Best of
European-History

1995

Auschwitz and After


Charlotte Delbo - 1995
    The French turned them over to the Gestapo, who imprisoned them. Dudach was executed by firing squad in May; Delbo remained in prison until January 1943, when she was deported to Auschwitz and then to Ravensbruck, where she remained until the end of the war. This book - Delbo's vignettes, poems and prose poems of life in the concentration camp and afterwards - is a literary memoir. It is a document by a female resistance leader, a non-Jew and a writer who transforms the experience of the Holocaust into prose.

Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth


Gitta Sereny - 1995
    Now this enigma of a man is unveiled in a monumental biography by a writer who came to know Speer intimately in his final years.Out of hundreds of hours of interviews, Sereny unravels the threads of Speer's personality: the genius that made him indispensable to the German war machine, the conscience that drove him to repent, and the emotional wounds that made him susceptible to Hitler's lethal magnetism. Read as an inside account of the Third Reich, or as a revelatory unsparing yet compassionate study of the human capacity for evil, Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth is a triumph."Fascinating...Not only a major addition to our knowledge of The Third Reich, but a stunning attempt to understand the nature of good and evil."--Newsday"More than a biography...It also constitutes a perceptive re-examination of the mysterious appeal of Adolf Hitler."--San Francisco ChronicleB&W photos.IntroductionPrologueAn Infusion of Stable Stock'I Felt He Was a Human Being'Dizzy with ExcitementA Kind of LoveA Shared Devotion'You've All Gone Completely Insane'A Slight DiscomfortUnleashing MurderA Grey Path IndeedA Moral SoreA Fatal AppointmentAn Irresistable ChallengeA Maelstom of IntriguesA Blinkered CommitmentThe Unbearable Truth'It Was Not Yet My Time'The 20th of JulyScorched Earth'I Stand Unconditionally Behind You'He Is the DreamThe One Interesting PersonA Common ResponsibilitySpandau 1Spandau 2A Twilight of KnowingThe Great LiePostscriptReferencesNotesIndex

Against the Odds: Survival on the Russian Front 1944-1945


John Stieber - 1995
    Caught there by the outbreak of the Second World War, he was unable to return to his parents for seven years. In due course, he was called to serve in an anti-aircraft battery and in the National Labour Service. Just after his eighteenth birthday, he was sent to the Russian Front with the elite Paratrooper and Tank Division, Hermann Göring. He lived through an amazing series of events, escaping death many times and was one of the few survivors of his division when the war ended. In this narrative of his early life, John Stieber describes how he went from a carefree childhood through increasing hardships, until every day of his life became a challenge for survival.

Why the Allies Won


Richard Overy - 1995
    The Soviet Union had lost the heart of its industry, and the United States was not yet armed.The Allied victory in 1945 was not inevitable. Overy shows us exactly how the Allies regained military superiority and why they were able to do it. He recounts the decisive campaigns: the war at sea, the crucial battles on the eastern front, the air war, and the vast amphibious assault on Europe. He then explores the deeper factors affecting military success and failure: industrial strength, fighting ability, the quality of leadership, and the moral dimensions of the war.

An Uncommon Woman - The Empress Frederick: Daughter of Queen Victoria, Wife of the Crown Prince of Prussia, Mother of Kaiser Wilhelm


Hannah Pakula - 1995
    of photos.

The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph & Diversity 200–1000


Peter R.L. Brown - 1995
    For the second edition, the book has been thoroughly rewritten and expanded. It includes two new chapters, as well as an extensive preface in which the author reflects on the scholarly traditions which have influenced his work and explains his current thinking about the book's themes.New edition of popular account of the first 1000 years of Christianity. Thoroughly rewritten, with extensive new preface of author's current thinking.Includes new maps, substantial bibliography, and numerous chronological tables.

The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall 1477–1806


Jonathan I. Israel - 1995
    Because it is so thoroughly researched and up-to-date, it is also the kind of indispensable handbook that deserves a place on every early modernist's bookshelf.— American Historical Review

Men-of-War: Life in Nelson's Navy


Patrick O'Brian - 1995
    What did they eat? What songs did they sing? What was the schedule of watches? How were the officers and crew paid, and what was the division of prize-money?These questions and many more are answered in Patrick O'Brian's elegant narrative, which includes wonderful anecdotal material on the battles and commanders that established Britain's naval supremacy. Line drawings and charts help us to understand the construction and rigging of the great ships, the types and disposition of the guns, and how they were operated in battle. A number of contemporary drawings and cartoons illustrate aspects of naval life from the press gang to the scullery. Finally, a generous selection of full-color paintings render the majesty and the excitement of fleet actions in the age of fighting sail.

Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest


Anne McClintock - 1995
    Spanning the century between Victorian Britain and the current struggle for power in South Africa, the book takes up the complex relationships between race and sexuality, fetishism and money, gender and violence, domesticity and the imperial market, and the gendering of nationalism within the zones of imperial and anti-imperial power.

The Prospect Before Her: A History of Women in Western Europe, 1500 - 1800


Olwen H. Hufton - 1995
    How did women in 16th century western Europe cope with the consequences of being considered inherently sinful--as well as being legally and economically subordinate to their fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons? What might become of a woman unable to raise a dowry? What were the difficulties faced by spinsters, single mothers, and widows? In this brilliant investigation into the lives of women from all social strata, Hufton leads us from poor-house to palazzo, from cradle to grave, illuminating what it meant to be female in western Europe during the years 1500 to 1800.

Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization


Stephen Kotkin - 1995
    Stephen Kotkin was the first American in 45 years to be allowed into Magnitogorsk, a city built in response to Stalin's decision to transform the predominantly agricultural nation into a "country of metal." With unique access to previously untapped archives and interviews, Kotkin forges a vivid and compelling account of the impact of industrialization on a single urban community.Kotkin argues that Stalinism offered itself as an opportunity for enlightenment. The utopia it proffered, socialism, would be a new civilization based on the repudiation of capitalism. The extent to which the citizenry participated in this scheme and the relationship of the state's ambitions to the dreams of ordinary people form the substance of this fascinating story. Kotkin tells it deftly, with a remarkable understanding of the social and political system, as well as a keen instinct for the details of everyday life.Kotkin depicts a whole range of life: from the blast furnace workers who labored in the enormous iron and steel plant, to the families who struggled with the shortage of housing and services. Thematically organized and closely focused, Magnetic Mountain signals the beginning of a new stage in the writing of Soviet social history.

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Vols. 5-8


Edward Gibbon - 1995
    

The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism


Tina Rosenberg - 1995
    Here, she approaches a similar theme in Eastern Europe after the fall of Communism, telling a series of riveting human stories to illuminate the paradox that rabid anti-Communism at times resembles Communism. In the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and the former East Germany, she talks to erstwhile dissidents now victimized because they are named in old police registers; to low-level agents accused of crimes that were not crimes when committed; and to high officials who now run things just like before. She convincingly suggests that the best antidote to Communism may be, not revenge, but "tolerance and the rule of law."

St. Petersburg: A Cultural History


Solomon Volkov - 1995
    Petersburg became the center of liberal opposition to the dominating power of the state, whether czarist or communist. Acclaimed Russian historian and emigre Volkov writes the definitive "cultural biography" of that famed city, sharply detailing the well-known figures of the arts whose works are now part of the permanent fabric of Western high culture. Photos.

With Musket, Canon And Sword: Battle Tactics Of Napoleon And His Enemies


Brent Nosworthy - 1995
    Battle Tactics of Napoleon and His Enemies

The Passing of an Illusion: The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century


François Furet - 1995
    But years before his death, he turned his attention to the consequences and aftermath of another critical revolution—the Communist revolution. The result, Le passé d'une illusion, is a penetrating history of the ideological passions that have fueled and characterized the modern era.

La Grande Armee


Georges Blond - 1995
    Early in his career, the author actually interviewed aging veterans and survivors of the Napoleonic wars. Retrace each step of the Emperor's Grande Armee. Rare combat prints, drawings, and sketches accurately depict military apparel and weaponry, while charts, theater of operations, maps, casualty lists and statistics add to this chronicle's clarity and value. 560 pages, 47 b/w illus., 6 1/4 x 9 1/4.

D Day: Then And Now


Winston G. Ramsey - 1995
    This is the first of a two volume set exploring the inception, planning and preparation of the offensive to liberate Europe, Operation Overlord, culminating in its launch on D-Day.

How Would You Survive in the Middle Ages? (How Would You Survive?)


Fiona MacDonald - 1995
    Each title transports the reader back in time by giving detailed information on the aspects of life during a particular historical period.

The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain


Benzion Netanyahu - 1995
    Its principal target was the conversos, descendants of Spanish Jews who had been forced to convert to Christianity some three generations earlier. Since thousands of them confessed to charges of practicing Judaism in secret, historians have long understood the Inquisition as an attempt to suppress the Jews of Spain. In this magisterial reexamination of the origins of the Inquisition, Netanyahu argues for a different view: that the conversos were in fact almost all genuine Christians who were persecuted for political ends. The Inquisition's attacks not only on the conversos' religious beliefs but also on their "impure blood" gave birth to an anti-Semitism based on race that would have terrible consequences for centuries to come.This book has become essential reading and an indispensable reference book for both the interested layman and the scholar of history and religion.

