Best of
World-History

1996

A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891 - 1924


Orlando Figes - 1996
    Vast in scope, exhaustive in original research, written with passion, narrative skill, and human sympathy, A People's Tragedy is a profound account of the Russian Revolution for a new generation. Many consider the Russian Revolution to be the most significant event of the twentieth century. Distinguished scholar Orlando Figes presents a panorama of Russian society on the eve of that revolution, and then narrates the story of how these social forces were violently erased. Within the broad stokes of war and revolution are miniature histories of individuals, in which Figes follows the main players' fortunes as they saw their hopes die and their world crash into ruins. Unlike previous accounts that trace the origins of the revolution to overreaching political forces and ideals, Figes argues that the failure of democracy in 1917 was deeply rooted in Russian culture and social history and that what had started as a people's revolution contained the seeds of its degeneration into violence and dictatorship. A People's Tragedy is a masterful and original synthesis by a mature scholar, presented in a compelling and accessibly human narrative.

Europe: A History


Norman Davies - 1996
    It is the most ambitious history of the continent ever undertaken.

LaChapelle Land


David Lachapelle - 1996
    And rightly so. The marriage of LaChapelle’s vivid, high-octane images with graphic artist, Tadanori Yokoo’s supersaturated designs make for an astonishing physical object. The reissue of this now classic, long out-of-print volume showcases all the lollipop giddiness of the original now lavishly reproduced in a larger format. “There’s a tradition of celebrity portraiture that attempts to uncover the ‘real person’ behind the trappings of their celebrity. I am more interested in those trappings,” says LaChapelle. Indeed, he exaggerates the artificiality of fame and Hollywood culture in a head on collision of color, plastic, and whimsy. His photographs confront our visual taste and challenge our ideas of celebrity, all the while taking us on a roller coaster ride through his hyper-sensationalized galaxy. Lil’ Kim becomes the ultimate status symbol, tattooed in the Louis Vuitton pattern. Madonna rises from pink waters as a mystical dragon princess. Pamela Anderson hatches out of an egg; and Alexander McQueen burns down the castle dressed as the Queen of Hearts. David LaChapelle’s uncompromising originality is legendary in the worlds of fashion, film, and advertising. His images, both bizarre and gorgeous, have appeared on and in between the covers of Vogue, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Vibe and more. La Chapelle Land is fun park America gone surrealistically wrong — but in such an attractive way.

The Rape of Nanking


James Yin - 1996
    The Rape of Nanking, or Nanking Massacre, in which at least 369,366 people were slaughtered and 80,000 women were raped by Japanese invasion troops, has become little more than a historical footnote in the West. The horror began on the morning of December 13, 1937, when the Japanese Imperial Army captured Nanking (Nanjing), which was then China's capital. Soldiers went through the streets indiscriminately killing Chinese men, women, and children without apparent provocation or excuse until in places the streets and alleys were littered with the bodies of their victims. Thousands of women were raped by Japanese soldiers; death was frequently the penalty for the slightest resistance by a victim or members of her family. Even large numbers of young girls and old women were raped throughout the city, and many cases of abnormal and sadistic behavior in connection with these rapes were reported. Many women were killed after the act and their bodies mutilated. For the next six weeks, while horrific rape continued, wholesale murder of male civilians was conducted with the apparent sanction of the Japanese high command. Hundreds of thousands of civilians and disarmed ex-soldiers were arrayed in formation, their hands bound behind their backs, and marched outside the city wall where, in groups, they were beheaded, or buried alive, or bayoneted, or raked with machine-gun fire, or doused with gasoline and burned. This book, using more than 400 historical photographs, many of which were taken by Japanese soldiers themselves, is published to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the Rape of Nanking, to remind the world of the forgotten holocaust of WWII, and to honor history and answer any attempt to deny or change it.

