History and Theory After the Fall

History and Theory After the Fall PDF Author: Fred Weinstein
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226886060
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
In this ambitious work, Fred Weinstein confronts the obstacles that have increasingly frustrated our attempts to explain social and historical reality. Traditionally, we have relied on history and social theory to describe the ways people understand the world they live in. But the ordering explanations we have always used—derived from the classical social theories originally forged by Marx, Tocqueville, Weber, Durkheim, Freud—have collapsed. In the wake of this collapse or "fall," the rival claims of fiction, psychoanalysis, sociology, anthropology, and history have created the dilemma of radical relativism, the prospect of multiple interpretations of any complex historical event. The basic strategy of social theory and the social sciences—the search for underlying unities—proves so inherently contradictory and has provided so little in the way of reliable knowledge of social and historical relationships that to many critics it seems no longer worth pursuing. Weinstein enters the debate by rejecting any search for underlying structural unities, dynamic or social, through which historians have attempted to find continuity with the past. He looks instead to ideological processes, to the construction of successive and changing versions of reality that mediate between the power of fantasy on the one side and the power of the social world on the other. He argues further that the need to use ideological constructs in this way accounts for the heterogeneous and changing content of social movements and for the persistent need people have always had for authoritative leaders, even in democratized societies. He suggests that people have historically been able to take a step away from leaders only by substituting the possession of objects such as property or money. This book is a breakthrough in poststructuralist theory that is sure to stimulate considerable discussion, especially about the shape of the social sciences and the future of historical interpretation.

History and Theory After the Fall

History and Theory After the Fall PDF Author: Fred Weinstein
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226886060
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
In this ambitious work, Fred Weinstein confronts the obstacles that have increasingly frustrated our attempts to explain social and historical reality. Traditionally, we have relied on history and social theory to describe the ways people understand the world they live in. But the ordering explanations we have always used—derived from the classical social theories originally forged by Marx, Tocqueville, Weber, Durkheim, Freud—have collapsed. In the wake of this collapse or "fall," the rival claims of fiction, psychoanalysis, sociology, anthropology, and history have created the dilemma of radical relativism, the prospect of multiple interpretations of any complex historical event. The basic strategy of social theory and the social sciences—the search for underlying unities—proves so inherently contradictory and has provided so little in the way of reliable knowledge of social and historical relationships that to many critics it seems no longer worth pursuing. Weinstein enters the debate by rejecting any search for underlying structural unities, dynamic or social, through which historians have attempted to find continuity with the past. He looks instead to ideological processes, to the construction of successive and changing versions of reality that mediate between the power of fantasy on the one side and the power of the social world on the other. He argues further that the need to use ideological constructs in this way accounts for the heterogeneous and changing content of social movements and for the persistent need people have always had for authoritative leaders, even in democratized societies. He suggests that people have historically been able to take a step away from leaders only by substituting the possession of objects such as property or money. This book is a breakthrough in poststructuralist theory that is sure to stimulate considerable discussion, especially about the shape of the social sciences and the future of historical interpretation.

The Fourth Turning

The Fourth Turning PDF Author: William Strauss
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0767900464
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Discover the game-changing theory of the cycles of history and what past generations can teach us about living through times of upheaval—with deep insights into the roles that Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials have to play—now with a new preface by Neil Howe. First comes a High, a period of confident expansion. Next comes an Awakening, a time of spiritual exploration and rebellion. Then comes an Unraveling, in which individualism triumphs over crumbling institutions. Last comes a Crisis—the Fourth Turning—when society passes through a great and perilous gate in history. William Strauss and Neil Howe will change the way you see the world—and your place in it. With blazing originality, The Fourth Turning illuminates the past, explains the present, and reimagines the future. Most remarkably, it offers an utterly persuasive prophecy about how America’s past will predict what comes next. Strauss and Howe base this vision on a provocative theory of American history. The authors look back five hundred years and uncover a distinct pattern: Modern history moves in cycles, each one lasting about the length of a long human life, each composed of four twenty-year eras—or “turnings”—that comprise history’s seasonal rhythm of growth, maturation, entropy, and rebirth. Illustrating this cycle through a brilliant analysis of the post–World War II period, The Fourth Turning offers bold predictions about how all of us can prepare, individually and collectively, for this rendezvous with destiny.

