This book delves into the political aspects of an archaeology of the contemporary past and provides evidence and an understanding of structural violence, inequalities, and possible ways to contest them in current settings. Using case studies, this volume presents a revision of how different theoretical approaches and archaeological methods (combined or mixed with other disciplinary or undisciplined methods), become tools to inquire on the political in its many facets. The contributions to this volume present different scenarios through which the political is or can be reconstituted, re-defined and scrutinized. Whether it is called dissident archaeology or archaeology of repression and resistance or tackling a wide array of subject such as climate change or consumerism, modern conflict, homelessness, migration, and displacement or others, the volume discusses lines of scrutiny that bring together efforts from distant and yet proximate places in the global south and north. Thus, this book provides material connections that illuminate the political spectrum that frames social conditions of power and resistance, the abuse of the former and the efficiency of the latter. This volume is of interest to archaeologists, heritage specialists, and historians studying the contemporary past.

Examines the formation of a surveillance state through a close examination of Thomas Jefferson's plantation management techniques and political actions.

With the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on the horizon, Melissa Adler leads readers to reexamine the principles and foundations upon which the United States is based. By analyzing Thomas Jefferson's surveillance technologies and practices, including his Farm Book, algorithmic formulas, and land management policies, this book provides a new understanding of the limits to aspirations toward good government, liberty, security, and equality in the United States. In addition to being the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, which famously states that "all men are created equal," many of Jefferson's writings feature the rationalization of the enslavement, displacement, and killing of Black and Indigenous peoples. Adler argues that information architectures are mechanisms by which cultural and political divisions endure, and that close examination of Jefferson's surveillance techniques reveals some of the processes by which problems associated with settler colonialism, racism, and heteropatriarchy have become systemic.

This book examines the intellectual foundations and policy successes of the Biden administration's foreign policy for the middle class, from an interdisciplinary perspective that combines geopolitics and political economy. It challenges the general narrative that the foreign policy for the middle class was simply a misnamed domestic reform agenda with no relevance for foreign policy. It does so by tracing the connections between domestic and foreign policy, and by examining the policy's derivation from the national security consensus of the American foreign policymaking establishment-America needs to be strong at home to be strong abroad, and being strong abroad allows America to shape the world in a way that protects its values and institutions at home. The discussion of what came to be known as Bidenomics assesses the extent to which the administration's approach was post-neoliberal, and explains how a policy that sought to reconfigure the American political economy to restore prosperity to working Americans became a supply side security strategy.

An in-depth examination of the United States' indirect intervention into the Syrian war on two fronts: the covert CIA-led campaign against the Bashar al-Assad regime and the overt, Pentagon-led military operation against the so-called Islamic State in Iraq & Syria (ISIS).

Matthew Ayton offers new insights into a dimension of US policy in Syria that has so far been given little analytical attention; the employment of what American strategists called the 'by, with & through approach' to ground warfare. This saw the US provide weaponry and training to non-state militias in an attempt to achieve strategic objectives without deploying large numbers of troops, in order to reduce blood-and-treasure costs, following the costly post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Drawing on a wealth of original interviews with American national security officials and the Syrians who worked with them on the ground, this book shows that despite being presented as a cost-saving panacea to intervention, this strategy came with significant - costly - and even deadly - consequences.

To the philosopher Boris Groys, everything technology produces in the modern world ultimately falls into two categories - it's art, or it's garbage. Both are useless, defunctionalized objects that simply lie there. The difference between them comes when we immunize art from the destructive power of time to which we devoutly deliver our garbage.

In this collection of essays and interviews, Groys expounds on these paradoxes, taking in art, the dialectic of work, the afterlife, politics, utopia, philosophy, faith, revolution, the avant-garde and digitalization. His philosophical writings critique the political economy of heterotopia, whereas his writings on art concern the things of the afterlife: only the politics of immortality promises salvation from the garbage pit.

Groys sees the history of class struggle as a history of aestheticization - defined by the forms spectators recognize as valuable enough to preserve, which they will fight to the death to preserve from disappearance and nonexistence. Western civilization's tendency to aestheticize politicizes everything. If we can design ourselves as artworks worthy of admiration and care, then can we too survive the ravages of time?

Bringing together previously unpublished texts, newly translated work and interviews, this is a coruscating trip through the complex and challenging philosophical and cultural problems that Boris Groys has made it his life's work to deal with.

