perspective on these issues, the book presents a novel insight into criminality which has interdisciplinary relevance in diverse disciplines including criminology, sociology, social policy and law, geography, environmental studies, international politics and development, peace studies and critical gender studies.

This book responds to and informs, the rapid growth in adult, community, and further education in Ireland and beyond. Across 11 chapters, academic and practitioner insights are explored. There are chapters that focus on policy trends across the topics, some of which focus on current trends in policy and practice and some of which focus more deliberately on everyday practice.

The book opens with perspectives from some further education students who comment on some of the themes raised. These lead into an introduction which describes the landscape of a complex, heterogeneous FET sector and outlines what the authors mean by critical perspectives on adult, community and further education in Ireland.

This is followed by the philosophically oriented chapter one, written by Camilla Fitzsimons, that provides practical examples of possibilities for ‘engaged pedagogy’ amidst curricula that, on the surface appear far removed from the dimensions of power and privilege the book lays bare.

In chapter two, experienced further and higher education practitioner, Sarah Coss offers a practical and thought-provoking account of the challenges of working creatively and dialogically with FE curricula whilst at the same time attending to the many bureaucratised demands of accreditation and quality assurance frameworks.

Chapter three, written by Lilian Nwanze, builds a case for the importance of discussions about racism and white privilege in FE and proposes concrete actions to embody and anti-racist approach, the last of which is an emphasis on love.

In chapter four, Jane O’Kelly presents a reflexive exploration of neurodiversity in adults and prompts us to consider whether their needs are recognised and accommodated in further education and training settings.

In chapter five, Bríd Connolly explores ways in which a feminist egalitarian groupwork stance, can draw from social movements, adult and community education to create an FE pedagogy that challenges the status quo of education as a social institution.

In chapter six, Eilish Dillon reflects on why a critical approach to global citizenship education (GCE) is important and introduces some debates about the meaning and implementation of GCE.

In chapter seven, Jerry O’Neill’s partially-poetic chapter demonstrates a creative and critical approach to individual and group reflexive practices which, he argues, is core not just to the ongoing professional development of all FET practitioners and the sector itself, but can also be seen as form of practitioner-based creative research in itself.

Leo Casey follows in chapter eight by exploring some of the overlooked connections between adult learning and digital literacy and argues for a policy balance between models of human capital and the interests of big technology and how teaching and learning for Digital World Literacy can value lifelong learning.

In chapter nine, primary research by Eve Cobain, Suzanne Kyle and Susan Cullinane link community education to social movement theory and Ireland’s community development, anti-poverty movement of the 1980s and 1990s. They analyse the experiences of practitioners as they navigate the very different neoliberal oriented contemporary landscape.

In chapter ten, Brendan Kavanagh, Francesca Lorenzi and Elaine Macdonald explore the process of teacher identity and (trans)formation of what they term ‘second career teachers’ within further education colleges.

In chapter eleven, Camilla and Jerry highlight the very real challenges facing educators working in a field that is characterised by high levels of precarity and argue that realising a high-quality critical and sustainable, distinct professional pathway for emerging educators must become a policy priority for any government that is serious about recognising the value and potential of the FET sector.

In the methodological spirit of adult education, this contribution closes with a group dialogue between authors from across these chapters as we look forward to the work to be done and consider our hopes for the future of FET.

This book responds to and informs, the rapid growth in adult, community, and further education in Ireland and beyond. Across 11 chapters, academic and practitioner insights are explored. There are chapters that focus on policy trends across the topics, some of which focus on current trends in policy and practice and some of which focus more deliberately on everyday practice.

The book opens with perspectives from some further education students who comment on some of the themes raised. These lead into an introduction which describes the landscape of a complex, heterogeneous FET sector and outlines what the authors mean by critical perspectives on adult, community and further education in Ireland.

This is followed by the philosophically oriented chapter one, written by Camilla Fitzsimons, that provides practical examples of possibilities for ‘engaged pedagogy’ amidst curricula that, on the surface appear far removed from the dimensions of power and privilege the book lays bare.

In chapter two, experienced further and higher education practitioner, Sarah Coss offers a practical and thought-provoking account of the challenges of working creatively and dialogically with FE curricula whilst at the same time attending to the many bureaucratised demands of accreditation and quality assurance frameworks.

Chapter three, written by Lilian Nwanze, builds a case for the importance of discussions about racism and white privilege in FE and proposes concrete actions to embody and anti-racist approach, the last of which is an emphasis on love.

In chapter four, Jane O’Kelly presents a reflexive exploration of neurodiversity in adults and prompts us to consider whether their needs are recognised and accommodated in further education and training settings.

In chapter five, Bríd Connolly explores ways in which a feminist egalitarian groupwork stance, can draw from social movements, adult and community education to create an FE pedagogy that challenges the status quo of education as a social institution.

In chapter six, Eilish Dillon reflects on why a critical approach to global citizenship education (GCE) is important and introduces some debates about the meaning and implementation of GCE.

In chapter seven, Jerry O’Neill’s partially-poetic chapter demonstrates a creative and critical approach to individual and group reflexive practices which, he argues, is core not just to the ongoing professional development of all FET practitioners and the sector itself, but can also be seen as form of practitioner-based creative research in itself.

Leo Casey follows in chapter eight by exploring some of the overlooked connections between adult learning and digital literacy and argues for a policy balance between models of human capital and the interests of big technology and how teaching and learning for Digital World Literacy can value lifelong learning.

In chapter nine, primary research by Eve Cobain, Suzanne Kyle and Susan Cullinane link community education to social movement theory and Ireland’s community development, anti-poverty movement of the 1980s and 1990s. They analyse the experiences of practitioners as they navigate the very different neoliberal oriented contemporary landscape.

In chapter ten, Brendan Kavanagh, Francesca Lorenzi and Elaine Macdonald explore the process of teacher identity and (trans)formation of what they term ‘second career teachers’ within further education colleges.

In chapter eleven, Camilla and Jerry highlight the very real challenges facing educators working in a field that is characterised by high levels of precarity and argue that realising a high-quality critical and sustainable, distinct professional pathway for emerging educators must become a policy priority for any government that is serious about recognising the value and potential of the FET sector.

In the methodological spirit of adult education, this contribution closes with a group dialogue between authors from across these chapters as we look forward to the work to be done and consider our hopes for the future of FET.

This book is a new and exciting resource for teachers, students, and activists who aim to critically examine contemporary sexuality through the lens of sexual literacy and situated social analysis. This original anthology provides shorter cutting-edge essays on theory, method, and activism, including the nature of globalization and local sexuality discovered in ‘glocal’ topics, processes, and contexts. Within the anthology, students, educators, practitioners, and policy makers will find critical conversations regarding a wide array of sexual topics that impact our world currently. These cutting-edge essays inform readers of key moments in sexual history, including areas relating to research, practice, and social policy, and provide a platform from which to engage in rich discussion and forecast the development of sexual literacy in our world within multiple contexts.

Remarkable transformations in critical sexuality studies, sexual science, empirical and humanities-based studies, and human rights in the late-twentieth century reveal many of the complex conundrums of power that drive sexual study in the twenty-first century. Using the multi-faceted characteristics of sexuality literacy to engage critically and situationally across glocal factors, augmenting our ability to forecast sexuality issues, the book attempts answers for the following questions: What are the kinds of problems and solutions does applied critical sexual literacy work engage? How do we value one another and what political stakes are revealed when we do put one person over another? How do sexual identities and behaviors become authentic, meaningful, and important to comprehend in specific times and contexts? How does such work push forward pedagogy and allow forecasting the circumstances of tomorrow inasmuch as we can foresee?

