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This volume examines the way the Belgian historian of religions Franz Cumont (18681947) and his contemporaries conceived of early Christianitys relation to the ancient mystery cults. As the comparative study of religion rose to academic prominence in late 19th century Europe, this question provoked fiery debates, fuelling methodological, ideological, and religious divides between scholars of different scientific and personal backgrounds. Cumont was a worldwide authority in the scientific study of the religions orientales, but he expressed his opinion on their relation to Christianity only ambiguously. Yet, his publications deeply impacted the debates of his time because of the numerous similarities they revealed between Christian and pagan traditions. Written by specialists from various academic disciplines (e.g., history of religions, theology, New Testament studies), this collection of papers offers a much-needed study of how Cumont and other leading 19th century scholars discussed this theme. It also offers critical reflections on what is left of their ideas in present-day research on this most fascinating subject matter in the study of ancient religion.

The Russian Empire and the Soviet Union were multiethnic and multireligious empires, which ruled over a large number of Jews and Muslims. In many ways these two non-Christian minorities presented similar challenges to the imperial order. Which policies did the state pursue toward Jews and Muslims? How did Jews and Muslims attempt to advance their interests in the political sphere? Which role did they play in the imperial army? What did the Jewish and Muslim Enlightenment movements have in common? In which respects were the experiences of Jews and Muslims fundamentally different? This book brings together specialists in Russian-Jewish and Russian-Muslim history and offers perspectives for a comparative approach to the history of Jews and Muslims in Russia.

Based on an analysis of a variety of early medieval writings from Britain, including De Excidio et Conquestu Brittaniae by the Briton Gildas, the early Welsh collection of stanzas commonly referred to as Y Gododdin, and the Venerable Bedes Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, his Historia Abbatum and Chronica Maior, Strategies of Identity Construction provides evidence of an active and productive medieval discourse of ethnic and political identity construction in Britain. The book demonstrates that different gentes, even competing peoples, use the same strategies to construct and communicate their identities. This phenomenon is not only visible when comparing the different writings which were subject to analysis in this research, but can also be seen when analyzing changes the writings underwent during the transmission processes of their manuscripts throughout the Middle Ages. Elements of a discourse of identity construction here not only appear to be productive, but can also be seen in close connection with historical, political and social developments at the same time, rendering the study of the discourse of identity construction an important tool for providing a modern understanding of medieval politics and societies in periods of change and transition.

Following discussions on scientific biography carried out over the past few decades, this book proposes a kaleidoscopic survey of the uses of biography as a tool to understand science and its context. It offers food for thought on the role played by the gender of the biographer and the biographee in the process of writing. To provide orientation in such a challenging field, some of the authors have accepted to write about their own professional experience while reflecting on the case studies they have been working on. Focusing on (auto)biography may help us to build bridges between different approaches to men and womens lives in science. The authors belong to a variety of academic and professional fields, including the history of science, anthropology, literary studies, and science journalism. The period covered spans from 1732, when Laura Bassi was the first woman to get a tenured professorship of physics, to 2009, when Elizabeth H. Blackburn and Carol W. Greider were the first womens team to have won a Nobel Prize in science.

While Jewish Palestine has been at the focus of scholarly interest, Greek Palestine has not yet received similar attention. This e-book attempts to investigate the intellectual life in that country in the Hellenistic world and in the Roman Empire. The two perspectives taken are a full prosopographical survey of Greek intellectuals in ancient Palestine and an in-depth study of the Greek intellectuals in one particular city, Ascalon. A survey of the penetration of Latin among the educated Greek-speaking inhabitants of the country concludes the e-book.Joseph Geiger (DPhil Oxon, Shalom Horowitz Professor of Classics Emeritus, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) is the author of over one hundred learned articles, ranging from historiography and biography to intellectual history, with forays into Talmudic studies and classical topics in art and literature. His books include Cornelius Nepos and Ancient Political Biography, Masada II: The Latin and Greek Documents (with H.M. Cotton), and The First Hall of Fame: A Study of the Statues of the Forum Augustum. He was Visiting Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and Visiting Professor at Heidelberg and Yale.