The Guns of Victory: A Soldier's Eye View, Belgium, Holland, and Germany, 1944-45


George Blackburn - 1996
    The war was won, they thought, and to win it they had been pushed to what seemed like the limits of endurance. But ahead lay not only an enemy with no thoughts of surrender, but also appalling battle conditions reminiscent of the legendary miseries of Passchendaele. This much-anticipated sequel to The Guns of Normany picks up where its critically acclaimed predecessor leaves off, and it continues in the same absorbing, startlingly vivid style. After the battle for Normandy, Blackburn’s 4th Field Regiment, with the rest of 1st Canadian Army, is called upon to pursue the enemy through the flooded Low Country, clearing the Scheldt estuary – a task equal to that of D-Day – and opening the port of Antwerp to allow for the huge influx of supplies necessary to press on against the German forces, now fighting with mounting desperation and ferocity. After enduring the worst winter in local memory, and spending yet another Christmas far from home, in the spring of 1945 the Canadians are thrust into the crucial Battle of the Rhineland, which will eventually allow Allied forces to plunge into the heart of the Reich.When victory comes, it is with no sense of triumph over a vanquished foe, but with the profoundest relief that this most terrible conflict in history is finally over.Told with Blackburn’s now trademark sense of drama and eye for detail, this story of the desperate struggle for Europe becomes as large as life. It should fully establish Blackburn as the author of an acknowledged classic on the Second World War.From the Hardcover edition.

Empires of the Monsoon


Richard Seymour Hall - 1996
    It is this civilization and its destruction at the hands of the West that Richard Hall recreates in this book. Hall's history of the exploration and exploitation by Chinese and Arab travellers, and by the Portuguese, Dutch and British alike is one of brutality, betrayal and colonial ambition.

Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism


Mahmood Mamdani - 1996
    Many writers have understood colonial rule as either direct (French) or indirect (British), with a third variant--apartheid--as exceptional. This benign terminology, Mamdani shows, masks the fact that these were actually variants of a despotism. While direct rule denied rights to subjects on racial grounds, indirect rule incorporated them into a customary mode of rule, with state-appointed Native Authorities defining custom. By tapping authoritarian possibilities in culture, and by giving culture an authoritarian bent, indirect rule (decentralized despotism) set the pace for Africa; the French followed suit by changing from direct to indirect administration, while apartheid emerged relatively later. Apartheid, Mamdani shows, was actually the generic form of the colonial state in Africa. Through case studies of rural (Uganda) and urban (South Africa) resistance movements, we learn how these institutional features fragment resistance and how states tend to play off reform in one sector against repression in the other. Reforming a power that institutionally enforces tension between town and country, and between ethnicities, is the key challenge for anyone interested in democratic reform in Africa.

A History of Us: Ten-Volume Set: Ten-Volume Set


Joy Hakim - 1996
    Readers may want to start with War, Terrible War, the tragic and bloody account of the Civil War that has been hailed by critics as magnificent. Or All the People, brought fully up-to-date in this new edition with a thoughtful and engaging examination of our world after September 11th. No matter which book they read, young people will never think of American history as boring again. Joy Hakim's single, clear voice offers continuity and narrative drama as she shares with a young audience her love of and fascination with the people of the past. This series is also available in an 11-volume set containing the same revisions and updates to all ten main volumes plus the Sourcebook and Index volume.

War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage


Lawrence H. Keeley - 1996
    Indeed, for the last fifty years, most popular and scholarly works have agreed that prehistoric warfare was rare, harmless, unimportant, and, like smallpox, a disease of civilized societies alone. Prehistoric warfare, according to this view, was little more than a ritualized game, where casualties were limited and the effects of aggression relatively mild. Lawrence Keeley's groundbreaking War Before Civilization offers a devastating rebuttal to such comfortable myths and debunks the notion that warfare was introduced to primitive societies through contact with civilization (an idea he denounces as the pacification of the past). Building on much fascinating archeological and historical research and offering an astute comparison of warfare in civilized and prehistoric societies, from modern European states to the Plains Indians of North America, War Before Civilization convincingly demonstrates that prehistoric warfare was in fact more deadly, more frequent, and more ruthless than modern war. To support this point, Keeley provides a wide-ranging look at warfare and brutality in the prehistoric world. He reveals, for instance, that prehistorical tactics favoring raids and ambushes, as opposed to formal battles, often yielded a high death-rate; that adult males falling into the hands of their enemies were almost universally killed; and that surprise raids seldom spared even women and children. Keeley cites evidence of ancient massacres in many areas of the world, including the discovery in South Dakota of a prehistoric mass grave containing the remains of over 500 scalped and mutilated men, women, and children (a slaughter that took place a century and a half before the arrival of Columbus). In addition, Keeley surveys the prevalence of looting, destruction, and trophy-taking in all kinds of warfare and again finds little moral distinction between ancient warriors and civilized armies. Finally, and perhaps most controversially, he examines the evidence of cannibalism among some preliterate peoples. Keeley is a seasoned writer and his book is packed with vivid, eye-opening details (for instance, that the homicide rate of prehistoric Illinois villagers may have exceeded that of the modern United States by some 70 times). But he also goes beyond grisly facts to address the larger moral and philosophical issues raised by his work. What are the causes of war? Are human beings inherently violent? How can we ensure peace in our own time? Challenging some of our most dearly held beliefs, Keeley's conclusions are bound to stir controversy.

Ghost Fleet: The Sunken Ships of Bikini Atoll


James P. Delgado - 1996
    Delgado, a noted marine archaeologist with the National Park Service, visited Bikini in the late 1980s to explore and document the condition of the sunken ships. His work is more than an archaeological study; it is the history of the nuclear age. This book chronicles the development of the bomb, its deployment in Japan, the preparations for the tests, the attempted clean-up afterward, and the beginning of the Cold War.

Luciernagas en El Mozote


Rufina Amaya - 1996
    It gives a fundamental contribution to the historical memory of El Salvador's civil war by revealing impacting stories on one of the largest massacres committed against civilians in the recent history of Latin America.

Hiroshima's Shadow: Writings on the Denial of History & the Smithsonian Controversy


Kai Bird - 1996
    Essays and memoirs discuss the decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan in 1945.

More Lives Than One: A Biography of Hans Fallada


Jenny Williams - 1996
    Yet he was also one of the most extraordinary storytellers of the twentieth century, whose novels, including Every Man Dies Alone, portrayed ordinary people in terrible times with a powerful humanity.This acclaimed biography, newly revised and completely updated, tells the remarkable story of Hans Fallada, whose real name was Rudolf Ditzen. Jenny Williams chronicles his turbulent life as a writer, husband, and father, shadowed by mental torment and long periods in psychiatric care. She shows how Ditzen's decision to remain in Nazi Germany in 1939 led to his self-destruction, but also made him a unique witness to his country's turmoil.More Lives Than One unpicks the contradictory, flawed and fascinating life of a writer who saw the worst of humanity, yet maintained his belief in the decency of the "little man."

Monuments of Egypt : The Napoleonic Edition


Charles Coulston Gillispie - 1996
    The books' beautiful reproductions and finest quality printing and binding match those of the originals, while their 9-by-12-inch format makes them accessible and affordable. New introductions bring a modern voice to these classic texts, updating them to become invaluable contemporary, resources. These critically acclaimed books are an essential addition to any library.

Noahs Flood: The Genesis Story in Western Thought


Norman Cohn - 1996
    It includes accounts of the scholars and theologians who have endorsed or rejected the flood story.

Ford Madox Ford a Dual Life: Volume I: The World Before the War


Max Saunders - 1996
    He was also an innovative and influential poet, as well as the century's greatest literary editor. He collaborated with Joseph Conrad, and advised Ezra Pound; his admirers include novelists as diverse as Sinclair Lewis, Jean Rhys, Graham Greene, Anthony Burgess and Gore Vidal. This first volume of a two-volume life takes Ford from his birth as Ford Hermann Hueffer in 1873 to the eve of his departure for France, and war, in 1916. It charts his growth and development as a writer of great complexity, first with the trilogy The Fifth Queen and culminating in his masterpiece The Good Soldier. It also examines his turbulent emotional life, from his elopement and marriage to Elsie Martindale in 1894 to his affair with Violet Hunt in the same year that he founded The English Review. Ford said that a writer's life is 'a dual affair', a life enshrined in the writing and Max Saunders's aim is to examine the interconnections between the private and the public life, and the inner life that drove him. The discovery of new manuscripts, and of letters unavailable to previous biographers ensure that this is the most important and exhaustive critical biography of Ford to appear in the last twenty years.

Imperial Rivals: China, Russia, and Their Disputed Frontier, 1858-1924


S.C.M. Paine - 1996
    Based on archival research, this is a history of the Russo-Chinese border which examines Russia's expansion into the Asian heartland during the decades of Chinese decline and the 20th-century paradox of Russia's inability to sustain political and economic sway over its domains.

Ancient Ireland


Jacqueline O'Brien - 1996
    Whether crumbling or perfectly preserved, in the midst of cities or standing alone in isolated landscapes, they bear mute but eloquent witness to the island's rich past. Now, back by popular demand, comes a stunningly illustrated guide to Ireland's historic places. Ranging from the earliest remnants of the prehistoric past to the end of the medieval era, Ancient Ireland provides an outstanding survey of the island's finest archaeological and architectural sites. Peter Harbison provides lively and thoughtful descriptions of megalithic wedge tombs, medieval round towers, and Tudor manor houses--matched by more than 300 hauntingly beautiful photographs by Jacqueline O'Brien. Harbison also provides a narrative overview of Ireland's history, placing the architectural monuments in the context of Roman influence, Celtic migration, Brian Boru's battles, Norse and Norman invasions, Gaelic revival, and Cromwell's conquests. He describes the earliest monasteries against the background of St. Patrick's missionary efforts, examines the cultural impact of the Viking conquests, and explores the literary flowering that took place even as the Anglo-Norman aristocracy asserted its primacy in the twelfth century. The book brims with colorful details. And throughout, the carefully rendered and captioned photographs bring to life the rich physical legacy of the island's tumultuous past. Ireland remains a favorite destination for travelers, whether tourists or scholars of its fabled culture and history. Ancient Ireland provides an essential guide for all who are bound for the emerald isle--a delightful volume for tourists and armchair travelers.

A Natural History of Homosexuality


Francis Mark Mondimore - 1996
    Since the word homosexual was coined in 1869, many scientists in a variety of fields have sought to understand same-sex intimacy. Drawing on recent insights in biology and genetics, psychiatrist Francis Mondimore set out to explore the complex landscape of sexual orientation.The result is A Natural History of Homosexuality, a generous work that synthesizes research in biology, history, psychology, and politics to explain how homosexuality has been understood and defined from ancient times until the present. Mondimore narrates tales of love and courage as well as discrimination and bigotry in settings as diverse as ancient Greece and Victorian England, early America and fin de siecle Vienna. He also tells fascinating stories about societies which accepted, incorporated, or institutionalized homosexuality into mainstream culture, stories illustrating that same-sex eroticism was often accepted as a normal aspect of human sexuality. In twentieth-century America, researchers first recognized that homosexuality might not be "pathological" when Alfred Kinsey and Evelyn Hooker conducted the first studies of sexuality not biased by preconceived notions of "normal" sexual behavior.After exploring sexual development in the human fetus, Mondimore reviews current biological research into the nature of sexual orientation and examines recent scientific findings on the role of heredity and hormones, as well as Simon LeVay's 1991 brain studies. He then turns to a very important focus: on people and their individual experiences. He explores "what happens between childhood and adulthood in an individual that makes him or her come to identify himself or herself as having a sexual orientation." He also explains our current understanding of bisexuality and the transgender phenomena of transsexualism and transvestism.Finally, Mondimore analyzes the circumstances of such prominent scandals as the anti-homosexual trials of Oscar Wilde and Philip von Eulenberg, and recounts the Nazi persecution of homosexuals during the Holocaust. This far-reaching discussion includes a description of the ex-gay ministries and reparative therapy as well as the Stonewall riots and AIDS, ending with the emergence of gay pride and community."The preponderance of the scientific evidence is converging on a view which homosexual people have had of themselves for as long as any had the courage to record it," writes Mondimore. "Homosexuality is a natural, abiding, normal sexuality for some people. It is not a disease state, not simply a behavior, and not subject to change.""Thoughtful and readable. Dr. Mondimore tells us an enormous amount about homosexuality in a lively manner. This book belongs on the bookshelf of anyone who wants to be informed about this important subject."—Richard A. Isay, M.D., clinical professor of psychiatry, Cornell University Medical College, and author of Becoming Gay: The Journey to Self-Acceptance

Drink, Power, and Cultural Change: A Social History of Alcohol in Ghana, C. 1800 to Recent Times


Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong - 1996
    . . . Akyeampong takes very seriously the challenge of conceiving African history in terms of indigenous intellectual categories and in terms of the experience of those involved. Real people come to life in these pages...." - Charles Ambler, University of Texas"Drink, Power, and Cultural Change" presents a social history of alcohol in southern Ghana over the past century and a half and highlights its centrality in the culture of power. Alcohol could bridge the gap between the spiritual and living worlds, as the blessings of the gods and ancestors were necessary for success. This made alcohol an indispensable fluid, access to which was highly contested. Liquor revenues were critical for British colonialism, while protests against liquor regulations formed a significant part of local politics and drinking bars were hotbeds of nationalist agitation.Akyeampong's innovative analysis blends the disciplinary approaches of history, anthropology, social medicine, theology, and political science. A wide variety of sources forms the basis of his study, including proverbs, highlife music, comic opera, popular literature, and photographs in addition to the more familiar colonial and missionary archives and oral tradition. "Drink, Power, and Cultural Change" presents a novel lens through which to examine African social history, and its concern with questions of ritual, gender, power, and health gives it a very broad appeal.

Faith Under Fire In Sudan


Peter Hammond - 1996
    

Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 6: Biology and Biological Technology, Part 6: Medicine


Joseph Needham - 1996
    Five essays are included by Joseph Needham and Lu Gwei-djen, edited and expanded upon by the editor, Nathan Sivin. The essays offer broad and readable accounts of medicine in culture, including hygiene and preventive medicine, forensic medicine and immunology. Professor Sivin's extensive introduction discusses these essays, placing them in their historical and medical context, and surveys recent medical discoveries from China, Japan, Europe and the United States.

Eco-Nationalism: Anti-Nuclear Activism and National Identity in Russia, Lithuania, and Ukraine


Jane I. Dawson - 1996
    Jane I. Dawson argues that anti-nuclear activism, one of the most dynamic social forces to emerge during these years, was primarily a surrogate for an ever-present nationalism and a means of demanding greater local self-determination under the Soviet system. Rather than representing strongly held environmental and anti-nuclear convictions, this activism was a political effort that reflected widely held anti-Soviet sentiments and a resentment against Moscow's domination of the region-an effort that largely disappeared with the dissolution of the USSR.Dawson combines a theoretical framework based on models of social movements with extensive field research to compare the ways in which nationalism, regionalism, and other political demands were incorporated into anti-nuclear movements in Russia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Armenia, Tatarstan, and Crimea. These comparative case studies form the core of the book and trace differences among the various regional movements to the distinctive national identities of groups involved. Reflecting the new opportunities for research that have become available since the late 1980s, these studies draw upon Dawson's extended on-site observation of local movements through 1995 and her unique access to movement activists and their personal archives.Analyzing and documenting a development with sobering and potentially devastating implications for nuclear power safety in the former USSR and beyond, Eco-nationalism's examination of social activism in late and postcommunist societies will interest readers concerned with the politics of global environmentalism and the process of democratization in the post-Soviet world.

Foreign Country: The Life of L.P. Hartley


Adrian Wright - 1996
    P. Hartley, author of The Go-Between, The Shrimp and the Anemone, Eustace and Hilda, The Hireling, and many other well-known novels. Adrian Wright had exclusive access to Hartley’s private papers, many of which were subsequently destroyed. Much that was thought undiscoverable has been revealed: Hartley’s childhood; his relationship with his mother; his experiences in the Great War; his various lives in Venice, Bath, and London; and his struggle to come to terms with his homosexuality.

Please Don't Wish Me a Merry Christmas: A Critical History of the Separation of Church and State


Stephen M. Feldman - 1996
    Both decried and celebrated, this principle is considered by many, for right or wrong, a defining aspect of American national identity. Nearly all discussions regarding the role of religion in American life build on two dominant assumptions: first, the separation of church and state is a constitutional principle that promotes democracy and equally protects the religious freedom of all Americans, especially religious outgroups; and second, this principle emerges as a uniquely American contribution to political theory. In Please Don't Wish Me a Merry Christmas, Stephen M. Feldman challenges both these assumptions. He argues that the separation of church and state primarily manifests and reinforces Christian domination in American society. Furthermore, Feldman reveals that the separation of church and state did not first arise in the United States. Rather, it has slowly evolved as a political and religious development through western history, beginning with the initial appearance of Christianity as it contentiously separated from Judaism.In tracing the historical roots of the separation of church and state within the Western world, Feldman begins with the Roman Empire and names Augustine as the first political theorist to suggest the idea. Feldman next examines how the roles of church and state variously merged and divided throughout history, during the Crusades, the Italian Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, the British Civil War and Restoration, the early North American colonies, nineteenth-century America, and up to the present day. In challenging the dominant story of the separation of church and state, Feldman interprets the development of Christian social power vis--vis the state and religious minorities, particularly the prototypical religious outgroup, Jews.

