Islamism, Arab Spring, and the Future of Democracy

This book provides an in-depth analysis of public opinion patterns among Muslims, particularly in the Arab world. On the basis of data from the World Values Survey, the Arab Barometer Project and the Arab Opinion Index, it compares the dynamics of Muslim opinion structures with global publics and arrives at social scientific predictions of value changes in the region. Using country factor scores from a variety of surveys, it also develops composite indices of support for democracy and a liberal society on a global level and in the Muslim world, and analyzes a multivariate model of opinion structures in the Arab world, based on over 40 variables from 12 countries in the Arab League and covering 67% of the total population of the Arab countries. While being optimistic about the general, long-term trend towards democracy and the resilience of Arab and Muslim civil society to Islamism, the book also highlights anti-Semitic trends in the region and discusses them in the larger context of xenophobia in traditional societies. In light of the current global confrontation with radical Islamism, this book provides vital material for policy planners, academics and think tanks alike.

From Big Bang to Galactic Civilization
A Big History Anthology

Economic Cycles, Crises, and the Global Periphery

This thought-provoking monograph analyzes long- medium- and short-term global cycles of prosperity, recession, and depression, plotting them against centuries of important world events. Major research on economic and political cycles is integrated to clarify evolving relationships between the global center and its periphery as well as current worldwide economic upheavals and potential future developments. Central to this survey are successive waves of industrial and, later, technological and cybernetic progress, leading to the current era of globalization and the changes of the roles of both Western powers and former minors players, however that will lead to the formation of the world order without a hegemon. Additionally, the authors predict what they term the Great Convergence, the lessening of inequities between the global core and the rest of the world, including the wealth gap between First and Third World nations.

Education and Understanding: Big History Around the World
From Big bang to Galactic Civilizations: A Big History Anthology, Vol II

The Cybernetic Revolution and the Forthcoming Epoch of Self-Regulating Systems

The monograph presents the ideas about the main changes that occurred in the development of technologies from the emergence of Homo sapiens till present time and outlines the prospects of their development in the next 30–60 years and in some respect until the end of the twenty-first century.

Great Divergence and Great Convergence
A Global Perspective

This new monograph provides a stimulating new take on hotly contested topics in world modernization and the globalizing economy. It begins by situating what is called the Great Divergence--the social/technological revolution that led European nations to outpace the early dominance of Asia--in historical context over centuries. This is contrasted with an equally powerful Great Convergence, the recent economic and technological expansion taking place in Third World nations and characterized by narrowing inequity among nations. They are seen here as two phases of an inevitable global process, centuries in the making, with the potential for both positive and negative results.

From Big Bang to Galactic Civilizations: A Big History Anthology

Big History is a new field that has been developing rapidly around the world. What is Big History? According to its professional definition: Big History seeks to understand the integrated history of the Cosmos, Earth, Life and Humanity by using the best empirical evidence and scholarly methods. Big History deals with the universes grand narrative of 13.8 billion years and provides a connection between our past, present and future. It encompasses all forms of existence and all time scales. The present collection is divided into three volumes and is the first international and comprehensive anthology of Big History. In volume one Our Place in the Universe: An Introduction to Big History our existence is regarded from different points of view: as a history of the universe, as a philosophy, and as a factor in the life of people. This edition will challenge and excite your vision of your own life and the new discoveries going on around us. Together with the authors, who come from all the inhabited continents of our planet, readers will engage in a fascinating trip into the depths of time and space, and we hope they will join us in coming to an understanding of our origins and our future.

This Globalizing World

Teaching & Researching Big History:
Exploring a New Scholarly Field

According to the working definition of the International Big History Association, ‘Big History seeks to understand the integrated history of the Cosmos, Earth, Life and Humanity, using the best available empirical evidence and scholarly methods.’ In recent years Big History has been developing very fast indeed. Big History courses are taught in the schools and universities of several dozen countries. Hundreds of researchers are involved in studying and teaching Big History.

