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A little-known lecture by Lévi-Strauss is the inspiration for this work. In this lecture, he intuitively suggested that in medieval Europe there once existed a set of myths, centred on the grail, which are structurally the opposite of the goatsucker myths that he famously analyzed in his mythologiques series. This work uses Lévi-Strauss' inspirational lecture as a launchpad for an exploration of a group of related medieval Welsh myths, two of which have been briefly considered previously by Lévi-Strauss himself. The root of the methodological approach this book employs throughout is the Structuralism of Claude Lévi-Strauss; however, it has been modified to incorporate the suggestions of later neo-Structuralists. This analysis tool is applied to a group of myths, which have become conveniently--if somewhat erroneously--known as the Mabinogion. The name Mabinogion appears as part of a colophon at the end of one of the myth of Pwyll and it was later adopted first by Pugh (1835), and then by Lady Charlotte Guest (1838) as a title for their now famous translations of Welsh mythology. Consequently, the title has stuck to describe the material that is contained within their translations and, while it is a somewhat inaccurate way to describe the myths, it has the virtues of being both a succinct and widely recognised signifier. The term has come to signify eight myths, or perhaps more accurately eight groups of myths, which are all present in the late fourteenth-century manuscript Llyfr Coch Hergest (The Red Book of Hergest), and all but one of which can be found in the slightly earlier Llyfr Gwyn Rhydderch (The White Book of Rhydderch). As such, the Mabinogion is the key collection of medieval Welsh mythology and an important source for early Arthurian material. Although Structuralism and the Mabinogion have attracted a good deal of attention from the academic world, there has been never been a sustained attempt to follow Levi-Strauss' intuitive insights with a methodical Structuralist analysis of this material. In the year of Lévi-Strauss' centenary celebrations, this work is the first sustained attempt to follow his intuitive suggestions about several Mabinogion myths with a detailed Structuralist analysis of the Mabinogion. This work is therefore a unique anthropological presentation and analysis of the Mabinogion, which argues for a radical, new interpretation of these myths in light of the existence of a central system of interlocking symbols that has the Grail at its heart. Through the analysis, the book reveals a logical organizational principle that underlies a body of material that has previously been viewed as disparate and confusing. This underlying structure is demonstrated to be, as Lévi-Strauss suggested it may, the opposite of that which Lévi-Strauss himself uncovered in the Americas. The revelation of this new form of underlying structure leads to a rethinking of some important aspects of Structuralism, including the Canonical formula, at the same time as acting as a tribute to the farsightedness of Lévi-Strauss. This book makes important contributions to the fields of Arthurian studies, anthropology, Celtic studies, cultural studies, medieval studies, mythology and religious studies.

The Challenge of Change in Africa's Higher Education in the 21st Century brings the reader face to face with the mega challenges and key opportunities in Africa's higher education sector in the twenty-first century. Mwenda and Muuka are two of Africa's emergent scholars, with 20 published books and over 100 articles published in peer-reviewed journals between them as of 2008. Authors who are diverse in their knowledge and experience of the complexities of education in Africa join Mwenda and Muuka in this treatise, which traverses the higher education milieu on the continent from Cape Town in South Africa to Lagos in Nigeria. Stated simply, those who have long called for a new generation of scholars on education in Africa will find a healthy and refreshing answer in The Challenge of Change in Africa's Higher Education in the 21st Century. The motivation for this book was the editors' recognition of gaps in the current understanding of higher education in Africa. The book has clear advantages and defining features over other books on higher education on the continent in the following respects. The Challenge of Change in Africa's Higher Education in the 21st Century is a book written from and with twenty-first century realities, making it a significant addition to the continuing and urgent search for solutions to the continent's development dilemma. It is therefore critical reading and research material for many stakeholders including students, professors, universities, and research libraries on the one hand and higher education ministries in Africa on the other. The role of international development agencies and non-governmental organizations towards enhancement of higher education in Africa cannot be overemphasized.

Using a sociological, historical, and psychological approach, this work offers a multidisciplinary perspective and fills the research gap about the Harlem community and urban black life during the Jazz Age and the Great Depression. This book proposes that Harlem was an intricate domain of competing ideologies, needs, and interests wherein there were many cross-cutting forms of power and exclusion. Such competition placed the community at the intersection of complicated power relations in which local, citywide and nationwide power, policies, and commitments overlapped. Changing economic circumstances that characterized the interwar period combined with the shifting municipal politics including community reliance on government support and the political strength of medical societies that left Harlem residents politically and economically circumscribed in their efforts to build and fortify institutions focused on maintaining community wellness. In this larger circumscription, citywide, statewide, and nationwide politics made health for black people a politicized affair during the early twentieth century. This work further reveals that in conjunction with the political economy of race, health was a major issue of debate that residents of Harlem could enter into despite systematic efforts by politicians and medical professionals to simultaneously limit residents' political agency and regulate health services and institutions in New York City. Such fissures and cracks within the political structure allowed for community engagement and empowerment. This study provides for a more comprehensive understanding of the connections among black morbidity, mortality, health-care delivery, and black political engagement in Harlem, New York, and aims to expand the historical understanding of race and politics, as well as the lived experiences of black people in New York City in the early twentieth century. As a scholarly work in the field of African American urban history, Building a Healthy Black Harlem is accessible to upper-division undergraduate and graduate students in courses in post-1865 United States history, African American history, and urban history. It also possesses the insight and rigor for specialists in the field of New York City history and African American urban history.

About the series: Technology builders, entrepreneurs, consultants, academicians, and futurists from around the world share their wisdom in The Future of the Internet surveys conducted by the Pew Internet &American Life Project and Elon University. The series of surveys garners smart, detailed assessments of multilayered issues from a variety of voices, ranging from the scientists and engineers who created the first Internet architecture a decade ago to social commentators to technology leaders in corporations, media, government, and higher education. Among the respondents are people affiliated with many of the world s top organizations, including IBM, AOL, Microsoft, Intel, ICANN, the Internet Society, Google, W3C, Internet2, and Oracle; Harvard, MIT, and Yale; and the Federal Communications Commission, FBI, U.S. Census Bureau, Social Security Administration, and U.S. Department of State. They provide significant and telling responses to questions about the future of government, education, media, entertainment, commerce, and more. They foresee continuing conflicts over control of networked communications and the content produced and shared online. Ubiquity, Mobility, Security: The Future of the Internet, Volume 3: Based on the third canvassing of Internet specialists and analysts by the Pew Internet &American Life Project, this volume showcases the responses of technology stakeholders and critics who were asked to assess scenarios about the future social, political, and economic impact of the Internet. Some 578 leading Internet activists, builders, and commentators responded in this survey to scenarios about the effect of the Internet on social, political, and economic life in the year 2020. An additional 618 stakeholders also participated in the study, for a total of 1,196 participants who shared their views. The insights garnered in the study included predictions made on the role and importance of mobile devices, the transparency of people and organizations, talk and touch user interfaces with the Internet, the challenges of sharing content while trying to perfect intellectual property law and copyright protection, divisions between work and personal time given the blurring of physical and virtual reality, and the next-generation engineering of the network to improve the current Internet structure.

