In September 2013, Xi Jinping announced the launch of a Chinese-led megaproject, the Belt and Road Initiative, that would transform Asia's position within the global economy. Some ten years on, the BRI, while facing significant obstacles, has gone from strength to strength. How has China’s BRI diplomacy affected its image across Asia? What does the BRI mean for Sino-US competition? Will Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and footprint in the region hinder the BRI’s success? Addressing these questions and more, the authors of China Moves West offer a critical appraisal of how the BRI is progressing, how it is being perceived, and how it is navigating challenges in the geopolitically sensitive regions of Central, South, and West Asia.

“Kent draws on his decades of experience..

A concise;informed and practical introduction for legal practitioners and associated professionals to the law and practice of international commercial arbitration.

How has the idea of liberty developed and evolved over the centuries? What does freedom mean for us today and what do we need to do to preserve the freedoms for which generations of men and women fought and even gave their lives? Liberty is indispensable to flourishing societies the world over. Its story contains everything from our ancestors’ long quest to establish freedom of thought and freedom of religion, to the modern fight against authoritarian politics and tyrants everywhere. In this anthology leading academics, writers and historians explore what liberty has meant through the ages and reflect on this great drama of freedom at work.

Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley’s new book is both an updated academic study and an autobiographical account of her decades-long Mandaean encounters. The book includes the author’s intellectual timeline in Mandaean studies from the late 1960s until today, a study of Mandaean scribal lineages, accounts of private and public meetings with Mandeans around the world with 26 anecdotes / vignettes, as well as selections from a privately printed book on her international human rights work for Mandaeans. The book is dedicated to a treasured Mandaean friend, the yalufa (learned layman) Sh. Salem Choheili.

"Ridge explains why scholars so often misread the political desires of people in the Arab world.” —Choice"Combines theoretical insights with impressive empirical evidence..

“The author masterfully pieces together and presents a comprehensive examination of the history and evolution of the war on drugs in the region and its inadvertent consequences..

“A much-needed contemporary foundation for understanding police reform in Latin America..

"Timely, topical, and thought-provoking…. This is a terrific analysis of how states have tried to bend finance to their will over the ages." —Randall Germain, Carleton University"An important contribution to our understanding of the relationship between finance and national security, exploring how the financial sector itself offers opportunities to exert influence. " —Thomas Oatley, Tulane University"The sinews of war," posited Cicero, "are infinite money." Can the same be said of security? Tackling this thought-provoking question, the authors of Waging War with Gold show how states across the centuries have weaponized the global finance domain—a constellation of economic, legal, and monetary relations—in order to exert influence and pursue national interests.

Public education plays a crucial role in crafting a nation's future. In the United States, education reform policy, particularly the reliance on large-scale, standardized testing, is a growing topic of national conversation and concern. An Illusion of Equity: The Legacy of Eugenics in Today's Education demonstrates how centuries of propaganda have led us to accept the idea that test scores indicate something so valuable about human beings that they should be used to organize society. Drawing on decades of experience as an educator, author Wendy Zagray Warren unpacks the origins of this practice, inviting us to probe the ideologies underlying testing procedures and score interpretation and to evaluate the rationale for using test scores as the sole markers for academic achievement. From the beginning, large-scale tests have produced scores divided by race and class. Initially, these results aligned with the eugenic ideology of its creators. Warren shows that while the rhetoric used to justify test-based policy has changed, the model used to produce test scores remains much the same. Therefore, so do the outcomes of test-based policies, which continue to reproduce and reinforce the existing social hierarchy of the United States. The hope of equity lies in educators charting new paths and scholars around the world who are dreaming new educational paradigms into being. Ultimately, Warren invites policymakers, educators, and parents to explore the richness of possibility when education is designed around the belief that every child is worthy of the opportunity to thrive.

