Thinking about the Enlightenment looks beyond the current parameters of studying the Enlightenment, to the issues that can be understood by reflecting on the period in a broader context. Each of the thirteen original chapters, by an international and interdisciplinary team of contributors, illustrates the problematic legacy of the Enlightenment and the continued ramifications of its thinking since the eighteenth century. Together, they consider whether modernity can see its roots in the intellectual revolution of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The collection is divided into six sections, preceded by a comprehensive introduction to the field and the most recent scholarship on the period. Across the sections, the contributors consider modern day encounters with Enlightenment thinking, including Kant's moral philosophy, the conflict between reason and faith, the significance of the Enlightenment of law and the gender inequality that persisted throughout the eighteenth century. By examining specific encounters with the problematic results of Enlightenment concerns, the contributors are able to illuminate and offer new perspectives on topics such as human nature, race, politics, gender and rationality. Drawing from history, philosophy, literature and anthropology, this book enables students and academics alike to take a fresh look at the Enlightenment and its legacy in the modern world.

This volume, first published in 1921, presents a series of portraits of Einstein, thus offering glimpses in the character and private reflections of the man who changed the course of modern science. Intended neither as a biography, nor as a resume of Einsteinian physics, Einstein: The Searcher instead focusses on Einstein's relationship with the scientific project as he himself conceived it, and so is still of contemporary significance for those puzzled by the spirit of scientific enquiry.

Oral history is increasingly acknowledged as a key tool for anyone studying the history of the recent past, and Oral History Theory provides a comprehensive, systematic and accessible overview of this important field. Combining the study of theories drawn from disciplines ranging from linguistics to psychoanalysis with the observations of practitioners and including extensive examples of oral history practice from around the world, this book constitutes the first integrated discussion of oral history theory. Structured around key themes such as the peculiarities of oral history, the study of the self, subjectivity and intersubjectivity, memory, narrative, performance, power and trauma, each chapter provides a clear and user-friendly explanation of the various theoretical approaches, illustrating these with examples from the rich field of published oral history and making suggestions for the practicing oral historian. This second edition includes a new chapter on trauma and ethics, a preface discussing new developments in the field and updated glossary and further reading sections. Supplemented by a new companion website (www.routledge.com/cw/abrams) containing a comprehensive range of case studies, audio material and further resources, this book will be invaluable to experienced and novice oral historians, professionals, and students who are new to the discipline.

The Philosophy of Religion is one result of the Early Modern Reformation movements, as competing theologies purported truth claims which were equal in strength and different in contents. Renaissance thought, from Humanism through philosophy of nature, contributed to the origin of the modern concepts of God. This book explores the continuity of philosophy of religion from late medieval thinkers through humanists to late Renaissance philosophers, explaining the growth of the tensions between the philosophical and theological views. Covering the work of Renaissance authors, including Lull, Salutati, Raimundus Sabundus, Plethon, Cusanus, Valla, Ficino, Pico, Bruno, SuA!rez, and Campanella, this book offers an important understanding of the current philosophy/religion and faith/reason debates and fills the gap between medieval and early modern philosophy and theology.

Reframing the Past traces what historians have written about film and television from 1898 until the early 2000s. Mia Treacey argues that historical engagement with film and television should be reconceptualised as Screened History: an interdisciplinary, international field of research to incorporate and replace what has been known as 'History and Film'. It draws from the fields of Film, Television and Cultural Studies to critically analyse key works and connect past scholarship with contemporary research. Reconsidered as Screened History, the works of Pierre Sorlin, Marc Ferro, John O'Connor, Robert Rosenstone and Robert Toplin are explored alongside lesser known but equally important contributions. This book identifies a number of common themes and ideas that have been explored by historians for decades: the use of history on film and television as a way to teach the past; the challenge of filmic and televisual history to more traditional historiography; and an ongoing battle to find an 'appropriate' historical way to engage with Film Studies and Theory. Screened History offers an approach to exploring History, Film and Television that allows room for future developments, while connecting them to a rich and diverse body of past scholarship. Combining a narrative of historical research on film and television over the past century with a reconceptualisation of the field as Screened History, Reframing the Past is essential reading both for established scholars of History and Film, Film History and other related disciplines, and to students new to the field.

