Ellis Wasson offers one of the first comprehensive studies of the European ruling class during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Distilling a wealth of recent research, Wasson analyses the role of aristocracy in modern times, focusing on the tensions that exist between egalitarian values and the way elites shape society. Wasson explodes myths and jettisons stereotypes in sweeping coverage that takes the story from the Congress of Vienna to Stalingrad. The study recounts the change from the genteel world of court balls to Cafe Society and finally on to Eurotrash. It also contrasts the paradox of continued aristocratic social power and cultural leadership with the gradual decline in their political authority. Aristocracy and the Modern World covers key topics, such as: - the fabulous wealth of the great magnates - the relationship between servants and masters - interaction with the middle classes - concepts of honour - culture, recreation and gender - local authority and national power. Lively and authoritative, the book reviews developments in Scandinavia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, France, Italy and Spain as well as in Britain, Germany and Russia. It is essential reading for all those with an interest in modern European history.

At Home in the Institution examines space and material culture in asylums, lodging houses and schools in Victorian and Edwardian England, and explores the powerful influence of domesticity on all three institutional types.

This book presents the Great Depression through the lens of 13 films, beginning with movies made during the Depression and ending with films from the 21st century, and encourages readers to examine the various depictions of this period throughout history. The Great Depression on Film is a unique guide to how the Great Depression was represented and is remembered, making it an excellent resource for students or anyone interested in film history or U.S. history. Each film is set in a different sector of American life, focusing on such topics as white supremacy, political protest, segregation, environmental degradation, crime, religion, the class system, and popular culture in the U.S. during the 1930s. This book is indispensable for clearing away misconceptions fostered by the movies while acknowledging the power of film in shaping public memory. The book separates fact from fiction, detailing where the movies are accurate and where they depart from reality, and places them in the larger context of historical and social events. Eyewitness or journalistic accounts are referenced and quoted in the text to help readers differentiate between ideas, attitudes, and events presented in the films, as well as the historical facts which inspired those films. Provides readers with a history of the Great Depression as it played out in the lives of many classes and groups of people in the U.S. Presents a cultural overview of America during that critical time, going beyond politics to include popular music, entertainment, religion, literature, and sports Dives into an exemplary study of the difficulty in dramatizing history on film along with the way film images displace actual history in popular memory Gives a detailed overview of how Hollywood cinema represented and misrepresented life during the Depression

An examination of the relationship between imperial collapse, the emergence of successor nationalism, the exclusion of ethnic groups and the refugee experience. Written by both established authorities and younger scholars, this book offers a unique international comparative approach to the study of refugees at the end of empire

Winner of the National Jewish Book Award
Issued in London in 1917, the Balfour Declaration was one of the key documents of the twentieth century. It committed Britain to supporting the establishment in Palestine of "a National Home for the Jewish people," and its reverberations continue to be felt to this day. Now the entire fascinating story of the document is revealed in this impressive work of modern history.
With new material retrieved from historical archives, Jonathan Schneer recounts in dramatic detail the public and private fight for a small strip of land in the Middle East, a battle that started when the Ottoman Empire took Germany's side in World War I. The key players in this conflict are rendered in nuanced and detailed relief: Sharif Hussein, the Arab leader who secretly sought British support; Chaim Weizmann, the Zionist "folks-mensch" who charmed British high society; T. E. Lawrence, the legendary British officer who "set the desert on fire" for the Arabs; and the other generals and prime ministers, soldiers and negotiators, who shed blood and cut deals to grab or give away the precious land.
A book crucial to understanding the Middle East as it is today, "The Balfour Declaration" is a riveting volume about the ancient faiths and timeless treacheries that continue to drive global events.

The German Empire, its structure, its dynamic development between 1871 and 1918, and its legacy, have been the focus of lively international debate that is showing signs of further intensification as we approach the centenary of the outbreak of World War I. Based on recent work and scholarly arguments about continuities and discontinuities in modern German history from Bismarck to Hitler, well-known experts broadly explore four themes: the positioning of the Bismarckian Empire in the course of German history; the relationships between society, politics and culture in a period of momentous transformations; the escalation of military violence in Germany's colonies before 1914 and later in two world wars; and finally the situation of Germany within the international system as a major political and economic player. The perspectives presented in this volume have already stimulated further argument and will be of interest to anyone looking for orientation in this field of research.

As Cyprus experienced British imperial rule between 1878 and 1960, Greek and Turkish nationalism on the island developed at different times and at different speeds. Relations between Turkish Cypriots and the British on the one hand, and Greek Cypriots and the British on the other, were often asymmetrical with the Muslim community undergoing an enormous change in terms of national/ethnic identity and class characteristics. Turkish Cypriot nationalism developed belatedly as a militant nationalist and anti-Enosis movement. This book explores the relationship between the emergence of Turkish national identity and British colonial rule in the 1920s and 1930s.

Who is this Vladimir Putin? Who is this man who suddenly--overnight and without warning--was handed the reigns of power to one of the most complex, formidable, and volatile countries in the world? How can we trust him if we don't know him?
"First Person" is an intimate, candid portrait of the man who holds the future of Russia in his grip. An extraordinary compilation of over 24 hours of in-depth interviews and remarkable photographs, it delves deep into Putin's KGB past and explores his meteoric rise to power. No Russian leader has ever subjected himself to this kind of public examination of his life and views. Both as a spy and as a virtual political unknown until selected by Boris Yeltsin to be Prime Minister, Putin has been regarded as man of mystery. Now, the curtain lifts to reveal a remarkable life of struggles and successes. Putin's life story is of major importance to the world.

The Jewish philosopher Lev Shestov (1866-1938) is perhaps the great forgotten thinker of the twentieth century, but one whose revival seems timely and urgent in the twenty-first century. An important influence on Georges Bataille, Albert Camus, Gilles Deleuze and many others, Shestov developed a fascinating anti-Enlightenment philosophy that critiqued the limits of reason and triumphantly affirmed an ethics of hope in the face of hopelessness. In a wide-ranging reappraisal of his life and thought, which explores his ideas in relation to the history of literature and painting as well as philosophy, Matthew Beaumont restores Shestov to prominence as a thinker for turbulent times. In reconstructing Shestov's thought and asserting its continued relevance, the book's central theme is wakefulness. It argues that for Shestov, escape from the limits of rationalist Enlightenment thought comes from maintaining an insomniac vigilance in the face of the spiritual night to which his century appeared condemned. Shestov's engagement with the image of Christ remaining awake in the Garden of Gethsemane then, is at the core of his inspiring understanding of our ethical responsibilities after the horrors of the twentieth century.

"Masterful . . . The collaboration completes the Churchill portrait in a seamless manner, combining the detailed research, sharp analysis and sparkling prose that readers of the first two volumes have come to expect." - Associated Press Spanning the years 1940 to 1965, The Last Lion: Defender of the Realm, 1940-1965 begins shortly after Winston Churchill became prime minister-when Great Britain stood alone against the overwhelming might of Nazi Germany. In brilliant prose and informed by decades of research, William Manchester and Paul Reid recount how Churchill organized his nation's military response and defence, convinced FDR to support the cause, and personified the "never surrender" ethos that helped win the war. We witness Churchill, driven from office, warning the world of the coming Soviet menace. And after his triumphant return to 10 Downing Street, we follow him as he pursues his final policy goal: a summit with President Dwight Eisenhower and Soviet leaders. In conclusion, we experience Churchill's last years, when he faces the end of his life with the same courage he brought to every battle he ever fought.

The period between 1917 and 1957, starting with the birth of the USSR and the American intervention in the First World War and ending with the Treaty of Rome, is of the utmost importance for contextualizing and understanding the intellectual origins of the European Community. During this time of 'crisis,' many contemporaries, especially intellectuals, felt they faced a momentous decision which could bring about a radically different future. The understanding of what Europe was and what it should be was questioned in a profound way, forcing Europeans to react. The idea of a specifically European unity finally became, at least for some, a feasible project, not only to avoid another war but to avoid the destruction of the idea of European unity. This volume reassesses the relationship between ideas of Europe and the European project and reconsiders the impact of long and short-term political transformations on assumptions about the continent's scope, nature, role and significance.

Questions arose after 1945, and have persisted, about the ownership of properties which had belonged to Jewish communities before the Second World War, to Holocaust victims and survivors, and to Jewish expellees from the Middle East and North Africa. Studies of these properties have often focused on their symbolic values, their places in cultures of memory and identity construction, and measures of justice achieved or denied. This collection explores contesting conceptions of ownership and property claims advanced in the post-war years. The authors focus considerably upon how conflicts over these properties both shaped and reflected shifting and competing ideas about Jewish belonging. They show their outcomes to have had considerable consequences for the lived experiences of both Jews and non-Jews around the world. This is because the properties in questions always maintained their worth as material assets, just as they could also impart financial liabilities and other responsibilities to their stewards, regardless of the morality of their title. The unique decision to include studies of European, Middle Eastern, and North African communities into one volume represents an attempt to achieve a more globally sensitive language for thinking about these histories, especially at their points of contact and mutual-reference. This book was originally published as a special issue of Jewish Culture and History.

During the decade of the 1940s Greece experienced harsh German/Italian/Bulgarian occupation, the emergence of a powerful resistance movement and civil war between communist and nationalists. This critical period in the country's modern history is graphically illustrated through contemporary documents, many of them translated from Greek, many of them difficult to access. This annotated documentary collection, which is prefaced by a substantial introduction, affords a penetrating insight into the history of the 1940s from a variety of perspectives.

Centred on the dramatic premiership of Terence O'Neill, Northern Ireland at the Crossroads examines the most hopeful decade for Ulster Unionism this century. O'Neill's bold ambition to reach out to catholics inspired optimism but also massive political instability. Though concerned with the drama and personalities of high politics, this book has much to say on popular attitudes in one of the world's most politicised societies. New light is shed on Paisleyism, discrimination and the civil rights movement.

This vivid recreation of family life as experienced in Nazi Germany during and after the Second World War tells the stories of mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, parents and children, in their own words. From desperate last letters sent to their loved ones by doomed soldiers at Stalingrad, to diaries kept by women trying to keep their families alive as the cities they lived in were devastated by constant bombing raids, this book presents a new and often unfamiliar account of family life under the most extreme conditions. Far from disintegrating under the strain, as many historians have argued, this book shows that the German family maintained and even strengthened the emotional bonds that tied its members together. Entering the war shaped, moulded and directed by the massive pressures brought to bear on it by Nazism's attempt to recast German society in its own image, the German family resisted these pressures and emerged at the end of the war in a new and stronger form, surviving the manifold problems of reunion and readjustment to the postwar, post-Nazi world with a surprising degree of resilience.

In "Moving the Maasai" Lotte Hughes tells the scandalous story of how the Maasai people of Kenya lost the best part of their land to the British in the 1900s. Drawing upon unique oral testimony and extensive archival research, she describes the many intrigues surrounding two enforced moves that cleared the highlands for European settlers, and a 1913 lawsuit in which the Maasai attempted to reclaim their former territory, and explains why recent events have brought the story full circle.

It has often been assumed that Europeans invented and had the exclusive monopoly over courtly and romantic love, commonly considered to be the highest form of relations between men and women. This view was particularly prevalent between 1770 and the mid-twentieth century, but was challenged in the 1960s when romantic love came to be seen as a universal sentiment that can be found in all cultures in the world. However, there remains the historical problem that the Europeans used this concept of love as a fundamental part of their self-image over a long period (traces of it still remain) and it became very much caught up in the concept of marriage. This book challenges the underlying Eurocentrism of this notion while exploring in a more general sense the connection between identity and emotions.

