Cuerpos de género y cuerpos políticos. Un estudio de españoles y de US latinos conversos al islam

Marta Boris Tarre, University of Idaho

"Cuerpos de género y cuerpos políticos" constituye uno de los pocos libros en lengua española sobre las conversiones al islam de los grupos en cuestión, pero más específicamente de como estos utilizan el género y la nación como vehículos identitarios, lo que será útil para investigadores en estudios religiosos y sociológicos. Este libro examina las convergencias que se producen entre conversión al islam y género, nación y ciudadanía por parte de dos grupos poblacionales occidentales –españoles y US latinos–. El estudio etnográfico de campo, los feminismos islámicos y el estudio de masculinidades van a constituir la base para explorar cómo la visión de género que estas mujeres y hombres conversos al islam sostienen representan nuevas formas identitarias de género que constituyen instrumentos políticos y que resisten los estereotipos que se atribuyen al sujeto musulmán. No obstante, estos también representan alternativas de género por incorporar un elemento religioso, lo cual les otorga agencia para vivir el islam en un territorio que vislumbra esta religión de forma hostil. Finalmente, "Cuerpos de género y cuerpos políticos" estudiará cómo los conversos redefinen la identidad de nación y de ciudadanía en función a su afiliación religiosa. El componente moral que su nueva religión aporta contribuye a una idea de nación y de ciudadanía que no puede entenderse sin visionar al ciudadano como un ser moral y religioso, lo que contrasta con la idea de ciudadanía occidental y con la identidad de nación del territorio donde residen en la que lo religioso es privatizada. Ello desemboca en un concepto de “españolidad” y de “latinidad” que incorpora el islam como base infalible de autoridad y que contrasta con una sociedad hegemónica que incorpora otros factores como la región, la cultura y la lengua como base a idea de nación y de cohesión nacional.

The Disease of Liberty

Thomas Jefferson, History, & Liberty: A Philosophical Analysis

M. Andrew Holowchak

Liberty for Jefferson was 'the' driving force of human history and a realizable state of the human organism and of a society of men. Study of history and anthropology showed that humans were moving from the barbaric independence suffered in primal hordes, which lived inefficiently on lands, to a more economical, human-friendly use of land in social settings, demanding laws for order. Those laws, historically, favored the powerful few to the detriment of the hoi polloi. As a pupil of the Enlightenment, Jefferson argued that all humans were by nature equal, and thus, deserving of as much civic liberty as a reason-oriented and sciences-loving society, a Jeffersonian republic, could guarantee them. This book, philosophical, explains how such a society was possible, given Jefferson’s conception of the nature of man, and how the realization of one such society could lead, through contagion, to a global community of such societies. There are a large number of books that cover Jefferson’s political ideology (e.g., Gordon Wood’s 'Empire of Liberty' and Adrienne Koch’s 'The Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson')—too many to limn—but none that gets at the philosophical implications of TJ’s views on liberty. This book, examining TJ as a natural scientist and philosophy, examines and situates him in the manner of other great political ideologists of his day—e.g., Hume and Kant.

Pandemic and Narration: Covid-19 Narratives in Latin America

Edited by Andrea Espinoza Carvajal, University of Exeter and Luis A. Medina Cordova, University of Birmingham

'Pandemic and Narration: Covid-19 Narratives in Latin America' sheds light on how, as Covid-19 spread, infecting and killing millions across the world, life not only continued to be experienced but also continued to be narrated. By putting together this volume, we help understand what happened in the region from a perspective in which, unlike most of what we saw during the health emergency, numbers, statistics and percentages are not at the centre of the analysis. The essays gathered here foreground something else: the manifold ways Covid-19 was subjectively and collectively narrated in the news, government reports, political speeches, NGO communications, social media, literature, songs and many other media. From a wide range of disciplinary approaches, the contributors to this edition pay attention to how fictional and non-fictional stories, official discourses, as well as personal and political accounts, documented, represented and shaped the health crisis, laying bare how —in Latin American countries— the spread of the virus intersected with corruption, gender-based violence, inequality and exclusion, as with community, solidarity and hope. Readers will find that the focus on narrative provides an alternative source of knowledge on Latin America’s Covid-19 experience. Our perspective contrasts with the usual emphasis on death tolls, infection rates, weekly cases, vaccination counts, and the plethora of statistics that illustrated the gravity of the situation in the build-up to, during, and after the peak of the crisis. While extremely important to understand the situation, numbers do not tell the whole story. A comprehensive picture of the pandemic can only be achieved when the stories of the virus are accounted for. Health, after all, is no stranger to narrative. And neither is Latin America.

