Achaemenid Political History and Sources

2020 ◽  
pp. 33-49
Author(s):  
Amélie Kuhrt
Keyword(s):  
Political History ◽  
Central Control ◽  
The Way

This article provides an outline of the Achaemenid empire’s political history followed by an overview of the diverse sources for understanding some of its institutions. Despite inherent difficulties, the sources allow scholars to reconstruct vital aspects, such as the provincial system, variations in the way different provinces were managed, the “king’s law,” Persian religion, and the strength of central control which held the imperial regions together. The chapter ends with a consideration of the king’s position and royal ceremony and ideology.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rembert Lutjeharms
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Political History ◽  
The Political ◽  
Poetry And Poetics ◽  
Sanskrit Poetics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sanskrit Poetry ◽  
The Way

This chapter introduces the main themes of the book—Kavikarṇapūra, theology, Sanskrit poetry, and Sanskrit poetics—and provides an overview of each chapter. It briefly highlights the importance of the practice of poetry for the Caitanya Vaiṣṇava tradition, places Kavikarṇapūra in the (political) history of sixteenth‐century Bengal and Orissa as well as sketches his place in the early developments of the Caitanya Vaiṣṇava tradition (a topic more fully explored in Chapter 1). The chapter also reflects more generally on the nature of both his poetry and poetics, and highlights the way Kavikarṇapūra has so far been studied in modern scholarship.

Looked Class, Talked Red: towards a bio-bibliography of Ruth First

Race & Class ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 40-58
Author(s):  
Barbara Harlow
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Political History ◽  
Intellectual Biography ◽  
National Narratives ◽  
Work In Progress ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Political Activist ◽  
Ruth First ◽  
African Writer ◽  
The Way

This article includes material from a work-in-progress, Barbara Harlow’s major book on South African writer and political activist, Ruth First, assassinated in 1982. Ruth First’s own life followed many paths, intersecting along the way with several historical trajectories, national narratives that remain incomplete today, and political events and eventualities that are still being negotiated, contested and resisted. The author follows these paths in an attempt to locate a framework and a direction for writing what she calls a bio-bibliography, an intellectual biography that is at once a political history.

Halakhic Midrashim as Historical Sources

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
GÜNTER STEMBERGER
Keyword(s):  
Daily Life ◽  
Political History ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Religious Law ◽  
The Way

This chapter evaluates the usefulness and reliability of the halakhic midrashim as a historical resource. It explains that the halakhic midrashim as commentaries on the biblical books of Exodus through Deuteronomy with a special emphasis on their importance for the halakhah or the religious law. It describes the manuscripts, printed editions, and translations of the halakhic midrashim. It concludes that the halakhic midrashim do not offer information on political history, they offer lot of details regarding daily life in Palestine in the second and third centuries and the way the rabbis understood it.

Watchful realms: integrating GIS analysis and political history in the southern Maya lowlands

Antiquity ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 86 (333) ◽  
pp. 792-807 ◽  
Author(s):  
James A. Doyle ◽  
Thomas G. Garrison ◽  
Stephen D. Houston
Keyword(s):  
Surface Analysis ◽  
Political History ◽  
Gis Analysis ◽  
Maya Lowlands ◽  
Gis Techniques ◽  
Viewshed Analysis ◽  
Cost Surface ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

Travellers naturally prefer to use the most passable routes and establish staging points on the way. Cost surface analysis predicts the easiest routes and viewshed analysis the territory visible from a staging point or destination. Applying these GIS techniques to the Buenavista Valley Corridor, our authors write a history of travel and exchange that vividly reflects the rivalry of two polities and the rise and fall of their nodal settlements.

Concepts of Public Opinion

1933 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 371-391 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis G. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political History ◽  
The State ◽  
Scientific Study ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Human History ◽  
John Of Salisbury ◽  
Early Use ◽  
The Way

Public opinion in democracies should be the final element in political life which gives significance to the activity of the state and the fact of membership in it. The recognition of the force of opinion implies that in the overflowing of the individual's will to his neighbor's will, in the desire to administer the things common to wills, we have perhaps one of the most basic psychological foundations of the state. While one may contend that the problems of the nature of the state or of jurisprudence are more than adequately conceptualized, this certainly cannot be said of public opinion. Yet since the very early use of the term by John of Salisbury in 1159, its significance in human history has not been less than that of justice, liberty, or law. It is suggested that a statement of the elements which appear to be universal is the proper first step in the scientific study of public opinion. The method here proposed may seem barren of immediate results, but it is necessary to clarify reasoning on public opinion as force-ideas in political history. Commonly understood abstractions are necessary to pave the way for organized thinking and action.

