The "Washington consensus" which ushered in neo-liberal policies in Africa is over. It was buried at the G20 meeting in London in early April, 2009. The world capitalist system is in shambles. The champions of capitalism in the global North are rewriting the rules of the game to save it. The crisis creates an opening for the global South, in particular Africa, to refuse to play the capitalist-imperialist game, whatever the rules. It is time to rethink and revisit the development direction and strategies on the continent. This is the central message of this intensely argued book. Issa Shivji demonstrates the need to go back to the basics of radical political economy and ask fundamental questions: who produces the society's surplus product, who appropriates and accumulates it and how is this done. What is the character of accumulation and what is the social agency of change? The book provides an alternative theoretical framework to help African researchers and intellectuals to understand their societies better and contribute towards changing them in the interest of the working people.

Using gentle humor, some 450 visuals, and debate drawn from actual legislative events, the late U.S. Congressman G. V. "Sonny" Montgomery helps readers relive the Montgomery GI Bill's 1987 enactment, while learning each step of the way.

Across the Aisle's extensive illustrative material brings the legislative process alive, as readers travel the historic legislative road with Congressman Montgomery himself as escort, storyteller, mentor, and colleague.

Congressman Montgomery served his Mississippi constituents for thirty years. Twenty-eight of those years included service on the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, fourteen years as its chairman. Montgomery and a handful of colleagues understood that the success of our all-volunteer military would hinge on a permanent "GI Bill" education program.

Indeed the Montgomery GI Bill has proven to help America on many fronts, including postsecondary education and training, national security, military recruiting, workforce and youth development, economic competitiveness, and civic leadership.

Montgomery's unique first-person account brings Washington, D.C., and lawmaking alive with enduring lessons in leadership, persuasion, civility, and that timeless virtue-perseverance.

Nicole F. Watts sheds light not only on the particular situation of Kurds in Turkey, but also on the challenges, risks, and potential benefits for comparable movements operating in less-than-fully democratic contexts. The book is a result of more than ten years of research conducted in Turkey and in Europe, and it draws on a wide array of sources, including Turkish electoral data, memoirs, court records, and interviews.

Admiral Zheng He and Southeast Asia commemorates the 600th anniversary of Admiral Zheng He’s maiden voyage to Southeast Asia and beyond. The book is jointly issued by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore and the International Zheng He Society. To reflect Asian views on the subject matter, nine articles written by Asian scholars — Chung Chee Kit, Hsu Yun-Ts’iao, Leo Suryadinata, Tan Ta Sen, Tan Yeok Seong, Wang Gungwu, and Johannes Widodo — have been reproduced in this volume.Originally published from 1964 to 2005, the articles are grouped into three clusters. The first cluster of three articles examines the relationship of the Ming court, especially during the Zheng He expeditions, with Southeast Asia in general and the Malacca empire in particular. The next cluster looks at the socio-cultural impact of the Zheng He expeditions on some Southeast Asian countries, with special reference to the role played by Zheng He in the Islamization of Indonesia (Java) and the urban architecture of the region. The last three articles deal with the route of the Zheng He expeditions and the location of the places that were visited.

In Advocating Dignity, Jean H. Quataert explores the emergence, development, and impact of the human rights revolution following World War II. Intertwining popular local and national mobilizations for rights with ongoing developments of a formal international system of rights monitoring in the United Nations, Quataert argues that human rights advocacy networks have been a vital dimension of international political developments since 1945. Recalling the popular slogan "Think globally, act locally," she contends that postwar human rights have been shaped by the efforts of people at the grassroots. She shows that human rights politics are constituted locally and reinforced by transnational linkages in international society. The U.N. system is continuously reinvigorated and strengthened by its ties to local individuals, organizations, and groups engaged in day-to-day rights advocacy. This daily work, in turn, is supported by the ongoing activities from above.

Quataert establishes the global contexts for the historical unfolding of human rights advocacy through thorough studies of such cases as the Soviet dissident movement, the mothers' demonstrations in Argentina, the transnational antiapartheid campaign, and coalitions for gender and economic justice. Drawing from many fields of inquiry, including legal studies, philosophy, international relations theory, political science, and gender history, Advocating Dignity is an innovative work that narrates the hopes and bitter struggles that have altered the course of international and domestic relations over the past sixty years.

