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Imperial Ends
Despite their historical importance, empires have received scant attention from social scientists. Now, Alexander J. Motyl examines the structure, dynamics, and continuing relevance of empire—and asks, "Why do empires decline? Why do some empires collapse? And why do some collapsed empires revive?" Rejecting choice-centered theories of imperial decline, Motyl maintains that the very structure of empires promotes decay and that decay in turn facilitates the progressive loss of territory. Although most major empires have in fact declined in this manner, some, such as the Soviet Union, have collapsed suddenly and comprehensively. Motyl explains how and why collapse occurs, why such an outcome...
Revolutions, Nations, Empires
In this concise, provocative, and trenchant book, Alexander J. Motyl argues that social scientists must pay more rigorous attention to the formulation of concepts, as they provide the basis for clear thinking, good research, and intelligent formulation of theories. Focusing his "conceptual explorations" on three phenomena--revolutions, nations and nationalism, and empires--Motyl challenges the sloppy thinking that so often surrounds these three interrelated concepts, and moves our understanding of them toward greater precision.
Dilemmas of Independence
The collapse of the Soviet Union added a large new country-Ukraine-to the map of Europe. With its endowment of natural resources and skilled population of 52 million, Ukraine can play a major role in European and world affairs. How an independent Ukraine evolves internally and the foreign policies it adopts will have considerable impact on Europe, East and West, and the United States. Alexander J. Motyl, an authority on the post-Soviet nations, examines the painful choices confronting Ukraine. He considers Ukraine's troublesome inheritance from the Soviet Union and discusses ways Ukraine might overcome this legacy to build a modern, democratic, and market-oriented state. Motyl advances an evolutionary approach, one that places equal emphasis on economic reform, the creation of democracy and civil society, state-building, and ethnic peace. He also explores Kiev's relations with Moscow, and suggests what the West should-and should not-do to help Ukraine and the other former republics survive their post-imperial and post-totalitarian challenges.
Vovochka
Welcome to Vladimir Putin’s phantasmagoric world, where a heady mixture of Orthodoxy, socialism, imperialism, racism, homophobia, and Mother Russia worship defines and distorts reality. Vovochka is the story of “Vovochka” Putin and his intimate friend—a KGB agent with the same nickname. The two Vovochkas recruit informers in Berlin’s gay bars, spy on East German dissidents, survive the trauma of the Soviet Union’s collapse, fight American, Ukrainian, Jewish, and Estonian “fascists,” and plot to restore Russia’s power and glory. As their mindset assumes increasingly bizarre forms, Vovochka Putin experiences bouts of selfdoubt that culminate in a weeklong cure in North Korea. A savage satire, Vovochka is also a terrifyingly plausible account of Vladimir Putin’s evolution from a minor KGB agent in East Germany to the selfstyled Savior and warmongering leader of a paranoid state.
The Holodomor Reader
The Holodomor Reader is a wide-ranging collection of key texts and source materials, many of which have never before appeared in English, on the genocidal famine (Holodomor) of 1932–33 in Soviet Ukraine. The subject is introduced in an extensive interpretive essay, and the material is presented in six sections: scholarship; legal assessments, findings, and resolutions; eyewitness accounts and memoirs; survivor testimonies, memoirs, diaries, and letters; Soviet, Ukrainian, British, German, Italian, and Polish documents; and works of literature. Each section is prefaced with introductory remarks. The Reader is an indispensable guide for all those interested in the Holodomor, genocide, or Stalinism.
Encyclopedia of Nationalism, Two-Volume Set
Nationalism has unexpectedly become a leading local and international force since the end of the Cold War. Long predicted to give way to pan-national or economic organizations, nationalism exerts its tremendous force on all continents and in a wide variety of ways. The Encyclopedia of Nationalism captures the aims and scope of this force through a wide-ranging examination of concepts, figures, movements, and events. It is the only encyclopedic study of nationalism available today. Key Features * International Editorial Board * Articles begin with short glossaries and conclude with short bibliographies of titles essential for further reading * Website devoted to project at www.academicpress.com/nations
Russia's Engagement with the West:
The Putin and Bush presidencies, the 9/11 attack, and the war in Iraq have changed the dynamics of Russian-European-US relations and strained the Western alliance. Featuring contributions by leading experts in the field, this work is the first systematic effort to reassess the status of Russia's modernization efforts in this context. Part I examines political, economic, legal, and cultural developments in Russia for evidence of convergence with Western norms. In Part II, the contributors systematically analyze Russia's relations with the European Union, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the United States in light of new security concerns and changing economic and power relationships.
Revolutions, Nations, Empires
In this concise, provocative, and trenchant book, Alexander J. Motyl argues that social scientists must pay more rigorous attention to the formulation of concepts, as they provide the basis for clear thinking, good research, and intelligent formulation of theories. Before even contemplating the question of whether or not theories "fit the facts" and explain what they purport to explain, it behooves us to ask whether or not theories make sense conceptually. Focusing his "conceptual explorations" on three phenomena -- revolutions, nations and nationalism, and empires -- Motyl challenges the sloppy thinking that so often surrounds these three interrelated concepts, and moves our understanding of them -- and their implications for both theory and practice -- toward greater precision.
The Holodomor and the Origins of the Soviet Man
Anastasia Lysyvets’s memoir Tell us about a happy life ... (Skazhy pro shchaslyve zhyttia ...), published in Kyiv in 2009 and now available for the first time in an English translation, is one of the most powerful testimonies of a victim of the Holodomor, the Great Famine of 1932–1933 in Ukraine. This mass starvation was organized by the Soviet regime and resulted in millions of deaths by hunger. The simple village teacher Lysyvets’s testimony, written during the 1970s and 1980s without hope of publication, depicts pain, death, and hunger as few others do. In his commentary, Vitalii Ogiienko explains how traumatic traces found their way into Lysyvets’s text. He proposes that the reader develops an alternative method of reading that replaces the usual ways of imagining with a focus on the body and that detects mechanisms of transmission of the original Holodomor experience through generations.
