Making of the Modern World – serie

Invaded in 1830, populated by one million settlers who co-existed uneasily with nine million Arabs and Berbers , Algeria was different from other French colonies because it was administered as an integral part of France, in theory no different from Normandy or Brittany. The depth and scale of the colonization process explains why the Algerian War of 1954 to 1962 was one of the longest and most violent of the decolonization struggles. An undeclared war in the sense that there was no formal beginning of hostilities, the war produced huge tensions that brought down four governments, ended the Fourth Republic in 1958, and mired the French army in accusations of torture and mass human rights abuses. In carefully re-examining the origins and consequences of the conflict, Martin Evans argues that it was the Socialist led Republican Front, in power from January 1956 until May 1957, which was the defining moment in the war. Predicated on the belief in the universal civilizing mission of the Fourth Republic, coupled with the conviction that Algerian nationalism was feudal and religiously fanatical in character, the Republican Front dramatically intensified the war in the spring of 1956. Drawing upon previously classified archival sources as well as new oral testimonies, this book underlines the conflict of values between the Republican Front and Algerian nationalism, explaining how this clash produced patterns of thought and action, such as the institutionalization of torture and the raising of pro-French Muslim militias, which tragically polarized choices and framed all subsequent stages of the conflict.

On 16 May 1940 an emergency meeting of the French High Command was called at the Quai d'Orsay in Paris. The German army had broken through the French lines on the River Meuse at Sedan and elsewhere, only five days after launching their attack. Churchill, who had been telephoned by Prime Minister Reynaud the previous evening to be told that the French were beaten, rushed to Paris to meet the French leaders. The mood in the meeting was one of panic and despair; there was talk of evacuating Paris. Churchill asked Gamelin, the French Commander in Chief, 'Where is the strategic reserve?' 'There is none,' replied Gamelin. This exciting book by Julian Jackson, a leading historian of twentieth-century France, charts the breathtakingly rapid events that led to the defeat and surrender of one of the greatest bastions of the Western Allies, and thus to a dramatic new phase of the Second World War. The search for scapegoats for the most humiliating military disaster in French history began almost at once: were miscalculations by military leaders to blame, or was this an indictment of an entire nation? Using eyewitness accounts, memoirs, and diaries, Julian Jackson recreates, in gripping detail, the intense atmosphere and dramatic events of these six weeks in 1940, unravelling the historical evidence to produce a fresh answer to the perennial question of whether the fall of France was inevitable.

China is now poised to take a key role on the world stage, but in the early twentieth century the situation could not have been more different. Rana Mitter goes back to this pivotal moment in Chinese history to uncover the origins of the painful transition from a premodern past into a modern world. By the 1920s the seemingly civilized world shaped over the last two thousand years by the legacy of the great philosopher Confucius was falling apart in the face of western imperialism and internal warfare. Chinese cities still bore the imprints of its ancient past with narrow, lanes and temples to long-worshipped gods, but these were starting to change with the influx of foreign traders, teachers, and missionaries, all eager to shape China's ancient past into a modern present. Mitter takes us through the resulting social turmoil and political promise, the devastating war against Japan in the 1940s, Communism and the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, and the new era of hope in the 1980s ended by the Tian'anmen uprising. He reveals the impetus behind the dramatic changes in Chinese culture and politics as being China's "New Culture" - a strain of thought which celebrated youth, individualism, and the heady mixture of strange and seductive new cultures from places as far apart as America, India, and Japan.

On 26 August 1914 the world-famous university library in the Belgian town of Louvain was looted and destroyed by German troops. The international community reacted in horror - 'Holocaust at Louvain' proclaimed the Daily Mail - and the behaviour of the Germans at Louvain came to be seen as the beginning of a different style of war, without the rules that had governed military conflict up to that point - a more total war, in which enemy civilians and their entire culture were now 'legitimate' targets. Yet the destruction at Louvain was simply one symbolic moment in a wider wave of cultural destruction and mass killing that swept Europe in the era of the First World War. Using a wide range of examples and eye-witness accounts from across Europe at this time, award-winning historian Alan Kramer paints a picture of an entire continent plunging into a chilling new world of mass mobilization, total warfare, and the celebration of nationalist or ethnic violence - often directed expressly at the enemy's civilian population.

The German Revolution of November 1918 is nowadays largely forgotten outside Germany. It is generally regarded as a failure even by those who have heard of it, a missed opportunity which paved the way for the rise of the Nazis and the catastrophe to come. Robert Gerwarth argues here that to view the German Revolution in this way is a serious misjudgement. Not only did it bring down the authoritarian monarchy of the Hohenzollern, it also brought into being the first ever German democracy in an amazingly bloodless way. Focusing on the dramatic events between the last months of the First World War in 1918 and Hitler's Munich Putsch of 1923, Robert Gerwarth illuminates the fundamental and deep-seated ways in which the November Revolution changed Germany. In doing so, he reminds us that, while it is easy with the benefit of hindsight to write off the 1918 Revolution as a 'failure', this failure was not somehow pre-ordained. In 1918, the fate of the German Revolution remained very much an open book.

