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Books > Humanities > History > History of other lands
Each society that consumes alcohol has its own unique drinking culture, and each society deals with the drunken products of that culture in particular ways. As Mark D. West shows in Drunk Japan, the distinctive features of Japanese drinking culture and its intoxication-related laws are not simply interesting in and of themselves, but offer a unique window into Japanese society more broadly. Drawing upon close readings of over 5,000 published Japanese court opinions on drunkenness-related cases, he provides a rich description of Japanese alcohol consumption, drinking culture, and intoxication. West reveals that the opinions not only show patterns in what, where, and why people drink in Japan, but they also focus to a surprising extent on characteristics (including occupation, wealth, gender, and education) of individual litigants. By examining the consistencies and contradictions that emerge from the cases, West finds that, at its most extreme, the Japanese legal system is hyper-individualized. Focusing on individual people sometimes leads courts to ignore forensic evidence, to rely on post-arrest drinking tests, and to calculate prison sentences based on factors such as a mother's promise to help her adult child abstain. Cumulatively, the colorful and often tragic cases West uses not only illuminate the complexity of the culture, but they also reveal an entirely new vision of Japanese law and a comprehensive picture of alcohol use in Japanese society writ large.
First published in 1975 and long out of print, Folk Songs from the West Virginia Hills is a major work of folklore poised to reach a new generation of readers. Drawing upon Patrick Ward Gainer's extensive ethnographic fieldwork around West Virginia, it contains dozens of significant folk songs, including not only the internationally famous "Child Ballads," but such distinctively West Virginian songs as "The West Virginia Farmer" and "John Hardy," among others. Folk Songs from the West Virginia Hills stands out as a book with multiple audiences. As a musical text, it offers comparatively easy access to a rich variety of folk songs that could provide a new repertoire for Appalachian singers. As an ethnographic text, it has the potential to reintroduce significant data about the musical lives of many West Virginians into conversations around Appalachian music-discourses that are being radically reshaped by scholars working in folklore, ethnomusicology, and Appalachian studies. As a historical document, it gives readers a glimpse into the research methods commonly practiced by mid-twentieth-century folklorists. And when read in conjunction with John Harrington Cox's Folk Songs of the South (also available from WVU Press), it sheds important light on the significant role that West Virginia University has played in documenting the state's vernacular traditions.
This book examines the relationship between Ukraine's Galician Hutsuls and the Carpathian landscape between 1848 and 1939. The author analyzes the intersections of ecology and culture in the history of the Carpathian Mountains, with a focus on the region's economy and biodiversity.
"Warriors and Peasants" depicts the lives of the Don Cossacks, the
largest of all the Cossack communities, in late Imperial Russia.
The dual identity of the Cossacks, that of the steppe and of the
settled Slavic areas, is emphasized as the key to their unique
culture. The book explores how that identity manifested and
preserved itself by focusing on the Cossack tradition, their
economy, their families and their communities. Far from being
moribund and close to collapse, the book concludes that the Cossack
tradition remained among the most vibrant in the empire.
Developed as a reader for upper division undergraduates and beginning graduates, From Symbolism to Socialist Realism offers broad variety of materials contextualizing the literary texts most frequently read in Russian literature courses at this level. These approaches range from critical-theoretical articles, cultural and historical analyses, literary manifestos and declarations of literary aesthetics, memoirs of revolutionary terrorism and arrests by the NKVD, political denunciations, and "literary vignettes" capturing the spirit of its particular time in a nutshell. The voices of this "polyphonic" reader are diverse: Briusov, Savinkov, Ivanov-Razumnik, Kollontai, Tsvetaeva, Shklovsky, Olesha, Zoshchenko, Zhdanov, Grossman, Evtushenko, and others. The range of specialists on Russian culture represented here is equally broad: Clark, Erlich, Grossman, Nilsson, Peace, Poznansky, Siniavskii, and others. Together they evoke and illuminate a complex and tragic era.
