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Books > Humanities > History > European history > General
This book was first published in 1961.
The significance of the German philosopher and social thinker, Georg Simmel (1858-1918), is only now being recognised by intellectual historians. Through penetrating readings of Simmel's thought, taken as a series of reflections on the essence of modernity and modern civilisation, Efraim Podoksik places his ideas within the context of intellectual life in Germany, and especially Berlin, under the Kaiserreich. Modernity, characterised by the growing differentiation and fragmentation of culture and society, was a fundamental issue during Simmel's life, underpinning central intellectual debates in Imperial Germany. Simmel's thought is depicted here as an attempt at transforming the complexity of these debates into a coherent worldview that can serve as an effective guide to understanding their main parameters. Paying particular attention to the genealogy and usage of the concepts of Bildung, culture and civilisation in Germany, this study offers contextual analyses of Simmel's philosophies of culture, society, art, religion and the feminine, as well as his interpretations of Dante, Kant, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Goethe and Rembrandt.
Voices in the Legal Archives in the French Colonial World: "The King is Listening" offers, through the contribution of thirteen original chapters, a sustained analysis of judicial practices and litigation during the first era of French overseas expansion. The overall goal of this volume is to elaborate a more sophisticated "social history of colonialism" by focusing largely on the eighteenth century, extending roughly from 1700 until the conclusion of the Age of Revolutions in the 1830s. By critically examining legal practices and litigation in the French colonial world, in both its Atlantic and Oceanic extensions, this volume of essays has sought to interrogate the naturalized equation between law and empire, an idea premised on the idea of law as a set of doctrines and codified procedures originating in the metropolis and then transmitted to the colonies. This book advances new approaches and methods in writing a history of the French empire, one which views state authority as more unstable and contested. Voices in the Legal Archives proposes to remedy the under-theorized state of France's first colonial empire, as opposed to its post-1830 imperial expressions empire, which have garnered far more scholarly attention. This book will appeal to scholars of French history and the comparative history of European empires and colonialism.
Revised and updated to include the latest research in the field, this second edition of a popular history text examines how the Roman republic was destabilized by the unplanned growth of the Roman Empire. Central discussion points include: the government of the republic how certain individuals took advantage of the expansion of the empire Julius Caesar's accession to power the rise of the Augustan principate following Julius Caesar's murder. Drawing on a wealth of recent scholarship and including an expanded and updated guide to further reading, a chronology, and a guide to the provinces of the Roman Empire, students of history and classical studies will find this a helpful and accessible introduction to this complex period in history.
The last two decades of psychoanalytic discourse have witnessed a
marked transformation in the way we think about women and gender.
The assignment of gender carries with it a host of assumptions, yet
without it we can feel lost in a void, unmoored from the world of
rationality, stability and meaning. The feminist analytic thinkers
whose work is collected here confront the meaning established by
the assignment of gender and the uncertainty created by its
absence.
The Irish border is a manifestation of the relationship between Britain and Ireland. When that relationship has been tense, we have seen the worst effects at the Irish border in the form of violence, controls and barriers. When the relationship has been good, the Irish border has become - to all intents and purposes - open, invisible and criss-crossed with connections. Throughout its short existence, the symbolism of the border has remained just as important as its practical impact. With the UK's exit from the European Union, the challenge of managing the Irish border as a source and a symbol of British-Irish difference became an international concern. The solution found in the UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement gives the Irish border a globally unique status. A century after partition, and as we enter the post-Brexit era, this book considers what we should know and do about this highly complex and ever-contested boundary line.
The modern research university originated in Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century, largely due to the creation and expansion of the teaching and research laboratory. The universities and the sciences underwent a laboratory revolution that fundamentally changed the nature of both. This revolutionary development began in chemistry, where Justus Liebig is credited with systematically employing his students in his ongoing research during the 1830s. Later, this development spread to other fields, including the social sciences and the humanities. The consequences for the universities were colossal. The expansion of the laboratories demanded extensive new building programs, reshaping the outlook of the university. The social structure of the university also diversified because of this laboratory expansion, while what it meant to be a scientist changed dramatically. This volume explores the spatial, social, and cultural dimensions of the rise of the modern research laboratory within universities and their consequent reshaping.
