Immortal is the only single-volume English-language survey of Iran’s military history. CIA analyst Steven R. Ward shows that Iran’s soldiers, from the famed “Immortals” of ancient Persia to today’s Revolutionary Guard, have demonstrated through the centuries that they should not be underestimated. This history also provides background on the nationalist, tribal, and religious heritages of the country to help readers better understand Iran and its security outlook.Immor...

What would you do for family?A teenager tries to commit suicide by shooting himself, bumbling the task and leaving himself on the edge of death. Meanwhile his family wrestle with the emotions of their loss and how to move forward.An overly protective brother complicates matters and turns the world even further upside down when a hostage situation ensues. A stand-off between police, the family and a gang of thieves caught up in this web takes us on one hell of a thrill ride....

The rise of China and other great powers raises important questions about the persistence and stability of the 'liberal international order'. This book provides a new perspective on these questions by offering a novel theory of revisionist challenges to international order. It argues that rising powers sometimes seem to face the condition of 'status immobility', which activates social psychological and domestic political forces that push them toward lashing out in protest against status qu...

Chorus of the Dead is a collection of short horror stories that will both terrify, as well as raise a smile for the poetic justice it dishes out to it's victims. Witness the supernatural horror of a serial killer caught between this world and the next. Feel the psychological terror of a teenage girl reeking her brand of revenge. Watch shape shifters and the walking dead rule the earth. An old man will slowly lose his mind as he enters your soul...

You can have the love you want...but first you have to do your homework.Millions of viewers have tuned in for each episode of VH1 Tough Love, the hit show that takes a group of single women and puts them through a rigorous relationship boot camp where they must follow host Steve Ward’s dating rules. Now, for the first time, master matchmaker Steve Ward and his mother, JoAnn, share all of their straightforward, no-nonsense dating and relationship lessons in...

The first book about Iran's shadowy Ministry of IntelligenceSteven R. Ward provides an accessible overview of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS) and its focus on tracking and countering domestic dissent and perceived foreign-inspired sedition. The ministry's checkered record of effective intelligence operations includes a history of assassinations and human rights abuses. Developing a clearer picture of the MOIS is important for understanding how the Islamic Re...

This refreshingly original book links the postmodern critique of notions such as 'reality' and 'truth' with approaches to knowledge found in science and technology studies (STS), a field also discontent with traditional epistemology. Exploring STS approaches to knowledge, such as actor-network theory, Ward forges a path through the impasse of the modernism vs. postmodernism debate. Reconfiguring Knowledge is an important work for social scientists and theorists, philosophers, historians, a...

This book examines the influence of neoliberal ideas and practices on the way knowledge has been conceptualized, produced, and disseminated over the last few decades at different levels of public education and in various national contexts around the world.

Is Hitler bigger than Napoleon? Washington bigger than Lincoln? Picasso bigger than Einstein? Quantitative analysts are rapidly finding homes in social and cultural domains, from finance to politics. What about history? In this fascinating book, Steve Skiena and Charles Ward bring quantitative analysis to bear on ranking and comparing historical reputations. They evaluate each person by aggregating the traces of millions of opinions, just as Google ranks webpages. The book includes a techn...

What do you do with a musical cat who becomes a national sensation? Find out in this humorous read-aloud picture book debut illustrated by beloved artist Steven Kellogg.Mary Jane Lemon knows that her cat is special—and she finds out exactly how special when one day, after mistakenly eating a bag of French cheese, unusual tweets and toots come out of—not his mouth—but you know where! It turns out that, depending on what he eats, Marty’s rump spews music of ...

The Dance Macabre (Paean on the nature of life and death as a Humanist Philosophy)in six cantos Danse Macabre (French), Danza Macabra (Italian and Spanish), or Totentanz (German), is a late-medieval allegory on the universality of death. Irrespective of one's class in life, the dance of death unites all. The idea consists of the personified death leading a row of dancing figures to the grave, typically with an emperor, king, youngster, and beautiful girl in the troupe. The image above remi...

Steven R. Ward provides an accessible overview of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS) and its focus on tracking and countering domestic dissent and perceived foreign-inspired sedition. The ministry's checkered record of effective intelligence operations includes a history of assassinations and human rights abuses. Developing a clearer picture of the MOIS is important for understanding how the Islamic Republic of Iran operates, seeks security, and competes with its adversaries.