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This book is different from existing works on Ahmed Sékou Touré and the Guinean Democratic Party (PDG) and their struggle for national independence. Its uniqueness stems from the fact that all the chapters focus on the Guinean traditions of struggle over memories between the elites and the subordinates, highlighting the independent initiatives of the latter. Other books on Ahmed Sékou Touré are primarily based on their writers’ political or social history perspectives. This is the first study that equally integrates political and social history to address the theoretical and methodological issues of identity and construction of identity as necessary for understanding the roles of the elites and the subordinates in their struggles for access to power and resources in colonial and postcolonial Guinea. In this book, Saidou Mohamed N’Daou provides equal space for the initiatives and interests of the elites and the subordinates. Ahmed Sékou Touré used the ideology of the PDG as a mirror reflection of the social changes that he and his party intended to create. N’Daou argues that one must displace the ideology of the PDG from the center to understand Ahmed Sékou Touré's personality, his role in Guinea’s independence and his leadership of the PDG as well as expand the analytical space to allow other voices to be heard. N’Daou reaches this goal by discovering Ahmed Sékou Touré’s first order of knowledge, another unique feature of this book.

This book addresses the conversion of the Wends, and how Christian writers of the tenth and eleventh centuries perceived the submission of the Wends to the Christian faith. The main concern of the ecclesiastical authorities was to bring the apostate Wends back into the imperium Christianum: everyone who had accepted Christian baptism had to be prevented by all possible means from religious and political apostasy. More widely, the formation of a Christian identity is an excellent example of how conversion was a fluid set of propositions, discussed and rehearsed, influenced by many factors (not just canonical), and deployed in many contexts. This book’s task is to unravel how this dynamism played out against a marginal group.

The Greater Middle East: Travelogue & Reflections probes into the histories and cultures of different countries in the Greater Middle East through the author’s recounting of his travelling experiences in those countries. It explores the historical causes and realistic reasons for the wars in Middle East, North Africa and the Caucasus and shows the author’s investigation and understanding of the horizontal exchanges and vertical developments between various human civilizations.

Different from the usually-called "Middle East," the author combines the 21 members of the "Cultural Middle East" with 10 members of the "Periphery," and collectively refer to these 31 countries as the "Greater Middle East." The focus of this book remained on what the author had parsed from half a century of roaming, observation and reflection throughout the Greater Middle East. In this book, there are descriptions of major changes during these years, and lots of background information and personal impressions. This book can be an introductory text for the general readers, students and scholars interested in this topic.

Few regions in the world are as torn by conflicts as the Near East, in which Iran plays a central role. Opportunities to engage with Iran are abundant, but they are squandered when regional states address immediate conflicts in which Iran is only one part of despite its prominent role. Iran’s Interregional Dynamics in the Near East provides a comprehensive guide to broaden our understanding about Iran and its regional neighbors. By analyzing how Iran’s neighbors view their ties with the country, this volume reveals why Iran is less successful in expanding its regional influence than what is commonly assumed. This is the first book of its kind to be written exclusively by authors from and working in the Near East region who came together at a roundtable funded by and convened at Princeton University. As the moderator of the roundtable, the editor of this volume invited the authors to contribute chapters to this timely book. The book explores a wide range of topics to describe the complex relations between Iran and other states in the Near East including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Jordan, Lebanon, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman. The volume is designed to inform politicians, world leaders, scholars, senior policy makers, and graduate students, and it provides an accessible guide to undergraduate students, junior scholars, and the general public.

Hasan al-Turabi (1932-2016) was born into a Sudanese family with a clerical and Sufi history. Whilst studying law at the University of Khartoum, he became a leader of the Islamic student movement. After earning bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of London, he achieved a PhD at the University of Sorbonne in 1964. Upon returning to Sudan to pursue an academic career at the University of Khartoum, he soon became one of the leaders of the Islamic National Front. After being imprisoned for nearly seven years, he went on to hold numerous government posts, culminating in his most influential period during the rule of ‘Umar al-Bashir. He ultimately fell out of favour with the government, and faced trials and imprisonment. The Political Thought of Hasan al-Turabi identifies Turabi as arguably the leading Sudanese Islamic political thinker and activist of recent times, and sets out the main influences upon Turabi’s thought. Yet it is demonstrated that Turabi was an original thinker, who digested but then adapted the thought of his predecessors. Whilst his political goal was to politically unite the Islamic world, he also strove to improve relations with the non-Muslim world. Furthermore, his political thought sought to unite the Muslims and non-Muslims of Sudan in a peaceful unity, whilst working to raise the status of the poor and women.

