European history: medieval period, middle ages Books

Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE LONGMAN-HISTORY TODAY BOOK PRIZE 2019 WINNER OF THE TEMPLER MEDAL BOOK PRIZE 2019 WINNER OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON MEDAL FOR MILITARY HISTORY 2019LONGLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING 2019 A SPECTATOR BOOK THE YEAR 2019''Brilliant. The best discussion of soldiers in combat, their motivation, behaviours and fears, that I have come across'' Robert Fox, Evening StandardOur Boys brings to life the human experiences of the paratroopers who fought in the Falklands War, and examines the long aftermath of that conflict. It is a first in many ways - a history of the Parachute Regiment, a group with an elite and aggressive reputation; a study of close-quarters combat on the Falkland Islands; and an exploration of the many legacies of this short and symbolic war.Told unflinchingly through the experiences of people who lived through it, Our Boys shows how the FTrade ReviewA work of astonishing power and originality ... a compelling study of the realities of war, centred on the death of the author's uncle in the Falklands. It is at once intensely moving, completely objective and beautifully written. -- Jonathan Sumption * The Spectator *An extraordinary book. -- Richard Vinen, author of National ServiceBeautifully written, intensely poignant book ... It will leave a real mark on the minds of those who read it. -- Peter HennessyPowerful and moving, Our Boys is a fascinating insight into the nature of combat and represents an important contribution to our understanding of the Falklands War, The Parachute Regiment and post-war Britain. -- Dan Jarvis MPA classic. Truly superb... something unique and original. It does great justice to the Paras, and is the most honest and honourable homage possible to the author's uncle Dave. -- Major Nigel Price, 7th Gurkha Rifles

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE LAURA SHANNON PRIZE 2021 AND ITALY''S CHERASCO HISTORY PRIZE 2021SHORTLISTED FOR THE LIONEL GELBER PRIZE 2020A TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019Migrants have stood at the heart of modern Europe''s experience, whether trying to escape danger, to find a better life or as a result of deliberate policy, whether moving from the countryside to the city, or between countries, or from outside the continent altogether. Peter Gatrell''s powerful new book is the first to bring these stories together into one place. He creates a compelling narrative bracketed by two nightmarish periods: the great convulsions following the fall of the Third Reich and the mass attempts in the 2010s by migrants to cross the Mediterranean into Europe. The Unsettling of Europe is a new history of the continent, charting the ever-changing arguments about the desirability or otherwise of migrants anTrade ReviewPeter Gatrell has produced a tour de force ... This important and timely work on one of the most challenging issues in modern Europe deserves to be widely read. -- Ian KershawA meticulously researched and documented survey ... Gatrell's closely focused studies help us to see this set of issues as illuminating some much wider questions about the way we live now. -- Rowan Williams * New Statesman *Excellent ... an absorbing and highly readable narrative that ought to be required reading for anyone concerned with modern migration, and not just in Europe either. -- Richard Evans * BBC History *The Unsettling of Europe is a definitive book in which Peter Gatrell proves that 'what we used to have' is a chimerical idea ... A clearly written and essential history. -- David Aaronovitch * The Times *A calmly humanist history ... Surprisingly, I was left feeling optimistic - by Gatrell's informed vision of an unstoppably interconnected world, unsettled, not by migration but by inequality, yet full of possibilities, provided we have the courage to own our history. -- Kapka Kassabova * The Spectator *Gatrell's eye for detail and sensitivity make this a compelling account that challenges the "us" and "them" framing into which much discussion of migration is forced. Its great strength is that it treats the emotional and cultural aspects of the subject with as much respect as the historical facts and figures. -- Daniel Trilling * The Guardian *The Unsettling of Europe is a positive and sympathetic book that seeks to rebalance the conversation. It is a bold, meticulously researched and frequently compelling account ... Readers are taken on a fascinating, albeit troubling journey through the moments and revolutions that shaped postwar Europe. -- Matthew Goodwin * The Sunday Times *Gatrell's historical long view provides a valuable reminder of what Europe went through after 1945 ... These now-distant events have every right to a place in the history books, and Gatrell has done us a service in chronicling them so engagingly. -- Paul Morland * Financial Times *Timely and ambitious ... Gatrell [offers a] nuanced and sympathetic treatment of the variety of the immigrant experience - and its impact on European societies. -- Jonathan Portes * The Observer *The Unsettling of Europe is an immense achievement ... The range and the quality of scholarship are magnificent. But more than that, this is an optimistic and deeply humane book, qualities found all too rarely in our time. -- Randall Hansen, Canada Research Chair in Global Migration, University of TorontoWith migration often characterized as a new and threatening 'crisis' in Europe, acclaimed historian Peter Gatrell recasts the history of postwar Europe as a history of migration ... This timely and must-read book offers valuable lessons from the past as well as new ways to understand just what is at stake in the debate over immigration today. -- Erika Lee, author of The Making of Asian America

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Book Synopsis''Many books claim to tell an unknown story of the Second World War. Few of them actually do. Forgotten Bastards is a rare exception . . . This is gripping history'' Duncan Weldon, Prospect A riveting story of World War II from the author of Chernobyl, winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for non-fictionIn November 1943, with the outcome of the Second World War hanging in the balance, the Allies needed a new plan. The Americans'' audacious suggestion to the Soviets was to open a second air front, with the US Air Force establishing bases in Soviet-controlled territory. Despite Stalin''s obvious reservations about the presence of foreign troops in Russia, he was persuaded. Operation Baseball and then Frantic were initiated in early 1944 as B-17 Superfortresses were flown from bases in Italy to the Poltova region in today''s Ukraine. Award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy tells the gripping, little-known story of this encounter bTrade ReviewPlokhy is an expert guide, marshalling the archival and memoir material skilfully and telling his story with flair * The Times *Many books claim to tell an "unknown" story of the Second World War. Few of them actually do. Forgotten Bastards of the Eastern Front is a rare exception. . . Plokhy is at his best when he turns to the human level, the culture clash experienced by US servicemen finding themselves inside Stalin's USSR under constant surveillance from the secret police -- Duncan Weldon * Prospect *Serhii Plokhy's fascinating account of American airmen operating in the Soviet Union toward the end of WWII is not only superb history. It is an important and timely reminder, seventy five years later, that victory in WWII involved allying with Stalinism and all its attendant evils -- Alex Kershaw, author of The First WaveA riveting read that brings together a unique story about American airmen on Soviet territory and US-Soviet wartime politics on the highest level. Stalin, Roosevelt, Churchill and key events in World War II diplomacy are seamlessly woven into a compelling tale of the dramatic feats and fates of US servicemen in contact and conflict with their Soviet male and female 'comrades in arms.' At once utterly absorbing, enlightening and moving, this splendid book also unearths absolutely original evidence about the values wars that launched the Cold War even as the hot one was raging -- Nina Tumarkin, Professor of History and Director of Russian Area Studies, Wellesley CollegeA new and enlightening perspective on the collaboration between Soviet and American airmen in Ukraine during their mutual fight against the Nazis, taking the reader onto the airbases to show how cultural differences and the oppressive political oversight of the Russians ate away at the effort from early on. Using detailed accounts not previously available, Forgotten Bastards of the Eastern Front shows how the interpersonal relationships of Americans and Soviets at ground level were as important as any maneuvering by their country's leaders. An insightful account of a little-known story -- Gregory Freeman, author of The Forgotten 500Five stars. . . brilliantly researched * Daily Telegraph *

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Book Synopsis''History at its scintillating best ... hard-hitting, revelatory and superbly researched'' Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny ''A rare achievement ... sure to become an instant classic'' John Lewis Gaddis, Yale University This gripping book dramatizes the extraordinarily compressed and terrifying period between the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and Hitler''s declaration of war on the United States. These five days transformed much of the world and have shaped our own experience ever since. Simms and Laderman''s aim in the book is to show how this agonizing period had no inevitability about it and that innumerable outcomes were possible. Key leaders around the world were taking decisions with often poor and confused information, under overwhelming pressure and knowing that they could be facing personal and national disaster. And yet, there were also long-standing assumptions that shaped these decisions, bTrade ReviewAbsorbing ... Simms and Laderman give us a visceral sense of these events as they unfolded, in real time, with historical actors not always quite sure what was happening - a dimension of history that is both crucial and fiendishly difficult to recover. * New York Times Book Review *This is history at its scintillating best. The fate of the world tilted on the decisions made in those few days - hours even - in December 1941, and Simms and Laderman brilliantly strip away the many myths surrounding them in this hard-hitting, revelatory and superbly researched work. -- Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with DestinyAn extraordinary reconstruction of the fateful week following Pearl Harbor. -- Adam Tooze * Guardian *A very important book ... Truly eye-opening, myth-busting history. * Aspects of History *In Hitler's American Gamble, Brendan Simms and Charlie Laderman grippingly retell the story of five days that not only shook but also shaped the world... All students of both World War II and the Holocaust will learn, as I did, from their careful use of neglected documents and their attention to 'counterfactuals' that, for contemporaries, were at least as likely as what actually happened. -- Niall FergusonOffers fine, well-researched insights into the psyches of leaders who made decisions that changed the course of world history ... For readers seeking a deeper understanding of the realpolitik that drove Germany to war against America, Hitler's American Gamble offers an outstanding narrative. -- Jonathan W. Jordan * World War 2 Magazine *A rare achievement: a microhistory that's global in scope. Filled with fresh insights, excitingly written, and meticulously documented, Hitler's American Gamble is sure to become an instant classic. -- John Lewis GaddisBrendan Simms and Charlie Laderman show how Hitler's mad decision to declare war on the United States on December 11, 1941 proved suicidal for the Axis, ensured a global catastrophe, and would radically redefine how World War II would end. And yet was Hitler really as unhinged and reckless as it has seemed? ... Hitler's American Gamble is revisionist, but in the best sense of sound research, rare originality, singular analysis, and riveting prose. -- Victor Davis HansonThe authors effectively prove their thesis in a key volume for World War II history collections. -- Michael Farrell * Library Journal *