The search for knowledge of the future and for divine help is found in all ancient Mediterranean cultures. The key question of this e-book is: What are the interdependences between divination and processes of individualization or de-individualization in the ancient world? Individualization is understood as a process of change on the societal level. In contrast, individuation is a development on the personal level. Discussions about the definition of these terms are continuing. Divination may always have some effects on processes of individuation and individualization. Divination may be a means and this list does not claim to be exhaustive of legitimising decisions, to decide competition or to achieve distinctiveness. This e-book covers aspects from archaic Greece to the High Empire. Not all articles argue along the same lines: nothing highlights better the lively debate and the many open questions in the field of ancient divination.

Superpower détente during the Nixon-Ford Administration led to the formation of an East-West regime aimed at conflict control and systemic stability. Equal Security was the proclaimed goal. By institutionalizing bipolarity, however, the bilateral US-SU Strategic Arms Limitation Talks actually threatened Western European security, for global security and Alliance security were ultimately incompatible. NATO Europe feared the emergence of a global directorate of the superpowers and became apprehensive that the US would be ready to abandon the cause of Europe and sacrifice European and German unity for the sake of a stable world order. In reaction, NATO Europe sought to shape the SALT process to ensure that equal security applied to all the Soviet Union, the United States and the European Allies. This e-book analyses the linkages between SALT, MBFR, NATO and the special Anglo-American nuclear relationship. It also explores how NATO Europe penetrated US decision-making and co-shaped the US SALT agenda and how Scoop Jackson Democrats and NATO Europe aligned to preserve Western block superiority, freezing the SALT II process. Based on recently declassified European archival material, the e-book offers a fresh interpretation of and a new look at SALT.

This e-book is a collection of essays written by pre-eminent scholars across the globe on key topics and problems in medieval and early modern economic history of Britain and central Europe. The ebook is dedicated to Ian Blanchard, emeritus professor of medieval economic history at the University of Edinburgh (United Kingdom).

Monarchy, that is, a political order characterized by a single ruler, is an understudied aspect of Greek politics and culture. The contributors to this e-book provide a unified scholarly framework in which to interpret the sociological as well as the ideological side of monarchic regimes from archaic Greek tyranny to Hellenistic monarchy in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean. Taking their cue from Hans-Joachim Gehrkes essay on the victorious king, published here in an updated English translation, the contributors bring to the surface common trends and features that make it possible to sketch an integrated history of monarchic rule in ancient Greece from the Archaic to the Hellenistic age. Topics of contributions include the image of the archaic tyrant as legitimate and illegitimate ruler, the rhetoric of Hellenistic monarchy outlined in philosophical treatises on monarchy, the impact of the rise of Hellenistic monarchy on pre-existing political orders such as tyranny in Sicily and dual monarchy in Sparta, and the influence of this ideological model on political traditions in Anatolia and Palestine in the Late Hellenistic period.

Thirteen expert historians and philosophers address basic questions on historical time and on the distinctions between past, present and future. Their contributions are organised around four themes: the relation between time and modernity; the issue of ruptures in time and the influence of catastrophic events such as revolutions and wars on temporal distinctions; the philosophical analysis of historical time and temporal distinctions; and the construction of time outside Europe through processes of colonialism, imperialism, and globalisation.

»Helpless Imperialists« enquires into the relation between imperial exposure, fear, radicalization and violence and highlights moments of peripety bringing imperialist grandeur to collapse.

