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Books > History > World history
Why is it easy to hate and difficult to love? When societies fracture into warring tribes, we demonise those who oppose us. We tear down our statues, forgetting that what begins with the destruction of statues, often leads to the killing of people. Blending history, philosophy and psychology, A History of Love and Hate in 21 Statues is a compelling exploration of identity and power. This remarkable book spans every continent, religion and era, through the creation and destruction of 21 statues from Hatshepsut and the Buddhas of Bamiyan to Mendelssohn, Edward Colston and Frederick Douglass. The 21 statues are Hatshepsut (Ancient Egypt), Nero (Suffolk, UK), Athena (Syria), Buddhas of Bamiyan (Afghanistan), Hecate (Constantinople), Our Lady of Caversham (near Reading, UK), Huitzilopochtli (Mexico), Confucius (China), Louis XV (France), Mendelssohn (Germany), The Confederate Monument (US), Sir John A. Macdonald (Canada), Christopher Columbus (Venezuela), Edward Colston (Bristol, UK), Cecil Rhodes (South Africa), George Washington (US), Stalin (Hungary), Yagan (Australia), Saddam Hussein (Iraq), B. R. Ambedkar (India) and Frederick Douglass (US).
The volumes in this set, originally published between 1968 and 1989, draw together research by leading academics in the area of the British Empire and provides an examination of related key issues. The volumes examine slavery in the British Empire, problems encountered in India in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, as well as the Empire at its most powerful. This set will be of particular interest to students of British, colonial, and world history.
**LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2021** **SHORTLISTED FOR THE DUFF COOPER PRIZE 2021** **SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAMES TAIT BLACK PRIZE** **FINALIST FOR THE 2022 PLUTARCH AWARD** D. H. Lawrence is no longer censored, but he is still on trial - and we are still unsure what the verdict should be. Delving into the memoirs of those who both loved and hated him most, Burning Man follows Lawrence from the peninsular underworld of Cornwall in 1915 to post-war Italy to the mountains of New Mexico, and traces the author's footsteps through the pages of his lesser known work. Wilson presents a complex, courageous and often comic fugitive, careering around a world in the grip of apocalypse, in search of utopia; and, in bringing the true Lawrence into sharp focus, shows how he speaks to us now more than ever. 'A work of art in its own right' OBSERVER 'Utterly enthralling' GEOFF DYER 'Brilliantly unconventional' RICHARD HOLMES 'A red-hot, propulsive book' THE TIMES
The Luftwaffe - the German Air Force - played a crucial role in the Wehrmacht's blitzkrieg tactics, providing both air cover and air artillery for Germany's panzer troops on the ground. Germany's successful invasions of France, the Low Countries, the Balkans and the Soviet Union are due in no small part to the professionalism, dedication and skill of the Luftwaffe. Broken down by campaign and key battles within each theatre of war, German Luftwaffe in World War II illustrates the strengths and organizational structures of the Third Reich's Air Force, building into a detailed compendium of information. Full-colour order of battle tree diagrams at Luftflotte, Gruppe and Geschwader level help the reader understand how and where the fighters and bombers of the German Air Force were employed at any given time between 1939-45. Reference tables provide squadron strengths while organizational diagrams show the types and numbers of aircraft employed in specific operations, such as in the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940 and the opening stages of Operation Zitadelle in July 1943. With extensive organizational diagrams and full-colour operations maps, German Luftwaffe in World War II is an easy-to-use guide to the German Air Force. The book is an essential reference for any serious enthusiast of air warfare in World War II.
Writers at War addresses the most immediate representations of the First World War in the prose of Ford Madox Ford, May Sinclair, Siegfried Sassoon and Mary Borden; it interrogates the various ways in which these writers contended with conveying their war experience from the temporal and spatial proximity of the warzone and investigates the multifarious impact of the war on the (re)development of their aesthetics. It also interrogates to what extent these texts aligned with or challenged existing social, cultural, philosophical and aesthetic norms. While this book is concerned with literary technique, the rich existing scholarship on questions of gender, trauma and cultural studies on World War I literature serves as a foundation. This book does not oppose these perspectives but offers a complementary approach based on close critical reading. The distinctiveness of this study stems from its focus on the question of representation and form and on the specific role of the war in the four authors' literary careers. This is the first scholarly work concerned exclusively with theorising prose written from the immediacy of the war. This book is intended for academics, researchers, PhD candidates, postgraduates and anyone interested in war literature.
This collection is the first to historicise the term ephemera and its meanings for early modern England and considers its relationship to time, matter, and place. It asks: how do we conceive of ephemera in a period before it was routinely employed (from the eighteenth century) to describe ostensibly disposable print? In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries-when objects and texts were rapidly proliferating-the term began to acquire its modern association with transitoriness. But contributors to this volume show how ephemera was also integrally related to wider social and cultural ecosystems. Chapters explore those ecosystems and think about the papers and artefacts that shaped homes, streets, and cities or towns and their attendant preservation, loss, or transformation. The studies here therefore look beyond static records to think about moments of process and transmutation and accordingly get closer to early modern experiences, identities, and practices.
"Warfare Since the Second World War "presents a wealth of analysis and data about one of the most pressing questions of our time: why does war continue to plague us fifty years after World War II? This book argues that the nature of war has shifted from inter-state conflicts toward internal conflicts, above all civil war. Low-intensity conflict helps explain the constant increase in wars over the last fifty years and makes it probable this trend will continue. Gantzel and Schwinghammer argue that modern warfare reflects a continuation of the nation-state-building process begun in nineteenth-century Europe. In their analysis, economic modernization and social integration destroy traditional relations and create instability in the developing world. While these forces were successfully harnessed by the modern state in Europe and North America, economic and political globalization make a similar resolution considerably more complex. In addition to their insightful analysis, the authors provide a detailed list of all wars fought from 1945 to 1995. The authors' lucid explanatory commentaries are accompanied by lists, tables, and charts. In addition to a detailed war register, upon which all statistical data and analyses for the volume are based, there are appendices with directories useful for locating specific wars, as well as several supplementary lists. An afterword brings the reader closer to the world situation as we conclude the twentieth century; including the impact of political developments in Eastern Europe. Beyond its historical dimension, this book offers a policy-relevant empirical demonstration of the ongoing increase in internal (civil) wars and addresses the inability of modern society to prevent this scourge. "Warfare Since the Second World War" is an indispensable resource for anyone concerned with issues of war and peace, development, and the future of international relations.
Print Letters in Seventeenth-Century England investigates how and why letters were printed in the interrelated spheres of political contestation, religious controversy, and news culture-those published as pamphlets, as broadsides, and in newsbooks in the interests of ideological disputes and as political and religious propaganda. The epistolary texts examined in this book, be they fictional, satirical, collected, or authentic, were written for, or framed to have, a specific persuasive purpose, typically an ideological or propagandistic one. This volume offers a unique exploration into the crucial interface of manuscript culture and print culture where tremendous transformations occur, when, for instance, at its most basic level, a handwritten letter composed by a single individual and meant for another individual alone comes, either intentionally or not, into the purview of hundreds or even thousands of people. This essential context, a solitary exchange transmuted via print into an interaction consumed by many, serves to highlight the manner in which letters were exploited as propaganda and operated as vehicles of cultural narrative.
This book looks specifically at the years leading up to Mussato's public coronation, on 3rd December 1315, as poet laureate for his city / His writings are a key component of his political manoeuvres as he tried to navigate through the troubled waters of northern Italian politics and will therefore appeal to those interested in that topic / The book demonstrates how the sources pertaining to Mussato's life and career are part of an exercise in self-promotion and self-fashioning, intended to secure his position within factional politics, but rooted in a philosophical approach derived from his early classical studies.
