In a challenging new interpretation of Jewish immigrant history, Nancy L. Green traces the westward movement of East European Jews to France during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and explores their experiences as immigrant workers. By 1914 some 40,000 East European Jews had settled in France, many of them in Paris's Marais district, known in Yiddish as the Pletzl, or    More >

Once impassable and inhospitable, both the Arctic region and Antarctica are rapidly emerging as geopolitically strategic hot spots. As Ryan Burke writes in The Polar Pivot, the ice is melting and the tensions rising. In this new environment, what are the stakes? Why are Russia and China racing to increase their military capabilities and infrastructures in the polar regions? What is the United    More >

Frustrated efforts in both Iraq and Afghanistan give urgency to the question of how to craft effective, humane, and legitimate security institutions in conflict-ridden states—and whether legitimate policing can in fact be developed in the midst of insurgency and terrorism. David H. Bayley and Robert M. Perito confront these questions head on. Against the backdrop of failed US attempts to    More >

Spanning the period from the country’s independence in 1822 through mid-2016, Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira assesses the trajectory of Brazil's political, social, and economic development. Bresser-Pereira draws on his decades of first-hand experience to shed light on the many paradoxes that have characterized Brazil's polity, its society, and the relations between the two across nearly    More >

Globalization, suggest the authors of this collection, is creating new opportunities—some legal, some illicit—for armed factions to pursue their agendas in civil war. Within this context, they analyze the key dynamics of war economies and the challenges posed for conflict resolution and sustainable peace. Thematic chapters consider key issues in the political economy of internal wars,    More >

Freedom Mazwi examines patterns of agricultural finance in Zimbabwe since the radical Fast Track Land Resettlement Programme (FTLRP) was implemented in 2000—and, especially, the varying impact that the FTLRP reforms have had not only on land use, but also on the well-being of farmers. Focusing on contract farming in the tobacco and sugarcane sectors, Mazwi offers penetrating insights into    More >

Despite substantial spending on education and robust support for reform both internally and by external donors, the quality of education in many, if not most, Arab countries remains low. Which raises the question: why? The authors of The Political Economy of Education in the Arab World find answers in the authoritarian political economies that shape the architecture of national governance    More >

Driven by foreign investments and exports, the economies of many East Asian countries have seen dramatic growth—but North Korea has lagged behind. Why? What are the country's prospects for development? In what ways do its external relations affect its domestic economy? To answer these questions, the authors of The Political Economy of North Korea delve deeply into the economic    More >

Does Alaska's reliance on oil and gas mean that it inevitably will be controlled by corporate energy interests? Or can the state use its vast resource holdings to manage a more symmetrical partnership? The Political Economy of Oil in Alaska investigates the complex relationship Alaska has with its most precious commodity. Offering a new perspective on the challenges of oil-dependent    More >

In the face of increasing economic globalization, the countries of southern Africa have made commitments to enhanced regional development and the integration of their economies. Margaret Lee examines the challenges to regionalism in southern Africa, providing a critical assessment of the prospects for successful implementation.   Lee's detailed study of the processes driving (or inhibiting)    More >