Author: C. Levy Publisher: Springer ISBN: 0230294138 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 308
Book Description
A brief glance at twentieth century European history would suggest that wars and their aftermath produced the major turning points in its development. Three times - in 1918, 1945 and again in 1989 - Europe was confronted with major questions of restructuring and rebuilding. But can we really divide Europe's development into neat postwar eras? Why was the period 1945-1989 so much more stable and prosperous than 1918-1939? Has the end of the cold war changed the basis of the post-1945 settlement? This comparative collection offers some unique insights into these questions.
Author: Martin Conway Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN: 1474276520 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 249
Book Description
This book brings together world-renowned scholars from all over Europe to analyse how successive Europes have been constructed in the wake of the key conflicts of the period: the Cold War and the two World Wars. By regressively tracing Europe's path back to these pivotal moments as part of a unique methodology, Europe's Postwar Periods - 1989, 1945, 1918 reveals the defining characteristics of these postwar periods and integrates the changes that followed 1989 into a more substantial historical perspective. The author team address the crucial themes in recent European history on a chapter-by-chapter basis that gives comprehensive coverage to the whole of the European region for topics such as borders, states, empires, democracy, justice, markets and futures. The volume highlights the fact that Europe was made less by wars than is commonly thought, and more by the nature of the settlements – international, national, political, economic and social – that followed the two World Wars and the Cold War. It is an important, innovative text for all students and scholars of 20th-century European history.
Author: Sheri Berman Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199373205 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 561
Book Description
At the end of the twentieth century, many believed the story of European political development had come to an end. Modern democracy began in Europe, but for hundreds of years it competed with various forms of dictatorship. Now, though, the entire continent was in the democratic camp for the first time in history. But within a decade, this story had already begun to unravel. Some of the continent's newer democracies slid back towards dictatorship, while citizens in many of its older democracies began questioning democracy's functioning and even its legitimacy. And of course it is not merely in Europe where democracy is under siege. Across the globe the immense optimism accompanying the post-Cold War democratic wave has been replaced by pessimism. Many new democracies in Latin America, Africa, and Asia began "backsliding," while the Arab Spring quickly turned into the Arab winter. The victory of Donald Trump led many to wonder if it represented a threat to the future of liberal democracy in the United States. Indeed, it is increasingly common today for leaders, intellectuals, commentators and others to claim that rather than democracy, some form dictatorship or illiberal democracy is the wave of the future. In Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe, Sheri Berman traces the long history of democracy in its cradle, Europe. She explains that in fact, just about every democratic wave in Europe initially failed, either collapsing in upon itself or succumbing to the forces of reaction. Yet even when democratic waves failed, there were always some achievements that lasted. Even the most virulently reactionary regimes could not suppress every element of democratic progress. Panoramic in scope, Berman takes readers through two centuries of turmoil: revolution, fascism, civil war, and - -finally -- the emergence of liberal democratic Europe in the postwar era. A magisterial retelling of modern European political history, Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe not explains how democracy actually develops, but how we should interpret the current wave of illiberalism sweeping Europe and the rest of the world.
Author: Markus Wahl Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1000011763 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 246
Book Description
This book draws on the example of the major cities of Leipzig and Dresden to illustrate continuity and change in public health in the German Democratic Republic. Based on archival work, it will demonstrate how members of the medical profession successfully manipulated their pre-1945 past in order to continue practising, leading to persistence in the social conception of medicine and disease after Communism took hold. This was particularly evident in attitudes towards and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases and the pathology of deviant behaviour among young people.
Author: Melvyn P. Leffler Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199888027 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 318
Book Description
U.S. national security policy is at a critically important crossroads. The Bush Doctrine of unilateralism, pre-emptive war, and the imposition of democracy by force has proven disastrous. The United States now finds itself vilified abroad, weakened at home, and bogged down in a seemingly endless and unwinnable war. In To Lead the World, Melvyn P. Leffler and Jeffrey W. Legro bring together eleven of America's most esteemed writers and thinkers to offer concrete, historically grounded suggestions for how America can regain its standing in the world and use its power more wisely than it has during the Bush years. Best-selling authors such as David Kennedy, Niall Ferguson, Robert Kagan, Francis Fukuyama, and Samantha Power address such issues as how the US can regain its respect in the world, respond to the biggest threats now facing the country, identify reasonable foreign policy goals, manage the growing debt burden, achieve greater national security, and successfully engage a host of other problems left unsolved and in many cases exacerbated by the Bush Doctrine. Representing a wide range of perspectives, the writers gathered here place the current foreign-policy predicament firmly in the larger context of American and world history and draw upon realistic appraisals of both the strengths and the limits of American power. They argue persuasively that the kind of leadership that made the United States a great--and greatly admired--nation in the past can be revitalized to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Written by prize-winning authors and filled with level-headed, far-sighted, and achievable recommendations, To Lead the World will serve as a primary source of political wisdom in the post-Bush era and will add immeasurably to the policy debates surrounding the 2008 presidential election.