In the spring of 1933, German society was deeply divided - in the Reichstag elections on 5 March, only a small percentage voted for Hitler. Yet, once he seized power, his creation of a socially inclusive Volksgemeinschaft, promising equality, economic prosperity and the restoration of honor and pride after the humiliating ending of World War I persuaded many Germans to support him and to shut their eyes to dictatorial coercion, concentration camps, secret state police, and the exclusion of large sections of the population. The author argues however, that the everyday practice of exclusion changed German society itself: bureaucratic discrimination and violent anti-Jewish actions destroyed the civil and constitutional order and transformed the German nation into an aggressive and racist society. Based on rich source material, this book offers one of the most comprehensive accounts of this transformation as it traces continuities and discontinuities and the replacement of a legal order with a violent one, the extent of which may not have been intended by those involved.

Oswald Mosley has been reviled as a fascist and lamented as the lost leader of both Conservative and Labour Parties. Concerned to articulate the demands of the war generation and to pursue an agenda for economic and political modernization his ultimate rejection of existing institutions and practices led him to fascism.

How successful was Mussolini in creating a force of loyal and committed policemen to defend his regime and assist in the creation of a new fascist civilization? How far were the Italian police transformed under Mussolini, and how did policemen experience the dictatorship? This book examines Italy's regular police in the context of fascism's efforts to modernise and establish ideological control over the state. Contrasting the regime's idealised representations with the more humdrum realities of everyday practice, the book considers the impact of the dictatorship on the Italian police and their personnel. Presenting an inside perspective on fascist repression, it focuses particularly on recruitment, training and professionalism in the Interior Ministry Police, as well as officers' ideological orientation, working conditions and quality of life. This book will appeal to students and researchers in police history, Italian fascism and, more generally, conflict and oppression in the twentieth century.

The Soviet attempt to propagandise the "new Soviet woman" through the magazines "Rabotnitsa" and "Krest'yanka" from the 1920s to the end of the Stalin era is explored here. Women were expected to play a full role in the construction of socialism, but they also had to reproduce the population. Balancing work and family did not prove easy in a climate of shifting economic and demographic priorities, and the periodic changes made to the model are charted here.

European imperialism was extraordinarily far-reaching: a key global historical process of the last 500 years. It locked disparate human societies together over a wider area than any previous imperial expansion; it underpinned the repopulation of the Americas and Australasia; it was the precursor of globalization as we now understand it. Imperialism was inseparable from the history of global environmental change. Metropolitan countries sought raw materials of all kinds, from timber and furs to rubber and oil. They established sugar plantations that transformed island ecologies. Settlers introduced new methods of farming and displaced indigenous peoples. Colonial cities, many of which became great conurbations, fundamentally changed relationships between people and nature. Consumer cultures, the internal combustion engine, and pollution are now ubiquitous.
Environmental history deals with the reciprocal interaction between people and other elements in the natural world, and this book illustrates the diverse environmental themes in the history of empire. Initially concentrating on the material factors that shaped empire and environmental change, Environment and Empire discusses the way in which British consumers and manufacturers sucked in resources that were gathered, hunted, fished, mined, and farmed. Yet it is also clear that British settler and colonial states sought to regulate the use of natural resources as well as commodify them. Conservation aimed to preserve resources by exclusion, as in wildlife parks and forests, and to guarantee efficient use of soil and water. Exploring these linked themes of exploitation and conservation, this study concludes with a focus on politicalreassertions by colonised peoples over natural resources. In a post-imperial age, they have found a new voice, reformulating ideas about nature, landscape, and heritage and challenging, at a local and global level, views of who has the right to regulate nature.