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The Positive Thinkers
by Donald MeyerThe subject of Professor Meyer's superb study concerns the dissolution of the Protestant ethic, its relationship to a general failure of nerve within the American community, and the consequent rise of a pseudo-theology in the guise of a pseudo-psychology, as reflected through the work of certain "mind-cure" practitioners, from Mary Baker Eddy to Norman Vincent Peale. It is a subject largely ignored by intellectuals, and Professor Meyer, in taking it out of the domain of the Reader's Digestor similar habitations, has produced a real service, not only to sociology and political science, disciplines in which he is very well versed, but also to mass-culture and the vague but insidious ethos behind it. In describing what the sub-title states as "the American Quest for Health, Wealth, and Personal Power," Professor Meyer works from an historical perspective, does not beat any drums nor ride any hobby horse; scholarly care and an in-depth generosity illuminate a number of intricate concepts, whether they be "individualism," laissez-faire industry or the peculiar role and influence of women within society. His work is schematized yet fluid, showing how a process of ego-disintegration has paradoxically resulted out of the improperly understood religious orientation of the past and the anxiety-ridden religious revival of the present. Today God "means" Adjustment.--Virgina Kirkus, Kirkus Reviews
Positive Tipping Points Towards Sustainability: Understanding the Conditions and Strategies for Fast Decarbonization in Regions (Springer Climate)
by J. David Tàbara Alexandros Flamos Diana Mangalagiu Serafeim MichasThis open access book provides the first comprehensive review of the state of the art of social tipping points applied to energy systems from a social interdisciplinary perspective. It does so by presenting a novel theory of systemic and transformative change, linking it to empirical cases assisted with relevant assessment methodologies, including modeling. The authors unveil the narratives and visions, the transformative capacities as well as deliberate strategies and collective actions that at one point in time have been able - or were prevented - to tip a given social-ecological system towards low-carbon, sustainable trajectories in diverse high-intensive carbon regions around the world. This volume shows that self-reinforcing learning feedbacks connecting transformative solutions and strategies across scales and domains can be induced by targeted policy interventions both in local and regional contexts. It further indicates how changes in behavioral patterns, supported by good governance of disruptive technologies, carbon (dis)investment and finance processes as well as new forms of civic engagement, can create the necessary transformative enabling conditions for the emergence of positive tipping points towards low-carbon sustainable futures. The book is a must-read for students, researchers, and scholars, as well as policy-makers and practitioners interested in a better understanding of sustainability, climate, and energy issues and in assessing the potential impacts and effectiveness of strategic interventions aimed at accelerating just sustainable decarbonization processes.
Positively American: Winning Back the Middle-Class Majority One Family at a Time
by Chuck Schumer<p>New York's popular senior senator, who won reelection by the largest margin in the state's history, offers a bold plan for change in the Democratic party. <p>As the results of the last presidential election played out, it became clear that while Democrats call themselves the party of the middle, the middle class does not consider the Democrats their party. <p>Now, Chuck Schumer, who has gained national prominence as the head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and as a member of the Finance Committee, offers his plan for capturing the middle-class vote and moving his party back into the majority. Democrats can accomplish this, the senator explains, without abandoning their traditional principles.Schumer envisions a hypothetical, average middle-class American family--he thinks of them as "The Baileys"--who spend "as much time talking about the cost of cornflakes as the cost of the national debt." <p>He then details specific proposals he believes would keep America safe, secure, and on top, and support the aspirations of a prosperous and growing middle class, while also speaking to anxieties created in a world changed by technology and globalization.
Positivist and Political-Economic Theories of International Relations: Liberal-Pluralist and Radical Dimensions
by Amartya MukhopadhyayThis book provides an introduction to positivist-pluralist theories of international relations (IR) which emerged during the early-and mid-1950’s along with Marxist political economic and non-Marxist economic theories of IR. Positivist and Political-Economic Theories of International Relations is an in-depth critical study of texts and literature which highlight IR’s methodological pluralism even after it gained maturity. It examines how pluralist political status quo and radical economic criticism coexist in discrete areas of the discipline. Insights are provided into key positivist liberal-pluralist theories, namely decision-making approaches, and theories of integration, regionalism, interdependence, and regime. It discusses the four political economic and critical theories of Marxism, dependency, world systems, and international political economy. The book, as an advanced supplementary reader, will be of great interest to researchers and students of international relations, history, law, and the multidisciplinary social scientific field of political economy.
