Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.

This book provides a critical reflection on the relationship between education, conflict, war and peace and the global actors and practitioners that have devised strategies to engage and support education systems in conflict-affected contexts.

Exploring a wide range of issues from development assistance to education, peacebuilding, de-radicalisation programmes and global governance, it evidences the challenges and the promises of education's complex relationship to war and peace. The book highlights the field's entanglements with geopolitics and imperial interventions, which have shaped its actions and undermined and limited its potential to support social transformation towards peace with social justice.

This open access book examines the role of religion in the emerging academic and policy discourses on the polycrisis?also termed the metacrisis or permacrisis. Drawing on philosophy, economics, and the comparative study of religion, the book develops a conceptual map and shared vocabulary for engaging the interlocking challenges of our age, which threaten multiple simultaneous regional instabilities across the world system. As current political, economic, social, and ecological frameworks are stretched to their limits, Akhtar explores how the world's religious traditions can be accessed as sources of spiritual inspiration and moral imagination to chart new pathways beyond our collective paralysis. Advancing a covenantal pluralistic response, the volume offers scholars, students, and policymakers a generative framework for navigating overlapping crises through interreligious wisdom. Essential reading for those working at the intersection of religion, ethics, public policy, and the global polycrisis.

Why the consequences of a prolonged period of weaker economic growth will be more profound than anyone dares to predict

In the heady progress of the post-war era, our lifestyles changed, our political systems adapted, and rapid economic growth became the model of every developed economy. But this prevailing consensus is falling apart around us. Growth is now, at best, no more than anaemic. Policymakers dream about an AI revolution and tweak their fiscal rules to accommodate a newly-austere economic reality but, all the while, government debt soars, financial markets become increasingly jittery, and voters lose trust in their politicians.

Celebrated economist Stephen D. King asks how our politics will adapt to such persistently low growth. While leaders make fiscal promises based on a future that is unlikely to materialise, nationalism thrives, battlelines are drawn between perceived winners and losers, and the rules-based international order crumbles. The absence of growth triggers invidious political wrangling over tax, welfare, defence and infrastructure, intensifies competition for resources, and leads to social instability.

King shows how our new world is governed by them-and-us divisions over limited economic spoils. This is the political economy of plunder.?

This book presents original research on innovation development and construction management, emphasizing objective findings across cross industry domains that influence the sustainable growth of the construction sector. It integrates current trends with theoretical and practical approaches to managing construction organizations. It addresses investment, production, innovation, personnel, and both strategic and anti-crisis management under conditions of economic instability. It also examines measures supporting the global environmental agenda and its implications for the construction industry and quality of life. Additional focus is placed on lean construction tools, the digitalization and intellectualization of business processes that enhance the industry’s digital maturity, and the prerequisites for improving management efficiency throughout the property life cycle. The book analyzes key areas of innovation and the role of advanced technologies in the strategic development of construction enterprises. It also considers factors that support technological sovereignty, import substitution, and competitive advantage in the investment and construction sector, along with measures aligned with the global environmental agenda and its impact on industry management.

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Build communication confidence through authentic connection and presence

In Amplify You: How to Connect More Powerfully in an AI World, Emmy-winning former CNN anchor and executive communication advisor Gina London shares her signature Say It, Look It, Be It framework. This practical guide helps professionals who feel overlooked or uncertain reclaim confidence and communicate with clarity in every situation, from boardroom presentations to difficult conversations.

Drawing from decades of coaching Fortune 500 leaders, London reframes effective communication as amplifying who you already are rather than becoming someone else. The book delivers practical exercises, real-world stories from executive coaching sessions, and innovative QR-coded video lessons that demonstrate techniques in action and reinforce each chapter's key concepts.

