Politics and Sociology (93)

• Economics
• European Studies
• Politics and Sociology

More with More: Investing in the Energy Transition: 2025 European Public Investment Outlook

• Floriana Cerniglia
• Francesco Saraceno

This outlook offers a timely and insightful exploration of Europe’s energy transition, a process that lies at the heart of today’s environmental, economic, and political debates. It examines the diverse commitments undertaken by European countries as they navigate the challenges of decarbonization and the shift to sustainable energy systems. By analyzing both the policy frameworks and the concrete instruments adopted to reach ambitious climate and energy goals, the book sheds light on the strategies shaping the continent’s future.

• Philosophy
• Politics and Sociology

Solidarity in Contingency: Rorty’s Constructive Project

• Elin D. Huckerby
• Marianne Janack

Richard Rorty (1931–2007), once dubbed ‘the man who killed truth’, is best known for challenging the idea that philosophy provides foundational knowledge. Yet beyond the controversy lies a vital, underexplored side of Rorty’s work: his constructive vision for fostering democratic solidarity in a world shaped by contingency and uncertainty. This volume shifts focus from defending Rorty to applying his insights for today’s fractured, post-truth culture.

• Economics
• Politics and Sociology

Allocation, Distribution, and Policy: Notes, Problems, and Solutions in Microeconomics

• Samuel Bowles
• Weikai Chen

This work provides a problem-based and policy oriented approach to teaching microeconomics, development, labor, environment, public economics and topics in business, management and public policy to upper level undergraduates, masters and doctoral students.

• Economics
• Politics and Sociology

Models in Political Economy: Collective Choice, Voting, Elections, Bargaining, and Rebellion

• Martin J. Osborne

This volume explores topics that lie at the core of political economy: collective choice, voting, elections, bargaining, and rebellion. It presents the main formal models used to study the behavior of individuals and groups in political contexts, from choosing public policies and participating as voters and candidates in elections, to staging revolutions. Complete mathematical proofs are provided, to clarify the assumptions and deepen understanding.

• Anthropology
• European Studies: English and Irish Studies
• History
• Politics and Sociology

City of Capital and Labour: The Making and Transformation of Industrial Manchester

• Tom Saunders

This compelling book explores the evolution of industrial Manchester, offering a fresh perspective on its built environment through the lens of architecture, archaeology, and social history. Richly illustrated and designed for both academic and general audiences, it sheds new light on Manchester’s transformation during the Industrial Revolution, highlighting how the city’s physical form shaped and was shaped by its socio-economic and cultural dynamics.

• History
• Politics and Sociology
• Theatre

When Katherine Brewed, a Play: Telling the Story of the Peasants’ Revolt and Today’s New Radical Theatre

• Mark O'Brien
• John Cresswell

In the sweltering heat of 1381, England's feudal foundations trembled as the Peasants' Revolt erupted—a rebellion that would forever echo through history. Triggered by an oppressive poll tax but fuelled by deeper injustices, this uprising saw land workers, artisans, and commoners rise to challenge the authority of landowners, church, and crown. 'When Katherine Brewed' brings this momentous event to life on stage, blending historical fidelity with a bold, radical perspective.

• Politics and Sociology

'Thou Shalt Not Stand Idly By': Jews of Conscience on Palestine

• Susan Landau

This volume is a timely and powerful collection of Jewish dissent against Zionism and the impact of Israeli statehood on the indigenous Palestinian population. Bridging history, politics, theology, and conflict studies, this book traces a moral and intellectual tradition of resistance from within the global Jewish community—one rooted in values of justice, equality, and compassion. From early twentieth-century critics like Ahad Ha’am and Hannah Arendt to contemporary scholars, rabbis, journalists, and activists, the voices gathered here challenge the dominant narratives that conflate Judaism with Zionism.

• Education
• Politics and Sociology
• Theatre
• Women and Gender Studies

Gender-Based Violence in Arts and Culture: Perspectives on Education and Work

• Marie Buscatto
• Sari Karttunen
• Mathilde Provansal

This book offers a groundbreaking exploration of the pervasive issue of gender-based violence (GBV) within the realms of art and cultural production. This collection of essays delves into both the overt and subtle forms of GBV. It spans sexual harassment, assault, and the everyday sexism ingrained in creative workplaces and art schools, in both professional and private dimensions. The book covers a wide array of artistic sectors—opera, visual arts, music, and theatre—across diverse global contexts, from Europe to Asia and North America.

• Anthropology
• History
• Politics and Sociology

Housing, Heritage and Urbanisation in the Middle East and North Africa

• Lilia Makhloufi

This book explores the interconnection between housing, heritage and urbanisation. Bringing together architects, archaeologists, urban sociologists, urban designers, urban planners and landscape architects, this multi-authored and interdisciplinary volume presents diverse case studies from the Middle East and North Africa, shedding light on the past, present and future of residential spaces.

• Anthropology
• Education
• Politics and Sociology
• Psychology and Psychoanalysis

A Field Guide to Cross-Cultural Research on Childhood Learning: Theoretical, Methodological, Practical, and Ethical Considerations for an Interdisciplinary Field

• Sheina Lew-Levy
• Stephen Asatsa

This volume addresses the critical gaps in developmental research on childhood learning by advocating for a more inclusive and cross-cultural approach. Recent studies highlight a concerning over-reliance on data from post-industrialized western countries, raising questions about the broader applicability of findings. This book seeks to provide a comprehensive solution, bridging the gap between theory and practice.

• Media Studies and Journalism
• Politics and Sociology

Imagery of Hate Online

• Matthias J. Becker
• Marcus Scheiber
• Uffa Jensen

This edited volume explores the evolving role of visual and multimodal expressions in spreading hate ideologies within digital communication. In digital spaces, hate speech is increasingly conveyed through memes, images, and videos, blending textual and pictorial elements to perpetuate harmful stereotypes and other exclusionary narratives. While historical perspectives on hate imagery are well-documented, this collection emphasises the pressing need for contemporary analysis of visual and multimodal communication in digital environments.

• Music
• Politics and Sociology

Improvising Otherwise: A Decolonial Feminist Approach to Improvisation in Early Modern English Culture

• Fatima Lahham

This volume redefines how we approach early music and cultural histories, intertwining feminist, decolonial, and creative perspectives. Fatima Lahham delves into the improvisational practices of early modern England, situating them within a rich tapestry of musical sources, theological texts, travel narratives, and natural histories. Inspired by Sara Ahmed’s notion of the “feminist ear,” the book amplifies voices and histories often unheard, re-examining the cultural interplay between England and the Ottoman Empire in the seventeenth century.

