- Table View
- List View
Why Change is Hard: The Power of Master Narratives over Self and Society
by Kate C. McLeanThe possibilities of personal growth and change are embedded in American cultural values that center individual autonomy and personal responsibility for charting one's life course. These values infuse the scientific study of identity development, where scholarship has contributed to the idea that we are the sole authors of our own stories. However, the data to support such claims are sparse. In Why Change is Hard, Kate C. McLean argues that the promise of the possibility for growth and change, and the personal capacity to do so, are represented in problematic master narratives--present in broader society, as well as in the scientific community. Such narratives about personal growth and responsibility serve to limit attention to the systems and structures of society that restrict and deny the expression of individual identities, resulting in the maintenance of an inequitable status quo. The argument is made through the prism of the science on personality development, and narrative identity development in particular. This book calls into question the degree to which the theories and methods employed, as well as the data, support the elevation of such master narratives about the possibility for growth, challenging scholars to develop an awareness of their complicity in the maintenance of harmful ideologies.
Dangerous Jokes: How Racism and Sexism Weaponize Humor
by Claire HoriskPeople often get away with belittling others if they frame their speech as jokes-speech that would be condemned if stated seriously. "It's just a joke," they say. But what is different or special about joking? And if jokes about lawyers and politicians are morally acceptable, then what is wrong with joking about race or gender? Furthermore, if we may joke about a politician's shirts, may we joke about his weight? People who are targeted by demeaning jokes feel their impact but may not be able to pinpoint where the harm lies. Dangerous Jokes develops a novel, well-researched, and compelling argument that lays bare the power of demeaning jokes in ordinary conversations. Claire Horisk draws on her expertise in philosophy of language and on evidence from sociology, law and cognitive science to explain how the element of humor-so often used as a defence-makes jokes more potent than regular speech in communicating prejudice and reinforcing social hierarchies. She addresses the morality of telling, being amused by, and laughing at, derogatory jokes, and she gives a new account of listening that addresses the morality of listening to demeaning speech. She leaves us with no illusions about whether "it's just a joke" is an excuse for demeaning humor.
A Brief History of the Philosophy of Time
by Adrian BardonThis thoroughly revised and updated edition of Adrian Bardon's A Brief History of the Philosophy of Time is a short introduction to the history, philosophy, and science of the study of time--from the pre-Socratic philosophers through Einstein and beyond. Bardon covers subjects such as time and change, the experience of time, physical and metaphysical approaches to the nature of time, the direction of time, time travel, time and freedom of the will, and scientific and philosophical approaches to cosmology and the beginning of time. He employs helpful illustrations and keeps technical language to a minimum in bringing the resources of over 2500 years of philosophy and science to bear on some of humanity's most fundamental and enduring questions.
Wings of the Gods: Birds in the World's Religions
by Peter (Petra) Gardella Laurence KruteBirds have a larger place in religions than any other non-human animal, from their role as messenger between humans and gods among the ancient Mayans, to the Christian Holy Spirit taking flesh as a dove. More than symbols, birds gained divine status by guiding humans to water and food, replanting forests after ice ages and fires, and living with humans as they settled into farming and urban life. With the natural world facing multiple crises--climate change, epidemics of disease, pollution, famine--Peter (Petra) Gardella and Laurence Krute argue that humanity needs a new religion, a religion of nature in which birds and other animals are treated as equal inhabitants and citizens of Earth, to save the beauty and wonder that has inspired belief in God. Wings of the Gods surveys the many roles that birds have played in the development of religions, from legends, rituals, costumes, wars, and spiritual disciplines to the current ecological crisis. It also explores the relations between birds and humans from an evolutionary perspective, starting with the roles of birds in creating the human world. Gardella and Krute, both scholars and birdwatchers, transcend a narrow focus on humanity to instead explore the agency of birds in world history.