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Book SynopsisTerezín, as it was known in Czech, or Theresienstadt as it was known in German, was operated by the Nazis between November 1941 and May 1945 as a transit ghetto for Central and Western European Jews before their deportation for murder in the East. Terezín was the last ghetto to be liberated, one day after the end of World War II.The Last Ghetto is the first in-depth analytical history of a prison society during the Holocaust. Rather than depict the prison society which existed within the ghetto as an exceptional one, unique in kind and not understandable by normal analytical methods, Anna Hájková argues that such prison societies that developed during the Holocaust are best understood as simply other instances of the societies human beings create under normal circumstances. Challenging conventional claims of Holocaust exceptionalism, Hájková insists instead that we ought to view the Holocaust with the same analytical tools as other historical events. The prison society of Terezín produced its own social hierarchies under which seemingly small differences among prisoners (of age, ethnicity, or previous occupation) could determine whether one ultimately lived or died. During the three and a half years of the camp''s existence, prisoners created their own culture and habits, bonded, fell in love, and forged new families. Based on extensive archival research in nine languages and on empathetic reading of victim testimonies, The Last Ghetto is a transnational, cultural, social, gender, and organizational history of Terezín, revealing how human society works in extremis and highlighting the key issues of responsibility, agency and its boundaries, and belonging.Trade ReviewThis is a powerful contribution to our understanding of the ghetto and of how societies are constructed in general, revealing in complex detail the lived experiences of those who inhabited Theresienstadt. * Barnabas Balint, The Journal of the Social History Society *In this overwhelming book, Anna Hájková has assembled - in extraordinary gutwrenching detail - these stories of Terez ... It is the loss of life in all its mucky beauty, and the loss of living-breathing-evolving community on such a mass scale, after all, that contributes to the breathtaking horror of genocide. * JORDANA SILVERSTEIN, University of Melbourne, Gender & History *This is a powerful contribution to our understanding of the ghetto and of how societies are constructed in general, revealing in complex detail the lived experiences of those who inhabited Theresienstadt. * Barnabas Balint, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK, Journal of the Social History Society *Hájková has not simply written a book depicting the "transnational, cultural, social, gender, and organizational history" of the "well known, poorly understood ghetto", but she shows with great sensitivity, concisely and immense knowledge the everyday history of this limbo, the "last ghetto." * Thomas Krzenck, Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft *Anna Hájková's The Last Ghetto: An Everyday History of Theresienstadt is an essential addition to the literature about the camp, rivaled in scholarly insight only by H.G Adler... And since it is unlikely that many American readers will have the stamina to persevere through the more than 800 pages that examine the features of Adler's "coerced community," readers should feel no hesitation in turning to Hájková's thoughtful and thorough analysis. * Lawrence Langer, University of Wisconsin-Madison, George L. Mosse Program in History *Hájková's book The Last Ghetto is a well-researched, captivatingly written, and engaging scholarly work about the life of prisoners in Theresienstadt. Hájková's book is crucial reading and paradigm-shifting work for anyone who wants to understand a prisoners' society in extremis * Denisa Nešťáková, Herder Institute in Marburg, Marburg, GermanyComenius University in Bratislava, Bratislava, Slovakia, East Central Europe *This excellent study provides a critical investigation of the social, political, and even sexual relationships in the ghetto, their complex nature in a coerced setting and the developing power structures dominated by the young Czech elite. * Wolf Gruner, University of Southern California, AJS Review *Hájková brings solid research and a much-appreciated enrichment to readers' understanding of the Theresienstadt ghetto. The author worked for a decade with public and private archives in nine languages and offers readers a deeper understanding of what she calls "a forced community." * J. Kleiman, CHOICE *Hajkova's history of Terezin is a tour de force. Thanks to Hajkova's astonishing research and courageous reappraisal of victim society, aspects of this history that have been overlooked or marginalized are now before our eyes. A major contribution to the history of the Holocaust, The Last Ghetto also opens up new perspectives on class, nationalism, ethnicity, gender and sexuality in twentieth-century Europe. A deeply, wrenchingly human story that everyone ought to read. * Alexandra Garbarini, author of Numbered Days: Diaries and the Holocaust *This splendid and devastating, gorgeously written, paradigm-shifting book offers one transformative revelation after another. Exemplifying radical empathy without sentimentality, it represents the very best the new Holocaust history has to offer. * Dagmar Herzog, Graduate Center, City University of New York, author of Unlearning Eugenics: Sexuality, Reproduction, and Disability in Post-Nazi Europe *Theresienstadt has been shrouded in myths since Nazis first presented it as a 'model ghetto' to trick the world that Jewish prisoners were being treated humanely. Hájková's The Last Ghetto reveals the interior life of the ghetto and persuasively demonstrates that like the society that produced it, this society in extremis was riven by ethnic, gender, political, linguistic, and economic divisions that prevented a common sense of Jewishness from forming among the prisoners. * Barry Trachtenberg, Michael H. and Deborah K. Rubin Presidential Chair of Jewish History,Wake Forest University *The Last Ghetto is the most important book on Theresienstadt to appear in many years. With unparalleled knowledge of the sources and deep sensitivity, Anna Hájková has made a major contribution to the history of the Holocaust. With her focus on the everyday life of the ghetto's inhabitants, she also provides us with a model of social, cultural, and gender history. * Dan Stone, Professor of Modern History, Royal Holloway, University of London *This book provides the most thoroughly researched and conceptualised cultural and social history of everyday life in Terezín. As such, it should be essential reading for anyone interested in Theresienstadt and social relations in extremis. In addition, it provides so many interesting details amidst the larger historical points that readers will find it both fascinating and thought provoking. * Amy Simon, Michigan State University, USA, Journal of Contemporary History *An excellently written book that will help shape future historiography on the ghettos under Nazi rule for years to come. * Marc Buggeln, University of Flensburg, Modern European History *Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Well-Known, Poorly Understood Ghetto 1. "The Overorganized Ghetto" Administering Terezín 2. A Society Based on Inequality 3. The Age of Pearl Barley: Food and Hunger 4. Medicine and Illness 5. Cultural Life: Leisure Time Activities 6. Transports to the East Conclusion Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography

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Book SynopsisModern Germany: A Global History places Germany in a global and transnational context, while offering a broad scope of chronological and thematic coverage. The authors present German-speaking lands in relation to the rest of the world, rather than as discrete entities, bringing global and transnational linkages and interdependencies into focus.Trade ReviewModern Germany is superior in its comprehensive, cultural, interdisciplinary, international approach. If you are teaching survey courses in German history and/or culture, it will benefit your students more than any other book on the market."-Bernd Schaefer, George Washington UniversityModern Germany more intentionally places Germany in a global and transnational context, while offering a broad scope of chronological and thematic coverage."-David G. Tompkins, Carleton CollegeI find the synthesis of both recent and classic scholarship exemplary. The authors have gracefully woven in historiographic debates and all the topics seem highly appropriate and interesting. Individual voices and lives of key personalities have been brought in as well, so it's not only about structures, but also lived experience. The writing is first-rate."-Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius, University of TennesseeThe text weaves in more current scholarship and themes (place of regionalism, role of outsiders, relationship of Germany to the world) without sacrificing more traditional themes."-Christopher Fischer, Indiana State UniversityTable of ContentsMaps Preface Acknowledgments About the Authors Chapter 1: A World in Flux, 1500-1648 The Politics of Empire Culture and Society in the Age of Exploration The Reformation and its Consequences Conclusion Chapter 2: Germans in the Age of Absolutism, 1648-1740 Dynastic Politics, Trade, and Imperial Exchange State-Building and War in the Age of Absolutism Society, Popular Culture, and Belief Conclusion Chapter 3: German Empires and Enlightenments, 1740-1790 Poets, Philosophers, and World Citizens Reforming State and Society War and Empire Conclusion Chapter 4: Revolution and Reform, 1789-1815 The French Revolution in Germany The Impact of the Revolution on German States and Peoples, 1803-1815 The End of the Holy Roman Empire and the Emerging German Nation, 1803-1815 Conclusion Chapter 5: Between Reaction and Revolution, 1815-1848 Society and Economy Culture and Politics in the Vormärz The Revolutions of 1848 Conclusion Chapter 6: Toward Germany, 1848-1871 Industry and Society German Culture Beyond Borders The Politics of Nationhood Conclusion Chapter 7: Building Empire at Home and Abroad, 1871-1890 Building Democracy Nation-Building and Its Discontents Building Empire Conclusion Chapter 8: Wilhelmine Germany and

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Book SynopsisThe end of the Second World War in Europe gave way to a gigantic refugee crisis. Thoroughly prepared by Allied military planners, the swift repatriation of millions of former forced laborers, concentration camp inmates and prisoners of war nearly brought this dramatic episode top a close. Yet in September 1945, the number of displaced persons placed under the guardianship of Allied armies and relief agencies in occupied Germany amounted to 1.5 million. A costly burden for the occupying powers, the Jewish, Polish, Ukrainian, Yugoslav and Baltic DPs unwilling to return to their countries of origin presented a complex international problem. Massed in refugee camps stretched from Northern Germany to Sicily, the DPs had become long-term asylum seekers. Based on the records of the International Refugee Organization, this book describes how the European DP crisis impinged on the shape of the postwar order. The DP question directly affected the outbreak of the Cold War; the transformation of tTrade ReviewThe prime purpose of this excellent book is not to provide a more inclusive and integrative social history but to do something far more ambitious: namely, to write an international history that places the DP issue in the context of the emerging Cold War, and as a factor in international justice and political retribution, the emergence of the human rights movement, the rise of United Nations humanitarianism, the governance of international migration, and the advent of Jewish statehood .[It] makes clear is how important that period was in shaping contemporary views of refugees and their plight. * Bob Moore, American Historical Review *An insightful study of the European refugee problem created by WW II and then nurtured by the Cold War...Recommended. * CHOICE *<"In War's Wake brilliantly demonstrates…that refugee flows possess a logic of their own and are by their very nature complementary.>"- Holly Case, The NationAs Gerard Daniel Cohen persuasively argues, Allied recognition of the DPs' objections to returning, and the prevailing sense of a profound difference between the 'democratic' Allies and the Soviet bloc, were important factors in the development of the Cold War.>" - Sheila Fitzpatrick, London Review of BooksWritten in spare prose, and on the basis of extraordinary research, In War's Wake shows how fruitful it is to blend international and social history, by bringing back into view the forgotten crucible of mass statelessness in which crucial legacies were made for contemporary humanitarianism and human rights alike."-Samuel Moyn, Columbia University, author of The Last Utopia: Human Rights in HistoryIn War's Wake tells the story of the unprecedented humanitarian effort on behalf of millions of Europeans displaced by the Second World War. The postwar refugee crisis, Cohen demonstrates, gave rise to new conceptions of human rights, asylum and refugee policies, population policies, Cold War conflicts, and the emergence of the State of Israel. This provocative, well-written study is a landmark contribution to the history of human rights and to the political history of twentieth-century Europe."-Tara Zahra, author of The Lost Children: Reconstructing Europe's Families after World War II<"Based on thorough research in the archives of numerous institutions, Cohen's study of the millions of individuals left without a country after the Second World War shows how the European refugee problem was addressed by the leaders of the emerging free world, members of international organizations, legal scholars, and human rights activists. As Cohen demonstrates, the DP crisis facilitated a shift from minority rights to individual human rights and brought the issue of statelessness to the center of international politics. Enmeshed with the Cold War, this episode crucially secured the rights of individuals to a nationality and to a safe place of refuge, but also shaped new patterns of humanitarianism and international migration in the postwar era. In War's Wake is a masterpiece>"-Patrick Weil, Université de Paris 1<"On the basis of meticulous research, Daniel Cohen makes important connections between the policies that emerged to manage Europe's displaced persons in 'war's wake' and the development of international humanitarian aid and population control programs, the onset of the Cold War, and the origins of the state of Israel. In the process, he shows that the very category of 'DP' shifted in response to the practical and political dimensions of resettlement.>"-Mary D. Lewis, author of The Boundaries of the Republic: Migrant Rights and the Limits of Universalism in France, 1918-1940[A] detailed and challenging study of post-war displaced persons and the development of the human-rights era.>"-Susan Cohen, International History Review<"This well-crafted book demonstrates the far-reaching and lasting impact of the displaced persons on international affairs, humanitarianism, and human rights. It also provides a unique perspective on the attitudes and interests that led to the creation of a Jewish state. Although this is an international history with an interest in organizations, it does not lose sight of the individuals whose plight drew the attention of policymakers….Cohen is to be commended for his ability to balance a discussion of concepts and institutions with the dignity of the individual.>"-Margarete Myers Feinstein, H-Judaic<"The strength of Cohen's book lies in his nuanced analysis and the connections he draws among various political agents, their arguments, and the policies that eventually evolved. His careful research places the European refugee problem at the center of events, and shows how the DP experience exerted considerable influence on the development of international humanitarian aid, population management, and the origins of the modern state of Israel.>"-Lynn Rapaport, Holocaust and Genocide Studies<"In a now quite crowded field Cohen is a distinctive and signicant voice.> * Peter Gatrell, European Review of History *<"A model of the genre of international history: a thoroughly researched, transnationally focused, clearly presented study that amalgamates political, social and intellectual approaches into a convincing and far-ranging analysis that is relevant to many key aspects of the post-1945 period, in Europe and beyond....An excellent book that will undoubtedly become a standard work in the field.>"-Pertti Ahonen, German History<"In War's Wake is a cogent argument for the centrality of the 'refugee' in the legal, political, and moral construction of the postwar international order and its humanitarian mission….[It] engages and illuminates an impressive range of historiographies: on postwar reconstruction and the start of the Cold War, on migration and immigration, on international aid organizations and evolving modes of humanitarianism, on postwar American influence abroad, on the foundation of the state of Israel, and on legal conceptions of human rights. It deserves a wide readership.>"-Heidi Fehrenbach, Central European HistoryTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: The Last Million Ch 1. The Battle of the Refugees: DPs and the Making of the Cold War West Ch 2. "Who is a Refugee?": From 'Victors' Justice' to Anticommunism Ch 3. Care and Maintenance: The New Face of International Humanitarianism Ch 4. Displaced Persons in the "Human Rights Revolution" Ch 5. Surplus Manpower, Surplus Population Ch 6. Extraterritorial Jews: Refugee Humanitarianism and the Advent of Jewish Statehood Epilogue: The Golden Age of European Refugees, 1945-1960 Notes Sources and Further Reading Index

