During the Second World War, all contact between German soldiers and Polish women - considered an 'inferior race' - was officially banned. Sexual encounters frequently took place, however. Some were consensual, while others were characterised by brutal violence, and women often sold their bodies as a means of survival. The army and SS constructed purpose-built brothels for their soldiers, but also banned and frequently punished loving relationships.0In Wartime Relations, Historian Maren Roeger gives a powerful account of these encounters and describes the actions of the army and the SS in regulating relations between soldiers and civilian women. Roeger provides new and important insights into everyday life during the occupation, Nazi racial policy, and the fates of the women involved
"We used to go to the movies. We used to speak of flicks, even flicking out. We used to stand in line with friends in delicious anticipation to buy tickets for a movie that got a rapturous review. We used to be ushered into blinding darkness within cavernous halls of downtown gilded-age theaters to look at enormous screens. And we might go without regard to when the feature began, enter in the middle, sit through its ending, its double-bill and shorts, and only then watch the beginning of what we wanted to see. A small personal triumph occurred when, seeing a flick with friends or family, you were the first one to get up to leave announcing that "this was the place in the movie where we came in."--
"Today, ordoliberalism is at the centre of the ongoing debate about the foundations, the present governance and future prospects of the European Union-and yet we do not dispose of a comprehensive definition of it. Whenever we talk of the dominance of the German model, the discussion should involve a detailed picture of ordoliberal principles. This book retraces the intellectual history of ordoliberalism, focusing in particular on the works of its main representatives Walter Eucken and Wilhelm Röpke, together with references to the contributions of Franz Böhm, Alexander Rüstow, Leonhard Miksch and Friedrich Lutz. The book highlights the crucial, albeit overlooked, role of economic and political power in the making of ordoliberal thought. More precisely, the book shows that ordoliberalism, in its ideological, epistemological, theoretical and political components, can be defined as a political economy of power, i.e. a form of economic knowledge, whose primary objective is to analyse the sources, the action and the impact of power within society. By doing so the book will offer a new perspective on ordoliberals' key concepts built in the inter-war, while contextualizing them within a broader intellectual project."
"The first edition of Real Econometrics attempted to reduce math anxiety for students learning applied statistical techniques. Beginning with the assumption that students will learn more if they start with experiments and see how the statistical enterprise is used to approximate certain features of the experimental process, the book gives students a chance to explore policy questions at every step of the way. The response to this approach has been tremendous. Instructors appreciate the author's reliance on endogeneity as a founding concept, his more conversational and sometimes humorous writing style, and the diversity of examples and hands-on work. Political Science professors understand "Real Stats" as a book that will bridge their students from their earlier course on basic statistics to more advanced econometric techniques. One of the early reviewers described the book as "a stats book that ... really just cuts to the chase instead of wasting time on probablity theory and chi squares." For instructors teaching a research methods course to graduate students or upper level undergraduates in political science, public policy, or law, this is a welcome and badly needed approach. For this second edition of Real Stats, suggestions from reviewers will be considered carefully. The book may contain too much material for the typical political science oriented class, and it will not need some of the additional content planned for the revision of Real Economtrics such as advanced time series concepts. However, an expanded appendix (or early chapter introduction) reviewing probabilty and statistics, additional coverage of data presentation, the addition of conceptual exercises to balance out the mostly mathematical problems, and the inclusion of more code and guidance for R software are all likely improvements."