A Partisan's Memoir: Woman of the Holocaust


Faye Schulman - 1995
    Faye was an ordinary teenager when the Nazis invaded her town on the Russian-Polish border. She had a large, loving family, good friends and neighbours, most of whom were lost soon after the horrors of the Holocaust began. But Faye survived, and the photographs she took testify to her experiences and the persecution she witnessed. Decorated for heroism, Schulman uses her biography to tell an extraordinary story not just of survival, but of struggle and resistance against oppression. She talks about escaping from the Nazis, finding a partisan unit and proving her worth. The photographs she took speak eloquently of her experience of surviving for years in the woods with the partisans. There she learned to nurse the ill and wounded, and took up arms against those who had decimated her world.

تاریخ فلسفه سیاسی، جلد سوم: از ماکیاولی تا منتسکیو


George Klosko - 1995
    Volume II traces the origin and development of liberal political theory, and so the foundations for contemporary views. The work provides a readable, scholarly introduction to the great figures in Western political theory from Hobbes to Marx. Major theorists examined include Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Burke, Mill, and Marx, not only major figures in the liberal tradition but liberal political theory's most important critics. Theorists are examined in their historical contexts, with extensive quotations allowing them to speak for themselves. Central concepts employed in their works are carefully examined, with special attention to both how they fit together to form coherent theories and how they bear on issues of contemporary concern. Major concepts examined include freedom, rights, political obligation, and revolution. Emphasizing depth rather than breadth, this work is an ideal introduction tool for instructors who have been searching for a text that combines careful exposition of important political theorists and clear, critical analysis.

Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic


Moshe Idel - 1995
    By applying what he calls the panoramic approach, in contrast to the existentialist approach of Buber and the historicist approach of Scholem, Idel has been able to illuminate the phenomenon of Hasidism in all its complexity and diversity. Rather than focusing on any one immediate aspect of Jewish mysticism, Idel proposes to understand Hasidism as the aggregation of multiple streams, including magic, theosophic kabbalah, and ecstatic kabbalah. By applying Idel’s orientation one can appreciate the complex fabric woven by the Hasidic masters from previous mystical sources. His book is provocative and stimulating.” ― Elliot R. Wolfson, New York University“The author succeeds in broadening our understanding of Hasidism through clarifying its relations to phenomenological models that are typical of earlier stages of Jewish mysticism. As a result of Idel’s vast knowledge of mystical and philosophical literature, he is able to demonstrate and clarify the extent that Hasidism is dependent on non-Lurianic schools of Kabbalah. Thus, Hasidism emerges as an important stage in Jewish mysticism, rather than as a mere reaction or result of historical and social forces such as Sabbatianism."Idel focuses on one of the most significant, yet little understood developments in the history of Jewish thought and religion. His close study of ecstasy and magic will be essential for all those who are in any way interested in this area.“The book is full of brilliant insights concerning the meaning of key concepts and practices in early Hasidism." ― Miles Krassen, Oberlin College

Frederick the Great: A Military History


Dennis E. Showalter - 1995
    Famed for his military successes and domestic reforms, his campaigns were a watershed in the history of Europe - securing Prussia's place as a continental power and inaugurating a new pattern of total war that was to endure until 1916. However, much myth surrounds this enigmatic man - his personality and his role as politician, warrior and king. Showalter's cleverly written book provides a refreshing, multidimensional depiction of Frederick the Great and an objective, detailed reappraisal of his military, political and social achievements.Early chapters set the scene with an excellent summary of 18th century Europe - The Age of Reason; an analysis of the character, composition and operating procedures of the Prussian army; and explore Frederick's personality as a young man. Later chapters examine his stunning victories at Rossbach and Leuthen, his defeats at Prague and Kolin and Prussia's emergence as a key European power.Written with style and pace, this book offers brilliant insights into the political and military history of the 18th century, and one of history's most famous rulers.

Germany and the Second World War: Volume III: The Mediterranean, South-East Europe, and North Africa, 1939-1941


Gerhard Schreiber - 1995
    The volumes so far published have achieved international acclaim as a major contribution to historical study. Under the auspices of the Militargeschichtliches Forschungsamt (Research Institute for Military History), a team of renowned historians has combined a full synthesis of existing material with the latest research to produce what will be the definitive history of the Second World War.Volume 3 explores the conduct of the war in the Mediterranean region and examines the dramatic military events of this period. It shows how German policy in this area was largely determined by the attitude of the German leadership, especially Hitler, towards Mussolini's Italy, and the volume thus sheds important new light on the alliance policy of theThird Reich. The comprehensive analysis, based on detailed scholarly research, is underpinned by a full apparatus of maps, diagrams, and tables.Intensively researched and documented, Germany and the Second World War is an undertaking of unparalleled scope and authority. It will prove indispensable to all historians of the twentieth century.

