'Bearing Gifts to Greeks' focuses on the under-documented work of the relief agencies involved in dealing with wartime famine and humanitarian aid in Greece during the tripartite occupation and the ensuing civil war in the 1940s. A selection of remarkable photographs from the time, many of which have not been published before, support the text.

This text provides a detailed overview of the various attempts to incorporate a security and defence role in the European integration process. Consideration is given to why these aspects of the integration process have proven so elusive and what progress has been made towards this goal.

Juhana Aunesluoma considers the ways in which Scandinavia's, in particular neutral Sweden's, relationship was forged with the Western powers after the Second World War. He argues that during the early cold war Britain had a special role in Scandinavia and in the ways in which Western oriented neutrality became a part of the international system. New evidence is presented on British, American and Swedish foreign and defence policies regarding neutrality in the cold war.

This volume brings together nine essays by established and new scholars from Russia, Britain and North America to explore the historical contexts and current relevance of the work of the Bakhtin Circle for social theory, philosophy, history and linguistics.

Arturo J.Cruz, Jr argues that political learning, trust-building, and institutional innovation by political elites broke Nicaragua's post-colonial cycle of anarchy and petty despotism, leaving in its place an increasingly inclusive oligarchic democracy that made possible state-led economic development for the next thirty years. Subsequent economic development gave rise to new social groups and localist power centres that remained politically disparate, and in turn forged an outsiders' coalition to bring down the Republic.

Seven leading specialists present chapters devoted to key themes in Soviet and post-Soviet Russian politics. Those themes include: the personal versus the institutional in the political process; legitimacy and legitimation; and change and collapse of a mono-organisational society. While the book focuses on these major themes, individual chapters deal with wide-ranging and even unusual cases: Graeme Gill analyzes the legitimating functions of Moscow's architecture, Sheila Fitzpatrick uses the archives to draw a picture of Stalin 'the boss' dealing with his closest colleagues, Eugene Huskey...

The transformation in Chinese social theory in the twentieth century placed the rural-urban divide at the centre of individual identity. This interdisciplinary collection traces the development and distinctions between urban and rural life and the effect on the Chinese sense of identity from the sixteenth century to the present day.

Development has been elusive for Latin America in the 1990s. Notwithstanding tough neoliberal reforms, defeated hyperinflation, and large capital inflows, development of productive capacity and social equity shows a poor performance. They also analyze macroeconomic management, trade and financial liberalization in recent years.

Japan has consistently been pursuing the goal of a permanent UN Security Council seat for 30 years. It is therefore a study of the interior workings of the Japanese Foreign Ministry as well as of the country's underdeveloped multilateral diplomacy.

Rangsimaporn argues that Russia aspires to become a great power and tries to achieve this through utilizing its position as a Eurasian country, with vast territories in East Asia, its economic assets, primarily arms and energy, and careful management of its role in a multipolar East Asia with a complex balance of power.