This collection of essays examines the British and American experience in the Middle East from 1950 to 1980. The book compares British and American foreign policy in the Far East and the Persian Gulf, explaining that the Anglo-American relationship was far from harmonious. Both powers tried to manipulate the other to its own advantage. While Washington was clearly the stronger power, London was never reduced to subservience. The book looks at the often neglected role of Egypt's King Farouk, arguing that Egypt was forced to contend with Britain's imperial power, which could, at a few hours notice, overwhelm or undermine Egypt's supposed sovereign institutions. At the same time, however, London was unwilling or unable to prevent Gamal Abdul Nasser and his revolutionary officers from seizing power in 1952. While London perhaps mishandled the transfer of power in Egypt, the book points out how the British managed the transition from being the dominant power in Jordan to preserving a substantial influence, by inviting American participation in securing regime legitimacy. In the end, American dollars supported the Hashemite regime while British influence remained, just as British officials had wished. Challenging Retrenchment argues that, by the mid-1970s, there was an Anglo-American understanding that the Northern Gulf was America's responsibility and that the southern Gulf was Britain's. The book also looks at how intelligence and clandestine operations were used and abused by the British in pursuit of their strategic interests, first somewhat unsuccessfully in Yemen in the 1960s, but with more tangible success in Oman in the 1970s. (Series: ROSTRA Books Trondheim Studies in History - No. 4)

This groundbreaking book contributes to an emerging literature that examines responses to the rights revolution that unfolded in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. Using original archival evidence and data, Stephen B. Burbank and Sean Farhang identify the origins of the counterrevolution against private enforcement of federal law in the first Reagan Administration. They then measure the counterrevolution's trajectory in the elected branches, court rulemaking, and the Supreme Court, evaluate its success in those different lawmaking sites, and test key elements of their argument. Finally, the authors leverage an institutional perspective to explain a striking variation in their results: although the counterrevolution largely failed in more democratic lawmaking sites, in a long series of cases little noticed by the public, an increasingly conservative and ideologically polarized Supreme Court has transformed federal law, making it less friendly, if not hostile, to the enforcement of rights through lawsuits.

Examines how the feminist movements in the late twentieth century ignited prison protests, activism, and reform in women’s prisons While the late twentieth century brought about greater rights for women, it also saw a rapid increase in the number of female prisoners. Before their confinement, many incarcerated women had gained access to work and higher education. But once behind bars, they found the only programs available for them perpetuated misogynistic norms. Challenging Confinement is about how incarcerated women incorporated strategies from feminist movements into their activism behind bars. Facing long sentences, overcrowded prisons, and a lack of rehabilitation programs, incarcerated women protested, organized, and filed lawsuits to advocate for gender and racial equality in prison. Drawing on prison grievance reports, oral histories, state archives, and private collections, Bonnie L. Ernst tells the story of how women's movements, beginning in the 1920s and ending in the era of mass incarceration, infused prison activism in Michigan with new energy. Female prisoners and attorneys successfully persuaded the federal court to force state prisons to offer more programming and access to legal services. Mass incarceration swallowed up many of those efforts, but this history demonstrates how core principles of women’s movements encouraged incarcerated women to form coalitions and challenge their jailers. By bringing together histories of race, gender, and punishment, Challenging Confinement reveals how incarcerated women worked together to resist, in an era of mass imprisonment.

At the height of the Cold War, the John F. Kennedy administration designed an ambitious plan for the Middle East-its aim was to seek rapprochement with Nasser's Egypt in order to keep the Arab world neutral and contain the perceived communist threat. In order to offset this approach, Kennedy sought to grow relations with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and embrace Israel's defense priorities-a decision which would begin the US-Israeli 'special relationship'. Here, Antonio Perra shows for the first time how new relations with Saudi Arabia and Israel which would come to shape the Middle East for decades were in fact a by-product of Kennedy's efforts at Soviet containment. The Saudi's in particular were increasingly viewed as 'an atavistic regime who would soon disappear' but Kennedy's support for them-which hardened during the Yemen Crisis even as he sought to placate Nasser-had the unintended effect of making them, as today, the US' great pillar of support in the Middle East.