Why handbooks?
Handbooks are an ideal way to put together a number of essays, often grouped into themed sections. Chapters are normally around 5,000 – 8,000 words in length and often have endnotes and/or bibliographies for further research. For example, the Handbook of China’s Governance and Domestic Politics, edited by Chris Ogden, covers a huge range of topics within its four sections: organizational principles; policy areas; political processes; and contemporary issues.

How do you choose what handbooks to publish?
Handbooks in academic reference aim to offer new information and analysis using the Europa core areas as a starting point, that is to say regions and countries of the world, economics, defence, the environment, international relations, international organizations, etc. Sometimes we look at a certain area and commission handbooks within this area.

For example, we have a growing list of handbooks on international relations and regional governance. These began with Professor Robert Looney’s edited volume, Handbook of US-Middle East Relations, followed by Uwe Wunderlich’s and David Bailey’s edited handbook, The European Union and Global Governance, the Handbook of India’s International Relations (edited by David Scott) and Handbook of China’s International Relations (edited by Shaun Breslin). These will be joined shortly by Handbook of Africa’s International Relations, edited by Tim Murithi, who has pulled together an eminent group of experts on Africa for this title, and by East and South-East Asia: International relations and security perspectives (edited by Andrew T. H. Tan, who has worked with the Europa team on several publications).

It was felt that governance, within countries as well as regions, was an area of interest to our readers and thus the Handbook of China’s Governance and Domestic Politics, edited by Chris Ogden, was commissioned. We recently published Governance in the Middle East and North Africa, edited by Abbas Kadhim and plan to publish the Handbook of Central American Governance, edited by Diego Sánchez-Ancochea and Salvador Marti later this year.

We also have a growing list of topic-based handbooks. We recently published the Handbook of Land and Water Grabs in Africa: Foreign direct investment and food and water security, put together by a prestigious team of editors, Tony Allan, Martin Keulertz, Suvi Sojamo and Jeroen Warner. There are many more issue-based handbooks, including The Global Arms Trade (edited by Andrew T. H. Tan), the Handbook of Oil Politics (edited by Robert Looney) and Handbook of Nuclear Proliferation (edited by Harsh V. Pant), and a number of handbooks that are being prepared for publication in the coming months, including the Handbook of Emerging Economies (edited by Robert Looney), the Handbook of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights (edited by Damien Short and Corinne Lennox), the Handbook of Global Economic Governance (edited by Manuela Moschella and Catherine Weaver) and Handbook of Microfinance (edited by Jude Fernando).

How do you find editors?
As you can see above, Robert Looney has edited a number of handbooks for us. Originally, he submitted such an interesting and well-written chapter for publication in one of our first handbooks, the Handbook of Defence Politics (edited by Isaiah Wilson III and James J. F. Forest) that I asked him whether he would like to take on the editorship of a handbook himself. We have never looked back, and he is currently preparing the Handbook of Emerging Economies, which will examine the BRICS countries along with many up-and-coming developing economies, and promises to be a fascinating read.
We have found several of our editors in a similar way – one book leads on to another. Andrew T. H. Tan wrote the Political and Economic Dictionary of South-East Asia and proved to be such a good writer and editor that we have asked him to edit several books, in the Politics of . . . series as well as in the handbooks series (The Global Arms Trade was his first handbook for us). The Handbook of Land and Water Grabs in Africa, an overview of the issues surrounding foreign direct investment in African farmland, which may have a huge impact on the continent in the coming years, came about because I had worked with Jeroen Warner on The Politics of Water, and he came to Europa Routledge with the handbook idea that fitted right in with our other projects.
Other editors come through recommendation, through working with us on our core Europa publications, or they may come to us with an idea for a handbook.

What new handbooks are in the pipeline?
As well as books that are currently in production or in the process of being written, there are many ideas for new handbooks. The series lends itself to a variety of current issues. I would very much like to commission a handbook looking at Arctic resources – as the ice caps melt there are opportunities to exploit rich sources of minerals, oil, etc., but there are issues surrounding land ownership, indigenous peoples and environmental damage that should be considered. A `sister’ topic would be looking at the potential for the exploitation of sea and under-sea resources, for example looking into how international organizations interpret ownership, how countries might use exclusion zones around their overseas territories, disputed ownership of parts of the Antarctic, etc. There may well also be a handbook on human rights, which would examine rights from the economic, social and cultural standpoint. Also more international relations and governance handbooks would be interesting to commission: South America, Russia, Central Asia . . . and of course any ideas are welcome.

