Nina Anisimova was born in 1909 in imperial St Petersburg. One of the most renowned character dancers of the Stalinist period, she won her way into the hearts of her audience over many decades. Yet few knew that her exemplary career was a fragile construct built atop a dark secret. In 1938, at the height of the Great Terror, Nina vanished. Only a handful of people knew that this famous dancer had not only been arrested by Secret Police as a Nazi Spy, but sentenced to forced labour in a camp in Kazakhstan. There, her art would become a salvation, giving her a reason to fight for her life when she found herself without winter clothes in temperatures of minus 40 degrees. Over the coming weeks, Nina's husband, Kostia Derzhavin, began to piece together what had happened to his wife. What he decided to do next was almost without precedent - to take on the ruthless Soviet state to prove her innocence. He would put himself in danger to save the woman he loved. Dancing for Stalin is a remarkable true story of suffering and injustice of courage, resilience and love.

The new edition of this accessible introduction to the history of the European Union (EU) has been fully revised and updated to reflect the significant changes within the EU over the past decade. Revealing the politics beneath the surface, national rivalries and changing positions behind events, meetings and treaty negotiations, the text: provides a thematic history of European economic and political integration in its economic, military, monetary and political contexts outlines the major schools of thought regarding the causes and motives for European economic integration including the theories of Lipgens, Haas and Milward considers the economic and political reasons for establishing supranational organisations evaluates the impact of the collapse of communism on the EU, its policy implications and member states' responses contains new and updated material on the Euro, enlargement of the EU, the constitutional debate, EU economic, monetary and foreign policies and other key recent developments. Ideal introductory reading for those new to the study of the EU seeking a concise and up-to-date account of the political and economic development of the EU, Origins & Development of the European Union is essential for all students of European politics, European history and those looking to gain a thorough understanding of contemporary politics.

The new edition of this accessible introduction to the history of the European Union (EU) has been fully revised and updated to reflect the significant changes within the EU over the past decade. Revealing the politics beneath the surface, national rivalries and changing positions behind events, meetings and treaty negotiations, the text:

• provides a thematic history of European economic and political integration in its economic, military, monetary and political contexts
• outlines the major schools of thought regarding the causes and motives for European economic integration including the theories of Lipgens, Haas and Milward
• considers the economic and political reasons for establishing supranational organisations
• evaluates the impact of the collapse of communism on the EU, its policy implications and member states? responses
• contains new and updated material on the Euro, enlargement of the EU, the constitutional debate, EU economic, monetary and foreign policies and other key recent developments.

Ideal introductory reading for those new to the study of the EU seeking a concise and up-to-date account of the political and economic development of the EU, Origins & Development of the European Union is essential for all students of European politics, European history and those looking to gain a thorough understanding of contemporary politics.

The Baltic Russian debates on the past have become a hot spot of European memory politics. Violent protests and international tensions accompanying the removal of the "Bronze Soldier" monument, which commemorated the Soviet liberation of Tallinn in 1944, from the city centre in April 2007 have demonstrated the political impact that contested sites of memory may still reveal.

In this publication, collective memories that are related to major traits of the 20th century in North Eastern Europe the Holocaust, Nazi and Soviet occupation and (re-)emerging nationalisms are examined through a prism of different approaches. They comprise reflections on national templates of collective memory, the political use of history, cultural and political aspects of war memorials, and recent discourses on the Holocaust. Furthermore, places of memory in architecture and urbanism are addressed and lead to the question of which prospects common, trans-national forms of memory may unfold.

After decades of frozen forms of commemoration under Soviet hegemony, the Baltic case offers an interesting insight into collective memory and history politics and their linkage to current political and inter-ethnic relationships. The past seems to be remembered differently in the European peripheries than it is in its centre. Europe is diverse and so are its memories.

This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Baltic Studies.

