Shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize. Drawing on major new sources hitherto unexamined by western historians, Douglas Smith's Rasputin is the definitive biography of this extraordinary figure for a generation. Nearly a century after his murder, Rasputin remains as divisive a figure as ever. Was he really a horse thief and a hard-drinking ruffian in his youth? Was he a a devout Orthodox Christian, or was he in fact a just a fake holy man? Are the stories of his enormous sexual drive, debauchery, and drunken orgies true or simply a myth? How did he come to know the emperor and empress and to wield so much influence over them? What was the source of his healing power? Was Rasputin running the government in the final years of his life? And if so, was he acting on his own or on the orders of more powerful, hidden forces? Did Prince Yusupov and his fellow conspirators act alone or were they other parties involved in Rasputin's murder - British secret agents or even an underground cell of Freemasons, as has been claimed? And to what extent did Rasputin's murder doom the Romanov dynasty? 'The most comprehensive account of Rasputin to date, brimming with complexities and fascinating detail, and stands as an enlightening re-evaluation of this crucial figure in Russian history.' - Daily Telegraph

'Alive with human detail and acute political judgement, this book marks the arrival of a formidably gifted historian.' – Dan Jones, author of The Plantagenets and The Templars

It was around half-past eight in the morning, with summer rainclouds weighing heavy in the sky, that Simon de Montfort decided to die. It was 4 August 1265 and he was about to face the royal army in the final battle of a quarrel that had raged between them for years. Outnumbered, outmanoeuvred and certain to lose, Simon chose to fight, knowing that he could not possibly win the day.

The Song of Simon de Montfort is the story of this extraordinary man: heir to a great warrior, devoted husband and father, fearless crusader knight and charismatic leader. It is the story of a man whose passion for good governance was so fierce that, in 1258, frustrated by the King’s refusal to take the advice of his nobles and the increasing injustice meted out to his subjects, he marched on Henry III’s hall at Westminster and seized the reins of power.

Montfort established a council to rule in the King’s name, overturning the social order in a way that would not be seen again until the rule of Oliver Cromwell in the seventeenth century. Having defeated the King at the Battle of Lewes in 1264, Montfort and his revolutionary council ruled England for some fifteen months, until the enmity between the two sides exploded on that August day in 1265. When the fighting was over, Montfort and a host of his followers had been cut down on the battlefield, in an outpouring of noble blood that marked the end of chivalry in England as it had existed since the Norman Conquest.

Drawing on an abundance of sources that allow us to trace Montfort’s actions and personality in a depth not possible for earlier periods in medieval history, Sophie Thérèse Ambler tells his story with a clarity that reveals all of the excitement, chaos and human tragedy of England’s first revolution.

There is a sprawling scholarship on violence, crime, and corrupt state rule; yet few have interpreted these challenges as transformative at the global scale and as a potential source of alternative, non-state, legitimacy. This volume challenges "Westphalian conservativism" in a provocative yet plausible manner, shedding light at the ubiquity and diversity of unfolding non-state agendas and at their effect on the imagined state community. Focusing on civil war parties, warlords, commercial providers of security, multinational companies and criminal organizations, the book directs attention to theoretical questions and policy challenges arising from non-state armed expansion. To accomplish this, the contributors present a range of case studies and comparisons within three thematic sections: the first takes stock of how, when, and in what measure state and state-system legitimacy are challenged by non-state violent or criminal activity; the second addresses the nature, effectiveness, and side-effects of different state-mandated reaction to non-state activities; and third focuses on the recombination of state and non-state actors contributing to processes of socio-political transformation. This volume provides a current analysis of different armed and violent actors encroaching on the state's monopoly of violence. It seeks to spark debate about global political change and will be of interest to students and scholars of global governance, global security, and international relations.

