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Jason Manolopoulos combines his experience of the global financial system, European politics and Greek society to demonstrate how one of the EU’s smaller countries played a catalytic role in a crisis that threatens the future of the euro, and possibly even of the European Union itself.

He explores the historical legacy and psychological biases that have shaped an ongoing drama. While leaders of the European Union criticise ‘the markets’ for destabilizing the single currency, Manolopoulos interrogates the shared beliefs of the EU and the investment banking community – and how they colluded for a decade in the illusion that lending huge sums to peripheral eurozone countries was safe.

Policy and investment errors bear marked similarities with earlier financial crises – in particular the Exchange Rate Mechanism system and the Argentine debt crisis. This inability to learn history’s recent lessons begs fundamental questions of policy making, which this book discusses.

Greek society also comes under scrutiny, as shocking details of a kleptocratic political class and a wasteful public sector are revealed. Manolopoulos traces these developments back to dictatorship and civil war, but argues that there is no excuse for their continuation in a modern democracy.

This book is not another warning about the end of the world. It is neither a penitential sermon on environmentalism, nor an appeal to frugality and self-restraint. Far from having exhausted the era of technological, social and democratic progress, we are on the brink of a new stage of industrial modernity: a shift from a fossil-based to a postfossil economy, from the ruthless exploitation of nature toward growth in tandem with it. Decoupling economic growth from environmental consumption is an ambitious goal, but also an achievable one.

Drawing on the German policy experience of tackling climate change, ‘Green Growth, Smart Growth’ outlines a positive way forward in this great transformation and it does so in the conviction that the danger industrial civilization poses to our future can be overcome using the means of modernity: science, technology and democracy. It is by no means certain that we will win the race against climate change and dwindling resources. That will require nothing less than a great leap forward—a green industrial revolution.

Gulf Gothic moves through deep time across languages and borders, presenting haunted, secret-laden narratives that emerge from the gulfs between people all along the Gulf of Mexico and on both sides of the Rio Grande. Collaborating in an interdisciplinary manner, literary and cultural critics Dolores Flores-Silva and Keith Cartwright chart the Gulf as a unified region and ground zero of North American (and global) transculturation.

The Gulf of Mexico has been inadequately appreciated as the dynamic transnational region that it is (taking in the Gulf states of Mexico and the U.S., as well as western Cuba), a cultural matrix that nourished the spread of maize agriculture and the rise of a two-thousand-year-old literary historical tradition that has responded to traumas of colonial conquest and plantation slavery. In this study, the Gulf signifies metaphorically and symbolically—as undead space of contacts and supposed impasses between peoples—as well as topographically. Its gothic modalities carry an urgent charge that demands to be addressed in holistic form

Gulf Gothic addresses modes of representing all that is blocked from free movement and aspiration. Here, the figure of La Llorona haunts boundary waters and shorelines, voicing much that has been occulted by colonial power and national narrative. La Llorona’s Indigenous prototypes, plantation/hacienda atmospherics, and heated storm patterns show up repeatedly in variations of an originary undeadness unconstrained by attempted quarantines and border walls. The authors turn to cinematic horror and the double gaze of ancient Maya texts, to folk-fable and legal documents and popular song, as well as to works by Gloria Anzaldúa, Sandra Cisneros, Leslie Marmon Silko, Joy Harjo, LeAnne Howe, Kate Chopin, James Weldon Johnson, William Faulkner, Carlos Fuentes, Vicente Riva Palacio, Jesmyn Ward, and Fernanda Melchor, to attend to forces unbound by traditional gothic modalities and their foundational gulfs. 

‘H. G. Wells and All Things Russian' is a fertile terrain for research and discussion and this volume will be the first to devote itself entirely to the theme. Wells was an astute student of Russian literature, culture and history, and Russians, in turn, became eager students of Wells’s views and works (Yuly Kagarlitsky, a Soviet biographer of Wells, called him ‘a one-man think tank’). During the Soviet years, in fact, no ‘big’ foreign author was safer for Soviet critics to praise than H. G. Wells. The reason was obvious. He had met – and approved of – Lenin, was a close friend of the Soviet literary giant Maxim Gorky and, in general, expressed much respect for Russia’s evolving Communist experiment, even after it fell into Stalin’s hands.

Wells’s views on the Soviet Union were often more complex than Soviet critics gave him credit for, but their whitewashing only served to secure his position as a sympathetic man of letters from the capitalist world. On the other hand, those who discerned his nuanced position towards totalitarian regimes, including the dystopian writer Evgeny Zamyatin, the author of an early Soviet study of Wells, found him to be a soulmate and an influence of a different kind, which worked to increase the English author’s popularity among those segments of the Russian reading public for whom his relationships with Lenin and Gorky meant very little.

‘Habermas and Giddens on Modernity: A Constructive Comparison’ investigates how two of the most important and influential contemporary social theorists have sought to develop the modernist visions of the constitution of society through the autonomous actions of subjects. It compares Habermas and Giddens’ conceptions of the constitution of society, interpretations of the social-structural impediments to subjects’ autonomy, and their attempts to delineate potentials for progressive social change within contemporary society. Habermas and Giddens are shown to have initiated new paradigms and perspectives that seek to address the foundational problems of social theory and consolidate the modernist vision of an autonomous society. The book traces the core intuitions of Habermas and Giddens’ theories back to their endeavours to incorporate, satisfy and rework the intentions of the Marxian perspective of the philosophy of praxis. It is argued that the philosophy of praxis conceptualizes the social as the outcome of the intersection of the subject and history. For this perspective, the altering of the relationship of the subject and history is the precondition of an autonomous society. Habermas and Giddens accept the theoretical and practical challenges that are contained in this conception of the social, whilst contending that the basic assumptions of the philosophy of praxis need to be reformulated and that its interpretation of the constraints upon autonomy should be rethought in light of the developments associated with contemporary capitalist modernisation and the dilemmas of the institution of the welfare state.

This book explores how the two theorists argue that the contemporary period represents a new phase of modernity, rather than a transition to a postmodern social order. Habermas depicts the present period as one conditioned by the fracturing of the class compromise of the welfare state and argues that contemporary postmodernism is more a symptom of an exhausting of the utopian energies previously associated with labour. Whereas Giddens considers that the contemporary period is one of late-modernity or reflexive modernization, that is, it represents a fuller realisation of the tendencies of modernity. Yet, it likewise undermines some the emancipatory aspirations of the modernist vision, owing to the predominance of risk and uncertainty. The book then compares the ensuing critical diagnoses that Habermas and Giddens derive from these positions on contemporary society, such as Habermas’ conception of the internal colonisation of the lifeworld and Giddens’ vision of the runaway world of intensifying globalization. These arguments are located in relation to the long-term historical perspectives that the two theorists developed and the respective methodological approaches to history that underpin them. In particular, a number of key contrasts in Habermas and Giddens’ respective accounts of the historical institutionalization of modernity are highlighted. Habermas’ attempt to reconstruct historical materialism, the importance he attributes to cultural rationalisation in explaining change, and his assumption of a logic of evolutionary development are contrasted with Giddens’ proposed deconstruction of historical materialism, the centrality of domination to his depiction of different historical forms of society, and how his opposition to evolutionary conceptions leads to his contention that modern capitalist societies are radically discontinuous.

Furthermore, the book examines how Habermas and Giddens have sought to relate their theories to political practice and the capacities or competences of subjects. Both have applied their perspectives to the potentials for progressive social change and they have had a major impact on public debates, especially those over the future of the European Union, social democracy, new social movements, human rights, and democracy. Giddens is the most important theorist of the Third Way political program and Habermas is most important Critical Theorist since the Frankfurt School. The significance of these two theorists’ practical-political arguments is outlined and the different implications of their respective positions, especially with respect to the future of social democracy, assessed. The constructive approach of the book is continued in its critique of these two theories. The respective strengths of aspects of each theorist’s perspective are highlighted in comparison to the other, for instance, Habermas’ theories’ superior normative grounding is contrasted with Giddens’ more developed perspective on power. Similarly, the book overviews those contemporary social theory initiatives that developed from critical dialogues with the work of Habermas’ and Giddens’ approaches to modernity, such as some of the theories associated with the perspectives of global modernity and multiple modernities. Finally, the book draws on the author’s own work, which has extended aspects of Habermas’ and Giddens’ approach to modernity. Despite the criticisms that are developed over the course of the book, Habermas and Giddens are found to be two of the most important theorists of democratization and social democracy, the dynamics of capitalist modernity and their paradoxes, social practices and reflexivity, and the foundations of social theory in the problem of the relationship of social action and social structure.

‘Habermas and Giddens on Modernity: A Constructive Comparison’ investigates how two of the most important and influential contemporary social theorists have sought to develop the modernist visions of the constitution of society through the autonomous actions of subjects. It compares Habermas and Giddens’ conceptions of the constitution of society, interpretations of the social-structural impediments to subjects’ autonomy, and their attempts to delineate potentials for progressive social change within contemporary society. Habermas and Giddens are shown to have initiated new paradigms and perspectives that seek to address the foundational problems of social theory and consolidate the modernist vision of an autonomous society. The book traces the core intuitions of Habermas and Giddens’ theories back to their endeavours to incorporate, satisfy and rework the intentions of the Marxian perspective of the philosophy of praxis. It is argued that the philosophy of praxis conceptualizes the social as the outcome of the intersection of the subject and history. For this perspective, the altering of the relationship of the subject and history is the precondition of an autonomous society. Habermas and Giddens accept the theoretical and practical challenges that are contained in this conception of the social, whilst contending that the basic assumptions of the philosophy of praxis need to be reformulated and that its interpretation of the constraints upon autonomy should be rethought in light of the developments associated with contemporary capitalist modernisation and the dilemmas of the institution of the welfare state.

This book explores how the two theorists argue that the contemporary period represents a new phase of modernity, rather than a transition to a postmodern social order. Habermas depicts the present period as one conditioned by the fracturing of the class compromise of the welfare state and argues that contemporary postmodernism is more a symptom of an exhausting of the utopian energies previously associated with labour. Whereas Giddens considers that the contemporary period is one of late-modernity or reflexive modernization, that is, it represents a fuller realisation of the tendencies of modernity. Yet, it likewise undermines some the emancipatory aspirations of the modernist vision, owing to the predominance of risk and uncertainty. The book then compares the ensuing critical diagnoses that Habermas and Giddens derive from these positions on contemporary society, such as Habermas’ conception of the internal colonisation of the lifeworld and Giddens’ vision of the runaway world of intensifying globalization. These arguments are located in relation to the long-term historical perspectives that the two theorists developed and the respective methodological approaches to history that underpin them. In particular, a number of key contrasts in Habermas and Giddens’ respective accounts of the historical institutionalization of modernity are highlighted. Habermas’ attempt to reconstruct historical materialism, the importance he attributes to cultural rationalisation in explaining change, and his assumption of a logic of evolutionary development are contrasted with Giddens’ proposed deconstruction of historical materialism, the centrality of domination to his depiction of different historical forms of society, and how his opposition to evolutionary conceptions leads to his contention that modern capitalist societies are radically discontinuous.

Furthermore, the book examines how Habermas and Giddens have sought to relate their theories to political practice and the capacities or competences of subjects. Both have applied their perspectives to the potentials for progressive social change and they have had a major impact on public debates, especially those over the future of the European Union, social democracy, new social movements, human rights, and democracy. Giddens is the most important theorist of the Third Way political program and Habermas is most important Critical Theorist since the Frankfurt School. The significance of these two theorists’ practical-political arguments is outlined and the different implications of their respective positions, especially with respect to the future of social democracy, assessed. The constructive approach of the book is continued in its critique of these two theories. The respective strengths of aspects of each theorist’s perspective are highlighted in comparison to the other, for instance, Habermas’ theories’ superior normative grounding is contrasted with Giddens’ more developed perspective on power. Similarly, the book overviews those contemporary social theory initiatives that developed from critical dialogues with the work of Habermas’ and Giddens’ approaches to modernity, such as some of the theories associated with the perspectives of global modernity and multiple modernities. Finally, the book draws on the author’s own work, which has extended aspects of Habermas’ and Giddens’ approach to modernity. Despite the criticisms that are developed over the course of the book, Habermas and Giddens are found to be two of the most important theorists of democratization and social democracy, the dynamics of capitalist modernity and their paradoxes, social practices and reflexivity, and the foundations of social theory in the problem of the relationship of social action and social structure.

