Why did the Soviet Union use less force to preserve the Soviet empire from 1989 to 1991 than it had used in distant and impoverished Angola in 1975? This book fills a key gap in international relations theories by examining how actors' preferences and causal conceptions change as they learn from their experiences.Andrew Bennett draws on interviews and declassified Politburo documents as well as numerous public statements to establish the views of Soviet and Russian officials. He argues that Soviet leaders drew lessons from their apparent successes in Vietnam and elsewhere in the 1970s that...

The use of case studies to build and test theories in political science and the other social sciences has increased in recent years. Many scholars have argued that the social sciences rely too heavily on quantitative research and formal models and have attempted to develop and refine rigorous methods for using case studies. This text presents a comprehensive analysis of research methods using case studies and examines the place of case studies in social science methodology. It argues that case studies, statistical methods, and formal models are complementary rather than competitive....

What is this thing called literature? Why should we study it? And how?

Relating literature to topics such as dreams, politics, life, death, the ordinary and the uncanny, this beautifully written book establishes a sense of why and how literature is an exciting and rewarding subject to study. Bennett and Royle delicately weave an essential love of literature into an account of what literary texts do, how they work and what sort of questions and ideas they provoke.

The book s three parts reflect the fundamental components of studying literature: reading, thinking and writing. The...