Supporters of Stalin saw Trotsky as a traitor and renegade. Trotsky's own supporters saw him as the only true Leninist. In Trotsky and the Russian Revolution, Geoffrey Swain restores Trotsky to his real and central role in the Russian Revolution. In this succinct and comprehensive study, Swain contests that: In the years between 1903 and 1917, it was the ideas of Trotsky, rather than Lenin, which shaped the nascent Bolshevik Party and prepared it for the overthrow of the Tsar. During the autumn of 1917 workers supported Trotsky's idea of an insurrection carried out by the soviet, rather than Lenin's demand for a party orchestrated coup d'etat. During the Russian Civil War, Trotsky persuaded a sceptical Lenin that the only way to victory was through the employment of officers trained in the Tsar's army. As well as examining Trotsky's critique of Stalin's Russia in the 1930s, this seminar reader probes deeper to explore the ideas which drove Trotsky forward during his years of influence over Russia's revolutionary politics, exploring such key concepts as how to construct a revolutionary party, how to stage a successful insurrection, how to fight a revolutionary war, and how to build a socialist state.

This book is the first extensive research on the role of poetry during the Iranian Revolution (1979) and the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988). How can poetry, especially peaceful medieval Sufi poems, be applied to exalt violence, to present death as martyrdom, and to process war traumas? Examining poetry by both Islamic revolutionary and established dissident poets, it demonstrates how poetry spurs people to action, even leading them to sacrifice their lives. The book's originality lies in fresh analyses of how themes such as martyrdom and violence, and mystical themes such as love and wine, are integrated in a vehemently political context, while showing how Shiite ritual such as the pilgrimage to Mecca clash with Saudi Wahhabi appreciations. A distinguishing quality of the book is its examination of how martyrdom was instilled in the minds of Iranians through poetry, employing Sufi themes, motifs and doctrines to justify death. Such inculcation proved effective in mobilising people to the front, ready to sacrifice their lives. As such, the book is a must for readers interested in Iranian culture and history, in Sufi poetry, in martyrdom and war poetry. Those involved with Middle Eastern Studies, Iranian Studies, Literary Studies, Political Philosophy and Religious Studies will benefit from this book. "From his own memories and expert research, the author gives us a ravishing account of 'a poetry stained with blood, violence and death'. His brilliantly layered analysis of modern Persian poetry shows how it integrates political and religious ideology and motivational propaganda with age-old mystical themes for the most traumatic of times for Iran." (Alan Williams, Research Professor of Iranian Studies, University of Manchester) "When Asghar Seyed Gohrab, a highly prolific academician, publishes a new book, you can be certain he has paid attention to an exciting and largely unexplored subject. Martyrdom, Mysticism and Dissent: The Poetry of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) is no exception in the sense that he combines a few different cultural, religious, mystic, and political aspects of Iranian life to present a vivid picture and thorough analysis of the development and effect of what became known as the revolutionary poetry of the late 1970s and early 1980s. This time, he has even enriched his narrative by inserting his voice into his analysis. It is a thoughtful book and a fantastic read." (Professor Kamran Talattof, University of Arizona)

Though scores of texts, films and stories have been told about the American Revolution from the perspectives of our Founding Fathers and their followers, comparatively little is known about those colonists who resisted the revolutionary movement, and tried desperately to preserve their nation s ties to the British Empire. Choosing Sides: Loyalists in Revolutionary America shows us that America s original colonies were not nearly as united behind the concept of forming free, independent states as our society s collective memory would have us believe. There were, in fact, numerous colonists, slaves, and Native Americans who counted themselves among the Loyalists: those who never wanted to sever ties with the English crown and who viewed revolution as an unnatural and unlawful mistake. Too often overlooked, these men and women made valid and valuable arguments against the formation of the United States both weighing the costs of revolution and the perilousness of existing without divine rule of a monarch arguments that even hundreds of years into America s existence are echoed and championed both within and beyond our borders. Colonists from commoners to clergymen had nuanced and complex reasons for wanting to remain under British control, and an awareness of these reasons and their origins paints a more historically accurate portrait of the American populous around the time of our country s founding. This volume not only showcases Dr. Chopra s comprehensive analysis of Loyalism and its arguments, but includes letters, legislation and even poems written by Loyalists during and after the Revolutionary War. Choosing Sides lays a detailed foundation of facts for its readers and provides them entry points to the debate surrounding the genesis of the United States. It is both a primary source and a touchstone for original interpretations and discussions."

