When the Second World War broke out, ballet in Britain was only a few decades old. Few had imagined that it would establish roots in a nation long thought to be unresponsive to dance. Nevertheless, the war proved to be a boon for ballet dancers, choreographers and audiences, for the nation's dancers were forced to look inward to their own identity and sources of creativity. As author Karen Eliot demonstrates in this fascinating book, instead of withering during the enforced isolation of war, ballet in Britain flourished, exhibiting a surprising heterogeneity and vibrant populism that moved ballet outside its typical elitist surroundings to be seen by uninitiated, often enthusiastic audiences. Ballet was thought to help boost audience morale, to render solace to the soul-weary and to afford entertainment and diversion to those who simply craved a few hours of distraction. Government authorities came to see that ballet could serve as a tool of propaganda; the ways it functioned within the larger public discourse of propaganda and sacrifice, and how it answered a public mood of pragmatism and idealism, are also topics in this story of the development of a national ballet identity. This narrative has several key players- dance critics, male and female dancers, producers, audiences, and choreographers. Exploring the so-called "ballet boom" during WWII, the larger story of this book is one of how art and artists thrive during conflict, and how they respond pragmatically and creatively to privation and duress.

Readings on the Russian Revolution brings together 15 important post-Cold War writings on the history of the Russian Revolution. It is structured in such a way as to highlight key debates in the field and contrasting methodological approaches to the Revolution in order to help readers better understand the issues and interpretative fault lines that exist in this contested area of history. The book opens with an original introduction which provides essential background and vital context for the pieces that follow. The volume is then structured around four parts - 'Actors, Language, Symbols', 'War, Revolution, and the State', 'Revolutionary Dreams and Identities' and 'Outcomes and Impacts' - that explore the beginnings, events and outcomes of the Russian Revolution, as well as examinations of central figures, critical topics and major historiographical battlegrounds. Melissa Stockdale also provides translations of two crucial Russian-language works, published here in English for the first time, and includes useful pedagogical features such as a glossary, chronology, and thematic bibliography to further aid study. Readings on the Russian Revolution is an essential collection for anyone studying the Russian Revolution.

What really caused the failure of the Soviet Union's ambitious plans to modernize and industrialize its agricultural system? This book is the first to investigate the gap between the plans and the reality of the Soviet Union's mid-twentieth-century project to industrialize and modernize its agricultural system. Historians agree that the project failed badly: agriculture was inefficient, unpredictable, and environmentally devastating for the entire Soviet period. Yet assigning the blame exclusively to Soviet planners would be off the mark. The real story is much more complicated and interesting, Jenny Leigh Smith reveals in this deeply researched book. Using case studies from five Soviet regions, she acknowledges hubris and shortsightedness where it occurred but also gives fair consideration to the difficulties encountered and the successes-however modest-that were achieved.

There was no representative fascist movement during interwar Europe and there is much to be learned from where fascism 'failed', relatively speaking. So Nathaniel D. B. Kunkeler skilfully argues in Making Fascism in Sweden and the Netherlands, the first in-depth analysis of Swedish and Dutch fascism in the English language. Focusing on two peripheral - and therefore often overlooked - fascist movements (the Swedish National Socialist Workers' Party and the Dutch National Socialist Movement), this sophisticated study de-centres contemporary fascism studies by showing how smaller movements gained political foothold in liberal, democratic regimes. From charismatic leaders and the rallies they held to propaganda apparatus and mythopoeic props seized by ordinary people, Making Fascism in Sweden and the Netherlands analyses the constructs and perceptions of fascism to highlight the variegated nature of the movement in Europe and shine a spotlight on its performative process. Drawing on a wealth of archival material and using a highly innovative methodology, Kunkeler provides a nuanced analysis of European fascism which allows readers to rediscover the experimental character of far-right politics in interwar Europe.