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Book SynopsisIn this book, Daniel P. Todes provides concise introduction to the life and science of the great Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936). Todes weaves together Pavlov''s life, values, context, and science by focusing upon his quest to understand the psyche and the torments of our consciousness. This introduction follows the origins and maturation of Pavlov''s quest from his early life in a priestly family in provincial Riazan, to his struggles and late professional success in the glittering capital of St. Petersburg, through the cataclysmic destruction of his world during the Bolshevik seizure of power and civil war of 1917-1921, to the rebuilding of his life in his 70s as a prosperous dissident during the Leninist 1920s, and his success and personal torments in 1929-1936 during the industrialization, cultural revolution, and terror of Stalin times. Beyond a basic biography, Todes devotes particular attention to Pavlov''s Nobel Prize-winning research on digestion (1891-1903) and his iconic studies of conditional reflexes and higher nervous activity (1903-1936), as well as his experiments with dogs. Fundamentally reinterpreting Pavlov''s famous research on conditional reflexes, Todes shows that Pavlov was not a behaviorist, did not use a bell, and was uninterested in training dogs. The Russian scientist sought to explain not merely external behaviors, but the emotional and intellectual life of animals and humans. Furthermore, this iconic objectivist was a profoundly anthropomorphic thinker whose science was suffused with his own experiences and values. Exploring the two unpublished manuscripts upon which Pavlov was working when he died, Todes shows the importance of his little-known experiments on chimps and explores his final thoughts about the relationship of science, Christianity, and Bolshevism.Trade ReviewA magnificent overview of the life, work, and scientific passions of the experimental biologist who revealed the 'conditioned reflex' and became the first Russian Nobel Prize winner. Dan Todes provides concise and masterful insight into this fascinating figure. * Janet Browne, author of Charles Darwin: Voyaging and The Power of Place *Table of ContentsList of illustrations Chapter 1. Winter at Koltushi Chapter 2. Certainty: Religious and Scientific Chapter 3. The Haunted Factory Chapter 4. Pavlov's Quest Chapter 5. Come the Bolsheviks Chapter 6. Nervous Types Chapter 7. Year of Climaxes Chapter 8. Final Reflections Chapter 9. Epilogue References Further Reading Index

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Book SynopsisWhile existentialism has long been associated with Parisian Left Bank philosophers sipping cocktails in smoke-filled cafés, or with a brooding, angst-filled outlook on life, Gosetti-Ferencei shows how vital and heterogeneous the movement really was.In this concise, accessible book, Gosetti-Ferencei offers a new vision of existentialism. As she lucidly demonstrates, existentialism is a rich and diverse philosophy that encourages meaningful engagement with the world around us, offering a host of fascinating concepts that pertain to life as we experience it. The movement was as heterogeneous as it is now misunderstood, influenced by jazz music, involving diverse thinkers from around the world, challenging received ideas about the meaning of human existence. Part of the difficulty in defining existentialism is that it was never a unified philosophy, but came to identify a set of shared concerns about the meaning and possibility of human freedom, as it may be expressed in authentic choices, actions, and projects. Existentialists all explored how, in the absence of traditional reassurances about the meaning of life, we may transcend our present circumstances, and give our situation new meaning. With existentialism, concrete, lived experience of the single individual emerged from the shadow of abstract systems and long-defended traditions, and became subject-matter in its own right for philosophical inquiry. Far from solipsistic, Gosetti-Ferencei shows that existentialist attention to the human self can be intertwined with ways of conceiving the world, our being with others, the earth, and the encompassing concept of being. Fully appreciating what existentialism has to offer requires recognizing the rich diversity of its prospects, which involve not only anxiety, absurdity, awareness of death and the loss of religious meaning, but also hope, the striving for happiness, and a sense of the transcendent. On Being and Becoming unpacks this philosophical movement''s insights, and reveals how its core ideas promote creative responses to the question of life''s meaning.Trade ReviewOn Being and Becoming not only offers help to those wanting to understand what existentialism was: it also makes a valuable contribution to showing what existentialism could mean for us today. * MLN *In this deceptively easy to read book, Jennifer Gosetti-Ferencei packs three treatises in one: a smart introduction to continental philosophy, a brisk guide for living well and not dying stupid in an age of selfie-narcissism, and a new bridge between European and American culture linking Sartre with Kerouac, Rilke with Frost, de Beauvoir with Wright, Camus with Ellison, Heidegger with Du Bois, all asking the key question 'Why am I here?' The answer? You'll find it yourself in these pages. * Jean-Michel Rabaté, University of Pennsylvania, American Academy of Arts and Sciences *On Being and Becoming is a timely book, as existentialism is an evocative response to the deep crises challenging our mortal and vulnerable existence. This book explores the existentialist answer to create our own meaning through our individual choices, not just in solitude but in engaged action seeking to transform the social world. The broad existential movement is sympathetically and accurately portrayed by Gosetti-Ferencei. This book is richly packed with insights and fluidly written for a general audience. It is not just a work of academic philosophy--discussing, among others, Martin Heidegger, Gabriel Marcel, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone Beauvoir, Albert Camus, and Frantz Fanon--but it also documents the influence of existentialism on African-American thinkers, such as W.E.B. DuBois, Ralph Ellison, and Richard Wright. * Dermot Moran, Boston College *This small book weaves together a generous discussion of the history of philosophy and an erudite presentation of key themes of existentialism....Gosetti-Ferencei erases naïve formulations of existentialist themes and replaces them with rigorous, sometimes uplifting, accounts of freedom, responsibility, self-creation, and the inescapability of death. This work serves as both an excellent introduction to existentialist thought and a provocative read for those familiar with the works of such figures as Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Fyodor Dostoevsky, W. E. B. Du Bois, Ralph Ellison, Martin Heidegger, Franz Kafka, Søren Kierkegaard, Gabriel Marcel, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Richard Wright...Highly recommended. * Choice *Table of ContentsPart I: Encountering Existentialism Prologue Chapter 1:Existentialism in Style and Substance Part II: Existentialism: from Antiquity to Modern Europe Chapter 2. The Rise of Existentialism: A Philosophy for Human Existence Chapter 3. Historical Roots of Existentialism Chapter 4. Romantic Upheavals, Modern Movements Chapter 5. Literature and Art of Existentialism: the 20th Century Part III. Existentialism in Living Dimensions Chapter 6. Self Chapter 7. Others Chapter 8. World Chapter 9. Earth Chapter 10. Being Part IV. Living Existentialism 11. Existentialist Lives: Imitation, Inspiration, and Authenticity 12. Seeking and Taking (and Giving) Advice 13. Being in the Crowd: Anonymity and Individuality in Modern Life 14. Into One's Own, or on 'Finding' Oneself 15. I Selfie, Therefore I Am: On Self-Imaging Culture 16. Being and Waiting (Tables), or The Roles We Play 17. Seizing the Day: On the Present and Presence 18. Love in the Time of Existentialism 19. Existential Suffering, Happiness and Hope 20. Life as a Work of Art: an Existential Need for Creativity Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThe Vikings continue to fascinate us because their compelling stories connect with universal human desires for exploration and adventure. In Age of Wolf and Wind: Voyages through the Viking World, author Davide Zori argues that recent advances in excavation and archaeological science, coupled with a re-evaluation of oral traditions and written sources, inspire the telling of new and engaging stories that further our understanding of the Viking Age. Drawing upon his fieldwork experience across the Viking world, he proposes that the best method for weaving together these narratives is a balanced, interdisciplinary approach that integrates history, archaeology, and new scientific techniques.The book delves into key questions of the Viking Age, such as the motivations of Scandinavians to board open wooden ships to raid England or cross the North Atlantic in search of new worlds beyond Europe. Each chapter offers new conclusions about the Vikings--their views on death, their raiding tactics

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Book Synopsis''One could not ask for a more meticulous or scholarly assessment of what Britain meant to the Romans, or Rome to Britons, than Peter Salway''s Monumental Study''Frederick Raphael, Sunday Times From the invasions of Julius Caesar to the unexpected end of Roman rule in the early fifth century AD and the subsequent collapse of society in Britain, this book is the most authoritative and comprehensive account of Roman Britain ever published for the general reader. Peter Salway''s narrative takes into account the latest research including exciting discoveries of recent years, and will be welcomed by anyone interested in Roman Britain.Trade ReviewThere will be new discoveries; but this is a book that will surely stand the test of time. * TLS *Table of ContentsI. The First Roman Contacts ; II. The Roman Conquest ; III. Imperial Crisis and Recovery ; IV. The End of Roman Britain ; V. Britain Under Roman Rule ; Further Reading ; List of Roman Emperors ; Index

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Book SynopsisFew twentieth-century political leaders enjoyed greated popularity among their own people than Hitler in the 1930s and 1940s. This remarkable study of the myth that sustained one of the most notorious dictators, and delves into Hitler''s extraordinarily powerful hold over the German people. In this ''major contribution to the study of the Third Reich'' (Times Literary Supplement), Ian Kershaw argues that it lay not so much in Hitler''s personality or his bizarre Nazi ideology, as in the social and political values of the people themselves. In charting the creation, rise, and fall of the `Hitler Myth'', he demonstrates the importance of the manufactured ''Führer cult'' to the attainment of Nazi political ends, and how the Nazis used the new techniques of propaganda to exploit and build on the beliefs, phobias, and prejudices of the day.Trade ReviewReview from previous edition a book which should be read by everyone interested in the history of 20th-century Europe ... perhaps the most revealing study available of popular opinion in Nazi Germany * Times Higher Education Supplement *Table of Contents1. 'FUHRER OF THE COMING GERMANY': THE HITLER IMAGE IN THE WEIMAR ERA; 6. BLITZKRIEG TRIUMPH: HIGH PEAK OF POPULARITY, 1940-1941; 9. HITLER'S POPULAR IMAGE AND THE 'JEWISH QUESTION'

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Book SynopsisJust days into the miners'' strike of 1984-1985, a few women in coalfield communities around Britain began to meet to consider how they could support the strike, a clash with the Thatcher government over the future of the coal industry. Women ultimately formed a national network of groups that some observers saw as an ''alternative welfare state'', helping to keep the strike going for just under a year. This book is the first study of this national movement, illuminating its achievements, but also telling the less well-known story of arguments and divisions with men in the National Union of Mineworkers and feminists in the women''s liberation movement. Many women in the movement, despite their activism, resolutely denied that they were ''political'' at all, defining themselves as ''ordinary'' women, housewives, mothers, and workers; and, despite some claims that women activists had been transformed for ever by their experiences, most of those involved felt they had been changed only inTable of Contents1: Introduction 2: Before the strike 3: Early days: Spring 1984 4: High noon: Summer 1984 5: Crisis and drift: Autumn 1984 6: Flood back to defeat: Winter 1984-1985 7: Aftermath 8: Remembering the strike Appendix I: Details of project interviewees Appendix II: Details of key sociological studies of the strike and aftermath Appendix III: Chronology

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Book SynopsisA polished and masterly work of historical narrative, The Marshall Plan is an instant classic of Cold War literature.With Britain''s empire collapsing and Stalin''s ascendant, U.S. officials under new Secretary of State George C. Marshall set out to reconstruct western Europe as a bulwark against communist authoritarianism. Their massive, costly, and ambitious undertaking would confront Europeans and Americans alike with a vision at odds with their history and self-conceptions. In the process, they would drive the creation of NATO, the European Union, and a Western identity that continues to shape world events.This is the story behind the birth of the Cold War, and the U.S.-led liberal global order, told with verve, insight, and resonance for today. Bringing to bear fascinating new material from American, Russian, German, and other European archives, Benn Steil''s book will forever change how we see the Marshall Plan.Focusing on the critical years 1947 to 1949, Steil''s gripping narratTable of Contents1: Prologue 2: Crisis 3: Rupture 4: Plan 5: Trap 6: Unity 7: Persuasion 8: Sausage 9: Subversion 10: Passage 11: Showdown 12: Division 13: Success? 14: Echoes Cast of Characters Appendices Notes

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Book SynopsisModernity and the Victorians lays out in sweeping terms an alternative conception of the political and social dynamics of the period, centred on the past, morality, and community. It offers a deliberately bracing challenge to a swathe of received wisdoms which, it asserts, have fatally misled students of modern Britain.

