Ebooks de historia, página 46 de 2154

La necesidad de una exploración biográfica para formular desde otra perspectiva la narración de la historia es el punto de partida de este libro. El futuro historiador de la cultura española de la segunda mitad del siglo XX debe tener presente que durante y pese al franquismo hubo tambien en el escenario de la intimidad un lugar para la manifestacion de la rebeldia, del disentimiento y de la libertad, aunque estas tuvieran que relativizarse hasta el oximoron con las restricciones: rebeldia controlada, disentimiento circunspecto y libertad interior. Distinguir el ambito asfixiante de la cultura oficial frente a las escapatorias y los respiraderos que tuvieron como escenario la intimidad y el lenguaje es el proposito que unifica las distintas colaboraciones de este volumen.La disposicion secuencial de los capitulos permite captar un devenir y un cambio en los modos de convivir y de comunicarse: desde el estudio de la correspondencia entre las mujeres de la vanguardia y el primer franquismo hasta las cartas de Carmen Martin Gaite con otra mujer once años mas joven, Esther Tusquets, y con ella la aparicion de una nueva forma de comunicacion, en la que la emocion de esperar cartas es sustituida por la inmediatez del correo electronico.

En un intento por comprender la compleja realidad sociopolítica y económica que ha experimentado Bolivia en el último siglo de su historia, este volumen de estudios interdisciplinarios analiza, desde diferentes perspectivas cientificas y culturales, las diversas trayectorias de personas y grupos sociales comprometidos, de modo directo, en la transicion inconclusa del pasado Estado republicano neoliberal del siglo XX al Estado plurinacional como proyeccion de futuro.Congrega asi este libro a prestigiosos investigadores de las ciencias sociales de Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, España, Alemania, Inglaterra, Noruega y Japon, cuyos analisis originales e interdisciplinarios (provenientes de la historia, la literatura, las ciencias politicas, el derecho constitucional, las ciencias de la educacion, la comunicacion social, el periodismo investigativo, los estudios de genero, la antropologia social, la economia, la cinematografia y hasta la caricatura politica) contribuyen al actual politico sobre la exploracion en la Bolivia contemporanea de nuevos espacios y opciones que den cabida al establecimiento de un nuevo marco estatal.

James Orton fue un célebre naturalista y explorador norteamericano que visitó el Ecuador a finales de la década de 1860. Se trata de un auténtico científico viajero, cuyas contribuciones ayudaron a una mejor comprension del fenomeno andino y del bosque tropical. Su libro Los Andes y el Amazonas recoge las impresiones que tuvo del Ecuador en dicha epoca. Mas alla de las importantes observaciones de tipo cientifico que Orton registro, el autor tambien llevo a cabo una excelente y muy cruda descripcion de la sociedad ecuatoriana durante su paso por el pais. El libro contiene una enorme cantidad de informacion util para historiadores, antropologos y, en general, para los estudiosos y catedraticos. Resulta interesante el analisis que hizo del pais, al atribuir su atraso debido a la falta de una cultura economica moderna entre las elites locales.

At the zenith of its power, Britain, the Workshop of the World, dominated the globe with military might and commercial acuity. The celebration of Queen Victorias sixty years on the throne was carefully positioned to highlight the countrys strength, especially in the face of rising competition from other nations. The festivities brought together, in a show of force, the Queens widely extended family, foreign dignitaries, diplomats, foreign royals and world leaders.Extraordinary pageantry, parades and royal receptions served to dramatise the unparalleled significance of the event. The most important occasion, however, was the Devonshire House Ball, given at huge expense by the Hanover-born German Double Duchess of Devonshire. The Duchess having married not one but two English Dukes took to the task with alacrity, bringing together an extraordinary group of nobles, politicians, plutocrats, influential foreigners and bankers, hosting the most famous party of the century: a fancy-dress ball with a guest list of the 700 social, political, cultural and prominent celebrities of the day.A specially commissioned tent equipped with hand-painted backdrops, the most technically advanced cameras and lighting, along with realistic props was set up in the magnificent gardens to capture the glamorous guests.Many of the exquisite costumes all of pre-eighteenth-century characters were preserved by photograph and are shown here, colourised for the first time, to give us a sense of the wondrous, glorious occasion of the Ball.

