Poor
Economics : a Radical Rethinking of the way to fight Global Poverty by Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo was
published in Mar 2012. Why do the poor borrow to save? Why do they miss
out on free life-saving immunizations, but pay for unnecessary drugs? In 'Poor
Economics', Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, two practical visionaries
working toward ending world poverty, answer these questions from the ground. In
a book the 'Wall Street Journal' called marvelous, rewarding," the authors
tell how the stress of living on less than 99 cents per day encourages the poor
to make questionable decisions that feed-not fight-poverty. The result is a
radical rethinking of the economics of poverty that offers a ringside view of
the lives of the world's poorest, and shows that creating a world without
poverty begins with understanding the daily decisions facing the poor.
The Ladder of Success in Imperial China; Aspects of Social Mobility,
1368-1911 by He, Bingdi (何炳棣) was published in 1964.
Governing the World The History
of An Idea by Mark Mazower was published in Sept 2012.
The story of global cooperation between nations and peoples is a tale of dreamers goading us to find common cause in remedying humanity’s worst problems. But international institutions have also provided a tool for the powers that be to advance their own interests and stamp their imprint on the world. Mark Mazower’s Governing the World tells the epic story of that inevitable and irresolvable tension—the unstable and often surprising alchemy between ideas and power.
From the beginning, the willingness of national leaders to cooperate has been spurred by crisis: the book opens in 1815, amid the rubble of the Napoleonic Empire, as the Concert of Europe was assembled with an avowed mission to prevent any single power from dominating the continent and to stamp out revolutionary agitation before it could lead to war. But if the Concert was a response to Napoleon, internationalism was a response to the Concert, and as courts and monarchs disintegrated they were replaced by revolutionaries and bureaucrats.
19th century internationalists included bomb-throwing anarchists and the secret policemen who fought them, Marxist revolutionaries and respectable free marketeers. But they all embraced nationalism, the age’s most powerful transformative political creed, and assumed that nationalism and internationalism would go hand in hand. The wars of the twentieth century saw the birth of institutions that enshrined many of those ideals in durable structures of authority, most notably the League of Nations in World War I and the United Nations after World War II.
Throughout this history, we see that international institutions are only as strong as the great powers of the moment allow them to be. The League was intended to prop up the British empire. With Washington taking over world leadership from Whitehall, the United Nations became a useful extension of American power. But as Mazower shows us, from the late 1960s on, America lost control over the dialogue and the rise of the independent Third World saw a marked shift away from the United Nations and toward more pliable tools such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. From the 1990s to 2007, Governing the World centers on a new regime of global coordination built upon economic rule-making by central bankers and finance ministers, a regime in which the interests of citizens and workers are trumped by the iron logic of markets.
Now, the era of Western dominance of international life is fast coming to an end and a new multi-centered global balance of forces is emerging. We are living in a time of extreme confusion about the purpose and durability of our international institutions. History is not prophecy, but Mark Mazower shows us why the current dialectic between ideals and power politics in the international arena is just another stage in an epic two-hundred-year story.
Remaking Beijing - Tiananmen Square and the Creation of a Political Space by Wu Hung was published in 2005.
In 1949, Beijing
still retained nearly all of its time-honored character and magnificence. But
when Chairman Mao rejected the proposal to build a new capital for the People's
Republic of China
and decided to stay in the ancient city, he initiated a long struggle to
transform Beijing into a shining
beacon of socialism. So began the remaking of the city into a modern metropolis
rife with monuments, public squares, exhibition halls, and government offices.
Wu Hung grew up in Beijing
and experienced much of the city's makeover firsthand. In this lavishly
illustrated work, he offers a vivid, often personal account of the struggle
over Beijing's reinvention, drawing
particular attention to Tiananmen Square—the most sacred
space in the People's Republic of China.
Remaking Beijing considers the square's transformation from a restricted
imperial domain into a public arena for political expression, from an epic
symbol of socialism into a holy relic of the Maoist regime, and from an
official and monumental complex into a site for unofficial and antigovernment
demonstrations.