• Health
• Philosophy
• Politics and Sociology
• Psychology and Psychoanalysis

Troubled People, Troubled World: Psychotherapy, Ethics and Society

• Michael Briant

Therapists endeavour to be non-judgemental and, indeed, are no more qualified to pass judgement on others than anyone else; do they nevertheless learn anything about ethics from their disciplined listening? The same question was asked after the war about the persecution of the Jews and other minorities, and it’s a very live issue again, faced as we are by movements like ISIS, or Putinism in Russia, that cause great suffering in the name of religious or moral regeneration - a bewildering paradox that David Astor, former editor of The Observer called ‘the scourge’. Can psychotherapy throw any light on it, or contribute any ideas as to how we might contain, if not prevent, the barbarism it sanctions? Can it offer any insights into a different, more inclusive kind of ethics, and if so, can we glean any guidance from it as to how we might further it? These are the questions the author explores, drawing on psychoanalytic thinking on these issues for over a century and illustrated by his work with individuals over four decades.

• Anthropology
• Environmental Studies
• Politics and Sociology
• Science: Applied Science

The Field Guide to Mixing Social and Biophysical Methods in Environmental Research

• Rebecca Lave
• Stuart Lane

Despite ongoing debates about its origins, the Anthropocene—a new epoch characterized by significant human impact on the Earth's geology and ecosystems—is widely acknowledged. Our environment is increasingly a product of interacting biophysical and social forces, shaped by climate change, colonial legacies, gender norms, hydrological processes, and more. Understanding these intricate interactions requires a mixed-methods approach that combines qualitative and quantitative, biophysical and social research.

• Philosophy
• Politics and Sociology

Phenomenography in the 21st Century: A Methodology for Investigating Human Experience of the World

• Gerlese S. Åkerlind

Phenomenography offers a distinctive approach to studying human experience of the world, by highlighting different ways in which the same phenomena (concepts, objects, events) are experienced within any group of people. Phenomenography focuses on the relationship between meaning—people’s holistic understanding of phenomena—and structure, that is the part-whole structure of people’s awareness of phenomena. This structure of awareness then forms the basis for identifying differences in the experienced meaning of phenomena, and how awareness needs to change to allow new meanings to emerge—whether educationally, historically, culturally or socially.

• Education
• Politics and Sociology

Being in Shadow and Light: Academics in Post/Conflict Higher Education

• Dina Zoe Belluigi

Academia and its citizens, during periods of political violence and social conflict, are often overlooked. When attention is given, the focus tends to be on student activism, access to higher education, or curriculum development. The experiences of academics affected by conflict remain under-researched, despite the crucial role they play as educators and in generating, documenting, preserving and challenging knowledges. This is particularly concerning given that academics have−and continue to be−at risk as targets of sanction, persecution and oppression.

• Economics
• European Studies
• Politics and Sociology

Investing in the Structural Transformation: 2024 European Public Investment Outlook

• Floriana Cerniglia
• Francesco Saraceno

The fifth volume in the European Public Investment Outlook series explores how Europe can drive structural transformation through strategic public investment. Reflecting on the lessons from the 2008–2020 polycrisis and recent economic challenges, this timely book examines fiscal policy's role in both stabilization and long-term economic development.

• Asian Studies
• Digital Humanities
• Politics and Sociology

Digital Humanities in the India Rim: Contemporary Scholarship in Australia and India

• Hart Cohen
• Ujjwal Jana
• Myra Gurney

This varied collection delves into illuminating examples of Digital Humanities research and practice currently being undertaken by academics in India and Australia, and seeks to understand the shared challenges as well as the points of similarity and difference between them. From the influence of Netflix on International Relations to contemporary digital adaptations of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, via detours into erobotics (empathic robots) and the cultural specificity of online dating, these essays convey the distinctive breadth and imagination of research in this field. Digital Humanities is a relatively new discipline in the India Rim, and this novelty has created space for innovative research ideas, as well as the use of traditional methodologies and software in different ways within these unique cultural spaces that could potentially influence how Digital Humanities is conceptualised internationally.

• Education
• Health
• Politics and Sociology
• Psychology and Psychoanalysis

The Struggle You Can’t See: Experiences of Neurodivergent and Invisibly Disabled Students in Higher Education

• Ash Lierman

This book offers a comprehensive review of current research on the higher education experiences of neurodivergent undergraduate students and those with invisible disabilities. Grounded in principles of social justice and equity, this work draws from design thinking, the neurodiversity model, and Universal Design for Learning, to explore the context of higher education in relation to neurodivergent and disabled students.

• Philosophy
• Politics and Sociology

Phenomenology and the Philosophy of Technology

• Bas de Boer
• Jochem Zwier

Our contemporary world is undeniably intertwined with technology, influencing every aspect of human life. This edited volume delves into why modern philosophical approaches to technology closely align with phenomenology and explores the implications of this relationship. Over the past two decades, scholars have emphasized users’ lived experiences and their interactions with technological practices, arguing that technologies gain meaning and shape within specific contexts, actively shaping those contexts in return. This book investigates the phenomenological roots of contemporary philosophy of technology, examining how phenomenology informs analyses of temporality, use, cognition, embodiment, and environmentality. Divided into three sections, the volume begins by exploring the role of phenomenological methods in the philosophy of technology, and further investigates the methodological implications of combining phenomenology with other philosophical schools. The second section examines technology as a phenomenon, debating whether it should be analysed as a whole or through individual artifacts. The final section addresses the practical applications of phenomenological insights in design practices and democratic engagement.

• Anthropology
• History
• Politics and Sociology

Urban Heritage and Sustainability in the Age of Globalisation

• Lilia Makhloufi

This book offers a deep exploration of architectural and urban heritage, using interdisciplinary and intercultural approaches to assess how historical, social, economic and political factors have impacted heritage development and its sustainability. It sheds light on the stakes of heritage conservation, management and maintenance in today’s globalised world.

