(Dis)connected Empires
(Dis)connected Empires

Author: Zoltán Biedermann

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 0198823398

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(Dis)connected Empires takes the reader on a global journey to explore the triangle formed during the sixteenth century between the Portuguese empire, the empire of Kotte in Sri Lanka, and the Catholic Monarchy of the Spanish Habsburgs. It explores nine decades of connections, cross-cultural diplomacy, and dialogue, to answer one troubling question: why, in the end, did one side decide to conquer the other? To find the answer, Biedermann explores the imperial ideas that shaped the politics of Renaissance Iberia and sixteenth-century Sri Lanka. (Dis)connected Empires argues that, whilst some of these ideas and the political idioms built around them were perceived as commensurate by the various parties involved, differences also emerged early on. This prepared the ground for a new kind of conquest politics, which changed the inter-imperial game at the end of the sixteenth century. The transition from suzerainty-driven to sovereignty-fixated empire-building changed the face of Lankan and Iberian politics forever, and is of relevance to global historians at large. Through its scrutiny of diplomacy, political letter-writing, translation practices, warfare, and art, (Dis)connected Empires paints a troubling panorama of connections breeding divergence and leading to communicational collapse. It examines a key chapter in the pre-history of British imperialism in Asia, highlighting how diplomacy and mutual understandings can, under certain conditions, produce conquest.

Digital Disconnect
Digital Disconnect

Author: Robert W. McChesney

Publisher: New Press, The

Published: 2013-03-05

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 1595588914

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Celebrants and skeptics alike have produced valuable analyses of the Internet's effect on us and our world, oscillating between utopian bliss and dystopian hell. But according to Robert W. McChesney, arguments on both sides fail to address the relationship between economic power and the digital world. McChesney's award-winning Rich Media, Poor Democracy skewered the assumption that a society drenched in commercial information is a democratic one. In Digital Disconnect McChesney returns to this provocative thesis in light of the advances of the digital age, incorporating capitalism into the heart of his analysis. He argues that the sharp decline in the enforcement of antitrust violations, the increase in patents on digital technology and proprietary systems, and other policies and massive indirect subsidies have made the Internet a place of numbing commercialism. A small handful of monopolies now dominate the political economy, from Google, which garners an astonishing 97 percent share of the mobile search market, to Microsoft, whose operating system is used by over 90 percent of the world's computers. This capitalistic colonization of the Internet has spurred the collapse of credible journalism, and made the Internet an unparalleled apparatus for government and corporate surveillance, and a disturbingly anti-democratic force. In Digital Disconnect Robert McChesney offers a groundbreaking analysis and critique of the Internet, urging us to reclaim the democratizing potential of the digital revolution while we still can.

The European Union and Global Social Change
The European Union and Global Social Change

Author: József Böröcz

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2009-09-10

Total Pages: 327

ISBN-13: 1135255792

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This book examines just what the European Union is, in the context of the ongoing structural transformation of the global system. The author develops an integrated approach to global transformations, drawing on geopolitics, political geography, international relations, economics, economic and political history, political economy and macro-sociology to discuss how this supra-state organisation, that shares and pools the sovereignty of some of the wealthiest states of the modern world, makes sense. The book: Interprets the ongoing transformation of west European public authority in the context of the global geopolitical economy of competition, cooperation and conflict Examines the consequences of west European integration for the global system in a longue-durée perspective, developing a new, geopolitical dialect within world-systems analysis, sharpening some of the conceptual tools developed by its paradigm-setters. Develops a new conceptualization for the EU’s global geopolitical strategy, which the author describes this strategy as the elasticity of size Developing a deeper understanding of global social change and west European strategies of global advantage-maintenance and power-management, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of European Politics, International Politics, International Relations Theory and Globalization Studies.

The Great Disconnect
The Great Disconnect

Author: Marco Magnani

Publisher: EGEA spa

Published: 2024-03-12T00:00:00+01:00

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 8823887712

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Despite its excesses and contradictions, globalization has lifted billions of people out of poverty, enabled scientific progress, and reduced conflict. Nevertheless, globalization is going through a deep crisis. Marco Magnani identifies four forces that are fueling the «great disconnect»: economic and technological trends are reshaping global value chains; do-mestic political dynamics are fostering closures in an attempt to protect national interests; external shocks (pandemics, wars, financial crises) are exposing the vulnerability of the global system; geopolitical objectives are encouraging to restrict relations to countries perceived as friends. In such a scenario, politics prevails over economics, regionalization increases, and the instability of international alliances soars, partly due to the proliferation of «free agent» countries seeking strategic autonomy. Fragmentation has high economic costs and it increases the risk of conflict. But it may also trigger a new globalization trend. The Arctic, the Under-water, Space and the Digital Revolution can be fronts of competition and dispute, or they can represent the new frontiers of cooperation. The world to come will largely depend on the ability of liberal democracies to defend and promote their values, abroad and at home. The hope is that the revival in the circulation of goods, services, capital, people and knowledge will consolidate rights and spread freedoms.

