Building a World Community: Globalisation and the Common Good

This edited volume offers an understanding of how the international community, as a collection of significant actors including major states and intergovernmental institutions, has responded to the important political and social development of the Arab Spring. Contributors analyze the response by international organizations (UN, EU, NATO), big powers (US, Russia, China, UK), regional powers (Turkey, Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia) and small powers (Kuwait, Qatar). The book thus makes a sound contribution to the existing literature on the Arab Spring in form of foreign policy analysis and provides an overview of the current shape and outlook of global politics.

"The volumes in this series are intended to contribute to the development of the study of religion. It seems to us that it is especially important that appropriately conceived and well-written materials be available for use in undergraduate and graduate instruction. Moreover, it is our hope that this series will not only be a useful teaching instrument within the formal curriculum, but will also play an important role in shaping the study of religion. Individual Volumes fall into one of three subsections in the series. One set of studies, small in number, will be concerned with theories of religion or methodological approaches to the study of religion. Our attempts will be to offer books were none are available or where the existing materials are inadequate. A second group of books, also small, will deal with general aspects of religion in various traditions. Mysticism, symbol and myth, religious ethics, and other comparable topics deserve theoretical and systematic treatments not available at present, The third section of the series consists of the particular studies of various religious traditions, periods or movements. The editors will try to identify areas of study to which sufficient attention has not been given, as well as classical subjects which deserve or even require fresh approaches. We hope that each of the volumes in the series will be sufficiently lucid to serve as an introductory study, while also providing insights that will contribute to the work of specialists. Scholarly apparatus and bibliographies will be included to provide direction for further study. Throughout the project the editors will seek out studies which manifest unquestioned quality in scholarship and writing." -Editors

The "global community" is a term we take for granted today. But how did the global community, both as an idea and as a reality, originate and develop over time? This book examines this concept by looking at the emergence, growth, and activities of international organizations--both governmental and nongovernmental--from the end of the nineteenth century to today. Akira Iriye, one of this country's most preeminent historians, proposes a significant rereading of the history of the last fifty years, suggesting that the central influence on the international scene in this period was not the Cold War, but rather a deepening web of international interactions. This groundbreaking book, the first systematic study of international organizations by a historian, moves beyond the usual framework for studying international relations--politics, war, diplomacy, and other interstate affairs--as it traces the crucial role played by international organizations in determining the shape of the world today. Iriye's sweeping discussion of international organizations around the world examines multinational corporations, religious organizations, regional communities, transnational private associations, environmental organizations, and other groups to illuminate the evolution and meaning of the global community and global consciousness. While states have been preoccupied with their own national interests such as security and prestige, international organizations have been actively engaged in promoting cultural exchange, offering humanitarian assistance, extending developmental aid, protecting the environment, and championing human rights. In short, they have made important contributions to making the world a more interdependent and peaceful place. This book, tracing the development of the global community in a truly innovative way, will win a wide readership among those interested in understanding the growing phenomenon of globalization and its meaning for us today. Global Community is based on Iriye's Jefferson lectures at the University of California, Berkeley.

Community Development in an Uncertain World is an essential resource for students and professionals in the human services.

Less Than a Roar

Revisiting African philosophy's classic questions, D. A. Masolo advances understandings of what it means to be human -- whether of African or other origin. Masolo reframes indigenous knowledge as diversity: How are we to understand the place and structure of consciousness? How does the everyday color the world we know? Where are the boundaries between self and other, universal and particular, and individual and community? From here, he takes a dramatic turn toward Africa's current political situation and considers why individual rights and freedoms have not been recognized, respected, demanded, or enforced. Masolo offers solutions for containing socially destructive conduct and antisocial tendencies by engaging community. His unique thinking about community and the role of the individual extends African philosophy in new, global directions.