• European Studies
• Politics and Sociology

The Last Years of Polish Jewry: Volume 2: The Permanent Pogrom, 1935–37

• Yankev Leshchinsky
• Robert Brym
• Eli Jany
• Robert Brym

Ukrainian-born Yankev Leshchinsky (1876-1966) was the leading scholarly and journalistic analyst of Eastern European Jewish socioeconomic and political life from the 1920s to the 1950s. Known as “the dean of Jewish sociologists” and “the father of Jewish demography,” Leshchinsky published a series of insightful and moving essays in Yiddish on Polish Jewry between 1927 and 1937. Despite heightened interest in interwar Jewish communities in Poland in recent years, these essays (like most of Leshchinsky’s works) have never been translated into English.

• European Studies
• Politics and Sociology

Bitter-Sweet Democracy?: Analyzing citizens' resentment towards politics in Belgium

• Louise Knops
• Karen Celis
• Virginie Van Ingelgom
• Heidi Mercenier
• François Randour

Discussions about the ‘crisis of representative democracy’ have dominated scholarly and public discourse for some time now. But what does this phrase actually entail, and what is its relevance today? How do citizens themselves experience, feel and respond to this ‘crisis’? Bitter-Sweet Democracy grapples with the complexities of these questions in the context of citizens’ relations to politics in Belgium—a nation that has experienced political instability and protests as well as social mobilization and democratic vitality in recent years.

• Environmental Studies
• Politics and Sociology

An Anthology of Global Risk

• SJ Beard
• Tom Hobson

This anthology brings together a diversity of key texts in the emerging field of Existential Risk Studies. It serves to complement the previous volume The Era of Global Risk: An Introduction to Existential Risk Studies by providing open access to original research and insights in this rapidly evolving field. At its heart, this book highlights the ongoing development of new academic paradigms and theories of change that have emerged from a community of researchers in and around the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk. The chapters in this book challenge received notions of human extinction and civilization collapse and seek to chart new paths towards existential security and hope.

• Anthropology
• Politics and Sociology
• Science: History of Science

The Diagrammatics of ‘Race’: Visualizing Human Relatedness in the History of Physical, Evolutionary, and Genetic Anthropology, ca. 1770-2020

• Marianne Sommer

This is the first book that engages with the history of diagrams in physical, evolutionary, and genetic anthropology. Since their establishment as scientific tools for classification in the eighteenth century, diagrams have been used to determine but also to deny kinship between human groups. In nineteenth-century craniometry, they were omnipresent in attempts to standardize measurements on skulls for hierarchical categorization. In particular the ’human family tree’ was central for evolutionary understandings of human diversity, being used on both sides of debates about whether humans constitute different species well into the twentieth century. With recent advances in (ancient) DNA analyses, the tree diagram has become more contested than ever―does human relatedness take the shape of a network? Are human individual genomes mosaics made up of different ancestries? Sommer examines the epistemic and political role of these visual representations in the history of ‘race’ as an anthropological category. How do such diagrams relate to imperial and (post-)colonial practices and ideologies but also to liberal and humanist concerns?

• Media Studies and Journalism
• Politics and Sociology

Antisemitism in Online Communication: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Hate Speech in the Twenty-First Century

• Matthias J. Becker
• Laura Ascone
• Karolina Placzynta
• Chloé Vincent

Drawing from disciplines such as corpus linguistics, computational linguistics, semiotics, history, and philosophy, this edited collection examines over 100,000 user comments from three language communities. Contributors explore various facets of online antisemitism, including its intersectionality with misogyny and its dissemination through memes and social networks. Through case studies, they examine the reproduction, support, and rejection of antisemitic tropes, alongside quantitative assessments of comment structures in online discussions. Additionally, the volume delves into the capabilities of content moderation tools and deep-learning models for automated hate speech detection. This multidisciplinary approach provides a comprehensive understanding of contemporary antisemitism in digital spaces, recognising the importance of addressing its insidious spread from multiple angles.

• European Studies
• Music
• Politics and Sociology

Psychological Perspectives on Musical Experiences and Skills: Research in the Western Balkans and Western Europe

• Blanka Bogunović
• Renee Timmers
• Sanela Nikolić

This book features recent research on the psychology of music from the Western Balkans, foregrounding its specific topics, methods, and influences by bringing it into productive conversation with complementary research from Western Europe and further afield.

• Politics and Sociology
• Science: Applied Science

Human Evolutionary Demography

• Oskar Burger
• Ronald Lee
• Rebecca Sear

Human evolutionary demography is an emerging field blending natural science with social science. This edited volume provides a much-needed, interdisciplinary introduction to the field and highlights cutting-edge research for interested readers and researchers in demography, the evolutionary behavioural sciences, biology, and related disciplines.

• Biography
• European Studies
• Folklore and Ethnology
• History
• Politics and Sociology

(An)Archive: Childhood, Memory, and the Cold War

• Zsuzsa Millei
• Nelli Piattoeva
• Iveta Silova
• Mnemo ZIN

What was it like growing up during the Cold War? What can childhood memories tell us about state socialism and its aftermath? How can these intimate memories complicate history and redefine possible futures? These questions are at the heart of the (An)Archive: Childhood, Memory, and the Cold War. This edited collection stems from a collaboration between academics and artists who came together to collectively remember their own experiences of growing up on both sides of the ‘Iron Curtain’. Looking beyond official historical archives, the book gathers memories that have been erased or forgotten, delegitimized or essentialized, or, at best, reinterpreted nostalgically within the dominant frameworks of the East-West divide. And it reassembles and (re)stores these childhood memories in a form of an ‘anarchive’: a site for merging, mixing, connecting, but also juxtaposing personal experiences, public memory, political rhetoric, places, times, and artifacts. Collectively, these acts and arts of collective remembering tell about possible futures―and the past’s futures―what life during the Cold War might have been but also what it has become.

• Anthropology
• History
• Politics and Sociology

Tangible and Intangible Heritage in the Age of Globalisation

• Lilia Makhloufi

Tangible and Intangible Heritage in the Age of Globalisation offers a rich collection of perspectives on the complex interplay between tangible and intangible heritage. These essays illustrate the need to redefine heritage as an interdisciplinary and intercultural concept. They interrogate heritage paradigms while also providing concrete recommendations to promote the preservation of physical heritage spaces, and the cultural practices and social relationships that depend on them.

• Environmental Studies
• Politics and Sociology

Heavy Metal: Earth’s Minerals and the Future of Sustainable Societies

• Philippe D. Tortell

Heavy Metal: Earth’s Minerals and the Future of Sustainable Societies brings together world-leading experts from across the globe to reimagine the future of mineral exploration and mining in a post-fossil fuel world.

