peter lang peter lang mai 2013 (233 results)

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -Old New Media examines how the introduction of a new medium threatens those accustomed to the old media environment. Taking a media ecology perspective to examine the historical transitions from oral to literate, print, electronic and virtual media environments, the book includes theoretical chapters and case studies in five areas: media ecology; critical media theory; freedom of expression; Eastern thought; and the body and the media environment. The book argues against the «newness« of each new medium, which is often associated with unprecedented technological change, stating that the patterns of change identified with the most recent smartphone or computer are related to the patterns of change in human perception and social affairs that accompany the electronic media environment. It cautions against condemning the new medium with technological horror as the cause of all of our problems or celebrating it as the technological sublime that will cure all our social ills. If we are aware that media are extensions of the human, we can overcome the alienation and shock they cause, and be sensitive to the fluid boundaries between the human and the technological. The book ends by discussing how new media environments disrupt the balance in our lives and suggests strategies to help restore that balance.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 346 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -Using the Herman & Chomsky «Propaganda Model» that was introduced in 1988, Goss offers a rigorous and accessible portrait of contemporary news media. Following a current survey of media ownership and news worker routines, in a series of case studies, he shows how recent news discourse has developed an Us/Them narrative. Cases include The New York Times¿ accounts of the Bush administration and United Nations in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq; and analysis of the 2011 riots in the United Kingdom in a comparison between two British broadsheets (The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph). Further case studies demonstrate important, if partial, new media discontinuities with respect to «old» news media. The book¿s international reach and sustained attention to new media indicate that it is not simply high-fidelity repetition of Herman & Chomsky, but re-engineers the model¿s architecture for the twenty-first century.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 242 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -Recent instances of global crisis reporting on climate change and the financial crisis are early embryos of a new form of journalism that is increasingly needed in global times: global journalism.Instead of associating global journalism with national comparisons of media systems or defining it as an ethically «corrective» form of journalism, Peter Berglez sets out to develop the idea of global journalism as an epistemological updating of everyday mainstream news media. He theoretically understands and explains global journalism as a concrete practice, which can be applied in research, training, and reporting. He argues that the future of professional news journalism is about leaving behind the dominant national outlook for the sake of a more integrated (global) outlook on society.Emerging examples of global journalism are analyzed throughout the book alongside the historical background and the challenges it faces.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 178 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -This edited collection aims to examine religion across:¿ historical media forms using a broad concept of «media»¿ contemporary media with a focus on digital forms¿ religious traditions¿ disciplinary approachesThe focus here is on processes of mediation rather than «media» as such. Religion is seen as intertwined in forms of mediation that possibly transform religious practices.Analytical insights from the field of media studies are brought to bear on religion in ancient media, such as ritual or early manuscript culture. Insights from such analyses provide a strengthened awareness of continuities and discontinuities between the (post-) modern and earlier societies to the study of current media and religion.This book attempts to address issues of religion and media precisely through establishing a cross-disciplinary scholarly dialogue on the subject of «religion across media».Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 242 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -The increasing concentration of influence and affluence among the few provides the stimulus for this book, which maps how uncertainty is dispersed via the cumulative strategies of the conservative right in the United States.Since the 1970s, the conservative right has exerted exceptional force to shape public response and governmental policy in a manner favorable to neoliberal logic and practice. The right¿s strategies, termed structuring mechanisms, reliably reconfigure practical knowledge and a skein of human interactions and material conditions across discourses and institutions. This book illustrates these mechanisms through four cases: PC discourse; a cultural politic of economic resentment; and the two parallel struggles over the authority to define reality pivoting around academic freedom and global warming. Together, these mechanisms collude to reshape the boundaries of public life in the form of private interests.Marlia Banning proposes a critical methodology that the book employs, a rhetoric of the everyday, to help citizens and critics map conservative and neoliberal efforts to reshape the contours of public life, and to reinvigorate the concept and reality of the public good. An everyday rhetoric aims to trace the amorphous and shifting processes through which hegemony is accomplished and to imagine new ways of engaging public life.