The diaries of Dr Hussein Fakhri al-Khalidi offer a unique insight to the peculiarities of colonialism that have shaped Palestinian history. Elected mayor of Jerusalem - his city of birth - in 1935, the physician played a leading role in the Palestinian Rebellion of the next year, with profound consequences for the future of Palestinian resistance and British colonial rule. One of many Palestinian leaders deported as a result of the uprising, it was in British-imposed exile in the Seychelles Islands that al-Khalidi began his diaries. Written with equal attention to lively personal encounters and ongoing political upheavals, entries in the diaries cover his sudden arrest and deportation by the colonial authorities, the fifteen months of exile on the tropical island, and his subsequent return to political activity in London then Beirut. The diaries provide a historical and personal lens into Palestinian political life in the late 1930s, a period critical to understanding the catastrophic 1948 exodus and dispossession of the Palestinian people. With an introduction by Rashid Khalidi the publication of these diaries offers a wealth of primary material and a perspective on the struggle against colonialism that will be of great value to anyone interested in the Palestinian predicament, past and present.

The Oxford Handbook of the American Revolution introduces scholars, students and generally interested readers to the formative event in American history. In thirty-three individual essays, by thirty-three authorities on the Revolution, the Handbook provides readers with in-depth analysis of the Revolution's many sides, ranging from the military and diplomatic to the social and political; from the economic and financial, to the cultural and legal. Its cast of characters ranges far, including ordinary farmers and artisans, men and women, free and enslaved African Americans, Indians, and British and American statesmen and military leaders. Its geographic scope is equally broad. The Handbook offers readers an American Revolution whose geo-political and military impact ranged from the West Indies to the Mississippi Valley; from the British Isles to New England and from Nova Scotia to Florida. The American Revolution of the Handbook is, simply put, an event that far transcended the boundaries of what was to become the United States. In addition to a breadth of subject matter, the Handbook offers a broad range of interpretive and methodological approaches. Its authors include social historians, historians of politics and institutions, cultural historians, historians of diplomacy, imperial historians, ethnohistorians, and historians of gender and sexuality. Instead of privileging a single or even several interpretive perspectives, the Handbook attempts to capture the full scope of current revolutionary-era scholarship. Nothing comparable has been published in decades.

The Assembly of Notables which met between 22 February and 25 May 1787 was a major turning point in French, even world history: it was the first link in an unbroken chain which led to the French Revolution, which itself formed the template for the modern world.
The reform programme which finance minister Calonne, with the full backing of Louis XVI, presented to a hand-picked Assembly of Notables would have transformed France. She would have ended up with a Napoleonic system: equality without liberty. Since that is what she got in the end, after wading through oceans of blood, it might have been better if she had taken the shorter route. Liberty, however, in 1787 was valued more highly than equality and the Notables mercilessly exploited this preference to defeat Calonne and the king. By 1789, equality was back on the agenda and remained there through the vicissitudes of the coming years - but too late for Calonne (who was in exile) or for the king, who never recovered from the blow the Notables had dealt him.
In the light of modern scholarship and the latest archival information, John Hardman integrates the various facets of this seminal assembly, which are often considered in isolation (the king, the royal council, the Notables, the role of Necker, and that of public opinion) into a lucid analytical narrative, interspersed with the Notables' critique of Calonne's measures as they were successively presented to them.

This unique work analyzes the crisis in modern society, building on the ideas of the Frankfurt School thinkers. Emphasizing social evolution and learning processes, it argues that crisis is mediated by social class conflicts and collective learning, the results of which are embodied in constitutional and public law. First, the work outlines a new categorical framework of critical theory in which it is conceived as a theory of crisis. It shows that the Marxist focus on economy and on class struggle is too narrow to deal with the range of social conflicts within modern society, and posits that a crisis of legitimization is at the core of all crises. It then discusses the dialectic of revolutionary and evolutionary developmental processes of modern society and its legal system. This volume in the Critical Theory and Contemporary Society by a leading scholar in the field provides a new approach to critical theory that will appeal to anyone studying political sociology, political theory, and law.

Cross-dressing author, envoy, soldier and spy Charles d'Eon de Beaumont's unusual career fascinated his contemporaries and continues to attract historians, novelists, playwrights, filmmakers, image makers, cultural theorists and those concerned with manifestations of the extraordinary. D'Eon's significance as a historical figure was already being debated more than 45 years before his death.

