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An art historical epic for dangerous timesWhat do artworks look like in extreme cases of collective experience? What signals do artists send when enemies are at the city walls and the rule of law breaks down, or when a tyrant suspends the law to attack from inside? Art in a State of Siege tells the story of three compelling images created in dangerous moments and the people who experienced them—from Philip II of Spain to Carl Schmitt—whose panicked gaze turned artworks into omens.Acclaimed art historian Joseph Koerner reaches back to the eve of iconoclasm and religious warfare to explore the most elusive painting ever painted. In Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Delights, enemies are everywhere: Jews and Ottomans at the gates, witches and heretics at home, sins overtaking the mind. Following a paper trail leading from Bosch's time to World War II, Koerner considers a monumental self-portrait painted by Max Beckmann in 1927. Created when Germany was often governed by emergency decree, this image brazenly claimed to decide Europe's future—until the Nazis deemed it to be a threat to the German people. For South African artist William Kentridge, Beckmann exemplified “art in a state of siege.” Koerner shows how his work served as beacon during South Africa's racialist apartheid rule and inspired Kentridge's breakthrough animations of drawings being made, erased, and remade.Spanning half a millennium but urgent today, Art in a State of Siege reveals how, in dire straits, art becomes the currency of last resort.

An anthology of original essays that examine white supremacy around the globe through the lens of anthropologyWhite supremacy, an entrenched global system that emerged alongside European colonialism, is based on presumed biological and cultural differences, racist practices, the hypervaluation of whiteness, and the devaluation of nonwhites. Anthropology has been shaped by—and has helped to shape—white supremacy, yet the discipline also offers powerful tools for understanding this system at a global scale. The Anthropology of White Supremacy gathers original essays from a diverse, international group of anthropologists to explore how this phenomenon works both within anthropology and in cultural and political structures around the world.The book features historical and ethnographic analysis about Brazil, Iceland, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, Palestine, Senegal, South Africa, and the United States, and addresses the ways white supremacy impacts a broad range of issues, including finance, advertising and media representations, militarism, police training, migration, and development.The Anthropology of White Supremacy demonstrates not only how anthropology can help us to better comprehend white supremacy, but also how the discipline can help us begin to dismantle it.The contributors include Omolade Adunbi, Samar Al-Bulushi, Aisha M. Beliso-De Jesús, Michael L. Blakey, Mitzi Uehara Carter, Subhadra Mitra Channa, Celina de Sá, Vanessa Díaz, Britt Halvorson, Faye V. Harrison, Sarah Ihmoud, Anthony R. Jerry, Darryl Li, Kristín Loftsdóttir, Christopher A. Loperena, Keisha-Khan Y. Perry, Jemima Pierre, Jean Muteba Rahier, Laurence Ralph, Renya K. Ramirez, Junaid Rana, Joshua Reno, Rhea Rahman, Jonathan Rosa, Shalini Shankar, Shannon Speed, and Maria Dyveke Styve.

A vivid history of how Cold War politics helped solve one of the twentieth century's biggest refugee crisesWhen World War II ended, about one million people whom the Soviet Union claimed as its citizens were outside the borders of the USSR, mostly in the Western-occupied zones of Germany and Austria. These “displaced persons,” or DPs—Russians, prewar Soviet citizens, and people from West Ukraine and the Baltic states forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1939—refused to repatriate to the Soviet Union despite its demands. Thus began one of the first big conflicts of the Cold War. In Lost Souls, Sheila Fitzpatrick draws on new archival research, including Soviet interviews with hundreds of DPs, to offer a vivid account of this crisis, from the competitive maneuverings of politicians and diplomats to the everyday lives of DPs.American enthusiasm for funding the refugee organizations taking care of DPs quickly waned after the war. It was only after DPs were redefined—from “victims of war and Nazism” to “victims of Communism”—in 1947 that a solution was found: the United States would pay for the mass resettlement of DPs in America, Australia, and other countries outside Europe. The Soviet Union protested this “theft” of its citizens. But it was a coup for the United States. The choice of DPs to live a free life in the West, and the West's welcome of them, became an important theme in America's Cold War propaganda battle with the Soviet Union.A compelling story of the early Cold War, Lost Souls is also a rare chronicle of a refugee crisis that was solved.

From one of today's most inspired architects and urban advocates, a manifesto for architecture as a force for addressing our biggest social challengesThe world is facing unprecedented challenges, from climate change and population growth, to political division and technological dislocation, to declining mental health and fraying cultural fabric. With most of the planet's population now living in urban environments, cities are the spaces where we have the greatest potential to confront and address these problems. In this visionary book, Vishaan Chakrabarti argues for an “architecture of urbanity,” showing how the design of our communities can create a more equitable, sustainable, and joyous future for us all.Taking readers from the great cities of antiquity to the worldwide exurban sprawl of our postindustrial age, Chakrabarti examines architecture's relationship to history's greatest social, technological, and environmental dilemmas. He then presents a rich selection of work by a global array of practicing architects, demonstrating how innovative design can dramatically improve life in big cities and small settlements around the world, from campuses and refugee camps to mega-cities like São Paulo, Lima, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, and Tokyo.Lavishly illustrated with a wealth of original graphics, data visualizations, photographs, and drawings, The Architecture of Urbanity eloquently explains why cities are the last, best hope for humanity, and why designers must, alongside political, business, community, and cultural leaders, steward the healing of our planet.