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 216 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -This book traces the experiences of one cohort of Teach For America (TFA) corps members as they reconcile their hopes for their students with the reality of teaching in a district that favors compliance over compassion. Drawing on ethnographic and practitioner inquiry methods, Crawford-Garrett highlights the voices of the teachers as they wrestle with urban poverty, question bureaucratic mandates, resist dehumanizing reform initiatives, and experiment with critical pedagogy. The book examines how their socialization into the profession positions them as passive recipients of knowledge and engenders deficit ideologies of students, families, and communities. Ultimately, this book attends to the role of the teacher educator in introducing multiple educational lenses to the corps members and asserts that the university methods course can encourage new teachers to (1) critically engage with the institutional settings which shape their experiences, (2) question and problematize deficit ideologies, and (3) adopt and enact identities as knowledgeable practitioners.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 148 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -Urban public space continues to be the focus of debate regarding its conceptualization and how it is designed, (re)produced and managed. Nowadays public spaces are facing new challenges conceptually and practically. This book focuses on two of them: mobility and aestheticization. Mobility and flows are considered to be key characteristics of the post-modern era. While for some scholars it means the «end of place», others are trying to re-conceptualize it by bringing together notions of space, place, mobility and identity. Still surprisingly few authors address the concept of public space in this respect. Principles of aesthetic and diverse forms of aestheticization seem to have affected urban space and culture throughout Modernity, forming a dimension where power and conflict around urban space are performed. In this book nine authors with social science and arts backgrounds from six countries discuss how these processes shape the life of modern cities, and where the social sciences should move for a better understanding of them. 148 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -This book won the 2014 Applied Communication Division Award for Outstanding Edited BookThere is a growing interest in studying nonprofit organizations and volunteers as an alternative to studying employees in for-profit businesses and government agencies. This is driven in part by the recognition that volunteers make important contributions to society and the economy. This book is the first edited volume written primarily by communication scholars to focus on volunteers. It explores the experience of being a volunteer and managing volunteers through a focus on empirical examination of communication in volunteering. The contributors explore volunteers broadly and are divided into five sections which cover becoming a volunteer; learning about self as a volunteer; dark sides of volunteering; organizationally supported volunteering; and voice and dissent. The final chapter suggests areas of future research and application of the book.An important focus of the book is its data-based, empirical studies. Although each chapter includes applications, those recommendations are based on systematic studies of volunteers rather than primarily on anecdotal evidence or previous literature. Furthermore, each chapter includes a brief field experience narrative written by a volunteer, as well as addressing a broader conceptual or theoretical issue of organizational studies. In this way the book provides more than just case studies of volunteers, but also addresses general organizational issues.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 450 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -Financing constraints have been central to the political and economic debate about renewable energy development. This book addresses four related corporate finance questions. The first chapter reviews theoretical considerations and empirical evidence on so-called funding gaps. Chapters two and three analyze the genuine structures of equity and convertible debt offerings in the industry. The final part investigates to what extent business combinations are perceived as a valuable means to company growth. The analysis contains a variety of empirical findings that are novel to existing emerging industry and corporate finance research. It shows that many investors perceive the level of asymmetric information and regulatory risk, as well as the industry¿s structure, to be detrimental to renewable energy finance. 144 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -The publication presents Maritain¿s concept of intellectual intuition in a wide philosophical and historical context and examines its role in the construction of metaphysics. The question to be answered is largely that of whether ¿ and in what measure ¿ intellectual intuition, in Maritain¿s view, plays a role in the discovery of an understanding of the object of metaphysics, namely the concept of being, as well as the transcendent properties of being, and in the admission of the first principles of being. In the book one can find also analyses of various kinds of intuition as well as the role played by intuition in different phases of human cognition. The book addresses metaphysics in the aspect of its development and methodology, its value is thus not only historical but also philosophical. 