Long before the mid-nineteenth century, thousands of people were frequently moving between North America - specifically, the United States and British North America - and Leghorn, Genoa, Naples, Rome, Sicily, Piedmont, Lombardy, Venice, and Trieste. Predominantly traders, sailors, transient workers, Catholic priests, and seminarians, this group relied on the exchange of goods across the Atlantic to solidify transatlantic relations; during this period, stories about the New World passed between travellers through word of mouth and letter writing. Blurred Nationalities across the North Atlantic challenges the idea that national origin - for instance, Italianness - constitutes the only significant feature of a group's identity, revealing instead the multifaceted personalities of the people involved in these exchanges.

Marginal studies have become imperative in a world increasingly divided into haves and have-nots. Byron (sociology and anthropology, University of Wales) brings together a selection of nine cases from marginal regions of Europe to provide an overview across geographic, economic, social, and cultural aspects of marginality. Contributors in geography

The fourth edition of this highly regarded text has been completely revised and updated to reflect the complex political and economic developments that have occurred in Latin America in the 1990s. In the new introductory section, Wiarda and Kline emphasize the trend toward elected, democratic governments while underlining the difficulties of establishing democracy in a region still characterized by inequitable distribution of income, the legacy of large debts, and violence stemming from the drug trade. Exploring the patterns of political development, they also discuss the dynamics of political behavior and examine the tensions between those who favor a political regime in keeping with the authoritarian past and those who are working to establish democracy.In the second section of the book, distinguished experts on the region present thoroughly up-to-date analyses of each of the South American, Central American, and Caribbean countries. In the final section, the editors offer their conclusions about the promise and pitfalls of democracy in the region.

Die Verkleinerung der Armeen ist ein wesentlicher Aspekt der weltweiten Abrustung seit dem Ende des Kalten Krieges. Die Zahl an Menschen unter Waffen sank von 28,8 Millionen 1987 auf 22 Millionen 1998. Die Demobilisierung von Soldaten und deren Reintegration in das zivile Leben schuf Herausforderungen von national unterschiedlichem Umfang und Charakter. Welche Faktoren fuhrten zu Reduzierungen und wie wurden sie umgesetzt? Was waren die Konsequenzen fur Soldaten und Gesellschaft? Welchen Einfluss hatten sie auf Sicherheit und Entwicklung? Der Band stellt in Einzelbeitragen die verschiedenen nationalen Erfahrungen in westlichen Marktwirtschaften, Ubergangslandern und Nachkriegsgesellschaften dar. Fallstudien aus Afrika, Belgien, China, Groabritannien, Kambodscha, Osteuropa, Russland, Tadschikistan, den USA, Vietnam und Zentralamerika geben ein umfassendes Bild. Die internationale Autorenschaft, die Fulle an ausgewerteten Daten und die wissenschaftlich-politischen Schluafolgerungen machen den Band zu einem Handbuch, das fur politisch Interessierte wie fur das Fachpublikum von hohem Nutzen ist. Der Band wird herausgegeben vom Internationalen Konversionszentrum Bonn - Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC).