Traces the efforts of two women scholars who recovered what has become the most vital cache of Hebrew manuscripts ever discovered, in an account that explains what the findings reveal about Mediterranean Judaism.

This volume brings together studies by experts in the rabbinic literature of late antiquity and by specialists in the history of the Jews in that period, in order to reveal the value of rabbinic material as historical evidence and the problems and issues which arise in its exploitation for this purpose.

Munich 1919 is a vivid portrayal of the chaos that followed World War I and the collapse of the Munich Council Republic by one of the most perceptive chroniclers of German history. Victor Klemperer provides a moving and thrilling account of what turned out to be a decisive turning point in the fate of a nation, for the revolution of 1918-9 not only produced the first German democracy, it also heralded the horrors to come. With the directness of an educated and independent young man, Klemperer turned his hand to political journalism, writing astute, clever and linguistically brilliant reports in the beleaguered Munich of 1919. He sketched intimate portraits of the people of the hour, including Erich Mühsam, Max Levien and Kurt Eisner, and took the measure of the events around him with a keen eye. These observations are made ever more poignant by the inclusion of passages from his later memoirs. In the midst of increasing persecution under the Nazis he reflected on the fateful year 1919, the growing threat of antisemitism, and the acquaintances he made in the period, some of whom would later abandon him, while others remained loyal. Klemperer's account once again reveals him to be a fearless and deeply humane recorder of German history. Munich 1919 will be essential reading for all those interested in 20th century history, constituting a unique witness to events of the period.

By the time of his untimely death in 1983, Herman Kahn was recognized by both friends and intellectual adversaries as "one of the world's most creative and best minds." The current growing resurgence of interest in Kahn's ideas and intellectual legacy demonstrates the enduring relevance of his work. Yet, in spite of the constant influence of his arguments, there is a shortage of books summarizing Kahn's essential contributions, and thus his work is not as well known as it should be. The Essential Herman Kahn is an attempt to cope with this predicament and offer the public for the first time.

Text: English, Greek, Latin

"Antiquarian, lawyer, and cat lover Nicolas Fabri de Peiresc (1580-1637), was a 'prince' of the Republic of Letters and the most gifted French intellectual in the generation between Montaigne and Descartes. From Peiresc's study in Aix-en-Provence, his insatiable curiosity poured forth in thousands of letters that traveled the Mediterranean, seeking knowledge of matters mundane and exotic--travel times and insurance premiums, rare manuscripts and objects from the Orient. Mining the remarkable 70,000-page archive of this Provençal humanist and polymath, Peter N. Miller recovers a lost Mediterranean world of the early seventeenth century that was dominated by the sea: the ceaseless activity of merchants, customs officials, and ships' captains at the center of Europe's sprawling maritime networks. Peiresc's Mediterranean World reconstructs the web of connections that linked the bustling port city of Marseille to destinations throughout the Western Mediterranean, North Africa, the Levant, and beyond. As Miller also makes clear, Peiresc's mastery of practical details and his collaboration with local traders and fixers as well as scholars, sheds new light on the structure of knowledge-making in the age of Bacon, Galileo, and Rubens. Miller shows that Peiresc's pursuit of Oriental studies, for example, depended crucially on his abilities as a man of action. Exploring the historian's craft today against the backdrop of Peiresc's diverse research activities, Peiresc's Mediterranean World suggests new possibilities for scholarship on the past, but also for the relationship between the writing of history and its readers"--Provided by publisher

Letters, newspaper articles and editorials, and extracts from diaries and autobiographies by free Black northerners from the end of the Revolutionary War to the end of the Civil War.

Examines three medieval Jewish accounts of the First Crusade massacres in the Rhine area: the "Mainz Anonymous, " the "Solomon bar Simson Chronicle, " and the "Eliezer bar Nathan Chronicle." Discerns five voices or perspectives in these narratives due to the fact that the "Solomon bar Simson Chronicle" is a compilation of several prior compositions. Suggests that the narratives were composed in order to provide important time-bound information (the course of events, apology of the Jews - both those who chose martyrdom and those who converted, etc.), as well as to address critical timeless issues (including guidance for the future, theodicy, "Kiddush Hashem, " etc.). Believes that the data provided by the two early narratives - the "Mainz Anonymous" and the Speyer-Worms-Mainz unit of the "Solomon bar Simson Chronicle" - are historically reliable, while the other narratives are less reliable. Concludes that the combination of time-bound and timeless concerns reflects an innovative style of historical writing and new views on the relationship between God, humanity, and history.

Mill workers of the Northeast talk about industrial development, working conditions, and trade unions

Over the last four centuries, historians have increasingly turned to images in their attempts to understand and visualize the past. In this wide-ranging and engrossing book, a distinguished art historian surveys the various ways that they have adopted for making use of this material, and he examines the specific objects that became available to them through excavation, the creation of private collections and public museums, easier means of travel, and the startling displacements brought about by vandalism and art exhibitions. Francis Haskell begins by discussing the antiquarians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who brought to light and interpreted as historical evidence coins, sculptures, paintings discovered in the catacombs beneath Rome and other relics surviving from earlier ages. He explains that, in the eighteenth century, historians gradually began to acknowledge the significance of such visual sources and to draw on them in order to validate and give colour to their narratives or to utilize them as foundation stones for a new branch of learning - the history of culture. Later writers followed the example of Michelet in making inferences from the visual arts to indicate the whole mentality of an age, while (more erratically) others saw in them the harbingers of political, religious or social upheavals. Haskell concludes by discussing those cultural historians of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Burckhardt and Huizinga above all, who did not merely give the visual arts a prominent and necessary place in their interpretations of the past, but in some ways actually interpreted the past through the visual arts.

