In 1950s Paris, Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld were friends, the rising stars of the fashion world. But by the late sixties, the city was invaded by a new mood of liberation and hedonism, and dominated by intrigue, infidelities, addiction and parties. Each designer created his own mesmerizing world, so vivid and seductive that people were drawn to the power, charisma and fame, and it was to make them bitter rivals. "The Beautiful Fall" is a dazzling expose of an era and the story of the two men who were its essence and who remain its most singular survivors.

A powerful biography of Spain's great king, Juan Carlos, by the pre-eminent writer on 20th-century Spanish history. There are two central mysteries in the life of Juan Carlos, one personal, the other political.The first is the apparent serenity with which he accepted that his father had surrendered him, to all intents and purposes, into the safekeeping of the Franco regime. In any normal family, this would have been considered a kind of cruelty or, at the very least, baleful negligence. But a royal family can never be normal, and the decision to send the young Juan Carlos away from Spain was governed by a certain 'superior' dynastic logic. The second mystery lies in how a prince raised in a family with the strictest authoritarian traditions, who was obliged to conform to the Francoist norms during his youth and educated to be a cornerstone of the plans for the reinforcement of the dictatorship, eventually sided so emphatically and courageously with democratic principles. Paul Preston - perhaps the greatest living commentator on modern Spain - has set out to address these mysteries, and in so doing has written the definitive biography of King Juan Carlos. He tackles the king's turbulent relationship with his father, his cloistered education, his bravery in defending Spain's infant democracy after Franco's death and his immense hard work in consolidating parliamentary democracy in Spain. The resulting biography is both rigorous and riveting, its vibrant prose doing justice to its vibrant subject. It is a book fit for a king.

Perhaps the twentieth century's most revered presidents, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan could not seem more different as standard-bearers of liberal and conservative revolutions. But, as John Sloan demonstrates, they were more similar than most people suppose.

One rising out of the Great Depression and the self-defeating efforts of Herbert Hoover, the other out of the malaise of the 1970s and the failings of Jimmy Carter, both these presidents entered office with a mandate for change and oversaw a quantum shift in the national psyche. And while everyone takes their clashing visions for granted, Sloan demonstrates that these two very different presidents shared an ability to replace exhausted old leadership with a genuinely new vision.

FDR and Reagan is a study of how old regimes unravel, how new ones are constructed, and how the political system is rejuvenated. Adapting noted presidential scholar Stephen Skowronek's framework, Sloan analyzes how two iconic "reconstructive" presidents redefined the country's fundamental philosophy, priorities, and policies as he weighs their similarities, differences, and impacts. He compares their lives, core policies, and leadership traits and shows that today's politics and policies are still heavily influenced by these key presidencies.

Each of these men transformed the way Americans thought about the legitimate role of government, whether providing more security for citizens or stepping back from federal regulation. But, as Sloan reminds us, the new order never totally destroys the old-reconstructive presidents never completely eradicate the ideas and programs associated with the regime they replaced. Big business survived the New Deal, just as the welfare state weathered the Reagan Revolution.

As with other transformative presidents before them, the words and deeds of FDR and Reagan have taken on nearly mythical significance; yet Americans remain torn between the economic security offered by one and the economic freedom championed by the other. Sloan's book helps readers see through this contradiction and better understand the decisive role of presidents in promoting national progress.

The Bear Went Over the Mountain is a collection of vignettes written by Soviet junior officers describing their experiences fighting the Mujahideen guerrillas. The material was originally collected and published by the Frunze Combined Arms Staff College to serve as a text on combat against a guerrilla force in mountain-desert terrain. It was originally intended for internal use only and as such provides examples of both good and bad military practice. The hard lessons learned are not specifically 'Russian' in nature and many of the same mistakes and successes would apply equally to the American Army in Vietnam. Indeed, the knowledge gained from these reports should also apply to future conflicts involving civil war, guerrilla forces and rugged terrain.
This is not a history of the Soviet-Afghan War, but rather a series of snapshots of combat as seen by young platoon leaders, company commanders, battalion commanders and military advisers. It is an intimate look at the boring, brutal business of counterinsurgency punctuated by moments of heady excitement and terror.
Colonel Grau, the editor and translator, has added his own commentary to produce a useful guide for commanders to meet the challenges of this kind of war and to help keep his fellow soldiers alive. This book will also be of interest to the historian and general reader, who will discover that advances in technology have had little impact on this kind of war, and that many of the same tactics the British Army used on the Northwest Frontier still apply today.

This new Companion provides a wealth of information on the history of Germany since the Second World War including much material which is not readily available. Throughout, equal attention is devoted to East and West Germany and covers political, social, cultural, and economic developments. The author provides information on, for example, political parties and office-holders; living standards, crime and the environment; Germany's relationship with the European Union; and East Germany up to 1990. Attention is also devoted to topical issues such as opposition and dissent in the East, terrorism, neo-nazism and racial violence. An essential reference book for anyone studying, or teaching, postwar Germany in history or politics departments.

