Since its publication in 1981, this book has established itself as the major new interpretation of the historical concept of Ibn Khaldûn, the great figure of Arab-Islamic letters and of historical thought overall--a figure generally thought to be on a par with Thucydides, Vico, Herder and others of similar stature.

The author has eschewed the ahistorical interpretations to which Ibn Khaldûn has normally been subjected, both by authors who have sought unduly to modernise his thought, and by those who sought to freeze it in stereotypical models of Islamic philosophy.

Ibn Khaldûn is not only a true historical source of his time; he is also taken as the unchallenged sociological and cultural interpreter of medieval North Africa and much of medieval and modern Arab-Islamic culture as well. The validity of his discourse is considered to be so universal as to confer upon his ideas the status of progenitor--or, at least, anticipator--of a great variety of modern ideas.

This volume gathers authors who wrote important works in the fields of the history of ideologies, the comparative study of dictatorships, and intellectual history. The book is a state of the art reassessment and analysis of the ideological commitments of intellectuals and their relationships with dictatorships during the twentieth century. The contributions focus on turning points or moments of breakage as well as on the continuities. Though its focus is on an East–West comparison in Europe, there are texts also dealing with Latin America, China, and the Middle East giving the book a global outlook. 

The first part of the book deals with intellectuals' involvement with communist regimes or parties; the second looks at the persistence of utopianism in the trajectory of intellectuals who had been associated earlier in their lives with either communism or fascism; the third tackles intellectuals' role in national imaginations from either the left or the right; and, the fourth ties late twentieth century phenomena to current phenomena such as the persistence of anti-Semitism in the West, the slow erosion of the values upon which the EU is built, the quagmire in Iraq, and China's rise in the post-Cold War era. The collection provides a comprehensive big-picture of intellectual genealogies and dictatorial developments.

Twentieth-century Southeastern Europe endured three, separate decades of international and civil war, and was marred in forced migration and wrenching systematic changes. This book is the result of a year-long project by the Open Society Institute to examine and reappraise this tumultuous century. A cohort of young scholars with backgrounds in history, anthropology, political science, and comparative literature were brought together for this undertaking. The studies invite attention to fascism, socialism, and liberalism as well as nationalism and Communism. While most chapters deal with war and confrontation, they focus rather on the remembrance of such conflicts in shaping today's ideology and national identity.

The Illuminated Chronicle was composed in 1358 in the international artistic style at the royal court of Louis I of Hungary. Its text, presented here in a new edition and translation, is the most complete record of Hungary's medieval historical tradition, going back to the eleventh century and including the mythical past of its people. The pictures in this manuscript—formerly known as the Vienna Chronicle—are not merely occasional illustrations added to some exemplars, but text and image are closely connected and mutually related to each other, to qualify it as a proper “illuminated chronicle”. The artistic value of the miniatures is quite high, and the characters are drawn with detail and with a knowledge of anatomy. Forty-two of the miniatures are included in the present volume. A full color facsimile will be accessible online.  

The 147 pictures are an invaluable source of information on late medieval cultural history, costume, and court life. In a historiographical context, The Illuminated Chronicle is an attempt at the popularization of the national history and a systematic appeal to circles beyond the old monastic-clerical audience.

The Illuminated Chronicle (Chronica de gestis Hungarorum e codice picto saec. xiv.) is the ninth volume in the Central European Medieval Texts, a Latin–English bilingual series.

The Balkans offer classic examples of how empires imagine they can transform themselves into national states (Ottomanism) and how nation-states project themselves into future empires (as with the Greek “Great Idea” and the Serbian “Načertaniye”). By examining the interaction between these two aspirations this volume sheds light on the ideological prerequisites for the emergence of Balkan nationalisms.

With a balance between historical and literary contributions, the focus is on the ideological hybridity of the new national identities and on the effects of “imperial nationalisms” on the emerging Balkan nationalisms. The authors of the twelve essays reveal the relation between empire and nation-state, proceeding from the observation that many of the new nation-states acquired some imperial features and behaved as empires. This original and stimulating approach reveals the imperialistic nature of so-called ethnic or cultural nationalism.

Literature is defined in a challenging way as the "science" of imperfection and defeat, or else as a type of discourse that deals with defeat, loss, uncertainty in social life, by contrast with virtually all disciplines (hard sciences or social sciences) that affirm certainties and wish to convince us of truths. If in real history most constructive attempts end up in failure, it follows that we ought to have also a field of research that examines this diversity of failures and disappointments, as well as the alternative options to historical evolution and progress. Thus literature serves an indispensable role: that of gleaning the abundance of past existence, the gratuitous and the rejected being placed here on an equal level with the useful and the successful.This provocative and unusual approach is illustrated in chapters that deal with the dialectics between literary writing and such fields as historical writing, or religious discourses, and is also illustrated by the socio-historical development of East-Central Europe.

Anchored in the Russian Empire, but not limited to it, the eight studies in this volume explore the nineteenth-century imperial responses to the challenge of modernity, the dramatic disruptions of World War I, the radical scenarios of the interwar period and post-communist endgames at the different edges of Eurasia. The book continues and amplifies the historiographic momentum created by Alfred J. Rieber’s long and fruitful scholarly career.

First, the volume addresses the attempts of Russian imperial rulers and elites to overcome the economic backwardness of the empire with respect to the West. The ensuing rivalry of several interest groups (entrepreneurs, engineers, economists) created new social forms in the subsequent rounds of modernization. The studies explore the dynamics of the metamorphoses of what Rieber famously conceptualized as a “sedimentary society” in the pre-revolutionary and early Soviet settings.

Second, the volume also expands and dwells on the concept of frontier zones as dynamic, mutable, shifting areas, characterized by multi-ethnicity, religious diversity, unstable loyalties, overlapping and contradictory models of governance, and an uneasy balance between peaceful co-existence and bloody military clashes. In this connection, studies pay special attention to forced and spontaneous migrations, and population politics in modern Eurasia.

Renowned academics compare major features of imperial rule in the 19th century, reflecting a significant shift away from nationalism and toward empires in the studies of state building. The book responds to the current interest in multi-unit formations, such as the European Union and the expanded outreach of the United States. National historical narratives have systematically marginalized imperial dimensions, yet empires play an important role. This book examines the methods discerned in the creation of the Habsburg Monarchy, the Ottoman Empire, the Hohenzollern rule and Imperial Russia. It inspects the respective imperial elites in these empires, and it details the role of nations, religions and ideologies in the legitimacy of empire building, bringing the Spanish Empire into the analysis. The final part of the book focuses on modern empires, such as the German "Reich." The essays suggest that empires were more adaptive and resilient to change than is commonly thought.

The first concise history of Russian-Jewish literary prose, this book discusses Russian-Jewish literarature in four periods, analyzing the turning points (1881–82, 1897, 1917) and proposing that the selected epoch (1860–1940) represents a special strand that was unfairly left out of both Russian and Jewish national literatures. Based on theoretical sources on the subject, the book establishes the criteria of dual cultural affiliation, and in a survey of Russian-Jewish literature presents the pitfalls of assimilation and discusses different forms of anti-Semitism. After showing the oeuvre of 18 representative authors as a whole, the book analyzes a number of characteristic novels and short stories in terms of contemporary literary studies. Many texts discussed have not been reprinted since their first publication. The material offers indispensable information not only for comparative and literary studies but for multicultural, historical, ethnographic, Judaist, religious and linguistic investigations as well.

Explores the course of development of German seroanthropology from its origins in World War I until the end of the Third Reich. Gives an all encompassing interpretation of how the discovery of blood groups in around 1900 galvanised not only old mythologies of blood and origin but also new developments in anthropology and eugenics in the 1920s and 1930s. Boaz portrays how the personal motivations of blood scientists influenced their professional research, ultimately demonstrating how conceptually indeterminate and politically volatile the science of race was under the Nazi regime.

