Italy And Its Eastern Border 1866 2016

This is the first scholarly work in Modern European History which elucidates consistently how border issues affect the history of nations and states in the 19th and 20th centuries. The book rethinks the Italian history of the last 150 years from the perspective of its eastern periphery and of the profound impact that events on the border had on the core of the country.

This is the first scholarly work in Modern European History which elucidates consistently how border issues affect the history of nations and states in the 19th and 20th centuries. The book rethinks the Italian history of the last 150 years from the perspective of its eastern periphery and of the profound impact that events on the border had on the core of the country.

Eighty years after the fall of Benito Mussolini, controversy remains about what his dictatorship represented. This reflects the different sides to the Duce's leadership: while adept at nurturing and enforcing his personal political power, Mussolini's lack of insight into the requirements of governance prevented him from converting this power into influence to achieve his goals. His efforts to maintain the support of Italy's conservative elites--economic, social and political--also created tensions with his radical Fascist ambitions, diminishing the momentum behind his regime. Mussolini is frequently portrayed as a charismatic leader, but his rule was secured principally by coercion, violence and a 'spoils system'. Nonetheless, his personality cult had significant popular appeal, even if based upon a political myth. This enabled him to consolidate his position and to dominate his Fascist colleagues--but at a price of over-centralized, dysfunctional decision-making. In this book, the first comprehensive English-language study of Mussolini in nearly two decades, Peter J. Williamson brings to life the contradictions within the Duce's leadership. Using a wide range of sources, Williamson reveals how these conflicts impeded the dictator's ambitions, leaving him increasingly frustrated, all while most Italians endured the severe privations of both failure and Fascism.

Though persistently overshadowed by the Great War in historical memory, the two Balkan conflicts of 1912–1913 were among the most consequential of the early twentieth century. By pitting the states of Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro against a diminished Ottoman Empire—and subsequently against one another—they anticipated many of the horrors of twentieth-century warfare even as they produced the tense regional politics that helped spark World War I. Bringing together an international group of scholars, this volume applies the social and cultural insights of the “new military history” to revisit this critical episode with a central focus on the experiences of both combatants and civilians during wartime.

This book defines and discusses the term “hidden geographies” in two ways: systematically and by presenting a variety of examples of the research fields and topics concerning hidden geographies, with the aim of stimulating further basic and applied research in this area. While the term is quite rarely used in the scientific literature (more often as a figure of speech than to illustrate or problematize its deeper meaning), we argue that hidden geographies are everywhere and many of them have significant impacts on (other) natural and social phenomena and processes, subsequently triggering changes, for example in landscape, economy, culture, health or quality of life. The introductory section of the book conceptualises hidden geographies and discusses cognitive geography, symbolization of space, and the hidden geographies in mystical literature. Case studies of hidden environmental geographies address soils, air pollution, coastal pollution and the allocation of an astronomical tourism site. Revealing hidden historical and sacred places is illustrated through examples of the visualisation of the subterranean mining landscape, the analysis of the historical road network and trade, border stones and historical spatial boundaries, and the monastic Carthusian space. Hidden urban geographies are discussed in terms of the urban development of an entire city, presenting the role of geography in rescuing architecture, revealing illegal urbanisation, and the quality of habitation in Roma neighbourhoods. Case studies of hidden population geographies shed light on the ageing of rural populations and the impact of spatial-demographic disparities on fertility variations. Discussions of hidden social and economic geographies problematize recent social changes and conflicts in a country, present the implementation of the fourth industrial revolution and borders as hidden obstacles in the organisation of public transport. Hidden geographies are explicitly linked to perceptions and explanations in case studies that address local responses to perceived marginalisation in a city, the solo women travellers’ perceived risk and safety, and hidden geographical contexts of visible post-war landscapes. The book brings such a diversity of views, ideas and examples related to hidden geographies that can serve both to deepen their understanding and their various impacts on our lives and environment, and to attract further cross-disciplinary interest in considering hidden geographies – in research and in our every-day lives.

The disintegration of Yugoslavia, accompanied by the emergence of new borders, is paradigmatically highlighting the relevance of borders in processes of societal change, crisis and conflict. This is even more the case, if we consider the violent practices that evolved out of populist discourse of ethnically homogenous bounded space in this process that happened in the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990ies. Exploring the boundaries of Yugoslavia is not just relevant in the context of Balkan area studies, but the sketched phenomena acquire much wider importance, and can be helpful in order to better understand the dynamics of b/ordering societal space, that are so characteristic for our present situation.

This sweeping reference work covers every aspect of the Cold War, from its ignition in the ashes of World War II, through the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis, to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Cold War superpower face-off between the Soviet Union and the United States dominated international affairs in the second half of the 20th century and still reverberates around the world today. This comprehensive and insightful multivolume set provides authoritative entries on all aspects of this world-changing event, including wars, new military technologies, diplomatic initiatives, espionage activities, important individuals and organizations, economic developments, societal and cultural events, and more. This expansive coverage provides readers with the necessary context to understand the many facets of this complex conflict. The work begins with a preface and introduction and then offers illuminating introductory essays on the origins and course of the Cold War, which are followed by some 1,500 entries on key individuals, wars, battles, weapons systems, diplomacy, politics, economics, and art and culture. Each entry has cross-references and a list of books for further reading. The text includes more than 100 key primary source documents, a detailed chronology, a glossary, and a selective bibliography. Numerous illustrations and maps are inset throughout to provide additional context to the material.

Latin America’s Global Border System is the opening volume in the first collection of academic works devoted exclusively to borders and illegal markets in Latin America. This volume features expert discussions on border issues of Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Italy, Mexico and Peru, as well as studies on illegal markets, cities, and gender as a first step to understanding the intricacies of the global border system of illegal markets and Latin America’s role in it. The book constitutes a valuable source of information on the geographic, economic, demographic, and social characteristics of the most important Latin American border regions, and their relation to global illegal markets, while also offering valuable insights into the ways illegal markets are organized in each country and how they connect across borders to create the global border system. This book will not only be a valuable resource for academics and students of international relations, security studies, border studies and contemporary Latin America, but will also prove relevant to national and international policy-makers devoted to foreign, security and development policies.