Bøker utgitt av Lexington Books

In this eleventh volume in The World Over series, Simon and Brooks examine and compare the rights and responsibilities of citizenship across twenty-one countries. The countries included are Canada, the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Israel, Egypt, Iran, Nigeria, South Africa, India, China, Japan, and Australia. In addition to reporting on the rights that citizens enjoy in these countries, as for example the right to run for and hold public office, vote, obtain scholarships, and hold government positions, the authors also describe the responsibilities that are attached to the role of citizen_for example, to serve in the military, serve on a jury, and pay taxes. When available, Simon and Brooks report on public opinion data on how proud respondents are of the country in which they are citizens, as measured by such variables as whether they would rather be a citizen of their country over any other country in the world, how proud they are of their country's political influence in the world, how democracy works in their country, and whether they believe they should support their country even if it is in the wrong. Following a brief chapter on the history of citizenship, the book is organized such that the first section provides a country-by-country profile of each of the issues describing rights and responsibilities and reports on the public opinion data. The second part is explicity comparative and describes the countries against each other.

The Trouble with America critiques the theory and practice of American government, focusing on the fatal flaws of America's core political arrangements. Institutionalized pluralism, the structural dispersal of power, generates government too weak to solve our public problems. American constitutionalism, the limitation of government power and authority, protects property rights far better than it defends our civil liberties, and it offers little or no protection for non-citizens. Capitalism is a hyper-competitive and grossly unfair economic system, which rewards pre-existing wealth far better than hard work or talent, and encourages petty materialist consumption of mostly low-quality goods, undermining taste as well as fairness. Taken together, pluralism, constitutionalism, and capitalism in America harm our society in a myriad of ways, leaving us with inadequate representation, poor leadership, social and political paralysis and irresponsibility, unrealistic self-images, and scandalously poor domestic and foreign policies. This book will prove a valuable supplement in American government courses, an alternative to the centrist material currently dominating textbooks on this subject.

The objective of this book is to construct an individually emancipatory economic and political philosophy. This means a concrete-based, man-centered, non-hypostatizing, anti-dialectical approach to the apprehension of the material, i.e. nature in general. This constitutes an emancipation from culture-based understandings of reality, and in particular from the metaphysically biased type of culture represented by capitalism. The proposed philosophical emancipation means individual liberation from the logically flawed, massifying character of the dominant mode of thought of capitalist times. From these bases, the social sciences can also be reformulated. Micocci argues that capitalism can be conceptualized as a limited and limiting socialized mode of thought, an intellectuality whose dialectical features are effectively identified by using the proxy of political economy, both marxist and mainstream. Political economy in fact, being a most representative instance of dialectical thinking, mirrors the dialectical nature of capitalist economic and political relationships. According to Micocci, non-dialectical occurrences in capitalism are simply excluded from normal social, economic, and intellectual activities, which are performed in a metaphysical, intellectually isolated environment. In capitalism, therefore, the materials, the concrete, i.e. nature itself, is not considered as a whole but only as occasional instances. Micocci describes capitalism, in sum, as an intellectually constructed culture (a metaphysics) which preserves itself, and props itself up, by means of its iterative (market-like) functioning.

The twentieth century is as remarkable for its world wars as it is for its efforts to outlaw war in international and constitutional law and politics. Japan in the World examines some of these efforts through the life and work of Shidehara Kijuro, who was active as diplomat and statesman between 1896 until his death in 1951. Shidehara is seen as a guiding thread running through the first five decades of the twentieth century. Through the 1920s until the beginning of the 1930s, his foreign policy shaped Japan's place within the community of nations. The positive role Japan played in international relations and the high esteem in which it was held at that time goes largely to his credit. As Prime Minister and 'man of the hour' after the Second World War, he had a hand in shaping the new beginning for post-war Japan, instituting policies that would start his country on a path to peace and prosperity. Accessing previously unpublished archival materials, Schlichtmann examines the work of this pacifist statesman, situating Shidehara within the context of twentieth century statecraft and international politics. While it was an age of devastating total wars that took a vast toll of civilian lives, the politics and diplomatic history between 1899 and 1949 also saw the light of new developments in international and constitutional law to curtail state sovereignty and reach a peaceful order of international affairs. Japan in the World is an essential resource for understanding that nation's contributions to these world-changing developments.