A gripping history of the Soviet dissident movement, which hastened the end of the USSR—and still provides a model of opposition in Putin's RussiaBeginning in the 1960s, the Soviet Union was unexpectedly confronted by a dissident movement that captured the world's imagination. Demanding that the Kremlin obey its own laws, an improbable band of Soviet citizens held unauthorized public gatherings, petitioned in support of arrested intellectuals, and circulated banned samizdat texts. Soviet authorities arrested dissidents, subjected them to bogus trials and vicious press campaigns, sentenced them to psychiatric hospitals and labor camps, sent them into exile—and transformed them into martyred heroes. Against all odds, the dissident movement undermined the Soviet system and unexpectedly hastened its collapse. Taking its title from a toast made at dissident gatherings, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause is a definitive history of a remarkable group of people who helped change the twentieth century.Benjamin Nathans's vivid narrative tells the dramatic story of the men and women who became dissidents—from Nobel laureates Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn to many others who are virtually unknown today. Drawing on diaries, memoirs, personal letters, interviews, and KGB interrogation records, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause reveals how dissidents decided to use Soviet law to contain the power of the Soviet state. This strategy, as one of them put it, was “simple to the point of genius: in an unfree country, they began to conduct themselves like free people.”An extraordinary account of the Soviet dissident movement, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause shows how dissidents spearheaded the struggle to break free of the USSR's totalitarian past, a struggle that continues in Putin's Russia—and that illuminates other struggles between hopelessness and perseverance today.

How Brazil and Portugal experimented with corporatism as a “third path” between laissez-faire capitalism and communism Following the Great Depression, as the world searched for new economic models, Brazil and Portugal experimented with corporatism as a “third path” between laissez-faire capitalism and communism. In a corporatist society, the government vertically integrates economic and social groups into the state so that it can manage labor and economic production. In the 1930s, the dictatorships of Getúlio Vargas in Brazil and António de Oliveira Salazar in the Portuguese Empire seized upon corporatist ideas to jump-start state-led economic development. In A Third Path, Melissa Teixeira examines these pivotal but still understudied initiatives.What distinguished Portuguese and Brazilian corporatism from other countries'experiments with the mixed economy was how Vargas and Salazar dismantled liberal democratic institutions, celebrating their efforts to limit individual freedoms and property in pursuit of economic recovery and social peace. By tracing the movement of people and ideas across the South Atlantic, Teixeira vividly shows how two countries not often studied for their economic creativity became major centers for policy experimentation. Portuguese and Brazilian officials created laws and agencies to control pricing and production, which in turn generated new social frictions and economic problems, as individuals and firms tried to evade the rules. And yet, Teixeira argues, despite the failings and frustrations of Brazil's and Portugal's corporatist experiments, the ideas and institutions tested in the 1930s and 1940s constituted a new legal and technical tool kit for the rise of economic planning, shaping how governments regulate labor and market relations to the present day.

Why liberalism is all you need to lead a good, fun, worthy, and rewarding life—and how you can become a better and happier person by taking your liberal beliefs more seriouslyWhere do you get your values and sensibilities from? If you grew up in a Western democracy, the answer is probably liberalism. Conservatives are right about one thing: liberalism is the ideology of our times, as omnipresent as religion once was. Yet, as Alexandre Lefebvre argues in Liberalism as a Way of Life, many of us are liberal without fully realizing it—or grasping what it means. Misled into thinking that liberalism is confined to politics, we fail to recognize that it's the water we swim in, saturating every area of public and private life, shaping our psychological and spiritual outlooks, and influencing our moral and aesthetic values—our sense of what is right, wrong, good, bad, funny, worthwhile, and more. This eye-opening book shows how so many of us are liberal to the core, why liberalism provides the basis for a good life, and how we can make our lives better and happier by becoming more aware of, and more committed to, the beliefs we already hold.A lively, engaging, and uplifting guide to living well, the liberal way, Liberalism as a Way of Life is filled with examples from television, movies, stand-up comedy, and social media—from Parks and Recreation and The Good Place to the Borat movies and Hannah Gadsby. Along the way, you'll also learn about seventeen benefits of being a liberal—including generosity, humor, cheer, gratitude, tolerance, and peace of mind—and practical exercises to increase these rewards.You're probably already waist-deep in the waters of liberalism. Liberalism as a Way of Life invites you to dive in.

How elites shape the use of force in American foreign policyOne of the most widely held views of democratic leaders is that they are cautious about using military force because voters can hold them accountable, ultimately making democracies more peaceful. How, then, are leaders able to wage war in the face of popular opposition, or end conflicts when the public still supports them? The Insiders'Game sheds light on this enduring puzzle, arguing that the primary constraints on decisions about war and peace come from elites, not the public.Elizabeth Saunders focuses on three groups of elites—presidential advisers, legislators, and military officials—to show how the dynamics of this insiders'game are key to understanding the use of force in American foreign policy. She explores how elite preferences differ from those of ordinary voters, and how leaders must bargain with elites to secure their support for war. Saunders provides insights into why leaders start and prolong conflicts the public does not want, but also demonstrates how elites can force leaders to change course and end wars.Tracing presidential decisions about the use of force from the Cold War through the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Saunders reveals how the elite politics of war are a central feature of democracy. The Insiders'Game shifts the focus of democratic accountability from the voting booth to the halls of power.

Why it's time to enshrine the right to vote in the ConstitutionThroughout history, too many Americans have been disenfranchised or faced needless barriers to voting. Part of the blame falls on the Constitution, which does not contain an affirmative right to vote. The Supreme Court has made matters worse by failing to protect voting rights and limiting Congress's ability to do so. The time has come for voters to take action and push for an amendment to the Constitution that would guarantee this right for all.Drawing on troubling stories of state attempts to disenfranchise military voters, women, African Americans, students, former felons, Native Americans, and others, Richard Hasen argues that American democracy can and should do better in assuring that all eligible voters can cast a meaningful vote that will be fairly counted. He shows how a constitutional right to vote can deescalate voting wars between political parties that lead to endless rounds of litigation and undermine voter confidence in elections, and can safeguard democracy against dangerous attempts at election subversion like the one we witnessed in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election.The path to a constitutional amendment is undoubtedly hard, especially in these polarized times. A Real Right to Vote explains what's in it for conservatives who have resisted voting reform and reveals how the pursuit of an amendment can yield tangible dividends for democracy long before ratification.