Late Modern Palestine looks at the ways in which the relationship between the subject and representation and the political problematic of postcolonial late modernity is articulated in the context of the Palestinians' struggle for liberation. Junko-Aikio provides a rich, theoretically and empirically, and in part also visually grounded study of the complex ways in which ordinary Palestinians face, negotiate and resist multiple regimes of power and desire in the context of everyday life in the West Bank and Gaza. The volume examines the early years of the second Palestinian uprising, an intifada, whose political status remains highly disputed. The book examines the ways in which Palestinian politics during the second intifada has been entangled with the broader social and political changes that are associated with postcolonial late modernity. It is argued that the dislocation between modern colonial and late modern/postcolonial regimes of power and subjectivity greatly complicates the map of power and resistance in contemporary Palestine, and also renders articulation of national unity and hegemonic political strategy increasingly unlikely. This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of Middle East Studies, Postcolonial Studies, International Relations, Political Sociology, Critical Security Studies, and Political Theory.

Thomas Paine's words were like no others in history: they leaped off the page, inspiring readers to change their lives, their governments, their kings, and even their gods. In an age when spoken and written words were the only forms of communication, Paine's aroused men to action like no one else. The most widely read political writer of his generation, he proved to be more than a century ahead of his time, conceiving and demanding unheard-of social reforms that are now integral elements of modern republican societies. Among them were government subsidies for the poor, universal housing and education, pre- and post-natal care for women, and universal social security. An Englishman who emigrated to the American colonies, he formed close friendships with Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, and his ideas helped shape the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. However, the world turned against Paine in his later years. While his earlier works, Common Sense and Rights of Man, attacked the political and social status quo here on earth, The Age of Reason attacked the status quo of the hereafter. Former friends shunned him, and the man America had hailed as the muse of the American Revolution died alone and forgotten. Packed with action and intrigue, soldiers and spies, politics and perfidy, Unger's Thomas Paine is a much-needed new look at a defining figure.

The years 2008 to 2013 saw a new generation of political protestors take to the streets. Riots disrupted many Western cities and new protest movements emerged, keen to address a bleak context of economic collapse and austerity politics. In this groundbreaking new study, Winlow, Hall, Briggs and Treadwell push past the unworldly optimism of the liberal left to offer an illuminating account of the enclosure and vacuity of contemporary politics. Focusing on the English riots of 2011, the ongoing crisis in Greece, the Indignados, 15M and Podemos in Spain, the Occupy movement in New York and London and the English Defence League in northern England, this book uses original empirical data to inform a strident theoretical critique of our post-political present. It asks: what are these protest groups fighting for, and what are the chances of success? Written by leading criminological theorists and researchers, this book makes a major contribution to contemporary debates on social order, politics and cultural capitalism. It illuminates the epochal problems we face today. Riots and Political Protest is essential reading for academics and students engaged in the study of political sociology, criminological theory, political theory, sociological theory and the sociology of deviance.

Remembering Early Modern Revolutions is the first study of memory in relation to the major revolutions of the early modern period. Beginning with the English revolutions of the seventeenth century (1642-60 and 1688-9), this book also explores the American, French and Haitian revolutions. Through addressing these events collectively, this volume demonstrates the interconnectedness of these revolutions in the contemporary mind and highlights the importance of invoking the memory of prior revolutions in order both to warn of the dangers of revolution and to legitimate radical political change. It also unpicks the different ways in which these events were presented and their memory utilised, uncovering the importance of geographical and temporal contexts to the processes of remembering and forgetting. Examining both personal and collective remembrance and exploring both private recollection and public commemoration, Remembering Early Modern Revolutions uncovers the rich and powerful memory of revolution in the Atlantic world and is ideal for students and teachers of memory in the early modern period.

The International Workingmen's Association was the prototype of all organizations of the Labor movement and the 150th anniversary of its birth (1864-2014) offers an important opportunity to rediscover its history and learn from its legacy. The International helped workers to grasp that the emancipation of labour could not be won in a single country but was a global objective. It also spread an awareness in their ranks that they had to achieve the goal themselves, through their own capacity for organization, rather than by delegating it to some other force; and that it was essential to overcome the capitalist system itself, since improvements within it, though necessary to pursue, would not eliminate exploitation and social injustice. This book reconsider the main issues broached or advanced by the International - such as labor rights, critiques of capitalism and the search for international solidarity - in light of present-day concerns. With the recent crisis of capitalism, that has sharpened more than before the division between capital and labor, the political legacy of the organization founded in London in 1864 has regained profound relevance, and its lessons are today more timely than ever. This book was published as a special issue of Socialism and Democracy.

