Title search results
Showing 1 - 20 of 9624 items

Informal Governance in the European Union: How Governments Make International Organizations Work
By Mareike Kleine. 2014
The European Union is the world’s most advanced international organization, presiding over a level of legal and economic integration unmatched…
in global politics. To explain this achievement, many observers point to its formal rules that entail strong obligations and delegate substantial power to supranational actors such as the European Commission. This legalistic view, Mareike Kleine contends, is misleading. More often than not, governments and bureaucrats informally depart from the formal rules and thereby contradict their very purpose. Behind the EU’s front of formal rules lies a thick network of informal governance practices.If not the EU’s rules, what accounts for the high level of economic integration among its members? How does the EU really work? In answering these questions, Kleine proposes a new way of thinking about international organizations. Informal governance affords governments the flexibility to resolve conflicts that adherence to EU rules may generate at the domestic level. By dispersing the costs that integration may impose on individual groups, it allows governments to keep domestic interests aligned in favor of European integration. The combination of formal rules and informal governance therefore sustains a level of cooperation that neither regime alone permits, and it reduces the EU’s democratic deficit by including those interests into deliberations that are most immediately affected by its decisions. In illustrating informal norms and testing how they work, Kleine provides the first systematic analysis, based on new material from national and European archives and other primary data, of the parallel development of the formal rules and informal norms that have governed the EU from the 1958 Treaty of Rome until today.
The Life of Francis Drake
By A. E. W. Mason. 2018
The usual picture of Drake in men’s minds is a brave, bluff man of infinite audacity, a great patriot, a…
great sailor, a man to whom success came of its own accord.But this is only half the truth.He was always studying and learning. He reached success by the painful ways of failure. Few men have stood up to so many rebuffs in early manhood and snatched victory out of them. In many respects he was in advance of his time—in none perhaps more than the kindness and humanity he showed to native peoples.He confronted a vast world power determined to enslave England and destroy its claim to think as it thought and live in independence. He shattered that power by changing the naval strategy of England from defence to attack. And his theory of sea-warfare, developed by Nelson two centuries later, remains the principle of the Royal Navy today.It is this man of whose life A. E. W. Mason has written.
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
By Patrick Radden Keefe. 2019
<P><P>From award-winning New Yorker staff writer Patrick Radden Keefe, a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland…
and its devastating repercussions <P><P>In December 1972, Jean McConville, a thirty-eight-year-old mother of ten, was dragged from her Belfast home by masked intruders, her children clinging to her legs. They never saw her again. Her abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. <P><P>In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville's children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress--with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes. Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. <P><P>The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders. <P><P>From radical and impetuous I.R.A. terrorists such as Dolours Price, who, when she was barely out of her teens, was already planting bombs in London and targeting informers for execution, to the ferocious I.R.A. mastermind known as The Dark, to the spy games and dirty schemes of the British Army, to Gerry Adams, who negotiated the peace but betrayed his hardcore comrades by denying his I.R.A. past--Say Nothing conjures a world of passion, betrayal, vengeance, and anguish. <P><b>A New York Times Bestseller</b>
The Three Edwards
By Thomas B. Costain. 2018
Here is all the magnificent color, the sweep, the rich romance of a brilliant era. Here are the three unforgettable…
