Gershom Scholem (1897 1982) was ostensibly a scholar of Jewish mysticism, yet he occupies a powerful role in today's intellectual imagination, having an influential contact with an extraordinary cast of thinkers, including Hans Jonas, Martin Buber, Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt, and Theodor Adorno. In this first biography of Scholem, Amir Engel shows how Scholem grew from a scholar of an esoteric discipline to a thinker wrestling with problems that reach to the very foundations of the modern human experience. As Engel shows, in his search for the truth of Jewish mysticism Scholem molded the vast literature of Jewish mystical lore into a rich assortment of stories that unveiled new truths about the modern condition. Positioning Scholem's work and life within early twentieth-century Germany, Palestine, and later the state of Israel, Engel intertwines Scholem's biography with his historiographical work, which stretches back to the Spanish expulsion of Jews in 1492, through the lives of Rabbi Isaac Luria and Sabbatai Zevi, and up to Hasidism and the dawn of the Zionist movement. Through parallel narratives, Engel touches on a wide array of important topics including immigration, exile, Zionism, World War One, and the creation of the state of Israel, ultimately telling the story of the realizations and failures of a dream for a modern Jewish existence.

Exploring the developments that have occurred in the practice of oral history since digital audio and video became viable, this book explores various groundbreaking projects in the history of digital oral history, distilling the insights of pioneers in the field and applying them to the constantly changing electronic landscape of today.

Geillustreerde verslae van mense wat die tweede Vryheidsoorlog deurleef het. Dit gee 'n goeie beeld van wat die mense moes deurmaak en wat in die kampe aangegaan het. 'n Audio-band is ingesluit by die prys van die boekie.

Understanding and Teaching Contemporary US History since Reagan is designed for teachers looking for new perspectives on teaching the recent past, the period of US history often given the least attention in classrooms. Less of a traditional textbook than a pedagogical Swiss Army knife, the volume offers a diversity of voices and approaches to teaching a field that, by its very nature, invites vigorous debate and puts generational differences in stark relief. Older history is likely to feel removed from the lived experiences of both teachers and students, allowing for a certain dispassion of perspective. By contrast, contemporary history creates unique challenges, as individual teachers and students may think they know "what really happened" by virtue of their personal experiences. The volume addresses a wide swath of topics, from social movements around identity and representation to the Supreme Court, law enforcement, migration, climate change, and international relations. Emphasizing critical thinking and primary-source analysis, it will aid teachers in creating an invigorating and democratizing classroom experience. Intended for use in both secondary and postsecondary classrooms, the book's structure allows for a variety of applications and invites a broad audience.

In World-Systems Analysis, Immanuel Wallerstein provides a concise and accessible introduction to the comprehensive approach that he pioneered thirty years ago to understanding the history and development of the modern world. Since Wallerstein first developed world-systems analysis, it has become a widely utilized methodology within the historical social sciences and a common point of reference in discussions of globalization. Now, for the first time in one volume, Wallerstein offers a succinct summary of world-systems analysis and a clear outline of the modern world-system, describing the structures of knowledge upon which it is based, its mechanisms, and its future.Wallerstein explains the defining characteristics of world-systems analysis: its emphasis on world-systems rather than nation-states, on the need to consider historical processes as they unfold over long periods of time, and on combining within a single analytical framework bodies of knowledge usually viewed as distinct from one another-such as history, political science, economics, and sociology. He describes the world-system as a social reality comprised of interconnected nations, firms, households, classes, and identity groups of all kinds. He identifies and highlights the significance of the key moments in the evolution of the modern world-system: the development of a capitalist world-economy in the sixteenth-century, the beginning of two centuries of liberal centrism in the French Revolution of 1789, and the undermining of that centrism in the global revolts of 1968. Intended for general readers, students, and experienced practitioners alike, this book presents a complete overview of world-systems analysis by its original architect.