Globalistics and Globalization Studies
Aspects & Dimensions of Global Views

Nowadays globalization processes have become all-embracing. But at the same time, despite the ever-increasing flow of publications on globalization, our understanding and knowledge of it still leaves much to be desired. Especially it concerns the global processes in general, of which globalization is a part. We also need to systematize our ideas about globalization and Global Studies to somehow fit the realities. In particular, this concerns the education process, because the current state of education will determine the way people will perceive reality in the forthcoming decades. This yearbook aims at contributing to the solution of these important tasks. It is the third in the series of yearbooks titled Globalistics and Globalization Studies.

Globalistics and Globalization Studies
Theories, Research & Teaching

This is the second issue of the new series titled Globalistics and Globalization Studies. Globalistics may be regarded as a sort of systemic and more or less integrated ‘core’ within Global Studies. At present Global Studies function in two main dimensions – in the research of global political, economic, cultural and social processes, on the one hand, and in the realm of teaching – manifesting themselves in the creation of various Global Studies programs and courses for university students who learn to see the world in its entirety and variety.

Globalization Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

The special character of Globalization: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow is the inclusion of a broad international and multicultural spectrum of issues. The approach is systemic. Political, economic, geographic, ecological, social, cultural, ethnic, religious and historical processes are analyzed.

Globalistics and Globalization Studies

Today globalization can be treated as the most important global process. It is a multi-faceted phenomenon and in every country it has its own image. One can get a truly objective picture of the rapidly changing and integrating world only through a synthesis of all those particular visions. In the present anthology one can find perceptions of globalization by a number of famous scholars from different countries of the world.

Macrohistory and Globalization

The present monograph considers some macrohistorical trends along with the aspects of globalization.The chosen three aspects of macrohistory, namely, technological and political aspects, as well as the one of historical personality together give a definite picture of unfolding historical process which is described from the beginning of human society formation to the present day and near future.

The Evolution of Statehood
From Early States to Global Society

The monograph is devoted to the problems of the origins, development and present situation of statehood. It also provides the forecasts of political development in the coming decades. The book touches upon a wide range of issues and topics, including: What alternatives did state have in evolution? Which main evolutionary stages has it passed as a structure? What are early, developed and mature types of the state? Were Athens and Rome Republic states? What new coalitions of countries will be possible in the nearest decades?

The Early State, Its Alternatives and Analogues

Issues of formation and evolution of the early (archaic) state continue to remain among those problems which have not found generally accepted solutions yet. Contributors to The Early State, Its Alternatives and Analogues represent both traditional and non-traditional points of view on evolution of statehood. However, the data presented in the volume seem to demonstrate in a fairly convincing manner a great diversity of pathways to statehood, as well as non-universality of transformation into states of complex and even supercomplex societies.

Hierarchy and Power in the History of Civilizations:
Ancient and Medieval Cultures

The relations of hierarchy and power penetrate the whole of social life but naturally they are most visible in the political sphere. In this volume the relations of hierarchy and power are studied with respect to representative samples of pre-modern states and societies. These interesting and revealing cases cover a wide range both in time and space, as well as different types of the relations of hierar-chy and power in the history of ancient and medieval civilizations.

Hierarchy and Power in the History of Civilizations
Political Aspects of Modernity

The relations of power and hierarchy in the modern political world system demonstrate a great number of variants, levels and dimensions. In the present edited volume the focus lies on three aspects of this important subject. These are revolutionary transformations (in the broad sense of this notion), violence, and globalization. Each volume section is devoted to one of those themes.

Hierarchy and Power in the History of Civilizations
Cultural Dimensions

The relations of hierarchy and power are relevant for every sphere.The cultural sphere is not an exception, although, of course, it has great peculiarities in the manifestation of power-hierarchical relations. The relations here are usually informal and more often connected with traditions than with norms, there are much less power structures that have the legal right for coercion.