Lebanon's significance to the Middle East and the global arena is greater than its small size suggests - bordering Israel and Syria, it holds a geo-strategic role as the playing field for their competition as well as for their allies, America and Iran. This book examines how American diplomacy has responded to the intersection of local, regional, and international factors in Lebanon.

David Hale examines several key episodes in US diplomatic history with Lebanon, starting with the country's independence in 1943, up until the present moment. Crucial events such as the Lebanese Civil War, the Cedar Revolution, and more recently the spillover from the Syrian Civil War, are examined within the context of the respective US government administrations of the time and their foreign policy strategies. Hale asks whether policy-makers had realistic and compelling goals, the right strategy, sufficient means, and capable diplomats in its diplomatic approaches towards Lebanon through the years.

Crucially, this study focuses on how, during these critical periods, American diplomacy toward Lebanon had consequences beyond the country itself, and on the narrative lines and lessons for the broader conduct of American foreign policy.

Lebanon's significance to the Middle East and the global arena is greater than its small size suggests - bordering Israel and Syria, it holds a geo-strategic role as the playing field for their competition as well as for their allies, America and Iran. This book examines how American diplomacy has responded to the intersection of local, regional, and international factors in Lebanon.

David Hale examines several key episodes in US diplomatic history with Lebanon, starting with the country's independence in 1943, up until the present moment. Crucial events such as the Lebanese Civil War, the Cedar Revolution, and more recently the spillover from the Syrian Civil War, are examined within the context of the respective US government administrations of the time and their foreign policy strategies. Hale asks whether policy-makers had realistic and compelling goals, the right strategy, sufficient means, and capable diplomats in its diplomatic approaches towards Lebanon through the years.

Crucially, this study focuses on how, during these critical periods, American diplomacy toward Lebanon had consequences beyond the country itself, and on the narrative lines and lessons for the broader conduct of American foreign policy.

The world spins in economic turmoil, and who can tell what will happen next? Cold numbers and simple statistical projections don't take into account social, financial, or political factors that can dramatically alter the economic course of a nation or a region. In this unique book, more than twenty leading economists and experts render thorough, rigorously researched prognoses for the world's major economies over the next five years. Factoring in such varied issues as the price of oil, the strength of the U.S. dollar, geopolitics, tax policies, and new developments in investment decision making, the contributors ground their predictions in the realities of current events, political conditions, and the health of financial institutions in each national economy.

The most comprehensive volume on the global economy available today, this book presents up-to-date research on Russia, Australia, Europe, sub-Saharan and South Africa, the major Asian economies, North America, and the largest economies of Latin America. With unsurpassed expertise, the authors explain what's going on in individual countries, how important current global issues will impact them, and what economic scenarios they most likely will face in upcoming years.

Poetry. Introducing the reader to a cast of dogs, bears, pigs and poets, DANCING UNDER A BLOODLESS MOON moves back and forward through time and space, visiting a hill-fort in Wiltshire, as well as Glasgow, Poznan, Cape Town and the Gloucestershire countryside the poet knows well. Wry, surreal and full of speculation about what might or might not have happened at particular moments in time, many of these poems focus on animals and are rooted in rural England, while others deal with urban concerns, with the plight of the marginal, their detachment and despair.

Life can slip by each day as mere existence... or be journeyed enthusiastically through the eyes of true, intentional purpose. In this compilation of 31 short writings, suitable as a daily reader for one month, Rise and Shine was written by a father who wants to share with his adult children some of the rich life lessons he learned by walking daily in personal relationship with Jesus Christ. In his candid, self-exposing style, David Hale describes how living life with purpose in each moment, whether good or bad, transforms life into an adventure. Loaded with nuggets of wisdom, you will find this book encourages you to grow deeper in your own relationship with Jesus as well as live a life that is worth living.

This project shows how the work of the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze points us in the direction of understanding religion as essentially conflictive and violent. Many scholars have maintained that religion is able to serve some irenic or social function. These studies of religion are more apologetic than critical, defending religion's possibility and potential for individual and social good. This work attempts to look at religion differently - providing neither an apologetic for religion, nor a polemic against religion. This 'different' view of religion, inspired by Deleuze's lifelong fascination with an absolute and conflictive difference, extends beyond the limits of language into the realm of the metaphysical. He is the first and only so-called postmodernist to venture into this uncharted territory. Following Deleuze's own nomenclature, this study of the deep and essentially conflictive metaphysical differences found in religion will be called the nomadology of religion.