Politicians can negotiate currency disputes, redraw national boundaries, and raise trade tariffs but what unforeseen problems may be caused by the melding of societal boundaries and the lowering of cultural tariffs? Originating from a range of nationalities and ethnic groups, the contributors to this volume focus on cultural and social processes of

All over Western Europe, the lot of many non-Western immigrants is one of marginalization, discrimination, and increasing segregation. In this bold and controversial book, Unni Wikan shows how an excessive respect for "their culture" has been part of the problem. Culture has become a new concept of race, sustaining ethnic identity politics that subvert human rights—especially for women and children. Fearful of being considered racist, state agencies have sacrificed freedom and equality in the name of culture. Comparing her native Norway to Western Europe and the United States, Wikan focuses on people caught in turmoil, how institutions function, and the ways in which public opinion is shaped and state policies determined. Contradictions arise between policies of respect for minority cultures, welfare, and freedom, but the goal is the same: to create a society committed to both social justice and respect for human rights. Writing with power and grace, Wikan makes a plea for a renewed moral vitality and human empathy that can pave the way for more effective social policies and create change.

Climate Change and Cultural Transition in Europe is an account of Europe’s share in the making of global warming, which considers the past and future of climate-society interactions. Contributors include: Clara Brandi, Rüdiger Glaser, Iso Himmelsbach, Claudia Kemfert, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Claus Leggewie, Franz Mauelshagen, Geoffrey Parker, Christian Pfister, Dirk Riemann, Lea Schmitt, Jörn Sieglerschmidt, Markus Vogt, and Steffen Vogt.

This provocative book shows that Europe in the Middle Ages was as much a product of a process of conquest and colonization as it was later a colonizer. "Will be of great interest to. . . . (those) interested in cultural transformation, colonialism, racism, the Crusades, or holy wars in general. . . ".--William C. Jordan, Princeton University. 12 halftones, 12 maps, 6 diagrams.

An examination of the unique, hybrid media practices generated by Eastern Europe's accelerated transition from late communism to late capitalism. Eastern Europe's historically unprecedented and accelerated transition from late communism to late capitalism, coupled with media globalization, set in motion a scramble for cultural identity and a struggle over access to and control over media technologies. In Identity Games, Anikó Imre examines the corporate transformation of the postcommunist media landscape in Eastern Europe. Avoiding both uncritical techno-euphoria and nostalgic projections of a simpler, better media world under communism, Imre argues that the demise of Soviet-style regimes and the transition of postcommunist nation-states to transnational capitalism has crucial implications for understanding the relationships among nationalism, media globalization, and identity. Imre analyzes situations in which anxieties arise about the encroachment of global entertainment media and its new technologies on national culture, examining the rich aesthetic hybrids that have grown from the transitional postcommunist terrain. She investigates the gaps and continuities between the last communist and first post-communist generations in education, tourism, and children's media culture, the racial and class politics of music entertainment (including Roma Rap and Idol television talent shows), and mediated reconfigurations of gender and sexuality (including playful lesbian media activism and masculinity in "carnivalistic" post-Yugoslav film). Throughout, Imre uses the concepts of play and games as metaphorical and theoretical tools to explain the process of cultural change -- inspired in part by the increasing "ludification" of the global media environment and the emerging engagement with play across scholarly disciplines. In the vision that Imre offers, political and cultural participation are seen as games whose rules are permanently open to negotiation.

Culture is one of the most complex and contested fields of European integration. This book analyzes EU cultural politics since their emergence in the 1980s with a particular focus on the European Capital of Culture program, the flagship of EU cultural policy. It discusses both the central as well as local levels and contextualizes EU policies with programmes of other European organisations, such as the Council of Europe. By asking what "Europe" actually means for European cultural policy, the book goes beyond the confines of official organizations and the political sphere, to discuss the contribution, impact and appropriation among a more diverse group of actors and participants, such as transnational experts, local bureaucrats, cultural managers, urban dwellers and the visitors. Its principal aim is to debunk the myth of Brussels as the centre of cultural Europeanization. Instead, it argues that European cultural policy has to be seen as a relational, multi-directional movement, involving a wide variety of stakeholders and leading to conflicts and collaborations at various levels. This book combines the perspectives of political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists and historians, at the intersection between EU, urban, and cultural studies, and changes our understanding of ‘Europeanization’ by opening up new empirical and conceptual avenues. Challenging the dominant interpretation of European cultural policies, The Cultural Politics of Europe will be of interest to students and scholars of European studies, political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, geographers, historians and cultural studies.

Tourism in the New Europe addresses European tourism within the framework of an enlarged European Union of 25 members. It looks at the substantial reorientation of the organisational framework of European tourism and its profound implications for future structural and geographical patterns of development. Providing a series of thematic evaluations of the relationships between tourism and EU enlargement, this book includes a country-by-country examination of each of the new member states, in terms of their current patterns and trends of tourism development and the impacts which EU accession brings to them.

This third, revised and augmented edition of Peter Rietbergen’s highly acclaimed Europe: A Cultural History provides a major and original contribution to the study of Europe. From ancient Babylonian law codes to Pope Urban’s call to crusade in 1095, and from Michelangelo on Italian art in 1538 to Sting’s songs in the late twentieth century, the expressions of the culture that has developed in Europe are diverse and wide-ranging. This exceptional text expertly connects this variety, explaining them to the reader in a thorough and yet highly readable style. Presented chronologically, Europe: A Cultural History examines the many cultural building blocks of Europe, stressing their importance in the formation of the continent’s ever-changing cultural identities. Starting with the beginnings of agricultural society and ending with the mass culture of the early twenty-first century, the book uses literature, art, science, technology and music to examine Europe’s cultural history in terms of continuity and change. Rietbergen looks at how societies developed new ways of surviving, believing, consuming and communicating throughout the period. His book is distinctive in paying particular attention to the ways early Europe has been formed through the impact of a variety of cultures, from Celtic and German to Greek and Roman. The role of Christianity is stressed, but as a contested variable, as are the influences from, for example, Asia in the early modern period and from American culture and Islamic immigrants in more recent times. Since anxieties over Europe's future mount, this third edition text has been thoroughly revised for the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Moreover, it now also includes a 'dossier' of some seventeen essay-like vignettes that highlight cultural phenomena said to be characteristic of Europe: social solidarity, capitalism, democracy and so forth. With a wide selection of illustrations, maps, excerpts of sources and even lyrics from contemporary songs to support the arguments, this book both serves the general reader as well as students of historical and cultural studies.

Traditionally, relations between Europe and Asia have been studied in a hegemonic perspective, with Europe as the dominant political and economic centre. This book focuses on cultural exchange between different European and Asian civilizations, with the r

This study uses the Channel Tunnel between England and France to explore the shifting geographies of nationalism, postcolonialism, and legal autonomy in the formation of the European Union. It looks at regional differences in feelings about Europe and at vocabulary used in discussing the Tunnel.