"Time and Narrative" builds on Paul Ricoeur's earlier analysis, in "The Rule of Metaphor," of semantic innovation at the level of the sentence. Ricoeur here examines the creation of meaning at the textual level, with narrative rather than metaphor as the ruling concern.
Ricoeur finds a "healthy circle" between time and narrative: time is humanized to the extent that it portrays temporal experience. Ricoeur proposes a theoretical model of this circle using Augustine's theory of time and Aristotle's theory of plot and, further, develops an original thesis of the mimetic function of narrative. He concludes with a comprehensive survey and critique of modern discussions of historical knowledge, understanding, and writing from Aron and Mandelbaum in the late 1930s to the work of the Annales school and that of Anglophone philosophers of history of the 1960s and 1970s.
"This work, in my view, puts the whole problem of narrative, not to mention philosophy of history, on a new and higher plane of discussion."--Hayden White, "History and Theory "
"Superb. . . . A fine point of entrance into the work of one of the eminent thinkers of the present intellectual age."--Joseph R. Gusfield, "Contemporary Sociology
"

Is it true that the ancient Indians had no sense of History? The book begins with this question, and points out how the ways of perceiving the past could be culture-specific and how the concept of historical traditions can be useful in studying the various ways of memorising and representing the past, even if those ways do not necessarily correspond to the methodology of the Occidental discipline called 'History'. Ancient India had several historical traditions, and the book focuses on one of them, the itihasa. It also shows how the Mahabharata is the best illustration of this tradition, and how a historical study of the contents of the text, with comparison with and corroboration from other contemporary sources and traditions, may help us restore the text in its original context in the bardic historical tradition about the Later Vedic Kurus. Is the Mahabharata then an authentic history? This book does not claim so. However, it shows how the text had originated as a critical reflection on a great period of transition, how it dealt with the conflicting philosophies of the transitional period, how it propounded its thesis by creating new kinds of heroes such as Yudhisthira and Krsna, and how the text was reworked when it was canonized by the brahmanas

The Oxford Handbook of Nigerian History provides a comprehensive history of Africa's most populous and most rapidly developing country. Rather than centering the rise of the nation-state, the Handbook reads the narrative of national politics alongside deeper histories of political and social organization, as well as in relation to competing influences on modern identity formation and inter-group relationships, such as ethnic and religious communities, economic partnerships, and immigrant and diasporic cultures. Consisting of 36 chapters, the Handbook is separated into five major sections, starting with the historiography of Nigeria-namely, the systems of knowledge handed down by the indigenous, Christian, Islamic, colonial, and post-colonial traditions. From that foundation, the chapters cover the development of nomadic and agricultural societies, the colonial era, the emergence of a modern Nigeria, and the impact of Nigerians outside of the country's borders. This transnational approach incorporates the most important ideas from the new scholarship emerging in the 21st century, creating a forward-looking volume appropriate for a dynamic, diverse, and swiftly changing Nigeria.

Explores the nature and relation of history and becoming in the work of Gilles Deleuze. How are we to understand the process of transformation, the creation of the new, and its relation to what has come before? In History and Becoming, Craig Lundy puts forward a series of fresh and provocative responses to this enduring problematic. Through an analysis of Gilles Deleuze's major solo works and his collaborations with Felix Guattari, he demonstrates how history and becoming work together in driving novelty, transmutation and experimentation. What emerges from this exploration is a new way of thinking about history and the vital role it plays in bringing forth the future. Key features * Provides a novel approach to and appreciation of Deleuze's philosophy of creativity * Demonstrates the importance of history to Deleuze's conception of becoming * Charts the relation of history and becoming throughout Deleuze's corpus * Shows how history can be creative, virtual and nonlinear

This new book offers a clear and accessible exposition of Hayden White's thought. In an engaging and wide-ranging analysis, Herman Paul discusses White's core ideas and traces the development of these ideas from the mid-1950s to the present. Starting with White's medievalist research and youthful fascination for French existentialism, Paul shows how White became increasingly convinced that historical writing is a moral activity. He goes on to argue that the critical concepts that have secured White's fame - trope, plot, discourse, figural realism - all stem from his desire to explicate the moral claims and perceptions underlying historical writing. White emerges as a passionate thinker, a restless rebel against scientism, and a defender of existentialist humanist values.

This innovative introduction will appeal to students and scholars across the humanities, and help develop a critical understanding of an increasingly important thinker.

Despite the fact that time, evolution, becoming and genealogy are central concepts in Deleuze's work there has been no sustained study of his philosophy in relation to the question of history. This book aims to open up Deleuze's relevance to those working in history, the history of ideas, science studies, evolutionary psychology, history of philosophy and interdisciplinary projects inflected by historical problems. The essays in this volume (all by internationally recognised Deleuze scholars) cover all aspects of Deleuze's philosophy and its relation to history, ranging from the application of Deleuze's philosophy to historical method, Deleuze's own use of the history of philosophy, his interpretations of other historical thinkers (such as Hume and Nietzsche) and the complex theories of time and evolution in his work. Contributors include: Paul Patton, Manuel DeLanda, John Protevi, Ian Buchanan, Tim Flanagan, James Williams, Eve Bischoff, Jay Lampert.

