Search results for ""Author Neil Kent""

In 2016 Crimea shapes the headlines much as it did some 160 years ago, when the Crimean War pitted Britain, France and Turkey against Russia. Yet few books have been published on the history of the peninsula. For many readers, Crimea seems as remote today as it was when colonised by the ancient Greeks. Neil Kent's book recounts the history of the Crimea over three millennia. A crossroads between Europe and Asia, ships sailed to and from Crimean ports, forming a bridge that carried merchandise and transmitted ideas and innovations. Greeks, Scythians, Tartars, Russians, Armenians and Genoese are among those who settled the peninsula since antiquity, a demographic patchwork that reflects its geography. The religious beliefs of its inhabitants are almost as numerous: the Hebraicised beliefs of the Karaim Tartars, Islam, Judaisim, Russian and Greek Orthodoxy, as well as Roman Catholicism. This mosaic is also reflected in places of worship and the palaces which still adorn Crimea: imperial Romanov Massandra, the 'noble nest' of Prince Voronzov at Alupca or the Palace of Bakhchisaray built for the Tartar Khan.For some two centuries balmy Yalta and its environs were a veritable Black Sea Riviera, where Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin met at the end of the Second World War.

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In 2016 Crimea shapes the headlines much as it did some 160 years ago, when the Crimean War pitted Britain, France and Turkey against Russia. Yet few books have been published on the history of the peninsula. For many readers, Crimea seems as remote today as it was when colonised by the ancient Greeks. Neil Kent''s book recounts the history of the Crimea over three millennia. A crossroads between Europe and Asia, ships sailed to and from Crimean ports, forming a bridge that carried merchandise and transmitted ideas and innovations. Greeks, Scythians, Tartars, Russians, Armenians and Genoese are among those who settled the peninsula since antiquity, a demographic patchwork that reflects its geography. The religious beliefs of its inhabitants are almost as numerous: the Hebraicised beliefs of the Karaim Tartars, Islam, Judaisim, Russian and Greek Orthodoxy, as well as Roman Catholicism. This mosaic is also reflected in places of worship and the palaces which still adorn Crimea: imperial

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Orthodox Christianity is one of the world’s major religions, and the Russian Orthodox Church is by far its largest denomination. Few know its history and spiritual richness, however. Neil Kent’s comprehensive new book fills that gap. The Russian Orthodox Church’s Eastern roots, including its dogma, canons, and practices, are explored, along with the political and military contexts in which it carried out its mission over the centuries. Hemmed in between the Catholic powers of pre-Reformation Europe in the West, the Mongol steppe empires to the East, and the Islamic civilizations to the South, Russia and its Church found themselves in a difficult position during the Middle Ages.The Russian Orthodox Church’s greatest strength was in the spiritual power of its liturgy, prayerfulness, icons, and monastic life. But even as the Church consolidated its authority under its own metropolitan, and later patriarch, it came into conflict with political rulers who sought to undermine it. After defeating foreign challenges, the Church underwent a painful reformation and schism, finally coming under government control. The Church survived this “Babylonian Captivity,” and, in philosophical and spiritual terms, flourished under tsarist rule while still facing rising opposition. The fall of the monarchy in 1917 led to the Church’s brief rejuvenation, but communist rule spelled relentless persecution with little respite at home and a lively émigré church carrying Russian traditions abroad. In post-Soviet times, however, the Church enjoyed an extraordinary resurrection and, benefiting from the spiritual richness and reunion with the Russian Orthodox Church abroad, once again became a spiritual pillar of the Russian people and a beacon of hope and Christian values, not only in Russia but anywhere it is currently practiced.

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The first comprehensive history of the Sami people of the Nordic countries and northwestern Russia. There is no single volume which encompasses an integrated social and cultural history of the Sami people from the Nordic countries and northwestern Russia. Neil Kent's book fills this lacuna. In the first instance, he considers how the Sami homeland is defined: its geography, climate, and early contact with other peoples. He then moves on to its early chronicles and the onset of colonisation, which changed Sami life profoundly over the last millennium. Thereafter, the nature of Sami ethnicity is examined, in the context of the peoples among whom the Sami increasingly lived, as well as the growing intrusions of the states who claimed sovereignty over them. The Soviet gulag, the Lapland War and increasing urbanisation all impacted upon Sami life. Religion, too, played an important role from pre-historic times, with their pantheon of gods and sacred sites, to their Christianisation. In the late twentieth century there has been an increasing symbiosis of ancient Sami spiritual practice with Christianity. Recently the intrusions of the logging and nuclear industries, as well as tourism have come to redefine Sami society and culture. Even the meaning of who exactly a Sami is is scrutinised, at a time when some intermarry and yet return to Sapmi, where their children maintain their Sami identity.

