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Books > Humanities > History > European history
In this volume, we approach the phenomenon of slavery and other
types of strong asymmetrical dependencies from two methodologically
and theoretically distinct perspectives: semantics and lexical
fields. Detailed analyses of key terms that are associated with the
conceptualization of strong asymmetrical dependencies promise to
provide new insights into the self-concept and knowledge of
pre-modern societies. The majority of these key terms have not been
studied from a semantic or terminological perspective so far. Our
understanding of lexical fields is based on an onomasiological
approach - which linguistic items are used to refer to a concept?
Which words are used to express a concept? This means that the
concept is a semantic unit which is not directly accessible but may
be manifested in different ways on the linguistic level. We are
interested in single concepts such as 'wisdom' or 'fear', but also
in more complex semantic units like 'strong asymmetrical
dependencies'. In our volume, we bring together and compare case
studies from very different social orders and normative
perspectives. Our examples range from Ancient China and Egypt over
Greek and Maya societies to Early Modern Russia, the Ottoman Empire
and Islamic and Roman law.
The work of David Bien, one of America's foremost historians of
eighteenth-century France, transformed our understanding of the
ancien regime and the origins of the French Revolution. The editors
bring together for the first time his most important articles,
other previously unpublished essays and an interview transcript.
Bien's empirically-grounded approach made him a central figure in
the 'revisionist' debates on the origins of the French Revolution.
His re-reading of the Calas affair as an anomaly in a growing trend
of tolerance (rather than a sign of widespread bigotry among an
entire class of magistrates) opened up significant new insights
into the history of religious persecution, long influenced by
Voltaire. Bien's ground-breaking research on the army and the sale
of offices revealed the surprising extent of social mobility at the
time and challenged the prevailing orthodoxy that it was
frustration of the bourgeoisie which contributed to the outbreak of
the Revolution. With a preface by Keith Baker and an introduction
by Michael Christofferson, Interpreting the 'ancien
regime'underlines the seminal importance of David Bien's work for
contemporary debates about the social and political history of
late-eighteenth-century France. It will be an indispensible
resource for historians and historiographers alike.
A gripping account of the Soviet victories of 1944.
The year 1944 was the turning point of World War Two, and nowhere was this more evident than on the Eastern Front. For three years, following the onslaught of the German Army during Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, the Red Army had retreated and then eventually held, fighting to a stalemate while the Germans occupied and ravaged large parts of the Soviet Union and its republics. Finally, following the breaking of the German siege of Leningrad in January 1944, Stalin and his generals were able to consider striking back. In June, they launched Operation Bagration, during which more than two million Red Army soldiers began an offensive, pushing west. The results were almost immediate and devastating. Within three weeks, Army Group Centre, the core of the German Army, had lost 28 of its 32 divisions. The ending had begun.
Drawing on new sources-some previously untranslated-including accounts from ordinary soldiers and witnesses, Jonathan Dimbleby chronicles this decisive year in what was arguably the most crucial front in the war against Nazi Germany, a front extending 1200 miles. He covers the military, political, and diplomatic aspects in his trademark accessible and evocative style, illuminating the major conflicts as well as the roles played by deception, Partisan fighting, and the war within a war in Ukraine.
Endgame 1944 reveals how the Soviet victories enabled Stalin to dictate the terms of the post-war settlement, laying the foundations for the Cold War.
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Broken Memories
(Hardcover)
Yosef Kutner; Cover design or artwork by Rachel Kolokoff Hopper
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R1,144
R973
Discovery Miles 9 730
Save R171 (15%)
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Scholarship often presumes that texts written about the Shoah,
either by those directly involved in it or those writing its
history, must always bear witness to the affective aftermath of the
event, the lingering emotional effects of suffering. Drawing on the
History of Emotions and on trauma theory, this monograph offers a
critical study of the ambivalent attributions and expressions of
emotion and "emotionlessness" in the literature and historiography
of the Shoah. It addresses three phenomena: the metaphorical
discourses by which emotionality and the purported lack thereof are
attributed to victims and to perpetrators; the rhetoric of
affective self-control and of affective distancing in fiction,
testimony and historiography; and the poetics of empathy and the
status of emotionality in discourses on the Shoah. Through a close
analysis of a broad corpus centred around the work of W. G. Sebald,
Dieter Schlesak, Ruth Kluger and Raul Hilberg, the book critically
contextualises emotionality and its attributions in the post-war
era, when a scepticism of pathos coincided with demands for factual
rigidity. Ultimately, it invites the reader to reflect on their own
affective stances towards history and its commemoration in the
twenty-first century.
Best known for the progressive school he founded in Dessau during
the 18th century, Johann Bernhard Basedow was a central thinker in
the German Enlightenment. Since his death in 1790 a substantial
body of German-language literature about his life, work, and school
(the Philanthropin) has developed. In the first English
intellectual biography of this influential figure, Robert B. Louden
answers questions that continue to surround Basedow and provides a
much-needed examination of Basedow's intellectual legacy. Assessing
the impact of his ideas and theories on subsequent educational
movements, Louden argues that Basedow is the unacknowledged father
of the progressive education movement. He unravels several
paradoxes surrounding the Philanthropin to help understand why it
was described by Immanuel Kant as "the greatest phenomenon which
has appeared in this century for the perfection of humanity",
despite its brief and stormy existence, its low enrollment and
insufficient funding. Among the many neglected stories Louden tells
is the enormous and unacknowledged debt that Kant owes to Basedow
in his philosophy of education, history, and religion. This is a
positive reassessment of Basedow and his difficult personality that
leads to a reevaluation of the originality of major figures as well
as a reconsideration of the significance of allegedly minor authors
who have been eclipsed by the politics of historiography. For
anyone looking to gain a deeper understanding of the history of
German philosophy, Louden's book is essential reading.
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