New Age culture is generally regarded as a modern manifestation of Western millenarianism - a concept built around the expectation of an imminent historical crisis followed by the inauguration of a golden age which occupies a key place in the history of Western ideas. The New Age in the Modern West argues that New Age culture is part of a family of ideas, including utopianism, which construct alternative futures and drive revolutionary change. Nicholas Campion traces New Age ideas back to ancient cosmology, and questions the concepts of the Enlightenment and the theory of progress. He considers the contributions of the key figures of the 18th century, the legacy of the astronomer Isaac Newton and the Swedish visionary Emanuel Swedenborg, as well as the theosophist, H.P. Blavatsky, the psychologist, C.G. Jung, and the writer and artist, Jose Arguelles. He also pays particular attention to the beat writers of the 1950s, the counterculture of the 1960s, concepts of the Aquarian Age and prophecies of the end of the Maya Calendar in 2012. Lastly he examines neoconservatism as both a reaction against the 1960s and as a utopian phenomenon. The New Age in the Modern West is an important book for anyone interested in countercultural and revolutionary ideas in the modern West.

This book is a translation of the Ruzhany Memorial (Yizkor) Book that was published in 1957 in Hebrew and Yiddish; it is based upon the memoirs of former Jewish residents of the town who had left before the war. Ruzhany, called Rozana in Polish and Ruzhnoy in Yiddish, is now a small town in Belarus. It was part of Russia at the time of World War I and Poland afterwards for a short period, and then the Soviet Union. In 1939, the Jewish population was at its peak 3,500, comprising 78% of the town's population. In November 1942, every Jewish resident was murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators. Founded in the mid-1500s, Jews were welcomed by the private owner, the Grand Chancellor, Duke Leu Sapeiha. He valued Jewish settlers who would create a variety of businesses that would produce profits and generate collectable taxes. They opened schools, built many small synagogues, and the Great Synagogue in the main square. In addition they established many social institutions. The market town thrived. Starting in the early 1900s, many young Jews immigrated to the United States so that the young men could avoid prolonged conscription into the Czar's army.

Non-Indians have amassed extensive records of Shawnee leaders dating back to the era between the French and Indian War and the War of 1812. But academia has largely ignored the stories of these leaders' descendants - including accounts from the Shawnees' own perspectives. The Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma focuses on the nineteenth- and twentieth-century experiences of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe, presenting a new brand of tribal history made possible by the emergence of tribal communities' own research centers and the resources afforded by the digital age. Offering various perspectives on the history of the Eastern Shawnees, this volume combines essays by leading and emerging scholars of Shawnee history with contributions by Eastern Shawnee citizens and interviews with tribal elders. Editor Stephen Warren introduces the collection, acknowledging that the questions and concerns of colonizers have dominated the themes of American Indian history for far too long. The essays that follow introduce readers to the story of the Eastern Shawnees and consider treaties with the U.S. government, laws impacting the tribe, and tribal leadership. They analyze the Eastern Shawnees' ways of telling the tribe's stories, detail Shawnee experiences of federal boarding schools, and recount stories of their chiefs. The book concludes with five tribal members' life histories, told in their own words. The Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma is the culmination of years of collaboration between tribal citizens and Native as well as non-Native scholars. Providing a fuller, more nuanced, and more complete portrayal of Native American historical experiences, this book serves as a resource for both future scholars and tribal members to reconstruct the Eastern Shawnee past and thereby better understand the present. This book was made possible through generous funding from the Administration for Native Americans.

A primary source analysis of the migration of Jews from Argentina to Israel. Between Exile and Exodus: Argentinian Jewish Immigration to Israel, 1948-1967 examines the case of the 16,500 Argentine Jewish immigrants who arrived in Israel during the first two decades of its existence (1948-1967). Based on a thorough investigation of various archives in Argentina and Israel, author Sebastian Klor presents a sociohistoric analysis of that immigration with a comparative perspective. Although manystudies have explored Jewish immigration to the State of Israel, few have dealt with the immigrants themselves. Between Exile and Exodus offers fascinating insights into this migration, its social and economic profiles, and the motivation for the relocation of many of these people. It contributes to different areas of study-Argentina and its Jews, Jewish immigration to Israel, and immigration in general. This book's integration of a computerized database comprising the personal data of more than 10,000 Argentinian Jewish immigrants has allowed the author to uncover their stories in a direct, intimate manner. Because immigration is an individual experience, rather than a collective one, the author aims to address the individual's perspective in order to fully comprehend the process. In the area of Argentinian Jewry it brings a new approach to the study of Zionism and the relations of the community with Israel, pointing out the importance of family as a basis for mutual interactions. Klor's work clarifies the centrality of marginal groups in the case of Jewish immigration to Israel, and demystifies the idea that aliya from Argentina was solely ideological. In the area of Israeli studies the book takes a critical view of the "catastrophic" concept as a cause for Jewish immigration to Israel, analyzing the gap between the decision-makers in Israel and in Argentina and the real circumstances of the individual immigrants. It also contributes to migration studies, showing how an atypical case, such as the Argentinian Jewish immigrants to Israel, is shaped by similar patterns that characterize "classical" mass migrations, such as the impact of chain migrations and the immigration of marginal groups. This book's importance lies in uncovering and examining individual viewpoints alongside the official, bureaucratic immigration narrative.

