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A data-rich analysis that will reshape our understanding of how rising income inequality has actually affected societies in the industrialized world.Increasing economic inequality is now one of the most studied subjects in the social sciences. The general view is that while its increase represents a bad social outcome in and of itself, its negative impact extends into numerous other realms of social life: declines in living standards for those in the lower deciles of the income ladder, worse health outcomes, reductions in happiness, and less opportunity for most.In Is Inequality the Problem?, Lane Kenworthy draws from a vast trove of research on the rich democracies to argue that while inequality is normatively a problem and we should therefore work to reduce it, the evidence from wealthier countries does not show that income inequality has contributed much at all to the other social ills it is associated with, like poor health outcomes. The effects vary from society to society, but typically the key contributors to negative trends like this one are factors other than inequality. Instead of trying to improve living standards, democracy, opportunity, health, and happiness indirectly via reduction in income inequality or wealth inequality, policy makers are more likely to make progress by pursuing these goals directly.This contrarian yet balanced account of one of the main social problems of our era will reshape our understanding of how rising economic inequality has affected societies in the industrialized world.

In the Americas, organized state violence takes many forms--from forced disappearance and feminicide to extralegal killings, mass incarceration, and illegal detention. In response, mothers'' organizations and collectives emerged in the 1970s to advocate for their disappeared, imprisoned, and murdered relatives. These organizations fight long and challenging battles for state and corporate accountability, demanding the creation of truth commissions, national memory archives, memory sites, and victim-oriented legislation. By implementing alternative caretaking mechanisms on behalf of survivors and victims, mothers'' organizations have become powerful actors against organized state violence, structural inequalities, and political abandonment. In The Maternal Contract, Elva F. Orozco Mendoza traces the mobilization of mothers'' organizations against organized state violence in the Americas. Drawing on the insights and work of four mothers'' organizations--Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, Las Madres de Chihuahua, Colectivo Solecito, and Mothers Reclaiming Our Children, Orozco Mendoza introduces a novel theoretical framework, "the maternal contract," to illustrate how these organizations create and advance their own caretaking structures in the absence of substantive political rights and representation. While these organizations emerged in different times and geographies, Orozco Mendoza argues that they are linked by a powerful commitment to protect subaltern social groups and marginalized subjects against a violence-driven apparatus that disregards human life and dignity. In so doing, she draws attention to the caretaking practices, initiatives, and responsibilities that mothers'' organizations adopt to counter chronic violence and collective suffering.

Winner of the Gilder Lehrman Military History Prize, the first global history of the world''s first world war.Austerlitz, Wagram, Borodino, Trafalgar, Leipzig, Waterloo: these are the places most closely associated with the era of the Napoleonic Wars. But how did this period of nearly continuous conflict affect the world beyond Europe? The immensity of the fighting waged by France against England, Prussia, Austria, and Russia, and the immediate consequences of the tremors that spread throughout the world.In this ambitious and far-ranging work, Alexander Mikaberidze argues that the Napoleonic Wars can only be fully understood in an international perspective. France struggled for dominance not only on the plains of Europe but also in the Americas, West and South Africa, Ottoman Empire, Iran, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Mediterranean Sea, and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Taking specific regions in turn, Mikaberidze discusses major political-military events around the world and situates geopolitical decision-making within its long- and short-term contexts. From the British expeditions to Argentina and South Africa to the Franco-Russian maneuvering in the Ottoman Empire, the effects of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars would shape international affairs well into the next century. In Egypt, the wars led to the rise of Mehmed Ali and the emergence of a powerful state; in North America, the period transformed and enlarged the newly established United States; and in South America, the Spanish colonial empire witnessed the start of national-liberation movements that ultimately ended imperial control.Skillfully narrated and deeply researched, here at last is the global history of the period, one that expands our view of the Napoleonic Wars and their role in laying the foundations of the modern world.