Traces the dynamics of state-building in Juba, Southern Sudan 2005-2011, revealing how underlying ties of ethnicity and land dominated the actions of the various parties in post-conflict reconstruction and how these may continue to influence power and resource-sharing in the newly independent state of South Sudan. Naseem Badiey examines the local dynamics of the emerging capital city of Juba, Southern Sudan, during the historically pivotal transition period following the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). Focusing on the intersections of land tenure reform and urban development, she challenges the dominant paradigm of 'post-conflict reconstruction' and re-conceptualizes state-building as a social process underpinned by negotiation. Badiey explores local resistance to reconstruction programmes, debates over the interpretation of peace settlements, and competing claims to land and resources not as problems to be solved through interventions but as negotiations of authority which are fundamental to shaping the character of the 'state'. While donors and aid agency officials anticipated clashes between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) following the CPA, they did not foresee internal divisions that impeded reconstruction in Southern Sudan, raising serious questions about the viability of an independent state. In Juba local elites interpreted the CPA in line with their economic and political interests, using claims to land, authority and political power to challenge the SPLM's agenda for urban reconstruction. In revealing how local actors strategically interpreted the framework of land rights in Southern Sudan, the book offers a basis for understanding the challenges that confront the nascent South Sudan's state-builders and their international partners in the future. NASEEM BADIEY is Assistant Professor of International Development andHumanitarian Action at California State University Monterey Bay.

Red Money for the Global South explores the relationship of the East with the "new" South after decolonization, with a particular focus on the economic motives of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) and other parties that were all striving for mutual cooperation. During the Cold War, the CMEA served as a forum for discussions on common policy initiatives inside the so-called "Eastern Bloc" and for international interactions. This text analyzes the economic relationship of the East with the "new" South through three main research questions. Firstly, what was the motivation for cooperation? Secondly, what insights can be derived from CMEA negotiations about intrabloc and East-South relations alike? And finally, which mutual dependencies between East and South developed over time? The combination of analytical narrative and engagement with primary archival material from former CMEA states, and India as the most prestigious among the former European colonies, makes this text essential reading for students and instructors of Cold War history, Economic History, and international relations more generally.

In the summer of 2008, a conflict that appeared to have begun in the breakaway Georgian territory of South Ossetia rapidly escalated to become the most significant crisis in European security in a decade. The implications of the Russian-Georgian war will be understood differently depending on one's narrative of what transpired and perspective on the broader context. This book is designed to present the facts about the events of August 2008 along with comprehensive coverage of the background to those events. It brings together a wealth of expertise on the South Caucasus and Russian foreign policy, with contributions by Russian, Georgian, European, and American experts on the region.

Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday was published in 2005 to a great fanfare. The book portrays Mao as a monster ? equal to or worse than Hitler and Stalin ? and a fool who won power by native cunning and ruled by terror. It received a rapturous welcome from reviewers in the popular press and rocketed to the top of the worldwide bestseller list. Few works on China by writers in the West have achieved its impact.

Reviews by serious China scholars, however, tended to take a different view. Most were sharply critical, questioning its authority and the authors? methods, arguing that Chang and Halliday's book is not a work of balanced scholarship, as it purports to be, but a highly selective and even polemical study that sets out to demonise Mao.

This book brings together sixteen reviews of Mao: The Unknown Story ? all by internationally well-regarded specialists in modern Chinese history, and published in relatively specialised scholarly journals. Taken together they demonstrate that Chang and Halliday's portrayal of Mao is in many places woefully inaccurate. While agreeing that Mao had many faults and was responsible for some disastrous policies, they conclude that a more balanced picture is needed.

In the summer of 2008, a conflict that appeared to have begun in the breakaway Georgian territory of South Ossetia rapidly escalated to become the most significant crisis in European security in a decade. The implications of the Russian-Georgian war will be understood differently depending on one's narrative of what transpired and perspective on the broader context. This book is designed to present the facts about the events of August 2008 along with comprehensive coverage of the background to those events. It brings together a wealth of expertise on the South Caucasus and Russian foreign policy, with contributions by Russian, Georgian, European, and American experts on the region.

Recent years have seen a re-examination of Britain's imperialist past, with changes to how its citizens understand, study and scrutinize its history. In Britain's Contested History, eminent historian Bernard Porter explores the most contested aspects of British history from 1800 to the present day. Examining issues such as Brexit, recent reassessments of Winston Churchill's historical record, the so-called 'culture wars' and Britain's uncomfortable reckoning with its imperial past, the book reconsiders what it means to be a "patriot" in Britain.

A critical examination of post-colonial Indian history-writing.

In the years preceding formal Independence from British colonial rule, Indians found themselves responding to the panorama of sin and suffering that constituted the modern present in a variety of imaginative ways. This book is a critical analysis of the uses made of India 's often millennial past by nationalist ideologues who sought a specific solution to India 's predicament on its way to becoming a post-colonial state. From independence to the present, it considers the competing visions of India 's liberation from her apocalyptical present to be found in the thinking of Gandhi, V. D. Savarkar, Nehru and B. R. Ambedkar as well as V. S. Naipaul and Salman Rushdie. It examines some of the archetypal elements in historical consciousness that find their echo in often brutal unhistorical ways in everyday life.