David Contosta provides a timely, historical analysis of threats to American democracy and how to protect the United States from future abuses of presidential power.

Tracing how presidency has changed since the founding of the United States of America, Contosta examines the roots of threats to democracy including concerns about presidents leveraging their cult of personality, partisanship preventing Congress from effectively checking presidential power, and presidents initiating foreign war or war adjacent actions without a Congressional declaration of hostilities. This book also dissects the creation of the Electoral College as well as the continuing dangers to the American political system. In this way, Contosta tells the story of the American presidential experience, addressing Benjamin Franklin's haunting comment at the end of the Constitution Convention - "A republic if you can keep it." In light of the 2025 political climate, the final chapters of the book analyze the three elections in which Donald Trump ran for president, focusing on the reasons why Trump won in both 2016 and 2024 and what his victories say about American politics, American life, and the possible future of American democracy. Through his thorough examination of the evolution of presidency, Contosta highlights the importance of protecting democracy from future abuses of presidential power.

As a witness, and at many times participant, in the sphere of legislative government, the author presents his testimony on the accomplishments of regular order of a previous time and the shift to the current lack of collaboration, highlighting the need to return to regular order

The author, through his unique experience and recognition as a master coalition builder in the policy sphere, can attest to the many virtues of congressional regular order. The twelve chapters of this book provide examples and context for a number of major economic regulatory reform initiatives that Dan Flanagan was closely linked, and were seriously considered, with many passed by Congress within the regular order tradition of that 1970-2000 era.

During this period, Dan Flanagan observed numerous committee hearings, markups, and bills reported from committee on a bi-partisan, regular order basis, and recounts and editorializes them within his writing. For quality congressional legislation, important regulatory issues benefit from bipartisan legislation via regular order in the relevant congressional committees, otherwise partisan rulemaking (regulatory ping pong) takes over, thus underscoring the lackluster performance of Congress these last twenty years. Rarely unanimous, the committee process was polite, informative, and typically very positive during this period. The members were articulate, quite knowledgeable, and deferential to their colleagues and, in particular, to their Committee Chairman (majority) and Ranking member (minority). Committee Chairman were seen as powerful and worthy of respect, and the Speaker of the House was, in effect, the conductor of the orchestra.

Gone are those days, and it would be nearly impossible today for Congress to pass the major regulatory reform measures that Dan Flanagan was associated with and describes in this timely book, without regular order reestablished and implemented. Leading to the avalanche of rule makings, "regulatory ping pong," and continuing resolutions that have evolved.

How do laws governing voting and elections shape political representation and power in the USA?

Are some demographic and socioeconomic groups of Americans over- or under-represented in Congress, state legislatures, and other elected offices? How do factors like gerrymandering and voting rights influence America's democratic institutions? This accessible resource answers all these questions and many more.

This one-stop resource provides readers with historical context, explanations of current controversies and developments, and illuminating primary sources related to political representation. Original essays offer a range of perspectives, while profiles of significant figures and organizations-from Susan B. Anthony to the American Civil Liberties Union-provide insight into how this issue has evolved over time.

The election of President Donald J. Trump in 2024, is reshaping the current transatlantic relationship. There are those who argue that this relationship no longer serves U.S. interests. Others argue that Europe is more than capable of dealing with Russia and that the United States should conserve its limited resources and focus on China. A Sustainable U.S. Strategy for Transatlantic Relations: NATO, the EU, and the USA disagrees. With a rising and increasingly menacing China, an aggressive and dangerous Russia, and a host of other challenges, the United States and its allies need each other more than ever. This requires a sustainable Transatlantic strategy that acknowledges and addresses both the domestic and international environment facing the United States and its allies.
A strong NATO, with an improved European support, will provide a credible deterrent and the capability to prevail in any conflict. At the same time, the EU, with its economic strength and political influence, is needed to complement NATO. In addition to NATO and the EU, the United States needs to strengthen key bilateral relations in Europe. Finally, for the transatlantic relationship to continue, European allies need to increase their contributions to transatlantic security, both with increased spending and greater capabilities. This book shows how this can be done.