Contributions by Carrie Bernhard, Scott Bernhard, Marilyn R. Brown, Richard Campanella, John P. Clark, Joel Dinerstein, Pableaux Johnson, John P. Klingman, Angel Adams Parham, Bruce Boyd Raeburn, Ruth Salvaggio, Christopher Schaberg, Teresa A. Toulouse, and Beth Willinger Much has been written about New Orleans's distinctive architecture and urban fabric, as well as the city's art, literature, and music. There is, however, little discussion connecting these features. Sweet Spots--a title drawn from jazz musicians' name for the space ""in-between"" performers and dancers where music best resonates--provides multiple connections between the city's spaces, its complex culture, and its future. Drawing on the late Tulane architect Malcolm Heard's ideas about ""interstitial"" spaces, this collection examines how a variety of literal and represented ""in-between"" spaces in New Orleans have addressed race, class, gender, community, and environment. As scholars of architecture, art, African American studies, English, history, jazz, philosophy, and sociology, the authors incorporate materials from architectural history and practice, literary texts, paintings, drawings, music, dance, and even statistical analyses. Interstitial space refers not only to functional elements inside and outside of many New Orleans houses--high ceilings, hidden staircases, galleries, and courtyards--but also to compelling spatial relations between the city's houses, streets, and neighborhoods. Rich with visual materials, Sweet Spots reveals the ways that diverse New Orleans spaces take on meanings and accrete stories that promote certain consequences both for those who live in them and for those who read such stories. The volume evokes, preserves, criticizes, and amends understanding of a powerful and often-missed feature of New Orleans's elusive reality.
This book provides a much-needed comparative approach to the history of cities by investigating the dissemination of cultural forms between cities of the Atlantic world. The contributors attend to the various forms and norms of cultural representation in Atlantic history, examining a wealth of diverse topics such as the Portuguese Atlantic; the Spanish Empire; Guy Fawkes and the conspiratorial rhetoric of slaves; Albert-Charles Wulffleff and the Parc-Musee of Dakar; and the writings of Jane Austen, Alexis de Tocqueville, Benjamin Franklin, and others. By interpreting Atlantic urban history through sustained attention to customs and representational forms, an international group of nine contributors demonstrate the power of culture in the making of Atlantic urban experience, even as they acknowledge the harsh realities of economic history.
This book is a critical attempt to cast a biopolitical gaze at the process of subjectification of Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, and Estonia in terms of multiple and overlapping regimes of belonging, performativity, and (de)bordering. The authors strive to go beyond the traditional understandings of biopolitics as a set of policies corresponding to the management and regulation of (pre)existing populations. In their opinion, biopolitics might be part of nation building, a force that produces collective political identities grounded in the acceptance of sets of corporeal practices of control over human bodies and their physical existence. For the authors, to look critically at this biopolitical gaze on the realm of the post-Soviet means also to rethink the correlation between the biopolitical vision of the post-Soviet and the biopolitical epistemology on the post-Soviet, which would demand a new vocabulary. The critical biopolitics might be one of these vocabularies, which would fulfill this request.
Embark upon a fascinating journey through ancient Greece – from its rise and fall to its lasting legacy throughout the Western world. Spanning more than 3,000 years, Ancient Greece explores the tumultuous history of this glorious empire in vivid detail – from its Minoan and Mycenaean origins to the apogee of the warring city-states of Athens and Sparta, and from the death of its most charismatic leader, Alexander the Great, to its ultimate defeat by Rome. Sumptuous photography and authoritative, engaging text cover every facet of life in ancient Greece, from art, entertainment, and schools of thought to politics, medicine, and war, while the myths and religious beliefs of the ancient culture are explored and explained in depth. Greece’s military and political power shines through in fascinating maps of its legendary battles. Buried palaces and the Athenian Agora where Plato and Socrates discussed philosophy are brought back to life with stunning CGI artworks. And the stories of everyone from ordinary citizens to lawmakers and the first Olympic athletes are retold through eyewitness accounts and original artefacts.
During the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, Washington
policymakers aspired to destabilize the Soviet and East European
Communist Party regimes by implementing programs of psychological
warfare and gradual cultural infiltration. In focusing on American
propaganda and cultural infiltration of the Soviet empire in these
years, Parting the Curtain emerges as a groundbreaking study of
certain aspects of US Cold War diplomacy never before
examined.
