Turning Points – serie

The collapse of the Ottoman Empire is a key event in the shaping of our own times. From its ruins rose a whole map of new countries including Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the perennially troubled area of Palestine as well as the Balkan lands - states which were to remain flashpoints of international tension. This thoughtful and lucid volume considers the reasons for the end of the Ottoman Empire; explains the course of it; and examines the aftermath.

Offering a fresh critical perspective on this momentous event, Andrew Shennan examines both the continuities and discontinuities that resulted from the events of 1940. The main focus is on the French experience of the war, but this experience is framed within the larger context of France's - and Europe's - protracted mid-twentieth century crisis.

This tightly argued and profoundly thought provoking book tackles a huge subject: the coming of the nuclear age with bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and the ways in which it has changed our lives since. Dr Heuser sets these events in their historical context and tackles key issues about the effect of nuclear weapons on modern attitudes to conflict, and on the ethics of warfare. Ducking nothing, she demystifies the subject, seeing `the bomb' not as something unique and paralysing, but as an integral part of the strategic and moral context of our time. For a wide multidisciplinary and general readership.

In October 1973 two crises – one economic, one political – intersected, with dramatic and long term consequences for international relations. On 6 October, Egypt and Syria launched an attack on Israel, and within a few days the major Arab oil producers announced their support by use of the ‘oil weapon’, including a boycott of supplies for countries friendly to Israel and a programme of production cuts. This was followed by the unilateral declaration of a steep increase in the price of oil by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The result was international panic and world recession. Crude oil prices soared by a massive fourfold in just three months. The West's vulnerability had been exposed: it was being held hostage to oil. Yet, despite efforts to address this dependence on oil imports in following years, the 1979 Iranian Revolution triggered a further upward surge in prices. Today, the importance of oil remains at the forefront of the West's foreign policy calculations in the Middle East. In this fascinating and timely new look at the oil crisis, Fiona Venn examines these issues and the more unexpected effects of the crisis. She asks just how much really changed in the economic balance of power. Most importantly she argues that OPEC was used as a scapegoat for the world recession, which had been already underway when the crisis detonated.

The Paris Commune was the biggest and last popular revolution in western Europe - ending the cycle of revolutions that started in 1789. The Parisians, reeling from defeat in the Franco-Prussian War set up their own revolutionary administration. Government troops eventually retook the city and took a terrible revenge: thousands died in the bloodbath that followed. The short-lived Commune and its repression cast a long shadow. It exposed deep divisions in French society and became a potent inspiration for the radical left. This stirring new study written with great zest, and a vivid sense of time and place lets the reader experience these tumultuous events at first hand and provides a comprehensive synthesis of recent research in both French and English.

The mass migration of the Boer farmers from Cape Colony to escape British domination in 1835-36 - the Great Trek - has always been a potent icon of Africaaner nationalism and identity. For African nationalists, the Mfecane - the vast movement of the Black populations in the interior following the emergence of a new Zulu kingdom as a major military force in the early 19th century - offers an equally powerful symbol of the making of a nation. With their parallel visions of populations on the move to establish new states, these two stories became part of divided South Africa’s separate mythologies, treated as unconnected events taking place in separate universes. For the first time, in this groundbreaking book, accounts of both migrations are brought together and examined. In uniting these separate visions of African and Afrikaaner history, Norman Etherington provides a fascinating picture of a major turning point in South African history, and points the way for future work on the period.

The fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453 marked the end of a thousand years of the Christian Roman Empire. Thereafter, world civilisation began a process of radical change. The West came to identify itself as Europe; the Russians were set on the path of autocracy; the Ottomans were transformed into a world power while the Greeks were left exiles in their own land. The loss of Constantinople created a void. How that void was to be filled is the subject of this book.Michael Angold examines the context of late Byzantine civilisation and the cultural negotiation which allowed the city of Constantinople to survive for so long in the face of Ottoman power. He shows how the devastating impact of its fall lay at the centre of a series of interlocking historical patterns which marked this time of decisive change for the late medieval world.This concise and original study will be essential reading for students and scholars of Byzantine and late medieval history, as well as anyone with an interest in this significant turning point in world history.

In autumn 1989 the world watched transfixed as East German citizens, demonstrating under the banner ‘We are the people!’, staged the only successful, totally peaceful revolution in German history. By October 1990, the process of reunification was formally concluded, bringing together a nation that had been divided for almost four decades. Now, nearly twenty years later, it is possible to judge the causes and consequences of the revolution more clearly. Was the fall of the Berlin Wall an unexpected fluke, or was it, in fact, the result of a long process of engagement between East and West? And did the momentous events of 1989 really signal the start of a bright new future for a united Germany? In this probing and wide-ranging account, Lothar Kettenacker considers the background behind the division of Germany and explains how the Berlin Wall and its death trap border proved to be the most horrendous manifestation of East-West antagonism. He also looks beyond 1990 to show how the confusion caused by the sudden collapse of the GDR and the fusion of two radically different economies is proving to be a challenge that will preoccupy Germany for generations to come.

The release of Nelson Mandela from twenty-seven years imprisonment in 1990 and the free elections which followed four years later were among the most dramatic events of the twentieth century.David Welsh and J. E. Spence here examine the complex forces which lay behind that drama. They chart the rise and decline of apartheid ideology in South Africa, the internal insurrection and increased international isolation which characterised the 1980s and the political roller-coaster ride of the period after 1990 as constitutional negotiations got underway. Based on extensive interviews with those involved, Ending Apartheid traces the negotiating process in penetrating detail, noting the political skills of de Klerk and Mandela in keeping their potentially unruly constituencies in line and avoiding the major violence that many had predicted. Reaching agreement on a democratic constitution was a major achievement that surprised many sceptical observers, but the book ends on a more sombre note. Reviewing the period subsequent to the transition, it argues that while progress has been made, the future of South Africa's democracy is still far from assured.Written by two eminent scholars with decades of experience teaching in the field, Ending Apartheid is an invaluable resource for all students of South African politics seeking a deeper understanding of a defining episode in recent history.

The fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453 marked the end of a thousand years of the Christian Roman Empire. Thereafter, world civilisation began a process of radical change. The West came to identify itself as Europe; the Russians were set on the path of autocracy; the Ottomans were transformed into a world power while the Greeks were left exiles in their own land. The loss of Constantinople created a void. How that void was to be filled is the subject of this book.Michael Angold examines the context of late Byzantine civilisation and the cultural negotiation which allowed the city of Constantinople to survive for so long in the face of Ottoman power. He shows how the devastating impact of its fall lay at the centre of a series of interlocking historical patterns which marked this time of decisive change for the late medieval world.This concise and original study will be essential reading for students and scholars of Byzantine and late medieval history, as well as anyone with an interest in this significant turning point in world history.

The collapse of the Ottoman Empire is a key event in the shaping of our own times. From its ruins rose a whole map of new countries including Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the perennially troubled area of Palestine as well as the Balkan lands - states which were to remain flashpoints of international tension. This thoughtful and lucid volume considers the reasons for the end of the Ottoman Empire; explains the course of it; and examines the aftermath.

This tightly argued and profoundly thought provoking book tackles a huge subject: the coming of the nuclear age with bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and the ways in which it has changed our lives since. Dr Heuser sets these events in their historical context and tackles key issues about the effect of nuclear weapons on modern attitudes to conflict, and on the ethics of warfare. Ducking nothing, she demystifies the subject, seeing `the bomb' not as something unique and paralysing, but as an integral part of the strategic and moral context of our time. For a wide multidisciplinary and general readership.

The mass migration of the Boer farmers from Cape Colony to escape British domination in 1835-36 - the Great Trek - has always been a potent icon of Africaaner nationalism and identity. For African nationalists, the Mfecane - the vast movement of the Black populations in the interior following the emergence of a new Zulu kingdom as a major military force in the early 19th century - offers an equally powerful symbol of the making of a nation. With their parallel visions of populations on the move to establish new states, these two stories became part of divided South Africa’s separate mythologies, treated as unconnected events taking place in separate universes. For the first time, in this groundbreaking book, accounts of both migrations are brought together and examined. In uniting these separate visions of African and Afrikaaner history, Norman Etherington provides a fascinating picture of a major turning point in South African history, and points the way for future work on the period.

Offering a fresh critical perspective on this momentous event, Andrew Shennan examines both the continuities and discontinuities that resulted from the events of 1940. The main focus is on the French experience of the war, but this experience is framed within the larger context of France's - and Europe's - protracted mid-twentieth century crisis.

