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In the 12 chapters of this book the authors argue for the universal presence of music in public space and social relations. The examples of American, British, Hungarian, Polish and Russian music serve to elucidate two functions of political music, that of legitimizing and contesting political power. Both satirical songs with their ironic commentary on specific events and people as well as protest songs undermining the system corroborate the universal character of the legitimizing and delegitimizing function of music. The book is addressed to readers interested in countercultural movements and politically engaged music, especially to students of political studies, sociology and cultural studies.

Focused on the struggle to survive by the Jewish Poles stranded in the Polish countryside during the Holocaust, case studies collected in this volume are based on research carried out at Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance. Where possible, they are also complemented by Jewish survivors’ testimonies dispersed throughout the world. There are at least two leitmotifs recurring throughout all texts: What are the social correlates of the anti-Jewish violence undertaken by Polish neighbours without German initiative and even knowledge? Are there certain types of social relationships more subject or prone to this kind of violence? What was the role of peasantry, social elites, and Catholic church in inciting and perpetrating it? Was this violence influenced by the Holocaust, or was it a separate form of genocidal violence?

The book focuses on the Polish social policy, its contextual (historical, organisational, conceptual, financial) conditionings, the institutions it fitted in, and primarily on the practical activities, undertaken by the state and other entities with regard to its individual domains. The time span covered by the analysis is the period of 1918–1939. The scope of the research is based on the ways the social policy in the interwar period was conceptualised. It covers labour and employment issues (labour legislation, combatting unemployment, migration policy), social insurance (retirement pension, work injury, sickness insurance), social welfare (support for the poor, welfare for mothers, children, adults and the disabled, problems of social pathologies) and health care system.

In January 2012, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), a group dominated by members of the Tuareg ethnic group, launched a military uprising seeking the independence of Mali’s vast but sparsely populated north as the democratic, secular nation-state of Azawad.  Azawad’s Facebook Warriors tells the extraordinary story of a small group of social media activists who sought to broadcast the MNLA’s cause to the world. Azawad’s Facebook Warriors offers a groundbreaking new study of the MNLA’s use of social media through the original analysis of more than 8,000 pro-MNLA Facebook posts published over a four-year period and interviews with key architects of the MNLA’s media strategy. The book further places the MNLA’s social media activism in context through a nuanced treatment of northern Mali’s history and an unparalleled blow-by-blow account of the MNLA’s role in the Malian civil war from 2012 through 2015. More broadly, through the case study of the MNLA, the book argues that studying rebel social media communications, a field that has until now unfortunately received scant scholarly attention, will prove an increasingly important tool in understanding rebel groups in coming years and decades.

Land system reform in China has always been a hot topic and a controversial one. After the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee (2013) issued its “Decision,” people throughout society generally responded well to that part relating to land system reform, but there were also a few dissenting voices. In the face of controversy, the central government determined the principles of land system reform: it set the program, tested it in local pilots, and only then did it apply the reform uniformly, first by enacting the laws, and so on. Under this background, this book goes through the fundamental logic of China’s land system reform since the 1980s and studies the problems this logic has encountered and whether it still works well. Hence, this book covers topics ranging from the historic origin of China’d land system, China’s rural land system and the relationship between China’s urbanization and land system reform. As a famous policy expert in China, the author also provides his own insights into how to find a solution to the land issue in China. This book is suitable for anyone who is interested in the facts and relevant research works of China’s land system reform, especially researchers in similar fields.

Professor James Cracraft is an established specialist on early modern Russian history, particularly the era of Peter the Great (1682-1725), tsar and first Russian emperor. This volume gathers some of the many key articles and reviews published by him over the last forty years and more in a wide variety of scholarly venues, some of which are not readily accessible. They constitute in sum important contributions not only to Russian history broadly understood, but also to the study of history itself. The collection will include a preface by the editor and an introduction by the author, where he will sum up his decades of historical work and point to new avenues of needed research, all the while emphasizing that "history" properly understood does not exist somewhere on its own but is the creation, however imperfect, of professional historians (as "chemistry", say, is properly understood as the work, however imperfect, of professional chemists).

