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The nineteenth century was, for many societies, a period of coming to grips with the growing, and seemingly unstoppable, domination of the world by the “Great Powers” of Europe. The Ottoman Empire was no exception: Ottomans from all walks of life—elite and non-elite, Muslim and non-Muslim—debated the reasons for what they considered to be the Ottoman decline and European ascendance. One of the most popular explanations was deceptively simple: science. If the Ottomans would adopt the new sciences of the Europeans, it was frequently argued, the glory days of the empire could be revived.
           
In Learned Patriots, M. Alper Yalçinkaya examines what it meant for nineteenth-century Ottoman elites themselves to have a debate about science. Yalçinkaya finds that for anxious nineteenth-century Ottoman politicians, intellectuals, and litterateurs, the chief question was not about the meaning, merits, or dangers of science. Rather, what mattered were the qualities of the new “men of science.” Would young, ambitious men with scientific education be loyal to the state? Were they “proper” members of the community? Science, Yalçinkaya shows, became a topic that could hardly be discussed without reference to identity and morality.
           
Approaching science in culture, Learned Patriots contributes to the growing literature on how science travels, representations and public perception of science, science and religion, and science and morality. Additionally, it will appeal to students of the intellectual history of the Middle East and Turkish politics.

Historically, Nicaragua has been mired in poverty and political conflict, yet the country has become a model for the successful emergence of democracy in a developing nation. Learning Democracy tells the story of how Nicaragua overcame an authoritarian government and American interventionism by engaging in an electoral revolution that solidified its democratic self-governance.

By analyzing nationwide surveys conducted during the 1990, 1996, and 2001 Nicaraguan presidential elections, Leslie E. Anderson and Lawrence C. Dodd provide insight into one of the most unexpected and intriguing recent advancements in third world politics. They offer a balanced account of the voting patterns and forward-thinking decisions that led Nicaraguans to first support the reformist Sandinista revolutionaries only to replace them with a conservative democratic regime a few years later. Addressing issues largely unexamined in Latin American studies, Learning Democracy is a unique and probing look at how the country's mass electorate moved beyond revolutionary struggle to establish a more stable democratic government by realizing the vital role of citizens in democratization processes.

Atomic energy is not only invisible, it has been cloaked in secrecy by government, industry, and the military. Yet for many Americans the effects of radiation have been less than secret. Just ask the radium workers in Ottawa, Illinois, the "downwinders" of Utah, or unsuspecting veterans of the Gulf War. When told from the perspective of ordinary people, nuclear history takes on a much different tone from that of the tranquil voices of authority who always told us we had nothing to fear.

In Learning to Glow, twenty-four essays testify to many of the unsuspected human and environmental costs of atomic science. They show that Americans have paid a terrible price for supposedly "winning" the Cold War--for although the nuclear nightmare may be over, we are still living with nuclear threats every day. Writers such as Scott Russell Sanders, Terry Tempest Williams, and Barbara Kingsolver reveal the psychic and emotional fallout of the Cold War and of subsequent developments in nuclear science. The essays include personal testimonies of what it was like to grow up with family members in nuclear-related jobs; hard-hitting journalism on the health and environmental costs of our nuclear policies and practices; and poignant stories of coming to terms with nuclear power, including contributions by writers who revisit Hiroshima in an attempt to heal the wounds left by the Bomb.

These essays offer an alternative to the official version of nuclear history as told to us by school textbooks, government authorities, and nuclear industry officials. They are stories of and by ordinary people who have suffered the consequences of the decisions made by those in power-stories that have been largely ignored, dismissed, or suppressed. They will challenge readers to re-examine their preconceptions about the way we deal with issues of nuclear arms and radioactive waste because they show that nuclear history does not belong to experts but to us all.

Contributors:
Marilou Awiakta
John Bradley
Jim Carrier
Alison Hawthorne Deming
Mary Dickson
Edward Dougherty
Ray Gonzalez
Karl Grossman
Sonya Huber
Barbara Kingsolver
Valerie Kuletz
Mary Laufer
Kay Mack
Craig McGrath
Bill Mesler
Richard H. Minear
Randy Morris
Mayumi Oda
Catherine Quigg
Richard Rawles
Kenneth Robbins
Scott Russell Sanders
David Seaborg
Terry Tempest Williams
Bill Witherup
Phil Woods

Thoroughly grounded in the latest scholarly literature, theoretical sources, and experimental results, Legacy and Legitimacy substantially advances understanding of Black Americans’ attitudes toward the Supreme Court, the Court’s ability to influence Blacks’ opinions about the legitimacy of public institutions and policies, and the role of media in shaping Blacks’ judgments.

Drawing on legitimacy theory—which explains the acceptance of or tolerance for controversial policies—the authors begin by reexamining the significance of “diffuse support” in establishing legitimacy. They provide a useful overview of the literature on legitimacy and a concise history of the special relationship between Blacks and the Court. They investigate the influences of group attitudes and media “framing.” And they employ data from large-scale surveys to show that Blacks with greater levels of diffuse support for the Court are more likely to adopt positions consistent with Court rulings.

