‘The Rattling Cat’ is a rip-roaring tale of smuggling in the late eighteenth century on the coast of Kent. The young hero, Miles, becomes involved with colourful characters and exciting escapades in the cutthroat town of Deale.Miles Papillion has been sent to stay with his uncle, landlord of the Noah’s Ark, a hostelry with a dubious reputation. He is swiftly embroiled in the search for a smugglers’ tunnel that is guarded by a ghostly skeleton. This involves him in alarming situations: bein...

This book provides a detailed analysis of the past and current political developments in the Gulf and Middle East region and the global geopolitical landscape. It is the result of the 1st International Arabian Gulf Security Conference which was hosted by the American University in the Emirates. The book focuses on a widespread of aspects such security and technological advancements in the formation of (trans)-regional alliances, mitigating local and global socio-economic developments. It a...

Bringing together an interdisciplinary team of scholars, this book illustrates how and why cities are comprised by a mosaic of vulnerable human and ecological communities. Case studies ranging across various international settings reveal how 'urban vulnerabilities' is an effective metaphor and analytic lens for advancing political ecological theories on the relationships between cities, nature and development. Contributions expand upon conceptions of vulnerability as a static condition and...

Ukraine gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. In the decades between the end of the cold war and the crisis of 2014, the country suffered a large decline in agricultural and industrial production, plunging economic indicators into a sharp decline and leading to large-scale poverty and hardship.This collection by leading scholars from the region explores the various crises affecting Ukraine since independence. Valuable crisis management research is made available fr...

This study discusses salient trends demonstrated by contemporary warfare of these first years of the 21st century. The authors reinforce previous notions of Fourth Generation Warfare, but most importantly explore the workings of new components and how these have modified the theory and practice of warfare beyond the basic divisions of conventional and unconventional warfare as witnessed in the preceding century. Throughout history there has been a close interaction between politics, commun...

This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.Most people who try to grow a garden by themselves find it way more complicated then they thought it would be. They discover that the garden is hard to maintain during different seasons, they use poor solutions that only damage their efforts, and they are unaware of the different things they should take into account when building a greenhouse garden. And that's exactly why this book was written.In this complete ...

Dialogue is typically hailed as a progressive force fostering mutual understanding and resolving conflicts. Can it really carry such a burden? Does dialogue really resolve conflicts? In this unique volume international experts critically assess the political role of dialogue, addressing its potential and limitations. Bringing fascinating insights to bear they examine the theoretical underpinnings and conceptual boundaries of dialogue as a tool for conflict resolution. Major recent crises s...

When Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons against his own people in Syria, he clearly crossed President Barack Obama’s "red line." At the time, many argued that the president had to bomb in order to protect America's reputation for toughness, and therefore its credibility, abroad; others countered that concerns regarding reputation were overblown, and that reputations are irrelevant for coercive diplomacy.Whether international reputations matter is the question at the heart of

The process of negotiation, standing as it does between war and peace in many parts of the globe, has never been a more vital process to understand than in today's rapidly changing international system. Students of negotiation must first understand key IR concepts as they try to incorporate the dynamics of the many anomalous actors that regularly interact with conventional state agents in the diplomatic arena. This hands-on text provides an essential introduction to this high-stakes realm,...

A preeminent sociologist of race explains a groundbreaking new framework for understanding racial inequality, challenging both conservative and liberal dogma.In this timely and provocative contribution to the American discourse on race, William Julius Wilson applies an exciting new analytic framework to three politically fraught social problems: the persistence of the inner-city ghetto, the plight of low-skilled black males, and the fragmentation of the African Ame...

The unfolding crisis in Ukraine has brought the world to the brink of a new Cold War. As Russia and Ukraine tussle for Crimea and the eastern regions, relations between Putin and the West have reached an all-time low. How did we get here? Richard Sakwa here unpicks the context of conflicted Ukrainian identity and of Russo-Ukrainian relations and traces the path to the recent disturbances through the events which have forced Ukraine, a country internally divided between East and West, to ch...

In the 2016 CBC Massey Lectures, former Special Advisor to the UN Secretary-General and international relations specialist Jennifer Welsh delivers a timely, intelligent, and fascinating analysis of twenty-first-century geopolitics.In 1989, as the Berlin Wall crumbled and the Cold War dissipated, the American political commentator Francis Fukuyama wrote a famous essay, entitled “The End of History,” which argued that the demise of confrontation between Communism and...