The Book of the Crossbow: With an Additional Section on Catapults and Other Siege Engines


Ralph Payne-Gallwey - 1995
    This fascinating illustrated study traces its use in both medieval and modern times as a military and sporting weapon. It also covers related weapons, including balistas, catapults, and the Turkish bow. Over 240 illustrations.

Deathly Still: Pictures of Concentration Camps


Dirk Reinartz - 1995
    Today our culture requires its writers, artist and thinkers to preserve the reality of the Holocaust, to represent and so make real its horror to subsequent generations.

Women, Family, And Society In Medieval Europe: Historical Essays, 1978 1991


David Herlihy - 1995
    Author of books on the history of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Italy, Herlihy published, in 1978, his best-known work in collaboration with Christine Klapisch-Zuber, Les Toscans et leurs familles (Translated into English in 1985, and Italian in 1988). For the last dozen or so years of his life, Herlihy launched a series of ambitious projects, on the history ofwomen and the family, and on the collective behavior of social groups in medieval Europe. While he completed two important books - on the family (1985) and on women's work (1991) - he did not find the time to bring these other major projects to a conclusion.This volume contains essays he wrote after 1978. They convey a sense of the enormous intellectual energy and great erudition that characterized David Herlihy's scholarly career. They also chart a remarkable historian's intellectual trajectory, as he searched for new and better ways of asking a set of simple and basic questions about the history of the family, the institution within which the vast majority of Europeans spent so much of their lives. Because of his qualities as a scholar and a teacher, during his relatively brief career Herlihy was honored with Presidencies of the four major scholarly associations with which he was affiliated: the Catholic Historical Association, the Medieval Academy of America, the Renaissance Society of America, and the American Historical Association.

The Revolt of Owain Glyn Dwr


R.R. Davies - 1995
    Written by Britain's leading medieval historian, this is the first scholarly book for over fifty years to present Owain and his revolt to a general audience. It will appeal to those who are fascinated by national heroes in all periods and is of particular interest to those who are intrigued by this most famous movement in the history of Wales, and by the mystery surrounding its remarkable leader.

A Dark and Bloody Ground: The Hürtgen Forest and the Roer River Dams, 1944-1945


Edward G. Miller - 1995
    For weeks, without a clear-cut reason for attacking through the forest, U.S. commanders nevertheless ordered units of as many as seven divisions into the woods to be chewed up by German infantry and artillery. Small units, cut off by the rugged terrain and trees, unable to employ tanks or artillery effectively, fought entrenched and camouflaged Germans in the woods and villages of the region. The troops were exposed to rain, sleet, and freezing temperatures without proper winter clothing. Many companies suffered huge numbers of casualties.The Battle of the Bulge interrupted the Hürtgen Forest battles but did not end them. The Bulge provided a hiatus for the wartorn countryside around the forest and the Roer River dams. Then, beginning in January, 1945, American forces resumed their offensive and were finally able to break through after one of the bloodiest and, for the U.S. Army, most disastrous campaigns of World War II.For many years after the war the full extent of the disaster was not well known outside army circles. Eventually the story of the campaign spread, but it remained overshadowed by the fame of the Bulge. Only in the last decade have military historians begun to look at the fighting in the Hürtgen Forest.The book examines uncertainty of command at the army, corps, and division levels and emphasizes the confusion and fear of ground combat at the level of company and battalion—"where they do the dying." Its gripping description of the battle is based on government records, a rich selection of first-person accounts from veterans of both sides, and author Edward G. Miller's visits to the battlefield. The result is a compelling and comprehensive account of small-unit action set against the background of the larger command levels.The book's foreword is by retired Maj. Gen. R. W. Hogan, who was a battalion commander in the forest.

The Aristotle Adventure: A Guide to the Greek, Arabic, & Latin Scholars Who Transmitted Aristotle's Logic to the Renaissance


Burgess Laughlin - 1995
    That tool and that philosophy came from Aristotle around 330 BC. How did they reach us through all that time? The Aristotle Adventure answers that question by providing a guide to the individuals who published, studied, explained, taught, and extended Aristotle's greatest achievement--logic, a tool for understanding this world. This reader-friendly account covers 2,000 years, 10,000 miles, and four cultures (Greek-Pagan, Greek-Christian, Arabic-Islamic, and Latin-Christian). The Aristotle Adventure is for: *General readers seeking a clearly written intellectual adventure. *Students of the history of ideas, philosophy, Western Civilization, or theology. *Scholars who want an overview of this wide-ranging story. The author explains each new philosophical concept as it appears in the story. (A combined index-glossary allows readers to easily review key concepts and individuals.) Secondary information, set into tables and charts, allows readers to focus on the main story in the main text, with little distraction. Extensive end-notes and bibliography open avenues to further reading.

