To some, 1968 was the year of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Yet it was also the year of the Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bobby Kennedy assassinations; the riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago; Prague Spring; the antiwar movement and the Tet Offensive; Black Power; the generation gap; avant-garde theater; the upsurge of the women's movement; and the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union. Mark Kurlansky brings to life the cultural and political history of that pivotal year, when television's influence on global events first became apparent, and spontaneous uprisings occurred simultaneously around the world. Encompassing the diverse realms of youth and music, politics and war, economics and the media, 1968 shows how twelve volatile months transformed who we were as a people -- and led us to where we are today.

Martin Gilbert brings readers up to date in this rich historical narrative of the contradictory events of the last fifty years. Volume II ended in 1951, as the world recovered from World War II, and the nuclear threat increased. In this volume, Gilbert recalls the Cold War and communism--including McCarthyism, the Soviet and Warsaw Pact, the Berlin Wall--and the wars, from Korea to Vietnam to Bosnia. He moves from Poland's Solidarity Movement to Ireland's Bloody Sunday, from Pol Pot and his killing fields to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Mao began a cultural revolution, Martin Luther King, Jr. and John F. Kennedy were assassinated, and Beijing's Tiananamen Square shocked the world. Technology and medicine advanced in leaps and bounds as the society struggled to catch up. Art, literature, and music, as well as epidemics and natural disasters, all have their place here. Many of the events are described through the words of those who were present. As in the previous two volumes, Gi

This book is intended for International Relations, World Politics, Global Issues and History courses that deal with issues of war and peace.

In "Ill Fares The Land," Tony Judt, one of our leading historians and thinkers, reveals how we have arrived at our present dangerously confused moment and offers the language we need to address our common needs, rejecting the nihilistic individualism of the far right and the debunked socialism of the past. To find a way forward, Judt argues that we must look to our not so distant past and to social democracy in action: to re-enshrining fairness over mere efficiency.

This brilliant and highly readable history of modern Europe in its international setting explores the heritage of the West since the Renaissance, closely relating the trajectories of individual nations to European civilization as a whole.For this eighth edition, Professors Palmer and Colton have revised their classic account in light of recent momentous events (the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War, the near-demise of communism, the reunification of Germany) and the transformed world that has emerged in their wake. On the brink of the twenty-first century, this world faces new challenges - among them, the fragile environment and the population explosion. By means of its incomparable depth and scope, this volume provides a superior context for understanding the past, negotiating the present and preparing for the future.

A history professor describes the events during the year World War II ended, beginning a new era of prosperity in America, rebirth and rebuilding in Europe, and the start of the Cold War era

"This book is designed to provide readers with the background and building blocks they need in order to answer for themselves the critical questions about what is taking place around the world and why. It explains what makes each region of the world tick, the many challenges globalization presents, and the most influential countries, events, and ideas. Its aim is to help readers become more informed, discerning citizens, better able to arrive at sound, independent judgments and less vulnerable to being misled"--

Acclaimed national security columnist and noted cultural critic Fred Kaplan looks past the 1960s to the year that really changed America While conventional accounts focus on the sixties as the era of pivotal change that swept the nation, Fred Kaplan argues that it was 1959 that ushered in the wave of tremendous cultural, political, and scientific shifts that would play out in the decades that followed. Pop culture exploded in upheaval with the rise of artists like Jasper Johns, Norman Mailer, Allen Ginsberg, and Miles Davis. Court rulings unshackled previously banned books. Political power broadened with the onset of Civil Rights laws and protests. The sexual and feminist revolutions took their first steps with the birth control pill. America entered the war in Vietnam, and a new style in superpower diplomacy took hold. The invention of the microchip and the Space Race put a new twist on the frontier myth. Vividly chronicles 1959 as a vital, overlooked year that set the world as we know it in motion, spearheading immense political, scientific, and cultural change Strong critical acclaim: "Energetic and engaging" ( Washington Post ); "Immensely enjoyable . . . a first-rate book" ( New Yorker ); "Lively and filled with often funny anecdotes" ( Publishers Weekly ) Draws fascinating parallels between the country in 1959 and today Drawing fascinating parallels between the country in 1959 and today, Kaplan offers a smart, cogent, and deeply researched take on a vital, overlooked period in American history.

Constituting a new television genre, live broadcasts of "historic" events have become, in effect, world rituals--high holidays of mass communication. Daniel Dayan and Elihu Katz show us that these media events have the potential for transforming societies as they transfix viewers around the globe. The authors apply this original thesis to public spectacles such as the Olympic Games, Anwar el-Sadat's journey to Jerusalem, the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana, John.