Theory After Theory

Theory After Theory PDF Author: Nicholas Birns
Publisher: Broadview Press
ISBN: 1770482539
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
Theory After Theory provides an overview of developments in literary theory after 1950. It is intended both as a handbook for readers to learn about theory and an intellectual history of the recent past in literary criticism for those interested in seeing how it fits in with the larger culture. Accessible but rigorous, this book provides a wealth of historical and intellectual context that allows the reader to make sense of the movements in recent literary theory.

End of History and the Last Man

End of History and the Last Man PDF Author: Francis Fukuyama
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416531785
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
Ever since its first publication in 1992, the New York Times bestselling The End of History and the Last Man has provoked controversy and debate. "Profoundly realistic and important...supremely timely and cogent...the first book to fully fathom the depth and range of the changes now sweeping through the world." —The Washington Post Book World Francis Fukuyama's prescient analysis of religious fundamentalism, politics, scientific progress, ethical codes, and war is as essential for a world fighting fundamentalist terrorists as it was for the end of the Cold War. Now updated with a new afterword, The End of History and the Last Man is a modern classic.

From History to Theory

From History to Theory PDF Author: Kerwin Lee Klein
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520948297
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
From History to Theory describes major changes in the conceptual language of the humanities, particularly in the discourse of history. In seven beautifully written, closely related essays, Kerwin Lee Klein traces the development of academic vocabularies through the dynamically shifting cultural, political, and linguistic landscapes of the twentieth century. He considers the rise and fall of "philosophy of history" and discusses past attempts to imbue historical discourse with scientific precision. He explores the development of the "meta-narrative" and the post-Marxist view of history and shows how the present resurgence of old words—such as "memory"—in new contexts is providing a way to address marginalized peoples. In analyzing linguistic changes in the North American academy, From History to Theory innovatively ties semantic shifts in academic discourse to key trends in American society, culture, and politics.

Historical Dynamics

Historical Dynamics PDF Author: Peter Turchin
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400889316
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Many historical processes are dynamic. Populations grow and decline. Empires expand and collapse. Religions spread and wither. Natural scientists have made great strides in understanding dynamical processes in the physical and biological worlds using a synthetic approach that combines mathematical modeling with statistical analyses. Taking up the problem of territorial dynamics--why some polities at certain times expand and at other times contract--this book shows that a similar research program can advance our understanding of dynamical processes in history. Peter Turchin develops hypotheses from a wide range of social, political, economic, and demographic factors: geopolitics, factors affecting collective solidarity, dynamics of ethnic assimilation/religious conversion, and the interaction between population dynamics and sociopolitical stability. He then translates these into a spectrum of mathematical models, investigates the dynamics predicted by the models, and contrasts model predictions with empirical patterns. Turchin's highly instructive empirical tests demonstrate that certain models predict empirical patterns with a very high degree of accuracy. For instance, one model accounts for the recurrent waves of state breakdown in medieval and early modern Europe. And historical data confirm that ethno-nationalist solidarity produces an aggressively expansive state under certain conditions (such as in locations where imperial frontiers coincide with religious divides). The strength of Turchin's results suggests that the synthetic approach he advocates can significantly improve our understanding of historical dynamics.

