History is dramatic—and the renowned, award-winning authors Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier demonstrate this in a compelling series aimed at young readers. Covering American history from the founding of Jamestown through present day, these volumes explore far beyond the dates and events of a historical chronicle to present a moving illumination of the ideas, opinions, attitudes, and tribulations that led to the birth of this great nation. The Rise of the Cities discusses the factors leading to the settlement and growth of cities in the United States and examines some of the social problems that are part of city life. The authors explore the role of technological advances, governing strategies, and social welfare.

Based on the author’s long experience in academic life and the public realm, especially in foreign policy, this book argues that a single categoric classification of cities is inadequate, and that cities have had different and varied impacts and positions throughout the history of civilization. The author examines how the formation, transformation, destruction or reestablishment of many civilizational cities reveals a clearer picture of the cornerstones of the course of human history. These cities, which play a decisive and pivotal role in the direction of the flow of history as well as providing us with a compass to guide our efforts to understand and interpret this flow, are conceptualized by the author as civilizations’ "pivot cities". This innovative book explores the role of great cities in political historical change, presenting an alternative view of these pivot cities from a culturalist perspective. Within this framework, the role played by pivot cities in the history of civilization may be considered under seven distinct headings: pioneering cities which founded civilizations; cities which were founded by civilizations; cities which were transplanted during the formation of civilizations; "ghost cities" which lost their importance through shifts in political power and civilizational transformation; "lost cities" which were destroyed by civilizations; cities on lines of geocultural/geoeconomic interaction; and cities which combine, transform or are transformed by different civilizations. The author’s concept of pivot cities explores the interplay between vital cities and civilizations, which bears on the future of globalization at a time of instability, as projected continuing de-Westernization becomes a theme in studies of global history. This book provides highly productive discussions relevant to the literature on city-civilization relationships and the historicity of pivot cities. Its clear language, rich content, deep and original perspective, interdisciplinary approach and rich bibliography will ensure that it appeals to students and scholars in a variety of disciplines, including cultural studies, political science, comparative urban studies, anthropology, history and civilizational studies.

Operating under an outmoded system of urban development and faced by the vicissitudes of the Civil War and Reconstruction, southerners in the nineteenth century built a network of cities that met the needs of their society. In this pioneering exploration of that intricate story, Lawrence H. Larsen shows that in the antebellum period, southern entrepreneurs built cities in layers to facilitate the movement of cotton. First came the colonial cities, followed by those of the piedmont, the New West, the Gulf Coast, and the interior. By the Civil War, cotton could move by a combination of road, rail, and river through a network of cities—for example, from Jackson to Memphis to New Orleans to Europe. In the Gilded Age, building on past practices, the South continued to make urban gains. Men like Henry Grady of Atlanta and Henry Watterson of Louisville used broader regional objectives to promote their own cities. Grady successfully sold Atlanta, one of the most southern of cities demographically, as a city with a northern outlook; Watterson tied Louisville to national goals in railroad building. The New South movement did not succeed in bringing the region to parity with the rest of the nation, yet the South continued to rise along older lines. By 1900, far from being a failure in terms of the general course of American development, the South had created an urban system suited to its needs, while avoiding the promotional frenzy that characterized the building of cities in the North. Based upon federal and local sources, this book will become the standard work on nineteenth-century southern urbanization, a subject too long unexplored.

This book offers a comparative analysis of the rise of India and China and their decisive economic and social roles in a global context. It presents a cumulative picture of the socio-economic challenges as well as the opportunities for growth and inclusive development before India and China. The volume analyses the performance of the two countries based on economic and human development indicators. It highlights the key achievements of the two countries in governance and financial growth, and the potential for further economic development. Drawing on government data and empirical research, the book examines India and China’s relative growth in trade, investments, renewable energy technologies, urbanisation, and employment and their policies on agriculture, land use, public health, and rural-urban inequality. Further, it discusses the shared challenges of inequality, poverty, gender disparity, and environment degradation which both countries face and contrasts their policy priorities and governance mechanisms. Comprehensive and insightful, this book will be of great interest for researchers and scholars of development studies, economics, international relations, comparative politics, sociology, public policy, and Asian studies. It will also be useful for think tanks, policy makers, and general readers interested in the India–China relationship.

Global Christianity has been experiencing an unprecedented historical transition from the West to the non-Western world. The leadership of global Christianity has taken on a new face since the twentieth century. Christendom in Europe and America has experienced a great decline while there has been a rise in Majority World Christianity. Churches in the Global South have given their voices to global Christianity through their leadership, world mission movements, and theology. The phenomenal church growth has risen from the Pentecostal and Charismatic movement. Pentecostalism has become the dominant force in global Christianity today. The Rise of the Global South examines the significance this shift has had on global Christianity by going through the history of Christianity in the West and the causes of the shift.

How regions and cities adapt to a Network Society and a globalized environment, the policies they pursue and how structures of governance are transformed in the pursuit of those policies are major themes in this volume. These issues are addressed with specific reference to the Nordic regions of Europe. Covering the four Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden plus the Faroe Islands, this volume charts the changes in networking activities and related development initiatives that have taken place over the last ten years. This means analysing regions in their pursuit of new policies, partnerships and styles of representation. Through this process regions are becoming partners and players in European integration and a movement of integrative regionalism is taking shape which is different from inward looking identity regionalism or self-centred competitive regionalism and takes regions beyond lobbying in Brussels.

This volume is a timely addition to the emerging literature on the rise of China and India, focusing on how rapid economic growth and geopolitical changes in these countries are reshaping the world economy and global governance. It covers issues such as productivity, labor market, trade competition, and energy.

"Steve Case, cofounder of America Online and Revolution and New York Times bestselling author of The Third Wave, shows how entrepreneurs across the country are building groundbreaking companies, renewing communities, and creating new jobs--in the process reimagining the American landscape and bringing people together around a shared future"--Amazon.com.

The Rise of Modern Business compares and analyzes the development of business and business institutions in several countries from the preindustrial era to the present. Paying close attention to connections between business development and political

The world is undergoing a profound set of digital disruptions that are changing the nature of how governments counter dissent and assert control over their countries. While increasing numbers of people rely primarily or exclusively on online platforms, authoritarian regimes have concurrently developed a formidable array of technological capabilities to constrain and repress their citizens. In The Rise of Digital Repression, Steven Feldstein documents how the emergence of advanced digital tools bring new dimensions to political repression. Presenting new field research from Thailand, the Philippines, and Ethiopia, he investigates the goals, motivations, and drivers of these digital tactics. Feldstein further highlights how governments pursue digital strategies based on a range of factors: ongoing levels of repression, political leadership, state capacity, and technological development. The international community, he argues, is already seeing glimpses of what the frontiers of repression look like. For instance, Chinese authorities have brought together mass surveillance, censorship, DNA collection, and artificial intelligence to enforce their directives in Xinjiang. As many of these trends go global, Feldstein shows how this has major implications for democracies and civil society activists around the world. A compelling synthesis of how anti-democratic leaders harness powerful technology to advance their political objectives, The Rise of Digital Repression concludes by laying out innovative ideas and strategies for civil society and opposition movements to respond to the digital autocratic wave.