The Nature of Dignity is a highly interdisciplinary work of philosophy that focuses primarily on the form of dignity (or nobility of demeanor) that individuals exhibit to varying degrees, rather than the form of dignity that we tend to presume we always already possess simply by virtue of being human. The book contends that the Enlightenment assumptions that have traditionally been appealed to in elucidating our conceptions of human dignity are no longer tenable_most importantly because of what we know about evolutionary biology, but also in light of certain dominant strains in modern political-economic theory. The book argues that, nonetheless, dignity is a value to which we should remain committed, and offers a new set of conceptual underpinnings with which to replace the no longer tenable Enlightenment assumptions of Kant, Locke, and others on this subject.

In the name of academic freedom, the core values of higher education_honest scholarship, unbiased research, and diversity of thought and person_have been corrupted by an academy more interested in preserving its privileges than in protecting its own integrity. The American university has lost its civility. Nowhere is this loss more apparent than in the rise of anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism on college campuses. This book documents the alarming rise in bigotry and bullying in the academy, using a range of evidence from first-hand accounts of intimidation of students by anti-Israel professors to anti-Semitic articles in student newspapers and marginalization of pro-Israel scholars. The UnCivil University exposes the unspoken world of double standards, bureaucratic paralysis, and abdication of leadership that not only allows but often supports a vocal minority of extremists on campus.

This book links the concepts of patriotism, Christianity, and nationhood in the journalistic writings of G.K. Chesterton and emphasizes their roots within the English attachments that were central to his political and spiritual persona. It further connects Chesterton to the vibrant debate about English national identity in the early years of the twentieth century, which was instrumental in shaping not only his political convictions, but also his religious convictions. Christianity, Patriotism and Nationhood explores his changing conception of the English people from an early, menacing account of their revolutionary potential in the face of plutocracy to the more complex portraits he drew of their character on recognizing their political passivity after the First World War. As Chesterton was above all a journalist, the study considers some of the varied outlets in which he expressed his ideas as a distinctly Edwardian man of letters of a strongly patriotic persuasion. His connection with The Illustrated London News over more than three decades proved pivotal in strengthening his patriotism and discourse of nationhood vilified elsewhere, not least in advanced Liberal organs such asThe Nation. Julia Stapleton shows that he was increasingly distanced by fellow Liberals before 1918, on account of the priority he gave nationhood over the state, and patriotism over citizenship. But she argues that his English loyalties were the last echo of an aspect of Victorian Liberalism that had been progressively eroded by loss of confidence among elites in the democratic aptitude of the English people. Christianity, Patriotism and Nationhood emphasizes that Chesterton upheld a cultural rather than racial conception of national homogeneity, in keeping with the Victorian sources of his thought and the popular patriotism of Edwardian England. It argues that his anti-semitism was ancillary, rather than integral to his understanding of England, and that it was matched by a similar conception of the antithesis between Islam and the patriotic ideal. Stapleton relates his abiding concern for national 'authenticity' to global imperialism, enhanced international co-ordination of states and civil society after 1918, and the increasing role of the British state in defining the nation. This book will be valuable to intellectual and political historians of early-twentieth-century England, as well as to scholars and students of English national identity in the twenty-first century. The author gratefully acknowledges the permission of A.P. Watt Ltd on behalf of the Royal Literary Fund to quote unpublished material in the Chesterton Papers, British Library.

Drawing on twenty-five years of teaching prison college and volunteer classes in eleven Michigan and California prisons, The Prisoners' World strives to make the 'prisoners' voice' come alive for regular college students. The book starts off by tracing shifts in social definitions of criminality, and lays out the premises of the U.S. incarceration binge in the 1986 War on Drugs laws and subsequent mandatory sentencing and policing. Later chapters discuss issues such as leaving home, cell life, correctional officers and treatment, the homosexual prisoner, and drugs. Furthermore, the book discusses the teachers' experiences via author narrative essays that draw the reader into prisoner student and prisoner teacher interaction, and what it is like inside prison college classes where both young and older black prisoner students describe growing up in the inner cities. The book also draws upon over sixty prisoner essays that provide insight on prisoner life and self-concept with insights on pathways to prison, drug selling, the inner city and guns. There is also a strong focus on the 'inside' experiences of entering prison and orientation, daily work routine, correctional officers and surreptitious activities like cell cooking and contraband. These essays are capped by prisoner critiques of prison life from those still in the system. The Prisoners' World serves as a successful supplemental book whose material has proven useful in undergraduate criminal justice classes. As college students themselves, on-campus students in these classes will identify with the prisoner-student voices who share their experiences but in a radically different environment.

This book presents the theoretical language and methodological tools needed for thinking through issues of global media representation. It brings students of international communication into a conversation about global culture and communication through the presentation of a conceptual language to discuss the 'logics of globalization' (i.e. nationalism, modernism, post-modernism/colonialism, capitalism and terrorism). Anandam Kavoori then uses this language to critically analyze various media texts. The choices of texts are eclectic-representing old and new media-and chosen for the wider 'logic' they help animate. Most importantly, they reorient the study of global media texts from the formal to the popular, examining film, music, gaming, cell phone, travel journalism, and performance texts. The book invites students to understand the complexity of global media representation-at the heart of which is the search for identity.

Apologizing for Socrates examines some of Plato's and Xenophon's Socratic writings, specifically those that address well-known controversiese concerning the life and death of Socrates. Gabriel Danzig argues that the effort to defend Socrates from a variety of contemporary charges helps explain some of the central philosophical arguments and literary features that appear in these works. Concentrating on the two Apologies, Crito, Euthyphro, Xenophon's Symposium and Memorabilia, Lysis, and Oeconommicus, Danzig argues that the apologetic efforts were essential for rebuilding the community of Socratic friends and companions, which was devastated by the trial and death of Socrates. The Socratic writings are not merely literary or philosophical endeavors, but also political acts of great competence.

Bali and Balinese culture have become central to western imaginings of 'the east.' Along with its natural beauty and tropical sensuality, Bali's rich and complex culture has proved intensely alluring for western artists, scholars, and travelers. However, as this aesthetic imagining and desire for beauty have evolved into a mass tourism industry, the island people and their culture have experienced radical and rapid transformation. While many in the international community were stunned by the horror of the militant bombings in 2002 and 2005, these attacks were merely the apex of a profound and ongoing crisis which resonates through the period of Bali's modernization and engagement with the global economy of pleasure. Bali's Silent Crisis examines and elucidates the complex cultural and political environment of contemporary Bali. The book explains the conditions of crisis in Bali in terms of a powerful collision of cultural elements and trends, focusing specifically on the double matrix of 'desire' and 'violence' that has characterized Bali's recent past. Moving beyond a simple opposition between 'tradition' and 'the modern', this book reveals a society that is struggling to reconcile its own profound aesthetic and sense of historical identity with the intense agonisms that are generated through rapid social and cultural change. Through its thematic approach, Bali's Silent Crisis presents an image of community trauma, creative resilience and pluralization. The book records the challenges and horrors associated with transition, as well as the formidable beauty that remains intrinsic to the island's sense of cultural destiny.