men who dominated it—and the strong-willed women who destroyed one of them and sought to enslave another.THE THREE EDWARDS, third in Thomas B. Costain's survey of Britain under the Plantagenets, covers the years between 1272 and 1377 when three Edwards ruled England. Edward I brought England out of the Middle Ages. Edward II had a tragic reign but gave his country Edward III, who ruled gloriously, if violently.First published in 1958, The Three Edwards, written by “one of the great storytellers of our time,” Thomas B. Costain, is the third volume in the brilliant series, including The Conquering Family, The Magnificent Century and The Last Plantagenets.“Deals with turbulent human experience...a wonderful story.”—New York Herald Tribune“So colorful and gusty is his style, so filled with phrases that grip and hold, no fiction he ever wrote holds the breathless interest of the reader more tightly...Here is an historical tapestry, filled with Color and movement...with kings and nobles, their wives and their doxies...with sound and fury unknown in our age of science without chivalry”—Miami Herald“DRAMATIC...THE FIGURES OF HISTORY COME MAGICALLY TO LIFE”—Ladies Home Journal“Under the touch of Mr. Costain’s brilliant pen, the era comes alive...fills his pages with a lively combination of biography, history, anecdote—yet seldom does he miss the mark of historical accuracy...not only exciting reading, but also stimulating and rewarding.”—Christian Science Monitor“Fascinating...Costain writes history with the pen of a novelist...This century yields inspiration in its richly narrative patterns.”—Virginia Kirkus“No events that Mr. Costain enlivens with his magic pen can fail to gain some luster from the contact.”—Saturday Review
British Slavery and its Abolition, 1823-1838
By William L Mathieson. 2018
Written by distinguished Scottish historian William L. Mathieson, this book is a study of British slavery and a narrative of…
the movement for its abolition, which began in 1823, succeeded partially in 1833, when slavery was said to have been abolished, and completely in 1838.British Slavery and Its Abolition, 1823-1838 focuses on slavery in the West Indian colonies—particularly British Guiana and British Honduras—which at the point of the book’s first publication in 1926 had not yet been covered comprehensively, as greater interest had been taken in American than in British slavery, “for it was far more extensive, lasted some thirty years longer, and culminated in a great civil war.”The author traces the movement, “which always aimed at abolition, but the immediate object of which was at first amelioration,” through despatches and reports which were printed from year to year as Parliamentary Papers; describes the introduction of foreign systems, especially the Spanish system; discusses the controversy between the Jamaica Assembly and Parliament to a conclusion; and, in the final chapter, also delves into the effects of emancipation.An invaluable addition to any history collection.
Stolen Churches or Bridges to Orthodoxy?: Volume 1: Historical and Theological Perspectives on the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Dialogue (Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue)
By Vladimir Latinovic, Anastacia K. Wooden. 2021
Throughout their shared history, Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches have lived through a very complex and sometimes tense relationship –…
not only theologically, but also politically. In most cases such relationships remain to this day; indeed, in some cases the tension has increased. In July 2019, scholars of both traditions gathered in Stuttgart, Germany, for an unprecedented conference devoted to exploring and overcoming the division between these churches. This book, the first in a two-volume set of the essays presented at the conference, explores historical and theological themes with the goal of healing memories and inspiring a direct dialogue between Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches. Like the conference, the volume brings together representatives of these Churches, as well as theologians from different geographical contexts where tensions are the greatest. The published essays represent the great achievements of the conference: willingness to engage in dialogue, general openness to new ideas, and opportunities to address difficult questions and heal inherited wounds.
The Frontiers of Imperial Rome: Grenzen Des Römischen Reiches = Frontières De L'empire Romain
By David J. Breeze. 2005
At its height, the Roman Empire was the greatest empire yet seen, its borders stretching from the rain-swept highlands of…
Scotland in the north to the sun-scorched Nubian desert in the south. But how were the vast and varied stretches of frontier defined and defended? Many of Rome's frontier defenses have been the subject of detailed and ongoing study and scholarship. Three frontier zones are now UNESCO World Heritage sites (the Antonine Wall having recently been granted this status - the author led the bid), and there is growing interest in their study. This wide-ranging survey will describe the varying frontier systems, describing the extant remains, methods and materials of construction and highlighting the differences between various frontiers. Professor Breeze considers how the frontiers worked, discussing this in relation to the organization and structure of the Roman army, and also their impact on civilian life along the empire's borders. He then reconsiders the question of whether the frontiers were the product of an overarching Empire-wide grand strategy, questioning Luttwak's seminal hypothesis.This is a detailed and wide-ranging study of the frontier systems of the Roman Empire by a leading expert. Intended for the general reader, it is sure also to be of great value for academics and students in this field. The appendixes will include a brief guide to visiting the sites today.
