Other books that might interest you

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  China - Fragile Superpower

  Susan L. Shirk

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  Susan L. Shirk, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State responsible for China, knows many of today's Chinese rulers personally and has studied them for three decades. She offers invaluable insight into how they think—and what they fear. In this revealing book, you will see the world through the eyes of men like President Hu Jintao and former President Jiang Zemin. We discover a fragile communist regime desperate to survive in a society turned upside down by miraculous economic growth and a stunning new openness to the greater world. Theirs is a regime afraid of its own citizens, and this fear motivates many of their decisions when dealing with the US and other foreign nations. In particular, the fervent nationalism of the Chinese people, combined with their passionate resentment of Japan, and attachment to Taiwan, have made relations with these two regions a minefield. It is here, Shirk concludes, in the tangled interactions between Japan, Taiwan, China, and the United States, that the greatest danger lies.Shirk argues that rising powers such as China tend to provoke wars in large part because other countries mishandle them. Unless we understand China's brittle internal politics and the fears that motivate its leaders, we face the very real possibility of avoidable conflict with China.

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  Generation Scot Y

  Kate Higgins

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  What is Generation Scot Y? Born in the 1980s and 1990s and comprising primarily of the children of the baby boomers, Generation Y is often perceived as being the generation that wants it all. Think you know what makes Scotland's 20-somethings tick? Knowing who Generation Y in Scotland - Generation Scott Y - is, matters for our economy, our society and our political culture. Generation  has grown up with devolution: are they ready to embrace full nationhood? How has Scotland's independence referendum affected them and what does it mean for their future? In this book, political blogger at Burdz Eye View, Kate Higgins explores all this and more - Generation Scott Y's identity, influences, values, voting behaviours and aspirations. Far from being frivolous, this is a serious generation for serious times. This book only skims the surface but dip in and you'll discover something you never knew - I did and I'm the mother of one. And ultimately, you'll find that far from wanting to have it all, they just want a little of all that we've had. KATE HIGGINS

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  On Fascism - 12 Lessons from...

  Matthew C. MacWilliams

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  An expert on American authoritarianism offers a searing rebuke of the exceptional narrative that dominates our understanding of US history. In 12 lessons, Matthew C. MacWilliams' On Fascism exposes the divisive rhetoric, strongman tactics, violent othering, and authoritarian attitudes that course through American history and compete with our egalitarian, democratic aspirations. Trumpism isn’t new, but rooted in our refusal to come to terms with this historical reality.The United States of Lyncherdom, as Mark Twain labeled America. Lincoln versus Douglas. The Chinese Exclusion Act. The Trail of Tears. The internment of Japanese-Americans. The Palmer Raids. McCarthyism. The Surveillance State. At turning points throughout history, as we aspired toward great things, we also witnessed the authoritarian impulse drive policy and win public support. Only by confronting and reconciling this past, can America move forward into a future rooted in the motto of our Republic since 1782:  e pluribus unum (out of many, one).But this audiobook isn’t simply an indictment. It is also a celebration of our spirit, perseverance, and commitment to the values at the heart of the American project. Along the way, we learn about many American heroes – like Ida B. Wells, who dedicated her life to documenting the horrors of lynching throughout the nation, or the young Jewish-American who took a beating for protesting a Nazi rally in New York City in 1939. Men and women who embodied the soaring, revolutionary proclamations set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution.On Fascism is both an honest reckoning and a call for reconciliation. Denial and division will not save the Republic, but coming to terms with our history might.  A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Griffin

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  It's Not Free Speech - Race...

  Michael Bérubé, Jennifer Ruth

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  How far does the idea of academic freedom extend to professors in an era of racial reckoning?The protests of summer 2020, which were ignited by the murder of George Floyd, led to long-overdue reassessments of the legacy of racism and white supremacy in both American academe and cultural life more generally. But while universities have been willing to rename some buildings and schools or grapple with their role in the slave trade, no one has yet asked the most uncomfortable question: Does academic freedom extend to racist professors?It's Not Free Speech considers the ideal of academic freedom in the wake of the activism inspired by outrageous police brutality, white supremacy, and the #MeToo movement. Arguing that academic freedom must be rigorously distinguished from freedom of speech, Michael Bérubé and Jennifer Ruth take aim at explicit defenses of colonialism and theories of white supremacy—theories that have no intellectual legitimacy whatsoever. Approaching this question from two angles—one, the question of when a professor's intramural or extramural speech calls into question his or her fitness to serve, and two, the question of how to manage the simmering tension between the academic freedom of faculty and the antidiscrimination initiatives of campus offices of diversity, equity, and inclusion—they argue that the democracy-destroying potential of social media makes it very difficult to uphold the traditional liberal view that the best remedy for hate speech is more speech. In recent years, those with traditional liberal ideals have had very limited effectiveness in responding to the resurgence of white supremacism in American life. It is time, Bérubé and Ruth write, to ask whether that resurgence requires us to rethink the parameters and practices of academic freedom. Touching as well on contingent faculty, whose speech is often inadequately protected, It's Not Free Speech insists that we reimagine shared governance to augment both academic freedom and antidiscrimination initiatives on campuses. Faculty across the nation can develop protocols that account for both the new realities—from the rise of social media to the decline of tenure—and the old realities of long-standing inequities and abuses that the classic liberal conception of academic freedom did nothing to address. This book will resonate for anyone who has followed debates over #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, Critical Race Theory, and "cancel culture"; more specifically, it should have a major impact on many facets of academic life, from the classroom to faculty senates to the office of the general counsel.

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  The EU’s Impact on Identity...

  Michal Vit

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  The Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia share similar experiences in the past, and a swift post-communist integration into the originally West European communities of democratic countries, as their “return to Europe.” Michal Vít explores how these three countries have been influenced by the new all-European environment for their independent national development. He introduces a research framework for the analysis of national identity focusing on parliamentary political parties represented at both the national and European levels. How did these parties cope with possible misfits of their understanding of national identity? How did these tensions interplay with their new transnational European political environment? 
  
  Vít’s study finds that, after the accession of the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia to the EU, there started a gradual decrease of identification of political parties with the European space. The extent of this estrangement was determined by these parties’ belonging or non-belonging to European political party families. The book provides a better understanding of current political developments in East-Central Europe and their consequences for these countries’ national and European politics.

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  The Place Beyond Words

  Ram Dass

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  Ram Dass, much beloved spiritual pilgrim, talks candidly about his own journey and  the wisdom he has gained from being at the heart of the consciousness movement.  He compares life in New York to life in India, being a psychology professor at Harvard to being shunned by many institutions, consciousness in the 1960s to consciousness the 1990s, and how he dropped out of Western society to explore Eastern mysticism, only to return to a life of social action and service.

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