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The World in a Grain of Sand: Postcolonial Literature and Radical Universalism
by Nivedita MajumdarRadical universalism vs postcolonial theoryThe World in a Grain of Sand offers a framework for reading literature from the global South that goes against the grain of dominant theories in cultural studies, especially, postcolonial theory. It critiques the valorization of the local in cultural theories typically accompanied by a rejection of universal categories - viewed as Eurocentric projections. But the privileging of the local usually amounts to an exercise in exoticization of the South. The book argues that the rejection of Eurocentric theories can be complemented by embracing another, richer and non-parochial form of universalism. Through readings of texts from India, Sri Lanka, Palestine and Egypt, the book shows that the fine grained engagement with culture, the mapping of ordinary lives not just as objects but subjects of their history, is embedded in much of postcolonial literature in a radical universalism - one that is rooted in local realities, but is able to unearth in them the needs, conflicts and desires that stretch across cultures and time. It is a universalism recognized by Marx and steeped in the spirit of anti-colonialism, but hostile to any whiff of exoticism.
The World in a Selfie: An Inquiry into the Tourist Age
by Marco D'EramoA spirited critique of the cultural politics of the tourist age. Or, why we are all tourists who hate touristsWe've all been tourists at some point in our lives. How is it we look so condescendingly at people taking selfies in front of the Tower of Pisa? Is there really much to distinguish the package holiday from hipster city-breaks to Berlin or Brooklyn? Why do we engage our free time in an activity we profess to despise?The World in a Selfie dissects a global cultural phenomenon. For Marco D'Eramo, tourism is not just the most important industry of the century, generating huge waves of people and capital, calling forth a dedicated infrastructure, and upsetting and repurposing the architecture and topography of our cities. It also encapsulates the problem of modernity: the search for authenticity in a world of ersatz pleasures.D'Eramo retraces the grand tours of the first globetrotters - from Francis Bacon and Samuel Johnson to Arthur de Gobineau and Mark Twain - before assessing the cultural meaning of the beach holiday and the 'UNESCO-cide' of major heritage sites. The tourist selfie will never look the same again.
The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
by Thomas L. FriedmanWhen scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now and they come to the chapter "Y2K to March 2004", what will they say was the most critical development? The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11 and the Iraq War? Or the convergence of technology and the events that allowed India and China and so many other countries to become part of the global supply chain for services and manufacturing. And with this flattening of the globe,which requires us to run faster in order to stay in place, has the world gotten too small and too fast for human beings and their political systems to adjust in a stable manner.
The World is My Home: A Hamid Dabashi Reader
by Andrew Davison & Himadeep MuppidiAs recent events indicate, Iranian, Middle Eastern, and Islamic politics more broadly have been deeply influential in world affairs. Hamid Dabashi has been a highly visible and prominent commentator on these affairs, explaining, interpreting, and providing a critical perspective. This volume gathers together his most influential and insightful writings. As one of the foremost contemporary public intellectuals and scholars of our time, Dabashi's interests and writings span subjects ranging from Islamic philosophy and political ideology to Iranian art and Persian literature, from Sufism and Orientalism to Iranian and world cinema and contemporary Arab and Muslim visual arts; and from postcolonial theory and globalization to imperialism and public affairs. There is a direct connection between his theoretical innovations and the angle of his public interventions on the urgent global issues of the day. This book brings together some of his most important writings, especially those that offer new ways of understanding Islam, Iran, Islamist ideology, global art, and the condition of global modernity. The book shows the underlying conceptual themes that unify Dabashi's wide-ranging and brilliantly insightful corpus. Dabashi combines deep knowledge of the subject matter about which he writes, and highly refined sociological, hermeneutical, and cultural interpretive skills, moving far beyond the limiting, distorted, and intellectually stifling character of reigning absolutist conventions. He places existing authoritative frameworks under close scrutiny in order to produce novel and penetrating insights. These essays reflect historical and geographical worlds that are best viewed when Hamid Dabashi's work is read as a whole, which this one- volume work makes possible for the first time.
