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In this book historians Osmo Jussila, Seppo Hentila, and Jukka Nevakivi cover the three periods of Finland s history since 1809. Their fast-moving narrative style brings to life the interaction of social and political forces and powerful personalities in a country whose destiny has been determined by its geopolitical situation between Eastern and Western Europe.From the twelfth to the early nineteenth century, Finland was ruled by Sweden, which bequeathed to it Western-style political, economic, and cultural institutions. From 1809 to the Bolshevik Revolution, it was an autonomous Grand Duchy within the Russian Empire with its own parliament, army, and currency. The Finns won their independe...
Examines British military, political and imperial strategy in the Middle East during and immediately after the First World War, in relation to General Allenby's command of the Egypt Expeditionary Force from June 1917 to November 1919.
In this fascinating study, Carol Hakim presents a new and original narrative on the origins of the Lebanese national idea. Hakim’s study reconsiders conventional accounts that locate the origins of Lebanese nationalism in a distant legendary past and then trace its evolution in a linear and gradual manner. She argues that while some of the ideas and historical myths at the core of Lebanese nationalism appeared by the mid-nineteenth century, a coherent popular nationalist ideology and movement emerged only with the establishment of the Lebanese state in 1920. Hakim reconstructs the complex process that led to the appearance of fluid national ideals among members of the clerical and secular Lebanese elite, and follows the fluctuations and variations of these ideals up until the establishment of a Lebanese state. The book is an essential read for anyone interested in the evolution of nationalism in the Middle East and beyond.
The question is, how should small states behave under pressure? The analysis is of three cases: Czechoslavakia in 1938, Poland from 1939 to 1945, and Finland in 1940 and 41. The author is scrupulous in not drawing too many general lessons from these cases, but the imprudence of overreliance on great power protection and of ceding to justifications for surrender based on self-determination are made clear.
First published in 1976, John Mack's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography humanely and objectively explores the relationship between T.E. Lawrence's inner life and his historically significant actions. Extensive research provides the basis for Mack's sensitive investigation of the psychological dimensions of Lawrence's personality and with the history, sociology, and politics of his time. 27 photos.
The study of the business of opera has taken on new importance in the present harsh economic climate for the arts. This book presents research that sheds new light on a range of aspects concerning marketing, audience development, promotion, arts administration and economic issues that beset professionals working in the opera world. The editors' aim has been to assemble a coherent collection of essays that engage with a single theme (business), but differ in topic and critical perspective. The collection is distinguished by its concern with the business of opera here and now in a globalized market. This includes newly commissioned operas, sponsorship, state funding, and production and marketing of historic operas in the twenty-first century.
Survey of the changing position of all four Nordic states in twentieth-century international relations.
This volume brings together a rich array of original contributions - hitherto unavailable in English - on Finland during World War II and the place of the war in Finnish collective memory. Providing readers with a solid narrative of the war's political and military framework from a Finnish perspective, this volume also offers well-argued analyses of the ideological, social and cultural aspects of a society at war. As part of the complex legacy of the war it discusses the 'Karelian question' and the Holocaust in Finnish public memory, topics often neglected in international scholarship. Besides a historical narrative, this volume, with its thorough introduction, also reveals to readers the history and current state of Finnish historiography of World War II. Contributors are Outi Fingerroos, Sonja Hagelstam, Antero Holmila, Markku Jokisipilä, Michael Jonas, Marianne Junila, Tiina Kinnunen, Ville Kivimäki, Helene Laurent, Henrik Meinander, Tenho Pimiä, Oula Silvennoinen, Tuomas Tepora, and Pasi Tuunainen.
Though sharing broadly similar processes of economic and political development from the mid-to-late nineteenth century onward, western countries have diverged greatly in their choice of voting systems: most of Europe shifted to proportional voting around the First World War, while Anglo-American countries have stuck with relative majority or majority voting rules. Using a comparative historical approach, Wrestling with Democracy examines why voting systems have (or have not) changed in western industrialized countries over the past century. In this first single-volume study of voting system reform covering all western industrialized countries, Dennis Pilon reviews national efforts in this area over four timespans: the nineteenth century, the period around the First World War, the Cold War, and the 1990s. Pilon provocatively argues that voting system reform has been a part of larger struggles over defining democracy itself, highlighting previously overlooked episodes of reform and challenging widely held assumptions about institutional change.
In The Life and Times of Andrei Zhdanov, 1896-1948 Kees Boterbloem offers the first full-length biography of the man once believed to be a likely candidate to succeed Josef Stalin. In so doing he provides new insights into the Soviet political system and the question of how much power was wielded by Stalin's lieutenants. In 1934 Andrei Zhdanov was promoted to the post of secretary of the Communist Party's Central Committee in Moscow and entered the inner circle of Stalin's partners. Notable for his involvement in implementing the artificial crisis of the Great Terror in Moscow and Leningrad, Zhdanov was later involved in the preparation and signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and acted as...