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In the Footsteps of Giorgio Philip Szegö: His Scientific Contributions, Life, and Legacy (International Series in Operations Research & Management Science #346)
by Rita Laura D’Ecclesia Rosella Castellano Giovanni M. ZambrunoThis book offers essential information on the life and career of the recently deceased Giorgio P. Szegö, particularly his important contributions in various areas of mathematical programming and applications to financial markets. It highlights the developments in the fields of stability theory and dynamical systems brought about by his work in the early 1960s and 1970s, then moves on to address his valuable contributions to portfolio theory in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and, finally, examines his work in the field of risk management and the role of financial regulation in the late 1990s. The book explores Giorgio P. Szegö’s contributions in diverse research areas ranging from global optimization, theory of stability and dynamical systems to applications of financial mathematics to portfolio theory, risk measurement and financial regulation. It also covers his consulting work for such major international institutions as the IMF, World Bank and OECD.
In the Grip of Transition: Economic and Social Consequences of Restructuring in Russia and Ukraine
by Tilman Bruck Hartmut LehmannThe shift from a centrally planned to a market-based economy involves, amongst other elements, the restructuring of state-owned or privatized enterprises. Realigning product lines, adopting new technology and imposing sound finances are all important stages in the integration of enterprises into world markets. This book analyses the efficiency and equity of the economic restructuring in the two largest successor states of the Soviet Union, Russia and Ukraine. It raises important questions such as why these countries have been relatively slow to pursue restructuring policies, how the transition has affected labour markets and institutions, and how it impacted on poverty and social safety. The analysis is based on a careful examination of micro-level data, documenting the experiences of and interactions between individuals and institutions.
In the Images of Development: City Design in the Global South (Urban and Industrial Environments)
by Tridib BanerjeeThe urban legacy of the Global South since the colonial era and how sustainable development and environmental and social justice can be achieved. Remarkably little of the expansive literature on development and globalization considers actual urban form and the physical design of cities as outcomes of these phenomena. The development that has shaped historic transformations in urban form and urbanism—and the consequent human experiences—remains largely unexplored. In this book, Tridib Banerjee fills this void by linking the idea of development with those of urbanism, urban form, and urban design, focusing primarily on the contemporary cities in the developing world—the Global South—and their intrinsic prospects in city design. Further, he examines the endogenous possibilities for the future design of these cities that may address growing inequality and the environmental crisis. Banerjee deftly traces the urban legacy of the Global South from the beginning of the colonial era, closely examining the economic, political, and ideological forces that influenced colonial and postcolonial development, drawing from relevant experiences of different cities in the developing world and discussing the arguments for the historic parity of these cities with their Western counterparts. Finally, Banerjee considers essential notions of future city design that are grounded in the critical challenges of sustainable development, equity, environmental and social justice, and diversity, and how such outcomes can be achieved. This book serves as the opening of a long overdue conversation among design, development, and planning scholars and practitioners, and those interested in the urban development of the Global South.
In the Interest of Others: Organizations and Social Activism
by Margaret Levi John S. AhlquistA groundbreaking study of labor unions that advances a new theory of organizational leadership and governanceIn the Interest of Others develops a new theory of organizational leadership and governance to explain why some organizations expand their scope of action in ways that do not benefit their members directly. John Ahlquist and Margaret Levi document eighty years of such activism by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union in the United States and the Waterside Workers Federation in Australia. They systematically compare the ILWU and WWF to the Teamsters and the International Longshoremen's Association, two American transport industry labor unions that actively discouraged the pursuit of political causes unrelated to their own economic interests.Drawing on a wealth of original data, Ahlquist and Levi show how activist organizations can profoundly transform the views of members about their political efficacy and the collective actions they are willing to contemplate. They find that leaders who ask for support of projects without obvious material benefits must first demonstrate their ability to deliver the goods and services members expect. These leaders must also build governance institutions that coordinate expectations about their objectives and the behavior of members.In the Interest of Others reveals how activist labor unions expand the community of fate and provoke preferences that transcend the private interests of individual members. Ahlquist and Levi then extend this logic to other membership organizations, including religious groups, political parties, and the state itself.
