This is an up-to-the-minute revised edition of a text which, since its publication in 1990, has been extremely influential. The great changes of the past 18 months have entailed a comprehensive updating of the book. This edition takes account of new developments that include the independence of the Baltic states and the treaty which sparked 1991's attempted coup.

In Deaf in the USSR, Claire L. Shaw asks what it meant to be deaf in a culture that was founded on a radically utopian, socialist view of human perfectibility. Shaw reveals how fundamental contradictions inherent in the Soviet revolutionary project were negotiated—both individually and collectively— by a vibrant and independent community of deaf people who engaged in complex ways with Soviet ideology. Deaf in the USSR engages with a wide range of sources from both deaf and hearing perspectives—archival sources, films and literature, personal memoirs, and journalism—to build a multilayered history of deafness. This book will appeal to scholars of Soviet history and disability studies as well as those in the international deaf community who are interested in their collective heritage. Deaf in the USSR will also enjoy a broad readership among those who are interested in deafness and disability as a key to more inclusive understandings of being human and of language, society, politics, and power.

Perestroika has led to more openness than ever before about Soviet social problems, and it has accelerated the processes of demographic and social change. In this collection a group of leading British, European and North American specialists analyse the central features of a changing society, concentrating upon mortality patterns in the population itself and upon the social problems that have been brought to the fore by glasnost, such as drugs and alcohol abuse.

This book represents the first comprehensive assessment of the world of social movements and collective action in the Soviet Union, and provides the information to expand our knowledge and potentially our comprehension of the dramatic processes taking place.

From Kurdistan to Somaliland, Xinjiang to South Yemen, all secessionist movements hope to secure newly independent states of their own. Most will not prevail. The existing scholarly wisdom provides one explanation for success, based on authority and control within the nascent states. With the aid of an expansive new dataset and detailed case studies, this book provides an alternative account. It argues that the strongest members of the international community have a decisive influence over whether today's secessionists become countries tomorrow and that, most often, their support is conditioned on parochial political considerations.

Israeli social scientists and educators, many themselves originally from Russia, examine the experiences of young immigrants whose childhood was during the final days and aftermath of the Soviet Union, focusing on how they have adjusted to Israeli society in general and to the education system in particular. They find a triple identity crisis: from the breakdown of basic values and norms during Perestroika, from their confrontation with the totally new and alien Israeli culture, and from adolescence. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR