Book Description
Italian influence can be seen everywhere in America—in its buildings and its books, in its culture and its cuisine. Passage to Liberty tells the story of how Italians became Americans and fulfilled their dreams of rebuilding the image of Rome in their new country. Readers will discover:
- Removable reproductions of memorabilia and documents
- Engaging illustrations
- Informative text
- And more!
Both a work of history and a moving narrative, Passage to Liberty brings to life the experiences of a people whose talents, contributions, and self-sacrifice helped them to make this country their own.
Customer Reviews:
such a beautiful book.......2006-03-10
Not long after my grandmother's death, I went to a Borders store and was looking through the books on sale. I saw this lovely book and picked it up to leaf through it. The first page I opened the book to was the one with the little handwritten recipe. The recipe was unfamiliar to me, but the small neat handwriting was amazingly like my grandmother's, and the slip of paper it was written on was exactly like a page from one of the little notebooks she used to write in. I didn't have to look at another thing in the book to know I had to buy it. When I got the book home and actually read it, I LOVED IT! The book itself is really good, but all of the little bits that are tucked inside really make it worth the money. It's a lovely book.
Something you'll treasure.......2002-10-31
As you'd expect in a book like this, it tells the tale from Columbus to Madonna, and tells it well, concisely, entertainingly, without being annoyingly fulsome or reverent. What makes this a treaure, though, are all the surprises--you turn a page and find, actually tucked into a corner or attached by glue, replicas of ancient passports, or hand-written recipes, or coupon books from some old immigrant mutual-aid insurance policy. There's even a St. Lucia prayer card from somebody's funeral and the jury's verdict form from a trial of Al Capone. It brings the history to life in a way beyond mere words. If you buy one copy, you'll end up buying more as gifts, without a doubt.It's a beautiful object and a terrific book.
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- The Grass Roots of Russia's Second Revolution
- This excellent book deals with contemporary Russian politics
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The Rebirth of Politics in Russia
Michael Urban ,
Vyacheslav Igrunov , and
Sergei Mitrokhin
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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Russian Politics: Challenges of Democratization
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ASIN: 0521566118 |
Book Description
How was it that after seventy years of communist dictatorship, political life returned to Russia? This book addresses that question by focusing on the individuals, groups and movements that brought this about, their struggles against the Soviet regime, and the ways in which these struggles shaped Russia's political rebirth. As well as offering an original theory of Soviet society, the book is richly informed by the observations and interpretations of participants and close observers, and traces the process through the communist past and the revolution of 1991, to the political system of today.
Customer Reviews:
The Grass Roots of Russia's Second Revolution.......2007-02-09
This book by Michael Urban and the Yabloko State Duma Deputies Viacheslav Igrunov and Sergei Mitrokhin is a comprehensive study of the origins and course of emergence of post-communist politics in Russia. It is, in at least three ways, a valuable contribution to the slim body of literature on the political groupings and organizations which brought about Russia's peaceful revolution.
First and foremost, it constitutes a fairly detailed and--with very rare exceptions--reliable handbook on the particulars of (1) the Soviet/Russian liberal and social-democratic dissident scene from the 1940s through the 1980s, (2) the "informals" (neformal'nye) movement in major Russian cities of the late 1980s and early 1990s, and (3) the altogether disappointing party-building process in Russia between 1988 and 1996. The three authors list numerous new details, participant observations, and insights especially on the dissident scene and "informals" which will, even for the native Russian specialist, represent precious additions to the factual knowledge accumulated so far.
Second, the book presents an original application to the Russian case of a particular, decidedly non-elitist, pluralist concept of politics. Politics is here understood as a decision-making process characterized by a constant communication and interaction between the state, on the one side, and independent political society, and civil society, on the other. And, thirdly, the book represents a comprehensive interpretation of the major factors causing perestroika and the eventual systemic change between 1985 and 1991, and of the principal ills and missed opportunities in post-Soviet Russian politics between 1991 and 1996.
