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Mediterranean in Dis/order reveals the connection between space and politics by examining the role that space has played in insurgencies, conflicts, uprisings, and mobilities in the Mediterranean region. With this approach, the authors are able to challenge well-established beliefs about the power structure of the state across different disciplines (including political science, history, sociology, geography, and anthropology), and its impact on the conception, production, and imagination of space in the broader Mediterranean. Further, they contribute to particular areas of studies, such as migration, political Islam, mobilization, and transition to democracy, among others. The book, infusing critical theory, unveils original and revelatory case studies in Tunisia, Libya, Lebanon, Turkey, Syria, Morocco, and the EU Mediterranean policy, through a various set of actors and practices—from refugees and migrations policies, to Islamist or students’ movements, architectural sites, or movies. This multidisciplinary perspective on space and power provides a valuable resource for practitioners interested in how space, context, and time interact to produce institutions, political subjectivities, and asymmetries of power, particularly since the turning point of the Arab uprisings. The book also helps readers understand the conditions under which the uprisings develop, giving a clearer picture about various national, regional, and international dynamics.

This bold and timely anthology interrogates the British monarchy through the lens of race, gender, and postcolonial critique. The contributors of ten original essays use Meghan Markle’s public life and identity as a nexus for understanding the enduring legacies of empire, white supremacy, and institutional exclusion.

Each chapter blends academic analysis with the authors’ own lived experiences and identities, creating a deeply engaging and multifaceted narrative. Essays cover media representation, mental health, motherhood, and the politics of belonging. 

Written in an accessible and engaging style, this volume speaks to readers interested in the intersections of monarchy, race, feminism, and celebrity culture. Through its interdisciplinary approach and critical insight, these essays reveal how one woman’s experience within the royal family brings into focus broader social and historical processes of racial identity making and colonial power. This is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the cultural and political significance of Meghan Markle’s story—and what it tells us about the world we live in.

Contributors
Lucca Ramone Carlson
Duchess Harris
Marissa Kessenich
Jasmine Mitchell
Sarah Olutola
Portia Owusu
Therí Pickens
Amelia Ryan
Julie Schwietert Collazo
Lily Talmont
Ariane Tulloch
Elwood Watson
Stephanie L. Williams
Sharon D. Wright Austin

The secret life of a Palestinian Communist activist during the leadup to World War II.

In the public eye, Najati Sidqi was known as a journalist and writer, a translator of Russian classics, and an outspoken opponent of Nazism. However, Sidqi concealed a critical component of his life from the world and his family. He was an underground activist for the Palestinian Communist Party, a risky and influential pursuitthat took him to early Bolshevik Moscow, British courts and prison cells in Palestine, Nazi Germany, intrigue-heavy interwar Paris, and Civil War Spain, Morocco, and Algeria. Throughout his journey, Sidqi continued to write, even as he faced fascism, intense surveillance, active warzones, the death of friends, and exile.

Memoirs of a Palestinian Communist brings Sidqi’s incredible life and work to light, wryly narrating his international travels, his work as an activist, and his political dealings at a crucial moment for Palestine and the international fight against fascism. Translated from Arabic into English for the first time, it is a riveting firsthand account of an often-overlooked aspect of the history of the global left. Generous supplementary materials make the memoir accessible to students and non-specialist scholars: a preface by Sidqi’s grandson, a foreword by renowned historian Joel Beinin, a translators’ introduction that presents new research on Sidqi’s family history, a map of his travels, and a timeline, as well as a bibliographic essay offering pointers for further research.

In the 1970s, Argentina was the leader in the “Dirty War,” a violent campaign by authoritarian South American regimes to repress left-wing groups and any others who were deemed subversive. Over the course of a decade, Argentina's military rulers tortured and murdered upwards of 30,000 citizens. Even today, after thirty years of democratic rule, the horror of that time continues to roil Argentine society.

Argentina has also been in the vanguard in determining how to preserve sites of torture, how to remember the “disappeared,” and how to reflect on the causes of the Dirty War. Across the capital city of Buenos Aires are hundreds of grassroots memorials to the victims, documenting the scope of the state's reign of terror. Although many books have been written about this era in Argentina's history, the original Spanish-language edition of Memories of Buenos Aires was the first to identify and interpret all of these sites. It was published by the human rights organization Memoria Abierta, which used interviews with survivors to help unearth that painful history.