Pragmatism and the Reflective Life explains the moral perspective embedded in the American pragmatist tradition and offers pragmatist moral thought as an alternative to analytic moral theory. Following the lead of John Dewey, Rosenbaum explores what it means to make the ideal of the reflective life implicit in pragmatism central to an understanding of morality. The discussion illuminates how this ideal of the reflective life captures the value of both individual autonomy and communal ideals and encourages commitment to a radically idealistic and ecumenical hope in the power of inclusive democracy and global egalitarianism.

The thesis of this book is that only a social personalism and no form of impersonalism can adequately account for the solidarity and stability of what we individuals share with all other members of our society, our second nature. In the ancient world the discussion of society, at least since Plato and Aristotle, began with the social nature of individuals as found in families and proceeded to topics such as the formation and the well ordering of societies according to eternal principles grasped by reason. Since the beginning of the modern world, at least since Hobbes and Locke, the discussion of society began with the relation of persons and society and then moved on to other topics, usually political and legal ones. The central problem was to find the basis on which individuals formed societies and how they could do so. Buford's question is with a more basic issue: 'What do individuals and society share in common?' or what philosophers since Cicero have called our second nature, and how to best understand its unity and stability. The crisis of our culture in the erosion of both solidarity and stability pointedly manifests itself in our second nature. There the culture in which we live is felt, lived, and shared. Buford asks how we can lay bare our second nature, revealing the extent of the crisis. Our second nature is the form of social actions of persons in triadic relations, and Buford argues that it is there that we find that trust unifies a society and provides the basis for the institutions that stabilize it.

The problem of radical doubt has threatened the commitment to ultimate truth in many cultures and periods. In Reality, Religion, and Passion, Jessica Frazier compares two thinkers who sought to restore philosophy's passion for truth in cultures threatened by the dispassion of radical doubt. In these complementary but divergent philosophies from Europe and India, each grounded in a transcendental metaphysics that sees consciousness as the basis of reality, two different ethics of vitality and passion take shape. Frazier shows how Heidegger's heir, Hans-Georg Gadamer, uses metaphysical insights borrowed from Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, and Heidegger as the ground for an ethics of 'play' which casts a uniquely positive light on the finitude and flux of the postmodern world-view. Complementing this continental European position, the work of Rupa Gosvami, a poet-theologian of early modern India develops a similar analysis of phenomenal reality into a philosophy not of play, but of passion. From Gadamer's philosophers and poets, to Gosvami's amorous goddess Radha, both visions see salvation in a renewed passion for truth. This journey toward a viable philosophy of life touches on a range of debates in Western philosophy and Indian religion, including the nature of philosophical and religious truths, the perceived goals of philosophy, the history of emotion in reason and religion, and the development of phenomenological accounts of subjectivity. It establishes a model for comparative philosophical methodology, and aims to contribute to a multicultural history of religious and philosophical reasoning. Above all, this book addresses Badiou's challenge to rediscover 'the passion of the real' and Heidegger's injunction to all thinkers to 'seek the word that is able to call one to faith.'

Mabel Agnes Elliott: Pioneering Feminist, Pacifist Sociologist provides a history of the life and career of the late Mabel Agnes Elliott (1898-1990), a pioneering female sociologist largely forgotten despite her achievements and contributions. A native of Iowa, Elliott earned three degrees in Sociology from Northwestern University. In addition to her career as a sociologist, she was a feminist and a pacifist whose occasional criticism of criminal policies in the United States led to the creation of an FBI file. Despite being largely disregarded by her male colleagues, Elliott wrote a wildly successful textbook, Social Disorganization, that published four editions over thirty years. After starting her career at the University of Kansas and working there for twenty years, she moved to Chatham College in Pennsylvania in 1949 where she was appreciated for her singular abilities. Among her many achievements, she was the first nwoman to be elected Presidet of the Society for the Study of Social Problems in 1957.

This fascinating account of the regional travel accident motif within American local color literature offers a reassessment of the cultural work done by authors writing during the Gilded Age. Stephanie C. Palmer shows how events like broken carriage wheels and missed trains were used by local color authors to bring together bourgeois and lower-class characters, thus giving readers the opportunity to see modernity coming into contact with both rural and urban life. Using the works of Sarah Orne Jewett, Bret Harte, William Dean Howells, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, and others, Palmer traces the use of the regional travel accident motif and how local color writers employed it to give critiques on class, society, and modern life. Exploring the themes of regional identity, modernity, and interpersonal relationships, Together by Accident offers an intriguing evaluation of the innovations and inconveniences associated with life during the industrializing Gilded Age in America.

As the American government uses the threat of terrorist violence to justify stringent domestic and exploitative foreign policies, Arab communities in the United States face the injustice of racial profiling and harrassment. The reaction of Americans to the genre of action-adventure film and its increasing use of Arabs as villians shows how our perceptions of Arab communities and individuals has been skewed. Using focus groups composed of a diverse cross-section of Americans, Karin Gwinn Wilkins analyzes how participants differ in their perception of specific action-adventure films and their Arab villains. More specifically, Wilkins interviews participants and asks them questions directly related to three topics: villains as threats to national security, film settings in relation to fear within global space and the Middle East, and heroes conquering evil. This book addresses the neglected empirical link between documented media stereotypes of Arab communities and the lived consequences of these portrayals, in terms of discriminatory practices and generalizations.

In the thirty-five years since the violent overthrow of Chilean President Salvador Allende, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has vehemently denied U.S. involvement. Almost with the same breath, Kissinger suggests that the democratically elected Allende represented Soviet aggression in Latin America, therefore posing a threat to the United States' physical security. Newly released documents reveal the Nixon administration's efforts to undermine Allende, while indicating that Nixon and Kissinger did not believe the socialist regime in Santiago endangered the United States or even had close ties to Moscow. The White House feared that the Chilean experiment would encourage other Latin American countries to challenge U.S. hegemony. Nixon, Kissinger, and Allende explores the president's cultural and intellectual prejudices against Latin America and the economic pressures that induced action against Allende.

The stories of the individual men and women who led German Social Democracy's failed efforts to fend off the Nazi onslaught in 1933 have largely been lost in the wake of the cataclysmic war, the Holocaust, and the division of Europe that followed Hitler's victory. Confronting Hitler recovers their stories and places them at center stage. In a series of biographical essays focusing on the experiences of ten leading Social Democratic activists, Smaldone examines their defeat in 1933 from the perspective of individuals enmeshed in political struggle. This study reveals what aspects of these activists' lives were most important in shaping their political outlook during the republic's final crisis and it illustrates the key factors that guided their actions in the effort to keep the republic alive. In addition, the biographies raise the important issue of the degree to which the defeat of German Social Democracy in 1933 is comparable to the experiences of other democratic socialist movements in the twentieth century.

Rethinking Marriage in Francophone African and Caribbean Literatures analyzes novels and films that demonstrate how marriage affects Francophone African and Caribbean women in their respective societies. It argues that marriage serves as a catalyst for intense identity formation because it functions as a narrative intersection for a number of overlapping themes on gender and the body, class and economics, religion, interracial and intercultural identity and nation building. Marriage provides a narrative space for commentary on cultural practices presented in the works in question as the foundations of cultural identity.

'Is That Your Child?' is a question that countless mothers of biracial children encounter whether they are African American or European American, rearing children today or a generation ago, living in the city or in the suburbs, are upper middle class or lower middle class. Social scientists Marion Kilson and Florence Ladd probe mothers' responses to this query and other challenges that mothers of biracial children encounter. Organized into four chapters, the book begins with Kilson and Ladd's initial interview of one another, continues with an overview of the challenges and rewards of raising biracial children gleaned from their interviews with other mothers, presents profiles of mothers highlighting distinctive individual experiences of biracial parenting, and concludes with suggestions of positive biracial parenting strategies. This book makes a unique contribution to the growing body of literature by and about biracial Americans. Although in the past twenty years biracial Americans like Rebecca Walker, June Cross, and James McBride have written of their person experiences and scholars like Kathleen Korgen, Maria Root, and Ruth Frankenberg have explored aspects of the biracial experience, none has focused on the experiences of a heterogeneous set of black and white mothers of different generations and socioeconomic circumstances as Kilson and Ladd do.