The study is fixed on Russia's anti-Soviet uprising "from below" and focuses on actors outside the Soviet state structures until 1991. This makes it a very useful supplement to other large analyses of this period which show similar ambition, but (1) are instead centred on the activities of the top-elite in their peculiar institutional setting, such as the in-depth investigation of the Gorbachev factor by Archie Brown, or (2) explore the interaction between structural-institutional factors and political elite configurations, such as the comprehensive survey of the Soviet system's demise between 1985 and 1991 by Jerry Hough.
Urban, Igrunov and Mitrokhin offer here a missing link with regard to these analyses. Concerning Brown's "Gorbachev-centric" approach, it becomes clear from their study that Gorbachev's and his assistants' gradual liberalization and democratization would have been much less consequential without the existence of some relevant--if dormant--extra-systemic political ideas and forces ready to fill quickly, and to expand further, the space initially opened up by intra-systemic reformers. With regard to Hough's explanatory scheme the authors provide proof that the substantial structural changes in Russian society which made a middle-class-revolution likely had first to be translated into a nascent civil and political society in order to leave its own imprint on the reform process, and to eventually transform the initial palace revolution and attempted social engineering from above into a true, deep and societally based socio-economic, cultural and political revolution.
By the authors' own admission, their "utopian or ideal" conception of politics (p. 310) as involving the people and independent social groups as active participants, and their approach to the Russian transformation emerging from this concept constitutes both the major strength and weakness of their survey. The approach is, as indicated, certainly helpful in switching our focus from merely Kremlinological or exclusively sociological explanations to the issue of how exactly societal potentials and contradictions were transformed into political inputs and conflicts.
Nevertheless, late Soviet and even to some degree post-Soviet Russian politics remained--at least until December 1993--to a large degree a secluded intra-elite process with the top decision-makers unusually insulated from inputs of an underdeveloped political and civil society. As far as these top-heavy political conflicts do not seem to fit the authors' understanding of what "politics" is about, they ignore them to a large extent. Thus the book needs to be read in conjunction with more elite-centered studies, such as those by Brown and Hough, in order to get a full picture of the period mostly of concern here (i.e. 1985-1991). Urban's, Igrunov's and Mitrokhin's valuable, extensive and naturally sympathetic treatment of the various brands of liberally oriented segments of the suppressed civil society in the Soviet Union, leads them also to assert that "[p]erhaps the principal source of ideas contributing to perestroika's intellectual thrust was the Soviet dissident movement" (p. 61).
In my opinion, this is--in contrast to what one might say about the importance of dissidents to the demise of communism in Poland and Czechoslovakia--a clear overestimation of the Soviet dissidents' impact on pre-1985 society, and an altogether misleading indication of the causal chain leading to the collapse of the Soviet/Russian Empire. Although personalities like Andrei Sakharov, Valeriia Novodvorskaia, Boris Kagarlitskii and Sergei Kovalev all played in their ways important roles in the formation of post-Soviet Russian political discourse, they became able to do so only by the late 1980s. The only case where a prominent representative of the Soviet dissident movement managed to reach out to the Soviet mass public before Gorbachev, occurred when "Novyi mir" was given permission to publish Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" in the early 1960s. And even then the partly nationalist and traditionalist political views later expressed by Solzhenitsyn would seem to put him outside the camp of those dissidents who have, according to Urban, Igrunov and Mitrokhin, provided perestroika's "intellectual thrust."
