Author..: Frank Beardsley
Title...: How the Western United States Was Settled
Narrator: Steve Ember and Larry West
Quality.: high
Duration: 15m
Format..: 64 mono
Size....: 7 mb
These 400 alphabetically arranged articles provide detailed accounts of
how Western maritime empires and their customs and values spread to all
corners of the globe, ultimately shaping the development of
non-European societies. Each one presents not only facts, but also
interpretations of the impact of European colonialism and is well
supported by charts, tables, maps, and black-and-white illustrations.
Political Will and Personal Belief: The Decline and Fall of Soviet Communism
A brilliant and original analysis of the fall of communism that focuses on the impact of its cumulative failures on the communist elite.
Despite its arid title, this is a significant and interesting book. Hollander, well known for his excellent study of Western champions of the Soviet system (Political Pilgrims: Travels of Western Intellectuals to the Soviet Union, China and Cuba, 1927-1978), here examines 22 members of the ruling elite in the USSR and Eastern Europe who lost their faith. How, he wonders, was the determination to rule gradually undermined. He explores this question through interviews with defectors, exiles, high-ranking current political functionaries, and police officials and a careful reading of a collection of memoirs. While not minimizing the effects of economic collapse, Hollander rightly stresses the human component in communism's fall: the elites' loss of confidence in its right to govern played a vital part in the utterly unforeseen denouement. A worthy volume for academic and major public libraries.
Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr
(The George Washington University)
Course Syllabus
Lecture 1 D¯ar al-Isl¯am and Western Christendom
Lecture 2 The Islamic World and the West
Lecture 3 Western Christianity and Islam: Their Views of Each Other Over the Ages
Lecture 4 Islamic Civilization: A Survey of Its Foundation and Growth
Lecture 5 Islamic Theology, Philosophy, and Mysticism and Their Influence on the West
Lecture 6 Islamic Science, Theoretical and Applied: Its Achievements and Influence on Western Science and Technology
Lecture 7 Islamic Art: Its Spirit, Philosophy, Forms, and Influence on Western Art
Lecture 8 Literature in the Islamic World: Arabic and Persian Literature and the West
Lecture 9 The Western Expansion into the Islamic World and the Influence of Western Institutions, Thought, and Art on That World
Lecture 10 The Advent and History of Modernism in the Islamic World
Lecture 11 Islamic Education, Western Educational Institutions, and Ideas in the Islamic World: The Role of Modern Western Science in Education in Islamic Countries
Lecture 12 Modern Western Scholarship on Islam and the Image of Islam in the West
Lecture 13 Islamic Responses to the Modern West: Modernist, Mahdiist, ”Fundamentalist,” and Traditional
Lecture 14 Islam and the West Today
Taught by Kenneth W. Harl Tulane University Ph.D., Yale University
The Crusades have been hailed as the driving force that brought Western Europe out of the Middle Ages—and condemned as the beginning of European imperialism in the Muslim Near East. But what really were the Crusades? What were the forces that led to one of history’s most protracted and legendary periods of conflict? How did they affect the three great civilizations that participated in them? And, ultimately, why did they end and what did they accomplish?
