China Under Communism examines how Marxism took root, flourished and developed within the context of an ancient Chinese civilization.
Through analysis of China's history and traditional culture, the author explores the nature of Chinese communism and how it has diverged from the Soviet model. This book also provides insight into the changing perceptions Westerners have of the Chinese, and vice versa.
Key features include:
* assessment of controversial issues: The Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution and Mao's record
* coverage of gender and family, ethnicity, nationalism, and popular culture
* long historical context.
This timely evaluation details how China's political and economic policies have been inextricably linked, and assesses past failures and successes, as well as major problems for the future.

Challenging the views of Benito Mussolini's Italian biographer, Renzo De Felice, this book argues that the Duce's aggressive war against the predominant Mediterranean powers, Britain and France, was the only means whereby Italy might secure access to the world's oceans. Following Hitler's rise to power in 1933, Mussolini actively pursued the Italo-German alliance which he believed would enable him to conquer a Fascist empire stretching from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean. By the eve of Italy's entry in the world war II, the Fascist administration had commissioned substantial new capital-ship programmes, and created a major surface and underwater fleet that seemed to post a serious challenge to the strategic position of Great Britain in the Mediterranean and Red Sea.
The study covers: the effects of Mussolini's pro-German policy on the policy-making and strategic planning of the Regia Marina; the major political, strategic and economic factors that shaped Italy's naval policy under Mussolini; the effectiveness of naval operational planning in the light of the various international crises that dominated the period before the war; and the part played by the Italian naval high command in Mussolini's quest for empire.

On 2 September 1898 Kitchener's Anglo-Egyptian army defeated the massed armies of dervishes at the battle of Omdurman. To commemorate the centenary of these events, eleven historians have collaborated to produce a fresh reappraisal of the reconquest and its international repercussions. They examine some of the policies, personalities and issues involved from different perspectives.
British political and military policies are reviewed, with studies of the aims and motives of Lord Salisbury, the political problems of Kitchener's command, and the experience of campaigning in the Sudan. There are analyses of the images sent back from the Sudan, the difficulties of reporting the campaign, and the role of unofficial correspondents, with a facsimile reproduction of a dispatch from Winston Churchill.
The contributors examine the colonial difficulties that triggered the campaign, the machinations of the Kaiser in trying to bring about a war between Britain and France, the evolution of French attitudes and the resolution of the Fashoda crisis, the well-informed and incisive monitoring of events by Austria-Hungary, and the widespread European view that Omdurman constituted a triumph for 'civilisation'. Finally, the significance of the reconquest is reviewed for its impact upon Sudanese history, particularly for the deeply rooted and enduring legacy of Mahdism.

The Showa Period covers the reign of Emperor Hirohito (1926-1989), encompassing war and destruction of the Japanese empire, the occupation, recovery from the ruins of war and Japan's emergence as an economic superpower. But what defines Showa historically? What sets Showa apart from the history of Meiji and Taisho Japan? Whereas historians have traditionally approached this question by splitting "prewar" and "postwar" the emphasis in this anthology is on long-term continuities which were decisive in shaping modern Japan. The readings address such crucial issues as the nature of the imperial state, why Japan embarked upon war early in the period, the impact of the occupation, the dilemmas of Japanese democracy, the social costs and international repercussions of exceptionalism, and Japan's evolving world role. With 1945 marking the beginning of a new era, the emphasis in this anthology is on long-term continuities which were decisive in shaping modern Japan. The readings address such crucial issues as the nature of the imperial state, why Japan embarked upon war early in the period, the impact of the occupation, the dilemmas of Japanese democracy, the social costs and international

In this book, U.S. Army officer and military historian Gregory Walden provides the most detailed look at the actions of a single German battalion in the Battle of the Bulge to date. Tigers in the Ardennes is the product of years of research in archives, conversations with German and American veterans, and detailed examination of terrain in the Ardennes battlefields. The author s experience as a tank unit commander provides unique insight into the tactical difficulties of armor movements through the Ardennes, especially considering the technical aspects of the Tiger II tanks. The book includes over 100 images, many of them photographs of the Tiger II tanks never before published, plus detailed maps showing the routes used by the 501st Heavy SS Tank Battalion during the battle."

