Books published by publisher Stanford

The fall of the Berlin Wall, symbol of the bipolar order that emerged after World War II, seemed to inaugurate an age of ever fewer borders. The liberalization and integration of markets, the creation of vast free-trade zones, the birth of a new political and monetary union in Europe—all seemed to point in that direction. Only thirty years later, the tendency appears to be quite the opposite. Talk of a wall with Mexico is only one sign among many that boundaries and borders are being revisited, expanding in number, and being reintroduced where they had virtually been abolished. Is this an out-of-step, deceptive last gasp of national sovereignty or the victory of the weight of history over the power of place? The fact that borders have made a comeback, warns Manlio Graziano, in his analysis of the dangerous fault lines that have opened in the contemporary world, does not mean that they will resolve any problems. His geopolitical history and analysis of the phenomenon draws our attention to the ground shifting under our feet in the present and allows us to speculate on what might happen in the future.

When Elizabeth hired Joshua to build her mountain home deep in the Utah mountains, she couldn't resist the rugged construction owner's charm. Joshua was the complete opposite of Elizabeth's usual suitor field of CEOs and corporate attorneys, being a high school graduate used to working with his hands. This laid-back, sexy man challenged everything she believed. He threatened to ruin her three-year rule she had sold to the world that insisted everyone has a fake or pseudo-personality they displayed to their new lover that hid their inner self and sheltered their secrets. Her entire career was being shattered by a down-to-earth, modern-day mountain man.