• Environmental Studies
• European Studies
• Politics and Sociology

A Country of Shepherds: Cultural Stories of a Changing Mediterranean Landscape

• Kathleen Ann Myers

This book draws on the life stories told by shepherds, farmers, and their families in the Andalusian region in Spain to sketch out the landscapes, actions, and challenges of people who work in pastoralism. Their narratives highlight how local practices interact with regional and European communities and policies, and they help us see a broader role for extensive grazing practices and sustainability.

• Economics
• Other languages
• Philosophy
• Politics and Sociology

Tener Demasiado: Ensayos Filosóficos sobre el Limitarismo

• Ingrid Robeyns
• Héctor Iñaki Larrínaga Márquez

'Tener demasiado' es el primer volumen académico dedicado al limitarismo: la idea de que el uso de los recursos económicos o de los ecosistemas no sobrepasen ciertos límites.

• Music
• Politics and Sociology

Classical Music Futures: Practices of Innovation

• Neil Thomas Smith
• Peter Peters
• Karoly Molina

This edited volume brings together contributions from a wide range of international academics and practitioners. It traces innovations within classical music practice, showing how these offer divergent visions for its future. The interdisciplinary contributions to the volume highlight the way contrasting ideas of the future can effect change in the present.

• Economics
• European Studies
• Politics and Sociology

Financing Investment in Times of High Public Debt: 2023 European Public Investment Outlook

• Floriana Cerniglia
• Francesco Saraceno
• Andrew Watt

The fourth book in the ‘European Public Investment Outlook’ series focuses on the urgent issue of how to finance needed investment in critical tangible and intangible infrastructure given high levels of public debt, a thorny problem facing many governments across Europe. Drawing on expertise from academics, researchers at public policy institutes and international governance bodies, the contributors analyse the current situation and prospects and propose feasible solutions.

• Economics
• Linguistics
• Politics and Sociology

Misunderstandings: False Beliefs in Communication

• Georg Weizsäcker

What do we expect when we say something to someone, and what do they expect when they hear it? When is a conversation successful? The book considers a wide set of two-person conversations, and a bit of game theory, to show how conversational statements and their interpretations are governed by beliefs. Thinking about beliefs is suitable for communication analysis because beliefs are well-defined and measurable, allowing to differentiate between successful understandings and their less successful counterparts: misunderstandings.

• Education
• Politics and Sociology

Higher Education for Good: Teaching and Learning Futures

• Laura Czerniewicz
• Catherine Cronin

After decades of turbulence and acute crises in recent years, how can we build a better future for Higher Education? Thoughtfully edited by Laura Czerniewicz and Catherine Cronin, this rich and diverse collection by academics and professionals from across 17 countries and many disciplines offers a variety of answers to this question. It addresses the need to set new values for universities, trapped today in narratives dominated by financial incentives and performance indicators, and examines those “wicked” problems which need multiple solutions, resolutions, experiments, and imaginaries.

• History
• Politics and Sociology
• Theatre

After the Miners’ Strike: A39 and Cornish Political Theatre versus Thatcher’s Britain: Volume 1

• Paul Farmer
• Rebecca Hillman
• Mark Kilburn

In this rich memoir, the first of two volumes, Paul Farmer traces the story of A39, the Cornish political theatre group he co-founded and ran from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. Farmer offers a unique insight into A39’s creation, operation, and artistic practice during a period of convulsive political and social change.

• Information Technology and Computer Science
• Media Studies and Journalism
• Philosophy
• Politics and Sociology
• Science

Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies: An Introduction

• Ibo van de Poel
• Lily Eva Frank
• Julia Hermann
• Jeroen Hopster
• Dominic Lenzi
• Sven Nyholm
• Behnam Taebi
• Elena Ziliotti

Technologies shape who we are, how we organize our societies and how we relate to nature. For example, social media challenges democracy; artificial intelligence raises the question of what is unique to humans; and the possibility to create artificial wombs may affect notions of motherhood and birth. Some have suggested that we address global warming by engineering the climate, but how does this impact our responsibility to future generations and our relation to nature? This book shows how technologies can be socially and conceptually disruptive and investigates how to come to terms with this disruptive potential.

• Environmental Studies
• Politics and Sociology

The Era of Global Risk: An Introduction to Existential Risk Studies

• SJ Beard
• Martin Rees
• Catherine Richards
• Clarissa Rios Rojas

This innovative and comprehensive collection of essays explores the biggest threats facing humanity in the 21st century; threats that cannot be contained or controlled and that have the potential to bring about human extinction and civilization collapse. Bringing together experts from many disciplines, it provides an accessible survey of what we know about these threats, how we can understand them better, and most importantly what can be done to manage them effectively.

• Education
• Politics and Sociology

A Relational Realist Vision for Education Policy and Practice

• Basem Adi

This volume argues that relational realism can help us to make better educational policy that is more effective in practice. Basem Adi draws on critical realism to thoroughly re-examine fundamental assumptions about how government policymaking works, developing an ontological basis from which to examine existing government approaches and imagine an alternative approach based on a relational realist-informed critical pedagogy.

• Biography
• History
• Politics and Sociology
• Women and Gender Studies

Breaking Conventions: Five Couples in Search of Marriage-Career Balance at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century

• Patricia Auspos

This rich history illuminates the lives and partnerships of five married couples – two British, three American – whose unions defied the conventions of their time and anticipated social changes that were to come in the ensuing century. In all five marriages, both husband and wife enjoyed thriving professional lives: a shocking circumstance at a time when wealthy white married women were not supposed to have careers, and career women were not supposed to marry.

• Economics
• Philosophy
• Politics and Sociology

Having Too Much: Philosophical Essays on Limitarianism

• Ingrid Robeyns

Having Too Much is the first academic volume devoted to limitarianism: the idea that the use of economic or ecosystem resources should not exceed certain limits. This concept has deep roots in economic and political thought. One can find similar statements of such limits in thinkers such as Plato, Aquinas, and Spinoza. But Having Too Much is the first time in contemporary political philosophy that limitarianism is explored at length and in detail.

• Politics and Sociology

For Palestine: Essays from the Tom Hurndall Memorial Lecture Group

• Ian Parker

This book is a collection of lectures written by reputable scholars who offer diverse perspectives on the historical, political and cultural struggles in Palestine. Encompassed in the pages are sixteen chapters produced for the Tom Hurndall Memorial Lecture Group. Unlike predecessors of this topic, this book offers a thought-provoking and comprehensive analysis of Palestine, including architectural, cultural, legal, sociological, and psychological questions, providing a larger scope of study that has not yet been done before. Ultimately, this book explores oppression in Palestine and beyond in the Middle East.