This translation brings this important work to an English-speaking audience, offering a comprehensive guidebook to clandestine sites of horror as well as innovative sites of memory. The book divides the 48 districts of the city into 9 sectors, and then proceeds neighborhood-by-neighborhood to offer descriptions of 202 known “sites of state terrorism” and 38 additional places where people were illegally detained, tortured, and killed by the government.

In the 1970s, Argentina was the leader in the “Dirty War,” a violent campaign by authoritarian South American regimes to repress left-wing groups and any others who were deemed subversive. Over the course of a decade, Argentina's military rulers tortured and murdered upwards of 30,000 citizens. Even today, after thirty years of democratic rule, the horror of that time continues to roil Argentine society.

Argentina has also been in the vanguard in determining how to preserve sites of torture, how to remember the “disappeared,” and how to reflect on the causes of the Dirty War. Across the capital city of Buenos Aires are hundreds of grassroots memorials to the victims, documenting the scope of the state's reign of terror. Although many books have been written about this era in Argentina's history, the original Spanish-language edition of Memories of Buenos Aires was the first to identify and interpret all of these sites. It was published by the human rights organization Memoria Abierta, which used interviews with survivors to help unearth that painful history.

This translation brings this important work to an English-speaking audience, offering a comprehensive guidebook to clandestine sites of horror as well as innovative sites of memory. The book divides the 48 districts of the city into 9 sectors, and then proceeds neighborhood-by-neighborhood to offer descriptions of 202 known “sites of state terrorism” and 38 additional places where people were illegally detained, tortured, and killed by the government.

In wartime, artists often play an important role in keeping social structures alive and mitigating suffering. Yet art can also be used as a tool for the propagation of violence or the consolidation of an unjust status quo; the brutal iconography used on the murals in Belfast during the Troubles being a prominent example. Memories of Violence investigates the potential of artwork to bring to the fore often-invisible configurations of violence that span across the globe.

Many peace processes fail to address the legacies of violence and to offer meaningful avenues of repair on the part of perpetrators, some of whom are outside the physical space in which violence was, or continues to be, experienced. Stefanie Kappler looks at situations of violence where societies are implicated in and continue to benefit from the legacies of violence, particularly the peace processes of South Africa, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Northern Ireland. Bringing together Peace and Conflict Studies with Memory Studies, Kappler examines how art offers an opportunity to achieve a mnemonic peace—a memory-oriented peace that acknowledges the complex ways in which historical violence and its legacies are constituted. While recognizing the power structures that limit artists and curators, Memories of Violence reveals how they can play a role in addressing situations of complex implication; amplify the voices that call for acknowledgment, reparations, and solidarity; and suggest avenues for facilitating this process.

Taking Professor Natalie Zemon Davis’ fascinating biographical studies of three Women on the Margins in the seventeenth century as an inspiration, the author of this book offers three portraits of men who were at the very center of governance in thirteenth-century France, men who strove in the shadow of King Louis IX (Saint Louis) to impose a redemptive regime on the realm. Professor Jordan treats them as individuals, but in a sense they are also types: Robert of Sorbon, a churchman; Etienne Boileau, a bourgeois; and Simon de Nesle, an aristocrat. Robert was the founder of the Sorbonne; Boileau was the prévôt or royal administrator of Paris; and Simon was twice co-regent of the kingdom. Thinking about them and their relations with Louis IX opens up a new and altogether sobering vista for exploring the nature of the king’s rule and the impact of his rule on his subjects.

A survey of the far-reaching measures the U.S. government brought to bear against the CPUSA, from poison-pen letters to the Red Scare and beyond.
 

Beginning at the turn of the twentieth century and ending only with the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, the U.S. government and major elements in the wider society waged an unrelenting campaign to suppress and criminalize domestic communism. This long-overdue book details the longest and most extensive repressive operation ever undertaken by U.S. authorities against a domestic political organization that, however problematic, was largely operating within the scope of constitutionally mandated freedoms. Beyond that, this is the story of how systemic measures against U.S. communists—in contrast to the vaunted claims of American political freedom—defined the political landscape of the last century.

