logo for Harvard University Press
The Breakdown of the State in Lebanon, 1967–1976
Farid el Khazen
Harvard University Press, 2000

Straddling the boundaries of politics and history, this discerning book allows the reader to dig through the rubble of Lebanon's wars and learn exactly what has befallen it. With its remarkable open society, its plural political system, its well-educated and sophisticated peoples, and its tolerant confessional outlook, Lebanon is only now recovering the independence it once had, albeit in the face of Syria. In view of recent Lebanese history, can an open and democratic state be recaptured by a people entangled in a largely authoritarian Arab state system?

Farid el Khazen's arresting book shows how Lebanon was led toward its fate by its neighbors, yet ultimately undid itself. The Palestine Liberation Organization's presence was of central importance to the breakdown of the state, while the porousness of the democratic system could not contain the problems and violence. The breakdown was less a civil war in the conventional sense than a series of little wars with outside interference.

[more]

logo for The Institution of Engineering and Technology
Electrical Degradation and Breakdown in Polymers
L.A. Dissado
The Institution of Engineering and Technology, 1992
Breakdown is fascinating to the scientist and frustrating to the engineer! As well as advancing the scientific and engineering understanding of electrical degradation and breakdown in polymers, this book forms a comprehensive and international review of the state-of-the-art. Topics include: water and electrical treeing; charge transport; 'classical' and filamentary thermal, electromechanical, electronic and partial discharge breakdown models; the stochastic nature of breakdown and statistical characterisation techniques; and engineering considerations for breakdown testing and degradation assessment. The treatment presumes little prior knowledge but develops into an advanced understanding of new concepts such as the fractal-like nature of trees. Although the book is primarily aimed at scientists and engineers practising in the field, a broad introductory section has been included to cater for a wide audience including those new to the subject area. This comprises a description of the nature of the polymers, basic solid-state physics and an introduction to degradation and breakdown.
[more]

logo for Harvard University Press
Insurrection or Loyalty
The Breakdown of the Spanish American Empire
Jorge I. Domínguez
Harvard University Press, 1980

front cover of Kongo in the Age of Empire, 1860–1913
Kongo in the Age of Empire, 1860–1913
The Breakdown of a Moral Order
Jelmer Vos
University of Wisconsin Press, 2015
This richly documented account of the arrival of rubber traders, new Christian missionaries, and the Portuguese colonial state in the Kongo realm is told from the perspective of the kingdom's inhabitants. Jelmer Vos shows that both Africans and Europeans were able to forward differing social, political, and economic agendas as Kongo's sacred city of São Salvador became a vital site for the expansion of European imperialism in Central Africa. Kongo people, he argues, built on the kingdom's long familiarity with Atlantic commerce and cultures to become avid intermediaries in a new system of colonial trade and mission schools.

Vos underlines that Kongo's incorporation in the European state system also had tragic consequences, including the undermining of local African structures of authority—on which the colonial system actually depended. Kongo in the Age of Empire carefully documents the involvement of Kongo's royal court in the exercise of Portuguese rule in northern Angola and the ways that Kongo citizens experienced colonial rule as an increasingly illegitimate extension of royal power.

[more]

logo for Pluto Press
Law of Accumulation and Breakdown of the Capitalist System
Henryk Grossmann
Pluto Press, 1992

front cover of Phenomenology and Deconstruction, Volume Three
Phenomenology and Deconstruction, Volume Three
Breakdown in Communication
Robert Denoon Cumming
University of Chicago Press, 2001
Philosophers are committed to objective understanding, but the
history of philosophy demonstrates how frequently one philosopher
misunderstands another. The most notorious such breakdown in
communication in twentieth-century philosophy was between Husserl and
Heidegger. In the third volume of his history of the phenomenological
movement, Robert Denoon Cumming argues that their differences involve
differences in method; whereas Husserl follows a "method of
clarification," with which he eliminates ambiguities by relying on an
intentional analysis that isolates its objects, Heidegger rejects the
criterion of "clarity" and embraces ambiguities as exhibiting
overlapping relations.

Cumming also explores the differences between how
deconstruction—Heidegger's procedure for dealing with other
philosophers—is carried out when Heidegger interprets Husserl versus
when Derrida interprets Husserl. The comparison enables Cumming to
show how deconstruction is associated with Heidegger's arrival at the
end of philosophy, paving the way for the deconstructionist movement.
[more]

front cover of The Roundtable Talks and the Breakdown of Communism
The Roundtable Talks and the Breakdown of Communism
Edited by Jon Elster
University of Chicago Press, 1996
In 1989 and 1990, Eastern European Communist regimes and opposition groups conducted a series of roundtable talks to peacefully negotiate the abolition of authoritarian rule and the transition to democratic governance. This volume documents that unprecedented process of national reinvention and constitution making.

These essays capture the historical circumstances of these countries—their traditions, customs, and the balance of influence between competing factions—that often took precedence over constitutional ideals. In five country-specific reports, senior scholars provide detailed accounts of the talks in Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the German Democratic Republic. Also included is an essay on the political factors underlying the failure of negotiations between reform groups and the Chinese regime, providing an illuminating counterpoint to the path taken in Eastern Europe.

This book is an invaluable resource for scholars of constitutional design and democratization and for specialists in Eastern Europe.
[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter