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Books > History > European history > General
This, the second book in Alexander A. Maslov's planned trilogy regarding the tragic fate of Red Army general officers who fell victim to the Second World War, is perhaps the most depressing. In it Maslov relates the fate of those generals who fell into German captivity. After relating the grisly circumstances of their ordeal in German prisoner-of-war camps, Maslov tells the sordid tale of how an ungrateful state condemned for treason against their homeland many of those who had served it loyally both in combat and in German prisoner-of-war camps. By exploiting unprecedented archival materials, Maslov demonstrates how Stalin and Soviet security organs condemned and shot many of the returnee-generals, most on trumped-up charges, in part as scapegoats for the real crimes committed by Stalin and the Soviet military leadership during the tragic initial period of the war. Coincidentally, Maslov once again presents a unique glimpse of the social history of the pre-war and wartime Red Army general officer corps.
The Politics of Memory in the Italian Populist Radical Right examines the role of colonial memory in the contemporary Italian populist radical right, which includes the Lega and Fratelli d'Italia (FdI). The book originally adopts postcolonialism as an analytical framework to critically examine which roles colonial memory plays in the Italian populist radical right. Considering the timeframe between 2013 and 2021, this book suggests that the contemporary Italian populist radical right selectively shaped its memory of the colonial past, expunging the most difficult aspects from it. The fact that the Italian populist radical right parties examined do not fully acknowledge the controversial aspects of Italy's colonial past, which are bracketed off discourse, may contribute to the deployment of colonial discourse by these same parties when discussing immigration. From this Italian case study, broader implications can be drawn regarding the role of colonial memory in political discourse, which is a topical matter across Europe. The book will be of interest to those studying populism, the radical right, Italian politics and history, colonialism, and the politics of memory.
This volume is divided according to moral themes within medicine and science. The sources represent dominant notes within the culture of knowledge production that capture the moral/emotional/social justification for the making of expertise through experiment. This volume focuses on curiosity, given as the scientist's chief motivating factor for the finding of new facts, and as an essential character trait for anyone entering the scientific life. It is also the source of controversy and criticism, since curiosity alone increasingly looked amoral at best and immoral at worst, as the nineteenth century wore on.
This volume foregrounds humanity (in the sense of compassion or sympathy), which often supplied the motivation for medical experiment and scientific innovation. Though the results of experiments could not be known in advance, often the stated goal was the reduction of suffering, the cure of disease, or the easement of life. Increasingly, critics accused practitioners of hiding hubris behind their purported humanity and questioned whether an increasingly professional scientific community could retain its grip on the meaning of compassion.
Increasingly, critics accused practitioners of hiding hubris behind their purported humanity and questioned whether an increasingly professional scientific community could retain its grip on the meaning of compassion. This volume presents a set of responses to this criticism and others, showing the extent to which the lived-experience of scientific practice became a justification in and of itself for the expression of social, political and cultural authority. Bare knowledge, as it was presented, came with an enormous social valuation. These sources show how that authority changed and grew over time.
This volume showcases doubt from within the scientific community itself. These sources dwell upon the moments at which ideas became challenged, when facts were revealed to be fiction, and when knowns reverted to unknowns. But the focus is not the ideas and facts themselves, but on the ways in which scientists adjusted themselves to new landscapes of uncertainty in their particular cultural and professional practices.
The Catholic Reformation (1999) provides a dynamic and original history of this crucial movement in early modern Europe. Starting from the late middle ages, it clearly traces the continuous transformation of Catholicism in its structure, bodies and doctrine. Charting the gain in momentum of Catholic renewal from the time of the Council of Trent, it also considers the ambiguous effect of the Protestant Reformation in accelerating the renovation of the Catholic Church. It explores how and why the Catholic Reformation occurred, stressing that many moves towards restoration were underway well before the Protestant Reformation. The huge impact the Catholic renewal had, not only on the papacy, Church leaders and religious ritual and practice, but also on the lives of ordinary people - their culture, arts, attitudes and relationships - is shown in colourful detail.
Imperial Russia was at the height of its power and influence in the
nineteenth century, and all seemed set to dominate Europe after the
defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815. However this threat came to
nothing. Despite the efforts of successive Tzars, the country
remained backward and bureaucratic. When change at last occurred,
it was through the work of the revolutionaries during the 1917
Revolution.
An essential introduction to the major political problems, debates
and conflicts which are central to the history of the Third
Republic in France, from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 to the
fall of France in June 1940.