Inquiry pedagogy was promoted heavily by John Dewey in the early 1900s as he described how students should not only learn about science, but also participate in problem-solving and scientific practices as part of their education. Sixty years later, the National Science Education Standards (NSES) were published (National Research Council, 1996) echoing Dewey s recommendations for educators to teach science less didactically and to include the development of critical thinking in a variety of ways including scientific inquiry. The NSES (pg. 31) stated, Inquiry into authentic questions generated from student experiences is the central strategy for teaching science. Despite emphasis placed upon inquiry teaching practices in the ebb and flow of conversations over the last century, science educators still struggle to move current and future educators to a place where inquiry pedagogy is a regular part of what happens as part of science learning in the classroom. This is a multifaceted issue facing us with factors inhibiting inquiry teaching practices including the lack of prior experiences learning through inquiry, the pressures of high-stakes standardized tests that seemingly do not support inquiry learning, and other school culture issues that exist. Most science majors who are inspired to become teachers of children learning science have experienced very didactic or traditional forms of learning throughout their educational careers. These science majors, a relatively small group of U.S. students, have experienced a type of success in learning about science that is not necessarily paralleled by their peers who were not successful in science classes. This dilemma poses a problem for science educators as we work to include science for all Americans making science accessible to all students -- not only the few who later enter science careers. These same science majors, some of who become preservice science teachers, are often resistant to new types of teaching as they have felt personal success in learning science traditionally through textbook reading and verification labs and are hesitant to teach in any other way than how they were taught. This book examines secondary science preservice teachers as they reflect upon their teaching practices, their educational philosophies, and their student teaching experiences as they attempt to teach using inquiry pedagogy. Little research literature exists that follows preservice teachers through their development in a science education program as they are challenged in learning how to teach using inquiry pedagogy. This book highlights the successes and struggles as told by preservice teachers through their writing and interviews. Additionally, as part of their student teaching, the preservice teachers were asked to submit a video showing evidence of inquiry pedagogy in their classrooms. The lesson plans and video data were analyzed to determine whether or not the preservice teachers were indeed attempting to teach science content through inquiry. The lessons learned include the importance of the influential teacher-mentor, as well as the need for science educators to provide repeated, sustained, and guided inquiry experiences for preservice science teachers. Inquiry Pedagogy and the Preservice Science Teacher is an important book for those who are studying and researching about inquiry pedagogy in science education.

Yemen is an arid and mountainous country in the southern corner of the Arabian Peninsula. Yemen is mostly rural, with over half the population below age 15, and more than one-fifth of its 22 million people are malnourished. One of the poorest Arab countries, Yemen's birth and population growth rates are also among the world's highest. With an annual growth rate of 3.4 %, the population could double by 2030. The country's current fertility rate is 6.2. This reflects a high birthrate, 39.2 per 1,000 population, and a declining mortality rate, 11 per 1,000 population. Yemen's infant mortality rate, however, still ranks as one of the highest in the world. This includes a mortality rate of 102 per 1,000 live births for children under 5 years old in 2003. From the late 1980s through the late 1990s, Yemen experienced a high maternal mortality ratio of 351 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. Maternal deaths account for about 42% of all deaths among Yemeni women between the ages of fifteen and forty-nine. Since the unification of Yemen in 1990, several structural reforms and policy changes have been introduced to control its population growth. Although the government recognizes population growth as a major challenge to development, little progress has been made in implementing population policy and societal consensus remains elusive. Thus, the structural context of reproduction in Yemen exposes women to a large number of risks. The disadvantages of poverty and poor health among women are passed on from one generation to the next. Even during the course of reproduction, poor women face several threats to their physical and mental well being. While these disadvantages have been well chronicled in most societies, not much is known about reproductive health in many poor Arab countries. But for a few rich Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, the state of reproductive health among women in poor Arab states has been hardly investigated. Although, more recently, several studies have attempted to document poor reproductive health conditions in this part of the world, a few countries go unnoticed mostly due to the lack of access to national level data. The Republic of Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the Middle East, has for several reasons failed to draw the attention of social science researchers. The authors began a number of studies to learn more about Yemeni women's reproductive health under the conditions of dire social and economic disadvantages caused by extreme poverty. This book is a compilation of the authors' studies on Yemen and attempts to draw conclusions which would not have been possible with a single study. The book examines the reproductive health of women in Yemen. Women's reproductive health has emerged as an area of concern among development agencies and international agencies such as the United Nations. However, theoretical models for examining reproductive health appear to lag behind the massive amount of reproductive health rhetoric in the recent years. Even though there is no uniform definition of reproductive health, we characterize reproductive health by focusing on the three components of fertility: intercourse, conception and gestation. This method directs attention to the context of reproduction in developing countries. In addition, the book reveals the previously underappreciated role of abortion in contributing to the first stages of fertility decline. The study finds that higher economic levels and improved social conditions for women do help bring about real improvements in many dimensions of reproductive health. Women's Reproductive Health in Yemen is an important book for scholars in demography and population health.

A most remarkable change took place in the first half of the twentieth century in China--women journalists became powerful professionals who championed feminist interests, discussed national politics, and commented on current social events by editing independent periodicals. The rise of modern journalism in China provided literate women with a powerful institution that allowed them articulate women's presence in the public space. In editing women's periodicals, women writers transformed themselves from traditional literary women (cainü) to professional women journalists (nübaoren) in the period of 1898-1937 when journalism became increasingly independent of and resistant to state control. The women's media writings in the early decades of the twentieth century not only reveal the historical diversity and complexity of feminist issues in China but also casts light upon important feminist topics that have survived the Nationalist, Communist, and economic reform eras. Today, public debate on women's issues in Mainland China and Taiwan is shaped by past feminist discourse and uses a vocabulary and language familiar to readers of an earlier era. This book examines how women journalists constructed Chinese feminism and debated patriarchy and women's roles in the newly created public space of print media during the period of 1898-1937. It studies Chinese women's public writings in periodicals edited and staffed by women journalists in four major urban centers-Shanghai, Tokyo, Beijing, and Tianjin at a time when urban society underwent major transformation and experienced drastic political, social, and cultural changes. The revolution that overthrew the imperial government in 1911; an attack on patriarchy by cultural radicals in 1915-1919; and the advocacy of nationalism, liberalism, socialism, and feminism by intellectuals who received a Western-style education all worked together to undermine the Confucian notions of gender hierarchy, spatial separation of the sexes, and female domesticity among the well-educated urban classes. Doors of political participation, public activism, and production cracked open for courageous women who ventured into urban public spaces. From 1898 to 1937, urban women of the upper, middle, and working classes became increasingly visible at modern schools, as well as in career and production fields, political activism, and women's movements. At the same time, women edited independent periodicals and championed women's rights. Women's periodicals provided a site where writers negotiated with nationalism, patriarchy, and party lines to define and defend women's interests. These early feminist writings captured how activists perceived themselves and responded to the social and political changes around them. This book takes a historical approach in its examination and uses gender as an analytical category to study the significance of women's press writings in the years of nation building. Treating women journalists as agents of change and using their media writings as primary sources, this book explores what mattered to women writers at different historical junctures, as well as how they articulated values and meaning in a changing society and guided social changes in the direction they desired. It delineates the transformation of women journalists from political-minded Confucian gentry women to professional journalists, and of women's periodicals from representing women journalists' views to addressing the concerns and needs of the majority of women. It analyzes how the concepts of "feminism" and "nationalism" were embodied with different--even contesting--meanings at given historical junctures, and how women journalists managed to advance various feminist agendas by tapping on the various meanings of nationalism. This is an important book for collections in Asian studies, journalism history, and women's studies.

In 21st-century America, one of the goals of the education is to successfully prepare students for their meaningful, sustained, and robust participation in a democratic society. In the context of K 12 science education, this means educating students so that they develop into future adult citizen capable of considering and deciding on conflicting issues and policies influenced by science, technology, and sustainability issues. The challenge for science education is thus to find successful ways to integrate content, pedagogy, and citizenship education. It is important to examine curricular approaches in science classrooms since most of the science education a student receives take place in the context of a formal school science curriculum. Most curricular materials in science education allow students to engage in what is commonly referred to as an inform, verify, practice (IVF) format. Using this format, students gain access to information either through a lecture or a text, attempt to verify the presented information through lab activities, and may practice the mastered information with questions and/or problems. These curricular approaches do not explicitly integrate citizenship education to facilitate students understandings of issues and policies shaped by science, technology, and sustainability issues. In order to bridge this gap, curricula guided by sociocultural perspectives may be a possible answer. Existing literature integrating sociocultural perspectives in the school science curriculum include context-based science, connected science, contextualized science, and/or socioscientific issues (SSI). These curricular approaches are being examined to document their effectiveness by linking social dilemmas with conceptual or technological links to science. This study integrates science education reform documents, blends sociocultural theoretical frameworks, and draws upon empirical data to contribute to the use of sociocultural theory in science education in an urban middle school setting. Current findings indicate that urban children are not experiencing much success when it comes to school science. Traditional paradigms for science education research focus on the learning of science using IVF format with little regard for the sociocultural context. In this book, the author posits that the exploration of urban students engagement with school science using sociocultural perspectives may uncover factors that influence students learning and success in the science classrooms. The author further proposes that using curricula framed around sociocultural perspectives may develop students understandings about the role science and technology plays in their lives, as well as well as in the larger society, thus making science more accessible and relevant for these children in urban settings. There has been no study to date that examines the impact of curricular approaches guided by a sociocultural framework (contextualized curriculum in this study) on the comprehension level and attitudes of students. The study fills that gap and holds implications for the inclusion of alternative curricular framework in urban middle school science classrooms. The author has used a mixed-methods study and draws upon both quantitative and qualitative data sources. The study design allows the reader to appreciate the perspectives of participating students and teachers on the use of contextualized curricular framework versus curricular framework guided by IVF practices in urban middle school science classrooms. This is an important book for collections in education, particularly science and K 12.

English is now firmly established as an international language around the globe and as such is no longer the preserve of the native speaker and the inner circle of counties. It is estimated that there are three times as many non-native speakers of English as there are native speakers worldwide and that the majority of speech events conducted in English are solely between non-native speakers of the language. The increased use of the English language on a daily basis by non-native speakers is thus worthy of a study and the purpose of this book. For the non-native speaker, the day-to-day demands of casual conversation can often be met through collaboration and negotiation with their interlocutor. However, there is an ever-increasing need for the non-native to participate in specific speech events such as discussions, meetings, interviews, and presentations, where the construction and delivery of extended turns and monologues is paramount. This is particularly true in professional and academic environments where this type of discourse holds significance and value for the speaker, since it is often through this that their proficiency and professionalism is critiqued and measured. This book is a timely study into the nature of extended discourse and the problems that non-native speakers have in constructing this. The book considers a corpus of spoken data taken from the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) speaking test with an international dimension. It specifically focuses on discourse that is multi-propositional, that is, extended turns and monologues, and analyses this for breaks in coherence and comprehensibility brought about by miscues in semantic and pragmatic features at the discourse level. The main thesis of the book is that the construction of extended discourse carries with it an additional burden for the speaker, namely the need to package information without support from the interlocutor in such a way as to make a coherent interpretation possible. For the mother-tongue speaker, the management of this packaging is of second nature, but for the non-native, the removal of collaborative support from the interlocutor in the form of back-channels and negotiation of meaning leads to miscues at the discourse level which impinge on coherence. As these miscues accumulate and interact with each other, the coherence of the discourse is diminished even further and in extreme cases a complete breakdown in communication can be observed. Two key areas where these miscues materialize are in the semantic consistency and pragmatic relevance of the utterances as each one is added to the common ground. Semantic consistency refers to the need to maintain the internal specificity of utterances and the external consistency across utterances, while pragmatic relevance refers to the need to make contributions which are well-contextualized and relevant to the on-going discourse. The book is both a textual and evaluative approach to studying discourse. It contains copious examples of transcribed non-native discourse with commentaries that indicate where miscues arise and how these lead to a lack of coherence. The book also describes in detail a manipulation experiment which looks at the effect of repairing discourse on the perceived coherence, thus evaluating the psycholinguistic reality of the identified miscues. The book also considers the relationship of fluency to coherence and how disfluent performance can impinge on perceived coherence. The book will be of interest to applied linguistics and English-language teaching practitioners around the world as well as academics involved in the testing of spoken English. Aimed at postgraduate level but accessible to undergraduates, it is a must for anyone concerned with the teaching or studying of a second language such as English and researchers working in the field of discourse analysis.

