Dialogues Across Civilizations sets the histories of China and Europe alongside one another. Each chapter stands as an essay that imaginatively places historical individuals and events in proximity to one another and explores a specific topic?gender relations, rural politics, artistic renderings of nature, to name a few?through the stories of perso

This is a real feast of a book. ... a landmark book. It is clear enough to be used as a teaching text, and could make an excellent introduction to the discipline for those courageous enough to revise their courses.' International Affairs

This is a bold, successful and valuable book... It is written with admirable clarity and merciful conciseness.' International Relations

A stunning success. Watson's book is a masterful piece of theoretical and historical analysis.' John A. Vasquez, Rutgers University

Adam Watson, who died in 2007, was a former diplomat who in his later academic career became a pioneer of the discipline of international relations. Originally published in 1992, The Evolution of International Society made a major contribution to international theory and to our perception of how relations between states operate, and established Watson s place within the canon.

This acclaimed and uniquely comprehensive work explains how international societies function across time, starting by examining the ancient state systems before turning to look in detail at the current worldwide international society. The book demonstrates that relations between states are not normally anarchic, but are in fact organized and regulated by elaborate rules and practices.

In this timely reissue, a new introduction by Barry Buzan and Richard Little assesses Adam Watson's career as a diplomat and examines how his work as a practitioner shaped his subsequent thinking about the nature of international society. It then contextualises Watson's original work, situates it alongside current work in the area and identifies the originality of Watson's key arguments, helping us to understand Watson s place within the canon.

This book examines the language and the ideology of the Pax Romana, the Pax Britannica and the Pax Americana within the broader contexts of 'hegemony' and 'empire'. It addresses three main themes: a conceptual examination of the way in which hegemony has been justified; a linguistic study of how the notion of pax (usually translated as peace) has been used in ancient and modern times; and a study of the international orders created by Rome and Britain.

Using an historiographical approach, the book draws upon texts from Greco-Roman antiquity, and sources from the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries to show how the pax ideology has served as a justification for hegemonic foreign policy, and as an intellectual exercise in power projection. From Tacitus' condemnation of what he described as 'creating a wilderness and calling it peace', to debates about the establishment of a Pax Americana in post-Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the book shows not only how the governing elite in each of the three hegemonic orders prescribed to a loose interpretation of the pax ideology, but also how their internal disagreements and different conceptualisations of pax have affected the process of 'empire-building'.

This book will be of interest to students of international history, empire, and International Relations in general.

This edited volume re-assesses the relationship between the United States, the Soviet Union and key regional players in waging and halting conflict in the Middle East between 1967 and 1973. These were pivotal years in the Arab-Israeli conflict, with the effects still very much in evidence today.
In addition to addressing established debates, the book opens up new areas of controversy, in particular concerning the inter-war years and the so-called 'War of Attrition', and underlines the risks both Moscow and Washington were prepared to run in supporting their regional clients. The engagement of Soviet forces in the air defence of Egypt heightened the danger of escalation and made this one of the hottest regional conflicts of the Cold War era. Against this Cold War backdrop, the motives of both Israel and the Arab states in waging full-scale and lower-intensity conflict are illuminated. The overall goal of this work is to re-assess the relationship between the Cold War and regional conflict in shaping the events of this pivotal period in the Middle East.
The Cold War in the Middle East will be of much interest to students of Cold War studies, Middle Eastern history, strategic studies and international history.

This work, intended to commemorate the centenary of the Entente Cordiale in 2004, examines aspects of Anglo-French relations since the late eighteenth century when both Britain and France were pre-eminent great powers at war with one another through to the post-Second World War period when both had become rival second class powers in the face of American and Soviet dominance.
The chapters in this book examine and illuminate the nature of the Anglo-French relationship at certain periods during the last two hundred years, both in peacetime and in war and include political, economic, diplomatic, military and strategic considerations and influences. While the impact of Anglo-French relations is centred essentially on the European context, other areas are also considered including the Middle East, Africa and the North Atlantic. The elements of conflict, rivalry and cooperation in Anglo-French relations are also highlighted whether in peace or war.
This book was previously published as a special issue of Diplomacy and Statecraft.

This new book looks at the relationship between the Israeli armed forces, the government, and the origins of the 1967 War.

