Iron Curtains

What could be worse than Russia taking over the United States? Russia and China. Teaming together, Russia and China invade the United States via the new superhighway which connects Moscow to New York City. The United States surrenders. China occupies the west coast, Russia occupies the east coast, and Americans are squeezed in the middle of the United States. High school senior, Gabriella Gardner, tours Northwestern University in Chicago where she meets gorgeous cowboy/law student, Colby Connor. When President David Addison surrenders the bankrupt United States to Russia and China, Gabby and Colby are forced to cross the fifty-foot wall of the superhighway into the free Middle America. All Americans have three days to cross the new border, or become slaves forever to Russia and China. Gabby and Colby face horrific obstacles: food and gas shortages, looters, forced sterilization, abduction, prostitution rings, and deadly violence. But the Americans do not accept the surrender of the United States. A huge rebellion is underway, especially once they learn of the horrific plans of the Russians and Chinese—to exterminate the Americans. Who will win the war for freedom in the U.S.A.?

Iron Curtains has been awarded Honorable Mention for the 2013 ASEEES Harvard Davis Center Book Prize! The prize is sponsored by Harvard University's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and is awarded annually by the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, for an outstanding monograph published on Russia, Eurasia, or Eastern Europe in anthropology, political science, sociology, or geography. Utilizing research conducted primarily with residents of Sofia, Bulgaria, Iron Curtains: Gates, Suburbs, and Privatization of Space in the Post-socialist City explores the human dimension of new city-building that has emerged in East Europe. Features original data, illustrations, and theory on the process of privatization of resources in societies undergoing fundamental socio-economic transformations, such as those in Eastern Europe Represents the sole in-depth monograph on contemporary urbanism in Southeast Europe Makes a broader statement on issues of urbanism in Europe and other parts of the world while highlighting the complex connections between cultures and cities

It is not a tension-producing missive every time a Blackman writes Ku Klux Klan.Tear Down the Iron Curtains is a unique and necessary attempt by an individual to reconcile races, cultures, faiths, and groups. Mankind began the 21st century with elevated cultural, religious, and gang tensions. Suspicion among peoples with diverse ways of life has risen to an all-time high since the past decade. Terrorism is now a borderless phenomenon that haunts every human being. The menace of gangs is not shipping out of our cities, and erstwhile nonviolent neighborhoods are becoming restive. Should the peace-loving majority of the people around the world submit to these undesirable trends? More than ever, the conscientious ones among us, regardless of their races, colors, religions, and groups need to speak up against intolerance. The world would lose its body, spirit, and soul to the wicked if fine men, women and children keep mute when it matters. The momentous letter to KKK is a deliberate effort to reach out to diverse races, cultures, religions, and groups. Dele Ajaja engages his personal experiences to advocate tolerance. Mankind has no healthier option than fashioning a mutual civilization that curtails the intolerance of man by man.

First published in 1999, this book examines the construction of new political, economic and mental borders in post-Cold War Europe. Various national and regional settings are analyzed along the old East-West divide. In post-Cold War Europe the East-West divide no longer exists in the form of the clear-cut Iron Curtain, separating two security blocs, two politico-economic systems, and two ideologically and culturally distinct worlds. Still, it remains clearly discernible, both in the form of unrelenting politico-cultural differences and as an economic Golden Curtain. At the same time, a more complicated system of intersecting political, economic and mental borders keeps developing. Today, there are various scales of interaction, which produce distinctive national, regional and local experiences of borders. In this book, the construction of new political, economic and mental borders is analysed by specialists from both sides of the former East-West divide. The future of European borders is discussed in various national and regional settings, from the Barents Region in the North to the Old Habsburgian lands in ‘Mitteleuropa’.

In 1947, two adventurous college friends were among the first tourists to travel to Eastern Europe after WWII. These are some of their stories, as they wrote them, when they returned.

Iron Curtains has been awarded Honorable Mention for the 2013 ASEEES Harvard Davis Center Book Prize! The prize is sponsored by Harvard University's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and is awarded annually by the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, for an outstanding monograph published on Russia, Eurasia, or Eastern Europe in anthropology, political science, sociology, or geography. Utilizing research conducted primarily with residents of Sofia, Bulgaria, Iron Curtains: Gates, Suburbs, and Privatization of Space in the Post-socialist City explores the human dimension of new city-building that has emerged in East Europe. Features original data, illustrations, and theory on the process of privatization of resources in societies undergoing fundamental socio-economic transformations, such as those in Eastern Europe Represents the sole in-depth monograph on contemporary urbanism in Southeast Europe Makes a broader statement on issues of urbanism in Europe and other parts of the world while highlighting the complex connections between cultures and cities

First published in 1999, this book examines the construction of new political, economic and mental borders in post-Cold War Europe. Various national and regional settings are analyzed along the old East-West divide. In post-Cold War Europe the East-West divide no longer exists in the form of the clear-cut Iron Curtain, separating two security blocs, two politico-economic systems, and two ideologically and culturally distinct worlds. Still, it remains clearly discernible, both in the form of unrelenting politico-cultural differences and as an economic Golden Curtain. At the same time, a more complicated system of intersecting political, economic and mental borders keeps developing. Today, there are various scales of interaction, which produce distinctive national, regional and local experiences of borders. In this book, the construction of new political, economic and mental borders is analysed by specialists from both sides of the former East-West divide. The future of European borders is discussed in various national and regional settings, from the Barents Region in the North to the Old Habsburgian lands in ‘Mitteleuropa’.

How amateur programmers in 1980s Czechoslovakia discovered games as a medium, using them not only for entertainment but also as a means of self-expression. Aside from the exceptional history of Tetris, very little is known about gaming culture behind the Iron Curtain. But despite the scarcity of home computers and the absence of hardware and software markets, Czechoslovakia hosted a remarkably active DIY microcomputer scene in the 1980s, producing more than two hundred games that were by turns creative, inventive, and politically subversive. In Gaming the Iron Curtain, Jaroslav Švelch offers the first social history of gaming and game design in 1980s Czechoslovakia, and the first book-length treatment of computer gaming in any country of the Soviet bloc. Švelch describes how amateur programmers in 1980s Czechoslovakia discovered games as a medium, using them not only for entertainment but also as a means of self-expression. Sheltered in state-supported computer clubs, local programmers fashioned games into a medium of expression that, unlike television or the press, was neither regulated nor censored. In the final years of Communist rule, Czechoslovak programmers were among the first in the world to make activist games about current political events, anticipating trends observed decades later in independent or experimental titles. Drawing from extensive interviews as well as political, economic, and social history, Gaming the Iron Curtain tells a compelling tale of gaming the system, introducing us to individuals who used their ingenuity to be active, be creative, and be heard.