Just before Christmas 1989, a small group of armed fighters crossed a narrow river marking the frontier with Sierra Leone, and entered the West African state of Liberia. The civil war which followed plunged the African continent's oldest republic into a long and agonising nightmare, during which the country was torn apart and its people brutalised by terror, violence and bloodshed. The war promised to liberate Liberians after almost ten years of vicious dictatorship under President Samuel Doe; instead, as the first shots were fired, the seeds of Liberia's devastation were sown.
Mark Huband's account of the conflict, which begins a few days after the original incursion, is a moving and dramatic portrayal of the war as it unfolded. His extensive research and access to key figures in the conflict, together with a wealth of poignant and disturbing eye-witness detail, provide a fascinating portrait of Doe, his US-backed rule, and the enemies he made. Vivid and often harrowing, the book draws upon the author's experience of living among the fighters, the leaders and the terrorised population as they witnessed the growing horror of the conflict in which they had become trapped.

Just before Christmas 1989, a small group of armed fighters crossed a narrow river marking the frontier with Sierra Leone, and entered the West African state of Liberia. The civil war which followed plunged the African continent's oldest republic into a long and agonising nightmare, during which the country was torn apart and its people brutalised by terror, violence and bloodshed. The war promised to liberate Liberians after almost ten years of vicious dictatorship under President Samuel Doe; instead, as the first shots were fired, the seeds of Liberia's devastation were sown.
Mark Huband's account of the conflict, which begins a few days after the original incursion, is a moving and dramatic portrayal of the war as it unfolded. His extensive research and access to key figures in the conflict, together with a wealth of poignant and disturbing eye-witness detail, provide a fascinating portrait of Doe, his US-backed rule, and the enemies he made. Vivid and often harrowing, the book draws upon the author's experience of living among the fighters, the leaders and the terrorised population as they witnessed the growing horror of the conflict in which they had become trapped.

This set of four volumes collects the major English language contributions to the theories of the structure and performance of the Japanese economy in the 20th century. It covers a wide range of topics: Volume I covers Japan before the Pacific War; Volume Two covers post-war growth; Volume Three covers trading with Japan; Volume Four explores the nature of the Japanese firm. The set gives the reader access to the most important debates about the contours of the modern Japanese economy and their evolution. Many of the articles in the set should also be accessible to non-economists, especially to political scientists.

In 1937 the British Royal Commission headed by Lord Peel proposed solving the Arab-Jewish conflict by partitioning Palestine into two nation-states. The concept of partition in exchange for a state was acceptable to the Jewish Agency Executive, but not the details set out by the Royal Commission, and thus in 1937-38 the Agency formulated an alternative plan for consideration by the British authorities.
At the core of the proposal was the issue of borders - a key factor in every partition plan - but the Agency's suggestions and preparations for a Jewish state addressed additional elements including the question of Jerusalem; population transfer; the status of the Arab minority in the future Jewish state; stages in the establishment; and plans covering governance, foreign policy, immigration and development, religion and state, finance and security.
In this work Yossi Katz shows that the Jewish Agency Executive's partition plan, though never implemented, was not an isolated episode, but had short- and long-term implications from the Jewish perspective - that as well as having an impact on the immediate settlement policies, it also had significant effect on the partition of Palestine in the late 1940s, and on shaping the state-in-formation.

From 1918 to 1939 one issue dominated French foreign and defence policy: the German problem. This work outlines France's strategies for protection and appeasement during this period and places inter-war relations in a larger European context. With contributions from scholars in the field, it examines: relationships with key countries such as Italy and Russia; the significance of inter-war France to 20th-century European integration; the historical context of the policies; and the setbacks and defeats of the period and how they should be evaluated.

The six newly independent Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union - Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan - have redefined the Middle East, creating a region of interest for both the international community and the neighbouring states who have had to adjust their policies to the possible ramifications, new opportunities and novel challenges. The emergence of Muslim republics has been part of a larger transformation experienced by the Middle East in the 1990s. The main purpose of this volume is to examine the impact of the transformation on the Middle East, with special emphasis placed on the republics' relations with Turkey and Iran - the two countries closest to and most actively involved in the Muslim republics of Central Asia and Transcaucasia. The ability of Middle Eastern states to influence the republics is still questionable - regional relationships between the Middle East and Central Asia have (re)emerged only in the 1990s - but their independence has had profound implications for the Middle East itself.