"This book on freedom of speech and expression starts (Chapter 1) with an inter-cultural history of this valued right through the ages and then recalls (Chapter 2) the benefits for which we rightly value it. But what about speech that frustrates these benefits? Supporters of the benefits of free speech have reason to exercise voluntary self-restraint on speech which frustrates the benefits. They should also cultivate a second remedy: the art, illustrated in chapter 1, and called by Gandhi the art of 'opening ears', by other kinds of speech and conduct. Such voluntary methods are to be preferred to legal constraints. But (chapter 3) legal constraint is sometimes necessary. In the 21st century, social media funding based on manipulation of personal speech data requires skilful legislation and enforcement in favour of social media that protect our freedoms"--
The world, according to Kant, is made up of two levels of reality: the transcendental and the empirical. The transcendental level is a mind-independent level at which things in themselves exist. The empirical level is a fully mind-dependent level at which appearances exist, which are intentional objects of experience. The distinction between appearances and things in themselves lies at the heart of Kant's critical philosophy and has been the focus of fierce debate among scholars for over two hundred years. Anja Jauernig offers this interpretation of Kant's critical idealism as an ontological position, which comprises transcendental idealism, empirical realism, and a number of other basic ontological theses, as developed in the Critique of Pure Reason and associated texts.0In this interpretation Kant is a genuine idealist about empirical objects, empirical minds, and space and time. Yet in contrast to other intentional objects, appearances genuinely exist, which is due to both the special character of experience compared to other kinds of representations such as illusions or dreams, and to the grounding of appearances in things themselves. This is why Kant can also be considered a genuine realist about empirical objects, empirical minds, and space and time. This book spells out Kant's case for critical idealism thus understood, pinpoints the differences between critical idealism and ordinary idealism, and clarifies the relation between Kant's conception of things in themselves and the conception of things in themselves by other philosophers, in particular Kant's Leibniz-Wolffian predecessors
Slavery in Europe during antiquity and the first millennium -- Scandinavian slavery -- Where did the slaves come from? -- Thralls in Old Norse poetry and sagas -- Thralls in runic inscriptions -- Terms for thralls and their meanings -- How were thralls used? -- Evidence for thralls in Scandinavian place-names -- How were thralls identified? -- Thralls' names in Scandinavia -- The special case of Älmeboda parish in southern Småland -- Thralls in the archaeological material - Can we excavate slavery? -- The rise and fall of Scandinavian thraldom - when did slavery appear in Scandinavia? -- The status of slaves in Prehistoric Scandinavian society.
"Transhumanists urge us to pursue the biotechnological heightening of select capacities, above all, cognitive ability, so far beyond any human ceiling that the beings with those capacities would exist on a higher ontological plane. Because transhumanists tout humanity's self-transcendence via science and technology, and suggest that bioenhancement may be morally required, the human stakes of how we respond to transhumanism are unprecedented and immense. In Posthuman Bliss? The Failed Promise of Transhumanism, Susan B. Levin challenges transhumanists' overarching commitments regarding the mind, brain, ethics, liberal democracy, knowledge, and reality in a more thoroughgoing and integrated way than has occurred thus far. Her critique shows transhumanists' notion of humanity's self-transcendence into "posthumanity" to be pure, albeit seductive, fantasy. Levin's philosophical conclusions would stand even if, as transhumanists proclaim, science and technology supported their vision of posthumanity. They offer breezy assurances that posthumans will emerge if we but allocate sufficient resources to that end. Yet, far from offering theoretical and practical "proof of concept" for the vision that they urge upon us, transhumanists engage inadequately with cognitive psychology, biology, and neuroscience, often relying on questionable or outdated views within those fields. Having shown in depth why transhumanism should be rejected, Levin defends a holistic perspective on living well that is rooted in Aristotle's virtue ethics but adapted to liberal democracy. This holism is thoroughly human, in the best of senses. We must jettison transhumanists' fantasy, both because their arguments fail and because transhumanism fails to do us justice"--
The global history of oil politics, from World War I to the present, can teach us much about world politics, climate change, and international order in the twenty-first century. When and why does international order change? The largest peaceful transfer of wealth across borders in all of human history began with the oil crisis of 1973. OPEC countries turned the tables on the most powerful businesses on the planet, quadrupling the price of oil and shifting the global distribution of profits. It represented a huge shift in international order. Yet, the textbook explanation for how world politics works-that the most powerful country sets up and sustains the rules of international order after winning a major war-doesn't fit these events, or plenty of others. Instead of thinking of "the" international order as a single thing, Jeff Colgan explains how it operates in parts, and often changes in peacetime. Partial Hegemony offers lessons for leaders and analysts seeking to design new international governing arrangements to manage an array of pressing concerns ranging from US-China rivalry to climate change, and from nuclear proliferation to peacekeeping. A major contribution to international relations theory, this book promises to reshape our understanding of the forces driving change in world politics.