This book presents nature as the fundamental infrastructure for sustainable urban living rather than as an aesthetic afterthought in the face of cities' mounting problems, which range from biodiversity loss and climate change to public health disparities. The first section, Nature and Wellbeing, explores the critical relationship between human health and access to nature, providing evidence-based perspectives on the ways in which urban forests, green spaces, and landscapes rich in biodiversity support mental, physical, and social well-being. In addition to highlighting initiatives that bridge the green divide in marginalized groups and highlighting the pressing need for fair access to nature, it offers case studies that demonstrate how design and policy may incorporate nature as a fundamental factor in determining public health. Nature-based solutions (NBS) that protect urban populations from climate impacts and strengthen ecological integrity are highlighted in the second section, Nature and Climate Resilience. The book highlights nature as a proactive factor in climate resilience planning through examinations of coastal adaptation, wetland regeneration, and urban green infrastructure. It discusses the governance structures, ecosystem services, and policy frameworks that allow cities to strategically incorporate nature into their responses to environmental deterioration, flooding, and heat stress. The book explores how biophilic design, cultural narratives, and technology innovation come together to create urban settings where nature becomes essential to identity, function, and community in its last section, Nature-driven Placemaking. This section highlights how environment can inspire, connect, and economically empower people through everything from participatory planning techniques to imaginative depictions of urban wildlife. Altogether, Nature in Cities, Nurturing Cities presents a strong case for purposefully, inclusively, and resiliently integrating nature into the urban fabric.

This Open Access book illuminates the significant transformation processes brought about by economy-wide shifts towards sustainable modes of production, distribution, and consumption. In particular, the accelerating industrial transformations towards sustainability, in response to global warming and planetary boundary constraints, bring a range of new research challenges.

By integrating perspectives from the interdisciplinary fields of innovation, policy, and sustainability transitions studies, the chapters offer novel conceptual and empirical insights into these complex processes, including on multi-system dynamics and digitalization. An essential read for both researchers and policymakers seeking to understand ongoing industrial transformations towards sustainability.

This book shows how four feminist mobilizations in the early 2020s in Mexico expressed widespread rejection of harassment, sexual violence, and femicide. It discusses the cultural environment in Mexico that has allowed violence and femicides to be interpreted as a serious situation, to the point that it questions the authority of presidential power and mobilizes public opinion for and against it. It also talks about how feminist mobilizations are viewed positively or negatively within the same cultural environment provided by civil discourse. This analysis of disputes is essential because it allows readers to appreciate how the binary civil/anti-civil system attributed to presidential power and feminist mobilizations, and reproduced in public opinion, is translated into referents assumed as universal for action. The book examines women's movements and their relationship with presidential power and public opinion as a meaning-making process in which civil society discourse translates and also blocks exceptions of civil reparation: a process interpreted and signified in the light of historical sedimentations. This work complements feminist literature, studies on power and discourse, and social movements and is of interest to scholars and studients working in these fields.

A detailed foray into the material and spatial realities of cloud computing

Since the 1990s, technologists have promoted a vision of the "cloud" as a shapeless and intangible entity. Grounding the Cloud peers through this hazy facade to reveal the earthly material foundations of global computing and data extraction. Tracing the historical and technological development of the cloud computing paradigm, Ali Fard exposes an ever-evolving project in which ideologies, economic models, and marketing images collude to shape our shared urban environments.

Demonstrating how technology's spatial footprint now stretches to nearly every corner of the globe, Grounding the Cloud analyzes the often-hidden infrastructures that facilitate platform capitalism - from the mines extracting rare earth minerals in remote regions to the vast global network of fiber-optic cables at the bottom of the oceans to the nondescript data centers that sit on the peripheries of major urban areas. Meanwhile, with compelling examples of smart-city initiatives and corporate campuses, Fard shows how the future of urbanism is deeply intertwined with the growing economies of data extraction.

Breaking down the myth of a clean and efficient tech urbanism, this book makes visible the complex material geographies and geopolitics that undergird today's most powerful and omnipresent corporations. A timely critique of the growing agency of tech platforms in determining the future of urban space, Grounding the Cloud offers an essential framework for understanding the shifting relationship between technology and urbanization.

Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly with images accompanied by short alt text and/or extended descriptions.

This open access book offers a unique and timely investigation of the multifaceted relationship between migration and European cities. Its chapters critically examine the historical, economic, socio-spatial, cultural and policy-political dimensions of the migration-city nexus, bringing together different thematic and disciplinary perspectives that are usually considered separately.

The book engages with the growing theoretical and empirical interest in the urban scale within migration studies, while also drawing on the rich and longstanding body of research on migration and cities across other disciplines. It draws attention to the significant variations both between and within European cities, taking stock not only of the extensive scholarship on north-western Europe - the theoretical heartland of European migration and urban studies - but also of the important contributions made by scholars working in the southern and eastern peripheries of the continent.