• Anthropology
• Education
• Politics and Sociology

Play in a Covid Frame: Everyday Pandemic Creativity in a Time of Isolation

• Anna Beresin
• Julia Bishop

During the international coronavirus lockdowns of 2020–2021, millions of children, youth, and adults found their usual play areas out of bounds and their friends out of reach. How did the pandemic restrict everyday play and how did the pandemic offer new spaces and new content? This unique collection of essays documents the ways in which communities around the world harnessed play within the limiting frame of Covid-19.

• Education
• Politics and Sociology

Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity and Resilience in Europe

• Olga Burlyuk
• Ladan Rahbari

This volume consists of narratives of migrant academics from the Global South within academia in the Global North. The autobiographic and autoethnographic contributions to this collection aim to decolonise the discourse around academic mobility by highlighting experiences of precarity, resilience, care and solidarity in the academic margins.

• European Studies
• Politics and Sociology

The Last Years of Polish Jewry: Volume 1: At the Edge of the Abyss: Essays, 1927–33

• Yankev Leshchinsky
• Robert Brym
• Eli Jany
• Robert Brym

Ukrainian-born Yankev Leshchinsky (1876–1966) was the leading scholarly and journalistic analyst of Eastern European Jewish socioeconomic and political life from the 1920s to the 1950s. Known as “the dean of Jewish sociologists” and “the father of Jewish demography,” Leshchinsky published a series of insightful and moving essays in Yiddish on Polish Jewry between 1927 and 1937. Despite heightened interest in interwar Jewish communities in Poland in recent years, these essays (like most of Leshchinsky’s works) have never been translated into English. The Last Years of Polish Jewry helps to rectify this situation by translating some of Leshchinsky’s key essays.

• Economics
• European Studies
• Politics and Sociology

Greening Europe: 2022 European Public Investment Outlook

• Floriana Cerniglia
• Francesco Saraceno

The third installment of the ‘European Public Investment Outlook’ series is an important and timely publication that draws together recent analyses to recommend significant increases in public investment in green ventures. Compelling data from key economists affiliated with international organizations like the International Monetary Fund, European Investment Bank and the European Commission, as well as academic departments and policy institutes are a clarion call for green investment to boost the economy and put the planet on a sustainable path.

• Media Studies and Journalism
• Philosophy
• Politics and Sociology

Engaging with Everyday Sounds

• Marcel Cobussen

'Engaging With Everyday Sounds' is a rich and inspiring exploration of the role of sounds in everyday life, including their impact on human actions, emotions, and imagination. Marcel Cobussen intertwines sonic studies with philosophy, sound art, sociology and more to create an impressively lucid and innovative guide to sonic materialism, calling for a re-sensitization to our acoustic environment and arguing that everyday sounds have (micro)political, social, and ethical impact to which we should attend.

• Anthropology
• Politics and Sociology

Anthropology of Transformation: From Europe to Asia and Back

• Juraj Buzalka
• Agnieszka Pasieka

This collection of essays is the result of the joint efforts of colleagues and students of the leading social anthropology and post-socialism theorist, Professor Chris Hann. With the thirtieth anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 2019 as their catalyst, the authors reflect upon Chris Hann’s lifelong fieldwork in the discipline, spanning regions as diverse as East Central Europe, Turkey, and the Chinese north-west.

• Politics and Sociology

‘Fragile States’ in an Unequal World: The Role of the g7+ in International Diplomacy and Development Cooperation

• Isabel Rocha de Siqueira

This is a book about people. ‘Fragile States’ in an Unequal World: The Role of the g7+ in International Diplomacy and Development Cooperation introduces the members of the g7+, a group formed by 20 conflict-affected states: why they came to believe in politics and policy; how they feel about their work, their family and their communities; and what they want to leave behind for the next generations. It is the story of their personal and collective values, their mistakes, and the challenges they faced, and it will resonate with anyone who has tried to organize and work with a group of very different people.

• Philosophy
• Politics and Sociology

A Common Good Approach to Development: Collective Dynamics of Development Processes

• Mathias Nebel
• Oscar Garza-Vázquez
• Clemens Sedmak

This edited collection proposes a common good approach to development theory and practice.

• Environmental Studies
• Politics and Sociology

Ecocene Politics

• Mihnea Tănăsescu

Anchored in the diverse ecological practices of communities in southern Italy and Aotearoa/New Zealand, this book devises a unique and considered theoretical response to the shortcomings of global politics in the Ecocene—a new temporal epoch characterised by the increasingly frequent intrusion of ecological processes into political life.

• Education
• Politics and Sociology

Learning, Marginalization, and Improving the Quality of Education in Low-income Countries

• Daniel A. Wagner
• Nathan M. Castillo
• Suzanne Grant Lewis

Improving learning evidence and outcomes for those most in need in developing countries is at the heart of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal on Education (SDG4). This timely volume brings together contributions on current empirical research and analysis of emerging trends that focus on improving the quality of education through better policy and practice, particularly for those who need improved 'learning at the bottom of the pyramid' (LBOP).

• Education
• Music
• Other languages
• Politics and Sociology

Replanteando la acción social por la música: la búsqueda de la convivencia y la ciudadanía en la Red de Escuelas de Música de Medellín

• Geoffrey Baker
• Claudia García

Este libro pionero examina el desarrollo de La Red de Escuelas de Música de Medellín, una red de 27 escuelas fundada en 1996 en la segunda ciudad principal de Colombia como respuesta a su reputación como la ciudad más peligrosa en la Tierra. Inspirada en El Sistema, el programa venezolano fundacional de educación musical, La Red es, no obstante, notablemente diferente: su historia es una de múltiples reinvenciones y de una búsqueda continua para mejorar su oferta educativa y alcanzar mejor sus objetivos sociales. Sus reflexiones internas e intentos de transformación arrojan luz valiosa sobre el pasado, el presente y el futuro de ASPM.

• Politics and Sociology

Democratising Participatory Research: Pathways to Social Justice from the South

• Carmen Martinez-Vargas

In this book Carmen Martinez-Vargas explores how academic participatory research and the way it is carried out can contribute to more, or less, social justice. Adopting theoretical and empirical approaches, and addressing multiple complex, intersectional issues, this book offers inspiration for scholars and practitioners to open up alternative pathways to social justice, viewed through a Global South lens.

