Transatlantic traumas surveys the landscape of external and internal threats to Western values and interests, including Russian and Islamist assaults on the West, illiberal radical right populist challenges, Turkey’s undemocratic tendencies, Brexit and the Trump Tsunami.

In this book Jeffrey C. Alexander develops an original social theory of trauma and uses it to carry out a series of empirical investigations into social suffering around the globe. Alexander argues that traumas are not merely psychological but collective experiences, and that trauma work plays a key role in defining the origins and outcomes of critical social conflicts. He outlines a model of trauma work that relates interests of carrier groups, competing narrative identifications of victim and perpetrator, utopian and dystopian proposals for trauma resolution, the performative power of constructed events, and the distribution of organizational resources. Alexander explores these processes in richly textured case studies of cultural-trauma origins and effects, from the universalism of the Holocaust to the particularism of the Israeli right, from postcolonial battles over the Partition of India and Pakistan to the invisibility of the Rape of Nanjing in Maoist China. In a particularly controversial chapter, Alexander describes the idealizing discourse of globalization as a trauma-response to the Cold War. Contemporary societies have often been described as more concerned with the past than the future, more with tragedy than progress. In Trauma: A Social Theory, Alexander explains why.

"Urgently pursues those nameless ghosts of Haitians lost in the liminal space of the Black Atlantic."--New West Indian Guide "Foregrounds the experiences of refugees (particularly those refused asylum and detained in camps), the political mobilization of the diaspora in the United States, the ramifications of the policies and adjustment programmes imposed on Haiti by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and USAID."--Bulletin of Latin American Research "Theoretically sound and well researched. Braziel has written a compelling book on the literatures of post-Duvalier Haiti."--Millery Polyne, New York University "A very original study, a tour-de-force that crisscrosses the disciplinary boundaries typically separating the social sciences and the humanities. It is richly researched, beautifully written, and will surely attract much critical attention and praise."--Valerie Kaussen, University of Missouri From a position of urgent political engagement, this provocative book offers novel and compelling interpretations of several well-known Haitian-born authors, particularly regarding U.S. intervention in their homeland. Drawing on the diasporic cultural texts of several authors, such as Edwidge Danticat and Dany Laferrière, Jana Evans Braziel examines how writers participate in transnational movements for global social justice. In their fictional works they discuss the United States’ many interventionist methods in Haiti, including surveillance, foreign aid, and military assistance. Through their work, they reveal that the majority of Haitians do not welcome these intrusions and actively criticize U.S. treatment of Haitians in both countries. Braziel encourages us to analyze the instability and violence of small nations like Haiti within the larger frame of international financial and military institutions and forms of imperialism. She forcefully argues that by reading these works as anti-imperialist, much can be learned about why Haitians and Haitian exiles often have negative perceptions of the U.S.

This multidisciplinary volume examines the meaning of global conflict and cooperation by international actors that can be caused by dis- or misinformation to people and discusses how to build diplomacy for peace and regional cooperation. The book further identifies boundaries of the relationships among the various governments of the world, transatlantic alliances, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, transnational corporations, and the overall interdependence of nations in the making of the modern world. Topics discussed in this volume include diplomacy, international relations theory, Eurasia politics, European Union, Brexit, Taliban taking over of Kabul government, and the ongoing Afghanistan conflict, terrorism, ISIS and Al Qaeda, international law, international organizations, interstate and intrastate war, threats and challenges, global civil society, religion, and culture. The volume advances contemporary theories and concepts to explain these issues concerning peoples and cultures in the complex world we live in. The book is a must-read for students, researchers, and scholars of international relations, political science, political history, political geography, economics, and law in general, as well as diplomacy, political communication, and security studies in particular.