The end of the Cold War gave way to a fundamental shift in the structure of the international system. It was an era characterized above all by liberal triumphalism in which Western politicians and policymakers turned to international organizations (IOs) to spread and reinforce liberal values. These IOs, backed by the West, proliferated at exceedingly high rates, with democracies in particular becoming fully integrated members. Scholars agreed with policymakers, finding overwhelming evidence that these IOs were positive forces for democracy, and for several decades liberal democracy appeared ascendant. However, beginning around 2010, liberal democracy''s forward march abruptly halted, and ongoing evidence of democratic backsliding ---an historically unprecedented phenomenon in which democratically elected officials erode liberal democratic institutions--- calls into question the post-Cold War narrative of liberal democratic triumphalism. What explains democracy''s sudden reversal of fortune and the emergence of this new form of democratic regression on the heels of unmatched international integration and support for liberal democracy? Eroding Democracy from the Outside In proposes a novel international-level theory of democratic backsliding. In the decades after the Soviet Union fell, IOs became not only much more common, but a certain subset of these organizations also gained unprecedented power and influence over domestic affairs and substantive, highly salient economic and political policy outcomes. One unintended consequence of this increased delegation of economic and political policy authority to powerful IOs has been that over time core domestic representative institutions, such as political parties and legislatures, have been eroded, while power has been increasingly concentrated in the hands of executives who represent their states at the international level. These weak institutions, unable to either represent citizens'' wide-ranging interests or act as a check on growing executive power, have paved the way for would-be autocrats to consolidate their hold on the state. The result all too often has been democratic backsliding.

The ancient Near East is known as the "cradle of civilization" - and for good reason. Mesopotamia, Syria, and Anatolia were home to an extraordinarily rich and successful culture. Indeed, it was a time and place of earth-shaking changes for humankind: the beginnings of writing and law, kingship and bureaucracy, diplomacy and state-sponsored warfare, mathematics and literature.This Very Short Introduction offers a fascinating account of this momentous time in human history. The three thousand years covered here - from around 3500 BCE, with the founding of the first Mesopotamian cities, to the conquest of the Near East by the Persian king Cyrus the Great in 539 BCE-represent a period of incredible innovation, from the invention of the wheel and the plow, to early achievements in astronomy, law, and diplomacy. As historian Amanda Podany explores this era, she overturns the popular image of the ancient world as a primitive, violent place. We discover that women had many rights and freedoms: they could own property, run businesses, and represent themselves in court. Diplomats traveled between the capital cities of major powers ensuring peace and friendship between the kings. Scribes and scholars studied the stars and could predict eclipses and the movements of the planets.Every chapter introduces the reader to a particular moment in ancient Near Eastern history, illuminating such aspects as trade, religion, diplomacy, law, warfare, kingship, and agriculture. Each discussion focuses on evidence provided in two or three cuneiform texts from that time. These documents, the cities in which they were found, the people and gods named in them, the events they recount or reflect, all provide vivid testimony of the era in which they were written. About the Series:Oxford''s Very Short Introductions series offers concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects--from Islam to Sociology, Politics to Classics, Literary Theory to History, and Archaeology to the Bible. Not simply a textbook of definitions, each volume in this series provides trenchant and provocative--yet always balanced and complete--discussions of the central issues in a given discipline or field. Every Very Short Introduction gives a readable evolution of the subject in question, demonstrating how the subject has developed and how it has influenced society. Eventually, the series will encompass every major academic discipline, offering all students an accessible and abundant reference library. Whatever the area of study that one deems important or appealing, whatever the topic that fascinates the general reader, the Very Short Introductions series has a handy and affordable guide that will likely prove indispensable. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

