MU Libraries New Books: World History

About the new book list

11/18/2009

The RSS feeds for the new books list is updated every Wednesday and contains a list of books added to the Ellis Library collection for the last six weeks. The titles are grouped by call number classification, and are listed by week and alphabetically by title.

Books for the most recent weeks are currently on the New Books Shelves inside the north entrance of Ellis Library. They can be checked out.

Céramique géométrique d'Érétrie / Samuel Verdan, Anne Kenzelmann Pfyffer, Claude Léderrey. (11/18/2009)

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Call #: DA772 .C62 2009

Mohawks on the Nile : natives among the Canadian voyageurs in Egypt, 1884-1885 / by Carl Benn. (11/11/2009)

11/11/2009

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Product Description

Mohawks on the Nile explores the absorbing history of 60 Aboriginal men who left their trade in the Ottawa River timber industry to participate in a military expedition that took them far up the Nile River. They were to use their skills as boatmen to transport an Anglo-Egyptian army through the Nile’s treacherous cataracts as it attempted to reach Khartoum to relieve Sudan’s governor-general, Major-General Charles “Chinese” Gordon, besieged by Muslim nationalists. The Mohawks formed part of the larger Canadian Voyageur Corps, which garnered considerable praise for its work, the Mohawks in particular winning great accolades.

This little-known but fascinating tale resonates with subjects of interest today, especially given the place of the Muslim world in the consciousness of Western countries and the widespread desire to understand First Nations history better. Included are memoirs of two Mohawk veterans of the campaign, Louis Jackson and James Deer, along with pertinent maps, period illustrations, and an annotated roll of the participating Mohawks.

Call #: DT156.6 .B46 2009

Prague panoramas : national memory and sacred space in the twentieth century / Cynthia Paces. (11/11/2009)

11/11/2009

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Review

“Cynthia Paces takes us on a fascinating tour of Prague's twentieth century, showing how battles over the meaning of Czech national identity were embedded in the city's streets and illuminating the oft-neglected and contentious relationship between religion and nation in the Bohemian lands. Beautifully written and rich in evocative detail, this book is a significant contribution to the history of nationalism in Eastern Europe.”
—Melissa Feinberg, Rutgers University

The Chinese community in Vietnam under the French / by Alain G. Margot. (11/11/2009)

11/11/2009

Call #: DS556.45.C55 M37 1993

The German myth of the East : 1800 to the present / Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius. (11/11/2009)

11/11/2009

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Call #: DD120.E852 L58 2009

The Persians : an introduction / Maria Brosius. (11/11/2009)

11/11/2009

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Review

the work is an excellent introduction to these three ancient civilisations which combines a depth of research, and a wide focus with a lively literary style, which makes it an easy and highly enjoyable read... this work is an excellent introduction to the Achaemenid, Parthian and Sasanian civilisations, and takes a refreshing, non-western based, approach to ancient history. - Gareth C. Sampson, BMCR

Call #: DS275 .B76 2006

Can Islam be French? : pluralism and pragmatism in a secularist state / John R. Bowen. (11/4/2009)

11/4/2009

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Olivier Roy, European University Institute, Florence )

Call #: DC34.5.M87 B68 2010

Colonialism and violence in Nigeria / Toyin Falola. (11/4/2009)

11/4/2009

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Review

"Colonial violence treated from the point of view of the African victims/colonized, not from the self-serving perspective of European/British conquerors and colonizers." -- Felix Ekechi, Kent State University

"Well-researched, well-written with its richly textured and nuanced analysis, it is the first study to attempt a general and cohesive overview of the connections between violence and imperialism in colonial Nigeria." -- Funso Afolayan, University of New Hampshire

Call #: DT515.7 .F356 2009

Hitler's army, 1939-1945 : the men, machines and organization / David Stone. (11/4/2009)

11/4/2009

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Call #: D757 .S864 2009

Jammu and Kashmir, the Cold War and the West / by D.N. Panigrahi. (11/4/2009)

11/4/2009

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Product Description

This book re-examines the multifaceted reality of the Kashmir problem. The state of Jammu and Kashmir had acceded to India soon after India’s partition. Pakistan laid claim to it waged wars with India to wrest it. The various decisions taken by the USA and Britain in conjunction with India and Pakistan as to how Kashmir should be governed are discussed.

Studying the spread of communism, the book makes extensive use of primary resources available in India and the UK. The principal object of the author is to locate conflict in Kashmir within the international politics of the time, during the Cold War, and especially in the context of India’s relationship with the UK.

Book Description
The Renaissance was a child of many fathers--none more important than the three iconic figures whose intersecting lives provide the basis for this astonishing work of narrative history: Leonardo Da Vinci, Niccolo Machiavelli and Cesar Borgia. Each could not have been more different. They would meet only for a short time in 1502 but the events that transpired, would significantly alter their perceptions--and the course of Western history.

In 1502, Italy was riven by conflict, with the city of Florence as the ultimate prize. Machiavelli, the consummate political manipulator, attempted to placate the savage Borgia by volunteering the services of Da Vinci as Borgia’s chief military engineer. That autumn, the three men embarked together on a brief, perilous, and fateful journey through the mountains, remote villages and hill towns of the Italian Romagna--the details of which were revealed in Machiavelli’s often-daily dispatches and Da Vinci’s meticulous notebooks.

In a book that is at once a gripping adventure story and a trenchant analysis of how men make history, The Artist, the Philosopher and the Warrior limns each man’s personality, their interactions, and the forces that shaped their world. Superbly written, meticulously researched, here is a work of narrative genius--whose subject is the very nature of genius itself.

A Look Inside The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior
(Click on Images to Enlarge)

Call #: DG540.8.A1 S77 2009

The caste question : Dalits and the politics of modern India / Anupama Rao. (11/4/2009)

11/4/2009

"Drawing on a vast range of recent scholarship in disparate fields – including politics, society, culture, national identity, economics, gender and religion – this carefully crafted volume provides a remarkably accessible yet academically significant overview of Britain’s last 300 years. Attractively jargon free and peppered with well-chosen anecdotes and biographical details, it is one of those rare books that will prove invaluable to students and experts alike."
–Phillip Salmon, The History of Parliament

"It is an extraordinarily well-organized account; cleverly, even slyly, written to engage students at all levels. Wasson’s felicity with recent scholarship makes this the best Modern Britain text to appear in decades."
–Ronald K. Huch, Eastern Kentucky University

Call #: DA470 .W37 2010

Archaeological settlement patterns and mobility strategies : lower Adelaide River, Northern Australia / Sally Brockwell. (10/28/2009)

10/28/2009

Call #: DU391 .B76 2009

Balancing written history with oral tradition : the legacy of the Songhoy people / Hassimi Oumarou Maïga. (10/28/2009)

10/28/2009

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Review

The reinterpretation, by native Africans, of the history of their continent and its myriad societies, in their extreme complexity, is a necessary and inescapable evolution of contemporary African Studies. Therefore, Balancing Written History with Oral Tradition: The Legacy of the Songhoy People, by Malian Professor Hassimi O. Maïga, is a work that deserves the widest and earliest possible diffusion. Dense and original, touching and uncompromising, it required a great deal of research and reflection. It is not easy to undermine in one single book, as Maïga has done, as many simplistic interpretations, when not outright lies, as are current regarding the history of African societies, and in particular that of the Islamicized Songhoy people. This work no doubt has a place in academia as well as in the lay world.

Call #: DA330.8.E44 O44 2009

Fields of fire : a life of Sir William Hamilton / David Constantine. (10/28/2009)

10/28/2009

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Product Description

A prize winning author paints a fascinating portrait of one of the 18th-century's most colorful characters: Sir William Hamilton. Hamilton represented the epitome of honorable public service. But he is remembered not as a scholar, diplomat, and connoisseur of culture, but for his part in the most scandalous menage a trois of the century: as the cuckolded husband of Emma Hamilton, mistress of the heroic Lord Nelson. For the first time, Hamilton's unpublished notebooks are used to shed new light on the events.

Call #: DA483.H32 C66 2002

In whose name? : the Islamic world after 9/11 / Abbas/Magnum. (10/28/2009)

10/28/2009

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Product Description

A memorable and compelling photographic record from the Islamic world of today. On September 11, 2001, the photographer Abbas watched the World Trade Center towers fall in New York—live on Siberian TV. It spurred him to begin a journey through the Islamic world that would last seven years. The photographs published here are the final result of that project.

Born in Iran, Abbas casts a sharp eye over a world seen by few from the West. Seeking out people and places that have been overlooked by others, he reveals far more—and in greater depth—than photojournalists who focus on flashpoints or who race to break the latest news. Abbas is acclaimed for his special ability to freeze a moment in a particular social or political conflict, to frame actions or gestures that instantly become emblematic: what he calls “the suspended moment.”

Recording a route through sixteen countries—including Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Palestine, Turkey, Indonesia, Thailand, Kenya, and Zanzibar—Abbas’s pictures and the excerpts from his candid diary reflect the undercurrents of global disturbance, uncertainty, and threat. Yet there are gleams of optimism, too—a wedding, an impromptu ball game—that remind us of Abbas’s gift as a humane interpreter of our existence. 173 color illustrations.

Call #: DS35.57 .A23 2009

Les villes de Basse Egypte au Ier millénaire av. J.- C. : analyse archéologique et historique de la topographie urbaine / François Leclère. (10/28/2009)

10/28/2009

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Call #: DT60 .L436 2008

My prison, my home : one woman's story of captivity in Iran / Haleh Esfandiari. (10/28/2009)

10/28/2009

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From Publishers Weekly

December 30, 2006, was the night Esfandiari's nightmare began. Traveling by car to the Tehran airport, following a visit with her elderly mother, the director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., was robbed. The 67-year-old felt lucky, not to have been injured in what she initially thought was a simple snatching of her belongings, including her passport. A few friends warned of more dire consequences. Esfandiari (Reconstructed Lives: Women and Iran's Islamic Revolution) did not realize that upon returning to her childhood home, she was entering a maelstrom, fueled by the long-standing animosity between Tehran and Washington—which contributed to her eight-month interrogation, four of which were spent in Evin Prison in solitary confinement. Most disconcerting was the shattering of Esfandiari's feelings for her native land: I felt the country I had cherished all my life was no longer mine. I had loved Iran with a passion.... Yet these horrible people had made me feel alien in my own homeland. In this engaging memoir, Esfandiari weaves together strands of her family and professional life, the problematic and complex history of American-Iranian relations, along with a reasoned eyewitness account of being held as a political prisoner. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Call #: DS318.84.I84 A3 2009

Neville Chamberlain / Nick Smart. (10/28/2009)

10/28/2009

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Neville Chamberlain, the Conservative Prime Minister who pursued the doomed policy of appeasing Hitler, is one of the most reinterpreted of modern British Prime Ministers.

Infamous on account of his declaration of having achieved ‘peace for our time’, Neville Chamberlain has often been portrayed as a social reformer out of sync with the times in which he lived. In this new biography, Nick Smart offers a picture conditioned more by the opinions of contemporaries than by hindsight, examining Chamberlain's life, career, achievements and failures. Stressing that the system in which Chamberlain found himself operating had more impact on the historical developments than anything he did personally, Smart describes a man who was hardworking but ultimately out of his depth, destined to be remembered in history as the fall-guy to Winston Churchill’s hero.