In the Jaws of the Dragon: America's Fate in the Coming Era of Chinese Dominance
by Eamonn FingletonIn recent years, popular wisdom has held that opening American markets to Chinese goods was the best way to promote democracy in Beijing---that the Communist Party's grip would quickly weaken as increasingly affluent Chinese citizens embraced American values. That popular wisdom was wrong. As Eamonn Fingleton shows in this devastating book, instead of America changing China, China is changing America. Although this process of reverse convergence has been swept largely under the carpet by knee-jerk globalists in the American press, Americans will soon be hearing much more about it. Nowhere is the pattern more obvious than in business. Many top American corporations---Boeing, AT&T, the Detroit automobile companies, among them-openly collaborate with the Chinese Communist Party. In a stunning rejection of Western values, Yahoo! even provided the Chinese secret police with vital evidence that resulted in a ten-year jail sentence for one of its Chinese subscribers, a brave young dissident, under draconian censorship laws. Selling the American national interest short, countless other corporations abjectly do Beijing's lobbying in Congress. This book---the culmination of twenty years of study---also breaks new ground by revealing the secret behind China's phenomenal savings rate. Top leaders literally force the Chinese people to save through a highly counterintuitive---and, to ordinary citizens, virtually invisible---policy called suppressed consumption. This practice, which is to economics roughly what steroids are to sport, is fundamentally incompatible with Western ideas of fair global competition. It is reinforced by an Orwellian system of political control that, as Fingleton reveals, utilizes an ancient bureaucratic tool called selective enforcement---a form of blackmail that instills a silent reign of terror throughout Chinese society. Most worryingly, selective enforcement can readily be unleashed on any American corporation with interests in China---which is to say just about every member of the Fortune 500. While the Chinese people's rising affluence is, of course, an occasion for wholehearted rejoicing, Uncle Sam should give the Chinese power system a wide berth---lest he catch his coattails in the jaws of a dragon.
In the Kingdom of Shoes: Bata, Zlín, Globalization, 1894–1945
by Zachary Austin DoleshalOne of the world’s largest sellers of footwear, the Bata Company of Zlín, Moravia has a remarkable history that touches on crucial aspects of what made the world modern. In the twilight of the Habsburg Empire, the company Americanized its production model while also trying to Americanize its workforce. It promised a technocratic form of governance in the chaos of postwar Czechoslovakia, and during the Roaring Twenties, it became synonymous with rationalization across Europe and thus a flashpoint for a continent-wide debate. While other companies contracted in response to the Great Depression, Bata did the opposite, becoming the first shoe company to unlock the potential of globalization. As Bata expanded worldwide, it became an example of corporate national indifference, where company personnel were trained to be able to slip into and out of national identifications with ease. Such indifference, however, was seriously challenged by the geopolitical crisis of the 1930s, and by the cusp of the Second World War, Bata management had turned nationalist, even fascist. In the Kingdom of Shoes unravels the way the Bata project swept away tradition and enmeshed the lives of thousands of people around the world in the industrial production of shoes. Using a rich array of archival materials from two continents, the book answers how Bata’s rise to the world’s largest producer of shoes challenged the nation-state, democracy, and Americanization.
In the Know in Japan
by Jennifer PhillipsBe IN THE KNOW BEFORE YOU GO Doing business across borders is very different from doing business across town-subtle and not-so-subtle differences in attitudes and etiquette play a big role. Did you know? * Bowing in Japan isn't just bending at the waist; where you put your hands and how deep you bow makes a big difference! * Don't give gifts in groups of four or nine. "Four" and "nine" are unlucky because the words sound like "death" and "hardship" in Japanese. * Don't expect Japanese colleagues to come out and say "no." They will usually say "maybe." In the Know in Japan helps you: * Fit right in by understanding local manners, etiquette, and behaviors * Navigate through everyday life with tips for the whole family * Get an insider's perspective on the social and business environment The book includes a FREE 60-minute CD with the key phrases you need to make a great impression.From the Package edition.
