Genocide occurs in every time period and on every continent. Using the 1948 U.N. definition of genocide as its departure point, this book examines the main episodes in the history of genocide from the beginning of human history to the present. Norman M. Naimark lucidly shows that genocide both changes over time, depending on the character of major historical periods, and remains the same in many of its murderous dynamics. He examines cases of genocide as distinct episodes of mass violence, but also in historical connection with earlier episodes.

Unlike much of the literature in genocide studies, Naimark argues that genocide can also involve the elimination of targeted social and political groups, providing an insightful analysis of communist and anti-communist genocide. He pays special attention to settler (sometimes colonial) genocide as a subject of major concern, illuminating how deeply the elimination of indigenous peoples, especially in Africa, South America, and North America, influenced recent historical developments. At the same time, the "classic" cases of genocide in the twentieth Century - the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, Rwanda, and Bosnia -- are discussed, together with recent episodes in Darfur and Congo.

The Routledge Handbook of Muslim-Jewish Relations invites readers to deepen their understanding of the historical, social, cultural, and political themes that impact modern-day perceptions of interfaith dialogue. The volume is designed to illuminate positive encounters between Muslims and Jews, as well as points of conflict, within a historical framework. Among other goals, the volume seeks to correct common misperceptions about the history of Muslim-Jewish relations by complicating familiar political narratives to include dynamics such as the cross-influence of literary and intellectual traditions. Reflecting unique and original collaborations between internationally-renowned contributors, the book is intended to spark further collaborative and constructive conversation and scholarship in the academy and beyond.

The present study focuses on the intersection between Islamic jurisprudence, poetics, and manuscript culture in the secret Muslim communities (moriscos) of sixteenth-century Aragon. Using as a theoretical rubric the Islamic legal concept of ^curf (“custom”), I argue that early modern Aragonese Muslims made use of handwritten Islamic legal texts, and the physical books that contained them, to incorporate specific and adaptive local innovations into their religious and cultural practice. At the center of such innovation is the practice of translation and the specific forms that Aljamiado legal texts took within the space of the manuscript folio. All of these features and practices, I argue, revolve around a broader concern with closeness at the physical, social, linguistic, and ultimately metaphysical levels.

European governments are struggling with the biggest refugee crisis since World War II, but there exists little evidence regarding how the management of the asylum process affects the subsequent integration of refugees in the host country. We provide new causal evidence about how one central policy parameter, the length of time that refugees wait in limbo for a decision on their asylum claim, affects their subsequent economic integration. Exploiting exogenous variation in wait times and registry panel data covering refugees who applied in Switzerland between 1994 and 2004, we find that one additional year of waiting reduces the subsequent employment rate by 4 to 5 percentage points, a 16 to 23% drop compared to the average rate. This deleterious effect is remarkably stable across different subgroups of refugees stratified by gender, origin, age at arrival, and assigned language region, a pattern consistent with the idea that waiting in limbo dampens refugee employment through psychological discouragement, rather than a skill atrophy mechanism. Overall, our results suggest that marginally reducing the asylum waiting period can help reduce public expenditures and unlock the economic potential of refugees by increasing employment among this vulnerable population.

Globalization has led to new forms, and dynamics, of migration and mobility. What are the consequences of these changes for the processes of reception, settlement and social integration, for social cohesion, institutional practices and policies? The essays collected in this volume discuss these issues with reference to recent research on migration and mobility in Europe, the US, North and East Africa and South and Southeast Asia. The twenty authors are leading migration researcher from different academic fields such as sociology, geography, political science and cultural studies.

This research was originally presented at the Migration and Integration: Global and Local Dimensions conference, sponsored by The Europe Center and co-sponsored by the University of Vienna, the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, and the Center for International Security and Cooperation.

As the UN estimates the total number of displaced persons globally at 65 million people, TEC affiliate Roland Hsu argues that European countries in particular must think of what the long term flow of refugees from the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa means for the future.