China Under Communism examines how Marxism took root, flourished and developed within the context of an ancient Chinese civilization.
Through analysis of China's history and traditional culture, the author explores the nature of Chinese communism and how it has diverged from the Soviet model. This book also provides insight into the changing perceptions Westerners have of the Chinese, and vice versa.
Key features include:
* assessment of controversial issues: The Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution and Mao's record
* coverage of gender and family, ethnicity, nationalism, and popular culture
* long historical context.
This timely evaluation details how China's political and economic policies have been inextricably linked, and assesses past failures and successes, as well as major problems for the future.

France's liberation was expected to trigger a decisive break both with the Vichy regime and with the pre-war Third Republic. What happened, over three crucial years (1944-47), was an untidy patchwork of unplanned continuities and false starts - along with fresh departures that defined France's future for the next half-century. Prepared by an international team of specialists, "The Uncertain Foundation" analyses a complex process of regime change, economic renewal, social transformation, and adjustment to a fast-evolving world.

In the early 1990s, Albania, arguably Europe's most closed and repressive state, began a startling transition out of forty years of self-imposed Communist isolation. Albanians who were not allowed to practice religion, travel abroad, wear jeans, or read "decadent" Western literature began to devour the outside world. They opened cafes, companies, and newspapers. Previously banned rock music blared in the streets. Modern Albania offers a vivid history of the Albanian Communist regime's fall and the trials and tribulations that led the country to become the state it is today. The book provides an in-depth look at the Communists' last Politburo meetings and the first student revolts, the fall of the Stalinist regime, the outflows of refugees, the crash of the massive pyramid-loan schemes, the war in neighboring Kosovo, and Albania's relationship with the United States. Fred Abrahams weaves together personal experience from more than twenty years of work in Albania, interviews with key Albanians and foreigners who played a role in the country's politics since 1990-including former Politburo members, opposition leaders, intelligence agents, diplomats, and founders of the Kosovo Liberation Army-and a close examination of hundreds of previously secret government records from Albania and the United States. A rich, narratively-driven account, Modern Albania gives readers a front-row seat to the dramatic events of the last battle of Cold War Europe.

Just before Christmas 1989, a small group of armed fighters crossed a narrow river marking the frontier with Sierra Leone, and entered the West African state of Liberia. The civil war which followed plunged the African continent's oldest republic into a long and agonising nightmare, during which the country was torn apart and its people brutalised by terror, violence and bloodshed. The war promised to liberate Liberians after almost ten years of vicious dictatorship under President Samuel Doe; instead, as the first shots were fired, the seeds of Liberia's devastation were sown.
Mark Huband's account of the conflict, which begins a few days after the original incursion, is a moving and dramatic portrayal of the war as it unfolded. His extensive research and access to key figures in the conflict, together with a wealth of poignant and disturbing eye-witness detail, provide a fascinating portrait of Doe, his US-backed rule, and the enemies he made. Vivid and often harrowing, the book draws upon the author's experience of living among the fighters, the leaders and the terrorised population as they witnessed the growing horror of the conflict in which they had become trapped.

Just before Christmas 1989, a small group of armed fighters crossed a narrow river marking the frontier with Sierra Leone, and entered the West African state of Liberia. The civil war which followed plunged the African continent's oldest republic into a long and agonising nightmare, during which the country was torn apart and its people brutalised by terror, violence and bloodshed. The war promised to liberate Liberians after almost ten years of vicious dictatorship under President Samuel Doe; instead, as the first shots were fired, the seeds of Liberia's devastation were sown.
Mark Huband's account of the conflict, which begins a few days after the original incursion, is a moving and dramatic portrayal of the war as it unfolded. His extensive research and access to key figures in the conflict, together with a wealth of poignant and disturbing eye-witness detail, provide a fascinating portrait of Doe, his US-backed rule, and the enemies he made. Vivid and often harrowing, the book draws upon the author's experience of living among the fighters, the leaders and the terrorised population as they witnessed the growing horror of the conflict in which they had become trapped.

A successful lawyer, child welfare advocate, health care activist, and the first First Lady elected to the U.S. Senate, Hillary Rodham Clinton has become one of the most iconic women in America today. This accessible biography explores her childhood and undergraduate political activism, and her work toward positive legislation for families, the elderly, and international women's issues--as a governor's wife, and later as a first lady. The final portions of the book are devoted to her two terms as a New York senator and her decision to run for president in 2008. One of the most current Hillary Clinton biographies at the high school level, this volume offers an insightful look into the life of a modern American icon and the role of women in politics today. This volume explores: Her family background and strict upbringing The political activism of her college years Her marriage to Bill Clinton and her promotion of education policy as a governor's wife Her advocation of health care reform as First Lady, amidst media battles and scandal accusations Her senate terms and potential presidential nomination. Rounded out through photos, a timeline, a bibliography, and an index, this volume will appeal to general readers as well as students of women's issues, current events, and political science.