El Poskirchnerismo: La política de las nuevas generaciones
by Mariano GrondonaCon su habitual claridad y la valiosa experiencia tras décadas de agudaobservación de nuestra realidad política, Mariano Grondona ofrece unensayo lúcido, analítico y decantado pero a la vez urgente. A lo largo de nuestros doscientos años de historia, tres personajesobtuvieron la suma del poder: don Juan Manuel de Rosas, el general JuanDomingo Perón y el doctor Néstor Kirchner.De 1852 en adelante, los sucesores de Rosas tuvieron un éxitoincomparable al brindarnos un proceso de desarrollo político y económicotan intenso y tan largo que no tiene parangón en la historia. A partirdel golpe militar de 1930, sin embargo, la Argentina descarriló, sin quehaya podido remontar desde entonces la declinación en la que quedóatrapada. Comparada con la oposición a Rosas, que fue capaz de superar suherencia porque más que antirrosista fue posrrosista, la oposición aPerón tuvo un éxito de corto plazo alderrocar a Perón en 1955 pero fracasó en el largo plazo. A la inversa dela generación de los Alberdi y los Urquiza, no supo construir elposperonismo, conformándose en cambio con el antiperonismo que solo duróhasta 1973, año en el que Perón volvió al poder. Rosas, en cambio,nunca pudo volver porque a él, en vez de un hombre o un conjunto dehombres, lo reemplazó un proyecto.El dilema que se nos presenta a los argentinos ahora es resolver si,después del fin de Kirchner que ya se avizora, caeremos en un simpleantikirchnerismo que podría repetir la cortedad de miras delantiperonismo o seremos capaces de fundar, como lo hicieron losopositores de Rosas en 1852, el poskirchnerismo: una política superadoradestinada a las nuevas generaciones argentinas, cuya misión seráencarnar el fecundo aprendizaje de todo lo que nos ocurrió en losúltimos ochenta años para encarrilarnos, a lo mejor por otros ochentaaños, en la búsqueda de la plenitud nacional.
The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How Whites Profit from Identity Politics
by George LipsitzHard-hitting expose of American systemic societal racism.
The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics, Revised and Expanded Edition
by George LipsitzIn this unflinching look at white supremacy, George Lipsitz argues that racism is a matter of interests as well as attitudes, a problem of property as well as pigment. Above and beyond personal prejudice, whiteness is a structured advantage that produces unfair gains and unearned rewards for whites while imposing impediments to asset accumulation, employment, housing, and health care for minorities. Reaching beyond the black/white binary, Lipsitz shows how whiteness works in respect to Asian Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans. Lipsitz delineates the weaknesses embedded in civil rights laws, the racial dimensions of economic restructuring and deindustrialization, and the effects of environmental racism, job discrimination and school segregation. He also analyzes the centrality of whiteness to U. S. culture, and perhaps most importantly, he identifies the sustained and perceptive critique of white privilege embedded in the radical black tradition. This revised and expanded edition also includes an essay about the impact of Hurricane Katrina on working class Blacks in New Orleans, whose perpetual struggle for dignity and self determination has been obscured by the city's image as a tourist party town.
The Possibilities in Emptiness: A meditation on the mystery of existence in a universe reluctant to unfold itself
by Michael GoodsellA despairing protagonist on a quest for his inheritance. An alluring artist. Twin Japanese hostesses. A mad mathematician driving a kombi, and an old potter schooled in Zen, are part of the cast of characters in an adventure of the spirit; its hopes, dreams and desires. The Possibilities in Emptiness, is a book for all people. It takes you on a young man's battle against conscription and the Vietnam war, in 1970. And into the mysterious contradiction which is Japan, in the late 1980's. Miles Tracy is on a mission to find Shigeo Kitani...and anything to fill the void. If you like Bob Dylan, Che Guevara, Kurt Vonnegut, Zen, Sushi, and a search for meaning; then read on...