Greek and Roman Slaveries Slavery was foundational to Greek and Roman societies, affecting nearly all of their economic, social, political, and cultural practices. Greek and Roman Slaveries offers a rich collection of literary, epigraphic, papyrological, and archaeological sources, including many unfamiliar ones. This sourcebook ranges chronologically from the archaic period to late antiquity, covering the whole of the Mediterranean, the Near East, and temperate Europe. Readers will find an interactive and user-friendly engagement with past scholarship and new research agendas that focuses particularly on the agency of ancient slaves, the processes in which slavery was inscribed, the changing history of slavery in antiquity, and the comparative study of ancient slaveries. Perfect for undergraduate and graduate students taking courses on ancient slavery, as well as courses on slavery more generally, this sourcebook's questions, cross-references, and bibliographies encourage an analytical and interactive approach to the various economic, social, and political processes and contexts in which slavery was employed while acknowledging the agency of enslaved persons.
"This is an original work, meticulously researched, rich in detail, and written in a clear and - here and there - refreshingly pungent style. (...) I regard it as a first-rate contribution to the diplomatic methods of the 100 years before the First World War." - G.R. Berridge, Emeritus Professor of International Politics, University of Leicester "Marina Soroka has made exceptional use of Russian manuscript sources from among imperial archives and family papers to enrich a well-grounded perspective of the European watering place as a forum for brokering national destinies and forging political careers." - Jonathan Keates, Times Literary Supplement "At times captivating like a novel, The Summer Capitals of Europe narrates the role of spas in the geopolitical set-up of nineteenth-century Europe." - Corriere della Sera "an important and overdue contribution" - Ben Anderson, Keele University, English Historical Review This book is about the European health spas of the nineteenth century: what they were, how they operated, what life was like there and how their functions evolved to the point where their original medicinal purpose was relegated to a secondary place by the unintended uses of spas as stages of social and political interactions. These popular resorts were nicknamed 'the summer capitals of Europe' because of the tendency of nations' governing classes to gather there. Every summer between 1814 and 1914 (and in a few cases during World War I) continental watering places became a microcosm of cosmopolitan aristocratic Europe, incorporating its conventions, tastes, concerns and interests. As the nineteenth century advanced, fashionable watering stations increasingly became associated with social bonding, matchmaking, pleasure, career building, conspicuous consumption and diplomatic activity that took place during the high season.
A village-by-village survey of Suffolk, including descriptions of church monuments, other antiquities, local ecclesiastical and manorial customs. and property ownership, in the first five years of the seventeenth century. The Chorography of Suffolk reconstructed in this volume is one of the first attempts of a county survey of Suffolk. It has remained almost unknown and unconsidered by antiquaries since it was compiled, at the end of the reign of Elizabeth I, for no county antiquarian tradition comparable to those in Essex and Warwickshire ever emerged in Suffolk. The unknown author of the Chorography intended his work to be a village-by-village survey of the county, including descriptions of church monuments, other antiquities, local ecclesiastical and manorial customs, and property ownership as he found them in his own day. The resulting work, although never completed, is an invaluable gazetteer of Suffolk as it was in the first five years of the seventeenth century. The manuscript passed into the library of the eminent doctor Sir Thomas Browne, before its acquisition by Peter Le Neve, the indefatigable but eccentric eighteenth century antiquary. It was Le Neve who was responsible for the dismemberment of the Suffolk Chorography manuscript into several hundred fragments, so that from the dispersal of his collections in the 1780s until the present day, the pieces of the Suffolk manuscript have become scattered through at least six different English archive collections, and some of it remains lost. The present volume forms the fruits of a great academic jigsaw puzzle following the first chance rediscovery of a large number of the fragments, and it represents about 95 per cent of the text as it existed before Le Neve's vandalism.