This book is a new and exciting resource for teachers, students, and activists who aim to critically examine contemporary sexuality through the lens of sexual literacy and situated social analysis. This original anthology provides shorter cutting-edge essays on theory, method, and activism, including the nature of globalization and local sexuality discovered in ‘glocal’ topics, processes, and contexts. Within the anthology, students, educators, practitioners, and policy makers will find critical conversations regarding a wide array of sexual topics that impact our world currently. These cutting-edge essays inform readers of key moments in sexual history, including areas relating to research, practice, and social policy, and provide a platform from which to engage in rich discussion and forecast the development of sexual literacy in our world within multiple contexts.

Remarkable transformations in critical sexuality studies, sexual science, empirical and humanities-based studies, and human rights in the late-twentieth century reveal many of the complex conundrums of power that drive sexual study in the twenty-first century. Using the multi-faceted characteristics of sexuality literacy to engage critically and situationally across glocal factors, augmenting our ability to forecast sexuality issues, the book attempts answers for the following questions: What are the kinds of problems and solutions does applied critical sexual literacy work engage? How do we value one another and what political stakes are revealed when we do put one person over another? How do sexual identities and behaviors become authentic, meaningful, and important to comprehend in specific times and contexts? How does such work push forward pedagogy and allow forecasting the circumstances of tomorrow inasmuch as we can foresee?

This book is about the role of crowds in American society, culture, and politics. It builds on Gustave Le Bon’s The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (published in English in 1895 and thus in the public domain) and describes in detail Sigmund Freud’s 1921 book on group psychology, providing important insights into the nature of crowds. 

The book deals with some important aspects of American society, politics, and culture. It seeks to answer questions such as this: What do Trump’s followers (his crowds) see in him and why did so many people become insurrectionists on January 6, 2021, and attack the Capitol in an effort to prevent the counting of the electoral votes leading to the election of Joe Biden? It also considers crowds and cults and the role of crowds in Covid-19 and vaccine hesitancy, and opposition to vaccinations in the United States and elsewhere.

CSR and Sustainability promotes the need for social responsibility and sustainability and highlights their link with the big issues of society. It shows how science and positive thinking by humankind can prevent oft-vouched disasters due to human rights violation, global warming, growing income inequality (relative poverty), racism, gender discrimination and continuing absolute poverty. It looks at CSR in the US context and compares it with what has been going on in Europe, as well as elsewhere.

CSR and Sustainability promotes the need for social responsibility and sustainability and highlights their link with the big issues of society. It shows how science and positive thinking by humankind can prevent oft-vouched disasters due to human rights violation, global warming, growing income inequality (relative poverty), racism, gender discrimination and continuing absolute poverty. It looks at CSR in the US context and compares it with what has been going on in Europe, as well as elsewhere.

In self, society, religion and politics we are used to the language and discourse of Kingdom of God. But in this God is presented as an omnipotent king who is also angry at slight deviation. We get glimpses of such powerful and angry God in Old Testament as well as in many other religious traditions of the world. In such a discourse and portrayal of God, we fail to realize that God is mercy, rahim, karuna and compassion. God is our ever-awakened nurturer and He and She is continuously walking and meditating with us with mercy as well as firm challenges for self-development, mutual realizations and responsible cosmic engagement and participation.
The vision and discourse of Kingdom of God have many a time been confinedwithin a logic of power where we are prone to valorize God’s power in order to valorize our own power on Earth, especially the logic of sovereignty at the level of self and society, rather than realize God’s mercy. This has led to varieties of discourses of political theology in which we are much more preoccupied with power of God rather than God’s mercy. God here is also a powerful patriarch. Political theology from Thomas Hobbes to Carl Schmidt has been linked to violence in religion and politics as well. In this book, we explore the challenges of rethinking and transforming the existing and conventional discourse of Kingdom of God to Gardens of God.

This volume consists of four parts, comprising 15 chapters. It highlights the roles of culture and institutions on economic and social changes. The West is illustrated by the United States, Britain or Canada and the East, by chopstick economies such as China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Part I is the theoretical framework. It contains five chapters. Chapter 1 (Searching for the New Paradigm: Uncertainty and Learning in the Evolutionary Approach) employs the evolutionary perspective to interpret economic and social transformations. Chapter 2 (Culture and Institutions on Economic Transformation) explains the relationship between traditional belief/ideology/religion and culture. The West adopts rule of law while the East, rule by law. In chapter 3 (Quilt and Shame Cultures: Anglosphere versus Chopstick Economies), a Christian nation in Western economies, such as the United States, is identified as a society of guilt while chopstick economies in the East, such as China, are embedded with Confucianism, a society of shame. Cultural difference has implications on social control and educational reform. In chapter 4 (Chinese Legalism and European Mercantilism), contemporary China utilises Confucianism supplemented by Legalism to strengthen the state power. Legalism is akin to European Mercantilism. Chapter 5 (An Imagined Social World in the West and East) highlights the imagined world in the West and East.
Part II presents different cases in entrepreneurship and everyday life creativity. Chapter 6 (Entrepreneurship: Transformative and Adaptive) argues that the United States, due to individualism and self-assertion, brings technological breakthroughs in the world while Asian economies such as China receive training in Confucianism, and provide the world with mainly adaptive entrepreneurs and imitative products. Culture makes a difference in entrepreneurship and hence economic transformation. Chapter 7 (Intellectual Property Protection: The Case of Smartphone) explains the origin of the disputes in U.S.–China intellectual property protection. It is illustrated by Huawei, a learner in technological transfer. Chapter 8 (The ‘New Opium War’: On Supplying Fentanyl) argues that China’s ways of handling the production and consumption of fentanyl contrast sharply with the Western powers. Fentanyl crisis is the New Opium War! Chapter 9 (Electoral versus Authoritarian States: Combating Coronavirus Disease Pandemic) compares pandemic-associated measures in the United States and China. It reveals that culture counts in tackling global responses to infectious diseases. Chapter 10 (If Shakespeare Is the West, then Jin Yong is the East) compares the works of Shakespeare and Jin Yong. Shakespeare works focus on individualism and self-reliance while Yin Yong works stress on familism and patriotism.
Part III highlights the impacts of culture on Chinese economies. Chapter 11 (A Winning Tactic? Social Construction of Peasanty in Socialist China) explains how Mao Zedong turned Chinese peasanty, if not serfs, into a winning game for his party. Peasanty were ‘oppressed’ by their landlords. After painbearers cried out their suffering and killed the landlords, they could stand up again. They supported the Chinese Communist Party instead of the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang). Chapter 12 (Culture, Nationalism and Wolf Warrior Diplomacy) argues that foreign policy reflects culture and history. China’s wolf warrior diplomacy traces its roots back to culture. Chapter 13 (Impacts on Taiwan: Sharing the Same Culture versus Different Social Identity) examines whether the same culture will entail different impacts on Taiwan’s politics. It also explores whether different social identities affect Taiwan’s political affairs and economic transformation. To further reveal the impacts of cultural differences on policy change, the authors use Hong Kong as a case study (Chapter 14: British Hong Kong versus post-1997 Hong Kong). They examine if British ruling (representing Western culture) entails any impact on the economy and society in Hong Kong (now a Chinese city). Chapter 15 (Western Culture in Hong Kong: Hong Rengan and Ho Tung) explains and illustrates how Hong Rengan (Taiping Heavenly Kingdom) and Ho Tung (a member of Hong Kong Legislative Council) absorb Western knowledge in Hong Kong. Deeply embedded with Chinese culture, Hong could not help the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to establish a real republic in China. Ho’s flexibility and dual identities helped him work comfortably in Hong Kong, thus setting up a pre-condition for Hong Kong to move into a global financial centre.

Cultural Processes of Inequality: A Sociological Perspective shows how systematic inequality is produced and reproduced through mundane, often taken-for-granted practices of offering someone the benefit of the doubt and treating them in good faith or, alternatively, of withholding the benefit of the doubt and treating them in bad faith. This straightforward way of thinking about value and devaluation, privilege and discrimination, works across multiple forms of inequality and at social levels ranging from interpersonal interactions to large-scale institutions, while showcasing the importance of different levels and types of social power (decision-making power, cultural power and individual power).