In the past few decades, an apparent international consensus has developed regarding a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. However, in spite of this consensus and the fact that peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians have been ongoing in one way or another for over 17 years, peace has been elusive at best. The frustration and the suffering of the people on both sides of the conflict have led many to believe that the two-state-solution consensus is, in fact, unattainable, and this has fueled the emergence of alternative solutions. On one end of the spectrum, there are those on the Israeli side that advocate the idea of conflict management, instead of conflict resolution. At the other end of the spectrum are those (mostly on the pro-Palestinian side) who champion the proposal of a single, bi-national state. It was in this context that a group of academics from the U.S., Israel, and Palestine, gathered at a conference aptly titled "Pathways to Peace" in March 2008 to explore, discuss, and generate fresh, new ideas to bring forth an academic perspective of peace along with the aim of attaining justice and security for both the peoples of Palestine and Israel. Essays arising from this meeting were written to note down these ideas from some of the most important researchers in this area, such as Professor Herbert Kelman from Harvard University, Professor Naomi Chazan from Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Dr. Sami Adwan from Bethlehem University, as well as other renowned academics from a diverse variety of scholarly backgrounds. This multidisciplinary perspective presents an academic and holistic method of examining and seeking out the elusive resolution to what is one of the longest conflict of the modern era. This edited volume is a collection of essays based on the papers and keynote presentations that were delivered at this conference in a number of different academic disciplines, including political sciences, economics, psychology, philosophy, and literature. It is unique not only in its inclusion of authors from all sides and different political views but also in how it incorporates the various disciplines and theoretical perspectives in proposing and advocating varied solutions to the conflict. This volume makes a substantial contribution to scholarship on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by its application of academic thinking to the solution for one of the most serious conflicts of our time.

Formed in 1985 as a political action committee (PAC) to provide select female Democratic candidates with seed money to run for federal office, today EMILY s List is much more than a women s PAC. Over the past twenty-five years, a political entrepreneur Ellen Malcolm, a cadre of liberal feminist activists, and thousands of liberal feminist women and men have transformed EMILY s List into a multi-pronged influence organization that has changed the face of U.S. Congress and the American political landscape. In 2008 EMILY s List brought in over $34 million from more than 10,000 large donors and an untold number of small donors; for the first time the Center for Responsive Politics placed EMILY s List on their list of heavy hitters. The president and founder of EMILY s List, Ellen Malcolm, is considered one of the top Democratic strategists in the country. But scholars, especially those outside of women and politics, continue to view EMILY s List as simply a women s PAC, albeit an important one. While acknowledging that it has been a force in making women competitive in the early stages of congressional campaigns and its bundling prowess, there has been little if any attempt to place EMILY s List within the broader literature of campaign finance or congressional elections. While bundling may have put ELIST on the map in the late 1980s, in 2008 bundling was but one tool in EMILY s List s arsenal. Over the past quarter of a century, EMILY s List transformed from a women s PAC/donor network to a multi-pronged influence organization that strategically uses its resources to aid pro-choice Democratic women in their quest for public office. EMILY s List has created and maximized on political opportunities in such a way that it now stands as a political powerhouse. Those who have underestimated it as a narrow women s organization, have also largely underestimated the important role EMILY s List played in helping transform the character of the Democratic Party in Congress and helping bring about the Party s dramatic resurgence to power. This study is the first examination of the growth and transformation of EMILY s List from its inception in 1985 through the 2008 election cycle. Relying on interviews with organization staff, founding members, and members of Congress, it illuminates the ways in which the organization s origin and mission are firmly rooted in the goals and activities of the liberal feminist women s movement of the 1970s. The successes and failures of this movement set the stage for the creation of EMILY s List. Using qualitative and quantitative data, the study traces the organization s evolution from its early days as a PAC to its transformation into a multi-pronged influence organization that is a PAC, but also functions as an interest group, a party adjunct, and a campaign organization. The book explores the membership of the organization over time, highlighting EMILY s List s efforts to pull in new members and retain its loyal base. The book also explores how the organization has overcome women s reticence to contribute and how that has helped it become so influential in the political sphere. The last part of the book examines the organization s influence vis- -vis the endorsement process, which highlights the organization s multi-pronged strategy. It ends with a discussion of the organization s endorsement of Hillary Rodham Clinton s presidential bid in 2008, and what the 2008 election meant for the future of EMILY s List. This book would be appropriate for a variety of courses including courses on women and politics, Congress and congressional elections, campaign and elections courses, parties and interest group courses, and campaign finance courses. This book will be accessible and appropriate for undergraduates and graduate students, as well as researchers and practitioners. It combines historical narrative, which makes it accessible to students, with original interviews and empirical analysis, which appeals to faculty wishing to introduce students to cutting edge research efforts in political science.

Environmental and human security issues are vital national security interests in African states because most citizens are engaged in daily struggles to survive. Chronic and worsening resource scarcities and degradations fuel these individual struggles, along with political conflicts among different groups vying to control and benefit from scarce resources. Thus, many observers agree on the importance of expanding the concept of national security in African states, but there is no consensus yet on the optimal approach for studying or improving environmental and human security problems. While there are books on human and environmental security, few past works focus on Africa or address the interests and concerns of researchers and practitioners working in such diverse fields as development, security, or environmental science. Even though the military is one of the most influential institutions in African countries, no published work to date has addressed issues related to when, how, or if national and foreign militaries should be involved in promoting human and environmental security. African Environmental and Human Security in the 21st Century fills this void by combining ten original studies that discuss important non-traditional security issues facing countries located in each region of Africa. This volume reflects a shared assumption that one must have case-specific knowledge, use multidisciplinary and multi-level conceptual frameworks, and have an appreciation of feasible and desirable public policies in order to understand and effectively address complex non-traditional security concerns. This is the first book to address a broad array of African environmental and human security issues. The book is intended to be used by beginning students, seasoned researchers, novice and experienced practitioners. The case studies expose the reader to past relevant research, while also identifying the main causes and consequences of different types of political conflicts fueled by human and environmental security problems. Each study also contains policy lessons, "best practices", or recommended future actions. The originality and comprehensiveness of each chapter means that the volume is likely to appeal to a wide range of readers for many years. Despite the diversity of the contributors' backgrounds, many of the conclusions and recommendations use common themes about the complex causes of human and environmental conflicts; the need to adopt longer-term time frames to evaluate the effectiveness of policy actions; and an emphasis on the importance of outside actors providing modest amounts of targeted aid to help Africans manger immediate pressing problems as well. Several authors addressed the proper role for outside agencies, such as AFRICOM and USAID, and provide caveats similar to the thrust of Maxie McFarland's cautionary concluding comments at the ISA panel; to wit, just because "the military is already doing a lot of nontraditional, human security type projects in Iraq and Afghanistan ...and just because the Army [and other branches of the military] can do this type of activity, "doesn't mean you want them to do it." African Environmental and Human Security in the 21st Century is an important book for African Studies, economic development, environmental and earth science, environmental security, ecotourism, history, human security, international relations, national security and military Science Collections.