Cakes for the Queen of Heaven: An Exploration of Women's Power Past, Present and Future


Shirley Ann Ranck - 1995
    Women struggle with issues of body image, troubled mother-daughter relationships, sexual freedom and access to power. We need to know that there was a time when the female body was sacred; that there once was a long-lasting religion in which the chief divine actors were a mother and her daughter; that in very ancient times women had significant power in their societies; that although patriarchal societies have oppressed women for centuries, there have always been strong and talented women. Our female history has been erased and trivialized for too long. In this book we meet ancient goddesses and their stories from around the world, real women in ancient Sumer, in Greece, in Judaism and in Christianity. In Cakes for the Queen of Heaven the past is before us, the women are there, and they help us change our lives.

The Frozen Echo: Greenland and the Exploration of North America, ca. A.D. 1000-1500


Kirsten A. Seaver - 1995
    Using new archeological, scientific, and documentary information (much of it in Scandinavian languages that are a bar to most Western historians), this book confronts many of the unanswered questions about early exploration and colonization along the shores of the Davis Strait.The author brings together two distinct but tangential fields of inquiry: the history of medieval Greenland and its connections with the Norse discovery of North America, and fifteenth-century British maritime history and pre-colonial voyages to North America, including that of John Cabot. In order to evaluate the situation in Norse Greenland at the end of the fifteenth century (when documented English and Portuguese voyages of northern exploration began), the author follows the colony's development—its domestic economy and foreign trade and its cultural and ecclesiastical affinities—from its inception in the tenth century. In the process, she looks critically at commonly held views that have gone unchallenged until now.Among the questions about which the author sets forth new evidence and conclusions are: the extent to which Greenlanders explored and exploited North America after Leif Eriksson, the reasons for the baffling disappearance of the Norse settlement in Greenland, the connection between their disappearance and the beginning of the voyages of exploration that began around A.D. 1500, the routes by which information concerning previous voyages traveled, the history before Cabot of the advance of English fishing fleets from Icelandic waters to the coasts of Labrador, and the influence of the roman Catholic Church on Norse Greenland.

The End of Hidden Ireland: Rebellion, Famine, and Emigration


Robert Scally - 1995
    The human toll of Black '47, the worst year of the famine, is notorious, but the lives of the emigrants themselves have remained largely hidden, untold because of their previous obscurity and deep poverty. In The End of Hidden Ireland, Scally brings their lives to light. Focusing on the townland of Ballykilcline in Roscommon, Scally offers a richly detailed portrait of Irish rural life on the eve of the catastrophe. From their internal lives and values, to their violent conflict with the English Crown, from rent strikes to the potato blight, he takes the emigrants on each stage of their journey out of Ireland to New York. Along the way, he offers rare insights into the character and mentality of the immigrants as they arrived in America in their millions during the famine years. Hailed as a distinguished work of social history, this book also is a tale of adventure and human survival, one that does justice to a tragic generation with sympathy but without sentiment.

Admitting the Holocaust: Collected Essays


Lawrence L. Langer - 1995
    Langer, our age clings to the stable relics of faded eras, as if ideas like natural innocence, innate dignity, the inviolable spirit, and the triumph of art over reality were immured in some kind of immortal shrine, immune to the ravages of history and time. But these ideas have been ravaged, and in Admitting the Holocaust. Langer presents a series of essays that represent his effort, over nearly a decade, to wrestle with this rupture in human values--and to see the Holocaust as it really was. His vision is necessarily dark, but he does not see the Holocaust as a warrant for futility, or as a witness to the death of hope. It is a summons to reconsider our values and rethink what it means to be a human being. These penetrating and often gripping essays cover a wide range of issues, from the Holocaust's relation to time and memory, to its portrayal in literature, to its use and abuse by culture, to its role in reshaping our sense of history's legacy. In many, Langer examines the ways in which accounts of the Holocaust--in history, literature, film, and theology--have extended, and sometimes limited, our insight into an event that is often said to defy understanding itself. He singles out Cynthia Ozick as one of the few American writers who can meet the challenge of imagining mass murder without flinching and who can distinguish between myth and truth. On the other hand, he finds Bernard Malamud's literary treatment of the Holocaust never entirely successful (it seems to have been a threat to Malamud's vision of man's basic dignity) and he argues that William Styron's portrayal of the commandant of Auschwitz in Sophie's Choice pushed Nazi violence to the periphery of the novel, where it disturbed neither the author nor his readers. He is especially acute in his discussion of the language used to describe the Holocaust, arguing that much of it is used to console rather than to confront. He notes that when we speak of the survivor instead of the victim, of martyrdom instead of murder, regard being gassed as dying with dignity, or evoke the redemptive rather than grevious power of memory, we draw on an arsenal of words that tends to build verbal fences between what we are mentally willing--or able--to face and the harrowing reality of the camps and ghettos. A respected Holocaust scholar and author of Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory, winner of the 1991 National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism, Langer offers a view of this catastrophe that is candid and disturbing, and yet hopeful in its belief that the testimony of witnesses--in diaries, journals, memoirs, and on videotape--and the unflinching imagination of literary artists can still offer us access to one of the darkest episodes in the twentieth century.