Reframing the Past traces what historians have written about film and television from 1898 until the early 2000s. Mia Treacey argues that historical engagement with film and television should be reconceptualised as Screened History: an interdisciplinary, international field of research to incorporate and replace what has been known as 'History and Film'. It draws from the fields of Film, Television and Cultural Studies to critically analyse key works and connect past scholarship with contemporary research. Reconsidered as Screened History, the works of Pierre Sorlin, Marc Ferro, John O'Connor, Robert Rosenstone and Robert Toplin are explored alongside lesser known but equally important contributions. This book identifies a number of common themes and ideas that have been explored by historians for decades: the use of history on film and television as a way to teach the past; the challenge of filmic and televisual history to more traditional historiography; and an ongoing battle to find an 'appropriate' historical way to engage with Film Studies and Theory. Screened History offers an approach to exploring History, Film and Television that allows room for future developments, while connecting them to a rich and diverse body of past scholarship. Combining a narrative of historical research on film and television over the past century with a reconceptualisation of the field as Screened History, Reframing the Past is essential reading both for established scholars of History and Film, Film History and other related disciplines, and to students new to the field.

Across the nineteenth century, scholars in Britain, France and the German lands sought to understand their earliest ancestors: the Germanic and Celtic tribes known from classical antiquity, and the newly discovered peoples of prehistory. New fields - philology, archeology and anthropology - interacted, breaking down languages, unearthing artifacts, measuring skulls and recording the customs of "savage" analogues. This was a decidedly national process: disciplines institutionalized on national levels, and their findings seen to have deep implications for the origins of the nation and its "racial composition." However, this operated within broader currents. The wide spread of material and novelty of the methods meant that these approaches formed connections across Europe and beyond, even while national rivalries threatened to tear these networks apart. Race, Science and the Nation follows this tension, offering a simultaneously comparative, cross-national and multi-disciplinary history of the scholarly reconstruction of European prehistory. As well as showing how interaction between disciplines was key to their formation, it makes arguments of keen relevance to studies of racial thought and nationalism. It shows these researches often worked against attempts to present the chaotic multi-layered ancient eras as times of mythic origin. Instead, they argued that the modern nations of Europe were not only diverse, but were products of long processes of social development and "racial" fusion. This book therefore brings to light a formerly unstudied motif of nineteenth-century national consciousness, showing how intellectuals in the era of nation-building themselves drove an idea of their nations being "constructed" from a useable past.

Consuming History examines how history works in contemporary popular culture. Analysing a wide range of cultural entities from computer games to daytime television, it investigates the ways in which society consumes history and how a reading of this consumption can help us understand popular culture and issues of representation. In this second edition, Jerome de Groot probes how museums have responded to the heritage debate and how new technologies from online game-playing to internet genealogy have brought about a shift in access to history, discussing the often conflicted relationship between 'public' and academic history and raising important questions about the theory and practice of history as a discipline. Fully revised throughout with up-to-date examples from sources such as Wolf Hall, Game of Thrones and 12 Years a Slave, this edition also includes new sections on the historical novel, gaming, social media and genealogy. It considers new, ground-breaking texts and media such as YouTube in addition to entities and practices, such as re-enactment, that have been underrepresented in historical discussion thus far. Engaging with a broad spectrum of source material and comparing the experiences of the UK, the USA, France and Germany as well as exploring more global trends, Consuming History offers an essential path through the debates for readers interested in history, cultural studies and the media.

This book offers an overview of a huge range of scientific achievements in the 20th century, specifically in the field of applied science. The majority of the essays originally appeared in papers and journals such as the Daily Worker, New Statesman and Nation, Science and Society and Nature. Insofar as one theme runs through them, it is the application of scientific knowledge for the benefit of human society. The author is unashamed to present his perspective on some of the topics discussed in the context of his commitment to Marxism. This collection of essays, first published in 1947, thus offers an intriguing glimpse of mid-20th century attitudes towards science, and specifically to the possibilities of a scientific approach to the full spectrum of human endeavour as they were perceived in the aftermath of the Second World War, at a time when the Soviet Union and its creed still seemed ascendant.

The Routledge Companion to Spatial History explores the full range of ways in which GIS can be used to study the past, considering key questions such as what types of new knowledge can be developed solely as a consequence of using GIS and how effective GIS can be for different types of research. Global in scope and covering a broad range of subjects, the chapters in this volume discuss ways of turning sources into a GIS database, methods of analysing these databases, methods of visualising the results of the analyses, and approaches to interpreting analyses and visualisations. Chapter authors draw from a diverse collection of case studies from around the world, covering topics from state power in imperial China to the urban property market in nineteenth-century Rio de Janeiro, health and society in twentieth-century Britain and the demographic impact of the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915. Critically evaluating both the strengths and limitations of GIS and illustrated with over two hundred maps and figures, this volume is an essential resource for all students and scholars interested in the use of GIS and spatial analysis as a method of historical research.