The World is Our Parish
by Keith FlemingOne of Canada's most outspoken and respected advocates of internationalism during the early Cold War, John King Gordon had a remarkably eclectic professional life. Keith R. Fleming's biography of Gordon explores the man's many careers, from his start as a Manitoba clergyman in the 1920s to his work as a United Nations field officer in Korea, the Middle East, and the Congo.In "The World Is Our Parish," Fleming traces how Gordon's passion for social reform and humanitarianism led him to become a clergyman, a political activist, a journalist, a professor, and one of Canada's leading advocates of liberal internationalism in the years after World War Two. An exceptional biography of an extraordinary but little-known Canadian, "The World Is Our Parish" uses Gordon's professional and intellectual journey to reveal the confluence of liberal Christianity, social democracy, and internationalism in Canadian politics and thought.
The World of Freedom: Heidegger, Foucault, and the Politics of Historical Ontology
by Robert NicholsMartin Heidegger and Michel Foucault are two of the most important and influential thinkers of the twentieth century. Each has spawned volumes of secondary literature and sparked fierce, polarizing debates, particularly about the relationship between philosophy and politics. And yet, to date there exists almost no work that presents a systematic and comprehensive engagement of the two in relation to one another. "The World of Freedom" addresses this lacuna. Neither apology nor polemic, the book demonstrates that it is not merely interesting but necessary to read Heidegger and Foucault alongside one another if we are to properly understand the shape of twentieth-century Continental thought. Through close, scholarly engagement with primary texts, Robert Nichols develops original and demanding insights into the relationship between fundamental and historical ontology, modes of objectification and subjectification, and an ethopoetic conception of freedom. In the process, his book also reveals the role that Heidegger's reception in France played in Foucault's intellectual development--the first major work to do so while taking full advantage of the recent publication of Foucault's last College de France lectures of the 1980s, which mark a return to classical Greek and Roman philosophy, and thus to familiar Heideggerian loci of concern.
The World of Labour: A Discussion Of The Present And Future Of Trade Unionism. 4th Ed. , With New Introd (Routledge Library Editions)
by G. D. ColeCole saw the trade unions as being critical to progress, but to realise their role they needed to change and the issue of trade union structure therefore became fundamental. He considered in this volume that trade union structure was a central problem of the labour movement - he described British trade unionism as a movement bereft of ideas and policy. He discusses the evolution in the trade unions to cover not only wages and working conditions but the organisation and control of industry.
The World of Samuel Adams
by Donald Barr ChidseyWho was Samuel Adams? was he a rabble-rouser as some say? Or was he a palseyed man who knew how to wield a pen and use his tongue to organize men? Cousin to the second president of the US, John Adams, when people think of Samuel Adams they think of the rebellions of the American Revolution... But who was Samuel Adams, really?
The World of Sugar: How the Sweet Stuff Transformed Our Politics, Health, and Environment over 2,000 Years
by Ulbe BosmaThe definitive 2,500-year history of sugar and its human costs, from its little-known origins as a luxury good in Asia to worldwide environmental devastation and the obesity pandemic.For most of history, humans did without refined sugar. After all, it serves no necessary purpose in our diets, and extracting it from plants takes hard work and ingenuity. Granulated sugar was first produced in India around the sixth century BC, yet for almost 2,500 years afterward sugar remained marginal in the diets of most people. Then, suddenly, it was everywhere. How did sugar find its way into almost all the food we eat, fostering illness and ecological crisis along the way?The World of Sugar begins with the earliest evidence of sugar production. Through the Middle Ages, traders brought small quantities of the precious white crystals to rajahs, emperors, and caliphs. But after sugar crossed the Mediterranean to Europe, where cane could not be cultivated, demand spawned a brutal quest for supply. European cravings were satisfied by enslaved labor; two-thirds of the 12.5 million Africans taken across the Atlantic were destined for sugar plantations. By the twentieth century, sugar was a major source of calories in diets across Europe and North America.Sugar transformed life on every continent, creating and destroying whole cultures through industrialization, labor migration, and changes in diet. Sugar made fortunes, corrupted governments, and shaped the policies of technocrats. And it provoked freedom cries that rang with world-changing consequences. In Ulbe Bosma’s definitive telling, to understand sugar’s past is to glimpse the origins of our own world of corn syrup and ethanol and begin to see the threat that a not-so-simple commodity poses to our bodies, our environment, and our communities.
The World of the John Birch Society: Conspiracy, Conservatism, and the Cold War
by D. J. MulloyA Selection of the History Book ClubNamed One of "Six Books for Insight on a Trump Presidency" by the Washington Post As far as members of the hugely controversial John Birch Society were concerned, the Cold War revealed in stark clarity the loyalties and disloyalties of numerous important Americans, including Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, and Earl Warren. Founded in 1958 as a force for conservative political advocacy, the Society espoused the dangers of enemies foreign and domestic, including the Soviet Union, organizers of the US civil rights movement, and government officials who were deemed "soft" on communism in both the Republican and Democratic parties. Sound familiar? In The World of the John Birch Society, author D. J. Mulloy reveals the tactics of the Society in a way they've never been understood before, allowing the reader to make the connections to contemporary American politics, up to and including the Tea Party. These tactics included organized dissemination of broad-based accusations and innuendo, political brinksmanship within the Republican Party, and frequent doomsday predictions regarding world events. At the heart of the organization was Robert Welch, a charismatic writer and organizer who is revealed to have been the lifeblood of the Society's efforts. The Society has seen its influence recede from the high-water mark of 1970s, but the organization still exists today. Throughout The World of the John Birch Society, the reader sees the very tenets and practices in play that make the contemporary Tea Party so effective on a local level. Indeed, without the John Birch Society paving the way, the Tea Party may have encountered a dramatically different political terrain on its path to power.
The World of the John Birch Society: Conspiracy, Conservatism, and the Cold War
by D. MulloyAs far as members of the hugely controversial John Birch Society were concerned, the Cold War revealed in stark clarity the loyalties and disloyalties of numerous important Americans, including Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, and Earl Warren. Founded in 1958 as a force for conservative political advocacy, the Society espoused the dangers of enemies foreign and domestic, including the Soviet Union, organizers of the US civil rights movement, and government officials who were deemed "soft" on communism in both the Republican and Democratic parties. Sound familiar? In The World of the John Birch Society, author D. J. Mulloy reveals the tactics of the Society in a way they've never been understood before, allowing the reader to make the connections to contemporary American politics, up to and including the Tea Party. These tactics included organized dissemination of broad-based accusations and innuendo, political brinksmanship within the Republican Party, and frequent doomsday predictions regarding world events. At the heart of the organization was Robert Welch, a charismatic writer and organizer who is revealed to have been the lifeblood of the Society's efforts. The Society has seen its influence recede from the high-water mark of 1970s, but the organization still exists today. Throughout The World of the John Birch Society, the reader sees the very tenets and practices in play that make the contemporary Tea Party so effective on a local level. Indeed, without the John Birch Society paving the way, the Tea Party may have encountered a dramatically different political terrain on its path to power.
The World to Come: Writings on Ethics and Politics
by Saitya Brata DasAt the heart of the messianic thinking lies an unconditional idea of redemption. The messianic idea of unconditionality is based upon a qualitative distinction between the unredeemed world and the world to come. It is fundamental to this messianic idea that this distinction can't be grasped as transition or mediation. Taking his inspiration from thinkers like Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Lévinas, Walter Benjamin and Franz Rosenzweig, Saitya Brata Das renews here this task of the unconditional, the task of thinking “the advent of pure future that is always to come", unenclosed in the bounds of law or in the cages of the “worldly”. He thereby draws profound ethico-political implications from such a thought that opens up the infinitude of the future from the heart of our finitude, and shows that such thinking is the very task of our time.
The World's Banker: A Story of Failed States, Financial Crises, and the Wealth and Poverty of Nations
by Sebastian MallabyNever has the World Bank's relief work been more important than in the last nine years, when crises as huge as AIDS and the emergence of terrorist sanctuaries have threatened the prosperity of billions. This journalistic masterpiece by Washington Post columnist Sebastian Mallaby charts those controversial years at the Bank under the leadership of James Wolfensohn—the unstoppable power broker whose daring efforts to enlarge the planet's wealth in an age of globalization and terror were matched only by the force of his polarizing personality. Based on unprecedented access to its subject, this captivating tour through the messy reality of global development is that rare triumph—an emblematic story through which a gifted author has channeled the spirit of the age.This edition features a new afterword by the author that analyzes the appointment of Paul Wolfowitz as Wolfensohn's successor at the World bankRead Sebastian Mallaby's new book, The Man Who Knew: The Life and Times of Alan Greenspan.