Good-faith and bad-faith assumptions and practices intersect with moral inclusion and exclusion, processes by which certain people or groups of people are defined as deserving or undeserving of moral treatment, often with tragic consequences. Cultural Processes of Inequality covers ways in which good-faith and bad-faith assumptions and practices play out through moral alchemy, false equivalencies, self-fulfilling prophecies, positive and negative visibility and invisibility and the linking of social groups to definitions of social problems, providing contemporary U.S. examples of how these often-underutilized sociological concepts make sense of racism, sexism and heterosexism. The role of members of devalued groups in reproducing or struggling against their devaluation is also considered.

Cultural Processes of Inequality concludes with concrete actions individuals and groups can take to build a good-faith society and includes an appendix discussing key sociological concepts to make the book more useful to undergraduate students who have not previously taken a sociology course as well as discussion questions for students. Written for students in sociology classes and accessible to generally educated readers, Cultural Processes of Inequality sheds light on components of systematic inequality that too often go undiscussed even as they play a daily role in the injustice and the many harms of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and other forms of inequality.

Cultural Processes of Inequality: A Sociological Perspective shows how systematic inequality is produced and reproduced through mundane, often taken-for-granted practices of offering someone the benefit of the doubt and treating them in good faith or, alternatively, of withholding the benefit of the doubt and treating them in bad faith. This straightforward way of thinking about value and devaluation, privilege and discrimination, works across multiple forms of inequality and at social levels ranging from interpersonal interactions to large-scale institutions, while showcasing the importance of different levels and types of social power (decision-making power, cultural power and individual power).

Good-faith and bad-faith assumptions and practices intersect with moral inclusion and exclusion, processes by which certain people or groups of people are defined as deserving or undeserving of moral treatment, often with tragic consequences. Cultural Processes of Inequality covers ways in which good-faith and bad-faith assumptions and practices play out through moral alchemy, false equivalencies, self-fulfilling prophecies, positive and negative visibility and invisibility and the linking of social groups to definitions of social problems, providing contemporary U.S. examples of how these often-underutilized sociological concepts make sense of racism, sexism and heterosexism. The role of members of devalued groups in reproducing or struggling against their devaluation is also considered.

Cultural Processes of Inequality concludes with concrete actions individuals and groups can take to build a good-faith society and includes an appendix discussing key sociological concepts to make the book more useful to undergraduate students who have not previously taken a sociology course as well as discussion questions for students. Written for students in sociology classes and accessible to generally educated readers, Cultural Processes of Inequality sheds light on components of systematic inequality that too often go undiscussed even as they play a daily role in the injustice and the many harms of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and other forms of inequality.

McCarron approaches the work of Alfred Hitchcock in a way that is unique in the world of film critique. Rather, than provide a biographical overview, or consider Hitchcock’s work in the context of conventional film criticism, McCarron uses Hitchcock’s films to illustrate ideas at play in the social sciences and philosophy even as he uses those same ideas to illustrate central aspects of Hitchcock’s films. In short, while McCarron focuses on many of Hitchcock’s most celebrated films, his broader concern is with a series of ideas crucial to Hitchcock’s work as an innovative artist of the cinema. For example, McCarron interrogates the idea of the MacGuffin, Hitchcock’s famous term for the motivating issue in a film’s narrative. However, there is far more to the idea of the MacGuffin than is found in Hitchcock’s description, as McCarron shows how political theorist Ernesto Laclau’s theory of equivalential substitution effectively explains how the MacGuffin functions as a device to bridge the divide between the film’s exegesis and the audience’s emotional engagement in the story. In a similar vein, McCarron undertakes a close reading of Hitchcock’s theory of ‘pure cinema,’ indicating that while the concept is widely embraced by Hitchcock scholars, rarely do those scholars agree on what Hitchcock ultimately intended by the phrase. Tracing the development of the concept across the years, McCarron shows how Hitchcock’s theory of pure cinema resonates with anthropological concepts of purity and even finds a place in current debates regarding so-called hybrid media. McCarron further explores Hitchcock’s alleged moralism, showing how the problem of moral agency was often treated in Hitchcock’s films as a highly complex and decidedly ambiguous condition. McCarron indicates the importance of re-viewing Hitchcock’s films from points of view that plainly show that Hitchcock is not properly understood when simply described as ‘the master of suspense,’ as his films are of enduring interest for a range of reasons that go well beyond their relevance for traditional film studies. Interpretations of his films gain in power and scope when we extend our analyses to the intricate interpretations of his work as it touches on subjects as diverse as politics, feminism, rhetoric, and philosophy. McCarron treats these larger intellectual constellations in considerable detail, bringing a fresh perspective to the study of the famed director’s work.

In Culture and Conflicts in Sierra Leone Mining: Strangers, Aliens, Spirits, the author uses Sierra Leone as a case study to contribute to the debates on the causes and nature of mineral resource conflicts in Africa. Many works focus on the political economy of more sensitive large-scale mining conflicts. This book integrates cultural conflict dimensions, primarily the clash between the centuries-old customary landlord-stranger land governance institution and state mining policies and laws governing extraction.

Extractive industries as outsiders or strangers with no land rights threaten centuries-old cultural norms of indigenous landlords in mining regions. The Sierra Leone colonial government facilitated a stranger hierarchy through crafting legislation that redefined autochthony, citizenship, and micro-cultural identities concerning the stranger. Such actions further exacerbated power imbalances in race, ethnicity, gender, age, and social class. This legacy persists in postcolonial Sierra Leone threatening sustainable development mainly based on mineral extraction. The book shows that these cultural conflicts challenge the effective development of the mining sector, including establishing artisanal mining as a viable complementary livelihood to agriculture for rural populations.

Rather than focus on the well-documented large-scale “blood diamond” war from 1991 to 2001 as other studies have done, the book examines the less-investigated, persistent culture-related conflicts that are historically integral to mineral extraction. Such conflicts impact the efficient flow of mineral commodity chains. The book uses a world-system notion of commodity chains characterized by unequal economic exchange and unequal ecological exchange. And it highlights, specifically, an unequal cultural exchange that impacts cultural heritage, including customary livelihoods, indigenous land rights, and sacred places, and favors a Western cultural universalism. Itexamines mining policies and laws of the government of Sierra Leone in a historical context to assess their efficacy by highlighting colonial relics that continue to thwart development efforts. Her work underscores the need for effective participation by vulnerable and marginalized communities in decision-making processes on matters important to their economic, environmental, and sociocultural sustainability.

The interdisciplinary work highlights how culture, history, environment, and society intertwine in the Sierra Leone mining industry and the effects of global, transnational, and local dynamics and interactions.

This volume explores the interconnections between culture, ideology and hegemony in an effort to understand and explain how Indians came to terms with colonial subjection and envisioned a future for the society in which they lived. The process of exploring the indigenous epistemological tradition and assessing it in the context of advances made by the west was not unilinear and undifferentiated; it was driven with contradictions, contentions and ruptures. Locating intellectual history at the intersection of social and cultural history, the eight essays in this book cover a wide range of issues, moving from an overview of religious and social ideas in colonial India to empirical studies of themes such as indigenous medicine, the family and literary fiction.

Professor Panikkar contests both the imperialist and nationalist paradigms of intellectual history. Meticulously researched and lucidly argued, his analysis is illuminated by a rare sensitivity to the nature of class formation and class values, as well as to the material conditions of human existence.

This volume explores the interconnections between culture, ideology and hegemony in an effort to understand and explain how Indians came to terms with colonial subjection and envisioned a future for the society in which they lived. The process of exploring the indigenous epistemological tradition and assessing it in the context of advances made by the west was not unilinear and undifferentiated; it was driven with contradictions, contentions and ruptures. Locating intellectual history at the intersection of social and cultural history, the eight essays in this book cover a wide range of issues, moving from an overview of religious and social ideas in colonial India to empirical studies of themes such as indigenous medicine, the family and literary fiction.

