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340 results in Area Studies

Page 1 of 17

The Nehru Years
  • An International History of Indian Non-Alignment
  • Swapna Kona Nayudu
  • Expected online publication date:
    April 2025
    Print publication:
    10 April 2025
  • Scholars of international relations, political thought, and India's international and diplomatic history are increasingly interested in the relevance of non-alignment in Indian foreign policy. The origins of such policies and debates can be traced back to Nehru's conceptualization of non-alignment at the height of the Cold War. In this deeply researched study of his years as Prime Minister, 1947–64, Swapna Kona Nayudu utilizes archival research in multiple languages to uncover Indian diplomatic influence in four major international events: the Korean War, the Suez Crisis, the Hungarian Revolution, and the Congo Crisis. Through this detailed examination, she explores the contested meaning of non-alignment, a policy almost unique in its ambiguity and its centrality to a nation's political life. The resulting history is a thoughtful critique of India's diplomatic position as the only non-aligned founding member of the UN.

The Cambridge Companion to Mary Prince
  • Edited by Nicole N. Aljoe
  • Published online:
    24 April 2025
    Print publication:
    08 May 2025
  • The History of Mary Prince was the first account of the life of a Black woman to be published in the United Kingdom. Part of the avalanche of print culture that accompanied the transatlantic abolitionist movement, it has in recent years become an increasingly central text within pedagogy and research on Black history and literature, thanks to its vivid testimonies of Prince's thoughts and feelings about her gendered experience of Caribbean slavery. Embracing and celebrating a growing international scholarly and general interest in African diasporic voices, texts, histories, and literary traditions, this Companion weds contributions from Romanticists, Caribbeanists, and Americanists to showcase the diversity of disciplinary encounters that Prince's narrative invites, as well as its rich and troubled contexts. The first published collection on a single slave narrative or author, the volume is not only an authoritative, highly focused resource for students but also a model for future research.

Coups d'État in Cold War Latin America, 1964–1982
  • Edited by Sebastián Carassai, Kevin Coleman
  • Published online:
    24 April 2025
    Print publication:
    08 May 2025
  • The latest series of coups d'état in Latin America has left an enduring impact on the region's contemporary landscape. This book employs a comparative methodology that illuminates distinct national contexts, scrutinizing the fundamental causal factors that precipitated coups in Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Honduras, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, El Salvador, and Guatemala. The essays answer the following questions: when was a given transfer of power defined as a coup d'état? What were the objectives in overthrowing an existing regime? What role did the US government play, as well as local political actors? What were the various options considered by different sectors within each country? What kinds of resistance did the coups face? What were their sources of support? By comprehensively exploring these questions across each national case, this book dismantles the belief that the coups can be grouped into a single category, and marks the culmination of an era in the subcontinent.

The Cambridge History of International Law
  • Volume 6, International Law in Early Modern Europe
  • General editor Randall Lesaffer
  • Published online:
    22 April 2025
    Print publication:
    08 May 2025
  • Volume VI of The Cambridge History of International Law offers a survey of the law of nations in early modern Europe through a balanced treatment of legal theory and diplomatic practice. Bringing together a wide range of scholars, this volume builds on recent historiographical insights from different disciplines, including legal history, diplomatic history, and the history of political thought. It considers all major themes ranging from the allocation of jurisdiction over land and sea, war- and peace- making, trade and navigation to diplomacy and dispute settlement. A unique overall synthesis of early modern law across nations in Europe.
Shifting Allegiances

Shifting Allegiances
  • The Election of Latino Republicans to Congress and State Legislatures
  • Robert D. Alvarez, Jason P. Casellas
  • Published online:
    21 April 2025
    Print publication:
    31 May 2025
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  • Shifting Allegiances provides a comprehensive analysis of the increasing presence and influence of Latino Republicans in Congress and state legislatures. Contrary to past assumptions, this Element reveals that Latino Republicans are a diverse group, no longer confined to Cuban Americans in South Florida. By examining election data and candidate characteristics since 2018, the authors uncover the factors contributing to the success of Latino Republicans, including district demographics, conservative values, and strategic campaigning. This shift in political dynamics highlights a broader trend of ideological realignment and offers insights into the evolving landscape of Latino political representation in the United States.
Climate Adaptation and Conflict Mitigation