In recent decades, there has been a growing recognition of the significance of the supernatural in a Victorian context. Studies…
of nineteenth-century spiritualism, occultism, magic, and folklore have highlighted that Victorian England was ridden with spectres and learned magicians. Despite this growing body of scholarship, little historiographical work has addressed the Devil. This book demonstrates the significance of the Devil in a Victorian context, emphasising his pervasiveness and diversity. Drawing on a rich array of primary material, including theological and folkloric works, fiction, newspapers and periodicals, and broadsides and other ephemera, it uses the diabolic to explore the Victorians' complex and ambivalent relationship with the supernatural. Both the Devil and hell were theologically contested during the nineteenth century, with an increasing number of both clergymen and laypeople being discomfited by the thought of eternal hellfire. Nevertheless, the Devil continued to play a role in the majority of English denominations, as well as in folklore, spiritualism, occultism, popular culture, literature, and theatre. The Devil and the Victorians will appeal to readers interested in nineteenth-century English cultural and religious history, as well as the darker side of the supernatural.
Oil in Putin’s Russia: The Contests over Rents and Economic Policy
By Adnan Vatansever. 2021
No sector has been as vital as oil to the Russian economy since Vladimir Putin came to power. The longest…
serving leader since Stalin, Putin has presided during a period of relative economic prosperity driven largely by booming oil windfalls. Oil in Putin’s Russia offers an in-depth examination of the contests over windfalls drawn from the oil sector. Examining how the Russian leadership has guided the process of distributing these windfalls, Adnan Vatansever explores the causes behind key policy continuities and policy reversals during Putin’s tenure. The product of over ten years of research, including interviews with decision-makers and oil industry officials, Oil in Putin’s Russia takes an innovative approach to understanding the contested nature of resource rents and the policy processes that determine how they are allocated. In so doing, it offers a comprehensive and timely account of politics and policy in contemporary Russia, and a significant contribution to research on the political economy of resource rents in mineral resource-rich countries.
The Routledge History of Emotions in Europe: 1100-1700 (Routledge Histories)
By Andrew Lynch, Susan Broomhall. 2019
The Routledge History of Emotions in Europe: 1100–1700 presents the state of the field of pre-modern emotions during this period,…
placing particular emphasis on theoretical and methodological aspects of current research. This book serves as a reference to existing research practices in emotions history and advances studies in the field across a range of scholarly approaches. It brings together the work of recognized experts and new voices, and represents a wide range of international and interdisciplinary perspectives from different schools of research practice, including art history, literature and culture, philosophy, linguistics, archaeology and music. Throughout the book, central and recurrent themes in emotional culture within medieval and early modern Europe are highlighted from different angles, and each chapter pays specialist attention to illustrative examples showing theory and method in application. Exploring topics such as love, war, sex and sexuality, death, time, the body and the family in the context of emotional culture, The Routledge History of Emotions in Europe: 1100–1700 reflects the sharp rise in scholarship relating to the history of emotions in recent years and is an essential resource for students and researchers of the history of pre-modern emotions.
This book tells the tragic story of the Spanish Civil War through the eyes of writers, artists and musicians who…
were deeply involved and close to it. By means of chronological chapters covering the major phases the author describes the roles of figures such as Arthur Koestler, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, George Orwell, Esmond Romilly, Martha Gellhorn (Hemingways lover), Salvador Dali, the poet Federico Lorca (who was killed) etc. Other famous names include the spies Kim Philby and Anthony Blunt. The progress of the War is followed from the outbreak rebellion of summer 1936, through Seville, the war in the Aragon Mountains, Madrid, Malaga, the arrival of the International Brigades in 1937, the notorious destruction of Guernika by the German Condor Legion, Barcelona and Francos victorious march, checked briefly on the Ebro. This is a highly informative and interesting work covering a period of military history that has been largely neglected.
