Arthur M. Eckstein - Böcker

A startling history of the forlorn war between the Weather Underground and the FBI, based on interviews and 30,000 pages of previously unreleased FBI documentsIn the summer of 1970 and for years after, photos of Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, Jeff Jones, and other members of the Weather Underground were emblazoned on FBI wanted posters. In Bad Moon Rising, Arthur Eckstein details how Weather began to engage in serious, ideologically driven, nationally coordinated political violence and how the FBI attempted to monitor, block, and capture its members—and failed. Eckstein further shows that the FBI ordered its informants inside Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) to support the faction that became Weather during the tumultuous June 1969 SDS convention, helping to destroy the organization; and that  the FBI first underestimated Weather’s seriousness, then overestimated its effectiveness, and how Weather outwitted them. Eckstein reveals how an obsessed and panicked President Nixon and his inner circle sought to bypass a cautious J. Edgar Hoover, contributing to the creation of the rogue Plumbers Unit that eventually led to Watergate.

Arthur Eckstein's fresh and stimulating interpretation challenges the way Polybius' Histories have long been viewed. He argues that Polybius evaluates people and events as much from a moral viewpoint as from a pragmatic, utilitarian, or even "Machiavellian" one. Polybius particularly asks for "improvement" in his audience, hoping that those who study his writings will emerge with a firm determination to live their lives nobly. Teaching by the use of moral exemplars, Polybius also tries to prove that success is not the sole standard by which human action should be judged.

This ground-breaking study is the first to employ modern international relations theory to place Roman militarism and expansion of power within the broader Mediterranean context of interstate anarchy. Arthur M. Eckstein challenges claims that Rome was an exceptionally warlike and aggressive state - not merely in modern but in ancient terms - by arguing that intense militarism and aggressiveness were common among all Mediterranean polities from ca 750 B.C. onwards. In his wide-ranging and masterful narrative, Eckstein explains that international politics in the ancient Mediterranean world was, in political science terms, a multipolar anarchy: international law was minimal, and states struggled desperately for power and survival by means of warfare.Eventually, one state, the Republic of Rome, managed to create predominance and a sort of peace. Rome was certainly a militarized and aggressive state, but it was successful not because it was exceptional in its ruthlessness, Eckstein convincingly argues; rather, it was successful because of its exceptional ability to manage a large network of foreign allies, and to assimilate numerous foreigners within the polity itself.This book shows how these characteristics, in turn, gave Rome incomparably large resources for the grim struggle of states fostered by the Mediterranean anarchy - and hence they were key to Rome's unprecedented success.

Senate and General: Individual Decision Making and Roman Foreign Relations, 264–194 B.C. by Arthur M. Eckstein reconsiders the traditional view that the Roman senate exercised consistent and centralized control over foreign policy in the middle republic. Building on close readings of Livy, Polybius, and other sources, Eckstein argues that while the senate certainly possessed legal authority and wielded enormous prestige, the reality of decision making was far more diffuse, improvised, and contingent. In practice, Roman magistrates and generals in the field—often consuls with imperium—played a vital role in shaping the Republic’s external relations, and their ad hoc choices frequently became the foundation of formal policy once the senate ratified them. Rather than the senate directing a coherent program of imperial expansion, foreign relations from the First Punic War through the post-Hannibalic period were characterized by flexibility, delegation, and a high tolerance for local initiative.Organized by geography, the book traces Rome’s responses to crises in northern Italy, Sicily, Spain, Africa, and Greece, demonstrating how the senate’s influence was strongest on the Italian frontier but increasingly tenuous overseas. In regions like Sicily, Spain, and the Greek East, generals often determined whether alliances were struck, treaties concluded, or wars initiated, sometimes with only vague or delayed guidance from Rome. Eckstein situates this within the broader primitiveness of ancient diplomacy: the absence of permanent embassies, poor record-keeping, and the cumbersome structure of the senate itself made coherent, long-term planning difficult. Against interpretations that depict Rome as pursuing a deliberate policy of imperialist aggression, Eckstein emphasizes the improvisatory nature of republican decision making amid a volatile Mediterranean environment. The study ultimately portrays Roman expansion as the outcome of aristocratic trust, institutional decentralization, and the contingent actions of individual commanders, offering a nuanced corrective to both older constitutionalist models and modern theories of systematic Roman imperialism.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1987.

Senate and General: Individual Decision Making and Roman Foreign Relations, 264–194 B.C. by Arthur M. Eckstein reconsiders the traditional view that the Roman senate exercised consistent and centralized control over foreign policy in the middle republic. Building on close readings of Livy, Polybius, and other sources, Eckstein argues that while the senate certainly possessed legal authority and wielded enormous prestige, the reality of decision making was far more diffuse, improvised, and contingent. In practice, Roman magistrates and generals in the field—often consuls with imperium—played a vital role in shaping the Republic’s external relations, and their ad hoc choices frequently became the foundation of formal policy once the senate ratified them. Rather than the senate directing a coherent program of imperial expansion, foreign relations from the First Punic War through the post-Hannibalic period were characterized by flexibility, delegation, and a high tolerance for local initiative.Organized by geography, the book traces Rome’s responses to crises in northern Italy, Sicily, Spain, Africa, and Greece, demonstrating how the senate’s influence was strongest on the Italian frontier but increasingly tenuous overseas. In regions like Sicily, Spain, and the Greek East, generals often determined whether alliances were struck, treaties concluded, or wars initiated, sometimes with only vague or delayed guidance from Rome. Eckstein situates this within the broader primitiveness of ancient diplomacy: the absence of permanent embassies, poor record-keeping, and the cumbersome structure of the senate itself made coherent, long-term planning difficult. Against interpretations that depict Rome as pursuing a deliberate policy of imperialist aggression, Eckstein emphasizes the improvisatory nature of republican decision making amid a volatile Mediterranean environment. The study ultimately portrays Roman expansion as the outcome of aristocratic trust, institutional decentralization, and the contingent actions of individual commanders, offering a nuanced corrective to both older constitutionalist models and modern theories of systematic Roman imperialism.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1987.

In many ways a traditional western, ""The Searchers"" (1956) is considered by critics to be one of the greatest Hollywood films, made by the most influential of western directors. But John Ford's classic work, in its complexity and ambiguity, was a product of post-World War II American culture and sparked a deconstruction of the western film myth by looking unblinkingly at white racism and violence and suggesting its social and psychological origins. The film tells the story of the kidnapping of the niece of Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) by Comanche Indians and Edward's long search to find her - ultimately not to rescue her, since he finds her racially and sexually violated. This text brings historians and film scholars together to cover the major critical issues of the film as seen through a contemporary prism. It also contains a sustained reaction to the film by Native Americans. The essays explore a range of topics: from John Wayne's grim character of Ethan Edwards, to the actual history of Indian captivity on the southern Plains, as well as the role of the film's music, setting and mythic structure - all of which should help the reader to understand what makes ""The Searchers"" such an enduring work.

This volume examines the period from Rome's earliest involvement in the eastern Mediterranean to the establishment of Roman geopolitical dominance over all the Greek states from the Adriatic Sea to Syria by the 180s BC. Applies modern political theory to ancient Mediterranean history, taking a Realist approach to its analysis of Roman involvement in the Greek MediterraneanFocuses on the harsh nature of interactions among states under conditions of anarchy while examining the conduct of both Rome and Greek states during the period, and focuses on what the concepts of modern political science can tell us about ancient international relationsIncludes detailed discussion of the crisis that convulsed the Greek world in the last decade of the third century BCProvides a balanced portrait of Roman militarism and imperialism in the Hellenistic world