Among the principal ideological sources of Gorbachev and his team's reforms one would have to mention instead pre- and post-Stalinist Bolshevik thought (Lenin, Bukharin, Khrushchev); imaginative--if still Marxist--analyses of Soviet society by Soviet academics; exposure of the Soviet political and academic elite to Western media and social science (including sovietological) literature; and the top elite's confrontation with various brands of non- or anti-Soviet Marxism, such as the ideas of the Prague Spring, Eurocommunism and West European social democracy. To be sure, some writings by Soviet dissidents, such as Andrei Sakharov, were circulated more widely among the Soviet intelligentsia than others. Nevertheless, it was institutions such as the editorial boards of Moscow's "Novyi mir" or Prague's "World Marxist Review," the Central Economic-Mathematical Institute, a number of further institutes of the Academy of Sciences, the law and economics departments of Moscow's and Leningrad's research universities, and even some CPSU Central Committee Departments which provided the central ideas and blueprints for perestroika and, later, for more radical reform attempts. If the output of these institutions was indeed been significantly influenced by Soviet dissident writing, Urban, Igrunov and Mitrokhin do not provide evidence or even hypotheses for how this may have happened.
Concerning "moral" impetus of perestroika and the later reforms, the impact of the abortive Soviet dissident movement was probably more significant. Yet this influence would still have to be seen within a wider picture of large-scale criticism of the Soviet system from an ethical point of view by a considerable number of outspoken representatives of the official Soviet cultural scene including many famous artists, writers, film-directors, publicists, and so forth after 1985. This qualification is not meant to diminish in any way the sorrow and deprivation endured, and indeed the heroism shown, by the Soviet dissidents. Rather it aims to draw light on a peculiar feature of the second Russian social revolution-- namely that it had its origins and drew its main actors from within the Soviet ancien regime. Given the pre-1985 Soviet state's effectiveness in suppressing political dissent, there was little possibility that a comprehensive systemic change could have happened differently in a peaceful way.
This excellent book deals with contemporary Russian politics.......1999-01-01
Michael Urban, The Rebirth of Politics in Russia Cambridge University Press, New York, 1997 + 429 pages. Notes and references. Select bibliography. Index.
Reviewed by Johanna Granville, Clemson University, Clemson, SC
Michael Urban's book, The Rebirth of Politics in Russia contains such a wealth of important ideas that a reviewer is challenged to summarize them adequately in a mere 750 words. This excellent book deals with contemporary Russian politics from 1989 to the present, seeking in particular "to explain the rebirth of politics amid the collapse of the USSR." It lends great insight into the question of why the "democratic experiment" in Russia has not been more successful thus far. The book starts with a model of "politics," in which the authors attempt to "articulate the concept across three spheres (state, political society, and civil society) and along two dimensions (organization and communication)." In this reviewer's opinion, this first chapter is rather dry and abstruse. The remaining chapters, however, are more concrete and interesting. Chapter two turns to the so-called "pre-political period," i.e. the period before the appearance of the Gorbachev-era "informals" and the formation (in 1990) of bona fide political parties. It describes the various strategies employed by the dissident movement---launched in about 1965 with the trial of Sinyavsky and Daniel--to gain political influence, These included stressing legality and using the Soviet Constitution as a weapon against the communist authorities; organizing demonstrations; appealing to the West regarding human rights violations; and documenting such abuses in publications such as the Chronicle of Current Events. The authors claim that the dissidents of the 1960s and 1970s had two major weaknesses. The first was their failure to address the Russian people directly, instead focusing primarily on the communist authorities. This hindered their ability to build grassroots support. The second shortcoming--which continues to inhibit the pro-reform political parties in Russia today--was the dissidents' "abstemious attitude" toward politics and unwillingness to cooperate with the party-state. These dissident intellectuals preferred to philosophize than to compromise their ideals in the nitty-gritty organizational work. Chapters three, four, and five examine Gorbachev's programs of perestroika and glasnost