The past decades have seen a growing "philosophical" interest in a number of authors, but strangely enough Saramago's oeuvre has been left somewhat aside. This volume aims at filling this gap by providing a diverse range of philosophical perspectives and expositions on Saramago's work. The chapters explore some possible issues arising from his works: from his use of Plato's allegory of the cave to his re-readings of Biblical stories; from his critique and "reinvention" of philosophy of history to his allegorical exploration of alternative histories; from his humorous approach to our being-towards-death to the revolutionary political charge of his fiction. The essays here confront Saramago's fiction with concepts, theories, and suggestions belonging to various philosophical traditions and philosophers including Plato, Pascal, Kierkegaard, Freud, Benjamin, Heidegger, Lacan, Foucault, Patocka, Derrida, Agamben, and Zizek.

Environmental History is one of the most exciting and rapidly expanding new areas of historical study, and draws upon a wide range of disciplines for its insights and themes. Nature's End provides fifteen essays from historians, geographers, anthropologists and natural scientists on key themes and methods in the field, that address both those new to environmental history and seasoned practitioners. These studies illustrate the diversity of approaches to historic relationships between humans and their environments, but throughout the book connect these to core narratives in more traditional history: the role of the state and institutions, the importance of intellectual fashions and politics, and the role of the sciences and history itself, as well as the importance of ecology, and thinking about conservation, risk and human destiny.

E. H. Carr (1892-1982) was born into security but lived a life of controversy. Attacked for appeasing both Hitler and Stalin, he was not only one of the most productive writers of the 20th century but one of its most provocative as well. In this book--the first ever to deal critically but fairly with Carr's contribution to international relations, Soviet Studies and the study of history--16 internationally respected contributors grapple with his complex intellectual legacy. For those seriously interested in understanding the life and times of this most English of establishment radicals this is the place to begin.

British knowledge about China changed fundamentally in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Rather than treating these changes in British understanding as if Anglo-Sino relations were purely bilateral, this study looks at how British imperial networks in India and Southeast Asia were critical mediators in the British encounter of China.

Beyond the Canon deals with recent politicized processes of canonization and its implications for historical culture in a globalizing and postcolonial world. The volume discusses the framing and transmission of historical knowledge, explores the philosophical foundations of canons, and its consequences for the construction of narratives and the teaching of history in multicultural class rooms and museums. Beyond the Canon introduces English-speaking readers to work by important scholars whose primary work has been in other languages.

Womersley examines Gibbon's conflict with his critics, in particular the spokesmen for religious orthodoxy. By considering the sequence of interactions between the historian and his readership, he illuminates what might be called Gibbon's experience of himself, at the same time deepening our understanding of the conditions of English authorship during the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

The partition of Africa was one of the most spectacular episodes in modern history. For Europeans, Africa was still an unknown continent in 1880. Thirty years later almost all of it was under European control. This race for colonies went hand in hand with a host of thrilling exploits and dramatic conflicts, of which Stanley's exploration of the Congo and Gordon's death in Khartoum are just two examples.

The partition of Africa was one of the most spectacular episodes in modern history. For Europeans, Africa was still an unknown continent in 1880. Thirty years later, almost all of it was under European control. This race for colonies went hand in hand with a host of thrilling exploits and dramatic conflicts, of which Stanley's exploration of the Congo and Gordon's death in Khartoum were just two examples. Although the end of the colonial period produced a great upsurge in historical writing on the subject, this book is the most complete general overview of the dramatic events that marked this period. Such major historical questions as the causes of European imperialism are also examined. The author, an internationally renowned authority in the field, analyzes these issues and presents his own views of them.

In "Divide and Rule," Wesseling dwells primarily on the historical developments. The many picturesque and problematic events are brought back to life. The leading characters are presented with gusto: the pioneers, the conquerors, the European politicians who tried to run the show no less, and the main African protagonists. For this reason, "Divide and Rule" is above all a story of one of the most dramatic highlights of the centuries-long history of European expansion.

