Since the mid-1990s, the Internet has revolutionized popular expression in China, enabling users to organize, protest, and influence public opinion in unprecedented ways. Guobin Yang’s pioneering study maps an innovative range of contentious forms and practices linked to Chinese cyberspace, delineating a nuanced and dynamic image of the Chinese Internet as an arena for creativity, community, conflict, and control.
“How to Win a Cosmic War” is both an in-depth study of the ideology fueling Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and like-minded militants throughout the Muslim world, and an exploration of religious violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Surveying the global scene from Israel to Iraq and from New York to the Netherlands, Aslan argues that religion is a stronger force today than it has been in a century.
A milestone in the clash between Europe’s secularism and Islamic values came on November 2, 2004, when a 26-year-old Dutchman, of Morroccan heritage killed filmmaker Theo van Gogh. The young man opposed van Gogh’s film about Somali-born Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a vocal critic of Islam. Europe is a bastion for free speech and individual rights, but a small number of Muslim immigrants from neighboring nations oppose such freedoms. The groups with opposing values continue to offend each other.
With the growing economic power and desires of developing nations like India and China, rampant consumerism and growth is not sustainable for the long term. Citizens of populous developing nations want to live like the citizens of the US and Europe. Ramachandra Guha, a pioneer in the field of environmental history, analyzes the environmental movements in India and the United States, with all their respective politics, chauvinism and aspirations.
Wealthy countries should lift controls on labor moving across national borders, argues Lant Pritchett, socioeconomist with the World Bank and fellow at the Center for Global Development, based in New Delhi. Pritchett poses provocative questions - from whether l abor movement across borders promotes crime to whether nationality is a moral basis for discrimination.
Convictions cannot be ignored. With globalization and convictions bumping up against one another, communities must be inclusive, according to George Rupp, president of the International Rescue Committee. Religion is the source of some conviction, and likewise, fast-paced globalization lacking in coordination and regulation has resulted in an unequal distribution of resources and secular forms of conviction. The world community can be strengthened by people holding strong convictions and inclusive attitudes who strive to understand the positions of others.
Containment is a powerful tool for powerful nations and remains a potent strategy for preserving democracy, argues Ian Shapiro, Sterling Professor of Political Science and director of the MacMillan Center at Yale University. After the 9/11 attacks, the US panicked. The Bush administration quickly abandoned a longstanding US policy of containment without debate or approval from Congress, and instead relied on unilateralism and preemptive attack. As a result, the US has squandered resources and lost credibility around the globe. Containment is a pragmatic alternative that is not appeasement.
Nations can manage crises with self-restraint. The history of how China and the US have managed crises, standoffs and disagreements - over the Cold War, the Vietnam War, the Korean War, and the status of Taiwan - is examined by Michael D. Swaine of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace and Zhang Tuosheng of the China Foundation for International and Strategic Studies, with Danielle F.S. Cohen. The book offers both Chinese and US perspectives on key historical events and concludes with specific recommendations for management of such confrontations.
