An Open World

Two foreign policy experts chart a new American grand strategy to meet the greatest geopolitical challenges of the coming decade This ambitious and incisive book presents a new vision for American foreign policy and international order at a time of historic upheaval. The United States’ global leadership crisis is not a passing shock created by the Trump presidency or COVID-19, but the product of forces that will endure for decades. Amidst political polarization, technological transformation, and major global power shifts, Lissner and Rapp-Hooper convincingly argue, only a grand strategy of openness can protect American security and prosperity despite diminished national strength. Disciplined and forward-looking, an openness strategy would counter authoritarian competitors by preventing the emergence of closed spheres of influence, maintaining access to the global commons, supporting democracies without promoting regime change, and preserving economic interdependence. The authors provide a roadmap for the next president, who must rebuild strength at home while preparing for novel forms of international competition. Lucid, trenchant, and practical, An Open World is an essential guide to the future of geopolitics.

Finalist, 2021 John Hope Franklin Prize, given by the American Studies Association Seeking ways to understand video games beyond their imperial logics, Patterson turns to erotics to re-invigorate the potential passions and pleasures of play Video games vastly outpace all other mediums of entertainment in revenue and in global reach. On the surface, games do not appear ideological, nor are they categorized as national products. Instead, they seem to reflect the open and uncontaminated reputation of information technology. Video games are undeniably imperial products. Their very existence has been conditioned upon the spread of militarized technology, the exploitation of already-existing labor and racial hierarchies in their manufacture, and the utopian promises of digital technology. Like literature and film before it, video games have become the main artistic expression of empire today: the open world empire, formed through the routes of information technology and the violences of drone combat, unending war, and overseas massacres that occur with little scandal or protest. Though often presented as purely technological feats, video games are also artistic projects, and as such, they allow us an understanding of how war and imperial violence proceed under signs of openness, transparency, and digital utopia. But the video game, as Christopher B. Patterson argues, is also an inherently Asian commodity: its hardware is assembled in Asia; its most talented e-sports players are of Asian origin; Nintendo, Sony, and Sega have defined and dominated the genre. Games draw on established discourses of Asia to provide an “Asiatic” space, a playful sphere of racial otherness that straddles notions of the queer, the exotic, the bizarre, and the erotic. Thinking through games like Overwatch, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Shenmue II, and Alien: Isolation, Patterson reads against empire by playing games erotically, as players do—seeing games as Asiatic playthings that afford new passions, pleasures, desires, and attachments.

For readers of Three Cups of Tea; Eat, Pray, Love; and Wild comes the inspiring story of an ordinary American family that embarks on an extraordinary journey. Wide-Open World follows the Marshall family as they volunteer their way around the globe, living in a monkey sanctuary in Costa Rica, teaching English in rural Thailand, and caring for orphans in India. There’s a name for this kind of endeavor—voluntourism—and it might just be the future of travel. Oppressive heat, grueling bus rides, backbreaking work, and one vicious spider monkey . . . Best family vacation ever! John Marshall needed a change. His twenty-year marriage was falling apart, his seventeen-year-old son was about to leave home, and his fourteen-year-old daughter was lost in cyberspace. Desperate to get out of a rut and reconnect with his family, John dreamed of a trip around the world, a chance to leave behind, if only just for a while, routines and responsibilities. He didn’t have the money for resorts or luxury tours, but he did have an idea that would make traveling the globe more affordable and more meaningful than he’d ever imagined: The family would volunteer their time and energy to others in far-flung locales. Wide-Open World is the inspiring true story of the six months that changed the Marshall family forever. Once they’d made the pivotal decision to go, John and his wife, Traca, quit their jobs, pulled their kids out of school, and embarked on a journey that would take them far off the beaten path, and far out of their comfort zones. Here is the totally engaging, bluntly honest chronicle of the Marshalls’ life-altering adventure from Central America to East Asia. It was no fairy tale. The trip offered little rest, even less relaxation, and virtually no certainty of what was to come. But it did give the Marshalls something far more valuable: a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to conquer personal fears, strengthen family bonds, and find their true selves by helping those in need. In the end, as John discovered, he and his family did not change the world. It was the world that changed them. Praise for Wide-Open World “Marshall’s use of rich details locates readers firmly in each time and place, enabling them to sense the adventure, wonder and joy he experienced in his surroundings and in watching his children grow into hardworking, more responsible teens, as well as the frustrations and disappointments he and his family inevitably encountered along the way. A great armchair adventure that should inspire others to consider voluntourism as a way to help others and see the world.”—Kirkus Reviews “Each new location combines beautiful scenery with a dose of sentiment, a good deal of humor, and some heartfelt consideration of the human condition. . . . His philosophy may not fit everyone and the ending is bittersweet, but this is an enticing call to service.”—Publishers Weekly “Wide-Open World is an adventure made up of countless small moments of human connection. It’s an armchair travelogue that may well inspire you to do good off the beaten path.”—BookPage “For anyone who has ever imagined what it would be like to pack up, unplug, pull the kids out of school, and travel around the world, this volunteer adventure is your ticket. Wide-Open World will move, engage, and inspire you, even if you never leave the couch.”—Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Orphan Train

This book provides state-of-the-art contemporary research insights into key applications and processes in open world learning. Open world learning seeks to understand access to education, structures, and the presence of dialogue and support systems. It explores how the application of open world and educational technologies can be used to create opportunities for open and high-quality education. Presenting ground-breaking research from an award winning Leverhulme doctoral training programme, the book provides several integrated and cohesive perspectives of the affordances and limitations of open world learning. The chapters feature a wide range of open world learning topics, ranging from theoretical and methodological discussions to empirical demonstrations of how open world learning can be effectively implemented, evaluated, and used to inform theory and practice. The book brings together a range of innovative uses of technology and practice in open world learning from 387,134 learners and educators learning and working in 136 unique learning contexts across the globe and considers the enablers and disablers of openness in learning, ethical and privacy implications, and how open world learning can be used to foster inclusive approaches to learning across educational sectors, disciplines and countries. The book is unique in exploring the complex, contradictory and multi-disciplinary nature of open world learning at an international level and will be of great interest to academics, researchers, professionals, and policy makers in the field of education technology, e-learning and digital education. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

A spirited and incisive work of socioeconomic analysis.

This book is about higher education reforms in the post-socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, seen through the eyes of somebody who has spent the last decade analyzing these reforms as well as negotiating and supervising reform projects in countries from Serbia and Montenegro to Mongolia. Analyzing the reforms in a broader political, economic and social context and relating these to global higher education developments, the book addresses the complexity of the processes and contradictions among the demands on higher education systems, which in many instances impede positive changes.

The Internet and associated technologies have been around for almost twenty years. Networked access and computer ownership are now the norm. There is a plethora of technologies that can be used to support learning, offering different ways in which learners can communicate with each other and their tutors, and providing them with access to interactive, multimedia content. However, these generic skills don’t necessarily translate seamlessly to an academic learning context. Appropriation of these technologies for academic purposes requires specific skills, which means that the way in which we design and support learning opportunities needs to provide appropriate support to harness the potential of technologies. More than ever before learners need supportive ‘learning pathways’ to enable them to blend formal educational offerings, with free resources and services. This requires a rethinking of the design process, to enable teachers to take account of a blended learning context.