Between 1940 and 1975, Mexican Americans and African Americans in Texas fought a number of battles in court, at the ballot box, in schools, and on the streets to eliminate segregation and ...state-imposed racism. Although both groups engaged in civil rights struggles as victims of similar forms of racism and discrimination, they were rarely unified. InFighting Their Own Battles, Brian Behnken explores the cultural dissimilarities, geographical distance, class tensions, and organizational differences that all worked to separate Mexican Americans and blacks.Behnken further demonstrates that prejudices on both sides undermined the potential for a united civil rights campaign. Coalition building and cooperative civil rights efforts foundered on the rocks of perceived difference, competition, distrust, and, oftentimes, outright racism. Behnken's in-depth study reveals the major issues of contention for the two groups, their different strategies to win rights, and significant thematic developments within the two civil rights struggles. By comparing the histories of these movements in one of the few states in the nation to witness two civil rights movements, Behnken bridges the fields of Mexican American and African American history, revealing the myriad causes that ultimately led these groups to "fight their own battles."
Fascination and Enmity David-Fox, Michael; Holquist, Peter; Martin, Alexander M
08/2012, Letnik:
233
eBook
ussia and Germany have had a long history of significant cultural, political, and economic exchange. Despite these beneficial interactions, stereotypes of the alien Other persisted. Germans perceived ...Russia as a vast frontier with unlimited potential, yet infused with an "Asianness" that explained its backwardness and despotic leadership. Russians admired German advances in science, government, and philosophy, but saw their people as lifeless and obsessed with order.Fascination and Enmitypresents an original transnational history of the two nations during the critical era of the world wars. By examining the mutual perceptions and misperceptions within each country, the contributors reveal the psyche of the Russian-German dynamic and its use as a powerful political and cultural tool.Through accounts of fellow travelers, POWs, war correspondents, soldiers on the front, propagandists, revolutionaries, the Comintern, and wartime and postwar occupations, the contributors analyze the kinetics of the Russian-German exchange and the perceptions drawn from these encounters. The result is a highly engaging chronicle of the complex entanglements of two world powers through the great wars of the twentieth century.
Debate surrounding "China's rise," and the prospects of its possible challenge to America's preeminence, has focused on two questions: whether the United States should "contain" or "engage" China; ...and whether the rise of Chinese power has inclined other East Asian states to "balance" against Beijing by alignment with the United States or ramping up their military expenditures.
By drawing on alternative theoretic approaches-most especially "balance-of-threat" theory, political economic theory, and theories of regime survival and economic interdependence, Steve Chan is able to create an explanation of regional developments that differs widely from the traditional "strategic vision" of national interest.
He concludes that China's primary aim is not to match U.S. military might or the foreign policy influence that flows from that power, and that its neighbors are not balancing against its rising power because, in today's guns-versus-butter fiscal reality, balancing policies would entail forfeiting possible gains that can accrue from cooperation, economic growth, and the application of GDP to nonmilitary ends. Instead, most East Asian countries have collectively pivoted to a strategy of elite legitimacy and regime survival based on economic performance.
This book examines the interregional relations of the European Union with East Asia through the prism of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM). ASEM currently brings together 16 Asian countries, the 27 ...member states of the European Union, as well as the ASEAN Secretariat and the European Commission. ASEM's ten-year anniversary and the Sixth Summit in Helsinki prompted reflection on the forum's accomplishments in three dimensions of interaction, its working methods, democratic involvement, public awareness and global strategic potential. The volume provides an in-depth evaluation of ASEM's first decade from a European perspective, including the achievements of the ASEM6 Summit and its implications for the future of the process. It also analyzes the role of interregional interaction as a tool for EU foreign policy.
The emergence of a common security and foreign policy has been one of the most contentious issues accompanying the integration of the European Union. In this book, Michael Smith examines the specific ...ways foreign policy cooperation has been institutionalized in the EU, the way institutional development affects cooperative outcomes in foreign policy, and how those outcomes lead to new institutional reforms. Smith explains the evolution and performance of the institutional procedures of the EU using a unique analytical framework, supported by extensive empirical evidence drawn from interviews, case studies, official documents and secondary sources. His perceptive and well-informed analysis covers the entire history of EU foreign policy cooperation, from its origins in the late 1960s up to the start of the 2003 constitutional convention. Demonstrating the importance and extent of EU foreign/security policy, the book will be of interest to scholars, researchers and policy-makers.
China in Africa Alden, Chris
2008., 2010, 2007, 2008-02-29, 2010-08-17, 20070101
eBook
Nowhere in the world is China's rapid rise to power more evident than in Africa. From multi-billion dollar investments in oil and minerals to the influx of thousands of merchants, labourers and cheap ...consumer goods, China's economic and political reach is redefining Africa's traditional ties with the international community. This book investigates the emerging relationship between China and Africa to determine whether this engagement will be that of a development partner, economic competitor or new hegemon. Alden argues that in order to understand Chinese involvement on the continent, we need to recognize the range of economic, diplomatic and security rationales behind Beijing's Africa policy as well as the response of African elites to China's entreaties. Only then can the new challenges and opportunities for Africa and the West be accurately assessed.
The Soviet Counterinsurgency in the Western Borderlands investigates the Soviet response to nationalist insurgencies that occurred between 1944 and 1953 in the regions the Soviet Union annexed after ...the Nazi-Soviet pact: Eastern Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Based on new archival data, Alexander Statiev presents the first comprehensive study of Soviet counterinsurgency that ties together the security tools and populist policies intended to attract the local populations. The book traces the origins of the Soviet pacification doctrine and then presents a comparative analysis of the rural societies in Eastern Poland and the Baltic States on the eve of the Soviet invasion. This analysis is followed by a description of the anti-communist resistance movements. Subsequently, the author shows how ideology affected the Soviet pacification doctrine and examines the major means to enforce the doctrine: agrarian reforms, deportations, amnesties, informant networks, covert operations, and local militias.