and the resulting mushrooming of informal organizations (neformaly). Here the authors point to an interesting paradox. Very few dissidents from the pre-political period participated in the informals, despite the fact that many of Gorbachev's ideas emerged from dissident "samizdat" publications or even official but liberal publications from the 1960s (like Novy Mir). This can be explained in part by the dissidents' traditional "abstemious attitude" toward politics mentioned above. In addition, as the authors note perceptively, after decades of basing their identity in opposition to the party-state system, the older dissidents either refused or hesitated to work within that system, in the officially sanctioned informals. Chapter six discusses the positive and negative aspects of the 1989 elections to the Congress of People's Deputies. Candidates fielded by the informal groups faced tremendous difficulties, from finding a public hall in which to hold the nominating sessions, making themselves heard above the jeers of communist hecklers, and even defending themselves from physical attacks. Moreover, no organizations independent of communist tutelage had the legal right to nominate candidates.(119) Urban and his colleagues also point out that the Congress of People's Deputies (CPD) could not be considered a real legislative body because it had no budgeting ("power of the purse") or lawmaking powers; all power resided in the CPSU and its executive agencies. Without a free market in the USSR there could be no genuine legislature. Moreover, given the barriers confronting the informals, most of the deputies elected to the CPD in 1989 were party apparatchiks. Ultimately the deputies owed their appointments to the Communist party, not to any constitutents in their home districts. On the positive side, however, the 1989 elections and the CPD sessions--televised live--played a vital role in mass politicization. Chapters seven, eight, and nine deal with the elections of 1990 and the formation of political parties at the close of the Soviet period. These elections, more meaningful than those the previous year, transformed the organizational dimension of Russian politics, remaking the internal constitution of the three principal forces then present on the political field (the CPSU, nationalists and neo-Stalinists, and democrats.) These political forces grew even stronger after the constitutional ban on political parties was lifted (March 1990), and the Law on the Press was passed, abolishing censorship (June 1990). Unfortunately, since the authorities had not removed the prohibition on parties until after the 1990 elections, "all the new parties were latecomers, arriving on the scene only after the ball had ended." (p. 201) With neither identifiable constituencies to represent nor upcoming elections to prepare for, the development of Russia's political parties was ingrown. The final chapters discuss the growth of "restoration" forces, which were determined to protect the CPSU against Russian nationalists, the "war of laws," and the failed coup d'etat of August 1991. Urban and his colleagues also observe Yeltsin's autocratic behavior after the failed coup and his missed opportunities which greatly hindered his economic reform program and impeded the growth of strong democratic parties. The October 1993 skirmish between the executive and legislative branches resulted from Yeltsin's failure to call for new elections immediately after the coup. In addition, the fractiousness of the democratic parties and groups in Russia today stem from Yeltsin's reluctance to support them. In 1990 Yeltsin suspended his membership in DemRossiya (a large amorphous bloc of democratic groups), following his election to the post of chairperson of Russia's Supreme Soviet. To make matters worse, in April, 1991--when DemRossiya was mounting protests and political strikes nationwide in hope of bringing down the communist order there and then--Yeltsin "pulled the rug from under DemRossiya by cutting a deal with Gorbachev" that commenced negotiations with eight other republics (the nine-plus-one process) to rescue the federal union and restore civil peace. (p.242) Thus Yeltsin has exhibited a tendency to detach himself from his supporters as soon as his immediate objectives had been reached. Urban and his colleague claim that Yeltsin's avoidance of responsibility to his base, along with the latter's reluctance to demand it, can be counted as a major missed opportunity to provide structure to Russian political society. It directly contributed to DemRossiya's disintegration, to the power struggle between the executive and legislature in communism's aftermath, and to the fall of the first Russian republic. In short this is an excellent book for anyone who wishes to understand the growth of Russian political society in the 1989-1997 period.