Reading the Other
Reading the Other

Author: Carol de Dobay Rifelj

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9780472103409

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Combines literature and philosophy to explore whether and to what extent we can know the thoughts and feelings of others

Escape Attempts
Escape Attempts

Author: Stanley Cohen

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2003-08-29

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 1134921160

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From sexual fantasies to holidays this marvellous book charts our escape attempts. In a series of dazzling commentaries the authors reveal the ordinary and extraordinary ways in which we seek to defy the despair of the breakfast table and the office But the book is much more than a first-rate cartography of everyday life. It crackles with important theoretical insights about how `normality' is managed. This fully revised edition contains a superb new introduction, `Life After Postmodernism', which exposes the conceits of the postmodernist adventure and which should be required reading for anyone interested in making sense of everyday life.

The New Peasantries
The New Peasantries

Author: Jan Douwe van der Ploeg

Publisher: Earthscan

Published: 2012-05-23

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 1849773165

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This book explores the position, role and significance of the peasantry in an era of globalization, particularly of the agrarian markets and food industries. It argues that the peasant condition is characterized by a struggle for autonomy that finds expression in the creation and development of a self-governed resource base and associated forms of sustainable development. In this respect the peasant mode of farming fundamentally differs from entrepreneurial and corporate ways of farming. The author demonstrates that the peasantries are far from waning. Instead, both industrialized and developing countries are witnessing complex and richly chequered processes of 're-peasantization', with peasants now numbering over a billion worldwide. The author's arguments are based on three longitudinal studies (in Peru, Italy and The Netherlands) that span 30 years and provide original and thought-provoking insights into rural and agrarian development processes. The book combines and integrates different bodies of literature: the rich traditions of peasant studies, development sociology, rural sociology, neo-institutional economics and the recently emerging debates on Empire.

The 1950s
The 1950s

Author: Nick Bentley

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2018-09-06

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 1350011525

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How did social, cultural and political events in Britain during the 1950s shape modern British fiction? As Britain emerged from the shadow of war into the new decade of the 1950s, the seeds of profound social change were being sown. Exploring the full range of fiction in the 1950s, this volume surveys the ways in which these changes were reflected in British culture. Chapters cover the rise of the 'Angry Young Men', an emerging youth culture and vivid new voices from immigrant and feminist writers. A major critical re-evaluation of the decade, the book covers such writers as Margery Allingham, Kingsley Amis, E. R. Braithwaite, Rodney Garland, Martyn Goff, Attia Hosain, George Lamming, Marghanita Laski, Doris Lessing, Colin MacInnes, Naomi Mitchison, V. S. Naipaul, Barbara Pym, Mary Renault, Sam Selvon, Alan Sillitoe, John Sommerfield, Muriel Spark, J. R. R. Tolkien, Angus Wilson and John Wyndham.

The Democratization Disconnect
The Democratization Disconnect

Author: Brian K. Grodsky

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2016-08-25

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1442269359

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The most recent wave of democratic revolutions has convinced many in the West of the triumph of political rights. But in this provocative book, Brian Grodsky argues forcefully that nothing could be further from the truth. Today’s revolutionaries—both democratic and non-democratic—are much like those who preceded them throughout history. They’ve all come into power promising enhanced political, but especially economic, rights: higher wages, better living standards, more security. The difference between today’s pro-democracy leaders and yesterday’s non-democratic ones, the author demonstrates, rests on the perceived international legitimacy of the democratic template. Now, when even the most abusive regimes feel the need to label themselves democracies, opponents delegitimize rulers by calling them undemocratic. This sets the stage for what Grodsky calls the “democratization disconnect.” Leaders and followers fight for political change not as an end, but as the most acceptable means to attain economic rights. But by selling democracy as a panacea for the ills of the preceding regime, new elites simultaneously cheapen the notion of democracy and, by creating unrealistic popular expectations, set it up for failure. Putting a fresh new spin on hotly debated current events, this clear-eyed and informed book will be essential reading for all politically engaged readers.

Morality Wars
Morality Wars

Author: Charles Derber

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-11-17

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1317255909

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Is patriotism a good thing in an empire? Did General Petraeus betray us or did Moveon? Does morality often serve immoral purposes? Morality Wars shows us how to understand the subtext of these questions and of all the debates about moral values and liberal versus conservative ideology. Derber and Magrass show that the moral problem today is not just lying but "immoral morality," doing evil in the name of good (e.g., Bush preemptively invading Iraq to spread liberty). The authors explore three ancient codes of immoral morality frighteningly resurrected in America today -those of empire, the politically correct, and the born again. Although the right today has recrafted historic arguments that empires bring peace, and fundamentalists battle moral decay, the authors show the Democratic Party and the left have their own IM, with Democrats supporting empire and the left its own political correctness. America's political divide today is a backlash to the progressive revolution of the 1960s and 1970s-secular, antiwar, and feminist-that created a radical break from traditional values and set the stage for current morality wars. In the spirit of de Tocqueville, this powerful book offers a rich and vivid portrait of America's political landscape, exploring ideas that can help move the nation to a new morality and politics.