Rise and demise of nations are man-made and can be humanly controlled. These are neither naturally determined nor divinely fated. This book captures the root-process presiding over the problems, challenges, and the opportunities nations of the world face today. America has a three-dimensional problem. Its “process controls” have equated its “purpose controls.” Internally, it has developed “integration energy traps.” Externally, it has created a dangerously “interest-based” world order. America must move to the “next level” of human collectivity; or an Armageddon might hit us all within the next few decades. The Muslims’ “idea of State” is too “invalid”, “antiquated” and perilously “anti-liberty” to allow large political systems to evolve in the Islamic world. It has been incessantly sinking back into anarchy. The “Arab Spring” is continuation of medieval, chaotic and “identity-based” shift of power, devoid of “value” and “political mass”. With the given trends, the world must be ready for more Talibans, Bin Ladens, and Al-Qaedas, possibly equipped with weapons of mass destruction. India and China have big “N-factor”. But at controls level, unsustainability afflicts China and an age-old “identity clamp” is failing India. Both nations will see reversals in near future. China must realize that “economic future” is a component of “political future”; not the other way round. India must understand that democracy divorced from political creativity leads back to tyranny and anarchy. The basis of the entire debate is “Integration Energy Theory” which explains the reality of human togetherness in a timeless and non-spatial manner.

German statism as a political ideology has been the subject of many historical studies. Whereas most of these focus on theoretical texts, cultural works, and vague "traditions", this study understands German statism as a functioning logic of political membership, a logic that has helped to determine who is "in" and who is "out" with regard to the German political community. Tracing statism from the early 19th century through German unification and beyond in the 1990s, the author argues that, with its central concern for a political loyalty that is vetted "from above," it historically served the function of stabilizing the political order and containing democratic mobilization. Beginning in the 1960s, however, a mobilized German democratic consciousness "from below" gradually rejected statism as anachronistic for informing political and policy debate, and German political institutions began to respond to kind.

Black Theology emerged in the 1960s as a response to black consciousness. In South Africa it is a critique of power; in the UK it is a political theology of black culture. The dominant form of Black Theology has been in the USA, originally influenced by Black Power and the critique of white racism. Since then it claims to have broadened its perspective to include oppression on the grounds of race, gender and class. In this book the author contests this claim, especially by Womanist (black women) Theology. Black and Womanist Theologies present inadequate analyses of race and gender and no account at all of class (economic) oppression. With a few notable exceptions Black Theology in the USA repeats the mantras of the 1970s, the discourse of modernity. Content with American capitalism it fails to address the source of the impoverishment of black Americans at home. Content with a romantic imaginaire of Africa, this 'African-American' movement fails to defend contemporary Africa against predatory American global ambitions.

The essays in this book examine the arguments and rhetoric used by the United States and the USSR following two catastrophes that impacted both countries, as blame is cast and consequences are debated. In this environment, it was perhaps inevitable that conspiracy theories would arise, especially about the downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 over the Sea of Japan. Those theories are examined, resulting in at least one method for addressing conspiracy arguments. In the case of Chernobyl, the disaster ruptured the “social compact” between the Soviet government and the people; efforts to overcome the resulting disillusionment quickly became the focus of state efforts.

In Volume Three of this four-volume series, we examine the rhetorical development that occurred during the first two terms of Vladimir Putin’s tenure as president of the Russian Federation. Initially, Putin appeared to follow in the path set by his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, vowing that Russia was, at heart, a European nation and would be a westward facing democracy going forward. He even mentioned partnering with the EU and NATO. Eight years later, at the 2007 Munich Security Conference, Putin excoriated the West for, in his words, attempting to create a “unipolar world” in which NATO expansion threatened Russia’s security, the United States acted as the world’s sole “hegemon,” and Europe simply followed orders, relinquishing any sense of agency in its own affairs.