Menace of Our Time tracks the suppression efforts aimed at the group, including the state laws of the twenties that imprisoned the fledgling communist leadership; the tactics used by police and local authorities against communists as they fought for unions, racial equality, and the unemployed; the trials and imprisonment of communist leaders mid-century; the extra-legal efforts of the Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) in the sixties; and the ongoing, relentless surveillance by the FBI that followed. In examining the far-reaching measures the government brought to bear against the Communist Party USA, Aaron J. Leonard provides a clearer picture of the mechanics of social and political repression that abound in the society we still inhabit. 

What Metiernich wanted at the peak of his career, why he wanted it, and the methods by which he achieved his goals are questions brilliantly answered in this survey and analysis of the Austrian chancellor's diplomacy during the period when he was the pre-eminent figure in European politics.

Metternich's single-minded objective during 1820–1823 was to preserve the Austrian hegemony he had gained in Central Europe after long wars, enormous effort, and great sacrifice. If the internal security and international-power position secured by Austria at the Congress of Vienna were to be defended against the impact of widespread revolution in Europe, it was imperative that peace in Europe and the status quo be maintained. This required an unyielding opposition to all political movements that might disturb the equilibrium, especially French chauvinism and the spread of French constitutional ideas.

A one-man distillate of the doctrine of absolute monarchy, Metternich was the relentless foe of any cause, just or unjust, that threatened European repose. Hence, when the revolution in Naples seriously menaced Austrian hegemony in Italy, Metternich determined that the constitutional regime in Naples must be overthrown by an Austrian armed force, an absolute monarchy restored, and an Austrian army of occupation kept there. Nor did he scruple to use duplicity, secret negotiation, trickery, or deceit against ally and adversary alike in his effort to enlist them in the common cause of all thrones. At the Congress of Troppau, Metternich succeeded not only in defeating Russian ideas for peaceful intervention and a moderate constitution at Naples, but also in converting Tsar Alexander to thoroughly conservative views, thereby making Russia a powerful supporter of Austrian policies and knowingly alienating England, formerly Austria's closest ally.

Paul W. Schroeder brings to this bookexceptional scholarship and an objectivity hard to attain when dealing with a personality. Although Metternich, as Schroeder sees him, doubtless helped to maintain European peace and order, his real greatness consisted not in his European principles, but in his ability to defend Austrian interests under the guise of European principles. The evidence, gathered from documentary material in the Haus Hof- und Staatsarchiv in Vienna, has forced the author to the conclusion that Metternich was no real statesman. The very qualities that distinguished him as a brilliant diplomat—keen vision, cogent analysis, fertility of expedients, farsightedness, flexibility, and firmness of purpose—were converted into those of blindness to reality, superficial analysis, sterility of expedients, dogmatism, and failure of will when confronted with fundamental problems of state and society.

Formal anarchist organizations disappeared in Mexico after the 1910 Revolution, but anarchist principles survive in the popular resistance movements against the post-revolutionary governments. In this book, Donald Hodges offers the first comprehensive treatment of the intellectual foundations, history, politics, and strategy of Mexican anarchism since the Revolution.

Hodges interviewed leading Mexican anarchists, including Mónico Rodríguez Gómez, and gained access to documents of numerous guerrilla organizations, such as the previously missing "Plan de Cerro Prieto." Using both original and published sources, he shows how the political heirs of Ricardo Flores Magón, Mexico's foremost anarchist, agitated for workers' self-management and agrarian reform under the cover of the Mexican Communist party, how they played an important role in the student rebellion, and how, in the face of a labor movement that has come under government control, anarchism is currently experiencing a rebirth under another name.

Chicano history, from the early decades of the twentieth century up to the present, cannot be explained without reference to the determined interventions of the Mexican government, asserts Gilbert G. González. In this pathfinding study, he offers convincing evidence that Mexico aimed at nothing less than developing a loyal and politically dependent emigrant community among Mexican Americans, which would serve and replicate Mexico's political and economic subordination to the United States.

