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A collection of essays on the historical origins, contemporary difficulties, and future prospects of democratic life. It examines the "pathologies" that have curtailed democracy's potential and challenges the antitotalitarian liberalism that has dominated recent political thought.

Offers innovative readings of several popular and influential European films of the 1990s. This title considers how these films, made around the time of the revolutions of 1989, grappled with contemporary anxieties relating to the reunification of Germany, the disintegration of the Balkans, and a sense of historical loss and disenchantment.

Traces the evolution of American metropolitan life. "Edge cities" are the centers of production in post-suburban America. This book surveys metropolitan areas from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt and the way in which postwar social, racial, and cultural shifts contributed to the decline of the central city as a hub of work, shopping, and transports.

In the middle decades of the 20th century, Hawai'i changed rapidly from a conservative oligarchy firmly controlled by a Euro-American elite to arguably the most progressive part of the United States. This study explains how Filipinos, Japanese, Portuguese, and others overcame racial divisions and mobilized a mass working-class movement.

Gianni Vattimo, one of Europe's most important and influential philosophers, has been a leading participant in the postwar turn that has brought Nietzsche back to the center of philosophical enquiry. This book explores the German philosopher's important works and discusses his views on the Ubermensch, time, history, truth, and hermeneutics.

Centers on an old institution among the Afro-Surinamese working class in which women have multiple sexual relationships with both men and women. These women reject marriage, preferring to create their own families of kin, lovers, and children. Analyzing this phenomenon, known as mati work, this book describes the lives of Afro-Surinamese women.

Sayo Masuda was a geisha at a hot springs resort, where the realities of sex for sale are unadorned by the trappings of wealth and power. Remarkable for its wit and frankness, the book is a moving record of a woman's survival on the margins of Japanese society -- in the words of the translator, "the superbly told tale of a woman whom fortune never favored yet never defeated."

Looks beneath the rhetoric of hatred and misunderstanding to challenge the views of Islamic history. This book argues that beginning in the 1950's American policymakers misread the Muslim world and, instead of focusing on the discontent against the government, saw only a forum for liberal, democratic reforms within those governments.

Aimed at students and educators in the helping professions as well as practitioners, this book presents information on how to interview clients. It synthesizes the theories and research findings in social work and related fields that contribute to practitioners' competence and effectiveness.

The social system of 'courtly love' soon spread after becoming popularized by the troubadours of southern France in the twelfth century. This book codifies life at Queen Eleanor's court at Poitiers between 1170 and 1174 into "one of those capital works which reflect the thought of a great epoch, which explain the secret of a civilization."

Chow situates contemporary Chinese film within the broad context of Chinese history and culture, giving readers a glimpse of the unique shared identity that characterizes the current crop of outstanding filmmakers, such as Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou.

These volumes consist of selected primary documents from Ancient Rome, covering a range of over 1,000 years of Roman culture, from the foundation of the city to its sacking by the Goths.The selections cover a broad spectrum of Roman civilization, including literature, philosophy, religion, education, politics, military affairs, and economics.

The author, a noted literary critic, presents a selection of his thought on Balzac, Valery, Dickens, Goethe, Heine, Hoelderlin, lyric poetry, realism, the essay and the contemporary novel.

Tickner focuses her distinctively feminist approach on new issues of the international relations agenda since the end of the Cold War, such as ethnic conflict and other new security issues, globalizations, democratization, and human rights.

Medieval Christian writers distorted the teachings of Islam and caricatured its believers in a variety of ways. What ideological purposes did these offensive portrayals serve? This book provides a comprehensive study of Christian polemical responses to Islam in the Middle Ages.

A revisionist history of the split between Jews and Christians and the role of Paul in fostering animosity between them.

The Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa is the "official biography" of German king and Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I. This historical firsthand account was begun by his maternal uncle, Bishop Otto of Freising, the leading medieval church figure and notable historian, and continued by a less well known cleric, Rahewin.

An engrossing examination of a popular box office genre-the gross-out movie-Laughing Screaming is the first study to take this lowbrow product seriously.

A tribute to one of the fathers of deconstruction as well as an extended essay on memory, death, and friendship.

Gikandi explores the politics of identity to analyze how the colonial experience inspired narrative forms that changed the nature of the English identity by surveying the British imperial tradition since the nineteenth century.

Ganguly authoritatively analyzes why hostility persists as well as the current prospects for war and peace in the region.

Part of a detailed compendium of late-Roman learning in each of the seven liberal arts, set within an amusing mythological-allegorical tale of courtship and marriage among the pagan gods. The text provides an understanding of medieval allegory and the components of a medieval education.

The book explains how Islamist groups captured the hearts and minds of educated youth in Egypt. It focuses on the first twelve years of Hosni Mubarak's presidency, from 1981 to 1993, the period when participation in the movement reached its peak and before a wave of repression brought it to an abrupt end.

This is the third book in a multivolume history of modern Japanese literature by the world's authoritative translator and scholar of Japanese culture and literature. The Columbia paperback edition, with Donald Keene's new preface, includes an introduction, an appendix, glossary, index, and a selected list of translations into English.

Examining the powerful drive that leads men and women literally to shed their skins gubarand-in mind and body-to cross the boundary of sex, Prosser argues that sex change is, at best, a narrative-thus transsexuals make for adept and absorbing authors.

The most complete picture to date of how U.S. strategies of containment and empire-building spiraled out of control in Southeast Asia, investigating also how the demoralizing experience of Vietnam radically undermined U.S. enthusiasm for the region in a strategic sense.

Revolutions are often seen in terms of a spontaneous burst of intense political activity; less attention usually is given to the structures, processes, and perceptions that make such activity possible. This book examines such long-term transformations as they relate to the revolution in the Central African nation of Rwanda.

Explores the process through which wars in the modern age have been brought to a close. This book explains how US political decisions and military strategy and tactics in Iraq - the emphasis on punishing Iraqi leaders, not seeking a formal surrender, and the failure to maintain law and order - have delayed, and jeopardized an end to hostilities.

This book moves beyond the focus on economic considerations that was central to the work of New Left historians, examining the many other forces-domestic politics, bureaucratic inertia, quirks of personality, and perceptions of Soviet intentions-that influenced key decision makers in Washington.

Aiming to dispel the notion that Britain is exclusively responsible for the formation of the Persian Gulf's modern states, this text puts into perspective the central roles played by the Ottoman empire and explains the reasons behind the Ottoman occupation of the Persian Gulf in 1871.