The Free City

The Free City
Author: Bouck White
Publisher: Cosimo, Inc.
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2007-03-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1602061343

As the United States endured a lingering economic hangover from the excesses of the Gilded Age and the last wars fought by monarchs was raging in Europe, Bouck White-a Congregationalist minister and champion of the poor and working class in New York CIty-was busy making himself the bane of the elite of Manhattan with his revolutionary, to some, philosophy about God and wealth: namely, that God frowned up it. Here, in this 1919 book, White, a consummate New Yorker as much as he was a dedicated troublemaker, examines the concept of "city" itself throughout history and how the masses have always related to it as an entity. In impassioned, radicalizing language, he examines: . Athenian self-ownership . the patriotism of Jesus . industrial democracies . the city state as a work state . the mysticism of municipality . and more. American minister and author BOUCK WHITE (1874-1951) also wrote Quo Vaditis (1903), The Book of Daniel Drew (1910), The Call of the Carpenter (1911), The Mixing (1913), The Carpenter and the Rich Man (1914), and Letters from Prison (1915).

A Free City in the Balkans

A Free City in the Balkans
Author: Matthew Parish
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2009-10-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 085771273X

Following the brutal wars which raged in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, Bosnia and Herzegovina was awkwardly partitioned into two governing entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska. But there was one part of the country which could not be fitted into either category: the Brcko District, a strategically critical land-bridge between the two parts of the Bosnian Serb territory. This region was the subject of a highly unusual experiment: placed under a regime of internationally supervised government, Brcko became a 'free city', evoking the memory of Trieste or Danzig over fifty years ago. What has this experiment in state-building revealed about the history of this troubled corner of the Balkans - and its future? What lessons can be applied to conflict resolution in other parts of the world? And was the experiment successful or have the citizens of Brcko suffered further at the hands of the international community? "A Free City in the Balkans" investigates the rise and fall of Brcko and post-war Bosnia and investigates what lessons can be learned for international peacekeeping missions elsewhere.

Free Culture and the City

Free Culture and the City
Author: Alberto Corsín Jiménez
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 175
Release: 2023-02-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1501767208

Free Culture and the City examines how and why free software spread beyond the world of hackers and software engineers and became the basis for an urban movement now heralded by scholars as a model for emulation. By the late 1990s, digital activists embraced a philosophy of free software and "free culture" in order to take control over their cities and everyday lives. Free culture, previously tethered to the digital realm, was cut loose and used to reclaim and resculpt the city. In Madrid the effects were dramatic. Common sights in the city were abandoned as industrial factories turned into autonomous social centers, urban orchards, guerrilla architectural camps, or community hacklabs. Drawing on two decades of ethnographic and historical work with free culture collectives in Madrid, Free Culture and the City shows how, in its journey from the digital to the urban, the practice of liberating culture required the mobilization of, and alliances between, public art centers, neighborhood associations, squatted social centers, hackers, intellectual property lawyers, street artists, guerrilla architectural collectives, and Occupy assemblies.

Documents on Autonomy and Minority Rights

Documents on Autonomy and Minority Rights
Author: Hurst Hannum
Publisher: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers
Total Pages: 801
Release: 2023-08-28
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9004633499

The scope of arrangements which provide for some degree of "autonomy" is almost unlimited, as are the norms and means which have been adopted to protect minority rights. Documents on Autonomy and Minority Rights offer examples of some of the unique structures which have been developed to respond to geographic, political, ethnic, linguistic, and other differences under a single sovereignty. They present a broad spectrum of domestic constitutional provisions, statutes, and political agreements, as well as a comprehensive collection of relevant international instruments. The first section includes documents adopted on a global or regional basis to set standards for the protection of minority rights and the rights of indigenous peoples. The second section includes a wide range of national documents related to minority rights and/or autonomy. The last section contains historical documents. The author has written a brief introduction to each document to give the reader unfamiliar with the situation to which a document pertains enough information to consider its context. No single text can be used as a model of autonomy, for every situation is unique. At the same time, however, greater knowledge of a broad range of successful and unsuccessful arrangements may inspire new ideas with which to address conflicts which have claimed tens of thousands of lives in recent years. At the very least, the ingenuity evidenced in some of the documents should encourage experimentation and underscore the need of going beyond the mere recitation of definitions of federalism, consociation, devolution, or other constitutional models. The great variety of institutional arrangements, the detailed provisions developed to resolve particularly difficult local problems, and the flexibility in addressing issues such as revenue-sharing or participation in international organizations, demonstrate that neither "sovereignty" nor "self-determination" need stand in the way of innovative solutions.

International Law and Boundary Disputes in Africa

International Law and Boundary Disputes in Africa
Author: Gbenga Oduntan
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 428
Release: 2015-06-26
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1135039550

Africa has experienced a number of territorial disputes over land and maritime boundaries, due in part to its colonial and post-colonial history. This book explores the legal, political, and historical nature of disputes over territory in the African continent, and critiques the content and application of contemporary International law to the resolution of African territorial and border disputes. Drawing on central concepts of public international law such as sovereignty and jurisdiction, and socio-political concepts such as colonialism, ethnicity, nationality and self-determination, this book interrogates the intimate connection that peoples and nations have to territory and the severe disputes these may lead to. Gbenga Oduntan identifies the major principles of law at play in relation to territorial, and boundary disputes, and argues that the predominant use of foreign based adjudicatory mechanisms in attempting to deal with African boundary disputes alienates those institutions and mechanisms from African people and can contribute to the recurrence of conflicts and disputes in and among African territories. He suggests that the understanding and application of multidisciplinary dispute resolution mechanisms and strategies can allow for a more holistic and effective treatment of boundary disputes. As an in depth study into the legal, socio-political and anthropological mechanisms involved in the understanding of territorial boundaries, and a unique synthesis of an African jurisprudence of international boundaries law, this book will be of great use and interest to students, researchers, and practitioners in African and Public International Law, International Relations, and decision-makers in need of better understanding the settlement of disputes over territorial boundaries in both Africa and the wider world.

The Modernist City

The Modernist City
Author: James Holston
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 383
Release: 1989-09-08
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 0226349799

The utopian design and organization of Brasília—the modernist new capital of Brazil—were meant to transform Brazilian society. In this sophisticated, pioneering study of Brasília from its inception in 1957 to the present, James Holston analyzes this attempt to change society by building a new kind of city and the ways in which the paradoxes of constructing an imagined future subvert its utopian premises. Integrating anthropology with methods of analysis from architecture, urban studies, social history, and critical theory, Holston presents a critique of modernism based on a powerfully innovative ethnography of the city.