Professor Panikkar contests both the imperialist and nationalist paradigms of intellectual history. Meticulously researched and lucidly argued, his analysis is illuminated by a rare sensitivity to the nature of class formation and class values, as well as to the material conditions of human existence.

‘Darwin, Tennyson and Their Readers’ is an edited collection of essays from leading authorities in the field of Victorian literature and science, including Gillian Beer and George Levine. The academic study of the interpenetration of Victorian literature and science has grown to be one of the largest and most dynamic areas in Victorian studies: in this collection, leading exponents in the field consider recent developments. The major figures and exact contemporaries, Charles Darwin and Alfred, Lord Tennyson are considered, in the company of John Ruskin, Thomas Huxley, Richard Owen, George Meredith, Oscar Wilde and others. Throughout, the stress is on the ways in which these writers read and were influenced by each other. Our current understanding of this complex cultural dialogue is illustrated here in a single accessible volume of essays by established scholars in this dynamic academic interdiscipline.

‘Darwin, Tennyson and Their Readers’ is an edited collection of essays from leading authorities in the field of Victorian literature and science, including Gillian Beer and George Levine. The academic study of the interpenetration of Victorian literature and science has grown to be one of the largest and most dynamic areas in Victorian studies: in this collection, leading exponents in the field consider recent developments. The major figures and exact contemporaries, Charles Darwin and Alfred, Lord Tennyson are considered, in the company of John Ruskin, Thomas Huxley, Richard Owen, George Meredith, Oscar Wilde and others. Throughout, the stress is on the ways in which these writers read and were influenced by each other. Our current understanding of this complex cultural dialogue is illustrated here in a single accessible volume of essays by established scholars in this dynamic academic interdiscipline.

The book, anchored in stimulating debates on enlightenment ideas of the public that culminated and ended in the early 20th century, focuses on historical changes in the core phenomena of publicness: possibilities, conditions and obstacles to developing a public sphere in which publics create, articulate and express public opinion by means of reflexive publicity within an established democratic public culture. Specifically, it is focused on three central topics:

• a general historical transformation from “opining” – essentially some people’s view of what “the public” thought – through the identification of “public opinion” in opinion polls, up to the contemporary establishment of “what people think/want” using computer-based analysis of the big data available from digital records, in which the enlightenment idea of public expression of opinion has been replaced by the technology of extracting opinions; 
• the origins and consequences, and the similarities and differences of the rise and fall of two related concepts – public opinion and the public sphere – in historically particular periods, which have in common that they both lie in the boundary area between normative-theoretical and empirical orientation and suffer from unreliable definition and operationalization, which can only be resolved by a closer connection between the two concepts and areas.
• a specific historical intervention created by the domestication of the German concept Öffenntlichkeit in English as “the public sphere,” heralding a new critical impetus in theory and research of publicness at a time when critical social thought sharply criticised and even abandoned the notion of public opinion due to its predominantly administrative use.

The book seeks to transcend the division into normative-critical theoretical conceptualisation and “constructive” empirical application in the social sciences to show how critical theory can be empirically applicable and empirical research normatively constructive, and to demonstrate the need for greater connectivity between them. 

‘Day of the Angel’ follows the fates and fortunes of three generations of the Ushakov family, members of the Russian émigré community living in Paris following the Revolution. Against the historical background of totalitarian terror, famine and war, depicted in harrowing detail as an epic struggle between the powers of good and evil, the family becomes swept up in a tide of events largely beyond their control.

Interspersed with extracts from relatives’ diaries and letters, together with contemporary documentary accounts of the great famine, Dmitry Ushakov must find inner peace and a way to love amidst the chaos of his life.

Yoshio Kita’s hopelessness and lack of faith in his future as an ordinary and lonely company worker crystallizes into a decision to take his own life, in what he calls ‘execution by Death by Choice’. His only remaining problem is how to spend both his remaining self-allocated seven days on earth and all his worldly money, in this darkly comic exploration of the cult of suicide in Japan, a country with one of the world’s highest rates of suicide. From fine dining with a former porn actress to insuring his life, from pursuing his ex-girlfriend to an entanglement with an assassin, Yoshio’s last seven days on earth take on unexpected twists and turns as Shimada asks his readers what it means to have the freedom to end your own life, and what becomes truly important when your days are numbered – even if it is by free choice.

Sensitively translated by Meredith McKinney, this tale of a very modern Japan is now for the first time available to English readers.   Sensitively translated by Meredith McKinney, this tale of a very modern Japan is now for the first time available to English readers.  

“Death of a Prototype” is the first work by Victor Beilis to make it into English since the single-volume publication in 2002 of a duo of novellas—“The Rehabilitation of Freud & Bakhtin and Others”( translated by Richard Grose). Much like the novellas that preceded it, “Death of a Prototype” is a hyper-allusive and self-consciously ‘difficult’ work: Beilis delights in intertextual play, inviting the reader to unravel a complex web of quotations, references and paraphrases. The author engages closely with an entire spectrum of Russian and European cultural traditions, from classical antiquity to twentieth-century postmodernism. The visual arts unsurprisingly play a particularly important role in the novel. So, too, is visuality in general: seeing and being seen, acts of perception and observation, gazing, glancing and glimpsing. The reader is confronted with an intimidating array of literary styles, all jostling against one another. Alongside several dialogue-heavy chapters—not all that different stylistically from much contemporary fiction—readers encounter poetic, archaicized prose, self-referential literary analysis, Joycean stream of consciousness, among others. 

This collection of poetry brings to life many of the important patterns of development in the verse of the late-Victorian period, and offers a fuller reflection of ‘decadence’ than those anthologies confined to the 1890s. ‘Major’ writers such as Tennyson, Browning, Hardy and Hopkins are presented alongside less well-known poets, fifty of whom are female, and other traditional figures such as Stevenson, William Morris and Christina Rossetti are given a fresh look. The book also contains a comparative chronology of prose 1872-1900 and of movements in the visual arts. Accompanied by an acclaimed critical commentary, the volume enables readers to discover poetry in the wider context of the literary, aesthetic and intellectual forces of the late-Victorian world as a whole.

This collection of poetry brings to life many of the important patterns of development in the verse of the late-Victorian period, and offers a fuller reflection of ‘decadence’ than those anthologies confined to the 1890s. ‘Major’ writers such as Tennyson, Browning, Hardy and Hopkins are presented alongside less well-known poets, fifty of whom are female, and other traditional figures such as Stevenson, William Morris and Christina Rossetti are given a fresh look. The book also contains a comparative chronology of prose 1872-1900 and of movements in the visual arts. Accompanied by an acclaimed critical commentary, the volume enables readers to discover poetry in the wider context of the literary, aesthetic and intellectual forces of the late-Victorian world as a whole.

This book discusses several EU intuitions based upon how they vote. Two of the seven official EU institutions represent only the member states: they are the European Council (27 heads of state or government) and the Council of the European Union (government ministers from the member states, e.g., 27 agricultural ministers). First, the so-called European Council exclusively decides by unanimity. The extant literature holds that this slows down the decisionmaking process considerably, as the number of member states increases. This is the case because any given member country could take all others “hostage” by refusing to consent without extracting concessions.
On the other end of the spectrum, the so-called Council of the European Union takes the vast majority of its decisions by what is termed qualified majority—55% of the members (i.e., with the current 27 countries, this means 15) representing at least 65% of the total EU population. In this case, the former hostage holders can now simply be outvoted. Hence, the latter European Union institution could be a likely candidate for a practical solution to the unanimity-voting quagmire.

