The role of the police has, from its beginnings, been ambiguous, even janus-faced. This volume focuses on one of its controversial aspects by showing how the police have been utilized in the past by regimes in Europe, the USA and the British Empire to check political dissent and social unrest. Ideologies such as anti-Communism emerge as significant influences in both democracies and dictatorships. And by shedding new light on policing continuities in twentieth-century Germany and Italy, as well as Interpol, this volume questions the compatibility of democratic government and political policing.

When the Anglo-Boer War began at the end of 1899, Germans protested profusely. Everybody, from the Conservatives to the Social Democrats took a united stand against the "arch enemy", Britain, and her war in the South of Africa. Only when the South African Union was founded in 1910 did the German public interest in South Africa decrease. This interest left a great number of German publications, which is a reminder of the fact that the general public of the German Reich supported, with great interest, an important world historic event overseas, which remains unprecedented in its intensity and extent.

The book examines the history of Czechoslovakia in the seventy years since its founding by T.G.Masaryk. It analyses the profound changes which took place during the First Republic, the Nazi occupation, postwar liberation and communist rule, including both the Stalinist years, the Prague Spring of 1968 and the subsequent period of normalization to 1988 .

The establishment of the Indian National Congress in 1885 marked a turning point in modern South Asian history. At the time, few grasped the significance of the event, nor understood the power that its leader would come to wield. From humble beginnings, the Congress led by Gandhi would go on to spearhead India s fight for independence from British rule: in 1947 it succeeded the British Raj as the regional ruling power. Ian Copland provides both a narrative and analysis of the process by which Indians and Pakistanis emancipated themselves from the seemingly iron-clad yoke of British imperialism. In so doing, he goes to the heart of what sets modern India apart from most other countries in the region its vigorous democracy.

We are in the midst of a Dwight Eisenhower revival. Today pundits often look to Eisenhower as a model of how a president can govern across party lines and protect American interests globally without resorting too quickly to the use of force. Yet this mix of nostalgia and frustration with the current polarized state of American politics may mislead us. Eisenhower's presidency has much to teach us today about how a president might avert crises and showdowns at home or abroad. But he governed under conditions so strikingly different from those a chief executive faces in the early 21st century that we need to question how much of his style could work in our own era. The chapters in this volume address the lessons we can draw from the Eisenhower experience for presidential leadership today. Although most of the authors find much to admire in the Eisenhower record, they express varying opinions on how applicable his approach would be for our own time. On one side, they appreciate his limited faith in the power of his words to move public opinion and his reluctance to turn to the use of force to solve international problems. On the other side, it was plain that Ike's exercise of "hidden-hand" leadership (in Fred Greenstein's evocative term) would not be possible in the modern media environment that makes Washington a giant fishbowl and instant revelation an acceptable norm. Both Eisenhower admirers and skeptics (and many of the authors are both) will find much in these essays to reinforce their preconceptions-and much that is unsettling. Eisenhower emerges as an effective but flawed leader. He was in many ways the right man for his time, but limited because he was also a man of his time.

From the moment the United States seized Puerto Rico, in 1898, to the 1950s, the islanders employed various forms of resistance against American colonial rule. Starting in the 1930s a group of Nationalists was determined to free Puerto Rico, by armed struggle if necessary. A Nationalist revolution took full force in 1950. A commando of men and women attacked the governor's residence and assaulted police stations throughout the island. Others attempted to assassinate President Truman In Washington. In 1954, Dolores Lebron led three male companions in an attack on the U.S. House of Representatives in which five congressmen were shot for keeping Puerto Rico in bondage. Massive arrests followed and forty-one women were detained, two of whom were sentenced to life in prison. While the male Nationalists have been celebrated as heroes in Puerto Rico, the women have gone unmentioned This book seeks to rescue the stories of the women who gave up their freedom in the quest to liberate their homeland.

Thatcher provides an accessible and scholarly introduction to the personality and career of Britain's first female political leader and the twentieth century's longest serving Prime Minister. Providing a balanced narrative and assessment of one of the most significant figures of the post-war era, this new biography examines the reasons why Margaret Thatcher has been admired by many as an architect of national revival, yet loathed by others as the author of widening social and geographical division. The book begins by examining the making of Margaret Thatcher, her education, the beginning of her political career and her rise through the Conservative Party to her appointment as unexpected leader. Moving on to her tenure as Prime Minister, Graham Goodlad then examines her impact at home and abroad, covering her controversial economic policies and hard line with the trade unions, leadership through the Falklands conflict and during the last decade of the Cold War, and influence on Britain's relationship with a more closely integrated Europe. Finally, the biography closes with a review of Thatcher's legacy before and after her death in April 2013, and considers how far she shaped the politics and society of the 1980s and those of our own time. Thatcher is essential reading for all students of twentieth-century history and politics.

Zionism is an international political movement that was originally dedicated to the resettlement of Jewish people in the Promised Land, and is now synonymous with support for the modern state of Israel. This addition to the Short Histories of Big Ideas series looks at the controversial and topical notion of Zionism from a balanced viewpoint, concentrating on where it came from, how it accomplished its goals, and why it affected so many people.

This volume reconsiders India's 20th century though a specific focus on the concepts, conjunctures and currency of its distinct political imaginaries. Spanning the divide between independence and partition, it highlights recent historical debates that have sought to move away from a nation-centred mode of political history to a broader history of politics that considers the complex contexts within which different political imaginaries emerged in 20th century India. Representing the first attempt to grasp the shifting modes and meanings of the 'political' in India, this book explores forms of mass protest, radical women's politics, civil rights, democracy, national wealth and mobilization against the indentured-labor system, amongst other themes. In linking 'the political' to shifts in historical temporality, Political Imaginaries in 20th century India extends beyond the interdisciplinary arena of South Asian studies to cognate late colonial and post-colonial formations in the twentieth century and contribute to the 'political turn' in scholarship.

For decades after the Second World War, historians and writers depicted cultural life in Germany's Weimar Republic (1919-1933) as an unstable mixture of avant-garde experimentation, decadence, and proto-fascist tendencies. Their limited definition of "culture" as a canon of works by elites hindered the study of everyday cultural forms. A younger generation of scholars now takes the broad view of culture as not merely the work of elite artists and intellectuals, but as constructed in everyday practice and thorough popular participation. This is the first book to offer an accessible cross-section of these "new cultural history" approaches to the Weimar Republic. The essays in this volume recover the everyday by focusing on visual and political culture, transnational currents in the mass media, and the intense popular interest in sports, health, and nature. "Weimar Culture Revisited" attests to the extraordinarily multi-faceted nature of democracy in interwar Germany.

A defining work in the 'Inner Emigration' literary movement, Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen's 'History of the Munster Antibaptists' was written in 1937 as a criticism of the Nazi regime. This English translation includes documents, scholarly essays, and a detailed introduction."

Written by one of the most celebrated historians of the Spanish Civil War, this book presents a fascinating account of the origins of the war and the nature and importance of conspiracy for the extreme right. Based on exhaustive research, and written with lucidity and considerable humour, it acts as both an outstanding introduction to the vast literature of the war, and a monumental contribution to that literature.

The study of welfare can illuminate debate about many themes in modern Italian history - the question of the success or failure of nation-building, the question of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the state, the question of continuity and discontinuity from liberalism to fascism, and the question of the actual impact of fascist rule on Italian society. This book aims to contribute to scholarship on the social history of modern Italy by examining welfare thinking and policies from the nineteenth century to the fascist period.

This book investigates the significance of historical narratives in Soviet and post-Soviet space. Encompassing reform under Mikhail Gorbachev and retrenchment under Vladimir Putin, it explains the political, social, and cultural importance of a polity's myths. Charting the rise of anti-Soviet and anti-communist narratives under perestroika, and their eventual marginalization in post-Soviet Russia, the book argues that changes in symbolic politics must be examined within cultural, socio-political, and international contexts. Of particular relevance is the interactive relationship between state and society. The study of historical discourse must focus not only on how and why the state imposes its discursive preferences on society, thereby shaping public memory, but also on why and how the state itself is constructed by prevailing narratives in society.

"Memory of war in France examines France in the era of world war through the unconventional eyes of the veteran, activist, and novelist Cesar Fauxbras. It encompasses the French Navy at war, the naval mutinies of 1919, the experience of unemployment, interwar pacifism, French defeat in 1940, and Paris under the heel of German occupation"--Provided by publisher.

An engrossing account of the city where Nazism took root, the place that put Hitler on the road to power.

The capital of the Nazi movement was not Berlin but Munich. So said the Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, of this handsome Bavarian town on the banks of the Isar River. Why did Nazism flourish in the "Athens of the Isar"?

In exploring this question David Clay Large begins in Munich's "golden age," the four decades before World War I when its culture generated some of the outstanding works of the modernist spirit. But here he finds a dark side, a proto-fascist cultural heritage that proved fertile soil for Hitler's movement. From the violent experience of the Munich Soviet in 1918-19 through Hitler's failed Beer-Hall Putsch of 1923 and on to his appointment as German chancellor in 1933, Large weaves a harrowing narrative of the rise of Nazism. As he did in his previous book, Between Two Fires: Europe's Path in the 1930s (Norton), Large succeeds here in "putting the story back into history for these dreadful years" (Choice).

"David Clay Large knows how to write. . . . He has a sense of drama equal to that of another popular historian, William Manchester."—Frank J. Prial, New York Times Book Review

The architecture of social reform explores the fascinating intellectual origins of modern architecture's obsession with domesticity. Copiously illustrated, Rousset's revealing analysis demonstrates how questions over aesthetics, style, urbanization, and technology that gripped the modernist imagination were deeply ingrained in a larger concern to reform society through housing. The increasing demand for new housing in Germany's rapidly growing cities fostered critical exchanges between a heterogeneous group of actors, including architects, urban theorists, planners, and social scientists, who called for society to be freed from class antagonism through the provision of good, modest, traditionally-minded domestic design. Offering a compelling account of architecture's ability to act socially, the book provocatively argues that architectural theory underwent its most critical epistemological transformation in relation to the dynamics of modern class politics long before the arrival of the avant-garde. -- .

Romania since the Second World War offers a political, social and economic history of Romania from 1945 to the present day. It is the first book designed for students to chart the progress of the nation under the communist regime as well as the transition period that followed, providing detailed analysis of the aspects of continuity and change that can be identified over the period as a whole. The first part of the book looks at the communist regime in depth. It examines how communism took hold and how the elimination of traditional elites took place before discussing the impact of Gheorghiu-Dej and Nicolae Ceausescu, the two most important leaders of the communist era. A further chapter will also be given to the main economic and social changes that took place under the rule of communism. The second part of the book goes on to explore the transition period that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of communism in 1989, with special attention being given to international relations and Romania's drive for inclusion in NATO and the EU. Romania since the Second World War goes on to assess socio-demographic trends across the postwar period using a range of data before concluding with some final thoughts on the nation's development during this time. The book also includes useful biographical boxes for key figures in Romania's recent history, an extensive bibliography and further reading lists throughout. This is an essential text for those interested in the modern history of Eastern Europe.

Lenin's politics continue to reverberate around the world even after the end of the USSR. His name elicits revulsion and reverence, yet Lenin the man remains largely a mystery. This biography shows us Lenin as we have never seen him, in his full complexity as revolutionary, political leader, thinker, and private person.

Born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov in 1870, the son of a schools inspector and a doctor's daughter, Lenin was to become the greatest single force in the Soviet revolution--and perhaps the most influential politician of the twentieth century. Drawing on sources only recently discovered, Robert Service explores the social, cultural, and political catalysts for Lenin's explosion into global prominence. His book gives us the vast panorama of Russia in that awesome vortex of change from tsarism's collapse to the establishment of the communist one-party state. Through the prism of Lenin's career, Service focuses on dictatorship, the Marxist revolutionary dream, civil war, and interwar European politics. And we are shown how Lenin, despite the hardships he inflicted, was widely mourned upon his death in 1924.

Service's Lenin is a political colossus but also a believable human being. This biography stresses the importance of his supportive family and of its ethnic and cultural background. The author examines his education, upbringing, and the troubles of his early life to explain the emergence of a rebel whose devotion to destruction proved greater than his love for the "proletariat" he supposedly served. We see how his intellectual preoccupations and inner rage underwent volatile interaction and propelled his career from young Marxist activist to founder of the communistparty and the Soviet state--and how he bequeathed to Russia a legacy of political oppression and social intimidation that has yet to be expunged.

Part of a fully indexed 20-volume collection which gathers together significant research contributions on the social, religious and political history of women in the United States, from colonial times to the 1990s.

From the Fashoda incident in 1898 to the current Blair-Jospin "entente," this book reviews one century of Franco-British relations. Friend or foe? Partner or rival? Model or counter-model? The two countries have continually wavered between two extremes. Yet, these essays show they have always had more things in common than suspected in the first place, and there has always been a strong case for cooperation.

Although the years 1921-48 saw a gradual strengthening of the so-called 'special relationship' between the United States and Great Britain, anglophobia remained a potent force in American political life throughout that period. In Twisting the Lion's Tail , John E. Moser examines this phenomenon, showing how traditional American images of King George III and the redcoats were revived by immigrants, farmers and other groups hoping to advance an anti-British agenda.

France and the Nazi Menace examines the French response to the challenge posed by National Socialist Germany in the years 1933-1939. Jackson argues that the German threat was far from the only challenge facing French national leaders in an era of economic depression and profound ideological discord. Only after the national humiliation at the Munich Conference did the threat from Nazi Germany take precedence over France's internal problems in the making of policy.

China and Taiwan have similar political cultures. However, the Chinese intellectual and political elite have failed to democratize the Middle Kingdom since the 4 May 1919 Movement; whilst their Taiwanese counterpart succeeded in making the island state fairly democratic in just over four decades since the 28 February 1947 Uprising.;After an examination of the approaches they applied, the author finds that the former have pursued a culturalist route by trying to change the psycho-cultural make-up of the Chinese people. Conversely, Taiwan followed an institutional road in which they tried to win elections and to set up political organizations, such as parties.

Enforced disarmament has often been ignored by historians, diplomats, and strategic analaysts. Yet the democracies have imposed some measure of disarmament on their enemies after every major victory since 1815. In many cases, forced disarmament was one of the most important, if not the most important, of their war aims. The demilitarization of Germany and Japan, for example, was one of the most significant post-war measures agreed by the Soviet Union, Britain, and the USA in 1945, whilst the debate on the disarmament measures imposed on Iraq after the Gulf War continues to rage. The efficacy and durability of enforced disarmament measures, and the resistance they are likely to encounter are thus issues of central strategic and political importance. Philip Towle examines the most important peace settlements from the time of Napoleon to Saddam Hussein, in the first major history of this fascinating subject.