Possibilities of Civilian Defense in Western Europe
by Gustaaf GeeraertsThis is a collection of the 13 essays making up the proceedings of the 2nd international working conference on violence and non-violent action in industrialized Societies held in Brussels on the March 24-26th, 1976.
The Possibility of a World: Conversations with Pierre-Philippe Jandin
by null Jean-Luc Nancy null Pierre-Philippe JandinIn this series of interviews, Jean-Luc Nancy reviews his life’s work. But like Schlegel’s historian—“a prophet facing backwards”—Nancy takes this opportunity to rummage through the history of art, philosophy, religion, and politics in search of new possibilities that remain to be thought.This journey through Nancy’s thought is interspersed with accounts of places and events and deeply personal details. The result is at once unpretentious and encyclopedic: Concepts are described with remarkable nuance and specificity, but in a language that comes close to that of everyday life.As Nancy surveys his work, he thinks anew about democracy, community, jouissance, love, Christianity, and the arts. In the end, this is a book about the possibility of a world—a world that must be greeted because it is, as Nancy says, already here.
The Possibility of America: How The Gospel Can Mend Our God-blessed, God-forsaken Land
by David DarkPublished in the years following 9/11, David Dark’s book The Gospel according to America warned American Christianity about the false worship that conflates love of country with love of God. It delved deeply into the political divide that had gripped the country and the cultural captivity into which so many American churches had fallen. <P><P> In our current political season, the problems Dark identified have blossomed. The assessment he brought to these problems and the creative resources for resisting them are now more important than ever. Into this new political landscape and expanding on the analysis of The Gospel according to America, Dark offers The Possibility of America: How the Gospel Can Mend Our God-Blessed, God-Forsaken Land. Dark expands his vision of a fractured yet redeemable American Christianity, bringing his signature mix of theological, cultural, and political analysis to white supremacy, evangelical surrender, and other problems of the Trump era.
The Possibility of Politics: A Study in the Political Economy of the Welfare State
by Stein RingenThe Possibility of Politics explores the power of political reform, specifically reform of the modern welfare state. Can reform be effective if limited to cautious and piecemeal interventions that avoid radicalism and revolution? Can it also avoid unwanted consequences? Will the welfare state survive in the future?Stein Ringen views the welfare state as a large-scale experiment in political reform. To ask if the welfare state works is to ask if political reform is possible at all. By its nature, the welfare state is reform on a grand scale, for it attempts to change the circumstances individuals and families live under without changing and disrupting society itself. But is it realistic to believe a population can get together, set goals and then try to meet these goals through collective actions, specifically public policies, without causing unintended consequences and destroying the state in the process? The welfare state attempts, idealistically, to redistribute welfare without reshaping the economic processes that cause inequities in the first place. Ringen considers how well redistribution has met the test in terms of political legitimacy, its intended effects on poverty and inequality, as well as its undesired and unintended effects on economic efficiency and the quality of private life. Ultimately, does the welfare state work? Further, is the welfare state a good thing?In considering these questions, The Possibility of Politics should be of particular value to academics and advanced students interested in political theory, public economics, social administration, and political sociology.Stein Ringen is professor of sociology and social policy at Oxford University and a Fellow of Green College. He teaches social and political theory and research methodology for graduates in social policy, sociology, politics, economic and social history and other subjects.