Readers will also find:

• Strategies for developing presence, empathy, and purpose that distinguish human connection in an AI-driven workplace environment
• Techniques for pitching ideas, selling yourself, and leading teams with greater clarity, confidence, and authentic impact
• Frameworks for navigating difficult conversations and high-stakes situations without second-guessing yourself or your message
• Actionable tools for connecting with any audience, whether presenting to boards, clients, or cross-functional teams
• Video lessons accessible via QR codes that bring communication concepts to life with demonstrations and practical examples

Ideal for executives, managers, entrepreneurs, and aspiring leaders seeking to elevate their communication skills, Amplify You provides the frameworks and tools you need to connect authentically and communicate with confidence in any professional setting.

The first translated collection of the thousand-year-old aphorisms of Kharaqani, one of the most original and important mystics in the Sufi tradition of Islam

In this beautiful book, Omid Safi provides the first-ever English collection of the verses of Kharaqani (d. 1033 CE), a shepherd whose vivid and powerful conversations with God led to his being remembered as a Sufi master and the highest-ranking saint of his age in this Persian Islamic tradition.

Kharaqani was not concerned with mere salvation or getting to heaven. Instead, he sought to link the love of God with the love of humanity through his bold, fresh, and original teachings. He said:

A single breath taken with God
is better
than all there is
in heaven
or on Earth

Safi’s deeply researched translations and commentary bring Kharaqani’s original voice alive for modern audiences and show how Kharaqani has shaped the Sufi tradition?and how this simple man has captivated religious seekers for centuries in Iran, South Asia, and Turkey.

Replace intuition with evidence-based methods for executive hiring decisions

Over-reliance on resumes, references, and interviews leaves organizations unable to assess critical competencies like writing, presentation, and leadership skills, contributing to high rates of leadership failure. Beyond Interviews: Moving from Intuition to Evidence-Based Executive Assessment provides specific steps to designing systematic, skills-based assessment methods. Built on techniques refined over twenty years across over 300 executive placements, each chapter challenges readers to reconsider current practices.

The authors' February 2024 study found that over 96% of executives placed through their processes either remain in position, stayed at least five years, or received a promotion. The book applies a structured, research-grounded approach across chapters, moving practitioners from traditional hiring methods toward objective assessment with recommendations including a motivation-based model for finalist interviews.

Readers will also find:

• A systematic framework for evaluating practical, actionable leadership skills rather than the theoretical knowledge typically revealed through interviews alone
• Methods for generating objective assessment data on writing, presentation, and leadership competencies that complement professional intuition
• Structured guidance for designing selection processes tailored to senior management roles in mission-driven organizations and higher education
• Research-based techniques for reducing bias and improving consistency across every stage of the executive recruitment and evaluation process
• Practical tools for boards and hiring committees to assess candidates through skills-based demonstrations beyond traditional resume and reference review

Written for managers, CEOs, directors of mission-driven organizations, and academic administrators, this book also serves HR professionals, elected officials in local government, and non-profit board members. Beyond Interviews equips decision-makers with a proven system that directly reduces the risk of executive hiring failure.

This book examines how the relationship between borders and the movement of people within and towards the European Union (re)defines and challenges key political concepts such as sovereignty, territory, rights, and identity in the EU, particularly in a period marked by geopolitical shifts and heightened perceptions of vulnerability. Organised into thematic sections, this edited volume is structured around three main themes: Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, the reintroduction and persistence of internal border controls within the Union, and the Pact on Migration and Asylum. Drawing on diverse disciplinary perspectives, some chapters explore the EU’s unresolved tension between internal and external borders in an era increasingly shaped by inward-looking tendencies among member states. Other chapters analyse the constitution and contestation of liminal borders amid the ongoing reconfiguration of relationships between the EU’s core and its peripheries. Additional contributions investigate emerging geographies and legal spaces associated with borders, challenging the fixed cartographies that the current geopolitical moment appears to reassert, and addressing both tangible and intangible borders. The final chapters offer broader reflections on the EU’s cognitive borders and the Union’s constitutive grammar of rights, democracy, and equality as affected by reactions to the movement of people. Thanks to the wide range of perspectives it brings together, this book will be of interest to scholars in International Relations, European studies, migration studies, and border studies.

Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.

Virtual Reality promises immersion for all, yet it is built around assumptions of able-bodied users that leave many disabled people behind.