Bandwagoning in International Relations: China, Russia, and Their Neighbors

Dylan Motin, Kangwon National University, Korea

Whether states balance against or bandwagon with threatening great powers remains an unsolved problem for international relations theory. One school argues that military power compels minor powers to accommodate threats, while another defends that it elicits balancing instead. With the emergence of potential hegemons in both Asia and Europe — namely China and Russia — understanding state alignment is more urgent than ever. This book shows that bandwagoning has been a rare choice in contemporary Asia and Europe. The only states that chose bandwagoning with China or Russia faced both conflicts with third rivals and low levels of U.S. assistance. Going further, I divide bandwagoning between full alignment, survival accommodation, and profit accommodation. Bandwagoners choose among these three options based on the severity of the threat posed by the potential hegemon, the intensity of third conflicts, and the level of U.S. assistance. I test this novel theory against three European (Armenia, Belarus, and Serbia) and four Asian (Cambodia, Myanmar, North Korea, and Pakistan) cases. This study is the first to provide an exhaustive and compelling explanation of bandwagoning fully compatible with neorealism and adds to the balancing-bandwagoning debate. Beyond scholarly implications, this research’s findings offer advice for policymakers concerned with the changing balance of power in Asia and Europe and how to counter China and Russia’s influence.

Mediated Ideologies: Nordic Views on the History of the Press and Media Cultures

Edited by Jukka Kortti, University of Helsinki, Finland and Heidi Kurvinen, University of Turku, Finland

Ideologies have not been a focus of interest in the field of humanities and social sciences in recent decades, but rethinking the power of ideologies in the media sphere has recently returned to the scholarly discussion. The compilation book “Mediated Ideologies: Nordic Views on the History of the Press and Media Cultures” participates in this by providing selected yet justified approaches to media history from the point of view of ideological uses of media in the Nordic region. In this book, the role of media – comprising both popular media and news journalism – as a forum for ideologies and their circulation will be analyzed by focusing on the Nordic region. The perceived similarities in the media systems of the Nordic countries constitute a perfect extent for a regional media history against not only a European but also a global backdrop. This does not mean that there have not been many national differences. The book does not provide a chronological narrative of Nordic media history. Still, the ideology of media is approached not only from the standpoints of different media forms – film, television, newspapers, magazines, and periodicals – but also from several historical periods from the mid-19th century to the late 20th century. The chapters show the multidimensional role that the media has in transmitting ideologies to their audiences and the public sphere. They also demonstrate that analyzing the role of different ideologies, such as modernization, nationalism, solidarity, feminism, and peace movement in media history provides wider perspectives in understanding past and present media landscapes and people’s mediated experiences that are fostered by them. “Mediated Ideologies: Nordic Views on the History of the Press and Media Cultures” can be used both as a reference book and as a classroom adaption in the field of media, communication, and history studies.

The Dark Side of Speech

A Disenchanted Report on the Decade that Preceded the Invasion of Ukraine

Carlo Penco, University of Genoa, Italy

What is disinformation, and why does it matter? How can we understand and detect different kinds of disinformation? The book's four parts provide the reader with answers and a deeper understanding of various concepts and events: (1) On notions of post-truth and fake news, with examples from the last decade. (2) On the notion of conspiracy theory and the influence of “narratives” that obfuscate the truth of the matter. (3) On the role of algorithms in propaganda and their impact on freedom of expression. (4) On “emergency tools” for detecting disinformation at an individual level, understanding the most hidden mechanisms of the dark side of the speech. From the preface by John Perry (Stanford University): “What to do with this book? Read it from start to finish; it is fascinating. Alternatively, pick out a topic, study the index and learn all about it. I think the book would make a great text for an undergraduate course --- a semester or even a year. But by picking one topic or another, historical or philosophical or a combination, one could put together a great lecture or a seminar. If you find your kids seduced by bullshit from the internet, set them down and explain where it really came from. And for that matter, use the book to help determine whether your own beliefs are information or disinformation.”