Circle of Love Over Death: The Story of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo


Matilde Mellibovsky - 1996
    She not only describes the personal anguish of families over the torture, death or "disappearance" of their children, but also shows how the women gave emotional support to each other and the way in which, since 1976, they slowly but surely organized and built an international movement.

The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History


David Hackett Fischer - 1996
    Now, in The Great Wave, Fischer has done it again, marshaling an astonishing array of historical facts in lucid and compelling prose to outline a history of prices--"the history of change," as Fischer puts it--covering the dazzling sweep of Western history from the medieval glory of Chartres to the modern day. Going far beyond the economic data, Fischer writes a powerful history of the people of the Western world: the economic patterns they lived in, and the politics, culture, and society that they created as a result. As he did in Albion's Seed and Paul Revere's Ride, two of the most talked-about history books in recent years, Fischer combines extensive research and meticulous scholarship with wonderfully evocative writing to create a book for scholars and general readers alike.Records of prices are more abundant than any other quantifiable data, and span the entire range of history, from tables of medieval grain prices to the overabundance of modern statistics. Fischer studies this wealth of data, creating a narrative that encompasses all of Western culture. He describes four waves of price revolutions, each beginning in a period of equilibrium: the High Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and finally the Victorian Age. Each revolution is marked by continuing inflation, a widening gap between rich and poor, increasing instability, and finally a crisis at the crest of the wave that is characterized by demographic contraction, social and political upheaval, and economic collapse. The most violent of these climaxes was the catastrophic fourteenth century, in which war, famine, and the Black Death devastated the continent--the only time in Europe's history that the population actually declined.Fischer also brilliantly illuminates how these long economic waves are closely intertwined with social and political events, affecting the very mindset of the people caught in them. The long periods of equilibrium are marked by cultural and intellectual movements--such as the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the Victorian Age-- based on a belief in order and harmony and in the triumph of progress and reason. By contrast, the years of price revolution created a melancholy culture of despair.Fischer suggests that we are living now in the last stages of a price revolution that has been building since the turn of the century. The destabilizing price surges and declines and the diminished expectations the United States has suffered in recent years--and the famines and wars of other areas of the globe--are typical of the crest of a price revolution. He does not attempt to predict what will happen, noting that "uncertainty about the future is an inexorable fact of our condition." Rather, he ends with a brilliant analysis of where we might go from here and what our choices are now. This book is essential reading for anyone concerned about the state of the world today.

Motherhood in Islam


Aliah Schleifer - 1996
    This exceptional and thorough scholarly study deals with a primal and universal relationship between motherhood and the Islamic religion, relying on the basic sources of Islam: the Qur'an, Hadith, and Fiqh, as well as numerous original Arabic sources.

Tales of the Old North Shore: Paintings and Companion Stories


Howard Siverston - 1996
    These two talents are again combined in his newest book, Tales of the Old North Shore. Featuring 43 of his spectacular paintings, he spins a yarn to accompany each. Snoose Moose to the The Mysterious Mosquito Fleet, Sivertson tells us about the characters and gives us a taste of the drama played out in the Lake Superior area during pioneer times.

Plastic: The Making of a Synthetic Century


Stephen Fenichell - 1996
    Written in the tradition of The Machine That Changed the World, Plastic is a fresh, often surprising look at how this ubiquitous man-made substance has shaped the world we live in.

