Author: Alexander J. Motyl
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231114318
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 250
Book Description
In this concise, provocative, and trenchant book, Alexander J. Motyl argues that social scientists must pay more rigorous attention to the formulation of concepts, as they provide the basis for clear thinking, good research, and intelligent formulation of theories. Focusing his "conceptual explorations" on three phenomena--revolutions, nations and nationalism, and empires--Motyl challenges the sloppy thinking that so often surrounds these three interrelated concepts, and moves our understanding of them toward greater precision.
Revolutions, Nations, Empires
Author: Alexander J. Motyl
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231114318
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 250
Book Description
In this concise, provocative, and trenchant book, Alexander J. Motyl argues that social scientists must pay more rigorous attention to the formulation of concepts, as they provide the basis for clear thinking, good research, and intelligent formulation of theories. Focusing his "conceptual explorations" on three phenomena--revolutions, nations and nationalism, and empires--Motyl challenges the sloppy thinking that so often surrounds these three interrelated concepts, and moves our understanding of them toward greater precision.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231114318
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 250
Book Description
In this concise, provocative, and trenchant book, Alexander J. Motyl argues that social scientists must pay more rigorous attention to the formulation of concepts, as they provide the basis for clear thinking, good research, and intelligent formulation of theories. Focusing his "conceptual explorations" on three phenomena--revolutions, nations and nationalism, and empires--Motyl challenges the sloppy thinking that so often surrounds these three interrelated concepts, and moves our understanding of them toward greater precision.
Imperial Ends
Author: Alexander J. Motyl
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231506700
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 188
Book Description
Despite their historical importance, empires have received scant attention from social scientists. Now, Alexander J. Motyl examines the structure, dynamics, and continuing relevance of empire—and asks, "Why do empires decline? Why do some empires collapse? And why do some collapsed empires revive?" Rejecting choice-centered theories of imperial decline, Motyl maintains that the very structure of empires promotes decay and that decay in turn facilitates the progressive loss of territory. Although most major empires have in fact declined in this manner, some, such as the Soviet Union, have collapsed suddenly and comprehensively. Motyl explains how and why collapse occurs, why such an outcome is hard to foresee, and why some collapsed empires revive. While broad-ranging historically and empirically, Imperial Ends focuses on five modern empires: the Soviet, Romanov, Ottoman, Habsburg, and Wilhelmine. Examining the possibility of a revival of the Soviet empire, Motyl points out that the expansion of NATO and the European Union, along with increasing globalization, will isolate Russia and its neighbors, promoting their dependence upon one another and perhaps facilitating the rise of the former core. With boldly stated conclusions and concise analytical interpretations, Imperial Ends cohesively illustrates to policymakers and social scientists alike the importance of possible imperial revivals and the rise of future empires.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231506700
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 188
Book Description
Despite their historical importance, empires have received scant attention from social scientists. Now, Alexander J. Motyl examines the structure, dynamics, and continuing relevance of empire—and asks, "Why do empires decline? Why do some empires collapse? And why do some collapsed empires revive?" Rejecting choice-centered theories of imperial decline, Motyl maintains that the very structure of empires promotes decay and that decay in turn facilitates the progressive loss of territory. Although most major empires have in fact declined in this manner, some, such as the Soviet Union, have collapsed suddenly and comprehensively. Motyl explains how and why collapse occurs, why such an outcome is hard to foresee, and why some collapsed empires revive. While broad-ranging historically and empirically, Imperial Ends focuses on five modern empires: the Soviet, Romanov, Ottoman, Habsburg, and Wilhelmine. Examining the possibility of a revival of the Soviet empire, Motyl points out that the expansion of NATO and the European Union, along with increasing globalization, will isolate Russia and its neighbors, promoting their dependence upon one another and perhaps facilitating the rise of the former core. With boldly stated conclusions and concise analytical interpretations, Imperial Ends cohesively illustrates to policymakers and social scientists alike the importance of possible imperial revivals and the rise of future empires.
Empire and Revolution
Author: Peter L. Hahn
Publisher: Ohio State University Press
ISBN: 0814250602
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 303
Book Description
The ten essays in this volume represent state-of-the-art surveys of ten singular episodes in U.S. interaction with the Third World since 1945. Each author seeks to present a unique approach to a specific topic within U.S. -- Third World relations. The essays cover the globe and include studies of the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. They make use of a variety of source material and employ a wide range of analytical devices, such as the national security paradigm, the idea of economic development, and culture. The essays present a multihued portrait of the different ways policy makers in the United States dealt with Third World problems. The essays make clear the multitude of considerations that affected policy making; the many different actors, both official and nonofficial, who came to influence the policy-making process; and the possibilities for future research into U.S. relations with the nations of the Third World. They are designed not only to present the current state of the literature but also to suggest some avenues for future research.
