At a moment when the term "Democracy " is evoked to express inchoate aspirations for peace and social change or particular governmental systems that may or may not benefit more than a select minority of the population, this book examines attempts from ancient Mesopotemia to the democratic movements of the early twenty-first century to sustain and improve their own lives and those of outsiders who have migrated into territory they regard as their own. Democratic activists have formed organizations to regulate the distribution of water, to restore the environment, and to assure that they and their children will have a future. They have organized their relations with deities and those who held secular power, and they have created particular institutions that they hoped would help them shape a good, free, and creative life for themselves and those who follow. They have also created laws and representative bodies to serve their needs on a regular basis and have written about the difficulties those they have elected to office have maintaining their ties to those who brought them to power in the first place. Since early times, proponents of direct or participatory democracy have come into conflict with the leaders of representative institutions that claim singular power over democracy. Patriots of one form or another have tried to reclaim the initiative to define what democracy should mean and who should manage it. Frequently people in small communities, trade unions, repressed, exploited, or denigrated racial, religious, political, or sexual groups have marched forward using the language of democracy to find space for themselves and their ideas at the center of political life. Sometimes they have re-interpreted the old laws, and sometimes they have formulated new laws and institutions in order to gain greater opportunities to debate the major issues of their time. Whatever conclusions they come to, they are only temporary since changing times require new solutions, assuring that democracy can only survive as a continuous process. As such and as a system of beliefs, democracy has many flaws. But looking cross-culturally and trans-historically, it still seems like democracy still holds promise for improving the lives of all the world's people.

Martin Flanagan uses Bakhtins notions of dialogism, chronotope and polyphony to address fundamental questions about film form and reception, focusing particularly on the way cinematic narrative utilizes time and space in its very construction.

The Negritude Movement provides readers with not only an intellectual history of the Negritude Movement but also its prehistory (W.E.B. Du Bois, the New Negro Movement, and the Harlem Renaissance) and its posthistory (Frantz Fanon and the evolution of Fanonism). By viewing Negritude as an "insurgent idea" (to invoke this book's intentionally incendiary subtitle), as opposed to merely a form of poetics and aesthetics, The Negritude Movement explores Negritude as a "traveling theory" (a la Edward Said's concept) that consistently crisscrossed the Atlantic Ocean in the twentieth century: from Harlem to Haiti, Haiti to Paris, Paris to Martinique, Martinique to Senegal, and on and on ad infinitum. The Negritude Movement maps the movements of proto-Negritude concepts from Du Bois's discourse in The Souls of Black Folk through to post-Negritude concepts in Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth. Utilizing Negritude as a conceptual framework to, on the one hand, explore the Africana intellectual tradition in the twentieth century, and, on the other hand, demonstrate discursive continuity between Du Bois and Fanon, as well as the Harlem Renaissance and Negritude Movement, The Negritude Movement ultimately accents what Negritude contributed to arguably its greatest intellectual heir, Frantz Fanon, and the development of his distinct critical theory, Fanonism. Rabaka argues that if Fanon and Fanonism remain relevant in the twenty-first century, then, to a certain extent, Negritude remains relevant in the twenty-first century.

This book offers a critique of the dominant conceptualization of heritage found in policy, which tends to privilege the white, middle and upper classes. Using Britain as an illustration, Waterton explores how and why recent policies continue to lean towards the predictable melding of cultural diversity with tendencies of assimilation.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) is one of the most important figures in the history of European philosophy. Although best known for his political theory, he also wrote about theology, metaphysics, physics, optics, mathematics, psychology, and literary criticism. All of these interests are reflected in his correspondence. Some small groups of his letters have been printed in the past (often in inaccurate transcriptions), but this edition is the first complete collection of his correspondence, nearly half of which has never been printed before. All the letters have been transcribed from the original sources, and all materials in Latin, French, and Italian are printed together with translations in clear modern English. The letters are fully annotated, and there are long biographical entries on all of his correspondents, based on extensive original research. The whole pattern of Hobbes's intellectual life and personal friendships is set in a new light. This is one of the most significant and valuable scholarly publications of this century.

Environmentalists today debate whether ecological harmony means we must manage the natural world or appreciate its incomprehensible complexity. This argument has a long history, beginning with Francis Bacon's claim that through science, humanity could make Nature bend to its will. This timely book unearths the challenge voiced by John Donne, Andrew Marvell, and the Earl of Rochester to Bacon's endeavor to make Nature subservient.

'Transcendental History' defends the claim that historicality is the very condition for human knowledge. By explaining this thesis, and by tracing its development from Kant and Hegel to Derrida and Agamben, this book enriches our understanding of the history of philosophy and contributes to epistemology and the philosophy of history.

In this book, an international line-up of scholars examines the role of the intellectual in the twenty-first century, looking at the gap between contemporary cultural theory and cultural practice, and asking whether knowledge and methodologies in the humanities can intervene in everyday politics and vice-versa.

