Nearly a decade and a half after 9/11, the study of international politics has yet to address some of the most pressing issues raised by the attacks, most notably the relationships between Al Qaeda's ...international systemic origins and its international societal effects. This theoretically broad-ranging and empirically far-reaching study addresses that question and others, advancing the study of international politics into new historical settings while providing insights into pressing policy challenges. Looking at actors that depart from established structural and behavioral patterns provides opportunities to examine how those deviations help generate the norms and identities that constitute international society. Systematic examination of the Assassins, Mongols, and Barbary powers provides historical comparison and context to our contemporary struggle, while enriching and deepening our understanding of the systemic forces behind, and societal effects of, these confounding powers.
The deindustrialization process of Romania, applied methodically and persistently after the 90s, seems not to be part of the natural path towards industry 4.0, but rather to be a systematic process ...of planned destruction and erasure of the post-December industry, on a new Valev Plan system conceived in the secret laboratories of the artisans of the new world configuration. The insistence with which there was a systematic and planned demolition of most of the large industrial capacities and platforms betrays obscure interests that can no longer be placed under the umbrella of classifying them as obsolete or non-performing, but rather as inconvenient for foreign markets and foreign capitals. To better understand the mechanisms that acted in order to reset Romania and return it to the status of a semi-agrarian colony, exporting raw materials, natural resources and cheap labor, materialized by the destruction of the heavy, petrochemical, food and car manufacturing industry, we will need to analyze in depth the essence of the manifestation framework of the processes that support globalism as an ideology and globalization as a supra-state and neo-colonialist policy of the great international power centers.
For centuries, Marco Polo's legends of the Old Man of the Mountain, his paradise garden, and his assembly of assassins have fascinated readers. Modern scholarship, however, has demonstrated that ...these are a fanciful history of the Nizari Ismaili Muslims of the state of Alamut. This article analyses the causes and motivations for the persistence of these tales and their trappings. The trope permeates popular culture ranging from medieval fables to the multi-billion dollar Assassin's Creed video game franchise. More surprising, the offensive "assassin" moniker and its associated images are strangely resilient within academia itself, long after Orientalist portrayals of the Muslim world stopped being fashionable. The study also introduces several little-known works, often newly discovered, which emanate from the state centred at Alamut. These allow us a rare glimpse into the community's self-perception. The steady recovery of such long-lost sources sheds new light on the Nizaris, revealing the life of a community that is equally fascinating, if less fantastic, than the "assassins" of Marco Polo's imagination.