Nikolai Charushin's memoirs of his experience as a member of the revolutionary populist movement in Russia are familiar to historians, but A Generation of Revolutionaries provides a broader and more engaging look at the lives and relationships beyond these memoirs. It shows how, after years of incarceration, Charushin and friends thrived in Siberian exile, raising children and contributing to science and culture there. While Charushin's memoirs end with his return to European Russia, this sweeping biography follows this group as they engaged in Russia's fin de siecle society, took part in the 1917 revolution, and struggled in its aftermath. A Generation of Revolutionaries provides vibrant and deeply personal insights into the turbulent history of Russia from the Great Reforms to the era of Stalinism and beyond. In doing so, it tells the story of a remarkable circle of friends whose lives balanced love, family and career with exile, imprisonment, and revolution.
Now thoroughly updated and revised-with a new chapter on the Dreamer movement and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA)-this book offers North Carolinians a better understanding of their Latinx neighbors, illuminating rather than enflaming debates on immigration. In the midst of a tumultuous political environment, North Carolina continues to feature significant in-migration of Mexicans and Latin Americans from both outside and inside the United States. Drawing on the voices of migrants as well as North Carolinians from communities affected by migration, Hannah Gill explains how larger social forces are causing demographic shifts, how the state is facing the challenges and opportunities presented by these changes, and how migrants experience the economic and social realities of their lives. Gill makes connections between our hometowns and the globalization of people, money, technology, and culture by shedding light on the many diverse North Carolina residents who are such a vital part of the state's population but are often unrecognized in many ways. This book is essential for everyone, including students and teachers, who wants to understand what is at stake for all parties and wants to work toward solutions.
In February 2019, Harmony Siganporia walked from Dandi to Ahmedabad, retracing the route of Gandhi's Salt March in reverse. She walked this route of just under 400 kilometres over 25 days, much as Gandhi and the original band of Marchers did in 1930. The 'Dandi Path' is the setting against which she explores the story of modern Gujarat, tracing the contours of the state's seismic shift towards espousing the narrative of vikas, abandoning in the process the possibility of a quest for swaraj. Gujarat has been described as the laboratory of Hindutva, and this book is an effort to explore this theme, even as it attempts to unearth whether there remain any competing epistemes to it; memories of the region's prior avatar as the setting against which Gandhi put into practice his experiments with truth, non-violent civil disobedience, and satyagraha. This project investigates what-if anything-remains of the Salt March in Gujarat's cultural memory, while also attempting to fill out the contours of the 'single story' of vikas with which the State has become so closely associated.
While the Western was dying a slow death across the cultural landscape, it was blazing back to life as a video game in the early twenty-first century. Rockstar Games' Red Dead franchise, beginning with Red Dead Revolver in 2004, has grown into one of the most critically acclaimed video game franchises of the twenty-first century. Red Dead Redemption: History, Myth, and Violence in the Video Game West offers a critical, interdisciplinary look at this cultural phenomenon at the intersection of game studies and American history. Drawing on game studies, western history, American studies, and cultural studies, the authors train a wide-ranging, deeply informed analytic perspective on the Red Dead franchise-from its earliest incarnation to the latest, Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018). Their intersecting chapters put the series in the context of American history, culture, and contemporary media, with inquiries into issues of authenticity, realism, the meaning of play and commercial promotion, and the relationship between the game and the wider cultural iterations of the classic Western. The contributors also delve into the role the series' development has played in recent debates around working conditions in the gaming industry and gaming culture. In its redeployment and reinvention of the Western's myth and memes, the Red Dead franchise speaks to broader aspects of American culture-the hold of the frontier myth and the "Wild West" over the popular imagination, the role of gun culture in society, depictions of gender and ethnicity in mass media, and the increasing allure of digital escapism-all of which come in for scrutiny here, making this volume a vital, sweeping, and deeply revealing cultural intervention.