Drawing on original research with users, care providers and developers, this book examines how mainstream Virtual Reality design encodes a narrow idea of the 'normal' body - and the real costs of that choice. It shows how decisions made at the design stage, often invisible to non-disabled users, create barriers around vision, movement and sensory experience.

Moving beyond critique, it argues for a fundamental rethinking of VR design centring diverse bodies and minds. In doing so, it not only reframes accessibility, but expands what VR can be, and who it is truly for.

A survey of the contemporary intersection between religion and violence

In this second edition, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Religion and Violence assembles an international, interdisciplinary group of scholars to map the complex relationships between religion and violence. This book explains how religious traditions intersect with political conflict, collective violence, and social upheaval in a wide range of contexts that reflect academic, social, and political developments since the publication of the first edition.

New and updated chapters address political theology, White Christian Nationalism in the United States, Hindu nationalism in India, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, religion and mass atrocities, sexual orientation and gender identity, nationalism and political Islam in Turkey, Shia Islam and Hezbollah, and religion, violence, and Latin American drug trafficking. A new introduction frames these developments within broader analytical contexts.

Readers will also find:

• Updated case studies covering Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2023 and the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine
• Interdisciplinary perspectives from historians, political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, theologians, and scholars of gender studies and communication
• Focused analysis of Christian nationalism, Hindu nationalism, and political Islam as distinct contemporary phenomena
• Coverage of religion's role in mass atrocities, drug trafficking violence, and politically-motivated conflicts across multiple global regions

Designed for scholars, advanced students, and research libraries in religious studies, political science, and related disciplines, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Religion and Violence delivers a rigorous, up-to-date reference that connects theoretical analysis with pressing contemporary developments at the intersection of religion and violence.

This open access book is a biography of Tameyuki Amano (1861-1938), who was the first Japanese economist. He was also an educator, one of the first elected Diet members, and one of the founders of the Tokyo Senmon College (now Waseda University). Moreover, as editor of the Oriental Economist (Toyo Keizai Shimpo), he was at the center of economic information and communication through his work that involved collecting economic and financial data and connecting Japanese economists and businesspeople. Amano wrote notable byline editorials on taxation, international relations and trade, monetary standards, banking, and stock exchange for almost every issue in the period 1895-1907.

Amano spent his boyhood in Karatsu, on the northern shore of Kyushu, where the daimyos (lords) were associated with the Nagasaki surveillance mission. During the period of National Seclusion, Dejima in Nagasaki was uniquely permitted to maintain diplomatic relations with the Dutch; it functioned as a tightly controlled foreign trading post as well as a surveillance and intelligence system for the Tokugawa government. At Tokyo University, Amano attended lectures by Ernest Fenollosa on political economy, based on John Stuart Mill, and on the history of Western philosophy, based on Albert Schwegler. Amano later translated J. Laurence Laughlin's 1884 abridged edition of Mill's Principles of Political Economy and John Neville Keynes's Scope and Method of Political Economy (1891).

This book?offers a?comprehensive?and meticulous?collation?of the?early archaeological discoveries of Sanxingdui, archaeological diaries, documentary archives, and image materials collected by the Sichuan University Museum, and it restores the “origin” of Sanxingdui's scientific archaeological discoveries by “cultural relics and documentary emersion” dual evidence. Through the “cultural relics and documentary emersion” dual evidence to restore the scientific archaeology of Sanxingdui's “origin,” the “full-color archaeological drawings and test analysis description” of the Sanxingdui early archaeological discoveries that carries out a complete presentation for today's research on Sanxingdui and ancient Shu civilization to explore the source to provide valuable first-hand information. This book could also serve as a useful reference to archaeologists and cultural relics researchers, historians and researchers of ancient Shu civilization, as well as postgraduate students and professional readers who are interested in Sanxingdui culture.

