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State-Directed Development: Political Power and Industrialization in the Global Periphery
Why have some developing countries industrialized and become more prosperous rapidly while others have not? Focusing on South Korea, Brazil, India, and Nigeria, this study compares the characteristics of fairly functioning states and explains why states in some parts of the developing world are more effective. It emphasizes the role of colonialism in leaving behind more or less effective states, and the relationship of these states with business and labor in helping explain comparative success in promoting economic progress..
Price: $10.00
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A Tomb on the Periphery
This novel a mix of crime, ghost story and portrait of the protagonist continues Domini's tales in contemporary Southern Italy, in the manner of his last novel "Earthquake I.D." When an ancient grave on the fringes of Naples comes unexpectedly to light, an exquisite piece of funeral decoration leaves the twenty-something Fabbrizio suspended between his best impulses and his worst. On the one hand he wants to help his family, strapped for cashand to do right by his gift as a goldsmith. But on the other hand, Fabbrizio risks seduction by an array of dubious figures. Among these is an American femme fatale with a suspiciously close knowledge about Southern Italian criminal life -- the vicious local Mafia known as the Camorra. Also involved, soon enough, are a family of African boat people and the occasional visit from a ghost. All this and more comes together in brief, brutal, yet ultimately redemptive new novel. "A Tomb on the Periphery" deepens and intensifies John Domini s vision of contemporary Italy, revisiting the world of last year s highly-praised "Earthquake I.D.", nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and praised by Richard Ford. Yet this story stands entirely on its own, taking a radically different view of its home ground, discovering both fresh heartbreak and new possibility. The bad boy of "Tomb" may at first call to mind the amoral Ripley of Patricia Highsmith, and after that he tumbles through false panels enough for a story by Orhan Pamuk, but in the end he hammers out his own durable moral gold..
Price: $9.94
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Empire of the Periphery: Russia and the World System
Leading writer Boris Kagarlitsky offers an ambitious account of a thousand years of Russian history. Encompassing all key periods in Russia's dramatic development, the book covers everything from early settlers,through medieval decline, Ivan the Terrible-the "English Tsar", Peter the Great,the Crimean War and the rise of capitalism, the revolution, and the Soviet period, finally ending with the return of capitalism after 1991. Setting Russia within the context of the "World System", as outlined by Wallerstein, this is a major work of historical Marxist theory that is set to become a future classic. .
Price: $65.00
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Heian Japan, Centers And Peripheries
The first three centuries of the Heian period (794-1086) saw some of its most fertile innovations and epochal achievements in Japanese literature and the arts. It was also a time of important transitions in the spheres of religion and politics, as aristocratic authority was consolidated in Kyoto, powerful court factions and religious institutions emerged, and adjustments were made in the Chinese-style system of rulership. At the same time, the era's leaders faced serious challenges from the provinces that called into question the primacy and efficiency of the governmental system and tested the social/cultural status quo. Heian Japan, Centers and Peripheries, the first book of its kind to examine the early Heian from a wide variety of multidisciplinary perspectives, offers a fresh look at these seemingly contradictory trends. Essays by fourteen leading American, European, and Japanese scholars of art history, history, literature, and religions take up core texts and iconic images, cultural achievements and social crises, and the ever-fascinating patterns and puzzles of the time. The authors tackle some of Heian Japan's most enduring paradigms as well as hitherto unexplored problems in search of new ways of understanding the currents of change as well as the processes of institutionalization that shaped the Heian scene, defined the contours of its legacies, and make it one of the most intensely studied periods of the Japanese past. Throughout, the widely deployed model of "centers and peripheries" is tested as a guiding concept: It serves here as a point of departure for a reexamination of the dynamic tensions among and between literary languages, administrative structures, urban centers and rural regions, orthodoxies and heterodoxies, the status quo and the pressures for adaptation and change, and many other powerful entities and socio-cultural forces. An introductory chapter lays out the volume's four main points. The first emphasizes the importance of the early tenth century as a watershed that highlights the institutional and political transformations at court whereby provincial governors were allowed more freedom and, by extension, greater financial benefits. The second point problematizes the notion of a singular dichotomy between center and periphery in Heian Japan. The various essays suggest instead that the nexuses of power were in fact plural, and the periphery was not as peripheral as had been imagined. Thus, rather than conceiving Heian society as a static and one-dimensional formation centering on Kyoto alone, it might better be understood as a society of multiple centers and peripheries. The third point challenges the long-held view that the central government's lessening of administrative control of the provinces meant an increasing loss of power. Rather, the abandonment of a strict administrative approach in favor of a more effective one allowed elites in the capital to strengthen their hold on the provinces, reflecting an improved integration of centers and peripheries. Fourth, the methods and means of exercising power shifted from one relying solely on official titles and procedures to one that was increasingly based on extra-governmental means, a process of "privatization" that reflected the development of multiple centers of social, political, and economic practice outside the official structures of the state. Heian Japan, Centers and Peripheries presents not only a set of new interpretations of this epochal moment in the Japanese past, but also offers a host of new questions to be addressed in future international and interdisciplinary research modeled on this exemplary volume..
Price: $37.50
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Central and Eastern Europe, 1944-1993: Detour from the Periphery to the Periphery (Cambridge Studies in Modern Economic History)
Ivan Berend uses a vast range of sources, as well as his own personal experience, to analyze the fortunes of the postwar socialist regimes in Eastern Europe. His comparative approach stretches beyond the confines of economic history to produce a work of political economy, encompassing the cultural and personal forces that have influenced the development of the "Eastern Bloc" countries over the past fifty years. The book is distinguished by its unique combination of time, region and topic, and is a major contribution to the economic history of the twentieth century..
Price: $20.00
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Grace in the Wilderness: Sermons from the Periphery
Grace in the Wilderness: Sermons from the Periphery is a compilation of sermons preached over a span of twenty years by a minister after he was removed from the pulpit for the 'sin' of being born gay. After leaving the professional ministry, the author was frequently invited to substitute preach in a variety of churches. The sermons in this book illustrate growth in the understanding of Bible, theology, and human nature as the author proclaimed God's word from the periphery of the institutional church..
Price: $14.99
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