• Economics
• European Studies
• Politics and Sociology

The Great Reset: 2021 European Public Investment Outlook

• Floriana Cerniglia
• Francesco Saraceno
• Andrew Watt

This timely and insightful collection of essays written by economists from a range of academic and policy institutes explores the subject of public investment through two avenues. The first examines public investment trends and needs in Europe, addressing the initiatives taken by European governments to tackle the COVID-19 recession and to rebuild their economies. The second identifies key domains where European public investment is needed to build a more sustainable Europe, from climate change to human capital formation.

• Environmental Studies
• Politics and Sociology

Negotiating Climate Change in Crisis

• Steffen Böhm
• Sian Sullivan

Climate change negotiations have failed the world. Despite more than thirty years of high-level, global talks on climate change, we are still seeing carbon emissions rise dramatically. This edited volume, comprising leading and emerging scholars and climate activists from around the world, takes a critical look at what has gone wrong and what is to be done to create more decisive action.

• Environmental Studies
• European Studies
• European Studies: Eastern European Studies
• Politics and Sociology

Politics and the Environment in Eastern Europe

• Eszter Krasznai Kovacs

This volume draws together essays by early-career academic researchers from across eastern Europe.

• Anthropology
• Politics and Sociology

Human Cultures through the Scientific Lens: Essays in Evolutionary Cognitive Anthropology

• Pascal Boyer

This volume brings together a collection of seven articles previously published by the author, with a new introduction reframing the articles in the context of past and present questions in anthropology, psychology and human evolution. It promotes the perspective of ‘integrated’ social science, in which social science questions are addressed in a deliberately eclectic manner, combining results and models from evolutionary biology, experimental psychology, economics, anthropology and history.

• Health
• Philosophy
• Politics and Sociology

Towards an Ethics of Autism: A Philosophical Exploration

• Kristien Hens

What does it mean to say that someone is autistic? Dynamics of Autism is an exploration of this question and many more.

• Information Technology and Computer Science
• Media Studies and Journalism
• Politics and Sociology

Technology, Media Literacy, and the Human Subject: A Posthuman Approach

• Richard S. Lewis

This book addresses these issues by providing a transdisciplinary method that allows for both practical and theoretical analyses of media investigations. Informed by postphenomenology, media ecology, philosophical posthumanism, and complexity theory the author proposes both a framework and a pragmatic instrument for understanding the multiplicity of relations that all contribute to how we affect—and are affected by—our relations with media technology.

• Education
• Music
• Politics and Sociology

Rethinking Social Action through Music: The Search for Coexistence and Citizenship in Medellín’s Music Schools

• Geoffrey Baker

How can we better understand the past, present and future of Social Action through Music (SATM)? This ground-breaking book examines the development of the Red de Escuelas de Música de Medellín (the Network of Music Schools of Medellín), a network of 27 schools founded in Colombia’s second city in 1996 as a response to its reputation as the most dangerous city on Earth.

• Media Studies and Journalism
• Politics and Sociology

Introducing Vigilant Audiences

• Daniel Trottier
• Rashid Gabdulhakov
• Qian Huang

This ground-breaking collection of essays examines the scope and consequences of digital vigilantism – a phenomenon emerging on a global scale, which sees digital audiences using social platforms to shape social and political life. Longstanding forms of moral scrutiny and justice seeking are disseminated through our contemporary media landscape, and researchers are increasingly recognising the significance of societal impacts effected by digital media.

• Politics and Sociology
• Women and Gender Studies

Liminal Spaces: Migration and Women of the Guyanese Diaspora

• Grace Aneiza Ali

Liminal Spaces is an intimate exploration into the migration narratives of fifteen women of Guyanese heritage. It spans diverse inter-generational perspectives – from those who leave Guyana, and those who are left – and seven seminal decades of Guyana’s history – from the 1950s to the present day – bringing the voices of women to the fore. The volume is conceived of as a visual exhibition on the page; a four-part journey navigating the contributors’ essays and artworks, allowing the reader to trace the migration path of Guyanese women from their moment of departure, to their arrival on diasporic soils, to their reunion with Guyana.

• Education
• Politics and Sociology

Discourses We Live By: Narratives of Educational and Social Endeavour

• Hazel R. Wright
• Marianne Høyen

This book is a rich and multifaceted collection of twenty-eight chapters that use varied lenses to examine the discourses that shape people’s lives. The contributors are themselves from many backgrounds – different academic disciplines within the humanities and social sciences, diverse professional practices and a range of countries and cultures. They represent a broad spectrum of age, status and outlook, and variously apply their research methods – but share a common interest in people, their lives, thoughts and actions.

• Economics
• European Studies
• Politics and Sociology

A European Public Investment Outlook

• Floriana Cerniglia
• Francesco Saraceno

The essays in this outlook collectively foster a broad approach to and definition of public investment, that is today more relevant than ever. Offering up a timely and clear case for the elimination of bias against investment in European fiscal rules, this outlook is a welcome contribution to the European debate, aimed both at policy makers and general readers.

• Anthropology
• Environmental Studies
• Politics and Sociology

Living Earth Community: Multiple Ways of Being and Knowing

• Sam Mickey
• Mary Evelyn Tucker
• John Grim

Living Earth Community: Multiple Ways of Being and Knowing is a celebration of the diversity of ways in which humans can relate to the world around them, and an invitation to its readers to partake in planetary coexistence. Innovative, informative, and highly accessible, this interdisciplinary anthology of essays brings together scholars, writers and educators across the sciences and humanities, in a collaborative effort to illuminate the different ways of being in the world and the different kinds of knowledge they entail – from the ecological knowledge of Indigenous communities, to the scientific knowledge of a biologist and the embodied knowledge communicated through storytelling.

• American and Latin American Studies
• Information Technology and Computer Science
• Politics and Sociology

The DARPA Model for Transformative Technologies: Perspectives on the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

• William Boone Bonvillian
• Richard Van Atta
• Patrick Windham

This book is a remarkable collection of leading academic research on DARPA from a wide range of perspectives, combining to chart an important story from the Agency’s founding in the wake of Sputnik, to the current attempts to adapt it to use by other federal agencies. Informative and insightful, this guide is essential reading for political and policy leaders, as well as researchers and students interested in understanding the success of this agency and the lessons it offers to others.