Throughout antiquity patients sought relief and healing from their afflictions in the sanctuaries of Asclepius, the God of healing. The Asclepian healing cult included sacrifices, ablutions and incubation. In their dreams, the patients received therapeutic instructions. But not only miraculous cures occurred in the Asclepieia, nor were these sacred sites the last refuge of the seriously ill. Using selected examples from the Roman Imperial Period, Florian Steger outlines the healthcare provided in the prominent Asclepian sanctuaries Epidaurus and Pergamum in particular and demonstrates that this healthcare was on a par with the contemporary medical culture. Ancient epigraphic healing reports and the patient journal of the celebrated orator Publius Aelius Aristides paint a vivid picture of the daily treatments. The medicine of Asclepius clearly formed an integral part of the Roman Empires multifaceted healthcare market.

James V suffered the fate of many a son of a famous father in being somewhat overshadowed not only by his father James IV but also by his internationally renowned daughter Mary Queen of Scots. But no-one would deny the importance of his reign, embracing as it did the establishment of the Court of Session, the birthpangs of religious dissent, and the growth of royal power to such a remarkable extent that this king could leave his kingdom for nine months in 1536-7 without fear of rebellion. Jamie Cameron concentrates on James Vs style of government and relations with his nobility, and challenges the widely held view of a vindictive and irrational king, motivated largely by greed, who antagonised most of his leading magnates and met his just deserts when they refused to support him in 1542. This book offers a different view, and presents us with a rounded picture of a king whose approach to government, in spite of some personal defects, closely resembles that of his supposedly more popular father; and, like James IV himself, retained impressive magnate support to the end of his reign.

The period 1650 to 1790 was such a turbulent one for Scottish seafarers that much of this fast-flowing narrative reads like Treasure Island. Colourful characters abound in a story teeming with incident and excitement: John Paul Jones descends upon the Scottish coast creating widespread panic; press gangs prowl the coastal towns; wartime conditions turn merchantmen into privateers fighting the French, the Spanish and the American Colonists almost anyone flying a different flag; quaintly named vessels like The Provoked Cheesemaker are on the lookout for trouble. And the stakes were high. Glasgow became wealthy through the tobacco trade. Glasgow merchantmen could beat the English ships and sail to Chesapeake Bay in record time. Eric Graham traces the development of the Scottish marine and its institutions during a formative period, when state intervention and warfare at sea in the pursuit of merchantilist goals largely determined the course of events. He charts Scotlands frustrated attempts to join England in the Atlantic economy and so secure her prosperity an often bitter relationship that culminated in the Darien Disaster. In the years that followed, maritime affairs were central to the move to embrace the full incorporating Act of 1707. After 1707, Scottish maritime aspirations flourished under the protection of the British Navigation Acts and the windfalls of the endemic warfare at sea.

Based on first-hand research conducted by the Moscow Centre for Civilizational and Regional Studies, this book documents the findings of one of the first authoritative studies on the newly independent states of Central Asia Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kirgizia and Tadjikistan. Focusing on the unprecedented challenges facing these nascent countries, it examines the political events and socio-economic changes which followed the disintegration of the Soviet Union by analysing the difficulties of state-building and the dramatic social upheavals experienced by these republics.The book also covers the path of economic growth in the 1990s by examining the recession of 1991-1995 and the increasing income disparity between the affluent minority and the impoverished majority. The continuing socio-political and inter-ethnic tensions in the region are also covered in some detail, as is the relationship between the new states and Russia. Attention is further drawn to the causes and outcomes of the civil war in Tadjikistan as well as the growing international competition for access to the natural resources of the Central Asian countries.This work will be of particular use to the student of economics and politics of Central Asia and will also provide great insight to business professionals and other readers interested in the progress of post-Soviet states.