A Livable Planet: Human Rights in the Global Economy
by Madison PowersHumanity faces an ecological predicament, consisting of a cluster of concurrent, mutually reinforcing crises. They are causally intertwined and resistant to resolution in isolation. In addition to climate disruption, the cluster includes land-system change, loss of biodiversity and biosphere integrity, alteration of biogeochemical cycles, and decreased freshwater availability. Madison Powers argues for a targeted human rights approach to the resolution of our predicament. He assigns priority to a bundle of rights strategically important for counteracting ecologically unsustainable, economically predatory market practices. These practices exhaust natural resources or degrade the environmental conditions essential for a livable planet. Their harmful ecological effects result from or are exacerbated by the structure of the global political economy, especially institutions that influence the acquisition, control, and use of land, energy, and water resources. These institutions shape the economic decisions that have transformed every region of the globe and altered the planetary conditions that support life on Earth. A livable planet thus requires changes in humanity's relation to the rest of nature, which in turn, requires transformation of our economic relationships and the political and economic ideals underpinning them. Specifically, the balance of power between states and markets should be reversed by implementing an enforceable institutional bulwark against market practices that subvert the ecological conditions essential for the secure realization of human rights. These practices enable the powerful to hoard economic opportunities, crowd out sustainable alternatives, extract resources from vulnerable communities, shift environmental and economic burdens, dodge political and market accountability, and hijack public institutions for private purposes.
Empire of Rags and Bones: Waste and War in Nazi Germany
by Anne BergPaper, bottles, metal scrap, kitchen garbage, rubber, hair, fat, rags, and bones--the Nazi empire demanded its population obsessively collect anything that could be reused or recycled. Entrepreneurs, policy makers, and ordinary citizens conjured up countless schemes to squeeze value from waste or invent new purposes for defunct or spent material, no matter the cost to people or the environment. As World War II dragged on, rescued loot--much of it waste--clogged transport routes and piled up in warehouses across Europe. Historicizing the much-championed ideal of zero waste, Anne Berg shows that the management of waste was central to the politics of war and to the genesis of genocide in the Nazi Germany. Destruction and recycling were part of an overarching strategy to redress raw material shortages, procure lebensraum, and cleanse the continent of Jews and others considered undesirable. Fostering cooperation between the administration, the party, the German Army, the SS, and industry, resource extending schemes obscured the crucial political role played by virtually all German citizens to whom salvaging, scrapping, and recycling were promoted as inherently virtuous and orderly behaviors. Throughout Nazi occupied-Europe, Jews, POWs, concentration camp inmates, and enemy civilians were forced to recycle the loot, discards, and debris of the Nazi race war. In the end, the materials that were fully exploited and the people who had been bled dry were cast aside, buried, burned, or left to rot. Nonetheless, waste reclamation did not have the power to win the war. Illuminating how the Nazis inverted the economy of value, rescuing discards and murdering people, Empire of Rags and Bones offers an original perspective on genocide, racial ideology, and World War II.
A Livable Planet: Human Rights in the Global Economy
by Madison PowersHumanity faces an ecological predicament, consisting of a cluster of concurrent, mutually reinforcing crises. They are causally intertwined and resistant to resolution in isolation. In addition to climate disruption, the cluster includes land-system change, loss of biodiversity and biosphere integrity, alteration of biogeochemical cycles, and decreased freshwater availability. Madison Powers argues for a targeted human rights approach to the resolution of our predicament. He assigns priority to a bundle of rights strategically important for counteracting ecologically unsustainable, economically predatory market practices. These practices exhaust natural resources or degrade the environmental conditions essential for a livable planet. Their harmful ecological effects result from or are exacerbated by the structure of the global political economy, especially institutions that influence the acquisition, control, and use of land, energy, and water resources. These institutions shape the economic decisions that have transformed every region of the globe and altered the planetary conditions that support life on Earth. A livable planet thus requires changes in humanity's relation to the rest of nature, which in turn, requires transformation of our economic relationships and the political and economic ideals underpinning them. Specifically, the balance of power between states and markets should be reversed by implementing an enforceable institutional bulwark against market practices that subvert the ecological conditions essential for the secure realization of human rights. These practices enable the powerful to hoard economic opportunities, crowd out sustainable alternatives, extract resources from vulnerable communities, shift environmental and economic burdens, dodge political and market accountability, and hijack public institutions for private purposes.