The World's Constitution: Spheres of Liberty in the Future Global Order (Routledge Innovations in Political Theory)
by Adam K. WebbGlobal governance is tightening and foreshadows that world state formation will become a live political issue in this century. Some observers treat it as inevitable amid the urgency of global issues. They foresee a technocratic scaling up of the model of state authority that has prevailed at the national level for over two hundred years. Many critics and members of the public around the world look askance at that prospect. They rightly fear a moral vacuum of authority disconnected from the world’s traditions, and a concentration of power that would be damaging to liberty or even dystopian in its upshot. Still, they often merely aim to stand athwart the scaling up of political institutions, rather than actively trying to shape an alternative that can seize the global horizon.The World’s Constitution: Spheres of Liberty in the Future Global Order offers a radically different vision of future world order that could work in a global space while shifting the balance of power from state back to society. It draws on older resources in political thought, both Western and non-Western, to upend mainstream notions of statehood and sovereignty that have been taken for granted for too long in the modern era. It offers an original ‘sphere pluralist’ framework that can reconcile liberty, tradition, and cosmopolitanism. As a book rooted in the past but mindful of future constitutional and policy challenges, it bridges ideas and real-world implications, with insights that cut across a wide range of topics from migration and social welfare to personal law systems and channels of representation. It opens an exciting debate about global constitutional futures that is likely to become more salient over the next couple of generations.The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
The World's Emergency Room: The Growing Threat to Doctors, Nurses, and Humanitarian Workers
by Michael VanRooyenTwenty years ago, the most common cause of death for medical humanitarians and other aid workers was traffic accidents; today, it is violent attacks. And the death of each doctor, nurse, paramedic, midwife, and vaccinator is multiplied untold times in the vulnerable populations deprived of their care. In a 2005 report, the ICRC found that for every soldier killed in the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, more than 60 civilians died due to loss of immunizations and other basic health services.The World's Emergency Room: The Growing Threat to Doctors, Nurses, and Humanitarian Workers documents this dangerous trend, demonstrates the urgent need to reverse it, and explores how that can be accomplished. Drawing on VanRooyen's personal experiences and those of his colleagues in international humanitarian medicine, he takes readers into clinics, wards, and field hospitals around the world where medical personnel work with inadequate resources under dangerous conditions to care for civilians imperiled by conflict. VanRooyen undergirds these compelling stories with data and historical context, emphasizing how they imperil the key doctrine of medical neutrality, and what to do about it.
The World's Great Speeches (1999) Edition: Fourth Enlarged (1999) Edition
by Stephen J. Mckenna Lawrence W. Lamm Lewis CopelandNearly 300 speeches offer provocative themes, historic parallels, and memorable quotations: Socrates, Julius Caesar, St. Francis, Martin Luther, Napoleon, Victor Hugo, Mohandas K. Gandhi, Winston Churchill, Fulton J. Sheen, Barbara Jordan, Malcolm X, Ronald Reagan, Nelson Mandela, Earl of Spencer, and many others. Includes 7 selections from the Common Core State Standards Initiative: "Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat: Address to Parliament on May 13th, 1940," "Farewell Address," "Gettysburg Address," "I Have a Dream," "Second Inaugural Address," "Speech to the Second Virginia Convention," and "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July."
The World's Most Dangerous Place: Inside the Outlaw State of Somalia
by James FergussonAlthough the war in Afghanistan is now in its endgame, the West's struggle to eliminate the threat from Al Qaeda is far from over. A decade after 9/11, the war on terror has entered a new phase and, it would seem, a new territory. In early 2010, Al Qaeda operatives were reportedly "streaming" out of central Asia toward Somalia and the surrounding region.Somalia, now home to some of the world's most dangerous terrorists, was already the world's most failed state. Two decades of anarchy have spawned not just Islamic extremism but piracy, famine, and a seemingly endless clan-based civil war that has killed an estimated 500,000, turned millions into refugees, and caused hundreds of thousands more to flee and settle in Europe and North America.What is now happening in Somalia directly threatens the security of the world, possibly more than any other region on earth. James Fergusson's book is the first accessible account of how Somalia became the world's most dangerous place and what we can--and should--do about it.
