International Library of Historical Studies - Böcker

The early 17th century was a time of great literature the era of Cervantes and Shakespeare but also of international tension and heightened diplomacy. This book looks at the relations between Spain under Philip III and Philip IV and England under James I in the period 1603-1625. It examines the essential issues that established the framework for diplomatic relations between the two states, looking not only at questions of war and peace, but also of trade and piracy. Óscar Alfredo Ruiz Fernández expertly argues that the diplomatic relationship was vital to the strategic interests of both powers and also played a highly significant role in the domestic agendas of each country. Based on Spanish and English archival sources, England and Spain in the Early Modern Era provides, for the first time, a clear picture of diplomacy between England and Spain in the early modern era.

The study of Marxism in Britain throws light on what many historians have referred to as `the enemy within’. In this book, David Burke looks at the activities of Russian political emigres in Britain, and in particular the role of one family: the Rothsteins. He looks at the contributions of Theodore and Andrew Rothstein to British Marxism and the response of the intelligence services to what they regarded as a serious threat to security. With access to recently released documents, this book analyses the activities of early-twentieth century British Marxists and brings to life the story of a remarkable family.

This book challenges the notion that Western ideas were essential to Romanian development. It is a fascinating story of how a national culture is born. This book provides a history of the development of literary culture and the printed word in Romania. How do literacy and the development of literary culture promote the development of a national identity? "The Making of Modern Romanian Culture" examines the development of both a literary tradition and institutions aimed at promoting literacy in Romania in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - from Romanians under the control of the Austrian Empire in the eighteenth century to revolt in Romania under Tudor Vladimirescu in 1821 to Carol, the first King of Romania, crowned in 1881. Alex Drace-Francis combines analysis of education systems, book production, and the periodical press with case studies of key thinkers such as Mihai Eminescu, Ion Luca Caragiale and Titu Maiorescu to trace Romania's cultural and literary development. He offers a criticism of the idea that the 'penetration of Western ideas' was essential to modernism to place literacy and identity within both a Romanian and a global context.

Settlements were a distinctive aspect of late-Victorian church life in which individual philanthropic Christians were encouraged to live and work in communities amongst the poor and set an example for the underprivileged through their own actions. Often overlooked by historians, settlements are of great value in understanding the values and culture of the 19th century. Settlement missions were first conceived when Samuel Barnett, the incumbent of St. Jude's, Whitechapel, in the East End of London, sought to introduce them as a major aspect of Victorian church life. Barnett argued that settlers should be incorporated into London communities that suffered from squalor and poverty to live and work alongside the poor, to demonstrate their Christian faith and attempt to enhance social conditions from the inside. His first recruits were Oxford undergraduates and when Toynbee Hall was founded in Oxford in 1884, his radical vision of adapting Christian morality towards tackling social deprivation had begun. By the end of the Victorian era more than fifty similar institutions had been created.Whilst few settlements lasted beyond the Victorian period, by injecting Christian ethics into trade unions, local government and the community, they had a huge impact which is still felt in the way these organisations operate today.

Nineteenth-century Britain was one of the birthplaces of modern vegetarianism in the west, and was to become a reform movement attracting thousands of people. From the Vegetarian Society's foundation in 1847, men, women and their families abandoned conventional diet for reasons as varied as self-advancement, personal thrift, dissatisfaction with medical orthodoxy and repugnance for animal cruelty. They joined in the pursuit of a perfect society in which food reform combined with causes such as socialism and land reform, stimulated by the concern that carnivorism was in league with alcoholism and bellicosity. James Gregory provides a rich exploration of the movement, with its often colourful and sometimes eccentric leaders and grass-roots supporters. He explores the rich culture of branch associations, competing national societies, proliferating restaurants and food stores and experiments in vegetarian farms and colonies. "Of Victorians and Vegetarians" examines the wider significance of Victorian vegetarians, embracing concerns about gender and class, national identity, race and empire and religious authority.Vegetarianism embodied the Victorians' complicated response to modernity in its hostility to aspects of the industrial world's exploitation of technology, rejecting entrepreneurial attempts to create the foods and substitute artefacts of the future. Hostile, like the associated anti-vivisectionists and anti-vaccinationists, to a new 'priesthood' of scientists, vegetarians defended themselves through the new sciences of nutrition and chemistry. "Of Victorians and Vegetarians" uncovers who the vegetarians were, how they attempted to convert their fellow Britons (and the world beyond) to their 'bloodless diet' and the response of contemporaries in a variety of media and genres. Through a close study of the vegetarian periodicals and organisational archives, extensive biographical research and a broader examination of texts relating to food, dietary reform and allied reform movements, James Gregory provides us with the first fascinating foray into the impact of vegetarianism on the Victorians, the history of animal welfare, reform movements and food history.