Beyond Collective Action Problems: Perceived Fairness and Sustained Cooperation in Farmer Managed Irrigation Systems in Nepal (Modern South Asia)
by Atul PokharelHuman history is full of examples of continuously maintained shared infrastructure. Our ability to survive and prosper depends on cooperation at some level, from the irrigation systems that enabled ancient humans to abandon their nomadic lifestyle to the free and open-source software that undergirds the internet. Thus, understanding the conditions under which community governance can be both equitable and sustainable is of critical importance to scholars and policymakers alike. In Beyond Collective Action Problems, Atul Pokharel argues that sustained cooperation depends on user perceptions that the cooperative arrangement is fair. Pokharel elaborates a different way to think about sustained cooperation over decades, based on a follow-up of 233 long-running community managed irrigation systems in Nepal--the same cases that were used to understand how groups can overcome collective action problems. Covering nearly forty years of history through these cases, Pokharel introduces the idea of fairness problems to capture the many forms in which the perceived fairness of a form of governance comes to matter to continued cooperation. As he shows, the longer individuals cooperate, the more they become aware of how far their cooperative arrangement has diverged from the initial promise of fairness. This perception of fairness affects their commitment to maintaining the shared resource and participating in the institutions for governing it. Highlighting why eventually perceived fairness matters to sustained cooperation, this book illustrates how the fairness problem underlies successful cooperation over time, making it necessary to look beyond collective action problems.
Strategic Workforce Planning: Best Practices and Emerging Directions (The Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology Professional Practice Series)
by Marc Sokol and Beverly TarulliIndustrial-organizational psychologists increasingly advise organizations on talent planning, executive succession, workplace design, and better ways to ensure the future supply of talent: a suite of practice areas that comprise strategic workforce planning (SWP). This volume provides an overview of SWP, covering best practices across organization types, geographies, and methodologies, and addressing new directions in the field. Contributors share case examples and experience-based insights, spanning the evolution of SWP, best practices for analytics and consulting, maturity models, how SWP can be practiced in large companies inside and outside the United States, in high- and low-growth environments, and when to organize around planning for future tasks vs planning for future roles. As well as discussing changes in the workforce and workplace due to global disruptions like the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of quickly evolving technologies, this book re-examines what SWP is and can be, how it is conducted, and what impact it can have on individual organizations and beyond.
First Raise a Flag: How South Sudan Won the Longest War but Lost the Peace
by Peter MartellWhen South Sudan's war began, the Beatles were playing their first hits and reaching the moon was an astronaut's dream. Half a century later, with millions massacred in Africa's longest war, the continent's biggest country split in two. It was an extraordinary, unprecedented experiment. Many have fought, but South Sudan did the impossible, and won. This is the story of an epic fight for freedom. It is also the story of a nightmare. First Raise a Flag details one of the most dramatic failures in the history of international state-building. three years after independence, South Sudan was lowest ranked in the list of failed states. War returned, worse than ever. Peter Martell has spent over a decade reporting from palaces and battlefields, meeting those who made a country like no other: warlords and spies, missionaries and mercenaries, guerrillas and gunrunners, freedom fighters and war crime fugitives, Hollywood stars and ex-slaves. Under his seasoned foreign correspondent's gaze, he weaves with passion and colour the lively history of the world's newest country. First Raise a Flag is a moving reflection on the meaning of nationalism, the power of hope and the endurance of the human spirit.
Awkwardness: A Theory
by Alexandra PlakiasAwkwardness offers an account of the psychology and philosophical significance of a ubiquitous social phenomenon. Our aversion to awkwardness mirrors our desire for inclusion. This explains its power to influence and silence us: as social creatures, we don't want to mark ourselves as outsiders. As a result, our fear of awkwardness inhibits critique and conversation, acting as an impediment to moral and social progress. Even the act of describing people as "awkward" exacerbates existing inequities, by consigning them to a social status that gives them less access to the social goods (knowledge, confidence, social esteem) needed to navigate potentially awkward situations. Awkwardness discusses how we ostracize and punish those who fail to fit into existing social categories; how we all depend on--and are limited by--social scripts and norms for guidance; and how these norms frequently let us down when we need them. But awkwardness has a positive side: it can highlight opportunities for moral and social improvement, by revealing areas where our social norms and scripts fail to meet our needs or have yet to catch up with changing social and moral realities. Awkwardness ultimately underscores the conflict between our moral motivations and our desire for social approval and conformity.
