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Books > Humanities > History > History of specific subjects
Mere decades after the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the promise of
European democracy seems to be out of joint. What has become of the
once-shared memory of victory over fascism? Historical revisionism
and nationalist propaganda in the post-Yugoslav context have tried
to eradicate the legacy of partisan and socialist struggles, while
Yugonostalgia commodifies the partisan/socialist past. It is
against these dominant 'archives' that this book launches the
partisan counter-archive, highlighting the symbolic power of
artistic works that echo and envision partisan legacy and rupture.
It comprises a body of works that emerged either during the
people's liberation struggle or in later socialist periods, tracing
a counter-archival surplus and revolutionary remainder that invents
alternative protocols of remembrance and commemoration. The book
covers rich (counter-)archival material - from partisan poems,
graphic works and photography, to monuments and films - and ends by
describing the recent revisionist un-doing of the partisan past. It
contributes to the Yugoslav politico-aesthetical "history of the
oppressed" as an alternative journey to the partisan past that
retrieves revolutionary resources from the past for the present.
The delineation and emergence of the Irish border radically
reshaped political and social realities across the entire island of
Ireland. For those who lived in close quarters with the border,
partition was also an intimate and personal occurrence, profoundly
implicated in everyday lives. Otherwise mundane activities such as
shopping, visiting family, or travelling to church were often
complicated by customs restrictions, security policies, and even
questions of nationhood and identity. The border became an
interface, not just of two jurisdictions, but also between the
public, political space of state territory, and the private,
familiar spaces of daily life. The effects of political disunity
were combined and intertwined with a degree of unity of everyday
social life that persisted and in some ways even flourished across,
if not always within, the boundaries of both states. On the border,
the state was visible to an uncommon degree - as uniformed agents,
road blocks, and built environment - at precisely the same point as
its limitations were uniquely exposed. For those whose worlds
continued to transcend the border, the power and hegemony of either
of those states, and the social structures they conditioned, could
only ever be incomplete. As a consequence, border residents lived
in circumstances that were burdened by inconvenience and
imposition, but also endowed with certain choices. Influenced by
microhistorical approaches, Unapproved Routes uses a series of
discrete 'histories' - of the Irish Boundary Commission, the Foyle
Fisheries dispute, cockfighting tournaments regularly held on the
border, smuggling, and local conflicts over cross-border roads - to
explore how the border was experienced and incorporated into
people's lives; emerging, at times, as a powerfully revealing site
of popular agency and action.
The Royal Navy had most of its greatest triumphs in the decades up
to 1815, but there has been relatively little study of its social
life and shipboard administration, beyond popular myth and
sensational accounts. This volume starts with the formal structure
of naval discipline, with Admiralty instructions and captains'
orderbooks. It then looks at how things really happened, using
diaries, medical journals, petitions, court martial reports and
even the menu book of a semi-literate steward. It reveals many
strong characters and colourful incidents of shipboard life, while
providing material for study.
Eva Tichauer was born in Berlin at the end of the First World War
into a socialist Jewish family. After a happy childhood in a
well-off intellectual milieu, the destiny of her family was turned
upside-down by the rise of Hitler in 1933. They emigrated to Paris
in July of that year, and life started to become difficult. Eva was
in her second year of medical studies in 1939 when war was
declared, with fatal consequences for her and her family: they sere
forced to the Spanish frontier, then returned to Paris to a flat
which had been searched by the Gestapo. Eva was then compelled to
break off her studies due to a quota system being imposed on Jewish
students.
Here is a fascinating compact history of Chinese political,
economic, and cultural life, ranging from the origins of
civilization in China to the beginning of the 21st century.
Historian Paul Ropp combines vivid story-telling with astute
analysis to shed light on some of the larger questions of Chinese
history. What is distinctive about China in comparison with other
civilizations? What have been the major changes and continuities in
Chinese life over the past four millennia? Offering a global
perspective, the book shows how China's nomadic neighbors to the
north and west influenced much of the political, military, and even
cultural history of China. Ropp also examines Sino-Indian
relations, highlighting the impact of the thriving trade between
India and China as well as the profound effect of Indian Buddhism
on Chinese life. Finally, the author discusses the humiliation of
China at the hands of Western powers and Japan, explaining how
these recent events have shaped China's quest for wealth, power and
respect today, and have colored China's perception of its own place
in world history.
This volume illuminates and critically assesses Paul A. Samuelson's
voluminous and groundbreaking contributions to the field of
economics. The volume includes contributions from eminent scholars,
including six Nobel Laureates, covering the extraordinary depth and
breadth of Samuelson's contributions.
The Second World War affected the lives and shaped the experience
of millions of individuals in Germany--soldiers at the front,
women, children and the elderly sheltering in cellars, slave
laborers toiling in factories, and concentration-camp prisoners and
POWs clearing rubble in the Reich's devastated cities.
Taking a "history from below" approach, the volume examines how
the minds and behaviour of individuals were moulded by the Party as
the Reich took the road to Total War. The ever-increasing numbers
of German workers conscripted into the Wehrmacht were replaced with
forced foreign workers and slave labourers and concentration camp
prisoners. The interaction in everyday life between German civilian
society and these coerced groups is explored, as is that society's
relationship to the Holocaust.
From early 1943, the war on the home front was increasingly
dominated by attack from the air. The role of the Party,
administration, police, and courts in providing for the vast
numbers of those rendered homeless, in bolstering civilian morale
with "miracle revenge weapons" propaganda, and in maintaining order
in a society in disintegration is reviewed in detail.
For society in uniform, the war in the east was one of ideology
and annihilation, with intensified indoctrination of the troops
after Stalingrad. The social profile of this army is analysed
through study of a typical infantry division. The volume concludes
with an account of the various forms of resistance to Hitler's
regime, in society and the military, culminating in the failed
attempt on his life in July 1944.