Climate Adaptation and Conflict Mitigation
  • The Case of South Sudan
  • Ore Koren, Jerry Urtuzuastigui
  • Published online:
    21 April 2025
    Print publication:
    31 May 2025
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  • As climate change intensifies, conflict-prone tropical regions face heightened vulnerabilities, yet little is known about how climate adaptation and food security efforts affect conflict dynamics. Using South Sudan – a country highly susceptible to climate stress and conflict – as a test case, this Element analyzes how international nongovernmental organizations' (INGO) climate adaptation interventions influence civil war and local social conflicts. It develops a theoretical framework linking climate adaptation to conflict, positing both positive and negative externalities. Drawing on original high-resolution data on INGO-driven adaptation and food security efforts, alongside climate, conflict, and development data, findings are substantiated with interviews from policy workers in South Sudan. The results indicate that while adaptation generally does not reduce conflict, interventions that promote preparedness and are implemented during periods of high climate stress can mitigate social conflicts between militias, pastoralists, and farmers. These insights provide guidance for designing climate adaptation strategies that reduce conflict risks.
Decolonizing Russia?

Decolonizing Russia?
  • Disentangling Debates
  • Adam Lenton
  • Published online:
    21 April 2025
    Print publication:
    31 May 2025
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  • Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 radically changed the way many viewed the nature of the Russian state. The centrality of resentment and imperial nostalgia in Russian narratives led many to argue that Russian imperialism was a key force behind the invasion. By extension, this led to the idea that decolonization – largely in scholarship, but also among some policy circles – offered a way to better understanding Russia in this new context. To this end, this Element examines the debates over decolonization in the Russian case. It begins by contextualizing these debates through an examination of Russia's historical development as an empire. It then identifies and disentangles three key focal points: decolonization as domestic Russian politics, the transnational politics of decolonization, and decolonization as a scholarly endeavor. By doing so, this Element shows where decolonization has merit, but also where it is contested or limited.
Elitism versus Populism

Elitism versus Populism
  • Experiments on the Dual Threat to American Democracy
  • Curtis Bram
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    April 2025
    Print publication:
    31 May 2025
  • Critics of populism and advocates of elitist democracy often place greater confidence in political elites than in the general public. However, this trust may be misplaced. In five experiments with local politicians, state legislators, and members of the public, the author finds a similar willingness across all groups to entrench their party's power when given the opportunity – a self-serving majoritarianism that transcends partisan lines. This tendency is strongest among committed ideologues, politicians running in highly competitive districts, and those who perceive opponents as especially threatening. Local elected officials even appear more focused on securing their party's next presidential victory than on opposing bans against their political rivals. These findings challenge the conventional mass/elite dichotomy, revealing little differences in undemocratic attitudes. Safeguarding democracy likely requires shifting focus from those individual attitudes to strengthening institutional restraints against majority abuses. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Kielezo cha Insha
  • Shaaban Robert
  • Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    17 April 2025
    Print publication:
    01 December 2024
  • The definitive Kiswahili guide to essay writing with pertinent examples.

    Kielezo cha Insha is the earliest guide to essay writing in Kiswahili, published by Wits University Press in 1954.

    After Tanzania's independence in 1961 the book was not available for several decades because of the political and economic sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa.

    The book covers pertinent issues in composition writing, including the purpose and types of composition, preparation, structure, language and style, cohesion, objectivity and punctuation. It includes 60 model essays together with Robert's thoughts and perspectives on the issues he addresses. The topics include some of the issues current at the time, such as 'secret marriages', culture, the environment, language and nationhood, patriotism, women's oppression, health, and the meaning of life and death.