From the days of Athenian democracy to the back rooms of Chicago politics today, corruption has plagued all political systems for all time. It is ubiquitous, vexing, and at times, threatens the very fabric of society. No culture, no system of government, no code of ethics has been able to eliminate political corruption. While the United States generally ranks comparatively low in measures of political corruption (Transparency International rates the U.S. as the 18th "least" corrupt nation in the world, with Denmark at number one, New Zealand, second, and Sweden third, the U.K. 16, France 23, Spain 28, Israel 33, South Korea 40, Italy 55, Cuba 65, with Somalia last at 180), yet it too continues to confront the sting of political corruption. For something to count as political corruption in the United States, it must have a public impact, be a part of some violation of public trust. As such, another useful distinction can be drawn between individual corruption and systemic corruption. The former is individual wrongdoing. An officeholder on the take, a legislator who sells his vote, would be examples of "bad apples." Systemic corruption encompasses a broader sphere. Instead of bad apples, here you have a "bad system." The undermining of democratic legitimacy or equality might be considered examples of systemic corruption, as might campaign financing practices. Such corruption runs deeper than mere individual transgression. Corruption is embedded into the day-to-day operation of the system. In focusing on the individual, we often overlook the systemic. It is easier, and in the short run, more gratifying to catch, punish, and condemn an individual like Governor Blagojevich. Yet what of the systemic forces that led the governor to behave in such a manner? Is there undue systemic pressure to accumulate money, so much so that the system pushes politicians "over the edge"? A politician need not "sell" offices to enter into a Faustian bargain. It may be perfectly legal to collect campaign contributions, yet it may also have a corrosive or corrupting effect on the integrity of the democratic process. With so many issues of corruption swirling around in the current American political climate, it is timely that there is new scholarship that casts much-needed light on these systemic forces. The brilliant discussions by a stellar list of distinguished scholars, led by Michael A. Genovese and Victoria A. Farrar-Meyers, in the insightful edited volume, Corruption and American Politics, delivers the best and most up-to-date thinking by some of the finest political minds in the nation. This will be an essential resource for all collections in political science and American studies.

"This book offers a new way of understanding how neighborhood revitalization can be done in a way that benefits both residents and the economy. Sandoval pioneers the use of complexity thinking as a lens to see what would otherwise be invisible-the co-evolution of a community with the city's actions and policies. He does this through a vivid case study of the process by which remarkable positive change took place in a once troubled, poor neighborhood in Central Los Angeles." -Judith Innes, Professor of City and Regional Planning, UC Berkeley, and author of Planning with Complexity: Introduction to Collaborative Rationality for Public Policy "Sandoval illuminates the variations in the way city hall people and neighborhood people deal with one another. Much as they may want to support neighborhood organizations, his study reveals that city hall people are often unclear on how to do it. We need a theory of city hall-neighborhood interaction; maybe we have now found it in Los Angeles." -Pierre Clavel, Professor of City and Regional Planning, Cornell University

This book, which emerged from conversation at the Institute of Conflict Research in Vienna, contains twelve carefully researched and well-written essays on the timely topic of the problem of prejudice. The contributors were chosen for their scholarly expertise in their particular fields. Taken together they provide an interdisciplinary approach, each casting light from a different angle on the problem of prejudice. The book is divided into two parts. Part one explores six particular manifestations of prejudice: anti-semitism; sexism and heterosexism; prejudice against the sick, old, and handicapped; religious prejudice; racism; and social class prejudice. Part Two further illuminates these prejudices by focusing upon them through six theoretical lenses: history and art history; social functionalism; social psychology; bioscience; law; and contemporary language behavior. The final thirteenth chapter summarizes the book's findings. This book has been introduced by essays setting this work in context and carefully defining the meaning of the word "prejudice." This handbook presents a valuable set of insights, explanations, and theories, which can be used to develop a set of "best practices". Academic by nature, this handbook will enable those who are interested in an educational agenda to find the necessary analytical tools. This book will be an essential addition for all collections in sociology and especially for scholars interested in anti-Semitism, sexism, heterosexism, disability studies, geriatrics studies; religious studies, history, art history, psychology, bioscience, law, and contemporary language behavior.

More than a century ago, the French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville remarked that Islam was not compatible with democracy and that conflicts between Islamic nations and the West were therefore inevitable. Although this viewpoint is not shared by all, it has some influence among scholars. The 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center Tower in New York City intensified the debate. With the rapid economic developments in Asia in recent decades, another important topic of debate has increasingly attracted people's attention: the compatibility of the so-called "Asian values" (ones that value family ties and strong government) with democratic ideals that value individualism and weak government. The debate has become even more intense with the combination of Islamic and Asian values regarding democratization. Asia is home to many Muslims, including Indonesia, the most populous Islam country in the world. Is Islam compatible with democratization in the context of Asian cultures? This is the central question that this collection of essays seeks to answer. To address these important issues, a series of books have been published in the English language. Most of these books deal with the relationship between Islam, Muslims, and democratization with a sub-region in Asia, such as Islam and democracy in central Asia, Islam, and Muslims in south Asia, as well as Islam and democracy in Southeast Asia. Some deal with the same issue with a focus on the future. However, there has yet to be a book that deals with the relationship between Islam, Muslims, and democratization in the context of Asian cultures from the perspectives of theory and empirical country studies in South, Southeast, and Central Asia. This volume seeks to help fill the gap. Although most contributors in this collection are affiliated with scholarly institutions in North America and Europe, most of them have their ethnic origins in Asia. Contributors in this collection include not only scholars but also practitioners, such as diplomats. The voices of this diverse group thus represent a variety of viewpoints, spanning from those who believe that Islam is compatible with democracy to those who have doubts about it. The first three chapters by Muqtedar Khan, Moataz A. Fattah, and Laure Paquette discuss the theoretical issues of Islam in the context of Asian cultures. Issues addressed include the relationship between Islamic governance and democracy, the Muslim political culture, and the underdog strategy adopted by some Islamic countries in Asia. These theoretical studies are followed by three chapters by Touqir Hussain, Tariq Karim, and Omar Khalidi, who comment on South Asia. They discuss topics that include the relations between Islam and democracy in the context of Pakistan, the aspiring pluralist democracy and expanding political Islam in Bangladesh, and the Muslim experience of Indian democracy. This is then followed by a section on Southeast Asia where Felix Heiduk discusses the role of political Islam in post-Suharto Indonesia in one chapter and Naveed S. Sheikh comments on the ambiguities of Islamic(ate) politics in Malaysia in another chapter. The last two chapters are on Central Asia. Brian Glyn Williams provides unprecedented insight about the Taliban and Al Qaeda suicide bombers with an account of his field trip to Afghanistan, and Morris Rossabi discusses Muslim and democracy in the context of China and Central Asia. This volume, comprising the perspectives of scholars and practitioners, will be invaluable to those in political science, sociology, and religious studies.