Can ethics be hacked? Can new and unexpected meaning be found in or behind established traditions of moral discourse? Does not the digital transformation challenge us to develop a digital ethics that is just as disruptive and transformative as the technologies it proposes to regulate? Would ethical hacking be the same as hacking ethics? This book attempts to answer these questions. The occasion for this attempt is the digital transformation, the advent of a global network society, the big data revolution, datafication, and whatever other terms come to mind to describe our present historical moment. In the face of this changing reality, ethics has attempted to become digital ethics. No area of personal or social life is not conditioned by the digital and everything that it stands for and everything it brings with it. Marx would probably have been overjoyed to learn that very soon there will be no more workers since robots will do the work, that everyone will own the means of production, that is, their own creativity and skills, and that a sharing economy will largely replace capitalism. But would he be happy about the prospects of a posthuman or even transhuman world in which not only intelligence but also agency and identity are distributed among heterogeneous networks of humans and nonhumans? Would he be happy at the prospect of a data-driven society in which decisions are made based on evidence and not intuition, gut feelings, cognitive bias, prejudice, experience, and inherited assumptions? Indeed, not only Marx but practically no theory or world view that has arisen within the modern period, including ethics, finds itself able to cope with the new digital world order. Instead, we are experiencing in all areas the defensive reaction of Western industrial society to the disruptive influences of digital technologies. The world is changing. The digital transformation disrupts traditional forms of order, whether it be the order of knowledge, the order of cooperative action in social organizations, or the self-understanding of human existence.

The world of Western modernity is disappearing and a new world, let us call it a global network society, is emerging in its stead. For established institutions and habits of thought, this is a threatening and highly uncertain situation. Facing up to this situation does indeed have an ethical dimension; it does call for ethics. But an adequate moral response to this situation is not and cannot be merely applying traditional values and norms to digital technologies. Nonetheless, the current discourse of digital ethics consists almost entirely of attempts to apply traditional normative ethics to the development and deployment of new technologies. The thesis of this book is that no amounts of rights and duties, of moral norms and ethical imperatives, no list of ethical guidelines or principles of good AI or ethical big data are going to have the slightest effect if they do not leave the presuppositions, convictions, and traditions of Western industrial society behind and embark upon exploring a new world with new values and new forms of responsibility and accountability. This is the challenge of hacking digital ethics. The hack, from this point of view, consists of breaking into the codes of traditional moral discourse and redesigning things so that something like digital ethics can appear unconcealed from the outworn and concealing veil of modernity. 

Perhaps, despite all the publicity and attention, the hasty founding of institutes, centers, and departments for digital ethics, the activism of non-profit organizations, and the flood of guidelines, declarations, and programs supporting ethical design, development, and deployment of technology there currently is no such thing as digital ethics. There is only modern Western ethics, that is, ethics that arose within modern Western society, that is, within a no longer viable social order and a passing historical moment. It could be that a uniquely digital ethics is waiting for the hack to come into view for the first time. One could even go so far as to claim that ethics today is fundamentally dependent upon the hack and not the other way around. It is not hacking that needs ethics; it is ethics that needs hacking. Could such an endeavor be judged by the standards it leaves behind? Can the global network society be judged by the standards of Western industrial society? What new norms take the place of the old ones? And what does ethics become, when it no longer answers to the questions of the world in which it was formed, which defined what it was, and which, whether we like it or not, no longer exists? This book is an attempt to answer these questions and open up the possibility of a digital ethics capable of addressing the problems of the global network society.

Can ethics be hacked? Can new and unexpected meaning be found in or behind established traditions of moral discourse? Does not the digital transformation challenge us to develop a digital ethics that is just as disruptive and transformative as the technologies it proposes to regulate? Would ethical hacking be the same as hacking ethics? This book attempts to answer these questions. The occasion for this attempt is the digital transformation, the advent of a global network society, the big data revolution, datafication, and whatever other terms come to mind to describe our present historical moment. In the face of this changing reality, ethics has attempted to become digital ethics. No area of personal or social life is not conditioned by the digital and everything that it stands for and everything it brings with it. Marx would probably have been overjoyed to learn that very soon there will be no more workers since robots will do the work, that everyone will own the means of production, that is, their own creativity and skills, and that a sharing economy will largely replace capitalism. But would he be happy about the prospects of a posthuman or even transhuman world in which not only intelligence but also agency and identity are distributed among heterogeneous networks of humans and nonhumans? Would he be happy at the prospect of a data-driven society in which decisions are made based on evidence and not intuition, gut feelings, cognitive bias, prejudice, experience, and inherited assumptions? Indeed, not only Marx but practically no theory or world view that has arisen within the modern period, including ethics, finds itself able to cope with the new digital world order. Instead, we are experiencing in all areas the defensive reaction of Western industrial society to the disruptive influences of digital technologies. The world is changing. The digital transformation disrupts traditional forms of order, whether it be the order of knowledge, the order of cooperative action in social organizations, or the self-understanding of human existence.

The world of Western modernity is disappearing and a new world, let us call it a global network society, is emerging in its stead. For established institutions and habits of thought, this is a threatening and highly uncertain situation. Facing up to this situation does indeed have an ethical dimension; it does call for ethics. But an adequate moral response to this situation is not and cannot be merely applying traditional values and norms to digital technologies. Nonetheless, the current discourse of digital ethics consists almost entirely of attempts to apply traditional normative ethics to the development and deployment of new technologies. The thesis of this book is that no amounts of rights and duties, of moral norms and ethical imperatives, no list of ethical guidelines or principles of good AI or ethical big data are going to have the slightest effect if they do not leave the presuppositions, convictions, and traditions of Western industrial society behind and embark upon exploring a new world with new values and new forms of responsibility and accountability. This is the challenge of hacking digital ethics. The hack, from this point of view, consists of breaking into the codes of traditional moral discourse and redesigning things so that something like digital ethics can appear unconcealed from the outworn and concealing veil of modernity. 

Perhaps, despite all the publicity and attention, the hasty founding of institutes, centers, and departments for digital ethics, the activism of non-profit organizations, and the flood of guidelines, declarations, and programs supporting ethical design, development, and deployment of technology there currently is no such thing as digital ethics. There is only modern Western ethics, that is, ethics that arose within modern Western society, that is, within a no longer viable social order and a passing historical moment. It could be that a uniquely digital ethics is waiting for the hack to come into view for the first time. One could even go so far as to claim that ethics today is fundamentally dependent upon the hack and not the other way around. It is not hacking that needs ethics; it is ethics that needs hacking. Could such an endeavor be judged by the standards it leaves behind? Can the global network society be judged by the standards of Western industrial society? What new norms take the place of the old ones? And what does ethics become, when it no longer answers to the questions of the world in which it was formed, which defined what it was, and which, whether we like it or not, no longer exists? This book is an attempt to answer these questions and open up the possibility of a digital ethics capable of addressing the problems of the global network society.

On the commercial side, artificial intelligence applications are powering many sectors. Globally, governments are exploring how to comprehend, incorporate, apply, and use artificial intelligence technologies. The scope of government use of artificial intelligence technology goes beyond that of commercial organizations and is far more complex. In government, the challenges will be as follows: (1) How can governments use artificial intelligence technology to improve their efficiencies? (2) How can governments become more citizen-centric, service based, accessible, and responsive? (3) How can governments protect their citizens from the misuse of artificial intelligence  (e.g., alleged Russian bots’ interference in U.S. elections)? (4)  How can governments use artificial intelligence technology to make better policy decisions and avoid wrong decisions  (economic, social etc.)? (5) How can governments develop new standards to govern and manage the deployment of artificial intelligence technologies (e.g., autonomous cars, financial markets and trading, healthcare bots)? (6) How will the legislative bodies respond to the rise of intelligent machines? (7) How will the use of artificial intelligence in the military change the arms race? (8)  What roles governments will need to play in developing global standards related to artificial intelligence (United Nations)? (9) How can governments improve their countries’ productivity with artificial intelligence? (10) How can governments handle the upcoming unemployment that would result from AI automation? All the above questions are at an early stage of exploration and many have not been addressed comprehensively. This book deals with all the above issues and provides the first guide to governments and policy makers of the world on artificial intelligence.

Hands, Wrists, Fingers invites musicians to explore a new way of thinking about good health. The physical dimensions of hands are certainly important and merit close study, encompassing coordination, relaxation, dexterity, speed, accuracy, and freedom from pain. While acknowledging these dimensions, Hands, Wrists, Fingers focuses on a broader perspective that includes cultural dimensions both conscious and unconscious, involving language, symbol, ritual, curiosity, playfulness, and mindfulness. Through a wealth of original insights, anecdotes, exercises, and games, musicians will be able to transform their hands into sensitive and intelligent agents of joyful creativity, in which the linguistic and symbolic dimensions of hands become inseparable from their physical and material existence.
Hands, Wrists, Fingers is organized in four parts: Culture, The Language of Hands, Sensitivity and Creativity, and Knowledge and Mystery. Behind the physical gestures and movements of your daily life and your music-making, there are the stories that you tell about your own hands—thoughts and feelings, memories, experiences, judgments, hopes, and fears. Hands, Wrists, Fingers argues that the way you use your hands is inseparable from these stories, in which you tell yourself “what you can and cannot do, what you should and should not do, what you’re allowed to do and what you’re prevented from doing.” If your inner stories aren’t healthy in themselves, it’s very difficult for your hands to behave in a healthy manner.
Hands, Wrists, Fingers is a practical book brimming with exercises and suggestions. Every chapter is supported by video clips illustrating and demonstrating its exercises. Among other things, you’ll explore the skills of rotation and of spiral movements, the mastery of textures and gradations, the playful manipulation of objects, and the use of your hands as agents of expressive language. Your hands will become creative, intelligent, and sensitive, and you’ll develop a new understanding of the true meaning of good health.

Hands, Wrists, Fingers invites musicians to explore a new way of thinking about good health. The physical dimensions of hands are certainly important and merit close study, encompassing coordination, relaxation, dexterity, speed, accuracy, and freedom from pain. While acknowledging these dimensions, Hands, Wrists, Fingers focuses on a broader perspective that includes cultural dimensions both conscious and unconscious, involving language, symbol, ritual, curiosity, playfulness, and mindfulness. Through a wealth of original insights, anecdotes, exercises, and games, musicians will be able to transform their hands into sensitive and intelligent agents of joyful creativity, in which the linguistic and symbolic dimensions of hands become inseparable from their physical and material existence.
Hands, Wrists, Fingers is organized in four parts: Culture, The Language of Hands, Sensitivity and Creativity, and Knowledge and Mystery. Behind the physical gestures and movements of your daily life and your music-making, there are the stories that you tell about your own hands—thoughts and feelings, memories, experiences, judgments, hopes, and fears. Hands, Wrists, Fingers argues that the way you use your hands is inseparable from these stories, in which you tell yourself “what you can and cannot do, what you should and should not do, what you’re allowed to do and what you’re prevented from doing.” If your inner stories aren’t healthy in themselves, it’s very difficult for your hands to behave in a healthy manner.
Hands, Wrists, Fingers is a practical book brimming with exercises and suggestions. Every chapter is supported by video clips illustrating and demonstrating its exercises. Among other things, you’ll explore the skills of rotation and of spiral movements, the mastery of textures and gradations, the playful manipulation of objects, and the use of your hands as agents of expressive language. Your hands will become creative, intelligent, and sensitive, and you’ll develop a new understanding of the true meaning of good health.

A collection of essays rather than a single, continuously argued monograph, Hawthorne’s Histories, Hawthorne’s World collects together the essays Professor Colacurcio has written on Hawthorne since the publication of his ground-breaking Province of Piety, elaborating and refining his analyses of how Hawthorne’s most memorable early tales “do history,” but proceeding then to explore the later productions of that author’s distinguished career. The result, in Colacurcio’s patient analysis, is something like Hawthorne’s history of his own times. To be sure, The Scarlet Letter returns to the rich theme we know as “the matter of the Puritans,” but rides up from a moment, and clearly implies, the vibrant but troubled women’s movement; and, imagining the world Hester Prynne as good as predicted, The Blithedale Romance deepens the sensitive but cautious inquiry. Contemporaneous too is the subject of The House of the Seven Gables which, stopping just short of discovering that property is theft, dares to inquire into the murky sources of aristocratic wealth and privilege in his present New England. From the moment between the early tales and the three American romances, the tales and sketches written at the Old Manse in Concord reveal Hawthorne’s fascinated and troubled response to that swirl of contemporary reform movements which historians know as “Freedom’s Ferment”; several encounter Emerson explicitly, and even more question the life-implications of “idealism as it appears in 1842,” as Emerson had defined his Transcendentalism.  From the so-called “Last Phase” of Hawthorne’s career, Colacurcio presents, along with some remarks “Chiefly About War Matters” (1862) and, more briefly still, the unfinished romances, a major reading of the work Hawthorne called Our Old Home (1863); growing out of the Notebooks the author kept while serving as American Consul to Liverpool in the mid-1850s, this now nostalgic, now fierce mix of excursion and critique reveals a great deal about Hawthorne’s social intelligence, and about his biases. Finally, Colacurcio offers a patient but somewhat resistant reading of The Marble Faun, a major effort to identify the “puritanic” element in the developing American identity but revealing, at the same time, an unsteady Narrator’s increasing hesitance about the epistemology of the “Romance.”  Literary genius beginning to doubt its gift.

A collection of essays rather than a single, continuously argued monograph, Hawthorne’s Histories, Hawthorne’s World collects together the essays Professor Colacurcio has written on Hawthorne since the publication of his ground-breaking Province of Piety, elaborating and refining his analyses of how Hawthorne’s most memorable early tales “do history,” but proceeding then to explore the later productions of that author’s distinguished career. The result, in Colacurcio’s patient analysis, is something like Hawthorne’s history of his own times. To be sure, The Scarlet Letter returns to the rich theme we know as “the matter of the Puritans,” but rides up from a moment, and clearly implies, the vibrant but troubled women’s movement; and, imagining the world Hester Prynne as good as predicted, The Blithedale Romance deepens the sensitive but cautious inquiry. Contemporaneous too is the subject of The House of the Seven Gables which, stopping just short of discovering that property is theft, dares to inquire into the murky sources of aristocratic wealth and privilege in his present New England. From the moment between the early tales and the three American romances, the tales and sketches written at the Old Manse in Concord reveal Hawthorne’s fascinated and troubled response to that swirl of contemporary reform movements which historians know as “Freedom’s Ferment”; several encounter Emerson explicitly, and even more question the life-implications of “idealism as it appears in 1842,” as Emerson had defined his Transcendentalism.  From the so-called “Last Phase” of Hawthorne’s career, Colacurcio presents, along with some remarks “Chiefly About War Matters” (1862) and, more briefly still, the unfinished romances, a major reading of the work Hawthorne called Our Old Home (1863); growing out of the Notebooks the author kept while serving as American Consul to Liverpool in the mid-1850s, this now nostalgic, now fierce mix of excursion and critique reveals a great deal about Hawthorne’s social intelligence, and about his biases. Finally, Colacurcio offers a patient but somewhat resistant reading of The Marble Faun, a major effort to identify the “puritanic” element in the developing American identity but revealing, at the same time, an unsteady Narrator’s increasing hesitance about the epistemology of the “Romance.”  Literary genius beginning to doubt its gift.

‘Holland House and Portugal’, a study in political and diplomatic history, focuses on the relations between Lord Holland and Portugal from 1793 to 1840. The book traces the evolution of Holland’s views on Portugal from the time of his first visit to Spain to his later contribution to the establishment of a constitutional regime in Portugal. It pays particular attention to the Hollands’ visits to Portugal in 1804–5 and 1808–9. On their travels, they met a number of prominent Portuguese, notably Palmela, who were to remain in contact with Holland House for many years. The Portuguese journeys and the continuing contact with people like Palmela were to play an important part in the development of Lord Holland’s views, not only on Portugal but also on broader political and constitutional issues.

Thus ‘Holland House and Portugal’ investigates Lord Holland’s influence on the establishment of a constitutional regime in Spain in 1809–10 and – indirectly and unintentionally – in Portugal in 1820–23. It includes a study of Holland’s contribution to the creation of a government in Brazil in 1808 – when the Braganças moved from Portugal to Rio de Janeiro – and his indirect influence on the establishment of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves in 1815.

Lord Holland’s contribution to the establishment of a Liberal regime in Portugal in 1834 is examined at some length in ‘Holland House and Portugal’. The book includes a study of the extent of Holland’s support for the Portuguese Liberal Cause after Dom Miguel’s usurpation of the throne in 1828 and of his subsequent role in the ‘Liberal invasion’ of Portugal. To this end it investigates relations between Portuguese émigrés and the Holland House Circle, and Holland’s role in the triangular diplomacy between Lisbon, St James and South Audley Street in 1828 and later. Finally, it considers Holland’s contribution to the end of the Portuguese Civil War in 1834 and to the subsequent establishment of a constitutional regime in that country.

This fascinating book exposes the movie industry as a key protagonist in the US strategy debate, through the production of films on national security across many genres, from comedy to thriller, from sci-fi to war movies. This timely volume also explores prevailing ideas of the 'threat' to homeland USA that are put forward by the national security network, a threat that is seen as the justification for and legitimization of America's military operations and strategic choices. Valantin reveals how in the last 20 years there has been a consistent collaboration between the US Department of Defense and film studios and enormous contracts have been exchanged between the two industries. This book shows how Hollywood is completely penetrated by the ideological and political thinking of Washington, which in turn appears to be directly inspired by the productions of Hollywood.

This fascinating book exposes the movie industry as a key protagonist in the US strategy debate, through the production of films on national security across many genres, from comedy to thriller, from sci-fi to war movies. This timely volume also explores prevailing ideas of the 'threat' to homeland USA that are put forward by the national security network, a threat that is seen as the justification for and legitimization of America's military operations and strategic choices. Valantin reveals how in the last 20 years there has been a consistent collaboration between the US Department of Defense and film studios and enormous contracts have been exchanged between the two industries. This book shows how Hollywood is completely penetrated by the ideological and political thinking of Washington, which in turn appears to be directly inspired by the productions of Hollywood.

Ireland’s Great Famine or ‘an Gorta Mór’ (1845–51) and Ukraine’s ‘Holodomor’ (1932–33) occupy central places in the national historiographies of their respective countries. Acknowledging that questions of collective memory have become a central issue in cultural studies, this volume inquires into the role of historical experiences of hunger and deprivation within the emerging national identities and national historical narratives of Ireland and Ukraine. In the Irish case, a solid body of research has been compiled over the last 150 years, while Ukraine’s Holodomor, by contrast, was something of an open secret that historians could only seriously research after the demise of communist rule. This volume is the first attempt to draw these approaches together and to allow for a comparative study of how the historical experiences of famine were translated into narratives that supported political claims for independent national statehood in Ireland and Ukraine. Juxtaposing studies on the Irish and Ukrainian cases written by eminent historians, political scientists, and literary and film scholars, the essays in this interdisciplinary volume analyse how national historical narratives were constructed and disseminated – whether or not they changed with circumstances, or were challenged by competing visions, both academic and non-academic. In doing so, the essays discuss themes such as representation, commemoration and mediation, and the influence of these processes on the shaping of cultural memory.

Ireland’s Great Famine or ‘an Gorta Mór’ (1845–51) and Ukraine’s ‘Holodomor’ (1932–33) occupy central places in the national historiographies of their respective countries. Acknowledging that questions of collective memory have become a central issue in cultural studies, this volume inquires into the role of historical experiences of hunger and deprivation within the emerging national identities and national historical narratives of Ireland and Ukraine. In the Irish case, a solid body of research has been compiled over the last 150 years, while Ukraine’s Holodomor, by contrast, was something of an open secret that historians could only seriously research after the demise of communist rule. This volume is the first attempt to draw these approaches together and to allow for a comparative study of how the historical experiences of famine were translated into narratives that supported political claims for independent national statehood in Ireland and Ukraine. Juxtaposing studies on the Irish and Ukrainian cases written by eminent historians, political scientists, and literary and film scholars, the essays in this interdisciplinary volume analyse how national historical narratives were constructed and disseminated – whether or not they changed with circumstances, or were challenged by competing visions, both academic and non-academic. In doing so, the essays discuss themes such as representation, commemoration and mediation, and the influence of these processes on the shaping of cultural memory.

This new volume, by a team of international scholars, explores aspects of population displacement and statehood at a crucial juncture in modern European history, when the entire continent took on the aspect of a 'laboratory atop a mass graveyard' (Tomas Masaryk). The topic of state-building has acquired a new actuality in recent years, following the collapse of the USSR and the 'Soviet bloc' and in view of the complex, often violent, territorial and ethnic conflicts which have ensued. Many of the current dilemmas and tragedies of the region have their origins in the aftermath of World War I, when newly independent nation states, struggling to emerge from the rubble of the former Russian empire, first sought to define themselves in terms of population, territory and citizenship. 'Homelands' examines the interactions of forced migration, state construction and myriad emerging forms of social identity. It opens up a fresh perspective on twentieth-century history and throws new light on present-day political, humanitarian and scholarly issues of crucial concern to political scientists, sociologists, geographers, refugee welfare workers, policymakers and others.

This new volume, by a team of international scholars, explores aspects of population displacement and statehood at a crucial juncture in modern European history, when the entire continent took on the aspect of a 'laboratory atop a mass graveyard' (Tomas Masaryk). The topic of state-building has acquired a new actuality in recent years, following the collapse of the USSR and the 'Soviet bloc' and in view of the complex, often violent, territorial and ethnic conflicts which have ensued. Many of the current dilemmas and tragedies of the region have their origins in the aftermath of World War I, when newly independent nation states, struggling to emerge from the rubble of the former Russian empire, first sought to define themselves in terms of population, territory and citizenship. 'Homelands' examines the interactions of forced migration, state construction and myriad emerging forms of social identity. It opens up a fresh perspective on twentieth-century history and throws new light on present-day political, humanitarian and scholarly issues of crucial concern to political scientists, sociologists, geographers, refugee welfare workers, policymakers and others.

‘Hometown Hamburg’ explores the problem of social order in modern German urban history. It argues that institutionalized normative structures are the bedrock of temporal continuity in German history. In an era of various linguistic and cultural ‘turns’ historians have lost the theoretical and analytical ability to explain events over the long term. Their accounts and explanations of human activity and historical processes usually rest on an unexamined behaviourist psychological model where simple instrumental self-interest drives individual decision-making. As a result they reduce communal social action to individual preferences conditioned by external contingent events.

Such an epistemological viewpoint has prevented historians from taking seriously the notion and reality of a ‘bürgerliche’ social order, not in the sense of a bourgeois-dominated class system, but in terms of what the historian Mack Walker has defined as a “hometown” conception of communal solidarity. Belief in the value of a bürgerliche social order has provided the institutionalized basis for the remarkable continuity of German and Hamburg handicraft over time. Its norms and values have been shared by forces from all strata of society, who, like artisans, were committed to a ‘rooted’ notion of local community that in Walker’s terminology preserved the ‘webs and walls’ of occupational estate cohesion and parity in the face of ‘outsiders’ (Standeslose) or ‘disturbers’ (Störer).

The corporate politics of both occupational estate and the bürgerliche social order in which it was embedded played a key role in the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the rise of National Socialism, and may yet endanger democracy in Germany once again. The division of Hamburg and Germany into irreconcilable social and moral trenches, to use Jürgen Kocka’s trenchant phraseology, based on adversarial images of social good and social community, produced, in the words of the sociologists Rainer C. Baum and Frank J. Lechner, a society of extreme ‘value dissensus’, whose members were essentially ‘moral strangers’ to each other. It was in this anomic context that National Socialism became an acceptable political alternative. Nazi spokesmen intrinsically understood the meaning of Walker’s ‘webs and walls’ of local community and opposed those whom they defined as disturbers of domestic peace and social harmony. National Socialism was able to offer a cross-section of social and economic groups, stretching in a city-state like Hamburg from a free trading commercial elite through the artisan master in his workshop into the ranks of the craft-trained skilled worker in the shipyard and factory, complete and comfortable integration into a very familiar hometown social order – one that they grew up with, whose logic they could understand, whose morality they could trust and whose roots reflected the continuity of history.

Horror films can be profound fables of human nature and important works of art, yet many people dismiss them out of hand. “Horror and the Horror Film” conveys a mature appreciation of horror films along with a comprehensive view of their narrative strategies, their relations to reality and fantasy, and their cinematic power. The volume covers the entire genre, considering every kind of monster in it – including the human.

After defining horror and thoroughly introducing the genre, the text offers a rich survey of all of the horror film’s subgenres, before concluding with a look at the related genres of horror comedy and horror documentary. International in scope, its survey extends from the first horror films (1896) to the present, discussing more than 350 movies. Through its comprehensive and detailed investigation of the genre, “Horror and the Horror Film” offers a compelling, insightful look at how the horror film frightens and revolts the viewer, its reasons for doing so, and the art of portraying and evoking fear, and will be a great asset to film scholars, horror enthusiasts and readers yet to be convinced of the importance of the genre.

Horror films can be profound fables of human nature and important works of art, yet many people dismiss them out of hand. “Horror and the Horror Film” conveys a mature appreciation of horror films along with a comprehensive view of their narrative strategies, their relations to reality and fantasy, and their cinematic power. The volume covers the entire genre, considering every kind of monster in it – including the human.

After defining horror and thoroughly introducing the genre, the text offers a rich survey of all of the horror film’s subgenres, before concluding with a look at the related genres of horror comedy and horror documentary. International in scope, its survey extends from the first horror films (1896) to the present, discussing more than 350 movies. Through its comprehensive and detailed investigation of the genre, “Horror and the Horror Film” offers a compelling, insightful look at how the horror film frightens and revolts the viewer, its reasons for doing so, and the art of portraying and evoking fear, and will be a great asset to film scholars, horror enthusiasts and readers yet to be convinced of the importance of the genre.

The first book-length study of Sydney-based Horwitz Publications, the largest and most dynamic Australian pulp publisher to emerge after World War II. Although best known for its cheaply produced, sometimes luridly packaged, softcover books, Horwitz Publications played a far larger role in mainstream Australian publishing than has been so far recognised, particularly in the expansion of the paperback from the late 1950s onwards. 

Horwitz was adept at seeking out and exploiting the porous spaces that existed, sometimes only temporarily, between pulp and mainstream publishing: where mainstream literary forms were reconfigured to suit more sensational tastes, authorial reputation was fluid, and government regulation failed to keep pace with shifting reading tastes and social mores. Its dealings were aggressively transnational in scope, moving beyond London, to directly encompass the United States and other overseas fiction markets. And Horwitz continually mined international literary and publishing fashions and successes to create local analogues of popular pulp and mass-market publishing genres, giving them a makeover to align them with Australian cultural sensibilities, tastes and legislative environments. 

