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This is the first book-length treatment of the life and thought of the Communist intellectual A. L. Morton (1903–1987) who pioneered studies of utopianism, radical history, and English national identity. Morton is now best known for A People's History of England (1938) and The English Utopia (1952), but his output was vast, and he was once widely read in socialist circles and beyond. He published on the English Revolution, Chartism, the emergence of the British labour movement, the legacy of utopianism in working-class movements, Arthurian legends, Shakespeare, the Brontë sisters, Robert Owen, William Morris, millenarianism, imperialism, and much more. Through extensive archival work (including recently released secret service files) and a close reading of Morton's publications, this book shows how Morton was a key influence on the famed generation of British Marxist historians associated with the postwar Communist Party Historians'Group, often anticipating their more celebrated findings. This book analyses the interrelated significance of Morton's political work and his role within the Communist Party of Great Britain at crucial points in its history. The book further functions, then, as a story of English socialism and Communism during the Cold War.

This open access book focuses on the potential for conflict between high and low culture during the transformations of the popular in the field of religion in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Specifically, the contributors to this edited collection consider the so-called'Revival Movements'that came up as a symptom of differentiation and pluralisation of Protestantism in reaction to the Enlightenment, rationalism, and criticism of religion, and explore the attempts at theological self-empowerment of Christian laymen and laywomen.

Information and knowledge were essential tools of early modern Europe's global ambitions. This volume addresses a key concern that emerged as the competition for geopolitical influence increased: how could information from afar be trusted when there was no obvious strategy for verification? How did notions of doubt develop in relation to intercultural encounters? Who were those in the position to use misinformation in their favour, and how did this affect trust? How, in other words, did distance affect credibility, and which intellectual and epistemological strategies did early modern Europe devise to cope with this problem?The movement of information, and its transformations in the process of gathering, ordering, and disseminating, makes it necessary to employ both a global and a local perspective in order to understand its significance. The rise of print, leading to various new forms of mediation, played a crucial role everywhere, inspiring theories of modernization in which media served as agents of new connections and, eventually, of globalization. Paradoxically, during the entire period between 1500 and 1800, the demise of distance through various strategies of verification coincided with constructions of otherness that emphasized the cultural and geographical difference between Europe and the worlds it encountered.Ten leading scholars of the early modern world address the relationship between distance, information, and credibility from a variety of perspectives. This volume will be an essential companion to those interested in the history of knowledge and early modern encounters, as well as specialists in the history of empire and print culture.The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

This book is both a conceptualization and detailed analysis of the current crisis in which modern utopian categories of political institutions find themselves, as well as a reflection and clarification of the new dangers and opportunities facing post-utopian politics in-the-making. Met with those who believe that no more utopian political projects are possible, the post-utopian movement maintains a non-fantastic or illusory character of being able to apply new great discourses and radically democratic historical narratives, while respecting both the autonomy and emancipation of individuals as plurality and the socio-cultural differences of communities. With this purpose in mind, the book is divided into five thematically differentiated sections: the new utopian categories beyond modern epistemes; the possibility of liberal utopian democracies without neoliberalism; the opportunities of socialist empowerments and insurgencies; the necessity of thinking in the space between two ages; andthe urgency to create eco-political post-utopias.

This book provides an introductory analysis of Norway's foreign policy in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with a particular focus on the latter. Covering themes such as security and defence, foreign aid, and European integration, the author argues that despite often presenting itself as an idealist country and a ‘peace nation,'Norwegian governments have demonstrated an understanding of power politics and a desire to, above all, promote national self- interests. The author explores the country's global relations with the US and NATO, the countries of the European Union, and great powers such as Russia and China. By adopting a historical perspective, the book demonstrates how continuity and stability have been fundamental features of contemporary Norwegian foreign policy. Drawing on a wide range of current and archival government sources, parliamentary debates, and opinion pieces in news outlets, as well as an extensive selection of academic sources, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of Norway's foreign relations.