Living the Independence Dream: Ukraine and Ukrainians in Contemporary Socio-Political Context

Edited by Lada Kolomiyets, Dartmouth College/Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine

For many Ukrainians, 1991 was a crucial point when their long-held dream of independence came true. The image of the future life in independent Ukraine was then almost identical to folklore images of Ukraine as the land of milk and honey. "Living the Independence Dream" takes a multi-dimensional look at the period of regained independence as a time of advancement towards the realization of collective dreams shaping the post-Soviet nation, even through everyday disappointments, anxiety, and uncertainty. The collection features personal accounts of several generations of Ukrainians who found themselves displaced by political upheavals in foreign lands, as well as the voices of recently displaced people who left the Donbas or other regions of Ukraine following the outbreak of the Russian aggression. It revisits the legacy of Soviet dissidents and explores the ideologies of Ukrainian language revival and the ways that memory and language construct Ukrainian identity and generate vital energy amidst war. The collection "Living the Independence Dream" aims to analyze the agency of contemporary Ukrainian people and the role of media, literature, and digital folklore in creating new messages, meanings, and values formed during the Independence decades.

Topics and approaches to studying intelligence

Edited by Glenn P. Hastedt, James Madison University and Andrew Macpherson, University of New Hampshire

The goal of "Topics and approaches to studying intelligence" is to bring into sharper focus the evolving nature of intelligence studies, which is in the midst of a period of significant expansion that is taking place across a number of dimensions. Working on this foundation of past and contemporary analytic intelligence studies, the chapters in "Topics and approaches to studying intelligence" highlight areas of debate and disagreement, provide insight into new areas of study and broaden the methodological toolset used by researchers. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches investigate analysis, alliances, competitive/private sector intelligence, gendered practices of intelligence agencies, the nature of intelligence studies scholarship, accreditation, intelligence disclosure for diplomacy, and the sharing of nuclear-related intelligence.

The Red Warrior: U.S. Perceptions of Stalin’s Strategic Role in the Allied Journey to Victory in The Second World War

Reagan Fancher, Texas Woman’s University

Through U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease program, American leaders sought to keep Joseph Stalin’s Red Army in the field and fighting Adolf Hitler’s forces in the Second World War from 1941 forward. Delivered by the Anglo-American Arctic naval convoys, overland through the Iranian deserts and mountains, and through the skies from Alaska to Siberia, this much-needed material aid helped Stalin’s Red Army to continue fighting and thereby prevented a separate peace with Hitler’s Germany and a mechanized repeat of the First World War’s Brest-Litovsk fiasco. Yet Roosevelt and other U.S. officials, due to their severe underestimation of Stalin’s character and his rigid and fanatical devotion to exporting Communism at gunpoint, gambled incorrectly that they could win the Soviet premier’s heart and mind through several excessive wartime aid gestures, including the furnishing of atomic bomb materials to the Soviet regime. By 1945, American leaders had succeeded in their strategic goal of keeping Stalin and his Red Army in the war and hastening victory but failed in their efforts to purchase the Soviet premier’s goodwill and commitment to postwar peace, heralding the global Cold War, and setting the stage for later U.S. martial aid programs to those resisting aggression abroad. In addition to its primary focus on the American leadership’s perceptions of Stalin’s strategic importance to the Allied war effort in the Second World War, this work also includes a detailed assessment of Roosevelt’s Soviet Lend-Lease program alongside U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s later support for the Afghan Islamic guerrillas resisting Soviet occupation during the Soviet-Afghan War of the 1980s and a comparison of both martial aid programs with Washington’s recent revival of Lend-Lease aid for the Ukrainian war effort. It offers today’s American leaders and policymakers a chance to consult the lessons of history and apply them in the present.

Peace Studies and the Color Line

Africana Contributions

Carlos Cordero-Pedrosa and I Jin Jang

The book aims to continue and expand the conversations emerging from the margins of peace studies about race and racism, and their implications for the field. Especially drawing from the often-overlooked African diasporic critical and philosophical tradition —with an emphasis on Africana phenomenology and existentialism— the book addresses questions that are central in Africana thought yet remain under-explored in peace studies. This enables to rethink peace studies’ assumptions, conceptual frameworks, and epistemic and normative elements. Inter- or transdisciplinary dialogue requires a profound re-evaluation of what constitutes the exclusions in both knowledge and politics. This, in turn, necessitates a critical examination of the structures and organization of knowledge, a deeper understanding of the field’s identity, its foundational narratives and presuppositions, a reassessment of the relations with other disciplines and areas of knowledge, and the histories, the subjects and the forms of agency that it privileges. Taking race and racism seriously through African diasporic thought entails, among others, reconsidering the ties of peace studies with international relations and liberal political theory, bringing to the forefront the question of freedom, examining the relationship between the ethical and the political, and complicating the distinction between violence and nonviolence.