González centers his study around four major agricultural workers' strikes in Depression-era California. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, he documents how Mexican consuls worked with U.S. growers to break the strikes, undermining militants within union ranks and, in one case, successfully setting up a grower-approved union. Moreover, González demonstrates that the Mexican government's intervention in the Chicano community did not end after the New Deal; rather, it continued as the Bracero Program of the 1940s and 1950s, as a patron of Chicano civil rights causes in the 1960s and 1970s, and as a prominent voice in the debates over NAFTA in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Here is an authoritative reference work that makes biographies of prominent Mexican national politicians from the period 1884–1934 available in English. Like the author's biographical directory for the years 1935–2009, it draws on many years of research in Mexico and the United States and seeks not only to provide accurate biographical information about each entry but also, where possible and appropriate, to connect these politicians to more recent leadership generations. Thus, Mexican Political Biographies, 1884-1934 not only is a useful historical source but also provides additional information on the family backgrounds of many contemporary figures.

The work includes those figures who have held specific posts at the national level or who have served as state governors. Each biographical entry contains the following information: date of birth, birthplace, education, elective political office, political party positions, appointive governmental posts at all levels, group activities, nongovernmental positions and professions, relatives, mentors and important friends, military experience, unusual career activities, and published biographical sources.

Another unique feature of the directory is appendixes with complete lists of the names and dates of cabinet members, supreme court justices, senators, deputies, selected ambassadors, and party leaders.

This fourth edition of Roderic Camp's highly respected Mexican Political Biographies is an updated comprehensive biographical directory of leading state and national politicians in Mexico, covering the years 1935–2009. The original edition, published in 1976, was the first and only comprehensive biographical work on contemporary political figures in any language and served as the prototype for the Mexican government's brief foray into its own official biographical directory. The Mexican Supreme Court has cited every biography of justices in the third edition as the basis of its biographies in the late 1980s.

With updates of the existing biographies and appendices, plus almost 1,000 additional biographies, this fourth edition now features close to 3,000 entries and serves as a unique resource list of the chronological occupants of all leading national political posts. The need for such information has become even more pronounced since Mexico's political transformation from a semi-authoritarian to a democratic model.

This latest edition allows readers access to information about Mexican politicians into the new century, and like its earlier versions, will be a valuable tool for government officials, journalists, historians, social scientists, the business community, and students.

Finally, it includes a detailed bibliographic essay that identifies and explains the significance of biographical sources and has been enhanced by numerous up-to-date Internet sources. An added convenience is an accompanying CD that allows readers to search the biographies and appendices, enhancing the longevity, usefulness, and uniqueness of this edition.

Prior to the millennium, economists and policy makers argued that free trade between the United States and Mexico would benefit both Americans and Mexicans. They believed that NAFTA would be a “win-win” proposition that would offer U.S. companies new markets for their products and Mexicans the hope of living in a more developed country with the modern conveniences of wealthier nations. Blending rigorous economic and statistical analysis with concern for the people affected, Mexican Women in American Factories offers the first assessment of whether NAFTA has fulfilled these expectations by examining its socioeconomic impact on workers in a Mexican border town.

Carolyn Tuttle led a group that interviewed 620 women maquila workers in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. The responses from this representative sample refute many of the hopeful predictions made by scholars before NAFTA and reveal instead that little has improved for maquila workers. The women’s stories make it plain that free trade has created more low-paying jobs in sweatshops where workers are exploited. Families of maquila workers live in one- or two-room houses with no running water, no drainage, and no heat. The multinational companies who operate the maquilas consistently break Mexican labor laws by requiring women to work more than nine hours a day, six days a week, without medical benefits, while the minimum wage they pay workers is insufficient to feed their families. These findings will make a crucial contribution to debates over free trade, CAFTA-DR, and the impact of globalization.

From reviews of the Spanish edition:

“Meyer’s perceptive commentary on Mexican power politics presents new insights into the petroleum lobbies in Mexico City and Washington. With unbiased empathy he shows the validity of Mexico’s complaints about foreigners’ deriving an overabundance of profit from a nonrenewable natural resource. He understands United States history and never abuses his license to criticize.” —Hispanic American Historical Review

“This useful addition to the literature on twentieth-century Mexican–United States diplomatic relations is a scholarly work, worthy of consideration by all students of the subject.”—American Historical Review

Mexico and the United States in the Oil Controversy, 1917–1942 explores the relationship between the United States and Mexico during the first half of the twentieth century, with special attention to the Mexican nationalization of the oil industry. Relying on Mexican archival material never before analyzed, the author presents a unique perspective on the period following the Mexican Revolution and Mexico’s efforts to diminish its economic dependency on the United States. This work not only describes the political and economic struggle between the Mexican government and the U.S. oil companies but also serves to illustrate in general the nature of dependency between Latin American countries and the United States. It will be of interest not only to Mexican specialists but also to diplomatic and economic historians.