Horwitz Publications, Pulp Fiction and the Rise of the Australian Paperback examines the authorship, production, marketing and distribution of Horwitz pulp paperbacks. It includes ground-breaking material on the conditions of creative labour: the writers, artists and editors involved in the production of Horwitz pulp. The book also explores how Horwitz pulp paperbacks acted as a local conduit for the global modern: the ideas, sensations, fascinations, technologies, and people that came crashing into the Australia consciousness in the 1950s and 1960s. This is part of the larger story of Australian pulp fiction’s role as an unofficial archive of changing tastes, ideas, controversies and debates about gender, race, class, youth, and economic and social mobility that occurred in 1950s and 1960s Australia.

The first book-length study of Sydney-based Horwitz Publications, the largest and most dynamic Australian pulp publisher to emerge after World War II. Although best known for its cheaply produced, sometimes luridly packaged, softcover books, Horwitz Publications played a far larger role in mainstream Australian publishing than has been so far recognised, particularly in the expansion of the paperback from the late 1950s onwards. 

Horwitz was adept at seeking out and exploiting the porous spaces that existed, sometimes only temporarily, between pulp and mainstream publishing: where mainstream literary forms were reconfigured to suit more sensational tastes, authorial reputation was fluid, and government regulation failed to keep pace with shifting reading tastes and social mores. Its dealings were aggressively transnational in scope, moving beyond London, to directly encompass the United States and other overseas fiction markets. And Horwitz continually mined international literary and publishing fashions and successes to create local analogues of popular pulp and mass-market publishing genres, giving them a makeover to align them with Australian cultural sensibilities, tastes and legislative environments. 

Horwitz Publications, Pulp Fiction and the Rise of the Australian Paperback examines the authorship, production, marketing and distribution of Horwitz pulp paperbacks. It includes ground-breaking material on the conditions of creative labour: the writers, artists and editors involved in the production of Horwitz pulp. The book also explores how Horwitz pulp paperbacks acted as a local conduit for the global modern: the ideas, sensations, fascinations, technologies, and people that came crashing into the Australia consciousness in the 1950s and 1960s. This is part of the larger story of Australian pulp fiction’s role as an unofficial archive of changing tastes, ideas, controversies and debates about gender, race, class, youth, and economic and social mobility that occurred in 1950s and 1960s Australia.

How America was Tricked on Tax Policy explains how regular citizens were “tricked” by the outdated view of economists that much heavier taxation of labor rather than capital is economically justifiable. The truth is that workers pay their taxes while the rich pay very little.  Based on reputable sources of information, including the publications of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), official statistics data, and the publications in high-ranked journals, the book paves the way for a new policy making process aimed to achieve more sustainable taxation and to increase the wellbeing of citizens as the main goal of any modern state policy. 

Dealing with critically important and underexplored topics in tax policy, the book challenges an enshrined dogma that is rarely challenged at the level of policy. In doing so, this book envisions policy changes that could be highly impactful in a new political administration. This book proposes that governments should look for not just corporate income tax rate reduction when announcing their tax reforms but should equally focus on the reduction of the overall tax burden on labor. The negative impact and high social cost of wage taxation is exemplified by the key areas of tax policy that are relevant for every wealthy state, such as taking due care of public health, investing in education and wellbeing of children, and supporting small business for the overall benefit to society. 

The book provides sound arguments that “labor” should essentially be treated as “human capital” and be given the same tax treatment as that of classically understood “capital”. This understanding is extremely relevant nowadays as we are facing the issues of digitalization, in general, and “robotization,” where a new type of labor, i.e., nonhuman labor, is entering the workforce. The book’s fresh novelty comes from its new approach to tax policy while addressing the issues relevant to the “digital” era such as taxation of artificial intelligence or “robots” that are currently partially substituting the human workforce. The book compellingly argues how tax policy could be improved by incorporating science and scientific methods.

How America was Tricked on Tax Policy explains how regular citizens were “tricked” by the outdated view of economists that much heavier taxation of labor rather than capital is economically justifiable. The truth is that workers pay their taxes while the rich pay very little.  Based on reputable sources of information, including the publications of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), official statistics data, and the publications in high-ranked journals, the book paves the way for a new policy making process aimed to achieve more sustainable taxation and to increase the wellbeing of citizens as the main goal of any modern state policy. 

Dealing with critically important and underexplored topics in tax policy, the book challenges an enshrined dogma that is rarely challenged at the level of policy. In doing so, this book envisions policy changes that could be highly impactful in a new political administration. This book proposes that governments should look for not just corporate income tax rate reduction when announcing their tax reforms but should equally focus on the reduction of the overall tax burden on labor. The negative impact and high social cost of wage taxation is exemplified by the key areas of tax policy that are relevant for every wealthy state, such as taking due care of public health, investing in education and wellbeing of children, and supporting small business for the overall benefit to society. 

The book provides sound arguments that “labor” should essentially be treated as “human capital” and be given the same tax treatment as that of classically understood “capital”. This understanding is extremely relevant nowadays as we are facing the issues of digitalization, in general, and “robotization,” where a new type of labor, i.e., nonhuman labor, is entering the workforce. The book’s fresh novelty comes from its new approach to tax policy while addressing the issues relevant to the “digital” era such as taxation of artificial intelligence or “robots” that are currently partially substituting the human workforce. The book compellingly argues how tax policy could be improved by incorporating science and scientific methods.

This book explains how Louis XIV survived his bid for European hegemony unscathed while other aspiring hegemons in modern history suffered catastrophic defeats. It argues that Louis employed a powerful coalition-breaking strategy unique to him and lays out the implications of Louis XIV’s unique case for today’s security competitions.

Current debates in the environmental humanities, animal studies, and related fields increasingly revolve around this question: What to do with “the human”? Is the human a category worth preserving? Should it be replaced with the post-human? Should marginalized and minoritarian groups advocate for a universal humanism? What is the relationship between humanism and anthropocentrism? Is a genuinely non-anthropocentric mode of thinking and living possible for human beings?
This book argues that the writings of twentieth-century poet Robinson Jeffers offer twenty-first-century readers a number of crucial insights concerning such questions and timely advice about how not to be human. For Jeffers, our tendency to turn inward on ourselves and to indulge in human narcissism is at the heart of the social, economic, and existential ills that plague modern societies. As a remedy, Jeffers recommends turning ourselves outward—beyond the self and beyond the human—and learning to affirm and even love the inhuman cosmos in all of its terrible beauty. In articulating this vision of “inhumanism,” Jeffers develops a full-orbed and radical non-anthropocentrism that stretches across ethical, political, ontological, and aesthetic registers. In the process, Jeffers helps us find our way back to ourselves, but this time no longer as “human” in the traditional sense but as plain members of the inhuman world. With his inhumanist philosophy and poetics, Jeffers not only anticipates the most pressing questions and cutting-edge debates of our present moment but also challenges us to reconsider some of the key dogmas that underpin familiar discourses surrounding the Anthropocene and posthumanist philosophies and ecopoetics.

This delightful text combines the practicalities of a travel guide with the revealing observations of social journalism. ‘How to Enjoy Paris in 1842’ covers a wide range of subjects, from the history of the great city to contemporary commerce, conveyed by a witty, often satirical narrative reminiscent of Jonathan Swift. The author guides the reader on a leisurely walk around the monuments and attractions of the capital, bringing to life a vibrant and mesmerising city. Hervé’s narrative voice is engaging in that it constantly appeals to the reader, inviting their participation in his Parisian experience, and succeeds in combining anecdotal humour with witty observations of both the French and British. His Paris is populated by caricatures worthy of Dickens, the city familiarized through the inclusion of personal anecdotes performed by stereotypes still recognizable now. This fascinating book provides today's reader with a real sense of how much and how little things have changed in the intervening century and a half.

‘How to Get into Medical School in Australia’ is the definitive guide on how to succeed in your application to medical school – and how to excel once there. The book provides comprehensive details of the admissions processes – both undergraduate and graduate – in an easy-to-digest, chronological format, to help you manage your application step by step.

This detailed handbook includes an overview of the admissions process and the career of a doctor, characteristics sought in potential medical students and how to optimise them, study techniques for high school and undergraduate students, information on how to prepare for the medical school entry exams (UMAT and GAMSAT), the pros and cons of undergraduate and postgraduate medical school, and timelines on when to begin preparing for each step of the application process.

The guide also features advice on special applications (for mature age, indigenous, rural and international students), non-traditional routes of entry, how to optimise your medical school application form (including sample resumés), and the all-important medical school interview – including how to prepare, how to dress and how to answer questions successfully on the day, as well as several pages of practice interview questions.

Once you have succeeded in gaining admission, the book also offers information on what medical school is like, and advice on how to excel and enjoy it (including a list of necessary textbooks). Additionally, the guide includes advice from people who have excelled in various parts of the process: those who aced their high school leaver’s exams, medical students, and junior and senior doctors. They describe their experiences and, most importantly, provide tips and guidance on how to succeed in getting into and studying at medical school. Also included are the profiles of every medical school in Australia, detailing entry requirements, contact details, fees, numbers of places for students and the focus and academic ranking of each individual school. 

The first thesis of ‘How Transformative Innovations Shaped the Rise of Nations’ is that economic growth, national dominance and global leadership are fueled primarily by embracing innovations, in particular transformative innovations.

A transformative innovation is one that changes the lives of people, reshapes the structure of society, disrupts the balance of power within and among nations, and creates enormous wealth for its sponsors. The adoption of a transformative innovation spawns numerous other related or consequent innovations. It provides a competitive advantage to a nation and may propel a small, backward region to world leadership in as short a time as a century. Further, the transformative innovation can sometimes itself promote the positive environment that leads to further innovations. Thus, embracing innovation can start a positive cycle of wealth creation, economic dominance and a positive environment for further innovation. This positive cycle continues as long as the environment that spawned the innovation remains supportive or until another transformative innovation arises elsewhere.

The second thesis of ‘How Transformative Innovations Shaped the Rise of Nations’ is that innovation is not adopted randomly across time and nations. Rather, it is sustained by an environment characterized by key institutional drivers within a country or region, three of the most important of which are openness to new ideas, technologies and people, especially immigrants; empowerment of individuals to innovate, start businesses, trade and keep rewards for these activities; and competition among nations, patrons, entrepreneurs or firms. Geography, resources, climate, religion and colonization probably played a role as well. However, past treatments of the rise of nations have overemphasized the role of these other factors; they have downplayed or ignored the role of innovations and the institutional drivers that led to their development and adoption.

‘Human Resource Policy’ provides practitioners and students with a conceptual framework and practical guidelines to establish and maintain an effective HR policy function. It highlights the importance of, but often neglected, policy function as the vital link between strategy and practice.

Taking a uniquely holistic approach to HR policy, ‘Human Resource Policy’ demonstrates how HR policies can contribute to the achievement of organisational goals and the development of organisational culture. It focuses on practical aspects such as the processes of policy development and policy implementation so that they are understood and have maximum impact on policy function. Common policy management challenges are also discussed.

The book also examines in detail 16 common HR policy areas and discusses policy options in each area. This part of the book includes learning activities based on realistic business scenarios that require readers to deal with policy issues and solve policy-related problems.

The book is an addition to the scarce literature dealing specifically with HR policy.

‘Human Resource Policy’ provides practitioners and students with a conceptual framework and practical guidelines to establish and maintain an effective HR policy function. It highlights the importance of, but often neglected, policy function as the vital link between strategy and practice.

Taking a uniquely holistic approach to HR policy, ‘Human Resource Policy’ demonstrates how HR policies can contribute to the achievement of organisational goals and the development of organisational culture. It focuses on practical aspects such as the processes of policy development and policy implementation so that they are understood and have maximum impact on policy function. Common policy management challenges are also discussed.

The book also examines in detail 16 common HR policy areas and discusses policy options in each area. This part of the book includes learning activities based on realistic business scenarios that require readers to deal with policy issues and solve policy-related problems.

The book is an addition to the scarce literature dealing specifically with HR policy.

Major theories of securitization have been indispensable in shedding light on how governmental security politics have been articulated through discourses or through institutionalized practices. While theorists in the field have acknowledged their state-centred focus, they have yet to remedy this. This book provides a rare opportunity to consider such theories in a non-state centred way, focusing instead on ‘virtuous’ or supra-national organizations such as judicial human rights institutions in Europe. This book aims to explore the ways such organizations, illustrated with particular but not exclusive, reference to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), have been complicit in governmental security agendas to the extent of losing their role as neutral arbiter of state actions to colluding with state-led security politics. Thus, it will link the socio-legal study of human rights with the politics of securitization and with European Studies, re-appraising the aspect of the ‘European Project’ that anticipated closer harmonization and integration of nation-states through the operation of supranational courts like the ECtHR. The situation in the United States will be used for comparative purposes. 

The first theme of the book will be to consider the relationship between human rights, embodiment and the violation of bodily integrity. It will demonstrate and explain the subordination of international rights to national security through the issue of ‘embodiment’, the most fundamental of human rights being to protect bodily integrity. 