In the Know in Mexico and Central America
by Jennifer PhillipsSuccess abroad--in doing business, socializing, or even just getting to appointments--depends on much more than memorizing a few survival expressions in the language. Just ask anyone who's stowed a Chinese colleague's business card in his or her back pocket or brought an even number of flowers to a German friend's home. Success abroad means being in the know about cultural differences, andIn the Know Mexico & Central Americacross-cultural guide makes it simple for business people and their families to adapt successfully to their new surroundings, whether it's for a long-term relocation or just for a short business trip. More than just a list of do's and don'ts,In the Know Mexico & Central America. . . provides a through understanding of Mexican and central American culture--what motivates people's behaviors, attitudes, beliefs and habits. supplies essential background information on Mexico and Central America meets the needs of everyone, including the businessperson, the stay-at-home or working partner, children, teens, and singles focuses on business environment, company structure, work attire, women in business, meetings, communication, and more includes and audio CD to help the reader master basic social expressions and make a lasting impression Includes a 288-page handbook and a 60-minute audio CD
In the Know in the U.S.A.
by Jennifer PhillipsIN THE KNOW IN THE U. S. A. is the essential guide for foreign executives and their families relocating to the United States,businesspeople who make short trips to the U. S. , and anyone who works closely with Americans. The book begins with an OVERVIEW OF AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE to give the reader a fundamental understanding ofthe United States and its people. It presents the most important differences between American and other cultures, including concepts oftime, group dynamics, reasoning styles, communication, and status & hierarchy. For example, even though Americans are fond of saying,"Oh, just drop by any time," they usually DON'T mean it-for those planning to visit a friend, call first to schedule a visit. Newcomerswill also find out that Americans often begin conversations with a compliment-they compliment each other as a way of being friendly andshowing an interest in someone. Foreigners often get the impression that they have the world's best wardrobe, because virtually everythingthey wear receives a compliment!There are also SECTIONS ON EVERYDAY LIFE in the United States, including getting around, going shopping, finding housing,socializing and adjusting to the culture. Important issues such as parenting abroad, impact on children, the non-working partner, dual-career couples, the single life, race, and gender are covered. The BUSINESS SECTIONS deal with etiquette in the workplace, meetings,negotiations, corporate hierarchy, business communication styles, and women in business. Attached to the back cover is a FREE 60-MINUTE AUDIO CD that features business vocabulary, business idiomatic expressions,computer terminology and other survival phrases-just the right amoung of English to enrich the reader's experience in the United Statesand demonstrate to his or her host the amount of effort he or she has put into understanding American culture.
In the Light of Humane Nature: Human Values, Nature, the Green Economy, and Environmental Salvation
by Arthur B. WeissmanThis engaging book encourages us to tap into humanity&’s highest ideals to solve environmental and social problems and become better people in the process. Despite significant progress in recent decades, the environmental crisis is far from over. We know what needs to change, but we don&’t seem to know—economically, politically, or socially—how to stop the juggernaut of destructive development and resource depletion. Something continues to undermine our efforts to become a truly sustainable society. This book highlights the positive accomplishments we have made recently in greening the economy, but also exposes the underlying causes of our continued march toward disaster. A seasoned environmental professional, Arthur Weissman argues that what causes our environmental problems and stymies solutions ultimately relates to human values and our attitudes toward the world around us, including other humans, other species, and nature as a whole. We will attain our true relationship with nature only when we embrace the highest human values. In the Light of Humane Nature weaves personal narrative and autobiographical details with professional and philosophical discourse. Weissman sticks to essential concepts we can all comprehend, and presents the changes we need to make in our moral and aesthetic outlooks to connect with our highest human values so that we may achieve a sustainable and humane world.
In the Long Run We Are All Dead
by Geoff MannA groundbreaking debunking of moderate attempts to resolve financial crisesIn the ruins of the 2007–2008 financial crisis, self-proclaimed progressives the world over clamoured to resurrect the economic theory of John Maynard Keynes. The crisis seemed to expose the disaster of small-state, free-market liberalization and deregulation. Keynesian political economy, in contrast, could put the state back at the heart of the economy and arm it with the knowledge needed to rescue us. But what it was supposed to rescue us from was not so clear. Was it the end of capitalism or the end of the world? For Keynesianism, the answer is both. Keynesians are not and never have been out to save capitalism, but rather to save civilization from itself. It is political economy, they promise, for the world in which we actually live: a world in which prices are ‘sticky’, information is ‘asymmetrical’, and uncertainty inescapable. In this world, things will definitely not take care of themselves in the long run. Poverty is ineradicable, markets fail, and revolutions lead to tyranny. Keynesianism is thus modern liberalism's most persuasive internal critique, meeting two centuries of crisis with a proposal for capital without capitalism and revolution without revolutionaries. If our current crises have renewed Keynesianism for so many, it is less because the present is worth saving, than because the future seems out of control. In that situation, Keynesianism is a perfect fit: a faith for the faithless.From the Hardcover edition.