The six newly independent Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union - Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan - have redefined the Middle East, creating a region of interest for both the international community and the neighbouring states who have had to adjust their policies to the possible ramifications, new opportunities and novel challenges. The emergence of Muslim republics has been part of a larger transformation experienced by the Middle East in the 1990s. The main purpose of this volume is to examine the impact of the transformation on the Middle East, with special emphasis placed on the republics' relations with Turkey and Iran - the two countries closest to and most actively involved in the Muslim republics of Central Asia and Transcaucasia. The ability of Middle Eastern states to influence the republics is still questionable - regional relationships between the Middle East and Central Asia have (re)emerged only in the 1990s - but their independence has had profound implications for the Middle East itself.

The book applies theories from political science to shed light on Nazi Germany's wartime alliances. This book analyses the power dynamics in relations between large and small powers. In addition to bringing innovation to the scholarly debate on Nazism and Europe, this book gains extra importance through the current new rise of European nationalisms and right-wing populisms, some with outspoken ethno-nationalist or even racist features.

This book begins in 1820 with the Portuguese attempt to create a third, African, empire after the virtual loss of Asia and America. In the nineteenth century the most valuable resource extracted from Angola was agricultural labour, first as privately owned slaves and later as conscript workers. The colony was managed by a few marine officers, by several hundred white political convicts, and by a couple of thousand black Angolans who had adopted Portuguese language and culture. The hub was the harbour city of Luanda which grew in the twentieth century to be a dynamic metropolis of several million people. The export of labour was gradually replaced when an agrarian revolution enabled white Portuguese immigrants to drive black Angolan labourers to produce sugar-cane, cotton, maize and above all coffee. During the twentieth century this wealth was supplemented by Congo copper, by gem-quality diamonds, and by off-shore oil. Although much of the countryside retained its dollar-a-day peasant economy, new wealth generated conflict which pitted white against black, north against south, coast against highland, American allies against Russian allies.The generation of warfare finally ended in 2002 when national reconstruction could begin on Portuguese colonial foundations.

First published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book reconstructs the history of conception, pregnancy and childbirth in Europe from antiquity to the 20th century, focusing on its most significant turning points: the emergence of a medical-scientific approach to delivery in Ancient Greece, the impact of Christianity, the establishment of the man-midwife in the 18th century, the medicalisation of childbirth, the emergence of a new representation of the foetus as "unborn citizen", and, finally, the revolution of reproductive technologies. The book explores a history that, far from being linear, progressive or homogeneous, is characterised by significant continuities as well as transformations. The ways in which a woman gives birth and lives her pregnancy and the postpartum period are the result of a complex series of factors. The book therefore places these events in their wider cultural, social and religious contexts, which influenced the forms taken by rituals and therapeutic practices, religious and civil prescriptions and the regulation of the female body. The investigation of this complex experience represents a crucial contribution to cultural, social and gender history, as well as an indispensable tool for understanding today's reality. It will be of great use to undergraduates studying the history of childbirth, the history of medicine, the history of the body, as well as women's and gender history more broadly.

This book provides an accessible introduction to a wide range of concerns that have preoccupied historians over time. Global in scope, it explores historical perspectives not only from historiography itself, but from related areas such as literature, sociology, geography and anthropology which have entered into productive dialogues with history. Clearly written and accessible, this third edition is fully revised with an updated structure and new areas of historical enquiry and themes added, including the history of emotions, video history and global pandemics. In all of this, the authors have attempted to think beyond the boundaries of the West and consider varied approaches to history. They do so by engaging with theoretical perspectives and methodologies that have provided the foundation for good historical practice. The authors analyse how historians can improve their skills by learning about the discipline of historiography, that is, how historians go about the task of exploring the past and determining where the line separating history from other disciplines, such as sociology or geography, runs. History: An Introduction to Theory and Method 3ed is an essential resource for students of historical theory and method working at both an introductory and more advanced level.

Memory in Hungarian Fascism: A Cultural History argues that fascist memory had a key role in the historical formation and later return of fascism. Tracing the trajectory of a perennial figure of fascist memory, the cult of Eszter Solymosi, from interwar Hungary through the Cold War West to contemporary Hungary, the book covers a century of fascism and offers a unique combination of fascism studies and memory studies. How did fascists challenge liberal memory after the First World War? How did the memory culture they created come to frame and feed the Second World War and the genocide? In what ways did fascist memory transform as they navigated the challenges of exile in a profoundly changed political landscape and tried to counter the postwar order? And what role did their legacy, carefully crafted for a post-Communist future, play as later neo-fascists rejected democratic transformation? Eventually, as fascist memory travelled across time and space, the book argues, it contributed to the political challenges that we face today. Based on a variety of unpublished sources, the book offers new insights for students of memory, Holocaust, fascism, and antisemitism studies, Jewish studies, Central and Eastern European history, and Hungarian studies.

