This book explores the evolution of the role of the heirs to the throne of Italy between 1860 and 1900. It focuses on the future kings Umberto I (1844-1900) and Vittorio Emanuele III (1869-1947), and their respective spouses, Margherita of Savoia (1851-1926) and Elena of Montenegro (1873-1952). It sheds light on the soft power the Italian royals were attempting to generate, by identifying and examining four specific areas of monarchical activity: firstly, the heirs' public role and the manner in which they attempted to craft an Italian identity through a process of self-presentation; secondly, the national, royal, linguistic and military education of the heirs; thirdly, the promotion of a family-centred dynasty deploying both male and female elements in the public realm; and finally the readiness to embrace different modes of mobility in the construction of italianita. By analysing the growing importance of the royal heirs and their performance on the public stage in post-Risorgimento Italy, this study investigates the attempted construction of a cohesive national identity through the crown and, more specifically, the heirs to the throne.

Cavan W. Concannon makes a significant contribution to Pauline studies by imagining the responses of the Corinthians to Paul's letters. Based on surviving written materials and archaeological research, this book offers a textured portrait of the ancient Corinthians with whom Paul conversed, argued, debated, and partnered, focusing on issues of ethnicity, civic identity, politics, and empire. In doing so, the author provides readers a unique opportunity to assess anew, and imagine possibilities beyond, Paul's complicated legacy in shaping Western notions of race, ethnicity, and religion.

The Communist Temptation: Rolland, Gide, Malraux, and Their Times traces the evolution of the committed left-wing public intellectual in the interwar period, specifically in the 1930s, and focuses on leading left-wing intellectuals, such as Romain Rolland, Andre Gide, and Andre Malraux, and their relationships with communism and the broader anti-fascist movement. In that turbulent decade, Paris also welcomed a growing number of Russian, Austrian, Italian, Dutch, Belgian, German, and German-speaking Central European refugees-activists, writers, and agents, among them Willi Munzenberg, Mikhail Koltsov, Eugen Fried, Ilya Ehrenburg, Manes Sperber, and Arthur Koestler-and Paris once again became a hotbed of international political activism. Events, however, signaled a decline in the high ethical standards set by Emile Zola and the Dreyfusards earlier in the twentieth century, as many pro-communist intellectuals acted in bad faith to support an ideology that they in all likelihood knew to be morally bankrupt. Among them, only Gide rebelled against Moscow, which caused ideological lines to harden to the point where there was little room for critical reason to assert itself.

With an in-depth exploration of rule by a single man and how this was seen as heroic activity, the title challenges orthodox views of ruling in the ancient world and breaks down traditional ideas about the relationship between so-called hereditary rule and tyranny. It looks at how a common heroic ideology among rulers was based upon excellence, or arete, and also surveys dynastic ruling, where rule was in some sense shared within the family or clan. Heroic Rulers examines reasons why both personal and clan-based rule was particularly unstable and its core tension with the competitive nature of Greek society, so that the question of who had the most arete was an issue of debate both from within the ruling family and from other heroic aspirants. Probing into ancient perspectives on the legitimacy and legality of rule, the title also explores the relationship between ruling and law. Law, personified as 'king' (nomos basileus), came to be seen as the ultimate source of sovereignty especially as expressed through the constitutional machinery of the city, and became an important balance and constraint for personal rule. Finally, Heroic Rulers demonstrates that monarchy, which is generally thought to have disappeared before the end of the archaic period, remained a valid political option from the Early Iron Age through to the Hellenistic period.

This book presents a narratological analysis of the Kaiserchronik, or chronicle of the emperors, the first verse chronicle to have been written in any European vernacular language, which provides an account of the Roman and Holy Roman emperors from the foundation of Rome to the eve of the Second Crusade. Previous research has concentrated on the structure and sources of the work and emphasized its role as a Christian narrative of history, but this study shows that the Kaiserchronik does not simply illustrate a didactic religious message: it also provides an example of how story-telling techniques in the vernacular were developed and explored in twelfth-century Germany. Four aspects of narrative are described (time and space, motivation, perspective, and narrative strands), each of which is examined with reference to the story of a particular emperor (Constantine the Great, Charlemagne, Otto the Great, and Henry IV). Rather than imposing a single analytical framework on the Kaiserchronik, the book takes account of the fact that modern theory cannot always be applied directly to works from premodern periods: it draws critically on a variety of approaches, including those of Gerard Genette, Boris Uspensky, and Eberhard Lammert. Throughout the book, the narrative techniques described are contextualized by means of comparisons with other texts in both Middle High German and Latin, making clear the place of the Kaiserchronik as a literary narrative in the twelfth century.

Feasting and commensality formed the backbone of social life in the polis, the most characteristic and enduring form of political organization in the ancient Greek world. Exploring a wide array of commensal practices, Feasting and Polis Institutions reveals how feasts defined the religious and political institutions of the Greek citizen-state. Taking the reader from the Early Iron Age to the Imperial Period, this volume launches an essential inquiry into Greek power relations. Focusing on the myriad of patronage roles at the feast and making use of a wide variety of methodologies and primary sources, including archaeology, epigraphy and literature, Feasting and Polis Institutions argues that in ancient Greece political interaction could never be complete until it was consummated in a festive context.