The Magnificent Century: The Pageant Of England (The History of the Plantagenets)
By Thomas B. Costain. 2017
Following The Conquerors in chronological sequence, this second book covers the long reigns of the weathercock King Henry III, from…
1216 to 1272.And again, Thomas B. Costain, combining years of keen research with his practiced skill at novel writing, has brought vividly to life an era and its people, proving once more that factual history can be superb entertainment.It was during the period covered in this book, an age appropriately termed “the magnificent century,” that England first made remarkable strides toward freedom, establishing principles of democratic rule which would later be accepted by the world. Englishmen returned home from the Crusades with the first implements for a new life—foreign books, medicines, and maps of the East; new foods, new heresies, and even new diseases. Although wars went on as before and ignorance still held sway, this was the beginning of an awakening which was to sweep men on to spectacular advances in the arts, science, philosophy, and theology.As always in a Costain book, this story of a great age is told through the people who lived in it—the great and the small. Among many others, there are graphic portraits of the weak, vacillating monarch: Henry, and his beautiful wife, Eleanor of Provence, who became England’s most hated queen; famous statesman and soldier Simon de Montfort, whose personal feud with the royal family brought on civil war; courageous churchman Robert Grosseteste, who taught his pupils the first glimmers of scientific truth; and Roger Bacon, a man of mighty intellect and fascinating mystery, who developed the principles of research and experiment upon which scientific progress has been based.Long cherishing this project to present English history as a colorful, readable, human story, Thomas Costain, in THE MAGNIFICENT CENTURY as in The Conquerors, has succeeded admirably in portraying all the drama and bright pageantry of a vital age in the chronicle of England.
The Last Plantagenets (The History of the Plantagenets)
By Thomas B. Costain. 2017
THE LAST PLANTAGENTS—A GREAT STORYTELLER’S MOST DAZZLING BESTSELLERHere is Thomas B. Costain’s most magnificent performance, rivaling even THE BLACK ROSE…
for color and drama. Here are history’s most spectacular Kings and Queens—and a brilliant new probing of the greatest mystery of all time, the death of the Princes in the Tower.“EXCITEMENT...ROMANCE...STRANGER THAN FICTION”—Saturday Review“COLORFUL AND LUSTY”—Christian Science Monitor“WILD, EXTRAVAGANT, BRILLIANT, COURAGEOUS, STIRRING”—San Francisco Examiner“Novelist as well as historian, Mr. Costain is especially interested in personalities and motives and character. He deals throughout with world figures who have kingdoms at stake...Here is an actual record of the heroism of the kings and queens of England and France, their villainies, their weaknesses, their loves and hates...”—Book-of-the-Month-Club News“No man alive writes popular history with greater understanding...what he cares about is the color, drama and pageantry...the personalities, triumphs and disasters...”—New York Times“The familiar Costain ‘touch’ with all its powers...is present here in abundance”—New Haven Register“Happily wedded in author Costain are a scholar’s integrity and the ability to endow history with brilliant colors”—San Francisco Examiner
The Reign of Elizabeth, 1558-1603
By Prof. J. B. Black. 2017
First published in 1936, this is a classic account of the reign of Elizabeth Tudor during the Sixteenth Century. The…
book provides a comprehensive account of the political, economic, social, literary, artistic, scientific, and cultural features that made it one of the richest periods in British history. It ranges from the Religious Settlement, England's relations with France, and the succession to Catholic and Puritan challenges to the establishment, the execution of Mary Stuart, the Armada, the Irish problem, and the later years of Elizabeth’s reign.“Professor Black brought to his task the knowledge and experience of a scholar who is a specialist in the period, the balance and wisdom of a philosophical mind, and the skill of a distinguished stylist. Need one be surprised that his book is not merely a first-rate text-book but a work which any serious-minded person will read with abounding pleasure.”—Sunday Times“This volume is one of those books which are so packed with information that its value can only be discovered in use. For those about to make a serious study of a difficult and complex period of English history it should be a most useful introduction, for Professor Black has the rare virtue of being impartial, even on the most controversial topics….The best advanced text-book of the Elizabethan period that has yet been written.”—Listener“Professor Black’s book is a solid achievement of sound and accurate scholarship, whose clearness of thought and balance in judgement make it a pleasure to read.”—Oxford Magazine“A most moderate, well-balanced, and ably written work, which should form a useful corrective to the many biased and unscholarly publications associated with the period it covers.”—Glasgow Herald