In doing so, the book develops a nuanced understanding of the interconnections between migration and cities, while offering readers a guide to navigating the diverse literature that addresses these themes. Written in an accessible style, it is a valuable resource for students, researchers, academics, policymakers, practitioners, and readers who are new to this key area of migration studies.

This book explores the multifaceted challenges and opportunities related to compliance with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), beginning with an analysis of municipal institutional capacities and their intrinsic link to sustainable development, followed by insights into governance within Mexico's health sector during the COVID-19 pandemic and a critical review of green finance in major Latin American economies. It then presents innovative proposals for advancing the SDGs, including transdisciplinary approaches to decent work, an integrated causal map for promoting SMEs in Mexico's creative industries, and the sustainability of communal enterprises within the new institutional economy. Further topics include systemic perspectives on social entrepreneurship in tourism, the empowerment of women through pantry shopping, and the intersection of social entrepreneurship with sustainable water management in tourism. The final section reflects on the consequences of failing to meet the SDGs, emphasizing the role of planetary citizenship and humanistic education in bridging existing gaps, and proposing degrowth as a radical alternative to current development paradigms.

This book explores the multifaceted impact of sports mega-events, from the World Cup to the Olympics, Formula One, and America's Cup. Often celebrated for uniting nations, showcasing culture, and driving economic growth, these events also face increasing scrutiny for their ecological and social consequences. Global Sports Go Green-Or Do They? critically examines claims of environmental responsibility, addressing their effects on ecosystems, communities, and athletes, and interrogates the gap between greenwashing rhetoric, material realities, and grassroots resistance.

The book will be of particular interest to students and scholars of the sociology of sport, mega-events, sociology of culture and sustainability.

This book investigates the evolving role of smart cities in the broader context of urban innovation and digital government, identifies what a smart city is in practice and highlights its importance to the welfare of society. The book offers specific, measurable, and action-oriented public sector planning and management principles, technological artifacts, guides and ideas for smart governance in the era of global urbanization and innovation to help with the challenges in maintaining the democratic system of checks and balances as well as the division of powers in a highly interconnected world. Revised for the second edition, this volume includes up-to-date information about smart city progress, as well as new terminology, standards, technologies, and practices. The book will be of interest to researchers, practitioners, students, and public sector IT professionals that work within smart cities, innovation management, public administration, urban technologies and urban innovation, and public local administration studies.

This volume honors the scholarly contributions of Kevin Middlebrook, presenting essays that explore Mexican labor history, comparative politics, and U.S.-Latin American relations, with a focus on NAFTA/USMCA.

The first section engages with Middlebrook's work on Mexican labor, featuring dialogues on historical and policy analyses and reflections on Mexico's democratization. The second section examines his impact on comparative politics, including studies of Peru's military regimes and democratic transitions in Latin America. The final section addresses U.S.-Latin American relations, highlighting labor provisions under NAFTA/USMCA and their effects on Mexico's trade unions and economic development.

By bringing together leading experts, the volume demonstrates the enduring relevance of Middlebrook's scholarship for understanding labor, political dynamics, and international trade in Latin America, making it an essential resource for students, researchers, and policymakers interested in the region.

From colonial rule to revolution and beyond, this concise history of Nicaragua unpacks the political struggles, economic transformations, and social movements that have shaped the modern nation, offering essential insights into a country defined by resilience and change.

Tracing Nicaragua's past from indigenous civilizations to Spanish conquest, dictatorship, and revolution, the book examines key forces that have shaped its destiny. Discover the rise and fall of the Somoza dynasty, the impact of the agro-export economy, the legacy of the Sandinista revolution, and the country's complex path to a democratic interlude from 1990 to 2007.

This revised edition brings Nicaragua's story into the present, analyzing recent years of political and social change-including President Daniel Ortega's shift toward authoritarianism, the contested elections of 2011, 2016, and 2021, the 2018 protests, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and evolving U.S.-Nicaragua relations. Featuring updated timelines, key figures, and essential terms, this book is an indispensable guide to understanding Nicaragua's past, present, and future.

The Fundamental Tendency of Our Times (Tendenza) is the Italian philosopher Emanuele Severino's crucial reflection on modern technology and science, in which he articulates his major contribution to the analysis of Western modernity: the claim that, beginning with Greek civilization, a nihilistic spirit of domination informs our conceptual and social systems.

In this book Severino applies his framework to the geopolitical situation before the fall of the Berlin Wall; yet his insights have continuing relevance in light of the current threat of ecological collapse accelerated by an orientation to the world as an object of exploitation.

