The ethnographies collected here offer a surprising and compelling picture of change in Russia and Eastern Europe found in no other book to date. Looking at the everyday processes by which individuals and groups forge new lives, the authors challenge the idea that we can understand this transformation by the predictable models-whether capitalism, post-socialism, modernity, or postmodernity.The collection brings together a wide-ranging group of authors from sociology, anthropology, ...

"A fascinating set of ideas . . . Politicians of all stripes should take note. And so should the people who vote for them." — Financial TimesWe know that our world is undergoing seismic change—but how can we emerge from the crisis as a better society?Over the past two centuries or so, capitalism has undergone profound changes—economic cycles that veer from boom to bust—from which it has always emerged transformed and strengthened. Surveying this turb...

George Soros is one of the world's leading philanthropists. Over the past 30 years, he has provided more than 7 billion to his network of foundations, known collectively as the Open Society Institute, for projects around the world and in the United States.In this e-book, Soros writes in detail for the first time about his vision for philanthropy. "I have always been leery of philanthropy," he writes, "Philanthropy is supposed to be devoted to the benefit of others,...

In this provocative book, renowned public intellectual Ivan Krastev reflects on the future of the European Union—and its potential lack of a future. With far-right nationalist parties on the rise across the continent and the United Kingdom planning for Brexit, the European Union is in disarray and plagued by doubts as never before. Krastev includes chapters devoted to Europe's major problems (especially the political destabilization sparked by the more than 1.3 million migrants from the Mi...

The Russian annexation of Crimea was one of the great strategic shocks of the past twenty-five years. For many in the West, Moscow's actions in early 2014 marked the end of illusions about cooperation, and the return to geopolitical and ideological confrontation. Russia, for so long a peripheral presence, had become the central actor in a new global drama. In this groundbreaking book, renowned scholar Bobo Lo analyzes the broader context of the crisis by examining the interplay between Rus...

Justin Yifu Lin's groundbreaking account of how developing countries can help themselves—now fully updatedHow can developing countries grow their economies? Most answers to this question center on what the rich world should or shouldn't do for the poor world. In The Quest for Prosperity, Justin Yifu Lin—the first non-Westerner to be chief economist of the World Bank—focuses on what developing nations can do to help themselves. Lin examines how the countries...

Winner of the first Paul A. Baran-Paul M. Sweezy Memorial Award for an original monograph concerned with the political economy of imperialism, John Smith's Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century is a seminal examination of the relationship between the core capitalist countries and the rest of the world in the age of neoliberal globalization.Deploying a sophisticated Marxist methodology, Smith begins by tracing the production of certain iconic commodities-the T-shirt, the cup of coffee, an...

With the dissolution of the Soviet Empire, it seemed that market capitalism had triumphed and that democracy might replace authoritarian regimes. Economic reformers in the former Eastern Bloc rushed to liberalize prices and transfer state assets to private hands. They assumed that private owners in a market setting would have no choice but to behave rationally_that is, to invest in restructuring privatized enterprises so as to maximize profits. They also assumed that these owners would per...

The book reveals the interconnection between social, cultural and political protest movements and social and economic changes in a post-communist country like Russia still dominated by bureaucratic rulers and "oligarchs" controlling all basic industries and mining activities. Those interests are also dominating Russia’s foreign policy and explain why Russia did not succeed in becoming an integral part of Europe. The latter is, at least, wished by many Russian citizens.

The Soviet Union's dramatic collapse in 1989 was a pivotal moment in the complex history of Central and Eastern Europe, and Ivan Berend here offers a magisterial new account of the dramatic transformation that culminated in ten former Soviet Bloc countries joining the European Union. Taking the OPEC oil crisis of 1973 as his starting point, he charts the gradual unravelling of state socialism in Central and Eastern Europe, its ultimate collapse in the revolutions of 1989, and the economic ...

Priests of Prosperity explores the unsung revolutionary campaign to transform postcommunist central banks from command-economy cash cows into Western-style monetary guardians. Juliet Johnson conducted more than 160 interviews in seventeen countries with central bankers, international assistance providers, policymakers, and private-sector finance professionals over the course of fifteen years. She argues that a powerful transnational central bankin...

This study focuses on the national higher education policies and institutional strategies that foster or hinder individual Russian universities in applying newfound principles of autonomy. This new autonomy has become more dramatic with the decentralization of power, transition to the market economy, and severe state austerity since Perestroika. This book suggests a model of a university that utilizes its autonomous discretion to institute innovations that build on its potential so as to o...