Raj Sharman Knihy

How the rise of the West was a temporary exception to the predominant world orderWhat accounts for the rise of the state, the creation of the first global system, and the dominance of the West? The conventional answer asserts that superior technology, tactics, and institutions forged by Darwinian military competition gave Europeans a decisive advantage in war over other civilizations from 1500 onward. In contrast, Empires of the Weak argues that Europeans actually had no general military superiority in the early modern era. J. C. Sharman shows instead that European expansion from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries is better explained by deference to strong Asian and African polities, disease in the Americas, and maritime supremacy earned by default because local land-oriented polities were largely indifferent to war and trade at sea. Empires of the Weak demonstrates that the rise of the West was an exception in the prevailing world order.

An unprecedented new international moral and legal rule forbids one state from hosting money stolen by the leaders of another state. In The Despot's Guide to Wealth Management, J. C. Sharman asks how the anti-kleptocracy regime came about, how well it is working, and how it could work better.

This book is based on a selection of thoroughly revised and extended best papers from the 8th Workshop on E-Business (WEB 2009) held in Phoenix, AZ, USA, on December 15th, 2009. The 29 papers, which were selected from 70 presentations at the workshop, highlight the enormous developments and potential of e-business at a time when new technologies like cloud computing, collective intelligence, and multi-sided platforms are burgeoning. Among the topics covered are Web-based information systems, RFID and supply chain management, process modeling and standardization, security and privacy issues, social networking and mobility, e-services and market mechanisms, IT portfolio management, and other special topics in e-business such as electronic invoicing.