Arendt and Heidegger: The Fate of the Political


Dana Richard Villa - 1995
    In this book Dana Villa does the same for Hannah Arendt, whose sweeping reconceptualization of the nature and value of political action, he argues, has been covered over and domesticated by admirers (including critical theorists, communitarians, and participatory democrats) who had hoped to enlist her in their less radical philosophical or political projects. Against the prevailing Aristotelian interpretation of her work, Villa explores Arendt's modernity, and indeed her postmodernity, through the Heideggerian and Nietzschean theme of a break with tradition at the closure of metaphysics.Villa's book, however, is much more than a mere correction of misinterpretations of a major thinker's work. Rather, he makes a persuasive case for Arendt as the postmodern or postmetaphysical political theorist, the first political theorist to think through the nature of political action after Nietzsche's exposition of the death of God (i.e., the collapse of objective correlates to our ideals, ends, and purposes). After giving an account of Arendt's theory of action and Heidegger's influence on it, Villa shows how Arendt did justice to the Heideggerian and Nietzschean criticism of the metaphysical tradition while avoiding the political conclusions they drew from their critiques. The result is a wide-ranging discussion not only of Arendt and Heidegger, but of Aristotle, Kant, Nietzsche, Habermas, and the entire question of politics after metaphysics.

Thomas More: A Portrait of Courage


Gerard B. Wegemer - 1995
    This fascinating book answers these important questions.

Heathcliff and the Great Hunger: Studies in Irish Culture


Terry Eagleton - 1995
    Heathcliff and the Great Hunger examines Irish culture from Swift to Joyce, in the light of the tortuous, often tragic, history that conditioned it.

The Body Emblazoned: Dissection and the Human Body in Renaissance Culture


Jonathan Sawday - 1995
    Though the dazzling displays in Renaissance art and literature of the exterior of the body have long been a subject of enquiry, Jonathan Sawday considers in detail the interior of the body, and what it meant to men and women in early modern culture. Sawday links the frequently illicit activities of the great anatomists of the period, to whose labors we are indebted for so much of our understanding of the structure and operation of the human body, to a wider cultural discourse which embraces not only the great moments of Renaissance art, but the very foundation of a modern idea of knowledge. Illustrated with thirty-two black and white prints, The Body Emblazoned re-assesses modern understanding not only of the literature and culture of the Renaissance, but of the modern organization of knowledge which is now so familiar that it is only rarely questioned.

Descartes - An Intellectual Biography


Stephen Gaukroger - 1995
    But while philosophers have sought to understand the ramifications of his theories, they have paid much less attention to how, exactly, he arrived at his ideas. What twists and turns of his intellect brought him to his epochal conclusions? How did his personal ambitions and the social conditions of his era shape his thought? These questions and more are masterfully answered in Stephen Gaukroger's Descartes, a fascinating look at this most influential of all Renaissance thinkers. In his quest to retrace Descartes's development as a scientist and philosopher, Gaukroger leaves no stone unturned. From the great man's first book on music theory (Compendium Musicae) to his masterworks Discours, Essais, Meditationes, and Principia, from his study of mathematics while attending a Jesuit college at age ten, through his dying days in the service of Christina, Queen of Sweden, Descartes brims with penetrating and often surprising insights into the philosopher's life and work. We discover, for example, that he wasn't as concerned with developing an all-encompassing theory of knowledge as he was with establishing a natural philosophy that supported the teachings of Copernicus, a man whose work he deeply admired. We also learn that Descartes was willing to alter his publicly stated views to accommodate church doctrine--especially after witnessing Galileo's condemnation in 1633. We observe how his personal triumphs and failures--from his rumored nervous breakdown in 1614, to his joy at the popular reception of Discours and Essais, to his protracted and very public dispute with the implacable professor Voetius--affected his intellectual development. Along the way, Gaukroger details how Descartes's theories of metaphysics, mechanics, cognition, and cosmology have been both championed and distorted by philosophers of all stripes for over three hundred years. Packed with helpful diagrams and in-depth interpretations of Descartes's most celebrated works, the book also includes a useful chronology that highlights his important accomplishments and personal milestones. Descartes is an exhaustively detailed, magisterial look at the dazzling intellectual achievements of the father of modern philosophy. Splendidly written by a renowned authority on the subject, it will serve as the definitive guide to Descartes's thoughts, works, and life for years to come.

