Pensamientos positivos Prêt-a-porter, es una de esas pequeñas cosas que te hacen atreverte. No es un libro para valientes, ni para cobardes, ni para optimistas, ni siquiera para los que necesitan ayuda. Es simplemente un conjunto de fuerza vital, una palmadita en el hombro, un susurro que dice "tu puedes, siempre has podido". Es un libro para cualquiera, para todos. Un libro que te enseña a mirar con otros ojos, a mirarte con ojos nuevos. Puede que penséis que se trata de un simple libro de autoayuda. Yo prefiero comparar estos Pensamientos positivos Prêt-a-porter con los griegos, sí, con las enseñanzas de los griegos antiguos, que ocupaban las horas en hacer de su vida una obra de arte. Es comparable. Pero es otra cosa. Unas páginas sin grandilocuencia, que transmiten una atmósfera cotidiana, que fluyen rápidas, porque son fáciles de comprender, pero que tardan mucho en borrarse de la mente. Así describiría este libro-experiencia, este camino hecho que el autor nos regala sin pretensiones. Sabiendo lo difícil que es recomendar un solo libro, habiendo tantas lecturas necesarias; me atrevo a recomendaros este. Y me atrevo porque hace poco más de dos años dejé de ser escéptica, y mucho han tenido que ver en ello este conjunto de pensamientos positivos, tales como "la salud está en nuestra mente", "la gratitud, una pase VIP a la felicidad", etc etc Hace poco más de dos años, un ingeniero que durante casi toda su vida había trabajado sentado en un despacho, se atrevió a levantar una casa. Él solo, puso cada piedra hasta que terminó la casa entera. Seguramente, antes de empezar, tuvo dudas, incertidumbres, pero se decidió a hacerlo, se atrevió. Ese mismo ingeniero, que nunca se había dedicado a la escritura, emprendió un día la aventura de escribir este libro. En un momento como el que estamos viviendo, es muy importante atreverse a mirar con otros ojos, atreverse a hacer de la propia vida una obra de arte. Pensamientos positivos Prêt-a-porter contribuye en esta aventura.

Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus is a gripping account of the developmental dynamics involved in the collapse of Soviet socialism. Fusing a narrative of human agency to his critical discussion of structural forces, Georgi M. Derluguian reconstructs from firsthand accounts the life story of Musa Shanib—who from a small town in the Caucasus grew to be a prominent leader in the Chechen revolution. In his examination of Shanib and his keen interest in the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, Derluguian discerns how and why this dissident intellectual became a nationalist warlord. Exploring globalization, democratization, ethnic identity, and international terrorism, Derluguian contextualizes Shanib's personal trajectory from de-Stalinization through the nationalist rebellions of the 1990s, to the recent rise in Islamic militancy. He masterfully reveals not only how external economic and political forces affect the former Soviet republics but how those forces are in turn shaped by the individuals, institutions, ethnicities, and social networks that make up those societies. Drawing on the work of Charles Tilly, Immanuel Wallerstein, and, of course, Bourdieu, Derluguian's explanation of the recent ethnic wars and terrorist acts in Russia succeeds in illuminating the role of human agency in shaping history.

Amid ethnic violence, political corruption, and petty professional intrigue, an artist tries to live free of lies. Set during the last years of the Soviet Union, Stone Dreams tells the story of Azerbaijani actor Sadai Sadygly, who lands in a Baku hospital while trying to protect an elderly Armenian man from a gang of young Azerbaijanis. Something of a modern-day Don Quixote, Sadai has long battled the hatred and corruption he observes in contemporary Azerbaijani society. Wandering in and out of consciousness, he revisits his hometown, the ancient village of Aylis, where Christian Armenians and Muslim Azeris once lived peacefully together, and dreams of making a pilgrimage of atonement to Armenia. Stone Dreams is a searing, painful meditation on the ability of art and artists—of individual human beings—to make change in the world.

This collection of essays addresses Plutarch's writings on practical ethics from different perspectives, including regarding their overall structure, content, purpose, and underlying philosophical and social presuppositions.

This book is the first historical work to study the creation of ethnic autonomies in the Caucasus in the 1920s – the transitional period from Russian Empire to Soviet Union. Seventy years later these ethnic autonomies were to become the loci of violent ethno-political conflicts which have consistently been blamed on the policies of the Bolsheviks and Stalin. According to this view, the Soviet leadership deliberately set up ethnic autonomies within the republics, thereby giving Moscow unprecedented leverage against each republic. From Conflict to Autonomy in the Caucasus questions this assumption by examining three case studies: Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno Karabakh are placed within the larger socio-political context of transformations taking place in this borderland region during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It examines demographic, social and economic consequences of the Russian colonization and resulting replacement of traditional societies and identities with modern ones. Based on original Russian language sources and archival materials, the book brings together two periods that are usually studied separately – the period of the Russian Civil War 1917–20 and the early Soviet period – in order to understand the roots of the Bolshevik decision-making policy when granting autonomies. It argues that rather than being the product of blatant political manipulation this was an attempt at conflict resolution. The institution of political autonomy, however, became a powerful tool for national mobilization during the Soviet era. Contributing both to the general understanding of the early Soviet nationality policy and to our understanding of the conflicts that have engulfed the Caucasus region since the 1990s, this book will be of interest to scholars of Central Asian studies, Russian/Soviet history, ethnic conflict, security studies and International Relations.

Of all the violent disputes that have flared across the former Soviet Union since the late 1980s, the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict is the only one to pose a genuine threat to peace and security throughout Eurasia. By right of its strategic location and oil resources, the Transcaucasus has been and will continue to be a source of interest for external powers competing to advance their geopolitical influence in the region. Under such conditions, the possibility will remain for the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict to reignite and expand to include other powers. The ten-year conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan has been one of the bloodiest and most intractable disputes to emerge from the breakup of the Soviet Union. Animosity that developed between the Armenians and Azeris under czarist Russian rule was fueled by the rise of a dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous region for which both peoples feel an intense nationalistic affinity. The attachment of the region to Azerbaijan by Stalin in 1923 became a source of deep resentment for the Armenians, and during the rule of Gorbachev, a campaign was begun to achieve the peaceful unification of Armenia and Karabakh. Azerbaijan resisted the move as a threat to its territorial integrity, and clashes that broke out soon escalated into a full-scale war that outlived the USSR itself. Although a cease-fire has been observed since May, 1994, a peaceful settlement to the conflict has been elusive. Meanwhile, by right of both the strategic location and resources and the unique security characteristics of the Transcaucasus, major external powers—Russia, Turkey, and Iran—have sought to influence the dispute according to their geopolitical interests. With the growth of interest in the oil riches of the Caspian Sea and the increasing engagement of Western countries, including the United States, the risks and implications of renewed violence between Armenia and Azerbaijan will grow. This major study will be of interest to students, scholars, and policymakers involved with international relations, military affairs, and the Transcaucasus.

The Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict for control of the mountainous territory of Nagorny Karabakh is the longest-running dispute in post-Soviet Eurasia. Laurence Broers shows how more than 20 years of dynamic territorial politics, shifting power relations, international diffusion and unsuccessful mediation efforts have contributed to the resilience of this stubbornly unresolved dispute. Looking beyond tabloid tropes of 'frozen conflict' or 'Russian land-grab', Broers unpacks the unresolved territorial issues of the 1990s and the strategic rivalry that has built up around them since.