The book centers on debates about the Romanian national character and race between 1880s and 1950s. It also argues that during the early 1940s anti-Semitism and anti-Roma racism contributed directly to the programme of ethnic purification pursued by the Antonescu regime. Racism and eugenics explain not just the deportation and murder of the Jews but also the deportation and murder of the Roma. The Holocaust in Romania should therefore be understood as the result not just of anti-Semitism but also of biopolitical nationalism. Finally, the book suggests that the eugenic ideal of the ‘perfect’ Romanian did not disappear in 1945 but was embedded in the socialist definitions of the ‘new man’ and ‘perfect’ society emerging under communism.

In this book Joan Wallach Scott discusses the role history has played as an arbiter of right and wrong and of those who claim to act in its name—"in the name of history." Scott investigates three different instances in which repudiation of the past was conceived as a way to a better future: the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1946, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1996, and the ongoing movement for reparations for slavery in the United States.

Scott shows how in these cases history was not only used to explain the past but to produce a particular future. Yet both past and future were subject to the political realities of their time and defined in terms of moral absolutes, often leading to deep contradictions. These three instances demonstrate that history is not an impartial truth, rather its very meaning is constructed by those who act in its name.

People--laymen and practitioners alike--face serious difficulties in making sense of each other's feelings, behavior, and discourse in everyday life and after traumatic experiences. Acknowledging and working through these difficulties is the subject of this extremely interesting and highly readable book. After a critical look at the psychological and philosophical literature, Dan Bar-On identifies two groups of impediments. First, the indescribable, as it appears when individuals try to understand and integrate their first heart attack into their previous life-experience, when a group of pathfinders talk about their different maps of the mind and nature, or when a team of welfare practitioners tries to develop a common approach to their regional population. Second, the undiscussable, as it appears in the transmission, from generation to generation, of the traumatic experiences of the families of both Holocaust survivors and Nazi perpetrators, the book showing how their descendants can work through the burden of the past by confronting themselves and each other through a prolonged group encounter. This book provides a unique way of looking at life experiences, individual as well as inter-personal. It proposes a new psychological theoretical framework in a way to which both laymen and professionals can relate while confronting similar issues in their everyday experiences and discourse. The book is of especial relevance to present-day Central and East European societies, relating as it does to the problems of psychological adaptation arising from the transition from totalitarian to democratic regimes.

This book traces the story of a Nenets indigenous community in Siberia and how their lives were transformed by religious conversion in post-Soviet and Putin’s Russia. Based on over a decade of ethnographic fieldwork in a region now largely closed to outsiders, it offers an intimate account of faith, power, and endurance in one of the Arctic’s most marginalized communities.
Nenets nomads, long shaped by Russian colonialism and Soviet modernization, experienced sweeping conversions in the mid-1990s, culminating in the creation of a tundra church tied to a radical evangelical movement. Amid Putin’s tightening control—when indigenous peoples and minority faiths faced renewed surveillance and harassment—the book follows Nenets and missionaries whose encounters across the tundra sparked tensions between converts and non-converts, faith and state. Through stories of hope, loss, and resilience, it reveals how global evangelical Christianity intersects with local traditions, reshaping kinship, belonging, and modernity in the Siberian tundra.

Formalized wage labor is often presented as the focus, if not the very core, of modern European labor history. The current volume challenges this widespread narrative by focusing on multiple forms of informal work in all parts of Europe. The chapters cover key fields of informal labor—agricultural, domestic, temporary, service, and sex work—during the period between 1870 and 1970, which is usually portrayed as an era of labor formalization. By demonstrating that informal work was neither a temporary nor a residual phenomenon, the contributors to this book render it visible as a constitutive factor of labor and labor politics in European history. In doing so, the volume aims to redraw the contours of labor history in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe while stimulating further thinking about a de-provincialized global history of work.

