Author: Brendan Simms Publisher: Basic Books ISBN: 0465065953 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 722
Book Description
With "verve and panache," this magisterial history of Europe since 1453 shows how struggles over the heart of the continent have shaped the world we live in today (The Economist). Whoever controls the core of Europe controls the entire continent, and whoever controls Europe can dominate the world. Over the past five centuries, a rotating cast of kings, conquerors, presidents, and dictators have set their sights on the European heartland, desperate to seize this pivotal area or at least prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. From Charles V and Napoleon to Bismarck and Cromwell, from Hitler and Stalin to Roosevelt and Gorbachev, nearly all the key power players of modern history have staked their titanic visions on this vital swath of land. In Europe, prizewinning historian Brendan Simms presents an authoritative account of the past half-millennium of European history, demonstrating how the battle for mastery of the continent's center has shaped the modern world. A bold and compelling work by a renowned scholar, Europe integrates religion, politics, military strategy, and international relations to show how history -- and Western civilization itself -- was forged in the crucible of Europe.
Author: B. J. C. McKercher Publisher: Springer ISBN: 1349119199 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 256
Book Description
This collection examines the complex struggle for supremacy conducted between the United States and Britain in the decade following World War I. The aim is to throw light on a crucial period in the history of British and American foreign policy and on 20th-century international affairs.
Author: Alfred J. Rieber Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1316352196 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 433
Book Description
This is a major new study of the successor states that emerged in the wake of the collapse of the great Russian, Habsburg, Iranian, Ottoman and Qing Empires and of the expansionist powers who renewed their struggle over the Eurasian borderlands through to the end of the Second World War. Surveying the great power rivalry between the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan for control over the Western and Far Eastern boundaries of Eurasia, Alfred J. Rieber provides a new framework for understanding the evolution of Soviet policy from the Revolution through to the beginning of the Cold War. Paying particular attention to the Soviet Union, the book charts how these powers adopted similar methods to the old ruling elites to expand and consolidate their conquests, ranging from colonisation and deportation to forced assimilation, but applied them with a force that far surpassed the practices of their imperial predecessors.
Author: J. E. Peterson Publisher: Saqi ISBN: 0863567029 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 354
Book Description
Oman today is a rapidly modernizing and peaceful country on the fringes of a region in turmoil. It does, however, have a long history of internal strife. In the twentieth century, this strife took the form of two internal conflicts. The Northern Oman or al-Jabal al-Akhdar War of the 1950s was a struggle between the forces of the old tribally based Imamate and the newer Sultanate in the northern part of the country. In the Dhufar War of the 1960s-70s an anti-Sultanate - and later Marxist - front sought secession in the south. J. E. Peterson takes a detailed look at these two wars in the context of insurgency and counter-insurgency warfare. He surveys Oman's transition from a strictly traditional regime controlling only parts of the country to a modern, inclusive state, particularly in terms of security concerns. Peterson analyses the development of the Sultanate's successful responses to security challenges, especially in the creation and evolution of modern armed forces. 'John Peterson provides the nearest we will perhaps ever see of an official history.' David Benest, The British Army Review 'Peterson does an excellent job of developing the thesis that victory in these counter-insurgencies resulted from the two factors of establishing political legitimacy by meeting the local demands of the population and military efforts, which succeeded largely through British support.' Calvin H. Allen Jr., Middle East Journal
Author: Christopher S. Parker Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 1400831024 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 288
Book Description
How military service led black veterans to join the civil rights struggle Fighting for Democracy shows how the experiences of African American soldiers during World War II and the Korean War influenced many of them to challenge white supremacy in the South when they returned home. Focusing on the motivations of individual black veterans, this groundbreaking book explores the relationship between military service and political activism. Christopher Parker draws on unique sources of evidence, including interviews and survey data, to illustrate how and why black servicemen who fought for their country in wartime returned to America prepared to fight for their own equality. Parker discusses the history of African American military service and how the wartime experiences of black veterans inspired them to contest Jim Crow. Black veterans gained courage and confidence by fighting their nation's enemies on the battlefield and racism in the ranks. Viewing their military service as patriotic sacrifice in the defense of democracy, these veterans returned home with the determination and commitment to pursue equality and social reform in the South. Just as they had risked their lives to protect democratic rights while abroad, they risked their lives to demand those same rights on the domestic front. Providing a sophisticated understanding of how war abroad impacts efforts for social change at home, Fighting for Democracy recovers a vital story about black veterans and demonstrates their distinct contributions to the American political landscape.
