This ethnography investigates the meaning of learning in the lives of ultraorthodox Jewish women. Presenting a vivid portrayal of the Gur Hasidic community in Israel, El-Or explores the relationship between women's literacy and their subordination. What she finds is a paradox: ultraorthodox women are taught to be ignorant. And they perform the role of being ignorant as only educated women    More >

What will it take to overcome the many challenges that Latin America faces in developing quality, inclusive education for its diverse population? That is the question at the heart of Alejandro Toledo's new book. Toledo begins from the premise that the uneven caliber of schools and universities in the region is only part of the problem. Drawing on his own childhood experiences living in deep    More >

The 18-day revolt that ended Hosni Mubarak's 30 years of rule marked a historic turning point in the political fortunes not only of Egypt, but of the entire Middle East. While the impact of that seminal event will continue to unfold for years, this volume, written by members of the Department of Political Science at the American University in Cairo, presents an authoritative exploration of the    More >

Though the regimes of Egyptian presidents Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak have been decidedly different, the nature of personal authoritarian rule in Egypt has remained virtually unchanged across more than five decades. Maye Kassem traces the shaping of contemporary Egyptian politics, considering why authoritarian rule has been so resilient and assessing the mechanisms that have allowed for its    More >

Seventeen short stories by such well-known writers as Abdullah, Idris, Mahfouz, Taher, Ibrahim, Sharouni, Fahmy, Sibai, and    More >

As in many developing countries, women in Egypt play a key role in the agricultural sector. This has not been adequately reflected, however, in the official statistics on services, employment, and income, nor has there been a fair appreciation of the socioeconomic constraints women encounter in participating in the development process. In response, this fully annotated bibliography represents    More >

Choice Outstanding Academic Book! This in-depth study of the recent civil war in El Salvador supports the author's broader contention that the strategies adopted by incumbent regimes and insurgent movements are key to explaining why revolutions occur—and the conditions under which they succeed or fail. Arguing that prevailing theories of revolution underemphasize the importance of    More >

While many commentators and political scientists dismissed Jesse Ventura's rise to the governorship as a fluke of celebrity, Jacob Lentz shows that it was Minnesota's unique electoral rules, coupled with on-target campaign dynamics, that enabled a third-party candidate to reach office. In this first complete account of Ventura's victory, Lentz draws on tantalizing details from the    More >

In eight of the past dozen presidential elections, TV networks proclaimed the winner while citizens on the West Coast, Hawaii, and Alaska were still casting ballots. Is this a problem? Do media projections decrease voter turnout? Carefully examining data from every presidential election held from 1960 through 2004, William Adams definitively answers both questions. Adams employs a range of    More >

Often regarded as a phenomenon of earlier times and backward places, vote buying has made an impressive comeback in recent decades—primarily as a by-product of democratization. Elections for Sale offers the first comprehensive analysis of this widespread but ill-understood practice. The authors systematically explore a series of key questions: What exactly is vote buying? What are its    More >