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A Critical Theory for the Anthropocene (Anthropocene – Humanities and Social Sciences)
by Nathanaël WallenhorstThis volume, which is rooted in biogeophysical studies, addresses conceptions of political action in the Anthropocene and the tension between a desire to accomplish the Promethean project of modernity and a post-Promethean approach. This work explores the idea of an anthropological mutation of political consolidation from a “post-Promethean togetherness”, to creating the capacity to act together. The political thinking of the human condition developed by Hannah Arendt is important here as a resource for thinking about humanity in terms of human adventure. This has three dimensions: hubris, the world and coexistence referring respectively to the logic of profit of the homo oeconomicus, the logic of responsibility of the homo collectivus and the logic of the hospitality of the homo religatus. The intellectual and political attitude outlined in this book is an extension of critical theory: the work also puts forward a critique of what poses a problem in our relationship to the world and suggests how to overcome it, the ultimate goal being social transformation. The author propose an uprising and an anthropological consolidation of politics based on the revitalization that is brought about by the sharing of a conviviality both between humans and with what is non-human. The identification of conviviality as an educational paradigm to survive the Anthropocene gives us the much needed reason for hope despite this heritage of the Anthropocene. In addition to Arendtian thinking, this critical theory for the Anthropocene draws on the political thinking of several contemporary authors including Maurice Bellet, Hartmut Rosa, Andreas Weber, Dominique Bourg, and Christian Arnsperger. This volume is of interest to researchers in the Anthropocene.
A Critical Theory of Counterterrorism: Ontology, Epistemology and Normativity (Routledge Critical Terrorism Studies)
by Sondre LindahlThis book offers a theory and model of counterterrorism based on emancipation and non-violence. Critical Terrorism Studies (CTS) scholars have produced wide-ranging and rich critiques of terrorism-related research, as well as state counterterrorism policies and practices. This work aims to fill in a gap in the current literature by constructing an original and specifically CTS model of counterterrorism. The model outlines the basic assumptions, priorities, principles, strategies and tactics, measures and evaluation of counterterrorism. It challenges prevalent models of counterterrorism through a radical rethinking of the ontology, epistemology and the agenda of counterterrorism. The model aims to prevent future acts of terrorism by (1) re-conceptualising how we study and understand terrorism, and; (2) suggesting that our efforts to counter and prevent terrorism must commensurate with the goals we want to achieve. Essentially, this involves a commitment to emancipation, and a rejection of violence as a tool. The second part of the book is a case study of Norwegian counterterrorism which shows how the theory and model developed in the book can be used. This is the first substantial analysis of Norwegian counterterrorism in almost ten years, and produces encouraging findings which support the potential for non-violent solutions to terrorism. This book will be of particular interest to students of terrorism and counterterrorism, critical security studies, and international relations in general.
A Critical Theory of Police Power: The Fabrication of the Social Order
by Mark NeocleousPutting police power into the centre of the picture of capitalismThe ubiquitous nature and political attraction of the concept of order has to be understood in conjunction with the idea of police. Since its first publication, this book has been one of the most powerful and wide-ranging critiques of the police power. Neocleous argues for an expanded concept of police, able to account for the range of institutions through which policing takes place. These institutions are concerned not just with the maintenance and reproduction of order, but with its very fabrication, especially the fabrication of a social order founded on wage labour. By situating the police power in relation to both capital and the state and at the heart of the politics of security, the book opens up into an understanding of the ways in which the state administers civil society and fabricates order through law and the ideology of crime. The discretionary violence of the police on the street is thereby connected to the wider administrative powers of the state, and the thud of the truncheon to the dull compulsion of economic relations.
A Critique of Postcolonial Reason
by Gayatri Chakravorty SpivakAre the "culture wars" over? When did they begin? What is their relationship to gender struggle and the dynamics of class? In her first full treatment of postcolonial studies, a field that she helped define, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, one of the world's foremost literary theorists, poses these questions from within the postcolonial enclave. "We cannot merely continue to act out the part of Caliban," Spivak writes; and her book is an attempt to understand and describe a more responsible role for the postcolonial critic. A Critique of Postcolonial Reason tracks the figure of the "native informant" through various cultural practices--philosophy, history, literature--to suggest that it emerges as the metropolitan hybrid. The book addresses feminists, philosophers, critics, and interventionist intellectuals, as they unite and divide. It ranges from Kant's analytic of the sublime to child labor in Bangladesh. Throughout, the notion of a Third World interloper as the pure victim of a colonialist oppressor emerges as sharply suspect: the mud we sling at certain seemingly overbearing ancestors such as Marx and Kant may be the very ground we stand on. A major critical work, Spivak's book redefines and repositions the postcolonial critic, leading her through transnational cultural studies into considerations of globality.
