More than ever before, our conflict-ridden, drifting planet needs the qualities that Europe, unique among the continents, has developed in more than two millennia of history: its self-criticism, its urge to self-transcendence, exploration and experiment, its conviction that alternative and better forms of human togetherness can be achieved, as well as its dedication to the cause of seeking and promoting this improvement in practice. But today Europe is unsure of itself and its place in a fast-changing world; it is devoid of vision, limited in resources and lacking the will to pursue its vocation. It is also struggling with the consequences of a one-sided process of globalization which is divorcing power from politics, inciting the shift from the social state to security-focused governance and piling up the casualties of uncontrolled market expansion and the ethically blind commercialization of human life. Bauman argues that despite the odds Europe still has much to offer in dealing with the great challenges that face us in the twenty-first century. Through sharing its own hard-won historical lessons, Europe can play a vital role in moving from the Hobbesian-like world in which we find ourselves today towards the kind of peaceful unification of humanity that was once envisioned by Kant.

The resurgence of Palestinian nationalism in the wake of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war tended to overshadow the fact that Palestinian national consciousness is not a new phenomenon, but traces its origins back to the time when the first stirrings of nationalism were being felt in many parts of the under-developed world. This work, first published in 1974, is based on both Arabic and Hebrew primary sources as well as English and French official and unofficial documents, and was the first detailed study of the infancy period of Palestinian nationalism. The book begins by establishing the position of Palestine and Jerusalem in Islamic history and their significance within the concepts of Islam, and outlines the social and political features of the Palestinian population at the beginning of the First World War. The author then charts in detail the development of Palestinian nationalism over the decade after the War. Two major forces influenced this development and reacted with it: Zionism, with its ambitious schemes for settling Jews in Palestine and creating a National Home for them there, and Arab nationalism on a wider scale, which was emerging spontaneously with the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and the spreading of ideas of self-determination. The growing threat posed by Zionism awoke the Palestinian population to the need for organization and the establishment of their own identity to oppose it, while the focus of their national aspirations widened or narrowed according to the ability which they felt at any given time to confront Zionism and achieve self-expression within a Palestinian rather than an all-Syrian national framework. The events of these turbulent years - the confrontations with the British, delegations, boycotts, proposals and rejections, the emergence of al-Hajj Amin al-Husayni, the Wailing Wall conflict and its repercussions - are all described within the context of these wider considerations, which also include Britain's own role as holder of the Mandate over Palestine.

This new study of Tudor international relations is the first in nearly thirty years. Adopting a fresh approach to the subject, this lively collection presents the work of a team of established and younger scholars who discuss how the Tudor monarchs made sense of the world beyond England's shores. Taking account of recent developments in cultural, gender and institutional history, the contributors analyse the important changes and continuities in England's foreign policy during the Tudor age. Tudor England and its Neighbours addresses key questions such as: - Did Henry VII break with the past by pursuing peace with France? - What was the impact of the break with Rome and the introduction of Protestantism on England's relations with other countries? - Was war between Elizabethan England and Spain inevitable? Using new evidence and reinterpreting traditional narratives, these essays illuminate the complexities and the sometimes surprising subtleties of England's international relations between 1485 and 1603.

In the cauldron of Germany in the 1930s, two men from different worlds become key actors in the turbulent history of their time. Herschel Grynszpan, an undocumented Jewish adolescent living in Paris, wants to be a champion of his suffering people. Max Schmeling, a world champion boxer, becomes a reluctant symbol of the Third Reich. Their lives intertwine without touching, eventually converging in the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen. Dark haired, slight, and with deep-set, haunted eyes, Herschel receives a postcard from his parents--recently taken from their Hanover flat, put on a train, and dumped, with 12 thousand others, on the Polish border. Enraged, Herschel buys a gun and kills a minor German official in the German Embassy. The repercussions of this act trigger Kristallnacht, the opening curtain to the tragedy of the Holocaust. Meanwhile, Max, as a result of his victory over the then-"invincible" Joe Louis in 1936, has become a poster boy for the Nazis. He and his movie-star wife, Anny Ondra, are feted by the regime--tea with Hitler, a passage on the airship Hindenburg--until his brutal two-minute beating in the rematch with Louis less than two years later. His story reaches a climax during Kristalnacht, where the champion performs an act of quiet heroism. Champion tells a story of tragedy and humanity as World War II unfolds. Set against a backdrop of racism, war, and displacement, it shines a light on those times as it holds a mirror to our own.

