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The pacy, sensitive and formidably argued history of the causes of the First World War, from acclaimed historian and author Christopher Clark SUNDAY TIMES and INDEPENDENT BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2012 The moments that it took Gavrilo Princip to step forward to the stalled car and shoot dead Franz Ferdinand and his wife were perhaps the most fateful of the modern era. An act of terrorism of staggering efficiency, it fulfilled its every aim: it would liberate Bosnia from Habsburg rule and it created a powerful new Serbia, but it also brought down four great empires, killed millions of men and destroyed a civilization. What made a seemingly prosperous and complacent Europe so vulnerable to the impact ...
Inspired by the insights of Reinhart Koselleck and François Hartog, two pioneers of the "temporal turn" in historiography, Clark shows how Friedrich Wilhelm rejected the notion of continuity with the past, believing instead that a sovereign must liberate the state from the entanglements of tradition to choose freely among different possible futures. He demonstrates how Frederick the Great abandoned this paradigm for a neoclassical vision of history in which sovereign and state transcend time altogether, and how Bismarck believed that the statesman's duty was to preserve the timeless permanence of the state amid the torrent of historical change. Clark describes how Hitler did not seek to revolutionize history like Stalin and Mussolini, but instead sought to evade history altogether, emphasizing timeless racial archetypes and a prophetically foretold future.
An intellectual tour de force: the major essays of the esteemed author of international bestseller The Sleepwalkers Christopher Clark's The Sleepwalkers has become one of the most influential history books of our century: a remarkable rethinking of the origins of the First World War, which has had a huge impact on how we see both the past and the present. For the many readers who found the narrative voice, craftsmanship and originality of Clark's writing so compelling, Prisoners of Time will be a book filled with surprises and enjoyment. Bringing together many of Clark's major essays, Prisoners of Time raises a host of questions about how we think about the past, and both the value and pitfa...
'Of the "Great Powers" that dominated Europe from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, Prussia is the only one to have vanished ... Iron Kingdom is not just good: it is everything a history book ought to be ... The nemesis of Prussia has cast such a long shadow that German historians have tiptoed around the subject. Thus it was left to an Englishman to write what is surely the best history of Prussia in any language' Sunday Telegraph
Kaiser Wilhelm II is one of the key figures in the history of twentieth-century Europe: King of Prussia and German Emperor from 1888 to the collapse of Germany in 1918 and a crucial player in the events that led to the outbreak of World War I. Following Kaiser Wilhelm's political career from his youth at the Hohenzollern court through the turbulent peacetime decades of the Wilhelmine era into global war and exile, the book presents a new interpretation of this controversial monarch and assesses the impact on Germany of his forty-year reign.
Across nineteenth-century Europe, the emergence of constitutional and democratic nation-states was accompanied by intense conflict between Catholics and anticlerical forces. At its peak, this conflict touched virtually every sphere of social life: schools, universities, the press, marriage and gender relations, burial rites, associational culture, the control of public space, folk memory and the symbols of nationhood. In short, these conflicts were 'culture wars', in which the values and collective practices of modern life were at stake. These 'culture wars' have generally been seen as a chapter in the history of specific nation-states. Yet it has recently become increasingly clear that the Europe of the mid- and later nineteenth century should also be seen as a common politico-cultural space. This book breaks with the conventional approach by setting developments in specific states within an all-European and comparative context, offering a fresh and revealing perspective on one of modernity's formative conflicts.
Days after the assassination of his prime minister in the middle of Rome in November 1848, Pope Pius IX found himself a virtual prisoner in his own palace. The wave of revolution that had swept through Europe now seemed poised to put an end to the popes' thousand-year reign over the Papal States, if not indeed to the papacy itself. Disguising himself as a simple parish priest, Pius escaped through a back door. Climbing inside the Bavarian ambassador's carriage, he embarked on a journey into a fateful exile.Only two years earlier Pius's election had triggered a wave of optimism across Italy. After the repressive reign of the dour Pope Gregory XVI, Italians saw the youthful, benevolent new pop...
Ayurveda is one of the World's oldest and most comprehensive systems of natural medicine, and is particularly useful for addressing the chronic conditions Western medicine finds difficult to treat. This authoritative book provides a comprehensive introduction to Ayurvedic medicine for the practitioner or student. The authors describe the foundations and principles of Maharishi Ayurveda in detail, and drawing on the latest scientific research into its efficacy, show what it can offer clinical medicine in the West. Topics covered include pathogenesis and diagnosis, diet and digestion, toxic build-up, purification therapies, the effects of the emotions and thinking on health, and the practical ...