Ami Gluska discusses the effect of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Israel's defense policy between 1963-1967 against the backdrop of the developments in the Middle East. In addition, he describes in detail the decision-making process leading to the Arab-Israeli Six Day War in June 1967 through the prism of the relations between the military and political echelons. He shows how the Six Day War was a watershed event in the Middle-Eastern conflict and had a profound effect on the development of the Palestinian problem and the character of the State of Israel over the past four decades.

This book will be of great interest to students of Middle Eastern politics, strategic studies, Israeli politics and military history in general.

These volumes present a comprehensive survey of the history of the Pacific Ocean, an area making up around one third of the Earth's surface, from initial human colonization to the present day. Reflecting a wide range of cultural and disciplinary perspectives, this two-volume work details different ways of telling and viewing history in a Pacific world of exceptionally diverse cultural traditions, over time spans that require multidisciplinary and multicultural collaborative perspectives. The central importance of nations touched by the Pacific in contemporary world affairs cannot be understood without recourse to the deep history of interactions on and across the Pacific. In reflecting the diversity and dynamism of the societies of this blue hemisphere, these volumes seek to enhance world histories and broaden readers' perspectives on forms of historical knowledge and expression. Volume I explores the history of the Pacific Ocean pre-1800 and Volume II examines the period from 1800 to the present day.

"Will Rogers once said that the problem in America isn't so much what people don't know; the problem is what people think they know that just ain't so." -Professor Thomas E. Woods Most Americans trust that their history professors and high school teachers will give students honest and accurate information. In a shocking new book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, historian Professor Thomas E. Woods, Jr. makes it quite clear that liberal professors have misinformed our children for generations. Woods takes on the most controversial moments of American history and exposes how history books are merely a series of cliches drafted by academics who are heavily biased against God, democracy, patriotism, capitalism and most American family values. Woods takes aim at the high school and college textbooks that promote morally neutral, politically correct, multi-cultural distortions of our nation's past and provides the real history of our country's origins, founders, principles, successes, and failures. Woods reveals the truth behind gross misinterpretations including: MYTH: The First Amendment prohibits school prayer FACT: When federal courts strike down religious expression in the states, they are willfully perverting the policy of what the Framers of the First Amendment intended: complete federal nonintervention in religious issues MYTH: The New Deal created great prosperity FACT: Public-sector jobs "created" by New Deal spending programs either simply displaced or actually destroyed private-sector jobs. MYTH: What the Supreme Court says, goes FACT: Neither Thomas Jefferson nor the drafters of the Constitution envisioned the power the federal courts routinely exercise over the states and the people. From the real American "revolutionaries" to the reality of labor unions, The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, is all you need for the truth about America-objective and unvarnished.

Though the history of terrorism stretches back to the ancient world, today it is often understood as a recent development. Comprehensive enough to serve as a survey for students or newcomers to the field, yet with enough depth to engage the specialist, The Routledge History of Terrorism is the first single-volume authoritative reference text to place terrorism firmly into its historical context. Terrorism is a transnational phenomenon with a convoluted history that defies easy periodization and narrative treatment. Over the course of 32 chapters, experts in the field analyze its historical significance and explore how and why terrorism emerged as a set of distinct strategies, tactics, and mindsets across time and space. Chapters address not only familiar topics such as the Northern Irish Troubles, the Palestine Liberation Organization, international terrorism, and the rise of al-Qaeda, but also lesser-explored issues such as: American racial terrorism state terror and terrorism in the Middle Ages tyrannicide from Ancient Greece and Rome to the seventeenth century the roots of Islamist violence the urban guerrilla, terrorism, and state terror in Latin America literary treatments of terrorism. With an introduction by the editor explaining the book's rationale and organization, as well as a guide to the definition of terrorism, an historiographical chapter analysing the historical approach to terrorism studies, and an eight-chapter section that explores critical themes in the history of terrorism, this book is essential reading for all those interested in the past, present, and future of terrorism.