Michel Paradis's Last Mission to Tokyo, a "superb" (The Wall Street Journal) and "engrossing...richly researched" (The New York Times Book Review) account of a key but underreported moment in World War II: The Doolittle Raids and the international war crimes trial in 1945 that defined the Japanese-American relations and changed legal history. In 1942, freshly humiliated from the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States was in search of a plan. President Roosevelt, determined to show the world that our nation would not be intimidated or defeated by enemy powers, demanded recommendations for a show of strength. Jimmy Doolittle, a stunt pilot with a doctorate from MIT, came forward and led eighty young men, gathered together from the far-flung corners of Depression-era America, on a seemingly impossible mission across the Pacific. Sixteen planes in all, they only had enough fuel for a one-way trip. Together, the Raiders, as they were called, did what no one had successfully done for more than a thousand years. They struck the mainland of Japan and permanently turned the tide of the war in the Pacific. Almost immediately, The Doolittle Raid captured the public imagination, and has remained a seminal moment in World War II history, but the heroism and bravery of the mission is only half the story. In Last Mission to Tokyo, Michel Paradis reveals the dramatic aftermath of the mission, which involved two lost crews captured, tried, and tortured at the hands of the Japanese, a dramatic rescue of the survivors in the last weeks of World War II, and an international manhunt and trial led by two dynamic and opposing young lawyers--in which both the United States and Japan accused the other of war crimes--that would change the face of our legal and military history. Perfect for fans of Lucky 666 and Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial, Last Mission to Tokyo is an unforgettable war story-meets-courtroom-drama that "captures the reader with the first sentence and never lets go" (John Grisham).
An evocative and richly illustrated exploration of flowers and how, over the centuries, they have given us so much sustenance, meaning, and pleasure "From the meaning of carnations in Sex and the City to the use of sunflowers in the cleanup of Chernobyl, from Henry VIII's ban on saffron dye in Ireland to the modernist reinventions of roses, this is no ordinary flower book, and Kasia Boddy is no ordinary writer."-Ali Smith, author of Spring "Fresh, novel . . . and unclassifiable."-Publishers Weekly The bright yellow of a marigold and the cheerful red of a geranium, the evocative fragrance of a lotus or a saffron-infused paella-there is no end of reasons to love flowers. Ranging through the centuries and across the globe, Kasia Boddy looks at the wealth of floral associations that has been passed down in perfumes, poems, and paintings; in the design of buildings, clothes, and jewelry; in songs, TV shows, and children's names; and in nearly every religious, social, and political ritual. Exploring the first daffodils of spring and the last chrysanthemums of autumn, this is also a book about seasons. In vibrant detail and drawing on a rich array of illustrations, Boddy considers how the sunflower, poppy, rose, lily-and many others-have given rise to meaning, value, and inspiration throughout history, and why they are integral to so many different cultures.
'Masterful.' - The Economist The Congo-Ocean railroad stands as one of the deadliest construction projects in history. It was completed in 1934, when Equatorial Africa was a French colony. African workers were conscripted at gunpoint, separated from their families and subjected to hellish conditions as they hacked their way through dense tropical foliage; excavated by hand thousands of tonnes of earth in order to lay down track; blasted their way through rock to construct tunnels; or risked their lives building bridges over otherwise impassable rivers. In the process, they suffered disease, malnutrition and rampant physical abuse, likely resulting in at least 20,000 deaths. Drawing on exhaustive research in French and Congolese archives, a chilling documentary record and eye-opening photographic evidence, J. P. Daughton tells the epic story of the Congo-Ocean railroad, and in doing so reveals the human costs and contradictions of modern empire.