Presenting Chamberlain's life and politics in a nuanced way, Nick Smart's biography is a must read for anyone interested in British politics and its impact on the international stage.

Call #: DA585.C5 S63 2010

Norman Corwin's One world flight : the lost journal of radio's greatest writer / edited by Michael C. Keith and Mary Ann Watson. (10/28/2009)

10/28/2009

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Review

"Norman Corwin's One World Flight details just one chapter of a fascinating life and career that have spanned nearly a century of global upheaval and change. Norman saw it all and told the rest of us about it--a master storyteller who during the Golden Age of Radio rode high atop the airwaves, crafting skillfully woven tales of poetry and drama that entertained and rallied millions to the cause of freedom." --Bill Moyers

"Norman Corwin's One World Flight details just one chapter of a fascinating life and career that have spanned nearly a century of global upheaval and change. Norman saw it all and told the rest of us about it --a master storyteller, who, during the Golden Age of Radio, rode high atop the airwaves, crafting skilfully woven tales of poetry and drama that entertained and rallied millions to the cause of freedom."

"There's nobody quite like Norman Corwin. Not only is he in love with the English language, but as a former reporter, he knows how to arrive at the `who, what, where, and why.' Now meld that with the poet power of a great artist and you have an American icon of profound persuasion. So, behold this found gem! Fine wine, fine whiskey and fine wisdom are distilled. Dis still is the man!" --William Shatner, Actor

"What a treasure for posterity that Norman Corwin's One World Flight journal has been found and 21st Century readers will be able to share this journey with him. Shortly after WWII, Corwin traveled the globe and produced a remarkable documentary series for CBS Radio. His personal journal entries, however, offer an even deeper dimension of his wisdom and humanity. Corwin's eloquent prose is breathtakingly incisive. This wonderful work only bolsters Norman Corwin's already secure place in the pantheon of America's greatest writers and thinkers." --Walter Cronkite

"What a treasure for posterity that Norman Corwin's One World Flight journal has been found and 21st Century readers will be able to share this journey with him. Shortly after WWII, Corwin traveled the globe and produced a remarkable documentary series for CBS Radio. His personal journal entries, however, offer an even deeper dimension of his wisdom and humanity. Corwin's eloquent prose is breathtakingly incisive. This wonderful work only bolsters Norman Corwin's already secure place in the pantheon of America's greatest writers and thinkers." --Walter Cronkite

"What a treasure for posterity that Norman Corwin's One World Flight journal has been found and 21st Century readers will be able to share this journey with him. Shortly after WWII, Corwin traveled the globe and produced a remarkable documentary series for CBS Radio. His personal journal entries, however, offer an even deeper dimension of his wisdom and humanity. Corwin's eloquent prose is breathtakingly incisive. This wonderful work only bolsters Norman Corwin's already secure place in the pantheon of America's greatest writers and thinkers." --Walter Cronkite Norman Corwin's One World Flight details just one chapter of a fascinating life and career that have spanned nearly a century of global upheaval and change. Norman saw it all and told the rest of us about it-- a master storyteller, who, during the Golden Age of Radio, rode high atop the airwaves, crafting skilfully woven tales of poetry and drama that entertained and rallied millions to the cause of freedom. --Bill Moyers What a treasure for posterity that Norman Corwin's One World Flight journal has been found and 21st Century readers will be able to share this journey with him. Shortly after WWII, Corwin traveled the globe and produced a remarkable documentary series for CBS Radio. His personal journal entries, however, offer an even deeper dimension of his wisdom and humanity. Corwin's eloquent prose is breathtakingly incisive. This wonderful work only bolsters Norman Corwin's already secure place in the pantheon of America's greatest writers and thinkers. --Walter Cronkite When radio was king, Norman Corwin was its Prime Minister. Treasures such as this book will last as long as there is the spoken word. --Larry King

"When radio was king, Norman Corwin was its Prime Minister. Treasures such as this book will last as long as there is the spoken word." --Larry King

"When radio was king, Norman Corwin was its prime minister. Treasures such as this book will last as long as there is the spoken word." --Larry King

"[Corwin's] decade-long career with CBS marks an apogee of what radio could do with sound and good writing. The book offers a window to a unique and fleeting time when perhaps things might have turned in a different direction. Corwin's talks with leaders and regular folks provide a way of looking back more than six decades to a very different time." --Communication Booknotes Quarterly

Call #: D825 .C675 2009

Rebellious satellite : Poland, 1956 / Paweł Machcewicz translated by Maya Latynski. (10/28/2009)

10/28/2009

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Review

"Rebellious Satellite makes a real case for 1956 as the first 'People's Revolution' and it is critical for understanding subsequent communist and post-communist history." —Jane Leftwich Curry, Santa Clara University

"Machcewicz has broken away from the method of analysis dominant in the historiography of 1956, which basically limited itself to descriptions of the decisions made by the Warsaw political center combined with information about the ferment within the opinion-forming milieux of the intelligentsia." —Dariusz Jarosz, Warsaw University

Call #: DK4439 .M33 2009

Spartans : a new history / Nigel M. Kennell. (10/28/2009)

10/28/2009

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Review

Dublin in the medieval world : studies in honour of Howard B. Clarke / John Bradley, Alan J. Fletcher and Anngret Simms, editors. (10/21/2009)

10/21/2009

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Call #: DA995.D75 D814 2009

Ethnicity, conquest, and recruitment : two case studies from the northern military provinces / by Vivien Swan. (10/21/2009)

10/21/2009

Call #: DG89 .S935 2009

History of the Alps, 1500-1900 : environment, development, and society / Jon Mathieu translated by Matthew Vester. (10/21/2009)

10/21/2009

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Review

History of the Alps, 1500-1900 is a model for scholars, comparing empirical research while also integrating theoretical assessments of Alpine life and European development --Franz Mathis, Tiroler Heimat

This is a rich, sophisticated work. --Guido Gutterer, Bolletino SAT

Call #: DQ823.5 .M3813 2009

Islamist radicalisation : the challenge for Euro-Mediterranean relations / edited by Michael Emerson, Kristina Kausch and Richard Youngs authors, Omayma Abdel-Latif ... [et. al.]. (10/21/2009)

10/21/2009

In Rebels, Wives, Saints, acclaimed scholar Tanika Sarkar continues her revolutionary scholarship on women, religion, and nationhood in colonial Bengal. The colonial universe Sarkar describes in Rebels, Wives, Saints centers around symbols of women as both defiled and deified, exemplified in the idea of woman as widow and woman as goddess. The nation, Sarkar explains, is imagined as a woman-goddess within a country comprising plural cultural traditions. Sarkar also broadens the discussion to consider male reformers who battle Hindu conservatives, a Hindu novelist who idealizes nationalism as a means for overcoming Muslim influence, male-dominant social norms, and theatre and censorship.

Throughout the book, Sarkar deploys her trademark focus on small, specific, emotional defining moments in order to arrive at a larger, compelling picture that reveals how people actually feel and experience life in Bengal.

Call #: DS485.B49 S357 2009b

Roman republics / Harriet I. Flower. (10/21/2009)

10/21/2009

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The path to devolution and change : a political history of Scotland under Margaret Thatcher / David Stewart. (10/21/2009)

10/21/2009

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10/14/2009

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Professor Peter Seixas, Centre for the Study of Historical Consciousness, University of British Columbia
'This book is full of hidden treasures. It is written by a community of practitioners who are all experts in creating history teaching that stretches and engages students. The book is designed to inspire action. It does this as ideas flow through the pages generating in the history teacher thoughts of how to apply and adapt. This book creates 'spin off': actual process that hits our classrooms' - Katy Allen, Head of History, Lancaster Girls' Grammar School
This book describes and exemplifies strategies for teaching history across the 11-19 age range in rigorous and enjoyable ways. It illustrates active learning approaches embedded in pupil-led enquiries, through detailed case studies which involve students in planning and carrying out historical enquiries, creating accounts and presenting them to audiences, in ways that develop increasingly sophisticated historical thinking.

The case studies took place in a number of different localities and show how practising teachers worked with pupils during each year from Y6/7 to Y 13 to initiate, plan and implement enquiries and to present their findings in a variety of ways.

You couldn't have said something like that at Oxford. You couldn't simply say: I don't like Hamlet because I think he's a lousy person. Everything had to be more clever than that ... you had to dismantle it ... not just the play itself but everything that had ever been written about it.

10/14/2009

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Call #: DF220.5 .Z458 2008

10/7/2009

Call #: DT450.443.S43 A3 2009

Idols in the East : European representations of Islam and the Orient, 1100-1450 / Suzanne Conklin Akbari. (10/7/2009)

10/7/2009

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Product Description
Representations of Muslims have never been more common in the Western imagination than they are today. Building on Orientalist stereotypes constructed over centuries, the figure of the wily Arab has given rise, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, to the "Islamist" terrorist. In Idols in the East Suzanne Conklin Akbari explores the premodern background of some of the Orientalist types still pervasive in present-day depictions of Muslims-the irascible and irrational Arab, the religiously deviant Islamist-and about how these stereotypes developed over time.

Idols in the East contributes to the recent surge of interest in European encounters with Islam and the Orient in the premodern world. Focusing on the medieval period, Akbari examines a broad range of texts including encyclopedias, maps, medical and astronomical treatises, chansons de geste, romances, and allegories to paint an unusually diverse portrait of medieval culture. Among the texts she considers are The Book of John Mandeville, The Song of Roland, Parzival, and Dante's Divine Comedy. From them she reveals how medieval writers and readers understood and explained the differences they saw between themselves and the Muslim other. Looking forward, Akbari also comes to terms with how these medieval conceptions fit with modern discussions of Orientalism, thus providing an important theoretical link to postcolonial and postimperial scholarship on later periods. Far reaching in its implications and balanced in its judgments, Idols in the East will be of great interest to not only scholars and students of the Middle Ages but also anyone interested in the roots of Orientalism and its tangled relationship to modern racism and anti-Semitism.

From the Back Cover
"Idols in the East is an excellent as well as a timely book. Suzanne Conklin Akbari's assessments of the primary and secondary sources that come under her scrutiny are judicious, insightful, and fair-minded. Above all, Idols in the East makes clear how wide a range of evidence there is for a discourse of medieval Orientalism and how such a discourse might be understood in the present."--Iain Macleod Higgins, University of Victoria, author of Writing East

"Idols of the East recuperates a lost orientalism and a history of oriental power dropped from the famous Orientalism of Edward Said: for the historical power and cultural significance of the Islamic East, Suzanne Conklin Akbari argues, has been dramatically underemphasized. Akbari carefully unpacks medieval practices of mapping the East, representations of Judaism and Islam, conflations of ethnic and religious terminology, and iconic figurations of the Saracen. Her book reaches beyond medieval studies to furnish an account of orientalism's prehistory that all postcolonialists should read: highly recommended."--David Wallace, Judith Rodin Professor, University of Pennsylvania

About the Author
Suzanne Conklin Akbari is Professor of English and Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto. She is author of Seeing Through the Veil: Optical Theory and Medieval Allegory and editor of Marco Polo and the Encounter of East and West.

Call #: DS35.74.E85 A43 2009

Ireland and Spain in the reign of Philip II / Enrique García Hernán translated by Liam Liddy and revised by the author. (10/7/2009)

10/7/2009

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Call #: DA935 .G3713 2009

Japan / Lucien Ellington. (10/7/2009)

10/7/2009

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Book Description

From sushi bars to anime, video games, and the enduring mystique of the samurai, Japan's fascinating culture is becoming increasingly prominent around the world. Experiencing two major modern economic revolutions and emerging as a major world economic power, Japan has become one of the globe's most influential countries.