This work provides an introduction to the major issues that face Ukraine today and explains how they were shaped. Contrasting the generally bleak picture that international media reports present, it suggests that Ukraine has actually accomplished a great deal in a short time. In seven years, from 1991 to 1998, Ukraine went from being a little-known nation within a non-democratic state to an internationally recognized independent country. It established a political identity for itself separate from Russia and made steps towards creating a democratic political system including adopting a new Constitution. All this was done without the shedding of blood. The book looks at these and other issues. The first chapter provides a broad historical background and explains why history is important in the region today. Chapter 2 describes Ukraine's starting point in 1991. It explains the legacies left behind by the Soviet Union: what Ukraine had and what it lacked when it declared independence. The remaining chapters provide an overview of the main political, economic, social, cultural and foreign policy issues in Ukraine. A separate chapter is devoted to Ukrainian-Russian relations.
The book is especially pertinent given the current renewed rise of far right activity in Italy The book should be marketable alongside the volumes in Routledge's burgeoning Fascism and the Far Right book series The Blackshirts have in certain places been characterised as non-essential to Mussolini's rise to power. This book argues the vital role they played
The historical consciousness of medieval Jewry has engendered lively debate in the scholarly world. The focus in this book is on the historical consciousness of the Jews of Spain and southern France in the late Middle Ages, and specifically on their perceptions of Christianity and Christian history and culture. In his detailed analysis of Jews' understanding of the history of the communities they lived among, Ram Ben-Shalom shows that in these southern European lands Jews experienced a relatively open society that was sensitive to and knowledgeable about voices from other cultures, and that this had significant consequences for shaping Jewish historical consciousness. Among the topics that receive special attention are what Jews knew of the significance of Rome, of Jesus and the early days of Christianity, of Church history, and of the history of the Iberian monarchies. Ben-Shalom demonstrates that, despite the negative stereotypes of Jewry prevalent in Christian literature and increasing familiarity with that literature, they were more influenced by their interactions with Christian society at the local level. Consequently there was no single stereotype that dominated Jewish thought, and frequently little awareness of the two societies as representing distinct cultures. This book contributes to medieval Jewish intellectual history on many levels, demonstrating that, in Spain and southern France, Jews of the later Middle Ages evinced a genuine interest in history, including the history of non-Jews, and that in some cases they were deeply familiar with Christian and sometimes also classical historiography. In providing a comprehensive survey of the multiple contexts in which historiographical material was embedded and the many uses to which it was put, it enriches our understanding of medieval historiography, polemic, Jewish-Christian relations, and the breadth of interests characterizing Provencal and Spanish Jewish communities.
This book offers a comparative perspective on Northern and Southern European laws and customs concerning women's property and economic rights. By focusing on both Northern and Southern European societies, these studies analyse the consequences of different juridical frameworks and norms on the development of the economic roles of men and women. This volume is divided into three parts. The first, Laws, presents general outlines related to some European regions; the second, Family strategies or marital economies?, questions the potential conflict between the economic interests of the married couple and those of the lineage within the nobility; finally, the third part of the book, Inside the urban economy, focuses on economic and work activities of middle and lower classes in the urban environment. The assorted and rich panorama offered by the history of the legislation on women's economic rights shows that similarities and differences run through Europe in such a way that the North/South model looks very stereotyped. While this approach calls into question classical geographical and cultural maps and well-established chronologies, it encourages a reconsideration of European history according to a cross-boundaries perspective. By drawing on a wide range of social, economic and cultural European contexts, from the late medieval to early modern age to the nineteenth century, and including the middle and lower classes (especially artisans, merchants and traders) as well as the economic practices and norms of the upper middle class and aristocracy, this book will be of interest to economic and social historians, sociologists of health, gender and sexuality, and economists.
After Hitler's death, several posthumous books were published which purported to be the verbatim words of the Nazi leader - two of the most important of these documents were Hitler's Table Talk and The Testament of Adolf Hitler. This ground-breaking book provides the first in-depth analysis and critical study of Hitler's so-called table talks and their history, provenance, translation, reception, and usage. Based on research in public and private archives in four countries, the book shows when, why, where, how, by and for whom the table talks were written, how reliable the texts are, and how historians should approach and use them. It reveals the crucial role of the mysterious Swiss Nazi Francois Genoud, as well as some very poor judgement from several famous historians in giving these dubious sources more credibility than they deserved. The book sets the record straight regarding the nature of these volumes as historical sources - proving inter alia The Testament to be a clever forgery - and aims to establish a new consensus on their meaning and impact on historical research into Hitler and the Third Reich. This path-breaking historical investigation will be of considerable interest to all researchers and historians of the Nazi era.