This book is the product of an endless individual and collective process of mourning. It departs from the author’s mourning for her parents, their histories and struggles in Germany as Gastarbeiter, while it also engages with the political mourning of intersectional feminist movements against feminicide in Central and South America; the struggles against state and police misogynoir violence of #SayHerName in the United States; the resistance of refugees and migrantized people against the coloniality of migration in Germany; and the intense political grief work of families, relatives, and friends who lost their loved ones in racist attacks from the 1980s until today in Germany. Bearing witness to their stories and accounts, this book explores how mourning is shaped both by its historical context and the political labor of caring commons, while it also follows the building of a conviviality infrastructrueof support against migration-coloniality necropolitics, dwelling toward transformative and reparative practices of common justice.

This book is the product of an endless individual and collective process of mourning. It departs from the author’s mourning for her parents, their histories and struggles in Germany as Gastarbeiter, while it also engages with the political mourning of intersectional feminist movements against feminicide in Central and South America; the struggles against state and police misogynoir violence of #SayHerName in the United States; the resistance of refugees and migrantized people against the coloniality of migration in Germany; and the intense political grief work of families, relatives, and friends who lost their loved ones in racist attacks from the 1980s until today in Germany. Bearing witness to their stories and accounts, this book explores how mourning is shaped both by its historical context and the political labor of caring commons, while it also follows the building of a conviviality infrastructrueof support against migration-coloniality necropolitics, dwelling toward transformative and reparative practices of common justice.

This edited collection aims to contribute to the decolonial social and cultural analyses of global entangled inequalities by focusing on their local articulations. Drawing on empirical research conducted by scholars in Germany, Trinidad and Tobago, Australia and in Canada, the book engages with the conceptual framework of global inequalities and the methodological perspective on entanglement. It does so by approaching global inequalities and their local articulations: (a) global political economy, structural violence, entangled inequalities; (b) financial inequalities and state injustice; (c) inequality within and beyond race and ethnicity; (d) decolonial struggles against inequality; and (e) decolonial futurities. It is on these grounds that this edited volume aims to contribute to the analysis of entangled global inequalities by mobilizing a decolonial framework paying attention to the intersections of race, gender, labour, finances and the State.

“Decolonizing the Diet” challenges the common claim that native American communities were decimated after 1492 because they lived in “virgin soils” that were distinct from those in the Old World. Comparing the European transition from Paleolithic hunting and gathering with native American subsistence strategies before and after 1492, this book offers a new way of understanding the link between biology, ecology and history. After examining the history and bioarchaeology of ancient Europe, the ancient Near East, ancient native America and Europe during the medieval Black Death, this book sets out to understand the subsequent collision between indigenous peoples and Europeans in North America from 1492 to the present day. Synthesizing the latest work in the science of nutrition, immunity, and evolutionary genetics with cutting edge scholarship on the history of indigenous North America, this book highlights a fundamental model of human demographic destruction—Human populations have been able to recover from mass epidemics within a century, whatever their genetic heritage. They fail to recover from epidemics when their ability to hunt, gather and farm nutritionally dense plants and animals is diminished by war, colonization and cultural destruction. The history of native America before and after 1492 clearly shows that biological immunity is contingent on historical context, not least in relation to the protection or destruction of long-evolved nutritional building blocks that underlie human immunity.

“Decolonizing the Diet” cautions against assuming that certain communities are more prone to metabolic syndromes and infectious diseases, whether due to genetic differences or a comparative lack of exposure to specific pathogens. This book refocuses our understanding on the ways in which human interventions—particularly in food production, nutritional accessibility and ecology—have exacerbated demographic decline in the face of disease; both in terms of reduced immunity prior to infection and reduced ability to fight pathogenic invasion.

“Decolonizing the Diet” provides a framework to approach contemporary health dilemmas, both inside and outside native America. Many developed nations now face a medical crisis: so-called “diseases of civilization” have been linked to an evolutionary mismatch between our ancient genetic heritage and our present social, nutritional and ecological environments. The disastrous European intervention in native American life after 1492 brought about a similar—though of course far more destructive— mismatch between biological needs and societal context. The curtailment of nutritional diversity is related to declining immunity in the face of infectious disease, to diminishing fertility and to the increasing prevalence of metabolic syndromes such as diabetes. “Decolonizing the Diet” thus intervenes in a series of historical and contemporary debates that now extend beyond native America—while noting the specific destruction wrought on indigenous nutritional systems after 1492.

“Decolonizing the Diet” challenges the common claim that native American communities were decimated after 1492 because they lived in “virgin soils” that were distinct from those in the Old World. Comparing the European transition from Paleolithic hunting and gathering with native American subsistence strategies before and after 1492, this book offers a new way of understanding the link between biology, ecology and history. After examining the history and bioarchaeology of ancient Europe, the ancient Near East, ancient native America and Europe during the medieval Black Death, this book sets out to understand the subsequent collision between indigenous peoples and Europeans in North America from 1492 to the present day. Synthesizing the latest work in the science of nutrition, immunity, and evolutionary genetics with cutting edge scholarship on the history of indigenous North America, this book highlights a fundamental model of human demographic destruction—Human populations have been able to recover from mass epidemics within a century, whatever their genetic heritage. They fail to recover from epidemics when their ability to hunt, gather and farm nutritionally dense plants and animals is diminished by war, colonization and cultural destruction. The history of native America before and after 1492 clearly shows that biological immunity is contingent on historical context, not least in relation to the protection or destruction of long-evolved nutritional building blocks that underlie human immunity.

“Decolonizing the Diet” cautions against assuming that certain communities are more prone to metabolic syndromes and infectious diseases, whether due to genetic differences or a comparative lack of exposure to specific pathogens. This book refocuses our understanding on the ways in which human interventions—particularly in food production, nutritional accessibility and ecology—have exacerbated demographic decline in the face of disease; both in terms of reduced immunity prior to infection and reduced ability to fight pathogenic invasion.

“Decolonizing the Diet” provides a framework to approach contemporary health dilemmas, both inside and outside native America. Many developed nations now face a medical crisis: so-called “diseases of civilization” have been linked to an evolutionary mismatch between our ancient genetic heritage and our present social, nutritional and ecological environments. The disastrous European intervention in native American life after 1492 brought about a similar—though of course far more destructive— mismatch between biological needs and societal context. The curtailment of nutritional diversity is related to declining immunity in the face of infectious disease, to diminishing fertility and to the increasing prevalence of metabolic syndromes such as diabetes. “Decolonizing the Diet” thus intervenes in a series of historical and contemporary debates that now extend beyond native America—while noting the specific destruction wrought on indigenous nutritional systems after 1492.

Defining Hybrid Heroes: The Leadership Spectrum from Scoundrel to Saint defines the hero (and his or her journey) from a hybrid perspective, exploring the spectrum from scoundrel to saint. It utilizes a more dynamic and situational outlook, regarding heroism not only as a personal characteristic, but also as a series of heroic acts within a given situation.

The book examines the hybrid hero from several distinctive points of view, e.g. through lenses dominated by fiction, business, politics and psychology, and paints a new, more complex portrait that takes full advantage of the authors’ varied backgrounds. Inge Brokerhof has an academic background in psychology and has studied the impact of narrative fiction on workplace variables, such as career identity, employability and moral leadership. Stephan Sonnenburg has studied Joseph Campbell and the impact of the hero’s journey on creativity and innovation management. Greg Stone is a communications consultant who teaches executives and professors how to explain their work in clear and compelling language.

Defining Hybrid Heroes: The Leadership Spectrum from Scoundrel to Saint defines the hero (and his or her journey) from a hybrid perspective, exploring the spectrum from scoundrel to saint. It utilizes a more dynamic and situational outlook, regarding heroism not only as a personal characteristic, but also as a series of heroic acts within a given situation.