The book seeks to tease out the contextual background to the way women’s bodies have been treated by judicial human rights. Building on a decade of research by the author, it shows that the steady expansion – in democratic countries – of laws restricting women’s dress and conduct, and [Muslim] women’s lack of success in contesting this via the national or supranational judiciary, are in part due to the liberal individualism that has characterized human rights from their inception.

The book provides a comprehensive discussion of the new humor that has appeared on the internet. The book is divided into five sections: First, the introduction, which explains the idea that humor has changed since the widespread adoption of the internet and social media. The introduction reviews the theoretical tools that will be applied throughout the book: a discussion of humor theory and memes and how they function. The discussion is kept engaging and readable but is nonetheless based on rigorous scholarship, presented clearly by a well-known humor researcher.

Part 1 collects several chapters on the new humorous genres that have appeared on the internet: the humorous meme, the compilation video, online digital cartoons, the “stuff white people like” phenomenon, Dogecoin, the joke crypto-currency, and of course satirical news, such as The Onion. The overall point is that many of these phenomena are completely native to the internet/social media or have been significantly affected by the distribution via the internet.

Part 2 considers in more detail a number of examples of humorous memes: they include the Cheryl She Shed meme, the BoatyMcBoatface incident in which the crowdsourcing of the name for a boat went awry, Pastafarianism, the joke religion, grumpy cats, and the Chuck Norris memes. Part 3 considers multimodal humorous genres: the Hitler rant, photobombing, embarrassment (“cringe”) comedy, rant-to-music videos, and music video parodies. Here too, these new genres can exist only due to the availability of platforms such as Youtube or TikTok. Part 4 looks at the dark side of internet humor, considering the use of humor by the alt. right on 4chan and 8chan, trolling, and related phenomena. The last chapter looks at humorous cartoon “mascots” such as Pepe the Frog and Kek, which have been appropriated by the right.

The first comprehensive guide to humor in the age of the internet and social media, this book will make you laugh (for the examples) and will enlighten you (for the analyses). Hopefully.

The book provides a comprehensive discussion of the new humor that has appeared on the internet. The book is divided into five sections: First, the introduction, which explains the idea that humor has changed since the widespread adoption of the internet and social media. The introduction reviews the theoretical tools that will be applied throughout the book: a discussion of humor theory and memes and how they function. The discussion is kept engaging and readable but is nonetheless based on rigorous scholarship, presented clearly by a well-known humor researcher.

Part 1 collects several chapters on the new humorous genres that have appeared on the internet: the humorous meme, the compilation video, online digital cartoons, the “stuff white people like” phenomenon, Dogecoin, the joke crypto-currency, and of course satirical news, such as The Onion. The overall point is that many of these phenomena are completely native to the internet/social media or have been significantly affected by the distribution via the internet.

Part 2 considers in more detail a number of examples of humorous memes: they include the Cheryl She Shed meme, the BoatyMcBoatface incident in which the crowdsourcing of the name for a boat went awry, Pastafarianism, the joke religion, grumpy cats, and the Chuck Norris memes. Part 3 considers multimodal humorous genres: the Hitler rant, photobombing, embarrassment (“cringe”) comedy, rant-to-music videos, and music video parodies. Here too, these new genres can exist only due to the availability of platforms such as Youtube or TikTok. Part 4 looks at the dark side of internet humor, considering the use of humor by the alt. right on 4chan and 8chan, trolling, and related phenomena. The last chapter looks at humorous cartoon “mascots” such as Pepe the Frog and Kek, which have been appropriated by the right.

The first comprehensive guide to humor in the age of the internet and social media, this book will make you laugh (for the examples) and will enlighten you (for the analyses). Hopefully.

Based on the 2014 DP Biology course, the ‘IB Biology Revision Workbook’ is intended for use by students studying at any stage of the two-year course. Teachers and tutors will also enjoy using this workbook with their students. A wide variety of revision tasks are included covering topics of the Standard Level Core, Additional Higher Level and each of the four Options.

The tasks include skills and applications taken directly from the guide, as well as activities aimed at consolidating learning. Students are asked to draw, label, colour or annotate diagrams; sketch or analyse graphs; complete concept maps and Venn diagrams; answer examination-style questions; fill in summary tables; and connect related ideas.

A section on preparation is included to assist students prior to the examinations, along with exam-answering techniques and helpful tips to answering questions. A glossary of key terms and summary of prefixes and suffixes also assists student revision.

A very challenging subject like IB chemistry requires tremendous effort to understand fully and attain a high grade. ‘IB Chemistry Revision Guide’, written by one of the most experienced and respected chemistry teachers in the UK, simplifies the content and provides clear explanations for the material. 

Each chapter is separated into two-page spreads covering all the essential details in easy-to-follow sections. High level and Standard level material are clearly marked. Complicated calculations have worked out examples to help the student. Also included are ‘curveball’ examples of the sort of challenging questions IB examiners love.

The ‘IB Music Revision Guide 2nd Edition’ includes analyses of all the prescribed works of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme music course through 2019. It also includes a comprehensive overview of all the musical styles and cultures that are examined during the course, practice questions and answers that allow students to check their knowledge, as well as a glossary to help ensure key terms are understood. There are also revision tips and advice on exam technique that will help students prepare for the IB listening exam with confidence. Suitable for Standard and Higher Level.

The ‘IB Music Revision Guide 3rd Edition’ includes analyses of all the prescribed works of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme music course through to 2021. It also includes a comprehensive overview of all the musical styles and cultures that are examined during the course, practice questions and answers that allow students to check their knowledge, as well as a glossary to help ensure key terms are understood. There are also revision tips and advice on exam technique that will help students prepare for the IB listening exam with confidence. Suitable for Standard and Higher Level.

Iconomy: Towards a Political Economy of Images argues that imagery of all kinds—from visual icons in social media, advertising, news broadcasting and political campaigns, in architecture and art through to more private realms such as dreams—has become a definitive force in the shaping of contemporary life. It has become a vital part, often a primary medium, in most of the many economies operative within contemporary societies, in commercial exchange, public politics, cultural contestation, and subject formation. They have become, substantially, iconomic. Yet this imagery is generated and flows, accretes, shifts, and swops, runs free or is managed, according to its inherent potentials and limits—that is, for all its immersion in wider economies, however much it saturates them, it is an economy of its own, an iconomy.

Part I traces conceptualizations of links between seeing and planning, images and economies, through Plato’s cave allegory, medieval iconoclasm, Marx’s theories of commodity, and Debord’s spectacle society, up to interpretations of the systemic saturation of contemporary imaginaries by images (mostly visual), ostensive performances, and exhibitionary exchanges deployed through widely shared yet intensely managed screen and surveillance technologies. 

The implicit politics of this economy become explicit in Part II, which explores the iconopolitics of (i) the (mis)management of imagery associated with SARS-CoV-19; (ii) the ubiquity, retreat and possible resurgence of the image regime centered on Donald J. Trump, along with the Biden response; (iii) the nature and impact of the video of the murder of George Floyd; (iv) the similarities and differences between the videos of the beating of Rodney King in 1991 and the killing of George Floyd in 2020; (v) BLM ignition of imagery around intersectional struggle; (vi) the war of images within the current civil war in the United States; (vii) the potentialities for building community while image wars rage; and (viii) the recent rise of “black aesthetics” within predominantly white artworlds. The book concludes with a reflection on usefulness, and the limitations, of iconomic analyses of contemporary societies. Having arrived at the term “iconomy” in the years just prior to 9/11, and tracking its growing relevance since, Smith argues that its study does not require a discipline serving nation state and globalizing capitalism but, instead, a deconstructive interdiscipline that contributes to planetary world-making. 

Iconomy: Towards a Political Economy of Images argues that imagery of all kinds—from visual icons in social media, advertising, news broadcasting and political campaigns, in architecture and art through to more private realms such as dreams—has become a definitive force in the shaping of contemporary life. It has become a vital part, often a primary medium, in most of the many economies operative within contemporary societies, in commercial exchange, public politics, cultural contestation, and subject formation. They have become, substantially, iconomic. Yet this imagery is generated and flows, accretes, shifts, and swops, runs free or is managed, according to its inherent potentials and limits—that is, for all its immersion in wider economies, however much it saturates them, it is an economy of its own, an iconomy.

Part I traces conceptualizations of links between seeing and planning, images and economies, through Plato’s cave allegory, medieval iconoclasm, Marx’s theories of commodity, and Debord’s spectacle society, up to interpretations of the systemic saturation of contemporary imaginaries by images (mostly visual), ostensive performances, and exhibitionary exchanges deployed through widely shared yet intensely managed screen and surveillance technologies. 

The implicit politics of this economy become explicit in Part II, which explores the iconopolitics of (i) the (mis)management of imagery associated with SARS-CoV-19; (ii) the ubiquity, retreat and possible resurgence of the image regime centered on Donald J. Trump, along with the Biden response; (iii) the nature and impact of the video of the murder of George Floyd; (iv) the similarities and differences between the videos of the beating of Rodney King in 1991 and the killing of George Floyd in 2020; (v) BLM ignition of imagery around intersectional struggle; (vi) the war of images within the current civil war in the United States; (vii) the potentialities for building community while image wars rage; and (viii) the recent rise of “black aesthetics” within predominantly white artworlds. The book concludes with a reflection on usefulness, and the limitations, of iconomic analyses of contemporary societies. Having arrived at the term “iconomy” in the years just prior to 9/11, and tracking its growing relevance since, Smith argues that its study does not require a discipline serving nation state and globalizing capitalism but, instead, a deconstructive interdiscipline that contributes to planetary world-making. 

'ICTs and Development in India' provides a critical account of the impact of the use of Information Technology in development projects in India, focusing particularly on E-governance and Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) development programs initiated by Civil Society Organizations (CSOs). Sreekumar challenges the conventional wisdom concerning the potential of ICT to provide unprecedented social and economic opportunities for vulnerable groups such as women and marginalized communities by highlighting its failure to bridge social divides. He argues that in addition to reinforcing existing social divides, the patterns of ICT deployment and control have in certain cases created new divides. Given such tensions and contradictions, this book questions whether it is appropriate to consider civil society as an independent realm of social action separated from State and Market.

Sreekumar offers a fresh perspective and added depth to the discussions on the social impacts of new technologies in rural areas, especially in terms of methods, analytics and approach. The recognition of the shortcomings of CSO initiatives plays an important part in redefining the role of civil society and understanding its fractured relations with the State and Market. Sreekumar therefore creates a powerful critique on the interpretation of agency and the structure of rural transformation as mediated by new technologies in the particular context of India's social and economic transition.

This scholarly monograph looks at a little-researched diaspora, originating on the Greek Aegean Island of Ikaria. Ikaria itself is a small, isolated island, close to the Turkish coast. It has had a long and independent history, with periods of autonomy and self-rule, including the short-lived Free State of Ikaria in 1912, which was the outcome of the Ikarian Revolution against the Ottoman Empire. Ikarians themselves remained quite insular until the nineteenth century, when they began emigrating. Ottoman port-cities and urban centres, as well as nearby Aegean islands, received the first Ikarian emigrants.
Eventually, Ikarians found themselves in growing hubs of migration such as Egypt and the United States. By 1910, the first Ikarians had arrived in Port Pirie, South Australia, beginning a long tradition of Ikarian migration and settlement in the state. This book explores the Ikarians in South Australia between 1900 and 1945 – an under-researched period, and a contrast from most studies on Greeks in Australia, which have focused heavily on the mass migration post-World War II and post-Greek Civil War. This also leaves a gap for a later study on Ikarians in South Australia beyond 1945. The book positions itself around four key themes: emigration, settlement, community building and integration, with ideas such as localism and identity being explored as facets within those themes.

William Congreve wrote his plays and his novella, Incognita¸ during a time of immense social and political upheaval. The revolution of 1688 brought with it a rash of new ideas. William and Mary were monarchs chosen by a Convention of Englishmen, not rulers chosen by divine right. And new ideas in philosophy and politics, most notably expressed in the writings of John Locke, gave a new shape to the way the world was perceived. Congreve, an ardent supporter of the dual monarchy and later of William III, was depicted by Charles Lamb and many later critics as writing comedies that had no connection with the real world. To the contrary, his writings reflect a strong engagement with the changes occurring in the social milieu of the time. The new sense of political liberty brought with it greater social equality; the lapse in the Licensing Act brought greater freedom in publishing. And while the attack upon the stage by Jeremy Collier in 1698 was to rein in some of the explorative nature of comedy during the 1690s, Congreve took advantage of the new freedoms from the events of 1688 to write sophisticated comedies that both exploited this liberation and criticised it.