How to put democracy at the heart of AI governanceArtificial intelligence and machine learning are reshaping our world. Police forces use them to decide where to send police officers, judges to decide whom to release on bail, welfare agencies to decide which children are at risk of abuse, and Facebook and Google to rank content and distribute ads. In these spheres, and many others, powerful prediction tools are changing how decisions are made, narrowing opportunities for the exercise of judgment, empathy, and creativity. In Algorithms for the People, Josh Simons flips the narrative about how we govern these technologies. Instead of examining the impact of technology on democracy, he explores how to put democracy at the heart of AI governance.Drawing on his experience as a research fellow at Harvard University, a visiting research scientist on Facebook's Responsible AI team, and a policy advisor to the UK's Labour Party, Simons gets under the hood of predictive technologies, offering an accessible account of how they work, why they matter, and how to regulate the institutions that build and use them.He argues that prediction is political: human choices about how to design and use predictive tools shape their effects. Approaching predictive technologies through the lens of political theory casts new light on how democracies should govern political choices made outside the sphere of representative politics. Showing the connection between technology regulation and democratic reform, Simons argues that we must go beyond conventional theorizing of AI ethics to wrestle with fundamental moral and political questions about how the governance of technology can support the flourishing of democracy.

An examination of revolutions in the Iberian and Italian peninsulas, Sicily and Greece in the 1820s that reveals a popular constitutional culture in the SouthAfter the turbulent years of the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna's attempt to guarantee peace and stability across Europe, a new revolutionary movement emerged in the southern peripheries of the continent. In this groundbreaking study, Maurizio Isabella examines the historical moment in the 1820s when a series of simultaneous uprisings took the quest for constitutional government to Portugal, Spain, the Italian peninsula, Sicily and Greece. Isabella places these events in a broader global revolutionary context and, decentering conventional narratives of the origins of political modernity, reveals the existence of an original popular constitutional culture in southern Europe.Isabella looks at the role played by secret societies, elections, petitions, protests and the experience of war as well as the circulation of information and individuals across seas and borders in politicising new sectors of society. By studying the mobilisation of the army, the clergy, artisans, rural communities and urban populations in favour of or against the revolutions, he shows that the uprisings in the South—although their ultimate fate was determined by the intervention of more powerful foreign countries—enjoyed considerable popular support in ideologically divided societies and led to the introduction of constitutions. Isabella argues that these movements informed the political life of Portugal and Spain for many decades and helped to forge a long-lasting revolutionary tradition in the Italian peninsula. The liberalism that emerged as a popular political force across southern Europe, he contends, was distinct from French and British varieties.

A bold new perspective on the strategic logic of international human rights enforcementWhen a government violates the rights of its citizens, the international community can respond by exerting moral pressure and urging reform. Yet many of the most egregious violations appear to go unpunished. In many cases, shaming not only fails to induce compliance but also incites a backlash, provoking resistance and worsening human rights practices. The Geopolitics of Shaming presents a new theory on the strategic logic of international human rights enforcement, revealing why and how states punish violations in other countries, when shaming leads to an improvement in human rights conditions, and when it backfires.Drawing on a wide range of evidence—from large-scale cross-national data to original survey experiments and detailed case studies—Rochelle Terman shows how human rights shaming is a deeply political process, one that operates in and through strategic relationships. Arguing that preexisting geopolitical relationships condition both the causes and consequences of shaming in world politics, she shows how adversaries are quick to condemn human rights abuses but often provoke a counterproductive response, while friends and allies are the most effective shamers but can be reluctant to impose meaningful sanctions.Upending conventional wisdom on the role of norms in world affairs, The Geopolitics of Shaming demonstrates that politicization is integral to—not a corruption of—the success of the global human rights project.

Why leaders, not citizens, are the driving force in Europe's crisis of democracyAn apparent explosion of support for right-wing populist parties has triggered widespread fears that liberal democracy is facing its worst crisis since the 1930s. Democracy Erodes from the Top reveals that the real crisis stems not from an increasingly populist public but from political leaders who exploit or mismanage the chronic vulnerabilities of democracy.In this provocative book, Larry Bartels dismantles the pervasive myth of a populist wave in contemporary European public opinion. While there has always been a substantial reservoir of populist sentiment, Europeans are no less trusting of their politicians and parliaments than they were two decades ago, no less enthusiastic about European integration, and no less satisfied with the workings of democracy. Anti-immigrant sentiment has waned. Electoral support for right-wing populist parties has increased only modestly, reflecting the idiosyncratic successes of populist entrepreneurs, the failures of mainstream parties, and media hype. Europe's most sobering examples of democratic backsliding—in Hungary and Poland—occurred not because voters wanted authoritarianism but because conventional conservative parties, once elected, seized opportunities to entrench themselves in power.By demonstrating the inadequacy of conventional bottom-up interpretations of Europe's political crisis, Democracy Erodes from the Top turns our understanding of democratic politics upside down.

An incisive critique that examines the origins of contemporary American ideas about surveillance, terrorism, and white supremacyFor more than three centuries, Americans have pursued strategies of security that routinely make them feel vulnerable, unsafe, and insecure. American Insecurity and the Origins of Vulnerability probes this paradox by examining American attachments to the terror of the sublime, the fear of uncertainty, and the anxieties produced by unending racial threat.Challenging conventional approaches that leave questions of security to policy experts, Russ Castronovo turns to literature, philosophy, and political theory to show how security provides an organizing principle for collective life in ways that both enhance freedom and limit it. His incisive critique ranges from frontier violence and white racial anxiety to insurgent Black print culture and other forms of early American terror, uncovering the hidden logic of insecurity that structures modern approaches to national defense, counterterrorism, cybersecurity, surveillance, and privacy. Drawing on examples from fiction, journalism, tracts, and pamphlets, Castronovo uncovers the deep affective attachments that Americans have had since the founding to the sources of fear and insecurity that make them feel unsafe.Timely and urgent, American Insecurity and the Origins of Vulnerability sheds critical light on how and why the fundamental political desire for security promotes unease alongside assurance and fixates on risk and danger while clamoring for safety.