Guatemala emerged from the clash between Spanish invaders and Maya cultures that began five centuries ago. The conquest of these "rich and strange lands," as Hernan Cortes called them, and their "many different peoples" was brutal and prolonged. ""Strange Lands and Different Peoples"" examines the myriad ramifications of Spanish intrusion, especially Maya resistance to it and the changes that took place in native life because of it.
The studies assembled here, focusing on the first century of colonial rule (1524-1624), discuss issues of conquest and resistance, settlement and colonization, labor and tribute, and Maya survival in the wake of Spanish invasion. The authors reappraise the complex relationship between Spaniards and Indians, which was marked from the outset by mutual feelings of resentment and mistrust. While acknowledging the pivotal role of native agency, the authors also document the excesses of Spanish exploitation and the devastating impact of epidemic disease. Drawing on research findings in Spanish and Guatemalan archives, they offer fresh insight into the Kaqchikel Maya uprising of 1524, showing that despite strategic resistance, colonization imposed a burden on the indigenous population more onerous than previously thought.
Guatemala remains a deeply divided and unjust society, a country whose current condition can be understood only in light of the colonial experiences that forged it. Affording readers a critical perspective on how Guatemala came to be, ""Strange Lands and Different Peoples" "shows the events of the past to have enduring contemporary relevance.

Modern society has a negative view of youth as a period of storm and stress, but at the same time cherishes the idea of eternal youth. How does this compare with ancient Roman society? Did a phase of youth exist there with its own characteristics? How was youth appreciated? This book studies the lives and the image of youngsters (around 15-25 years of age) in the Latin West and the Greek East in the Roman period. Boys and girls of all social classes come to the fore; their lives, public and private, are sketched with the help of a range of textual and documentary sources, while the authors also employ the results of recent neuropsychological research. The result is a highly readable and wide-ranging account of how the crucial transition between childhood and adulthood operated in the Roman world.

This book examines the radical reform that occurred during the final two decades of British rule in Ireland when William Starkie (1860-1920) presided as Resident Commissioner for the Board. Following the lead of industrialized nations, Irish members of parliament sought to encourage the establishment of a state-funded school system during the early nineteenth century. The year 1831 saw the creation of the Irish National School System. Central to its workings was the National Board of Education which had the responsibility for distributing government funds to aid in the building of schools, the payment of inspectors and teachers, the publication of textbooks, and the cost of teacher training. In the midst of radical political and cultural change within Ireland, visionaries and leaders like Starkie filled an indispensable role in Irish education. They oversaw the introduction of a radical child-centered primary school curriculum, often referred to as the 'new education'. Filling a gap in Irish history, this book provides a much needed overview of the changes that occurred in primary education during the 22 years leading up to Ireland's independence.

In 1917, Jewish and Ukrainian activists worked to overcome previous mutual antagonism in an independent Ukraine, but the bold experiment ended in terrible failure as anarchic violence swept the countryside.This revised edition of the 1999 printing includes a new Foreword and Afterword by the author. Praise for the First Edition: ""A highly readable book, breaking new ground and attaining a degree of objectivity that might settle most of the thorny issues involved."" The Journal of Modern History ""A landmark book on Ukrainian-Jewish Relations. Nationalities Papers ""A must for scholars and laymen alike."" Shofar ""Abramson s impressive command of Ukrainian and Jewish sources lends itself to a critical shift Association for Jewish Studies Review ""Abramson s book rises above national agendas to provide an objective analysis."" The Russian Review Abramson provides a serious, thoughtful, and carefully worded workfthe most balanced and complete existing account. Kritika

Youth, Heroism and War Propaganda explores how the young maritime hero became a major new figure of war propaganda in the second half of the long 18th century. At that time, Britain was searching for a new national identity, and the young maritime hero and his exploits conjured images of vigour, energy, enthusiasm and courage. Adopted as centrepiece in a campaign of concerted war propaganda leading up to the Battle of Trafalgar, the young hero came to represent much that was quintessentially British at this major turning point in the nation's history. By drawing on a wide range of sources, this study shows how the young hero gave maritime youth a symbolic power which it had never before had in Britain. It offers a valuable contribution to the field of British military and naval history, as well as the study of British identity, youth, heroism and propaganda.

