The rebirth of competition and the extensive "exit" that has resulted are among the most important developments in Central Europe since the demise of Communism. This text examines why, how, and to ...what extent enterprises have reduced their size or left the market altogether during the first years of the transition from socialism to capitalism in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.
Writing on Water grasps the phenomenon of sound in prayer, that is, a meaning in sounds and soundscapes, and a musical essence in the act of praying.The impetus for the book arose from the author’s ...fieldwork among traditional Jews during the era of communism in Budapest and Prague. In that period the Jewish religion and Jewishness in general were supressed and rituals became semi-secret and turned inward. The book is a witness to these communities and their rituals, but it goes beyond documentation. The uniqueness of the sounds of the rituals compelled the author to try to comprehend how melodies and soundscapes became the sustaining/protective environment, as well as the vehicle, for the expression of a world-orientation—in a situation where open discourse was inconceivable.The book is based on extensive interviews, musical recordings, photographs and scholarly analyses. It is unique in its choice of communities, its wealth of original documents, and its novel interpretation of sound.Writing on Water is creative non-fiction. The presentation is evocative and poetic, but at the same time it transmits knowledge. The book can aid research and serve in courses in philosophy, religion, music, ethnomusicology, anthropology, aesthetics, Jewish studies, folklore, oral history, and performance studies. It is also a work of art and literature.
A sweeping narrative history of Eastern Europe from the late eighteenth century to today
In the 1780s, the Habsburg monarch Joseph II decreed that henceforth German would be the language of his ...realm. His intention was to forge a unified state from his vast and disparate possessions, but his action had the opposite effect, catalyzing the emergence of competing nationalisms among his Hungarian, Czech, and other subjects, who feared that their languages and cultures would be lost. In this sweeping narrative history of Eastern Europe since the late eighteenth century, John Connelly connects the stories of the region's diverse peoples, telling how, at a profound level, they have a shared understanding of the past.
An ancient history of invasion and migration made the region into a cultural landscape of extraordinary variety, a patchwork in which Slovaks, Bosnians, and countless others live shoulder to shoulder and where calls for national autonomy often have had bloody effects among the interwoven ethnicities. Connelly traces the rise of nationalism in Polish, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman lands; the creation of new states after the First World War and their later absorption by the Nazi Reich and the Soviet Bloc; the reemergence of democracy and separatist movements after the collapse of communism; and the recent surge of populist politics throughout the region.
Because of this common experience of upheaval, East Europeans are people with an acute feeling for the precariousness of history: they know that nations are not eternal, but come and go; sometimes they disappear. From Peoples into Nations tells their story.
Communities of Print Oates, Rosamund; Purdy, Jessica G
09/2021, Letnik:
99
eBook
This book provides a new perspective on book history, with essays from leading scholars showing how communities of writers, publishers and readers across early modern Europe shaped the consumption of ...print.
This collection of essays responds to the need to approach questions of race and racism from a feminist perspective, focusing on the intersections of race, class and gender. Only a thorough ...exploration of these intersections can open up a deeper understanding of racism against particular groups that have emerged in the European historical context and point to ways of intervening in the racial practices of the present. The chapters in the book are structured into two parts: the first section focuses on particular themes like representation of race and gender inequality, as well as everyday racism in educational institutions, whereas in the second section, the intersections of race and gender are explored in national contexts.
This book theorizes a mechanism underlying regime-change waves, the deliberate efforts of diffusion entrepreneurs to spread a particular regime and regime-change model across state borders. Why do ...only certain states and non-state actors emerge as such entrepreneurs? Why, how, and how effectively do they support regime change abroad? To answer these questions, the book studies the entrepreneurs behind the third wave of democratization, with a focus on the new eastern European democracies - members of the European Union. The study finds that it is not the strongest democracies nor the democracies trying to ensure their survival in a neighborhood of non-democracies that become the most active diffusion entrepreneurs. It is, instead, the countries where the organizers of the domestic democratic transitions build strong solidarity movements supporting the spread of democracy abroad that do. The book also draws parallels between their activism abroad and their experiences with democratization and democracy assistance at home.
The Field and the Forge offers a new approach to the pre-industrial past in Europe and the Mediterranean basin from the Roman Republic to the fall of Napoleon. Based on an original synthesis of ...'structural' economic and demographic history with traditionally 'event driven' political and military history, it takes as its starting point E. A. Wrigley's concept of 'organic economies' and their reliance on the land for energy and raw materials. The opening section considers the ensuing constraints on productivity, transportation, and the spatial organization of the economy. The second section analyses the constraints imposed by muscle-powered military technology and by the organic economy on the tactical, operational, and strategic use of armed force, and the consequences of the spread of firearms in recorded history's first energy revolution. This is followed by an analysis of the military and economic constraints on the political integration of space through the formation of geographically extensive political units, and the volume concludes with a section on the demographic and economic consequences of the investment of manpower and resources in war. Existing accounts of organic economies emphasize their restricted potential to support economic and political development, but this volume also considers why so much potential remained unrealized. Endemic mass poverty curtailed demand, limiting incentives for investment and innovation, and keeping output growth below what was technologically possible. Resource shortages prevented rulers from establishing a fiscal apparatus capable of appropriating such resources as were physically available. But economic inefficiency also created a pool of under-utilized resources that could potentially be mobilized in pursuit of political power. The volume gives an innovative account of this potential - and why it was realized in the ancient world rather than the medieval west - together with a new analysis of the gunpowder revolution and the inability of rulers to meet the consequential costs within the confines of an organic economy.
The European Union and the single currency have given Europe more stability than it has known in the past thousand years, yet Europe seems to be in perpetual crisis about its global role. The many ...European empires are now reduced to a multiplicity of ethnicities, traditions, and civilizations. Europe will never be One, but to survive as a union it will have to become a federation of "islands" both distinct and connected. Though drawing on philosophers of Europe's past, Cacciari calls not to resist Europe's sunset but to embrace it. Europe will have to open up to the possibility that in few generations new exiles and an unpredictable cultural hybridism will again change all we know about the European legacy. Though scarcely alive in today's politics, the political unity of Europe is still a necessity, however impossible it seems to achieve.
Narrating the nation Berger, Stefan; Eriksonas, Linas; Mycock, Andrew
2008., 20081015, 2008, 2008-10-15, 20080101, Letnik:
11
eBook
A sustained and systematic study of the construction, erosion and reconstruction of national histories across a wide variety of states is highly topical and extremely relevant in the context of the ...accelerating processes of Europeanization and globalization. However, as demonstrated in this volume, histories have not, of course, only been written by professional historians. Drawing on studies from a number of different European nation states, the contributors to this volume present a systematic exploration, of the representation of the national paradigm. In doing so, they contextualize the European experience in a more global framework by providing comparative perspectives on the national histories in the Far East and North America. As such, they expose the complex variables and diverse actors that lie behind the narration of a nation.
The diffusion of personal signs of identity during the twelfth century introduced individuals to mediated forms of communication. The book analyses the conditions for and the implications of their ...partnering with material signs and images in expressing self and accountability.