A Critique of Proportionality and Balancing
by Urbina Francisco J.The principle of proportionality, which has become the standard test for adjudicating human and constitutional rights disputes in jurisdictions worldwide has had few critics. Proportionality is generally taken for granted or enthusiastically promoted or accepted with minor qualifications. A Critique of Proportionality and Balancing presents a frontal challenge to this orthodoxy. It provides a comprehensive critique of the proportionality principle, and particularly of its most characteristic component, balancing. Divided into three parts, the book presents arguments against the proportionality test, critiques the view of rights entailed by it, and proposes an alternative understanding of fundamental rights and their limits.
A Croce Reader: Aesthetics, Philosophy, History, and Literary Criticism
by Massimo VerdicchioBenedetto Croce was a historian, humanist, political figure, and the foremost Italian philosopher of the early twentieth-century. A Croce Reader brings together the author’s most important works across the fields of aesthetics, philosophy, history, literary criticism, and the Baroque and presents the “other” Croce that has been erased by scholarly tradition, including by Croce himself. Massimo Verdicchio traces the progress of Croce as a thinker, focusing on his philosophy of absolute historicism and its aesthetic implications. Unlike other anthologies, A Croce Reader includes essays from the Aesthetics of 1902 and key studies on Vico, Hegel, and Pirandello. Verdicchio’s masterful translation of the source material welcomes specialists and non-specialists alike to discover the “other” Croce for themselves.
A Cross-Border-Only Regulation for Consumer Transactions in the EU: A Fresh Approach to EU Consumer Law (SpringerBriefs in Business)
by Christian Twigg-FlesnerFor almost three decades, the European Union (EU) has adopted measures to regulate consumer transactions within the internal market created by the EU Treaties. Existing legislation is largely based on directives harmonizing aspects of national consumer laws. This Brief argues that a more appropriate approach for EU consumer law would be legislation in the form of a regulation which is applicable to cross-border transactions only. The author considers the constitutional constraints of the EU Treaties, before examining the case for a cross-border-only measure. He argues that the cross-border approach is preferable, because it would provide clearer benefits for consumers seeking to buy goods and services across borders, while not upsetting domestic law unnecessarily--in particular in the context of e-commerce, with implications for industry, policymaking, and regional development. The Brief concludes by suggesting that a successful EU measure on cross-border consumer transactions could create a template for global initiatives for transnational consumer law.
A Cross-Cultural Theory of Voter Behavior
by Bruce I Newman Wojciech Cwalina Andrzej FalkowskiThe rapid development of democracy and political freedoms has created new and sophisticated psychology-based methods of influencing the way voters choose, as well as political systems based on free market principles. A Cross-Cultural Theory of Voter Behavior uses advanced empirical testing to determine whether the behavior of voters in established and emerging democracies around the world is predictable. The results of the testing suggest the theory is a ground-breaking cross-cultural model with theoretical and strategic global implications. This unique book examines the many facets of political marketing and its direct relationship with the voter. A comprehensive theory meticulously tested in the dynamic political waters of the U.S. and Europe, this text bridges the latest theoretical developments in the emerging and advanced democracies. A Cross-Cultural Theory of Voter Behavior offers an innovative and seldom seen international perspective that integrates up-to-date literature in political science with advanced political marketing to provide readers with useable, unified information. In addition, the text is replete with detailed references and illustrated with a wealth of informative tables and graphics to made pertinent data accessible and easily understood. Some of the topics discussed in A Cross-Cultural Theory of Voter Behavior include politics in an age of manufactured images, partisanship and party identification, candidate-centered politics, political cognition, social categorization of politicians, the role of advertising and emotion, among others. An ideal text for students, academics, and researchers, the information presented in A Cross-Cultural Theory of Voter Behavior is also a vital resource for political practitioners such as consultants, candidates, lobbyists, political action committees, fund-raisers, pollsters, government officials, ad specialists, journalists, public relations executives, and congressional aides.