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Book SynopsisFirst published as part of the best-selling The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, Kenneth Morgan''s Very Short Introduction to Twentieth-Century Britain examines the forces of consensus and of conflict in twentieth-century Britain. The account covers the trauma of the First World War and the social divisions of the twenties; fierce domestic and foreign policy debates in the thirties; the impact of the Second World War for domestic transformation, popular culture and the loss of empire; the transition from the turmoil of the seventies to the aftermath of Thatcherism and the advent of New Labour. Throughout, cultural and artistic themes are woven into the analysis, along with the distinct national experiences of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. The profound tension that shook the United Kingdom are juxtaposed against equally deep forces for stability, cohesion, and a sense of historic identity.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Table of Contents1. The First World War ; 2. The twenties ; 3. The thirties ; 4. The Second World War ; 5. The post-war world ; 6. From the seventies to the nineties ; 7. Towards the millennium ; Further reading ; Chronology ; Prime ministers 1914-2000 ; Index

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Book SynopsisFirst published as part of the best-selling The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, Paul Langford''s Very Short Introduction to Eighteenth-Century Britain spans from the aftermath of the Revolution of 1688 to Pitt the Younger''s defeat at attempted parliamentary reform.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Table of Contents1. Revolution and its repercussions ; 2. The rise of Robinocracy ; 3. Industry and idleness ; 4. The making of middle England ; 5. The politics of protest ; 6. Rebellion and reform ; Further reading ; Chronology ; Prime ministers 1721-89 ; Index

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Book SynopsisWere the Vikings, as contemporary description had it, a ''valiant, wrathful, foreign, purely pagan people'' who swept in from the sea to plunder and slaughter? Or in the words of a Manx folksong ''ware-wolves keen in hungry quest'', who lived and died by the sea and the sword. Or were they unusually successful merchants, extortionists, and pioneer explorers? This book, by leading international scholars, considers the latest research and presents a compelling picture of the Vikings and their age. Excavations as far apart as Dublin and Newfoundland, York and Kiev, provide fascinating archaeological evidence, expertly interpreted in this extensively illustrated book.Trade Reviewthe volume will indeed be a treasury for pictorial sources, and the illustrations to more off-the-beaten-track chapters (especially Noonan's, on European Russia) are correspondingly unusual. * Guy Halsall, War in History, 8, 3, 2001 *the truest picture yet of the Vikings and their age. * Publishing News *Table of ContentsList of Colour Plates ; List of Maps ; Notes on Contributors ; 1. The Age of the Vikings and Before ; 2. The Frankish Empire ; 3. The Vikings in England, ic./i790-1016 ; 4. Ireland, Wales, Man, and the Hebrides ; 5. The Atlantic Islands ; 6. Scandinavians in European Russia ; 7. The Danish Empire and the End of the Viking Age ; 8. Ships and Seamanship ; 9. Religions Old and New ; 10. The Vikings in History and Legend ; 11. The Viking Legacy ; Further Reading ; Chronology ; Index

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Book SynopsisThe First World War did not end in Central Europe in November 1918. The armistices marked the creation of the Second Polish Republic and the first shot of the Central European Civil War which raged from 1918 to 1921. The fallen German, Russian, and Austrian Empires left in their wake lands with peoples of mixed nationalities and ethnicities. These lands soon became battle grounds and the ethno-political violence that ensued forced those living within them to decide on their national identity. Civil War in Central Europe seeks to challenge previous notions that such conflicts which occurred between the First and Second World Wars were isolated incidents and argues that they should be considered as part of a European war; a war which transformed Poland into a nation.Trade Review...[T]he book is definitely very important and valuable: it shows the formation of the Polish state in a new light that undermines traditional nationalist historiography and popular ideas...The book allows us to go beyond nationalist conventional wisdom. * Krzysztof Jaskulowski, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Nationalities Papers *[an] intriguing and thought-provoking study ... There is no doubt that this book will find a well-deserved place in the growing body of historical works on East and Central Europe. It challenges the nationally oriented narrative of nation-making, and offers a fresh perspective, which invites us to rethink the role of violence in the creation of nation-states in the post-imperial era. * Tomas Balkelis, Lithuanian Historical Studies *The author regarded it as crucial not to look for new facts, but to find a balance between the facts already presented and to consolidate them. He did it brilliantly. Thanks to the author, the reader is presented with a synthesis of secondary literature, and thus also by a holistic historical narrative, which was hitherto lacking ... The book serves as a signpost, providing the necessary historiographic overview ... By means of source diversity the author is able to sketch a hitherto unpresented picture of violent excesses. The book is written very legibly, which will certainly be welcomed by both the lay and professional public ... The study helps to understand the interbellum and subsequent crimes of the Second World War, the origin of which is often found in the wrongs of the violent period following the First World War. * Jan Kutílek, Slovanský p%rehled [translated] *The last chapter finally deals with "Violence and Crimes Beyond the Battlefields", with Böhler also relying on archive finds and diaries ... In this chapter, Böhler focuses on the regional level, where political goals were often of secondary importance. In the countryside, small paramilitary groups were masters of life and death. As reports from the high command and local authorities show, in 1919 and 1920, crime, corruption and banditry were the order of the day. Pogroms against Jews were particularly perpetrated by soldiers, led by officers with little experience and close ties to the national democracy. With the successful formation of the state, the violence subsided ... Böhler has succeeded in shedding more light on a dark chapter in Polish history. * Detlev Brandes, Historische Zeitschrift [translated] *This book contributes not just to rising scholarship on European paramilitary violence at the war's end, but to wider areas, such as the social history of warfare in twentieth-century Europe, nationalism and "national indifference," border studies, and transnational history, in addition to the interwar history of Poland and Central and Eastern Europe. * Peter Polak-Springer, Qatar University, Journal of Modern History *Böhler's work successfully challenges both established and mythical narratives of Polish nation-building, revealing the contingent and violent nature of Poland's struggle for land and loyalty after World War I. * Brendan Karch, Louisiana State University, Central European History *Jochen Böhler's book is, without a doubt, important. Any scholar of twentieth-century European history will find it worth reading, and particularly useful when considering the question of the reconstruction and re-emergence of Central European nation-states after the Great War. * Pawel Markiewicz, Slavonic and East European Review *According to Böhler, "self-determination" was an unsuitable recipe for structuring a multi-ethnic region. This becomes particularly clear in his fourth chapter "Violence and Crimes Beyond the Battlefields", in which Böhler draws a panorama where anti-Semitic pogroms, skirmishes, violent oppression of the rural population and death blend into each other. Hunger, disease and other hardships plagued the country. [...] Böhler has presented a differentiated description of these violence scenarios, largely reconstructed on the base of a variety of sources. * Jost Dulffer, editor of Peace, War and Gender from Antiquity to the Present. Cross-cultural Perspectives *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations and Maps Introduction 1: Nations, States, and Conflicts in Central Europe 2: How to Mobilize the Polish Nation 3: The Central European Civil War 4: Violence and Crimes Beyond the Battlefields Conclusion Epilogue

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Book SynopsisThe United Kingdom is weakening. Alvin Jackson examines the UK in the light of the experience of similar union states elsewhere, offering the first sustained comparative study across the long nineteenth century and beyond, drawing conclusions which shed new light on the particular history, condition, and fate of the UK.Table of Contents1: Introduction: the United Kingdom and its analogues 2: The unions of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1535-1922): case studies 3: European unions and beyond: case studies 4: Centripede: the institutional bolsters of union 5: Alternative unions: federalism 6: Centrifuge: why do unions fail? 7: Untied kingdoms: past politics and present history Select union chronology (covering the issues and events addressed in the study)

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Book SynopsisVivid, succinct, and highly accessible, this first volume (of two) begins with the origins and consequences of the medieval myth of the 'Reich,' which was to experience a fateful renaissance in the twentieth century, and ends with the collapse of the first German democracy.Trade Review...destined to become a must-have for both scholars and students of German history. Combining skilful and fluent narrative with insightful analysis, his history of modern Germany presents the reader with a vivid and detailed picture of the German nation. * Journal of the Historical Association *...this book has much to offer. * Róisín Healy, European History Quarterly *Germany: The Long Road West 1789-1933 is a magnificent examination of a country which, along with Russia, possesses a history that is arguably the most complicated in Europe. This book will be an immense asset to academics, students and, indeed, anyone with a serious interest in German history. * Marcus Papadopoulos, Tribune *[an] excellent book * Contemporary Review *magisterial...Winkler's magnum opus. * TLS *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1: Legacy of a Millennium 2: Hampered by Progress 1789DS1830 3: Liberalism in Crisis 1830DS1850 4: Unity before Liberty 1850DS1871 5: The Transformation of Nationalism 1871DS1890 6: World Policy and World War 1890DS1918 7: The Impaired Republic 1918DS1933 Looking Ahead

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Book SynopsisHistories you can trust.At age thirty in 1919, Adolf Hitler had no accomplishments. He was a rootless loner, a corporal in a shattered army, without money or prospects. A little more than twenty years later, in autumn 1941, he directed his dynamic forces against the Soviet Union, and in December, the Germans were at the gates of Moscow and Leningrad. At that moment, Hitler appeared however briefly to be the most powerful ruler on the planet. Given this dramatic turn of events, it is little wonder that since 1945 generations of historians keep trying to explain how it all happened.This rich history provides a readable and fresh approach to the complex history of the Third Reich, from the coming to power of the Nazis in 1933 to the final collapse in 1945, distilling our ideas about the period and providing a balanced and accessible account of the whole era.Trade ReviewHaving assembled an impressive group of experts, the volume proceeds thematically to address almost every aspect of the Third Reich. All ten chapters are well informed by contemporary scholarship but accessible to a lay audience. Politics, culture, war, society, and economy all receive their due. * Robert Dassanowsky, Journal of Modern History *While focusing on various aspects of the Nazi years, all the writers effectively highlight the brutality of the regime toward its internal and external enemies. For a reader who wishes to choose one source to learn about the Third Reich this book is a good choice. * Paul Bookbinder, European History Quarterly *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1: Matthew Stibbe: The Weimar Republic and the Rise of National Socialism 2: Hermann Beck: The Nazi 'Seizure of Power' 3: Hedwig Richter and Ralph Jessen: Elections, Plebiscites, and Festivals 4: Jonathan Petropoulos: Architecture and the Arts 5: David F. Crew: Photography and Cinema 6: Peter Hayes: The Economy 7: Omer Bartov: The Holocaust 8: Dieter Pohl: War and Empire 9: Julia S. Torrie: The Home Front 10: Robert Gellately: Decline and Collapse Further Reading Index

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Book SynopsisGambling captures as nothing else the drama of the long eighteenth century between the age of religious wars and the age of revolutions. The society that was confronted with games of chance pursued as commercial ventures also came to grips with unprecedented social mobility, floated by new wealth from new sources that created fortunes from trade in sugar, cotton, ivory, silk, tea, or enslaved human beings. Likewise, play for money was prominent in the public imagination as money itself, deployed through an ever expanding and ever more sophisticated range of mechanisms, increasingly invaded public awareness, as when prospective spouses in period fiction were rated in terms of annual income as if they were municipal bonds. Similarly, the archetypal figure of the gambler captured the imagination of the public in fiction, media, and politics. At the same time, new interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics - encouraged and bankrolled by those in power - fostered a new anTable of Contents0: Introduction: The Gambling Century 1: Probability and its Discontents 2: Court to City: Gaming in Baroque Europe 3: Sons of Hazard: The Sharper in Literature, Media, and Law 4: In the Shade of the Royal Oak: Commercial Gaming by Royal Patent 5: Making Bank: The Emergence of Metropolitan Gaming Concerns 6: The Groom Porter's Dodge: The Court and Commercial Gaming 7: The Bench Versus the Banks: Policing Gaming in Westminster 8: Commercial Gaming in the Wake of the Georgian Statutes 9: The Pilgrimage to Saint James's, or, Clubs are Trumps 10: Harmless Amusements: High Politics and High Stakes 11: At Home with Faro's Daughters 12: Breaking Even: Gaming Entrepreneurship at Century's End 13: Toward the Victorian Reconfiguration of Gaming, and Afterward

