Historie og samfunn

The book aims to demonstrate the multiplicity of types of rulers and polities that existed in medieval Europe. The contributors discuss not just kings, or even queens, but countesses, dukes, and town leadership.

In this sumptuously illustrated history, now in its second edition, Patricia Buckley Ebrey traces the origins of Chinese culture from prehistoric times to the present.

På flukt fra naziregimet i Tyskland kom den kjente Freud-eleven Wilhelm Reich til Oslo i 1934, invitert av professor Harald Schjelderup. Da hadde flere nordmenn allerede utdannet seg innen psykoanalyse i Wien, Berlin og Zürich. Reichs forelesninger ved Universitetet vakte voldsom debatt. Med ett ble det ubevisste og seksualitetens frigjøring satt på dagsordenen, og frontene var steile. Vidkun Quisling angrep Reich som en «jødisk-bolsjevikisk seksual.pornograf».Reich hadde en rekke norske kulturpersonligheter i analyse. Samtidig hadde han høye forskerambisjoner; han ville løse kreftens gåte og avdekke livsenergien som en medisinsk realitet. Sammen med Sigurd Hoel og Arnulf Øverland møtte han dessuten Lev Trotskij, som befant seg i Norge som flyktning.Du må ikke sove er et banebrytende bidrag til norsk og internasjonal kulturhistorie.

The Complete MAUS is a captivating masterpiece by the renowned author, Art Spiegelman. Published in 2003 by Penguin Books Ltd, this book has left an indelible mark in the literary world. The genre of this book is a unique blend of biography, memoir, and graphic novel, presenting a deeply personal and riveting story. The Complete MAUS is not just a book but a journey that takes you through the heart-wrenching experiences of the author's father during the Holocaust. Art Spiegelman's storytelling is both powerful and poignant, making this book a must-read. Penguin Books Ltd, a leading publisher, has beautifully put together this book, further enhancing the reading experience. This English language edition is a testament to Art Spiegelman's literary genius and is sure to leave a lasting impact on every reader.

Marcus Aurelius' private notes are a significant source of the modern understanding of ancient Stoic philosophy, and have been praised by fellow writers, philosophers, monarchs, and politicians centuries after his death.

In this gripping sequel to his bestselling 1177 B.C., Eric Cline tells the story of what happened after the Bronze Age collapsed--why some civilizations endured, why some gave way to new ones, and why some disappeared forever At the end of the acclaimed history 1177 B.C., many of the Late Bronze Age civilizations of the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean lay in ruins, undone by invasion, revolt, natural disasters, famine, and the demise of international trade. An interconnected world that had boasted major empires and societies, relative peace, robust commerce, and monumental architecture was lost and the so-called First Dark Age had begun. Now, in After 1177 B.C., Eric Cline tells the compelling story of what happened next, over four centuries, across the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean world. It is a story of resilience, transformation, and success, as well as failures, in an age of chaos and reconfiguration. After 1177 B.C. tells how the collapse of powerful Late Bronze Age civilizations created new circumstances to which people and societies had to adapt. Those that failed to adjust disappeared from the world stage, while others transformed themselves, resulting in a new world order that included Phoenicians, Philistines, Israelites, Neo-Hittites, Neo-Assyrians, and Neo-Babylonians. Taking the story up to the resurgence of Greece marked by the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C., the book also describes how world-changing innovations such as the use of iron and the alphabet emerged amid the chaos. Filled with lessons for today about why some societies survive massive shocks while others do not, After 1177 B.C. reveals why this period, far from being the First Dark Age, was a new age with new inventions and new opportunities.