Facebook Friendship Groups as a Space for Peace: A Case Study of Relations between Libyan and American Citizens

Lisa Gibson, Washington and Jefferson College

"Facebook Friendship Groups as a Space for Peace" provides new ways of thinking about the concept of friendship in international relations by drawing upon Aristotle’s ancient insights on sociability and reconceptualizing them for modern international relations. This book explores how citizens can be engaged in public diplomacy through everyday interactions in Facebook friendship groups which allows them to promote understanding and reframe identity narratives. This book provides rich-in-demand empirical insights from citizens in the global south about the ways that social media friendship groups can be used to facilitate positive relations between citizens from countries that have a history of conflict. It also provides important insights for state leaders on the kinds of citizen initiatives that are seen as most useful in promoting positive images among foreign peoples. However, it challenges much of the notion that citizen initiatives will improve foreign public views of a state’s foreign policy, especially when those foreign policy priorities negatively affect citizens directly, like former President Donald Trump’s travel ban. Negative foreign policy initiatives cause distrust and once that is broken, it is difficult to rebuild absent changing the foreign policy. This book shows that conflict is deeply contextual, and as such public diplomacy initiatives must also be designed in such a way to address the unique challenges that exist between countries. Social media friendship groups can be a place to start to promote understanding, dispel stereotypes and reframe enemy narratives, which are essential to long-term positive relations.

Power and Politics in Africa: A Boundary Generator

Takuo Iwata, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan

Africa’s potential and challenges in the 21st century make it a focal point for global attention. The continent’s political landscape is now more diverse, with a mix of democracy, authoritarianism, peace, and conflict. Understanding the dynamics of African politics is crucial. This comprehensive book delves into African Politics and International Relations, exploring power through the lenses of politics, geography, sociology, and anthropology. It is based on the author’s three decades of fieldwork and research across Africa, Asia, and the West. Ideal for academic scholars, students, diplomats, government officials, journalists, and NGO staff seeking to deepen their understanding of African politics and international relations.

The United States-Japan-China Triangle in the Post-Cold War Early Decades: A Case Study of Applied Political Science

Jalel Ben Haj Rehaiem

This book examines the post-Cold War U.S.-Japan-China Triangle through the lens of two core international relations variables: power and security. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S., as the sole superpower, aimed to prevent the rise of any rival in Asia or elsewhere that could threaten its global position. This approach aligns with a realist view of international relations, championed by scholars like John Mearsheimer, tracing back to the principles of interstate competition seen as far back as the 1648 Westphalia Treaty and the Peloponnesian War in the 5th century BC. The book argues that the U.S. aims to prevent China from becoming a revisionist power by strategically using its alliance with Japan as a deterrent within the American-led regional order. Historically, the U.S.-Japan-China relationship has seen consistent U.S. support for Japan, often at China’s expense, except during World War II. Since the 19th century, the U.S., alongside European powers, pressured China through treaties such as the 1844 Wanghia Treaty and direct interventions like the Opium Wars. Japan’s industrialization after the Meiji Restoration led to imperialist ambitions that eventually clashed with Western interests, culminating in Japan’s 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor—a short-lived break in the U.S.-Japan alignment. After the Communist rise to power in China in the late 1940s, the U.S. renewed its strategic ties with Japan to contain Chinese influence, solidified by the 1951 security treaty.