"Sixteen states came to be ruled by communist parties during the 20th century. Only five of them remain in power today. This book explores the nature of communist regimes-what they share in common, how they differed from each other, and how they differentially evolved over time. It finds that these regimes all came to power in the context of warfare or its aftermath, followed by the consolidation of power by a revolutionary elite that came to value "revolutionary violence" as the preferred means to an end, based upon Marx's vision of apocalyptic revolution and Lenin's conception of party organization. All these regimes went on to "build socialism" according to a Stalinist template, and were initially dedicated to "anti-imperialist struggle" as members of a "world communist movement." But their common features gave way to diversity, difference and defiance after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. For many reasons, and in many ways, those differences soon blew apart the world communist movement. They eventually led to the collapse of European communism. The remains of communism in China, Vietnam, Laos, North Korea, and Cuba were made possible by the first three transforming their economic systems, opening to the capitalist international order, and abandoning "anti-imperialist struggle." North Korea and Cuba have hung on due to the elites avoiding splits visible to the public. Analytically, the book explores, throughout, the interaction among the internal features of communist regimes (ideology and organization), the interactions among them within the world communist movement, and the interaction of communist states with the broader international order of capitalist powers"--

This provocative examination of Aztec marriage practices offers a powerful analysis of the dynamics of society and politics in Mexico before and after the Spanish conquest. The author surveys what it means to be polygynous by comparing the practice in other cultures, past and present, and he uses its demographic consequences to flesh out this understudied topic in Aztec history. Polygyny provided Aztec women with opportunities for upward social mobility. It also led to increased migration to Tenochtitlan and influenced royal succession as well as united the empire. Surprisingly, the shift to monogamy that the Aztecs experienced in a single generation took over a millennium to occur in Europe. Hassig’s analysis sheds new light on the conquest, showing that the imposition of monogamy—rather than military might, as earlier scholars have assumed—was largely responsible for the strong and rapid Spanish influence on Aztec society.

Atlantis was a global configuration of islands covering what is now the mid-Atlantic Ocean, as well as portions of the Pacific, and had islands even in the Indian Ocean. Europe and America were connected by a land passage, of which Iceland, Madeira, and the other Atlantic islands are remnants. Atlantis and its illustrious “Fourth Race” inhabitants sunk 856,000 years ago, coinciding with the elevation of the Alps. Titans and Cyclopes of old belonged to that Root-Race. Progressively, the human frame consolidated and symmetrised. Two front eyes developed but the “seers” sinned and lost the third. After the separation of the sexes, Karman forced the creative gods to incarnate in mindless men. Then, sight and speech developed, for language is coeval with reason. Humanity had passed the middle point in the Great Cycle. The door for further monads entering the human kingdom closed and the balance struck. Many of us are now working off the effects of the evil karmic causes produced by us in Atlantean bodies. Prometheus is the pre-eminent Atlantean hero and philanthropist. He bestowed to animal man divine mind. But the gift was abused and became a curse. The mystery of the Fourth Race “falling” into matter explained: Angels fell but not Man. Eminent Atlanteans are still kindling the Promethean fire. Zoroaster, Ulysses, Noah, Kabiri, Telchines, and other heroic figures are none other than mankind’s divine instructors and true benefactors. Atlantis was a land of beautiful and strong giants. Their initiates commemorated images of the five Races in stone for the instruction of future generations. Though perfected in materiality, they degenerated in spirituality. Black magic, bestiality, selfishness, and self-adoration spelled the demise of that proud race.

This study traces the rise of Kampuchean communism from its inception in 1930 to the present. The author analyzes the socioeconomic and political conditions that brought Cambodia to an explosive stage in 1970 and documents the cataclysmic transformation that followed. The protagonist in this ongoing historical drama is the revolutionary movement known as the Khmer Rouge, or "Red Khmers." Their revolution was so ultraradical that even the communists were appalled. The Soviets studiously ignored it, the Chinese vainly tried to moderate it, and the Vietnamese ultimately destroyed it. In an attempt to explain the Khmer revolution—one of the most violent in modern political history—the author focuses on the ideology created by a key group of Khmer Rouge leaders. The theoretical and historical significance of the Khmer revolution and the state of Democratic Kampuchea has received little attention from scholars, and far too much of what has been written has been motivated by a bewildering array of ideological and geopolitical interests. This book is one of the first to apply a systematic analytical framework to the creation, growth, and destruction of Democratic Kampuchea.