Japan lives twice. Japan belonged to the East before 1962, when The Economist's editorialized, "Consider Japan". It gave the world a warning-cum-welcoming signal to Japan about joining the West. Thereafter Japan belonged to the West in science, industry and international law, whereas Japan was regarded psychologically in the West as belonging to the East in sakura, sushi, and snow country. After 1992, the morning after the bubble collapse, Japan belonged to the new West, not bereft of mishaps and mistakes and embedded with stall and stagnation as the rest of the old West. Yet Japan has been going through the "lost three decades" of muddling through recession and deflation, as if Japan had trod the Dengist path to "hide your strength and bide your time" without loud fanfare. By 2022 Japan will come up quietly as the oasis of stability when the world is struggling with climate change and infectious disease diffusion in addition to its decline from the overconfidence of its own capabilities. Japan has emerged, combining its aggregate niches of technology of its own erstwhile dominant manufacturing, further enhanced by technological prowess obtained by massive foreign direct investment due to sluggish domestic market demand. In examining Japanese politics in comparative angle, this book starts by asking: from the East to the West, and then whither?

This book aims to introduce all aspects of Chinese civilization in a way that is easiest for readers in the Western world to understand. The first chapter of this book introduces the emergence, historical evolution and characteristics of Chinese civilization. The second chapter introduces the knowledge pedigree of Chinese civilization, which is characterized by human-centered and historical and social practice. The third chapter introduces the value pedigree of Chinese civilization with ethics and responsibility as the core and the fourth chapter introduces the national governance system of Chinese civilization in selecting and appointing talents. The fifth chapter introduces China’s self-organization of mutual assistance and mutual benefit and the final chapter discusses the relationship between Chinese civilization and world civilization in the new era. Since entering the 21st century, China's economic aggregate and political influence have increased day by day. However, for a long time, the Western world's view of China has been full of various prejudices and misunderstandings which are produced by the ignorance of the history and current situation of Chinese civilization. It is hoped that readers can profoundly change their views on China after reading this book.

Universities and colleges like to self-idealize as relatively neutral and value-free sites of higher learning. In reality, the idea of the Westernized academy is deeply embedded in a Eurocentric logic that not only excludes alternative forms of knowledge and knowing, but also remains racialized, gendered, and sited in coloniality with respect to governance, scholarship, and entitlements. Efforts to address this gap between the ideal and reality have tended toward diversifying the academy through multicultural initiatives in diversity, inclusion, and equity. However helpful as a first step, these interventions are insufficient in generating the kind of substantive changes that would abort the academy’s crisis of legitimacy. Moves to decolonize, ungender, and deracialize the academy will require a commitment to the transformative principles of inclusivity, including a focus on those root causes associated with structural barriers and systemic biases. It remains to be seen if the academia can rise to the challenge of deEurocentrizing the idea of the academy along postEurocentric lines, while engaging the emergent demands and evolving realities of a postmulticultural world.

Coincés entre le tournant du xx^esiècle, qui voit encore s’épanouir les diverses expressions de l’Art nouveau, et l’entre-deux-guerres, que l’on associe à l’Art déco, les développements des arts appliqués dans les années　1910 paraissent quelque peu délaissés par l’historiographie. Pourtant, depuis la présence des créateurs allemands au Salon d’Automne de 1910 jusqu’à la fondation du Bauhaus à Weimar en 1919, en passant par les commandes que passe déjà le couturier Jacques Doucet à différents décorateurs, bien des événements rappellent la place cruciale qu’occupe cette décennie dans l’histoire des arts décoratifs, de la mode et du design.

Cet ouvrage rassemble vingt-deux textes, issus pour la plupart des communications délivrées lors d’un colloque international organisé en 2016 au Centre André Chastel et au Mobilier national. Ces contributions permettent de reconsidérer la production décorative et usuelle des années　1910 à l’aune des recherches récentes. Elles reviennent sur les débats qui sous-tendent la production étudiée, considèrent l’importance prise par la mode dans la genèse de ce qui prendra a posteriori le nom d’Art déco, réévaluent les années de guerre en tant que période de gestation de productions futures et explorent la diversité des parcours artistiques, tout en inscrivant la réflexion dans une dimension internationale (France, Belgique, États-Unis, Grande-Bretagne, Italie, Allemagne, Autriche, Pologne, Croatie).