Across the world, children are the most vulnerable population. The threats to them may vary, but wherever one looks, children are endangered and... exploited. Susan Mapp examines threats to child well-being globally, investigating violations of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in countries both in the Global North and the Global South. Some problems are well known, such as child trafficking and child soldiers, while others are less well known, including unethical adoption practices and fistulas. No other book approaches this vital topic in such a comprehensive yet tightly structured way, using an established, agreed-upon set of principles to show how things stand now, what remains to be accomplished, and examples of how these problems might be resolved. NGOs and government branches must collaborate increasingly with their counterparts from other countries if they are to allow children to achieve their adult potential. This text promises to inform the reader about these issues and offer paths forward to a better future.

With over forty years combined global church-planting experience, Craig Ott and Gene Wilson are well qualified to write a comprehensive, up-to-date... guide for cross-cultural church planting. Combining substantive biblical principles and missiological understanding with practical insights, this book walks readers through the various models and development phases of church planting. Advocating methods that lead to church multiplication, the authors emphasize the role of the missionary church planter. They offer helpful reflection on current trends and provide best practices gathered from research and empirical findings around the globe. The book takes up a number of special issues not addressed in most church planting books, such as use of short-term teams, partnerships, and wise use of resources. Full of case studies and real examples from around the world, this practical text will benefit students, church planters, missionaries, and missional church readers.

Migrant women are the primary source of paid domestic labor around the world. Since the 1980s, the newly prosperous countries of East Asia have... recruited foreign household workers at a rapidly increasing rate. Many come from the Philippines and Indonesia. Pei-Chia Lan interviewed and spent time with dozens of Filipina and Indonesian domestics working in and around Taipei as well as many of their Taiwanese employers. On the basis of the vivid ethnographic detail she collected, Lan provides a nuanced look at how boundaries between worker and employer are maintained and negotiated in private households. She also sheds light on the fate of the workers, “global Cinderellas” who seek an escape from poverty at home only to find themselves treated as disposable labor abroad.Lan demonstrates how economic disparities, immigration policies, race, ethnicity, and gender intersect in the relationship between the migrant workers and their Taiwanese employers. The employers are eager to flex their recently acquired financial muscle; many are first-generation career women as well as first-generation employers. The domestics are recruited from abroad as contract and “guest” workers; restrictive immigration policies prohibit them from seeking permanent residence or transferring from one employer to another. They care for Taiwanese families’ children, often having left their own behind. Throughout Global Cinderellas, Lan pays particular attention to how the women she studied identify themselves in relation to “others”—whether they be of different classes, nationalities, ethnicities, or education levels. In so doing, she offers a framework for thinking about how migrant workers and their employers understand themselves in the midst of dynamic transnational labor flows.

Global Cities examines the distinctive commercial, residential, and spatial features of the major cities of the contemporary world--cities housing the... financial and cultural activities that are most consequential for everyone, regardless of where they live. The development of these influential cities is intimately related to the emergence of modern telecommunications, the growth of multinational corporations, the internationalization of economic activity, and the increased movement of cultural symbols and artifacts across national lines. Accessible to readers with little background in sociology or social science, Global Cities analyzes numerous contemporary issues to illustrate concepts and processes pertaining to the most significant global cities. These concrete examples facilitate students' general understanding and show them the contemporary relevance of the material. The book offers a detailed and multifaceted picture of such leading urban centers as London, New York, Tokyo, and Paris, but also branches out to other important cities in the world. It analyzes both the internal features of the cities and the nature of their connections with each other. Global Cities is ideal for undergraduate courses in urban sociology and other social sciences.