Product Description

This volume focuses on an often misunderstood nation with vast economic and cultural influence in the United States and around the world. It combines thoroughly up-to-date coverage of Japan's history, geography, politics, economics, and society, with a range of helpful reference tools.

Delving deeper than typical reference books, Asia in Focus: Japan is the ideal authoritative introduction to Japanese life for students, businesspeople, travelers, and other interested readers. The volume offers a contemporary look at the Japanese economy, extensive cultural coverage, and a rich collection of photographs. This resource also dispels long-running stereotypes and misconceptions to show Japan's surprising diversity and creativity.

About the Author
Lucien Ellington is codirector of the Asia Program and UC Foundation Professor of Education at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Chattanooga, TN. He is founding editor of the Association for Asian Studies teaching journal Education About Asia, and his published works include Education in the Japanese Life-Cycle: Implications for the United States and ABC-CLIO's Japan: A Global Studies Handbook.

Call #: DS821 .E5127 2009

Journeys to empire : enlightenment, imperialism, and the British encounter with Tibet, 1774-1904 / Gordon T. Stewart. (10/7/2009)

10/7/2009

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Product Description
This fascinating study of two British missions to Tibet in 1774 and 1904 provides a unique perspective on the relationship between the Enlightenment and European colonialism. Gordon Stewart compares and contrasts the Enlightenment era mission led by George Bogle and the Edwardian mission of Francis Younghusband as they crossed the Himalayas into Tibet. Through the British agents' diaries, reports, and letters and by exploring their relationships with Indians, Bhutanese and Tibetans, Stewart is able to trace the shifting ideologies, economic interests and political agendas that lay behind British empire-building from the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth century. This compelling account sheds new light on the changing nature of British imperialism, on power and intimacy in the encounter between East and West, and on the relationship of history and memory.

Book Description
This compelling account of two British missions to Tibet in 1774 and 1904 provides a unique perspective on the relationship between the Enlightenment and European colonialism. Stewart traces the shifting ideologies, economic interests and political agendas that lay behind British empire-building from the late eighteenth century to the twentieth century.

About the Author
Gordon T. Stewart is the Jack & Margaret Sweet Professor of History at Michigan State University. His previous publications include The Great Awakening in Nova Scotia 1760-1791 (1982), The Origins of Canadian Politics (1986) and Jute and Empire: The Calcutta Jute Wallahs and the Landscapes of Empire (1998).

Call #: DS786 .S787 2009

La nécropole méridionale d'Aix-en-Provence : (Ier - VIe siècles apr. J.-C.) : les fouilles de la ZAC Sextius Mirabeau : (1994 - 2000) / Núria Nin et Paul Bailet ... [et al.]. (10/7/2009)

10/7/2009

Call #: DC801.A325 N66 2006

Meeting the demands of reason : the life and thought of Andrei Sakharov / Jay Bergman. (10/7/2009)

10/7/2009

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Product Description
The Soviet physicist, dissident, and human rights activist Andrei Sakharov (1921-1989) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975. The first Russian to have been so recognized, Sakharov in his Nobel lecture held that humanity had a "sacred endeavor" to create a life worthy of its potential, that "we must make good the demands of reason," by confronting the dangers threatening the world, both then and now: nuclear annihilation, famine, pollution, and the denial of human rights. Meeting the Demands of Reason provides a comprehensive account of Sakharov's life and intellectual development, focusing on his political thought and the effect his ideas had on Soviet society.

Jay Bergman places Sakharov's dissidence squarely within the ethical legacy of the nineteenth-century Russian intelligentsia, inculcated by his father and other family members from an early age. In 1948, one year after receiving his doctoral candidate's degree in physics, Sakharov began work on the Soviet hydrogen bomb and later received both the Stalin and the Lenin prizes for his efforts. Although as a nuclear physicist he had firsthand experience of honors and privileges inaccessible to ordinary citizens, Sakharov became critical of certain policies of the Soviet government in the late 1950s. He never renounced his work on nuclear weaponry, but eventually grew concerned about the environmental consequences of testing and feared unrestrained nuclear proliferation. Bergman shows that these issues led Sakharov to see the connection between his work in science and his responsibilities to the political life of his country.

In the late 1960s, Sakharov began to condemn the Soviet system as a whole in the name of universal human rights. By the 1970s, he had become, with Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the most recognized Soviet dissident in the West, which afforded him a measure of protection from the authorities. In 1980, however, he was exiled to the closed city of Gorky for protesting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In 1986, the new Gorbachev regime allowed him to return to Moscow, where he played a central role as both supporter and critic in the years of perestroika. Two years after Sakharov's death, the Soviet Union collapsed, and in the courageous example of his unyielding commitment to human rights, skillfully recounted by Bergman, Sakharov remains an enduring inspiration for all those who would tell truth to power.

From the Back Cover
"Meeting the Demands of Reason is a serious, thoroughly researched account of one of Russia's intellectual giants, whose extraordinary courage and wisdom were matched by his modesty."--Richard Pipes, Professor of History, Emeritus, Harvard University

"In Meeting the Demands of Reason, Jay Bergman treats Andrei Sakharov not just as a scientist and activist, but as a complex subject whose scientific and political thinking were interrelated. Bergman is a fine writer and has an amazing grasp of Sakharov's scientific, philosophical, and political work. His well-researched biography reminds us that Sakharov was an extraordinary physicist, a thought-provoking political essayist, a devoted defender of human rights, and a concerned citizen of a troubled nation."--Kathleen E. Smith, author of Remembering Stalin's Victims and Mythmaking in the New Russia

"In this superb intellectual history, Jay Bergman illuminates the rise of the public citizen in the USSR, from Stalin to Gorbachev, explaining how physicist Andrei Sakharov moved from unquestioningly developing nuclear weapons for the Soviet state to raising questions about universal human rights and even the legitimacy of the USSR. Sakharov, by a combination of introspection, reason, and force of personality, determined to fight the arbitrary and capricious regime. These traits allowed Sakharov to survive when the Party leadership labeled him a traitor and spy in several public campaigns and eventually exiled him to Gorky, and to engage Mikhail Gorbachev--and Soviet society --in debates about perestroika. Bergman explores the evolution of Sakharov's views of arms control, nuclear power, dissidence, and human rights through a careful reading of Sakharov's extensive opus. Meeting the Demands of Reason is an important contribution to Soviet social, political, and cultural history--and to the history of science in its analysis of scientists' claims to have privilege about some kind of universal truth."--Paul R. Josephson, Colby College

About the Author
Jay Bergman is Professor of History at Central Connecticut State University. He is the author of Vera Zasulich: A Biography.

Call #: DK275.S25 B47 2009

Munich, 1938 : appeasement and World War II / David Faber. (10/7/2009)

10/7/2009

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Review
"With an encyclopedic grasp of the diplomatic issues at hand, David Faber has written the most thoughtful and well-researched study of the Munich Conference ever written. All the key historical players are brought to life: Hitler, Chamberlain, Lord Halifax, and Mussolini, in particular. Faber's analysis of appeasement is nothing short of brilliant." -- Douglas Brinkley, author of The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America

"Using archives, diaries and memoirs, David Faber has meticulously reconstructed one of the momentous events of the twentieth century. Moreover, he manages to tell the story of the Munich conference in a manner that grips the reader even though the outcome is a well-known tragedy." -- Joseph S. Nye, Jr., University Distinguished Service Professor, Harvard University, and author of The Powers to Lead

"David Faber offers a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at how Hitler outwitted the smug and curiously naïve Chamberlain to win control of much of Czechoslovakia and start down the road to war. Dramatic, exciting, and at times almost unbearably poignant, Munich, 1938 puts a human face to a key turning point in history and makes it come alive." -- Lynne Olson, author of Troublesome Young Men

Product Description
On September 30, 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain flew back to London from his meeting at Munich with the German Chancellor Adolf Hitler and was greeted with a hero's welcome. As he paused on the aircraft steps, he held aloft the piece of paper, bearing both his and the Führer's signatures, which contained the promise that Britain and Germany would never go to war with each other again. Later that evening, from his upstairs window at 10 Downing Street, he told the ecstatic and thankful crowd that he had returned bringing "Peace with honour -- Peace for our time."

In this important reappraisal of the extraordinary events of seventy years ago, acclaimed historian David Faber traces the key incidents leading up to the meeting at Munich and its immediate aftermath. He describes Lord Halifax's ill-fated visit to Hitler; Chamberlain's secret negotiations with Mussolini, followed by the resignation of Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden; and the Berlin scandal that rocked Hitler's regime. Faber takes us to Vienna for the Nazi Anschluss; to the Sudentenland, the mountainous border region of Czechoslovakia, where Hitler's puppets attempted to provide him with a pretext for war by inciting the minority German population to rebellion; and to Prague, where the Czechoslovak government desperately tried to head off the Führer's warlike intentions. In Berlin, we witness Hitler inexorably preparing for war, even in the face of opposition from his own generals; and in London, we watch helplessly as Chamberlain seizes executive control from his own cabinet and makes one supreme effort after another to appease Hitler, culminating in his three remarkable flights to Germany.

Drawing on a wealth of original archival material, including diaries and notes taken by Hitler and Chamberlain's translator, Faber's sweeping reassessment of the events of 1938 resonates with an insider's feel for the political infighting he uncovers. Packed with narrative punch and vivid characters, Munich, 1938 transports us to the war rooms and bunkers, revealing the secret negotiations and scandals upon which the world's fate would rest. It is modern history writing at its best.

About the Author
David Faber was educated at Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford University, where he read modern languages. The grandson of former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, Faber served as a Conservative Member of Parliament from 1992 until 2001, and now is a historian and writer. He is author of Speaking for England and lives in London with his wife and their three children.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Scandal in Berlin

What influence a woman, even without realising it, can exert on the history of a country and thereby on the world.
Colonel Alfred Jodl, January 26, 1938

The outcome of the Blomberg-Fritsch affair amounted to the third stepping-stone -- after the Reichstag Fire and the "Röhm-Putsch" -- cementing Hitler's absolute power and, quite especially, his dominance over the army. With the military emasculated.Ã¢??.Ã¢??.Ã¢??.Ã¢??Hitler's personal drive for the most rapid expansion possible was unshackled from the forces which could have counselled caution. The danger-zone was being entered.
Sir Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1936-45: Nemesis

Field Marshal Werner Freiherr von Blomberg, Hitler's Minister of War and commander-in-chief of the armed forces, was a far from popular figure in the higher echelons of the army. It was widely felt that he failed to present the army's view sufficiently forcefully to Hitler, and that his fawning admiration for the Führer clouded his professional judgment. Behind his back he was sneeringly referred to as "Hitlerjunge Quex," after the Hitler Youth hero of a propaganda film who was prepared to sacrifice his life for Hitler. He was considered impulsive, easily influenced and too friendly with the Nazi Party hierarchy for the liking of the aristocratic old guard among the German officer corps. The British embassy in Berlin too recognized that he was "completely dominated by Herr Hitler whose words he quotes on each and every occasion." Blomberg, on the other hand, believed that he was much more "a man of the world" than his army contemporaries, having studied and traveled in Russia, the United States and throughout Europe. He was pointedly pro-British, and had relished acting as Hitler's representative at the coronation of King George VI in May 1937, where Chamberlain had found him to be "a very pleasant agreeable man of the world who talks extremely good English."