"McElligott's impressive mastery of an enormous body of research guides him on a distinctive path through the dense thickets of Weimar historiography to a provocative new interpretation of the nature of authority in Germany's first democracy." Sir Ian Kershaw, Emeritus Professor of Modern History at the University of Sheffield, UK This study challenges conventional approaches to the history of the Weimar Republic by stretching its chronological-political parameters from 1916 to 1936, arguing that neither 1918 nor 1933 constituted distinctive breaks in early 20th-century German history. This book: - Covers all of the key debates such as inheritance of the past, the nature of authority and culture - Rethinks topics of traditional concern such as the economy, Article 48, the Nazi vote and political violence - Discusses hitherto neglected areas, such as provincial life and politics, the role of law and Republican cultural politics

John Lucas has dedicated his nearly half-century of academic life at Penn State University to researching and writing about his first love of sport, track and field, and the Olympics. He has attended every Summer Olympics since the 1960 Rome Games and has written several books, including 'Future of the Olympic Games.' From his over 200 monographs and articles, Lucas has selected a score of his articles written since 1953 for this anthology. They cover the range of his academic interests. (Hardcover) "In 1962, six years before I first met him, John Lucas defended his doctoral dissertation at the University of Maryland on "Pierre de Coubertin and the Formative Years of the Modern Olympic Movement." Almost a half century later, following 8 books and some 250 scholarly articles on Olympic history, comes this book, "The Best of John Lucas," compiled by the world's doyen of seriously researched, thoroughly documented, and passionately written Olympic history. As I have done, enjoy " (Dr. Robert Barney, founder of OLYMPICA: THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF OLYMPIC STUDIES and past-president of the North American Society for Sport History.)

Includes an All-New Afterword. An unflinching account of America's most horrific racial massacre, The Burning is essential reading as America finally comes to terms with its racial past. When first published in 2001, society apparently wasn't ready for such an unstinting narrative. After it was published, The Burning, like its subject matter, remained unknown to most in America. That has changed dramatically. "I began to suspect that a crucial piece remained missing from America's long attempts at racial reconciliation," Madigan wrote in 2001 in the author's note to The Burning. "Too many in this country remained as ignorant as I was. Too many were just as oblivious to some of the darkest moments in our history, a legacy of which Tulsa is both a tragic example and a shameful metaphor. How can we heal when we don't know what we're healing from?" Now, 100 years after the massacre, Madigan brings new resonance to these questions in the reissue of this definitive work of American history. Featuring a brand new afterword, The Burning skillfully places the Tulsa Massacre in a broader historical context. Rather than an exception, the massacre was completely consistent with that time in the United States, an era of Jim Crow, widespread lynching, and racism endorsed and promulgated at the highest levels of society. Such were the foundations of the systemic racism at the root of our problems today. On the morning of June 1, 1921, a white mob numbering in the thousands marched across the railroad tracks dividing Black from white in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and obliterated a Black community then celebrated as one of America's most prosperous. 34 square blocks of Tulsa's Greenwood community, known then as the Negro Wall Street of America, were reduced to smoldering rubble. And now, 100 years later, the death toll of what is known as the Tulsa Race Massacre is more difficult to pinpoint. Conservative estimates put the number of dead at about 100 (75% of the victims are believed to have been Black), but the actual number of casualties could be triple that. The Tulsa Race Riot Commission, formed to determine exactly what happened, has recommended that restitution to the historic Greenwood Community would be good public policy and do much to repair the emotional as well as physical scars of this most terrible incident in our shared past. With chilling details, humanity, and the narrative thrust of compelling fiction, The Burning recreates the town of Greenwood at the height of its prosperity, explores the currents of hatred, racism, and mistrust between its Black residents and neighboring Tulsa's white population, narrates events leading up to and including Greenwood's annihilation, and documents the subsequent silence that surrounded the tragedy.

Why did dance and dancing became important to the construction of a new, modern, Jewish/Israeli cultural identity in the newly formed nation of Israel? There were questions that covered almost all spheres of daily life, including "What do we dance?" because Hebrew or Eretz-Israeli dance had to be created out of none. How and why did dance develop in such a way? Dance Spreads Its Wings is the first and only book that looks at the whole picture of concert dance in Israel studying the growth of Israeli concert dance for 90 years-starting from 1920, when there was no concert dance to speak of during the Yishuv (pre-Israel Jewish settlements) period, until 2010, when concert dance in Israel had grown to become one of the country's most prominent, original, artistic fields and globally recognized. What drives the book is the impulse to create and the need to dance in the midst of constant political change. It is the story of artists trying to be true to their art while also responding to the political, social, religious, and ethnic complexities of a Jewish state in the Middle East.