A comprehensive introduction to contemporary political ethicsWhat is the relationship between politics and morality? May politicians bend moral constraints in the name of political necessity? Is it always wrong for leaders to lie? How much political compromise is too much (or too little)? In Political Ethics, some of the world's leading thinkers in politics, philosophy, and related fields offer a comprehensive and accessible introduction to key issues in this rapidly growing area of political theory.In a series of original essays, the contributors examine a range of urgent political problems: lies and deception, compromise and refusal to compromise, the meaning and limits of political integrity, representation and failures of representation, good and bad democratic leadership, the virtues and excesses of partisanship, administrative ethics, political corruption, whistleblowing, legitimate and illegitimate claims of political emergency, and lobbying. What emerges are realistic but demanding ethical standards—and a clear-eyed understanding of the ethical challenges of political life in the twenty-first century.With contributions by Richard Bellamy, Alin Fumurescu, Edward Hall, Suzanne Dovi and Jesse McCain, Eric Beerbohm, Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum, Joseph Heath, Elizabeth David-Barrett and Mark Philp, Michele Bocchiola and Emanuela Ceva, Nomi Lazar, Phil Parvin, and Andrew Sabl.

How organizations developed in history, how they operate, and how research on them has evolvedOrganizations are all around us: government agencies, multinational corporations, social-movement organizations, religious congregations, scientific bodies, sports teams, and more. Immensely powerful, they shape all social, economic, political, and cultural life, and are critical for the planning and coordination of every activity from manufacturing cardboard boxes to synthesizing new drugs and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. To understand our world, we must understand organizations. The Power of Organizations defines the features of organizations, examines how they operate, traces their rise over the course of a millennium, and explains how research on organizations has evolved from the mid-nineteenth century to today.Heather Haveman shows how almost all contemporary research on organizations fits into three general perspectives: demographic, relational, and cultural. She offers constructive criticism of existing research, showing how it can be remade to be both more interesting and influential. She examines how we can use existing theories to understand the changes wrought by digital technologies, and she argues that organizational scholars can and should alter the impact that organizations have on society, particularly societal and global inequality, formal politics, and environmental degradation.The Power of Organizations demonstrates the benefits and dangers of these ubiquitous foundations of modern society.

How Brazil's long history of racism and authoritarian politics has led to the country's present crises and epidemic of violenceBrazil has long nurtured a cherished national myth, one of a tolerant, peaceful, and racially harmonious society. A closer look at the nation's heritage, however, reveals a far more troubling story. In Brazilian Authoritarianism, esteemed anthropologist and historian Lilia Schwarcz presents a provocative and panoramic overview of Brazilian culture and history to demonstrate how the nation has always been staunchly authoritarian. It has papered over centuries of racially motivated cruelty and exploitation—sources of the structural oppression experienced today by its Black and Indigenous population. Linking the country's violent past to its dire present, Schwarcz shows why the social democratic left was defeated and how Jair Bolsonaro ascended to the presidency.Schwarcz travels through five hundred years of colonial history to consider Brazil's allegiance to slavery, which made it the last country to abolish the system. She delves into eight elements that pervade Brazil's problematic culture: racism, bossism, patrimonialism, corruption, inequality, violence, gender issues, and intolerance. But Schwarcz also argues that Brazil's future is not absolutely hopeless. History is not destiny, and even as the nation experiences its worst crises ever—social, political, moral, and environmental—it has the potential to overcome them.A stark, revealing investigation into Brazil's difficult roots, Brazilian Authoritarianism shines a light on how the country might imagine a more hopeful path forward.

A sweeping history of a twentieth-century Prague torn between fascism, communism, and democracy—with lessons for a world again threatened by dictatorshipPostcards from Absurdistan is a cultural history of Prague from 1938, when the Nazis destroyed Czechoslovakia's artistically vibrant liberal democracy, to 1989, when the country's socialist regime collapsed after more than four decades of communist party rule. Derek Sayer shows that Prague's twentieth century, far from being a story of inexorable progress toward some “end of history,” whether fascist, communist, or democratic, was a tragicomedy of recurring nightmares played out in a land Czech dissidents dubbed Absurdistan. Situated in the eye of the storms that shaped the modern world, Prague holds up an unsettling mirror to the absurdities and dangers of our own times.In a brilliant narrative, Sayer weaves a vivid montage of the lives of individual Praguers—poets and politicians, architects and athletes, journalists and filmmakers, artists, musicians, and comedians—caught up in the crosscurrents of the turbulent half century following the Nazi invasion. This is the territory of the ideologist, the collaborator, the informer, the apparatchik, the dissident, the outsider, the torturer, and the refugee—not to mention the innocent bystander who is always looking the other way and Václav Havel's greengrocer whose knowing complicity allows the show to go on. Over and over, Prague exposes modernity's dreamworlds of progress as confections of kitsch.In a time when democracy is once again under global assault, Postcards from Absurdistan is an unforgettable portrait of a city that illuminates the predicaments of the modern world.

A groundbreaking account of how prolonged grassroots mobilization lays the foundations for durable democratizationWhen protests swept through the Middle East at the height of the Arab Spring, the world appeared to be on the verge of a wave of democratization. Yet with the failure of many of these uprisings, it has become clearer than ever that the path to democracy is strewn with obstacles. Mohammad Ali Kadivar examines the conditions leading to the success or failure of democratization, shedding vital new light on how prodemocracy mobilization affects the fate of new democracies.Drawing on a wealth of new evidence, Kadivar shows how the longest episodes of prodemocracy protest give rise to the most durable new democracies. He analyzes more than one hundred democratic transitions in eighty countries between 1950 and 2010, showing how more robust democracies emerge from lengthier periods of unarmed mobilization. Kadivar then analyzes five case studies—South Africa, Poland, Pakistan, Egypt, and Tunisia—to investigate the underlying mechanisms. He finds that organization building during the years of struggle develops the leadership needed for lasting democratization and strengthens civil society after dictatorship.Popular Politics and the Path to Durable Democracy challenges the prevailing wisdom in American foreign policy that democratization can be achieved through military or coercive interventions, revealing how lasting change arises from sustained, nonviolent grassroots mobilization.