Katherine E. Graney examines one of the most important, puzzling, and ignored developments of the post-Soviet period: the persistence of the claim to possess state sovereignty by the ethnic republic of Tatarstan, one of the constituent members of the Russian Federation. In the first book by a Western scholar in English to chronicle the efforts made by the leadership of the Russian republic of Tatarstan to build and retain state sovereignty, Graney explores the many different dimensions of Tatarstan's move to become independent. By showing the 'sovereignty project' that the Tatarstani people have begun in order to realize their vision of becoming a separate political, social, and economic entity within the Russian Federation, Graney makes the case that this Tatarstani movement will significantly influence Russia's contemporary development in important and heretofore unrecognized ways. This book provides new insight into tackling policy issues regarding inter-ethnic relations and cultural pluralism within Russia, as well as within other European nations currently facing the same policy dilemmas.

This book addresses the notorious split between the two fields of cultural studies and political economy. Drawing on the works of Harold Innis, Theodor Adorno, Raymond Williams, Richard Hoggart, E.P. Thompson, and other major theorists in the two fields, Robert E. Babe shows that political economy can be reconciled to certain aspects of cultural studies, particularly with regards to cultural materialism. Uniting the two fields has proven to be a complex undertaking though it makes practical sense, given the close interaction between political economy and cultural studies. Babe examines the evolution of cultural studies over time and its changing relationship with political economy. The intersections between the two fields center around three subjects: the cultural biases of money, the time/space dialectic, and the dialectic of information.

African American Women's Rhetoric: The Search for Dignity, Personhood, and Honor deals with the rhetoric of African American women from enslavement to current times, examining slave narratives and contemporary print, music, and other media surrounding the lives of African American women. Covering a variety of specific women and their rhetoric within the context of a historical period, the book provides central themes and strategic and social concerns of African American women and their environment. It frames, in some, cases, the rhetoric of contemporary women in politics and other fields of prominence_including Condoleeza Rice and Barbara Lee, among others. Deborah F. Atwater explores how African women today who engage in speech in the public sphere come from a historical line of active women who have been outspoken in politics, education, business, and various social contexts; heretofore, these women have not been studied in a comprehensive manner. Specifically, how do these African American women discuss themselves, and_more importantly_how do they represent who they are in various communities? How do these women persuade their diverse audiences to value what they say and who they are?African American Women's Rhetoric will be an invaluable contribution to upper-division undergraduate and graduate courses in Rhetoric, African American Rhetoric, History, and Women's Studies.

From its early focus on documentary film and nation building to its more recent spotlight on contemporary culture and feature filmmaking, Moroccan cinema has undergone tremendous change since the country's independence in 1956. In What Moroccan Cinema? A Historical and Critical Study, 1956-2006, Sandra Gayle Carter chronicles the changes in Moroccan laws, institutions, ancillary influences, individuals active in the field, representative films, and film culture during this fifty-year span. Focusing on Moroccan history and institutions relative to the cinema industry such as television, newspaper criticism, and Berber videomaking, What Moroccan Cinema? is an intriguing study of the ways in which three historical periods shaped the Moroccan cinema industry. Carter provides an insightful and thorough treatment of the cinema institution, discussing exhibition and distribution, censorship, and cinema clubs and caravans. Carter grounds her analysis by exploring representative films of each respective era. The groundbreaking analysis offered in What Moroccan Cinema? will prove especially valuable to those in film and Middle Eastern studies.