The book examines the hybrid hero from several distinctive points of view, e.g. through lenses dominated by fiction, business, politics and psychology, and paints a new, more complex portrait that takes full advantage of the authors’ varied backgrounds. Inge Brokerhof has an academic background in psychology and has studied the impact of narrative fiction on workplace variables, such as career identity, employability and moral leadership. Stephan Sonnenburg has studied Joseph Campbell and the impact of the hero’s journey on creativity and innovation management. Greg Stone is a communications consultant who teaches executives and professors how to explain their work in clear and compelling language..

This book will be at once theoretical and practical, with a combination of substantial intellectual content to satisfy an academic audience and a series of specific recommendations to meet the needs of thinking managers seeking to improve their leadership skills. In the “real world” of business, leaders are often both scoundrel and saint. They are role models and anti-models at the same time. The authors show how they can make these warring traits work for them and how academics can gain a new perspective on approaching leadership and management.

Creeping slow death of the human brain’s ability to reason, function, remember and respond, poses a family tragedy. As major increases in the volume of dementia cases have been predicted for the coming decade, this book is ever more needed to cut through the clutter of assumptions and anecdotes. It explains governmental and private entities’ benefit programs for aiding dementia patients. The text faces the sad crisis of widespread dementia, explains how government and insurers do and should respond, and integrates sophisticated medical tactics with vital cooperative responses by families and friends to their loved one’s mental health crisis.

Demilitarizing the Future draws from art, anthropology, and activism to investigate the entrenchment of militarism in everyday lives and consider novel imaginaries of its dissolution—of peacemaking, community, and shared equitable futures. The pieces collected in this anthology track across the Korean DMZ, fortified homes of high-crime Jamaica, the tenements of Palestine, police drones in the skies over U.S. cities, and other sites in the global networks of warfare and military preparedness. The authors represent various fields from anthropology, poetry, literary studies, and community organizing to together present a multidisciplinary collection of creative scholarship. In addition to typical chapters with empirically backed arguments, we include one anthropologist-poet contributor, Nomi Stone, and one photographer, Boone Nguyen, who both showcase the interdisciplinary experiments of our humanistic social science about militarized landscapes. Rather than presuming that the aftermath of war requires the reimposition of new military infrastructures, we have collected a variety of pieces that speak to the socially and artistically generative potentialities of military waste infrastructures as well as their enduring toxicities. Militarism and preparedness for war undergirds the infrastructure and design of everyday lives across the globe and its satellites, but the processes of demilitarization offer their own forms and affordances. Within this collection, we do not insist on a dichotomy between militarism and demilitarization, but rather invite our authors and artists to depict these forces as a categorical range with interdependent imaginaries.

Trade unions are central to Australian social, economic and political life. They are the largest voluntary organisations in the country, are a significant presence in political life, and, as workplace organisations, are often the only effective vehicle to give voice to working people. Their role is nevertheless under serious challenge, with low and declining union density and shrinking coverage of collective bargaining. Controversies surrounding several union officials have called into the question the legitimacy of trade unions. And for some governments, trade unions are not social partners but rather targets of restrictive legislation.

Despite these tensions, there has yet to be a broad and systematic scholarly engagement with the challenge to the centrality of trade unions in Australian social, economic and political life. Existing literature tends either to examine trade unionism from an historical perspective or to focus upon the regulation of the role of unions in the workplace.

This book aims to fill this gap by bringing together leading scholars in industrial relations, law, political science and political philosophy to critically assess the role of Australian trade unions. In doing so, it is organised according to two themes. First, the book examines the democratic role of trade unions as representatives of working people and addresses issues such as economic democracy and the rule of law in the workplace, political funding and trade agreements. Second, the book examines the social justice role of trade unions in providing a countervailing force to employer power including in relation to precarious work, the 'gig' economy, labour migration and the pressing global challenge of climate change. The concluding contribution weaves these two themes of democracy and social justice together in proposing a democratic socialist vision of trade unions and labour law.

The conventional wisdom on coral reef management tells us that decentralized management, where the government shares power with local people, has both economic and ecological benefits. Three decades of research show that grassroots, stakeholder-focused management allows communities to collaboratively and sustainably manage reefs. “The people” began demanding a seat at the table in the 1990s, with decentralized management even becoming a requirement for international donor-funded development projects. Nowadays, the inclusion of stakeholders, with governments even asking for their help, is the norm. Much of the literature on coral reef management has documented the social and ecological impacts of an increasingly participatory style of management all over the world. But it is yet to be seen how this participatory management will deal with emerging threats such as climate change. 

Climate change is increasingly recognized as the greatest threat to coral reefs, outweighing local stressors such as overfishing. Similarly, global private multinational companies now hold concentrated power that rivals that of many national governments. Companies’ decisions made without any input from local communities are increasingly impacting global ecosystems, especially coral reefs. A puzzle has emerged for decision-makers and stakeholders alike: How can participatory management institutions respond to global environmental change? How does conservation policy enable (or diminish) “the people” to have their voices heard despite power differentials? This book poses some initial answers to this puzzle, drawing on the academic discipline of public policy.

We focus on democratic, participatory, stakeholder-driven forms of coral reef management and how they are meeting new challenges in recent years. It begins with the story of grassroots activists in the Cayman Islands who organized the first-ever people’s referendum against the incredibly powerful interests of the international cruise industry to prevent destruction of local reefs. How did this social movement contest power so effectively? Then, our focus moves to another case where grassroots activists, specifically the “Reef Guardians” of South Florida, organized to fight reef destruction in American courts. This case is unique and interesting as the American Federal Government was damaging reefs, working at cross purposes with other branches of the federal government tasked with protecting reefs. Why was the federal government violating its own species protection laws? How did people’s movements ensure accountability? Thus, the book examines how subnational jurisdictions, primarily states, manage immense coral reef resources through an in-depth look at the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. This sanctuary was the first stakeholder-driven marine-protected area in the United States, one that is rapidly adapting to global change. Finally, we examine how one of the most important democratic institutions in the world, the United States Congress, is responding to global change in American reefs. Congress’s response to climate-driven coral bleaching is interesting because lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are coming together to make legislation on coral conservation despite the partisan rancor and gridlock that characterized the Trump regime.

In 'Depoliticizing Development', John Harriss explores the origins of the idea of social capital and its diverse meanings in the work of James Coleman, Pierre Bourdieu and, more specifically, Robert Putnam, who is most responsible for the extraordinary rise of the idea of social capital through his work on Italy and the United States. Harriss asks why this notion should have taken off in the dramatic way that it has done and finds in its uses by the World Bank the attempt, systematically, to obscure class relations and power. Social capital has thus come to play a significant part in the discourses of international development, which go toward comprising 'the anti-politics machine'. This powerful and lucid critique will be of immense value to all those interested in development studies, including sociologists, economists, planners, NGOs and other activists.

In 'Depoliticizing Development', John Harriss explores the origins of the idea of social capital and its diverse meanings in the work of James Coleman, Pierre Bourdieu and, more specifically, Robert Putnam, who is most responsible for the extraordinary rise of the idea of social capital through his work on Italy and the United States. Harriss asks why this notion should have taken off in the dramatic way that it has done and finds in its uses by the World Bank the attempt, systematically, to obscure class relations and power. Social capital has thus come to play a significant part in the discourses of international development, which go toward comprising 'the anti-politics machine'. This powerful and lucid critique will be of immense value to all those interested in development studies, including sociologists, economists, planners, NGOs and other activists.

The field of poster studies is vast, but it is surprising how little work has been done till date on the fundamental structures – semiotic and semantic – that underpin the visual messages posters produce. Most studies of posters focus either on their history; on specific themes – politics, travel, sport, cinema; or on their status as collectable items. Though such approaches are valid, they hardly account for the specificity of the poster’s appeal or for the complex semiotic and cultural issues poster art raises. This book sets out to tackle these latter issues since they are fundamental both to the deeper significance and to the wider appeal of the poster as a cultural form. 