Book Description
"A shrewd observer of Germany and eastern Europe, Pond has presented an informative overview of European affairs since 1989. . . . [A]n eminently readable account." - Foreign Affairs
"Veteran journalist Elizabeth Pond . . . sees a Europe that is doing well at overcoming 'impulses of nationalism, habit, and fear.' The Rebirth of Europe provides a thoughtful, fundamentally optimistic appraisal of the continent's prospects." - Dallas Morning News
"For many years Elizabeth Pond has been one of the most knowledgeable American experts on Europe. Her new book . . . is an impressive challenge to Europeans, as to Americans, to look ahead with optimism and to make the most of our common new opportunities." - Helmut Kohl, Chancellor of Germany, 1982-1998
Customer Reviews:
Book Review: The Ribirth of Europe.......2002-10-31
In her book, The Rebirth of Europe, Elizabeth Pond provides a great overview of the many issues and underlying dynamics facing the European Union (EU) and Europe, presently. In ten chapters, she encapsulates history, European and American perceptions, domestic politics, European Monetary Union (EMU), and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), as well as the European Strategic Defense Initiative (ESDI). Although she covers these and many other issues in-depth, she paints a rather optimistic future for both the EU and Europe without fully addressing the impact of certain salient underlying factors that she does touch on. These are domestic politics, nationalism, institutionalism, the modern social welfare state, as well as the trans-Atlantic defense capabilities gap.
In Chapters 1-5, Pond covers the evolution of Europe and the EU from very early history through the creation of the EMU. In doing this, she touches on a wide range of issues. Of note is her discourse on how the perceptions of Europe's bloody and fragmented past impact on both the modern European and American psyches. Furthermore, her work is exceedingly well documented and thorough, especially Chapter 4, Post-Cold War NATO. Her writings on NATO enlargement and ESDI are very much in synchronization with the current literature on these "hot" topics from a macro view.
Chapters 6-10 are also well done. They cover Central and Eastern Europe, the EMU, as well as ESDI and NATO in relation to current trans-Atlantic relations. However, the three-page Chapter 10, Epilogue, is rather weak for the concluding chapter of such a thoroughly encompassing and well-researched book. Additionally, it tends to contradict itself as Pond goes to great lengths summing up some of the significant pitfalls facing Europe and concludes with two very terse sentences: "Europe remains a work in-progress. So far, it seems condemned to succeed." Unfortunately, this is the problem with the entire book.
In Chapter 1, Pond states, "intellectually it is less risky to be pessimistic than to be optimistic." Thus, she seems determined, despite the fact that she, herself, addresses significant pitfalls facing the EU, Europe, and the trans-Atlantic relationship, determined to be unabashedly optimistic instead of cautiously optimistic, or even somewhat pessimistic. First, she addresses nationalism, in the form of the modern day Flemish and Wallonian separatists' movements in Belgium. These movements are spawned in large part due to taxes. (Modern day Flanders' carries the lion's share of the tax burden for the whole of Belgium.) Thus, when Pond discusses EU institutional enlargement, the high unemployment rates prevalent in Europe today, the need for the EU or European countries to upgrade their military capacity, and the EU Central Bank's unresponsiveness to some of these problems, she neglects to intermesh these fiscal issues with salient political or fiscal solutions that the reader can understand. Furthermore, she fails to even broach the subject of how these issues are to be resolved without jeopardizing the foundations of the modern social welfare state (i.e., free health care, exorbitant unemployment benefits, etc...). Finally, she fails to address an even larger problem within this framework; the large numbers of immigrants form Africa and the Middle East, who come to Europe seeking these benefits and their impact on European nationalism.
Next, Pond stresses the importance of leadership throughout her book, whether it is individual or national. She cites examples of Adenauer, Kohl, Mitterand, and DeGaulle, all at times taking up the mantle of EU leadership, despite widespread domestic animosity, to further the greater good of the EU and Europe. However, she then states that there are no new great politicians/ statesmen of this caliber in present day Europe, who are willing to fly in the face of certain domestic political death for the greater good. This is not consistent for the prevailing view of optimism that Pond wishes to connote.
