Our present moment can no longer sustain a stable “us” defined against an alien “them.” So say René Girard and Ivan Illich, radical critics of both Christianity and culture. If they are right, this makes our time an endtime. The end of us against them can deteriorate into the chaos of each against each, or it can open outward into freely chosen communion. It is an expectant—and apocalyptic—time. How does one live in this strange, endtime world? As a wanderer in the odd, cross-culture country Girard and Illich have mapped, the author finds himself in a surprising new place in relation to those who are his other: women, queer folk, refugees, Muslims, atheists, and Indigenous people. In this collection of essays, he blinks, looks around, and makes some field notes.

New York Times bestseller "A cogent analysis of the concurrent Trump/Brexit phenomena and a dire warning about what lies ahead...a lucid, provocative book." --Kirkus Reviews Those who championed globalization once promised a world of winners, one in which free trade would lift all the world's boats, and extremes of left and right would give way to universally embraced liberal values. The past few years have shattered this fantasy, as those who've paid the price for globalism's gains have turned to populist and nationalist politicians to express fury at the political, media, and corporate elites they blame for their losses. The United States elected an anti-immigration, protectionist president who promised to "put America first" and turned a cold eye on alliances and treaties. Across Europe, anti-establishment political parties made gains not seen in decades. The United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. And as Ian Bremmer shows in this eye-opening book, populism is still spreading. Globalism creates plenty of both winners and losers, and those who've missed out want to set things right. They've seen their futures made obsolete. They hear new voices and see new faces all about them. They feel their cultures shift. They don't trust what they read. They've begun to understand the world as a battle for the future that pits "us" vs. "them." Bremmer points to the next wave of global populism, one that hits emerging nations before they have fully emerged. As in Europe and America, citizens want security and prosperity, and they're becoming increasingly frustrated with governments that aren't capable of providing them. To protect themselves, many government will build walls, both digital and physical. For instance... * In Brazil and other fast-developing countries, civilians riot when higher expectations for better government aren't being met--the downside of their own success in lifting millions from poverty. * In Mexico, South Africa, Turkey, Indonesia, Egypt and other emerging states, frustration with government is on the rise and political battle lines are being drawn. * In China, where awareness of inequality is on the rise, the state is building a system to use the data that citizens generate to contain future demand for change * In India, the tools now used to provide essential services for people who've never had them can one day be used to tighten the ruling party's grip on power. When human beings feel threatened, we identify the danger and look for allies. We use the enemy, real or imagined, to rally friends to our side. This book is about the ways in which people will define these threats as fights for survival. It's about the walls governments will build to protect insiders from outsiders and the state from its people. And it's about what we can do about it.

Evaluates the formidable consequences of the Bush administration's conservative foreign policy on national security, tracing the path of conservatism throughout the past half century while making sobering predictions about the nation's vulnerability to nuclear terrorism.

Crime and gentrification are hot button issues that easily polarize racially diverse neighborhoods. How do residents, activists, and politicians navigate the thorny politics of race as they fight crime or resist gentrification? And do conflicts over competing visions of neighborhood change necessarily divide activists into racially homogeneous camps, or can they produce more complex alliances and divisions? In Us versus Them, Jan Doering answers these questions through an in-depth study of two Chicago neighborhoods. Drawing on three and a half years of ethnographic fieldwork, Doering examines how activists and community leaders clashed and collaborated as they launched new initiatives, built coalitions, appeased critics, and discredited opponents. At the heart of these political maneuvers, he uncovers a ceaseless battle over racial meanings that unfolded as residents strove to make local initiatives and urban change appear racially benign or malignant. A thoughtful and clear-eyed contribution to the field, Us versus Them reveals the deep impact that competing racial meanings have on the fabric of community and the direction of neighborhood change.

How work and capitalism inspire horror in modern film.

Hope for the one who is weary, wandering, and wondering where things went wrong In the wake of the culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s, many young evangelical Christians found themselves untethered, disillusioned, and--ultimately--orphaned as they grappled with the legalistic, politically co-opted churches of their youth. Perhaps you are one of them. Perhaps, like Sara Billups, you have felt alone, misunderstood, and maligned in the American church, longing for a more loving, more biblical expression of the faith and discipleship taught by Jesus. Part spiritual memoir of an apocalyptic childhood and part commentary on growing up as an evangelical kid during the culture wars, Orphaned Believers follows the journey of a generation of Christian exiles reckoning with the tradition that raised them and searching for a new way to participate in the story of God. Because for all the baggage, we still belong, and a bigger, more beautiful story awaits. "As American Christianity changes, and as we change along with it, we need guides to remind us who we are and who we're not. Sara has been one such guide for me. She's brutally honest and hilarious, and her heart is wide open to the radical possibility that belonging to Jesus is identity enough for Christians. I couldn't be more grateful for her."--Jon Guerra, singer-songwriter and producer "Billups reminds us that no matter who we are or where we come from, God can move us from a place on the margins to a community of faith."--Foxy Davison, educator and activist "Sara helped me feel more 'found' than I did before--orphaned but also anchored in a much better story than the one the world's been selling me over the past decades. I needed this book more than I knew."--Chuck DeGroat, author, therapist, and professor of pastoral care and Christian spirituality at Western Theological Seminary

Acclaimed historian of U.S.–Middle East foreign relations Douglas Little examines&8239;how American presidents, policy makers, and diplomats dealt with the rise of Islamic extremism in the modern era. Focusing on White House decision-making from George H. W. Bush to Barack Obama, Little traces the transformation of the Cold War–era "Red Threat" into the "Green Threat" of radical Islam. Analyzing key episodes from the 1991 Persian Gulf War and Bill Clinton's mishandling of the Oslo peace process through the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq, and the showdown with ISIS, Little shows how the threat posed by Islamic "others" shaped the Middle Eastern policies of both Democratic and Republican presidents. This second edition includes a new afterword that carries the story through the Trump administration and into the Biden presidency, focusing particularly on Afghanistan, a major trouble spot in the Muslim world that will command global attention for many years to come.