At a time when the representational expansion of women and LGBTQIA+ people in media coincides with the rise of global "anti-gender" ideologies, Judith Butler's writings on gender, precarity, and liveability hold new urgency. Judith Butler and Film is the first book to examine the reciprocal relationship between Butler's theories and cinema, situating film within the broader context of Butler's philosophy and its interactions with popular media. Tracing the presence of film in Butler's work - from Paris Is Burning and Boys Don't Cry to Divine's queer terrorism in John Waters' films, and from Hollywood's star system to documentaries featuring Butler - Guerbuez reveals cinema as both object and method of inquiry into Butlerian thought. Bringing this dialogue up to the present, the book branches into Butler's 2024 bestseller Who Is Afraid of Gender? and their recent appearances in popular online media, underscoring the immediacy of Butler's thought in today's cultural landscape.

Moving beyond established frameworks in film theory while drawing on counter-cinema, trans* cinema discourse, and the psychic life of film, Judith Butler and Film repositions cinema as a potential site of embodied transformation and collective imagination-a medium through which egalitarian futures can be envisioned and felt.

Jeong-Chul Kim excavates the complex role of Korean collaborators during Japanese colonial rule, offering a theoretical analysis of collaboration with foreign powers.
Kim argues that collaboration was central to establishing a colonial order under Japanese rule in Korea, as Korean collaborators navigated the conflicting demands of both Japanese rulers and their compatriots. Instead of passing judgment on these controversial historical figures, Kim focuses on how they influenced key moments in Korea's complicated colonial history through various strategies, including devaluing, recuperating, and erasing Korean identity. Using archival sources translated from Korean, the author shows that internal tensions within the colonized community, rather than just opposition to colonial regimes, shaped the development of Korean national identity. This book challenges traditional views of colonialism, emphasizing that indigenous collaboration is crucial to understanding the establishment, development, and sustainment of colonial rule. By focusing on the colonial intermediaries, this book fills the gap between abstract colonial policies and their implementation on the ground level and provides insights into the unintended consequences of the collaborators' intermediary actions as well as the ramifications which persist in contemporary Korean society.

A PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BEST BOOK OF 2025
A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK OF 2025

'Lively and provocative' FINANCIAL TIMES
'Makes a convincing case for how tech became radicalized' BLOOMBERG

What happens if the world's richest and most powerful men decide to dismantle democracy?

In Gilded Rage, New York Times bestselling author Jacob Silverman takes us inside the surreal, high-stakes world of Silicon Valley. This is the story of the political awakening and radicalization of a cabal of tech billionaires and their descent into ideological extremism. Flush with cash from the zero-interest era, addicted to their own mythology, these men have began reshaping the world in their image - and it should terrify us all.

At the center is Elon Musk, the mogul whose obsession with the "woke mind virus" has turned him from a tech innovator to an ideological crusader. But Musk is just the beginning. Silverman maps a sprawling network of radicalized elites - from Peter Thiel and JD Vance to the financiers bankrolling Donald Trump - who are using their platforms and their money to ensure a political revolution that's already underway.

We meet the billionaires funding life-extension labs and embracing apocalyptic visions of AI. We examine the populist rhetoric that is leading to the ruthless dismantling of democratic norms. And we enter the strange, darkly comic world of the tech-oligarchy where libertarian dreams meet authoritarian impulses, and where the people with the most influence over our lives are the least accountable.

Silverman travels from San Francisco to Miami, New York to DC, following a movement that's rewriting the rules and oftentimes fighting a war against reality itself. With sharp reporting and a cast of extraordinary characters, Gilded Rage is a gripping, essential dispatch from the front lines of the billionaire revolution.

Giorgio Ennas here contends that, during the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Italy developed in a specular way, as if reflecting each other through a mirror: both underwent a rapid process of 'modernisation', educated a new diplomatic elite, and, after their inclusion into the Concert of the Great Powers, implemented similar foreign policies to preserve their positions as European Powers.
Italo-Ottoman Relations in the Age of the Congress of Paris uncovers the surprising existence of a common sensibility between the Sardinian-Italian and the Ottoman diplomats involved in international negotiations during the 1860s - a key period of transition towards the age of imperialism. In this decade, the members of the diplomatic elites studied international law from the same manuals. Ennas convincingly argues that it is this common education which diffused European diplomatic culture among non-European diplomatic establishments, creating a flourishing of multiple modernities in the process.

While the dominant 19th-century narrative of modernisation processes situates these two countries in oppositional terms, the comparative analysis of their diplomatic documents and foreign policies in this study problematizes the common narrative of East versus West and uncovers the cultural similarities between these two alleged 'others'. Indeed, the book highlights their common aspiration to be incorporated into a global European civilisation characterised by a universal ambition to include a broader range of Powers, moving beyond cultural and religious differences.

25 years old and struggling to find his way in his journalism career, the young reporter who had been covering local political stories found himself smack in the middle of the world's biggest geopolitical crisis - fleeing air raids and being questioned by militants along the way.

One year later when Hamas carried out its October 7th attack, Sherman flew right back into thick of it - running from rockets and diving into Hamas tunnels in Gaza. While shrouded in the proverbial "Fog of War," it became clear to Sherman that the world isn't as simple as he thought it was.

Exploring how Iranian political leaders have framed Iran's nuclear program as proof of the system's efficiency to bolster domestic legitimacy, this new volume analyses the internal divisions and global pressures undermining Iran's political narrative.

Nuclear Discourse and State Legitimacy in Iran: How Iran Leverages Its Nuclear Program to Secure Domestic Support examines the social dimensions of Iran's nuclear program. By analyzing the nuclear discourses that have emerged over the past two decades in Iran, the author demonstrates how political leaders have portrayed the nuclear program as an indication of the political system's efficiency in overcoming the crisis of political legitimacy. This book demonstrates that while internal conflicts and international pressures caused nuclear discourses to lose their legitimacy-building potential, the persistence of an inefficiency crisis continues to fuel the legitimacy crisis. These developments could potentially pave the way for a shift in Iran's relations with the West.

"This landmark book is the first to fully explain how memes have become a critical part of UK politics. Through rich and convincing empirical analysis, Southern reveals how digital humour is transforming citizen participation, elite communication, and the very nature of political discourse. A must-read for anyone seeking to understand the evolution of digital political culture and its profound impact on democracy."

- James Dennis, Researcher at Lusofona University, Portugal

"From 'shitposts' to 'Karen memes', political communication is changing and Rosalynd Southern is a lively guide to the pithy world of memes. A cutting-edge study that deserves to be read.

- Stephen Coleman, Emeritus Professor of Political Communication, University of Leeds, UK

In 2015, a story emerged alleging that then Prime Minister David Cameron had placed 'a private part of his anatomy' into the mouth of a dead pig's head during an initiation ceremony at the University of Oxford. Upon this allegation breaking, social media erupted with a plethora of memes and jokes about the incident, which became known as 'piggate'. Although there had been move towards jovial talk of politics on social media prior to this, the episode seemed to distil the practice and precipitate a new era of near-constant humorous online reaction to political events. Considering this context, this book will assess how memetic practices have shaped political communication and culture in the past decade-plus and the consequences thereof. It will do so from four perspectives, ranging from a focus on ordinary citizens, a group of online activists, a specific case study of a key satirist and, finally, focusing on how elites have deployed these practices.

Offers a detailed analysis of more than sixty Omani folktales and unique insights into the lives of Omani women through the oral tales they narrate.

Systematically documenting and analyzing women's folktales in the Sultanate of Oman, this research study analyzes old and contemporary Omani popular beliefs and folktales. Ahmed Al-Rawi offers an understanding of the oral tradition in Oman and the Arab Gulf in general by investigating the available books and articles on Omani folklore. He also provides readers and researchers with an analysis of previously published Omani folktales by referring to their motifs, tale-types, and occurrences.

Omani women play a greater role than men in transmitting cultural norms and folktales from one generation to another. More than sixty folktales narrated by Omani women are included, with a detailed analysis of each tale. These tales were collected from the seven different parts of Oman, especially from elderly women. Oman's Folklore, Popular Beliefs, and Women's Oral Storytelling offers a cultural analysis of Omani folktales and popular beliefs based on an investigation of almost all the available literature inside and outside Oman as well as on forty interviews with Omani women.

This book offers an in-depth exploration of the Lahu people's religious and cultural transformations from the late 18th century to the present day. Situated in the mountainous border regions of Southwest China and Southeast Asia, the Lahu have experienced significant religious shifts-adopting Fu Cu (Buddha) belief in response to Qing dynasty frontier policies, transitioning to Christianity following the Qing suppression of the Fu Cu movement, and confronting the atheistic stance of the Communist state post-1949. This study meticulously examines how the Lahu have navigated these changes, integrating external religious and political influences while preserving their cultural identity.

