"What would rodeo look like if we took it as a record, not of human triumph and resilience, but of human imperfection and stubbornness?” asks animal historian Susan Nance. Against the backdrop of the larger histories of ranching, cattle, horses, and the environment in the West, this book explores how the evolution of rodeo has reflected rural western beliefs and assumptions about the natural world that have led to environmental crises and served the beef empire. By unearthing behind-the-scenes stories of rodeo animals as diverse individuals, this book lays bare contradictions within rodeo and the rural West. For almost 150 years, westerners have used rodeo to symbolically reenact their struggles with animals and the land as uniformly progressive and triumphant. Nance upends that view with accounts of individual animals that reveal how diligently rodeo people have worked to make livestock into surrogates for the trials of rural life in the West and the violence in its history. Western horses and cattle were more than just props. Rodeo reclaims their lived history through compelling stories of anonymous roping steers and calves who inspired reform of the sport, such as the famed but abused bucker Steamboat, and the many broncs and bulls, famous or not, who unknowingly built an industry. Rodeo is a dangerous sport that reveals many westerners as people proudly tolerant of risk and violence, and ready to impose these values on livestock. In Rodeo: An Animal History, Nance pushes past standard histories and the sport’s publicity to show how rodeo was shot through with stubbornness and human failing as much as fortitude and community spirit.

In Reapportionment and Redistricting in the West, Gary F. Moncrief brings together some of the best-known scholars in American state and electoral politics to explore the unique processes and problems of redistricting in the western United States. These political scientists examine the specific challenges facing western states in ensuring fair and balanced political representation. Western states tend to be geographically large and experiencing rapid population growth and the chapters in this enlightening volume discuss the changing demographics in western states, paying special attention to the rise in the Latino population and the effect this has had on reapportionment and redistricting. They describe the ways in which some of these states achieve redistricting through independent redistricting commissions—a process rarely found in other regions—and they provide policy prescriptions for the future.

This definitive portrait of American diplomacy reveals how the concept of the West drove twentieth-century foreign policy, how it fell from favor, and why it is worth saving. Throughout the twentieth century, many Americans saw themselves as part of Western civilization, and Western ideals of liberty and self-government guided American diplomacy. But today, other ideas fill this role: on one side, a technocratic "liberal international order," and on the other, the illiberal nationalism of "America First." In The Abandonment of the West, historian Michael Kimmage shows how the West became the dominant idea in US foreign policy in the first half of the twentieth century -- and how that consensus has unraveled. We must revive the West, he argues, to counter authoritarian challenges from Russia and China. This is an urgent portrait of modern America's complicated origins, its emergence as a superpower, and the crossroads at which it now stands.

The story of the American West is that of a journey. It is the story of a movement, of a geographical and human transition, of the delineation of a route that would soon become a rooted myth. The story of the American West has similarly journeyed across boundaries, in a two-way movement, sometimes feeding the idea of that myth, sometimes challenging it. This collection of essays relates to the notion of the traveling essence of the myth of the American West from different geographical and disciplinary standpoints. The volume originates in Europe, in Spain, where the myth traveled, was received, assimilated, and re-presented. It intends to travel back to the West, in a two-way cross-cultural journey, which will hopefully contribute to the delineation of the New—always self-renewing—American West. It includes the work of authors of both sides of the Atlantic ocean who propose a cross-cultural, transdisciplinary dialogue upon the idea, the geography and the representation of the American West.

Re-examines notions of East and West in contemporary European cinema. This book presents a comprehensive investigation of Central European cinema in the early 21st century.

Essays by intellectuals and specialists in Latin American cultural studies that provide a comprehensive view of the specific problems, topics, and methodologies of the field vis-a-vis British and U.S. cultural studies.

This book argues that the G20 is neither a global executive board for a new world order, nor is it just a crisis unit for failing economies. It is a laboratory for the observation, experimentation and invention of new forms of international cooperation that are redefining global politics.

From Rwanda to Somalia to the former Yugoslavia, one feature of the post-Cold War world has become dreadfully clear. Ethnic conflicts are escalating, and with them demands for international intervention. But legally most ethnic conflicts are "internal" matters. How are international organizations, their resources stretched woefully thin, to know when intervention is appropriate or possible? This volume addresses the changing nature of relations between war-torn multiethnic states and international organizations, particularly the United Nations and its agencies. Are the established norms that limit intervention in ethnic conflicts adequate to contemporary conditions? Can international organizations meet the increasing demand? If not, what are the consequences of the disparities between established norms, current capabilities, and expanding expectations—and how might these disparities be narrowed? The contributors explore the desirability and potential effectiveness of international interventions in ethnic conflicts. Detailed studies of two specific cases of severe and violent tensions, in Lebanon and Yugoslavia, complement the general discussion with particular insights into the risks and exigencies of international attempts to manage ethnic civil war. A deeply thoughtful overview of one of the most pressing and perplexing issues confronting the world today, this volume clarifies the changing role of international organizations in an increasingly fragmented world.