In Ecocritical Explorations, Patrick D. Murphy explores environmental literature and environmental cultural issues through both theoretical and applied criticism. He engages with the concepts of referentiality, simplicity, the nation state, and virtual reality in the first section of the book, and then goes on to interrogate these issues in contemporary environmental literature, both American and international. He concludes his argument with a discussion of the larger frames of family dynamics and un-natural disasters, such as hurricanes and global warming, ending with a chapter on the integration of scholarship and pedagogy in the classroom, with reference to his own teaching experiences. Murphy's study provides a wide ranging discussion of contemporary literature and cultural phenomena through the lens of ecological literary criticism, giving attention to both theoretical issues and applied critiques. In particular, he looks at popular literary genres, such as mystery and science fiction, as well as actual disasters and disaster scenarios. Ecocritical Explorations in Literary and Cultural Studies is a timely contribution to ecological literary criticism and an insightful look into how we represent our relationship with the environment.

This study analyzes the United States policies regarding China during the administration of President George W. Bush. Chi Wang examines the relationship between the United States and China from its tense origins to its current stability and shows that the China policy of the U.S. is ultimately based on pragmatic national interest that eventually overcomes short-term ideological difficulties or mistakes by inexperienced American administrations. Briefly touching on the China-policy legacy of Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, Wang provides a review of significant developments in U.S.-China policy during President George W. Bushs first term in office. By following with an analysis of the varied agendas of Bushs foreign policy advisors during his second term, readers are able to trace the influence of advisors on the presidents China policy. Wang chronicles the reordering of U.S. security priorities after September 11, showing how this prompted Washington to embrace China in a measured partnership and has resulted in the short-term stabilization of U.S.-China relations.

Two Novellas by YAE comprises two works by Youssouf Amine Elalamy, also known as YAE, translated from French into English for the first time. A Moroccan in New York tells the tale of a young man seeking to make sense of two cultures which seemingly could not be more opposite, yet, are on many levels, so much the same. Autobiographical, YAE's story is the compilation of the musings of a young man on a Fulbright grant in New York in the early 1990s. In particular, the work reveals multiple misconceptions and misunderstandings Americans have about Moroccans and, other foreigners. Sea Drinkers is a compelling story that reveals the hurdles faced by Moroccan emigrants who illegally try to cross the slim stretch of water in small boats between Morocco and Spain. The hundreds who attempt the dangerous crossing every year are known as the harraga, which in Arabic means 'the burners.' The Moroccans who embark must literally 'burn' the bridges of their lives (their identity papers and passports), in order to clandestinely infiltrate into the countries across the water. These characters tell the tales of those who become stateless and who, more often than not, die untimely deaths in the waters between two continents (a distance of less than fifteen miles).

Modern Power and Free Speech explores the complicated relationship between the First Amendment and culturally disempowered and groups within the United States. By focusing on hate speech, Internet pornography, and political dissent, Chris Demaske analyzes First Amendment discourse and doctrine and questions the role of the concept of the autonomous individual. Demaske asserts that the presupposed equality of so-called 'autonomous individuals' does not exist and goes on to show how these specious claims to equality only serve to further silence those marginalized members of American society. Combining legal analysis, First Amendment theory, feminist theory, and political theory, Chris Demaske addresses the inadequacies of current free-speech doctrine and provides a possible solution to remedy them.

Matthew Stolick presents a detailed social and scientific exploration of the social history of cannabis, chemical make-up of the cannabis plant, and effects of cannabis use. By offering a truly interdisciplinary look at this highly political issue, he clearly articulates the reasoning behind the categorical rejection of legal cannabis use by the United States and other nations. Approaching the discussion of cannabis use from perspectives embedded within philosophy, political science, psychology, and neurobiology, Stolick provides an even-handed account of the scientific realities and social practicalities surrounding the use of cannabis for both medical and recreational purposes. Drawing on the moral thought of Aristotle, Kant, Mill, and Christianity, the book demonstrates the amoral nature of cannabis use. Grounding discussion of cannabis use in both moral theory and scientific fact, this book gives readers a thorough understanding of the social and political issues that continue to dictate cannabis law.