Europa 1350-1789 dekker vel 400 år av europeisk historie, fra svartedauden til den franske revolusjon. Boken er en fortsettelse av forfatterens standardverk om europeisk middelalder, Europa tar form, og er i første rekke beregnet på historiestudenter. Men den vil også ha stor interesse for andre historieinteresserte.Tiden 1350-1500 betraktes ofte som en nedgangstid. Dette skyldes særlig pesten som kom til Europa i 1348 og siden hadde utbrudd med 20-30 års mellomrom frem til begynnelsen av 1700-tallet. I denne boken nyanseres dette synet betraktelig. Forfatteren viser hvordan perioden ga grobunn for en rekke nye utviklingstrekk som kom til full utfoldelse omkring 1500: ny skipsteknologi, oppdagelsene av «den nye verden», ny våpenteknologi, boktrykkerkunsten og reformasjonen.Disse endringene fikk store konsekvenser for statsutvikling og politikk i århundrene som fulgte, der man blant annet opplevde vekst i både byråkrati og økonomi, og større evne til å føre krig. Forfatteren viser også hvordan statssystemene ble stadig sterkere og mer komplekse utover på 1600- og 1700-tallet.I sum gir boken gir et velskrevet og innsiktsfullt bilde av Europa i overgangen fra middelalder til opplysningstid og tilbyr historiestudenter og andre historieinteresserte nødvendige grunnkunnskaper om perioden.

This volume explores how the Cultural Cold War played out in Africa and Asia in the context of decolonization. Both the USA and the Soviet Union as well as East European states undertook significant efforts to influence cultural life in the newly independent, postcolonial world.

On April 14, 1994, two U.S. Air Force F-15 fighters accidentally shot down two U.S. Army Black Hawk Helicopters over Northern Iraq, killing all twenty-six peacekeepers onboard. In response to this disaster the complete array of military and civilian investigative and judicial procedures ran their course. After almost two years of investigation with virtually unlimited resources, no culprit emerged, no bad guy showed himself, no smoking gun was found. This book attempts to make sense of this tragedy--a tragedy that on its surface makes no sense at all. With almost twenty years in uniform and a Ph.D. in organizational behavior, Lieutenant Colonel Snook writes from a unique perspective. A victim of friendly fire himself, he develops individual, group, organizational, and cross-level accounts of the accident and applies a rigorous analysis based on behavioral science theory to account for critical links in the causal chain of events. By explaining separate pieces of the puzzle, and analyzing each at a different level, the author removes much of the mystery surrounding the shootdown. Based on a grounded theory analysis, Snook offers a dynamic, cross-level mechanism he calls "e;practical drift"e;--the slow, steady uncoupling of practice from written procedure--to complete his explanation. His conclusion is disturbing. This accident happened because, or perhaps in spite of everyone behaving just the way we would expect them to behave, just the way theory would predict. The shootdown was a normal accident in a highly reliable organization.

Why is the brain divided? The difference between right and left hemispheres has been puzzled over for centuries. In a book of unprecedented scope, Iain McGilchrist draws on a vast body of recent brain research, illustrated with case histories, to reveal that the difference is profound—not just this or that function, but two whole, coherent, but incompatible ways of experiencing the world. The left hemisphere is detail oriented, prefers mechanisms to living things, and is inclined to self-interest, where the right hemisphere has greater breadth, flexibility, and generosity. This division helps explain the origins of music and language, and casts new light on the history of philosophy, as well as on some mental illnesses.In the second part of the book, McGilchrist takes the reader on a journey through the history of Western culture, illustrating the tension between these two worlds as revealed in the thought and belief of thinkers and artists, from Aeschylus to Magritte. He argues that, despite its inferior grasp of reality, the left hemisphere is increasingly taking precedence in the modern world, with potentially disastrous consequences. This is truly a tour de force that should excite interest in a wide readership.

Man's Search For Meaning, a profound narrative by Viktor E. Frankl, was first published in 2008 by Ebury Publishing. This remarkable book, written in the genre of psychology, has been inspiring readers for over a decade. The author, a renowned psychiatrist, shares his experiences as a concentration camp inmate during World War II. Through his story, Frankl explores the universal quest for meaning and the significant role it plays in our lives. His insightful observations and thought-provoking ideas have made this book a must-read in the field of existential psychology. Brought to you by Ebury Publishing, this book is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the pursuit of purpose even in the harshest of circumstances.