'Russia's Penal Colony in the Far East: A Translation of Vlas Doroshevich's "Sakhalin"' is the first English language translation of the Russian journalist Vlas Doroshevich's 1903 account of his visit to tsarist Russia's largest penal colony, Sakhalin, in the north Pacific. Despite the publication of Anton Chekhov's account of his visit to Sakhalin in 1890, many Russians remained unaware of the brutality and savagery of the 'devil island'. In 1897 Doroshevich, Russia's most popular journalist, travelled to Sakhalin and spent three months touring the island, interviewing numerous prisoners and officials, and recording his impressions. The feuilletons he wired back to his publishers were eventually collected and published in book form in 1903, under the title 'Sakhalin' (Katorga). Doroshevich's book was enormously popular when it first appeared, and it continues to be published in Russia, as a historical record of the striking barbarity of late nineteenth century penal practices. Despite this popularity, it has never before been translated into English, and Doroshevich remains largely unknown outside Russia. This translation introduces English-language readers to an important writer and original stylist who defined journalistic practice during the years leading up to the 1917 Revolution, by way of a book which helps explain the causes for that revolution.
"This a much-welcome addition to the modern English-language reference library on Siberian indigenous people and the first book-size effort to address their plight and status from the perspective of the Russian archival statistical and documentary records of the early 1900s. It is an outcome of a monumental collaborative project." . Igor Krupnik, Smithsonian Institution In 1926/27 the Soviet Central Statistical Administration initiated several yearlong expeditions to gather primary data on the whereabouts, economy and living conditions of all rural peoples living in the Arctic and sub-Arctic at the end of the Russian civil war. Due partly to the enthusiasm of local geographers and ethnographers, the Polar Census grew into a massive ethnological exercise, gathering not only basic demographic and economic data on every household but also a rich archive of photographs, maps, kinship charts, narrative transcripts and museum artifacts. To this day, it remains one of the most comprehensive surveys of a rural population anywhere. The contributors to this volume - all noted scholars in their region - have conducted long-term fieldwork with the descendants of the people surveyed in 1926/27. This volume is the culmination of eight years' work with the primary record cards and was supported by a number of national scholarly funding agencies in the UK, Canada and Norway. It is a unique historical, ethnographical analysis and of immense value to scholars familiar with these communities' contemporary cultural dynamics and legacy."
In 1750 the Appalachian Mountains, passable only by foot or horseback, were both a border and formidable barrier between the English on the east and the French in the west. In 1751 a private Virginia company saw an opportunity in Ohio and pioneered a road from Maryland to Ohio; they were ready to challenge the French and Native Americans for the Ohio country. Several wars over the next few decades stalled the road, which didn't start in earnest until after Ohio became a state in 1803. Breaking the mountain barrier now seemed critical to ensure the new nation would remain united, not divided, by the mountains. The stone-paved Cumberland Road from Cumberland, Maryland to Wheeling, Virginia was complete by 1818 and saw its heyday over the next thirty years, plied by Conestoga wagons and stagecoaches. Technology was changing rapidly; the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the first general purpose railroad in the world, started in Baltimore in the 1820s and reached Wheeling by 1852. The Appalachian barrier had been broken by both road and rail, ensuring the east and west of the new nation would remain united. Hundreds of people labored over a century to open the west to settlement.
Memories of the German presence in the central Volta Region of Ghana are deep and vivid. This ethnically diverse area was part of the German Togoland colony from roughly 1884 to 1914 but German-speaking missionaries established stations earlier in the mid-nineteenth century. Ghanaian oral historians describe the violence, burdens, and inconveniences they associate with German rule, yet place greater emphasis on the introductions by German missionaries of Christianity and western education and the prevalence of what they say was the "honesty," "order," and "discipline" of the German colonial period. Remembering the Germans in Ghana examines this oral history, scrutinizes its sources and presentation, contextualizes it historically, and uses it to make larger arguments about memory and identity in Ghana. It also presents the case for more deliberate and extensive use of oral history in reconstructing the African colonial past and provides a methodology for its collection and analysis.