This open access book addresses the topic of universal access to archaeological sites?offering reflections and providing guidelines on good practices. This publication aims to create momentum so that the issue of access to cultural heritage, particularly to archaeological heritage, for individuals with disabilities becomes a practical priority in the coming years. Topics covered in this book include suggestions for enhanced research on the subject, sharing knowledge internationally, raising awareness among those in charge of managing and valorizing archaeological sites, incorporating accessibility into site management plans, creating employment opportunities in the field of accessibility, and involving people with disabilities in the governance, design, implementation, staff training, and knowledge-building processes related.

Ensuring access to these cultural experiences for everyone, regardless of gender, cultural origin, religion, class, or disability, not only fosters more inclusive societies but also aligns with the fulfilment of a fundamental human right. The international community has recognized this, as reflected in various international regulations such as the UN 2008 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Despite these efforts, there is a noticeable gap in the establishment of regional, national, and global initiatives dedicated to addressing worldwide accessibility to cultural heritage and also a lack of an international network that can look at the subject worldwide.

This book offers an accessible guide to the economics of digital transformation in Europe. With a particular focus on artificial intelligence, it brings together policy analysis, legal insights, technical innovations, and practical case studies to highlight the economic opportunities and social challenges associated with the digital agenda. The impact of artificial intelligence and the digital transition is assessed across a number of different contexts, including governance, regulation, governmental decision-making, industry, and education. The potential for artificial intelligence and technological innovation to drive sustainable industrial development, enable the circular economy, improve education, and enhance global cooperation are also outlined.

This book shows how the digital transition can transform economies and societies. It will be relevant to students, researchers, and policymakers interested in the digital transition, the political economy, and economic policy.

This book covers the research carried out by the Italian Archaeological Mission in Sindh and Las Bela (Balochistan), Pakistan, during the last 35 years. The volume is divided into chapters covering the various periods during which archaeological work was carried out with different local institutions involved in the surveys and excavations.

It begins with the research conducted in the 1990s, during which surveys and excavations were carried out in the Rohri Hills and the first Mesolithic sites were discovered in the Thar Desert (Upper Sindh, Pakistan). Chapters include the team’s work done in the prehistory Karachi region, surveys at Ongar, Jhimpir, Ranikot and the problem of chert mining during the Copper and Bronze Ages of Sindh, as well as archaeology of Lake Siranda, Cape Gadani and Daun in Las Bela and a complete set of 162 dates so far obtained from this region that is currently the best radiocarbon dated coastal area of the entire Arabian Sea. A final chapter presents all the radiocarbon dates obtained from the prehistoric sites of Sindh and Las Bela during the last 35 years, to try to define a reliable radiocarbon chronology of this part of the Indus Valley, and Arabian Sea prehistory. This book appeals to readers of prehistory and archaeology of South East Asia.

Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.

Collaboration, critical thinking and cultural competency are essential skills that shape young people’s futures. These key skills are often cultivated in the informal, creative spaces that society easily overlooks.

Drawing on the Australian Research Council and industry co-funded Vital Arts project, this book offers a bold and practical new vision: an inclusive, practice-based micro-credential system that recognises the competencies that young people build through creative cultural participation. Challenging prevailing policy narratives that pathologise young people, the book shows how partnerships between industry, cultural organisations and youth-led initiatives can reimagine education, diversify pathways into work and support genuine social mobility.

Offering fresh conceptual tools, compelling empirical insights and a transformative model for accrediting skills, this book repositions youth arts organisations and creative programmes as key actors in constructing more equitable and meaningful routes into employment.

The first English-language anthology of Latin American communication theory

Latin American communication scholarship has shaped global debates on mediation, dependency, and mediatization, yet most foundational texts remain unavailable in English. Latin American Communication Theories: From the Origins to Contemporary Approaches, assembled by a team of communication scholars based at leading universities in Spain and Argentina, translates and contextualizes key writings from six decades of regional research for an international readership.

The volume maps intellectual trajectories from development and dependency theories through mediation, cultural industries, popular cultures, and mediatization. Introductory and section-level editorial texts guide readers through the historical, institutional, and theoretical evolution of the field. Classic contributions appear alongside emerging voices, creating a structured overview that connects Latin American debates with contemporary global discussions in media and communication studies.