Amid fears of terrorism, rising tides of xenophobia, and protests, John Keane explores the contradictory arguments and traces the historical origins,... contemporary meanings and political potential of globalization. Defending the idea of a global civil society, Keane stresses the need for new democratic ways of living and demonstrates how it is linked with such developments as turbocapitalism, social movements and the political institutions of "cosmocracy." Keane's provocative reflections in Global Civil Society? draw upon a variety of scholarly sources and offer a fresh perspective on contemporary political thinking and new global problems. John Keane was born in Australia and educated at the Universities of Adelaide, Toronto and Cambridge. He is Professor of Politics at the University of Westminster. In 1989, he founded the Centre for the Study of Democracy. His most recent work is a study of power, Václav Havel: A Political Tragedy in Six Acts (Basic Books, 1999). His other books include Civil Society: Old Images, New Visions (Stanford, 1998), Democracy and Civil Society (Verso Books, 1998), Reflections on Violence (Verso Books, 1996), the prizewinning Tom Paine: A Political Life (Little Brown, 1995), and The Media and Democracy (Blackwell, 1991). He has been awarded many fellowships and research grants and has lectured throughout the world; he often appears on radio and television and is a regular contributor to The Times Literary Supplement. Currently he is writing a full-scale history of democracy.

It is a decade since the debut of the landmark Global Civil Society yearbook. During that time, as the yearbook has attempted to debate, map and measure... the shifting contours of this contested phenomenon, relationships between state and society have shifted. On both sides promises have been made and broken, expectations raised and shattered, partnerships brokered and roles reversed. Moreover, from the instigation of the International Criminal Court by a coalition of NGOs to the mass protests of civilians across North Africa, the influence of non-state actors has become impossible to discount. In this anniversary edition, activists and academics look back on ten years of 'politics from below', and ask whether it is merely the critical gaze upon the concept that has changed - or whether there is something genuinely new in kind about the way in which civil society is now operating.

The terms 'global' and 'civil society' have both become part of the contemporary political lexicon. In this important new book, Mary Kaldor argues that... this is no coincidence and that the reinvention of civil society has to be understood in the context of globalization. The concept of civil society is no longer confined to the borders of the territorial state. Whether one considers dissidents in repressive regimes, landless labourers in Central America, campaigners against land mines or global debt, or even religious fundamentalists, it is now possible for them to link up with other like-minded groups in different parts of the world and to address demands not just to national governments but to global institutions as well. This has opened up new opportunities for human emancipation, and, in particular, for going beyond war as a way of managing global affairs. But it also entails new risks and insecurities. This is a book about a political idea - an idea that came out of the 1989 revolutions. It is an idea that expresses a real phenomenon, even if the boundaries and shape of the phenomenon are contested and subject to constant redefinition. The study of past debates as well as the actions and arguments of the present is a way of directly influencing the phenomenon, and of contributing to a changing reality, if possible for the better. The task is all the more urgent in the aftermath of September 11. Global Civil Society will be read by students of politics, international relations and sociology, as well as activists, policy-makers, journalists and all those engaged in global public debates

This collection of essays is designed to introduce students to the topic of global climate change from multidisciplinary perspectives. It begins with... the premise that global warming is occurring and climate change poses a threat to our natural environment and the health of future generations. The contributors approach the topic with the belief that the more knowledgeable students are about the topic, the better equipped they will be for meeting the challenge of changing global climate.

Mark Twain s comment everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it no longer applies: human activities have altered the global... climate, and governments are implementing policies to avoid more extreme perturbations. Global Climate Change examines the factors responsible for global climate change and the geophysical, biological, economic, legal, and cultural consequences of such changes. The book highlights the complexity of decision-making under uncertainty, contrasting the methods that various disciplines employ to evaluate past and future conditions.

An internationally recognized expert on the geology of barrier islands, Orrin H. Pilkey is one of the rare academics who engages in public advocacy... about science-related issues. He has written dozens of books and articles explaining coastal processes to lay readers, and he is a frequent and outspoken interviewee in the mainstream media. Here, the colorful scientist takes on climate change deniers in an outstanding and much-needed primer on the science of global change and its effects.After explaining the greenhouse effect, Pilkey, writing with son Keith, turns to the damage it is causing: sea level rise, ocean acidification, glacier and sea ice melting, changing habitats, desertification, and the threats to animals, humans, coral reefs, marshes, and mangroves. These explanations are accompanied by Mary Edna Fraser’s stunning batiks depicting the large-scale arenas in which climate change plays out.The Pilkeys directly confront and rebut arguments typically advanced by global change deniers. Particularly valuable are their discussions of “Climategate,” a manufactured scandal that undermined respect for the scientific community, and the denial campaigns by the fossil fuel industry, which they compare to the tactics used by the tobacco companies a generation ago to obfuscate findings on the harm caused by cigarettes.