Perturbed by stagflation? In pain from recession? Sick with worry about whether the world economy can survive? You've gone to your corner economist and you couldn't understand the cure? Finally! An amusing, soundly researched, and highly accessible book that tells you everything you want to know about capitalism- the system its greatest theorists though could never survive.In this fair, concise, and good-humoured book, Robert Lekachman, Distinguished Professor of Economics at the City University of New York, assesses capitalism for what it's supposed to do deliver the goods. He starts by questioning the United States, where capitalism seems as natural as breathing and the free market is as much a byword as Mom's apple pie. But what are the realities? To understand them, he wittily documents capitalism's history from Adam Smith and Karl Marx to late last night; from mercantilism to monetarism, with explanations in between of investment and money, business cycles, the postwar boom, and the present recession.No sermons are preached. Readers must consider for themselves the dilemma that confronts us the future of capitalism and its effect on the world.

This skillfully written text presents the full sweep of Ottoman history from its beginnings on the Byzantine frontier in about 1300, through its development as an empire, to its late eighteenth-century confrontation with a rapidly modernizing Europe. Itzkowitz delineates the fundamental institutions of the Ottoman state, the major divisions within the society, and the basic ideas on government and social structure. Throughout, Itzkowitz emphasizes the Ottomans' own conception of their historical experience, and in so doing penetrates the surface view provided by the insights of Western observers of the Ottoman world to the core of Ottoman existence.

From the depression of the 1890s through World War I, construction tradesman held an important place in San Francisco's economic, political, and social life. Michael Kazin's award-winning study delves into how the city’s Building Trades Council (BTC) created, accumulated, used, and lost their power. He traces the rise of the BTC into a force that helped govern San Francisco, controlled its potential progress, and articulated an ideology that made sense of the changes sweeping the West and the country. Believing themselves the equals of officeholders and corporate managers, these working and retired craftsmen pursued and protected their own power while challenging conservatives and urban elites for the right to govern. What emerges is a long-overdue look at building trades as a force in labor history within the dramatic story of how the city's 25,000 building workers exercised power on the job site and within the halls of government, until the forces of reaction all but destroyed the BTC.

Why Rome Fell: Decline and Fall, or Drift and Change? discusses the causes of the fall of the Roman Empire in the West in the context of concepts of monarchy, power structure, social mobility, religion, and the aristocratic ethos. Dr. Michael Arnheim, an accomplished scholar of Roman history, delivers compelling comparisons of the later Roman Empire with the Principate and the Byzantine Empire. Unlike (in Gibbon's phrase) "the indissoluble union and easy obedience that pervaded the government of Augustus and the Antonines," the later Roman Empire is revealed in this book as a fractured society rent by divided loyalties ; Why Rome Fell includes coverage of the transition from the ancient to the medieval world, exploring the monarchy, and the relationship with the aristocracy of Diocletian, by contrast with that of Constantine and his successors. It also discusses Constantine's role in the rise of Christianity, together with the general significance of religion and religious persecution. There are also expansive treatments of conflicting theories, including Gibbon's "decline and fall," the Pirenne thesis, the malaria hypothesis, and the approach of the school of "late antiquity." The book also explores the criteria for optimal professional history writing, with comparative case studies of a number of societies spanning three thousand years. --Book Jacket

Intimate, humorous, and refreshingly candid, this extraordinary work is a remarkable record—in both words and images—of Jewish life in a Polish town before World War II as seen through the eyes of an inquisitive boy. Mayer Kirshenblatt, who was born in 1916 and left Poland for Canada in 1934, taught himself to paint at age 73. Since then, he has made it his mission to remember the world of his childhood in living color, "lest future generations know more about how Jews died than how they lived." This volume presents his lively paintings woven together with a marvelous narrative created from interviews that took place over forty years between Mayer and his daughter, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett. Together, father and daughter draw readers into a lost world—we roam the streets and courtyards of the town of Apt, witness details of daily life, and meet those who lived and worked there: the pregnant hunchback, who stood under the wedding canopy just hours before giving birth; the khayder teacher caught in bed with the drummer's wife; the cobbler's son, who was dressed in white pajamas all his life to fool the angel of death; the corpse that was shaved; and the couple who held a "black wedding" in the cemetery during a cholera epidemic. This moving collaboration—a unique blend of memoir, oral history, and artistic interpretation—is at once a labor of love, a tribute to a distinctive imagination, and a brilliant portrait of life in one Jewish home town. Copub: The Judah L. Magnes Museum

