Other books that might interest you

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  Digging into Chaos - Security...

  Christiane Suchanek

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  With the terrorist attacks of 9/11, international attention has shifted to Afghanistan. This event also marked the beginning of a fundamental transformation in the country: It was and is target of an enormous military campaign that toppled the Taliban in a "War on Terror". With the previous government deposed, a new one had to be built. Guided by a multinational coalition, the Afghan state was quickly reformed, but instabilities and conflicts have not only been inherited but also unintentionally triggered. Even after more than 15 years of international intervention, neither peace nor political stability or security seem to have taken roots in the country. The book takes a closer look at the international state-building regime and evaluates the impact and outlook of such efforts in Afghanistan. In order to facilitate the analysis, the study concentrates on Security Sector Reform (SSR) with special emphasis on the reconstruction of the Afghan military and police. With this, the author presents critical insights into state-building prospects in Afghanistan and introduces an analytical approach that may also be transferred to other cases of state reconstruction.
  
  Auch 15 Jahre nach der internationalen Intervention ist Afghanistan weit davon entfernt, ein stabiler Staat zu sein. Mit besonderem Fokus auf den Sicherheitssektor analysiert Suchanek die bisherigen Maßnahmen und entwickelt zugleich eine allgemein anwendbare Analysemethode für staatlichen Wiederaufbau.

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  Angry Politics - Partisan Hatred...

  Stacy G. Ulbig

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  At a time of political tribalism and ideological purity tests, it can be hard to remember that cross-party hatred isn’t an inherent feature of partisan politics. But, as this book reminds us, a backward glance—or a quick survey of so many retiring members of Congress—tells us that even in the past decade partisan rancor has grown exponentially. In Angry Politics, Stacy G. Ulbig asks why. Even more to the point, she traces the trend to the place where it all might begin—the college campus, among the youngest segment of the electorate.A distinguished researcher and scholar of political psychology and public opinion, Ulbig gets right to the heart of the problem—the early manifestation of the incivility pervading contemporary US politics. With an emphasis on undergraduates at four-year universities, she gauges the intensity and effects of partisan animosities on campus, examines the significance of media consumption in forming political attitudes, and considers the possibility that partisan hostility can operate like racial and ethnic animosities in fomenting intolerance for other groups. During the college years, political attitudes are most likely to be mutable; so, as Angry Politics explores the increasing combativeness on campus, it also considers the possibility of forestalling partisan hatred before attitudes harden.

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  Underwater - How Our American...

  Ryan Dezember

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  A cautionary tale of Wall Street's push to turn homes into assets, Underwater is a powerful, incisive story that chronicles the crash and its aftermath from a fresh perspective—the forgotten, middle-class homeowner.   
  His assignment was to write about a real-estate frenzy lighting up the Redneck Riviera. So Ryan Dezember settled in and bought a home nearby himself. Then the market crashed, and he became one of the millions of Americans who suddenly owed more on their homes than they were worth. A flood of foreclosures made it impossible to sell. It didn't help that his quaint neighborhood fell into disrepair and drug-induced despair. He had no choice but to become a reluctant and wildly unprofitable landlord to move on. Meanwhile, his reporting showed how the speculative mania that caused the crash opened the U.S. housing market to a much larger breed of investors. 
  In this deeply personal story, Dezember shows how decisions on Wall Street and in Washington played out on his street in a corner of the Sunbelt that was convulsed by the foreclosure crisis. Listeners will witness the housing market collapse from Dezember's perch as a newspaper reporter. First he's in the boom-to-bust South where a hot-air balloonist named Bob Shallow becomes one of the world's top selling real-estate agents arranging condo flips, developers flop in spectacular fashion and the law catches up with a beach-town mayor on the take. Later he's in New York, among financiers like Blackstone's Stephen Schwarzman who are building rental empires out of foreclosures, staking claim to the bastion of middle-class wealth: the single-family home. Through it all, Dezember is an underwater homeowner caught up in the mess. 
  A Macmillan Audio production from Thomas Dunne Books

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  The Hawk and the Dove - Paul...

  Nicholas Thompson

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  Only two Americans held positions of great influence throughout the Cold War; ironically, they were the chief advocates for the opposing strategies for winning-and surviving-that harrowing conflict. Both men came to power during World War II, reached their professional peaks during the Cold War's most frightening moments, and fought epic political battles that spanned decades. Yet despite their very different views, Paul Nitze and George Kennan dined together, attended the weddings of each other's children, and remained good friends all their lives.In this masterly double biography, Nicholas Thompson brings Nitze and Kennan to vivid life. Nitze-the hawk-was a consummate insider who believed that the best way to avoid a nuclear clash was to prepare to win one. More than any other American, he was responsible for the arms race. Kennan-the dove-was a diplomat turned academic whose famous "X article" persuasively argued that we should contain the Soviet Union while waiting for it to collapse from within. For forty years, he exercised more influence on foreign affairs than any other private citizen.As he weaves a fascinating narrative that follows these two rivals and friends from the beginning of the Cold War to its end, Thompson accomplishes something remarkable: he tells the story of our nation during the most dangerous half century in history.

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  Balkan Blues - Consumer Politics...

  Yuson Jung

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  An exploration of how a state transitions from the collectivized production and distribution of socialism to the consumer-focused culture of capitalism. 
   
  In Balkan Blues, Yuson Jung considers the state as an economic agent in upholding rights and responsibilities in the shift to a global market. Taking Bulgaria as her focus, Jung shows how impoverished Bulgarians developed a consumer-oriented society and how the concept of “need’ adapted in surprising ways to accommodate this new culture. 
   
  Different legal frameworks arose to ensure the rights of vulnerable or deceived consumers. Consumer advocacy NGOs and government officers scrambled to navigate unfamiliar EU-imposed models for consumer affairs departments. All of these changes involved issues of responsibility, accountability, and civic engagement, which brought Bulgarians new ways of viewing both their identities and their sense of agency. Yet these opportunities also raised questions of inequality, injustice, and social stratification. Jung’s study provides a compelling argument for reconsidering of the role of the state in the construction of twenty-first-century consumer cultures. 
   
  “A good contribution to post-socialist and Balkan studies, showing well that the concept of post-socialism can still be useful not only in the context of Central and Eastern Europe, but also in the Balkans. The book is based on long-term, deep ethnography and is well written . . . I recommend it to anyone who wants to try to understand social, political, and economic differences in Europe and everyday practices related to the (imaginaries of the) state.” —Karolina Bielenin-Lenczowska, Ethnologia Polona

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  The Royal Air Force in the Cold...

  Ian Proctor

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  Soon after the Second world War, wartime allies became Cold War adversaries, and by 1950 the perceived threat of a Soviet strike on Western Europe or Britain dominated military planning. For the next forty years, the Royal Air Force was in the front-line of the Cold War. In Britain and Germany, light bomber crews exercised in preparation for a future conflict, while interceptor pilots stood by ready to counter incursions by Soviet aircraft. Between 1956 and 1969, the elite crews of the iconic V-Force of nuclear bombers trained to perform the ultimate mission, striking targets deep in the heart of Russia. Protecting British interests overseas, personnel at stations across the Middle East and Far East were regularly engaged in supporting operations during the many colonial conflicts which occurred throughout the 1950s and 1960s.Undertaking these duties were new British-designed aircraft introduced to squadrons from the early–1950s. The names of these extraordinary aircraft, which included the Hunter, Lightning, Vulcan and Canberra, became synonymous with the Cold War.In this book, Ian Proctor uses over 150 highly evocative colour images from a single remarkable Air Ministry collection to portray the RAF and its personnel between 1950 and 1970. He provides a selected insight into service life, the aircraft, recruitment and training, and the operations and exercises undertaken by the RAF during a twenty year period of the Cold War.

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