REBEL. LEADER. BROTHER. KING.1179. Henry II is King of England, Wales, Ireland, Normandy, Brittany and Aquitaine. The House of Plantagenet…
reigns supreme.But there is unrest in Henry's house. Not for the first time, his family talks of rebellion.Ferdia - an Irish nobleman taken captive during the conquest of his homeland - saves the life of Richard, the king's son. In reward for his bravery, he is made squire to Richard, who is already a renowned warrior.Crossing the English Channel, the two are plunged into a campaign to crush rebels in Aquitaine. The bloody battles and gruelling sieges which followed would earn Richard the legendary name of Lionheart.But Richard's older brother, Henry, is infuriated by his sibling's newfound fame. Soon it becomes clear that the biggest threat to Richard's life may not be rebel or French armies, but his own family...'A rip-roaring epic, filled with arrows and spattered with blood. Gird yourself with mail when you start.' Paul Finch'Ben's deeply authoritative depiction of the time is delivered in a deft manner.' Simon Scarrow
Informal Governance in the European Union: How Governments Make International Organizations Work
By Mareike Kleine. 2014
The European Union is the world’s most advanced international organization, presiding over a level of legal and economic integration unmatched…
in global politics. To explain this achievement, many observers point to its formal rules that entail strong obligations and delegate substantial power to supranational actors such as the European Commission. This legalistic view, Mareike Kleine contends, is misleading. More often than not, governments and bureaucrats informally depart from the formal rules and thereby contradict their very purpose. Behind the EU’s front of formal rules lies a thick network of informal governance practices.If not the EU’s rules, what accounts for the high level of economic integration among its members? How does the EU really work? In answering these questions, Kleine proposes a new way of thinking about international organizations. Informal governance affords governments the flexibility to resolve conflicts that adherence to EU rules may generate at the domestic level. By dispersing the costs that integration may impose on individual groups, it allows governments to keep domestic interests aligned in favor of European integration. The combination of formal rules and informal governance therefore sustains a level of cooperation that neither regime alone permits, and it reduces the EU’s democratic deficit by including those interests into deliberations that are most immediately affected by its decisions. In illustrating informal norms and testing how they work, Kleine provides the first systematic analysis, based on new material from national and European archives and other primary data, of the parallel development of the formal rules and informal norms that have governed the EU from the 1958 Treaty of Rome until today.
Early Modern Things: Objects and their Histories, 1500-1800 (Early Modern Themes)
By Paula Findlen. 2021
Early Modern Things supplies fresh and provocative insights into how objects – ordinary and extraordinary, secular and sacred, natural and…
man-made – came to define some of the key developments of the early modern world. Now in its second edition, this book taps a rich vein of recent scholarship to explore a variety of approaches to the material culture of the early modern world (c. 1500–1800). Divided into seven parts, the book explores the ambiguity of things, representing things, making things, encountering things, empires of things, consuming things, and the power of things. This edition includes a new preface and three new essays on ‘encountering things’ to enrich the volume. These look at cabinets of curiosities, American pearls, and the material culture of West Central Africa. Spanning across the early modern world from Ming dynasty China and Tokugawa Japan to Siberia and Georgian England, from the Kingdom of the Kongo and the Ottoman Empire to the Caribbean and the Spanish Americas, the authors provide a generous set of examples in how to study the circulation, use, consumption, and, most fundamentally, the nature of things themselves. Drawing on a broad range of disciplinary perspectives and lavishly illustrated, this updated edition of Early Modern Things is essential reading for all those interested in the early modern world and the history of material culture.