In the Moment: Build Your Confidence, Communication and Creativity at Work
by Neil MullarkeyThere are moments throughout our lives when our confidence and creativity can make all the difference. Discover how to transform your career and grow your network by finding success In The Moment.Every meeting, presentation and conversation is an opportunity to embrace your confidence and show your creative flair. With insights on collaboration, risk-taking and organization, this book arms you with a complete repertoire of powerful communication tricks and strategies. As both a communication expert and a renowned comedian, Neil Mullarkey is uniquely qualified to demonstrate how you can develop your creativity, communication and confidence in your professional life. With incisive case studies and witty observations, In the Moment is an engaging and illuminating guide to success.
In the Name of Democracy? The Rise and Decline of India's Congress Party
by Jonathan Schlefer Akshay ManglaIn 1950 it looked highly doubtful that Indian democracy would hold -- typical family income was $6 a month, only about 15 percent of the population was literate, there were deep religious and ethnic differences, and more than a dozen national languages were spoken. But after a half a century, India had proved to be the first democracy anywhere near so poor to survive. Why? As well, in 1950 India's economic prospects looked bright for a developing country -- it had a well trained government bureaucracy bequeathed by the British, a secure legal system, national railroads, and more advanced industry than, for example, China. Why did the economy do so poorly?
In the Name of Inclusion: The Redevelopment of Urban Villages and its Implications on Citizenship in China (New Perspectives on Chinese Politics and Society)
by Xiaoqing ZhangThis book follows the citizenship-based approach and interrogates the policies on urban village redevelopment from a perspective of social exclusion and inclusion. It focuses on two questions: how policy makers and urban villagers understand social inclusion differently, and what makes a difference in enhancing social inclusion. Firstly, an examination of citizenship conceptions, as reflected in the Chinese traditional discourses, provides the basis for questioning the political rhetoric of social inclusion in China. Secondly, a comparison between policy makers’ and villages’ interpretations on urban citizenship helps explore the different understandings of citizenship between them. Finally, by studying six redeveloped urban villages in the city of Xi’an, the book identifies what villagers strive for, and discusses how their strivings make a difference in achieving social inclusion during urban village redevelopment.
In the Name of Profit
by Robert L. HeilbronerSaid One Executive: "Why should my conscience bother me?"Here are dramatic true stories of executives whose desire for profit leads them into shameful decisions. Naming actual executive of major American companies, the authors portray corporate irresponsibility in human term. One executive is shown as he orders his subordinates to fake a lab report, even though the result might be loss of life. Others are shown as they bribe a city official, as they knowingly sell a dangerous drug, as they enrich themselves by betraying their stockholders. These men are not the familiar fast-buck artists, the petty cheats who can be dismissed as "bad apples." The authors reveal themselves as solid citizens, educated and well-respected. Yet in the course of business they easily yield to ambition, avarice or the corporate culture. And almost always, after they are exposed, they are promoted by their companies.Together these profiles, all of them written especially for this book, give life to questions raised by books such as America, Inc. and The Greening of America:· What kind of men run some super-corporations?· How can "good men" behave so badly"· Does working for a corporation mean violating one's conscience? After all the stories are told, the brilliant economist and social critic Robert L. Heilbroner offers a chapter of perspective. First he confronts the various positions on corporate responsibility--at one extreme, breaking up the big corporations; at the other, leaving executive entirely free to maximize profits. And then he cuts through to the realities if the matter, showing us where the best chance of remedy lies.