200 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -Der Sammelband Fremdsprachen in der Perspektive lebenslangen Lernens bietet einen breit gefächerten Einblick in die Thematik der neuen Reihe Fremdsprachen lebenslang lernen. Es werden Themen wie die Faktoren Alter und Motivation, Hypothesen Sensibler Phasen, Autonomes Lernen, Mehrsprachigkeit, das Sprachenportfolio, die Verwendung von Chunks beim Spracherwerb und Deutsch als Zweitsprache im Kindes- und Erwachsenenalter aus der übergreifenden Sicht lebenslangen Lernens behandelt. Neben empirischen und theoretischen Arbeiten werden auch Berichte aus der Praxis vorgestellt. 232 pp. Englisch, Deutsch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -This study addresses the issue of household food consumption, its relation to gender and to food policy in Indonesia. Using econometric analyses of the Indonesian Family Life Survey, the study reveals that food expenditure patterns, particularly those of the poor households, warrant food policy attention. The poor households spent more on alcohol and tobacco goods when their income increased. The impact evaluation of the «Rice for the Poor» program reveals that the program enabled beneficiaries to increase expenditures on nutrient-rich, animal source foods; however, unintended program impacts also exist. The analysis of gender roles indicates that resource distribution and power relations within households are important considerations in the development of food policy. 206 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -There can be no doubt about the high relevance of public media for the image we have of religion in general and certain religions in particular. Yet, it seems that the topic has long been neglected in academic research and discourse. This volume brings together multi-disciplinary perspectives, presented by internationally reputed experts. They offer illuminating analyses on the various interrelations between media and religions in the fields of human rights, anti-Islamism and anti-Semitism, on religions¿ potential to foster peace and to contribute to media ethics and media education in pluralistic societies. The book also provides helpful orientation and concrete suggestions for journalistic and educational practice, academic research, political and social involvement. 162 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -The present publication collects the contributions of the colloquium «How to Become a Lawyer in Europe», which took place on June 4, 2010 in Andorra la Vella ¿ within the frame-work of the 15th annual meeting of the representatives of the Network of European Universities in Legal Studies.We gathered articles concerning not only many European countries but also the United States and a special contribution is made to the system in California (USA). Each part is a unique guide through internal regulations leading to different legal professions. The articles present the academic education system in the field of law and also special requirements and professional exams giving the right/permission to perform legal professions. The reader will see the differences and similarities especially in the European systems of the presented countries.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 178 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -Again firmly rooted in Leonard Talmy¿s Cognitive Semantics, this new study moves beyond the analysis of single schematic systems in language contributing to the linguistic task of conceptual integration. It investigates for the first time effects of linking up Force Dynamics, a conceptual category generalizing over the traditional notion of the causative, and the Attention system of language, as detailed in Talmy¿s most recent extended draft version. To accommodate the conceptual and formal complexities involved at the interface of Attention, Force Dynamics, and Cognitive State and to allow for an appropriate degree of fine-grainedness the analytical framework affords, the exposition has been constrained to the golf scenario, where forces are at work in the physical and sociodynamic domains. 294 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -This book traces the learning experiences of the jazz community in Bristol, UK from 1945 to 2012. Grounded in a methodology of participant observation and case studies, it documents changes in the economic, cultural and educational circumstances faced by the players. In their own words, the musicians recall the influences that initiated and developed their musicianship.Drawing on first-person accounts, the study traces the historical development of jazz music and musicians in Bristol. In the post-war years, players began to develop significant stylistic aspects in the jazz lexicon. Drawing on media sources and interaction in performance, players garnered a host of performing skills whilst suffering dwindling audiences and declining venues. Reforms in English music education in the 1980s offered formal opportunities to study jazz in the city¿s schools, drawing minimal attention from institutions. Practical learning and playing opportunities offered by the Local Authority music service sustained a modest membership over the years. Post millennium, local schools, with one or two exceptions, showed little interest in jazz education. Nevertheless, maintaining its traditional stance, Bristol¿s jazz community continues to exhort top quality jazz performances including compositions that match national and international standards.