Since its emergence in early 2020, the COVID-19 crisis has affected every part of the world. Well beyond its health effects, the pandemic has wrought major changes in people’s everyday lives as they confront restrictions imposed by physical distancing and consequences such as loss of work, working or learning from home and reduced contact with family and friends. This edited collection covers a diverse range of experiences, practices and representations across international contexts and cultures (UK, Europe, North America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand). Together, these contributions offer a rich account of COVID society. They provide snapshots of what life was like for people in a variety of situations and locations living through the first months of the novel coronavirus crisis, including discussion not only of health-related experiences but also the impact on family, work, social life and leisure activities. The socio-material dimensions of quotidian practices are highlighted: death rituals, dating apps, online musical performances, fitness and exercise practices, the role of windows, healthcare work, parenting children learning at home, moving in public space as a blind person and many more diverse topics are explored. In doing so, the authors surface the feelings of strangeness and challenges to norms of practice that were part of many people’s experiences, highlighting the profound affective responses that accompanied the disruption to usual cultural forms of sociality and ritual in the wake of the COVID outbreak and restrictions on movement. The authors show how social relationships and social institutions were suspended, re-invented or transformed while social differences were brought to the fore. At the macro level, the book includes localised and comparative analyses of political, health system and policy responses to the pandemic, and highlights the differences in representations and experiences of very different social groups, including people with disabilities, LGBTQI people, Dutch Muslim parents, healthcare workers in France and Australia, young adults living in northern Italy, performing artists and their audiences, exercisers in Australia and New Zealand, the Latin cultures of Spain and Italy, Asian-Americans and older people in Australia. This volume will appeal to undergraduates and postgraduates in sociology, cultural and media studies, medical humanities, anthropology, political science and cultural geography.

The U.S. Government’s accumulated national debt and unfunded liabilities in social security and Medicare could be pushing the country towards a fiscal crisis. How could such a crisis be avoided? If a crisis does strike, how might it be dealt with? What might be the long term ramifications of experiencing a crisis? The contributors to Economic and Political Change After Crisis explore all of these questions and more. The book begins by exploring how past crises have permanently increased the size and scope of government and how well the rule of law has been maintained during these crises. Chapters explore how these relationships might change in a future crisis and examine how the structure of the U.S. government contributes to a tendency towards fiscal imbalance. In a provocative contribution, the authors predict a U.S. government default on its debt. The book concludes by considering how a fiscal crisis might precipitate or interact with other forms of crises. Social scientists from a variety of disciplines, public policy makers, and concerned members of the general public would all benefit from the contributions contained in this book. If the U.S. is going to avoid a future crisis, or do as well as possible if a crisis occurs, the arguments in these chapters should be given serious consideration.

The past several years have seen strong disagreements between the U.S. government and many of its European allies. News accounts of these challenges focus on isolated incidents and points of contention. The End of the West? addresses some basic questions: Are we witnessing a deepening transatlantic rift, with wide-ranging consequences for the future of world order? Or are today's foreign-policy disagreements the equivalent of dinner-table squabbles? What harm, if any, have events since 9/11 done to the enduring relationships between the U.S. government and its European counterparts? The contributors to this volume, whose backgrounds range from political science and history to economics, law, and sociology, examine the "deep structure" of an order that was first imposed by the Allies in 1945 and has been a central feature of world politics ever since. Creatively and insightfully blending theory and evidence, the chapters in The End of the West? examine core structural features of the transatlantic order to determine whether current disagreements are minor and transient or catastrophic and permanent.

This book is an effort to overcome the major obstacle to a creative system orientation in world politics—a dearth of knowledge about system-level change. It involves the study of international crisis and its role in change.

Moving beyond books that address a single type of crisis (e.g. death of a child; diagnosis of a serious illness; sexual assault). Its focus is on helping the general reader and non-specialists recognize common signs of crisis across a range of life challenges. It shows how unexpected events, e.g. death of a loved one or diagnosis of a serious illness often intersect with life cycle transition points (i.e., adolescence, mid-life, old age) and can leave people more vulnerable to slipping into crisis-especially when lacking one's usual social supports. Through extensive use of stories, the book aims to help people identify and respond appropriately to the typical feelings and behaviors when facing traumatic events and life-threatening crisis. For example, some people in acute crisis express a fear of "going crazy" or have thoughts of suicide or violence toward others. Readers will learn that the high anxiety typical of crisis is normal, not usually a sign of mental illness. Whether or not critical life events result in crisis depends on the type, timing, and interpretation of the event, the person's life cycle development phase, history of healthy coping, and available timely support. In sum, the book's central theme is crisis as both danger and opportunity.

Commissioned to celebrate the 40th year of Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography, this book evaluates the role of the critical social scientist and how the point of their work is not simply to interpret the world but to change it Brings together leading critical social scientists to consider the major challenges of our time and what is to be done about them Applies diagnostic and normative reasoning to momentous issues including the global economic crisis, transnational environmental problems, record levels of malnourishment, never ending wars, and proliferating natural disasters Theoretically diverse - a range of perspectives are put to work ranging from Marxism and feminism to anarchism The chapters comprise advanced but accessible analyses of the present and future world order

New York Times Bestseller Renowned political scientist Ian Bremmer draws lessons from global challenges of the past 100 years—including the pandemic—to show how we can respond to three great crises unfolding over the next decade. In this revelatory, unnerving, and ultimately hopeful book, Bremmer details how domestic and international conflicts leave us unprepared for a trio of looming crises—global health emergencies, transformative climate change, and the AI revolution. Today, Americans cannot reach consensus on any significant political issue, and US and Chinese leaders behave as if they’re locked in a new Cold War. We are squandering opportunities to meet the challenges that will soon confront us all. In coming years, humanity will face viruses deadlier and more infectious than Covid. Intensifying climate change will put tens of millions of refugees in flight and require us to reimagine how we live our daily lives. Most dangerous of all, new technologies will reshape the geopolitical order, disrupting our livelihoods and destabilizing our societies faster than we can grasp and address their implications. The good news? Some farsighted political leaders, business decision-makers, and individual citizens are already collaborating to tackle all these crises. The question that should keep us awake is whether they will work well and quickly enough to limit the fallout—and, most importantly, whether we can use these crises to innovate our way toward a better world. Drawing on strategies both time-honored and cutting-edge, from the Marshall Plan to the Green New Deal, The Power of Crisis provides a roadmap for surviving—even thriving in—the 21st century. Bremmer shows governments, corporations, and every concerned citizen how we can use these coming crises to create the worldwide prosperity and opportunity that 20th-century globalism promised but failed to deliver.