With its broad scope and inclusion of new experimental findings, Legacy and Legitimacy will interest students and scholars of judicial politics, racial politics, media and politics, black studies and public opinion.

In 1961, John F. Kennedy referred to the Papuans as “living, as it were, in the Stone Age.” For the most part, politicians and scholars have since learned not to call people “primitive,” but when it comes to the Papuans, the Stone-Age stain persists and for decades has been used to justify denying their basic rights. Why has this fantasy held such a tight grip on the imagination of journalists, policy-makers, and the public at large?
 
Living in the Stone Age answers this question by following the adventures of officials sent to the New Guinea highlands in the 1930s to establish a foothold for Dutch colonialism.  These officials became deeply dependent on the good graces of their would-be Papuan subjects, who were their hosts, guides, and, in some cases, friends. Danilyn Rutherford shows how, to preserve their sense of racial superiority, these officials imagined that they were traveling in the Stone Age—a parallel reality where their own impotence was a reasonable response to otherworldly conditions rather than a sign of ignorance or weakness. Thus, Rutherford shows, was born a colonialist ideology.
 
Living in the Stone Age is a call to write the history of colonialism differently, as a tale of weakness not strength. It will change the way readers think about cultural contact, colonial fantasies of domination, and the role of anthropology in the postcolonial world.
 

In an era of democratization and globalization, the number of decision makers has multiplied exponentially. Parliamentarians, bureaucrats, international secretariats, regional governors, and nongovernmental organizations have all gained influence at the expense of heads of state. How do these competing layers of authority bargain with each other to govern? International relations theorists have traditionally focused on how leaders' domestic constraints affect their bargaining position internationally. However, there has been much less work on the flip side of this question--how foreign policy leaders can use international institutions as a means of circumventing or co-opting domestic opposition. Locating the Proper Authorities offers some preliminary answers, drawn from a number of theoretical perspectives by the contributors to this volume.

Written by some of the most promising theorists in the field of international relations, the essays in Locating the Proper Authorities address a broad array of substantive issue areas, including humanitarian intervention, trade dispute settlement, economic development, democratic transition, and security cooperation. This broad case selection has the virtue of incorporating developing countries, which are too often ignored in international relations, as well as less well-known international organizations. Each chapter examines the mechanisms and strategies through which policy entrepreneurs use international organizations as a means of bypassing or overcoming opposition to policy change. By examining the effects of different institutional design features, Locating the Proper Authorities helps us understand the variety of influence mechanisms through which international institutions shape the interaction of policy initiators and ratifiers.

Daniel W. Drezner is Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago.

Given recent changes in politics and demographics, Latin America and the United States are becoming increasingly important to one another. Recognition of the two regions' differences and similarities may facilitate a more fruitful relationship, with increased respect and understanding. 

It is with this in mind that editors John J. Hassett and Braulio Muñoz present a collection of writings that provides a look into the ways in which Spanish America has viewed its northern neighbor over the past two centuries. Gathered here are pieces by well-known figures from the worlds of Spanish American politics, history, philosophy, creative writing, and culture—names like Mario Vargas Llosa, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Pablo Neruda.

Divided into three sections, Looking North begins by underscoring the cultural and political differences between the two Americas. It opens with a speech by Simón Bolívar to the Venezuelan Congress in 1819 and closes with an essay by Mario Vargas Llosa from 2006 on the controversial wall being constructed between the United States and Mexico. The second section explores the experiences of Spanish American travelers in the US, beginning with an account of former Argentine president Domingo Sarmiento's fascination with the United States during his travels in 1847 and ending with a 2008 essay by Vargas Llosa on the city of New York. The final section encompasses creative writing and commentaries by some of Spanish America's most gifted poets and novelists. It opens with Rubén Darío's "To Roosevelt" from 1905 and ends with Christine Granados's humorous and profound short story "Inner View," first published in 2006.

Touching on history, sociology, politics, and religion, the writings assembled here will be of interest to humanists, social scientists, and anyone intrigued by the ever-growing connection between the United Sates and Spanish America at all levels.
 

What do you call 600 lawyers at the bottom of the sea? Marc Galanter calls it an opportunity to investigate the meanings of a rich and time-honored genre of American humor: lawyer jokes. Lowering the Bar analyzes hundreds of jokes from Mark Twain classics to contemporary anecdotes about Dan Quayle, Johnnie Cochran, and Kenneth Starr. Drawing on representations of law and lawyers in the mass media, political discourse, and public opinion surveys, Galanter finds that the increasing reliance on law has coexisted uneasily with anxiety about the “legalization” of society. Informative and always entertaining, his book explores the tensions between Americans’ deep-seated belief in the law and their ambivalence about lawyers.