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  The Traffic in Women's Work -...

  Anca Parvulescu

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  “Welcome to the European family!” When East European countries joined the European Union under this banner after 1989, they agreed to the free movement of goods, services, capital, and persons. In this book, Anca Parvulescu analyzes an important niche in this imagined European kinship: the traffic in women, or the circulation of East European women in West Europe in marriage and as domestic servants, nannies, personal attendants, and entertainers. Analyzing film, national policies, and an impressive range of work by theorists from Giorgio Agamben to Judith Butler, she develops a critical lens through which to think about the transnational continuum of “women’s work.”  Parvulescu revisits Claude Lévi-Strauss’s concept of kinship and its rearticulation by second-wave feminists, particularly Gayle Rubin, to show that kinship has traditionally been anchored in the traffic in women. Reading recent cinematic texts that help frame this, she reveals that in contemporary Europe, East European migrant women are exchanged to engage in labor customarily performed by wives within the institution of marriage. Tracing a pattern of what she calls Americanization, Parvulescu argues that these women thereby become responsible for the labor of reproduction. A fascinating cultural study as much about the consequences of the enlargement of the European Union as women’s mobility, The Traffic in Women’s Work questions the foundations of the notion of Europe today.

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  The Hijacked War - The Story of...

  David Cheng Chang

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  A study of the experiences of Chinese prisoners of war during the Korean War and the struggle over their repatriation. 
   
  The Korean War lasted for three years, one month, and two days, but armistice talks occupied more than two of those years, as more than 14,000 Chinese prisoners of war refused to return to Communist China and demanded to go to Nationalist Taiwan, effectively hijacking the negotiations and thwarting the designs of world leaders at a pivotal moment in Cold War history. In The Hijacked War, David Cheng Chang vividly portrays the experiences of Chinese prisoners in the dark, cold, and damp tents of Koje and Cheju Islands in Korea and how their decisions derailed the high politics being conducted in the corridors of power in Washington, Moscow, and Beijing. 
   
  Chang demonstrates how the Truman-Acheson administration’s policies of voluntary repatriation and prisoner reindoctrination for psychological warfare purposes—the first overt and the second covert—had unintended consequences. The “success” of the reindoctrination program backfired when anti-Communist Chinese prisoners persuaded and coerced fellow POWs to renounce their homeland. Drawing on newly declassified archival materials from China, Taiwan, and the United States, and interviews with more than 80 surviving Chinese and North Korean prisoners of war, Chang depicts the struggle over prisoner repatriation that dominated the second half of the Korean War, from early 1952 to July 1953, in the prisoners’ own words. 
   
  Praise for The Hijacked War 
   
  “This book represents a giant step forward in our understanding of the prisoner-of-war issue in the Korean War. The research on the Chinese prisoners is extraordinary, the stories of individuals compelling, and the analysis of the context in which they made choices balanced and persuasive.” —William Stueck, author of The Korean War: An International History 
   
  “David Cheng Chang’s superlative research reveals the use of Chinese POWs as pawns in the larger Cold War standoff between the US and China during the Korean War. His cogent analysis encourages us to think about the aftermath of the war and the lives of those who made the ‘voluntary choice’ to join or who faced ‘forced conformity.’” —Barak Kushner, author of Men to Devils, Devils to Men: Japanese War Crimes and Chinese Justice 
   
  “Chang’s exceptionally vivid prisoner’s-eye account, based on camp archives and interviews with ex-POWS, leads him to condemn the key U.S. policymakers, including President Harry Truman and Secretary of State Dean Acheson, for their “arrogance, ignorance, and negligence.” —Foreign Affairs

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  Behind Closed Doors: A Short...

  Stories From The Attic

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  For most police officers, dealing with ‘crackpots’ is simply part of the job. The people who call up confessing to murders they couldn’t have committed or which might never even have happened, the obsessives with nothing better to do than report non existent crimes or exaggerate run of the mill occurences into major events. As far as Tony is concerned Clark Dornan is one of these ‘crackpots’.For years Clark has been coming to the station with accusations against his neighbour, insisting that there is something horrible going on in the house across the road. When Clark eventually decides to investigate for himself and is reported missing a week later, Tony is forced to finally investigate Clark’s outlandish claims, though once he arrives he realises that perhaps those claims were not outlandish enough.‘Behind Closed Doors’ is a tale of investigation and terror, showing that sometimes when following the breadcrumb trail, there is something far worse than a house of gingerbread waiting at the end.

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  Golden Speech

  Elizabeth I

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   Queen Elizabeth I took Parliament by surprise when she began her speech of November 30, 1601. They had expected a discussion of the nation’s economic situation, but instead she announced this speech would be her last as Queen. She drew tears from some of her listeners as she spoke earnestly of her love for her position, people, and country, saying, “though you have had and may have many mightier and wiser Princes sitting in this Seat, yet you never had, nor shall have any that will love you better.” The speech was later printed, accompanied by a note reading, “This speech ought to be set in letters of gold.”  

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  State of Resistance - What...

  Manuel Pastor

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  Once upon a time, any mention of California triggered unpleasant reminders of Ronald Reagan and right-wing tax revolts, ballot propositions targeting undocumented immigrants, and racist policing that sparked two of the nation's most devastating riots. In fact, California confronted many of the challenges the rest of the country faces now — decades before the rest of us.Today, California is leading the way on addressing climate change, low-wage work, immigrant integration, over-incarceration, and more. As white residents became a minority and job loss drove economic uncertainty, California had its own Trump moment 25 years ago, but has become increasingly blue over each of the last seven presidential elections. How did the Golden State manage to emerge from its unsavory past to become a bellwether for the rest of the country?Thirty years after Mike Davis's hellish depiction of California in City of Quartz, the award-winning sociologist Manuel Pastor guides us through a new and improved California, complete with lessons that the nation should heed. State of Resistance makes the case for honestly engaging racial anxiety in order to address our true economic and generational challenges, a renewed commitment to public investments, the cultivation of social movements and community organizing, and more.

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  Character Disturbance - The...

  George K. Simon Jr. Ph.D.

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  Modern permissiveness and the new culture of entitlement allows disturbed people to reach adulthood without proper socialization. In an audiobook meant both for the general public and for professionals, best-selling author and psychologist George Simon explains in plain English:How most disturbed characters thinkThe habitual behaviors the disturbed use to avoid responsibility and to manipulate, deceive, and exploit othersWhy victims in relationships with disturbed characters do not get help they need from traditional therapiesA straightforward guide to recognizing and understanding all relevant personality types, especially those most likely to undermine relationshipsA new framework for making sense of the crazy world many find themselves in when there's a disturbed character in their livesConcrete principles that promote responsibility and positive change when engaging disturbed charactersTactics (for both lay persons and therapists) to lessen the chances for victimization and empower those who would otherwise be victims in their relationships with many types of disturbed characters

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