A study of writing, publishing and marketing history books in the early modern period.

Idioms of Self-Interest uncovers an emerging social integration of economic self-interest in early modern England by examining literary representations of credit relationships in which individuals are both held to standards of communal trust and rewarded for risk-taking enterprise. Drawing on women’s wills, merchants’ tracts, property law, mock testaments, mercantilist pamphlets and theatrical account books, and utilizing the latest work in economic theory and history, the book examines the history of economic thought as the history of discourse. In chapters that focus on The Merchant of Venice, Eastward Ho!, and Whitney’s Wyll and Testament, it finds linguistic and generic stress placed on an ethics of credit that allows for self-interest. Authors also register this stress as the failure of economic systems that deny self-interest, as in the overwrought paternalistic systems depicted in Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens and Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis. The book demonstrates that Renaissance interpretive formations concerning economic behaviour were more flexible and innovative than appears at first glance, and it argues that the notion of self-interest is a coherent locus of interpretation in the early seventeenth century.

This handbook presents a comprehensive, concise and accessible overview of the field of Historical International Relations (HIR). It summarizes and synthesizes existing contributions to the field while presenting central themes, approaches and methodologies that have driven the development of HIR, providing the reader with a sense of the diversity and research dynamics that are at the heart of this field of study. The wide range of topics covered are grouped under the following headings: Traditions: Demonstrates the wide variety of approaches to HIR. Thinking International Relations Historically: Different ways of thinking IR historically share some common concerns and areas for further investigation. Actors, Processes and Institutions: Explores the processes, actors, practices, and institutions that constitute the core objects of study of many HIR scholars. Situating Historical International Relations: Critically reflects about the situatedness of our objects of study. Approaches: Examines how HIR scholars conduct and reflect about their research, often in dialogue with a variety of perspectives from cognate disciplines. Summarizing key contributions and trends while also sketching out challenges for future inquiry, this is an invaluable resource for students, academics and researchers from a range of disciplines, particularly International Relations, global history, political science, history, sociology, anthropology, peace studies, diplomatic studies, security studies, international political thought, political geography, international law.

This book argues that sovereignty is the first-order question of political order, and that seventeenth-century England provides an important case study in the roots of its modern iterations. It offers fresh readings of Thomas Hobbes, John Milton, and Andrew Marvell, as well as lesser-known figures and literary texts. In addition to political philosophy and literary studies, it also takes account of the period's legal history, exploring the exercise of the crown's feudal rights in the Court of Wards and Liveries, debates over habeas rights, and contests of various courts over jurisdiction. Theorizing sovereignty in a way that points forward to later modernity, the book also offers a sustained critique of the writings of Carl Schmitt, the twentieth century's most influential, if also most controversial, thinker on this topic.

Major new study of European political thought in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

This classic introduction to the study of history invites the reader to stand back and consider some of its most fundamental questions - What is the point of studying history? How do we know about the past? Does an objective historical truth exist and can we ever access it? In answering these central questions, John Tosh argues that, despite the impression of fragmentation created by postmodernism in recent years, history is a coherent discipline which still bears the imprint of its nineteenth-century origins. Consistently clear-sighted, he provides a lively and compelling guide to a complex and sometimes controversial subject, while making his readers vividly aware of just how far our historical knowledge is conditioned by the character of the sources and the methods of the historians who work on them. The fifth edition has been revised and updated throughout, with the addition of new sections on: · Global history · Comparative history · Postcolonialism · Women’s and gender history · Oral history and memory Lucid and engaging, this new edition retains all the user-friendly features that have helped to make this book a favourite with both students and lecturers, including marginal glosses, illustrations, suggested further reading and boxed guides to key events and people.

This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched. The study of war in all periods of prehistory and recorded history has always commanded the attention of historians, dramatists, poets and artists. The study of peace has, however, not yet gained a comparable readership, and the subject is attracting an increasing amount of scholarly research. This volume presents the first work of academic research to tackle this imbalance head on. It looks at war and peace through the ages, from the Classical world through to the 18th century. It considers the nature and advocacy of war and peace both from an historical perspective but also a philosophical one, particularly looking at how universal peace, which began as a personal philosophy, became over the centuries a political philosophy that underpins much of modern society's attitudes towards warfare and militarism. Roger Manning begins his journey through history by looking at the Greek martial ethos and philosophical concepts of peace and war in the ancient world; moving through the Roman empire's military advances, he explores the concepts of war and peace in the medieval world and the Renaissance, with the writing of Machiavelli and Erasmus; finally, his account of the search for a science of peace in the 17th and 18th centuries brings the book to its conclusion.

In conflict-affected regions, delays in international response can have life or death consequences. The speed with which international organizations react to crises affects the prospects for communities to re-establish peace. Why then do some international organizations take longer than others to answer calls for intervention? To answer this question and explore options for reform, Time to React builds on contemporary scholarship with original data on response rates and interview evidence from 50 ambassadors across four leading organizations (AU, EU, OAS and OSCE). The explanation for variation in speed ultimately lies in core differences in institutional cultures across organizations. Although wealth and capabilities can strengthen a peace operation, it is the unspoken rules and social networks of peace and security committees at these organizations that dictate the pace with which an operation is established. This book offers a first analysis of the critical importance of and conditions shaping timeliness of crisis response by international organizations.