The Mexican economy underwent a process of growth and transformation in the twentieth century, which was confirmed by the indexes and figures that economists use to chart the rate of growth, even allowing for possible inaccuracies in these figures.

This volume of six essays makes readily available to English-speaking readers a selection of significant contributions by outstanding Mexican economists dealing with the mid-twentieth-century growth of the Mexican economy.

Enrique Pérez López provides an overview of the development of the gross national product in the economy and the structural changes that were imperative if basic social goals were to be implemented and the optimal adjustments to changing world conditions effected. Ernesto Fernández Hurtado discusses the process of accommodation and cooperation between the public and the private sectors that has contributed significantly to economic growth, stressing particularly the role of agriculture. Mario Ramón Beteta describes central bank policy and the functioning of the Central Bank, showing how control over credit and the banking system assures stability and accelerating growth through its credit rationing.

Alfredo Navarrete R. traces the sources of domestic savings that have provided 90 percent of the capital employed in the economy since the Revolution, and Ifigenia M. de Navarrete demonstrates that rapid economic growth has not resulted in a more equitable distribution of income. Victor Urquidi stresses the balanced growth, achieved by allocating public capital formation to basic infrastructure, that has helped develop agriculture as well as industry, and indicates the nature of the structural change that must occur if the economy is to expand rapidly.

In his introduction Tom E. Davis compares growth in Mexico with developments during the same period in Chile and Argentina.

The country reached its midcentury standard of living after fifty years of drastic social and political changes under a constitution that altered the system and the concept of private property and the role of the state. These new concepts brought about changes in the structure of production and social relationships, together with a rise to new cultural, technical, and moral levels. These changes, in turn, placed Mexico in a new position with new problems. A question that must be answered is whether the economic goals of the future require a reappraisal of social relationships and of the ways of administering and utilizing the country’s resources and potential productivity.

An ethnography of mezcal and how it has become a global, "artisanal" good.

Mezcal is booming. Once considered a peasant drink—the rough, lowbrow cousin of the more refined tequila—the smoky spirit is now prized by connoisseurs the world over. It is also hailed as a savior of Oaxaca, powering a craft industry that can uphold rural economies and Indigenous traditions.

Ronda L. Brulotte traces mezcal’s swift rise and its effects on communities that have distilled and enjoyed the beverage for generations. Only in the late 1990s did mezcal begin to escape its longstanding associations with Indigenous and working-class life, even as these very qualities supply the “authenticity” that elite consumers crave. Through a detailed ethnography of the spirits industry in Oaxaca, Brulotte compares the ideal of the artisanal economy with the reality of participation in global markets. Her findings—focused on tourism-led development and gentrification, the exploitation of women and smallholders, and swelling regional migration pressures—raise troubling questions about the ecological and social sustainability of a new craft imaginary that rebrands rustic products as luxury goods.

Reimagining adaptation amidst climate change–driven mutations of urban space and life

Between its susceptibility to flooding and an ever-expanding real estate market powered by global surges of people and capital, Miami is an epicenter of the urban Anthropocene and a living laboratory for adaptation to sea level rise. Miami in the Anthropocene explores the social, environmental, and technical transformations involved in climate adaptation infrastructure and imaginaries in a global city seen as climate change ground zero.

Using Miami as a compelling microcosm for understanding the complex interplay between urbanization and environmental upheaval in the twenty-first century, Stephanie Wakefield shows how “aqua-urban futures” are being imagined for the city, from governmental scenario exercises for severe weather events to proposals to transform the city’s metropolitan area into an archipelago of islands connected by bridges. She examines the shifts reweaving the fabric of urban life and presents designs that imagine dramatic new ways of living with water.

Grounded in the dynamic landscape of Miami but reaching far beyond its shores, Miami in the Anthropocene delves into the broader debates shaping urban thought and practice in the Anthropocene. Focusing on postresilience urban designs, Wakefield illuminates the path toward a future where cities embrace opportunities for evolution rather than merely for survival.