Witnesses Of The Russian Revolution


Harvey Pitcher - 1995
    It unites the formal history and the individual memoir by telling the story of 1917 in the words of eyewitnesses who say history in the making. They witnessed two revolutions - the overthrow of Tsarism in March and the Bolshevik seizure of power in November - and described them with an immediacy that later accounts never achieve.These witnesses are British and American rather than Russian: as outsiders, they could see more of the game. They include diplomats, newspaper correspondents, the military, businessmen, even the occasional English governess. There are also adventurous young American radicals like John Reed, author of Ten Days That Shook the World, and unexpected figures like Arthur Ransome, who married Trotsky's secretary and later wrote such children's classic as Swallows and Amazons. Their brilliant journalism has been unread since 1917, while many other eyewitness accounts are published here for the first time. Harvey Pitcher skilfully weaves their accounts into a vivid and absorbing narrative, treating the witnesses' often conflicting views of the Revolution with impartiality and leaving readers free to form their own judgements.In a new Afterword to the Pimlico edition, Harvey Pitcher relates the events of 1917 to what is happening in Russia today.

A Linguistic History Of Italian


Martin Maiden - 1995
    It focuses on the effects of historical changes on the modern structure of Italian, revealing patterns and structures which are not always apparent to those who are only familiar with modern Italian. Although the book concentrates on the internal history of the language, the emergence of Italian is considered against the wider background of the history of the Italian dialects, and other external factors such as cultural and social influences are also examined. Surveys of current research are included, covering a wide range of phenomena recently brought to light or re-evaluated. This book includes discussion of some areas relatively neglected by earlier histories of the language, such as the development of Italian outside Italy. Particular attention is paid to the influence of other Romance dialects, the linguistic effects of Italian becoming a literary rather than a spoken language, and structural variations which have resulted from the acquisition of the language by a predominantly dialect-speaking population. Containing clearly presented examples, the book is designed to be accessible to those with no knowledge of Italian itself. It will therefore appeal to students of general linguistics, history linguistics, and Romance linguistics, as well as those studying Italian. It is the only major 'internal' history of Italian currently available in English.

Good King Wenceslas: The Real Story


Jan Rejzl - 1995
    The comprehensive story, legends, and places of interest regarding the historical Duke Wenceslas of Bohemia, now the Czech Republic, by Czech author Jan Rejzl, including photographs, diagrams, and maps.

Recovered Land


Alicia Nitecki - 1995
    Following the Nazi conquest of Poland, she and her relatives were dispersed to German prisoner-of-war, labor, and concentration camps. In this book, she revisits the places that have formed her and confronts a past that has haunted her: Warsaw during the 1944 uprising, the Black Forest village where she and the women in her family were taken as slaves in the last months of the war, and Buchenwald and Flossenbürg, the concentration camps where her grandfather was imprisoned.Nitecki's private odyssey coincided with the collapse of communism in Poland and the reunification of Germany. These essays mark her movement from fear and rage toward fuller knowledge and reconciliation.

Rich Relations: The American Occupation of Britain, 1942-1945


David Reynolds - 1995
    "...an important and original contribution to our understanding of the Second World War."--John Keegan, Daily Telegraph. An outstanding study of a most important aspect of the war, never before examined in such depth."--Alistair Horne, The Times.

The Literature of Georgia: A History


Donald Rayfield - 1995
    It is examined in the context of the extraordinarily diverse influences which affected it - from Greek and Persian to Russian and modern European literature, and the folklore of the Caucasus.

Blood and Iron


Otto Friedrich - 1995
    A chronicle of German history focuses on the role played by the von Moltke family.

The Soviet Union and the Origins of the Second World War: Russo-German Relations and the Road to War 1933-1941


Geoffrey Roberts - 1995
    At the centre of these controversies stands the question of Soviet relations with Nazi Germany and the Stalin-Hitler pact of 1939. Drawing on a wealth of new material from the Soviet Archives, this detailed and original study analyses Moscow's response to the rise of Hitler, explains the origins of the Nazi-Soviet pact, and charts the road to Operation Barbarossa and the disaster of the surprise German attack on the USSR in June 1941.

