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Unlike many narratives about the Czech lands, which place them on the periphery of their own history, this study considers Czechs as central characters, looking both east and west to find their place in the early modern world. Islam, Christianity and the Making of Czech Identity, 1453-1683 works through the descriptive and ethnographic texts produced by Czech speakers about Islam and the Ottoman Empire to show how they used this discourse to create Czech identities. Rather than simply constructing identity in opposition to the Islamic Other, Laura Lisy-Wagner shows how these authors played the Holy Roman and Ottoman Empires off each other, creating an autonomous space for themselves in between. Lisy-Wagner introduces sources that are new to English-language historiography and uses them in a way that is new to Czech historiography as well. The chapters are organized based on different categories of agents-travelers, ethnographers, religious leaders, artists, and political revolutionaries-whose voices cast ideas of Europe and Czech identity in the early modern period in a new and different light.
A complete survey of the military campaigns of the early Saxons, tactics, strategy, and logistics, demonstrating in particular the sophistication of the administration involved. Over the course of half a century, the first two kings of the Saxon dynasty, Henry I (919-936) and Otto I (936-973), waged war across the length and breadth of Europe. Ottonian armies campaigned from the banks of the Oder in the east to the Seine in the west, and from the shores of the Baltic Sea in the north, to the Adriatic and Mediterranean in the south. In the course of scores of military operations, accompanied by diligent diplomatic efforts, Henry and Otto recreated the empire of Charlemagne, and established th...
There is a myth—easily shattered—that Western societies since the Enlightenment have been dedicated to the ideal of protecting the differences between individuals and groups, and another—too readily accepted—that before the rise of secularism in the modern period, intolerance and persecution held sway throughout Europe. In Beyond the Persecuting Society John Christian Laursen, Cary J. Nederman, and nine other scholars dismantle this second generalization. If intolerance and religious persecution have been at the root of some of the greatest suffering in human history, it is nevertheless the case that toleration was practiced and theorized in medieval and early modern Europe on a scal...
This revisionist history explores how the tsar's power was transferred in Russia over three centuries, as cultural practices and customs evolved.
Explore the epic conflict and contrasting leadership styles of King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden and Albrecht von Wallenstein, Duke of Friedland, two titanic figures in the Thirty Years War whose strategic brilliance and dramatic deaths shaped the course of modern warfare, analyzed in vivid detail by the author. The conflict, personal rivalry and contrast in personality, generalship and command, between the two iconic commanders in the Thirty Years War, King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden for the Protestant powers, and Albrecht von Wallenstein, Duke of Friedland. More than just commanders at the tactical level they were statesmen, military organizers and strategists on a continental scale. Both ...
First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
The editors present a collection of 23 historical papers exploring relationships between "the Germans" (necessarily adopting different senses of the term for different periods or different topics) and their immediate neighbors to the East. The eras discussed range from the Middle Ages to European integration. Examples of specific topics addressed include the Teutonic order in the development of the political culture of Northeastern Europe during the Middle ages, Teutonic-Balt relations in the chronicles of the Baltic Crusades, the emergence of Polenliteratur in 18th century Germany, German colonization in the Banat and Transylvania in the 18th century, changing meanings of "German" in Habsburg Central Europe, German military occupation and culture on the Eastern Front in Word War I, interwar Poland and the problem of Polish-speaking Germans, the implementation of Nazi racial policy in occupied Poland, Austro-Czechoslovak relations and the post-war expulsion of the Germans, and narratives of the lost German East in Cold War West Germany.
This book examines the thought and legacy of Rabbi Loew (the Maharal), one of the most important Jewish thinkers. Taking a multi-disciplinary approach, the book encompasses organized perspectives that range from East European cultural and intellectual history, to Medieval Jewish intellectual history and its legacies, to Rabbinic theology, to Italian Jewish history, to Early Modern Jewish intellectual history, to Maharal Studies, to Postmodernism and Judaism, to Jewish political theory, Comparative Religion, and Cinematic Studies.