Arafat and Abbas: Portraits of Leadership in a State Postponed
by Menachem KleinThis landmark volume presents vivid and intimate portraits of Palestinian Presidents Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, revealing the impact these different personalities have had on the struggle for national self-determination. Arafat and Abbas lived in Palestine as young children. Uprooted by the 1948 war, they returned in 1994 to serve as the first and second presidents of the Palestinian Authority, the establishment of which has been the Palestine Liberation Organization's greatest step towards self-determination for the Palestinian nation. Both Arafat and Abbas were shaped by earlier careers in the PLO, and each adopted their own controversial leadership methods and decision-making styles. Drawing on primary sources in Arabic, Hebrew and English, Klein gives special attention to the lesser known Abbas: his beliefs and his disagreements with Israeli and American counterparts. The book uncovers new details about Abbas' peace talks and US foreign policy towards Palestine, and analyses the political evolution of Hamas and Abbas' succession struggle. Klein also highlights the tension between the ageing leader and his society. Arafat and Abbas offers a comprehensive and balanced account of the Palestinian Authority's achievements and failures over its twenty- five years of existence. What emerges is a Palestinian nationalism that refuses to disappear.
The Global Community Yearbook of International Law and Jurisprudence 2022 (Global Community: Yearbook of International Law and Jurisprudence)
The Global Community Yearbook of International Law and Jurisprudence is a one-stop resource for all researchers studying international law generally or international tribunals specifically. The Yearbook is based on a cutting-edge project, unique in the panorama of international law yearbooks. Its project moves from a global perspective rather than a sectoral perspective or a spatial, national, or regional one. Its scope is that of annually monitoring the changes of international law and the transition to a global community, exploring its law (global constitutional principles), governance, and justice through a meaningful global jurisprudence. The Yearbook has established itself as an authoritative source of reference on global legal issues and international jurisprudence. It includes analysis of the most significant global trends in a way that allows readers to monitor the development of the global legal order from several perspectives. The Yearbook publishes annually in a volume of carefully chosen primary source material and corresponding expert commentary. The general editor, Professor Emeritus Giuliana Ziccardi Capaldo, employs her vast expertise in international law to select excerpts from important court opinions and to choose experts from around the world to contribute essay-guides, which illuminate those cases. Although the main focus is recent case law from the major international tribunals and regional courts, the first four parts of each year's edition feature expert articles by renowned scholars who address broader themes in current and future developments in international law and global policy. The Global Community Yearbook has thus become not just an indispensable window to recent jurisprudence; the series also serves to prepare researchers for the issues facing emerging global law. The 2022 edition both updates readers on the important work of longstanding international tribunals and introduces readers to more novel topics in international law. The Yearbook continues to provide expert coverage of the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) and diverse tribunals from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), to criminal tribunals such as the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (MICT), to economically based tribunals such as ICSID and the WTO Dispute Resolution panel, to courts of human rights (ECtHR, IACtHR, ACtHPR). This edition also examines developments in the War in Ukraine and the consequences of the proliferation of disinformation, as well as international efforts to protect the cultural heritage of vulnerable populations. Scholars also explore the evidentiary value of reports drafted by NGOs and developments in reparations modalities, among other topics. The Yearbook provides students, scholars, and practitioners alike a valuable combination of expert discussion and direct quotes from the court opinions to which that discussion relates, as well as an annual overview of the process of cross-fertilization between international courts and tribunals.