These volumes gather together a selection of autobiographical essays written by significant economists whose work is generally recognized to be at the forefront of the discipline as we enter the twenty-first century. The essays are largely based on introductions to volumes in the Edward Elgar series Economists of the Twentieth Century (which collects together the key papers of these economists). This volume focuses on leading economists who were born, or have spent the greater part of their lives, in Europe, Asia and Australasia. The main chapters are accompanied by an introduction in which the editors place the autobiographical essays in a wider context. Economists will be fascinated by: * the stories that lie behind familiar names * why economists approach problems the way they do * how careers develop * how economists view what they are doing. These are all points that are invisible to those who simply read the published output of economics, so readers will gain personal insights into the development of the field. The books will be a valuable resource for economists, particularly historians of economic thought, as well as sociologists concerned with the economics profession, and those interested in the creative process and the social and scientific development of economics.

This book evaluates the current and future state of fascism studies, reflecting on the first hundred years of fascism and looking ahead to a new era in which fascism studies increasingly faces fresh questions concerning its relevance and the potential reappearance of fascism. This wide-ranging work celebrates Roger Griffin's contributions to fascism studies - in conceptual and definitional terms, but also in advancing our understanding of fascism - which have informed related research in a number of fields and directions since the 1990s. Bringing together three 'generations' of fascism scholars, the book offers a combination of broad conceptual essays and contributions focusing on particular themes and facets of fascism. The book features chapters, which, although diverse in their approaches, explore Griffin's work while also engaging critically with other schools of thought. As such, it identifies new avenues of research in fascism studies, placing Griffin's work within the context of new and emerging voices in the field.

The development of modern Europe, through such events as the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the rise of industrial capitalism, is often seen in terms of the triumph of individualism. Yet the precise stages in the evolution of the European individual remain one of the most elusive aspects of the region's history. In this broad and thought-provoking investigation, Aaron Gurevich, one of Russia's leading historians, examines the growth of individual consciousness through European history, and assesses its impact on key social and political events.Traditional interpretations locate the rise of the self-aware, autonomous European citizen in the Italian Renaissance of the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. However, as Aaron Gurevich argues, the origins of the movements can, in fact, be traced to the early Middle Ages. Drawing from a wide range of cultural sources, from Scandinavian sagas to the poetry of Dante and Petrarch, and from sermons and religious painting to the autobiographical works of writers such as Pierre Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux, the author charts the transition from earlier forms of community life, characterized by local, kinship groups and collective identity, towards a changed, universal society dominated by the cognitive, motivational individual. Throughout the book intellectual and cultural trends are linked to economic realities, where social mobility, labor markets and developing economies are explained and understood in their broadest context.This is a bold and thought-provoking volume which will be welcomed by all those interested in Europe's intellectual and cultural inheritance.

Anne Fuchs traces the aftermath of the Dresden bombing in the collective imagination from 1945 to today. As a case study of an event that gained local, national and global iconicity, the book investigates the role of photography, fine art, architecture, literature and film in dialogue with the changing German socio-political landscape.

Offering 12 interviews with postcolonial thinkers in the social sciences and humanities, this collection features theorists such as Sara Ahmed and Paul Gilroy. Topics range from Bob Marley to the Black Panthers, Fanon to feminism, and anti-apartheid to the academy, uncovering thought provoking adventures about resistance and empowerment.

"In these essays, a range of leading scholars seek both to investigate the historical, institutional and philosophical origins of deconstruction and to think through the problem of the idea of origin itself"--Provided by publisher.

In The Essence of Christianity-this is the classic 1853 translation of the 1841 German original-Feuerbach discusses the "true or anthropological" root of religion, exploring how everything from the nature of God to the mysteries of mysticism and prayer can be viewed through such a prism. He goes on to examine the "false" essences of religion, including contradictions in ideas of the existence of a deity, and then how God and religion are merely expressions of human emotion. This is essential background reading for understanding everything from Marx's Communist Manifesto to modern apolitical philosophies of atheism.

This book examines the interplay between key rulers and intellectuals in creating and sustaining popular discourses that often help keep rulers in power. By focusing in particular on the relationship between Putin and Dugin during the early Putin regime, the author zooms in on the questionable honesty in Putin's interest in Dugin's philosophy, and the instrumentality of that philosophy for strategic regime building. Arguing that ideology is largely supported by political philosophies that gain popular traction, the book questions the extent to which rulers are likely to stay faithful to their stated ideologies. Providing on-the-ground insight into Putin's rule, this book appeals to researchers and policymakers studying Post-Soviet Politics.

Philosophy grounds itself in factual "truth." By revising how we understand this, we make a change that has profound impact upon most world-wide systems for gaining knowledge.This shift away from factual "truth" can only occur when we correctly understand it--and distinguish it from analytical and moral truth--because truth is entrenched deeply within our outlook. With correct understanding, an emerging insight beyond old truth can transform the world and launch an authentic philosophic revolution.PHILOSOPHY THAT WORKS, 200 pages, streamlines its philosophic arguments into lively reading.