The Revolutionary Mystique and Terrorism in Contemporary Italy
By Richard Drake. 1989
What drives terrorists to glorify violence? In The Revolutionary Mystique and Terrorism in Contemporary Italy, Richard Drake seeks to explain…
the origins of Italian terrorism and the role that intellectuals played in valorizing the use of violence for political or social ends. Drake argues that a combination of socioeconomic factors and the influence of intellectual elites led to a sanctioning of violence by revolutionary political groups in Italy between 1969 and 1988. Drake explores what motivated Italian terrorists on both the Left and the Right during some of the most violent decades in modern Italian history and how these terrorists perceived the modern world as something to be destroyed rather than reformed. In 1989, The Revolutionary Mystique and Terrorism in Contemporary Italy received the Howard R. Marraro Prize from the Society for Italian Historical Studies. It was awarded for the best book that year on Italian history. The book is reissued now with a new introduction for the light it might shed on current terrorist challenges. The Italians had success in combating terrorism. We might learn something from their example. The section of the book dealing with the Italian "superfascist" philosopher, Julius Evola, holds special interest today. Drake's original work takes on new significance in the light of Evola's recent surge of popularity for members of America's alt-right movement.
The Polish Catholic Church under German Occupation: The Reichsgau Wartheland, 1939-1945
By Jonathan Huener. 2021
When Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939, it aimed to destroy Polish national consciousness. As a symbol of Polish national…
identity and the religious faith of approximately two-thirds of Poland's population, the Roman Catholic Church was an obvious target of the Nazi regime's policies of ethnic, racial, and cultural Germanization. Jonathan Huener reveals in The Polish Catholic Church under German Occupation that the persecution of the church was most severe in the Reichsgau Wartheland, a region of Poland annexed to Nazi Germany. Here Catholics witnessed the execution of priests, the incarceration of hundreds of clergymen and nuns in prisons and concentration camps, the closure of churches, the destruction and confiscation of church property, and countless restrictions on public expression of the Catholic faith. Huener also illustrates how some among the Nazi elite viewed this area as a testing ground for anti-church policies to be launched in the Reich after the successful completion of the war. Based on largely untapped sources from state and church archives, punctuated by vivid archival photographs, and marked by nuance and balance, The Polish Catholic Church under German Occupation exposes both the brutalities and the limitations of Nazi church policy. The first English-language investigation of German policy toward the Catholic Church in occupied Poland, this compelling story also offers insight into the varied ways in which Catholics—from Pope Pius XII, to members of the Polish episcopate, to the Polish laity at the parish level—responded to the Nazi regime's repressive measures.
England in the Age of Austen
By Jeremy Black. 2021
Dedicated fans of Jane Austen's novels will delight in accompanying historian Jeremy Black through the drawing rooms, chapels, and battlefields…
of the time in which Austen lived and wrote. In this exceedingly readable and sweeping scan of late 18th- and early 19th-century Britain, Black provides a historical context for a deeper appreciation of classic novels such as Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility. While Austen's novels bring to life complex characters living in intimate surroundings, England in the Age of Austen provides a fuller account of what the village, the church, and the family home would really have been like. In addition to seeing how Austen's own reading helped her craft complex characters like Emma, Black also explores how recurring figures in the novels, such as George III or Fanny Burney, provide a focus for a historical discussion of the fiction in which they appear. Jane Austen's world was the source of her works and the basis of her readership, and understanding that world gives fans new insights into the multifaceted narratives she created.