Merry Hell is the only complete history of the 25th Canadian infantry battalion, which was recruited in the autumn and winter of 1914-15 and served overseas from spring 1915 until spring 1919. Author Robert N Clements, who served in the battalion throughout that period and rose from private to captain, wrote the story many years after the war, based on his personal memories and experiences. As such, his story reflects two unique perspectives on Canadian military history - the remarkably fresh recollections and anecdotes of a veteran, and the outlook of a man eager to share what his generation contributed to the nation's history, character, and identity.

Professional military historian Brian Douglas Tennyson buttresses Clements's story with a valuable critical apparatus, including an analytical introduction that contextualizes the history and notes that explain unfamiliar points and people. Merry Hell is a captivating tale for those who enjoy stories of war and battle, and one that will entertain readers with Clements's richly colourful anecdotes and witty poems, none of which have been published before.

Arguably, trade is the engine of history, and the acceleration in what you mightcall 'globalism' from the beginning of the last millennium has been driven by communities interacting with each other through commerce and exchange. The Ottoman empire was a trading partner for the rest of the world, and therefore the key link between the west and the middle east in the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries. much academic attention has been given to the east india Company, but less well known is the Levant Company, which had the exclusive right to trade with the Ottoman empire from 1581 to 1825. The Levant Company exported British manufacturing, colonial goods and raw materials, and imported silk, cotton, spices, currants and other Levantine goods. it set up 'factories' (trading establishments) across Ottoman lands and hired consuls, company employees and agents from among its members, as well as foreign tradesmen and locals. here, despina vlami outlines the relationship between the Ottoman empire and the Levant Company, and traces the company's last glimpses of prosperity combined with slump periods and tension, as both the Ottoman and the British empire faced significant change and war. she points out that the growth of 'free' trade and the end of protectionism coincided with modernisation and reforms, and while doing so, provides a new lens through which to view the decline of the Ottoman world.

This groundbreaking book attempts a fully contextualized reading of the poetry written by Pindar for Hieron of Syracuse in the 470s BC. It argues that the victory odes and other occasional songs composed by Pindar for the Sicilian tyrant were part of an extensive cultural program that included athletic competition, coinage, architecture, sanctuary dedication, city foundation, and much more. In the tumultuous years following the Persian invasion of Greece in 480, elite Greek leaders and their cities struggled to capitalize on the Greek victory and to define themselves as free peoples who triumphed over the threat of Persian monarchy. Pindar's victory odes are an important contribution to Hieron's goal of panhellenic pre-eminence, redescribing contemporary tyranny as an instantiation of golden-age kingship and consonant with best Greek tradition. In a delicate process of cultural legitimation, the poet's praise deploys athletic victories as a signs of more general preeminence. Three initial chapters set the stage by presenting the history and culture of Syracuse under the Deinomenid tyrants, exploring issues of performance and patronage, and juxtaposing Hieron to rival Greek leaders on the mainland. Subsequent chapters examine in turn all Pindar's preserved poetry for Hieron and members of his court, and contextualizes this poetry by comparing it to the songs written for Hieron by Pindar's poetic contemporary, Bacchylides. These odes develop a specifically "tyrannical " mythology in which a hero from the past enjoys unusual closeness with the gods, only to bring ruin on him or herself by failing to manage this closeness appropriately. Such negative exemplars counterbalance Hieron's good fortune and present the dangers against which he must (and does) protect himself by regal virtue. The readings that emerge are marked by exceptional integration of literary interpretation with the political/historical context.

Athenian comedy is firmly entrenched in the classical canon, but imperial authors debated, dissected and redirected comic texts, plots and language of Aristophanes, Menander, and their rivals in ways that reflect the non-Athenocentric, pan-Mediterranean performance culture of the imperial era. Although the reception of tragedy beyond its own contemporary era has been studied, the legacy of Athenian comedy in the Roman world is less well understood. This volume offers the first expansive treatment of the reception of Athenian comedy in the Roman Empire. These engaged and engaging studies examine the lasting impact of classical Athenian comic drama. Demonstrating a variety of methodologies and scholarly perspectives, sources discussed include papyri, mosaics, stage history, epigraphy and a broad range of literature such as dramatic works in Latin and Greek, including verse satire, essays, and epistolary fiction.

This unique sourcebook explores the Stab-in-the-Back myth that developed in Germany in the wake of World War One, analyzing its role in the end of the Weimar Republic and its impact on the Nazi regime that followed. A critical development in modern German and even European history that has received relatively little coverage until now, the Stab-in-the-Back Myth was an attempt by the German military, nationalists and anti-Semites to explain how the German war effort collapsed in November 1918 along with the German Empire. It purported that the German army did not lose the First World War but were betrayed by the civilians on the home front and the democratic politicians who had surrendered. The myth was one of the foundation myths of National Socialism, at times influencing Nazi behaviour in the 1930s and later their conduct in the Second World War. The Stab-in-the-Back Myth and the Fall of the Weimar Republic draws on German government records, foreign and domestic newspaper accounts, diplomatic reports, diary entries and letters to provide different national and political perspectives on the issue. The sourcebook also includes chapter summaries, study questions, and further reading lists, in addition to numerous visual sources and a range of maps, charts, tables and graphs. This is a vital text for all students looking at the history of the Weimar Republic, the legacy of the First World War and Germany in the 20th century.

