In this book the term economy refers to a network of economic decision makers. Such a mechanistic interpretation derives from neoclassical ecomomices as the major source of theory in economic geography.

**WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • In a thrilling dramatic narrative, the award-winning reporter traces how the strain of militant Islam behind ISIS first arose in a remote Jordanian prison and spread with the unwitting aid of two American presidents.“Gripping. . . . For readers interested in the roots of the Islamic State and the evil genius of its godfather, there is no better book to begin with than Black Flags.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times**Dra...

Born into a Christian minority in Lebanon and since settled in France, acclaimed writer Amin Maalouf claims a unique position in global conversation. His first book, The Crusades through Arab Eyes, was a critical and commercial success and remains in print after 20 years. In Disordered World, Maalouf combines his command of history with a critical perspective on contemporary culture East and West-joining them with a fierce moral clarity and a fluid, propulsive style....

Remote, forbidding, and volatile, the Caspian Sea long tantalized the world with its vast oil reserves. But outsiders, blocked by the closed Soviet system, couldn’t get to it. Then the Soviet Union collapsed, and a wholesale rush into the region erupted. Along with oilmen, representatives of the world’s leading nations flocked to the Caspian for a share of the thirty billion barrels of proven oil reserves at stake, and a tense geopolitical struggle began. The main players were Moscow and W...

Chinese politics are at a crossroads as President Xi Jinping amasses personal power and tests the constraints of collective leadership.In the years since he became general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012, Xi Jinping has surprised many people in China and around the world with his bold anti-corruption campaign and his aggressive consolidation of power.Given these new developments, we must rethink how we analyze Chinese politics-an urgent task as China now has ...

Windfall is the boldest profile of the world’s energy resources since Daniel Yergin’s The Quest, asserting that the new energy abundance—due to oil and gas resources once deemed too expensive—is transforming the geo-political order and is boosting American power.“Riveting and comprehensive...a smart, deeply researched primer on the subject.” —The New York Times Book ReviewAs a new administration focuses on driving...

Most of us are baffled.(a) There is practically no al-Qaeda in Afghanistan then why United States is not leaving the opium rich and strategically vital mountainous country in a hurry.(b) Al-Qaeda never attacks Israel though as champion of Islam you would think the Jewish nation ought to be its first target.(c) United States launched "War on Drugs" in 1971. It heralded "War on Terrorism" in 2001. US is no closer to winning these two wars. It is also no closer to quittin...

Cold War Expressionism is an expose of the art world after World War II where a new triumphalism and a growing conservatism on the part of the US helped bring to power a depoliticized art which went under the rubric of Abstract Expressionism and which functioned as an advertisement for American capitalism while erasing the social impulses of prior European Modernisms and the American Social Expressionists of the 1930s and mid-1940s.This book details how more socially aware forms of ...

How might we reinvent the humanities? This is the question at the heart of this provocative volume. It is a difficult mission and definitely one which needs to be addressed with increasing urgency. There is no better cast to confront and problematize this question than the contributors to Conflicting Humanities. They are world-renowned thinkers who can tackle the problem as researchers and teachers but also as prominent public intellectuals.Taking the intellectual and poli...

The last decade has seen a revolution in global energy. First, we saw explosive growth in demand from Asia's rising powers, which fueled fears about scarcity and conflict. But we've also seen an American revolution in technology and markets, resulting in a dramatic increase in sup-ply. This is strengthening America's hand in the world-but it's not without complications. There are major security consequences of these shifts. Among the most consequential are China and India, Asia's emerging ...

The ongoing conflict in Western Sahara is one of the more intractable legacies of European colonization in North Africa. Following the withdrawal of Spain, this territorial dispute escalated in 1975 into a war of independence between the Sahrawi people of the Polisario Front, who were backed by Algeria, and the states of Mauritania and Morocco. In 1976, the Polisario Front established the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, which was not admitted in the UN but won recognition by a few states...

The contradictory trends of the 'post-Arab Spring' landscape form both the backdrop to, and the focus of, this volume on the changing security dynamics of the Persian Gulf, defined as the six GCC states plus Iraq and Iran. The political and economic upheaval triggered by the uprisings of 2011, and the rapid emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in 2014, have underscored the vulnerability of regional states to an intersection of domestic pressures and external shocks. The initial...