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Book SynopsisThe remarkable story of Mohammed Helmy, the Egyptian doctor who risked his life to save Jewish Berliners from the Nazis. One of the people he saved was a Jewish girl called Anna. This book tells their story.Trade ReviewThis meticulous account of the Arab doctor who sheltered a Jewish girl in 1930s Berlin is a remarkable story of subterfuge and courage. [...]Steinkes history sheds a light on what he argues is a deliberately forgotten world, the old Arabic Berlin of the Weimar period, which was open, progressive and far from antisemitic and which welcomed Jewish luminaries, including Albert Einstein and philosopher Martin Buber. * Tim Adams, Book of the Week, The Observer *Anna and Dr Helmy is the thrilling and, at times, heart-stopping account of a remarkable but largely unknown story of bravery and bluffing. * Robert Philpot, Times of Israel *Table of Contents1: Middle Eastern Berlin 2: The Home Visit 3: A Scent of Tea 4: 'Of Related Blood' 5: A Fool's License 6: A Step Too Far 7: Going Underground 8: A Daring Plan 9: Hidden in Plain Sight 10: In the Lion's Den 11: An Overnight Conversion 12: A Paper Marriage 13: The Gestapo Closes In 14: The Final Lie 15: Visit to Cairo Biographies Timeline Index

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Book SynopsisThe book is a new, revisionist account of Sixties protest movements in West Germany. It challenges established narratives centring male intellectuals by foregrounding families, private lives, women, and old people. Worked from a wealth of new archival sources, the book argues that ''1968'' was just as much about gender conflict as it was about generational conflict--even if the former was often erased from public memory. The narrative follows three generations of Germans living in the provincial town of Bonn through the turbulent years of the late 1960s. It offers a genuine social history of the period, decentring the story of West Germany''s 68 socially, geographically, and generationally. The five chapters cover the Shah of Iran''s visit to Bonn and Berlin, the role of the Nazi past in framing generational differences, experiences of old people around ''1968'', the female dimension of the protests, and the sexual revolution. The book situates the West German case within the global an

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Book SynopsisIn 1614 the shogunate prohibited Christianity amidst rumors of foreign plots to conquer Japan. But more than the fear of armed invasions, it was the ideological threat--or spiritual conquest--that the Edo shogunate feared the most. This book explores the encounter of Christianity and premodern Japan in the wider context of global and intellectual history. M. Antoni J. Ucerler examines how the Jesuit missionaries sought new ways to communicate their faith in an unfamiliar linguistic, cultural, and religious environment--and how they sought to re-invent Christianity in the context of samurai Japan. They developed an original moral casuistry or cases of conscience adapted to the specific dilemmas faced by Japanese Christians. This volume situates the European missionary enterprise in East Asia within multiple geopolitical contexts: Both Ming China and Warring States Japan resisted the presence of foreigners and their beliefs. In Japan, where the Jesuits were facing persecution in the midst of civil war, they debated whether they could intervene in military conflicts to protect local communities. Others advocated for the establishment of a Christian republic or civil protectorate. Based on little-known primary sources in various languages, The Samurai and the Cross explores the moral and political debates over religion, law, and reason of state that took place on both the European and the Japanese side.Trade ReviewThe monograph successfully resets the history of the Jesuit enterprise in Japan in its conflicts and challenges, leading to a significant reassessment of how their efforts, decisions, and strategies are understood...The Samurai and The Cross is an excellent guide for those interested in the intellectual work of Jesuits in Japan. * Rômulo da Silva Ehalt, Journal of Early Modern History 27 *Those who are taking their first steps into the Jesuits' history in early modern Japan will find The Samurai and the Cross a pleasure to read and most rewarding... In The Samurai and the Cross, a rich historical record replete with valuable references awaits the readers. One of the strengths of Ucerler's book lies in the care taken to provide in the endnotes bibliographical data not only on the primary sources discussed (especially frequent of the Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu (ARSI) collections), but also to include - where available - their critical editions or translations in several languages (in most cases Spanish or Portuguese). * Sophie Takahashi, Contemporary Japan *

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Book SynopsisEdited by eminent historian Ronald Grigor Suny, this unique collection of primary documents and important scholarly articles frames both the revolutionary changes and broad continuities in Soviet history. Organized chronologically and covering political, social, and cultural history from a variety of viewpoints, selections include official pronouncements and dissident manifestos, public speeches, private letters, and previously un-translated documents. An introductory essay provides the broad outlines of Soviet history, while chapter introductions summarize the main features and historical debates of each period.New to the Second Edition* Ten new essays and documents, including Jochen Hellbeck''s The Urge to Struggle On (2006) and Cars, Cars, and More Cars by Lewis H. Siegelbaum (2008)* A new chapter (10) on Russia and the former Soviet states in the twenty-first century, as well as additional readings on women and gender* More sections on foreign policy and the Cold WarTrade ReviewThe Structure of Soviet History is an excellent resource. * Danny Yee, Danny Reviews *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Back to the Future ; Acknowledgements ; Transliteration and Dating ; PART I: REVOLUTION AND CIVIL WAR ; 1. The Revolutions of 1917 ; 2. Civil War, Socialism, and Nationalism ; PART II: RETREAT AND REBUILDING ; 3. Politics, Society, and Culture in the 1920s ; PART III: STALINISM ; 4 The Stalin Revolution ; 5. Dangers and Opportunities: The comintern, World War, and Cold War ; PART IV: REFORM AND STAGNATION ; 6. From Autocracy to Oligarchy ; 7. Stagnation ; PART V: REFORM AND REVOLUTION ; 8. The Road to Revolution ; 9. The Second Russian Republic and the "Near Abroad" ; 10. Russia and the Former Soviet States in the Twenty-First Century ; 11. Summing Up

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Book SynopsisEngland is ruled directly from Westminster by institutions and parties that are both English and British. The non-recognition of England reflects a longstanding assumption of ''unionist statecraft'' that to draw a distinction between what is English and what is British risks destabilising the union state. The book examines evidence that this conflation of England and Britain is growing harder to sustain, in light of increasing political divergence between the nations of the UK and the awakening of English national identity. These trends were reflected in the 2016 vote to leave the European Union, driven predominantly by English voters (outside London). Brexit was motivated in part by a desire to restore the primacy of the Westminster Parliament, but there are countervailing pressures for England to gain its own representative institutions, and for devolution to England''s cities and regions.The book presents competing interpretations of the state of English nationhood, examining the viTrade ReviewThis lucid, literate and compelling book is a joy to read... a book to which future historians of British politics will turn for decades... a distinguished work of scholarship, written with energy of thought and clarity of style * Derek Hawes, Journal of Contemporary European Studies *Table of ContentsAlun Evans: Foreword Acknowledgements Notes on the Contributors Part I: England and the Union State 1: Michael Kenny, Iain McLean & Akash Paun: Introduction: English Identity and Institutions in a Changing United Kingdom 2: Arthur Aughey: England and Britain in Historical Perspective 3: Akash Paun: Sovereignty, Devolution, and the English Constitution 4: Jim Gallagher: The Ghost in the Machine? The Government of England 5: Meg Russell & Jack Sheldon: An English Parliament: An Idea Whose Time has Come? Part II: Speaking for England? The Political Parties 6: Daniel Gover & Michael Kenny: Interpreting EVEL: Latest Station in the Conservative Party's English Journey? 7: John Denham: Labour and the Governance of England 8: Robert Ford & Maria Sobolewska: UKIP, Brexit, and the Disruptive Potential of English National Identity Part III: An England of Cities and Regions 9: Mick Moran, John Tomaney, & Karel Williams: Territory and Power in England: The Political Economy of Manchester and Beyond 10: Tony Travers: London Within England - a City State? 11: Iain McLean: England in a Changing Fiscal Union Part IV: English Identity and Attitudes 12: John Curtice: How Do People in England Want to Be Governed? 13: Michael Kenny: English Nationalism in Historical Perspective

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Book SynopsisCovering the period 1390-1488, MacKay publishes the second portion of the Lord Stewartby Collection, the most important collection of Scottish coins ever put together by a private individual. Shortly before his death in March 2018, the collection was gifted to The Hunterian at the University of Glasgow. Comprising 5000 coins, the collection was formed between c. 1950 and c. 2010 by Ian Stewart, a banker and later a politician, initially as a Member of Parliament 1974-92 and from 1992 sitting in the House of Lords as Lord Stewartby. He was a highly regarded numismatist and the foremost scholar of Scottish coins in his generation. This exceptional collection has a depth and range across all metals and denominations which make it an important academic resource for researchers, whether numismatists or historians, or as a reference point for collectors.Table of ContentsPreface The Lord Stewartby Collection of Scottish Coins Overview of the Coinage Source of the Collection Hoards and Single Finds Abbreviations and Bibliography Arrangement and Ordering of the Catalogue Plates 1-65