The US decision to drop an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 remains one of the most controversial events of the twentieth century. However, the controversy over the rights and wrongs of dropping the bomb has tended to obscure a number of fundamental and sobering truths about the development of this fearsome weapon. The principle of killing thousands of enemy civilians from the air was already well established by 1945 and had been practised on numerous occasions by both sides during the Second World War. Moreover, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was conceived and built by an international community of scientists, not just by the Americans. Other nations (including Japan and Germany) were also developing atomic bombs in the first half of the 1940s, albeit hapharzardly. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine any combatant nation foregoing the use of the bomb during the war had it been able to obtain one. The international team of scientists organized by the Americans just got there first. As this fascinating new history shows, the bomb dropped by a US pilot that hot August morning in 1945 was in many ways the world's offspring, in both a technological and a moral sense. And it was the world that would have to face its consequences, strategically, diplomatically, and culturally, in the years ahead.

Part of The Making of the Modern World series, this innovative textbook offers an introduction to the 19th-century world with a focus on human perspectives through social and cultural histories. Taking a period of great transition and change, it shows how the actions and experiences of different communities and individuals across the world constructed, contested and were affected by major trends and events. With a thematic approach, and focusing on social and cultural histories, it connects these major trends and events to experiences of the people who lived through them.Tackling politics, religion, economics, environment, empire and more, with this book students will critically encounter important global trends and key events from the Industrial Revolution, to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the dawn of the First World War. This fully revised second edition includes updated historiography throughout plus:- A new chapter on mobility and migration- Expanded discussion on the interplay between imperialism and the environment- New further reading sections and notes at the end of each chapter- A primary source and interlude section in each chapter to provide historical context- Additional maps and images The Long Nineteenth Century, 1750-1914 offers an introduction to this era of global transformation and the crucible of modernity.

Part of The Making of the Modern World series, this innovative textbook offers an introduction to the 19th-century world with a focus on human perspectives through social and cultural histories. Taking a period of great transition and change, it shows how the actions and experiences of different communities and individuals across the world constructed, contested and were affected by major trends and events. With a thematic approach, and focusing on social and cultural histories, it connects these major trends and events to experiences of the people who lived through them.Tackling politics, religion, economics, environment, empire and more, with this book students will critically encounter important global trends and key events from the Industrial Revolution, to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the dawn of the First World War. This fully revised second edition includes updated historiography throughout plus:- A new chapter on mobility and migration- Expanded discussion on the interplay between imperialism and the environment- New further reading sections and notes at the end of each chapter- A primary source and interlude section in each chapter to provide historical context- Additional maps and images The Long Nineteenth Century, 1750-1914 offers an introduction to this era of global transformation and the crucible of modernity.

The Twentieth-Century World, 1914 to the Present introduces students to six distinct historical themes in 20th century history - politics, economics, religion, technology, migration and the environment. Each theme is set in a social and cultural history framework that emphasizes the commonalities and diversity in human experiences throughout the modern era.A genuinely global textbook that takes a non-nationalistic approach to history and incorporates events, actors and communities from around the world, Corbally explores the connections, interactions and exploitations of global resources and peoples that were part and parcel of 20th-century history. Economically, the book shows how people were connected by the spread of global capitalism and communism. It explores the spread of traditional religions and philosophies, and traces how technology has increasingly reached into our lives. This fully revised second edition includes updated historiography throughout plus:- A new chapter on mobility and migration - Expanded material on the history of class, race and gender throughout - Expanded material on modern African history - New further reading sections at the end of each chapterIdeal for undergraduate level students of 20th-century history, this is a book that offers a balanced, multi-perspective approach to recent global history, helping the 21st-century student understand today's world and interrogate commonly held assumptions about its history.

The Twentieth-Century World, 1914 to the Present introduces students to six distinct historical themes in 20th century history - politics, economics, religion, technology, migration and the environment. Each theme is set in a social and cultural history framework that emphasizes the commonalities and diversity in human experiences throughout the modern era.A genuinely global textbook that takes a non-nationalistic approach to history and incorporates events, actors and communities from around the world, Corbally explores the connections, interactions and exploitations of global resources and peoples that were part and parcel of 20th-century history. Economically, the book shows how people were connected by the spread of global capitalism and communism. It explores the spread of traditional religions and philosophies, and traces how technology has increasingly reached into our lives. This fully revised second edition includes updated historiography throughout plus:- A new chapter on mobility and migration - Expanded material on the history of class, race and gender throughout - Expanded material on modern African history - New further reading sections at the end of each chapterIdeal for undergraduate level students of 20th-century history, this is a book that offers a balanced, multi-perspective approach to recent global history, helping the 21st-century student understand today's world and interrogate commonly held assumptions about its history.

The Early Modern World, 1450-1750: Seeds of Modernity takes a distinctive approach to global history and enables a holistic view of the world during this period,without prioritizing any one nation or region. It guides students towards an understanding of how different empires, nations, communities and individuals constructed, contested and were touched by major trends and events. Its thematic structure covers politics, technology, economics, the environment and intellectual and religious worldviews.In order to connect global trends and events to human experiences, each chapter is underpinned by a social and cultural history focus, enabling the reader to gain an understanding of the lived human experience and make sense of various perspectives and worldviews. The 'Legacy' feature also discusses connections between early modern history and the contemporary world, looking at how the past is contested or memorialized today. The result is a textbook that helps the 21st-century student gain a rich and nuanced understanding of the global history of the early modern period.