A 50th anniversary edition of one of the most widely influential articles of 20th Century philosophy“Consciousness is what makes the mind-body problem really intractable.” So begins Thomas Nagel''s classic 1974 essay “What is it Like to be a Bat?” Nagel''s essay initiated the now widespread attention to consciousness as a central problem for philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience; it also influenced the recognition of the consciousness of nonhuman creatures as an important subject of study. Nagel argued that the essential subjectivity of conscious experience -- what it is like for the creature undergoing it -- means that reductionist theories of mind, which attempt to analyze it in physical terms, can never succeed. It follows that the physical sciences cannot provide a complete description of reality, and that the physical conception of objective reality must be transcended if science is going to comprehend the mind. This edition reissues this classic and widely influential article on its 50th anniversary, along with a new preface discussing the origins and influence of the essay, as well as “Further Thoughts: The Psychophysical Nexus,” a supplementary essay which describes Nagel''s later thoughts about how to respond to the problem posed by “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” This second essay suggests that the most promising path forward for the mind-body problem, if one accepts the irreducible subjectivity of consciousness, is to seek a necessary connection between mental and neurophysiogical states through a more fundamental type of state which is neither mental nor physical but necessitates them both as essential aspects. In other words, a state that is physical from the outside and mental from the inside, just as we are. This would be a form of monism, requiring the formation of new concepts, since our present concepts of the mental and the physical do not entail such a necessary connection. The essay explains why the relation between the mental and the physical may be necessary, even though our present concepts make it appear contingent.

Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, InspiringThis Very Short Introduction is a general introduction to oral history from the interview to the archive. Douglas A. Boyd examines the oral history interview, recording techniques and strategies, technologies for making oral history accessible, and the legal and ethical implications throughout the work of oral history. Boyd also pays special attention to the role of the archive and the importance of memory. Equally important, this book also examines the world of digital possibilities for utilizing oral history for scholarly, public, community, and personal use.An area of explosive interest and growth, oral history is a complex discipline not just sequestered to storytelling. The interview is a complex combination of strategy and flexibility, remembering and forgetting, narrative and silence, and cannot escape individual biases and perspectives. This book offers readers a comprehensive and concise overview of oral history from one of the most important figures in the field.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

A sweeping and comprehensive history of Prague--from its origins in the ninth century to the present day--that traces its past as a political center and a city on the periphery of empires.Poets have called Prague the City of One Hundred Spires, Golden Prague, Magic Prague, and the Mother of Cities. Millions of tourists visit the Czech capital each year, awed by the blend of architectural styles and the dramatic landscape. St. Vitus''s Gothic cathedral towers above the Charles Bridge and the Vltava River. Winding Gothic alleys lead to elegant squares lined with Renaissance palaces, Baroque statues, and modern glass structures. Yet, the city''s beauty often obscures centuries of ethnic and religious conflict. In Prague''s Jewish Quarter, the names of nearly 80,000 Holocaust victims are inscribed on the walls of Pinkas Synagogue, which stands as a reminder of a complex and violent past. Cynthia Paces traces the history of Prague since the late ninth century, when Slavic dukes built the first church and fortifications on the castle hill. Over the course of eleven centuries, Prague vacillated between a political center and a city on the periphery of empires. The Holy Roman Emperors Charles IV and Rudolph II transformed Prague into a European center of arts, politics, and pilgrimage, but centuries of religious conflict, the defenestrations of Prague, and the Thirty Years War threatened to destroy the city. In the twentieth century, Prague was hailed as a beacon of democracy, led by philosopher presidents T. G. Masaryk and Václav Havel, but its citizens also endured violent antisemitism, a Nazi occupation, and a repressive communist regime.While illuminating a millennium of political, cultural, and social developments, Prague: The Heart of Europe captures the lives of the men and women who have called the city home. Prague has housed Europe''s largest Jewish community, a diverse population of German and Czech speakers, and artisans from all over Europe. This sweeping book highlights the manifold contributions of Prague''s artists, architects, musicians, and writers. In doing so, it reveals why the city captivated so many creative men and women, including Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Antonín Dvorák, Oskar Kokoschka, the poet Elizabeth Weston, and the alchemist John Dee. As Prague native Franz Kafka once wrote, "Prague does not let go; this little mother has claws."