Not surprisingly, such sensational material has attracted the attention of enthusiasts, scholars and literateurs to 'the strange case of the chevalier d'Eon'. He has also attracted the attention of psychologists and sexologists, and for most of the last century his gender transformation has been viewed through a Freudian lens. His cross-dressing, it was usually assumed, must have a psychosexual explanation. Until the second half of the twentieth century the terms 'Eonist' and 'Eonism' were the standard English words for transvestites and transvestism respectively, but 'Eonism' was also, thanks to Havelock Ellis, widely regarded as a psychological condition or compulsion. However, in the mid-twentieth century, new ideas about gender-identity disorders led to d'Eon being redefined not as a transvestite, but a transsexual - a person who considers their sex to have been 'misassigned'.

The essays in this collection contribute to d'Eon's rehabilitation as a figure worthy of scholarly attention and display a variety of disciplinary approaches. Drawing on new research into d'Eon's life, this volume offers original and nuanced readings of how a gender identity could come to be negotiated over time.

This book takes a comprehensive look at the PLO, examining its origins, legal status, goals, and strategies. Jamal R. Nassar investigates the PLO's role in regional and international politics and unveils the dynamics of the power relationships responsible for the organization's successes and failures. The book discerns patterns and trends in the PLO's activities and studies the conditions under which these patterns and trends develop. Nassar places the PLO in a global perspective, delving into the basis of the organization's legitimacy and its prospects for participation in the peaceful resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The book's organization and comprehensive coverage--beginning with a thorough historical background of the Palestinian experience--make it an excellent study for the student of Middle Eastern politics.

Nassar probes the rise of the PLO to its present position as a major actor in the Middle East--one that is no less significant than a number of sovereign states. He shows that the PLO is a complex power that cannot hope to achieve its objectives independently of other regional powers but can prevent these powers from resolving the Arab-Israeli dispute. The book outlines the many peace initiatives that have been foiled by the PLO and reveals how Israel's refusal to talk to the PLO will likely thwart the achievement of peace. Students and scholars of Middle East and Palestinian politics, the Arab-Israeli conflict, terrorism, political ideologies, revolutionary movements, transnational politics, and contemporary history will find Jamal Nassar's book on the PLO an invaluable resource.

This history of the Ku Klux Klan traces the evolution of the organization from its 1865 founding to the present, drawing extensively on contemporaneous media reports. The Ku Klux Klan tells the story of America's oldest and largest homegrown terrorist organization. It is a revealing look at the philosophies and methods of a secret society that used religious symbols, secret codes, and the cloak of anonymity to bind its members together in the cause of violent racial warfare. The Ku Klux Klan encompasses the organization's entire history, from its post-Civil War founding by Nathan Bedford Forrest, to its high watermark in the early 20th century, with membership swelling to four million and its founders portrayed as heroes in the film, Birth of a Nation to its resurgence in the Civil Rights era, to more recent attempts by David Duke and others to put a benign face on the Klan in order to gain elective office.

The American Revolution gave birth to a new world republic and a philosophy based on freedom, liberty, and equality. The philosophical concepts articulated by the revolutionary leaders have become a model of positive change for people around the world. This concise reference guide includes an overview essay that traces the course of the Revolution and five essays on various aspects of the conflict. Also included are biographical sketches of 19 important historical figures and a selection of primary documents with introductions by the author. A timeline and annotated bibliography compliment the text, making this the perfect starting point for student and general-reader research, and a fresh survey of the events that brought about the birth of the American republic. The essays in this book focus on the events and conditions that led the American colonies to revolt, the war itself, life on the home front, revolutionary diplomacy, and a concluding, interpretive essay on the lasting impact of the American Revolution. The biographical sketches include a wide array of important actors on the stage, including Abigail Adams, John Adams, George III, George Washington, Mercy Otis Warren, among others. Primary documents include excerpts from Thomas Paine's Common Sense, "The Proclamation of Lord Dunmore offering Freedom to Slaves Belonging to the Rebels in Virginia" of 1775, The Articles of Federation, and the Treaty of Paris, among others. Every generation needs to reinterpret its history to reflect its own needs and ideals. This book offers a new look at this pivotal time in world history.

This book deals with a topic that is central to the most important and decisive issues and events of our time-the state and revolution in the twentieth century. Social scientists have made numerous attempts to understand the causes of revolutions by examining the underlying factors that contribute to revolutionary uprisings. To further these efforts, this book addresses some of the key issues related to this process through both theoretical and empirical inquiry into the nature and dynamics of the state and revolution as a basis for an understanding of the major socialist revolutions of the twentieth century. The book provides a comparative-historical analysis of the state and socialist revolutions in Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba, and Nicaragua. The thread that runs through each of the chapters that make up this book, especially the case studies of revolutions taken up for study, is the class nature of the state and the class forces involved in the revolutionary process leading up to the taking of state power, as well as-and more importantly so- the class nature of the forces that have taken power and rule over society in the post-revolutionary period. Applying class analysis to the study of the state and revolution, this book helps us understand the nature and dynamics of class struggles in societies that have gone through a revolutionary process.

To learn about the ""Age of Revolutions"" in Europe and the Americas is to engage with the emergence of the modern world. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, nations were founded, old empires collapsed, and new ones arose. Struggles for emancipation-whether from royal authority, colonial rule, slavery, or patriarchy-inspired both hopes and fears. This book, designed for university and secondary school teachers, provides up-to-date content and perspectives, classroom-tested techniques, innovative ideas, and an exciting variety of pathways to introduce students to this complex era of history. The volume includes chapters on sources and methods for stimulating student debate and learning, including Tom Paine's Common Sense, the Haitian Declaration of Independence, and other key documents; role-playing games; visual arts and culture; and music, including opera and popular songs. Other chapters delve into specific themes, including revolution and riot, revolutionary terror, enlightenment, gender, slavery, nationalism, environment and climate, and the roles of politically excluded groups. Collectively, the contributions ensure a broad Atlantic scope, discussing the revolutions in Britain's North American colonies, Haiti, and Latin America, and European revolutions including France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

At the start of the 1960s, revolution challenged the established world order. In every corner of the underdeveloped world, discontent with the status quo fueled attempts to revoke colonialism and the strangleholds on power maintained by entrenched local oligarchies. This book examines the causes of revolution in the sixties and the various responses crafted to stop it, in particular, the Alliance for Progress, a program which represented the best products of American developmental and counterinsurgency theory. Equally important, however, is an examination of the independent policies implemented by Latin Americans themselves, often in direct opposition to those pursued by the U.S. For the United States the period represented a challenge to both its sovereignty and its leadership in the so-called "Free World." Perhaps more importantly, the disruptions blanketing the globe also pointed out the dramatic weaknesses of an American policy dominated by preparations for thermonuclear war with the Soviet Union. For Latin America, revolution challenged national stability and, in the cases of the regimes it was directed against, their very survival.

This book offers a ten-year perspective on ongoing and evolving digital activism practices across the Middle East and North Africa, drawing on interviews and ethnographic evidence collected between 2012 and 2020. It addresses the shifting narratives around digital activism and cultures in the region in the wake of the 2011 uprisings and the subsequent so-called second wave by considering the media environments in which local activists operate. Including in-depth analysis of three different political contexts - the 2011 Tunisian and Egyptian context and the 2019 political context in Lebanon - and focussing on case studies of the Tunisian blogosphere, online campaigning in the Egyptian presidential elections and interviews with social media activists, the book offers a critique of the increasing prevalence of a security perspective through which online activism has been viewed and its deleterious effect on digital political engagement in the region.

A philosophical analysis informed by history, this work examines the reasons for the highly destructive behavior of the Red Guards in the early part of China's Cultural Revolution. By probing the political, educational, and psychological factors influencing the Red Guards, Jing Lin sheds light on how teenagers and young adults were able to justify violence in the name of class struggle and human rights. She concludes that non-critical, categorical thought--buttressed by the political and educational systems--was pivotal.

Jing Lin introduces the work with a discussion of democratic and non-democratic thought, and of the Red Guards' views about class struggle, authority and justice. She then examines the theory behind Mao's totalitarian rule. Chapter Three is devoted to schools, and their decisive role in developing the Red Guards. The psychology of the Red Guards follows: Lin details how concepts of the proletariat, class enemies, and intellectuals nurtured habits of aggression and obedience. In concluding, Lin suggests how to foster critical and democratic thinking in Chinese education. This book is a valuable resource for students of Chinese history, revolution, political psychology, and education.