Global Coastal Changeprovides a comprehensive overview of the environmental factors changing the marine systems of the world including atmospheric... changes, sea level rise, alterations in freshwater and sediment use and transport, toxins, overfishing, alien species, and eutrophication. Includes case studies providing real-world examples, detailed reviews of the evidence of changes and possible solutions.Brings together a wealth of important information about our changing marine environments. An invaluable reference for upper level undergraduates, graduates, and professionals interested in marine environmental science.

Although the global community has achieved some success in endeavors such as eradicating smallpox, efforts to coordinate nations' actions in... others--such as the reduction of drug trafficking--have not been sufficient. Identifying the factors that promote, or inhibit, successful collective action for an ever-growing set of challenges associated with globalization, Todd Sandler applies them to promoting global health, providing foreign assistance, controlling rogue nations, limiting transnational terrorism, and intervening in civil wars.

Climate change represents a "tragedy of the commons" on a global scale, requiring the cooperation of nations that do not necessarily put the Earth's... well-being above their own national interests. And yet international efforts to address global warming have met with some success; the Kyoto Protocol, in which industrialized countries committed to reducing their collective emissions, took effect in 2005 (although without the participation of the United States). Reversing the lens used by previous scholarship on the topic, Global Commons, Domestic Decisions explains international action on climate change from the perspective of countries' domestic politics. In an effort to understand both what progress has been made and why it has been so limited, experts in comparative politics look at the experience of seven jurisdictions in deciding whether or not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and to pursue national climate change mitigation policies. By analyzing the domestic politics and international positions of the United States, Australia, Russia, China, the European Union, Japan, and Canada, the authors demonstrate clearly that decisions about global policies are often made locally, in the context of electoral and political incentives, the normative commitments of policymakers, and domestic political institutions. Using a common analytical framework throughout, the book offers a unique comparison of the domestic political forces within each nation that affect climate change policy and provides insights into why some countries have been able to adopt innovative and aggressive positions on climate change both domestically and internationally.

In World Trade since 1431, Peter Hugill showed how the interplay of technology and geography guided the evolution of the modern global capitalistic... system. Now, in the successor to that widely acclaimed book, Hugill shifts the focus to telecommunications, once again demonstrating that those nations that best developed and marketed new technologies were the nations that rose to world power.Beginning with the advent of the telegraph in the 1840s, Hugill shows how each major change in transportation and communications technologies brought about a corresponding transformation from one world economy to another. British advances in international telegraphy after the American Civil War, for example, kept that nation just ahead of the United States in the communications race, a position it held until 1945. Hugill explains how such developments as aerial bombardment of cities in World War I spurred the development of radio and, ultimately, radar. He also traces the steps that led to the British surrender of world hegemony to the United States at the end of World War II.

Global Communication is the most definitive text on multi-national communication and media conglomerates, exploring how global media, particularly CNN,... the BBC, Euronews, and Al Jazeera, influence audiences and policy makers alike.   Includes four completely new chapters on Asian media, Euromedia, the Middle East, and public diplomacy from a post 9/11 perspectiveUpdates the story of arab media with a section on "Arab Media and the Al Jazeera Effect" by Middle East-based expert Lawrence PintakCovers the global war on terrorism and the substantial US investment in Iraqi mediaProvides updated accounts and overviews of the largest and most important media corporations from around the world, from MTV and CNN to BollywoodIncorporates discussions of Hulu, YouTube, Myspace, and the Twitter phenomenon as well as new stakeholders in global online media