Please feel free to contact Cathy Hartley, Europa Commissioning Editor (cathy.hartley@informa.com) with any feedback or ideas.
 

eBooks from Taylor & Francis - Helping you to choose the right eBooks for your Library

As we enter 2013, we are seeing more and more institutions and libraries investing in electronic information products and resources. There is increasingly less space for physical books, and students are now accessing more information remotely.

A 2012 IFLA report rightly makes the point that 'eResources present a number of challenges not encountered with the selection and acquisition of traditional analogue materials'. For this reason, at Taylor & Francis we endeavour to offer you as much support as possible to help you integrate our eProducts into your library as easily as possible. And with our eBooks, we have made things super simple.

At first glance, the sheer scale of our eBook backlist and frontlist can be quite daunting. We have over 30,000 eBooks across the Humanities, Social Sciences, Behavioural Sciences and Law, from leading imprints, including Routledge, Focal Press and Psychology Press.

With eBooks covering everything from Language & Linguistics and Philosophy of Film to Commercial Law and Development Economics, there is a lot to choose from. For that reason, we have made our purchase options nice and flexible; subject eCollections, interdisciplinary eFocus packages, Pick n' Mix and more ...

Give our new video a watch and get a snapshot of what T&F eBooks could do for your library:

Launched at Stockholm World Water Week the Handbook of Land and Water Grabs in Africa is already creating an impact. Take a look at the Guardian website for an interview with editors Martin Keulertz and Tony Allen. The piece is a great background to the book – Martin and Tony make really interesting points about the potential social and environmental ill-effects of the recent acquisition of African farmland.

We've included some more details about the handbook below, and you can check out the full article on the Guardian website here. 

The Handbook of Land and Water Grabs in Africa, from Routledge, is the first to address inward investment in land and its impact on water resources in Africa, where the amount of under-utilised land has attracted the attention of risk-taking investors. The successful implementation of investment strategies in African agriculture could determine the future of more than one billion people at risk from climate change, population growth and food insecurity.

Edited by Tony Allan, Professor Emeritus, King's College London and SOAS; Martin Keulertz, PhD researcher at King's College London; Suvi Sojamo, PhD researcher at Aalto University and Jeroen Warner, Assistant Professor, Wageningen University – the handbook offers a holistic analysis of land and water grabbing as well as addressing several major themes including politics, economics, environment and the history of land investments.

A diverse range of essays have been assembled:

• Chinese engagement in African agriculture: fiction and fact - Deborah Bräutigam
• The political economy of land and water grabs - David Zetland and Jennifer Möller-Gulland
• Green and blue water dimensions of forign direct investment in biofuel and food production in West Africa - Fred Kizito, Timothy O. Williams, Matthew McCartney and Teklu Erkossa
• Claiming (back) the land: the geopolitics of Egyptian and South African land and water grabs -Jeroen Warner, Antoinette Sebastian and Vanessa Empinotti.
   

New titles featured in this year’s catalogue include the Routledge Handbook of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict which tackles a range of topics from historical background to issues such as refugee and settler movements, and the Handbook of Africa's International Relations which provides up to date analysis on the influence of globalization and the evolution of Pan- Africanism on the continent. Remember to keep an eye out for special introductory prices on recently published books, available up to three months after release.

To view the catalogue online click here. Alternatively, if you would like to receive a printed version – released within the next couple of months - e-mail us at reference@routledge.com with your name and address to pre order your copy.
 

We all look forward to the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Resources awards each year. The guys at CHOICE have done a great job over the years. They are pretty much the premier source for reviews of academic books, electronic media, and Internet resources of interest to those in higher education. I attended the ALA Midwinter Conference this year in Dallas, Texas, and swung by the CHOICE stand to pick up some of their shiny gold stickers, which are now plastered all over my suitcase. We are, therefore, very chuffed to learn that our Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online (REP Online) has been named as one of 2011's outstanding resources.

Just a bit of background. In 1998, REP was published as a multi-volume print set. It was the first multi-volume Encyclopedia to be published in the discipline in over thirty years. Not content with resting on their laurels, however, the REP editorial team, led by Professor Edward Craig, then began work on a fully searchable and extensively cross-referenced dynamic Web version, REP Online. Currently, the online version of REP offers nearly 3,000 articles, covering the latest developments in philosophical enquiry as well as giving students and researchers a rich grounding in the fundamental issues and a thorough history of the subject.

At the beginning of last year, we were delighted to launch the new 2.0 version of the resource, which featured substantial revisions to many core articles. The CHOICE review at the time was very complimentary. The reviewer, C.J. Kohen, a librarian at Daytona State College in the US, remarked that 'the comprehensive article content and links to similar subjects make this database a highly useful source for any student interested in expanding upon themes or exploring related topics.'