    After being out of print for more than sixty years, Wits University Press has reissued the text as a testament to its enduring historical value. Kielezo cha Insha is an example of Robert's educational and pedagogical writing at its best.
Glazed Ceramics of the Islamic World 700–1600 CE

Glazed Ceramics of the Islamic World 700–1600 CE
  • Moujan Matin, Michael Tite
  • Published online:
    17 April 2025
    Print publication:
    08 May 2025
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  • Of all the material culture of the Islamic World prior to the sixteenth century, only ceramics survive in a way which forms a continuous representative visual history. As such, ceramics provide a unique collection of material from which to study the history of technology. The main technological developments associated with glazed Islamic ceramics were the introduction of tin-opacified glazes, stonepaste bodies, and an extended range of colorants. For each of these developments, consideration is given to the reasons why new technologies were introduced, from where the ideas for the new technologies originated, and why particular technological choices were made. In addition, brief consideration is given both to the very different glaze technologies employed in contemporary China, and to the subsequent spread of the glazed Islamic technology into Western Europe.

New Hebrews
  • Making National Culture in Zion
  • Yaron Peleg
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    April 2025
    Print publication:
    22 May 2025
  • The literature on Zionism as a political ideology is extensive, but this book takes a different approach by focusing on the cultural dimensions of the movement and their profound impact on the history of Israel and the Jewish people. New Hebrews explores the cultural history of Zionism, starting from the meeting of the first Zionist congress in Basel, Switzerland in 1897, and culminating with the establishment of the State of Israel fifty-one years later in 1948. Yaron Peleg explores how innovative approaches in language, literature, architecture, art, music, and body culture transformed modern Jewish culture. His study delves into the contentious facets of early Zionist culture, such as colonialism, social engineering, minority discourse, and Jewish-Arab relations. New Hebrews presents an interdisciplinary examination of nationalism, drawing from a diverse array of primary sources to uncover the psychology of modern Israel. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

Apartheid Spies and the Revolutionary Underground
  • Billy Keniston
  • Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    16 April 2025
    Print publication:
    01 November 2024
  • An in-depth study of the assassination of Jeanette and Katryn Schoon at the hand of apartheid spy, Craig Williamson, that explores how the lives of a group of white activists intersected with and were impacted by the undercover security police and their operations both within and outside of South Africa.

    This is the first book-length account of the assassination of Jeanette and Katryn Schoon on 28 June 1984, ordered by Craig Williamson, a member of the security service and apartheid spy. Jeanette Curtis Schoon and Craig Williamson first met in 1973 at Wits University. Schoon was part of a network of white activists fighting apartheid; Williamson had successfully infiltrated the student movement and rose within its ranks. He held positions of trust, first within the National Union of South African Students and later, after pretending to 'flee' the country, as an office-bearer of the International Universities Exchange Fund in Sweden, which helped fund many South African activists in exile.

    The book uncovers how the lives of a group of white activists intersected with and were impacted by the undercover security police and their operations both within and outside of South Africa in a multitude of ways.

    Williamson received amnesty for his role in the Schoons' murder, among other crimes. This book shows the limits of the TRC process to deliver social justice and render healing from South Africa's apartheid past. That justice has not been served to the Schoons remains a tragedy in this story of struggle against apartheid.

Inzuzo
  • Samuel Edward Krune Mqhayi
  • Introduction by Athambile Masola
  • Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    16 April 2025
    Print publication:
    01 September 2024
  • This classic anthology includes poems about religion, nature, life and praise poems about historical events and prominent figures in the history of Africans.