Infrastructural development is most often understood as shorthand for the arrival of ‘modernity’, both holding the promise of prosperity, and carrying with it the threat of disruption. The present volume examines historical attitudes to the infrastructural revolution that transformed Central and Southeastern Europe in the long nineteenth century, homing in on the scandals and controversies that shaped national and transnational debates alike. Historicizing vocabularies of contestation brings to light a conceptual nexus: the entanglement between infrastructure, xenophobia, corruption, and colonization. Fears that ‘corrupting’ foreign Others would gain ‘colonial’ ascendancy through the conduits of infrastructure, capital, and expertise were a recurring feature of public debates. Yet other permutations of these terms were also possible, making this nexus an all the more relevant lens for reassessing this formative moment for empire- and nation-building in the region. Theoretically innovative and empirically rich, the volume aims to reshape our understanding of how infrastructure acted as a flashpoint for political and cultural reflection.

Rather than a mere technical matter, the restoration of built monuments is a process through which societies promote their vision of history and cultural identity. The reasons why many monuments survive to this day are to be found in the nineteenth century, when modern practices of heritage preservation began. This book addresses the emergence and practices of architectural conservation in the case of the heterogeneous, disputed, fragmented and controversial heritage of Eastern and Central Europe from ca. 1800 to 1990. Thirteen chapters, an introduction and an afterword, follow the transformation and preservation of monuments, many of which are little known internationally, and their present legacy, from Georgia to Estonia, from Dalmatia and Galicia to the Russian Far North. With a focus on regions within and around the former Habsburg, Ottoman, Russian and Soviet empires, the volume contributes to decolonising this field of historical research by investigating the imperial and post-imperial architectural legacies, including how they enforced social, racial or ethnic inequalities.

The book seeks to link theoretical debates on the relevance of trust in economic outcomes with the current arguments about the origins and lessons of the subprime crisis. By what mechanisms does trust influence economic outcomes? Under what conditions do these mechanisms prevail? How do debates about trust help our understanding of the subprime crisis in the European Union? By integrating insights from Post-Keynesian, Austrian and new institutional economics, the central proposition of the analysis is that the presence or absence of institutional trust creates virtuous and vicious cycles in law-abiding, which critically influence the possibility for economic agents to have realistic long-term plans.

This volume focuses on how the national elites in Central and South-Eastern Europe perceived the peasantry during the process of building the modern state and democratic political systems. The central theme of the discussion is the integration of peasants into the political system, with the aim of transforming them from the dependent subjects of various public figures to active citizens. The politicization of the rural world, in terms of increasing peasants’ participation in public affairs and their identification with ideas concerning the “common good,” was integral to the modern transformation of societies in these regions. The studies in this volume examine the relationship between the peasantry and central and local state institutions, such as the administration, schools and the army; associations of all kinds; and social figures, including intellectuals, teachers, local notables and priests, who sought to uplift the rural world as part of the modernization agenda.

Discussing the role of intellectuals in the political transition of the late 1980s and early 1990s and their participation in the political life of the new democracies of Central Europe, this book presents original essays from authors who discuss the eight countries in the region. In the Introduction, the editor gives a historical overview of the tradition of the political involvement of intellectuals in these countries, especially in the nineteenth century. The chapters which follow describe the typical political and social attitude of Central European intellectuals, including writers, poets, artists, and scientists. A unique feature of the book is that it deals not only with the role of intellectuals in the preparation of the peaceful revolutions in the individual countries, but also critically analyzes their role in the transition and their behavior in the emerging democracies. The most striking phenomenon, common to all the countries studied, is the disillusionment of intellectuals and their disappointment in the years following the transition, a period when the role of prophet should be replaced by that of politician for those who have chosen to stay in politics. This phenomenon has, in general, been much less subjected to systematic study than the role of intellectuals in the changes themselves.

This book offers a detailed analysis of the construction, reception, and eventual decline of the cult of the Hungarian Communist Party Secretary, Mátyás Rákosi, one of the most striking examples of orchestrated adulation in the Soviet bloc. While his cult never approached the magnitude of that of Stalin, Rákosi’s ambition to outshine the other “best disciples” and become the best of the best was manifest in his diligence in promoting a Soviet-type ritual system in Hungary. The main argument of The Invisible Shining is that the cult of personality is not just a curious aspect of communist dictatorship, it is an essential element of it. The monograph is primarily concerned with techniques and methods of cult construction, as well as the role various institutions played in the creation of mythical representations of political figures. While engaging with a wider international literature on Stalinist cults, the author uses the case of Rákosi to explore how personality cults are created, how such cults are perceived, and how they are eventually unmade. The book addresses the success—generally questionable—of such projects, as well as their uncomfortable legacies.