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewTimely, relevant, thoroughly researched and assembled by one of the foremost authorities on Old Norse law, Old Norse place-names, and the Old Norse language, this has to be the definitive work on slavery in the pre-historical Old Norse world. It encourages us to question of our many previously held ideas about slavery in the Old Norse and Germanic world. * Terry Adrian Gunnell, University of Iceland *This study, based upon eminent insights into linguistics, history and archaeology, fills a definite gap. It is a great contribution to Viking Age studies and to studies of slavery in general. * Thomas Lindkvist, University of Gothenburg *Stefan Brink is at the top of his field and no one is better equipped to do justice to the difficult and still underexamined topic of Viking slavery. Brink's interdisciplinarity is masterly as he weaves together his sources drawn from historical documents, runic inscriptions, Icelandic sagas, early law, place names, personal names, and archaeology into a cohesive narrative. By combining his analysis of the sources on the Viking Age with an impressive historical depth and an anthropological approach to slavery, Brink provides readers with a deep understanding of unfreedom in the early history of Europe well beyond the borders of Scandinavia. * Davide Zori, Baylor University *Karen Bek-Pedersen, who translated this work from a Swedish version, deserves high praise for an easily readable and learned book that deals even-handedly with numerous disciplinary specialties. * Speculum 98/4 *This is an important book for students and researchers concerned with the Viking period, a work of formidably scholarly research by a writer with a probably unparalleled knowledge of the subject. * John Kennedy, The Parergon *Table of ContentsForeword and Acknowledgements Prologue Introduction 1. Slavery in Europe during antiquity and the first millennium 2. Scandinavian slavery 3. Where did the slaves come from? 4. Thralls in Old Norse poetry and sagas 5. Thralls in runic inscriptions 6. Terms for thralls and their meanings 7. How were thralls used? 8. Evidence for thralls in Scandinavian place-names 9. How were thralls identified? 10. Thralls' names in Scandinavia 11. The special case of Älmeboda parish in southern Småland 12. Thralls in the archaeological material - Can we excavate slavery? 13. The rise and fall of Scandinavian thraldom - when did slavery appear in Scandinavia? 14. The status of slaves in Prehistoric Scandinavian society 15. Excursus Trelleborg Appendix 1- Historical and Archaeological Periods in Europe Appendix 2- Development of Indo-European languages Abbreviations Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisAn intimate history of an ordinary Parisian citizen and his neighbors that reflects on the origins and radicalization of the French Revolution.What was it like to live through one of the most transformational periods in world history? In The Glory and the Sorrow, eminent historian Timothy Tackett answers this question through a masterful recreation of the world of Adrien Colson, a minor lawyer who lived in Paris at the end of the Old Regime and during the first eight years of the French Revolution. Based on over a thousand letters written by Colson to his closest friend, this book vividly narrates everyday life for an ordinary citizen during extraordinary times, as well as the life of a neighborhood on a small street in central Paris. It explores the real, day-to-day experience of a revolution: not only the thrill, the joy, and the enthusiasm, but also the uncertainty, the confusion, the anxiety, and the disappointments. While Colson reported on major events such as the storming of the Bastille and the King''s flight to Varennes, his correspondence underscores the extent to which the great majority of Parisians--and no doubt of the French population more generally--in no way anticipated the Revolution; the incessant circulation and power of rumors of impending disasters in Paris, not just in the summer of 1789 but continually from the autumn of 1789 throughout the Revolutionary decade; and how this affected popular psychology and behavior. In doing so, this account demonstrates how a Parisian and his neighbors were radicalized over the course of the Revolution.An evocative account of Colson''s time and place, The Glory and the Sorrow is a compelling microhistory of Revolutionary France.Trade ReviewThis fine book emphasises and dramatizes complexity and contingency in the lives of the capital and its residents. It reminds us how such quotidian topics as cnanine leashes, tenants leases, and urban gossip can open windows into another place and time. * Jeffrey Merrick, New Perspectives on the Eighteenth Century *A fascinating and tantalizing volume...that can be read with pleasure and recognition...by any scholar of the late Eighteenth century and its turbulent social and political histories. * David Andress, French History *In 1920, the Soviet Union became the first country in the world to legalize abortion on demand. But in 1936, the Soviet leadership criminalized abortion: the collectivization of the early 1930s was followed by famine that took the lives of millions of people, and the government grew eager to recover the population. Drawing on an amazing wealth of archival material, Nakachi traces the dynamic of Soviet reproductive policies that were invariably guided by pronatalist goals but almost always had damaging consequences. * Foreign Affairs *The Glory and the Sorrow is a stunning account that integrates a lifetime of research, knowledge, and deep understanding of one's historical actors. It wrestles with enduring questions regarding the local nature of popular activism and the political radicalization of most Parisians. It is a masterclass in animating history as experience, and it will be a gift for generations of scholars and students to come. * Katie Jarvis, H-France Forum *There are many reasons why Tim Tackett's contribution to our knowledge of the French Revolution commands such attention, but...one aspect in particular...[is its] place...in scholarship on emotions in the Revolution....While The Glory and the Sorrow centres on the life of one man, our understanding of his experience of the Revolution is couched very much in terms of his profound and shifting emotions—from the dizzying heights of 1789...to the 'sorrow' of 1794, as the intense expectations of the early years foundered against the crashing impact of war, betrayal and fear. Tim's unfolding of the events of the Revolution through the emotional registers of one man, offer us, as readers in the twenty-first century a way into understanding what the Revolution meant for the generation that lived through it....We must be grateful that...Colson's letters remain to us as a window on a tumultuous time in world history. * Marisa Linton, H-France Forum *Evocative and engaging.... Colson's own experience reveals the state of tension that existed throughout the revolutionary years, between inspiration and hope for a better future on the one hand, and anxiety, desperation and sheer terror on the other. This was not helped by the swirl of rumour and speculation that enveloped the political conversations among Colson's neighbours and friends. Yet it is equally clear that Colson worked hard to disentangle reliable from misleading and downright false information. This may have been because as a lawyer he was especially well-equipped to examine the evidence critically...but it is none the less a reminder to historians that just because a rumour was recorded, it did not mean that everyone credulously believed it. It also holds up a mirror to our own age, enveloped as it is in fake news, misinformation and gossip, no less than was Colson's world. * Michael Rapport, H-France Forum *In The Glory and the Sorrow, Tackett's lively depiction of the initial years of the Revolution challenges us all to match the vivacity and rigor of his analysis and apply them to the entire Revolutionary era....Tackett has painted a detailed portrait of how a small-time, single lawyer from a small, frontier town lived quietly in Paris until the shocks of 1789 transformed his world....By implication and example, it makes a number of important arguments about the causes and consequences of Revolutionary political transformation. * Jeff Horn, H-France Forum *On one level The Glory and the Sorrow can be read as a beautifully written biography, resurrecting a life that had been lost to history. But it is so much more than that, offering a compelling insight into both revolutionary dynamics and popular emotions in a city in crisis. * ALAN FORREST, University of York, FAMILY & COMMUNITY HISTORY *Adrien-Joseph Colson was the Mr Ordinary of ancien régime France....But 1789 also effected a radical change on Mr Ordinary Colson, a startling political awakening....Historians of the Revolution will warmly welcome this fine microhistorical biography. It shows Revolutionary radicalization at work on an utterly unremarkable figure who, in the Revolution, along with his neighbourhood, discovered a new set of values and a new political identity within a wider national fraternity. * Colin Jones, Times Literary Supplement *Drawing on an extraordinarily riche cache of letters, this biography of an ordinary eighteenth-century Parisian gives a marvelously vivid sense of what it was like to live through the last years of France's Old Regime and to participate, at ground level, in the French Revolution. Timothy Tackett has drawn on his unparalleled expertise in the period to produce a biography that is also an illumination—and one that college students in particular will appreciate. * David A. Bell, author of Men on Horseback: The Power of Charisma in the Age of Revolution *This rich and evocative microhistory brings the late Old Regime and French Revolution alive through the experiences of one small-time Parisian lawyer. Adrien-Joseph Colson turns out to be a likeable and very human figure. As Timothy Tackett explores his reflections and quandaries, The Glory and the Sorrow makes for compelling reading. Once again, Tackett analyzes revolutionary dynamics with insight and vision. * Suzanne Desan, author of The Family on Trial in Revolutionary France *Adrien Colson's letters reveal how utterly unexpected the French Revolution was for all who lived through it and how everyday citizens of Paris managed to ride the successive waves of optimism, excitement, uncertainty, and fear. Beautifully contextualized by one of the leading historians of the French Revolution, this book makes you feel like a witness to history. Unless you know how to travel through time, you can't get much closer to the events of the French Revolution than this. * Paul Friedland, Cornell University *There is no better way to experience the hopes, anxieties, and terrors churned out by the French Revolution than this very personal account of an ordinary man in Paris and no better guide to making sense of that experience than Tim Tackett. He has that rare talent for finding archival gems and then gracefully revealing their significance. The reader can't help but feel what Adrien Colson feels as he encounters the excitement, mysteries, and disappointments of revolutionary Paris. * Lynn Hunt, author of History: Why It Matters *Adrien Colson was a Parisian lawyer who lived through the waning ancien régime and the most turbulent years of the French Revolution. He would have disappeared from history were it not for the 1,000 letters he sent to a friend in central France. In them he gave eyewitness testimony of the revolution as it caught flame in ways neither he nor his neighbour...could have predicted. Timothy Tackett deftly uses the correspondence to create a vivid picture of Colson and his thrilling, terrifying times: his book stands in the tradition of Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's Montaillou. Colson is revealed as representative of the masses - a man caught up in events, in thrall to rumour and the bewildering speed of events.. * Michael Prodger, New Statesman *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Prologue Chapter 1 Arrival in Paris Chapter 2 Life in Paris before the Revolution Chapter 3 Making a Living Chapter 4 Understanding the World Chapter 5 The World Changes Chapter 6 Days of Glory Chapter 7 Rumor and Revolution Chapter 8 Becoming a Radical Chapter 9 Days of Sorrow Conclusion Appendix: Translations of Selected Letters Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisAge of Emergency examines how metropolitan Britons understood colonial violence in the two decades after V-E Day when "small wars" raged on the frontiers of empire in Malaya, Kenya, and Cyprus.Trade ReviewAge of Emergency is a masterwork of a new Imperial history which stares unblinkingly into the violence of colonial rule and exposes how that horror reached deeply into twentieth-century British life. Linstrum's achievement is to show that the end of empire in Britain was no less a domestic trauma than in France: British decolonization did not happen 'in a fit of absence of mind.' * Richard Drayton, King's College London *Well-crafted and meticulously researched, this originally conceived work penetrates deep into the serial ambiguities of empire's end-not least the vexed question of how the British people grappled with imperial retreat. Age of Emergency traces the intricate strategies of evasion-the self-censorship, the silences, the 'circles of knowing'-and how these produced ubiquitous forms of tacit imperial knowledge in their own right. Brought to life with all manner of illuminating portraits-in-miniature, it offers a sophisticated new perspective on British society at the tipping point of decolonization. * Stuart Ward, author of Untied Kingdom: A Global History of the End of Britain *A sweeping, meticulous account of the reckoning with colonial brutality in post-war Britain. What happened in Kenya, Malaya, and Cyprus, Linstrum establishes beyond a doubt, was no secret back home. Age of Emergency masterfully explains how democratic publics come to live with-even to embrace-the violence done in their name. * Deborah Cohen, Northwestern University *Meticulous, innovative, damning...Linstrum is innovative in the breadth of his research, trawling the BBC and ITV archives to explore how popular teleplays tried to make sense of endless colonial war. * Christopher Kissane, The Irish Times *As Britons and other Europeans continue to confront the legacies of empire and especially of colonial violence today, this book is an urgent read for anyone interested in questions of culpability, knowledge, and what comes next for former colonial powers. * Taylor Soja, Europe Now Journal *Intimate knowledge of the small wars of the twentieth century spread in what Erik Linstrum calls 'circles of knowing'. His exploration of how these circuits worked and overlapped is original and subtle. * Dublin Review of Books *Age of Emergency documents a wide range of opposition. * TLS *Compendious and insightful * TLS *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: The Wars Were Like a Mist Part I: Knowing about Violence Chapter 1: Out of Apathy Chapter 2: War Stories Part II: Justifying Violence Chapter 3: Violence without Limits Chapter 4: The Claims of Conscience Part III: Living with Violence Chapter 5: Covering Counterinsurgency Chapter 6: Performing Counterinsurgency Epilogue: The Afterlives of Colonial War Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisTable of ContentsIntroduction: Women, Normal Schools, and the Politics of the Third Republic 1. Directrices and Their Mission in Republican Normal Schools 2. Training Future Teachers: Knowledge, Values, Conduct 3. Representing Republican Education: Directrices, Official Observers, and the Public 4. Directing Normal Schools in Petites Patries: Brittany and the Vendée, Algeria 5. Approaches to Feminism 6. Old Issues, New Challenges: From World War I to World War II Beyond the Third Republic: Epilogue and Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisIn the final decades of the nineteenth century, the French Third Republic attempted to carve out childhood as a distinct legal and social category. Previously, working-class girls and boys had labored and trained alongside adults. Concerned about future citizens, lawmakers expanded access to education, regulated child labor, and developed child welfare programs. They directed working-class youths to age-segregated spaces, such as vocational schools or juvenile prisons. With these policies, they distinguished the youthful worker from the adult worker and the juvenile delinquent from the adult criminal. Through their emphasis on age, these policies defined childhood as a universal stage of life. And yet, they also reproduced inequalities in the experience of childhood.In An Age to Work, Miranda Sachs considers the role of the welfare state in reinforcing class and gender-based divisions within childhood. She argues that agents of the welfare state, such as child labor inspectors and sociTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1: Child Labor Legislation and the Regulation of Age Chapter 2: "An Apprenticeship for Life": Training the Republican Worker Chapter 3: Creating the Juvenile Delinquent Chapter 4: "An Insurmountable Distaste for Work": Juvenile Delinquents in the Archives Chapter 5: Blurred Spaces: Working-Class Girlhood Chapter 6: "The Collaboration of the Crowd": Age and Identity in Working-Class Neighborhoods Chapter 7: Interwar Reform Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThe Heresy of Jacob Frank is the first monograph length study on the religious philosophy of Jacob Frank (1726-1791), who, in the wake of false messiah Sabbetai Zevi, led the largest mass apostasy in Jewish history. Based on close readings of Frank''s late teachings, recorded in 1784 and 1790, this book challenges scholarly presentations of Frank that depict him as a sex-crazed degenerate, and presents Frank as an original and prescient figure at the crossroads of tradition and modernity, reason and magic, Kabbalah and Western Esotericism.Frank''s worldview combines a skeptical rejection of religious law as ineffectual and repressive with a supernatural, esoteric myth of immortal beings, material magic, and worldly power. With close readings of the theological and narrative passages of Frank''s teachings, Michaelson shows how the Frankist sect evolved from its Sabbatean roots and the infamous 1757-59 disputations before the Catholic Church, into a Western Esoteric society based on alchTrade ReviewIn the mainstream of Jewish collective memory, Jacob Frank was portrayed as an egomaniacal and depraved ignoramus, a false messiah, and a cynical serial convert-to Islam, then Christianity...Jay Michaelson makes a complementary theoretical argument in The Heresy of Jacob Frank, which received last year's National Jewish Book Award for scholarship...Michaelson, well known as a popular writer on religion and spirituality and an activist for gay rights both in Jewish life and the broader world, has been studying Jacob Frank for almost two decades...In a recent essay, he described being "seduced" by the "allure" of Frank's vigorous confrontation with traditional Jewish law and norms in The Words of the Lord, the late miscellany of Frank's oral teachings and anecdotes. * Benjamin Weiner, Jewish Review of Books *Michaelson reconstructs Frank's teachings with critical methodology, tracing how Frank both followed and resisted the disciplines of reason, magic, Kabbalah, and esotericism. * Yale Law Report *Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Boundary Crosser Chapter 1.