Preemptive warfare is the practice of attempting to avoid an enemy's seemingly imminent attack by taking military action against them first. It is undertaken in self-defense. Preemptive war is often confused with preventive war, which is an attack launched to defeat a potential opponent and is an act of aggression. Preemptive war is thought to be justified and honorable, while preventive war violates international law. In the real world, the distinction between the two is highly contested. In First Strike, author Matthew J. Flynn examines case studies of preemptive war throughout history, from Napoleonic France to the American Civil War, and from Hitler's Germany to the recent U.S. invasion of Iraq. Flynn takes an analytical look at the international use of military and political preemption throughout the last two hundred years of western history, to show how George W. Bush's recent use of this dubiously "honorable" way of making war is really just the latest of a long line of previously failed attempts. Balanced and historically grounded, First Strike provides a comprehensive history of one of the most controversial military strategies in the history of international foreign policy.

Represents a history of the British Empire that takes account of the sense of empire as intellectual as well as geographic dominion: the historiography of the British Empire, with its preoccupation of empire as geographically unchallenged sovereignty, overlooks the idea of empire as intellectual dominion.

The Routledge History of Western Empires is an all new volume focusing on the history of Western Empires in a comparative and thematic perspective. Comprising of thirty-three original chapters arranged in eight thematic sections, the book explores European overseas expansion from the Age of Discovery to the Age of Decolonisation. Studies by both well-known historians and new scholars offer fresh, accessible perspectives on a multitude of themes ranging from colonialism in the Arctic to the scramble for the coral sea, from attitudes to the environment in the East Indies to plans for colonial settlement in Australasia. Chapters examine colonial attitudes towards poisonous animals and the history of colonial medicine, evangelisaton in Africa and Oceania, colonial recreation in the tropics and the tragedy of the slave trade. The Routledge History of Western Empires ranges over five centuries and crosses continents and oceans highlighting transnational and cross-cultural links in the imperial world and underscoring connections between colonial history and world history. Through lively and engaging case studies, contributors not only weigh in on historiographical debates on themes such as human rights, religion and empire, and the 'taproots' of imperialism, but also illustrate the various approaches to the writing of colonial history. A vital contribution to the field.

Presenting the first critical analysis of Carl Schmitt's The Nomos of the Earth and how it relates to the epochal changes in the international system that have risen from the collapse of the Westphalian international order.

There is an emerging recognition in political theory circles that core issues, such as order, social justice, rights, need to be studied in their global context. Schmitt s international political thought provides a stepping stone in these related paths, offering an alternative history of international relations, of the genesis, achievements and demise of the Westphalian system. Writing at a time when he believed that the spatial, political and legal order the nomos of the earth had collapsed, he highlighted the advent of the modern state as the vehicle of secularization, tracing how this interstate order was able to limit and rationalize and humanize war. Providing a large number of case studies including: global terrorism, humanitarian intervention and US hegemony, this book will give further impetus to, and expand, the nascent debate on the significance of Schmitt s legal and political thought for international politics.

The International Political Thought of Carl Schmitt will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, law and history.

Sephardi identity has meant different things at different times, but has always entailed a connection with Spain, from which the Jews were expelled in 1492. While Sephardi Jews have lived in numerous cities and towns throughout history, certain cities had a greater impact in the shaping of their culture. This book focuses on those that may be considered most important, from Cordoba in the tenth century to Toledo, Venice, Safed, Istanbul, Salonica, and Amsterdam at the dawn of the seventeenth century. Each served as a venue in which a particular dimension of Sephardi Jewry either took shape or was expressed in especially intense form. Significantly, these cities were mostly heterogeneous in their population and culture-half of them under Christian rule and half under Muslim rule-and this too shaped the Sephardi world-view and attitude. While Sephardim cultivated a distinct identity, they felt at home in the cultures of their adopted lands. Drawing upon a variety of both primary and secondary sources, Jane Gerber demonstrates that Sephardi history and culture have always been multifaceted. Her interdisciplinary approach captures the many contexts in which the life of the Jews from Iberia unfolded, without either romanticizing the past or diluting its reality.

This book is intended as a sequel to author's earlier volume on The Remaking of Modern Europe (1789-1871), first published in 1909, and has been written in response to requests for a continuation of the narrative. It is offered as a preliminary survey of a large tract of country.