A Cruel Theatre of Self-Immolations: Contemporary Suicide Protests by Fire and Their Resonances in Culture (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies)
by Grzegorz ZiółkowskiA Cruel Theatre of Self-Immolations investigates contemporary protest self-burnings and their echoes across culture. The book provides a conceptual frame for the phenomenon and an annotated, comprehensive timeline of suicide protests by fire, supplemented with notes on artworks inspired by or devoted to individual cases. The core of the publication consists of six case studies of these ultimate acts, augmented with analyses and interpretations hailing from the visual arts, film, theatre, architecture, and literature. By examining responses to these events within an interdisciplinary frame, Ziółkowski highlights the phenomenon’s global reach and creates a broad, yet in-depth, exploration of the problems that most often prompt these self-burnings, such as religious discrimination and harassment, war and its horrors, the brutality and indoctrination of authoritarian regimes and the apathy they produce, as well as the exploitation of the so-called "subalterns" and their exclusion from mainstream economic systems. Of interest to scholars from an array of fields, from theatre and performance, to visual art, to religion and politics, A Cruel Theatre of Self-Immolations offers a unique look at voluntary, demonstrative, and radical performances of shock and subversion.
A Cruel and Shocking Act: The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination
by Philip ShenonThe questions have haunted our nation for half a century: Was the President killed by a single gunman? Was Lee Harvey Oswald part of a conspiracy? Did the Warren Commission discover the whole truth of what happened on November 22, 1963?Philip Shenon, a veteran investigative journalist who spent most of his career at The New York Times, finally provides many of the answers. Though A CRUEL AND SHOCKING ACT began as Shenon's attempt to write the first insider's history of the Warren Commission, it quickly became something much larger and more important when he discovered startling information that was withheld from the Warren Commission by the CIA, FBI and others in power in Washington. Shenon shows how the commission's ten-month investigation was doomed to fail because the man leading it - Chief Justice Earl Warren - was more committed to protecting the Kennedy family than getting to the full truth about what happened on that tragic day. A taut, page-turning narrative, Shenon's book features some of the most compelling figures of the twentieth century-Bobby Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, J. Edgar Hoover, Chief Justice Warren, CIA spymasters Allen Dulles and Richard Helms, as well as the CIA's treacherous 'molehunter,' James Jesus Angleton.Based on hundreds of interviews and unprecedented access to the surviving commission staffers and many other key players, Philip Shenon's authoritative, scrupulously researched book will forever change the way we think about the Kennedy assassination and about the deeply flawed investigation that followed.
A Cry from the Far Middle: Dispatches from a Divided Land
by P.J. O'RourkeIn a time of chaos, the #1 New York Times-bestselling political humorist asks his fellow Americans to take it down a notch. Is there an upside to being woke (and unable to get back to sleep)? If we license dentists, why don&’t we license politicians? Is your juicer sending fake news to your FitBit about what&’s in your refrigerator? The legendary P.J. O&’Rourke addresses these questions and more in this hilarious new collection of essays about our nation&’s propensity for anger and perplexity, which includes such gems as &“An Inaugural Address I&’d Like to Hear&” (Ask not what your country can do for you, ask how I can get the hell out of here) and &“Sympathy vs. Empathy,&” which contemplates whether it&’s better to hold people&’s hands or bust into their heads. Also included is a handy quiz to find out where you stand on the Coastals-vs.-Heartlanders spectrum. From the author of Parliament of Whores, None of My Business, and other modern classics, this is a smart look at the current state of these United States, and a plea to everyone to take a deep breath, relax, and enjoy a few good laughs. &“To say that P. J. O&’Rourke is funny is like saying the Rocky Mountains are scenic—accurate but insufficient.&” —Chicago Tribune &“The funniest writer in America.&”—The Wall Street Journal
A Cultural Approach to Populism
by Juha HerkmanThis book is a critical introduction of theorisations and research on contemporary political populism emphasising the cultural perspective. It introduces the basic theories and analyses the cultural construction of populism regarding radical democratic theory and empirical studies. Applying Ernesto Laclau’s and Chantal Mouffe’s theories, the author builds a bridge between radical democratic and ideational approaches on populism with examples and studies that emphasise European radical right populism, alongside US, Latin American and Asian cases. Special attention is paid to relationships between populism and democracy and between populism and media. The contemporary appeal of populism is linked to current developments in welfare states and in global economic and cultural trends. The future of populism is discussed in regard to Covid-19 pandemic and Donald Trump’s fall in the US presidential elections in 2020 that together with above-mentioned global megatrends and with the development of media and communication environment set conditions for the 2020s populism. Scholars and students of political science, media and communication studies, cultural studies and social sciences will find this a unique and novel approach.