Interested? Well, you can visit the REP Online homepage here and enjoy some free articles and a bit more background on the resource.

If you think that your institution would benefit from the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online, you might be interested in taking advantage of our 30 day free trial. To register for this free trial, please just fill in this brief online form and we will set you up ASAP. Or if you have any pricing enquiries or other questions, please just drop us a line. All the contact details can be found here. And even if you are not affiliated with an institution, do not panic! We have individual subscriptions too. Give us a call or send an email using the same contact details as above.

'This is one of the first comprehensive attempts by a group of well qualified and objective economists from the European Commission and leading UK economics institutions to provide a rigorous analysis of UK economic policy in the last decade. It’s a job much needed - and very well done.’ – Roger Liddle, former Europe adviser to Tony Blair and Labour member of the House of Lords

The UK economy is one of the most widely studied and monitored in the world. The global financial crisis, which began in 2007, was probably the biggest shock to hit the UK economy in living memory. Since the beginning of this crisis, much has happened that might previously have been thought impossible, including the virtual nationalization of two of the UK's biggest banks. This book offers detailed analysis of and information on this major subject.

Comprising an edited collection of papers presented to a European Commission seminar held in June 2010 to discuss prospects for the UK economy, the book includes chapters by some of the most prominent and respected commentators on the UK economy, including Christopher Pissarides, winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize for economics sciences, Martin Weale, recently appointed to the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee, and Robert Chote, new chairman of the UK's Office for Budget Responsibility.

The book examines the UK economy in historical perspective, analyzing the drivers of the decade of uninterrupted growth and the crash which followed it, then looks forwards to the UK's economic prospects and the policies required to optimize them.

The chapters cover:

• fiscal policy and its impact on growth and wealth distribution
• monetary policy and the Bank of England's unprecedented stimulus programme
• a detailed decomposition of the sources of UK growth between 1973 and 2009
• the structural excess of consumption that fuelled the UK's long boom
• the UK's labour market performance.

The highly distinguished group of authors, coverage and analysis of issues central to recent UK economic history, along with the European Commission's assessment of UK economic prospects, make this essential reading for economists, business and financial people, academics and students, as well for all those interested in the historical background of, and prospects for, the UK economy.

Information in the chapters is supplemented by a number of charts and tables offering information in graphic form.

UK Economy: the crisis in perspective was published on the 17th November. Order your copy of UK Economy: The Crisis in Perspective today. You can also recommend the title to your Librarian.

What makes Olympic and Paralympic research relevant and interesting is the quality of the connections that researchers, students, authors, educators, policy-makers and professionals make with each other. Routledge Online Studies on the Olympic and Paralympic Games (ROSO) will facilitate this dialogue.

ROSO contains Olympic and Paralympic content from over 1,000 book chapters and journal articles including Handbooks and major reference works on themes including the media, education, gender, politics, governance, management, law, business, ethics, legacies, the environment, disability sport, athletic performance and history. Routledge has commissioned over 40 new journal special issues across disciplines on Olympic and Paralympic Studies that will be revealed on our innovative platform.

• read a selection of articles and chapters online free of charge
• purchase online access to individual articles of your choice
• search the platform by theme, author or publication
• download reading lists, case studies and teaching materials
• watch videos of academics sharing their thoughts on the Olympic and Paralympic Games
• find research collaborators on our Resources page
• communicate live with leading authorities in the field – coming soon
• submit online journal articles, journal proposals, book reviews and book proposals
• discover Olympic and Paralympic courses, projects, events and contacts around the world
• enter a free monthly prize draw

Keep up to date with the latest Olympic and Paralympic research! Sign up for our e-alert.

www.routledgeonlinestudies.com

Ever wanted to know what the relationship is between religious fundamentalism and politics, or why the Olympic movement has become synonymous with diplomatic wranglings and multilateral controversies? And how come oil supply and energy prices are always so high on the agenda of world leaders?

Europa's Politics of ... Series helps to answer these and other critical questions. The fourteen titles in this collection are a great source of opinion and analysis of how politics relate to major global issues, from climate change to migration and terrorism.

Instead of you having to search for each individual title on our website, we have grouped them all in one easy-to-navigate Online Catalogue.You can see which titles are currently available, which titles are soon to hit the shelves and how you can go about ordering them. Interested? Just follow this link to access the Catalogue and take a look for yourself.

If you have any further questions about Routledge Reference products, whether print, eBooks or our various online platforms, please email us at reference@routledge.com or over the phone on +44 (0) 20 701 76566.