Worldmaking After Empire

Worldmaking After Empire PDF Author: Adom Getachew
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691202346
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Decolonization revolutionized the international order during the twentieth century. Yet standard histories that present the end of colonialism as an inevitable transition from a world of empires to one of nations—a world in which self-determination was synonymous with nation-building—obscure just how radical this change was. Drawing on the political thought of anticolonial intellectuals and statesmen such as Nnamdi Azikiwe, W.E.B Du Bois, George Padmore, Kwame Nkrumah, Eric Williams, Michael Manley, and Julius Nyerere, this important new account of decolonization reveals the full extent of their unprecedented ambition to remake not only nations but the world. Adom Getachew shows that African, African American, and Caribbean anticolonial nationalists were not solely or even primarily nation-builders. Responding to the experience of racialized sovereign inequality, dramatized by interwar Ethiopia and Liberia, Black Atlantic thinkers and politicians challenged international racial hierarchy and articulated alternative visions of worldmaking. Seeking to create an egalitarian postimperial world, they attempted to transcend legal, political, and economic hierarchies by securing a right to self-determination within the newly founded United Nations, constituting regional federations in Africa and the Caribbean, and creating the New International Economic Order. Using archival sources from Barbados, Trinidad, Ghana, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, Worldmaking after Empire recasts the history of decolonization, reconsiders the failure of anticolonial nationalism, and offers a new perspective on debates about today’s international order.

The Rise and Fall of Management

The Rise and Fall of Management PDF Author: Dr Gordon Pearson
Publisher: Gower Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1409459551
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
Insight into today's economic and financial problems comes, in this revealing book, from an understanding of how and why the practice and the teaching of management has developed as it has. Gordon Pearson, who has spent equal parts of his long career as a practising manager and a management educator, clarifies through rigorous historical review the difficult issues around management with which we struggle today, such as why management custom and practice so often lead to contravention of the law. Pearson reviews how management became a practice and body of understanding, the development of its crucial role in economic progress, and then how its corruption came about as a result of malign theory, leading to the dominance of the bonus payment culture and short term deal-making that plague us today. Understanding management's past, suggests Pearson, will help its improvement for the future. Contributing to that understanding, this challenging book sheds light on how management might be renewed and on the benign role it could play if freed from the restraints of inappropriate economic theory. This book is not just a history or a sociological analysis of management. It gives a broad, practically informed, critical view of the subject that will be welcomed by any reader with a professional or an academic interest in practice, theory, and context.

Representing Communism After the Fall

Representing Communism After the Fall PDF Author: Cristian Tileagă
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319973940
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
This book explores the contribution of discursive psychology and discourse analysis to researching the relationship between history and collective memory. Analysing significant manifestations of the moral vocabulary of the Romanian transition from communism to democracy, the author demonstrates how discursive psychology can be used to understand some of the enduring and persistent dilemmas around the legacy of communism. This book argues that an understanding of language as an action-oriented, world-building resource can fill an important gap in the theorizing of public controversies over individual and collective meaning of the recent (communist) past. The author posits that discursive social psychology can serve as an intellectual and empirical bridge that can overcome several of the difficulties faced by researchers working in transitional justice studies and cognate fields. This reflective book will appeal to students and scholars of transitional justice, discursive psychology, memory studies, and the sociology of change.

Religion and International Relations Theory

Religion and International Relations Theory PDF Author: Jack Snyder
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231526911
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
Religious concerns stand at the center of international politics, yet key paradigms in international relations, namely realism, liberalism, and constructivism, barely consider religion in their analysis of political subjects. The essays in this collection rectify this. Authored by leading scholars, they introduce models that integrate religion into the study of international politics and connect religion to a rising form of populist politics in the developing world. Contributors identify religion as pervasive and distinctive, forcing a reframing of international relations theory that reinterprets traditional paradigms. One essay draws on both realism and constructivism in the examination of religious discourse and transnational networks. Another positions secularism not as the opposite of religion but as a comparable type of worldview drawing on and competing with religious ideas. With the secular state's perceived failure to address popular needs, religion has become a banner for movements that demand a more responsive government. The contributors to this volume recognize this trend and propose structural and theoretical innovations for future advances in the discipline.