    Inzuzo is a classic collection of poems, first published in 1943, about religion, nature, life and historical events and prominent figures in the history of Africans. It has five sections: Izabelo (Distributions), Izibongo ezingokufa nokuthwasa komnyaka (Poems about death and the beginning of the year), Izibongo ezingabafi bethu (Poems about the dead), Izibongo ngabawele iilwandle (Poems about people who have travelled overseas) and Ingqokelela (Collection). In each section, Mqhayi proved himself to be a literary author with the ability and skill to transform from a traditional poet to a modern poet. Mqhayi was able to combine modern versification with the diction and artistic form of izibongo (praise poems).

    Mqhayi's poetry is also a storehouse of historical events as in poems like 'Umnyaka omtsha, 1915' ('New Year, 1915'), 'Aa! Zweliyazuza!' ('Hail Great Britain on whom the sun never sets!'), and 'Umfikazi u Charlotte Manyhi Maxeke', a tribute to Charlotte Manyhi Maxeke. In these poems, his style as a praise poet is distinct.

    The poems portray Mqhayi as a religious and social poet. He took an interest in the welfare of his people and embraced African culture. Known as the father of isiXhosa contemporary and traditional poetry, Mqhayi was a well-known imbongi (praise poet) who was revered as Imbongi yeSizwe Jikelele (National Poet).
Congressional Expectations of Presidential Self-Restraint

Congressional Expectations of Presidential Self-Restraint
  • Jack B. Greenberg, John A. Dearborn
  • Published online:
    15 April 2025
    Print publication:
    31 May 2025
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  • This Element explores how Congress has designed laws reliant on an assumption of presidential self-restraint, an expectation that presidents would respect statutory goals by declining to use their formal powers in ways that were legally permissible but contrary to stated congressional intent. Examining several laws addressing political appointments since the 1970s – statutes involving the FBI director, Office of Personnel Management director, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, director of national intelligence, Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator, inspectors general, Senior Executive Service, vacancies, Social Security Administration commissioner, and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director – the authors demonstrate lawmakers' reliance on presidential self-restraint in statutory design and identify a variety of institutional tools used to signal those expectations. Furthermore, the authors identify a developmental dilemma: the combined rise of polarization, presidentialism, and constitutional formalism threatens to leave Congress more dependent on presidential self-restraint, even as that norm's reliability is increasingly questionable.

Voices from Calcutta
  • Indian Indenture in the Age of Abolition
  • Purba Hossain
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    April 2025
    Print publication:
    30 June 2025
  • Between 1837 and 1920, 1.3 million indentured labourers migrated from India to sugar plantation colonies in the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean. Voices from Calcutta shows how spokesmen from Calcutta – the capital of British India – disrupted this trade and influenced the lives of these migrants. It follows Calcuttans in their journey of debating, investigating and defending indenture, unfolding a complex web of letters, petitions, interviews and investigative-reports. As the indenture debates influenced lived experience on ships and plantations, and shaped the negotiation of subjecthood and labour rights for the empire's peripatetic labourers, they became a means by which elite Calcuttans negotiated their own position within the empire. This book locates in Calcutta voices of protest that fundamentally defined the contours of post-slavery labouring across the British Empire. Instead of simply emanating from Britain, to be dutifully followed in the colonies, labour legislation was informed by voices from those very colonies.
Literary Form in Early Medieval England

Literary Form in Early Medieval England
  • Jennifer A. Lorden
  • Published online:
    14 April 2025
    Print publication:
    08 May 2025
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  • The earliest English writers left little comment on their literary forms. In contrast to the grammatical treatises of late antiquity or critical studies of contemporary and modern literature, early medieval English writing offers only sparse contemporaneous self-commentary, often in brief or conventional notes along the way to other things. But Old English and Latin literature had lively and evolving practices of literary form and formal innovation. Literary Form in Early Medieval England examines both more and lesser known forms, considering the multilingual landscape of early medieval England and showing that Old English literary forms do not simply end with the rupture of the Norman Conquest but continue in surprising ways. Literary Form in Early Medieval England offers a concise tour of what we do know of literary forms, both those that have received more attention and those that have been relatively overlooked, across the first six centuries of English literature.