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This groundbreaking collection of essays assesses how cyber security affects our lives, businesses, and safety. The contributors—all leaders in their fields—have produced approach cyber security from multiple innovative angles. Business professor Matthew Cadbury takes a long view, studying earlier intelligence failures in the field of conventional conflict to identify patterns of analytical error that may guide security officials and policymakers as they examine the issue of cyber security before them today. French military academy instructor Thomas Flichy de La Neuville suggests another historical parallel, locating an important precursor to current debates about internet freedom in the waning control of information during the French Revolution. Italian academics Alessandro Guarino and Emilio Iasiellotake up an industrial case study, that of self-driving motor vehicles, to examine how cyberthreats might effect business and industry as they become ever more dependent on technology in the twenty-first century. Finally, the Indian scholar Sushma Devi presents a national case study, that of her native India, to assess how one of the world’s most dynamic emerging economies is facing up to what was originally a first world problem. This collection anticipates endless analysis of the rapidly expanding nexus of cyber security and intelligence. It will be of undoubted use to anyone concerned with technology, the security of online business presences, national security, communications, and any other field of endeavor that will benefit from the knowledge of experts in the field.

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In 1740, the French King Louis XV granted his Swedish-led forces the title of Royal Swedish Regiment, for which it received the same privileges as all royal regiments including the protection of the king, new flags, and ordinance. Louis XV acted to fulfill a request of King Fredrik I of Sweden and to demonstrate his satisfaction with the great value shown by the regiment in battle. This intriguing book traces the history of this storied regiment throughout its service, including during the American War of Independence, and up to the time of the French Revolution of 1789.

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The pioneering essays in this volume explore national security challenges posed by new technologies and examine some ongoing efforts to understand and mitigate their potential negative effects. The authors, drawn from among a roster of international scholars, approach these issues from different yet ultimately complementary angles. Turkish scholar Emin Daskin chronicles the efforts of the Turkish government to develop and implement a Cyber Security Strategy aimed at protecting the country from attacks by both governmental and non-governmental cyber actors. French researcher Christine Dugoin-Clement has studied what she views as a successful case of cyberwarfare, in which Ukrainian soldiers fighting in the eastern separatist region of Donbass have been targeted by cyber attackers attempting to deteriorate their cognition, rendering them less effective in the field. Another French author and military academy instructor, Thomas Flichy de La Neuville, provides a counterpoint study of militarized motorbike attacks in the Sahel, demonstrating that cyberspace is not the only technological sphere in which innovation increasingly threatens security. Finally, American academic Christopher Whyte offers a trenchant critique of current academic studies of cyberterrorism, noting that while “cyberterrorism” appears frequently as a subject of research, the actual work being carried out in this critical area lacks thematic nuance and is only tenuously linked to related major thematic topic areas. The collection highlights the unique challenges faced by countries as they attempt to deal with previously unknown adversaries, as both the nature of the enemy and the field of operations continues to shift with unprecedented speed. It will undoubtedly be of interest to anyone concerned with international relations, cybersecurity, cyberterrorism, and national security in the twenty-first century.

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Today more than ever, the line between national security and cyber security is becoming increasingly erased. As recent attacks on US infrastructure show (for example, the oil pipeline hack of 2021), nontraditional threats ranging from hacking for the purposes of extracting ransom to terrorist communications online are emerging as central to national threat assessment. In an innovative fashion that allows for the comparison of approaches to this nexus in the developed and developing countries his volume brings together European and African experts offering an in-depth analysis of the relationship between national and cyber security. The individual chapters theorize the current and future implications of global digitalization; a cogent discussion of the threats French military and security forces face in terms of cyber security failures from within; and an exploration of the relationship between cyber security and national security in the volatile Nigerian context.

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