The African Origins of Democracy challenges the myth that democracy was born in ancient Greece. Drawing on archaeology, anthropology, and political science, Bernd Reiter shows that egalitarian African societies practiced self-rule tens of thousands of years earlier—and that these traditions spread outward through migration and exchange. At the heart of the book is Botswana, where dikgotla—village assemblies—still embody living democracy today. Bold and provocative, this b...

With this book, Bernd Reiter reflects on over three decades of research on race, exclusion, inequality, white supremacy, and the defense of privilege in Brazil to explore how social hierarchies, honor, and dignity perpetuate systemic disparities in Latin America. Status, as a structuring force of societies, Reiter argues, offers a different lens through which to analyze Latin American societies.Combining the works of Tönnies, Weber, and Bourdieu with those of Guerreiro Ramos, Raymu...

Political representation and democracy are at odds and we need new models to organize politics without relying so heavily on elected representatives. Similarly, capitalism undermines markets, as the rich and wealthy shield their assets and make them untenable for average earners.Elitism thus undermines both democracy and markets and we need to devise ways to limit the power of professional politicians, as well as the asset holdings of the rich so that the goods they hold can re-ent...

In Decolonizing the Social Sciences and the Humanities Bernd Reiter contributes to the ongoing efforts to decolonize the social sciences and humanities, by arguing that true decolonization implies a liberation from the elite culture that Western civilization has perpetually promoted.Reiter brings together lessons learned from field research on a Colombian indigenous society, a maroon society, also in Colombia, from Afro-Brazilian religion, from Spanish Anarchism, and from ...

This book proposes a radical new way of thinking about our democratic future, our ecological survival, and our ways to keep economies fair. It shows that adopting upper limits to wealth and income; replacing elections with local direct democracy and legal duty involving randomly selected citizens; and replacing welfare and redistribution policies with pre-distribution and reparations promises new solutions to political apathy, discontent, manipulation, economic inequality, unfairness, uneq...

This book proposes a radical new way of thinking about our democratic future, our ecological survival, and our ways to keep economies fair. It shows that adopting upper limits to wealth and income; replacing elections with local direct democracy and legal duty involving randomly selected citizens; and replacing welfare and redistribution policies with pre-distribution and reparations promises new solutions to political apathy, discontent, manipulation, economic inequality, unfairness, uneq...

This book proposes a radical new way of thinking about our democratic future, our ecological survival, and our ways to keep economies fair. It shows that adopting upper limits to wealth and income; replacing elections with local direct democracy and legal duty involving randomly selected citizens; and replacing welfare and redistribution policies with pre-distribution and reparations promises new solutions to political apathy, discontent, manipulation, economic inequality, unfairness, uneq...

What does it mean to be a citizen? What impact does an active democracy have on its citizenry and why does it fail or succeed in fulfilling its promises? Most modern democracies seem unable to deliver the goods that citizens expect; many politicians seem to have given up on representing the wants and needs of those who elected them and are keener on representing themselves and their financial backers. What will it take to bring democracy back to its original promise of rule by the people? ...

One of the few interdisciplinary volumes on Bahia available, The Making of Brazil’s Black Mecca: Bahia Reconsidered contains contributions covering a wide chronological and topical range by scholars whose work has made important contributions to the field of Bahian studies over the last two decades. The authors interrogate and problematize the idea of Bahia as a Black Mecca, or a haven where Brazilians of African descent can embrace their cultural and spiritual African heritage wi...

Mit einem Gedicht "Apokalyptische Reiter in Paris" vorangestellt, wird in diesem Buch der Zustand und der Geist Europas in aller Offenheit konzentriert zum Ausdruck gebracht, wie er glasklar bei der Eröffnung der Olympischen Spiele 2024 in Paris gezeigt wurde. Europas Eliten, Europas Regierungspolitiker gleichen sonst getarnten Apokalyptischen Reitern, sie arbeiten, mit einer für den Normalbürger oft schwer zu durchschauenden und schwer begreifbaren ideologischen Verblendung, direkt auf de...

Jacob Gorender's (1923–2013) 1978 book, Colonial Slavery (O Escravismo Colonial), comes alive for English language readers thanks to Bernd Reiter and Alejandro Reyes's brilliant translation.Gorender argued that slave-holding societies produced an economic system sui generis, not fitting into any of the established societal categories offered by Karl Marx and Max Weber. As such, Gorender proposed a theory of colonial slavery as the structuring force of slave-holdin...

This Handbook provides a comprehensive roadmap to the burgeoning area of Afro-Latin American Studies.Afro-Latins as a civilization developed during the period of slavery, obtaining cultural contributions from Indigenous and European worlds, while today they are enriched by new social configurations derived from contemporary migrations from Africa. The essays collected in this volume speak to scientific production that has been promoted in the region from the humanities and social s...