Spurred by modernization, global politics is being reconfigured along cultural lines. Peoples and countries with similar cultures are coming together. Peoples and countries with different cultures are coming apart. Alignments defined by ideology and superpower relations are giving way to alignments defined by culture and civilization. Political bound- aries are increasingly redrawn to coincide …
This revised edition examines the Soviet political system from the perspective of geography, history, cultural factors and social problems as well as from the traditional aspects of the Communist Party and government. Contents: 1. Geography 2. Russian history 3. Soviet history 4. The communist and other parties 5. Soviet governmet, etc.
Although dozens of books have been published about China's rise, most authors treat it as an economic, political or military bloc rather than seeing it as a powerhouse of ideas that could influence our world. They have little to say about China's intellectual debates, or the ideological competition they might pose to the European and American world-views.
The contents of this book: 1. Demography and Development 2. Education 3. Political System and Constitutions 4. Governance 5. Economy
The defining moment in the development of a modern China is shown to be 4 May 1919 at the Tian'anmen gate in Beijing, where a new generation rejected Confucianism and traditional Chinese culture, and protested violently against the Paris Peace Conference. Chinese cities at that time still bore the imprints of their ancient past, with narrow lanes and sacred temples, but they were starting to ch…
South Yemen has come to be seen as a potential Al-Qaeda stronghold and at the heart of a separatist movement threatening to rip apart southern Arabia. How has this country of forbidding mountains and arid deserts gone from British colony to communist state and then to 'terrorist base' in just half a century? In Yemen Divided, author and Middle East expert Noel Brehony tells for the first time t…
Rather unexpectedly, a new phenomenon called the Taliban was sprung on an unsuspecting world in late 1994. Even those who knew about it earlier, looked upon it as just another Islamic fundamentalist faction ridden Afghan politics. But the Taliban's captures of Kabul in September 1996 and their claim to governance in the war-torn country introduces a new complexion on this band of mostly young A…
Since 9/11, the war in Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq, the West has been fighting a 'War on Terror', through force and through the building of new societies in the region. In this clear and devastating account, with unparalleled access and intimate knowledge of the political players, Descent into Chaos chronicles our failure. Having reported from central Asia for a quarter of a century…
How did a nation founded as a homeland for South Asian Muslims, most of whom follow a tolerant nonthreatening form of Islam, become a haven for Al Qaeda and a rogues gallery of domestic jihadist and sectarian groups? In this groundbreaking history of Pakistans involvement with radical Islam, John R. Schmidt, the senior U.S political analyst in Pakistan in the years before 9/11, places the blam…
The late summer headlines of a landmark peace accord between the government of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization stunned and delighted citizens of conscience from every walk of life and from all over the world. Here, at last, were the first glimmerings of harmony for a region whose bloody, intractable conflicts between Arab and Jew had outlived hot and cold wars alike to become a…