By the beginning of the nineteenth century, over ninety-five percent of all the productive land in Ireland was in the hands of Anglo-Irish landowners. They lived in the 'big houses', some of which still exist today, resplendent within their walled estates. Many others are now only gaunt ruins silhouetted against somber Irish skies, victims of 'the troubles' in the 1920s. There is a continuing fascination with the history of the big house in Ireland. Much of this interest stems from the Anglo-Irish living in places apart, in their estates, often in remote areas of an undeveloped and hostile land. Part of the appeal is in the characters, neither wholly English nor Irish, who made up this landowning class in Ireland. However, another part, largely ignored until this study, is how many of these landowners not only met these challenges but achieved remarkable levels of self-sufficiency. It was their exploitation of technology that hugely bolstered their status and independence and enabled them to lead an exotic lifestyle in Ireland. Although much has been written regarding the social and political history of the Anglo-Irish in Ireland, little research has been conducted into the practical problems of living there. At a time when there were few roads, no railways, and sailing ships were the unreliable connection with England, existence might have been very basic indeed. Charles Carson uncovers and explains in simple terms the technologies employed, to not only make life bearable, but in some case to become a triumph over seemingly impossible odds. An appreciation of this background helps to explain the sense of status and independence that emanates from the big house in Ireland until their demise in the late twentieth century. Interdisciplinary investigative methods were used in this work. These included extensive archival research of estate papers throughout Ireland; fieldwork involving examination and photography of still-extant big house technology; and the use of published fictional and biographical big house material. Much additional insight, and suggestions for further research, resulted from visits to various big house locations. Owners, often descendants of the original families, or managers and ground staff, provided important local knowledge. Climbing amongst stored artefacts in cellars, barns, and subterranean tunnels helped to bring the past alive. Something of the ambiance of these explorations informs this book, thus helping towards an understanding of the fundamental importance of technology in underpinning the status and independence of the big house in Ireland. By examining the range, costs, and changing nature of the technologies employed, this book makes an important contribution to a deeper understanding of life in the big house in Ireland circa 1800 to circa 1930. Brief descriptions, accompanied by drawings or photographs, are employed to explain the operation, limitations, and improvements of many of the installations and techniques. These include water closets, pumps, cisterns, boilers, and firefighting equipment; open fires, hot air stoves, and central heating; walled gardens, hot walls and beds, warm air, steam, and hot water heating of glasshouses; the construction, location, stocking, and use of ice houses and ice; daylight enhancement, candle, oil, gas, and electric lighting; an optical telegraph, a church spire, engine driven equipment on the estate farm as well as mapping of bogs and their reclamation by wooden railways. Technology and the Big House in Ireland, c. 1800-c. 1930 is an important reference source for Irish study groups worldwide.

The colonialist West has spoken for New Mexico since 1540 when Francisco Vasquez de Coronado traveled to Acoma Pueblo in his search for the legendary cities of gold. With the Spanish incursion, followed fifty-six years later by the first English-speaking colonists in New Mexico, began the representation of New Mexico from an outsider's perspective. The colonial West imagined itself to hold central claims to knowledge, so it knew its peripheries only as it encountered and articulated their presence to itself. This Western narrative, based on an imagined Western privilege to foundational or platonic knowledge, has become the dominant Euro-American discourse through which New Mexico has come to be known. The comparative study of this collection of travel and contact narratives traces the enforcement of--and resistance to--the Western myth of the Euro-American and European as normative, as well as the Hispanic and the native as Other. The author ably introduces the platonic quest as a new unifying thread that links each of these travel narratives to his argument that identity and claims to knowledge may be tested, recovered, or created in movement within New Mexico. The platonic journey has mostly been understood as an intellectual journey toward truth. This study expands upon the platonic journey to show that it may also, like the quest, be played out in geographical space. Travel Narratives from New Mexico will be a very valuable resource for students and scholars of literature, especially of the American Southwest and travel theory.

Over the past 30 years, much has been written about the direct relationship between board composition and firm performance. However, the final results of the quest for empirical proof to measure the impact of this relationship are inconclusive. This is partly due to differences in operationalizing board composition and also partly due to the fact that various definitions of the term performance are used, including financial performance, firm performance, and market performance. More fundamentally, however, it is because a firm's performance, no matter how narrowly this word is defined, is the end result of a large number of factors, of which board composition is only one. More meaningful, therefore, is the study of the various ways to improve board performance. Effective boards are those in which the strengths and expertise of the members match the needs of the organization at any given time. Therefore, in today's fast-changing environment, the present research suggests a need for a proactive management of the board composition in anticipation of major external/internal organizational changes as well as during the various phases of a firm's life cycle. The theoretical review of the extant research on board role and composition that is covered in this book is comprehensive not only in terms of the use of major theories relevant to corporate governance but also in terms of the analysis of business scenarios that could affect the role and composition of the board throughout an organization's life cycle. This research, which was undertaken over many years, delivers valuable insights on directors' motivations to join a board and on the meaning of two key directors' selection criteria (i.e., required board experience and independence). When the pool of candidates is limited, more competence and more independence become contradictory objectives, and this dilemma has not been adequately addressed by policy makers. The board of directors represents a core component of the corporate governance system in the western economies. Anyone interested in corporate governance and research in this field would benefit from the theoretical framework developed in this book. Qualitative researchers would also be interested in the methodology used during the fieldwork. Senior executives and board members represent a notoriously challenging population to observe and interview.