Publisher: Ohio State University Press
ISBN: 0814250602
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 303
Book Description
The ten essays in this volume represent state-of-the-art surveys of ten singular episodes in U.S. interaction with the Third World since 1945. Each author seeks to present a unique approach to a specific topic within U.S. -- Third World relations. The essays cover the globe and include studies of the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. They make use of a variety of source material and employ a wide range of analytical devices, such as the national security paradigm, the idea of economic development, and culture. The essays present a multihued portrait of the different ways policy makers in the United States dealt with Third World problems. The essays make clear the multitude of considerations that affected policy making; the many different actors, both official and nonofficial, who came to influence the policy-making process; and the possibilities for future research into U.S. relations with the nations of the Third World. They are designed not only to present the current state of the literature but also to suggest some avenues for future research.
New Countries
Author: John Tutino
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822374307
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 429
Book Description
After 1750 the Americas lived political and popular revolutions, the fall of European empires, and the rise of nations as the world faced a new industrial capitalism. Political revolution made the United States the first new nation; revolutionary slaves made Haiti the second, freeing themselves and destroying the leading Atlantic export economy. A decade later, Bajío insurgents took down the silver economy that fueled global trade and sustained Spain’s empire while Britain triumphed at war and pioneered industrial ways that led the U.S. South, still-Spanish Cuba, and a Brazilian empire to expand slavery to supply rising industrial centers. Meanwhile, the fall of silver left people from Mexico through the Andes searching for new states and economies. After 1870 the United States became an agro-industrial hegemon, and most American nations turned to commodity exports, while Haitians and diverse indigenous peoples struggled to retain independent ways. Contributors. Alfredo Ávila, Roberto Breña, Sarah C. Chambers, Jordana Dym, Carolyn Fick, Erick Langer, Adam Rothman, David Sartorius, Kirsten Schultz, John Tutino
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822374307
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 429
Book Description
After 1750 the Americas lived political and popular revolutions, the fall of European empires, and the rise of nations as the world faced a new industrial capitalism. Political revolution made the United States the first new nation; revolutionary slaves made Haiti the second, freeing themselves and destroying the leading Atlantic export economy. A decade later, Bajío insurgents took down the silver economy that fueled global trade and sustained Spain’s empire while Britain triumphed at war and pioneered industrial ways that led the U.S. South, still-Spanish Cuba, and a Brazilian empire to expand slavery to supply rising industrial centers. Meanwhile, the fall of silver left people from Mexico through the Andes searching for new states and economies. After 1870 the United States became an agro-industrial hegemon, and most American nations turned to commodity exports, while Haitians and diverse indigenous peoples struggled to retain independent ways. Contributors. Alfredo Ávila, Roberto Breña, Sarah C. Chambers, Jordana Dym, Carolyn Fick, Erick Langer, Adam Rothman, David Sartorius, Kirsten Schultz, John Tutino
Making Uzbekistan
Author: Adeeb Khalid
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501701355
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 438
Book Description
In Making Uzbekistan, Adeeb Khalid chronicles the tumultuous history of Central Asia in the age of the Russian revolution. He explores the complex interaction between Uzbek intellectuals, local Bolsheviks, and Moscow to sketch out the flux of the situation in early-Soviet Central Asia. His focus on the Uzbek intelligentsia allows him to recast our understanding of Soviet nationalities policies. Uzbekistan, he argues, was not a creation of Soviet policies, but a project of the Muslim intelligentsia that emerged in the Soviet context through the interstices of the complex politics of the period. Making Uzbekistan introduces key texts from this period and argues that what the decade witnessed was nothing short of a cultural revolution.
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501701355
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 438
Book Description
In Making Uzbekistan, Adeeb Khalid chronicles the tumultuous history of Central Asia in the age of the Russian revolution. He explores the complex interaction between Uzbek intellectuals, local Bolsheviks, and Moscow to sketch out the flux of the situation in early-Soviet Central Asia. His focus on the Uzbek intelligentsia allows him to recast our understanding of Soviet nationalities policies. Uzbekistan, he argues, was not a creation of Soviet policies, but a project of the Muslim intelligentsia that emerged in the Soviet context through the interstices of the complex politics of the period. Making Uzbekistan introduces key texts from this period and argues that what the decade witnessed was nothing short of a cultural revolution.
Empire of Nations
Author: Francine Hirsch
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801455944
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 389
Book Description
When the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917, they set themselves the task of building socialism in the vast landscape of the former Russian Empire, a territory populated by hundreds of different peoples belonging to a multitude of linguistic, religious, and ethnic groups. Before 1917, the Bolsheviks had called for the national self-determination of all peoples and had condemned all forms of colonization as exploitative. After attaining power, however, they began to express concern that it would not be possible for Soviet Russia to survive without the cotton of Turkestan and the oil of the Caucasus. In an effort to reconcile their anti-imperialist position with their desire to hold on to as much territory as possible, the Bolsheviks integrated the national idea into the administrative-territorial structure of the new Soviet state. In Empire of Nations, Francine Hirsch examines the ways in which former imperial ethnographers and local elites provided the Bolsheviks with ethnographic knowledge that shaped the very formation of the new Soviet Union. The ethnographers—who drew inspiration from the Western European colonial context—produced all-union censuses, assisted government commissions charged with delimiting the USSR's internal borders, led expeditions to study "the human being as a productive force," and created ethnographic exhibits about the "Peoples of the USSR." In the 1930s, they would lead the Soviet campaign against Nazi race theories . Hirsch illuminates the pervasive tension between the colonial-economic and ethnographic definitions of Soviet territory; this tension informed Soviet social, economic, and administrative structures. A major contribution to the history of Russia and the Soviet Union, Empire of Nations also offers new insights into the connection between ethnography and empire.
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801455944
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 389
Book Description
When the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917, they set themselves the task of building socialism in the vast landscape of the former Russian Empire, a territory populated by hundreds of different peoples belonging to a multitude of linguistic, religious, and ethnic groups. Before 1917, the Bolsheviks had called for the national self-determination of all peoples and had condemned all forms of colonization as exploitative. After attaining power, however, they began to express concern that it would not be possible for Soviet Russia to survive without the cotton of Turkestan and the oil of the Caucasus. In an effort to reconcile their anti-imperialist position with their desire to hold on to as much territory as possible, the Bolsheviks integrated the national idea into the administrative-territorial structure of the new Soviet state. In Empire of Nations, Francine Hirsch examines the ways in which former imperial ethnographers and local elites provided the Bolsheviks with ethnographic knowledge that shaped the very formation of the new Soviet Union. The ethnographers—who drew inspiration from the Western European colonial context—produced all-union censuses, assisted government commissions charged with delimiting the USSR's internal borders, led expeditions to study "the human being as a productive force," and created ethnographic exhibits about the "Peoples of the USSR." In the 1930s, they would lead the Soviet campaign against Nazi race theories . Hirsch illuminates the pervasive tension between the colonial-economic and ethnographic definitions of Soviet territory; this tension informed Soviet social, economic, and administrative structures. A major contribution to the history of Russia and the Soviet Union, Empire of Nations also offers new insights into the connection between ethnography and empire.
The Tsar, The Empire, and The Nation
Author: Darius Staliūnas
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 9633863643
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408
Book Description
This collection of essays addresses the challenge of modern nationalism to the tsarist Russian Empire. First appearing on the empire’s western periphery this challenge, was most prevalent in twelve provinces extending from Ukrainian lands in the south to the Baltic provinces in the north, as well as to the Kingdom of Poland. At issue is whether the late Russian Empire entered World War I as a multiethnic state with many of its age-old mechanisms run by a multiethnic elite, or as a Russian state predominantly managed by ethnic Russians. The tsarist vision of prioritizing loyalty among all subjects over privileging ethnic Russians and discriminating against non-Russians faced a fundamental problem: as soon as the opportunity presented itself, non-Russians would increase their demands and become increasingly separatist. The authors found that although the imperial government did not really identify with popular Russian nationalism, it sometimes ended up implementing policies promoted by Russian nationalist proponents. Matters addressed include native language education, interconfessional rivalry, the “Jewish question,” the origins of mass tourism in the western provinces, as well as the emergence of Russian nationalist attitudes in the aftermath of the first Russian revolution.
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 9633863643
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408
Book Description
This collection of essays addresses the challenge of modern nationalism to the tsarist Russian Empire. First appearing on the empire’s western periphery this challenge, was most prevalent in twelve provinces extending from Ukrainian lands in the south to the Baltic provinces in the north, as well as to the Kingdom of Poland. At issue is whether the late Russian Empire entered World War I as a multiethnic state with many of its age-old mechanisms run by a multiethnic elite, or as a Russian state predominantly managed by ethnic Russians. The tsarist vision of prioritizing loyalty among all subjects over privileging ethnic Russians and discriminating against non-Russians faced a fundamental problem: as soon as the opportunity presented itself, non-Russians would increase their demands and become increasingly separatist. The authors found that although the imperial government did not really identify with popular Russian nationalism, it sometimes ended up implementing policies promoted by Russian nationalist proponents. Matters addressed include native language education, interconfessional rivalry, the “Jewish question,” the origins of mass tourism in the western provinces, as well as the emergence of Russian nationalist attitudes in the aftermath of the first Russian revolution.
Unfinished Revolution
Author: Sam Walter Haynes
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813930685
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 370
Book Description
"This is a clear, incisively written narrative history of American anxiety about British domination---political, military, economic, cultural---from the War of 1812 to the mid-nineteenth century. Unfinished Revolution's predominant thoughtfulness and readable verve across a very extensive canvass should commend it to a wide range of readers as a valuable reconnaissance of what was arguably the most consequential national anxiety faced by the `young republic' during its middle period."---Lawrence Buell, Harvard University --
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813930685
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 370
Book Description
"This is a clear, incisively written narrative history of American anxiety about British domination---political, military, economic, cultural---from the War of 1812 to the mid-nineteenth century. Unfinished Revolution's predominant thoughtfulness and readable verve across a very extensive canvass should commend it to a wide range of readers as a valuable reconnaissance of what was arguably the most consequential national anxiety faced by the `young republic' during its middle period."---Lawrence Buell, Harvard University --
Empires, Nations, and Families
Author: Anne Farrar Hyde
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0803224052
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 647
Book Description
To most people living in the West, the Louisiana Purchase made little difference: the United States was just another imperial overlord to be assessed and manipulated. This was not, as Empires, Nations, and Families makes clear, virgin wilderness discovered by virtuous Anglo entrepreneurs. Rather, the United States was a newcomer in a place already complicated by vying empires. This book documents the broad family associations that crossed national and ethnic lines and that, along with the river systems of the trans-Mississippi West, formed the basis for a global trade in furs that had operated for hundreds of years before the land became part of the United States. ø Empires, Nations, and Families shows how the world of river and maritime trade effectively shifted political power away from military and diplomatic circles into the hands of local people. Tracing family stories from the Canadian North to the Spanish and Mexican borderlands and from the Pacific Coast to the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, Anne F. Hyde?s narrative moves from the earliest years of the Indian trade to the Mexican War and the gold rush era. Her work reveals how, in the 1850s, immigrants to these newest regions of the United States violently wrested control from Native and other powers, and how conquest and competing demands for land and resources brought about a volatile frontier culture?not at all the peace and prosperity that the new power had promised.
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0803224052
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 647
Book Description
To most people living in the West, the Louisiana Purchase made little difference: the United States was just another imperial overlord to be assessed and manipulated. This was not, as Empires, Nations, and Families makes clear, virgin wilderness discovered by virtuous Anglo entrepreneurs. Rather, the United States was a newcomer in a place already complicated by vying empires. This book documents the broad family associations that crossed national and ethnic lines and that, along with the river systems of the trans-Mississippi West, formed the basis for a global trade in furs that had operated for hundreds of years before the land became part of the United States. ø Empires, Nations, and Families shows how the world of river and maritime trade effectively shifted political power away from military and diplomatic circles into the hands of local people. Tracing family stories from the Canadian North to the Spanish and Mexican borderlands and from the Pacific Coast to the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, Anne F. Hyde?s narrative moves from the earliest years of the Indian trade to the Mexican War and the gold rush era. Her work reveals how, in the 1850s, immigrants to these newest regions of the United States violently wrested control from Native and other powers, and how conquest and competing demands for land and resources brought about a volatile frontier culture?not at all the peace and prosperity that the new power had promised.
Nature, Empire, and Nation
Author: Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804755443
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 252
Book Description
This collection of essays explores two traditions of interpreting and manipulating nature in the early-modern and nineteenth-century Iberian world: one instrumental and imperial, the other patriotic and national. Imperial representations laid the ground for the epistemological transformations of the so-called Scientific Revolutions. The patriotic narratives lie at the core of the first modern representations of the racialized body, Humboldtian theories of biodistribution, and views of the landscape as a historical text representing different layers of historical memory.
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804755443
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 252
Book Description
This collection of essays explores two traditions of interpreting and manipulating nature in the early-modern and nineteenth-century Iberian world: one instrumental and imperial, the other patriotic and national. Imperial representations laid the ground for the epistemological transformations of the so-called Scientific Revolutions. The patriotic narratives lie at the core of the first modern representations of the racialized body, Humboldtian theories of biodistribution, and views of the landscape as a historical text representing different layers of historical memory.