Will it follow the model of the Western capitalist democracies, as those who applied the economic shock therapy of the early 90s hoped, or will it chose its own distinct path of development? In this history of Russia from 1917 to the present, Alexander Chubarov teases out certain themes developed in his previous book on tsarist Russia (The Fragile Empire). One of the key factors to Russia's distinctiveness is its halfway location in the center of the Eurasian landmass. This lends an inevitability to the traditional cultural schism between Westernizing reformers and Slavophiles. Neither approach, says Chubarov, will work on its own. Chubarov offers "a balanced view, abstaining from narrow, ideologically biased assessments," and examines the triumphs (yes) and failures of Russia's Soviet development "within Russia's own cultural and historical context." Without ever minimizing the brutalities of the Soviet period-the state terror, the collectivizations, the labor camps, the deportations of whole peoples-Chubarov demonstrates much continuity between tsarist and Soviet Russia, with the latter often repeating the former's mistakes. Russia, says Chubarov, cannot turn its back on its Soviet experience. Far from being a blind alley or "aberrant phase," the Soviet period was an organic part of Russia history and "was largely successful in turning Russia and most of the other Soviet republics into modern states.

From the author Simon Winchester, a human history of land around the world: who mapped it, owned it, stole it, cared for it, fought for it and gave it back.

In 1889, thousands of hopeful people raced southward from the Kansas state line and westward from the Arkansas boundary to stake claims on the thousands of acres of unclaimed pastures and meadows. Across the twentieth century, water was dammed and drained in Holland so that a new province, Flevoland, rose up, unchartered and requiring new thinking. In 1850, California legislated the theft of land from Native Americans. An apology came in 2019 from the governor, but what of the call for reparations or return? What of government confiscation of land in India, or questions of fairness when it comes to New Zealand's Maori population and the legacy of settlers?

The ownership of land has always been complicated, opaque, and more than a little anarchic when viewed from the outside. In this book, Simon Winchester explores the the stewardship of land, the ways it is delineated and changes hands, the great disputes, and the questions of restoration - particularly in the light of climate change and colonialist reparation.

A global study, this is an exquisite exploration of what the ownership of land might really mean - not in dry-as-dust legal terms, but for the people who live on it.

In this book Jane Pettigrew will redress the balance, using the research that she has carried out over the years, and drawing on the incomparable resource of the National Trust's collections and archives. She will delve into many subject areas -- tea gowns, tea dances and social etiquette, for instance -- to satisfy an enthusiastic international audience, waiting, thirsty, for more knowledge.

Persoonlijke familiegeschiedenis van de Britse historicus Mazower; de levens van veel van zijn familieleden werden getekend door de Russische revolutie en de Shoah.

Graven en grafmonumenten van bekende personen uit heden en verleden. Met alfabetisch register.

This is a masterly narrative history of the Seven Years War, in which the British decisively eliminated French power north of the Caribbean, and yet also managed to ignite the slow-burning fuse of the American Revolution.Fred Anderson observes how the war displaced native peoples from their previously central role in an American diplomatic system; how it gave American colonists their first encounters with real live Englishmen; and how Americans were consequently emboldened to rally against the men who were once their masters. Anderson offers a wholly engrossing account of the conflict, interweaving the stories of kings and officers with those of traders, Native Americans, and colonial peoples.

Historische analyse van crises in het verleden van de Verenigde Staten en de ontwikkeling van het gedachtegoed en de identiteit van Amerika, op basis waarvan conclusies worden getrokken voor de toekomst van deze natie.

Dikke paperback in goede staat. Rechte rug.

De geboorte van het huidige Noord-Amerika wordt gevolgd vanaf de dag dat 65 miljoen jaar geleden een meteoor van tien kilometer in doorsnee in de Golf van Mexico insloeg. Deze catastrofale inslag maakte onder meer een einde aan het tijdperk van de dinosauriërs en vernietigde een groot stuk van het nog jonge continent.

Flannery volgt de wedergeboorte van de planten en dieren en het ontstaan van het huidige klimaat en de vorm van het landschap. We reizen met hem mee van het ijzige Alaska tot Panama in het tropische zuiden en ontmoeten enorme vleesetende beren en laten de oneindige regenwouden van Groenland aan ons voorbij trekken. Ook ontdekken we hoe de zo typische Indian Summer en de cactussen in de Sonora-woestijn zijn ontstaan.

De eerste voetstap van de mens volgde veel later, nu zo'n 13.000 jaar geleden, en Flannery geeft een verrassend beeld van de invloed van de mens, die het continent opnieuw veranderde, vooral nadat in 1492 Christoffel Colombus in Amerika aankwam.

Een ecologische geschiedenis van Noord-Amerika toont op bevlogen wijze hoe dit fascinerende continent door de eeuwen heen een rijke bron was voor talloze generaties van zowel dierlijke als menselijke emigranten.

Niet eerder werd de geschiedenis van het reizen in Europa zo meeslepend verteld. Op basis van authentieke reisverslagen schetst Antoni Maczak in dit kostelijke boek een fascinerend beeld van het reizen in het Europa van de zestiende en zeventiende eeuw. Massatoerisme bestond natuurlijk nog niet, maar er waren heel wat mensen die om uiteenlopende redenen grote afstanden aflegden en lange tijd van huis waren. Zo bezochten geleerden buitenlandse universiteiten en bibliotheken, laafden kunstenaars zich in Italië aan de renaissancekunst en gingen pelgrims op bedevaart. vorsten trokken met hun entourage rond en in de betere kringen was het toen al gewoonte jongelieden ter voorbereiding op hun volwassenheid op een educatieve reis naar Frankrijk of Italië te sturen. Comfortabel waren de reisomstandigheden zelden. Onbegaanbare wegen, niet te vinden overnachtingsplaatsen, bedreigingen van velerlei aard, weinig bleef de reiziger bespaard. Overigens komen ook de hilarische kanten van het reizen uitgebreid aan bod.

Genghis Khan - creator of the greatest empire the world has ever seen - is one of history's immortals. In Central Asia, they still use his name to frighten children. In China, he is honoured as the founder of a dynasty. In Mongolia he is the father of the nation. In the USA, Time magazine, voted Genghis Khan 'the most important person of the last millennium'. But how much do we really know about this man? How is it that an unlettered, unsophisticated warrior-nomad came to have such a profound effect on world politics that his influence can still be felt some 800 years later?
How he united the deeply divided Mongol peoples and went on to rule an empire that stretched from China in the east to Poland in the west (one substantially larger than Rome's at its zenith) is an epic tale of martial genius and breathtaking cruelty. John Man's towering achievement in this book, enriched by his experiences in China and Mongolia today, is to bring this little-known story vividly and viscerally to life.

At midnight on 14 August 1947, Britain finally granted independence to the peoples of India. Throughout the world, the end of the colonial era was in sight. India was the first great domino to fall, setting off a train of events that was so spread across Asia and Africa, culminat-ing in the collapse of th Soviet empire. The story of the winning of freedom by the peoples of the Indian empire is one of the great sagas of the twentieth century. Bathed in the rosy glow of retrospect, the birth of modern India and Pakistan has come to be guarded in the West as a great achievement, `the proudest day in Britain`s history', as predicted by Lord Macauley in 1835. But how justified is the romantic popular image? Was Indian independence a noble gesture by abenevolent colonial power or was freedom wrested from the British by indian nationalists after more than a quarter of a century of bitter struggle? Was the result a triumph or a tragedy? The Proudest Day sets the record straight.

Slag bij Hastings, Zimmermanntelegram, de Alamo, Varkensbaai, Ardennenoffensief, Bestorming van de Bastille, Charge van de Lichte Brigade, Gutenbergs drukpers, Pearl Harbor, de Lusitania, Watergate, Bloedbad van Peterloo, Kristallnacht, Magna Charta, Vrede van Versaille, Boston Tea Party, VOC, Washington steekt de Delaware over, Reformatie, Slag om Stalingrad... Wees eens eerlijk: wat weet u over deze onderwerpen, afgezien van de naam? Hoe ouder we worden, hoe meer we vergeten en hoe minder tijd we hebben om de belangrijkste feiten uit ons hoofd te leren. Ooit ga ik dat eens uitzoeken, zegt u tegen uzelf. Nou, die dag is gekomen, dus welkom in dit geschiedenisboek voor beginners! Dit boek beschrijft de wereldgeschiedenis in chronologische volgorde, uitgaand van de vijf W`s: het Wie, Wat, Wanneer, Waar en Waarom van alles wat u over de grote wereldgebeurtenissen zou moeten weten. Tegen de tijd dat u dit leerzame boek heeft gelezen, weet u meer over de belangrijkste historische gebeurtenissen dan 98 procent van de wereldbevolking en heeft u tegelijk een paar fabels ontkracht. U hoeft alleen maar te lezen en te genieten!

Shiba Kokan 1747-1818. Kunstenaar in de ban van het Westen. Artist under the spell ofthe West

tien jaar wereldnieuws in beeld

Down the centuries, self-starvation has taken many morbid guises - in the extremes of religious fasting and the abstinence of the saints; in hunger strikes; in the exhibition of iving skeletons and hunger artists; in the fate of melancholica, hystericsm the possessed and bewitched. This strange story culminates in the 19th century labelling of anorexia nervosa, a condition which has since attracted a host of theories and explanations and a vast literature, the course of which a medical curiosityhas been transformed into a modern disease. In the history of psyhiatry this is a remarkable account, of great clinical ad historical importance, which will interest anyone concerned with the interaction of culture and the individual. Walter Vandereycken, an international authority on the research and treatment of eating disorders, is Professor of Psychiatry at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. Ron Van Deth is a psychologist in Leiden, the Netherlands.

DIVClose readings of canonical Spanish “Golden Age” and Latin American “colonial” texts, drawing heavily on the findings and strategies of psychoanalytic criticism, gender studies and Marxism, and offering an understanding of a repres/div