Although he had registered a passing unease as Hitler unveiled his expansionist plans at the Reich Chancellery on November 5, Blomberg's doubts were short-lived. As he left the meeting he told Admiral Raeder that Hitler's speech "had not been meant so earnestly and was not to be judged so seriously. He believed that the Führer would settle these questions peacefully." Yet he refused to discuss Fritsch's concerns with him, or even to acknowledge Beck's written memorandum, which was submitted to him on November 12. Instead, he set to work updating the one aspect of the Führer's orders over which he had personal control, the coordination of military planning. By December 21 he was ready to issue a new military directive, amending the provisions for Case Green, the existing plans for a lightning invasion of Czechoslovakia.

When Germany has achieved complete preparedness for war in all fields, then the military conditions will have been created for carrying out an offensive war [Angriffskrieg] against Czechoslovakia, so that the solution of the German problem of living space can be carried to a victorious end even if one or other of the Great Powers intervene against us.

Blomberg, meanwhile, had other, more personal, matters on his mind. He had married his first wife, the daughter of a retired army officer, in 1904, but she had died in 1929 after a long illness, leaving him with five grown-up children. Now fifty-nine, and growing increasingly tired of a lengthy and lonely widowhood, at some moment during September 1937 he met, and soon become infatuated with, a considerably younger woman. Legend varies as to whether he first met her on a park bench in the Tiergarten while out for his daily morning walk, or at the local hostelry where she worked. But the fact remained that Fräulein Margarethe Gruhn, known to her friends as Erna or Eva, was thirty-five years younger than the War Minister and came from a vastly contrasting social background. She had been born in 1913, the daughter of a cleaner and a gardener at the Royal Palace in Berlin, but after her father died in the First World War, her mother, Luise, lost her job and took up work instead as a masseuse. After working for her mother for a while, the two apparently fell out with each other, and a few years before her meeting with Blomberg, the young Erna had set out on her own in the world.

At some stage Erna secured a job as a stenographer at the Reich Egg Board, possibly with Blomberg's help, but, as he became increasingly besotted with his newfound lover, he became aware also that he was competing for her affections with another, younger man. The obvious course of action was for him to marry Erna, although he was well aware that the snobbery and prejudice that were prevalent among the army's aristocratic officer corps would lead to dismay among his colleagues at the proposed union. Incredibly, given that Göring had long coveted Blomberg's job for himself, it was to the Luftwaffe chief that Blomberg chose to turn. He confided in him that he was having an affair with a "girl of the people," and inquired confidentially whether it would be in order for him to marry her, given that she was also "a lady with a past." Göring, who had himself married an actress after the death of his first wife, assured him that the Third Reich was actively struggling to overcome just such social prejudices, and that the field marshal's high standing would not be compromised one iota. Indeed, such a marriage would help to bridge the social divide that unfortunately all too often still existed, and he would personally intervene with Hitler to secure the necessary support to fend off any criticism from within the officer corps.

A few days later an agitated Blomberg felt emboldened to return to see Göring again, with a further request for assistance. His younger rival for Erna's affection was refusing to bow out quietly -- could Göring possibly come up with a way of discreetly removing him from the fray? Göring shamelessly continued to play the role of well-wisher and promised that he would do what he could. The president of the Reich Grain Office was summoned, and agreed to find a suitable, well-paid position for Blomberg's rival in Argentina. The startled young man was duly sent for and informed by Göring that his passage was booked, and "that his health demanded a drastic change of climate." It would be in his best interests to leave immediately. Doubtless grateful that he had avoided being shipped instead to a concentration camp, the rival suitor "accepted his fate philosophically," but before setting out on his voyage called on Göring one last time. He felt it only right, he informed his unlikely benefactor, to warn him that Fräulein Gruhn was a woman of highly questionable character, and "had a rather more lurid personal history than she had probably told the field marshal." He strongly advised Göring that Blomberg should give careful consideration as to whether or not he should marry her.

His own impending nuptials were not Blomberg's only cause for celebration. His daughter Dorothea was engaged to be married to Lieutenant Karl-Heinz Keitel, the son of General Wilhelm Keitel, the chief of the Wehrmachtsamt, the Armed Forces Department within the Ministry of War, and thus effectively Blomberg's chief of staff. The elder Keitel had recently noticed that Blomberg's behavior had become increasingly bizarre, and that the field marshal had taken to driving out on his own, in civilian clothes, to a hotel in Oberhof, in the Thuringian forest. On December 15 Keitel's assistant, Colonel Alfred Jodl, noted in his diary that "The General Field Marshal is in a high state of excitement. Reason not known. Apparently a personal matter. He retired for eight days to an unknown place." Blomberg's adjutant refused to confide in Keitel, claiming that his chief was visiting a lady in Oberhof who had broken her ankle skiing.

In mid-December 1937 the First World War veteran General Erich Ludendorff died, and Hitler decreed that he should have a state funeral in the Feldernhalle in Munich. It fell to Blomberg to give the funeral oration. Keitel commandeered a special train, complete with Blomberg's new personal carriage which he had recently been given by Hitler, to take the field marshal's entourage to Munich. However, Blomberg failed to board with the others in Berlin, and the train was forced to take a detour to collect its principal passenger at Oberhof, where he was once again enjoying a few quiet days with Erna. After the funeral Blomberg persuaded Hossbach to let him have a few minutes alone with Hitler, and he repeated the bare facts of his earlier conversation with Göring, again conceding that his fiancée was a girl of humble origins. Hitler, like Göring before him, warmly endorsed the idea of Germany's senior military officer bridging the class divide in this way. Indeed, so enthusiastic was he to emphasize his complete rejection of any suggestion of snobbery that he insisted that he and Göring act as witnesses. As a result Blomberg felt suitably confident to spend Christmas with Erna at Oberhof, away from his own family, and on his return to confirm his plans to Keitel. "It was no disgrace," he insisted defensively, "in our modern National Socialist Germany to marry a 'child of the people' and he did not care a hoot for the gossip in so-called society." He had confided in his children, who had happily given him their blessing.

The wedding was to take place quietly on Wednesday, January 12, in one of the state rooms at the War Ministry in the Bendlerstrasse. The wedding party was kept deliberately small in accordance with the low-key occasion, and included just Erna's mother, Blomberg's former naval adjutant, an old friend and his three current adjutants. Blomberg arrived in ordinary uniform, proudly wearing his Iron Cross, while his bride was dressed in a gray dress and silk blouse, with no jewelry, and carried a bunch of red roses. They waited nervously in silence, until Hitler and Göring arr...

Call #: D727 .F34 2009

Österreich 1918 und die Folgen : Geschichte, Literatur, Theater und Film = Austria 1918 and the aftermath : history, literature, theater, and film / herausgegeben von Karl Müller und Hans Wagener. (10/7/2009)

The Roman roadside settlement at Westhawk Farm, Ashford, Kent : excavations 1998-9 / by Paul Booth, Anne-Marie Bingham and Steve Lawrence with contributions by Lindsay Allason-Jones ... [et al.] illustrations by Luke Adams ... [et al.] edited by Edw (10/7/2009)

10/7/2009

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Product Description
Westhawk Farm is the site of a large Roman settlement established at an important road junction shortly after the Roman conquest, discovered and partly excavated in advance of housing development. The settlement contained contrasting groups of carefully laid out plots and unplanned areas. Excavated timber buildings included circular and rectilinear structures and a polygonal shrine. The main concerns of the inhabitants were apparently agriculture and market services. Iron production was important, but probably only of local significance, although the settlement may have had a role in the administration the iron industry. Activity at the site had declined greatly by the mid 3rd century; a striking pattern reflected elsewhere in the region but still of uncertain significance.

About the Author
by Paul Booth, Anne-Marie Bingham and Steve Lawrence

Call #: DA690.A8027 B66 2008

Under the shadow of defeat : the war of 1870-71 in French memory / Karine Varley. (10/7/2009)

10/7/2009

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Review
'This is an excellent work, felicitously written and accessible to the general reader as well as specialists. The case studies provide lively examples of the issues being discussed, and Varley has gracefully incorporated many theoretical and historiographical perspectives on her topic. It will be the authoritative examination of the subject, sure to appeal to specialists in French History, Cultural Studies, Heritage Studies and Military Studies.' - Professor Robert Aldrich, The University of Sydney, Australia

Product Description

The French defeat of 1870-1 sparked soul-searching and a reassessment of the character of the nation. This book is the first to explore how memories of the Franco-Prussian War shaped French political culture and identities. It argues that these memories reawakened deep political divisions, distorting them through the prism of the "terrible year." It sheds new light on how people constructed memories not only to define and articulate their ideas, but also to situate themselves within new concepts of France.

Book Description

The first book to explore how memories of the Franco-Prussian War shaped French political culture and identities.

About the Author
KARINE VARLEY is a graduate of the University of Cambridge, the University of Leeds, and Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. She has lectured at Durham University and is currently Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Edinburgh.

Call #: DC325 .V37 2008

With Hitler to the end : the memoirs of Adolf Hitler's valet / Heinz Linge introduction by Roger Moorhouse translation by Geoffrey Brooks. (10/7/2009)

10/7/2009

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Review
The scariest thing about [With Hitler to the End is its] showing that Hitler could be quite charming—a seemingly regular guy, or at least as regular as anyone who killed millions could ever be. Of interest to anyone seeking more insight into the everyday life of one of history's monsters. (Ed Goedeken - Library Journal )

Product Description
The remarkable memoir of a man who was by Hitler’s side from 1935 to 1945. Heinz Linge worked with Adolf Hitler for a ten-year period from 1935 until the Führer’s death in the Berlin bunker in May 1945. He was one of the last to leave the bunker and was responsible for guarding the door while Hitler killed himself.
During his years of service, Linge was responsible for all aspects of Hitler’s household and was constantly by his side. He claims that only Eva Braun stood closer to Hitler over these years.

Here, Linge recounts the daily routine in Hitler’s household: his eating habits, his foibles, his preferences, his sense of humor, and his private life with Eva Braun. In fact, Linge believed Hitler’s closest companion was his dog Blondi. After the war Linge said in an interview, “It was easier for him to sign a death warrant for an officer on the front than to swallow bad news about the health of his dog.” Linge also charts the changes in Hitler’s character during their time together and his fading health during the last years of the war. During his last days, Hitler’s right eye began to hurt intensely and Linge was responsible for administering cocaine drops to kill the pain. In a number of instances—such as with the Stauffenberg bomb plot of July 1944—Linge gives an excellent eyewitness account of events. He also gives thumbnail profiles of the prominent members of Hitler’s “court”: Hess, Speer, Bormann and Ribbentrop amongst them.

Though Linge held an SS rank, he claims not to have been a Nazi Party member. His profile of one of history’s worst demons is not blindly uncritical, but it is nonetheless affectionate. The Hitler that emerges is a multi-faceted individual: unpredictable and demanding, but not of an otherwise unpleasant nature. 12 b&w illustrations.

About the Author
Heinz Linge was born in Bremen, Germany, in March 1913. He worked as Hitler’s valet until the Führer shot himself in 1945. He was arrested by the Red Army, which interrogated him about the circumstances of Hitler’s death. Linge was released from Soviet captivity in 1955. He died in Bremen in March 1980.

