Eurasian Transformations, Tenth to Thirteenth Centuries

Eurasian Transformations, Tenth to Thirteenth Centuries PDF Author: Johann P. Arnason
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047414675
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 387

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Book Description
This volume which also appeared as a special issue of Medieval Encounters deals with transformations of the major Eurasian civilizations in the early second millennium CE, and with the question of contrasts, parallels and connections between the different trajectories that took shape during this period. An introductory section discusses the theoretical problems of comparative analysis, with particular reference to formative phases of cultural crystallization. The first main thematic section focuses on European developments. The emergence of Western Christendom as a distinctive civilization is analyzed in a broader Eurasian context. Other contributions examine the Europeanization of northern and eastern peripheries, as well as the different course of events in the Byzantine world. The last section covers socio-cultural changes in non-European regions - the Islamic world, India, China and Japan - and concludes with a discussion of the Eurasian empire created by the Mongols. With contributions by Thomas Lindkvist; Sverre Bagge; Paul Jakov Smith; Paul Stephenson; Mikael Adolphson; Dr. Michal Biran; Said A. Arjomand; Gábor Klaniczay; R. I. Moore; Sheldon Pollock.

Eurasian Transformations, Tenth to Thirteenth Centuries

Eurasian Transformations, Tenth to Thirteenth Centuries PDF Author: Johann P. Arnason
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047414675
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 387

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Book Description
This volume which also appeared as a special issue of Medieval Encounters deals with transformations of the major Eurasian civilizations in the early second millennium CE, and with the question of contrasts, parallels and connections between the different trajectories that took shape during this period. An introductory section discusses the theoretical problems of comparative analysis, with particular reference to formative phases of cultural crystallization. The first main thematic section focuses on European developments. The emergence of Western Christendom as a distinctive civilization is analyzed in a broader Eurasian context. Other contributions examine the Europeanization of northern and eastern peripheries, as well as the different course of events in the Byzantine world. The last section covers socio-cultural changes in non-European regions - the Islamic world, India, China and Japan - and concludes with a discussion of the Eurasian empire created by the Mongols. With contributions by Thomas Lindkvist; Sverre Bagge; Paul Jakov Smith; Paul Stephenson; Mikael Adolphson; Dr. Michal Biran; Said A. Arjomand; Gábor Klaniczay; R. I. Moore; Sheldon Pollock.

From Genghis Khan to Tamerlane

From Genghis Khan to Tamerlane PDF Author: Peter Jackson
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300275048
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 745

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Book Description
An epic account of how a new world order under Tamerlane was born out of the decline of the Mongol Empire By the mid-fourteenth century, the world empire founded by Genghis Khan was in crisis. The Mongol Ilkhanate had ended in Iran and Iraq, China’s Mongol rulers were threatened by the native Ming, and the Golden Horde and the Central Asian Mongols were prey to internal discord. Into this void moved the warlord Tamerlane, the last major conqueror to emerge from Inner Asia. In this authoritative account, Peter Jackson traces Tamerlane’s rise to power against the backdrop of the decline of Mongol rule. Jackson argues that Tamerlane, a keen exponent of Mongol custom and tradition, operated in Genghis Khan’s shadow and took care to draw parallels between himself and his great precursor. But, as a Muslim, Tamerlane drew on Islamic traditions, and his waging of wars in the name of jihad, whether sincere or not, had a more powerful impact than those of any Muslim Mongol ruler before him.

The Great Transformation

The Great Transformation PDF Author: Judith Bessant
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317286294
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
While artificial intelligence (AI), robots, bio-technologies and digital media are transforming work, culture, and social life, there is little understanding of or agreement about the scope and significance of this change. This new interpretation of the ‘great transformation’ uses history and evolutionary theory to highlight the momentous shift in human consciousness taking place. Only by learning from recent crises and rejecting technological determinism will governments and communities redesign social arrangements that ensure we all benefit from the new and emerging technologies. The book documents the transformations under way in financial markets, entertainment, and medicine, affecting all aspects of work and social life. It draws on historical sociology and co-evolutionary theory arguing that the radical evolution of human consciousness and social life now under way is comparable with, if not greater than, the agrarian revolution (10000 BCE), the explosion of science, philosophy, and religion in the Axial Age (600 BCE), and the recent Industrial Revolution. Turning to recent major socio-economic crisis, and asking what can be learnt from them, the answer is we cannot afford this time around to repeat the failures of elites and theoretical systems such as economics to attend appropriately to radical change. We need to think beyond the constraints of determinist and reductionist explanations and embrace the idea of deep freedom. This book will appeal to educators, social scientists, policy-makers, business leaders, and students. It concludes with social design principles that can inform deliberative processes and new social arrangements that ensure everyone benefits from the affordances of the new and emerging technologies.

The Mongols and the Islamic World

The Mongols and the Islamic World PDF Author: Peter Jackson
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300227280
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 641

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Book Description
An epic historical consideration of the Mongol conquest of Western Asia and the spread of Islam during the years of non-Muslim rule The Mongol conquest of the Islamic world began in the early thirteenth century when Genghis Khan and his warriors overran Central Asia and devastated much of Iran. Distinguished historian Peter Jackson offers a fresh and fascinating consideration of the years of infidel Mongol rule in Western Asia, drawing from an impressive array of primary sources as well as modern studies to demonstrate how Islam not only survived the savagery of the conquest, but spread throughout the empire. This unmatched study goes beyond the well-documented Mongol campaigns of massacre and devastation to explore different aspects of an immense imperial event that encompassed what is now Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Afghanistan, as well as Central Asia and parts of eastern Europe. It examines in depth the cultural consequences for the incorporated Islamic lands, the Muslim experience of Mongol sovereignty, and the conquerors’ eventual conversion to Islam.