The Quest for Individual Freedom
  • A Twentieth-Century European History
  • Moritz Föllmer
  • Published online:
    12 April 2025
    Print publication:
    10 April 2025
  • What does it mean to see oneself as free? And how can this freedom be attained in times of conflict and social upheaval? In this ambitious study, Moritz Föllmer explores what twentieth-century Europeans understood by individual freedom and how they endeavoured to achieve it. Combining cultural, social, and political history, this book highlights the tension between ordinary people's efforts to secure personal independence and the ambitious attempts of thinkers and activists to embed notions of freedom in political and cultural agendas. The quest to be a free individual was multi-faceted; no single concept predominated. Men and women articulated and pursued it against the backdrop of two world wars, the expanding power of the state, the constraints of working life, pre-established moral norms, the growing influence of America, and uncertain futures of colonial rule. But although claims to individual freedom could be steered and stymied, they could not, ultimately, be suppressed.
Ukrainian Literature

Ukrainian Literature
  • A Wartime Guide for Anglophone Readers
  • Marko Pavlyshyn
  • Published online:
    11 April 2025
    Print publication:
    08 May 2025
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  • Ukrainian Literature: A Wartime Guide for Anglophone Readers is an introduction for general readers and students to Ukrainian literature in English translation. It takes as its starting point the responses of Ukrainian poets and prose writers to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the preceding eight-year war. Each of the Element's ten sections describes a key event in Ukrainian cultural history in its literary context, surveying related works and their authors, Ukrainian and international literary and intellectual movements, and developments in political and social life. The Element gives preeminent attention to a theme which the war has foregrounded: the enduringly fraught relationship of Ukraine and Russia. While focussing mainly on texts in Ukrainian, the Element refers to other literary cultures – Polish, Russian, Jewish and Crimean Tatar, among others – whose participants were active on the territory of today's Ukraine.

The Rule of Law in the Islamic Republic of Iran
  • Power, Institutions, and the Limits of Reform
  • Edited by Hadi Enayat, Mirjam Künkler
  • Published online:
    10 April 2025
    Print publication:
    17 April 2025
  • After Iran's 1979 Revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini denounced the secular legal system of the Pahlavis and pledged his commitment to distinctly Islamic conceptions of law and justice: the application of both the shariʿa and the rule of law (hākemiyat-e qānun) became major ideological pillars of the Islamic Republic. This precipitated the Islamization of the legal system, the judiciary and the courts, a process which still continues today and is the subject of intense ideological and political contestation. The Rule of Law in Iran is the first comprehensive analysis of judicial and legal institutions of the Islamic Republic of Iran in their social, political and historical contexts. Scholars and practitioners of law, many with experience of working in Iran, shed light on how the rule of law has fared across a variety of areas, from criminal law to labour law, family law, minority rights, policing, the legal profession, the visual and performing arts, trade law, and medicine.

Latinx Literature in Transition, 1848–1992
  • Volume 2
  • Edited by John Alba Cutler, Marissa López
  • Published online:
    10 April 2025
    Print publication:
    17 April 2025
  • This book introduces scholars and students of literature to previously neglected or unknown works of literature-such as José Rodríguez Cerna's chronicles and Leonor Villegas de Magnón's memoir of the Mexican Revolution-as well as new approaches to canonical texts by Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton, Julia de Burgos, Tomás Rivera, and Gloria Anzaldúa. It challenges how previous generations of scholars have understood American modernity by rejecting a standard, historical organization and instead unfolding in clusters of essays related to key terms-space, being, time, form, and labor-corresponding to the overlapping legacies of Spanish and US colonialism and expansion that frame Latinx experience. This volume showcases the diversity of US Latinx communities and cultures, including work on Mexican/Chicanx, Central American, and Caribbean figures and highlighting the evolution of scholarship on Afro-Latinx creative expression and Latinx representations of indigeneity.

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