This book deals with the complex process of national identity formation in the late Ottoman Empire and early Turkish Republic, during a crucial period characterized by transformative events that reshaped both the state and society. These events included revolutions, wars, mass migrations, ethnic cleansing, genocide, the empire's disintegration, territorial and demographic changes, and the emergence of new states. In the face of these events, a multitude of old and new formulations and imaginings of nation and national identity took shape and interacted with each other. This book focuses on highlighting the diversity of concepts and trajectories that existed during the period and how these played out within a complex web of inclusionary and exclusionary processes, and the various ways in which the nation was constituted and conceptualized.

Forty years after Ronald Reagan's successful re-election campaign, this book explores the significance of the year 1984 in the making of Reagan's presidential record and the shaping of his legacy. The authors examine the broader context of how Reagan impacted the nature of the US presidency and international relations during the Cold War, and how this in turn interacted with American popular culture. Serving as an introduction to academics, students and the interested public into what is a rapidly increasingly Reagan scholarship, this book will also appeal to anyone interested in US elections, the evolving nature of the US presidency, and American culture more generally.

This book takes a fresh approach to the London Blitz by viewing this time through individual local boroughs of the metropolis. The term ‘London Blitz'means that culturally we have become accustomed to understanding that the actual blitz experience was the same wherever in the capital one happened to be, despite some areas being hit more than others. This book illustrates how there were many London blitzes, not one, influenced by a myriad of metropolitan localities, and giving rise to an agency of locality that helped to shape the lived blitz experience. By walking through the streets of London, this book conducts a local area analysis, witnessing the blitz through six London localities, representative of the assorted administrative, economic, and socio-political variables prevalent in wartime London. Covering air raids alongside topics like the provision of shelters, homelessness, and communal feeding, it shows how any history of the London Blitz must acknowledge that it was an experience reflective of a varied metropolis.

This clearly written and engrossing book presents a global narrative of the origins of the modern world from 1400 to the present. Unlike most studies, which assume that the “rise of the West” is the story of the coming of the modern world, this history, drawing upon new scholarship on Asia, Africa, and the New World and upon the maturing field of environmental history, constructs a story in which those parts of the world play major roles, including their impacts on the environment. Robert B. Marks defines the modern world as one marked by industry, the nation state, interstate warfare, a large and growing gap between the wealthiest and poorest parts of the world, increasing inequality within the wealthiest industrialized countries, and an escape from the environmental constraints of the “biological old regime.” He explains its origins by emphasizing contingencies (such as the conquest of the New World); the broad comparability of the most advanced regions in China, India, and Europe; the reasons why England was able to escape from common ecological constraints facing all of those regions by the end of the eighteenth century; a conjuncture of human and natural forces that solidified a gap between the industrialized and non-industrialized parts of the world; the mounting environmental crisis that defines the modern world; and the ways in which the forces of globalization stress the economic and political underpinnings of the modern world. Now in a new edition that brings the saga of the modern world to the present in an environmental context, the book considers how and why the United States emerged as a world power in the twentieth century and became the sole superpower by the twenty-first century, and why the changed relationship of humans to the environmental likely will be the hallmark of the modern era—the Anthropocene. Once again arguing that the US rise to global hegemon was contingent, not inevitable, Marks also points to the resurgence of Asia and the vastly changed relationship of humans to the environment that may in the long run overshadow any political and economic milestones of the past hundred years.

This volume presents a subfield overview on current research, trends, and commentary on the state of aeronautical archaeology and its development, through selections from a session on aviation archaeology at the 2020 Society for Historical Archaeology Conference. It serves to highlight those practices and projects that take strides towards standard methodologies in aeronautical archaeology. This book involves the study of aircraft crash sites, airfields, battlefields, and buildings or structures related to aviation. High profile sites and topics in this book include Lake Mead's B-29 Superfortress, Tuskegee Airmen in Michigan, and patterns of preservation in WWII aircraft and their importance. A relatively new field, aeronautical archaeology is the sub-field of archaeology that examines past human interaction with flight. The authors aim to create more awareness for aviation cultural heritage projects and the associated community of scholars, practitioners, and enthusiasts. This volume includes contributions from leading global scholars through varied scientific inquiries, summaries of site investigations, and conservation techniques of aeronautical heritage.

Ludger Kühnhardt, weltweit tätiger Politikwissenschaftler, Berater und Publizist, gibt lebhafte und persönliche Einblicke in die Menschen und Quellen seiner Prägung, in die Denkwege, denen er gefolgt ist, und in die Impulse, die sein Wirken in Forschung und Lehre über Jahrzehnte hinweg ausgelöst hat. Ein biografischer Werkstattbericht von hoher Authentizität, der zusammenführt, was inmitten des beruflichen Alltags oft unverbunden erscheint. Immer wieder aus anderer Perspektive werden Einsichten beleuchtet, die ihrer Zeit voraus waren, und Befunde erinnert, die zeitlos aktuell geblieben sind. Eine lebendig geschriebene Werkbiographie über die inneren Antriebskräfte und äußeren Zusammenhänge eines kosmopolitischen public intellectual als aufklärerischer und beratender Impulsgeber im Wechselspiel von Wissenschaft, Politik und Publizistik. Das Buch spiegelt deutsche, europäische und globale Zeitgeschichte von der Mitte des 20.Jahrhunderts bis ins dritte Jahrzehnt des 21.Jahrhunderts in einem wissenschaftlichen Werk und seiner Einordnung als Zeugnis politischer Kultur.

Europe is a continent whose history has, in one form or another, long been dominated by integration. And yet the European integration process is often treated as synonymous with the evolution of just one particular, and until recently geographically quite limited, Western-centred organisation: the European Union (EU). This trend obscures the multitude of ways European states have acted collectively on both sides of the Iron Curtain – and continue to do so throughout the continent today. With contributors drawn from history and political science, this book explores some of these diverse integration efforts ‘beyond Brussels'. We shine a light on international organisations, trade frameworks, and various political, social, scientific and cultural forms of unity in both Eastern and Western Europe. In so doing, the book seeks to redefine the history of the European integration process not only as a less purely EU-centric phenomenon but as a less strictly Western European one too.

This edited collection draws together new historical writing on the Commonwealth. It features the work of younger scholars, as well as established academics, and highlights themes such as law and sovereignty, republicanism and the monarchy, French engagement with the Commonwealth, the anti-apartheid struggle, race and immigration, memory and commemoration, and banking. The volume focusses less on the Commonwealth as an institution than on the relevance and meaning of the Commonwealth to its member countries and peoples. By adopting oblique, de-centred, approaches to Commonwealth history, unusual or overlooked connections are brought to the fore while old problems are looked at from fresh vantage points – be this turning points like the relationship between ‘old'and `new'Commonwealth members from 1949, or the distinctive roles of major figures like Jawaharlal Nehru or Jan Smuts. The volume thereby aims to refresh interest in Commonwealth history as a field of comparative international history.

Now in its second edition, The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism is the definitive reference work for students and scholars interested in the theory and history of imperialism and anti-imperialism from the sixteenth century to the present day. Written by an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars, it provides detailed studies of imperialism's roots, goals, methods and impact around the world. It also explores the rich and varied tradition of anti-imperialism, focusing on its most significant leaders, intellectuals, theories and social movements. The second edition has been expanded to include a number of topics not covered in the first edition, such as feminism, the environment, crime, international law, imperialism and anti-imperialism in art, literature and poetry, and medicine. In addition, existing entries have been updated and revised to reflect the latest scholarship. Offering a more comprehensive and thorough treatment of imperialism and anti-imperialism, the second edition of this encyclopedia takes a comparative, global approach to challenge and enhance our understanding of today's world.