The troubles of mid-seventeenth-century Scotland were the final episode in a long revolutionary process which had begun more than a century earlier. The changes of the intervening years most of them gradual and imperceptible were barely visible but their cumulative impact was profound. Charles I inherited a social revolution; he found a society already transformed and a power structure still in the process of transformation. Scotland was inherently unstable, and the unending conflict between king, baron and churchman was therefore accentuated. The failure of the Canterburian solution left magnate to struggle with minister for control of the Church and thus for the substance of power in Scotland. The struggle was often obscured by war: the feudal magnates, bold in defence of the ancient liberties of the kingdom, patched up an uneasy alliance with the radical ministers pursuing a new order. The end of the First Civil War was merely the prelude to a new conflict, which left the Kirk triumphant for the time being and the state, albeit temporarily, its impotent servant. This poses vital questions. Who were the ministers and elders who ruled the Church of Scotland? What was the nature of the Scottish Revolution? This book draws on many sources to answer these questions.

Stahls classic book on Thucydides, here in English for the first time, penetrates as few others to the Greek writers deepest interests. Stahl reveals Thucydides work as a study in the fallibility of human projections. Above all, Thucydides is shown as interested in tracking how optimistic plans lead to irremediable suffering in the field of foreign policy. For this new edition, the original has been revised and enlarged by two chapters which reflect the authors subsequent work.

The history of Sparta is increasingly seen as important, not only for its own sake but also for understanding Athenian literature and the political history of numerous Greek states. Traditional approaches to Sparta are now being supplemented by contributions from archaeology and the social sciences. The renewed interest in Sparta is international. The volume includes, for the first time, original contributions from most of the worlds leading authorities on Spartan history.

What are states but large bandit bands, and what are bandit bands but small states? So asked St Augustine, reflecting on the late Roman world. Here nine original studies, by established historians of Greece, Rome and other ancient civilisations, explore the activities and the images of ancient criminal groups, comparing them closely and provocatively with the Greek and Roman government which the criminals challenged.

In recent study Greek religion has often dissolved itself into many religions. The eleven original essays here focus both on extremes of the Greek world and on its classical centre. Distinguished scholars examine the earliest traces of religious thought in the Minoan and Mycenaean cultures. Striking similarities are revealed between religious ideas of Greece and of non-Greek Asia. There are special studies of Apollo, Athena, and Dionysiac religion. And new patterns are identified in the archaic and classical thought of Heraclitus, Herodotus and Sophocles.

How do fighting men act and feel in battle? How do they deal with the trauma of conflict? What determines the outcome of battle? Modern research on war, notably that of John Keegan and Victor Hanson, has posed these questions with a new acuteness. In the ancient world, warfare was a constant reality. Much ancient literature deals with it. The present collection of original studies applies the new methods, for the first time, to the warriors of Greece, Rome and Pharaonic Egypt. The contributors demonstrate that the battle-experience of Homers heroes and of Alexanders infantrymen compares surprisingly with that of Wellingtons redcoats.

The standard image of Sparta is of an egalitarian, military society which disdained material possessions. Yet property and wealth played a critical role in her history. Classical Spartas success rested upon a compromise between rich and poor citizens. Economic differences were masked by a uniform lifestyle and a communal sharing of resources. Over time, however, increasing inequalities led to a plutocratic society and to the decline of Spartan power. Using an innovative combination of historical, archaeological and sociological methods, Stephen Hodkinson challenges traditional views of Spartas isolation from general Greek culture. This volume is the first major monograph-length discussion of a subject on which the author is recognised as the leading international authority.

