Building Nations from Diversity explores the question of whether the Canadian "mosaic" has differed from the American "melting pot" and provides an informative comparison of both countries' historical and present-day similarities and differences.Garth Stevenson examines the origins of Canada and the United States and their past experiences with incorporating selected immigrant groups, particularly Irish, Chinese, and Jews. Establishing the foundational ways in which they p...

The influence of intellectuals is not only greater than in previous eras but also takes a very different form from that envisioned by those like Machiavelli and others who have wanted to directly influence rulers. It has not been by shaping the opinions or directing the actions of the holders of power that modern intellectuals have most influenced the course of events, but by shaping public opinion in ways that affect the actions of power holders in democratic societies, whether or not tho...

Donald Trump, Silvio Berlusconi, Marine Le Pen, Hugo Chávez—populists are on the rise across the globe. But what exactly is populism? Should everyone who criticizes Wall Street or Washington be called a populist? What precisely is the difference between right-wing and left-wing populism? Does populism bring government closer to the people or is it a threat to democracy? Who are "the people" anyway and who can speak in their name? These questions have never been more pressing.In thi...

At a time of widespread popular cynicism and profound international unease, the need for clarity over the basic concepts of politics has never been greater.The forces of Fundamentalism endanger our Liberty and Security, while government responses to it may pose a basic threat to Justice, Democracy and Human rights. Corruption, War and Tyranny arouse public indignation which is often inflamed by Propaganda, the blandishments of Political parties and the far-from-disinterested attent...

" Everyone's favorite conservative argues that the decline in the West's birthrate will lead to a fatal decline in its power." — Library JournalThe West is dying. Collapsing birth rates in Europe and the US, coupled with population explosions in Africa, Asia and Latin America are set to cause cataclysmic shifts in world power, as unchecked immigration swamps and polarizes every Western society and nation.The Death of the West details how a c...

"We are living through the endtimes of the civilizing mission. The ineffectual International Criminal Court and its disastrous first prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, along with the failure in Syria of the Responsibility to Protect are the latest pieces of evidence not of transient misfortunes but of fatal structural defects in international humanism. Whether it is the increase in deadly attacks on aid workers, the torture and 'disappearing' of al-Qaeda suspects by American officials, the fl...

From Robert Kagan, a leading scholar of American foreign policy, comes an insightful analysis of the state of European and American foreign relations. At a time when relations between the United States and Europe are at their lowest ebb since World War II, this brief but cogent book is essential reading. Kagan forces both sides to see themselves through the eyes of the other. Europe, he argues, has moved beyond power into a self-contained world of laws, rules, and negotiation, while Americ...

A short, sharp intervention in the crucial debate about the future of democracy, which has been brought to a head by events from Brexit to the Trump phenomenon.We live in strange days in the history of democracy.Every serious politician in the Western world supports democracy. Yet when the EU Referendum and American Elections both delivered the ‘wrong’ result, elites challenged the merit of the people’s will, and some even tried to block it. Preferring unel...

At the end of the Cold War, there was much talk of a new world order in which the sovereign state would be held to democratic account, fundamental rights would be respected, and conflict would be replaced by cooperation based on the rule of law. At the start of the new millenium most of this optimism has evaporated.This book examines why it is so difficult to improve standards of international behaviour and explores the pre-conditions for any realistic attempt to do so. It discusse...

How the New Deal was a unique historical moment and what this reveals about U.S. politics, economics, and cultureWhere does the New Deal fit in the big picture of American history? What does it mean for us today? What happened to the economic equality it once engendered? In The Great Exception, Jefferson Cowie provides new answers to these important questions. In the period between the Great Depression and the 1970s, he argues, the United States government...

LIBERAL DEMOCRACY. This is the fourth in a series of texts on government and politics designed for students and the general reader (see author's other publications or a full list of titles). All the books interlink and cross-reference but are designed to stand alone. This fourth text continues the series with a detailed exploration of liberal democracy. A democracy of course is 'government of the people, by the people, for the people'. In a democracy 'the people' are sovereign. Majorities ...

In a work of sweeping scope and luminous detail, Elizabeth Borgwardt describes how a cadre of World War II American planners inaugurated the ideas and institutions that underlie our modern international human rights regime. Borgwardt finds the key in the 1941 Atlantic Charter and its Anglo-American vision of "war and peace aims." In attempting to globalize what U.S. planners heralded as domestic New Deal ideas about security, the ideology of the Atlantic Charter--buttressed by FDR’s "Four ...