Finally, although Pond does a good job of addressing NATO, ESDI, and the trans-Atlantic relationship, once again, she does not convince the reader that the problems surrounding these issues are easily surmountable. First, is the military capability gap between Europe and the United States (US). While Pond does a good job of citing the problems and stated intellectual workarounds (i.e., Heisbourg's proposals for Europe to develop professional armies and European defense industrial consolidation to avoid redundancy ), she does not take into account the economic costs, both domestically and politically, nor the effects of globalization (corporate mergers, multi-national corporations) on such intellectual proposals. Furthermore, she does not take into account the risks associated with sharing the technology to upgrade European weapons systems to the caliber of US weapons systems in the form of security leaks when a large number of states become involved.
In the end, Pond's book is an excellent work for readers seeking a greater understanding of the issues facing modern Europe and the trans-Atlantic relationship. However, it fails to make one, who is somewhat knowledgeable in European affairs, feel as optimistic about Europe's future as Pond does. Had Pond taken time to further address some of the issues outlined above in her Epilogue, with cogent solutions, the book would be a powerful work indeed. As it stands, her work leaves a somewhat educated reader wondering if Pond is too optimistic about Europe's future. This writer, although optimistic as well, is not as optimistic as Pond. The issues facing Europe are real, multi-faceted, and exceedingly interlaced to be simply congealed as solvable in the short-run. Pond is right that Europe is a work in progress, but a work that will take significantly longer than Pond implies, especially if Europe and the EU does suffer a significant setback any of the issue areas Pond addresses.
upbeat assessment of European integration.......1999-09-16
As someone working daily in Brussels on European issues and with an interest in EU enlargement, i found this book a breath of fresh air amidst reading on all the problems the EU has to face in enlargement. The author gives a convincingly upbeat and positive assessment of how far the CEECs have come in terms of institution building for democracy and the rule of law, of protection of minorities and human rights, and a (historically new) willingness to work with each other to resolve outstanding and often very old historical conflicts, often related ot minorities and borders. This new phenomenon is at least partly due to the incentive of prospects for EU Membership. The political Copenhagen Criteria set out for EU Membership apperently prove to be succesful at least in this respect. This is not to say that many economic and political issues are resolved, nor that these countries now or even soon will meet all the criteria. But the progress in many CEECs in such fields as democracy and human rights has indeed been remarkable, and that needs to be acknowledged and welcomed.
In terms of pure analysis the book is perhaps not so strong, but then again it is not meant for academia but for a more general public. I think the author, whose journalistic background shines through, does an excellent job in bringing a positive antidote to Euro-pessimism on enlargement.
Book Description
This book is designed to quickly enlighten readers about nature of East Europe. Comprehensive and multiperspective--yet easy and enjoyable to read--it provides an accessible overview of everything that's politically relevant for the region—geography, political history, Soviet occupation, Cold War, and system collapse. Caught between Empires. Flunking Democracy: The Interwar Years. East Europe and World War II. The Communist Takeovers. The Hated Regimes. “We Pretend to Work”: The Decay of Communism. 1989: The Gorbachev Factor. The Struggle for Democracy. The Horrors of Yugoslavia. Lessons, Hopes, Fears. For those interested in Eastern European Politics, Cold War History, Comparative Politics, International Relations.
Customer Reviews:
Read with caution.......2005-08-25
While this book provides a decent cursory review of East Europe, it is not to be taken as an authority on the subject. Many times, Roskin will oversimplify political agendas and use imprecise vocabulary to describe his subjects. For a comprehensive look at the political factors of the area, I would suggest something more along the lines of Henry Kissinger's Diplomacy.
