Though in recent months Putin s popularity has frayed at the edges, the dearth of comparably powerful and experienced political leaders leaves no doubt that he will continue to be a key political figure. During his tenure as Russia s President and subsequently as Prime Minister, Putin transcended politics, to become the country s major cultural icon. This book examines the nature of his iconic status. It explores his public persona as glamorous hero, endowed with vision, wisdom, moral and physical strength the man uniquely capable of restoring Russia s reputation as a global power. In analysing cultural representations of Putin, the book assesses the role of the media in constructing and disseminating this image and weighs the Russian populace s contribution to the extraordinary acclamation he enjoyed throughout the first decade of the new millennium, challenged only by a tiny minority.

The Spanish Civil War was one of the pivotal events of the 1930's, the moment when fascism and socialism came into open conflict. First published in 1939, The Spanish Tragedy recounts the experiences of Jef Last. Activist, poet and novelist, Last might have been the archetypal Republican volunteer but his experience left him even more disenchanted than most. Critical of Soviet Communism, a court martial loyal to Moscow tried to sentence him to death and he was forced to flee to Scandinavia.

Updated to incorporate recent scholarship on the subject, this new edition of Hugh Cunningham's classic text investigates the relationship between ideas about childhood and the actual experience of being a child, and assesses how it has changed over the span of 500 years. Through his engaging narrative Hugh Cunningham tells the story of the development of ideas from the Renaissance to the present, revealing considerable differences in the way Western societies have understood and valued childhood over time. His survey of parent/child relationships uncovers evidence of parental love, care and, in the frequent cases of child death, grief throughout the period, concluding that there was as much continuity as change in the actual relations of children and adults across these five centuries. Since the book's first publication in 1995, the volume of historical research on children and childhood has escalated hugely and is testimony to the level of concern provoked by the dominance of the negative narrative that originated in the 1970s and 1980s. A new epilogue revisits the volume from today's perspective, analysing why this negative narrative established dominance in Western society and considering how it has affected historical writing about children and childhood, enabling the reader to put both this volume and recent debates into context. Supported by an updated historiographical discussion and expanded bibliography, Children and Childhood in Western Society since 1500 remains an essential resource for students of the history of childhood, the history of the family, social history and gender history.

Divine Heiress explores the vital role of the Virgin Mary in the cultural and religious life of Constantinople in late antiquity. It shows how she was transformed from a humble Jewish maiden into a divine figure and supernatural protector of Constantinople. Vasiliki Limberis examines the cult of Mary in the context of the religious culture of the Mediterranean world and the imperial Christianity of the Roman Empire. The author looks at all the evidence for the cult but pays particular attention to the early hymns to the virgin. These hymns preserved the strong indigenous goddess traditions of Demeter/Persephone, Isis, Hecate and Athena. By studying them the author places the cult of Mary in its historical and cultural context.

First published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Women come to the fore in witchcraft trials as accused persons or as witnesses, and this book is a study of women's voices in these trials in eight countries around the North Sea: Spanish Netherlands, Northern Germany, Denmark, Scotland, England, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. From each country, three trials are chosen for close reading of courtroom discourse and the narratological approach enables various individuals to speak. Throughout the study, a choir of 24 voices of accused women are heard which reveal valuable insight into the field of mentalities and display both the individual experience of witchcraft accusation and the development of the trial. Particular attention is drawn to the accused women's confessions, which are interpreted as enforced narratives. The analyses of individual trials are also contextualized nationally and internationally by a frame of historical elements, and a systematic comparison between the countries shows strong similarities regarding the impact of specific ideas about witchcraft, use of pressure and torture, the turning point of the trial, and the verdict and sentence. This volume is an essential resource for all students and scholars interested in the history of witchcraft, witchcraft trials, transnationality, cultural exchanges, and gender in early modern Northern Europe.

The root question this book addresses is how the new Germany will use its re-found status as a great power. Does Germany - as in the past - aim to dominate Europe? Or has it renounced its imperial ambitions following the trauma of division during the Cold War? In seeking answers to these questions, Kristina Spohr Readman scrutinises the development of Germany's new Ostpolitik (eastern policy) in the period 1989-2000. Against the background of recent European history, she analyses the re-establishment of a special relationship between Bonn/Berlin and Moscow. In particular, she assesses the peculiar geopolitical situation of the Baltic states: caught between a turbulent Russia in the east and a unified Germany in the west. The Baltic case reveals the complexities of a post-Cold War European security architecture in the making.