This book maps out the state of China Studies in seven Southeast Asian countries from different perspectives. It looks at the history, current status, and characteristics of the study of China in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, and Myanmar, and what factors shaped the development and prospects of Sinology and Chinese Studies in these countries. For the first time, China experts from within and outside of this region, using a wide range of biographical, historical, bibliographical and comparative methodologies, tell the stories of how intellectuals and scholars in selected Southeast Asian countries understand, study, and research China. Their studies are providing different perspectives and discourses on China. Chapters discover and explore common factors such as the presence of sizeable ethnic Chinese communities, historical and current interactions between China and Southeast Asia, and the diverse intellectual influences in the region. A novel insight into the study of China in Southeast Asia, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of China-Southeast Asia relations, the intellectual history of Southeast Asia, the intellectual history of Chinese Studies in the world and the politics of Knowledge production.

The Historical Web and Digital Humanities fosters discussions between the Digital Humanities and web archive studies by focussing on one of the largest entities of the web, namely national and transnational web domains such as the British, French, or European web. With a view to investigating whether, and how, web studies and web historiography can inform and contribute to the Digital Humanities, this volume contains a number of case studies and methodological and theoretical discussions that both illustrate the potential of studying the web, in this case national web domains, and provide an insight into the challenges associated with doing so. Commentary on and possible solutions to these challenges are debated within the chapters and each one contributes in its own way to a web history in the making that acknowledges the specificities of the archived web. The Historical Web and Digital Humanities will be essential reading for those with an interest in how the past of the web can be studied, as well as how Big Data approaches can be applied to the archived web. As a result, this volume will appeal to academics and students working and studying in the fields of Digital Humanities, internet and media studies, history, cultural studies, and communication.

The aim of this book is to explore the body in various historical contexts and to take it as a point of departure for broader historiographical projects. The chapters in the volume present the ways in which the body constitutes a valuable and productive object of historical analysis, especially as a lens through which to trace histories of social, political, and cultural phenomena and processes. More specifically, the authors use the body as a tool for critical re-examination of particular histories of human experience, and of societal and cultural practices, thus contributing to the burgeoning area of body history in terms of both specific case studies as well as historiography in general.

Based on the author's long experience in academic life and the public realm, especially in foreign policy, this book argues that a single categoric classification of cities is inadequate, and that cities have had different and varied impacts and positions throughout the history of civilization. The author examines how the formation, transformation, destruction or reestablishment of many civilizational cities reveals a clearer picture of the cornerstones of the course of human history. These cities, which play a decisive and pivotal role in the direction of the flow of history as well as providing us with a compass to guide our efforts to understand and interpret this flow, are conceptualized by the author as civilizations' "pivot cities". This innovative book explores the role of great cities in political historical change, presenting an alternative view of these pivot cities from a culturalist perspective. Within this framework, the role played by pivot cities in the history of civilization may be considered under seven distinct headings: pioneering cities which founded civilizations; cities which were founded by civilizations; cities which were transplanted during the formation of civilizations; "ghost cities" which lost their importance through shifts in political power and civilizational transformation; "lost cities" which were destroyed by civilizations; cities on lines of geocultural/geoeconomic interaction; and cities which combine, transform or are transformed by different civilizations. The author's concept of pivot cities explores the interplay between vital cities and civilizations, which bears on the future of globalization at a time of instability, as projected continuing de-Westernization becomes a theme in studies of global history. This book provides highly productive discussions relevant to the literature on city-civilization relationships and the historicity of pivot cities. Its clear language, rich content, deep and original perspective, interdisciplinary approach and rich bibliography will ensure that it appeals to students and scholars in a variety of disciplines, including cultural studies, political science, comparative urban studies, anthropology, history and civilizational studies.

This study offers a critical survey of past and present interpretations of the Chemical Revolution designed to lend clarity and direction to the current ferment of views.