The Oxford Handbook of Gangs and Society (Oxford Handbooks)
by John LeversoThe Oxford Handbook of Gangs and Society is the premier reference book on gangs for practitioners, policymakers, students, and scholars. This carefully curated volume contains 43 chapters written by the leading experts in the field, who advance a central theme of "looking back, moving forward" by providing state-of-the-art reviews of the literature they created, shaped, and (re)defined. This international, interdisciplinary collective of authors provides readers with a rare tour of the field in its entirety, expertly navigating thorny debates and the at-times contentious history of gang research, while simultaneously synthesizing flourishing areas of study that advance the field into the 21st century. The volume is divided into six cohesive sections that reflect the diverse field of gang studies and capture the large-scale cultural, economic, political, and social changes occurring within the world of gangs in the last century; anticipating immense changes on the horizon. From definitions to history to theory to epistemology to technology to policy and practice, this unprecedented volume captures the most timely and important topics in the field. From curious outsiders to longstanding insiders, this volume will appeal to anyone with an interest in gangs. The editors assembled a cast of the best scholars shaping how the field thinks about gangs. The content is fresh, timely, and informative, appealing to everyone from the armchair theorist to the federal policymaker. It is truly a one-stop shop for anyone seeking the most up-to-date information on gangs, written by experts who approach the topic from very different disciplinary orientations, methodological approaches, and theoretical perspectives. When readers finish this book, they will be more confident in what we know and do not know about gangs in our society.
Christ the Emperor: Christian Theology and the Roman Emperor in the Fourth Century AD (Oxford Studies in Late Antiquity)
by Nathan Israel SmolinPolitics and diplomacy have always been as much about the social and cultural contexts within which political actors operate as they are about the political structures themselves. This was also true of the Roman Empire of the fourth century AD, ruled by the Emperor Constantine the Great--a society marked by social, religious, and political transformation as the empire came under the influence of the Christian Church. Studies of this period often note the difficulty of understanding its politics due to a lack of sources that discuss questions central to political theory. This has led to deprecating views of the Late Empire as an age of unquestioning despotism, political decline, and social decay. Recent scholarship has correctly pushed back against this viewpoint, emphasizing the vibrancy of art, architecture, and social life during this period; however, relatively little attention has yet been given to the deeply consequential effects of Christian theology on the period's politics. Christ the Emperor argues that the alleged absence of explicit political theorizing in fourth century texts is the result of a migration of these discourses from the realm of "secular" politics to that of public Christian theology, where questions fundamental to political theory were analyzed and debated in more far-reaching ways than ever before. When fourth century bishops and Emperors wished to discuss the pressing questions of legitimacy, succession, hierarchy, equality, unity, diversity, and power, they did so largely in and through Christian theology. To understand how these political and social actors thought about and enacted political theory, Nathan Israel Smolin turns to theological sources. In doing so, he reveals this period as one of profound political, social, and religious ferment, in which ideas and structures fundamental to the history of the following millennia were developed and contested--ideas that continue to shape our world today.
Russia in the Pacific: The Quest for Great Power Recognition
by Charles E. ZieglerRussia in the Pacific approaches the puzzle of why Russia, with much of its huge territory straddling Asia, has not had more success in establishing a position as a great power in the Asia Pacific. Russian leaders from Nicholas II in the late nineteenth century to Vladimir Putin in the twenty-first have periodically advanced policies to gain territory or influence, secure buffer zones in the region, develop the sparsely populated Far East and protect it against foreign intervention, and integrate into the regional economy, but have met with only partial success. Structural factors constraining Russian regional aspirations include geographic challenges, demographic imbalances, and persistent low levels of economic development. Institutional factors--the hyper-centralized, secretive character of Russian foreign policy making, bureaucratic competition, and dominance of a single powerful executive-also have been critical in shaping Russian foreign policy toward the Pacific. The persistence of certain patterns in Russia's Asia policy suggest even the most powerful autocrat faces constraints. Starting with Russian imperial expansion in the late nineteenth century, Charles E. Ziegler considers the impact of the Russo-Japanese War on late tsarist Russian autocracy and assesses Soviet Asian initiatives under Stalin and his successors during the Cold War. He examines the diplomatic, economic and military dimensions of Vladimir Putin's pivot toward the Asia Pacific. His conceptual approach is analytically eclectic, combining realism's focus on military and economic dimensions of power with a constructivist attention to domestic politics, culture, and questions of national identity.