An innovative framework for advancing human rights Human rights are among our most pressing issues today, yet rights promoters have reached an impasse in their effort to achieve rights for all. Human Rights for Pragmatists explains why: activists prioritize universal legal and moral norms, backed by the public shaming of violators, but in fact rights prevail only when they serve the interests of powerful local constituencies. Jack Snyder demonstrates that where local power and politics lead, rights follow. He presents an innovative roadmap for addressing a broad agenda of human rights concerns: impunity for atrocities, dilemmas of free speech in the age of social media, entrenched abuses of women's rights, and more.Exploring the historical development of human rights around the globe, Snyder shows that liberal rights–based states have experienced a competitive edge over authoritarian regimes in the modern era. He focuses on the role of power, the interests of individuals and the groups they form, and the dynamics of bargaining and coalitions among those groups. The path to human rights entails transitioning from a social order grounded in patronage and favoritism to one dedicated to equal treatment under impersonal rules. Rights flourish when they benefit dominant local actors with the clout to persuade ambivalent peers. Activists, policymakers, and others attempting to advance rights should embrace a tailored strategy, one that acknowledges local power structures and cultural practices.Constructively turning the mainstream framework of human rights advocacy on its head, Human Rights for Pragmatists offers tangible steps that all advocates can take to move the rights project forward.

A behind-the-scenes look at how the rich and powerful use offshore shell corporations to conceal their wealth and make themselves richerIn 2015, the anonymous leak of the Panama Papers brought to light millions of financial and legal documents exposing how the superrich hide their money using complex webs of offshore vehicles. Spiderweb Capitalism takes you inside this shadow economy, uncovering the mechanics behind the invisible, mundane networks of lawyers, accountants, company secretaries, and fixers who facilitate the illicit movement of wealth across borders and around the globe.Kimberly Kay Hoang traveled more than 350,000 miles and conducted hundreds of in-depth interviews with private wealth managers, fund managers, entrepreneurs, C-suite executives, bankers, auditors, and other financial professionals. She traces the flow of capital from offshore funds in places like the Cayman Islands, Samoa, and Panama to special-purpose vehicles and holding companies in Singapore and Hong Kong, and how it finds its way into risky markets onshore in Vietnam and Myanmar. Hoang reveals the strategies behind spiderweb capitalism and examines the moral dilemmas of making money in legal, financial, and political gray zones.Dazzlingly written, Spiderweb Capitalism sheds critical light on how global elites capitalize on risky frontier markets, and deepens our understanding of the paradoxical ways in which global economic growth is sustained through states where the line separating the legal from the corrupt is not always clear.

The controversial Jewish thinker whose tortured path led him into the heart of twentieth-century intellectual lifeScion of a distinguished line of Talmudic scholars, Jacob Taubes (1923–1987) was an intellectual impresario whose inner restlessness led him from prewar Vienna to Zurich, Israel, and Cold War Berlin. Regarded by some as a genius, by others as a charlatan, Taubes moved among yeshivas, monasteries, and leading academic institutions on three continents. He wandered between Judaism and Christianity, left and right, piety and transgression. Along the way, he interacted with many of the leading minds of the age, from Leo Strauss and Gershom Scholem to Herbert Marcuse, Susan Sontag, and Carl Schmitt. Professor of Apocalypse is the definitive biography of this enigmatic figure and a vibrant mosaic of twentieth-century intellectual life.Jerry Muller shows how Taubes's personal tensions mirrored broader conflicts between religious belief and scholarship, allegiance to Jewish origins and the urge to escape them, tradition and radicalism, and religion and politics. He traces Taubes's emergence as a prominent interpreter of the Apostle Paul, influencing generations of scholars, and how his journey led him from crisis theology to the Frankfurt School, and from a radical Hasidic sect in Jerusalem to the center of academic debates over Gnosticism, secularization, and the revolutionary potential of apocalypticism.Professor of Apocalypse offers an unforgettable account of an electrifying world of ideas, focused on a charismatic personality who thrived on controversy and conflict.

How the NRA became a political juggernaut by influencing the behaviors and beliefs of everyday AmericansThe National Rifle Association is one of the most powerful interest groups in America, and has consistently managed to defeat or weaken proposed gun regulations—even despite widespread public support for stricter laws and the prevalence of mass shootings and gun-related deaths. Firepower provides an unprecedented look at how this controversial organization built its political power and deploys it on behalf of its pro-gun agenda.Taking readers from the 1930s to the age of Donald Trump, Matthew Lacombe traces how the NRA's immense influence on national politics arises from its ability to shape the political outlooks and actions of its followers. He draws on nearly a century of archival records and surveys to show how the organization has fashioned a distinct worldview around gun ownership and used it to mobilize its supporters. Lacombe reveals how the NRA's cultivation of a large, unified, and active base has enabled it to build a resilient alliance with the Republican Party, and examines why the NRA and its members formed an important constituency that helped fuel Trump's unlikely political rise.Firepower sheds vital new light on how the NRA has grown powerful by mobilizing average Americans, and how it uses its GOP alliance to advance its objectives and shape the national agenda.