Winner of the 2017 Outstanding Book Award from the National Communication Association's International and Intercultural Communication Division and the 2017 Sue DeWine Book Award from the NCA Applied Communication Division Using oral history, ethnography, and close readings of media, Sarah C. Bishop probes the myriad and sometimes conflicting ways refugees interpret and use mediated representations of life in the United States. Guided by 74 refugee narrators from Bhutan, Burma, Iraq, and Somalia, U.S. Media and Migration explores answers to questions such as: What does one learn from media about an unfamiliar place? How does media help or hinder refugees' sense of belonging after relocation? And how does the U.S. government use media to shape refugees' understanding of American norms, standards, and ideals? With insights from refugees and resettlement administrators throughout, Bishop provides a compelling and layered analysis of the interaction between refugees and U.S. media before, during, and long after resettlement.

Sociologists and historians are not always the best of neighbours, each group tending to perceive the other in terms of the crudest of stereotypes. However, the two approaches are obviously complementary - change is structured, and structures change. Each discipline can free the other from its own kind of parochialism and the aim of this book is to bridge the gap between these tow subcultures, to give historians a more acute sense of structure and sociologists a more acute sense of change.

Winner of the 2017 Outstanding Book Award from the National Communication Association's International and Intercultural Communication Division and the 2017 Sue DeWine Book Award from the NCA Applied Communication Division Using oral history, ethnography, and close readings of media, Sarah C. Bishop probes the myriad and sometimes conflicting ways refugees interpret and use mediated representations of life in the United States. Guided by 74 refugee narrators from Bhutan, Burma, Iraq, and Somalia, U.S. Media and Migration explores answers to questions such as: What does one learn from media about an unfamiliar place? How does media help or hinder refugees' sense of belonging after relocation? And how does the U.S. government use media to shape refugees' understanding of American norms, standards, and ideals? With insights from refugees and resettlement administrators throughout, Bishop provides a compelling and layered analysis of the interaction between refugees and U.S. media before, during, and long after resettlement.

Resilience is currently infusing policy debates and public discourses, widely promoted as a normative goal in fields as diverse as the economy, national security, personal development and well-being. Resilience thinking provides a framework for understanding dynamics of complex, inter-connected social, ecological and economic systems. The book critically analyzes the multiple meanings and applications of resilience ideas in contemporary society and to suggests where, how and why resilience might cause us to re-think global change and development, and how this new approach might be operationalized.

The book shows how current policy discourses on resilience promote business-as-usual rather than radical responses to change. But it argues that resilience can help understand and respond to the challenges of the contemporary age. These challenges are characterized by high uncertainty; globalized and interconnected systems; increasing disparities and limited choices. Resilience thinking can overturn orthodox approaches to international development dominated by modernization, aid dependency and a focus on economic growth and to global environmental change characterized by technocratic approaches, market environmentalism and commoditization of ecosystem services.

Resilience, Development and Global Change presents a sophisticated, theoretically informed synthesis of resilience thinking across disciplines. It applies resilience ideas specifically to international development and relates resilience to core theories in development and shows how a radical, resilience-based approach to development might transform responses to climate change, to the dilemmas of managing forests and ecosystems, and to rural and urban poverty in the developing world. The book provides fresh perspectives for scholars of international development, environmental studies and geography and add new dimensions for those studying broader fields of ecology and society.

Founders, classics, and canons have been vitally important in helping to frame sociology's identity. Within the academy today, a number of positions-feminist, postmodernist, postcolonial-question the status of "tradition." In Founders, Classics, Canons, Peter Baehr defends the continuing importance of sociology's classics and traditions in a university education. Baehr offers arguments against interpreting, defending, and attacking sociology's great texts and authors in terms of founders and canons. He demonstrates why, in logical and historical terms, discourses and traditions cannot actually be "founded" and why the term "founder" has little explanatory content. Equally, he takes issue with the notion of "canon" and argues that the analogy between the theological canon and sociological classic texts, though seductive, is mistaken. Although he questions the uses to which the concepts of founder, classic, and canon have been put, Baehr is not dismissive. On the contrary, he seeks to understand the value and meaning these concepts have for the people who employ them in the cultural battle to affirm or attack the liberal university tradition.