The Contest for Japan's Economic Future: Entrepreneurs vs Corporate Giants
by Richard KatzJust as a wave of entrepreneurship created Japan's postwar "economic miracle," so it will take a new generation of entrepreneurs to revive its stagnant economy. A complex distribution system dominated by the incumbents has made it hard for newcomers even to get their products on store shelves. Fortunately, major social changes are now opening new opportunities. Generational changes in attitudes about work and gender relations are leading more and more talented people to the new companies. This includes ambitious women who are regularly denied promotions at traditional companies. The rise of e-commerce is enabling tens of thousands of newcomers to bypass the traditional distribution system and sell their products to millions of customers. Three decades of low growth have convinced many within both the elites and the public of the need for change. Still, progress remains an uphill climb because of resistance by powerful forces. Bank financing remains quite difficult. For example, the system of "lifetime employment" has made it very hard to newcomers to recruit the staff they need. Banks, who are often in the same sprawling conglomerates as the corporate giants, are still loath to lend to new companies. While parts of the government try to promote more startups, other parts resist making the needed changes in regulations, taxes, and budgets. Japan's economic future will be determined by the contest detailed in this book.
The German New Right: AfD, PEGIDA and the Re-Imagining of National Identity
by Jay Julian RoselliniContemporary Germany is a modern industrial democracy admired throughout the world. Many Germans believe that they live in the 'best Germany' that has ever existed. Yet there are dissenting voices: individuals and groups that reject cosmopolitanism, globalization and multiculturalism, and yearn for the more homogeneous country of earlier times. They are part of a global movement, often characterized as populist, that values tradition over innovation or constant change. In Germany, such people are routinely portrayed as reactionary or even neo- fascist. The present study seeks to provide a portrait of these individuals and their organizations. Very little has been written in English about the cultural figures who play a role in this movement. When the political side is discussed--whether in its manifestation as a party (the Alternative for Germany) or a citizens' group (PEGIDA)--the cultural dimension is usually ignored. Jay Julian Rosellini places the so-called New Right in the context of currents in German culture and history that differ from those in other countries. With Germany the dominant country in the European Union, economically and politically, this volume offers an essential view of its current conditions, future prospects and political particularities.
The Global Community Yearbook of International Law and Jurisprudence 2017 (Global Community: Yearbook of International Law & Jurisprudence)
by Giuliana Ziccardi CapaldoThe Global Community Yearbook is a one-stop resource for all researchers studying international law generally or international tribunals specifically. The Yearbook has established itself as an authoritative source of reference on global legal issues and international jurisprudence. It includes analysis of the most significant global trends in a way that allows readers to monitor the development of the global legal order from several perspectives. The Global Community Yearbook publishes annually in a volume of carefully chosen primary source material and corresponding expert commentary. The general editor, Professor Giuliana Ziccardi Capaldo, employs her vast expertise in international law to select excerpts from important court opinions and to choose experts from around the world to contribute essay-guides, which illuminate those cases. Although the main focus is recent case law from the major international tribunals and regional courts, the first four parts of each year's edition features expert articles by renowned scholars who address broader themes in current and future developments in international law and global policy, themes that appear throughout the case law of the many courts covered by the series as a whole. The Global Community Yearbook has thus become not just an indispensable window to recent jurisprudence: the series now also serves to prepare researchers for the issues facing emerging global law. The 2017 edition of The Global Community Yearbook both updates readers on the important work of long-standing international tribunals and introduces readers to more novel topics in international law. The Yearbook has established itself as an authoritative resource for research and guidance on the jurisprudence of both UN-based tribunals and regional courts. The 2017 edition continues to provide expert coverage of the Court of Justice of the European Union and diverse tribunals from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to criminal tribunals such as the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, to economically based tribunals such as ICSID and the WTO Dispute Resolution panel. This edition contains original research articles on the development and analysis of the concept of global law and the views of the global law theorists. It also includes expert introductory essays by prominent scholars in the realm of international law, on topics as diverse and current as the erosion of the postwar liberal global order by national populism and the accompanying disorder in global politics, a bifurcated global nuclear order due to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and the Nuclear Weapons Prohibition Treaty, and the expansion of the principle of no-impunity and its application to serious violations of social and economic rights. New to the 2017 edition, the author of the article in Recent Lines of International Thought will now talk about their own work as a Scholar/Judge. In addition, this edition memorializes the late M. Cherif Baasiouni. The Yearbook provides students, scholars, and practitioners alike a valuable combination of expert discussion and direct quotes from the court opinions to which that discussion relates, as well as an annual overview of the process of cross-fertilization between international courts and tribunals and a section focusing on the thought of leading international law scholars on the subject of the globalization. This publication can also be purchased on a standing order basis.