This book attempts to examine Congreve’s major writings in the light of these changes by beginning with what appears to have been the questions raised by what may be seen as skepticism about the family, the collapse of concepts of marriage and the debates over divorce that dominated the decade. The book demonstrates how Congreve’s plays were very much a part of this; however, in his comedies, he always managed to achieve a light surface affect. This is perhaps never truer than in his first publication, his novella Incognita. Yet what appears to be an amusing series of mistaken identities resembling what was called a “Spanish plot” turns out to contain some serious questions about identity and some doubts about the way we understand our world. After demonstrating the political ambiguities of The Old Batchelor, the book shows how the betrayal of the family to which the lovers, Mellefont and Cynthia, are attached, by the sinister Maskall, is a fairly blatant attack on the politics of Jacobitism. Congreve followed this with the lighter Love for Love, which, beneath its odd Egyptian imagery, contains an attack upon the patriarchal concept of government still accepted by the followers of the deposed king, James II. In his tragi-comedy, The Mourning Bride, Congreve allowed his plot to carry the weight of the Whig rebellion, giving his lovers the epistemology of perception that belonged to the new world of the 1690s, compared to the uncontrolled passions of the past. In his final play, The Way of the World, he demonstrates how his lovers of 1700 reveal a combination of sensibility and canniness that make them capable of facing the complexities of the new century.

William Congreve wrote his plays and his novella, Incognita¸ during a time of immense social and political upheaval. The revolution of 1688 brought with it a rash of new ideas. William and Mary were monarchs chosen by a Convention of Englishmen, not rulers chosen by divine right. And new ideas in philosophy and politics, most notably expressed in the writings of John Locke, gave a new shape to the way the world was perceived. Congreve, an ardent supporter of the dual monarchy and later of William III, was depicted by Charles Lamb and many later critics as writing comedies that had no connection with the real world. To the contrary, his writings reflect a strong engagement with the changes occurring in the social milieu of the time. The new sense of political liberty brought with it greater social equality; the lapse in the Licensing Act brought greater freedom in publishing. And while the attack upon the stage by Jeremy Collier in 1698 was to rein in some of the explorative nature of comedy during the 1690s, Congreve took advantage of the new freedoms from the events of 1688 to write sophisticated comedies that both exploited this liberation and criticised it.

This book attempts to examine Congreve’s major writings in the light of these changes by beginning with what appears to have been the questions raised by what may be seen as skepticism about the family, the collapse of concepts of marriage and the debates over divorce that dominated the decade. The book demonstrates how Congreve’s plays were very much a part of this; however, in his comedies, he always managed to achieve a light surface affect. This is perhaps never truer than in his first publication, his novella Incognita. Yet what appears to be an amusing series of mistaken identities resembling what was called a “Spanish plot” turns out to contain some serious questions about identity and some doubts about the way we understand our world. After demonstrating the political ambiguities of The Old Batchelor, the book shows how the betrayal of the family to which the lovers, Mellefont and Cynthia, are attached, by the sinister Maskall, is a fairly blatant attack on the politics of Jacobitism. Congreve followed this with the lighter Love for Love, which, beneath its odd Egyptian imagery, contains an attack upon the patriarchal concept of government still accepted by the followers of the deposed king, James II. In his tragi-comedy, The Mourning Bride, Congreve allowed his plot to carry the weight of the Whig rebellion, giving his lovers the epistemology of perception that belonged to the new world of the 1690s, compared to the uncontrolled passions of the past. In his final play, The Way of the World, he demonstrates how his lovers of 1700 reveal a combination of sensibility and canniness that make them capable of facing the complexities of the new century.

With its close analysis of the phenomenon of the migration of Indian students to Australia, this book critically approaches the entanglement of the education industry with migration opportunities, and looks into the goals and aspirations of the Indian middle class. It discusses the overlaps of studies on migration and transnationalism, and raises questions on skilled migration.

With its close analysis of the phenomenon of the migration of Indian students to Australia, this book critically approaches the entanglement of the education industry with migration opportunities, and looks into the goals and aspirations of the Indian middle class. It discusses the overlaps of studies on migration and transnationalism, and raises questions on skilled migration.

Offering the first comparative study of 1920s’ US and Canadian print cultures, ‘Imagining Gender, Nation and Consumerism in Magazines of the 1920s’ examines the highly influential ‘Ladies’ Home Journal’ (1883–2014) and the often-overlooked ‘Canadian Home Journal’ (1905–1958). American magazines were, in the main, established earlier than their Canadian counterparts, and the ‘Ladies’ Home Journal’ was pioneering in the development of the stylistic and economic model of the modern mass-market magazine. Unsurprisingly the ‘Canadian Home Journal’ – and Canadian magazines more generally – made use of the tried-and-tested methods developed south of the 49th parallel. This, combined with comparatively far smaller circulations, has led to the unflattering assumption that Canadian magazines were merely derivative of their American predecessors. The present book argues that this is not the case, but that both magazines make use of – and manipulate – the conventions of the magazine form in notably different ways, as they work to construct their imagined audiences.

The issues published during the 1920s are particularly fascinating in this respect, since at this time both magazines were changing rapidly in response to technological modernity, altering gender economies and the burgeoning of consumer culture. This context underpins the presentation of ideals in each magazine: of self-improvement and aspiration, the home and domesticity, and fashion and beauty. Through detailed multilevel analysis, the book uncovers the complexities of the two magazines, opening out into broader conclusions about interwar mainstream magazines more generally. In the process, it also demonstrates the value of working at the intersection of humanities and social science disciplines.

Engaging with the latest advances in periodical studies, ‘Imagining Gender, Nation, and Consumerism in Magazines of the 1920s’ considers these magazines as collaborative literary texts, cultural artefacts and commercial products. It brings together literary perspectives with consumer culture theory in order to analyse how the ‘Ladies’ Home Journal’ and ‘Canadian Home Journal’ negotiated competing literary and commercial demands and how they constructed their imagined audience as readers, consumers and citizens.

‘Improvisations of Empire’ offers the first extended critical, biographical and historiographical account of the work of Thomas Pringle, a poet and writer who occupies a central place in the cultural imaginary of English-speaking, white South Africans. However, there has been, to date, no single study which attempts to encompass all the aspects of Pringle’s life and work, and, particularly, to examine his poetry in the ‘thick’ context of its different national locations and his importance as a transnational and not merely a local or colonial writer.

Using the methods of close reading, and combining these with an examination of the historical record (much of it archival material unknown to, or ignored by, previous scholarship), ‘Improvisations of Empire’ seeks to understand Pringle’s writing, particularly the poetry, within the layered histories of his Scottish Enlightenment background and his early literary exposure to both Scottish and English Romanticisms. It then traces how these formative influences are refracted, and fractured, by his colonial experiences in the Cape Colony, before undergoing yet another modification during his period of residence in London (1826–1834). It was during this final stage of Pringle’s career that most of his writing was published for the first time, and very little critical attention has been paid either to the retrospective character of these writings, or to how they are inflected by Pringle’s metropolitan status as a prominent abolitionist, secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, an increasingly fervid evangelical and a prominent editorial figure in the world of the literary annuals so popular at the time. Matthew Shum additionally argues that, quite apart from his crucial importance to South African literature, Pringle can also be understood as a figure working at a revealing tangent to metropolitan paradigms. The study explores Pringle’s ‘improvisations’ of his imperial identity in various locations and suggests that his writing offers a limit case for mainstream literary paradigms as they press up against unfamiliar and often disturbing colonial conditions.

‘Improvisations of Empire’ offers the first extended critical, biographical and historiographical account of the work of Thomas Pringle, a poet and writer who occupies a central place in the cultural imaginary of English-speaking, white South Africans. However, there has been, to date, no single study which attempts to encompass all the aspects of Pringle’s life and work, and, particularly, to examine his poetry in the ‘thick’ context of its different national locations and his importance as a transnational and not merely a local or colonial writer.

Using the methods of close reading, and combining these with an examination of the historical record (much of it archival material unknown to, or ignored by, previous scholarship), ‘Improvisations of Empire’ seeks to understand Pringle’s writing, particularly the poetry, within the layered histories of his Scottish Enlightenment background and his early literary exposure to both Scottish and English Romanticisms. It then traces how these formative influences are refracted, and fractured, by his colonial experiences in the Cape Colony, before undergoing yet another modification during his period of residence in London (1826–1834). It was during this final stage of Pringle’s career that most of his writing was published for the first time, and very little critical attention has been paid either to the retrospective character of these writings, or to how they are inflected by Pringle’s metropolitan status as a prominent abolitionist, secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, an increasingly fervid evangelical and a prominent editorial figure in the world of the literary annuals so popular at the time. Matthew Shum additionally argues that, quite apart from his crucial importance to South African literature, Pringle can also be understood as a figure working at a revealing tangent to metropolitan paradigms. The study explores Pringle’s ‘improvisations’ of his imperial identity in various locations and suggests that his writing offers a limit case for mainstream literary paradigms as they press up against unfamiliar and often disturbing colonial conditions.

In Defense of Reason After Hegel builds upon and enlists the arguments of Hegel to refute the disempowerment of reason perpetrated by the peddlers of misinformation in public life and by analytic philosophy and postmodernism in the academy. Undermining their assaults on truth, In Defense of Reason After Hegel shows how the fundamental character of nature and of mind allow reason to be autonomous and allow us to enact a reality of freedom in accord with right and freely create works of fine art. The book examines how life and language provide the means for reason to be autonomous and how the autonomy of thought precludes natural evolution or bioengineering from enhancing our capacity for philosophical thinking. It unravels the perplexities of the logic of self-determination and to show how the will can achieve self-determination in the conventions by which agents engender the institutions of freedom. The book then unveils the limitations of the principle of contradiction, which bars the way to an understanding of how anything can be determinate and how thought and action can be free. Thereupon the paradoxes that arise in thinking time are resolved by liberating thought of the formality of the principle of contradiction. The revolutionary character of Hegel’s conception of consciousness is next explored to make intelligible how animals and young children can be conscious and self-conscious, as well as how philosophical thought can overcome the epistemological limitations of the opposition of consciousness. On this basis, the book draws upon Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind to show how language can originate and be an appropriate vehicle of autonomous reason. The book examines the structure of the institutions of freedom that talking animals can enact. It highlights the philosophical underpinnings of the fundamental shortcomings in the American constitution and American society and draws lessons from the author’s recent campaign to shed light on how the philosophy of right can be a guide to social reform. It also examines how the autonomy of fine art can be realized in sculpture, contrary to claims made by Hegel that would tie this individual art to the classical style.

In Defense of Reason After Hegel builds upon and enlists the arguments of Hegel to refute the disempowerment of reason perpetrated by the peddlers of misinformation in public life and by analytic philosophy and postmodernism in the academy. Undermining their assaults on truth, In Defense of Reason After Hegel shows how the fundamental character of nature and of mind allow reason to be autonomous and allow us to enact a reality of freedom in accord with right and freely create works of fine art. The book examines how life and language provide the means for reason to be autonomous and how the autonomy of thought precludes natural evolution or bioengineering from enhancing our capacity for philosophical thinking. It unravels the perplexities of the logic of self-determination and to show how the will can achieve self-determination in the conventions by which agents engender the institutions of freedom. The book then unveils the limitations of the principle of contradiction, which bars the way to an understanding of how anything can be determinate and how thought and action can be free. Thereupon the paradoxes that arise in thinking time are resolved by liberating thought of the formality of the principle of contradiction. The revolutionary character of Hegel’s conception of consciousness is next explored to make intelligible how animals and young children can be conscious and self-conscious, as well as how philosophical thought can overcome the epistemological limitations of the opposition of consciousness. On this basis, the book draws upon Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind to show how language can originate and be an appropriate vehicle of autonomous reason. The book examines the structure of the institutions of freedom that talking animals can enact. It highlights the philosophical underpinnings of the fundamental shortcomings in the American constitution and American society and draws lessons from the author’s recent campaign to shed light on how the philosophy of right can be a guide to social reform. It also examines how the autonomy of fine art can be realized in sculpture, contrary to claims made by Hegel that would tie this individual art to the classical style.

In this novel-length road story, the female protagonist, who is haunted by an audio hallucination –‘twenty ells of linen are worth a coat’ – that plays over and over in her mind, escapes from a mental hospital with a young man. This is the story of their journey together.

The hallucinatory words come from a passage in Marx's Das Kapital, but the protagonist knows nothing of that; nor does she understand what they literally mean. After she starts to hear them, she attempts suicide and is then diagnosed as manic and placed in a mental hospital. Unable to stand life in the prison-like hospital, she makes a daring escape with Nagoyan, another patient.

She is 21 and fluent in the Hakata dialect of northern Kyushu. Nagoyan is a 24-year-old company employee suffering from depression who insists that he is a native of Tokyo, though he is actually from Nagoya. This strange pair, just escaped from their Hakata hospital, struggle with the mental crises that constantly assault them as they head southward in a junky car, picking destinations at whim as they go. On the way, they sightsee, quarrel, and yearn for the fragrance of lavender, which is supposedly good for the emotions.

At last they reach Ibusuki in Kagoshima, the southernmost part of Kyushu, where they are able to smell the unlikely scent of lavender. Walking together along a path in the seabed that only appears at low tide, they make a decision that will change both of them, and will help them achieve the catharsis they desperately seek. 