Civil wars are the biggest danger to world peace today - this book shows us why they happen, and how to avoid them. Most of us don't know it, but we are living in the world's greatest era of civil wars. While violence has declined worldwide, civil wars have increased. This is a new phenomenon. With the exception of a handful of cases - the American and English civil wars, the French Revolution - historically it has been rare for people to organise and fight their governments. This has changed. Since 1946, over 250 armed conflicts have broken out around the world, a number that continues to rise. Major civil wars are now being fought in countries including Iraq, Syria and Libya. Smaller civil wars are being fought in Ukraine, India, and Malaysia. Even countries we thought could never experience another civil war - such as the USA, Sweden and Ireland - are showing signs of unrest. In How Civil Wars Start, acclaimed expert Barbara F. Walter, who has advised on political violence everywhere from the CIA to the U.S. Senate to the United Nations, explains the rise of civil war and the conditions that create it. As democracies across the world backslide and citizens become more polarised, civil wars will become even more widespread and last longer than they have in the past. This urgent and important book shows us a path back toward peace.

with contributions from Neil Bettridge, Jean Cameron, Paul Cavill and Teresa Webber. The White Book of Southwell derives its name from its white vellum cover. Compiled between c.1350 and 1460, with a few later additions, its 500 pages record 620 individual documents from c.1100 onwards. They range widely from papal bulls and royal charters, quo warranto inquiries, privileges granted by many archbishops of York to the Chapter at Southwell,individual canons (or prebendaries) and the parishes where the Minster held lands or controlled livings. The majority date from c.1200-1460 and concern properties which the Chapter owned and administered through its courts, for which some rare proceedings are preserved. Because of their variety, the documents it contains are important not simply for ecclesiastical history but for broader social and economic trends in medieval Nottinghamshire either side of the Black Death. The volume also furnishes a remarkable amount of little-studied onomastic and linguistic evidence in medieval Latin, Anglo-Norman French and Middle English as well as strong traces of earlier Anglo-Scandinavianinfluences on Nottinghamshire. First brought to attention by the pioneering county historian Robert Thoroton (d. 1677), the White Book has been consulted in all subsequent generations. However, while some of its contents havebeen published in their original language or in translation, this is the first systematic, complete scholarly edition. A substantial introduction sets the White Book in context, describing its structure and content. Extensive commentary helps to date many undated individual documents and identify persons and places named, a detailed Fasti provides details on the personnel of the Minster and its appendant churches, while detailed indexes assist consultation.

In volume 1 of this three-volume work, Paul Ricoeur examined the relations between time and narrative in historical writing. Now, in volume 2, he examines these relations in fiction and theories of literature.
Ricoeur treats the question of just how far the Aristotelian concept of "plot" in narrative fiction can be expanded and whether there is a point at which narrative fiction as a literary form not only blurs at the edges but ceases to exist at all. Though some semiotic theorists have proposed all fiction can be reduced to an atemporal structure, Ricoeur argues that fiction depends on the reader's understanding of narrative traditions, which do evolve but necessarily include a temporal dimension. He looks at how time is actually expressed in narrative fiction, particularly through use of tenses, point of view, and voice. He applies this approach to three books that are, in a sense, tales about time: Virgina Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway;" Thomas Mann's "Magic Mountain;" and Marcel Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past."
"Ricoeur writes the best kind of philosophy--critical, economical, and clear."--Eugen Weber, "New York Times Book Review "
"A major work of literary theory and criticism under the aegis of philosophical hermenutics. I believe that . . . it will come to have an impact greater than that of Gadamer's Truth and Method--a work it both supplements and transcends in its contribution to our understanding of the meaning of texts and their relationship to the world."--Robert Detweiler, "Religion and Literature"
"One cannot fail to be impressed by Ricoeur's encyclopedic knowledge of the subject under consideration. . . . To students of rhetoric, the importance of Time and Narrative . . . is all too evident to require extensive elaboration."--Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar, "Quarterly Journal of Speech"

Historians of ideas, and students of nationalism in particular, have traced the origins of much of our current vocabulary and ways of thinking about the nation back to Johann Gottfried Herder. This volume provides a clear, readable, and reliable translation of Auch eine Philosophie der Geschichte zur Bildung der Menschheit , supplemented by some of Herder's other important writings on politics and history. The editors' insightful Introduction traces the role of Herder's thought in the evolution of nationalism and highlights its influence on fields such as history, anthropology, and politics. The volume is designed to give English-speaking readers more ready access to the thinker whom Isaiah Berlin called the father of the related notions of nationalism, historicism, and Volksgeist.

Here Eduardo Cadava demonstrates that Walter Benjamin articulates his conception of history through the language of photography. Focusing on Benjamin's discussions of the flashes and images of history, he argues that the questions raised by this link between photography and history touch on issues that belong to the entire trajectory of his writings: the historical and political consequences of technology, the relation between reproduction and mimesis, images and history, remembering and forgetting, allegory and mourning, and visual and linguistic representation. The book establishes the photographic constellation of motifs and themes around which Benjamin organizes his texts and thereby becomes a lens through which we can begin to view his analysis of the convergence between the new technological media and a revolutionary concept of historical action and understanding.

Written in the form of theses--what Cadava calls "snapshots in prose"--the book memorializes Benjamin's own thetic method of writing. It enacts a mode of conceiving history that is neither linear nor successive, but rather discontinuous--constructed from what Benjamin calls "dialectical images." In this way, it not only suggests the essential rapport between the fragmentary form of Benjamin's writing and his effort to write a history of modernity but it also skillfully clarifies the relation between Benjamin and his contemporaries, the relation between fascism and aesthetic ideology. It gives us the most complete picture to date of Benjamin's reflections on history.

with an afterword by John William Miller

Four stimulating essays: "The Sportive Origin of the State," "Unity and Diversity in Europe," "Man the Technician," and "History as a System."

"Senor Ortega y Gasset has contributed a thoughtful and a careful analysis of our present situation. If he is correct, then nationalism and liberalism as we have known them in the past are doomed. A new and perhaps a better order and conditioning of life are on the way. This book attempts to justify historically the coming of great change—the same great change that was prophesied by Wiliam Morris in England, more than half a century ago." —New York Times

Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886), generally recognized as the founder of the school of modern critical historical scholarship, and Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897), the great Swiss proponent of cultural interpretation, are fathers of modern history--giants of their time who continue to exert an immense influence in our own. They are usually seen as contrasts, Ranke as representative of political history and Burckhardt of cultural history. In five essays, each flowing gracefully into the next, the distinguished historian Felix Gilbert shows that such contrasts are oversimplifications. Despite their interest in different aspects of the past, Ranke's and Burckhardt's views arose from common elements in the first half of the nineteenth century, the time in which they grew up and in which their first masterworks attracted such wide attention. This concise volume clarifies the beginnings of history as an autonomous discipline, while forcing us to examine our views on basic questions in historical scholarship.

In the case of Ranke, relating his work to his times counteracts the current tendency to disregard the difference between the historical concepts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. By focusing on this difference, Gilbert emphasizes the originality and novelty of Ranke's ideas about history. Although Burckhardt is often portrayed as an intellectually lonely figure, this book reveals the importance of relating his thought to the intellectual trends of his time.

Originally published in 1990.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Why do we interpret the past as we do, rather than in some other way or not at all? What is the significance of the fact that we interpret the past? What are historical interpretations? Raymond Martin's approach to these questions transcends both the positivist and humanistic perspectives that have polarized Anglo-American philosophy of history. Martin goes to the source of this polarization by diagnosing a deep-seated flaw in the dominant analytic approach during the period from 1935 to 1975, namely, the emphasis on conceptual analysis rather than the examination of actual historical controversies. As an alternative, Martin proposes an empirical approach that examines what makes one historical interpretation better than its competitors.

In addressing how historians should decide which explanations are better, Martin opts for a case-by-case analysis of historiographical practice as opposed to establishing general criteria. His book offers several detailed case studies, involving such topics as the collapse of Lowland Maya civilization in the ninth century A.D., the fall of Rome, and the alleged historical priority of St. Mark's gospel over the other synoptic gospels.