Western-Soviet rivalry in the eastern Mediterranean in the early post war years culminated with the entry of Turkey and Greece into NATO in 1952. Today, Turkey's inclusion in NATO seems natural given Soviet pressure against Turkey in 1945-46 and the geostrategic position of the country. Yet in the early postwar period this was not a foregone conclusion in the minds of policy makers in Washinghton and particularly in London, despite Ankara's relentless efforts after 1947 to obtain an American security guarantee. This book aims to enhance our understanding of how American presence came to become consolidated - through NATO - in the easten Mediterranean in the early cold war period by examining how American and British security considerations toward the region evolved between 1947 and 1952 and the impact Turkey's pressure had on American and British security thinking.
This collection of the best new and recent work on historical consciousness and practice in late Imperial Russia assembles the building blocks for a fundamental reconceptualization of Russian history and history writing.
In English for the first time, these 207 letters were written by the eighteenth century Hungarian nobleman Kelemen Mikes, in exile in Turkey, to his aunt in Constantinople over a period of forty years. Mikes tells of the current events of Turkey and beyond, as well as of the daily lives, hopes, and disappointments of himself and his companions in exile, one of whom was Ferenc Rakoczi II, the Prince of Transylvania.
This is the first comprehensive history of conscription and the military in Italy from the Restoration to the eve of WWI. The comparative and transnational approach enables this work to compare and contrast the Italian experience with that of many other countries in the world as well as understand transfers and the adaptive and imitative processes that emerge when conscription and the military are viewed from an Italian perspective. Peacetime and wartime recruitment, military life, culture, justice and civil-military relationships are analysed using a wide range of sources and an interdisciplinary approach that combines top-down and bottom-up perspectives. This enables the book not only to assess the contribution the military has made to the country in terms of state-building, nation building, modernization, pedagogical and disciplinary models, gender identity and roles, but also to reconsider the standard taxonomies as well as some established evolutionary models of the armies. Moreover, the Italian military is seen as an internally complex world that is incapable of defining its own one-dimensional identity or of imposing any such identity on its members. Consequently, it is an element in the history of a country that is substantially the same as any other such element and thus important in people’s collective and individual lives whether or not they are in uniform. Rather than being an object of study in and of itself, the military becomes a vantage point from which to observe the Italian history in the long 19th century. Therefore, this book can be profitably read by professional military historians and non-specialist readers interested in the military, as well as by all scholars working on Italian pre- and post-unification political, institutional, socio-economic, cultural and gender history.
Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published between 1776 and 1788, is the undisputed masterpiece of English historical writing which can only perish with the language itself. Its length alone is a measure of its monumental quality: seventy-one chapters, of which twenty-eight appear in full in this edition. With style, learning and wit, Gibbon takes the reader through the history of Europe from the second century AD to the fall of Constantinople in 1453 - an enthralling account by 'the greatest of the historians of the Enlightenment'. This edition includes Gibbon's footnotes and quotations, here translated for the first time, together with brief explanatory comments, a precis of the chapters not included, 16 maps, a glossary, and a list of emperors.
In the 25 years since the revelation of the so-called 'Ultra secret', the importance of codebreaking and signals intelligence in the diplomacy and military operations of the Second World War has become increasingly evident. Studies of wartime signals intelligence, however, have largely focused on Great Britain and the United States and their successes against, respectively, the German Enigma and Japanese Purple cipher machines. Drawing upon newly available sources in Australia, Britain, China, France and the United States, the articles in this volume demonstrate that the codebreaking war was a truly global conflict in which many countries were active and successful. They discuss the work of Australian, Chinese, Finnish, French and Japanese codebreakers, shed new light on the work of their American and British counterparts, and describe the struggle to apply technology to the problems of radio intercept and cryptanalysis. The contributions also reveal that, for the Axis as well as the Allies, success in the signals war often depended upon close collaboration among alliance partners.
In the 25 years since the revelation of the so-called 'Ultra secret', the importance of codebreaking and signals intelligence in the diplomacy and military operations of the Second World War has become increasingly evident. Studies of wartime signals intelligence, however, have largely focused on Great Britain and the United States and their successes against, respectively, the German Enigma and Japanese Purple cipher machines. Drawing upon newly available sources in Australia, Britain, China, France and the United States, the articles in this volume demonstrate that the codebreaking war was a truly global conflict in which many countries were active and successful. They discuss the work of Australian, Chinese, Finnish, French and Japanese codebreakers, shed new light on the work of their American and British counterparts, and describe the struggle to apply technology to the problems of radio intercept and cryptanalysis. The contributions also reveal that, for the Axis as well as the Allies, success in the signals war often depended upon close collaboration among alliance partners. |
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