scholarly journals The Hermeneutics of Transmission: Deciphering Discourses on Poetry and the Arts in Early Modern Europe (1500-1800)

2011 ◽  
pp. 37-60
Author(s):  
Déborah Blocker
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Political History ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Intellectual Traditions ◽  
The Status ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
The Way

This article discusses how the constitution, circulation and institutionalization of discourses on poetry and the arts in early modern Europe could best be accounted for from a historical point of view. Pointing to various inconsistencies in the way historians of ideas have traditionally explained the rise of aesthetic discourses, the article examines the usefulness of the tools crafted by historians of the book for the development of such a project. Through an example, the drawbacks of interpretations based solely on serial bibliographies are also addressed, as the author argues for the importance of case studies, grounded in social, cultural and political history, through which various types of aesthetic practices may be made to appear. She also suggests that, to bypass the theoretical and practical deadlocks of traditional Begriffsgeschichte as far as the study of aesthetic practices is concerned, intellectual traditions and the actions that make them possible — that is “actions of transmission” — are to be promoted to the status of primary hermeneutic tools.

The Oxford Handbook of Modern British Political History, 1800-2000

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Political History ◽  
The State ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Methodological Innovation ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Way

The two centuries after 1800 witnessed a series of sweeping changes in the way in which Britain was governed, the duties of the state, and its role in the wider world. Powerful processes—from the development of democracy to the changing nature of the social contract, war, and economic dislocation—have challenged, and at times threatened to overwhelm, both governors and governed. Such shifts have also posed problems for the historians who have researched and written about Britain’s past politics. This volume shows the ways in which political historians have responded, and provides a snapshot of a field which has long been at the forefront of conceptual and methodological innovation within historical studies. It comprises thirty-three thematic essays written by leading and emerging scholars in the field. Collectively, these essays assess and rethink the nature of modern British political history itself, and suggest avenues and questions for future research. The Oxford Handbook of Modern British Political History thus provides a unique resource for those who wish to understand Britain’s political past and a thought-provoking ‘long view’ for those interested in current political challenges.

The Role of the Politician in the Democratic Regime

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Crowcroft
Keyword(s):  
Political History ◽  
Democratic Regime ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Recent Trends ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
The Way

This chapter presents a view of the role played by politicians within the British democratic regime in the period since 1800. It ponders some important recent trends in the writing of political history, and welcomes signs that the ‘crisis’ of political history appears to be passing. From there, the chapter discusses the nature of the system in which politicians operated, and, by extension, the way in which politicians were compelled to act. Moreover, it presents a way of thinking through the problem of political history that is somewhat at odds with the left-wing interpretations that have tended to shape the field. It concludes by expressing the hope that younger scholars will reclaim the disciplinary pre-eminence that political history once enjoyed.

Introduction

Iraq ◽  
2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adeed Dawisha
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Political History ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Governing Institutions ◽  
The Way

This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to examine the political development of Iraq from the inception of the state in 1921 to the post-2003 years of political and societal turmoil. Its premise is that from the very beginning of the state the Iraqi project in fact devolved into three undertakings: the consolidation of the state and its governing institutions, the legitimization of the state through the framing of democratic structures, and the creation of an overarching, and thus unifying, national identity. The book is different from other studies of Iraq's political history, in that it traces the development of each of the three projects of governance, democracy, and national identity separately, while at the same time highlighting the way they impacted and shaped one another. The remainder of the chapter discusses the roots of the predicament of post-2003 Iraq.

One Tribe, One Style? Paradigms in the Historiography of African Art

1984 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 163-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sidney Littlefield Kasfir
Keyword(s):  
Art History ◽  
Political History ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
National Character ◽  
Thomas Kuhn ◽  
African Art ◽  
German Expressionism ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Over Time ◽  
The Way

While the historiography of art as an academic discipline can hardly be construed as a science, it is nevertheless governed by certain dominant paradigms in both of the senses that Thomas Kuhn intended. First, at any point in time there is a constellation of beliefs, values, and techniques shared by the community of scholars who comprise the discipline known as art history. This can be further broken down, altered, and refined for the various sub-fields, but taken together, the separate facets constitute a “way of seeing” art history which differs substantially from the “way of seeing,” say, political history.Applying Kuhn's second and more rigorous sense, the historiography of art is dominated by certain paradigms which serve as exemplars or models of puzzle-solutions. While these change over time (it is no longer permissible to ascribe German expressionism to “national character,” for example), they are so powerful that they function as unquestioned assumptions when in force. Even more importantly, they are frequently invisible because they are rarely made explicit. In European art history, the dominant paradigms have coalesced into entities such as “The Baroque” or “Mannerism” which are largely ontological models used to simplify the otherwise intractable complexity of European art styles and movements.

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