False Idols: How Diversion is Destroying Democracy

Kurt Warner

The ancient Roman poet and satirist Juvenal stated that people were distracted by “bread and circuses” rather than engaged in their civic duty. Juvenal argued these bread and circuses, or basic needs and entertainment, consumed the thoughts and lives of the average Roman no matter what was happening in the Republic around them. The powerful political forces in society used many different forms of distraction to enable them to do what they wanted unimpeded by the masses. 'False Idols: How Diversion Is Destroying Democracy' picks up where Juvenal left off. The book is a journey through contemporary America and it illustrates how the concept of “bread and circuses” is as powerful and as relevant now as it was in the days of ancient Rome. It examines the deliberate distractions that are created by the cultivation of false idols. The distractions include the adoration of celebrities and parasocial interactions, the economic culture and the implicit belief systems contained within it, sports and the adoration of athletes, the political system and structure, the art, music, and literature we spend our time listening to and watching, the internet and social media that occupies so much of our time, and the video games that occupy the minds and much of the lives of so many people. As long as everybody is chasing and distracted by these bread and circuses, they are willfully negligent to the goings-on in the very fabric of the social network that is of our society, government, and country. The more negligent they become, the more the democracy continues withering and dying. This book systemically deconstructs a modern society that seems designed to consistently pull us away from rather than draw us toward the creation of a better existence for all.

Migration, Capitalism and Media

Edited by Kazım Tolga Gürel and Nalan Ova, The Suleyman Demirel University, Turkey

This study explores the intricate arrangements that serve the power and profit interests of the ruling classes. It examines how capital-driven approaches and life-colonizing construction goals form the backdrop to the events and analyses presented in these articles. Each contribution, regardless of its conclusion, begins with real-life experiences, interpreting specific theories and data through the lens of historical context. At the heart of the book lies the notion that all practices and elements of life are subject to colonization. Whether in the form of a nation-state or a party-state, the state functions as a power center shaping migration policies to serve ruling-class interests. The articles included were carefully selected by the editor. While some emphasize the concept of identity—an approach the editor may not fully endorse—these pieces were chosen to reflect a diversity of thought and to model the kind of genuine democracy that remains absent in today’s world. It is important to note that the book rejects any ideologies that violate human rights, such as fascism, racism, homophobia, misogyny, and xenophobia. This collection offers a compelling examination of themes including immigration, capitalism, and the media.

Political Breakout: Situation, Need, Action

Tony Fry

The book is totally preoccupied with thinking beyond existing political thought and institutions. It recognizes that irrespective of who or where we are, and no matter if we know it or not, “we” now all live in “the end times.” Most explicitly, this moment is expressed by evolutionary biology, making clear that planetary life is at the start of the sixth extinction event – a situation indivisible from climate change impacts. The already unstable geopolitical “state of the world” and its dangers will amplify the coming eco-environmental conditions, resulting in population displacement, resource stress, critical conditions of food security, and conflict. Globally, across all political ideologies, existing institutional politics demonstrate an incapability of responding to these situations. There is an evident temporal disjuncture between how extant politics is positioned in time and the moment of an ever-accelerating end times. Effectively, political institutions, their theory and practice, are out-of-step with terminal speeding “defuturing” events. As the book makes clear, this situation needs to be fully recognised. At the same time, there are visions and political positions presenting themselves as directing what will come after the end times. Viewing these positions indicates that the future will be plural and contested. In one direction, technology and corporations will become even more powerful (as a critique of the literature on “accelerationism” shows). But at the other extreme, a huge swathe of displaced humanity is almost certain to be abandoned. In the face of these prospects, new political thinking and practices are essential. But this will not come from the existing political paradigm. Such change needs a new political imagination. Responding to this need is a primary focus of the book. To do this, the influence of Spinoza on political imagination provides a key point of engagement and departure.

Guardians of Peace: The Civilian Joint Task Force in Countering Boko Haram in Borno State, Nigeria

Seun Bamidele, University of Johannesburg, South Africa / Federal University Oye-Ekiti, Nigeria

This book offers a new lens on insurgency-related peace, focusing on the critical role of local initiatives in addressing violent extremism. It centers on the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF), a community-based peace group formed in Borno State, Nigeria, in response to the atrocities of Boko Haram. With over 26,000 members, the CJTF has become a significant player in the fight against Boko Haram, working closely with the military across both urban and rural areas. Using a qualitative ethnographic approach, the book challenges the traditional view that insurgency-related peace efforts are solely the responsibility of the state or conventional security forces. It highlights how local, non-state actors like the CJTF contribute effectively to security and peacebuilding, shedding light on the complexities of civilian-military collaboration. Drawing on David Galula’s insurgency theory, the book examines the CJTF’s role in combating Islamic extremism and demonstrates that local peace movements can complement state-led efforts. This analysis fills a critical gap in the literature, offering a unique contribution to the fields of security studies, peacebuilding, and African politics. Ideal for scholars, policymakers, and practitioners interested in alternative peace strategies, community-driven security, and the challenges of countering extremism, this book provides a comprehensive framework for understanding how local and state efforts can work together to achieve lasting peace. It offers practical insights into the evolving nature of insurgency-related peace and its implications for Nigeria and beyond.