Wu Hung also explores how Tiananmen Square
has become a touchstone for official art in modern China—as
the site for Mao's monumental portrait, as the location of museums narrating
revolutionary history, and as the grounds for extravagant National Day parades
celebrating the revolutionary masses. He then shows how in recent years the
square has inspired artists working without state sponsorship to create
paintings, photographs, and even performances that reflect the spirit of the
1989 uprisings and pose a forceful challenge to official artworks and the
sociopolitical system that supports them.
Ghost
Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin
Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September
10, 2001 by Sreve
Coll was published in Dec 2004, won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for General
Non-Fiction.
The book provides an in-depth account of Central Intelligence Agency
activity in Afghanistan from the time
of the Soviet Invasion to the aftermath of attacks on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon. Particularly taken note of by Coll is the interplay between the CIA
and its counterpart in Pakistan, Inter-Services
Intelligence, which utilized CIA and Saudi Arabian funding to build militant
Mujahideen training camps along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in an effort to
create radicalized, militant fighters sourced from many Arab countries to
attack the Soviet occupation. Invariably, as Coll shows, this decision would
have long lasting effects on the region.
Representations
of the intellectual: the 1993 Reith lectures by Edward Said.
Edward W. Said here examines the ever-changing role of the
intellectual today. In these six stunning essays - delivered on the BBC as the
prestigious Reith Lectures - Said addresses the ways in which the intellectual
can best serve society in the light of a heavily compromised media and of
special interest groups who are protected at the cost of larger community
concerns. Said suggests a recasting of the intellectual's vision to resist the
lures of power, money, and specialization. in these powerful pieces, Said
eloquently illustrates his arguments by drawing on such writers as Antonio
Gramsci, Jean-Paul Sartre, Regis Debray, Julien Benda, and Adorno, and by
discussing current events and celebrated figures in the world of science and
politics: Robert Oppenheimer, Henry Kissinger, Dan Quayle, Vietnam, and the
Gulf War. Said sees the modern intellectual as an editor, journalist, academic,
or political adviser - in other words, a highly specialized professional - who
has moved from a position of independence to an alliance with powerful
institutional organizations. He concludes that it is the exile-immigrant, the
expatriate, and the amateur who must uphold the traditional role of the
intellectual as the voice of integrity and courage, able to speak out against
those in power.
The Great
Courses DVD Set
Professor Thomas F. X. Noble: Popes and the Papacy: A History
The papacy is the oldest continuously functioning institution in the
world. Developed c. A.D. 30 when Jesus invested his disciple Peter with the
authority to create a church, the Bishops of Rome grew their organization from
a small flock of persecuted worshipers to a religion that counts one-sixth of
the world's population as members.
Over the last 2,000 years, the papacy has had an enormous influence on
the world stage in religious, geopolitical, legal, social, artistic, and
cultural matters. Today, more than a billion Roman Catholics throughout the
world look to the pope for guidance and leadership.
Yet in spite of the papacy's enormous influence, how much do you really
know about this ancient and powerful institution?
- How exactly are popes chosen?
- What kinds of men have been included among the 265 who have borne the title?
- What happened during the Great Schism and the decades of the Avignon Popes?
- Is the Catholic Church really as wealthy as has been claimed?
- What was the influence of the some three dozen antipopes who have laid claim to the papal office?
- Was there really a female pope?
- Why has the papacy proved so durable throughout history?
These and many other questions are answered in Popes
and the Papacy: A History, a course designed to illuminate for
Catholics and non-Catholics alike this remarkable institution. Taught by
Professor Thomas F. X. Noble, a scholar and instructor who has spent more than
30 years engaged in scholarly studies of popes and the papacy, these 24
lectures give you priceless insights into the dramatic history of the papal
office and the lives of the men who represented it.
Dr. Thomas F. X. Noble is Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of 10 books and has published more than 40 articles, chapters, and essays. His coauthored textbook, Western Civilization: The Continuing Experiment, is in its 5th edition. His research has concentrated on late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, focusing on the history of the city of Rome, the history of the papacy, and the age of Charlemagne.