This latest of many Grenadian-inspired books provides a useful supplement to the exclusively Grenadian-oriented volumes of recent years. Six of the articles represent conflicting interpretations of Maurice Bishop's New Jewel Movement and the US invasion of 1983. . . Formats and foci for the other Caribbean pieces vary, but they establish clearly that domestic, not external forces are what shape political development in the Caribbean, making arguments regarding Grenada's (or Cuba's) threat to the region less credible. . . . . The] editors put the events in Grenada in perspective, a task that has long been overdue. For all levels.

"Choice"

"The Caribbean After Grenada" examines the major political and economic developments in the Caribbean since the events of October 1983 in Grenada. The contributors represent a range of ideological viewpoints--from neo-Marxist to conservative--and thus offer an unusually balanced and informed discussion of the lessons of Grenada and the problems of revolution, conflict, and democracy faced by contemporary Caribbean societies. Coverage is extremely broad in scope and encompasses all geographic regions, from the islands furthest out in Atlantic to the Central American Republics, all major regime types, and all cultural/linguistic areas. An ideal supplemental text for courses on comparative politics, the Caribbean, and economic development, this volume brings a much needed historical perspective to the study of events since the Grenada crisis.

The six newly independent Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union - Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan - have redefined the Middle East, creating a region of interest for both the international community and the neighbouring states who have had to adjust their policies to the possible ramifications, new opportunities and novel challenges. The emergence of Muslim republics has been part of a larger transformation experienced by the Middle East in the 1990s. The main purpose of this volume is to examine the impact of the transformation on the Middle East, with special emphasis placed on the republics' relations with Turkey and Iran - the two countries closest to and most actively involved in the Muslim republics of Central Asia and Transcaucasia. The ability of Middle Eastern states to influence the republics is still questionable - regional relationships between the Middle East and Central Asia have (re)emerged only in the 1990s - but their independence has had profound implications for the Middle East itself.

The six newly independent Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union - Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan - have redefined the Middle East, creating a region of interest for both the international community and the neighbouring states who have had to adjust their policies to the possible ramifications, new opportunities and novel challenges. The emergence of Muslim republics has been part of a larger transformation experienced by the Middle East in the 1990s. The main purpose of this volume is to examine the impact of the transformation on the Middle East, with special emphasis placed on the republics' relations with Turkey and Iran - the two countries closest to and most actively involved in the Muslim republics of Central Asia and Transcaucasia. The ability of Middle Eastern states to influence the republics is still questionable - regional relationships between the Middle East and Central Asia have (re)emerged only in the 1990s - but their independence has had profound implications for the Middle East itself.

In the Introduction, the editor gives an historical overview of the tradition of the political involvement of intellectuals in these countries, especially in the 19th Century. The chapters which follow describe the typical political and social attitude of Central European intellectuals, including writers, poets, artists, and scientists.

The challenges that vex the United States today in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere are not altogether as new and unique as they seem. U.S. involvement in Central America during the 1980s clearly demonstrated the costs, risks, and limits to intervention and the use of force in internal conflicts. Much can be learned today about the nature of irregular warfare from the experiences of the United States and the other protagonists in Central America during the final phase of the Cold War. The U.S. perceived a threat to national security in these wars from determined insurgents with a compelling revolutionary ideology and powerful allies that linked them to other conflicts around the world. This strategy and policy analysis makes a new contribution to irregular warfare theory through an examination of the origins, strategic dynamics, and termination of the Sandinista insurrection in Nicaragua, the decade long counterinsurgency of the Salvadoran government against the FMLN guerrillas, and the concurrent Contra insurgency against the Sandinistas. Many of the lessons about the fundamental and recurring nature of irregular warfare are being rediscovered in the current challenges of radical Islam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, despite the great differences in circumstance, culture, and geography. In the Central American case, three successive Presidents encountered serious domestic controversy over U.S. policies and refrained from sending U.S. combat troops to intervene directly. Most importantly, they prudently heeded warnings that internal wars of all types are rarely subject to military solutions, because their natures are equally and fundamentally political. Greentree presents hisargument as a strategy and policy case study of the civil wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador during the final decade of the Cold War. The book comprises an examination of the origins, strategic dynamics, and termination of these wars from the points of view of the main participants--Nicaragua, El Salvador, Cuba, the Soviet Union, and the United States. It also develops a general conceptual framework for understanding the nature of insurgency, counterinsurgency, revolution, and intervention that builds on classic strategic theory and contemporary thought on irregular warfare. From the perspective of global superpower conflict, the wars in Central America were peripheral "small wars" or "low intensity conflicts." However, for the internal protagonists these were total and bloody wars for survival. Involvement in such wars has been cyclical in the U.S. experience, and it is misfortunate, if not tragic, that the greatly similar problems encountered across widely varying circumstances are quickly forgotten.