Prayer was regarded as an essential arm of the State and even a method of 'thought control' in early modern England. In the seventeenth Century, the period covered by Richard Ginn's study, Common Prayer dominated people's everyday lives at a national level, in communities and congregations, as well as privately in households. Ginn demonstrates how prayer represented the search for pattern, order and purpose in and between these different layers of society in a period when England was struggling to come to terms with political and social turbulence, rocked by the violence of the Civil War, unease over the Commonwealth and the uncertainties of the Restoration. Ginn argues that the importance of Prayer as a stabilizing force during these times of instability cannot be underestimated; it fostered a sense of national identity, an integrating principle at a vulnerable time for England, putting the social order in a greater context under a sovereign God.

This work traces the emergence of the "Armenian Question" through an account of the Great Power interests in the region, including Russian Imperial expansion, the geopolitical and strategic concerns of Britain, France and Germany, and the major stakes of the Great Powers in the Ottoman economy. Somakian gives a vivid account of the rise of Armenian nationalism and radical politics, and of Armenian support for the overthrow of Abdul Hammid II in 1908 and the victory of the Young Turks. He uses this historical context to explore the growing hostility towards Armenians in the First World War, and shows how they came to be regarded as a dangerous fifth column and subjected to forced population movements and one of the most brutal genocides of the 20th century.

Arthur Kenneth Chesterton, cousin of G.K. Chesterton, grew up in South Africa where he developed his "colonial outsider" view of England and of the First World War. By the age of 21, Chesterton was an archetypal "angry young man" - ex-colonial, ex-officer with literary interests and accomplishments. As an increasingly disillusioned literary critic and newspaper editor, he created a world based on his reading of English literature - an idealized version of British society. The result was a cultural despair which sealed his acceptance of fascism in 1933. In this biography, David Baker examines the socio-psychological profile of A.K. Chesterton to help explain the nature of fascism. The author questions previous academic interpretations, suggesting that a definition of fascist ideology must be broadened to take account of its fatal attraction to those who might have remained self-assured members of a democratic society.

During six months in 1945, the victorious Allies formulated a wide range of policies toward the defeated Germany. This pivotal period - between Yalta and Potsdam - was to herald the re-integration of Germany into postwar Europe, and eventually into the international system of democratic states. It was "the struggle for the soul of Germany". This collection of contributions exposes the intense differences between the Allies regarding Germany's future. The contributors are politicians, journalists and academics, and include eye-witnesses from both the Allies and the German side. There are personal experiences, letters from the front, personal war diaries and material from previously unpublished sources in Britain and Germany. The British papers include an unknown War Cabinet memo showing in graphic terms the British and Allied views of Germany in the face of total defeat.

This edition investigates fascist activities in the period of turmoil leading to World War II and raises disturbing questions: how far was the British establishment involved? What were the links with Nazi Germany? What were the plans for the future of British Jews? How much did the British secret service know? Despite the revelation of the horrors of Nazi Germany, British Fascism survived 1945. The author discusses the organization, aims and techniques behind British Fascism, including the formation of the National Front. This revised text analyzes the period from 1984 to the present day, including the effect of the end of the Cold War and the collapse of Communism in Russia and Europe, the disturbing growth of illiberal nationalism and the growth of neo-fascism, anti-Semitism and racialism.

The late-18th century was remarkable for radical and revolutionary fervour, fierce controversy, strident polemic, violent uprising, revolution and revolutionary war, and John Horne Tooke's life mirrored this ferment and turbulence. He was the only man in England to be imprisoned for supporting the American Revolution; his enthusiasm for the French Revolution landed him in court; he was a principal agitator for parliamentary reform; and his support for John Wilkes in the famous victory in the Middlesex election was vital. He was a close associate of the greatest radicals of the time, including Burdett, Godwin and Tom Paine, and an unrivalled polemicist and brilliant conversationalist. Drawing on manuscript sources in Britain and America, and contemporary newspapers and periodicals, this biography provides an account of a central figure in the ministerial, extra-parliamentary and journalistic politics of his day.