Empires evoke potent images: Stanley, Livingstone and the colonial gallery of great explorers; the Spanish Conquistadors quest for gold and silver; and the Dutch heritage of trade in the East Indies. For over 500 years empires have been a feature of the political landscape and a generation or more after the final collapse of most of the European Empires the subject is still a major issue for historians. For some countries Germany and Italy overseas dreams were short-lived; for others the United States and the Soviet Union imperialist activity existed but was never accepted as an official state policy; and the disappearance of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires has obscured some of the imperial dimensions of these states. This book shows how the maps of explorations, the chronologies of conquests, the records of settlers and administrators, the balance sheets of commerce and all else that made up the Age of Empires play a key role in explaining the global civilization of today.

This book explores the political and ideological developments that resulted in the establishment of two separate states on the island of Ireland: the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland. It examines how this radical transformation took place, including how British Liberals and Unionists were as influential in the “two-state solution” as any Irish party. The book analyzes transformative events including the third home rule crisis, partition and the creation of Northern Ireland, and the Irish Free State's establishment through the Anglo-Irish Treaty. The policies and priorities of major figures such as H.H. Asquith, David Lloyd George, John Redmond, Eamon de Valera, Edward Carson, and James Craig receive prominent attention, as do lesser-known events and organizations like the Irish Convention and Irish Dominion League. The work outlines many possible solutions to Britain's “Irish question,” and discusses why some settlement ideas were adopted and others discarded. Analyzing publicdiscourse and archival sources, this monograph offers new perspectives on the Irish Revolution, highlighting in particular the tension between public rhetoric and private opinion.

The Islamic Revolution in 1979 transformed Iranian society and reshaped the political landscape of the Middle East. Four decades later, Darioush Bayandor draws upon heretofore untapped archival evidence to reexamine the complex domestic and international dynamics that led to the Revolution. Beginning with the socioeconomic transformation of the 1960s, this book follows the Shah's rule through the 1970s, tracing the emergence of opposition movements, the Shah's blunders and miscalculations, the influence of the post-Vietnam zeitgeist and the role of the Carter administration. The Shah, the Islamic Revolution and the United States offers new revelations about how Iran was thrown into chaos and an ailing ruler lost control, with consequences that still reverberate today.

As much as dogs, cats, or any domestic animal, horses exemplify the vast range of human-animal interactions. Horses have long been deployed to help with a variety of human activities—from racing and riding to police work, farming, warfare, and therapy—and have figured heavily in the history of natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities. Most accounts of the equine-human relationship, however, fail to address the last few centuries of Western history, focusing instead on pre-1700 interactions. Equestrian Cultures fills in the gap, telling the story of how prominently horses continue to figure in our lives, up to the present day. ​ Kristen Guest and Monica Mattfeld place the modern period front and center in this collection, illuminating the largely untold story of how the horse has responded to the accelerated pace of modernity. The book's contributors explore equine cultures across the globe, drawing from numerous interdisciplinary sources to show how horses have unexpectedly influenced such distinctively modern fields as photography, anthropology, and feminist theory. Equestrian Cultures boldly steps forward to redefine our view of the most recent developments in our long history of equine partnership and sets the course for future examinations of this still-strong bond.

This collection brings together leading and emerging scholars to evaluate the viability of four nations approaches to the history of the United Kingdom from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. It recognises the separate histories of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales and explores the extent to which they share a common, ‘British'history. They are entwined, with the points at which they interweave and detach dependent upon the nature of our inquiry, where we locate our ‘core'and our ‘periphery', and the ‘cause'and ‘effect'of our subject.The collection demonstrates that four nations frameworks are relevant to a variety of topics and tests the limits of the methodology. The chapters illuminate the changing shape of modern British history writing, and provide fresh perspectives on subjects ranging from state governance, nationalism and Unionism, economics, cultural identities and social networking.

Drawing on a wealth of primary and secondary sources, this book explores how far imperial culture penetrated antipodean city institutions. It argues that far from imperial saturation, the city'Down Under'was remarkably untouched by the Empire.

Despite its modest size, the republic of Suriname is today the site of many distinctive processes of globalization. This intersectional study teases out the complex relationships among class, gender, and ethnic identity over the course of Suriname's modern history, from the capital city of Paramaribo to the country's resource-rich rainforest.