From the late eighteenth century, Germans increasingly identified the fate of their nation with that of their woodlands. A variety of groups soon mobilized the 'German forest' as a national symbol, though often in ways that suited their own social, economic, and political interests. The German Forest is the first book-length history of the development and contestation of the concept of 'German' woodlands.

Jeffrey K. Wilson challenges the dominant interpretation that German connections to nature were based in agrarian romanticism rather than efforts at modernization. He explores a variety of conflicts over the symbol -- from demands on landowners for public access to woodlands, to state attempts to integrate ethnic Slavs into German culture through forestry, and radical nationalist visions of woodlands as a model for the German 'race'. Through impressive primary and archival research, Wilson demonstrates that in addition to uniting Germans, the forest as a national symbol could also serve as a vehicle for protest and strife.

From the end of the 15th century until the 18th, Spanish Jews carried on Jewish practices in the shadow of the Inquisition. Those caught were forced to recant or be burnt at the stake. Drawing on their confessions and trial documents, this book tells their story.

The right to free movement is the one privilege that EU citizens value the most in the Union, but one that has also created much political controversy in recent years, as the debates preceding the 2016 Brexit referendum aptly illustrate. This book examines how European politicians have justified and criticized free movement from the commencement of the first Commission of the EU-25 in November 2004 to the Brexit referendum in June 2016. The analysis takes into account the discourses of Heads of State, Governments and Ministers of the Interior (or Home Secretaries) of six major European states: the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Romania. In addition to these national leaders, the speeches of European Commissioners responsible for free movement matters are also considered. The book introduces a new conceptual framework for analysing practical reasoning in political discourses and applies it in the analysis of national free movement debates contextualised in respective migration histories. In addition to results related to political discourses, the study unearths wider problems related to free movement, including the diversified and variegated approaches towards different groups of movers as well as the exclusive attitudes apparent in both discourses and policies. The History and Politics of Free Movement within the European Union is of interest to anyone studying national and European politics and ideologies, contemporary history, migration policies and political argumentation.

Cabinets of Experimental Philosophy in Eighteenth-Century Europe is an ambitious contribution to the growing interest in how science came to engage the attention of a public outside the academic and professional spheres and how collections of instruments played a formative role in this development. Collections of physical instruments for research and demonstration appeared throughout Europe in the eighteenth century and the coverage of the book is correspondingly broad. While collections in different cultural and geographical locations had much in common, there were significant local modifications. The essays in this book illustrate how science, sometimes thought to be monolithic and universal, can maintain core intellectual characteristics and practical techniques while adapting to particular sites and circumstances. Contributors include: Jim Bennett, Sofia Talas, Huib J. Zuidervaart, Hans Hooijmaijers, Ad Maas, Tiemen Cocquyt, Inga Elmqvist Soederlund, Paola Bertucci, Marta C. Lourenco, David Felismino, Ivano Dal Prete, Ewa Wyka, Martin Weiss, and Paolo Brenni.

In Italy in the Era of the Great War, Vanda Wilcox brings together nineteen Italian and international scholars to analyse the political, military, social and cultural history of Italy in the country's decade of conflict from 1911 to 1922. Starting with the invasion of Libya in 1911 and concluding with the rise of post-war social and political unrest, the volume traces domestic and foreign policy, the economics of the war effort, the history of military innovation, and social changes including the war's impact on religion and women, along with major cultural and artistic developments of the period. Each chapter provides a concise and effective overview of the field as it currently stands as well as introducing readers to the latest research. Contributors are Giulia Albanese, Claudia Baldoli, Allison Scardino Belzer, Francesco Caccamo, Filippo Cappellano, Selena Daly, Fabio Degli Esposti, Spencer Di Scala, Douglas J. Forsyth, Irene Guerrini, Oliver Janz, Irene Lottini, Stefano Marcuzzi, Valerie McGuire, Marco Pluviano, Paul O'Brien, Carlo Stiaccini, Andrea Ungari, and Bruce Vandervort. See inside the book.

In the wake of the First World War, in which France suffered severe food shortages, colonial produce became an increasingly important element of the French diet. The colonial lobby seized upon these foodstuffs as powerful symbols of the importance of the colonial project to the life of the French nation. But how was colonial food really received by the French public? And what does this tell us about the place of empire in French society? In Colonial Food in Interwar Paris, Lauren Janes disputes the claim that empire was central to French history and identity, arguing that the distrust of colonial food reflected a wider disinterest in the empire. From Indochinese rice to North African grains and tropical fruit to curry powder, this book offers an intriguing and original challenge to current orthodoxy about the centrality of empire to modern France by examining the place of colonial foods in the nation's capital.