Suchergebnisse

"This book provides a historical overview of socialism as a modern political religion. Taking a global history approach, the author explores the varieties of the socialist experience, including Marxism, anarchism, Soviet communism, German national socialism, Maoism, Israeli kibbutzim, Tanzanian ujamaa, and the cultural woke left in the West"--

This paper explores the life of Joseph Grigulevich (1913–1988), a famous early Soviet illegal intelligence operative, who conducted various "special tasks" on behalf of Stalin's foreign espionage network. These included the murder of dissident Spanish communist Andreas Nin (1938), a participation in the assassination of Leon Trotsky (1940), posing as a Costa Rican ambassador (1949–1952), and an abortive project to assassinate Joseph Bros Tito (1952). In contrast to conventional espionage studies that are usually informed by diplomatic, political, and military history approaches, I employ a cultural history angle. First, the paper examines the formation of Grigulevich's communist and espionage identity against his background as a cosmopolitan Jewish "other" from the interwar Polish-Lithuanian realm. Second, it explores his role in the production and invention of intelligence knowledge, which he later used to jump start his second career as a prominent Soviet humanities scholar and a bestselling writer of revolutionary non-fiction.

In the English language, the word Nazi acquired a very broad meaning. Like the term fascist, its linguistic twin expression, it moved away from its original context and entered the mainstream. Now it stays there as a loaded political smear, which people on both the left and the right use when they need to put down their opponents. The mistaken notion of Hitler's regime as an 'oligarchy,' which allegedly imposed itself on the innocent 'virgin' populace and which oppressed the majority of Germans, still resonates with many writers of popular literature both on the left and on the right. Recent scholarship shows that Hitler's regime was in fact both nationalist and socialist. Strictly speaking, the message of National Socialism was not radically different from that of other forms of egalitarianism and socialism: strong antibourgeois sentiments expressed through a radical empowerment of a selected group of people at the expense of other groups. Adapted from the source document.

Once upon a time, before Hitler, Stalin, FDR, Juan Peron, and even before Mussolini and Lenin came on the world scene, there lived a man named Dr. Karl Lueger (1844-1910), who was protector of the common man, a proponent of social justice, and the mayor of Vienna from 1897 to 1910. Not simply just a mayor, Lueger was a symbolic figure -- a prototype of the twentieth-century populist politician who passionately fought for the "little people" and mastered the arts of making propaganda, courting nationalism, and promoting the public welfare. Before the author came to Vienna in September 2011 -- for a conference on European identity no less -- he knew nothing about this multifaceted character. As a matter of fact, his introduction to the famous mayor happened merely by chance. Adapted from the source document.

A review essay on a book by Ricardo Duchesne, The Uniqueness of Western Civilization (Leiden: Brill, 2011).

'Russia's Provinces: Authoritarian Transformation versus Local Autonomy' by Peter Kirkow is reviewed.

'Raspad Sovetskogo Soiuza: Etnopoliticheskii Analyz' ('The Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Ethnopolitical Analysis') by Sergei V. Cheshko.

For those historians and anthropologists who study shamanism, Altai represents the 'motherland' of this institution. For their inspirations scholars who want to explore 'classical' cases of shamanism usually turn to this area, located in south-western Siberia, at the intersection of Russian, Mongolian and Chinese borders. At the same time, many of these scholars, who are concerned with a quest for 'ideal' and 'traditionalist' shamanism, ignore almost one-hundred years of contacts between native Altaians and the Russian Orthodox mission that considerably affected indigenous culture and ideology. For instance, some Russian anthropologists have stressed that despite Christian activities, natives still clung to their traditional beliefs at the turn of the twentieth century. N.A. Alekseev emphasised the superficial character of native Christianization and stressed the persistence of indigenous religion. In his recent work, Potapov, another prominent Altaian scholar, similarly concluded:

Intro -- Contents -- 1. Enlightenment and Romantic Writers Look at Shamans -- 2. From Siberia to North America: Regionalists, Anthropologists, and Exiled Ethnographers -- 3. Neurotics to Tribal Psychoanalysts: Shamans through the Eyes of Psychology -- 4. Power Plants: Psychedelic Culture Meets Tribal Spirituality -- 5. Shamanism Goes Global: Mircea Eliade and Carlos Castaneda -- 6. Anthropology, Castaneda's Healing Fiction, and Neo-shamanism Print Culture -- 7. Toward the Ancient Future: Shamanism in the Modern West -- 8. Sources of Inspiration: From Native Americana to European Pagan Folklore -- 9. Back to Siberia: Adventures of the Metaphor in Its Motherland -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Bibliographical Essay -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z.

This proceedings book addresses the main issues of contemporary political geography and international relations, providing a platform for discussion and collaboration of experts in the fields of Political Geography, Geopolitics, International Relations, etc. Participants from all over the world consider the controversies and challenges posed by globalization, focusing, in particular, on the ideologies of globalization and regionalism, migration crises, prevention of ethnic conflicts, and measures to promote sustainable development. The content of the book may be interesting to expert community, academics and popular audience.