A puzzle underpins this groundbreaking study of legislative development in Africa: Why are variations in the extent of legislative authority and performance across the continent only partially related, if at all, to the overall level of democratization? And if democratization is not the prime determinant of legislative authority, what is? Exploring the constraints that have retarded the    More >

This wide-ranging study grapples with the increasingly complex array of opportunities and challenges that face women today as both legislative candidates and elected officials. Offering cutting-edge, original research, Legislative Women expands our knowledge on an array of critical topics. The contributors address everything from campaign finance to the significance of race and ethnicity, from    More >

Legislatures are indispensable parts of constitutional liberal democracies, controlling and criticizing the executive while voicing a wide range of opinions on public issues. This book examines the role of the legislature in the politics of democratic construction and consolidation in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Uruguay. Analyzing the status and daily operations    More >

Vladimir Ilitch Lenin, who died in 1924 at the age of fifty-four, went through two distinct periods in his life. He spent twenty years in exile dreaming of the revolution and creating his political tool—the Communist Party—with the Russian Revolution happening in his absence. But eight months after the Revolution, in October 1917, he gained total power. Within four years, amidst a    More >

In the context of Russia's war against Ukraine, the authors present crucial strategies for improving security in five NATO eastern flank states: Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Sweden. They also offer recommendations for NATO countries overall with regard to defending against future Russian aggression.    More >

Covering a range of topics ranging from clothes to violent death, and from a better sexual life to tradition, and from race and feminism, Liberating Masculinities presents ways to understand the contestations around masculinity and gender relations. Kopano Ratele offers both theoretically rich and psychologically insightful analyses to liberate men, as well as those who are involved in the making    More >

Liberia's Civil War offers the most in-depth account available of one of the most baffling and intractable of Africa's conflicts. Adekeye Adebajo unravels the tangled web of the conflict by addressing four questions:  Why did Nigeria intervene in Liberia and remain committed throughout the seven-year civil war? To what extend was ECOMOG's intervention shaped by Nigeria's    More >

Light of My Eye affectionately recreates the waning days of the once thriving Jewish community of Cairo during the turbulent period between the collapse of the Egyptian monarchy and Nasser's rise to power. At the center of the novel are young Mona Castro and her family, whose lives and destinies are evoked in scenes that veer between poignancy and wit. Mona's coming of age is marked by    More >

Sperber's great fiction trilogy spans the period from 1931 through the rise of Hitler and the struggles of international Communism to the early postwar era. It traces the lives of intellectuals, partisans, Communists, and ex-Communists during those turbulent, desperate, and heartbreaking years. This second novel in the series is one of brooding self-analysis and remorse, an account of some    More >

A revealing study of a girl growing to maturity in middle-class Syria and of her family’s struggle to survive in the tumultuous years of 1940–1961 in Damascus. Attar’s work shows a keen eye for the daily scene, a keen ear for conversation, and a tragic sense of history. Reflecting the rapid sociopolitical changes in Syria that exalted some, but crushed others, it marks anew the    More >