Weapons of the Wealthy

Weapons of the Wealthy PDF Author: Scott Radnitz
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801449536
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
Focusing on the region of post-Soviet Central Asia, Radnitz investigates the causes of elite-led protest in nondemocratic states, where economic and political opportunities create elites who are independent of the regime, yet vulnerable to harassment.

Weapons of the Wealthy

Weapons of the Wealthy PDF Author: Scott Radnitz
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801449536
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
Focusing on the region of post-Soviet Central Asia, Radnitz investigates the causes of elite-led protest in nondemocratic states, where economic and political opportunities create elites who are independent of the regime, yet vulnerable to harassment.

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies PDF Author: Jared Diamond
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393069222
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 532

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Book Description
"Fascinating.... Lays a foundation for understanding human history."—Bill Gates In this "artful, informative, and delightful" (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed religion --as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war --and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, the Rhone-Poulenc Prize, and the Commonwealth club of California's Gold Medal.

Revealing Schemes

Revealing Schemes PDF Author: Scott Radnitz
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197573568
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Conspiracy theories are not just outlandish ideas. They can also be political weapons. Conspiracy theories have come to play an increasingly prominent role in political systems around the world. In Revealing Schemes, Scott Radnitz moves beyond psychological explanations for why people believe conspiracy theories to explore the politics surrounding them, placing two questions at the center of his account: What leads regimes to promote conspiracy claims? And what effects do those claims have on politics and society? Focusing on the former Soviet Uniona region of the world where such theories have long thrivedhe shows that incumbent politicians tend to make conspiracy claims to demonstrate their knowledge and authority at moments of uncertainty and threat. They emerge more often where there is serious political competition rather than unbridled autocracy and in response to events that challenge a regime's ability to rule. Yet conspiracy theories can also be habit-forming and persist as part of an official narrative even where immediate threats have subsideda strategy intended to strengthen regimes, but that may inadvertently undermine them. Revealing Schemes explores the causes, consequences, and contradictions of conspiracism in politics with an original collection of over 1,500 conspiracy claims from across the post-Soviet region, two national surveys, and 12 focus groups. At a time of heightened distrust in democratic institutions and rising illiberal populism around the world, understanding how conspiracy theories operate in a region where democracy came lateor never arrivedcan be instructive for concerned citizens everywhere.

The Gunning of America

The Gunning of America PDF Author: Pamela Haag
Publisher:
ISBN: 0465048951
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 530

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Book Description
"An acclaimed historian explodes the myth about the 'special relationship' between Americans and their guns, revealing that savvy 19th century businessmen--not gun lovers--created American gun culture"--

Beating Guns

Beating Guns PDF Author: Shane Claiborne
Publisher: Brazos Press
ISBN: 149341707X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
★ Publishers Weekly starred review Parkland. Las Vegas. Dallas. Orlando. San Bernardino. Paris. Charleston. Sutherland Springs. Newtown. These cities are now known for the people who were shot and killed in them. More Americans have died from guns in the US in the last fifty years than in all the wars in American history. With less than 5% of the world's population, the people of the US own nearly half the world's guns. America also has the most annual gun deaths--homicide, suicide, and accidental gun deaths--at 105 per day, or more than 38,000 per year. Some people say it's a heart problem. Others say it's a gun problem. The authors of Beating Guns believe it's both. This book is for people who believe the world doesn't have to be this way. Inspired by the prophetic image of beating swords into plows, Beating Guns provides a provocative look at gun violence in America and offers a clarion call to change our hearts regarding one of the most significant moral issues of our time. Bestselling author, speaker, and activist Shane Claiborne and Michael Martin show why Christians should be concerned about gun violence and how they can be part of the solution. The authors transcend stale rhetoric and old debates about gun control to offer a creative and productive response. Full-color images show how guns are being turned into tools and musical instruments across the nation. Charts, tables, and facts convey the mind-boggling realities of gun violence in America, but as the authors make clear, there is a story behind every statistic. Beating Guns allows victims and perpetrators of gun violence to tell their own compelling stories, offering hope for change and helping us reimagine the world as one that turns from death to life, where swords become plows and guns are turned into garden tools.

Seeking the Bomb

Seeking the Bomb PDF Author: Vipin Narang
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691172625
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
The first systematic look at the different strategies that states employ in their pursuit of nuclear weapons Much of the work on nuclear proliferation has focused on why states pursue nuclear weapons. The question of how states pursue nuclear weapons has received little attention. Seeking the Bomb is the first book to analyze this topic by examining which strategies of nuclear proliferation are available to aspirants, why aspirants select one strategy over another, and how this matters to international politics. Looking at a wide range of nations, from India and Japan to the Soviet Union and North Korea to Iraq and Iran, Vipin Narang develops an original typology of proliferation strategies—hedging, sprinting, sheltered pursuit, and hiding. Each strategy of proliferation provides different opportunities for the development of nuclear weapons, while at the same time presenting distinct vulnerabilities that can be exploited to prevent states from doing so. Narang delves into the crucial implications these strategies have for nuclear proliferation and international security. Hiders, for example, are especially disruptive since either they successfully attain nuclear weapons, irrevocably altering the global power structure, or they are discovered, potentially triggering serious crises or war, as external powers try to halt or reverse a previously clandestine nuclear weapons program. As the international community confronts the next generation of potential nuclear proliferators, Seeking the Bomb explores how global conflict and stability are shaped by the ruthlessly pragmatic ways states choose strategies of proliferation.

Britain's War Machine

Britain's War Machine PDF Author: David Edgerton
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199911509
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 481

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Book Description
The familiar image of the British in the Second World War is that of the plucky underdog taking on German might. David Edgerton's bold, compelling new history shows the conflict in a new light, with Britain as a very wealthy country, formidable in arms, ruthless in pursuit of its interests, and in command of a global production system. Rather than belittled by a Nazi behemoth, Britain arguably had the world's most advanced mechanized forces. It had not only a great empire, but allies large and small. Edgerton shows that Britain fought on many fronts and its many home fronts kept it exceptionally well supplied with weapons, food and oil, allowing it to mobilize to an extraordinary extent. It created and deployed a vast empire of machines, from the humble tramp steamer to the battleship, from the rifle to the tank, made in colossal factories the world over. Scientists and engineers invented new weapons, encouraged by a government and prime minister enthusiastic about the latest technologies. The British, indeed Churchillian, vision of war and modernity was challenged by repeated defeat at the hands of less well-equipped enemies. Yet the end result was a vindication of this vision. Like the United States, a powerful Britain won a cheap victory, while others paid a great price. Putting resources, machines and experts at the heart of a global rather than merely imperial story, Britain's War Machine demolishes timeworn myths about wartime Britain and gives us a groundbreaking and often unsettling picture of a great power in action.

Cold War Pistols of Czechoslovakia

Cold War Pistols of Czechoslovakia PDF Author: James D. Brown
Publisher: Schiffer Publishing
ISBN: 9780764333545
Category : Pistols
Languages : en
Pages : 150

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Book Description
This is the first English language work to examine the subject in detail and the first in any language to identify, describe, and quantify variations and production figures for the models covered. The book focuses on the Czechoslovak Communist period (1948-1989), but reaches back into the 1930s in order to trace the history of the 6.35 mm Duo pocket pistol, which remained in production under the name "Z" until 1974 with a total of thirteen distinct marking variations, and the 6.35 mm model 1945, which had its beginnings as the model 1936. The 7.65 mm model 50 police pistol and its successor, the model 70, are covered in depth, documenting both marking variations and a significant number of design changes introduced during their thirty-three-year production life. The 7.62 mm model 52 Army pistol is given extensive treatment based on data drawn from over 2,000 specimens; in addition to descriptions of both standard and rare variants, significant discussion of the pistol s mechanical characteristics and potential safety problems is presented. Also covered are the more modern commercial CZ 75 and CZ 85, the military model 82, and the commercial CZ 83, as are small calibre target pistols and signal pistols.

Currency Wars

Currency Wars PDF Author: John K. Cooley
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
The world's quietest weapon of mass destruction is 75 percent cotton, 25 percent linen, and 100 percent fake. The amount of counterfeit money in circulation is unknown, but hundreds of millions of bogus U.S. dollars are seized each year. Mass counterfeiting is not just organized crime, it can also be aggressive economic warfare waged by states to destabilize enemy governments, and it is reaching epidemic proportions. Forgery provides cash for states like North Korea and Iran in their pursuit of weapons—a fact publicly unacknowledged, even as fears grow over their nuclear ambitions. In Currency Wars, John Cooley maps this dirty matrix of war and politics, sabotage and subterfuge, with new evidence and recently disclosed documents. With sound grounding in current affairs and history alike, Cooley demonstrates that the machinations of today's states echo attempts in antiquity by Persia, Greece, Rome, and China to use and defend against forgery and currency debasement. Counterfeiting remained a high crime throughout medieval and Renaissance Europe; played a key role in the American and French Revolutions; and was used by the British, Germans, and Soviets in two World Wars. Bad money mixed with post-war dictatorships, and was a tool of the KGB, CIA, Stasi, Hezbollah, the Medellín cartels, and the Chinese Triads. This compelling, accessible account reveals grand-scale forgery's corrosive implications for global economic, political, and social stability. It is essential reading for anyone concerned with the complications and consequences of increasing and inevitable globalization, and it serves as a provocative reminder of the ways in which human greed and fear act as catalysts in world economics.

Gun Barons

Gun Barons PDF Author: John Bainbridge, Jr.
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250266874
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
John Bainbridge, Jr.'s Gun Barons is a narrative history of six charismatic and idiosyncratic men who changed the course of American history through the invention and refinement of repeating weapons. Love them or hate them, guns are woven deeply into the American soul. Names like Colt, Smith & Wesson, Winchester, and Remington are legendary. Yet few people are aware of the roles these men played at a crucial time in United States history, from westward expansion in the 1840s, through the Civil War, and into the dawn of the Gilded Age. Through personal drive and fueled by bloodshed, they helped propel the young country into the forefront of the world's industrial powers. Their creations helped save a nation divided, while planting seeds that would divide the country again a century later. Their inventions embodied an intoxicating thread of American individualism—part fiction, part reality—that remains the foundation of modern gun culture. They promoted guns not only for the soldier, but for the Everyman, and also made themselves wealthy beyond their most fevered dreams. Gun Barons captures how their bold inventiveness dwelled in the psyche of an entire people, not just in the minds of men who made firearm fortunes. Whether we revere these larger-than-life men or vilify them, they helped forge the American character.