The global financial crisis, which began in 2007, was probably the biggest shock to hit the UK economy in living memory. Since the beginning of this crisis, much has happened that might previously have been thought impossible, including the virtual nationalization of two of the UK’s largest banks, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group. These momentous events have demanded a fundamental reworking of the traditional analysis of the UK economy.

The new title from Routledge, UK Economy: the crisis in perspective, offers a radical new anaylsis of the British economic system. The book, which will be published in November, discusses prospects for the floundering UK economy, and looks at recent fiscal policy and its impact on growth and wealth distribution. It also assesses monetary policy and the Bank of England's unprecedented stimulus programme.

UK Economy: the crisis in perspective will be published in conjunction with the European Commission. To mark its publication, the EU has kindly offered to host a book launch for the title at its stand, on the Thursday of the 2011 Frankfurt Book Fair. The date is the 13th of October and the launch will take place from 2:30pm (German time) at stand G425 in Hall 4. So please swing by to learn more about the book, grab a glass of something bubbly and have a chat with some of the editors, who will be happy to discuss the current economic situation in the UK and EU in general.

UK Economy: the crisis in perspective will be published on the 17th November 2011. You can learn more about the book here or you can recommend it to your librarian.

There was an expectation that the end of the Cold War would herald a new era of peace and stability in which the importance of nuclear weapons was marginalized. Instead, we have been left with a fractious, inter-dependent international community rife with ethnic and religious tension and unbound by super-power competition. The challenges of climate change, demographic shifts and resource competition have further altered the security environment. As if this were not enough, nuclear proliferation is once again at the top of the international agenda. In the last decade the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has been challenged from within by Iraq, Iran and Libya while India’s, Pakistan’s and North Korea's nuclear weapon capabilities are threatening the non-proliferation norm from without. The new proliferators are predominantly, but not exclusively, aggressive, unstable and authoritarian regimes, considered by many in the international community to be outside the constraints of international normative behaviour. Some have even been labelled `outlaw’, or `rogue’ states. Although inter-continental nuclear war is not presently considered a danger, the increased number of nuclear weapons states combined with the nature of those states and the strategic environment in which they exist makes the possibility of a lesser nuclear exchange potentially much greater. In parallel, the 9/11 atrocities raised fears at the prospect of apocalyptic terrorists acquiring nuclear weapons. Indications that the NPT is failing to rise to the challenge have resulted in policy decisions that have arguably reversed both the disarmament and non-proliferation norms.

It is to delve deeper into the changing global nuclear landscape that this volume is aiming to do. The chapters of this volume are intended to shed light on the diverse themes surrounding this major issue area in international security. They document the increasing complexity of the global nuclear proliferation dynamic and the inability of the international community to come to terms with a rapidly changing strategic milieu.

Part I examines the major thematic issues underlying the contemporary discourse on nuclear proliferation.

Part II gives an overview of the evolving nuclear policies of the five established nuclear powers: the USA, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and the People's Republic of China.

Part III looks at the three de facto nuclear states: India, Pakistan and Israel.

Part IV examines two `problem states' in the proliferation matrix today: Iran and North Korea.

Part V sheds light on an important issue often ignored during discussions of nuclear proliferation – cases where states have made a deliberate policy choice of either renouncing their nuclear weapons programme, or have decided to remain a threshold state. The cases of South Africa, Egypt and Japan will be the focus of this section.

The final section, Part VI, will examine the present state of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime, which most observers agree is currently facing a crisis of credibility. The three pillars of this regime – the NPT, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty – will be analyzed.

The chapters in this volume aim to document the increasing complexity of the global nuclear proliferation dynamic and the inability of the international community to come to terms with a rapidly changing strategic milieu. The future, in all likelihood, will be very different from the past, and the chapters in this volume will try to develop a framework that may help gain a better understanding of the forces that will shape the nuclear proliferation debate in the years to come.

This incisive Handook is due to publish in November and is available to pre-order now.

''Exploring the evolution of China's international relations is not an easy task as it is part of an entire continent that is undergoing changes in its political, strategic, economic and social equilibria. Yet, aware that in a relatively short period of time the analysis of China's foreign policy has moved from being a topic that interests only a small group of scholars to one that is dominating contemporary academic and policy agendas, this handbook edited by Shaun Breslin focuses on China's relations with its surrounding regions and the world. Breslin's book deepens the debate on whether China's rise is inevitably leading the world towards instability and conflict or whether Beijing is conforming to existing international norms and habits and adjusting its behaviour and interests to those that the international community expects of a 'responsible great power'.