By the mid-1980s, public opinion in the USSR had begun to turn against Soviet involvement in Afghanistan: the Soviet-Afghan War (1979-1989) had become a long, painful, and unwinnable conflict, one that Mikhail Gorbachev referred to as a "bleeding wound" in a 1986 speech. The eventual decision to withdraw Soviet troops from Afghanistan created a devastating ripple effect within Soviet society that, this book argues, became a major factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union. In this comprehensive survey of the effects of the war on Soviet society and politics, Yaacov Ro'i analyzes the opinions of Soviet citizens on a host of issues connected with the war and documents the systemic change that would occur when Soviet leadership took public opinion into account. The war and the difficulties that the returning veterans faced undermined the self-esteem and prestige of the Soviet armed forces and provided ample ammunition for media correspondents who sought to challenge the norms of the Soviet system. Through extensive analysis of Soviet newspapers and interviews conducted with Soviet war veterans and regular citizens in the early 1990s, Ro'i argues that the effects of the war precipitated processes that would reveal the inbuilt limitations of the Soviet body politic and contribute to the dissolution of the USSR by 1991.

This book features some of the greatest travellers in human history - people who undertook long journeys to places they knew little or nothing about. From Roman tourists, to the establishment of the Silk Road; an epic trek round China and India in the seventh century, to Marco Polo and through to the first speculations on space travel, Premodern Travel in World History provides an overview of long-distance travel in Afro-Eurasia from around 400BCE to 1500. This survey uses succinct accounts of the most epic journeys in the premodern world as lenses through which to examine the development of early travel, trade and cultural interchange between China, central Asia, India and southeast Asia, while also discussing themes such as the growth of empires and the spread of world religions. Complete with maps, this concise and interesting study analyzes how travel pushed and shaped the boundaries of political, geographical and cultural frontiers.

This timely book provides a general overview of Great Power politics and world order from 1500 to the present. Jeremy Black provides several historical case-studies, each of which throws light on both the power in question and the international system of the period, and how it had developed from the preceding period.

The point of departure for this book is Paul Kennedy's 1988 masterpiece, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. That iconic book, with its enviable mastery of the sources and its skilful integration of political, military and economic history, was a great success when it appeared and has justifiably remained important since. Written during the Cold War, however, Kennedy's study was very much of its time in its consideration of the great powers in 'Western' terms, and its emphasis on economics. This book brings together strategic studies, international relations, military history and geopolitics to answer some of the contemporary questions left open by Professor Kennedy's great work, and also looks to the future of great power relations and of US hegemony.

Great Powers and the Quest for Hegemony will be of great interest to students of international relations, strategic studies and international history.

This timely book provides a general overview of Great Power politics and world order from 1500 to the present. Jeremy Black provides several historical case-studies, each of which throws light on both the power in question and the international system of the period, and how it had developed from the preceding period.

The point of departure for this book is Paul Kennedy's 1988 masterpiece, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. That iconic book, with its enviable mastery of the sources and its skilful integration of political, military and economic history, was a great success when it appeared and has justifiably remained important since. Written during the Cold War, however, Kennedy's study was very much of its time in its consideration of the great powers in 'Western' terms, and its emphasis on economics. This book brings together strategic studies, international relations, military history and geopolitics to answer some of the contemporary questions left open by Professor Kennedy's great work, and also looks to the future of great power relations and of US hegemony.

Great Powers and the Quest for Hegemony will be of great interest to students of international relations, strategic studies and international history.

This book examines key cases of terrorist violence to show that the invention of terrorism was linked to the birth of modernity in Europe, Russia and the United States, rather than to Tsarist despotism in 19th century Russia or to Islam sects in Medieval Persia. Combining a highly readable historical narrative with analysis of larger issues in social and political history, the author argues that the dissemination of news about terrorist violence was at the core of a strategy that aimed for political impact on rulers as well as the general public. Dietze's lucid account also reveals how the spread of knowledge about terrorist acts was, from the outset, a transatlantic process. Two incidents form the book's centerpiece. The first is the failed attempt to assassinate French Emperor Napoleon III by Felice Orsini in 1858, in an act intended to achieve Italian unity and democracy. The second case study offers a new reading of John Brown's raid on the arsenal at Harpers Ferry in 1859, as a decisive moment in the abolitionist struggle and occurrences leading to the American Civil War. Three further examples from Germany, Russia, and the US are scrutinized to trace the development of the tactic by first imitators. With their acts of violence, the "invention" of terrorism was completed. Terrorism has existed as a tactic since then and has essentially only been adapted through the use of new technologies and methods.

