Creating East And West

As the Ottoman Empire advanced westward from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, humanists responded on a grand scale, leaving behind a large body of fascinating yet understudied works. These compositions included Crusade orations and histories; ethnographic, historical, and religious studies of the Turks; epic poetry; and even tracts on converting the Turks to Christianity. Most scholars have seen this vast literature as atypical of Renaissance humanism. Nancy Bisaha now offers an in-depth look at the body of Renaissance humanist works that focus not on classical or contemporary Italian subjects but on the Ottoman Empire, Islam, and the Crusades. Throughout, Bisaha probes these texts to reveal the significant role Renaissance writers played in shaping Western views of self and other. Medieval concepts of Islam were generally informed and constrained by religious attitudes and rhetoric in which Muslims were depicted as enemies of the faith. While humanist thinkers of the Renaissance did not move entirely beyond this stance, Creating East and West argues that their understanding was considerably more complex, in that it addressed secular and cultural issues, marking a watershed between the medieval and modern. Taking a close look at a number of texts, Bisaha expands current notions of Renaissance humanism and of the history of cross-cultural perceptions. Engaging both traditional methods of intellectual history and more recent methods of cross-cultural studies, she demonstrates that modern attitudes of Western societies toward other cultures emerged not during the later period of expansion and domination but rather as a defensive intellectual reaction to a sophisticated and threatening power to the East.

In Making Martyrs East and West, Cathy Caridi examines how the practice of canonization developed in the West and in Russia, focusing on procedural elements that became established requirements for someone to be recognized as a saint and a martyr. Caridi investigates whether the components of the canonization process now regarded as necessary by the Catholic Church are fundamentally equivalent to those of the Russian Orthodox Church and vice versa, while exploring the possibility that the churches use the same terminology and processes but in fundamentally different ways that preclude the acceptance of one church's saints by the other. Making Martyrs East and West will appeal to scholars of religion and church history, as well as ecumenicists, liturgists, canonists, and those interested in East-West ecumenical efforts.

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- List of figures -- Introduction -- PART I Ideology: the revival of ancient glory -- 1 The ideological background of the creation of neo-classical Athens: the different priorities between idealism and rationalism in establishing a European capital, and the importance of cultural institutions -- 2 The relationship of the neo-classical city with the antiquities -- PART II The treatment of the pre-revolutionary town -- 3 The connection of the new neo-classical city with the old one: the treatment of Byzantine and post-Byzantine churches and pre-revolutionary houses -- 4 Housing a European capital in a small Ottoman town: the use of the pre-revolutionary buildings of Athens for housing the official functions of the new capital -- PART III Creation of the new city: the actual circumstances -- 5 The role of land availability -- 6 Functionalism in the creation of the new city -- 7 The role of official functions in the evolution of the city of Athens -- 8 Public space and monumental architecture: from the grandiose plans of a European metropolis to a peripheral capital between East and West -- Index

This volume examines East-West rhetoric in several different historical contexts, seeking to problematise its implicit assumptions and analyse its consequences.

Understand the dynamics of East-West relationships in business to make better decisions The Eastern expansion of the European Union has increased interest in this geographic region. Market Entry and Operational Decision Making in East-West Business Relationships presents 10 case studies that focus on firms in Central and Eastern Europe and the strategies used for success. Academics, researchers, and practitioners examine a variety of topics, including entry and marketing strategies of Western multinational companies, choices of locations for foreign direct investments, first mover advantages, entry behavior of retailing companies, dynamics in subsidiary operations, industry clusters, decision-making autonomy, and internationalization. Market Entry and Operational Decision Making in East-West Business Relationships provides information that is uniquely timely and practical to those in business in this region. The chapters bring the academic and the practical perspectives together by analyzing various research studies from different companies in several Central and Eastern European countries. This resource discusses companies and the decisions about where they begin and maintain operations, and why these strategies were chosen. The book provides a clear spotlight on the business decisions currently taking place in the East-West interaction. Topics in Market Entry and Operational Decision Making in East-West Business Relationships include: studies of four Estonian companies on their emergence and success factors a comparative study of performance measures of companies in Central and Eastern Europe a detailed look at the strategies of Finnish and Swedish companies in the Baltic states and Russia the location decisions of Italian firms a comparative study of in-store shopping behavior in Italy, France, and Poland the regionalization of multinational company strategies studies of Estonian companies, including the wood and forest industries and more Market Entry and Operational Decision Making in East-West Business Relationships is an essential resource that examines issues of critical importance to business researchers, practitioners, and policymakers.

Published in 1999. Analyzing and chronicling the continued development of key information, communication and fast transport networks at a global and regional level, this book looks at the transition to an information-based economy, and its urban impacts, at a global, regional and city level. The book outlines the change by defining it as the third great societal transition in the history of human settlement, and points to key factors that have fuelled progress. These include the growth of global telecommunications and fast transport networks; the coming together of information and communication technologies and their links to transport and land use; the shift to information and knowledge as a resource base for new industries; the increasing movement of people and information; the emergence of cities as economic entities, network nodes, and centres for generating, exchanging and processing information, and, most significantly, the competition among cities for these new key elements of of the urban economy.