Marty Glickman, the incomparable sportscaster and Olympian athlete, writes of his five decades in sports. And what a career it was! At the heart of his autobiography is the notorious incident at the 1936 "Nazi Olympics" in Berlin. Glickman and Sam Stoller, the only Jews on the American track and field team, were dropped from the 400-meter relay team. More than any other event that would shape his life, this would be a defining moment for Glickman, one that would propel him into one of the richest and longest career in sports broadcasting history. In The Fastest Kid on the Block, Glickman recounts his beginnings as an athlete in Brooklyn and his early years at Syracuse University. After his devastating experience at the Olympics, he began his broadcasting career. As one of the best-known voices of New York City sports, he announced many of the most exciting games in sports history, including baseball, hockey, football, wrestling, and basketball. Glickman was actively involved with, and now brings to life, the most influential teams and personalities in the sports world, including the New York Knicks, the New York Giants, Red Auerbach, Joe Namath, Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Bradley, Bud Collins, and Mike Emrick, to name just a few. This spirited autobiography concludes with Glickman's trenchant observations about his fellow sports broadcasters, the present-day Olympics, and his own tips on how to break into the competitive, wonderful world of sports broadcasting.

From Confucian China to the present day, warriors have understood that combat is an art, one requiring sharp, flexible minds capable of adapting quickly to constantly shifting situations. In a survey that looks widely across history and cultures, the theories of some of the finest thinkers and strategists unfold, illuminating the development of military thought. The story begins with ancient Chinese tacticians, especially Sun Tzu, who was among the first to compose written texts on how to wage war. It then proceeds to the age of classical antiquity, which saw the creation of many unsurpassed works on military history: to Byzantine and medieval Western thought; to the years between 1500 and the end of the Seven Years' War, when Machiavelli wrote; and then to some of the true greats like Clausewitz. We head into the modern age with a look at the 19th century, naval warfare, the two World Wars, nuclear strategy, and guerrilla insurrections. 224 pages, 70 color illus., 80 b/w illus., 7 3/4 x 10 3/8.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." --George Santayana We need only to look back to Rwanda, and now to Darfur, to see that once again we are living the worst of times. Who better to guide our understanding and give us hope than Martin Gray--a man who survived the worst of times, flourished, and still managed to find joy in living? Martin has come full circle since his boyhood world was turned upside down by the German invasion of Poland in 1939. Overnight, the teenage Martin and his family were immersed in the horrors of the Holocaust and held captive in the Warsaw Ghetto. It was a nightmare of brutality, starvation, and death. Martin became a clever smuggler to help his family survive--until the "butchers" of Treblinka took his mother and brothers. Against impossible odds, Martin survived and returned to fight in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. As the Nazis incinerated the ghetto, he escaped to fight with the partisans, and then the Red Army. After the war, Martin made his way to New York. The cunning and skills he developed during the war enabled him to learn the language and create a successful business. At 35, he retired to France with a fortune and a beautiful Dutch wife, starting a family and living in happiness and peace. But his world was shattered once again by a forest fire that engulfed his fleeing family. In a tragic repeat of history, Martin alone survived. Martin Gray's past could be our future if we don't heed his call to be the change. In this 35th anniversary expanded edition of For Those I Loved, a book beloved by millions of readers worldwide, Martin reminds us that the past is connected to the present. Only we can ensure that history is not repeated.

From the perspective of Western modernity, humanity inhabits a disenchanted cosmos. Gods, spirits, and ancestors have left us for a transcendent beyond, no longer living in our midst and being involved in all matters of everyday life from the trivial to the dire. Yet the vast majority of cultures throughout human history treat spirits as very real persons, members of a cosmic society who interact with humans and control their fate. In most cultures, even today, people are but a small part of an enchanted universe misconstrued by the transcendent categories of “religion” and the “supernatural.” The New Science of the Enchanted Universe shows how anthropologists and other social scientists must rethink these cultures of immanence and study them by their own lights. In this, his last, revelatory book, Marshall Sahlins announces a new method and sets an exciting agenda for the field. He takes readers around the world, from Inuit of the Arctic Circle to pastoral Dinka of East Africa, from Araweté swidden gardeners of Amazonia to Trobriand Island horticulturalists. In the process, Sahlins sheds new light on classical and contemporary ethnographies that describe these cultures of immanence and reveals how even the apparently mundane, all-too-human spheres of “economics” and “politics” emerge as people negotiate with, and ultimately usurp, the powers of the gods.