Author: Krister Lundell Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1135230668 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 152
Book Description
This book explores and presents the influence of contextual factors on the choice of electoral systems for parliamentary elections in both democracies and non-democracies around the world. Taking a macroscopic approach, the author focuses on structural explanations, with an emphasis on general patterns rather than country specific explanations. Drawn from a wealth of data, the book presents the frequency of the adoption of each electoral formula and system in the postwar era and is followed by a theoretical elaboration of electoral system choice. The author then draws on rational, cultural/historical and institutional theories which are systematically analyzed by means of sophisticated bivariate and multivariate techniques. Lundell demonstrates that few electoral systems have been chosen from rational considerations and the impact of the cultural and historical setting is tremendous; colonial legacy, regional influence and temporal trends largely explain the cross-national variation in electoral systems. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of political science, electoral politics and comparative politics.
Author: Don Tyler Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA ISBN: 0313341923 Category : Music Languages : en Pages : 301
Book Description
At the end of WWII, themes in music shifted from soldiers' experiences at war to coming home, marrying their sweethearts, and returning to civilian life. The music itself also shifted, with crooners such as Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra replacing the Big Bands of years past. Country music, jazz, and gospel continued to evolve, and rhythm and blues and the new rock and roll were also popular during this time. Music is not created without being influenced by the political events and societal changes of its time, and the Music of the Postwar Era is no exception. *includes combined musical charts for the years 1945-1959 *approximately 20 black and white images of the singers and musicians who represent the era's music
Author: Kiran Klaus Patel Publisher: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft ISBN: Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 306
Book Description
The Common Agricultural Policy was the most important policy for the longest duration of the European Economic Community's existence. Apart from subsidizing and modernizing European agriculture and securing supplies for its consumers, this policy was meant to be the beacon of European integration. However, it also became the most controversial policy of the EU - symbolized by subsidized overproduction, bureaucracy, and burgeoning farmers' protests. This volume provides the first archive-based assessment of its history in the age of the Cold War and beyond. Its chapters deal with the wider context of agricultural integration since the 1920s; with the basic ideas that drove this policy; with the negotiations and controversies that went along with it as well as with its economic effects and global impact. Apart from its empirical findings, this book offers new ways of linking EU history to larger trends of contemporary history. The editor of this volume, Kiran Klaus Patel, is Professor of EU history and transatlantic relations at the European University Institute in Florence.
Author: Mark A. Lorell Publisher: Rand Corporation ISBN: 0833025953 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 247
Book Description
The proposition that innovation is critical in the cost-effective design and development of successful military aircraft is still subject to some debate. RAND research indicates that innovation is promoted by intense competition among three or more industry competitors. Given the critical policy importance of this issue in the current environment of drastic consolidation of the aerospace defense industry, the authors here examine the history of the major prime contractors in developing jet fighters since World War II. They make use of an extensive RAND database that includes nearly all jet fighters, fighter-attack aircraft, and bombers developed and flown by U.S. industry since 1945, as well as all related prototypes, modifications, upgrades, etc. The report concludes that (1) experience matters, because of the tendency to specialize and thus to develop system-specific expertise; (2) yet the most dramatic innovations and breakthroughs came from secondary or marginal players trying to compete with the industry leaders; and (3) dedicated military R&D conducted or directly funded by the U.S. government has been critical in the development of new higher-performance fighters and bombers.
Author: Andrew Demshuk Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press ISBN: 0822988577 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 601
Book Description
Three Cities after Hitler compares how three prewar German cities shared decades of postwar development under three competing post-Nazi regimes: Frankfurt in capitalist West Germany, Leipzig in communist East Germany, and Wrocław (formerly Breslau) in communist Poland. Each city was rebuilt according to two intertwined modern trends. First, certain local edifices were chosen to be resurrected as “sacred sites” to redeem the national story after Nazism. Second, these tokens of a reimagined past were staged against the hegemony of modernist architecture and planning, which wiped out much of whatever was left of the urban landscape that had survived the war. All three cities thus emerged with simplified architectural narratives, whose historically layered complexities only survived in fragments where this twofold “redemptive reconstruction” after Nazism had proven less vigorous, sometimes because local citizens took action to save and appropriate them. Transcending both the Iron Curtain and freshly homogenized nation-states, three cities under three rival regimes shared a surprisingly common history before, during, and after Hitler—in terms of both top-down planning policies and residents’ spontaneous efforts to make home out of their city as its shape shifted around them.
Author: C. Levy
Author: Martin Conway
Author: Sheri Berman
Author: Markus Wahl
Author: Melvyn P. Leffler
Author: Krister Lundell
Author: Don Tyler
Author: Kiran Klaus Patel
Author: Mark A. Lorell
Author: Andrew Demshuk