The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York on 11 September 2001 saw the start of the so-called war on terror. The aim of ‘In the Name of Security – Secrecy, Surveillance and Journalism’is to assess the impact of surveillance and other security measures on in-depth public interest journalism. How has the global fear-driven security paradigm sparked by 11 September affected journalism? Moves by governments to expand the powers of intelligence and security organizations and legislate for the retention of personal data for several years have the potential to stall investigative journalism. Such journalism, with its focus on accountability and scrutiny of powerful interests in society, is a pillar of democracy.

Investigative journalism informs society by providing information that enables citizens to have input into democratic processes. But will whistleblowers acting in public interest in future contact reporters if they risk being exposed by state and corporate surveillance? Will journalists provide fearless coverage of security issues when they risk jail for reporting them?

At the core of ‘In the Name of Security – Secrecy, Surveillance and Journalism’ sits what the authors have labeled the ‘trust us dilemma’. Governments justify passing, at times, oppressive and far-reaching anti-terror laws to keep citizens safe from terror. By doing so governments are asking the public to trust their good intentions and the integrity of the security agencies. But how can the public decide to trust the government and its agencies if it does not have access to information on which to base its decision?

‘In the Name of Security – Secrecy, Surveillance and Journalism’ takes an internationally comparative approach using case studies from the powerful intelligence-sharing group known as the Five Eyes consisting of the US, Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Chapters assessing a selection of EU countries and some of the BRICS countries provide additional and important points of comparison to the English-speaking countries that make up the Five Eyes.

The core questions in the book are investigated and assessed in the disciplines of journalism studies, law and international relations. The topics covered include an overview and assessment of the latest technological developments allowing the mass surveillance of large populations including the use of drones (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles).

Pëtr F. Iakubovich was born in Novgorod Province to a noble family in 1860, during a period of upheaval in Russia called the Great Reforms. In 1884, he was arrested and convicted as a member of the terrorist organization the People’s Will. Iakubovich spent five years at a Siberian penal labor prison, followed by several more as a forced settler in Tobolsk Province. He began writing about his experiences while still in prison. The book he eventually produced is a quasi-fictionalized memoir loosely modeled on Dostoyevsky’s “Notes from a Dead House.”

Iakubovich represents himself through his protagonist Ivan Nikolaevich. For most of Volume One, Ivan Nikolaevich must deal, as an imprisoned nobleman, with a population largely comprised of violent criminals. As commoners, these are people with whom he barely interacted in his earlier life, but he is now living cheek-by-jowl with them. His conflicts and faux pas with Buzzy, Goncharov, the cousins Burenkov et al. are by turns comic and dreadful. Ivan Nikolaevich nevertheless manages to befriend several and to learn their life stories. Iakubovich uses these character vignettes to cast light on Imperial Russia’s underclass. Though his circumstances do not afford the privileges he previously enjoyed, Ivan Nikolaevich does enjoy unusual access to the lonely and jaded prison commandant, Luchezarov—better known to prisoners as “Six-Eyes.” But despite his verbal jousts with Luchezarov, Ivan Nikolaevich finds himself contemplating suicide.

Volume Two begins with the arrival at the prison of two fellow revolutionaries—Dmitrii Shteinhart and Valerian Bashurov. Ivan Nikolaevich is overjoyed to find himself with like-minded compatriots, and the three self-styled reformers take it upon themselves to undermine Luchezarov’s increasingly despotic management and to improve conditions for all the prisoners. Several conflicts emerge, and Iakubovich uses these to both parody and indict the penal justice system and Russian bureaucracy. Finally, Luchezarov is forced from office and the prison regime he installed is condemned by a superior. Soon after, Ivan Nikolaevich leaves prison for forced settlement. This much briefer section of the work concerns his difficulty in readjusting to life outside prison and his joy at being joined by his sister (in real life, she was Iakubovich’s fiancée). The book ends with a melancholy reflection on the human destruction wrought by the tsarist penal system.

Pëtr F. Iakubovich was born in Novgorod Province to a noble family in 1860, during a period of upheaval in Russia called the Great Reforms. In 1884, he was arrested and convicted as a member of the terrorist organization the People’s Will. Iakubovich spent five years at a Siberian penal labor prison, followed by several more as a forced settler in Tobolsk Province. He began writing about his experiences while still in prison. The book he eventually produced is a quasi-fictionalized memoir loosely modeled on Dostoyevsky’s “Notes from a Dead House.”

Iakubovich represents himself through his protagonist Ivan Nikolaevich. For most of Volume One, Ivan Nikolaevich must deal, as an imprisoned nobleman, with a population largely comprised of violent criminals. As commoners, these are people with whom he barely interacted in his earlier life, but he is now living cheek-by-jowl with them. His conflicts and faux pas with Buzzy, Goncharov, the cousins Burenkov et al. are by turns comic and dreadful. Ivan Nikolaevich nevertheless manages to befriend several and to learn their life stories. Iakubovich uses these character vignettes to cast light on Imperial Russia’s underclass. Though his circumstances do not afford the privileges he previously enjoyed, Ivan Nikolaevich does enjoy unusual access to the lonely and jaded prison commandant, Luchezarov—better known to prisoners as “Six-Eyes.” But despite his verbal jousts with Luchezarov, Ivan Nikolaevich finds himself contemplating suicide.

Volume Two begins with the arrival at the prison of two fellow revolutionaries—Dmitrii Shteinhart and Valerian Bashurov. Ivan Nikolaevich is overjoyed to find himself with like-minded compatriots, and the three self-styled reformers take it upon themselves to undermine Luchezarov’s increasingly despotic management and to improve conditions for all the prisoners. Several conflicts emerge, and Iakubovich uses these to both parody and indict the penal justice system and Russian bureaucracy. Finally, Luchezarov is forced from office and the prison regime he installed is condemned by a superior. Soon after, Ivan Nikolaevich leaves prison for forced settlement. This much briefer section of the work concerns his difficulty in readjusting to life outside prison and his joy at being joined by his sister (in real life, she was Iakubovich’s fiancée). The book ends with a melancholy reflection on the human destruction wrought by the tsarist penal system.

Pëtr F. Iakubovich was born in Novgorod Province to a noble family in 1860, during a period of upheaval in Russia called the Great Reforms. In 1884, he was arrested and convicted as a member of the terrorist organization the People’s Will. Iakubovich spent five years at a Siberian penal labor prison, followed by several more as a forced settler in Tobolsk Province. He began writing about his experiences while still in prison. The book he eventually produced is a quasi-fictionalized memoir loosely modeled on Dostoyevsky’s “Notes from a Dead House.”

Iakubovich represents himself through his protagonist Ivan Nikolaevich. For most of Volume One, Ivan Nikolaevich must deal, as an imprisoned nobleman, with a population largely comprised of violent criminals. As commoners, these are people with whom he barely interacted in his earlier life, but he is now living cheek-by-jowl with them. His conflicts and faux pas with Buzzy, Goncharov, the cousins Burenkov et al. are by turns comic and dreadful. Ivan Nikolaevich nevertheless manages to befriend several and to learn their life stories. Iakubovich uses these character vignettes to cast light on Imperial Russia’s underclass. Though his circumstances do not afford the privileges he previously enjoyed, Ivan Nikolaevich does enjoy unusual access to the lonely and jaded prison commandant, Luchezarov—better known to prisoners as “Six-Eyes.” But despite his verbal jousts with Luchezarov, Ivan Nikolaevich finds himself contemplating suicide.

Volume Two begins with the arrival at the prison of two fellow revolutionaries—Dmitrii Shteinhart and Valerian Bashurov. Ivan Nikolaevich is overjoyed to find himself with like-minded compatriots, and the three self-styled reformers take it upon themselves to undermine Luchezarov’s increasingly despotic management and to improve conditions for all the prisoners. Several conflicts emerge, and Iakubovich uses these to both parody and indict the penal justice system and Russian bureaucracy. Finally, Luchezarov is forced from office and the prison regime he installed is condemned by a superior. Soon after, Ivan Nikolaevich leaves prison for forced settlement. This much briefer section of the work concerns his difficulty in readjusting to life outside prison and his joy at being joined by his sister (in real life, she was Iakubovich’s fiancée). The book ends with a melancholy reflection on the human destruction wrought by the tsarist penal system. 

Pëtr F. Iakubovich was born in Novgorod Province to a noble family in 1860, during a period of upheaval in Russia called the Great Reforms. In 1884, he was arrested and convicted as a member of the terrorist organization the People’s Will. Iakubovich spent five years at a Siberian penal labor prison, followed by several more as a forced settler in Tobolsk Province. He began writing about his experiences while still in prison. The book he eventually produced is a quasi-fictionalized memoir loosely modeled on Dostoyevsky’s “Notes from a Dead House.”

Iakubovich represents himself through his protagonist Ivan Nikolaevich. For most of Volume One, Ivan Nikolaevich must deal, as an imprisoned nobleman, with a population largely comprised of violent criminals. As commoners, these are people with whom he barely interacted in his earlier life, but he is now living cheek-by-jowl with them. His conflicts and faux pas with Buzzy, Goncharov, the cousins Burenkov et al. are by turns comic and dreadful. Ivan Nikolaevich nevertheless manages to befriend several and to learn their life stories. Iakubovich uses these character vignettes to cast light on Imperial Russia’s underclass. Though his circumstances do not afford the privileges he previously enjoyed, Ivan Nikolaevich does enjoy unusual access to the lonely and jaded prison commandant, Luchezarov—better known to prisoners as “Six-Eyes.” But despite his verbal jousts with Luchezarov, Ivan Nikolaevich finds himself contemplating suicide.

Volume Two begins with the arrival at the prison of two fellow revolutionaries—Dmitrii Shteinhart and Valerian Bashurov. Ivan Nikolaevich is overjoyed to find himself with like-minded compatriots, and the three self-styled reformers take it upon themselves to undermine Luchezarov’s increasingly despotic management and to improve conditions for all the prisoners. Several conflicts emerge, and Iakubovich uses these to both parody and indict the penal justice system and Russian bureaucracy. Finally, Luchezarov is forced from office and the prison regime he installed is condemned by a superior. Soon after, Ivan Nikolaevich leaves prison for forced settlement. This much briefer section of the work concerns his difficulty in readjusting to life outside prison and his joy at being joined by his sister (in real life, she was Iakubovich’s fiancée). The book ends with a melancholy reflection on the human destruction wrought by the tsarist penal system. 

'Inclusive Growth, Full Employment, and Structural Change: Implications and Policies for Developing Asia' discusses policies to achieve inclusive growth in developing Asia, including agriculture, investment, certain state interventions, monetary, fiscal, and the role of the state as employer of last resort.

Felipe argues that full employment of the labor force is the key to delivering inclusive growth. Full employment is the most direct way to improve the well-being of the people, especially of the most disadvantaged. Since unemployment and underemployment are pervasive in many parts of the region, Asian leaders must commit to the goal of full employment. The book also analyzes the region's phenomenal growth in recent decades in terms of structural transformation. Accelerating it is vital for the continued growth of developing Asia. But efforts to achieve full employment might be held back given that structural transformation requires massive labor shifts across sectors, and these are difficult to coordinate. Moreover, the goal of full employment was abandoned in the 1970s, and governments and central banks have since concentrated on keeping inflation low.

'Inclusive Growth, Full Employment, and Structural Change: Implications and Policies for Developing Asia' discusses policies to achieve inclusive growth in developing Asia, including agriculture, investment, certain state interventions, monetary, fiscal, and the role of the state as employer of last resort.

Felipe argues that full employment of the labor force is the key to delivering inclusive growth. Full employment is the most direct way to improve the well-being of the people, especially of the most disadvantaged. Since unemployment and underemployment are pervasive in many parts of the region, Asian leaders must commit to the goal of full employment. The book also analyzes the region's phenomenal growth in recent decades in terms of structural transformation. Accelerating it is vital for the continued growth of developing Asia. But efforts to achieve full employment might be held back given that structural transformation requires massive labor shifts across sectors, and these are difficult to coordinate. Moreover, the goal of full employment was abandoned in the 1970s, and governments and central banks have since concentrated on keeping inflation low.

'Income Poverty and Beyond' emphasizes the need to go beyond the conventional definition of poverty and look at the various human aspects of the problem. Eminent social scientists such as Suresh Tendulkar, Abusaleh Shariff, R. Radhakrishna, M. S. S. Meenakshisundaram, Seeta K. Prabhu, Ravi Srivastava and the editors, Raja J. Chelliah and R. Sudarshan, take a comprehensive view of poverty to include the concept of human poverty, seen as the 'the denial of opportunities and choices most basic to human development'. Special care has been taken to make the information and analysis accessible to the general reader.

Using the latest available data for India as well as edited versions of papers commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for a South-Asia poverty monitor, the broad conclusion that has emerged is that more public action is needed to counter the high prevalence of human poverty. Therefore, current measures to reduce income-poverty, including high rates of economic growth, are not sufficient.

The first two chapters dwell on the concept of income-poverty, interstate and intergroup disparities and poverty trends in India over the decade 1983–94. This is followed by an examination of human development in rural India, availability of food to the poor, various programmes aimed at removing poverty, the indices of human poverty and public financing of social services, human priority expenditures, and human expenditure ratios for the Indian states. The perceptions of the poor in assessing their own poverty and in developing policies to improve their status are discussed, and an epilogue appeals to the national and international community to take serious note of human poverty in the midst of which we all live.