A Cultural Economic Analysis of Craft
by Anna Mignosa Priyatej KotipalliAre we aware of the values of craft? In this edited volume, cultural economists, researchers and professionals provide an interdisciplinary discussion of the relevance and contribution of the craft sector to the economy, as well as to society at large. Mignosa and Kotipalli bring together contributors to compare the craft sector across countries, analysing the role of institutions, educational bodies, organisations and market structure in its evolution and perception. The Western approach to craft and its subordinate position to the arts is contrasted with the prestige of craftmanship in Eastern countries, while the differing ways that craft has attracted the attention of policy agencies, museums, designers and private institutions across regions is also analysed. This volume is vital reading to those interested in the economic features of craft and craftsmanship around the world, as well as for those interested in the importance of policy in bringing about effective sustainable development.
A Cultural History of British Euroscepticism
by Menno SpieringWhy are the British so Euro-sceptic? Forget about tedious treaties, party politics or international relations. The real reason is that the British do not feel European. This book explores and explains the cultural divide between Britain and Europe, where it comes from and how it manifests itself in everyday life and the academic world.
A Cultural History of Climate Change (Routledge Environmental Humanities)
by Tom Bristow Thomas H. FordCharting innovative directions in the environmental humanities, this book examines the cultural history of climate change under three broad headings: history, writing and politics. Climate change compels us to rethink many of our traditional means of historical understanding, and demands new ways of relating human knowledge, action and representations to the dimensions of geological and evolutionary time. To address these challenges, this book positions our present moment of climatic knowledge within much longer histories of climatic experience. Only in light of these histories, it argues, can we properly understand what climate means today across an array of discursive domains, from politics, literature and law to neighbourly conversation. Its chapters identify turning-points and experiments in the construction of climates and of atmospheres of sensation. They examine how contemporary ecological thought has repoliticised the representation of nature and detail vital aspects of the history and prehistory of our climatic modernity. This ground-breaking text will be of great interest to researchers and postgraduate students in environmental history, environmental governance, history of ideas and science, literature and eco-criticism, political theory, cultural theory, as well as all general readers interested in climate change.
A Cultural History of Famine: Food Security and the Environment in India and Britain (Routledge Environmental Humanities)
by Ayesha MukherjeeThe term "food security" does not immediately signal research done in humanities disciplines. It refers to a complex, contested issue, whose currency and significance are hardly debatable given present concerns about environmental change, resource management, and sustainability. The subject is thus largely studied within science and social science disciplines in current or very recent historical contexts. This book brings together perspectives on food security and related environmental concerns from experts in the disciplines of literary studies, history, science, and social sciences. It allows readers to compare past and contemporary attitudes towards the issues in India and Britain – the economic, social, and environmental histories of these two nations have been closely connected ever since British travellers began to visit India in the latter half of the sixteenth century. The chapters in this book discuss themes such as climate, harvest failure, trade, technological improvements, transport networks, charity measures, and popular protest, which affected food security in both countries from the seventeenth century onwards. The authors cover a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches, and their chapters allow readers to understand and compare different methodologies as well as different contexts of time and place relevant to the topic. This book will be of great interest to students and researchers of economic and social history, environmental history, literary studies, and South Asian studies.
A Cultural History of Waste Disposal: Environmental Policy and Park Redevelopments (Routledge Environmental History)
by Benjamin A. LawsonThis book offers a historical analysis of landfill sites in New York City, Greater Toronto, and Greater Tel Aviv, and uses them as case studies to emphasize the international and global scale of issues concerning waste disposal and park redevelopments.New York, Toronto, and Tel Aviv are currently redeveloping giant landfills into parks to much fanfare. The park redevelopments may be seen as an attempt to erase or assuage the decades of problematic waste-disposal policy that led to the creation of such large landfills. Booster rhetoric underscores this point, such as promoting how the parks will be a “green lung” for the city. This book contextualizes these redevelopments by offering a historical analysis, providing a greater understanding of the past, current, and future potential issues. It goes on to analyze the language and media coverage surrounding former waste sites becoming park redevelopments, including how cities use art to promote their image and gain cultural relevance. By engaging with both the works of waste historians and literature on waste and discard studies, the book provides theoretical models for analyzing the role of power in municipal systems, as well as human and ecological impacts on waste. It concludes with an analysis of the features necessary for landfill parks to be successful. This book will be useful for scholars, researchers, and academics studying waste studies, the environment, cities, and sustainable development, as well as for policymakers and environmental/eco artists.