• Anthropology
• Politics and Sociology

Lifestyle in Siberia and the Russian North

• Joachim Otto Habeck

Lifestyle in Siberia and the Russian North breaks new ground by exploring the concept of lifestyle from a distinctly anthropological perspective. Showcasing the collective work of ten experienced scholars in the field, the book goes beyond concepts of tradition that have often been the focus of previous research, to explain how political, economic and technological changes in Russia have created a wide range of new possibilities and constraints in the pursuit of different ways of life.

• Asian Studies
• Economics
• Politics and Sociology

Infrastructure Investment in Indonesia: A Focus on Ports

• Colin Duffield
• Felix Kin Peng Hui
• Sally Wilson

Infrastructure Investment in Indonesia: A Focus on Ports presents an important and original collation of current material investigating the efficient facilitation of major infrastructure projects in Indonesia and Australia, with an emphasis on infrastructure investment and a focus on port planning and development

• Economics
• Politics and Sociology

Labour and Value: Rethinking Marx’s Theory of Exploitation

• Ernesto Screpanti

In this book Ernesto Screpanti provides a rigorous examination of Marx’s theory of exploitation, one of the cornerstones of Marxist thought. With precision and clarity, he identifies the holes in traditional readings of Marx’s theory before advancing his own original interpretation, drawing on contemporary philosophy and economic theory to provide a refreshingly interdisciplinary exegesis.

• History
• History: International Relations
• Politics and Sociology
• Textbooks and Learning Guides

History of International Relations: A Non-European Perspective

• Erik Ringmar

Existing textbooks on international relations treat history in a cursory fashion and perpetuate a Euro-centric perspective. This textbook pioneers a new approach by historicizing the material traditionally taught in International Relations courses, and by explicitly focusing on non-European cases, debates and issues.

• Biography
• Politics and Sociology
• Visual Arts
• Women and Gender Studies

Women and Migration: Responses in Art and History

• Deborah Willis
• Ellyn Toscano
• Kalia Brooks Nelson

The essays in this book chart how women’s profound and turbulent experiences of migration have been articulated in writing, photography, art and film. As a whole, the volume gives an impression of a wide range of migratory events from women’s perspectives, covering the Caribbean Diaspora, refugees and slavery through the various lenses of politics and war, love and family.

• Politics and Sociology
• Science
• Science: History of Science

Hanging on to the Edges: Essays on Science, Society and the Academic Life

• Daniel Nettle

Pragmatically arguing from the intersection between social and biological sciences, Nettle reappraises the virtues of policy initiatives such as Universal Basic Income and income redistribution, highlighting the traps researchers and politicians are liable to encounter. This provocative, intelligent and self-critical volume is a testament to the possibilities of interdisciplinary study—whose virtues Nettle stridently defends—drawing from and having implications for a wide cross-section of academic inquiry. This will appeal to anybody curious about the implications of social and biological sciences for increasingly topical political concerns. It comes particularly recommended to Sciences and Social Sciences students and to scholars seeking to extend the scope of their field in collaboration with other disciplines.

• Health
• Politics and Sociology

Undocumented Migrants and Healthcare: Eight Stories from Switzerland

• Marianne Jossen

This urgent study uses a grounded theory approach to explore the ways in which undocumented migrants are included in or excluded from healthcare in a Swiss region. Marianne Jossen explores the ways migrants try to obtain healthcare on their own, with the help of NGOs or via insurance, and how they cope if they fail, whether by using risky strategies to access healthcare or leaving serious health issues untreated. Jossen shows that even for those who succeed, inclusion remains partial and fraught with risks.

• Anthropology
• History
• History: International Relations
• Politics and Sociology

Mobilities, Boundaries, and Travelling Ideas: Rethinking Translocality Beyond Central Asia and the Caucasus

• Manja Stephan-Emmrich
• Philipp Schröder

This collection brings together a variety of anthropological, historical and sociological case studies from Central Asia and the Caucasus to examine the concept of translocality. The chapters scrutinize the capacity of translocality to describe, in new ways, the multiple mobilities, exchange practices and globalizing processes that link places, people and institutions in Central Asia and the Caucasus with others in Russia, China and the United Arab Emirates.

• American and Latin American Studies
• History
• Politics and Sociology

The Jewish Unions in America: Pages of History and Memories

• Bernard Weinstein
• Maurice Wolfthal

From the pages of this book emerges a vivid picture of workers’ organizations at the beginning of the twentieth century and a capitalist system that bred exploitation, poverty, and inequality. Although workers’ rights have made great progress in the decades since, Weinstein’s descriptions of workers with jobs pitted against those without, and American workers against workers abroad, still carry echoes today. The Jewish Unions in America is a testament to the struggles of working people a hundred years ago. But it is also a reminder that workers must still battle to live decent lives in the free market.

• Philosophy
• Politics and Sociology
• Science
• Science: History of Science

Science as Social Existence: Heidegger and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge

• Jeff Kochan

In this bold and original study, Jeff Kochan constructively combines the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) with Martin Heidegger’s early existential conception of science. Kochan shows convincingly that these apparently quite different approaches to science are, in fact, largely compatible, even mutually reinforcing.

• Anthropology
• History
• History: International Relations
• Politics and Sociology

Warlike and Peaceful Societies: The Interaction of Genes and Culture

• Agner Fog

Are humans violent or peaceful by nature? We are both. In this ambitious and wide-ranging book, Agner Fog presents a ground-breaking new argument that explains the existence of differently organised societies using evolutionary theory. It combines natural sciences and social sciences in a way that is rarely seen.

• History
• History: International Relations
• Politics and Sociology

World of Walls: The Structure, Roles and Effectiveness of Separation Barriers

• Said Saddiki

In this timely and original book, Said Saddiki scrutinises the physical and virtual walls located in four continents, including Israel, India, the southern EU border, Morocco, and the proposed border wall between Mexico and the US. Saddiki’s detailed analysis explores the tensions between the rise of globalisation, which some have argued will lead to a "borderless world” and "the end of the nation-state”, and the rapid development in recent decades of border control systems.

• Economics
• Politics and Sociology

Just Managing? What it Means for the Families of Austerity Britain

• Mark O'Brien
• Paul Kyprianou

At a time when the impact of austerity is more relevant than ever, Just Managing? cuts through the debates and sloganeering to give some of the real people behind the headlines and statistics a chance to tell their stories. It tracks the lives of thirty working families in Liverpool over one year, as they struggle to manage on incomes at or around the National Minimum Wage. Their accounts are placed within the economic and political context that has shaped their experiences and that of millions of other working families across the country.