A major history of Central Asia and how it has been shaped by modern world eventsCentral Asia is often seen as a remote and inaccessible land on the peripheries of modern history. Encompassing Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and the Xinjiang province of China, it in fact stands at the crossroads of world events. Adeeb Khalid provides the first comprehensive history of Central Asia from the mid-eighteenth century to today, shedding light on the historical forces that have shaped the region under imperial and Communist rule.Predominantly Muslim with both nomadic and settled populations, the peoples of Central Asia came under Russian and Chinese rule after the 1700s. Khalid shows how foreign conquest knit Central Asians into global exchanges of goods and ideas and forged greater connections to the wider world. He explores how the Qing and Tsarist empires dealt with ethnic heterogeneity, and compares Soviet and Chinese Communist attempts at managing national and cultural difference. He highlights the deep interconnections between the'Russian'and'Chinese'parts of Central Asia that endure to this day, and demonstrates how Xinjiang remains an integral part of Central Asia despite its fraught and traumatic relationship with contemporary China.The essential history of one of the most diverse and culturally vibrant regions on the planet, this panoramic book reveals how Central Asia has been profoundly shaped by the forces of modernity, from colonialism and social revolution to nationalism, state-led modernization, and social engineering.

A bracing corrective to predictions of the European Union's decline, by a leading historian of modern EuropeIs the European Union in decline? Recent history, from the debt and migration crises to Brexit, has led many observers to argue that the EU's best days are behind it. Over the past decade, right-wing populists have come to power in Poland, Hungary, and beyond—many of them winning elections using strident anti-EU rhetoric. At the same time, Russia poses a continuing military threat, and the rise of Asia has challenged the EU's economic power. But in Embattled Europe, renowned European historian Konrad Jarausch counters the prevailing pessimistic narrative of European obsolescence with a rousing yet realistic defense of the continent—one grounded in a fresh account of its post–1989 history and an intimate understanding of its twentieth-century horrors.An engaging narrative and probing analysis, Embattled Europe tells the story of how the EU emerged as a model of democratic governance and balanced economic growth, adapting to changing times while retaining its value system. The book describes the EU's admirable approach to the environment, social welfare, immigration, and global competitiveness. And it presents underappreciated European success stories—including Denmark's transition to a green economy, Sweden's restructuring of its welfare state, and Poland's economic miracle.Embattled Europe makes a powerful case that Europe—with its peaceful foreign policy, social welfare solidarity, and environmental protection—offers the best progressive alternative to the military adventurism and rampant inequality of plutocratic capitalism and right-wing authoritarianism.

A dramatic intellectual biography of Victorian jurist Travers Twiss, who provided the legal justification for the creation of the brutal Congo Free StateEminent jurist, Oxford professor, advocate to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Travers Twiss (1809–1897) was a model establishment figure in Victorian Britain, and a close collaborator of Prince Metternich, the architect of the Concert of Europe. Yet Twiss's life was defined by two events that threatened to undermine the order that he had so stoutly defended: a notorious social scandal and the creation of the Congo Free State. In King Leopold's Ghostwriter, Andrew Fitzmaurice tells the incredible story of a man who, driven by personal events that transformed him from a reactionary to a reformer, rewrote and liberalised international law—yet did so in service of the most brutal regime of the colonial era.In an elaborate deception, Twiss and Pharaïlde van Lynseele, a Belgian prostitute, sought to reinvent her as a woman of suitably noble birth to be his wife. Their subterfuge collapsed when another former client publicly denounced van Lynseele. Disgraced, Twiss resigned his offices and the couple fled to Switzerland. But this failure set the stage for a second, successful act of re-creation. Twiss found new employment as the intellectual driving force of King Leopold of Belgium's efforts to have the Congo recognised as a new state under his personal authority. Drawing on extensive new archival research, King Leopold's Ghostwriter recounts Twiss's story as never before, including how his creation of a new legal personhood for the Congo was intimately related to the earlier invention of a new legal personhood for his wife.Combining gripping biography and penetrating intellectual history, King Leopold's Ghostwriter uncovers a dramatic, ambiguous life that has had lasting influence on international law.

How the Chinese Communist Party maintains its power by both repressing and responding to its peopleSince 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has maintained unrivaled control over the country, persisting even in the face of economic calamity, widespread social upheaval, and violence against its own people. Yet the party does not sustain dominance through repressive tactics alone—it pairs this with surprising responsiveness to the public. The Party and the People explores how this paradox has helped the CCP endure for decades, and how this balance has shifted increasingly toward repression under the rule of President Xi Jinping.Delving into the tenuous binary of repression and responsivity, Bruce Dickson illuminates numerous questions surrounding the CCP's rule: How does it choose leaders and create policies? When does it allow protests? Will China become democratic? Dickson shows that the party's dual approach lies at the core of its practices—repression when dealing with existential, political threats or challenges to its authority, and responsiveness when confronting localized economic or social unrest. The state answers favorably to the demands of protesters on certain issues, such as local environmental hazards and healthcare, but deals harshly with others, such as protests in Tibet, Xinjiang, or Hong Kong. With the CCP's greater reliance on suppression since Xi Jinping's rise to power in 2012, Dickson considers the ways that this tipping of the scales will influence China's future.Bringing together a vast body of sources, The Party and the People sheds new light on how the relationship between the Chinese state and its citizens shapes governance.

An authoritative introduction to ISIS—now expanded and revised to bring events up to the presentThe Islamic State stunned the world with its savagery, destructiveness, and military and recruiting successes. However, its most striking and distinctive characteristic was its capacity to build governing institutions and a theologically grounded national identity. What explains the rise of ISIS and the caliphate, and what does it portend for the future of the Middle East? In this book, one of the world's leading authorities on political Islam and jihadism sheds new light on these questions. Moving beyond journalistic accounts, Fawaz Gerges provides a clear and compelling explanation of the deeper conditions that fuel ISIS. This new edition brings the story of ISIS to the present, covering key events—from the military defeat of its territorial state to the death of its leader al-Baghdadi—and analyzing how the ongoing Syrian, Iraqi, and Saudi-Iranian conflict could lead to ISIS's revival.

