Samurai: A Very Short Introduction

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Wert
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
The Political ◽  
Short Introduction ◽  
Early Formation ◽  
Warrior Class ◽  
Life Work ◽  
Over Time

A book about the samurai from their origins in the eighth and ninth centuries until their demise in the mid-nineteenth century. It describes samurai life, work, philosophy, and warfare as it changed over time and covers what samurai were doing when they weren’t fighting. The first half of the book tends to focus on warriors who were essentially aristocrats; warrior families who looked to non-warrior nobles for models of behaviour, lifestyle, and politics. It traces the early formation of a warrior regime, how it interacted with an emperor-centered noble court located permanently in Kyoto, and the political and cultural struggles within the warrior class. The second half of the book zeroes in on the details of warlord families, the struggles of “rank-and-file” samurai typically depicted in popular culture—warriors from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. It also shows how samurai history, culture, and values were consumed by non-samurai and, in so doing, contributed to an idealized warrior image that even samurai themselves tried to emulate.

Rural Radicals

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine McNicol Stock
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Oklahoma City ◽  
The Political ◽  
Rural America ◽  
Rural People ◽  
General Audience ◽  
Long Line ◽  
The Right ◽  
Over Time

This book originally appeared in the wake of the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. Written for a general audience, it asks where these “angry, white, rural men” came from and how their movements and grievances both stayed the same and changed over time. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols acted in a long line of rural protesters on the left and the right—including the nineteenth century Populists--- who crusaded against big government, big business, and big banks. At the same time, and with little sense of contradiction, rural people also used violence to suppress the political voices of African Americans, Mormons, Chinese and many other marginalized people. In the new preface, Catherine McNicol Stock provides an update and overview of the increasingly conservative face of rural America. While populism in many historical eras meant hope and progress, for many today it means hate and a desire to turn back the clock on American history.

Elmina and Greater Asante in the nineteenth century

Africa ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larry W. Yarak
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Regional Studies ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Over Time

Opening ParagraphOne of the more interesting historiographical debates that emerged in the course of the great burst of research into Akan (actually primarily Asante) history during the 1950s and 1960s concerned the ‘structure’ of the Asante empire, or ‘Greater Asante’ as one of the contributors to the debate, Kwame Arhin, has termed it (Arhin, 1967). The debates have largely been informed by a synchronic, ‘centrist’ approach; that is, by an approach that views the imperial structure at a given point in time, and primarily from the perspective of the political centre, the capital town of Kumase. The 1970s have seen a proliferation of regional studies of the Akan and their neighbours, and so it is perhaps time to reopen the debate on the nature of the Asante imperial order from a broader perspective, one that is both more sensitive to change over time and includes the emerging views from the periphery (see, for example, Berberich, 1974; Case, 1979; Ferguson, 1972; Greene, 1981; Haight, 1981; Handloff, 1982; Sanders, 1980; Weaver, 1975; Yarak, 1976). The present paper first briefly sketches the social and political setting in nineteenth-century Elmina (εdena), then critically reviews the historiographical debate over the structure of Greater Asante, and lastly offers an alternative approach to the study of Greater Asante based on a case study of the history of Asante relations with Elmina.

Espionage and Exile

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phyllis Lassner
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
The Political ◽  
International Crises ◽  
Popular Entertainment ◽  
John Le Carre ◽  
The Cold War

Espionage and Exile demonstrates that from the 1930s through the Cold War, British Writers Eric Ambler, Helen MacInnes, Ann Bridge, Pamela Frankau, John le Carré and filmmaker Leslie Howard combined propaganda and popular entertainment to call for resistance to political oppression. Instead of constituting context, the political engagement of these spy fictions bring the historical crises of Fascist and Communist domination to the forefront of twentieth century literary history. They deploy themes of deception and betrayal to warn audiences of the consequences of Nazi Germany's conquests and later, the fusion of Fascist and Communist oppression. Featuring protagonists who are stateless and threatened refugees, abandoned and betrayed secret agents, and politically engaged or entrapped amateurs, all in states of precarious exile, these fictions engage their historical subjects to complicate extant literary meanings of transnational, diaspora and performativity. Unsettling distinctions between villain and victim as well as exile and belonging dramatizes relationships between the ethics of espionage and responses to international crises. With politically charged suspense and narrative experiments, these writers also challenge distinctions between literary, middlebrow, and popular culture.