Against the Odds: Free Blacks in the Slave Societies of the Americas


Jane Landers - 1996
    Topics include color, class, and identity on the eve of the Haitian revolution; where free persons of color stood in the hierarchy of wealth in antebellum

The Red Orchestra: The Soviet Spy Network Inside Nazi Europe (Cassell Military Classics)


V.E. Tarrant - 1996
    This triumph of espionage by the Soviet Military Intelligence took the Nazis over two years to crack. Made up of a diverse mixture of Russians, Jews, Poles, and other Europeans (including some Germans), the Red Orchestra played a vital role in the destruction of Nazism--despite the constant fear of discovery. Many were tortured. But, by the time the Germans finished their investigation, the Eastern front was already lost.

The Oxford Companion to Australian Military History


Peter Dennis - 1996
    Its 800 entries. extend beyond standard categories such as battles, campaigns, biographies, and weapons, and encompass the structures of various parts of the defense force organization and their evolution, military language and customs, literature dealing with military themes and treaties, alliances and acts of parliament that have had a significant impact on the military. Complete with 100 photographs and 32 maps, the result is a comprehensive work of reference, analysis and interest that will come to be regarded as the authoritative work in the field.

Ford Madox Ford: A Dual Life, Volume 2: The After-War World


Max Saunders - 1996
    Like its predecessor, The After-War World makes full use of previously unpublished and long-lost material. It is the firstbiography to establish Ford's importance to modern literature: exploring the relations between a writer's life, autobiography, and fiction, and showing how Ford's case challenges the conventions of literary biography itself. Saunders provides a ground-breaking reading of Ford's post-war masterpiece, Parade's End, and describes the founding of the transatlantic review, the influential literary journal that published Hemingway, Ezra Pound, Picasso, and many more major writers and artists.Ford's personal relationships were no less complex than his work: while living with Stella Bowen after the breakup of his partnership with Violet Hunt he had a brief affair with Jean Rhys, but he was to spend his final years until his death in 1939, with the Polish American painter Janice Biala.Throughout his career Ford endlessly reinvented himself, and this biography, for the first time, offers a sustained and critical account of his dazzling literary transformations.

Scottish Wild Plants: Their History, Ecology and Conservation


Philip Lusby - 1996
    From the Scots pine to the one-flowered wintergreen, Scottish Wild Plants provides a wealth of detailed factual material about over 40 of the most rare and interesting species, focusing on special features of interest, the history of their discovery and their particular ecological needs. Superbly illustrated throughout with Sidney Clarke's stunning photographs.

Magistrates of the Sacred: Parish Priests and Indian Parishioners in Eighteenth-Century Mexico


William B. Taylor - 1996
    This book is an extraordinarily rich account of the social, political, cultural, and religious relationship between parish priests and their parishioners in colonial Mexico.

Ethnicity, Nationalism and Conflict in and After the Soviet Union: The Mind Aflame


Valery Tishkov - 1996
    This book draws on his inside knowledge of major events and extensive primary research.Tishkov argues that ethnicity has a multifaceted role: it is the most accessible basis for political mobilization; a means of controlling power and resources in a transforming society; and therapy for the great trauma suffered by individuals and groups under previous regimes. This complexity helps explain the contradictory nature and outcomes of public ethnic policies based on a doctrine of ethno-nationalism.

Making Peoples: A History of the New Zealanders: From Polynesian Settlement to the End of the Nineteenth Century


James Belich - 1996
    The first of two planned volumes, Making Peoples begins with the Polynesian settlement of New Zealand and the development of Maori tribes in the eleventh century.

Age of Delirium: The Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union


David Satter - 1996
    In this book, David Satter shows through individual stories what it meant to construct an entire state on the basis of a false idea, how people were forced to act out this fictitious reality, and the tragic human cost of the Soviet attempt to remake reality by force.“I had almost given up hope that any American could depict the true face of Russia and Soviet rule. In David Satter’s Age of Delirium, the world has received a chronicle of the calvary of the Russian people under communism that will last for generations.”—Vladimir Voinovich, author of The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin“Spellbinding. . . . Gives one a visceral feel for what it was like to be trapped by the communist system.”—Jack Matlock, Washington Post“Satter deserves our gratitude. . . . He is an astute observer of people, with an eye for essential detail and for human behavior in a universe wholly different from his own experience in America.”—Walter Laqueur, Wall Street Journal “Every page of this splendid and eloquent and impassioned book reflects an extraordinarily acute understanding of the Soviet system.”—Jacob Heilbrunn, Washington Times