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 260 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -Since the Reformation, Catholics in Britain have been faced with an outsider status that has often given rise to conflict between their British national and Catholic religious identities. This study examines the ways in which this problematic history is addressed by three twentieth-century British authors: David Jones, Evelyn Waugh and Muriel Spark. Focusing on works by these writers, in which issues of national and religious identity are particularly prominent, the author argues that they share a reconciliatory approach to the matter of British and Catholic identity, an approach derived from the Catholic tradition and inspired by ideas such as those of Newman. This allows the writers to see ostensibly conflicting identities in the light of their contribution towards ultimate harmony in the life of the individual or community. The theory of reconciliation espoused by Jones, Waugh and Spark is contrasted with the views expressed by G. K. Chesterton and Graham Greene, who also write from a British and Catholic perspective, but arrive at very different conclusions.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 166 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -French film design throughout the 1930s was not just descriptive, but also expressive: sets were not merely part of the background, but were vital components of a film¿s overall atmosphere, impact and critical afterlife. This was a period when sets were ¿ripped open¿, as painted backdrops were replaced by three-dimensional constructions to ensure greater proximity to reality. Accomplished set designers such as Alexandre Trauner, Jacques Krauss and Eugène Lourié crafted a series of designs both realist and expressionistic that brought out the underlying themes of a film¿s narrative and helped create an exportable vision of ¿Frenchness¿ that influenced other European and American film design practices.This book details the elaborate paraphrasing tendencies of French film design in the 1930s. The author explores the crucial role of the set designer in the film¿s evolutionary process and charts how the rapid development of studio practices enabled designers to become progressively more ambitious. The book examines key films such as Quatorze juillet (1932), Un Carnet de bal (1937), La Grande illusion (1937) and Le Jour se lève (1939) to demonstrate how set design works at establishing time and place, generating audience familiarity and recognition and underpinning each film¿s visual style. 268 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -This edited volume examines aspects of teaching and learning in situations where community or ethnic division may impact negatively on classroom experience and behaviour in tertiary education. The book considers cases from four locations where marked divisions in the wider society exert a continuing influence on the student body: Northern Ireland, England, France and the United States of America. All of these countries share certain underlying principles of governance and freedom as well as historical interconnections, but have within them particular groups characterized by various levels of separation and distrust. The sociohistorical context relevant to each case is outlined, followed by a discussion of the attitudes, opinions and reactions of the learners concerned. The volume concludes with a consideration of pedagogical approaches that may help to bridge difference and foster a more positive atmosphere. Although this study focuses on particular community environments, the techniques highlighted by contributors may be useful in any classroom setting where a heterogeneous mix of individuals has the potential to lead to dissension and conflict.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 264 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -Gazing in Useless Wonder focuses on utopias as self-referential texts that literally have to constitute themselves as imaginary or intentional entities before they can work as vehicles for socio-political ideas. Foregrounding the construction of utopian fictions defines both the perspective and the differentiation of the analytically significant elements, so that the traditionally dominant topics such as the nature and origins of the ideologies behind the construction of the ideal model are taken into account only insofar as they contribute to the aesthetic effect of the utopian construct as a whole. The organising principle of the early modern utopia involves two different modes of presentation: the narrative frame and the ekphrastic description of the ideal state, each possessing an aesthetic function realised according to different principles, with the ideal image constructed in accordance with the dominant aesthetic norms of the period pertaining to the visual arts, such as harmony, symmetry, alleged perfection, and timelessness. Despite variations, especially in the thematic-ideological domain, the dominant genre pattern that emerged as a result of the simplification of the complex semantics of Thomas More¿s Utopia in the early modern period is taken here as forming a single synchrony in the history of utopian fiction-making.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 370 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -This study explores the argument that postcolonial Africa has been the setting for competing external language spread policies (LSPs) by ex-colonial European countries at the turn of the 21 Century. It focuses on the external LSPs developed by the governments of Portugal, Brazil, United Kingdom, France and Germany towards Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau from the 1990s to the present. The study offers a perspective on the web of relationships involving European ex-colonial powers and the African postcolonial countries of Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique. The author seeks to examine the development of external (European) LSPs and the construction of politico-linguistic blocs in a complex context whilst taking into account the colonial heritage and its lingering dependencies, the construction and maintenance of nationhood and the increasing globalisation of the world. 