Significant for its parallels with, and differences from, Heidegger's discussion of technology, this book's explicit discussion of politics gives essential clarification to Severino's notoriously complex philosophical discourse. With a foreword contextualizing the historical moment of its publication, this first English translation will be invaluable for those interested in understanding the thought of one of the most remarkable Italian theorists of the 20th century.

Published with the kind support of SEPS (Segretariato Europeo per le Pubblicazioni Scientifiche).

This book develops an ontological approach to understanding existential intelligence and its connections to democracy and education.

Sevket Benhuer Oral examines the concept of existential intelligence-hereafter ExistI-on an ontological level. ExistI is not conceived as a psychological aptitude that one can be good at or not like spatial or bodily-kinesthetic intelligence. Rather, it refers to a unitary experience that is riddled with ambiguity. All human beings are potentially open to such experience since we all have the capacity to experience the extraordinary, or better put, the extraordinariness of the ordinary. Although Howard Gardner later identified existential intelligence among other intelligences, his theory of multiple intelligences, while still widely accepted by educators, did not adequately explore this concept, especially in its political, moral, and philosophical dimensions. It is essential that we do since ExistI is ultimately about our capacity for more peaceful ways of co-existing with others, the extraordinariness of living collectively with human and nonhuman beings.

This book explores disembodiment, the experience of feeling alienated from one's own body, and shows how it emerges across clinical and social domains. It begins with an account of embodiment as the foundation of lived experience, interpersonal connection, and cultural inscription, before examining how disruptions of body image, body schema, ownership, and agency destabilize this balance.

Clinical cases illustrate different pathways into disembodiment: the alien limb in BIID, the loss of presence in depersonalization and PTSD, the fractured agency and hyper-reflexivity of schizophrenia, and the distorted body image of anorexia. The analysis then turns to racial disembodiment, where systemic racism and the white gaze impose estranging perspectives that reshape subjectivity at multiple levels.

To link these phenomena, the book introduces the uncanny as a framework for understanding how the familiar body becomes strange, and concludes by exploring re-embodiment techniques-from sensory illusions to VR-that open therapeutic and social possibilities.

Charles Winstone's letter book offers a rich first-hand account of Caribbean history during the American Revolution, the French invasion, and the occupation of Dominica.

The American Revolution and French presence disrupted the island's economic life. As Dominica's former solicitor and attorney general, Winstone became a central figure to absentee planters and British firms protecting estates and investments. His letters reveal efforts to forge new trading networks through the Dutch West Indies as he worked for British absentees based elsewhere in the Caribbean and Europe. The correspondence also reflects his struggle to establish a West Indian fortune on the backs of enslaved people cultivating coffee and sugar. His letters provide a rare look at the world of a plantation attorney and manager as he oversaw several estates near the colonial capital of Roseau during the most tumultuous years in Dominica's history and reflects on the ineffective and unprepared British response upon the outbreak of the American conflict, particularly noting French military preparations on the nearby islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe.

This accessible, sweeping survey of Mexican history, from pre-Columbian times to the present, introduces critical political and economic processes that have defined the country.

With ample maps and illustrations, along with historiographical inserts, this book is a guide from the earliest beginnings of a great nation down to the present day. This 2nd edition includes the following changes:

- 2 additional chapters, covering contemporary Mexico in the 21st century
- Fresh and substantial content about the cartels, criminal organizations, and the drug war
- The latest updates on pre-Columbian archaeological discoveries
- 20 new illustrations
- 10 inserts addressing historiography and referencing over 100 scholarly books
- An expanded and updated Suggestions for Further Reading section

To understand this complex and diverse land is to study the splendor of its pre-Columbian cultures, learn the legacies of a violent conquest, and appreciate the fluorescence of 3 centuries of viceregal Spanish rule. The struggle for independence, war with the United States, French Intervention, Benito Juarez, dictatorship under Porfirio Diaz, revolutionary upheaval under "Pancho" Villa - all are laid out in crystal clear narrative. Nor does this book shirk from addressing the darker side of history. Examining the corruption of 20th-century presidents, security apparatuses, and the PRI party, it explores the roots of present-day cartels and rising patterns of social violence.

This book explores the impact of our consumption habits on the planet and how global crises can transform them. Connecting climate policy, sustainable development, and consumer behavior, it offers a clear framework for understanding responsible consumption. Additionally, the book examines EU climate targets, circular economy principles, and the role of digital commerce in shaping environmental outcomes.

Through an analysis of five major global crises ranging from the 1973 oil shock to the current climate emergency, the book illustrates how recent disruptions, such as the pandemic and the Russo-Ukrainian War, can prompt more conscientious choices while revealing the obstacles to lasting change. With real-world case studies and evidence-based policy insights, the book provides researchers, policymakers, and individuals interested in climate action with theoretical insights and practical tools.

