Politics, by its nature, is a contentious arena. Suburbia, on the other hand, has long presented the image of a relatively serene, harmonious, and homogenous social context. Until recently little attention has been paid to whatever might be the distinctive qualities of the suburban political scene. Yet, as this collection of essays makes apparent, suburbia is as volatile a political environment as any other. The suburban political sphere is truly a contested terrain, and this volume effectively shows the links between suburban political realities and our collective economic and social...

American and Japanese experts provide a concise and clearly written survey of Japan's relationships around the world and the foreign policy perspectives in Tokyo today based on lively interviews with key policymakers and new research there. The study offers a short background history of Japanese perceptions of the international system from the mid-19th century to the end of the Cold War and considers Japan's role in the post-Cold War world.

This brief analysis concludes with views about the future possible relationships with Asian neighbors, Europe, the Russian Republic, and the United...

Fredric March was one of the foremost actors America produced during the 20th century, holding the distinction of winning Best Actor Awards in two films and two Broadway plays. He consciously chose not to shape his career by projecting his own personality, but created a new characterization for each role by becoming the individual he was portraying. Because of this, March is not as well remembered as many of his contemporaries. March was honored 12 years after his death at a tribute in 1987, but by then, many did not even know who he was. In this fascinating biography, Peterson details who...

"The Kingfish and the Constitution" is an in-depth analysis of the poisonous relationship that evolved between Huey Kingfish Long, legendary governor of Louisiana, and the state's daily newspapers. Long's political battle over the newspaper tax in the Louisiana legislature in 1934 and the subsequent battle over the constitutionality of his attempt at censorship by taxation culminated in the U.S. Supreme Court decision in "Grosjean v. American Press Co." in 1936, a landmark decision that laid the basis for the protection of modern freedom of the press in America. This fascinating study will...

Before it became a federation, the United States was briefly a confederation, a much looser union composed of states rather than of peoples. Unions of states to promote ecomomic well-being and to prevent war are now being revived. Mr. Lister analyzes modern confederalism, and how it is functioning in the single market of the Europen Union and how it might function if the collective security system of the United Nations could be carried out, as originally planned, by a confederal-style partnership of the world's independent states.

Political scientists have traditionally...

This up-to-date collection of essays addresses key elements of the law and politics of voting rights: the Supreme Court's jurisprudence, the impact of the Voting Rights Act, and the opportunities for enhanced minority representation posed by alternative electoral systems. This volume, comprised of contributions by leading legal and political science practitioners in the field of voting rights, will be a valuable resource to experienced researchers and newcomers to the field. It includes current assessments of the intricacies of the Supreme Court's decisions, current research on the impact...

The relationship between economic and political thinking has reached a crisis at the end of the 20th century. Already at the beginning of this century, in Roman Catholicism and Political Form, Carl Schmitt juxtaposed a juridical interpretation of religion oriented to the political sphere to Max Weber's sociological interpretation oriented to the economic sphere in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

According to G. L. Ulmen, translator of Roman Catholicism and Political Formjus publicum Europaeum and the Eurocentric epoch of world history...

Harle focuses on the perennial issue of social order by providing a comparative analysis of ideas on social order in the classical Chinese political philosophy, the Indian epic and political literature, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, the classical Greek and Roman political thought, and early Christianity. His analysis is based on the religious, political, and literary texts that represent their respective civilizations as both their major achievements and sources of shared values.

Harle maintains that two major approaches to establishing and maintaining social order exist in all levels and...

Miskimin's work considers the religious feuding, hostility, and occasional cooperation of Catholics, Protestants, and Jews in 17th-century Metz. In a series of pointed chapters, she shows how the French Crown benefited from religious disagreement in the town by using that discord to push through its centralizing political agenda. Despite the disapproval of local leaders and the lack of any ideological commitment to coexistence, Catholics, Protestants, and Jews increasingly developed daily contacts in the city as the century progressed. Though these contacts were often hostile, they...

Few would disagree that since 1990 Sub-Saharan Africa has undergone a process of political transformation. Where one-party systems once stood, multi-parties are now dominant; where heads of state once ruled autocratically, open elections have emerged. In this study, both African and non-African scholars take a critical look at the evolution and contradictions of democratization in seven African nations: Malawi, Cameroon, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Ghana, and Gabon, each at a different stage in the democratization process.

Some of these countries historically have not received much...