• Politics and Sociology

Security in a Small Nation: Scotland, Democracy, Politics

• Andrew W. Neal

The 2014 Referendum on Scottish independence sparked debate on every dimension of modern statehood. Levels of public interest and engagement were unprecedented, as demonstrated by record-breaking voter turnout. Yet aside from Trident, the issue of security was relatively neglected in the campaigns, and there remains a lack of literature on the topic. In this volume Andrew Neal has collated a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives on security and constitutional change in Scotland and the UK, including writing from experts in foreign policy analysis, intelligence studies, parliamentary studies, and journalism.

• Information Technology and Computer Science
• Politics and Sociology

Deliberation, Representation, Equity: Research Approaches, Tools and Algorithms for Participatory Processes

• Love Ekenberg
• Karin Hansson
• Mats Danielson
• Göran Cars

In democratic societies there is widespread acknowledgment of the need to incorporate citizens’ input in decision-making processes in more or less structured ways. But participatory decision making is balancing on the borders of inclusion, structure, precision and accuracy. To simply enable more participation will not yield enhanced democracy, and there is a clear need for more elaborated elicitation and decision analytical tools. This rigorous and thought-provoking volume draws on a stimulating variety of international case studies, from flood risk management in the Red River Delta of Vietnam, to the consideration of alternatives to gold mining in Roșia Montană in Transylvania, to the application of multi-criteria decision analysis in evaluating the impact of e-learning opportunities at Uganda's Makerere University. This book is important new reading for decision makers in government, public administration and urban planning, as well as students and researchers in the fields of participatory democracy, urban planning, social policy, communication design, participatory art, decision theory, risk analysis and computer and systems sciences.

• Politics and Sociology
• Theatre

Theatre and War: Notes from the Field

• Nandita Dinesh

Nandita Dinesh places Kipling’s "six honest serving-men" (who, what, when, where, why, how) in productive conversation with her own experiences in conflict zones across the world to offer a theoretical and practical reflection on making theatre in times of war. This timely and important book weaves together Dinesh’s personal narrative with the public story of modern conflict, illustrating as it does, the importance of theatre as a force for ethical deliberation and social justice.

• Law
• Politics and Sociology

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the 21st Century: A Living Document in a Changing World

• Gordon Brown

The Global Citizenship Commission was convened, under the leadership of former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the auspices of NYU’s Global Institute for Advanced Study, to re-examine the spirit and stirring words of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The result – this volume – offers a 21st-century commentary on the original document, furthering the work of human rights and illuminating the ideal of global citizenship. What does it mean for each of us to be members of a global community?

• Economics
• Politics and Sociology

Tyneside Neighbourhoods: Deprivation, Social Life and Social Behaviour in One British City

• Daniel Nettle

Tyneside Neighbourhoods uses multiple research methods to explore social relationships and social behaviour, attempting to understand whether the experience of deprivation fosters social solidarity, or undermines it. The book is distinctive in its development of novel quantitative methods for ethnography: systematic social observation, economic games, household surveys, crime statistics, and field experiments.

• History
• History: International Relations
• Politics and Sociology

Complexity, Security and Civil Society in East Asia: Foreign Policies and the Korean Peninsula

• Peter Hayes
• Kiho Yi

Complexity, Security and Civil Society in East Asia offers the latest understanding of complex global problems in the region, including nuclear weapons, urban insecurity, energy, and climate change. Detailed case studies of China, North and South Korea, and Japan demonstrate the importance of civil society and ‘civic diplomacy’ in reaching shared solutions to these problems in East Asia and beyond.

• Politics and Sociology
• Science
• Science: History of Science

The Scientific Revolution Revisited

• Mikuláš Teich

With a narrative that moves from pre-classical thought to the European institutionalisation of science – and a scope that embraces figures both lionised and neglected, such as Nicole Oresme, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, Isaac Newton, René Descartes, Thaddeus Hagecius, Johann Joachim Becher – The Scientific Revolution Revisited illuminates the social and intellectual sea changes that shaped the modern world.

• Politics and Sociology

Democracy and Power: The Delhi Lectures

• Noam Chomsky

Chomsky’s early insights into the workings of power in the modern world remain timely and compelling. Published for the first time, this series of lectures also provides the reader with an invaluable introduction to the essential ideas of one of the leading thinkers of our time.

• Asian Studies
• History
• History: International Relations
• Politics and Sociology

The Passion of Max von Oppenheim: Archaeology and Intrigue in the Middle East from Wilhelm II to Hitler

• Lionel Gossman

Born into a prominent German Jewish banking family, Max von Oppenheim was a keen amateur archaeologist and ethnologist, whose excavation of Tel Halaf in Syria marked an important contribution to knowledge of the ancient Middle East. He was also an ardent German patriot, eager to support his country’s pursuit of its ‘place in the sun’. Ranging widely over many fields – from war studies to archaeology and banking history – this book tells the gripping and at times unsettling story of one part-Jewish man’s passion for his country in the face of persistent and, in his later years, genocidal anti-Semitism.

• Anthropology
• Asian Studies
• Folklore and Ethnology
• History
• History: International Relations
• Politics and Sociology

Frontier Encounters: Knowledge and Practice at the Russian, Chinese and Mongolian Border

• Franck Billé
• Grégory Delaplace
• Caroline Humphrey

China, Russia and Mongolia share thousands of miles of border, but their traditions, languages and worldviews are remarkably different. Presenting varied perspectives on how the borders between these unique countries are enacted, produced and crossed, this book illuminates global uncertainties: China’s search for energy resources and the employment of its huge population, Russia’s fear of Chinese migration, and the precarious economic independence of Mongolia as its neighbours negotiate to extract its plentiful resources. Bringing together anthropologists, sociologists and economists, this timely collection of essays offers new perspectives on an area that is currently of enormous economic, strategic and geo-political relevance.

• Politics and Sociology

Peace and Democratic Society

• Amartya Sen

Emphasizing the need to understand the relationship between violence, peace and democracy, Amartya Sen’s introductory essay explores ideas around ‘organised violence’ and violence against the individual. Highlighting the inadequacies of some of the widely accepted explanations for violence, Sen makes a plea for a global, multilateral debate on the causes of conflict, and an understanding of the multiple identities of the individuals involved. This challenging and insightful essay introduces the Commonwealth Commission on Respect and Understanding’s timely report “Civil Paths to Peace”, which stresses the need to understand the complexities around violent behaviour and its causes.