360 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -Judaism and Emotion breaks with stereotypes that, until recently, branded Judaism as a rigid religion of laws and prohibitions. Instead, authors from different fields of research discuss the subject of Judaism and emotion from various scholarly perspectives; they present an understanding of Judaism that does not exclude spirituality and emotions from Jewish thought. In doing so, the contributions account for the relation between the representation of emotion and the actual emotions that living and breathing human beings feel in their everyday lives. While scholars of rabbinic studies and theology take a historical-critical and socio-historical approach to the subject, musicologists and scholars of religious studies focus on the overall research question of how the literary representations of emotion in Judaism are related to ritual and musical performances within Jewish worship. They describe in a more holistic fashion how Judaism serves to integrate various aspects of social life. In doing so, they examine the dynamic interrelationship between Judaism, cognition, and culture. 190 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -Oikos ¿ Domus ¿ Household: The Many Lives of a Common Word describes historic episodes in the lives of these words, from the Greek oikos and Roman domus to our current family and home. The episodes highlight their function as controlling metaphors used very differently from culture to culture, but often as ways to control basic issues, like the context in which women become pregnant and the control of land and its transmission to heirs. This book also describes how these words and their current equivalents, home and family, are used as metaphors to illustrate how people who count are supposed to live and also to justify disinterest in people who do not count.One of the most important functions of the household is providing a dependable context in which pregnancy can be controlled. It describes how another key interest, continuing the male line, is embodied. Currently family is a politically useful, normative fiction. Family and home have little concrete meaning other than as metaphors for how people are supposed to live. There is no consistent meaning for these words from one era and one culture to another.Each episode is described on its own trying to avoid «history by hindsight.» There are no attempts to trace causes from one time or event to another, but rather an attempt, to the limited extent possible, to describe episodes seen within their own contexts and mindsets. However, the fact that women can now have control over their own pregnancy is seen as a radical change in the role and definition of family and household.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 206 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -I, Hernán Cortés: The (Second) Trial of Residency is a literary analysis of the most important documents in the Hernán Cortés trial of residency (juicio de residencia) using some proposed literary tools created for that purpose and the original documents in the Archivo General de Indias in Seville as well as a great variety of books on Hernán Cortés. Francisco Manzo-Robledo reveals how Hernán Cortés re-creates himself, from being the first illegal immigrant in the continent to becoming, for a short time, the highest authority in New Spain before falling into a legal limbo in the Council of Indies. This book is useful in any course dealing with Spanish colonial history or literature. 240 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -C. S. Lewis, fantasy novelist, literary scholar, and Christian apologist, is one of the most original and well-known literary figures of the twentieth century. As one who stood at the crossroads of Edwardian and modern thinking, he is often read as a sexist or even misogynistic man of his time, but this fresh rereading assesses Lewis as a prescient thinker who transformed typical Western gender paradigms. The Gender Dance: Ironic Subversion in C. S. Lewis¿s Cosmic Trilogy, the second volume in a triad, proposes that Lewis¿s highly nuanced metaphorical view of gender relations has been misunderstood precisely because it challenges Western chauvinist assumptions on sex and gender. Instead of perpetuating sexism, Lewis subverts the culturally inherited chauvinism of «masculine» classical heroism with the biblically inspired vision of a surprisingly «feminine» spiritual heroism. His view that we are all «feminine» in relation to the «masculine» God ¿ a theological feminism which crosses gender lines ¿ means that qualities we tend to gender as feminine, such as humility, are the qualities essential to being fully human. The study¿s theoretical framework is Lewis¿s own, grounded in his view of biblical thinking, and as he was informed by writers such as Milton, Wordsworth, and George MacDonald, and in terms of the uniquely progressive implications for twentieth-first-century cultural studies. This highly insightful and entertaining study of theological feminism in Lewis¿s Cosmic Trilogy will be compelling for anyone interested in fantasy literature, Inklings scholarship, gender discourse, ethical and spiritual discourse, literature and theology, and cultural studies in general.