Through the first half of the twentieth century, emotions were a legitimate object of scientific study across a variety of disciplines. After 1945, however, in the wake of Nazi irrationalism, emotions became increasingly marginalized and postwar rationalism took central stage. Emotion remained on the scene of scientific and popular study but largely at the fringes as a behavioral reflex, or as a concern of the private sphere. So why, by the 1960s, had the study of emotions returned to the forefront of academic investigation? In Science and Emotions after 1945, Frank Biess and Daniel M. Gross chronicle the curious resurgence of emotion studies and show that it was fueled by two very different sources: social movements of the 1960s and brain science. A central claim of the book is that the relatively recent neuroscientific study of emotion did not initiate – but instead consolidated – the emotional turn by clearing the ground for multidisciplinary work on the emotions. Science and Emotions after 1945 tells the story of this shift by looking closely at scientific disciplines in which the study of emotions has featured prominently, including medicine, psychiatry, neuroscience, and the social sciences, viewed in each case from a humanities perspective.

America’s reputation and power fell to new lows during Trump’s presidency. Militarily, the United States held its own, but its soft power suffered mightily. President Biden pledges to work with the international community, rely on cooperation with like-minded allies, challenge adversaries, and restore American democracy, society and economy to levels that will once again command international respect. De-Trumping U.S. Foreign Policy will address the objectives, obstacles, and potential outcomes of this attempt over the next few years. Sloan evaluates both elite and public opinion from democratic allies around the world, plus elite opinions from states less friendly to the United States. He documents and analyses Biden’s approach to foreign policy and his goals for the U.S. role in the world. The volume will also examine how Biden’s domestic policy objectives, in the areas of the pandemic, systemic racism, political equity, the economy and climate change, relate to his foreign policy goals. The early steps made by Biden will be laid out and evaluated and hidden chances of success or failure will be measured, with a striking analysis of what failure might mean for the USA and the world.

From acclaimed author and researcher Dr. Joy DeGruy comes this fascinating book that explores the psychological and emotional impact on African Americans after enduring the horrific Middle Passage, over 300 years of slavery, followed by continued discrimination. From the beginning of American chattel slavery in the 1500’s, until the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, Africans were hunted like animals, captured, sold, tortured, and raped. They experienced the worst kind of physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual abuse. Given such history, Dr. Joy DeGruy asked the question, “Isn’t it likely those enslaved were severely traumatized? Furthermore, did the trauma and the effects of such horrific abuse end with the abolition of slavery?” Emancipation was followed by another hundred years of institutionalized subjugation through the enactment of Black Codes and Jim Crow laws, peonage and convict leasing, and domestic terrorism and lynching. Today the violations continue, and when combined with the crimes of the past, they result in further unmeasured injury. What do repeated traumas visited upon generation after generation of a people produce? What are the impacts of the ordeals associated with chattel slavery, and with the institutions that followed, on African Americans today? Dr. DeGruy answers these questions and more as she encourages African Americans to view their attitudes, assumptions, and emotions through the lens of history. By doing so, she argues they will gain a greater understanding of the impact centuries of slavery and oppression has had on African Americans. Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome is an important read for all Americans, as the institution of slavery has had an impact on every race and culture. “A masterwork. [DeGruy’s] deep understanding, critical analysis, and determination to illuminate core truths are essential to addressing the long-lived devastation of slavery. Her book is the balm we need to heal ourselves and our relationships. It is a gift of wholeness.”—Susan Taylor, former Editorial Director of Essence magazine

This book examines episodes in NATO’s history from the founding of the North Atlantic Alliance in 1949 to its transition to the post-Cold War order in the 1990s, with an eye to better understanding its present and its future. NATO’s history, now running over seventy years, can no longer be framed in Cold War terms alone. Nor can the organization be understood fully as a post-Cold War institution. Today’s NATO is a product of both these eras. This edited volume offers a reconsideration of NATO’s place in history, looking both at how the alliance coped with the Cold War and how it managed its difficult transition to the post-Cold War international order. Contributors recount how NATO coped with its many political and operational challenges, which on occasion threatened – but never managed to – derail the alliance. The book opens new vistas for explaining how NATO thrived and survived for decades and ponders whether it will survive for many more. The book will be of great value to scholars, students and policymakers interested in Politics, International Studies, Global Affairs and Public Policy. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of Journal of Strategic Studies.

Phillis Wheatley, the African-born slave poet, is considered by many to be a pioneer of Anglo-American poetics. This study argues how in her 1773 POEMS, Wheatley uses John Milton's poetry to develop an idealistic vision of an emerging Anglo-American republic comprised of Britons, Africans, Native Americans, and women.