Thema dieses Buches ist die Organisation und Regulierung von Seuchenbekampfung und Gesundheitsfursorge in der britischen Kolonie South Carolina und der franzosischen Kolonie Louisiana zwischen 1720 und 1763. Welche Akteure waren an der Implementierung und Durchsetzung von Manahmen im Gesundheitsbereich beteiligt? Welche Handlungsweisen wahlten sie? Diese Fragen stehen im Mittelpunkt der Untersuchung. Die Autorin zeigt, dass sich die Formen lokaler politischer Organisation in den beiden Kolonien trotz der tiefgreifenden Unterschiede in Bezug auf Strukturen und Strategien der beiden Kolonialmachte stark ahnelten. Dies legt den Schluss nahe, dass die lokalen Gegebenheiten innerhalb der Kolonien einen mindestens ebenso groen Einfluss auf lokale Governanceformen hatten wie die Struktur des jeweiligen Kolonialreichs. Das Buch eroffnet damit einen frischen Blick auf die Realitaten kolonialen Regierens im fruhneuzeitlichen Nordamerika.Focusing on the field of health care and disease control as a field of policy that was of pivotal importance for the existence and stability of European colonies in the south-eastern areas of the North American continent, the book analyzes modes of local organization and regulation in French Louisiana and British South Carolina during the first half of the eighteenth century. The work shows that, in spite of completely different imperial strategies and systems of rule, striking similarities existed between French and British colonies with regard to governance modes and the nature of agents involved in political organization. This attests to the fact that governance practices on the local and the colonial levels were informed at least as much by local conditions as by the nature of the empire to which the colonies respectively belonged. The work offers a fresh and unique perspective on the realities of colonial rule in early modern North America, thus challenging traditional notions which stress the differences between the French and British colonial empires in North America with regard to administrative practices.

The papers of this volume move from the abstract scheme of an intercultural humanism of the future to concrete cultural expressions of humanism within the Muslim culture of different times up to the present. They concentrate on three issues. The first is related to contemporary attempts to develop a humanist and historical hermeneutics of the Quran and of Islamic history. The second discusses the humanist heritage and the humanitarian trends of Muslim religious and literary culture. The third highlights the discussion on Humanism and Islam as a topic within European identity politics, covering the role of this discussion for the history of Islamic Studies in Europe and America, and the contemporary polemics around Islam in the Netherlands. Taken together, the contributions of the volume attempt to provide the groundwork for an assessment of the roots and prospects of an intercultural humanism with respect to the Muslim world.

Rethinking humanity as a concept in our age of globalization and its relevance to the social and political reality of our times are the topic of this book. It calls for the reclaiming of humanism as an effective response to the conflict, turmoil, and violence we witness in the world today. Concepts of humanity and humanism have become suspect of naivete at best, and guilty of bad faith and repressive ideologies at worst. Yet, hope for improvement is incorrigibly human the concept of humanity still holds enormous attraction to intellectuals and humanistic scholars. At the same time, it is important to realize that the critique of humanism is very much based on and limited to Western social and historical experience. To re-conceptualize humanity and humanism from a truly global perspective will help reclaiming a more inclusive kind of humanism. In this sense, a cross-cultural perspective is important for reclaiming humanism in our age of globalization.The present volume is the result of such an effort. The diversity of the authors views speaks eloquently of the complexity of the concept of humanity or what constitutes the distinctly human, and therefore the necessity to have an in-depth dialogue on the fate of humanity.

Rund zwolf Millionen Deutsche verloren nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg ihr Heim in Mittel-und Osteuropa. Der grote Teil davon kam ins besetzte Deutschland. Meist bleibt in Forschung und Offentlichkeit unbeachtet, dass sich auch Deutsche aus den Vertreibungsgebieten in Westeuropa, Afrika und Amerika befanden. Dieses Buch richtet seinen Blick auf Vertriebene in Westdeutschland und Kanada und zeichnet damit Erfahrungen nach, die in den Standardnarrativen zu Flucht und Vertreibung nicht vorkommen. So dokumentiert der Autor die Vertreibungserfahrungen von deutschen Kriegsgefangenen, Exilanten und Einwanderern, die in der Ferne Kanadas ihr Hab und Gut verloren. Auch derartige Erfahrungen gehoren zur facettenreichen Geschichte der Vertreibung. Der Autor verglicht zwei Lander mit grundlegend unterschiedlichen offentlichen Diskursen zur Einwanderung. Er stellt auerdem dar, wie in Westdeutschland und Kanada Vertriebene schlielich nationale Identitaten aushandelten, die, basierend auf ihrem regionalen Kulturerbe, ihre Erfahrungen mit extremem Nationalismus, Krieg und Vertreibung wie auch die mit einigen Hurden versetzte Anpassung an das neue politische, soziale und kulturelle Umfeld reflektieren.