This study adopts a political perspective and is grounded in the assumption that special education is a policy domain characterized by multiple and competing interests. The interest groups studied operate in a political, multi-institutional policy environment and employ targeted strategies to further specific policy goals. Special education as a national policy is the sum of incremental policy making across multiple institutions. The multiple access points to the policymaking system afford institutions the ability to create and interpret policy across time and contexts. As a result, special education policy is defined by federal law, corresponding state laws, regulations, judicial interpretations, and local implementation. This research focuses specifically how advocacy groups "package" their interests to policy makers, strategies they choose, and their overall effectiveness. This study is the first that analyzes special education interest groups' behavior and effectiveness over a 30-year time span, using advocacy groups as units of analysis. The study also increases our knowledge about the political participation of parents of children with disabilities, who have a deep personal investment in the policy outcomes and who behave differently from groups that represent professionals. Finally, the study's longitudinal focus on advocacy organizations from the initial passage of the federal special education statute in 1975 through its reauthorizations contributes to the knowledge of interest group interactions over time. This is an important book for readers with a specific interest in special education policy and political scientists who are more generally interested in the broader questions of public policy making. The book is also of interest to practitioners in the fields of special education and public policy.

In this first full-length study of improvement and National Improvement Associations (NIAs), Craig Turnbull explores the ideas and behavior of key improvement ideologues and practitioners. The book outlines the rural origins of improvement, and examines why Chicago became a focal point of grassroots improvement during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book also offers the first systematic description and analysis of NIA objectives, activities, membership, politics, and organizational structures. It analyses the role of improvement in advancing the new professional agenda of real estate businessmen, and explains how and why they and NIAs became accomplices in adapting the ideology of improvement to develop and legitimatize the practices and discourse of legalized housing discrimination. The book concludes by explaining how the fine balance between reform and illiberalism underpinning grassroots improvement was upset by various structural and social changes, focusing on the increasing professionalism of reform leaders; the conflict between ascendant professional real estate businessmen and independent operators; the "Great Migration" of African Americans to Chicago; and the economic strictures imposed by World War I. This important book will appeal to urban scholars in a range of disciplines and to a more general audience interested in the history of cities during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book would make an important addition to courses on urban history and urban studies, especially those that focus on the culture and politics of urban growth. The insights into the contradictions of progressivism offered by the book will be of particular interest to scholars and students seeking to extend their understanding of the changing dynamics of reform activity during the Progressive Era.

This is a compilation of books in Asian studies published by Cambria Press.

Many tombs dating to the Eastern Zhou (770-221 BCE) and Han (206 BCE-220 AD) periods contain musical instruments or their visual representations in the form of wood, stone, and ceramic figures, tomb tiles, and engravings. These finds suggest that music was viewed as an important part of the afterlife. While bells have survived more frequently than wooden instruments, and therefore have received the most scholarly attention, strings, winds, and drums are the focus of discussion in this book. The book examines the use of these three instrument types in both solo and ensemble music, as well as the social, ritual, and entertainment functions of each. When combined with bells (and chime stones), strings, drums, and winds appear to have been associated with formal ritual ceremonies. However, when appearing alone or in assemblages with other wooden instruments during Zhou, they appear to be connected with warfare and entertainment. By Han times, strings, winds, and drums seem to be associated almost exclusively with entertainment, pointing to a shift in the social life of the times. Another topic explored in this book is the association of musical instruments with wealth. When combined with bells and chime stones, they are only found in the wealthiest tombs. However, when found by themselves, strings, winds, and drums appear in small to large, modest to wealthy tombs, suggesting that they were available to a broad range of peoples in early Chinese elite society. This book analyzes an often disregarded aspect of early Chinese music, the role of strings, winds, and drums. Music in Ancient China will be a valuable book for those interested in ethnomusicology and music history, Asian art history and archaeology, and Asian studies.

For much too long now, a literary work, once completed, has been viewed as having a separate existence, no longer under the author's control, and so left open to a variety of responses, regardless of how widely variable, or even contradictory, they might prove to be. However, that misguided approach simply ignores the fact that the three authors, in each case, have maintained a strong controlling presence within their completed works, a pervasive presence that is clearly revealed through the meticulous crafting we can discover throughout each work. The Art of Literary Thieving invites its readers to follow in the clearly marked footsteps of these three classic authors, as each of them crafts his materials into one of the world's truly exceptional literary experiences. The close, and as yet undiscovered, relationship that exists between these three works offers readers a more revealing light that shines forth from each of them upon the other two, bringing a greater clarity to these always challenging literary creations. That relationship also helps to highlight the detailed crafting within each work that has been meticulously designed, in each case, to guide the reader to the author's ultimate goal: a vibrant, imaginative experience, imbued with meaning and emotion, that the author wishes to share with the reader. The three authors, without question, have each succeeded in reaching that goal. And they also remain, within their works, ready to show their readers how to join them. This is an important book for all literature collections.

Teaching Spectatorship: Essays and Poems on Audience in Performance offers a curriculum theory for audience in performance presented in a series of essays and poems on this key yet neglected educational topic. In a contemporary world that has been described as the society of the spectacle and the performative society, it becomes a significant task for educators to find ways to assist students in becoming more active and critical spectators. This unique book is presented in seven chapters that survey how audience has been taken up (or ignored) across many disciplines, including aesthetic philosophy, performance theory, cultural studies, and arts education. Drawing on key findings discovered in this extensive literature review, the author goes on to present a number of chapters that theorize how spectatorship may become a central concern of curriculum through committed and teacher-facilitated attendance of live performance. These performance experiences which may be community-based or professional then serve as catalysts for creative postperformance interactions with artists and further classroom explorations. Throughout the text, the author makes use of an emergent arts-based methodology called poetic inquiry. The poems she creates offer readers other perspectives on the investigation and act as a reminder that cultural performance, like poetry, is an aesthetic event that calls us to attention, to wide-awakeness in the world. Teaching Spectatorship is a groundbreaking study that makes a critical contribution to the fields of performance studies, curriculum theory, and drama/theatre education.

As one of the most important natural resources, the management of water is becoming increasingly important as water resources are growing more scarce. This is especially the case for rural areas and developing countries, such as Africa. In sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries today, the demand for water resources is increasing. In this innovative study, the author examines these forms of traditional or customary institutions of water management in a manner that has never been done before. First, the author provides us with an understanding and appreciation of the differential impact of customary institutions on drinking- and irrigation-water management. Most sociological studies on rural water management in SSA have addressed water-management issues without adequately analyzing customary institutions and showing how they affect rural water management. Most studies in river-basin management focus on water for irrigation. Few studies have examined how the customary and statutory institutions influence water management for different water uses. This study looks at how the management of water for domestic use differs from the management of water for livestock and small-scale irrigation. The second unique contribution of this book is the analysis of the role of women and how customary and statutory institutions affect women's participation in water management. Few studies have looked at the role of women and their contribution to rural water management. Previous studies have focused only on the statutory institutions. Finally, the study offers a valuable comparison of the effectiveness of statutory and customary institutions in enforcement of their regulations, resolving natural-resource conflicts, and in ensuring access to water for different uses. Although many researchers recognize the importance of customary institutions, their analysis tends to focus more on the statutory institutions for water management. In this book, both formal and informal water-management institutions are considered for a more balanced understanding. The findings of this study will serve as the basis for formulating policies and programs that include customary institutions in the management of rural water resources in Tanzania. In Tanzania, lack of access to safe water for many rural populations is a major concern. Lack of safe water has implications for rural people and the country as a whole. Policy makers, nongovernmental organizations, planners, and water providers need to be informed so they can incorporate customary institutions into policies and strategies for management of rural water resources. This is an important book for African studies, environmental studies, and policy studies.

