Böcker utgivna av Columbia University Press

The major player in the OPEC international oil industry cartel, Saudi Arabia is also the homeland of the Prophet Muhammad and the center of the Muslim world with the most sacred Islamic sites located in and around the cities of Mecca and Madina. To the non-Saudi, the kingdom appears remarkably calm and stable, at least by the standards of the Middle East. But the rise of a new type of international terrorism, personified by exiled Saudi Osama bin Laden and with extensive roots in post- Gulf War Saudi Arabia, testifies to a volatile underground of discontent within the kingdom. Ideological frustration with the Saudi regime's perceived submission to American imperialism has merged with Saudi Arabia's chronic social and economic inequality to create an increasingly unstable situation. Daryl Champion, a specialist in Saudi Arabian affairs, opens a vista on these developments usually closed to Western observers. In the face of internal and external calls for reform and the mounting imperatives of globalization, the Al Saud dynasty is at a crossroads. The reforms required by the global economy conflict with both the vested interests of the kingdom's elites and the demands of a domestic population that has deeply conservative religious and cultural roots and proud traditions. The Paradoxical Kingdom develops five interrelated themes, exploring the complex cross currents of religion, tradition, domestic and global economics, politics, and state power in Saudi Arabia as the nation uneasily enters the twenty-first century. It shows how a great deal of wealth has been squandered and how the state's wealth is in decline, examines the Arabian equivalent of Asia's infamous "crony capitalism," and considers the durability of the Saudi oil/welfare state and the House of Saud itself. Champion's portrait of domestic Saudi society is augmented by an examination of the kingdom's increasingly complicated and uneasy relationship with the United States. He explores the vital interconnections between the rising tide of anti-American sentiment in Saudi Arabia and popular resistance to the cultural implications of globalization. This conflation of forces, Champion argues, portends a future of increasing political dissent in the land of the Prophet.

Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007) was a controversial social and cultural theorist known for his trenchant analyses of media and technological communication. Belonging to the generation of French thinkers that included Gilles Deleuze, Jean-François Lyotard, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Lacan, Baudrillard has at times been vilified by his detractors, but the influence of his work on critical thought and pop culture is impossible to deny (many might recognize his name from The Matrix movies, which claimed to be based on the French theorist's ideas). Steve Redhead takes a fresh look at Baudrillard in relation to the intellectual and political climates in which he wrote. Baudrillard sought to produce a theory of modernity, but the modern world of the 1950s was radically different from the reality of the early twenty-first century. Beginning with Baudrillard's initial publications in the 1960s and concluding with his writings on 9/11 and Abu Ghraib, Redhead guides the reader through Baudrillard's difficult texts and unorthodox views on current issues. He also proposes an original theory of Baudrillard's relation to postmodernism, presenting the theorist's work as "non-postmodernist," after Bruno Latour's concept of "non-modernity." Each section of the Reader includes an extract from one of Baudrillard's writings, prefaced by a short bibliographical introduction that places the piece in context and puts the debate surrounding the theorist into sharp perspective. The conflict over Baudrillard's legacy stems largely from the fact that a comprehensive selection of his writings has yet to be translated and collected into one volume. The Jean Baudrillard Reader provides an expansive and much-needed portrait of the critic's resonant work.

Min W. Jung offers a new understanding of the neural basis of innovation in terms of humans¿ exceptional capacity for imagination and high-level abstraction.

The Best American Magazine Writing 2023 will feature a selection of articles honored by this year¿s National Magazine Awards for Print and Digital Media.

This book brings together an ensemble of leading theorists and younger voices to explore new dimensions of Seyla Benhabib¿s thought across critical theory, feminism, and democratic theory, foregrounding the intricate relationship between critique and universality.