This Variorum collection of articles is intended to illustrate that conflict in the late Middle Ages was not only about soldiers and fighting (about the makers and the making of war), important as these were. Just as it remains in our own day, war was a subject which attracted writers (commentators, moralists and social critics among them), some of whom glorified war, while others did not. For the historian the written word is important evidence of how war, and those taking part in it, might be regarded by the wider society. One question was supremely important: what was the standing among their contemporaries of those who fought society's wars? How was war seen on the moral scale of the time? The last two sections deal with a particular war, the 'occupation' of northern France by the English between 1420 and 1450. The men who conquered the duchy, and then served to keep it under English control for those years, had to be rewarded with lands, titles, administrative and military responsibilities, even (for the clergy) ecclesiastical benefices. For these, war spelt 'opportunity', whose advantages they would be reluctant to surrender. The final irony lies in the fact that Frenchmen, returning to claim their ancestral rights once the English had been driven out, frequently found it difficult to unravel both the legal and the practical consequences of a war which had caused a considerable upheaval in Norman society over a period of a single generation.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was an enigmatic leader, a resolute and
audacious politician who had an immense impact on 20th century
world history. Lenin's life and career have been at the center of
much ideological debate for decades. The post-Soviet era has seen a
revived interest and re-evaluation of the Russian Revolution and
Lenin's legacy.
How did Norway become a highly successful liberal democracy? Will its prosperity and stability last, or has modern history been an exception? Is the Norwegian experience based on luck, or has a part been played by clever politicians and sound institutions, including a well-functioning rule of law? How does Norway combine social democracy with a market economy, and extensive foreign trade? Since the 1970s, Norway has become an oil-producing giant in Northern Europe--how can that role be reconciled with the realities of climate change, and increasing awareness of that crisis? This highly engaging book introduces Norwegian political and economic history to a broad audience, offering a deeper understanding of a country always looked upon with great interest, but perhaps not profoundly understood. The Norwegian Exception? takes the reader back through 200 years of state-building to explain Norway's current position as a top-ranking nation, and to consider its chances of keeping that status in the twenty-first century. In particular, it unpacks how Norwegian politics and governance have shaped the country's world-famous oil fund and unique relationship with the European Union. Leading historians Mathilde Fasting and Oystein Sorensen skilfully draw back the curtain on the inner workings of the Norwegian 'utopia'.
Jews and Converts in Late Medieval Castile examines the ways in which Jewish-Christian relations evolved in Castile, taking account of social, cultural, and religious factors that affected the two communities throughout the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. The territorial expansion of the Christian kingdoms in Iberia that followed the reconquests of the mid-thirteenth century presented new military and economic challenges. At the same time the fragile balance between Muslims, Jews, and Christians in the Peninsula was also profoundly affected. Economic and financial pressures were of over-riding importance. Most significant were the large tax revenues that the Iberian Jewish community provided to royal coffers, new evidence for which is provided here. Some in the Jewish community also achieved prominence at court, achieving dizzying success that often ended in dismal failure or death. A particular feature of this study is its reliance upon both Castilian and Hebrew sources of the period to show how mutual perceptions evolved through the long fourteenth century. The study encompasses the remarkable and widespread phenomenon of Jewish conversion, elaborates on its causes, and describes the profound social changes that would culminate in the anti-converso riots of the mid-fifteenth century. This book is valuable reading for academics and students of medieval and of Jewish history. As a study of a unique crucible of social change it also has a wider relevance to multi-cultural societies of any age, including our own.
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.
Revised throughout, the second edition of this successful book takes the most recent research in the field into account and reviews the evidence in order to place Augustus firmly in the context of his own times. History sees Augustus Caesar as the first emperor of Rome, whose system of ordered government provided a firm and stable basis for the expansion and prosperity of the Roman Empire. Hailed as 'restorer of the Republic' and regarded by some as a deity in his own lifetime, Augustus was emulated by many of his successors. Key topics discussed include: the background to Augustus Caesar's spectacular rise to power his political and imperial reforms the creation of the Republica of Augustus the legacy Augustus Caesar left to his successors. Including more coverage of the social and cultural aspects of this complex character's reign, together with an expanded guide to further reading, students will not miss a beat if this book is included on their course reading lists.
This book examines how civil-military relations have been transformed in Russia, Poland, Hungary and Ukraine since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact in 1991. It shows how these countries have worked to reform their obsolete armed forces, and bring them into line with the new economic and strategic realities of the post-Cold War world, with new bureaucratic structures in which civilians play the key policy-making roles, and with strengthened democratic political institutions which have the right to oversee the armed forces.