In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives
by Steven Levy&“The most interesting book ever written about Google&” (The Washington Post) delivers the inside story behind the most successful and admired technology company of our time, now updated with a new Afterword.Google is arguably the most important company in the world today, with such pervasive influence that its name is a verb. The company founded by two Stanford graduate students—Larry Page and Sergey Brin—has become a tech giant known the world over. Since starting with its search engine, Google has moved into mobile phones, computer operating systems, power utilities, self-driving cars, all while remaining the most powerful company in the advertising business. Granted unprecedented access to the company, Levy disclosed that the key to Google&’s success in all these businesses lay in its engineering mindset and adoption of certain internet values such as speed, openness, experimentation, and risk-taking. Levy discloses details behind Google&’s relationship with China, including how Brin disagreed with his colleagues on the China strategy—and why its social networking initiative failed; the first time Google tried chasing a successful competitor. He examines Google&’s rocky relationship with government regulators, particularly in the EU, and how it has responded when employees left the company for smaller, nimbler start-ups. In the Plex is the &“most authoritative…and in many ways the most entertaining&” (James Gleick, The New York Book Review) account of Google to date and offers &“an instructive primer on how the minds behind the world&’s most influential internet company function&” (Richard Waters, The Wall Street Journal).
In the Power of the Government
by Mark KuhlbergFor forty years, historians have argued that early twentieth-century provincial governments in Canada were easily manipulated by the industrialists who developed Canada's natural resources, such as pulpwood, water power, and minerals. With In the Power of the Government, Mark Kuhlberg uses the case of the Ontario pulp and paper industry to challenge that interpretation of Canadian provincial politics.Examining the relationship between the corporations which ran the province's pulp and paper mills and the politicians at Queen's Park, Kuhlberg concludes that the Ontario government frequently rebuffed the demands of the industrialists who wanted to tap Ontario's spruce timber and hydro-electric potential. A sophisticated empirical challenge to the orthodox literature on this issue, In the Power of the Government will be essential reading for historians and political scientists interested in the history of Canadian industrial development.
In the Red: The Politics of Public Debt Accumulation in Developed Countries
by Zsófia BartaWhy do rich countries flirt with fiscal disaster? Between the 1970s and the 2000s, during times of peace and prosperity, affluent countries—like Belgium, Greece, Italy, and Japan—accumulated so much debt that they became vulnerable and exposed themselves to the risk of default. In the past three decades, an extensive scholarly consensus emerged that these problems were created by fiscal indiscipline, the lack of sufficient concern for budgetary constraints from policy makers as they try to please voters. This approach formed the foundation for the fiscal surveillance system that attempted to bring borrowing in European countries under control via a set of fiscal rules. In the Red demonstrates that the problem of sustained, large-scale debt accumulation is an adjustment issue rather than a governance failure. Irrespective of whether the original impetus for borrowing arose from exogenous changes or irresponsible decision making, policy makers invariably initiate spending cuts and/or tax increases when debt grows at an alarming rate for several years in a row. Zsófia Barta argues that explaining why some countries accumulate substantial amounts of debt for decades hinges on understanding the conditions required to allow policy makers to successfully put into place painful adjustment measures.
In the Shadow of Transitional Justice: Cross-national Perspectives on the Transformative Potential of Remembrance (Europa Perspectives in Transitional Justice)
by Guy ElcherothThis volume bridges two different research fields and the current debates within them. On the one hand, the transitional justice literature has been shaken by powerful calls to make the doctrine and practice of justice more transformative. On the other hand, collective memory studies now tend to look more closely at meaningful silences to make sense of what nations leave out when they remember their pasts. The book extends the scope of this heuristic approach to the different mechanisms that come under the umbrella of transitional justice, including legal prosecution, truth-seeking and reparations, alongside memorialisation. The 15 chapters included in the volume, written by expert scholars from diverse disciplinary and societal backgrounds, explore a range of practices intended to deal with the past, and how making the invisible visible again can make transitional justice - or indeed, any societal engagement with the past - more transformative. Seeking to combine contextual depth and comparative width, the book features two key case analyses - South Africa and Sri Lanka - alongside discussions of multiple cases, including such emblematic sites as Rwanda and Argentina, but also sites better known for resisting than for embracing international norms of transitional justice, such as Turkey or Côte d’Ivoire. The different contributions, grouped in themed sections, progressively explore the issues, actors and resources that are typically forgotten when societies celebrate their pasts rather than mourning their losses and, in doing so, open new possibilities to build more inclusive processes for addressing the present consequences of past injustice.