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewStephen Gross has written a magnum opus that will stand as a landmark publication not only in postwar German history, but also at the intersection of global economic and environmental history. It offers a fascinating and persuasive account of how an intersection of idiosyncratic regulatory thinking, and a powerful anti-nuclear movement, set Germany on a peculiar path or Sonderweg in energy politics and trapped the country on Europe's economic and political fault-line. * Harold James, Professor of History and International Affairs, Princeton University *The shift to renewables changes modern society's energy base, possibly the most foundational decision we will take. With a topic grabbed from today's headlines and given meticulous historical analysis as it unfolded in Germany—a nation in the energy avant-garde, yet also still enmired in (Russian-supplied) fossil fuels—Gross delivers a scholarly coup. * Peter Baldwin, Professor of History, University of California, Los Angeles *Energy and Power shows that cheap oil and gas were not the only paths to a successful national economy. Instead, German leaders in the postwar era connected energy to security, social stability, and, intermittently, sustainability. In fascinating ways, Gross shows how a range of players—from green activists to unions to corporations— pursued Germany's ecological modernization. * Kate Brown, Thomas M. Siebel Distinguished Professor in the History of Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology *Perhaps the timeliest book of the year: Stephen G. Gross centers energy history to provide a compelling new interpretation of postwar Germany. In a brilliant sweep, he takes the reader through West Germany's energy crises and transitions from the 1950s into the new millennium. Whoever wants to understand Germany's past and current energy predicaments will find answers in this field-changing book. * Astrid M. Eckert, Emory University *These excellent volumes demonstrate that understanding West Germany's past can provide useful insights into contemporary Germany's economic and political predicament, and its eventual choices for the future. * The Survival *Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Paradoxes of German Energy Part I: The Old Energy Paradigm Chapter 1: Energy Price Wars and the Battle for the Social Market Economy: The 1950s Chapter 2: The Coupling Paradigm: Conceptualizing West Germany's First Postwar Energy Transition Chapter 3: Chains of Oil, 1956-1973 Chapter 4: The Entrepreneurial State: The Nuclear Transition of the 1950s and 1960s Chapter 5: Shaking the Energy Paradigm: The 1973 Oil Shock and its Aftermath Part II: The New Energy Paradigm Chapter 6: Green Energy and the Remaking of West German Politics in the 1970s Chapter 7: Reinventing Energy Economics after the Oil Shock: The Rise of Ecological Modernization Chapter 8: Energetic Hopes in the Face of Chernobyl and Climate Change: The 1980s Chapter 9: The Energy Entanglement of Germany and Russia: Natural Gas, 1970-2000 Chapter 10: Unleashing Green Energy in an Era of Neoliberalism: The 1990s Coda: German Energy in the Twenty-First Century Acknowledgements Abbreviations and Archives Index

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Book SynopsisThe tale of a legendary scholar, an unsolved murder, and the mysterious documents that may connect themIn early 1991, Ioan Culianu was on the precipice of a brilliant academic career. Culianu had fled his native Romania and established himself as a widely admired scholar at just forty-one years of age. He was teaching at the University of Chicago Divinity School where he was seen as the heir apparent to his mentor, Mircea Eliade, a fellow Romanian expatriate and the founding father of the field of religious studies, who had died a few years earlier. But then Culianu began to receive threatening messages. As his fears grew, he asked a colleague to hold onto some papers for safekeeping. A week later, Culianu was in a Divinity School men''s room when someone fired a bullet into the back of his head, killing him instantly. The case was never solved, though the prevailing theory is that Culianu was targeted by the Romanian secret police as a result of critical articles he wrote after the fa

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Book SynopsisPaper, bottles, metal scrap, kitchen garbage, rubber, hair, fat, rags, and bones--the Nazi empire demanded its population obsessively collect anything that could be reused or recycled. Entrepreneurs, policy makers, and ordinary citizens conjured up countless schemes to squeeze value from waste or invent new purposes for defunct or spent material, no matter the cost to people or the environment. As World War II dragged on, rescued loot--much of it waste--clogged transport routes and piled up in warehouses across Europe.Historicizing the much-championed ideal of zero waste, Anne Berg shows that the management of waste was central to the politics of war and to the genesis of genocide in the Nazi Germany. Destruction and recycling were part of an overarching strategy to redress raw material shortages, procure lebensraum, and cleanse the continent of Jews and others considered undesirable. Fostering cooperation between the administration, the party, the German Army, the SS, and industry, re

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Book SynopsisAn authoritative new history of the Roman conquest of BritainWhy did Julius Caesar come to Britain? His own account suggests that he invaded to quell a resistance of Gallic sympathizers in the region of modern-day Kent -- but there must have been personal and divine aspirations behind the expeditions in 55 and 54 BCE. To the ancients, the Ocean was a body of water that circumscribed the known world, separating places like Britain from terra cognita, and no one, not even Alexander the Great, had crossed it. While Caesar came and saw, he did not conquer. In the words of the historian Tacitus, he revealed, rather than bequeathed, Britain to Rome. For the next five hundred years, Caesar''s revelation was Rome''s remotest imperial bequest.Conquering the Ocean provides a new narrative of the Roman conquest of Britain, from the two campaigns of Caesar up until the construction of Hadrian''s Wall across the Tyne-Solway isthmus during the 120s CE. Much of the ancient literary record portrays thTrade ReviewThe target audience is presumably undergraduates with little knowledge of Roman Britain. The book may offer them a marker of the current anti colonial approach with an up-to-date bibliography, but it is to be hoped that challenging it will encourage readers to seek a more balanced engagement with the original texts. * David Bird, Classical Review *Richly illustrated and offering an extensive bibliography, Conquering the Ocean is a pleasing and well-crafted examination of the Roman occupation of Britain that students of the period, as well as professional historians, will find to be of considerable value. * Brett F. Woods, Brett F. Woods, Ph.D., is a professor of history for the American Public University System, Worldhistory.org *This is a fascinating and well-illustrated look at this neglected aspect of Roman and ancient war history, describing the long-term successes and failures of a succession of emperors to conquer this land at the northern limits of the Roman empire. * New York Journal of Books *... an incisive, up-to-date commentary on Roman campaigning... The text is an engaging and enjoyable read, with Hingley taking care to discuss both Romans and Britons, while scrupulously setting the warfare within its wider context to produce a rounded picture of events... Hingley's account of the Boudican revolt is a particular triumph... a highly successful volume that makes for essential reading. * Matthew Symonds, Current Archaeology *The text is an engaging and enjoyable read, with Hingley taking care to discuss both Romans and Britons, while scrupulously setting the warfare within its wider context to produce a rounded picture of events. A wealth of illustrations, especially those prepared by Christina Unwin, are a major asset.... For the Romans, Ocean was a divine force that encircled the inhabited world and was the father of all water deities. As Britain lay within this realm, conquering the island amounted to subjugating Ocean himself. In this spirit, the power of the sea was evoked at key moments, including Tacitus' account of Agricola's campaigning in Scotland. The emphasis on Hadrian's Wall running between 'the two shores of Ocean' can be seen in a similar light. Teasing out this dimension adds real freshness to the subject, delivering a highly successful volume that makes for essential reading. * Current Archaeology *Overall... an excellent investment for readers looking for an accessible and engaging overview of the Roman conquest of Britain. * Captain Richard Dick, Naval Historical Foundation *a fascinating and well-illustrated look at this neglected aspect of Roman and ancient war history, describing the long-term successes and failures of a succession of emperors to conquer this land at the northern limits of the Roman empire. * Jerry Lenaburg *This highly readable account of the Roman conquest and occupation of Britain seeks to synthesise recent work on classical literary references to the island with the much larger body of archaeological and epigraphic research on Roman Britain. * Britannia *In this captivating and compact book, Hingley reconstructs the various ideological and historical moments of the Roman conquest and securing of Britain between Caesar's invasion and 410 CE. * Donato Sitaro, Bryn Mawr Classical Review *

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Book Synopsis''Early Modern'' is a term applied to the period which falls between the end of the middle ages and the beginning of the nineteenth century. This book provides a comprehensive introduction to Europe in this period, exploring the changes and transitions involved in the move towards modernity. Nine newly commissioned chapters under the careful editorship of Euan Cameron cover social, political, economic, and cultural perspectives, all contributing to a full and vibrant picture of Europe during this time.The chapters are organized thematically, and consider the evolving European economy and society, the impact of new ideas on religion, and the emergence of modern political attitudes and techniques. The text is complemented with many illustrations throughout to give a feel of the changes in life beyond the raw historical data.Trade Reviewthis lucidly written, erudite and important book/ Patrick Richards, Day By Day, 30/04/99.this is a coherent, informative and thoughtful treatment of three centuries of European history./Paul Dukes, Journal of European Studies 32 (2002)Table of ContentsTHE SIXTEENTH CENTURY, C.1500-C.1618; THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, C.1618-C.1715; THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, C.1715-C.1789

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Book SynopsisPlease note this title is suitable for any student studying:Exam Board: AQALevel/Subject: AS and A Level HistoryFirst teaching: 2015First exams: June 2017Retaining all the well-loved features from the previous editions, The Quest for Political Stability: Germany 1871-1991 has been approved by AQA and matched to the 2015 specification. With a strong focus on skills building and exam practice, this book covers in breadth issues of change, continuity, and cause and consequence in the period of German history through key questions such as how was Germany governed, what was the extent of social and cultural change, and how effective was opposition? Its aim is to enable you to understand and make connections between the six key thematic questions covered in the specification.Students can further develop vital skills such as historical interpretations and source analyses via specially selected sources and extracts. Practice questions and study tips provide additional support to help familiari

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Book SynopsisPlease note this title is suitable for any student studying:Exam Board: AQALevel/Subject: AS and A Level HistoryFirst teaching: 2015First exams: June 2017Retaining all the well-loved features from the previous editions, The English Revolution has been approved by AQA and matched to the 2015 specification. With a strong focus on skills building and exam practice, this book covers a period of major change in-depth, focusing on key ideas, events and developments with precision. Students can further develop vital skills such as historical interpretations and source analyses via specially selected sources and extracts. Practice questions and study tips provide additional support to help familiarise students with the new exam style questions, and help them achieve their best in the exam.