Myths of the Cold War: Amending Historiographic Distortions provides a corrective for the distortions and omissions of many previous domestic and foreign (including Russian) studies of the Cold War, especially those published since 2000. The "present interest" motivation in Weeks's analysis is gaining a clear understanding of the bi-polar, $4 trillion, nuclear-war-threatening standoff that lasted over 40 years after World War II until the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991. Without such knowledge and understanding of this dangerous conflict, any future encounter of the cold-war type with another nation-state is liable to be construed in confusing ways just as the U.S.-Soviet Cold War was. The consequence of such misunderstanding in the historiographic sense as well as in policy-making at the highest level is that the populations of the contending powers will have distorted conceptions of the reasons for the confrontation. The result of this, in turn, is skewed tendentiousness that masks concrete, underlying causes of intense inter-state contention. Practical benefits thus flow from an unprejudiced analysis of the past Cold War with Communist Russia. This understanding can help prevent a future conflict, such as one with Communist China, which some reputed sinologists are currently predicting, as well as one with post-Soviet Russia. Conversely, if a new cold war is imposed on the West, a clearer understanding of the post-World War II archetypical Cold War will be edifying.

The Red Apple Rest was a legendary restaurant open from the 1930s through the 1980s on New York s Route 17. Located midway between New York City and the resorts of the Catskill Mountains, the restaurant served as a who s who of entertainment luminaries. Elaine Freed Lindenblatt was born into restaurant royalty as the youngest child of the establishment s founder, Reuben Freed. For her, the Red Apple was the family room across the road one she shared with over a million customers every year. In this book fifty-plus years unfold in a series of lively vignettes enhanced with photos, memorabilia, and even a closely guarded recipe as she recreates what it was like to be raised in the fishbowl of a round-the-clock family operation. "Stop at the Red Apple" is at once an account of growing up in 1950s small-town America, a glimpse into the workings of a successful food operation, and a swan song to a glorious slice of bygone popular culture."

The first woman elected to lead a major Western power and the longest serving British prime minister for 150 years, Margaret Thatcher is arguably one the most dominant and divisive forces in 20th-century British politics. Yet there has been no overarching exploration of the development of Thatcher's views towards Northern Ireland from her appointment as Conservative Party leader in 1975 until her forced retirement in 1990. In this original and much-needed study, Stephen Kelly rectifies this. From Thatcher's 'no surrender' attitude to the Republican hunger strikes to her nurturing role in the early stages of the Northern Ireland peace process, Kelly traces the evolutionary and sometimes contradictory nature of Thatcher's approach to Northern Ireland. In doing so, this book reflects afresh on the political relationship between Britain and Ireland in the late-20th century. An engaging and nuanced analysis of previously neglected archival and reported sources, Margaret Thatcher, the Conservative Party and the Northern Ireland Conflict, 1975-1990 is a vital resource for those interested in Thatcherism, Anglo-Irish relations, and 20th-century British political history more broadly.

In Race and Masculinity in Southern Memory Matthew Mace Barbee explores the long history of Richmond, Virginia s iconic Monument Avenue. As a network of important memorials to Confederate leaders located in the former capitol of the Confederacy, Monument Avenue has long been central to the formation of public memory in Virginia and the U.S. South. It has also been a site of multiple controversies over what, who, and how Richmond s past should be commemorated. This book traces the evolution of Monument Avenue by analyzing public discussions of its memorials and their meaning. It pays close attention to the origins of Monument Avenue and the first statues erected there, including memorials to Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis. Barbee provides a detailed and focused analysis of the evolution of Monument Avenue and public memory in Richmond from 1948 to 1996 through the Civil Rights Movement and the Civil War Centennial, and up to the memorial to Arthur Ashe erected in 1996. An African-American native of Richmond, Ashe was an international tennis champion and advocate for human rights. The story of how a monument to him ended up in a space previously reserved for statues of Confederate leaders helps us understand the ways Richmond has grappled with its past, especially the histories of slavery, Jim Crow, and Civil Rights."