The outbreak of World War I saw the collapse of socialist notions of class solidarity and reaffirmed the enduring strength of nationalism. The workers of the world did not unite, but turned on one another and slaughtered their fellows in what was then the bloodiest war in history. There have been many efforts to explain the outbreak of war in 1914, but few from so intimate a perspective as LeBon's. He examines such questions as why German scholars tried to deny Germany's obvious guilt in the war, and what explained the remarkable resolve of the French army to persevere in the face of unprecedented adversity. To such questions, LeBon proposes answers built upon principles well articulated in the larger body of his work. He transforms the character of the debate by demonstrating how psychological principles explain more persuasively both the causes of German academic ignominy and the origins of French valor. Convinced as he was that only psychology could illuminate collective behavior, LeBon dismisses purely economic or political interpretations as ill-conceived and inadequate precisely because they fail to appreciate the role of psychology in the collective behavior of national statesmen, prominent scholars, and ordinary soldiers. The Psychology of the Great War provides a bridge to study both crowd behavior and battlefield behavior by illustrating how ordinary people are transformed into savages by great events. This element in LeBon's thinking influenced Georges Sorel's thinking, as he had seen the same phenomenon in those who participated in general strikes and revolutions. And in a later period and different context, Hannah Arendt gave this strange capacity of the ordinary to be transformed into the extraordinary the name "banality of evil." The book will be of interest to social theorists, psychologists concerned with group behavior, and historians of the period.
This book covers the entire spectrum of military service during World War I. It gives examples, including many photographs, from almost every ethnic and national group in the United States during this time. Including draft registration, induction and training, stateside service, overseas service, combat, return home, and discharge, learn the history of America's foreign-born soldiers during World War I and how they adapted to military service to become part of the successful American Expeditionary Forces.
The volumes in this set, originally published between 1966 and 1983, draw together research by leading academics on William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli, and provide a rigorous examination of related key issues. The volumes examine the historical, political and philosophical, whilst also exploring their work with other political figures such as Paul Kruger. This set will be of interest to students of history and politics respectively.
From the New York Times columnist and bestselling author of Bad Religion, a powerful portrait of how our wealthy, successful society has passed into an age of gridlock, stalemate, public failure and private despair. The era of the coronavirus has tested America, and our leaders and institutions have conspicuously failed. That failure shouldn't be surprising: Beneath social-media frenzy and reality-television politics, our era's deep truths are elite incompetence, cultural exhaustion, and the flight from reality into fantasy. Casting a cold eye on these trends, The Decadent Society explains what happens when a powerful society ceases advancing-how the combination of wealth and technological proficiency with economic stagnation, political stalemate, and demographic decline creates a unique civilizational crisis. Ranging from the futility of our ideological debates to the repetitions of our pop culture, from the decline of sex and childbearing to the escapism of drug use, Ross Douthat argues that our age is defined by disappointment-by the feeling that all the frontiers are closed, that the paths forward lead only to the grave. Correcting both optimism and despair, Douthat provides an enlightening explanation of how we got here, how long our frustrations might last, and how, in renaissance or catastrophe, our decadence might ultimately end.
The punctuation marks, mathematical symbols and glyphs which haunt the edges of our keyboards have evolved over many hundreds of years. They shape our understanding of texts, calculations and online interactions. Without these symbols all texts would run in endless unbroken lines of letters and numbers. Many hands and minds have created, refined and promulgated the symbols which give form to our written communication. Through individual entries discussing the story behind each example, 'Hyphens & Hashtags' reveals the long road many of these special characters have taken on their way into general use. In the digital age of communication, some symbols have gained an additional meaning or a new lease of life - the colon now doubles up as the eyes of a smiling face emoticon and the hashtag has travelled from obscurity to an essential component of social media. Alongside historical roots, this book also considers ever-evolving modern usage and uncovers those symbols which have now fallen out of fashion. 'Hyphens & Hashtags' casts a well-deserved spot-light on these stalwarts of typography whose handy knack for summing up a command or concept in simple shorthand marshals our sentences, clarifies a calculation or adds some much-needed emotion to our online interactions.