Affirmative action is one of the central issues of American politics today, and admission to colleges and universities has been at the center of the debate. While this issue has been discussed for years, there is very little real data on the impact of affirmative action programs on admissions to institutions of higher learning. Susan Welch and John Gruhl in this groundbreaking study look at the impact on admissions of policies developed in the wake of the United States Supreme Court's landmark 1978 Bakke decision. In Bakke, the Court legitimized the use of race as one of several factors that could be considered in admissions decisions, while forbidding the use of quotas. Opponents of affirmative action claim that because of the Bakke decision thousands of less-qualified minorities have been granted admission in preference to more qualified white students; proponents claim that without the affirmative action policies articulated in Bakke, minorities would not have made the gains they have made in higher education. Based on a survey of admissions officers for law and medical schools and national enrollment data, the authors give us the first analysis of the real impact of the Bakke decision and affirmative action programs on enrollments in medical and law schools. Admission to medical schools and law schools is much sought after and is highly competitive. In examining admissions patterns to these schools the authors are able to identify the effects of affirmative action programs and the Bakke decision in what may be the most challenging case. This book will appeal to scholars of race and gender in political science, sociology and education as well as those interested in the study of affirmative action policies. Susan Welch is Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Professor of Political Science, Pennsylvania State University. John Gruhl is Professor of Political Science, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Provides a comprehensive and even-handed overview of the very contentious subject of affirmative action. Racism, sexism, and ethnic discrimination have long represented a seemingly intractable problem. Affirmative action was conceived as an attack on these ingrained problems, but today it is widely misunderstood. This volume reviews new developments in affirmative action law, policy, and ideological conflict in the areas of employment, education, voting, and housing. The revised edition adds a discussion of age, disability, and sexual-orientation discrimination, providing a truly comprehensive portrait of affirmative action that is informed by history, law, political science, sociology, and economics.

In 1990, the New York Times wrote, "Government corruption was not invented in West Virginia. But there are people who contend that West Virginia officials have done more than their share over the years to develop state-of-the-art techniques in vote theft, contract kickbacks, influence peddling and good old-fashioned bribery, extortion, fraud, tax evasion and outright stealing." While investigating such events as the Invest Right scandal, Thomas Stafford, a former journalist for the Charleston Gazette, would find himself in a very precarious position. As a reporter he felt obligated to tell the whole truth, and he believed in the need to serve the public and those West Virginians who were being abused by a political machine. In Afflicting the Comfortable, Stafford relates such tales of the responsibility of journalism and politics in coordination with scandals that have unsettled the Mountain State over the past few decades. His probing would take him from the halls of Charleston to the center of our nation's ruling elite. Guided by his senses of duty, right, and fairness, he plunged head first into the misdeeds of West Virginia's politicians. His investigations would be the preface to the downfall of a governor and an administration that had robbed the state and the citizens of West Virginia for years.

The United States and its allies have been fighting the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan for a decade in a war that either side could still win. While a gradual drawdown has begun, significant numbers of US combat troops will remain in Afghanistan until at least 2014, perhaps longer, depending on the situation on the ground and the outcome of the US presidential election in 2012. Given the realities of the Taliban's persistence and the desire of US policymakers -- and the public -- to find a way out, what can and should be the goals of the US and its allies in Afghanistan?

Afghan Endgames brings together some of the finest minds in the fields of history, strategy, anthropology, ethics, and mass communications to provide a clear, balanced, and comprehensive assessment of the alternatives for restoring peace and stability to Afghanistan. Presenting a range of options -- from immediate withdrawal of all coalition forces to the maintenance of an open-ended, but greatly reduced military presence -- the contributors weigh the many costs, risks, and benefits of each alternative.

This important book boldly pursues several strands of thought suggesting that a strong, legitimate central government is far from likely to emerge in Kabul; that fewer coalition forces, used in creative ways, may have better effects on the ground than a larger, more conventional presence; and that, even though Pakistan should not be pushed too hard, so as to avoid sparking social chaos there, Afghanistan's other neighbors can and should be encouraged to become more actively involved. The volume's editors conclude that while there may never be complete peace in Afghanistan, a self-sustaining security system able to restore order swiftly in the wake of violence is attainable.