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

These essays all-in various ways-address the relationship between adaptation, "true events," and cultural memory. They ask (and frequently answer) the question: how do we script stories about real events that are often still fresh in our memories and may involve living people? True Event Adaptation: Scripting Real Lives contains essays from scholars committed to interrogating historical and current hard-hitting events, traumas, and truths through various media. Each essay goes beyond general discussion of adaptation and media to engage with the specifics of adapting true life events-addressing pertinent and controversial questions around scriptwriting, representation, ethics, memory, forms of history, and methodological interventions. Written for readers interested in how memory works on culture as well as screenwriting choices, the collection offers new perspectives on historical media and commercial media that is currently being produced, as well as on media created by the book's contributors themselves.

A unique bibliographic and historiographic guide to the study of contemporary Italy, this book points to over 650 texts that have shaped the academic and scholarly study of postwar Italy. It is the first guide to include a genuine mix of English-language and Italian-language materials and to approach these materials in a historiographic as well as a bibliographic manner. It is an ideal guide for English, North American, and Italian scholars who have just begun their study of Italy or want to know more about research in areas outside their area of expertise.

Following the introduction, which outlines the context within which the evolution of Italian studies should be viewed, the book is divided into two parts. Part I includes five historiographic chapters providing a detailed survey and analysis of works published in history, politics, government, the economy, and society. Part II is an annotated bibliographic guide to all of the texts pointed to in Part I.

This book explores how the expectations of historical justice movements and processes are understood within educational contexts, particularly history education. In recent years, movements for historical justice have gained global momentum and prominence as the focus on righting wrongs from the past has become a feature of contemporary politics. This imperative has manifested in globally diverse contexts including societies emerging from recent, violent conflict, but also established democracies which are increasingly compelled to address the legacies of colonialism, slavery, genocides, and war crimes, as well as other forms of protracted discord. This book examines historical justice from an educational perspective, exploring the myriad ways that education is understood as a site of historical injustice, as well as a mechanism for redress. The editors and contributors analyse the role of history education in processes of historical justice broadly, exploring educational sites, policies, media, and materials. This edited collection is a unique and important touchstone volume for scholars, policy-makers, practitioners, and teachers that can guide future research, policy, and practice in the fields of historical justice, human rights and history education.

First published in 1955 to wide acclaim, James Joll's introduction to the history and development of International Socialism before the First World War is of crucial importance for understanding the development of Left-wing movements in the 20th century: the difficulties posed by prominent anarchist groups, the ambiguities of the scope of revolutionary activity, and the challenges posed by the rise of nationalism. Incorporating insightful research into the international links and the ideological structure of socialism, as well as on the structure of individual parties and the actual nature of their working-class support, The Second International 1889-1914 is a valuable resource for political historians and students of socialist thought alike.

This book explores how and why the idea of the African environmental crisis developed and persisted through colonial and post-colonial periods, and why it has been so influential in development discourse. From the beginnings of imperial administration, the idea of the desiccation of African environments grew in popularity, but this crisis discourse was dominated by the imposition of imperial scientific knowledge, neglecting indigenous knowledge and experience. African Environmental Crisis provides a synthesis of more than one-and-a-half century's research on peasant agriculture and pastoral rangeland development in terms of soil erosion control, animal husbandry, grazing schemes, large-scale agricultural schemes, social and administrative science research, and vector-disease and pest controls. Drawing on comparative socio-ecological perspectives of African peoples across the East African colonies and post-independent states, this book refutes the hypothesis that African peoples were responsible for environmental degradation. Instead, Gufu Oba argues that flawed imperial assumptions and short-term research projects generated an inaccurate view of the environment in Africa. This book's discussion of the history of science for development provides researchers across environmental studies, agronomy, African history and development studies with a lens through which to understand the underlying assumptions behind development projects in Africa.