This book explores the history of marriage and marriage-like relationships across five continents from the seventeenth century to the present day. Across fourteen chapters, leading marriage scholars examine how the methodologies from the new history of emotions contribute to our understanding of marriage, seeking to uncover not only personal feeling but also the political and social implications of emotion. They highlight how marriage as an institution has been shaped not just by law and society but also by individual and community choices, desires and emotional values. Importantly, they also emphasize how the history of non-traditional and same-sex relationships and their emotions have long played an important role in determining the nature of marriage as an institution and emotional union. In doing so, this collection allows us to rethink both the past and present of marriage, destabilizing a story of a stable institution and opening it up as a site of contest, debate and feeling.

A highly original work in history and theory, this survey considers major themes including identity, class and sexual difference, and weaves them into debates on the nature and point of history. Sceptical History arrives at new ways of doing history that consider non-Western history and feminist approaches. Using a wide range of historical and cultural contexts, the study draws extensively on feminist scholarship, both feminist history and postcolonial feminism.

This edited volume re-assesses the relationship between the United States, the Soviet Union and key regional players in waging and halting conflict in the Middle East between 1967 and 1973. These were pivotal years in the Arab-Israeli conflict, with the effects still very much in evidence today.

In addition to addressing established debates, the book opens up new areas of controversy, in particular concerning the inter-war years and the so-called 'War of Attrition', and underlines the risks both Moscow and Washington were prepared to run in supporting their regional clients. The engagement of Soviet forces in the air defence of Egypt heightened the danger of escalation and made this one of the hottest regional conflicts of the Cold War era. Against this Cold War backdrop, the motives of both Israel and the Arab states in waging full-scale and lower-intensity conflict are illuminated. The overall goal of this work is to re-assess the relationship between the Cold War and regional conflict in shaping the events of this pivotal period in the Middle East.

The Cold War in the Middle East will be of much interest to students of Cold War studies, Middle Eastern history, strategic studies and international history.

Socrates, son of Sophroniscus, of Alopece is arguably the most richly and diversely commemorated - and appropriated - of all ancient thinkers. Already in Antiquity, vigorous controversy over his significance and value ensured a wide range of conflicting representations. He then became available to the medieval, renaissance and modern worlds in a provocative variety of roles: as paradigmatic philosopher and representative (for good or ill) of ancient philosophical culture in general; as practitioner of a distinctive philosophical method, and a distinctive philosophical lifestyle; as the ostensible originator of startling doctrines about politics and sex; as martyr (the victim of the most extreme of all miscarriages of justice); as possessor of an extraordinary, and extraordinarily significant physical appearance; and, as the archetype of the hen-pecked intellectual. To this day, he continues to be the most readily recognized of ancient philosophers, as much in popular as in academic culture.This volume, along with its companion, Socrates in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, aims to do full justice to the source material (philosophical, literary, artistic, political), and to the range of interpretative issues it raises. It opens with an Introduction surveying ancient accounts of Socrates, and discussing the origins and current state of the 'Socratic question'. This is followed by three sections, covering the Socrates of Antiquity, with perspectives forward to later developments (especially in drama and the visual arts); Socrates from Late Antiquity to medieval times; and Socrates in the Renaissance and Enlightenment. Among topics singled out for special attention are medieval Arabic and Jewish interest in Socrates, and his role in the European Enlightenment as an emblem of moral courage and as the clinching proof of the follies of democracy.

This is the first book to survey the evolution of the strategic basing systems of the great powers, covering an 800-year span of history, from the Mongol dynasty to the era of the US empire.

Robert E. Harkavy details the progression of strategic basing systems and power projection, from its beginnings at a regional level to its current global reach, while emphasizing the interplay between political and international systemic factors (bipolar vs. multipolar systems), and technological factors. Analyzing the relationship between basing structures and national power, the book deals with such key questions as: the co-mingling of military and commercial functions for bases; sea power; geopolitical theory; imperial 'pick-off' during hegemonic wars; base acquisitions; continuity between basing structures; and long-term shifts in basing functions.

Strategic Basing and the Great Powers, 1200-2000 will be of much interest to students of strategic studies, military history and international relations.