At the beginning of the twenty-first century it is necessary to combine into a productive programme the striving for individual emancipation and the social practice of humanism, in order to help the world survive both the ancient pitfalls of particularist terrorism and the levelling tendencies of cultural indifference engendered by the renewed imperialist arrogance of hegemonial global capital. In this book, thirty-five scholars address and negotiate, in a spirit of learning and understanding, an exemplary variety of intercultural splits and fissures that have opened up in the English-speaking world. Their methodology can be seen to constitute a seminal field of intellectual signposts. They point out ways and means of responsibly assessing colonial predicaments and postcolonial developments in six regions shaped in the past by the British Empire and still associated today through their allegiance to the idea of a Commonwealth of Nations. They show how a new ethic of literary self-assertion, interpretative mediation and critical responsiveness can remove the deeply ingrained prejudices, silences and taboos established by discrimination against race, class and gender.

" How globalized information networks can be used for strategic advantage Until recently, globalization was viewed, on balance, as an inherently good thing that would benefit people and societies nearly everywhere.Now there is growing concern that some countries will use their position in globalized networks to gain undue influence over other societies through their dominance of information and financial networks, a concept known as “weaponized interdependence.” In exploring the conditions under which China, Russia, and the United States might be expected to weaponize control of information and manipulate the global economy, the contributors to this volume challenge scholars and practitioners to think differently about foreign economic policy, national security, and statecraft for the twenty-first century. The book addresses such questions as: What areas of the global economy are most vulnerable to unilateral control of informationand financial networks? How sustainable is the use of weaponized interdependence? What are the possible responses from targeted actors? And how sustainable is the open global economy if weaponized interdependence becomes a default tool for managing international relations? "

Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. officials have been more willing to remind allies that the United States will not play the role of international policeman. Given U.S. reluctance, the job of peacekeeping will fall increasingly to international organizations and regional alliances. In International Peacekeeping Paul Diehl examines the recent record of United Nations peacekeeping forces and develops criteria for assessing their operations. His analysis provides useful guidance for the management of new hostilities in areas such as Central and Eastern Europe, where the dissolution of the Soviet Union has spawned bitter civil wars and dangerous border disputes. Diehl identifies three sets of factors that affect traditional international peacekeeping operations. He begins by discussing the practical concerns of peacekeeping efforts, such as force composition, organization, and deployment. He then examines issues related to the political and military context in which the forces are deployed, including the nature of the conflict and the involvement of third parties. Finally, he considers the authorization by the relevant international body - usually the United Nations - as it relates to the mission's mandate, policies, and financing. He concludes by analyzing the viability of new roles for U.N. peacekeeping troops, such as humanitarian assistance, and by exploring structural alternatives to U.N. peacekeeping operations.

The claim that open trade promotes peace has sparked heated debate among scholars and policymakers for centuries. Until recently, however, this claim remained untested and largely unexplored. Economic Interdependence and International Conflict clarifies the state of current knowledge about the effects of foreign commerce on political-military relations and identifies the avenues of new research needed to improve our understanding of this relationship. The contributions to this volume offer crucial insights into the political economy of national security, the causes of war, and the politics of global economic relations. Edward D. Mansfield is Hum Rosen Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of the Christopher H. Browne Center for International Politics at the University of Pennsylvania. Brian M. Pollins is Associate Professor of Political Science at Ohio State University and a Research Fellow at the Mershon Center.

The dramatic changes that have taken place both in global society and in the church have implications for how the church does missions in the twenty-first century. These trends include the rise of postmodernism, the spiritual decline in the West and the advance of the gospel in the rest of the world, and the impact of technology on society and missions. The Changing Face of World Missions is for the mission-minded church leader or lay person who wants to understand these trends. Each chapter identifies and evaluates a trend, examines it in light of Scripture, and proposes a practical response. Important terms are defined, and sidebars help readers think through the issues on their own.

Build high-trust ministry partnerships that are effective and joy-filled We’ve all seen fundraising and giving done poorly, but how do we get it right? Rob Martin was a grant maker for over twenty years and has been in and around the world of funding for a long time. He shares all that he’s learned about fundraising and giving in today’s world, the do’s and don’t, and how it can be a mutual blessing to all parties involved. He will teach you: how the paradigm of giving is changing in the 21st century how to craft a vision that donors will hear and appreciate how to build strong, successful relationships between donors and fundraisers This is an essential read for any Christian who gives or receives money. Ministry partnerships can be robust relationships that bring immense joy and remind us of our unity in Christ; this book will show you how.

From biology to economics to information theory, the theme of interdependence is in the air, framing our experiences of all sorts of everyday phenomena. Indeed, the network may be the ascendant metaphor of our time. Yet precisely because the language of interdependence has become so commonplace as to be almost banal, we miss some of its most surprising and far-reaching implications. In Interdependence, biologist Kriti Sharma offers a compelling alternative to the popular view that interdependence simply means independent things interacting. Sharma systematically shows how interdependence entails the mutual constitution of one thing by another—how all things come into being only in a system of dependence on others. In a step-by-step account filled with vivid examples, Sharma shows how a coherent view of interdependence can help make sense not only of a range of everyday experiences but also of the most basic functions of living cells. With particular attention to the fundamental biological problem of how cells pick up signals from their surroundings, Sharma shows that only an account which replaces the perspective of “individual cells interacting with external environments” with one centered in interdependent, recursive systems can adequately account for how life works. This book will be of interest to biologists and philosophers, to theorists of science, of systems, and of cybernetics, and to anyone curious about how life works. Clear, concise, and insightful, Interdependence: Biology and Beyond explicitly offers a coherent and practical philosophy of interdependence and will help shape what interdependence comes to mean in the twenty-first century.

Global Interdependence provides a new account of world history from the end of World War II to the present, an era when transnational communities began to challenge the long domination of the nation-state. In this single-volume survey, leading scholars elucidate the political, economic, cultural, and environmental forces that have shaped the planet in the past sixty years. Offering fresh insight into international politics since 1945, Wilfried Loth examines how miscalculations by both the United States and the Soviet Union brought about a Cold War conflict that was not necessarily inevitable. Thomas Zeiler explains how American free-market principles spurred the creation of an entirely new economic order--a global system in which goods and money flowed across national borders at an unprecedented rate, fueling growth for some nations while also creating inequalities in large parts of the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. From an environmental viewpoint, J. R. McNeill and Peter Engelke contend that humanity has entered a new epoch, the Anthropocene era, in which massive industrialization and population growth have become the most powerful influences upon global ecology. Petra Goedde analyzes how globalization has impacted indigenous cultures and questions the extent to which a generic culture has erased distinctiveness and authenticity. She shows how, paradoxically, the more cultures blended, the more diversified they became as well. Combining these different perspectives, volume editor Akira Iriye presents a model of transnational historiography in which individuals and groups enter history not primarily as citizens of a country but as migrants, tourists, artists, and missionaries--actors who create networks that transcend traditional geopolitical boundaries.