In the Shadow of the City
by Nicholas Richardson James Reed Anne DonnellonTraces the history of a collaborative effort to create an organization to manage a major international development project in the slums of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Focuses on a serious set of disagreements which develops several months into the project between the two principals, an Ethiopian woman who founded the project and a British entrepreneur who is the coordinator of the donor consortium. Designed to provide 1) an example of entrepreneurial action in the nonprofit sector, particularly in international development, 2) the opportunity to diagnose problems in the working relationship of two people who have very different backgrounds, and 3) the opportunity to devise plans for each person to take in addressing the problems.
In the Shadow of the Dragon: The Global Expansion of Chinese Companies--and How It Will Change Business Forever
by Winter Nie William Dowell Abraham LuThe ômade in Chinaö label has long dominated the lower end of the US manufacturing industry, effectively squeezing it out of existence. That's old news. What most people don't know is that China's global reach now extends much further. Chinese companies have entered higher-end marketsùtechnology, financial services, transportation, energyùand are emerging as powerhouse multinationals. In the Shadow of the Dragon is a meticulously researched exposT of the most competitive companies in China. Based on interviews with Chinese business leaders and original case studies, the book provides: ò Profiles of key players ò Insights into subtle yet powerful strategies used to gain market dominance ò An understanding of the Chinese approach to going global ò Analysis of the Chinese way of innovation ò Advice on competing head-to-head or forming alliances with Chinese partners Part primer, part survival guide, In the Shadow of the Dragon is the first book to lay bare the challenges looming ahead.
In the Shadows of State and Capital: The United Fruit Company, Popular Struggle, and Agrarian Restructuring in Ecuador, 1900-1995
by Steve StrifflerWinner of the 2001 President's Award of the Social Science History Association In the Shadows of State and Capital tells the story of how Ecuadorian peasants gained, and then lost, control of the banana industry. Providing an ethnographic history of the emergence of subcontracting within Latin American agriculture and of the central role played by class conflict in this process, Steve Striffler looks at the quintessential form of twentieth-century U. S. imperialism in the region--the banana industry and, in particular, the United Fruit Company (Chiquita). He argues that, even within this highly stratified industry, popular struggle has contributed greatly to processes of capitalist transformation and historical change. Striffler traces the entrance of United Fruit into Ecuador during the 1930s, its worker-induced departure in the 1960s, the troubled process through which contract farming emerged during the last half of the twentieth century, and the continuing struggles of those involved. To explore the influence of both peasant activism and state power on the withdrawal of multinational corporations from banana production, Striffler draws on state and popular archives, United Fruit documents, and extensive oral testimony from workers, peasants, political activists, plantation owners, United Fruit administrators, and state bureaucrats. Through an innovative melding of history and anthropology, he demonstrates that, although peasant-workers helped dismantle the foreign-owned plantation, they were unable to determine the broad contours through which the subsequent system of production--contract farming--emerged and transformed agrarian landscapes throughout Latin America. By revealing the banana industry's impact on processes of state formation in Latin America, In the Shadows of State and Capital will interest historians, anthropologists, and political scientists, as well as scholars of globalization and agrarian studies.
In the Shadows of the Big House: Twenty-First-Century Antebellum Slave Cabins and Heritage Tourism in Louisiana (Atlantic Migrations and the African Diaspora)
by Stephen SmallIn the midst of calls for the removal of Confederate monuments across the South, tens of thousands of museums, buildings, and other historical sites currently comprise a tourist infrastructure of the southern heritage industry. Louisiana, one of the most prominent and frequently visited states that benefit from this tourism, has more than sixty heritage sites housed in former slave plantations. These sites contain the remains, restorations, reconstructions, and replicas of antebellum slave cabins and slave quarters. In the Shadows of the Big House: Twenty-First-Century Antebellum Slave Cabins and Heritage Tourism in Louisiana is the first book to tackle the role, treatment, and representation of slave cabins at plantation museum sites in contemporary heritage tourism.In this volume, author Stephen Small describes and analyzes sixteen twenty-first-century antebellum slave cabins currently located on three plantation museum sites in Natchitoches, Louisiana: Oakland Plantation, Magnolia Plantation Complex, and Melrose Plantation. Small traces the historical trajectory of plantations and slave cabins since the Civil War and explores what representations of slavery and slave cabins in these sites convey about the reconfiguration of the past and the rearticulation of history in the present. Considering such themes as the role of white ethnic identity in representations of elite whites and the extent and significance of Black voices and Black visions of representations of these plantations, Small asks what these sites reveal about social forgetting and social remembering throughout Louisiana and the South. He further explores the ways that gender structures the social organization of current sites and the role and influence of the state in the social organization and representations that prevail today.
