Recommendations based on "The Destruction of Tilted Arc Documents"

For more than a century, from 1900 to 2006, campaigns of nonviolent resistance were more than twice as effective as their violent counterparts in achieving their stated goals. By attracting impressive support from citizens, whose activism takes the form of protests, boycotts, civil disobedience, and other forms of nonviolent noncooperation, these efforts help separate regimes from their main sources of power and produce remarkable results, even in Iran, Burma, the Philippines, and the Palestinian Territories.Combining statistical analysis with case studies of specific countries and territories, Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan detail the factors enabling such campaigns to succeed and, sometimes, causing them to fail. They find that nonviolent resistance presents fewer obstacles to moral and physical involvement and commitment, and that higher levels of participation contribute to enhanced resilience, greater opportunities for tactical innovation and civic disruption (and therefore less incentive for a regime to maintain its status quo), and shifts in loyalty among opponents' erstwhile supporters, including members of the military establishment. Chenoweth and Stephan conclude that successful nonviolent resistance ushers in more durable and internally peaceful democracies, which are less likely to regress into civil war. Presenting a rich, evidentiary argument, they originally and systematically compare violent and nonviolent outcomes in different historical periods and geographical contexts, debunking the myth that violence occurs because of structural and environmental factors and that it is necessary to achieve certain political goals. Instead, the authors discover, violent insurgency is rarely justifiable on strategic grounds.

An authoritative and myth-busting analysis that tells us 22 essential facts about migration -- and why we've been wrong about itGlobal migration is not at an all-time high.The climate emergency will not lead to mass migration.Border restrictions have actually produced more migration.These statements might sound like they completely contravene common intuition about migration - -but the facts behind the headlines reveal a different story to the ones we're often told. In this ground-breaking and revelatory book, based on over three decades of research, migration expert Professor Hein de Haas destroys the myths that politicians, interest groups and media regularly spread about immigration.Comparing trends and perspectives from Western 'destination countries' (UK, US and Europe) as well as 'origin countries' in Asia and Africa, de Haas will equip readers with essential knowledge on migration based on the best evidence and data, showing that:- smuggling does not cause illegal migration- anti-trafficking policies have made workers more vulnerable- immigrants aren't taking jobs away from native workers - they're actually the biggest net contributors to the welfare stateAbove all, How Migration Really Works will offer a new vision of migration based on facts rather than fears, and a paradigm-altering understanding of this perennially important subject.

Quicksilver War is a panoramic political history of the wars that coursed through Syria and Iraq in the wake of the 'Arab Spring' and eventually merged to become a regional catastrophe: a kaleidoscopic and constantly shifting conflict involving many different parties and phases. William Harris distils the highly complex dynamics behind the conflict, starting with the brutalizing Baathist regimes in Damascus and Baghdad. He charts the malignant consequences of incompetent US occupation of Iraq and Bashar al-Assad's self-righteous mismanagement of Syria, through the implosion of Syria, and the emergence of eastern and western theatres of war focused respectively on future control of Syria and the challenge of ISIS. Beyond the immediate arena of conflict, geopolitical riptides have also been set in motion, including Turkey's embroilment in the war and the shifting circumstances of the Kurds. This sweeping history addresses urgent questions for our time. Will the world rubber-stamp and bankroll the Russian-led 'solution' in Syria, backed by Turkey and Iran? Is the 'Quicksilver War' about to reach an explosive finale? Or will ongoing political maneuvering mutate into years of further violence?

The territory of Napa County, California, contains more than grapevines. The deepest roots belong to Wappo-speaking peoples, a group whose history has since been buried by the stories of Spanish colonizers, Californios (today's Latinos), African Americans, Chinese immigrants, and Euro Americans. Napa's history clearly is one of co-existence; yet, its schoolbooks tell a linear story that climaxes with the arrival of Euro Americans. In "This Land was Mexican Once," Linda Heidenreich excavates Napa's subaltern voices and histories to tell a complex, textured local history with important implications for the larger American West, as well.Heidenreich is part of a new generation of scholars who are challenging not only the old, Euro-American depiction of California, but also the linear method of historical storytelling—a method that inevitably favors the last man writing. She first maps the overlapping histories that comprise Napa's past, then examines how the current version came to dominate—or even erase—earlier events. So while history, in Heidenreich's words, may be "the stuff of nation-building," it can also be "the stuff of resistance." Chapters are interspersed with "source breaks"—raw primary sources that speak for themselves and interrupt the linear, Euro-American telling of Napa's history. Such an inclusive approach inherently acknowledges the connections Napa's peoples have to the rest of the region, for the linear history that marginalizes minorities is not unique to Napa. Latinos, for instance, have populated the American West for centuries, and are still shaping its future. In the end, "This Land was Mexican Once" is more than the story of Napa, it is a multidimensional model for reflecting a multicultural past.

The plight of Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims has made international news in recent years. Reports of genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity are commonplace. The Rohingyas have been denied citizenship and are widely discriminated against. Hundreds of thousands have been internally displaced by violence, or have sought refuge in neighbouring or friendly Muslim countries. This conflict has become a litmus test for change in this country in transition, and current assessments are far from positive. Whitewashing by the military, and a refusal by Aung San Suu Kyi's government to even use the name 'Rohingya', adds to international scepticism. Exploring this long-running tripartite conflict between the Rohingya, Rakhine and Burman ethnic groups, this book offers a new analysis of the complexities of the conflict: the fears and motivations driving it and the competition to control historical representations and collective memory. By questioning these competing narratives, offering detailed sociopolitical analysis and examining the international dimensions of the conflict, this book offers new insights into what is preventing a peaceful resolution to this intractable conflict.