Following the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, and again during the Gorbachev and Yel'tsin eras, the issue of individual legal rights and freedoms occupied a central place in the reformist drive to modernize criminal justice. While in tsarist Russia the gains of legal scholars and activists in this regard were few, their example as liberal humanists remains important today in renewed efforts to promote juridical awareness and respect for law. A case in point is the role played by Vladimir Solov'ev. One of Russia's most celebrated moral philosophers, his defence of the 'right to a dignified existence' and his brilliant critique of the death penalty not only contributed to the development of a legal consciousness during his lifetime, but also inspired appeals for a more humane system of justice in post-Soviet debate. This book addresses the issues involved and their origins in late Imperial legal thought. More specifically, it examines competing theories of crime and the criminal, together with various prescriptions for punishment respecting personal inviolability. Charting endeavours of the juridical community to promote legal culture through reforms and education, the book also throws light on aspects of Russian politics, society and mentality in two turbulent periods of Russian history.

Constantine examines the reign of Constantine, the first Christian emperor and the founder of Constantinople. From a variety of angles: historical, historiographical and mythical. The volume examines the circumstances of Constantine's reign and the historical problems surrounding them, the varied accounts of Constantine's life and the plethora of popular medieval legends surrounding the reign, to reveal the different visions and representations of the emperor from saint and patron of the Western church to imperial prototype. Constantine: History, Historiography and Legend presents a comprehensive and arresting study of this important and controversial emperor.

The tension between the aim of creating sustainable multilateral region-building dynamics and the need to find more differentiated and flexible forms of cooperation has been ever-present in Euro-Mediterranean relations. The proliferation of different and partially overlapping initiatives in recent years - the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, the European Neighbourhood Policy and the Union for the Mediterranean - is a plain expression of this tension. The 2011 episodes of regime-change in the Arab world have once again placed the debate about differentiation in EU's relations with Southern and Eastern Mediterranean Countries at the top of the Union's foreign policy agenda. This book contributes to theoretical and practical debates on whether differentiation processes can aid or hinder policy convergence processes and region-building efforts more widely. The contributions to this collection assess the actual significance and consequences of differentiation in Euro-Mediterranean relations through sector-specific in-depth analyses, covering issue areas as varied as environmental policy, migration, foreign and defence policy, trade, energy, civil protection and democracy promotion. The particular angle and comprehensive analysis of this book will make it of great interest for both scholars and policy makers alike in a moment when Euro-Mediterranean are in need of a thorough rethink. This book was based on a special issue of Mediterranean Politics.

This book: analyses conflicting notions of identity and belonging in contemporary Europe. Addressing the creation, negotiation and (re)use of diverse spaces and places of belonging, the book examines their fascinating complexities in the context of a changing Europe. takes an innovative interdisciplinary approach to examine renegotiations of belonging played out through cultural encounters with difference and change, in diverse public spaces and contested places. employs analyses of diverse case studies to draw out the significance of the participation or exclusion of differing community, grassroots and activist groups in such practices and discourses of belonging in relation to the contemporary emergence of identity conflicts and political uses of the past across Europe. analyses the ways in which people's sense of belonging is connected to cultural, heritage and memory practices undertaken in different public spaces, including museums, cultural and community centres, city monuments and built heritage, neglected urban spaces, and online fora. provides a valuable contribution to the existing bodies of work on identities, migration, public space, memory and heritage. It will be of interest to scholars and students with an interest in contested belonging, public spaces and the role of culture and heritage.

The Comintern and the Global South: Global Designs/Local Encounters studies the relations and productive tensions between the Third International, intellectual histories of racial justice and anti-imperialism, as well as other forms of internationalism. Building on extant institutional histories of the Third International, it moves in new directions by focusing on the points of intersection - often conflictual and short-lived - with anti-imperialist, anti-racist, and nationalist organizing, making the Third International a site of encounter between a global political project and more local and regional contexts. Due to the broad range of geographic and linguistic expertise of the contributors, this book traces routes of exchange that are often elided in existing studies of the Third International. The chapters address how actors from Global South contexts shaped key debates on, for example, the role of Black, Indigenous, and migrant labor, the "Islamic question," and the "peasant question," which challenged Bolshevik epistemological frameworks. All such "questions" involved political subjectivities that the Comintern tried to reductively frame within a global revolution driven by Moscow, resulting in the Comintern's ultimate disintegration. Nevertheless, this juncture between the Comintern's global designs and its local encounters left a significant legacy that would later be reconfigured in mid-century anticolonial movements.