In this book the experiential history of the Soviet-style social transformation projects between 1945 and 1980 is discussed through the example of rural Hungary. The book interprets state socialism as a (modernization) project. Existing socialism was a form of dictatorship in which authorities sought to transform the mentalities of their subjects from the individual level to the global scale. This project depended on socio-economic homogenization; one important method of asserting state power was the transformation of property rights (land redistribution, collectivization). Communist modernization discriminated against the inhabitants of rural areas, who were the primary victims of collectivization and the discriminatory effects of the rules implemented by policymakers. The resulting radical changes in peasant lifestyles would become a source of social pathologies. However, not the authorities but contemporary scholars considered the social costs of these actions. The book aims at Weberian disenchantment and contributes to the deconstruction of the common image of Hungarian socialism, "the happiest barrack". The intended audience includes readers at the graduate level in the fields of history, political science, and anthropology, general readers interested in the history of communism. It is hoped that the research questions inspire new research for exploring convergent and divergent elements in social transformation in former communist countries.

This volume proposes a historical analysis of Italian-Libyan relations in contemporary times. After examining the colonialism of liberal Italy, which in 1911 culminated in the military campaign for the conquest of the Libyan regions, it evaluates the impact of fascism in Libya and the attempt to launch a broader pro-Arab policy. The third section analyzes the construction of the so-called 'special relationship' between Rome and Tripoli since the 50s when an economic interdependence between the Libyan oil producer and the Italian industrial power was pursued despite political differences. Finally, the volume also focuses on the dramatic implosion of Libya and the loss of its political unity following the fall of the Gaddafi regime, which on the one hand, scaled back Italy's regional role, on the other, spread instability throughout the Euro-Mediterranean area. The volume uses a historiographical methodology focused on primary sources and updated scientific literature but also includes specialized analyses of the most current scenarios. This is the first systematic work on the Italian-Libyan relationship produced in English, accessible to area scholars, specialists, analysts and students, who intend to deepen their understanding of one of the pivotal factors of the Euro-Mediterranean balance, which is currently missing.

From 1980 until Dr. Bidwell's death in 1994, much of his time was taken up with the writing and compilation of this encyclopaedic work which represents, in the true sense of the word, a unique account of the Arab world from 1798 and a readable assessment of all its aspects. Whereas the classical period is covered in many publications, notably "The Encyclopaedia of Islam", the reader look up assessments and accounts of 14 presidents of modern Syria; all prime ministers of Egypt; the definition and effect of "Resolution 242"; the Istiqlal Party; the Rogers Plan; Saddam Hussein; Dair Yassin; the Agecirus Conference; the Mecca Declaration; the Black September Organization; President Nimeiri; the monarchs of Egypt, Iraq and Libya; King Khalid of Saudi Arabia; Colonel Gaddafi; Nasser; the Battle of Mehran; Count Folke Bernadotte; the massacre of the Mamluks; and President Bourguiba.

SILENT NIGHT brings to life one of the most unlikely and touching events in the annals of war. In the early months of WWI, on Christmas Eve, men on both sides left their trenches, laid down their arms, and joined in a spontaneous celebration with their new friends, the enemy. For a brief, blissful time, remembered since in song and story, a world war stopped. Even the participants found what they were doing incredible. Germans placed candle-lit Christmas trees on trench parapets and warring soldiers sang carols. In the spirit of the season they ventured out beyond their barbed wire to meet in No Man's Land, where they buried the dead in moving ceremonies, exchanged gifts, ate and drank together, and joyously played football, often with improvised balls. The truce spread as men defied orders and fired harmlessly into the air. But, reluctantly, they were forced to re-start history's most bloody war. SILENT NIGHT vividly recovers a dreamlike event, one of the most extraordinary of Christmas stories.

The core of the book is Oliver's account of his research travels throughout tropical Africa from the 1940s to the 1980s; his efforts to train and foster African graduate students to teach in African universities; his role in establishing conferences and journals to bring together the work of historians and archaeologists from Europe and Africa; his encounters with political and religious leaders, scholars, soldiers, and storytellers; and the political and economic upheavals of the continent that he witnessed.