When examining history, one must be careful not to blame rapid political change solely on famine, war, economic inequality, or structural disfunctions alone. These conditions may linger for decades without social upheaval. Successful revolution requires two triggering elements: a crisis or conjuncture and revolutionary actors who are organized in a dedicated revolutionary party, armed with a radical ideology, and poised to act. While previous revolutions were ignited by small collectives, many in the twentieth century relied on strategic relationships between two exceptional leaders: Marx and Engels (Communism), Lenin and Trotsky (Russia), Ghandi and Nehru (India), Mao and Zhou (China), and Castro and Guevara (Cuba). These partnerships changed the world. In Revolutionary Pairs: Marx and Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, Gandhi and Nehru, Mao and Zhou, Castro and Guevara, Larry Ceplair tells the stories of five revolutionary struggles through the lens of famous duos. While each relationship was unique -- Castro and Guevara bonded like brothers, Mao and Zhou like enemies -- in every case, these leaders seized the opportunity for revolution and recognized they could not succeed without the other. The first cross-cultural exploration of revolutionary pairs, this book reveals the undeniable role of personality in modern political change.

After working closely with the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation in shaping and writing his memoir, author Hassen Ebrahim and Jacana Media are proud to publish this important record of a life that was spent in service to South Africa.

Writes Mac Maharaj in his foreword in the book: “Hassen Ebrahim is one of those many seldom heard of foot soldiers of the 1976 generation who joined the underground and was linked to the ANC structures operating from Botswana. He has been at the coalface of so many facets of South Africa’s march to freedom. He was there during the times when involvement in the struggle against apartheid carried the risk of death; he was involved in our negotiated transition to democracy; he was the chief executive of the elected Constitutional Assembly which wrote and adopted our Constitution; thereafter and until 2007 he served in the Department of Justice.”

From Marabastad to Mogadishu: The Journey of an ANC Soldier chronicles an all-too familiar story of those unsung cadres from the struggle we’ve forgotten to honour for their sacrifices. Those foot soldiers do not feature in our collective memory, they do not find themselves or their stories recorded in the pages of history books, and they are not remembered for their selfless acts of bravery.

The bravery and sacrifice of the ordinary teenager who dropped out of school, the cadre who risked life and limb, and the freedom fighter who exiled himself or herself to countries far and wide must be given a chance to live on book pages, find expression on film reels and all other mediums of historic memory collection.

From Marabastad to Mogadishu: The Journey of an ANC Soldier signals the resolve by the author, his peers, Jacana Media and support organisations such as the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation to bring the ordinary cadre’s story to the fore, to acknowledge his or her sacrifices, and to recognise their contribution to South Africa’s democracy.

A comprehensive history of one of the world's deadliest jihadist groups Boko Haram is one of the world's deadliest jihadist groups. It has killed more than twenty thousand people and displaced more than two million in a campaign of terror that began in Nigeria but has since spread to Chad, Niger, and Cameroon. This is the first book to tell the full story of this West African affiliate of the Islamic State, from its beginnings in the early 2000s to its most infamous violence, including the 2014 kidnapping of 276 Nigerian schoolgirls. An in-depth account of a group that is menacing Africa's most populous and richest country, the book also illuminates the dynamics of civil war in Africa and jihadist movements in other parts of the world.

In her detailed retelling of three iconic movements in India, Professor Emerita Krishna Mallick, PhD, gives hope to grassroots activists working toward environmental justice. Each movement deals with a different crisis and affected population: Chipko, famed for tree-hugging women in the Himalayan forest; Narmada, for villagers displaced by a massive dam; and Navdanya, for hundreds of thousands of farmers whose livelihoods were lost to a compact made by the Indian government and neoliberal purveyors of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Relentlessly researched, Environmental Movements of India: Chipko, Narmada Bachao Andolan, Navdanya presents these movements in a framework that explores Hindu Vedic wisdom, as well as Development Ethics, Global Environment Ethics, Feminist Care Ethics, and the Capability Approach. At a moment when the climate threatens populations who live closest to nature - and depend upon its fodder for heat, its water for life, and its seeds for food - Mallick shows how nonviolent action can give poor people an effective voice.