Victims' State: War and Welfare in Austria, 1868-1925
by Ke-Chin HsiaThe belligerent country that literally started the First World War, the Habsburg Empire suffered grievously during the global conflict. At the end of the war, it was estimated that 1.2 million soldiers, out of 8 million men and 100,000 women mobilized from an empire of 52 million, perished in service. Among those who lived, the wounded, the disabled, and their dependents constituted at least several million people whose survival was endangered both during and after the war. How did the Habsburg Empire confront the scale of the casualties brought about by the First World War? What care and support were offered to disabled soldiers and dead soldiers' surviving dependents? Victims' State offers the first integrated account of how the Austrian half of the empire and the successor Austrian Republic responded to the needs of citizen-soldiers and their families from the nineteenth century to the interwar years. Ke-Chin Hsia traces the policies, ideas, and administrative practices developed over the decades by a range of government, semi-public, and societal actors to deal with the massive losses of lives, health, and livelihoods. The provision of care and welfare to disabled veterans, war widows, and war orphans shows that compulsory military service and war mobilization profoundly changed the relations between citizens and the Austrian state. The expansion of the Austrian welfare state was consciously undertaken by the Habsburg authorities as well as the successor Austrian Republic to generate support and create legitimacy in times of crisis. In the process, assertive war victims helped create a participatory welfare system and contributed to the democratic transition of 1918-1920. With its incisive analysis, Victims' State underscores the centrality of totalizing war to the making of modern citizenship and the fully-fledged European welfare state.
Oxford Textbook of Respiratory Critical Care (Oxford Textbooks in Critical Care)
by Suveer Singh, Paolo Pelosi, Andrew Conway MorrisRespiratory critical care is essential to modern critical care medicine. To successfully support critically ill patients, an understanding of specific lung conditions and syndromes, their pathophysiological basis, and evidence-based management strategies is of vital importance. The Oxford Textbook of Respiratory Critical Care provides an authoritative account of respiratory critical care medicine with a clear focus on how to manage respiratory disease in the critically ill. The fundamentals of pathophysiology, diagnosis, and treatment, for respiratory diseases and conditions are outlined with a specific focus on management in the critical care setting. Across 66 chapters, common and unusual respiratory conditions are included as well as those aspects of pulmonary disease in which the management in critical illness is unique. The text equips the reader with up-to-date knowledge of clinical practice for the respiratory system, lung diseases within critical care medicine and the impact of critical illness on lung biology. Each chapter highlights advances in the field as well as emphasising the importance of getting the basics right. Key messages, controversies, and directions to further research points allow both focused reading and deeper engagement. A dedicated chapter to COVID-19, and sections throughout explore the impact of this novel virus in specific areas of respiratory critical care. Edited and written by an international group of recognized experts from many disciplines, this essential textbook is relevant to medics globally. This is an indispensable guide for clinicians, researchers and nurses working in Critical Care, Anaesthesia, Respiratory Medicine, Acute Medicine, and Emergency Medicine.
The Social Science of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Call to Action for Researchers
Although the world has experienced many epidemics, the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is exactly that--novel. The impacts on society's way of life, education, family, and economy are drastic. As a result, people seek explanations that have answers rooted in social science. The Social Science of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Call to Action for Researchers draws on theories derived from the social sciences to address the multitude of questions raised by the pandemic and to inspire a future generation of researchers. This book focuses specifically on the social science of a pandemic. While medical, health, and other sciences are critical to understanding a pandemic, so, too, is understanding the role of society and person. Together, psychology and society shape every aspect of life, and the COVID-19 pandemic is no exception to this pattern. Parts of society--and science--will be forever affected. Edited by Monica K. Miller, The Social Science of the COVID-19 Pandemic is a collection of academic essays written by a group of international authors. The book begins by overviewing the timeline of the pandemic and how it affected life. It then discusses behaviors and experiences during the pandemic, followed by sections on outcomes after the pandemic and best practices for conducting future studies during or about the pandemic. This book is an expansive, go-to text designed to help promote recovery from the pandemic, to minimize the negative effects of similar events in the future, and to inform social science research going forward.