Call #: DD247.H5 L4813 2009

Archaeological excavations on the route of the A27 Westhampnett Bypass, West Sussex, 1992. (9/30/2009)

9/30/2009

Call #: DA670.S98 A668 1997

Culture, history and identity : landscapes of inhabitation in the Mount Kilimanjaro area, Tanzania : essays in honour of Paramount Chief Thomas Lenana Mlanga Marealle II (1915-2007) / edited by Timothy A.R. Clack. (9/30/2009)

9/30/2009

Call #: DT449.K4 C85 2009

Delta reports. Vol. 1, Research in Lower Egypt / edited by Donald Redford. (9/30/2009)

9/30/2009

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Product Description
This is a new series reporting on work carried out by Pennsylvania State University in the Delta region of Egypt.

About the Author
edited by Donald B Redford

Call #: DT73.N54 D45 2009

En quête de la lumière = In quest of light : mélanges in honorem Ashraf A. Sadek / edited by Amanda-Alice Maravelia. (9/30/2009)

9/30/2009

Call #: DT60 .E57 2009

Geoarchaeology of Lebanon's ancient harbours / Nick Marriner. (9/30/2009)

9/30/2009

Call #: DS80.3 .M37 2009

Heart of dryness : how the last bushmen can help us endure the coming age of permanent drought / James G. Workman. (9/30/2009)

9/30/2009

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From Publishers Weekly
Passing references to water woes along the Colorado River and rainfall shortages in the Southeast that have cut hydropower pepper this dramatic report on the looming American (and global) water crisis. Workman filters his apocalyptic forecast through a slice of micro history: the (almost genocidal) 2002 decision of Botswana to force a minute population of Bushmen—inhabitants of the arid Kalahari Desert for tens of thousands of years—off their ancestral lands by sealing the only borehole that provided water to 1,000 desert dwellers and then dumping stored water into the dry sand. The heart of this numbing report on the government's use of water as weapon is Bushman matriarch Qoroxloo, whose ability to wring precious liquid from deep roots and animal carcasses is testament to a wise elder's gritty determination to help her band survive against formidable political and geographic odds. The author's belief that water-starved Western cultures might adapt to a coming age of permanent drought based on pragmatic Bushmen ways posits an unlikely cultural transformation, but his journalistic depiction of a tribal David's triumph over a governmental Goliath is riveting. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Description

The dramatic story of the Bushmen of the Kalahari is a cautionary tale about water in the twenty-first century—and offers unexpected solutions for our time.
“We don’t govern water. Water governs us,” writes James G. Workman. I n Heart of Dryness, he chronicles the memorable saga of the famed Bushmen of the Kalahari—remnants of one of the world’s most successful civilizations, today at the exact epicenter of Africa’s drought—in their widely publicized recent battle with the government of Botswana, in the process of exploring the larger story of what many feel has become the primary resource battleground of the twenty-first century: the supply of water.

The Bushmen’s story could well prefigure our own. In the United States, even the most upbeat optimists concede we now face an unprecedented water crisis. Reservoirs behind large dams on the Colorado River, which serve thirty million in many states, will be dry in thirteen years. Southeastern drought recently cut Tennessee Valley Authority hydropower in half, exposed Lake Okeechobee’s floor, dried up thousands of acres of Georgia’s crops, and left Atlanta with sixty days of water. Cities east and west are drying up. As reservoirs and aquifers fail, officials ration water, neighbors snitch on one another, corporations move in, and states fight states to control shared rivers.

Each year, around the world, inadequate water kills more humans than AIDS, malaria, and all wars combined. Global leaders pray for rain. Bushmen tap more pragmatic solutions. James G . Workman illuminates the present and coming tensions we will all face over water and shows how, from the remoteness of the Kalahari, an ancient and resilient people is showing the world a viable path through the encroaching Dry Age.

About the Author

James G. Workman began his career as a journalist in Washington, D.C., for the New Republic, Washington Monthly, Utne Reader, Orion, and other publications. H e was a speechwriter in the Clinton administration, working closely with Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, and steering the “dambuster” campaign to tear down river-killing dams. He helped edit and launch the report of the World Commission on Dams, and spent two years filing monthly dispatches on water scarcity in Africa, work which formed the basis of a National Public Radio show and documentary. He is now a water consultant to politicians, businesses, aid agencies, development institutions, and conservation organizations on four continents. He lives with his wife and children in San Francisco.

Call #: DT2458.S26 W67 2009

La nécropole méridionale d'Aix-en-Provence : (Ier - VIe siècles apr. J.-C.) : les fouilles de la ZAC Sextius Mirabeau : (1994 - 2000) / Núria Nin et Paul Bailet ... [et al.]. (9/30/2009)

9/30/2009

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Product Description

Analyzing for the first time the relationship between the tangata whenua and the country’s earliest non-European immigrant group, this study investigates how two different marginalized groups in New Zealand society—the Maori and the Chinese—have interacted over the last 150 years. Various aspects are explored, such as how Maori newspapers have portrayed Chinese publications and vice versa, the changing demography of Chinese and Maori populations, Maori-Chinese marriages, and the ancient migration of both groups. The ethnically diverse contributors—from Maori to Chinese to European scholars—tackle numerous questions from many angles as well, such as Do the Maori resent Chinese immigrants? Do Chinese New Zealanders understand the role of the tangata whenua? and Have Maori and Chinese formed alliances based on common values and history? The result is an engaging portrait of the past and present relationships between two important peoples. Since race relations in New Zealand have usually been examined in terms of Maori and Pakeha, this unique exploration of Maori–Chinese relations portrays a much richer and more complex social fabric.

About the Author

Manying Ip is an associate professor of Chinese in the Asian studies department of the University of Auckland. She is the author of Aliens at My Table: Asians as New Zealanders See Them, Being Maori Chinese, Dragons on the Long White Cloud, and Home Away from Home: Life Stories of Chinese Women in New Zealand. She is the editor of Unfolding History Evolving Identity: The Chinese in New Zealand.

Call #: DU424.5.C5 D73 2009

The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait : religion, identity and otherness in the analysis of war and conflict / Hamdi A. Hassan. (9/30/2009)

9/30/2009

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Review

‘Broadens current debates on the future of Islamic societies.’ --Middle East

'If you're not satisfied with the mainstream western press's explanation of Saddam Hussein's behaviour or why he's still in power, then read this book... A powerful antidote to the uninformed, prejuding drivel that is the standard western media fare.' --Spectre

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Description

Focusing on the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Hamdi Hassan offers a balanced examination of the motivation of the Iraqi polity and the conditions that accelerated and facilitated the decision to invade. Hassan examines how Saddam Hussein assessed and responded to American and Israeli intentions after the invasion, the reaction of other Arab states, and the unprecedented grassroots support of the Iraqi leadership. In this context, the author examines the social structure of Iraqi society - families, clans and regional alliances - and the importance of Ba'athism. Hassan also examines the political structure of the country, relating the identity of Arabism - the religion and language that is associated closely with the Pan Arabist ideals - to Iraqi foreign policy.Controversial and critical of the traditional approach of most Middle East studies, this book broadens the ongoing debates on the future of Islamic societies.

About the Author

Hamdi Hassan is a consultant to the Swedish National Labour Market Administration, working on cases of employment and the integration of immigrants. He has been associated with Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies and the University of Stockholm, where he taught political theory.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Call #: DS79.72 .H425 1999

The Routledge companion to Britain in the twentieth century / Mark Clapson. (9/30/2009)

9/30/2009

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Product Description
The first of its kind in this series, The Routledge Companion to 20th Century Britain is an introductory reference resource ideal for the student starting out in their studies.
The authors cover political, social, economic and cultural history in three parts:
* Part 1 - consists of resources that guide the reader into the subject
* Part 2 - is made up of combined data and text chapters on the major themes of twentieth century British history
* Part 3 - leads the student out of the book with further reading, and a reference guide to sources, key terms and figures in twentieth century Britain.
All of which adds up to a helpful and usable resource in the pursuit of knowledge in twentieth century British history.

About the Author
Harriet Jones was Director of Institute of Contemporary British History at the Institute of Historical Research.
Mark Clapson is Visiting Research Fellow in History at the University of Westminster.

Call #: DA566 .C53 2009

The Year in pictures. (9/30/2009)

9/30/2009

Call #: D410 .Y44

Africa's world war : Congo, the Rwandan genocide, and the making of a continental catastrophe / Gérard Prunier. (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

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From Publishers Weekly
The bloodiest modern conflict you've never heard of gets a searching appraisal in this exhaustive history. Africanist Prunier (The Rwanda Crisis) follows the 1996–2002 war in the Democratic Republic of Congo through many bewildering twists and turns. Sparked by a Rwandan army incursion to clear out Hutu-dominated refugee camps on the border between the two countries, the conflict dragged in the armies of eight surrounding countries and an alphabet soup of Congolese guerrilla movements and tribal militias; millions died in the fighting and attendant massacres, starvation and disease. Prunier discerns many layers to the upheaval; a conventional struggle for political control of what had been called Zaire, it was also a multisided act of piracy aimed at looting the country's mineral wealth, an outbreak of generations-long ethnic hatreds and a ghastly symptom of Africa's ongoing crisis of weak and illegitimate governments. The author carefully untangles these complexities while offering unsparing assessments of the participants, including a vigorous indictment of Rwanda's Tutsi leaders for using the 1994 genocide as an excuse for their own atrocities. Lucid, meticulously researched and incisive, Prunier's will likely become the standard account of this under-reported tragedy. (Dec.)
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Review

"Mr. Prunier points out, the genocide in Rwanda acted as an incendiary bomb, setting fire to disputes that go back generations...Help(s) disentangle the fiendishly complicated histories of national and tribal identities, real and invented."--The Economist
"This unique and hugely ambitious book may turn out to be one of the most important to emerge on Africa for a long time."--Financial Times
"Lucid, meticulously researched and incisive, Prunier's will likely become the standard account of this under-reported tragedy."--Publishers Weekly
"Africa's World War is the most ambitious of several remarkable new books that reexamine the extraordinary tragedy of Congo and Central Africa since the Rwandan genocide of 1994."--New York Review of Books
"The book is remarkable not just because Gerard Prunier, who has spent his life studying African conflicts, is able to call on every academic discipline required to comprehend this gigantic disaster, but also because he was an eyewitness to much of it himself, and frequently has telling details to offer about the behaviour and motivation of key individuals. He writes, moreover, with a verve, sophistication and wit equalled, in my experience, only by fellow French intellectual Regis Debray."--The Sunday Times, UK
"Runier is immensely knowledgeable and passionate about his subject.... [He sorts] out some of the strands of an immenseley complicated and enormously devastating conflict, and for that we are surely in his debt."--Books & Culture
"Africa's World War is one of the first books to lay bare the complex dynamic between Rwanda and Congo that has been driving this disaster."--Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times Book Review

Product Description
The Rwandan genocide sparked a horrific bloodbath that swept across sub-Saharan Africa, ultimately leading to the deaths of some four million people. In this extraordinary history of the recent wars in Central Africa, Gerard Prunier offers a gripping account of how one grisly episode laid the groundwork for a sweeping and disastrous upheaval.
Prunier vividly describes the grisly aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, when some two million refugees--a third of Rwanda's population--fled to exile in Zaire in 1996. The new Rwandan regime then crossed into Zaire and attacked the refugees, slaughtering upwards of 400,000 people. The Rwandan forces then turned on Zaire's despotic President Mobutu and, with the help of a number of allied African countries, overthrew him. But as Prunier shows, the collapse of the Mobutu regime and the ascension of the corrupt and erratic Laurent-Desire Kabila created a power vacuum that drew Rwanda, Uganda, Angola, Zimbabwe, Sudan, and other African nations into an extended and chaotic war. The heart of the book documents how the whole core of the African continent became engulfed in an intractible and bloody conflict after 1998, a devastating war that only wound down following the assassination of Kabila in 2001. Prunier not only captures all this in his riveting narrative, but he also indicts the international community for its utter lack of interest in what was then the largest conflict in the world.
Here then is a gripping eyewitness account of the most bloody upheaval of recent times, a book of passionate and unblinking intensity that is our best record to date of one of the great tragedies of the post-Cold War era.