The culminating volume in the acclaimed Gotham series, Gotham at War delivers an unforgettable portrait of America''s greatest city during history''s most catastrophic conflict.Gotham at War unveils the history of New York and the Second World War, from isolationism and factionalism to crucible of the American effort and the Allied Cause in a total and global war.Kaleidoscopic and immersive, Gotham at War captures the full spectrum of New York and the war from every possible aspect-social, political, economic, and military. Even before the war had started street battles between New York''s homegrown fascists and the workers'' movement-allied with immigrants from all over the world and their children in the barrios of Gotham-played prelude. Set in the generation after race "scientists" based in the elite warrens of the Upper East Side championed and then imposed national immigration restriction, Gotham at War sees New Yorkers struggle to shake off the city''s eugenic past. Between 1933 and 1945, the city wrestled with itself, starting from the rise of Hitler through isolationism and growing interventionism; through Pearl Harbor and a full-throated war effort, when millions of American soldiers and sailors and billions of tons of materiel passed through New York''s waterfronts to the warfronts. Along the way Mike Wallace''s saga traces the transformation of New York, embracing garment workers and skyscrapers; the subway and Wall Street; gangsters and idealists; pols and reformers; nightclubs and boardrooms; Nazi infiltrators and FBI gumshoes; magazines and movies; shuls and cathedrals; every neighborhood, every industry, and all the peoples of the city swept up in a world that had caught fire. Here is a portrait of a city and a war like no other. Gotham at War traces the transformation of New York from Depression-wracked mother of exiles to a front in the Second World War, and ultimately to the seat of the United Nations and a very contested "capital of the world."

Discover the meteoric rise of one of the most extraordinary and singular figures in American jurisprudence, Robert H. Jackson, from self-trained lawyer to influential Supreme Court Justice and chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, in this compelling new biography.Until he joined the U.S. government in 1934, Robert H. Jackson had been a lawyer in private practice in Upstate New York who was admitted to the bar without going to college and after completing only one year of law school. Once part of FDR''s administration, Jackson became, in rapid succession, United States Solicitor General and United States Attorney General, where he successfully defended New Deal programs before the Supreme Court, including the legality of Lend Lease, which helped the U.S. give war supplies to England in exchange for grants of territory and harbors. Jackson played a central role in formulating the arguments justifying a number of initiatives on constitutional grounds and in drafting the policy statements that accompanied them. In 1941, FDR nominated him to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, on which he served until his death in 1954, only months after his adding his vote to the unanimous decision in Brown V. Board of Education. It was a meteoric rise for someone from outside the elite, and essentially self-trained. That didn''t stop Jackson from becoming one of the most influential and independent-minded judges of his day, unafraid to question the status quo and leave his mark on a number of landmark cases, including West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnett, which guaranteed First Amendment rights by holding that students in public schools did not have to salute the flag or recite the Pledge of Allegiance. He dissented from the notorious decision in Korematsu v. U.S., which condoned the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War Two. To many, however, Jackson''s most significant contribution was as chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg war trials following the war. Drawing on Jackson''s extensive personal papers in the Library of Congress and the Jackson Center, as well as a substantial oral history, G. Edward White''s biography offers the first full-length portrait in decades of this fascinating and seminal figure.