The World, the Flesh and the Devil: An Enquiry into the Future of the Three Enemies of the Rational Soul
by J. D. BernalA pioneering book proposing a transhumanist vision of the future, from one of the most influential visionary scientists of the twentieth century.
The World-Ending Fire: The Essential Wendell Berry
by Wendell BerryThe most comprehensive―and only author-authorized―Wendell Berry reader, "America's greatest philosopher on sustainable life and living" (Chicago Tribune).In a time when our relationship to the natural world is ruled by the violence and greed of unbridled consumerism, Wendell Berry speaks out in these prescient essays, drawn from his fifty-year campaign on behalf of American lands and communities.The writings gathered in The World-Ending Fire are the unique product of a life spent farming the fields of rural Kentucky with mules and horses, and of the rich, intimate knowledge of the land cultivated by this work. These are essays written in defiance of the false call to progress and in defense of local landscapes, essays that celebrate our cultural heritage, our history, and our home.With grace and conviction, Wendell Berry shows that we simply cannot afford to succumb to the mass-produced madness that drives our global economy―the natural world will not allow it.Yet he also shares with us a vision of consolation and of hope. We may be locked in an uneven struggle, but we can and must begin to treat our land, our neighbors, and ourselves with respect and care. As Berry urges, we must abandon arrogance and stand in awe.
The World-Making Power of New Media: Mere Connection? (Routledge Studies in Global and Transnational Politics)
by Barrie AxfordIn this new work, Axford seeks to contribute to the development of global theory, particularly where it engages with the contested idea of globality; a concept which musters as consciousness, condition, framework, even system. By examining emergent globalities through the lens of world-making communicative practices and forms, the author demonstrates their transformative social power and underlines the cultural dynamics of globalization. Taking a critical view of much of the current scholarship on emergent globalities, Axford steps outside the rationalist-territorialist conceptions of association and order and takes issue with those who advise there is a widespread 'myth' of media globalization. The book examines global communicative connectivity, using digital, or "new" media – especially the Internet - as the prime exemplar of global process. As well as the academic importance of such themes for theory-building, the strategic, "real-world" impacts of communicative connectivity are palpable. Thus, the welter of debate around the influence of the Internet on democracy, democratization, revolt and collective action generally, have real purchase when discussed in relation to the events of the uprisings in MENA, anti-capitalist protests in London and New York and the tribulations of the EU in recent months/years. Using such exemplars the book assesses claims for the existence and robustness of global society, the significance of cosmopolitan communication and the extent of global consciousness. This work will be of interest to students and scholars of globalization, international relations, and media and cultural studies.
The World: A Brief Introduction
by Richard HaassThe New York Times bestseller&“A clear and concise account of the history, diplomacy, economics, and societal forces that have molded the modern global system.&” —Foreign AffairsAn invaluable primer from Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, that will help anyone, expert and non-expert alike, navigate a time in which many of our biggest challenges come from the world beyond our borders.Like it or not, we live in a global era, in which what happens thousands of miles away has the ability to affect our lives. This time, it is a Coronavirus known as Covid-19, which originated in a Chinese city many had never heard of but has spread to the corners of the earth. Next time it could well be another infectious disease from somewhere else. Twenty years ago it was a group of terrorists trained in Afghanistan and armed with box-cutters who commandeered four airplanes and flew them into buildings (and in one case a field) and claimed nearly three thousand lives. Next time it could be terrorists who use a truck bomb or gain access to a weapon of mass destruction. In 2016 hackers in a nondescript office building in Russia traveled virtually in cyberspace to manipulate America's elections. Now they have burrowed into our political life. In recent years, severe hurricanes and large fires linked to climate change have ravaged parts of the earth; in the future we can anticipate even more serious natural disasters. In 2008, it was a global financial crisis caused by mortgage-backed securities in America, but one day it could well be a financial contagion originating in Europe, Asia, or Africa. This is the new normal of the 21st century.The World is designed to provide readers of any age and experience with the essential background and building blocks they need to make sense of this complicated and interconnected world. It will empower them to manage the flood of daily news. Readers will become more informed, discerning citizens, better able to arrive at sound, independent judgments. While it is impossible to predict what the next crisis will be or where it will originate, those