A Cultural History of the Atlantic World, 1250-1820
by John K. ThorntonA Cultural History of the Atlantic World, 1250–1820 explores the idea that strong links exist in the histories of Africa, Europe and North and South America. John K. Thornton provides a comprehensive overview of the history of the Atlantic Basin before 1830 by describing political, social and cultural interactions between the continents' inhabitants. He traces the backgrounds of the populations on these three continental landmasses brought into contact by European navigation. Thornton then examines the political and social implications of the encounters, tracing the origins of a variety of Atlantic societies and showing how new ways of eating, drinking, speaking and worshipping developed in the newly created Atlantic World. This book uses close readings of original sources to produce new interpretations of its subject.
A Cultural Interpretation of the Genocide Convention (Routledge Studies in Genocide and Crimes against Humanity)
by Kurt MundorffThis book critiques the dominant physical and biological interpretation of the Genocide Convention and argues that the idea of "culture" is central to properly understanding the crime of genocide. Using Raphael Lemkin’s personal papers, archival materials from the State Department and the UN, as well as the mid-century secondary literature, it situates the convention in the longstanding debate between Enlightenment notions of universality and individualism, and Romantic notions of particularism and holism. The author conducts a thorough review of the treaty and its preparatory work to show that the drafters brought strong culturalist ideas to the debate and that Lemkin’s ideas were held widely in the immediate postwar period. Reconstructing the mid-century conversation on genocide and situating it in the much broader mid-century discourse on justice and society he demonstrates that culture is not a distraction to be read out of the Genocide Convention; it is the very reason it exists. This volume poses a forceful challenge to the materialist interpretation and calls into question decades of international case law. It will be of interest to scholars of genocide, human rights, international law, the history of international law and human rights, and treaty interpretation.
A Culture of Its Own: Taking Latin America Seriously
by Mark FalcoffA Culture of Its Own: Taking Latin America Seriously presents Mark Falcoff's essays on the region. Many of them are contentious; none of them are dull. He ranges from bilingualism to the cult of Garcia Lorca, from U.S.-Cuban relations to Chile's curious love affair with Germany. On more than one occasion, Falcoff takes aim at American journalism and scholarship, both of which, he argues, have all too often produced a fantasy version of Latin America which reflects our own national narcissism rather than genuine curiosity about the other. Latin America, Falcoff argues, is not merely a geographical extension of the United States, or a kind of downmarket version of the American Southwest. It is a culture all its own, with its own historical memory, sensibility, and worldview. Its achievements -and its miseries-are also its own, not the end-product of policies made by the Pentagon, Wall Street, or the CIA.Falcoff writes about the region with originality, iconoclastic wit, and distinctive literary flair. His volume will interest Latin American specialists, diplomats, and journalists as well as those general readers who think they are not interested in Latin America-or who only suspect they might be, but don't know quite where to start.
A Culture of Rights: Law, Literature, and Canada
by Benjamin James AuthersWith the passage into law of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, rights took on new legal, political, and social significance in Canada. In the decades following, Canadian jurisprudence has emphasised the importance of rights, determining their shape and asserting their centrality to legal ideas about what Canada represents. At the same time, an increasing number of Canadian novels have also engaged with the language of human rights and civil liberties, reflecting, like their counterparts in law, the possibilities of rights and the failure of their protection.In A Culture of Rights, Benjamin Authers reads novels by authors including Joy Kogawa, Margaret Atwood, Timothy Findley, and Jeanette Armstrong alongside legal texts and key constitutional rights cases, arguing for the need for a more complex, interdisciplinary understanding of the sources of rights in Canada and elsewhere. He suggests that, at present, even when rights are violated, popular insistence on Canada's rights-driven society remains. Despite the limited scope of our rights, and the deferral of more substantive rights protections to some projected, ideal Canada, we remain keen to promote ourselves as members of an entirely just society.