This cultural and political study examines British perceptions and policies on India's Afghan Frontier between 1918 and 1948 and the impact of these on the local Pashtun population, India as a whole, and the decline of British imperialism in South Asia.

Drawing on a wide range of British and Argentine sources, this book highlights the importance of the neglected 1960s as the decade in which the dormant Falklands (Malvinas) dispute became reactivated, developing into a dynamic set of bilateral negotiations on the question of sovereignty.

This book uncovers practices surrounding acts of collecting, surveying, and antiquarianism during British colonial rule in India. By examining these practices, this book traces the colonial conditions of the production of'sources,'the forging of a new historical method, and the ascendance of positivist historiography in nineteenth-century India.

Fear is ubiquitous but slippery. It has been defined as a purely biological reality, derided as an excuse for cowardice, attacked as a force for social control, and even denigrated as an unnatural condition that has no place in the disenchanted world of enlightened modernity. In these times of institutionalized insecurity and global terror, Facing Fear sheds light on the meaning, diversity, and dynamism of fear in multiple world-historical contexts, and demonstrates how fear universally binds us to particular presents but also to a broad spectrum of memories, stories, and states in the past. From the eighteenth-century Peruvian highlands and the California borderlands to the urban cityscapes of contemporary Russia and India, this book collectively explores the wide range of causes, experiences, and explanations of this protean emotion. The volume contributes to the thriving literature on the history of emotions and destabilizes narratives that have often understood fear in very specific linguistic, cultural, and geographical settings. Rather, by using a comparative, multidisciplinary framework, the book situates fear in more global terms, breaks new ground in the historical and cultural analysis of emotions, and sets out a new agenda for further research. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Alexander Etkind, Lisbeth Haas, Andreas Killen, David Lederer, Melani McAlister, Ronald Schechter, Marla Stone, Ravi Sundaram, and Charles Walker.

Presenting a set of rich case-studies which demonstrate novel and productive approaches to the study of colonial knowledge, this volume covers British, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish colonial encounters in Africa, Asia, America and the Pacific, from the sixteenth to the twentieth century.

This edited volume brings together a collection of provocative essays examining a number of different facets of Elizabethan foreign affairs, encompassing England and The British Isles, Europe, and the dynamic civilization of Islam. As an entirely domestic queen who never physically left her realm, Elizabeth I cast an inordinately wide shadow in the world around her. The essays is this volume collectively reveal a queen and her kingdom much more connected and integrated into a much wider world than usually discussed in conventional studies of Elizabethan foreign affairs.

In recent years, imperial history has experienced a newfound vigour, dynamism and diversity. There has been an explosion of new work in the field, which has been driven into even greater prominence by contemporary world events. However, this resurgence has brought with it disputes between those who are labelled as exponents of a ‘new imperial history'and those who can, by default, be termed old imperial historians.This collection not only gathers together some of the most important, influential and controversial work which has come to be labelled ‘new imperial history', but also presents key examples of innovative recent writing across the broader fields of imperial and colonial studies. This book is the perfect companion for any student interested in empires and global history.

The years 1913-1920 were the most critical years of the Mexican revolution. This study of the period, a sequel to Cumberland's Mexican Revolution: Genesis under Madero (University of Texas Press, 1952), traces Mexico's course through the anguish of civil war to the establishment of a tenuous new government, the codification of revolutionary aspirations in a remarkable constitution, and the emergence of an activist leadership determined to propel Mexico into the select company of developed nations. The narrative begins with Huerta's overthrow of Madero in 1913 and the rise of Carranza's Constitutionalist counterchallenge. It concludes with a summary of Carranza's stormy term as constitutional president climaxed by his ouster and overthrow in a revolt spearheaded by Alvaro Obregón. Professor Cumberland has based his study on a wide range of Mexican and U.S. primary sources as well as pertinent secondary studies. He has utilized much new material and has brought to it a mature and sophisticated analysis; the result is a major contribution to the understanding of one of the twentieth century's most significant revolutionary movements.