Originally published in 1989.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Time Maps extends beyond all of the old cliches about linear, circular, and spiral patterns of historical process and provides us with models of the actual legends used to map history. It is a brilliant and elegant exercise in model building that provides new insights into some of the old questions about philosophy of history, historical narrative, and what is called straight history.-Hayden White, University of California, Santa Cruz Who were the first people to inhabit North America? Does the West Bank belong to the Arabs or the Jews? Why are racists so obsessed with origins? Is a seventh cousin still a cousin? Why do some societies name their children after dead ancestors? As Eviatar Zerubavel demonstrates in Time Maps, we cannot answer burning questions such as these without a deeper understanding of how we envision the past. In a pioneering attempt to map the structure of our collective memory, Zerubavel considers the cognitive patterns we use to organize the past in our minds and the mental strategies that help us string together unrelated events into coherent and meaningful narratives, as well as the social grammar of battles over conflicting interpretations of history. Drawing on fascinating examples that range from Hiroshima to the Holocaust, from Columbus to Lucy, and from ancient Egypt to the former Yugoslavia, Zerubavel shows how we construct historical origins; how we tie discontinuous events together into stories; how we link families and entire nations through genealogies; and how we separate distinct historical periods from one another through watersheds, such as the invention of fire or the fall of the Berlin Wall. Most people think the Roman Empire ended in 476, even though it lasted another 977 years in Byzantium. Challenging such conventional wisdom, Time Maps will be must reading for anyone interested in how the history of our world takes shape.

William H. McNeill is known for his ability to portray the grand sweep of history. Now two of his popular books and an essay previously unavailable in book form are brought together in this new paperback edition. In The Human Condition McNeill provides a provocative interpretation of history as a competition of parasites, both biological and human. In The Great Frontier he questions the notion of "frontier freedom" through an examination of European expansion. The concluding essay speculates on the role of catastrophe in our lives. About The Human Condition: "A remarkable tour de force . . . . An elegant, intelligent and scholarly essay."--J. H. Hexter, The New York Times Book Review "A brilliant new interpretation of world history."--David Graber, The Los Angeles Times Book Review About The Great Frontier: There is virtually no one in the profession who can match McNeill as a synthesizer--or, for that matter, as an interdisciplinary historian. . . . There is more insight in this volume than in others of double or triple the length."--David Courtwright, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

Told for the very first time, this is the true story of the adventure that shaped the world . . . 'A thrilling story of courage, survival and science. It's an extraordinary, visceral and vivid read' Geographical Magazine ________ Three hundred years ago no one knew the true shape of the world. It wasn't a sphere - but did it bulge at the equator or was it pointed at the poles? Until we found out no map could ever be truly accurate. So a team of scientists was sent to South America - to measure one full degree of latitude. But South America was a land of erupting volcanoes, sodden rainforests, earthquakes, deadly diseases, tropical storms and violent unrest. And the misfit scientists had an unfortunate tendency to squander funds, fight duels, stumble into mutinies or die horribly. The tale of their ten-year odyssey of exploration, discovery, flirtations with failure and ultimate triumph becomes in Nicholas Crane's hands the greatest scientific adventure story ever told. ________ 'Pace, rigour and attention to enticing detail . . . Crane has a rare knack for showing people things without them having to get out of their chair' Joe Smith, director of The Royal Geographic society

This is a set of four volumes aimed at bringing together the best research by Romila Thapar to showcase her academic contributions to the understanding of history and historiography in India. The four volumes will focus on bringing together all the lectures and papers on an area of her work-historiography, Mauryas and Mauryan India, Social and Cultural Transaction, and Religion and Society. Each volume also includes a detailed interview with the author and a reflection on her work by an expert in the field, who will introduce the essays in that volume. The introduction to the set by Romila Thapar will explore her academic life and approaches to early Indian history and history writing. It will incorporate a detailed analysis of all the trends and transformations in historical thinking and history writing that have shaped the last six decades of Indian history. The set of volumes would conserve and reflect on the life and work of an eminent historian of India.

In Reencounters,Crystal Mun-hye Baik examines what it means to live with and remember an ongoing war when its manifestations-hypervisible and deeply sensed-become everyday formations delinked from militarization. Contemplating beyond notions of inherited trauma and post memory, Baik offers the concept of reencounters to better track the Korean War's illegible entanglements through an interdisciplinary archive of diasporic memory works that includes oral history projects, performances, and video installations rarely examined by Asian American studies scholars. Baik shows how Korean refugee migrations are repackaged into celebrated immigration narratives, how transnational adoptees are reclaimed by the South Korean state as welcomed "returnees," and how militarized colonial outposts such as Jeju Island are recalibrated into desirable tourist destinations. Baik argues that as the works by Korean and Korean/American artists depict this Cold War historiography, they also offer opportunities to remember otherwise the continuing war. Ultimately, Reencounters wrestles with questions of the nature of war, racial and sexual violence, and neoliberal surveillance in the twenty-first century.