Wings of the Gods: Birds in the World's Religions
by Peter (Petra) Gardella Laurence KruteBirds have a larger place in religions than any other non-human animal, from their role as messenger between humans and gods among the ancient Mayans, to the Christian Holy Spirit taking flesh as a dove. More than symbols, birds gained divine status by guiding humans to water and food, replanting forests after ice ages and fires, and living with humans as they settled into farming and urban life. With the natural world facing multiple crises--climate change, epidemics of disease, pollution, famine--Peter (Petra) Gardella and Laurence Krute argue that humanity needs a new religion, a religion of nature in which birds and other animals are treated as equal inhabitants and citizens of Earth, to save the beauty and wonder that has inspired belief in God. Wings of the Gods surveys the many roles that birds have played in the development of religions, from legends, rituals, costumes, wars, and spiritual disciplines to the current ecological crisis. It also explores the relations between birds and humans from an evolutionary perspective, starting with the roles of birds in creating the human world. Gardella and Krute, both scholars and birdwatchers, transcend a narrow focus on humanity to instead explore the agency of birds in world history.
Global Sufism: Boundaries, Narratives and Practices
by Francesco Piraino and Mark SedgwickSufism is a growing and global phenomenon, far from the declining relic it was once thought to be. This book brings together the work of fourteen leading experts to explore systematically the key themes of Sufism's new global presence, from Yemen to Senegal via Chicago and Sweden. The contributors look at the global spread and stance of such major actors as the Ba 'Alawiyya, the 'Afropolitan' Tijaniyya, and the G?len Movement. They map global Sufi culture, from Rumi to rap, and ask how global Sufism accommodates different and contradictory gender practices. They examine the contested and shifting relationship between the Islamic and the universal: is Sufism the timeless and universal essence of all religions, the key to tolerance and co-existence between Muslims and non-Muslims? Or is it the purely Islamic heart of traditional and authentic practice and belief? Finally, the book turns to politics. States and political actors in the West and in the Muslim world are using the mantle and language of Sufism to promote their objectives, while Sufis are building alliances with them against common enemies. This raises the difficult question of whether Sufis are defending Islam against extremism, supporting despotism against democracy, or perhaps doing both.
Repression in the Digital Age: Surveillance, Censorship, and the Dynamics of State Violence (Disruptive Technology and International Security)
by Anita R. GohdesGlobal adoption of the Internet has exploded, yet we are only beginning to understand the Internet's profound political consequences. Authoritarian states are digitally catching up with their democratic counterparts, and both are showing a growing interest in the use of cyber controls--online censorship and surveillance technologies--that allow governments to exercise control over the Internet. Under what conditions does a digitally connected society actually help states target their enemies? Why do repressive governments sometimes shut down the Internet when faced with uprisings? And how have cyber controls become a dependable tool in the weapons arsenal that states use in civil conflict? In Repression in the Digital Age, Anita R. Gohdes addresses these questions, and provides an original and in-depth look into the relationship between digital technologies and state violence. Drawing on large-scale analyses of fine-grained data on the Syrian conflict, qualitative case evidence from Iran, and the first global comparative analysis on Internet outages and state repression, Gohdes makes the case that digital infrastructure supports security forces in their use of violent state repression. More specifically, she argues that mass access to the Internet presents governments who fear for their political survival with a set of response options. When faced with a political threat, they can either temporarily restrict or block online public access or they can expand mass access to online information and monitor it to their own advantage. Surveillance allows security forces to target opponents of the state more selectively, while extreme forms of censorship or shutdowns of the Internet occur in conjunction with larger and more indiscriminate repression. As digital communication has become a bedrock of modern opposition and protest movements, Repression in the Digital Age breaks new ground in examining state repression in the information age.