Atlas of Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century


Richard Crampton - 1995
    An invaluable guide to a complex subject, this atlas: * gives a general introduction to the physical, ethnic and religious composition of the region* includes summary maps of Eastern Europe in 1900, 1923, and 1945 * charts the ebb and flow of the first and second world wars in Eastern Europe* presents detailed information relating to consituent territories, elections, economic developments and land holding patterns for key individual countries in the inter-war years* provides crucial social and economic data, evidencing changes under communist domination* gives maps of the new states of the post-communist years with details of elections and economic indicators for Belarus, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia, The Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Slovakia and others.* contains an extensive glossary listing the major towns of the area under their linguistic variants

Russian Nationalism And Ukraine: The Nationality Policy Of The Volunteer Army During The Civil War


Anna M. Procyk - 1995
    Challenging the generally accepted view that the character of the White movement was primarily anti-Bolshevik or even restorationist, she shows how the concept of "one, indivisible Russia" was central to the Volunteer Army's ideology and identity and how it contributed to its failure. Dr. Procyk also challenges the view that the Volunteer Army's generals were reactionary monarchists and that they were primarily responsible for the White movement's failure. She persuasively demonstrates that the ideology and political program of the Russian liberal intellectuals who dominated the Volunteer Army's Political Center reinforced Denikin's refusal to deal with the independent Ukrainian governments of 1918-19 and his hostility toward the idea of a Russo-Ukrainian federation and an anti-Bolshevik alliance. The Volunteer Army failed to defeat the Bolsheviks because it was unable and unwilling to come to terms with the Ukrainian question. At critical junctures during the Russian Civil War, its struggle against an independent Ukraine overshadowed its struggle against the Bolsheviks.

PLUTO: Pipe-Line Under the Ocean - The Definitive Story


Adrian Searle - 1995
    

Padres in No Man's Land, First Edition: Canadian Chaplains and the Great War


Duff Crerar - 1995
    Refuting the widely held view that chaplains serving overseas were cloistered from front-line realities, Crerar describes the padres' experiences in camps, hospitals, and on the battlefield. He examines how they maintained their faith in the face of death and destruction, and explores the bonds forged between chaplains and troops. Padres in No Man's Land concludes in the postwar era with the decline of the chaplains' hopes for spiritual renewal upon their return to Canada - their dreams dashed not by the war, but by the subsequent peace.

Henry IV and the Towns: The Pursuit of Legitimacy in French Urban Society, 1589-1610


Annette Finley-Croswhite - 1995
    Rejected by a majority of his subjects because of his Protestant faith, Henry spent the early years of his reign conquering his kingdom through the use of force, persuasion, bribery, and conciliation. By reopening the lines of communication between the crown and the towns, he strengthened the French monarchy. Thus while this book is not a biography of the King, it offers an in-depth analysis of a crucial aspect of his craft of kingship.

End of Days


Erna Paris - 1995
    Covers the 200 year period in Spanish history, when the Inquisition flourished and Jews were given the choice of conversion to Christianity or death.

Islam And Politics In Afghanistan


Asta Olesen - 1995
    In Iran, the Pahlavi dynasty was toppled by an Islamic revolution. In Pakistan, Zulfigar Ali Bhutto was hanged by the military regime that toppled him and which then proceeded to implement an Islamization programme. Between the two lay Afghanistan whose Saur Revolution of April 1978 soon developed into a full scale civil war and Soviet intervention. The military struggle that followed was largely influenced by Soviet-US rivalry but the ideological struggle followed a dynamic of its own. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including such previously unused archival material as British Intelligence reports, this is a detailed study of the Afghan debate on the role of Islam in politics from the formation of the modern Afghan state around 1800 to the present day.

Evil and Suffering in Jewish Philosophy


Oliver Leaman - 1995
    In this study Oliver Leaman poses two questions: how can a powerful and caring deity allow terrible things to happen to obviously innocent people, and why have the Jewish people been so harshly treated throughout history, given their status as the chosen people? He explores these issues through an analysis of the views of Philo, Saadya, Maimonides, Gersonides, Spinoza, Mendelssohn, Hermann Cohen, Buber, Rosenzweig, and post-Holocaust thinkers.

The Bassanos: Venetian Musicians and Instrument Makers in England, 1531-1665


David Lasocki - 1995
    Dr Lasocki's authoritative new book, the first to be devoted to the family, is a minutely researched account of these brothers, their sons (and a daughter) and their grandsons. The first half of the book discusses the everyday affairs of the family - their relationships, religion, property, law suits, finances, and standing in society. Two chapters, one written by Roger Prior, are devoted to Emilia Bassano, whose identification as the 'dark lady' of Shakespeare's sonnets is supported by a wealth of evidence. The second half of the book discusses the family's musical activities. At the English Court the Bassanos made up a recorder consort that lasted 90 years; they also played in the flute/cornett and shawm/sackbutt consorts. As instrument makers their fame was spread throughout Europe. The book's appendixes present information on the Venetian branch of the family and the musical activities of the English branch since 1665.