While dramatic changes taking place in the Middle East offer important opportunities to the Kurdish century-long struggle for recognition, serious obstacles seem to keep reemerging every time the Kurds anywhere make progress. The large Kurdish geography, extending from western Iran to near the eastern Mediterranean, and a century of repression and denial have engendered various Kurdish groups with competing and at times conflicting views and goals. The Kurds in the Middle East: Enduring Pr...

In Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, central governments historically pursued mono-nationalist ideologies and repressed Kurdish identity. As evidenced by much unrest and a great many Kurdish revolts in all these states since the 1920s, however, the Kurds manifested strong resistance towards ethnic chauvinism. What sorts of authoritarian state policies have Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria relied on to contain the Kurds over the years? Can meaningful democratization and liberalization in any of th...

What if you could use software to design hardware? Not just any hardware--imagine specifying the behavior of a complex parallel computer, sending it to a chip, and having it run on that chip--all without any manufacturing? With Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), you can design such a machine with your mouse and keyboard. When you deploy it to the FPGA, it immediately takes on the behavior that you defined. Want to create something that behaves like a display driver integrated circuit?...

When it invaded Afghanistan in 2001, the United States sought to do something previous foreign powers had never attempted: to create an Afghani state where none existed. More than a decade on, the new regime in Kabul remains plagued by illegitimacy and ineffectiveness. What happened? As Thomas Barfield shows, the history of previous efforts to build governments in Afghanistan does much to explain the difficulties besetting this newest experiment.Princeton Shorts are brief selection...

Get ready to create distributed sensor systems and intelligent interactive devices using the ZigBee wireless networking protocol and Series 2 XBee radios. By the time you're halfway through this fast-paced, hands-on guide, you'll have built a series of useful projects, including a complete ZigBee wireless network that delivers remotely sensed data.Radio networking is creating revolutions in volcano monitoring, performance art, clean energy, and consumer electronics. As you follow t...

Arduino guru Simon Monk reveals advanced programming techniques for Arduino!Programming Arduino Next Steps: Going Further with Sketches is the must-have follow-up to Monk’s bestseller, Programming Arduino: Getting Started with Sketches. Aimed at experienced programmers and hobbyists who have mastered the basics, this book takes you “under the hood” of Arduino, revealing professional-level programming secrets. You’ll learn how to use interrupts, manage memory wis...

‘The people want’ – thus began the slogans chanted by millions of protesters in 2011 in what was dubbed the ‘Arab Spring’.  While the protests revealed a long-suppressed craving for democracy, they also laid bare a deep structural crisis.In this landmark work, Middle East analyst Gilbert Achcar examines the socio-economic roots and political dynamics of the regional upheaval. He assesses the peculiarities of the region’s states and regimes, and sheds light on the movements that use...

Turkey is positioned to become the twenty-first centuryÆs first Muslim power. Based on a dynamic economy and energetic foreign policy, TurkeyÆs growing engagement with other countries has made it a key player in the newly emerging multidirectional world order. TurkeyÆs trade patterns and societal interaction with other nations have broadened and deepened dramatically in the past decade, transforming Turkey from a Cold War outpost into a significant player internationally. TurkeyÆs a...

Be smarter than your computerIf you don't understand computers, you can quickly be left behind in today's fast-paced, machine-dependent society.Computer Science Made Simple offers a straightforward resource for technology novices and advanced techies alike. It clarifies all you need to know, from the basic components of today’s computers to using advanced applications. The perfect primer, it explains how it all comes together to make computers work. Topics covered ...

In November 2011, an agreement brokered by the GCC brought an end to Yemen's tumultuous uprising. The National Dialogue Conference has opened a window of opportunity for change, bringing Yemen's main political forces together with groups that were politically marginalized. Yet, the risk of collapse is serious, and if Yemen is to remain a viable state, it must address numerous political, social and economic challenges. In this invaluable volume, experts with extensive Yemen experience provi...

Turn your iPhone or iPad into the hub of a distributed sensor network with the help of an Arduino microcontroller. With this concise guide, you’ll learn how to connect an external sensor to an iOS device and have them talk to each other through Arduino. You’ll also build an iOS application that will parse the sensor values it receives and plot the resulting measurements, all in real-time.iOS processes data from its own onboard sensors, and now you can extend its reach with this sim...

The war in Afghanistan has been a major policy commitment and central undertaking of the Canadian state since 2001: Canada has been a leading force in the war, and has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on aid and reconstruction. After a decade of conflict, however, there is considerable debate about the efficacy of the mission, as well as calls to reassess Canada’s role in the conflict. An authoritative and strongly analytical work, Empire’s Ally provides a much-needed critica...