Great debate exists amongst classical historians on the nature of Roman republican government. Some contend that the Roman Republic was governed by a small group of aristocratic families that entrenched their rule by means of long-standing alliances and an intricate network of loyal clients from the lower echelons of society. Others contest the definition of the republican government as oligarchic, maintaining that the Roman elite did not operate in a political vacuum and that Polybius? judgment, which concedes a democratic element in the Roman constitution as embodied in the powers of the popular assemblies, cannot be simply swept aside. This debate has found its way into various scholarly works, but, until now, no single volume has been dedicated specifically to elections and electioneering, a sphere where the people?according to these interpretations?played a central if not a crucial role. Roman Elections in the Age of Cicero provides new and intriguing insights into the nature of Roman republican government and the people's actual powers, but also addresses questions relevant to elections in our own societies today.

'As gripping as any spy thriller, Hastings's achievement is especially impressive, for he has produced the best single volume yet written on the subject' Sunday Times 'Authoritative, exciting and notably well written' Daily Telegraph 'A serious work of rigourous and comprehensive history ... royally entertaining and readable' Mail on Sunday In The Secret War, Max Hastings presents a worldwide cast of characters and extraordinary sagas of intelligence and Resistance to create a new perspective on the greatest conflict in history. The book links tales of high courage ashore, at sea and in the air to the work of the brilliant 'boffins' battling the enemy's technology. Here are not only the unheralded codebreaking geniuses of Bletchley Park, but also their German counterparts who achieved their own triumphs and the fabulous espionage networks created, and so often spurned, by the Soviet Union. With its stories of high policy and human drama, the book has been acclaimed as the best history of the secret war ever written.

Shows students of the history of witchcraft and magic that the beliefs of the seventeenth century continued through the Enlightenment, despite the attempts by philosophers to dismiss magic and its practice, into the nineteenth century. The volume is divided into three sections highlighting different definitions of magic including the concern over the non-material world as found in popular and elite practices, its relationship with science and medicine, and other forms of divination available to the general population. Providing students with a broad view of how magic was engaged with in the eighteenth century to inform their own studies. Explores the relationship between magic, science and medicine providing students with a good understanding of how the emerging fields of science and medicine came into conflict with popular belief in and practice of magic. Allowing students to see why magic still resonated with the general public into the nineteenth century.

The assassination in Istanbul in 2007 of the author Hrant Dink, the high-profile advocate of Turkish-Armenian reconciliation, reignited the debate in Turkey on the annihilation of the Ottoman Armenians. Many Turks subsequently reawakened to their Armenian heritage, in the process reflecting on how their grandparents were forcibly Islamised and Turkified, and the suffering they endured to keep their stories secret. There was public debate about Armenian property confiscated by the Turkish state and books were published about the extermination of the minorities. The silence had been broken. After the First World War, Turkey forcibly erased the memory of the atrocities, and traces of Armenians, from their historic lands, to which the international community turned a blind eye. The price for this amnesia was, Cheterian argues, 'a century of genocide'.Turkish intellectuals acknowledge the price a society must pay collectively to forget such traumatic events, and that Turkey cannot solve its recurrent conflicts with its minorities - like the Kurds today - nor have an open and democratic society without addressing its original sin: the Armenian Genocide, on which the Republic was founded.

Adolf Hitler is the most notorious political figure of the twentieth century. The story of his life, how he became a dictator, and how he managed to convince so many to follow his cause is a subject of perennial fascination.

Balancing narrative and analysis, this biography employs a chronological approach to describe the main features of Hitler s career. Set against the background of developments in Germany and Europe during his lifetime, the text tells the extraordinary story of how an Austrian layabout rose to become F hrer of the Third Reich.

The chapters incorporate into their narrative the major debates surrounding Hitler s ideas, behaviour and historical significance. Particular attention is paid to his experience as a soldier in 1914 -18 and to the reasons why his original left-wing sympathies transmuted into Nazism. Arguments over the real character of Hitler s dictatorship are analysed and a measured assessment is offered on the disputed issues of how far Hitler initiated the Third Reich s domestic and foreign policies himself and to what extent he was controlled by events. His destructive leadership of wartime Germany is now a subject of close scrutiny among historians and the book s final chapters deal with this theme and offer a set of reflections on Hitler s relationship with the German people and his legacy to the German nation.

