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This volume explores democracy in the 20th century, examining the triumph, crises, recovery, and resilience of democracy and its associated cultures in this period. From 1920 democracy became the hegemonic discourse in political cultures, to the extent that even its enemies claimed its legacy. The end of empires ushered in an unprecedented globalization of democratic aspirations. Barriers of gender and race were gradually removed, and greater equality gave new meaning to citizenship. Yet, already in 1922 democracy was on its back foot with the rise of fascism. Even after the latter s defeat in 1945, liberal democracy died wherever communist democracy triumphed. The situation changed again from 1989, but democratic hubris was then checked by the rise of a new enemy-populism. The paradox is that the century of democracy s triumph was also that of its near final defeat, while the peace and stability that everybody desired and many expected as the outcome of the extension of democracy were, at best, intermittent and geographically limited. Each chapter takes a different theme as its focus: sovereignty; liberty and the rule of law; the common good ; economic and social democracy; religion and the principles of political obligation; citizenship and gender; ethnicity, race, and nationalism; democratic crises, revolutions, and civil resistance; international relations; and democratic politics beyond the polis. These ten different approaches to democracy since 1920 offer a global, synoptic, and probing exploration of the subject

A Cultural History of Western Empires in the Modern Age covers the period from 1918 to the present. Through the lens of the political and international events shaping the period, the introduction traces the gradual demise of the cultural importance of European empires and the emergence of the United States as the predominant cultural model. The following eight chapters of the volume, authored by a diverse range of experts, highlight different aspects of this cultural shift while indicating the historiographical controversies and conceptual developments that shaped the century-long evolution related to each of the specific topics.This richly-illustrated and accessible volume provides deep historical context to the rise of the US as a major cultural force in the modern era. In so doing, it gives the reader a backdrop to the shift of Western empire from the European model of 18th and 19th century imperialism, to the emergence of the US as a cultural hegemon. A feature of contemporary geopolitics that continues to play a key role in the dynamics of cultural exchange and influence playing out on the world stage today.This is volume 6 in the Cultural History of Western Empires set

"A Cultural History of the Home provides a comprehensive survey of the domestic space from ancient times to the present. Spanning 2800 years, the six volumes explore how different cultures and societies have established, developed and used the home. It reveals a great deal about how people have lived day-to-day in a range of regions and epochs by providing a historical focus on the location in which they will have spent much of their time: the domestic space. 1. A Cultural History of the Home in Antiquity (800 BCE - 800 CE) 2. A Cultural History of the Home in the Medieval Age (800 - 1450) 3. A Cultural History of the Home in the Renaissance (1450 - 1648) 4. A Cultural History of the Home in the Age of Enlightenment (1648 - 1815) 5. A Cultural History of the Home in the Age of Empire (1815 - 1920) 6. A Cultural History of the Home in the Modern Age (1920 - present) Each volume discusses the same themes in its chapters: 1. The Meaning of the Home 2. Family and Household 3. The House 4. Furniture and Furnishings 5. Home and Work 6. Gender and Home 7. Hospitality and Home 8. Religion and Home This structure offers readers a broad overview of a period within each volume or the opportunity to follow a theme through history by reading the relevant chapter across volumes. Generously illustrated, the full six-volume set combines to present the most detailed survey available on the home in history"--

A review essay on Modris Eksteins, Rites of Spring: The Great War at the Birth of the Modern Age (New York & London: Doubleday, 1990). Ecksteins studies how collective memories & feelings of past events shape present actions & acknowledged the connection between the arts & politics. Eksteins's contention that turn-of-the-century Germany represented the ideal modernist nation because it attempted to fashion a national identity that went beyond German history is explored. In addition, Eksteins's comparison of Germans' public celebrations in Berlin during the initial stages of WWI to the opening of Serge Diaghilev's ballet, The Rite of Spring, is discussed to illustrate how the German citizenry associated war conduct with liberation. It is contended that Eksteins's discussion of Charles Lindbergh's 1927 flight across the Atlantic Ocean aptly demonstrates the decreased relevance that Europeans attached to history during the early 20th century. Moreover, Eksteins's contention that the condition of homelessness among Germans facilitated the rise of Nazism & assertion that Germans were attracted to, rather than forced into, the Nazi movement are examined. The modernist aspects of the Nazi movement are discussed, & the power of myth & imagination to shape present action is acknowledged. J. W. Parker