'I was riveted by Sweat and its extraordinary tale of the ups and downs of exercise over millennia' Jane Fonda 'Does what all good history books should do: take the past and make it vastly more human' The Times _________________________ From the author of Insomniac City 'who can tackle just about any subject in book form, and make you glad he did' (San Francisco Chronicle): a cultural, scientific, literary, and personal history of exercise Exercise is our modern obsession, and we have the fancy workout gear and fads to prove it. Exercise - a form of physical activity distinct from sports, play, or athletics - was an ancient obsession, too, but as a chapter in human history, it's been largely overlooked. In Sweat, Bill Hayes runs, jogs, swims, spins, walks, bikes, boxes, lifts, sweats, and downward-dogs his way through the origins of different forms of exercise, chronicling how they have evolved over time, and dissecting the dynamics of human movement. Hippocrates, Plato, Galen, Susan B. Anthony, Jack LaLanne, and Jane Fonda, among many others, make appearances in Sweat, but chief among the historical figures is Girolamo Mercuriale, a Renaissance-era Italian physician who aimed singlehandedly to revive the ancient Greek "art of exercising" through his 1569 book De arte gymnastica. In the pages of Sweat, Mercuriale and his illustrated treatise are vividly brought back to life. asHayes ties his own personal experience to the cultural and scientific history of exercise, from ancient times to the present day, he gives us a new way to understand its place in our lives in the 21st century.

In the first half of the 18th century there was an explosion in the volume and variety of crime literature published in London. This was a 'golden age of writing about crime', when the older genres of criminal biographies, social policy pamphlets and 'last-dying speeches' were joined by a raft of new publications, including newspapers, periodicals, graphic prints, the Old Bailey Proceedings and the Ordinary's Account of malefactors executed at Tyburn. By the early 18th century propertied Londoners read a wider array of printed texts and images about criminal offenders - highwaymen, housebreakers, murderers, pickpockets and the like - than ever before or since. Print Culture, Crime and Justice in 18th-Century London provides the first detailed study of crime reporting across this range of publications to explore the influence of print upon contemporary perceptions of crime and upon the making of the law and its administration in the metropolis. This historical perspective helps us to rethink the relationship between media, the public sphere and criminal justice policy in the present.

While traditional industries like textile or lumber mills have received a majority of the scholarly attention devoted to southern economic development, "Faith in Bikinis "presents an untold story of the New South, one that explores how tourism played a central role in revitalizing the southern economy and transforming southern culture after the Civil War. Along the coast of the American South, a culture emerged that negotiated the more rigid religious, social, and racial practices of the inland cotton country and the more indulgent consumerism of vacationers, many from the North, who sought greater freedom to enjoy sex, gambling, alcohol, and other pleasures. On the shoreline, the Sunbelt South--the modern South--first emerged.
This book examines those tensions and how coastal southerners managed to placate both. White supremacy was supported, but the resorts' dependence on positive publicity gave African Americans leverage to pursue racial equality, including access to beaches often restored through the expenditure of federal tax dollars. Displays of women clad in scanty swimwear served to market resorts via pamphlets, newspaper promotions, and film. Yet such marketing of sexuality was couched in the form of carefully managed beauty contests and the language of Christian wholesomeness widely celebrated by resort boosters. Prohibition laws were openly flaunted in Galveston, Biloxi, Myrtle Beach, Virginia Beach, and elsewhere. Yet revenue from sales taxes made states reluctant to rein in resort activities. This revenue bridged the divide between the coastal resorts and agricultural interests, creating a space for the New South to come into being.

Winner of The PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize 2022 Shortlisted for The Wolfson History Prize 2022 A The Times Books of the Year 2022 A fascinating, surprising and often controversial examination of the real God of the Bible, in all his bodily, uncensored, scandalous forms. Three thousand years ago, in the Southwest Asian lands we now call Israel and Palestine, a group of people worshipped a complex pantheon of deities, led by a father god called El. El had seventy children, who were gods in their own right. One of them was a minor storm deity, known as Yahweh. Yahweh had a body, a wife, offspring and colleagues. He fought monsters and mortals. He gorged on food and wine, wrote books, and took walks and naps. But he would become something far larger and far more abstract: the God of the great monotheistic religions. But as Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou reveals, God's cultural DNA stretches back centuries before the Bible was written, and persists in the tics and twitches of our own society, whether we are believers or not. The Bible has shaped our ideas about God and religion, but also our cultural preferences about human existence and experience; our concept of life and death; our attitude to sex and gender; our habits of eating and drinking; our understanding of history. Examining God's body, from his head to his hands, feet and genitals, she shows how the Western idea of God developed. She explores the places and artefacts that shaped our view of this singular God and the ancient religions and societies of the biblical world. And in doing so she analyses not only the origins of our oldest monotheistic religions, but also the origins of Western culture. Beautifully written, passionately argued and frequently controversial, God: An Anatomy is cultural history on a grand scale. 'Rivetingly fresh and stunning' - Sunday Times 'One of the most remarkable historians and communicators working today' - Dan Snow

