Darden traces the decisions that shaped the entry of post-Soviet states into the world economy.

W. E. B. Du Bois was the preeminent black scholar of his era. He was also a principal founder and for twenty-eight years an executive officer of the nation's most effective civil rights organization, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Even though Du Bois was best known for his lifelong stance against racial oppression, he represented much more. He condemned the racism of the white world but also criticized African Americans for mistakes of their own. He opposed segregation but had reservations about integration. Today he would be known as a pluralist. In Du Bois and His Rivals, Raymond Wolters provides a distinctive biography of this great pioneer of the American civil rights movement. Readers are able to follow the outline of Du Bois's life, but the book's main emphasis is on discrete scenes in his life, especially the controversies that pitted Du Bois against his principal black rivals. He challenged Booker T. Washington because he could not abide Washington's conciliatory approach toward powerful whites. At the same time, Du Bois's pluralism led him to oppose the leading separatists and integrationists of his day. He berated Marcus Garvey for giving up on America and urging blacks to pursue a separate destiny. He also rejected Walter White's insistence that integration was the best way to promote the advancement of black people. Du Bois felt that American blacks should be full-fledged Americans, with all the rights of other American citizens. However, he believed that they should also preserve and develop enough racial distinctiveness to enable them to maintain and foster a sense of racial identity, community, and pride. Du Bois and His Rivals shows that Du Bois stood for much more than protest against racial oppression. He was also committed to pluralism, and his pluralism emphasized the importance of traditional standards and of internal cooperation within the black community. Anyone interested in the civil rights movement, black history, or the history of the United States during the early twentieth century will find this book valuable.

This is a critical history of spy fiction, film and television in the United States, with a particular focus on the American fictional spies that rivaled (and were often influenced by) Ian Fleming's James Bond. James Fenimore Cooper's Harvey Birch, based on a real-life counterpart, appeared in his novel The Spy in 1821. While Harvey Birch's British rivals dominated spy fiction from the late 1800s until the mid-1930s, American spy fiction came of age shortly thereafter. The spy boom in novels and films during the 1960s, spearheaded by Bond, heavily influenced the espionage genre in the United States for years to come, including series like The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Matt Helm. The author demonstrates that, while American authors currently dominate the international spy fiction market, James Bond has cast a very long shadow, for a very long time.

No country feels China's rise more deeply than Japan. Through intricate case studies of visits by Japanese politicians to the Yasukuni Shrine, conflicts over the boundaries of economic zones in the East China Sea, concerns about food safety, and strategies of island defense, Sheila A. Smith explores the policy issues testing the Japanese government as it tries to navigate its relationship with an advancing China. Smith finds that Japan's interactions with China extend far beyond the negotiations between diplomats and include a broad array of social actors intent on influencing the Sino-Japanese relationship. Some of the tensions complicating Japan's encounters with China, such as those surrounding the Yasukuni Shrine or territorial disputes, have deep roots in the postwar era, and political advocates seeking a stronger Japanese state organize themselves around these causes. Other tensions manifest themselves during the institutional and regulatory reform of maritime boundary and food safety issues. Smith scrutinizes the role of the Japanese government in coping with contention as China's influence grows and Japanese citizens demand more protection. Underlying the government's efforts is Japan's insecurity about its own capacity for change and its waning status as the leading economy in Asia. For many, China's rise means Japan's decline, and Smith suggests how Japan can maintain its regional and global clout as confidence in its postwar diplomatic and security approach diminishes.

Explores how the 1789 congressional election between two future presidents with differing views on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights influenced the destiny of the United States.

A former U.S. ambassador to Japan offers his insider's view of relations between the two most powerful economic forces in the world. Armacost examines the promise and frustrations of interdependece at a time when the world is changing, and chronicles American efforts to reduce a massive trade imbalance, arrange a more equitable sharing of mutual defense costs, and design a global diplomatic partnership with Tokyo.