This book examines British collectors of so-called Persian art (a broad umbrella term then covering a large portion of Islamic art) in the late 19th century, including ceramics, metalwork, carpets, textiles and woodwork. Based on a foundational event, the very first exhibition of "Persian and Arab Art" held by a London Gentlemen's Club in 1885, this book follows one generation of men, retracing the subtle shades of difference among "amateurs," "connoisseurs," "experts" and "collectors," and exploring all the mechanisms of the construction of a collective fascination for the Orient. Isabelle Gadoin uncovers some of the first "scientific" analyses of Islamic objects and of the first private notebooks or exhibition catalogues, to provide an in-depth study of the way Westerners talked about Islamic objects and began to define what would become Islamic art history. All the while, Gadoin unravels the skein of Western prejudice, Romantic fancy, sincere admiration and ruthless appropriation, in art collecting, to write a new chapter of Orientalist history. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, history of collecting, colonialism and postcolonialism, and Orientalism.

The Progress of Science, first published in 1934, was originally intended to help the interested reader develop their understanding of the natural sciences as they stood in the period leading up to the Second World War. This intention was predicated on the belief that the spirit of science can only have a positive influence on human society, and that when enough people are sufficiently scientifically-minded the problems of civilisation will be resolved through the steady application of scientific principles. Covering the full range of the distinct disciplines- physics, chemistry, biology - this collection offers a fascinating window into the attitudes towards science at a time when the full extent of its potentially catastrophic potential was about to be realised across the world.

Defining a "historic transition" means understanding how the complex system of intellectual, social, and material structures formed that determined the transition from a certain "universe" to a "new universe," where the old explanations were radically rethought. In this book, a group of historians with specializations ranging from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries and across political, religious, and social fields, attempt a reinterpretation of "modernity" as the new "Axial Age."

Psychoanalysis really should not exist today. Until a few years ago, most of the evidence suggested that its time was drawing to a close, and yet psychoanalysis demonstrated remarkable resilience in the face of criticism, alongside significant resurgence over the course of the last years. In "Conservative and Radical Perspectives on Psychoanalytic Knowledge: The Fascinated and the Disenchanted" psychoanalyst and philosopher Aner Govrin describes the mechanisms of sociology within the psychoanalytic community which have enabled it to withstand the hostility levelled at it and to flourish as an intellectual and pragmatic endeavour. He defends the most criticized aspect of psychoanalysis: the fascination of analysts with their theories. Govrin demonstrates that fascination is a common phenomenon in science and shows its role in the evolution of psychoanalysis. Govrin argues that throughout its history, psychoanalysis has successfully embraced an amalgam of what he has defined and termed "fascinated" and "troubled communities." A "fascinated community" is a group that embraces a psychoanalytic theory (such as Bion's, Klein's, Winnicott s) as one embraces truth. A "troubled community" is one that is not satisfied with the state of psychoanalytic knowledge and seeks to generate a fundamental change that does not square with existing traditions (such as new psychoanalytic schools, scientifically troubled communities and the relational approach). It is this amalgam and the continuous tension between these two groups that are responsible for psychoanalysis' rich and varied development and for its ability to adapt to a changing world. Clinical vignettes from the work of Robert Stolorow, Betty Joseph, Antonino Ferro and Michael Eigen illustrate the dynamic by which psychoanalytic knowledge is formed. "Conservative and Radical Perspectives on Psychoanalytic Knowledge" will be of interest to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and philosophers alike.

Historical biography has a mixed reputation: at its best it can reveal much not only about an individual, but the wider context of their life and society; at worst it can result in a narrowly focused work of hagiography or condemnation. Yet in spite of its sometimes inferior status amongst academics, biography has remained a popular genre, and in recent years has developed into new and intriguing areas. As the essays in this volume reveal, scholars from an array of different disciplines have embraced what biography can offer them, expanding the remit of biography from people to things, tracing the 'life' of their chosen object from creation to use to disposal to rediscovery. The increasing concern with the physicality of manuscripts and books has also meant an awareness of and interest in the 'lives' of these forms of material culture. Historians have also become increasingly interested in groups of individuals resulting in prosopographical studies. A book on the diversity of biography is therefore very timely, exploring the multi-disciplinary application of historical biography in the period 500-1700. It presents fourteen case studies offering new approaches to historical biography, written by early-career researchers from backgrounds in archaeology, English, art, architectural history and history, demonstrating different approaches and techniques. Overall, the collection is a strong and united statement by a group of early-career researchers who insist on the vitality of biography as a central concern of historians across the disciplines of the humanities. Contributors believe that the 'life' is a fundamental medium of study for the medieval and early modern periods, and thus . bolsters the move back towards biography as a primary tool of medieval and early modern scholars, as well as a tool for future research for humanities scholars interested in biography.