An in-depth history of the Stalinist skyscraperIn the early years of the Cold War, the skyline of Moscow was forever transformed by a citywide skyscraper building project. As the steel girders of the monumental towers went up, the centuries-old metropolis was reinvented to embody the greatness of Stalinist society. Moscow Monumental explores how the quintessential architectural works of the late Stalin era fundamentally reshaped daily life in the Soviet capital.Drawing on a wealth of original archival research, Katherine Zubovich examines the decisions and actions of Soviet elites—from top leaders to master architects—and describes the experiences of ordinary Muscovites who found their lives uprooted by the ambitious skyscraper project. She shows how the Stalin-era quest for monumentalism was rooted in the Soviet Union's engagement with Western trends in architecture and planning, and how the skyscrapers required the creation of a vast and complex infrastructure. As laborers flooded into the city, authorities evicted and rehoused tens of thousands of city residents living on the plots selected for development. When completed in the mid-1950s, these seven ornate neoclassical buildings served as elite apartment complexes, luxury hotels, and ministry and university headquarters.Moscow Monumental tells a story that is both local and broadly transnational, taking readers from the streets of interwar Moscow and New York to the marble-clad halls of the bombastic postwar structures that continue to define the Russian capital today.

A compelling history of the ancient schism that continues to divide the Islamic worldWhen Muhammad died in 632 without a male heir, Sunnis contended that the choice of a successor should fall to his closest companions, but Shi'a believed that God had inspired the Prophet to appoint his cousin and son-in-law, Ali, as leader. So began a schism that is nearly as old as Islam itself. Laurence Louër tells the story of this ancient rivalry, taking readers from the last days of Muhammad to the political and doctrinal clashes of Sunnis and Shi'a today.In a sweeping historical narrative spanning the Islamic world, Louër shows how the Sunni-Shi'a divide was never just a dispute over succession—at issue are questions about the very nature of Islamic political authority. She challenges the widespread perception of Sunnis and Shi'a as bitter enemies who are perpetually at war with each other, demonstrating how they have coexisted peacefully at various periods throughout the history of Islam. Louër traces how sectarian tensions have been inflamed or calmed depending on the political contingencies of the moment, whether to consolidate the rule of elites, assert clerical control over the state, or defy the powers that be.Timely and provocative, Sunnis and Shi'a provides needed perspective on the historical roots of today's conflicts and reveals how both branches of Islam have influenced and emulated each other in unexpected ways. This compelling and accessible book also examines the diverse regional contexts of the Sunni-Shi'a divide, examining how it has shaped societies and politics in countries such as Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Yemen, and Lebanon.

A revealing look at the intersection of wealth, philanthropy, and conservationBillionaire Wilderness takes you inside the exclusive world of the ultra-wealthy, showing how today's richest people are using the natural environment to solve the existential dilemmas they face. Justin Farrell spent five years in Teton County, Wyoming, the richest county in the United States, and a community where income inequality is the worst in the nation. He conducted hundreds of in-depth interviews, gaining unprecedented access to tech CEOs, Wall Street financiers, oil magnates, and other prominent figures in business and politics. He also talked with the rural poor who live among the ultra-wealthy and often work for them. The result is a penetrating account of the far-reaching consequences of the massive accrual of wealth, and an eye-opening and sometimes troubling portrait of a changing American West where romanticizing rural poverty and conserving nature can be lucrative—socially as well as financially.Weaving unforgettable storytelling with thought-provoking analysis, Billionaire Wilderness reveals how the ultra-wealthy are buying up the land and leveraging one of the most pristine ecosystems in the world to climb even higher on the socioeconomic ladder. The affluent of Teton County are people burdened by stigmas, guilt, and status anxiety—and they appropriate nature and rural people to create more virtuous and deserving versions of themselves. Incisive and compelling, Billionaire Wilderness reveals the hidden connections between wealth concentration and the environment, two of the most pressing and contentious issues of our time.

A spellbinding new biography of Stalin in his formative yearsThis is the definitive biography of Joseph Stalin from his birth to the October Revolution of 1917, a panoramic and often chilling account of how an impoverished, idealistic youth from the provinces of tsarist Russia was transformed into a cunning and fearsome outlaw who would one day become one of the twentieth century's most ruthless dictators.In this monumental book, Ronald Grigor Suny sheds light on the least understood years of Stalin's career, bringing to life the turbulent world in which he lived and the extraordinary historical events that shaped him. Suny draws on a wealth of new archival evidence from Stalin's early years in the Caucasus to chart the psychological metamorphosis of the young Stalin, taking readers from his boyhood as a Georgian nationalist and romantic poet, through his harsh years of schooling, to his commitment to violent engagement in the underground movement to topple the tsarist autocracy. Stalin emerges as an ambitious climber within the Bolshevik ranks, a resourceful leader of a small terrorist band, and a writer and thinker who was deeply engaged with some of the most incendiary debates of his time.A landmark achievement, Stalin paints an unforgettable portrait of a driven young man who abandoned his religious faith to become a skilled political operative and a single-minded and ruthless rebel.

The unknown history of deportation and of the fear that shapes immigrants'livesConstant headlines about deportations, detention camps, and border walls drive urgent debates about immigration and what it means to be an American in the twenty-first century. The Deportation Machine traces the long and troubling history of the US government's systematic efforts to terrorize and expel immigrants over the past 140 years. This provocative, eye-opening book provides needed historical perspective on one of the most pressing social and political issues of our time.In a sweeping and engaging narrative, Adam Goodman examines how federal, state, and local officials have targeted various groups for expulsion, from Chinese and Europeans at the turn of the twentieth century to Central Americans and Muslims today. He reveals how authorities have singled out Mexicans, nine out of ten of all deportees, and removed most of them not by orders of immigration judges but through coercive administrative procedures and calculated fear campaigns. Goodman uncovers the machine's three primary mechanisms—formal deportations,'voluntary'departures, and self-deportations—and examines how public officials have used them to purge immigrants from the country and exert control over those who remain. Exposing the pervasive roots of anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States, The Deportation Machine introduces the politicians, bureaucrats, businesspeople, and ordinary citizens who have pushed for and profited from expulsion.This revelatory book chronicles the devastating human costs of deportation and the innovative strategies people have adopted to fight against the machine and redefine belonging in ways that transcend citizenship.

