Across The Blocs

This book asks the reader to reassess the Cold War not just as superpower conflict and high diplomacy, but as social and cultural history. It makes cross-cultural comparisons of the socio cultural aspects of the Cold War across the East/West block divide, dealing with issues including broadcasting, public opinion, and the production and consumption of popular culture.

This book asks the reader to reassess the Cold War not just as superpower conflict and high diplomacy, but as social and cultural history. It makes cross-cultural comparisons of the socio cultural aspects of the Cold War across the East/West block divide, dealing with issues including broadcasting, public opinion, and the production and consumption of popular culture.

This book asks the reader to reassess the Cold War not just as superpower conflict and high diplomacy, but as social and cultural history. It makes cross-cultural comparisons of the socio cultural aspects of the Cold War across the East/West block divide, dealing with issues including broadcasting, public opinion, and the production and consumption of popular culture.

Desperate to escape South Texas, Stephanie Elizondo Griest dreamed of becoming a foreign correspondent. So she headed to Russia looking for some excitement—commencing what would become a four-year, twelve-nation Communist bloc tour that shattered her preconceived notions of the “Evil Empire.” In Around the Bloc, Griest relates her experiences as a volunteer at a children’s shelter in Moscow, a propaganda polisher at the office of the Chinese Communist Party’s English-language mouthpiece in Beijing, and a belly dancer among the rumba queens of Havana. She falls in love with an ex-soldier who narrowly avoided radiation cleanup duties at Chernobyl, hangs out with Cuban hip-hop artists, and comes to difficult realizations about the meaning of democracy. is the absorbing story of a young journalist driven by a desire to witness the effects of Communism. Along the way, she learns the Russian mathematical equation for buying dinner-party vodka (one bottle per guest, plus an extra), stumbles upon Beijing’s underground gay scene, marches with 100,000 mothers demanding Elián González’s return to Cuba, and gains a new appreciation for the Mexican culture she left behind.

This volume represents a unique study of contemporary politics and policy-making in the five nation-states and three Home Rule territories of the Nordic region. Written in a lively and readable style by an expert in the field, its approach is systematically thematic and comparative. Chapters deal with current political science issues such as nation-building and state-building, party system change, semi-presidentialism and post-corporatism, as well as addressing intrinsically important regional questions such as whether or not there is a Nordic model of government, a distinctively Scandinavian form of parliamentarianism and a superior welfare system. There is also detailed discussion of the Nordic states in their strategic external environment, focusing on the post-war security configuration in northern Europe and the impact of European integration on Scandinavia.

This title was first published in 2000. This text addresses concerns about regional trade agreements. From a variety of political and economic angles, it explains the emergence of trade blocs, their internal policies and politics, and their effects on global trade. It does not provide sequential descriptions and analyses of each of the world's major trading blocs. The focus here is on a number of causal factors that help explain the emergence of trading blocs and the development of their relations to and effects on the multilateral trading system. In each chapter, attempts have been made to draw theoretical and case-based generalizations that may apply to other trade blocs than the used in the empirical analyses.