Readers will also find:

• A curated selection of foundational Latin American texts published in English for the first time, spanning six decades of scholarship
• Editorial framing that contextualizes each section within the broader historical and institutional development of the communication field
• Critical engagement with hegemonic paradigms from the Global North, highlighting the originality of Latin American theoretical perspectives
• Coverage of key concepts including dependency theory, mediation, mediatization, cultural industries, and popular cultures across the region
• A structured intellectual map suitable for graduate coursework in global communication theory, media studies, and Latin American studies

Designed for graduate students, doctoral researchers, and faculty in communication theory, media studies, cultural studies, and Latin American studies, this anthology provides direct access to a scholarly tradition that has remained largely outside the English-language canon while offering structured pathways through its core debates and concepts.

This book examines the various roles women played in royal succession from ancient Western Asia to the modern United Kingdom. It argues that royal succession, from antiquity to modernity, has rarely, if ever, been self-evident. In many ways, a period of succession is a time of crisis, one in which royal women often play important roles. Regardless of whether the monarch has died after a period of illness, been killed in war or in a plot, succumbed to an accident when jousting, or been deposed, imprisoned, or forced into exile, a power vacuum ensues. Successions, whether anticipated or unforeseen, thus pose problems that call for various considerations; a wide array of stakeholders, including powerful women, are affected by the consequences and seek to influence succession.

The Labour of Care is the first national, comparative history of health care work. In this book, historian Peter L. Twohig analyses the responses of governments, employers, professional groups, training programs , and unions to the challenge of staffing Canada’s health care system and the reorganization of care.

Through careful archival analysis, Twohig demonstrates the conditions under which employees’ boundaries become more flexible, the paths to health care work expand, and tensions emerge among workers in response to labour shortages, decreased funding, and health care reform. This book is attentive to the various identities of health care workers, as women, professionals, union members, and more. It also situates these developments within broader social, economic, and policy changes that reshaped Canada’s health care landscape in the second half of the twentieth century. Examining health care workers in this way reveals a new history of health care that highlights the experiences and contributions of a wide range of workers whose voices have not yet been heard.

The Dominion of Shoppers is a concise introduction to the long history of Canadian consumption. Building on the “four Ps” of consumer history ? place, product, payment, and power ? historian Steve Penfold traces the complex mix of business, economic, social, and cultural dynamics that shaped shopping and exchange from the bygone fur trade to contemporary online buying.

Stretching from the 17th to the 21st century, The Dominion of Shoppers builds its narrative around several key moments in the history of the (now bankrupt) Hudson’s Bay Company, leading the reader through the exchanges of the fur trade, retail in settler colonialism, modern consumption, post-World War Two consumer boom, consumer nationalism, state regulation, and more recent technological and retail disruptions. Through the pages of this book, readers will visit fur trade posts, public markets, small rural shops, department stores, shopping malls, power centres, discount houses, and online markets.

The Dominion of Shoppers is a valuable introduction to Canadian consumerism for historians, students, and anyone interested in Canada’s past and present.

This book argues that contemporary global crises are symptomatic of a deeper metacrisis fundamentally rooted in education itself, and that educational leaders are pivotal in navigating this time between worlds by adopting big picture perspectives and integrative metatheories. The central conceptual tool presented is the Integrative Worldview Framework (IWF), which analyses worldviews (Traditional, Modern, Postmodern and Integrative) through five philosophical components to help leaders clarify their own values and bridge ideological divides. The book systematically applies the IWF to develop four domain-specific frameworks for educational leadership development. The Integrative Education Framework (IEF) addresses educational codes and the meaning crisis, supporting leaders in re-integrating educational philosophy and leadership for learning. The Integrative Sustainability Framework (ISF) addresses the capability crisis and sustainability competencies in relation to advanced leadership theories. The Integrative Organising Framework (IOF) addresses the legitimation crisis and organisational dynamics in educational institutions. The Integrative Inquiry Framework (IIF) addresses the sensemaking crisis through modes of inquiry and mixed philosophical methodologies, enabling leaders to develop their own living leadership theory in the ecological university. The IWF is then critically examined to identify its limitations, inviting critiques from Traditional, Modern, Postmodern and Indigenous (Kinship) worldview perspectives, while exploring its capacity to address these criticisms through dialogue.