A Wonderful Undergraduate Text.......2004-08-26
The Rebirth of East Europe is a wonderful text for teaching an introductory, undergraduate course in the politics of the region. I used it for the first time in summer 2004 to teach a course at the Anglo-American College in Prague, and the students (half of them Czech) really took to it. Now in its fourth edition, it is the only text I have found that comprehensively covers the history, politics, economics, and societies of the region in a lively manner. Granted, the author has definite opinions and makes some strong assertions about communism, which may be disconcerting to those on the extreme left of the political spectrum. Yet having lived and taught for many years in the Czech and Slovak Republics, I found his comments largely on target, especially his assessments of the former regimes, the problems facing the new ones, and public attitudes towards both. This was re-confirmed by my Czech colleagues. The book is also extremely well organized, having a logical flow making it easy to follow. Throughout, boxes highlight special topics, which proved extremely useful in generating class discussions. In short, The Rebirth of East Europe is an excellent introductory text to the region, and one that will most definitely not bore your students!
Roskin..........2003-10-19
Of all the bad things I have read on Eastern Europe, this book is the worst. I already wrote a long criticism in reviewing another of Roskin's books, so I will not repeat it here, although he deserves all the criticism he can get. If "chitatel"'s students liked Roskin's book, it only goes to show how harmful the book is: uninitiated students, without other access to information on the region, read Roskin as if he were telling the truth.
Simplistic Cold War book.......2001-08-05
While the book does present events in 20th century Eastern and Central Europe fairly succinctly, the author is clearly guided throughout by his political convictions. While an anti-communist stand is not surprising, Roskin's is quite virulent, and prevents any sense of academic detachment from appearing in the book. Besides, as one of the other reviewers noted, Roskin stoops to absurd simplifications in order to explain events in the region. For example, he blames the weakness of "East European" states on the fact that they were part of empires in the past. But, pardon me, what country in the world was not, at one time, part of an empire? How does that make "East Europe" different from any other region in the world?
As for the more technical aspects of the book, I found the maps in it to be crude, and the use of diacritics on East-Central European names very patchy: Roskin applied them to some names and not to others, perhaps revealing the fundamental problem with this book: a lack of first-hand knowledge of the region.
excellent introductory text.......2000-07-10
Its rare to find a text that is written in an accessible manner, which covers a lot of territory clearly, and which makes important analytical points. The Roskin book fits the bill perfectly as an introduction to the history of East Europe. I have been using it as an introductory book for students (including juniors and seniors) for years and it always praised by them. Unlike the only other Amazon reviewer, I did not find it biased, and the book provides plenty of factual material to allow students to make up their own mind about the issues.
Average customer rating:
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Coal, Steel, and the Rebirth of Europe, 19451955: The Germans and French from Ruhr Conflict to Economic Community
John Gillingham
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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ASIN: 052152430X |
Book Description
This is the first large-scale historical investigation of the critical first stage of European integration, the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). John Gillingham discusses the thirty year Franco-German struggle for heavy industry mastery in Western Europe, describes the dreams and schemes of Jean Monnet, who designed the heavy industry pool, reveals the American vision that inspired his work, and discloses how his transatlantic partners used their great authority to assure its completion. Gillingham also lays bare the operating mechanisms of the coal-steel pool, showing that contrary to the hopes of Monnet and his supporters, the ECSC restored rather than reformed the European economy, leaving as a legacy not a detrustified industry, but one still dominated by the giant producers of the Ruhr.
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Rebirth of a Nation: Wales 1880-1980 (History of Wales)
Kenneth O. Morgan
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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ASIN: 0198217609 |
Book Description
In Rebirth of a Nation the acclaimed historian Kenneth O. Morgan provides a wide-ranging and comprehensive analysis of modern Welsh history. Taking as its starting-point 1880, the book covers all aspects of the nations history from political, social, economic and religious development to literary, intellectual, and sporting achievement. His absorbing account spans the years of Liberal ascendancy and of national renaissance from 1880 to 1914; the period of economic depression, the rise of the Labour Party, and tension between Welsh and Anglo-Welsh from 1914 to 1945; culminating in a new sense of national identity following the Second World War.
Book Description
The Rosetta Stone is one of the world's great wonders, attracting awed pilgrims by the tens of thousands each year. This book tells the Stone's story, from its discovery by Napoleon's expedition to Egypt to its current--and controversial-- status as the single most visited object on display in the British Museum.