A Possible Peace Between Israel and Palestine: An Insider's Account of the Geneva Initiative
by Menachem KleinIn 2003, after two years of negotiations, a group of prominent Israelis and Palestinians signed a model peace treaty. The document, popularly called the Geneva Initiative, contained detailed provisions resolving all outstanding issues between Israel and the Palestinian people, including drawing a border between Israel and Palestine, dividing Jerusalem, and determining the status of the Palestinian refugees.The negotiators presented this citizens' initiative to the Israeli and Palestinian peoples and urged them to accept it. One of the Israeli negotiators was Menachem Klein, a political scientist who has written extensively about the Jerusalem issue in the context of peace negotiations. Although the Geneva Initiative was not endorsed by the governments of either side, it became a fundamental term of reference for solving the Middle East conflict. In this firsthand account, Klein explains how and why these groups were able to achieve agreement. He directly addresses the formation of the Israeli and Palestinian teams, how they managed their negotiations, and their communications with both governments. He also discusses the role of third-party facilitators and the strategy behind marketing the Geneva Initiative to the public.A scholar and participant in the Geneva negotiations, Klein is able to provide both an inside perspective and an impartial analysis of the diplomatic efforts behind this historic compromise. He compares the negotiations to previous Israeli-Palestinian talks both formal and informal and the resolution of conflicts in South Africa and Algeria. Klein hopes that by treating the event as a case study we can learn a tremendous amount about the needs and approaches of both parties and the necessary shape peace must take between them.
Post-2015 UN Development: Making Change Happen? (Global Institutions)
by Stephen Browne & Thomas G. WeissIn 2000, at the United Nations Millennium Summit, world leaders agreed to the Millennium Declaration. The Declaration included development targets to be reached by 2015, which were to become known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Progress has been made towards the achievement of the MDGs, but poverty remains widespread. With the terminal year approaching, the international community has begun the process of determining the goals which might follow the MDGs. While the UN is driving the process, there has been very little introspection on its own organizational capacity to help countries to meet the goals and is being increasingly sidelined by other more effective development organizations and initiatives. Based on extensive original research that has critically examined the role and functions of the organizations of the UN development system, this book seeks to capture in a single volume a comprehensive review of the UN’s performance and prospects for development. The contributors each offer extensive experience and familiarity—as practitioners and researchers—with the UN and development; and the book will contribute to the urgently needed debate on the reform of the UN development system at a critical juncture. The main rationale for this book, and its timing, is the unusual opportunity provided by the 2015 threshold to re-think the UN development system and to empower it to support a new development agenda and will be of interest to students, scholars of International Organizations and development studies.
Post-2020 Climate Change Regime Formation (Routledge Advances in Climate Change Research)
by Suh-Yong ChungThe fate of the climate change regime hangs in the balance as the UN-led negotiations try to forge a new international strategy for the post-2020 period. Since 1992, the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol has been the primary legal instrument to respond to the climate challenge. However, the intergovernmental process has been riddled with problems that have rendered it ineffective. The changing economic landscape has further made this country grouping problematic as some developing countries now emit more than some of their advanced counterparts. Such problems have crippled the existing regime in adequately addressing climate change. Building upon the expertise of the contributors of this volume, this ground-breaking collection aims to show the way forward for the intergovernmental process. It is the first of its kind to explore the key features of the regime, featuring meticulously researched pieces from leading experts in the field. Each chapter responds to the questions surrounding the political and structural limitations of the current top-down approach taken in climate negotiations and proposes various alternatives countries can take to overcome such limitations in the process of building the post-2020 climate change regime. In particular, this collection underscores the concept of low-carbon development and green growth to make the climate change regime more effective.
Post 2030-Agenda and the Role of Space: The UN 2030 Goals and Their Further Evolution Beyond 2030 for Sustainable Development (Studies in Space Policy #17)
by Annette FroehlichThis book provides a deep insight to which extent further improvement should be envisaged to ensure and improve the sustainable development beyond 2030 (the Sustainable Development Goals is a set of 17 global goals with 169 associated targets which the state community adopted in 2015). As the world, its environment, economy and society is getting more and more technical advanced, it is of high interest to analyze how space and its various applications can support this development. Once the Goals of the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” will be achieved new challenges are waiting. The analysis takes into account a proactive use of artificial intelligence for the development based on space infrastructure. Another important aspect revolves around the economic development which asks for further analysis of the cryptocurrencies relationship with space applications and how to use space based cryptocurrencies for development. Environment-wise the challenges for a sustainable development on Earth i.e. water supply, but also in outer space are requested ensuring a sustainable exploration and exploitation of space and its orbital resources. The book also highlights possible contributions of the post-2030 space industry to global economic development based on satellite technology and the enlargement of the scope of application of satellite data in administration and Justice to ensure development of effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels to promote growth, stability and security and peace on global level.
