To serve and collect

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Burdett A. Loomis, Wendy J. Schiller

How does Congress function? Why are there so many hindrances to policymaking? What are the alternatives to the decentralized nature of this institution? The Contemporary Congress draws on extensive contemporary research to provide a basic understanding of the United States Congress. In the wake of the 1994 elections, Loomis examines the decentralized Congress of the last forty years and the possibilities for the new Congress to produce coherent, programmatic policies.

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Pamela G. Price

In a cultural history which considers the transformation of south Indian institutions under British colonial rule in the nineteenth century, Pamela Price focuses on the two former 'little kingdoms' of Ramnad and Sivagangai which came under colonial governance as revenue estates. She demonstrates how rivalries among the royal families and major zamindari temples, and the disintegration of indigenous institutions of rule, contributed to the development of nationalist ideologies and new political identities among the people of southern Tamil country. The author also shows how religious symbols and practices going back to the seventeenth century were reformulated and acquired a new significance in the colonial context. Arguing for a reappraisal of the relationship of Hinduism to politics, Price finds that these symbols and practices continue to inform popular expectation of political leadership today.

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writings of Herbert J. Storing

In this definitive collection, the writings of Herbert J. Storing have been assembled into six categories: the Founding Fathers and their legacy; race relations in America; rights and the public interest; bureaucracy and big government; statesmanship and the presidency; and liberal education. With profound understanding and incisive prose, Herbert J. Storing elucidates the nature and enduring importance of America's deepest political principles. His work is presented here with the thoughtful care and organization of one of his students - Joseph M. Bessette.

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Thomas Benjamin

Chiapas, a state in southern Mexico, burst into international news in January 1994. Several thousand insurgents, given a voice in the communiques of Subcomandante Marcos, took control of the capital and other key towns and held the Mexican army and government at bay for weeks. Proclaiming themselves the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, they captured both land and headlines. Worldwide, people wanted to know the answer to one question: why had revolutionaries taken over a Mexican state? No other study of Chiapas answers that question as thoroughly as does this book. Benjamin delineates the basic continuity in the history of Chiapas from the 1890s to 1995. The uprising and government's armed occupation of the state are but the latest violent episodes in a region that is now and has always been a rich land worked by poor people. By studying the impoverishment of the laboring class in Chiapas, Benjamin addresses how the Chiapan elite survived the Revolution of 1910 and remain in control of the state's development and destiny.