A pharaoh's forgotten decree, cut in granite in three scripts--Egyptian hieroglyphs, Egyptian demotic, and ancient Greek--the Rosetta Stone promised to unlock the door to the language of ancient Egypt and its 3,000 years of civilization, if only it could be deciphered. Capturing the drama of the race to decode this key to the ancient past, John Ray traces the paths pursued by the British polymath Thomas Young and Jean-Francois Champollion, the "father of Egyptology" ultimately credited with deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs. He shows how Champollion "broke the code" and explains more generally how such deciphering is done, as well as its critical role in the history of Egyptology. Concluding with a chapter on the political and cultural controversy surrounding the Stone, the book also includes an appendix with a full translation of the Stone's text.
Rich in anecdote and curious lore, The Rosetta Stone and the Rebirth of Ancient Egypt is a brilliant and frequently amusing guide to one of history's great mysteries and marvels.
Book Description
It was official. In 1991, two months after an abortive coup in August, the KGB was pronounced dead. But was it really? In KGB: Death and Rebirth, Martin Ebon, a writer long engaged in the study of foreign affairs, maintains that the notorious secret police/espionage organization is alive and well. He takes a penetrating look at KGB predecessors, the KGB at the time of its supposed demise, and the subsequent use of segmented intelligence forces such as border patrols and communications and espionage agencies. Ebon points out that after the Ministry of Security resurrected these domestic KGB activities, Yevgeny Primakov's Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (FIS) assumed foreign policy positions not unlike its predecessor's. Even more important, Ebon argues, spin-off secret police organizations--some still bearing the KGB name--have surfaced, wielding significant power in former Soviet republics, from the Ukraine to Kazakhstan, from Latvia to Georgia. How did the new KGB evolve? Who were the individuals responsible for recreating the KGB in its new image? What was the KGB's relationship with Mikhail Gorbachev during his regime? Did Boris Yeltsin plan a Russian KGB, even before the August coup? What has been the role of KGB successor agencies within the independence movements in Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia? How has Yevgeny Primakov influenced foreign intelligence activity? What is the role of the FIS in Iran? What does the future hold? Martin Ebon meets these provocative questions head-on, offering candid, often surprising answers and new information for the curious--or concerned--reader. While the Cold War is over, Ebon cautions, the KGB has retained its basic structure and goals under a new name, and it would be naive to believe otherwise.
Customer Reviews:
Lots of Detail.......2002-04-17
This book was an interesting look at the organization over the past ten years. I think we all have a view of the KGB which was formed during the years of the cold war, a large, well run organization that main times was one step ahead of the U.S. This book details what happened to the KGB after the USSR turned back into Russia and the coup was put down. It details the house cleaning of the top, long time KGB officials that took place after the coup and how that is changing the focus of the organization. It also goes on to detail the new focus of the KGB from 100% focus on the U.S. and NATO to one that also takes into its portfolio internal issue as organized crime and terrorist threats. The author also does remind the reader that even though the relationship between the U.S. and Russia has increasingly become warmer; there is still a high level of focus on the U.S. by the KGB.
Overall this is an interesting book that keeps the espionage junky up to date with what is going on inside the KGB. The book will probably become dated in a few years, but it should be up to date for now. The book is well written and keeps the readers interest through out.
Customer Reviews:
Italian Renaissance.......2002-11-20
I ordered this book for the students of AP European History class at the school. The pictures are vivid, original and very illustrative of the time and place. There is significant variety with maps, sculture, paintings from the time period and photographs of the land today.
The text is well-written, informative, and extensive covering personalities and culture. Original sources, such as letters and books, are used to create the content. However, this is not a book to use as a resource for a scholarly paper. It does include a bibliography, glossary, and picture credits at the end.
It reminded me of the Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness series only written for adults. It has a similar style of picture, boxes of related text, and information.
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