This book offers a collection of contributions that identify and exemplify a wide range of overlooked, subversive changes in the history of natural philosophy, spanning from antiquity to modernity. The guiding principle of the volume is to address questions that arise from Kuhn's approach to the problem of paradigmatic change. While it is tempting to follow in Kuhn's footsteps and see the history of natural philosophy as a series of revolutions led by giant figures - theoretical watersheds diverging from the 'normal' course of events - an accurate picture seems to be more complex and nuanced. By blending philosophy, science, mathematics, this book offers a rich perspective on intellectual progress and is of interest to a broad array of scientists.

This book provides a timely and in-depth examination of end-of-life care in Malaysia, focusing on the ethical and legal dimensions that underpin one of the most sensitive areas of modern medical practice. As medical technology advances and the use of life-sustaining treatments become more widespread, the boundaries between life and death grow increasingly complex ? raising profound questions about how such decisions should be made and regulated. In Malaysia, end-of-life care remains a sensitive area of public discourse, as the nation faces the realities of an aging population in transition. This book explores the ethical tensions that arise when determining the appropriate course of care at the final stages of life, especially when balancing professional judgment, religious values, and the wishes of patients and families. It also critically examines the current legal landscape, highlighting the absence of a dedicated statutory framework to govern end-of-life decisions and the resulting implications for medical practitioners and patients alike. The discussion on patients’ rights brings to light the need for clear legal recognition of the right to refuse treatment, the validity of advance medical directives, and the importance of shared decision-making in end-of-life scenarios. Structured around five key chapters, and drawing on Malaysian law and comparative common law perspectives, the book presents a comprehensive and contextualised analysis of the challenges at hand. It concludes with recommendations aimed at guiding the development of a coherent, culturally sensitive, and ethically sound regulatory framework for end-of-life care in Malaysia. This book is essential reading for legal professionals, healthcare providers, policymakers, bioethicists, and scholars interested in medical law and ethics in the Malaysian context.

Flourishing Through the Art of Living is a theoretical study of school education which begins by questioning its purpose. The book provides an answer to this question that is grounded in a view of what “flourishing” means for humans living in the social order of high modernity, and outlines the implications on the institutional, curricular, and pedagogical aspects of school education.

Education professor Thomas Falkenberg argues that school education has to address developmental aspects of flourishing as part of its mandate in order to contribute in a very substantial way to the developing political and societal concern for human flourishing. The book first explicates the specific demands that living in high modernity of the 21st century has on humans and then goes on to develop an understanding of the specificity of human existence and functioning. Next, the author expounds on an understanding of human flourishing as it is relevant to living in high modernity; and finally, proposes an approach to school education that supports such flourishing.

Flourishing Through the Art of Living is an interdisciplinary investigation that advances a vision for school education that will infuse sustained meaning, purpose, and hope in the lives of students.

Cultures of Exchange examines the mercantile culture of the Italian peninsula, whose wealth and geographic location made it a focal point of cultural exchange in the Mediterranean. The volume explores the integration of the peninsula into international and global networks, the effect on societal structures and attitudes, and the role in the transfer and reception of knowledge, goods, and peoples.

Susanna Barsella, William Caferro, and Germano Maifreda bring together the work of an array of scholars ? literary critics, art historians, numismatists, and historians ? using diverse methodologies that provide a genuinely interdisciplinary discussion of a field that is still in its elemental stages. The chapters in the volume deal with interrelated issues from diverse perspectives, questioning whether cultural exchange also involved cultural appropriation, while interrogating the political, economic, social, religious, material, artistic, gendered, and racial aspects of exchange. Essays on cartography offer a strong visual component to the book, and the use of digital humanities adds to the methodological sophistication in assessing primary source materials.

Bringing into conversation the work of a broad range of scholars, Cultures of Exchange is written with accessibility and readability in mind and is a major intervention in the growing field of Mediterranean Studies.