Europe is facing its greatest refugee crisis since the Second World War, yet the institutions responding to it remain virtually unchanged from those created in the post-war era. Going beyond the scenes of desperation which have become all-too-familiar in the past few years, Alexander Betts and Paul Collier show that this crisis offers an opportunity for reform if international policy-makers focus on delivering humane, effective and sustainable outcomes - both for Europe and for countries that border conflict zones. Refugees need more than simply food, tents and blankets, and research demonstrates that they can offer tangible economic benefits to their adopted countries if given the right to work and education. Refuge sets out an alternative vision that can empower refugees to help themselves, contribute to their host societies, and even rebuild their countries of origin.

The long relationship between America’s colonizing wars and virulent anticommunismThe colonizing wars against Native Americans created the template for anticommunist repression in the United States. Tariq D. Khan’s analysis reveals bloodshed and class war as foundational aspects of capitalist domination and vital elements of the nation’s long history of internal repression and social control. Khan shows how the state wielded the tactics, weapons, myths, and ideology refined in America’s colonizing wars to repress anarchists, labor unions, and a host of others labeled as alien, multi-racial, multi-ethnic urban rabble. The ruling classes considered radicals of all stripes to be anticolonial insurgents. As Khan charts the decades of red scares that began in the 1840s, he reveals how capitalists and government used much-practiced counterinsurgency rhetoric and tactics against the movements they perceived and vilified as “anarchist.”Original and boldly argued, The Republic Shall Be Kept Clean offers an enlightening new history with relevance for our own time.

For two thousand years the disparate groups that now reside in Zomia (a mountainous region the size of Europe that consists of portions of seven Asian countries) have fled the projects of the organized state societies that surround them—slavery, conscription, taxes, corvée labor, epidemics, and warfare. This book, essentially an “anarchist history,” is the first-ever examination of the huge literature on state-making whose author evaluates why people would deliberately and reactively remain stateless. Among the strategies employed by the people of Zomia to remain stateless are physical dispersion in rugged terrain; agricultural practices that enhance mobility; pliable ethnic identities; devotion to prophetic, millenarian leaders; and maintenance of a largely oral culture that allows them to reinvent their histories and genealogies as they move between and around states.In accessible language, James Scott, recognized worldwide as an eminent authority in Southeast Asian, peasant, and agrarian studies, tells the story of the peoples of Zomia and their unlikely odyssey in search of self-determination. He redefines our views on Asian politics, history, demographics, and even our fundamental ideas about what constitutes civilization, and challenges us with a radically different approach to history that presents events from the perspective of stateless peoples and redefines state-making as a form of “internal colonialism.” This new perspective requires a radical reevaluation of the civilizational narratives of the lowland states. Scott’s work on Zomia represents a new way to think of area studies that will be applicable to other runaway, fugitive, and marooned communities, be they Gypsies, Cossacks, tribes fleeing slave raiders, Marsh Arabs, or San-Bushmen.

From a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist specializing in the Middle East, this groundbreaking account of the Syrian Civil War reveals the never-before-published true story of a 21st-century humanitarian disaster.In spring 2011, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad turned to his friend and army commander, Manaf Tlass, for advice about how to respond to Arab Spring-inspired protests. Tlass pushed for conciliation but Assad decided to crush the uprising -- an act which would catapult the country into an eight-year long war, killing almost half a million and fueling terrorism and a global refugee crisis.Assad or We Burn the Country examines Syria's tragedy through the generational saga of the Assad and Tlass families, once deeply intertwined and now estranged in Bashar's bloody quest to preserve his father's inheritance. By drawing on his own reporting experience in Damascus and exclusive interviews with Tlass, Dagher takes readers within palace walls to reveal the family behind the destruction of a country and the chaos of an entire region.Dagher shows how one of the world's most vicious police states came to be and explains how a regional conflict extended globally, engulfing the Middle East and pitting the United States and Russia against one another. Timely, propulsive, and expertly reported, Assad or We Burn the Country is the definitive account of this global crisis, going far beyond the news story that has dominated headlines for years.

John Berger occupies a unique position in the international cultural landscape: artist, filmmaker, poet, philosopher, novelist, essayist, he is also a deeply thoughtful political activist. In Hold Everything Dear, he artistry and activism mesh in an attempt to make sense of the world as we have come to know it during the past six years.Berger analyzes the nature of terrorism and the profound despair that gives rise to it. He writes about the homelessness of millions across the globe who have been forced by poverty and war into lives as refugees. He discusses Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Serbia, Bosnia, China, Indonesia--anyplace the power of corporations, the military, or paramilitary elements is being exercised, depriving ordinary citizens of autonomy or livelihoods or the most basic of freedoms.Singularly lucid and bold, Hold Everything Dear fully acknowledges the depth of suffering occurring around the world and suggests ideas and action that might finally help bring it to an end. From one of the most widely admired, articulate, and impassioned writers of our time, this is a powerful collections of essays that holds a starkly reflective mirror up to post-9/11 realities.