who read The World will have what they need to understand its basics and the principal choices for how to respond.In short, this book will make readers more globally literate and put them in a position to make sense of this era. Global literacy--knowing how the world works—is a must, as what goes on outside a country matters enormously to what happens inside. Although the United States is bordered by two oceans, those oceans are not moats. And the so-called Vegas rule—what happens there stays there—does not apply in today's world to anyone anywhere. U.S. foreign policy is uniquely American, but the world Americans seek to shape is not. Globalization can be both good and bad, but it is not something that individuals or countries can opt out of. Even if we want to ignore the world, it will not ignore us. The choice we face is how to respond.We are connected to this world in all sorts of ways. We need to better understand it, both its promise and its threats, in order to make informed choices, be it as students, citizens, voters, parents, employees, or investors. To help readers do just that, The World focuses on essential history, what makes each region of the world tick, the many challenges globalization presents, and the most influential countries, events, and ideas. Explaining complex ideas with wisdom and clarity, Richard Haass's The World is an evergreen book that will remain relevant and useful as history continues to unfold.
The Worlds of European Constitutionalism
by Gráinne De Búrca J. H. WeilerThe idea of the EU as a constitutional order has recently taken on renewed life, as the Court of Justice declared the primacy of EU law not just over national constitutions but also over the international legal order, including the UN Charter. This book explores the nature and character of EU legal and political authority, and the complex analytical and normative questions which the notion of European constitutionalism raises, in both the EU's internal and its external relations. The book culminates in a dialogical epilogue in which the authors' arguments are questioned and challenged by the editor, providing a unique and stimulating approach to the subject. By bringing together leading constitutional theorists of the European Union, this book offers a sharp, challenging and engaging discussion for students and researchers alike.
The Worldview of Redemptive Violence in the US
by Wayne LavenderThrough US military history, Lavender directly confronts the dominant US viewpoint of redemptive violence, the concept that a nation can use its military to improve the human condition. Alternatives are presented in order to encourage the current recessive worldview that supports conflict resolution, cooperation, collaboration and peaceful efforts.
The World’s Future Crisis: Extractive Resources Depletion (Approaches to Global Sustainability, Markets, and Governance)
by Shahla SeifiThis book focuses mainly on strategic decision making at a global level, which is rarely considered in approaches to sustainability. This book makes a unique contribution as the work looks at global consequences of mineral exhaustion and steps that can be taken to alleviate the impending problems. This book highlights how sustainability has become one of the most important issues for businesses, governments and society at large. This book explores the topic of sustainability as one that is under much debate as to what it actually is and how it can be achieved, but it is completely evident that the resources of the planet are fixed in quantity, and once used, cannot be reused except through being reused in one form or another. This is particularly true of the mineral resources of the planet. These are finite in quantity, and once fully extracted, extra quantities are no longer available for future use. This book argues and presents evidence that the remaining mineral resources are diminishing significantly and heading towards exhaustion. Once mined and consumed, they are no longer available for future use other than what can be recycled and reused. This book demonstrates that future scarcity means that best use must be made of what exists, as sustainability depends upon this, and best use is defined as utility rather than economic value, which must be considered at a global level rather than a national level. Moreover, sustainability depends upon both availability in the present and in the future, so the use of resources requires attention to the future as well as to the present. This book investigates the alternative methods of achieving the global distribution of these mineral resources and proposes an optimum solution. This book adds to the discourse through the understanding of the importance of the depletion and finiteness of raw materials and their use for the present and the future, in order to achieve and maintain sustainability.
The World’s Urban Forests
by Joe R. McBrideThe purpose of this book is to examine urban forests in cities around the world. It will ask questions about the history, composition, structure, and management of trees in urban areas. Data for this book was collected in 33 cities across broad geographical areas known as biomes. Constraints and opportunities imposed on urban forest composition, design, and management by the ecological characteristics of these biomes will be examined. The book will also address the cultural and historical factors that influenced the characteristics of urban forests around the world.