The End and the Beginning

The End and the Beginning PDF Author: Vladimir Tismaneanu
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 6155053677
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 602

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Book Description
A fresh interpretation of the contexts, meanings, and consequences of the revolutions of 1989, coupled with state of the art reassessment of the significance and consequences of the events associated with the demise of communist regimes. The book provides an analysis that takes into account the complexities of the Soviet bloc, the events' impact upon Europe, and their re-interpretation within a larger global context. Departs from static ways of analysis (events and their significance) bringing forth approaches that deal with both pre-1989 developments and the 1989 context itself, while extensively discussing the ways of resituating 1989 in the larger context of the 20th century and of its lessons for the 21st.Emphasizes the possibility for re-thinking and re-visiting the filters and means that scholars use to interpret such turning point. The editors perceive the present project as a challenge to existing readings on the complex set of issues and topics presupposed by a re-evaluation of 1989 as a symbol of the change and transition from authoritarianism to democracy.

Social Theory and Regional Studies in the Global Age

Social Theory and Regional Studies in the Global Age PDF Author: Saïd Amir Arjomand
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 143845161X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 498

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Book Description
In this pioneering volume, leading international scholars argue for the development of a new approach to social theory that draws on regional studies for the conduct of comparative analysis in the global age. Social Theory and Regional Studies in the Global Age moves beyond facile generalizations based on the historical experience of modernization in the West by highlighting differences rather than similarities and contrasts rather than commonalities, and by examining civilizational processes and culturally specific developmental patterns distinctive of different world regions. Essays combine comparative and historical sociology with civilizational analysis and the study of multiple and alternative modernities. Different patterns of modernization are compared within the framework of global/local compressed communication and interaction that results from globalization. The introductory chapter puts the present effort in the context of the seminal work of three generations of comparative sociologists, and what follows is a penetrating analysis of modernization and globality, opening the way for rectifying the erasure of the historical experience of a very sizeable portion of humankind from the foundation of social theory.

The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Christianity

The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Christianity PDF Author: John H. Arnold
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191015008
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 609

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Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Christianity takes as its subject the beliefs, practices, and institutions of the Christian Church between 400 and 1500AD. It addresses topics ranging from early medieval monasticism to late medieval mysticism, from the material wealth of the Church to the spiritual exercises through which certain believers might attempt to improve their souls. Each chapter tells a story, but seeks also to ask how and why 'Christianity' took particular forms at particular moments in history, paying attention to both the spiritual and otherwordly aspects of religion, and the material and political contexts in which they were often embedded. This Handbook is a landmark academic collection that presents cutting-edge interpretive perspectives on medieval religion for a wide academic audience, drawing together thirty key scholars in the field from the United States, the UK, and Europe. Notably, the Handbook is arranged thematically, and focusses on an analytical, rather than narrative, approach, seeking to demonstrate the variety, change, and complexity of religion throughout this long period, and the numerous different ways in which modern scholarship can approach it. While providing a very wide-ranging view of the subject, it also offers an important agenda for further study in the field.

Sturla Þórðarson

Sturla Þórðarson PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004342362
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
This volume is an introduction to Sturla Þórðarson (1214-1284), a leading figure in thirteenth-century Iceland. Sturla Þórðarson is one of only a handful of thirteenth-century Icelandic historians to be known by name, and he is certainly one of the most significant. In addition to his role as author and compiler, he was in his day one of the most powerful men in Iceland and served as court poet, liegeman and lawman over the course of his life.

Family Power

Family Power PDF Author: Peter Haldén
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108495923
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 389

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Book Description
Explains why successful states and empires have developed by fostering collaboration between families and dynasties, and the state.

The Axial Age and Its Consequences

The Axial Age and Its Consequences PDF Author: Robert N. Bellah
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674070445
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 524

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Book Description
The first classics in human history—the early works of literature, philosophy, and theology to which we have returned throughout the ages—appeared in the middle centuries of the first millennium bce. The canonical texts of the Hebrew scriptures, the philosophical writings of Plato and Aristotle, the Analects of Confucius and the Daodejing, the Bhagavad Gita and the teachings of the Buddha—all of these works came down to us from the compressed period of history that Karl Jaspers memorably named the Axial Age. In The Axial Age and Its Consequences, Robert Bellah and Hans Joas make the bold claim that intellectual sophistication itself was born worldwide during this critical time. Across Eurasia, a new self-reflective attitude toward human existence emerged, and with it an awakening to the concept of transcendence. From Axial Age thinkers we inherited a sense of the world as a place not just to experience but to investigate, envision, and alter through human thought and action. Bellah and Joas have assembled diverse scholars to guide us through this astonishing efflorescence of religious and philosophical creativity. As they explore the varieties of theorizing that arose during the period, they consider how these in turn led to utopian visions that brought with them the possibility of both societal reform and repression. The roots of our continuing discourse on religion, secularization, inequality, education, and the environment all lie in Axial Age developments. Understanding this transitional era, the authors contend, is not just an academic project but a humanistic endeavor.