Thirteen essays by scholars from seven countries discuss the political use and abuse of history in the recent decades with particular focus on Central and Eastern Europe (Hungary, Poland, Estonia, Moldova, Ukraine, Russia as case studies), but also includes articles on Germany, Japan and Turkey, which provide a much needed comparative dimension. The main focus is on new conditions of political utilization of history in post-communist context, which is characterized by lack of censorship and political pluralism. The phenomenon of history politics became extremely visible in Central and Eastern Europe in the past decade, and remains central for political agenda in many countries of the regions. Each essay is a case study contributing to the knowledge about collective memory and political use of history, offering a new theoretical twist. The studies look at actors (from political parties to individual historians), institutions (museums, Institutes of National remembrance, special political commissions), methods, political rationale and motivations behind this phenomenon.

Offers the first comprehensive analysis of the wave of revolutionary terrorism in affluent countries.

In recent years political history has been rediscovered by historians. In this volume the contributors approach the new political history in a constructivist way, conceiving the political as a communicative space whose boundaries are constantly reconfigured through acts of verbal, visual, and sometimes violent communication. Writing Political History Today is organized into four sections, focusing on politics and the political as contested concepts; boundary disputes between the political and other spheres; the question whether violence is a means, an object, or the end of political communication; and on a future agenda for writing political history.

Looks at the history of politics from Hobbes to the twenty-first century.

How the history of political thought relates to politics, history and culture of various nations.

The United States today cries out for a robust, self-respecting, intellectually sophisticated left, yet the very idea of a left appears to have been discredited. In this brilliant new book, Eli Zaretsky rethinks the idea by examining three key moments in American history: the Civil War, the New Deal and the range of New Left movements in the 1960s and after including the civil rights movement, the women's movement and gay liberation.In each period, he argues, the active involvement of the left - especially its critical interaction with mainstream liberalism - proved indispensable. American liberalism, as represented by the Democratic Party, is necessarily spineless and ineffective without a left. Correspondingly, without a strong liberal center, the left becomes sectarian, authoritarian, and worse. Written in an accessible way for the general reader and the undergraduate student, this book provides a fresh perspective on American politics and political history. It has often been said that the idea of a left originated in the French Revolution and is distinctively European; Zaretsky argues, by contrast, that America has always had a vibrant and powerful left. And he shows that in those critical moments when the country returns to itself, it is on its left/liberal bases that it comes to feel most at home.

The foundation of the National Health Service on 5 July 1948 was a momentous development in the history of the United Kingdom. Issues of health care touch the lives of everyone, and the NHS has come to be regarded as the cornerstone of the welfare state and as a model for state-organisedhealth care systems elsewhere. Yet throughout its history, the Service has existed in an atmosphere of crisis. Charles Webster's political history is an entirely new and original examination of the NHS from its inception through to its management under the first term of the current Labourgovernment, providing the necessary framewrork for assessing its future as we enter the new millennium.

An interrogation of the uses of gender as a tool for cultural and historical analysis. The revised edition reassesses the book's fundamental topic: the category of gender. In arguing that gender no longer serves to destabilize our understanding of sexual difference, the new preface and new chapter open a critical dialogue with the original book. From publisher description.

A three-thousand year history of the world that examines the causes of war and the search for peace In three thousand years of history, China has spent at least eleven centuries at war. The Roman Empire was in conflict during at least 50 per cent of its lifetime. Since 1776, the United States has spent over one hundred years at war. The dream of peace has been universal in the history of humanity. So why have we so rarely been able to achieve it? In A Political History of the World, Jonathan Holslag has produced a sweeping history of the world, from the Iron Age to the present, that investigates the causes of conflict between empires, nations and peoples and the attempts at diplomacy and cosmopolitanism. A birds-eye view of three thousand years of history, the book illuminates the forces shaping world politics from Ancient Egypt to the Han Dynasty, the Pax Romana to the rise of Islam, the Peace of Westphalia to the creation of the United Nations. This truly global approach enables Holslag to search for patterns across different eras and regions, and explore larger questions about war, diplomacy, and power. Has trade fostered peace? What are the limits of diplomacy? How does environmental change affect stability? Is war a universal sin of power? At a time when the threat of nuclear war looms again, this is a much-needed history intended for students of international politics, and anyone looking for a background on current events.

A World History of Political Thought is an outstanding and innovative work with profound significance for the study of the history of political thought, providing a wide-ranging, detailed and global overview of political thought from 600 BC to the 21st century. Treating both western and non-western systems of political thought as equal and placing them as they should be; side by side.