The apocalyptic, pastoral, and urban traditions have fundamentally shaped Western history and influenced American religion, culture, and politics. This book argues that these traditions have not only been decisive in giving form and substance to classic and modern American literature, but have been appropriated by contemporary science fiction. As a loosely connected set of cultural narratives, the Cross, the Plow, and the Skyline have through the medium of science fiction provided a bold vista on the future grounded in an emergent ecological imagination. This challenging vision, the author claims, may yet settle into the New Millennium's cultural consciousness and inform an ecological politics dedicated to confronting the nation's and the world's social and environmental problems. T...

Most books about economics either focus granularly on extremely complex subject matter or conversely, provide a cursory overview of topics that require more in-depth review. Easy Essays on Economics was written to bridge the gap between the technical and simplistic explanations routinely found in economics books. Beginning with the history of economic thought in ancient times, Dr. Bennett explains the foundational elements of the social science of economics, presenting the economic explanations behind selected significant historical events of the past 200 years. He proceeds to discuss the origin of money, the Federal Reserve, and the banking system as it began and as it exists today. Additional topics covered include the theory of the firm and principal agent theories, the much-maligned...

The Information Systems Department of the College of Economics and Political Science at Sultan Qaboos University organized an international conference on Information Systems (iiSC) in October 2011. The conference proceedings contain written versions of selected contributions presented during the conference. The conference theme was 'information systems for sustainable business development.' The conference provided a forum for discussion on current issues and challenges as well as recent and future developments across a wide range of areas in information systems including. - Trends in Information Systems - E-commerce and E-business Challenges - Knowledge Management and IS industrial applications - Trends in Web technologies - IS Security and Mobile Computing - E-Governmen...

What do Plato and the Bible tell us about bribery? Does it even matter? When it comes to ethical guidance on bribery should we look less to traditional wisdom and instead be seeking understanding and guidance primarily from modern sources? From economists with their talk of efficient markets, and from the critical theorists who focus on inequities in power relations? This book explores such questions in depth.Taking the form of a Platonic dialogue, the book contains a discussion of claims made for recognition of the positive aspects of bribery. This goes beyond the well-known "harmless" bribe - the facilitating or “grease” payment which encourages an official to speed up the performance of his or her existing duties, without additional favors. This type of baksheesh may be unattractive...

One of the intriguing questions of the post-Cold War era has been whether the EU will play a major global role in world politics as non-traditional threats and challenges came to the forefront. Launching new policies such as the Common Foreign and Security Policy, the European Security and Defence Policy and the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) have been considered important steps in the EU?s evolution as a regional and possibly global actor. Neighborhood Challenge analyzes critical aspects of the European Union's relations with its neighbours, by extending its analysis beyond the ENP. Unlike existing books on the subject, the volume covers the entire neighborhood from Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus to North Africa; from the Western Balkans to the South Caucasus and Central Asia. Such an ...