From its beginnings in 1919, with soldiers returning from the Great War, to its sputtering end in 1934, with the Great Depression, the New Negro Movement in arts and letters proclaimed the experience of African American men and women. This magnificent volume features a wealth of fiction and nonfiction works by 45 writers from that exuberant era....

After the recent toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the important but overlooked ex-Soviet states of Central Asia-Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan-briefly became key players in the war on terror. Military and economic aid from America and other Western countries poured into the region on the assumption that stability and greater democratization would be the result. Only a few years later, however, the West's strategy to exert geopolitical influence in the region is in chaos and autocracy seems to be as entrenched as ever.

David Lewis's provocative book investigates why the U.S. alliance with Uzbekistan failed to produce reform and instead ended with the massacre of hundreds of civilians in Andijan. It provides the first detailed account of the 2005 revolution in Kyrgyzstan, explores political transition in Turkmenistan following the death of its eccentric former leader, Saparmurat Niyazov, and examines the Islamic militant groups that are believed to be threatening stability in the Ferghana Basin.

...

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are high profile actors in the field of international development, both as providers of services to vulnerable individuals and communities and as campaigning policy advocates. This book provides a critical introduction to the wide-ranging topic of NGOs and development. Written by two authors with more than twenty years experience of research and practice in the field, the book combines a critical overview of the main research literature with a set of up-to-date theoretical and practical insights drawn from experience in Asia, Europe, Africa and elsewhere. It highlights the importance of NGOs in development, but it also engages fully with the criticisms that the increased profile of NGOs in development now attracts.

The text begins with a discussion of the wide diversity of NGOs and their roles, and locates their recent rise to prominence within broader histories of struggle as well as within the ideological context of neo-liberalism. It then moves on to analyze how interest in NGOs has both reflected and informed wider theoretical trends and debates within development studies, before analyzing NGOs and their practices, using a broad range of short case studies of successful and unsuccessful interventions. The book then moves on to describe the ways in which NGOs are increasingly important in relation to ideas and debates about ‘civil society’, globalization and the changing ideas and practices of international aid. The book argues that NGOs are now central to development theory and practice and are likely to remain important actors in development in the years to come. In order to appreciate the issues raised by their increasing diversity and complexity, the authors conclude that it is necessary to deploy a historically and theoretically informed perspective.

This critical overview will be useful to students of development studies at undergraduate and masters levels, as well as to more general readers and practitioners. The format of the book includes figures, photographs and case studies as well as reader material in the form of summary points and questions. Despite the growing importance of the topic, no single short, up-to-date book exists that sets out the main issues in the form of a clearly written, academically-informed text: until now.

...

...