This book is a valuable resource for researchers interested in South Asian History, Historiography or Theory of History, Cultural Studies, English Literature, Post Colonial Writing and Literary Criticism.

The rise of proxy wars, the Space Race, and cybernetics during the Cold War marked science and technology as vital sites of social and political power. Women artists, historically excluded from these domains, responded critically, while simultaneously redeploying the products of "Technological Society" into works that promoted ideals of progress and alternative concepts of human community. In this innovative book, author Christine Filippone offers the first focused examination of the conceptual use of science and technology by women artists during and just after the women's movement. She argues that artists Alice Aycock, Agnes Denes, Martha Rosler and Carolee Schneemann used science and technology to mount a critique on Cold War American society as they saw it-conservative and constricting. Motivated by the contemporary American Women's Movement, these artists transformed science and technology into new modes of artmaking that transgressed modernist, heroic, painterly styles and subverted the traditional economic structures of the gallery, the museum and the dealer. At the same time, the artists also embraced these domains of knowledge and practice as expressions of hope for a better future. Many found inspiration in the scientific theory of open systems, which investigated "problems of wholeness, dynamic interaction and organization", enabling consideration of the porous boundaries between human bodies and their social, political and nonhuman environments. Filippone also establishes that the theory of open systems not only informed feminist art, but also continued to influence women artists' practice of reclamation and ecological art through the twenty-first century.

This book deals with the genesis, outbreak and far-reaching effects of a legal controversy and the resulting outbreak of mass violence, which determined the course of British colonial rule after post World War Two in Singapore and Malaya. Based on extensive archival sources, it examines the custody hearing of Maria Hertogh, a case which exposed tensions between Malay and Singaporean Muslims and British colonial society. Investigating the wide-ranging effects and crises faced in the aftermath of the riots, the analysis focuses in particular on the restoration of peace and rebuilding of society.

The author provides a nuanced and sophisticated understanding of British management of riots and mass violence in Southeast Asia. By exploring the responses by non-British communities in Singapore, Malaya and the wider Muslim world to the Maria Hertogh controversy, he shows that British strategies and policies can be better understood through the themes of resistance and collaboration. Furthermore, the book argues that British enactment of laws pertaining to the management of religions in the post-war period had dispossessed religious minorities of their perceived religious rights. As a result, outbreaks of mass violence and continual grievances ensued in the final years of British colonial rule in Southeast Asia - and these tensions still pertain in the present.

This book will be of interest to scholars and students of law and society, history, Imperial History and Asian Studies, and to anyone studying minorities, and violence and recovery.

A vigorous and timely defense of the state as a force for good For decades now wealth and power have been shifting from states to markets. This experiment has been a failure for all but a privileged few. But this trend is beginning to reverse, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has seen the state play the most direct and positive role in citizens' everyday lives in living memory. Graeme Garrard makes a powerful case for the state as our only realistic hope of countering the rising power of multinational corporations, organized crime, and international organizations that will always put their own interests first. Today the state is essential to the health and welfare of everyone except the rich and powerful. Yet it is being rolled back and whittled away, leaving the well-being of most of us at the mercy of unaccountable private powers that are increasingly free from external control. As Garrard shows, the state is the only realistic way of promoting the public good in our time.

In autumn 1989 the world watched transfixed as East German citizens, demonstrating under the banner 'We are the people!', staged the only successful, totally peaceful revolution in German history. By October 1990, the process of reunification was formally concluded, bringing together a nation that had been divided for almost four decades. Now, nearly twenty years later, it is possible to judge the causes and consequences of the revolution more clearly. Was the fall of the Berlin Wall an unexpected fluke, or was it, in fact, the result of a long process of engagement between East and West? And did the momentous events of 1989 really signal the start of a bright new future for a united Germany? In this probing and wide-ranging account, Lothar Kettenacker considers the background behind the division of Germany and explains how the Berlin Wall and its death trap border proved to be the most horrendous manifestation of East-West antagonism. He also looks beyond 1990 to show how the confusion caused by the sudden collapse of the GDR and the fusion of two radically different economies is proving to be a challenge that will preoccupy Germany for generations to come.

American Soldiers in Iraq offers a unique snapshot of American soldiers in Iraq, analyzing their collective narratives in relation to the military sociology tradition.