This book offers the first comprehensive overview in English of the history of sociology in what is today the Czech Republic. Divided into six chapters, it traces the institutional development of the discipline from the late 19th century until the present, with an emphasis on the periods most favorable for sociology's institutionalization: the interwar years, the 1960s and the post-1989 era. The narrative places the institutions, persons and ideas that have been central to the discipline into the broader social and political context. Marek Skovajsa and Jan Balon show that sociology in the Czech Republic has been wedded to the dominant political projects of each successive historical period: nation- and state-building until after WWII, the communist experiment in 1948-1989, liberal democratic reconstruction after 1989, and internationalization after 2000. This work will appeal to social scientists and to a general readership interested in Czech culture and society.
It's a cinematic image as familiar as John Wayne's face: a wagon train circling as a defensive maneuver against Indian attacks. This book examines actual and fictional wagon-train battles and compares them for realism. It also describes how fledgling Hollywood portrayed the concept of westward migration but, as the evolving industry became more accurate in historical detail, how filmmakers then lost sight of the big picture.
Yasutaro Soga's Life behind Barbed Wire (Tessaku seikatsu) is an exceptional firsthand account of the incarceration of a Hawai'i Japanese during World War II. On the evening of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Soga, the editor of a Japanese-language newspaper, was arrested along with several hundred other prominent Issei ( Japanese immigrants) in Hawai'i. After being held for six months on Sand Island, Soga was transferred to an Army camp in Lordsburg, New Mexico, and later to a Justice Department camp in Santa Fe. He would spend just under four years in custody before returning to Hawai'i in the months following the end of the war. Most of what has been written about the detention of Japanese Americans focuses on the Nisei experience of mass internment on the West Coast-largely because of the language barrier immigrant writers faced. This translation, therefore, presents us with a rare Issei voice on internment, and Soga's opinions challenge many commonly held assumptions about Japanese Americans during the war regarding race relations, patriotism, and loyalty. Although centered on one man's experience, Life behind Barbed Wire benefits greatly from Soga's trained eye and instincts as a professional journalist, which allowed him to paint a larger picture of those extraordinary times and his place in them. The Introduction by Tetsuden Kashima of the University of Washington and Foreword by Dennis Ogawa of the University of Hawai'i provide context for Soga's recollections based on the most current scholarship on the Japanese American internment.
"The Rise and Decline of the Redneck Riviera" traces the
development of the Florida-Alabama coast as a tourist destination
from the late 1920s and early 1930s, when it was sparsely populated
with "small fishing villages," through to the tragic and
devastating BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010.
On a September night in 1958, three New Orleans college students decided to entertain themselves in the French Quarter by "rolling a queer" and went looking for a gay man to assault. They chose Fernando Rios, a tourist from Mexico, who died from the beating he received. In perhaps the earliest example of the "gay panic" defense, the three defendants argued that they had no choice but to beat Rios because he had made an improper advance. When the jury acquitted them, the courtroom cheered. The author examines the murder and the trial in detail, and chronicles a time and place in American history where such a crime was inevitable.
Violence and community were intimately linked in the ancient world. While various aspects of violence have been long studied on their own (warfare, revolution, murder, theft, piracy), there has been little effort so far to study violence as a unified field and explore its role in community formation. This volume aims to construct such an agenda by exploring the historiography of the study of violence in antiquity, and highlighting a number of important paradoxes of ancient violence. It explores the forceful nexus between wealth, power and the passions by focusing on three major aspects that link violence and community: the attempts of communities to regulate and canalise violence through law, the constitutive role of violence in communal identities, and the ways in which communities dealt with violence in regards to private and public space, landscapes and territories. The contributions to this volume range widely in both time and space: temporally, they cover the full span from the archaic to the Roman imperial period, while spatially they extend from Athens and Sparta through Crete, Arcadia and Macedonia to Egypt and Israel.
'Russia's Penal Colony in the Far East: A Translation of Vlas Doroshevich's "Sakhalin"' is the first English language translation of the Russian journalist Vlas Doroshevich's 1903 account of his visit to tsarist Russia's largest penal colony, Sakhalin, in the north Pacific. |
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