Post 9/11 and the State of Permanent Legal Emergency
by Aniceto MasferrerThe terrorist attacks occurred in the United States on 11 September 2001 have profoundly altered and reshaped the priorities of criminal justice systems around the world. Atrocities like the 9/11 attacks, the Madrid train bombings of March 2003, and the terrorist act to the United Kingdom of July 2005 threatened the life of democratic nations. The volume explores the response of democratic nation-states to the problems of terrorism and counter-terrorism within the framework of the Rule of Law. One of the primary subjects of study is the ways in which the interests of the state (security from external threats, the maintenance of civil peace, and the promotion of the commonwealth) are balanced or not with the liberty and freedom of the citizens of the state. The distinctive aspect of this focus is that it brings a historical, political, philosophical and comparative approach to the contemporary shape and purposes of the criminal justice systems around the world.
‘Post’-9/11 South Asian Diasporic Fiction: Uncanny Terror
by Pei-Chen LiaoWhile much of the critical discussion about the emerging genre of 9/11 fiction has centred on the trauma of 9/11 and on novels by EuroAmerican writers, this book draws attention to the diversity of what might be meant by "post" -9/11 by exploring the themes of uncanny terror through a close reading of four "post" -9/11 South Asian diasporic fictions.
The Post-American Middle East: How the World Changed Where the War on Terror Failed
by Laurent A. Lambert Moosa ElayahAfter two decades of War on Terror, it is particularly important, for both academic and policy purposes, to clearly understand why the US formidable mobilization of means and might has transformed into a such a blatant geostrategic defeat of the US and its allies in the broad Middle East. This is all the more paradoxical that the WOT achieved a series of tactical victories – such as the toppling of hostile regimes in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya; the crippling of the national economies of enemy states by sanctions; the successful targeted killing of lead terrorist Usama Bin Laden, ISIS cult leaders Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi and his successor, etc. So, why have these tactical victories not led to what was supposed to become, according to the US government, a ‘Greater Middle East’? With most authors being from or living in the Middle East, this book is unique as it brings perspectives and answers from the region. This is crucially important as we are entering, we argue, the era of a Post-American Middle East.Chapters 1 and 10 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com
The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America
by Pamela Geller Robert SpencerPopular conservative blogger Pamela Geller and New York Times bestselling author Robert Spencer sound a wake-up call for Americans to stop the Obama administration from limiting our hard-won freedoms, silencing our democratic voices, and irreparably harming America for generations to come. America is being tested in a way that she has never been tested before. Since taking the oath of office in January 2009, President Barack Obama has cheered our enemies and demoralized our allies. He is hard at work "remaking" America by destroying the free-market system and nationalizing major segments of our economy, demonizing dissent and restricting freedom of speech, turning against our longtime friends, and above all, subjecting us to the determinations of foreign authorities. In this timely and urgent battle cry, Pamela Geller, founder of the widely popular website www.AtlasShrugs.com, and New York Times bestselling author Robert Spencer team up to expose the Obama administration’s destructive agenda—largely ignored by the mainstream media—and rally Americans to protect the sovereignty of a country that is under siege by the highest levels of its own government. As Americans see their paychecks shrinking every day, Obama ignores our forefathers’ founding principle: individual rights. Instead, he seeks to level the playing field—to transform both the global and national landscape in favor of our enemies—even if it means cutting America off at the knees. He envisions himself as more than just a president of the United States, but as a shaper of the new world order, an internationalist energetically laying the groundwork for global government: the president of the world. A vital guide to helping conservatives prepare for the tough battles ahead, The Post-American Presidency critically examines the Obama administration’s ominous and revealing moves against our basic freedoms, particularly as he seizes control of the three engines of the American economy: health care, energy, and education. The Shining City on a Hill has gone dark. But America is not dead. The time is NOW to stand up and fight.
The Post-American World: Release 2.0 (International Edition)
by Fareed Zakaria"A relentlessly intelligent book." --Joseph Joffe, New York Times Book Review "This is not a book about the decline of America, but rather about the rise of everyone else." So begins Fareed Zakaria's blockbuster on the United States in the twenty-first century, and the trends he identifies have proceeded faster than anyone anticipated. How might the nation continue to thrive in a truly global era? In this fully updated 2.0 edition, Zakaria answers these questions with his customary lucidity, insight, and imagination.