During the Graeco-Roman period, Berenike served as a gateway to the outside world together with Myos Hormos. Commodities were imported from Africa south of the Sahara, Arabia, and India into the Greek and Roman Empire, the importance of both harbors evidenced by several contemporary sources. Between 1994 and 2002, eight excavation seasons were conducted at Berenike by the University of Delaware and Leiden University, the Netherlands. This book presents the results of the archaeobotanical research of the Roman deposits. It is shown that the study of a transit port such as Berenike, located at the southeastern fringe of the Roman Empire, is highly effective in producing new information on the import of all kinds of luxury items. In addition to the huge quantities of black pepper, plant remains of more than 60 cultivated plant species could be evidenced, several of them for the first time in an archaeobotanical context. For each plant species detailed information on its (possible) origin, its use, its preservation qualities, and the Egyptian subfossil record is provided. The interpretation of the cultivated plants, including the possibilities of cultivation in Berenike proper, is supported by ethnoarchaeobotanical research that has been conducted over the years. The reconstruction of the former environment is based on the many wild plant species that were found in Berenike and the study of the present desert vegetation.

How did the Greeks and Roman perceive rape? How seriously was it taken, and who were seen as its main victims? The studies in this volume look at the social and legal realities of rape in the ancient world, and also at the numerous myths of rape which themselves may reflect real behaviour and attitudes. Modern readers, used to a discourse which focuses on the question of a womans (or mans) consent to sexual activity and treats an unwilling partner as a victim worthy of sympathy, may find in ancient attitudes much that is disturbing.

The papers in this volume represent a range of approaches to the study of the symbolic roles of animals in human cultures. The theme that unites these papers is their use of a variety of different kinds of evidenceincluding archaeological, faunal, historical, ethnographic, artistic, and folkloric datain the reconstruction of animal symbolism.

As the acknowledged founder and philosopher of the Parents National Educational Union (PNEU), Charlotte Mason was revered by her followers as a saintly Madonna figure. She died in 1923 at the peak of her fame, having achieved mythic status as the Principal of her House of Education and wide recognition after the introduction of her liberal educational programmes into state schools. Yet her early life and heritage remained shrouded in mystery. Drawing upon insubstantiated sources, the official biography released in 1960 confused rather than illuminated Charlottes background, contributing to several enduring misapprehensions. In her new and definitive biography, Margaret Coombs draws on years of research to reveal for the first time thehidden backdrop to Charlotte Masons life, tracing the lives of her previously undiscovered Quaker ancestors to offer a better understanding of the roots of her personality and ideas. Coombs charts her rise from humble beginnings as an orphaned pupil-teacher to great heights as a lady of culture venerated within prestigious PNEU circles, illustrating how with determination she surmounted the Victorian ages rigid class divisions to achieve her educational vision. A thorough analysis of Charlotte Masons educational influences and key friendships challenges longstanding notions about the roots of her philosophy, offering a more realistic picture of her life and work than ever accomplished before. With a growing following in the USA and Australia, Charlotte Masons ideas have a clear relevance to the continuing educational debate today. Admirers of her philosophy and scholars of the history of education will fi nd much to enthral and instruct them in these pages.

The writings of Julius Caesar have beguiled by their apparent simplicity. Generations of readers have been encouraged to see them as a limpid record of positive achievement. The contributors to this volume demonstrate that the appearance of simplicity is achieved by devious and accomplished art. In nine original studies, focussing mainly on the Gallic War, the contributors trace systems of justification and omission, of measured praise and subtle criticism, which served to promote Caesar and to leave Roman enemies empty-handed. It is shown that Caesars writing has an ingenuity of description which might seduce the casual Roman sceptic, and an artfulness of focus which now recalls the cinematographic. Even the notorious regularity of Caesars syntax and his economy of vocabulary are revealed as pointed elements of a political manifesto. Far from being a plain and traditional record of warfare, Caesars Commentaries are here shown to illuminate the political thinking of a man on his way to reshaping the world.