A Curriculum of Fear: Homeland Security in U.S. Public Schools
by Nicole NguyenWelcome to Milton High School, where fear is a teacher&’s best tool and every student is a soldier in the war on terror. A struggling public school outside the nation&’s capital, Milton sat squarely at the center of two trends: growing fear of resurgent terrorism and mounting pressure to run schools as job training sites. In response, the school established a specialized Homeland Security program. A Curriculum of Fear takes us into Milton for a day-to-day look at how such a program works, what it means to students and staff, and what it says about the militarization of U.S. public schools and, more broadly, the state of public education in this country. Nicole Nguyen guides us through a curriculum of national security–themed classes, electives, and internships designed through public-private partnerships with major defense contractors like Northrop Grumman and federal agencies like the NSA. She introduces us to students in the process of becoming a corps of &“diverse workers&” for the national security industry, learning to be &“vigilant&” citizens; and she shows us the everyday realities of a program intended to improve the school, revitalize the community, and eliminate the achievement gap. With reference to critical work on school militarization, neoliberal school reform, the impact of the global war on terror on everyday life, and the political uses of fear, A Curriculum of Fear maps the contexts that gave rise to Milton&’s Homeland Security program and its popularity. Ultimately, as the first ethnography of such a program, the book provides a disturbing close encounter with the new normal imposed by the global war on terror—a school at once under siege and actively preparing for the siege itself.
A Danger Of Democracy: The Presidential Nominating Process
by Terry SanfordQuail hunte rs appreciate a bird dog that doesn't give up ,th at ch ases the last bird after a covey rises, that is joyouslyunwilling to let even one get away . Old Pal was such a pointer ,an d on one day he leaped for a last fluttering single , missed ,of course, but, sad to say, leaped also over a sixty-foot cliffinto the icy Flint River. The moral is that he was going afterthe right bird b ut he wasn 't looking where he was going.The political party, with new rules calculated to open thepresidential nominating process, to involve more people ,to reach the ultimate in democracy , may find itself in thesame plight as th e conscientious pointer. It is possible to goover the cliff in reaching for too much democracy . Somethink the parties have already fallen into the river .
A Dangerous Passion: Leadership and the Question of Honor
by Haig PatapanA Dangerous Passion argues that leadership and honor are mutually constitutive and that this dynamic relationship fundamentally shapes the character of political practice. Haig Patapan shows how our contemporary blindness to this leadership-honor dynamic and neglect of the significance of honor (and shame) in modern politics have caused us to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of leadership. We have lost sight of how honor shapes the ambitions and aspirations of those who seek political office, and the opportunities and limits it imposes on leaders when engaging with their followers. What has been obscured are the two faces of honor: how it is the dangerous passion that fuels the ambitions of the glory seekers to pursue tyranny and empire, as well as being the source of good leadership that is founded on noble ambition and sacrifice for the common good. Patapan examines classical magnanimity, Machiavellian glory, and Hobbesian-dispersed leadership, views that continue to be debated, and then offers insights from these debates to illuminate a series of contemporary political challenges for leaders, including the politics of fame, identity, and nationalism.
A Dangerous Stir
by Mark Wahlgren SummersReconstruction policy after the Civil War, observes Mark Wahlgren Summers, was shaped not simply by politics, principles, and prejudices. Also at work were fears--often unreasonable fears of renewed civil war and a widespread sense that four years of war had thrown the normal constitutional process so dangerously out of kilter that the republic itself remained in peril. To understand Reconstruction, Summers contends, one must understand that the purpose of the North's war was--first and foremost--to save the Union with its republican institutions intact. During Reconstruction there were always fears in the mix--that the Civil War had settled nothing, that the Union was still in peril, and that its enemies and the enemies of republican government were more resilient and cunning than normal mortals. Many factors shaped the reintegration of the former Confederate states and the North's commitment to Reconstruction, Summers agrees, but the fears of war reigniting, plots against liberty, and a president prepared to father a coup d'etat ranked higher among them than historians have recognized. Both a dramatic narrative of the events of Reconstruction and a groundbreaking new look at what drove these events, A Dangerous Stir is also a valuable look at the role of fear in the politics of the time--and in politics in general.