From highly respected field academic Gordon Martel, The World War Two Reader is a rare work that provides a complete and up-to-date overview of the recent historiography on World War Two. Huge in scope, both geographically and thematically, this excellent reader examines twenty-one articles by some of the best known and most innovative scholars in the field. Taking a global approach, Martel discusses all aspects of the war including:
Including a comprehensive introduction, chronology, guides to key terms and figures, and introductions to chapters providing context and historiographical background, The World War Two Reader provides wide ranging and innovative reading for all students of the history of the modern world.
Hitler's seizure of power in January 1933, in the eyes of some historians, was the culmination of an unstoppable march. Yet the final months of the Weimar Republic saw the Nazis sliding into ever deeper trouble. In particular, the Sturmabteilung or SA - activist heart of the Nazi movement was showing signs of breakage. The stormtroopers who filled its ranks increasingly angered with party leadership, swerved from the party agenda, and fell to dispute and violence at odds with Hitler's cultivated image as herald of a new order. Stormtroopers and Crisis in the Nazi Movement casts fresh light on the crisis that beset Nazism during the final months of Germany's first republic. The book scrutinizes two sets of hitherto understudied records. SA morale reports in the US National Archive show what Nazi leaders themselves knew about their radical paramilitary wing. Police reports on the stormtroopers, from the former DDR state archive in Potsdam, show what Republican authorities knew. This book should be of interest to advanced students and researchers of Modern European History, Modern German History and Nazism.
This title is a personal and carefully research account of Barcelona, from its founding to its huge growth in the 19th century. The author covers the city's: history; art and architecture; great churches and museums; cafes; port life; restaurants and fashionable nightclubs.
The Banality of Denial examines the attitudes of the State of Israel and its leading institutions toward the Armenian Genocide. Israel's view of this issue has special significance and deserves an attentive study, as it is a country composed of a people who were victims of the Holocaust. The Banality of Denial seeks both to examine the passive, indifferent Israeli attitude towards the Armenian Genocide, and to explore active Israeli measures to undermine attempts at safeguarding the memory of the Armenian victims of the Turkish persecution. Such an inquiry into attempts at denial by Israeli institutions and leading figures of Israel's political, security, academic, and Holocaust "memory-preservation" elite has not merely an academic significance. It has considerable political relevance, both symbolic and tangible. In The Banality of Denial--as in Auron's previous work--moral, philosophical, and theoretical questions are of paramount importance. Because no previous studies have dealt with these issues or similar ones, an original methodology is employed to analyze the subject with regard to four domains: political, educational, media, and academic.
Laure Humbert explores how humanitarian aid in occupied Germany was influenced by French politics of national recovery and Cold War rivalries. She examines the everyday encounters between French officials, members of new international organizations, relief workers, defeated Germans and Displaced Persons, who remained in the territory of the French zone prior to their repatriation or emigration. By rendering relief workers and Displaced Persons visible, she sheds lights on their role in shaping relief practices and addresses the neglected issue of the gendering of rehabilitation. In doing so, Humbert highlights different cultures of rehabilitation, in part rooted in pre-war ideas about 'overcoming' poverty and war-induced injuries and, crucially, she unearths the active and bottom-up nature of the restoration of France's prestige. Not only were relief workers concerned about the image of France circulating in DP camps, but they also drew DP artists into the orbit of French cultural diplomacy in Germany.
First published to wide critical acclaim in 1992, "The Two Cities"
has become an essential text for students of medieval history. For
the second edition, the author has thoroughly revised each chapter,
bringing the material up to date and taking the historiography of
the past decade into account.
This book outlines the possibilities and perspectives of an intertwining of European integration historiography with the history and concept of capitalism. Although debates on capitalism have been making a comeback since the 2008 crisis, to date the concept of capitalism remains almost completely avoided by historians of European integration. This book thus conceptualizes 'capitalism' as a useful analytical tool that should be used by historians of European integration and proposes three major approaches for them to do so: first, by bringing the question of social conflict, integral to the concept of capitalism, into European integration history; second, by better conceptualizing the link between European governance, Europeanization and the globalization of capitalism; and thirdly by investigating the economic, political and ideological models or doctrines that underlie European cooperation, integration, policies and institutions. This analytical encounter between European integration history and capitalism allows for a better understanding of how today's "Europe" resulted from a complex social, economic and political conflict that took place in part at the European level. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal, the European Review of History.
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