Author: David Caute Publisher: OUP Oxford ISBN: 9780191554582 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 828
Book Description
The cultural Cold War between the Soviet Union and the West was without precedent. At the outset of this original and wide-ranging historical survey, David Caute establishes the nature of the extraordinary cultural competition set up post-1945 between Moscow, New York, London and Paris, with the most intimate frontier war staged in the city of Berlin. Using sources in four languages, the author of The Fellow-Travellers and The Great Fear explores the cultural Cold War as it rapidly penetrated theatre, film, classical music, popular music, ballet, painting and sculpture, as well as propaganda by exhibition. Major figures central to Cold War conflict in the theatre include Brecht, Miller, Sartre, Camus, Havel, Ionesco, Stoppard and Konstantin Simonov, whose inflammatory play, The Russian Question, occupies a chapter of its own based on original archival research. Leading film directors involved included Eisenstein, Romm, Chiarueli, Aleksandrov, Kazan, Tarkovsky and Wajda. In the field of music, the Soviet Union in the Zhdanov era vigorously condemned 'modernism', 'formalism', and the avant-garde. A chapter is devoted to the intriguing case of Dmitri Shostakovich, and the disputed authenticity of his 'autobiography' Testimony. Meanwhile in the West the Congress for Cultural Freedom was sponsoring the modernist composers most vehemently condemned by Soviet music critics; Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Hindemith among them. Despite constant attempts at repression, the Soviet Party was unable to check the appeal of jazz on the Voice of America, then rock music, to young Russians. Visits to the West by the Bolshoi and Kirov ballet companines, the pride of the USSR, were fraught with threats of cancellation and the danger of defection. Considering the case of Rudolf Nureyev, Caute pours cold water on overheated speculations about KGB plots to injure him and other defecting dancers. Turning to painting, where socialist realism prevailed in Russia, and the impressionist heritage was condemned, Caute explores the paradox of Picasso's membership of the French Communist Party. Re-assessing the extent of covert CIA patronage of abstract expressionism (Pollock, De Kooning), Caute finds that the CIA's role has been much exaggerated, likewise the dominance of the New York School. Caute challenges some recent, one-dimensional, American accounts of 'Cold War culture', which ignore not only the Soviet performance but virtually any cultural activity outside the USA. The West presented its cultural avant-garde as evidence of liberty, even through monochrome canvases and dodecaphonic music appealed only to a minority audience. Soviet artistic standards and teaching levels were exceptionally high, but the fear of freedom and innovation virtually guaranteed the moral defeat which accelerated the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Author: Sergey Radchenko Publisher: Woodrow Wilson Center Press ISBN: 9780804758796 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 344
Book Description
This book examines the deterioration of relations between the USSR and China in the 1960s, whereby once powerful allies became estranged, competitive, and increasingly hostile neighbors. It shows how the intrinsic inequality of the Sino-Soviet alliance - seen as entirely natural by the Russians but bitterly resented by the Chinese - resulted in its ultimate collapse.
Author: Finnie D. Coleman Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press ISBN: 9781572334809 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 200
Book Description
Sutton E. Griggs (1872-1933) was a significant African American social reformer, pastor, and prolific writer. His successful first novel, Imperium in Imperio (1899), addressed in a forceful way the plight of Black Americans in post-Reconstruction America. Using Griggs's life story as a platform, Sutton E. Griggs and the Struggle against White Supremacy explores how conservative pragmatism shaped the dynamics of race relations and racial politics during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. More precisely, the book examines the various intellectual tactics that Griggs developed to combat white supremacy. Author Finnie D. Coleman shows that Griggs was a pivotal shaper of a racial uplift philosophy that bore little relationship to more melioristic attempts at racial reconciliation. Coleman explores how Griggs's family-particularly his father-influenced his political ideology. Coleman examines why and how Griggs toyed with militant and at times violent fictional responses to white supremacy when his background and temperament were profoundly conservative and peaceful. Ultimately, Griggs yielded to his father's brand of pragmatic conservatism, but not before he produced a number of works of fiction and nonfiction that pushed the boundaries of what were acceptable reactions to the racial status quo of his day. The author addresses other questions about Griggs's work: How did his fiction capture the generational differences between African Americans born in antebellum America and those who came of age at the end of the Gilded Age? Which rhetorical conventions proved effective against the ever-obdurate Jim Crow? Why have critical assessments of his works varied so greatly over the years? Most important, when compared with other writings of his day, why have his texts been so thoroughly marginalized? This new volume adds to our understanding of Griggs's literary career and his role as one of the most widely read and selflessly dedicated intellectual leaders of his day.
Author: Jeffrey E. Garten Publisher: Crown ISBN: 9780812919790 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 294
Book Description
An in-depth study of America's widening competition with Japan and Germany--our two most important allies and rivals--and on the critical impact that growing conflicts will have on America's future.
Author: Brendan Simms
Author: Robert H. Jackson
Author: B. J. C. McKercher
Author: Alfred J. Rieber
Author: J. E. Peterson
Author: Christopher S. Parker
Author: David Caute
Author: Sergey Radchenko
Author: Finnie D. Coleman
Author: Jeffrey E. Garten