Jón Vidar Sigurdsson
- Published in print:
- 2022
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781501760471
- eISBN:
- 9781501760495
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501760471.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History
This book returns to the Viking homeland, Scandinavia, highlighting such key aspects of Viking life as power and politics, social and kinship networks, gifts and feasting, religious beliefs, women's ...
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This book returns to the Viking homeland, Scandinavia, highlighting such key aspects of Viking life as power and politics, social and kinship networks, gifts and feasting, religious beliefs, women's roles, social classes, and the Viking economy, which included farming, iron mining and metalworking, and trade. Drawing of the latest archeological research and on literary sources, namely the sagas, the book depicts a complex and surprisingly peaceful society that belies the popular image of Norsemen as bloodthirsty barbarians. Instead, Vikings often acted out power struggles symbolically, with local chieftains competing with each other through displays of wealth in the form of great feasts and gifts, rather than arms. At home, conspicuous consumption was a Viking leader's most important virtue; the brutality associated with them was largely wreaked abroad. The book's engaging history of the Vikings at home begins by highlighting political developments in the region, detailing how Danish kings assumed ascendency over the region and the ways in which Viking friendship reinforced regional peace. The book then discusses the importance of religion, first pagan and (beginning around 1000 A.D.) Christianity; the central role that women played in politics and war; and how the enormous wealth brought back to Scandinavia affected the social fabric — shedding new light on Viking society.Less
This book returns to the Viking homeland, Scandinavia, highlighting such key aspects of Viking life as power and politics, social and kinship networks, gifts and feasting, religious beliefs, women's roles, social classes, and the Viking economy, which included farming, iron mining and metalworking, and trade. Drawing of the latest archeological research and on literary sources, namely the sagas, the book depicts a complex and surprisingly peaceful society that belies the popular image of Norsemen as bloodthirsty barbarians. Instead, Vikings often acted out power struggles symbolically, with local chieftains competing with each other through displays of wealth in the form of great feasts and gifts, rather than arms. At home, conspicuous consumption was a Viking leader's most important virtue; the brutality associated with them was largely wreaked abroad. The book's engaging history of the Vikings at home begins by highlighting political developments in the region, detailing how Danish kings assumed ascendency over the region and the ways in which Viking friendship reinforced regional peace. The book then discusses the importance of religion, first pagan and (beginning around 1000 A.D.) Christianity; the central role that women played in politics and war; and how the enormous wealth brought back to Scandinavia affected the social fabric — shedding new light on Viking society.
Julia C. Morse
- Published in print:
- 2022
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781501761515
- eISBN:
- 9781501761522
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501761515.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Economy
This book demonstrates how the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has enlisted global banks in the effort to keep “bad money” out of the financial system, in the process drastically altering the ...
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This book demonstrates how the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has enlisted global banks in the effort to keep “bad money” out of the financial system, in the process drastically altering the domestic policy landscape and transforming banking worldwide. Trillions of dollars flow across borders through the banking system every day. While bank-to-bank transfers facilitate trade and investment, they also provide opportunities for criminals and terrorists to move money around the globe. To address this vulnerability, large economies work together through an international standard-setting body, the FATF, to shift laws and regulations on combating illicit financial flows. The book examines how this international organization has achieved such impact, arguing that it relies on the power of unofficial market enforcement—a process whereby market actors punish countries that fail to meet international standards. The FATF produces a public noncomplier list, which banks around the world use to shift resources and services away from listed countries. As banks restrict cross-border lending, the domestic banking sector in listed countries advocates strongly for new laws and regulations, ultimately leading to deep and significant compliance improvements. The book offers lessons about the peril and power of globalized finance, revealing new insights into how some of today's most pressing international cooperation challenges might be addressed.Less
This book demonstrates how the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has enlisted global banks in the effort to keep “bad money” out of the financial system, in the process drastically altering the domestic policy landscape and transforming banking worldwide. Trillions of dollars flow across borders through the banking system every day. While bank-to-bank transfers facilitate trade and investment, they also provide opportunities for criminals and terrorists to move money around the globe. To address this vulnerability, large economies work together through an international standard-setting body, the FATF, to shift laws and regulations on combating illicit financial flows. The book examines how this international organization has achieved such impact, arguing that it relies on the power of unofficial market enforcement—a process whereby market actors punish countries that fail to meet international standards. The FATF produces a public noncomplier list, which banks around the world use to shift resources and services away from listed countries. As banks restrict cross-border lending, the domestic banking sector in listed countries advocates strongly for new laws and regulations, ultimately leading to deep and significant compliance improvements. The book offers lessons about the peril and power of globalized finance, revealing new insights into how some of today's most pressing international cooperation challenges might be addressed.