A comprehensive look at how violence has been used to manipulate competitive electoral processes around the world since World War IIThroughout their history, political elections have been threatened by conflict, and the use of force has in the past several decades been an integral part of electoral processes in a significant number of contemporary states. However, the study of elections has yet to produce a comprehensive account of electoral violence. Drawing on cross-national data sets together with fourteen detailed case studies from around the world, Electoral Violence, Corruption, and Political Order offers a global comparative analysis of violent electoral practices since the Second World War.Sarah Birch shows that the way power is structured in society largely explains why elections are at risk of violence in some contexts but not in others. Countries with high levels of corruption and weak democratic institutions are especially vulnerable to disruptions of electoral peace. She examines how corrupt actors use violence to back up other forms of electoral manipulation, including vote buying and ballot stuffing. In addition to investigating why electoral violence takes place, Birch considers what can be done to prevent it in the future, arguing that electoral authority and the quality of electoral governance are more important than the formal design of electoral institutions.Delving into a deeply influential aspect of political malpractice, Electoral Violence, Corruption, and Political Order explores the circumstances in which individuals choose to employ violence as an electoral strategy.

A New York Times Book Review Editors'ChoiceWhy the conventional wisdom about the Arab Spring is wrongThe Arab Spring promised to end dictatorship and bring self-government to people across the Middle East. Yet everywhere except Tunisia it led to either renewed dictatorship, civil war, extremist terror, or all three. In The Arab Winter, Noah Feldman argues that the Arab Spring was nevertheless not an unmitigated failure, much less an inevitable one. Rather, it was a noble, tragic series of events in which, for the first time in recent Middle Eastern history, Arabic-speaking peoples took free, collective political action as they sought to achieve self-determination.Focusing on the Egyptian revolution and counterrevolution, the Syrian civil war, the rise and fall of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, and the Tunisian struggle toward Islamic constitutionalism, Feldman provides an original account of the political consequences of the Arab Spring, including the reaffirmation of pan-Arab identity, the devastation of Arab nationalisms, and the death of political Islam with the collapse of ISIS. He also challenges commentators who say that the Arab Spring was never truly transformative, that Arab popular self-determination was a mirage, and even that Arabs or Muslims are less capable of democracy than other peoples.Above all, The Arab Winter shows that we must not let the tragic outcome of the Arab Spring disguise its inherent human worth. People whose political lives had been determined from the outside tried, and for a time succeeded, in making politics for themselves. That this did not result in constitutional democracy or a better life for most of those affected doesn't mean the effort didn't matter. To the contrary, it matters for history—and it matters for the future.

A literary and cultural history of the intimate space of the eighteenth-century closet—and how it fired the imaginations of Pepys, Sterne, Swift, and so many other writers Long before it was a hidden storage space or a metaphor for queer and trans shame, the closet was one of the most charged settings in English architecture. This private room provided seclusion for reading, writing, praying, dressing, and collecting—and for talking in select company. In their closets, kings and duchesses shared secrets with favorites, midwives and apothecaries dispensed remedies, and newly wealthy men and women expanded their social networks. In The Closet, Danielle Bobker presents a literary and cultural history of these sites of extrafamilial intimacy, revealing how, as they proliferated both in buildings and in books, closets also became powerful symbols of the unstable virtual intimacy of the first mass-medium of print.Focused on the connections between status-conscious—and often awkward—interpersonal dynamics and an increasingly inclusive social and media landscape, The Closet examines dozens of historical and fictional encounters taking place in the various iterations of this room: courtly closets, bathing closets, prayer closets, privies, and the'moving closet'of the coach, among many others. In the process, the book conjures the intimate lives of well-known figures such as Samuel Pepys and Laurence Sterne, as well as less familiar ones such as Miss Hobart, a maid of honor at the Restoration court, and Lady Anne Acheson, Swift's patroness. Turning finally to queer theory, The Closet discovers uncanny echoes of the eighteenth-century language of the closet in twenty-first-century coming-out narratives.Featuring more than thirty illustrations, The Closet offers a richly detailed and compelling account of an eighteenth-century setting and symbol of intimacy that continues to resonate today.

A sweeping narrative history of Eastern Europe from the late eighteenth century to todayIn the 1780s, the Habsburg monarch Joseph II decreed that henceforth German would be the language of his realm. His intention was to forge a unified state from his vast and disparate possessions, but his action had the opposite effect, catalyzing the emergence of competing nationalisms among his Hungarian, Czech, and other subjects, who feared that their languages and cultures would be lost. In this sweeping narrative history of Eastern Europe since the late eighteenth century, John Connelly connects the stories of the region's diverse peoples, telling how, at a profound level, they have a shared understanding of the past.An ancient history of invasion and migration made the region into a cultural landscape of extraordinary variety, a patchwork in which Slovaks, Bosnians, and countless others live shoulder to shoulder and where calls for national autonomy often have had bloody effects among the interwoven ethnicities. Connelly traces the rise of nationalism in Polish, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman lands; the creation of new states after the First World War and their later absorption by the Nazi Reich and the Soviet Bloc; the reemergence of democracy and separatist movements after the collapse of communism; and the recent surge of populist politics throughout the region.Because of this common experience of upheaval, East Europeans are people with an acute feeling for the precariousness of history: they know that nations are not eternal, but come and go; sometimes they disappear. From Peoples into Nations tells their story.