Cult Places and Cultural Change in Republican Italy
Tesse Stek
The Karimjee Jivanjee Family
Gijsbert Oonk
More Machiavelli in Brussels
M.P.C.M. van Schendelen
The Drawing of the Mark of Cain
Dik van Arkel
Life as Politics
Asef Bayat








Dynamics of change in Muslim Middle East

Life as Politics offers a new perspective to understand the intricate nature of social activism and complex dynamics of change in today’s Muslim Middle East.

Popular imagination deems the Muslim Middle East as frozen in its own traditions and history. But this assumption fails to recognize that social and political change comes in many guises. In this eye-opening book, Asef Bayat reveals how under the shadow of the authoritarian rule, religious moral authorities, and neoliberal economies, ordinary people can make meaningful change through the practices of everyday life.

Though not as visible on the world-stage as a mass protest or a full-scale revolution, millions of people across the Middle East are discovering or creating new social spaces within which to make their claims heard. The urban poor, women, youth, religious groups and other marginalized people challenge the state's control through their daily activities in the main squares and back streets, in the city markers and neighbourhoods, and in the court houses and music halls. Though not coordinated in their activities, these "non-movements" offer a political response, not of protest but of practice and direct daily action. Offering a window into the complex social processes in this misunderstood part of the world, this unique book provides a Middle Eastern perspective on global debates over the meaning of social movements and the dynamics of social change.

This book discusses the legal attitude of judges in Indonesian Islamic courts after a codified legal code was issued in the form of the Kompilasi Hukum Islam. It shows how society apply and treat the code and examines debates which influence the way judges issue judgments on the cases brought before them. More...

This scholarly study sheds new light on the Roman impact on religious structures in Republican Italy. More...

A fully updated and rewritten third edition of the bestselling original Machiavelli in Brussels, enriched with new facts and figures, lobby cases and findings, and also takes into account the new Treaty of Lisbon. More...

Youngest Recruits shows that even the youngest can exercise some degree of reflection and agency when enlisting into armed forces, and that short-term interventions only play a marginal role in easing their lives. More...

Amsterdam University Press supports ‘Open Access’ and publishes several titels in this manner. More...

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