Joseph W. Ho
- Published in print:
- 2022
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781501760945
- eISBN:
- 9781501760952
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501760945.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This book offers a transnational cultural history of US and Chinese communities framed by missionary lenses through time and space—tracing the lives and afterlives of images, cameras, and visual ...
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This book offers a transnational cultural history of US and Chinese communities framed by missionary lenses through time and space—tracing the lives and afterlives of images, cameras, and visual imaginations from before the Second Sino-Japanese War through the first years of the People's Republic of China. When American Protestant and Catholic missionaries entered interwar China, they did so with cameras in hand. Missions principally aimed at the conversion of souls and the modernization of East Asia, became, by virtue of the still and moving images recorded, quasi-anthropological ventures that shaped popular understandings of and formal foreign policy toward China. Portable photographic technologies changed the very nature of missionary experience, while images that missionaries circulated between China and the United States affected cross-cultural encounters in times of peace and war. The book illuminates the centrality of visual practices in the American missionary enterprise in modern China, even as intersecting modernities and changing Sino-US relations radically transformed lives behind and in front of those lenses. In doing so, the book reconstructs the almost-lost histories of transnational image makers, subjects, and viewers across twentieth-century China and the United States.Less
This book offers a transnational cultural history of US and Chinese communities framed by missionary lenses through time and space—tracing the lives and afterlives of images, cameras, and visual imaginations from before the Second Sino-Japanese War through the first years of the People's Republic of China. When American Protestant and Catholic missionaries entered interwar China, they did so with cameras in hand. Missions principally aimed at the conversion of souls and the modernization of East Asia, became, by virtue of the still and moving images recorded, quasi-anthropological ventures that shaped popular understandings of and formal foreign policy toward China. Portable photographic technologies changed the very nature of missionary experience, while images that missionaries circulated between China and the United States affected cross-cultural encounters in times of peace and war. The book illuminates the centrality of visual practices in the American missionary enterprise in modern China, even as intersecting modernities and changing Sino-US relations radically transformed lives behind and in front of those lenses. In doing so, the book reconstructs the almost-lost histories of transnational image makers, subjects, and viewers across twentieth-century China and the United States.
Scott Mehl
- Published in print:
- 2022
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781501761171
- eISBN:
- 9781501761195
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501761171.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This book analyzes the complex response of Meiji-era Japanese poets and readers to the challenge introduced by European verse and the resulting crisis in Japanese poetry. Amidst fierce competition ...
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This book analyzes the complex response of Meiji-era Japanese poets and readers to the challenge introduced by European verse and the resulting crisis in Japanese poetry. Amidst fierce competition for literary prestige on the national and international stage, poets and critics at the time recognized that the character of Japanese poetic culture was undergoing a fundamental transformation, and the stakes were high: the future of modern Japanese verse. The book documents the creation of new Japanese poetic forms, tracing the first invention of Japanese free verse and its subsequent disappearance. The book examines the impact of the acclaimed and reviled shintaishi, a new poetic form invented for translating European-language verse and eventually supplanted by the reintroduction of free verse as a Western import. The book draws on materials written in German, Spanish, English, and French, recreating the global poetry culture within which the most ambitious Meiji-era Japanese poets vied for position.Less
This book analyzes the complex response of Meiji-era Japanese poets and readers to the challenge introduced by European verse and the resulting crisis in Japanese poetry. Amidst fierce competition for literary prestige on the national and international stage, poets and critics at the time recognized that the character of Japanese poetic culture was undergoing a fundamental transformation, and the stakes were high: the future of modern Japanese verse. The book documents the creation of new Japanese poetic forms, tracing the first invention of Japanese free verse and its subsequent disappearance. The book examines the impact of the acclaimed and reviled shintaishi, a new poetic form invented for translating European-language verse and eventually supplanted by the reintroduction of free verse as a Western import. The book draws on materials written in German, Spanish, English, and French, recreating the global poetry culture within which the most ambitious Meiji-era Japanese poets vied for position.