About the Author

Gerard Prunier is a widely acclaimed journalist as well as Director of the French Centre for Ethiopian Studies in Addis Ababa. He has published over 120 articles and five books, including The Rwanda Crisis and Darfur.

Call #: DT658.26 .P78 2009

After Hitler, before Stalin : Catholics, communists, and democrats in Slovakia, 1945-1948 / James Ramon Felak. (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

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Review

“After Hitler, Before Stalin is the most important English-language contribution to our understanding of the struggle over Slovak Catholics in the fateful period between the end of World War II and the Communist Party's assumption of total power in February of 1948. Slovakia is the ideal laboratory for an investigation of Catholics and politics in early postwar Europe and Felak's careful research illuminates issues that are central for understanding the whole of East-Central Europe.”
—Bradley F. Abrams, Columbia University

Product Description

After Hitler, Before Stalin examines the crucial postwar period in Slovakia, following Nazi occupation and ending with the Communist coup of February1948. Centering his work around the major political role of the Catholic Church and its leaders, James Ramon Felak offers a fascinating study of the interrelationship of Slovak Catholics, Democrats, and Communists. He provides an in-depth examination of Communist policies toward Catholics and their strategies to court Catholic voters, and he chronicles the variety of political stances Catholics maintained during Slovakia's political turmoil.

Felak opens by providing a background on pre-war and wartime Slovak politics, notably the rise of Slovak Catholic nationalism and Slovakia's alignment with Nazi Germany during World War II. He then describes the union formed in the famed “April Agreement” of 1946 between the Democratic Party and Catholics that guaranteed a landslide victory for the Democrats and insured a position for Catholics in the new regime. Felak views other major political events of the period, including: the 1947 Czechoslovak war crimes trial of Father Jozef Tiso; education policy; the treatment of the Hungarian minority; the trumped-up “anti-state conspiracy” movement led by police in the Fall of 1947; and the subsequent Communist putsch.

Through extensive research in Slovak national archives, including those of the Democratic and Communist parties, After Hitler, Before Stalin assembles a comprehensive study of the predominant political forces and events of this tumultuous period and the complex motivations behind them.

About the Author

James Ramon Felak is associate professor of history at the University of Washington. He is the author of At the Price of the Republic: Hlinka's Slovak People's Party, 1929-1938, and coeditor of Nations and Nationalisms in East-Central Europe, 1806-1948.

Call #: DB2828.7 .F45 2009

Attlee's great contemporaries : the politics of character / [edited by Frank Field]. (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

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Call #: DA566.7 .A88 2009

Bulmer Hobson and the nationalist movement in twentieth-century Ireland / Marnie Hay. (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

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Product Description

Bulmer Hobson (1883-1969) abandoned the pacifism of his Ulster Quaker roots to become a key leader in the Irish nationalist movement in the period leading up to the 1916 Easter Rising. Sidelined at a critical time and maligned by some republican colleagues, Hobson has not been the subject of a published study until now. This book outlines and assesses Hobson’s nationalist career in the period 1900-16, exploring his contributions to the Gaelic League, the Gaelic Athletic Association, the Sinn Féin movement, Na Fianna Éireann and the Irish Volunteers. It also examines his lesser-known activities as a publisher, civil servant and economic propagandist in the years after the Rising.

As the only study on Bulmer Hobson this book will be of interest to historians and political scientists specializing in twentieth-century Ireland and the Irish revolution, Irish Studies scholars, and students of these disciplines. It will also appeal to the general reader with an interest in the history of the Irish revolution.

From the Back Cover
This book is the only study in full of Bulmer Hobson (1883-1969) examining his nationalist career in the period 1900-16, as well as his lesser-known activities in the years after the rebellion. Bulmer Hobson (1883-1969) abandoned the pacifism of his Ulster Quaker roots to become a key leader in the Irish nationalist movement in the period leading up to the 1916 Easter Rising. However, his disapproval of what he considered an untimely rebellion and his evasion of arrest in its aftermath helped to scuttle a promising political career in an independent Ireland. Sidelined at a critical time and maligned by some republican colleagues, Hobson has not been the subject of a published study until now, despite the leading roles that he played in the advanced nationalist movement. This book outlines and assesses Hobson_s nationalist career in the period 1900-16, exploring his contributions to the Gaelic League, the Gaelic Athletic Association, the Sinn Fin movement, Na Fianna eireann and the Irish Volunteers. It also examines his lesser-known activities as a publisher, civil servant and economic propagandist in the years after the Rising. As such, it fills a significant gap in the historiography of Irish nationalism in the twentieth century. This book will be of interest to historians and political scientists specializing in twentieth-century Ireland and the Irish revolution, Irish Studies scholars, and students of these disciplines. It will also appeal to the general reader with an interest in the history of the Irish revolution.

About the Author

Marnie Hay is an IRCHSS Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow in History at Trinity College Dublin.

Call #: DA965.H6 H39 2009

Chinese security policy : structure, power and politics / Robert S. Ross. (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

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Product Description

This volume provides a coherent and comprehensive understanding of Chinese security policy, comprising essays written by one of America's leading scholars.

Chinese Security Policy covers such fundamental areas as the role of international structure in state behavior, the use of force in international politics (including deterrence, coercive diplomacy, and war), and the sources of great-power conflict and cooperation and balance of power politics, with a recent focus on international power transitions. The research integrates the realist literature with key issues in Chinese foreign policy, thereby placing China’s behaviour in the larger context of the international political system. Within this framework, Chinese Security Policy considers the importance of domestic politics and leadership in Chinese policy making.

This book examines how Chinese strategic vulnerability since U.S.-China rapprochement in the early 1970s has compelled Beijing to seek cooperation with the United States and to avoid U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan. It also addresses the implications of the rise of China for the security of both United States and of Chinese neighbors in East Asia, and considers the implications of China’s rise for the regional balance of power and the emerging twenty-first century East Asian security order.

This book will be of great interest to all students of Chinese Security and Foreign Policy, Chinese and Asian Politics, US foreign policy and International Security in general.

About the Author
Boston College, MA, USA

Call #: DS779.27 .R65 2009

Dublin 1916 : the siege of the GPO / Clair Wills. (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

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Review
Just as Fort McHenry and the Alamo are iconic in American history, Dublin's General Post Office is important in modern Irish history. Historian Wills explores how it acquired its symbolism, starting from the events of the 1916 Easter Rising that occurred there, to how they were remembered in popular memory, in literature and film, and in politics...History readers will be drawn to Wills' incisive study.
--Gilbert Taylor (Booklist )

Product Description

On Easter Monday 1916, while much of Dublin holidayed at the seaside and placed bets at the horse races, a disciplined group of Irish Volunteers seized the city’s General Post Office in what would become the defining act of rebellion against British rule—and the most significant single event in modern Irish history. By week’s end, the rebels had surrendered, and the siege had left the once magnificent GPO an empty shell—and turned it into the most famous and deeply symbolic building in all of Ireland.

This book unravels the events in and around the GPO during the Easter Rising of 1916. Drawing on participant and eyewitness accounts, diaries, and newspaper reports, Clair Wills recreates the harrowing moments that transformed the GPO from an emblem of nineteenth-century British power and civil government, to an embattled barricade, and finally to a national symbol. What was it like to be trapped in the building? To watch, and listen to, the destruction of the city? Was the act meant as a bloody sacrifice or a military coup d’état? Exploring these questions as they were experienced and understood then and later, her book reveals the twists and turns that the myth of the GPO has undergone in the last century, as it has stood for sacrifice and treachery, national unity and divisive violence, the future and the past.

(20090901)

About the Author
Clair Wills is Professor of Irish Literature at Queen Mary, University of London. Her previous books include a study of Paul Muldoon.

Call #: DA962 .W64 2009

Europe's barbarians, AD 200-600 / Edward James. (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

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Product Description
Ed James's new book focuses on the often neglected subject of Europe's Barbarians. He focuses on the decline and fall of the Roman Empire and the so-called "Dark Ages" that followed, and examines the unique cultures and histories of the "barbarian hoards" that eventually brought the Empire to its knees. A readable and approachable text covering a vital and interesting period of history.

From the Back Cover

“Edward James, an Anglo-Saxon who lives amongst Celts, here offers a sure-footed, clear and sympathetic guide to the complex world of barbarian Europe, where scholarly theories are fought over with almost as much passion as loot from the Empire."

Bryan Ward-Perkins, Trinity College, Oxford

"A lively and informative introduction to the problems of the collapse of the late Roman Empire and the creation of the medieval world."

Hugh Elton, Trent University, Canada

‘Barbarians’ is the name the Romans gave to those who lived beyond the frontiers of the Roman Empire – the peoples they considered ‘uncivilised’. Most of the written sources concerning the barbarians come from the Romans too, and as such, need to be treated with caution. Only archaeology allows us to see beyond Roman prejudices – and yet these records are often as difficult to interpret as historical ones.

Expertly guiding the reader through such historiographical complexities, Edward James traces the history of the barbarians from the height of Roman power through to AD 600, by which time they had settled in most parts of imperial territory in Europe. His book is the first to look at all Europe’s barbarians: the Picts and the Scots in the far north-west; the Franks, Goths and Slavic-speaking peoples; and relative newcomers such as the Huns and Alans from the Asiatic steppes.

How did whole barbarian peoples migrate across Europe? What were their relations with the Romans? And why did they convert to Christianity? Drawing on the latest scholarly research, this book rejects easy generalisations to provide a clear, nuanced and comprehensive account of the barbarians and the tumultuous period they lived through.

Edward James trained as both an archaeologist and historian and is now Professor of Medieval History at University College Dublin. His single-authored books include The Origins of France (1982), The Franks (1988), and Britain in the First Millennium (2001), and he has also produced two award-winning books on science fiction, the single-authored Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century (1994) and The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction (2003), co-edited with Farah Mendlesohn.

About the Author

Edward James trained as both an archaeologist and historian and is currently Professor of Medieval History at University College Dublin. His single-authored books include The Origins of France (1982), The Franks (1988), and Britain in the First Millennium (2001), and he has also co-edited two award-winning books on science fiction, Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century (1994) and The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction (2003).

Call #: DG312 .J365 2009

Freuds' war / Helen Fry. (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

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Product Description

Despite his worldwide reputation as the father of modern psychology, Sigmund Freud’s security in his native Vienna changed overnight when Hitler’s forces annexed Austria on March 12, 1938. His books had already been burned across Germany, and now he and his family were at immediate risk. The Nazis carried out regular raids on Jewish families’ homes, and the Freuds were no exception. They suffered a period of house arrest and two months of uncertainty, before finally securing papers for emigration to England and making a last-minute dramatic escape. It was after becoming refugees in Britain, however, that the Freuds’ story takes a fascinating turn. Following their escape from Austria, both Sigmund’s son Martin and his grandson Walter enlisted in the British Forces, going on to fight for Britain behind enemy lines in Austria.