Post-war Marshall Plan aid to Europe and indeed Ireland is well documented, but practically nothing is known about simultaneous Irish aid to Europe. This book provides a full record of the aid – mainly food but also clothes, blankets, medicines, etc. – that Ireland donated to continental Europe, including France, the Netherlands, Hungary, the Balkans, Italy, and zones of occupied Germany.

Starting with Ireland’s neutral wartime record, often wrongly presented as pro-German when Ireland in fact unofficially favoured the western Allies, Jerome aan de Wiel explains why Éamon de Valera’s government sent humanitarian aid to the devastated continent. His book analyses the logistics of collection and distribution of supplies sent abroad as far as the Greek islands.

Despite some alleged Cold-War hijacking of Irish relief – and this humanitarianism was not above the politics of that East-West confrontation – it became mostly a story of hope, generosity and European Christian solidarity. Rich archival records from Ireland and the European beneficiary countries, as well as contemporary local and national newspapers across Europe, allow the author to measure and describe not only the official but also the popular response to Irish relief schemes. This work is illustrated with contemporary photographs and some key graphs and tables that show the extent of the aid programme.

What is the meaning of the martyr’s sacrifice? Is it true that the martyr imitates Christ? After the “one and eternal” sacrifice of Jesus why are from time to time new (and often quite numerous) sacrifices necessary? What is the underlying concept concerning the divinity? How do these ideas survive in present times? These are the kind of questions behind the inquiries in this monograph. The author investigates martyrdom as a (voluntary) human sacrifice and wishes to demonstrate how human sacrifice has been turned into martyrdom. The two emblematic figures of this transformation are Iphigeneia and Isaac. Pesthy argues that all the peoples in the environment in which Christianity came into being are characterized by a very ambiguous and hypocritical attitude toward human sacrifice: while in theory they condemn it as barbarian and belonging to bygone times, in concrete cases they accept, admire and practice it. The same attitude survives in Christianity in which martyrs replace the human sacrifice of olden days: they are real sacrifices, not symbolical ones. Our feelings about martyrs can be very different: we may admire their unbending courage and heroism or be irritated by their stubbornness, or even feel disgusted at the fanaticism with which they strove for death. But whatever our feelings may be, we must admit that a very strong motivation is needed to accept voluntarily or even seek death (and, in the majority of cases, a very painful death at that).

Why this book? What can it add to the many works that have already explored Islam as a history, a doctrine, a law, and a code of ethics? The bulk of Islamic thought nowadays is either a repetition of and rumination about what the ancients have already said, or the tackling of partial issues that falls short of a comprehensive view and a theoretical framework. All too often ideology replaces real knowledge. This work attempts to introduce the characteristics of the Mohammedan Mission, with the aspiration to be faithful to its essential purposes and to historical truth at the same time. The author thus illustrates the different ways in which people have understood the Mission and the reasons that led them to those various interpretations. The book presents several alternative interpretations that actually existed but did not enjoy widespread acceptance and popularity.

The volume contains selected papers from an international workshop in 2005, at the Hungarian Academy in Rome. They aim at investigating the registers of fifteenth-century supplications to the Apostolic Penitentiary of the Holy See and to analyze the multiplicity of issues in which a context of the local needs of Western Christians and the central power of the Pope had been occurring.

The contributions make clear that local and individual factors and practice of Christian faith and religion must not be seen as separated from the global power of the Roman curia. The latter’s influence could become directly important for any individual in any local space, also … et usque ad ultimum terrae (Acts 1:8), in the utmost peripheries of the Christian world. The assistance by the Apostolic Penitentiary was indispensable in a large variety of cases. The occupation with such cases happened in the local and regional space as well as in the globalized centre of the Holy See.