The transition to sustainable development will test government and democracy in a fundamentally radical way. There is probably no such end state as truly sustainable development. So the pathways towards it are endless. In any case, like a mirage, sustainable development will metamorphose like a more distant goal as it is approached.
This series of essays looks at three elements of sustainable development in terms of the institutional challenge they pose, and from the viewpoint of five European Union Member States.

The transition to sustainable development will test government and democracy in a fundamentally radical way. There is probably no such end state as truly sustainable development. So the pathways towards it are endless. In any case, like a mirage, sustainable development will metamorphose like a more distant goal as it is approached.
This series of essays looks at three elements of sustainable development in terms of the institutional challenge they pose, and from the viewpoint of five European Union Member States.

Why did NATO expand its membership during the Cold War years, and what was its attraction to new members? This book locates the answers to these questions not solely in the Cold War, but in the historical problems of international order in Europe and the growing idea of the West. A wide range of sources is used, and the analysis looks at a process of neo-enlargement during NATO's inception as well as the formal accessions that followed.

GorbacheV's reforms in domestic and foreign policy were motivated by the overriding objective of making Soviet socialism a legitimate and viable alternative among the world community of nations. Drawing on recently opened archives, this study examines the radicalization of GorbacheV's reforms and the resistance to them from the conservatives in the party apparat and the military. Gorbachev sought to demilitarize the Soviet Union from the beginning but that process took on a more revolutionary hue as he came to understand how deeply embedded Stalinism was. He sought to continue where Lenin had left off, believing that Stalin had sidetracked and deformed Soviet socialism. Toward this end, Gorbachev redefined the image of the enemy by emphasizing common human values in international relations over class conflict, and altered the nature of the threat by stressing the primacy of economic over military competition. Gorbachev changed the terms of political discourse, and by changing the way in which the Soviet Union viewed the world, he sought to make improvements in relations with the West and to decrease the military burden of his overstretched country.

Offering a fresh take on a crucial phase of European history, this book explores the years between the 1980s and 1990s when the European Union took shape. Whilst contributing to existing literature on the Maastricht Treaty and European integration at the end of the twentieth century, the book also brings those debates into the twenty-first century and makes connections with longer-term issues. The transformation of the European political climate in the wake of the global financial crisis in 2008, and the watershed Brexit vote in 2016, has made it all the more urgent to reconsider the way scholars and opinion-makers have looked at European integration in the past. Drawing from recently released archival documents, the authors analyse European cooperation as part of the broader international history in which it unfolded, taking into account the changes in the Cold War order and the advance of a new phase of globalisation. Comparing and contrasting the debates, objectives and achievements of the 1980s and 1990s with the current political landscape of the European Union, this book proposes a novel interpretation of the choices that were made during the Maastricht years, and of their longer-term consequences.

This pioneering volume explores the contribution of migrants to European culture from the early modern era to today. It takes culture as an aesthetic and social activity of making, one practised by migrants on the move and also by those who represent their lives in an act of support. Adopting a multilingual approach, the book interprets the aesthetics and political practices developed by and with migrants in Spain, Italy and France. It juxtaposes early modern and modern work with contemporary, reconceiving migrants as crucial agents of change. Scholars and artists track people on the move within the continent and without, drawing a significant map for the cultural history of migration around Europe. An electronic version of this book is available under a creative commons licence: manchesteropenhive.com/view/9781526166180/9781526166180.xml -- .

"The first in-depth reconstruction of the struggle based on fully original documentation. It is, indeed, a welcome and important book."
--"American Historical Review"

One of the longest-standing and most intractable problems in contemporary international politics, the Cyprus question continues to plague the international community. Isle of Discord sketches the post-war origins of the Cyprus problem from the first drive toward internationalization to the outbreak of armed struggle against the British colonial regime-to show how the potential for a peaceful resolution of the conflict was repeatedly and fatefully squandered.

Strategically located at the hub of three continents, the island of Cyprus has been a bone of contention between Greek and Turkish nationalists-and consequently between U.S., British, and U. N. policymakers. Detailing the central role of the nationalist Enosis movement, of the U.N., and of insidious factionalism in the area, Stefanidis brings new insight to this undertreated period of Cypriot history through U.S., British, and Greek records not before used.

A timely profile of this legacy of modern diplomatic history, Isle of Discord identifies the various forces, competing interests, and partisan pressures that helped shape the Cyprus problem.