The book is divided into three parts. The first, 'ideas and interests' section investigates the changes in Beijing's theoretical thinking on international relations.The second part looks at the main issues and concerns driving China's international relations today. This is the most interesting part of the book, particularly when it explains how history is manipulated today to serve China's national and international needs and agendas. With the help of the eleven case studies, the third part explores China's relations with countries and regions. In addition to covering more difficult and multifaceted topics, Gregory J. Moore, Reinhard Drifte, Chen Zhemin and John Armstrong present an interesting summary of the most recent course of Chinese relations with the United States, Japan and Europe, respectively.

The last two chapters covering China's relations with South Asia and Oceania are particularly remarkable. Both contributors, David Scott and Nicholas Thomas, successfully summarise the strategic imperatives the regions represent for China without limiting the emphasis to contemporary developments. It is remarkable that this book is able to cover all countries and regions in which China is either consolidating or modifying its national and international approach.''

If you would like to order a copy of the Routledge Handbook of China's International Relations please contact reference@routledge.com or visit our website. This title is also available as an eBook.

International criminal law has developed extraordinarily quickly over the last decade, with the creation of ad hoc tribunals in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and the establishment of a permanent International Criminal Court. This book provides a timely and comprehensive survey of emerging and existing areas of international criminal law.

The book is split into four parts for ease of reference:

• The Historical and Institutional Framework – Sets international criminal law firmly in context with individual chapters on the important developments and key institutions which have been established.
• The Crimes – Identifies and analyses international crimes, including a chapter on aggression.
• The Practice of International Tribunals – Focuses on topics relating to the practice and procedure of international criminal law.
• Key Issues in International Criminal Law – Goes on to explore issues of importance such as universal jurisdiction, amnesties and international criminal law and human rights.

Providing easy access to up-to-date and authoritative articles covering all key aspects of international criminal law, this book is an essential reference work for students, scholars and practitioners working in the field.

About the Editors:

William A. Schabas is director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the National University of Ireland, Galway, where he also holds the chair in human rights law.

Nadia Bernaz is Lecturer in Law at Middlesex University, UK.
 

2011 will be an exciting year for the Routledge Handbooks and Companions Series. Brand new titles have recently been published, including the long-awaited Routledge Handbook of Japanese Culture and Society, which was published in March, and the Routledge Companion to Organizational Change, which will hit the shelves in May. You can benefit from a special introductory price offer on these and many other new Handbooks and Companions. If you would like to know which titles have been discounted, please either email us at reference@routledge.com or request a copy of our 2011 Handbooks and Companions Catalogue, which is now available in print and also online. You can take a look at the online version here.

Librarians have been excited about PDA for a while now. Imagine a library being able to offer access to a huge menu of content, but only paying for material actually used by patrons. Since 50% of print material acquired by academic libraries often never gets used, this results in a 50% cost savings (or 100% increase in bang for the buck). In theory, this sounds great. But what are the hard facts and does PDA actually end up saving money and making collections more attractive to users?

Patron-Driven Acquisitions: Current Successes and Future Directions is a brand new title from Routledge Reference that presents ths findings from a recent PDA scheme at Purdue University, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Illinois. Written by three experienced acquisitions librarians, the book presents a powerful argument for involving patrons in the book selection process.

The introduction of ebooks is also changing the landscape for libraries. Libraries are slowly getting used to the idea of providing all-you-can-eat services. What used to be an obvious limit resulting from a book's physicality has become a completely arbitrary limit imposed by licensing agreements. This new publication explores new programs that allow patrons to select e-books or participate in other innovative ways in building the library collections.

Patron-Driven Acquisitions: Current Successes and Future Directions was published on the 18th of February 2011. If you would like to learn more about this title, or to order your copy, please click here.

The 25 chapters of this handbook, written mostly by academic authors, offer self-critiques of the ever-changing and ever-widening field of security studies. Unlike other recent surveys and readers, such as Security Studies: An Introduction, Paul D. Williams, ed. (2008); Security Studies: A Reader, Christopher Hughes, ed. (2010); and the five-volume, 2,120-page Security Studies, Theo Farrell, ed.--all from Routledge--Burgess's contributions are essentially critical bibliographic review essays. This new Routledge Handbook has fewer chapters than the other works cited, and there is some topical overlap between them, but this work includes some new ways to slice the security pie (e.g., civilizational security, urban insecurity, security as ethics, and new mobile crime). As it assumes some degree of knowledge in each of the specialized subjects covered, the book is aimed primarily at advanced students, experts, and professionals. Few will read it cover to cover, but all will find it a good resource for current assessments of their particular subfields. Recommended for college libraries, collections supporting security studies programs, and larger public library systems.

Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. -- J. P. Smaldone, Georgetown University

Purchase your copy of The Routledge Handbook of New Security Studies today!