This is the third and final volume of essays issuing from the Leverhulme International Network Renaissance Conflict and Rivalries: Cultural Polemics in Europe, c. 1300c. 1650. The overall aim of the network was to examine the various ways in which conflict and rivalries made a positive contribution to cultural production and change during the Renaissance. The present volume, which contains papers delivered at the third colloquium, draws that examination to a close by considering a range of different strategies deployed in the period to manage conflict and rivalries and to bring them to a positive resolution. The papers explore these developments in the context of political, diplomatic, social, institutional, religious, and art history.

Research into the mechanisms and the morality of Athenian hegemony is now perhaps livelier than ever. Of particular importance are the methods by which Athens drew money from the Aegean world with which to fund a vast fleet, to facilitate her own demokratia and to create ambitious public buildings still visible today. This collection of new studies, inspired and guided by an internationally-acknowledged authority on ancient finance, Thomas Figueira, by focusing on how Athens raised finance, sheds light on more familiar questions: How oppressive, or otherwise, was Athens to fellow-Greeks and how did her demands vary over time? Contributors here suggest that Athens may have exercised hegemonic ambitions for longer than usually thought, applying greater experience, and more sensitivity to individual communities.

One of classical Greeces most worldly and lucid writers, Xenophon across his many works gave a restless criticism of power: democratic, oligarchic and autocratic. From military campaigns (in which he took part), through the great powers of his day (Sparta, Persia, Athens) to modes of control within the household, he observed intimately and often with partisan passion. In this work a leading French Hellenist, Vincent Azoulay, analyses across Xenophons diverse texts the techniques by which the Greek writer recommends that leaders should manipulate. Through gifts and personal allure, though mystique, dazzling appearance, exemplary behaviour, strategic absences - and occasional terror, Xenophon analyses ways in which a powerful few might triumphantly replace the erratic democracies and self-indulgent oligarchies of his day. First published in French (in 2004) to international acclaim, this book is here translated for the first time, revised and updated.

The pioneering ideas of John Kenyon Davies, one of the most significant Ancient Historians of the past half century, are celebrated in this collection of essays. A distinguished cast of contributors, who include Alain Bresson, Nick Fisher, Edward Harris, John Prag, Robin Osborne, and Sally Humphreys, focus tightly on the nexus of socio-political and economic problems that have preoccupied Davies since the publication of his defining work Athenian Propertied Families in 1971. The scope of Davies interest has ranged widely in conceptual, and chronological, as well as geographical terms, and the essays here reflect many of his long-term concerns with the writing of Greek history, its methods and materials.

Nine new studies here explore, and reconstruct, determinant episodes of Greek, Hellenistic and Roman history. The authors argue that hindsight - especially in modern works - has falsified the past, by playing down or eliminating the record of ancient unfulfilled forecasts, and of trends in events which in the long term did not obviously prove predominant. The authors also highlight the efforts of the best-placed writers in Antiquity not to be misled by hindsight, but rather to give due weight to the working of hopes and fears, and of trends in events, which with remote retrospect would tend to be belittled or forgotten. The techniques demonstrated in this book open new fields of research across Ancient History: they illuminate almost every ancient episode for which there is evidence of what historical agents planned or anticipated. The authors show convincingly that, by giving due respect to trends observable, and to political predictions made, in Antiquity, historians of today are better placed to evaluate outcomes: to see how easily events might have developed differently, or even to show that concrete outcomes were different from those conventionally portrayed from hindsight.