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 244 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -In Estonia, many of the educational transitions that have taken place in developed world over decades have been condensed in just less than two decades. This book describes these transitions and addresses the current state of tertiary education from the point of views of both learners and teachers. It presents an overview of the strategy documents that steer Estonian higher education policy. The study has focused on various aspects of the learning process and learning environment. Various aspects of the teaching process were investigated from the point of view of teachers. The book has addressed the transition from higher education to the labour market. It benefits from contributions from a range of scientific disciplines, including educational sociology, educational sciences, psychology and econometrics. 446 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -Isaiah Shembe¿s Prophetic Uhlanga: The Worldview of the Nazareth Baptist Church in Colonial South Africa examines the worldview generated and sustained by the Zulu Zionist prophet Isaiah Shembe and his congregation, the Nazareth Baptist Church, during South Africäs colonial era. The book contends that the worldview embraced by Shembe and his congregants was prophetically defined and reified. This argument challenges nationalist and postcolonialist discourses about colonized populations that have viewed empire and its consequences as the prime determinants of colonized individuals¿ lives. Through a close reading of the church¿s records, Joel E. Tishken demonstrates that at the heart of the narrative Shembe and church members told of themselves was a sincere and faithful conviction that Shembe was God¿s anointed prophet and his followers God¿s new chosen people. Within their understanding of colonial South Africa, British imperialism and white supremacy were part of God¿s cosmic vision to provide atonement and salvation for Africans ¿ plans they believed God was prophetically communicating to Shembe. The historical narrative, theology, and identity of Shembe and his parishioners revolved around this prophetically prescribed explanation for the conditions of colonial Africa. Thus, Tishken argues that colonized communities interpreted their worlds in much more creative and complex ways than scholars have recognized. This book is applicable to courses on imperialism, South Africa, African religions, and the history of Christianity.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 242 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -The volume consists of reprints of papers originally published between 1967 and 2009, divided into two parts, only apparently devoted to two different areas of linguistics but in fact constituting a coherent whole. The «cognitive» part is an inevitable consequence of the «contrastive» part. In the first part such terms as «congruence», «equivalence» and «tertium comparationis», as well as fundamental principles of classical, structural contrastive studies are defined and implemented in actual contrastive analyses. In addition, the first outlines of contrastive generative grammar with its limitations inherent in all generative grammars are presented. The second part capitalizes on this shortcoming and contains articles which lay foundations of cognitively based contrastive studies. It also introduces axiological semantics as being crucially important in analysing metaphors, discourse and metalanguage, as well as in contrastive studies and translation. 440 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -This volume allows a new generation of scholars, from the Balkans and beyond, to shed light on some of the struggles the region faces. The combination of post-communist and post-conflict transition, together with the current economic and financial crisis, pose difficult challenges for the Western Balkans.What is the state of democracy in the region Are the countries of the Western Balkans stuck somewhere between authoritarianism and genuine democracy What are the remaining obstacles to state building What effect has the crisis had on young people in the Western Balkans These are some of the questions the authors of this volume seek to answer. The studies look at different countries and combine methods from various disciplines ranging from political science, history, economics and law to sociology, anthropology and cultural studies. 330 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -Rome and Judea in Transition is the first English-language book to study exclusively the first century and a half of Roman-Judean political relations (164¿37 B.C.). It presents a comprehensive reassessment of the Late Republic's involvement in the Levant, the motives of Hasmonean diplomacy, and the development of the Jewish high priesthood. Therefore, it is of interest to classicists, ancient historians, biblical scholars, and students of Judaica alike. Previous studies have often mischaracterized this period as a consistent unfolding of Rome¿s hegemonic will at Jewish expense. By contrast, this book argues that the Republic harbored no imperial designs on Judea prior to Pompey¿s opportunistic intervention in 63 B.C., and that Rome¿s subsequent intermittent meddling in the region¿s governance did not significantly alter the dynamics of the Hasmonean state. Only with the Parthian invasion of Syria in 40 B.C. ¿ and because of it ¿ did the Republic unilaterally reshape Judean politics by its elevation of Herod the Great as «King of the Jews.» Judeäs alliance with Rome began in the context of Judas Maccabeus¿ revolt against Seleucid rule. Scholars have therefore understandably assumed that the primary hope of Judas¿ successors was that Roman recognition would secure and extend Judean sovereignty. This book argues that the main motive for Hasmonean diplomacy was domestic: to advertise the legitimacy of the Maccabees against their Jewish rivals. For this reason, the documentary record of relations with the Republic is of great value for studying the ideology and institutional growth of high priestly power during this period. 524 pp. Englisch.