This book explores the'mental maps'of leading political figures of the era of two world wars. Chapters focus on those giants whose ideas cast a compelling shadow: Lloyd George, Lenin, Mussolini, Hitler, Roosevelt, Churchill, Briand and Stresemann, as well as other important figures: Poincaré, Atatuerk, Beneš, Chiang and Mao.

The study of languages was crucial to colonial power in 18th and 19th-century South Africa. This important book examines representations of the South African Bantu languages Xhosa and Zulu, revealing the ways in which colonial linguistics contributed to both the making of the colonial order and to instabilities at the heart of the project.

Italian Colonialism is a pioneering anthology of texts by scholars from seven countries who represent the best of classical and newer approaches to the study of Italian colonization. Essays on the political, economic, and military aspects of Italian colonialism are featured alongside works that reflect the insights of anthropology, race and gender studies, film, architecture, and oral and cultural history. The volume includes many essays by Italian and African scholars that have never been translated into English. It is a unique resource that offers students and scholars a comprehensive view of the field.

Broers repositions the context in which the Napoleonic empire can be studied, and reconfigures the political and historical geography of Italy, in the century before its Unification in 1859. The Napoleonic Empire in Italy marks a fresh departure in the study of both modern Italy and Napoleonic Europe, based on primary sources.

Michael Alpert's study of the Spanish Civil War is dedicated to the international aspects of the conflict, and covers the whole era, setting the action in Spain against major events throughout the world of the 1930s. Since the first edition of this book new archival material has become available and this fully revised edition includes the latest research on the Spanish Civil War. This contextual approach to the Spanish Civil War offers insights into the study of this conflict.

In 1936 a group of Chinese communists were released from jail after a humiliating renunciation of communism. The Chinese Communist Party then secretly employed them to galvanise support in nationalist areas of the country. It later condemned the members of this group as renegades before finally rehabilitating them in 1978. Pamela Lubell uncovers the fascinating history of these communists, known as the Sixty-one, and in doing so produces a revealing account of the tensions within the Chinese Communist Party.

The West and China Since 1500 surveys Western relations with and attitudes towards China since sustained contact and desirable trading began with the great alternative culture in the sixteenth century. The experiences of traders, diplomats and missionaries are surveyed and illustrated by frequent quotations from contemporary sources. In addition the book explores the flow of cultural influences in both directions, and changes in Western opinion about China from admired model, to disdained'land of the eternal standstill', to feared resurgent power. Finally, the author examines current issues in dispute such as Taiwan and human rights.

The tragedies of Bosnia and Kosovo are often explained away as the unchangeable legacy of'centuries-old hatreds'. In this richly detailed, expertly balanced chronicle of the Balkans across fifteen centuries, Hupchick sets a complicated record straight. Organized around the three great civilizations of the region - Western European, Orthodox Christian and Muslim - this is a much-needed guide to the political, social, cultural and religious threads of Balkan history, with a clear, convincing account of the reasons for nationalist violence and terror.

Die vorliegende Festschrift geht von der Auffassung aus, daß die Würdigung eines hervorragenden Repräsentanten einer wissenschaftlichen Disziplin bzw. eines bestimmten wissenschaftlichen Ansatzes umso glaubwürdiger ist, je konsequenter sie auf den einschlägigen Fachdiskurs bezogen wird. Ihre Herausgeber haben sich deshalb darauf verständigt, die üblichen affirmativreputativen Elemente zurückzustellen zugunsten einer Lösung, die man den Versuch einer'kritischen'Festschrift nennen könnte.

Enlightenment Geography is the first detailed study of the politics of British geography books and of related forms of geographical knowledge in the period from 1650 to 1850. The definition and role of geography in a humanist structure of knowledge are examined and shown to tie it to political discourse. Geographical works are shown to have developed Whig and Tory defences of the English church and state, consonant with the conservatism of the English Enlightenment. These politicizations were questioned by those indebted to the Scottish Enlightenment. Enlightenment Geography questions broad assumptions about British intellectual history through a revisionist history of geography.