Grounded in a century-long tradition of sociology offering a window into the world of American soldiers, this volume serves as a voice for their experience. It provides the reader with both a generalized and a deep view into a major social institution in American society and its relative constituents-the military and soldiers-during a war. In so doing, the book gives a backstage insight into the U.S. military and into the experiences and attitudes of soldiers during their most extreme undertaking-a forward deployment in Iraq while hostilities are intense.

The author triangulates qualitative and quantitative field data collected while residing with soldiers in Iraq, comparing and contrasting various groups from officers to enlisted soldiers, as well as topics such as boredom, morale, preparation for war, day-to-day life in Iraq, attitudes, women soldiers, communication with the home-front, "McDonaldization" of the force, civil-military fusion, the long-term impact of war, and, finally, the socio-demographics of fatalities. The heart of American Soldiers in Iraq captures the experiences of American soldiers deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom at the height of the conflict in a way unprecedented in the literature to date.

This book will be essential reading for students of military studies, sociology, American politics and the Iraq War, as well as being of much interest to informed general readers.

In the 1960s, for at least a brief moment, Montreal became what seemed an unlikely centre of Black Power and the Caribbean left. In October 1968 the Congress of Black Writers at McGill University brought together well-known Black thinkers and activists from Canada, the United States, Africa, and the Caribbean--people like C.L.R. James, Stokely Carmichael, Miriam Makeba, Rocky Jones, and Walter Rodney. Within months of the Congress, a Black-led protest at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia) exploded on the front pages of newspapers across the country--raising state security fears about Montreal as the new hotbed of international Black radical politics.

In 2000 a beheaded journalist was found in a remote forest near Kyiv. The corpse led to a scandal when it was revealed that it was that of a journalist critical of the authorities. The President was heard on tapes, made covertly in his office, ordering violence to be undertaken against the journalist. The scandal led to the creation of a wide protest movement that culminated in the victory of democratic opposition parties in 2002. The democratic opposition, led by its presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko, fought a bitter and fraudulent election campaign in 2004 during which he was poisoned. Widespread election fraud led to Europe's largest protest movement since the Cold War which became known as the Orange Revolution, known after the campaign colour of the democratic opposition. This book is the first to provide a collection of studies surveying different aspects of the rise of the Ukraine's democratic opposition from marginalization, to protest against presidential abuse of office and culminating in the Orange Revolution. It integrates the Kuchmagate crisis of 2000-2001 with that of the Orange Revolution four years later providing a rich, detailed and original study of the origins of the Orange Revolution. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics.

This book examines the Third Chinese Revolutionary Civil War of 1945-1949, which resulted in the victory of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over Chiang Kaishek and the Guomindang (GMD) and the founding of The People's Republic of China in 1949. It provides a military and strategic history of how the CCP waged and ultimately won the war, the transformation its armed forces and how the Communist leadership interacted with each other.

Whereas most explanations of the CCP's eventual victory focus on the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-45, when the revolution was supposedly won as a result of the communists' invention of "peasant nationalism," this book shows that the outcome of the revolution was not a foregone conclusion in 1945. It explains how the eventual victory of the communists resulted from important strategic decisions taken on both sides, in particular the remarkable transformation of the communist army from an insurgent / guerrilla force into a conventional army. The book also explores how the hierarchy of The People's Republic of China developed during the war. It shows how Mao's power was based as much on his military acumen as his political thought, above all his role in formulating and implementing a successful military strategy in the war of 1945-49.

It also describes how other important figures, such as Lin Biao, Deng Xiaoping, Nie Rongzhen, Liu Shaoqi and Chen Yi, made their reputations during the conflict; and reveals the inner workings of the first political-military elite of the PRC. Overall, this book is an important resource for anyone seeking to understand the origins and early history of The People's Republic of China, the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army.

This volume is a detailed account of President Clinton's foreign policy during 1992-2000, covering the main substantive issues of his administration, including Iraq, Bosnia and Kosovo. The book emphasizes Clinton's adaptation of the elder Bush's 'New World Order' outlook and his relationship to the younger Bush's 'Americanistic' foreign policy. In doing so, it discusses in detail such key policy areas as foreign economic policy; humanitarian interventionism; policy towards Russia and China, and towards European and other allies; defence priorities; international terrorism; and peacemaking. Overall, the author judges that Clinton managed to develop an American foreign policy approach that was appropriate for the domestic and international conditions of the post-Cold War era. This book will be of great interest to students of Clinton's administration, US foreign policy, international security and IR in general. John Dumbrell is Professor of Government at Durham University. He specialises in the study of US foreign policy.