In doing so it focuses on the field of airline travel posters which developed precisely in the period of the twentieth century (1920–1970) that coincided with the onset of mass travel. The romance and excitement of fast travel to exotic destinations stimulated some memorable poster images that today have lost none of their magic. Since posters are cultural signs, to understand better how they work and the value attached to them even after their commercial or political message has been communicated, it is useful to analyse them in terms of both their sociocultural histories and their semiological structures. What this book sets out to do is to combine these approaches in such a way as to enhance the viewer/reader’s understanding of both the cultural and the semiological aspects of the poster and to show how the interaction of these aspects produces the specific quality of its messages.

Although posters are essentially word/image constructs, little attention has been paid to this fundamental aspect of their semiological structures. While Roland Barthes (1964) and other structuralist semioticians of the 1960s and 1970s –in France in particular – have made inroads into what is at stake in the poster’s word/ image structure, this book pursues the implications of this for the rhetoric of persuasion that is activated by the poster in fulfilling its dual function as provider of information and agent of seduction. For the poster, from the start of the twentieth century, has established a conventional repertory of textual/visual motifs that it has applied across a wide range of communicative functions – political, commercial and artistic. The aim of this book is to analyse the way these motifs are structured since they reveal much about the way cultural messages are produced and the way the poster is able to promote both a specific, product-centred message and aesthetic pleasure through a multiplicity of connotations.

The field of poster studies is vast, but it is surprising how little work has been done till date on the fundamental structures – semiotic and semantic – that underpin the visual messages posters produce. Most studies of posters focus either on their history; on specific themes – politics, travel, sport, cinema; or on their status as collectable items. Though such approaches are valid, they hardly account for the specificity of the poster’s appeal or for the complex semiotic and cultural issues poster art raises. This book sets out to tackle these latter issues since they are fundamental both to the deeper significance and to the wider appeal of the poster as a cultural form. 

In doing so it focuses on the field of airline travel posters which developed precisely in the period of the twentieth century (1920–1970) that coincided with the onset of mass travel. The romance and excitement of fast travel to exotic destinations stimulated some memorable poster images that today have lost none of their magic. Since posters are cultural signs, to understand better how they work and the value attached to them even after their commercial or political message has been communicated, it is useful to analyse them in terms of both their sociocultural histories and their semiological structures. What this book sets out to do is to combine these approaches in such a way as to enhance the viewer/reader’s understanding of both the cultural and the semiological aspects of the poster and to show how the interaction of these aspects produces the specific quality of its messages.

Although posters are essentially word/image constructs, little attention has been paid to this fundamental aspect of their semiological structures. While Roland Barthes (1964) and other structuralist semioticians of the 1960s and 1970s –in France in particular – have made inroads into what is at stake in the poster’s word/ image structure, this book pursues the implications of this for the rhetoric of persuasion that is activated by the poster in fulfilling its dual function as provider of information and agent of seduction. For the poster, from the start of the twentieth century, has established a conventional repertory of textual/visual motifs that it has applied across a wide range of communicative functions – political, commercial and artistic. The aim of this book is to analyse the way these motifs are structured since they reveal much about the way cultural messages are produced and the way the poster is able to promote both a specific, product-centred message and aesthetic pleasure through a multiplicity of connotations.

The book is written for those who are interested in theoretical debates as they relate to the field of Development Studies. It is aimed at academics and all those who work in the field of development, politicians, policy-makers and civil servants who need to familiarize themselves with key historical development debates, especially those relevant to Africa. The book takes an Afrocentric intellectual standpoint, grounded in the theory of Afrocentricity, in its interrogation of the idea and processes of development in Africa. It also adopts an historical approach in its interrogation of the idea of African development as a by-product of political deliberations. This book is about how the discourse of development as a field of study needs to be re-oriented towards African-based epistemologies to dismantle coloniality, in opposition to the historical embeddedness of development discourse in Eurocentrism.

This book contests the limitation of the modern African understanding of Africa’s journey with development to the period of the aftermath of World War II, to be specific, to President Harry S. Truman’s 1949 Point Four programme. Instead, the book argues that, that journey should be understood holistically. By this, I mean that Africa’s engagement with development did not begin with the politics of the Euro-North American political bloc – the story of African development must take into consideration Africa’s classical civilization, namely, the Nile Valley civilization and its contributions to human civilization. Such an approach provides a more holistic interrogation and casts light on how Africa’s history of greatness continues to be an inspiration even in modern times. Such an approach rejects the many reductionist lies and half-truths that undergird the modernist paradigm which seeks to portray African people as dependent beneficiaries of the colonial Euro-modernity framework. This framework has undermined the humanity of non-Western people in general, and Africans in particular. The book pursues the tradition of decolonial epistemic reflections grounded on Afrocentricity as its theoretical thrust to oppose discourses that are riddled with a racist agenda towards those in the Global South, especially in Africa to enable endogeneity. In the spirit of the pursuit for cognitive justice in the 21st century, this book argues that the discourse of development must be decolonized from hegemonic Eurocentric propaganda and needs to be framed from the viewpoint of those who have been seen as being on the receiving end, those projected as “backwards” from a Eurocentric perspective.

Qualifications systems are useful tools for modernising education and training. National qualifications frameworks are treated as one aspect of qualifications systems that is useful for improving education and training. The focus is on the reality of policy development in EU partner countries. After reminding the reader that education and training systems, and therefore qualifications systems, are always closely integrated with a country’s social and cultural priorities, this study gives evidence from a range of countries that proves learning can be enhanced by developing the recognition of learning through qualifications, and that the definition of qualifications levels can be useful. The fact that qualifications system reform is just one element of education and training reform is emphasised.

Starting with the complexity of qualifications systems in partner countries and problems facing modernisation, the publication sets out specific examples of how qualifications systems have been used to provide a strategic tool for improving the quality of provision and increasing levels of learning. Examples of these strategies include the creation of qualifications bodies; new legal frameworks; the separation of assessment and certification from providers of training; development of NQFs and moves towards an increased use of learning outcomes in curricula; and qualifications and descriptors for framework levels.

This book is a collection of articles focusing on comparative analysis of the development trajectories in the semi-periphery countries of South America and Central and Eastern Europe. The book tries to approach the dilemmas of development in the semi-periphery as diversely as possible, always emphasising the variety of trajectories as a crucial factor. Therefore there are evaluations of the role of cognitive regimes produced by professional fields as elements of collective action coordination and as beacons that fix State-society relations. As opposed to the transitology studies that were prevalent in the 1990s, and that treated the neoliberal context in these two regions separately, the articles in this volume instead offer a new comparative analysis about the consequences of the neoliberal reforms and the new actors that deal with these results.

The book is concentrated on the experiences with market reforms and institutional legacies during the last twenty years. Central and Eastern Europe and South American countries have gone through a rapid restructuring of productive regimes in the process of integration with the global capitalist system. This volume discusses the variety of forms of state that have unfolded in different peripheral countries and their role in the social engineering of economic models and social policies, as well as to the impact of state capacities and ideas on the institutional innovations. These essays also compare the transformations in political culture, collective identities and contentious politics in both areas. The growing distance between the state and society, social disintegration and the concrete effects of market reforms (unemployment, informality, loss of rights) were closely related to a growing social mobilization as well as to a politicization of social and ethnic identities in South America. In Eastern Europe the institutional model of liberal democracy has been challenged on the one hand by the claims of social equality that derives from the communist legacy, and on the other hand by the question of political rights that has emerged within the context of the new wave of nationalisms and politicisation of ethnic identities.  

This book is a collection of articles focusing on comparative analysis of the development trajectories in the semi-periphery countries of South America and Central and Eastern Europe. The book tries to approach the dilemmas of development in the semi-periphery as diversely as possible, always emphasising the variety of trajectories as a crucial factor. Therefore there are evaluations of the role of cognitive regimes produced by professional fields as elements of collective action coordination and as beacons that fix State-society relations. As opposed to the transitology studies that were prevalent in the 1990s, and that treated the neoliberal context in these two regions separately, the articles in this volume instead offer a new comparative analysis about the consequences of the neoliberal reforms and the new actors that deal with these results.