'Income Poverty and Beyond' emphasizes the need to go beyond the conventional definition of poverty and look at the various human aspects of the problem. Eminent social scientists such as Suresh Tendulkar, Abusaleh Shariff, R. Radhakrishna, M. S. S. Meenakshisundaram, Seeta K. Prabhu, Ravi Srivastava and the editors, Raja J. Chelliah and R. Sudarshan, take a comprehensive view of poverty to include the concept of human poverty, seen as the 'the denial of opportunities and choices most basic to human development'. Special care has been taken to make the information and analysis accessible to the general reader.

Using the latest available data for India as well as edited versions of papers commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for a South-Asia poverty monitor, the broad conclusion that has emerged is that more public action is needed to counter the high prevalence of human poverty. Therefore, current measures to reduce income-poverty, including high rates of economic growth, are not sufficient.

The first two chapters dwell on the concept of income-poverty, interstate and intergroup disparities and poverty trends in India over the decade 1983–94. This is followed by an examination of human development in rural India, availability of food to the poor, various programmes aimed at removing poverty, the indices of human poverty and public financing of social services, human priority expenditures, and human expenditure ratios for the Indian states. The perceptions of the poor in assessing their own poverty and in developing policies to improve their status are discussed, and an epilogue appeals to the national and international community to take serious note of human poverty in the midst of which we all live.

Underscoring the unique and multifaceted interactions between ancient India and ancient China, ‘India and China: Interactions through Buddhism and Diplomacy’ collates the classic works of the preeminent Indian scholar of Chinese history and Buddhism Professor Prabodh Chandra Bagchi (1898–1956). The collected essays of this volume range from those that examine the ancient names for India in Chinese sources, to those that investigate Indian influences on Chinese thought, analyze the beginnings of Buddhism in China, and explore the letters exchanged between the Chinese monk Xuanzang (Hiuan-Tsang) and his Indian friends. Also included are a variety of Bagchi’s short articles, as well as English translations of a number of his Bengali essays.

Further insight into Bagchi’s work is provided by the renowned scholars Suniti Kumar Chatterji and Akira Yuyama, who discuss respectively Bagchi’s contribution to Chinese studies in India and to the wider understanding of India-China interactions. With its wide-ranging and thorough investigation of both Sino-Indian Buddhism and cultural relations between the two ancient civilizations, ‘India and China: Interactions through Buddhism and Diplomacy’ will be an invaluable text for anyone interested in cross-cultural exchanges between India and China, Buddhism, or Asian history.

‘India and the Global Financial Crisis’ offers a collection of essays based on the speeches delivered by Reddy during his tenure as Governor of the Reserve Bank of India between September 2003 and September 2008, a period of rapid growth for the Indian economy as well as extraordinary challenges for the conduct of monetary policy. He has earned universal acclaim for his gubernatorial management of India’s calibrated financial integration with the global economy.

These essays provide informed critical insights into the making of public policies across a spectrum of areas during those years, while presenting an inside view of the dynamics that are played out behind the scenes. They respond to the interest in India's management of a financial sector that has facilitated growth while maintaining stability, markedly contrasting to the fragile financial climate of the USA. The volume describes India's financial situation, the Reserve Bank of India's perspective, and its policies. ‘India and the Global Financial Crisis’ was selected as Financial Book of the Year 2010 by ‘China Business News’.

‘India and the Global Financial Crisis’ offers a collection of essays based on the speeches delivered by Reddy during his tenure as Governor of the Reserve Bank of India between September 2003 and September 2008, a period of rapid growth for the Indian economy as well as extraordinary challenges for the conduct of monetary policy. He has earned universal acclaim for his gubernatorial management of India’s calibrated financial integration with the global economy.

These essays provide informed critical insights into the making of public policies across a spectrum of areas during those years, while presenting an inside view of the dynamics that are played out behind the scenes. They respond to the interest in India's management of a financial sector that has facilitated growth while maintaining stability, markedly contrasting to the fragile financial climate of the USA. The volume describes India's financial situation, the Reserve Bank of India's perspective, and its policies. ‘India and the Global Financial Crisis’ was selected as Financial Book of the Year 2010 by ‘China Business News’.

'The World Bank needs India more than India needs it.' So goes an emerging consensus on both sides of the relationship between the Bank and its largest borrower. This book analyzes the politics of aid and influence, explaining but also challenging this insider view, while at the same time arguing against the popular perception that the Bank imposes its neoliberal agenda on a retreating Indian state. The Bank, struggling to remain relevant amid India's recent rapid growth and expanding access to private capital, has been caught up in a complex federal politics of economic reform and development. India's central government - far from being in retreat - has been the main driver of dramatic changes in the Bank's assistance strategy, leading toward a focus at the sub-national state level. Yet the closer the Bank's engagement with India's States, the more apparent their political, institutional, and developmental differences become. The Bank has vacillated between a 'focus States' strategy to encourage successfully reforming States, and a 'lagging States' strategy to give special assistance to those left behind by recent growth. The Indian government itself has encouraged this uncertainty, as its interests have evolved from a political strategy of selective support to reformers, to a renewed concern for regional inequalities. This timely study will be of interest to scholars, development practitioners, and engaged observers of globalization and the nation-state.

'The World Bank needs India more than India needs it.' So goes an emerging consensus on both sides of the relationship between the Bank and its largest borrower. This book analyzes the politics of aid and influence, explaining but also challenging this insider view, while at the same time arguing against the popular perception that the Bank imposes its neoliberal agenda on a retreating Indian state. The Bank, struggling to remain relevant amid India's recent rapid growth and expanding access to private capital, has been caught up in a complex federal politics of economic reform and development. India's central government - far from being in retreat - has been the main driver of dramatic changes in the Bank's assistance strategy, leading toward a focus at the sub-national state level. Yet the closer the Bank's engagement with India's States, the more apparent their political, institutional, and developmental differences become. The Bank has vacillated between a 'focus States' strategy to encourage successfully reforming States, and a 'lagging States' strategy to give special assistance to those left behind by recent growth. The Indian government itself has encouraged this uncertainty, as its interests have evolved from a political strategy of selective support to reformers, to a renewed concern for regional inequalities. This timely study will be of interest to scholars, development practitioners, and engaged observers of globalization and the nation-state.

With the Asian economic upsurge in the recent decades, diasporas have emerged as significant agencies of the cultural diplomacy of respective nation states. Two of the most significant diasporic communities, the Indians and the Chinese, have long histories of migration to different corners of the world with considerable visibilities in different geo-political demographies. They have created many different local sites of interaction between themselves and with the host communities, particularly in Southeast Asia. The emerging concepts of ‘knowledge economy’, ‘global capitalism’, new trends of entrepreneurship, and a gradual shift of the economic power to the East has brought about a revision of relationships between homeland, diasporas and the different host nation-states.

This interdisciplinary collection of essays offers a window onto the overseas Indian and Chinese communities in Asia. Contributors discuss the interactive role of the cultural and religious ‘other’, the diasporic absorption of local beliefs and customs, and the practical business networks and operational mechanisms unique to these communities.

Growing out of an international workshop organized by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore and the Centre of Asian Studies at the University of Hong Kong, this volume explores material, cultural and imaginative features of the immigrant communities and brings together these two important communities within a comparative framework, and offers an example for further cross-disciplinary comparative study of this type.

The twentieth century has witnessed a tremendous reinforcement of the concept of democracy. In a period of about one hundred years, the virtues of democracy have been greatly extolled and the world has witnessed a process of democratization. In the sixty years since its inception, Indian democracy too has developed indigenous roots and is emerging as a unique example of parliamentary democracy. The important question today is not the survival of Indian democracy, but the nature of India’s democratic politics.

The present volume is an attempt to understand the development of democratic polity in India. It covers a wide range of issues – theoretical concepts, political institutions, federalism, electoral process, individual and group rights and mass media – drawing attention to the significant broadening of Indian democracy. But the benefits of political democracy are yet to reach the masses – political institutions are dominated by the elite, civil society has been politicized and the interventionist state has become an arm of the elite. The solution to these problems lies in further democratization of the political process.

Indigenous entrepreneurship involves the use of Indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) to establish enterprises whose target is not only profit but also socio-economic development of communities, and that differentiates it from mainstream economic activities. Based on this, it is then possible to bring into the conversation the issue of IKS and entrepreneurship in Africa in terms of how the conceptualization and praxis of Indigenous entrepreneurship can be decolonized to unlock and unleash socio-economic development in Africa. For this reason, it matters that Indigenous entrepreneurship does not continue to be subjected to or governed by mainstream economic principles. It should be remembered that before colonial conquest, Indigenous entrepreneurship flourished and led to authentic and inclusive socio-economic development. It was colonialism and settler Eurocentric institutions that subjected Indigenous entrepreneurship to mainstream economic governance regimes leading to its marginalization and in some cases relative demise. Nonetheless, given on one hand the resilience of Indigenous entrepreneurship in terms of surviving the colonial encounter, onslaught, and institutions that should have suffocated and buried it and on the other its potential to spur inclusive socio-economic development, it is now time to revisit and recover it without subjecting it to or seeing it through mainstream economic lenses and the Eurocentric frame. Consequently, this raises three critical but related questions which the book tackles; first, how is entrepreneurship understood and practiced by Indigenous communities in Africa? Second, why is there a need to decolonize the conceptualization and praxis of entrepreneurship in Africa through the logic of IKS and how can this be done? Third, how and to what extent can IKS be leveraged and/or mobilized and unleashed to contribute to socio-economic development in Africa? Against this backdrop, the main goal of the book project therefore is to decolonize within the prism of IKS how Indigenous entrepreneurship is conceptualized, understood, and implemented in Africa. This task should show the poverty of the current understanding and implementation of entrepreneurship in Africa which is couched within a Eurocentric frame. It is now time to transcend the Eurocentric monologue of entrepreneurship to an understanding of how Indigenous communities in various parts of Africa conceptualize and practice entrepreneurship leading to socio-economic development. It is important to amplify the point that since it is the cornerstone of the contemporary Indigenous economy, Indigenous entrepreneurship is both the answer and the path forward for the development and cultural survival of African communities.

This book aims to increase our knowledge and deepen the understanding of Jewish resistance to the Holocaust by examining personal circumstances and characteristics of Jewish resistance members and the formation of small Jewish resistance groups during the Second World War. It is a carefully researched, fully annotated and referenced case study that examines primary and secondary sources, including evidence from oral history interviews with resistance members and documentary evidence, which have been conducted and was collected by the author during almost 40 years of research on the subject but were previously unavailable in English. It uses a qualitative analysis to investigate individual and small group manifestations of Jewish resistance during the German occupation of the Netherlands between 1940 and 1945. This study contributes to historiography, but its focus enables a different interpretation and displays a new view of history. It is a scholarly work, but it is also easily accessible for students and general readers interested in this subject.

This book aims to increase our knowledge and deepen the understanding of Jewish resistance to the Holocaust by examining personal circumstances and characteristics of Jewish resistance members and the formation of small Jewish resistance groups during the Second World War. It is a carefully researched, fully annotated and referenced case study that examines primary and secondary sources, including evidence from oral history interviews with resistance members and documentary evidence, which have been conducted and was collected by the author during almost 40 years of research on the subject but were previously unavailable in English. It uses a qualitative analysis to investigate individual and small group manifestations of Jewish resistance during the German occupation of the Netherlands between 1940 and 1945. This study contributes to historiography, but its focus enables a different interpretation and displays a new view of history. It is a scholarly work, but it is also easily accessible for students and general readers interested in this subject.

Information and communication technologies have expanded dramatically in Latin America. During the last two decades, mobile phones have penetrated more quickly in this region than in developed regions at a remarkable rate. Similarly, the per capita growth rates of Internet users have been higher in developing countries than in developed countries. The really fast diffusion of newer technologies such as mobile telephony, broadband and Internet has opened up big opportunities for using these technologies in the delivery of information in businesses and social service providers in Latin America and the Caribbean.

‘Information Technologies in Latin America’ provides a collection of rigorous empirical studies that contributes to a better understanding of the role and impact of old and new information technologies on Latin American economic development. It provides evidence using randomized and quasi-experimental designed studies for different ICT interventions. In evaluating their development impact a critical concern has been to contribute to the little existing evidence. In fact, whereas many ICT projects in the developing world have been promoted by multilateral organizations, bilateral aid agencies and nongovernmental organizations in recent years, the extent to which these interventions and policies actually contribute to the development of the region is unclear. The book provides evidence on what works and what does not. An important objective is to test one of the frustrating benefits of randomized controlled trials, namely, their ability to show that a program works when it does not and in fact, important policy lessons can be gained from failed field experiments.

This collection of essays aims to provide valuable insight on both the promise and the pitfalls of trying to replace conventional, high-cost outreach with technological alternatives. Thus, it may be relevant both to researchers working in the area of information technologies and development, as well as to practitioners pondering how to leverage technology to improve outreach and reach clients in innovative ways.