Henry Richard, III Maar
- Published in print:
- 2022
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781501760884
- eISBN:
- 9781501760891
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501760884.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This book chronicles the rise of the transformative and transnational Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign. Amid an escalating Cold War that pitted the nuclear arsenal of the United States against that of ...
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This book chronicles the rise of the transformative and transnational Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign. Amid an escalating Cold War that pitted the nuclear arsenal of the United States against that of the Soviet Union, the grassroots peace movement emerged sweeping the nation and uniting people around the world. The solution for the arms race that the Campaign proposed: a bilateral freeze on the building, testing, and deployment of nuclear weapons on the part of two superpowers of the US and the USSR. That simple but powerful proposition stirred popular sentiment and provoked protest in the streets and on screen from New York City to London to Berlin. Movie stars and scholars, bishops and reverends, governors and congress members, and, ultimately, US President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev took a stand for or against the Freeze proposal. With the Reagan administration so openly discussing the prospect of winnable and survivable nuclear warfare like never before, the Freeze movement forcefully translated decades of private fears into public action. Drawing upon extensive archival research in recently declassified materials, the book illuminates how the Freeze campaign demonstrated the power and importance of grassroots peace activism in all levels of society. The Freeze movement played an instrumental role in shaping public opinion and American politics, helping establish the conditions that would bring the Cold War to an end.Less
This book chronicles the rise of the transformative and transnational Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign. Amid an escalating Cold War that pitted the nuclear arsenal of the United States against that of the Soviet Union, the grassroots peace movement emerged sweeping the nation and uniting people around the world. The solution for the arms race that the Campaign proposed: a bilateral freeze on the building, testing, and deployment of nuclear weapons on the part of two superpowers of the US and the USSR. That simple but powerful proposition stirred popular sentiment and provoked protest in the streets and on screen from New York City to London to Berlin. Movie stars and scholars, bishops and reverends, governors and congress members, and, ultimately, US President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev took a stand for or against the Freeze proposal. With the Reagan administration so openly discussing the prospect of winnable and survivable nuclear warfare like never before, the Freeze movement forcefully translated decades of private fears into public action. Drawing upon extensive archival research in recently declassified materials, the book illuminates how the Freeze campaign demonstrated the power and importance of grassroots peace activism in all levels of society. The Freeze movement played an instrumental role in shaping public opinion and American politics, helping establish the conditions that would bring the Cold War to an end.
Mark L. Haas
- Published in print:
- 2022
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781501761232
- eISBN:
- 9781501761249
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501761232.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
This book addresses policy-guiding puzzles such as: Why do international ideological enemies sometimes overcome their differences and ally against shared threats? Why, just as often, do such ...
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This book addresses policy-guiding puzzles such as: Why do international ideological enemies sometimes overcome their differences and ally against shared threats? Why, just as often, do such alliances fail? Alliances among ideological enemies confronting a common foe, or “frenemy” alliances, are unlike coalitions among ideologically similar states facing comparable threats. Members of frenemy alliances are perpetually torn by two powerful opposing forces. The book shows that shared material threats push these states together while ideological differences pull them apart. Each of these competing forces has dominated the other at critical times. This difference has resulted in stable alliances among ideological enemies in some cases but the delay, dissolution, or failure of these alliances in others. The book examines how states' susceptibility to major domestic ideological changes and the nature of the ideological differences among countries provide the key to alliance formation or failure. This sophisticated framework is applied to a diverse range of critical historical and contemporary cases, from the failure of British and French leaders to ally with the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany in the 1930s to the likely evolution of the United States' alliance system against a rising China in the early 21st century. The book's author develops a groundbreaking argument that explains the origins and durability of alliances among ideological enemies and offers policy-guiding perspectives on a subject at the core of international relations.Less
This book addresses policy-guiding puzzles such as: Why do international ideological enemies sometimes overcome their differences and ally against shared threats? Why, just as often, do such alliances fail? Alliances among ideological enemies confronting a common foe, or “frenemy” alliances, are unlike coalitions among ideologically similar states facing comparable threats. Members of frenemy alliances are perpetually torn by two powerful opposing forces. The book shows that shared material threats push these states together while ideological differences pull them apart. Each of these competing forces has dominated the other at critical times. This difference has resulted in stable alliances among ideological enemies in some cases but the delay, dissolution, or failure of these alliances in others. The book examines how states' susceptibility to major domestic ideological changes and the nature of the ideological differences among countries provide the key to alliance formation or failure. This sophisticated framework is applied to a diverse range of critical historical and contemporary cases, from the failure of British and French leaders to ally with the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany in the 1930s to the likely evolution of the United States' alliance system against a rising China in the early 21st century. The book's author develops a groundbreaking argument that explains the origins and durability of alliances among ideological enemies and offers policy-guiding perspectives on a subject at the core of international relations.
Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer
- Published in print:
- 2022
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781501759772
- eISBN:
- 9781501759796
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501759772.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
This book explores critical questions for the survival of Russia in its nominally federal form. Will Russia fall apart along the lines of its internal republics, as did the Soviet Union? Based on ...
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This book explores critical questions for the survival of Russia in its nominally federal form. Will Russia fall apart along the lines of its internal republics, as did the Soviet Union? Based on cultural anthropology and historical research in major republics of Eastern Siberia—Sakha (Yakutia), Buryatia, and Tyva (Tuva)—the book highlights Indigenous concerns about self-determination. The book suggests that a fragile and disorganized dynamic of nested sovereignties has developed within Russia. Ecology activism has grown, given new threats to the environment and accelerating climate challenges, especially in the Arctic. Focus on strategically chosen republics enables comparing and contrasting interethnic relations, language politics, and the salience of gender, demography, resource competition, environmental degradation, and increased spirituality. Republics vary in their neocolonial relationships to Moscow authorities. Some local leaders, such as a politicized shaman, use nostalgia for cultural achievements to galvanize citizens. Since the Soviet Union collapsed, cultural and political revitalization have been relatively more viable, although still difficult, in areas where Siberians have their own republics.Less
This book explores critical questions for the survival of Russia in its nominally federal form. Will Russia fall apart along the lines of its internal republics, as did the Soviet Union? Based on cultural anthropology and historical research in major republics of Eastern Siberia—Sakha (Yakutia), Buryatia, and Tyva (Tuva)—the book highlights Indigenous concerns about self-determination. The book suggests that a fragile and disorganized dynamic of nested sovereignties has developed within Russia. Ecology activism has grown, given new threats to the environment and accelerating climate challenges, especially in the Arctic. Focus on strategically chosen republics enables comparing and contrasting interethnic relations, language politics, and the salience of gender, demography, resource competition, environmental degradation, and increased spirituality. Republics vary in their neocolonial relationships to Moscow authorities. Some local leaders, such as a politicized shaman, use nostalgia for cultural achievements to galvanize citizens. Since the Soviet Union collapsed, cultural and political revitalization have been relatively more viable, although still difficult, in areas where Siberians have their own republics.
Michele Acuto
- Published in print:
- 2022
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781501759703
- eISBN:
- 9781501759710
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501759703.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Urban and Rural Studies
This book considers the rise of a new generation of so-called global cities—Singapore, Sydney, and Dubai—and the power that this concept had in their ascent, in order to analyze the general ...
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This book considers the rise of a new generation of so-called global cities—Singapore, Sydney, and Dubai—and the power that this concept had in their ascent, in order to analyze the general relationship between global city theory and its urban public policy practice. The global city is often invoked in theory and practice as an ideal model of development and a logic of internationalization for cities the world over. But the global city also creates deep social polarization and challenges how much local planning can achieve in a world economy. Presenting a unique elite ethnography in Singapore, Sydney, and Dubai, the book discusses the global urban discourses, aspirations, and strategies vital to the planning and management of such metropolitan growth. The global city, the book shows, is not one single idea, but a complex of ways to imagine a place to be global and aspirations to make it so, often deeply steeped in politics. The book is a call to reconcile proponents and critics of the global city toward a more explicit engagement with the politics of this global urban imagination.Less
This book considers the rise of a new generation of so-called global cities—Singapore, Sydney, and Dubai—and the power that this concept had in their ascent, in order to analyze the general relationship between global city theory and its urban public policy practice. The global city is often invoked in theory and practice as an ideal model of development and a logic of internationalization for cities the world over. But the global city also creates deep social polarization and challenges how much local planning can achieve in a world economy. Presenting a unique elite ethnography in Singapore, Sydney, and Dubai, the book discusses the global urban discourses, aspirations, and strategies vital to the planning and management of such metropolitan growth. The global city, the book shows, is not one single idea, but a complex of ways to imagine a place to be global and aspirations to make it so, often deeply steeped in politics. The book is a call to reconcile proponents and critics of the global city toward a more explicit engagement with the politics of this global urban imagination.