Michael Lynch provides a balanced guide to this most difficult of figures that will be enlightening for students and general readers alike

How useful is the concept of "network" for historical studies and the ancient world in particular? Using theoretical models of social network analysis, this book illuminates aspects of the economic, social, religious, and political history of the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. Bringing together some of the most active and prominent researchers in ancient history, this book moves beyond political institutions, ethnic, and geographical boundaries in order to observe the ancient Mediterranean through a perspective of network interaction. It employs a wide range of approaches, and to examine relationships and interactions among various social entities in the Mediterranean. Chronologically, the book extends from the early Iron Age to the late Antique world, covering the Mediterranean between Antioch in the east to Massalia (Marseilles) in the west. This book was published as two special issues in Mediterranean Historical Review.

This volume provides an authoritative survey of Greek and Roman education above the primary school level from the fourth century B.C onwards. Special attention is given to the teaching of philosophy, and there are also chapters on the liberal arts, in particular grammar and rhetoric, and on professional education. School organization, teaching methods and the impact of Christianity and the Church as an educational institution are all discussed. The picture that emerges is one of an established educational system which continued for centuries with little change and survived even the challenge of Christianity.

Landscape and Identity in the Modern Basque Country, 1800 to 1936 studies the relationship between landscape and modern identities in the Basque Country. Using an interdisciplinary approach that combines cultural history and geography, it analyses the process of historical construction of the Basque landscape, highlighting its multiple political, social and cultural meanings. The book is divided into two parts: the first examines the discourses, images and representations of the Basque landscape; the second examines landscape practices through tourism, hiking and mountaineering. Focusing on the Basque case but establishing numerous connections with comparable phenomena in Western Europe, the book demonstrates that the landscape became a structuring element insofar as it helped shape individual identities while participating in the creation of social links. This book examines the processes of identity construction "from below" by means of new interpretative tools, such as the experience of landscape. This work, originally published in French, brings to an English-speaking audience a crucial issue in the modern history of the Basque Country, namely the cultural construction of a collective identity within the framework of a nation-state, such as Spain, confronted with multiple territorial identities. Approaching this question from the perspective of landscape provides new keys to understanding the processes of nation-building that occurred in Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Modern Italian historiography has undergone a substantial revision in the last quarter of a century. From an almost exclusive focus on the process of nation-building, the attention of historians has shifted. The most innovative research is now devoted to assessing to what extent the cosmopolitan attitude that was evident in the late eighteenth century morphed, but did not disappear, in the ensuing two centuries. The essays in this volume make the case that the age of nations had a profound impact on Italian history and contributed to the creation of an Italian identity within the framework of well-functioning imperial and global networks. They also acknowledge that the process of national individualization carried with it a variety of aspects that reconnected Italian history to the foreign cultures that were undergoing constant self-fashioning. Cosmopolitan Italy in the Age of Nations: Transnational Visions from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century will be of interest to scholars throughout the world and intellectual and transnational historians.

The formation of states in early modern Europe has long been an important topic for historical analysis. Traditionally, the political and military struggles of kings and rulers were the favoured object of study for academic historians. This book highlights new historical research from Europe's northern frontier, bringing 'the people' back into the discussion of state politics, presenting alternative views of political and social relations in the Nordic countries before industrialisation. The early modern period was a time that witnessed initiatives from people from many groups formally excluded from political influence, operating outside the structures of central government, and this book returns to the subject of contentious politics and state building from below.

The surprising story of how Algeria joined and then left the postwar European Economic Community and what its past inclusion means for extracontinental membership in today's European Union. On their face, the mid-1950s negotiations over European integration were aimed at securing unity in order to prevent violent conflict and boost economies emerging from the disaster of World War II. But French diplomats had other motives, too. From Africa to Southeast Asia, France's empire was unraveling. France insisted that Algeria-the crown jewel of the empire and home to a nationalist movement then pleading its case to the United Nations-be included in the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community. The French hoped that Algeria's involvement in the EEC would quell colonial unrest and confirm international agreement that Algeria was indeed French. French authorities harnessed Algeria's legal status as an official departement within the empire to claim that European trade regulations and labor rights should traverse the Mediterranean. Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany conceded in order to move forward with the treaty, and Algeria entered a rights regime that allowed free movement of labor and guaranteed security for the families of migrant workers. Even after independence in 1962, Algeria remained part of the community, although its ongoing inclusion was a matter of debate. Still, Algeria's membership continued until 1976, when a formal treaty removed it from the European community. The Seventh Member State combats understandings of Europe's "natural" borders by emphasizing the extracontinental contours of the early union. The unification vision was never spatially limited, suggesting that contemporary arguments for geographic boundaries excluding Turkey and areas of Eastern Europe from the European Union must be seen as ahistorical.