Pilgrimage was an integral part not only of medieval religion but medieval life, and from its origins in the 4th-century Meditteranean world rapidly spread to northern Europe as a pan-European devotional phenomenon. Drawing upon original source materials, this text seeks to uncover the motives of pilgrims and the details of their preparation, maintenance, hazards on the route, and their ideas about pilgrimage sites - especially Jerusalem, Compostela and Rome - and gives an account of the multiplicity of interest which grew up around the many shrines along the way. The period covered is from about 1000 AD to 1500 AD - before the first crusade and the beginning of the great growth in pilgrimage in the Orthodox church, Byzantine of Russia. The bibliography includes printed sources and a listing of secondary works.

The Catholic Church has always been a major player in European and world history. Whether it has enjoyed a religious dominance or existed as a minority religion, Catholicism has never been diverted from political life. "Priests, Prelates and People" records the Church struggling to adapt to the new political landscape ushered in by the French Revolution, and shows how the formation of nation states and identities was both helped and hindered by the Catholic establishment. It portrays the Vatican increasingly out of step in the wake of world war, Cold War and the massive expansion of the developing world, with its problems of population growth and under-development.

Mary Queen of Scots - tragic heroine or adulteress conniving in murder? This book adds to the mysterious drama, covering an historical detective story which has absorbed readers for over 400 years. Yet it is much more than a powerful tale with human tragedy, suffering and death at its heart: it was played out for the highest political stakes - including the stability of the English and Scottish crowns, the Protestant Reformation and threat from powerful European neighbours. The Casket Letters consist of eight letters, twelve love sonnets and two marriage contracts, allegedly written by Mary to Bothwell, later her third husband, appearing to implicate her in the murder of her second husband, Darnley, and proving her adultery. This forensic re-examination of the Casket Letters and contemporary documents, and their long and chequered history, examines the conduct and motives of the principal actors and ventures on ground much-trodden by writers who both condemn and exculpate Mary.The author guides the reader through the twisting labyrinth of Scottish and English politics; examines possible forgery; rejects Mary's role in Darnley's murder (despite his impossible conduct that included drunkenness, neglect of business and intriguing for the crown); and looks at the change in her attitude to Bothwell. The Casket Letters were a gift to her enemies in England, the Scottish Protestant church and nobility, and led directly to her imprisonment and finally to execution.

Education and the British Empire - cultural imperialism or vital preparation for independence and nationhood? This question lies at the root of the history of the education services in India and the colonial territories. Clive Whitehead, a distinguished educationalist, has brought together these studies of the life and work of leading practitioners and covering over 100 years up to the end of empire, the onset of independence and beyond. He includes both administrators and teachers on the ground, like Sir Hans Vischer, Arthur Mayhew, Eric R. J. Hussey, Sir Christopher Cox, Frank Ward, Freda Gwilliam - the 'Great Aunt' of British colonial education, and the great social anthropologist turned educationalist, Margaret Mead. Leading issues are tackled - academic education for the future Platonic Guardians who would run the territories after the British departed, provision of technical and scientific training, the need for mass education and literacy in English and local languages, equal opportunities for all and education for women and, perhaps the most vital principal with global implications - how to link Western knowledge with unique indigenous history and culture.

The 1790s was a fateful period for Britain. The French Revolution of 1789 opened an era of seismic political upheaval, one in which many features of the modern world made their first significant appearance. Democracy, mass nationalism, wholesale military mobilisation, and anti-colonial revolt all made their most telling debuts in the revolutionary era. This was not a struggle from which the British could stand aloof. Nor did they. Britons were right at the forefront of the debate over the Revolution. Edmund Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France" defended the established order while Tom Paine's "Rights of Man" attacked hereditary privilege and preached democracy. This was no rarefied intellectual debate, it resounded through clubs, taverns, theatres, chapels and assembly rooms. As it did so, Britons were forced to question many constitutional assumptions. Was the possession of an empire compatible with domestic liberty? Did the House of Commons reflect popular opinion or the prejudices of aristocratic patrons? Could they enjoy genuine constitutional liberty if their constitution denied political rights to Roman Catholics and Protestant Dissenters?Chris Evans's study, based on the latest historiography, brilliantly demonstrates how these latent intellectual and political anxieties were sharpened by the French Revolution. Loyalist mobilisation, radical agitation, draconian repression, and military confrontation are combined to re-shape British society and the British state.