An inspiring call to action that links today's climate crisis to Earth's evolution throughout history.

Our Time is a true story. Alasdair Skelton takes readers through time, from the formation of the Earth to the present day, reflecting on the finely tuned climate system and its elegant workings that have made it possible for living things to thrive on Earth for three-and-a-half billion years. Skelton explores what happened when Earth's climate spiraled out of control and how it repaired itself time and time again, and as we plunge into our own chapter of time, he highlights our separation from nature as a root cause of the crisis in which we now find ourselves.

Skelton tells this story as a geologist who was awoken to climate activism by the voices of his own students. He shares a perspective on the climate crisis as a blink of an eye amidst the enormity of time. Concluding with what will happen if we fail to act, and what will happen if we do act, Skelton compares alternative futures and explains how we can still choose a good one. Throughout, and without ever betraying scientific truth, Our Time navigates the narrow path from the inaction of denial and despair to the action of hope. This is a beautiful history of planet Earth and the role humans can play in its evolving climate story.

This book explores methods of bringing environmentalist, art-based and Indigenous ways of knowing and being into dialogue to improve relationships with the Earth and Her First Peoples.

Geo Takach argues that two of the greatest crimes committed by humanity - environmental devastation and the continued dishonour, dispossession and attempted eradication of Indigenous peoples - are entwined and need to be addressed together. Rooted in communication and cultural studies, this book explores ways to bring environmental, arts-based, and Indigenous ways of knowing and being into dialogue towards improving relationships with the Earth and Her First Peoples.

Through this multimodal exploration, the book builds an analytical foundation for that alliance by considering causes and challenges common to ecological and human colonization. Joined by a generous array of Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledge-keepers, artists, scholars and citizens, Takach then demonstrates how we can interweave environmental, arts-based and Indigenous perspectives and collaborative meaning-making in our communications to inspire what he calls environmental conciliation.

This open access book examines climate policy effort among subnational governments participating in the Under2 Coalition. The central research question investigates whether Under2 Coalition founding members demonstrate greater climate policy effort compared to early joiners (2015-2016) and later joiners (post-2016), and whether these performance differences persist over time. The empirical analysis focuses on subnational governments in five countries that played influential roles in founding and developing the Under2 Coalition: Canada, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The study makes three key contributions to climate governance literature. First, it systematically demonstrates how climate policy effort and leadership dynamics evolve within the Under2 Coalition framework. Second, it provides genuinely comparative insights across two dimensions-comparing different membership categories within countries and across nations. Third, it offers a replicable methodological template for expanding this research approach to other contexts.

By examining quantifiable indicators including policies, policy instruments, and greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets, the book provides valuable insights into how multilevel climate governance can be strengthened and sustained over time, bridging theory and practice in understanding subnational climate action.

This open access volume is a call to action and a toolbox for educators, administrators, community engagement specialists, and workforce developers who want to make their course content, institutional commitments, and outreach projects relevant to twenty-first century learners. The book demonstrates the impact a higher education institution, its faculty, and community partners can have through education and action for sustainability. By being a sustainability educator and doing sustainability work, individuals can create living and learning labs that make such interdisciplinary activity integral to campus life and regional engagement. This book answers the United Nations' call to universities to step up and address the most urgent crises of our time by marshalling the resources, wisdom and energy of youth and communities to promote active listening, creative expression, greater climate stability, social equity, and, by extension, peace.

This book presents a comprehensive account of how archaeology in Africa evolved, was challenged, and reimagined. Moving from nineteenth-century antiquarianism through independence to today, the book dismantles "dark continent" myths, foregrounds African ways of knowing, and argues for a praxis of archaeologies: multivocal, community-engaged, and methodologically rigorous. Case-led chapters demonstrate how trade, mobility, religion, and the environment have produced diverse African pasts, while contemporary sections address restitution, heritage policy, tourism, and climate risk.

The book begins by clarifying what "Africa" signifies in scholarly and public discourse, then dismantles the enduring "dark continent" trope by setting colonial narratives against African intellectual traditions and evidence. Subsequent chapters track the emergence of archaeology, beginning with collections, amateurs, and missionaries, and progressing to professional excavations, surveys, and archaeological science, as well as the discipline's theoretical shifts, from culture history and processualism to post-processual and postcolonial critique, all examined through African case studies. The closing chapters set out why the past matters now: for identity, education, livelihoods, and environmental stewardship.

Clear prose, focused case studies (spanning deep prehistory to the second-millennium trade horizons), and a continent-wide lens make this volume essential for students and researchers, while its emphasis on ethics and engagement resonates with heritage professionals and the broader public. The result is a clear, compelling account of what African archaeology is, how it differs from older traditions, and why it matters-for scholarship, for heritage stewardship, and for public life.