Great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. It has its origin in the principles of society and the natural constitution of man. It existed prior to government, and would exist if the formality of government was abolished. The mutual dependence and reciprocal interest which man has upon man, and all the parts of civilised community upon each other, create that great chain of connection which holds it together. The landholder, the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the tradesman, and every occupation, prospers by the aid which each receives from the other, and from the whole. Common interest regulates their concerns, and forms their law; and the laws which common usage ordains, have a greater influence than the laws of government. In fine, society performs for itself almost everything which is ascribed to government. from Chapter I: Of Society and Civilisation He was the premiere political blogger of his day, a man Thomas Edison called one of the greatest of all Americans, and one todays liberals and progressives still claim as their intellectual forefather. An idealist, a radical, and a master rhetorician, Thomas Paine wrote and lived with a keen sense of urgency and excitement. In this 1791 defense of revolution, he championed the right of an oppressed peopleand in particular the right of the French peopleto rise up to claim their own natural rights from those who would take them away. A spirited denunciation of the aristocracy and of hereditary government, The Rights of Man caused outrage in Great Britain with its call for democratic reforms of the English system, and Paine was convicted in absentia for seditious libel against the Crown.(He was, alas, not available to be hanged.) Everyone who values freedomof speech, of though, of governanceand the ongoing fight required to maintain it must read and appreciate this essential work. Anglo-American political theorist and writer THOMAS PAINE (17371809) was born in England and emigrated to America in 1774, bearing letters of introduction from Benjamin Franklin. He also wrote Common Sense (1776) and The American Crisis (17761783).

This book is a comprehensive study of Liu Tsang-yuan (773-819), a major literary and intellectual figure in Chinese history. The major aspects of Liu's life and work are explored: the social and cultural background of his family, his relationship with the ku-wen prose reforms and new canonical scholarship in the mid-T'ang, his social and political criticism, his views on Confucian doctrine, and his sentiments and reflections regarding the private realm of human life. Its scope goes beyond the 'life and thought' of this principal intellectual figure in its special emphasis on the connections between Liu's thought and mid-T'ang intellectual change, modifying the conventional view that the mid-T'ang Confucian revival led by Han Yu (768-824) and Liu Tsung-yuan was a precursor of Sung Neo-Confucianism. Chen suggests that the mid-T'ang Confucian movement was essentially a revival of an old form of Confucianism and that Liu's was a powerful voice expressing this sentiment. This in-depth study also encompasses a general interpretation of the nature of the T'ang-Sung intellectual transition. Anyone familiar with the intriguing yet elusive Liu Tsang-yuan will find this book fascinating.

Susan Ford Wiltshire traces the evolution of the doctrine of individual rights from antiquity through the eighteenth century. The common thread through that long story is the theory of natural law. Growing out of Greek political thought, especially that of Aristotle, natural law became a major tenet of Stoic philosophy during the Hellenistic age and later became attached to Roman legal doctrine. It underwent several transformations during the Middle Ages on the Continent and in England, especially in the thought of John Locke, before it came to justify a theory of natural right, claimed by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence as the basis of the "unalienable rights" of Americans.

Volume XXVII/2 of History of Universities contains the customary mix of learned articles and book reviews which makes this publication such an indispensable tool for the historian of higher education. The volume is, as always, a lively combination of original research and invaluable reference material.

In The Age of Reason, Thomas Paine declares that all religious traditions are ultimately established for the dependence of mankind. He openly criticizes the Bible and many of the fallacies contained within, as well as providing a shrewd analysis of Christianity and how it developed from its pagan ancestry-arguments many critics claim carry weight today. Being an idealist, a radical, and a master rhetorician, Paine wrote and lived with a keen sense of urgency and excitement. However, he alienated many of his countrymen with his incendiary viewpoints. Forced to leave America for England, Paine eventually returned to the United States in 1802, though he remained all but ostracized. He died in poverty seven years later in 1809. THOMAS PAINE (1737-1809) was an Anglo-American political theorist and writer born in Norfolk, England. In 1774, Paine emigrated to America, bearing letters of introduction from Benjamin Franklin. Soon thereafter, he became involved in the clashes between England and the American colonies and published the enormously successful pamphlet Common Sense in 1776, which was widely distributed and contributed to the patriot cause throughout the American Revolution.

This book explains why narrating the recent past is always challenging, and shows how it was particularly fraught in the nineteenth century. The legacy of Romantic historicism, the professionalization of the historical discipline, and even the growth of social history, all heightened the stakes. This book brings together Victorian histories and novels to show how these parallel genres responded to the challenges of contemporary history writing in divergent ways. Many historians shrank from engaging with controversial recent events. This study showcases the work of those rare historians who defied convention, including the polymath Harriet Martineau, English nationalist J. R. Green, and liberal enthusiast Spencer Walpole. A striking number of popular Victorian novels are retrospective. This book argues that Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell and George Eliot's "novels of the recent past" are long overdue recognition as genuinely historical novels. By focusing on provincial communities, these novelists reveal undercurrents invisible to national narratives, and intervene in debates about women's contribution to history.