With Three New Appendices. Few Jewish names in the history of Europe have attracted more fame, more conspiracy theories, rumors, and mystery than the name Rothschild. This biography, written by a leading Jewish historian, pulls no punches in telling the true story of the banking dynasty, once known as the "financiers of nations." Cutting through all the myths and exaggeration which have surrounded the Rothschilds, Five Men of Frankfort reveals how the four Rothschild sons spread throughout Europe-to London, Paris, Vienna, and Naples, to set up a banking network which inaugurated the system of moving money internationally through simultaneous deposits and withdrawals. British indebtedness to the Rothschilds for their help in defeating Napoleon was then exploited by getting the British government to persuade the other nations of Europe-including the Austrian, Prussian, and Russian governments-to start using the Rothschilds as bankers and as the providers of their national loans and debt. Although this book ends its narrative at the beginning of the nineteenth century, this new edition has three new appendices which reveal the full extent of the Rothschild business empire to the present day. These appendices reveal in an astonishing amount of detail how this Jewish family from Frankfort ended up loaning money to governments on five continents, and their role in modern-day financial transactions across the world. This book strips away the myths which surround the Rothschilds, and provides a sober assessment of why this banking house has become the foremost subject of conspiracy theories around the globe.

"A probing look at one of the most incendiary subjects of our time--the relationship between the United States and Israel. There has been more than half a century of raging conflict between Jews and Arabs--a violent, costly struggle that has had catastrophic repercussions in a critical region of the world. In Genesis, John B. Judis argues that, while Israelis and Palestinians must shoulder much of the blame, the United States has been the principal power outside the region since the end of World War II and as such must account for its repeated failed efforts to resolve this enduring strife. The fatal flaw in American policy, Judis shows, can be traced back to the Truman years. What happened between 1945 and 1949 sealed the fate of the Middle East for the remainder of the century. As a result, understanding that period holds the key to explaining almost everything that follows--right down to George W. Bush's unsuccessful and ill-conceived effort to win peace through holding elections among the Palestinians, and Barack Obama's failed attempt to bring both parties to the negotiating table. A provocative narrative history animated by a strong analytical and moral perspective, and peopled by colorful and outsized personalities, Genesis offers a fresh look at these critical postwar years, arguing that if we can understand how this stalemate originated, we will be better positioned to help end it"--

Following the crushing defeat to Seattle in the 1995 playoffs, the Yankees replaced Buck Showalter with Joe Torre as manager and sparked a championship run that would produce four World Series titles in five years. Teeming with revelations and glorious memories, Birth of a Dynasty celebrates the unforgettable 1996 Yankees season: the season that began one of the most respected team dynasties in sports history. Veteran New York Post columnist Joel Sherman, who has spent more time with the Bronx Bombers in the past 15 years than any other writer, draws on hundreds of interviews and years of on-the-spot reporting to re-create one of the Yankees' greatest years.

Why religion must be separated from politics if democracy is to thrive around the world For eight years the president of the United States was a born-again Christian, backed by well-organized evangelicals who often seemed intent on erasing the church-state divide. In Europe, the increasing number of radicalized Muslims is creating widespread fear that Islam is undermining Western-style liberal democracy. And even in polytheistic Asia, the development of democracy has been hindered in some countries, particularly China, by a long history in which religion was tightly linked to the state. Ian Buruma is the first writer to provide a sharp-eyed look at the tensions between religion and politics on three continents. Drawing on many contemporary and historical examples, he argues that the violent passions inspired by religion must be tamed in order to make democracy work. Comparing the United States and Europe, Buruma asks why so many Americans―and so few Europeans―see religion as a help to democracy. Turning to China and Japan, he disputes the notion that only monotheistic religions pose problems for secular politics. Finally, he reconsiders the story of radical Islam in contemporary Europe, from the case of Salman Rushdie to the murder of Theo van Gogh. Sparing no one, Buruma exposes the follies of the current culture war between defenders of "Western values" and "multiculturalists," and explains that the creation of a democratic European Islam is not only possible, but necessary. Presenting a challenge to dogmatic believers and dogmatic secularists alike, Taming the Gods powerfully argues that religion and democracy can be compatible―but only if religious and secular authorities are kept firmly apart.

