Ιστορία

This book presents for the first time the complete text of the earliest known Ladino-language memoir, transliterated from the original script, translated into English, and introduced and explicated by the editors. The memoirist, Sa'adi Besalel a-Levi (1820–1903), wrote about Ottoman Jews' daily life at a time when the finely wrought fabric of Ottoman society was just beginning to unravel. His vivid portrayal of life in Salonica, a major port in the Ottoman Levant with a majority Jewish population, thus provides a unique window into a way of life before it disappeared as a result of profound political and social changes and the World Wars. Sa'adi was a prominent journalist and publisher, one of the most significant creators of modern Sephardic print culture. He was also a rebel who accused the Jewish leadership of Salonica of being corrupt, abusive, and fanatical; that leadership, in turn, excommunicated him from the Jewish community. The experience of excommunication pervades Sa'adi's memoir, which documents a world that its author was himself actively involved in changing.

For writers of Roman historical fiction: a basic guide to family life, food & clothing, housing & travel, law & order, economics, religion, and entertainment.

From award-winning historian Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century retells the story of a century of division, charting the struggles of rival ideologies to create a new world order for mankind. The end of the First World War saw old empires swept away and the opportunity to build a better society from the ruins. Yet the result was division and bloodshed on an unprecedented scale, as liberal democracy, communism and fascism struggled against one another for mastery of the world.

Dark Continent radically overturns the myth of Europe as a safe haven of democracy to redefine our view of the twentieth century. 'Original, thought-provoking, iconoclastic' Frank McLynn, Irish Times 'Fascinating and forceful' Martin Gilbert, Literary Review 'Mazower leaves us, in this wonderful book, with an account of our century that anyone who takes an interest in Europe's present and future will enlarge their mind by reading' John Keegan, Daily Telegraph 'There are few who can walk with A.J.P. Taylor.

One is Mark Mazower ... a tour de force' Alex Danchev, TLS 'Combines narrative verve with wise and humane analysis. For anyone who wants to know how Europe came to be the way it is in the years since 1900, this is the work to provide the answers' David Cannadine, Observer Books of the Year Mark Mazower is the author of Inside Hitler's Greece, The Balkans, which won the Wolfson Prize for History, Salonika: City of Ghosts, which won both the Runciman Prize and the Duff Cooper Prize and Hitler's Empire.

Diplomatic history explores the management of relations between nation-states by the process of negotiations. From the diplomacy of the American Revolution, the diplomatic origins of the Great War and its aftermath, Versailles, and the personal summitry behind the night Stalin and Churchill Divided Europe, to George W. Bush and the Iraq War, and diplomacy in the age of globalization, the management of power relationships has had an immense impact on our recenthistory. This Very Short Introduction updates the former Diplomacy: A Very Short Introduction and illustrates international diplomacy in action, exploring the changes in method at key historical junctures, and highlighting the very different demands that circumstances make on the practice of diplomats. Drawing on the case studies above, it makes sense of the way in which skilful diplomacy, as well as hubris, rashness, and excessive caution, can have important ramifications for the fateof nations. Based on the experiences of diplomatic history, it also locates the universal role of negotiations and identifies the key elements of success. As Joseph M. Siracusa shows, diplomacy was and is an indispensable element of statecraft, and without skilful diplomacy political success may remain elusive. Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

A captivating popular history that shines a light on the notorious Julio-Claudian women who forged an empire Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero-these are the names history associates with the early Roman Empire. Yet, not a single one of these emperors was the blood son of his predecessor. In this captivating history, a prominent scholar of the era documents the Julio-Claudian women whose bloodline, ambition, and ruthlessness made it possible for the emperors' line to continue. Eminent scholar Guy de la Bedoyere, author of Praetorian, asserts that the women behind the scenes-including Livia, Octavia, and the elder and younger Agrippina-were the true backbone of the dynasty. De la Bedoyere draws on the accounts of ancient Roman historians to revisit a familiar time from a completely fresh vantage point. Anyone who enjoys I, Claudius will be fascinated by this study of dynastic power and gender interplay in ancient Rome.

In late 1946, Stig Dagerman was assigned by the Swedish newspaper Expressen to report on life in Germany immediately after the fall of the Third Reich. First published in Sweden in 1947, German Autumn, a collection of the articles written for that assignment, was unlike any other reporting at the time. While most Allied and foreign journalists spun their writing on the widely held belief that the German people deserved their fate, Dagerman disagreed and reported on the humanness of the men and women ruined by the war—their guilt and suffering. Dagerman was already a prominent writer in Sweden, but the publication and broad reception of German Autumn throughout Europe established him as a compassionate journalist and led to the long-standing international influence of the book. Presented here in its first American edition with a compelling new foreword by Mark Kurlansky, Dagerman’s essays on the tragic aftermath of war, suffering, and guilt are as hauntingly relevant today amid current global conflict as they were sixty years ago.

The compelling and provocative history of world government, from acclaimed author Mark MazowerShortlisted for the RUSI 2013 Duke of Wellington Medal for Military LiteratureIn 1815 the shocked and exhausted victors of the decades of fighting that had engulfed Europe for a generation agreed to a new system for keeping the peace. Instead of independent states changing sides, doing deals and betraying one another, a new, collegial 'Concert of Europe' would ensure that the brutal chaos of the Napoleonic Wars never happened again. Mark Mazower's remarkable new book recreates two centuries of international government - the struggle to spread values and build institutions to bring order to an anarchic and dangerous state system.

I can't imagine a better history' PHILIP PULLMAN * 'Fascinating, moving, funny' OLIVER BURKEMANIf you are reading this, you may already be a humanist. Even if you don't know it. Do you love literature and the arts? Do you have a strong moral compass despite not being formally religious? Do you simply believe that individual lives are more important than grand political visions? If any of these apply, you are part of a long tradition of humanist thought. In Humanly Possible Sarah Bakewell asks what humanism is and why it has flourished for so long. By introducing us to the adventurous lives and ideas of famous humanists through 700 years of history, she shows how the humanist values that helped steer us through dark times in the past are just as urgently needed in our world today. ‘An epic, spine-tingling and persuasive work of history’ Daily Telegraph‘As she romps through the centuries, readers will feel assured that they are in the company of a gifted guide’ The Economist