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"Davis, K. author"
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The Arid Lands
Deserts are commonly imagined as barren, defiled, worthless places, wastelands in need of development. This understanding has fueled extensive anti-desertification efforts -- a multimillion-dollar global campaign driven by perceptions of a looming crisis. In this book, Diana Davis argues that estimates of desertification have been significantly exaggerated and that deserts and drylands -- which constitute about 41% of the earth's landmass -- are actually resilient and biodiverse environments in which a great many indigenous people have long lived sustainably. Meanwhile, contemporary arid lands development programs and anti-desertification efforts have met with little success. As Davis explains, these environments are not governed by the equilibrium ecological dynamics that apply in most other regions. Davis shows that our notion of the arid lands as wastelands derives largely from politically motivated Anglo-European colonial assumptions that these regions had been laid waste by \"traditional\" uses of the land. Unfortunately, such assumptions still frequently inform policy. Drawing on political ecology and environmental history, Davis traces changes in our understanding of deserts, from the benign views of the classical era to Christian associations of the desert with sinful activities to later (neo)colonial assumptions of destruction. She further explains how our thinking about deserts is problematically related to our conceptions of forests and desiccation. Davis concludes that a new understanding of the arid lands as healthy, natural, but variable ecosystems that do not necessarily need improvement or development will facilitate a more sustainable future for the world's magnificent drylands.
eBook
Security integration in Europe
At a time when many observers question the EU's ability to achieve integration of any significance, and indeed Europeans themselves appear disillusioned, Mai'a K. Davis Cross argues that the EU has made remarkable advances in security integration, in both its external and internal dimensions. Moreover, internal security integration-such as dealing with terrorism, immigration, cross-border crime, and drug and human trafficking-has made even greater progress with dismantling certain barriers that previously stood at the core of traditional state sovereignty.
Such unprecedented collaboration has become possible thanks to knowledge-based transnational networks, or \"epistemic communities,\" of ambassadors, military generals, scientists, and other experts who supersede national governments in the diplomacy of security decision making and are making headway at remarkable speed by virtue of their shared expertise, common culture, professional norms, and frequent meetings. Cross brings together nearly 80 personal interviews and a host of recent government documents over the course of five separate case studies to provide a microsociological account of how governance really works in today's EU and what future role it is likely to play in the international environment.
\"This is an ambitious work which deals not only with European security and defense but also has much to say about the policy-making process of the EU in general.\"-Ezra Suleiman, Princeton University
eBook
The politics of crisis in Europe
This insightful analysis explores the patterns seen in the three major existential crises that have affected the resilience of the European Union in the first few years of the twenty-first century. Using a comparative framework, it will appeal to scholars in political science, sociology, international relations, communications, and media studies.
Book
Accounting for Real Estate Transactions
\"Accounting for Real Estate Transactions, Second Edition is an up-to-date, comprehensive reference guide, specifically written to help professionals understand and apply the accounting rules relating to real estate transactions. This book provides financial professionals with a powerful tool to evaluate the accounting consequences of specific deals, enabling them to structure transactions with the accounting consequences in mind, and to account for them in accordance with US GAAP. Accountants and auditors are provided with major concepts, clear and concise explanations of real estate accounting rules, detailed applications of US GAAP, flowcharts, and exhaustive cross-references of the authoritative literature\"--
eBook
Portfolio-Analysis Methods for Assessing Capability Options
An analytical framework and methodology for capability-area reviews is described, along with new tools to support capabilities analysis and strategic-level defense planning in the Defense Department and the Services. BCOT generates and screens preliminary options, and the Portfolio-Analysis Tool (PAT) is used to evaluate options that pass screening. The concepts are illustrated with applications to Global Strike and Ballistic Missile Defense. Recommendations are made for further defense-planning research.
eBook
Bathroom Battlegrounds
Today's debates about transgender inclusion and public restrooms may seem unmistakably contemporary, but they have a surprisingly long and storied history in the United States-one that concerns more than mere \"potty politics.\" Alexander K. Davis takes readers behind the scenes of two hundred years' worth of conflicts over the existence, separation, and equity of gendered public restrooms, documenting at each step how bathrooms have been entangled with bigger cultural matters: the importance of the public good, the reach of institutional inclusion, the nature of gender difference, and, above all, the myriad privileges of social status. Chronicling the debut of nineteenth-century \"comfort stations,\" twentieth-century mandates requiring equal-but-separate men's and women's rooms, and twenty-first-century uproar over laws like North Carolina's \"bathroom bill,\" Davis reveals how public restrooms are far from marginal or unimportant social spaces. Instead, they are-and always have been-consequential sites in which ideology, institutions, and inequality collide.
eBook
Deterrence and Influence in Counterterrorism
It may not be possible to deter fanatical terrorists, but members of terrorist systems may be amenable to influence. The U.S. counterterrorism strategy should therefore include political warfare, placing at risk things the terrorists hold dear, a credible threat of force against states or groups that support acquisition of weapons of mass destruction, and maintaining cooperation with other nations engaged in the war on terror, while also preserving core American values.
eBook