Following the defeat of the Greek Army in 1922 by nationalist Turkish forces, the Convention of Lausanne in 1923 specified the first compulsory exchange of populations ratified by an international organization. The arrival in Greece of over 1.2 million refugees and their settlement proved to be a watershed with far-reaching consequences for the country. Dr Kontogiorgi examines the exchange of populations and the agricultural settlement in Greek Macedonia of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Asia Minor and the Pontus, Eastern Thrace, the Caucasus, and Bulgaria during the inter-war period. She examines Greek state policy and the role of the Refugee Settlement Commission which, under the auspices of the League of Nations, carried out the refugee resettlement project. Macedonia, a multilingual and ethnically diverse society, experienced a transformation so dramatic that it literally changed its character. Kontogiorgi charts that change and attempts to provide the means of understanding it. The consequences of the settlement of refugees for the ethnological composition of the population, and its political, social, demographic, and economic implications are treated in the light of new archival material. Reality is separated from myth in examining the factors involved in the process of integration of the newcomers and assimilation of the inhabitants - both refugees and indigenous - of the New Lands into the nation-state. Kontogiorgi examines the impact of the agrarian reforms and land distribution and makes an effort to convert the climate of the rural society of Macedonia during the inter-war period. The antagonisms between Slavophone and Vlach-speaking natives and refugee newcomers regarding the reallocation of former Muslim properties had significant ramifications for the political events in the region in the years to come. Other recurring themes in the book include the geographical distribution of the refugees, changing patterns of settlement and toponyms, the organisation of health services in the countryside, as well as the execution of irrigation and drainage works in marshlands. Kontogiorgi also throws light upon and analyses the puzzling mixture of achievement and failure which characterizes the history of the region during this transitional period. As the first successful refugee resettlement project of its kind, the 'refugee experiment' in Macedonia could provide a template for similar projects involving refugee movements in many parts of the world today.

As the population of the greater Las Vegas area grows and the climate warms, the threat of a water shortage looms over southern Nevada. But as Christian S. Harrison demonstrates in All the Water the Law Allows, the threat of shortage arises not from the local environment but from the American legal system, specifically the Law of the River that governs water allocation from the Colorado River. In this political and legal history of the Las Vegas water supply, Harrison focuses on the creation and actions of the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) to tell a story with profound implications and important lessons for water politics and natural resource policy in the twenty-first century. In the state with the smallest allocation of the Colorado's water supply, Las Vegas faces the twin challenges of aridity and federal law to obtain water for its ever-expanding population. All the Water the Law Allows describes how the impending threat of shortage in the 1980s compelled the five metropolitan water agencies of greater Las Vegas to unify into a single entity. Harrison relates the circumstances of the SNWA's evolution and reveals how the unification of local, county, and state interests allowed the compact to address regional water policy with greater force and focus than any of its peers in the Colorado River Basin. Most notably, the SNWA has mapped conservation plans that have drastically reduced local water consumption; and, in the interstate realm, it has been at the center of groundbreaking, water-sharing agreements. Yet these achievements do not challenge the fundamental primacy of the Law of the River. If current trends continue and the Basin States are compelled to reassess the river's distribution, the SNWA will be a force and a model for the Basin as a whole.

This monograph studies the professionalization of History of religions as an academic discipline in late 19th and early 20th century France and Europe. Its common thread is the work of the French Modernist priest and later Professor of History of religions at the College de France, Alfred Loisy (1857-1940), who participated in many of the most topical debates among French and international historians of religions. Unlike his well-studied Modernist theology, Loisy's writings on comparative religion, and his rich interactions with famous scholars like F. Cumont, M. Mauss, or J.G. Frazer, remain largely unknown. This monograph is the first to paint a comprehensive picture of his career as a historian of religions before and after his excommunication in 1908. Through a contextual analysis of publications by Loisy and contemporaries, and a large corpus of private correspondence, it illuminates the scientification of the discipline between 1890-1920, and its deep entanglement with religion, politics, and society. Particular attention is also given to the role of national and transnational scholarly networks, and the way they controlled the theoretical and institutional frameworks for studying the history of religions.

