Struggle Over The Modern

Scholars have long argued over whether the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which ended more than a century of religious conflict arising from the Protestant Reformations, inaugurated the modern sovereign-state system. But they largely ignore a more fundamental question: why did the emergence of new forms of religious heterodoxy during the Reformations spark such violent upheaval and nearly topple the old political order? In this book, Daniel Nexon demonstrates that the answer lies in understanding how the mobilization of transnational religious movements intersects with--and can destabilize--imperial forms of rule. Taking a fresh look at the pivotal events of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries--including the Schmalkaldic War, the Dutch Revolt, and the Thirty Years' War--Nexon argues that early modern "composite" political communities had more in common with empires than with modern states, and introduces a theory of imperial dynamics that explains how religious movements altered Europe's balance of power. He shows how the Reformations gave rise to crosscutting religious networks that undermined the ability of early modern European rulers to divide and contain local resistance to their authority. In doing so, the Reformations produced a series of crises in the European order and crippled the Habsburg bid for hegemony. Nexon's account of these processes provides a theoretical and analytic framework that not only challenges the way international relations scholars think about state formation and international change, but enables us to better understand global politics today.

This book examines the changes in General Motors' organization between 1924 and 1970.

A ground-breaking study of the social and cultural functions of the early modern theatre. Jean Howard looks at the effects of drama and the stage on early modern culture in an exciting and eminently readable work.

"The most familiar strain of this debate to us today is formalism, which emphasized "purity" in art and culminated in the writing of the influential late modern critic, Clement Greenberg. The other critical position, he contends, is not as familiar to us today, partly because it was so overshadowed by formalist thought in the postwar period. This position emphasized the importance of "experience" over formal purity and is evident in the writing of Greenberg's rival, Harold Rosenberg, as well as in a number of American writers and critics from the first half of the century. Struggle Over the Modern reconstitutes this neglected yet important dimension of the avant-garde debate in American art criticism decade by decade."--Jacket.

Middle Eastern societies and ordinary people's lives / Edmund Burke III and David N. Yaghoubian -- Precolonial lives -- Assaf: a peasant of Mount Lebanon / Akram F. Khater and Antoine F. Khater -- Shemsigul: a circassian slave in mid-nineteenth-century Cairo / Ehud R. Toledano -- Journeymen textile weavers in nineteenth-century Damascus: a collective / Sherry Vatter -- Ahmad: a Kuwaiti pearl diver / Nels Johnson -- Mohand N'Hamoucha: Middle Atlas Berber / Edmund Burke III -- Bibi Maryam: a Bakhtiyari tribal woman / Julie Oehler -- Colonial lives -- The Shaykh and his daughter: coping in colonial Algeria / Julia Clancy-Smith -- Izz al-Din al-Qassam: preacher and mujahid / Abdullah Schleifer -- Abu Ali al-Kilawi: a Damascus qabaday / Philip S. Khoury -- M'hamed Ali: Tunisian labor organizer / Eqbal Ahmad and Stuart Schaar -- Hagob Hagobian: an Armenian truck driver in Iran / David N. Yaghoubian -- Naji: an Iraqi country doctor / Sami Zubaida -- Post-Colonial lives -- Migdim: Egyptian bedouin matriarch / Lila Abu-Lughod -- Rostam: Qashqai rebel / Lois Beck -- An Iranian village boyhood / Mehdi Abedi and Michael M. [ths] J. Fischer -- Gulab: an Afghan schoolteacher / Ashraf Ghani -- Abu Jamal: a Palestinian urban villager / Joost Hiltermann -- Haddou: a Moroccan migrant worker / David Mcmurray -- Contemporary lives -- Nasir: Sa'idi youth between Islamism and agriculture -- Fanny colonna -- Ghada: village rebel or political protestor? / Celia Rothenberg -- Khanom gohary: Iranian community leader / Homa Hoodfar -- Nadia: mother of the believers / Baya Gacemi -- June leavitt: West Bank settler / Tamara neuman -- Talal Rizk: a Syrian engineer in the Gulf / Michael Provence.

The 20th-century demographic struggle for power translates itself into an inter-ethnic war of numbers. This book offers suggestions for structural alterations within states to sever the link between ethnic size and power, and thus eliminate the rationale for the demographic struggle for power.

International media coverage in the 1960s and early 1970s represented the Biafran War, in which the state of Biafra attempted to secede from the Nigerian Federation, as a grand humanitarian disaster, characterised by sustained conflict, starvation and genocide. Using interviews and newly-released archival material, Michael Gould questions this depiction, examining the role of foreign parties in the conflict and the impact of propaganda upon its international reception both during and after the war. Envisaged initially by both sides as a short conflict, the war confounded all expectations, stretching on for four years. It was a 'brother's war', one which divided families, and was characterised overwhelmingly by both sides' reluctance to enter into hostilities. This book seeks to answer some of the most fundamental questions surrounding the conflict, including how this avoidable conflict came about, why the war became so drawn-out and how the leadership of the opposing Generals Ojukwu, who led the Biafran revolt and Gowon, who was President of the Nigerian Federation, defined the conflict. In the process, Gould offers a radical reappraisal of the many entrenched conceptions which currently surround the conflict. This book will be essential reading for all students of African history and politics, and post-colonial studies.

Sabiha Sertel was born into revolution in 1895, as an independent Turkey rose out of the dying Ottoman Empire. The nation's first professional female journalist, her unrelenting push for democracy and social reforms ultimately cost Sertel her country and freedom. Shortly before her death in 1968, Sertel completed her autobiography Roman Gibi (Like a Novel), which was written during her forced exile in the Soviet Union. Translated here into English for the first time, and complete with a new introduction and comprehensive annotations, it offers a rare perspective on Turkey's history as it moved to embrace democracy, then violently recoiled. The book reveals the voice of a passionate feminist and committed socialist who clashes with the young republic's leadership. A unique first-hand account, the text foreshadows Turkey's increasingly authoritarian state. Sertel offers her perspective on the fierce divisions over the republic's constitution and covers issues including freedom of the press, women's civil rights and the pre-WWII discussions with European leaders about Hitler's rising power. More information about the book, photographs, reviews and events can be found at a special website dedicated to the book: www.struggleformodernturkey.com