This book explores rural political change in China from 1850 to 1949 to help us understand China's transformation from a weak, decaying agrarian empire to a unified, strong nation-state during this period. Based on local gazetteers, contemporary field studies, government archives, personal memoirs and other primary sources, it systematically compares two key macro-regions of rural China - the North China plain and the Yangzi delta - to demonstrate the ways in which the forces of political change, shaped by different local conditions, operated to transform the country. It shows that on the North China plain, the village community composed mainly of owner-cultivators was the focal point for political mobilization, whilst in the Yangzi delta absentee landlordism was exploited by the state for local control and tax extraction. However, these both set the stage, in different ways, for the communist mobilization in the first half of the twentieth century. Peasants and Revolution in Rural China is an important addition to the literature on the history of the Chinese Revolution, and will be of interest to anyone seeking to understand the course of Chinese social and political development.

This book examines the social and cultural impact of the 'thaw' in Cold War relations, decision-making and policy formation in the Soviet Union under Nikita Khrushchev. It highlights the fact that many of the reform initiatives generally associated with Khrushchev personally, and with his period of office more generally, often had their roots in the Stalin period both in their content and in the ways in which they were implemented. Individual case studies explore key aspects of Khrushchev's period of office, including the introduction of the 1961 Communist Party Programme and popular responses to it, housing policy, the opening up of the Soviet Union to the West during the 1957 youth festival, public consultation campaigns and policy implementation in education and family law, the boost given to voluntary organisations such as women's councils and the trade unions, the reshaping of the internal Soviet security apparatus, the emergence of political dissent and the nature of civil-military relations as reflected in the events of the workers' uprising in Novocherkassk in 1962. The findings offer an important new perspective on the Khrushchev era.

In 1835, Lord Brougham founded Cannes, introducing bathing and the manicured lawn to the wilds of the Mediterranean coast. Today, much of that shore has become a concrete mass from which escape is an exclusive dream. In the 185 years between, the stretch of seaboard from the red mountains of the Esterel to the Italian border hosted a cultural phenomenon well in excess of its tiny size. A mere handful of towns and resorts created by foreign visitors - notably English, Russian and American - attracted the talented, rich and famous as well as those who wanted to be. For nearly two centuries of creativity, luxury, excess, scandal, war and corruption, the dark and sparkling world of the Riviera was a temptation for everybody who was anybody. Often frivolous, it was also a potent cultural matrix that inspired the likes of Picasso, Matisse, Coco Chanel, Scott Fitzgerald, Cole Porter, James Baldwin, Catherine Mansfield, Sartre and Stravinsky. In Once Upon a Time World, Jonathan Miles presents the remarkable story of the small strip of French coast that lured the world to its shores. It is a wild and unforgettable tale that follows the Riviera's transformation from paradise and wilderness to a pollution imperilled concrete jungle.

The life, crimes and bloody end of John 'Goldfinger' Palmer were straight out of a Hollywood blockbuster - and Marnie Palmer, his wife of forty years, had a front row seat. The poor Solihull lad, whose childhood home was so cold the goldfish froze, fought his way up to a lifestyle of private jets, yachts and Ferraris, thanks to a home-made gold smelter in his back garden and a multi-million-pound timeshare empire. By the turn of the millennium, Palmer was 105th on the Sunday Times Rich List, but Goldfinger had a long list of enemies. In Goldfinger and Me, his widow Marnie shares her unique insight into his roller coaster life, from dealing scrap in Bristol, to the Brink's-Mat raid that changed their lives - ending with his downfall of betrayals, jail stints and his still unsolved assassination.

Political violence and instability in the Middle East is arguably the world's most important political issue. The region is certainly the globe's leading area for turmoil, war, and violence; and its conflicts have continuously involved Western countries both directly and indirectly. This book surveys the main conflicts and insurgencies in recent Middle East history, focusing mainly on the period since the 1980s. Taking a historical-analytical approach, it covers challenges from revolutionary groups, civil wars, and the main conventional wars in the region. In addition to providing detailed narratives, the contributors also analyse the lessons for political and military affairs stemming from these conflicts. Conflict and Insurgency in the Contemporary Middle East assembles for the first time detailed studies of the Iran-Iraq, Israel-Hizballah, and the two Coalition-Iraq wars, along with analyses of a number of insurgencies. Assessing successes and failures, strategy and tactics, and changes in military technologies, the book will be of great interest to students of Middle Eastern politics, insurgencies, security studies and International Relations in general, as well as policymakers and military professionals.