This edited collection contributes to the current vivid multidisciplinary debate on East European memory politics and the post-communist instrumentalization and re-mythologization of World War II memories. The book focuses on the three Slavic countries of post-Soviet Eastern Europe - Russia, Ukraine and Belarus - the epicentre of Soviet war suffering, and the heartland of the Soviet war myth. The collection gives insight into the persistence of the Soviet commemorative culture and the myth of the Great Patriotic War in the post-Soviet space. It also demonstrates that for geopolitical, cultural, and historical reasons the political uses of World War II differ significantly across Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, with important ramifications for future developments in the region and beyond. The chapters 'Introduction: War and Memory in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus', 'From the Trauma of Stalinism to the Triumph of Stalingrad: The Toponymic Dispute over Volgograd' and 'The "Partisan Republic": Colonial Myths and Memory Wars in Belarus' are published open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com. The chapter 'Memory, Kinship, and Mobilization of the Dead: The Russian State and the "Immortal Regiment" Movement' is published open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license at link.springer.com.

How do the ethical implications of writing theatrical histories complicate the historiographical imperative in our current sociopolitical context? This volume investigates a historiography whose function is to be a mode of thinking and exposes the inner contradictions in social and ideological organizations of historical subjects.

This collection of essays explores how historians of theatre apply ethical thinking to the attempt to truthfully represent their subject - whether that be the life of a well-known performer, or the little known history of colonial theatre in India - by exploring the process by which such histories are written, and the challenges they raise.

This book explores the benefits and challenges of transnational history for the study of modern Ireland. In recent years the word "transnational" has become more and more conspicuous in history writing across the globe, with scholars seeking to move beyond national and local frameworks when investigating the past. Yet transnational approaches remain rare in Irish historical scholarship. This book argues that the broader contexts and scales associated with transnational history are ideally suited to open up new questions on many themes of critical importance to Ireland's past and present. They also provide an important means of challenging ideas of Irish exceptionalism. The chapters included here open up new perspectives on central debates and events in Irish history. They illuminate numerous transnational lives, follow flows and ties across Irish borders, and trace networks and links with Europe, North America, the Caribbean, Australia and the British Empire. This book provides specialists and students with examples of different concepts and ways of doing transnational history. Non-specialists will be interested in the new perspectives offered here on a rich variety of topics, particularly the two major events in modern Irish history, the Great Irish Famine and the 1916 Rising.

In historical terms, the Old Diplomacy is not really that old--many of its concepts and methods date to the mid-nineteenth century--while the practices of New Diplomacy emerged only a couple of generations later. Moreover, "Diplomacy 2.0" and other variants of the post-Cold War era do not depart significantly from their twentieth-century predecessor: their forms, particularly in technology, have changed, but their substance has not. In this succinct overview, historian Kenneth Weisbrode reminds us that to understand diplomatic transformations and their relevance to international affairs is to see diplomacy as an entrepreneurial art--and that, like most arts, it is adapted and re-adapted with reference to earlier forms. Diplomatic practice is always changing, and always continuous.

In this new study of George Eliot's fiction, textual attempts to imagine a coherent and unified national past are seen as producing a contradictory vision of Englishness. It is a historiographical national identity, constructed in the image of predominant, and conflicting, trends in the Victorian writing of history. The inherent uncertainty caused by the shift between different perceptions of English history leads, in the later fiction, to an abandonment of contemporaneous grand narratives. The consequence is a history that anticipates a more modern, radical philosophy of history.

This edited volume addresses memory practices among youth, families, cultural workers, activists, and engaged citizens in Lebanon and Morocco. In making a claim for 'the social life of memory,' the introduction discusses a particular research field of memory studies, elaborating an approach to memory in terms of social production and engagement. The Arab Spring is evoked to draw attention to new rifts within and between history and remembrance in the regions of North Africa and the Middle East. As authoritarian forms of governance are challenged, official panoramic narratives are confronted with a multiplicity of memories of violent pasts. The eight chapters trace personal and public inventories of violence, trauma, and testimony, addressing memory in cinema, in newspapers and periodicals, as an experience of public environments, through transnational and diasporic mediums, and amongst younger generations.