"The historian John Lukacs offers a concise history of the twentieth century--its two world wars and cold war, its nations and leaders. The great themes woven through this spirited narrative are inseparable from the author's own intellectual preoccupations: the fading of liberalism, the rise of populism and nationalism, the achievements and dangers of technology, and the continuing democratization of the globe. The historical twentieth century began with the First World War in 1914 and ended seventy-five years later with the collapse of the Soviet Empire in 1989. The short century saw the end of European dominance and the rise of American power and influence throughout the world. The twentieth century was an American century--perhaps the American century. Lukacs explores in detail the phenomenon of national socialism (national socialist parties, he reminds us, have outlived the century), Hitler's sole responsibility for the Second World War, and the crucial roles played by his determined opponents Churchill and Roosevelt. Between 1939 and 1942 Germany came closer to winning than many people suppose. Lukacs casts a hard eye at the consequences of the Second World War--the often misunderstood Soviet-American cold war--and at the shifting social and political developments in the Far and Middle East and elsewhere. In an eloquent closing meditation on the passing of the twentieth century, he reflects on the advance of democracy throughout the world and the limitations of human knowledge" -- Publisher website

The world since September 11th - War and peace; quagmires and root causes; Afghanistan and Iraq; Europe and America, new realities and indestructible myths.

Orwell's politics is a study of George Orwell's political ideas and beliefs from his time as a policeman in Burma through to the publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four. It places Orwell's politics in historical context, examining his response to Imperialism, to mass unemployment in the 1930s, to revolution in Spain and to the Second World War and its aftermath. The book considers Orwell's belief that socialist revolution was the only road to victory in wartime Britain. It discusses his time at the BBC and at the leftwing Labour newspaper Tribune. Particular attention is paid to Orwell's American connection, to his writings for Partisan Review and for Politics. Orwell's belief that Russia had nothing in common with socialism is discussed and new sources for Nineteen Eighty-Four are identified. The book also discusses recent feminist critiques of Orwell's politics. Newsinger demonstrates that, while Orwell's political beliefs inevitably changed over the years, he remained a committed socialist up to the time of his death. Orwell's anti-Stalinism was a consequence of his socialism rather than a repudiation of it.

The author draws comparisons and parallels between culture today and past historical events of the 20th century.

In this eloquent and thought-provoking "autohistory," John Lukacs, distinguished historian and writer, describes the history of his own convictions and beliefs. The journey takes us from the Hungary of the 1930s and the ravaged Budapest of World War II to Lukacs’s discovery of the New World, his forays into the intellectual life of New York City, and finally his settling in Philadelphia. Along the way, Lukacs examines many of the major currents of our period, including fascism, communism, democracy, anti-Semitism, and the Christian realism from which springs the book’s title. What emerges is a mind that brings to bear on the conflicts of the twentieth century the erudition of the European heritage and the independence of the American. In prose as elegant as it is supple, Confessions of an Original Sinner is at once the vivid account of one man’s voyage and an important contribution to that small library that brings into sharp focus the major intellectual developments of our time.

The importance of Melvin J. Lasky and of the journals he has edited (Encounter in London, Der Monat in Berlin) has been beautifully captured by a young European intellectual, Dr. Michael Naumann: "Lasky's work, quite apart from its value as a meditation, is a testimony of personal courage. This is the work of an outsider, of a thinker in crazed times, who ranks with the few who can apply that 16th-century observation of Richard Hooker to themselves with every justification: 'Posterity may know we have not loosely through silence permitted things to pass away as in a dream.'..."On The Barricades, And Off, is an extraordinary collection of writings by Lasky dealing with Revolutionaries and Ideologies, with the German Problem and the Russian Question, with Travelling and Climates of Opinion. But there is nothing eclectic or random about this effort. Indeed the essays are stitched together by an impassioned dedication to the open society and, no less, a universal, even-handed critique of all closed societies.Born in New York City, Melvin J. Lasky has been co-editor of Encounter in London (called "the most brilliant European periodical") since he succeeded Irving Kristol in 1958. He was educated at the City College of New York, at the University of Michigan, and Columbia University. He was the literary editor of the New Leader before serving in World War II as a combat historian in France and •Germany. After the war he was a foreign correspondent for the New York Times, The Reporter, Partisan Review, and other publications. His work as an editor and writer reflects that unusual group of cosmopolitan scholars and men of letters who emerged from the ashes of conflict to help recreate the intellectual climate for democracy in Europe, indirectly reestablishing transatlantic critical standards in America.