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Spanning six centuries of political thought in European history, this book puts the ideas of thinkers from Christine de Pizan to Simone de Beauvoir in the broader contexts of their time. Conventional histories of political thought have sometimes relegated feminist thinking to the footnotes. This text considers how feminism is central to key notions of modern political discourse such as autonomy, liberty and equality, and feminist discussions of morality have been linked to major currents in political thought such as republicanism, civic humanism and romanticism. This collection of essays aims to show that feminism is not a variant of modern radical discourse but is a mode of analyzing the issues of authority, power and virtue that have been at the heart of European political thought from the Middle Ages.

Beginning with the merger of Roman, Christian, and Germanic cultures, this history of the Middle Ages covers a vast array of subjects including Byzantium and the Islamic world, feudalism, Church reform, architecture, the Crusades, courtly love, the Magna Carta, and the Hundred Years' War. Author Barbara A. Hanawalt uses a lively and anecdotal writing style to bring history alive for young readers. She delves into the telling details that young adults find fascinating such as the different kinds of armor and weapons used by knights on horseback and the terrifying spread of the Black Death through Europe in the 14th century. Lavishly illustrated with art, photographs, documents, artifacts, and maps, The Middle Ages also includes an index and suggestions for further reading.

The European Middle Ages have recently attracted the attention of international relations (IR) scholars as a "testing-ground" for established IR theories. Neorealists, historicizing neorealists, and constructivists dispute the meanings of medieval anarchy and hierarchy in the absence of sovereignty. On the basis of a detailed critique of these approaches, I offer a historically informed and theoretically controlled interpretation of medieval geopolitics revolving around contested social property relations. My interpretation is meta-theoretically guided by dialectical principles. Lordships are the constitutive units of medieval authority, combining economic and political powers and assigning contradictory forms of rationality to their major agents, lords, and peasants. Interlordly competition over land and labor translates directly into distinct forms of geopolitical relations, generating a culture of war. Against this background, I clarify the specific meanings of the medieval "state," territoriality, frontiers, peace, war, anarchy, and hierarchy before drawing out the wider implications of changing social property forms for IR theory.

Die Strukturen und geopolitischen Beziehungen des europäischen Mittelalters dienen als Grundlage für die heutige Theorie der internationalen Beziehungen.Vielfach haben Neorealisten und Konstruktivisten über die Bedeutung mittelalterlicher Anarchie und Hierarchie diskutiert, die ohne das Vorhandensein von Souveränität existierten.Der Autor spezifiziert die Bedeutung des mittelalterlichen Staates, der Territorität, Grenze, Krieg, Anarchie und Hierarchie und sucht nach Implikationen für die Therorie der internationalen Beziehungen (SWP-Drh)