Marie Laurencin, in spite of the noticeable reputation she made in Paris in the first half of the twentieth century, has attracted only sporadic attention by late-twentieth century art historians. Until now the substance of her art and the feminist issues that were entangled in her life have been narrowly examined or reduced by an author's chosen theoretical format; and the terms of her lesbian identity have been overlooked. In this case study of une femme inadaptee and an unfit feminist, Elizabeth Kahn re-situates Laurencin in the on-going feminist debates that enrich the disciplines of art history, women's studies and literary criticism. Kahn's thorough reading of the artist's visual and literary production ensures a comprehensive overview which addresses notable works and passages but also integrates those that are less well known. Incorporating feminist theory and building on the work of contemporary feminist art historians, she avoids the heroics of conventional biography, instead allowing her subject to participate in the historical collective of women's work. Provocative and engagingly written, this fresh new study of Marie Laurencin's life and works also explores the multiple valences by which to connect the histories of, and find new connections between, women artists across the twentieth century.
This book analyses the international development of the census by comparing the history of census taking on all continents and in many countries. The timeframe is wide, from male censuses in the Bible to current censuses covering the whole population. There is a focus on the efforts and destinies of census takers and the development of methods used to collect information into the census questionnaires. The book highlights international cooperation in census taking, as well as how computerized access to census data facilitates genealogical studies and statistical research on both historical and contemporary societies. It deals with such questions as "Why did the French and British gentry block efforts at census taking in the 18th century?"; "What role did German censuses play during Holocaust?"; Why were the Soviet census directors executed as part of the Moscow processes?"; "Why did US states sue the Census Bureau in the 1970s?"; "How do wars and revolutions affect census taking?". The text ends by discussing whether the days of the population census as we know it are numbered, since countries exceedingly construct censuses by combining information from population registers rather than with questionnaires.
Post-mortems may have become a staple of our TV viewing, but the long history of this practice is still little known. This book provides a fresh account of the dissections that took place across early modern Europe on those who had died of a disease or in unclear circumstances. Drawing on different approaches and on sources as varied as notes taken at the dissection table, legal records and learned publications, the chapters explore how autopsies informed the understanding of pathology of all those involved. With a broad geography, including Rome, Amsterdam and Geneva, the book recaptures the lost worlds of physicians, surgeons, patients, families and civic authorities as they used corpses to understand diseases and make sense of suffering. The evidence from post-mortems was not straightforward, but between 1500 and 1750 medical practitioners rose to the challenge, proposing various solutions to the difficulties they encountered and creating a remarkable body of knowledge. The book shows the scope and diversity of this tradition and how laypeople contributed their knowledge and expectations to the wide-ranging exchanges stimulated by the opening of bodies.
Sappho, the earliest and most famous Greek woman poet, sang her songs around 600 BCE on the island of Lesbos. Of what survives from the approximately nine papyrus scrolls collected in antiquity, all is translated here: substantial poems and fragments, including three poems discovered in the last two decades. The power of Sappho's poetry - her direct style, rich imagery, and passion - is apparent even in these remnants. Diane Rayor's translations of Greek poetry are graceful, modern in diction yet faithful to the originals. Sappho's voice is heard in these poems about love, friendship, rivalry, and family. In the introduction and notes, Andre Lardinois plausibly reconstructs Sappho's life and work, the performance of her songs, and how these fragments survived. This second edition incorporates thirty-two more fragments primarily based on Camillo Neri's 2021 Greek edition and revisions of over seventy fragments.
The Great War is a landmark history that firmly places the First World War in the context of imperialism. Set to overturn conventional accounts of what happened during this, the first truly international conflict, it extends the study of the First World War beyond the confines of Europe and the Western Front. By recounting the experiences of people from the colonies especially those brought into the war effort either as volunteers or through conscription, John Morrow's magisterial work also unveils the impact of the war in Asia, India and Africa. From the origins of World War One to its bloody (and largely unknown) aftermath, The Great War is distinguished by its long chronological coverage, first person battle and home front accounts, its pan European and global emphasis and the integration of cultural considerations with political. |
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