Capital californiano, necesidad presupuestal y cambio político: Juan Temple y el arrendamiento de la Casa de Moneda de México, 1827–1857

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 327-351
Author(s):  
Omar Velasco Herrera
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
The Political ◽  
Las Casas ◽  
Siglo Xix ◽  
The Government

Durante la primera mitad del siglo xix, las necesidades presupuestales del erario mexicano obligaron al gobierno a recurrir al endeudamiento y al arrendamiento de algunas de las casas de moneda más importantes del país. Este artículo examina las condiciones políticas y económicas que hicieron posible el relevo del capital británico por el estadounidense—en estricto sentido, californiano—como arrendatario de la Casa de Moneda de México en 1857. Asimismo, explora el desarrollo empresarial de Juan Temple para explicar la coyuntura política que hizo posible su llegada, y la de sus descendientes, a la administración de la ceca de la capital mexicana. During the first half of the nineteenth century, the budgetary needs of the Mexican treasury forced the government to resort to borrowing and leasing some of the most important mints in the country. This article examines the political and economic conditions that allowed for the replacement of British capital by United States capital—specifically, Californian—as the lessee of the Mexican National Mint in 1857. It also explores the development of Juan Temple’s entrepreneurship to explain the political circumstances that facilitated his admission, and that of his descendants, into the administration of the National Mint in Mexico City.

Coevolution

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avi Max Spiegel
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Islamist Movements

This chapter seeks to understand how Islamist movements have evolved over time, and, in the process, provide important background on the political and religious contexts of the movements in question. In particular, it shows that Islamist movements coevolve. Focusing on the histories of Morocco's two main Islamist movements—the Justice and Spirituality Organization, or Al Adl wal Ihsan (Al Adl) and the Party of Justice and Development (PJD)—it suggests that their evolutions can only be fully appreciated if they are relayed in unison. These movements mirror one another depending on the competitive context, sometimes reflecting, sometimes refracting, sometimes borrowing, sometimes adapting or even reorganizing in order to keep up with the other.

G. Lukács, “Techeniye” and Stalinism

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (7) ◽  
pp. 110-123
Author(s):  
Vladimir Y. Bystrov ◽  
Vladimir M. Kamnev
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Nazi Germany ◽  
The Political ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Political Criticism ◽  
Political Views ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
Over Time

The article discusses the attitude of Georg Lukács and his adherents who formed a circle “Techeniye” (lit. “current”) toward the phenomenon of Stalinism. Despite the political nature of the topic, the authors are aspired to provide an unbiased research. G. Lukács’ views on the theory and practice of Stalinism evolved over time. In the 1920s Lukács welcomes the idea of creation of socialism in one country and abandons the former revolutionary ideas expressed in his book History and Class Consciousness. This turn is grounded by new interpretation of Hegel as “realistic” thinker whose “realism” was shown in the aspiration to find “reconciliation” with reality (of the Prussian state) and in denial of any utopias. The philosophical evolution leading to “realism” assumes integration of revolutionaries into the hierarchy of existing society. The article “Hölderlin’s Hyperion” represents attempt to justify Stalinism as a necessary and “progressive” phase of revolutionary development of the proletariat. Nevertheless, events of the second half of the 1930s (mass repressions, the peace treaty with Nazi Germany) force Lukács to realize the catastrophic nature of political strategy of Stalinism. In his works, Lukács ceases to analyze political topics and concentrates on problems of aesthetics and literary criticism. However, his aesthetic position allows to reconstruct the changed political views and to understand why he had earned the reputation of the “internal opponent” to Stalinism. After 1956, Lukács turns to political criticism of Stalinism, which nevertheless remains unilateral. He sees in Stalinism a kind of the left sectarianism, the theory and practice of the implementation of civil war measures in the era of peaceful co-existence of two systems.

‘Sovereign Democracy’ and the Politics of Ideology in Putin’s Russia

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-104
Author(s):  
Dima Kortukov
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Authoritarian Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
Color Revolutions ◽  
Revolutionary Praxis ◽  
Over Time

Abstract The concept of sovereign democracy dominated the political discourse in Russia in 2006–8 but lost much of its significance since. In this article, I argue that sovereign democracy is best understood as the response of Russia’s authorities to the threats of democratization, following Eurasian color revolutions. I distinguish between three conceptually distinct aspects of sovereign democracy: (1) a social contract (2) a legitimation discourse; and (3) a counter-revolutionary praxis. These dimensions allow us to understand what functions sovereign democracy fulfilled within the framework of Russia’s authoritarian regime and why it lost its prominence over time.

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