This eagerly awaited study of Russia under Alexander I, Nicholas I and Alexander II -- the Russia of War and Peace and Anna Karenina -- brings the series near to completion. David Saunders examines Russia's failure to adapt to the era of reform and democracy ushered into the rest of Europe by the French Revolution. Why, despite so much effort, did it fail? This is a superb book, both as a portrait of an age and as a piece of sustained historical analysis.
In no other country has health care served as such a volatile flashpoint of ideological conflict. America has endured a century of rancorous debate on health insurance, and despite the passage of legislation in 2010, the battle is not yet over. This book is a history of how and why the United States became so stubbornly different in health care, presented by an expert with unsurpassed knowledge of the issues. Tracing health-care reform from its beginnings to its current uncertain prospects, Paul Starr argues that the United States ensnared itself in a trap through policies that satisfied enough of the public and so enriched the health-care industry as to make the system difficult to change. He reveals the inside story of the rise and fall of the Clinton health plan in the early 1990sùand of the Gingrich counterrevolution that followed. And he explains the curious tale of how Mitt RomneyÆs reforms in Massachusetts became a model for Democrats and then follows both the passage of those reforms under Obama and the explosive reaction they elicited from conservatives. Writing concisely and with an even hand, the author offers exactly what is needed as the debate continuesùa penetrating account of how health care became such treacherous terrain in American politics.
This timely book offers the first critical examination of World Bank policy reforms and initiatives during the past decade. The World Bank is viewed as one of the most powerful international organizations of our time. The authors critically analyze the influence of the institution’s policy and engagement during the past decade in a variety of issue areas, including human rights, domestic reform, and the environment. The World Bank and Governance delves into the bowels of the World Bank, exploring its organizational structure, professional culture and bureaucratic procedures, illustrating how these shape its engagement with an increasingly complex, diverse and challenging operational environment. The book includes chapters on two under-researched divisions of the World Bank: the International Finance Corporation and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency. Several illuminating country studies are also included, analyzing the World Bank's activities in Argentina, Bolivia, Lebanon, Hungary and Vietnam. This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of international relations, development, politics and economics.
One of the striking results of this new research is how closely reaction and reform were connected. This ambiguity was already inherent in the Polish attempt at reform during the second half of the eighteenth century, and it never entirely disappeared during the times of dark reaction under Alexander II. Therefore, when the Russian government initiated a programme of modernization at the end of the nineteenth century, anti-Jewish stereotypes quickly hardened into anti-Semitism. In the conflict that ensued between reform-minded and reactionary forces, this anti-Semitism became an ideological weapon in which the Jews appeared as the embodiment of change, modernization and uprooted life. Lowe has taken the opportunity of the English translation to incorporate the results of his most recent research, extending the coverage of the book from the earlier version's beginning in 1890 backwards into the eighteenth century to give the whole background to Tsarist Jewish policy and Russian anti-Semitism.
When R.B. Bennett assumed the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada in 1926, he inherited a party out of step with a modernizing Canada. Three years later, in the early days of the Depression, he led the Tories to power with a mandate to bring back prosperity. Larry A. Glassford explores the politics of Bennett's leadership, the strategies with which he tackled the Depression, and the reception he and the Conservative party received from voters and press of the day. Bennett's initial efforts to tackle the Depression took the form of activist reaction: raising tariffs, trying to balance the budget, defending the dollar. When these measures all failed to bring recovery, the Bennett-led government edged towards a reform program, creating such permanent institutions as the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission (later the CBC), the Bank of Canada, and the Wheat Board. Bennett tried to package his reforms as a Canadian 'New Deal,' a daring move but one that failed to revive the party. The voters were confused: did the Conservative party stand for reaction or reform? Tories themselves could not decide. The Liberals swept back into power in 1935. At the 1938 Conservative convention which chose Bennett's successor, the perplexing dichotomy remained. Fifty years after the Great Depression, the common perception of Bennett is still of the great Canadian capitalist, driving his government, his party, and the country to the never-never land of American-style high tariffs and British-style imperialism. Glassford demonstrates the inaccuracy of that caricature, and offers instead a fresh analysis of Bennett and his party.
Explains how bold efforts at profound progressive change provoked a powerful reactionary backlash that led to the imposition of brutal, regressive dictatorships.