This is the story of the game-changing collaboration between director Alfred Hitchcock and composer Bernard Herrmann, who channelled their inner fears and desires into films that would become the nightmarish narratives and soundtracks of our lives.The 11-year collaboration between Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann is often called the greatest director-composer partnership in cinema history. Their eight films together include such classic thrillers as Vertigo, The Man Who Knew Too Much, North by Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds. In Hitchcock and Herrmann: The Friendship and Film Scores that Changed Cinema, Steven C. Smith delivers an intimate account of how the reserved, but deeply anxious, Hitchcock found his ideal creative partner in the cantankerous, but deeply romantic, Herrmann. Smith draws on four decades of research, including previously unpublished documents and new interviews, to deliver a riveting account of what made the teaming of "Benny and Hitch" so memorable and influential -- and why it came to a bitter end. Their story involves the tumultuous changes in Hollywood from the mid-1950s to mid-1960s, as the collapsing studio system gave way to independent, counterculture filmmaking. It also involves the key figures in Hitchcock and Herrmann''s inner circle including the director''s gifted wife and most valued critic, Alma Reville; Herrmann''s beautiful, put-upon spouse, Lucy Anderson; and talent agent-turned-studio mogul Lew Wasserman. Wasserman''s negotiations made Hitchcock''s greatest filmmaking period possible, but over time Lew''s commercial instincts as head of Universal Studios clashed with Herrmann''s pure artistic vision.Hitchcock and Herrmann is both a deeply researched historical study and a fast-moving, cinematic narrative -- one that puts readers on the film sets and scoring stages of Hitchcock masterworks. Their collaboration ended in a bitter break; but today Herrmann''s pulse-quickening music has become the soundtrack of our own anxious times. The music from their movies is more popular than ever, heard in Quentin Tarantino blockbusters and Lady Gaga music videos. In Smith''s expert telling, readers get an an intimate look at two legendary creators who, despite seemingly opposite personalities, found in each other artistic completion.

Is the breakup of an increasingly polarized America into separate red and blue countries even possibl? here is a growing interest in American secession. In February 2023, Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted that "We need a national divorce...We need to separate by red states and blue states." Recent movements like Yes California have called for a national divorce along political lines. A 2023 Axios poll shows that 20 percent of Americans favor a national divorce. These trends show a sincere interest in American secession, and they will likely increase in the aftermath of the 2024 Presidential election. Proponents of secession make three arguments: the two sides have irreconcilable differences; secession is a legal right; and smaller political units are better. Through interviews with secessionist advocates in America, Ryan Griffiths explores the case for why Red America and Blue America should split up.But as The Disunited States shows, these arguments are fundamentally incorrect. Secession is the wrong solution to the problem of polarization. Red and Blue America are not neatly sorted and geographically concentrated. Splitting the two parts would require a dangerous unmixing of the population, one that could spiral into violence and state collapse. Drawing on his expertise on secessionism worldwide, he shows how the process has played out internationally-and usually disastrously. Ultimately, this book will disabuse readers of the belief that secession will fix America''s problems. Rather than focus on national divorce as a solution, the better course of action is to seek common ground.

When a process popularly known as the Industrial Revolution first took hold in Germany in the mid-nineteenth century, many contemporaries were stunned by the scale and ferocity of the transformation. While Germany had long been considered a promising place to industrialize, given its historic ties to New World markets, skilled and educated workforce, and deep pockets of wealth, progress had been slow due to persistent indifference and skepticism across society. That people should have suddenly dropped their reservations and simply embraced the new industrial modernity defied all explanation. Grasping for answers, some concluded that the Germans must have fallen under the spell of the "capitalist spirit."Benjamin P. Hein locates the impetus for the abrupt transformation of German society after ca. 1850 in its cultural exchange with the country''s burgeoning diaspora in North America, one of the largest in this century. In correspondence and other "news from America," the emigrants conveyed to their families, communities, and business associates in Europe a different set of norms and ethics regarding work, entrepreneurship, and commerce. By making it socially acceptable and politically meaningful to frequently change professions or to organize businesses as joint-stock corporations, they inadvertently mobilized an otherwise reluctant population for a more centralized regime of production that served global market forces instead of local needs and corporatist norms. They also helped popularize key institutional pillars of the new economy, like the universal bank, and inspired innovative commercial reforms, most notably the "limited liability partnership" (LLP), or "G.m.b.H." in German, which became the legal foundation of Germany''s particularly robust small-business economy. While addressing global trends, The Migrant''s Spirit makes these phenomena comprehensible through the lives of individuals who faced painful choices and moral quandaries as they attempted to navigate a new social and economic order and began to trust countrymen abroad over local sources of guidance. By reconstructing their struggles, Hein sheds new light on the transatlantic dimensions of Germany''s path to industrial modernity.

