Shlapentokh undertakes a dispassionate analysis of the ordinary functioning of the Soviet system from Stalin's death through the Soviet collapse and Russia's first post-communist decade. Without overlooking its repressive character, he treats the USSR as a "normal" system that employed both socialist and nationalist ideologies for the purposes of technological and military modernization, preservation of empire, and expansion of its geopolitical power. Foregoing the projection of Western norms and assumptions, he seeks to achieve a clearer understanding of a civilization that has perplexed its critics and its champions alike.
This book offers a concise overview of the social and political forces that have shaped the West. In fewer pages than other texts, Hause and Maltby's narrative presents a social history of Western civilization within the essential contexts of major military and political events. Primary sources-excerpts of original documents that flesh out the concepts covered in the narrative, tables and graphs that collect the raw social and economic data of history-bring you right into the pages of history, giving you a fascinating look at the events that have shaped the world in which they live. REUPLOADED by Pumukl
Added by: lucius5 | Karma: 1660.85 | Non-Fiction, Other | 11 March 2009
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The civilisation of the Ancient Greeks has been immensely influential on the language, politics, educational systems, philosophy, science and arts of Western culture. As well as instigating itself as the birthplace of the Olympics, Ancient Greece is famous for its literature, philosophy, mythology and the beautiful architecture– to which thousands of tourists flock every year. This entertaining guide introduces readers to the amazing world of the Ancient Greeks. It offers a complete rundown of Greek history alongside fascinating insights into daily life in Ancient Greece and a captivating overview of Greek mythology.
Rome is a great place to visit -- but imagine the delights of living there. Long in love with the Eternal City, Alan Epstein has been reveling in life as a resident since 1995. In As the Romans Do, he reveals the city and its people in all their facets and contradictions: their gregarious caffй culture, inborn artistic flair, passionate appreciation of good food, instinctive mistrust of technology, showy sex appeal, ingrained charm, and much more. He unveils a place alive with pleasure and paradox, both pagan and Christian, Western and Middle Eastern. Rome is where one can relax, reflect, revel, and rebel -- all between the morning's cappucino and the evening's grappa.
Postwestern Cultures synthesizes the most critical topics of contemporary scholarship of the American West within a single volume. This interdisciplinary anthology features leading scholars in the varied fields of western American literary studies and includes new regional studies, global studies, studies of popular culture, environmental criticism, gender and queer theory, and multiculturalism. Postwestern Cultures, like all successful studies of western American literature, is necessarily diverse and wide-ranging; it grasps the multifaceted quality of the landscape, literature, and critical analysis by engaging postmodern theory, spatial theory, cultural studies, and transnational and transcultural understandings of the local. This collection emphasizes the importance of understanding the region not as a confined or static space but as a constantly changing entity in both substance and form. It examines subjects ranging from the use of frontier rhetoric in Japanese American internment camp narratives to the emergence of agricultural tourism in the New West to the application of geographer J. B. Jackson's theories to abandoned western landscapes.