Founded in 1987 by a former engineer in China's People's Liberation
Army (Ren Zhengfei), Huawei Technologies is the world's largest
telecoms equipment manufacturer and second only to Apple in
smartphones. Its emergence into a multinational with over 175,000
employees all around the world is nothing short of extraordinary.
This book delves into the financial workings and systems within
Huawei - and the individuals whose craftsmanship and excellence
enabled Huawei to expand globally in such impressive terms. Their
personal stories tell us about the extraordinary vision,
dedication, and perseverance required for companies to establish a
robust financial system that supports the growth of a world-class
company. Huawei's goal is not just to have profitable income and
healthy cash flow. More important is that operating results are
sustainable.
Who were the Victorians? Were they self-confident imperialists
secure in the virtues of the home, and ruled by the values of
authority, duty, religion and respectability? Or were they
self-doubting and hypocritical prudes whose family life was
authoritarian and loveless? Ever since Lytton Strachey mocked
Florence Nightingale and General Gordon in Eminent Victorians, the
reputation of the Victorians, and of what they stood for, has been
the subject of vigorous debate.
John Gardiner provides a fascinating guide to the changing
reputation of the Victorians during the 20th century. Different
social, political, and aesthetic values, two world wars, youth
culture, nostalgia, new historical trends and the heritage industry
have all affected the way we see the age and its men and women. The
second half of the book shows how radically biographical accounts
have changed over the last 100 years, exemplified by four
archetypical Victorians: Charles Dickens, W.E. Gladstone, Oscar
Wilde, and Queen Victoria herself.
The City: A World History tells the story of the rise and
development of urban centers from ancient times to the twenty-first
century. It begins with the establishment of the first cities in
the Near East in the fourth millennium BCE, and goes on to examine
urban growth in the Indus River Valley in India, as well as Egypt
and areas that bordered the Mediterranean Sea. Athens, Alexandria,
and Rome stand out both politically and culturally. With the fall
of the Roman Empire in the West, European cities entered into a
long period of waning and deterioration. But elsewhere, great
cities-among them, Constantinople, Baghdad, Chang'an, and
Tenochtitlan-thrived. In the late Middle Ages and the Early Modern
period, urban growth resumed in Europe, giving rise to cities like
Florence, Paris, and London. This urban growth also accelerated in
parts of the world that came under European control, such as
Philadelphia in the nascent United States. As the Industrial
Revolution swept through in the nineteenth century, cities grew
rapidly. Their expansion resulted in a slew of social problems and
political disruptions, but it was accompanied by impressive
measures designed to improve urban life. Meanwhile, colonial cities
bore the imprint of European imperialism. Finally, the book turns
to the years since 1914, guided by a few themes: the impact of war
and revolution; urban reconstruction after 1945; migration out of
many cities in the United States into growing suburbs; and the
explosive growth of "megacities" in the developing world.
Although millions of Russians lived as serfs until the middle of
the nineteenth century, little is known about their lives.
Identifying and documenting the conditions of Russian serfs has
proven difficult because the Russian state discouraged literacy
among the serfs and censored public expressions of dissent. To date
scholars have identified only twenty known Russian serf narratives.
Four Russian Serf Narratives contains four of these accounts and is
the first translated collection of autobiographies by serfs.
Scholar and translator John MacKay brings to light for an
English-language audience a diverse sampling of Russian serf
narratives, ranging from an autobiographical poem to stories of
adventure and escape. Autobiography (1785) recounts a highly
educated serf s attempt to escape to Europe, where he hoped to
study architecture. The long testimonial poem News About Russia
(ca. 1849) laments the conditions under which the author and his
fellow serfs lived. In The Story of My Life and Wanderings (1881) a
serf tradesman tells of his attempt to simultaneously escape
serfdom and captivity from Chechen mountaineers. The fragmentary
Notes of a Serf Woman (1911) testifies to the harshness of peasant
life with extraordinary acuity and descriptive power. These
accounts offer readers a glimpse, from the point of view of the
serfs themselves, into the realities of one of the largest systems
of unfree labor in history. The volume also allows comparison with
slave narratives produced in the United States and elsewhere,
adding an important dimension to knowledge of the institution of
slavery and the experience of enslavement in modern times."
Introduced in 1918 as an award for bravery in the field, the
Military Medal was almost immediately open to women. During its 80
year existence, the Military Medal was awarded to women on only 146
occasions, the vast majority during the First World War. This
volume provides the definitive roll of recipients together with
citations, many of which were not available at the time, plus
service and biographical detail. Over 80% of the entries are
accompanied by a photograph. The vast majority of the recipients
were British, but the medal was open to women of all nationalities
and the names of French and United States recipients are recorded
together with allied personnel from the Empire.
This book traces the shift from medieval to modern institutions in
English agriculture. It explores their importance for productivity
growth, income distribution, and the contribution of agriculture to
British economic development. Robert C. Allen's pioneering study
shows that, contrary to the assumption of many historians,
small-scale farmers in the open-field system were responsible for a
considerable proportion of the productivity growth achieved between
the middle ages and the nineteenth century. The process of
enclosure and the replacement of these yeomen by large-scale tenant
farming relying on wage labour had relatively little impact on the
agricultural contribution to economic development during the
industrial revolution. Enclosures and large farms enriched
landowners without benefiting consumers, workers, or farmers.
Thoroughly grounded in the archival sources, and underpinned by
rigorous economic analysis, Enclosure and the Yeoman is a scholarly
and challenging reassessment of the history of English agriculture.
It will be indispensable reading for all historians concerned with
the making of modern Britain.
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