Many Americans believe Barak Obama represents a hopeful future for America. But does he also reflect the American politics of the past? This book offers the broadest and best-informed understanding on the meaning of the "Obama phenomenon" to date. Paul Street was on the ground throughout the Iowa campaign, and his stories of the rising Obama phenomenon are poignant. Yet the author's background in American political history allows him to explore the deeper meanings of Obama's remarkable political career. He looks at Obama in relation to contemporary issues of class, race, war, and empire. He considers Obama in the context of our nation's political history, with comparisons to FDR, JFK, Bill Clinton, and other leaders. Street finds that the Obama persona, crafted by campaign consultants and filtered through dominant media trends, masks the "change" candidate's adherence to long-prevailing power structures and party doctrines. He shows how American political culture has produced misperceptions by the electorate of Obama's positions and values. Obama is no magical exception to the narrow-spectrum electoral system and ideological culture that have done so much to define and limit the American political tradition. Yet the author suggests key ways in which Obama potentially advances democratic transformation. Street makes recommendations on how citizens can productively respond to and act upon Obama's influence and the broader historical and social forces that have produced his celebrity and relevance. He also lays out a real agenda for change for the new presidential administration, one that addresses the recent failures of democratic politics.

The 'generation' has been largely forgotten in the fields of sociology and political science, especially regarding global politics. This volume re-engages the concept of a 'generation,' utilizing it to explore how it can help us understand a variety of processes and patterns in International Relations and Comparative Politics.

As the new administration moved beyond its first year in office, Obama's politics of hope increasingly has been transformed into a politics of accommodation. To many of his supporters, his quest for pragmatism and realism has become a weakness rather than a strength. By focusing on those areas where Obama grounded his own sense of possibility, Giroux critically investigates the well-being and future of young people, including the necessity to overcome racial injustices, the importance of abiding by the promise of a democracy to come, and the indisputable value of education in democracy. Giroux shows why considerations provide the ethical and political foundations for enabling hope to live up to its promises, while making civic responsibility and education central to a movement that takes democracy seriously.

This book explores political expression of members of Generation Z old enough to vote in 2018 and 2020 on issues and movements including MeToo, Supreme Court nominations, March for Our Lives, immigration and family separation, and Black Lives Matter. Since generational dividing lines blur, we study 18 to 25-year-olds, capturing the oldest members of Generation Z along with the youngest Millennials. They share similarities both in their place in the life cycle and experiences of potentially defining events. Through examining some movements led by young adults and others led by older generations, as well as issues with varying salience, core theories are tested in multiple contexts, showing that when young adults protest or post about movements they align with, they become mobilized to participate in other ways, too, including contacting elected officials, which heightens the likelihood of their voices being heard in the halls of power.Perfect for students and courses in a variety of departments at all levels, the book is also aimed at readers curious about contemporary events and emerging political actors.

Childers (English, U. of California-Riverside) considers the role of the novel, particularly the social-problem novel of the 1840s, in interpreting and shaping the cultures of the early Victorian period. The volume's nine essays address the political novel's influence; Edwin Chadwick's Report on the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great Britain; and religion, radical politics, and the industrial novel. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Waveform Politics Ten is the final volume of contemporary history essays on empirical and philosophical topics from an ordinary American citizen's point of view. The wave forms in the title refer to the broadcast media's ubiquitous adverse conditioning of U.S. mass political thought. Volume One named 'Fade Into History/ started with essays written in 1999 and later with subsequent volumes viewing a panoramic presentation of concerns from the 9-11 attacks to major sociological restructuring of American moral concerns. From two foreign military engagements lasting most of the first decade of the third millennium to restructuring of the U.S. and Global economy the Waveform Politics series collects the experience of contemporary U.S. history interactively rather than retroactively.

Political editor Priya Sahgal profiles fourteen Gen-Next political leaders under the age of fifty-five. How do they shape their politics in the Age of Modi where the axis of politics revolves around one man? The Contenders captures an intriguing churn in the Indian leadership paradigm. There has been a generational change of guard in most political parties, from the north to the south. Most are pedigreed dynasts whose inheritance has been challenged by the biggest disrupter of them all. Can Rahul Gandhi, Akhilesh Yadav, Tejashwi Yadav, Arvind Kejriwal and Omar Abdullah consolidate and conquer? Will Rahul break out of his existential chakravyuha, caught between destiny and destination? How are Sachin Pilot and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra pitching their politics in a party where (individual) power is poison? Will Sachin's pilot project take off? What about the BJP's second rung? Is Yogi Adiyanath's rise and rise part of a plan, or is he the genie unleashed? What is it about Himanta Biswa Sarma that makes him indispensable to whichever party he belongs to? Can Jyotiraditya Scindia and Anurag Thakur maintain their momentum and panache in a very competitive BJP? With the Congress battling decline, never has the role of regional parties been more crucial, specially within the opposition. What he lacks in numbers, Arvind Kejriwal makes up for in gumption as he takes Modi on, headline for headline. Both Akhilesh and Tejashwi are reinventing themselves, looking beyond their traditional party base, while Asadduddin Owaisi remains a Prime Time warrior. Milind Deora and Jayant Chaudhary have renegotiated their politics, made some new friends and antagonised the old. What are the new rules of engagement in the Modified Game of Thrones? This is a book that listens, but does not judge. As a senior political journalist, Priya has interacted with most of them since their political debut; as she chronicles conversations that bring out their strengths, weaknesses and quirks. The style is easy and conversational, the portraits sharp and engaging. Within these pages you are likely to meet a future prime minister, a couple of chief ministers, several cabinet ministers and one not so reluctant fundamentalist. Do they have what it takes to lead India tomorrow? This book can help you decide.

There is currently much discourse about generations in the public sphere. A sequence of letters conflates generations and age cohorts born in the last few decades (generation “X”, “Y” or “Z”) as well as multiple categories are used to describe today’s young people as a generation that is distinct from its predecessors. Despite the popularity of generational labels in media, politics, or even academia, the use of generation as a conceptual tool in youth studies has been controversial. This Special Issue allows readers to better understand the key issues regarding the use of generation as a theoretical concept and/or as a social category in the field of youth studies, shedding light on the controversies, trends, and cautions that go through it.

Are young people today politically 'apathetic'? Or are they democratically 'mature' citizens? This book examines several types of involvement to reveal changes in young people's political participation in Europe in recent decades. It uses various concepts of 'age' to compare participation across countries and over time.

This collection examines the ways in which women have used political rhetoric and political discourse to provide leadership, or assert their right to leadership, at the national level. While over the years women have broken through traditional roles, they are still underrepresented in political leadership. In this text, scholars consider the various factors that continue to restrict political leadership opportunities for women as well as some of the ways in which individual women have strategically sought to enact political power and leadership for themselves. The contributors analyze various case studies of leadership positions at the national level, looking at women who have run, been nominated to run, or appointed to national positions. The interdisciplinary approach lends itself to: rhetoric; political rhetoric; political discourse; leadership studies; women’s studies; gender issues; satire; pop culture.