The release of Nelson Mandela from twenty-seven years imprisonment in 1990 and the free elections which followed four years later were among the most dramatic events of the twentieth century.David Welsh and J. E. Spence here examine the complex forces which lay behind that drama. They chart the rise and decline of apartheid ideology in South Africa, the internal insurrection and increased international isolation which characterised the 1980s and the political roller-coaster ride of the period after 1990 as constitutional negotiations got underway. Based on extensive interviews with those involved, Ending Apartheid traces the negotiating process in penetrating detail, noting the political skills of de Klerk and Mandela in keeping their potentially unruly constituencies in line and avoiding the major violence that many had predicted. Reaching agreement on a democratic constitution was a major achievement that surprised many sceptical observers, but the book ends on a more sombre note. Reviewing the period subsequent to the transition, it argues that while progress has been made, the future of South Africa's democracy is still far from assured.Written by two eminent scholars with decades of experience teaching in the field, Ending Apartheid is an invaluable resource for all students of South African politics seeking a deeper understanding of a defining episode in recent history.

In October 1973 two crises – one economic, one political – intersected, with dramatic and long term consequences for international relations. On 6 October, Egypt and Syria launched an attack on Israel, and within a few days the major Arab oil producers announced their support by use of the ‘oil weapon’, including a boycott of supplies for countries friendly to Israel and a programme of production cuts. This was followed by the unilateral declaration of a steep increase in the price of oil by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The result was international panic and world recession. Crude oil prices soared by a massive fourfold in just three months. The West's vulnerability had been exposed: it was being held hostage to oil. Yet, despite efforts to address this dependence on oil imports in following years, the 1979 Iranian Revolution triggered a further upward surge in prices. Today, the importance of oil remains at the forefront of the West's foreign policy calculations in the Middle East. In this fascinating and timely new look at the oil crisis, Fiona Venn examines these issues and the more unexpected effects of the crisis. She asks just how much really changed in the economic balance of power. Most importantly she argues that OPEC was used as a scapegoat for the world recession, which had been already underway when the crisis detonated.

In autumn 1989 the world watched transfixed as East German citizens, demonstrating under the banner ‘We are the people!’, staged the only successful, totally peaceful revolution in German history. By October 1990, the process of reunification was formally concluded, bringing together a nation that had been divided for almost four decades. Now, nearly twenty years later, it is possible to judge the causes and consequences of the revolution more clearly. Was the fall of the Berlin Wall an unexpected fluke, or was it, in fact, the result of a long process of engagement between East and West? And did the momentous events of 1989 really signal the start of a bright new future for a united Germany? In this probing and wide-ranging account, Lothar Kettenacker considers the background behind the division of Germany and explains how the Berlin Wall and its death trap border proved to be the most horrendous manifestation of East-West antagonism. He also looks beyond 1990 to show how the confusion caused by the sudden collapse of the GDR and the fusion of two radically different economies is proving to be a challenge that will preoccupy Germany for generations to come.

The Paris Commune was the biggest and last popular revolution in western Europe - ending the cycle of revolutions that started in 1789. The Parisians, reeling from defeat in the Franco-Prussian War set up their own revolutionary administration. Government troops eventually retook the city and took a terrible revenge: thousands died in the bloodbath that followed. The short-lived Commune and its repression cast a long shadow. It exposed deep divisions in French society and became a potent inspiration for the radical left. This stirring new study written with great zest, and a vivid sense of time and place lets the reader experience these tumultuous events at first hand and provides a comprehensive synthesis of recent research in both French and English.

Two teen friends, one black and one white, weather the fallout of school integration together in their hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas.Sixteen-year-old William McNally and fifteen-year-old Thomas Johnson both live in Little Rock, Arkansas, in the summer of 1957. They both love baseball and teasing their little sisters. There’s just one big difference—William is white, and Thomas, the son of William’s family’s maid, is black. After the Supreme Court rules in favor of desegregating public schools, Little Rock Central High School prepares to enroll its first nine African American students, and William and Thomas are caught in the center of a storm.

Nathaniel Smithfield is a ten-year-old boy living with his family in Boston, Massachusetts in 1768 when he first starts to witness the drama happening in the city around him. Tension heats up between those who are loyal to the British crown, like Nathaniel's father, and those who believe the people of America are being treated unfairly. Over the following years as he grows into a teenager, Nathaniel must decide where his own beliefs lie, and how far he will go to fight for them, no matter the consequences.