Here is a concise overview of the historical development and judicial interpretation of the First Amendment religion clauses. It begins with a survey of the history of American religious liberty, goes on to present the views of the Founding Fathers, and then considers the core value of religious liberty and the constitutional purposes that implement that value. the book ends on a practical note by applying these principles to questions of equal access, religious symbolism in public life, and the task of defining religion for constitutional purposes. As the authors note in their introduction, "the historical principles that animate the religion clauses are more than an abstract intellectual exercise. . . . They provide an essential context for guiding the resolution of modern religious liberty issues."

Slavery in the United States clarifies the institution of slavery in its historical context. Filler avoids the all too prevalent literary attitude of either treating slavery as an unmitigated nightmare from the past, or regarding it as a way of life which warmly repaid slave and slaveholder. He does not reduce the issue to one of fact and figures, nor does he inject endless hypotheses and analogues. Rather, this finely etched volume encompasses the human implications of slavery and its practices. It emphasizes the distinguished and disreputable elements on both sides of the slavery relationship, and in every part of the United States. Slavery offers peculiar challenges to the student of American life, past and present. It is unrealistic to avoid the human implications of slavery and its practice. It is equally unhelpful to assume glib and partial viewpoints with respect to so all-embracing a system as slavery became. The cause of progress, no less than social science, is not advanced by indifference to patent facts. The civil libertarian who romanticizes black people indiscriminately, and lumps Jefferson Davis with Simon Legree may win popularity with enthusiasts and ideologues. But they will soon find themselves quaint and outmoded. The author reminds us that “the safest approach to slavery is to determine what the institution meant to the country at large; why it flourished as it did, and how it came to be opposed and overthrown.” The work includes high quality often neglected readings that permit the reader to form his or her own views. It reveals the best writing on all aspects of the slavery issue, as well as analytic summations by contemporary historians and social researchers.

As chairman of the Federal Reserve Board in the seventies, Arthur Burns had a unique view of the Nixon administration. Burns first joined the Nixon administration as an advisor in 1969 and was privy to the dynamics of the president's coterie over the course of six tumultuous years. Now the recently released secret diary of this top-level economist offers a surprisingly candid inside look at Richard Nixon's fall. The diary tracks Burns's growing awareness of Nixon's behind-the-scenes maneuverings and worrisome behavior (such as "insane shouting") and reveals how such things undermined his respect and enthusiasm for the president. Perhaps even more telling, Burns's evaluations of his colleagues provide piercing insights into the president's inner circle, including Henry Kissinger ("a brilliant political analyst, but admittedly ignorant of economics"), George Schultz ("a no less confused amateur economist"), John Connally ("a thoroughly confused politician"), and the "vulgarians" H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman-the only people he thought Nixon felt relaxed around. The Burns diary also offers rare and telling glimpses into the era's economy--particularly an account of how Nixon exerted political pressure to shape monetary policies that helped to fuel the stagflation of the 1970s. The administration sought to close the so-called gold window, an approximate valuation of dollars with gold bullion, by floating the dollar, and the consensus over many years has been that Nixon himself arranged this-speculation now confirmed by Burns's diary. It also underscores the growing pressure Burns felt to serve the needs of Nixon's reelection bid rather than the economic welfare of the nation. Sequestered for decades and unavailable until 2008, this document reveals an honest and relatively apolitical man surrounded by partisans in top administrative positions who were dishonest, inept-or both. "The President has many shortcomings," wrote Burns. "He has few convictions, but now and then he gets into a euphoric mood where he wants to persuade himself that he's a statesman. But his sycophantic advisers cannot even recognize that." Deftly annotated by distinguished historian Robert Ferrell, who provides effective historical context and perspective, the Burns diary is a potent-and poignant-testament to the Machiavellian and often Byzantine world of American presidential politics.

Drawing from a broad range of articles, speeches, short stories, pamphlets, sermons, debates, laws, public statements, Supreme Court decisions and conventions, this documentary history demonstrates the persistence of a humanist, if not an anti-racist, pulse in American society in the face of discriminatory government policy and prevalent anti-Asian ideology and treatment. Focusing on support for the rights of Japanese and Chinese immigrants and their descendants, the book traces a 130-year period, culminating with the governmental redress for survivors of the Japanese evacuation and internment during WWII. Foner and Rosenberg highlight expressions from the clergy, the labor movement, the abolitionists, and public figures such as Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, Frederick Douglass, Mark Twain, John Stuart Mill, Norman Thomas and Carey McWilliams. It includes material never before published showing Black support for Asian rights and demonstrates the consistency of the Industrial Worker of the World's solidarity with Chinese and Japanese-American workers. It is also the first work to give serious treatment to clergymen's efforts against anti-Asian discrimination. After the introduction, Foner discusses law and dissent. The next four sections are devoted to statements by public figures, the views of the clergy, the labor movement and African-Americans. The final section covers relocation and protest. The book provides a valuable contribution to the debates on American dissent in general and against racism in particular, the meaning of American nationality, the criminality of the evacuation and internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II and the immigration policies of the United States government.