"Ten essays, each with extensive citations, by prominent German and US scholars consider significant themes in German history.A clearly organized 'selected bibliography' adds to its importance for students and scholars interested in this path breaking shift toward a more balanced understanding of Germany's history. Highly recommended." . Choice A wonderful compendium, perfect for classroom use - and a terrific resource for scholars. The essays provide valuable original perspectives on some of the most significant controversies currently engaging historians of Germany, as they also document just how profoundly careful attention to questions of gender has infused and transformed many subfields in German history - including the study of religion, political protest, war, and colonialism. . Dagmar Herzog, Graduate Center, City University of New York Authors take on the big themes and debates of German history, providing unparalleled evidence -- including extensive footnotes and a bibliographical chapter -- that gender has not only challenged mainstream ("malestream") German history but has in many cases, indeed, rewritten it. This rich and thought-provoking book is a "must" for scholars and students concerned with historiographical debates, the transatlantic dialogue among scholars, and issues of theory and methodology. It will also attract a public interested in gender history and is intrigued by the effects of gender more generally. . Marion Kaplan, New York University This incisive collection of essays details the impact of a focus on women and gender on historical writing on modern Germany. Attuned to developments in the United States and Germany, the essays carefully distinguish points of convergence and divergence in approach and methodology between the two academic cultures and provide a nuanced overview of the current state of the field as well as desiderata for the future. Leading scholars illuminate how gendered perspectives have revolutionized understanding of the conventional stuff of history - such as nation, politics, military, religion, and the state - while opening up critical new avenues of analysis around citizenship, family, sexuality, colonialism, minority relations, and memory. An invaluable resource for students and scholars of German history and gender studies alike. . Heide Fehrenbach, Northern Illinois University Karen Hagemann is the James G. Kenan Distinguished Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on modern German and European History and Gender History, in particular the history of labor, welfare, and education, the women's movements, and the nation, military, and war. Jean H. Quataert is Professor of German History and Women's Studies at Binghamton University, SUNY. Her research focuses on the history of the labor movement, the history of nation and gender, and most recently human rights history and global women's history in 19th and 20th century."

This study examines the historical and polemical writing of the late A.J.P. Taylor, Oxford don and television star. It provides a close examination of both historical interpretations and polemical arguments that appeared in books and essays for the popular press. The book covers Taylor's major historical and journalistic efforts from "The Italian Problem in European Diplomacy" in 1934 to "Beaverbrook" in 1972, looking for an explanation of his own judgement on his place within the historiographical community, that he was "the traitor at the gates." Other titles by Robert Cole include "Britain and the War of Words in Neutral Europe, 1939-45," "A Traveller's History of France" and "The Dissenting Tradition."

The Routledge History of Medieval Magic brings together the work of scholars from across Europe and North America to provide extensive insights into recent developments in the study of medieval magic between c.1100 and c.1500. This book covers a wide range of topics, including the magical texts which circulated in medieval Europe, the attitudes of intellectuals and churchmen to magic, the ways in which magic intersected with other aspects of medieval culture, and the early witch trials of the fifteenth century. In doing so, it offers the reader a detailed look at the impact that magic had within medieval society, such as its relationship to gender roles, natural philosophy, and courtly culture. This is furthered by the book's interdisciplinary approach, containing chapters dedicated to archaeology, literature, music, and visual culture, as well as texts and manuscripts. The Routledge History of Medieval Magic also outlines how research on this subject could develop in the future, highlighting under-explored subjects, unpublished sources, and new approaches to the topic. It is the ideal book for both established scholars and students of medieval magic.

The Vietnam War ended over thirty years ago. Yet, it continues as a cultural reference point, shaping contemporary American society and culture, its impact felt in many different contexts. Vietnam precipitated a crisis in national self-confidence and a breakdown in political consensus out of which new ideological perspectives, including neo-conservatism, emerged. This book offers fresh perspectives on a defining event in "the American Century," examining its historical and political significance as well as its continuing cultural relevance.