Daniel Soyer
- Published in print:
- 2022
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781501759871
- eISBN:
- 9781501759888
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501759871.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This book shows the surprising relationship between Democratic socialism and mainstream American politics. Beginning in 1944 and lasting until 2002, the Liberal Party offered voters an ideological ...
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This book shows the surprising relationship between Democratic socialism and mainstream American politics. Beginning in 1944 and lasting until 2002, the Liberal Party offered voters an ideological seal of approval and played the role of strategic kingmaker in the electoral politics of New York State. The party helped elect presidents, governors, senators, and mayors, and its platform reflected its founders' social democratic principles. In practical politics, the Liberal Party's power resided in its capacity to steer votes to preferred Democrats or Republicans with a reasonable chance of victory. This uneasy balance between principle and pragmatism, which ultimately proved impossible to maintain, is at the heart of the dramatic political story presented in the book. The Liberal Party, the longest-lived of New York's small parties, began as a means for anti-Communist social democrats to have an impact on the politics and policy of New York City, Albany, and Washington, DC. It provided a political voice for labor activists, independent liberals, and pragmatic social democrats. Although the party devolved into what some saw as a cynical patronage machine, it remained a model for third-party power and for New York's influential Conservative and, later, the Working Families parties. With an active period ranging from the successful senatorial career of Jacob Javits to the mayoralties of John Lindsay and Rudy Giuliani, the Liberal Party effectively shaped the politics and policy of New York. The practical gains and political cost of that complicated trade-off is at the heart of the book.Less
This book shows the surprising relationship between Democratic socialism and mainstream American politics. Beginning in 1944 and lasting until 2002, the Liberal Party offered voters an ideological seal of approval and played the role of strategic kingmaker in the electoral politics of New York State. The party helped elect presidents, governors, senators, and mayors, and its platform reflected its founders' social democratic principles. In practical politics, the Liberal Party's power resided in its capacity to steer votes to preferred Democrats or Republicans with a reasonable chance of victory. This uneasy balance between principle and pragmatism, which ultimately proved impossible to maintain, is at the heart of the dramatic political story presented in the book. The Liberal Party, the longest-lived of New York's small parties, began as a means for anti-Communist social democrats to have an impact on the politics and policy of New York City, Albany, and Washington, DC. It provided a political voice for labor activists, independent liberals, and pragmatic social democrats. Although the party devolved into what some saw as a cynical patronage machine, it remained a model for third-party power and for New York's influential Conservative and, later, the Working Families parties. With an active period ranging from the successful senatorial career of Jacob Javits to the mayoralties of John Lindsay and Rudy Giuliani, the Liberal Party effectively shaped the politics and policy of New York. The practical gains and political cost of that complicated trade-off is at the heart of the book.
Luigi Burroni, Emmanuele Pavolini, and Marino Regini (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2022
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781501761072
- eISBN:
- 9781501761096
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501761072.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Economy
This book brings together leading experts on the political economies of southern Europe—specifically Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal—to closely analyze and explain the primary socioeconomic and ...
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This book brings together leading experts on the political economies of southern Europe—specifically Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal—to closely analyze and explain the primary socioeconomic and institutional features that define “Mediterranean capitalism” within the wider European context. These economies share a number of features, most notably their difficulties to provide viable answers to the challenge of globalization. By examining and comparing such components as welfare, education and innovation policies, cultural dimensions, and labor market regulation, the book attends to both commonalities and divergences between the four countries, identifying the main reasons behind the poor performance of their economies and slow recovery from the Great Recession of 2007–2008. The book also sheds light on the process of diversification among the four countries and addresses whether it did and still does make sense to speak of a uniquely Mediterranean model of capitalism.Less
This book brings together leading experts on the political economies of southern Europe—specifically Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal—to closely analyze and explain the primary socioeconomic and institutional features that define “Mediterranean capitalism” within the wider European context. These economies share a number of features, most notably their difficulties to provide viable answers to the challenge of globalization. By examining and comparing such components as welfare, education and innovation policies, cultural dimensions, and labor market regulation, the book attends to both commonalities and divergences between the four countries, identifying the main reasons behind the poor performance of their economies and slow recovery from the Great Recession of 2007–2008. The book also sheds light on the process of diversification among the four countries and addresses whether it did and still does make sense to speak of a uniquely Mediterranean model of capitalism.