Based on years of research and thousands of notes left by John Bennett, Mr. Skylark is an unusually intimate biography of a pivotal figure in the Charleston Renaissance, the brief period between the two World Wars that first witnessed many of the cultural and artistic changes soon to sweep the South. The book not only examines Bennett's life but also reveals the rich tapestry of the literary and social history of Charleston. An outsider who became an insider by marrying into the local aristocracy, Bennett was perfectly placed to observe social and artistic change and to prompt it. He published the first scholarly treatise on Gullah, the language of the coastal Southern blacks, and collected African American spirituals and tales. But after breaking several racial taboos of the time, he was publicly condemned, and it was only through mentoring such writers as Hervey Allen and DuBose Heyward that he was eventually welcomed back into the heart of the city. Today, the Charleston aesthetic, which mourned the loss of beauty in a modernizing South, is often overlooked in the study of Southern literature, but Bennett, through his extensive private correspondence and notes, offers insight into the forces that shaped this cultural movement. Restored to us in all his complexity and humor, Bennett is important for his own accomplishments, but also for providing a lens through which to view southern literary history and the complexities of a changing South.

In The End of Judaism, Auschwitz survivor Hajo G. Meyer, a Dutch national of German-Jewish origin, expresses in impassioned terms his dismay at what he sees as the moral collapse of contemporary Israeli society and the worldwide Jewish community as a whole. Meyer is a member of "A Different Jewish Voice," a Dutch-based, secular Jewish movement that dares to openly criticize Israel's policies toward the Palestinians.In his observations, deeply colored by his personal experiences during the Holocaust, Meyer compares Israel's current policies with the early stages of the Nazis' persecution of the German Jews. He clearly explains that he is in no way seeking to draw a parallel between the current policies of Israel and the Nazis' endgame, which resulted in the mass murder of six million innocent people. What he is trying to do is simply point out the slippery slope that eventually led to this catastrophe, and the necessity of foreseeing the possible consequences of a policy that oppresses and marginalizes the Palestinians in their own homeland.As a result of his experiences in Auschwitz, Hajo Meyer claims to have learned one fundamental lesson: that his moral duty as a human being was to never become like his oppressors. The End of Judaism is the outcry of a dissident Jew who is not afraid of standing up to entrenched ways of thinking about history, and particularly about the Palestinian conflict which is one of the most intractable social and political problems in the world today.

Like Bogey and Bacall, Santa Catalina Island and Hollywood are inseparable. From the earliest silent pictures to modern day productions like Aviator, the extraordinary histories of the “Isle of Romance” and the movie capital of the world are inexorably linked.Now, Greg Reitman, director of Blue Water Entertainment’s 2003 documentary Hollywood’s Magic Isle—Catalina, continues his exploration of this endearing—and enduring—relationship with the release of Hollywood Isle: Catalina Island Picture Book.Designed to supplement his film, this “mini coffee table book” is as colorful and alluring as the Island itself. Like the original documentary, the thoughtfully-chosen images tell the remarkable tale of Hollywood’s loyal and affectionate bond with the “Isle of Romance” and their shared history and geography. “The story which I began to tell with motion pictures,” he says, “is now being continued in book form with a formidable collection of stills.” Before the delectable main course of sepia and full-color photographs, Reitman and Island Historian Chuck Liddell treat the reader to a concise and engaging history of the Island beginning with its acquisition in 1919 by wealthy philanthropist and businessman William Wrigley, Jr.With the completion of Mr. Wrigley’s opulent Avalon Casino traipsed a veritable Who’s Who of the Hollywood elite to the Island—from movie moguls who used the island as a filming location to the stars and starlets who used the island to “get away from it all”—from the triumphant early years of Marilyn Monroe and Ronald Reagan to the tragic ending of Natalie Wood.But the parade of luminaries was not limited to members of the film industry. In good times and bad, the biggest names in the burgeoning world of swing and Big Band music literally danced their way to the Island and serenaded the nation from the Avalon Ballroom. From the world of sports came Wrigley’s own Chicago Cubs who trained on the Island each spring for 30 years. Their youthful faces, too, gleam at us from the pages of this book.While Catalina Island has been the focus of a number of books and films over the years, the release of this book coming on the heals of his 2003 documentary has further defined the role of the Island in the history and culture of the United States.This entire phenomenal story is presented to the reader in 45 pages of high-gloss photography.