Sarospatak, a peaceful little town in north-eastern Hungary, holds legendary status within the country's cultural landscape. Its school, the Reformed Church College of Sarospatak, has trained several important writers, artists and politicians across the Central-European region's 500-year history. This volume presents the institution's history through the lens of 37 books, documents and items from the collection. What was life like for a 17th century Hungarian student? Which physical experiments were pioneering? Why did Bela Bartok want to enrol his son in a countryside secondary school? These are only a few of the questions raised by the authors that introduce the reader to the colourful traditions of this remarkable school.

This book offers a critical examination of 'infrastructures for peace', originally proposed as a framework of conflict transformation. Through an exploration of the statist ideological underpinnings of peace-building, it traces how the concept was transformed by institutional actors - international organisations and states - into a tool to further the state-building goals of liberal peace-building.

This book offers a critical examination of 'infrastructures for peace', originally proposed as a framework of conflict transformation. Through an exploration of the statist ideological underpinnings of peace-building, it traces how the concept was transformed by institutional actors - international organisations and states - into a tool to further the state-building goals of liberal peace-building.

Modern warlordism is a prominent feature of the post-Cold War era. Warlords present a major security threat in many regions of Africa and Asia. Although the international community has intervened in many warlord conflicts over the past decade and half, the results of these interventions are mixed. Such outcomes may stem from an incomplete assessment of the root causes of warlordism. Warlordism is a recurrent phenomenon in history, having appeared several times since the fall of the Roman Empire, and was always the sign of state weakness. A key factor in the warlordisation of many weak states today is the imposition of the European nation state - through colonisation and de-colonisation - in areas that do not have the same historical experience as the originators of this form of political organisation. This monograph posits the international system and the nation state within as causes of warlordism, presents a vertical comparison between historical and modern warlords, and examines the functioning of warlord domains. The case of Afghanistan presents itself as an example to test the validity of the book.