The Primordial Challenge

Ethnicity plays a vital role in contemporary world politics. This collection of essays documents the international dimensions of ethnic identity by examining the interaction between ethnicity and the actions of modern nation-states in a variety of global, regional, and urban settings throughout the world. The editor, John F. Stack, Jr., provocatively argues that the dynamics of ethnicity in the contemporary world are best examined from the perspective of primordial attachments--those givens of social existence based on family ties, race, custom, language, religion, and region. This perspective is disputed by a number of the contributors who see ethnicity as the result of instrumental forces--state building, socioeconomic class, modernization, political development, and the transformation of the global political economy.

It presents a vision of Israel as an epistemological rather than an ontological entity; a perspective on the world rather than an entity in it. >

The ongoing reconstruction of world politics following the collapse of Soviet and Eastern European variants of communism have seemingly unleashed the power of ethnicity with a vengeance. Stack, Hebron, and their contributors explore the concept of ethnicity in international relations, seeking to address this most destabilizing, yet ubiquitous dimension of the emerging new world order. As a central force in international politics, ethnicity and ethnonational movements raise two fundamental questions about the nature of power and politics in contemporary international relations. First, what is the relationship between ethnicity and conflict within, across, and among states? Second, what role does ethnicity play in exacerbating conflicts which result in the intervention by external forces, both state and nonstate, manifested by increasing levels of violence and spillover instability, as exemplified by the Middle East, the Asian Republics of the former Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia? This book is designed to provide scholars of international relations with a compelling approach to the study of ethnicity. The study of ethnic nationalism is a growing area of scholarly inquiry not fully appreciated. Thus, this collection is designed to fill a void in the literature and, as such, will be of interest to students, scholars, and policy makers involved with issues of ethnicity and world politics.

Our global community desperately needs overt awakening to an age of reason and faith. Reasonable Faith for a Post-Secular Age meets this need by interpreting faith not in terms of belief in propositions but in terms of living surrender to having been seized by agape for every Face, including one's own. Virtually all faith traditions, from Buddhism to Humanism to Wiccan, are rooted in agape and therefore share considerable spiritual and ethical common ground (a truth long veiled). In contrast to ethically feckless secular rationality--over which a devastating, global social Darwinism currently runs roughshod--faith qua living surrender to agape grounds moral realism, awakens us to love for all creatures, and inspires struggles for justice. Inspired by the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas and Christian spirituality, Greenway engages, on the one hand, intellectuals like Stanley Hauerwas, Richard Rorty, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Jeffery Stout, Charles Taylor, and Bernard Williams, and, on the other, contemporary debates over consciousness, free will, evil, and metaethics. He details the character of secular rationality's devastating scission from moral reality and clarifies the promise of understanding faith and spirituality in terms of agape.

Ethnic tensions in Southeast Asia represent a clear threat to the future stability of the region. David Brown's clear and systematic study outlines the patterns of ethnic politics in: * Burma * Singapore * Indonesia * Malaysia * Thailand The study considers the influence of the State on the formation of ethnic groups and investigates why some countries are more successful in 'managing' their ethnic politics than others.

Our contemporary world presents a seemingly inexplicable paradox. It is a world where interaction among societies of different cultural traditions has never been easier. A world in which modern technology has visibly overcome the physical barriers that had long condemned the majority of men to relative isolation from one another. Yet, our world is also one in which the illusion of a lost “original” cultural or religious identity, grounded by a metaphysical absolute, pits men against one another. A physically more accessible world has thus become an increasingly fundamentalist one. In this book, written in the wake of such influential European thinkers as Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida, and Vattimo, Simon Oliai analyzes the conceptual underpinnings of this paradox and argues that, unless the “European” affirmation of man’s finite existence becomes universal, we shall never rid ourselves, to echo Nietzsche, of the repressive shadow of a long dead metaphysical idol.

This book, written by global experts in the field, provides a thorough overview on fertility and pregnancy challenges and solutions in women who are being or have been treated for cancer. The book addresses several topics, including pregnancy outcomes after a cancer diagnosis, the impacts of systemic anticancer therapy on fertility, the essentials of fertility preservation approaches in cancer patients, and fertility counseling. This is in addition to controversial topics like the role of ovarian stimulation in breast cancer patients, fertility preservation in cancer patients with BRCA mutation and the evolving role of GnRH analogues. Within this context, key open questions are discussed with reference to the latest evidence. The aim is to provide clinicians with a reliable resource that documents the most up-to-date knowledge on the feasibility and safety of the different approaches to fertility preservation and on the management of female cancer patients who would like to preserve fertility and achieve a pregnancy following their treatment.