The 21st century has witnessed a considerable and increasing number of political revolutions around the world. This contradicts the popular belief of many experts in the 1970s that revolutions occurred mainly in monarchies and empires. Instead, the revolutions of this century have several new characteristics, which call for a renewed analysis of the subject. This handbook offers a comparative perspective on the new wave of revolutions of the last decade. Presenting case studies on the color revolutions, the Arab revolutions of 2010-2011, and the global wave of revolutions in 2013-2018 that spanned regions ranging from Africa to the Caucasus, it offers a better understanding of the varied forms, features, and historical backgrounds of revolutions, as well as their causes. Accordingly, it highlights recent revolutions in their historical and world-systems contexts. The handbook is divided into seven parts, the first of which examines the history of views on revolution and important aspects of the theory of revolution. The second part analyzes revolutions within long-term historical trends and in their world-system contexts. In turn, the third part explores specific major revolutionary waves in history. The fourth part analyzes the first revolutionary wave of the 21st century (2000-2009), the so-called color revolutions, while the fifth discusses the second wave - the Arab Spring (2010-2013) - as an important turning point. The sixth part is dedicated to analyzing revolutions and revolutionary movements beyond the Arab Spring and some revolutionary events from the third wave that began in 2018. The seventh and final part offers forecasts on the future of revolutions. Given its scope, the book will appeal to scholars and students from various disciplines interested in historical trends, sociopolitical change, contentious politics, social movements, and revolutionary processes involving both nonviolent campaigns and political violence. "Once again, this volume demonstrates the kind of open-minded, systematic analysis that the field of revolutionary studies requires." (Prof. George Lawson, Department of International Relations, Australian National University Canberra)

On January 2, 1959, Fidel Castro, the rebel comandante who had just overthrown Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, addressed a crowd of jubilant supporters. Recalling the failed popular uprisings of past decades, Castro assured them that this time "the real Revolution" had arrived. As Jonathan Brown shows in this capacious history of the Cuban Revolution, Castro's words proved prophetic not only for his countrymen but for Latin America and the wider world. Cuba's Revolutionary World examines in forensic detail how the turmoil that rocked a small Caribbean nation in the 1950s became one of the twentieth century's most transformative events. Initially, Castro's revolution augured well for democratic reform movements gaining traction in Latin America. But what had begun promisingly veered off course as Castro took a heavy hand in efforts to centralize Cuba's economy and stamp out private enterprise. Embracing the Soviet Union as an ally, Castro and his lieutenant Che Guevara sought to export the socialist revolution abroad through armed insurrection. Castro's provocations inspired intense opposition. Cuban anticommunists who had fled to Miami found a patron in the CIA, which actively supported their efforts to topple Castro's regime. The unrest fomented by Cuban-trained leftist guerrillas lent support to Latin America's military castes, who promised to restore stability. Brazil was the first to succumb to a coup in 1964; a decade later, military juntas governed most Latin American states. Thus did a revolution that had seemed to signal the death knell of dictatorship in Latin America bring about its tragic opposite.

For over a decade, Al Jazeera (Arabic) occupied an unprecedented position among Arab audiences and families. Its attractive and daring news coverage has inspired millions of Arabs, and led other news channels to follow suit by changing their reporting narrative and presentational style. However, in the aftermath of the Arab uprisings in 2011, the close adoption of the Arab uprisings in general, and the Egyptian one in particular, made the channel fall into the eye of the public storm through its extensive 24-hour coverage. This book assesses whether the channel systematically provided a platform for certain ideologies or ignored others, and if and how Al Jazeera's language had shifted after the 2011 Arab uprisings. It also explores the rationale behind adopting particular editorial principles featured in the analyses, and scrutinises the findings within the framework of media, religion and democratisation.

