Suchergebnisse

This little book will be as offensive to some Christian and Jewish believers as it certainly will be to determined secularists. That, plus a demanding style of presentation, will keep Pannenberg's Human Nature, Election, and History (Westminster; 116 pp.; $4.95) off anybody's best seller list, but that may be just as well. Arguments that relentlessly probe first principles and aim to upset our most deeply rooted assumptions need to be conditioned, as it were, in smaller and more disciplined discussion before they are readied for popular dissemination. Such a statement may seem frightfully elitist, but it would in no way embarrass Wolfhart Pannenberg.

Gender is a good place from which to start reflections on European history: gender history deliberately transcends borders and, at the same time, demonstrates the difficulties of writing European, or transnational, history. Focusing on recent syntheses of modern European history, both general works and those specifically devoted to gender, the article asks what kind of Europe emerges from the encounter between gender and history. It suggests that the writing of European history includes either Eastern Europe (and, sometimes, the Ottoman Empire) or a gender perspective, but seldom both. Thus, the projects of integrating a European dimension into gender history and gender into European history remain unfinished. The result is a history of a rather 'small Europe'.

"This book provides a multinational history of German reunification based on empirical work by leading scholars. The unification of Germany in 1989-90 was one of the most unexpected and momentous events of the twentieth century. Embedded as it was within the wider process of the end of the Cold War, it contributed decisively to the dramatic changes that occurred in the early years of the last decade of the century: the end of the division of Europe, the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the origins of NATO's eastward expansion and, not least, the creation of the European Union. Based on the wealth of evidence that has become available from many countries involved in that process, while at the same time relying on the most recent historiography, it takes into account the complex interaction of international actors and processes that made it possible and were instrumental in shaping German unification in the pivotal years 1989-90. The volume brings together renowned international scholars whose recent works, based on their research in multiple languages and sources, have contributed decisively to the international history of German unification and the end of the Cold War. The resulting volume presents an important contribution to our knowledge and understanding of a significant chapter in recent international history. This book will be of much interest to students of German politics, Cold war history, international history and IR in general."--Provided by publisher

Throughout Canadian history, conflict has been a catalyst of change and a destroyer of worlds. War Art in Canada explores the universal theme of war through the country's visual and cultural past. Weaving together artworks and stories to inform and enlighten us, author Laura Brandon navigates both peaceful and brutal subject matter. By presenting the dynamic and, at times, surprising visual legacies of conflict, she encourages readers to question assumptions about our country's military past. The art created from conflict is exceptional in its diversity, and Brandon has assembled an arsenal of conflict-related cultural media, including posters, sketches, photographs, films, and sculptures. This comprehensive study showcases a stunning range of creators, such as A.Y. Jackson, Alex Colville, and Rebecca Belmore, and includes Indigenous war art practices, passed down through generations in what we now call Canada. Ultimately, it provides new insights into our country's deep and often disturbing relationship with combat

Concern with authority is as old as human history itself. Eve's sin was to challenge the authority of God by disobeying his rule. Frank Furedi explores how authority was contested in ancient Greece and given a powerful meaning in Imperial Rome. Debates about religious and secular authority dominated Europe through the Middle Ages and the Reformation. The modern world attempted to develop new foundations for authority – democratic consent, public opinion, science – yet Furedi shows that this problem has remained unresolved, arguing that today the authority of authority is questioned. This historical sociology of authority seeks to explain how the contemporary problems of mistrust and the loss of legitimacy of many institutions are informed by the previous attempts to solve the problem of authority. It argues that the key pioneers of the social sciences (Marx, Durkheim, Simmel, Tonnies and especially Weber) regarded this question as one of the principal challenges facing society

This book is a comprehensive history of slavery in Africa from the earliest times to the end of the twentieth century, when slavery in most parts of the continent ceased to exist. It connects the emergence and consolidation of slavery to specific historical forces both internal and external to the African continent. Sean Stilwell pays special attention to the development of settled agriculture, the invention of kinship, 'big men' and centralized states, the role of African economic production and exchange, the interaction of local structures of dependence with the external slave trades (transatlantic, trans-Saharan, Indian Ocean), and the impact of colonialism on slavery in the twentieth century. He also provides an introduction to the central debates that have shaped current understanding of slavery in Africa. The book examines different forms of slavery that developed over time in Africa and introduces readers to the lives, work, and struggles of slaves themselves