Historical Dictionary Of The Third French Republic 1870 1940 2 Volumes

[The volume] achieve[s] high marks in scholarship, factual content, organization, and ease of use. Reference Books Bulletin

"[The volume] achieve[s] high marks in scholarship, factual content, organization, and ease of use." Reference Books Bulletin

Life, Death, and the Western Way of War traces when and how western soldiers—once regarded as simple fighting tools—became the far less expendable beings that we know today. In Kant's terms, the study traces the process through which soldiers have been turned from mere military means into ends in themselves. The book argues that such a major transformation is largely the result of a shift in the social meaning ascribed to soldiers' death. It suggests that looking at death can somehow provide a privileged angle to understanding the value that societies attach to life. The narrative emerging from the empirical evidence will show that the story of attitudes towards soldiers' death is the story of a gradual, increasing process of individualization in the social meaning attached to human loss in war. Such a development, which took centuries to emerge in full, was neither simple nor linear. It was a process that the state was temporarily able to frame in the collective narrative of the nation, but which ultimately has seen the increasing importance of the life of the individual soldier. In tracing the process through which soldiers have been turned from an amorphous collective into distinct individuals, this book shows how the emphasis on the primacy of the individual has further eroded the effectiveness of western warfare as an instrument of foreign policy. In particular, the modern, liberal conception of the soldier has had the unintended consequence of jeopardizing the Clausewitzian relationship between military means and political ends.

The decade between 1789 and 1799 bore witness to a complex succession of rapid-fire and cataclysmic events. These events and the people involved in them changed not only the entire course of French history, but had enormous impact on the modern world. Despite the influence of the revolutionary decade in France and the enduring interest in it, scholars and students have had no single cohesive and easily accessible source of basic fact, interpretation, and related reading. In the Historical Dictionary of the French Revolution, 1789-1799, Samuel F. Scott and Barry Rothaus gather together, for the first time in English, a vast amount of historical information through interpretive analyses covering the major events and personalities connected with the French Revolutionary period. Ninety-six historians of the French Revolution, many of international renown, have contributed over five hundred essays to this comprehensive handbook. No important element of the history is omitted; every major event, individual, constitutional development, political organization, committee, institution, and cultural aspect of the French Revolutionary decade is examined and analyzed. A bibliography immediately following each article places the most germane sources at the fingertips of scholars and students who wish to conduct further studies of specific topics. A comprehensive index and cross references for each entry allow the reader to obtain a well-rounded perspective of any subject. The volume concludes with a detailed chronology of the 1789-1799 period. The Historical Dictionary of the French Revolution, 1789-1799 is the most current and exhaustive guide to the study of the French Revolution in English, and possibly in any language. As a readily accessible source of essential and accurate data and as a springboard for deeper study, it will prove invaluable to French Revolution specialists and students alike and should be part of every educational library.

Fully annotated and completely updated—the most comprehensive guide to reference books in the field of history. Reference Sources in History catalogs atlases, encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks, sourcebooks, bibliographies, and chronologies and makes sense of it all. Its broad scope and systematic organization make it an accessible, reliable resource for experienced and inexperienced researchers alike. Fully annotated and updated, the new edition summarizes hundreds of reference works on every conceivable subject in history—from ancient to modern, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. This edition also reflects the dramatic impact of the digital revolution on historical research by integrating a wide range of Internet and CD-ROM sources. Reference Sources in History is a time-saving alternative to searching the reference stacks or getting lost in an online thicket of dubious historical websites.