Following an unprecedented economic boom fed by foreign investment, the Russian Revolution triggered the worst sovereign default in history. Bankers and Bolsheviks tells the dramatic story of this boom and bust, chronicling the forgotten experiences of leading financiers of the age. Shedding critical new light on the decision making of the powerful personalities who acted as the gatekeepers of international finance, Hassan Malik narrates how they channeled foreign capital into Russia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While economists have long relied on quantitative analysis to grapple with questions relating to the drivers of cross-border capital flows, Malik adopts a historical approach, drawing on banking and government archives in four countries. The book provides rare insights into the thinking of influential figures in world finance as they sought to navigate one of the most challenging and lucrative markets of the first modern age of globalization. Bankers and Bolsheviks reveals how a complex web of factors-from government interventions to competitive dynamics and cultural influences-drove a large inflow of capital during this tumultuous period in world history. This gripping book demonstrates how the realms of finance and politics-of bankers and Bolsheviks-grew increasingly intertwined, and how investing in Russia became a political act with unforeseen repercussions.

While the 2011 Arab Spring is well known, the wave of uprisings that swept East Asia in the 1980s is almost unheard of. Beginning with an overview of late 20th century history, Katsiaficas relates the Asian uprisings to predecessors in 1968 and explains their influence on the Eastern European uprisings at the end of the 1980s.

This abridgement of Reflections on the Revolution in France preserves the dynamism of Edmund Burke's polemic while excising a number of detail-laden passages that are of less interest to modern readers. Brian R. Clack's introduction offers a compelling overview of the text and explores the consistency and coherence of Burke's views on revolution. Burke's critique of revolutionary politics is illuminated further by the extensive supplementary materials collected in a number of themed appendices. These include a selection of background material essential for an understanding of the Reflections, an overview of Burke's response to the American Revolution, a sampling of his earliest and later views on the French Revolution, selections from Burke's writings on reform, passages from A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, and a representative sampling of contemporary critical responses to the Reflections.

Romanticism and Revolution: A Readerpresents an anthology of the key texts that both defined the debate over the French Revolution during the 1790s and influenced the Romantic authors. * Presents readings chronologically to allow readers to experience the unfolding of the debate as it occurred in the 1790s * Provides an accessible and in-depth sampling of the major contributors to the Revolution debate, from Price, Burke, and Paine to Wollstonecraft and Godwin

In July 1917, when the Provisional Government issued a warrant for his arrest, Lenin fled from Petrograd; later that year, the October Revolution swept him to supreme power. In the short intervening period he spent in Finland, he wrote his impassioned, never-completed masterwork on The State and Revolution . . . This powerfully argued book offers both the rationale for the new regime and a wealth of insights into Leninist politics. It was here that Lenin justified his personal interpretation of Marxism, savaged his opponents and set out his trenchant views on class conflict, the lessons of earlier revolutions, the dismantling of the bourgeois state and the replacement of capitalism by the dictatorship of the proletariat. Immediately established as a standard text, it was selectively cited by leaders from Stalin to Gorbachev in support of programmes which differed in important ways. As both historical document and political statement, its importance can hardly be exaggerated.

The Mexican Revolution has long been considered a revolution of peasants. But Aurora Gomez-Galvarriato's investigation of the mill towns of the Orizaba Valley reveals that industrial workers played a neglected but essential role in shaping the Revolution. By tracing the introduction of mechanized industry into the valley, she connects the social and economic upheaval unleashed by new communication, transportation, and production technologies to the political unrest of the revolutionary decade. Industry and Revolution makes a convincing argument that the Mexican Revolution cannot be understood apart from the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution, and thus provides a fresh perspective on both transformations. By organizing collectively on a wide scale, the spinners and weavers of the Orizaba Valley, along with other factory workers throughout Mexico, substantially improved their living and working conditions and fought to secure social and civil rights and reforms. Their campaigns fed the imaginations of the masses. The Constitution of 1917, which embodied the core ideals of the Mexican Revolution, bore the stamp of the industrial workers' influence. Their organizations grew powerful enough to recast the relationship between labor and capital, not only in the towns of the valley, but throughout the entire nation. The story of the Orizaba Valley offers insight into the interconnections between the social, political, and economic history of modern Mexico. The forces unleashed by the Mexican and the Industrial Revolutions remade the face of the nation and, as Gomez-Galvarriato shows, their consequences proved to be enduring.