A detailed account, based on fieldwork and interviews, of how Women, Peace and Security norms are militarized and put at the service of operational effectiveness.International organizations and governments want to increase women''s participation in military operations and peacebuilding. Gender equality is increasingly seen as the antidote to conflict, a key factor in achieving stability. While feminist activism inspired the emergence of these norms on gender and conflict, they were institutionalized through the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, with the military at the forefront of those changes. In Deploying Feminism, Stéfanie von Hlatky tells the story of how the military has been delegated authority to advance gender equality as part of their activities, while simultaneously tackling increasingly complex threats. Drawing upon fieldwork and interviews, she illustrates how NATO, the world''s foremost alliance, has even embedded these ideas in the planning and execution of its missions. For troops deployed on NATO missions, this often means seeking out women in their operating area to improve intelligence gathering activities. While this helps the mission, does it help women and conflict-affected communities? Because of the military''s focus on operational effectiveness above all else, von Hlatky argues that there is a distortion of WPS norms, as gender equality concerns fade into the background. Looking at NATO''s ongoing operations in Iraq, Kosovo, and the Baltics, Deploying Feminism details the process by which Women, Peace and Security norms are militarized and put at the service of operational effectiveness. Further, it shows why an adjustment is necessary for gender equality to become a true planning priority.

Why do populists come to power? Are they a threat to democracy? Has the rise of global populism reached its peak, or is it just beginning? This book provides answers to these questions and many more, by summarising in non-technical language the vast research literature on populism that extends across political science, economics, sociology, psychology, and history. Going well beyond the usual cases of Trump and Brexit, Paul D. Kenny provides evidence both of the recurrent global appeal of populism, and of its often deleterious consequences. Populism: What Everyone Needs to Know® advances a new approach to defining populism that helps to make sense of the most robust research findings to date, and that sets up an exciting and dynamic approach in research for the years to come. Populism is, at heart, a political movement that challenges the institutional status quo. The great paradox of populism is that while people are often justifiably resentful of a system they feel is rigged against them, their reliance on charismatic leaders to channel their frustrations usually harms rather than helps democracy.

A feast for beer geeks and history buffs alike, In the Land of Ninkasi tells the story of the world''s first great beer culture. In this authoritative but light-hearted account of beers gone by, archaeologist Tate Paulette brings the famous "land between the rivers" back to life in vivid detail. We meet not only the beers of ancient Mesopotamia, but also the people who brewed them and drank them, the places where these people lived and worked, the taverns and temples and tombs where they did their drinking, the stories they told about beer, their preferred styles of drinking, their brewing equipment and drinking paraphernalia, the gods and goddesses who governed their lives and who were also partial to a drink.Rigorous in its scholarship, yet staunchly unpretentious in style, this beer-centered travel guide for a trip back in time offers a clear roadmap into the ancient source material for those who are new to Mesopotamia. Paulette weaves together insights drawn from archaeological remains, ancient works of art, and cuneiform texts. He uses a series of narrative vignettes and thought experiments to interrogate specific pieces of evidence and pull the reader, step-by-step, into the process of analysis and interpretation, explaining exactly what we know and how we know it. Readers will come away with a new appreciation for the depth of our knowledge about this early beer-drinking culture, painstakingly pieced together by generations of dedicated scholars. They will also encounter plenty of unknowns: enigmatic evidence that defies explanation, unresolved debates, puzzles that remain to be solved. For those who prefer their history in liquid form, Paulette also recounts some of his own experiences recreating ancient beer and provides a brew-it-yourself recipe to try at home.