No Prejudice Here chronicles a heretofore untold story of civil rights in modern America. In embracing the Western urban experience, it relates the struggle for civil rights and school desegregation in Denver, Colorado. It chronicles early legislative and political trends to promote Denver as a racially tolerant city, which encouraged African-Americans to move to the urban center for opportunities unique to communities in the postwar American West while nonetheless trying to maintain segregation by limiting educational and employment opportunities for minorities. Dynamic historian Summer Cherland recounts this tension over six decades, with specific attention to the role of community control efforts, legislative and political strategies, and the importance of youth activism. Her insightful study provides an overview of the seminar 1974 Supreme Court case Keyes v. Denver Public Schools No. 1, and traces the community's reaction to court decisions until the city was released from federal oversight twenty years later. Cherland's book proves that civil rights activism, and the need for it, lasted well beyond the years that typically define the civil rights movement, and illustrates for our contemporary consideration the longstanding struggle in urban communities for justice and equality.

Modernizing Nature contributes to the debate regarding the origins, institutionalization, and politics of the sciences and systems of knowledge underlying colonial frameworks of environmental management. It departs from the widely prevalent scholarly perspective that colonial science can be understood predominantly as a handmaiden of imperialism. Instead, it argues that the myriad colonial sciences had ideological and interventionist traditions distinct from each other and from the colonial bureaucracy and that these tensions better explain environmental politics and policy dilemmas in the post-colonial era. Professor Rajan argues that tropical forestry in the nineteenth century consisted of at least two distinct approaches towards nature, resource, and people; and what won out in the end was the Continental European forestry paradigm. Rajan also shows that science and scientists were relatively marginal until the First World War. It was the acute scientific and resource crisis felt during the War, along with the rise of experts and expertise in Britain during that period and the lobby-politics of an organized empire-wide scientific community, that resulted in resource management regimes such as forestry beginning to get serious state backing. Over time, considerable differences in approach and outlook towards policy emerged between different colonial scientific communities, such as foresters and agriculturists. These different colonial sciences represented different situated knowledges, with different visions of nature, people, and empire, and in different configurations of power. Finally, in a panoramic overview of post-colonial developments, Rajan argues that the hegemony of these state-scientific regimes of resource-management during the period 1950-1990 engendered not just social revolt, as recent historical work has shown, but also intellectual protest. Consequently, the discipline of forestry became systematically re-conceptualized, with newapproaches to sylviculture, economics, law, and crucially, with new visions of modernity. This disciplinary change constitutes nothing short of a cognitive revolution, one that has been brought about by a clearly articulated political perspective on the orientation of the discipline of forestry by its practitioners.

Today, country music enjoys a national fan base that transcends both economic and social boundaries. Sixty years ago, however, it was primarily the music of rural, working-class whites living in the South and was perceived by many Americans as hillbilly music. In Smile When You Call Me a Hillbilly, Jeffrey J. Lange examines the 1940s and early 1950s as the most crucial period in country music s transformation from a rural, southern folk art form to a national phenomenon. In his meticulous analysis of changing performance styles and alterations in the lifestyles of listeners, Lange illuminates the acculturation of country music and its audience into the American mainstream. Dividing country music into six subgenres (progressive country, western swing, postwar traditional, honky-tonk, country pop, and country blues), Lange discusses the music s expanding appeal. As he analyzes the recordings and comments of each of the subgenre s most significant artists, including Roy Acuff, Bob Wills, Bill Monroe, Hank Williams, and Red Foley, he traces the many paths the musical form took on its road to respectability. Lange shows how along the way the music and its audience became more sophisticated, how the subgenres blended with one another and with American popular music, and how Nashville emerged as the country music hub. By 1954, the transformation from hillbilly music to country music was complete, precipitated by the modernizing forces of World War II and realized by the efforts of promoters, producers, and performers.

In the summer of 1940, the German Luftwaffe was preparing to destroy London by bombing it for fifty-six consecutive days and nights.

To spare British children from witnessing the carnage and from possible death, millions of youth were evacuated from their London homes and sent away to safe locations. For many boys and girls, their lives would start over in new towns and often with unknown families. Historically, the idea of evacuating an entire generation of children, separating them from their parents, was unprecedented.

This is the story of one of those evacuee children, Jayne Jaffe, who at age nine, began witnessing the best and worst of humanity: war, love, death, separation, tears, euphoria, destruction and rebuilding.

For the first time, Jayne's remarkable journey is told with compelling narrative by author Jon Helminiak in "This Token of Freedom."

""This Token of Freedom" is an extraordinarily well written and heartwarming story about family courage in a time of historic global strife. It's important reminder of the upheavals wrought by WWII on British parents and their children." "The British Literary Society"