Solomon Northup's riveting memoir written in 1853 and now an award winning major motion picture. Mr. Northup recounts his powerful life story of being born a free man in New York, kidnapped and forced into slavery for twelve years and then freed and reunited with his wife and children. 12 YEARS A SLAVE: NARRATIVE OF SOLOMON NORTHUP, A CITIZEN OF NEW-YORK, KIDNAPPED IN WASHINGTON CITY IN 1841 AND RESCUED IN 1853, FROM A COTTON PLANTATION NEAR THE RED RIVER IN LOUISIANA. "A moving, vital testament to one of slavery's many thousands gone who retained his humanity in the depths of degradation. It is also a chilling insight into the peculiar institution." -Saturday Review

This book addresses the changing relationships among political participation, political representation, and popular mobilization in Spain from the 1766 protest in Madrid against the early Bourbon reforms until the citizen revolution of 1868 that first introduced universal suffrage and led to the ousting of the monarchy. Popular Participation and the Democratic Imagination in Spain shows that a notion of the "crowd" internally dividing the concept of "people" existed before the advent of Liberalism, allowing for the enduring subordination of popular participation to representation in politics. In its wider European and colonial American context, the study analyzes semantic changes in a range of cultural spheres, from parliamentary debate to historical narrative and aesthetics. It shows how Liberalism had trouble reproducing the legitimacy of limited suffrage and traces the evolution of an imagination on democracy that would allow for the reconfiguration of an all-encompassing image of the people eventually overcoming representative government. "Focused on the nation and identities, Spanish historiography had a pending debt with that other historical subject of modernity, the people. With this book, Pablo Sanchez Leon starts cancelling the debt with an innovative methodology combining conceptual history with social and political history. Brilliantly, this books also proposes a novel chronology for modern history and renewed categories of analysis. In many senses, this is an extraordinarily renovating senior work." -Jose Maria Portillo Valdes, University of the Basque Country, Spain "This book by Pablo Sanchez Leon is an original and detailed study of one of the essential components of modernity, the relation between the concepts of plebe and pueblo. The author shows that plebe and people were shaped in a process of mutual differentiation and how the enduring tension between them deeply marked out the evolution of Spanish politics from the end of the Old Regime and throughout the 19th century. As the author brilliantly argues, such tension is tightly imbricated with the enduring dilemma between representation and participation underlying modern political systems. Through a historical analysis of the influence of people and plebe over Spanish, the book makes clear the degree to which the power of language contributes to shape political actors and institutional frames." -Miguel Angel Cabrera - Professor, University of La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain "Most accounts of Spain's transition to modern democracy begin with the popular uprising against the French invasion in 1808, the creation of a national parliament and the promulgation of an advanced Liberal constitution in 1812. Pablo Sanchez Leon begins the story half a century earlier in the mass street protests in Madrid and other cities in 1766 sparked by Charles III's sweeping reform programme. Sanchez Leon focuses unrepentantly on plebeian groups and crowd action - how they are described and conceived by contemporaries - as a key to understanding Spain's precocious and troubled passage from absolutism to the promulgation of universal male suffrage in September 1868. This audacious and highly original interpretation will surely strike a chord with students of modern Spain." -Guy Thomson, University of Warwick, UK "This is a book for exploring (from current needs) the history of political participation in Spanish society in order to rethink the very notion of modern citizenship." -Maria Sierra, University of Seville, Spain "Motivated by the current crisis in political representation in parliamentary democracies, this work by Pablo Sanchez Leon departs from the process of construction of modern citizenship. Representation, participation and mobilization are put into play as an interactive triad whose dynamics and changing conceptualization have the key to the social, political and cultural changes between the Old Regime and the early establishment of democracy in 1868. The "They do not represent us!" and other current claims for deliberative democracy provide the guiding thread for a demanding research on the tension between representation and participation shaping the period 1766-1868. The work reflects on the relevance of popular participation and, in presenting the modern history of Spain as singular and relevant on its own, provides an account of the building of modern citizenship. -Pablo Fernandez Albaladejo, Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain This exciting book is both topical and historiographically valuable. It offers a fresh perspective on current debates about the limits of representation and the pros and cons of participation; it makes Spanish political culture in the age of revolutions accessible to anglophone readers, and it engagingly illustrates one way of doing the 'history of concepts'. Recommended on all three counts. Joanna Innes, Oxford University