Between 1945 and 1965, more than fifty nations declared their independence from colonial rule. At the height of the Cold War, the global process of decolonization complicated US-Soviet relations, while Soviet and American interventionism transformed the decolonizing process. Remaking the World examines the connections between the Cold War and decolonization, which helped define the post-World War II global order. Drawing on new scholarship, this comprehensive study provides a chronological overview from World War I to the Soviet collapse and highlights key developments in the international system as decolonization unfolded in tandem with the Cold War. Through six carefully selected case studies - India, Egypt, the Congo, Vietnam, Angola, and Iran - historian Jessica M. Chapman addresses the shifting of Soviet, American, Chinese, and Cuban policies, the centrality of modernization, the role of the United Nations, the often-outsized influence of regional actors like Israel and South Africa, and seminal post-Vietnam War shifts in the international system. Each of the case studies analyzes at least one geopolitical turning point, demonstrating that the Cold War and decolonization were mutually constitutive processes in which local, national, and regional developments altered the superpower competition. Chapman presents a picture of the complexities of international relations and the ways in which local communist and democratic movements differed from their Soviet and American ties, as did their visions for independence and success.

“Thoughtful political history of a much-neglected country.” —Nicolas van de Walle, Foreign Affairs "A rare feat of analysis and insight on Djibouti…. Samson gives an astute account of this 'freak-of-history' state and the often dubious maneuvering of its leaders since independence in 1977. His book is an absolute must for all those interested in Northeast Africa and its place in the world." —Jon Abbink, Leiden University."An eloquent and comprehensive analysis of past and present developments in Djibouti." —Leif Manger, University of Bergen."Interweaving national and international issues, Bezabeh's book contrasts social and political realities with the discourse proclaiming that independence brought freedom, equality, and well-being for Djibouti's population." —Simon Imbert-Vier, Institut des Mondes AfricainsWedged between Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia, at the intersection of the world’s busiest shipping routes, Djibouti has long been a global geostrategic hub. Samson Bezabeh traces the tortuous political history of this tiny country since its independence from France in 1977.Bezabeh challenges much conventional wisdom as he dissects Djibouti's trials and tribulations. Focusing on the internal, external, and historical factors that drive its domestic politics, his work exposes the troubling dynamics that have allowed the state to survive despite, or perhaps because of, the fragmentation of its society.

In 1948 the United Nations launched the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization following the conflict that erupted between Israel and its Arab neighbors, who profoundly opposed the creation of a Jewish state. UNTSO quickly found itself overseeing the ceasefire lines between combatant parties. In the ensuing decades, as countries along the eastern Mediterranean engaged in a series of escalating military conflicts, UNTSO was continually challenged in its peacekeeping mission, often having to alter its configuration. Matters came to a head in 1982, when Israel invaded Lebanon for a second time, calling into question the efficacy of UN peacekeeping operations and US support for them. In Yanks in Blue Berets: American UN Peacekeepers in the Middle East, retired US Army colonel and former UN military observer L. Scott Lingamfelter chronicles the role of the US military in UN Middle East peacekeeping operations. Framed by his personal experiences, the book examines the difficulties faced by UN forces wedged between warring sides with limited trust in their authority as well as the challenging dichotomy of a soldier trained for combat yet immersed in unarmed peacekeeping. Yanks in Blue Berets is a "boots on the ground" perspective of the building Arab-Israeli tensions and geopolitics preceding the 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

What causes widespread abuse of the electoral process? How do political elites choose and weigh the relative costs and benefits of differing kinds of electoral manipulation? How and why have patterns of electoral conduct changed over time? The authors of Electoral Malpractice in Asia answer these questions and more as they systematically compare the quality of elections across eleven democracies and electoral autocracies. Covering a range of regimes and practices, they highlight not only the varying ways that electoral integrity is violated, but also the consequences for the quality of democracy across the region.

“Offers valuable insights into personal and political aspects of Xi’s China and how he has shaped the country.” —Junchen Zhang, Asian Studies Review "A very good introduction to recent Chinese history and politics.… [Xi] is still a man of mystery, but this book is a good first step toward demystifying him. " —Dagens NæringslivWith steely determination, Xi Jinping has forged his way to absolute power at home, consolidated China's role as a global superpower, and promoted instrumental myths about his life. All the while, in many ways he has remained a mystery. Which is a problem, assert Stig Stenslie and Marte Kjær Galtung, because to understand China today, it is essential to understand Xi.Who is he? What is his vision for China? What explains his rise? How is he perceived by the masses? These are among the questions that gave rise to this book. Using Xi as a lens with which to examine China’s political development over the past decade, the authors succeed in shining new light on the innermost circles of Chinese politics and on the authoritarian leader himself.

"I've lived a completely ordinary life, so much that I don't know how to write a transgender or queer or Appalachian story, because I don't feel like I've lived one..