This book is an examination of the American presidency from a purely constitutional perspective. Beginning with an overview of the Framers’ debates over the construction and duties of the office, the work explores the three primary charges of the office (administrator, military commander, diplomat), the legal and constitutional perimeters of the office, as well as suggestions on reforms to return it to its original form.

The Government and Politics of Lebanon, Second Edition describes the special attributes of Lebanese politics and the functions of its confessional state. It aims to contribute to the reader’s understanding of contemporary Lebanese politics, consensus building, and government. It stimulates discussion concerning the nature of consociationalism as a power sharing arrangement for a divided society. The book captures the complexity of Lebanese politics by revealing the challenges embedded in the management of plurality, including institutional paralysis and system stagnations. The second edition features new and expanded chapters that pay particular attention to state’s adaptations to post-Arab Spring politics. It expands the analysis on the performance of the Lebanese consociational state in light of turbulent regional environment and the various repercussions associated with regional conflict. It is divided into several parts. The first introduces the particular form and foundations of Lebanese consociationalism and provides an elaborate description of its special features. The second part explains the different rules of the game as institutionalized in the country’s international and domestic power sharing arrangements. It describes the international politics of Lebanon and the influence exerted by regional powers in shaping its domestic affairs. It explains the manifestation of domestic parties and electoral systems in the power distribution among the country’s different sectarian and ethnic groups. It analyzes the political economy of communitarian politics. The third part focuses on the contemporary powers and functions of the different branches of government as well as their institutional expression of sectarian interests. The fourth part of the book places Lebanese consociationalism in light of contemporary regional turmoil and describes state’s responsiveness in mitigating and managing conflicts, particularly those associated with the spillover from the Syrian conflict.

This book explains how and why, Australian governments shifted from their historical relationship with Britain to the beginning of a primary reliance on the United States between 1942 and 1957. It shows that, while the Curtin and Chifley ALP governments sought to maintain and strengthen Australia’s links with Britain, the Menzies administration took decisive steps towards this realignment.

There is broad acceptance that the end of British Australia only occurred in the 1960s and that the initiative for change came from Britain rather than Australia. This book rejects this consensus, which fundamentally rests on the idea of Australia remaining part of a British World until the UK attempts to join the European Community in the 1960s. Instead, it demonstrates that critical steps ending British Australia occurred in the 1950s and were initiated by Australia. These Australian actions were especially pronounced in the economic sphere, which has been largely overlooked in the current consensus. Australia’s understanding of its national self-interest outweighed its sense of Britishness. 

Political scientists have long determined that a president’s relationships with his advisors is crucial in determining an administration’s policies. Over the last several decades, scholars of the presidency have paid particular attention to the advisory structures and processes involved in foreign policy decision-making. Their work has contributed to the development and refinement of three presidential management models to help frame the analysis of foreign policy-making: (1) formalistic model, (2) collegial model, and (3) competitive model. This book analyzes the management models employed by presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump throughout their presidencies by employing a structured-focus comparison method that is framed on a set of general and standardized questions used to analyze a series of case studies involving their Middle East policies. The book offers the first systematic comparative analysis of presidents Bush, Obama, and Trump’s management of foreign policy crises.

Depuis l’occupation latine en 1204 et jusqu’à la chute de Constantinople en 1453, l’empire byzantin a connu un grand éclatement territorial et perdu de nombreuses et importantes provinces. L’indépendance des peuples qui autrefois étaient sous l’autorité de Byzance, la présence des Latins dans plusieurs régions de l’empire même après la fin de l’occupation latine et l’avancement progressif des ottomans ont forgé de nouveaux points de repères et créé des interactions dans tous les domaines.

Cet ouvrage est issu d’un colloque qui a eu lieu du 19 au 20 mars 2015 avec le soutien du LabEx EHNE, de la Sorbonne Université et du Centre André Chastel. Son objectif est d’étudier et de contextualiser la production artistique et culturelle des centres géopolitiques sous l’autorité de l’Empire byzantin ou en contact avec celui-ci durant sa dernière phase. Chacune des quatre parties vise à mettre en lumière une autre face de créativité et de transformation ou de nouveauté qui résulte de la profonde mutabilité de cette période, définie par l’affrontement et les échanges entre les différentes entités sociopolitiques dans toute la Méditerranée.