At a time when technological advances are creating new threats to national and international security, traditional views of security, war, and deterrence are becoming obsolete. This book examines the different cyber security strategies being developed by states. It reveals significant differences between conventional adversaries such as Russia, China, and the West, but also between allies such as NATO and EU members.

Despite the EU's efforts, no binding international rules have been established, and the Tallinn Manual remains a Western-centric interpretation of the laws of cyber warfare. At the same time, critical infrastructure is often in private hands, and the low cost of cyber attacks enables individuals to pose significant threats. This book discusses effective state strategies for protecting and projecting influence in cyberspace. By analysing national and international strategies, notable cyber attacks, and ethical concerns, it also offers policy recommendations for improving cyber deterrence in a rapidly evolving landscape.

The book will appeal to students, scholars, and researchers in international relations, law, security studies, cybersecurity, and political science, as well as policymakers and practitioners interested in a better understanding of cyber deterrence and cybersecurity.

The core objective of this book is to connect ethno-symbolism to securitization theory. It argues that nationalist political ideology exists as part of a socialization effort, establishing differences to securitize a nation from an enemy nation. The argument and research are based on a Department of Defense Minerva Grant focused on food nationalism that included travel to Greece, North Macedonia, Turkey, Armenia, and India. Focusing on nationalism as a speech act that is connected to everyday life such as cuisine and the larger food economy, the book showcases how the extent to which nationalism remains the state's primary organizing principle even in an increasingly multipolar world.

This book contributes to migration and security studies alike by examining the transformation of migration governance across the Central Mediterranean Route connecting Sub-Saharan Africa to Europe through Italy.

Leveraging this migratory corridor in historical and comparative perspective, the volume provides a multidisciplinary reappraisal of securitization theory, highlighting how different fields such as anthropology, history, visual semiotics, and science and technology studies can enrich, reappraise, and decentralize this paradigm. Far from merely exploring the different ways migration is framed as a threat after the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the volume systematically dissects the interplay between discourses and border enforcement practices as well as the diffusion of migration governance models worldwide, pushing securitization theory beyond security studies.

This book focuses on Western attitudes toward Russia and the Russians following Vladimir Putin's decision to invade Ukraine. Western attitudes, while diverse, often revealed a highly negative reaction that condemned not only the Kremlin but the broader Russian society for its alleged complicity and support for the war. The author uses the metaphor of "canceling" to capture the attitude toward Russians that (1) holds them responsible for the war in Ukraine, (2) denies acceptance and recognition to various expressions of Russian culture, politics, and society, and (3) favors maximum pressures and the ultimate defeat over negotiations with Russia.

A thoughtful exploration of how the Sahara Desert can be returned to its former glory as a green paradise while actively combating climate change.

A green Sahara is something the world has not seen since 10,000 BC when the Sahara was a wet, lush region. By 3,000 BC though the climate changed, the rains stopped, and the ancient green Sahara dried into today's desert. It was the victim of a phenomenon that reminds us today of global climate warming. But what if we could reverse the desertification of the Sahara, and bring back the green paradise of days passed?

In The Green Sahara: Regaining Paradise in the Face of Climate Change, John Gaudet explores the process by which climate change in ancient times converted a green paradise into an arid desert land, highlighting parallels to what is happening in our time. But he also illuminates how an intense effort to create green energy is being made by several Saharan countries to build and operate enormous solar and wind farms. As a result, a wave of green energy generated in the Sahara, the largest desert on earth, is about to swamp the world, and could lead to a regreening of the Sahara Desert. If a new green Sahara happens, how will the world benefit?

Covering just 20% of the Sahara Desert with wind turbines and solar panels would generate almost five times more energy than is currently needed worldwide. Gaudet highlights further benefits of deploying climate technology to the desert such as sequestering large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere and eliminating negative health and ecosystem effects felt worldwide from desert dust. Gaudet's manifesto demonstrates how, in this fascinating case, climate change induced by man actually has the power to save the world and restore a beautiful piece of ancient history.

The idea of the book is to show that ecology is not a subdiscipline within the natural sciences, but rather holds great significance for all areas of our lives. Everywhere organisms interact (which is practically everywhere), the principles of ecology apply - but what exactly are those principles?