About the Author

Helen Fry is the author of The King’s Own Most Loyal Enemy Aliens: Germans Who Fought for Britain in the Second World War.

Call #: D810.J4 F79 2009

From hōnto jin to bensheng ren : the origin and development of Taiwanese national consciousness / Shih-jung Tzeng (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

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Call #: DS799.716 .T94 2009

From Toussaint to Tupac : the Black international since the age of revolution / edited by Michael O. West, William G. Martin, & Fanon Che Wilkins. (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

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Product Description
Transcending geographic and cultural lines, From Toussaint to Tupacis an ambitious collection of essays exploring black internationalism and its implications for a black consciousness. At its core, black internationalism is a struggle against oppression, whether manifested in slavery, colonialism, or racism. The ten essays in this volume offer a comprehensive overview of the global movements that define black internationalism, from its origins in the colonial period to the present.

From Toussaint to Tupac focuses on three moments in global black history: the American and Haitian revolutions, the Garvey movement and the Communist International following World War I, and the Black Power movement of the late twentieth century. Contributors demonstrate how black internationalism emerged and influenced events in particular localities, how participants in the various struggles communicated across natural and man-made boundaries, and how the black international aided resistance on the local level, creating a collective consciousness.

In sharp contrast to studies that confine Black Power to particular national locales, this volume demonstrates the global reach and resonance of the movement. The volume concludes with a discussion of hip hop, including its cultural and ideological antecedents in Black Power.

Contributors:
Hakim Adi, Middlesex University, London
Sylvia R. Frey, Tulane University
William G. Martin, Binghamton University
Brian Meeks, University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica
Marc D. Perry, University of Illinois, Urbana-ChampaignLara Putnam, University of Pittsburgh
Vijay Prashad, Trinity College
Robyn Spencer, Lehman College
Robert T. Vinson, College of William and Mary
Michael O. West, Binghamton University
Fanon Che Wilkins, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan

From the Inside Flap
This collection of essays explores black internationalism--the struggle against oppression, whether manifested in slavery, colonialism, or racism. Contributors focus on three moments in global black history: the American and Haitian revolutions, the Garvey movement and the Communist International following World War I, and the Black Power movement of the late twentieth century to demonstrate how black internationalism emerged and influenced events in particular localities, how participants in the various struggles communicated across natural and man-made boundaries, and how the black international aided resistance on the local level, creating a collective consciousness.

About the Author
Michael O. West is professor of sociology and Africana studies at Binghamton University.

William G. Martin is professor of sociology at Binghamton University.

Fanon Che Wilkins is associate professor of African American history and culture in the Graduate School of American Studies at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan.

Call #: DT16.5 .F766 2009

Gatekeepers of the Arab past : historians and history writing in twentieth-century Egypt / Yoav Di-Capua. (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

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Product Description
This groundbreaking study illuminates the Egyptian experience of modernity by critically analyzing the foremost medium through which it was articulated: history. The first comprehensive analysis of a Middle Eastern intellectual tradition, Gatekeepers of the Past examines a system of knowledge that replaced the intellectual and methodological conventions of Islamic historiography only at the very end of the nineteenth century. Covering more than one hundred years of mostly unexamined historucal literature in Arabic, Yoav Di-Capua explores Egyptian historical thought, examines the careers of numerous critical historians, and traces this tradition's uneasy relationship with colonial forms of knowledge as well as with the post-colonial state.

From the Inside Flap
"An enormous contribution to the study of Egyptian history writing and historiography. Sure to become the basic manual for understanding the trajectory of modern Egyptian thinking."--Roger Owen, author of State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East

About the Author
Yoav Di-Capua is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin.

Call #: DT107.824 .D53 2009

Hermann Dessau (1856-1931) : zum 150. Geburtstag des Berliner Althistorikers und Epigraphikers : Beiträge eines Kolloquiums und wissenschaftliche Korrespondenz des Jubilars / herausgegeben von Manfred G. Schmidt. (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

Call #: DG206.D49 H46 2009

Hitler's ethic : the Nazi pursuit of evolutionary progress / Richard Weikart. (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

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Review

“There have been many attempts to provide the key to Hitler's world of ideas but Richard Weikart has succeeded in revealing what must be the central element in any understanding of Hitler's world view. The terrible paradox at the heart of the Third Reich, that biological utopia could only be created by intense physical suffering and violence, now has a proper explanation. What seemed to others bizarrely immoral appeared to Hitler an honorable duty.”--Richard Overy, Professor of History, University of Exeter, UK

Product Description

In this book, Weikart helps unlock the mystery of Hitler’s evil by vividly demonstrating the surprising conclusion that Hitler’s immorality flowed from a coherent ethic. Hitler was inspired by evolutionary ethics to pursue the utopian project of biologically improving the human race. This ethic underlay or influenced almost every major feature of Nazi policy: eugenics (i.e., measures to improve human heredity, including compulsory sterilization), euthanasia, racism, population expansion, offensive warfare, and racial extermination.

Book Description

About the Author

Richard Weikart is Professor of Modern European History at California State University, Stanislaus. He has published three previous books, including From Darwin to Hitler and his prize-winning dissertation, Socialist Darwinism. He has also published numerous essays on social Darwinism in anthologies and leading journals, such as German Studies Review, Journal of the History of Ideas, and Isis.

Call #: DD247.H5 W375 2009

Juke box Britain : Americanisation and youth culture, 1945-60 / Adrian Horn. (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

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Review
Richard Hoggart believed that the juke box was a harbinger of all the worst features of American mass culture. Using a range of primary and secondary sources, from the trade press of the music industry to memoirs and interviews, and drawing on an established sociological and historical literature on postwar youth cultures, Adrian Horn has produced an innovative and scholarly work. He charts the cultural impact of juke boxes in Britain in meticulous detail, and sheds much needed light also on the cultural worlds of 'the juke box boys' and youth cafes of postwar Britain.' David Fowler, University of Cambridge

Product Description

British teenagers witnessed immense cultural change in the period following the second world war. There were less than 100 juke boxes in Britain in 1945 and over 15,000 by 1958. Over the same period there was a similar unprecedented expansion of casual youth venues in the form of cafés, snack, milk and coffee bars where young people could hear the sounds of hot American jazz and rock ‘n’ roll.

It has been a common assumption among academics and cultural historians alike that British youth between 1945 and 1960 underwent a period of massive "Americanisation." Juke Box Britain contests this view maintaining that American popular-cultural influences were not examples of cultural domination but simply influences that combined with existing styles to create distinctly British style fusions.

Juke Box Britain is suitable for students of cultural, social and design histories as well as cultural studies and provides fascinating reading for youth culture and juke box enthusiasts.

From the Back Cover
There were less than 100 juke boxes in Britain in 1945 and over 15,000 by 1958. Over the same period there was a similar unprecedented expansion of casual youth venues in the form of cafs, snack, milk and coffee bars where young people could hear the sounds of hot American jazz and rock _n_ roll. And if this wasn_t enough, teenagers were earning more in real terms than ever before and spending it on commodities _of no lasting value_ like make-up, clothes, records and juke box music. British teenagers following World War II witnessed immense cultural change. These new forms of youth culture were seen as American, gaudy, a waste of money, un-British and socially retrogressive by culturally entrenched _Establishment_ bodies like the BBC, police, magistrates and school authorities. The generational frictions were stretched further by the Teddy Boy subculture which led to a moral panic and general social indignation. It has been a common assumption among academics and cultural historians alike that British youth between 1945 and 1960 underwent a period of massive _Americanisation_. Juke Box Britain contests this view maintaining that American popular-cultural influences were not examples of cultural domination but simply influences that combined with existing styles to create distinctly British style fusions that may now be viewed as quaint and of the period. Juke Box Britain is suitable for students of cultural, social and design histories as well as cultural studies and provides fascinating reading for youth culture and juke box enthusiasts.

About the Author

Adrian Horn is an Honorary Research Associate at the Department of History at Lancaster University, and an Associate Lecturer in Social Sciences with the Open University.

Call #: DA589.4 .H67 2009

Mau Mau in Harlem? : the U.S. and the liberation of Kenya / Gerald Horne. (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

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Review

"This is a fast-moving, readable account— -- stunningly well-researched in a wide range of archives on three continents— -- of hitherto little-known connections between the United States in general, and African-Americans in particular, with the history of the colonization and then liberation of Kenya."--John Lonsdale, Fellow of Trinity College and Emeritus University Professor of Modern African History, University of Cambridge

Product Description

From the inception of a the British colony in Kenya in the late 19th nineteenth century, the United States has been intimately involved in the country’s development. African-Americans were particularly attracted to Kenya from early on, not least because the apparent “black-white” conflict there, while symbolizing Africa’s struggle for freedom from European colonialism, also seemed to mirror what they were experiencing in the U.S. The struggle in Kenya symbolized Africa’s struggle for freedom from European colonialism. It was thought that lessons could be learned from Kenya, demonstrated when Malcolm X proclaimed a “Mau Mau in Harlem” might be necessary. To counter Soviet propaganda that suggested that the U.S. was supportive of colonialism, John F. Kennedy was among those who backed a campaign to bring Kenyans to the U.S. for higher education – included among these students was Barack H. Obama, Sr., who was brought to the University of Hawaii. Based on extensive archival research in the U.S., the U.K., and Kenya, this book not only sheds light on the historical forces that created a U.S. President but also the unshakeable bonds that historically have historically conjoined Black America, Africa, and the United States as a whole.

Horne offers important context in understanding how a man of Kenyan descent could one day occupy the White House.

Book Description

Based on archival research on three continents, this book addresses the interpenetration of two closely related movements: the struggle against white supremacy and Jim Crow in the U.S., and the struggle against similar forces and for national liberation in Colonial Kenya.

About the Author

Gerald Horne is John and Rebecca Moores Professor of African-American History at the University of Houston. He has published over two dozen books, including From the Barrel of a Gun: The United States and the War Against Zimbabwe, 1965-1980.

Call #: DT433.577 .H67 2009

Roman Southwark, settlement and economy : excavations in Southwark, 1973-91 / Carrie Cowan ... [et al.]. (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

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Product Description
This report presents an overview of Roman urban development in London south of the Thames. The establishment of the Roman bridge and the first approach roads and landing places, made Southwark an ideal location for the development of facilities for the trans-shipment of goods between land and river. The wide range of data from 41 previously unpublished north Southwark sites provides the means for 'mapping' Roman activity in Southwark: the nature of the early settlement, changing patterns of land use and broader processes of social and economic change. Early land reclamation preceded the establishment of a thriving trade centre involved in the redistribution or marketing of locally processed and imported goods, with evidence of a concentration of buildings burnt in Boudican fire of AD 61 along the main road to the bridgehead. Increased land reclamation and construction of more masonry buildings in the 2nd century AD indicate further growth. By the 3rd century large stone buildings at ten of the sites reported suggest an administrative area housing official residences. After the mid 4th century the settlement contracted to the area immediately around the bridgehead with a cemetery on previously occupied land to the south.

About the Author
by Carrie Cowan, Fiona Seeley, Angela Wardle, Andrew Westman and Lucy Wheeler

Call #: DA685.S7 R66 2009

The bicycle runner : a memoir of love, loyalty, and the Italian resistance / G. Franco Romagnoli. (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

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From Publishers Weekly
At 14, the young Romagnoli, like any other Italian youth, marched to the beat of the Balilla, the Fascist Youth Organization in Italy. Not long after his days in his little squad, he realized the error of his ways and became a bicycle runner, secretly delivering books, pamphlets and other materials to members of the Resistance. Romagnoli, who died in 2008, at 82, and developed an affectionate following as a writer on Italian culture and cuisine (Italy, the Romagnoli Way: A Culinary Journey), warmly chronicles his coming-of-age in the midst of upheaval and conflict. This memoir covers 11 years in Romagnoli's life (from 14 to 25) and contains the outline of a portrait of the young man as famous artist. During his stint with the resistance, he meets a young American pilot named Bob, and with their insatiable appetites whetted by their hunger, the two dream of home by exchanging constantly their favorite succulent menus. Romagnoli reminisces, too, about first love; his forays into lust and sex with his neighbor; his fear of confession to the local Catholic priest; and the warmth and largesse of his extended family. In this heartwarming memoir, Romagnoli offers a picture of a young boy whose passions and longings for love, homeland and family abide with him as he turns quickly into an adult because of WWII. (Aug.)
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From School Library Journal
Romagnoli (d. 2008; A Thousand Bells at Noon: A Roman Reveals the Secrets and Pleasures of His Native City), who was known for his expertise on Italian cuisine, here reflects on his activities in Italy from the late 1930s to the end of World War II. He colorfully describes his own experience of the complexities and ambiguities that were common in relationships among Fascist and anti-Fascist Italians and the Germans, who were alternately their allies and their occupiers. He openly describes his friendships with Mussolini supporters and Germans while he was working as a messenger for the Italian resistance. Although the tone of the memoir is sad, Romagnoli lightens the story with humorous anecdotes and the familiar angst of teenage romance. The narrative becomes especially exciting when Romagnoli flees Rome into the countryside to avoid military service for the puppet government the Germans set up in the north after Italy had officially surrendered to the Allies. This memoir is recommended for the sheer pleasure of reading it.—Michael Farrell, Reformed Theological Seminary Lib., Oviedo, FL
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"This book reads like a movie--one of those wonderful Felliniesque narratives filled with characters and events that could only happen in Italy. It’s a beautifully told tale that illuminates one of the darkest and least understood periods in Italian and World War Two history, told with the humor and optimism of youth. It explains a very complicated and painful time through the eyes and activities of an unwilling yet fully engaged participant and, in that sense, gives deeper understanding than scores of historians could possibly accomplish with daunting dates and data. Romagnoli’s writing is elegant, poignant and completely engaging; a truly wonderfully told story."

—Paul Paolicelli, author of Under the Southern Sun and Dances with Luigi

"With the heartache and ravages of war as its backdrop, this beautiful memoir is foremost a paean to the innocence, optimism, and lessons of youth: carving out a role in the family, celebrating the loyalty of friends, reveling in the intimacy and mystery of love, dealing with the jarring pain that accompanies sadness and disappointment. Like the artist he is, Franco Romagnoli paints a colorful portrait replete with all of these emotions across the bleak canvas of Mussolini’s Fascist Italy. The result is a true work of art and a terrific read."

—Stephen Puleo, author of The Boston Italians, Dark Tide, and Due to Enemy Action: The True World War II Story of the USS Eagle 56

"Personable, gently humorous memories of adolescence under Mussolini by an Italian chef and author....It was a heady, dangerous time for the youth, and his portraits of these local heroes and villains form an invaluable depiction of a historically significant time and place. Heartfelt sketches of a deeply troubling era in Italian history."

—Kirkus Reviews

"In this heartwarming memoir, Romagnoli offers a picture of a young boy whose passions and longings for love, homeland and family abide with him as he turns quickly into an adult because of WWII."

—Publishers Weekly

Product Description

Like all boys growing up in Rome during the 1930s and 1940s, the author was expected to join the Balilla—Italy’s fascist Youth Organization. With political divisions running deep in the families within his palazzo, he and his motley group of friends were recruited into the underground Resistance. Racing around Rome on bicycles, they smuggled messages and weapons for the partisans. Later, the author fled to the Italian countryside and narrowly avoided German mop-up operations—despite being sold out by his most trusted of friends. But this is much more than a war story. Lyrical in language, rich in sentimentality, and possessing the magic of a classic Fellini film, Romagnoli’s memoir is a charmingly told tale of the search for manhood and the bonds of family and friendship.

About the Author

G. FRANCO ROMAGNOLI cohosted the first American television program on Italian cooking, The Romagnolis’ Table, for which he coauthored two very successful companion books. He taught seminars on Italian culture and cuisine at Boston University and wrote several books and articles on Italian culture, including Italy, the Romagnoli Way (with Gwen Romagnoli) and A Thousand Bells at Noon: A Roman Reveals the Secrets and Pleasures of His Native City. The author passed away in December 2008.

Call #: D802.I8 R66 2009

The Cambridge companion to modern Japanese culture / edited by Yoshio Sugimoto. (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

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Product Description
This Companion provides a comprehensive overview of the influences that have shaped modern-day Japan. Spanning one and a half centuries from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 to the beginning of the twenty-first century, this volume covers topics such as technology, food, nationalism and rise of anime and manga in the visual arts. The Cambridge Companion to Modern Japanese Culture traces the cultural transformation that took place over the course of the twentieth century, and paints a picture of a nation rich in cultural diversity. With contributions from some of the most prominent scholars in the field, The Cambridge Companion to Modern Japanese Culture is an authoritative introduction to this subject.

Book Description
This Companion provides a comprehensive overview of the influences that have shaped modern-day Japan. Covering topics such as technology, food, nationalism and rise of anime and manga in the visual arts, it paints a picture of a nation rich in cultural diversity.

About the Author
Yoshio Sugimoto is a Professor Emeritus in the School of Social Sciences, La Trobe University.

Call #: DS822.5 .C36 2009

The cultures of history in early modern India : Persianization and Mughal culture in Bengal / by Kumkum Chatterjee. (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

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Call #: DS485.B46 C49 2009

The legacies of transition governments in Africa : the cases of Benin and Togo / Jennifer C. Seely. (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

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Review

“There is much in this project – particularly the focus on transition bargaining among political actors – that could help to advance our understanding of democratization in Africa and around the world. Jennifer Seely unites insights from the two literatures, namely, the pact-making view that the process matters and the path-dependency view that structures are difficult to change. She also has deep country knowledge of the two cases. It is rare to find this kind of extensive use of interviews.”—Leonardo Arriola, Assistant Professor of Political Science, UC Berkeley

"Professor Seely gives us a powerful set of analytic and empirical tools with which to understand the democratic transitions of the 1990s and their consequences. I could not be more pleased with this excellent study."—Victor T. LeVine, Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Science, Washington University

Product Description

The revolutionary political upheavals in Africa in the early 1990s continue to have an impact almost two decades later. Drawing on original interviews, this book argues we must look to the defining period of transition, and the workings of the transition governments, to understand how politics in these countries changed since the fall of dictatorial one-party states. Transition governments leave legacies with respect to the relevant political players and their strategies, the institutions of government, and the nature of the political agenda. These legacies are apparent in Benin, which successfully transitioned to democracy, as well as Togo, which failed to democratize.

Book Description

The revolutionary political upheavals in Africa in the early 1990s continue to have an impact almost two decades later. Drawing on original interviews, this book argues we must look to the defining period of transition, and the workings of the transition governments, to understand how politics in these countries changed since the fall of dictatorial one-party states, as apparent in Benin, which successfully transitioned to democracy, as well as Togo, which failed to democratize.

About the Author

Jennifer C. Seely is an Assistant Professor in the Politics Department at Earlham College. After earning her Ph.D. in Political Science from Washington University in 2001, she was awarded a Carnegie Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Democracy from Brandeis University. Her research has appeared in the Journal of Modern African Studies, Electoral Studies, and the journal Democratization. She has lived and worked in Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Togo and Benin.

Call #: DT541.845 .S446 2009

The life of Mary Queen of Scots : an accidental tragedy / Roderick Graham. (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

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From Publishers Weekly
French-raised Mary Stuart's life began with tragedy and ended with tragedy for both the monarch and Scotland. Mary Queen of Scots has not always been shown in a positive light, but Graham's pro-Elizabeth bias appears in his showcasing of the instincts of wily, intellectual Queen Elizabeth against naïve, spoiled Mary. Raised in a gilded cage in France to be an ornamental object at court, she ignored governing and deadly court politics as long as she could, and she routinely irritated her English counterpart, Elizabeth. Unsuccessful as ruler in a fragile Scotland, the queen grew even unhappier as the wife of John Darnley, a syphilitic narcissist. All in all, Graham, producer of BBC-TV's Elizabeth, narrates Mary's short life as a hellish fairy tale for naughty children, ending with the queen's grisly death. This dense biography in strongest in carefully detailing the Western European political atmosphere of Mary's youth and nimbly describes the Scottish nobles' machinations to improve their lot before forcing her to abdicate. 16 pages of illus. (July 22)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Description
Mary, Queen of Scots lived during one of the most fascinating periods in history. Graham’s epic work paints a unique picture of this controversial woman, showing her to be neither a Catholic martyr nor murdering adulteress but a passive young woman caught up in the ruthless sea of sixteenth-century politics who lacked the shrewdness and empowerment of her contemporaries—Catherine de Medici, Diane de Poitiers and Elizabeth Tudor. Instead, she relied on her beauty and charm and allowed herself to be a victim of circumstance. When she did finally attempt to control her future, she set in motion the events that would lead her to the executioner’s block.

About the Author
Roderick Graham was educated at the Royal High School of Edinburgh and Edinburgh University. He has worked in radio and television as a writer, director, and producer. He produced the award winning BBC program Elizabeth R with Glenda Jackson. He is the author of John Knox: Democrat and The Great Infidel: A Life of David Hume.

Call #: DA787.A1 G82 2009

Walled towns and the shaping of France : from the medieval to the early modern era / Michael Wolfe. (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

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Review

“This book covers much new ground in relating the history of France's town-walls and fortifications to the general history of the country. It is based on a formidable reading of the scattered sources, and will lead many readers to material that they had not known.”--David Buisseret, formerly Garrett Professor of History, University of Texas at Arlington

Product Description

This book focuses on the ways in which military technology, political and social trends, and shifting frontiers shaped the emergence of new forms of public authority and civic life as embodied in the “wall,” an image at once intensely physical and deeply symbolic. It traces the evolution of towns across much of what is today France from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century when the walls began to come down, opening up new, ultimately revolutionary possibilities for urban life. This long-term perspective on town fortifications—how they were built, the contests to control them, and how they shaped the lives of people both inside and outside them—in the end tell us much about the making of France.

Book Description

This book focuses on the development of towns in France, taking into account military technology, physical geography, shifting regional networks tying urban communities together, and the emergence of new forms of public authority and civic life.

About the Author

Michael Wolfe is Professor of History and Graduate Dean of Arts and Sciences at St. John’s University. He is the author or editor of five previous books, including The Conversion of Henri IV (1993), Changing Identities in Early Modern France (1997) and The Medieval City Under Siege (1999).

Call #: DC33.2 .W65 2009