The twentieth century saw profound demographic changes, generating considerable anxiety about the well being of the child and the future of the family. The movement to ban corporal punishment provides a compelling example of how such anxiety is manifested in discussions of childrearing. Debates around child discipline speak directly to the burning question, Who exactly is in charge of families today? By and large, the common expert consensus is that corporal punishment is considered to be a symptom of dysfunctional parenting, yet corporal punishment is almost universal in American families, and especially prevalent in low-income and/or African American families. Single mothers in particular are believed to be at high risk for harsh parenting, but family structure itself is closely tied to race and class. Most research regarding corporal punishment has relied heavily on white, middle-class samples, and very few studies have looked specifically at the relationship between family structure and corporal punishment. The study reported here is unique in that it offers and tests a conceptual model for predicting corporal punishment by family structure using a large sample of low-income, predominantly African American families and advanced analytical method. Study findings contradict commonly held beliefs regarding single mothers propensity toward corporal punishment, as well as the reflexive equation of corporal punishment with harsh parenting. Mothers in this study were most likely to use (low level) corporal punishment when living with the biological father or in a multi-generational family. Likewise, maternal warmth was associated with (low level) corporal punishment. Mothers living with surrogate fathers were more likely to report higher, potentially problematic levels of physical punishment, consistent with research showing an elevated risk of child maltreatment in reconstituted families. This study demonstrates that family structure interacts in complex ways with race and class to influence parenting. Research that relies on main effects models of family structure and Eurocentric notions of family is likely to yield misleading findings and may indeed result in the denigration of legitimate cultural differences in parenting. Corporal Punishment and Low-Income Mothers is an essential, groundbreaking study with important implications for those in sociology and social work.

This book is about Angolan literature and culture. It investigates a segment of Angolan history and literature, with which even Portuguese-speaking readers are generally not familiar. Its main purpose is to define the features and the literary production of the so-called 'creole elite', as well as its contribution to the early manifestations of dissatisfaction towards colonial rule patent during a period of renewed Portuguese commitment to its African colonies, but also of unrealised ambitions, economic crisis, and socio-political upheaval in Angola and in Portugal itself. Nineteenth-century Angolan society was characterised by the presence of a semi-urbanised commercial and administrative elite of Portuguese-speaking creole families--white, black, some of mixed race, some Catholic and others Protestant, some old established and others cosmopolitan--who were based in the main coastal towns. As well as their wealth, derived from the functions performed in the colonial administrative, commercial and customs apparatus, their European-influenced culture and habits clearly distinguished them from the broad native population of black peasants and farm workers. In order to expand its control over the region, Portugal desperately needed the support of this kind of non-coloniser urban elite, which was also used as an assimilating force, or better as a source of dissemination of a relevant model of social behaviour. Thus, until the 1850s great creole merchants and inland chiefs dealt in captive slaves, bound for export to Brazil via Cape Verde and São Tomé the tribal aristocracy and the creole bourgeoisie thrived on the profits of overseas trade and lived in style, consuming imported alcoholic beverages and wearing European clothes. After the abolition, however, their social and economic position was eroded by an influx of petty merchants and bureaucrats from Portugal who wished to grasp the commercial and employment opportunities created by a new and modern colonial order, anxious to keep up with other European colonial powers engaged in the partition of the African continent. This book thus considers the first intellectuals, the early printed publications in the country, and the pioneers of Angolan literature who felt the need to raise their roots to higher dignity. Thus, they wrote grammar, dictionaries, poetry, fiction, and of course, incendiary articles denouncing exploitation, racism, and the different treatment afforded by the colonial authorities to Portuguese expatriates and natives.

Written by Monica Biradavolu (a sociologist at Yale University), this innovative study examines the emergence and growing power of a new group of immigrant Indians to the United States: the transnational techno-capitalist class of entrepreneurs operating at the upper echelons of the hi-tech industry in Silicon Valley and Bangalore. Imbibing the culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley, recognizing the importance of building strong networks, and relying upon their educational qualifications, professional credentials and powerful yet invisible family support, Indians are playing a central role in redefining what it means to be an 'immigrant entrepreneur' from a 'developing country'. These powerful actors are negotiating on their own terms and forging their own transnational space in the global software industry to become a transnational capitalist class, with allegiance to global capitalism and a political project of pushing the ideas and ideals of capitalism in both their 'home' and 'adopted' countries. This an important book for those in ethnic and immigrant studies.

The first Chinese in Australia are said to have arrived as early as 1818, and since then, many more have made Australia their homeland--the current Chinese population is over half a million. It is therefore not surprising that the Chinese are featured in many Australian literary works. This book examines the representation of the Chinese in Australian fiction from 1888 to 1988, with an Author Commentary at the end that provides a brief update on the subsequent fictional representations of the Chinese. It begins with an overview of the Chinese in Australian and Chinese history, followed by a theoretical examination of how the Chinese are made the "Other" by Orientalism, racism, and ethnocentrism. It discusses literary texts written over a period of one hundred years from 1888 to 1988. The study is divided into three major periods of 1888-1901, 1902-1949, and 1950-1988. The first period (1888-1901) deals with the initial attempts to represent the Chinese in fiction as the bad Other by the early Bulletin writers, the Australian responses to the rise of the fear of "the Yellow Peril" in "invasion literature," and the imperialist will to power over the Chinese in writings set in China by Anglo-Australian writers. Apart from pursuing the issue of the continued fear and stereotyping of the Chinese in popular writing, the second period (1902-1949) introduces a new phenomenon of literary Sinophilism that dichotomizes the representation of the Chinese and examines the image of Chinese women. The third period (1950-1988) focuses on the problem of politicisation that polarizes literary attitudes towards the Chinese, and discusses Australia's "Asian writing" as an extension of colonial writing that continues to "Other" the Chinese and explores multicultural writing as an alternative means of representation. This is an important book that illustrates how the "Other" is represented and will be a valuable book for those in Australian studies, Asian studies, and literary studies.