The book is concentrated on the experiences with market reforms and institutional legacies during the last twenty years. Central and Eastern Europe and South American countries have gone through a rapid restructuring of productive regimes in the process of integration with the global capitalist system. This volume discusses the variety of forms of state that have unfolded in different peripheral countries and their role in the social engineering of economic models and social policies, as well as to the impact of state capacities and ideas on the institutional innovations. These essays also compare the transformations in political culture, collective identities and contentious politics in both areas. The growing distance between the state and society, social disintegration and the concrete effects of market reforms (unemployment, informality, loss of rights) were closely related to a growing social mobilization as well as to a politicization of social and ethnic identities in South America. In Eastern Europe the institutional model of liberal democracy has been challenged on the one hand by the claims of social equality that derives from the communist legacy, and on the other hand by the question of political rights that has emerged within the context of the new wave of nationalisms and politicisation of ethnic identities.  

“Development Without Aid” opens up perspectives and analyzes facts about foreign aid to the poorest developing countries. The discussion is advocacy as much as analysis, and makes extensive reference to recent research, including the author’s previous work on the World Bank.

Starting from a perception about development formed during the author’s formative years in what is now Malawi, the book develops a critique of foreign aid as an alien resource inherently unable to provide the necessary dynamism to propel the poorest countries out of poverty, and compromised by profound anomalies which subvert its own effectiveness. The book aims to help move the perception of development in poor countries squarely beyond foreign aid and beyond the discussion of its role, architecture and design, and to re-assert an indigenous development path out of poverty.

To move beyond foreign aid, the book examines a new international dynamic, i.e., the rapid growth of the world’s diasporas as a quasi-indigenous resource of increasing strength in terms of both financial and human capital. It considers the extent to which such resources might be able to replace the apparatus of foreign aid and help move towards a reassertion of sovereignty by poor states, especially in Africa, over their own development process. 

“Development Without Aid” opens up perspectives and analyzes facts about foreign aid to the poorest developing countries. The discussion is advocacy as much as analysis, and makes extensive reference to recent research, including the author’s previous work on the World Bank.

Starting from a perception about development formed during the author’s formative years in what is now Malawi, the book develops a critique of foreign aid as an alien resource inherently unable to provide the necessary dynamism to propel the poorest countries out of poverty, and compromised by profound anomalies which subvert its own effectiveness. The book aims to help move the perception of development in poor countries squarely beyond foreign aid and beyond the discussion of its role, architecture and design, and to re-assert an indigenous development path out of poverty.

To move beyond foreign aid, the book examines a new international dynamic, i.e., the rapid growth of the world’s diasporas as a quasi-indigenous resource of increasing strength in terms of both financial and human capital. It considers the extent to which such resources might be able to replace the apparatus of foreign aid and help move towards a reassertion of sovereignty by poor states, especially in Africa, over their own development process. 

‘Diagnosing the Indonesian Economy: Toward Inclusive and Green Growth’ commences with a broad overview of Indonesia’s development since the 1960s. The analytical frameworks for the study, which were developed at Harvard University and ADB, are then used in an attempt to identify the constraints that most severely bind the country’s development, and therefore the priorities for policy implementation and/or reform. The country’s macroeconomic management and monetary policy since the Asian financial crisis is reviewed. The challenges of Indonesia’s slow industrial transformation and small industry sector are described, as are their implications for poverty reduction efforts. The challenges Indonesia faces in developing its infrastructure are set out, e.g., the country’s diverse topography, archipelagic nature, and monopolies. Human capital, an essential element in both growth and poverty reduction, is analyzed for the country, including the improvements in enrolments and gender balance, and the limitations the poor face to accessing education. Indonesia’s record on poverty reduction is traced, as are the efforts to improve it. The links between employment creation and poverty reduction are presented, with a focus on the pressing issue of youth employment. The impact and status of the decentralization effort and efforts to fine-tune it are discussed. Last, the rather dismal status of the country’s environment and natural resources management and the emerging impacts of climate change are summed up.

Indonesia’s national development plan for 2005–2025 sets a vision of a country that is self-reliant, has a highly educated population with capable human resources, has no discrimination, and is prosperous enough to fulfil its population’s needs. This will require high levels of economic growth that is both socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable. The volume identifies that in order to overcome the binding constraints to this growth, Indonesia needs to improve its infrastructure, enhance the education system to provide a more capable workforce, revive its manufacturing sector to open up employment, and facilitate these efforts through substantially improved governance and institutions. Furthermore, this growth must be accomplished in a manner that is harmonious and not destructive to the environment and natural resource base.

‘Diagnosing the Indonesian Economy: Toward Inclusive and Green Growth’ commences with a broad overview of Indonesia’s development since the 1960s. The analytical frameworks for the study, which were developed at Harvard University and ADB, are then used in an attempt to identify the constraints that most severely bind the country’s development, and therefore the priorities for policy implementation and/or reform. The country’s macroeconomic management and monetary policy since the Asian financial crisis is reviewed. The challenges of Indonesia’s slow industrial transformation and small industry sector are described, as are their implications for poverty reduction efforts. The challenges Indonesia faces in developing its infrastructure are set out, e.g., the country’s diverse topography, archipelagic nature, and monopolies. Human capital, an essential element in both growth and poverty reduction, is analyzed for the country, including the improvements in enrolments and gender balance, and the limitations the poor face to accessing education. Indonesia’s record on poverty reduction is traced, as are the efforts to improve it. The links between employment creation and poverty reduction are presented, with a focus on the pressing issue of youth employment. The impact and status of the decentralization effort and efforts to fine-tune it are discussed. Last, the rather dismal status of the country’s environment and natural resources management and the emerging impacts of climate change are summed up.

Indonesia’s national development plan for 2005–2025 sets a vision of a country that is self-reliant, has a highly educated population with capable human resources, has no discrimination, and is prosperous enough to fulfil its population’s needs. This will require high levels of economic growth that is both socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable. The volume identifies that in order to overcome the binding constraints to this growth, Indonesia needs to improve its infrastructure, enhance the education system to provide a more capable workforce, revive its manufacturing sector to open up employment, and facilitate these efforts through substantially improved governance and institutions. Furthermore, this growth must be accomplished in a manner that is harmonious and not destructive to the environment and natural resource base.

The pace of growth in the Philippines is slower than that of many neighbouring countries, and despite increasing growth in the period before the current global financial crisis, domestic investment remained weak, and had a declining share in gross domestic product. Understanding limits to growth in the Philippines’ economy and how they may be counteracted is crucial for policy makers seeking to encourage economic development.

‘Diagnosing the Philippine Economy’ investigates the binding constraints on economic development, by following a growth diagnostics approach. Articles within this collection cover the areas of macroeconomic management; trade, investments, and production; infrastructure, human capital; equity and the social sector; poverty reduction efforts; and governance and political institutions. The studies’ findings provide insight for politicians, academicians, and economists into the issues and their potential solutions.

The pace of growth in the Philippines is slower than that of many neighbouring countries, and despite increasing growth in the period before the current global financial crisis, domestic investment remained weak, and had a declining share in gross domestic product. Understanding limits to growth in the Philippines’ economy and how they may be counteracted is crucial for policy makers seeking to encourage economic development.

‘Diagnosing the Philippine Economy’ investigates the binding constraints on economic development, by following a growth diagnostics approach. Articles within this collection cover the areas of macroeconomic management; trade, investments, and production; infrastructure, human capital; equity and the social sector; poverty reduction efforts; and governance and political institutions. The studies’ findings provide insight for politicians, academicians, and economists into the issues and their potential solutions.