In this “engrossing,” (The New Yorker) vivid, and intensively researched volume, esteemed Napoleon scholar David Chandler outlines the military strategy that led the famous French emperor to his greatest victories—and to his ultimate downfall.Napoleonic war was nothing if not complex—an ever-shifting kaleidoscope of moves and intentions, which by themselves went a long way towards baffling and dazing his conventionally minded opponents into that state of disconcerting moral disequilibrium which so often resulted in their catastrophic defeat. The Campaigns of Napoleon is a masterful analysis and insightful critique of Napoleon's art of war as he himself developed and perfected it in the major military campaigns of his career. Napoleon disavowed any suggestion that he worked from formula (“Je n'ai jamais eu un plan d'opérations”), but military historian David Chandler demonstrates this was at best only a half-truth. To be sure, every operation Napoleon conducted contained unique improvisatory features. But there were from the first to the last certain basic principles of strategic maneuver and battlefield planning that he almost invariably put into practice. To clarify these underlying methods, as well as the style of Napoleon's fabulous intellect, Chandler examines in detail each campaign mounted and personally conducted by Napoleon, analyzing the strategies employed, revealing wherever possible the probable sources of his subject's military ideas. “Writing clearly and vividly, [Chandler] turns dozens of persons besides Napoleon from mere wooden soldiers into three- dimensional characters” (The Boston Globe) and this definitive work is “a fine book for the historian, the student, and the intelligent reader” (The New York Review of Books).

From the international bestselling author of KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON and THE LOST CITY OF Z, a mesmerising story of shipwreck, mutiny and murder, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. On 28th January 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty’s ship The Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon, The Wager was wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The crew, marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing 2,500 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes. Then, six months later, another, even more decrepit, craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways and they had a very different story to tell. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes – they were mutineers. The first group responded with counter-charges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous captain and his henchmen. While stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death—for whomever the court found guilty could hang.

Easily the most celebrated historical work in English, Gibbon's account of the Roman empire was in its time a landmark in classical and historical scholarship and remains a remarkable fresh and powerful contribution to the interpretation of Roman history more than two hundred years after its first appearance.

"What would it feel like To Run the World? Soviet rulers spent the Cold War trying desperately to find out. Perennial insecurities, delusions of grandeur, and desire for recognition propelled Moscow on a headlong quest for global power, with dire consequences and painful legacies that continue to shape our world"--

"Et spennende, stramt og fengslende eventyr du aldri vil glemme" - SunØNSKET OM HEVN KAN SETTE ET MENNESKE I BRANNEn av verdens mest populære forfattere kommer nå med en ny bok om leserfavoritten Mungo St. John og hans unge år...Som sønn av en velstående plantasjeeier og en dullete mor er Augustus Mungo St John vant til rikdom og luksus. Dette tar slutt når han kommer hjem fra universitetet og oppdager at familien hans er ruinert og arven stjålet, og at barndomskjæresten, Camilla, har blitt tatt av den slu Chester Marion. Raseri og kjærlighet driver Mungo ut på en reise for å redde Camilla - og knuse Chester.Camilla, som er fanget i New Orleans og maktesløs som slave under Chesters brutalitet, må lære seg å overleve for en hver pris.Samtidig som Mungo slåss mot sin egen skjebne og elendighet for å få hevnen han tørster etter og gjenvinne makten sin i verden, må han spørre seg om hva en mann må gjøre for å overleve når han har mistet alt, og hva han er villig til å gjøre for å få det han vil.Et actionfylt og gripende eventyr om kjærlighet og hevn, slaveriets brutalitet i Amerika og de urettferdige forholdene mellom mennesker som kan drive - eller beseire - oss.

When American and South Vietnamese forces attacked Cambodia in 1970, the invasion ignited a firestorm of violent anti-war protests in the US. Based on research and analysis of the Cambodian invasion's objectives, planning, organization, and operations, this study encourages respect for one of America's genuine military successes during the war.

Since the end of the Cold War, conflict prevention and resolution, peacekeeping and peacebuilding have risen to the top of the international agenda.