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Book SynopsisAny consideration of the 20th century would be incomplete without a discussion of Nazi Germany, an extraordinary regime which dominated European history for 12 years, and left a legacy that still echoes with us today. The incredible force of the destructive vision at the heart of Nazi Germany led to a second world war when the world was still aching from the first one, and an incomprehensible death count, both at home and abroad.In this Very Short Introduction, Jane Caplan''s insightful analysis of Nazi Germany provides a highly relevant reminder of the fragility of democratic institutions, and the ways in which the exploitation of national fears, mass political movements, and frail political opposition can lead to the imposition of dictatorship. Considering the emergence and popular appeal of the Nazi party, she discusses the relationships between belief, consent, and terror in securing the regime, alongside the crucial role played by Hitler himself. Covering the full history of the regime, she includes an unflinching look at the dark stains of war, persecution, and genocide. At the same time, Caplan offers unexpected angles of vision and insights; asking readers to look behind the handful of over-used images of Nazi Germany we are familiar with, and to engage critically with a history that that is so abhorrent it risks seeming beyond interpretation. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Trade ReviewIn what seems like an almost insurmountable challenge, Caplan succeeds in describing the details of the "horrifying" main events of this historical catastrophe, and identifying its main criminals, without simplifying. And she writes with an "edge" that is missing in many history narratives. * Graham Forst, Jewish Independent *In this brilliant concise account, Caplan succeeds in outlining the startling rise and devastating impact of National Socialism in Germany under Hitler, conveying both illustrative detail and the broad shape of developments, as well as finely balancing different historical interpretations. A major achievement. * Professor Mary Fulbrook, University College London *Table of Contents1: Hitler myths 2: National socialism 3: From Munich to Berlin (via Weimar) 4: Power 5: Volksgemeinschaft: community and exclusion 6: Volksgemeinschaft: control and belonging 7: Preparing for war 8: War 9: From terror to genocide Further reading Index

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Book SynopsisThe day of 9 Thermidor (27 July 1794) is universally acknowledged as a major turning-point in the history of the French Revolution. At 12.00 midnight, Maximilien Robespierre, the most prominent member of the Committee of Public Safety which had for more than a year directed the Reign of Terror, was planning to destroy one of the most dangerous plots that the Revolution had faced.By 12.00 midnight at the close of the day, following a day of uncertainty, surprises, upsets and reverses, his world had been turned upside down. He was an outlaw, on the run, and himself wanted for conspiracy against the Republic. He felt that his whole life and his Revolutionary career were drawing to an end. As indeed they were. He shot himself shortly afterwards. Half-dead, the guillotine finished him off in grisly fashion the next day.The Fall of Robespierre provides an hour-by-hour analysis of these 24 hours.Trade ReviewVital, incisive, revelatory, The Fall of Robespierre offers a crisis anatomised, 'by the map and by the clock.' Its close-focus intensity makes us question everything we thought we knew about the bloody events of Thermidor Year II. It takes us to the place, to the instant, to the heartbeat of revolution in the making. * Hilary Mantel, author A Place of Greater Safety and the Wolf Hall trilogy *In this admirable account, Jones meticulously reconstructs the day on an hour-by-hour basis, criss-crossing the city as he does so to convey how revolutions messily unfold. * 'The best new paperbacks for July 2023', The Times *The melodramatic story of Maximilien Robespierre's fall has been told many times before, but never in such gloriously sensual detail... Colin Jones brings the French Revolution to life in all its colour and horror... Above all he is brilliant on the psychological twists of politics, which would cost Robespierre his life. * Dominic Sandbrook, 21 Best History Books of 2021, The Times *The book is suspenseful because, even though we know the way things end, it relates the build-up to Robespierre's execution in breathless detail. Mining abundant archival material (from the reports of government functionaries, soldiers and spies to the diaries and letters of private citizens of all political beliefs), Jones shows how turbulence, confusion and contingency shaped each moment of that day. * Caroline Weber, London Review of Books *... a thrilling blow-by-blow account of that fateful day in the summer of 1794. One can almost hear the ticking of the clock, minute by minute, second by second, counting down to the guillotine. * Joseph Hone, Books of the Year 2021, History Today *A brilliant hour-by-hour recreation... He has a marvellous eye for colour: the sweat and fear in the Parisian prisons, the exhausted paranoia of the government committees, the stench of the guillotined bodies in the death pits outside the city. He is excellent on the contingency of political history... And, above all, he is brilliant on the psychology of politics, the way the mood of an assembly can switch in a moment with devastating consequences. * Dominic Sandbrook, The Sunday Times *Jones insists that to understand 9 Thermidor it's necessary to dig down to the level of "infinitely small" details. In his admirable account he meticulously reconstructs the day on an hour-by-hour basis, crisscrossing the city as he does so. * Gerard deGroot, The Times *Colin Jones, a professor of history at Queen Mary University of London, handles a huge amount of material with skill and verve. He creates an extraordinarily vivid minute-by-minute portrait of Paris and its people on that pivotal day... * Constance Craig Smith, Daily Mail *The Historian Colin Jones has a gift for examining events afresh. * New Statesman *... minutely detailed and unfailingly gripping... Jones's superbly researched and strikingly original book produces an optic of a radically different kind. 'Only by getting "up close" and drilling down into the "infinitely small" details of the revolutionary process', its author insists, can the day's course and outcome be understood. And for once this counsel of perfection can be put into practice. * John Adamson, Literary Review *The greatest merit of Colin Jones's microscopic study of those deadly days in the summer of 1794 is that he succeeds in conveying the terrified uncertainty of the many actors, including large numbers of ordinary Parisians...His account required a massive amount of archival work, and his bibliography is testimony to his labors... The broader educated public with an interest in this extraordinary period will enjoy Jones's lively narrative... * Peter McPhee, H-France *An incisively argued and thrilling moment-by-moment examination of one of the French Revolution's most dramatic days... Colin Jones achieves the exceptional feat of putting 9 Thermidor in a new perspective... Jones's enthralling, incisively argued book is a fine contribution to the debate. * Tony Barber, Financial Times *Behind the books general reader-friendly narrative structure, academics will find historical virtuosity on display. * Katie Jarvis, The English Historical Review *The story of the Ninth of Thermidor has been told many times, but never so well as in Colin Jones's The Fall of Robespierre. * David A Bell, The New York Review *... Colin Jones, as well informed about eighteenth century France as any professor of history could be, leads us through Paris on the exceptional day of 9 Thermidor, Year II. * Johan Hakelius, Engelsberg Ideas *Jones offers a new perspective on the Terror and nature of the Thermidorian Reaction. The unconventional narrative structure and style bring contingency to the fore and, in so doing, lead to new interpretations not only of Maximilien Robespierres downfall but of the course of the French Revolution. * Katlyn Carter, Age of Revolutions *... overall this is a classic: living up to the title exactly, it does so with full marks for style and substance... If you have any interest in the French Revolution, or politics in general, or the "processes of history" you will find The Fall of Robespierre a riveting, rigorous and thought-provoking read. * Anthony Webb, Popular History *The work Jones produced to support his point is remarkable... With its minute detailing of human characters, The Fall of Robespierre has the texture of literature and is good material for a mini-series or...how about another Hamilton?... * David Luhrssen, Shepherd Express *This is an astoundingly scholarly book, written with a beautifully assured hand... a book for the historian of the French Revolution itself... The minutiae of detail, and the ability to convey it, along with the mounting tension, is a specific talent, and which has been so obviously achieved by the author of this fascinating and superb volume. * Sandra Callard, On: Yorkshire Magazine *This is a remarkable, barnstorming doorstop of a book. * David Andress, French History *Colin Jones's micro-history can be fundamental reading. * Timothy Tackett, University of California, Irvine, Journal of Modern History *Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION: THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE UP CLOSE PRELUDE: AROUND MIDNIGHT PART 1: ELEMENTS OF CONSPIRACY (Midnight to 05.00 a.m.) PART 2: SETTINGS FOR A DRAMA (5.00 a.m. to Midday) PART 3: A PARLIAMENTARY COUP (Midday to 5.00 p.m.) PART 4: A PARISIAN JOURNÉE (5.00 p.m. to Midnight) PART 5: AT MIDNIGHT, AROUND MIDNIGHT, AFTER MIDNIGHT AFTERWORD: 9 THERMIDOR FROM AFAR NOTES LIST OF CHARACTERS NOTE ON SOURCES BIBLIOGRAPHY AND PRINTED SOURCES INDEX

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Book SynopsisA vibrant new history of twentieth-century Europe - covering everything from war and politics to social, cultural, and economic developments in a period of convulsive and dramatic change.Trade ReviewThis epic account of Europe in the 20th century grabs the reader with snappy chapters packed with telling detaila nd articulate assessment. * Christopher Hirst, The Independent *Table of Contents1. Europe at 1914 ; 2. Europe at War 1914-1917 ; 3. Revolutionary Europe 1917-1921 ; 4. Recovery of the Bourgeiosie 1921-1929 ; 5. Depression and Terror 1929-1936 ; 6. Europe in the 1930s ; 7. Spiral into War 1936-1939 ; 8. Hitler Triumphant 1939-1942 ; 9. Life and Death in Wartime ; 10. End of Hitler's Europe 1942-1945 ; 11. Europe Partitioned 1945-1949 ; 12. West European Recovery 1949-1958 ; 13. Stalin and His Heirs 1949-1964 ; 14. Consensus and Dissent in Western Europe 1958-1973 ; 15. Europe in the 1960s ; 16. Strife in Communist Europe 1964-1985 ; 17. Stress in Liberal Europe 1973-1989 ; 18. The Collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe 1985-1991 ; 19. After the Fall 1991-2007 ; 20. Europe in the New Millennium ; Notes ; Bibliography ; Index

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Book SynopsisThe Easter Rising of 1916 not only destroyed much of the centre of Dublin -- it changed the course of Irish history. But why did it happen? What was the role of ordinary people in this extraordinary event? What motivated them and what were their aims? These basic questions continue to divide historians of modern Ireland. The Rising is the story of Easter 1916 from the perspective of those who made it, focusing on the experiences of rank and file revolutionaries. Fearghal McGarry makes use of a unique source that has only recently seen the light of day -- a collection of over 1,700 eye-witness statements detailing the political activities of members of Sinn Féin and militant groups such as the Irish Republican Brotherhood. This collection represents one of the richest and most comprehensive oral history archives devoted to any modern revolution, providing new insights on almost every aspect of this seminal period. The Rising shows how people from ordinary backgrounds became politicized Trade ReviewMcGarry easily organises rich evidence, offers insightful analysis, and writes a compelling narrative. For this reader, The Rising has joined Charles Townshend's Easter 1916 and Clair Will's Dublin 1916 as essential to anyone interested in the Easter Rising. * Mr John Borgonovo, Reviews in History *Review from previous edition Review from previous edition McGarry brings us close to the terrifying and exhilarating experience that was 1916. He seamlessly weaves together these richly evocative witnesses with current historiography and narrative. * America Magazine *Beautifully produced. * Mary E. Daly, The Irish Times *The Rising not only provides a lucid explanation of what happened in 1916, it also gives us the best account yet of what it was like to be there: with Pearse and Connolly in the GPO, under de Valera's command defending Mount Street Bridge, or just suffering through it all as a helpless civilian. Fearghal McGarry has a keen biographer's eye for human detail and uses it here to weave together the myriad stories of the Easter rebellion. * Peter Hart, author of The I.R.A. at War *A vivid and compelling narrative that explores the thoughts, fears, and motivations of the revolutionaries in this seminal event. * The Boston Globe *'The Rising' offers invaluable insights into the insurrection from ground level. * The Boston Globe *McGarry offers a poignant mosaic of idealism, bravery, and humanity. * The Boston Globe *'The Rising' is rich with tales of the acts of ordinary Dubliners. * The Boston Globe *The novelty of the book lies in its perspective. * America *A very readable, yet historically important book that will appeal to general readers and to experts. * Mary E. Daly, The Irish Times *judicious and compelling * Alvin Jackson, The Journal of Modern History *[An] excellent and judicious account of the Easter Rising ... [McGarry's] purpose in he Rising: Ireland: Easter 1916 - first published in 2010 and now reissued in a handsome centenary edition - is to tell the story of the rebellion "from within and below", to convey "what it actually felt like" to participate ... the account he constructs is rich and nuanced. * Vincent Boland, Financial Times *possibly the most balanced account of the Rising that has yet been attempted ... his is an excellent introduction for anyone who seeks to understand the beginning of the modern Irish Republic and its enduring legacy. * History of War *Riveting ... in this illuminating study, McGarry allows those who took part in the Rising, and those who witnessed it, to speak for themselves. * Andy Ffrench, Oxford Times *Table of ContentsEASTER 1916 IN 2016; LIST OF PLATES AND MAPS; LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS; CHRONOLOGY; INTRODUCTION; GUIDE TO FURTHER READING; NOTES; INDEX

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