The Post-American World
by Fareed ZakariaZakaria (Time magazine editor-at-large and host of CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS") updates his discussion of the relative decline of American global power in order to take into account the impact of the economic crisis of the late 2000s and other recent developments, which have only accelerated the transition to the "post-American" world and the rise of new powers in Zakaria's estimation. It must be stressed that Zakaria is only predicting a relative decline in power for the United States and that he believes that the United States can maintain a healthy position in the world by more carefully balancing foreign policy priorities, pushing for broad international rules conducive to long-term US interests instead of pushing for narrow and short-term interests, seeking better relations with rising powers instead of seeking to balance against them, encouraging ad hoc multilateral approaches to global problems in lieu of the lost hegemonic order, recognizing the dangers of opponents' asymmetric power in order to avoid getting sucked into traps, and recognizing international legitimacy as a key element of national power.
Post-Apartheid Community-Based Activism: Mandla Majola and the Struggle for Social, Economic, and Health Equity (Alternatives and Futures: Cultures, Practices, Activism and Utopias)
by Louise Penner Rajini SrikanthThis book provides a timely study of community-based activism in contemporary South Africa. Grounded in oral history, the book examines the acquired expertise and life experiences of an impactful South African activist, Mandla Majola, within the context of the people, circumstances, and affiliations that have shaped his strategic thinking and practice. The authors situate Mandla Majola’s activist and everyday experiences within histories of the complex connections between post-apartheid political and social movements and human rights discourse as they emerged after 1994. The book illuminates the relationship of state power to public health activism for HIV, tuberculosis and COVID-19 and for a life of basic human dignity, including access to sanitation and housing. Mandla Majola’s life spotlights the inspiring, sometimes grueling, and tireless quotidian work of thousands of “invisible” community-based activists whose collective actions have impacted the entire spectrum of social and economic rights of untold numbers of people in South Africa and beyond.
Post-Apartheid Same-Sex Sexualities: Restless Identities in Literary and Visual Culture (Gender in a Global/Local World)
by Andy CarolinThis book examines how same-sex sexualities are represented in several post-apartheid South African cultural texts, drawing on a rich local archive of same-sex sexualities that includes recent fiction, drama, film, photography, and popular print culture. While the book situates these texts within the specific context of post-apartheid South Africa, it also looks outwards towards transnational connectivity and cultural flows. The author uses the idea of restlessness to refer to the uneven flow of cultural tropes, political sentiment, ideas, ideologies, and representational modes across geographical boundaries, across time and space, and between genres, presenting sexual cultures as simultaneously rooted and transnational. He focuses on how notions of race and gender, in the shadow of colonialism and apartheid, play out in the present and shape how sexualities are represented. This interdisciplinary book offers a conceptual entry point to several areas of study, including transnationalism, literary and cultural studies, critical race theory, gender and sexuality studies, and African studies, and will be of interest to students and researchers across these fields. Its inclusion of a range of textual genres extends its reach into visual culture, film and media studies, history, and politics.
Post-Apocalyptic Cultures: New Political Imaginaries After the Collapse of Modernity (Palgrave Studies in Utopianism)
by Julia Urabayen Jorge León CaseroThis book advocates for the necessity of recovering the value of utopias as political projects that open new channels of action. The criticism of modern political utopias is based on the supposed impossibility of creating for the future because there is no longer a future (apocalyptic ideology). However, this edited collection seeks to show that the post-apocalyptic world in which we live entails a renewed freedom of design for the radical reorganization of institutions. Post-apocalyptic cultures are not obligated to follow the capitalist, anthropocentric, correlationist and sovereign modes of the old political project of emancipation—the Western enlightenment—that has started to collapse. With this in mind, this book is divided into four sections dedicated to the main themes from which to rethink the projects of political emancipation that are possible nowadays: technopolitics; posthumanist biopolitics; non-western politicsl and the crossover between arts and politics.