In the Shadows of the State: Indigenous Politics, Environmentalism, and Insurgency in Jharkhand, India
by Alpa ShahIn the Shadows of the State suggests that well-meaning indigenous rights and development claims and interventions may misrepresent and hurt the very people they intend to help. It is a powerful critique based on extensive ethnographic research in Jharkhand, a state in eastern India officially created in 2000. While the realization of an independent Jharkhand was the culmination of many years of local, regional, and transnational activism for the rights of the region's culturally autonomous indigenous people, Alpa Shah argues that the activism unintentionally further marginalized the region's poorest people. Drawing on a decade of ethnographic research in Jharkhand, she follows the everyday lives of some of the poorest villagers as they chase away protected wild elephants, try to cut down the forests they allegedly live in harmony with, maintain a healthy skepticism about the revival of the indigenous governance system, and seek to avoid the initial spread of an armed revolution of Maoist guerrillas who claim to represent them. Juxtaposing these experiences with the accounts of the village elites and the rhetoric of the urban indigenous-rights activists, Shah reveals a class dimension to the indigenous-rights movement, one easily lost in the cultural-based identity politics that the movement produces. In the Shadows of the State brings together ethnographic and theoretical analyses to show that the local use of global discourses of indigeneity often reinforces a class system that harms the poorest people.
In the Shadows: True Stories of High-Stakes Negotiations to Free Americans Captured Abroad
by Ellis Henican Mickey BergmanA top negotiator in countless high-stakes missions to free Americans captured abroad and held in the world's scariest prisons takes readers inside the dramatic and shadowy world of international hostage rescue. Brittney Griner, Danny Fenster, Otto Warmbier, Trevor Reed, Paul Whelan, Kenneth Bae…When an American citizen is unjustly imprisoned overseas, that&’s when Mickey Bergman&’s phone starts to ring. Who else are their desperate loved ones supposed to call? Mickey and his tight team of savvy negotiators at the Richardson Center for Global Engagement are the go-to rescuers of last resort, carrying on the high-stakes, round-the-world mission of master negotiator Bill Richardson. Mickey and his team do what U.S. government officials are often unable or unwilling to do: sit down with America&’s toughest adversaries and find creative ways to bring our people home. That's life In the Shadows. This is the heart-pounding story of these urgent negotiations, what it&’s like to climb inside the minds of some of the world&’s most notorious strongmen, where the clear divisions between good and evil are replaced by a thousand shades of gray. The hard work is done far from the glare of media publicity. The negotiations don&’t follow traditional diplomatic rules. As innocent Americans sit behind bars in hellhole foreign prisons, Mickey and his colleagues stop at nothing to get our people home. And these cases almost never go as smoothly as they should, as the independent negotiators navigate between U.S. government officials and some of the world&’s most headstrong leaders. And as soon as one American is freed, Mickey is off on another dicey mission to Moscow, Caracas, Naypyidaw, Pyongyang, or some other complex foreign capital. These painstaking campaigns require creative thinking, hardball pressure tactics, excruciating patience, and a genuine sense of compassion for the anxious families whose lives are thrown into turmoil when a loved one is imprisoned abroad. In Mickey Bergman's own words, In the Shadows tells the hidden story of these high-drama rescue campaigns. The crafty negotiating strategies. The strong-willed foreign leaders. The emotional rollercoaster of being responsible for innocent American lives. The exhilaration when another American is released from a foreign prison—and the terrible letdown when a promising effort hits another maddening roadblock. Mickey recounts his unique relationship with his mentor, the late, great Richardson, the former governor of New Mexico, ambassador to the United Nations and legendary negotiator. He shares the wrenching closeness he develops with the desperate families he serves, who often have nowhere else to turn. He offers a detailed account of his one-on-one interactions with Washington&’s top power players, both Democrats and Republicans, and some of the world&’s most isolated and misunderstood heads of state. For readers who want the full, searing story of these life-or-death rescue missions and the fascinating people behind them, it&’s all In the Shadows. As Mickey Bergman and New York Times bestselling author Ellis Henican make clear on every page, international diplomacy isn&’t just for government officials anymore.