Making of the Popular: Production of Culture and Discourses in Bangladesh

Manosh Chowdhury

This book aims to illustrate how the 'popular' is not an arbitrary outcome as it is claimed to be, and how the project of constructing the popular functions as a web composed of different agents - governmental and state agencies, the media, corporate groups, development agencies, and the military with subtle nuances. Different agencies overlap in many aspects but work as a pact for making a national-popular. With specific references to Bangladesh, this book tends to illuminate how these agencies share similar missions and objectives, create spaces to collaborate with each other, and, regardless of specific disputes among them, maintain and manifest an oligarchic relationship. This is the flexible, yet definitive, location of the popularizing project - a 'cultural mission' of the ruling systems. It would deny a simplistic understanding of popular culture and posit the question of the popular within a complex web of social agencies in a particular space, at a specific historical juncture. Making popular here is integral to claiming populist credibility both as a cultural and political mission. It is cultural in the way the projects are launched and manifested and seek to reveal certain meanings. It is political in terms of configuring indoctrination over its subjects, mostly in the form of nationalist exhibitions. The project is becoming even more important for the corporate groups as it does not necessarily contest the state machinery but rather takes it as a 'de facto' ally.

Strategic Implications of the War in Ukraine for the Post-Soviet Space

A View from Caucasus and Central Asia

Edited by Rovshan Ibrahimov, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, South Korea and Fuad Shahbazov, Daniel Morgan School of National Security, US

This groundbreaking volume offers an in-depth exploration of how Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has reshaped the geopolitical landscape of the post-Soviet space, particularly in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Through expert analyses, the book examines the far-reaching consequences of the war, including shifts in regional alliances, energy security dynamics, the rise of new cooperation platforms, and the growing role of external actors such as China and Turkey. Through rigorous analysis, the book explores critical themes such as the shifting balance of power in the region, the re-emergence of the Organization of Turkic States, Azerbaijan’s deepening engagement with Central Asia, Kazakhstan’s strategic repositioning, and the complex interplay between Russia, China, Turkey, and the West. It also examines how regional actors are adapting to economic disruptions, energy security challenges, and evolving diplomatic alliances. Blending academic depth with policy relevance, "Strategic Implications of the War in Ukraine for the Post-Soviet Space" is an essential resource for scholars, analysts, and professionals in international relations, security studies, and Eurasian affairs.

Archaeology as a Weapon: Long-lasting legacies of colonialism and nationalism in Israel, Palestine, Greece and Cyprus

Marie-Louise Winbladh

In Greece, Cyprus, Israel and Palestine, the reconstruction of the past through archaeology has been used to strengthen national identity. Narratives about the past and origin myths have been constructed for political purposes. Cyprus and Palestine have both suffered from British colonialism since the early twentieth century, which has had a profound influence on their cultural heritage. Through nationalism, archaeology has been exploited by far-right movements and political parties to claim ownership of heritage and has become an efficient political tool. In Israel, archaeology and religion have been exploited to construct the Israeli state and still play a crucial role. The country claims to be the conqueror of Palestine under the protection of God, who they believe gave them possession of the land. Western religious groups are convinced that it is the religious duty of Christians to support the modern nation-state of Israel. Biblical archaeology has become an ultra-religious American speciality, marked by fraud and pseudoresearch. Notorious smuggling scandals were staged by American Christian multibillionaires buying artefacts looted from the National Museum of Iraq and other countries. Looting, plundering and blacklisting are among the most serious problems in Cyprus, causing irreparable damage to artefacts, monuments and society. Palestine’s rich archaeological, historical, and religious heritage has been undermined by occupation and land confiscation. Hundreds of sites have been looted by the Israeli occupation, and an illegal trade of ancient artefacts has occurred on a large scale. Populism is frequently associated with extreme nationalism and racism. Over the past few years, white nationalists and white supremacists have seized the history of Greece and Rome. White nationalists and Neo-Nazis in the US and Europe have used the slogan “Classics Made Great Again” showing their obsession with ancient sculptures and their alleged whiteness. When visiting Jerusalem, the Trump administration promoted an evangelical program where the politics of moral superiority is associated with white Christian supremacy.