Stereotypes continue to dominate contemporary Anglo-German relations. This volume brings together views from psychology, history, cultural theory, literature, pedagogy, but also business and management studies to elucidate the origins, forms, and possible strategies of dealing with clichés of'the British'and'the Germans'. By assessing their impact on the personal sphere and that of communication, the media, business, and politics, they demonstrate how an awareness of stereotypes can be part of a realistic assertion of identity in a changing world.

Anglo-American rivalry in Egypt, Iran and the Persian Gulf in the period 1952 to 1957 represented the transfer of power in the Middle East from Great Britain to the United States. As Britain's influence in Egypt and Iran declined, its determination to hold on to the Persian Gulf increased, at one point threatening to kill any Americans found in the hotly contested Buraimi oasis. The episode is little examined by historians but played a large role in the ensuing Suez crisis.

Prior to the modern age laughter raised passions and activated the body to sweat and shake. Derision was not distinguished from joy. Deceiving the senses by tricks or funny stories made all people laugh loudly, regardless of class. Johan Verberckmoes describes, in this innovating book, the hotchpotch of comic images and stories in'Flandes'during the rule of the Spanish Habsburgs, from 1500 to 1700. It challenges the Bakhtinian idea of a caesura in the history of laughter around 1600.

In Britain and the Origins of Canadian Confederation (1837-1867), Ged Martin challenges the view that the provinces of British North America united between 1864 and 1867 in response to the internal and external challenges of the time. After a sceptical review of the way in which historians have handled the Confederation issue, he turns to the largely neglected British dimension, arguing that the origins of Confederation must be sought in a vague consensus among opinion-formers in Britain that the provinces would one day unite.

This book critically reviews the British experience in Hong Kong with special emphasis on the tenure of the last governor, Chris Patten, and the discourse he used in guiding the transfer of sovereignty to China. While the People's Republic of China proclaimed the recovery of Hong Kong to be just retribution for a century and a half of national shame under British rule, Patten, as the spokesperson for the British, was concerned that Britain's exit from its last significant colony should be an honourable one.

In this book historian R.J.Q. Adams examines the policy of appeasement as practiced by British Governments in the inter-war years - a programme widely praised in its day and frequently condemned as wrong-headed and even wicked ever since. In this thoroughly accessible work, he reveals the motivations and goals of the men who practiced appeasement as well as of those who opposed it, and makes clear the road to Munich - and to war.

It is commonplace that warfare was integral to the European expansion, pitting the superiorities of the European against the inferiorities of the'native'. The aim of this book is to look deeper, and to examine the technological, political and economic structures and capacities of the competing forces that shaped their ability to wage war, and the impact that colonial wars had on European and non-European states and societies alike. Questions of the extent to which one side could adapt its military institutions, tactics and technology to those of its opponents figure prominently. This was far from an inevitable one-way process, and environment and disease remained vital factors. The studies also situate these conflicts within the broader debate concerning the so-called military revolution, and show that our ideas of this need to be reconsidered in the light of what was happening outside Europe.

This study critically examines Woodrow Wilson's acceptance of the principle of national self-determination and his role in implementing it at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. The assessment includes judgements by his contemporaries and historians of Wilson and the peace settlement. A survey of the manner in which national self-determination shaped the settlement leads to a discussion of the subsequent effects of the idea on the states and territories subject to the Versailles Treaty and related treaties.

For some, Tahiti, New Caledonia and Wallis and Futuna are idyllic tropical islands with a French flavour, while for others they represent continuing French colonialism, thwarted independence movements and nuclear testing. This book looks at the realities of the French territories in Oceania, and the former Franco-British condominium of the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu), as well as changing French policy in the region. This study is based on published sources as well as archival material and interviews, and is a sequel to the highly praised The French Presence in the South Pacific, 1842-1940.